Translation: “I have nothing”.
Yep, even if you think that helps your position it only shows that you will continue to find excuses to ignore and not to deal with the science.
No, it’s both. Let me explain, slowly and patiently:
It’s not merely that I address each demonstrably incorrect comment you make; I do that, of course, but I also deal with the science. I’m not going to let an incorrect statement go unanswered – and I spend a lot of time on that, because you’ve made a number of 'em – but I’m equally interested in making sure we’re on the same page about what hypothetical evidence will falsify the theory.
If you didn’t post demonstrably incorrect stuff, (a) I’d have nothing but the science to address, and (b) you wouldn’t need to do the “translation” schtick. As it is, I address the demonstrably incorrect stuff, and request specification about years of upcoming temperature data with regard to falsification.
Don’t say I’m only dealing with one; I’m quite keen on dealing with both.
I agree with that, but I think it also includes an element of profit.
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public”
-HL Mencken*
- PT Barnum did not say that, he also did not say that “there is a sucker born every minute” but it it could apply to most of the people that swallow the misleading information that Fox news and others offer on many occasions.
On edit: nothing there dealing with the skeptical science article. Oh, well.
If I could interupt, for a moment, I would like to answer the OP. I am a conservative, but I do not like to post often, unless I have something to add to the debate. On the theory of Evolution, I am in the 36% who beleive that evolution happened, but was guided by God. I believe that the Bible is a book that tells us about our relationships with God and one another, and should not be read as a science book. In the beginning, God said let there be light, and there was a Big Bang.
On the Global Warming side, I won’t say that I am a skeptic, I would just say that the jury is still out on the proper way to proceed. I have a link to a graph of historical CO2 levels:
Millions of years ago, CO2 was much higher than it is today, by orders of magnitude. There was life on Earth’s surface during that time. The Earth has evolved over time, and life has evolved with it. The Earth’s temp. has changed wildly during these times. These are scientific facts. So, now we know that we are adding CO2 to the atmosphere. What will be the Earth’s reaction to this? What were the processes in the past that caused CO2 fluctuations?
There is another chart on that page showing CO2 fluctuations over the last 300k years. These are linked to the ice age cycles. What caused these cycles? We have been studying the Ice Ages far longer than we have been studying Global Warming, and we still do not know all of the processes that the Earth used to regulate itself. Are there any ways that we can assist the Earth in soaking up the carbon? (I mean other than stopping deforestation, which I know is an evil thing). Does the Earth have another process by which the Earth regulates temps when the CO2 level gets high?
So to sum up my thoughts on Global Warming
- Is the Earth getting warmer - probably.
- Is man causing this - partially, temps were already rising pre-Industrial Revolution as we were coming out of the “Little Ice Age”.
- Do we know all of the processes involved? Not yet.
- Is the best way to combat this warming putting a tax on our industries which emit carbon, so that those industries move to other parts of the world (China, India) that don’t care about Global Warming, and the net carbon output will remain the same, yet thousands of Americans will be put out of work in this already difficult economy. Hell NO!!
Correct except for one thing. I’m not asking what people who call themselves conservatives think. I’m asking what views conservatism as a philosophy recommends.
Everyone’s views are a mixture of conservative and liberal thought (and that’s still an oversimplification). If an arguably liberal position becomes popular among conservtives, that doesn’t mean the definition of what’s conservtive has changed. It just means that conservatism had become a little less popular and conservatives have become a little less consistent.
On the other hand, if a position is popular among conservatives, that’s an indication that it could be, pending further analysis, a manifestation of conservative thought.
And so with I want to side-step the too-complex question WRT GW and get back to conservatism vs Intelligent Design.
In a few minuntes…
Now then, I’m under the strong impression the conservatism is to a very large extent characterized by the idea that the Bible is inerrant and therefore everything in the Bible is true as well. To say, “because the Bible says so” is to be unambiguously conservative on a particular issue (all the more so if you use the word “scripture”). There are plenty of non-religious issues where there is a conservative position, but anything that contradicts the fundamentalist viewpoint raises the question of whether liberalism has come into play.
So with Intelligent Design, is it just a euphemism for Young Earth Creationsm? Or does it embrace the view that the Bible is wrong but there still a God? How do we reconcile rejecting Biblical inerrency with how we’re defining conservative?
Of course you can be somewhat conservative as opposed to very conservative.
