When Paleontologists Attack...

[rdean]

I love the "either/or" world of the right. Everything black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. Such a "simple" world.

There is no doubt of an impact. The entire central part of the US has enormous iridium deposits that match the timing of the creator and the geology perfectly.

The debate is whether the "impact" was the "reason" the dinosaurs became extinct or the "final nail in the coffin" of an on going process that included weather change, massive volcanic activity, disease or possibly a combination of all three.

What I don't like about the right questioning science is their motivation.

Science questions itself all the time. That's the nature of science. The goal post is forever being moved as new evidence is discovered, knowledge and understanding obtained and new interpretation of existing date being discussed. But the motivation of the right isn't any of these things. For the right, it's all about "discredit".

The right points to scientists who may have different views of the same data as proof the data is a "lie".

Whether it's "evolution, global warming, or whatever". In the "simple" world of the right wing, if the answer isn't "simple" or if it's "debated", then that means evolution is a lie and global warming is fake. And that's what it's all about. We have a name for those that prefer "simple".
It's "Simpleton".

 

[PoliticalChic]

I love the "either/or" world of the right. Everything black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. Such a "simple" world.

There is no doubt of an impact. The entire central part of the US has enormous iridium deposits that match the timing of the creator and the geology perfectly.

The debate is whether the "impact" was the "reason" the dinosaurs became extinct or the "final nail in the coffin" of an on going process that included weather change, massive volcanic activity, disease or possibly a combination of all three.

What I don't like about the right questioning science is their motivation.

Science questions itself all the time. That's the nature of science. The goal post is forever being moved as new evidence is discovered, knowledge and understanding obtained and new interpretation of existing date being discussed. But the motivation of the right isn't any of these things. For the right, it's all about "discredit".

The right points to scientists who may have different views of the same data as proof the data is a "lie".

Whether it's "evolution, global warming, or whatever". In the "simple" world of the right wing, if the answer isn't "simple" or if it's "debated", then that means evolution is a lie and global warming is fake. And that's what it's all about. We have a name for those that prefer "simple".
It's "Simpleton".

OK, thanks for the help...now I can address you correctly: Simpleton.

I don't mind explaining it ...again...since a Conservative is never so tall as when she stoops to help a Liberal understand.

You see, deanie-weanie..oops, I mean simpleton, the OP is not about science, but rather about the insidious nature of our liberals friends.

Disguised as scientists, and, of couse, this is the part that confused you, they are actually progressive/modern liberals, or- as Judge Bork refers to them, ,radical egalitarians,, who need to make sure that political agenda is supported fully by everyone they come in contact with ...sorry to end the sentence with a prepostion.

The libs have been anti-war, pacificists, since their great disappointment with President Woodrow Wilson. Their politicization of every issue overrides any interest in science, truth or interpersonal relations.

Now here is the key that will allow your mini-brain to unlock the essence of this thread: If one is opposed to any aspect- any - of the liberals' propaganda, then they must be manipulated, intimidated, and/or attacked:

1."...the impact theory has so polarized scientific thought that publication of research reports has sometimes been blocked by personal bias.”

2. "...dissenters from the meteorite theory have faced obstacles in their careers ..."

3. "...even privately branded as militarists..."

4. "...anyone who questions ..."

5. "...the theory that a lethal ''nuclear winter''...the movement for nuclear disarmament..."

6. "... debate over the accuracy of the prediction has become political..."

And this article is from the NYTimes!!!!

Why, I can practically hear you slapping your forehead, and saying "Oh...Now I get it...."

So you see, my dense little teddy bear, the naughty liberals are always imposing outlooks and ways of thinking on unsuspecting individuals.
Now, stop being an unsuspecting individual.


Now, for any readers who are a couple of notches above deanie....er, the simpleton,
here, ideas from Melanie Philips, "The World Turned Upside Down:"

"[There are] extraordinary similarities between the attempt by the Western intelligentsia to impose secular ideologies such as materialism, environmentalism or scientism and the attempt to impose Islam on the free world. Not only do these ideologies display zero tolerance for dissent, but in enforcing what amounts to a secular Inquisition the Western world displays a modernized version of medieval millenarian and apocalyptic movements- replicated also in the present-day Islamic jihad- which not only repudiated reason in the name of religion but led to tyranny, oppression, persecution and war."

