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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
 Posted - 12/17/2009 : 14:41:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I suppose it depends on what is meant by "doomsaying." The more conservative estimates of the economic and social costs of unmitigated AGW aren't doomsaying, but anyone screaming that AGW means we're all gonna die certainly is. |
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| Maybe they just don't know how to communicate their message effectively. There's big microphones out there that are not Fox News. |
That's why I said "radicals" and not "right-wing denialists." The environmentalists with big microphones seem (to me) to largely be doomsayers, which is the cause of Jeff Wagg's issues with "the airwaves." |
You have a way of coming across as if you disagree while simultaneously not actually disagreeing at all.
| Sound like some people would prefer to bemoan human nature rather than adjust their strategy to compensate. |
Yeah, one cannot do both.  |
You roll your eyes but that's more or less true. It's not strictly true of course but practically speaking when people start bemoaning their situation it's to set up a readymade excuse for failing.
| That's only counter-productive in an atmosphere where the possibility that thousands of climate scientists are conspiring to falsify conclusions is taken seriously. We're not quite there, yet. |
It's counter-productive to attach social status to getting the approved answer.
| Which neatly misses the point. |
No, it fixes the analogy. Randi's not a student, he's a teacher. |
Are you familiar with what an analogy is? This is ridiculous. How can you "fix" the analogy when you obviously haven't grokked the point? No, what you did was commandeer the analogy to make an unrelated point.
| He did make some mistakes sure. How upset or disappointed would people be if he failed to think critically while reciting the party line? Not very, I'd guess, which puts the lie to that high-minded reason. |
The evidence, in the form of posts from James Hrynyshyn, Greg Laden, PZ Myers and Orac suggests otherwise. They all seem more concerned with the lack of critical thought on Randi's part than the content of the conclusion Randi reached. |
You're being painfully naive. Since Randi did not recite the party line those posts actually imply my point.
| The issue is dissent. Maybe not for you I can't read your mind but you're kidding yourself if you think it's not the main issue for most people. |
I don't know where you're getting your data. |
Call it an opinion if you like. I pay less attention to people's proffessed motives and more attention to the motives that are apparent from their actual behaviour.
| Actually, he's a debunker because he's an accomplished rationalist. |
Meh. Sort of a pendantic point to insist on isn't it?
| But drama intrigues our monkey brains. Randi writing a screwed up piece attracts eyeballs. Not to suggest that it's an ideal situation but you suggested above that one of the main problems the AGWers have is that they are boring. |
No, I said that the actual policy debates are boring. The doomsaying of the radical AGW proponents isn't boring. |
The way you often pick out an unimportant detail to focus on apparently just for the sake of maintianing the appearance of disagreement is troubling to me.
| In the light of what the deniers are going to do with this, I have trouble seeing how there's much of an upside. |
One upside is that it is an opportunity to test the arguments of AGW against a prominent skeptic.
| Look at what creationists do with biologists who "change their minds" (even when they don't). Admitting mistakes and correcting oneself is one of the most compelling aspects of science and skepticism, one of the core strengths, but denialists (of any stripe) portray it as a massive flaw. How can any strategy be effective against that kind of treatment? |
And yet evolution is taught in schools and creationism is not. Rhetorical questions like that are just attempts to excuse an anticipated failure.
But, who's fudging what data?
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Just a reference to the hacked email thing. More broadly it applies to most of the doomsayers. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 14:49:31 [Permalink]
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Massimo Pigliucci weighs in with today’s Rationally Speaking blog entry.
James Randi, global warming and the meaning of skepticism
… Yesterday was a sad day for skepticism because Randi’s essay will now comfort legions of pseudoscientific “skeptics,” regardless of the fact that I’m sure this was not his intention. But what was his intention, exactly? If Randi were Penn & Teller, I would have a ready answer: it is the libertarian ideological bias of P&T that has led them more than once to talk real bullshit to their audiences about issues like global warming, environmentalism, world politics, and economics. But I do not know Randi’s political leanings, so I will not speculate further. My guess is that this is just classic Randi, who is known for occasionally shooting from the hip just to stir the waters a bit, with the honest intention of stimulating critical thinking. Except that these waters have been quite muddied already by big corporations who have been actively engaged in public deception about this issue for years, so that public opinion and politicians are already confused enough, almost to the point of paralysis. I really think this was an uncharacteristically bad target for Randi to choose.
More broadly, however, we need to pause and think carefully about the entire skeptical movement in light of episodes like this one. “Skepticism” in modern parlance indicates a science- or evidence-based approach to the examination of unusual claims, typically in the realms of the paranormal, astrology, alternative medicine and the like. More recently, skeptics have expanded their aim to include some controversial issues in science, under the reasonable position that science itself should not be exempt from critical analysis. Fair enough, except that science already has a large number of professional critics: scientists themselves (remember the peer review system?), as well as philosophers and sociologists of science. Moreover, while critical analysis of claims of the paranormal does not really require professional scientific expertise (indeed, Randi’s own spectacular career shows that the pertinent expert is more often a magician, since wannabe paranormalists often employ trickery to fool the public), actual science criticism does… |
The full read is a good one. And he did add a paragraph on todays reply by Randi, which didn't make him any happier. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 14:51:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by dv82matt
Those advocating for action on climate change should focus more on attempting to convince the electorate with substantive arguments rather than becoming hyperbolic, fudging data and demonizing those who express a contrary opinion.
