jryan

Well that's wrong. When you are discussing climate in terms of 150, 500, 6,000 years, and statistically created chronologies and proxies it is always a matter of belief. Belief in your proxy theory, belief in the accuracy of the proxies in the absence of directly observable data. Belief that the application of these proxies is correct and descriptive. You are talking about theories and models that have either zero (furture) or limited (1800s) direct observational record of the actual measurable quantity of interest (temperature and more specifically global climate) You will always be absent actual observed data for the period you are interested in, unless you focus soly on the last 60 years when the direct global measure of gridded temperature exist in large scale... but then you have to accept that a 10 year trend out of 60 is statistically significant. So if you want to show that 10 years is statistically insignificant you have to BELIEVE in your proxies for the unobservable. I only brought up phrenology because CaptainPanic chose to question the "Heaven and Hell" book based on the fact that the author isn't a climatologist. I mentioned Phrenology as a branch of scientific study that had to be disproved from without. Many here, including you, refuse to address opposition views beyond your opinions about the authors. The fact that such insular behavior is counter to the scientific method is not any fault of mine. It is simply setting up a paradigm where dissent will always come from outside the discipline. I'm also still waiting for a reason why climatologists don't leave the statistical modeling to those with doctorates in the field, rather than do the modeling themselves. If leaving climatology to the climatologists is a valid argument then why not leaving statistics to the statisticians?

Ok, so tell me, if you split that 30 year graph into a 20 year up slope between 1970 and 1999 that is heavily influence by a 1998 el Nino, and a 11 year down slope from 2000 to present, how big of a difference is that 30 year trend statistically given the 5,000 to 10,000 years we are supposedly comparing these trends to? Not much, if any. Especially not is predicting future trends. No, it's not. It's called selective sampling. No, it is the other side that equates skepticism with climate change denial. I don't deny climate change... it always changes. The only thing abnormal would be stasis. I am SKEPTICAL about the attribution of the last 150 year trend. I hope you understand why I find "oh well he's just a..." rebuttals less than compelling. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Well, no. To a hard core believer I can see why my insistence of questioning would seem like debating ID. I would just be prepared to be very wrong if I were you. Seriously, we can whip out anything from scientific history and show that the minority opinion carried the day in the end, and times when the majority did. In this case, as we are discussing THIS case and IT'S merits, you are the phrenologist.

Who said I didn't accept your views? All I am saying is that your views of why you are worried about global warming would matter a hill of beans if the world spends trillions of dollars on preventing it only to find out their was little or nothing to prevent. In a good faith effort to save your children from a perceived future you could condemn them to an unintentional one. It's all a matter of which side of the debate is actually correct, and what is done between now and your child's uncertain future. Simple evidence to that claim would be global climate that is decreasing while CO2 is rising. Where does the trapped energy go on the Earth if CO2 is holding it in? Energy can not be destroyed, so unless we find some heat reservoir that is holding all the energy that we are not seeing in the troposphere, surface temps, ocean surface temps or deep ocean temps, then it is escaping the Earth through the increasingly CO2 rich atmosphere. If that is happening, then how influential is CO2 really? I'm not in the habit of handing over my wallet simply because someone claims they are an expert. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged No, I'm not. But you are indeed falling back on the same tired "you're like a creationist" argument that has no bearing on my questions. I am not the one calling for an end to the questioning, I am simply saying that it's not time to STOP questioning the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

The point is that consensus, even scientific consensus, is not as rock solid an endorsement of theory as it is projected to be. At one point, before the fall of phrenology, the consensus was in favor of phrenology and the minority was in disagreement. In the case of AGW we are asking that the individual layman pay and pay dearly for a remedy to an illness that may not exist. In that frame there is really little difference between the scientific and political consensus. Especially when you have scientists such as James Hansen making numerous political comments and appearances. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Well, now take that nobel belief and look at it this way: You are so worried about your kids furture planet that you take all your excess money and spend it on carbon credits, right down to their college funds. You sleep well while they are young... but 10-15 years down the road, when you find out that anthropogenic C02 had little effect on climate, and your kid now has to take out a loan for school, how do you sleep? We are giving our grandkids a future of astronomical debt assuming they won't be laughing at our stupidity in 70 years.

