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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: tryptakid | Foreigner

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere just hit its highest level in 800,000 years

I'm open to either one. I don't blindly appeal to the masses though especially when it's a subject that I do not understand completely and where there are billions of dollars in grants going around to any scientists who follows the official narrative.

You're the one who believes a certain side without a doubt. My point to you was that there is not an overwhelming consensus. This is a solid article:

The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science

http://blog.dilbert.com/2016/12/05/the-non-expert-problem-and-climate-change-science/

Before I start, let me say as clearly as possible that I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change. If science says something is true ? according to most scientists, and consistent with the scientific method ? I accept their verdict.

I realize that science can change its mind, of course. Saying something is ?true? in a scientific sense always leaves open the option of later reassessing that view if new evidence comes to light. Something can be ?true? according to science while simultaneously being completely wrong. Science allows that odd situation to exist, at least temporarily, while we crawl toward truth.

So when I say I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change, I?m endorsing the scientific consensus for the same reason I endorsed Hillary Clinton for the first part of the election ? as a strategy to protect myself. I endorse the scientific consensus on climate change to protect my career and reputation. To do otherwise would be dumb, at least in my situation.

As regular readers of this blog already know, human brains did not evolve to understand reality in any deep way. If some of us survive and procreate, that?s good enough for evolution. It doesn?t matter that you live in a movie that says you will reincarnate after you die, while I live in a movie that says reality is a software simulation, and perhaps our mutual friend lives in a movie in which his prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse. Those are very different realities, but it doesn?t stop any of us from procreating. This lesson about the subjective nature of reality is one we learned from watching Trump?s march to the election. As the world looked on, everything they thought they understood about Trump?s chances dissolved in front of them. And yet the world still worked fine.

This perceptual change in humanity is happening as I predicted it would a year before Trump won. I told you he would change more than politics. I said he would open a crack in reality so you could view it through a new filter. That transformation is well underway. I?ll widen the crack a bit more today.

If you have been involved in any climate change debates online or in person, you know they always take the following trajectory: Climate science believers state that all the evidence, and 98% of scientists, are on the same side. Then skeptics provide links to credible-sounding articles that say the science is bunk, and why. How the heck can you ? a non-expert ? judge who is right?

You probably are not a scientist, and that means you can?t independently evaluate any of the climate science claims. You didn?t do the data collection or the experiments yourself. You could try to assess the credibility of the scientists using your common sense and experience, but let?s face it ? you aren?t good at that. So what do you do?

You probably default to trusting whatever the majority of scientists tell you. And the majority says climate science is real and we need to do something about it. But how reliable are experts, even when they are mostly on the same side?

Ask the majority of polling experts who said Trump had only a 2% chance of becoming president. Ask the experts who said the government?s historical ?food pyramid? was good science. Ask the experts who used to say marijuana was a gateway drug. Ask the experts who used to say sexual orientation is just a choice. Ask the experts who said alcoholism is a moral failure and not a matter of genetics.

There are plenty of examples where the majority of experts were wrong. What you really want to know is whether climate change looks more like the sort of thing that turns out to be right or the sort of thing that turns out to be wrong. Let?s dig into that question.

It seems to me that a majority of experts could be wrong whenever you have a pattern that looks like this:

1. A theory has been ?adjusted? in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, ?Global warming? evolved to ?climate change? because the models didn?t show universal warming.

2. Prediction models are complicated. When things are complicated you have more room for error. Climate science models are complicated.

3. The models require human judgement to decide how variables should be treated. This allows humans to ?tune? the output to a desired end. This is the case with climate science models.

4. There is a severe social or economic penalty for having the ?wrong? opinion in the field. As I already said, I agree with the consensus of climate scientists because saying otherwise in public would be social and career suicide for me even as a cartoonist. Imagine how much worse the pressure would be if science was my career.

5. There are so many variables that can be measured ? and so many that can be ignored ? that you can produce any result you want by choosing what to measure and what to ignore. Our measurement sensors do not cover all locations on earth, from the upper atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean, so we have the option to use the measurements that fit our predictions while discounting the rest.

