Anyone with a grasp of high-school physics should be able to see the clear connection between the two.
The biggest winter storm in decades is crawling across the heartland of America...and conservatives are using it to "prove" that "global warming" is a fake, a liberal conspiracy, bad science, et cetera, ad nauseum.…
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226 - Dan
Not sure what you're driving at roger. Certainly there are degrees of certainty where privilege status is confered according to confidence level.
227 - roger nowosielski
No doubt, and it has all got to do with evidence and so forth. The point is that so-called "scientific certainty," your term, is subject to rules of evidence as any other field of inquiry. Consequently, "scientific certainty," ipso facto, is on par with the kind of certainty that's available in other fields - psychology, linguistic analysis, even everyday personal insights or accounts of one's experiences (hallucinations excluded).
228 - Dr Dreadful
I'm waiting for you to explain how you know Piltdown Man was a "practical joke".
Tu quoque won't fly. On further reflection, it's unlikely that it was a practical joke, but you made the original claim. Ball's in your court.
Once again, you should read your evidence before you link to it. Much theorizing, very little certainty, lots of co-variants.
Dan - you claimed that no-one could explain the variations. That's not so. There are several possible explanations in that paper. Rather than simply accept, as you seem content to do, that the divergence is because there's no warming, the authors decided to do some actual research.
This is actually just the point I originally made: that 'skeptics' tend to pick at single small details in the hope that somehow they'll disprove the entire theory.
It's a bit like saying that because Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam", the movie Casablanca doesn't exist.
I guess droughts never occured prior to 1960.
Not to the extent they do now, thanks to climate change.
If there were any scientific certainty to the theories they could have recalibrated the stubborn data and included it.
The paper hadn't been written when Jones's e-mail was sent.
229 - Dan
"Tu quoque won't fly. On further reflection..."
"further reflection" made it fly.
"Dan - you claimed that no-one could explain the variations."
Yes. poor word choice. I didn't intend to include the obvious guess response that automatically just comes from first realisation of a problem
"Not to the extent they do now, thanks to climate change"
Circular logic, or time machine?
230 - Dr Dreadful
"further reflection" made it fly.
Harumph. OK. If you're happy now, perhaps we can discuss El Señor de Piltdown...
the obvious guess response
Known to civilized society as a hypothesis.
Circular logic, or time machine?
It's not circular logic if you don't ignore the evidence.
231 - STM
Dan: "My favorite one was "drought stress". I guess droughts never occured prior to 1960."
I'm in Australia ... drought, fire, flood, storm, severe weather (cyclones and heatwaves) are a fact of life here and have been since the continent was first settled many thousands of years ago. Scientic study shows that to be the case. Since weather data was first recorded after the first white settlers arrived, the data appears to back up the cyclical nature of it.
In other words, it doesn't appear to be doing anything different. Extreme conditions are part of living here. The leader of the Greens Party recently blamed climate change for our terrible floods and the cyclone in Queensland.
Oh, hang on ... what about the cyclone that demolished Darwin and the floods that inundated Brisbane in the early 70s?
All of which might explain my scepticism, since every generation has had a similar tale to tell in my family stretching way back to the turn of the 20th century. So far, scientific studies appear only to support that extreme weather continues in this country. So is the climate changing?
Quite possibly. Is it man made, or cyclical? Who knows. Where's the definitive answer either way ... free of the agenda-driven hot air and bullsh.t, that is.
232 - Dr Dreadful
Well, exactly, Stan. You live in a country of extremes. Australia isn't that great of a yardstick when it comes to measuring changes in climate.
233 - Andy Marsh
Yeah Stan, the US has no extreme areas of weather anywhere within her borders. No places like International Falls or Death Valley. How can you possibly compare??!??!?
234 - Clavos
I don't know about Death Valley, but International Falls' only claim to fame is that it's often the coldest place in the USA (but not the continent), and that phenomenon has more to do with the topography of its location than the climate or weather.
It's only an "extreme" in a very provincial (and limited) sense.
235 - Dr Dreadful
And Stan, you're conflating weather with climate. Extreme weather events like the Queensland floods, Cyclone Yasi and your recent ten-year drought may be routine Down Under, but they've got little to do with whether parts of the continent are getting gradually hotter and dryer, or hotter and wetter, which they are.
