Scientists Challenge UN and Gore

[Michael Hardner]

winter does come later and summer earlier, in moderate climates it isn't that noticable as yet because we have more variation in weather but in the arctic it is more noticable as winter sea ice forms later and melts away sooner than 30 years ago...

I know it does, but how much change does it take for the average person to notice anything ?

[Wild Bill]

given your emphatic "HAS", it shouldn't be difficult for you to offer several evidence manipulation examples to allow a review of both your examples as well as their sources... equally... if they are genuine, a relative weighting of those examples could be gauged against the overwhelming scientific consensus that supports AGW. Batter up!

You are the very LAST person I would ever engage in such a debate!

If I want ad hominem abuse, I'll pay for it.

"It's Getting Hit On the Head Lessons, in here!"

[bush_cheney2004]

They landed on the moon didn't they ? Well ?

Some say that they didn't...and besides, it was all a cover story to build a huge covert surveillance system in space (e.g. Corona Keyhole recon satellites).

[Michael Hardner]

Some say that they didn't...and besides, it was all a cover story to build a huge covert surveillance system in space (e.g. Corona Keyhole recon satellites).

Yes, the moon truthers. We have to accept that they exist, they aren't necessarily crazy or stupid, and that they will always be with us.

Just like scientists who say the earth isn't warming, or "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth".

You will never get unanimity on an issue, even if it's painfully obvious.

[bush_cheney2004]

Yes, the moon truthers. We have to accept that they exist, they aren't necessarily crazy or stupid, and that they will always be with us.

The larger point was that NASA fronted for a huge covert US surveillance program. Why would one American organization have more of your faith than another (i.e. Pentagon)?

Just like scientists who say the earth isn't warming, or "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth".

Free speech rights trump any irritation with such views held.

You will never get unanimity on an issue, even if it's painfully obvious.

Another topic you have already visited....even if there was unanimity, that doesn't mean there would be unanimity is any course of action, as we have seen. Burn the 'mutha down....

[waldo]

There HAS been a lot of evidence manipulation by spokespeople for GW! So there's good reason to be suspicious and any unwillingness to listen is understandable. To be fair, it is ALWAYS scientific to listen but after a while the repetition can wear your ears out!

given your emphatic "HAS", it shouldn't be difficult for you to offer several evidence manipulation examples to allow a review of both your examples as well as their sources... equally... if they are genuine, a relative weighting of those examples could be gauged against the overwhelming scientific consensus that supports AGW. Batter up!

You are the very LAST person I would ever engage in such a debate!

If I want ad hominem abuse, I'll pay for it.

"It's Getting Hit On the Head Lessons, in here!"

all rightee... no examples then - hey? (btw - as you may have noticed, I didn't bother to respond to your recent pissant rant that followed this same theme... you have not been subject to ad hominem attacks (from me)... I most certainly have challenged much of the nonsense in your posts. Apparently, you've taken exception to having your climate change related posts challenged and shown to have no/little merit.)

[wyly]

I know it does, but how much change does it take for the average person to notice anything ?

it's very gradual thing isn't it, if I were a farmer I might have noticed a difference but being an urban dweller it isn't high on my list of things I'll notice from one year to the next...and it's not as if we have a recognizable fixed event that signals the first day of fall or spring....but I have noticed a difference over the last ten years, the winters we have now are not the winters of my youth, it is definitely milder...and if it's milder then logically that fall comes later and spring sooner if we measure it by observed weather and not some official fixed date on the calendar...

so I guess if I consider myself an average person, I have definitely noticed a change...

Edited December 18, 2010 by wyly

[Michael Hardner]

The larger point was that NASA fronted for a huge covert US surveillance program. Why would one American organization have more of your faith than another (i.e. Pentagon)?

I don't think I ever said that the Pentagon doesn't have my faith. I'm flattered that you enjoy our discussions so much that you try to jump start them by attributing to me a position that I may not have.

Free speech rights trump any irritation with such views held.

Of course. Which is why I can't ban those who are wrong from speaking, and wouldn't propose that. We have to live with our wrong ones.

