On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:

. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.

Hawke

You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.

Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?

Dan





Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.

No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?

Hawke


Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:

Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.

Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"

Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.

One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.


--
John B.

On 10/23/2011 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:

. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.

Hawke

You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.

Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?

Dan





Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.

No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?

Hawke


Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:

Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.

Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"

Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.

One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.


--
John B.

Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

cheers
T.Alan

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:

On 10/23/2011 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:

. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.

Hawke

You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.

Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?

Dan





Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.

No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?

Hawke


Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:

Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.

Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"

Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.

One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.


--
John B.

Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

cheers
T.Alan


You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).

..

--
John B.

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

--
It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are
not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
-- Freeman Dyson

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the World
Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

On Oct 24, 9:38*am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the World
Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

Another put down by Ed instead of a reasoned argument.

Dan

wrote in message
...

On Oct 24, 9:38 am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the
World
Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

Another put down by Ed instead of a reasoned argument.

Dan

Another example of humor deprivation from Dan, instead of good sense.

--
Ed Huntress

"John B." wrote:

You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).


Some of the biggest fools I've met had college degrees, and some of
the smartest only finished high school.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

" wrote:

On Oct 24, 9:38 am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the World
Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)

Another put down by Ed instead of a reasoned argument.


Sadly, he's doing the best that he can.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

"T.Alan Kraus" wrote in message
...

On 10/24/2011 6:38 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the
World Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)


You should follow the money and find out the reasons for the human
global warming carbon thingy... Read Watermelons by James Delingpole, it
lays it out for all to see. I know how hard it is to read something
that seems to expound an opposite view than the one you hold, but you
owe it to your intelligence and open mind.
cheers
T.Alan

================================================== =======================

[reply]

I welcome reading things that oppose my views, if the reading is any good.
In fact, that's how I got into this with Larry in the first place. He held
me down and forced me to read Michael Crichton's _State of Fear_. g It was
fun to read, but the science was full of holes big enough to drive a truck
through. Of course, Crichton frequently pointed out that it was a work of
fiction...

This one is not going to oppose my views on the the human influence on
climate change, because I don't have any. I consider the idea that anyone
without a very strong background in this particular subject actually *holds*
a view to be preposterous. All we can do is decide which experts we like --
which can retrogress into a question of which politics we like.

So I'll look into _Watermelons_ on your recommendation. From what I can see
in the reviews, it looks like a politically twisted polemic, but I don't
think about those things while I'm reading. d8-)

I might point out that, regarding the political and financial interests, I
looked into the backgrounds of some of the key deniers three or four years
ago and learned that they were financed and supported overwhelmingly by the
coal industry. I'm curious about Delingpole's background. If it was he, and
not a reviewer, who claimed that the "global cooling" hysteria was a product
of the green movement, I could correct that. It came from a right-wing,
self-promoting author-for-hire around 1970, who took some speculative and
preliminary research from Princeton and distorted into a minor goldmine.

Thanks for the lead. If nothing else, I like to read what the deniers find
convincing. And I do read with an open mind, ignoring backstories and
suspending disbelief until I'm done.

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:29:24 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:

On 10/24/2011 6:32 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Exactly! There is a great book out there by James Delingpole,
Watermelons. I highly recommend it.

I'll have to pick up a copy. It looks good!

If you haven't yet read it, find Peter Huber's _Hard Green_. It's one
of the sanest books on 'things green' I've ever read. I wish it were
mandatory reading in high (or earlier) school.

I haven't yet opened the cover of my newest purchase, Plimer's _Heaven
and Earth_ yet, but it's next up on my nightstand. I'm halfway
through Rasmussen's _Mad as Hell_ Tea Party book now and started David
Drake's _Voyage_ while I burned branches this morning. I took one
-very- large load to the green waste recycling center and burned the
small amount of excess.


--
It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are
not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
-- Freeman Dyson

wrote in message
...

On Oct 24, 10:29 am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

Another example of humor deprivation from Dan, instead of good sense.

--
Ed Huntress

Yet another put down from Ed.

You must read with one eye closed, Dan. The eye that's closed is the one
that should be reading your OWN put-downs.

You jumped into a discussion Larry and I have had for at least four years.
It's gone back and forth like that from the beginning, when he told me I was
too dim to recognize that I had bought into the climate story, which he
considers to be a fraud. I don't take kindly to being called dim, or
anything like it, so we've bantered about this ever since. I never said he's
wrong. I've only said that the idea he understands enough of the science to
have a belief about it is absurd. I don't have a belief about it, either.

