Say Anything Blog

This is cool.  It is so much fun being right and watching the demise of liberal dogma like MMGW.  What is more interesting is the division within the scientific community over something as simple as global warming. How could so many well educated men and women be so wrong on something as simple as MMGW? Simple, that is, relative to much, much more complex science like the origin of the species. 

It would be nice to live on this earth long enough to see the demise of evolution, if not, there’s always judgment day… but that kinda takes all the fun out of being right.

The consensus is among socialists.  100% of socialists agree that the only way they’ll advance their agenda is with the global warming scam.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Wow,

This truly is a damaging report. Especially since it is sourced to the US Senate. And as everyone knows, that’s where all well-informed science comes from. Actually, its coming from Sen. Inhofe, who has truly been a paragon of intellectual rigor and staunch advocate of science. And as he hasn’t been caught propositioning another male in a bathroom, yet, I guess we should take this politician’s interpretations of science at face value.

So let me get this straight, a historian interprets science literature and decides it fits into qualitative catagories. Notably absent from this article is any qualitative empiracle analysis, apart from this historian’s interpretation of ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit.’

In other words: where’s the beef?

So please continue your consumption habits; you and the rest of humanity is now emancipated from your lifestyle choices. Senator Inhofe says so.

Oh, and aprapos of your picture: polar bears are from the north pole, penguins from the south, so they’re about as likely to grill out a penguin as they are to watch a DVD in the snow.

Turns out you can’t refute the facts.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Read this in this month’s National Geographic. Proof’s recent embrace of ‘scientific consensus’ reminded me of it:

Pervez Hoodbhoy lives every day with the consequences of the lack of public education in Pakistan. An MIT-trained professor of nuclear physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, he was speaking to a graduate-level class in physics a few days after the huge earthquake that devastated Kashmir in 2005, describing the geophysical forces that produced the disaster. “When I finished, hands shot up all over the room,” he recalls. “‘Professor, you are wrong,’ my students said. ‘That earthquake was the wrath of God.’ “

This, he says, is the legacy of General Zia-ul-Haq, whose education ministry issued guidelines on bringing an Islamic perspective to science and other subjects in the public schools. “The Zia Generation has come of age,” he says. “It isn’t Islamic to teach that earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates. Instead, you are supposed to say, by the will of Allah, an earthquake happens.” Today a government commission is working to modernize education, but “it goes deeper than updating textbooks,” he says. “It’s a matter of changing society.”

You don’t have to squint to see the analogy here…

Turns out you can’t refute the facts.

Whistler: I’m kinda new to this whole science thing. Please help me understand the facts in Senator Inhofe’s article.

Where are they?

The Church of Liberalism worships the Terrible God of Global Warming?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Read the link and go back and look up the study if you can’t understand.

There’s plenty of information there for you to find everything you wish.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

In other words: where’s the beef?

There isn’t much if any.  That is why MMGW is such a political scam.  Remember,
“we can’t afford to be wrong about MMGW”?  That is the mantra from the left and, according to this article, a minority in the scientific community.  Pretty pathetic when science abandons fact and makes hasty generalizations based upon a false cause then presents a slippery slope of subsequent global disaster leaving us with the false dilemma and an emotional plea: “we can’t afford to be wrong about MMGW”.

Oh yeah, that’s science.

Although, for many scientists there is a smidgen truth in thier plea.  Money and credibility is going to be harder to find after this MMGW scare is proven to be the political hoax that it is.

MMGW would be very simple to prove.  Build a model beginning at a known starting point and have it explain how we got here.

Then make some predictions on the global weather for next year and the next and the next.

The more predictions they hit the more credibility they have when they ask me to change my lifestyle.

The fact is that they don’t have nothing that can explain where we are and they can’t predict jack.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Whistler- I did.

It is essentially an op-ed piece produced by federal tax dollars and a hyperpartisan with a known bias against science.

Again, I ask, where is the beef? You pretend it is self-evident. Maybe if I had a degree in history rather than one in engineering, I’d have a more complete understanding of science. Maybe I should have taken classes in 18th century agriarian trends in North America rather than thermodynamics. Maybe I should of boned up on Shakespeare rather than differential equations, but this is all opine porcine denialist bull$hit.

Hell, the article linked in the blog post cited above comes from a character called: ‘The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.’

