Facts won't change your mind about anything

Great Debates
221

Well this took an unexpected turn. I was contemplating the deep truths of faith based facts, after reading the previous three posts, and remembered an old “axiom” from long ago, in which certain facts we accept on faith, because we have no other way to know. These are truths that we accept because of who tells us they are facts.

In essence, the basis of faith is often believing an authority, one that can’t easily be questioned, or debunked if you will. Science holds the promise of allowing us to know directly, rather than from faith. Yet it is the most contentious issues in science that illustrate the faith based nature of certain facts. In the most odd connection, while doing some dishes and thinking about the previous commentary, I realized there is a similar problem with global warming, as there is with the bible and the concept of “god”, ignoring if you will for the moment, the multitude of problems with the god issue, (which god? The Jewish god? The various christian gods? Allah? Krishna? Brahma? A whole can of worms there).

Clearly, and self evident in fact, our belief in “God”, (whichever one it might be), comes from authority, somebody tells us about this god, the bible, or Koran, or the Upanishads, somebody tells us about what is true, what to believe is real, and we can no more do an experiment to prove it, than we can of ourselves prove what the global temperature is at the moment. In essence the two are large concepts, that people tell us are “facts”, but we can’t actually do an experiment and find out for ourselves. Unlike with gravity, or an electric circuit, magnetism or basic chemistry, there is no way to show somebody, it’s a matter of faith.

It’s this “having to believe” in somebody, some authority, that tells us what is what, in regards to global warming, or the annual mean temperature anomaly, that is like belief in some deity or supernatural being. It’s not in our power to know for our-self.

In a most odd sense, somebody telling you “last year was the warmest year ever on record” is the same as somebody telling you “God is displeased with the state of the world”.

In each case, the person speaking probably actually 100% believes what they are saying, they consider it “a fact”, and yet to a skeptic, or a logical hard nosed rational person, neither may be believed, and both can be dismissed with ease, as “No, that is just what you say”.

The difference of course, is that in regards to the worlds records of temperature stations, it is possible to do the maths, the calculations, and come up with a figure, which will either agree or disagree with somebodies calculations about the matter. (it is doubtful God’s opinion of things will suffer the same fate)

But, in the practical sense, the facts themselves are the issue of contention. It’s not that the facts won’t matter, it’s that the “facts” themselves are the contention, in which case science has a chance at consensus, but religion never.

222

100% wrong as usual, there was no faith when Muller put all that funding from skeptics to look at the data that he suspected had been changed or wrong, he found that the work NOAA and other groups did was very good.

And really, your problem is to believe in guys that continue to get it wrong, and that they are not experts that work into getting and making needed corrections to that empirical data.

Not so happy, at least I would like to know what an expert of Paul Homewood is, and why is that some reporters continue to ignore evidence and what the proper experts say. Those reporters end up misleading the public like Christopher Booker does.

223

Now an anonymous blogger is being presented as a source of “facts”. It’s little wonder religion and global warming seem like the same sort of situation, where facts are the last thing that will matter.

224

And missing the point and the source too.

That anonymous blogger was citing the work by Berkeley Earth and Professor Muller and many others. And pointed out by Ed Hawkins

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ed/home/index.html

Bottom line: You do not know what a good source is even if the ones mentioning it tell you in the site and the cite.

The point stands, Paul Homewood is clueless, and Christopher Booker is a bigger fool for following him.

225

The “global warming controversy” might seem like one of those things that just can’t actually be a bone of contention, in regards to the most basic metric, what thermometers record each and every day, including the high and low temps for each day. This is one of those things that would be considered “a fact”, by most anyone. Nobody actually argues over the fact that all over the world, and certainly in a huge number of places in the modern world, there are very accurate and advanced systems, designed to record data.

But if something as basic as what was the temperature for a place and time is argued over, or worse, we find the data is “adjusted”, and changed, and then presented as “a fact”, and now the argument is over “what actually was the factual temperature”, it’s just crazy at that point. One might ask, why would anyone change the temperature record?

If the argument is actually at that point, where one is forced to investigate, and one finds that yes, people are actually changing the past, and then presenting the changed data as “a fact”, it’s something to contemplate. If the persons presenting changed data as “a fact” then refuse to divulge both the raw data, and how and why they insist their version is “more true”, it gets super crazy. It really does.

Because one the one hand you have somebody telling you something, that you have to take their word for it, and on the other, actual factual records that don’t show what they are claiming. And yes, this is a perfect example of when facts just won’t matter. If you can change “the facts” at will, make them different, then facts certainly don’t matter.

I mean, if the past is fluid, something that can just be changed, and then we are expected to just believe the new version, then what is a fact starts to become unclear. That the same persons insisting we believe them also become insulting and angry when faced with skepticism, then it really gets interesting.

226

Because not correcting that record (in one place in this case) that was demonstrated to be flawed can lead indeed to flawed conclusions.

And of course it can be argued then because it was clear that location and others had flaws and thanks to those discussions they were corrected and continue to do so when better data is available, of course the skeptics complained about the past work and then a team of scientists set to check if the corrections made were justified did take a look and confirmed that what was done was the correct thing to do.

Of course fake skeptics like Paul Homewood and Christopher Booker refused to accept that, and continue going like if Berkeley Earth, Professor muller and many others that did check the data do not exist.

http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/157455

(link that BTW was in the article cited)

227

This is a perfect example of the very real problem at hand.

228

Of course it is, you are believing in guys with no clue and I look at the data, research and** the discussions made before** by the climate scientists. It is because of all that that I know on whose side I will like to be when going forward.

One point here is that you are only showing to all that you were totally unaware of the previous discussions that the climate scientists had about the record, as Muller and the Berkeley Earth Team showed, the previous researchers did a great job with those corrections that were needed to be made.