Another topic you have already visited....even if there was unanimity, that doesn't mean there would be unanimity is any course of action, as we have seen. Burn the 'mutha down....

I expect even less agreement on course of action, Mr. Bootsy Collins.

[bloodyminded]

This is an interesting question. On the one hand, you want intelligent and logical debate, but on the other you don't want to get drawn into the 'feed the troll' syndrome. Sometimes it's tough to draw the line, especially when the person you are discussing the issue with has formed an opinion, regardless of the established facts.

This is sounding really elitist, but bear with me.

I first started wondering about this 'debate vs. trolling' problem when I initially got interested in AGW a few years back. I had brought up climate change with my dad, who I respect, and got his opinion. He definitely falls into the 'denier' camp; he vehemently refuses to believe that there's AGW.

Now he's not an idiot or paid off by the oil lobby (har) but he would rather believe that there's a borderline global conspiracy amongst scientists to push AGW in order to secure easy funding.

So what do you do in this situation? Do you give up on any hope of debate? He's got his opinion, and its not worth the effort to try and change his mind?

I understand just what you mean.

The difference, perhaps, is that a "troll" is a term I think should be used quite narrowly; it's not someone who has chosen a side and stubbornly refuses any contrary information: it's specifically an internet phenomenon in which a poster intentionally behaves like an asshole, does this continually, and knowingly refuses to entertain any contrary opinion.

In a sense, they're actually opposed to debate and discussion, looking only for a kind of mean-spirited entertainment or distraction.

We've got, in my opinion, two genuine trolls on this site.

Edited December 18, 2010 by bloodyminded

[dre]

I understand just what you mean.

The difference, perhaps, is that a "troll" is a term I think should be used quite narrowly; it's not someone who has chosen a side and stubbornly refuses any contrary information: it's specifically an internet phenomenon in which a poster intentionally behaves like an asshole, does this continually, and knowingly refuses to entertain any contrary opinion.

In a sense, they're actually opposed to debate and discussion, looking only for a kind of mean-spirited entertainment or distraction.

We've got, in my opinion, two genuine trolls on this site.

It wont be long until experts in the field of computational linguistics write some sort of filter that can weed out trolls based on algorithms that can determine sentiment, detect sarcasm, and identify non sequiturs. It might even be something purely mathematical similar to Latent Semantic Analysis.

Imagine the sea change you would see on internet forums? You could turn on the filter and BC's entire posting history would dissapear before your eyes.

You could generate great stats on each poster as well, that show the percentage of their posts that get hidden by the filter, and you could filter on that as well. "Hmmm. Today Im in the mood for talking with posters that have at least a 75% ratio of honest, on topic posts.

[waldo]

It wont be long until experts in the field of computational linguistics write some sort of filter that can weed out trolls based on algorithms that can determine sentiment, detect sarcasm, and identify non sequiturs. It might even be something purely mathematical similar to Latent Semantic Analysis.

Imagine the sea change you would see on internet forums? You could turn on the filter and BC's entire posting history would disappear before your eyes.

self-acknowledged, no less... but then... does a dignity qualifier count for anything?

Then why does it take you so many expletives and mangled quotes to communicate?

Even as a troll, I can maintain my dignity!

I acknowledge your willingness to be viewed/known as a dignified troll. I've not issued one expletive... and my quotes are certainly not taken out of context, mismatched, distorted or otherwise manipulated. Oh wait... I did correct your stated, "how you

t

roll" claim... but then, again, you've just now acknowledged your willingness to be viewed/known as a troll (a dignified troll), so that shouldn't be cause for your suggested mangled claim - hey?

[bloodyminded]

self-acknowledged, no less... but then... does a dignity qualifier count for anything?

Elsewhere, he has proven to be unaware of what an "adjective" is...now (slightly more understandably, I suppose) we find he doesn't know what "expletive" means either.

[bloodyminded]

It wont be long until experts in the field of computational linguistics write some sort of filter that can weed out trolls based on algorithms that can determine sentiment, detect sarcasm, and identify non sequiturs. It might even be something purely mathematical similar to Latent Semantic Analysis.

