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Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#101

Post by randomgyatwork »

tbskm wrote: post #14
lordnacho wrote: post #6

I heard the incoming Vice President, Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution. In fact there's a video of him, admittedly a long while ago now, making a speech where he seems to not understand what the scientific meaning of "theory" is. Are people not concerned about this at all? People in high positions ought to know basic things about how science functions, yet as the article points out, barely a word was said abo…

There are plenty of Americans who would disqualify a candidate that doesn't believe in evolution, global warming, or some other widely known scientific fact. Unfortunately, there are just as many ill-informed Americans that share these views. It's sad and depressing, and is usually just the result of being in a conservative bubble. If you live in rural America, your friends and family all regurgitate the same things…

There are 'liberal' biases in science too, especially when it comes to 'evolutionary' differences between races and genders.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#102

Post by alecst »

gwright wrote: post #97
alecst wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this part? * Science isn't clear regarding what part of global temperature rise is due to human activity. I just want to contrast the above with this statement by the IPCC [1]: "Human influence has been detected and attributed in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, and in global mean sea level rise; and has been extremely l…

I was pointing out that the human induced part of the rise isn't quantified very well (large error bars, lots of handwaving), not that there is no human induced warning.

That's alright. I just want to know why you say that it's handwavey. As far as I knew there was almost no dispute that CO2 had huge and well-quantified warming potential. Nor was there a debate about the origin of the CO2 in the atmosphere (from the ratio of carbon-14/13 to carbon-12, you can tell it's from fossil fuels.) Please correct me if this is mistaken, because it's not my field of expertise.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#103

Post by guscost »

novaleaf wrote: post #76
guscost wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the case of climate change, we can't even get to the cost/benefit analysis part of the conversation Sorry? We were already at the "let's bribe farmers to grow extra corn and then burn it for fuel" stage, years ago.

keep in mind though, that was in part a geopolitical security strategy (energy security), as the USA was deeply reliant on foreign oil. (This was before the Alberta oil sands was viable, and fracking wasn't even a known option) Of course, can't say that's a good reason to continue the subsidies today though.

Good point, some of those policies were sold as different things to different groups.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#104

Post by dwaltrip »

kazinator wrote: post #46
whateveracct wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say that eventually it is the consensus of the scientific community that things like consciousness, pain and free will are just illusions, and therefore, human rights are an outdated concept That last part is a value statement that I doubt science could prove.

Consciousness (and pain) aren't illusions because they correspond to external phenomena, and have a significant objective component. An illusion is something that nobody else can experience, even partially, other than the subject having the illusion. Even if free will is rule-based at some low-level, that doesn't erase the concept of rights. We have rights even among inanimate objects. For instance, some server insta…

A server instance has no legal rights. The human controlling the server has certain legal rights in how they are allowed to configure and operate it. For example, as granted by the first amendment, they can serve a large variety of content to visitors, etc.

This is a pretty important distinction.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#105

Post by treehau5 »

Retric wrote: post #95
phd514 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not at all what faith is. There are some definitions of faith that include "belief not based on proof", but that is still far removed from "belief despite evidence to the contrary".

Suppose someone said I am going to roll a fair six sided dice. So, 1,2,3,4,5,6. I will give you a 50/50 bet. You can write down a number 1,2,3,4,5, or 6 and then chose if it will be that number or will be another number. AKA pick 2 and say it will be 2 or will not be 2. Baring any evidence the first choice is random, but the second is that number or is not that number should not be random. Logically faith is the same…

> Logically faith is the same thing.

According to you.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#106

Post by gwright »

alecst wrote: post #102
gwright wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was pointing out that the human induced part of the rise isn't quantified very well (large error bars, lots of handwaving), not that there is no human induced warning.

That's alright. I just want to know why you say that it's handwavey. As far as I knew there was almost no dispute that CO2 had huge and well-quantified warming potential. Nor was there a debate about the origin of the CO2 in the atmosphere (from the ratio of carbon-14/13 to carbon-12, you can tell it's from fossil fuels.) Please correct me if this is mistaken, because it's not my field of expertise.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is well quantified and there are estimates regarding how much of this is caused by human activity that don't appear to be source of too much controversy. The warming caused by CO2 is relatively clear, and not seriously disputed.

