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I still haven't gotten a link to that guys pretty little graph.
Exactly. You cannot compare earth in the Ordovician to today, and as I've clearly illustrated, CO2 and temperature correlate very closely in the modern age. It's not just about ocean currents, but also the biota of the planet (which largely affects the carbon cycle), its albedo, the activity of volcanoes (they artificially cool the earth by spewing aerosols into the upper atmosphere which reflect heat back into space), etc. etc. All of these things were vastly different in the Ordovician.
See, this is what happens when you get amateurs pulling together a few disparate facts and making up their own story - training in a discipline, whatever it is, enables you to see the holes in what might seem to make sense to a layman. That is not to say that there isn't value in self-learning, but for most people understanding a discipline from first principles will improve their insight.
I still haven't gotten a link to that guys pretty little graph.
Honestly, much of the skeptic movement reminds me both in emotional tenor and intellectual rigor of the 9-11 truth movement.
Rename this thread "The Amazing Story Behind the Goverment's 9-11 Scam" and change a few terms and it gets kinda similar.
You get a devoted "truther" with a chip on his shoulder and perfectly convinced that the "official" story is for suckers, and only he and people who think like him are smart enough to see through the "official story".
If you think the "official story" sounds fairly reasonable and seems to be supported by evidence and solid science, you are accused of being a "sheeple" and a sucker.
Along the way, you are treated with copied and pasted stuff from clearinghouse websites devoted to this.
Invariably when you start poking too closely, the truth that there is very probably some distortion and pseudoscience underlying a lot of it.
The truthers have those who barely understand what they read on the clearinghouse websites and come onto web forums and gamely try to prove their point.
If you dare to question the presented evidence, you need to "do your research", because you obviously aren't smart enough to argue the point. How dare you disagree with the emotionally appealing idea they are presenting, you must simply be a biased hack/shill.
Both groups like to think of themselves as "heroes" fighting against the evil conspiracy who are oppressing them.
Sound familiar?
to compare skeptics of a scientific theory to conspiracy theorists.
Please provide links to peer-reviewed scientific articles concerning alien invasions.
If you can't do that, then the comparison is simply yet another emotional appeal that sacrifices sound logic to your emotionally appealing "rebelness" in rejecting science you don't understand offhand.
I am glad you want to feel like you are one of the cool kids, but your feelings don't help us formulate sound policy do they?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 02-04-2009 at 07:00 PM.
Um, no. The article in the OP of this thread did not in any way challenge the science - its primary thesis was a political- and science funding-based conspiracy, absurd in the face of the trillions of dollars going to Big Coal/Oil every year. The author did not address the science whatsover. I pulled the article apart to demonstrate this, and then explained some of the science to you but you've ignored that.
Please, debate the science I have presented on scientific terms, not political ones. At the moment you seem incapable of separating the two.
Never did get a link to any of that peer-reviewed science I asked for.
I guess that means that the analogy was misleading after all. Color me unsurprised.
No disputation of any of the science I proffered either. Surprise, surprise. Would that be because the science is rock solid, and the evidence is all around us? I think so.
EGW theory predicts a higher frequency of extreme weather events, and Australia has had two firestorms in the last 5 years that have re-written the textbooks, unlike anything in the recorded history of this country. Can those events alone prove the theory? No, not at all. But they are exactly the kind of thing predicted by it, as is the increased incidence of extreme cyclones, the unprecedented ice melts, extreme flooding, etc.
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