W.

T.

F?!?!?

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf

Maybe you can find an article by Count Chockula and Booberry that also bolsters your case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley

The article spends most of its time saying how wrong science/scientists are and then revels in a newfound perception that the scientists don’t agree. So, not only is it factually wrong, but it is ideologicallyinconsistent to boot. Scientists are wrong but they almost agree with us!!11eleven!!1! The article drools/misquotes over Hansen, again, on page 14. Gee, that old piece of tripe hasn’t been debunked a dozen times now, hasn’t it?

You believe whatever it is you want to believe, just don’t lie to your self and call it knowledge or science. Otherwise you’re just as deluded as a madrassa-trained ideologue who thinks Allah is responsible for techtonic motion.

Here’s a napkin for your drool, say hello to the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, old bean. I’m outta here.

Proof’s recent embrace of ‘scientific consensus’

Hello! McFly? Hello! Congratulations for missing the ENTIRE point! Consensus has always been a lousy way to conduct science! As in:A consensus agrees the world is flat!
It was the MMGW group that touted consensus, as if it were the Holy Grail. This article just shows that they don’t even have that!

aprapos of your picture: polar bears are ... about as likely to grill out a penguin as they are to watch a DVD in the snow.

Nice, genius! I pulled this pic off the web a month or so ago for a Goracle story. Newsflash: It’s a joke! (Much like your thoughtful analysis, or doom and gloom global warming fanatics!)

A troll is someone who only wants to stir up trouble, not have an honest debate.  Some signs that a poster is a troll:
* Dodges questions from other posters * Refuses to give sources
* When one of its arguments is shown to be false, either ignores the proof or moves the goalposts.  Heh. (From the LGF faq)

* claims that the study was done by the Senate when that’s not the truth at all.

Now the link does say that the study hasn’t been published yet, but DailyTech claims to have a pre-publication version of.

By the way, it’s up to the proponents of the MMGW theory to prove it not just talk about their theories and demand we kowtow to their wishes.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

You know, I really wish I had closed this browser out when I got back to the computer, rather than hit refresh, but I am glad to see Proof channel Biff to make an intellectual point.

Whistler, I followed the link that the esteemed Scientitian Inhofe provided. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you are getting your scientistic information from the Peerage Lord, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.

I cordially invite you to review the post’s own source:

6) A July 2007 review of 539 abstracts in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2004 through 2007 found that climate science continues to shift toward the views of global warming skeptics. Excerpt: “There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm.”

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf

By the way, it’s up to the proponents of the MMGW theory to prove it not just talk about their theories and demand we kowtow to their wishes.

I don’t recall demanding you kowtow to my wishes. In fact I’ll reiterate what I said earlier: you continue to believe what you want; just understand that the science you are choosing to believe is brought to you by a senator with a BA degree from Tulsa and a peerage lord. Is that what passes for kowtowing these days?

I’m curious, would you please let me know which side of the “techtonic plate vs. will of Allah” school of geophysics you fall on.

By the way, I really like the coat of arms the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley has. It’s real sciencey.

What are you talking about.  They’re referring to a study of climatology papers by a Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, not James Inofe (although I think he’s right).

This study refutes a earlier study that the collectivists used to prove the so-called consensus.

Unfortunately the political ramification of global warming don’t just live and let live.  The collectivists push the scam will limit the kind of car I can drive, the groceries I can afford, the size of house I can own, the number of kids my kids will be able to have.

It’s up to them to prove that man’s causing global warming (the Earths been warming since the last ice age) AND prove that global warming is a bad thing before they have any right whatsoever to tell me what to do.

They can’t explain how we got here and they can’t tell me what the weather will be like next week.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

What am I talking about? Boy, it sure would be helpful if I read an article you and Proof sourced, and then quoted/linked back to it.

Wait, a second- I did precisely that?!? You don’t say.

Unfortunately the political ramification of global warming don’t just live and let live.  The collectivists push the scam will limit the kind of car I can drive, the groceries I can afford, the size of house I can own, the number of kids my kids will be able to have.

Yeah, that’s EXACTLY what I’ve been saying here. Telling you, repeatedly, that you can believe whatever it is you want to believe (but cautioning you that your sources may be full of it) is EXACTLY the same thing as authoritarian social engineering and mandatory rationing. Look, you don’t have to make thoughtful assessments on how your lifestyle impacts yourself, your children, or (God forbid) the rest of humanity; just do yourself a favor and don’t lie to yourself.

