It appears Prof Spencer is also an advocate of Intelligent design

^^^^

"Not going to waste 9 minutes listening to a Creationist talking about science."

So you did't watch it? No comment about the content or his argument?

Typical Socialists - always play the man, not the ball

This very week some religious society was handing out at the door a pamphlet on evolution, based on said Spencer mostly. Nicely made little pamphlet, but all circular reasoning, i.e. "could it be it's not evolution... many scientists believe... for instance Spencer... who has produced fines books on the subject.. to which many scientists now adhere (no names)... therefore it's not selection", etc.

Unfortunately for the 2 ladies, I have a diploma in the field, and working from home, I had time for them. I let them in and managed to destroy every little single sentence that were wrong and misquoted, they were about crying by the time they left. Never even knew what denomination they were, probably spencerism.

Even followed them down the street as they went to other houses.

Bunch of whackos, but I had fun really.

^^^
"I liked how he drew stereotypical fear mongering caricatures of scientists.. Thats an ID trick.. Scientists are evil.. Bla bLa bla bla.. His argument is basically that we should just continue, business as usual, and hope for the best.. "

"Scientists are evil" Huh? He's a climatologist, who has worked at NASA!!!! To me that makes him a scientist -clearly.

What exactly did you not like /agree with in his argument? Or do you want to keep
playing the man and not the ball?

anyway, the evolution thing is not relevent here.
i became a bit cynical about this video as soon as politics was mentioned.

Funny isnt it. I watched the video and never even picked up on the religious side of things.

Regardless. I find it ignorant of society as a whole to dismiss global warming ooops climate change (because we are not consistently warming) as a function of the natural weather and climate cycles of the planet itself.

It is proven that the ocean levels have risen and fallen, we have had ice ages etc etc all in the past. Are we honestly expected to believe that just because now we have Iphones, Internet, electric cars etc that we control the weather as well???

I mean how many more times the CO2 has the Chilean Volcano alone spewed out in the last 2 weeks than the whole human race ever?

Actually this sounds like a recant of my point but I am sure that our pollution and mistreatment of the planet has had some effect I just dont believe that it as much as we are lead to believe.

Hey Barn

He is a scientist of whom you in your wisdom have made a judgement call regarding his credentials.

You still have not answered my question, so for the last time here it is:

What exactly did you not like /agree with in his argument?

ADS said...

Hey Barn

He is a scientist of whom you in your wisdom have made a judgement call regarding his credentials.

You still have not answered my question, so for the last time here it is:

What exactly did you not like /agree with in his argument?

I made a judgment on his credentials, and it's a wise one. I follow the ID vs Evolution debate in the states, it's something of interest to Biologists, for obvious reasons. And being familiar with all of teh ID arguments, I can dismiss an educated person who holds them as a whakoloon.. His statements I quoted above on evolution are so wrong it's not funny, so why would I expect him to approach the Climate debate with a level head?

Would you trust a Climate Scientist who believed the Earth was flat?. This is the kind of scale of 'wrong' he is out by.

-----

My problems with his arguments was that;

He was appealing to our emotions, claiming we will go back to the stone age if we try and prevent damaging our ecosystem.. Scare mongering.

He was claiming we do not have enough evidence. When we do have enough evidence to suggest something should be done. Appealing to everybody's distrust of science is a nasty trick..

He claims we should wait longer as climate changes slowly. When its probably easier to act now, rather than later.. How is it a bad idea to moderate our use of a finite resource?.

He claimed the ecosystem self regulates. Which it does, but it takes eons and usually leaves many species extinct. The dinosaurs say hello.

--

But this has all been hashed out before, all his arguments have been dealt with by honest, low paid scientists..

Here is a refutation to every 'Climate Skeptic' argument conceived. Can I be bothered to re-type them all here for the sake of one youtube video? no. There will just be another climate youtube posted next week..

scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how-to-talk-to-a-sceptic

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FlySurfer said...



There are numerous holes in theoretical evolution, mostly due to lack of evidence.

