Science denialism: The problem that just won’t go away

Ignoring science is not a valid response.

It's not even worthwhile to discuss your cases. Science doesn't hinge on the "Lomborg Controversy", for example. And, science has clear methods of dealing with those individuals whose processes are invalid.

Accepting the results of science is not an indication of hysteria. So, it's not clear to me who it is that you are accusing of being "hysterians" and of using "science as a propaganda tool".

 

Perhaps our labeling of people is meaningless. Maybe we are all just people trying to get by with the abilities we have, those innate, and those acquired through a lifetime of learning and experience. My education and experience as an Earth scientist has led me to the conclusion that AGW is real, and is a danger to us all, including you and your family. That same experience has also led me to the conclusion that fundamentalist dogma is a threat to our education system, particularly as it affects our sciences. And so I cannot sit idly by and see it trashed when our future depends on it. So when you say that "As long as they cannot hurt me, they are all welcome. I don't take them seriously anyway", I have to ask why you believe these issues do not affect you, why you don't take them seriously. Because these people certainly do take it seriously, and will continue to do so as long as they are not opposed.

 

I have a doctoral degree in chemistry, but please tell me more about scientific methods.

But maybe you should try to learn to understand not too complicated statements first. I was writing about a political lobby for that I gave the Lomborg controversy as a typical example. Those lobbyists pay from time to time scientists to get their courtesy publications. Like the oil lobby does e.g.

Even Christian fundamentalists found that Discovery Institute and try to use that tool.

If the concept of "lobbyism" is all too complicated for you, maybe a political forum ist not the right place.

 

I think you mean ignoring all aspects of the science is not a valid response.

Accepting the dogma is an indication of a closed mind.

 

Evolution? It's the hypothesis that relies upon the fewest number if assumptions and is the hypothesis that I support... but this does not mean it is an iron cald fact. The further back in a evolution timeline we go, the more assumptions must be made... go back far enough in time and one will arrive inexorably at a point where we have to admit that we do not know. Hypothesis and theory are ideas waiting to be proven as fact or disproven.

Man made global warming? Kind of a misnomer IMO as cyclical global warming and cooling predates man. Does humanity have an impact upon their environment? Absolutely! But to label it as man made is not entirely accurate IMO, perhaps man hastened. I am old enough to remember the impending Ice Age hysteria of the 1970's and find it humorous that in only four short decades (short when measured against the age of the earth) we have gone from an impending Ice Age to costal cities being swallowed by the oceans in the next 100 years. I am a proponent of man hastened Global Warming, but I am sickened by the agenda driven chicken littles.

Science is not infallible nor indisputable, in fact I argue that good science is open to challange and readjusts findings based upon new evidence. Some see science as written in stone, and some science is... but IMO often science is ever evolving as new data come in.

 

That statement looks remarkably similar to the statement creationists say (it's only a theory). Actually, evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution explains the fact of evolution.

Considering that the results seen in the fossil record appear for all the world identical to the results we see today, I'd say that it is more than a hypothesis. But nothing is proven in science. Science is not about proofs. It is about evidence.

What doesn't predate man is man's ability to alter the composition of the atmosphere by artificially emitting 30+billion tons of additional ghgs into the atmosphere every year, and altering nearly the entire biosphere (in particular, damaging 80% of the world's forests).

Really? What other force in the last 100 years has damaged/altered 80% of the world's forests? What other non-natural force has emitted 80+billion tons of additional ghgs into the atmosphere each year.

And you are apparently not informed enough to understand that a handful of people made that claim, one that was rejected by most scientists at the time, and is certainly rejected today.

Straw man argument. All science is challenged every day. And all arguments stand or fall on their own scientific merits via scientific evidence presented by real scientists. In every way, the arguments of political pundants working on behalf of the carbon corps don't meet that standard.

 

It's either a theory or its a fact... it cannot be both. Just saying its a fact does not make it so. Show me a continuous chain of evidence on evolution stretching back to the Big Bang (another theory).

And said evidence does not go back very far on an evolutionary timeline to be irrefutable IMO. Evidence is open to interpretation. Like I said I am a proponent of evolution, but I do not think there is enough evidence to call it a fact.

Thus my using the term man hastened.

What does this have to do with anything I said? like I said, I believe in man hastened global warming.

How is that a strawman when you basically said what I said using different words?I think you have read way too much into what I said.

 

You are just talking about the trend toward anti-science, which has been increasing over the last few decades.

IMO, mandated science, & SAD (science as dogma) is a great blow to the scientific method, & sets back the holy curiosity of inquiry.

 

Certain it can and is. Flight is a observed fact. The theory of flight explains the fact of flight. Evolution is an observed fact. The theory of evolution explains the fact of evolution. And dude, the biological theory of evolution has nothing to do with the Big Bang. Try again.

Whether or not you are a proponent of the theory of evolution isn't evident in your posts. In fact, your posts clearly demonstrate that you don't understand the theory. The evidence goes back at least 3.8 billion years to the first known microbes.

That makes no sense.

Because the evidence does not indicate that AGW would be occurring with the "A". In other words, the concentrations before the industrial revolution averaged 280ppm. Today it is 400ppm.