You have a lot of damned nerve, Mr. Caster, jumping into the middle of some
conversations that have gone on for years, and accusing ME of put-downs. The
whole put-down business here started a decade ago, when Gunner and his boyz
started calling everyone who doesn't agree with them a "libtard," or far
worse. Larry has engage in plenty of it. Long-timers here know how it
started and when, roughly, those of us not of the right decided we'd had
enough.

So stick it where the sun don't shine, Dan. You have no business being
critical, and I'm getting damned sick and tired of it.

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...


"T.Alan Kraus" wrote in message
...

On 10/24/2011 6:38 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the
World Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)


You should follow the money and find out the reasons for the human
global warming carbon thingy... Read Watermelons by James Delingpole, it
lays it out for all to see. I know how hard it is to read something
that seems to expound an opposite view than the one you hold, but you
owe it to your intelligence and open mind.
cheers
T.Alan

================================================== =======================

[reply]

I welcome reading things that oppose my views, if the reading is any good.
In fact, that's how I got into this with Larry in the first place. He held
me down and forced me to read Michael Crichton's _State of Fear_. g It
was fun to read, but the science was full of holes big enough to drive a
truck through. Of course, Crichton frequently pointed out that it was a
work of fiction...

This one is not going to oppose my views on the the human influence on
climate change, because I don't have any. I consider the idea that anyone
without a very strong background in this particular subject actually
*holds* a view to be preposterous. All we can do is decide which experts
we like -- which can retrogress into a question of which politics we
like.

So I'll look into _Watermelons_ on your recommendation. From what I can
see in the reviews, it looks like a politically twisted polemic, but I
don't think about those things while I'm reading. d8-)

I might point out that, regarding the political and financial interests, I
looked into the backgrounds of some of the key deniers three or four years
ago and learned that they were financed and supported overwhelmingly by
the coal industry. I'm curious about Delingpole's background. If it was
he, and not a reviewer, who claimed that the "global cooling" hysteria was
a product of the green movement, I could correct that. It came from a
right-wing, self-promoting author-for-hire around 1970, who took some
speculative and preliminary research from Princeton and distorted into a
minor goldmine.

Thanks for the lead. If nothing else, I like to read what the deniers find
convincing. And I do read with an open mind, ignoring backstories and
suspending disbelief until I'm done.

--
Ed Huntress

Regarding your second point, Physics Today recently pointed out the parallel
to the global warming debate today and the debate surrounding general
relativity theory even after it had been proven experimentally in 1919. As
Einstein himself described it:

"This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every
waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this
matter depends on political party affiliation."

In other words if relativity were correct, it would undermine the ideology
of the antisemitic political parties. It did not matter what the best
scientists with direct expertise in the field said. Just like today when
it does not seem to matter that nearly all scientific societies in the world
have endorsed the conclusion that human activities are causing global
warming and NONE have endorsed a dissenting view. Even the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists which (surprise, surprise) held a
dissenting view until 2007, changed their position to one that is
non-commital.

On Oct 24, 5:29*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


You have a lot of damned nerve, Mr. Caster, jumping into the middle of some
conversations that have gone on for years, and accusing ME of put-downs. The
whole put-down business here started a decade ago, when Gunner and his boyz
started calling everyone who doesn't agree with them a "libtard," or far
worse. Larry has engage in plenty of it. Long-timers here know how it
started and when, roughly, those of us not of the right decided we'd had
enough.

I have been on this usegroup a lot longer than you have. So I am a
Long-timer. But since you think you are a long timer, you should know
that usegroups are not private. You post something, anyone can
respond. If you want private, go to e-mail.

So stick it where the sun don't shine, Dan. You have no business being
critical, and I'm getting damned sick and tired of it.

--
Ed Huntress

So you are sick and tired. Tough luck. I have just as much right to
be critical as everyone else on the usegroups. Just don't write posts
which have no facts and which denigrate people. And I will not
criticise. Your comments are sometimes excellent and sometimes what I
expect from 13 year old boys.


Dan

wrote in message
...

On Oct 24, 5:29 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


You have a lot of damned nerve, Mr. Caster, jumping into the middle of
some
conversations that have gone on for years, and accusing ME of put-downs.
The
whole put-down business here started a decade ago, when Gunner and his
boyz
started calling everyone who doesn't agree with them a "libtard," or far
worse. Larry has engage in plenty of it. Long-timers here know how it
started and when, roughly, those of us not of the right decided we'd had
enough.

