» The Future of Republican Economics from THE DAILY BANTER.COM
By Ben Cohen The first thing the Republican party is going to have to do if it is to regain significant public support is to seriously analyze its economic platform,... [Read More]
Well, Holtz-Eakin certainly looks like a reasonable guy. I realize Megan's focus was naturally on economic issues. Still, it would be nice to know the Holtz-Eakin's opinion on what the Republican party intends to do about other positions that are currently very associated with the modern brand of American conservatism, namely:
- Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
- a manichean approach to foreign affairs
- marginalization of homosexuals and atheists
- an extremely anti-intellectual stance, which reflects in the choice of conservative standard-bearers like Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin, because they are supposed to be some sort of embodiment of "real Americans".
Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
Republican administrations have always increased funding for things like the NIH and NASA far above democratic administrations. And Judge John E. Jones III, the federal judge who essentially destroyed the argument that "intelligent design" is any kind of science, was appointed by the Bush administration. To say that they are "in denial" of science flies in the face of the evidence.
- a manichean approach to foreign affairs
The Bush administrations policies have led to a major resurgence around the world in regards to dissent against tyranny. Why anyone would think this is a bad thing baffles me. Some people think this is all a coincidence, and Bush had nothing to do with it. I think those people are blind to the facts before them.
marginalization of homosexuals and atheists
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country. California voted against gay rights and that is a primarily democratic state.
- an extremely anti-intellectual stance, which reflects in the choice of conservative standard-bearers like Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin, because they are supposed to be some sort of embodiment of "real Americans".
What you see as an "anti-intellectual" stance, I see the response to the elitist liberal mindset. Liberals tend to think that unless one has spent 6 years at a liberal university studying Foucalt and relativism one is somehow an "anti-intellectual". See the point above on what really matters in Washington, and that is WHO FUNDS AND SUPPORTS SCIENCE AND INNOVATION MORE? The answer may surprise you.
Republican administrations have always increased funding for things like the NIH and NASA far above democratic administrations.
I was tempted to say this is both false and beside the point. But I'll settle for "I'm going to need a link for that" and beside the point.
Judge John E. Jones III, the federal judge who essentially destroyed the argument that "intelligent design" is any kind of science, was appointed by the Bush administration. To say that they are "in denial" of science flies in the face of the evidence.
I'm also going to need a link for the "destroyed the argument that 'intelligent design' is any kind of science", because I don't know what you mean.
But if a judge that happens to be appointed by the Bush administration made a good call, you don't get to say "All you rulings belong to us". The official position of the party must be clear. Which means the actual representatives of the party - Senators, and Congressmen for a start - can't go around saying that Evolution is nonsense, or, at best, dodge the question of whether they believe in Evolution or not for fear of political repercussions. Also, if GOP Governors weren't going around defending the presence of intelligent design in Biology classes, there would be no need for judges to "destroy" their arguments.
Furthermore, when a bill designed to combat AGW is discussed in the Capitol, it would be helpful if GOP Congressmen wouldn't present ignorant and/or specious arguments about the harmlessness of breathing CO2, and would also abstain from prattling about cow farts (the last one by no less than the honorable GOP Minority Leader).
The Bush administrations policies have led to a major resurgence around the world in regards to dissent against tyranny.
I would hope a defense of Bush's disasters on foreign policies would go along the lines of the more standard "many liberals at the time supported him". Or even the "Bush is not a true conservative" argument. Alas, you actually chose to defend Bush's disastrous policies that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, ruinous financial consequences and worldwide hostility to the United States. On the basis of the unsupported and narcissistic argument that what's going on in other countries now is a result of Bush's policies. Oh, well...
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country.
You are, unfortunately, right about this (hopefully, increasingly less right). But I note your argument was one about winning elections, so I presume you don't give a damn about the actual minorities in question. Which was kind of my point - conservatives are perfectly happy to marginalize these groups, and will only change their position if it brings them votes. Maybe.
WHO FUNDS AND SUPPORTS SCIENCE AND INNOVATION MORE? The answer may surprise you.
Caps are not a good substitute for a source.
Liberals tend to think that unless one has spent 6 years at a liberal university studying Foucalt and relativism one is somehow an "anti-intellectual".
Is that so? Please provide a single example of a figure of the Democratic party saying anything remotely like this. One single example will suffice.
By the way, even if that were true, it wouldn't be an excuse to tolerate Joe's borderline fascist ideas on the role of the press, or his endorsement of the view that "a vote on Obama is a vote for the death of Israel". Regarding Palin, I trust her record of interviews, winks, and her later resignation from office speaks for itself.
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country. California voted against gay rights and that is a primarily democratic state.
First of all, the Mormon Church and other organizations spent an untold amount money on Prop 8. A lot more then their opposition. Second, is there an "out" Republican Congressmen or Senator? No!! Why not? Because they are hostile to gay rights.
Tman (Replying to: Nimed) July 14, 2009 6:59 PM
Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
Republican administrations have always increased funding for things like the NIH and NASA far above democratic administrations. And Judge John E. Jones III, the federal judge who essentially destroyed the argument that "intelligent design" is any kind of science, was appointed by the Bush administration. To say that they are "in denial" of science flies in the face of the evidence.
First, you offer no proof for your claims on funding. Without facts, assertion is not evidence. As for using one particular judge as an example, this proves exactly nothing about Republicans as a whole. It is clear, if you read Republican blogs and journalists, that current COP orthodoxy is denial of climate change, plus a certain amount of drill, baby, drill. Evolution seems to be a no-no for the GOP base, coupled with a certain amount of denial of the Big Bang et al.
- a manichean approach to foreign affairs
The Bush administrations policies have led to a major resurgence around the world in regards to dissent against tyranny. Why anyone would think this is a bad thing baffles me. Some people think this is all a coincidence, and Bush had nothing to do with it. I think those people are blind to the facts before them.
This is a very loose and careless claim, and not one that seems to have much evidence in its favor. If you are refering to recent events in Iran, you should recall that they have nothing to do with Bush, and owe rather more to the sense that the US was returning to a more balanced and realistic foreign policy. As for the Iraq debacle, we should remember that this became a war of liberation only once it was clear that the Bush administration had essentially lied the country into war with false claims about connections to Al Qaeda and WMD.
marginalization of homosexuals and atheists
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country. California voted against gay rights and that is a primarily democratic state.
This isn't much of a response. You essentially say that it doesn't matter, and then couple it with a claim about California that is deeply misleading. California is essentially two states politically: coastal and urban California, which is solidly blue, and interior California, which is fairly solidly red. If you doubt this, look at the voting patterns for said areas. Nor did California reject gay rights per se. It rejected gay marriage. There is a difference. In any case, California's decision does not excuse the persistent use by GOP politicians of gay marriage and gay rights as a wedge issue. Not much of a Party of Freedom, really.
- an extremely anti-intellectual stance, which reflects in the choice of conservative standard-bearers like Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin, because they are supposed to be some sort of embodiment of "real Americans".
What you see as an "anti-intellectual" stance, I see the response to the elitist liberal mindset. Liberals tend to think that unless one has spent 6 years at a liberal university studying Foucalt and relativism one is somehow an "anti-intellectual". See the point above on what really matters in Washington, and that is WHO FUNDS AND SUPPORTS SCIENCE AND INNOVATION MORE? The answer may surprise you
First, you don't refute a case by conjuring up a strawman to heroically annihilate. You would find very few liberals arguing that 6 years at university makes one intellectual. Nor would they argue that being an intellectual per se is what matters. There are standards of scientific proof, there are economic data - and these are what we expect to be respected and used as a basis for assessing public policy. You can't judge the evidence without basic competence, and that the GOP has taken to arguing against competence is a sign of its considerable decline as a serious force. Liberals don't spend time arguing for Foucault or relativism as the basis for public policy - that's simply a crude caricature. As for your claims on science funding, you don't offer data, and as such, are not presenting a serious argument.
First and foremost: bravo, Meggan. Good interview, of a good interviewee.
Holtz-Eakin speaks much sense, until he gets to the whole "politics of ideas" thing. Not that he's wrong, mind you... America is *starving* for this. The issue is:
has anyone seen any viable Republican candidate who thinks this way and isn't as dry as toast? Anyone?
Steele? Please.
McCain? Not a chance.
I think Palin is a real threat to Dems because she could do it - which is why they attack her like hornets.
And, let's face it, she's hardly the perfect candidate for "politics of ideas." Not bad, but certainly not the ideal.
This is where Holtz-Eakin is wrong, when he challenges the Republicans search for a "Reagan." Making it about the man is wrong, as Eakin points out correctly. Finding someone like Reagan who can effectively communicate the ideas?
That's the jackpot.
Lines like "I'm PAYING for this microphone," "I'm from the government..." Etc. All theater, just like Obama's "hope."
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Palin is finished as far as national elected office is concerned. I voted for McCain/Palin in the election, but she abandoned her official duties to Alaska and Americans don't elect quitters.
It's not that big a deal that we don't know who the candidate is yet. It's much more important to find the right ideas first, then someone who can effectively communicate them. It's funny watching liberals fall over themselves with concern over Republican "disarray". Remember what they need though: a target for the hate machine. Why give them one?
I'm starting to wonder where Nimed lives. It's clearly somewhere without actual conservatives.
In his view, those who suppress science reports with inconvenient evidence are pro science, while those who think we should understand what we're doing before condemning future generations to poverty are anti-science.
In his view two of the groups most disproportionately represented in pulic America are being "marginalized".
In his view the idea that people from different backgrounds might have something different to contribute is "anti-intellectual".
And I've heard much of this alleged manichean view, I've just never seen it. Maybe he's comparing to Democrats, whose only principle is that whatever a Republican does is wrong and they'll let you know why later. That does require a certain willingness to compromise unmatched on the right.
Or, maybe he just drinks whatever koolaid the Democrats spit out. That does seem to fit the talking points.
mj, you epitomize all that's wrong with modern conservatism. It's because people like you constitute a sizable percentage of the conservative base that I'm quite skeptical about the feasibility of introducing new ideas in the GOP, Holtz-Eakin's intentions notwithstanding.
You are convinced that the "suppression" of one internal EPA report presented at the 11th hour nullifies worldwide, decades long research in Climate Science that resulted in a scientific consensus. You are one of those people who actually believes he can detect fatal flaws in the AGW research that somehow escaped the scrutiny of the best scientists on the field during said decades.
You believe that views like "a vote on Obama is a vote for the death of Israel" or "I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed near war" are valid contributions representative of "people from different backgrounds".
Regarding Bush's views, I'm sorry if you missed all the speeches with references to the Axis of Evil. And the "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists". And the Rumsfeld presentations packed with quotes from the New Testament. My favorite: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand". And so on.
Fortunately, there are good reasons to believe you are a member of a dying breed in this country. Which doesn't mean that you and your like-minded chumps won't get to wreck the GOP for a few years more.
Liberal politicization of science goes far beyond a single report suppression. In fact, your referring to a scientific consensus shows how little you know. Large numbers of scientists believe the alarmists are pushing premature conclusions in order to support a political agenda. Your claim these views don't exist is strong evidence you simply ignore evidence which doesn't conform to your positions.
Bush certainly did make the Axis of Evil speech. It is clearly a narrow subject as he was speaking to nations harboring terrorist groups. But claiming his statements on this topic are indicative of his entire foreign policy is foolish.
Large numbers of scientists believe the alarmists are pushing premature conclusions in order to support a political agenda.
Of course, these large numbers of scientist only exist in your head, and that's why, once again, you don't provide any credible source to support this statement.
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Rob, just what in Palin's career makes you believe that she either knows or cares enough to articulate a coherent position on these issues, much less a nuanced one? Her political career is littered with failures, followed by self-promotion, followed by playing victim when things don't pan out. Trust me - Democrats find Palin to be an absolutely wonderful opportunity to expose the cynicism, incompetence and self-indulgence that have rotted the GOP away over thr last 20 years to its current living dead status. Please, please give Palin more air time. Please, run her as a candidate.
Please, please give Palin more air time. Please, run her as a candidate.
It has to be clear at this point, no matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, that democrats are not even the slightest bit afraid of Sarah Palin. The entire Democratic party seems to treat her every speech, interview and Tweet as manna from heaven. Today was a good example - look at the way the liberal blogs stumbled over themselves in their eagerness to draw attention to Palin's WaPo op-ed. These are not the actions of frightened politicos.
All this "they attack her because they're afraid of her" jibber-jabber reminds me of the "nobody thinks we can win" and "everybody's against us" speeches that coaches give professional athletes to psyche them up before a game. It's transparently thin.
I'm starting to wonder where Nimed lives. It's clearly somewhere without actual conservatives.
In his view, those who suppress science reports with inconvenient evidence are pro science, while those who think we should understand what we're doing before condemning future generations to poverty are anti-science.
I'm wondering how people like mj can be so completely fact challenged; in fact, science has well-known liberal bias. Only 6% of all scientists are Republican, and further, 52% of scientists view themselves as liberal. Also, only 9% of all scientists consider themselves conservative.
I'm wondering how people like mj can be so completely fact challenged; in fact, science has well-known liberal bias. Only 6% of all scientists are Republican, and further, 52% of scientists view themselves as liberal. Also, only 9% of all scientists consider themselves conservative.
And your point is? Other groups in society have well-known conservative biases, e.g., military, business, etc., and I don't hear crying about them.
If you dig into the numbers, however, you find that many positions that are "conservative" are held by many science types, e.g., pro-nuclear power, animal experimentation, and so forth. That's because scientists are, by and large, scientists first and political only maybe third or fourth and generally don't much care about ideological consistency. Of course the fact that ideologues don't understand that most other people aren't means that the significance of things like political preferences is often massively overstated.
Much of the current sentiment is anti-Republican because of things like the connection with Young Earth creationists.
If you dig into the numbers, however, you find that many positions that are "conservative" are held by many science types, e.g., pro-nuclear power, animal experimentation, and so forth.
And so forth? I think it pretty much stops there. I disagree that animal experimentation is a very politicized subject. Nothing like embryonic stem cell research, for instance.
Besides, if being for nuclear power and animal experimentation were simultaneously a conservative position and important an issue to scientists, wouldn't they identify more as conservatives?
That's because scientists are, by and large, scientists first and political only maybe third or fourth and generally don't much care about ideological consistency.
You can apply that line of reasoning to almost every profession, no? Hair-dressers, for instance, are also likely to be, by and large, hair-dressers first and political maybe third or fourth.
Much of the current sentiment is anti-Republican because of things like the connection with Young Earth creationists.
I think that's plausible. Global warming denialism also doesn't help...
Besides, if being for nuclear power and animal experimentation were simultaneously a conservative position and important an issue to scientists, wouldn't they identify more as conservatives?
No, because most people use political affiliation as a tribal identity. They don't select a party based on policy or boring crap like that.
"I'm smart, open-minded and tolerant." -> Liberal.
"I'm hard working and morally virtuous." -> Conservative.
There is absolutely no policy-based reason why views about fetal personhood/abortion should be correlated with views on taxation. And yet, they are strongly correlated. Why? People pick a tribe, and then adopt it's policies for their own.
Other obvious examples are GM crops and food irradiation, and the concept that men and women statistically have different personalities independent of cultural influence. If economics counts as science there's also free trade, preferring the EITC to minimum wage, opposition to farm subsidies and ethanol, and many others.
Global warming denialism also doesn't help...
True, although a lot of the "denialism" is overblown. Most serious conservatives acknowledge that it's happening, but insist on cost-benefit analyses of potential solutions, according to which things like Kyoto and cap-and-trade fail. And I'd be willing to bet that scaremongering about nuclear power from the left has resulted in more environmental damage than all of Big Oil's campaign contributions.
most people use political affiliation as a tribal identity. They don't select a party based on policy or boring crap like that.
Got a good laugh out of the "boring crap like that". I think you're right up to a point. It's especially noticeable when there's a switch in the party in power, but the new party chooses to continue some policies of the previous party. Many former opponents to the policy become supporters and vice-versa.
