“Faith is a belief held without evidence. The scientific method, a loose collection of procedures of great variety, is based on precisely the opposite concept, as famously declared by Thomas Henry Huxley:
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
Huxley was one of a long tradition of British sceptical philosophers. From the Bacons, through the likes of Locke, Hume and Russell, to the magnificent climax of Popper’s statement of the principle of falsifiability, the scientific method was painfully established, only to be abandoned in a few short decades. It is one of the great ironies of modern history that the nation that was the cradle of the scientific method came to lead the process of its abandonment. The great difference, then, is that religion demands belief, while science requires disbelief. There is a great variety of faiths. Atheism is just as much a faith as theism. There is no evidence either way. There is no fundamental clash between faith and science – they do not intersect. The difficulties arise, however, when one pretends to be the other.
The Royal Society, as a major part of the flowering of the tradition, was founded on the basis of scepticism. Its motto “On the word of no one” was a stout affirmation. Now suddenly, following their successful coup, the Greens have changed this motto of centuries to one that manages to be both banal and sinister – “Respect the facts.” When people start talking about “the facts” it is time to start looking for the fictions. Real science does not talk about facts; it talks about observations, which might turn out to be inaccurate or even irrelevant.
The global warmers like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods. They promote slogans such a “The science is settled” when real scientists know that science is never settled. They were not, however, always so wise. In 1900, for example, the great Lord Kelvin famously stated, “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Within a few years classical physics was shattered by Einstein and his contemporaries. Since then, in science, the debate is never closed.
The world might (or might not) have warmed by a fraction of a degree. This might (or might not) be all (or in part) due to the activities of mankind. It all depends on the quality of observations and the validity of various hypotheses. Science is at ease with this situation. It accepts various theories, such as gravitation or evolution, as the least bad available and of the most practical use, but it does not believe. Religion is different…
Read the complete article by John Brignell here: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Brignell is a nong. Atheism is not faith, for a start, atheism as about evidence. There is no evidence of god.
He says that science is never settled, it isn’t, but for some reason, the deniers demands that this particular field of science be ‘settled’ before any action can be taken. The IPCC has always stated the degree to which it believes the science to be correct, it has never claimed it is settled beyond any doubt. This is a matter of risk management, and risks can never be defined, that’s their nature.
Brignell – hah !
Here’s a hot off the press example of good science not going AGW’s way getting a fair run.
The Shrinking Glaciers of Kilimanjaro: Can Global Warming Be Blamed?
The Kibo ice cap, a “poster child” of global climate change, is being starved of snowfall and depleted by solar radiation
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55553?fulltext=true
– The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania have been diminishing for more than a century but probably not due to global warming, researchers report.
While the retreat of glaciers and mountaintop ice in the mid-latitudes — where much of the world’s human population lives — is definitely linked to global climate change, the same cannot be said of Kilimanjaro, the researchers wrote in the July-August edition of American Scientist magazine.
Kilimanjaro’s icy top, which provided the title for an iconic short story by Ernest Hemingway, has been waning for more than a century, according to Philip Mote of the University of Washington in the United States and Georg Kaser of the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
Most of the retreat occurred before 1953, nearly two decades before any conclusive evidence of atmospheric warming was available, they wrote.
“It is certainly possible that the icecap has come and gone many times over hundreds of thousands of years,” Mote, a climatologist, said in a statement.
“But for temperate glaciers, there is ample evidence that they are shrinking, in part because of warming from greenhouse gases.”
Unlike mid-latitude glaciers, which are warmed and melted by surrounding air in the summer, the disappearance of Kilimanjaro’s ice is driven by solar radiation, since the air around it is rarely above freezing, they wrote.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/12/climate.kilimanjaro.reut/index.html reported by CNN
You will note that RC had an extensive article on Tropical Glacier Retreat way back in May 2005 discussing the complexities – well worth reviewing their position. Stands the test of time IMO.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/tropical-glacier-retreat
All of course will be lost on conspiratorial contrarian ning nongs consumed with negativity and malice.
The problem SJT ( at least as far as many posters here are concerned ) is that protagonists act as if the argument IS settled.
This seems to be happening everywhere – the debate isn’t scientific anymore.
Can you remember a single occassion when someone here freely acknowledged ( without the camoflage of abuse ) that there WERE clear evidential inconsistencies in their position which , without completely invalidating their argument , had to be conceded?
If the science isn’t settled then there must be uncertainties and conflicting evidence.