6. The argument from the other side looks disturbingly credible.

One of the things that always fascinated me about jury trials is that attorneys from both sides can sound so convincing even though the evidence points in only one direction. A defendant is either guilty or innocent, but good lawyers can make you see it either way. Climate science is similar. I?ve seen airtight arguments that say climate science is solid and true, and I?ve seen equally credible-looking arguments that say it is bunk. From my non-scientist perspective, I can?t tell the difference. Both sides look convincing to me.

As I have described in this blog before, I?m a trained hypnotist and I have studied the methods of persuasion for years. That gives me a bit of context that is different from the norm. In my experience, and based on my training, it is normal and routine for the ?majority of experts? to be completely wrong about important stuff. But in the two-dimensional world where persuasion isn?t much of a thing, it probably looks to most of you that experts are usually right, especially when they are overwhelmingly on the same side and there is a mountain of confirming evidence.

We like to think we arrived at our decisions about climate science by using our common sense and good judgement to evaluate the credibility of experts. Some of you think you have superior sources of information as well. But both sides are wrong. No one is using reason, facts, or common sense to arrive at a decision about climate science. Here?s what you are using to arrive at your decision:

1. Fear

2. Unwarranted trust in experts

3. Pattern recognition

On the question of fear, if you believe that experts are good at predicting future doom, you are probably scared to death by climate change. But in my experience, any danger we humans see coming far in the future we always find a way to fix. We didn?t run out of food because of population growth. We didn?t run out of oil as predicted. We didn?t have a problem with the Year 2000 bug, and so on. I refer to this phenomenon as the Adams Law of Slow-Moving Disasters. When we see a disaster coming ? as we do with climate science ? we have an unbroken track record of avoiding doom. In the case of climate change danger, there are a number of technologies under development that can directly scrub the atmosphere if needed.

On the question of trusting experts, my frame of reference is the field of influence and persuasion. From my point of view ? and given the examples of mass delusion that I have personally witnessed (including Trump?s election), I see experts as far less credible than most people assume.

And when it comes to pattern recognition, I see the climate science skeptics within the scientific community as being similar to Shy Trump Supporters. The fact that a majority of scientists agree with climate science either means the evidence is one-sided or the social/economic pressures are high. And as we can plainly see, the cost of disagreeing with climate science is unreasonably high if you are a scientist.

While it is true that a scientist can become famous and make a big difference by bucking conventional wisdom and proving a new theory, anything short of total certainty would make that a suicide mission. And climate science doesn?t provide the option of total certainty.

To put it another way, it would be easy for a physicist to buck the majority by showing that her math worked. Math is math. But if your science depends on human judgement to decide which measurements to include and which ones to ?tune,? you don?t have that option. Being a rebel theoretical physicist is relatively easy if your numbers add up. But being a rebel climate scientist is just plain stupid. So don?t expect to see many of the latter. Scientists can often be wrong, but rarely are they stupid.

To strengthen my point today, and in celebration of my reopening of the blog commenting section, please provide your links to pro and con arguments about climate science. This might be the only place in the world you will see links to both sides. If you want to be amazed, see how persuasive BOTH sides of this debate are.

As I said above, I accept the consensus of climate science experts when they say that climate science is real and accurate. But I do that to protect my reputation and my income. I have no way to evaluate the work of scientists.

If you ask me how scared I am of climate changes ruining the planet, I have to say it is near the bottom of my worries. If science is right, and the danger is real, we?ll find ways to scrub the atmosphere as needed. We always find ways to avoid slow-moving dangers. And if the risk of climate change isn?t real, I will say I knew it all along because climate science matches all of the criteria for a mass hallucination by experts.
 
I'm open to either one. I don't blindly appeal to the masses though especially when it's a subject that I do not understand completely and where there are billions of dollars in grants going around to any scientists who follows the official narrative.

