Heh, gotta love this. Get popcorn. I was tipped off to this by Chris Mooney in a Tweet where he’s calling for reinforcements:
Kevin Green of the American Enterprise Institute got the war of words rolling with these comments at Mooney’s new digs at scienceprogress:
Ken Green ·
Right, so let’s continue on your dismiss-a-thon of leftist anti-science, shall we? DDT and cancer, BPA and phthalates as carcinogens and endocrine disruptors; claims that organic food are safer because they have less pesticides/contaminants; claims that eating local foods are better for the environment than foods from elsewhere; claims that re-usable cloth bags are better for the environment than plastic or paper bags; false claims of species endangerment; pseudo-scientific claims about species loss treated as gospel; claims that climate models have predictive power; claims that individual weather events represent climate change…I think you missed a few.
Ken Green ·
Oh, wait, I forgot a few: frogs dying from climate change, alligator penis malformations from endocrine disruptors, bees dying from climate change (or is it cell-phones this week?), butterflies dying from BT crops…And, let’s not forget Alar, or cancer from video displays, or cell phones, or anything vaguely reminiscent of modernity.
Ken Green ·
Oops! Oh yes, then there’s the giant plastic ocean graveyard that was never seen again, and, let’s not forget the now-famous drowning polar bears.
Chris Mooney replied, though it is hardly much of one, which is why I suppose he’s trying to get Revkin and Kloor interested in it for defense.
Chris Mooney · Top Commenter · Yale University
This is quite a grab bag of claims. Many are misleading, some might be valid, some are wrong claims that have been made sometimes on the left but refuted just as vigorously by fellow liberals….including me.
I was pretty amazed (as were other commenters on other issues) that Mooney didn’t bother to address the totally bogus and overhyped “frogs dying from climate change” issue, because that was one of the worst blunders in climate science ever.
It turned out to be totally unrelated to climate, as I’ve addressed here on WUWT. The frog decline was definitively linked an infection of the chytrid fungus. The PNAS peer reviewed paper slapping down this nonsense said:
Finally, almost all of our findings were opposite to the predictions of the chytrid-thermal-optimum hypothesis.
Even Hansen’s buddies at Columbia agree. See this: Global Warming not to blame for toad extinction
Mooney was undeterred by the rebuttals, and the war was on. Green made a full post out of it at the AEI blog:
====================
Over at scienceprogress, Chris Mooney opines that the political Right is more “anti-science” than the political Left. He points to climate change and evolution as areas where the Right is anti-science, and dismisses the idea that the Left is anti-science when it comes to things like their exaggerations of the risks of genetically modified crops, nuclear power, and vaccines.
His reasoning seems to break down into two arguments:
1) Chris argues that one can’t really tag the Left as being anti-science on things like vaccines and nukes because he (and a few other environmental journalists) have done their own policing on the issues, or, at least, walked away from actively shilling them. Chris actually says that he and journalists on the Left have “chased vaccine denial out of the realm of polite discourse.” That’s going to come as a shock to virtually every social-network user, who probably sees half-a-dozen anti-vaccine posts a week.
2) Chris argues that the anti-science issues usually associated with the Left (vaccines, nuclear-danger exaggerations, GMO danger claims) aren’t really left-wing issues, but rather, are held by people on both sides of the political spectrum.
Read it all here at So Who’s Anti-Science?
The “anti-science” label (which I think was coined by Joe Romm, if not he’s the worst serial user of the phrase) is no different that the “denier” label. The idea is to denigrate your opponent by applying ugly labels.
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I can’t help but notice that you very neatly encapsulate all of science into one single tenet of experimental science – verification and proof. In doing so, I believe you turn a cold shoulder to the many disciplines of the theoretical sciences where there simply exists no proof or falsification of a proposition.
Practically speaking, science doesn’t really work so narrowly confined as you make it. It necessarily engages quasi-religion and philosophy to formulate hypothesis on very deep and profound questions that seek answers far beyond our understanding. Such questions involve a form of faith on the part of the scientist to consider the possibilities of other dimensions, states, and continuums that, in reality, may or may not exist. Because a proposition is neither provable nor falsifiable doesn’t mean that in reality, it can’t exist.
