lucaspa

This is a similar timeline to others I have seen. For instance: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Lectures/vistas97.html I don't understand why you picked solar history out of this. The page is mostly concerned with whether this paper predicting the future of Neptune is accurate! 1) Sloane J. Wiktorowica and Andrew P. Ingersoll, Liquid water oceans in ice giants, available as astro-ph/0609723. According to Baez, there are problems with the projection by Sloane et al. You seem to have missed the point Baez was making and instead focussed on a background hypothesis that both Sloane et al. and Baez are using: the timeline of future events in the solar system.

Again, you misrepresent what the United Nations data said! All the data presented said was that population was going to be 9 billion with a slow growth rate. NOTHING about a peak and then "slow reduction" Now, you also said that population in developing nations would come with access to birth control. Can you be assured that will happen? As to "preferring pessimism", it's obvious you aren't a scientist. Every scientist knows Murphy's Law: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. It's not that we "prefer pessimism", but that we have been taught as scientists to avoid overinterpreting the data and drawing (optimistic) conclusions not supported by the data. There's also the other saying: optimists have more fun, but pessimists are right more often.

No, we are not. Probability is a very specific statistical term you use when you can calculate how "probable" one value is among many values. This is based on a population of values and we calculate how many times that value occurs compared to the total number of times ALL values occur. Thus, looking at a population of human individuals and making the bell-shaped curve, we can say there is a 95% probability that an individual will be between value x and value y. Out of 100 individuals picked at random, 95 will be between x and y. Scenarios occur when you arbitrarily pick parameters and see what happens. There is no "probability" that a particular scenario is correct. And certainly not in this particular case, where each projection of world population represents ONE value obtained. No, not all the predictions are based on that. You have, in fact, 3 scenarios based on decline in birth rates and constant mortality rates. One of them gives a world population greater than 9 billion and not stable. Of course, the scenario using today's birth rates gives you a VERY high world population. Notice that you are forgetting the other half of the assumptions: mortality rates as they are today. BUT, those are also declining. People are living longer, yes, even in developing nations. Therefore you cannot take the projections as infallible. Again, you can't distinguish between facts and hypotheses. Nor did you provide data for declining birth rates. Once again you are presenting a "fact" but without the supporting data. On another thread you say you don't accept "authority" but want to see data, but you present yourself as authority without the data. I asked you to present data in my last post to back up a claim. You didn't. I asked for data that we were a long way from the limits of what you called "biological productivity". Where is the data?

By Bascule's logic, YES. Bascule is stating that whales are at least equal in sentience to chimps and thus at a level humans would consider close to us. Now, what are the ethics of eating a sentient species? One that feels and thinks like we do? A sentient food animal? Even Hitler would vomit. There are many, many science fiction stories exploring this theme, many of them with aliens viewing humans as the food animal. In all cases, this is viewed as VERY morally wrong. So, would it be OK to maintain a population of humans and kill them for food? As long as we don't "overfish" the population? How about chimps? Should we use chimpanzees as food animals, as long as we don't "overfish"? Bascule is saying that whales belong in this category. Now, you can disagree with Bascule's basic premise: that whales belong in this category. But, once placed in the category, Bascule's logic is unassailable. People don't always do things in their long-term commercial interests. And that is what you are talking about -- long-term interests. Japan already is NOT acting in their long-term commercial interests. In this case, the hypothesis advanced by Bascule, SkepticLance, myself, and others is that emotional motivation is over-riding the long-term commercial interests: national self-esteem, ego, pride, face-saving, etc. Also remember that, if whales go extinct, Japan will only suffer very minor commercial harm. Whaling is incidental to Japan's commercial interests.

Let me second this -- again. Yes, we all agree to the goal: stop whaling. What we are saying is Greenpeace's approach is not working. Instead of decreasing the number of whales it kills each year, the Japanese are increasing the number. In a war, when things aren't working, change tactics. If you don't, you lose.

