An agnostic is someone who believes that a god in unknowable.
You either believe in a god or you don't If you don't, you are an atheist. The notion that an atheist KNOWS there are no gods is utterly false. That would be something like an anti -deist.
An agnostic "a person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic"
I do not believe in a god(s) nor do I disbelieve. No one can prove to me there is and I can not prove there is not, so to me the position of "is there a god(s)" remains open.
On climate change, I am not agnostic. I have no doubt humans can be attrbuted to climate change. The extent of our contribution to it is my unanswered question.
Destruction of forest regions certainly play a part.
There are some people who seem angry and continuously look for conflict. Walk away, the battle they are fighting isn't with you, it's with themselves.
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is not enough of anything to satisfy all who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. ~ Thomas Sowell.
Who was the fool, who the wise man, who the beggar or the Emperor? Whether rich or poor, all are equal in death.
I said originally that C02 was essentially an almost harmless gas...essential to life that was being demonised by pictures of water pouring from cooling towers.
The fact that it is common in an unventilated bedroom to have C02 concentrations that are 125 times the atmospheric concentration says it all
If you breathe pure nitrogen which is a common component of the atmosphere you will also die quickly
The point being???
Why do you bother with this irrelevant argument?
Whether CO2 is somehow a"good" thing or a "bad" thing, or whether you like it or not is completely irrelevant to the argument.
Also whether one believes further global warming is a "good" thing or a "bad" thing, is also completely irrelevant.
The argument is whether AGW is real or not.
Your ability to go off some strange tangent, and even at the suggestion of others, fail to pull yourself back. Indicates a mental aberration. Go to the Doctor and get some pills!
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!! You are no longer customer, you are property!!!
Actually, Andrew has a better understanding of the science than most of the people I know, skeptic or non-skeptic. Perhaps he takes a bit of the stuff on some of the skeptic blogs a little too much at face-value, but most people take the rubbish that comes out of the media at face value as well.
The post from the media is pure scenario porn. It bears almost no relationship to where climate science is today. It talks about 6-degree warming whereas the smart-money prediction (which is also a prediction, not fact) seems to be around 2 degrees by 2100. In fact a bunch of research came out in the last week saying that the sensitivity may be overstated and 1.2 degrees may be closer to the mark. To get to 6 degrees we would need to cross a yet-to-be-discovered tipping point. It's possible, but then so is an ice age.
If you know as much as you think you do, then you know you're lying.
Andrew Judd
10 Dec 2012, 07:42 PM
How about you provide some documentation that describes in a paragraph or so the current overwhelming scientific view on AGW so that i know what you are describing that is different to what i am describing and we take it from there?
I seem to be repeating myself so far.
As far as i can see we are disagreeing on what actually is the scientific consensus where i am saying the consensus is that humans are believed to be measureably warming the planet.
ThatGuy for example agreed that C02 caused warming is a theory at this point in time.
Yes, how much the warming is due to humans is still up for debate. But it's a question that is very hard to say in one number. I'd imagine it will be close to impossible to answer with great certainty even in 50 years time. IF we had another earth or two then we could determine the answer. But we don't. Having a good chance that we won't be any further to finding a conclusive answer to this question before action is required, what should we do?
Shadow
11 Dec 2012, 08:46 AM
There is no scientific reason to believe humans are the predominant cause of changes to the global climate.
I suggest you calm down, cut out the abuse, and read my post again.
Nobody, including myself, knows the degree to which humans impact the global climate.
More pointless unprovoked abuse.
There are quite a few scientific reasons to believe that humans are the predominant cause of changes to the global climate.
Yes, how much the warming is due to humans is still up for debate. But it's a question that is very hard to say in one number. I'd imagine it will be close to impossible to answer with great certainty even in 50 years time. IF we had another earth or two then we could determine the answer. But we don't. Having a good chance that we won't be any further to finding a conclusive answer to this question before action is required, what should we do?
If the earth is now as warm as it was a thousand years ago then at this point there is no urgent need to do anything.
Much of known science would bring into question any notion of an omnipotent god.
Nonsense, science has no such power, there is no way science can determine the existence of God.
Much of science is based upon belief systems too eg Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is always the best. Any well learned scientist knows that our best theories are just that - our best theories.
Science has a huge history of forward strides by spiritual men eg Einstien, Keppler, Newton even Darwin was at certain times both spiritual and religious although he also spent time as agnostic I could go on. So it is foolish to mix belief in science with a persons religious or spiritual beliefs.
A as a prefix generally means "without" Hence the difference between a--gnostic and a-theist is simple, Gnostic was a term used by early Christians for those with knowledge of God. hence agnostic is one is without knowledge of a god - atheist means without belief in a god or gods.
Definition of a doom and gloomer from 1993 The last camp is made up of the doom-and-gloomers. Their slogan is "it's the end of the world as we know it". Right now they are convinced that debt is the evil responsible for all our economic woes and must be eliminated at all cost. Many doom-and-gloomers believe that unprecedented debt levels mean that we are on the precipice of a worse crisis than the Great Depression. The doom-and-gloomers hang on the latest series of negative economic data.
Asking science to prove or disprove the existence of God is like asking a 19th century steam engineer to assemble a transistor radio without any instructions.
I notice too that those who believe in God (or some variation thereof) are not the ones demanding evidence.
Much of science is based upon belief systems too eg Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is always the best. Any well learned scientist knows that our best theories are just that - our best theories.
Occam's razor is just a heuristic to choose the most likely theory to test. Science would work if we chose the most complex available theory, but it would be very, very slow. If you are in IT, you could think of Occam's razor as a tree-traversal algorithm.
Science works by eliminating possibilities. As you eliminate possibilities you zero in on the truth, but you never quite get there.
In a sense everything we think we know is "just a theory", waiting to be disproved. Every now and again we disprove something, thereby advancing human knowledge.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
If you know as much as you think you do, then you know you're lying.
Nope. Incidentally, if you read the skeptic pages you will run across many people who have a very good handle on scientific issues. So good in fact, that they are able to be very convincing by obfuscating in a hard-to-spot place, by a plausible but incorrect assumption, or a skipped step in the argument. Sometimes it is deliberate, sometimes it is self delusion, and sometimes they actually have a point. But it is bloody hard to tell them apart. Incidentally, there are a few non-skeptic websites that have the same issues as well. In the end I found it necessary to buy myself a university textbook on the subject and read it.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
Realclimate is just a thugs site with no interest at all in finding out what is true or false
The founding members like William Connolley operate on Wiki to ensure Wiki reflects their agenda where any editor in conflict with him will be banned even though Wiki said he was no longer a prominant editor.
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