I think, friends, that the OP exposes another example of said "zero tolerance for dissent" and "a secular Inquisition the Western world displays a modernized version of medieval millenarian and apocalyptic movements..."

 

[midcan5]

Need a look at how the rabid modern liberals can pollute and corrupt every sphere of endeavor? Obviously it is easier to politicize fields like law or history, but even science?

Does ‘dissenters’ sound a bit like ‘deniers’?

PC, you need psychiatric help, there are no liberals under the bed or in the closet, trust me. Have mommy or daddy check if you still doubt. And good luck.

And what is really weird is I can already guess your reply. Maybe electric shock treatment? To repeat good luck.


"Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect." Herbert Spencer

 

[PoliticalChic]

Need a look at how the rabid modern liberals can pollute and corrupt every sphere of endeavor? Obviously it is easier to politicize fields like law or history, but even science?

Does ‘dissenters’ sound a bit like ‘deniers’?

PC, you need psychiatric help, there are no liberals under the bed or in the closet, trust me. Have mommy or daddy check if you still doubt. And good luck.

And what is really weird is I can already guess your reply. Maybe electric shock treatment? To repeat good luck.


"Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect." Herbert Spencer

As you are unaware or unable to comprehend the damage done to freedom and liberty by the radical egalitarianism of folks like your self, I must tell you that you appear somewhat silly and possibly invidious, in attempting to dissuade me from revealing real and dangerous trends by the use of some sort of personal insult.

I am somewhere between you, and tough.

I take no satisfaction, as in 'I told you so," each time a new element of the Liberal sharia is imposed on a formerly free society,...you can't say this, or you can no longer do that, or eat or drink that...

the kids can't play dodgeball, or buy candy cigarettes, ...

or what ever good arguments you folks come up with for controlling other people's lives...

never allowing a good crisis to go to waste.

But, on the bright side, I must be making some headway if you fear what I say to this extent...

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Come on, PC, enough bullshit.

Very few paleontologists dismiss the massive strike at Chixculub as immaterial to the extinction event at the end of the Creteceous.

Very few climatololgists dismiss man's influence through the massive release of GHGs from fossil fuel use in the present warming that we are seeing.

If the reality of the scientific consensus is offensive to you because of politics, perhaps you should change your politics to include reality.

The breadth of your scientific knowledge is staggering. You are an expert on climatology, alternative energy, and now you show your expertise in paleontology.

By the way, it is entirely possible that the scientific consensus is wrong. It wasn't that long ago that the scientific consensus was that we were headed for a man caused Ice Age.

That doesn't mean it's always, or even usually, wrong.

Consensus is based on data and research. It's not some sort of obscure secretive thing.

If you can point to a place where I said it anything like that you might be able to use that as a rebuttal to my post. That said, I would like to point out that consensus is often based on anything but data. A prime example of this is the case of al-Megrahi, where the "medical consensus" was that he would be dead within 3 months. How long ago was that again?

Quite often the consensus is nothing more than group belief, and group belief is entrenched as deeply in science as it is anywhere else. Everyone who studies science needs to remind themselves that everything can be questioned, and when you start to forget that, and insist that anyone who actually challenges you is an idiot, then you are the one who is wrong, even if you are right. I like to remind myself of that as often as possible.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

What makes them "dissenters" that deserve your support, as opposed to being bad scientists? Are they not toeing the "party line" or are they the equivalent of "Flat Earthers" and "Creationists"?

The more vehement the opposition to them from the establishment, the more likely they are to be deserving of support. People generally react defensively when they are unsure about their data themselves. The more emotional people get about it, the more likely is is that they are wrong. No scientist even bothers to refute flat earthers anymore because they are not worth their time.

I bet you thought there was no answer to that question.

 

[code1211]

The problem here is that there doesn't appear to be a better theory to fit the facts for the dinosaur extinction than a catastrophic hit. We have all the evidence of a catastrophic hit, a mass die off that chronologically followed, etc. As far as theories go, its practically a slam dunk.

So what do you do with folks that want to ignore facts without any basis? I mean really, what do you do? Mathematicians all over the country gets "proofs", and I use the term loosely, by amateur mathematicians that claim to have squared the circle, doubled the cube, or developed a method to trisect any angle. We still get folks that want to "prove" the parallel postulate despite the fact that the issue has been settled for hundreds of years.

