Is Global Warming The Greatest Lie In Human History?

[Neoteny]

People like Tzor don't believe there is a scientific consensus on the central framework of biology; how could we reasonably expect them to wrap their plasticized brains around a scientific consensus reached in only the last century?

[Dukasaur]

Well, no. If 97 informed people pick the Pats to win, and 3 informed people go with the Jets, there's an inferred 32:1 chance that the Jets will win. We can infer that from the data. Would you bet 50-50 on the Jets in this scenario, never mind who has the more handsome quarterback?

Science isn't sports betting either. (Mind you football is a much more predictable game than other sports, such as baseball but I digress.) In fact almost every significant scientific theory started out with a majority of the scientists at the time being absolutely against it.

There's some truth to that, but overall science is a lot more like sports betting than most people realize.

While philosophers and mathematicians may dabble in the fantasy worlds of "YES" or "NO", scientists know that there's no such thing as an absolute YES or an absolute NO. Everything is somewhere on the continuum between a probability of 0 and a probability of 1. There are things that we are very, very certain are true, and there are things that we are very, very certain are false, but the proviso is always that some uncertainty remains, even if it's incredibly small.

This proviso isn't always stated, and that leads to misunderstandings. When a scientist says "statement x is true" he means "the possibility that statement x is false has been calculated as less than 5%". Between scientists this proviso is understood, but often when scientific data is quoted in public this proviso is lost, either because the scientist assumed it to be obvious and didn't bother mentioning it, or because someone further down the chain edited his words for brevity and took out what he thought was needless pedantry.

Now, uncertainty of less than 5% (or conversely, as it's more often stated, certainty of 95% or more) is sometimes called the "gold standard". That expression is an unfortunate colloquialism which means that at a 95% certainty level, the results of a study are ready to publish. That's all, though, just ready to publish. Rather than "gold standard", it should really be called the "bronze standard" or maybe the "pewter standard." Publication is only the first step in what is a never-ending series of challenges. Every theory has both opponents who will attempt to falsify it and adherents who will attempt to prove it with greater certainty. With each challenge survived, the level of uncertainty goes down, but it never goes away completely. The more eyes who look at it, the greater the odds that someone will find the fatal flaw in the theory, if there is one. And, the more people who try and fail to falsify it, the more likely it is to be true, but again, certainty is never perfect.

Special relativity is probably the most tested theory of all time, and there are still people trying to disprove it. With each new test, certainty grows, but yes, there will always be some sliver of doubt. Anthropogenic global warming is a much newer theory and has been tested less than relativity, but it's getting a lot of attention and an enormous amount of analysis, and I'd say the level of certainty is now quite high. Perfect certainty is unattainable, so there will always be some shard of hope for the deniers to cling to, but those shards are pretty slim now.

So I guess I started this discussion by saying it's a lot more like sports betting than most people realize, so I guess I need to get back to that point. Modern bookies are very much like scientists. They crunch a lot of numbers and test a lot of theories, and along the way old theories either get thrown in the trash or refined. Like scientists, bookies know that no matter what you do you can always get it wrong, but with each round of analysis you get closer to the real thing.

I need to wrap this up so, but just one final point:

But if you insist let's look at the 97% National Review: The 97 Percent Solution

I'm going to go ahead and take the (for me) rare step of dismissing your source. I don't like doing that except where it's crystal clear that the source deserves to be dismissed. For me, the very first paragraph tells me what this guy is about:

Unable to address Texas senator Ted Cruz’s questions about “the Pause” — the apparent global-warming standstill, now almost 19 years long — at (etc., etc.)

"The Pause" is a fictitious bit of nonsense bandied about only by professional climate change deniers. There is no pause. Some years are a little cooler than the year before, but ultimately the temperature keeps going up.

Here's a graph you can have a look at. I couldn't extract it from the page, but the page is worth looking at.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature

We haven't had a below average year since 1976. In the '80s, temperatures went up quickly in the first couple of years, then receded slightly, then rose sharply again before the end of the decade. Ditto in the '90s. Ditto in the 'noughts. Ditto in the 'teens.

