What Climate Change?

[JohnStOnge]

BTW, when the 2007 Summary for Policymakers came out it did not include that caveat about unequivocal attribution requiring experiments that can't be conducted. It was in the actual report but not in the summary for poicymakers. Seems to me to be a pretty darned important piece of information to leave out. To me that is something that should be stated very prominently right up front.

But it wasn't.

Based on doing a "find" on the word "experiment" on the latest Summary for Policymakers I don't think it's in that one either. It'll be interesting to see if they still tell the truth with respect to that matter in the report and still omit that piece of information in the document intended for policy makers' consumption.

[Chizzang]

At this point one has to have faith in the unexplained/unproven to believe either in God or the lack thereof in creation. There are too many holes that are not explained by the scientific method.

Just because life might be started as a chemical reaction (I hope you are not relying on the discredited Urey-Miller or other similarly discredited experiments), doesn't mean it was. Ward & Brownlee in "rare Earth" and Dose in "The Origin of Life: More Questions than answers point out some of the difficulties, as summarized by Geisler & Turek in "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist".

There is no way to prove or disprove how exactly life came to be through the scientific method. If you disagree would you please send a link to the repeatable experiments that prove how it actually started, not how it might have started. Theorems and postulations are not enough.

As one of my favorite Christian apologists says, when scientists finally scale the mountain of knowledge, they will find a theologian at the top wondering why it took them so long.

I view intelligent design as hopeful and not fearful.

PS - Thanks for typing slowly. It was a great help.

Nothing is more exciting than the idea of god to me...
Sometimes it seems like the only interesting topic
because without God I question the meaning of it all too much and enjoy life less

So I'm "All In" on the God thing
What disappoints me is the idea that we can now "Stop" because some guys wrote a book
That is the end of meaning as well

Including all the poorly written codex throughout history / None are even remotely satisfactory
They are simply put: Not worthy of having God be their source
In fact they are embarrassing and ridiculous (excluding a few meek sentences of general spirituality)

I fear that we are doomed to "stop" researching the Universe
And the the Dullards and religious sycophants will be the death of us all (if they have their way)

Science is our only chance at Finding God in my opinion
We know 1 percent of 1 / Now is not the time to praise Jezus and prepare for the end days

[Cap'n Cat]

[GannonFan]

I fear that we are doomed to "stop" researching the Universe
And the the Dullards and religious sycophants will be the death of us all (if they have their way)

Science is our only chance at Finding God in my opinion
We know 1 percent of 1 / Now is not the time to praise Jezus and prepare for the end days

I don't get that - there are plenty of scientists that are also followers of some religion. The idea that religious belief precludes the desire to explore and research the Universe isn't reality.

[LeadBolt]

I fear that we are doomed to "stop" researching the Universe
And the the Dullards and religious sycophants will be the death of us all (if they have their way)

Science is our only chance at Finding God in my opinion
We know 1 percent of 1 / Now is not the time to praise Jezus and prepare for the end days

I don't get that - there are plenty of scientists that are also followers of some religion. The idea that religious belief precludes the desire to explore and research the Universe isn't reality.

Gannon is correct. Many scientists are followers of religion and it in no way hinders their pursuit of science. Darwin saw no conflict between his theories of evolution and his religion, for instance. That came from others.

Theology is the study of why. Science is the study of how. In no way are they mutually exclusive. I believe they go hand in hand.

Chizzang is correct in that we only know 1 percent of 1 %. We need to know more. By knowing more about the universe we will know more about God and vice versa.

There is no conflict between studying science and studying God. The only conflict exists by human kinds imperfect understanding of science, as well as humans imperfect understanding of God. We need to know more about both and exclude neither because of our lack of understanding and narrow minded insistence in dismissing either one.

[kalm]

I don't get that - there are plenty of scientists that are also followers of some religion. The idea that religious belief precludes the desire to explore and research the Universe isn't reality.

Gannon is correct. Many scientists are followers of religion and it in no way hinders their pursuit of science. Darwin saw no conflict between his theories of evolution and his religion, for instance. That came from others.