But the direct warming due to CO2 is not what triggers all the public debate about climate change. That comes from the indirect warming associated with hypothesized positive feedback mechanism within the Earth's climate. There is no settled science on this indirect warming so the net affect of human-activity (the measured CO2 in the atmosphere contributed by human activity) is unclear. The climate models have historically over-estimated this net affect when their predictions are compared to the actual measurements.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#107

Post by gwright »

burkaman wrote: post #90
btdiehr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misrepresenting the opposing argument being made. The opposing argument is that people are making is as follows: 'climate-alarmists' misuse climate-science as a means of making political change. It is not a denial of all climate-change science. I don't care to argue this topic because I'm not expert nor do I care to pretend to be one on the topic of climate change, but this misrepresentation of the opposing v…

Are you unaware of the hundreds of times Trump has literally claimed all climate change science is a hoax, or are you saying his view is unimportant?

Trump and many other people don't seem to clearly understand the difference between the 'settled science' part of climate change and the 'unclear science' part. As such Trump and many others have very muddled and confused responses to those advocating various public policy changes due to climate change.

Some clarity about what is and isn't 'settled' would certainly improve the public debate on policy but I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#108

Post by gwright »

jwatte wrote: post #69
gwright wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot and feel like it is a muddled response to a muddled understanding of climate change. For what it is worth: * Science is clear that CO2 causes warming (pure physics), but so do many other gases (methane, water vapor, etc). * Science is clear that global temperatures are rising (even if you quibble about the 'pause') * Science isn't clear regarding what part of global temperature rise is due to human…

* Science isn't clear regarding what part of global temperature rise is due to human activity. * Science isn't clear on how much and how fast temperatures might rise. I believe science does have confidence intervals on the ranges, and even the lower ends are pretty bad. As in, it's not a question on "whether" the global food supply pipeline will collapse, but "when" -- 2035 to 2070, depending on the side of the confi…

It isn't clear to me what a confidence interval is for a prediction from a complex climate model. What are the sources of error for a software model? How can they be quantified?

In any case, my understanding is that global warming increases that are at the low end of predictions is not catastrophic and that is actually where measured changes fall.

Here is a report from the NOAA that says: > The “pause” in global warming observed since 2000 followed a period of rapid acceleration in the late 20th century. Starting in the mid-1970s, global temperatures rose 0.5 °C over a period of 25 years. Since the turn of the century, however, the change in Earth’s global mean surface temperature has been close to zero.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/why-did-ear...

That report is interesting because it argues against the pause indicating a true slowdown in global warming because the period of time is too short, that climate change works on much longer intervals. Perhaps that is true, and the 15 year pause is temporary. Time will tell.

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#109

Post by Retric »

treehau5 wrote: post #105
Retric wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose someone said I am going to roll a fair six sided dice. So, 1,2,3,4,5,6. I will give you a 50/50 bet. You can write down a number 1,2,3,4,5, or 6 and then chose if it will be that number or will be another number. AKA pick 2 and say it will be 2 or will not be 2. Baring any evidence the first choice is random, but the second is that number or is not that number should not be random. Logically faith is the same…

> Logically faith is the same thing. According to you.

Do you have a logical counter argument?

Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

#110

Post by burkaman »

gwright wrote: post #107
burkaman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you unaware of the hundreds of times Trump has literally claimed all climate change science is a hoax, or are you saying his view is unimportant?

Trump and many other people don't seem to clearly understand the difference between the 'settled science' part of climate change and the 'unclear science' part. As such Trump and many others have very muddled and confused responses to those advocating various public policy changes due to climate change. Some clarity about what is and isn't 'settled' would certainly improve the public debate on policy but I'm not hold…

I disagree, what has Trump been unclear about? He doesn't think humans cause climate change, but he also doesn't think the planet is getting warmer. He doesn't even seem to think that CFCs are a real problem. He wants to cut the EPA. He thinks asbestos regulations are pointless.

Trump has been clear and consistent for decades on this stuff, which I'm not sure you can say about any other belief of his. A new clarifying statement from the IPCC would not suddenly clear everything up for him.

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