That said, policies matter. You can't just decide to do what you feel like when you take office and expect your party's supporters to stand by your every decision.
If economics counts as science there's also free trade, preferring the EITC to minimum wage, opposition to farm subsidies and ethanol, and many others.
I'm not sure scientists' liberal identification extends to economists. It would be interesting to see identification broken down by science.
True, although a lot of the "denialism" is overblown. Most serious conservatives acknowledge that it's happening,
Problem is, there's a lack of serious conservatives among current GOP representatives.
And I'd be willing to bet that scaremongering about nuclear power from the left has resulted in more environmental damage than all of Big Oil's campaign contributions.
I don't know about that. I don't have a source for this, but I recall reading somewhere that the use of nuclear energy on a very large scale in the U.S. is too expensive to be a serious alternative.
This is funny. A scientist's political views aren't indicative of bias. You have to combine the views with politically oriented work product to make this conclusions. But somone too simple to understand that calls me fact challenged.
- Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
It may be just that you have a misunderstanding of what science actually is. AGW is based on pretty shaky ground, scientifically, and anybody who brings that fact up is shouted down and vilified. That ain't science - that's religion.
Brian, I think what tsotha is trying to say is that the massive consensus of the world's scientists is simply wrong. Why? Because tsotha says so. Inspiring argument, isn't it?
I always think of continental drift when I think about AGW. You know Einstein was a continental drift denier right? He simply didn't believe it possible that earth exhibited behavior that other planets don't. Goes to show even great minds can be quite wrong
Well, maybe things have changed since I was in school. Back then you didn't make grandiose claims based on computer models that had to be revised every year because this year's data didn't fit. I say it's on shaky ground because they've never actually been able to accurately predict what temperatures will be as opposed to just fitting curves of past data.
People say there's a consensus. Well, of course there is. You won't get grants, you won't get tenure, you won't get published if you don't go along. That's not science. Even if all the climatologists in the world believe AGW is real, and they don't, in the absence of proof it's mostly meaningless. Scientists have had consensus on countless plausible and wrong ideas over the years.
I'm willing to concede the earth is probably warming. Probably, though it's been both warmer and colder in the past, so it's not clear exactly what that means. I'm also willing to concede pumping a hell of a lot of carbon in the atmosphere probably isn't a good idea (more because of oceanic PH levels than anything else). But I don't see any evidence the models climatologists have come up with have a reasonable degree of predictive power for the coming year, let alone fifty years hence. A model isn't evidence. Get back to me when they successfully predict global average temperatures within, say, a quarter degree Fahrenheit over a ten year span.
Shorter tsotha: no, I have no evidence, but I will, relying on my mighty intuition, concede that global warming is almost certainly happening, but I refuse to face the implications of this, because, after all, predictions are not perfect, at least, not as far as I, tsotha know. And since the predictions aren't perfect, I will happily roll over and go back to sleep again.
.
In essence, you refuse to believe the overwhelming consensus of scientists because you prefer vague conspiracy theories about how everyone has to agree? And yet you offer no evidence to support such insulting claims. Could it be that you have no evidence, and you know it?
.
But, to address your points, insofar as they deserve anything but amusement:
Making grandiose claims?
Not really. The point here is that you don't have to raise the system temperature very much for disastrous, and observable changes to take place, both at the macro level of systems tipping and momentum developing, and the more immediately observable destruction of ecological systems and the wiping out of flora and fauna.
. Never been able to accurately predict...
.
Proof please? We would never want you to make.. well, grandiose claims, would we? And the predictions that are being made are conditional and nuanced. No-one is saying that X temperature will definitely be the case on Y date. What they are saying, with a very high degree of probability, is that we shall reach a certain temperature range if we continue to produce a certain amount of CO2. The consequences of reaching said range are reasonably solidly known.
. People say there's a consensus. Well, of course there is. You won't get grants, you won't get tenure, you won't get published if you don't go along. That's not science.
.
No, it isn't science. It's a paranoid and particularly dishonest caricature of science. Science is peer-reviewed, and fudging the data or lying about it will get you booted from the club with great speed. Your version is what right-wingers want science to be, because they can then ignore it. However, you don't get to choose your facts.
. I'm willing to concede the earth is probably warming. Probably, though it's been both warmer and colder in the past, so it's not clear exactly what that means.
.
It is abundantly clear that the annual average temperature is rising, and has been rising consistently for the last 20 some years. This is something which you can easily verify, if you take the time. As for the "it's been colder , it's been warmer" schtick, what we are seeing here is a longterm shift in progress. You do understand that when we hit a certain tipping point, the temperature will simply rise faster and faster? Feedback loop ring any bells? Do you understand what the results of that will be? If not, heat some water, and dip your hand in with each five degree rise in temperature. At some point, you'll realize that steadily increasing the heat in the system isn't really a good idea. Try it, if you don't believe me.
. But I don't see any evidence the models climatologists have come up with have a reasonable degree of predictive power for the coming year, let alone fifty years hence. A model isn't evidence.Get back to me when they successfully predict global average temperatures within, say, a quarter degree Fahrenheit over a ten year span.
.
This is one of the most childish tricks in the climate denial book. No, absolute short-term certainty may not be obtainable, just as a perfect weather report for tomorrow is not available, That does not invalidate the clear longterm trends, and you ought to think through the difference. It's easy to play these silly rhetorical games of demanding over-precise predictions - and it's deeply foolish when short-term focus causes you to miss the much more important overall picture. Wood and trees, wood and trees.
Shorter nickzi: I can't deal with the substance, so I'll just cram arguments into straw men and repeat what other people have said.
No, it isn't science. It's a paranoid and particularly dishonest caricature of science. Science is peer-reviewed, and fudging the data or lying about it will get you booted from the club with great speed. Your version is what right-wingers want science to be, because they can then ignore it. However, you don't get to choose your facts.
Case in point. When did I say anything about fudging numbers? The point is your research will never be funded in the first place.
You do understand that when we hit a certain tipping point, the temperature will simply rise faster and faster? Feedback loop ring any bells?
There are both positive and negative feedback loops involved. And a whole lot of them, too. Which ones will be dominant over time is something nobody knows for sure. In any event I stipulated the earth is probably warming. But it's been both much warmer and much cooler when humans didn't even exist, so the warming by itself is no indication of human involvement.
This is one of the most childish tricks in the climate denial book. No, absolute short-term certainty may not be obtainable, just as a perfect weather report for tomorrow is not available, That does not invalidate the clear longterm trends, and you ought to think through the difference.
There's no "childish trick" here. The fact that the model doesn't make accurate predictions doesn't invalidate the long-term trend, but it does cast doubt on the accuracy of the model. Here again, sure, temperatures are rising. But if your model can't accurately predict the rise, then you don't understand the system. If you don't understand the system, how can you be sure how much "A" there is in AGW? You can't. You're putting your faith in a model that's known to be wrong to some unknown degree.
And here you guys on the left are supposed to be against faith-based policy making.
You are convinced that the "suppression" of one internal EPA report presented at the 11th hour nullifies worldwide, decades long research in Climate Science that resulted in a scientific consensus. You are one of those people who actually believes he can detect fatal flaws in the AGW research that somehow escaped the scrutiny of the best scientists on the field during said decades.
Now why would something based on shaky ground gather lasting scientific consensus?
There used to a lasting scientific consensus that the earth was in fact flat. Followed by a lasting scientific consensus that the earth was at the center of the universe. Followed by a lasting scientific consensus that all metals had negative phlogiston.
You know what you're saying is completely absurd, right?
That your explanation (grant money) wasn't around at the time of any of the examples you cited?
That there was no peer review system examining the scientific merits of arguments in favor of the flat earth, center-of-the-universe earth? That the last of the theories you cited died more or less at the time where you could properly begin to talk about a "scientific community" larger than 50 people?
Grant money is no explanation. Every time there's a scientific theory out there you don't like, you can always shout "grant money". It's also completely undocumented. You don't provide any factual support whatsoever for your explanation, which seems kind of circular. Is there a consensus? Grant money.
The notion that dissent is stifled in an issue as big as this one due to funding is absurd. Grants in every area of science are attributed to laboratories with competing mechanisms about a particular phenomenon, or even disagreement about the existence of some phenomenons. The consensus on AGW, by the way, is international, requiring a concerted effort by all funding agencies to maintain the thing going.
But the flat Earth comparison is useful. Tsotha and mj (I'm not sure where you stand yet) are the equivalent of people who, fancying themselves very clever, said "Oh yeah? If the Earth is round, how come I don't see a curvature? And why don't people just fall when they are standing upside down?".
Nimed:
You just asked "why would something based on shaky ground gather a lasting scientific consensus" and I offered a possible explanation. I am not saying that grant money is influencing the scientific consensus, but simply saying that it could. You have to agree that it is at least a distinct possibility that the availability of grant money, and the strings attached to it, can influence a consensus on some subjects, at least in theory.
Following that, I pointed out several cases where a scientific consensus turned out to be flat out wrong. There are more resent cases as well, but the older cases are far more obvious. My overall point was that science is not a democracy, nor a republic that is ran by some "club", and in the absence of proof, any consensus should be challenged. For the record, scientific research has always been an expensive endeavor, and thus, had to be financed by outside parties. There is nothing new about grant money, even if it's been called something else.
As to my opinion of human caused climate change, it is that I have some simple concerns about the theory that never seemed to be addressed. They are, in no particular order.
1. The reliability of models. I am not convinced that it is possible to model something as complicated as the long term world climate. There are too many unknowns and assumptions. And with models of sufficient complexity, a small difference in assumptions can lead to a drastic difference in outcomes, as it most commonly described by the "butterfly effect".
2. The reliability of data, and how much the heat island
effect of urban areas influencing the measurements. This should be simple enough to control for, I just have not seen anyone actually controlling for it.
3. Just because the planet is warming, does not mean that human activity is responsible for it. It has been demonstrated that human activity could be responsible for it, but no proof that it is.
4. It is fairly obvious to me the climate changes over the course of our planets lifetime. Many people have specified that rising the average temperatures is worse than keeping them constant, but few have demonstrated that its worse than dropping the overall temperatures. Which is better, global warming or global cooling?
Until these issues are sufficiently addressed I am going to continue to be skeptical.
Brian, when it comes to scientific ignorance, the gold standard for me remains conservapedia. Who else would suggest that kangaroos got to Australia by floating on large rafts of vegetation? I am a little saddened to learn that Einstein had his faults on continental drift, but no-one is perfect.
To add to what tsotha said above, labels may be confusing us.
There are serious enough economic concerns that we should perhaps start talking in terms of "survivors" and "suiciders" to replace "liberal" and "conservative".
Sound minded people are making alarming statements such as "100% of our GNP will be used to pay off our debts" unless we change course.
Oh my, this thread is a hilarious mashup of stereotypes and straw men. First of all, "conservatives" are not a homogeneous group. There are many conservatives who are very pro-science and who are opposed to teaching any form of creationism in schools. There are conservatives who support gay rights. The Republican Party, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be very responsive to conservatives in general. Many conservatives are unhappy with the GOP but support it only because it's marginally better than the Democratic Party.
I don't have a lot faith in scientific consensus. I lost it when working on fusion research and got a glimpse at how the research seemed to be focused on taking as long as possible to achieve results (to maximize grants) and ideas that were not directly related to ITER were rejected outright. The issue of climate change and AGW IS politicized. It is something that many, many people are emotional about, even scientists. Scientists are human beings and not immune to this. So it would be incredibly unlikely for most scientists to be totally objective about it (humans are rarely totally objective about anything).
What I find amusing is that the models that are being used to show that AGW will cause global suffering also show that the USA could stop producing CO2 and have very little impact on the final result. Given that China is massively increasing CO2 production and the vast majority of Americans won't simply commit suicide to eliminate their carbon footprint, wrecking the economy of the US for incremental decreases in CO2 output that will have no effect on the long term global climate using the very same models that predict cataclysmic AGW seems really stupid to me.
I lost it when working on fusion research and got a glimpse at how the research seemed to be focused on taking as long as possible to achieve results (to maximize grants)
You should have come to the conclusion that you were working in a very crappy lab. In most areas of scientific research, if you purposefully delay the production and publication of results, you get scooped. If you get scooped often enough, your lab won't be able to get any grants, and it's bye bye lab.
So it would be incredibly unlikely for most scientists to be totally objective about it (humans are rarely totally objective about anything).
Wow, you're not familiar with the purpose of peer review! Have you actually published anything?
What I find amusing is that the models that are being used to show that AGW will cause global suffering also show that the USA could stop producing CO2 and have very little impact on the final result.
I'm sure the Chinese will come to the same conclusion. By the way, we pollute a lot more per capita than the Chinese (or everyone else in the world), and the U.S. just recently lost its place to them as the biggest absolute polluter in the world. And we are the wealthiest nation in the world. So it kind of makes sense that we take the first step.
And finally
There are many conservatives who are very pro-science
I don't have a lot of faith in scientific consensus.
Maybe the defining characteristic of the conservative is the lack of self-awareness, which results in these 2 sentences on the same comment.
BTW, the current Democratic party leadership wants to put economic policies in place that will drive companies out of the USA and into other countries. China is probably rubbing its hands together in glee contemplating the possiblity of manufacturing facilities moving to where cheap energy and labor are readily available. I know of large companies that have moved their headquarters overseas already to avoid the US economic climate. I expect more to follow. If cap and trade is passed (and the current bill is a mess... most of the downsides without the alleged benefit) and corporate taxes are increased, we will lose companies and manufacturing capabilities to other countries.
So who are the "suiciders"? As far as "survivors" go, I'd rather be stuck in the wilderness with Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin (or John McCain or George W. Bush) than Markos Moulitsas and Janeane Garofalo (or Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi)
The simple fact that you don't know these people exist (yet somehow think you are in a position to ridicule others) should be alarming to you. The fact that you confuse media and liberal political consensus with a scientific consensus means your're just another pathetic political hack.
Petition signers are not scientific proof. We have no idea as to their qualifications, or what their scientific rationale behind signing is. Secondly, even after Louis Pasteur's experiments proving that life does not just "spontaneously happen" there were some scientists that never agreed with him. Show us some peer reviewed journal articles from these scientists.
I didn't say petition signers are scientific proof. I said this shows scientific consensus doesn't exist.
"We have no idea as to their qualifications". This is false, many list their qualifications and others are easy to find. Your unwillingness to spend the time doesn't mean their objections don't exist.
By the way, where were you when Nimed claimed scientific consensus equalled proof of AGW? Why do the standards of evidence seem to change when comments are pro-AGW vs anti?
You really should have read the whole comment. I explicitly used a survey on peer-reviewed journals as support for scientific consensus on AGW. The result? 928-0.
You really are incredibly ignorant. First of all, your sentence, "over 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 PhDs" is ridiculous to anybody who knows anything about modern scientific research. There are simply almost no professional researchers in any field who haven't completed a PhD thesis. These 22,000 "scientists" who don't even have a PhD are either graduate students or, as I strongly suspect, not scientists.
It's quite telling that they brag about the number of PhDs. When you do scientific research, basically you either are a graduate student or you have a PhD. So most people are PhDs (post-docs, lab technicians, PIs).
But they don't mention a single scientist of renown, except for Frederick Seitz, a nutcase that was even against the notion that CFCs were harmful to the ozone layer. By the way, when he reviewed the Robinson, Robinson, & Soon article that is in the site you linked, and that provides the "scientific refutation" of AGW, he was 87 years old. Just saying.
The Robinson et al. paper was never peer reviewed, and it should have been. Here's a detailed analysis of the numerous errors of the article:
So what is this, only the scientists you approve of should be considered scientists? Who made you the gate keeper?
