I cannot wait to see how this makes your mad Senator’s ravings about an unrelated subject worthy of anything other than scorn. You want to argue on his side, show that his suggestion has merit. If you want to argue that you support him even though he’s mad because he, in his madness, supports the same things you do, then do so. But don’t try to change the subject.
I do understand some of the details. I wouldn’t doubt others here understand them better, but I understand them well enough to say you’d be better off trying to defend your insane fellow Republican’s arguments on its merits (whatever they might be) than arguing that Alan Guth’s inflation theory contradicts big bang theory.
The scientific community’s consensus in the late 60s didn’t factor in the dwarf wheat championed by Borlaug, which was only starting to get going and show its worth. The models weren’t wrong - population-wise they were somewhat correct as far as I can tell (although actual pop growth slowed down compared to the more alarmist moderls, as some Asian countries completed their industrial shift and of course China partly implemented population control). They just didn’t factor in the sudden appearance of the agricultural equivalent of magitek.
Ironically enough, while Ehrlich was demonstrably wrong back in the 60s, he may be right now, as population keeps growing while food production seems to have plateau’d - and might even *drop *as the fishing industry dutifully continues killing itself.
But be that as it may, in this as with any error of modeling or prognostication of science ; the error was proven and/or a solution to problems put into light was put forward by :
A] religious people
B] other scientists
C] blathering politicians
D] having more children !
Well ?
I was answering a sincere question from snowthx. It wasn’t an attempt to change the subject, but an attempt to have a little bit of civil discourse by meeting a reasonable request with a reasonable response.
That is nice, an article that tells you about “paradigm shifts”. It is interesting, but the interesting part is that regarding the current issue your “lesson” is actually backwards. Because climate science actually did go trough trough that shift already.
What that post showed that it is clear that you do not know that arriving to the conclusion that ‘global warming due to human emissions was a problem’ also **came as a result of the paradigm shift that took place in the 50s-70’s. ** (Also it is clear that you ignore the related articles to the right of that page that talk about climate change not becoming a walk in the park.)
Back then, most scientists looking at the issue thought that natural sinks would take care of all the CO2 being dumped in the atmosphere; while still also aware that increases in CO2 would increase warming but thought that nature was checking things. So, while some were aware of the issue, several others thought that natural sinks of CO2 were going to control that issue. What happened was that after years of research and evidence they had to change their view. Finding later that CO2 absorbed heath in unexpected ways in the atmosphere and then that natural sinks were not going to be enough to control our dumping, did cause the paradigm shift that we are seeing nowadays.
Yes, he was: his book was an alarmist manifesto about social policy, not a work of scientific research, and this was repeatedly pointed out by scientists when the book became trendy. Although Ehrlich made some generally valid points about the overall importance of considering the global environment and trends in population and resource use, his specific predictions never got within screaming distance of any mainstream scientific consensus, and it’s ridiculous to treat his work as an example of major error in mainstream science.
No, as I just pointed out, it doesn’t.
But geophysics in the early 20th century was still an extremely new science: when Wegener first proposed his theory of continental drift, geologists still weren’t even sure to within a few orders of magnitude how old the Earth was. There’s a reason that this is the standard, and only, major example that people trot out when they want to illustrate the idea of scientific consensus being wrong: it involves a field that was still struggling to establish its physical foundations.
Oh, for pity’s sake, this is grasping at straws. As your own cite specifically states, current theory does still include the “hot Big Bang” model in which particles were formed in very dense and hot conditions and the universe began the expansion that still continues now. Research findings continue to confirm this model.
What’s still quite uncertain, and what has been explicitly acknowledged as quite uncertain at least since I took a college cosmology course back in the mid-1980s, is the issue of what exactly produced the big bang, or so-called “pre-big-bang physics”. The default hypothesis originally was the notion of an independent singularity, which has since been critiqued in favor of “bubble” or “bounce” models. But it has always been recognized that trying to model a situation where our basic laws of physics may not even apply is extremely speculative. Like geophysics at the turn of the 20th century, early universe cosmology today is still a nascent field establishing its scientific foundations. It doesn’t have enough solid explanatory mechanisms to build a “consensus” on yet.
Trying to use such examples to bolster up hopes that modern climate science is somehow going to turn out to be fundamentally wrong about the whole notion of anthropogenic climate change is mere wishful thinking.
