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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 11, 2013 10:40:01 GMT
 All the text from Paul Ehrlich comes from his recent tweets. Since Ehrlich has so much to say about morons, the public and politicians, I'm really surprised he was not aware of this gem from Mencken - As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. And I wonder which particular "moron", now the President's advisor in all things climatological, made these particular predictions? "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." (1) "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." (2) Yes, you guessed! Answers (1)Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971. (2)Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970 What was the Royal Society THINKING of! |
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aubrey
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Post by aubrey on Feb 12, 2013 10:13:46 GMT
Who was it said that there would be no reason for anyone to have a computer in the home? And who thought that, one day, every major city would have a telephone?
Scientists can the worst predictors of the future.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 12, 2013 10:39:16 GMT
The merely opinionated deserve no place in a scientific institution.
Nurse has turned the RS into a PC circus.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 12, 2013 10:48:50 GMT
Andrew Montford reports Another right royal dogmatist
Ed Davey is to speak to a Royal Society seminar today on the subject of climate change. Apparently he will argue that
the science of climate change is "irrefutable" and man is making a "significant" contribution to rising global temperatures.
"Irrefutable" eh? That doesn't sound like science to me. That sounds like religion.
Funny old place the Royal Society. -------- What else would you expected from a guy who calls himself " Climate Change Secretary" with a PPE degree from Oxford and no work experience? - A lot of politics and no understanding of science or life. Far too many of this type hanging around Westminster courtesy of Bishop Hill |
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 12, 2013 11:55:31 GMT
Davey will offer fresh assurances that the government's climate policy is firmly based on the latest scientific evidence and call on scientists and researchers to play an even more proactive role in supporting the development of the green economy. It must be hard to get any but grant and rent seekers to support Green moonshine these days. |
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Post by aubrey on Feb 13, 2013 9:31:01 GMT
Monckton's another one, isn't he? Trying to get in where he's not wanted. And for someone who says that opinion has no place in science, Marchesa, you always manage to slip a few by, don't you? Do you think that people like Ed Davey are just dirty fat liars, though? or is it something different? I'm off for my check up. I hope I manage to produce a sample this time.  |
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Post by ncsonde on Feb 13, 2013 12:23:23 GMT
And for someone who says that opinion has no place in science, Marchesa, you always manage to slip a few by, don't you? Since when has Marchesa ever claimed to be a scientist? He's a politician, with absolutely no training in any science, and apparently very little knowledge of climate science. His scientific advisor, David Mackay, has no background in climate science either - though he has self-published a book on renewable energy, and is on record, and so personally invested, in the sort of views expressed by Davey to the RS. And those views are wrong. Factually wrong. Whatever he might mean by "the science of climate change" one thing it can never be is "irrefutable". Marchesa is right - such dogmatism has absolutely no place in science. That man is making a "significant" contribution to rising global temperatures: where does he get that from? There's no actual evidence for it whatsoever - it's entirely based on theory, and on computer model outputs programmed with that theory. Actual real world observations not only have not conformed with that theory, and those model predictions, they've positively refuted them. The theory states with unavoidable certainty that CO2 emissions acting as a greenhouse gas according to the mathematical model must produce a marked temperature increase in the tropical troposphere, between two and three times as hot as the temperature anomaly predicted on the ground. Every computer model used by the IPCC predicts the same, based on this theory. Actual satellite and radiosonde measurements show that this predicted heat belt is not there - in fact, it's cooler than the ground according to most measurements. This is why the last IPCC report had to state that there was no signature of man-made global warming yet discernible. The theory of CO2 as a greenhouse gas producing global warming is as it stands falsifed, therefore. That's how science works, in every other field. The theory must be modified, because its predictions have been shown to be wrong. Not just the prediction that the global temp should have been increasing for the past fifteen years, along with our increasing CO2 emissions - the actual discernible difference it makes in specific observational measurement is not there. So something else is going on. A large and growing section of the scientific community is fully aware of what that something else is, in broad outline. And it has nothing to do with anything man has ever done. At least 85% of the measured temp rises (and falls) of the past 150 years is now entirely explained by changes in solar output, affecting the plasma conditions of the ionosphere, which affect the cyclic activity of ozone entering the troposphere, which affects atmospheric and thereby sea pressure, significantly in the polar regions, which affects oscillating ocean currents, cloud cover, and wind production, which is then followed by corresponding temperature fluctuations. All this is demonstrated, by actual measured data sets. The "significance" of man-made contribution to the rise in global temperature is therefore no more than 0.25 degree C since the industrial revolution. It's paltry - hardly noticeable; and easily counteracted by the far more powerful factors driving the world's climate should those factors ever reverse their recent (entirely natural, predictable) trend - as they have done in recent years. If Davey had been even moderately informed about these matters - proven scientific findings - then he wouldn't have made such an utter fool of himself with the comical irony of calling "deniers" dogmatic and blinkered. And his excuse will be, when all this becomes definitively "irrefutable" in ten or so years time: that's what my scientific advisors told me. And Mackay's excuse? That's what the "scientific consensus" told me. And the excuse of all those who make up this so-called "scientific consensus"? That's what most of the others said. |
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Post by aubrey on Feb 13, 2013 13:58:14 GMT
Do you think climate scientists - you know, the ones who don't agree with you -- are big fat liars, then? Or are they just stupid?
