Global Warming and Intelligent Design share a fundamental characteristic in common, the lack of definitive, proven evidence of the causation which would make them fact rather than theory.
In Intelligent Design you can see the leaps of evolution and the bizarre anomalies in the fossil record and you can say "something must have caused this", but there is no proof of what or who is the cause. You can choose God or aliens or mutation or random unidentified forces as your explanation equally convincingly because no evidence exists to definitively identify the unknown forces driving the evolutionary process. If you believe in a conscious force behind evolution you can only reach that conclusion through faith.
In the same way, Global Warming is a clearly identifiable phenomenon which can be documented through the geological record and contemporary temperature measurements, but it is impossible to point to a specific cause and say "aha, here's THE thing which is causing global warming." Human causation is the popular choice as a cause, but human output of the gasses which cause global warming is substantially less than the cumulative yearly output from natural sources like volcanoes and forest fires and falls well within the normal variations of those gasses from year to year. Natural forces like solar activity and the earth's climate cycle also contribute to global warming and it is impossible to definitively identify one cause as specifically responsible. If your choice is to believe in human causation as the one thing that causes Global Warming, that position can only be reached by the equivalent of a leap of faith.
Because these are beliefs which can only be reached by faith, those who subscribe to them have a tendancy to be driven to fanaticism in defense of their position. They attack and harass those who disagree with them, deride them as deniers driven by a political agenda, be it secularism or corporate greed, and do their best to essentially redefine reality on their own terms. They will go to great and destructive extremes to force their beliefs on others, including imposing their agenda on the school curriculum, promoting their beliefs through advocacy groups, seeking to pass legislation enshrining it in law, and attempting to destroy and discredit those who don't agree with them.
The remarkable thing with this sort of fanatically held belief is that it doesn't matter if there's any truth or evidence behind it, or if there are facts which directly contradict it. The true believers will gladly redefine reality on the fly so that whatever facts they're presented with will fit into their worldview. Inconvenient fossil records predating the biblical creation of the earth? God created them to test our faith. Inconvenient record snowfalls and cooling trends in Europe? Well, of course, cold weather is a symptom of global warming. The great thing about faith is that it can help you rationalize anything no matter how ridiculous.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Cyberfarer
For God sakes, read a real book.
2 - Dave Nalle
Um, this isn't a book review, it's an opinion piece. Do you know the difference?
Dave
3 - Clavos
So, Dave...who's gonna attack you more--GW or ID?
4 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
"Human causation is the popular choice as a cause, but human output of the gasses which cause global warming is substantially less than the output of natural sources like volcanoes and falls within the normal variations of those gasses over time. Natural forces like solar activity and the earth's climate cycle also contribute to global warming, and it is impossible to definitively identify one cause as specifically responsible."
You must be reading different stats than I am. I am very curious to read yours. I have seen several graphs of CO2 derived from ice core samples and they all show what is noted in the following quote:
"Gore notes the relationship between CO2 and temperature, as revealed in ice cores. He then shows a graph correlating the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere with temperature over hundreds of thousands of years. The lines closely follow each other up and down. Literally for millenniums, the amount of CO2 has hovered between 200 and 300 parts per million. But since the industrial revolution, when humans started pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere with all our machines, it's risen to the current amount of 380 parts per million. Economists and climate scientists believe it will continue to rise as dramatically over the course of this century."
-spiegel.de
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I also wanted to point out - at the of sounding arrogant - that your use of the term theory is, technically, incorect as a scientific term.
"which would make them fact rather than unprovable theory." Scientifically speaking, a theory is technically unprovable by definition. Theories "explain a great diversity of observations and are supported by an accumulation of evidence." -BIOLOGY, Campbell.
A fact, or law, is something that CAN be proved because it is an observation that can be replicated.
Any cause of global warming, because of its very nature as a cause, can never be more than a theory.
However, it is quite possible to OBSERVE measurements that show a very strong correlation between CO2 and temperature throughout the past 100,000 years. It is also possible to OBSERVE measurements that show CO2 levels have risen to their highest levels in milleniums and that temperature is maintaining a similar correlation to this increase as it has over the past 100,000 years. It is also possible to observe the millions of gallons of carbon containing fuel being consumed in this country. Finally, a reasonable, but ultiimately unprovable theory, would be that the CO2 level increases that occurred the last century are largely due to human activity, are largely responsible for the increases in temperature observed, and that if the CO2 level continues to rise, so will temperature. The question is only to what level, and what the effects will be.
5 - Dave Nalle
Peti. Read up on Krakatoa and volcanic activity in general. One good volcano on the scale of Krakatoa would dwarf human contributions to global warming for the past generation, and we're past due for an erruption of that scale.
