Global Cooling

[Captain Caveman]

It was born out of the idea that human capitalists were belching black soot into the sky and killing innocent animals. It took 50 years of temperature data and built a science around it in order to justify politically motivated goals...

I'm pointing out the elephant in the room -- which is a bunch of scientists who hooked onto a politically created discipline, who will by logical reason by biased to believe a human problem exists simply by gravitating towards that agenda, running around pronouncing humans to be the problem because they see a fluctuation in temperature that spans 100 years.

Wait, what? I understand that for your belief system to be internally consistent, you have to believe the vast majority of climate scientists are collectively breaching scientific and professional ethics to forge or misrepresent data all in an effort to undermine capitalism. But doesn't this strike you as paranoid and, well, insane?

Stupid scientists. Don't they know that tax dollars fund their projects and destroying business will kill their careers?

[GreenGoo]

It was a lot easier to dismiss when it was a bunch of hippies hugging trees. Who expected them to form a cabal and infiltrate *science*?!

The whole republican approach to this is weird. But it's not the first time attempts to undermine data have been made to forward a political agenda. And no, the irony is not lost on me that this is the main argument coming from the right while working very, very hard to do it themselves.

[msduncan]

It was born out of the idea that human capitalists were belching black soot into the sky and killing innocent animals. It took 50 years of temperature data and built a science around it in order to justify politically motivated goals...

I'm pointing out the elephant in the room -- which is a bunch of scientists who hooked onto a politically created discipline, who will by logical reason by biased to believe a human problem exists simply by gravitating towards that agenda, running around pronouncing humans to be the problem because they see a fluctuation in temperature that spans 100 years.

Wait, what? I understand that for your belief system to be internally consistent, you have to believe the vast majority of climate scientists are collectively breaching scientific and professional ethics to forge or misrepresent data all in an effort to undermine capitalism. But doesn't this strike you as paranoid and, well, insane?

Stupid scientists. Don't they know that tax dollars fund their projects and destroying business will kill their careers?

Scientific study is not without bias. And no, I don't believe *all* of them do this intentionally. They are looking at a century of data and constructing evidence to support what they are seeing post-industrial revolution. I also suspect many of them gravitated towards this particular discipline because they have a passion for climate change science -- which is basically the science of proving that human beings are destroying the planet.

It's not different from people who love the ocean gravitating towards marine biology or some other ocean related field.

[Zaxxon]

Scientific study is not without bias.

Concur.

And no, I don't believe *all* of them do this intentionally. They are looking at a century of data and constructing evidence to support what they are seeing post-industrial revolution. I also suspect many of them gravitated towards this particular discipline because they have a passion for climate change science -- which is basically the science of proving that human beings are destroying the planet.

Off the rails.

[Enough]

msd, you still haven't answered any of RM9's questions, and your characterized 'correction' of his formula is ridiculous. RM9 is one of the most open to differing information among us. You are not helping your cause with these responses.

Yes I have answered them. But if you insist I will pointedly answer them.

1) Why do you believe the conclusions (or reported conclusions if they differ) of *this* study?

Because the science of climate study is an infant. It was born out of the idea that human capitalists were belching black soot into the sky and killing innocent animals.

History fail. It was born out of the early 1800s when we first started to figure out the earth had experienced massive climate change in the past such as demonstrated by ice ages. In an effort to understand that process, potential causes were explored (human and non). It wasn't born out of some namby-pamby anarcho-socialist plot against industrialism or some such. Please. It's views like yours that are leading our nation into an overall anti-science mindset and I wish to hell you would stop mischaracterizing what actually happened.

It took 50 years of temperature data and built a science around it in order to justify politically motivated goals.

Again total bullshit. Show me where the pioneers of climate change science were motivated by politics. Again, the science was born out of first discovering that climate change actually occurs and then trying to understand the process by which it occurs. The discipline was not born in the 70s in an enviro think tank for politically motivated goals as much as MSD wishes it were true. And it's based on far more than 50 years as you should know with even a cursory knowledge of climate science.

It's the classic bait and switch of forming facts and ideas and a discipline around a politically motivated ideology and then sprinkling a few decades on it until it becomes a 'respected' science discipline that shoehorns facts to support a hypothesis that was born from political motivation and ignores or minimizes study of how the earth's climate has had many many fluctuations over it's history.

The bolded part describes MSD's approach to climate change science to a T. Climate change theory really took off in the 50s during the Cold War with heavy funding from the military. The only political motivation initially was national security concerns for our military. Your revisionist take of the history of the science reeks of politics and shows no regard for history as it actually happened. I'm sorry MSD but your gut is wrong here, I get the gut check but your understandable instincts are simply incorrect and not based in documented reality (still waiting for a citation indicating climate change science came from political motivations other than those I outline above).

It's paramount to taking a two day Presidential poll that shows a spike in Romney's numbers and ignoring the last 4 months of spikes to determine incorrectly that Romney is winning the race against the President. You can't take the last two days. You have to take the last 4 months.

