@A-Winston @lantern53

Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

I'll simplify it for you - those who are not well educated in a subject greatly overestimate their ability at the subject, because they don't know all of the things that they don't know.

Those who are better educated in a subject greatly underestimate their ability at the subject, because they know how complicated it is.

Now you two don't know about science, and that's ok - that's not an insult and i don't want any of this to be insulting. But it is meant to be a reminder that you are talking about one of if not the most technical and complicated abstract subjects that we as a species pursue. If you don't even understand the "scientific method" (a distinct term) and how the "scientific community" (another distinct term) works and comes to consensus, how can you possibly hope to decipher fact (science) from fiction (propaganda)?

I keep having to post this, but i'll do it again. The scientific community is made up of all kinds of people such as university lecturers and students (yes, your kids might be part of the community), amateur scientists, people at research institutions.... anyone who cares enough to approach things methodically and systematically, anyone interested in finding out as much as we possibly can about everything we can. Real science does not get paid based on results - the funding is provided for the research and the research finds whatever it finds. You can't lie about science, because other anal bastards (far worse than me) are just waiting to find something wrong with it and pillory it. That's how the scientific community works, it's like internet comments only worse. You can't get away with doing bad science for long.

Most people in scientific research do not have a lot of money, do you understand that? I can tell you right now - i contribute to scientific papers and such, so that makes me part of the scientific community. I'm just a post-grad student living on a student loan and doing something that i enjoy. My lecturers make a living, but they are not well-off by any means. We also suffer tax when politicians take our evidence and twist it in front of our faces. And we're left standing here, exasperated, wondering why you'd listen to non-experts over experts. If your doctor said you had diabetes, you wouldn't ask a politician to confirm it? If you want a scientific opinion, consult the scientific community.

I would love you to ask yourself the following question; "What do i really know about the scientific community and the scientific method?" Because if you took half an hour one day to go to an accredited university and ask the science department about how science works, how consensus is formed, and what makes good scientific practice, you'd be able to rid yourselves of these myths that somehow all scientists (i.e. average people, doing scientific research for the sake of science) are in some kind of club or gang or being paid to say that humans are causing climate devastation. The reason the majority of people say that is because the science speaks for itself and is not open to interpretation. The facts are facts.

Are you really thinking this through?

I want to show you one final thing, and it comes from the wikipedia page on Scientific method (which i recommend you read to avail yourself about which you speak, please don't speak from ignorance).

"The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false."

The science speaks for itself, and i recommend you start listening to real scientists. Why prefer the opinion of a few individuals who are either flawed in their scientific reasoning or flat out being paid to lie? The scientific community is in full agreement.

Edit: Sorry for the long post, but you're talking about something you don't understand and it exasperates me. You wouldn't come here and talk about the details of internal medicine, but you're quite happy to tell a scientist, to his face, that he doesn't know science.

@Trancecoach - they respond in literature all the time. A scientist's response is to prove it, scientifically. They do, and are, all the time. But most people do not understand science and those that do still find scientific papers daunting and difficult to follow. People like the two i mentioned above, they don't have a hope in hell of understanding the source of the information, and they sadly look to the wrong people to explain it to them.

Spinning the iphone - it is possible to do, i've played with that effect with a tv remote as a kid, trying to flip it over once and catch it. That's when i found out about Dzhanibekov effect. I think that basically more mass lies along the plane in which it is spinning, and it either isn't balanced or isn't precisely stable as it's released, and so there is a net centrifugal force acting on the phone in the direction that it begins to rotate (if you don't do it right), gently at first but the further it goes into its spin the more it reinforces itself and it flips. (that's what i remember from childhood, but the wikipedia article itself is accurate so double check) I'd like to investigate this effect in space/vacuums though, it's still interesting.

The water one - this is just one scientific opinion and i imagine many exist, but i can't find any true source on this. My immediate reaction to his explanation about the uniform electric field is to consider the field projected by the cup - prior warning simplifications are rife. Approximate the electric field emitted by the negatively charged cup as being normal to the surface at any point on the surface. You bring that field towards the water, and if there is indeed a more positively charged side, then it would experience a force in an electric field. We can safely believe that the water molecules will fall facing in all directions (fluid dynamics ensuring a nice distribution of particles within the stream allowing us to believe that), and any that are not pointed exactly parallel to the electric field will experience some kind of force. However water can also have a meniscus, which might encourage the water to "stick together" a bit and head towards the negative source, but i'm not sure about that in a flowing/falling context.

The fundamental point here is that an electric field is introduced to the water which responds by moving towards the source of the field. He hasn't shown me anything to doubt the standard explanation, and i don't understand why he thinks that the molecule wouldn't experience a force if it is as described. Without using electric charge to explain it, and i'm quite certain it isn't magnetic (the only other associated phenomenon), he's basically saying it's magic?

@robbersdog49 got the cane and cereal ones, and the teabag one is of course just the fact that the burning teabag heats nearby air, hot air rises which causes cooler air to rush in from the side and below, which causes a bit of an upwards current of flowing air, and when the remnant of the teabag is light enough, it is lifted by that force. As it burns lower, there's less fuel (paper) and it's less hot, so the force drops, so it only happens when it's nearly ash and very light. The last piece almost doesn't make it.

Yes, if you want scientific opinion, you should ask a scientist! Very true!

But, you will not get a 99.5% "yup, the evidence says it's true" from any scientist at random that you ask.. But, hey, that's what science is for! Go give it a try and see for yourself!