You seem to point to the notion of “eternity” as a problem for science and therefore anti-science. Leon Lederman, the brilliant Nobel Laureate of experimental physics, and a man who’s work I admire, made the following statement, which I find very insightful. He is quoted as saying “In the very beginning, there was a void, a curious form of vacuum, a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. Yet the laws of nature were in place and this curious vacuum held potential. A story logically begins at the beginning, but this story is about the universe and unfortunately, there are no data for the very beginnings – none, zero. We don’t know anything about the universe until it reaches the mature age of a billion of a trillionth of a second. That is, some very short time after creation in the big bang. When you read or hear anything about the birth of the universe, someone is making it up – we are in the realm of philosophy. Only God knows what happened at the very beginning.”
To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Lederman is an atheist or possibly an agnostic – I don’t know as I’m not him. I am certain his reference to God wasn’t intended to be a statement of belief but rather to put the limitations of science into a proper context. But what I find most interesting in his statement is the notion that the “laws” which govern the clockworks of our universe existed before matter and before time. Following that assertion, the laws will exist after these things ceases to exist. They are “eternal”. I see nothing anti-science about that and I see nothing anti-religious about it either.
mercy! a whole long comment vanished and i’m not ready to rewrite it… it was even properly punctuated just to accommodate Jim… and so James could endeavor better…lol
HankH –
“I believe you turn a cold shoulder to the many disciplines of the theoretical sciences where there simply exists no proof or falsification of a proposition.”
yes, i am saying that the definition of science does not admit its antonym- faith, period.
any proposition which is not susceptible to validation or invalidation is false. this is a tautology. it is always true. the identity it refers to gets one of the prime turf, single syllable 3 letter words for itself. a lie is a lie, period.
when you propose that reason alone is neither necessary or sufficient to know something – you are being self contradictory. you can’t disprove reason by reason and you can’t prove or disprove any thing by any other means.
i think one scotoma you’ve not yet resolved is the self contradictory proposition that nothing is something. there is no such a thing as nothing – that is what nothing means – no.thing.
so your issue resolves to ‘one must have faith that nonexistence exists’.
it is anti-science to assert a self contradiction is true. it’s called lying, actually.
there is but one use for a lie – to confuse. it’s the only way to cripple an intellect.
the technique is the reliable tool of the confidence man. not nice.
“…Left is anti-science when it comes to things like their exaggerations of the risks of genetically modified crops, nuclear power, and vaccines.”
Don’t forget the left’s disdain for ICBM defense technology
Now you have me feeling like I really missed out on something.
Again, you summarily dismiss the formative thinking of most theoretical work. The scientist puts fourth postulations (propositions or beliefs) that seek justification about things far beyond our understanding. They are not yet susceptible to validation or invalidation because we lack the understanding to know how validate or invalidate them. That does not make the postulation false. It does not make the postulation invalid. It does not change the reality of whether what the postulation addresses exists or doesn’t exist. It makes the knowledge to be gained by the proposition unattainable and therefore stuck either temporarily or permanently in the realm of philosophy. Because we lack the knowledge to un-stuck it, forcing us to deal with it philosophically, doesn’t make such endeavor anti-science.
Your introduction of the “lie” at this point is a moral judgement which attempts to paint science into a corner of strict black and white logic with no grays to ponder. That is a form of science that I find unimaginative and creatively stifled from unnecessary and self imposed rules that are, themselves, anti-science.
gnomish says:
September 25, 2011 at 3:29 pm
=====================================================
lol, I’ll endeavor to ensure I write properly. No assurances, beer has a nasty effect.
That stated, the lie is that dichotomy doesn’t exist. Provable? Not a chance, and for the reasons you’ve stated. Well done. In the end, it all boils to, “You must have faith”. Its just a matter of which way you’re gonna jump.
I sense a circular argument. Define nothing.
To James Sexton
“Further, while I agree with your general description, Christianity is a matter of faith. It isn’t necessary to find scientific evidence for our origins. God said for it to happen, and so it was.”
