Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[The Brain]

I don't get it.

Presumably we are all on the verge of being killed on Muslims.

It's a piece of wood.

[Razgovory]

I don't get it.

Presumably we are all on the verge of being killed on Muslims.

I mean, if we all book a flight to Iraq, hop the border to Syria, and sign on with one of the various militias, our odds are pretty high!

I look at the picture a little more and it could be a really fat ninja.

[Syt]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-climate-skeptics-are-wrong/

Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong

Or why climate skeptics are wrong

At some point in the history of all scientific theories, only a minority of scientists—or even just one—supported them, before evidence accumulated to the point of general acceptance. The Copernican model, germ theory, the vaccination principle, evolutionary theory, plate tectonics and the big bang theory were all once heretical ideas that became consensus science. How did this happen?

An answer may be found in what 19th-century philosopher of science William Whewell called a "consilience of inductions." For a theory to be accepted, Whewell argued, it must be based on more than one induction—or a single generalization drawn from specific facts. It must have multiple inductions that converge on one another, independently but in conjunction. "Accordingly the cases in which inductions from classes of facts altogether different have thus jumped together," he wrote in his 1840 book The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, "belong only to the best established theories which the history of science contains." Call it a "convergence of evidence."

Consensus science is a phrase often heard today in conjunction with anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Is there a consensus on AGW? There is. The tens of thousands of scientists who belong to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Medical Association, the American Meteorological Society, the American Physical Society, the Geological Society of America, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and, most notably, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all concur that AGW is in fact real. Why?

It is not because of the sheer number of scientists. After all, science is not conducted by poll. As Albert Einstein said in response to a 1931 book skeptical of relativity theory entitled 100 Authors against Einstein, "Why 100? If I were wrong, one would have been enough." The answer is that there is a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry—pollen, tree rings, ice cores, corals, glacial and polar ice-cap melt, sea-level rise, ecological shifts, carbon dioxide increases, the unprecedented rate of temperature increase—that all converge to a singular conclusion. AGW doubters point to the occasional anomaly in a particular data set, as if one incongruity gainsays all the other lines of evidence. But that is not how consilience science works. For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary theory.) This they have not done.

A 2013 study published in Environmental Research Letters by Australian researchers John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli and their colleagues examined 11,944 climate paper abstracts published from 1991 to 2011. Of those papers that stated a position on AGW, about 97 percent concluded that climate change is real and caused by humans. What about the remaining 3 percent or so of studies? What if they're right? In a 2015 paper published in Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Rasmus Benestad of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Nuccitelli and their colleagues examined the 3 percent and found "a number of methodological flaws and a pattern of common mistakes." That is, instead of the 3 percent of papers converging to a better explanation than that provided by the 97 percent, they failed to converge to anything.

"There is no cohesive, consistent alternative theory to human-caused global warming," Nuccitelli concluded in an August 25, 2015, commentary in the Guardian. "Some blame global warming on the sun, others on orbital cycles of other planets, others on ocean cycles, and so on. There is a 97% expert consensus on a cohesive theory that's overwhelmingly supported by the scientific evidence, but the 2–3% of papers that reject that consensus are all over the map, even contradicting each other. The one thing they seem to have in common is methodological flaws like cherry picking, curve fitting, ignoring inconvenient data, and disregarding known physics." For example, one skeptical paper attributed climate change to lunar or solar cycles, but to make these models work for the 4,000-year period that the authors considered, they had to throw out 6,000 years' worth of earlier data.

Such practices are deceptive and fail to further climate science when exposed by skeptical scrutiny, an integral element to the scientific process.

[Berkut]

(Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary theory.)

It isn't a problem for either group, it is a feature.

And I suspect a large overlap in those groups in any case.

NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH RELIGION! IT IS FINE!

[Valmy]

NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH RELIGION! IT IS FINE!

Religion is fine at being religion. It sucks at being science though.

[Berkut]

NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH RELIGION! IT IS FINE!