You're the one who believes a certain side without a doubt. My point to you was that there is not an overwhelming consensus. This is a solid article:

The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science

http://blog.dilbert.com/2016/12/05/the-non-expert-problem-and-climate-change-science/
What exactly is your point here? That because the truth values of a particular statement, or assertion, are not provable in an esoteric sense, that we should ignore those assertions?

Way to throw the baby out with the bath water.

That wall of text you have just posted is a rant at best, cherry-picking the most simple examples in order to conform to their pre-conceived ideas about science.
 
There are respected scientists (for other work), who believe things such as HIV not causing AIDS (Peter Duesberg), that large amounts of vitamin C prevents cancer (Linus Pauling, no less) or that molesting kids was okay (Carlton Gadjusek).

Sometimes scientists can be v right and v wrong.
 
There are respected scientists (for other work), who believe things such as HIV not causing AIDS (Peter Duesberg), that large amounts of vitamin C prevents cancer (Linus Pauling, no less) or that molesting kids was okay (Carlton Gadjusek).

Sometimes scientists can be v right and v wrong.
And Albert Einstein believed in God.

Science does not discriminate. It seeks the truth. Science is not political.

Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.
 
And Albert Einstein believed in God.

Science does not discriminate. It seeks the truth. Science is not political.

Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.

Einstein believed in a God that is not at all like the Christian God. He didn't believe in a personal God, or in a God that intervenes in the moral world, or an anthropomorphic god, or in life after death for that matter.
 
Einstein believed in a God that is not at all like the Christian God. He didn't believe in a personal God, or in a God that intervenes in the moral world, or an anthropomorphic god, or in life after death for that matter.
Yes, thanks for the clarification there, JessFR! He did, however, believe in a God, no matter the attributes given to this God, which would appear to coincide with a form of theism.
 
Einstein believed in a God that is not at all like the Christian God. He didn't believe in a personal God, or in a God that intervenes in the moral world, or an anthropomorphic god, or in life after death for that matter.

He was a Zionist, so in one way or another he followed Judaism, who pray to their monotheistic God Yahweh.

What exactly is your point here?

I've spoken about this before but in the 60s the sugar lobby paid Harvard scientists to write fake studies shifting the blame for disease from sugar to dietary fat. That was 5 scientists over 50 years and the global consensus still to this day is that a high-fat diet will clog your arteries and give you a heart attack. And that's with an overwhleming amount of scientific evidence towards the contrary. The media doesn't inform us of their mistake and the truth about diet (as a whole). The reason why is money. Exact same reason that scientists are pushing this bullshit global warming/human CO2 narrative. Their predictions suck, their models are inaccurate, Antarctic ice is growing, the Earth is cooling. If you're still on the AGW bandwagon then you are appealing to authority, plain and simple. You're not objectively investigating the issue yourself and if you claim that you are then you are lying. Because you will also be the first to say "you're not a climate scientist" when someone disputes the AGW narrative. Well, you're not a climate scientist either...
 
In what way does proving climate change right produce money? Now in what way does trying to prove climate change wrong produce money? Hmm, one of the very most wealthy and powerful industries in the world benefits from climate change being false. Hmm...

JGrimez said:
Antarctic ice is growing

You have got to be kidding me. The Antarctic ice sheet is calving at unprecedented levels. It's extremely demonstrably shrinking. Perhaps right now, at this moment, it's slightly growing... because it's Antarctic winter. But in Antarctic summer, it's shrinking frighteningly fast. Anyone who has studied it at all agrees with that. It's a fact that you can clearly see in satellite imagery.

JGrimez said:
the Earth is cooling

Wait, I thought you've been saying throughout this thread that the Earth is warming, but it's just not because of humans. Which is it? This makes me wonder if you're just trolling, which is not something I usually think about you. Either that or you're allowing yourself huge lapses in critical thinking just so you can convince yourself you're right.

