Posts by Some Beggar 882 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jul 2009
Creationists start with the false premise that ...
Biologists start with the false premise that ...
They both work just as well.
Or they do if your idea of a coherent argument is a variation on the school yard "I know you are but what am I?"
Why don't you just post an advert for cheap diazepam? It would have about as much journalistic integrity and would be far more beneficial for the uptight halfwits you are trolling.
And what exactly is the point of having a messageboard if your bloggers are so witlessly scared of dissent and criticism?
Given that you can't really compete with sites/magazines like "Which" in terms of depth and breadth of reviews, would it not be better to take the Top Gear approach of "Here is some cool stuff we've been sent to play with this week" or "Here is a range of reviews by actual owners"?
A lot of these Top Tens occupy an awkward and arguably pointless middle ground.
@Lazy
Why would anybody want to debate with somebody who descends into blubbing hysteria at the use of the perfectly innocuous and descriptive word "denier"?
How about this: you refuse to accept the widely held scientific consensus on man's contribution to global warming but are unable to provide any material reason why you refuse to believe it. You presumably think you know better than all these scientists. That could mean that (a) you are an uncelebrated genius who actually knows better, or (b) you are depressingly arrogant and closed-minded.
Shall we toss a coin or leave that as an exercise for the reader?
No. I think the problem is more likely to lie somewhere within the fact that you seem to genuinely care about which button is pressed by a bunch of anonymous strangers on an internet messageboard.
According to my profile, my "posts have been upvoted 885 times and downvoted 593 times"
Should I reach for the champagne or the cyanide? Or just take another sip of "whatevah"?
Almost all special editions suck. There's generally a good reason that scenes are deleted or shortened. If you have the misfortune to watch the 'repaired' version of Metropolis, you essentially get an extra twenty minutes of proles running away from a big wave screaming and waving their arms. Whoohoo.
(cue exploding Bladerunner fans)
You're dividing your simplistic black and white world along the wrong line. Small 'c' conservatives and luddites are the main opponents to nuclear power, progressives and scientists have generally been in favour of it. The idea that this has any useful correlation with the 'green' movement is presumably based entirely on the fact that Greenpeace has the word 'green' in its name and is generally opposed to nuclear power.
"is simply unacceptable to them"
Who is this "them" you are deriding? Many 'green' activists are proponents of nuclear power and have been for a number of years. Stephen Tindale of climateanswers.info (ex of Greenpeace), Chris Smith of the Environment Agency, there are even a vocal minority within the Green Party who believe nuclear must be a part of our energy supply. I've been pro-nuclear since the 1980s. (I liked the Arctic Monkeys before they were famous too ... I'm well hip)
The assumption that if one accepts the scientific consensus on climate change one must automatically be an anti-nukes "hippy" luddite buries whatever point you are trying to make under a steaming pile of misplaced condescension. The majority of scientists accept anthropogenic climate change. Some scientists are hippies but hardly any of them are luddites.
@Adam0625
The reason the overwhelming majority of relevant scientists support the current consensus on climate change is because the overwhelming weight of evidence is in favour of it.
The default position on any technical topic in which one is not an expert should be the accepted majority view. Particularly when it is held by a very considerable majority. This has nothing to do with climate science. It is a simple and sensible and humble position for life generally.
Waffle about religious crusades and creationist-style casting-of-doubt arguments are the resort of the feeble witted and cowardly. No offence.
Twaddle. He gave precisely the same half-witted arguments as Creationists and alternative therapists. It's always been a crap argument. It always will be a crap argument. The fact that half a dozen half-wits on here think it is coherent doesn't stop if being a crap argument.
I assume you take the same stance on homeopathy (which has effectively the same level of 'controversy' as climate science)? You're happy to accept that water might be a miracle cure until somebody provides IRREFUTABLE evidence?
Being arrogant enough to think you know better than the overwhelming majority of experts is not being a sceptic. It is being an idiot.
What? It completely invalidates his argument. It's an endlessly repeated piece of bunkum used by everybody from homeopathy proponents to creationists. It's the standard fall-back argument of anybody wanting to cast doubt on the scientific method. It is bollocks, pure and simple.
If you click through to the summary of the study you get this:
"During 621 695 person-years of follow-up (mean follow-up, 2.8 years), 5405 deaths were registered. All-cause mortality hazard ratios were 1.02 (95% CI, 0.95-1.09), 1.15 (1.06-1.25), and 1.40 (1.27-1.55) for 4 to less than 8, 8 to less than 11, and 11 or more h/d of sitting, respectively, compared with less than 4 h/d, adjusting for physical activity and other confounders. The population-attributable fraction for sitting was 6.9%."
There's nothing on the proportions of the population who fall into each of the groups so there's not enough information to give an accurate estimate of actual risk. But the total population had a mortality rate of about 0.87% per year. A 40% increase would be about 1.2%, but the 40% is (as far as I can tell) the ratio above the portion of the population who sit for less than 4 hours a day rather than the entire population so the actual figure will be less than this.
It's not enough to make me leap out of my chair and go for a jog.
You're restating the same utterly bogus argument with a different example. Copernicus was not arguing with a consensus of scientists, he was arguing with the Catholic church.
You can make as many excuses for your hubris as you like. Or you can do a bit of self examination and ask yourself why you think you know better than the vast majority of experts. Your choice.
Oh. Good. Grief. Not the "herp derp flat earth" argument. Please.
What we currently describe as "science" only really dates back about three hundred years to the renaissance and Enlightenment. We've known the earth isn't flat since at least the fourth century BCE.
This is just about the laziest version of the argument from doubt.
Science if fluid by its very nature. But that means that when one lacks the specific technical background to make an educated choice, one should accept an argument from authority from the people who do have the technical background. The expert concensus on climate change is pretty clear. Calling it into question because of some daft 'flat earth' argument isn't healthy scepticism, it is pure hubris.
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