At some point, you just have to laugh them off and ignore them.

There is a flip side. In mathematics the folks that settled the parallel postulate also frequently met with rabid resistance. Even in a field like mathematics where truth is demonstrable, there is a resistance to new ideas when old ones seem to work. It might be these paleontologists have a good theorem and are encountering the natural resistance to that.

That natural resistance is a good thing actually. It means that science doesn't jump willy nilly from idea to idea on a weekly basis. It means that all ideas get a through vetting before they become accepted. Or at least that's the theory. Math is filled with new ideas that needed fundamental work in order to be correct. Calculus and Set Theory had substantial fundamental flaws that had to be worked out over time. These problems were found and fixed because of a healthy skepticism about new ideas, and thanks to that we have a more rigorous theory.

I realize that you are discussing the science and not the spin that the OP is posting about. I want to do the same.

I cannot produce a link for this as it was on TV. There was a show containing a discussion of the KT Boundary and the extiction of the Dinosaurs. It seemed to be aimed at a Junior High Level Audience, so I was in the cross hairs.

They noted that there were no Dinosaur fossils above the line. They also noted that the both the variety and the quantity of Dinosaur fossils was decreasing in the sediment layers approaching the line. They noted various conditions leading up to the impact and conjectured that it was possible that the impact event caused the extinction, that the extiction was already unavoidable and the impact only put a strong punctuation mark on it and that the extinction might already have been complete before the impact occurred.

At the range of 65 million years into the past, pin pointing an exact date is a little tricky.

 

[rdean]

The problem here is that there doesn't appear to be a better theory to fit the facts for the dinosaur extinction than a catastrophic hit. We have all the evidence of a catastrophic hit, a mass die off that chronologically followed, etc. As far as theories go, its practically a slam dunk.

So what do you do with folks that want to ignore facts without any basis? I mean really, what do you do? Mathematicians all over the country gets "proofs", and I use the term loosely, by amateur mathematicians that claim to have squared the circle, doubled the cube, or developed a method to trisect any angle. We still get folks that want to "prove" the parallel postulate despite the fact that the issue has been settled for hundreds of years.

At some point, you just have to laugh them off and ignore them.

There is a flip side. In mathematics the folks that settled the parallel postulate also frequently met with rabid resistance. Even in a field like mathematics where truth is demonstrable, there is a resistance to new ideas when old ones seem to work. It might be these paleontologists have a good theorem and are encountering the natural resistance to that.

That natural resistance is a good thing actually. It means that science doesn't jump willy nilly from idea to idea on a weekly basis. It means that all ideas get a through vetting before they become accepted. Or at least that's the theory. Math is filled with new ideas that needed fundamental work in order to be correct. Calculus and Set Theory had substantial fundamental flaws that had to be worked out over time. These problems were found and fixed because of a healthy skepticism about new ideas, and thanks to that we have a more rigorous theory.

I realize that you are discussing the science and not the spin that the OP is posting about. I want to do the same.

I cannot produce a link for this as it was on TV. There was a show containing a discussion of the KT Boundary and the extiction of the Dinosaurs. It seemed to be aimed at a Junior High Level Audience, so I was in the cross hairs.

They noted that there were no Dinosaur fossils above the line. They also noted that the both the variety and the quantity of Dinosaur fossils was decreasing in the sediment layers approaching the line. They noted various conditions leading up to the impact and conjectured that it was possible that the impact event caused the extinction, that the extiction was already unavoidable and the impact only put a strong punctuation mark on it and that the extinction might already have been complete before the impact occurred.

At the range of 65 million years into the past, pin pointing an exact date is a little tricky.

That's pretty much what I said in Post #21.

The right doesn't care about the actual "facts", whatever they may or may not be. What they like to do is point to scientists in disagreement because they believe that somehow, that disagreement means the "alternate theory" of "magical creation" is just as valid as interpreting data.

 

[Old Rocks]

Come on, PC, enough bullshit.

Very few paleontologists dismiss the massive strike at Chixculub as immaterial to the extinction event at the end of the Creteceous.

Very few climatololgists dismiss man's influence through the massive release of GHGs from fossil fuel use in the present warming that we are seeing.

If the reality of the scientific consensus is offensive to you because of politics, perhaps you should change your politics to include reality.

The breadth of your scientific knowledge is staggering. You are an expert on climatology, alternative energy, and now you show your expertise in paleontology.