Of course there are holes, how did the Pigeon evolve the ability to navigate by the earths magnetic field? **** knows, we need more pigeons.. But Evolution as a whole it is true. We share a common ancestor with Pigeons, and our divergence from them was powered by the genetic variation and the natural selection of favorable traits. Anybody wants to argue about this, then meet me in a new thread at 3pm..

barn said...
We share a common ancestor with Pigeons, and our divergence from them was powered by the genetic variation and the natural selection of favorable traits.

Science and creationism/religion say we share everything in common big bang/God.

You say "genetic variation", but this is taught as "random mutation".
Personally that doesn't make sense to me.

I believe the we intentionally evolve.

Example: Bill likes to freedive; Bill can only hold his breath for 2 minutes; Bill has a kid, Ted; Bill teaches Ted to dive; Soon Ted can hold his breath for 3 minutes; Ted has a kid.... within 10 generations there are subtle "genetic variations".

In reality it takes much longer cos Ted's kids hate swimming. But in controlled environments it takes only 3 generations to bread personality characteristics in and out of a species... no random mutation.

FlySurfer said...

Creationism vs Science.

Creationism: There's an entity we call God that started the process of creation.
Science: Everything started from nothing in a big bang.

Creationism: Humans evolved by design through a process of adaptation.
Science: Humans evolved through a process of random mutation favouring traits beneficial to the environment.

There are numerous holes in theoretical evolution, mostly due to lack of evidence.

Stupidity (lack of reason) is the most dangerous and expensive trait known to me. I know it has cost me dearly, don't let it cost you by not rationalising your thoughts.

CO2:
Scientist claim that CO2 prevents infrared radiation escaping in to space.
There is no claim CO2 prevents infrared radiation entering.

OK flysurfer, that's it then. This is the crux of your disbelief in the theory of the green house effect

barn, a sientific fact is something that has been proven by repitition.

Theory is an assumption, or a method of explanation of which is falsifiable. ie can potentially be proven as false.

Does it really matter if the author of the video has a different set of beliefs on the origin and development of life compared to his contemporaries? Science cannot prove how life began on Earth or if there is other life in the universe. Until we know for sure if life does exist on other worlds or celestial bodies or not, science can't say for sure how life started and developed here. Science today has little understanding of the vast majority of terrestrial life, the microbial life. In the meantime theories are developed based on the evidence available.

The issue the video addresses and what we face is there is to be a massive change in public policy that is going to affect all aspects of Australian life. The reason for this change is based on the theory of human induced climate change. The video brings up some explanation of reasons for climate change that are not caused by human activity.

To date has it been categorically proven that human activity is influencing the climate? There must be a huge number of variables affecting Earth's atmosphere. It seems that the proponents of the carbon tax turn all the variable influencing factors into constants except for one, the level of pollutants that are released by human activity into the atmosphere.

I believe this sort of thinking lead to some of the worst decisions in human history. The sort of decisions that destroyed the lives of many millions as public policy emphasised 'scientific' purity before reality.

log man said...
OK flysurfer, that's it then. This is the crux of your disbelief in the theory of the green house effect. OK, so if it can be answered successfully and to your satisfaction the will you go ........you know what ,I've changed my mind about this....????. NO IT WON'T, you'll just shift to the next red herring and then when that is debunked.......well, surprise, surprise you'll just move to the next point. That is just denialism.you have a point of view and you trawl information to try to find bits that will fit your point of view

OK log looks like we're on to something here.

1.- If(you explain by what mechanism 1 Carbon atom with an oxygen atom either side of it allows infrared radiation to pass one way but not the other)
Then(I'll accept CO2 can cause warming).

The youtube video, with the 2 lights is complete BS.

We can address the other issues once we address the 1st.

@Ados: not sure about God evolving... maybe recursive self-similarity; fractal.

barn said...

LOL.. Does anybody want me to start a thread proving evolution by natural selection,

I would love you to.

Because all we have ever seen is change within species, NOT significant changes producing a new species.

Therefore it is still theory and unproven.

Not fact, and certainly not science - which is study of observable phenomena and repeatable

Mark _australia said...

barn said...

LOL.. Does anybody want me to start a thread proving evolution by natural selection,

I would love you to.

Because all we have ever seen is change within species, NOT significant changes producing a new species.

Therefore it is still theory and unproven.

Not fact, and certainly not science - which is study of observable phenomena and repeatable

On it, gimmie a bit.. brb