The discussion devolved to the point where it wasn't of any value. Start a new thread and hopefully it will stay on topic. :-)
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 22:11:25 -0700
From: godshatter at yahoo.com
To: moscowcares at moscow.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Institute for Public Accuracy: "Media Miss theForest for the Burning Trees"
Does anyone, other than Gary, remember me saying that the world is
likely warming? And that it's mainly the amount that is man-made
and the sign of the likely feedbacks that is at issue? Gary seems
to have read enough of my posts to remember this, everyone else
just makes shit up that they think I believe, I guess.
Paul
On 07/09/2012 08:56 PM, Moscow Cares wrote:
Courtesy of the National Weather Service at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/6/supplemental/page-6/
-----------------------------------
Warmest 12-month consecutive periods for the CONUS
These are the warmest 12-month periods on record
for the contiguous United States. During the June 2011-June
2012 period, each of the 13 months ranked among the warmest
third of their historical distribution for the first time in
the 1895-present record. The odds of this occurring randomly
is 1 in 1,594,323. The July 2011-June 2012 12-month period
surpassed the June 2011-May 2012 period as the warmest
consecutive 12-months that the contiguous U.S. has
experienced.
-----------------------------------
Care to elaborate on your claim concerning the late 1980s,
Mr. Falen?
Seeya round town, Moscow.
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"
- Unknown
On Jul 9, 2012, at 20:45, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com>
wrote:
You may teach logic, but your arguments nmake no
sense to me.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Joe Campbell philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:23:55 -0700
To: lfalen lfalen at turbonet.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Institute for Public
Accuracy: "Media Miss theForest for the Burning Trees"
Roger,
Here's a little logic lesson
at no charge.
Arguments are valid or invalid
depending on their formal structure.
You gave an argument. I
provided another absurd argument -- by your
own admission -- that had the
same structure. Thus, your argument was
absurd, as well. It is called
"providing a counterexample."
Best, Joe
On Jul 9, 2012, at 7:59 PM,
lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote:
Your statement on $100 makes
no sense. I should have elaborated more on science.
The way science works to to criticize,review and
attempt to duplicate. A case in point of not doing
this is Wakefields's research. Look ant the problems
accepting that research caused.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Joe Campbell
philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2012
23:05:39 -0700
To: lfalen
lfalen at turbonet.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020]
Institute for Public Accuracy: "Media Miss the Forest
for the Burning Trees"
Ok Roger. You owe me $100.
Don't be too hard on me. After all, I'm just a
skeptic. Whether you owe it to me is subject to
debate, at least according to me. If you're a
critical thinker, you'll pay up. So pay up.
These arguments don't work
on debt, and there is no reason to think they work
on the environment either. What matters is the
evidence. My point is, in most cases non-scientists
are not in a position to say. I won't care what Paul
says about this issue until he publishes a paper on
the topic in a peer-reviewed journal. You can
believe what you wish.
If your doctor tells you
something, and 90% of the other doctors say the same
thing, yet Paul tells you something different, whom
do you believe? Paul? Because medicine is uncertain?
Nonsense. You trust the
doctors because they are the experts. What makes
climate science different?
Joe
On Jul 8, 2012, at 9:36
PM, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote:
You guys are being too
hard on Paul. While there is climate change, the
full effects and causes are subject to debate and
critical review. You tout critical thinking. That
is all Paul is doing. To blandly accept every
thing that is put out by Climate Scientists is not
engaging in critical thinking.
Roger
-----Original
message-----
From: Joe Campbell
philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2012
17:49:43 -0700
To: Paul Rumelhart
godshatter at yahoo.com
Subject: Re:
[Vision2020] Institute for Public Accuracy: "Media
Miss the Forest for the Burning Trees"
I'm not criticizing
criticism and debate. I'm criticizing you; we're
debating. I'll respond to the longer post later.
Joe
On Jul 8, 2012, at
4:40 PM, Paul Rumelhart
<godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
Does "validly
express one's positions on the findings of
science" equate to "conform to the scientific
consensus"? Is there no room for criticism
and debate?
Paul
On 07/08/2012 11:10
AM, Sam Scripter wrote:
Good post, Joe!
I appreciate the
"pains"/time/effort you take to carefully,
fully explain your points about how to
validly express one's position on the
findings of science.