That's where we disagree. You say if Greenpeace backed off, the Japanese would hunt whales to extinction. What you miss is that, Japanese are already hunting the whales to extinction, with Greenpeace going full out! So what you say will happen IF Greenpeace backs off is already happening with Greenpeace fighting! Don't you see the problem you have there? Your premise is that Greenpeace is slowing down the Japanese whaling. Where is your evidence of that? From what I saw in a recent article in Science, the killing of whales by the Japanese for "science" has increased 4x in the last 10 years from 500 whales per year to over 2,000 whales per year. Now, it should be obvious that Greenpeace's tactics are not working. They are NOT keeping the Japanese from killing whales. Sorry, Fattyjwoods, but your own words contradict this. You said, in an earlier post: This says that the motivation for Greenpeace is keeping Greenpeace from getting a bad reputation. And that is pride. It's about Greenpeace's reputation, not about the whales. IF whaling occurs at the present rate. What you and I are dicussing is not whether whaling will make whales extinct. We agree that it will. What we disagree about is, listen carefully, the tactics that will get the Japanese to stop whaling. Now, you admit here that, with all Greenpeace's current tactics in place, the Japanese are planning to increase the number of whales they kill. This means, to me, that Greenpeace's tactics are not working. You seem to think that Japan would increase even more if Greenpeace eased off. I disagree. It looks to me like the increase is a result of Greenpeace's current tactics. It's an "We'll show Greenpeace not to try to dictate to us. We'll increase the number of whales we are taking!" My argument is that, without Greenpeace's current tactics, the economics of the situation will become dominant and cause a decrease in whaling. As SkepticLance has pointed out twice: Japan loses money with its whaling fleet. The only thing keeping it going are government subsidies. Without the goading of Greenpeace, the government could phase out the subsidies, reduce the fleet, and Japan would hunt fewer whales. Maybe even stop altogether.

You need to read my post. The answer is definitely "no". Yes. As Gould noted there are disciplines that explore areas that science cannot. There is a study of ethics, for instance. There is also philosophy and religion, all 3 of these explore areas where science cannot give an answer. The second of those were inherent in the question in the OP. It is implied that the explanation will be found and that it can be shown that the explanation is accurate. Now, whether everyone accepts (what you call "believing") that the explanation is accurate is, quite frankly, irrelevant. Ideas (and "explanations" here are ideas) are accurate or inaccurate independent of the personal acceptance of any individual or individuals. For instance, oxygen as an explanation for combustion is accurate independent of the phlogiston chemists who refused to "believe" it. Uncertainty in quantum mechanics is accurate independent of Albert Einstein's refusal to "believe" it. It's VERY important that you separate the idea and the accuracy of the idea from the acceptance of the idea.

The question is whether our continued presence can prevent these consequences. So far, all the evidence I've seen says that our continued presence won't prevent these from happening. What is your evidence that our presence will prevent them? 1. Both the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north had already had a considerable degree of autonomy and freedom BEFORE we invaded -- in large part due to the no-fly zones (which also meant no Hussein military zones) and Hussein's fear of another war with the US. So invading Iraq didn't give anything we hadn't already "given" them. Instead, it took freedom away. 2. What is your evidence that the Iraqi government will be able to "defend themselves without our aid"? Now, there is evidence that the various sectarian militias can defend themselves without our aid, but that isn't what you mean, is it? What you mean is a system like in the USA, where the elected government is popular and strong enough to put down the occasional violent dissident without disturbing the population. This is where the disagreement lies. Is our continued presence going to be able to generate an elected government capable of forming "a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"? I say all the evidence says "no". Our presence for the last 3 years has not done so. What makes you think that keeping our troops there is going to gain those goals?

