Since the howling wolves of the assembled sock puppets at WattsUpWithThat quickly try to tear to pieces anyone who attempts to inject reason, logic or real evidence (as opposed to endless links to phoney stuff on WUWT), I thought I'd go down one thread of comments and pick out those that are easily shown to be wrong (and which thirty seconds of checking would have saved the shame of correction from me):
Joe:
In a way the Old Testament has it right: “The fire next time”. If
not the heat of an asteroid chunk or comet impact, then eventually the
end will come when the sun goes red giant. But even before then, its
increasing radiative output & the subduction of continents dragging
water with them will leave Earth dry as Mars. Any living things left
will be subterranean microbes. Our planet is about half way through its complex life phase, which
might last a billion years total. The first large animals with hard
body parts become apparent in the fossil record some 543 million years
ago, at the start of the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era of the
Phanerozoic Eon. In around another 500 million years, it will be back
to small multicellular life or more likely already just single-celled
microbes.
You want climate change, you got climate change.
The bold bit is the one to look for. It is clearly nonsense and I have never read a single word by a scientist who studies evolution who says anything of the kind. I gues milodharlani might find support on another fruiyloopery website but not one by anyone who knows anything about evolution (and that is something I do know about). Having evolved complex multicellular life, it is unlikely that it will disappear. It has after all survived even the greatest of mass extinctions in the Permian.
jai mitchell says:
June 21, 2013 at 2:18 pm
———————————–
Why does it not surprise me that you get your anti-scientific opinions from an anti-vaccine crusading comedian?
News for both you & your guru: Newton & Darwin’s theories did
not gain acceptance by consensus, but because they went long periods
without being shown false. Do you need the Feynman video posted again,
so that you grasp the scientific method?
In fact Newton was eventually falsified by Einstein, but for much of
the universe, his math & model of gravitation remain good enough for
government work. Darwin didn’t know how heredity worked, since
apparently he never found Mendel’s (cherry-picked) research, so his
theory stayed incomplete until combined with genetics in the early 20th
century synthesis (which owed much to his cousin Galton’s pioneering
statistical thought). Evolution through natural selection & (now
understood) stochastic processes has not been falsified. It’s accepted
not due to consensus but because competing hypotheses & theories,
such as the repeated or continuous special creations advocated by many
of his contemporaries & teachers, have been falsified.
Ah, milodonharlani is clearly an expert on science historical and philosophical. Unfortunately for him he is also wrong on some accounts. If falsification is as important as Karl Popper and the deniers say, then Darwin's idea of descent through modification was falsified very quickly, because Darwin's mechanism of inheritance (blending) was easily shown to be wrong. Darwin used it because he had nothing better. By the time he did shoehorn it into his writings, he could have had the correct answer but Darwin never read the offprint copy of Gregor Mendel's paper that was sent to Darwin by Mendel himself. However, the comment by milondonharli that Mendel cherry picked his data has been shown to be false. Besides, Mendel didn't need to cherry pick. He had so much data, thousands of pieces in fact for each trial, that his conclusions could hardly be clearer.
jai mitchell says:
June 21, 2013 at 2:18 pm 1) Micro evolution has been proven.
2) Macro evolution is the best explanation for what we see in the fossil record, but that still doesn’t make it proven.
3) The evidence is in, gravity exists. As to what causes it, that’s still under debate.
4) That AGW exists is also not under debate, whether 1% or 99% of the
warming that may have been measured over the last 100 years is caused by
it, is till a matter of debate.
Evolutionary biologists make no distinction between micro and macro evolution. All evolution is macro evolution. The distinction was invented and persists through the creationist community. It has no scientific value.
MarkW says:
June 21, 2013 at 3:09 pm
jai mitchell says:
June 21, 2013 at 2:18 pm
1) Micro evolution has been proven.
2) Macro evolution is the best explanation for what we see in the fossil record, but that still doesn’t make it proven.
3) The evidence is in, gravity exists. As to what causes it, that’s still under debate.
4) That AGW exists is also not under debate, whether 1% or 99% of the
warming that may have been measured over the last 100 years is caused by
it, is till a matter of debate.
————————–
Perhaps quibbles, but I feel scientific expression requires both linguistic precision & accuracy.
Proof is more of a mathematical than scientific concept. Showing a
prediction false means that the hypothesis upon which it’s based isn’t
true, or has been invalidated, but technically does not “prove” it
wrong. Maybe this sounds like a distinction without a difference, but
it’s important in the philosophy of science, & sometimes practically
as well. Both micro- & macroevolution have been observed & are hence
“facts”. Macroevolution is microevolution working over a longer time
(usually but not always). The body of theory to explain how they work
is always being refined, just as are the theory of gravitation, germ
theory of disease & other generally accepted theories.
IMO anthropogenic global warming might well exist, but the hypothesis
is debatable, since if it occurs, its miniscule effect falls within the
margin of experimental error. Urban heat islands surely do exist, for
instance, & skew global average temperature, but the contribution to
20th century observed (to what degree questionable) warming of man-made
CO2 is so tiny it might not be statistically significantly measurable.
My new best friend, milondonharli is back. Notice how he puts "facts" in quotation marks. Is this person a creationist because I have never seen a scientist who has properly looked at the matter (ie not come at it with a predetermned philosophical or religious view) use that formation. Anyway, as I said above, teh distinction between micro and macroevolution is false.
“The trickle of scientists abandoning
the sinking ship will hopefully soon become a flood, leaving just a few
diehards to “Mann” the ship as it sinks.”
