Evolution is a hoax I tell you!
All too often we are “treated” to yet another story about some ‘study’ that has definitively refuted Evolution or Anthropogenic Climate Change. Generally the mere claim tells you with 99.99% certainty that the ‘study’ is wrong or grossly misrepresented.
The very idea that a single study could disprove either is improbable in the extreme. The naive belief that it could betrays a profound misunderstanding of science in general, and most particularly the science supporting both concepts. The popularity of these claims with their respective audiences tells us a lot about how little they understand what they are talking about.
While it certainly happens that the science supporting a particular idea is disproven, the probability decreases as the volume of data accumulates and the sources and types of data multiplies. The scope and scale of science supporting both evolution and anthropogenic climate change is huge and most Deniers[1] seem utterly oblivious to this.
The problems break down into four areas, misunderstanding: i) the existing evidence, ii) how science works as a process, iii) what science even is, and iv) the concepts of evolution and/or climate change and how they integrate with science as a whole. Bonus round v) the social politics of science.
i) the existing evidence
Deniers seem not to grasp the very nature of the evidence for the concepts. An analogy might be comparing if you have 2 reports of an elephant. In one case it is a small group of reliable witnesses who swear they saw an elephant in the back garden.
Topo Gigo? Is that you?
In the second case you have thousands of unrelated people who variously have photographs, videos, sound recordings, foot casts, thermal imaging, dentition samples, x-rays, ultrasound images, radar and sonar images, samples of DNA , tissue, hair, saliva, stools etc. Further, all of of these data samples had been analysed multiple ways, all yielding the same result.
Then along comes someone with a handful of pictures of a mouse and claims that it proves there was no elephant in the garden. How likely is it that this evidence will prove conclusive in the first example? in the second? Possible of course, but not very likely.
The Deniers seem to think they face a scientific basis as in the first example, a small amount of data of a single type. In fact the situation is of the second type, a vast amount of data of many different types.
ii) how science works
Deniers usually seem highly offended when all of the existing evidence is not immediately tossed out the moment they show up with some ‘new study’. Usually accusations of of some sort of conspiracy to maintain the orthodoxy are made. If they understood how science works they would not be so surprised.
If we go back to our analogy and the first example: the evidence provided by a group of reliable witnesses is not automatically discounted just because someone is waving a handful of pictures. The more recent claim is not assumed to be more correct simply because it is newer or involves some fancier technology. Technology often just means you can screw up more thoroughly and on a grander scale.
Any reasonable person wants to understand how you can have both the testimony of reliable witnesses and pictures that seem to contradict it. Are they from the same garden? at the same time? Are the pictures really of a mouse? Were the witnesses drunk? Was it a trick of the light perhaps? Perhaps there was both an elephant and a mouse in the garden at the same time.
Scientists will examine both sets of evidence in detail as well as seek new evidence that will corroborate one or the other of the stories. They might check the garden for mouse and/or elephant tracks. Scrutinize the pictures in minute detail to be sure it is the same garden. Interview all of the witnesses separately asking them to give detailed descriptions of what they saw.
They will try to come up with evidence that rules out one or the other possibility. Is the back fence trampled into splinters? probably not a mouse then. Are there no tracks of any kind? in that case it is more likely that it was a mouse than an elephant. And so on.
Regardless of whether they conclude that there was really an elephant, or a mouse, or both, or neither, scientists will want to understand how both sets of data could exist. Scientists will not be happy until all of the data is rationally explained.
That is how it would play out in the first, simple example in the analogy. In the second case involving thousands of different studies and types of evidence how much more likely is it that it is the ‘new evidence’ is actually flawed in some way? Not that it should automatically be rejected, and in science it never is, but scientists will regard it with a lot of skepticism until it has been thoroughly verified.
Not to stretch the analogy too far, but to date all of the evidence supposedly refuting the elephants
Worth a thousand words ... so to speak
of evolution and climate science have turned out to be mistaken in some way, or in many cases nothing more than a metaphoric picture of a mouse puppet badly grafted on to a picture of a garden (ie lame frauds).
iii) what science even is
Actually science is many things, but let’s focus on a couple of important elements. At heart “science” is a really just set of rules of what is acceptable as a way of knowing the world. Your stoner cousin’s claim to have seen Bigfoot is not considered on the same level of credibility as Watson and Crick’s experiments with DNA. By common consent it is understood that these rules and methods are the only way we can rationally learn more about the world and advance human knowledge, hence the Scientific Method.
In science we accept the simplest hypothesis (explanation) that explains the data (or as much of it as possible). All of the climate Denier myths about sunspots and natural variation etc are simple, but they don’t explain a great deal of the data. So we say those explanations are false.
We also insist that a hypothesis be testable. That is to say there must be a way to check the explanation through experimentation and/or observation, and be able to rule out other explanations. So called “Intelligent Design” is both simple and it does explain the data, but it is not testable so it is not science.