I have been on this usegroup a lot longer than you have. So I am a
Long-timer. But since you think you are a long timer, you should know
that usegroups are not private. You post something, anyone can
respond. If you want private, go to e-mail.

So stick it where the sun don't shine, Dan. You have no business being
critical, and I'm getting damned sick and tired of it.

--
Ed Huntress

So you are sick and tired. Tough luck. I have just as much right to
be critical as everyone else on the usegroups. Just don't write posts
which have no facts and which denigrate people. And I will not
criticise. Your comments are sometimes excellent and sometimes what I
expect from 13 year old boys.


Dan

======================================

plonk

On Oct 24, 7:44*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


plonk


Oh My.

Dan

On 10/23/2011 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:

. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.

Hawke

You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.

Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?

Dan





Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.

No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?

Hawke


Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:

Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.

Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"

Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.

One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.


That's not what I'm saying either. History is littered with the mistaken
statements from "experts". I'm reminded of the famous one from a general
in either the revolutionary war or the civil war, I can't remember
which, where he told his men that nobody could hit them at this range.
And then he was promptly shot. So not just being an expert or scientist
guarantees you are always right about anything. Sometimes the expert is
wrong and the amateur is right.


But as a general rule I'll go with the recommendations of the expert
over the amateur. I'll listen to a professional golf caddie when he says
what club to use and not you. I'll take the word or the army ordnance
expert when he tells me I'm not our of the range of a blast and not some
bystander. I think you get my drift, and that when it comes to getting
the facts I'm not going with Limbaugh. I will take the expert's advice
over his any day of the week. I'd recommend that to everyone but I
realize no right winger will ever take that advice.

Hawke

On 10/24/2011 11:56 AM, wrote:
On Oct 24, 10:29 am, "Ed wrote:

Another example of humor deprivation from Dan, instead of good sense.

--
Ed Huntress

Yet another put down from Ed.

Dan



Dan, if you actually understood how the scientific community thinks
about global warming you would see why people like Ed make fun of people
with your position. At this point it has gotten to where the only people
who still disbelieve in global warming are conservative republicans.
Everybody else thinks the opposite.

If you understood how much agreement that there is in the scientific
community of the correctness of the climate change theory you would see
why your side is treated with disdain. Among at least 80% of the world's
top scientists this is not a debatable question any more. When you take
the view of the small minority don't expect respect from anyone that
isn't in your group of right wing zealots, because that's all that's in
your group. And they aren't known for their rational thinking prowess.

Hawke

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:55:35 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Oct 24, 7:44*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


plonk


Oh My.

Dan


Poo baby wont suck on the tit anymore?

Seems Fast Eddy didnt like a face full of Truth much..did he?

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that,
in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers
and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are
not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
Gunner Asch

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:28:31 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"John B." wrote:

You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).


Some of the biggest fools I've met had college degrees, and some of
the smartest only finished high school.

I suspect that the ratio of fools to smarts is fairly well distributed
through out society with no regard to education levels.

(although after reading Usenet for some time I am somewhat inclined to
think that the former classification may dominate)


--
John B.

"John B." wrote:

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:28:31 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"John B." wrote:

You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).


Some of the biggest fools I've met had college degrees, and some of
the smartest only finished high school.

I suspect that the ratio of fools to smarts is fairly well distributed
through out society with no regard to education levels.

(although after reading Usenet for some time I am somewhat inclined to
think that the former classification may dominate)


Some need this for a sig file: "No one on Usenet knows you're a fool,
till you hit send."


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

Gunner Asch wrote:

wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:

plonk

Oh My.

Poo baby wont suck on the tit anymore?

Seems Fast Eddy didnt like a face full of Truth much..did he?


He can't handle the truth. Hell, he can't even find decent software
for Usenet.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

"anorton" wrote in message
...


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...


"T.Alan Kraus" wrote in message
...

On 10/24/2011 6:38 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Not really. Your group is more like the "very small number of opposing
opinion" who believes in the flat earth, supported on the back of the
World Turtle, and that it's turtles, all the way down. d8-)


You should follow the money and find out the reasons for the human
global warming carbon thingy... Read Watermelons by James Delingpole, it
lays it out for all to see. I know how hard it is to read something
that seems to expound an opposite view than the one you hold, but you
owe it to your intelligence and open mind.
cheers
T.Alan

================================================== =======================

[reply]

I welcome reading things that oppose my views, if the reading is any good.
In fact, that's how I got into this with Larry in the first place. He held
me down and forced me to read Michael Crichton's _State of Fear_. g It
was fun to read, but the science was full of holes big enough to drive a
truck through. Of course, Crichton frequently pointed out that it was a
work of fiction...

