Global warming consensus - Cracking or Broken?
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.
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.
Comments
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 83,00.html
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).
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 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.
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.
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.
And as a creationist I can tell you that no creationist I know looks at it this way either. This is a bit of an "evolutionits circle jerk" explanation of creationists perspective.
No. Most (all?) creationists believe it because someone they trusted or a book they trusted told them it is true. Much the same reason why anyone believes evolution or believes that Sri Lanka exists.
My explanation was rather the next step. Why persist in a belief, particularly why hold the belief so ardently? Either, you do so because it is a practical matter for you (you find some value in it) or you do so because you are irrational.
If asked to put your preference for one over the other into words, I imagine you would offer an explanation similar to the following - "I did not find the proof of evolution compelling, and besides my faith in the literal translation of the Bible plays an integral role in my life so the issue was never really up for debate." Since I'm putting imaginary words in your mouth, please correct them if the misrepresent you, but if they do not, then you hold your beliefs for precisely the reason I outlined earlier.
There's nothing wrong with that, any more than there is when a biologists provides a similar but opposite statement for their own positions - "I found creationism uncompelling, and besides evolution is essential for my work."
I don't understand what I said there that was remarkable. It was exactly a restatement of my original comment that got you so vehemently riled up. When I point out that most "evolutionists" hold the position which is most useful to them, you thank me for being forthright and honest. When I point out the same reasoning is used by creationists, you lambast me for not having a clue about your perspective.
I used to say that both sides are a religion, but only one will admit it. Religion is definitely a part of the support of my creationism, but it stands without it. God's creation does not need to be proven. It simply is, and is obviously designed, to anyone paying attention that is, whether they be religious or not. The "or not" group would be the "ID" group.
For me as a former computer programmer, the discovery of the functioning of DNA was the final nail in the evolution coffin. It is so obviously designed that I am somewhat bewildered at anyone with knowledge who would not at least entertain the possibility. I consider them very religious evolutionists.
There is as much evidence (more actually) that the diversity of life was created. After all, many cars by the same manufacturer share the same parts. It is not becuase one evolved from another. It is becuase they were designed by the same mind for the same consumer to be used in the same environment. Designed diversity.
I do not put God in a box
Then why is evolution theory so useful in biology that it's considered the foundational principal much like atomic theory, quantum theory or the theory of relativity are in their perspective fields? I believe if you attempt reading one of Dawkins more scientific books like The Blind Watchmaker, you'll gain a better understanding why it's appropriate to question this "obvious" aspect of our world. It's also obvious that matter is solid (well at least my desk and chair), but atomic theory suggests solidness is just an illusion.
If DNA is the programming language of God, he's what we would commonly refer to as a cowboy hacker. The code is undocumented, it contains huge dead sections, parts of it are exploited in bizarre ways which violate the general rules, and identical functions are performed in different ways for no reason. Ironically, DNA has proven to be the strongest evidence for evolution.
So...that's not actually evidence, but rather an analogy. Further, it's an analogy taken too far, so that it is incorrect. Cars use the same parts because their designs literally evolved together. Different engineers (usual) design different cars (even from the same company). They use the same parts because in their environment it is more efficient (more fit) to reuse parts than to manufacture different parts for each model of car. Further, the designs of today's cars are all variational changes on previous cars. Why have four wheels? There are good engineering reasons, which is why that was picked at first, but now it's simply ingrained as the way you evolve a new car model from a previous one.
Perhaps you meant to use the "747 assembling itself in a tornado" analogy instead?
No, you put him between 3 pages in a book.
So are you.
To what book do you refer?
actually the dead sections are turning out to be not so dead. but all that does is make it easier to explain periods of rapid mutation like the cambrian explosion.
so, the more we learn the more that the simple chemistry of DNA at the very smallest levels, along with mutation and natural selection explain the variety of life which exists and the way that it all interrelates without having to appeal to a creator or designer.
it could be argued that the chemistry of carbon was designed in order to give rise to DNA (or a similar argument has been offered about the excited state of carbon-12 nuclei that lets the triple-alpha process in stars burn helium into carbon and higher elements, without which we wouldn't exist), but people who believe in "Creationism(tm)" usually believe in more than just God designing the underlying physics.
the chemistry of DNA is unbelievably simple. what you are looking at is emergent complexity from underlying simplicity and open-endedness.
I wonder what we still have to learn. It is interesting though, no matter how much we know about how it works, we cannot explain how it came to be. We understand Gravity and basically how it will affect matter, energy, etc., but we still don't know how it works. There is a reason it is called a theory.
The more we know, the more we know we don't know. We still have not a clue how it came to be. Not even any reasonable hypotheses.
Would that reason be that it's a highly predictive model which has been strongly validated? Or is the reason that you are mistaking the scientific term theory (what I just defined) for the layman's use of the term which means a hunch?
You are right of course, but I didn't really want to get into that. That business of non-coding regions being sometimes coded is another argument for the Spaghetti Code design pattern employed in our DNA. Experiments are being run to develop the most concise reproducing organism (bacteria) and it's much tidier than anything actually living. BTW, the old estimates were like 90% junk. Do you know what the new ones are?
Frankly, the more I learn about it, the more amazed I am that such a mess works at all. We're unhappy if we are born with bad eye sight, or have an autistic child, but if you look at what's going on it's almost surprising we don't all come out mangled.
Obviously, our DNA is a very, very complex system since God is omnipotent. Also since God is omnipotent, our DNA is not as complex as it could be. In fact it is probably optimzed to be just as complex as it needs to be.
Of course, evolution might predict the same thing so it isn't really a proof of anything.
Hey, look! Ice cream!
The more we know the more we push back the argument that God is responsible for it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps). We used to claim that God was behind the Sun and Moon travelling across the sky, and know we know better.
You also seem to believe in an interventionist God who "created things" out of the Lego set. The problem is that the more we learn about the Lego set, the less room there is for God to have been necessary in creating the diversity that we see, and the simplicity of the Lego set itself means that it is plausible it was created by randomness (particularly given a billion years across the entire planet).