Seattle Bubble

Looks like the plot thickens on the demise of the GW "consensus".

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonia ... xml&coll=7

A snippet:
Elsewhere, a former climate change alarmist detailed what you might call his change of science. David Evans was a consultant to the "Australian Greenhouse Office" from 1999 to 2005. He helped craft the carbon accounting model measuring Australia's Kyoto Protocol compliance.

"When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good . . .," he wrote recently in The Australian. "The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? . . . But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming."

Evans notes a few telling facts: One, scientists have looked for hot spots in the atmosphere -- places where a possible cause of global warming occurs first and most -- and have found . . . none: "If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming." Two, he points out what scientists have found: Ice-core samples showing the six global warmings over the past half-million years occurred an average of 800 years before any uptick in atmospheric carbon, satellite temperature readings showing the recent warming trend ended in 2001, and the temperature has fallen about 0.6 C in the past year -- to the 1980 level.

This is pretty powerful stuff, actually:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 83,00.html

Here's a real update on the risk of climate change.

You'll notice, that climate change is finally being reported in realistic and pragmatic manner, as opposed to the dire alarmist approach of Al Gore or the ignore all facts approach of deniers.

For example -



For those who haven't understood so far, this is how scientific consensus and progress work. Those who aren't on the same page are ever more fringe, but that doesn't mean they won't get the occasional press release.

That has clearly been run through so many newspaper editorial / laymans filters that if there was any science behind that statement I can't recognize it anymore.

They might be talking about the tropical troposhere issue, which is addressed most recently here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... shere-iii/



]The Milankovich cycles drive the ice ages. CO2 is a feedback mechanism in ice age cycles not a cause.



That is definitely addressed by the URL (above).



That is false. It is false using satellite measurements, false using atmospheric measurements (both largely land-based ones that ignore the north pole and better ones that include it) and false using measurements of ocean temperature.

The oceans have a consistent uptrend, the satellite measurements show a consistent uptrend, the land-based measurements show a consistent uptred, and the only "downtrend" which is evident is in atmospheric measurements which largely neglect the north pole (which has been warming) and where 1998 is the hottest year on record because of the very strong El Nino that year. If you compare 1999 to 2007/2008 then we are still warming about 0.2C a decade (even ignoring the north pole).

So Rob, I'm curious. Are you also an evolution denier? Because most of the fundamentalists that I know who are global warming deniers are also evolution deniers. If you are, how does the above statement square with your views on evolution?

Well, we had an evolution death match earlier and it was pretty clear that he didn't recognize all the facts of evolution. Nor, apparently, did he agree that our current theory of evolution, which itself is an evolved version of Darwin's theory is worthy of the lofty scientific title "theory".

Not sure what his explanation will be, but most would argue either that a trickster God started the whole shebang off in a state that made it look like the earth was 4 billion years old or that when arguing science you have to use science even if both are clearly off by about 99.99% regarding the actual age of anything.

I personally tend to be an evolution agnostic. I think that scientific theory is such that evolution is currently the best explanation for something that we can really only hypothesize about.

I also don't understand why belief or non-belief in evolution is necessary for belief or non-belief in God.

That's actually more or less the definition of a theory. Although a more accurate description is it's a model that we think closely explains real world observations in a predictable manner. Coincidentally, it's among the most strongly verified theories we have. That doesn't mean it's complete or that there is no debate, but rather that the core concept is highly verified. Specifically, we have some strong lineages of intermediate forms (missing links - check out the evolution of whales), it accurately predicts germ resistance to antibiotics, bacterial tests have been done which track the evolution of consuming new food sources, vestibule appendages are found on many animals, and perhaps most strongly evolution predicted the need for a mechanism like DNA some 80 years before DNA was discovered.

Regarding it's requirement for religion...it all depends. Dawkins would say that prior to the theory of evolution you could not be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. By which, he means we are surrounded by wonderful complex life and it must be explained. Meanwhile, the only people who have a real problem with it, are those who believe every word of the Bible must be taken literally. The short argument why this passage matters goes like this. If evolution is true, then Genesis isn't. If it's not, then Adam didn't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. If he didn't do that, man didn't fall and then what did Jesus die for?

FWIW, if you want to talk about this (as opposed to GW) we should probably take it to the evolution death match thread.

Its not really.

