>> in lobbying for someone to become a saint you're lobbying for something of an unscientific nature to have occurred <<

I am not sure whether by "unscientific" you mean being outside the realm of science (which proclaiming somebody a saint - like awarding somebody the Order of Australia - obviously is) or going against the findings or laws of science.

If the latter, one has to keep in mind that you can lobby for something without being a specialist who understand whether, and under what circumstances, what you are lobbying for is actually feasible (e.g. an environmental lobbyist does not have to have a degree in biology or chemistry and economy). So I think Rudd did not have to have an understanding of what Rome considers a "miracle" supporting a claim for sainthood, a concept more complicated than the understanding of the proverbial old lady who thinks of any "miracle" as an event that violates the laws of e.g. physics.

Roughly speaking, in the eyes of the Congregation of Rites a "miracle occurred" if it cannot be explained using available scientific knowledge (e.g in the Middle Ages a driven car - i.e. a "cart" that is not being pulled by horses - would probably have been counted as a miracle assigned to the driver). There is nothing "unscientific" in recognising occurrences, phenomena (often related to the nature of human consciousness, and the working of the human psyche, where much is still unexplained) that science of the day cannot (yet?) understand.

Oh George, You always have damn good responses!

I always seem to think of Leonard Cohen when I read you. I'm your fan.

Aw Graham come on now. The climate is already behaving like the models say it should and that’s no dogma. Nevertheless, I was one who helped put godbothering miracle believer, Johnny into office about the same time climate change impacts became evident to a blind mute, which was about the same time Johnny became myopic – bobbing and weaving, obfuscating climate facts – and a right sycophant to the polluters at the big end of town. That’s when I helped put Johnny out of office.

Now we have to deal with Johnny’s successor, who’s only a little better than Johnny but a little better is better than the nothing that JH offered.

The outrageous claims that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an elaborate conspiracy engineered by hundreds of climate scientists around the planet, who twist their results in order to maintain their research funding, is spurious and so passe when even Johnny's buddy and ignominious eco-terrorist, Bush, in 2005, at the G8 Gleneagles meeting acknowledged that climate change is caused by humans and is a problem which needs to be addressed.

Hey Graham – did you know that out of all the industrialised Annex 1 countries with emissions’ targets under the Kyoto protocol, Australia’s coming last with the highest per capita emissions between 1990 – 2008? Yep that’ll make ya happy eh? Good for the economy - aye that’s for sure!

George, that's a nonsense definition of a miracle. If it doesn't occur through God's agency then it is of no use in confirming the sainthood of the beatified person. To try to pass it off as something that is scientifically inexplicable at the time but which we might understand later takes out the idea of God's agency. It can't be a miracle if it occurred in the ordinary cause of events, it's just coincidence in that case.

The idea that God intervenes in the world is not only non-scientific, it is anathema to a large number of theologians.

Protagoras, if you read my posts you'll find I have no difficulty with the proposition that CO2 causes the planet to warm. But I do have a difficulty with the proposition that the models predicted the current cooling. Show me a model from 10 years ago that did so. I also have problems with a lot of the nonsense pushed by the IPCC, some of which actually contradicts their own research.

Conspiracy? I've never said that. Panic? Definitely.

And I notice you justify ducking on criticising Rudd because he's "a little better" than John Howard. So there's a line that Howard crossed that Rudd hasn't? Where would you put that line? How much religion is enough, or not too much?

Graham Y,
As I said many times on this OLO, I would not call nonsense opinions, definitions, concepts etc. that I could not understand (some use terms like mental or intellectual gymnastics instead of nonsense). So whatever definition of miracle you prefer, I would not call it a nonsense, especially since I know that it is not an easy, but rather controversial, concept.

I myself did not provide such a definition, I only tried to explain in simple - probably too simple - terms what Rome considers as sufficient to be called a "miracle" leading to canonisation. Perhaps you are right, you know more about the Catholic Church canonisation procedures (see e.g. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm) than I.

There are many interpretations - by theologians and philosophers (of science) - of what you call God's intervention in the world: just google out references to "divine action" (I found over 94,000 of such references). Some of these interpretations are indeed "anathema" to this or that "large group of theologians". I personally prefer those that do not ignore discussions in theoretical physics (QM), psychology, cognitive science etc. of the last, say, 50 years. Nevertheless, I agree that any reasonable interpretation is necessarily "non-scientific" in the sense that divine action (in whatever sense) is not a phenomenon investigable by science.

Graham

What current cooling are you speaking of? Deniers are spreading the rumour that the combined global temperatures have cooled. When I ask them to provide me with the evidence, I'm ignored.

Mr Plimer insisted on Lateline that the combined global temperatures had cooled, however, Tony Jones insisted that Plimer show evidence. After a dogged persistence by Jones, Plimer (“will you respect me in the morning?”) admitted he was talking about temperatures in the US – a truly irrelevant and scurrilous attempt at obfuscation.

His book is peppered with the claim that warming ceased in 1998, however, he tells other interviewers that warming ceased in 2003. Which is it?

I genuinely want your claim verified and I think you’re too intelligent to exploit an El Nino year to use as a red herring. I provide you with NASA’s graphs for you to point me in the direction of the cooling to which you refer:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html#gtemp

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat (Hey what's wrong with OLO's system here?)

Oh well here's another link to the link:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/index.php

Frankly I’ve never been too interested in whether it’s cooling or warming but more concerned about the environmental carnage which has and continues to be perpetrated on Australia’s fragile territory by the big end of town, corrupt bureaucrats and ignorant politicians. How does cooling or warming mitigate the irreparable damage these eco-terrorists have done and are doing to our ecosystems?

However, the current regional cooling in certain areas (impacting Australia’s climate) I believe will continue and will perhaps, drastically alter the overall global temperatures.

The man-made cooling to which I allude (an alleged 10 million square kilometre wide, 3 kilometre thick brown "cloud") has the catastrophic potential to wreak havoc on the entire planet if you and others continue resisting any endeavours to mitigate anthropogenic pollution:

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/13/brown-clouds.html

The IPCC and the climate institutes (from which I glean some of my information) do make blunders but they are sufficiently ethical to publish their corrections.

Rest assured, Mr Rudd has incurred the wrath of my caustic tongue on several occasions.