But what "evidence" specifically, are we talking about? The evidence that climate change is mostly caused by humans? I don't think any scientist says that. The debate is about whether 1% of that change is caused by humans or not and whether that 1% is a catastrophic thing or not. The debate is not about whether the climate goes through changes or not. On that, everyone agrees. Climate changes.

And the political debate is mostly about whether the proposed regulations will make any major difference or not. These are not the same "debates."

(One thing not in dispute by most climate scientists is that cattle is the primary cause of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.)

(And what there is 99.99% scientific consensus on is that climate change debates on social media are a waste of time and completely irrelevant to climate change.)

The only climate change "debate" going on is between those who are not capable of understanding the science.

People have come to respect television and talking heads way too much. If you want a scientific opinion, why don't people ask a scientist? If you asked one at random you're 99.5% sure to get a "yup, the evidence says it's true." -- that's the approximate ratio of scientific opinion.

@JiggaJonson

If there aren't more recent articles than a 30 year old article, it's probably not a major trend relative to majority scientific opinion.

I'll shed a tear when all the educated white liberals who have been fighting the human sciences for decades are no longer with us because of their low fertility and delayed reproduction relative to high fertility groups.

So please assume you're right.

i'm sure if the straw/hay was clean, it may eventually sink when the water fills the voids in the porous hay. however oil floats... so chances are (non-scientific opinion incoming) oil-laden straw would float.

saltwater is more dense than freshwater (SW = 1.025, FW = 1.0), so it's even more difficult to sink hay, let alone oil soaked hay.

and regarding the solution proposed? why not? i mean, if our choices are 1) possible failure on cleanup at the cost of beef/milk prices rising, or 2) Gulf-coast wasteland... HAY, give it a try! (*groan*)

edit: apparently this idea is already in place using hair, nylon fibers, etc. not entirely sure on the reliability of the link, but here it is anyway: http://www.matteroftrust.org/

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^MilkmanDan: I just mean that the burden of proof needs to be on the AGW supporting people
That's birther logic.
Science is not about perfection, it's about the best available hypothesis. AGW opponents have not yet put forth models which work better than the models being used by supporters of AGW, therefor AGW is considered the consensus scientific opinion. None of these models are perfect, but we should still use the best ones, even if some folks don't like the implications.
How can you expect me to take these folks seriously, much less award them correctness by default, when Ball supports ,the trivially falsifiable, urban-concrete-island hypothesis for GW?


I disagree that it is "birther logic". Saying that Obama is not a US citizen is an extraordinary (extraordinarily stupid) claim. Those that would make the claim should expect to be required to prove it for us to take them seriously. Clearly they cannot.

The idea of Global Warming is not a particularly extraordinary claim in and of itself. Suggesting that most of the warming comes from human-caused CO2 emissions is more notable, and suggesting that unless we curtail those emissions we will cause catastrophic and irreparable harm to the global climate (sunburn, melted ice caps, dead polar bears, tornadoes, hurricanes, and broken ocean currents) is extraordinary. That doesn't necessarily mean it might not be true, but I don't think it is at all unreasonable to require clear objective evidence and some amount of proof that they understand the system well enough to account for present conditions based on past data, or even showing that they are capable of providing predictions of future conditions that actually pan out.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
DGhandi, I suppose open source Application writers are Naive too.

Coders don't need time on supercolliders, or satellite high resolution IR cameras. People who do large scale science need access to resources which are limited to large institutions, these institutions, as a common practice, enforce strict IP regulation.

The fact that it is bad for science/society is a problem, but has NOTHING to do with any wrong doing by the CRU.

>> ^MilkmanDan: I just mean that the burden of proof needs to be on the AGW supporting people

That's birther logic.

Science is not about perfection, it's about the best available hypothesis. AGW opponents have not yet put forth models which work better than the models being used by supporters of AGW, therefor AGW is considered the consensus scientific opinion. None of these models are perfect, but we should still use the best ones, even if some folks don't like the implications.

How can you expect me to take these folks seriously, much less award them correctness by default, when Ball supports ,the trivially falsifiable, urban-concrete-island hypothesis for GW?

Let's stay focused on the issue at hand.

Write:

I agree to "use peer-reviewed published results from scientific papers, and use those papers to frame my own scientific opinions" from now on.

And we will end this conversation.

Qruel. You have relied on less than credible sources in the past. I don't want to rehash every single debate that we have had, and I shouldn't have to. This is true. Unfortunately, I think again you have misunderstood what we are trying to communicate and changed the topic.

If we are going to continue discussing science, then we as members of the science community would appreciate if you would play by the rules:

Namely, use peer-reviewed published results from scientific papers, and use those papers to frame your own scientific opinions.

Please, read what I have written. This point transcends flouride, vaccines, 911, and every other topic we have covered. If you do not have access to the journals, then you need to go to your local library or university.

Good call.

Yeah, I misread it. The bit that upset me was:

"Her husband died of kidney cancer after their health-insurance company denied payment for a bone-marrow transplant that might have saved his life. Ms. Pierce's rage is palpable as she repeats the word her insurers used in response to her husband's request. "They denied it," she sneers. "Said it was 'experimental.'""

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118964470258225901.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

So. He quotes this lady, and then never contacts her about it.

Even though I misread it, it doesn't change the fact that he puts a lot of effort into being a douche bag.

I don't think any of his pieces are balanced. He interviews Moore and then selectively edits their interview to make him sound like a jackass. You can't call that fair, and it certainly isn't journalism. If he presented his arguments as solely exhibiting a single opinion then I wouldn't have an issue. My beef with him is when he says he is presenting the facts and the whole story.

A great example is his piece on Global Warming, which regardless of my scientific opinion about it I thought it was complete hogwash.

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