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Post by eamonnshute on Oct 6, 2010 10:22:36 GMT 1
When someone is unable to refute the science and resorts to untruths and insults instead, they have lost the argument.
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Post by rsmith7 on Oct 6, 2010 10:26:26 GMT 1
What is the purpose of your mantra Eamonn?
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Post by eamonnshute on Oct 6, 2010 10:32:35 GMT 1
To show that you have lost the argument. That is why you resort to temper tantrums.
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Post by eamonnshute on Oct 6, 2010 10:34:28 GMT 1
From skeptical science.com
"Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge and improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens in global warming skepticism. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet uncritically embrace any argument, op-ed piece, blog or study that refutes global warming."
Recognise anyone?
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 6, 2010 10:41:50 GMT 1
Perhaps helen or a proxy could explain to us precisely what were the insights that this film offered to her sixth formers? What did they take away from it? What did they learn? How did it affect their attitude to dissenters? Did any of them dare to shrug their shoulders like Phillip and Tracey?
As to the remarks about the Daily Mail and right wingers one would think (as certain propagandists obviously do) that dissenters, sceptics, sceptics etc are unthinking reactionaries. On the contrary they are amongst the well-informed of all members of the public about this ongoing debate. The fact that is it increasingly "ongoing" is clearly what irks helen et al.
It is the dissenters etc that actually keep the discussion of climate science going and the "believers" whose constant refrain is about "consensus" and the "science is settled". What is more backward than that? Now they have come up with a film that amounts to tenderness to the Inquisition and the Thought Police. It is their mindset that is objectionable not that of people who remain free-thinkers in the face of all the abuse that helen and pals have consistently dished out to people who DARE to raise a voice of genuine enquiry and discussion.
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Post by rsmith7 on Oct 6, 2010 10:44:38 GMT 1
I refer you to your own post Eamonn: "When someone is unable to refute the science and resorts to untruths and insults instead, they have lost the argument."
I look at all the evidence with a cynically sceptical eye. I don't believe anything without evidence. I use my hard won judgement to sort the wheat from the chaff. I use my own experiences, observations and data to test any claims.
I apply this to both sides of the argument.
Do you?
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 6, 2010 10:45:57 GMT 1
This "insight" into the mindset of eco-activists is going to be around for a long time, helen and eamonn, and rightly so. Get used to it.
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 6, 2010 10:54:24 GMT 1
People have sometimes asked me am I capable of changing my mind about the evidence or absence of it for AGW. I always answer - certainly, I have doubts every day about the nature of my understanding of the climate. I have changed my mind before and I can do it again.
THEY, however, do not seem to grasp that the same question applies to them, as true believers, too.
You will never find the helens and Eamonns admitting that evidence could change their minds because they are impervious to it. They are totally convinced without a shadow of a doubt about evidence which can never be more than merely "circumstantial" at best. I would not like to encounter their type on a jury whether I was a fellow juror or a defendant. They are very irrational people, actually. for placing such firm reliance on such flimsy evidence.
Where is the scientific rationality in that? It is faith.
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Post by eamonnshute on Oct 6, 2010 11:24:24 GMT 1
You will never find the helens and Eamonns admitting that evidence could change their minds because they are impervious to it. They are totally convinced without a shadow of a doubt about evidence which can never be more than merely "circumstantial" at best. On the contrary, I would be absolutely fascinated if someone proved that the recent warming has another explanation, and that CO2 does not affect global temperatures, contrary to what we should expect from the physics. Similarly I would be fascinated if it turns out that we are not made of atoms at all, or that the Sun goes round the Earth. But in all three cases the science is too overwhelmingly solid to dispute. There is more to learn, but the main message is clear. The fact that deniers come up with arguments based on economic or ideological arguments shows their real motive. But if you want to argue against a particular course of action you should base your arguments on accepted facts. If you want to argue that there is a problem but we are dealing with it the wrong way then I might be willing to listen, because I have doubts about wind farms, I would like to see more nuclear power, and I think switching to low-energy light bulbs has negligible effect. But, if you say that there is no problem at all and that the scientists are wrong, or that there is some sort of global conspiracy by politicians to raise taxes, then you merely look foolish and lose all credibility.