Theology is the study of why. Science is the study of how. In no way are they mutually exclusive. I believe they go hand in hand.

Chizzang is correct in that we only know 1 percent of 1 %. We need to know more. By knowing more about the universe we will know more about God and vice versa.

There is no conflict between studying science and studying God. The only conflict exists by human kinds imperfect understanding of science, as well as humans imperfect understanding of God. We need to know more about both and exclude neither because of our lack of understanding and narrow minded insistence in dismissing either one.

So god is either a really poor communicator...or a dick?

[Gil Dobie]

So god is either a really poor communicator...or a dick?

Depends on your understanding of God.

[kalm]

So god is either a really poor communicator...or a dick?

Depends on your understanding of God.

Yeah...I was being both a poor communicator AND a dick with that post.

But I would submit that so far, science has done a much better of describing how than christianity has of explaining why.

[Gil Dobie]

Depends on your understanding of God.

Yeah...I was being both a poor communicator AND a dick with that post.

But I would submit that so far, science has done a much better of describing how than christianity has of explaining why.

Depends on your understanding of God and Science. Also depends on which version of Christianity you are referring to.

[kalm]

Yeah...I was being both a poor communicator AND a dick with that post.

But I would submit that so far, science has done a much better of describing how than christianity has of explaining why.

Depends on your understanding of God and Science. Also depends on which version of Christianity you are referring to.

Any

[Gil Dobie]

Depends on your understanding of God and Science. Also depends on which version of Christianity you are referring to.

Any

I guess I am the poor communicator.

[houndawg]

Any

I guess I am the poor communicator.

We don't expect much from somebody who believes that virgins have babies, dead people walk out of their tombs and fly up into the sky, and the Earth is 6,000 years old, so don't berate yourself too much..

[Gil Dobie]

Depends on your understanding of God and Science. Also depends on which version of Christianity you are referring to.

Any

What I meant to say was Christianity does not impede science. I consider myself a Christian, Spiritual, not religious. Back in '85, I wrote a paper on why dinosaurs were warm blooded and did not become extinct. They simply evolved into the birds that we know today. Scientist still debate this evolutionary process today. A few people perceive this not possible for a Christian to write and believe in evolution. Mutations may be the reason for the "Missing Link" not being found, as far as human evolution goes.

Climate change will continue as the world population continues to rise. Most of us are using computers powered by coal power plants. How many coal power plants will we need to power the electronics of the population 50 or 100 years from now? I'm not a fan of a landscape of windmills, so I would like to see the coal plant emission cleaned up or nuclear energy made safer or both. Nobody appears to be in a hurry for either.

[JohnStOnge]

We don't expect much from somebody who believes that virgins have babies, dead people walk out of their tombs and fly up into the sky, and the Earth is 6,000 years old, so don't berate yourself too much..

It takes at least as much faith to believe that what we see around us arose through the action of random chance in the context of the physical laws.

That's not to say I don't think that happened. As I've written before, I'm an agnostic. But I do wonder at seeing how atheists ridicule the beliefs of religious people while apparently being oblivious to the questionable nature of some of the things they themselves have to believe in order to be affirmatively atheist.

[houndawg]

We don't expect much from somebody who believes that virgins have babies, dead people walk out of their tombs and fly up into the sky, and the Earth is 6,000 years old, so don't berate yourself too much..

It takes at least as much faith to believe that what we see around us arose through the action of random chance in the context of the physical laws.

That's not to say I don't think that happened. As I've written before, I'm an agnostic. But I do wonder at seeing how atheists ridicule the beliefs of religious people while apparently being oblivious to the questionable nature of some of the things they themselves have to believe in order to be affirmatively atheist.

I think most atheists and agnostics are open to any evidence the believers want to put forth. However it seems that all they can come up with is "evolution isn't proven". Somehow they think that disproving the most widely accepted theory is proof that their theory is right.

[Chizzang]

I don't get that - there are plenty of scientists that are also followers of some religion. The idea that religious belief precludes the desire to explore and research the Universe isn't reality.