Me too (or I flirt with that idea anyway).
How then do you characterize young-earth creatonists?
One has to check the 2 hour documentary that NOVA made about the intelligent design case in an American School here:
The interesting bits deal with how republican leaders including president Bush came supporting the ID’s by saying “teach the controversy”, problem is that in the scientific field the controversy does not exist.
The judge’s decision was that indeed, Intelligent Design was creationism with a different name.
AFAIK, the best Intelligent Designers out there do accept an old earth because not doing so makes the proponents of ID fall away from any scientific pretense.
The attempt was made to separate the God of the bible from the intelligent designer, but as the documentary showed the ID book that was attempted to be used in the classroom was shown to be originally made for creationists, the evidence showed that the book was clumsily edited to remove the references to the biblical God.
There are indeed many conservatives that do not need to follow the bible literally, and there are even conservative atheists believe it or not.
The problem IMO is that there are not many, and even fewer are willing to “clean up house”; as the polls show, any conservative politician that would dare tell the fundamentalists to take a hike would be committing political suicide (See McCain in 2000)
I would characterize Young-Earthers as fringe and ultra-conservative. As I said in my first post, the Bible is the word of God, but was never meant to be read as a science book. I look at it this way. If you call up an image in Google Earth, you see a line of seamounts extending Northwest from Hawaii, through Midway, and up to the Aleutian trench. We know that there is a new island forming to the Southeast of the big island. We can measure the speed of the Pacific Plate. If we believe that the Earth is 6000-10000 years old, that means that God had to deliberately create those seamounts to intentionally throw us off. The same can be said about the Grand Canyon, and many other land-forms. God is not a liar. He does not deliberately create things to throw us off, to test our faith. There are enough evil things in the world to do this. Ibrought up these specific exaples, because you can see them with your own eyes, without needing a scientist to explain them.
Conservative=Fundamentalist Christian is a relatively new phenomenon. While they have been a significant part of the conservative movement, they were not the only element. I beleive that the Democratic Party, most notably Bill Clinton, has been generally moving to the right since Reagan, especially in the area of fiscal conservatism. I think that the current administration’s move to the left is miscalculated. Just because moderates and conservatives were fed up with George W. Bush didn’t mean that we wanted to country to move as far left as it has in the last year. But we shall see in November.
But what I’m getting at is there’s a difference between the 2 sides that matters insofar as how conservative philosophy comes into play on the issue.
Conservatism is not defined as “what conservatives do”. It’s about the accumulated wisdom of the ages and so on. Conservatives as a group are people who are strongly influenced by conservatism, but in differing ways. You could take a position that is arguably liberal on any number of issues even as your conservative leanings predominate.
Okay now, what about Adam and Eve?
You’re taking too narrow a view of it. From our perspective here there’s little distinction drawn between Biblical fundamentalism and the long-time teachings of the Catholic Church. Adam and Eve was what everyone believed since before the Dark Ages. That that belief has stuck around for so long and for so many people is conservatism in action. The Scopes Monkey Trial is an obvious milestone on this road.
Earlier in the thread, I answered you flippantly; you responded asking, in effect, to be treated as an honest intellectual. I acted in good faith; I explained why your question could have no simple answer; I gave a URL to a webpage that should help in understanding temperature fluctuations, and in particular shows a 30-year cooling trend present even in this time of Warming.
You did not respond. The explanation was apparently of no interest to you.
You did not comment about the 30-year cooling trend instead you simply repeat your comment about an (alleged) 10-year cooling trend!
I think this reminds us of the answer to OP: facts and open-minded reasoning are irrelevant to right-wing thinking.
I hope The Other Waldo Pepper will understand if I revert to treating his comments flippantly in the future.
Forget it Septimus, it’s Denialtown.
No, I didn’t respond because your explanations satisfied my interest.
You’d replied as follows: “Twenty years of cooling might give much more doubt than ten years, but you seemed to be asking for a specific number.” I had been asking for a specific number, and you pretty well gave me one just then: if twenty years of cooling will give you much more doubt than ten years, then it’s mere trivia that I’m more than halfway there; the point is, I’ve got nothing else to do but wait another nine. All I can now say is that cooling took place from '98 to '99, and to '00, and to '01, and to '02, and to '03, and to '04, and to '05, and to '06, and to '07, and to '08 and to '09; given the timespan you’ve stated, I now can do little else but keep observing throughout '10 and '11 and '12 and '13 and '14 and '15 and '16 and '17 and '18.