Oh, and I truly admire your persecution complex when it comes to the denial of science. It all seems… vaguely familiar.

Where have I heard this before?

In a 2006 interview with the Tulsa World newspaper, Inhofe compared environmentalists to Nazis. He said, “It kind of reminds… I could use the Third Reich, the Big Lie… You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that’s their [the environmentalists’] strategy… A hot summer has nothing to do with global warming. Let’s keep in mind it was just three weeks ago that people were saying, ‘Wait a minute; it is unusually cool....” He then said, “Everything on which they [the environmentalists] based their story, in terms of the facts, has been refuted scientifically.” Inhofe had previously compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhofe#Environmental_record

The question that this exchanges raises is whether asstrix can can read past a fourth-grade comprehension level.  I don’t have nearly the time required to enumerate the long list of errors he has made in a short time For example here:

So let me get this straight, a historian interprets science literature and decides it fits into qualitative catagories. Notably absent from this article is any qualitative empiracle analysis, apart from this historian’s interpretation of ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit.’

* The “historian” he keeps referring to is Naomi Oreskes, who published a study in 2004 claiming that there was a consensus among climate scientists for human-generated global warming. 

* Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte has a Ph.D. in biophysics, a much more apropos degree.

* What asstrix is doing in any case is using an appeal to authority to attempt to refute Dr. Schulte’s claims.  That of course is a form of logical fallacy.

* Similarly, his later derision of Monckton seems unjustified.  Ironically, many of Monckton’s critics themselves are not climate scientists, but rather ecologists with little formal science training.  Not that I want to get into that one on either side… just an observation.

Just for the sake of making the same comoment for the nth hundred time… Science is democratic.  One doesn’t use bona fides to establish who has the right to do science and who doesn’t.  We base our conclusions about a given argument based on the argument itself, not on who made the argument.

I haven’t found the original article yet, or even a preprint of it, but I don’t find the conclusions to be particularly shocking:  This is pretty much my experience in physics, I would say about 2/3s of the physicists I know are highly skeptical of the claims made by by some of the more outspoken climatologists, such as Michael “hockey stick” Mann or James “the end of creation” Hansen. 

Interestingly to me, Schulte found only one peer reviewed paper that endorsed the Algore position of GW leading to global catastrophe.

*,

So are you saying that no credible scientists disagree with MMGW?  That seems to be where you’re going with this.
The point is the science is inconclusive and we have no obligation buy into the scientific “consensus” (i.e. minority of scientist’s opinion) that humanity is the cause of a warming trend that may severely alter the world as we know it.  It is not proven and there is no consensus and we can’t afford to alter our entire way of life (i.e. implement socialist policies and severely reverse economically) over the opinions of a bunch of liberal, gov’t fed, reactionary, so-called scientists.

A number of things need to be proven before actions taken on global warming.

1.  It’s got to be proven that man is causing a significant amount of global warming.  (significant as in significant damaging.)

2.  It’s go to be proven that global warming would be even bad.

3.  Any fix imposed on us has to be proven to actually at least in part solve the problem.  (Kyoto would not have helped a darned thing.)

Now as Carricks explained to me before, changing the ratio of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere amounts to an uncontrolled experiment.  So if we can mitigate our emissions without harming our economy that’s a good thing.

So build more nuclear power plants.  Let the market operate as far as improving fuel efficiencies.  Research in things like Carbon sequestration is great (hopefully at UND’s energy research facility ).

Let’s not overreact and make things worse.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Science is democratic.  One doesn’t use bona fides to establish who has the right to do science and who doesn’t.  We base our conclusions about a given argument based on the argument itself, not on who made the argument.

Just a clarification for those with the fourth-grade reading comprehension:
“Science is democratic” doesn’t mean we get to vote on it!

A troll is someone who only wants to stir up trouble, not have an honest debate.  Some signs that a poster is a troll:
* Dodges questions from other posters * Refuses to give sources
* When one of its arguments is shown to be false, either ignores the proof or moves the goalposts.  Heh. (From the LGF faq)

Nor should it be politicized which is what happened when the socialists jumped on the Global Warming horse.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Proof:

“Science is democratic” doesn’t mean we get to vote on it!

