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Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

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Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#101

Post by facepalm »

glenra wrote: post #97
facepalm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So would you say the claims are unfounded? I don't think it all hinges on tree rings, they are just one indicator of many.

I'm not sure which claims you mean. The specific claim that it's significantly warmer now than it was about a thousand years ago during the MWP does mainly hinge on (a) tree rings, (b) ignoring the difference between high frequency and low-frequency information sources, (c) ignoring the error bars. We can't say with any certainty that current temperatures are "unprecedented" compared to the last big peak and it seems…

I don't know if it is true that it all hinges on tree rings. So your claim is that everything global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence?

I must admit to me it sounds a bit like the typical creationist argument: "but you can't explain how bone X came into existence". So never mind that evolution theory doesn't even claim to be able to provide a causal evolutionary path for every animal, and that it has been validated in countless examples (more than any other theory afaik), they find a single example that is not even relevant and use it as an excuse to dismiss the whole theory.

I don't call you a creationist, I just want to warn that you might be victim to the same kind of fallacy.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#102

Post by eglover »

headShrinker wrote: post #99
eglover wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denial indeed. About 50% worldwide including both public and private science. You might want to look into the source of that 97% and stop acting like you've got everything figured out.

There are 7.8 billion people on the planet, all consuming, reproducing, driving and expelling, burning, cutting, killing, clearing, digging, and searching for the American dream. The very existence of humankind is now completely outside of the natural food cycle. Most everything humans eat is farmed in numbers by weight that you or I simply can not imagine. Our economy is based on the processing and consumption of pl…

Boy, someone's got you peeing your pants haven't they? You understand that word soup like this doesn't mean anything right? Especially when science is indeed not on your side.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#103

Post by cushychicken »

refurb wrote: post #57
cushychicken wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll wager a guess that it's because the stakes of being wrong on climate change are pretty high.

Isn't the stakes of being wrong in the other direction (that global warming isn't happening) just as high? Imagine if we spend billions/trillions of dollars trying to capture CO2, reduce oil consumption, etc. and it turns out CO2 wasn't the cause of global warming. That money could have done a lot of good if spent in other ways (i.e. lift millions of people out of poverty).

So we end up spending billions/trillions of dollars reducing consumption of nonrenewable resources and developing cleaner technology. What a waste.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#104

Post by Iftheshoefits »

waps wrote: post #85
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the argument for climate change is based on statistical likelihood of existing trends continuing based on past measurement. That can easily be generalized to any scientific construct, since all predictions and theories based on experiment implicitly contain the assumption of their continued validity. Consequently what you're doing is conflating an argument against the metaphysical underpinnings of science (amusingl…

No it can't. You'll find exact sciences don't work like this. First in maths you have models. Of course some models match reality and some don't, but proven "given" a model means a very specific thing and is extremely rigorous. Second physics, at least particle physics, has a lot of models these days. The most famous "in use" one is the standard model. It is not based on measurement, but on the assumption that a spec…

> The "laws" of climate science are not the result of first principles (because they don't match observed behavior of the atmosphere), but statistical best estimators of observed measurements. I didn't read the comment I replied to this way; my mistake. By the way, I understand how exact sciences work (I chose astrophysics and relativity for my specializations in physics), but thanks for the exposition.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#105

Post by glenra »

facepalm wrote: post #101
glenra wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure which claims you mean. The specific claim that it's significantly warmer now than it was about a thousand years ago during the MWP does mainly hinge on (a) tree rings, (b) ignoring the difference between high frequency and low-frequency information sources, (c) ignoring the error bars. We can't say with any certainty that current temperatures are "unprecedented" compared to the last big peak and it seems…

I don't know if it is true that it all hinges on tree rings. So your claim is that everything global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence? I must admit to me it sounds a bit like the typical creationist argument: "but you can't explain how bone X came into existence". So never mind that evolution theory doesn't even claim to be able to provide a causal evolutionary path for…

> So your claim is that everything global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence?

Nope, my claim was only that a few things that some global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence or followed bad evidence. Other things that even those very people say are fine. But there's a lot of confirmation bias going on, and there's a fair bit of propaganda.

A big PART of the propaganda is to mischaracterize what skeptics are saying and why they are saying it. It is simply not true that people who doubt one element of the warmist litany doubt all elements of it. Hence the need for terms like "lukewarmer". The propaganda effort says that "denialists" are disagreeing with "97% of scientists", but in fact if you look at what questions were asked to get that "97% agreement" number you'll notice that essentially all the people accused of being "denialists" are IN the 97%. The stuff skeptics disagree with is mostly stuff that is still quite legitimately up for debate. For another example (besides the "unprecedented" thing), nobody knows what the actual climate sensitivity to CO2 (including all feedback effects operative at any given time) is; the IPCC can't give an exact number on that. They can give a range of guesses, but these are still guesses. Thinking they're guessing on the high side doesn't make one a creationist or even a 3-percent-er.

Does that make sense?

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#106

Post by facepalm »

glenra wrote: post #105
facepalm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it is true that it all hinges on tree rings. So your claim is that everything global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence? I must admit to me it sounds a bit like the typical creationist argument: "but you can't explain how bone X came into existence". So never mind that evolution theory doesn't even claim to be able to provide a causal evolutionary path for…

> So your claim is that everything global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence? Nope, my claim was only that a few things that some global warming scientists have been saying is wrong because they ignored vital evidence or followed bad evidence. Other things that even those very people say are fine. But there's a lot of confirmation bias going on, and there's a fair bit of…

It seems normal that there is debate about details of a theory. However, the relevant aspect seems to be is there significant global warming because of human influence and should action be taken against it.

I think people who deny one or both of those two points are usually called global warming deniers (or skeptics, which might give them too much credit). I don't think arguing about some detail of the theory is in the same camp.

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