Both are fanciful. If we don't have the troops to occupy Iraq, we certainly don't have the troops to occupy Iran. Our military is simply not large enough to conqueor Iran. The USA already had limits to its power. The real downside losing credibility among our allies in our judgement. We might not be able to get them to help when it really does matter. Illogical. The question is whether the USA IS "tainted". It is. We have violated some of our core principles: treatment of prisoners (much of what we have done is the same as what the Gestapo did), honesty in the justification for a war, Saddam was going to be out eventually anyway. We had him contained so that he could do no harm to his neighbors and very little harm to his own people. The Kurds, for instance, were better off under the no-fly zones than they are now. It's not a coincidence that getting rid of Saddam was the last and least reason the Bush Administration used to justify the war. In the spring of 2002 they started with (fictional) weapons of mass destruction, then added (fictional) ties to Al Queda in the summer, and only in the fall did we hear about what a bad guy Hussein was. Sorry, getting rid of a peaceful dictator is not enough of a "good thing" to go to war. Especially when that dictator has been denied control of 2/3 of his country. All we had to do was be patient and wait. 4,000 American sevicepeople (and counting) and tens of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive. Iraqis already had the chance for freedom. In fact, it was a better chance when Saddam was contained and we were waiting for an internal transition of power -- as in when he died. Under those circumstances, the Iraqis would have had time to peacefully consider how they wanted a post-Saddam government and country to look like. So it's bad that we invaded because WE are the ones that thru the country into total political chaos. Limits of US projecting power has been reestablished post Vietnam: That might be good or bad depending on your POV. It was juvenile. Are you aware that the French saves our asses -- twice -- in North Africa in 1942-1943? (Not to mention saving our ass so we could even BE a nation in 1777-1783.) Yes, twice. Outnumbered sometimes 3 or 4 to 1 and with inadequate weapons and supplies, it was French forces that held 2 key passes in the mountains of Tunisia and kept the Germans from sweeping around the American flank and annihilating the American army. See An Army at Dawn for the details. And this is how we show our gratitude? They disagree with us once and all we do is hold them up for humiliation? Any wonder our prestige is so low in the rest of the world?

No, we didn't. In fact, you admitted this yourself when you said After all, in order to "keep" the country, we must have an accepting population. So yes, you admit we lost because the insurgents are going to "take their country back". 1. We lost a battle on the war on terrorism the instant we invaded Iraq. We had deprived Al Queda of safe havens in Afghanistan. We gave them back in Iraq. 2. "We" can't "keep" the country. Anymore than we could "keep" South VietNam. We simply don't control the populace or have them on our side. The initiative is ALL with the insurgents. You can't win a war when the opposition has the initiative. Eventually, our casualties will reach a level that our military can't sustain and we will be "driven" from Iraq. Yes, it is. It's a measure of how many people think that they have to "take their country back". If we had "won" and were considered liberators who were just helping out until a democratic government was in place, then the Iraqis would be turning in the insurgents right and left. Instead, as you admit, we are being viewed as occupiers. Compare the level of violence in Iraq today with the level of violence in occupied Germany in 1946. In both cases we conqueored and occupied a country -- throwing out a brutal dictator in the process. Yet we won in Germany and had a very peaceful occupation.

Depends on what the "debate" is. If the debate is whether the US can win in Iraq, then no, some people are just going to disagree. If it is about what the exact consequences the results of a US defeat will be, honest people can disagree. If it is about the hypothesis that undesirable consequences of a US defeat justifies staying in Iraq, then there can be a "winner", because that hypothesis is wrong. The consequences of a defeat are separate from whether a defeat will or will not take place. A person supporting that hypothesis must move to the hypothesis that the US can win in Iraq (and thus avoid the consequences of defeat). And then we are back to where people disagree whether we can win.

There's the point! Hazead, some battles/wars can't be won. No matter how many troops the Army of the Potomac threw at the stone wall at Fredricksburg, they couldn't win. No matter how much attrition the Germans tried at Verdun in 1916, they couldn't win. No matter how many troops we put into Vietnam, or how long they stayed, we couldn't win. Sometimes the military/political situation is such that only one side can win. That's what we are facing in Iraq: a military/political situation where we can't win. No matter how long we stay or if we do a surge. We don't have the number of military to significantly increase the troops on the ground for any length of time, we don't have the political situation to increase the military to get enough troops, and the opponents have a military/political position where they can keep fighting us forever. No. We don't have the troop strength to invade Iran or Venezuela. We will not countenance the casualties we would take in invading N. Korea, especially when the North Koreans nuke Seoul and one of our divisions. Cuba? Maybe militarily we could pull it off, but it would take one hell of a great lie to justify that.

The reason you laughed is your ignorance. I said: We are agreed that the consequences of failure are going to be bad. We can discuss exactly what they will be. But the point is that staying in Iraq is not going to stop the consequences because, listen carefully, we have already lost. We are in a war that we can't win. Look at it this way, Germany used the terrible consequences they would have to face if they lost WWII as a reason to keep fighting, especially in 1945. Didn't matter, they were going to lose and the consequences were going to happen anyway. It would have saved them lives and treasure if they would have unconditionally surrendered after the offensive in the Ardennes failed. No, they are not. Because whether we can win or not is independent of the consequences. Whether Germany could win WWII was independent of the consequences of losing. As it turned out, they could not win. Because it was irrelevant to the point I was making: whatever the consequences are, they are going to happen anyway because we can't win in Iraq. So staying isn't going to prevent whatever is going to happen "when" we fail. We have ALREADY failed and the only things left to decide are: 1. How many Americans are going to die in combat before we admit we lost. 2. Exactly when the consequences will start. They'll start when we pull out. That was an answer. The hypothesis is: staying in Iraq will prevent undesirable consequences. The answer is: no, it won't. Whatever consequences are going to happen will happen, because we have lost and staying in Iraq is not going to enable us to win. We can't win this one.

