Californian busybody telling Canada about cars

Do humans have an impact, yes... is the impact significant, probably... is it catastrophic? No.

Is there REAL evidence of a rapid shift? Or is this yet another "bandwagon" over-subscription such as the banning of surface applied DDT for undeveloped countries?

And the fear that a flake of Asbestos falling on your child is grounds to join in a class action .

Read this and rebut if you want

Jim S. opined in news:cnr9lb$ snipped-for-privacy@dispatch.concentric.net:

First you say I have not a clue and that everyone agrees, and then you quote a statement from Stanford in which the first line starts out with "most" scientists would argue.... You have made my point. Not "everyone" agrees with your position. A considerable number of climatologic have stated that there have been similar rises and falls of temps throughout history and pre-history, just as there have been advances and declines of the ice sheet, and periodic reverses of the magnetic poles.

I still say that there is not a con census, which you yourself provided documentation of, as to what is going on. Until there is, I shall not subscribe to the scare tactics of the liberal academics, nor the protestations of corporate greed. You remind me of my sister who, after college, knew without a doubt that there was only one way to do something, and that's they way she was taught in college.

By the way, there are various groups who have used your science to prove: the earth is flat; man has never traveled to the moon; the earth is the center of the universe, etc, and I'm talking about today, not 900 years ago. Like statistics, science can be bent to serve the purpose of the user.

So, good luck to you either way. Me... I'm going to live until I die. And in 5000 years, not one person will care what I thought or did. And that's fine. But while I was here, I enjoyed my Mustangs, my guns, my computer, my family, fishing, and everything else.... including this non-productive exchange of ideas.

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Heh, that's good. There are some pretty scary people around here on both sides of the debate. My location and occupation lends me to observing largly the greener side of the scary people. A very close friend of mine does reasearch on climate and so forth, so he's fun to talk to. It's really scary to hear some of the things he hears from green folks. The political people are the worst.

I'll remind you that science is what proves the earth is round, science put men on the moon, science proves there is no center to the universe. Properly applied science can only answer questions of fact.

Well, I plan to live until I die as well. I don't have that immortality thing worked out yet. But hey, I enjoy my Capri, my computer, my hunting and fishing too. Rabbit, pheasant, deer, and salmon, walleye, large mouth bass - in order of favorite respectively.

I don't believe any exchange of ideas is unproductive.

OMG!!! FOFLMAO!!!!!

Um.... synthetic oil maybe LOL!!! Damn, too early for this sort of thing.

Joke Jim, joke joke joke ... hee hee funny funny... *wink* you know....

Note that you said "properly applied science". That implies that science can be IMproperly applied. Therefore, the application of said science as THE TRUTH, can be false.

Too often, people have been lead to believe that science is infallible. How often have we heard some postulation espoused by scientists, only to have them reverse themselves later. Even Einstein's "perfect" equation is now being questioned. And (what a time to draw a blank) even the mathematician (the one in the wheelchair using a voice synthesizer) stated that some of his work was no longer valid in light of new discoveries made.

As for immortality... that one I have solved. First I shall do as my father does... I have stopped having birthdays based upon the earth calendar year. Neptune is good, Pluto is better. The entire universe rotates, so, basing my birthdays on the time it takes the solar system to revolve around the central axis of the universe is getting there.

You say communicative exchanges are never unproductive? Try convincing a religious person that there is no god, there is only science, or vice versa. Try convincing a conservative to accept the liberal point of view or vice versa. Or a tree hugger that logging is a good thing, and vice versa (well, ok. being a tree hugger did get rid of Sonny Bono). Try convincing me that science can make not mistakes.

When you have dealt with the loss of your children's lives, the loss of a spouse to mental illness, of fought in a war or served as a police officer where the taking of a life in order to save a life is a good thing.... then apply your science to all things and see if it still fits.

Meanwhile, the fishing gear is in the car, the dog is anxious to go..... and I feel the need for speed even at $2.55 a gallon.....

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You can accept science as a method to answering questions, or you can believe in the fates. Truth is relative, science doesn't find "The Truth." It is a practice, and a method of inquiry. If you fail to accept it, you relegate your life to the darkness and frustration of never understanding what can be understood. I do not say that there is not value to religion and other ways of understanding, but I think the scientific domain, the domain of what is here and can be investigated is separate from the ethereal.

You could argue that there are things outside of human control and understanding i.e. God, the fortunes etc.

So, the question becomes, is climate change the domain of science or mysticism?

If climate change is the domain of science, you must give a response to the science. You must say something like, X hasn't been taken into account or Y is an unknown quantity. The debate must occur there, and will only have value there. You simply say that scientists have made mistakes in the past. This is *not* a valid critic of the problem at hand. Just because a mechanic misdiagnosed a problem with a car in the past is not any indication that future diagnoses will be faulty. If you say science is fallible, you either do not understand what science is, or you believe things outside of the corporeal world have influence upon it. Again, you have to state that the science regarding climate change is incomplete or faulty, and *give evidence to support the claim.*

Failing a scientific response, two options remain for you. Mysticism, or you could say, "I don't know very much about the situation, so I can't come to an informed decision."

Is the science incomplete or is science itself to blame, modernity or mysticism? It's your choice.

All the climate change skeptics have moved from a position of, "humans have no impact," to arguing about the degree of impact. Even the most rosy of predictions put forth by the coal industry show significant change. No serious person is talking about apocalyptic global warming in the next 100 years either. There is a simple insurance argument to be made - A little work now so things don't get too out of hand in the future. Or, wait till things are really bad and incur massive costs then.