1. I fully understand what "skeptic" and "skepticism" mean. 2. Of course they are two very different things. I never claimed otherwise. But when you are using a supposed scientific consensus to justify a political consensus it is important to know the two can and do intermingle. Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen are very political. Did opposition to phrenology begin as a consensus? Political consensus in the case of phrenology isn't all that prevalent in any event as there was not that much policy derived from it's erroneous conclusions. Eugenics, on the other hand, may be a better topic if you want to talk about improper union of scientific and political consensus. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yes there is. You can also judge by the level of "just trust us" that comes from both sides of the argument. When you have one side of a debate that regularly fights FOI requests, and regularly fails to follow the open source nature of scientific investigation (ie. claiming IP rights to their code or data sets, failing to provide such with their submitted studies), you should be at least somewhat suspicious or their conclusions. The are very simple aspects of all scientific study, such as the scientific method, that all people are taught in grade school. If you find that such basic methodology is not used by one side of a debate you should question their results. And on and on. There is a multitude of reasons why the method of finding is more important than the finding itself. So the layman that cares about the science has a more important role, even as an autodidact, in their own opinion than simply a show of hands.

Then why make the distinction that the writer of "Heaven and Hell" is a geologist? Certainly HE is part of the scientific community as well. Also, the notion of "experts" is bandied about rather carelessly in these discussions of climatology as well, and the climatologists don't seem to mind acting in the role of statistician where it suits them, even in the areas where expert statisticians question their methodology. Would you ask a climatologist to do your statistical analysis? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Well surely that is true. But then everyone claims the same thing while writing off opposing evidence as articles of faith or the product of a conspiracy whose existence is itself an article of faith.

Actually, if I read iNow correctly, he believes consensus isn't important. The belief that there is no crossover in science is erroneous. By that standard, Phrenology would remain a respectable line of study so long as Phrenologists believed in their work.

That's two votes for "no". So what would it take for your opinion to change? Do you hold out belief so long as a few climatologists believe as you do? Or a few politicians? I also assume neither read the book mentioned in the article?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html Has anyone here read "Heaven and Hell"? I know this is a very non-skeptical crowd hear but was wondering is any of the non-skeptics have lowered themselves to read this book? Also, if consensus shifts to a more skeptic view, will you still support CO2 limiting policy? If so, why?

It's interesting, too, because their has been some talk that the Earth will be cooling for as much as 30 years. It is certainly a puzzle how this global powerhouse warmer that is CO2 can be put on hold for 30 years... or at all. Where does all this trapped energy go if it is indeed trapped?

Ugh, the level of defensiveness here is oppressive. I am aware of the Klein scale. It is a handy tool for sociology, but you can't really mix sociology and genetics so easily any more than many here want to mix science and politics. Any level of arbitrary labeling based on the Klein scale (as you and others are doing) is not particularly compelling. Feel free to demostrate. Bollocks. There are numerous genes in all animals that are not conducive to survival or procreation in general, and they continue to exist in the gene pool. Treating any genetic root for homosexuality as some alternate beneficial gene is pure politics just the same as claiming heterosexual genes as the only correct gene is purely a political statement, and not scientific. And I never said they do. I said that unless they have a child from that one night drunken fling their genetics are guaranteed to be tossed out of the gene pool. If you don't procreate, your unique genetic makeup is lost... how complicated is that for you people to understand? It is the same for asexual animals (not animals that reproduce asexually), and animals that are heterosexual and happen to fail to procreate in their lifetime. As I have said numerous times, my objection to iNow's original post (and it has nothing to do with my initial post.. which was simply a question) is that it is a great example of how far too many use science to push personal views. Finally, on the "abomination" argument: That line of argument has no real end since the term "abomination" is subjective and can be neither proven nor disproved through the scientific method. Where it is used in "science" you will find politics.

