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The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality

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I love the "Herrrp derrrrp they changed the name those trixsy scientists!" argument. No one changed the name. It's still global warming. The media mostly calls it climate change because morons were looking out their window and asking why it could still snow.

because it's winter.
 

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
Which brings us back to my earlier post, which the non-scientist atheists have so desperately ignored.

Christian fundamentalist refusal to believe in evolution is stupid, yes, but ultimately harmless.

The Science that Democrats choose to deny, vaccines, adult stem cell research, cancer discoveries including the ABC link, lead to thousands of avoidable deaths every year.
Nice gross misrepresentation of the anti-science sentiments on both sides to support your bullshit argument. Now I remember why I had you on ignore.


Kapura said:
Your answers aren't good enough. Religion's are. Sorry.
That's quite the claim. It sounds like you're more interested in your answers coming from your religion than the veracity of the answers themselves. That tends to be a problem with religious people I've noticed...
 

Kosmo

Banned
In regards to Kosmo's point, I'm consistently confused by these sorts of arguments.

Before even confronting the evidence he proposes on its own merits, I have to question the logic. The evidence he's providing (that is, that temperature hasn't increased for 10 years on average) is extremely straightforward even to climatological laymen like Kosmo and I.

While it's perfectly possible that the majority of climatologists are wrong, I think the likelihood that their error is something obvious and simple like this are almost absurdly small. There are hundreds if not thousands of independent climatologists in the IAC (InterAcademy Council), EASA (European Academy of Science and Arts), ICAETS (International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technology Sciences), etc.

What are the odds that these thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to the study of climate have overlooked something so obvious and simple, and that a few casual observers on an internet forum have identified their critical error? On the contrary, if Climatologists have made an error, it is likely obscure and opaque to virtually anyone but the most well versed, or else it would have already been found.

It's not even so much what the actual data is, as I accept that temperatures have warmed - 0.8 degrees Celcius over the last 130 year, according to NASA. What I question is the significance of such a rise and whether that significance is necessarily bad and worth combating, when we know that all we can combat is likely an insignificant portion of that rise.

Solar activity is THE major contributor to the Earth's changing temperature - we have no control over that. Here's what is sure to be a bad analogy:

Imagine you build a large box with no roof under an intermittent waterfall that has nothing in it but a single faucet. Under normal circumstances, the waterfall flows into the box and out a drain at the bottom such that a consistent level of water is maintained in the box. Occasionally the flow is less and level of water falls, occasionally it is greater and the level of the water rises. Meanwhile, instead of accepting that the waterfall is what is causing the water in your box, you're worried whether or not you leave the faucet in the box on.
 

Kapura

Banned
That's quite the claim. It sounds like you're more interested in your answers coming from your religion than the veracity of the answers themselves. That tends to be a problem with religious people I've noticed...

I'm more interested in answers serving a purpose. Have you seen Ricky Gervais's The Invention of Lying? In it, nobody in the world knows how to tell a lie, except for Gervais. Gervais uses his power mostly for good and claims divine inspiration for some of the things he says. Everybody else in the film believes him, because nobody knows what lying is.

There is a scene where his mother is on her deathbed, and she asks what will happen to her after she dies. Initially, she is told what everybody already knows: Nothing will happen to when she is dead. That's it. She's done. And the old woman is whimpering on her bed, afraid to meet the void. Then Gervais, seeing his mother's suffering, begins to make up a story. He says she'll go live in a mansion and she'll be able to see all of her friends there.

This is what I mean when I say sometimes, science's answer on some things isn't good enough. People can become preoccupied with death. They ask what will happen to consciousness after death. If they really wanted to know, they'd off themselves or wait for death to come. They ask because they want to be put at ease. They want to be told that everything will be alright after they pass. An eternity of nothingness is not all that reassuring, while heaven eternal is much more so.

Is it not good and right that the suffering should have their minds put at ease? Is this not a noble purpose that religion can serve without needing to step on science's toes?
 
Animated GIF images. Refuting arguments since 1987.

Oh, I'm sorry. Do continue to tell me about the collusion between the political establishment and the scientific community to propagate the myth of climate change so they can all get rich.

I've also heard the government was involvement in 9/11. Perhaps you can tell me about that too.
 