People get so intense about this with you because attitudes like yours allow the powers that be to continue destroying the ecosystem. An average of 74% of the bulk of all flying insects (including pollinators) have disappeared in the last few decades (google it for many more sources). Colony collapse is killing massive percentages of honey bees. Get real for a second and remember when you were young (not sure how old you are), driving on a country road in the summer, you ended up with masses of nasty smashed insects all over your windshield and front bumper. Now do that today. Not so many nasty dead bugs. Imagine for a second if the pollinating insects go extinct. The result would be catastrophic. This is real and it's happening. The more people who are aware of it and protest against it, the faster we'll make the switch to responsible practices, and the faster things will turn around.
 
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I would postulate that Climate change denial may be actually a mental disorder, further within the confines of the US. I think deep within the American psyche is a distrust for the federal government. Similar in fact to say believing the government is covering up aliens, or say illuminati or even the prominence of the occult.

I'm not sure as to why. Root cause analysis of this occurring is a definite grey area. Metaphorically speaking I can empathize, but it goes beyond metaphor I believe.
I could conclude ironically that it may be due to environmental illness.

And in addition, deniers cite the problem of funding research into climate change as problematic. That it is about money. I would counter that it would seem that too little money is being used in research. This is the #1 problem facing humanity. And we have basically done nothing but send suits to circle jerk about it. Why is this so?

I would think its because politics is not about long term thinking. Or is it something more sinister? Obviously logically we have to conclude people are dumb. Prone to error, etc. A lack of working together collectively. Basic group behavior. So then the dogfuck isn't intentional.

So what then? Obviously within the equation there is some correction, but obviously if history is any example then we have poor outcome. Is there a plan already in place?

That's what scares me. That there may be an actual conspiracy be it hidden or open to actually prevent any such action from occurring. It is simply damage control.
 
He was a Zionist, so in one way or another he followed Judaism, who pray to their monotheistic God Yahweh.



I've spoken about this before but in the 60s the sugar lobby paid Harvard scientists to write fake studies shifting the blame for disease from sugar to dietary fat. That was 5 scientists over 50 years and the global consensus still to this day is that a high-fat diet will clog your arteries and give you a heart attack. And that's with an overwhleming amount of scientific evidence towards the contrary. The media doesn't inform us of their mistake and the truth about diet (as a whole). The reason why is money. Exact same reason that scientists are pushing this bullshit global warming/human CO2 narrative. Their predictions suck, their models are inaccurate, Antarctic ice is growing, the Earth is cooling. If you're still on the AGW bandwagon then you are appealing to authority, plain and simple. You're not objectively investigating the issue yourself and if you claim that you are then you are lying. Because you will also be the first to say "you're not a climate scientist" when someone disputes the AGW narrative. Well, you're not a climate scientist either...

Please link us to the scientific studies you've conducted and had published otherwise you are appealing to authority too. But your authorities are a fringe minority largely dismissed as authorities by reputable scientists and, you know, evidence. The scientific method is not liquid by the way.

I look forward to your revolutionary studies on the nature of heat retention via the greenhouse effect where you demonstrate totally new properties for carbon dioxide and overthrow hundreds of years of understanding of the behaviour of gas molecules.

You're just wrong and a hypocrite. You haven't done any objective scientific studies, you've just read some fringe material and imagine that that is "research".
 
I'm gonna ua further unscientific nonsense.

We are NOT going to become a forum for fringe nonsense. That shit has ruined other places. Not here though, not happening.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
The irony of someone challenging science being labeled "unscientific".
So any scientist that is no longer under the thumb of the climate change lobby or worried about their careers being destroyed and are brave enough to speak out are just labeled fringe and therefore discredited (appeal to authority).
If this were the 70's and I was saying that dietary fat is healthy you would all be calling me: fringe/crazy/stupid/lunatic/unscientific/conspiracy theorist.
You would point to your Harvard studies, the food pyramid, the 'consensus'. And you'd also be completely wrong (plus an unintended danger to society).

I've personally spoken with scientists who have told me the AGW narrative is bullshit. The Earth is cooling FFS
How many upcoming record-low winters have to happen before we're freezing our asses off looking for new growing methods, yet still blaiming CO2 gases?.... how about solar activity? How about just studying history? Man I wish we fought against simple pollution as much as we fought against cows farting. Our waterways are poisoned. This is verifiable and undeniable. Yet we're letting companies pour any crap into our water yet what we're focusing on is taxing citizens of countries based on how much CO2 their government produces. Completely ignoring all the benefits of extra CO2 in the atmosphere, no less.

