|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/14/2007 : 10:07:34 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
| Originally posted by chaloobi |
| As far as ruling out something unknown / estraordinary, I don't think anyone's ruled such things out - they are just becoming extremely unlikely as the evidence mounts. From the perspective of the history of the world, humanity is pretty unprecedented / extraordinary. But when scientists look for causes of phenomena, they go with what's observed, what can be established as a causal link, what can be verified with experimentation and observational evidence |
That's fine but your looking at .5 million year window while making all these observations and gathering evidence/data while there is a 4.5 billion year backdrop that is largely unobserved. That leaves a lot of room for unknowns and extraordinary phenomena to go undiscovered, no?
|
Not all that big of a problem: By Environmental News Network staff
Scientists on a quest to characterize the long-term chemical evolution of Earth's atmosphere need to understand what the air was like millions of years ago. To do this, they've come to realize they can leave no stone unturned.
Uncovering the signature of so-called "fossil air" in terrestrial rocks and sediment is reported for the first time in today's issue of Nature.
The signature is in the form of an irregular isotope of oxygen that gets transferred from ozone and other atmospheric oxidants to sulfate during the oxidation of reduced sulfur gases, according to Huiming Bao, a geochemist at the University of California, San Diego.
These oxidized gases become incorporated into sulfate minerals in solid deposits on Earth's surface. Scientists have searched for this signature for decades. They finally found it in gypsum deposits from the Namibian desert in Africa and in volcanic ash deposits in Nebraska and South Dakota.
Detection of the isotope anomaly gives scientists an important new tool to answer questions about the composition of Earth's early atmosphere, the atmospheric processes of ancient volcanic eruptions, past ocean circulation patterns and early biological productivity.
|
It might take a little time, but they're getting there.
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
|
 |
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 10:43:47 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
| Originally posted by chaloobi |
| As far as ruling out something unknown / estraordinary, I don't think anyone's ruled such things out - they are just becoming extremely unlikely as the evidence mounts. From the perspective of the history of the world, humanity is pretty unprecedented / extraordinary. But when scientists look for causes of phenomena, they go with what's observed, what can be established as a causal link, what can be verified with experimentation and observational evidence |
That's fine but your looking at .5 million year window while making all these observations and gathering evidence/data while there is a 4.5 billion year backdrop that is largely unobserved. That leaves a lot of room for unknowns and extraordinary phenomena to go undiscovered, no?
|
It sure would be interesting to get a look at how the atmosphere has changed over the last 4.5 billion years. However, the vast majority of that data would be irrelevant to understanding what's happening right now in the context of the established climate patterns in place for the last few million years. Current climate has deviated significantly from that established pattern and to figure out why you don't go back a billion years and look blindly for phenomena that might be causing today's warming. You look at what is expected now, what's actually happening, and find observed phenomena that could be forcing those changes. |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 10:46:28 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by filthy
It might take a little time, but they're getting there.
|
It's still almost certainly irrelevant to the climate change. |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 10:57:55 [Permalink]
|
| Originally posted by filthy |
| Huh? Did you really mean that, or are you joking again? |
I meant it.
| Science has a great many unknowns and does not deny it. |
Exactly. Which means when your dealing with complex phenomena such as global climate change and are given a timeline of 4.5 billion years the room for the unknown to go undiscovered would be infinite.
| Learning about unknowns is what science is all about. |
Exactly. Which is why science and reality can be mutually exclusive. Science can and has been wrong because of a previous unknown(s). Reality can be full of unknowns and it is still reality.
| As there is exactly zero empirical evidence in support of miracles, one reaches the conclusion that such do not exist beyond the imaginations of the faithful. |
Where have I said anything about miracles in this whole thread? I said unknowns, unless you believe that anything unknown is a miracle?
| Science could change that if such evidence should come to light. |
Assuming the new evidence is correct and new information won't be discovered later that invalidates the new information then science would be on par with reality at the time of it's correction. However, before the correction in light of new evidence science was wrong and when you are wrong you are mutually exclusive from reality.
| Until then, science doesn't deal with them (except for the "creation" sort of scientist, of course. Maybe they'll come up with something, but I ain't holding' my breath). |
Now your just rambling.
| Bill, it is the business of science to study reality. They are in no way mutually exclusive. |
When science is wrong, and it has been, then it is mutually exclusive from reality. Your stumbling block is your belief that science is by default reality. It is not, especially when you have humans doing the science.
|
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
|
|
|
|
Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 11:28:06 [Permalink]
|
| Originally posted by chaloobi |
| It sure would be interesting to get a look at how the atmosphere has changed over the last 4.5 billion years. |
Indeed.
| However, the vast majority of that data would be irrelevant to understanding what's happening right now in the context of the established climate patterns in place for the last few million years. |
How do you know this, that climate cycle patterns can fit into a few million year window? Maybe a cycle of climate change could be established if we could go back 4.5 billion years into mother earth's past and maybe that cycle repeats itself every 5 million years, or every 10 million years, or every 100 million years, or maybe every one billion years? Maybe this climate change we are observing right now has already happened 100's of other times in the earth's 4.5 billion years of history but the cycle window goes back farther then we can currently observe and we just don't know about it as it is unknown? Simply because you dismiss anything prior to a million or two years ago does mean that reality does. In our finite wisdom and knowledge it might just be unknown.
| Current climate has deviated significantly from that established pattern and to figure out why you don't go back a billion years and look blindly for phenomena that might be causing today's warming. You look at what is expected now, what's actually happening, and find observed phenomena that could be forcing those changes. |
But maybe if you could look billions of years into the past you could see that the earth went through a similar or the same climate change as we are today? Again, with such a complex phenomena as global climate change with a 4.5 billion year history the amount of assuming that would go into definitive statements and predictions as well as room for unknowns would be infinite.