From dendrochronology we have 2000 years in the new study and way more in ice cores. And in as far as meteorological data goes, we may only have 50 years of modern records with fancy satellites and all but we have a good 300 years of data for some locations. In your scientific opinion MSD, how many years of straight meteorological records do we need for an adequate sample size (taking into account other forms of data such as trees, ice, historical documents, etc)?

I'm pointing out emails discovered that show a conspiracy to control, promote and dismiss certain facts in order to further the climate change political agenda.

Good lord MSD, get thee some tin foil. You have just flat out refused to accept multiple investigations finding no conspiracy that followed the initial article you shared here within seconds of it hitting Drudge, et al.

I'm pointing out the elephant in the room -- which is a bunch of scientists who hooked onto a politically created discipline, who will by logical reason by biased to believe a human problem exists simply by gravitating towards that agenda, running around pronouncing humans to be the problem because they see a fluctuation in temperature that spans 100 years.

H-E double toothpicks. It is not a politically created discipline, and climate change scientists are continually looking at NON-HUMAN causes for climate change and continually discovering more. Your bias is to only react when a potential human feedback loop to climate is being discussed but the scientists are certainly in no way ignoring or de-emphasizing non-human causes. Have you ever truly read an original climate paper, ie not a WND news story digest of what was found?

I'm pointing out that the same temperature spikes have occurred numerous times in the past when nobody was driving a Bentley around to cause it. Unless you want to say that Medieval horse shit caused a methane output that spiked temperatures over the period of a century before Columbus sailed to America... I'm sure that might be coming next since we've already seen the Dinosaur fart theory surface.

Hey, for a change we are both pointing out the same thing. Everyone grants the climate changes without any human help and changes massively at times along those lines. But for some reason it's only you (and those that share your views) that can't agree it can change with human help as well. That's the only difference here. The rest of us agree with you that non-human causes of climate change are significant and in many cases dominant.

For some reason you just cannot wrap your brain around the idea that human influence on the climate could potentially be large enough to drive long-term trends. That's the total bottom line here. And it's absolute buffoonery on your part to accept from the very same said climate change scientists only the non-human causes as a potential vector for substantial climate change while ignoring the human causes.

And yes, things like termite farts and shit (methane sources) are real non-human inputs that have a potential to change climate and are worth investigating as is deforestation (caused by humans or not).

[RunningMn9]

Because the science of climate study is an infant.

Don't worry - you aren't getting a full Treatment(tm) here, but I wanted to make sure that if we are approaching this honestly, we separate factual statements from opinions.

Forget for a moment my initial question, which is to wonder about your qualifications for deciding whether or not a field of study is in the infancy stage or if it has developed enough to trust the broad theme of its predominant conclusions. Let's instead consider that climate science either is or is not in its infancy. One or the other must be true, even if we might disagree with which state it is currently in.

One or the other must be true. Regardless of the current state - how will YOU (you specifically, not the generic "you") know the difference? What criteria are you looking for that will tell you that climate science has moved from its infancy into something more substantial?

I would *hope* that your answer isn't simply a number of years or something superficial like that.

It was born out of the idea that human capitalists were belching black soot into the sky and killing innocent animals. It took 50 years of temperature data and built a science around it in order to justify politically motivated goals.

Sorry to break in so soon after I promised no Treatment(tm). But just to clarify, you immediately left the realm of what could be considered "factual content", and immediately jumped into editorializing, without any actual basis in fact.

I suspect that it would take a rather substantial effort to go back to the earliest published climate research, and to then guess the motivations of those that began to take a look at. And further - it would take real scientific work to analyze their efforts to determine whether the science was good (whether or not it confirmed or contradicted their initial bias). You don't get to just say that and let it hang out there as a truth because you believe it to be true.

It's the classic bait and switch of forming facts and ideas and a discipline around a politically motivated ideology and then sprinkling a few decades on it until it becomes a 'respected' science discipline that shoehorns facts to support a hypothesis that was born from political motivation and ignores or minimizes study of how the earth's climate has had many fluctuations over its history

I have to ask. If this is a classic maneuver of scientists, can you please list the many other scientific disciplines that have sprung into respectability based on political motivations?

I'm somewhat confused at your insistence that climate scientists are ignoring or minimizing the study of how the earth's climate has had many fluctuations over its history. I'm confused because climate science is almost *entirely* focused on the study of how the earth's climate has had many fluctuations over its history. If I wasn't at work, I suspect it would take less than 30 minutes for me to generate a list of *hundreds* of studies by climate scientists focused specifically on the cyclical history of Earth's climate.

My confusion stems from the fact that their understanding of the history of Earth's climates and the historical factors that drive it are so far beyond your understanding of the history of Earth's climates and the historical factors that drive it that I can't even believe you are saying it. To be fair, my understanding of that science is equally infantile.