It is a straw man argument because no one was claiming otherwise.

 

I disagree as the Big Bang is the moment matter was created which is the same matter that all life is built upon. To exclude the Big Bang is to place a serious limitation on evolutionary science.

Nice opinion lacking any supporting evidence. Please post source of the above, specifically a link showing an unbroken chain of evidence stretching back 3.8 billions years.

"First known" = best guess as there may or may not be previous links in the chain of evolution... thus supporting my argument that go far enough back in a timeline and one will inexorably reach a point where one has to make an assumption or admit that one do not know.

An argument on how man impacts their environment. Do you think we disagree here... because we do not? Again I think you are reading way too much into what I said.

 

And for at least 300,000 years after the bang, the universe consisted of a boiling caldron of subatomic particles until it was cool enough to form the first hydrogen atoms. None of which has any bearing on the BIOLOGICAL theory of EVOLUTION other than the fact that if it hadn't occurred we wouldn't be here 13.7 billion years later. The biological theory of evolution explains how life on Earth evolves, not how it originated, and certainly not how a boiling caldron of plasma eventually cranked out life billions of years after the fact.

Are you really going to make a god of the gaps argument? That there are no/not enough transitional fossils? Good grief, take a class. Here is one I bet you weren't aware of - ALL species are transitional.

Indeed, the may be older fossils that we have yet to discover. But the oldest cannot be younger. As for your 'we must speculate because we haven't seen specimen #1', that's just silly, and reveals a massive misunderstanding of what the science shows, how science works.

 

Again you read way too much into what I said. I have never even heard of the term "god of the gaps argument" nor do I equate God with evolution. Placing your words in my mouth does not make them my own as it only speaks of your ignorance of my actual position.

Science works based upon observation, how can the science be good if "specimen #1" cannot be observed? We can make some fair assumptions (hypothesis) but I think good science withholds calling it a fact until it can be observed and verified. Perhaps your measure of what constitutes good science is different than mine.

 

We don't need specimen #1 because we can predict its qualities based on what came after, and conduct experiments to verify them.

 

I don't see anything to suggest that the "Lomborg controversy" is a justification for ignoring what the vast majority of climatologists from all over the world are stating.

 

Having some guy on some political discussion board call the world wide consensus of climatologists "dogma" does nothing to dispute what they are saying.

Surely you can see that.

 

Political consensus. If you think there is worldwide scientific consensus then you know little of science.

 

Yes, you're desperate for this to be political rather than scientific.

 

Hard to be desperate for something so solidly politicized already.

 

Public policy is political - we aren't a dictatorship or something.

We should be discussing what science is saying (including range of error, time frames, likely regional effects, etc.) and then how to incorporate that in our public policy (mitigation/planning such as the Chesapeake Bay project, NOLA, reduction of human effects to reduce the problem, etc.).

The problem occurs when the science becomes the target of the politics. Too much focus is being given to the absolute nonsense about a global conspiracy of science or whether a cold winter in the northeast US warrants discarding an entire field of science.

Science isn't a political party or an enemy of the state.

 

AGW has been completely politicized so that opposing scientific views are being suppressed. Bad for science.

 

Nonsense.

 

LOL, so that's why we'll known skeptical scientists are being investigated eh?

 

Feeding the existing population is problem, but its not because we cannot produce plenty of food. We can actually do this today, but that has not always been the case, perhaps.

LOL, you have a novel way of looking at what you call the major problem. The real major problem is the fact that we are indulging in something economically that is not sustainable, as we move into the future and population continues its growth. Infinite growth capitalism is what is not sustainable, for infinite growth coupled with finite resources equals eventual disaster, on a global scale. Also capitalism is doomed due to robotics and automation, which is removing that part of the equation that supplies income for consumers to buy what other consumers used to make, but will no long do. Whether its in goods or in services. Yet the move to robotics and automation cannot be reversed, practically speaking. So, this will implode capitalism at some point, which of course, hardly anyone is thinking about these days, as they live in a delusion that comes from not being aware of facts.

The social problem you mentioned comes from a change in societal values that now glorify irresponsibility, personal and social, which at some point will be important once again simply for the sake of economic survival. Basically, we as a society have taken leave of our senses, and are in a particular very peculiar age, that has seen a desertion of simple intelligence.

 

ONLY CAPITALISM CAN SAVE THE PLANET

 

There sir, you stated a fact here. Skepticism is what has made science as successful as it has become. And when you move into the harder sciences like physics, skepticism has been welcomed, unlike particular biologists and climatologists, who seem to have lost the humbling attitude fostered by hard science. When it comes to climate and climate change, there are a vast number of variables, and factors, which our knowledge of, at this point in time, is still so greatly limited, that to make statements like, "the science is settled" screams of something within the realm of politics, and not serious, honest, science. And for me, this is the great problem that I have with what is going on now in the arguments about climate change and its factors, which has been limited to a single one, co2 levels. But what is also a problem is that co2 levels can be addressed in a easier, a natural manner, which is land management, stopping rain forest deforestation, and re-forestation as a primary solution, with taxation being the driving factor to redistribute income from the west to places like Africa making this issue of climate change a thing that is overblown, causing hysterics and alarmism, and greatly political.