Imagine the sea change you would see on internet forums? You could turn on the filter and BC's entire posting history would dissapear before your eyes.

You could generate great stats on each poster as well, that show the percentage of their posts that get hidden by the filter, and you could filter on that as well. "Hmmm. Today Im in the mood for talking with posters that have at least a 75% ratio of honest, on topic posts.

It would have to compute over a period, and not be too quick-witted about it; occasional trollish behaviour is common, nearly everybody is guilty of it, and it's no big deal, in my view.

It's the continual, day-after-day trollery that is the problem.

A couple of names slide greasily into mind.

Edited December 18, 2010 by bloodyminded

[dre]

It would have to compute over a period, and not be too quick-witted about it; occasional trollish behaviour is common, nearly everybody is guilty of it, and it's no big deal, in my view.

It's the continual, day-after-day trollery that is the problem.

A couple of names slide greasily into mind.

Oh yeah! Nobody would score at a hundred percent, and Id probably score lower than you for example.

It would have to compute over a period

Thats basically how Latent Symantic Analsys works. It learns for the body of data its indexing as it grows, and gets smarter and smarter. Its normally only identifying "concepts" in the data, but it can be used in conjunction with other technologies to determine sentiment, and even detect sarcasm. Both extremely hard things for a computer to do.

For example... picture writing a program that reads the words in an article and determines whether it expresses a positive opinion about its subject or a negative one. Almost impossible for an algorithm to do that reliably. But once its read and indexed a billion articles, and loaded all the terms, and the occurence of those terms alongside or near other terms into a gigantic probability matrix, then it can start to get pretty good at it.

Im not being all that unrealistic in my prediction that we will have features like that on forums one day relatively soon.

It's the continual, day-after-day trollery that is the problem.

A couple of names slide greasily into mind.

Thats partially a subjective opinion of yours (although seems somewhere about right to me). So you would set your filter quite low, and filter out posters where less than say 25% of their posts make it through the filter. And you could tweak the threshold until you got the desired results

And youd get some suprising results too that would make you think. None of us are entirely honest with ourselves all the time, and what you would find is that when you tweaked your filter to try and remove the BC's youd also inadvertantly remove other posters... maybe people that you personally like or respect, and you would then have to consider why those people were filtered out as well, and be a little bit more critic about yourself (im not at ALL talking about you here, but everyone). Nobodys perfect

Edited December 18, 2010 by dre

[bloodyminded]

Oh yeah! Nobody would score at a hundred percent, and Id probably score lower than you for example.

Thats basically how Latent Symantic Analsys works. It learns for the body of data its indexing as it grows, and gets smarter and smarter. Its normally only identifying "concepts" in the data, but it can be used in conjunction with other technologies to determine sentiment, and even detect sarcasm. Both extremely hard things for a computer to do.

For example... picture writing a program that reads the words in an article and determines whether it expresses a positive opinion about its subject or a negative one. Almost impossible for an algorithm to do that reliably. But once its read and indexed a billion articles, and loaded all the terms, and the occurence of those terms alongside or near other terms into a gigantic probability matrix, then it can start to get pretty good at it.

Im not being all that unrealistic in my prediction that we will have features like that on forums one day relatively soon.

!!

One of the beauties of the internets is that I can no longer deny my staggering ignorance.

Edited December 18, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Saipan]

I know it does, but how much change does it take for the average person to notice anything ?

Indeed. Even Thailand is cooler.

[Guest TrueMetis]

I know it does, but how much change does it take for the average person to notice anything ?

Well I've noticed where I live but I've been chalking it up to me having a higher tolerance to cold than most people. Whenever I go out I see people wearing heavy jackets and I'm just wearing a hoodie. I've also only noticed it for the last couple of years so it could mean nothing.

[Jack Weber]

Well I've noticed where I live but I've been chalking it up to me having a higher tolerance to cold than most people. Whenever I go out I see people wearing heavy jackets and I'm just wearing a hoodie. I've also only noticed it for the last couple of years so it could mean nothing.