Last I checked the only requirement to be considered a "scientist" was to simply call yourself one (and maybe a white coat and a clipboard, for added credibility) there is no requirement for a certain degree
sciâ‹…enâ‹…tist
  /ˈsaɪəntɪst/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sahy-uhn-tist]
–noun
an expert in science, esp. one of the physical or natural sciences.
mj pointed out that it is not a consensus if 30,000 people disagree. You said that only 9,000 of them should count, but they shouldn't count either, because one of them was rather old, and none of them can know much about science if they disagree with you. Surely you can do better
So now your standard goes from needing large numbers to needing "prominent". Ok, so why do reports supporting AGW accept social scientists and educrats? I must have missed your criticisms that only researchers may appropriately potificate.
The truth is you accept no evidence against AGW while accepting anything which supports it. Your position isn't science, it's dogma. But if you want priominence, see these:
zic - driving businesses out of the country and crippling our economy with futile AGW mitigation strategies is surrendering US leadership. If you want to see China, India, and Brazil take over as the world superpowers, then by all means support Cap and Trade, higher taxes, and increasing regulation. Businesses will flee like rats from a sinking ship. I'd like to see the US lead the way by continuing to be a world economic superpower with a healthy economy, strong industry, and lots of innovation and development. But the current administration is making that unlikely.
being an elitist liberal, I'd say the answers lie in holding our trading partners to the same standards we hold ourselves. Being a farmer (and one who grew up on a farm hugging the shores of one of the nations most fouled rivers at the time the clean water act passed,) I'd say there's significant benefit to not fouling your own nest.
And just as we have global trade, we have a global nest.
And keeping that nest clean and habitable may indeed cause some economic decline; it also presents opportunity for economic growth, at least according to the top brass at companies like Exxon.
Holding one's trading partners accountable is a nice concept on paper, but the idea that the US can hold China accountable at this late stage has about as much sense, and probability of success, as ordering the tide back out by force of will. Something about the borrower being the lender's slave comes to mind.
mj (Replying to: ScentOfViolets) July 15, 2009 6:47 AM
This is funny. A scientist's political views aren't indicative of bias. You have to combine the views with politically oriented work product to make this conclusions. But somone too simple to understand that calls me fact challenged.
What a hoot.
You're m soja, aren't you? People are free for themselves to look up your posting history and decide whether or not your fact challenged. In any event, you're moving the goalposts; you claimed that it is mostly 'conservatives' that embrace science, as opposed to liberals. While the fact that scientists are mostly liberals isn't ironclad proof that this is not so, it's pretty convincing . . . and I have yet to see you post anything to back up your claims.
And your point is? Other groups in society have well-known conservative biases, e.g., military, business, etc., and I don't hear crying about them.
My point, if you had bothered to read the exchange, is that contrary to soja's unsupported claim, 'liberals' are the ones who are pro-science, 'conservatives' most definitely not. And this should be fairly obvious, per your observation of the military (actually, this isn't strictly true - the military's 'conservatism' has a number of well-known sources): conservatives tend to be favorable to expending military manpower and resources on campaigns abroad.
No to be snarky, but the entire idea of science rests upon the idea of how to prove one is wrong, which, not surprisingly, implies that one will be wrong on occasion. The conservative inability to admit to mistakes - Megan for example - is well known, and doesn't exactly signal the common use of this principal.
"In any event, you're moving the goalposts; you claimed that it is mostly 'conservatives' that embrace science, as opposed to liberals."
Actually, this is not true. I'm denying the idea advanced by others that conservatives deny science and liberals embrace it. This is true of small subsets in very narrow areas, but cannot be supported generally. Each have pet theories where this becomes an issue for some. I do think the practical effects of this are much worse for liberals. Teaching creationism as an option for the origin of man just isn't that big a deal. Anyone who refuses to deal with the other explanations disqualifies themselves from a career in science. That's fine. Condemning future generations (who aren't even here to defend themselves) to poverty is a much bigger deal.
"I have yet to see you post anything to back up your claims."
And I have yet to read any logical tie between scientists being disproportionately liberal and this meaning conservatives deny science. This is an illogical opinion. The fact does not support the conclusion.
For all the blather about peer reviewed journal articles "proving" AGW I never seem to see cites of the articles. Maybe if there was a "Dummies guide to AGW research" it'd be useful for the scientifically inclined to make up their own mind.
That's what science is supposed to be, you do experiments, obtain results that can be reproduced and then publish so others can verify your work.
Also, isn't AGW deprecated in favor of "Climate Change"?
zic - trying to force other countries to cripple their own economies to match our self-flagellation is an exercise in futility. China has already stated that they will not reduce their carbon footprint if it hurts their economy. They are building dirty, coal burning plants as fast as they can. Your solution is not a solution, it's more of a hope or a gesture. Placing tariffs on imports produced in dirty countries will only punish US citizens and further wreck our economy.
That's your opinion. Mine is that rapid climate change may well wreck everyone's economy.
What you're saying may well be true given current economic conditions. But economies are not held in stasis; just like weather, change is the norm. Industries rise and fall, as do practices, both accounting and environmental.
And if China couldn't import to the US because it of its carbon footprint, it would hurt their economy.
But I detest talking about climate change as a matter of CO2 only.
You don't deny that we're changing the atmosphere and oceans; you seem to think that there's no use of trying to modify our behavior because nobody else will. Yet you'll turn around and argue that because everyone else was taking out more loan then they could reasonably pay doesn't justify any my doing it.
Used to be 'Conservative' meant conserving; and that wasn't just social norms, it included resources. And it meant taking responsibility. I weep to see what 'conservative' has come to mean today.
I want to address only the very last paragraph (the rest is not my fight).
Sometimes things are counter intuitive. For example, it takes more resources to recycle some materials than it would to produce new ones. In this case, recycling them is an resource sink, as counter intuitive as it is.
Likewise, production efficiencies can be improved with better tooling (I'm counting automation as tooling), but on occasion the resources sunk into producing the better tooling exceed the savings from a more efficient production, making the overall endeavor a resource sink.
This is something that should always be checked. For example, if the costs of reducing global temperatures exceeds the cost of higher temperatures, than its not worth doing.
Its a really hard thing to estimate, and even harder in an environment that is very politicized, but we should not give up on it altogether.
But given my experiences growing up on one of the nation's most polluted rivers, I also see that we can't always predict the benefits of investing in doing the right thing.
In 1976, no one would have predicted that you could swim in that river within 30 years.
I also think there are a lot of things we only assign a cost to when human profit is involved. I live on the edge of the great northern forest, and it's been a working forest since the early 1800's. It still is, and I'm grateful for the jobs it provides, the paper, the building material, the energy (biomass). But it's also a carbon sink, when I researched it five years ago, I was told that it absorbed more carbon each day then the north-east corridor emits. Yet economically, it's highest value is still wood production and house lots. I'm no tree hugger; I get pretty disgusted with the kevlar-klad kyakers who come here to vacation and save the forest and have no concept of how it functions from either a ecological or economic function. (And here, at least, trees are actually invasive weeds, controlling them consumes a lot of energy.) But at some point, we do need to figure out how to measure and assign these values if we want to make wise choices.
But given my experiences growing up on one of the nation's most polluted rivers, I also see that we can't always predict the benefits of investing in doing the right thing.
I have no idea why you insist on making every post personal, but since you are...
But given my experiences growing up in the former soviet union, I also see that we can't always predict the costs of investing in doing the right thing.
The Bolshevik revolution sounded really good on paper...
"In non-inflation-adjusted dollars, funding increased. Bush requested $28.9 billion dollars in net budget authority for fiscal 2008 (the year that began Oct. 1, 2007), and the agency received an estimated $28.6 billion in fiscal 2007. Either of these numbers is greater than when Bush came into office -- $20.6 billion in fiscal 2001, the last year for which Clinton presided over the congressional budgeting process, or $17.8 billion in fiscal 2000, the last full fiscal year Clinton was in office.The numbers tell the same tale for net outlays, with an estimated $28.1 billion in fiscal 2007 compared with $17.3 billion and $15.4 billion for fiscal 2001 and 2000, respectively. The increases aren't as large when the numbers are adjusted for inflation. But they still went up."
If you are refering to recent events in Iran, you should recall that they have nothing to do with Bush, and owe rather more to the sense that the US was returning to a more balanced and realistic foreign policy. As for the Iraq debacle, we should remember that this became a war of liberation only once it was clear that the Bush administration had essentially lied the country into war with false claims about connections to Al Qaeda and WMD.
20 out of the 22 reasons listed in the Congressional Authorization to Use Military Force that was passed unanimously by congress were true.
Bush did not "lie" to get the country to go to war.
Many of the items supporting the argument that Saddam Hussein was actively funding, training, and housing international Islamic terrorists were also true.
www.husseinandterror.com
And it isn't just Iran. Lybia handed over the Nuke program. Lebanon saw a democratic uprising. Ukranians had the Orange revolution. There are others.
I presume you don't give a damn about the actual minorities in question. Which was kind of my point - conservatives are perfectly happy to marginalize these groups, and will only change their position if it brings them votes. Maybe.
You are presumptuopus, and now adding ad hominem attacks. Nice. I'm more of a libertarian, and believe that no "group" should have special rights over another. All "groups" should be equal under the law. And explain why a heavily democratic state, California, failed to pass a "gay rights" proposition, if democrats are supposedly the opposite.
I find it hilarious that you two got all offended by my caricature of the elitist liberal. Project much?
Everything that you've posted here is a perfect example of why Republicans are never going to regain power in the foreseeable future. You're either incredibly ignorant or very disingenuous in virtually everything you've said here. I suspect the second.
For the sake of our country, I hope you repeat your rhetoric as loudly and as often as possible, to ensure that your types never get to make decisions for us again.
Tman, I fear debating you about as much as I fear Sarah Palin as a Republican candidate i.e. not at all. Your problem is that you don't understand how to analyze the world, or construct an honest argument, and yet you mistake irresponsibility and ignorance for free debate worthy of a civilized society. we know that Saddam Hussein did not have WMD, as even Republicans have now conceded. We know he did not train or support Al Qaeda, as even Republicans have now conceded. We know that Bush went looking for a war, and lied about the need for it. We know that Bush massively abused the public's trust, wasted immense amounts of money and resources, and threw away the lives of good men. It is neither intelligent nor patriotic to defend your party's abuse of power for the sake of cheap debating points.
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As for the rest of the rightwing blether on here: we see the usual Republican strawmen about how Republicans always fund science more, which is nonsense - and for which you provide only one link. The problem, of course, being that you don't show what proportion of public money was assigned to science, and for that matter, what areas Bush classified as science, or refused to fund. Stem cell research springs to mind. Absolute dollar amounts are a neat way of providing a misleading statistic, rather than proving a logical claim. And it is a pointless claim, because we know that the Bush White House ignored or marginalized scientists, we know that only certain results were published, and even then were cited misleadingly. In sum your claim is simply nonsensical - and you lack the understanding of science to realize why.
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As for the idiocy of the claim that the "scientific consensus" supported the claims that the earth was flat, the person putting it forward does not understand what science is, or for that matter, the history of science. Ignorance may be bliss, but it makes a very poor substitute for knowing something about the world and using that knowledge rationally.
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As for being offended by your caricature? No, not really. Taking a dishonest, scientifically illiterate fool seriously would be a waste of my time. See: fear of Palin, not.
Contrawise, if your response is typical of what passes for intellectual prowess in the present ruling party, don't get too comfortable with the idea of ruling.
Bah. Do you really believe the so-called "independents" really pay attention to this kind of stuff? I don't. If the economy doesn't get better, the Dems will pay for it. To what extent they caused the problem is entirely irrelevant.
You could be less insulting if you wanted an honest debate, but I'm used to debating leftists this way so no biggie.
we know that Saddam Hussein did not have WMD, as even Republicans have now conceded.
You use this argument yet again fail to apply the facts to the metrics of the issue. I ask that you read the AUMF passed by congress again, and restate your argument. ( http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/print/20021002-2.html )The AUMF contains the specific reasons the US removed Saddam from power. There are 22 specific points contained in the AUMF. Out of those 22, 20 have been proven to be correct. I will not debate generalities. If you want to use rhetorical flourishes that sounds spiffy be my guest, but it's a weak argument. You asked me before for "links" which I then provided. I think it's clear who is presenting specific points and who is presenting the overworn talking points.
We know he did not train or support Al Qaeda, as even Republicans have now conceded.
Al-Qaeda is hardly the only Islamic terrorist operation sworn to killing westerners and attempting to impose Islamic theocracy. And if you would again read the link I posted- http://www.husseinandterror.com/ you will clearly see the specific proof that Saddam was in fact funding, training, and housing Islamic terrorist groups who had plans to attack the west.
We know that Bush went looking for a war, and lied about the need for it. We know that Bush massively abused the public's trust, wasted immense amounts of money and resources, and threw away the lives of good men. It is neither intelligent nor patriotic to defend your party's abuse of power for the sake of cheap debating points.
You have not presented any proof that Bush "lied" about anything. Nor any evidence that he "massively abused the public's trust, wasted immense amounts of money and resources". Opinion does not equal fact.
As for the rest of the rightwing blether on here: we see the usual Republican strawmen about how Republicans always fund science more, which is nonsense - and for which you provide only one link.
I presented more than one link. You just missed them perhaps?
Do you have any thoughts on the video from Dr. Tyson? He's a self-proclaimed liberal who worked in the belly of the beast and helped argue for science funding during the Bush administration. Surely you would at least listen to his opinion on the subject? Or is it because I linked him it is somehow now tainted?
Nothing about Kitzmiller vs. Dover? Really?
I would argue with the rest of your ad hominem rant, but that's all it is. I presented to you facts, and if you want to keep calling me stupid that's your prerogative. But unless you have some specific points to argue, I'm done.
It's disingenuous to say that 20/22 have been proven true, when it obscures the point of the entire document. Many are restating the history of Iraq's WMD program, with the clear intention of proving that means its a threat today. For example:
Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such persons or organizations;
How is it disingenuous, or more specifically, what exactly about these two stanzas is untrue?
For instance, you do realize that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ran straight to Saddams protection in Iraq after the Taliban could no longer protect him in Afghanistan, prior to the aforementioned resolution, right?
zic - Just because I don't believe we should dismantle our economy in a futile attempt to provent global warming doesn't mean I believe we should destroy our environment. I believe we should continue to improve efficiency and environmentally friendliness of our industry. We should add solar, wind, and other sources of energy into the mix as they make sense (remote locations, for example) and fund research into technology like batteries (or other means of energy storage). We should continue to encourage businesses to make their processes cleaner and more efficient. It's entirely possible that we will discover new technologies that will make a huge difference in pollution/global warming. But if we dismantle our economy, innovation will slow down dramatically.
I don't like that China is building dirty coal power plants as fast as they can. I would like them to slow down and try to build cleaner energy sources. On the other hand, it's hard for me to begrudge poor Chinese peasants access to energy that will make their lives healthier and wealthier. As an engineer, doing something that is "right" but useless is not a good use of resources. Maybe instead of symbolically gutting our manufacturing sector we can instead subsidize research into super clean/cheap ways to use coal to make electricity and then give that technology to China so they can build cleaner power plants. That would reduce pollution more than the current cap and trade bill would.
(And just to make things personal, :) I work in the oil industry and my entire job is designing and improving systems that protect the people, the environment, and equipment. The equipment I design makes oil development cleaner and safer.)
For the record, I believe a certain amount of AGW is probably happening but I believe we don't really know how much or what the effects will be. Having done some reading on how even experts can consistently make bad judgments and knowing how people operate in groups, I'm skeptical of scientific "consensus" in an area where we can't do proper scientific experiments to verify our hypotheses.
Actually, that research is happening; and paid for by the US government. Currently, we measure temperature of the atmosphere with. . . weather balloons.
Twelve miles up, that's about what we know.
There are systems being designed to measure temperature throughout the layers of the atmosphere; so we can understand better if the level of cloud formation is changing. I can find some more information on it if you'd like.