KHarvey16

Member
There are very few jobs that offer a faster and more enjoyable path to riches than climatology researcher. It's like 2000's banking, but much eviler.
 

ronito

Member
There are very few jobs that offer a faster and more enjoyable path to riches than climatology researcher. It's like 2000's banking, but much eviler.

As a data warehouse guy I know that the heaviest users of super dbs for statistical analysis are weather people and climatologists. Whenever I talk to a climatologist and ask them why they require such massive cloud computing they just say "Porn lolz. This whole thing is just a sham anyway and we hate streaming."
 

KHarvey16

Member
As a data warehouse guy I know that the heaviest users of super dbs for statistical analysis are weather people and climatologists. Whenever I talk to a climatologist and ask them why they require such massive cloud computing they just say "Porn lolz. This whole thing is just a sham anyway and we hate streaming."

It's all starting to unravel! Alert the media! "Pervert Scientists: Temperatures not only thing that is rising"
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
I love the "Herrrp derrrrp they changed the name those trixsy scientists!" argument. No one changed the name. It's still global warming. The media mostly calls it climate change because morons were looking out their window and asking why it could still snow.

Scientists call it climate change. My climatology professor calls it climate change. Unless specifically referring to warming. Because there's more to it than just warming... cooling, dimming, etc... "climate change" is an umbrella term that refers to all change occurring. "Global warming" is a more narrowly focused term, and not always as useful -- sometimes, depending on the context, not even accurate!

"Climate change" is the safer way to go, usually... especially for the media, who seem easily confused.
 
I'm more interested in answers serving a purpose. Have you seen Ricky Gervais's The Invention of Lying? In it, nobody in the world knows how to tell a lie, except for Gervais. Gervais uses his power mostly for good and claims divine inspiration for some of the things he says. Everybody else in the film believes him, because nobody knows what lying is.

There is a scene where his mother is on her deathbed, and she asks what will happen to her after she dies. Initially, she is told what everybody already knows: Nothing will happen to when she is dead. That's it. She's done. And the old woman is whimpering on her bed, afraid to meet the void. Then Gervais, seeing his mother's suffering, begins to make up a story. He says she'll go live in a mansion and she'll be able to see all of her friends there.

This is what I mean when I say sometimes, science's answer on some things isn't good enough. People can become preoccupied with death. They ask what will happen to consciousness after death. If they really wanted to know, they'd off themselves or wait for death to come. They ask because they want to be put at ease. They want to be told that everything will be alright after they pass. An eternity of nothingness is not all that reassuring, while heaven eternal is much more so.

Is it not good and right that the suffering should have their minds put at ease? Is this not a noble purpose that religion can serve without needing to step on science's toes?

Except religion tells people that they will only go to heaven if they follow that religion's rules, like not being gay, or not using birth control, or killing their religion's enemies etc. All this does much more harm than good. And besides, science has proven that consciousness is the result of the physical operations of the brain, and that if someone dies, their brain will cease to function and their consciousness will disappear. If religion contradicts this, then religion is stepping on science's toes.
 

nyong

Banned
I hope every Democrat or liberal who mocks Republicans for anti-scientific thinking, including the author of this article, is an atheist. Otherwise, you're being a bit hypocritical.

Studies have shown that atheists tend to be MORE superstitious than religious people, in general.
 
Which brings us back to my earlier post, which the non-scientist atheists have so desperately ignored.

Christian fundamentalist refusal to believe in evolution is stupid, yes, but ultimately harmless.

The Science that Democrats choose to deny, vaccines, adult stem cell research, cancer discoveries including the ABC link, lead to thousands of avoidable deaths every year.


And Freezie, you sound like a 16 year old kid pissy that rebelling against mommy and daddy isn't enough so you just picked up your first Nietzsche picture book. Its hilarious how pompous, arrogant, and wrong your arguments are.

Keep going.


You realize that it was republicans who were dumb enough to oppose that shit, right? Like you get that it was pro-life people who kept claiming that stem-cell research required live fetuses right?
 

