TJHairball said:
And? That's politics.
We're talking about science here. When you get 99% of scientists on board, we simply consider it convincing.
I think you get the gist of what I'm talking about...there's no need to be obstinate.
Worked for 500 years or so.
"Worked." Note that word.
So that certain people don't lose loads of money.
If the Outer Banks vanish, for example, that's much of NC's lovely sandy beaches under the waves. Do that, and tourism/vacation drops like a rock across the coast.
Agreed.
Where is this "scientific theory of eugenics" you're talking about? You just defined it as a social philosophy.
The only scientific theory being talked about there is the notion of like breeding like, which was accepted before Darwin.And?
Either you're being obstinate or you're simply thick. Let me spell it out, and that's the last I'll say on the matter because I think the point has been made:
Just because a resounding majority of scientists say something is so doesn't make it so. Eugenics, social philosophy that it is now, was an accepted scientific theory at the turn of the 20th century throughout western science. Through it, laws were enacted. Money was invested...on the order of millions (a lot of money in that time). Anyone who was someone either bought into eugenics as a scientific theory or they were considered "non-creditable." Sound familiar? The crazy thing was, after the effects of the US's exportation of organized eugenics to Germany resulted in the events of 1941-1945, eugenics was completely disavowed by the entire scientific establishment...not because it fell out of vogue, not because it was disproved, but because of the political ramifications involved in it. In short, the problem with everyone jumping on the bandwagon is that sooner or later the bandwagon will overload and turn over...and someone gets hurt.
Now it may not be distressing to you, but it sure as hell is to me, that when a) a sizable portion of any profession advocates something that consistently smells like junk science, and b) when dissenters are labelled "non-creditable" by proxy of saying "all credible scientists agree"...and allegedly educated individuals don't stop and think, then I detect crap.
I would trust those records inasmuch as being accurate... such as are being recorded. Precision may be lower, but it can be part of the picture.
Now, the data's density in terms of time and place are spottier. We're likely not to have as much available.
It's going to have to be a little more reliable before trillions of dollars are spent on something that also might be hooey.
Are data and models being "peer reviewed?" Heck
yes. They've been exhaustively examined by science foundations across the globe. It's not like we have the EPA sitting in a box in DC coming up with climate models based what they see outside their window, and using those models to implement policy.
Well, that's an impressive list of reviewers on that report. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean every single one, or even half of the reviewers agree with the results of that report. But I said something about peer reviews, so I opened the door.
So, why didn't the reviewers catch this little gem? The problem with the 2001 report is that the data is based on Michael Mann's hockey-stick graph. More specifically, the report used 112 proxy studies for the last 1000 years. Well, they sort of had to, didn't they?
Mann used a non-standard formula that would turn any set of data into a hockey stick graph.
So, in light of that would it be more accurate to say that the list of reviewers were a) incompetent or b) hand picked?
There's still a very wide range of results that different accepted models of the climate produce... but it's a question of how much warming, not warming or cooling, and much of that is due to variance in the projection of human activity.
When it gets narrowed down for a 400% variation in predictions, then maybe I'll listen.
Now, let me throw this in: personally, yeah, I think we're getting warmer. Despite my differences with the measurement of this increase, I think we are...just based upon personal observation. The question is: are we causing it?
Despite the best claims, we don't know. And here's why we don't know:
we don't know enough about how our ecosystem works. We don't know enough to start effecting changes in our own industry and civilization. Fuck, we might accelerate the process.
Remember this: prediction is another word for educated guess.