[High Treason at 4:07PM 6/21/13]
Well put! Nice essay.
********************
“What other scientific theory forbids questioning and outlaws dissenting?” [Fred Manzo at 4:12PM 6/21/13]
Excellent point. And, I get your meaning (AGW proponents allow NO dissent from the “consensus,”) but, there is a theory,
quite popular with many on WUWT, in fact, which is often DOGMATICALLY
defended far beyond the evidence supporting it. In fact, if a scientist
merely acknowledges an alternative view (Intelligent Design Theory), he
or she is in danger of losing his or her job. Richard Sternberg, former editor of “Proceedings of the Biological
Society of Washington” (affiliated with the Smithsonian), who has two
Ph.D.s in Evolutionary Biology was fired for merely reviewing an article
by a proponent of Intelligent Design Theory:
A former professor of Sternberg’s says the researcher has
an intellectual penchant for going against the system. Sternberg does
not deny it.
“I loathe careerism and the herd mentality,” he said. “I really think
that objective truth can be discovered and that popular opinion and consensus thinking does more to obscure than to reveal.”
My embolded bit is the first bit. The problem here is another creationist canard. Sternberg did not get fired, he was working his notice at a small journal that normally published systematics papers (ie classification of organisms). It is probable that Sternberg did not send the disputed paper out for review and did the process by himself. He had a conflict of interests beforehand and the paper, by Stephen Meyer, is not one that normal scientific review processes would have permitted. Sternberg's two PhDs (one in moleculr evolution that was slightly relevant, one in systems science that would have been less so) should have flagged the paper up as, at best, controversial. Interestingly, again we are down with creationist/intelligent design tropes.
This is too easy and I am hardly down the list at all.
Sorry if biology is off topic, although
scientific censorship surely is. Here’s Sternberg’s bio & statement
of faith or credo, which is what it is. Scientists are allowed to hold
religious or spiritual beliefs. http://www.richardsternberg.com/biography.php It appears that while he was fired for allowing an ID article to be
published, he may not advocate biological ID (which is unscientific),
but universal ID, which is a less contentious position, shared to some
degree by a number of respectable astrophysicists & cosmologists.
But Sternberg has associated himself with the biological ID proponents the Discovery Institute and has lectured on such matters. He can believe what he wants but when he is being a scientist he needs to act like a scientist and not be clouded by his religious views.
Gunga Din says:
June 21, 2013 at 7:31 pm
I’m about to display my ignorance again, but, what is an “NGO”?
(My “A Skeptic’s Marching Orders” must still be in the mail.)
===============================
We are all ignorant, seeking answers, it brought us here.
NGO ?
Here is one definition: A non-governmental organization (NGO) is any non-profit, voluntary
citizens’ group which is organized on a local, national or international
level. Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs
perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen
concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage
political particpation through provision of information. Some are
organized around specific issues, such as human rights, environment or
health. They provide analysis and expertise, serve as early warning
mechanisms and help monitor and implement international agreements.
Their relationship with offices and agencies of the United Nations
system differs depending on their goals, their venue and the mandate of a
particular institution.
————————————
The “marching orders” have not yet achieved a consensus, sadly.
Give it another 5 years :)
Oh, the irony. The description, of course, is applicable to the Heartland Institute but that is untuchable at WUWT, even though it took money from tobacco companies for years.
Gunga Din asks: what is an “NGO”?
It’s a QUANGO*.
Does that clear it up?☺
[*Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization; Brit for NGO.]
A QUANGO is not an NGO. A QUANGO is paid mostly or in whole by the government, like the Health Protection Agency. An NGO would be clearly independent. Not difficult, Smokey, now is it?
Sherry says:
June 22, 2013 at 9:20 am
“First off even if this was true; which is probably isn’t because we
have no names of the said people or statements from them, there are
14000 professionals in the AMS!!! The guy running this page doesn’t even
have a climate degree! Look at his about section. You people are
gullible as hell.” James Hansen has no climate degree. Neither has Hans Joachim
Schellnhuber. The gullible is you because you believe that climate
scientist’s computer programs are capable of predicting the future of
the climate. They failed already. For the last 17 years there has been
no warming yet the models predicted warming over this time. It’s a
failure. The scientists, if we want to call them that, now need to shut
up and come up with better models. When they return with such, we need
to validate the models at least for a decade before we can place any
trust in the new models. This should have been done in the first place.
It is how science works. Climate scientists want us to trust them
without ever having gotten anything right. This trust is misplaced.
And to be honest I’d fire all of them and make them an Enron style process.
Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, was a physicist by training. The point here is, so what. The lack of any scientific training is the worrying point and I can't find evidence that Anthony Watts or Lord Monckton or Willis Eschenbach has (sorry, psychology degrees won't count on this one).
Well, that was easy. I know I've taken the non-climate change comments and shown them to be rubbish (most of the comments in this thread were ad hominem attacks on a person who pointed out that which shall not be mentioned - that Watts and company are wrong (punishment, exile). For a site that likes to call itself scientific and open, it sure is unscientific and closed to criticism.
update
The first comment in the thread quoted John Mellencamp's song "Crumblin' Down". I wondered what his views are on climate change. Well, these appear to be the views of Farm Aid, the charity that Mellencamp is very closely associated with: http://www.farmaid.org/site/c.qlI5IhNVJsE/b.2739785/apps/s/content.asp?ct=11746719
If we can read anything into it, I guess we can say that John Mellencamp isn't the likeliest supporter of Watts' antiscience site.
