"The Republicans’ war on science and reason"

Robert Prey said:
Absolutely. In very small increments. Ever since the last Ice Age. That's not in dispute by anybody.
Click to expand...

Your implication being that humans don't contribute to global warming? Please read the PolitiFact article I cited in my previous post as well as the sources it cites. The evidence is very strong that humans contribute to global warming. Some 97 to 98 percent of climate researchers agree that human beings contribute to global warming. That's a clear scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that humans contribute to it.

Robert Prey said:
I've heard that even some Democrats are pro life. Actually, a whole lot of them.What does that have to do with being anti-science?
Click to expand...

There are other threads where this is being discussed, but it's worth pointing out that most pro-lifers (Democrats and Republicans alike) don't define personhood at the moment of conception. Even if they did, what does that have to do with whether or not such a view is anti-science?

-Bri
 
Robert Prey said:
Absolutely. In very small increments. Ever since the last Ice Age. That's not in dispute by anybody.
Click to expand...

Nobody except the scientists who actually study the issue who say the earth was in a long slow cooling trend from the Holocene optimum ~8000 year ago until about 100 years ago.
 
Debaser said:
This question will sound condescending, but do Americans in general realise that this religion vs science is fairly specific to them and their versions of the Christian religion (I'm thinking evangelicals, the born again types, those who believe in the rapture, etc.)?
Click to expand...


No.

:TEXAS:
 
Bri said:
Your implication being that humans don't contribute to global warming? Please read the PolitiFact article I cited in my previous post as well as the sources it cites. The evidence is very strong that humans contribute to global warming. Some 97 to 98 percent of climate researchers agree that human beings contribute to global warming. That's a clear scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that humans contribute to it.Bri
Click to expand...


I make it a point to not go hopping down someone's suggest bunny trail until they first make a point, and then quote one or two sentences pertinent to that point before reading a whole bunch of dicta and trying to figure out what the point is and where it can be found.
 
Giordano said:
Bob- you're such a great kidder! And you do it with such a straight face that you really had me going for a while, until you gave it away with the global warming "fable" bit! Ha ha ha. Oh- wait- I got one for you that I heard from Bachmann: "evolution is just a theory... a belief... not a fact." Good joke, huh?
Click to expand...

So, you've found the "missing link"?????
 
Robert Prey said:
I make it a point to not go hopping down someone's suggest bunny trail until they first make a point, and then quote one or two sentences pertinent to that point before reading a whole bunch of dicta and trying to figure out what the point is and where it can be found.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what this thread is about. For radical conservatives, reading what experts say about a scientific subject is "hopping down a bunny trail." A suspicious trap, surely set by devious ivory tower types trying to trick you.
 
Robert Prey said:
I make it a point to not go hopping down someone's suggest bunny trail until they first make a point, and then quote one or two sentences pertinent to that point before reading a whole bunch of dicta and trying to figure out what the point is and where it can be found.
Click to expand...


Yeah, that would be about as silly as starving people eating good on grocery store samples, thus eliminating the hunger problem in America.

Oh wait.

Nevermind.
 
David Wong said:
Yes, that's what this thread is about. For radical conservatives, reading what experts say about a scientific subject is "hopping down a bunny trail." A suspicious trap, surely set by devious ivory tower types trying to trick you.
Click to expand...

This
 
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?
Click to expand...
Tang came first before it's use in space. NASA did not develop it, they just helped market it. Hopefully NASA got a cut of the profits.

But as for GPS, no. It took government investment in rockets and satellites before the private profit hunters got involved in satellites. What you are failing to consider is the market forces that affect investment in R&D. Companies are reluctant to invest in unknown markets and in extremely long term returns. No way would the private marketplace have invested in space travel without governments paving the way.
 
"Merchants of Doubt" details the recent history of the commercial influence on the marketing of anti-science.
The troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public
understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on public health, environmental science, and other issues affecting the quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.

In their new book, Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explain how a loose–knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. In seven compelling chapters addressing tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, and DDT, Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

“A well-documented, pulls-no-punches account of how science works and how political motives can hijack the process by which scientific information is disseminated to the public.”—Kirkus Reviews
Click to expand...
The authors are historians and the research they've done documenting this phenomena uncovered some interesting twists one would perhaps be very surprised by. The Republican war on science has its origin in the cold war, believe it or not.

Their list of key documents and their list of additional resources are good places to start for people not sure they want to read the book.
 
Last edited:
Bri said:
Your implication being that humans don't contribute to global warming? Please read the PolitiFact article I cited in my previous post as well as the sources it cites. The evidence is very strong that humans contribute to global warming. Some 97 to 98 percent of climate researchers agree that human beings contribute to global warming. That's a clear scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that humans contribute to it. (snip) . . .
-Bri
Click to expand...

Robert, you might also want to look at what the National Geographic Society has to say about the increased rate of global warming.
 
Robert Prey said:
I make it a point to not go hopping down someone's suggest bunny trail until they first make a point, and then quote one or two sentences pertinent to that point before reading a whole bunch of dicta and trying to figure out what the point is and where it can be found.
Click to expand...

I asked you a question in order to clarify the point you already made. Are you suggesting that there is no scientific consensus that humans contribute to global warming?

-Bri
 
Last edited:
Even if global warming is a very long-term, not primarily human-caused trend ... wouldn't it behoove civilization to figure out how it can mitigate the potential ill effects?

Saying it's not man-made shouldn't cancel out the need to see what man can do to at least slow the trend down.
 
Bri said:
I asked you a question in order to clarify the point you already made. Are you suggesting that there is no scientific consensus that humans contribute to global warming?

-Bri
Click to expand...

Science deals with Truth, not "consensus".
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
"Merchants of Doubt" details the recent history of the commercial influence on the marketing of anti-science.The authors are historians and the research they've done documenting this phenomena uncovered some interesting twists one would perhaps be very surprised by. The Republican war on science has its origin in the cold war, believe it or not.

Their list of key documents and their list of additional resources are good places to start for people not sure they want to read the book.
Click to expand...

Your post lacks specificity as well as any examples.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Tang came first before it's use in space. NASA did not develop it, they just helped market it. Hopefully NASA got a cut of the profits.

But as for GPS, no. It took government investment in rockets and satellites before the private profit hunters got involved in satellites. What you are failing to consider is the market forces that affect investment in R&D. Companies are reluctant to invest in unknown markets and in extremely long term returns. No way would the private marketplace have invested in space travel without governments paving the way.
Click to expand...

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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom