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Post by unkleE on Oct 10, 2016 12:25:52 GMT
Besides designing many of the instruments climatologists rely upon for their own work, you will have seen my designs in medical dramas and the Bat Cave. Several of my commercially successful blood gas monitors employed IR spectroscopy to determine expired CO2 concentrations. [snip] While I have a Master's in Biomedical Engineering, I had to learn my craft on the production floor trying to understand why products that worked in the lab failed in the field. Hi Jonkon, thanks for setting all that out. That is more or less what I remembered from some things you have written previously. But I'm sorry, your undoubted expertise in instrumentation doesn't seem to me to be any qualification to do climate science. I have a good friend who installs, calibrates and maintains complex medical equipment (imaging equipment and the like). I think he's quite good at his job, but I wouldn't ask him to interpret the results of an MRI I had taken to diagnose a possible illness - for that, I'd want a medical specialist (who would probably be useless in setting the machine up). They are very different disciplines. I would say my 40 years as a hydrologist working with various climate and hydrologic data would be more relevant to climate science than your engineering, and I certainly never pretend to be expert in climate science. It is obvious that there are many ways to calculate of global temperature or (more importantly) to set up and calibrate models, and scientists may argue about which stations to include or not include, how much to base the calculation on air or water temperature, etc, but if the same stations and calculation method are used consistently, the changes measured and the predictions made will also be consistent relative to each other. And pretty much ALL the models make qualitatively similar, though not quantitatively identical, predictions So, can I ask you again, are you saying that the thousands of climate scientists have all totally misunderstood the system they are studying, but you have got it right? Thanks.
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jonkon
Master of the Arts
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Post by jonkon on Oct 10, 2016 16:48:04 GMT
I am a designer, not a technician. As such I have to get "inside the mind" of the end user and be able to speak their language to anticipate and eliminate possible misunderstandings so as to ensure safe, reliable operation of the device. To this end I have taken the same anatomy and physiology courses taken by physicians (My RN wife used my texts because they were superior to those used in her nursing classes.). The designer must also recognize the various pathologies so as to distinguish them from equipment malfunctions. I am quite sure that your technician friend, along with the med tech running the equipment, can correctly interpret the results, but choose to leave the legal liability to the supervising physician. As a design engineer I am expected to bring a far broader and in depth expertise to any given situation than a mere scientist. Thus in the course of my work, I have solved problems dealing with high polymer chemistry, heat transfer, the legal ramifications of import/export trade regulations, as well as originating a trade secret involving the cooking process of KFC chicken. So yes I am saying that because of my background I have a more thorough understanding of the physical processes than your climate scientists and am more than qualified to critique their analyses.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Oct 11, 2016 6:28:35 GMT
Relating back to the issue of climate change, empirical relationships, without theoretical foundation, can be influenced by hidden factors. Thus is the observed increase in temperature in fact caused by increased urbanization around the airports where the measurements are being taken? Secondly, is the complexity of the theoretical models obscuring the fact that there is no physical relationship whereby increases in greenhouse gases cause an increase in atmospheric temperature? To establish "causality" there must be a deductive chain of reasoning whereby an increase in greenhouse gases results in an increase in atmospheric temperature. "around the airports where the measurements are being taken?" You must be aware that not all measurements are taken around airports, so that some are being taken near them can't explain all that much unless they dominate the data. If they do, I'd like to see some evidence for that. This link explains how scientists deal with the Urban Heat Island effect: www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm For instance (from the basic explanation): 1) Check where the largest upward temperature anomaly has occurred. This occurred in remote areas, not in densely settled hotspots. 2) Compare trends in rural and urban areas (in this case in the same countries). It turns out that the trend lines are quite similar, even though the temperature level will generally be higher in cities than in the countryside. (3) Confirm this relation for developed and developing cities. It's also mentioned on the site that urban measuring stations are often in "cool islands" in cities. A significant minority of city measurements turn out to be quite cooler than their rural surroundings as a result. The conventional explanation of greenhouse gases "storing" radiant energy is wrong on several points. "Radiant" as opposed to "thermal" energy is in the form of photons. These photons strike the greenhouse gas molecule, causing increased vibration among the C-O bonds. Since these vibrations are along a line of symmetry in the molecule, they cannot affect the translational motion comprising the molecule's thermal energy. Instead radiant energy is absorbed and re-emitted as photons without any loss of energy. Radiant energy instead is converted into thermal energy in accord with Stephan-Boltzman Law, with the earth's surface acting as the black body. This thermal energy, because of Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure, is apportioned according to the relative concentration of gas molecules, irrespective of the species of gas. The observed relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and temperature level, likewise confuses cause with effect because of an inadequate understanding of the mechanism involved. CO2 is readily absorbed by the water in the oceans, and in turn is precipitated out as dolomite and limestone. The solubility constants are temperature dependent so that an increase in temperature CAUSES an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. We have responded to you on this topic before, but it doesn't appear that you've interacted with it. Why should we do it again?
