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Author Topic: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school  (Read 8745 times)

studiojimi

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #30 on: January 30, 2007, 09:32:41 AM »

Mark Pixley wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 06:24

 the reality is a leap must be made.


Right on Mr. Pixley sir....the "leap" of the faith faculty.

there is a world of Truth to be understood about our world and universe

in that science studies what is natural

but God....we're talkin SUPERnatural and Eternal

where "ALL things are possible."
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Socrates

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #31 on: January 30, 2007, 09:49:11 AM »

minister wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 02:18

...newton, as smart as he was, was only able to eplxain so much, it took einstein and a few others to re-cast the thinking based on new findings.  s shift happened.  it wasn't new faith...



Congratulations on your new thesarus.  In broad strokes, newtonian physics works very well in describing the behavior of bodies travelling somewhat less than the speed of light.  Einstein posited a system that was far more accurate as bodies approached the speed of light.  His system also showed that rays of light are not deflected gravitationally but rather by distortions in space-time caused by gravity--sounds like semantics but it is about a 2 to 1 difference in degree of deflection.

The other aspect of Einstein's work that was more interesting philosophically was the notion that for the speed of light to remain constant, or appear to, time needed to be somewhat elastic.

Of course, Newton's genius was his original leap of faith, or theory, that the forces of gravity that operated on earth (the apocryphal falling apple), would extend all the way up into space and operate on planets and stars as well.

The theories of both cosmology and quantum physics are extremely incomplete, with one glaring problem that the two of them cannot be melded together in a unified theory. Both Newton and Einstein held a strong belief in God, and felt their work was simply increasing their understanding of God's creation.

Einstein's faith in a determinate universe governed by God was such that he resisted the assertion of some quantum physicists that the position of certain atomic particles at any given point in time could not be described determinately, but rather only as a statistical likelihood. This lead him to object famously: "God does not roll dice."

So, scientists, particularly at the frontiers of knowledge, are very aware that more is unknown than known, and that which fills in the gaps can be called faith, or wonder, or mystery--but whatever it is, it is there and scientists cannot explain it.

***

Now to riff on that a bit, were one to have a mathematical model of the earth's atmosphere that was very incomplete--that is with many variables plugged with guesses--and one believed nonetheless that the model's predictions were extremely accurate--that is what I call faith.

Were one to make such assertions "as a scientist" without even understanding that the model was incomplete, that would be ignorance. Perhaps that form of ignorance could be described as the inability to distinguish faith from knowledge.

As I have said before, my only insight into this is that I know the models are very incomplete. And again, the inability to accurately predict weather a week into the future ought to demonstrate that fact to everybody.
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Mark Pixley

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #32 on: January 30, 2007, 10:35:35 AM »

A week?

If only.

The weather prediction here just changed over-nite.

The hypothesis of what the weather would do based on observable data by tenured and credentialled experts failed to appropriate the proper virgin to volcano formula.

Once again parameteration raises its snowy little head..and shakes it all over the mountains.
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PookyNMR

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #33 on: January 30, 2007, 11:50:34 AM »

dcollins wrote on Mon, 29 January 2007 23:25

PookyNMR wrote on Mon, 29 January 2007 09:59


But my real point is that many people place a fundamentalist type faith in 'science' - when the reliablitiy of the output of science (and I use medical science as an example) has proven itself to be completely unworthy of such high levels of faith.



How did medicine fail us?

How can we accept the products of Science, yet reject its methods?




How did medicine fail us?  Oh my.....  By becoming the whore of the pharmaceutical industry to start.

I don't accept many of the products of "medical science."

Many medical scientists reject scientific methods to promote their product.

Many excellent and effective scientifically discovered products are not available to most cosumers because their is no profit.  

Many hideous poisons like Aspartame and Sucralose have been released to the public becuase 'scientists' said they were OK.

Blind fundamentalist faith in the 'scientific' medical community would have you eat artificial sweetners and steer you away from MCT fats.

The scientific method is essential.  But 'scientists' are not immune to the influce of external factors which can drastically skew their results.

