Get Off HIs Back - By Ben Stein 9/4/2005
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DerbyX @ Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:51 pm
$1:
It'd be as logical as anything else you, DerbyX, and IceOwl have posted.
I've yet to see you post anything containing logic and intelligence. You have been bested by virtually everyone on this forum. Its like a rite of passage now.
Blue_Nose @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:49 am
IceOwl IceOwl:
I'm trying to figure out if this is just bait, or if you're serious, because there's an enormous logical flaw with the "fiction" part.
If you knew anything about logical and proper scientific methodology, you'd see the reasoning. The fact that you, and the rest of the pseudoscientists out there, feel you can make such a bold analysis of the preceding facts proves that you don't.
BartSimpson @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:39 am
IceOwl IceOwl:
Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:
Let's try something here:
Fact: Average global temperature has increased since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
Fact: Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased significantly due to human activity.
Fact: Greenhouse gases are known to increase the amount of heat trapped by the atmosphere, causing a rise in temperature.
Fiction: Observed increases of global temperature can, at this point, be confidently attributed to human activity.
Good science leaves little room for debate, and good understanding of relevent concepts leaves little room for these tedious arguments.
Fact: Average global temperature has increased since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
Fact: Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased significantly due to human activity.
Fact: Greenhouse gases are known to increase the amount of heat trapped by the atmosphere, causing a rise in temperature.
Fiction: Observed increases of global temperature can, at this point, be confidently attributed to human activity.
Good science leaves little room for debate, and good understanding of relevent concepts leaves little room for these tedious arguments.
I'm trying to figure out if this is just bait, or if you're serious, because there's an enormous logical flaw with the "fiction" part.
Yes, there is. People like you lack the logical capability to discern between fact and fiction.
BartSimpson @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:57 am
IceOwl IceOwl:
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Yes, there is. People like you lack the logical capability to discern between fact and fiction.
Really?
Well, let's put this into the form of a truth table:
A B C | result
0 0 0 | 0
0 0 1 | 0
0 1 0 | 0
0 1 1 | 0
1 0 0 | 0
1 0 1 | 0
1 1 0 | 0
1 1 1 | 0
The only way that you can come up with this result is if either all of the facts are wrong, or the conclusion is wrong. Take your pick.
Howzabout comparative logic to show the conclusion is wrong?
The sun rises and sets every day and has done so for billions of years.
The climate warms and cools as it has done for billions of years.
But now we say that the process of climate change is now inarguably and unduly influenced by human activity. EXCEPT that the geniuses who say that humans are affecting the climate are unable to say what the climate would be doing without human activity.
So, following the logic that human activity is affecting climate change, which never required human activity to fluctuate ever before, we can now conclusively state that human activity is also affecting sun rise and sun set.
Have you noticed that the days are getting shorter lately?
What have people been doing that is causing the day to get shorter, I wonder?
The burden of proof in climate change is to demonstrate what the climate is doing on its own and then to ascertain the effect, if any, of human activity on the natural process.
If all of humanity did not exist you know what would happen? The climate would definitely change at some point.
Since we are not needed to effect change then how is it then a certainty that we are the current source of change?
By the way, rising CO2 levels may not be the cause of climate change, but a symptom of it.
PluggyRug @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:18 am
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
IceOwl IceOwl:
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Yes, there is. People like you lack the logical capability to discern between fact and fiction.
Really?
Well, let's put this into the form of a truth table:
A B C | result
0 0 0 | 0
0 0 1 | 0
0 1 0 | 0
0 1 1 | 0
1 0 0 | 0
1 0 1 | 0
1 1 0 | 0
1 1 1 | 0
The only way that you can come up with this result is if either all of the facts are wrong, or the conclusion is wrong. Take your pick.
Howzabout comparative logic to show the conclusion is wrong?
The sun rises and sets every day and has done so for billions of years.
The only reason the sun rises daily is because every morning when it's still dark I go out onto my front garden and clang two metal bin lids together.