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jonkon
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Post by jonkon on Oct 11, 2016 16:58:08 GMT
You have not addressed the basic physics underlying the climate change controversy. True "science" rejects the informal fallacy of Argument from Authority. Without a MECHANISM for an increase in CO2 emissions CAUSING an increase in atmospheric temperature, there is no case for man-made climate change.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Oct 11, 2016 18:48:19 GMT
You have not addressed the basic physics underlying the climate change controversy. I have in fact done so in several posts, beginning here. I'm also still waiting you to explain from where Venus's greenhouse effect came if CO 2 couldn't have caused it.
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Post by himself on Oct 11, 2016 19:42:03 GMT
I'm also still waiting you to explain from where Venus's greenhouse effect came if CO 2 couldn't have caused it. You must mean "from where Venus' high temperature came?" Calling it a greenhouse effect begs the question. I believe it comes from a) being closer to the sun and b) possessing a far thicker atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure there is considerable at ground level. At levels in the Venusian atmosphere corresponding to Earth sea level pressure, the Venusian temperatures are comparable to Earth's, allowing for the higher solar input. The Martian atmosphere contains as much CO 2 as Venus - roughly 96% - yet there is no runaway greenhouse effect there. Indeed, it is quite cold. Apparently, the three sisters - Venus, Earth, and Mars - all started with similar atmospheres - about 96% CO 2 - but only Earth came up with a biosphere that slurped up CO 2 and excreted O 2, and so only Earth runs a depleted CO2 atmosphere. Beside which, the relationship between CO2 and temperature is logarithmic. That is, successive doublings of CO 2 result in successively smaller increases. The enormous temperatures at the bottom of Venus' atmosphere cannot be attributed solely to the gas.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Oct 11, 2016 20:27:50 GMT
You must mean "from where Venus' high temperature came?" Calling it a greenhouse effect begs the question. I meant what I said and I'm aware what it means. There is no circular reasoning there, or are you going to deny there is any greenhouse effect on Earth, apart from only denying there is an increasing greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic increases in CO 2? I believe it comes from a) being closer to the sun and b) possessing a far thicker atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure there is considerable at ground level. At levels in the Venusian atmosphere corresponding to Earth sea level pressure, the Venusian temperatures are comparable to Earth's, allowing for the higher solar input. Do you have any evidence that this is a reasonable view in astrophysics? Or have you done the calculations to prove that this can in itself explain the surface temperature of 740 K (with a surface pressure of 90 atmosphere). Because I know it is not near the consensus view: "The very high surface temperature far exceeds what is expected from a simple blackbody analysis, such as the one performed in Example 19.3.1. It is the large amount of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere that is responsible for the extreme conditions at the surface." Carroll, Ostlie, An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, 2nd ed., 742. "The large amount of CO 2 produces a very strong greenhouse effect on Venus. The 750 K is some 400 K higher than the temperature would have been without an atmosphere." Kutner, Astronomy: A Physical Perspective, 2nd ed., 492. (Not specifying what part of those 400 K is simply due to a denser atmosphere and what part is due to the greenhouse effect.) The Martian atmosphere contains as much CO 2 as Venus - roughly 96% - yet there is no runaway greenhouse effect there. Indeed, it is quite cold. That Mars has a surface pressure of 0.007 atmosphere might have to do with that. Mars's small greenhouse effect still raised its temperature by about 5 K compared to what it would have been. The point is that atmospheric CO 2 causes a greenhouse effect and that this is recognised in other scientific disciplines. Apparently, the three sisters - Venus, Earth, and Mars - all started with similar atmospheres - about 96% CO 2 - but only Earth came up with a biosphere that slurped up CO 2 and excreted O 2, and so only Earth runs a depleted CO2 atmosphere. That is correct. Venus's proximity to the Sun is thought to be the major cause for the difference - water remained vapour in early Venus and was eventually lost. On Earth, the oceans are and were major sinks for CO 2 and most of the early atmospheric CO 2 has been encased in