Huxley was one of a long tradition of British sceptical philosophers. From the Bacons, through the likes of Locke, Hume and Russell, to the magnificent climax of Popper’s statement of the principle of falsifiability, the scientific method was painfully established, only to be abandoned in a few short decades. It is one of the great ironies of modern history that the nation that was the cradle of the scientific method came to lead the process of its abandonment. The great difference, then, is that religion demands belief, while science requires disbelief. There is a great variety of faiths. Atheism is just as much a faith as theism. There is no evidence either way. There is no fundamental clash between faith and science – they do not intersect. The difficulties arise, however, when one pretends to be the other.
The Royal Society, as a major part of the flowering of the tradition, was founded on the basis of scepticism. Its motto “On the word of no one” was a stout affirmation. Now suddenly, following their successful coup, the Greens have changed this motto of centuries to one that manages to be both banal and sinister – “Respect the facts.” When people start talking about “the facts” it is time to start looking for the fictions. Real science does not talk about facts; it talks about observations, which might turn out to be inaccurate or even irrelevant.
The global warmers like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods. They promote slogans such a “The science is settled” when real scientists know that science is never settled. They were not, however, always so wise. In 1900, for example, the great Lord Kelvin famously stated, “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Within a few years classical physics was shattered by Einstein and his contemporaries. Since then, in science, the debate is never closed.
The world might (or might not) have warmed by a fraction of a degree. This might (or might not) be all (or in part) due to the activities of mankind. It all depends on the quality of observations and the validity of various hypotheses. Science is at ease with this situation. It accepts various theories, such as gravitation or evolution, as the least bad available and of the most practical use, but it does not believe. Religion is different.
Ever hear the one about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac: He stayed up all night wondering if there is a dog.
To me, science is our way of understanding the universe, of approximating its behaviour using mathematical equations. Religion, on the other hand, is way of answering, why on earth am I here?
Faith can fill in the gap, such as an unseen God, or the inability of science to explain how nothing (a vacuum) was transformed into matter, given our linear mode of beginning and end. Science says energy is neither created nor destroyed, (merely converted to another form) for instance, but can’t, right now, explain how matter always was, which is a necessary condition for contemporary science.
Religion and faith aren’t for everyone, and we should never confuse dogma for science, as the Kyoto cultists seem determined to do.
I know it’s late; I’m just an insomniac, though.
Spike, until you know of what you speak, your jaws should not be moving. Athiests have “absolute intolerance with other beliefs”? Give it a rest. And do not even begin to compare me with a Muslim or communist. Carry on little troll.
So it’s settled then? We all agree that there is a God and that she is a confirmed atheist and regular reader of SDA?
The proposition that science somehow has an inherent tension against or counter to a religious outlook is patently false.
Science attempts to answer the question of how things connect in the the natural world.
Religion attempts to answer the the who or why of existence/being.
These are two different questions which are not necessarily contradictory.
One can understand the mechanics of mathematics or physics but this doesn’t of necessity bar holding a faith based view of one’s world.
One can hold a philosophy of science position quite comfortably with a faith based view on one’s existence or place in the world.
Is is an artifice of post modernist thinking to remove God. It may be a starting axiom for some, but nothing says that this axiom may or may not be true on its own merits.
One may posit the existence of subatomic particles such as gluons to explain the structure and behaviour of the physical universe in a mathematical way.
The scientist then may begin the hunt for gluons.
Einstein may have been uncomfortable with the notion of quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, but it introduces free will in the human construct and leads away from a strict mechanistic determinism.
Similarly, one may posit the existence of God to explain in an ontological way the reason/meaning for one’s existence/being.
The theist then may begin the hunt for God.
Science and theism are not antagonistic but can be quite complementary views on nature and existence.
It is the popular press that likes to present this as a tension because as usual controversy sells.
Cheers
🙂
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP
Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Now that is a great read….
JCL
Where do you think all those asteroids come from their used in gods marble game
Actually, no, ol hoss. You are thinking in a linear and mechanical fashion – ie, that ‘something’ was created from ‘nothing’ is linear, setting up a ‘before something’. That is linear Newtonian time. What if there are other forms of time that are non-linear?
Also, you are thinking in a mechanical mode of X and not-X, or ‘something’ and ‘no-thing’. Again, a complex system doesn’t operate in such a binary mode. Furthermore, you are thinking that ‘something’ has a material morphology. What if it’s pure energy, above the speed of light? Remember, below the speed of light, energy exists as matter.