Of course Anthony Watts promised that he was going to accept the conclusions of Muller, but we know how that went.

229

Yes, it’s actually almost perfect.

Because it’s not about facts, it’s about “sides”, and belief matters, not the data, or there would be no argument in the case of “global warming”, and all the baggage that goes with having to believe, rather than letting the facts speak for themselves.

There is a perfect example of why facts just won’t matter. Only the correct adjustments of our measurements of temperature is what matters.

230

This thread is deeply ironic.

231

Sure, tell others that what is happening with the ice loss in the north pole is not important, regardless that it is observed as in the video that that arctic and glacial researcher showed us.

I still remember that not even skeptical scientists could deny on camera about what is going on with the ice that is a natural thermometer.

The fact remains, you ignored that there was a long discussion about the data and that skeptical researchers got funding and support from deniers, the skeptical researchers concluded (years ago even) that the data was well managed by groups like NOAA and the Met Office.

Paul Homewood and Christopher Booker are Johnny-come-latelies with an agenda based on very dumb reasoning.

232

Indeed, but what is even more ironic now is that **FXMastermind **told us that what the scientists are telling us is a matter of faith or a like a religion or a religion (only faith is what keeps anyone from seeing the loss of volume of the ice that is being observed), while at the same time he is trusting Christopher Booker that is also a creationist/intelligent designer.

As pointed many times before, it is the deniers the ones that actually use religion as a justification to dismiss science and the scientists.

Note: It is only **after **I check if a source is bananas on a scientific issue that then I do look for what is the real agenda of that source.

233

The ironic part is that the OP, initially positioning himself as a champion of “facts”, having been shown to be quite egregiously wrong about the facts time and time and time again, has now returned and, throwing aside the previously glorified “facts” like a contaminated wet gym towel, is now regaling us with banal generalities. I expect Galileo to come up fairly soon – he usually does in these banal generalities, as he was supposed to have “challenged the contemporary science”, you see. That’s not actually what happened, but it serves the denialist narrative that science cannot be trusted.

Apparently this narrative will continue until someone is finally forced to admit, here and now, that CO2 is not a climate forcing, water vapor is not a feedback, the planet is not warming but cooling, and – let me get the exact words here – “the entire theoretical framework of current consensus global warming theory, due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, from increasing CO2, might be completely wrong”. So, with regard to this alleged “climate change” doohickey and this CO2 stuff, there ain’t nothing to worry about! Facts, you see. It’s all about facts! :slight_smile:

234

One thing about learning that facts simply won’t change anyone’s mind, is it frees you up from thinking arguing is ever going to work, when it comes to unscientific matters. And, learning how the human mind works (and the actual brain as well) allows us to stop trying to win the argument. Once you actually get it, you understand that absolute evidence, facts that can not be refuted, still won’t matter at all, and instead will just anger your opponent, and that they will simply hate you, rather than changing their mind about the issue, you are free from doing battle, a battle you will never win.

235

Your attempt at discouraging won’t work, you are forgetting what I go for: I participate to learn new things and to inform others. It is good enough for me to know how I can continuously find evidence of what the scientists are actually talking about, and as usual I can learn more about what the ones that worked with Cohen are teaching us:

So yeah, Rutgers agrees with the mess of scientists that are telling us that the current warming is being caused by us and it is causing arctic amplification (warming there) and the changes that is causing to the jet stream and other items is leading to several cold winters in some regions of the mid latitudes.

So I will follow my advice and continue to educate others by pointing at what the researchers actually are saying, not you misinterpretations. You should follow your advice and drop from this because the longer it goes you only demonstrate to all that you are not good at identifying good sources, that you are ignoring what discussions were done about the data in the past, and you continue to depend on sources that are actually using religion, have an agenda and/or are just plain loopy.

236

Precisely my point.

237

I was sure we would reach a point where the facts are evident, but obviously just do not matter. Note I state the arctic is warming.

I also caught my own error, and corrected the trend data.

I clearly noted that the cooling is mostly in the mid latitudes, and that the trend is happening, even with the arctic showing warming.

Did it matter? Not at all.

You see? Just as science has shown, something happens in the brain, and even if it just seems like a fact goes against our beliefs, something happens in the brain, and it never makes it through. I actually believe GIGO simply did not register what I wrote. And even pointing it out like this, it still won’t get through.

If a fact didn’t matter the first time, pointing it out again will not make any difference at all.

238

It’s like this problem wolfpup has with my debunking of the concept of water vapor as a “feedback loop”, which I pointed out here. He actually thinks his typing out a long post here is “showing him to be wrong”, when he didn’t use a single source, much less deal with the objection to calling water vapor a “feedback loop”, which it is not.

Now if he really wants to present fact based evidence, to argue it is, he will have to use actual sources, specifically a source that claims “water vapor is a feedback loop”. Of course faced with that type of argument, it would indeed be absurd to continue to state the obvious.

But no amount of just typing out your opinion is going to somehow turn water vapor into a feedback loop.

239

Nah, you are just playing games, more than once before I noted that you do this, acknowledge a few items to claim that you are doing ok, when in reality you continue to call all the scientists “nobodies”

240

Please, even academics know it and school children are learning that:

You are too late as usual, but eventually it seems that you will someday understand as you are claiming now. (In some items though, in the end for FX the scientists are committing fraud regardless if nothing wrong is found like that they are not changing data for no reason and they are correct like the Arctic researchers)

Perhaps in a few years you will boast that you knew it all along. At least it will be progress. Of course then one wonders why then continue to ignore what this all implies if you do understand it. As the Arctic experts report, warming continues, we are in great part responsible for it, and we should control out global warming gas emissions.

And Paul Homewood and Christopher Booker will remain stuck in the past, never acknowledging the work of Muller and Berkeley Earth.