Engineers have bosses. Sometimes in a complicated situation where there are no good answers, engineers do what their bosses say.

"He is ...a very controversial figure in science journalism (in a good way)"

Good why? Does he have a gift for explaining new scientific discoveries to laypeople? Does he somehow further the state of the art?

Sounds to me like what he does for a living is tell people that scientific progress is ending. I see no compelling evidence from him supporting that point, and I see nothing good coming from pushing that idea.

Many Americans don't even accept evolution or global warming yet. Pretending that where we are is the furthest we'll ever get is not constructive and not correct.

If this is all he's got, I wouldn't even call him a science journalist. He's more like an op-ed columnist/author.

If it wasn't a surprise, shouldn't Ukraine have been ready to arrest the hooligans that they instead allowed to steal Crimea?

A while back I was prescribed an anti-depressant. The doctor said he didn't know if it would work for me. He said it wasn't even well understood *how* it worked.

That confused me because presumably whatever was in the pill was added for a reason, but clearly there's a lot of trial and error. And clearly there are extremely nasty side effects from many drugs.

So many pharmaceuticals' effectiveness may be overrated, as may be their safety. I'm not sure some medicinal plants are necessarily less effective or less safe.

Presumably chemicals in our drugs are often extracted from nature. why wouldn't the same chemicals in their natural form have the same potential to work? For example, willow bark has salicin (from whence aspirin came), and has been used medicinally since the time of Hippocrates.

The idea of treating the whole person instead of just the symptom is a growing concern in western medicine. This has always been the defining characteristic of homeopathy's holistic approach.

So many homeopathic treatments are almost certainly bunk, but throwing out all homeopathy may be short sighted, just as throwing out all of western medicine would be.

What "mission statement"? This?

GP is right. They can't process and analyze as much data as they collect, so they don't produce useful intelligence.

That's forensics, not intelligence.

Just curious - if they are way off ethically and morally, why would you take that same approach?

I am a Mormon atheist who preaches living for this life instead of for an imagined next life.

May I please be the most annoying person in the great shit hole taxonomy of your mind?

Nope.

Atheism: I'm not playing your stupid game.

Only religious people claim that the lack of religion is itself a religion.

"Faith" is a belief. By what bizarre mental gymnastics do people claim those without belief have faith?

Since the law has not yet been drafted, it's kinda hard to say what it's like. But it appears to be the intent to make it a criminal act to upload revenge porn to a website, and to expose the website to some liability for uploaded content.

So I'd say it's more like suing a website for your ex uploading embarrassing pictures of you.

You seem to have the impression I conceded defeat, and that I was challenging you to next beat someone else.

My point was only that I am an anonymous layman, and if you managed to defeat me in a debate it would prove nothing. This isn't a frivolous political argument at a donut shop.

If the science is wrong prove it on scientific turf. Show NASA where they got their physics wrong, teach NOAA how the climate really works, show the field biologists where all the specimens they couldn't find are hiding.

You haven't disproven a thing. All you've discredited with your lie ("Greenhouse gas theory... has been thoroughly discredited"), esoteric microquibble (" the experimental apparatus..."), and innuendo of bias ("Fourier's conclusions about his friend's experiments") is yourself.

" I can keep shooting you down all day"
Perhaps you could. Shoot down Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I'll join your team.

AGW has been described just fine. And it has been thoroughly verified. So disprove it, and you'll be a scientific rock star, nobel laureate, and savior.

The prediction part is indeed too primitive to produce the precision "skeptics" demand. So model it better for us.

This is about science in general, not AGW in particular.

But if you want to make it about AGW, the science is not based on surveys, nor is it based on computer models.

It is based on old school physics that's been developing over centuries.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Not the most potent, but the primary driver.

Since the industrial revolution began,
a) Atmospheric CO2 has gone from 280 ppm to 400 ppm (40% increase)
b) ocean pH has gone down 0.1 (30% increase in acidity).

What each upcoming season's weather will be we aren't sure.

But we are sure our changes to the atmosphere are warming the planet, acidifying and enlarging the oceans, and displacing and killing living things.

All your denialist microquibbles, character assassinations, and FUD are red herrings.

The core science is not in dispute. It is accepted by every established scientific association on the planet, for every branch of science.

It's basically accepted by everyone except one political faction in one scientifically illiterate country.

Translations from Byese to Sciencese:

"theory that produces quantitative predictions" = Law
"theory that happens to be right" = Theory
[theory that happens to be wrong] = Falsehood

Hey AC, I think you're onto something.

The godless heathens advocating this marriage agenda are defiling the institution of prostitution.

The traditional definition of prostituition must be preserved, so in the spirit of fighting for peace, let us all fornicate for chastity.