I fear that your conclusion isn't based on your own exceptional understanding of either current science, or the entire branch of science that studies nothing but what you are claiming they don't understand - but rather you are concluding that they don't understand it because their understanding of it doesn't lead them to the conclusion that you want to hear.

The idea of the solar cycle acting as a force on global climate isn't new. Not only is it well understood, it's reasonably easy to calculate the impact that it has. And that's been done - many, many times. And the answer is "not nearly enough to account for the current rapid warming trend, even when taking into account all of the other factors that we know led to cyclical trends in the past".

Which gets to another point - OF COURSE the Earth's climate is cyclical. OF COURSE the Earth has been much warmer and much colder in the past. I don't understand why you think this is news to *anyone* that works in the field? Of course they know this. They are the ones that figured it out so that you could sort of know it superficially.

It's paramount to taking a two day Presidential poll that shows a spike in Romney's numbers and ignoring the last 4 months of spikes to determine incorrectly that Romney is winning the race against the President. You can't take the last two days. You have to take the last 4 months.

But that isn't what is happening. In using the confines of your analogy, researchers are looking at presidential polling information from the last 56 Presidential elections, and noting that while poll numbers have been higher and lower for challengers in past Presidential elections, in this election we are seeing a sudden rise in poll numbers that doesn't look anything like any of the previous elections, and noting that the numbers changed simultaneously with the news that broke of Obama walking into the Capitol building and dropping a deuce on Boehner's seat, with all of Congress watching - and concluding that Romney's rapid rise has more to do with Obama taking a dump in public, and less to do with normal variations in an election cycle.

I am pointing out studies that show influences on the climate from sources such as the sun, the earth's oceans, and the rotation of the earth around the sun.

I can see that, and wasn't questioning it. What I'm wondering is why you value those studies more than the other studies that show those same things. I only ask because there are significantly more studies on those influences that contradict your desired outcome than there are studies on those influences that confirm your desired outcome.

You only seem to point out those that confirm your desired outcome. And before you try to insinuate that I do the same thing - hold your horses. As a rule, I don't have a desired outcome. Certainly not with respect to this topic. My conclusion about the current state of the science isn't built on my desire to see one side "win" or one side "lose". My conclusion is based specifically on the accumulation of studies that are conducting "good science", while giving a great deal less value to studies that conduct "bad science".

And I also don't (as a rule) post articles about global climate science. I may read and comment on what others post, but it's been a long time (as far as I know), since I was posting every study that emerged that confirmed what you would call my desired outcome. We know this because that would amount to a full-time job, as they are released several times per day.

I suspect that your thoughts about the current science are more an indication of your current understanding of the science than an accurate reflection on the science itself. Many of your objections are superficial, and are basic facts known to everyone that actually studies this topic for a living. Yet you throw them around like it would be a revelation to a climate scientist that cyclical variations in solar output will yield cyclical variations in global climate. Not only do they already know that - they sit around calculating the actual cycles and how those cycles impact global climate. Which seems more substantial than what you are doing with that knowledge.

He doesn't necessarily believe any of the climate studies, as the field is lacking enough data to be reliable yet, but if he just comes here and says that he will be dismissed out of hand without consideration.

I certainly agree with the first sentence. msduncan clearly doesn't believe any of the climate studies - and I'll even grant you that he doesn't believe them for the stated reason.

Where I will disagree with you is on the consequence. He most certainly wouldn't be dismissed out of hand without consideration - although perhaps it will seem like that. He will be dismissed eventually, when it becomes clear that his opinion that "the field is lacking enough data to be reliable yet" is a function of HIS knowledge of the field, rather than the knowledge of the field itself.

I see this all the time with those that still don't "believe" in macroevolution. A great deal of the problem is that because they don't believe in it, they are completely unaware of just how much evidence there is in favor of it, because they don't spend any time seeking such information out.

Which is why I'm asking the questions that I'm asking. msduncan breathlessly reads news articles about emails that allegedly show malfeasance (but of course none of the follow up articles that demonstrate a lack of malfeasance). He posts nearly every article that has a headline that supports what he interprets to be contradictory evidence. But does he really have any idea how much evidence there is that contradicts his uneducated (and I don't mean that in a bad way - my opinion on this is uneducated as well) opinion?

I'm guessing no. Everyone knows about the IPCC report. A small fraction of the people that know about it have actually read the summary for politicians. A micro fraction of the people that know about it have read the synthesis report. A pico fraction of the people that know about it have read the volume on the physical evidence. Only considering the fourth assessment, that's about 1000 pages of summary information (linking to several hundred studies with many thousands of pages of data). And next year sometime, the fifth assessment will be released, with information learned in the past five years.

I understand that msduncan wants to dismiss all of it on the basis that it is biased "bad science" that is seeking to produce a pre-determined conclusion. But he's never actually seen any of it. And I know that he's never seen any of it, because he is here throwing up basic objections that have been debunked dozens of times. I graciously assume that he doesn't know that because he never took the time to find out. The alternative is that he knows this and still offers these objections disingenuously for other reasons. While there are many who I would label in such a way, msduncan isn't one of them.

