Thursday, June 08, 2006
"Global Sheep"
When it comes to Hurricanes most people look to weather expert Bill Gray. Gray's predicitions are usually copied or at least referenced by most weatherman. Recently, Gray came out and blasted Al Gore and the theory of global warming. This guy isn't really a political guy, but he is well respected in his field. Here is a link.
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14 comments:
Surprise, Keith is spouting the right wing agenda, word for word. Where was this post found? Drudge? Fox News?
In every scientific debate you are going to find a few dissenters. They could honestly believe what they are saying or they could just be acrotchety old man who wants his name in the paper (which happens more often than you would like to think).
Global Warming is a fact. Evolution is a fact. If you believe any other way you are a fucking moron.
This guy doesn't even make good arguements. Have you ever seen the pictures of the glaciers in Alaska that have been taken I believe 20 years apart. They are taken the same time of year and the glaciers have clearly receded. It isn't just in Alaska, it is in the Arctic and Antarctic as well. Why is this guy ignoring these facts?
It's just a coincidence, I guess, that the ten hottest years on record have ALL happened since 1992. Weird.
See here.
Incidentally, while I have no reason to doubt the qualifications or integrity of Bill Gray, the guy who wrote the article you linked to is clearly a hack.
Being a prominent scientist doesn't mean you're not full of shit. [TL]
Jay, I am not even agreeing with the guy. I think Global Warming is real. Not sure science has solved all of mother Natures puzzles yet though.
Again, I disgree with this guy, and I have. How did I "spout" a right wing agenda?
I merely mentioned this guy said this about global warming and provided a link.
Yes Jenna, I have seen the pictures. Global warming is fact. However my take on it is that it is partly a natural occurance, we are just speeding up the process.
An Ice age came and went without anyone driving SUVS. There was once a large land mass that broke off into several different pieces. The world is getting warmer, but I don't know if I would go as far as too say pollution is the only reason.
Keep in mind I am a weather nerd and have read many theories of why its been so hot in the last 10 years.
However, really the only reliable data is 100 years old. So who knows how hot is was when Columbus was murdering Indians?
As for how I found the article. I goggled the guys name to try to pull up his hurricane predicitons for this year.
Contrary to what Jason says, Global Warming is not "fact". There's a ton of evidence to even point to the contrary, such as parts of the world actually getting [i]colder[/i] over the last 100 years of recorded data. GW is more of a side effect of urbanization. Take a look at the last 100 years of data in and around major cities and compare it to the same data in non-populous area. Hell, compare it to update New York. You fucking morons shouldn't believe everything your fed.
The world in general may be getting warmer, but the world is either going to be getting overall colder or warmer. It's not going to say the same.
The reasons and what we can is debatable.
I honestly have never seen what locations that use to compile data for to average the tempature. But it would be more likely major Cities were it does tend to be warmer.
For instance I think this area would be based on Philly, not oh, lets say Franklin Township or Sicklerville. So with Philly and its large buildings and pavement its going to be warmer.
Exactly.
Asshole Drew just threw out a strawman is all.
First of all, "global warming" is just one facet of the larger debate, "climate change". Even so, one of the theorized effects of global warming, paradoxically enough, is cooling. The science behind "Day After Tomorrow" is actually sound; the timetable was just accelerated for dramatic effect.
Second, temperature data are gathered on a global scale. Not just cities, not just plains, but everywhere. As any scientist will tell you: the greater the sampling, the more accurate the data.
Third, global warming is, indeed, a fact. Nobody is debating that. It is the cause of global warming that is being debated.
On average, Earth's surface temperature has been rising for the last century. Yes, some areas are cooler now than before, but the average surface temp of the planet continues to rise. The entire scientific community knows this. It is empirical data which cannot be denied.
What is debated is the cause of global warming. Just as is the case with evolution, the overwhelming majority of scientists throughout the world will tell you that it is caused by human activity. The debate begins where science ends. More to the point, the debate begins where science ends and policits begins. Science has no vested interest in the cause of and solution to global warming; politics most definitely does.