Incidentally, I think all communicative exchanges are productive. In this, I got to learn something about you. Learning about people interests me greatly.

Again, thank you for making my point. You are not about to accept science as fallible, while I am not about to accept it as infallible. Your arguments balanced against mine bear this out.

As for a mechanic erring in a diagnosis of a mechanical problem with my car being different from an error in the past by science; just as the next mechanic is open to making the same or other error, so too is science not restricted by errors of the past in it's function and ability to err in the future.

When scientists (Einstein, Carl Sagan, et al) using scientific principle to reach answers and understanding, many years later openly admit that their science was flawed because there were principles at work which were neither recognized not understood, and there for they were biased in their conclusions and "answers" arrived at by scientific principles of investigation; then I say your science is open to error.

And why do you suppose that so many scientists are stepping forward and acknowledging that they have come to believe in the Hand of God in Creation? This was once the demarcation between science and religion. Science claimed proof, and religion claimed faith. Now science acknowledges faith, and religion has begun to acknowledge science.

Note that I do not reject science, nor the scientific principles of investigation. What I reject is the blind acceptance that science is infallible, and that the adherents of science must therefore be always correct. Human bias has often effected the result of investigation just as it has in my personal line of work, law enforcement.

I see at this moment that >You can accept science as a method to answering questions, or you can

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I accept science as infallible, not scientists. If one has all information, (within Newtonian physics, you keep bouncing over to theoretical quantum theory) and rigorously apply logic, nothing but a correct answer can be reached. If you were to say, "we don't have all the acquirable information," that's a legitimate argument to make, and in keeping with the principles of the scientific method. If you say, "some information is not acquirable," that's mysticism.

What you are saying that we can never know anything because we don't know everything. I flatly reject that. According to your logic, how can someone justifiably be convicted of a crime based, not on confession, but on evidence presented?

If the morals of 'beyond a reasonable doubt' can put a man to death, surely, they can be used to legislate carbon emissions.

How was the fishing?

WTF are you reading, or listening to? Whatever it is, stop it, because you're in cloud cuckoo land.

I accept science as infallible, not scientists. If one has all information, (within Newtonian physics, you keep bouncing over to theoretical quantum theory) and rigorously apply logic, nothing but a correct answer can be reached. If you were to say, "we don't have all the acquirable information," that's a legitimate argument to make, and in keeping with the principles of the scientific method. If you say, "some information is not acquirable," that's mysticism.

What you are saying that we can never know anything because we don't know everything.

Let me put this in somewhat Socratic language -- We don't know what we don't know, and we don't even know that we don't know it. So, we can't know anything fully, because we don't know everything, or even know of everything there is to know.

I flatly reject that. According to your logic, how can someone justifiably be convicted of a crime based, not on confession, but on evidence presented?

If the morals of 'beyond a reasonable doubt' can put a man to death, surely, they can be used to legislate carbon emissions.

How was the fishing?

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Ah... now you limit the scope from science in general to Newtonian... Guess there was too much leeway in the broadest scope of science. When one retreats into the smallest possible realm, there is far less possibility of being wrong. You should read Ann Coulter's book... LOL

And the fish>

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A survey in 1916 reported that 40% of scientists surveyed believed in a supreme being.

A relatively recent survey in "Nature" (1998), which surveyed 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences, reported that only 7% expressed belief in a "personal god", while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism." Mathematicians were much more likely to believe in god than scientists in other fields. Those in the life sciences were among the least likely to believe in god.

I was a scientist before I retired, in a highly interdisciplinary field. I can't recall a single colleague who expressed religious beliefs or who attended church regularly. In fact, the general attitude in coffee-hour discussions that touched on religion was thorough-going atheism and even contempt for religion.

To assert that "many scientists are stepping forward and acknowledging that they have come to believe in the Hand of God in Creation," based on an interview that probably appeared in a religious publication, is preposterous.

Matter reacts in the same way 99.99(to infinity)% of the time You're in the smallest possible realm!

If you want to say, "well, matter sometimes changes it properties," well, maybe it does. But, 99.9999(to infinity)% of the time, if I walk into a brick wall, I won't pass through it. Sure, there is that infinitesimal chance that matter will react differently and I can walk right through, but for the purpose of not getting a broken nose, I'm not going to bet on it.

If as a result of the tiny chance that matter will not react in its usual way, you want to throw up your hands and say, "Well, I can't fix the refrigerator because the matter it consists of may act in an new way," how can you ever do anything?

You can't just ignore Newtonian physics. If you do, climate change would be the least of your worries. You should be more concerned with waking up as a fish!

I'll say it again, if the morals of 'beyond a reasonable doubt' can put a man to death, surely, they can be used to legislate carbon emissions.

What if automobile mechanics picked up on your line of reasoning ?

"Sorry Mr. Jones, your transmission isn't operating properly due to quantum fluctuations. That's not covered under the warranty, so you'll have to pay for it. We don't do that kind of work here, so we'll have to send you over to Steve Hawking's garage, they do quantum mechanical jobs."

"Will they have to use a particle accelerator?"

"Oh yeah, they'll have to come up with a unified field theory too, you're looking at some serious cost and time."

Can I pick-up a quantum-metrics wrench set at Sears?