By the way, it is entirely possible that the scientific consensus is wrong. It wasn't that long ago that the scientific consensus was that we were headed for a man caused Ice Age.

Never happened, Quantum.

What 1970s science said about global cooling

So in fact, the large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than climate science predicting cooling, the opposite is the case. Most interesting about Peterson's paper is not the debunking of an already well debunked skeptic argument but a succinct history of climate science over the 20th century, describing how scientists from different fields gradually pieced together their diverse findings into a more unified picture of how climate operates. A must read paper.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The problem here is that there doesn't appear to be a better theory to fit the facts for the dinosaur extinction than a catastrophic hit. We have all the evidence of a catastrophic hit, a mass die off that chronologically followed, etc. As far as theories go, its practically a slam dunk.

So what do you do with folks that want to ignore facts without any basis? I mean really, what do you do? Mathematicians all over the country gets "proofs", and I use the term loosely, by amateur mathematicians that claim to have squared the circle, doubled the cube, or developed a method to trisect any angle. We still get folks that want to "prove" the parallel postulate despite the fact that the issue has been settled for hundreds of years.

At some point, you just have to laugh them off and ignore them.

There is a flip side. In mathematics the folks that settled the parallel postulate also frequently met with rabid resistance. Even in a field like mathematics where truth is demonstrable, there is a resistance to new ideas when old ones seem to work. It might be these paleontologists have a good theorem and are encountering the natural resistance to that.

That natural resistance is a good thing actually. It means that science doesn't jump willy nilly from idea to idea on a weekly basis. It means that all ideas get a through vetting before they become accepted. Or at least that's the theory. Math is filled with new ideas that needed fundamental work in order to be correct. Calculus and Set Theory had substantial fundamental flaws that had to be worked out over time. These problems were found and fixed because of a healthy skepticism about new ideas, and thanks to that we have a more rigorous theory.

I realize that you are discussing the science and not the spin that the OP is posting about. I want to do the same.

I cannot produce a link for this as it was on TV. There was a show containing a discussion of the KT Boundary and the extiction of the Dinosaurs. It seemed to be aimed at a Junior High Level Audience, so I was in the cross hairs.

They noted that there were no Dinosaur fossils above the line. They also noted that the both the variety and the quantity of Dinosaur fossils was decreasing in the sediment layers approaching the line. They noted various conditions leading up to the impact and conjectured that it was possible that the impact event caused the extinction, that the extiction was already unavoidable and the impact only put a strong punctuation mark on it and that the extinction might already have been complete before the impact occurred.

At the range of 65 million years into the past, pin pointing an exact date is a little tricky.

That's pretty much what I said in Post #21.

The right doesn't care about the actual "facts", whatever they may or may not be. What they like to do is point to scientists in disagreement because they believe that somehow, that disagreement means the "alternate theory" of "magical creation" is just as valid as interpreting data.

Aren't you the one that ignores the fact that Obama is just as bad as Bush when it comes to science? Why do you keep insisting that only Republicans hate science when the Obama administration is systematically gutting the only federal agency dedicated to science, routinely ignores the recommendation of its own scientific experts, and even misrepresents those science experts in documents filed in court?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Come on, PC, enough bullshit.

Very few paleontologists dismiss the massive strike at Chixculub as immaterial to the extinction event at the end of the Creteceous.

Very few climatololgists dismiss man's influence through the massive release of GHGs from fossil fuel use in the present warming that we are seeing.

If the reality of the scientific consensus is offensive to you because of politics, perhaps you should change your politics to include reality.

The breadth of your scientific knowledge is staggering. You are an expert on climatology, alternative energy, and now you show your expertise in paleontology.

By the way, it is entirely possible that the scientific consensus is wrong. It wasn't that long ago that the scientific consensus was that we were headed for a man caused Ice Age.

Never happened, Quantum.

What 1970s science said about global cooling

So in fact, the large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than climate science predicting cooling, the opposite is the case. Most interesting about Peterson's paper is not the debunking of an already well debunked skeptic argument but a succinct history of climate science over the 20th century, describing how scientists from different fields gradually pieced together their diverse findings into a more unified picture of how climate operates. A must read paper.

I don't have to read an essay that tries to revise history.

The major concern of the early 1970s was that air pollution that was heavy in particulates could lead to global cooling.