I don’t think you can proclaim yourself a rationalist/pragmatist and sneer at those who aren’t but then ignore facts or refuse to consider workable CO2 reduction strategies that don’t fit your ideology.
For God’s sake ( pun intended ) there was even a post at a recent thread which seemed to infer that a ship aground at Newcastle was a result of AGW.
Not to mention a media report over the week-end that increasing numbers of abandoned pets could be blamed on global warming?
Look at the reaction to the screening of TGGWS shortly on the ABC?
See much respect for discussions of differing theories there?
If Brignell was trying to make a point about the emotive, hysterical and unscientific manner in which the debate is being conducted, then I’m with him all the way.
“settled” or “sufficiently proven”. I would go for the latter, given that the model predictions seem to be reasonably accurate, in terms of the changes observed. We know CO2 is a GHG, we know it is increasing, the only question that is open is how much will the feedback mechanisms warm the earth on top of the basic effect. The basic effect is known to be relatively small, the enhanced effect is open, since the models can only approximate it, but the predicted changes are happening, to a large extent.
Insurance companies have no problem with political motivations in regards to risk management, and are already cutting off various risks from insurance cover.
SJT has a good point – It’s easy for Brignell to write a fatuous rhetorical puff piece like that – you could easily invert all the logic and write a piece for the pro-case. More of the same old same old. The contrarian position has more of a religious like hysterical fervour to it if anything. The level of ridicule, abuse, propoganda and lies are really disgraceful.
But in the end Brignell’s just a spectator. At the end of the day it’s not about relativity theory or something esoteric – it’s about something more pressing. Government and industry have to make risk management decisions to address rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (or not).
Choose wisely grasshopper.
Luke says SJT has a good point, and SJT says that atheism “as (is) about evidence. There is no evidence of god.”
Stupid SJT and even stupider Luke do not define God and then say God does not exist. So we must assume that what they think that God is, is in their collective heads, does not exist.
Without evidence.
yeah sure
silly as a 2 bob watch, the pair of you.
Luke,
You raised the Philipona 2005 paper on the 30 May post;
“Is AGW A Useful Fiction? Bill Kininmonth Says No”
I have added a late comment with a link to a webpage of mine presenting some alternative data to that emphasized by Philipona.
Luke and SJT know naught but parody what they be taught.
Gee the whole freak show is out tonight. Including the banning Warwick Hughes who doesn’t like free speech.
Rog
If you have any proof of god’s existence, bring it on. I was brought up a Catholic, and two of the best things I ever did in my life were to stop believing in him and Father Christmas.
What did Michael Crichton say about environmentalism? That it is the new religon for urban atheists.
Rog – I was talking about risk management not God. Struck a bit of a resonance did we Rog. Surely we’re not going to bring God into things if we’re an evidence based blog are we? Michael Crichton – well yea he would say that wouldn’t he. He’s got a whole thesis riding on it. I would have thought it was footy and plasma TVs myself.
Try to be consistent Luke, if God does not exist because the theory is scientifically unfalsifiable then so is AGW.
SJT, because you stopped believing does not make your “non belief” an absolute truth, it was your own choice based on your own experience.
Atheism is the absence of belief in God.
A died in the wool, pure bred “skeptik” like your self rog, would surely be aligned with the agnostics on religious matters?
There are some pretty silly attributions to global warming out there at the moment, including a beauty on the BBC Africa website a few months back where the loss of several villages on the Kenyan coast was attributed to GW induced sea level rise?
Both sides of this debate can point to outlandish claims by the other but does that necessarily mean all of the claims made by both sides are unfounded and silly?
I think the persistence of this debate suggests that at its heart there are some sound theoretical reasons why it is possible for GHG to be heating the planet.
Not everyone agrees with those reasons and that’s fine, but it is amusing to read some of the dogma regularly posted here by those who profess to maintain a ‘skeptical position’.
For my own part, I accept that its possible for GHG to warm up the planet, but am uncertain whether there is any hard evidence that its happening now.
However, I suspect that even if its not happening now, the remedies some are proposing to reduce our levels of individual GHG production might be good for us in other ways and consequently am prepared to support exploration of the opportunities.
SJT
It’s extraordinary stuff isn’t it – Warwick Hughes will indulge silliness such as Archibald, D.C. (2006) Solar cycles 24 and 25 and predicted climate response? Described by such erudite commentators like Nexus6 as “The worst climate science paper ever of all time anywhere ” http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html
Indulged to the point of suppressing critical discussion of the subject on Warwick’s blog.