Highlights:

Based on NOAA data, the 2017 average global temperature across land and ocean surface areas was 0.84°C (1.51°F) above the twentieth-century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), making it the third-warmest year on record behind 2016 (warmest) and 2015 (second warmest). It was the warmest non-El-Niño year in the record.
Global temperature hasn't been cooler than the twentieth-century average since 1976.
Since the start of the twenty-first century, the annual global temperature record has been broken five times.
From 1900 to 1980 a new temperature record was set on average every 13.5 years; however, since 1981 it has increased to every 3 years.

[Neoteny]

You need feel no shame for dismissing anything the National Review produces.

[jusplay4fun]

I find little to disagree with that Duk so clearly and articulately stated.

The graph from NOAA that is link is very convincing as well.

[jusplay4fun]

Any look at science today points to the statistical nature of many scientific theories and concepts.

Weather is probably one of the best examples of the statistical nature of phenomena. The Butterfly Effect is based on weather.

"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.[1]

The term, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.[2]"

For more such concepts, examine statistical mechanics. Look at thermodynamics. Read about the Butterfly Effect.

One more point: no one who has responded in this Forum thread had successfully denied 7 of the 8 points that I cited earlier that support that Global Warming is very likely (NOT 100% sure, as Duk has explained well). There are a few individuals holding a fewer shards that are cutting deep.

[Symmetry]

Any look at science today points to the statistical nature of many scientific theories and concepts.

Weather is probably one of the best examples of the statistical nature of phenomena. The Butterfly Effect is based on weather.

"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.[1]

The term, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.[2]"

For more such concepts, examine statistical mechanics. Look at thermodynamics. Read about the Butterfly Effect.

One more point: no one who has responded in this Forum thread had successfully denied 7 of the 8 points that I cited earlier that support that Global Warming is very likely (NOT 100% sure, as Duk has explained well). There are a few individuals holding a fewer shards that are cutting deep.

The butterfly effect is a poor example for climate change. I kinda wish people would stop using it. Aside from a terrible terrible film with Aston Kutcher and the Fly guy in Jurassic Park, it's just a bad way of explaining things at best, and at worst, an excuse.

JP. I like your posts, but when you're obviously plagiarising, it's less interesting. Those little [1] and [2] mentions refer to footnotes from the thing you're quoting as your own without sourcing the actual research.

Now, can you at least be a bit more honest and serious? I take no pleasure in busting you for plagiarism.

[tzor]

People like Tzor don't believe there is a scientific consensus on the central framework of biology;

I'm sorry, what "central framework of biology" am I accused of not believing in?

[Neoteny]

Evolution. And whether you believe in it or not is irrelevant, because people like you use the same tactics, the same cynicism, and the same disregard for integrity to sow distrust in scientists. The names have changed, but the game stays the same. Really, the only difference is the amount of money behind climate denial. Creationists at least have a value system they feel needs defending. Climate denial is just the defense of other people's ability to keep raking in cash hand over fist.

But you aren't even getting a cut.

And denial is at its absolute scummiest when it dresses itself up in the guise of a defense of scientific integrity. People like you wouldn't understand integrity if Andrew Wakefield showed up to your kid's birthday party.

[spurgistan]

Any look at science today points to the statistical nature of many scientific theories and concepts.

Weather is probably one of the best examples of the statistical nature of phenomena. The Butterfly Effect is based on weather.

"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.[1]

The term, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.[2]"

For more such concepts, examine statistical mechanics. Look at thermodynamics. Read about the Butterfly Effect.

One more point: no one who has responded in this Forum thread had successfully denied 7 of the 8 points that I cited earlier that support that Global Warming is very likely (NOT 100% sure, as Duk has explained well). There are a few individuals holding a fewer shards that are cutting deep.

The butterfly effect is a poor example for climate change. I kinda wish people would stop using it. Aside from a terrible terrible film with Aston Kutcher and the Fly guy in Jurassic Park, it's just a bad way of explaining things at best, and at worst, an excuse.

JP. I like your posts, but when you're obviously plagiarising, it's less interesting. Those little [1] and [2] mentions refer to footnotes from the thing you're quoting as your own without sourcing the actual research.

Now, can you at least be a bit more honest and serious? I take no pleasure in busting you for plagiarism.

1. Fly guy? You WILL refer to Jeff Goldblum by at least his full name, if not address him by his proper title as King of Dudes.
2. I don't think we are really expected to cite our sources here. Nobody's getting any actual credit for these posts, sorry Sym. It's nice to say where ideas come from, but it's not like elf is gonna get a job based off somebody else's ideas.