Thank you!
Sam S
-------- Original
message --------
Subject: Re:
[Vision2020] Institute for Public Accuracy:
"Media Miss the Forest for the Burning
Trees"
From: Joe Campbell
<philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
To: Paul Rumelhart
<godshatter at yahoo.com>
CC: Moscow Vision
2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Two other points
worth making.
First, you would
come off as something other than a spokesman
for a
radical,
ill-informed, politically motivated position
if your
criticisms went
both ways. You like to point out "flaws" in
climate
science. But are
there no flaws in the arguments of their
detractors?
No fallacies, no
prejudices, no false reports, no political
motivations?
Doubtful.
Second, in your
initial post, at the bottom of this one, you
list
several complaints
about the political motivations lurking
behind
climate science.
But this makes it seem as if climate science
is
somehow separated
from the rest of science and the academy and
nothing
can be further
from the truth.
At WSU, climate
scientists work within the School of Earth
and
Environmental
Sciences (SEES), which is made up of
scientists from a
multitude of
disciplines such as geology, geochemistry,
ecology,
hydrology,
microbiology, and marine biology. Were you
to poll these
folks -- indeed,
were you to poll scientists in general --
you'd find
that there is an
overwhelming consensus among them about the
impact of
human behavior on
global warming. Thus, if we are to believe
your
reports of bias
among climate scientists, the conspiracy
would be more
widespread than
you suggest, involving not just climate
scientists but
the entire
scientific community, perhaps all of the
academy. In the
end, we're left
with a fairytale conspiracy theory that is
preposterous and
unbelievable.
Just to note one
example, you constantly complain about
problems with
computer models
when making large-scale claims about global
climate
change but did you
know that these models are used in other
areas of
science as well? A
quick scan of some of the research interests
of
members of SEES
makes the point. One professor's "research
uses
computer
simulation models to help us understand the
recent problems
in the electric
power industry." Another "combines field
measurements
with theoretical
models and computer simulations to shed
light on
natural water
flows, mixing, and sediment transport." This
is research
that is funded by
competitive national grants and provides
information
that is actually
used to solve real-world problems. Why not
investigate
whether or not your worries about computer
models apply to
these areas of
research as well? The flip-side is, don't
you think
that these
scientists would all be standing up on their
soapboxes
deriding the
claims of climate scientists if their work
were as biased
and fallacious as
you contend that it is? Don't you think
they'd want
to separate their
research from the disreputable research of
climate
scientists if that
work were as questionable as you contend?
Again, if
we are to believe
any of your claims, the political conspiracy
would
be very wide, so
wide as to involve the whole of the academy.
As the Director of
the School of Politics, Philosophy, and
Public
Affairs, I have a
keen interest in the connections between
science,
ethics, and
policy: How can we take the information that
science
provides and apply
it to the real world in a way that is
beneficial to
humanity and the
universe in general? Last year we started a
series of
lectures in an
attempt to help the general public better
understand
complex issues
like global warming, bringing together
experts from a
variety of fields
for public forums at least once a semester.
Last
spring we brought
in Andrew Light, a Senior Fellow at the
Center for
American Progress,
and formed a panel discussion with
representatives
from biochemistry,
sociology, and philosophy to provide
information on
this very topic.
After brief presentations from the
panelists, there
was a Q&A
where folks were allowed to ask questions
and voice concerns
about these
matters. I advertised this on Vision 2020.
This is not the
behavior of people
who have an agenda that they want to trick
you into
believing.
This year we
promise to have more events. I'm in the
process of
organizing a
conference on neurophilosophy, investigating
the impact
of neuroscience on
such areas as ethics and the law, and we're
also
inviting Allen
Buchanan, James B. Duke Professor of
Philosophy at Duke
University, who
will likely give a talk on bioethics. I'll
continue to
advertise these
events on Vision 2020 and I encourage you
and others
to attend. In
general, I encourage you, Paul, to seek out
local
presentations by
climate scientists -- I've helped organize
at least 3
such events over
the last 3 years -- and to ask questions
directly to
the scientists
themselves and see if they might be able to
respond to
your concerns. In
other words, instead of voicing your
concerns to a
group with no
expertise that is unable to evaluate the
merits of your
claims, take them
to the climate scientists themselves and see
what
they say. And do
it in a public venue. That way, folks would
be able
to here both sides
of the issue and make a more informed
decision.