LOL.

Of course, that’s the problem the that GW advocates have.  They’re trying to argue a consensus exists, when in fact it doesn’t (at least not the “end of creation” version).  Then they try to argue that their nonexistent plurality is proof of the fact of their claims.

There’s a factual error here as well as a logical one.

I am waiting for *hole or any other leftard to explain how they plan to turn down the Sun. THAT will be entertaining.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

2h9:  It’s not like the sun has a thermostat or off/on switch.

All it takes is to put up curtains.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

science uses inductive logic, which is fallible; deductive logic, it is more readily believed, is not. (examples -

induction:
This ice is cold.
...used to infer:
All ice is cold.

deduction:
If P, then Q.
Q is false.
Therefore, P is false.
(modus tollens))

Scientific theories can only be proven wrong, not right. Their ‘right-ness’ can only be probabilistic, at best. They can be supported heavily, but even if they have 1,000,000 examples in favor, all it takes is one or two appropriately controlled scenarios in which the theory does not obtain to thwart the present form of the theory. (for more, see Karl Popper.) I am not convinced that we are in any position to enact an appropriate test to affirm or deny the theory of human caused global warming.

if you guys really need/want it, i can post a keen summary of the main issues in philosophy of science… at least according to me…

All it takes is to put up curtains.

A troll is someone who only wants to stir up trouble, not have an honest debate.  Some signs that a poster is a troll:
* Dodges questions from other posters * Refuses to give sources
* When one of its arguments is shown to be false, either ignores the proof or moves the goalposts.  Heh. (From the LGF faq)

I am waiting for… any… leftard to explain how they plan to turn down the Sun.

I think I saw this phenomenon on the Simpsons once. It didn’t end well.

also, who cares what percentage of all scientists think this or that. this issue has some pretty relevant sub-categories within science. what are the percentages of scientists for and against in the sub-disciplines that specialize in this area?

This picture has been P H O T O S H O P P E D!

what, the headphones were added?

What picture?

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

OH! The picture at the top of this thread! Just got done cooking NY Strips, now eating rare beef and drinking cold beer. Not tracking well on this interweb thingy.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

eating rare beef and drinking cold beer.

(Not at ALL a tribute to Friday Night Babes!)

A troll is someone who only wants to stir up trouble, not have an honest debate.  Some signs that a poster is a troll:
* Dodges questions from other posters * Refuses to give sources
* When one of its arguments is shown to be false, either ignores the proof or moves the goalposts.  Heh. (From the LGF faq)

That gets me to trackin’ better!

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

Sparkie:

Scientific theories can only be proven wrong, not right.

But they can be proven right beyond any reasonable doubt. That’s the standard of proof, not beyond any possible made-up what-if reasoning…

There is a point beyond which where keeping too open a mind might result in your brain falling out!

Carrick
I am a philosopher. My point about whether science is right or wrong is about the fact that it uses inductive logic, which is fallible. ‘Reasonable doubt’ doesn’t mean a damn thing when you are talking about whether or not something is right or wrong. If the odds of me rolling 40 dice at once and getting all 1’s is 1:9,000,000,000,000,000 then it is not correct to say that I cannot roll all 1s. However, it may be beyond a reasonable doubt. So what? If science claims to know something… and all it knows is probability… that’s different. The general mode of reasoning that science uses goes something like this (let H be a hypothesis or theory and let I be some test result that is able to support it):
1) If H is true, then so is I.
2) (As the evidence shows) I is true.
----------------------------------
3) Therefore, H is true.
In popular science, there is generally a lot of tests, as you correctly pointed out, aimed at supporting or negating certain theories. We may end up with something like this:
1) If H is true, then so are I1, I2, .... In.
2) (As the evidence shows) I1, I2, .... In are all true.
--------------------------------------------
3) Therefore, H is true.
This form directly above would be characteristic of what you refer to in your ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ point. Unfortunately, both the inductive forms in this comment, despite the further support lent by the auxillary hypotheses in the second argument, both commit what’s known as ‘the fallacy of affirming the consequent’. Its an invalid argument, meaning that despite the truth value of premises 1 and 2, 3 is still false. If you want to get into degrees of FALSENESS, lets go there, but not degrees of TRUENESS or ‘reasonableness’ (which begs huge questions and adds an epistemological issue on top of the mess), because that just ain’t happening in these cases.

