Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong

On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 6:02:44 PM UTC-5, Uncarollo2 wrote:
On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 3:40:18 PM UTC-6, Sam Wormley wrote:
Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...GYSUS_20151203


At some point in the history of all scientific theories, only a
minority of scientists--or even just one--supported them, before
evidence accumulated to the point of general acceptance. The
Copernican model, germ theory, the vaccination principle,
evolutionary theory, plate tectonics and the big bang theory were all
once heretical ideas that became consensus science. How did this
happen?

An answer may be found in what 19th-century philosopher of science
William Whewell called a "consilience of inductions." For a theory to
be accepted, Whewell argued, it must be based on more than one
induction--or a single generalization drawn from specific facts. It
must have multiple inductions that converge on one another,
independently but in conjunction. "Accordingly the cases in which
inductions from classes of facts altogether different have thus
jumped together," he wrote in his 1840 book The Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences, "belong only to the best established theories
which the history of science contains." Call it a "convergence of
evidence."

Consensus science is a phrase often heard today in conjunction with
anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Is there a consensus on AGW?
There is. The tens of thousands of scientists who belong to the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American
Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American
Medical Association, the American Meteorological Society, the
American Physical Society, the Geological Society of America, the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences and, most notably, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all concur that AGW is in
fact real. Why?




For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find
flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent
convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the
data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary
theory.) This they have not done.

Even Big Oil (Exon Mobil) this morning on the Dianne Rehm show admitted that climate change is real and that anthropomorphic CO2 is heating up the planet.

Corporations are like the global warming scientists. If they feel there is money to be made or careers, they will support whatever suits them. Figure it this way; a scientist hinges his career on a concept. Do you honestly think he's going to scuttle it or allow someone else to, no matter how thin the evidence on which it is based is?

RichA wrote:
On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 6:02:44 PM UTC-5, Uncarollo2 wrote:
On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 3:40:18 PM UTC-6, Sam Wormley wrote:
Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...GYSUS_20151203


At some point in the history of all scientific theories, only a
minority of scientists--or even just one--supported them, before
evidence accumulated to the point of general acceptance. The
Copernican model, germ theory, the vaccination principle,
evolutionary theory, plate tectonics and the big bang theory were all
once heretical ideas that became consensus science. How did this
happen?

An answer may be found in what 19th-century philosopher of science
William Whewell called a "consilience of inductions." For a theory to
be accepted, Whewell argued, it must be based on more than one
induction--or a single generalization drawn from specific facts. It
must have multiple inductions that converge on one another,
independently but in conjunction. "Accordingly the cases in which
inductions from classes of facts altogether different have thus
jumped together," he wrote in his 1840 book The Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences, "belong only to the best established theories
which the history of science contains." Call it a "convergence of
evidence."

Consensus science is a phrase often heard today in conjunction with
anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Is there a consensus on AGW?
There is. The tens of thousands of scientists who belong to the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American
Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American
Medical Association, the American Meteorological Society, the
American Physical Society, the Geological Society of America, the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences and, most notably, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all concur that AGW is in
fact real. Why?




For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find
flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent
convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the
data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary
theory.) This they have not done.

Even Big Oil (Exon Mobil) this morning on the Dianne Rehm show admitted
that climate change is real and that anthropomorphic CO2 is heating up the planet.

Corporations are like the global warming scientists. If they feel there
is money to be made or careers, they will support whatever suits them.
Figure it this way; a scientist hinges his career on a concept. Do you
honestly think he's going to scuttle it or allow someone else to, no
matter how thin the evidence on which it is based is?


Yes big corporation employees will generally do whatever is necessary to
maintain and increase their profits. That's why all the global warming
sceptics are funded by (mostly) US and Canadian oil companies.
Other companies like Shell have different policies because of their greater
European interests.
Do you have any contact with scientists?
Money is not the major consideration of scientists. They want recognition
of their achievements in the same way that the military want medals.
Proving a previous concensus to be wrong is a sure way of getting that
recognition.
Yet most the contrary evidence is provided by oil company shills using
cherry-picked data.

On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 2:40:18 PM UTC-7, Sam Wormley wrote:

For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find
flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent
convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the
data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary
theory.) This they have not done.

There's always a more direct approach:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...nal-geographic

John Savard

On Sun, 6 Dec 2015 04:24:22 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 2:40:18 PM UTC-7, Sam Wormley wrote:

For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find
flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent
convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the
data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary
theory.) This they have not done.

There's always a more direct approach:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...nal-geographic

I guess that explains why the last couple magazine issues have painted
as a hero one of mankind's greatest villains (the current pope), and
treated a fictional myth (Mary) as the most influential woman on
Earth.

On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 6:52:40 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

I guess that explains why the last couple magazine issues have painted
as a hero one of mankind's greatest villains (the current pope), and
treated a fictional myth (Mary) as the most influential woman on
Earth.

Now, that's just ill-tempered. The current pope may not be John the 23rd, but
he is hardly a villain. Noting the significance of the phenomenon that is the
Catholic Church, and even being largely fluffy and uncritical, is nothing new
for that magazine. It's their coverage of global warming we have to fear for,
not their hard-hitting political commentary, which was not there to begin with.

John Savard

On Friday, December 4, 2015 at 3:30:54 PM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:
it effectively tries to scale up experimental analogies to things like
planetary motion,climate, biological evolution and things like that.

a) What else would you have us do instead, throw up our hands in ignorance and
helplessness and give up?

b) It's not as if we couldn't then check and see if the results from this
approach are correct or not, even if we can't do experiments on that larger scale.

We tried it because we want to know, and we need to know - and we've found that
it works.

John Savard

On Sun, 6 Dec 2015 07:25:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 6:52:40 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

I guess that explains why the last couple magazine issues have painted
as a hero one of mankind's greatest villains (the current pope), and
treated a fictional myth (Mary) as the most influential woman on
Earth.

Now, that's just ill-tempered. The current pope may not be John the 23rd, but
he is hardly a villain.

I disagree. While all popes are bad people, he is among the worst,
with his grandfatherly smile and empty platitudes, all while making no
changes to policies that result in countless deaths and untold
suffering. If that isn't the definition of evil, I don't know what is.