If I can keep saying it over those remaining years, I will. If I can’t, I won’t.
You’ve told me how many of those years remain. There’s nothing else for me to say yet; I wasn’t yet saying “and to '07, and to '08, and to '09” back in '06, and I’m not about to to say “and to '10, and to '11, and to '12” until they happen. As they do, I’ll note whether we’re still in a cooling trend.
What’s to comment? If the current trend continues for a full 30 years, I’ll have a comparison to make. If it turns back around before the 30-year mark, I’ll say the opposite. If you want to stipulate 30 years instead of 20, I don’t yet have a response either way; I’ll have a particular comment if it keeps continuing in '11 and '12 and '13 and so on, and I’ll have a different comment if it goes the other way in '11 and '12 and '13 and so on.
As they happen, I’ll slot them in on your proposed timespan. Until they do, I have no response but to note what’s happened thus far.
I’ll keep treating yours seriously: lay out any timespan you like, and I’ll take it to heart. If it’s more than eleven years, I won’t yet have a response; I’ll just keep it in mind as I keep charting the temperature, for however many years or decades you stipulate.
Uh oh. I think I see what happened. I was referring to my message #92 in this thread, and if I interpret your response correctly, you missed that post altogether!
My mistake. I made too many earlier posts of limited value, before the somewhat “meatier” #92; by that time you were probably bored with my tedious posts and found it easy to leave that message unread. :smack: Sorry.
Well, reread #92 if you wish. Among other things it points to a specific 30-year cooling trend (1938-1968). If your “magic threshold” for cooling duration needed to disprove warming is 30 years or less, warming was already “disproven” in the mid-20th century!
No, I’d read it; I simply agreed with your point:
I reasoned as follows: if you know not what special meaning that trend has, and I know not what special meaning that trend has, then there’s nothing I can add and no reply I can make – unless I bother with a “so what?”
Note as well that this tracks with what I’d written in post #89: “temperatures rose tenths of a degree from the late 1850s to the late 1990s, and then dropped tenths of a degree after that, having previously dropped tenths of a degree from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, and et cetera. So what? I’m merely claiming that we’re cooling off from '98.”
Even before your meaty quote, I (a) knew not what special meaning the mid-century drop had, and thus (b) said “so what?” After your meaty quote, I of course figured you also didn’t know; I still didn’t, and so had no response.
But it’s not my “magic threshold” I’m interested in; I could simply declare mine satisfied to end the argument, and what good does that do? That’s why I want to hear what your threshold is.
OK, fellas, I didn’t want this thread to get bogged down in the finer points of the GW debate. It’s supposed to be about how conservative philosophy influences how some people come to regard what is factually true.
With regards to GW, it perhaps wasn’t a question that can easily be answered. I’d just as soon focus more on defining conservatism vis-a-vis creationism and similar issues, which I think would be a bit more straightforward.
But what I’m beginning to find downright amusing is the way people who call themselves conservatives seem determined to disown the basic principles of conservative philosophy.
It should be possible to trace a postion popular among conservatives back to the core principles, but there are deep layers of contemporary politcs to pass through. I’m capable of explaining how, for example, “less government, more freedom” derives from basic conservatism. But a lot of people would simply re-define conservatism to have meant that all along, despite the apparent contradiction.
Curiously, the last replies are drifting into how conservative ideology is making people ignore evidence. It was not like that even a few decades before, even the first George Bush president accepted what scientists said and ignored outfits like the Marshal Institute and industry leaders.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-156632521.html
New research shows that efforts like that did save us from a world were cancer, mutations, crop failures and food shortages would be the rule.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2918.htm
I would think that the usual conservative positions of supporting a sovereign nation and free enterprise are now taking a priority over conserving the environment. Conservatives of a few decades back could recognize that evidence could not be ignored even if it appears to go against their ideology.
Well, I like the history of it, but one can not ignore current events. However I’m happy also to discuss how denying evolution got to be also a common position with American conservatives. One interesting thing to me is that historically anti-evolutionists continue to lose ground in the schools and the courts, yet the polls show almost no change in the number of Americans that do not accept evolution (depressingly, almost half of them)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/religion/revolution/low_bandwidth.html#top