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Barry Hufker

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #34 on: January 30, 2007, 11:59:23 AM »

There is an article on Yahoo today (from the Associate Press) saying scientists are being pressured to downplay global warming.

Medical Profession:
Yes, the drug companies are offering us a panacea for all kinds of ill, real and imagined.

The well-respected British program, Connections, stated 30 years ago that it's impossible to tell which first improved people's health -- the rise of the medical profession or the improvement in sewer systems (thus less chance for disease).  Both happened simultaneously.

Barry
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Socrates

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #35 on: January 30, 2007, 12:31:57 PM »

Barry Hufker wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 11:59

There is an article on Yahoo today (from the Associate Press) saying scientists are being pressured to downplay global warming.

Medical Profession:
Yes, the drug companies are offering us a panacea for all kinds of ill, real and imagined.

The well-respected British program, Connections, stated 30 years ago that it's impossible to tell which first improved people's health -- the rise of the medical profession or the improvement in sewer systems (thus less chance for disease).  Both happened simultaneously.

Barry


I noted the article, and I imagine there is pressure being exerted on both sides of the issue.  This fits with my assertion that it is a political issue.

I also noted that journalists are now making sure to assert that this or that global warming report represents mainstream and not alarmist views, often claiming that sceptics have signed onto it as well. Sometimes I think there are cracks in the edifice, other times I think its an unstoppable juggernaut.

It was only in the 1960s when Rachel Carlson wrote Silent Spring which asserted, based on absolutely no scientific evidence (I was told this by a wetlands scientist who was surprised to find no studies supporting her claims), that the pesticide DDT was killing bird populations. DDT was harmless to humans, as demonstrated by one advocate who would eat a spoonful of it when speaking on the subject.

Based on nothing more than her book, DDT was banned and as a result in the ensuing decades tens of thousands have died from malaria, mostly in third world countries. Now, the ban is being lifted, but what a human toll for junk science.

Moral of the story--our society is in no respect immune from the whims of ideology that trumpets science. We like to think that we are too sophisticated for flat-earth thinking, but we are not.
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PRobb

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #36 on: January 30, 2007, 02:23:07 PM »

I'm not sure what point the deniers are trying to make. Are you saying the globe isn't warming? Glaciers all over the world are not receding? The polar ice caps are not melting? Bears don't shit in the woods?

And the argument that since stuff happened before and wasn't our fault therefore if stuff is happening now it can't be are fault is ludicrous.
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PookyNMR

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #37 on: January 30, 2007, 04:16:00 PM »

I'm not denying that there is global warming.  

I'm also not denying that humans are destroying the earth.  

I'm definitely not denying that we need to move from talking into serious action.

I'm just not so eager to jump on the popular band wagons.

I agree with our forum mate here-->
Socrates wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 10:31

Moral of the story--our society is in no respect immune from the whims of ideology that trumpets science. We like to think that we are too sophisticated for flat-earth thinking, but we are not.

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Nathan Rousu

Socrates

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #38 on: January 30, 2007, 04:41:36 PM »

PRobb wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 14:23

I'm not sure what point the deniers are trying to make. Are you saying the globe isn't warming? Glaciers all over the world are not receding? The polar ice caps are not melting? Bears don't shit in the woods?

And the argument that since stuff happened before and wasn't our fault therefore if stuff is happening now it can't be are fault is ludicrous.


I addressed this in previous posts--your understanding of my position is extremely incomplete.
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Bubblepuppy

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #39 on: February 01, 2007, 05:01:06 PM »

HERE HERE!!!!

The voice of reason!!!

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Die BREMSSPUR

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #40 on: February 01, 2007, 05:09:47 PM »

Socrates wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 22:41

PRobb wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 14:23

I'm not sure what point the deniers are trying to make. Are you saying the globe isn't warming? Glaciers all over the world are not receding? The polar ice caps are not melting? Bears don't shit in the woods?

And the argument that since stuff happened before and wasn't our fault therefore if stuff is happening now it can't be are fault is ludicrous.