Incorrect, the bible actually states the exact opposite, here:
Rom 1:19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Note what it says, that God’s invisible qualities are shown by the visible world, by observation of nature, in other words, by science. In other words, that which cannot be proved, because it is invisible, can be proved by what IS visible, thus, we need NOT rely purely on faith. It specifically states “since the creation of the world”, which means we can then look at Genesis the first chapter, where this is specifically covered, and compare it with what we know from science, and see if they match. In other words, the bible is specifically stating, in no uncertain terms, that it is scientifically falsifiable, like any good scientific hypothesis. So the hypothesis is, there is a God, who spoke personally to a man called Moses, and described the creation of this universe and this world in particular, and we can test this hypothesis by comparing what is written in Genesis with what science knows (not just believes, KNOWS) about the big bang and planetary formation as it specifically relates to the planet earth, and the evolution of life in the correct order (how would they know?) and see if science matches the bible. If it does, we have to ask ourselves, how did those folks almost 4000 years ago know all these scientific details if they were not themselves a witness and had no science to tell them anything, could they have had it described to them by an actual witness? The links I gave are the science, big bang http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTS5ZVuK6Jw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDY6o-VP8Lo&feature=related , Genesis and science http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/day-age.html and a page of stuff here, look specifically at the Genesis stuff http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/creation.html .
Then, looking at this, we see two statistically impossible things that appear to have happened anyway, the big bang making a universe like this one (anyone who actually KNOWS about the big bang knows how improbable this universe is), and life appearing from non life. It appears that such things cannot happen by random chance, and that therefor they must have happened by planned chance. The only being who could plan such a thing must have infinite intelligence. No being subjected to the natural laws of this universe can have infinite intelligence any more than a computer of infinite speed can be made, therefore, there must be an extra dimensional being of infinite intelligence. Such a being, who can unaided by us dream up and create an entire universe, does not need us to do anything to please it or get in it’s good graces, since nothing we can do can effect such an interdimentional being in any way, either pro or con, thus, we cannot do anything “for” such a being. All religions say that we can get God to love us by some actions of ours except Christianity, which says that we are simply to accept what that God did for us, thus, only Christianity possibly can be true, the others are denied by the physical fact of this universes existence. We also see that this God must be love, the opposite of love is hate, hate comes from fear, fear that I can hurt you, God has nothing to fear, being an interdimentional being that I cannot even reach, therefore God does not fear, does not hate, and can only love. In other words, starting with the big bang, one must, in a logical and scientific and fact based progression, come to Christianity.
Or…you can go the other way, as many scientists have, and propose an infinite number of extra dimensions and universes to try and explain away the impossibility of this one. However, to do so, you must do so simply on blind faith. There is not one single shred of evidence that any such universes exist, nor is there any possible way to do so. And, realize what you are doing here, you ae saying that science, based on what we know, in this universe and it’s natural laws, is all that there is and all we should base what we believe on. Then you propose other universes, undetectable, with different natural laws, universes that spring into being out of nothing, do you see the contradiction here? Which is it, science based on what we know, or not? And in these different, possibly very different, universes, what might exist, might there be other intelligent beings? What if the laws in that other universe are very different, could there be a thing we would call God? Are you trying to replace faith based belief in magical beings with faith based belief in magical universes with magical beings, have you even really replaced anything here? Seems to me you have come full circle, from God back to God.
Thus, to believe this universe exists (you do, right??), you are stuck with infinite universes or God. Some quotes about that:
To believe string theory you must believe:
1 There is such a thing as an inflation field.
2 A potentially infinite number of bubble universes exist.
3 Strings exist.
4 Six additional hidden spatial dimensions (7 in m-theory).
5 An infinite number of compactivations of these six additional spacial dimensions exist and EACH corresponds (via inflation) to a potential infinity of ACTUAL universes.
6 That the string landscape, when combined with inflation, explains away the problem of our universes finely tuned initial conditions, laws, and constants.
And
In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all
in other words, a materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as an explanatory principle (to not believe in non random miracles).
In a theistic universe, noting happens without a reason, miracles are intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities and are expressions of rational propose
Thus scientific materialism is self-defeating and makes scientific rationality impossible.
And finally, about the chance that the universe is simply random:
Roger Penrose’s probability for low entropy calculated on the order of 10*10*123 (10 to the power 10 to the power 123, 2 exponents). That is as close to infinity-to-1 probability as any number can get, and again, that is irrespective of the number of universes.
That above number is the chance against this universe coming into being by purely random chance, and that is only considering it’s state of entropy, not even counting all the other things mentioned in the “anthropic principle”, where many other aspects of this universe and it’s laws are also very very improbable.
gnomish says:
“Furthermore, it appears that the universe as we know it is so statistically impossible that the chance of it appearing randomly, without aid from an intelligent designing being, are 1 chance in 10*10*123″
love those statistics, eh.
no better way to make nonsense sound authoritative, non?