rocks. Beside which, the relationship between CO2 and temperature is logarithmic. That is, successive doublings of CO 2 result in successively smaller increases. The enormous temperatures at the bottom of Venus' atmosphere cannot be attributed solely to the gas. Nowhere did I state that Venus' temperature can be solely attributed to its proportion of CO 2 in the atmosphere nor that an earthlike atmospheric pressure should be assumed. But it is part of mainstream astrophysics. Climate scepticism isn't merely about denying the views of climate scientists, but also of experts in rather hard sciences like astronomy. It logically entails further contrarianism (which you accept, to your credit, of sorts). A 90 times denser atmosphere at surface level consisting of 96.5% (N) of CO 2 still has much explanatory power compared to our CO 2 of about 300 ppm, even on a logarithmic scale.
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Post by unkleE on Oct 11, 2016 23:30:54 GMT
Hi Jonkon, thanks for your answer. I am a designer, not a technician. As such I have to get "inside the mind" of the end user and be able to speak their language to anticipate and eliminate possible misunderstandings so as to ensure safe, reliable operation of the device. To this end I have taken the same anatomy and physiology courses taken by physicians (My RN wife used my texts because they were superior to those used in her nursing classes.). The designer must also recognize the various pathologies so as to distinguish them from equipment malfunctions. I am quite sure that your technician friend, along with the med tech running the equipment, can correctly interpret the results, but choose to leave the legal liability to the supervising physician. As a design engineer I am expected to bring a far broader and in depth expertise to any given situation than a mere scientist. Thus in the course of my work, I have solved problems dealing with high polymer chemistry, heat transfer, the legal ramifications of import/export trade regulations, as well as originating a trade secret involving the cooking process of KFC chicken. Getting inside the mind of the end user isn't the same as being able to do the job of the end user. I would still go to the specialist (the doctor or the climate scientist) rather than the technician/designer who designed and built their equipment if I wanted to have my health or my climate diagnosed, just as I would go to the designer/technician rather than the doctor/scientist if I wanted to repair the equipment. There are many other examples. A racing car driver has a quite different skill to the mechanic who prepares the car. In my own field of hydrology, the hydrographer who obtains the data, the designer of the equipment the hydrographer uses, and the hydrologist (me) who uses the data all have very different skills, and having one set of skills in no way guarantees you have the others. So if you think such different skills as you have and the climate scientists have are equal or transferable, I just have to say that I think it is obviously not so. That isn't actually the question I asked. I'm not doubting you have knowledge that allows you to critique some aspects of climate science - most of us would have some knowledge of some aspect of science that would allow us to critique. My question was: "are you saying that the thousands of climate scientists have all totally misunderstood the system they are studying, but you have got it right?" i.e. whether you feel that the climate science community have somehow totally got it wrong. And the obvious follow-up questions would be (2) How has this happened? and (3) why should I believe you rather than thousands of them? You see, this isn't in isolated matter, but is part of an enormous postmodern trend to doubt experts and trust our own less expert judgment. Let me give you a few personal examples. 1. I am currently discussing (by email) evolution with a creationist. The following is a broad summary of things he has said, though doubtless I have oversimplified. He doesn't accept the evidence that seems to point to evolution (DNA, fossils, radiometric dating, etc). He doesn't accept the consensus of science on evolution, but he doesn't have significant expertise or experience or publishing history of his own on evolution. He thinks evolution isn't true science, that many evolutionary scientists have agendas that distort their science, and even christion ones like Francis Collins are somehow taken in. He doesn't think his own biases similarly discredit his conclusions. He tends to find odd parts of evolutionary biology that he finds anomalous and somehow thinks that odd anomalies undermine the whole thing. 2. I have over the years had many discussions with those who believe Jesus didn't exist and Nazareth wasn't a village at the time of Jesus. They don't accept the archaeological and historical evidence (disputing dates of artefacts at Nazareth, arguing that references to Jesus in documents are interpolations, etc). They don't accept the consensus of historians & archaeologists on these matters, but they don't have significant expertise or experience or publishing history of their own (and mostly they have none of these). They think that those who conclude that Jesus and Nazareth are both historical are using poor methodology and have clear biases - but they don't think their own obvious biases colour their conclusions. They tend to find odd parts of the historical and archaeological case that that they find anomalous and somehow think that odd anomalies undermine the whole thing. 3. I have seen many sceptics argue that the Middle Ages were dark ages that set back science a millennium because the church implacably opposed science. They don't accept the evidence from unbiased historians that this isn't so, even though they lack the qualifications and experience and publishing history of these historians. They pick up on small examples of discrimination and ignore the more obvious facts that many natural philosophers of the day were churchmen. 4. Then there is the evidence of neuroscientists, psychologists and anthropologists that religious belief, including christian belief, has many personal health and wellbeing benefits as well as benefits to society. But many anti-religious critics ignore the evidence of the experts even though they lack qualifications, experience and publishing history on these matters. They tend to pick up on occasional statistics and studies that show something different (because the effects of religious belief and practice are complex and not 100% positive) and focus on these while ignoring the broader conclusions of the experts. There is obviously a pattern here. We see it in other ways too in our postmodern western cultures. I see the following common threads: - someone, generally a non-expert, knows more than all the experts;
- the critique of the accepted idea is in such technical detail that most of us lack the knowledge and background to judge one way or the other;
- much of the critique is nit-picking about minor matters, while the major evidence is not addressed;
- there is often some hidden reason why all the experts are supposed to be wrong (basically a conspiracy theory);
- the sceptics expect a layperson to believe them rather than the far greater number of experts;
- when new data comes in supporting the experts, the critics adapt their theories to the new evidence, even if this requires some contortions;
- the critics have some other reason (christian belief, atheism, etc) that leads them to their view.
So I'm sorry, but I see this pattern in your discussion of climate change. I know a lot about hydrology and climate data, but very little about gases. But since I have no intention of doing a PhD in climate science or gas science to learn enough to judge between you and the thousands of climate scientists, I have to make a judgment on what I can see, and that means I have to continue to trust the scientists, and see your objections as conforming to this pattern. I haven't seen anything compelling in what you have said. In the end, if I expect sceptics to accept the experts on evolution, Jesus & Nazareth, medieval history and the psychology and sociology of religion, I should equally expect sceptics to accept the evidence of the climate scientists, unless someone in any of those areas offers something absolutely compelling. I haven't seen that in any of these cases. Thanks for sharing your views.
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jonkon
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Post by jonkon on Oct 13, 2016 23:10:55 GMT
ignorantianescia, correlation does not imply causality. What are the specific scientific laws and physical mechanisms whereby an increase in CO2 CAUSES an increase in atmospheric temperature? Stephan-Boltzmann Law and Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure show that increased atmospheric temperature is INDEPENDENT of CO2 levels. The temperature dependence of solubility of CO2 in water in fact shows the CONTRARY relationship whereby an increase in temperature CAUSES an increase in atmospheric CO2. himself's points of relative proximity to the sun and atmospheric density are spot on. Simultaneous warming of Venus, Earth, and Mars indicates a common cause, namely an increase in solar radiation levels, rather than any human involvement. Your previous citing of a simultaneous increase in ocean acidity likewise is a result of the sedimentary rocks - limestone and dolomite - being dissolved into carbonic acid, which in turn is expelled as gaseous CO2. The "storage' effects of IR energy in CO2 settle out in at most a matter of minutes, not the years, decades and centuries of "climate change."
Conspiracy theories cannot be dismissed out of hand unkleE because conspiracies do occur. I have previously pointed out that conventional science education gives short shrift to the vital use of assumptions in analyzing scientific problems and teaches an invalid "scientific method" that is incapable of distinguishing causal relations from coincidence. These problems arise from the establishment of the scientific curriculum on faulty assumptions, after all Galileo did lose in his confrontation with the Church, causing scientific progress to shift to independently established scientific societies, bypassing the Church-controlled universities. While a scientist's mistakes end up gathering dust on a library shelf, there is absolutely no ambiguity when a product fails final test, leading to the immanent wrath of hundreds of fellow employees whose livelihoods are now under threat. So there is a significant incentive to question the adequacy of prior training.
Besides the inertia induced by having to relearn everything that has been taught, there is significant financial incentive to promote garbage science. Who is more likely to get a research grant? - the scientist who says there is no threat from warming trends or the scientists who says if I do not get the grant we are all going to die! Universities also receive billions of dollars to conduct FDA drug protocol tests from pharmaceutical companies. Are academics going to jeopardize this income stream by acknowledging that these FDA protocols, based on Mill's Methods, are incapable of establishing the safety and efficacy of the drugs being tested? Valid generalizations can be made reliably and effectively on a set of observations on a single product at a cost orders of magnitude less than a full blown test using protocols based on Mill's Methods.
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Post by fortigurn on Oct 15, 2016 4:18:44 GMT
Who is more likely to get a research grant? - the scientist who says there is no threat from warming trends or the scientists who says if I do not get the grant we are all going to die! The former. The latter will be dismissed as a nutcase. No one gets a grant for saying "If I do not get the grant we are all going to die".
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Post by ignorantianescia on Oct 15, 2016 8:31:34 GMT
Hello Jonkon, You can find my response to the part of your post addressed to me below. I also respond to a small portion that you directed to UnkleE. The format strongly tends towards "sentence for sentence", which may be unfortunately similar to fisking. I will also be repeating a few thing I've written before addressed to you - which truth be told is not my favourite activity, though in fairness the bulk of what I write is not repetitious. Feel free to respond to points you expect to raise in the future, in fact I prefer to reformulate in the light of criticism rather than sounding like a broken record. ignorantianescia, correlation does not imply causality. I wasn't assuming it does. However, your personal theory that atmospheric CO 2 and global mean temperature are inversely related that flies in the face of empirical evidence and known theoretical constraints does violate this maxim. (See below.) What are the specific scientific laws and physical mechanisms whereby an increase in CO2 CAUSES an increase in atmospheric temperature? First I'll describe the basic mechanism in a simple narrative format. As incoming solar radiation, after going through the atmosphere (which is rather transparent in visible light), hits the Earth's surface, most of that radiation is absorbed, while the remainder is reflected (the Earth's average albedo is about 0.31). The Earth then emits the blackbody radiation appropriate to its temperature, which is infrared light. However, greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere can absorb and re-emit in all directions thermal radiation from the Earth. More greenhouse gases means more re-emission in all directions and as the basic mechanism of the Earth's blackbody radiation is into outer space, the net effect of the greenhouse gases is to increase the amount of thermal radiation in the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is such a greenhouse gas, and the most common durable one in the atmosphere. Scientific laws implied in the highly simplified narrative above: * Stefan-Boltzmann Law (for blackbody radiation of the Sun and the Earth) * Planck relation (to explain the absorbtion and emission of photons) * Albedo equation * Pressure distribution of gases in a hydrostatic equilibrium (to explain the distribution of gases, in particular why greenhouse gases are predominant in the lower atmosphere) All of this ignores the feedback mechanisms that make climatology so difficult (indeed, a specialised discipline). Stephan-Boltzmann Law and Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure show that increased atmospheric temperature is INDEPENDENT of CO2 levels. No, it doesn't, all it does is explain that any heating from CO 2's greenhouse effect involves mechanisms not covered by the properties of an ideal gas or of a blackbody. Indeed they don't, CO 2's modes of vibration play a crucial role. In related science, neither do these laws show that if I burn a piece of firewood, heat is released and local temperature will be increased. By your logic that must mean, because increased atmospheric temperature is independent of burning firewood, this cannot cause any increase in temperature. 1 But if I put a canister of mixed air beside the fire, those laws will explain what happens in there. What this means is that the mechanism by which carbon dioxide increases is the absorbtion and re-emission of thermal energy. 1. This is of course parody. I am not genuinely claiming that you believe this. I am genuinely baffled however that you wrote this line.himself's points of relative proximity to the sun and atmospheric density are spot on. Simultaneous warming of Venus, Earth, and Mars indicates a common cause, namely an increase in solar radiation levels, rather than any human involvement. But are they as spot on as the consensus astrophysicists I quoted? Unlikely. Neither of you has produced any evidence that this theory that proximity to the Sun and density explain the difference between Venus and Earth is accepted as a sufficient explanation by the astronomists or even produced evidence. Instead this seems just like going with an explanation just because it sounds good. Can you verify whether you indeed mean that the increase in solar radiation levels is what you consider the prime mechanism for observed warming? How do you reconcile this with the pathetically low recent solar cycles? The temperature dependence of solubility of CO2 in water in fact shows the CONTRARY relationship whereby an increase in temperature CAUSES an increase in atmospheric CO2. Your previous citing of a simultaneous increase in ocean acidity likewise is a result of the sedimentary rocks - limestone and dolomite - being dissolved into carbonic acid, which in turn is expelled as gaseous CO2. Problems with this view include that measurements indicate atmospheric oxygen decreases as atmospheric CO 2 increases - by the same amount - and that we know that humans do net emit a lot of carbon dioxide, which cannot be just poofed away. Both are evidence that the rise in atmospheric CO 2 are the result of human-caused chemical reactions involving oxygen. The "storage' effects of IR energy in CO2 settle out in at most a matter of minutes, not the years, decades and centuries of "climate change." If global warming was a mere consequence of CO 2 molecules holding onto thermal energy for just a few moments longer, you'd be right, but they also redirect a portion of the blackbody radiation they absorb back to the surface. That can obviously stay for longer. But more important than the bare effects of some extra energy on the surface or in the lower atmosphere once is the fact that anthropogenically emitted carbon dioxide will be able to do this increased effect over a long period of time, for some molecules indeed centuries, so they will be able to perform this trick for a timescale beyond this century. Besides the inertia induced by having to relearn everything that has been taught, there is significant financial incentive to promote garbage science. Who is more likely to get a research grant? - the scientist who says there is no threat from warming trends or the scientists who says if I do not get the grant we are all going to die! Fortigurn beat me to this, but what follows was written before I read his post: In a binary choice between those two, probably the former because the latter's reasons are so frenetic. But this is a parody of how actual scientific grant applications are written. They involve constant references to observations/experiments and theory as understood in the status questionis.