In no particular order... That's what we would call a strawman of my actual position. Since it was not my argument, I'll leave it at that. Your very first line in this thread is as follows: My point was not a "straw man". Your whole point was that homosexuality is not an abomination, as some claim, because studies show that it happens in nature. So that is the exact, and spruious, argument that you meant, or you had a poor choice of words. Okey dokey. My OP was intended to make a point using the science, which I've done. Not sure what your deal is, as you seem to be contrary here for little to no reason whatsoever. No, you have intended to make a political point while misusing science. Not enough information exists in your "reductum ad absurdum" argument. No, I understood you quite well. The problem was you stated your position poorly. You have now changed your initial statement and inserted a brand new "not natural" argument. All you have adequately defended is the "not natural" argument, but you have failed to argue away the "abomination" argument. Nature is full of actions that would be abominations if practiced by mankind.... and actually ARE abominations when practiced by mankind.

I have made no statement for or against this research other than the fact that "gay" or "lesbian" is an odd choice of terms if the "gay" and "lebian" geese have heterosexual sex. Where did I ever state that I challenge ANY of them specifically? Or even the notion generally? This isn't saying anything that I haven't already pointed out. Calling a bisexual animal "homosexual" or "lesbian" is simple politics and clearly inaccurate. True "homosexual" animals, not just one that includes "homosexual acts in it's repertoire", do not reproduce, and the genetics are not carried forward. The problem is you have mistaken the adverb and the adjective. They are both 100% "homosexual"... ie. their is nothing heterosexual about a homosexual act, they are specifically and intentionally exclusionary. In that same way, "homosexual" animals and "heterosexual" animals lead very different sexual lives. Your initial post was decidedly political, and your comments there after, have been tainted with your politics more than they have been blessed by the science. Also, to say "it happens in nature therefor its good!" is rather an absurd argument to make. I am working to help you make a better argument for your political case than one that would include blessing a woman for decapitating her lover after sex because "it happens in nature!". It's like the "all natural" label on supposed health food. The same label would apply to a bottle of arsenic.

Setting aside the terms such as "likely" which are just rationalizations on your part, you and Mokele further stretch the very definition of gay and lesbian when you start talking about "lesbian" swans that procreate with males.

So how does this all fit in with Darwin's theory of evolution? Should we assume that there is something in these gay animal's genes that nature doesn't want to pass to other generations?

Well, that is not true. The Niger intelligence, for example, was from the UK and Italy, the US contribution was from Joe Wilson, who has since been discredited for his obvious omissions of fact or just plain ignorance. And with regard to the rest of the case made by the Bush Administration, read the the arguments for holding Saddam in contempt of the cease fire, and then read the January 2003 report by Hans Blix to the UN: http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htm The two are not significantly different. As Bush said early on in the run up to the war, he was moving forward in such a way that his mistakes would not be due to assuming U.S. enemies couldn't harm the U.S., and that he would take the necessary effeorts to be sure. In the case of Saddam, he actively symied efforts to inspect his WMD capabilities, and the only way Bush saw to be sure would be to go in and oust Saddam. There is much to say on boths sides about the manner in which he went about doing that, but I understand his motive. Yes, I've read them. And yes, they are excellent books. I would suggest you also read "Unholy Alliance" by David Horowitz as an interesting companion to those books and as interesting insight into the politics underlying the anti-war movement. The administration listened to that "mostly harmless" assumption leading up to 9/11 as well.

