Another Troubling Climate Article

[RileySugarbush]

Science is a pretty vague response to their question.

The real answer is that man does not know for sure, most is just based on hypothesis.

It is not a guess. There is good evidence of atmospheric CO2 and temperature in geological and environmental records. A particularly valuable one is ice core samples. They do indeed show that the earth has been very warm before, but the troubling difference is that the previous warm spells which occurred tens of thousands of years ago and more, came and went over thousands of years. The current changes are occurring far more rapidly than ever, over mere decades.

It's easy to sit back and say you don't believe this. No one looked at the thermometer 100,000 years ago and wrote it in their journal. Or to ask "How can an old chunk of ice tell us the temperature back then?". That is the Science that eustis mentions. It is possible to tell how old a layer of ice is. It is possible to determine with good confidence the chemical composition of the atmosphere when that layer was formed, and it is possible to correlate that composition with environmental temperatures based on deposited plant life and other fossil records from the same time. Thousands of scientists, engineers, and researchers have come to this conclusion. These are people that have spent their life learning how to look at and understand this evidence. They present their findings and let other throw rocks at them through the peer review process. Sometimes, the rocks uncover an error. That is why the reviews happen and it improves the quality of the science and findings. Some ( but not all) of the research is funded by or carried out in government labs and that may make it difficult for some of you to believe it, fearing that it is a ploy to grab control of the people. But non government results, and the results from other governments, are in good agreement. Hopefully that reduces the concern of the US government conspiracy.

It is also possible that I am not convincing anyone with the argument. Probable even! But the fact that we are having this discussion without disparagement is a great thing.

[psparr]

giant frickin' asteroid whacking Yucatan. Where YOU been?

Eustis there is plenty that has not been proven by a reasonable doubt.
I know you might think this a dumb argument, but play along with me.

Where did the asteroid come from?
This is a serious question.

[eustis22]

Asteroids come from space. For a vacuum, it has a LOT of stuff in it.

Again, not a hypothesis. we can SEE them. With Science.

[psparr]

Asteroids come from space. For a vacuum, it has a LOT of stuff in it.

Again, not a hypothesis. we can SEE them. With Science.

Ok. Now where did the stuff in space come from?

[eustis22]

other stuff in space, mostly gas, originally.

boy, I hope you're not leading up to Creation.

[psparr]

I'm getting to the point where you can't prove it didn't happen. We as humans have very limited knowledge about anything. We may think we know a lot, but in reality know only a tiny fraction of everything.

If you want to take it down to gas, where did the gas come from?
It is something you cannot answer. None of us can. Which leads me back to my overall point that nothing is absolute.
The theory of relativity to this day is still called a theory. For good reason.

[markcasper]

other stuff in space, mostly gas, originally.

boy, I hope you're not leading up to Creation.

Do you believe that humans evolved over time from just a "gas"?

[eustis22]

The gas came from the Big Bang, which God triggered so he could create the Earth plus dinosaurs and asteroids and send the asteroid to earth to turn the dinosaurs into oil which is how we know god wanted us to drill, baby, drill.

Sorry, I just cut to the chase there, didn't I?

[DrTimPerkins]

Which leads me back to my overall point that nothing is absolute.

This conversation, which I found amusing at first, just turned out to be incredibly anti-climatic (pardon the pun). This statement above is the ultimate cop-out. Just because we don't know everything with absolute certainty doesn't mean that we aren't pretty darn sure of some things. I'm pretty sure the sun will come up tomorrow morning....but who knows. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy dinner tonite when I get home....but I can't be absolutely sure of it. Gee....maybe I'll just give up eating if I'm not sure I'll like it.

Most people really have a rather poor understanding of what science can tell us and what it cannot. Science almost NEVER arrives at conclusions with absolute certainty. That is the nature of the beast. Science almost NEVER seeks to prove anything (we'll leave the proofs to mathematicians)....that isn't the point of most testing. In actually we try to disprove things more than anything else (the NULL hypothesis). However when you've failed to show that all other REASONABLE possibilities explain something, then it is MOST LIKELY that the hypothesis you state is the correct hypothesis. When there is multiple testing (often in a variety of ways) of a hypothesis by many scientists and the hypothesis cannot be disproven, then it might be generally accepted as THEORY, however even theories are only as good as the next test that comes along. Science is ALWAYS testing hypotheses and ALWAYS questioning theories That doesn't mean that scientists think they are wrong....just that they are scientists and this is how we are trained to think.

[DrTimPerkins]

...which God triggered....


Sorry, I just cut to the chase there, didn't I?

But scientists have never "proved" there is a God? Guess I'd better get right to work.