TopGunna
Member
When my kids were little the doctors did predict what height they would grow to, based on what height they were at that age and the heights of me and my husband (IIFC). So while the parent's milk consumption might not be an indicator, the milk consumption of generations may be an indicator. Which is where genetics comes into play.
I don't think I made my point as clearly as I would have liked.
We're testing the hypothesis of milk consumption's effect on height. The hypothesis is that the nutritional value of milk helps with growth (A causes B). I believe that is true (much like I believe that atmospheric CO2 does trap heat).
My point is that you can't infer that a tall person is tall because they drank lots of milk growing up. If A always causes B, and B is observed, that does not necessarily mean that A is present. There may be other variables responsble for B that are much more important - things you mentioned, like the height of the parents (or in the AGW case, solar variations or the thousands of other variables we don't understand nearly as well).
However, the contrapositive can be tested to invalidate the original hypothesis. If A always causes B, and B is not present, then A must not be at work. In other words, a very short person may consume a lot of milk but have no height to show for it - meaning that milk consumption is not the most important predictor of someone's height. The other variables are the more important ones to consider.
Likewise, if temperatures have dropped over the past 10 years, CO2 forcings cannot be driving the temperature. CO2 does cause heat to trap, which in turn causes more CO2 to evaporate from the oceans. If this were the only forcing at work, this infinite loop would have led to runaway temperatures a long time ago. The fact that other variables in our climate are allowing this excess heat to escape tells me that those variables are the ones we should concern ourselves with.