"The Republicans’ war on science and reason"

Robert Prey said:
Science deals with Truth, not "consensus".
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With apologies to Indiana Jones, Science is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.

There is not a single creditable scientific organization in the world that disagrees with fact that global temperatures are rising or that they are rising at an elevated rate that correlates with a dramatic rise in human population and consumption of items that produce various greehhouse gasses.

Which fact do you question and why?
 
Robert Prey said:
I don't dispute that the earth is warming, very, very slowly. But there is no good evidence that Man is a major contributor, nor that he, Man, can do anything meaningful about it, but expend trillions of dollars for little or no effect.
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You seem to be entirely ignoring the evidence and then asserting that there is no good evidence.

Of course there is good evidence that man is a major contributor to global warming. Why else do you suppose there's such a clear consensus among climate scientists?

-Bri
 
Robert Prey said:
Your post lacks specificity as well as any examples.
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Riiight. :rolleyes:
Tobacco:
Bad Science: A Resource Book, 26 March 1993, Bates Number: 2074143969, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.
http://www.legacy.library.ucsf.edu

Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys, The EPA and the Science of Environmental Tobacco Smoke, Alexis De Tocqueville Institution, University of Virginia, 1994, Bates Number: TICT0002555, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.
http://www.legacy.library.ucsf.edu

U.S. Complaint Against the Tobacco Industry, filed September 22, 1999 - United States of America v. Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, et al.
http://www.usdoj.gov

House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, The Hill and Knowlton Documents, Waxman Report: How the Tobacco Industry Launched its Disinformation Campaign, Majority Staff Report, May 26, 1994.
Waxman Report

Smoking and Health Proposal, 1969, Bates Number: 680561778, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.
http://www.legacy.library.ucsf.edu

Strategic Defense Initiative:
Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Estimate NIE 11-3/8-75: Soviet Forces for Intercontinental Conflict, Through the mid-1980s, Volume 1, Key Judgments and Summary, Advance Dissemination, crated November 17, 1975, CIA, 40.
National Intelligence Estimate

Curt Covey et al., “Global Atmospheric Effects of Massive Smoke Injections from a Nuclear War: Results from General Circulation Model Simulations,” Nature 308 (March 1, 1984): 21-25.
http://www.nature.com

Wiliam Burr and Svetlana Savranskaya, eds., “Previously Classified Interviews with Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure over Decades,” The Nuclear Vault, The National Security Archive, released online September 11, 2009.
National Security Archive

Acid Rain:
Jack Calvert, Chair, Acid deposition: Atmospheric Processes in Eastern North America: A Review of Current Scientific Understanding, Committee on Atmospheric Transport and Chemical Transformation in Acid Precipitation, Environmental Studies Board, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources, National Research Council (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1983).
http://www.nap.edu

David W. Schindler, Chair, Atmosphere –Biosphere Interaction: Toward a Better Understanding of the Ecological Consequences of Fossil Fuel Combustion, Committee on the Atmosphere and Biosphere, Board on Agriculture and Renewable Resources, Commission on Natural Resources, National Research Council (Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1981).
http://www.nap.edu

William Nierenberg, chairman, Report of the Acid Rain Peer Review Panel, July 1984 (Washington DC: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1984).
National Service Center for Environmental Publications

Ozone:
Testimony of S. Fred Singer, Scientific Integrity and Public Trust: The Science Behind Federal Policies and Mandates: Case Study 1—Stratospheric Ozone: Myths and Realities, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the Committee on Science, US House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1st Sess., September 20, 1995 [No. 31] (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1996).
http://www.archive.org

Second Hand Smoke:
US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2006).
Surgeon General Report, 2006

The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General, US Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1986).
Surgeon General Report, 1986

The ETS Program for 1991, 1990, Bates Number: 2023856052, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.
http://www.legacy.library.ucsf.edu

“Fact Sheet: Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking,” Smoke-free Homes and Cars Program, US Environmental Protection Agency, January 1993.
http://www.epa.gov

Global Warming:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summary for Policy Makers in Climate Change 2007, the Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
IPCC Report

Naomi Oreskes, “Behind the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science 306, no.5702 (Dec. 2004): 1686.
http:www.sciencemag.org

Jule Charney et al, Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment, Report of an Ad-Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, July 23-27, 1979 to the Climate Research Board, National Research Council (Washington, DC: National Academy Press,1979.
Charney Report

Anthony Leiserowitz, principal investigator, “American Opinions on Global Warming: A Yale University/Gallup/ClearVision Institute Poll,” 2007.
Yale Opinion Report

Supreme Court of the United States, Massachusetts et al. vs. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120, (Washington DC, November 29, 2006).
http://www.supremecourt.gov

DDT / Revisionist Attack:
Zuoyue Wang “Responding to Silent Spring: Scientists, Popular Science Communication, and Environmental Policy in the Kennedy Years,” Science Communication 19, no. 2 (1997): 141-163.
SAGE Journals Online

“Eradication of Malaria in the United States (1947-1951),” Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.cdc.gov

Consolidated DDT Hearings, Opinion and Order of the Administrator, 30 June, 1972, Federal Register 37, no.131 (July 7, 1972):13369-13376.
http://www.epa.gov
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Robert Prey said:
Nonsense. Private markets may look at expenditures that lack any hope of profit and thereby save their limited funds for more productive uses. Governments do not care what they do with other people's money which should be especially clear now that we are reaping the whirlwind for a hundred hears of profligate spending, and soon will go off the cliff, just like Greece.
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To paraphrase the discussion you have lost track of:

If it weren't for public funded space research, private markets would not have developed GPS because markets don't like to tie up R&D money for uncertain and long term gain. They prefer short term gain with the goal of taking a share of known markets to investment in the unknown markets with a long time before the R&D capital is recouped.

