No, if something is tested and works then that is no longer "alternative medicine", it is simply "medicine". The classic example is aspirin, which is derived from the bark of a willow tree. It was then tested and has now been accepted as medicine.

Just because the FDA accepts woo for political purposes, doesn't make it science.

As for FDA approval of St Johns Wort, there is some dispute about the bias of these studies, as it is unexplained why it works so much better in Germany http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000448.pub3/full#CD000448-sec1-0005.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume there's plenty of evidence to support it. Again the answer is to streamline the approval process, not just let any muppet with some potpourri market it as a miracle cure.

I would much rather people pay 10 times the cost for medicine that actually works, and even better, doesn't kill people.

Of course, if you lived in a country with a sane healthcare system, you wouldn't actually worry about this, because in most of the world, it's considered poor form to let your citizens die from treatable diseases ,just because they can't pay for it.

Again, it's really simple, either you understand and accept the scientific method or you don't. Healthcare is complex and requires a lot of work to determine if something actually works. That costs money. It's unfortunate, but the results don't lie.

Because we can look at the type of carbon, and volcanic carbon is heavier than fossil fuel carbon. When measured, the heavier carbon barely makes a dent compared to the fossil fuel carbon.

It's called science. Learn it. Love it.

(We should also note, when lead was a popular anti-knock component of gasoline, a "scientist" who was funded by the gas companies said there was nothing to worry about. Turns out, he was grossly wrong. But he was getting paid to say it wasn't. Much like any junk scientist out there today. Hence why out of peer-reviewed articles, 100% agree that climate change is happening. Only 97% have come to the definitive conclusion it's man-made. Because the scientific method IS being used, this amazingly complex issue is slowly becoming clearer, and there will be ones who will try to find causes others haven't investigated, and if their studies bear out in the peer review cycle, then it's accepted and the theory is altered. Until those 3% come to the table with facts to support their hypothesis, their ideas won't be accepted. Again, it's called science, and this is how it works.)

You can take every person on this planet and put them on one Hawaiian island. Would be crowded.

If the scientific method was being used, then there wouldn't be any scientists who would disbelieve it. But not everyone is together on this. How do you know that volcanoes don't affect the global climate more than humans?

NdGT has made his position on AGW clear many times. It's real, it's happening and it's man made.

And centuries ago, the religious and cultural consensus was that the earth was flat, which was then disproved by scientific evidence. These days, science is peer-reviewed, so a large part of it is consensus. Just not the consensus of idiots on fox or morons who read right wing conspiracy blogs. It is the consensus of educated scientists who have researched the topic.

The simple fact is, if you don't believe in AGW, then you don't believe in the scientific method.

That article is terrible. For a start, they have the whole flat earth thing completely backwards. It was a scientific consensus that eventually convinced the ruling (religion based) culture that the earth was round, because of the evidence.

Exactly what is happening now with climate change.

But I'll grant that they certainly have better climate change credentials than anyone here. That doesn't make them right. What would make them right would be publishing a peer reviewed paper with new models and predictions and falsifiable results.

Anyway, a few seconds googling sees them pretty much torn to shreds.
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2014/02/20/mcnider-and-christy-defend-inertia/

Im' starting think that climate deniers genuinely don't understand the scientific method. It's simple; if there wasn't significant evidence that AGW was happening then it would be torn apart by other scientists. That's what peer review is for.

But surely that's a good thing. We revise our explanation of the same observable effect based on evidence and experimentation, and our older predictions were still correct and reliable in all but the most extreme of circumstances.

It confirms that science and the scientific method works and that we should trust it because it keeps us as safe as we can be based on our latest and most up to date understanding.

I'm sorry mate, but i'm going to have to refute a bunch of this. And i hope i can do it without coming across as religious in my approach.

"Your "facts" are nothing but easily manipulated simulations based on theories," Excerpt from your full quote below.

-- The facts and science are not in contention and they are not "easily manipulated simulations". What we have are conclusions made by studious people based on data collected by electronic instruments world wide. The data is statistically analysed to find trends and patterns and then those trends and patterns are separately analysed to see how likely they are. When hundreds of those studies are done, consensus is formed and that is how humans come to all the theories that you adhere to every day; such as gravity, conservation of energy and momentum, etc. We then construct simulations that adhere to those theories and pass different parameters into the simulation to see what the results would be in a certain amount of time. Those parameters are the things you can change, a typical parameter might be the fractional amount of greenhouse gases per cubic metre or something like that, change in volume of polar ice per day perhaps. Thousands of studies analyse thousands of different parameter values and conclusions are drawn from the whole. That is why so many scientists now believe in climate change - because over thousands of scientific studies, the conclusions have pointed overwhelmingly and convincingly to bad news for humans.