But that isn't what you said. And for the record, I wasn't offended by what you said, because I know enough to know that most people make the same mistake repeatedly. What you did was the norm. My point to iNow was that HE took offense when I said the same thing to him. It goes back to the golden rule, which I obviously don't always follow, but when you are not intending to offend someone don't make associations that you yourself would find offensive. It would be like me saying that an AGW proponent is just spouting Al Gore talking points... even though we both know it is very possible to believe in AGW but disagree with Al Gore. ... hold please while I read your longer post.... Ok... here goes... So you don't post your opinions on this forum? At it may seem like you are succeeding during the periods when many in my boat abandon the site in frustration. But it is never felt like a very hospitable place, I can assure you. All discussion is opinion. You seem to be arguing against the necessity of this forum all together. Maybe just replace it with a bunch of links to studies that you trust best represent the reality of a given line of scientific study. Nobody will state their opinion, or dare to justify why they hold the opinion they do. I know that isn't what you are saying... but a forum without opinion, or discussion of how these opinions were formed, seems rather pointless to me, whether the forum is about science or Hello Kitty. And opinion is what you get after interpreting the evidence. And science, and even evidence, are often wrong. For instance, recently there was much to do about a discovered asteroid that was going to pass very close to the Earth. Alarms started going up about how this asteroid could get so close without us detecting it, and the potential effects... Turns out it was a deep solar satelite that was programmed to do a close pass of Earth. At one point we believed that our opinion of this "asteroid" were correct. What I see is science that is becoming indistinguishable from politics, and a steady evaporation of the healthy humility of science and a rise in absurd belief that we ever know enough about anything to stop questioning. Unless you have access to levels of information that border on omniscience, your beliefs will always be opinion. And stating your beliefs will always be an opening for debate. Stating opinion without expectation for debate is naive. I wasn't just talking about this subforum. I was more talking about all subforums in which the science is tightly attached to politics. I wouldn't guess that the Mathematics forum gets this heated. You are better than MoveOn.org... ummm... congrats? You are also far more informative than the "Loose Change" forum... since we are into damning with faint praise. All that says is that you have situated yourself in the middle of two groups. It doesn't say anthing about where those two grouops fall on the actual liberal/conservative continuum. If science is indeed more liberal leaning as you assert then you would have to assume that the political bell curve here would also be skewed left.... so the ones saying you are too liberal could be moderate and the ones saying you are too conservative may be Noam Chompsky. You may THINK that is the case, but you and I would disagree. You are not kicking me when I am down. I am not so tied to this forum that I feel specifically hurt by any of this. But I do feel I have to point out to you that your attempt to placate the situation if fairly off base, and doesn't help. Wow, so heart felt! Contrary to popular belief, this is nothing that I have to work through. Or that I have to work though... or I have to work through.. depending on where you want to put the emphasis. That's like me saying "I hope you can work through your sites problems so that you can continue to be graced with my presence."