I applaud your work; I've learned a lot from environmental engineers working in industry, they've all taken their work seriously, understanding the responsibility they bear. They taught me that with pollution, you've got three choices; put it in the air, in the land, or in the water.
Or stop making it if it's not really needed.
If the threat of global warming is real, we have a responsibility to take it seriously. Until we understand that threat, I'd opt on the side of prudence. Cheap shit that falls apart two weeks after you buy it at Wal-Mart is no excuse for avoiding that responsibility.
zic - The part we can't test is the part that's important... how greenhouse gasses emitted by humans affect global temperature and then how that affects the global climate/weather. By the time we've collected the data to test the hypothesis, whatever was going to happen will have happened. The models used to predict global warming are "tested" against past data but even the past data is theoretical. We don't really know what the global average temperature was 1,000 years ago.
We should take the potential seriously but I hear people say we need to reduce our carbon output by 80% in 50 years. That's just flat impossible. It's like saying that we need to start walking on the ceiling. Why even talk about it? We should be concentrating on things that are possible (even hard things), not absurdly impossible things.
The models used to predict global warming are "tested" against past data but even the past data is theoretical.
"Theoretical"? An estimate is not "theoretical". You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Having done some reading on how even experts can consistently make bad judgments and knowing how people operate in groups, I'm skeptical of scientific "consensus" in an area where we can't do proper scientific experiments to verify our hypotheses.
People should know that Earnest Iconoclast is the only person alive with these particular insights in the human psyche. Climate scientists are just a bunch of ignoramuses who never heard of groupthink and can't really be trusted to avoid it.
We should take the potential seriously but I hear people say we need to reduce our carbon output by 80% in 50 years. That's just flat impossible. It's like saying that we need to start walking on the ceiling.
So what is this, only the scientists you approve of should be considered scientists? Who made you the gate keeper?
Last I checked the only requirement to be considered a "scientist" was to simply call yourself one (and maybe a white coat and a clipboard, for added credibility) there is no requirement for a certain degree
I believe almost everyone would agree there's a better definition of scientist: a scientist is someone who devotes a substantial part of his professional time in activities that advance scientific knowledge - formulating hypothesis for a particular problem, performing experiments, building causal models, analyzing data, writing and submitting their findings to scientific magazines.
The 31,000 petition it's clearly designed to fool the general public, but not a scientist. Not because scientists are particularly enlightened human beings, but because the ratio of PhDs to non-PhDs in the petition is ridiculously small. The ratio is incompatible with the practice of modern research.
The most common non-PhD members of a typical lab are graduate students working on a project - usually, a PhD project, sometimes a Master (although very rarely there is the occasional industrious undergrad willing to work for free). The rest of the lab is composed of a Principal Investigator (PIs), which is the head of the lab, post-docs and lab technicians. All of these people have a PhD. Now, a few labs have more graduate students than the sum of technicians, post-docs and the PI, although it's pretty difficult to find a 2 to 1 ratio. But most labs have more post-docs and technicians than graduate students. That's because a graduate student is just starting research, and usually requires, in the first few years, a lot of PI or post-doc time and attention before he becomes productive. He must first become familiar with the basic tools of his area of research.
So the general ratio of 1 PhD to 2.5 non-PhDs is something that immediately makes you suspicious if you are familiar with the research process. Naturally, most people aren't.
If you visit the petition site, you realize that most of the information about the scientists' credentials is self-reported. People write what personal information they want in the petition. You can even do it online if you want to. In the petition FAQ, it is claimed that
Opponents of the petition project sometimes submit forged signatures in efforts to discredit the project. Usually, these efforts are eliminated by our verification procedures. On one occasion, a forged signature appeared briefly on the signatory list. It was removed as soon as discovered.
Of course, verifying the credentials of 31,000 signatories is a gigantic task, and the claim that only one false positive that has ever managed to escape the verification procedure is doubtful at best.
Another thing that should make you suspicious is the fact that the most eminent scientist they could find to sign the petition letter is Professor Frederick Seitz. This is a researcher who formerly questioned the by now widely accepted effect of CFCs on the ozone lair. He never changed his opinion on this subject, which resulted in frequent comparisons with Peter Duesberg, a guy who believed that the HIV virus doesn't cause AIDS. AIDS denialism, of course, is not a politicized issue, so there was not much public awareness on the subject.
The review paper that accompanies the petition was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. This is a magazine sponsored by a conservative organization, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The magazine is not listed in either PUBMED or Web of Science. I'm pasting a list of claims that the magazine has published in the past. This is from Wikipedia, but the entry has links to the original sources:
* the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional,
* "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution,
* HIV does not cause AIDS [recognize this one?],
* the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.
A series of articles by pro-life authors published in the journal argued for the existence of a link between abortion and breast cancer; such a link was rejected by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and is not recognized by major medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society or World Health Organization.
A 2003 paper published in the journal, claiming that vaccination was harmful, was criticized for poor methodology, lack of scientific rigor, and outright errors by the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics. A National Public Radio piece cited inaccurate information published in the Journal and wrote: "The journal itself is not considered a leading publication, as it's put out by an advocacy group that opposes most government involvement in medical care."
Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical. An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a "purveyor of utter nonsense." Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the "house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group" and "is barely credible as an independent forum."
Furthermore, there are polls that do show scientific consensus among scientists, if one understands "scientific consensus" in the sense of a "vote" among scientists. But this is not what is usually meant by scientific consensus. Rather, it is a survey conducted among the relevant publications. Not the scientists personal opinions, but the published science itself. It's quite telling that in a sample of 928 articles, none disagrees with the consensus position:
"Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"
Now, I'm aware that all this post is based on authority arguments. I'm not debating AGW on its merits. This would be preferable, but it would also be really time-consuming. That's why we rely on authority for most things in our life; we just don't have the time or disposition to examine every single claim we come across. So we have little choice but to defer to experts.
There are a couple of characteristics in AGW that make the subject particularly prone to demagoguery - namely, that climate has short-run chaotic dynamics (yes, years can be considered short-run), which makes the overall increase in temperature very noisy; and that "it's just impossible to make experiments with climate, so how can anyone know what will happen?". OTOH, arguments in favor of AGW tend to be more complicated.
We can debate all this (it will be a looong debate), but one thing should at least give one pause: why is the consensus among climate specialists so widespread? I believe it's just lazy to ascribe it all to groupthink and self-serving beliefs when the modern scientific process has developed pretty good ways to avoid these pitfalls.
This is quite a lot of blather about ratios. I'm slightly confused though: in order for his commentary to mean anything you have to believe the ratio of signers must match the ratio of scientists. Given the obvious personal and financial risk of such statements, as noted by some retiring scientists, why anyone would accept this as certain is beyond me. But I guess if that's the best you have you have to roll the dice and hope it isn't noticed.
Does anyone else find it interesting that Nimed found time to evaluate each and every scientist in order to claim "the most eminent scientist they could find to sign the petition letter is Professor Frederick Seitz." It seems some interest group found someone they could caricature and are attempting use a few smears to discredit everyone.
mj, never disappoints. Once again, he enriched this thread by posting a comment with an unique combination of staggering ignorance, impaired logic and resolute bad faith, a mix that's quickly becoming his trademark.
1- Interestingly, he chooses to ignore a lot of information. Convenient silence on the "scientific journal" where the article that accompanied the petition was published (maybe he agrees that "'humanists' have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution"). Silence on the implausible method by which the petitioners claimed to verify that a signer was a scientist. Silence on the scientific consensus in the publications where serious research is published.
2- mj is right in one claim - the ratio of scientists doesn't have to match the ratio of signatories. Of course, he failed to conclude that, if the signatories were indeed scientists, the petition obtained two and a half times more signatures from graduate students, the scientists who happen to know less about their particular research area.
Or maybe, just maybe, the ratio is one of the many signs that the verification process of the signatories' credentials was flimsy at best and non-existent at worst.
3- Given the obvious personal and financial risk of such statements, as noted by some retiring scientists,
Another mj specialty: unsupported assertions. But who can blame him, really, given the quality of his sources when he chooses to post them.
4- Does anyone else find it interesting that Nimed found time to evaluate each and every scientist in order to claim "the most eminent scientist they could find to sign the petition letter is Professor Frederick Seitz."
This is the most hilarious part of mj's comment. Here, he confuses the signer of the letter that accompanied the petition with the (necessarily posterior) signers of the petition.
And again, not a peep about the good Professor Seitz being a nutjob that never recognized the effects of CFCs on the depletion of the ozone layer. By the way, the slowing down of said depletion happened to coincide with worldwide bans on CFCs. A strange coincidence that never shook the professor's strong convictions, as I'm sure it won't shake mj's.
Oh, mj. Without people like you, what would ever become of the conservative movement?
P.S. - In revisiting the petition site, I found yet another gem:
In PhD scientist signers alone, the project already includes 15-times more scientists than are seriously involved in the United Nations IPCC process.
Yes, this is an actual comparison between the 9000 self-proclaimed PhD signatories of the petition with the 600 climate scientists that were the compilers and co-authors of the IPCC report (not to speak of the additional 620 climate experts who reviewed the report, who apparently were not "seriously involved").
I ignored the irrelevancies. Since the dispute is whether ruining our economy is the appropriate response to warming your little tally of articles arguing warming occurs just doesn't matter. When I post I assume some basic intelligence and good faith on the part of the reader. Your inability to meet this standard isn't my responsibility.
You reference the IPCC report compilers and co-authors as being particularly noteworthy. But the IPCC report did not conduct any original research, it's a summary of others research. So according to your own standard the opinion of every scientist you reference is irrelevant. So I ask, are you completely ignorant or astonishingly dishonest?
Since the dispute is whether ruining our economy is the appropriate response to warming your little tally of articles arguing warming occurs just doesn't matter.
Was that the dispute? Because I distinctly remember something about the existence of a scientific consensus.
mj at various points upthread your referring to a scientific consensus shows how little you know. Large numbers of scientists believe the alarmists are pushing premature conclusions in order to support a political agenda.
I didn't say petition signers are scientific proof. I said this shows scientific consensus doesn't exist.
The fact that you confuse media and liberal political consensus with a scientific consensus means your're just another pathetic political hack.
There's a lesson to be learned, mj: if you're going to lie about something, make sure the evidence that you're lying is not in the same webpage of the lying itself. Oh, and the scientific consensus is not merely "warming occurs". It's that occurs by a specific mechanism caused by man.
You reference the IPCC report compilers and co-authors as being particularly noteworthy. But the IPCC report did not conduct any original research, it's a summary of others research. So according to your own standard the opinion of every scientist you reference is irrelevant. So I ask, are you completely ignorant or astonishingly dishonest?
Oh, you poor creature. Wrong again. I believe the word you're looking for for what the IPCC scientists did is "review". Scientists write review papers once in a while. Lots of scientific journals feature review articles, and some of them are composed entirely of them (like the Annual Review of Medicine, for instance). Of course, just because you write a review, it doesn't mean that you never do original research. More to the point, just because you use someone else's data, it doesn't mean that you have to reach someone else's conclusion.
Interestingly, the article by Robinson, Robinson & Soon that accompanies the infamous petition is also a review (you should really, like, read your sources before you link them).
It just happens to be published in a scientific journal that reported other interesting findings in the past, among them the fact that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution, and HIV does not cause AIDS.
Someone already pointed out that "Republican" as in a member of the US Republican Party might be different then a conservative.
Be that as it may, the headline is worse then that is uses the expression Republicanism without a direct reference to the party. As an avid Monarchist, I am quite sensitive to the distinction. Having a Monarch with a parliamentary system works quite nice here, thank you very much. Please be more distinct in the choosing of headlines in the future.
I do hope for one or two lighter blogposts however, given the engagement; why not something on adverse selection, information asymmetry, lemon-market, and how to lessen those problems in the market for spouses. That I guess would leave the field wide open for intresting headlines.
The original post was "those who think we should understand what we're doing before condemning future generations to poverty are anti-science." So the consensus in question is that AGW is sufficiently catastrophic to warrant draconian interference with the economy.
I know I referred to reviews. It was you who advanced the standard (of course violated for those who agree with you) limiting opinions to those who "who devotes a substantial part of his professional time in activities that advance scientific knowledge - formulating hypothesis for a particular problem, performing experiments, building causal models, analyzing data, writing and submitting their findings to scientific magazines."
You invented this to devalue 31,000 inconvenient opinions. But now that you advocate abandoning that standard you need to deal with the 31,000 dissenters, who have access to the same data as the authorities you cite.
Do you really think logic dictates that I am subject to arbitrary standards that you both invent and violate while your violation of your own standard doesn't matter? Maybe you should keep a scorecard nearby and jot down your alleged standards. Or make a logic tree so you'll notice as you continually contradict yourself.
You still don't get it. I don't deride the use of reviews, which are the most helpful specialty articles for laymen. I'm criticizing the petition review in particular.
You invented this to devalue 31,000 inconvenient opinions. But now that you advocate abandoning that standard you need to deal with the 31,000 dissenters, who have access to the same data as the authorities you cite.
I limited the definition of "scientist" to people who actually make science, and you argue this is a self-serving definition. You think that anyone who signs a piece of paper, no matter what they actually do for a living, no matter if the information they put on that paper is correct, can fairly call itself a scientist, and is in the same standing as the scientists who wrote the IPCC report.
As for violation of my own standards, the people who wrote the report for the IPCC are scientists, but that doesn't mean that every single thing they do has to be research. For instance, many scientists teach at universities. They are not doing research while they are teaching. But I call them scientists if they also do scientific research. The teaching doesn't invalidate the research part, you see? Similarly, writing a review (or a textbook) is not doing scientific research, but it doesn't magically erase the research activity the authors conduct.
I'd just like you to answer one single question. When you linked the petition, who probably didn't examine the whole thing very closely. It happens. But you now know where it was published. You know who signed the petition letter. You know the criterion the petition had to call someone a scientist. You must at least suspect that even that criterion was probably not checked.
So are you really convinced that this petition provides a reasonable proof against scientific consensus?
"I'm criticizing the petition review in particular." Yes, by applying different standards than you apply to those who agree with you. At least we agree on something.
You have no idea how many of those 31,000 signatures meet or don't meet your definition. To recap, you claim to have reached a conclusion on their suitability without being able to tell if any signer fails the standard you invented. How? Even if you could show they all failed (actual n = 0) you now admit it doesn't matter because the standard is inappropriate. How do you think you've impugned the petition?
If you think the petition signers aren't scientists let's see some evidence. Even then there are plenty of other scientists constantly in the news saying the alarmist claims are unproven and/or exaggerated. Some I linked above, more are commonly available. I linked to this petition because (1) it's a large compact list and (2) these are blog comments so I'm not spending weeks satisfying your ever changing standards of evidence, and (3) they state their petition the right way: that there is no evidence of catastrophic AGW, which implies enough to justify the commonly proposed draconian economic controls.
Your standard was that scientists are those involved in research. Now you seem to be arguing with yourself that your asserted standard is inappropriate. So drop it, but quit trying to drop it for your side and still apply it to the petition.
If the 31,000 signatures were fraudulent there would be reams of supporting evidence available in the same places you used to source your smear campaign. But if all you have is "you can't prove 31,000 people meet my arbitrary standard I only apply to those who disagree with me" you're going to find few takers.
I wasn't sure whether you were so hopelessly stupid that you were willing to cling to such a thoroughly discredited source. Thanks for clearing that out. I don't see the point of discussing this further. Still, it was definitely worth it for the laughs.
I will concede that AGW exists but I will argue that gutting our economy in a gesture that the IPCC models show will not have a measurable impact is a bad idea and we shouldn't do it. We need to continue to grow our economy while incrementally improving efficiencies and reducing pollution and invest in R&D on technologies that will actually be able to make a significant difference in dealing with AGW down the road. People will not stand for the changes required to reduce CO2 output by 80% using today's technology.