It is called the ‘Big Bang’.
[ There is no fundamental clash between faith and science – they do not intersect. The difficulties arise, however, when one pretends to be the other. ]
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the above is the main reason for Kate’s post.
Think Gore and Suzuki and Maurice Strong.
Thank you Richard Ball you nailed it perfectly and in few words. My husband has a favorite saying,”educated into imbecility”,I love that term and find it very relevant to many people.
bryceman, Murray,
That you can’t prove a negative is exactly wrong. Testing the negative is the basis of the scientific method. In science, you don’t prove your hypothesis directly, you disprove the null hypothesis. You are proving the negative. You must eliminate all competing (reasonable) explanations for your observations through verifiable testing. Otherwise you don’t have a scientific fact, you have a theory. That is why the vast majority of science is theory.
With religion, I can say that I don’t THINK that there is a god (which is a claim of disbelief, not fact.) I can say with more conviction that the god as described in the Christian bible doesn’t exist based on contradictions and logic. I can say that I will go through life with the assumption that there is no god.
But I can’t say there is no god of any sort. Only someone who claims what they can’t possibly know is an absolute atheist.
Unless you can prove something, that something remains a theory. Any claim beyond that is arrogance and hubris.
How do we know that the mechanisms in science aren’t some unknown god’s own experiment and that the universe we observe is not his Petri dish? We don’t and we can’t.
Agnostism is scepticism, atheism is faith that you KNOW what you can’t. Atheism is hubris in the same way you find in all the other isms and religions.
I think the difference between theism, atheism, secular isms like the greens versus the scientific method is that science posits that anything is possible until proven otherwise and nothing is true until proven. If you can’t observe something, you can’t eliminate it. The scientist proves something by rejecting the Null hypothesis. You prove the negative.
A more valid claim is to say that I am an agnostic who is as near an atheist as you are logically able to claim.
Settled Science as Pay-Per-View Entertainment:
Pretend Scientist:
“I have this tent. I have these bottles of snake oil. I have a graph that shows the earth is getting warmer. You are causing it. I call it ‘settled science’. I will save you. Give me your money.”
Real Scientist:
“I call BS. Go back in your tent. Take your graph and lubricate it with some snake oil. Shove it up your butt. Warning: it may feel a bit ‘unsettling’. But, I’ll pay to watch you do it.”
🙂
Religion is for suckers, I agree.
However, Bagnell seems to forget one thing – the fact that if the world is heating up because of human induced emissions, then we have to act now to save ourselves. As much as I know the world is heating up, I understand that some of you would rather not “believe” it.
However, if it turns out the scientists are right, and that the world IS heating up, and the Ice Caps ARE melting, and the subsequent global catastrophe will destroy our planet, what will you say?
Whoops?
How could we have known?
It’s not our fault?
In the Arctic the changes are already happening. Anyone can learn about them, even some of the morons who come here and blindly resist the “we’ve gotta do something about climate change and carbon emissions now!” movement. Even Kate can learn about them.
Patrick Moore is right.
Kate posts the best ‘ties-it-all-together’ piece I have every seen. And the thread breaks down into ‘my god, your god — he said, she said’ bickering.
Why ?? Simple. As Patrick said, the best story is one that is hard to prove either way. At least initially. The Kyoto Kult knew this.
warwick – I’ll quibble with you. I don’t think that you can ‘prove’ a negative – and the null hypothesis isn’t about proving a negative.
The null hypothesis is a situation where you set up a hypothesis, which you accept as valid!! but your real agenda is to nullify or disprove that hypothesis by searching out another hypothesis.
So, I can set up a situation where I state that ‘Witches do not cause disease’. I’ll accept this as valid and start to explore other hypotheses about causes of disease – such as germs, genetics, pollutants, etc..which will weaken the validity of my original witch hypothesis.
But, I don’t think that i can prove that witches do not cause disease. I can just find more reliable causes…
I don’t think that most science is theory; it is facts based within theories. Theory without facts is hypothetical; and facts without theories are random.
Agree – there is no proof that there is no god and it can’t be proven. Same with the opposite; there’s no proof that there IS a god, and it can’t be proven. It’s a choice to believe/not believe in a god (at least, thank goodness, it’s a choice in our society).
As for the semantics of atheism vs agnosticism, i frankly don’t give a damn; I define myself as an atheist; I don’t believe in god. Nothing to do with faith, but a choice to believe/not believe. The agnostic is focusing on themselves as incapable of knowing whether or not there is a god – hence your claim that the atheist, with his certainty, has ‘hubris’. My view is that it has nothing to do with my ability to know whether or not there is a god, but my choice to reject the existence of a metaphysical agent. Is that hubris? I don’t think so.