Well, I suggest you take it up with Roger Penrose,
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their contribution to our understanding of the universe.[1] He is renowned for his work in mathematical physics, in particular his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He is also a recreational mathematician and philosopher.
His quote:
Quote from:’The large, the Small and the Human Mind”-Cambridge University Press-1997 from Tanner Lectures 1995″; page 45-46:
“I want to introduce a hypothesis which I call the ‘Weyl Curvature Hypothesis’. This is not an implication of any known theory. As I have said, we do not know what the theory is, because we do not know how to combine the physics of the very large and the very small. When we do discover that theory, it should have as one of its consequences this feature which I have called the Weyl Curvature Hypothesis. Remember that the Weyl curvature is that bit of the Riemann tensor which causes distortions and tidal effects. For some reason we do not yet understand, in the neighbourhood of the Big Bang, the appropriate combination of theories must result in the Weyl tensor being essentially zero, or rather being constrained to be very small indeed.
The Weyl Curvature Hypothesis is time-asymmetrical and it applies only to the past type singularities and not to the future singularities. If the same flexibility of allowing the Weyl tensor to be ‘general’ that I have applied in the future also applied to the past of the universe, in the closed model, you would end up with a dreadful looking universe with as much mess in the past as in the future. This looks nothing like the universe we live in. What is the probability that, purely by chance, the universe had an initial singularity looking even remotely as it does?
The probability is less than one part in (1010)123. Where does this estimate come from? It is derived from a formula by Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking concerning Black Hole entropy and, if you apply it in this particular context, you obtain this enormous answer. It depends how big the universe is and, if you adopt my own favourite universe, the number is, in fact, infinite.
What does this say about the precision that must be involved in setting up the Big Bang? It is really very, very extraordinary, I have illustrated the probability in a cartoon of the Creator, finding a very tiny point in that phase space which represents the initial conditions from which our universe must have evolved if it is to resemble remotely the one we live in. To find it, the Creator has to locate that point in phase space to an accuracy of one part in (1010)123. If I were to put one zero on each elementary particle in the universe, I still could not write the number down in full. It is a stupendous number”. End of Quote
Roger Penrose’s probability for low entropy calculated on the order of 10*10*123 (10 to the power 10 to the power 123, 2 exponents). That is as close to infinity-to-1 probability as any number can get, and again, that is irrespective of the number of universes.
Now what was that you were saying out nonsense and sound authorative again? Can you match this kind of authority on this area of science that Roger Penrose does, can you even come close? Do you always respond to such posts with such off the cuff, ad hominum attacks without first ever bothering to find out whether what you are responding to is fact based?
The answer is, yes you do, as seen below.
here’s what the abrahamic goat herders contributed to ‘civilization’ –
they practiced animal husbandry.
then they immediately applied it to each other.
the simpleminded notion of men as chattel became the divine order.
the fossil mindset is preserved in the language, my lamb.
but anton lavey has written much cleverer essays on this sort of thing.
Ad hominum attacks:
“Civiliszation” in quotes, as if to say, their “civilization” is in question.
Applied animal hustbandry to each other, exactly what are you implying here?
“Simpleminded”, “chattel”, “fossil mindset”, “my lamb”, my my, sure sounds like old fashioned ad hominum attacks to me.
Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man):
attacking the person instead of attacking his argument. For example, “Von Daniken’s books about ancient astronauts are worthless because he is a convicted forger and embezzler.” (Which is true, but that’s not why they’re worthless.)
Question, why was this post by this person allowed on this site? is that what this site stands for, personal attacks, ignoring, even denying evidence, and denigrating people who you know nothing about without even bothering to find out who they are or what their credentials are?
John B says:
Dave Springer says:
If all we observe wasn’t created then how did it get here?
——————
The religionist’s answer to this is: Don’t know, let’s make something up.
“Lets make something up” assumes, prior to any evidence, that there is no God, and that God did not tell anyone how those things were made. Is it now science to believe stuff like that without ever bothering to find out if it is true or false? Do we just assume that they made it up, well, why, exactly? Do you have a working time machine, and so went back in time, and thus can show us actual EVIDENCE that they just “made it up”? Is just assuming things like that without any evidence at all scientific? Do you know what the scientific method is? Do you use it?
My scientific hypothesis (because I will NOT just decide something without evidence), there may be a God (or, of course, may not be). One possibility, the book of Genesis may be exactly what it claims to be, a man called Moses wrote something that God personally told him about the creation of the universe and the earth, it’s planetary formation, the change of it’s atmosphere from what it started out initially to what we know now, the evolution of life starting from plants, then sea creatures, then dinosaurs (which have become birds by the time the reader sees them), then mammals, then us. Read about it here http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis1.html and here http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/day-age.html .