I can't dispute your accusation that they are "based on theories". I have yet to meet a person that preferred to have their facts based on anything other than theories. A theory is a collection of ideas relating to a certain topic that are based on independent principles. The alternative is to pin words to a dartboard and throw blindfolded to construct facts. Or perhaps have a floor covered with words and let sacred chickens run round shitting our facts out for us. I'd prefer to use independent principles and the best logic we have available to us.

Please read this bit in particular
Scientists are not tricking or fooling anyone, there is no money in it for a scientist. If they try to lie, they are ridiculed by the rest of the scientists. If you spend 3 years at any decent university doing any science then you will discover that the scientific method is pretty sacred to scientists because it's the only way the field progresses.

BUT BUT BUT politicians get hold of the studies and lie to you about what they mean or how best to solve the problems they illuminate. They want your money, and they manipulate the science to get your money. They can do that because most people are not scientists, and need someone to explain it to them. So my advice is that you do not choose politicians to do that job, but instead use independent adherents to the scientific method who choose to dedicate their lives to scientific study - like Neil de Grasse Tyson who speaks as a scientist... and if he did not, his reputation within the scientific community would be in tatters, and other budding scientists like myself (and others) in this community would be highlighting just how full of shit he is.

So, are scientists lying to us, or are politicians lying to us? What seems more likely?

You have it backwards...ignoring and denying climate change is all about money... climate saving is about surviving. It's the rare climate scientist who's fortune is tied directly to their theories...just about 3% I would guess.

'bio-fuel' is only an ecological 'neutral' if it's made from waste material, certainly not if other, more ecologically necessary things (like trees) are destroyed to create it. Everyone is NOT hacking down forests to make bio-fuel, most places have outlawed that, and many climate scientists decried it at the outset as neutral at best and terrible at it's worst.

Facts are facts, not manipulateable at all. Interpretation of the facts is easily manipulated, if one is not able to understand the facts enough to interpret them for one's self, but not if one is able to interpret them. For instance, the political right would have you believe that solar is an expensive wasteful fools errand, the political left would have you believe it's an expensive but ecologically sound and needed energy alternative...the facts are it's both relatively ecologically sound AND financially sound as a long term investment...mine has paid for itself in under 8 years with at least another 12 years of free electricity to come and I haven't been subjected to repeated blackouts like my neighbors...double win. The point being that if you allow politicos with agendas (on either side of the fence) to interpret the facts for you, as you seem to do, you'll only hear what THEY want you to hear. I interpret data for myself, and often come to different conclusions than those I hear publicly supported.

Religion is based on faith, not facts. Faith is believing something without proof or factual evidence and ignoring any factual evidence to the contrary. Science is thinking a certain thing until/unless the facts prove otherwise. Religious people often don't understand the difference, I'm a scientist. Show me full data sets and facts that disprove my current theory, I'll happily modify my theory. Show me an interpretation that attempts to disprove my theory without facts and/or data (or with cherry picked data and facts), I'll poke it full of holes and sink it in the briny deep. Put your life vest on now.

I hate to tell you, but I'm far more intelligent according to repeated testing than the average person, contrary to your insulting implication. 138 aint bad buddy, and my science degree helps too.

Those that attempt to say +-97% of climate scientists (along with near 100% of other scientists that peer review their work) are in cahoots to defraud the public in order to secure some phantom money (the implication being that they wouldn't possibly be able to make money if they didn't lie about science for some reason), and only the <3% that are paid by oil and gas companies to come up with theories that consistently benefit their benefactors are honest are simply insane or dishonest. Period.
Your analogy is false, because in it you speak of 'scientists' from a time before the scientific method was even a thing, people who based their 'theories' often on scripture, while the real scientists 'swam against the current' to support modifiable theories based on facts and data...just like climate scientists have done so successfully over the last 40+ years that they have now convinced nearly 100% of the planet that they are correct. Deniers are still floating down stream while the rest of us are swimming against their slowing current, spawning and trying to continue the species.