Jaspel - I am not the only person who is aware of systematic judgment problems that humans have. Unfortunately, the research shows that even people who are aware of the problem still make the same mistakes. While it's certainly possible to improve, nobody is immune. Scientists who are studying the climate are probably not experts on human behavior or psychology and are probably no more or less prone to groupthink and other judgment errors than other people.
Oh, Megan. Shouldn't you be living in Galt's Gulch by now?
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/03/galt_tv_randroi.php
I don't see why anyone would use "Republican" and "conservative" interchangeably any more.
I agree. Absolutely.
Well, Holtz-Eakin certainly looks like a reasonable guy. I realize Megan's focus was naturally on economic issues. Still, it would be nice to know the Holtz-Eakin's opinion on what the Republican party intends to do about other positions that are currently very associated with the modern brand of American conservatism, namely:
- Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
- a manichean approach to foreign affairs
- marginalization of homosexuals and atheists
- an extremely anti-intellectual stance, which reflects in the choice of conservative standard-bearers like Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin, because they are supposed to be some sort of embodiment of "real Americans".
Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
Republican administrations have always increased funding for things like the NIH and NASA far above democratic administrations. And Judge John E. Jones III, the federal judge who essentially destroyed the argument that "intelligent design" is any kind of science, was appointed by the Bush administration. To say that they are "in denial" of science flies in the face of the evidence.
- a manichean approach to foreign affairs
The Bush administrations policies have led to a major resurgence around the world in regards to dissent against tyranny. Why anyone would think this is a bad thing baffles me. Some people think this is all a coincidence, and Bush had nothing to do with it. I think those people are blind to the facts before them.
marginalization of homosexuals and atheists
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country. California voted against gay rights and that is a primarily democratic state.
- an extremely anti-intellectual stance, which reflects in the choice of conservative standard-bearers like Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin, because they are supposed to be some sort of embodiment of "real Americans".
What you see as an "anti-intellectual" stance, I see the response to the elitist liberal mindset. Liberals tend to think that unless one has spent 6 years at a liberal university studying Foucalt and relativism one is somehow an "anti-intellectual". See the point above on what really matters in Washington, and that is WHO FUNDS AND SUPPORTS SCIENCE AND INNOVATION MORE? The answer may surprise you.
I was tempted to say this is both false and beside the point. But I'll settle for "I'm going to need a link for that" and beside the point.
I'm also going to need a link for the "destroyed the argument that 'intelligent design' is any kind of science", because I don't know what you mean.
But if a judge that happens to be appointed by the Bush administration made a good call, you don't get to say "All you rulings belong to us". The official position of the party must be clear. Which means the actual representatives of the party - Senators, and Congressmen for a start - can't go around saying that Evolution is nonsense, or, at best, dodge the question of whether they believe in Evolution or not for fear of political repercussions. Also, if GOP Governors weren't going around defending the presence of intelligent design in Biology classes, there would be no need for judges to "destroy" their arguments.
Furthermore, when a bill designed to combat AGW is discussed in the Capitol, it would be helpful if GOP Congressmen wouldn't present ignorant and/or specious arguments about the harmlessness of breathing CO2, and would also abstain from prattling about cow farts (the last one by no less than the honorable GOP Minority Leader).
I would hope a defense of Bush's disasters on foreign policies would go along the lines of the more standard "many liberals at the time supported him". Or even the "Bush is not a true conservative" argument. Alas, you actually chose to defend Bush's disastrous policies that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, ruinous financial consequences and worldwide hostility to the United States. On the basis of the unsupported and narcissistic argument that what's going on in other countries now is a result of Bush's policies. Oh, well...
You are, unfortunately, right about this (hopefully, increasingly less right). But I note your argument was one about winning elections, so I presume you don't give a damn about the actual minorities in question. Which was kind of my point - conservatives are perfectly happy to marginalize these groups, and will only change their position if it brings them votes. Maybe.
Caps are not a good substitute for a source.
Is that so? Please provide a single example of a figure of the Democratic party saying anything remotely like this. One single example will suffice.
By the way, even if that were true, it wouldn't be an excuse to tolerate Joe's borderline fascist ideas on the role of the press, or his endorsement of the view that "a vote on Obama is a vote for the death of Israel". Regarding Palin, I trust her record of interviews, winks, and her later resignation from office speaks for itself.
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country. California voted against gay rights and that is a primarily democratic state.
First of all, the Mormon Church and other organizations spent an untold amount money on Prop 8. A lot more then their opposition. Second, is there an "out" Republican Congressmen or Senator? No!! Why not? Because they are hostile to gay rights.
This is literally all untrue to the point where if you believe it, then I think reality-based folks should just walk away.
Tman (Replying to: Nimed) July 14, 2009 6:59 PM
Science denialism (in particluar, of Evolution and AGW)
Republican administrations have always increased funding for things like the NIH and NASA far above democratic administrations. And Judge John E. Jones III, the federal judge who essentially destroyed the argument that "intelligent design" is any kind of science, was appointed by the Bush administration. To say that they are "in denial" of science flies in the face of the evidence.
First, you offer no proof for your claims on funding. Without facts, assertion is not evidence. As for using one particular judge as an example, this proves exactly nothing about Republicans as a whole. It is clear, if you read Republican blogs and journalists, that current COP orthodoxy is denial of climate change, plus a certain amount of drill, baby, drill. Evolution seems to be a no-no for the GOP base, coupled with a certain amount of denial of the Big Bang et al.
- a manichean approach to foreign affairs
The Bush administrations policies have led to a major resurgence around the world in regards to dissent against tyranny. Why anyone would think this is a bad thing baffles me. Some people think this is all a coincidence, and Bush had nothing to do with it. I think those people are blind to the facts before them.
This is a very loose and careless claim, and not one that seems to have much evidence in its favor. If you are refering to recent events in Iran, you should recall that they have nothing to do with Bush, and owe rather more to the sense that the US was returning to a more balanced and realistic foreign policy. As for the Iraq debacle, we should remember that this became a war of liberation only once it was clear that the Bush administration had essentially lied the country into war with false claims about connections to Al Qaeda and WMD.
marginalization of homosexuals and atheists
Republicans aren't "supportive" enough of gays and atheists? I guess, although I'm not sure that this is a deal breaker for the majority of the country. California voted against gay rights and that is a primarily democratic state.
This isn't much of a response. You essentially say that it doesn't matter, and then couple it with a claim about California that is deeply misleading. California is essentially two states politically: coastal and urban California, which is solidly blue, and interior California, which is fairly solidly red. If you doubt this, look at the voting patterns for said areas. Nor did California reject gay rights per se. It rejected gay marriage. There is a difference. In any case, California's decision does not excuse the persistent use by GOP politicians of gay marriage and gay rights as a wedge issue. Not much of a Party of Freedom, really.
- an extremely anti-intellectual stance, which reflects in the choice of conservative standard-bearers like Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin, because they are supposed to be some sort of embodiment of "real Americans".
What you see as an "anti-intellectual" stance, I see the response to the elitist liberal mindset. Liberals tend to think that unless one has spent 6 years at a liberal university studying Foucalt and relativism one is somehow an "anti-intellectual". See the point above on what really matters in Washington, and that is WHO FUNDS AND SUPPORTS SCIENCE AND INNOVATION MORE? The answer may surprise you
First, you don't refute a case by conjuring up a strawman to heroically annihilate. You would find very few liberals arguing that 6 years at university makes one intellectual. Nor would they argue that being an intellectual per se is what matters. There are standards of scientific proof, there are economic data - and these are what we expect to be respected and used as a basis for assessing public policy. You can't judge the evidence without basic competence, and that the GOP has taken to arguing against competence is a sign of its considerable decline as a serious force. Liberals don't spend time arguing for Foucault or relativism as the basis for public policy - that's simply a crude caricature. As for your claims on science funding, you don't offer data, and as such, are not presenting a serious argument.
That's because they listen to their corporate backers, and those corporate backers earn big bucks from the government investment.
First and foremost: bravo, Meggan. Good interview, of a good interviewee.
Holtz-Eakin speaks much sense, until he gets to the whole "politics of ideas" thing. Not that he's wrong, mind you... America is *starving* for this. The issue is:
has anyone seen any viable Republican candidate who thinks this way and isn't as dry as toast? Anyone?
Steele? Please.
McCain? Not a chance.
I think Palin is a real threat to Dems because she could do it - which is why they attack her like hornets.
And, let's face it, she's hardly the perfect candidate for "politics of ideas." Not bad, but certainly not the ideal.
This is where Holtz-Eakin is wrong, when he challenges the Republicans search for a "Reagan." Making it about the man is wrong, as Eakin points out correctly. Finding someone like Reagan who can effectively communicate the ideas?
That's the jackpot.
Lines like "I'm PAYING for this microphone," "I'm from the government..." Etc. All theater, just like Obama's "hope."
But GOOD theater, and RIGHT Theater.
If only he were a true fiscal conservative...
"If only he were a true fiscal conservative..."
Now that's just an unrealistic expectation. I believe there was exactly zero GOP Presidents who were fiscal conservatives.
Ike
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954
Palin is finished as far as national elected office is concerned. I voted for McCain/Palin in the election, but she abandoned her official duties to Alaska and Americans don't elect quitters.
It's not that big a deal that we don't know who the candidate is yet. It's much more important to find the right ideas first, then someone who can effectively communicate them. It's funny watching liberals fall over themselves with concern over Republican "disarray". Remember what they need though: a target for the hate machine. Why give them one?
I'm starting to wonder where Nimed lives. It's clearly somewhere without actual conservatives.
In his view, those who suppress science reports with inconvenient evidence are pro science, while those who think we should understand what we're doing before condemning future generations to poverty are anti-science.
In his view two of the groups most disproportionately represented in pulic America are being "marginalized".
In his view the idea that people from different backgrounds might have something different to contribute is "anti-intellectual".
And I've heard much of this alleged manichean view, I've just never seen it. Maybe he's comparing to Democrats, whose only principle is that whatever a Republican does is wrong and they'll let you know why later. That does require a certain willingness to compromise unmatched on the right.
Or, maybe he just drinks whatever koolaid the Democrats spit out. That does seem to fit the talking points.
mj, you epitomize all that's wrong with modern conservatism. It's because people like you constitute a sizable percentage of the conservative base that I'm quite skeptical about the feasibility of introducing new ideas in the GOP, Holtz-Eakin's intentions notwithstanding.
You are convinced that the "suppression" of one internal EPA report presented at the 11th hour nullifies worldwide, decades long research in Climate Science that resulted in a scientific consensus. You are one of those people who actually believes he can detect fatal flaws in the AGW research that somehow escaped the scrutiny of the best scientists on the field during said decades.
You believe that views like "a vote on Obama is a vote for the death of Israel" or "I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed near war" are valid contributions representative of "people from different backgrounds".
Regarding Bush's views, I'm sorry if you missed all the speeches with references to the Axis of Evil. And the "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists". And the Rumsfeld presentations packed with quotes from the New Testament. My favorite: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand". And so on.
Fortunately, there are good reasons to believe you are a member of a dying breed in this country. Which doesn't mean that you and your like-minded chumps won't get to wreck the GOP for a few years more.
Nimed,
Liberal politicization of science goes far beyond a single report suppression. In fact, your referring to a scientific consensus shows how little you know. Large numbers of scientists believe the alarmists are pushing premature conclusions in order to support a political agenda. Your claim these views don't exist is strong evidence you simply ignore evidence which doesn't conform to your positions.
Bush certainly did make the Axis of Evil speech. It is clearly a narrow subject as he was speaking to nations harboring terrorist groups. But claiming his statements on this topic are indicative of his entire foreign policy is foolish.
Large numbers of scientists believe the alarmists are pushing premature conclusions in order to support a political agenda.
Of course, these large numbers of scientist only exist in your head, and that's why, once again, you don't provide any credible source to support this statement.
Time for a reality check. From Science magazine:
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
"Let people speak heresy without getting stoned."
Interesting statement. Then again, getting stoned is a very good start for speaking heresy...
Also - it's "Smoothie Song," not "THE Smoothie Song."
Nice choice, in any case ;)
Rob, just what in Palin's career makes you believe that she either knows or cares enough to articulate a coherent position on these issues, much less a nuanced one? Her political career is littered with failures, followed by self-promotion, followed by playing victim when things don't pan out. Trust me - Democrats find Palin to be an absolutely wonderful opportunity to expose the cynicism, incompetence and self-indulgence that have rotted the GOP away over thr last 20 years to its current living dead status. Please, please give Palin more air time. Please, run her as a candidate.
Please, please give Palin more air time. Please, run her as a candidate.
It has to be clear at this point, no matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, that democrats are not even the slightest bit afraid of Sarah Palin. The entire Democratic party seems to treat her every speech, interview and Tweet as manna from heaven. Today was a good example - look at the way the liberal blogs stumbled over themselves in their eagerness to draw attention to Palin's WaPo op-ed. These are not the actions of frightened politicos.
All this "they attack her because they're afraid of her" jibber-jabber reminds me of the "nobody thinks we can win" and "everybody's against us" speeches that coaches give professional athletes to psyche them up before a game. It's transparently thin.
Speaking of fear of Sarah Palin, this is my favorite cartoon on her:
http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/wpnan/2009/07/08/
I'm wondering how people like mj can be so completely fact challenged; in fact, science has well-known liberal bias. Only 6% of all scientists are Republican, and further, 52% of scientists view themselves as liberal. Also, only 9% of all scientists consider themselves conservative.
I'm wondering how people like mj can be so completely fact challenged; in fact, science has well-known liberal bias. Only 6% of all scientists are Republican, and further, 52% of scientists view themselves as liberal. Also, only 9% of all scientists consider themselves conservative.
And your point is? Other groups in society have well-known conservative biases, e.g., military, business, etc., and I don't hear crying about them.
If you dig into the numbers, however, you find that many positions that are "conservative" are held by many science types, e.g., pro-nuclear power, animal experimentation, and so forth. That's because scientists are, by and large, scientists first and political only maybe third or fourth and generally don't much care about ideological consistency. Of course the fact that ideologues don't understand that most other people aren't means that the significance of things like political preferences is often massively overstated.
Much of the current sentiment is anti-Republican because of things like the connection with Young Earth creationists.
And so forth? I think it pretty much stops there. I disagree that animal experimentation is a very politicized subject. Nothing like embryonic stem cell research, for instance.
Besides, if being for nuclear power and animal experimentation were simultaneously a conservative position and important an issue to scientists, wouldn't they identify more as conservatives?
You can apply that line of reasoning to almost every profession, no? Hair-dressers, for instance, are also likely to be, by and large, hair-dressers first and political maybe third or fourth.
I think that's plausible. Global warming denialism also doesn't help...
No, because most people use political affiliation as a tribal identity. They don't select a party based on policy or boring crap like that.
"I'm smart, open-minded and tolerant." -> Liberal.
"I'm hard working and morally virtuous." -> Conservative.
There is absolutely no policy-based reason why views about fetal personhood/abortion should be correlated with views on taxation. And yet, they are strongly correlated. Why? People pick a tribe, and then adopt it's policies for their own.
And so forth? I think it pretty much stops there.
Other obvious examples are GM crops and food irradiation, and the concept that men and women statistically have different personalities independent of cultural influence. If economics counts as science there's also free trade, preferring the EITC to minimum wage, opposition to farm subsidies and ethanol, and many others.
Global warming denialism also doesn't help...
True, although a lot of the "denialism" is overblown. Most serious conservatives acknowledge that it's happening, but insist on cost-benefit analyses of potential solutions, according to which things like Kyoto and cap-and-trade fail. And I'd be willing to bet that scaremongering about nuclear power from the left has resulted in more environmental damage than all of Big Oil's campaign contributions.
Got a good laugh out of the "boring crap like that". I think you're right up to a point. It's especially noticeable when there's a switch in the party in power, but the new party chooses to continue some policies of the previous party. Many former opponents to the policy become supporters and vice-versa.
That said, policies matter. You can't just decide to do what you feel like when you take office and expect your party's supporters to stand by your every decision.