It could also mean you're just a wierdo...

I had a science teacher in high school that would wear Hawaiian shirts,Bermuda shorts,adn,sandals in January....

Of course,he was 6 bricks short of a full load,so it was acceptable...

[Guest TrueMetis]

It could also mean you're just a wierdo...

I had a science teacher in high school that would wear Hawaiian shirts,Bermuda shorts,adn,sandals in January....

Of course,he was 6 bricks short of a full load,so it was acceptable...

Yes I have examined that probability in depth and have come to the conclusion that it is the most likely.

[Moonlight Graham]

Do we really need unanminity among thousands of scientists and government officials to decide whether polluting the environment is a bad thing?

At best this debate will conclude it's not 100% certain man made pollution is causing global warming. Either way I still want to reduce pollution, does anyone think its ok to pollute seeing as it is not certain to cause the near term destruction of the planet? Who wants to live in in a smog covered city, or next to a coal powered power plant?

Take your pick of reasons to support the reduction of pollution, there's something for everyone:

1] companies operate more efficiantly when they waste less, this is an econmic argument much of Europe adopted.

2] pollution is unhealthy to all living things, a health related argument

3] pollution destroys the environment, an environmentalist argument

CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It is a gas that also occurs naturally in the atmosphere. Taking CO2's hypothesized impact on current global warming out of the equation, increased CO2 at the levels that are occurring doesn't really harm anything. The rise in CO2 has not affected human health or animal health from anything i've read in terms of exposure. In fact, plants enjoy a good meal of CO2.

Also, smog is not caused by CO2.

Pollutants though should be decreased dramatically. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, soot/particulate matter. Coal and oil burning etc. is disgusting, no doubt.

[Guest TrueMetis]

CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It is a gas that also occurs naturally in the atmosphere. Taking CO2's hypothesized impact on current global warming out of the equation, increased CO2 at the levels that are occurring doesn't really harm anything. The rise in CO2 has not affected human health or animal health from anything i've read in terms of exposure. In fact, plants enjoy a good meal of CO2.

Also, smog is not caused by CO2.

Pollutants though should be decreased dramatically. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, soot/particulate matter. Coal and oil burning etc. is disgusting, no doubt.

FYI Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and soot are all naturally occurring as well. They are all pollutants so is CO2.

Quick list of fallacies you've used here.

CO2 is natural

CO2 is not a pollutant

CO2 is plant food

Also the effect CO2 has on temperature isn't a hypothesis is substantiated fact and basic physics, the type of basic physic fourth graders use in their science projects.

[wyly]

Well I've noticed where I live but I've been chalking it up to me having a higher tolerance to cold than most people. Whenever I go out I see people wearing heavy jackets and I'm just wearing a hoodie. I've also only noticed it for the last couple of years so it could mean nothing.

it depends on age as well...I'm like you the weather what people around here think is frigid isn't all that cold, the younger ones don't know any different to them -30 is Antarctica... the older ones like myself I like to remind of winters past "when was the last time we hit -40?" it only takes a moment before they recall those past winters and agree...this winter is the first in ten years where it went below -30, before that I can't recall a winter that didn't have at least one period of -40...I still have my extreme cold parka -70 parka hanging unused for the last ten years, I haven't needed to plug my truck in ten years...no doubt about it winters are milder than past...

[Moonlight Graham]

Also the effect CO2 has on temperature isn't a hypothesis is substantiated fact and basic physics, the type of basic physic fourth graders use in their science projects.

AGW is a hypothesis. It is a theory. Fourth graders know that virtually any phenomena in natural science, no matter how much supportive empirical evidence exists, are theory, not fact.

[wyly]

AGW is a hypothesis. It is a theory. Fourth graders know that virtually any phenomena in natural science, no matter how much supportive empirical evidence exists, are theory, not fact.

obviously you're not smarter than a fifth grader otherwise you'd know the scientific definition for theory...

Theory-A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is generally accepted to be TRUE.

[bush_cheney2004]

.... A theory is generally accepted to be TRUE.[/i][/u][/b]

Until it is proven to be false.