Iraq falls into sectarian civil war. It's going to happen anyway, is happening now, and there is no way for us to prevent it. If we are lucky, Iraq partitions into 3 states: Shiite south, Kurdistan in the north, and a Sunni state in the middle. If we are unlucky, Iran invades and creates a larger Iran. In 5 or 10 years we may have a new state that is a haven for Al Queda and we may have to invade again, winning a conventional war and knocking the infrastructure down for a while. Everyone looks at bad consequences if we pull out. The fact is that those consequences are going to happen anyway because we can't "win". Some battles and wars simply can't be won. Japan really couldn't win WWII, the South couldn't win the Civil War. That is, as long as the opposition kept fighting. Well, in this case the opposition is the Iraqi Insurgency and they are going to keep fighting. As long as they do, we can't win. So, let's start getting ready for the consequences, because right now we are pouring more lives and treasure into a war we have already lost.

It was labeled as "longer term trends" but nothing about relating that to earth temperature: "Your graph of sunspot activity is hard to interpret. There are other graphs which do not track the 11 year cycle so closely - instead plotting longer term trends, which show the differences more clearly. For example : http://www.mps.mpg.de/images/projekt...te/climate.gif" Now, what is the original source of this graph? I can't get back to a webpage. Anyone can make up any graph they damn well please. But unless you have the original scientific source, you can't claim it as "basic data". Now you admit that sunspot activity does not correlate to solar irradiation "After that reduction, solar activity has changed little through to the present, outside the normal 11 year cycle. " So, we've gone thru several sunspot changes but no change in solar activity in 40 years. So why do you think sunspot activity before 1940 is going to correlate to solar activity? But you said what the mechanism was, didn't you? You said the mechanism was solar irradiation. So now you are saying you jumped from correlation to mechanism without adequate justification! Thanks for destroying your own argument. But this destroys the rationale behind the graph! If sunspots are at an all time high and have been for 70 years, then why does the graph have an increase in solar activity from 1930 to 1960, if it is based on sunspots? By the sunspot data, that solar activity area should have been constant and at what we see from 1960 onward -- based on the satellite data. From your posted article: "They then extrapolated the tree ring data backwards in time and discovered that no period in the last 8000 years has been as active as the last 70. About 75 sunspots have appeared every year in this period, compared to an annual average of about 30 over the last 11,400 years." That being the case, the graph should have a constant solar activity from 1920 to present during a period of increasing temperature. And there goes your "correlation" out the window. Yes, Skeptic, examining the data is always a good idea. You take way too much on authority, including an anonymous graph that is contradicted by the other data you post.

This is where you blew it. IPCC is not a person, and therefore not an "authority" like you are using. IPCC is the consensus conclusions of hundreds/thousands of climatologists. And what are those conclusions? Summaries of data. So, what you are trying to do is dismiss data you don't like by trying to call it "authority". Skeptic, remember that every one of the scientists who now advocate global warming started out thinking 1) the earth's average temperature was not changing and 2) that human activity was far too small to effect a system as large as the earth. IOW, NONE of them started out thinking anthropogenic global warming was true! ALL of them have changed their minds because they were faced by data that compelled them to do so. No, you haven't shown us "basic data". Because there is none. We only have direct measurements of solar activity for the last 40 years, since we have had satellites. And that data says solar activity has not changed during that time. Anything else is guesswork, and you have NOT looked at the basic data that led them to that guesswork. So it is really you taking the word of "authority" -- that solar irradiation increased from 1900 - 1940. We have no direct measurement that this happened. So, please, why don't you go to the paper where the graph was published and post to us the text (by cut and paste) on how they arrived at their model and their "authority" about solar irradiation.