"which would make them fact rather than unprovable theory." Scientifically speaking, a theory is technically unprovable by definition. Theories "explain a great diversity of observations and are supported by an accumulation of evidence."
Looks to me like I used theory in EXACTLY the same way as you've defined it. The real key is that 'accumulation of evidence' and how legitimate the evidence in question is. It's a case of garbage in, garbage out. If your 'evidence' is legitimized by faith and wishful thinking or by the number of scientists who agree on it, then how valid is it?
Dave
6 - Clavos
OK, Peti, you say:
However, it is quite possible to OBSERVE measurements that show a very strong correlation between CO2 and temperature throughout the past 100,000 years.
Who was around to take and observe these measurements more than a few hundred years ago? And what were they measuring with?
7 - JR
I guess one significant difference between intelligent design and global warming would be the amount of supporting research in peer-review journals. If you can dismiss that difference, I'm not sure you've got anything but faith to inform your world view.
8 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
My use of the verb observe is intended to have the subject present day humans. It is possible to measure CO2 concentrations from previous years by dating and measuring CO2 concentrations in air bubbles trapped in ice formations on Greenland. Hence you or I can "OBSERVE measurements that show a very strong correlation between CO2 and temperature throughout the past 100,000 years." I believe my statement holds true.
9 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Dave- you seem to simultaneously imply there is no "accumulation of evidence" put that it is still an "unprovable theory." If there is no accumulation of evidence then it is not even an unprobavable theory. It is a hypothesis.
Also: I objected to your use of the phrase "unprovable theory" because it seemed to imply most theories were provable. Otherwise it is just repetitive...
10 - Dave Nalle
I guess one significant difference between intelligent design and global warming would be the amount of supporting research in peer-review journals. If you can dismiss that difference, I'm not sure you've got anything but faith to inform your world view.
Ah, but you have to go the whole way with tha analogy. Since the peer review journals are dominated by co-religionists of the Global Warming Cult, they're the equivalent of the mass of equally scholarly journals of theology which have plenty of credible peer-reviewed articles on the subject of intelligent design. And who's to say that a DD is less of a scholar than a PhD?
Again it comes down to the central point. Just because a BUNCH of people - even intelligent and degreed people - believe something, that doesn't make it true.
Dave
11 - Dave Nalle
It is possible to measure CO2 concentrations from previous years by dating and measuring CO2 concentrations in air bubbles trapped in ice formations on Greenland.
Ironically that's the primary source of the data used to support the 'impending ice age' theory which was current 30 years ago.
Dave- you seem to simultaneously imply there is no "accumulation of evidence"
As I think I said before, the validity of evidence is in the eye of the beholder. What you or I might not think of as evidence - like the bible - is seen as definitive evidence by ID supporters.
put that it is still an "unprovable theory." If there is no accumulation of evidence then it is not even an unprobavable theory. It is a hypothesis.
Well, it certainly is a hypothesis. The question is whether the theory developed from that hypothesis has any validity.
Also: I objected to your use of the phrase "unprovable theory" because it seemed to imply most theories were provable. Otherwise it is just repetitive...
Redundent rather than repetitive and used for effect.
Dave
12 - Clavos
Peti,
You inspired me to do a little research, and I found this, in an article, "Learning From Polar Ice Core Research", in a publication called Environmental Science & Technology:
The discovery of abrupt climatic shifts, or Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) oscillations, was the most surprising feature of the Greenland ice core data. The 24 D-O oscillations of the last glaciation are marked by temperature increases over Greenland of up to 6 oC, in a time span of less than a decade, followed by a more gradual return to the cooler glacial climate (3). These events are not clearly manifested in the Vostok record. However, diverse paleoclimatic evidence, including marine sediment data, pollen profiles, and glacial snow line data, indicates that the effects of at least some events were felt on a global scale (5).
The thermohaline circulation
The reports of the Dansgaard-Oeschger fluctuations have since generated tremendous excitement in the climate sciences community. "They indicate a climate capable of violent change," said Lawrence Mysak, a climate dynamicist at McGill University's Center for Climate and Global Change Research in Montreal.
This would seem to indicate that the kinds of climate changes we're seeing now were occuring long before mankind began to affect the climate, no?
13 - Clavos
Sorry, I blew the link. Here it is.
14 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Wikipedia states "In the year following the eruption, global temperatures were lowered by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius on average. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888." Krakatoa erupted only 5 years earlier.