And here we are discussing the Brignell’s tilt at the religiosity of the AGW cause when the contrarians are utterly fervent in their attempt to run down quality research. Talking in tongues and indulging all manner of low quality papers. Expressed no more clearly than in Louis Hissink clutching at straws – a man of letters reduced to one liners and pseudo-political diatribe.
So on to Hughes’ critique of Philipona et al as a class example of why AGW types get into derision mode (sorry Davey Gam Esq we’re trying to be nicer).
Now the Philipona trilogy of papers is a serious burr in the denialists’ saddle bags – as it demonstrates quite eloquently empirical evidence of the greenhouse effect pretty well in line with theoretical expectations of longwave radiation increases.
So Warwick has tried to do a bit of hatchet job on Philipona. But I actually quite stunned as he not only has it wrong – he’s missed the entire point ! Which all in all is a bit of a worry.
And what an excellent paper to get it wrong on too. For this paper the authors have received the Norbert Gerbier – Mumm International Award of WMO for the year 2007. http://www.wmo.ch/pages/about/awards/norbert-gerbier-mumm.html – look under Winners. (Of course as all contrarians know, you can’t trust the WMO 🙂 ) But a few other sciencey souls must have thought it wasn’t a bad story as well.
Anyway: the two points of Warwick’s “critique” – the temperature trend isn’t as much over a longer time period and the MSU story.
On temperature – Yep – NOT hidden as Hughes implies, but explicitly shown in Figure 1 and the 1994 issue addressed in the text under that figure. But that’s not the point Warwick! You’ve missed it old son. It’s the very interesting analysis with the ground based radiometers on longwave fluxes which is Rolf’s specialty. There’s no conspiracy about 1995 – it’s when they initiated their radiometer network. Holy cow !
The KEY results are in Figure 3 which Hughes omits from discussion. It’s not the temperature increase so much Warwick, as the tie up with the long wave radiation and consequent effects on water vapor.
Philipona et al show that while solar radiation DECREASES temperature increases and this because longwave downward radiation increases. After correcting for the proper temperature increase at the surface they correct for longwave downward radiation changes due to clouds and are left with longwave downward radiation changes under cloud-free skies, hence due to greenhouse gases (water vapor and anthropogenic greenhouse gases (Fig. 3 d ). They find that the larger part is due to water vapor but after subtracting the longwave increase due to water vapor they are still left with an increase that must be due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
The beauty in their analysis is that the relation between changes in longwave downward radiation (from the greenhouse gases, Fig.3 d ) and temperature matches for the individual months. It also nicely matches with water vapor for the different months.
And the water vapor is the result of greenhouse feedbacks. And we’re talking surface budgets here – so this is why Warwick’s ruse on the MSU data is irrelevant. The surface data are precisely appropriate to use. Surface radiation measurements in central Europe manifest anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback, enhancing the forcing and temperature rise by about a factor of three.
While increasing temperature and absolute humidity are consistent with measured surface radiative forcings (changes of radiative fluxes over time), they are two to three times larger than predicted by general circulation models (GCM) [Philipona et al., 2004].
Hughes says QUOTE “So it is clear that the conclusions illustrated in Philipona’s eye catching Figure 2b are;
[1] highly dependent on choice of time periods, thus,
[2] are not robust,
[2] would show less warming if the lower troposphere T data had been presented.” END QUOTE
Ummm… err – that’s not the conclusions Warwick !! It’s the beginning. Introduction to data. You need to read on. The actual results are incredibly robust on the magnitude of the greenhouse fluxes which is the point of the paper and for you guys that’s your growing problem.
And so endeth the lesson on religion and denialism. A force field of negative karma prevents contrarians from receiving new data. They see but they don’t observe.
Luke
I expect a shattering silence as the response to that post.
Rog
I am sorry if I cannot define for you what does not exist so I cannot believe it it, it’s a trifle difficult, if you get my drift.
On the subject of tropospheric temperature measurements, economist Ross McKitrick, has an interesting proposal for a carbon emissions tax tied to actual levels of warming.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=d84e4100-44e4-4b96-940a-c7861a7e19ad&p=1
The tax would be linked to satellite tropical troposphere temperature measurements (tropical troposphere temps are generally agreed to be “the fingerprint of the CO2 contribution to warming.”) avoiding the issues with surface temperature measurements.