236 - Dr Dreadful
International Falls' only claim to fame is that it's often the coldest place in the USA
Not true, Clav. Tammy Faye Bakker also hails from the town, a fact of which I'm sure they're even more immensely proud...
237 - Dan
"Harumph. OK. If you're happy now, perhaps we can discuss El Señor de Piltdown..."
OK sure, on further reflection, I guess I would still have to say that it seems most likely the culprit was a proponent of macro-evolution.
"Known to civilized society as a hypothesis."
Actually it's merely inference.
238 - Dan
"It's not circular logic if you don't ignore the evidence."
The climategate scandal offered some evidence that shouldn't be ignored.
239 - Dr Dreadful
OK sure, on further reflection, I guess I would still have to say that it seems most likely the culprit was a proponent of macro-evolution.
I will take that as a grudging retraction. Appreciated and acknowledged.
Whether the culprit believed in macroevolution or not, I think it's likely that they badly wanted there to have been a British-based human ancestor. It fit in with the cultural narrative of the times.
Just so we're clear, though, "proponent of macro-evolution" =/= "ID denier" =/= "atheist zealot".
The climategate scandal offered some evidence that shouldn't be ignored.
As I pointed out before, multiple investigations cleared those involved of any scientific misconduct.
240 - Dan
"I will take that as a grudging retraction. Appreciated and acknowledge."
It wasn't intended as any kind of retraction. In fact it was simply restating my original thesis in a way that cannot be misinterpreted; honestly or intentionally.
"Just so we're clear, though, "proponent of macro-evolution" =/= "ID denier" =/= "atheist zealot"."
Just as clear though, is that all 3 subsets intersect.
"As I pointed out before, multiple investigations cleared those involved of any scientific misconduct."
Not exactly. There were some admonitions about openness and sloppiness. But even so, not many have complete confidence in the smooth over.
The good news is that the curtain was lifted, if only momentarily, so that everyone can see the sort of scientific sausage making that is at the heart of the huge scam unethical politicians were having wet dreams over.
As a result, public confidence has eroded and the politicians have pulled back.
241 - Dr Dreadful
it was simply restating my original thesis in a way that cannot be misinterpreted; honestly or intentionally.
If you say so...
Just as clear though, is that all 3 subsets intersect.
Which is meaningless, as it proves nothing one way or the other about evolution, whether there is/was an intelligent designer and whether God exists.
There were some admonitions about openness and sloppiness.
But none about the soundness of the actual science.
But even so, not many have complete confidence in the smooth over.
So if one of the inquiries had found that their had been scientific fraud, it would have been a free, fair and open investigation, but since none of them did, it's all been "smoothed over"?
so that everyone can see the sort of scientific sausage making that is at the heart of the huge scam
If that's what they wanted to see. (See my previous posts re cherry-picking and confirmation bias.) Plenty of people just saw what was actually going on: ordinary scientists going about and discussing their work - and occasionally and justifiably pissed off at being harrassed and called liars.
the politicians have pulled back.
Probably good news. Politicians just bugger things up.
242 - Clavos
the politicians have pulled back.
So has the public.
243 - Dan
"If you say so..."
I will take that as a grudging retraction. Appreciated and acknowledged.
"Which is meaningless, as it proves nothing one way or the other..."
As is your statement I responded to.
"So if one of the inquiries had found that their had been scientific fraud, it would have been a free, fair and open investigation, but since none of them did, it's all been "smoothed over"?"
Well is seems to have been an attempt to smooth it over, but it doesn't seem to have had the desired effect. Momentum for policy change has been disrupted, and AGW scientists will likely be under more scrutiny from now on.
Both good things in my estimation.
244 - Dr Dreadful
I will take that as a grudging retraction. Appreciated and acknowledged.
Take it as whatever you like. (It tastes better with salt.)
As is your statement I responded to.
My statement was a mathematical expression. It was a sorting-out of your original one, which was an unholy conjunction of innuendo and ad hominem.
Well is seems to have been an attempt to smooth it over, but it doesn't seem to have had the desired effect.
If you've already made up your mind about AGW, I don't imagine that anything short of idly striking a match and realizing that you've inadvertently set the atmosphere on fire is going to convince you otherwise.
Both good things in my estimation.
I agree with you as to the second. As to the first, momentum for policy change, given that it's in the hands of politicians, pretty much peters out after one election cycle anyway.