A Loss Of Faith

[MSimon]

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010 ... ming-crap/

I have a hard time believing anything Big Science says anymore. The scientific community is home to some of the the worst money-grubbing whores on earth. These global warming/climate change types created and gold mine of funding by selling fear. And they'll do anything to keep the $$ coming, including fudging the data and actively silencing other view points. I applaud Steve Wampler for calling these people out.

By Altius 10:19 a.m., Jan 28, 2010

BTW the article title is irony according to the author. It is mostly a pro CAGW article.

[Josh Cryer]

Having faith in scientists is stupid.

[MSimon]

Well a lot of folks who don't even understand science sold us the "it is settled" myth. i.e. have faith in scientists.

[Josh Cryer]

Who?

[MSimon]

Who?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=9047642

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/30/g ... s-settled/

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12 ... tal_as.php

http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/12 ... tled.shtml

http://www.free-eco.org/articleDisplay.php?id=507

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/006717.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... -anything/

http://spinthecat.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... ttled.html

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html ... 755457a8af

This one is really good:

A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html

There are about 3.5 million Google hits on "the science is settled".

And of course your use of the "denier" term implicates you in "the science is settled" faction.

So let us look at "AGW deniers"

Revealed: The AGW deniers behind Telegraph’s Hadley Centre smear
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/12/19 ... tre-smear/

AGW deniers deny World Vision children
http://globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/ ... ldren.html

How To Think Like an AGW-Denier
http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2009/12/08/8849/

How many AGW deniers does it take to change a light bulb?
http://another-green-world.blogspot.com ... hange.html

[Josh Cryer]

Cute, the vast majority of the links on google for this are skeptic sites.

I like the first one though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Willi ... is_settled

And Real Climate (the only AGW truth blog I read) writes this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... d-science/

The reason why no scientist has said this is because they know full well that knowledge about science is not binary – science isn’t either settled or not settled. This is a false and misleading dichotomy. Instead, we know things with varying degrees of confidence – for instance, conservation of energy is pretty well accepted, as is the theory of gravity (despite continuing interest in what happens at very small scales or very high energies) , while the exact nature of dark matter is still unclear. The forced binary distinction implicit in the phrase is designed to misleadingly relegate anything about which there is still uncertainty to the category of completely unknown. i.e. that since we don’t know everything, we know nothing.

I swear I feel like I'm surrounded by anti-science luddies when I am around "skeptics."

[MSimon]

Cute, the vast majority of the links on google for this are skeptic sites.

I like the first one though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Willi ... is_settled

And Real Climate (the only AGW truth blog I read) writes this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... d-science/

The reason why no scientist has said this is because they know full well that knowledge about science is not binary – science isn’t either settled or not settled. This is a false and misleading dichotomy. Instead, we know things with varying degrees of confidence – for instance, conservation of energy is pretty well accepted, as is the theory of gravity (despite continuing interest in what happens at very small scales or very high energies) , while the exact nature of dark matter is still unclear. The forced binary distinction implicit in the phrase is designed to misleadingly relegate anything about which there is still uncertainty to the category of completely unknown. i.e. that since we don’t know everything, we know nothing.

I swear I feel like I'm surrounded by anti-science luddies when I am around "skeptics."

I wasn't aware that Gibbs, The President of the US, And Al Gore, and the Physics organization were sceptics.

And yes many of the sites (like NPR?) were sites criticizing people who actually said "the science is settled".

I picked the sites because each of them quotes some who that said "the science is settled".

But Josh. If the science is not settled how can we be anti-science luddites? So I take it your opinion is that the science is settled?

So pick one:

1. The science is not settled and the people on the other side may have valid arguments or may find a cause for most of the warming that is not CO2

or:

2. The science is settled.

Which is it?

Or is your argument, "The science is not settled and any one who has come to the conclusion that CO2 is not a MAJOR cause of the recent warming is nuts, because we know all that needs to be known."

[CaptainBeowulf]

Josh, do you mean that you think AGW is as well proven as, say, evolution or gravity? Both are "theories" in the sense that everything in science is a "theory", but both are proven pretty much beyond reasonable doubt.

I don't think global warming is anywhere near as well proven as those examples. However, here we are addressing a pedantic point. I believe you are saying:

a) Severe Anthropogenic Global Warming is proven.
b) Anything in science is a "theory".
c) Therefore saying that "the science is settled" demonstrates a lack of understanding of science, because science is never settled.
d) Nonetheless, it really is pretty much settled, except in the details, so skeptics don't have valid arguments.

[Josh Cryer]

There is a 90% likelihood that one doubling of CO2 concentrations equals 3.0C+-1.0C of warming over a period of a century. That is a scientific statement. That is a statement I believe to be accurate.

This does not mean "the science is settled," it means "the confidence is high."