10 Dec 1976 Science magazine warned of extensive northern hemisphere glaciation as a result of the projected cooling.

Feb 1973 Science Digest reported that the consensus of climatologists was that we needed to prepare for an ice age.

I could go on citing articles from the time period that prove that the consensus back then was that we were headed for a period of cooling, and I am sure you can find more idiots that are willing to deny the facts and rewrite history. Since I can point to actual peer reviewed articles that existed in the 1970s, and actually are still available to anyone who wants to look them up, and all you can point to is a blog that ignores those papers and that consensus.

BTW, the reason that they were wrong then is not that CO2 is a better greenhouse gas than was thought back then, it is that we tackled the problem of particulate based air pollution and won.

 

[geauxtohell]

If you can point to a place where I said it anything like that you might be able to use that as a rebuttal to my post. That said, I would like to point out that consensus is often based on anything but data. A prime example of this is the case of al-Megrahi, where the "medical consensus" was that he would be dead within 3 months. How long ago was that again?

Quite often the consensus is nothing more than group belief, and group belief is entrenched as deeply in science as it is anywhere else. Everyone who studies science needs to remind themselves that everything can be questioned, and when you start to forget that, and insist that anyone who actually challenges you is an idiot, then you are the one who is wrong, even if you are right. I like to remind myself of that as often as possible.

Your statement of opinion is just absurd. As I've often pointed out on here, consensus isn't some sort of discreet/binary thing. It's just the conclusion that the vast majority of experts in the field reach upon analyzing the data. If there is nothing to analyze, there is no consensus.

The consensus is that HIV causes AIDs. There are some scientists and physicians who doubt that (Ron Paul for example) but the data is so overwhelming (i.e. there is a perfect correlation between HIV infection, low CD4 counts and HIV) that eventually the objections have little impact because they are basically not grounded in any sort of reasonable facts.

The consensus is that cigarette smoke leads to lung cancer. There are some people that doubt this. Again, the data is overwhelming.

Acting like there is no data to support global warming is absurd. There might be reasonable objections, but the burden of proof is on the people making the objections.

Apparently, since these objections are not successful in gaining any traction, the people who are desperate to discredit global warming have to claim that there is a vast conspiracy that is ongoing and now have resorted to attacking the entire field of science and the scientific method. That's how desperate you guys are to disprove global warming. You are more then welcome to kick against the wind. It's just not terribly impressive.

Finally, your example is a prognosis. Prognosis' are notoriously inaccurate and any physician will tell you that it's just a "best guess". There is no rubric or schematic to make a prognosis and no one in the field views a prognosis as 100% accurate.

 

[IanC]

Powered by Google Docs

Here is a short lecture from my personal hero, Richard Feynman. It describes how to do science and explains the type of errors that you can make. Global Warming science is chock full of all the things he said to avoid. AWG may be true or false, but we can't tell from the evidence that is being presented. In particular he says to avoid data mining and selective publishing. Needless to say, AGW falls apart if it has to follow the rules of true science.

 

[Old Rocks]

The breadth of your scientific knowledge is staggering. You are an expert on climatology, alternative energy, and now you show your expertise in paleontology.

By the way, it is entirely possible that the scientific consensus is wrong. It wasn't that long ago that the scientific consensus was that we were headed for a man caused Ice Age.

Never happened, Quantum.

What 1970s science said about global cooling

So in fact, the large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than climate science predicting cooling, the opposite is the case. Most interesting about Peterson's paper is not the debunking of an already well debunked skeptic argument but a succinct history of climate science over the 20th century, describing how scientists from different fields gradually pieced together their diverse findings into a more unified picture of how climate operates. A must read paper.

I don't have to read an essay that tries to revise history.The major concern of the early 1970s was that air pollution that was heavy in particulates could lead to global cooling.

10 Dec 1976 Science magazine warned of extensive northern hemisphere glaciation as a result of the projected cooling.

Feb 1973 Science Digest reported that the consensus of climatologists was that we needed to prepare for an ice age.

I could go on citing articles from the time period that prove that the consensus back then was that we were headed for a period of cooling, and I am sure you can find more idiots that are willing to deny the facts and rewrite history. Since I can point to actual peer reviewed articles that existed in the 1970s, and actually are still available to anyone who wants to look them up, and all you can point to is a blog that ignores those papers and that consensus.

