Re: Epic Fail
Re: Hi. I have done the maths and the physics. I was actually at the top of my Maths and Physics classes in fact. That's how I got my first class degree in Physics and PhD and how I have earned a living for the last 30 years. In fact I did so well the Queen gave me a medal!
It costs me nothing to accept your assertion above, so I will. However, whether you have said doctorate and medal or even whether you are a Nobel Laureate cannot help your argument. It must stand on its own. Thus far, I see no real argument. I see assertions unvarnished by reference to facts.
Re: And your qualification would be...?
My qualifications (or lack thereof) does no more to help my argument than it does yours. Mercifully for me, my argument is relatively simple: I do not believe that we should get excited and spend any more money attempting to deal with 'Climate Change'. I think that nothing really unusual is happening, not even the ongoing rare, but not unprecedented fact that 'Alarming Climate Change' has become a popular delusion. The burden of proof is necessarily upon you to refute the Null Hypothesis. Thus far, you have not even tried.
I will accept that you have some scientific literacy because of your educational background. However, that does not excuse the fact that, as usual in these 'discussions', your response simply does not address the issue. The issue was *NOT* that purveyors of 'Catastrophic Global Warming' (or whatever they are calling it these days) lack doctorates. In fact, I specifically addressed the notion that clearly they lacked the actual understanding it would require to pass the course, they must have been promoted otherwise. The issue is that they are scientifically, for these purposes, illiterate. They don't know what they are talking about. They don't understand graphing. They don't understand statistics. They don't understand logical argument. They don't understand notions of scientific method.
You cannot investigate 'the hockey stick' and come away believing the hockey stick is real unless you fundamentally lack the ability to bring literacy to bear on the topic. It is a disaster that, I am not exaggerating, would not have been accepted in my old high school.
Re: I have looked at this area very hard, and the 'botched' 33 degrees Celsius is the very real figure by which the Earth's surface is warmed by our atmosphere
How can you say something like this, with the entirety of the Global Internet at your disposal, your already agreed upon education and presumptive giant brain? It is an astounding pronouncement that cries out for credible proof from replicated experiments by reputable investigators. I provided a reference to a number of independent challenges to this 'fact' that is in dispute. You provided your promise that, even in the absence of proof or even a logical argument, it is still true somehow. It may be true. However, you have not demonstrated this and it is entirely in dispute. The burden rests upon you to prove it and if you do not understand this now, get reading so you do understand it. Your big brain belongs on the right side of the argument.
Re: FWIW My field is ultra-precision measurements.
Ummmm. There is some argument that narrow specialists are not so good at predictions *especially* in their own area of expertise (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/04/why-experts-get-it-wrong/73322/). There is, if I might interpret the facts a bit, some argument to be had that your focus on 'ultra-precision' may be a handicap, not a virtue.
Re: I take great care in what I believe and don't believe.
Either it is still not enough or you are very much a victim of a combination of trusting the wrong people and being led by a powerful confirmation bias. Sadly, just as the illiterate can be prodded into believing stuff for no reason, very literate people can be led to believe complete nonsense if it is pitched to their beliefs.
Re: Friend: the times they are a changing. get with it
Friend: The fundamental basics of understanding aren't a changing. My views (generally) square with Logic, Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology and Statistics. Climate Scientists' views only square with an increasingly shaky scientific orthodoxy.
Presuming you are what you say and you are sincere, do some investigating back to 'bare metal' (am a computer guy, for me that's basic) and you will certainly agree with me. It is not that the 'Climate Scare' orthodoxy is wrong, it is that it is so laughably stupid. If you can stand aside from your confirmation bias, understand what does and does not constitute evidence and logic, broaden your knowledge of other scientific areas (like Biological Evolution and Botany) and you inspect the nonsense purveyed by the IPCC, you cannot arrive at any conclusion but that Alarmism is essentially fraud and dangerous fraud at that.
Let me say this, for anyone who is sincerely on the 'Climate Alarm' side of the debate: I appreciate that people on my side of the fence can be harsh and 'over the top' in their criticisms sometimes. I am no exception, though I hope I am less unkind than many. Try to put aside hurt feelings and a desire to be 'correct' (whats' that). The bottom line is that most people both sides want to do what is 'best'. I submit that you can very clearly see extreme need for food, water, shelter, basic health care and education in the world. I would submit that even if you believe that the current warming (is it even still happening?) is a problem, that you can see that a much more immediate threat to the very lives of people in the Third World exists. We know what the problems are and we know how to make much of it better. We have the resources, even. All we need is the will.
Our inability to do the right thing with respect to this 'Climate Alarm' nonsense stems from a breakdown in broad literacy and common sense, even and maybe even especially, among the nominally educated. Even if we *will* have a sea level rise of a meter a century hence, this is in dispute NOW and NOW people are dying for other reasons and that are NOT in dispute. This puts me in mind of a poem:
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
'O young man, O my slayer,
To-morrow you shall die.'
O Queen of air and darkness,
I think 'tis truth you say,
And I shall die to-morrow;
But you will die to-day.
That puts me in mind of a more elegant joke to the same effect:
A man, not known for his smarts, walks in on his wife making love to another man. He immediately flies into a rage and puts a gun to his head. His wife and lover just start laughing to which he responds: What are you laughing at? You're next.
Let's not be coy about it. Even the Climate Alarmists don't claim anybody will die tomorrow. We know for kids in the third world will be dead by morning unless we intervene NOW. Let's stop spending *so much money* on 'Climate Alarm' and start getting water and mosquito nets where they are needed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