This one is not going to oppose my views on the the human influence on
climate change, because I don't have any. I consider the idea that anyone
without a very strong background in this particular subject actually
*holds* a view to be preposterous. All we can do is decide which experts
we like -- which can retrogress into a question of which politics we
like.

So I'll look into _Watermelons_ on your recommendation. From what I can
see in the reviews, it looks like a politically twisted polemic, but I
don't think about those things while I'm reading. d8-)

I might point out that, regarding the political and financial interests, I
looked into the backgrounds of some of the key deniers three or four years
ago and learned that they were financed and supported overwhelmingly by
the coal industry. I'm curious about Delingpole's background. If it was
he, and not a reviewer, who claimed that the "global cooling" hysteria was
a product of the green movement, I could correct that. It came from a
right-wing, self-promoting author-for-hire around 1970, who took some
speculative and preliminary research from Princeton and distorted into a
minor goldmine.

Thanks for the lead. If nothing else, I like to read what the deniers find
convincing. And I do read with an open mind, ignoring backstories and
suspending disbelief until I'm done.

--
Ed Huntress

Regarding your second point, Physics Today recently pointed out the parallel
to the global warming debate today and the debate surrounding general
relativity theory even after it had been proven experimentally in 1919. As
Einstein himself described it:

"This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every
waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this
matter depends on political party affiliation."

In other words if relativity were correct, it would undermine the ideology
of the antisemitic political parties. It did not matter what the best
scientists with direct expertise in the field said. Just like today when
it does not seem to matter that nearly all scientific societies in the world
have endorsed the conclusion that human activities are causing global
warming and NONE have endorsed a dissenting view. Even the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists which (surprise, surprise) held a
dissenting view until 2007, changed their position to one that is
non-commital.

================================================== ===============
[reply]

Ha! Imagine what Einstein would think of the anti-science political wing we
have today. g

There's an interesting story about former skeptic Richard Muller in the
Washington Post today. Apparently Muller's report last week in the Wall
Street Journal, in which he reversed himself and said that extensive
checking shows that the IPCC got the warming data exactly right, has some of
the hard core sputtering in their soup:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...fDM_story.html

It's an amazing commentary on how the politicos have abused and distorted
science.

--
Ed Huntress

"Michael A. Terrell" on Mon, 24 Oct 2011
12:28:31 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

"John B." wrote:

You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).


Some of the biggest fools I've met had college degrees, and some of
the smartest only finished high school.

My experience is that some people go to college, and only learn
what it mentioned in class, and some of the buzzwords. Others go to
the same classes, but "apply" themselves to the material, and actually
study the subject. The former is schooled (but thinks he is
"educated"), the later went to school and got an education.

And that is long before we get into the important thing about
"amateurs" -e.g., they love the subject.

tschus
pyotr

--
pyotr
Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And
you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the
question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers
does it take to change a lightbulb.

That had to hurt.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...
On Oct 24, 7:44 pm, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


plonk


Oh My.

Dan

On 10/24/2011 1:44 PM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:29:24 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:

On 10/24/2011 6:32 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Exactly! There is a great book out there by James Delingpole,
Watermelons. I highly recommend it.

I'll have to pick up a copy. It looks good!

If you haven't yet read it, find Peter Huber's _Hard Green_. It's one
of the sanest books on 'things green' I've ever read. I wish it were
mandatory reading in high (or earlier) school.

I haven't yet opened the cover of my newest purchase, Plimer's _Heaven
and Earth_ yet, but it's next up on my nightstand. I'm halfway
through Rasmussen's _Mad as Hell_ Tea Party book now and started David
Drake's _Voyage_ while I burned branches this morning. I took one
-very- large load to the green waste recycling center and burned the
small amount of excess.


--
It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are
not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
-- Freeman Dyson

Just found a copy of Hard Green on Amazon, I'll be reading it in a few
days, thanks.

T.Alan

On Oct 24, 9:11*pm, Hawke wrote:

Dan, if you actually understood how the scientific community thinks
about global warming you would see why people like Ed make fun of people
with your position. At this point it has gotten to where the only people
who still disbelieve in global warming are conservative republicans.
Everybody else thinks the opposite.