Again, the null hypothesis is not about proving the negative – that’s impossible.
Throbbin,
Leave to a leftard to entirely miss every. single. point.
Congrats, you have proven yourself less intellegent than an illiterate halfwit with tourette’s.
ET,
In your hypothesis that “witches do not cause desease,” your null hypothosis would be that “witches DO cause desease.” You would then disprove your null hypothesis. In effect, you have to prove that something is not inorder to prove that the alternative is. You are proving the negative when you disprove the positive.
I didn’t say there were NO facts in science. I said that a lot of what is in science is not fully proven as fact as it is not possible to prove one way or another until more knowledge is available. If we knew the factual basis of all of science, you’d hardly need to do any more of it, would you? Most of science is highly probably but subject to revision or completion. That isn’t to say its wrong, just that it isn’t finished.
Warwick, I understand what Bagnell was trying to say – as another attempt to soothe the climate change deniers.
His rant is so laden with convoluted, contradictory, stupid assertions that I won’t even address it, you guys have fun though.
Theres a reason most people in the world understand that Human induced climate change is a reality.
And don’t try to think of yourselves as the minority vanguard of truth and the scientific process, under siege by the mindless enviro-dhimmi-surrender-monkey-communists. You may pat each other on the back, but the world is laughing at you.
John Brignell is a moron to boot – he doesn’t actually believe that 2nd hand smoke causes lung cancer, and actually fought the EPA over it. Sounds like another Fred Singer to me.
5 minutes on Google, and you can find out just what kind of person Bignell is – like I said, you guys enjoy your champions, they are becoming increasingly rare and illegitimate.
Oh BTW – nice website Warwick. Did you create that website just to have your name underlined and hyperlinked in SDA? For some reason, I wouldn’t put it beneath you.
the problem, throbbin, with your rant, is that it is a rant. Not a word that is factual, that is grounded in evidence. Indeed, you reject providing us with any evidence, claiming that we should just accept your words as valid.
Why is that? Why should we accept your assertions without evidence that Bagnell is wrong; that the ‘world is laughing’; and even, that AGW is a ‘reality’.
Just five minutes on google, throbbin, and you’ll find out how ignorant your rant is. You see, the point of the scientific method is to work within facts, not rants.
Throbbin,
Nice. “your agurment is stupid because i say so and therefore I refuse to refute” Try that one in school.
I reiterate my original observation about your literacy intellegence and illness. You’re a twit.
My website is no longer. I see the name has been usurped by squatters, though. Must be a google thing.
Oh boy…
I did not want to get into this because it is becoming so asinine. But, since ET jumped in and Warwick is still flinching, I will address it simply.
ET is right in his analysis of null hypothesis. Warwick is wrong. You don’t create a null hypothesis by simply adding or removing the word “NOT”. You create a negative hypothesis by inserting the word not. It is those things that cannot be proven.
Futhermore, the assertion that witches do indeed cause disease can be proven if there is proof to be had. The assertion that witches do NOT cause disease cannot be established…specifically because you cannot prove that witches don’t exist or that they don’t transmit disease. You’ve got a double negative problem there.
Again, if I could produce a witch and show that she had a disease and then take a healthy person and show that that healthy person gets the disease the witch is carrying, I win.
But, if the challenge is to prove the “not” version, I have nowhere to go – except (as I and ET have said earlier) to show that it is unlikely by producing volumes of evidence of other causes.
It’s that simple.
Throbbin,
Brignell backs up everything he claims with facts that are not disputable (and have never been disputed). That’s why folks such as yourself are forced to resort to silly little “attacks” like…
John Brignell is a moron to boot – he doesn’t actually believe that 2nd hand smoke causes lung cancer, and actually fought the EPA over it.
In your mind, you think that that is actually an successful “hit” against Brignell. It is not. In Galileo’s time, the masses of ignorance thought that they could score hits against him by saying, “Galileo is a moron to boot – he doesn’t actually believe that the Earth is the centre of the Universe.” Of course, people like them (and you) don’t live long enough to see who becomes the real laughing stock after many years of history have passed and the hysteria has calmed.
I have read Brignell’s analysis of the EPA report on second-hand smoke. I have also read the original EPA report and the US Federal Court Judge’s decision which declared that the EPA had in fact faked their evidence and declared the study null and void. It is all a validation of Brignell’s argument.