If you look at a map of global temperature, for the last 200 years, the decrease following Krakatoa appears to be a short, temporary, small drop in global temperature. The prevailing trend, even from pre Krakatoa warmth to now is upwards. Even if the 1.2 degree Celsius decrease, is aproximately equal to increases caused by humans, it was a short lived decrease.
15 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
That's the word i was looking for! Redundent! I wasted 15 minutes looking for that word.
16 - Clavos
Um, redundant :>)
17 - Dave Nalle
Damn, I always have trouble keeping Ents and Ants straight. Which ones are the giant tree herders and which ones are the little bugs, again?
Dave
18 - Dave Nalle
The Wikipedia entry is a bit superficial. The 5 year 'greenhouse winter' effect was only part of the phenomenon. Longer term warming may also have been one of the results of the erruption.
Dave
19 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Im not even done with you're article but i had to post this. You're own article states:
"They found a strong positive correlation between temperature changes and changes in carbon dioxide and methane; this has contributed empirical evidence of the magnitude of climatic feedback between increasing levels of greenhouse gases and temperature (1)."
20 - Clavos
It's been fun, guys, but it's almost 3AM here....zzzzzzzzzzz
21 - Clavos
Correct, Peti, but thousands of years ago those gasses weren't being generated by man's activities, so why are we assuming they are now?
22 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Your article states, and you only partially quote: "The discovery of these fluctuations, known as Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations after the Danish and Swiss investigators who first documented them, has given rise to intense interest in their causes and speculation that current increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could trigger such rapid change in the coming decades." These gas levels again are on the rise. If you believe what that article says is true, or even a probable conclusion, then you must believe that the temperature increases observed are due to increases in human activtity and that as long as CO2 trends continue so to will temperature trends (as much as or more than the 6 degrees Celsius your article mentioned). AND YES ABSOLUTELY you are CORRECT these changes have occurred naturally in nature. They occurred when the ice ages ended. We are not in ice age. If they occur now, global climate will end up like it was 50 million years ago, when alligators inhabited the north pole and palm trees grew in central Canada. The fact that these changes have occurred naturally before doesnt diminish present trends. The trends the article mentioned were linked to Co2. We are releasing Co2 rapidly. Co2 concentrations are increasing rapidly. Why is it unreasonable to conclude that the same thing that happened the last 10 times Co2 concentrations increased (temps increased dramatically) will happen again?
23 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
From your article again:
"It is the ice core data on greenhouse gases, however, that led Lorius and his colleagues to conclude that these gases, as well as the ice sheets, "played a significant part in the glacial-interglacial climate changes, by amplifying the relatively weak orbital forcing and by constituting a link between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere climates." The magnitude of the change in greenhouse gas concentrations was in itself unexpected (see figure on next page). At the last glacial maximum (21,000 years before present), for example, carbon dioxide is estimated to be 190-200 ppm, compared with the 270- to 280-ppm preindustrial average for the Holocene (last 10,000 years). The warming that occurred between the glaciation and the Holocene was approximately 10 oC over Antarctica or 4-5 oC when averaged globally (1)."
Since an 80 ppm increase corresponded to a 4-5oC increase in temp globally, why is it unreasonable to predict that the 100ppm incrase that has already occurred and the even larger (200ppm increase by 2050) increase in the future that another 4-5oC increase would occur with present Co2 levels, and 8-10oC increase if Co2 continues upwards. a 4-5oC increase would cause the average summertime temp in Dallas to be well over 100oF. The average summertime temp in NYC would be 95oF. A 10oC increase would make average summertime highs in NYC 105oC, a hot day would be 120 or 130 oF. Of course I am making it far to straight forward. No one is saying that the increases have to be exactly proportional. But there is a VERY strong correlation.
You ask can we tell humans are responsible for the increases in those gases. First of all, the most basic of arguments is that burning fuel releases Co2. Releasing Co2 increases Co2 concentrations, even if only marginally. Besides where else is the CO2 coming from? There has not been any incredible volcanic activity as there was in some of the warming periods you mentioned. The fact is humans are releasing huge amounts of Co2. They must be contributing, at least a little bit, and probably a lot to global increases in Co2 concentrations.
24 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Well I guess I'll go to bed too...but if you ever come back this page please please read my posts, and more importantly check out Clavos's link: acs.org It is an excellent article that includes a large portion of the historical information on temperature and CO2 concentrations.
25 - Dave Nalle
I'm off to bed too. But before I go let me point out that I never said in the article that humans aren't contributing the CO2 increases in the atmosphere. I also never said that the Bible doesn't have an interesting account of the origins of life on earth.
The question is whether either of these things is proof of causation to a standard that should be accepted in the absence of faith.
Dave