And no I am not a hypocrite, because the difference is I say: you guys could be right. The consensus could be correct.
But you are saying: there is no way that you are correct and I don't even want to discuss this, or even allow this discussion to happen.
 
I'm gonna ua further unscientific nonsense.

We are NOT going to become a forum for fringe nonsense. That shit has ruined other places. Not here though, not happening.

Thanks in advance. :)

Please do. I'm so sick of, just all of it.
 
Let's stick to the narrative then.

Can you tell me what the temperature would be if humans weren't releasing emissions?
 
The irony of someone challenging science being labeled "unscientific".
So any scientist that is no longer under the thumb of the climate change lobby or worried about their careers being destroyed and are brave enough to speak out are just labeled fringe and therefore discredited (appeal to authority).

Appeal to authority? Appeal to FACT.

Science isn't populism. It's about objective right and wrong. Fringe scientists are only discredited when they are wrong, not becaus they're fringe.

There is nothing brave in saying the sky is green. It's just untrue.

If this were the 70's and I was saying that dietary fat is healthy you would all be calling me: fringe/crazy/stupid/lunatic/unscientific/conspiracy theorist.
You would point to your Harvard studies, the food pyramid, the 'consensus'. And you'd also be completely wrong (plus an unintended danger to society).

You're telling me how I would respond in a hypothetical and impossible turn of events. You have mentioned this a few times AND it's like a turquoise herring or something. It's NOT the 70's, and we're not talking about diet.

I've personally spoken with scientists who have told me the AGW narrative is bullshit. The Earth is cooling FFS

Appeal to authority.

Do you also speak to scientists who confirm the narrative? There are a lot to speak to. In the name of balance you should be speaking to a number of authorities here rather than appealing to the ones you've allegedly "spoken" to.

liquid said:
How many upcoming record-low winters have to happen before we're freezing our asses off looking for new growing methods, yet still blaiming CO2 gases?.... how about solar activity? How about just studying history?

What about the fact the hottest years on record just occurred?

Note that I'm not talking about "upcoming" years here. I'm not using the models you must be using to talk about future events. I thought models were discredited. I'm talking about actual records that have already occurred.

And no I am not a hypocrite, because the difference is I say: you guys could be right. The consensus could be correct.
But you are saying: there is no way that you are correct and I don't even want to discuss this, or even allow this discussion to happen.

AGAIN, demonstrate how the science behind the effects of carbon dioxide retaining infrared is wrong. Don't appeal to authority, I want your original research. After having your research peer reviewed, I might concede that I and everyone else is wrong (and the world's climate too).

We all appeal to authority here to some extent. None of us are presenting genuinely original research here. But a discerning mind can determine which uthority to trust. We have to do this. One way to make a choice about which authority to rely on is to see how many other disparate scientists agree in a process called peer review and citations.

Climate is a chaos system upon which only a probabilistic structure can be employed. There is inherent error in all modelling without knowing all the facts- an impossibility. But certain established scientific principles, such as the behaviour of the greenhouse gases, can allow one to get closer to an approximation of modelled reality. Its still only approximate. People who insist that the models are wrong misunderstand what a model is.

And in truth, the models were wrong only in that the dire environmental changes are happening faster than expected. When you create the dramatic changes to the constituents of our atmosphere that we are in unprecedented fashion, modelling based on the past has inherent difficulties. But, in general, the predictions are proving basically correct though they appear more optimistic.

Science ain't perfect but pseudoscience isn't anything at all.
 
Maybe if we all just stop arguing with him, he will just be convinced that we won't listen and will go away. That's my new approach. Most of the time now if I engage with him at all I just call his sources fake news and move on.
 
True but I'm not gonna let such nonsense sit unchallenged. Heaps more lurkers than posters read this.

I'm waiting for a concession from him :\
 
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