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| Nov 19, 2009 3:04 am |
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re: re: re: re: re: 35 Inconvenient Truths |
John Stephen Veitch
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The response of Mike, Sam and Thomas to this topic is very disappointing.
Each of you has adopted a political stance and all of you refuse to argue the science.
Let's deal to Christopher Monckton, the Charlatan.
"Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (born 14 February 1952) is a British politician, business consultant, policy adviser, writer, columnist, and inventor. He served as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher's policy unit in the 1980s.
He has expressed doubt about the reality of global warming in a number of newspaper articles and papers. He has been described in some quarters as a "former science adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and a world-renowned scholar.""
Monckton worked as a journalist from the age of 22. He apparently has no degree. He obtained a diploma in journalism.
"In 1979 Monckton met Alfred Sherman, who co-founded the pro-Conservative think tank the Centre for Policy Studies with Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph in 1974.
He wrote a paper on the privatization of council housing by means of a rent-to-mortgages scheme that brought him to the attention of Downing Street. Ferdinand Mount, the head of the Number 10 Policy Unit and a former CPS director, brought Monckton into the Policy Unit in 1982, where he worked until 1986 as a special advisor on economic matters.
Monckton was an unsuccessful candidate for a Conservative seat in the House of Lords in a March 2007 by-election caused by the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton.
The British writer and environmentalist George Monbiot has criticized Monckton's arguments, labeling them "cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific gibberish."
Monckton has "no training whatsoever in science", and criticize his asserted credentials as "unfounded self-promotion.""
(All of the above from Wikipedia.)
Thomas will be pleased to note the Monckton is a sophist in the modern sense of the word. The question is, are Mike, Ron and Thomas also sophists in the same way. Using Thomas;s own definition of a "sophist". "They were (ultimately) famous/notorious for being agnostic about "truth". Their claimed expertise was how to make "the weaker argument appear the stronger".
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Mike offered a religious justification for ignoring Global warming in the "AFA Action Alert Video webcast".
Honestly Mike, be serious.
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Thomas's argument is pseudo-scientific. He begins with a more or less correct statement.
"The epistemology of western civilization requires that the burden of proof is on the affirmative proposition."
And then he destroys his good work by completely misrepresenting what's intended.
Which is why I mentioned Karl Popper. Popper said that proper science was an art form that required the creation of hypotheses that were precisely stated as a positive statement that can be falsified.
WHEN that situation exists no number of repeated successful experiments can prove the proposition to be valid, but any single failure will prove it invalid.
Much of what is called normal science proceeds on the basis of that practice.
Climate change is a bit more difficult. You can't put the climate in a laboratory, and close down the variables at will. Climate science is conducted in a living and changing open environment.
So for the last 100 years or more scientists have been trying to understand various subsystems in the natural environment. The oxygen cycle, the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the carbon cycle as examples. How does the land and the ocean alter the climate?
The IPCC has a mountain of evidence backing the view that global warming is occurring and that man made environmental changes are destabilizing the climate towards much more rapid and permanent global warming than anyone suspected would be possible only 30 years ago.
This is "standard science" doing what standard science does. Now of course there's a long history of standard science being wrong. And, who knows, standard science might be wrong now, but you'll need to prove it.
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Ron
The Science and Public Policy Institute seem to be a pseudo science group set up to oppose standard climate science. When they quote Monckton as their expert, they undermine any credibility they might have had.
The American Physical Society seems to be at war with itself. The APS in November 2007, adopted a policy saying: "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur."
However on Forum on Physics & Society, in July 2008, is backing away from that view, saying that it's not the view of the Executive.
Sadly, they too choose to use Monckton as their "expert".
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Ron,
I wasn't thinking about the political views of Karl Popper, but yes he favored democratic means and open discussion, and he would approve of this forum. It's up to us not to disgrace the fine example he set.
Further down the article there is reference to the philosophy of science work he did, which was my concern.
Then you insult me by dishing out a garbage text on the threat of Communism and the United Nations. The first two pages were full of untruth and distortions of reality. I could read no further. Garbage in / Garbage out; Ron. If you feed yourself, if you consume this sort of wildly distorted rubbish, you'll become just like him.
Edward F. Blick, discredits himself as a serious voice. I'd say without reading further that he's a religious crank. Dangerous in the same way Osama bin Laden is dangerous.
John Stephen Veitch; The Network Ambassador
Open Future Limited - http://www.openfuture.co.nz/
Innovation Network - http://veech-network.ryze.com/
Building an Open Future - http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/Private Reply to John Stephen Veitch (new win) |
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