Marchesa is not a scientist but she claims that her opinions are based on science. Even those that just come from prejudice.
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Post by ncsonde on Feb 13, 2013 17:19:51 GMT
Do you think climate scientists - you know, the ones who don't agree with you -- are big fat liars, then? Or are they just stupid? That's a very, very complicated question, and anyone can certainly be forgiven by being confused by the matter. There are many strands to any satisfactory answer. The first would be that "climate scientists" is an extremely amorphous, fluid, and technically very novel category. It justifiably includes many that don't agree with my potted summary above; it includes many that do. The ones that don't are, believe it or not, usually ignorant of the scientific findings I've referred to. This is because they fall out of their speciality - it's in part plasma science, solar science, studies of the ionosphere, interplanetary cycles, the sunspot cycle, etcetera. Meteorologists as a rule know zilch about such matters - scientists managing the half a dozen or so computer models of the oceans and atmosphere know zilch about such stuff: they don't realise it's the foundation of their subject, and so they're only peripherally interested, when its findings are drawn to their attention. And that would be through one of the half dozen or so scientific journals dealing with their speciality, or the two or three covering general scientific innovations that most scientists selectively peruse. Those general journals refuse to publish anything challenging the AGW theory - for some reason they've all come to the political policy decision that they have a duty not to confuse anyone with rational doubt. Their speciality journals do not cover it either - because these studies are usually from another speciality. It's called the fragmentation and specialism of "Science", the dangers of which were first warned about over a century ago by Eddington and Whitehead. And then there a host of other complicated reasons, to do with how scientists earn their living, how conventional the scientific establishment is, how theory adjustment is deeply resisted once a paradigm has been accepted and taught, how "outsiders" to a specialised field are fiercely resented, and consciously excluded, how reputations are jealously protected, how there is a resistance to reassessing what one already believes one knows. And with this issue in particular, all these matters are vastly more complicated, and their influence compounded, by the deep politicisation of the whole issue. The Clintons and Gores and Blairs and Daveys - the "future of the planet" stakes, the immense pervasive pressures for mainstream scientists to conform to the message. So - not liars. A certain clear element of stupidity, yes. A certain almost criminal distortion of scientific methodology. But, mostly, just ordinary ignorance, and venial human nature. Her "opinions" about the climate debate largely are, as far as I've read. Everyone tries to buttress their "prejudices" with supposed facts and proven theories, do they not? Nothing remarkable about Marchesa there. You do it all the time, for example - about drugs, pornography, economics, political history. Only I am immune from such a common failing, it seems.  |
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Post by aubrey on Feb 14, 2013 9:43:19 GMT
Of course I do it all the time; I don't claim anything different.
It's them other buggers you want to watch.
And it's only the antis who are completely apolitical, despite being nearly all right wing, and funded by right wing organisations and people (the Kochs, Trump, etc).
Based on some, not really undisputed, science. Often backed up with stuff from right wing blogs and journalists.