Gannon is correct. Many scientists are followers of religion and it in no way hinders their pursuit of science. Darwin saw no conflict between his theories of evolution and his religion, for instance. That came from others.

Theology is the study of why. Science is the study of how. In no way are they mutually exclusive. I believe they go hand in hand.

Chizzang is correct in that we only know 1 percent of 1 %. We need to know more. By knowing more about the universe we will know more about God and vice versa.

There is no conflict between studying science and studying God. The only conflict exists by human kinds imperfect understanding of science, as well as humans imperfect understanding of God. We need to know more about both and exclude neither because of our lack of understanding and narrow minded insistence in dismissing either one.

So what you're saying is it's good to Believe part of a religion
Just not the obvious bullsh!t and dumb bits and pieces

I get it,
Faith isn't Science
and they are not mutually exclusive either
But to say:
I believe in God is distinctly different
Than saying I believe in THIS SPECIFIC God
The one who provided a multitude of miracles over and over again
and then for some reason stopped / and now here we are...

That's a disconnect larger than any faith required to believe in Evolution
We can observe natural selection and Evolution / but Waiting around for the apocalypse and Satan
Well that's something entirely different / Unless of course you exclude that part
and genesis and the Zombie part

Picking and choosing from a book written by zealots who pretend it was written by GOD
Seems odd and a little desperate (beyond common faith)

Science provides a far more reliable backdrop for GOD research
and creating a system of GOD beliefs as well as faith

Any logical person can see that

[JohnStOnge]

Well I checked out the new Physical Science Basis report and did some "find" searches on the word "experiment." Can't find anything like the thing they said last time (2007 report) about unequivocal attribution (saying any particular climate change is due to any particular cause) requiring controlled experiments that are not possible to conduct. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's the truth, but if I saw it and pointed it out as a concession of the truth I'm sure others did too. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't want truths in there that might "confuse" people.

[ASUMountaineer]

It takes at least as much faith to believe that what we see around us arose through the action of random chance in the context of the physical laws.

That's not to say I don't think that happened. As I've written before, I'm an agnostic. But I do wonder at seeing how atheists ridicule the beliefs of religious people while apparently being oblivious to the questionable nature of some of the things they themselves have to believe in order to be affirmatively atheist.

I think most atheists and agnostics are open to any evidence the believers want to put forth. However it seems that all they can come up with is "evolution isn't proven". Somehow they think that disproving the most widely accepted theory is proof that their theory is right.

Not all Christians discredit evolution. Neither do all Christians view science-and-faith or evolution-and-creationism as mutually exclusive. Evolution does not disprove the existence of a god anymore than the unknowing of what happened before the Big Bang proves the existence of a god.

[Pwns]

It takes at least as much faith to believe that what we see around us arose through the action of random chance in the context of the physical laws.

That's not to say I don't think that happened. As I've written before, I'm an agnostic. But I do wonder at seeing how atheists ridicule the beliefs of religious people while apparently being oblivious to the questionable nature of some of the things they themselves have to believe in order to be affirmatively atheist.

I think most atheists and agnostics are open to any evidence the believers want to put forth. However it seems that all they can come up with is "evolution isn't proven". Somehow they think that disproving the most widely accepted theory is proof that their theory is right.

No, atheists are actually quite selective when it comes to believing things that cannot be proven that they believe in.

They don't need proof of alternate universes to be agnostic or to believe in them. Same thing with dark matter and a lot of other stuff in theoretical physics that may never be validated with experiments.

[JohnStOnge]

FYI, the IPCC report's repeated use of the term "confidence" is misleading at best. You can't derive a confidence level, as the terminology "confidence level" is commonly understood, without a controlled experiment. The whole point is that, under the assumption of no effect and random assignment of treatment, there is (for instance) a 95 percent chance that you would've gotten results within a certain range.