This is why it is a Red Herring to claim that scientists object to the teachings of Creationism or Intelligent Design. Teach away … but not in science classes, because it is not science. Such an objection is not surprising. Shakespeare should not be taught in Mathematics classes, nor calculus in Drama, nor the Periodic Table in Religion classes.
Another frequent objection is that evolution/climate change has not been “proved.” Actually because of the problem of induction science abandoned the fiction of proofs many decades ago.
Except in pure mathematics nothing can be proved. Not gravity, not thermodynamics, not the existence of the sun, nothing. So it is no great surprise that neither evolution nor climate change have been proved either, nor is it meaningful or relevant. All the claim demonstrates is the naivite of the person objecting.
To date all of the supposed refutations of evolution and climate change have been bad science, pseudoscience and/or nonscience.
iv) the concepts of evolution and/or climate change
Evolution and climate change are theories, which in science means they are very credible. What “theory” means in science is well expained elsewhere, so I won’t repeat it. The link provided refers to evolution, but you can just substitute ‘climate change’ in the text and it is just as true. Here again the person objecting is just demonstrating how little they know about science.
Evolution and anthropogenic climate change are not testable hypotheses in the same sense that the strength of the force of gravity is. Rather they are meta-concepts that are the simplest, most rational overall explanation for the huge masses of data from thousands of studies across many disciplines. There is no one test that could potentially falsify either in and of themselves separate from the rest of science.
Of course each of the studies that they rely on is testable and has followed the proper scientific method. Any of these could potentially be shown to be wrong, but that would be unlikely to have much effect on either theory except in specific details. They are based on such a broad array of data across many disciplines that the only way to overthrow either completely is something that falsifies one or more of the fundamentals of modern science.
For example, the discovery of a fossil of a modern species in ancient strata would do it; say a Puffin that 
could be shown to have definitely existed in the Permian. That would bring down evolution. And pretty much everything we think we know about geology, chemistry, physics, biology, etc. Pretty much all of science actually.
Equally the discovery of some foundational error in science could topple climate change theory; for eg demonstrating that CO2 is in fact not a greenhouse gas at all. That would do it, with similar consequences for all of the sciences.
The reason is that we “know” CO2 is a greenhouse gas based on very basic chemistry and physics. The only way CO2 could turn out to not be a greenhouse gas is if our fundamental understanding of basic chemistry and physics is wrong. If they are wrong, pretty much all of modern science is down the tubes.
It could happen of course. Nothing is certain in science. There are no “proofs.” But how likely is it? And if it were to happen it would be the only subject of special issues of every scientific journal on the planet. Definitely not found only in some obscure paper posted as a *.pdf on a Denier site somewhere.
Naturally details of both evolution and climate science are being modified all of the time as our understanding and knowledge increases and improves. Specific aspects of particulars are being falsified and refined continuously, but that is quite different from falsifying the entire concept.
Knowing this, is it any wonder that scientists are so skeptical every time they hear another claim that evolution or climate science has been disproved? Even so, as Eric Steig writes, scientists check’s each one out, just in case.
v) the social politics of science
Even if science as a whole had a vested interest in preserving the status quo, individual scientists do not.
The premise that scientists are suppressing data that could undermine evolution or climate change is ridiculous for the numerous reasons. In the first place many scientists do have a sincere commitment to the truth regardless of what it may be. Further, there is a tremendous (although sadly not universal) commitment to integrity. There is also ego and self interest.
Charles Darwin
Anyone who could actually completely overturn either evolution or climate science would go down in history as one of the truly great geniuses. Galileo, Newton, Einstein, “You”! The Nobel Prize, MacArthur Genius grants, Presidential Medals, Legion of Honour, Knight of the Empire, book deals, maybe even an appearance on Oprah or The Colbert Report … all yours.
Yes, Darwin is revered. Yes it would be a pity to chuck out most of current science, but anyone who imagines that most scientists would hesitate more than a second given the above has obviously not met many scientists. This one is what you call a “no brainer.”
Guildenstern: “I’m sorry it wasn’t the unicorn. It would have been nice to have unicorns.”
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Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 29 … still no evidence.
1As I discuss here I do not use the term “Denier” to refer to all climate change doubters. Those who thoughtfully and intelligently address the facts I call ’skeptics’.
Those who irrationally deny the existence of the science and instead propagate the lies and distortions such as those discussed above and linked to the right under “Debunking Denier Nonsense” are “Deniers”.
The choice of the correct term is based on their actions, not their conclusions.
