Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources Site No Longer Says Humans Cause Climate Change (theverge.com) 371
The website of Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources has been updated with new language and no longer says that humans and greenhouse emissions cause climate change. Instead, the site says that the causes of global warming "are being debated and researched by academic entities." The problem is that almost all climate scientists agree that human-made greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change, and that global warming is a big issue that needs to be addressed. Prior to the revision, the site said "human activities that increase heat-trapping ("green house") gases are the main cause." The Verge reports: DNR spokesperson Jim Dick told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in an email that the "updated page reflects our position on this topic that we have communicated for years, that our agency regularly must respond to a variety of environmental and human stressors from drought, flooding, wind events to changing demographics." This does not address the question of why the new language implies that we do not know what causes climate change. This is the latest anti-environment move from Wisconsin's government, which has de-emphasized global warming since Republican Gov. Scott Walker took office in 2011. So far, Wisconsin is the only state that appears to be revising its website, but more states could follow suit now that it's clear climate science will be attacked under President-elect Donald Trump.
Execution (Score:3, Insightful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Misleading Summary (Score:3, Informative)
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Just the same old Republican strategy (Score:4, Informative)
Cold on the 'Sconsin unemployment line (Score:2)
I hear it's pretty cold this time of year in 'Sconsin to be standing in line for unemployment benefits.
There people here and also in the Faculty Senate at the "U" who simply won't be happy until we are all reduced to eating birdseed, pedaling to work in the snow, and having the lights flicker on or off depending on how hard the wind is blowing.
People don't want that. We like our rich diet powered by Wisconsin dairy cows and enjoy driving our SUVs, powered by fuel liberated from the ground by good ol'
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You confuse knitted yogurt uneducated environmentalist activists with climatologists. The science says CO2 is driving climate change but says nothing about how to achieve a reduction in emissions. Sure the knitted yogurt brigade want us to live short brutish lives in caves to achieve this. Most scientifically literate people prefer the direction we have actually taken with a mix of better building insulation, electric cars, cheaper renewable energy sources, safe nuclear power, telecommuting, even fracking i
Re:Just the same old Republican strategy (Score:4, Funny)
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/trump-files-donalds-big-book-hitler-speeches [motherjones.com]
Re:Just the same old Republican strategy (Score:5, Informative)
In fact from the mid 40s to around around 1980 there actually was a slight decrease in measured temperature [wikipedia.org] at surface stations around the globe, although not to early 20th C levels. This was due to the rise of SO2 above many of the temperature stations, which reduced sunlight reaching the surface. You probably aren't old enough to remember, but this is what cities often looked like in the 60s [google.com].
So in the mid 60s the future direction of climate was still somewhat open. On one hand increasing CO2 (by then measurable) was warming the Earth; on the other natural variations in the Earth's orbit [wikipedia.org] and increased SO2 would have a cooling effect. The question was which effect would prevail. By the mid 70s the vast majority of papers concluded that the balance would tip toward warming, successfully predicting the warming seen after 1980 before it actually happened. Of course public understanding of the current state of science is usually a decade or more out of date. In the case of AGW, almost nobody outside of Earth Sciences was aware of the newly emerged consensus until An Incovenient Truth came out -- which left people feeling blindsided. But you can go back in Google Scholar and watch that consensus emerge some thirty years earlier. I was aware of it in the 80s because I'd married a geophysicist.
As for peak oil that's a much tougher nut to crack because it depends on predictions of future oil recovery technologies and the discovery of future energy reserves. If technology hadn't improved since the 1970s we'd surely be looking at much more expensive petroleum. Economists have never predicted we'll "run out of oil", by the way, because that's not how markets work. What will happen is oil will someday become too expensive to use to power things like cars. We're still headed there eventually, but nobody can say exactly when.
Re:Just the same old Republican strategy (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Studies of the scientific literature in the 1970s reveal 7 papers suggesting global cooling (but not an ice age). They also found 44 papers suggesting global warming.
If you don't watch the video, then it proves that you are deliberately remaining ignorant on the subject. And if you're going to remain deliberately ignorant on the subject, then you should stop talking about it.