I have no doubt that he believes he is right. I'm just trying to figure out where all the conviction comes from when he goes out of his way to not actually know anything about the topic in any way, shape or form.

And that's why he is generally dismissed with prejudice now. It's one thing to be well-versed on a topic and to be able to adequately present a contrary position - only to be dismissed because it's contrary (I went through that all the time in Quinn threads). Every one of his objections is just an opinion of his on the character and motivations of the many tens of thousands of scientists that are studying this field and telling him that he's wrong. He isn't pointing out legitimate flaws in the data. He can't be doing that because he intentionally avoids knowing what any of the data actually is.

[Exodor]

Funny I should bump into this Forbes article today

The science of climate change is almost two centuries old. To the best of our knowledge, it began with Joseph Fourier, who first noted in the 1820s that, given Newton’s laws of cooling, the Earth should be much colder than it actually is given its distance from the Sun. He developed a number of hypotheses for the origin of the extra heat, one of which was the possibility that the atmosphere itself traps the heat that makes life possible. Other scientists built on Fourier’s work, notably John Tyndall, who in the 1850s not only demonstrated that gasses trapped heat, but also determined how well each of those gasses trapped heat. Carbon dioxide was one of those gasses that traps heat well. The main components of the atmosphere – oxygen and nitrogen – don’t trap heat well.

This simple fact – that increasing carbon dioxide concentration in a gaseous mixture will increase temperatures – is undeniable.

At a basic level, we can demonstrate that carbon dioxide concentration impacts temperatures. (This is also true of the other primary greenhouse gasses, including water vapor and methane.) It doesn’t take much to go from there and predict that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will also lead to increased temperatures. In fact, this hypothesis was first proposed in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in 1903. In Arrhenius’ paper, he discussed how variations in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere must be naturally variable, and that variations in carbon dioxide are what lead to excessively warm and cold periods in the Earth’s history. Many of Arrhenius’ assumptions have since been validated, and even his mathematical predictions weren’t too far off.

[Enough]

Okay, which one of you posted on reddit:

Why are scientists so quick to point to man made climate change as the cause of the hot temperatures when our temperature records are such a small sample size?

There's actually some pretty solid discussion, hope everyone takes a look.

[Kraken]

we still don't know enough to be trashing world economies in order to react to what a lot of people are considering gospel.

Straw man. Who's trashing what economy?

The US government has tacitly decided that it is impossible to reverse, prevent, or even ameliorate the warming that is obviously underway. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, not decline. There is essentially no political debate on the subject. Has this come up even once in the current campaign season?

We will handle climate change the way we handle everything else -- by waiting until it becomes a crisis and then dealing with the consequences. Reactively, not proactively.

Maybe the feds would try to trash the economy in the name of the environment if others hadn't gotten there first.

And suddenly it dawns on me: This thread is really about federal policy toward the fossil fuels industry, isn't it? The happy copulating dinosaurs should have been a clue.

[RunningMn9]

So, I feel like Exodor offered a new and interesting piece of information that speaks to one of msduncan's core points.

"This scientific discipline is in its infancy, working with a data set that is only 50 years wide."

At least according to the article posted by Exodor, this is wrong on both counts. This isn't a new scientific discipline, if it was initially being investigated 200 years ago. And it isn't limited to a 50-year sample set if it was initially being investigated 200 years ago.

It also seems unlikely for the science to have been a secret liberal plot born from the environmentalist movement of the late 60s and early 70s.

Again, I have to assume that this article represents new information to msduncan (and possibly Arcanis). My initial question would be WHY is this new information for him. For someone that speaks with such conviction about this being a new science that is still in its infancy limited to a narrow set of data - shouldn't he have already looked into this - at least enough to know that his premise appears to be wrong?

Will he simply ignore this new information because it doesn't agree with his narrative? Will he integrate it into his knowledge based and allow it to modify his carefully guarded ideological position? Time will tell (although I assume many can already guess the answer).

And thus we arrive at the main problem. I believe that msduncan's position on the science is dictated by his ideology, and not the science itself (how could it be any other way when he is determined to insulate himself from the science?).

Which seems ironic because he's accusing scientists of being slaves to their ideology to the exclusion of the science (that he intentionally never examines).

[Enough]

WTF, I posted 2 links on the history of climate science quite a ways back and it's something new? TLDR?

[Exodor]

WTF, I posted 2 links on the history of climate science quite a ways back and it's something new? TLDR?

My post featured an adorable child below my username.

Cute kid > old guy

[noxiousdog]

WTF, I posted 2 links on the history of climate science quite a ways back and it's something new? TLDR?

My post featured an adorable child below my username.

Cute kid > old guy

I thought you two were alts anyway.

[RunningMn9]

WTF, I posted 2 links on the history of climate science quite a ways back and it's something new? TLDR?

