Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

There was no Iceless Greenland, Denialists!

Page 3 of 3 [ 42 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3

Previous topic | Next topic

Vigilans
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Jun 2008
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,181
Location: Montreal

01 May 2011, 9:20 pm

He also kind of reminds me of some kind of Anuran that croaks 'WITHDRAW' as a mating call, I bet his neck even inflates


_________________
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do


Master_Pedant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Mar 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,903

01 May 2011, 9:24 pm

Vigilans wrote:
Monckton is a fool.


I'd disagree. It takes a lot of intellect to perform the intellectual gymnastics and rhetorical evasions he's capable of. I mean, he's able to present himself as an "expert" to the lay public, that takes some skill.


_________________
http://www.voterocky.org/


ryan93
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,315
Location: Galway, Ireland

01 May 2011, 9:27 pm

Quote:
I disagree. The position is a very unreasonable kind of epistemic absolutism. "Unless every claim from the scientists are 100% irrefutable to me, I shall withhold judgement" would result in catastrophic consequences. Air safety mechanics may not let planes off the ground because they don't have enough background knowledge to access whether or not the physical priniciples planes operate on are sound or whether a "quantum flucation" will suddenly invalidate all known physical laws fifty minutes after the plane takes of ground. Parents don't know nearly enough about medicine to access vaccines themselves and may decide to "err on the side of caution" which results in catastrophic consquences. Even scientists aren't able to independently verify every theory they depend on. A given amount of "historically well supported" groundwork has to be accepted until demonstrated otherwise for any human endevour to get off the ground. The notion that "nothing" should be believed until every facet of it has been proved absolutely to an individual produces a paralytically pervasive agnosticism.


You failed to understand me; I absolutely don't deal in absolutes, and I'm not advocating we drop every piece of Knowledge due to Hume's and Descartes nagging problems. I was merely saying that I don't know enough about this topic to pass judgement. I leave Climate Science to the Climate Scientists, I am agnostic on this issue. I have no opinion on The Axiom of Choice, or the Goldbach Conjecture; I am simply holding the default Scientists position; I don't know, I'll form a theory when I have more evidence. If you have hostility towards that, then you are in the wrong.

Quote:
Calling people who frequently fight Climate Change Contrarians or Denialists "Scientists" is much more accurate than calling them "Greens", especially since not all of them are associated with grassroots environmentalism is Green Parties. And I really don't care if you make this thread an awful wall full of Monckton's self-righteous whinefests and evasions, intellectually honest posters will either ignore the posts or moderators will delete the spam.


I was joking, and my issues with the language aren't so severe that I would hijack the threat. Monckton is clearly a tool, I wouldn't claim otherwise :roll:


_________________
The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists - Erwin Schrodinger

Member of the WP Strident Atheists


Vigilans
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Jun 2008
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,181
Location: Montreal

01 May 2011, 9:30 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
Monckton is a fool.


I'd disagree. It takes a lot of intellect to perform the intellectual gymnastics and rhetorical evasions he's capable of. I mean, he's able to present himself as an "expert" to the lay public, that takes some skill.


I agree to a degree :P I think you overrate how the public perceives who is an expert and who is not. The uninformed public wants experts to confirm what makes them most comfortable- a poorly spoken scientist doesn't seem like an expert to them, even if to the informed viewer, his words are quite clear- have you been in a room with people, listening to some pundit spewing obvious drivel, and noticed them nodding in agreement? Wait, don't answer, you are also a frequenter of the PPR :lol: . It doesn't take a genius to sway the uninformed public. You just have to be glib and understand how to manipulate opinions by appealing to personal comfort zones, aka 'common knowledge'. Politicians like Monckton thrive because of their knowledge of this game, not because they themselves are intellectually capable


_________________
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do


Master_Pedant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Mar 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,903

01 May 2011, 9:33 pm

@ryan93

Fair enough. I'd probably disagree slightly with the epistemic framing, but I understand that would lead to a rather pointless argument where we shout past one another without any real resolution.

@Viligians

You should see how Robert Sungenis debates, it's scary as he sounds quite a bit like Creationists when he talks and even decried the intellectual dishonest of his opponent for not reading his $40, 400 page book (the man is a Geocentrist and that's what he debates on, by the way).


_________________
http://www.voterocky.org/


ryan93
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,315
Location: Galway, Ireland

01 May 2011, 9:40 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
@ryan93

Fair enough. I'd probably disagree slightly with the epistemic framing, but I understand that would lead to a rather pointless argument where we shout past one another without any real resolution.


That's fair. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't coming across as an absolutist (an absolutist scientist Isn't).


_________________
The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists - Erwin Schrodinger

Member of the WP Strident Atheists


LKL
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jul 2007
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,402

01 May 2011, 9:51 pm

Here's a question: who is it that goes onto a thread about, say, the physiochemistry of action potentials in a neuron, and repeatedly declares that he has no opinion on the subject because he hasn't seen enough evidence?

Even if warring theories of action potential generation were relevant to significant pending legislation, why would anyone be proud to declare that they had no opinion because they hadn't seen the evidence?

Would it not be more honorable to examine the evidence given by experts in the field, develop a personal understanding, and then join the debate with specific points to discuss?



Vigilans
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Jun 2008
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,181
Location: Montreal

01 May 2011, 9:59 pm

Quote:
@Viligians

You should see how Robert Sungenis debates, it's scary as he sounds quite a bit like Creationists when he talks and even decried the intellectual dishonest of his opponent for not reading his $40, 400 page book (the man is a Geocentrist and that's what he debates on, by the way).


I hate that man with a passion. He would undo the work of countless professional astronomers, cosmologists and astrophysicists for his own Catholic apologist BS gains. Geocentrism should be dead by now, but I have read somewhere that up to a fifth of Americans believe that crap. I think we should work on colonizing other planets, and sending the Geocentrists to Mercury. Then they can observe as close as possible that everything in this solar system orbits the sun, and can observe the Earth from a different perspective, and, more importantly, be fried to a crisp in the process
The 'Geocentric Universe' is such utter garbage. "Gamma Ray Bursts always end up here so durrr it must mean we're at the center" just kill me now


_________________
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do


Oodain
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,022
Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,

01 May 2011, 10:54 pm

Vigilans wrote:
The 'Geocentric Universe' is such utter garbage. "Gamma Ray Bursts always end up here so durrr it must mean we're at the center" just kill me now


now that's probability for ya! :lol:


_________________
//through chaos comes complexity//

the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.


Master_Pedant
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Mar 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,903

01 May 2011, 11:57 pm

Vigilans wrote:
I hate that man with a passion. He would undo the work of countless professional astronomers, cosmologists and astrophysicists for his own Catholic apologist BS gains. Geocentrism should be dead by now, but I have read somewhere that up to a fifth of Americans believe that crap. I think we should work on colonizing other planets, and sending the Geocentrists to Mercury. Then they can observe as close as possible that everything in this solar system orbits the sun, and can observe the Earth from a different perspective, and, more importantly, be fried to a crisp in the process
The 'Geocentric Universe' is such utter garbage. "Gamma Ray Bursts always end up here so durrr it must mean we're at the center" just kill me now


Oh my, I just found out that Robert Sungenis is an anti-Semite and a convert to Catholicism from Evangelical Protestantism. He seems to combine the worst of both worlds.


_________________
http://www.voterocky.org/