Have you read these things? If you were to read them, are you educated enough to know how to analyze them? Do you know how epidemiology works? Can you read – or is your facilitator helping you out with this?
My guess is that you are angry because people are claiming that the facts don’t match with your religion. You can’t take down your opponents argument with science and facts, so you have nothing but the appeal-to-authority trick. This essentially comes down to “My priest says it is so, so you guys stop poking holes in the argument or I’ll throw a hissy fit.”
It is very easy to find 10-15 world leading climatology experts who have continued to maintain that there is nothing about the global warming theory to get up in arms about. You can’t name one who says otherwise. You can only make vague references to “consensus of scientists” where the so-called “scientist” may be a lab assistant to the fruit-fly guy.
But, there is no point in trying to waste time convincing true-believers of the facts. They are not interested in the facts…only in pushing their religion further.
You have a right to your religion. I don’t want to talk you out of it. But, I am getting concerned that, like all up-start religions of the past, you people are worked up into a frenzy where you now want to force your religious beliefs on me. Instead of offering the collection plate, you want me to pay a dhimmi tax. That’s something I’m not willing to do.
Brignell and his kind are not trying to take down your god (Gaia is the name I think). We just want to be left alone and allowed to not believe.
bryceman, bang-on !!
Kyoto Kult “green taxes” would be no more than a religion type collection plate.
Amazing, the quality of commenters here at sda.
The Globe’s ?? Seems that most are just fresh U students parroting the hippy prof 🙂
Huxley was the one who drew those fake embryos showing those dumb tails and gill slits on them and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC is still showing those fake embryos
I could spend the 1/2 hour countering the “Kyoto as a religion” thing, but I don’t have the time nor the inclination. People are still laughing at you.
I could read the EPA report, could probably analyze it fairly well, but I have better things to do.
Climate Change deniers are becoming increasingly desperate (What – you want to cut carbon emissions and kill all plant life on earth?), and becoming more and more extreme wanting to hold on to their views.
Oh, and my God “Gaiea”? Sorry, nope. Just want tomake sure my grandchildren have a habitable planet when they are my age. Sorry of that bothers you.
throbbin- until you actually do something,i.e., specifically support your allegations, rather than inform us that you ‘could’ if you ‘felt like it’, the reality is (and you insist you care about reality)… that you aren’t doing anything other than spouting pompous hogwash.
It’s childish, and arrogant, to state that you ‘could’ refute something, that you ‘could’ analyze something, that you ‘could’ do whatever…but you just ‘don’t feel like it’.
By the way, no one doubts climate change; what is doubted and rejected, is that it is caused primarily by human beings. So, stop with the juvenile name-calling (‘deniers’).
Again –
Either put up – or shut up.
Are you guessing betweens rows, or choosing between columns?
http://break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html
Check it out. This about sums it up.
Throbbin: simple question, still unanswered by the proponents of Kyoto despite my posing it so many times (so you can be first): according to the IPCC scientific reports, did the Little Ice Age occur or not occur? I await your referenced response.
OK Throbbin:
I watched the video – beginning to end. I have two responses to it…
One:
An important rule for anyone debating social or economic policy (and it doesn’t matter if you lean right or left): Beware of simplistic answers! Nothing is ever simple…especially when it involves large numbers of people. In this case, we are talking about the entire population of the Earth…it don’t get much larger than that.
Watching him reminds me of reading Lenin. In his early papers (before he came to power) Lenin attempted to prove (using mathematics and similar charts) that communism would be far more efficient and productive than capitalism. Reading it, you want to reach back through history, grab him by the lapels, and scream, “But, you’re talking about humans, you idiot!” You can’t collectively put all humans into a mathematical formula unless all humans are exactly the same – each with the same talents, needs, and desires.
Two:
This guy assumes that the only negative effect of “taking action” on global warming when there is no real threat is that there would be a global economic depression. There are ALWAYS unintended consequences from those actions that seem relatively trivial when you are trying to predict the future.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I recommend taking a look at 3w.michaelcrichton.com/speeches/index.html (the sixth one on the list called “Environmentalism as Religion”). I took a look at what you presented, Throbbin. How about returning the favor?
Pay special attention to where Crichton talks about the ban of DDT. Activists in the 80’s claimed that DDT was harmful to people (caused cancer) and birds (damaged their eggs). There was argument…but by using logic must like this guy in the video, it was banned.
