Topic: Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers. - page 145. (Read 636456 times)

Can Russia control the weather? Climate researcher says CIA fears hostile nations are triggering floods and droughts


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2954933/Can-Russia-control-weather-Climate-researcher-says-CIA-fears-hostile-nations-triggering-floods-droughts.html

SgtMoth may have a say in this.

Demonstrating if blondes are responsible for climate change, more than brunettes are for global warming, is something I might be willing to dig deeper, for the purpose of moving from the subjective to the objective...

Right.  And we could devise a study to determine "if blondes were prettier."  But we'd be moving into measuring subjective data such as feelings, instead of objective data such as temperatures.

Therefore the move to "climate change" from "global warming" does seem to be demonstrably anti-scientific.

Warmist's answer: "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeeeaahh!!!"

Warmers attempted to push a "Theory" of global warming.

If you accept the idea of a global "surface temperature" that can be measured and averaged out, then you certainly can ask if that number is moving up.  Then if you have a very, very good idea of past variability, you can form tests of said hypothesis.

I don't accept the concept of a "global temperature" for a thermodynamics system having solid, liquid, and gaseous components, and unknown amounts of latent heat in these components. 

I also don't agree that past weather and temperatures and climate are known very precisely and accurately through proxies.

However, "climate change" is far worse scientifically.  On the surface this is an attempt to attribute extreme weather events to man's increasing CO2.  Therefore it is survivable in the absence over decades of "global warming."  But it is measurable only from knowledge of past and present climate variability, and only then for like-phenomena.

The questions become things like "are hurricanes getting strong?"   "Are droughts getting more severe?"  "Are floods getting worse?"  In the absence of clear evidence of orders of magnitude increases in the phenomena, all kinds of assertions can be made and discussed.

Rather like an attempt to replace subjective judgement in place of science.  Like, "are blondes prettier?"

hypothesis VS theory, explained to the little people (us all)

[...]
We live in an age when all manner of scientific knowledge — from the safety of fluoride and vaccines to the reality of climate change — faces organized and often furious opposition. Empowered by their own sources of information and their own interpretations of research, doubters have declared war on the consensus of experts. There are so many of these controversies these days, you’d think a diabolical agency had put something in the water to make people argumentative.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-science-is-so-hard-to-believe/2015/02/12/2ff8f064-b0a0-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html?postshare=3001424012838912

Bad news for warmists: Sun has entered 'weakest solar cycle in a century'



The conceit that human production of carbon dioxide is capable of driving the earth’s climate is running smack into the sun. CO2 accounts for a mere 0.039% of the atmosphere, while the sun accounts for 99.86% of all of the mass in our entire solar system. And Ol’ Sol is not taking the insult lightly. Vencore Weather reports:


For the past 5 days, solar activity has been very low and one measure of solar activity – its X-ray output – has basically flatlined in recent days (plot below courtesy NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center). Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots.



http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/02/bad_news_for_warmists_sun_has_entered_weakest_solar_cycle_in_a_century.html

White House Announces ‘Goal of Ensuring Climate Smart Citizenry’








The White House Science and Technology Advisor, says an initiative is underway  “with the goal of ensuring a climate smart citizenry in the United States.”

“In December of last year the White House Climate Education and Literacy Initiative was launched--with the goal of ensuring a climate smart citizenry in the United States,” Dr. John Holdren says in a White House video released last week.

“Whenever I can I use opportunities like this ‘Ask Dr. H’ initiative to communicate about climate change and the strong scientific underpinnings of our actions to combat it.”

“Based on our scientific understanding of climate change the administration is continuing to develop and implement a number of policies to cut carbon pollution in America, to prepare for the climate impacts that cannot be avoided, and to work with the international community so best practices for emissions reductions and building resilience are embraced everywhere,” Holdren continues.

A December 2014 White House press release announcing the effort says, “In response to an initial call to action made in October, more than 150 activities, projects, and ideas were submitted by individuals and organizations across the country, from more than 30 states. These included a diverse array of innovative approaches being implemented in K-12 classrooms, on college and university campuses, and in zoos, parks, aquariums, and museums to educate and engage students and citizens of all ages. Today’s launch includes a number of exciting new commitments by Federal agencies and outside groups.”

Among the efforts listed by federal agencies include “leveraging digital games to enhance climate education” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and using the National Park Service (NPS), “the plan will assist NPS interpretive managers and practitioners in the creation and delivery of effective climate-change messages in the programs and exhibits across all National Parks.”









http://cnsnews.com/blog/eric-scheiner/white-house-announces-goal-ensuring-climate-smart-citizenry

My understanding/idea of 'how you do science' is:

 - Generate a hypothesis which might explain an observation
 - repeat the above as often as one's strength allows, look for other people's hypotheses, and add new ones in the course of what follows

 - gather as many observations as possible and reject the hypotheses which don't work.  They normally drop like flies.
 - repeat the above until the number of hypothesis are reduced and a relatively small number stand out as especially durable.

At this point you might have something which could approach being called a 'theory.'  Now move more into a phase where you are

 - provoking behaviors designed to produce observations specifically to validate and especially to invalidate the theory.

Not sure how best to phrase that.  It gets even more complex when 'systems' are mixed in instead of 'observation' as is usually the case.  In saying 'generate a theory' to describe the process I just felt that you perhaps downplayed the idea that a 'theory' is normally a pretty late-stage and strong thing.  In retrospect I maybe should not have felt that way.

