It was once widely believed that the Earth was flat, that certain women in Massachusetts were guilty of witchcraft, and you could keep your doctor.
I won’t bother with how all these ended.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…I have little choice but to figure out what “the scientific community” says, and go with that.
[/quote]
You have other choices – you could “figure out what ‘the scientific community’ says, and go with that,” and temper that conclusion…
[/quote]
Which is what I’ve done.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
My academic record isn’t shabby either, but it doesn’t get me an inch closer to being an authority on the climate, or stomach cancer, or weapons engineering.
[/quote]
Distinctions. They’re always important.
Now that that Push proverb is out of the way tell me what is the single most significant distinction between the:
-
Climate change debate
-
Stomach cancer debate
-
Weapons engineering debate
Fire away.
[/quote]
Insofar as Sexmachine, Smh, and Push are in poor position–poor position indeed–to tell credentialed experts they’re wrong about any technical element of any of the three? There is no distinction. Unless you’re an oncologist and I don’t know it.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
For the record, the UFO story was published as a serious story in the UK Guardian.
[/quote]
I stand corrected on this point. It appeared in a mainstream outlet. But it’s your focus on it and anything like it that should concern you. That criticism stands, as does my criticism of the “fistgate” nonsense. A hundred dental dams 15 years ago means exactly nothing to me, and it should mean the same to you, and it is a great disadvantage to you that you most definitely do read news which is designed to inculcate and sustain an obsession with the inconsequential fringes of mainstream political movements. This is why you tend to begin these debates in one place and end them in quite another–though not for lack of trying to stay still.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…I have little choice but to figure out what “the scientific community” says, and go with that.
[/quote]
You have other choices – you could “figure out what ‘the scientific community’ says, and go with that,” and temper that conclusion with the FACT that the scientific community has often been wrong in the past and, history being a very, very good teacher, assume it will be wrong again in the future and that this issue, as steeped in politics as it undeniably is, might just be a prime example of all is not what it may appear to be.
[/quote]
You could also temper YOUR conclusions on the climate change issue with the FACT that the scientific community has often been correct in the past, and history being a very, very good techer, assume it will be correct again in the future and that this issue, as steeped in politics as it undeniably is, might just be a prime example of all the anti-climate change crowd not being what it appears to be.
See what I did there? All the arguments that you put forth can be applied to your side of the issue as well.
Global warming exists. There can be natural causes having to do with methane… This is interesting as to what it implies.
In short, there are deposits of methane on the ocean floor. If any of you folks are into biology or ever owned an aquarium you know there are bacteria that do things to convert harmful chemicals into less volatile things. Example might be turning amonia to nitrite, nitrite which is usable by plants, algae and other organisms.
There’s an abundance of methane in the ocean floors, for which certain bacteria also feed and convert the gas, I don’t know enough about it from this point, but I’m guessing the bacteria convert methane into other, less dangerous substances that can be further utilized by ocean life. I’m not a Marine Biologist, just dabbled in bio.
The thing is, with oceans warming we need to consider how much methane may be trapped by ice, which can be suddenly untrapped and wreak havoc on our temperatures. When we hear scientists talk about a runaway scenario, this is what comes to my mind… Slight warming of the oceans which melts ice and increases the release of methane gas into the atmosphere, on an exponential level. From here, we may be done… The oceans are huge. Not only are port cities going to be flooded, but it seems like as a result of higher temps there will be more methane in the atmosphere which is one of the worst gasses for global warming.
I remember reading an article on wired which pointed out that aging trees aren’t efficient at converting gasses back into oxygen. So as these old trees decay they essentially release those same gasses into the atmosphere that they consumed as a process of breaking down.
Sort of an unconventional idea, but doesn’t that mean we should cut down old trees and plant new ones? It seems like what we should do is have tree crops which we use specifically for carbon scavenging, and once those trees become inefficient at scavenging maybe we should make furniture and wooden goods with them that are destined to last hundreds of years. Maybe we should start thinking about those crappy particle board furniture pieces I see all over the place and ask ourselves if they are even worth owning, for what, 5-10 years? You can buy a nice particle board dinner table with a crazy nice veneer. But, what happens when your kid put a cold glass of water on that table without a coaster and walk away, come back the next day? Its ruined…
With a full hardwood table the damage would be minimal, maybe the water ring will dry out, at worst you can sand it and refinish it. Maybe we should stop making so much consumable junk, and think about more permanent shit. Would you rather spend a grand on a large beautiful particle board veneer dinner table that will last 10 years, or 1200 on a less pretty one made from hard wood that you need to sand and stain on your own, that would last for 100+ years? I have my grandfathers dinner table, just sanded down and re-stained/finished. I love that he used to eat at it.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…I have little choice but to figure out what “the scientific community” says, and go with that.
[/quote]
You have other choices – you could “figure out what ‘the scientific community’ says, and go with that,” and temper that conclusion…
[/quote]
Which is what I’ve done.[/quote]
I haven’t seen much in the way of tempering. Maybe I’ve missed a plethora of your posts that address such.[/quote]
What have you seen exactly? I’ve put my thesis down in simple English, and I even bulletted it a few times. What could possibly be unreasonable about those two points? Be specific.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
My academic record isn’t shabby either, but it doesn’t get me an inch closer to being an authority on the climate, or stomach cancer, or weapons engineering.
[/quote]
Distinctions. They’re always important.