Be cool, baby. I just happened to read Exodor's and had forgotten your post. The hazards of following along on my phone.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I've always found the topic of climate change about as interesting as an overcooked cabbage extolling the virtues of Quinnian new tribalism on the Planet Oh-Bugger-I've-Lost-My-Will-To-Live.

[noxiousdog]

I've always found the topic of climate change about as interesting as an overcooked cabbage extolling the virtues of Quinnian new tribalism on the Planet Oh-Bugger-I've-Lost-My-Will-To-Live.

And yet you clicked on the thread.....

[Anonymous Bosch]

I've always found the topic of climate change about as interesting as an overcooked cabbage extolling the virtues of Quinnian new tribalism on the Planet Oh-Bugger-I've-Lost-My-Will-To-Live.

And yet you clicked on the thread.....

Indeed, but for MSD's vociferation, my head would already be in the oven.

[Kraken]

I believe that msduncan's position on the science is dictated by his ideology, and not the science itself (how could it be any other way when he is determined to insulate himself from the science?).

More specifically, it's his livelihood. Doesn't he work in the coal industry in some capacity? If so, it's not just theoretical to him (and that would explain the seemingly groundless accusation of government sinking the economy in the name of environmental theory).

I have a notoriously poor memory for character background stories, though, so I apologize if I'm off base.

[RunningMn9]

Indeed, but for MSD's vociferation, my head would already be in the oven.

Well, no one is stopping you from firmly burying your head back in the sand.

[msduncan]

Haven't had time today for extensive responses, but I don't work in the coal industry.

I also believe that much of our science is in it's infancy. We are constantly finding new evidence and ruling out theories (and finding exceptions to many rules thought to be solid) in every discipline. The mistake many scientists make is out of pure human arrogance: assuming the theories they have come up with in this snapshot in time is gospel. We simply don't know enough yet.

[Holman]

The mistake many scientists make is out of pure human arrogance: assuming the theories they have come up with in this snapshot in time is gospel. We simply don't know enough yet.

No, that's the mistake ideologues make.

[noxiousdog]

The mistake many scientists make is out of pure human arrogance: assuming the theories they have come up with in this snapshot in time is gospel. We simply don't know enough yet.

No, that's the mistake ideologues make.

Bam.

[Exodor]

Haven't had time today for extensive responses, but I don't work in the coal industry.

Ah.

(I work for the power company)

[msduncan]

Haven't had time today for extensive responses, but I don't work in the coal industry.

Ah.

(I work for the power company)

Yep. Power company. We don't consider ourselves part of the coal industry. We have all kinds of nuclear, gas, combined cycle, and renewable plants. Besides that I am not on the generation side.

[RunningMn9]

I also believe that much of our science is in it's infancy.

Based on what? I understand that you have this belief. I'm trying to figure out why you have this belief.

We are constantly finding new evidence and ruling out theories (and finding exceptions to many rules thought to be solid) in every discipline.

Considering that you appear to make no effort to follow what is happening in the scientific community, how do you know this? What theories are we constantly ruling out?

The mistake many scientists make is out of pure human arrogance

Scientists have decades of education and direct experience that they can rely on to form educated opinions on topics that they have devoted their lives to studying (and to building on the work of tens of thousands of other scientists that have similar levels of experience and who have similarly devoted their lives to understanding and exploring their discipline).

You have none of that. Not even a fraction of that. And you go out of your way to keep it thy way. And you dismiss the results of hundreds of thousands of man-years of education and experience - and your point is that THEY are arrogant?

What does that make you?!?

assuming the theories they have come up with in this snapshot in time is gospel.

They don't assume that their theories are gospel. Why do you think that they do? Because they think that their decades of education and experience trump your total lack of relevant education and experience?

We simply don't know enough yet.

Have you at least considered that the problem here that results in you disagreeing with the vast majority of climate scientists isn't a result of "we don't know enough yet" and is rather a function of "msduncan doesn't know enough yet?"

If you've at least considered that possibility, can you tell me how you will define the moment when we DO know enough yet? And how will you know when that moment has been reached when you go out of your way to avoid knowing anything about the current state of scientific knowledge?

On a possibly related note, Gallup released a poll today indicating that 46% of Americans believed that God created human beings in their current form within the past 10,000 years.

I know many people that fall into that group, and my conversations with them always amount to the same thing you are doing here. But they only seem to ever do it when the scientific consensus tells then that their intentionally uninformed opinion is wrong. They seem to always give science a pass when their uninformed opinions aren't at risk of being challenged.

[Fretmute]

On a possibly related note, Gallup released a poll today indicating that 46% of Americans believed that God created human beings in their current form within the past 10,000 years.

That is seriously disturbing.

[Kraken]

Haven't had time today for extensive responses, but I don't work in the coal industry.

Ah.