One you read what the facts really are, you realize just how much climate deniers are lying about the facts. Why would they do that? Because the right-wing media hates democrats, and the oil companies are giving them a global warming conspiracy story to legitimize their hatred. Why would oil companies do that? Because there's trillions of dollars of oil reserves still in the ground, and if people keep pumping it, they're going to be very, very rich - like trillions of dollars rich.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20161030222446/http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/greatlakes/climatechange.html [archive.org]
Journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when the news tries to show balanced coverage on a topic where there is so much scientific consensus on a topic. The broadcaster brings in a scientist who is an expert in the field to explain why they believe climate change is happening and they start to go on about probability which sounds like they really aren't that sure about it at all. In reality with the numbers they are reaching the scientists would most likely bet their homes on it. Yet in the "interest of balance" the broadcaster brings on the skeptic who works in a different field and talks in absolutes. So the viewer thinks that the issue is really much more like 50/50 and it's even worse because only the skeptic is convinced in their work.
If the news were to show you what the climate science was really like then you would rarely see a denier debating a scientist. Same thing for the vaccinations.
And if you think the scientists aren't trying to disprove climate change you can think again. They would all love to find out that man-made climate change was wrong because it would be an easy Nobel Prize for showing what it was.
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This is the game plan for just about any hearing chaired by Jeff Sessions, Sen. from Alabama and to be new Justice of the Piece (and not Peace). He always brought in a ringer and then led them through the argument he wanted in the record and that would get reported. He's the worst sort of scum, no wonder Trump picked him.
Re:Forget Trump (Score:2)
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But I guess YOU at least know that climate change does not cause Tsunamis ;D ?
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Where will their next grant come from, and for what research, if they disprove one of biggest crises in the last few decades?
The grant would come from the same place that they had before. What evidence do you have that their funding would stop? You have none; it's just your assumption.
As long as the science is done properly and doesn't collapse under scrutiny, the fame (and the fact that the scientists would have to have opened up a whole new aspect to climate science) would undoubtedly ensure their funding for quite some time. Universities and research groups don't judge a scientist's work by what their conclusions say. They jud
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The grant would come from the same place that they had before.
Of course not. A funding agency doesn't keep funding research into areas that don't need it. If global climate change was disproved, then why would any agency spend its limited budget on funding more research into how to solve it? They are hesitant to keep funding research that hasn't met the goals when there is still a lot left to learn; why would they fund things that they are told aren't a problem?
What evidence do you have that their funding would stop? You have none; it's just your assumption.
Twenty five years working in academic research funded by federal and private grants, seeing what does get fu
Re:Journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
This. If scientists discovered that [problem X] was no longer a major concern, they would devote their attention to something else.
But oh no, major conspiracy, scientists have vested interests in maintaining a lie for the sake of their careers. BULLSHIT. Scientists are very much interested in the truth. They are trained to seek it, uncover it, present it, and call their colleagues on any attempts to hide it.
The problem is that scientists discover things that are very uncomfortable for certain interests who have lots of money at stake. And those interests spend their money on attempting to discredit what scientists discover.
Scientists are not the ubermensch (Score:3)
This. If scientists discovered that [problem X] was no longer a major concern, they would devote their attention to something else.
But oh no, major conspiracy, scientists have vested interests in maintaining a lie for the sake of their careers. BULLSHIT. Scientists are very much interested in the truth. They are trained to seek it, uncover it, present it, and call their colleagues on any attempts to hide it.
The problem is that scientists discover things that are very uncomfortable for certain interests who have lots of money at stake. And those interests spend their money on attempting to discredit what scientists discover.
Scientists are people too, with the same egos, prejudices, fears, and irrational beliefs the rest of us have. Ideally, through honest application of their work, they can filter out these human elements and present to the rest of us objective facts. However, I think any of us who are widely read and have been paying attention know that there is quite a lot of 'standard' human behavior that occurs in scientific circles.
So, perhaps they are trained as you say, but one cannot claim they act as they are trained
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Anyone who believes that scientists receiving grants are working altruistically is essentially taking a worshipful attitude. Scientists are just people with every foible the rest have.
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Yes, it's correct. It might surprise you, but there really isn't a grand oil funded conspiracy. The grant money you get if you toe the party line is by orders of magnitude bigger than if you dare being a contrarian.
I don't know, you can make a pretty good living [thinkprogress.org] being a climate change denier. And those leaked documents from the Heartland Institute [desmogblog.com] show that they can be quite generous:
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The question that interests me is what certainty threshold do we require before we hurt oil and related businesses? Can we make these companies lose billions of dollars based on a probability of 99%? If it turns out we're in the 1% where man-made climate change was wrong, will they get compensated?
On the flip side, if the worst case climate predictions with only 1% probability come to pass (such as most of Florida under water, along with every coastal city on the planet), it will cost humankind quadrillions of dollars in damages and/or remediation attempts. Which end of this spectrum do you think is more worrisome?