Carrick
A little clarification. I will allow that deductive logic can be used to find a new test. I, I1, I2...In, can all be arrived at with the use of deductive logic. Their ability to obtain or not can logically and validly relate to H - in a negative manner only. Once I, I1, I2...In obtain, it does not mean that H is true. I can be true while H is true or false. However, using the form I have laid out above, H can only be false if I is false. In this way, science can only be proven wrong.

There are other lines of attack. Some people, for example, believe that science is abduction, not deduction or induction. Exactly what that is remains a bit unclear to me.

Sparkie, the basic point here is there is a difference between mathematical proofs and practical ones.  You cannot mathematically prove that if you drop a lead ball it will always tend to fall towards the center of the Earth, nonetheless questioning this assertion would be quite absurd.  In that sense, demanding a mathematically pure proof is itself rather absurd.

So we are left with “proven true beyond reasonable doubt” as a useful empirical tool.  Which is my point, namely that it is a mere curiosity, of little practical value, that scientific theories can’t be proven “right”.

Some people… believe that science is abduction

Since the hard sciences are alien to so many students today, perhaps that would be “alien abduction”?

A troll is someone who only wants to stir up trouble, not have an honest debate.  Some signs that a poster is a troll:
* Dodges questions from other posters * Refuses to give sources
* When one of its arguments is shown to be false, either ignores the proof or moves the goalposts.  Heh. (From the LGF faq)

Carrick

namely that it is a mere curiosity

the ontology, tenets, and bredth of scientific knowledge have constantly been changing, refining, expanding, and shifting since the discipline began. one can expect that, no doubt, they will in the future. this penomenon, when considered, reveals the claim that science’s inability to prove things is a ‘mere curiousity’ is wishful, at best. many people, i feel, have professional and psychological barriers to believing one side or the other in this debate. nonetheless, it is fundamental and interesting.

Most of the people who believe science, math, and logic all prove something or not, whether they know it or not, are heavily influenced, directly or not, by the ‘logical positivists’. They broke with Mach, before them, and felt that a priori observation did play a role in science. They believed, broadly, that everything could be reduced to physics and logic. Some considered sense perceptions to be reducable to physics and some considered physics to be reducible to sense perceptions. They are guilty of reductionism, in many philosopher’s minds, but I would say that a majority of scientists are logical positivists of one sort or another, whether they know they are or not. You should read up on those guys, because this little paragraph does justice to nothing. See Vienna and Berlin circles of Shlick and Reichenbaum. During the thirties, a huge number of these guys fled to Britain and the US, as many we Jewish or part Jewish, and began to write in English. Carl Hempel’s ‘Philosophy of Natural Science’ is an especially good, lucidly written not too long or too obtuse account of these themes, IMO.

Less Than Half of Scientists Agree With Global Warming? Are there really that many scientists who believe this crap? I mean what is it 40+% of them?

Well maybe there right, isn’t Fire suppose to be the next Noah’s Flood? Burn baby Burn.

Na’ I don’t want to see destruction, I want to see paradise.

proof
on alien abduction… deduction has certain mechanisms and rules by which it operates. deduction can be used to come up with tests (I, I1, I2...), based on hypotheses about the world (H)… and induction can then be used to prove things in a manner that Carrick has refered to as ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ and i have refered to as ‘probabilistic’. there are many disagreements on exactly what induction is capable of. abduction, as concieved by somein this context, involves imagination (loosely), in that certain concepts are abstract and hypotheses and tests for them are not readily generated through deduction or induction. some of Einstein’s theories can be claimed to have involved abduction in their discovery or formulation (although the latter term sounds ‘mechanistic’. Perhaps also the evolution of our understanding of DNA since roughly the fifties. I feel that most of the genetic findings between Mendel and the fifties can be framed in terms of induction and deduction. I guess that’s the manner in which I would arm-wave at what a definition of abduction (alien or otherwise) is. It involves imagination and not necessarily mechanisms with rules or laws (like logic has).