The main thing is that there is no shame whatsoever in incorrect hypothesis.  By definition most hypothesis are incorrect.  The only 'sin' is NOT having enough incorrect hypotheses.  I have no trouble leaving a problems as a reduced set of hypotheses because the method described above is, while usually enjoyable, fairly protracted and it is sometimes not practical to obtain enough observations.  Or at least high quality ones.

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I'm sensitive about this (perceived) mis-use of the word 'theory' because I am regularly thought of as a 'conspiracy theorist.'  In reality, it is much more the case that I just don't reject hypothesis unless I can do so fairly unequivocally and don't normally call something a theory while multiple hypotheses remain reasonable in tact.  Thus, for instance, I happen to entertain the hypothesis that ISIS is primarily a CIA invention.  I am not sure of this, and there are other plausible explanations for ISIS's existence in it's present form, but it is one of the hypotheses that best match the observations I've been able to make at this point in time.

To me, rejecting a hypothesis because it is unpopular, unpleasant, carries a particular label, or whatever is just ignorant.  Most 'conspiracy theories' are rejected solely for that reason.  Those theories/hypothesis that then eventually turn out to be almost certainly true (e.g., the NSA monitors most of what we do electronically) catch a lot of people by surprise.

Thanks for the kind words. If you don't mind me asking, how might you have phrased it differently?

I just want to quote that because I find it especially cogent.  (edit: I'd be inclined to use the words 'theory' and 'hypothesis' slightly differently, but the idea is clear enough and is spot on.)

While I'm here, I would point out that it is a valid argument (to me) that the possibility that 'catastrophic' or at least significantly troubling global climate change still exists even if the models have been proven wrong and even if the various tales of alarm are legitimate concerns that we will feel the effects of at some time in the future.  I personally find this unlikely at this point in my explorations, but it is admittedly somewhat subjective because different things are 'catastrophic' to different people.

The main point I'd like to make is that it is abundantly clear to me that there is a vast amount of exploitation of 'climate science' and it can be attributed almost exclusively to one side; the so-called 'warmists'.  It is similarly clear to me that the objectives of this exploitation transcend the the fields of earth science at all.  This has damaged the credibility of all parties who might have legitimate concerns and has greatly set back any honest and coherent exploration of the subject.

When did he stop entertaining children?

No It's not like that. As I think all of us can agree that the earth is multiple billions of years old and we believe in evolution. It's not a religious thing and its not a political thing either, and its not about anecdotes. The anecdotes are just here for comedic relief because when you come at it from our perspective they can be funny. We understand that if global warming was real global warming protestors could still be snowed out of their protests. It's just funny to read about it.

The reason we hold the position that we do is scientists spent a great deal of government money in order to create predictive climate models and every single one of the models that has been around long enough to test its predictive capabilities as completely failed to accurately predict the climate. Further this is a fact that no one seems to care about.

In science, you generate a theory and a relevant test and if the theory accurately predicts the outcome of the test than you consider it to be valid. Generally. You need multiple different sorts of ways to test the same theory because you need to coax out the possibility of a false cause and you need peer review and multiple sources performing the same tests with the same results. But basically this is the idea. A theory is considered valid if it is able to make accurate predictions. In climatology for some reason this gets magically turned on its head. The theories are considered a priori valid and the fact that they are unable to make accurate predictions doesn't seem to bother anyone. Except us. We are some sort of super minority that actually gets bothered by this. That's pretty much all it is.

Since when did bill nye become a climate scientist?  Why aren't these 97% of agreeing scientists holding any kind of summit on this"warming trend?"  Bill should go back to entertaining children.

Nah, but doesn't he have a point that something getting very cold isn't very appropriately named "warming".  Climate change *is* a better word to describe some places getting cold, some places getting warm, etc.  Right?

Bill Nye Tells MSNBC To Say Climate Change, Not Global Warming, When It’s Cold Out





Words are everything, even in the global warming debate. TV personality Bill Nye the “Science Guy” told MSNBC’s Joy Reid to use the phrase climate change, not global warming, when it’s so cold out.

“Let’s not confuse or interchange climate change with global warming,” Nye told Reid on Monday. “Global warming – The world is getting warmer. There is more carbon [dioxide] holding in more heat.”

“So when the climate changes, some places get colder,” Nye added. “And the thing that’s really consistent with climate change models is this variance where it’s cold, it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s warm… So what I would hope for, my dream, Joy, is that you all, you and the news business would just say the word climate change.”


http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/17/bill-nye-tells-msnbc-to-say-climate-change-not-global-warming-when-its-cold-out/



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It is not hard to imagine Einstein slapping bill nye silly for such propaganda... Even you cannot defend that billy boy...

Sad but true.

Einstein would be still waiting in his graves for the crackpots and ideologists to die out. There are legions of self-appointed scepticists, ready to disprove relativity, and likely photon theory as well. If only there was a profitable industry to bankroll them... Molecule physics, atmospheric physics, all also gad to go through the treadmill of presenting evidence. Not proof, because proof belongs to mathematics not science.
But the party says that science is a lie, and the earth is 6000 years old, and 2+2 might be five, if it is profitable to state such.

You are saying anyone back then, scientist of course, who asked for proof for evolution, quantum mechanics, etc, was a denier? Interesting argument...  That must be why einstein had to wait so long to be recognized... Too many deniers who asked for proofs.