No hypocrisy by NGT, only your complete misunderstanding and/or misstating of the facts. Sorry.

Without any kind of malice or hatred, i tell you that scientists *know* that humans are causing climate change. You will not find the scientific community in any kind of debate.

What the government and corporations do with the information is an entirely different matter. They lie, manipulate, cheat and steal and use it as a tool if they can. But don't question the science, because the science is there for you to see on the website. NASA have a .gov related domain probably because they are one of the most important scientific bodies on the planet and need the kind of internet protection and security that the government can provide. They need the protection or NASA goes offline and with it the base of communications for the majority of space operations.

Anything NASA does will be scientifically sound because the entire world community of scientists would never stand for it, they'd be a laughing stock for trying. Don't forget that the scientific community includes Russia for example - or any "enemy of the west" you choose. All research is available to everyone and anyone, so if you think NASA is somehow corrupt and publishes bullshit then why haven't equally corrupt russian scientists exposed and scored points off it?

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence

The evidence is there, and the scientific community believes in it. That includes universities full of teachers and students, it includes any scientist that adheres to the scientific method, anywhere in the world.

Uniformitarianism as stated was proven false in the early 1800's

That is not correct:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism

"Uniformitarianism has been a key principle of geology and virtually all fields of science, but naturalism's modern geologists, while accepting that geology has occurred across deep time, no longer hold to a strict gradualism."

The entry says exactly what I have been saying, which is that uniformitarian ideas are foundational to modern geology, excepting now because they have been unable to deny that there were catastrophes they have mixed in catastrophism.

You completely ignore the scientific method

When you stop ranting at me and form a cogent argument, maybe it will be possible to have a dialogue.

neither can fossilization

I guess this cowboy lived millions of years ago:

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/rapid-fossils-rapid-petrifaction.htm

and I love that your 'proof' video includes Uluru, the oldest large rock in the known world, which is proven by numerous differing methods to be well over 550 Million years old

Using logic, the point of demonstrating that you can find the same sediment all over the world would be to show that those dating methods are wrong. Yet, you cite the dating methods as a reason not to watch the video which has proof that they are faulty. Incredible.

so it goes unwatched.

It's simply the close-mindedness that you accuse me of that it goes unwatched.

Just fail dude.
I never claimed to be an expert in geology, just to have enough knowledge to understand the science involved, unlike you.
EDIT: but your millionaire uncles HAVE talked about money with you, right...so you understand, say, interest?
Uniformitarianism as stated was proven false in the early 1800's. Many factors are involved in the time frame for feature formations, they are not uniform.
Yes, you are consistently anti-science here. You completely ignore the scientific method when making obviously false claims like 'that proves it was caused by a giant flood'.
Oh dude, no where in your fairy tale book does it ever say the earth is 6000 years old, you've been duped by idiots with agendas. Give it up, even your religious 'leaders' have realized the insanity of that stance and the requirement to suspend reality for it to be correct. Try listening to them.
There is absolutely zero evidence for a 'world wide flood' unless you can create some out of thin air with your level of faith in ridiculousness. There is not a single whit of actual evidence, which would take the form of a single, homogeneous layer of sediment world wide at the same geologic age. Doesn't exist. Sorry, you're just plain wrong about what you claim.
The 'evidence' in this video is evidence that landslides happen fast, not that layered non-volcanic sediments can be put down in tens of thousands of distinct and differing layers in an instant, then massive erosion can happen also in an instant, as you claim it does. True enough, erosion can happen fast, but doesn't often, and sedimentary layering simply can't...neither can fossilization. (oops, forgot, the devil put those stone bones there to fool me...but since I AM the devil, I'm not fooled)
Your claim that there is a homogeneous sediment layer all over the world is a complete fabrication. It does not exist. If it did, that would be HUGE scientific discovery heard on every network and science program for years to come, not one only heard about in church and/or afterwards in the lobby.
Once again...fail....as I suspect you did in your science classes.

EDIT:...and I love that your 'proof' video includes Uluru, the oldest large rock in the known world, which is proven by numerous differing methods to be well over 550 Million years old (that's how long ago it was rotated, it existed well before then) I guess the devil/gawd made that too, in order to confuse scientists? I'm not going to watch more time wasting ridiculous unscientific propaganda by the scientifically challenged, so it goes unwatched.
and good job with the cut and paste in order to quote me and answer me without me noticing,...sorry, didn't work.
SECOND EDIT: Do you not notice that on one side you claim uniformitarianism is wrong, but you also insist it's held as a major tenant of modern geology? If it's that obvious to you, an admitted lay person, don't you think it might be more obvious to professionals?