Again, reality is not limited to that which is known, but science is.
|
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
|
|
|
|
Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 13:03:27 [Permalink]
|
As expected:
BALI, Indonesia – A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference.
“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, told Inhofe EPW Press Blog following the panel discussion titled “A Global CO2 Tax.” Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm
Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.”
http://tinyurl.com/3y25zg |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
|
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 13:20:40 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
| Originally posted by filthy |
| Huh? Did you really mean that, or are you joking again? |
I meant it.
| Science has a great many unknowns and does not deny it. |
Exactly. Which means when your dealing with complex phenomena such as global climate change and are given a timeline of 4.5 billion years the room for the unknown to go undiscovered would be infinite.
| Learning about unknowns is what science is all about. |
Exactly. Which is why science and reality can be mutually exclusive. Science can and has been wrong because of a previous unknown(s). Reality can be full of unknowns and it is still reality.
| As there is exactly zero empirical evidence in support of miracles, one reaches the conclusion that such do not exist beyond the imaginations of the faithful. |
Where have I said anything about miracles in this whole thread? I said unknowns, unless you believe that anything unknown is a miracle?
| Science could change that if such evidence should come to light. |
Assuming the new evidence is correct and new information won't be discovered later that invalidates the new information then science would be on par with reality at the time of it's correction. However, before the correction in light of new evidence science was wrong and when you are wrong you are mutually exclusive from reality.
| Until then, science doesn't deal with them (except for the "creation" sort of scientist, of course. Maybe they'll come up with something, but I ain't holding' my breath). |
Now your just rambling.
| Bill, it is the business of science to study reality. They are in no way mutually exclusive. |
When science is wrong, and it has been, then it is mutually exclusive from reality. Your stumbling block is your belief that science is by default reality. It is not, especially when you have humans doing the science.
|
I'm calling bullshit. Did you or did you not make this rather snide statement in reply to Dave? | So anything that is unknown or extraordinary is a miracle? |
Your problem is that you have to have all of your info immediatly to hand. The fundies actually have it all in a book and, although they are happy to use any science that benefits them, they also deny that science actually gets it right a lot more often than it gets it wrong.
Example: If you caught the clap before the discovery of penicillin, what might it's treatment be? Hint: It was a lot more painful than a foley catheter, and penicillin was one of the myriad blessing bestowed upon the world by science. As are preventative measures such as condoms. But it was a long time and a lot of gonococcus bacilli transfered before it was discovered.
And when science is wrong, sooner or later it will correct itself with further study. Every time, and even the correction will be studied for further information. Science and reality by their very natures cannot be mutually exclusive as the former studies the latter which entwines the two irrevocably.
oh, wait.... I might be wrong. Who's version of reality are we talking about, here; the likes of Dembski and/or the ICR dingbats, or sane folks?
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
|
|
|
|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 13:24:03 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
As expected:
BALI, Indonesia – A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. |
Also as expected:| The year 2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S., since national records began in 1895, according to preliminary data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest since records began in 1880. |
|
|
|
|
H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 13:44:43 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
As expected: |
A bargain considering the cost of doing nothing and dealing with the consequences.
|
"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 |
|
|
|
Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 14:18:41 [Permalink]
|
| Originally posted by filthy |
I'm calling bullshit. Did you or did you not make this rather snide statement in reply to Dave?
"So anything that is unknown or extraordinary is a miracle?" |
That was a question not a statment.
In responce to chaloobi saying this: | In order for nature to be the source of the current warming something extraordinary that hasn't happened in at least the last half million years is taking place right now |
I said this | "How does something unknown or extraordinary get ruled out as the cause..." |
refering to the other 4.5 billion years of earth's history that is mostly unobserved.