If you understood how much agreement that there is in the scientific
community of the correctness of the climate change theory you would see
why your side is treated with disdain. Among at least 80% of the world's
top scientists this is not a debatable question any more. When you take
the view of the small minority don't expect respect from anyone that
isn't in your group of right wing zealots, because that's all that's in
your group. And they aren't known for their rational thinking prowess.

Hawke

What I object to is Ed making fun of people. He does it in a mean
way. He uses ridicule instead of rational arguments. As one of the
other people in RCM said Ed is not someone that you would enjoy being
with.

As far as my position on global warming. it is that there is still a
lot of research going on. While the amount of CO2 ought to be causing
some warming, there is not agreement on how much is caused by CO2.
And there is not agreement on how much is caused by man and how much
is happening because of whatever has caused climate changes in the
past. I expect there will be a lot learned in the next ten years and
we should wait until the science is more exact before enacting laws
and regulations. And when we do enact regulations, we should look at
unentended results. Look at ethanol. There is considerable doubt as
to whether ethanol made from corn is useful in reducing the amount of
petroleum used for gasoline. But little doubt about the effects on
corn prices and the effect on food prices world wide. Now there are
lots of people with a vested interest in requiring the use of ethanol
in gasoline, but little that says it is a good thing.

Dan

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:53:27 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:

On 10/24/2011 1:44 PM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:29:24 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:

On 10/24/2011 6:32 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
--snip--
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

Kinda like us, the Global Warming Skeptics, huh?

Exactly! There is a great book out there by James Delingpole,
Watermelons. I highly recommend it.

I'll have to pick up a copy. It looks good!

If you haven't yet read it, find Peter Huber's _Hard Green_. It's one
of the sanest books on 'things green' I've ever read. I wish it were
mandatory reading in high (or earlier) school.

I haven't yet opened the cover of my newest purchase, Plimer's _Heaven
and Earth_ yet, but it's next up on my nightstand. I'm halfway
through Rasmussen's _Mad as Hell_ Tea Party book now and started David
Drake's _Voyage_ while I burned branches this morning. I took one
-very- large load to the green waste recycling center and burned the
small amount of excess.


Just found a copy of Hard Green on Amazon, I'll be reading it in a few
days, thanks.

Great. Let me know what you think about it.

--
It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are
not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
-- Freeman Dyson

On Oct 24, 11:36*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


There's an interesting story about former skeptic Richard Muller in the
Washington Post today. Apparently Muller's report last week in the Wall
Street Journal, in which he reversed himself and said that extensive
checking shows that the IPCC got the warming data exactly right, has some of
the hard core sputtering in their soup:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...inding-that-se...

It's an amazing commentary on how the politicos have abused and distorted
science.

--
Ed Huntress


Ah but Muller's report , at least as descibed in the Washington Post,
is only whether there is global warming. It does not address what the
cause is or whether the warmer climate will have a positive or
negative feedback on global warming. Still a lot of unanswered
questions.



Dan

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:05:18 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/23/2011 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:

. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.

Hawke

You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.

Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?

Dan





Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.

No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?

Hawke


Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:

Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.

Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"

Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.

One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.


That's not what I'm saying either. History is littered with the mistaken
statements from "experts". I'm reminded of the famous one from a general
in either the revolutionary war or the civil war, I can't remember
which, where he told his men that nobody could hit them at this range.
And then he was promptly shot. So not just being an expert or scientist
guarantees you are always right about anything. Sometimes the expert is
wrong and the amateur is right.

Civil war.

But I was not referring to mistaken statements I was referring to what
was the last minute, up to date, TRUTH.... as understood to be at the
time.

When Semmelweis was arguing that washing the hands would reduce child
bed fever he was ridiculed by the majority of the medical profession
because they had been taught in medical school that it was
unnecessary. Adam Smith argued that a "free market economies are more
productive and beneficial to their societies" was accepted as though
it was carven on tablets of stone for nearly 300 years however I now
see some cracks in the dike and a great many people seem to be
advocating something different.


But as a general rule I'll go with the recommendations of the expert
over the amateur. I'll listen to a professional golf caddie when he says
what club to use and not you. I'll take the word or the army ordnance
expert when he tells me I'm not our of the range of a blast and not some
bystander. I think you get my drift, and that when it comes to getting
the facts I'm not going with Limbaugh. I will take the expert's advice
over his any day of the week. I'd recommend that to everyone but I
realize no right winger will ever take that advice.