The scientist’s answer is: Don’t know, let’s try and find out
Odd, what they found out looks exactly like what they wrote in Genesis, now, how could that be?
We don’t (yet) know why the universe exists, or how life first started, or why or how we are conscious of it, but we do know this: All the evidence points to life as we know it being the product of billions of years of evolution, directed by natural selection and other natural factors. If some “intelligence” played a part, he/she/it/them have hidden their tracks very successfully.
Or…you could just be doing everything you can to ignore any evidence that you don’t wish to see. What are the chances that you will click on the links above? The likely chance, very slim, you will decide that it is “just all that religious nonsense” and NEVER LOOK, and then tell yourself, “well, there is no evidence for all that religious stuff” Is that honest?
Come one people, if you believe in the scientific method, well, USE IT. Turn the idea “there may, or may not, be a god” into s scientific hypothesis, and then proceed from there. The people who claim there certainly is no God are doing so without EVER bothering to use the scientific method to look into it all all, instead, all I see is a bunch of non fact based opinions and emotional arguments, and ignoring of large swaths of evidence. Do you believe in this science stuff at all? SHOW ME.
I’ve met Ken at a seminar. I enjoy Ken Green: GO Ken GO!
Mooney has needed this dressing down for many years.
In fact, I’ve considered writing the riposte to Mooney’s initial serving as a “science” writer to be entitled “The Democratic Secular War Against Science.” It needs to be written if only to force the playing out of arguments in public in oder to re-educate the ignorant, self-righteous sanctimony, false-consciousness, and pompous blathering my fellow humanists love to indulge themselves in.
Perhaps this flurry of salvos can lead to that noble end.
Mike says at 3:16 pm:
If you are looking at contemporary US politicians the right has the lead in anti-science nonsense. This is certainly true among the presidential candidates and in the US House and Senate. If you look at pseudo-scientific beliefs in the population at large the picture is more mixed. There have been plenty of times is history when parts of the left were anti-science, from the Scopes Monkey Trial to the Lysenko Affair. But Stalin is not running for president.
Actually, THIS is very much debatable. For example, who among Left leadership, Obama and Democrats are a well-informed about climate science astrology as 50% of the posters here? Same with oil and energy policies and renewables and “Green Jobs” mantra seen everywhere but totally unrealistic in practice.
The Left’s biggest sin in the 20th century was its widespread embrace of eugenics. This chapter sordid pseudo-scientific fad has been air-brushed from American history, post World War Two and Nazi Germany (SEE “American Socialists and Evolutionary tThought, 1870-1920,” by Mark Pittenger).
Today it lives on in social media web sites and in places like “OKcupid” dating sites, which asks people questions like “Do you think it would be better for people with lower IQs to simply not reproduce?” – which most answer “Yes.” (OKcupid is often touted as the free online dating site for “progressives.”) It is an unspoken Truth for the Left. And it calls up an ugly past.
Wow! You take a break for dinner and a football game, and the blogosphere gets away from you.
Let me try to catch up.
gnomish: Please try to focus. Your stream of thought is not as lucid as you would have it. It is tough to edit your own work, but you really need to try. Just because you are old doesn’t mean you should be excused from polite discourse, or decent punctuation and capitalization. Your refusal to observe those courtesies conveys a disrespect whether it is intended or not.
In all your hopscotching over your philosophical map, you still stumble, and have not addressed the issue of what, exactly, is the source of your beliefs.
For example: “… science is not a matter of faith” OK. I believe you believe that. This infers that you believe all science is true, and science is the only way to arrive at truth. What do you do when today’s scientific truth is overturned by tomorrow’s? What was provable is no longer probable. Where does that leave you? Science does require faith because you are taking someone else’s word for something for which you are incapable of proving or understanding. That is obvious.
One other example: ” Science is the opposite. All ‘unprovable’ statements are false.” I don’t think there is an opposite of science. You are making things up as you go. Science, as I have observed, is not one thing as you seem to believe, and portions of it are not provable, and much of it is under challenge. Have you, in the last few hours, been able to prove string theory? Who has empirically proven string theory? I am sure you have faith that it is provable, otherwise it is a lie in your parlance. Welcome to science.