(I work for the power company)

Yep. Power company. We don't consider ourselves part of the coal industry. We have all kinds of nuclear, gas, combined cycle, and renewable plants. Besides that I am not on the generation side.

Then I humbly withdraw that assertion. Dunno where I got the coal idea.

[RLMullen]

On a possibly related note, Gallup released a poll today indicating that 46% of Americans believed that God created human beings in their current form within the past 10,000 years.

That is seriously disturbing.

It is incredibly disturbing, but I wonder how many of at 46% fall into the "I don't care, and this answer looks good" category? I also wonder if the 10,000-years throws people off.

There are many people (far too many) who can tell you what the Kardashians had for breakfast, but have no concept of a world outside of their pop culture bubble. Not to be sexist in my remarks... I know several guys who can quote fantasy football stats for damned near everyone who has played in the NFL for the past twenty years, but couldn't care less where humans came from or how long we've walked the earth. If it doesn't impact the upcoming draft in August, it quite simply isn't important.

[RunningMn9]

There are many people (far too many) who can tell you what the Kardashians had for breakfast, but have no concept of a world outside of their pop culture bubble. Not to be sexist in my remarks... I know several guys who can quote fantasy football stats for damned near everyone who has played in the NFL for the past twenty years, but couldn't care less where humans came from or how long we've walked the earth. If it doesn't impact the upcoming draft in August, it quite simply isn't important.

The reason isn't particularly important to me. The phenomenon (of people that are willing to persist in beliefs that are clearly contradictory to vast amounts of scientific knowledge - that they don't even know exist) is what I find disappointing. In most cases though, those people are content to simply take no real action (or lack of action) on the thing that they don't really know anything about.

That's where the problem develops (for me). Those people that are clearly in the camp (of people willing to persist in beliefs that are clearly contradictory to vast amounts of scientific knowledge that they intentionally insulate themselves from) - but who advocate for that belief (to take or stop action). If you are too busy paying your mortgage or earning fantasy football championships to study global climate change - I can certainly understand that. But at least be aware enough of your lack of relevant knowledge and expertise and leave it to the experts. Accusing them of not knowing enough because you don't know enough, or accusing them of letting a bias inform the science (because that's how you approach research in your own life)? That ain't cool.

[Holman]

That poll result could reflect simple innumeracy as much as Young-Earth Creationism. We don't have to debate the mushy "God created..." part while arguing about the scale.

(FWIW, I'll bet a lot of educated people would say that humans are closer to a million than 100,000 years old.)

[Combustible Lemur]

That poll result could reflect simple innumeracy as much as Young-Earth Creationism. We don't have to debate the mushy "God created..." part while arguing about the scale.

(FWIW, I'll bet a lot of educated people would say that humans are closer to a million than 100,000 years old.)

Hell, after watching a number of documentaries recently, define humans. Sapiens sapiens, sapiens, neandertalis, aferensis, (sp). Pre genetic bottleck, or post? That's a metric butt ton of piecemeal stuff for a random shmuck to pay attention to.

Sent from mah Incredible'

[RLMullen]

There are many people (far too many) who can tell you what the Kardashians had for breakfast, but have no concept of a world outside of their pop culture bubble. Not to be sexist in my remarks... I know several guys who can quote fantasy football stats for damned near everyone who has played in the NFL for the past twenty years, but couldn't care less where humans came from or how long we've walked the earth. If it doesn't impact the upcoming draft in August, it quite simply isn't important.

The reason isn't particularly important to me. The phenomenon (of people that are willing to persist in beliefs that are clearly contradictory to vast amounts of scientific knowledge - that they don't even know exist) is what I find disappointing. In most cases though, those people are content to simply take no real action (or lack of action) on the thing that they don't really know anything about.

That's where the problem develops (for me). Those people that are clearly in the camp (of people willing to persist in beliefs that are clearly contradictory to vast amounts of scientific knowledge that they intentionally insulate themselves from) - but who advocate for that belief (to take or stop action). If you are too busy paying your mortgage or earning fantasy football championships to study global climate change - I can certainly understand that. But at least be aware enough of your lack of relevant knowledge and expertise and leave it to the experts. Accusing them of not knowing enough because you don't know enough, or accusing them of letting a bias inform the science (because that's how you approach research in your own life)? That ain't cool.

I agree. I'm at a loss as to how get them to care. If you can't get someone to care about anything outside a 10 to 50 year window, how can you get them to consider a window as large as a billion+ years?

[Kraken]

On a possibly related note, Gallup released a poll today indicating that 46% of Americans believed that God created human beings in their current form within the past 10,000 years.

That is seriously disturbing.

It is incredibly disturbing, but I wonder how many of at 46% fall into the "I don't care, and this answer looks good" category?

20% of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the earth. So I consider 20% to be beyond hope. Even after throwing them out, you've still got 26% who should know better in this particular poll, and that is indeed disturbing.

[RunningMn9]

And another msduncan thread goes quietly into that good night?

[msduncan]

Based on what? I understand that you have this belief. I'm trying to figure out why you have this belief.