Kapura

Banned
Except religion tells people that they will only go to heaven if they follow that religion's rules, like not being gay, or not using birth control, or killing their religion's enemies etc. All this does much more harm than good. And besides, science has proven that consciousness is the result of the physical operations of the brain, and that if someone dies, their brain will cease to function and their consciousness will disappear. If religion contradicts this, then religion is stepping on science's toes.

some parts of some religions. And I still disagree that consciousness can be defined strictly in scientific terms.
 
Solar activity is THE major contributor to the Earth's changing temperature - we have no control over that. Here's what is sure to be a bad analogy:

I would say you're wrong but maybe it's just the scientist in me that likes data (which I will repost again for you to ignore) over bad analogies:

Solar_vs_Temp_basic.gif

Figure 1: Global temperature (red, NASA GISS) and Total solar irradiance (blue, 1880 to 1978 from Solanki, 1979 to 2009 from PMOD).

While solar activity does correlate well with historical temps it is NOT driving current warming trends. Continual regurgitation of false statements doesn't incrementally make them more of a reality.
 
You're picking two data points out of ten.

AMSU5-Aqua-anoms-thru-2-23-12.png


a2a9t.gif

And you're picking random end points that fit your preconceptions. It's an old statistics game used to fool people who want to be fooled.

You said it hasn't warmed in the last 10 years. The warmest years on record being 2005 and 2010 proves that statement incorrect. Full stop. What you wanted to say was the average global temperature now and 10 years ago was similar. I don't even know if that's true taking all data sets into consideration, but it's a rather irrelevant piece of trivia. That you think it means something bad for global warming says a whole lot about your level of understanding.

So, in the period in which CO2 emissions have had the greatest increase in human history (due to the rise of the developing world) and temperature sensors on land and especially in satellites have been more accurate than any period, the relative constant "global average temperature" of the last decade is inconsequential?

I don't see how anyone, who isn't making money off of AGW, "green" technologies, or is just a die-hard enviro-lefty, can not be skeptical of the laughably wrong predictions many climatologists have made over the decades and continue to make.


In regards to Kosmo's point, I'm consistently confused by these
sorts of arguments.

Before even confronting the evidence he proposes on its own merits, I have to question the logic. The evidence he's providing (that is, that temperature hasn't increased for 10 years on average) is extremely straightforward even to climatological laymen like Kosmo and I.

While it's perfectly possible that the majority of climatologists are wrong, I think the likelihood that their error is something obvious and simple like this are almost absurdly small. There are hundreds if not thousands of independent climatologists in the IAC (InterAcademy Council), EASA (European Academy of Science and Arts), ICAETS (International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technology Sciences), etc.

What are the odds that these thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to the study of climate have overlooked something so obvious and simple, and that a few casual observers on an internet forum have identified their critical error? On the contrary, if Climatologists have made an error, it is likely obscure and opaque to virtually anyone but the most well versed, or else it would have already been found.

Climatology is inherently flawed. It's similar to how physicists used to teach their students and write papers on light following Newtonian physics. Climatology inherently follows global temperature having a 1:1 ratio with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which is simply wrong. It's obscenely basic, anti-intellectual assumption. Over the recent years, more and more non-climatologists have been reviewing the work of their "peers" and many have become alarmed at just how poorly climatologists overall understand basic scientific principles, hence the rapidly growing AGW skepticism within the scientific community.

The overall consensus of a branch of science can be wrong and be wrong for decades. It's happened before many times and it's occurring today (and not just in climatology either).


Except religion tells people that they will only go to heaven if they follow that religion's rules, like not being gay, or not using birth control, or killing their religion's enemies etc. All this does much more harm than good. And besides, science has proven that consciousness is the result of the physical operations of the brain, and that if someone dies, their brain will cease to function and their consciousness will disappear. If religion contradicts this, then religion is stepping on science's toes.

One can consider themselves a Christian or Muslim and not follow every little item in either the Bible or Koran. Religious views can differ significantly between different people, whom consider themselves in the same religion.


Which brings us back to my earlier post, which the non-scientist atheists have so desperately ignored.

Christian fundamentalist refusal to believe in evolution is stupid, yes, but ultimately harmless.

The Science that Democrats choose to deny, vaccines, adult stem cell research, cancer discoveries including the ABC link, lead to thousands of avoidable deaths every year.