Best, Joe
On Sat, Jul 7,
2012 at 10:21 PM, Paul Rumelhart
<godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
Can I assume you
have credentials in climate science?
Because, otherwise,
you are being
hypocritical in calling me out for
"degrading" the
conversation
because of my lack of the same.
Perhaps I'm
missing some fundamental knowledge of how
arguments work.
Paul
________________________________
From: Ted
Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
To: Joe Campbell
<philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
Cc: Moscow
Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Saturday,
July 7, 2012 2:03 PM
Subject: Re:
[Vision2020] Institute for Public
Accuracy: "Media Miss the
Forest for the
Burning Trees"
Thanks for these
comments phrased in a manner so easy to
understand, coming
from someone who
could write at a level that would be
obtuse for many. I'm
reminded of the
writing style of philosopher Bertrand
Russell
When in a dialog
someone of a significant level of
education and
intelligence
repeatedly refuses to admit when it is
pointed out that they
have engaged in
significant omissions, errors and
misrepresentations
regarding a
critical scientific field, and promotes
what can be easily
determined by
most anyone doing cursory research of
scientific peer review,
to be junk
science, as though we are supposed to take
it seriously, this
implies a
factual and/or argumentative filter at
work, for whatever reason
or reasons.
Call it a indication of an "agenda," or
who knows what it is!
Maybe there is
still some social value to such a degraded
dialog, but it
ceases to offer
significant credible factual or
augmentative input of
interest for
someone who reaches a certain level of
competency in exploring
the scientific
field involved.
On the issue of
complexity as an argument for a high
degree of skepticism
about the claims
of a given field of knowledge, the human
brain/mind is
claimed by some
to be the most complex object in the known
universe,
therefore we
should engage in a high degree of
skepticism about any claims
by anyone about
any ones state of "mind," whether
scientific claims or other
sorts. It
amazes me that people make such simple and
easy judgements about
each others
state of mind, given that such
propositions to be credible
should only be
made by those with PhDs in a psychology or
perhaps
neurobiology
related field, and even these judgements
it can be argued are
very open to
question, assuming a vast complexity is
underpinning each
humans state of
mind.
Consider this
dialog with neuroscientist Michael
Gazzaniga:
ALAN ALDA
INTERVIEWS MICHAEL GAZZANIGA
Featured on "The
Man with Two Brains,"
from the
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN FRONTIERS special
"Pieces of Mind."
http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/lhs/science/mos/mind/algazzin.htm
Alan Alda:
I have to say -
and from talking to you I think you feel
this way, too -
consciousness is
a terrific thing to have. It feels good to
have
consciousness.
When you lose consciousness and when you
sense you're going
to lose
consciousness, it doesn't feel good. You
get a little nervous about
that. But what
do you suppose is the reason we have
consciousness? Why has
it persisted?
What good is it in terms of the survival
of the species?
Michael
Gazzaniga:
That's related
to the $64,000 question. What's it for? If
you want to
understand
anything, you've got to know what it's
for. And it so permeates
every thought we
have, you think, well, it's for keeping us
motivated, to
have these
thoughts, or whatever. But you start to
put this stuff down on
paper and it
just doesn't look like you're saying much.
You know,
there's a bunch of philosophers now who
are saying, "A human
trying to
understand consciousness is like a
nematode trying to understand a
dog." It's just
too big a problem, and they kind of toss
it out the window.
Well I don't
think we should do that. Clearly, it's
going to take a lot of
major new
thinking to really give us an insight, a
handle on how we can
scientifically
talk about this phenomenal awareness that
we all experience.
-------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post:
Ted Moffett
On Thu, Jul 5,
2012 at 8:57 AM, Joe Campbell
<philosopher.joe at gmailcom>
wrote:
I'm making
claims about your arguments and
when it comes to
judgments about the strengths and
weaknesses of
arguments -- the
area of logic and the broader area of
epistemology --
there is NO ONE
living on the Palouse who is more
qualified than I am
(although there
are a few people who are as qualified).
Paul,
Thanks for
helping me to make my case!