IMAGE CREDITS:
“And they called me mad,mad I tell you!!!!” by practicalowl
Bar Code for The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper from Wikimedia Commons
[1] There are many flaws in most people’s thinking today about this issue. They do not separate Darwinian theory from science. There are many scientists today with advanced science degrees from major universities that believe the flaws in Darwinian theory are so great they cannot be repaired.[2] To equate this theory with science I believe is to not only dishonor those who take opposing views in the scientific field today, but also many of the founders of the fields of science who did not accept Darwinian theory. Sir Francis Bacon who gave us the scientific method rejected Darwinian theory, as did most of the founders of the different fields of science. There exist today, pro-Darwinian scientists, and anti-Darwinian scientists. Many are equating someone’s interpretation of the evidence as science, and someone else’s interpretation of the same evidence as not being science. There needs to be a separation made between what is known, and what is believed.[3]
For example: what an eye is and how it operates is pure science. How we got an eye is speculative at best and historical in nature and does not deserve to be considered empirical observable science. This and other beliefs about how we got an eye need to be placed in a different category. Our textbooks should have empirical, observable, and experimental science in one section; and historical beliefs about how we may have gotten an eye in another section. I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. There are things in our textbooks today which have been proven wrong, some over 100 years ago, and they are still in our textbooks.
Also, many have accepted Darwinian theory for philosophical reasons, not scientific ones. I could give you many quotes from pro-Darwinians as to why they hold to this theory, because of what they percieve to be the only alternative.
It is stated that science limits itself to natural causes. Why should science be limited to only a naturalistic viewpoint? Scientists in the past and present have not always done so. Consider this quote: “(The Big Bang) represents the instantaneous suspension of physical laws, the sudden, abrupt flash of lawlessness that allowed something to come out of nothing. It represents a true miracle-transcending physical principles… ” Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981, p. 161.
The theory accepted by pro-Darwinians for the natural explanation of the existence of the universe violates the first law of thermodynamics, the law of cause and effect, and the law of the conservation of angular momentum, yet it is still accepted. Whose supernatural explanation for the existence of the universe shall we accept as being scientific? You cannot have an explosion without energy or matter, that is unscientific.
How about the beginning of life? Darwinian scientists teach abiogenesis, but the Law of Biogenesis still exists. Some textbooks try to get around this by saying: “But the law of biogenesis doesn’t really answer the question where life came from.” That is not correct. It does partially answer the question, it didn’t come from non-life. Pasteur, Redi, Spalanzani and others already proved that wrong, that’s why we have the law of biogenesis. Life does not form through natural processes from non-life. That has never been observed, nor has it been produced in the laboratory. It is unscientific. For that to happen would take something supernatural to occur.
All life consists of left-handed amino acids only. If you start with all left-handed amino acids it starts to revert to about a half-right, half-left mixture. When something dies it starts reverting to half right and half left. Yet life requires all left-handed amino acids. That is against nature. Life is a supernatural event.
Hypothetically, what if creation were true, and evolution actually didn’t happen? Where does reality figure into the equation? Although many would claim otherwise, Darwinian theory is an interpretation of evidence, not the evidence itself.
What are the mechanisms for evolution? Mutations and natural selection. Almost all mutations are harmful and produce a net loss in genetic information over time. Darwinian theory requires a net gain in genetic information over time. Mutations are almost always the least likely to survive. Natural selection almost always prevents change and will weed out almost all mutations. What happens naturally is that the genetic load (defects) is getting greater, the gene pool of information is getting smaller. Yet Darwinian theory requires something that goes against nature. Would it not then be supernatural?
The Darwinians claim the fossil record proves evolution happened, it actually proves it didn’t. Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge admitted that. Why do you think they came up with the theory of “punctuated equilibrium?” Because they admitted there was no evidence of slow change in the fossil record. They claimed that proved evolution happened quickly and left no fossil evidence behind. Darwin said future discoveries should contain millions of fossils clearly in transition. In fact, he said the absense of these would falsify his theory. I think he underestimated the enginuity of his followers, and the gullibility of the general public.
Dr. Werner Gitt, a German information scientist, developed scientific laws concerning information. I just want to mention five things briefly. All information must have four things or it is not information: a sender, a receiver, an information code, an agreement between the sender and the receiver concerning the code. This is the observable evidence for every form of information known to man. Pro-Darwinians agree except when it comes to the most complex form of information, human DNA. With that they insist there was no sender. It somehow originated from matter and energy. Matter and energy are material entities. Reason, conscience, information, etc are examples of non-material entities. It is scientifically impossible for a non-material entity to have its origin from a material source.
Are there any life forms clearly in transition today? No. Is there fossil evidence it happened in the past? No. If someone were to beam in the DNA from one human being from outer space, the scientists at SETI would go nuts. That would be absolute proof there is intelligence out there. It would actually be better proof there is not a lot of intelligence on this planet.
In Search of the Truth,
Dr. A.E. Edgeworth
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The real problem with Anthropogenic Climate Change: The theory does not follow from the evidence.