Exactly, despite people of the left wanting to harp on those who don't believe in evolution or perhaps evolution has some supernatural component to it, those beliefs are mostly harmless and do not significantly impact technological progress.

Calling for massive new taxes on the most used and efficient energy sources, a whole new unnecessary commodities' market that would be ripe for mass speculation, and capping the quick progress of the developing world are extremely detrimental to economic prosperity and technological advancement. If you do not think there are extremely negative consequences to the proposed solutions to combating propagandized AGW (which even those solutions would do jack shit), then you're not educated enough on the subject.



I would say you're wrong but maybe it's just the scientist in me that likes data (which I will repost again for you to ignore) over bad analogies:

Solar_vs_Temp_basic.gif

Figure 1: Global temperature (red, NASA GISS) and Total solar irradiance (blue, 1880 to 1978 from Solanki, 1979 to 2009 from PMOD).

While solar activity does correlate well with historical temps it is NOT driving current warming trends. Continual regurgitation of false statements doesn't incrementally make them more of a reality.

Forgive me question the very accurate solar irradiance values of the 1880s...

Christ, this is almost as bad as people believing the Adam and Eve story actually occurred (which even the Bible's writers intended it to be metaphorical).
 

Kapura

Banned
So you werent trolling in the post above this one?

Religious threads are one of the few places where i try to remain somewhat serious. It's heated and difficult enough without me throwing the gas i have at my disposal on the fire. I can't stand when people act superior to one another because of their religion or lack thereof. Religion has value to society, perhaps less so than in the past, but those who outright insult people because they believe in God or Jesus or whatever is at least as ignorant as the targets, if not more so. I do not believe that religion is a substitute for science, but science sure as shit isn't a substitute for some of the things that religion provides.
 
Forgive me question the very accurate solar irradiance values the 1880s...

Christ, this is almost as bad as people believing the Adam and Eve story actually occurred (which even the Bible's writers intended it to be metaphorical).

Understand how the data was collected and make an intelligent argument for why the data is flawed. "Derp Derp...that's old!" is not a convincing argument for discarding peer-reviewed published data.
 

Kosmo

Banned
Something Wicked said:
Forgive me question the very accurate solar irradiance values the 1880s...

Or surrogate temperature data from 100's of years ago and lecturing people on the importance of less than a one degree change in global temperatures over 1000 years.


Understand how the data was collected and make an intelligent argument for why the data is flawed. "Derp Derp...that's old!" is not a convincing argument for discarding peer-reviewed published data.

What is the margin of error on surrogate temperature data?
 
Studies have shown that atheists tend to be MORE superstitious than religious people, in general.

And if such an atheist (believing in a ridiculous superstition) were to be mocking a Republican for unscientific thinking, then they would be just as hypocritical as the theistic Democrat that does so.

But considering you haven't brought any legitimate "studies" to the table, excuse me if I remain skeptical, as is my nature.
 
Exactly, despite people of the left wanting to harp on those who don't believe in evolution or perhaps evolution has some supernatural component to it, those beliefs are mostly harmless and do not significantly impact technological progress.

debatable. let's assume the next generation of leaders of countries (non specific) believes natural evolution is rubbish, and therefore suspending research on the evolution of viruses/bacterias on grounds that they are 'created', therefore can't possibly change from, for example, a blood transmitted disease to say, again, example, air borne disease.

does this, one might argue that farfetched situation realistically but nonetheless not impossible, constitute as harmless?

the true value of research is not always obvious. Hertz observed the photo-electric effect in 188x (i don't remember the exact year and to lazy to google). Today, this photoelectric effect is used in important part of our daily lives.
 
Or surrogate temperature data from 100's of years ago and lecturing people on the importance of less than a one degree change in global temperatures over 1000 years.

What is the margin of error on surrogate temperature data?

As obviously scientists never realized you're brilliant assertion that surrogate data is completely worthless, maybe you can just look at the data from the last 30 years that clearly show steady/reduced solar activity and increased temperature. But then, of course, it's easier to ignore your deficiencies and attack the data which is irrelevant to you're demonstrably false assertions.
 
Understand how the data was collected and make an intelligent argument for why the data is flawed. "Derp Derp...that's old!" is not a convincing argument for discarding peer-reviewed published data.