If economics counts as science there's also free trade, preferring the EITC to minimum wage, opposition to farm subsidies and ethanol, and many others.
I'm not sure scientists' liberal identification extends to economists. It would be interesting to see identification broken down by science.
True, although a lot of the "denialism" is overblown. Most serious conservatives acknowledge that it's happening,
Problem is, there's a lack of serious conservatives among current GOP representatives.
And I'd be willing to bet that scaremongering about nuclear power from the left has resulted in more environmental damage than all of Big Oil's campaign contributions.
I don't know about that. I don't have a source for this, but I recall reading somewhere that the use of nuclear energy on a very large scale in the U.S. is too expensive to be a serious alternative.
This is funny. A scientist's political views aren't indicative of bias. You have to combine the views with politically oriented work product to make this conclusions. But somone too simple to understand that calls me fact challenged.
What a hoot.
It may be just that you have a misunderstanding of what science actually is. AGW is based on pretty shaky ground, scientifically, and anybody who brings that fact up is shouted down and vilified. That ain't science - that's religion.
" AGW is based on pretty shaky ground, scientifically" Really? How? What's wrong with the theory?
Careful now. You may be accused of "misunderstanding what science actually is".
Brian, I think what tsotha is trying to say is that the massive consensus of the world's scientists is simply wrong. Why? Because tsotha says so. Inspiring argument, isn't it?
I always think of continental drift when I think about AGW. You know Einstein was a continental drift denier right? He simply didn't believe it possible that earth exhibited behavior that other planets don't. Goes to show even great minds can be quite wrong
Well, maybe things have changed since I was in school. Back then you didn't make grandiose claims based on computer models that had to be revised every year because this year's data didn't fit. I say it's on shaky ground because they've never actually been able to accurately predict what temperatures will be as opposed to just fitting curves of past data.
People say there's a consensus. Well, of course there is. You won't get grants, you won't get tenure, you won't get published if you don't go along. That's not science. Even if all the climatologists in the world believe AGW is real, and they don't, in the absence of proof it's mostly meaningless. Scientists have had consensus on countless plausible and wrong ideas over the years.
I'm willing to concede the earth is probably warming. Probably, though it's been both warmer and colder in the past, so it's not clear exactly what that means. I'm also willing to concede pumping a hell of a lot of carbon in the atmosphere probably isn't a good idea (more because of oceanic PH levels than anything else). But I don't see any evidence the models climatologists have come up with have a reasonable degree of predictive power for the coming year, let alone fifty years hence. A model isn't evidence. Get back to me when they successfully predict global average temperatures within, say, a quarter degree Fahrenheit over a ten year span.
Shorter tsotha: no, I have no evidence, but I will, relying on my mighty intuition, concede that global warming is almost certainly happening, but I refuse to face the implications of this, because, after all, predictions are not perfect, at least, not as far as I, tsotha know. And since the predictions aren't perfect, I will happily roll over and go back to sleep again.
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In essence, you refuse to believe the overwhelming consensus of scientists because you prefer vague conspiracy theories about how everyone has to agree? And yet you offer no evidence to support such insulting claims. Could it be that you have no evidence, and you know it?
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But, to address your points, insofar as they deserve anything but amusement:
Making grandiose claims?
Not really. The point here is that you don't have to raise the system temperature very much for disastrous, and observable changes to take place, both at the macro level of systems tipping and momentum developing, and the more immediately observable destruction of ecological systems and the wiping out of flora and fauna.
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Never been able to accurately predict...
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Proof please? We would never want you to make.. well, grandiose claims, would we? And the predictions that are being made are conditional and nuanced. No-one is saying that X temperature will definitely be the case on Y date. What they are saying, with a very high degree of probability, is that we shall reach a certain temperature range if we continue to produce a certain amount of CO2. The consequences of reaching said range are reasonably solidly known.
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People say there's a consensus. Well, of course there is. You won't get grants, you won't get tenure, you won't get published if you don't go along. That's not science.
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No, it isn't science. It's a paranoid and particularly dishonest caricature of science. Science is peer-reviewed, and fudging the data or lying about it will get you booted from the club with great speed. Your version is what right-wingers want science to be, because they can then ignore it. However, you don't get to choose your facts.
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I'm willing to concede the earth is probably warming. Probably, though it's been both warmer and colder in the past, so it's not clear exactly what that means.
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It is abundantly clear that the annual average temperature is rising, and has been rising consistently for the last 20 some years. This is something which you can easily verify, if you take the time. As for the "it's been colder , it's been warmer" schtick, what we are seeing here is a longterm shift in progress. You do understand that when we hit a certain tipping point, the temperature will simply rise faster and faster? Feedback loop ring any bells? Do you understand what the results of that will be? If not, heat some water, and dip your hand in with each five degree rise in temperature. At some point, you'll realize that steadily increasing the heat in the system isn't really a good idea. Try it, if you don't believe me.
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But I don't see any evidence the models climatologists have come up with have a reasonable degree of predictive power for the coming year, let alone fifty years hence. A model isn't evidence.Get back to me when they successfully predict global average temperatures within, say, a quarter degree Fahrenheit over a ten year span.
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This is one of the most childish tricks in the climate denial book. No, absolute short-term certainty may not be obtainable, just as a perfect weather report for tomorrow is not available, That does not invalidate the clear longterm trends, and you ought to think through the difference. It's easy to play these silly rhetorical games of demanding over-precise predictions - and it's deeply foolish when short-term focus causes you to miss the much more important overall picture. Wood and trees, wood and trees.
Shorter nickzi: I can't deal with the substance, so I'll just cram arguments into straw men and repeat what other people have said.
Case in point. When did I say anything about fudging numbers? The point is your research will never be funded in the first place.
There are both positive and negative feedback loops involved. And a whole lot of them, too. Which ones will be dominant over time is something nobody knows for sure. In any event I stipulated the earth is probably warming. But it's been both much warmer and much cooler when humans didn't even exist, so the warming by itself is no indication of human involvement.
There's no "childish trick" here. The fact that the model doesn't make accurate predictions doesn't invalidate the long-term trend, but it does cast doubt on the accuracy of the model. Here again, sure, temperatures are rising. But if your model can't accurately predict the rise, then you don't understand the system. If you don't understand the system, how can you be sure how much "A" there is in AGW? You can't. You're putting your faith in a model that's known to be wrong to some unknown degree.
And here you guys on the left are supposed to be against faith-based policy making.
Copy-pasting...
You are convinced that the "suppression" of one internal EPA report presented at the 11th hour nullifies worldwide, decades long research in Climate Science that resulted in a scientific consensus. You are one of those people who actually believes he can detect fatal flaws in the AGW research that somehow escaped the scrutiny of the best scientists on the field during said decades.
Now why would something based on shaky ground gather lasting scientific consensus?
Grant money.
There used to a lasting scientific consensus that the earth was in fact flat. Followed by a lasting scientific consensus that the earth was at the center of the universe. Followed by a lasting scientific consensus that all metals had negative phlogiston.
You know what you're saying is completely absurd, right?
That your explanation (grant money) wasn't around at the time of any of the examples you cited?
That there was no peer review system examining the scientific merits of arguments in favor of the flat earth, center-of-the-universe earth? That the last of the theories you cited died more or less at the time where you could properly begin to talk about a "scientific community" larger than 50 people?
Grant money is no explanation. Every time there's a scientific theory out there you don't like, you can always shout "grant money". It's also completely undocumented. You don't provide any factual support whatsoever for your explanation, which seems kind of circular. Is there a consensus? Grant money.
The notion that dissent is stifled in an issue as big as this one due to funding is absurd. Grants in every area of science are attributed to laboratories with competing mechanisms about a particular phenomenon, or even disagreement about the existence of some phenomenons. The consensus on AGW, by the way, is international, requiring a concerted effort by all funding agencies to maintain the thing going.
But the flat Earth comparison is useful. Tsotha and mj (I'm not sure where you stand yet) are the equivalent of people who, fancying themselves very clever, said "Oh yeah? If the Earth is round, how come I don't see a curvature? And why don't people just fall when they are standing upside down?".
Nimed:
You just asked "why would something based on shaky ground gather a lasting scientific consensus" and I offered a possible explanation. I am not saying that grant money is influencing the scientific consensus, but simply saying that it could. You have to agree that it is at least a distinct possibility that the availability of grant money, and the strings attached to it, can influence a consensus on some subjects, at least in theory.
Following that, I pointed out several cases where a scientific consensus turned out to be flat out wrong. There are more resent cases as well, but the older cases are far more obvious. My overall point was that science is not a democracy, nor a republic that is ran by some "club", and in the absence of proof, any consensus should be challenged. For the record, scientific research has always been an expensive endeavor, and thus, had to be financed by outside parties. There is nothing new about grant money, even if it's been called something else.
As to my opinion of human caused climate change, it is that I have some simple concerns about the theory that never seemed to be addressed. They are, in no particular order.
1. The reliability of models. I am not convinced that it is possible to model something as complicated as the long term world climate. There are too many unknowns and assumptions. And with models of sufficient complexity, a small difference in assumptions can lead to a drastic difference in outcomes, as it most commonly described by the "butterfly effect".
2. The reliability of data, and how much the heat island
effect of urban areas influencing the measurements. This should be simple enough to control for, I just have not seen anyone actually controlling for it.
3. Just because the planet is warming, does not mean that human activity is responsible for it. It has been demonstrated that human activity could be responsible for it, but no proof that it is.
4. It is fairly obvious to me the climate changes over the course of our planets lifetime. Many people have specified that rising the average temperatures is worse than keeping them constant, but few have demonstrated that its worse than dropping the overall temperatures. Which is better, global warming or global cooling?
Until these issues are sufficiently addressed I am going to continue to be skeptical.
Brian, when it comes to scientific ignorance, the gold standard for me remains conservapedia. Who else would suggest that kangaroos got to Australia by floating on large rafts of vegetation? I am a little saddened to learn that Einstein had his faults on continental drift, but no-one is perfect.
Megan's gotten significantly more conservative since she started fucking Dick Armey, and is desperately trying to hold on to her "fiance."
Wow, that's classy.
To add to what tsotha said above, labels may be confusing us.
There are serious enough economic concerns that we should perhaps start talking in terms of "survivors" and "suiciders" to replace "liberal" and "conservative".
Sound minded people are making alarming statements such as "100% of our GNP will be used to pay off our debts" unless we change course.
Those would be the 'suiciders,' right?
Oh my, this thread is a hilarious mashup of stereotypes and straw men. First of all, "conservatives" are not a homogeneous group. There are many conservatives who are very pro-science and who are opposed to teaching any form of creationism in schools. There are conservatives who support gay rights. The Republican Party, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be very responsive to conservatives in general. Many conservatives are unhappy with the GOP but support it only because it's marginally better than the Democratic Party.
I don't have a lot faith in scientific consensus. I lost it when working on fusion research and got a glimpse at how the research seemed to be focused on taking as long as possible to achieve results (to maximize grants) and ideas that were not directly related to ITER were rejected outright. The issue of climate change and AGW IS politicized. It is something that many, many people are emotional about, even scientists. Scientists are human beings and not immune to this. So it would be incredibly unlikely for most scientists to be totally objective about it (humans are rarely totally objective about anything).
What I find amusing is that the models that are being used to show that AGW will cause global suffering also show that the USA could stop producing CO2 and have very little impact on the final result. Given that China is massively increasing CO2 production and the vast majority of Americans won't simply commit suicide to eliminate their carbon footprint, wrecking the economy of the US for incremental decreases in CO2 output that will have no effect on the long term global climate using the very same models that predict cataclysmic AGW seems really stupid to me.
I'm surprised to see you surrendering US leadership so easily.
You should have come to the conclusion that you were working in a very crappy lab. In most areas of scientific research, if you purposefully delay the production and publication of results, you get scooped. If you get scooped often enough, your lab won't be able to get any grants, and it's bye bye lab.
Wow, you're not familiar with the purpose of peer review! Have you actually published anything?
I'm sure the Chinese will come to the same conclusion. By the way, we pollute a lot more per capita than the Chinese (or everyone else in the world), and the U.S. just recently lost its place to them as the biggest absolute polluter in the world. And we are the wealthiest nation in the world. So it kind of makes sense that we take the first step.
And finally
Maybe the defining characteristic of the conservative is the lack of self-awareness, which results in these 2 sentences on the same comment.
BTW, the current Democratic party leadership wants to put economic policies in place that will drive companies out of the USA and into other countries. China is probably rubbing its hands together in glee contemplating the possiblity of manufacturing facilities moving to where cheap energy and labor are readily available. I know of large companies that have moved their headquarters overseas already to avoid the US economic climate. I expect more to follow. If cap and trade is passed (and the current bill is a mess... most of the downsides without the alleged benefit) and corporate taxes are increased, we will lose companies and manufacturing capabilities to other countries.
So who are the "suiciders"? As far as "survivors" go, I'd rather be stuck in the wilderness with Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin (or John McCain or George W. Bush) than Markos Moulitsas and Janeane Garofalo (or Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi)
Nimed,
Here's a link to over 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 PHDs. http://www.petitionproject.org/signers_by_last_name.php
The simple fact that you don't know these people exist (yet somehow think you are in a position to ridicule others) should be alarming to you. The fact that you confuse media and liberal political consensus with a scientific consensus means your're just another pathetic political hack.
Here's a link to over 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 PHDs. http://www.petitionproject.org/signers_by_last_name.php
Petition signers are not scientific proof. We have no idea as to their qualifications, or what their scientific rationale behind signing is. Secondly, even after Louis Pasteur's experiments proving that life does not just "spontaneously happen" there were some scientists that never agreed with him. Show us some peer reviewed journal articles from these scientists.
Amusingly enough, this is the exact challenge leveled at the AGW scientific consensus
I didn't say petition signers are scientific proof. I said this shows scientific consensus doesn't exist.
"We have no idea as to their qualifications". This is false, many list their qualifications and others are easy to find. Your unwillingness to spend the time doesn't mean their objections don't exist.
By the way, where were you when Nimed claimed scientific consensus equalled proof of AGW? Why do the standards of evidence seem to change when comments are pro-AGW vs anti?
You really should have read the whole comment. I explicitly used a survey on peer-reviewed journals as support for scientific consensus on AGW. The result? 928-0.
The whole petition project is a sham. I've replied to it downthread.
You really are incredibly ignorant. First of all, your sentence, "over 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 PhDs" is ridiculous to anybody who knows anything about modern scientific research. There are simply almost no professional researchers in any field who haven't completed a PhD thesis. These 22,000 "scientists" who don't even have a PhD are either graduate students or, as I strongly suspect, not scientists.
It's quite telling that they brag about the number of PhDs. When you do scientific research, basically you either are a graduate student or you have a PhD. So most people are PhDs (post-docs, lab technicians, PIs).
But they don't mention a single scientist of renown, except for Frederick Seitz, a nutcase that was even against the notion that CFCs were harmful to the ozone layer. By the way, when he reviewed the Robinson, Robinson, & Soon article that is in the site you linked, and that provides the "scientific refutation" of AGW, he was 87 years old. Just saying.
The Robinson et al. paper was never peer reviewed, and it should have been. Here's a detailed analysis of the numerous errors of the article:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/maccracken_critique_of_robinson_etal/
So what is this, only the scientists you approve of should be considered scientists? Who made you the gate keeper?
Last I checked the only requirement to be considered a "scientist" was to simply call yourself one (and maybe a white coat and a clipboard, for added credibility) there is no requirement for a certain degree
sciâ‹…enâ‹…tist
  /ˈsaɪəntɪst/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sahy-uhn-tist]
–noun
an expert in science, esp. one of the physical or natural sciences.
mj pointed out that it is not a consensus if 30,000 people disagree. You said that only 9,000 of them should count, but they shouldn't count either, because one of them was rather old, and none of them can know much about science if they disagree with you. Surely you can do better
So now your standard goes from needing large numbers to needing "prominent". Ok, so why do reports supporting AGW accept social scientists and educrats? I must have missed your criticisms that only researchers may appropriately potificate.