. [1] And the theory is, well, just really, really reaching. All the evidence I’ve seen, and even the evidence that is often presented to backup their theories, simply points the other way. I mean, it’s bloody obvious that the data does not support the conclusions, but everybody seems to be hopping on the bandwagon and ignoring all the actual facts.[2]
I don’t know how to express that in the sort of scientific rigor somebody would require, but that’s how it is. The data does not support the theory. It often doesn’t even hint at the theory. And yet Affirmers (to coin a phrase for people who believe in this nonsense no matter what contrary evidence there is) seem to simply cherry pick the bits that back them up and ignore the rest. That’s not science, that’s faith. [3]
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I agree with your post in concept. I would like to throw mention that evolution skeptics have a lot less ground to stand on than climate change skeptics. Last I heard, there was a 95% chance that humans were contributing to climate change. The 5% chance that climate change theory is incorrect is not likely, but is much, much higher than the chance that the theory of evolution is incorrect. Equating the two (in terms of evidence, likelihood of mistakes, etc.) is problematic. Climate change “skeptics” have some scientific footing. Evolution skeptics do not.
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I’m sorry but using the term Denier is insulting and inaccurate. If it makes you feel all cozy inside, whatever but that doesn’t make you right.
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I do study biology for 3 years now and have to say if someone is denying global warming has not a clue what the actual state of modern science is.
The observed conditions and the experiments have shown that if we continue like we live right now will lead to the following thing:
Destruction of our only fooding ground (the earth)
Why? Because we act like most bacteriums on a growing plate: Grow, Eat and Reproduce until there is nothing left -> Then the population shrink till its complete destruction – and I have never seen a bacterium jump to another plate…
(By the way I’m not native speaking, so therefore my english is….)
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You don’t impress me, “doctor” Edgworth
The theory accepted by pro-Darwinians for the natural explanation of the existence of the universe violates the first law of thermodynamics, the law of cause and effect, and the law of the conservation of angular momentum, yet it is still accepted.
The Darwinian theory of evolution doesn’t explain the existence of the universe at all. Of course. Why should it? Do the laws of electromagnetism explain modern economy?
But if you are referring to the existence of life, it doesn’t violate any law. Man, learn about those laws and what it is the meaning of “a closed system”.
The rest of your comment is full of other errors and logical fallacies. I am sure more readers will point them to you.
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The real problem with Anthropogenic Climate Change Denial: The theory does not follow from the evidence.
I mean, really. I’ve looked at all the evidence. I’ve seen the graphs, I’ve read the studies. And the theory is, well, just really, really reaching. All the evidence I’ve seen, and even the evidence that is often presented to backup their theories, simply points the other way. I mean, it’s bloody obvious that the data does not support the conclusions, but everybody seems to be hopping on the bandwagon and ignoring all the actual facts.
I don’t know how to express that in the sort of scientific rigor somebody would require, but that’s how it is. The data does not support the theory. It often doesn’t even hint at the theory. And yet Deniers (to coin a phrase for people who believe in this nonsense no matter what contrary evidence there is) seem to simply cherry pick the bits that back them up and ignore the rest. That’s not science, that’s faith.
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Quote: “All of it? Wow! Given the thousands of studies I don’t think any of the professional climate researchers have looked at all of it.”
Can you please give a specific number of studies? Thousands is a little too general, oh, and can you limit it to the studies that have been “peer reviewed”, please? [1]
As for your article above, while you have an excellent grasp of the english language, strong debate skills, and a seemingly vast intellectual knowledge of many things academic, I found your treatise inflammatory, selectively factual [2]and adds absolutely nothing to the great scientific debate of our century. [3]
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Whaaat? …
“Except in pure mathematics nothing can be proved. Not gravity, not thermodynamics, not the existence of the sun, nothing. So it is no great surprise that neither evolution nor climate change have been proved either, nor is it meaningful or relevant. All the claim demonstrates is the naivite of the person objecting.
To date all of the supposed refutations of evolution and climate change have proven to be bad science, pseudoscience and/or nonscience.”
Yeah, you’re a real intellectual and really should be lecturing about science. Whatever….
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Brian (Other Brian): The IPCC AR4 SPM uses “very likely” to refer to >90% probability, not 95. Your statement is otherwise correct, but deserves the caveat that the IPCC’s SPM probability estimates are determined by committee review of the evidence — and therefore only the most conservative points enter the statements. (Stories from the time of the SPM’s drafting report that it would have read “virtually certain” (over 99% probability) except that China refused to endorse that claim for political reasons. Kind of telling when “90-99% likely” is a conservative estimate.)
SomeGuy: He clarifies at the bottom what he means by Denier. There are legitimate points to be skeptical on in climate theory (i.e. how close we are to tipping points, where saturation points in carbon sinks are, and so on). However, to say things like “modern CO2 rise is within natural variability“? That isn’t rational.
