Posted on 12/06/2015 1:40:40 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Climate skepticism is just bad science: "There is no cohesive, consistent alternative theory to human-caused global warming"
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.
Excellent work by Crichton.
The idea and plan is to keep people in a constant "state of fear."
Mankind will be the death of planet Earth; but not from AGW. In mankind’s headlong rush into things it knows nothing about, nature will be messed up so much that, if left to its own devices, will leave the planet a scorched ball of - nothing.
Their goal is to reduce CO2 to some “acceptable” level. That decrease, however, means that fewer plants will survive to produce O2. Less O2 = people die. Less CO2 also means ozone layer breaks down, allowing radiation to get through. More temperature increase ......
Thank you for this. It is an excellent and well thought out response.
I hope you won’t mind if I pass this along to others, with proper accreditation of course.
Hey, it worked for Darwinian Evolution!
I LOVED his lecture on the Drake Equation! ;)
I’m sure it was partially in homage to Mencken.
“...the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.â€
- H. L. Mencken
In a nutshell!
The "If you don't give me an alternative [that I, as a final arbiter, can decide not to accept as valid]" straw man argument has been often used by Obama and is now widely adopted by liberal/progressive/socialist/Democratic disciples as a way to brand the opponents as "deniers" and thus avoid the real arguments against their position. If you have more than one alternative explanation, then you are also inconsistent and incohesive (because there can be only one explanation — their theory) and thereby all the other arguments are "deemed" invalid.
Or, as former CEO of Netscape Jim Barksdale said, ""If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine."
Which is why it is impossible to debate a liberal (progressive). They get to determine what you mean.
....or alternatively, the “days” of Genesis are not a contradiction to the 16 billion years or whatever it is...since time is in face NOT A CONSTANT in our universe.
Time not being a constant is one of the mind blowing concepts from Relativity.
Here’s the alternative, except it isn’t a theory. It’s the observed fact: There has been no global warming since 1994.
when they changed the name to climate change they became global warming skeptics and deniers
There most certainly is and there is ample empirical data to support it: interglacial age, a warming period between ice ages. There are bigger forces controlling the earths climate than a bunch of bipeds burning fossil fuels emitting CO2. Man's contribution to the climate is so small as to be within the margin of error. Solar activity and precession of the equinoxes are the two biggest factors in global climate change but, politicians and snake oil salesmen can't make a nickel on these factors.
[Dec 5, 2015] Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says climate change poses “major” national security threat to the U.S.
“I mean, we’re talking about, according to the CIA, future, major national security issues when people are forced to migrate because their countries or their land are flooded, they can’t grow food,” Sanders said at a rally in Keene, N.H., on Saturday. “We’re talking about a major, major crisis.”
The Vermont senator said there is no longer any debate among scientists on what causes climate change and what its consequences will be.
“The debate is over. Climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is already causing profound disturbances all over America and all over the world,” he said.
Sanders slammed the Republican Party for “rejecting science” on the issue of climate change.
“Somehow on this issue of climate change, an entire, major political party is rejecting science, and that is a very dangerous thing to do,” he said.
He accused Republicans of being beholden to special interests in the fossil fuel lobby.
Sanders’ remarks come amid the COP21 climate change talks in Paris, which President Obama attended earlier this week.
World leaders reached an agreement on a tentative carbon emissions reduction deal Saturday.”
http://time.com/4128624/hillary-clinton-climate-change/
Hillary: “........As President, I will protect and build on the progress President Obama has made at home. I will set ambitious goals-to see 500 million solar panels installed within four years and enough renewable electricity to power every home in America within 10 years. I’ll also pursue a new North American Climate Compact, because the United States, Canada and Mexico should work together to build a clean energy future for our continent.
And the Republican deniers, defeatists and obstructionists should know-their cynical efforts will fail. Not only are they on the wrong side of science and of history, they are increasingly on the wrong side of their own voters, as a majority of Republicans accept the science of climate change, and support solutions like clean energy.
We must reject the false choice between combating climate change and fostering strong economic growth. If any country can prove that, it’s the United States. Under President Obama, we’re leading the world in the fight against climate change. I won’t let anyone to take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing a clean energy future, or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.
Once again, the world looks to Paris-this time in hope. Global challenges demand global solutions. The fight against climate change will be long. It will take the efforts of every country, every industry, and every community. It will take the leadership of every President. But at last-in Paris-the framework of a lasting solution is within reach. We must seize this moment. - Hillary Clinton [Nov 29, 2015]
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
The CAGW Cult (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Cult) hides their experiments and results, even to the point of illegally refusing to honor FOIA requests for data from publically supported projects.
I am a "skeptic". I challenge Shermer and the rest of his cult: "The recent 18 year pause in global temperature increases, as perfectly demonstrated by the RSS satellite temperature, data PROVES the CAGW theory is WRONG." You defend your theory using REAL data and results. This psychobabble you wrote here doesn't demonstrate a thing other than that you are not a scientist.
The AMA says that AGW is real. Which is proof that the whole thing is just political.
Of COURSE not!
But there are FACTS in the geological record that PROVE these temperature swings are a CONSTANT throughout Earth's history BEFORE MAN appeared on the scene.
Trying to blame it on him now is just STUPID!!!
...or EVIL!
Do NOT use such BIG words on the low info crowd.
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