Because it's true. It's only been a matter of a few decades since we realized chemosynthesis was occurring in deep ocean vents, for example. Previous to that science thought nothing would be able to survive in the total absence of sunlight at those depths, temperature, and pressure. That's just one example. As a species our scientific understanding of our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet is in it's infancy.

We still haven't cured cancer. We only just grasped detailed understanding of the human DNA. We still haven't found the missing link and mapped a clear understanding of the entire evolutionary path of the human species. We've only explored less than 5% of the oceans.

Hell, there was a story yesterday about a mysterious larval stage crab that has washed up in Hawaii in the millions and none of the marine biologists have a clue what species it is.

We are babes in a crib when it comes to science. Have we come a huge distance from the 1500's? Of course.... in the scope of things we don't know nuddin yet.

You have none of that. Not even a fraction of that. And you go out of your way to keep it thy way. And you dismiss the results of hundreds of thousands of man-years of education and experience - and your point is that THEY are arrogant?

What does that make you?!?

Are you naive enough to think that human beings don't mix bias in with their studies and results? Have you paid attention to what is going on in colleges today? The schools are so overwhelmingly liberal in terms of educators and administrators that they start on kids the moment they walk in the door. And you also dismiss the notion that people who tend to be more liberal and more advocates for environmentalism don't naturally gravitate towards science disciplines such as climate studies?

If you've at least considered that possibility, can you tell me how you will define the moment when we DO know enough yet? And how will you know when that moment has been reached when you go out of your way to avoid knowing anything about the current state of scientific knowledge?

That's difficult to answer. Perhaps we will know that moment when we have a lot more information on sun activity, radiation, ocean currents, ocean overturn, and all those other factors that go into the equation as well. As it is right now the science of climate change has been consumed with proving that the evil humans are doing all the damage, but more and more studies are surfacing that the sun and all those other things are having much more influence than previously thought.

I know many people that fall into that group, and my conversations with them always amount to the same thing you are doing here. But they only seem to ever do it when the scientific consensus tells then that their intentionally uninformed opinion is wrong. They seem to always give science a pass when their uninformed opinions aren't at risk of being challenged.

Don't be ridiculous. Not even close to the same thing.

[RunningMn9]

I might re-order some of your comments to keep my own more coherent. I will try to not take anything out of context though.

Because it's true....As a species our scientific understanding of our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet is in it's infancy.

Saying it doesn't make it so. Again - this is something you believe. Your belief doesn't make something true (or false). It's just something you believe. I'm trying to find out quantitatively how you've arrived at that belief. What would mark our passing from infancy to toddlerhood? To adolescence? To young adulthood? Middle Age? Senility?

You are making a leap from "we don't know everything" to "we know almost nothing". And while that might be true - I'm curious what makes you think that? To frame my question better, I would say that in order to make such a statement, you would have to have a sense of what we don't know. To know THAT, you would have to have a sense of what we currently know.

I don't believe that you have even the remotest clue about what we know, let alone what we don't know - even the stuff that we could quantify at this time. You are making your claim - but are substituting the knowledge and experience of an uninformed layperson in for the knowledge and experience of any number of scientific fields of study. A mistake that at a minimum makes you personally (and me) incapable of making such a ludicrous statement like "Because it's true".

It's only been a matter of a few decades since we realized chemosynthesis was occurring in deep ocean vents, for example.

So what?

We still haven't cured cancer.

So what?

We only just grasped detailed understanding of the human DNA.

So what?

We still haven't found the missing link and mapped a clear understanding of the entire evolutionary path of the human species.

So what?

We've only explored less than 5% of the oceans.

So what?

To repeat - not knowing everything isn't the same as not knowing anything, or not knowing "enough" to qualify for your arbitrary "infancy" criteria. Should I list all of the things that we know? I submit it would take more words than are currently contained in the entire OO posting database. When do we cross the threshold where we know "enough" to not be infants?

We are babes in a crib when it comes to science. Have we come a huge distance from the 1500's? Of course.... in the scope of things we don't know nuddin yet.

And that's where you are demonstrably wrong. We know plenty of things. And I submit that you aren't a particularly astute observer of what things are or are not in that set (because of your own biases).

Are you naive enough to think that human beings don't mix bias in with their studies and results?

No. However, I'm also not naive enough to think that some human beings that have a particular bias against believing something won't cling to that bias to the exclusion of all other relevant information. I think that you are far guiltier of that phenomenon than the vast majority of scientists that are specifically trained to remove bias from good science.

Have you paid attention to what is going on in colleges today?

Are you seriously asking me this nonsense?

The schools are so overwhelmingly liberal in terms of educators and administrators that they start on kids the moment they walk in the door. And you also dismiss the notion that people who tend to be more liberal and more advocates for environmentalism don't naturally gravitate towards science disciplines such as climate studies?