Denialism is not about what information they use or what position they hold. Denialism is about tactics. To read more on Denier tactics, consider this long yet informative piece. There’s some great previous posts on this blog as well — Mike’s found instances where, for instance, the self-selected 10 best papers ‘refuting’ AGW suffer from mutual exclusivity, but the promoter of that list didn’t realize the contradiction.
A scientific theory is only useful if it is able to explain observed empirical evidence, and able to predict future observations. If it fails to do either of these things, the theory is untenable, and needs to be revised, or discarded.
The biggest problem with the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is that it does not explain observed empirical evidence, and has no predictive capacity. The theory is that increased output of greenhouse gases, in particular CO2, will result in an increase in temperature of the planet. There seems to be no good evidence for this assertion, either in the fossil record, or in the observations of the climate. Examples: CO2 levels in ice cores do not correlate to increases in temperature, and can be observed to follow, not lead temperature changes. CO2 levels grow higher and higher with each passing year, yet the temperature does not increase – in fact it has been decreasing in the last few years. Ice at the poles wanes and waxes – it is a little warmer in the Arctic, yet the ice pack there is larger this year than last year, and the ice pack at the south pole continues to accumulate.
Obviously, there are other factors at work than a simplistic link between a weak greenhouse gas and observed cyclical temperature changes. The theory is weak, because it does not explain observed evidence, and has no predictive power.
The Earth is not a closed system – it is affected by external factors such as solar output, magnetic field strength changes of both the Sun and the Earth, cosmic rays, etc. etc.
There are elements within the scientific community that support the theory of AGW who posit a “tipping point” scenario, as if CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere had the effect of pure positive feedback on global temperature. This utter nonsense refuted by millions of years of geological evidence. In and of itself, the Earth is a complex dynamic system which has shown great variation in climate over the millions of years of its history. AGW takes none of this into account.
It is a flawed theory and needs much more work to become “useful”.
Also I resent the “package deal” you present in your “article.” By lumping Creationists together with AGW skeptics, you seek to show the former as uneducated and unintelligent as the latter. The two groups are nowhere equivalent, and I find this kind of lumping together to be insulting, and intellectually lazy. Poor job.
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The Earth’s climate changes about every 15,000 to 30,000 years. The fact that we can now measure these changes is the cause for all the alarm.
Evolution, like most branches of science, assumes that everything that exists can be observed. Although I don’t agree with the the current Intelligent Design movement (or anything Christian for that matter), it is easy to conceive of the idea that not all phenomena can be observed.
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VNJD: If it can’t be observed it falls under the domain of the supernatural, and the supernatural is outside the bounds of science (which is, fundamentally, the study of the natural world). You can conceive of such things, but they can’t be classified as science. (Sort of like how I can conceive of extraterrestrial intelligence, but it wouldn’t be classified as human by definition.)
Furthermore, the ID/Creationist movement assumes that God/the ‘Designer’ is by definition interventionist, and thus has had an impact on the natural world. Even if He isn’t observable Himself, the results of the intervention certainly should be. However, since positive existential statements bear the burden of proof, the null hypothesis is that the universe should behave exactly as it would if it were not created by a deity or intelligence. We find insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis as yet.
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Great post.
If I can figure out what’s wrong with my printer I’ll make a copy of it and keep it close to hand.
I just discovered your site and I’ve added it to my daily place to stop list.
I’m usually just a lurker and seldom comment, but I have to say the good Dr Edgeworth gave me the chuckle for the day:”Natural selection almost always prevents change and will weed out almost all mutations.”
Shake a tree and it’s sometimes amazing what hits the ground….heh, heh….
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I’m not going to write a journal article, with citations and footnotes, in the comments section of your blog. [1] Naturally, comments are going to be necessarily “broad”. The specific items I mentioned in passing are either true or false, and can be readily verified, or not, on the internet.
The issue I have with your article is that you want to “package deal” denial of the evidence of Evolution together with skepticism of the science of Global Warming. The two ideas are not equivalent in importance to overall scientific understanding. [2]
The central concepts of Evolution are the underpinnings of most of modern science – the theory informs and enriches our understanding of nearly every single biological, genetic, and geological discovery. To throw out Evolution is to throw out most of our modern understanding of the world. It is a bedrock theory upon which a lot of knowledge rests. The same cannot be said of AGW. The theory is too new, too uncertain, and too much in dispute, even in a scientific community that seems to have in large part accepted it as the truth. We don’t have to wait for a single study to appear that would improbably tip the theory on it’s head [3] - there are a lot of dissenting voices out there, doing good solid repeatable research [4]- for anyone to say that the matter has been settled conclusively.