..I can claim to know far more than you seem to because I went to college and graduated with a degree in science, have a NASA geologist uncle,..

What area of science do you have a degree in? Does having a scientific degree make you an expert in geology? I have a few uncles who are millionaires but that doesn't mean I am good with money or know anything about business.

...Uniformitarianism as described is NOT the cornerstone of geology, that's ridiculous. Geologic forces are not uniform...

Uniformitarianism is the belief that the geological forces at work in present time are the same as those which happened in the past. This is what is meant by the phrase "the present is the key to the past". It is not a belief that all geologic forces are uniform. Again, this theory is the cornerstone of modern geology and also many other sciences. Geologists mix in some catastrophism with their uniformitarianism so they don't really call it uniformitarianism anymore but that is the foundation of geology today.

..and as an anti-science guy..

I am not anti-science; I am a firm believer in the scientific method. What you're calling science cannot be tested with the scientific method, and it is therefore not scientific and requires faith to believe it. I don't have the kind of faith to believe what you believe.

..I would guess you believe the earth is about 6000 years old, right?..

Give or take a few thousand years. I believe we live on a young Earth in a young Universe.

..There is NO evidence of a world wide flood. NONE WHATSOEVER. Either show exactly where the (as yet undiscovered) layer of homogeneous sediment is in the strata world wide or stop lying. You can't, because it didn't happen..

Do you realize there aren't two sets of evidence, one for creation and the other for naturalism? We are looking at the same evidence and coming to different conclusions. There is volumes of evidence for a worldwide flood, in fact the evidence is irrefutable, but if you come to the data with uniformitarian assumptions you will misinterpret it.

A secular geologist looks at the grand canyon and sees millions of years because of his uniformitarian assumptions about the processes that formed it, and his belief in deep time. Because of the assumptions he is bringing to the table, he fails to see how it could have been rapidly formed and deposited, and the evidence in this video proves that it could have been.

You can find the same sediment (from the same place) deposited the same way, all over the world. The explanation that it was a process that took hundreds of millions of years or longer doesn't match the data. There are plenty of lectures which explain what this looks like, and as a scientist you should be able to understand exactly what they're talking about:

Well see now that is the problem I personally have with people who are of "faith" .

Faith is the belief in something despite the factual absence of evidence.

What all this dimensional and big bang stuff is is theory, thought, based on evidence of the time. Evolution is a theory, a proven theory ( thought). Evolution has been proven, that theory is proven.

The community who are striving to understand the world in a provable and tangibly understandable way, those that are severely unfunded - have only thought and the scientific method to go about their theory and thoughts.

What people of your mind frame do is get in line with something based on nothing but feeling, because they had a vision or were brought up that way or do not fully understand what science actually is ( which I think you fall under ) You do not understand the fact the universe can be trillions and trillions of miles in either direction and you as if in an infant stage curl up into a mental fetal position and stay there. You can not grasp the fact no one knows for sure, what science at the time provides is not what you want to hear or understand so you are directed by whatever influence to go to the basic easiest most ignorant way of going about your time here, interaction with others and your surroundings.

Religion.

The thing that divides people.

What is his 'doctorate' in? It can't possibly be math or science. He doesn't understand either.
'I could buffalo a student, but for the first time I began to listen to my own explanation'....just OMG, so as a professor, you never paid attention to the object of study you taught! Ooooooooooh...long Johnson!
"most of them are fully formed organisms in their own right"....so let's ignore ALL those that aren't and say they never existed. What a buffoon!
This is the shining example of a 'scientist' that learned about 'creationism' and 'converted'...the problem being he wasn't a scientist (certainly not a good one that followed the scientific method), and he obviously knew about creationism before his conversation with the student (or was even more dense than he appears). This means he's a bold faced liar, like most proselytizers, that minimizes other ways of thinking and/or facts while maximizing 'belief'. Duh!
There is no 'conversion' possible, as science is not analogous to religion, the only conversion possibly would be one of his thought process, from a thinking person willing to examine reality and willing to be wrong (which it seems he never was) to one willing to believe mythos without (or contrary to) evidence.

Scientific Method?......how does that work??