People who use this binary "is or isn't" bullcrap are just trying to muddle the data, and muddle the method.

1. The science is not settled and the people on the other side may have valid arguments or may find a cause for most of the warming that is not CO2

or:

2. The science is settled.

Which is it?

It's obviously 1. But can you guess what the probability that "we may find a cause for most of the warming that is not CO2" is? Under 10% according to the IPCC. That's about right, as it appears that The Climate Skeptic, at least, only gets things right less than 10% of the time.

[chrismb]

I still don't see what all the fuss is about, really.

In practical terms, whether or not there is GW, engineers still want to make a 2,000mpg car out of recycled toilet paper rolls - if they could. Just let engineers do what they usually do and they will do no different, whether 'solving' the CO2 'issue' or not. And no-one else is doing anything about it. It is 'a problem' for engineers that they were already solving before anyone dreamed up GW, so for once the politicians and public really should shut up and let us do what we do.

The only reason I can imagine for not letting engineers get on with what they were already doing is if it is all just a tax-grabbing hoax. Oh dear! What am I possibly saying??

Scientists won't change anything simply by analysing any problem. Polticians won't by talking about it. Accountants can't change anything by adding a few lines of numbers in their ledgers. Public/press won't by worrying about it. So that leaves engineers, and can someone tell me what we weren't doing *before* the GW era that is any different to what we should do if there *is* GW?

If you trust someone to do the right thing when they have no actual direct effect on the matter in question, that is called "faith". If you trust someone to do the right thing when they have a direct effect on something then it is usually called "a contract"!

[Josh Cryer]

Engineers are lazy, their job security is in designing crap and force feeding it to the consumer. I have done enough work in the field to know that innovative, intelligently designed things are just an accident.

Note that this does apply to software engineers, too, even though they don't have the same level of accreditation (software engineers don't have to be licensed and jump through OSHA-style qualifications).

Take cars for example (but it goes to anything, really). Replace a component on a car, odds are you'll find one or two darn bolts that are just out of reach or require removing a bracket to get at.

Took a stove apart a while ago, was trying to replace the insulation on the oven because a mouse had nested in it. The design of that thing was clearly asinine. Bolts in difficult to reach places, different sized nuts, phillips screws, all without rhyme or reason. Finally got the thing apart and put back in half of the screws that I took out once I was done. The repair worked fine (the fiberglass insulation worked a charm, though it was not designed for the task).

Scientists discover new tech, engineers apply it.

Poorly.

[chrismb]

Engineers are lazy, their job security is in designing crap and force feeding it to the consumer. I have done enough work in the field to know that innovative, intelligently designed things are just an accident.

I would say you are not talking about engineers. You are talking about lazy people who think a career in designing crap will provide them with job-security and have attended enough courses and exams to be given a job in that field and to be nominally called 'engineer'.

As a chartered engineer, I wholly and throughly disagree with your comments. To be an engineer is a calling and you know you are if you know you are - training or bits of papers are irrelevant.

[BenTC]

In practical terms, whether or not there is GW, engineers still want to make a 2,000mpg car out of recycled toilet paper rolls - if they could. Just let engineers do what they usually do and they will do no different.

Not entirely correct. Engineers design things to be of use to society in an economical way. The corollary of that, is that society first needs to have a need. With cheap fuel and no environmental issues, society may want big powerful cars and not care about fuel efficiency - so that is what gets designed. Consumers might not want to buy an expensive 2,000mpg car. Often the companies are run by bean counters who employ engineers to do a specific job for them. If most consumers care more about something being $5 cheaper than bolts being placed for easy dissassembly, then as long as safety is maintained, the product gets designed down to the price point. If society changes its values about quality (with their wallet), then the design will change.

[Edit: This also applies to Josh's comment below. However there is a minor truth to engineers "appearing" to be lazy. Depending on the field of application, Engineers shouldn't take design to the N-th degree. Its no use spending $10,000 on design to save $5,000 in installation costs (eg construction field engineering).]

Engineers are lazy, their job security is in designing crap and force feeding it to the consumer.

[chrismb]

Not entirely correct. Engineers design things to be of use to society in an economical way.

Not entirely not entirely.

I think you're talking about where engineers respond to their pointy-haired managers who are run by accountants who take input from marketeers.

I mean - just look at how perfectly good websites are mauled by over-eager site developers until they barely work any more. Take ebay and hotmail as two examples.

We, the public, are given products based on a version of what the accountants and marketing people come up with between themselves. (Send them off on a B-ark and us engineers'll fix this planet good and proper, so long as we don't die from an unsanitised telephone.)

[Jccarlton]

Having faith in scientists is stupid.

Then why have you been asking us to trust them with just about every post in the last three months. We've been beating you around the head with this very point for the last three months and now you say this.