Hawke

But you are now talking about what might be termed "blue collar
wisdom", that gained from doing something and observing the results.
The caddie, for example, doesn't calculate the swing velocity, mass of
the club head and drag coefficient of the ball to know that it isn't a
7 iron shot to the green from here.

On the other hand we have the collage educated whom frequently are of
little use when they leave school. I suggest that a short session with
a fresh, green, engineer graduate will be educational with his
requests to drill a 2 in deep hole with a #60 drill, or produces a
drawing calling out +0, -.001 and 1 " of true angle and class 3
threads and when asked if he can lighten up a bit replies "Aren't
those standard tolerances ?"

This is certainly not a condemnation of a collage education, rather it
is a condemnation of the thought process that insists that a collage
education somehow always produces an intelligent individual.


--
John B.

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:11:45 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/24/2011 11:56 AM, wrote:
On Oct 24, 10:29 am, "Ed wrote:

Another example of humor deprivation from Dan, instead of good sense.

--
Ed Huntress

Yet another put down from Ed.

Dan



Dan, if you actually understood how the scientific community thinks
about global warming you would see why people like Ed make fun of people
with your position. At this point it has gotten to where the only people
who still disbelieve in global warming are conservative republicans.
Everybody else thinks the opposite.

If you understood how much agreement that there is in the scientific
community of the correctness of the climate change theory you would see
why your side is treated with disdain. Among at least 80% of the world's
top scientists this is not a debatable question any more. When you take
the view of the small minority don't expect respect from anyone that
isn't in your group of right wing zealots, because that's all that's in
your group. And they aren't known for their rational thinking prowess.

Hawke

The Economist of 22 - 28 Oct 2011, page 89, has an article about a new
group called The Berkeley Earth surface Temperature that has developed
new statistical methods of analyzing the exist earth temperature data.

Apparently available temperature data is not formatted in sufficiently
detailed form to use normal methods of calculation. for example some
data is unevenly spaced, some from sites inside cities that are
subject to warming from the local environment, some from ships at sea,
and so on.

NASA and NOAA already have on line data bases of their raw data and
Berkeley plans on doing the same. In addition the American
Meteorological Socioty is planning a single on line data base
containing all available temperature data as well as all analysis of
the data.

Berkeley's initial four papers have been distributed for peer review
but initially their statistical studies compare very closely with the
work already done by NASA, NOAA and HadCru, the three most definitive
studies. which all, by the way, show a definite increase in earth
temperature.with the largest increase from about 1980 to present.


--
John B.

"Michael A. Terrell" on Mon, 24 Oct 2011
23:19:32 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Some need this for a sig file: "No one on Usenet knows you're a fool,
till you hit send."

"On the net, no one knows if you are a dog." But they can tell if
you are an ass.


tschus
pyotr
--
pyotr
Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And
you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the
question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers
does it take to change a lightbulb.

On Oct 25, 10:53*am, John B. wrote:


The Economist of 22 - 28 Oct 2011, page 89, has an article about a new
group called The Berkeley Earth surface Temperature that has developed
new statistical methods of analyzing the exist earth temperature data.

Apparently available temperature data is not formatted in sufficiently
detailed form to use normal methods of calculation. for example some
data is unevenly spaced, some from sites inside cities that are
subject to warming from the local environment, some from ships at sea,
and so on.

NASA and NOAA already have on line data bases of their raw data and
Berkeley plans on doing the same. In addition the American
Meteorological Socioty is planning a single on line data base
containing all available temperature data as well as all analysis of
the data.

Berkeley's initial four papers have been distributed for peer review
but initially their statistical studies compare very closely with the
work already done by NASA, NOAA and HadCru, the three most definitive
studies. which all, by the way, show a definite increase in earth
temperature.with the largest increase from about 1980 to present.

--
John B.

That is the easy part. Next is WHY? And only after one understands
why, comes what to do ( and what not to do. )


Dan

On 10/24/2011 6:26 PM, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:55:35 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Oct 24, 7:44 pm, "Ed wrote:


plonk


Oh My.

Dan


Poo baby wont suck on the tit anymore?

Seems Fast Eddy didnt like a face full of Truth much..did he?

Gunner

Would that be because he decided to plonk somebody? You know, like you
do all the time, and then have something smart ass to saw when someone
else does as you do. Wing nut!