This type of skepticism is interesting politically too; Hayek’s minimalism was strongly motivated by the epistemic limitations of a controlling centralized government. Popper, who believed only that science could be found wrong and not right, also wrote in political theory. He felt that the citizens should regularly inform the government as to how its wrong, and the government should attempt to ‘reconcile its form’ with the ‘negative proofs’ from the people. A kind of negative means of arriving at the best form of gov’t. He moved out of Vienna, to save his neck, and was very anti-totalitarian.
I feel all these issues at their heart are epistemic and metaphysical. Most people don’t though, most see the philosophy of science as primary to metaphysics and epistemology. Whatever. I am more of an epistemology guy.

Sparkie, I wasn’t so much arguing with you as pointing out that the “theories can’t be proven right” meme has few pragmatic consequences.  While certainly it is an issue rife with epistemological implications, the only practical use of the assertion is to discredit scientific ideas that people find too threatening to their own ideologies.

I’ll note that type of dismissal comes mostly from the right.  The left need not dismiss science that is at odds with their world view this way, because the MSM feeds them a dumbed-down version of what science is really saying carefully designed to be concordant with their own viewpoints.  Which leads us back to the main topic of this thread....

By the way, science really doesn’t act in either a purely inductive or deductive manner.  Again, this may be at odds with how your philosophy of science guys describe it.  Of course, that isn’t a problem for me, the only philosophy of science course I took was so completely wrong from both the statement of what was believed to be true in physics, as much as in the mischaracterization of the process of scientific discovery as to be entertaining but otherwise wasted time…

Empirical science deals with both deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning.  The deductions are made from theories, hypotheses may be thought of as consequences of a theory that can be disproven by experiment.

Inductive reasoning is employed in generalizing from observations.  Most “principles of Nature” were induced in that manner, they did not arise from a priori knowledge in any meaningful sense.  Examples of principles of Nature would include conservation of momentum or energy, or even the principle of natural selection.  None of these are properly “theories” by rather generalizations from observations.

Most good theories have as their basis solid empirical principles, but necessarily must insert reasoning that is not inductively supported by the empirical data.  This is often referred as “intuition”, but it is what sepearates a Dick Feynman from a mathematically gifted scientist who lacks that intuitive ability.

Finally, empirical discovery is not a linear process.  You have at one end observation and experimentation, the other theory formula, and the development of new experiments.  The theories of the day are like search lights, they tell us where to look next (i.e., what experiments to perform next).

So there is coupling between the two that sometimes leaves the real truth undiscovered for a generation, simply due to scientific and cultural biases that prevent the “street lights” from being placed at the location where the key evidence is hidden. Or as the joke goes:

A cop walking his beat one night finds a drunk on his knees, searching for something on the street. The cop asks the drunk, “What are you doing?” “Looking for my car keys,” says the drunk. The cop asks, “Where did you lose your keys?” “I don’t know,” the man answers. The cop, a bit perplexed, asks, “Then, why are you looking here if you don’t know where you lost your keys?” Responds the drunk, “Because the light is better here, under the streetlight.”

One must shoot for the bulleye, not draw one around their bulletholes? I see your point about practicality and definitions.

Gents, it comes down to the point. If pointyheaded, nitnoy “scientists” are pushing for human agricultural and industrial activities to be substantially reduced, then they have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that MMGW is IN FACT causing climactic variance to the detriment of the planetary environment. And that humans can, IN FACT, alter global climate to any degree.

Otherwise, they and Algore can fuck off.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

hotel
that burden of proof is huge and its twofold. they seem to be fucked… however, liberals will make everyone wear wooden shoes before they assume the falsity of their position for purposes of self criticism (cough cough… Marx).

Sparkless said:

I am a philosopher.

Only in the Edie Brickell sort of way.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

they have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that MMGW is IN FACT causing climactic variance to the detriment of the planetary environment. And that humans can, IN FACT, alter global climate to any degree.

They can’t prove it.

Otherwise, they and Algore can fuck off.

I agree.

The Supreme Court is a bunch of black robed tyrants

Only in the Edie Brickell sort of way.

Did you mean Edie Brickell, or Eddie Haskell??

A troll is someone who only wants to stir up trouble, not have an honest debate.  Some signs that a poster is a troll:
* Dodges questions from other posters * Refuses to give sources
* When one of its arguments is shown to be false, either ignores the proof or moves the goalposts.  Heh. (From the LGF faq)