BTW, the reason that they were wrong then is not that CO2 is a better greenhouse gas than was thought back then, it is that we tackled the problem of particulate based air pollution and won.

In other words, you are not even going to look at something that proves that you are completely wrong. I read the article published by the NAS concerning climate when it came out in 1975. And the conclusion was that we did not know enough about climate forcing at that time to make definative predictions. Also, it stated that the opinions of the authors of the article was that we were more likely to be headed for a warming, rather than a cooling.

Have you read Hansen's paper concerning what you are talking about?

 

[Old Rocks]

Powered by Google Docs

Here is a short lecture from my personal hero, Richard Feynman. It describes how to do science and explains the type of errors that you can make. Global Warming science is chock full of all the things he said to avoid. AWG may be true or false, but we can't tell from the evidence that is being presented. In particular he says to avoid data mining and selective publishing. Needless to say, AGW falls apart if it has to follow the rules of true science.

I see. Then we are just to ignore melting Ice Caps and Glaciers?

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

 

[code1211]

If you can point to a place where I said it anything like that you might be able to use that as a rebuttal to my post. That said, I would like to point out that consensus is often based on anything but data. A prime example of this is the case of al-Megrahi, where the "medical consensus" was that he would be dead within 3 months. How long ago was that again?

Quite often the consensus is nothing more than group belief, and group belief is entrenched as deeply in science as it is anywhere else. Everyone who studies science needs to remind themselves that everything can be questioned, and when you start to forget that, and insist that anyone who actually challenges you is an idiot, then you are the one who is wrong, even if you are right. I like to remind myself of that as often as possible.

Your statement of opinion is just absurd. As I've often pointed out on here, consensus isn't some sort of discreet/binary thing. It's just the conclusion that the vast majority of experts in the field reach upon analyzing the data. If there is nothing to analyze, there is no consensus.

The consensus is that HIV causes AIDs. There are some scientists and physicians who doubt that (Ron Paul for example) but the data is so overwhelming (i.e. there is a perfect correlation between HIV infection, low CD4 counts and HIV) that eventually the objections have little impact because they are basically not grounded in any sort of reasonable facts.

The consensus is that cigarette smoke leads to lung cancer. There are some people that doubt this. Again, the data is overwhelming.

Acting like there is no data to support global warming is absurd. There might be reasonable objections, but the burden of proof is on the people making the objections. Apparently, since these objections are not successful in gaining any traction, the people who are desperate to discredit global warming have to claim that there is a vast conspiracy that is ongoing and now have resorted to attacking the entire field of science and the scientific method. That's how desperate you guys are to disprove global warming. You are more then welcome to kick against the wind. It's just not terribly impressive.

Finally, your example is a prognosis. Prognosis' are notoriously inaccurate and any physician will tell you that it's just a "best guess". There is no rubric or schematic to make a prognosis and no one in the field views a prognosis as 100% accurate.

The burden of proof is not on those objecting to others who claim to have the facts when all they have are feelings. The burden of proof is on those who are making the claims to prove their claims. So far, they have not.

The proof I ask is that the cause of Global Warming be shown conclusively and EXclusively to be what the proponents claim it to be. It is they who are claiming to have proof and also they who claim that only draconian changes to the society and the world economy can avert the disaster they forsee.

Did you notice that the runaway warming, which was lagging the prediction of the leading expert in the field, stopped running away when the sun spot count dropped? Did you notice that the warming has resumed now that the Sun Spot count is rising again?

What became of CO2 in the two time frames? It was still there and yet the climate just seemed to act independantly ol' CO2's influence. Did CO2 take some time off?

Must be Union CO2.

 

[Old Rocks]

As one of those American Workers that you deem to be of no worth, I ask you Code, did you not notice that there have been natural variations in the climate for the last 180 years that we have kept records. And that the variations in the last 50 years have been no differant, except they are on a line that shows an accelerating increase in temperature. In fact, 2008, a year of a strong La Nina and the least sunspots seen in nearly 100 years, came in as the eighth or tenth warmest on record.

By what you say, should 2008 not have come in as the eighth or tenth coolest year on record? Why did it not? Can you answer that?