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consensus is not proof. some call this groupthink...
If 999 doctors say "you need to stop drinking that well water laced with arsenic to survive" and one holistic doctor says "dilute arsenic is good for you and anyway, shutting down that open cast mine that's polluting your well will cost the economy billions," you'd go with the homeopath?
The consensus of climate scientists isn't because they got around a table and decided what line they were going to peddle, they independently came to the same conclusion. A
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Proof isn't necessary.
Take parachutes. No-one has done double blind studies to check if parachutes work. Maybe we should randomly distribute real parachutes and placebos to some reasonable size test groups, and then throw them out of aircraft to see if having a parachute really makes any difference to real-world outcomes. Otherwise we might be wasting huge amounts of money on parachutes that do nothing.
For that matter, gravity is just a theory too. You don't see clouds come crashing down to Earth, do you? M
Because (Score:2)
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"These are simple people -- the salt of the earth -- you know, morons."
gonna be an interesting 4 years (sigh).
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They're simply saying that the causes of global climate change/global warming/global cooling/whatever the new happy-fun-name it uses today is still being debated. (Fact!)
The genesis of life on Earth is still being debated. (Fact!) Yet I would be very concerned if government websites suddenly erased all references to evolution.
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And, please, don't make me out to be a denier.
I know climate change is happening.
And I'd be an idiot if I didn't think we were a part of it.
As to HOW much of a part? I honestly don't really know and am beyond giving a fuck, as it's pointless to point fingers.
I'd just advocate living by the Boy Scout Rule.
"Leave a place cleaner/better than we found it."
That includes CO2.
With modern technology and agriculture, we ALREADY have several well-proven methods for sequestering CO2. They basically need an infusion
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Forest and Agriculture does not grow fast enough to have any measurable effect on AGW.
You forget we just burned in about 100 years roughly the amount of coal/oil the planet created the last 200million years. So to sequester the amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere by planting woods and storing the wood underground we would need about 2 million years, give or take, to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere.
Well, we could argue: we can leave it as it is and only fight the further increase. Nevertheless with plant
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And it also isn't producing endless pronouncements of The End Of Days with no concrete solutions for avoiding it. With AGW/GCC, we get an endless string of: ...THE END IS NIGH!
THE END IS NIGH!
What do we do about it?
That's an utter lie. Do you have no shame?
Have you heard anyone mention carbon taxes, emissions trading schemes, incentives for industry to reduce their carbon footprint, the move to cleaner power sources like wind/solar/nuclear, international agreements to cap carbon emissions, creation of carbon sinks to offset emissions, reducing meat intake to avoid all those farting cows, promoting the construction of sustainable buildings including homes with eaves and intelligent ventilation to reduce the reliance on
Does it really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
People have made up their mind and no amount of evidence could sway them, so why bother?
Reality or facts don't really matter anymore, do they? People won't believe anything that doesn't fit their personal reality bubble anyway, so why bother trying to convince them? Evidence doesn't matter anymore, especially in areas that are hard to understand in the first place and people are quite unwilling to learn.
I stopped trying and caring a long ago. I have no kids. I am old enough that any climate change will only hit big time after I'm long dead. Trash this planet any way you like, I don't give a shit anymore. If you can't be assed to care about your planet, why should I, and why should I try to make you care?
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There are always people/cultures around that are more successful at delaying gratification or are more capable at avoiding far away consequences. Maybe the outcome of our latest experiment with nature will be that those will be favoured.
But overall I would agree we are screwed to the degree it doesn't matter anymore. It is kind of amusing to watch how many of the models like LtG or some plans to curb CO2 output follow the BAU scenario they offer. In other words mankind is totally incapable to act on knowled
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Apparently it matters enough for you to post 132 words going on about how much you don't care.
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It's nice of you that you try to cheer me up.
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I agree with the dumbass part.
variables that affect climate (Score:2)
Re:variables that affect climate (Score:5, Informative)
Reading this article, I don't see that it's "climate change alarmists" that are scrubbing references to AGW from public documents.
It kind of sounds like the climate deniers are the ones trying to exercise command and control.
In Florida, the GOP government went so far as to ban the term "climate change".
http://www.miamiherald.com/new... [miamiherald.com]
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The climate scientists have not been saying that since the field got started over a century ago. Changes such as El Nina/ La Nina and the monsoons are the things that turned it into a major field of study around the start of the 20th century.