Remember also that scientific theory is significantly different from the standard definition of the word. A scientific theory is one which is assembled on the basis of exhaustive research, empirical data, reproducible experimentation with verifiable results, and sound usage of the scientific method. Einstein's theory of relativity remains a theory only because it cannot yet be completely proven. Until we can propel an object at the speed of light, we will be unable to fully test that theory. Thus, it remains the nearest thing to a fact as we can ascertain.
The same goes for evolution. The evidence found throughout the world points overwhelmingly toward the theory that Darwin proposed. However, until scientists can go backward in time and do first-hand research on the origins of species, it remains the nearest thing to a fact as we can ascertain.
Global warming? Same thing again. When you assemble all the worldwide data together, it paints a damning picture of human activity.
As I said before, science is not concerned with what should be done about global warming. That is left to the politicians, and they are the ones creating the debate. [TL]
Drew posted agreement with the "Global Warming is real" hypothesis and posted a link which contains evidence supporting that position. I'm not sure how that's at all a "strawman", unless by "strawman" you mean "position I disagree with". In that case it IS a strawman! That's just not, you know, the definition "on the reals" as the kids say.
Also, being "a" prominent scientist doesn't mean that you're full of shit, though being prominent generally means that you are well respected in your field by your academic peers. Who knows though, maybe there's some scientist who is the prominent alcoholic in his field. Being 99% of scientists means, however, that you are, in fact, a whole big group of people who not only have expertise in a variety of fields that relate to global warming, but who surprisingly are all in agreement too! That's when you, the 99% body of the global scientific community, see a much smaller person. We'll call him The Crazy 1%. He comes up with theories based on assumptions and with a total non-need for factual evidence to back up his beliefs and hypthesis. You, Mr. 99% of scientists that believe in gathering evidence to explain phenomena in the physical world, chuckle to yourself and say, "Oh Crazy 1%! You so crazy!"
Mosben, I hope you realize that I'm not the same "anonymous" who brought up the whole strawman thing.
It also appears that you may have misinterpreted my "full of shit" comment. To put it another way, prominence does not necessarily mean correctness. Case in point: meteorologist Scott Stevens, who in 2005 quit his job at KPVI-TV to devote his time to investigating weather conspiracy theories.
I'm not saying that both guys are full of shit; just that their status does not shield them from being so.
Finally, with all my heart I say thank goodness for that "crazy" 1%. Galileo, Einstein, Newton, Da Vinci, Euclid, Mendel, Salk, Jarvik, and the list goes on and on. These were the "crazy" folks who advanced human understanding in the face of well established norms. Without them and their challenging of the conventional wisdoms of their times, who knows where we'd be today.
Maybe one day Bill Gray and Scott Stevens will be regarded as visionaries. Until then, they need to gather up an assload of verifiable evidence to back them up. [TL]
Except that most of the people you mentioned were arguing against widely held beliefs that were supported by nothing more than faith and tradition. The modern "scientist" that argues for a 6,000 year old Earth isn't arguing against blind acceptance of a centuries old document that made broad, unsupported statements, they're arguing against hundreds of years of scientific data and studies. The people fighting to teach ID in schools aren't Galileo, and while individual scientists aren't shielded from criticism by their degrees, they *are* shielded, to a degree, by the fact that their theories are supported by data gathered in the physical universe.
Something that really burns me up, and I'm not suggesting that you in particular are guilty of this, is when people push theories in opposition to global warming, evolution, etc. by suggesting that the scientific community is just as orthodox in ideology as groups like the Catholic Church was in Galileo's day. That's simply either dishonesty or a complete lack of understanding in how science works. It's not that scientists believe these things for no reason, they believe them because billions of man hours have gone into studying the world and universe and these are the best results available based on the evidence. Maybe we'll find something new that overturns fundamentally our conceptions of the universe, but there's certainly nothing out there now that I'm aware of that's the next Theory of Reletivity.
And sorry for the confusion of identities. I humbly suggest the addition of a moniker to your posts so that I might more readily identify you in the future. It needn't even be your real world designation, but could well be something more fanciful, like ELOFan007. I can't, of course, be sure that you're a fan of the Electric Light Orchestra, but I certainly hope you are.
Oh, and Scott Stevens' mid-ice checks were the world of a true visionary.
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