In the event the models are wrong, it would have negligible impact, and if models are right, then the tax would go up a lot.
There are many issues that can be found with the proposal, however, it overcomes one of the main objections to the cap and trade Kyoto proposal in that it is not driven by wealth “redistribution” and is revenue neutral for each state. If the tax is truly pigouvian (i.e. revenue neutral where any increases in the tax will be offset by decreases in other taxes), then this may actually work.
Additionally, temperature modelling will become subject to market efficiencies – only the ones that are consistently right will have value, and competition to sell correct predictions to futures market will eliminate the not so good ones.
The real flaw in this, is that once a tax is imposed, then it becomes difficult to remove – in the event that temperatures increase but are not CO2 driven (say as a consequence of increased solar irradiation which will produce a similar trend), then CO2 emissions will be taxed needlessly – see myths 2 & 3 below.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html
All in all, I think it’s an elegant idea worth discussion.
cheers
Arnost
Very interesting proposal, thx Arnost for the link. It is interesting that he advocates a fiscal neutral stance by cutting income tax in line with the carbon tax. Seems to me on the surface that this may lead to little real change because our net incomes will rise, allowing us to pay more….and therefore not reduce our co2 dependence?
I would like to see the tax revenue used to help fund alternatives that will have a real benefit in the long run, irrespective of the reality of AGW. Helping out the third world seems like a good idea as well. No matter what peoples opinion of TGGWS, it is surely irrefutable that trying to force poor countries to adopt expensive energy sources is highly problematic.
cheers Toby
Toby, not quite, emissions aren’t a direct function of income.
The carbon tax would still allow carbon free energy to compete with carbon intensive energy on more equitable terms. It would also drive up the % of our spend on energy and hence make efficiency improvements a greater budget priority.
I think the fiscal neutral stance is smart, not so sure about linking the tax directly to temperatures. As we know, temperatures are affected by more than CO2
SJT,
if you dont know what it is that you dont know you are in deep doo doos. I recommend you joining a chess club.
Luke is safe, he knows how to google so what he doesnt know could fill an encyclopedia.
Anthony, I agree – “Temperatures are affected by more than CO2” – this is one big issue with this…
The other is who decides what is the temperature? For example, if we go with RSS, it’s a lot higher than UAH – which is right? Determining the average temperature for the troposphere is a non trivial exercise. There will undoubtedly be disputes over methodology, with enormous political pressure coming from all sides. A tax like this will mean increased politicisation of the science surrounding temperature measurement and related adjustments.
And unfortunately, there are too many vested interest groups in the AGW arena that will scuttle it. The alarmists will never, ever, agree to it
The main driver of the European AGW powerhouse is to subdue US and Australia to a Kyoto-like scheme, not to reduce GHG emissions. It’s all about centralising power. The main driver of IPCC is to redistribute wealth from the “rich” countries to the “poor”. That’s why everyone turns blind eye to Kyoto-bonded countries who increased CO2 emissions by 50%+ from 1990, such as Canada, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and concentrate on harassing the US which maintains stable per capita CO2 emissions from 1990s.
Personally, I won’t support any tax proposal to reduce carbon emissions. Such taxes only increase revenue to the government and expand its reach and power (I’m all in favour of smaller governments). If you want to stop carbon emissions, make them illegal. If not, leave them alone. All so-called market-based solutions are nothing more than an excuse by socialists to increase the power of the state by increasing its revenue.
But it’s better than anything else I’ve come across.
By the way, it is interesting that both RSS and UAH showed a decline over the last two years. Willis Eschenbach put this up at Climate Audit:
http://homepage.mac.com/williseschenbach/.Pictures/UAH_RSS_MSU_TROPICS.jpg
The tax would have decreased!
cheers
Arnost
Rog
how am is supposed to prove that something doesn’t exist that I don’t know what it is? You’re making it tough for me here. Which god am I supposed to prove doesn’t exist for a start? Apollo? El? Mars?
Some discussion by John Church that in a higher end warming scenario, Greenland is much more of a worry than Antarctica. For interest:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21895378-30417,00.html
Melting Ice-A Hot Topic? New UNEP Report Shows Just How Hot It’s Getting
“Global Outlook for Ice and Snow” 98 Mb
http://www.unep.org/geo/geo_ice/
Lives and Livelihoods of Hundreds of Millions if not Billions in Many Parts of the World Influenced by Ice and Snow Losses Linked to Climate Change
Tromso/Nairobi, 4 June 2007 – The futures of hundreds of millions of people across the world will be affected by declines in snow cover, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost and lake ice a new and unique report launched to mark World Environment Day (WED) says.
