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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 06/14/2007 : 10:14:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by perrodetokio
I love how some religion practicing people label something as a "religion" in order to discredit it. That seems really hypocritical on their part!
How about "Being republican is a religion" or "the religion of republicanism". Or better yet: "The religion of democracy".
It wouldnīt be THAT bad if they called it "philosophy", but "religion"?
Why do they do that? Is it because they deny facts about GW so they think that people are holding something as true without scientific proof?
So I guess that people that think like that but at the sametime hold, say, ID or YEC as true and are trying (in vain) to find scientific proof to corroborate their "theories" are NOT religious.
I AM CONFUSED!
Why donīt they just say (in a high pitched voiced): "I NOW THAT YOU ARE! BUT WHAT AM I?"
Idiots!
And what about: "the conspiracy religion"
cheers
perrodetokio
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I'm with you on this. The reason the Religious Right calls secularism "religion" is simply because it's a lie. Precisely because they know it is the furthest thing from the truth, they realize it will irritate their secular opposition. They don't mind being or looking like fools and/or liars, so long as they can be trolls.
Now, maybe someone will take them for their word on their "religion" slander, and demand that "Darwinsts" be treated with the kid-glove respect that religion expects uniquely for itself. And demand that assembly halls for the promotion of science, evolution, abortion rights, secular government, gay marriage, and atheism be tax-free. See how much of a "religion" they'd consider their opposition to be if it began getting the same treatment.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2007 : 18:46:59 [Permalink]
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"Now that a scientist has made the assertion, one much take it as fact."
This statement was meant as sarcasm. I obviously did not make that clear.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2007 : 18:56:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
"Now that a scientist has made the assertion, one much take it as fact."
This statement was meant as sarcasm. I obviously did not make that clear.
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Your words would taste better with some fava beans and a nice chianti. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
| Edited by - moakley on 06/14/2007 18:57:23 |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2007 : 19:03:40 [Permalink]
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"Now that a scientist has made the assertion, one much take it as fact."
This statement was meant as sarcasm. I obviously did not make that clear. |
Well you can't blame us, this statement is no dumber than most the other crap you have been spouting.
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2009 : 05:03:07 [Permalink]
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| Now we have an an administration rather than the maladministration of Cheney-Shrub that values science and the working together of government and private entrepreneurs. Climate change will make for more jobs rather than fewers as the denialists bleat. |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2009 : 08:28:05 [Permalink]
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| Good skepticism isn't political. Right or wrong, Randi is merely practicing healthy skepticism towards a political agenda which seems to losing a bit of ground lately. |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2009 : 16:32:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
Right or wrong, Randi is merely practicing healthy skepticism towards a political agenda which seems to losing a bit of ground lately. |
No, Randi was taken in (two years ago) by political propaganda which hasn't actually gained any traction since then. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
 Posted - 06/28/2009 : 22:15:31 [Permalink]
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In his book: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives, (ISBN 0-375-42404-0) Leonard Mlodinow explains how we are often duped by coincidence into believing in a nonexistent trend. For example, the chance of flipping a coin and it landing on heads 15 times in a row is highly improbable, but not impossible; something like 30,000 to one.
By the same token, hundreds of thousands of stock pickers make financial decisions every day, and a few of them will naturally have an astounding record of success. Financial opportunists sometimes employ these individuals as "bait" in schemes to attract "smart money" based on these remarkable track records. This is where the disclaimer, "past performance is not necessarily a guarantee of future success" rings very true, because as Mlodinow explains, the mostly likely future course of such a trend is a regression towards the mean. In other words, "all lucky streaks eventually reverse themselves."
Some have applied this principle to their skepticism of anthropogenic global warming. Just as droughts often end with torrential downpours, some believe the earth is due for another cooling cycle. I don't know how anyone can know for sure, but I'm choosing skeptical uncertainty as my best option for now.
I mean, it would be a shame, that we might be facing the next Mini Ice Age (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum) having spent all our money on trying to slow global warming. :-/ |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
| Edited by - Landrew on 06/28/2009 22:37:20 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2009 : 23:08:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
For example, the chance of flipping a coin and it landing on heads 15 times in a row is highly improbable, but not impossible; something like 30,000 to one. |
32,767-to-1. If you flipped a coin once per second, you could expect a run of 15 heads in a row a little more than 2.6 times per day, on average (long term).