You have gone a long way and to a lot of trouble to not tell us about your beliefs. We know that science cannot prove everything, and it is possible that not all things are provable, or falsifiable. You are clearly on unstable ground.
Can you, without depending on quotations from others, give us an elevator speech on what you believe? Try brevity, and articulate it in you own words.
hi Hank.
“I sense a circular argument. Define nothing.”
ok
nothing is the negation of an absolute, existence.
the negation of an absolute is not an absolute.
remember that cowboy joke about ‘ima fill ya full of holes’?
that illustrates the nature of interpreting the negation of an absolute as if it were an absolute.
if somebody fails to destroy a tree, does not mean he created one.
Legatus-
“Can you match this kind of authority on this area of science that Roger Penrose does, can you even come close?”
no, because i’m nobody. everything i say is false.
Hank-
“Your introduction of the “lie” at this point is a moral judgement which attempts to paint science into a corner of strict black and white logic with no grays to ponder. That is a form of science that I find unimaginative and creatively stifled from unnecessary and self imposed rules that are, themselves, anti-science.”
truth or falsehood is hardly a moral judgement. it’s pure logic. the choice to use logic or not is a moral choice.
i understand the motivation for post normal relativism, the need for shades of gray – for shadows to lurk in, where the supernatural powers are conjured from to do the bidding of the sorcerer.
your black/white and no gray metaphor is faulty, of course – i’ll use it to make run you around the palm tree till you’re butter for my pancakes. gray IS black and white – and when you look closely enough you can resolve the dots.
but no- there is no gray area of truth any more than there is a partial pregnancy. it is or it is not.
science is about resolving the dots.
Well, I guess my opinions are unworthy of gnomish’s considerations. His mind is like a mechanical ping-pong game hopping from one idea to another without foundation.
He obviously believes in his own capacities as the ultimate authority.
Dear Bob,
“Can you, without depending on quotations from others, give us an elevator speech on what you believe? Try brevity, and articulate it in you own words.”
with respect to the topic of science vs anti-science, i did just that.
i made some comments about the metaphysical distinctions.
i defined some terms – always helpful for meaningful dialog.
always happy to discuss the topic. 🙂
i do believe in the kitchen sink, if that’s what you were really after.
I am trying to think of other nations where the candidate for head of State has to repudiate the common ancestry of humans and chimps and the role of the anthropogenic 30% increase in CO2 in warming the climate. Both are acknowledged by even the most ‘skeptical’ scientists, Behe recognises the evolution of man and chimps from a common ape ancestor and Lindzen, Spencer and Christy all accept the role of CO2 in the warming – they just dispute the magnitude of the effect…
There are a few fundimentalist Islamic theocracies where this level of anti-science is not just acceptable but nessecary, and probably a couple of backward African States where such dogmatism is obligatory.
But it is strange that a world superpower which derives its preminence from scientific advances now requires from at least one of the political parties such a level of rejection of science that it puts it on par with Somalia or Zimbabwe.
I am sure it is unwise for people with a healthy scepticism about CAGW to casually dismiss concerns about a build up of plastic and other floatable crap in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or anywhere else, for that matter. It seems to be a legitimate issue to.
That some little neat beasties – plastic munching microbes or whatever – seem to enjoy snacking on our garbage is quite beside the point.
This casual dissing of what may be legitimate concerns about environmental damage through failing to pick up after ourselves, plays straight into the hands of zealous lefties, such as Chris Mooney, who is, in the Bear’s humble opinion, an overinflated prig. To be sure.
Malcolm Miller says:
September 24, 2011 at 4:29 pm
YOu are correct. Socialism is rich bastards paying so that the leeches don’t have to work.
Which is why it always fails. Eventually you run out of rich bastards to sacrifice.
gnomish says:
Legatus-
“Can you match this kind of authority on this area of science that Roger Penrose does, can you even come close?”
no, because i’m nobody. everything i say is false.
I would not say that, just because you are not Roger Penrose, everything you say is false, to do so is not a scientific attitude. However, it is clear that Roger Penrose has put a wee bit more work into looking at the science of the big bang and cosmology than you have, thus I am more inclined to beleive that what he says may piossibly be true than what you say. he, at least, backs up what he says with testable, at least to some extant, facts, you, however, have yet to state one thing that is even remotely testable, or even try to, its all just jargon and slogans.