Do you understand why the chart uses a completely different data set in 1979? It's because you need fucking satellites to measure solar irradiance accurately. Such satellite probes weren't even that accurate in 1979 and hence the divergence from solar activity and temperature in the 1980s-today.

Before 1979, as I'm reading from a paper by Professor Solanki himself: http://134.76.238.34/projects/sun-climate/papers/aa6725-06.pdf, irradiance values were retroactively estimated by "sunspot" counts from mid-1800s and beyond.

So, that assumes: A) between 1850-1980, scientists could accurately count "sunspots" by looking at the sun via telescopes, B) the definition of a "sunspot" was consistent over that 100+ year period and the number of scientists each year observing the spots was similar to confirm each spot was indeed a spot, ...and C) that sunspots have a 1:1 correlation with solar irradiance values of the earth's upper atmosphere.

Again, this is bullshit science trying really hard and grasping at straws to appear technical and scientifically sound.


FlyingTeacup said:
debatable. let's assume the next generation of leaders of countries (non specific) believes natural evolution is rubbish, and therefore suspending research on the evolution of viruses/bacterias on grounds that they are 'created', therefore can't possibly change from, for example, a blood transmitted disease to say, again, example, air borne disease.

does this, one might argue that farfetched situation realistically but nonetheless not impossible, constitute as harmless?

Yet, for the US, it doesn't seem that younger generations are becoming more religious. Even in the American South, young people are becoming more and more secular. The US will inevitably become more secular over the next few decades- just hopefully, people don't replace fundamental Christianity with fundamental environmentalism/Malthusian-ism like much of Europe has.

Unfortunately, where scientific education truly continues to regress is in places with very large populations of poor Muslims, like parts of Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan. Many adults in those countries are very worried of how fundamentally religious their children have become.
 
Religious threads are one of the few places where i try to remain somewhat serious. It's heated and difficult enough without me throwing the gas i have at my disposal on the fire. I can't stand when people act superior to one another because of their religion or lack thereof. Religion has value to society, perhaps less so than in the past, but those who outright insult people because they believe in God or Jesus or whatever is at least as ignorant as the targets, if not more so. I do not believe that religion is a substitute for science, but science sure as shit isn't a substitute for some of the things that religion provides.
I used to be quite religious, and I would never outright insult someone for being religious, but it does change the way you look at things. I don't think that religion helps you to think critically at all. In fact, I would argue it forces you to do the opposite.

Science is a method which allows us to answer questions about our world. Religions are ideas that give blanket answers to things that people don't understand, without any evidence at all.
 
Which is the only point needed to be made in this figure. Solar activity and increased global temperature over the last 30 years does not correlate. THEREFORE, the sun has little if anything to do with recent climate change.

Did you read what I said? It diverges because it's using a completely different source of data- one that is infinitely more accurate than the previous source.

Therefore, using data before the 1980s would skew the regression line of the solar irradiance values rendering that graph useless.
 

Yoritomo

Member
Can we stop debating science and start debating policy?

Please.

I guess for the groups that doesn't want change in the energy infrastructure any roadblock is a good roadblock, but at the same time policy is inevitable.

The issue is we continue to run with bad policy with regards to climate change.

The EU's emissions trading scheme has basically cost consumers 280 billion and done jack shit for new forms of energy production. (at least according to a UBS report from november of last year)

That money would have been better spent towards targeted research into forms of energy production and direct engineering solutions to reduce atmospheric carbon and carbon emissions.

All the while the can gets kicked down the road. The US will never agree to a legally binding treaty to reduce carbon emissions unless China, India, and Brazil do the same. This basically means the US will not do anything that might constrain it's own economic growth until those three countries are fully developed.

The quick solution is for a carbon tax. All atmospheric carbon creating energy sources should be taxed at a level commiserate with their direct carbon output. This means a gas tax. Those fund should then be used towards targeted research in energy production and carbon reduction. No politician is going to be the guy that made gas prices go up by a couple bucks a gallon. We need the problem out of politician and business hands and into the hands of engineers and scientists.

Unless a politician is going to propose a carbon tax, then his rhetoric on climate change is pure bullshit.
 

ToxicAdam

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