Rob:"Private markets may look at expenditures that lack any hope of profit and thereby save their limited funds for more productive uses."

So you are saying GPS is not a productive result of R&D money?
 
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Robert Prey said:
I don't dispute that the earth is warming, very, very slowly. But there is no good evidence that Man is a major contributor, nor that he, Man, can do anything meaningful about it, but expend trillions of dollars for little or no effect.
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If yo had really bothered to look at the National Geographic link I posted, you would have seen that there has been a sharp increase in the rate of global warming in the last century, much more than would be expected from natural post-glacial warming.
 
Robert Prey said:
Don't ya think that TANG and GPS would have been invented privately, without spending a trillion or so on outer space games?
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Not likely. We couldn't even get the jerks who run the telephone companies to run lines out to the boondocks with a government subsidy.
 
Bill Thompson, are you going to answer this post, or are you a troll?

TimCallahan said:
A single Democrat or single Republican attacking science doesn't amount to much, one way or another. Most of those contending for the Republican nomination for President of the United States are antagonistic to environmental legislation - including laws limiting air pollution, are climate change deniers and have stated that they do not accept evolution. That amounts to a great deal.

However, we certainly should look into the case you mentioned. So, please let us know the following specifics:

1) Who is this liberal Democrat?

2) What exactly does he or she have against NASA, and in what context did the liberal Democrat make the remarks slamming NASA?

3) What is your source (link if you have it)?
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Bill Thompson said:
A liberal Dem slammed NASA, the one true agency that can give us a return on our investment and true economic stimulis. So to hell with this leftist garbage that the Republicans are anti-science. That is left-wing scare tactics and propaganda.
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Once again: You made this post on 11/8/11. Today is 11/13/11, five days later. You have had all this time to come up with the specifics I have repeatedly asked for. Here they are again:

1) Who is this liberal Democrat who slammed NASA?

2) What exactly did he or she say about NASA and in what context?

3) What is your source for this material (link if possible)?

The longer you fail to answer these specific questions, the more apparent it is that our assertion is fallacious.
 
leftysergeant said:
Not likely. We couldn't even get the jerks who run the telephone companies to run lines out to the boondocks with a government subsidy.
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Uh, government subsidy? You mean the corporate funds taken from long distance to provide baseline service in remote areas?
 
AlBell said:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/11/exposing_a_climate_science_fra.php

you'll find that there is a game being played, but it's quite the opposite of "hide the decline." There isn't a decline to hide; when you look at the scientifically reliable data, the incline is all there is. The only game being played is the fraudulent cherry-picking of data to play "hide the incline," and I refuse to sit by silently while this dishonest game is played.
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:)
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What do you think this article is saying about global warming?

-Bri
 
Robert Prey said:
Science deals with Truth, not "consensus".
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Nope, in fact if anything it’s the other way around.

Science is a process based on inductive logic, this means it can never provide anything stronger than provisional truth. Consensus is when scientists decide that there is little to be gained re-hashing what’s already been discussed and start using it to move forward and discover something new.

When this happens, it becomes incumbent on the dissenters to show that they have an explanation that explains everything the consensus explanation does. Climate deniers can’t produce this, and in fact commonly stick to the supernatural explanation of “stuff just happens and humans can never explain why”
 
DavidJames said:
How many fallacies can one person include in one post? What's the record Bill, are you trying to break it?
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It was Our President.

It is not what he said, it is what he did. He drastically pounded down NASA to a wisp of what is should be.

Source? NASA itself.
 
TimCallahan said:
Once again: You made this post on 11/8/11. Today is 11/13/11, five days later. You have had all this time to come up with the specifics I have repeatedly asked for. Here they are again:

1) Who is this liberal Democrat who slammed NASA?

2) What exactly did he or she say about NASA and in what context?

3) What is your source for this material (link if possible)?

The longer you fail to answer these specific questions, the more apparent it is that our assertion is fallacious.
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Our President.

It is not what he said, it is what he did. He drastically pounded down NASA to a wisp of what is should be.

Source? NASA itself.

And by the way, the insults resulting from my comment here attacking me personally and my character are typical of Liberal ad hominim tactics. I do not believe in most of what Coulter says but when she said Liberalism is like a church she was right. You guys behave like cult members.
 
Bill Thompson said:
Our President.

It is not what he said, it is what he did. He drastically pounded down NASA to a wisp of what is should be.

Source? NASA itself.

And by the way, the insults resulting from my comment here attacking me personally and my character are typical of Liberal ad hominim tactics. I do not believe in most of what Coulter says but when she said Liberalism is like a church she was right. You guys behave like cult members.
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Congratulations: You've managed to not-answer by answering. Specifically what did Obama do? Also, try to be specific about the source: i.e. can you give us a link?

As to making ad hominem attacks on your character, all I did was press you to be specific. After days of pressing you on this, you still haven't answered with sufficient specificity.
 
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DavidJames said:
Odd, I tried really hard, I clicked and clicked again but I couldn't get to the link.
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Same problem here. I googled "Barack Obama and NASA," but couldn't find anything significant, other than cut-backs of manned missions due to budgetary constraints. There is also the end of the space shuttle missions, which as far as I can tell was NASA policy, not something mandated out of the blue by Obama.

At the risk of being accused of ad hominem attacks, I'd like Bill Thompson to supply a bit of "chapter and verse" (i.e. a link) regarding his assertion that Obama is hostile to NASA or has made devastating cuts in the NASA budget. Some reaction from a NASA official excoriating the President for these cuts would be good evidence of Bill's assertion.
 
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