THis will be a whole lot of responding... You may be able to find a couple examples of this happening, but you shouldn't take that to mean that this is a reasonable board, I will discuss that difference a bit later.. The fact that it has such a strong bias should also not be mistaken to mean that a left-of-center world view is the only reasonable one. Moderate world views are to the right of this board, too. Learning and changing is not what I would consider a measure of being reasonable. You could just as easily learn and change to a more unreasonable point of view. I could also say that this site is no better than RealClimate.org, or any number of other partisan sites. The difference is you take it as an offense because the politics of the refrenced sites are different than yours. I only mentioned them because Pangloss metioned them. So stop and think about that for a second. If you believe that my statement that this site is no better than O'Reilly is an insult, then would you also categorize Pangloss' assertion that my views are no different than O'Reilly's as an insult? My response was to Pangloss' statement that this site has a liberal bias because it is a science forum. I am pointing out tha the two states of being are not as intertwined as that. I also am pointing out that in his attempt to educate this conservative rube he is really not doing anything different than he states he is trying to avoid. It was restating the same jab directed back at Pangloss, and on a subject (the liberal bias of this forum) that Pangloss already conceded. You took offense because you find O'Reilly offensive. You probably didn't see Pangloss statement to me as offensive because you have incorrect notion of who I am and where you believe my politics are. That was not a complaint, nor a whine. That was just some of that learning and changing views that you say goes on all the time here. Would that be in the same way that you and Pangloss have misrepresented my position based on your limited understanding of my politics? Because part of having a discussion is verbalizing what it is we understand about the other sides statements, and letting the other side correct those statements If you believe you are the victim on this site when it comes to personal attacks, you may want to actually ask a few admins what the demerrit tallies are. It has been stated before that you lead the league currently in demerrits, and stating that is not an attack on you. You are just well known for your ability to turn snippy with others. If I in turn become snippy with you you may want to consider what came before that. You would do much better in relaxing you condescending tone. It should be noted that although I am in the middle of THIS flame war, you seem to be in the middle of MOST flame wars. And this is a view you accept because it places all blame for a misunderstanding on the guy with whom you disagree. Try saying "You may not understand what I am saying" and then restate it, trying to learn from the other person's interpretation how you can better appeal to how they think while still making your point. You will find it works a lot better than "wow, your ability to misinterpret is unparalleled". All you are saying is that I think differently than you do while putting a pejorative spin on an otherwise obvious and innocent fact. I see you take this road repeatedly, where you find others inability to understand what you write as a failing on their part. The only conclusion to take from this, that I can see, is that you assume that your belief, and you ability to state it, is unassailable. You should expect that, when talking to others who believe different than you, they will process what you say diffrent than you. That is just the way of the world. Again, I am not whining at all. I am simply pointing out the frustration I have exibited in the realization that this site is simply as biased as Pangloss points out. The old adage is true: "Anger is born of Optimism" I will read and respond to Pangloss after I take a lunch. I don't feel like mulling this debate over any more over a plate of pulled prok.

You could not be more wrong about my affiliation with O'Reily and Limbaugh, but what is the point of arguing that point when the majority here will always assume they know better what I read, watch or listen to, and the admins glad hand themselves over such bogus assertions. As for trying to convince people they are wrong, what the hell does this board do then? What a strange thing to say on a supposed science centered board. I state my piece, you state your piece. What do you think those people who don't agree with the majority are supposed to do, anyway? Post things they don't believe so they can fit in? I try and have discussions, and I have had several good discussions with some people on this board. I have no problem with people who disagree with me so long as they are civil about it. But certain trolls on this board can't seem to cope with disagreement without pulling out personal attacks. Your view of how a poster should approach this message board is what has made this board as insular and partisan as it is, not the state of science (as you want to believe). Science has no bias. What you have here is a breeding ground for partisanship that you fool yourself into believing must be. Yes, this board is very left biased, and therefor the political thread will have a heavy left bias. But don't kid yourself into believing that the consesus on a biased board amounts to anything approaching "the cold light of day". I have always been of the opinion that, given the naturally broken sociology of the internet, that you do yourself no favors by ever hanging out for long in places that agree with you. The regulars in such places tend to have a very territorial instinct when it comes to their reality, and for all the self made consensus, they really never learn anything and show disdain for contrary views. This board is no different. Would it be fair to say that this supposedly science minded board is really no better than I would expect to find in an O'Reily or LImbaugh forum? It appears that it is not. All it is is bias from the other side of the aisle. For a while I felt that even though the majority here was decidedly left, that there were some that were at least fair in their application of their bias with regard to dissenting views. I think I may have been a bit over reaching in that estimate. Where I thought there would be room for dissent I get "shut up and read what we write.". No thanks.

You are assuming that we had the benefit of hindsight in 2003, but we didn't. If you can look at that information without muddying it with what you know now and also consider that the existence of the WMDs is a conclusion that was held by most of the western intelligence agencies, you can see better where we were. And we didn't know whether that was the case. So shelf life would not have played a role in the decision. Saddam active stymied the ability of UNSCOM to uncover the truth, leaving us with the conclusion that he is either actively hiding nothing or actively hiding something. Assuming the former was not in the cards.

"His points remain valid and accurate."