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Do you have concrete examples where this is done, so I can read about it and take a stand against it? (Taking stand against fudging data, that is)
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Not concrete no. The fudging data comment was alluding to this. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 15:18:01 [Permalink]
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Unbelievable. Randi has issued a not-pology complete with blaming his readers for not reading the secret, longer document which allegedly makes more sense. And he tops it all off with the not-so-subtle suggestion that he thinks it's the heat from burning stuff which is responsible for AGW.
He's demonstrating a completely misplaced faith in the most-naive version of what climate scientists are saying, and blowing off many important criticisms. This is a lot worse than if he'd just kept quiet and hoped his previous AGW mistakes would be forgotten. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 15:31:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dv82matt
You're being painfully naive. Since Randi did not recite the party line those posts actually imply my point. |
See today's reaction to Randi's follow-up post. He tried to make things better, but actually made them worse by loudly accepting "the party line" in the most-stupid way possible: in complete ignorance.| The way you often pick out an unimportant detail to focus on apparently just for the sake of maintianing the appearance of disagreement is troubling to me. |
I'm interested in how you are determining my allegedly singular motivation.| One upside is that it is an opportunity to test the arguments of AGW against a prominent skeptic. |
Except that Randi has now made it clear that he's got little interest in the actual science of AGW. He's made it plain that he'd be a very poor test subject by prejudicing himself before the test begins.| And yet evolution is taught in schools and creationism is not. |
Climate denialism is a religion?| Rhetorical questions like that are just attempts to excuse an anticipated failure. |
Um, you keep saying that the failure has already happened.| But, who's fudging what data? |
Just a reference to the hacked email thing. |
There's no fudging of any data in the hacked emails. If you're referring to the "trick" to "hide the decline," then you're very much mistaken to suggest that it's "fudging the data." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 16:20:49 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Unbelievable. Randi has issued a not-pology complete with blaming his readers for not reading the secret, longer document which allegedly makes more sense. And he tops it all off with the not-so-subtle suggestion that he thinks it's the heat from burning stuff which is responsible for AGW.
He's demonstrating a completely misplaced faith in the most-naive version of what climate scientists are saying, and blowing off many important criticisms. This is a lot worse than if he'd just kept quiet and hoped his previous AGW mistakes would be forgotten.
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Dave. There is a storm around Randi now. No one that I respect is accepting his follow up, as far as I can tell. It's too full of fallacies and, well, crap, given what we have come to expect from Randi.
But where do you get this? "And he tops it all off with the not-so-subtle suggestion that he thinks it's the heat from burning stuff which is responsible for AGW."
Randi:
"As I've indicated, I do not deny the finding of GW. AGW, to me, is less clear, though I accept that it is likely true. |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 16:36:04 [Permalink]
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Okay, I see it now. I'm just not sure how to interpret it. When we burn fossil fuel, or just "stuff", Co2 is released into the apmosphere. Do you think he really means that just the heat from burning stuff is what our contribution is to global climate change? Because I have never even heard that argument before, from climate change "skeptics" or climate scientists.
Also, what would Randi's motive be to deny that at least some climate change is due to man produced greenhouse gasses? What dog does he have in this race? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 16:55:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Do you think he really means that just the heat from burning stuff is what our contribution is to global climate change? Because I have never even heard that argument before, from climate change "skeptics" or climate scientists. |
Well, this is what Randi says: | Yes, I'm aware of the massive release of energy -- mostly heat -- that we've produced by exhuming and burning oil, natural gas, and coal. We've also attacked forests and turned them into fuel by converting them into paper at further energy expense, paper that is also burned, in turn. |
Which, as a summary of global warming, is truly bizarre in what it omits. He makes absolutely no mention of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. So is Randi so ignorant that he thinks it's just the radiant heat of burning fuels that creates warming? I'd hate to think so. In fact, I find it almost impossible to believe so. But yet again, we have only Randi's written words to go on. I don't know what he thinks at this point.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 12/17/2009 16:57:42 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 17:00:45 [Permalink]
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Humbert:
I don't know what he thinks at this point. |
Yeah. That's the problem with his follow up. At least one of them anyhow. Rather than clear up what he thinks, he has left most of us even more baffled than before.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 17:44:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Okay, I see it now. I'm just not sure how to interpret it. When we burn fossil fuel, or just "stuff", Co2 is released into the apmosphere. Do you think he really means that just the heat from burning stuff is what our contribution is to global climate change? Because I have never even heard that argument before, from climate change "skeptics" or climate scientists. |
It's not an argument. It's Randi's naive interpretation of the fact that burning fossil fuels and trees leads to global warming that the mechanism is "the massive release of energy -- mostly heat..." That's the one place where he describes, in his own words, any mechanism through which the planet might be warming, and he gets it completely wrong.