Nothing really relies on the ideas of AGW. If it were proven to be incorrect, not much of modern science would have to be revised. This is the fundamental difference between the two that your article simply fails to take into account. This is one of the reasons I called it intellectually lazy. [5]
The current state of religion over the AGW theory makes any kind of constructive conversation about it impossible. Anyone “denying” the truth of AGW is either a crackpot or a shill for the oil companies in your world view. [6] A world view that is certainly not very scientific.
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Does this count?
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
No, of course not – they are listed in your “goat list” with no reason given.
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I’m glad you talk about Karl Popper. His thinking was that scientists should work hard to disprove theories. If they don’t succeed then it is a working theory until disproved. More rigorous that way. As you point out in the Elephant example, talking about proving theories leads to a lot of discussion.
The comparison with law is however misleading. Scientists, to use the law analogy, are expert witnesses. Not prosecutors. Not judges or juries. For law to work you HAVE to make a judgement over causality in order for there to be consequences on negative actions. In the same way HAVE to act is incumbent on governments (ultimately all individuals) who by law represent the stewards of national resources.[1]
Anyway, that’s why scientists are sceptics and the media can rightly claim ” most scientists sceptical to climate change”.
In the case of climate change, take the theory “you can spew out as much CO2 as you like, it will not make a blind bit of difference to the climate system.”
There is LITTLE evidence to support such theories. For example…. where has all the extra CO2 in the atmosphere come from? And there is no evidence to show it is all absorbed. On the contrary, experiments to DISPROVE the relation between increased CO2 and increased warming have not been able to rule out a greenhouse effect.
The next theory… Global warming is NOT a life threatening phenomena. Again, attempts to disprove this have not succeeded.
So … and check the wording here as the double negative throws a lot of people … it has not been disproved that man-made emissions can threaten life on Earth. We cannot disprove the theory that levels of CO2 over 350ppm create imbalances in climate system.
Now. How are the stewards of our environment – the people we elect – going to act on that? Because we are talking major risk.
Version 1. The voice of sense. Our government, acting on scientific evidence, is working to limit emissions as they may threaten existence.
Version 2. The voice of “science interpreted for ends”. Although it has not been shown emissions are completely safe, we are going to continue until the negative consequences force us to react.
Back to your law comparison.[1] That would be like the court, unable to convict the baddies, (no-one could really PROVE it was them!!!) would let them rule the city until people got so fed up with it, or it got so bad the community went under.
That is what we are looking at. It is going to get real bad before anyone does anything.
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Mike, thank you for selectively editing parts of my comment out and changing what I said. This just goes to show how you cannot take real criticism or debate. Altering somebody’s actual words is not a valid debate method.
I will not attempt to argue with you in the future, as you’re clearly not interested in real debate or argument.
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[...] Click here for more… Evolution / Global Warming Deniers just don’t get it « Greenfyre’s [...]
I confess to being a little bit of a skeptic re: AGW, but only in terms of its severity. Essentially, I guess I acknowledge it but choose to be optimistic that the planet will heal itself once we moderate our behavior. I’ve seen some young people get a little hysterical in their projections, and I’m afraid that sort of nonsense doesn’t help make their case or encourage people to take them seriously.
But the whole ID thing is so patently ridiculous, and so damaging to the education of children, to confuse them with this thinly veiled scripture instead of science…it just sickens me. I find most of the religious folk who refuse to accept the truth of evolution really just don’t want to be descended from monkeys; have they even read *The Origin of Species*? Darwin doesn’t say we descended from monkeys, he says that we and other primates share a common ancestor. And as my son says, if anyone saw my husband without his shirt on, that wouldn’t be that hard to accept.
I also find it ironic that most religious people are more than happy to let science find them cures and medicines, and create labor-saving devices, and make them money, but then get upset when it disrupts their anthropocentric made-in-God’s-image-and-granted-dominion-over-the-Earth cosmology.
Loving the mouse and elephant to illustrate some key concepts.
But I have a couple of bones to pick with you.
“By common consent it is understood that these rules and methods are the only way we can rationally learn more about the world and advance human knowledge”.
This reads like it is right out of something written before Popper was born. It strongly suggests the view that scientific knowledge is vastly superior to lay knowledge, and to other types of knowledge. Regrettably, it is a perspective that has generally translated into support of economic interests since the emergence of capitalism; and uncritical ideological support for a conservative, authoritarian scientific establishment, since the brief independence of institutionalized science that we call the scientific revolution. Science has long been a slave to the activity of the capitalist economy in the West.
Bone 2. The idea that an individual scientist’s ego would have the role you suggest, or that a scientist’s research is commonly shaped by a desire for discovery (or provides opportunity for this) is understandable: it was a real condition of the scientific revolution, still taught as part of the history (and modern mythology) of science. It is easy to see how the Popper-Kuhn debate, and especially the radicality of Feyerabend, have inspired this.