Then you haven't read my profile. SkepticLance says "IPCC" is an "authority", as tho it is a single person. It's not. IPCC represents hundreds or thousands of climatologists. What it states is the consensus these scientists have reached because the data leaves them no choice. This is a summary of data, but SkepticLance tries to sidestep that by saying it is "authority". It's worthwhile to point out that this has happened with virtually EVERYONE who accepts global warming! Remember, the accepted hypothesis was that the average temperature of the earth was constant! And that human activity was not large enough to affect a system as large as the earth. So what we have are all "skeptics" who changed their minds based on the data! Nice summary.

And where is YOUR data for that? You wanted data from us, but have failed to provide data of your own. Again, where are your numbers? Also, you forget that there is a mininum number of individuals to maintain a viable gene pool. So habitat loss takes you to that minimum, and then the other causes are "contributing". And no, quantifying should not be impossible. In fact, all you have to do is count up species from the papers where this has been documented. Why didn't Lomborg do that?

Define "minor" and "far more important". These terms imply quantification of number of species that go extinct due to loss of habitat vs the number that go extinct by other causes. Lomborg should have been able to go thru the literature and tote up the number of extinctions due to loss of habitat vs other causes where a cause has been determined. Did he? If not, then his hypothesis is junk, because he never attempted to TEST it. From what you have told us, Lomborg ONLY went looking for supporting evidence. That isn't the way you are supposed to do science. You are supposed to look for data that FALSIFIES your hypothesis. In this case, it would be adding the numbers like I suggested. I went thru the references eliminating many that indicated other major causes. So please, be specific and do what Lomborg didn't: quantify your statement. It depends on the species. For species where poaching is a major problem, then you consider poaching. But for species that are NOT hunted, such as many of the fish species in the references I gave, stopping poaching isn't going to help is it? What you (and Lomborg) are trying to do is make a universal policy that says "always stop poaching and never save the habitat because habitat loss is a minor cause of extinction". That's just silly. How about quantifying the number of tigers lost to poaching vs those who die due to habitat loss? http://www.platinum-celebs.com/environment/news/013050.html says that about 50 Sumatran tigers are poached per year. That's about 10% of the remaining population. I'm having a more difficult time determining the number of tigers lost to habitat loss. However, we do know that tigers depend on a range, so there is a fixed number of tigers (n) per unit of area. "Our best approximation concludes that tiger habitats throughout India, Indochina, and Southeast Asia are now 40 percent less than what we estimated in 1995. As the Economic Tigers of Asia leap onto the world stage, wild tiger populations in those countries are in steep decline; today tigers occupy a mere 7 percent of their historical range and the threats are mounting, rather than diminishing." http://www.savethetigerfund.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Papers_and_Theses&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=2715 Poaching, like other hunting, may simply be removing excess population over what the habitat can sustain. So a 10% loss per year is not necessarily a 10% loss of animals per year. Compare to losing 40% of TOTAL number of animals because you have a 40% reduction in habitat. Let's do some numbers. Figure that the Sumatra tiger can sustain 500 individuals in the area it has. They lose 50 per year to poaching from 1995-2007 or a total of 600 tigers. However 500 is 40% of 1250, so in the same 12 year period we have lost at least 750 tigers to habitat loss. That's not what the data we have in this thread says. If you only stop poaching and don't stop habitat loss for tigers, tigers are going extinct! Habitat loss is the greater threat.

I've looked carefully thru this thread --twice -- and haven't seen ANY data posted by you on the subject. Now, I do know from the thread discussing population, that data you posted as "clear cut" was nothing of the sort because you didn't understand the methodology. I'd like to see the data here, please, to see if you haven't done the same thing again. http://www.colby.edu/sts/controversy/pages/solar_activity.htm http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/04/its-sun-stupid.html "There has been work on reconstructing past trends in solar irradiance over the last century before satellite records were available. Acording to the Max Plank Institute there has been no increase in solar irradiance since around 1940. This reconstruction does show an increase in the first part of the 20th century that coincides with the warming from around 1900 til the 1940's." Basically, we don't have any direct measurements of solar irradiation. It's a reconstruction that may or may not be accurate. The only thing that we know is that this model -- incorporating several factors -- matches past temperature readings. However, I'm sure there are other models that can also do so.

