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Comment Re:Yes it matters (Score 1) 668

There is a fundamental difference between having an idea or belief in your own head, and acting on that idea or belief so that it affects other people.

I dunno that the difference is that fundamental.

In any case attempting to ban beliefs or ideas that contradict your own beliefs would certainly be classed as "acting on [your] idea or belief so that it affects other people.". Don't you think?

Comment Re:Projections based on what? (Score 1) 310

Nobody owes you a burden of proof." If they want my tax money to spend in an attempt to avoid that possible catastrophe, I think they do owe me that.

So you are motivated by blind greed and this blinds you to the scientific proof. Or you prefer to lie to others about the reliability of the science for your own financial gain.

There is of course, historical precedent. You might think that when the time comes to admit you were wrong, you be able to say "aww shucks sorry about that" and all will be forgiven.

In reality, the delay in addressing climate change, which you helped cause, is costing us. There are a number people working diligently with spreadsheets to understand that cost. You owe us, and we'll collect.

Comment Re:To all you Obama supporters (Score 1) 165

So, you are calling the DoD liars in that article I posted?

Well, someone's lying. Them. You. Don't much care who.

They claim to have found the WMD, but I guess you and the media links you provide must know better than the solders on the ground.

You're only embarrassing yourself. The 'weapons' they found were manufactured during the Iran-Iraq war. They were found on a scrapheap behind an abandoned building. The Iraqis didn't even know they were there. The Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz regime claimed that WMD were still being manufactured. Powell claimed there were facilities still producing weapons.

These 'weapons' were about as dangerous as a cup-a-soup. If aluminium tubes frighten you enough that you think it justifies killing 500 000 people, you need to see a psychiatrist.

Comment Re:Projections based on what? (Score 1) 310

Why can't introduction to logic be mandatory education in our world already?

It's pretty simple really. If models have no predictive ability, and you can't/won't describe another mechanism which HAS predictive ability, then your assertion that the rate of change in the climate will be "less" than the rate predicted by the models has no basis in fact.

If we have the choice between preparing for catastrophe or not, and the possibility of catastrophe is unknown it is NOT proven that action must be taken.

Nobody owes you a burden of proof.

For example, I can posit that there is an unknown possibility of a catastrophic earth impact from some massive rock out in space. That is an accurate enough statement, but it is not proof that we must immediately start a multi-billion dollar program to combat the threat of our extinction.

We know the likelihood of asteroid impacts to a reasonable degree of certainty. How? Using science. In fact, we use models.

Climate change is in fact a bit different still, because contrary to what alarmists want to believe, the science is pretty clear that catastrophe is NOT coming down on our heads anywhere within the next 100 years.

So you tell us that the science is uncertain, but you yourself are certain of the likelihood of catastrophe. How did you reach that conclusion? did you point bones? chicken entrails?

Is there any plausible reason for us to accept your witchcraft?

Comment Re: wrong is right (Score 1) 193

I suppose you might panic, but saying the models are wrong doesn't make me panic, because it appears the situation is much better than predicted.

Feel free to point us to a reputable journal is which you've published your analysis of the present situation, including. specifically how you extrapolated from current observations to a prediction of future events.

I don't suppose anybody believes the lies,

That's quite possible.

I've engaged in conversations where denialists make an assertion, and when rebutted, come back a few days later and make the same assertion again. It's impossible to exhibit those behavioural traits without deliberately concealing that you know you are wrong.

You're right : it's quite possible that no denialist actually believes the basic assertions of denialism.

Comment Re:Projections based on what? (Score 1) 310

Indeed.

We need to continue to invest (massively) in climate research. At the same time, because there is uncertainty about model predictions we have to assume that the outcome could be worse the predictions, and begin mitigating against those outcomes immediately.

It's a pity that model outcomes could not be more certain.

Comment Re:To all you Obama supporters (Score 1) 165

These ones: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Are you now going to claim that Powell acted alone?

Heck, WMD were found: http://www.defense.gov/News/Ne... [defense.gov] http://www.nytimes.com/interac... [nytimes.com]

You're embarrassing yourself.

So I guess Saddam gassing all the Kurds didn't really happen, and we should have never gone in there to put a stop to the systematic genocide Saddam was up to...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]

Saddam gassed the Kurds with the gas that you gave him. And later Rumsfeld dropped by to shake his hand.

Don't expect to be given the moral high ground over Saddam. During their mercifully brief but incredibly bloody reign, Rumsfeld/Cheney killed more Iraqis than he did during any period of the same length.

That gas was expired long before the lying started: the best the Iraqi Air Force could have done with it would be to hurl it from the plane and hope to hit someone in the head with the canister.

Comment Re:It usually does... (Score 1) 193

Finance, population statistics, various biological modeling applications, and basically all weather modeling works this way.

Fascinating. So based on 4 examples of modelling based abstraction of trend lines, you feel confident to declare that all modelling is overrated. Even though your examples don't include the model from the article.

As to long trends versus short trends, that's all subjective. What is long or short is arbitrary.

No it isn't.

And that is another big problem with trend lines, they do not show causation. They show correlation. Getting causation from a trend line is almost impossible.

Pretty show nobody is graphing a trend line to find the cause of ebola. We already knew what caused ebola before anybody drew a line.

Comment Re:It usually does... (Score 1) 193

Computer modeling is vastly overrated.

I'm not convinced.

It is mostly based on the abstraction of trend lines.

Can you provide an example of modelling based on abstraction of trend lines?

Which is the assumption that existing trends will continue. That is less a prediction of hte future than a picture of the present.

In my experience, this false assumption (that arbitrarily short trends, rather than the trends at the granularity of the model) seems to be the assumption made by people asserting that modelling is useless. Mind you, my experience mostly comes from dealing with morons.

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