Today, we know that DDT has no such negative effects. We also know that about 30 million deaths (mostly children) have been directly attributed to the banning of a chemical that never needed to ban. Even though they now know they were wrong, the UN still won’t supply DDT to the poorest countries that have sky-rocketing malaria cases. All countries that can afford it now have to (and do) purchase and use it.
I am sure that, if we took the point-of-view of this guy in the video before we banned DDT, his argument would have sounded as reasonable to you as his global warming one does. I mean what would have been the worst that the pre-ban DDT opponents would have forseen? Probably just the “cost” factor of using less effective alternatives – just as this guy did.
There is no way that they could have put X number of deaths in the worst case “take-action-but-there’s-nothing-to-worry-about-column”…because there is no way they could know the number. And if he had have put “X deaths”, everyone would want to know “How many deaths?” Which would stall the argument from moving forward.
What if they had put 30 million deaths (mostly children) in the top left cell? Don’t you think the policy makers may have thought differently of it?
The point is that there are always unintended consequences…and even I don’t pretend to know what could come out of taking drastic action.
But, think about this. If something that seems relatively benign – like getting the UN to stop providing DDT to nations that can’t afford to purchase it themselves – can result in 30 million deaths (a number that no one contests, by the way), then what could the unintended consequences be of taking “drastic action” on a global scale to control how people live and use energy?
If global warming is real, then the controls put on people must be global. That means a central power controlling (with the ability to enforce) energy policy around the world.
The thought of a world governing body (one with unelected elites) deciding what each individual can and cannot do in a day is among the scariest things I can think of. Everything a human might do from eating meat (thus supporting meat farmers who farm animals that fart and, thus contribute to “climate change”) to smoking (which I now understand contributes to “climate change”) would be under the power of this new world order.
I don’t think you have to be a genius to foresee that the worst possible consequences would be a hell of a lot worse than simple “cost”.
That, Throbbin, is the reason that I and those like me say that we had better be 100% sure before we can get behind the idea of taking drastic action like that proposed by those who believe in “global warming” or “climate change” or whatever the focus groups have decided it should be called this week.
One more thing…doesn’t the fact that so many policy-makers spend so much time working on better ways to package their idea (rather than addressing the issues put forth by men like Richard Lindzen) bother you a little?
I mean, none of the scientist on the “deniers” side ever engages in personal attacks on those who sit on the “consensus” side. Instead they attack the scientific methodology. Why do the “consensus” people never seem to answer back with scientific points to put down them “deniers”? Why do they instead come up with labels like “deniers”? Just wondering.
Even the Globe & Mail is dumping on Kyoto since it died last week at the G8.
This would have never made it to print before;
[ Global warming good for Canada, Yale study shows
MICHAEL HILL
Associated Press
Canadian farmers could harvest bumper crops; Greenland may become awash in cod and oil riches; shippers could count on an Arctic shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific, study suggests.
Northern homes could save on heating fuel. Cities might stop losing snowbirds to the South. ](AP)
And Greenland could become green !! Again !!
Canada’s Tim Ball has been making these points for ten years. Our beloved media is only starting to listen.
ET, that’s a lot of “if’s”.
Warwick, if memory serve, you test a hypothesis. In simple terms, a hypothesis refers to a provisional idea whose merit needs evaluation. Through observation or investigation, you confirm or disprove the hypothesis. A useful hypothesis will enable one to predict outcomes based on reasoning (deductive or inductive). Continued confirmation of a hypothesis can lead to a theory.
Theories, like a hypothesis are testable, it takes many confirmations to make a good theory. One result that denies the theory nullifies its usefulness.
And another thing. To make a case in point about theory and hypothesis, first, the Global Warming Theory states that the troposphere will warm earlier and faster than the surface. Observation tells us otherwise. One strike.
Second, GWT states that temperatures at the poles will increase at a greater rate than the equator. Polar temperature are not warming at a greater rate, the south pole is cooling. Strike two.
GWT implies that temperature change will be global, the southern hemisphere is not warming at the same rate as the northern hemisphere. Strike three.
The theory is broken. Its time to re-evaluate the hypothesis that underlies the theory.
Few people will deny that there is warming but such warming is regionalized. Many scientits will argue the extent of the warming but most agree that it has been, on average, about 0.6 degrees over the past 107 years, motly (80%) between 1900 and 1945 with the remaining 20% in the last 60 years. Oddly, the first 80% in temperature happened with 18% of the obserable CO2 increase.
Doesn’t give one a lot of confidence in the theories being bandied about.