Some hypothetical personal event with one-in-a-million odds per day happens to nearly 6,706 people, every day. "Highly improbable" is a tremendously imprecise term, and arguments using such terms generally fail in an obvious misunderstanding of probability.| Some have applied this principle to their skepticism of anthropogenic global warming. Just as droughts often end with torrential downpours, some believe the earth is due for another cooling cycle. I don't know how anyone can know for sure... |
Nobody is claiming to know "for sure," but the actual evidence (as opposed to vague probability arguments) suggests that we're faced with a problem that humans caused (unwittingly), but that humans can do something about.| ...but I'm choosing skeptical uncertainty as my best option for now. |
Thus allowing you to spend, spend, spend if you're correct (for consumers, most "green" activities are actually cheaper than "non-green" activities - like driving differently, making your home more energy-efficient, etc). If you're wrong, you're hosed.Your failure is primarily in incorrectly calculating your return on investment. Using less energy costs less in the long run. A secondary failure is in falling for the "bait" (Maunder Minimum) put forth by the anti-AGW propagandists, who can't predict it any better than they can play the stock market. (And funny enough, the Maunder Minimum occured prior to the Industrial Revolution, so how it will affect anthropogenic global warming isn't something you should be betting on in the first place.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2009 : 18:22:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Landrew
[quote]...but I'm choosing skeptical uncertainty as my best option for now. |
Thus allowing you to spend, spend, spend if you're correct (for consumers, most "green" activities are actually cheaper than "non-green" activities - like driving differently, making your home more energy-efficient, etc). If you're wrong, you're hosed.
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It seems like you want me to make a sort of Pascal's Wager about climate change. Better safe than sorry (especially if it doesn't cost me much money).
Anyway conservation and climate change, although interrelated, are two separate issues. The downside of conservation is that reducing consumption also reduces production and therefore impacts jobs and the economy. Loss of money from reduced production is equal to loss of money from spending. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are happy to make that tradeoff, but those who don't aren't likely to be easily pushed around by those who do.
I think there's easily as much room for skepticism in the climate change debate as there is in religion. |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
| Edited by - Landrew on 06/29/2009 18:23:35 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2009 : 19:31:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
It seems like you want me to make a sort of Pascal's Wager about climate change. Better safe than sorry (especially if it doesn't cost me much money). |
In Pascal's Wager, the upside is entirely illusionary, based upon no evidence whatsoever. Which climate-change evidence do you think isn't worthy of a tentative conclusion?| Anyway conservation and climate change, although interrelated, are two separate issues. The downside of conservation is that reducing consumption also reduces production and therefore impacts jobs and the economy. |
As if people are just going to shove the money they save under the matress.| Loss of money from reduced production is equal to loss of money from spending. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are happy to make that tradeoff, but those who don't aren't likely to be easily pushed around by those who do. |
Well, it's nice to know that you're no Libertarian.| I think there's easily as much room for skepticism in the climate change debate as there is in religion. |
I don't think you're using the word "skepticism" in the same way that most of us here do. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2009 : 21:29:53 [Permalink]
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I know there's been a rise of global temperatures since 1700, but there has also been a rise in sunspots. It there a chance the rise in CO2 has been the result of warming, not the cause? Check out the Maunder minimum.
Excuse me, but I'm not entirely convinced that we know as much about this phenomenon as some of us claim.
It seems like basic intellectual honesty to me; how's that for skepticism? |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
| Edited by - Landrew on 06/29/2009 21:31:24 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2009 : 21:59:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
I know there's been a rise of global temperatures since 1700, but there has also been a rise in sunspots. It there a chance the rise in CO2 has been the result of warming, not the cause? |
Doesn't much matter, now does it? Any school kid can show, unequivocally, that CO2 causes greenhouse warming. So even if most of the rise in CO2 levels is not human-caused, human-generated CO2 only adds to the problem.
And with enough concerted effort, humans can remove enough CO2 from the atmosphere to mitigate its effects, regardless of its source.| Check out the Maunder minimum. |
I have, and so have the experts. Whether there's a causal connection between sunspot activity and Earth temperatures is unclear. Concluding that they are causally connected, which is what is required to make your argument, is unsupported by evidence and thus unskeptical.| Excuse me, but I'm not entirely convinced that we know as much about this phenomenon as some of us claim. |
Then why do you keep repeating the "Maunder Minimum" mantra?| It seems like basic intellectual honesty to me; how's that for skepticism? |
Intellectual honesty seems to me to demand that we accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (regardless of its source) and that we accept that sunspot activity has not been shown to be a cause of global temperature shifts (is there an 11-year correlation?). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2009 : 06:41:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Landrew
| Check out the Maunder minimum. |
I have, and so have the experts. Whether there's a causal connection between sunspot activity and Earth temperatures is unclear. Concluding that they are causally connected, which is what is required to make your argument, is unsupported by evidence and thus unskeptical.| Excuse me, but I'm not entirely convinced that we know as much about this phenomenon as some of us claim. |
Then why do you keep repeating the "Maunder Minimum" mantra?[quote]It seems like basic intellectual honesty to me; how's that for skepticism? |
Intellectual honesty seems to me to demand that we accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (regardless of its source) and that we accept that sunspot activity has not been shown to be a cause of global temperature shifts (is there an 11-year correlation?).
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I've made my case, and it's simply that I don't share all your certitudes about global warming.
Which is the more skeptical position; having conclusions about a complex phenomenon or not having them? |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2009 : 06:59:37 [Permalink]
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| Dave's position is far more Skeptical as he has brought up many valid points, none of which you have responded to. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Randi and Global Warming