You don't look at the sources I give, apparently, becauise you could have easily looked it up on opensecrets.org: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectors.php?sector=K I quoted you whole statement, you didn't. Just befor that you said: He has vowed not to be held to the wants of these heavily financed special interests. They tend to get their way by saying, "well, if you want my million dollars, you MUST do this... if you don't, then you won't get our money." As I pointed out, every politician makes the same proclamation. Expecting everyone to grant Obama the benefit of the doubt, when in actuality the doubt should rest heavily on the side of "a politician will keep his word", is rather naive on your part. Also, your assessment of what "special interests" say before giving out money is just plain silly. If a special interest were to give money to an elected official while saying that it would be bribery. Even when the expectation is there they will never come right out and demand it unless they are looking to a seat in the federal penitentiary. So, why would he not take the no-strings-attached public funding if not for the alure of more money and a bigger budget from fund raisers? Care to explain?

Yes, I have read the thread, and it and logic supporting your claim is conspiculously missing.. That is circular logic. You have to accept that the war was about oil before the evidence that the war was about oil starts to make sense. Of course, I guess you could always fall back on "Har! Bush is so stupid that he started a war to take Iraq's oil and then didn't take it!"

Well, you can continue to take each bit of evidence in a vacuum and say that that particular bit is not enought to go to war, but when you take a step back and look at even some of the accepted pieces together the picture looks a little different. Here some of the things that we know that by themselves would be insufficient to go to war: 1) Saddam actively acted against the articles of the cease fire and denied inspectors access to sites for several weeks at a time. 2) Saddam Fired on U.S. planes that were patrolling the No-Fly zones that were agreed to in the cease fire agreement 3) Saddam was actively planning to reconstitute his WMD programs as soon as the UN lifted sanctions 4) Saddam maintained stockpiles of WMDs and precursors 5) Saddam sought uranium from Niger (the only piece that requires a little assumption.... but the alternative explanation makes less sense) 6) Saddam gave financial support to families of dead terrorists 7) Saddam was running a massive scam in the "oil for food" that made him millions of dollars and allowed him to bribe numerous UN and foreign officials. The ensured that the sanctions would continue to only affect those in Iraq that the program was meant to help and fill Saddam's coffers. 8 ) Among other things funded by this income were missiles with extended ranges in direct violation with the cease fire agreement (such as the Al-Samoud missile) etc. etc. I wonder what is supposed to happen when you repeated break the articles of a cease fire.... And the status of the Sarin in Iraq should have been known even though it was hidden because everyone knows the current administration is omniscient.

First, my statement was not rabid. Secondly, please explainto me what your belief is in contrast to what I have stated. Thirdly, I had stated that we should start a new thread, but everyone keeps responding here. I am not sure how it is MY fault that the responses to my post were put in that thread. But I have now split it off so that you won't have to. You sated in that post that you didn't think Sarin was a WMD. I asked you how you came to that conclusion. Here is your post again: So again, how do you come to that conclusion based on the CDC entry you posted? That is completely false. If you dump Sarin into a large populated area, the people in that area will be as good as dead before they know they should be exiting the area. From the CDC article: "Sarin is a clear, colorless, and tasteless liquid that has no odor in its pure form. However, sarin can evaporate into a vapor (gas) and spread into the environment." So explain to me how a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas would be an effective "area denial" tool? It's hard to deny area when the opponent doesn't know the stuff is their until they are dying from it. Which is the primary reason we wanted the stuff out of the hands of Saddam Hussein. I am not sure why you want to do so many mental contortions so you can disqualify Sarin as a WMD. Whether it is MORE effective in certain locations rather than others is immaterial. It would be like saying nuclear bombs are not WMDs because they are only effective against large, above ground, cities. The fact that Sarin is MORE efficient in closed spaces make NO difference whatsoever. Well, actually it was twelve dead, fifty severly injured, and temporary blindness to thousands more... all that from just 900 milliliters of Sarin. Had they used as little as 2 liters in that same space the death toll would have skyrocketed. Now think of as little as four liters of Sarin in a small backpack in a busy New York subway station, or a domed football stadium.....