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Post by fortigurn on Oct 15, 2016 18:36:15 GMT
Fortigurn beat me to this, but what follows was written before I read his post: In a binary choice between those two, probably the former because the latter's reasons are so frenetic. But this is a parody of how actual scientific grant applications are written. They involve constant references to observations/experiments and theory as understood in the status questionis. I generally find that people who describe grant applications like that have never actually written one.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Oct 15, 2016 19:34:37 GMT
Fortigurn beat me to this, but what follows was written before I read his post: In a binary choice between those two, probably the former because the latter's reasons are so frenetic. But this is a parody of how actual scientific grant applications are written. They involve constant references to observations/experiments and theory as understood in the status questionis. I generally find that people who describe grant applications like that have never actually written one. At least not a scientific one. On a different topic that has been mentioned here before, John Christy's findings about the mid-troposphere have been trashed: www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/14/climate-scientists-published-a-paper-debunking-ted-cruz
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Post by unkleE on Oct 16, 2016 11:26:03 GMT
Conspiracy theories cannot be dismissed out of hand unkleE because conspiracies do occur. Of course they occur - but more often they don't. So if anyone proposes a conspiracy as the cause of climate science (or anything else), they have some responsibility to show that there is a motive for the conspiracy and that it has actually occurred. I haven't seen you, or anyone else really, do either. And of course, if there's a conspiracy, it is hard to believe that thousands of scientists from dozens of countries have all joined it unanimously. It is surely easier to believe that you have a bias or an ulterior motive! Why is it that conspiracy theorists and sceptics about evolution, the historical evidence for Jesus or Nazareth, etc, always think we should believe their motives are pure while accepting their claim that all the experts are not so pure? This surely is a fundamental problem for what you are saying. Are you really saying that, not only is all climate science wrong, but there is a fundamental flaw in ALL science? If so, this is starting to become an amazing set of claims. Do you have any evidence for this? Any facts that support your idea of what gets a grant? I would have thought if there was bias, it would be more likely to go the other way. Energy companies are among the biggest companies in the world and they have plenty of money to fund climate scepticism. When I was working as a hydrologist, about 13 years ago, I met with and spent a few hours with a couple of Australia's climate scientists (from the CSIRO). They had no such incentive as you argue here. Australia had a conservative government at the time that was very reluctant to accept the evidence for climate change or doing anything about it (more or less the same as our present government). If anything, they were sticking their necks out because of the science, not going along with any pressure. I'm sorry, but your arguments sound all of a type. Three different ways in which large numbers of scientists are objectively wrong and dishonest, and you are right. I think you have a lot of work to do to justify all that.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Oct 16, 2016 12:47:47 GMT
Conspiracy theories cannot be dismissed out of hand unkleE because conspiracies do occur. Of course they occur - but more often they don't. So if anyone proposes a conspiracy as the cause of climate science (or anything else), they have some responsibility to show that there is a motive for the conspiracy and that it has actually occurred. I haven't seen you, or anyone else really, do either. And of course, if there's a conspiracy, it is hard to believe that thousands of scientists from dozens of countries have all joined it unanimously. It is surely easier to believe that you have a bias or an ulterior motive! Why is it that conspiracy theorists and sceptics about evolution, the historical evidence for Jesus or Nazareth, etc, always think we should believe their motives are pure while accepting their claim that all the experts are not so pure? This surely is a fundamental problem for what you are saying. Furthermore, when scientific 'conspiracies' to keep certain views out do occur, they typically leave a paper trail for historians of science to follow (and often also for contemporaries). Think of Malinowski's feud with Evans-Pritchard, Freud's attempt to stifle dissident schisms, geologists ganging up on Wegener, Boaz and associates' marginalisation of Lévy-Bruhl, the positivists' partial suppression of Duhem's works and indeed Newton's accusations against Leibnitz. A lot of these may not have been 'actual' conspiracies, but they did involve ethically dubious attempts to exclude certain people and their views. Another common theme is that this often happened in relatively new, unestablished and small fields (or ones with rather recent transformations) where one man wielded disproportional power. I don't see this happening in climate science. Are you really saying that, not only is all climate science wrong, but there is a fundamental flaw in ALL science? If so, this is starting to become an amazing set of claims. I'm not sure what Jonkon means, but he may simply mean that scientists' conception of the scientific method is faulty (particularly if it is believed there's a single, uniform scientific method). It's considered true in (continental) philosophy of science that the default (Popperian) view of the scientific method is critically flawed. That doesn't mean at all that those scientists use invalid methods.
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