Paper, forcryingoutloud! Turning trees into paper and then burning the paper causes global warming! This description is (Randi seems to think) both relevant and important enough a mechanism that it should demonstrate his informed acceptance of the science, when it is neither. Not a single mention (from Randi himself) about greenhouse gasses or why trees are an important CO2 trap while alive.| Also, what would Randi's motive be to deny that at least some climate change is due to man produced greenhouse gasses? What dog does he have in this race? |
He's not a denier, Kil. He's one of the most naive accepters of climate change around. All he's doing is parading around his intellectual laziness because he was asked for his opinion lots of times. He should have said, "I don't have an opinion, because I'm uninformed," and left it at that until he got properly educated on the subject. But he didn't, and he still hasn't, despite people he knows and obviously respects urging him to do so. And his focus on the civility (or lack thereof) of the comments he's received plainly shows that he's more concerned with style than substance with this issue. I have no sympathy for the fact that people are saying mean things about him when he's treating the subject at hand with such a tremendous lack of thoughtfulness. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 18:23:28 [Permalink]
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Sorry Dave, but I'm not seeing anything substantial to respond to. It seems like you essentially agree but are just manufacturing disagreement over issues of interpretation and various other unrelated details.
Unless you have a substantial disagreement I don't think we have an issue worth the grief of antagonizing each other over. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 18:56:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dv82matt
Unless you have a substantial disagreement I don't think we have an issue worth the grief of antagonizing each other over. |
I dunno, I think that "fudging the data" is a pretty heavy accusation you've been leveling. Perhaps you'd like to substantiate it? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 19:14:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Not a single mention (from Randi himself) about greenhouse gasses or why trees are an important CO2 trap while alive. |
Whoops, I'd forgotten about what he'd written on Tuesday. Let's look at that again:Our Earth's atmosphere is approximately 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen. Just .04% is carbon dioxide -- a "trace" amount. But from that tiny percentage is built all the plants we have on Earth. CO2 is a natural molecule absolutely required for plant life to survive, and in the process of growing, those plants give off oxygen. We -- and all animal life -- consume that oxygen and give off CO2. (No, this is not an example of Intelligent Design.) If that balance is sufficiently disturbed, species either adapt or perish. And the world turns... CO2 is natural and is required for life, if we die because there's too much of it, oh well, so there's nothing to see here.Incidentally, we have a convenient phenomenon that contributes to our survival. Doubling the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere will not double the temperature rise, small though it is. The basic principle of what's known as the "greenhouse effect" is quite simple: in a glass-enclosed environment, sunlight enters through the glass and strikes a surface, where it is transformed into longer infrared rays which do not easily reflect back through the glass; they're trapped. and raise the temperature. However, the greenhouse effect as applied to our planet is more complicated. The infrared rays that are reflected back from the Earth are trapped by the greenhouse gases, water vapor and CO2 -- a process that warms those gases and heats the Earth.[/quote]This is ignorance on display. The greenhouse effect on Earth doesn't warm the CO2. The CO2 acts as the "glass," reflecting the infrared light back down to Earth instead of letting it radiate away into space.[quote]This effect makes Earth habitable, preventing extremes of temperature.[/quote][Headdesk][quote]The limit of the influence of CO2 is dictated, not by the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but by the amount of solar radiation reflected back from the Earth. Once all the infrared rays have been "captured" by the greenhouse gases there is no additional increase in carbon dioxide. This has cause-and-effect neatly reversed, suggesting that greenhouse warming causes an increase in CO2 which will end once all the infrared is trapped.Yes, we produce CO2, by burning "fossil fuels" and by simply breathing. And every fossil fuel produces CO2. Some products produce more than others, varying with their chemical composition. Methane gas produces less CO2, wood produces more. Just amazing that he doesn't point out that ounce-for-ounce, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, so it doesn't much matter that burning methane produces less of it.But almost paradoxically, when wood burns it produces CO2, and when a tree dies and rots it produces yet more CO2. But the production of CO2 from burning or dead trees is contradicted by Randi's assertion that CO2 production will stop once all the IR has been absorbed.Oceans are huge storage tanks for CO2, but as they warm up, they hold less of the dissolved gas. They release it into the atmosphere, then more of it is absorbed back into the oceans. This, again, attempts to paint the issue as one of natural cycles, ignoring the A part of AGW.
Overall, it's quite clear that Randi doesn't grasp any of the science, but is recklessly willing to opine upon it. This is supposed to be one of the first things skeptics learn not to do. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 19:23:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I dunno, I think that "fudging the data" is a pretty heavy accusation you've been leveling. Perhaps you'd like to substantiate it?
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I'll go ahead and retract that comment. Fraud has not been firmly established. It stinks pretty bad to me though.
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2009 : 19:44:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dv82matt
Fraud has not been firmly established. |
No, there has been no indication of fraud whatsoever, not even slightly. What there has been is a lot of quote mining from stolen emails by fucktards looking to justify their preexisting denialism.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 12/17/2009 19:44:16 |
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James Randi’s current take on Global Warming