Thanks. I think it is always good to remember that science does not always have “answers”, especially when new things are learned, and theories are debunked, or evolve. That’s how science works. People keep looking to prove or disprove existing theories, and have their work reviewed by others in their fields. There is no real end-game in science, because knowledge (along with technology) keep opening new doors that were not open to prior generations.
The population thing was not necessarily wrong, reality turned-out different than what was predicted. I think it is safe to say we can produce enough food for everyone to eat, but somehow people are still starving around the world, so the problem isn’t resolved as much as we would like. One could also make the argument that the warnings of the late 60s about population growth were heeded and countries implemented policy that averted the predicted catastrophe. Hard to prove a negative, tho.
WRT climate science - the broad consensus among experts is that rising CO2 is likely to cause disruption to the mostly stable climate we have enjoyed since the dawn of the modern age. Those disruptions are likely to cause unpredictable results, meaning human activity is likely to be disrupted. No one is saying anything is definite - lots of things are “likely”. There is also a lot of evidence that the climate is changing and humans are causing it (thousands of years-old glaciers disappearing, for example). Science is not something you “believe” in. You accept what it tells you based on evidence and facts, and as the evidence and facts move you adjust your view. For a while now the evidence and facts indicate climate is changing, and it is not a hoax. It is a serious issue and demands serious consideration, not cray-cray ideas from politicians.
Brace yourself for some disappointment. He doesn’t represent you.
He is bought. Oil & Gas industries have paid him $340,000 so far to represent them.
After that last presentation, I’m sure he’ll be receiving another nice big check soon.
And by the way, it’s not only Oil & Gas, he’s been bought by several other industries as well. He’s sold out to accounting firms like Deloitte, E&Y, PriceWaterhouseCooper etc. to the tune of $1.5M. They are certainly enjoying those lower tax rates.
You can check out who has bought him and his price here.
Unless you are actually one of those buying him to benefit what ever industry you represent, don’t kid yourself, he does not care about you or your interests.
And the next reply shows also how your position is not well supported:
Only that that was not really said by the scientists. The “logical” reply that contrarians make, that “science is not settled” is what many right wing sources then use against scientists and their supporters.
Well, tell that to HurricaneDitka, who seems to mistakenly believe that Senator Lee’s cray-cray ideas about ignorantly mocking discussion of climate change mitigation policies with silly dinosaur graphics constitute some kind of meaningful “argument”.
Correct, the science is not settled on climate change. However, the phenomena is broadly accepted as real by most of the people who study it (who also tend not to be politicians). I don’t know why politicians think they know more than people who work in the field, and discard advice and info that is readily available from the smart people.
Even if the science is not “settled”, there is no reason to put off discussing the issue and considering action - why are people behaving like ostriches? There are some Republicans who are interested in exploring the issue, but their caucus is weakening. IMHO it’s important to have dialog and collect varying opinions on the subject from people who take it seriously and are prepared to act - a compromise somewhere between Lee and AOC extremes, but on one side if moderate conservatives keep losing elections we will lose some balance and the ability to actually do something (or at least talk about it).
Because in order to do something about it the businesses that own politicians would have to be regulated. Republicans can’t say “yes there’s a problem and we can mitigate it, but we’re not going to do because our donors will stop writing cheques.” so they pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
Given that he gave you the cites he was referencing, you very well might be! But only if you read and seriously consider the merit of and implications of the cites.
So regarding the supposed uncertainty of the science, which supposedly justify Lee making an idiot of himself by showing insane pictures and making deranged “think of the children! As tools!” arguments, what parts of the science do you consider uncertain? That water levels are rising? That global average temperatures are rising? That the greenhouse effect is nonfictional? Are there any specific details about global warming that justify acting like a brain-damaged monkey in your official job capacity? Or is it more of a “some uncertainty probably exists somewhere maybe possibly, but we can’t successfully argue that’s true, so any nonsensical gibberish is on the table as long as it gets us (and our corporate overlords) the inaction we so richly desire” thing?
I mean, the dude didn’t actually argue that global warming wasn’t true. He just argued that doing something about it is stupid, because lack of reasons, while doing performance art to distract from that lack of reasons.
He wasn’t arguing that “doing something about it is stupid”. He argued that doing this specific thing (the GND) is stupid. That was the overall point of his speech.