Religion is fine at being religion. It sucks at being science though.

Sadly, for many there isn't any difference between the two.

But to be honest, I actually think the relatively recent "reasoned" retreat of religion from material science is in fact something of a cop out - a way to hang onto the framework of religion after science has thoroughly debunked it.

The bible does in fact make very clear claims about the physical world, for example. Claims which are simply false, and we know they are false on the basis of modern science which was not available to the writers. In a rather perverse way, the Young Earth Creationists are in some fashion a more "honest" Christian, in that they recognize that you can't jut pretend like the bible doesn't say what it rather obvious does say simply because it is patently untrue.

[Valmy]

But to be honest, I actually think the relatively recent "reasoned" retreat of religion from material science is in fact something of a cop out - a way to hang onto the framework of religion after science has thoroughly debunked it.

I don't. I do not think it was ever intended to be about material science.

The bible does in fact make very clear claims about the physical world, for example. Claims which are simply false, and we know they are false on the basis of modern science which was not available to the writers. In a rather perverse way, the Young Earth Creationists are in some fashion a more "honest" Christian, in that they recognize that you can't jut pretend like the bible doesn't say what it rather obvious does say simply because it is patently untrue.

No it doesn't. And besides the Bible makes many obviously false historical claims that were known at the time to be false. They get the name of the King of Babylon wrong, they get the number of Kings of Persia wrong, and so forth and all this was known. St. Augustine said anybody who thinks the earth was literally created in a week is an idiot because that was not the point. And frankly I could go on and on and on here. So I disagree that modern science was necessary for this to be obvious and that taking the Bible as it was intended to be taken is some kind of new cop out.

[Berkut]

But to be honest, I actually think the relatively recent "reasoned" retreat of religion from material science is in fact something of a cop out - a way to hang onto the framework of religion after science has thoroughly debunked it.

I don't. I do not think it was ever intended to be about material science.

The bible does in fact make very clear claims about the physical world, for example. Claims which are simply false, and we know they are false on the basis of modern science which was not available to the writers. In a rather perverse way, the Young Earth Creationists are in some fashion a more "honest" Christian, in that they recognize that you can't jut pretend like the bible doesn't say what it rather obvious does say simply because it is patently untrue.

No it doesn't. And besides the Bible makes many obviously false historical claims that were known at the time to be false. They get the name of the King of Babylon wrong, they get the number of Kings of Persia wrong, and so forth and all this was known. St. Augustine said anybody who thinks the earth was literally created in a week is an idiot because that was not the point. And frankly I could go on and on and on here. So I disagree that modern science was necessary for this to be obvious and that taking the Bible as it was intended to be taken is some kind of new cop out.

By the time of St. Augustine, it was pretty obvious that you can't create worlds in a day. At the time Genesis was written, maybe not so much.

People still believe today that god covered the entire globe with a flood, for example. Did he or did he not? The bible says he did, and that was considered to be "true", and for those who were the original consumers, it probably was effectively true.

And if you believe in an omnipotent god, then in fact it isn't even unreasonable to believe that it is true. Why not? If you believe that any one single story in the bible of something happening that is physically beyond material science, then why is it ridiculous to believe that other "magic" things happen? indeed, it isn't even "magic" at that point, it is just the universe following the actual physical laws that define it - said laws including an omnipotent being capable of doing things like resurrecting his nominal "son" and turning water into wine or creating the world in seven days.

What do YOU believe Valmy? Does the bible describe even one single instance of anything happening that is beyond rational scientific understanding? Some actual, physical occurrence?

Did Jesus actually rise from the dead?

[garbon]

In a rather perverse way, the Young Earth Creationists are in some fashion a more "honest" Christian, in that they recognize that you can't jut pretend like the bible doesn't say what it rather obvious does say simply because it is patently untrue.

He's gone full Viking.

[Berkut]

In a rather perverse way, the Young Earth Creationists are in some fashion a more "honest" Christian, in that they recognize that you can't jut pretend like the bible doesn't say what it rather obvious does say simply because it is patently untrue.

