GrahamY: "your side in the AGW debate is ignoring the empirical evidence and resorting to faith-based arguments"

Jedimasters post http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9906#160060 isn't bad empirical evidence itself. In that thread the plebs on the "for" side of the debate think empirical evidence is more persuasive than the against side. At least, then tend to quote it more, and surely you would not quote it more if you didn't think it was going to persuade someone. This is the reverse of what you say above.

I can't comment on the science as I don't understand it, and that brings us back to the philosophical question you posed at the start of the thread. Evolution is something just about any nob could understand if they take the time to. The theory is drop dead simple. The evidence supporting it is easy to understand and plentiful. Clearly if an average Australian doesn't accept evolution over say intelligent design, they aren't basing their acceptance on empirical evidence.

The contrast with AGW could not be more stark. I would not be surprised if there are only a handful of people on the planet understand the models, because they don't publish the code. The theory behind these models is utterly beyond your average pleb. There isn't clear counter theory like intelligent design. The opposition is instead just saying we can't model the climate at all and the successes in doing so over the past century are a fluke. Indeed, it could very well be so.

The point is your average pleb (ie all bar a handful of scientists), can't make decision as remotely conclusive as you can on the correctness of evolution, based solely on the empirical evidence. All of us are doing the far less satisfying exercise of flip flopping about based on scant evidence, incomplete understanding, and yes on authority, faith and political tribalism.

In the end for most of us AGW is an article of faith, regardless of with side you are on. There is no clear dividing line like evolution. It is a matter of degree, and the degree is small.

rstuart you don't come to OLO for a full scientific exposition of the science of climate. So you wouldn't measure the strength of the argument on either side by the number of citations each side makes here.

Jedi Master's post was interesting, but you'd need to dig a bit to find out whether it really means anything. Just because I link to something doesn't mean that it is correct, or supports my view. We've seen how the "peer review" game is played in the Climategate emails - try and keep everyone you disagree with out of the journals so you can claim they don't know what they are talking about because they never get anything published.

I reference when it is appropriate but not overly frequently because most of the argument doesn't need referencing. Which is a weakness in JM's approach. It preferences footnotes over the argument and the physical facts. And footnoting can be a sign of weakness in an argument, not strength.

For example, if I said the sun rose in the East I wouldn't feel any need to reference a paper to prove it. But if someone was trying to prove the opposite and there was a source that supported them, then they would reference it. They would have to, because on the facts they are wrong. So referencing can actually work in the opposite direction. When trying to defend the indefensible many people don't argue the logic of the situation, they say "X, who is an expert, said Y, therefore Y is true."

In fact it was that very mode of debate that re-ignited my interest in global warming debate 10 or so years ago. It's that mode of debate that has got the IPCC into trouble with so many of its references about glaciers, damage from storms etc. which are references to useless sources.

And it is that mode of debate that constitutes much faith-based debate. "It says it in the Bible, so it must be true." "The IPCC says that polar bears are endangered because of climate change, so it must be true."

Severin, I think you're making it up. Monckton isn't the source of my information on global warming. He's very much on the fringe of climate debate, like Al Gore.

And my religion has nothing to do with my views on climate.

I go to religion for guidance on ethics, morality and spirituality, but not science.

As for information about my claims for the role played by CO2. Well, it is commonly acknowledged that H2O is responsible for around 95% of the effect. I don't think I need to reference that - all sides accept that to be the case. We've also had CO2 much higher than at present, but the planet has still been livable, except in the cases when it has been an iceball.

I think it is you that needs to justify claims that the small amount of CO2 that we are able to add to the atmosphere endangers the planet or us.

GrahamY

>>Aquinas said that God wrote two great books - the Bible and the book of nature<<
The reference to two books is usually ascribed to Galileo, where it makes more sense. The best I could find about Acquinas was “Sacred writings are bound into two volumes: that of creation and that of Holy Scripture” (Quoted in Carla Berkdahl, Earth Letter, “Dreaming of Green Parishes,” Sept., 1998, p. 1). Anyhow, the present ideas and rich literature about the relation of religion/theology to science is more rooted in Galileo than in Acquinas.

>>I find the Catholic church relatively speaking superstitious and irrational<<
I appreciate that you present this as a personal opinion, not as a sweeping statement as some do.

>>I find the requirement that saints perform miracles to be medieval and irrational<<
Since you repeatedly refer to this, let me also refer to something I already wrote here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10025#161723.

Squeers:

Stale? We like wine, cheese and the music of our age?

We conflict with the least contention possible, violent agreement I suspect.

Supercilious: The literalists deserve what *more* insulting tone?

Political indifference: If science has established a good first-principle reason for action, or debunked a long-cherished myth, it is hardly the business of science to worry, except insofar vested interests might delay effort.
Credulousness: space constrains, examples? Most cases of scientific fraud do not last more than a few cycles of publish-and-response. Absolute time is shorter as publishing advances.

What on earth: Usually our "visualisations". The equations and flowcharts are an output we use to communicate with others of roughly similar familiarity with the material. The gestalt of current knowledge and not-yet-published material that is transferred at conferences, personal communications, sabbaticals touring other labs contains not-yet-tested but illuminating insight. Good ideas become apparant after considerable (obsessive?) contemplation. It perhaps resembles what goes on in a conspiracy theorist's mind, with more accurate weightings of "maybes" and caution about "foregones". It is our *best* effort, which I think puts the efforts of the fiction-writers and mystics to shame.

Our "perception" of phenomena: As measured to the best of our ability. You will have noted, when an "invisible man" is consistently invoked, it is given a name and instruments are built to find it. It is our *best* effort, which I think puts the efforts of the fiction-writers and mystics to shame.

Reason is applicable to things we know something about. If I may use a story....

The ancient philosophers included the "atomists" who, "knowing" that various disparate materials had properties in common, proposed that this because they were composed of particles with varying surface descriptions. Sweet things were composed of "smooth", bitter had barbs etc. Brilliant!

What for sure do we *know* (and agree about, even from wildly different cultures) about "god" as certainly as we know grapes are sweet, or unrequited love bitter? *Then* we can reason about it.

The question, really: We are the master, reason serves us, where shall we take it?

Rusty

Rusty wrote: "We are the master, reason serves us, where shall we take it?"

In the first half of the century we had the Nazis who murdered people on racial grounds.

We had the communists who murdered people on the basis of class.

In 1987 there was a meeting of former CIA men in Switzerland who estimated that at that time CIA trained death squads had murdered about 6,000,000. An updated estimate would add to the number.

I recently read Ben Kiernan's Blood and Soil which gives a history of a number of genocides from Sparta until the present. Christianity was a big factor in justifying many of the slaughters.

Where has our reason taken us? All of these mass murders were a result of human planning, organisation and reason.