The point is
that you DON'T believe that smoking causes
lung cancer on
the basis of
scientific evidence that you understand
and evaluate,
because you are
not a scientist. You believe it because it
is "common
sense" (which is
irrelevant, for it merely boils down to
the fact that
it seems to you
to be true) and because the experts tell
you it is
true. You still
haven't shown a difference between the
case of smoking
and human carbon
consumption. Let's look more closely at
some of the
BAD arguments
you give below for the supposed
difference.
Two
clarifications first. My point was that
unless you are an actual
scientist, it is
almost impossible to make judgments about
scientific
claims on
evidence alone. In most cases,
understanding the evidence
would require a
high level of expertise. This is why
scientific
beliefs should
be based on testimony, the testimony of
experts in the
field. My
general claim was that there is NO basis
to dismiss one set
of scientists
(climate scientists, say) yet not dismiss
others as
well. In my
previous post, I happened to mention
scientists who
specialize in
lung cancer research but below I mention
others since
they are helpful
in showing flaws in your reasoning.
Also, you might
wonder how I'm qualified to speak about
such matters,
given that I'm
not a climate scientist either. But I'm
not making any
claims about the
climate. I just trust what the climate
scientists
tell me for
reasons given. I'm making claims about
your arguments and
when it comes to
judgments about the strengths and
weaknesses of
arguments -- the
area of logic and the broader area of
epistemology --
there is NO ONE
living on the Palouse who is more
qualified than I am
(although there
are a few people who are as qualified).
The points in
(1) are irrelevant and were addressed
above. In the
1950s smoking
seemed to be a healthy activity and was
promoted as
such. Common
sense turned out to be wrong. Common sense
is never a
reason for
holding scientific beliefs.
Wrt (2), I'd be
willing to bet that there are climate
scientists
working on these
very questions. In any event, I'm not sure
what
evidence you
have to say otherwise. I tend to leave it
to scientists
to determine
what kinds of studies they should or
shouldn't be
concerned with
in order to support their claims. Since
you are not a
scientist, these
points are meaningless.
For point (3),
it is true that the climate is complex.
But the
universe is even
MORE complex. To the extent that this
gives you a
reason to
dismiss climate science it should give you
EVEN MORE reason
to dismiss all
of physics for both the micro-level of the
universe and
the macro-level
of the universe are FAR MORE complex than
the earth's
climate. This is
just a general skeptical argument that
applies to
almost ANY area
of science. Why accept it wrt climate
science but not,
say, cosmology?
Why believe anything that Stephen Hawking
says, for
instance? Do you
know how much MORE complicated the whole
frickin'
universe is when
compared with the earth's climate? This is
an absurd,
BAD, and
irresponsible argument.
I've responded
to arguments like those in (4) and (5)
before but it
hasn't seemed to
sink in yet. Whether or not a scientist
has an agenda
is IRRELEVANT.
What matters is the EVIDENCE he or she has
in support
of the claims
made. Suppose you find out that 99% of
scientists who
study the links
between smoking and lung cancer went into
the field
for emotional
and irrational reasons -- suppose, say,
that members of
their family
died of lung cancer. That would be
irrelevant and
shouldn't cause
you to dismiss their findings. ALL that is
relevant is
the
epistemological quality of the evidence,
which can be judged in
objective ways.
If your argument
were sound, it should give people reason
to dismiss
EVERYTHING you
say because you clearly have an agenda.
You can't tell
me that your
concern with the issue of global warming
is independent
of your
political views or your personal habits,
that it is solely
motivated by the
desire for objective truth and nothing
more. This
very argument
undermines everything you say on Vision
2020 since all
of it is in
keeping with your own political
viewpoints, or "agenda."
But people
shouldn't dismiss your views merely
because you happen to
be interested in
politics. They should judge your views on
the basis
of the evidence
you provide in support of the claims that
you make.
They shouldn't
make sweeping generalizations about your
claims either;
they should
evaluate each argument individually.
If your argument
were sound, we should dismiss ALL sciences
related to
human heath,
since they are all motivated by the
subjective desire to
help human
beings extend their lives and improve the
quality of their
lives. Likely
anyone working in the area of cancer
research is
motivated in
part by the selfish desire to become THE
person that
finds the cure
for cancer. That is irrelevant. This is
another general
skeptical
argument that (if sound) should cause you
to dismiss much
more than
climate science.
