The War on Science and Evidence

Actually, according to Dr. Jarfeltz-Vadajugt, we may have reached Peak Zylon sometime in mid-2013, though the market won’t properly price-correct to reflect this for another 5-10 years due to existing Zylon stocks and a diminishing level of demand. Nonetheless, the only correct response is ABSOLUTE PANIC.

(Man, I remember reading about Peak Oil for the first time when I was like 13 and losing my entire goddamned mind in panic. That was a rough day).

The idea of 13 year old Armando losing his shit over peak oil is cracking me up.

You may well be right Jon, but it doesn’t mean that the debate hasn’t become a moral imperative. If you’re an academic outside of Trump university, and you have some misgivings or criticisms re climate change, you keep them to yourself. Not a great career move.

Hey Armando buddy… I much prefer a bit of randomness to endless doomsaying whether it’s Trump, or Russia, or immigration, or climate change, or racism, or whatever the hell the latest lgbt thing is… or… what the fuck was this all about again? Science march? wtf now? haha shit, ok then, have at it!

Anyway sounds like some cheap thrills have been had. I will gracefully leave you to your march… for science! (not that of you are actually gonna march lol)

Baloney. You can make a bunch of money being employed by the fossil fuel industry. Very lucrative!

Well no. If you have misgivings, you do the research, and prove or disprove your misgivings. You would think that oil companies, with tons of money to spend on research, would have been able to fund some studies to disprove Climate Change by now.

The reason that it isn’t being done, isn’t because people are afraid to speak out, it is because the scientists know that there is nothing to back up their skepticism in a way that can be proven via research and data. This would be both a waste of time and money for all involved.

I’m really not your buddy, guy!

This is a peaceful toned conversation, so here, have a smilie to end that helpful message!

:-)

Climate Change isn’t hard from a framework point of view. All you have to do is argue two points:

  1. Give an explanation of previous ice ages, and why or why not what is happening now is not related. This is the big one that hangs up geologists etc who should know better and think they do. They see evidence of ice ages 400mm years ago and think “oh those hippies, we know ice ages have been around for much of earth’s history! And they think human are causing the end to all the ice ages lol. Emotional and illogical!” This is because older educations were more compartmentalized and specialized and they didn’t expect a run of the mill geologist to have the slightest understanding of chemistry or physics in the atmosphere other than maybe how it impacted weathering of rocks.

  2. Force climate change deniers to explain away negatively dumping huge amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere not having an impact on the ecosystem. I was shocked, I mean shocked, to discover that some of the FUD surrounding climate change denial is denying that Venus has an atmosphere of CO2. “What, CO2 is biogenic, you think there was a bunch of life of Venus to produce it? Follow the money!!” #jawfloor.

Sure, pal! No offense!

claps you roughly on the back

The thing about arguing with climate change skeptics is that most of the people who are skeptics didn’t consider a bunch of data and then make a judgment that climate change was wrong, they come from a social circle where climate change is considered to be wrong, and they study data specifically to find support for that view. The smarter they are, the more they can convince themselves by cherry-picking data and throwing away the ideas they don’t like. You can’t argue your way through that with better data, because they are not having a debate over data, they are simply looking for ammunition to support their existing view. There are two ways to respond to that: either you put together a convincing set of data that shows the evidence, and simply ask over and over for an explanation other than anthropogenic climate change, or you refuse to argue the point because it is settled science. As the guy in that article says, you don’t argue about the existence of gravity either, not because you don’t think science should involve debates, and not because there’s nothing left to learn about gravity, but because the existence and general structure of gravity is well-known and has been thoroughly proven. The phrase “scientists disagree about climate change” is true, they disagree about the extent of man’s influence, the speed with which it is happening, the ratios of different effects, and all sorts of other parameters. What they don’t disagree about, though, is whether or not a dangerous amount of global warming is happening because of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s just a fact - it is happening, it has been studied and confirm extensively in all sorts of ways, and debating it makes as little sense as debating whether or not the Earth revolves around the Sun. Sure, you could look up into the sky and point out that the sun is clearly moving in an arc over our heads, and then pull out some Ptolemaic epicycle charts to show how the orbits of the planets work, but is it worth my effort dig out the science of why that view is incorrect and walk you through it? No. I’m going to do that, and you don’t “deserve the respect” of me doing that. If you think you’ve come up with an answer that debunks the commonly-accept scientific view, read some scientific papers or textbooks on the subject. Find ones that take on your specific critique and see if you can understand why their arguments were considered correct. If you can’t find any articles that convince you, write up your findings and submit them to a journal. You will likely get some actual feedback from reviewers explaining why your arguments are flawed or your data inconclusive. Or, your paper will be published because you really found something. This idea that refusing to continue the argument over thoroughly proven ideas is somehow shutting down debate is silly.

Well shit, we just had to agree on something sooner or later.

Do you have anything to back this up? Putting aside the amazing funding potential from fossil fuel companies as others mentioned, my own experience would suggest the exact opposite.

I am not an academic scientist, I am an academic economist, and while I would say most people devoted to climate change research (in this case investigating the effects of climatic change on various economic outcomes) in economics are not skeptics/denialists/contrarions, I have seen some very controversial results getting published in amazing journals and get cited alot. For instance, this paper in 1994 in the American Economic Review that argued that the impact of climate change on U.S. agriculture would be very minor or even beneficial: The Impact of Global Warming on Agriculture: A Ricardian Analysis on JSTOR

I have also sat through a few seminars by established economists trying to throw doubt on some aspect of climate change and they weren’t heckled or fired soon thereafter.

If you try to bring out bullshit as fact in the scientific community they’ll fucking bury you. As they should.

[quote=“ArmandoPenblade, post:66, topic:128241, full:true”]
I’m really not your buddy, guy![/quote]

So unbelievable, it comes pre-Snopesed.

House chair of Science Space and Technology, who is a contributor to Breitbart, dismisses the journal ‘Science’ as not objective, and should not be relied upon for authoritative evidence regarding climate science.

How do these people sleep at night knowing what they’ve done and what they’re doing? How do they face their children?

They believe that science is just a big conspiracy.

With large wads of cash.

“Good morning, kids. Today in Totally Sane Homeschool Lessons, we’re gonna be covering magical healing crystal dildos WOOPSIEDAISY HOW’D MOMMY AND DADDY’S SPECIAL WEBLINKS WIND UP ON THE CURRICULUM.”

Pfft, vaginas already are magical places. I can think of few places I’d rather be.

Legoland?