It's not the scientists pushing a hoax. It's commercial interested insisting that everything has always been the same, especially the commercial outliers of Religion who went after geology, biol
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Bullshit
Utter bullshit, there's a thing called "space weather" which is mostly about variability in the output of the Sun.
You have been very badly misinformed or are deliberately spreading lies. Which of those two is it?
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If there's one variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the output of the Sun.
Just received official word NASA stereo satellites are part of a false flag climate hoax launched into orbit around a sound stage transmitting illuminati approved disinfo to the world.
I hope Trump shuts all this worthless science shit down. We need real data not bullshit from dishonest scientists.
If there's a second variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the kinematics of the Earth about the Sun. Neither should be considered constant.
Thanks for letting everyone know because before you spoke up nobody was monitoring or accounting for these things.
The real hoax was that climate is constant.
Nobody doubts in a billion years or so an irreversible moist earth runaway greenhouse effect will
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If there's one variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the output of the Sun. If there's a second variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the kinematics of the Earth about the Sun. Neither should be considered constant.
I don't get this. Neither are considered constant. The kinematics are sending us towards an ice age (15Kyears). The solar output is falling - slightly (which would lead to cooler temperatures) although I don't know whether that is expected to be a long (centuries) or short (ye
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BS. The effect of the Sun can be calculated. It isn't the driving factor, CO2 is. The only hoax is the one you are puling on yourself.
In related news ... (Score:2)
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Finally! (Score:2)
It will br a long time (Score:2)
before the sea level rise reaches Wisconsin
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before the sea level rise reaches Wisconsin
The ocean, yes, but inland sea is a different and more threatening scenario. With moderate global warming, the water levels are expected to continue to fall. However, if it reaches a certain threshold, precipitation in Canada will increase and cause serious flooding, especially of Lake Superior. Add the instability of the fault lines on the Wisconsin east coast, and changes to Lake Michigan has the potential to cause a future flood catastrophe.
97% consensus debunked (Score:2)
http://climatechangedispatch.c... [climatecha...spatch.com]
Learn about the science. (Score:2)
So Very Sick (Score:3, Insightful)
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For how long do you think this upward trend will last?
Maybe... (Score:2, Insightful)
...they've just started that campaign against "Fake News"?
At least NASA says its humans (for now) (Score:2)
Well, at least NASA's site still says its humans.
see here [nasa.gov]
and to be honest I think more people would trust NASA than the State of Wisconsin or whatever.
To be honest I'm a little surprised and a lot pleased that the NASA site clearly lays out its humans that are the cause. Yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens with the new administration, but no matter what a lot of Slashdotters think I still have a lot of respect for the individual scientists and engineers at NASA.
1984 (Score:2)
If you're a billionaire you can pretty much do what you want with enough trolls on social media. To quote George Orwell:
He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
Recent ignorance towards human driven climate change is stupid and money will probably not fix the damage.
Eppure si muove (Score:3)
We can deny the reality of, well, reality as much as we like, but it is still reality. Climate change is real, and humans being the cause is real, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
BTW: The subject line is the motto of Galileo Academy of Science and Technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Academy_of_Science_and_Technology) - according this is what Galileo said on the way out, after having been ordered to deny that Earth moves around the Sun: "And yet it moves".
Preemptive brown-nosing (Score:2)
Just deny reality (Score:3)
Common Sense suggests Climate Change is real (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read about the science from reputable sources and I have somewhat of a science background myself but even if I didn't believe in that, my own common sense suggests that it's more than likely that climate change is real. Why would I think that? We're burning millions of tonnes of fossil fuels everyday that nature has locked away in our planet for millions of years. Fossil Fuels in nature isn't remotely being produced at the same rate, our entire human species hasn't even remotely been around that long and somehow out of some miracle releasing that much carbon into the atmosphere by some miracle isn't have some effect? It's like saying oh well I'll just cut down the whole forest, it grows back right, no loss? The amount of energy Fossil Fuels release is incredible, I'm sure you've heard or thought of the expression you can't move mountains. Well the truth is we can and we do, thanks to this "cheap" energy, our mining equipment can actually move mountains. The problem is nothing is truly "cheap", there's always a cost even if we can't directly see it.
I also dislike the folks who panic and say the world is ending. The world isn't going to end with climate change but it's going to get expensive and uncomfortable for us. For my city it already has, they've had to spend millions for upgrading the storm sewer system to deal with a massive increase in nasty downpours in the last few years to hopefully prevent flooding and while yes I'm sure we've had this sort of flash flooding before, I've lived here long enough to notice that it seems to be an increasing trend. No amount of no it's not happening is going to save folks from being flooded. It's ended up putting the city in debt but no one thinks of it that way. All folks argue about is how taxes are going up.