For example: Let's say that you want to infer that a fertilizer will result in a higher average growth rate among individuals of a certain plant species. You randomly assign some individuals to the treatment (fertilizer) and the other individuals to be controls (no fertilizer). You assume that the fertilizer has no effect. If it has no effect then the difference in means you see occurred by random chance. It's determined by how the random assignment of treatment went. Then you assess the results and get a difference between average growth rates of the two groups. The statistical hypothesis test assess the probability that, given the assumption that the difference was determined by random chance, the difference would be smaller than it is. If the probability is 0.95, for instance, you conclude that the difference is "significant" at the 95 percent confidence level. And so you say that you are 95 percent confident that the treatment (fertilizer) had an effect.

That's what "confidence" is commonly understood to mean with respect to cause and effect. Deriving a cause and effect "confidence level" DEPENDS ENTIRELY on the random assignment of experimental subjects to treatments. A cause and effect confidence level CAN NOT EXIST without that random assignment of treatment. And, obviously, there is no random assignment of treatment to planets in climate science.

I understand that I am just me. But if you're interested take what I wrote above and take it to a professor of statistics or somebody like that when you get a chance. He or she will tell you that what I wrote above is true. Without the random assignment of treatment there is no cause and effect confidence.

To be somewhat fair, they wrote that in their document "confidence" is a qualitative term. When they say "confidence" they are expressing a qualitative opinion. But using that term creates a false impression.

[kalm]

I think most atheists and agnostics are open to any evidence the believers want to put forth. However it seems that all they can come up with is "evolution isn't proven". Somehow they think that disproving the most widely accepted theory is proof that their theory is right.

No, atheists are actually quite selective when it comes to believing things that cannot be proven that they believe in.

Wonder, imagine, theorize, would be more fair terms.

[Caribbean Hen]

The Government funded report shows 19 per cent of people are climate change disbelievers - up from just four per cent in 2005 - while nine per cent did not know.

She said: "When the government is so clearly failing to act on climate change, or take seriously its obligations under the Climate Change Act, it's not surprising that the level of doubt about climate change has risen.

None of this is surprising when you consider the amount of money spent by deniers and industry to refute it. And so what if 19% of "people" disbelieve?

Conspiracy Theory Poll Results

On our national poll this week we took the opportunity to poll 20 widespread and/or infamous conspiracy theories. Many of these theories are well known to the public, others perhaps to just the darker corners of the internet. Here’s what we found:

- 37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not. Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77, and Independents are more split at 41-51. 61% of Romney voters believe global warming is a hoax

- 6% of voters believe Osama bin Laden is still alive

- 21% of voters say a UFO crashed in Roswell, NM in 1947 and the US government covered it up. More Romney voters (27%) than Obama voters (16%) believe in a UFO coverup

- 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. A plurality of Romney voters (38%) believe in the New World Order compared to 35% who don’t

- 28% of voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. 36% of Romney voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, 41% do not

- 20% of voters believe there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism, 51% do not

- 7% of voters think the moon landing was faked

- 13% of voters think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, including 22% of Romney voters

- Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 72% of Democrats think Bush lied about WMDs, Independents agree 48-45, just 13% of Republicans think so

- 29% of voters believe aliens exist

- 14% of voters say the CIA was instrumental in creating the crack cocaine epidemic in America’s inner cities in the 1980’s

- 9% of voters think the government adds fluoride to our water supply for sinister reasons (not just dental health)

- 4% of voters say they believe “lizard people” control our societies by gaining political power

- 51% of voters say a larger conspiracy was at work in the JFK assassination, just 25% say Oswald acted alone

- 14% of voters believe in Bigfoot

- 15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals (the so-called Tinfoil Hat crowd)

- 5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons

- 15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money

- Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966

- 11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen, 78% do not agree

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main ... ults-.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



BTW, climate scientists predicted the increase in sea ice this year after the record breaking reduction is sea ice last year.

“Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966”

I have a story about this but first

Recent comments from a relative who has come of age

Where the Beatles holding Paul McCartney back?

I could listen to “Band on the Run” all day … wow it’s so much better than anything today

Dad: I’m proud of you son as you are starting to understand this world

[BDKJMU]

Holy almost 13 year thread bump…