Dont Blame Me I Voted For McCain

[Gold Winger]

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[perdidochas]

Now regarding the aluminum foil hat...I just have to ask about that. I have a neighbor who lives about a dozen houses down the street. She's late middle age and rarely comes out. When she does she wears on her head what appears to be a large aluminum pot covered with aluminum foil. After living the South my entire life, I just take things like this in stride. However, today I saw her again and noticed that she also had plastic bags wrapped around each leg, all up and down her legs. Does anyone have any idea what THAT's supposed to do? I confess, I literally AM afraid to ask her.

BTW, Her house had a political sign out front during the campaign. Wanna know whose name was on it?

Locally, I would guess Ron Paul.....

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Gold Winger writes:

Depends on what you consider orthodoxy, it changes continually in the world of science.

 

Yes, and you obviously are willing to take random bits of folklore and urban legends and pretend they are orthodox science as a bizarre way to show how "wrong" it can be, even though it's your ignorance of real science history that's at fault.

[vol_scouter]

Merlyn,

 

GW may have picked a poor example but he is right that science has accepted explanations and facts that were eventually found to not be correct. Global warming due to the effect of man is not a proven theory at this time. There is a consensus opinion in favor of that point of view. However, a consensus opinion is what is done when the evidence does not make the conclusion clear. Part of the problem is that determining the global temperature is difficult to define and to measure looking for an average change of a degree centigrade or so. The measurements are not adequate at this time. Also, Mars has also been warming which means that the sun is the cause of some or all of the warming. Most experts feel that increased solar warming does not account for the entire observed increase. So while many scientists believe that global warming has a large component caused by humans, it is not proven and therefore not known at this time.

[Gold Winger]

, it was the orthodoxy of then which is far different from the orthodoxy of now. At one time, the idea that there four elements of earth, air, fire and water was considered science and to claim that substances were made up of of unseeable particles was heresy. You're the one who seems to miss the idea that science changes continually.

 

(I'm sure that will be moderated) (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Right Winger writes:

Mervyn, it was the orthodoxy of then which is far different from the orthodoxy of now

 

No, it was never orthodoxy. You keep asserting that, but you don't back it up. I even had to track down who purportedly said it FOR you.

 

At one time, the idea that there four elements of earth, air, fire and water was considered science

 

It wasn't considered science by today's use of the word, because the scientific method hadn't been invented at that time. You can't just handwave and call anything "science," you have to follow the methods, so now you're just equivocating.

 

and to claim that substances were made up of of unseeable particles was heresy.

 

No it wasn't. There were Greeks who were atomists, like Epicurus and Democritus. That's why the word 'atom' is derived from ancient Greek. Eeesh.

 

"I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what aint so." -- Josh Billings

 

[Gold Winger]

Mark, it is these kinds of antics that got you suspended from the forums once before. It isn't funny.

FScouter (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[Trevorum]

GW, you're dead wrong on that. Science is not simply drawing conclusions based on observations. Asking questions has indeed existed for a long, long time, but not all question-asking processes are science. Science is actually a fairly recent way of going about the business. Yours is a very common mistake however, and I'm sure us scientists here will forgive you.

[Gold Winger]

"Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge" or "knowing") is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works. Through controlled methods, scientists use observable physical evidence of natural phenomena to collect data, and analyze this information to explain what and how things work. "

 

Sounds like drawing conclusions based on observations of phenomena.

 

 

[vol_scouter]

Merlyn,

 

Many of the world's top scientists did not believe that atoms existed at the turn of the 20th century. Einstein's paper on Brownian motion convinced most that the atomic theory was correct. The Greek idea was that any given material, i.e. element, could be divided just so many times before a smallest subdivision was reached. It is similar to the atomic theory but not the same either. GW has the gist of the scientific method. He only leaves out control of the experimental conditions.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

vol_scouter writes:

Many of the world's top scientists did not believe that atoms existed at the turn of the 20th century.

 

I haven't said anything to contradict that. I was pointing out GW's error in saying "to claim that substances were made up of of unseeable particles was heresy."

 

The Greek idea was that any given material, i.e. element, could be divided just so many times before a smallest subdivision was reached. It is similar to the atomic theory but not the same either.

 

I didn't say it was the same, I said the idea was around and advocated, not prosecuted as heresy. Some of them also glommed onto the similarities of packed sand = solid, loose sand = liquid, and dust = gas.

 

GW has the gist of the scientific method. He only leaves out control of the experimental conditions.

 

Which is what the Greeks also left out, which is why calling what they did "science" is not a valid comparison to what is called "science" today.

 

 

[gwd-scouter]

Packsaddle, you do live in an interesting community. I was going to guess the lady with the pot on her head had a Ron Paul sign in her yard. I have no idea why she would wear plastic bags on her legs except for CalicoPenn's guess about fire ants and chiggers.

 

I think every Southern town has a few crazies everyone talks about, but no one really knows - just part of the fabric of our lives.

 

"In a stunning development it should come out any day that Obama killed JFK, he eats babies for breakfast, and plans on outlawing Christianity with a massive Bible burning on the front lawn of the White House."

 

Sean Hannity is breaking the story tonight...

[vol_scouter]

Merlyn,

 

The climatologists use computers to solve coupled non-linear second order differential equations to model the weather. Their predictions are reasonably accurate for a few days but beyond are not much better than the Farmer's Almanac. They do not conduct controlled experiments because they cannot control weather variables. By your definition of science, the climatologists are not doing science - they are collecting data and making observations. I believe that they are scientists who are working in a difficult field that is in its' infancy. It is neither certain nor clear that man is influencing the global climate though man clearly does affect local climates such as Phoenix, Arizona. Whether or not it is wise to significantly disrupt economic systems to decrease the burning of fossil fuels is something that will only be known retrospectively. In my mind, that is a reason to shift but not lurch to less energy intensive societies. The evidence required to scuttle the US economy is not yet available.

 

The left is not serious about climate control as they say. When they ask to get rid of instant-on electronics, ask for wind-up clocks & watches, quit using all private jets, quit using limos, ask to get rid of indoor football and make all football and baseball games without lighting, then I will take notice. Until then, they are only picking on groups that they do not like - owners of SUV (though Al Gore is often in a Surburban though that could be required by the Secret Service).

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

vol_scouter writes:

By your definition of science, the climatologists are not doing science - they are collecting data and making observations.

 

If their observations aren't used to distinguish between competing weather models, then no, they aren't doing science. But I'd say they, or at least the people who developed the models to start with, actually did compare how well various models agreed with observations, and kept refining their models to get better ones.

[vol_scouter]

Merlyn,

 

That is correct, climatologists try to make predictions and compare their predictions to what the climate actually does. I agree that in my book, that is science. I was just pointing out that the definition you were applying to GW would not allow climatologists to be scientists. So GW's definition is a valid one. Scientists would all prefer to perform controlled experiments but astronomers and climatologists among others can merely observe and make observations. If they can mathematically model their science, they can sometimes make testable predictions with their models (how a supernova explodes or there will be a thunderstorm next week). So GW has a definition of science but does not describe the ideal science experiment.

 

Once again, the climate models though improving cannot predict what is going to happen in the next decades. Some but not all models seem to point to worsening warming. However, the earth has been cooling for the last ~18 months (from my memory) with climate models now predicting an impending ice age. We do not clearly understand solar cycles and their impact on the climate models. To ruin our economy in order to decrease warming that we are not actually causing is folly. We will only know the correct answer retrospectively but I cannot support ruining our economy based on our current data and models though I could be wrong.