In your zeal to attack them for the crime of being "liberal", you've lost sight of the question.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF THE SCIENCE IS GOOD OR BAD IF YOU REFUSE TO EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS?

How can you accuse scientists with a straight face of being biased, when you sit here and allow your own bias to keep you hopelessly ignorant of what the science actually says?

That's difficult to answer. Perhaps we will know that moment when we have a lot more information on sun activity, radiation, ocean currents, ocean overturn, and all those other factors that go into the equation as well. As it is right now the science of climate change has been consumed with proving that the evil humans are doing all the damage, but more and more studies are surfacing that the sun and all those other things are having much more influence than previously thought.

So....we'll know that when we know that the things you believe (for reasons that have nothing to do with the science itself) receive greater support from the data? Did you really just write that in a paragraph and expect to be taken seriously?

Don't be ridiculous. Not even close to the same thing.

More than I felt last night, this is exactly the same thing.

You are trying to attack something that you intentionally know nothing about - for no other reason than it challenges something that you believe for ideological reasons (rather than religious ones).

And I'm fine with that. I just want to see you acknowledge in writing that you intentionally know nothing about the actual state of climate research.

[msduncan]

A blanket answer to your 'so what'? questions and your attempt to overwhelm the discussion by quoting individual lines to make it impossible to respond (as you always do when you start arguing with people) :

We know that the earth's temperature fluctuates. We know there have been century-long spikes over thousands of years. We know that the same factors that previously contributed to the century long spikes over the course of the planet's history had nothing to do with coal plants and automobiles.

We are currently seeing a spike over a period of a little over a half century, and yet we are bending this particular spike to fit man-made global warming theories. We have been uncovering more and more data about the sun's influence, the oceans' influence, the cold/warm overturn influence, and most of this has been dismissed until only recently by modern climate change science. Modern meaning since the intrusion of environmentalism into science in the 1960s and 70s.


And fuck yes, I'm saying that people with certain bias gravitate towards certain fields of work. Climatology is one of those highly biased fields that naturally attract people with an affinity towards saving the planet from evil humans. Just because someone hands them a science degree does not change the passion the people that drifted towards this field had when they signed up to study it.

I also point you towards the movie that Screwtape linked here a while back that pointed out how dissenting scientists are ridiculed and practically exiled from the field when they disagree with the norm that it's us evil humans causing the problem.

[Enough]

So much for this thread being all about cooling.

[raydude]

We are currently seeing a spike over a period of a little over a half century, and yet we are bending this particular spike to fit man-made global warming theories. We have been uncovering more and more data about the sun's influence, the oceans' influence, the cold/warm overturn influence, and most of this has been dismissed until only recently by modern climate change science. Modern meaning since the intrusion of environmentalism into science in the 1960s and 70s.

I'd like to know where you got the information about this stuff being dismissed. Not that I don't trust you, I'd just like to read it for myself.

[jimbo]

I don't want to turn this into a discussion about actual science but while this it true:

We know that the earth's temperature fluctuates. We know there have been century-long spikes over thousands of years. We know that the same factors that previously contributed to the century long spikes over the course of the planet's history had nothing to do with coal plants and automobiles.

If you look at the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 800,000 years based on ice core data the highest CO2 concentrations are always below 300ppm. These concentration changes were occurring before the aforementioned coal plants and automobiles.

See figure:



If you plot the concentration of CO2 collected at Mauna Loa starting in 1958 you will notice that it is all fairly clearly above 300ppm.

See Figure:



Here is that again with the time on a log scale so you can see what is happening in the relatively recent past.



Now you can debate whether or not this increase in CO2 concentration has anything to do with the changes in climate that are occurring (I would argue that it does) but to say that there is no evidence for an anthropogenic effect on the concentration of CO2 is clearly not true (this is after the advent of coal pants and automobiles). There is no evidence that the sun's activity affects the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere.

Also, not to be dismissive of the existence of ideological scientists, it is difficult to imagine how you can do any actual science (speaking as a scientist) with an overwhelming bias. The great thing about doing science is that the results are what the results are and you have to adjust your view of whatever system you are working on to account for the new evidence. Doing this successfully requires that you throw out your preconceived notions fairly regularly as new evidence comes to light. If you do try to make your conclusions fit some preconceived notion when it clearly does not you will have a hard time getting it through peer review. Now this is not to say that there are not problems with the peer review system as it exists today, but as a scientist that tries to get things published it is not conceivable to me that there are enough people that are willing to perpetrate some liberal plan to bring down the evil capitalists to account for the overwhelming number of papers that are published showing evidence of human caused global warming.

The truth about scientists is that we are more often than not in the business of finding new questions rather than answers, so it will likely be a long time before we know a great enough percentage of ALL KNOWLEDGE to be anything but babies.

I know that none of this will change any minds but I would say that people should try to avoid generalizing about scientists (or any group of people for that matter) because most of the ones I know really just want to find out the answer to what ever question we are working on, no matter what that answer happens to be.