Dave says this: | "Science doesn't work in miracles, Bill." |
So I simply responded with this question: | "So anything that is unknown or extraordinary is a miracle?" |
I never said anything about any miracles in any of my original statments! Let me repeat, are you saying that anything unknown or extraordinary is a miracle because I sure didn't.
| Your problem is that you have to have all of your info immediatly to hand. |
Nonsense. What I am saying is that I need all info immediately at hand to be able to make an empirical statement. A statement made without all the info at hand is called an assumption. Maybe it's an educated assumption but an assumption none the less.
| The fundies actually have it all in a book and, although they are happy to use any science that benefits them, they also deny that science actually gets it right a lot more often than it gets it wrong. |
Your rambling and ranting again. Where did I ever say science is wrong more then it is right?
| And when science is wrong, sooner or later it will correct itself with further study. |
This is your assumption that it will always correct itself or be corrected.
| Every time, and even the correction will be studied for further information. |
...and for further unknowns. We already hit on this.
| Science and reality by their very natures cannot be mutually exclusive as the former studies the latter which entwines the two irrevocably. |
One more time and nice and slow. Science can and has been wrong. When something is wrong it is mutually exclusive from reality as reality is reality. I am not saying all that science is mutually exclusive, only that science can and has been mutually exclusive from reality.
| oh, wait.... I might be wrong. Who's version of reality are we talking about, here; the likes of Dembski and/or the ICR dingbats, or sane folks? |
There is only one true reality and then there is each individuals version of reality which might or might not align with true reality.
|
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
|
| Edited by - Bill scott on 12/14/2007 14:25:31 |
|
|
|
Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 14:27:01 [Permalink]
|
| Originally posted by Cuneiformist |
| The year 2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S., since national records began in 1895, according to preliminary data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. |
I thought we were talking about global average temps?
| The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. |
So the land currently known as the US has never experienced a drought, a wildfire, or floods in her history before?
| Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest since records began in 1880. |
So what?
|
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
|
|
|
|
Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 14:29:45 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by Bill scott
As expected: |
A bargain considering the cost of doing nothing and dealing with the consequences.
|
So the UN says... |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
|
|
|
|
recurve boy
Skeptic Friend
Australia
53 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 16:30:07 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
| Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest since records began in 1880. |
So what?
|
So the current model is working and we have one more data point confirming the current prevailing theory. |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/14/2007 : 16:58:24 [Permalink]
|
| "So anything that is unknown or extraordinary is a miracle?" |
That was a question not a statment. |
In use and context, it was a statement.
| "How does something unknown or extraordinary get ruled out as the cause..." refering to the other 4.5 billion years of earth's history that is mostly unobserved. |
And I gave you a link explaining how part of it, the makeup of the atmosphere at various times, is being observed. Did you open it?
| Your problem is that you have to have all of your info immediatly to hand. |
| Nonsense. What I am saying is that I need all info immediately at hand to be able to make an empirical statement. A statement made without all the info at hand is called an assumption. Maybe it's an educated assumption but an assumption none the less. |
No, it is called an hypothesis. Assumptions are sometimes used to temporarlty fill a gap, but they are always labled as such, and discarded as soon as the facts come to light.
| The fundies actually have it all in a book and, although they are happy to use any science that benefits them, they also deny that science actually gets it right a lot more often than it gets it wrong. |
| Your rambling and ranting again. Where did I ever say science is wrong more then it is right? |
I did not say anything about you in that comment. Now who is making assumptions? 
| And when science is wrong, sooner or later it will correct itself with further study. |
| This is your assumption that it will always correct itself or be corrected. |
It is not an assumption but an historical fact.
| Every time, and even the correction will be studied for further information. |
| ...and for further unknowns. We already hit on this. |
Indeed. Were you paying attention?
| Science and reality by their very natures cannot be mutually exclusive as the former studies the latter which entwines the two irrevocably. |
| One more time and nice and slow. Science can and has been wrong. When something is wrong it is mutually exclusive from reality as reality is reality. I am not saying all that science is mutually exclusive, only that science can and has been mutually exclusive from reality. |
One more time, nice & slow: When science is wrong, it gets corrected, and all you are doing now is playing with semantics.
| oh, wait.... I might be wrong. Who's version of reality are we talking about, here; the likes of Dembski and/or the ICR dingbats, or sane folks? |
There is only one true reality and then there is each individuals version of reality which might or might not align with true reality.
|
True.
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
|
|
|
|
recurve boy
Skeptic Friend
Australia
53 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2007 : 18:08:07 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Bill scott
| Current climate has deviated significantly from that established pattern and to figure out why you don't go back a billion years and look blindly for phenomena that might be causing today's warming. You look at what is expected now, what's actually happening, and find observed phenomena that could be forcing those changes. |
But maybe if you could look billions of years into the past you could see that the earth went through a similar or the same climate change as we are today? Again, with such a complex phenomena as global climate change with a 4.5 billion year history the amount of assuming that would go into definitive statements and predictions as well as room for unknowns would be infinite.
Again, reality is not limited to that which is known, but science is.
|
The vast majority of this data would be completely irrelevant to the current climate.
Earth started off as some primordial soupy thing. It was very geologically active and didn't even have an ozone for like, a billion years. The first multicelluar plants only appeared about 1 billions years go. And something resembling our current climate and ecology would have started at something like 200 million years ago. And even during this period we still had the Pangea super continent.
Then 65 million years ago there was a massive meteorite that hit the earth that changed the climate again. It's not reasonable to assume we could have predicted this event. And how much did it affect the climate in the long term?
So how much time left do we have that is obviously relevant? Recovering from the meteor didn't take that long in the scheme of things, so looking back further than the 60 million year mark is pretty useless.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
An international team of MMGW deniers (scientists)