Re:Typo (Score:4, Funny)
Good enough for me! Sounds like good, trustworthy science.
Close (Score:5, Funny)
1. Trump references the Wisconson website and takes credit for fixing climate change in a 3 am tweet.
2. Kellyanne Conway goes on Sunday talk shows to deny climate change exists.
3. Trump doubles down and claims the Clintons created the problem with all that darned economic growth in the 90s.
4. Putin publicly thanks Trump and Exxon for helping him annex climate change.
5. America is somehow great again.
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Looks to me like somebody is going for a higher-paid job in Trumps brave new administration.
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The website has not changed. It has always said that.
We have always been at war with the Mujahideen, and allies of Glorious Comrade Putin.
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Keep in mind that there are millions of Americans who believe it doesn't matter because of rapture.
That's quite a large claim to make - which probably explains your down-mod. I did a search for this.
Can you provide a link showing that the reasons millions of Americans don't believe in global warming is due to the rapture?
Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C (Score:5, Informative)
Untrue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C (Score:5, Informative)
Since you refuse to look at the evidence for yourself, the eight major investigations that cleared CRU of any scientific misconduct include:
- House of Commons Science and Technology Committee [deccanherald.com]: "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact"
- Independent Climate Change Review [cce-review.org]: "we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt."
- International Science Assessment Panel [sciencemag.org]: "We found absolutely no evidence of impropriety whatsoever"
- Pennsylvania State University [archive.org] first panel and second panel [sciencemag.org]: "Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community"
- United States Environmental Protection Agency [bbc.com]: CRU critics came to "faulty scientific conclusions" and "resorted to hyperbole."
- Department of Commerce [www.cbc.ca]: "We did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures"
- National Science Foundation [nsf.gov]: "We found no basis to conclude that the emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence."
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A bunch of academics found no fault with a bunch of academics. W o W
Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop and think for a moment.
You have already reached your conclusion, and you will only accept a change to that conclusion (if even then) should someone with a vested interest in YOUR OWN CONCLUSION says it isn't so.
Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C (Score:5, Insightful)
Blind trust is academics (or anyone) is foolish.
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Hold on. The "sceptics" are mainly Conservative
And the believers are mainly liberal. Liberals are the ones who think Russia literally hacked our voting machines. What difference does it make whether one side is liberal or conservative? The only thing that matters is the science, not who 'believes' what.
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A bunch of academics found no fault with a bunch of academics. W o W
You know what is the dream of any scientist? Have their name immortalized in History next to Darwin, Einstein, Newton, Euler, Curie, Mendeleev, etc.
You know how to do it? You prove the scientific consensus is wrong. If scientists could prove the current theories on climate change are wrong, they'll be all over it.
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You don't understand that agreeing is losing in science.
Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C (Score:4, Informative)
If you'd bothered looking at any of those links, you'd have seen that half of them are to statements by government organizations that are filled with politicians and bureaucrats which are about as far from academics as you can get.
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that's right.
its all a conspiracy by the world's academics to make the world a better place by reducing pollution.
thank god we have you to save us from them.
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Over 90% of the worlds climatologists agree on Global Warming, and that's amazing! If you put 4 scientists from virtually any field together in one room, they'll almost always start arguing. That's part of their jobs! Yes, arguing with each other. They do it more politely and professionally than their neighbors, but they try to tear down everyones ideas. Those idea
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Apparently some climatologists are convinced that exaggeration and alarmism are justified to push the public into action. But by eroding their own credibility,
You seem to miss the fact that climate change researchers and the IPCC are downplaying their predictions and concerns since decades to "not sound alarmist".
That is why we get more concerned voices lately because the "scientific community" does not longer want to downplay it.
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You seem to miss the fact that climate change researchers and the IPCC are downplaying their predictions and concerns since decades to "not sound alarmist".
The first IPCC report did not downplay anything. Subsequent reports may have, possibly in an attempt to re-establish some credibility. But scientists should not be be downplaying, exaggerating, or anything else to hide or twist the facts. They should be seeking and reporting the unbiased truth.
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If you agree with the consensus, it seems really stupid to me to really harp on scientists. Should we be looking at politicians or religious leaders to lead by example here, or?
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The first IPCC report did not downplay anything...
It looks like the projections from the first IPCC report were pretty darn good [researchgate.net]. Of course, this was published in 2013. A lot has happened since then [woodfortrees.org] that may make the projections look a little on the low side.