Impacts are likely to include significant changes in the availability of water supplies for drinking and agriculture, rising sea levels affecting low lying coasts and islands and an increase in hazards such as subsidence of currently frozen land.
An estimated 40 per cent of the world’s population could be affected by loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia says the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in the Global Outlook for Ice and Snow.
Similar challenges are facing countries, communities, farmers and power generators in the Alps to the Andes and the Pyrenees, says the report.
Melting ice and snow are also likely to increase hazards including avalanches and floods from the build up of potentially unstable glacial lakes. These can burst their ice and soil dams sending walls of water down valleys at speeds close to that of a modern anti-tank missile.
Rising temperatures and the thawing of frozen land or ‘permafrost’ is triggering the expansion of existing- and the emergence of new- water bodies in places like Siberia.
These are bubbling methane into the atmosphere with emissions so forceful they can keep holes open on the lakes’ icy surfaces even during sub zero winter months.
Methane is a powerful global warming gas and new estimates indicate that the quantities emerging from these so called thermokast lakes is up to five times higher than had previously been supposed.
Meanwhile less snow and sea ice are leading to more of the sun’s heat being absorbed by the land and the polar oceans which in turn may speed up global climate change.
These are among the ‘feedbacks’ which some experts fear could trigger even faster or more abrupt climatic changes with even wider-ranging impacts on people, economies and wildlife.
Brignell says “The global warmers like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods.”
So this then would be a great example of contrarian methodology?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/curve-manipulation-lesson-2
Arnost, I completely disagree.
I think you are looking for ghosts and finding conspiracy theories.
Australia and the US are under the pump because we have huge wealth and huge per capita emissions.
If we continue to ignore Kyoto, the developing world will be exporting us the latest in cleantech and we will only have ourselves to blame. It won’t be the fault of the EU, AGW’s, Kyoto conspiracies…. it will be the fault of the narrow minded short-term thinking that is guiding this countries Greenhouse policies
Atheism is a faith.
Atheism is a faith so strong that adherents believe the absence of evidence is conclusive.
It’s a faith as strong as the believers against GM crops. The absence of evidence proves that something else must be going on.
It may be that God exists on the planet Venus and runs the coolest bar in the Milky Way. Disprove that!
It may be that GM crops have “unknown consequences.” (The actual unknown consequences converge on zero because most unknown consequences–converging on unity–cannot be known because they don’t exist.)
But when you insist that a lack of evidence proves something conclusively, well, you have to stand up and say, “I’m ignorant, and that proves X.”
Substitute ‘X’ with whatever you want, and it will only prove that you’re ignorant.
So for instance, I could say, “I’m ignorant, and that proves there is nobody named Luke who is a bartender on Venus and who tells his customers how to prevent catastrophic global warming.”
Arnost
I most certainly am pretty ignorant about, say, Venus. Now, how should I go about having faith in her.
Ricky Gervais pretty much hits the nail on the head in his stand-up ‘Animals’:
Anthony,
I totally agree that “Australia and the US are under the pump because we have huge wealth”. End.
But I respectfully disagree with “the developing world will be exporting us the latest in cleantech” for two reasons.
You can not buy “cleantech” energy and markets being what they are will inevitably make the technology itself cheaper.
The biggest problem with renewables esp. solar / wind / geothermal is that you can’t store them and transport them in the same way you can as coal / oil – i.e. the base load problem.
In the business world, decissions have to be made as to where you want to position your enterprise. If you want to be a cutting edge technology market leader – you have to charge a premium for your product to cover the R&D. If you are a follower, you buy a commoditised version of technology “off the shelf” and therefore don’t have the R&D cost.
With “cleantech” it will be a lot smarter for a nation like Australia (with it’s relatively small population base) to wait until the technology matures before implementing it. In this case it will be better to be a follower and let say the EU or USA spend the billions if not trillions required to develop the technology (as on a per capita basis it will be less expensive for them). Do we really want to spend billions of AUD here on what is (potentially) sub-optimal and will have to be replaced relatively soon?
By the way, WRT the “developing world” bit – who do you think is in this category?
cheers
Arnost
Arnost, firstly, renewables can provide base load and base load can be reduced in other ways. I am trying to ‘educate’ people on the nuclear thread also running on this site.