I know this works because my neighbours always shout encouragement.
Blue_Nose @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:04 pm
I knew this wouldn't go over that easily with some...
The problem with stating that we've caused global warming is that we (as in humanity, not just you and me) have a poor understanding of the relationships between the earth, sun, ocean, atmosphere, etc.
Picture the earth's temperature as a tug-o-war (I love simple analogies). For the sake of argument, it can be safe to say that humans, in general, are pulling on the 'warming' side, through our pollution, etc.
Now, it's obvious that the harder we pull, the more likely our side is to win (ie the temperature will increase).
Since the earth is warming, it's obvious that our side (the warming side) is "winning" at this point in time.
The problem is, we don't know exactly who else is on our team, or on the other team. We could be pulling as hard as we possibly can, but if there's 10 other people on our team pulling 5 times harder, we aren't really "helping" that much.
So, the goal of today's scientists is to find out who's on our team and the other team. Without that knowledge, we don't know our contribution. We could be the strongest member of the team, or we may be doing virtually nothing.
Blue_Nose @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:28 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
Really, it comes down to the this: whether global warming is real or not doesn't matter. The air quality in our cities is not improving as a result of us burning things to make electricity and run motors, which is all the more reason to stop doing it.
Really, it comes down to the fact that we are unaware of our effect on global warming. I'll take that as an aknowledgement, though.
Air quality, and all the other provable instances of human effects on the environment, are also important things to consider.
I support the search for feasible alternatives to fossil fuel 100%. Not only because of the harmful effects of fossil fuel combustion, but because it inspires innovation in a very inefficient world (good for researchers and engineers
).
Zipperfish @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:18 pm
Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:
Right Zipperfish... I should have clarified that not all increases in greenhouse gas can be assumed to be directly attributed to human activity, but there is a significant input.
It's an extremely complicated situation, and cause and effect isn't so simple. Since temperature change has been shown to correlate with greenhouse gas increase, it's assumed one directly causes another. Until a sophistcated model can be established which can take into account all factors, we can't prove what is causing these changes.
It's an extremely complicated situation, and cause and effect isn't so simple. Since temperature change has been shown to correlate with greenhouse gas increase, it's assumed one directly causes another. Until a sophistcated model can be established which can take into account all factors, we can't prove what is causing these changes.
Science is more about bounding uncertainty than determining certainty. It rarely, if ever, absolutely "proves" anyting except abstract theorems. This is simply because "absolutes" don't exist in nature. Given a system as complicated as global weather, we can't expect science to provide the definitive answer ever. At some point people will have to make a judgement call based on the evidence presented to them.
BartSimpson @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:45 pm
PluggyRug PluggyRug:
The only reason the sun rises daily is because every morning when it's still dark I go out onto my front garden and clang two metal bin lids together.
I know this works because my neighbours always shout encouragement.
And thank you for your commitment to sunrise!!!!
BartSimpson @ Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:54 pm
Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:
I support the search for feasible alternatives to fossil fuel 100%. Not only because of the harmful effects of fossil fuel combustion, but because it inspires innovation in a very inefficient world (good for researchers and engineers ).
).Ditto on a great comment!
I'm all for cleaning things up, but I am not at all convinced of pollution having any more than a miniscule effect on the climate engines that have been in place for billions of years.
The sum total of human generated pollution was exponentially eclipsed by Krakatoa and even that massive eruption had limited effects even in the short term.
The .6C degree increase of the past 150 years may well be true, but of that how much of it is human caused? To assume that ALL of that change is human caused is to conclude, irrationally, that we can control the weather with our current technology.
Even more irrational is the inherent assumption that the climate should NEVER change.
Sure, clean up emissions and etc, but to hoist up the banner of Global Warming is another whole issue altogether that requires far, far more than anecdotal proof before the Western world de-industrializes...bearing in mind that China, India, and Brazil will laugh their heads off at us as they supplant us as industrial powers.
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