Here are several graphs by differant scientists. Scientists not political partisans denying reality like you.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If you can point to a place where I said it anything like that you might be able to use that as a rebuttal to my post. That said, I would like to point out that consensus is often based on anything but data. A prime example of this is the case of al-Megrahi, where the "medical consensus" was that he would be dead within 3 months. How long ago was that again?

Quite often the consensus is nothing more than group belief, and group belief is entrenched as deeply in science as it is anywhere else. Everyone who studies science needs to remind themselves that everything can be questioned, and when you start to forget that, and insist that anyone who actually challenges you is an idiot, then you are the one who is wrong, even if you are right. I like to remind myself of that as often as possible.

Your statement of opinion is just absurd. As I've often pointed out on here, consensus isn't some sort of discreet/binary thing. It's just the conclusion that the vast majority of experts in the field reach upon analyzing the data. If there is nothing to analyze, there is no consensus.

The consensus is that HIV causes AIDs. There are some scientists and physicians who doubt that (Ron Paul for example) but the data is so overwhelming (i.e. there is a perfect correlation between HIV infection, low CD4 counts and HIV) that eventually the objections have little impact because they are basically not grounded in any sort of reasonable facts.

The consensus is that cigarette smoke leads to lung cancer. There are some people that doubt this. Again, the data is overwhelming.

Acting like there is no data to support global warming is absurd. There might be reasonable objections, but the burden of proof is on the people making the objections.

Apparently, since these objections are not successful in gaining any traction, the people who are desperate to discredit global warming have to claim that there is a vast conspiracy that is ongoing and now have resorted to attacking the entire field of science and the scientific method. That's how desperate you guys are to disprove global warming. You are more then welcome to kick against the wind. It's just not terribly impressive.

Finally, your example is a prognosis. Prognosis' are notoriously inaccurate and any physician will tell you that it's just a "best guess". There is no rubric or schematic to make a prognosis and no one in the field views a prognosis as 100% accurate.

The global warming "consensus" that is trying to tell me that this is the worst thing that has ever happened, and we need to fix it now, is not based on data of any type. It is based on nothing more than political expediency. Show me anywhere where I said that global warming is not occurring. I will guarantee you cannot do so. What I have said is that people like Al Gore is using the fact of global warming as a political cover to spread his agenda. I have also said that a general warming of the globe will benefit more countries than it harms. Unless you actually challenge my position, and not the one you think I have, you are an idiot, and I will continue to treat you like one.

 

[rdean]

I realize that you are discussing the science and not the spin that the OP is posting about. I want to do the same.

I cannot produce a link for this as it was on TV. There was a show containing a discussion of the KT Boundary and the extiction of the Dinosaurs. It seemed to be aimed at a Junior High Level Audience, so I was in the cross hairs.

They noted that there were no Dinosaur fossils above the line. They also noted that the both the variety and the quantity of Dinosaur fossils was decreasing in the sediment layers approaching the line. They noted various conditions leading up to the impact and conjectured that it was possible that the impact event caused the extinction, that the extiction was already unavoidable and the impact only put a strong punctuation mark on it and that the extinction might already have been complete before the impact occurred.

At the range of 65 million years into the past, pin pointing an exact date is a little tricky.

That's pretty much what I said in Post #21.

The right doesn't care about the actual "facts", whatever they may or may not be. What they like to do is point to scientists in disagreement because they believe that somehow, that disagreement means the "alternate theory" of "magical creation" is just as valid as interpreting data.

Aren't you the one that ignores the fact that Obama is just as bad as Bush when it comes to science? Why do you keep insisting that only Republicans hate science when the Obama administration is systematically gutting the only federal agency dedicated to science, routinely ignores the recommendation of its own scientific experts, and even misrepresents those science experts in documents filed in court?

Who even knows what you are talking about.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

That's pretty much what I said in Post #21.

The right doesn't care about the actual "facts", whatever they may or may not be. What they like to do is point to scientists in disagreement because they believe that somehow, that disagreement means the "alternate theory" of "magical creation" is just as valid as interpreting data.

Aren't you the one that ignores the fact that Obama is just as bad as Bush when it comes to science? Why do you keep insisting that only Republicans hate science when the Obama administration is systematically gutting the only federal agency dedicated to science, routinely ignores the recommendation of its own scientific experts, and even misrepresents those science experts in documents filed in court?

Who even knows what you are talking about.

This

http://www.usmessageboard.com/the-f...cientist-think-obama-is-the-same-as-bush.html