[Umber]

Geez, Ludi,

Why throw so many disparaging remarks DrBang's way? You feel that you might not like his findings?

This crap needs to be cleared up one way or the other.

Umber

[Ludi]

Geez, Ludi,

Why throw so many disparaging remarks DrBang's way?

'Cuz I'm just a bastard that way, I guess. Just a mean bitch.



Dr Bang, I hope not being able to publish through accepted channels won't stop you from getting your findings out - there's always Ye Olde Website if nothing else, it's a public forum.

[DrBang]

As a green representative operating in a mining research outfit, I have been butting heads with mining corporate staff about climate change. It has been slow going. While my model for climate change is different to the politically correct one, I pushed carbon thing to get results.

Now this CRU data hack has left me personally in an awkard position. All the people I have been hassling for years now are giving me a hard time. My response to this is to go on the offensive and apply my proffesional training.

Degradation of the environment as a consequence of human civilisation can be demonstrated fairly easily. The biosphere environment's role in relgulating the planet's profile can be demonstrated with a bit of work using James Lovelocks Earth Systems approach can also be done. Demostration of why a change in human behavior is necessary for our long term survival also can be done. The fact this costs us all a lot of time and money (not to mention many peoples jobs) makes this a hard thing to achieve. As climate change is happening all around the solar system, I was never comfortable with the carbon mechanism.

This is something I believe is very important. I also believe that this has been hijacked for unscrupleous political gain.

I am under fire from the people around me at work. They would like nothing better than the whole climate change issue debunked. IMO having the science corrupted by politics has lined us all up for a good rogering next time the f*ck up fairy comes to visit.


Regards

Dr Bang


(edited for spelling, grammar not to flash either)

[efarmer]

I believe in Global Warming science but I am very skeptical on
the carbon trading schemes.

The same sh*ts who can't control drug traffic, nuclear proliferation,
weapons smuggling, human slavery, and financial fraud are going
to take on an invisible, odorless gas, and for the right money,
save us all.

Get ready for the great war of the Good Guys against the ruthless,
black hearted, carbon cartels. The cartels will fight dirty and take
money under the table (mostly from sh*ts with chits who need to burn
more than the system allows), The Good Guys will fight with tax money
and make sure there is plenty of private profit for sh*ts with chits who
trade carbon.

We are going to globally regulate a colorless, odorless, gas.
But it is going to be very simple, we will run low on stuff to burn.
This will be a nightmare scenario for sh*ts with chits for sure...
They will have to figure out how to charge you to burn something
you don't have to burn anyway.

Poor Gaia, can you imagine what they will do to her for operating
a volcano without a license?

[Ludi]

I am very skeptical on the carbon trading schemes.

A scam to funnel money from our pockets into the pockets of a few, while doing little or nothing to solve the underlying problems.

[Ludi]

But it is going to be very simple, we will run low on stuff to burn.

There's quite a bit of natural gas, coal, trees, crops, etc to burn. It might be quite awhile before we run low on stuff to burn, meanwhile we'll render the planet uninhabitable for humans.

[mcgowanjm]

But it is going to be very simple, we will run low on stuff to burn.

There's quite a bit of natural gas, coal, trees, crops, etc to burn. It might be quite awhile before we run low on stuff to burn, meanwhile we'll render the planet uninhabitable for humans.

The problem here is electricity. It won't be possible to keep
metroplexes (and other complexities) supplied.

Dragon Kings. October '11.

[Vogelzang]

Here's one of the biggest frauds to come along.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Arti ... 282%29.pdf

[americandream]

Where greed is a virtue, independent thought is a pariah. Can one trust anyone in capitalism?

Everyone here needs to read this article and realize that the culture of greed is working in academia and scientific research. Can you trust all scientists?

Science in Turmoil - Are we Funding Fraud? by Dr. Jeremy Dunning-Davies 26 Sep 2009: link

[Vogelzang]

In capitalism, we trust. Those who oppose capitalism are severely retarded.

[Vogelzang]

This is still here
http://www.thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/guest_jdd.htm

[Keith_McClary]

This should get a Science Journalism Booby Prize:
New study finds accurate parameters to rev up water and energy flux modeling

[tomnew481]

Would that give the accurate climate prediction?

[KaiserJeep]

Would that give the accurate climate prediction?

The answer to that is a resounding NO. I am at the end of a 35+ year career in computers, I have seen mainframes to mobile devices, and I can tell you with certainty that we lack the computing power for an accurate climate forecast. We also lack the data, and the historical temperature data we do have is all compromised in myriad ways.

So when anyone utters the words "climate forecast", firmly grasp your wallet and walk away from that person.

[Pops]

This post is a couple of years old so I'm gonna quote most of it (leaving out the stats on anti-science conservatives because we all know those):

The left's war on science begins with the stats cited above: 41 percent of Democrats are young Earth creationists, and 19 percent doubt that Earth is getting warmer. These numbers do not exactly bolster the common belief that liberals are the people of the science book. In addition, consider “cognitive creationists”—whom I define as those who accept the theory of evolution for the human body but not the brain. As Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker documents in his 2002 book The Blank Slate (Viking), belief in the mind as a tabula rasa shaped almost entirely by culture has been mostly the mantra of liberal intellectuals, who in the 1980s and 1990s led an all-out assault against evolutionary psychology via such Orwellian-named far-left groups as Science for the People, for proffering the now uncontroversial idea that human thought and behavior are at least partially the result of our evolutionary past.