ALL scientific
claims should be judged by the merits of
the evidence
given. Personal
facts about the scientists are ALWAYS
IRRELEVANT.
People tend to
choose their vocations for personal
reasons, not
because of a
desire to seek objective truth. Scientists
are no
different in
this regard.
Best, Joe
On Wed, Jul 4,
2012 at 7:16 PM, Paul Rumelhart
<godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
On 07/03/2012
05:42 PM, Joe Campbell wrote:
So, Paul,
why believe that smoking causes lung
disease if you don't
believe that
human carbon consumption has an impact
on global warming?
Joe
First, I'm not
saying that carbon consumption is not
having an impact on
global
warming. I'm saying that the size of
the impacts compared to the
more-or-less
unknown natural factors is unknown and
that the feedbacks
from
warming in
general are unknown, among other things.
There are
plenty of reasons, both scientific and
not, that make me
skeptical
of global
warming. Although everyone will assume
I'm just grasping at
straws because
of my deep-seated urge to deny
everything (probably has to
do
with my
relationship with my mother), I humbly
present a smattering of
them
for your
enjoyment:
1. On the
face of it, the idea is extraordinary.
Humans, even with our
vaunted
civilization, are small potatoes
compared to the forces of nature.
The only
reason our carbon footprint even makes a
dent compared to natural
forces has to
do with the small amount of CO2 in our
atmosphere. We've
had
far less of an
impact on the water cycle, for example,
or with oxygen
levels. Not
saying that it isn't possible, but there
is automatically a
bar
that has to be
gotten over which smoking causing lung
disease doesn't
have.
It should be
common sense that inhaling smoke
multiple times a day for
years
can have a
deleterious effect on the lungs, even
without bringing in
carcinogens.
2. There are
some obvious questions that aren't being
answered because of
the focus on
human impacts. For example, what caused
the earth to heat up
immediately
following the Little Ice Age? If we do
not know, how can we
say
with any
confidence that human-induced climate
change is to blame instead
of
the same
natural processes still at work? What
causes an ice age to
start,
and what
brings us out of one?
3. The
climate is complex, with multiple
feedbacks of unknown strength
and
unknown
feedbacks of unknown strength. The sign
of the combination of
feedbacks
isn't even known. Climate models cannot
be that accurate, given
the above, yet
they are seen as gospel. Even when they
make different
assumptions
and model things different ways. As
long as they project a
warmer future,
they are added to the model average and
used as proof that
global warming
will kill babies and cause frogs to rain
from the sky.
I imagine that
the mechanisms for lung disease from
tobacco are relatively
straight
forward.
4. Some of
the major players in the spotlight on
the side of global
warming
are
environmental activists with an agenda,
as opposed to being objective
scientists
just following the data. For example,
Timothy Wirth (Senator
from Colorado
and leader of the negotiating team for
the Kyoto treaty)
held
a hearing on
global warming at the capital. He
called the Weather Bureau
to
find out what
day of the year was usually the hottest
in DC, and scheduled
the hearing
for that date. His team then went in
the night before the
hearing and
opened all the windows in the room in
which the hearing was to
be held,
causing the air conditioning to fail to
keep up with the heat>> >>
All
so that it
could be hot and muggy when James Hansen
gave his spiel about
the
dangers of
global warming.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/wirthhtml)
The
anti-tobacco campaigns, with all their
sheer propaganda, do seem to be
run by
political activists, but that may be
coincidental.
5. Major
climate scientists also appear to have
political
agendas>>>>>>>>
Michael
Mann and his
"hockey stick" come to mind, trying to
erase the Medieval
Warm
Period and the
Little Ice Age, using dubious
statistics, all so they could
show that
current warming was "unprecedented". All
this from a few
bristlecone
pine trees.
I haven't
heard of any of these kinds of
shenanigans from scientists
studying the
link between tobacco use and lung
diseases, probably because
the links were
relatively straight forward. Not so
much the case with
global warming
/ global climate change / global climate
disruption>>>>>>>>
There are
more, but that gives you the gist of it.
But hey, it's just me
being
contrarian, right? So please, move
along. Nothing to see here.
Paul
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serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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