[armati]

Is Sym using his "go to" your plagiarizing again?

You ever gonna give up on that sym?

“Nothing has yet been said that's not been said before."
“Nothing new under the sun”

Would my post of those be plagiarism?

[tzor]

Evolution. And whether you believe in it or not is irrelevant, because people like you use the same tactics, the same cynicism, and the same disregard for integrity to sow distrust in scientists.

There you go again, people like me? Who am I? Why should I sow distrust in scientists? Frankly, this is just a scaled down version of what is going down in Washington D.C. ... you take one person who doesn't have a case and if you dare point out the flaws you are against all women accusers. Let's talk instead about the real problems; the rise of the pseudosciences which do not rely on scientific method, the collapse of the "peer review" system (which is a result of the general profit in getting something published these days) that results in a "I'll give yours a good review if you give mine a good review" mentality, and the increased funding of science by special interest groups who have an agenda. Bitch all you want about the oil industry but "Green Energy" is a billion dollar scam that many high ranking officials (like Al Gore) are making fortunes off of. Let's not forget that the whole "global warming" thing was a result of Prime Minister Thatcher's desire to bust the coal unions by switching the UK to nuclear power.

And here is the killer. If these people actually believed this nonsense they would not be flying around the globe giving pep rally speeches. We're long into the days of global teleconferencing, damn it. They wouldn't be living in hyper mansions that dump a ton of CO2 into the air with their waste.

Anytime anyone tells me, "We have a problem and the answer is MORE GOVERNMENT," I have to shake my head at the obvious display of stupidity.

But, apparently, if I disbelieve socialist propaganda I hate scientists.

[tzor]

JP. I like your posts, but when you're obviously plagiarising, it's less interesting. Those little [1] and [2] mentions refer to footnotes from the thing you're quoting as your own without sourcing the actual research.

It's not plagiarism as he has the section in quotation marks, so he's clearly quoting something. (I'm betting it's Wikipedia.) He doesn't use citations and if you don't actually have the citations within the citations, keeping those citation numbers in the quote is cheesy. But that's a nit pick. Given the length of the quote it is perfectly fine for use as a reference, however it still needs to be cited with a link to the full article.

[demonfork]

Any look at science today points to the statistical nature of many scientific theories and concepts.

Weather is probably one of the best examples of the statistical nature of phenomena. The Butterfly Effect is based on weather.

"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.[1]

The term, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.[2]"

For more such concepts, examine statistical mechanics. Look at thermodynamics. Read about the Butterfly Effect.

One more point: no one who has responded in this Forum thread had successfully denied 7 of the 8 points that I cited earlier that support that Global Warming is very likely (NOT 100% sure, as Duk has explained well). There are a few individuals holding a fewer shards that are cutting deep.

The butterfly effect is a poor example for climate change. I kinda wish people would stop using it. Aside from a terrible terrible film with Aston Kutcher and the Fly guy in Jurassic Park, it's just a bad way of explaining things at best, and at worst, an excuse.

JP. I like your posts, but when you're obviously plagiarising, it's less interesting. Those little [1] and [2] mentions refer to footnotes from the thing you're quoting as your own without sourcing the actual research.

Now, can you at least be a bit more honest and serious? I take no pleasure in busting you for plagiarism.

You've pretty much soliodified the title of "Supreme Dipshit" @ CC.

Is there anyone left here that takes this "guy" seriously?

[demonfork]

Evolution. And whether you believe in it or not is irrelevant, because people like you use the same tactics, the same cynicism, and the same disregard for integrity to sow distrust in scientists. The names have changed, but the game stays the same. Really, the only difference is the amount of money behind climate denial. Creationists at least have a value system they feel needs defending. Climate denial is just the defense of other people's ability to keep raking in cash hand over fist.

But you aren't even getting a cut.

And denial is at its absolute scummiest when it dresses itself up in the guise of a defense of scientific integrity. People like you wouldn't understand integrity if Andrew Wakefield showed up to your kid's birthday party.

You're pretty much in 2nd place, right behind Symm. But keep trying because you have what it takes to be #1.

You don't know anything about Andrew Wakefield. I bet that you've never even read his Lancet paper.