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So there is a very high probability that those same models predictions of future climate are also reasonably accurate.
They use all that data to build and test the models.
Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C (Score:5, Informative)
Fact One: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It is more transparent to frequencies of visible light than frequencies of infrared light [wesleyan.edu].
Fact Two: The total content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing as a result of human activities. The two largest sources are the burning of fossil fuels, and the production of concrete [columbia.edu].
Fact Three: The exact amount of greenhouse effect of existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is unknown. We only know that it must be some magnitude greater than zero. See Fact One.
Fact Four: Adding still-more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can only increase the existing greenhouse effect. See Fact One.
Question: On what basis could it be called a "good thing" to keep increasing the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
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his backers just wanted something to change.
they will probably get their wish. sort of.
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"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
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You are lying about being a paid shill that is for sure. See I can shout unsubstantiated claims about lying without any evidence just like you. Have a nice day shill.
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Actually, the fish have a vote. There's a story on NYT where the fish along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. are moving north and east towards cooler water. The problem for the U.S. regulatory authorities which regulate fish catches is that they haven't kept up with fish voting patterns. The consequence is that states that were in the center of the fish habitat are now too far south, the ones that were north are now in the center but the regulations on fish catch totals haven't changed.
Re: Just because there is no evicence.. (Score:5, Informative)
> Science is a democracy
Science is most assuredly not a democracy. Leaders may be determined by geography, tradition, and popularity, but truth is not determined in such a way.
Re: Just because there is no evicence.. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Science is a democracy
Science is most assuredly not a democracy. Leaders may be determined by geography, tradition, and popularity, but truth is not determined in such a way.
This. Science is a meritocracy. To complete your point, truth in science is determined by observation.
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I wish I had mod points right now. Science is not based on how many people you can convince, although that can help in making a case on the merits of your interpretation of the observations. Claiming that 97% of scientists agree on something is not an argument. All it can mean is a lot of people got it wrong.
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All it can mean is a lot of people got it wrong.
You bare right, techincally, while not really being right in practice. It is indeed possible that 97% of scientists got it wrong. However, if the vast majority agree and you aren't a scientist studying the topic (i.e. going on emotions, gut feel, politics and ideologies) or at least some kind of expert, then you position is even less scientific than assuming the vast majority are almost certainly correct.
Science isn't about Truth. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about the best available evidence.
People clearly misunderstand this because they keep saying things like "Scientists used to believe X, but now they believe Y," as proof that scientists don't have the capital-T Truth. And they're right. They're just missing the point. The problem with Truth is that it's inaccessible. Unless you're God, you're missing big parts of it. Mortals don't have the Truth, we only have evidence, and not all the evidence there is.
So you have to decide what is the best basis for making decisions that affect society as a whole, the one that appeals to your gut feelings about the Truth, or the one supported by the best evidence we have so far. Sure evidence based policy means you have to change your mind sometimes; but not knowing everything isn't the moral equivalent of knowing nothing.
As for "consensus", well, that's not what people think it is either. It's not a declaration of truth, it's a general agreement as to where the burden of proof lies. If you want to claim that humans hunted T. Rex you're going to need very strong evidence to back that up. Someone who claims T. Rex was extinct before humans doesn't need to back that up at all. It's discrimiantion, but it's fair and reasonable discrimination. Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence.
It doesn't matter what a scientist believes, it only matters what he can prove. That's why it's a bad idea to go shopping for a scientist who believes what you want to be true: chances are you'll find one. Science used this way has no probative value. Of course you can argue against the scientific consensus as a basis for public policy if you want, but to show that that is rational you'll need to provide justification for why your preferred scientist is right, and that means seriously studying the field so you can mount the same kind of technical critique of evidence that a professional in the field could. Otherwise you're just scientist shopping.
The opinion of the overwhelming majority of experts working in the field may not be God's-own-Truth, but it's the best starting place for policy. It has at least the benefit that it can't tell you whatever you want to hear.
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I believe that it's safe to say that consensus is how we evaluate all competing models of reality.
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Whatever the causes, our loved one remained "DNR" to the end.
We will unfortunately be required by law to soon inter the remains thus ending the debate.
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Thank you, right wing, for your always atrocious spelling, so as to flag your posts and your terrible thinking in a way that allows us to easily ignore them.
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Moreover, science is international, how did the US hoodwink virtually the entire climate science community?
Re:Not tech news? (Score:4, Insightful)