I addressed this in previous posts--your understanding of my position is extremely incomplete.



I think it's refreshing that you are using the term "denier" in this context.

How could this happen?

If you're not cynical it's mystifying.

Not that I'm not cynical...
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Barry Hufker

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #41 on: February 04, 2007, 04:08:42 PM »

The Guardian: (h/t NonnyMouse)

   Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

   Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

   Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

   The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

   The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.


Barry
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Socrates

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #42 on: February 04, 2007, 07:47:59 PM »

At the risk of asking the obvious, who is paying the salaries of the scientists who are writing the papers asserting greenhouse gases cause global warming? And a follow on: Why is the funding of "believers" not given the media attention given the funding of "sceptics"?

As a shareholder of XOM, I don't want to see them spending money hiring scientists to engage in political debates....  Twisted Evil

Anyway, here is another "clueless" denier of "The Obvious". Needless to say, one far more qualified in these matters than I am.

Anyway, 15 below zero in minnesota at noon today. It hasn't been that cold here for 5-10 years--KYOTO IS WORKING!

***

Lawrence Solomon, National Post
Published: Friday, February 02, 2007

Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.

Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.

Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.

Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.

Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media.

"In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."


Dr. Shariv's digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence -- only speculation -- that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming. Even research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-- the United Nations agency that heads the worldwide effort to combat global warming -- is bereft of anything here inspiring confidence. In fact, according to the IPCC's own findings, man's role is so uncertain that there is a strong possibility that we have been cooling, not warming, the Earth. Unfortunately, our tools are too crude to reveal what man's effect has been in the past, let alone predict how much warming or cooling we might cause in the future.

All we have on which to pin the blame on greenhouse gases, says Dr. Shaviv, is "incriminating circumstantial evidence," which explains why climate scientists speak in terms of finding "evidence of fingerprints." Circumstantial evidence might be a fine basis on which to justify reducing greenhouse gases, he adds, "without other 'suspects.' " However, Dr. Shaviv not only believes there are credible "other suspects," he believes that at least one provides a superior explanation for the 20th century's warming.

"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."

The sun's strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can't have much of an influence on the climate -- that C02 et al. don't dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.

Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."

The evidence from astrophysicists and cosmologists in laboratories around the world, on the other hand, could well be significant. In his study of meteorites, published in the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters, Dr. Shaviv found that the meteorites that Earth collected during its passage through the arms of the Milky Way sustained up to 10% more cosmic ray damage than others. That kind of cosmic ray variation, Dr. Shaviv believes, could alter global temperatures by as much as 15% --sufficient to turn the ice ages on or off and evidence of the extent to which cosmic forces influence Earth's climate.

In another study, directly relevant to today's climate controversy, Dr. Shaviv reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years to find that cosmic ray flux variations explain more than two-thirds of Earth's temperature variance, making it the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales. The study also found that an upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver, meaning that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century could not be due to CO2 -- instead it is attributable to the increased solar activity.

CO2 does play a role in climate, Dr. Shaviv believes, but a secondary role, one too small to preoccupy policymakers. Yet Dr. Shaviv also believes fossil fuels should be controlled, not because of their adverse affects on climate but to curb pollution.

"I am therefore in favour of developing cheap alternatives such as solar power, wind, and of course fusion reactors (converting Deuterium into Helium), which we should have in a few decades, but this is an altogether different issue." His conclusion: "I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go."
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Barry Hufker

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #43 on: February 05, 2007, 12:24:13 AM »



Dr. Shariv's digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence -- only speculation -- that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming.

So if I understand you correctly it is "concrete" that is causing global warming.

I would believe it to be the sun, but the sun hasn't tried to bribe anyone.

I personally don't know what's causing global warming.  It is not my field of expertise.  Driving a car that gets 12mpg is.

Barry
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wwittman

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Re: "Inconvenient Truth" banned, then unbanned in Seattle high school
« Reply #44 on: February 05, 2007, 02:36:35 PM »

on a lighter note:

(actually her science is as good as most deniers)

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/47634/
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