[jusplay4fun]

Rather than "nitpick" would you like to address my main point? about the statistical (based on probability) of nature, such as weather and climate? You obfuscate rather than advance the discussion here, Symm. And because I do not cite my source that make my argument moot? Hardly, Symm. And, yes, I did put it in quotes to make it clear that I was using a source. I did not realize that this was a scholarly forum that required citing every source used. I think you are in the wrong place, Symm.

Address the BIG Picture and forget about the minutia. Someone who deals with minutia shows (or leads one to conclude) a lack of understanding of the topic.

BTW: the source is indeed Wikipedia, as one of the acute responders surmised

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

Further, the Butterfly greatly illustrates the statistical, random nature of nature, weather, and many phenomena of the world. It is an excellent example that supports my point. Your criticism of it seems to be based on what you view as too frequent use of this concept. I would argue that my use is very appropriate; where else you read about it I cannot determine, but your criticism is not valid as it refers to my usage.

JP


Symmetry said:

The butterfly effect is a poor example for climate change. I kinda wish people would stop using it. Aside from a terrible terrible film with Aston Kutcher and the Fly guy in Jurassic Park, it's just a bad way of explaining things at best, and at worst, an excuse.

JP. I like your posts, but when you're obviously plagiarising, it's less interesting. Those little [1] and [2] mentions refer to footnotes from the thing you're quoting as your own without sourcing the actual research.

Now, can you at least be a bit more honest and serious? I take no pleasure in busting you for plagiarism.[/quote]

[Neoteny]

Anytime anyone tells me, "We have a problem and the answer is MORE GOVERNMENT," I have to shake my head at the obvious display of stupidity.

But, apparently, if I disbelieve socialist propaganda I hate scientists.

It was nice of you to boil your critique of science down to an admission of partisan bawling. If the scientists disagree with you, they must be wrong. Because your politics trump everything.

[Neoteny]

You're pretty much in 2nd place, right behind Symm. But keep trying because you have what it takes to be #1.

You don't know anything about Andrew Wakefield. I bet that you've never even read his Lancet paper.

Do you mean this paper? It's a good thing I read it over a decade ago. The red text stamped all over it now is pretty distracting.

I reckon I can't really prove that I read it before it was retracted. Like, I work in neurology and both my wife and I are involved in public health. But this is all just an internet forum. Anyone can say they do anything.

Oh wait, this is an internet forum! Here's me talking about this topic, and following Wakefield's crashing and burning as his papers are retracted and his license is revoked. And look who else we see! A spork defending, of all people, Jenny fucking McCarthy. This was even back when I was a discourse nerd. I was downright pleasant in that thread. Meanwhile, you were using your own fucking kid as a shield for your garbage opinions and attempts to blame a little neurodivergence on someone else instead of embracing it like a good parent would.

Who's the dipshit now?

[Metsfanmax]

You don't know anything about Andrew Wakefield. I bet that you've never even read his Lancet paper.

In Neoteny's defense, it is kind of hard to read now with those big red "RETRACTED" notices printed all over it.

[riskllama]

lol - sick time-travelling burn, Neo.
*inb4 df brings up his conq. medal... *

[DoomYoshi]

Climate denial is just the defense of other people's ability to keep raking in cash hand over fist.

But you aren't even getting a cut.

Well climate denial is pretty dumb I still have yet to see how climate change is a bad thing. Canada will get substantially richer and Atlanta, Georgia will turn into even more of a hellhole. It's what I call win-win.

[HitRed]

As the ice melts Russia finds more mammoths. I'm happy.

[Neoteny]

lol - sick time-travelling burn, Neo.
*inb4 df brings up his conq. medal... *

It's crazy that he's online enough to earn that medal, but can't remember using his kid to win an internet argument. His kid's, what, 18 now? Maybe he's an older parent, but that's pretty young for Sporky to be sundowning so strongly.

Well climate denial is pretty dumb I still have yet to see how climate change is a bad thing. Canada will get substantially richer and Atlanta, Georgia will turn into even more of a hellhole. It's what I call win-win.

Canada will be taking in refugees from not just Atlanta. I'm sure it will all go fine.

[DoomYoshi]

It will go swimmingly.

[Neoteny]

Har Har har

[DoomYoshi]

But you do raise a good point. Somehow we may need to make Mexico pay to build a wall through the Great Lakes.