The real problem comes when people (who apparently lack faith) need to "prove" God's existence by claiming that science cannot explain the observable universe. So you get people who claim that the "cambrian explosion" is proof that God had a hand since science can't yet explain the diversity of life which occurred at this point. This is one form of the God of the Gaps attempt to prove the existence of God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps). The problem with this approach is that as scientific knowledge has advanced those gaps have continued to close and the beachhead for those arguing proof of God through lack of understanding has been consistently eroded over time. Each time they retreat to a new position as their last one is destroyed.

Then there's also the silliness about trying to make the Bible an authoritative account of history and the resultant murals of Christ and Moses palling around with Dinosaurs. Those people live on a different planet.

I don't have a problem with someone who simply believes in God, has faith in God and quietly uses that for inspiration, doesn't try to ram their inspiration down my throat, and doesn't look for evidence of their faith in order to prove it, and doesn't believe in a highly interventionist God. I'll even get along with someone who believes that God occasionally blows on the dice in subtle ways as long as they don't overreach. It doesn't have to be an either/or. So far, Obama appears to have this kind of a faith as far as I can tell, while Palin and Bush are counter-examples.

The problem is that the Palin/Bush camp are obviously more vocal, while there may be a "quiet majority" of religious people whose faith is more personal.

My thing with evolution has always been that there is some interesting evidence that I have read discounting evolution and some interesting theories, like that the Earth as a hyperbaric chamber prior to the great flood. Also about many pre-historic creatures that are still alive today.

That being said, I actually just started reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scie ... 0743286391
It's by one of the main scientists behind the human genome project, who is also a Christian. He's a firm believer in evolution, but thinks that the more we go down the path in science the more complicated everything is and the harder it is to deny the existence of God.

Lamont, have you read the graphic novel "The Watchmen"? There is a movie being made about it currently.

If you haven't read it, in the story there is a character who is given God-like powers while working on nuclear testing.

In many ways, I feel this book is telling the story of how God or a God may be created. It's not what I believe as far as God goes, but it makes for an interesting idea on what God might or could be.

Well, by definition a creature is not prehistoric if it is alive today. It could be a species which hasn't mutated very much and has lived in a stable environment. Crocodiles fall into this category, as they have especially good immune systems. I would be curious to hear of other examples if you know them off hand.

I have yet to see a hyperbaric chamber hypotheses that I found convincing. A convincing hypothesis should explain a minimum of two "observations". First, it needs to explain the gradual reduction in lifespan stated in the Bible. If true, shouldn't lifespans have gone from 900+ years to about 40 years in the span of a single generation? Second, it makes a clear prediction about our bodies: put in the "right" or "original" environment, we are built to live perhaps 10x as long as we do now. We should be able to put a newborn in that environment and watch them live to 1000 years...or at least 500.

My two cents.

That's a good point on the hyperbaric chamber thing. I mean, there's no way to prove it unless someone lives in one of course.

The main problem with creationist theory is that they start out with the premise that the Earth is only 6000 years old, then try to fix the facts around it.

As far as "prehistoric" creatures, there's the coelacanth, horseshoe crabs, alligators and crocs, sharks that I can remember.

Also if you're into cryptozoology, there's also Mokele-mbembe. I find cryptozoology to be terribly entertaining.

Well, the main thing is that people use whatever is useful. If you are designing or studying genomes or work in zoology, creationism is worthless to you. It makes no useful predictions, unless you consider the prediction that animals reproduce of their own kind to be both valuable and complete. Hence, even biologists who are religious usually still believe evolution over creationism.

However, if you wish to spread your faith, it's evolution that is worthless to you. That a seemingly random process could produce complexity does nothing to compel anyone that your religion is true. Meanwhile, creationism is so simple that anyone can understand it, and it does an admirable job of explaining why your God should be worshiped.

That's why so many people are able to hold contradictory positions even when only one can be true. Interestingly, it doesn't even matter which one is historically true; the motivation is strong enough on either side that you'd have the same split either way so long as the evidence remains consistent.

Ok, that sounds a lot like what I'm familiar with. So, to reiterate a lot of it has to do with a being more resistant to mutation. Alligators, crocodiles, and sharks fall into that category; they simply mutate at a slower rate. Also, there's the aspect where if an animal is already excellently adapted to its environment it will continue to mutate but the mutations will not alter its physical appearance significantly. If you took a gene sample from a living crocodile and one 10 million years old, they should look very different...it's just hard to get those older samples.

Regarding the coelacanth, I am familiar with that, but have not heard much of an explanation why. Considering they were believed to be extinct, I'm sure someone has worked through this a bit, but I'd have to research it. The horseshoe crab, however, is new to me. Very interesting.

Very insightful commentary. I'd never thought about it in this way.