flockofseagulls104 wrote:mrkelley23 wrote:flockofseagulls104 wrote:
Anyone who believes that any science is 'settled' does not have a clue about what science is.
When some scientist or mathematician can produce an equation that explains how I am conscious of who I am, then I will entertain the notion that we have explained everything scientifically. Most of the people who participated in the marches are akin to the people in the middle ages who believed the world was flat and the sun circled the earth.
Forget science for a moment. Let's just analyze this post via logic and rhetoric. We start with a statement that is true but completely irrelevant (non sequitur). We then proceed to an outrageous demand that is completely unaligned with the topic being discussed (denying the antecedent). The third and final sentence is a textbook example of stereotyping a group with no real knowledge of the group(combination of hasty generalization with association fallacy).
If I were still teaching argumentation and debate, I would use flock's post as a training exercise.
Well, thank you for that.
It amazes me that even President Obama has said that the 'science is settled' on the Climate Change question. Science is never settled completely. The whole basis for the scientific method is skepticism. And it seems that the man-made climate change proponents are totally in the business of discouraging any debate against their conclusions. Any problem with that opinion, Mr. Kelley?
You know, flock, I'm looking all over for this supposed quote by President Obama. I find lots of columns by Mr. Obama's opponents: Krauthamer, Hannity, and the like, which quote him as saying this. But the statement he made in the State of the Union, the actual quotation, is "The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact." Slight difference, but an important one, especially in light of your argument.
But the biggest problem I have with your argument, when you are being relatively coherent and not being goaded by the Bobs, is this: the overall field of science is never settled, true. There are scientific assertions, which are so accepted by the community that they might as well be called scientific "facts." The existence of gravity, the speed of light limit, and so forth. But when science is used to promote policy, it is impossible to wait for what you want. If we wait until the science is settled, we'll be waiting forever, by your own definition. So what, then should we do about issues where science has a significant role to play? Should we not invent new drugs to fight cancer, because the science on cancer is not settled? Should we never send people or ships into space, or deep into the ocean, because the science is not settled?
In the case of climate change, there are some things that are as settled as they are ever likely to get in our lifetimes. The globe is warming. It (the warming) is almost certainly anthropogenic. But instead of having an open and lively debate about what to do about it, we are having an insane debate about whether it exists, because a small, vocal group of flat-Earthers are being given a platform in the name of "equal coverage." And before I get barraged by a certain Carolinian Wattfan, the self-appointed climate change "skeptics" have not advanced an alternate hypothesis that I have heard, other than the vapid, "Well, the Earth has always done this." A responsible scientist would propose alternate hypotheses, create experiments to test that hypothesis, and allow others to test their experiments.
Unfortunately, all of us will be dead by the time the full effects of the warming are known for sure.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard Feynman