The truth is you accept no evidence against AGW while accepting anything which supports it. Your position isn't science, it's dogma. But if you want priominence, see these:
http://climatesci.org/2008/02/27/trmm-tropical-rainfall-measuring-mission-data-set-potential-in-climate-controversy-by-joanne-simpson-private-citizen/
http://climatesci.org/2008/06/17/guest-weblog-by-dr-kiminori-itoh-of-yokohama-national-university/
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9
When you're finished, decide how you want to move the goalposts again.
zic - driving businesses out of the country and crippling our economy with futile AGW mitigation strategies is surrendering US leadership. If you want to see China, India, and Brazil take over as the world superpowers, then by all means support Cap and Trade, higher taxes, and increasing regulation. Businesses will flee like rats from a sinking ship. I'd like to see the US lead the way by continuing to be a world economic superpower with a healthy economy, strong industry, and lots of innovation and development. But the current administration is making that unlikely.
being an elitist liberal, I'd say the answers lie in holding our trading partners to the same standards we hold ourselves. Being a farmer (and one who grew up on a farm hugging the shores of one of the nations most fouled rivers at the time the clean water act passed,) I'd say there's significant benefit to not fouling your own nest.
And just as we have global trade, we have a global nest.
And keeping that nest clean and habitable may indeed cause some economic decline; it also presents opportunity for economic growth, at least according to the top brass at companies like Exxon.
Holding one's trading partners accountable is a nice concept on paper, but the idea that the US can hold China accountable at this late stage has about as much sense, and probability of success, as ordering the tide back out by force of will. Something about the borrower being the lender's slave comes to mind.
You're m soja, aren't you? People are free for themselves to look up your posting history and decide whether or not your fact challenged. In any event, you're moving the goalposts; you claimed that it is mostly 'conservatives' that embrace science, as opposed to liberals. While the fact that scientists are mostly liberals isn't ironclad proof that this is not so, it's pretty convincing . . . and I have yet to see you post anything to back up your claims.
My point, if you had bothered to read the exchange, is that contrary to soja's unsupported claim, 'liberals' are the ones who are pro-science, 'conservatives' most definitely not. And this should be fairly obvious, per your observation of the military (actually, this isn't strictly true - the military's 'conservatism' has a number of well-known sources): conservatives tend to be favorable to expending military manpower and resources on campaigns abroad.
No to be snarky, but the entire idea of science rests upon the idea of how to prove one is wrong, which, not surprisingly, implies that one will be wrong on occasion. The conservative inability to admit to mistakes - Megan for example - is well known, and doesn't exactly signal the common use of this principal.
"In any event, you're moving the goalposts; you claimed that it is mostly 'conservatives' that embrace science, as opposed to liberals."
Actually, this is not true. I'm denying the idea advanced by others that conservatives deny science and liberals embrace it. This is true of small subsets in very narrow areas, but cannot be supported generally. Each have pet theories where this becomes an issue for some. I do think the practical effects of this are much worse for liberals. Teaching creationism as an option for the origin of man just isn't that big a deal. Anyone who refuses to deal with the other explanations disqualifies themselves from a career in science. That's fine. Condemning future generations (who aren't even here to defend themselves) to poverty is a much bigger deal.
"I have yet to see you post anything to back up your claims."
And I have yet to read any logical tie between scientists being disproportionately liberal and this meaning conservatives deny science. This is an illogical opinion. The fact does not support the conclusion.
For all the blather about peer reviewed journal articles "proving" AGW I never seem to see cites of the articles. Maybe if there was a "Dummies guide to AGW research" it'd be useful for the scientifically inclined to make up their own mind.
That's what science is supposed to be, you do experiments, obtain results that can be reproduced and then publish so others can verify your work.
Also, isn't AGW deprecated in favor of "Climate Change"?
Ask and you shall receive.
Note that this report was based on research done under the supervision of the previous administration.
zic - trying to force other countries to cripple their own economies to match our self-flagellation is an exercise in futility. China has already stated that they will not reduce their carbon footprint if it hurts their economy. They are building dirty, coal burning plants as fast as they can. Your solution is not a solution, it's more of a hope or a gesture. Placing tariffs on imports produced in dirty countries will only punish US citizens and further wreck our economy.
That's your opinion. Mine is that rapid climate change may well wreck everyone's economy.
What you're saying may well be true given current economic conditions. But economies are not held in stasis; just like weather, change is the norm. Industries rise and fall, as do practices, both accounting and environmental.
And if China couldn't import to the US because it of its carbon footprint, it would hurt their economy.
But I detest talking about climate change as a matter of CO2 only.
You don't deny that we're changing the atmosphere and oceans; you seem to think that there's no use of trying to modify our behavior because nobody else will. Yet you'll turn around and argue that because everyone else was taking out more loan then they could reasonably pay doesn't justify any my doing it.
Used to be 'Conservative' meant conserving; and that wasn't just social norms, it included resources. And it meant taking responsibility. I weep to see what 'conservative' has come to mean today.
I want to address only the very last paragraph (the rest is not my fight).
Sometimes things are counter intuitive. For example, it takes more resources to recycle some materials than it would to produce new ones. In this case, recycling them is an resource sink, as counter intuitive as it is.
Likewise, production efficiencies can be improved with better tooling (I'm counting automation as tooling), but on occasion the resources sunk into producing the better tooling exceed the savings from a more efficient production, making the overall endeavor a resource sink.
This is something that should always be checked. For example, if the costs of reducing global temperatures exceeds the cost of higher temperatures, than its not worth doing.
Its a really hard thing to estimate, and even harder in an environment that is very politicized, but we should not give up on it altogether.
I agree 100%.
But given my experiences growing up on one of the nation's most polluted rivers, I also see that we can't always predict the benefits of investing in doing the right thing.
In 1976, no one would have predicted that you could swim in that river within 30 years.
I also think there are a lot of things we only assign a cost to when human profit is involved. I live on the edge of the great northern forest, and it's been a working forest since the early 1800's. It still is, and I'm grateful for the jobs it provides, the paper, the building material, the energy (biomass). But it's also a carbon sink, when I researched it five years ago, I was told that it absorbed more carbon each day then the north-east corridor emits. Yet economically, it's highest value is still wood production and house lots. I'm no tree hugger; I get pretty disgusted with the kevlar-klad kyakers who come here to vacation and save the forest and have no concept of how it functions from either a ecological or economic function. (And here, at least, trees are actually invasive weeds, controlling them consumes a lot of energy.) But at some point, we do need to figure out how to measure and assign these values if we want to make wise choices.
I have no idea why you insist on making every post personal, but since you are...
But given my experiences growing up in the former soviet union, I also see that we can't always predict the costs of investing in doing the right thing.
The Bolshevik revolution sounded really good on paper...
I'll try to break that habit.
This is a reply for Nimed and Nickzi
Here are some of the links you asked for:
Cumulative US Federal-Research Expenditures:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/36445/1/PWhas2_11-08
Funding for the NIH:
http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/gbi.html
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/154/-
"In non-inflation-adjusted dollars, funding increased. Bush requested $28.9 billion dollars in net budget authority for fiscal 2008 (the year that began Oct. 1, 2007), and the agency received an estimated $28.6 billion in fiscal 2007. Either of these numbers is greater than when Bush came into office -- $20.6 billion in fiscal 2001, the last year for which Clinton presided over the congressional budgeting process, or $17.8 billion in fiscal 2000, the last full fiscal year Clinton was in office.The numbers tell the same tale for net outlays, with an estimated $28.1 billion in fiscal 2007 compared with $17.3 billion and $15.4 billion for fiscal 2001 and 2000, respectively. The increases aren't as large when the numbers are adjusted for inflation. But they still went up."
Here's a Clinton-Bush comparison for NASA-
NASA Budget from 1996-2002:
http://www.nationalreview.com/images/chart_nasa_graph.gif
More from 2005-
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-17303433_ITM
Here's Dr. Neil degrasse Tyson speaking on the record about Republican funding for science research and education:
http://fora.tv/2009/02/04/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson_The_Pluto_Files#chapter_18
I'm also going to need a link for the "destroyed the argument that 'intelligent design' is any kind of science", because I don't know what you mean.
Kitzmiller Vs. Dover- it was the trial to end all federal trials for teaching "Intelligent Design" in science classrooms-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
If you are refering to recent events in Iran, you should recall that they have nothing to do with Bush, and owe rather more to the sense that the US was returning to a more balanced and realistic foreign policy. As for the Iraq debacle, we should remember that this became a war of liberation only once it was clear that the Bush administration had essentially lied the country into war with false claims about connections to Al Qaeda and WMD.
20 out of the 22 reasons listed in the Congressional Authorization to Use Military Force that was passed unanimously by congress were true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
Bush did not "lie" to get the country to go to war.
Many of the items supporting the argument that Saddam Hussein was actively funding, training, and housing international Islamic terrorists were also true.
www.husseinandterror.com
And it isn't just Iran. Lybia handed over the Nuke program. Lebanon saw a democratic uprising. Ukranians had the Orange revolution. There are others.
I presume you don't give a damn about the actual minorities in question. Which was kind of my point - conservatives are perfectly happy to marginalize these groups, and will only change their position if it brings them votes. Maybe.
You are presumptuopus, and now adding ad hominem attacks. Nice. I'm more of a libertarian, and believe that no "group" should have special rights over another. All "groups" should be equal under the law. And explain why a heavily democratic state, California, failed to pass a "gay rights" proposition, if democrats are supposedly the opposite.
I find it hilarious that you two got all offended by my caricature of the elitist liberal. Project much?
Everything that you've posted here is a perfect example of why Republicans are never going to regain power in the foreseeable future. You're either incredibly ignorant or very disingenuous in virtually everything you've said here. I suspect the second.
For the sake of our country, I hope you repeat your rhetoric as loudly and as often as possible, to ensure that your types never get to make decisions for us again.
Perhaps there is something in particular that I've written that you think is either ignorant or disingenuous?
Or are you simply afraid of debating "us types"?
Tman, I fear debating you about as much as I fear Sarah Palin as a Republican candidate i.e. not at all. Your problem is that you don't understand how to analyze the world, or construct an honest argument, and yet you mistake irresponsibility and ignorance for free debate worthy of a civilized society. we know that Saddam Hussein did not have WMD, as even Republicans have now conceded. We know he did not train or support Al Qaeda, as even Republicans have now conceded. We know that Bush went looking for a war, and lied about the need for it. We know that Bush massively abused the public's trust, wasted immense amounts of money and resources, and threw away the lives of good men. It is neither intelligent nor patriotic to defend your party's abuse of power for the sake of cheap debating points.
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As for the rest of the rightwing blether on here: we see the usual Republican strawmen about how Republicans always fund science more, which is nonsense - and for which you provide only one link. The problem, of course, being that you don't show what proportion of public money was assigned to science, and for that matter, what areas Bush classified as science, or refused to fund. Stem cell research springs to mind. Absolute dollar amounts are a neat way of providing a misleading statistic, rather than proving a logical claim. And it is a pointless claim, because we know that the Bush White House ignored or marginalized scientists, we know that only certain results were published, and even then were cited misleadingly. In sum your claim is simply nonsensical - and you lack the understanding of science to realize why.
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As for the idiocy of the claim that the "scientific consensus" supported the claims that the earth was flat, the person putting it forward does not understand what science is, or for that matter, the history of science. Ignorance may be bliss, but it makes a very poor substitute for knowing something about the world and using that knowledge rationally.
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As for being offended by your caricature? No, not really. Taking a dishonest, scientifically illiterate fool seriously would be a waste of my time. See: fear of Palin, not.
Contrawise, if your response is typical of what passes for intellectual prowess in the present ruling party, don't get too comfortable with the idea of ruling.
Bah. Do you really believe the so-called "independents" really pay attention to this kind of stuff? I don't. If the economy doesn't get better, the Dems will pay for it. To what extent they caused the problem is entirely irrelevant.
Nickzi,
You could be less insulting if you wanted an honest debate, but I'm used to debating leftists this way so no biggie.
we know that Saddam Hussein did not have WMD, as even Republicans have now conceded.
You use this argument yet again fail to apply the facts to the metrics of the issue. I ask that you read the AUMF passed by congress again, and restate your argument. ( http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/print/20021002-2.html )The AUMF contains the specific reasons the US removed Saddam from power. There are 22 specific points contained in the AUMF. Out of those 22, 20 have been proven to be correct. I will not debate generalities. If you want to use rhetorical flourishes that sounds spiffy be my guest, but it's a weak argument. You asked me before for "links" which I then provided. I think it's clear who is presenting specific points and who is presenting the overworn talking points.
We know he did not train or support Al Qaeda, as even Republicans have now conceded.
Al-Qaeda is hardly the only Islamic terrorist operation sworn to killing westerners and attempting to impose Islamic theocracy. And if you would again read the link I posted- http://www.husseinandterror.com/ you will clearly see the specific proof that Saddam was in fact funding, training, and housing Islamic terrorist groups who had plans to attack the west.
We know that Bush went looking for a war, and lied about the need for it. We know that Bush massively abused the public's trust, wasted immense amounts of money and resources, and threw away the lives of good men. It is neither intelligent nor patriotic to defend your party's abuse of power for the sake of cheap debating points.
You have not presented any proof that Bush "lied" about anything. Nor any evidence that he "massively abused the public's trust, wasted immense amounts of money and resources". Opinion does not equal fact.
As for the rest of the rightwing blether on here: we see the usual Republican strawmen about how Republicans always fund science more, which is nonsense - and for which you provide only one link.
I presented more than one link. You just missed them perhaps?
Do you have any thoughts on the video from Dr. Tyson? He's a self-proclaimed liberal who worked in the belly of the beast and helped argue for science funding during the Bush administration. Surely you would at least listen to his opinion on the subject? Or is it because I linked him it is somehow now tainted?
Nothing about Kitzmiller vs. Dover? Really?
I would argue with the rest of your ad hominem rant, but that's all it is. I presented to you facts, and if you want to keep calling me stupid that's your prerogative. But unless you have some specific points to argue, I'm done.
It's disingenuous to say that 20/22 have been proven true, when it obscures the point of the entire document. Many are restating the history of Iraq's WMD program, with the clear intention of proving that means its a threat today. For example:
Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such persons or organizations;
How is it disingenuous, or more specifically, what exactly about these two stanzas is untrue?
For instance, you do realize that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ran straight to Saddams protection in Iraq after the Taliban could no longer protect him in Afghanistan, prior to the aforementioned resolution, right?
What exactly was untrue about these statements?
zic - Just because I don't believe we should dismantle our economy in a futile attempt to provent global warming doesn't mean I believe we should destroy our environment. I believe we should continue to improve efficiency and environmentally friendliness of our industry. We should add solar, wind, and other sources of energy into the mix as they make sense (remote locations, for example) and fund research into technology like batteries (or other means of energy storage). We should continue to encourage businesses to make their processes cleaner and more efficient. It's entirely possible that we will discover new technologies that will make a huge difference in pollution/global warming. But if we dismantle our economy, innovation will slow down dramatically.
I don't like that China is building dirty coal power plants as fast as they can. I would like them to slow down and try to build cleaner energy sources. On the other hand, it's hard for me to begrudge poor Chinese peasants access to energy that will make their lives healthier and wealthier. As an engineer, doing something that is "right" but useless is not a good use of resources. Maybe instead of symbolically gutting our manufacturing sector we can instead subsidize research into super clean/cheap ways to use coal to make electricity and then give that technology to China so they can build cleaner power plants. That would reduce pollution more than the current cap and trade bill would.
(And just to make things personal, :) I work in the oil industry and my entire job is designing and improving systems that protect the people, the environment, and equipment. The equipment I design makes oil development cleaner and safer.)
For the record, I believe a certain amount of AGW is probably happening but I believe we don't really know how much or what the effects will be. Having done some reading on how even experts can consistently make bad judgments and knowing how people operate in groups, I'm skeptical of scientific "consensus" in an area where we can't do proper scientific experiments to verify our hypotheses.
Actually, that research is happening; and paid for by the US government. Currently, we measure temperature of the atmosphere with. . . weather balloons.
Twelve miles up, that's about what we know.
There are systems being designed to measure temperature throughout the layers of the atmosphere; so we can understand better if the level of cloud formation is changing. I can find some more information on it if you'd like.
I applaud your work; I've learned a lot from environmental engineers working in industry, they've all taken their work seriously, understanding the responsibility they bear. They taught me that with pollution, you've got three choices; put it in the air, in the land, or in the water.
Or stop making it if it's not really needed.
If the threat of global warming is real, we have a responsibility to take it seriously. Until we understand that threat, I'd opt on the side of prudence. Cheap shit that falls apart two weeks after you buy it at Wal-Mart is no excuse for avoiding that responsibility.
zic - The part we can't test is the part that's important... how greenhouse gasses emitted by humans affect global temperature and then how that affects the global climate/weather. By the time we've collected the data to test the hypothesis, whatever was going to happen will have happened. The models used to predict global warming are "tested" against past data but even the past data is theoretical. We don't really know what the global average temperature was 1,000 years ago.
We should take the potential seriously but I hear people say we need to reduce our carbon output by 80% in 50 years. That's just flat impossible. It's like saying that we need to start walking on the ceiling. Why even talk about it? We should be concentrating on things that are possible (even hard things), not absurdly impossible things.
"Theoretical"? An estimate is not "theoretical". You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
People should know that Earnest Iconoclast is the only person alive with these particular insights in the human psyche. Climate scientists are just a bunch of ignoramuses who never heard of groupthink and can't really be trusted to avoid it.
What's impossible about that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQDXs75Ulo
Ken Magalnik wrote
I believe almost everyone would agree there's a better definition of scientist: a scientist is someone who devotes a substantial part of his professional time in activities that advance scientific knowledge - formulating hypothesis for a particular problem, performing experiments, building causal models, analyzing data, writing and submitting their findings to scientific magazines.
The 31,000 petition it's clearly designed to fool the general public, but not a scientist. Not because scientists are particularly enlightened human beings, but because the ratio of PhDs to non-PhDs in the petition is ridiculously small. The ratio is incompatible with the practice of modern research.
The most common non-PhD members of a typical lab are graduate students working on a project - usually, a PhD project, sometimes a Master (although very rarely there is the occasional industrious undergrad willing to work for free). The rest of the lab is composed of a Principal Investigator (PIs), which is the head of the lab, post-docs and lab technicians. All of these people have a PhD. Now, a few labs have more graduate students than the sum of technicians, post-docs and the PI, although it's pretty difficult to find a 2 to 1 ratio. But most labs have more post-docs and technicians than graduate students. That's because a graduate student is just starting research, and usually requires, in the first few years, a lot of PI or post-doc time and attention before he becomes productive. He must first become familiar with the basic tools of his area of research.
So the general ratio of 1 PhD to 2.5 non-PhDs is something that immediately makes you suspicious if you are familiar with the research process. Naturally, most people aren't.
If you visit the petition site, you realize that most of the information about the scientists' credentials is self-reported. People write what personal information they want in the petition. You can even do it online if you want to. In the petition FAQ, it is claimed that
Opponents of the petition project sometimes submit forged signatures in efforts to discredit the project. Usually, these efforts are eliminated by our verification procedures. On one occasion, a forged signature appeared briefly on the signatory list. It was removed as soon as discovered.
Of course, verifying the credentials of 31,000 signatories is a gigantic task, and the claim that only one false positive that has ever managed to escape the verification procedure is doubtful at best.
Another thing that should make you suspicious is the fact that the most eminent scientist they could find to sign the petition letter is Professor Frederick Seitz. This is a researcher who formerly questioned the by now widely accepted effect of CFCs on the ozone lair. He never changed his opinion on this subject, which resulted in frequent comparisons with Peter Duesberg, a guy who believed that the HIV virus doesn't cause AIDS. AIDS denialism, of course, is not a politicized issue, so there was not much public awareness on the subject.
The review paper that accompanies the petition was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. This is a magazine sponsored by a conservative organization, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The magazine is not listed in either PUBMED or Web of Science. I'm pasting a list of claims that the magazine has published in the past. This is from Wikipedia, but the entry has links to the original sources:
* the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional,
* "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution,
* HIV does not cause AIDS [recognize this one?],
* the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.
A series of articles by pro-life authors published in the journal argued for the existence of a link between abortion and breast cancer; such a link was rejected by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and is not recognized by major medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society or World Health Organization.
A 2003 paper published in the journal, claiming that vaccination was harmful, was criticized for poor methodology, lack of scientific rigor, and outright errors by the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics. A National Public Radio piece cited inaccurate information published in the Journal and wrote: "The journal itself is not considered a leading publication, as it's put out by an advocacy group that opposes most government involvement in medical care."
Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical. An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a "purveyor of utter nonsense." Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the "house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group" and "is barely credible as an independent forum."
Furthermore, there are polls that do show scientific consensus among scientists, if one understands "scientific consensus" in the sense of a "vote" among scientists. But this is not what is usually meant by scientific consensus. Rather, it is a survey conducted among the relevant publications. Not the scientists personal opinions, but the published science itself. It's quite telling that in a sample of 928 articles, none disagrees with the consensus position:
"Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"
Now, I'm aware that all this post is based on authority arguments. I'm not debating AGW on its merits. This would be preferable, but it would also be really time-consuming. That's why we rely on authority for most things in our life; we just don't have the time or disposition to examine every single claim we come across. So we have little choice but to defer to experts.
There are a couple of characteristics in AGW that make the subject particularly prone to demagoguery - namely, that climate has short-run chaotic dynamics (yes, years can be considered short-run), which makes the overall increase in temperature very noisy; and that "it's just impossible to make experiments with climate, so how can anyone know what will happen?". OTOH, arguments in favor of AGW tend to be more complicated.
We can debate all this (it will be a looong debate), but one thing should at least give one pause: why is the consensus among climate specialists so widespread? I believe it's just lazy to ascribe it all to groupthink and self-serving beliefs when the modern scientific process has developed pretty good ways to avoid these pitfalls.
Wow, a lot of typos. "Ozone lair" instead of "ozone layer" kinda stands out.
This is quite a lot of blather about ratios. I'm slightly confused though: in order for his commentary to mean anything you have to believe the ratio of signers must match the ratio of scientists. Given the obvious personal and financial risk of such statements, as noted by some retiring scientists, why anyone would accept this as certain is beyond me. But I guess if that's the best you have you have to roll the dice and hope it isn't noticed.
Does anyone else find it interesting that Nimed found time to evaluate each and every scientist in order to claim "the most eminent scientist they could find to sign the petition letter is Professor Frederick Seitz." It seems some interest group found someone they could caricature and are attempting use a few smears to discredit everyone.
Sounds like politics to me.
mj, never disappoints. Once again, he enriched this thread by posting a comment with an unique combination of staggering ignorance, impaired logic and resolute bad faith, a mix that's quickly becoming his trademark.
1- Interestingly, he chooses to ignore a lot of information. Convenient silence on the "scientific journal" where the article that accompanied the petition was published (maybe he agrees that "'humanists' have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution"). Silence on the implausible method by which the petitioners claimed to verify that a signer was a scientist. Silence on the scientific consensus in the publications where serious research is published.
2- mj is right in one claim - the ratio of scientists doesn't have to match the ratio of signatories. Of course, he failed to conclude that, if the signatories were indeed scientists, the petition obtained two and a half times more signatures from graduate students, the scientists who happen to know less about their particular research area.
Or maybe, just maybe, the ratio is one of the many signs that the verification process of the signatories' credentials was flimsy at best and non-existent at worst.
3- Given the obvious personal and financial risk of such statements, as noted by some retiring scientists,
Another mj specialty: unsupported assertions. But who can blame him, really, given the quality of his sources when he chooses to post them.
4- Does anyone else find it interesting that Nimed found time to evaluate each and every scientist in order to claim "the most eminent scientist they could find to sign the petition letter is Professor Frederick Seitz."
This is the most hilarious part of mj's comment. Here, he confuses the signer of the letter that accompanied the petition with the (necessarily posterior) signers of the petition.
And again, not a peep about the good Professor Seitz being a nutjob that never recognized the effects of CFCs on the depletion of the ozone layer. By the way, the slowing down of said depletion happened to coincide with worldwide bans on CFCs. A strange coincidence that never shook the professor's strong convictions, as I'm sure it won't shake mj's.
Oh, mj. Without people like you, what would ever become of the conservative movement?
P.S. - In revisiting the petition site, I found yet another gem:
In PhD scientist signers alone, the project already includes 15-times more scientists than are seriously involved in the United Nations IPCC process.
Yes, this is an actual comparison between the 9000 self-proclaimed PhD signatories of the petition with the 600 climate scientists that were the compilers and co-authors of the IPCC report (not to speak of the additional 620 climate experts who reviewed the report, who apparently were not "seriously involved").
Nimed,
I ignored the irrelevancies. Since the dispute is whether ruining our economy is the appropriate response to warming your little tally of articles arguing warming occurs just doesn't matter. When I post I assume some basic intelligence and good faith on the part of the reader. Your inability to meet this standard isn't my responsibility.
You reference the IPCC report compilers and co-authors as being particularly noteworthy. But the IPCC report did not conduct any original research, it's a summary of others research. So according to your own standard the opinion of every scientist you reference is irrelevant. So I ask, are you completely ignorant or astonishingly dishonest?
It's just too easy:
mj now
Was that the dispute? Because I distinctly remember something about the existence of a scientific consensus.
mj at various points upthread
your referring to a scientific consensus shows how little you know. Large numbers of scientists believe the alarmists are pushing premature conclusions in order to support a political agenda.
I didn't say petition signers are scientific proof. I said this shows scientific consensus doesn't exist.
The fact that you confuse media and liberal political consensus with a scientific consensus means your're just another pathetic political hack.
There's a lesson to be learned, mj: if you're going to lie about something, make sure the evidence that you're lying is not in the same webpage of the lying itself. Oh, and the scientific consensus is not merely "warming occurs". It's that occurs by a specific mechanism caused by man.
Oh, you poor creature. Wrong again. I believe the word you're looking for for what the IPCC scientists did is "review". Scientists write review papers once in a while. Lots of scientific journals feature review articles, and some of them are composed entirely of them (like the Annual Review of Medicine, for instance). Of course, just because you write a review, it doesn't mean that you never do original research. More to the point, just because you use someone else's data, it doesn't mean that you have to reach someone else's conclusion.
Interestingly, the article by Robinson, Robinson & Soon that accompanies the infamous petition is also a review (you should really, like, read your sources before you link them).
It just happens to be published in a scientific journal that reported other interesting findings in the past, among them the fact that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution, and HIV does not cause AIDS.
Someone already pointed out that "Republican" as in a member of the US Republican Party might be different then a conservative.
Be that as it may, the headline is worse then that is uses the expression Republicanism without a direct reference to the party. As an avid Monarchist, I am quite sensitive to the distinction. Having a Monarch with a parliamentary system works quite nice here, thank you very much. Please be more distinct in the choosing of headlines in the future.
I do hope for one or two lighter blogposts however, given the engagement; why not something on adverse selection, information asymmetry, lemon-market, and how to lessen those problems in the market for spouses. That I guess would leave the field wide open for intresting headlines.
Nimed,
The original post was "those who think we should understand what we're doing before condemning future generations to poverty are anti-science." So the consensus in question is that AGW is sufficiently catastrophic to warrant draconian interference with the economy.
I know I referred to reviews. It was you who advanced the standard (of course violated for those who agree with you) limiting opinions to those who "who devotes a substantial part of his professional time in activities that advance scientific knowledge - formulating hypothesis for a particular problem, performing experiments, building causal models, analyzing data, writing and submitting their findings to scientific magazines."
You invented this to devalue 31,000 inconvenient opinions. But now that you advocate abandoning that standard you need to deal with the 31,000 dissenters, who have access to the same data as the authorities you cite.
Do you really think logic dictates that I am subject to arbitrary standards that you both invent and violate while your violation of your own standard doesn't matter? Maybe you should keep a scorecard nearby and jot down your alleged standards. Or make a logic tree so you'll notice as you continually contradict yourself.
You still don't get it. I don't deride the use of reviews, which are the most helpful specialty articles for laymen. I'm criticizing the petition review in particular.
I limited the definition of "scientist" to people who actually make science, and you argue this is a self-serving definition. You think that anyone who signs a piece of paper, no matter what they actually do for a living, no matter if the information they put on that paper is correct, can fairly call itself a scientist, and is in the same standing as the scientists who wrote the IPCC report.
As for violation of my own standards, the people who wrote the report for the IPCC are scientists, but that doesn't mean that every single thing they do has to be research. For instance, many scientists teach at universities. They are not doing research while they are teaching. But I call them scientists if they also do scientific research. The teaching doesn't invalidate the research part, you see? Similarly, writing a review (or a textbook) is not doing scientific research, but it doesn't magically erase the research activity the authors conduct.
I'd just like you to answer one single question. When you linked the petition, who probably didn't examine the whole thing very closely. It happens. But you now know where it was published. You know who signed the petition letter. You know the criterion the petition had to call someone a scientist. You must at least suspect that even that criterion was probably not checked.
So are you really convinced that this petition provides a reasonable proof against scientific consensus?
Nimed,
"I'm criticizing the petition review in particular." Yes, by applying different standards than you apply to those who agree with you. At least we agree on something.
You have no idea how many of those 31,000 signatures meet or don't meet your definition. To recap, you claim to have reached a conclusion on their suitability without being able to tell if any signer fails the standard you invented. How? Even if you could show they all failed (actual n = 0) you now admit it doesn't matter because the standard is inappropriate. How do you think you've impugned the petition?
If you think the petition signers aren't scientists let's see some evidence. Even then there are plenty of other scientists constantly in the news saying the alarmist claims are unproven and/or exaggerated. Some I linked above, more are commonly available. I linked to this petition because (1) it's a large compact list and (2) these are blog comments so I'm not spending weeks satisfying your ever changing standards of evidence, and (3) they state their petition the right way: that there is no evidence of catastrophic AGW, which implies enough to justify the commonly proposed draconian economic controls.
Your standard was that scientists are those involved in research. Now you seem to be arguing with yourself that your asserted standard is inappropriate. So drop it, but quit trying to drop it for your side and still apply it to the petition.
If the 31,000 signatures were fraudulent there would be reams of supporting evidence available in the same places you used to source your smear campaign. But if all you have is "you can't prove 31,000 people meet my arbitrary standard I only apply to those who disagree with me" you're going to find few takers.
I wasn't sure whether you were so hopelessly stupid that you were willing to cling to such a thoroughly discredited source. Thanks for clearing that out. I don't see the point of discussing this further. Still, it was definitely worth it for the laughs.
Nimed,
I agree with the laughs. Although demonstrating someone both completely closed minded and devoid of logical thought is worth a few posts.
I will concede that AGW exists but I will argue that gutting our economy in a gesture that the IPCC models show will not have a measurable impact is a bad idea and we shouldn't do it. We need to continue to grow our economy while incrementally improving efficiencies and reducing pollution and invest in R&D on technologies that will actually be able to make a significant difference in dealing with AGW down the road. People will not stand for the changes required to reduce CO2 output by 80% using today's technology.
Jaspel - I am not the only person who is aware of systematic judgment problems that humans have. Unfortunately, the research shows that even people who are aware of the problem still make the same mistakes. While it's certainly possible to improve, nobody is immune. Scientists who are studying the climate are probably not experts on human behavior or psychology and are probably no more or less prone to groupthink and other judgment errors than other people.