Now that that Push proverb is out of the way tell me what is the single most significant distinction between the:
-
Climate change debate
-
Stomach cancer debate
-
Weapons engineering debate
Fire away.
[/quote]
Insofar as Sexmachine, Smh, and Push are in poor position–poor position indeed–to tell credentialed experts they’re wrong about any technical element of any of the three? There is no distinction. Unless you’re an oncologist and I don’t know it.[/quote]
Bullshit.
[/quote]
No, and you know it.
I meant what I said, and from the first relevant post I was making the obvious and true point that you, for example, are not remotely qualified to refute the technical details of which oncology, aeronautics, and atmospheric sciences are constructed.
I’ll put it yet another way. This is not like many of the other things we talk about here on PWI. If you were going to be participating in a public debate on, say, the Second Amendment, I would probably put my money on you. I might even bet on you in an Iraq War debate [as long as you didn’t have to contend with me 
]. But a climate change debate? Against, say, a member of Harvard’s EPS department? You would be dismantled in minutes, and you know it. As would I, as would anybody else who isn’t a professional scientist working in the field of climate science.
So, my point stands like a viagral member.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
My academic record isn’t shabby either, but it doesn’t get me an inch closer to being an authority on the climate, or stomach cancer, or weapons engineering.
[/quote]
Distinctions. They’re always important.
Now that that Push proverb is out of the way tell me what is the single most significant distinction between the:
-
Climate change debate
-
Stomach cancer debate
-
Weapons engineering debate
Fire away.
[/quote]
Insofar as Sexmachine, Smh, and Push are in poor position–poor position indeed–to tell credentialed experts they’re wrong about any technical element of any of the three? There is no distinction. Unless you’re an oncologist and I don’t know it.[/quote]
Bullshit.
[/quote]
No, and you know it.
I meant what I said, and from the first relevant post I was making the obvious and true point that you, for example, are not remotely qualified to refute the technical details of which oncology, aeronautics, and atmospheric sciences are constructed.
I’ll put it yet another way. This is not like many of the other things we talk about here on PWI. If you were going to be participating in a public debate on, say, the Second Amendment, I would probably put my money on you. I might even bet on you in an Iraq War debate [as long as you didn’t have to contend with me ]. But a climate change debate? Against, say, a member of Harvard’s EPS department? You would be dismantled in minutes, and you know it. As would I, as would anybody else who isn’t a professional scientist working in the field of climate science.
So, my point stands like a viagral member.[/quote]
If a climate scientist tells me all jubbies are wubbies and some wubbies are dubbies therefore some jubbies are dubbies - I don’t need to know what jubbies, wubbies or dubbies are to know there’s something wrong with his argument.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
If a climate scientist tells me all jubbies are wubbies and some wubbies are dubbies therefore some jubbies are dubbies - I don’t need to know what jubbies, wubbies or dubbies are to know there’s something wrong with his argument.[/quote]
And if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass, and if I went one on one with LeBron James while he was dying of TB, I’d shut him out.
As I said, a professional mainstream climatologist at a top research university would dismantle either of you in a climate change debate. Within minutes if not seconds. That is not a guess.
Not that that is a reflection on either you with regard to intellect. I think you’re both very smart. But if you’ve never played chess, you’re going to get embarrassed by Kasparov.
Which is why I don’t correct Dr. Matt and Aragorn on any scientific question that is remotely technical–and why either of them would ruin any of us in a debate related to science, as I am told has happened in the past. It is why I don’t correct Dr. S on any Torah-or-medicine-related question that is remotely technical, and I don’t correct Beans on any tax-related question that is remotely technical.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Which is why I don’t correct Dr. Matt and Aragorn on any scientific question that is remotely technical–and why either of them would ruin any of us in a debate related to science, as I am told has happened in the past. It is why I don’t correct Dr. S on any Torah-or-medicine-related question that is remotely technical, and I don’t correct Beans on any tax-related question that is remotely technical.[/quote]
And neither do I. However, they haven’t spent the last thirty years making apocalyptic predictions that all turn out to be baloney.
Seriously. Can you get more climate wacko alarmist than this? Do they just completely ignore the fact the earth has been in a cooling phase? And that any warming that has occurred in the last 30 years has not been uniform across the globe but localized to certain areas?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Which is why I don’t correct Dr. Matt and Aragorn on any scientific question that is remotely technical–and why either of them would ruin any of us in a debate related to science, as I am told has happened in the past. It is why I don’t correct Dr. S on any Torah-or-medicine-related question that is remotely technical, and I don’t correct Beans on any tax-related question that is remotely technical.[/quote]
And neither do I. However, they haven’t spent the last thirty years making apocalyptic predictions that all turn out to be baloney.[/quote]
You are returning to a logical fallacy for which you’ve already been corrected, and not only by me.
Not every climatologist has “spent the last thirty years making apocalyptic predictions that all turn out to be baloney.” You are again addressing your attention to the imprudent extreme of a group that includes many cool and reasonable credentialed experts. It was clear by the way that I framed this hypothetical that you were not up against some guy who said we’d be swimming down Park Avenue by 2010. Thus, my argument stands. You go up against a mainstream, top-tier PhD whose view is representative of what I’ve been saying in this thread (which in turn is representative of a calm and rational measurement of the consensus opinion among climatologists). You argue whatever it is you’re arguing about AGW being hokum or negligible. Do you think for a minute that you win? Or tie?