Howeve, this defies the vast intellectual literature of the social study of science, for those of us familiar with it. Studies of scholarship in sociology, social science and philosophy (among other humanities) show that science and individual scientists are now broadly institutionalized in relation to academic and economic interests, not revolution or discovery. Why would we think otherwise, except for the appeal of the idea of The Hero?
That is not to say that the evidence for human-caused climate change is not clear. It is very clear.
It is to say that all your conservative critics (and holy moly, you seem to have alot of them) should embrace the consensus on climate change, if for no other reason than most of these scientist are friends of the current economic organization and want it to continue.
In other words, the science on climate change is actually protective of the system your critics wish to defend.
Cheers.
Anthropogenic global warming deniers and evolution by natural selection deniers share something important in common. They both deny something. That’s a trivial observation, however, as we all deny something.
So perhaps we can narrow things down a bit by asking what is it about the substance or character of their denial that makes them mutually similar but at the same time different to the vast majority of ordinary common or garden denialists, who don’t deny the validity of either AGW or ENS.
Well, for a start, we might say that they deny the validity of something that is accepted by a majority of educated lay people at present as being scientifically valid. I think we can say they have that much in common. But what else they have in common that ropes them off from the rest of humanity, I have no idea. [1] Perhaps with all the talk of mice and elephants and puffins in the Permian, I missed the import of this post, which on the surface reads to me like a lame attempt to strawman the case against AGW by recourse to a false analogy. [2] But that’s just my first impression.
James Hastings-Trew, I appreciate your comments and I salute your good sense.
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You launch a half-baked criticism and calling the elephant and mouse analogy a “false analogy”, without even a single word to explain why it’s false — instead you just churn out a long unrelated diatribe over the word “denial”. You then try to disclaim your criticism by saying ‘oh, but that’s just my first impression’. Duh.
s/calling/call/
drankibi,
You use the putdown “Duh” at the end your comment without the slightest awareness of the irony that the idiot you are addressing is a lot smarter, a lot more knowledgeable, and a lot more handsome and loveable than you will ever be. But never mind. In contrast to my numerous good qualities, I suffer from the character weakness of being forgiving to a fault. So I’ll overlook your rudeness just this once.
My point about denial is that our good host makes a point of characterizing certain folks and opinions as “denialist” in an attempt to trivialize and ridicule them [1]. The term is not merely descriptive but is a commonly acknowledged slur that has the effect of shutting off further debate, and as such it has no place in constructive scientific discussion. [2]
Moreoever, the “denialist” position he attacks is a stereotypical one in that very few people who question the AGW orthodoxy conform to. But he has a “get out clause” there. Whenever somebody objects to being so labeled, he will commonly say that he didn’t mean them personally [3], as they are skeptics; he meant those Neanderthal morons that get all their news from the tabloids they read while smoking on the john.
Why is the analogy between people who dispute ENS and those who dispute AGW a false analogy? Where do I begin? AGW was Darwin’s attempt to account for existence of the fossil record and the fact that species exist that appear closely related to each other. The theory made predictions that were later borne out in abundance; the physical existence of genes being among the most spectacular. To deny that natural selection is a mechanism that drives the evolution of living organisms requires either considerable stupidity or considerable faith in alternative views.
By contrast, those who dispute the reality of anthropogenic global warming have a lot more data on their side. Paleoclimate records including ice core, tree ring, ocean sediment and other methods provide ample evidence that the world undergoes major climatic changes on timescales ranging from decades to millennia. [4] The scale of these changes dwarfs any manmade climate change that has taken place so far, [5] and some of those changes were lightning fast in geological terms. For example, thousands mammoths surviving on the tundra were killed and then their bodies frozen before the normal processes of decay could set in, and then they remained frozen for around 10,000 years until recent centuries.
AGW predictions have also had a rather uninspiring record so far. The world is a lot cooler today than Hansen predicted 20 or even 10 years ago. For one thing, the early AGW zealots forgot to include the multidecadal oceanic oscillations in their models and they don’t do a very good job on cloud effects either. [6]
But the upshot is, while we have no evidence beyond reasonable doubt of evolution in nature not through natural selection, we have plenty on non-athropogenic global warming and cooling. [7] However, we have no evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the warming of recent decades was mainly or totally caused by humans. None whatsoever. [8]
Therefore, it is disingenious to posit an equivalence of skeptics of AGW with those of ENS. The correct thing to do would be to debate each point of evidence on its merits and not to slur and smear people merely for daring to swear at one’s own particular sacred cow. Duh. [9]
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Irony emphasized.
That was not even the analogy. The analogy that Greenfyre brought up was between AGW theory (or evolution theory) and the elephant and the mouse.
So in effect you’re making up your own analogy so that you can criticize it as being false.
Oh, and here’s more irony I see:
It’s always nice to see that deniers — um, skeptics — keep yelling about “name-calling” but have no problem with calling their opposition names.