And when it comes to being anti-science, well, Gnomish, you are IT. Frankly, I have yet to see you make one scientific, fact based argument. Instead, I see illogic (such as ad hominum attacks, and many other such logical falicies), rhetoric (rhetoric, non fact based, is not science, no matter how clever that rhetoric may be), philosophy (sort of, more like simple jargon and sloganeering), and a LOT of attempting to make the other side look follish or funny. Is that the scientific method you believe in? If you say you are all for science, and all those religious types are all anti scinece, why is your attitude so very VERY far from the scientific method? If you are going to assume the moral high ground of being pro science, you need to start sounding scientific. Instead, you sound religious, since you seem to BUHHHH-LEEEEEVE so much that you will use any illogical argument and personal attack to support your beleif. In fact, many people you would call “religious” do not use such tactics to defend or support their beleifs, even with themselves, much less others. In other words, you do not believe in science because you have seen the facts, you beleive in science as blind faith, while, apperently, not even knowing what it is. Science is not just the opposite of religion, science is the application of the scientific method. It is simply a method to arrive at the truth, or at least screen out falsehood.
And when you get right doen to it, the scientific method and Chrisianity are based on the same world view. The Chrsitian beleif is that mankind is basically fallable and sinfull, and needs God to fix that. The scientific method beleives that mankind is basically fallable and sinfull and needs to use a very carefull method to screen out bias and eror, including deliberate error, and error caused by such things as stubborn pride (or, say, the desire for grant money, greed, a classic sin). We this see that the scientific method is based at it’s core on the same basic beleifs as Christianity, and without those beleifs, the scientific method would be discarded. After all, if mankind is perfect and infallable, what do you need such things as repeatability for, so that one scientist can chack up on another? Without this basic beleif in mans fallability, we would just use “argument from authority” every time, all science would be pretty much the gnomish style of speaking, it is true because I said so, there is no need to double check it. Thus we see that science IS based on “belief”, and the same “beleif” as religion (at least in the case of Christianity). It also has other beliefs in common, such as that the universe will have the same natural laws throughout (in the case of religion, because it was made by one being with one idea), and I have already gone into some of the basic science that they also have in common, such as that the universe had a beginning, that it is expanding, the sequence of planatery formation, the sequence of evolution (what came first, then second, etc), and many others. Or are we to say that, because the bible says that the universe had a beginning and is expanding, we must say, “oh, thats just religion”, automatically discount it, and decide that the big bang never happened? Are we to simply put everything into two labels, one, scientific, good, and the other, religion, all bad, and do so even with things that are firmly in both camps at once? Are we now to decide whether something is true or false not on the basis of testable facts, but simply whether it is called “scientific” or “religious” by someoe, without any presentation of why they are labaled as such, but simply because someone says so? Is that the scientific method now, has it been reduced to nothing but labeling?
Are we, in the name of ‘science”, going to give up science? Are we going to reduce science to nothing but name calling?
Kozlowski says:
September 25, 2011 at 12:28 am
So seriously, how many people around these parts reject evolution?
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That depends on how you define “evolution”.
There are as many definitions for that term, as their are debaters in the field.
What does one have to do in order to “reject evolution”?
I’ve seen some who declare that unless you believe that random mutation is sufficient to explain all eveolution, then you don’t believe in evolution.
John B says:
September 25, 2011 at 7:04 am
The religionist’s answer to this is: Don’t know, let’s make something up.
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You know for a fact that the regionist made up their answer?
If so, please present your proof.
If you can’t in fact, prove your contention, please apologize for being an a**hole.
“All ‘unprovable’ statements are false.”
Now there’s a statement of faith if I ever saw one.
TBear (Warm Cave in Cold-as-Snow-Sydney) says:
September 26, 2011 at 3:46 am
I am sure it is unwise for people with a healthy scepticism about CAGW to casually dismiss concerns about a build up of plastic and other floatable crap in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
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We casually dismiss it, because it isn’t happening.
legatus-
your argument – your howl of outrage – rests on nothing but appeal to divine authority. gaze in terror as it whirls down the vortex with a whoosh and a gurgle. you show yourself to be disturbed to the point you’ve even lost muscular control. exposing yourself to the public is probably a bad idea just now. everybody will see how easy it is to pwn a fanatic. they’ll make sport of you forever. you know how cruel people can be.
but obviously you can expect no sympathy for your panic. it’s what you paid for when you chose to stop thinking for yourself. you get what you settle for.