There is more, and recent, antiscience fare from far-left progressives, documented in the 2012 book Science Left Behind (PublicAffairs) by science journalists Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell, who note that “if it is true that conservatives have declared a war on science, then progressives have declared Armageddon.” On energy issues, for example, the authors contend that progressive liberals tend to be antinuclear because of the waste-disposal problem, anti–fossil fuels because of global warming, antihydroelectric because dams disrupt river ecosystems, and anti–wind power because of avian fatalities. The underlying current is “everything natural is good” and “everything unnatural is bad.”

Whereas conservatives obsess over the purity and sanctity of sex, the left's sacred values seem fixated on the environment, leading to an almost religious fervor over the purity and sanctity of air, water and especially food. Try having a conversation with a liberal progressive about GMOs—genetically modified organisms—in which the words “Monsanto” and “profit” are not dropped like syllogistic bombs. Comedian Bill Maher, for example, on his HBO Real Time show on October 19, 2012, asked Stonyfield Farm CEO Gary Hirshberg if he would rate Monsanto as a 10 (“evil”) or an 11 (“f—ing evil”)? The fact is that we've been genetically modifying organisms for 10,000 years through breeding and selection. It's the only way to feed billions of people.

Surveys show that moderate liberals and conservatives embrace science roughly equally (varying across domains), which is why scientists like E. O. Wilson and organizations like the National Center for Science Education are reaching out to moderates in both parties to rein in the extremists on evolution and climate change. Pace Barry Goldwater, extremism in the defense of liberty may not be a vice, but it is in defense of science, where facts matter more than faith—whether it comes in a religious or secular form—and where moderation in the pursuit of truth is a virtue.

We see this here all the time, I guess it is the nature of being curious to occasionally slip over the line into anti-authoritarian rejection of any and every status quo, consensus, orthodox and even scientific view. The problem of course is cherry picking fact, studies, sources in order to make your argument. For example, we had a long running clique of 9/11 conspiracy enthusiasts here at one time (as if a conspiracy of foreign nationals to hijack and fly jet airliners into the world trade centers wasn't exotic enough). As well, there are even longer running debates on the more understandably non-science topics of economics, politics, religion...


So my question is, how does one know if they are simply employing healthy skepticism in investigating alternate explanation for [whatever] or rather, are indulging in an ego trip fantasy that they are the real life Neo with greater insight into reality than that of mainstream science?*


*Hint, 345 hits in a search for "red pill" on PO.com, LOL

[dohboi]

Good questions, bad thread title.

I think what is required is basic critical thinking skills, especially evaluation of sources.

It should be also pointed out that some what might be called conspiracy theories have turned out to be true. Just a few years ago, anyone (whether from the left or right) who claimed that the government was listening in on everything they were saying on their cellphones would have been considered a psycho whack job by most people.

Now after wikileaks we know that the NSA is doing exactly that and more.

So it does indeed become difficult to know what kind of claims can be declared automatically beyond the pale. I would say that any claim having to do with oversight of electronic information by the gov and corporations cannot be easily dismissed anymore.

But look--the main 'war on science' is being waged by the likes of the Koch Brothers and their mostly-Republican lackeys in congress and elsewhere, i.e. by the right, not the left (to the extent that the latter even exists any more to any significant extent any more in the US).

[Timo]

Peer reviewed, replicated results of scientific theories and experiments! Theories published for the sake of self-gratifacation are summarily discounted as being remotely credible. Science is never a fixed discipline. It survives and evolves based on proven replicability by other scientists. Evolution is a theory, based on credible, verifiable facts that support that theory. Creation is pure 100% faith with no scientific explanation, whatsoever, unless, of course, the Big Bang is considered the moment of creation, several hundred billion years ago, and that disproves the faith of godly creation according to the known "facts' of evangelicals.

One thing i agree on, though, is that the title of this thread is inappropriate. "Moderator's War on Rational Thought" would be more appropriate.

[Fishman]

Waste of time Pops, at this website. By definition peak oil itself can be both conspiratorial and theoretical science. We have and always will struggle with "science" vs "faith" Our natural biases cloud thought even among the best. Its just a natural struggle. The ones you must always be most wary are those who say they have no bias. I've given lectures to medical students and resident physicians, balance logic, faith and empathy. One without the others never works.
But on the other hand, "But look--the main 'war on science' is being waged by the likes of Soros and his all Dem lackeys in congress..."

[kanon]

So my question is, how does one know if they are simply employing healthy skepticism in investigating alternate explanation for [whatever] or rather, are indulging in an ego trip fantasy that they are the real life Neo with greater insight into reality than that of mainstream science?

I think what is required is basic critical thinking skills, especially evaluation of sources.

At some point I am going to search for a concise explanation of classic logical fallacies and the methods of persuasive rhetoric. A short book should be all that is needed, if such a book can be found. When I have looked in the past the things I found were lists of varying completeness and less usefulness. Critical thinking is a skill that must be learned and practiced. There are patterns of fallacy that can be learned and recognized, and they are quite common. Pops, who is a great source of knowledge, should start a thread on the topic.

I would add that we are not as smart as we think, so all knowledge is inherently suspect and subject to revision.

[Timo]

I would add that we are not as smart as we think, so all knowledge is inherently suspect and subject to revision.

Speak for yourself!