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Post by chloepink on Oct 6, 2010 13:39:27 GMT 1
Helen, . "Book burning next is it?" The word irony comes to mind. . Regardless of this, in your view, what point did your sixth formers see in the 10:10 film please?
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 6, 2010 14:06:56 GMT 1
Eamonn, read Dr Roy Spencer's latest book which I recommended. It explains how cloud feedback has been mistakenly assumed to be positive in ALL IPCC climate models when the net effect is actually negative - i.e. damping down the temperature change that could "theoretically" be expected from a change in CO2.
This is the actual empirical finding a scientist at the cutting edge of satellite measurement not some beach bum moaning about coral bleaching! I take it that your "fascination" with climatology doesn't actually take you as far as reading books for which you have seen a critical review on some alarmist website or in wikipedia. How comfortable!
Models are not 'evidence', Eamonn. In fact some wag once said "models are always wrong - but some of them can be useful!"
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Post by eamonnshute on Oct 6, 2010 14:36:23 GMT 1
Marchesa, there are dissenting voices in plenty of Science. Spencer is one of them, but he is in a tiny minority. Why should I take any notice of his claims when other scientists say he is wrong? What is special about him? What does he say about the future temperature that is incompatible with AGW? And if he says that cloud feedback is reducing the rate of warming, which is already considerable, this implies that CO2 is even more powerful than we think. So as cloud feedback cannot go on forever, when it ends we will be in even bigger trouble!
As for models, there is plenty of evidence that does not depend on them, as you know. We know by experiment that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that it should increase the temperature of the Earth, and the temperature is increasing.
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Post by helen on Oct 6, 2010 14:41:37 GMT 1
Chloepink, did you read my messages at and about position 50? Here I gave a summary of my thoughts regarding the film. If you look at my message at post 72 you will find a brief summary of my students reaction to the film. Do you or other folk posting here actually read other peoples posts? In response I was treated to a veritable tidal wave of invective and suggestions that maybe my powers of judgment were so clouded by media and dogma that , well, was it any wonder I posted the things I did. Can I suggest that you and the intolerant cohort who appear to make up most of the correspondents to the climate science threads take time out to read the messages and understand what the poster is trying to say and not what the reader has already decided they are saying.....no more posts from me on this subject.
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Post by chloepink on Oct 6, 2010 15:28:22 GMT 1
Helen,
Yes I do read other people's posts and especially those I respond to and to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I re-read your posts on this thread.
And yes you state your view on the 10:10 film but this was not what I asked of you in msg 84. And yes you wrote the following on your understanding of the teenagers view: "They saw the point in it; the parody of how dissent is dealt with under brutal regimes and so on as I explained in a post further up the thread." I wonder if you could expand a little on this point, to me it seems as though you are saying that the teenagers understood that in a brutal regime, AGW dissenters would not be tolerated but would be blown up. You further refer to the children understanding the point of the film but do not explain what they actually thought the point of the film was. "My teenagers understood perfectly the point being made by the director in exploding children, it was discussed rationally and in some depth and yes there were some who found it a little ott but they could see the point; one bright lad even saw the same film being made with the protgonist's roles reversed and found that even darker and more profound." My question in msg 84 is: "in your view, what point did your sixth formers see in the 10:10 film please?" I am genuinely interested to know this as I assume it was more than 'aren't AGW dissenters in this country lucky that they're not blown up' Oh and by the way, they are not 'your teenagers' ("My teenagers"); they are people with their own minds and thoughts.
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 6, 2010 15:44:24 GMT 1
Spencer is NOT part of a tiny minority, Eamonn, he is a mainstream scientist who follows the evidence and does not get carried away with unsupported politically motivated hypotheses.
The IPCC climatologists are the "tiny minority", the "clique" as Prof Wegman called them, the same social network of co-authors and pal-reviewers revealed again in the Climategate emails who rule the IPCC and who enjoy most of the lavish funding dispensed by governments and the UN on alarmist "research".
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