He's gone full Viking.

Nah, not really.

I think the YECs are a bit more consistent, but at the same time I accept Valmy's more nuanced position that such consistency isn't really that important - there is value to be extracted regardless, and presumably he feels it is a worthwhile endeavor to extract that value even if it involves a bit of biblical cherry picking.

I would like to hear his answer to my question though...

[Razgovory]

In a rather perverse way, the Young Earth Creationists are in some fashion a more "honest" Christian, in that they recognize that you can't jut pretend like the bible doesn't say what it rather obvious does say simply because it is patently untrue.

He's gone full Viking.

Sad isn't it?  It's the path of all lazy Atheists.

[The Brain]

How magic is it if it took him three fucking days?

[Valmy]

By the time of St. Augustine, it was pretty obvious that you can't create worlds in a day. At the time Genesis was written, maybe not so much.

It was a common motif in that culture that is for sure. Hard to get into the heads of people that ancient. But I was talking about Christianity specifically. I think when it was adopted everybody understood the nature of the Bible. It would just make no sense to adopt it the way they did if they had a modern pseudo-scientific understanding of it like the YEC crowd.

People still believe today that god covered the entire globe with a flood, for example. Did he or did he not? The bible says he did, and that was considered to be "true", and for those who were the original consumers, it probably was effectively true.

Again this was a common motif in that area. Everybody incorporated that story into their religion so the Bible had to put their own spin on it. And what the world meant to them is different, after all, Cyrus went around calling himself  King of the Universe. I don't think anybody took that to mean there were no people outside of his rule.

And if you believe in an omnipotent god, then in fact it isn't even unreasonable to believe that it is true. Why not? If you believe that any one single story in the bible of something happening that is physically beyond material science, then why is it ridiculous to believe that other "magic" things happen? indeed, it isn't even "magic" at that point, it is just the universe following the actual physical laws that define it - said laws including an omnipotent being capable of doing things like resurrecting his nominal "son" and turning water into wine or creating the world in seven days.

This is a materialist modern pseudo-scientific perspective that makes no sense if you plug it in to say...the Byzantine Empire. They still would take in taxes and drill their armies and plan strategy and do everything somebody who does not believe in God would do in order to win a battle. If they believed God's power was physically and materially real then they would just work their mojo and win. But they did both contradictory things and saw no contradiction in it, because that was their understanding of how things worked. But lots of ancient civilizations were like this.

To my modern mind I can easily understand this contradiction. In the "material" world there is no God. Period. I think ancient people grasped this but in a different way, they were always going on about how the material world was an illusion or separate.

What do YOU believe Valmy? Does the bible describe even one single instance of anything happening that is beyond rational scientific understanding? Some actual, physical occurrence?

I believe that nothing in the Bible happened like it says it did or if it did it is a coincidence that was not necessarily intended. The writers of the Bible did not really worry too much if they got the name of the King of Babylon right because that was not the point.

I mean even Herodotus couldn't help but turn his histories into morality plays without too much concern for stern accuracy and he WAS actually trying to do a historical study.

Did Jesus actually rise from the dead?

In a material scientific sense? Nope.

[lustindarkness]

How magic is it if it took him three fucking days?

Fucking lag.

[Valmy]

Nah, not really.

I think the YECs are a bit more consistent, but at the same time I accept Valmy's more nuanced position that such consistency isn't really that important - there is value to be extracted regardless, and presumably he feels it is a worthwhile endeavor to extract that value even if it involves a bit of biblical cherry picking.

I would like to hear his answer to my question though...

I disagree. The YECs are the kings of cherry picking. They have to. Their beliefs make no sense Biblically so they have to ignore whatever is inconvenient. Like Jewish Law. Jesus says you should obey the law in some places (and very stringently at that). Peter and Jesus' brother, the dudes who knew him personally, had that understanding. Yet other things Jesus is quoted saying indicate just the opposite in other places. So what to do...