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Post by ncsonde on Feb 14, 2013 15:37:54 GMT
And it's only the antis who are completely apolitical, despite being nearly all right wing, and funded by right wing organisations and people (the Kochs, Trump, etc). Not that one again! You're as bad as the Marchesa with your idees fixes. Like what? Be specific please, then there might be something to discuss. Or do you just want to get in a few unsubstantiable digs at another poster you don't happen to like? Jeez. All right, seeing as this issue seems to be so all fired important to you. Tell me: in what way do you consider the political beliefs of anyone has a bearing on how the climate of the Earth functions? |
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Post by aubrey on Feb 21, 2013 13:57:11 GMT
I like the Marchesa. But it is all disputed. Otherwise there would not be an argument. And Oeh Chreest (to be said in the style of Cartman), the funding for anti AGW groups by right wing organisations is really well known. Maybe it's because they're stupid. But maybe it's because they have a political philosophy that is based on getting rid of regulations on industry. Like these buggers, who, as well as giving to anti AGW groups, would also like to see govt functions performed by charity. |
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Post by ncsonde on Feb 21, 2013 18:56:40 GMT
I like the Marchesa. But it is all disputed. Wrong. The sunspot record is not disputed, for example - it's meticulously recorded, and has been for centuries. Nor is its correlation with global temperature. Falsifying the record, amd denying the correlation exists, is not "disputing" it. It's merely lying. You have an extremely naive understanding of how the scientific community operates. Even if true, it's irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the findings of scientific research. These are not evaluated according to who funded the research. You've not answered the question. What has this to do with the science? |
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Post by aubrey on Feb 22, 2013 8:58:25 GMT
Nothing to do with the science. It's all obfuscation. Most of the people discussing this are not scientists. And, you know, leave off with the god you're so naive thing. You're not a scientist either; at least I admit I'm not. The whole thing about climate change is disputed - the science, what should be done about it, everything. Right wingers naturally dislike any govt interference in industry, and campaign and lobby against it; they do the same with safety requirements, minimum wage laws, working hours restrictions - everything. With climate change they say either that it's not happening, it has nothing to do with us, something will turn up, etc; any other reaction, according to them, is (to quote Cartman again), nothing but a bunch of tree-hugging hippie crap!That group I linked to above, and the Koch (not pronounced cock, heh heh) brothers, Donald Trump, etc, give lots and lots of money to anti AGW groups. Oil companies spend millions on lobbying to stop or water down any climate laws (just as they were doing with oil rig safety laws before that big blow-out a couple of years back - oops).  (J Delingpole thinks that South Park is right wing; he probably thinks Cartman is an admirable character as well.) |
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Post by ncsonde on Feb 24, 2013 1:17:01 GMT
Nothing to do with the science. Exactly. It is not a requirement to be a professional scientist to understand a scientific paper, theory, or debate. In this case, it's not difficult at all to follow the argument: especially the AGW case. It's very basic, simple stuff. It's virtually impossible to "obfuscate" it, unless you're a complete dimwit, who doesn't know the first thing about the subject. Apart from that - there are many scientists who are discussing this, who disagree with the CAGW theory, and who are not in receipt of any funds from rightwing groups. There are also quite a few scientists who vehemently disagree with the AGW lobby who are card-carrying liberals or belong to leftwing political parties. There are also scientists at the forefront of promoting the AGW theory who are in receipt of funds from rightwing sources - I've just mentioned one, Stefan Rahmstorf, who funds his AGW lobbying thanks to a million dollar grant from the McDonnell Foundation. This sort of irrelevant comment merely indicates again the depth of your naivety. You do not have to be a scientist to learn about science, or how it is conducted as an institution. My primary subject for four years at university, incidentally; and for many years before, and many years after. I've just told you - not the whole thing, no. Some observations cannot be disputed. Correlations between data sets cannot be disputed - it's a simple mathematical truth. As I've said, this is an irrelevant matter to the question of the science of climate change. Fine - that's what they believe, for the sake of argument, as you believe the opposite. It's a question of political philosophy. But no one is talking about them. Who cares what they say - or what people like you say, for that matter? It's nothing to do with the science. What you've clearly failed to realise or appreciate is that this debate is going on at a far more serious and respectable level than a South Park cartoon, or some jeering down your local SWP club. That may or may not be true: so what? It's a drop in the ocean compared to what they're up against, I assure you. Tell me, just so we're clear: what are these "anti AGW" groups that you're so convinced play such a significant role in the scientific debate about climate change? Lawson's, I presume? (even though he was the first politician in the world to fund and commission an investigative report into global warming, and even though he is not "anti AGW"). What else? Evidence for this, please. I agree - it is fairly rightwing. But then, to you, who or what isn't? |
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