Define "doomsayers". How severe must the consequences of global warming be before it qualifies as "doomsayers"? Now, if you are saying no consequences vs severe consequences, then you haven't searched either place for "evidence". Looking at the papers on PubMed shows the data indicates severe consequences of global warming unless it is stopped. Same for the work of the IPCC. In fact, the scientists at the last IPCC meeting in April staged something of a revolt because the politicians consistently understated the consequences: 1. D Biello. Conservative climate. Scientific American 296: 16-18, April 2007. "consensus document may understate the climate change problem"

Define "unhealthy". Also, you have to distinguish between eating and overeating -- as in overeating anything, including carrots. If you overeat in carrots, you end up with hypervitaminosis A, which is unhealthy.

So? you have still converted the natural habitat to a small farm! And displaced animals with the garden and/or directly killed them when you tilled the soil. You don't change the conssequences because you have a farm to feed one person rather than a farm to feed hundreds.

That makes no sense. Put another way, it is internally contradictory. If the premise is to avoid meat because of the pain caused to animals, then the animals suffer just as much pain when killed during the hunt (and probably more) than being raised on a farm. And how about growing plants on farms with the intent of killing them for food?

Thank you. To answer your questions, it depends on what the hypothesis is. Remember, the idea is to falsify a hypothesis, and for that you don't need many examples. So you have to figure out what the hypothesis is. One of my problems with the thread is that SkepticLance's statement of Lomborg's hypothesis changes in order to avoid falsification. He starts off with: "In Bjorn Lomborg's book : "The Skeptical Environmentalist", he makes the statement that loss of natural habitat is a minor cause of extinctions. ... Does anyone have any unambiguous examples of cases where habitat loss has caused substantial extinctions?" You can see the wriggle room here in "minor" and "substantial". The hypothesis from SkepticLance's statement would be: loss of habitat ALONE does not cause any extinctions. After all, if the hypothesis were "habitat loss causes some but not many extinctions" then the request for "unambiguous examples" would not make sense. My examples falsify that hypothesis. The hypothesis might be: loss of habitat ALONE does not cause "substantial" [as in a large number of species] extinctions. If that is the hypothesis, then the paleontological data falsifies it. There have been extinctions of entire ecosystems brought on by loss of habitat by cooling (Ice Age), warming, or desertification. But SkepticLance changes the hypothesis here: In order for this paragraph to make sense, the hypothesis has to be: habitat loss is the ONLY cause of ALL extinctions. Of course, that hypothesis can be, and has been, falsified. No ecologist I know defends that hypothesis (because it has been falsified). Lomborg has made a strawman hypothesis. The data says that habitat loss due to human activity usually directly causes the extinction of a few species. The loss of those species then causes the extinction of others as 1) the ecosystem collapses and 2) populations decline and become vulnerable to other causes such as predation or disease. I think it is this shift of hypotheses -- and to a strawman hypothesis -- that triggered your comment about "burden of proof". It's not that the burden of proof has shifted, but that Lomborg has gone from a reasonable hypothesis to a hypothesis that has already been falsified and, therefore, no one is defending. Why did Lomborg do this? The difficulty comes when hypotheses have consequences outside science in policy and economics. Such is the case here with conservationism. With the supported hypothesis "habitat loss contributes to and sometimes is the sole cause of extinctions" comes the non-scientific policy of conservation of habitats. That has economic consequences -- such as restrictions on draining wetlands for (profitable) development. So, one way to argue against the non-scientific policy is to challenge the science. Lomborg appears to be doing that: challenge that habitat loss causes extinctions. If the hypothesis is wrong, then there is no scientific basis for the non-scientific policy of preserving habitats. However, as SkepticLance has shown with that last quote, Lomberg is making a strawman hypothesis that habitat loss directly causes all extinctions. Now, about that "shift in the burden of proof". That's a fallacy, you realize. There is no THE burden of proof. In any scientific argument, BOTH sides have a "burden of proof" and it NEVER resides on just one side. I realize your background is the law, and here humans have arbitrarily decided to make a "burden of proof". But you can't extrapolate that outside the law. What science does is test hypotheses. In doing that, everyone has an obligation to do the testing in an attempt to show the hypothesis wrong. Science works best when the advocates of a hypothesis admit when the hypothesis has been falsified. However, sometimes advocates, often for emotional reasons, refuse to do this. There are several ways to try to avoid falsification. Lomborg (thru SkepticLance) is using one of them: in the face of falsification modify the hypothesis so that it is not falsifiable.