China and India are developing and deploying large amounts of solar hot water and biogas respectively because it’s cheap, flexible and more reliable than alternatives.
Australia should be leading the design of these technologies, getting them manufactured in low cost centres (china and india) and rolling them out across the world. Biogas has huge potential as a versatile fuel and Europe has picked up on this.
If you kick back and wait for the market to make it cheap, you’ll be importing for the rest of your life. To turn this into an industry, we need to get involved at design and development AND retain ownership over upside! Australia will not be able to import forever on the back of mineral exports and resources because in time they will either run out or be obsolete.
What happens now is typically a concept gets developed here, loses funding momentum, oversees investors pick it up and make motza. We have seen it with solar hot water, we will probably see it with the sliver cell and we are seeing it with solar thermal and its primarily because we don’t have
1- investors with the appetitie for risk and cash required
2- government support
super funds have enormous potential to fill the void and the government can faciltate this
I don’t get this stuff about atheism and science.
Scientists and atheists have remarkably strong beliefs. Such as, their belief in the experimental method.
Thing is, any normal person–i.e., a non-Greenpeacer, will accept the experimental method on faith. Works pretty well.
The other thing is, someone who believes in the experimental method will not torch your laboratory or threaten your children if you disagree.
These themes are completely disconnected.
What we need to worry about is not scientists, or atheists, but about people whose enthusiasm for a doctrine leads them to despicable deeds. This used to be reserved for the Middle Ages, and later, the WWII thing, but the Greens have brought it back all over again.
Schillsy – I’m really amazed you can be worried about ethics when your government has invaded Iraq on false pretences, destabilised the region, made the world much less secure, forgotten to go after the real terrorists, and is bogged down in a VietNam style quagmire. I mean come on – who’s more dangerous. The establishment or some fringe greenies.
Have a herbal tea and form a unification prayer circle. It’s much less dangerous and you don’t need a flak jacket.
Scientists and atheists don’t have really srong beliefs. They should be amenable to new evidence and new paradigms. They’re simply not going to accept bulldust and silly ideas without reasonable evidence or theoretical mechanisms. Go too far away from this and you might as well believe in fairies and elves. Do you?
Luke,
Our kind and generous hostess did not open a discussion on Iraq, herbal tea, combat equipment, etc.
It’s unusual to mix elves and fairies in with theology, but maybe the antipodes have a different take on things.
But hey, I’ll be amenable to “amenable to new evidence and new paradigms” if you can cough up something about the elves and fairies. (Importing them from California won’t count.)
More on the same topic
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-garden-of-good-and-evil/2007/06/16/1181414606757.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
cheers
Arnost
SJT is the real nong, not Brignell.
Neither the theist or atheist has evidence for the existence, or non-existence of God.
Both are beliefs and like a coin, are the obverse and reverse of the same issue.
Stupid is as stupid does I suppose.
‘Melting Ice a Hot Topic” Oh dear more of the unscientific scare tactics. And notice how these Ning Nongs hone in on AGW threat to national icons? eg. here in Oz, it’s the GBR, Kakadu and the Alpine areas that are going to be razed. Gotta scare the masses. That once highly respected and august body the Royal Society has now degenerated to the Small and the Silly. Its President, Sir whatever his name is, recently uttered the profound statement that within 50 years,”Antarctia will be the only habitable place left on the planet”. How incredibly stupid. Now let the reality deniers come out and defend him!
And SJT comes up with the profound statement that there is ‘No evidence of God’ and, that one ‘Should not bring God into an evidence based blog’.
Well, I’m sure SJT would agree that a lot of R&D would go into the design & manufacture of say, the latest PC hardware or software. Or the latest Boing Dreamliner, or Air Bus. Or the latest lifesaving medical procedure. Nope, no intelligence involved. They just happened,.. or evolved from nothing. Or maybe they are evidence based facts.
Well, forget the world, the solar system, the universe, no R&D there, they just happened. Look at the four seasons..nope, ditto.
Just get down to one very small thing, say, the human eye! No thought and design gone into that?
Nope, it just happened to be! Or… Maybe the design & manufacture of the human eye is an evidence backed fact.
Well, there is a hell of a lot more evidence supporting the fact that the eye is a brilliantly designed bit of work, then there is factual evidence supporting the theory of AGW.
Sid – thanks – my assumption was 100% correct. AGW offends doesn’t it Sid.