[...] Click here for more… Evolution / Global Warming Deniers just don’t get it « Greenfyre’s [...]
Mike your response to Mr.Groves is highly illumnitive of the fact that you are engaged in a political discussion not a scientific one ,and not a particularly rigorous one at that .You did not effectively rebut any of Mr.Groves points you merely avoided his central point.A)If global warming is a real scientific theory it must prove itself through its falsifiability. [1]That is it must make predictions based on observable data.So far Mr.Groves is correct, AGW computer simulations have not proven particularly accurate in making any kind of case for a rise in temperture, and certainly no definitive link beetween human activity and that rise.Einsteins theory of general relativity became widely accepted beccaus its prediction of the curvature of light around mercury was much more accurate then Sir Issac Newton’s.I have seen no such [2] specific predictive numbers come from the “global warming theorists” or anything which dares to make rigorous specific predictions .Perhaps it is you who are the one that does not get it. [3] A working scientist
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Just curious: how many have you come across who accept Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) but deny Biological Macro-evolution?
In terms of degrees of proof for existence, here is a random selection of events that some people have disputed the existence of, that I rank from the highest positive positive number being the most proven to negative numbers being more and more bullshit. I made up arbitrary numbers in order to differentiate between a relatively small gap between events from those with a large gap in their level of evidence:
500) Spanish Inquisition/Holocaust (specifically by the Nazis of Jews and anti-Nazi sympathizers, but many other Holocausts exist, too), biological macro-evolution, Einstein relativity
400) Anthropogenic global warming
300) Alien visitation by intelligent beings with extremely advanced technology. Perfectly consistent with evolution.
250) Bigfoot
-1) George Bush caused 911, US government planned 911 (although, I personally would celebrate if Bush were tortured and executed for causing 911 or any other crime he did not do in order to punish him for the crimes he did do)
-300) astrology
-500) god, Jesus had special powers
-10^10) bad things will happen if we do not obey tenets of christianity, islam, or forcing people to obey the laws of most modern countries simply for the sake of obeying the law.
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I assume that hardcore mathematical modelling is still taught in colleges and universities these days, specifically, that college students are taught to create and invent their OWN models, of both natural events and of social interactions. The education I received for my BChE (Bachelor of Chemical Engineering) degree from the University of Delaware in 1986 changed my life forever, to be outdone only by my MS and then PhD in Mathematics from Rutgers in 2000.
Although I am not a specialist in formal logic, all of my collective education inspires me to work on and invent my own models of epistemology – the study of how we know things – using formal logic.
I save this little list of those organizations which have proven AGW to be fact.
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Brazil)
Royal Society of Canada
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Academié des Sciences (France)
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
Indian National Science Academy
Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
Science Council of Japan
Russian Academy of Sciences
Royal Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)
Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Academy of Sciences Malaysia Academy
Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
In addition to these national academies, the following institutions specializing in climate, atmosphere, ocean,
and/or earth sciences have endorsed these conclusions:
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)
These organizations also agree with the consensus:
The Earth Institute at Columbia
University Northwestern University
University of Akureyri University of Iceland
Iceland GeoSurvey National Centre for Atmospheric Science
UK Climate Group Climate Institute Climate Trust
Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment and Energy
Royal Meteorological Society Community
Research and Development Centre Nigeria
Geological Society of London
Geological Society of America
UK Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
American Association for the Advancement of Science
National Research Council
Juelich Research Centre
US White House US Council on Environmental Quality
US Office of Science Technology Policy
US National Climatic Data Center
US Department of Commerce
US National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
The National Academy of Engineering
The Institute of Medicine
UK Natural Environment Research
Council Office of Science and Technology Policy
Council on Environmental Quality National Economic Council
The National Academy of Engineering
The Institute of Medicine
UK Natural Environment Research Council
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology Engineers
Australia American Chemical Society
The Weather Channel
National Geographic
Well Global Warming Deniers seem to have got something now, thanks to ClimateGate. Looks like the data and methods aren’t so certain after all.
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No idea what you’re talking about.
Only when we go to the peer-reviewed journals AND the computer models of NASA et al and check the computer code will there be anything of substance to discuss.
Only braindead moron fanatics swarm like flies to the pile of dung around 1 news story in the sensationalistic media industry and actually believe that that proves anything.
If the denialists swarm around shit, then we can swarm around truth – the news item that blew headlines off the front pages of newspapers and news feeds across the world recently:
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20091122/SCI.Climate._09.Post.Kyoto/
AGW has proven WORSE than predicted in 1997 by even the most ardent AGW-supporters.
In a different direction: could NASA release its computer code, or, what would be more practical, the models they incorporated into their computer code? That might prevent new doubters of AGW from cropping up.
There’s nothing one can do about the hardcore deniers – except put them in prison for their crimes against humanity and other species.