Hawke

On 10/25/2011 5:11 AM, wrote:

What I object to is Ed making fun of people. He does it in a mean
way. He uses ridicule instead of rational arguments. As one of the
other people in RCM said Ed is not someone that you would enjoy being
with.

Don't forget where you are, Dan. This is an unmoderated group of all
kinds of people and lots of them have no respect for anyone, and treat
people they disagree with like crap. The truth is Ed is one of the best
when it comes to how he comports himself. He's far from the bottom of
the list when it comes to what you are complaining about. Maybe you just
don't like it that Ed's pretty good at it when he does decide to be
derisive. At least you don't hear him just telling people, **** you,
asshole, or worse like you hear from the right wingers every day. I'd
say you're being a bit touchy this time.



As far as my position on global warming. it is that there is still a
lot of research going on. While the amount of CO2 ought to be causing
some warming, there is not agreement on how much is caused by CO2.
And there is not agreement on how much is caused by man and how much
is happening because of whatever has caused climate changes in the
past. I expect there will be a lot learned in the next ten years and
we should wait until the science is more exact before enacting laws
and regulations. And when we do enact regulations, we should look at
unentended results. Look at ethanol. There is considerable doubt as
to whether ethanol made from corn is useful in reducing the amount of
petroleum used for gasoline. But little doubt about the effects on
corn prices and the effect on food prices world wide. Now there are
lots of people with a vested interest in requiring the use of ethanol
in gasoline, but little that says it is a good thing.

Dan

I don't disagree with you on this point either. Climate change is still
a theory but there is a general consensus on it among the people who
know the most about it. It's the people with the least knowledge on the
subject who are most vehement in their disbelief of it. This is a red
flag to me. When the dumbest and least educated are all wound up about
something that tells me they're usually wrong.

It's also not a debate that the gas and oil industries have a vested
interest in promoting the idea that global warming is a hoax. Just like
the tobacco companies did for years when they said tobacco was not
addictive. So climate science is very complex and complicated. The oil
industry is trying to obscure the facts. This makes it difficult for a
lot of people to know what to believe.

I just think it's better to be safe than sorry and at least take steps
to protect ourselves if we are wrecking our environment. There's also no
reason why we should not be moving in a new direction for energy where
it's all clean and harmless to our environment. We all know that in the
future we won't be using fossil fuels anymore. It's just a question of
when. The bad thing is that the right wing has taken to making this
topic a political one where all of them are on one side and everyone
else is on the other. It just causes trouble and we have enough of that
already.

Hawke

On 10/24/2011 8:36 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:

================================================== ===============
[reply]

Ha! Imagine what Einstein would think of the anti-science political wing
we have today. g

There's an interesting story about former skeptic Richard Muller in the
Washington Post today. Apparently Muller's report last week in the Wall
Street Journal, in which he reversed himself and said that extensive
checking shows that the IPCC got the warming data exactly right, has
some of the hard core sputtering in their soup:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...fDM_story.html


It's an amazing commentary on how the politicos have abused and
distorted science.

Not a darn thing new about that! It's always been that way.

Hawke

pyotr filipivich wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Some need this for a sig file: "No one on Usenet knows you're a fool,
till you hit send."

"On the net, no one knows if you are a dog." But they can tell if
you are an ass.


There isn't a barn big enough to hold them all.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

On 10/24/2011 5:56 AM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:

On 10/23/2011 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:

. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.

Hawke

You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.

Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?

Dan





Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.

No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?

Hawke


Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:

Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.

Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"

Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.

One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.


--
John B.

Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.

cheers
T.Alan


You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).

.

--
John B.



From your misunderstanding of my point you must have been one of those
people who doesn't know what they are talking about. To clarify for you,
I was talking about listening to someone like Limbaugh, who has no
education, training, or expertise in anything and disregarding people
who are experts in the area of the topic being discussed. That's a far
cry from believing that everyone who graduates from college knows what
they are talking about. Maybe now you can tell the difference.

Hawke

On Oct 25, 3:50*pm, Hawke wrote:



There's also no
reason why we should not be moving in a new direction for energy where
it's all clean and harmless to our environment. We all know that in the
future we won't be using fossil fuels anymore. It's just a question of
when.
Hawke


The when seems to be a long ways out. When I was ten or so, the known
oil reserves was less than twenty years. Now the reserves are
longer. Plus we have even longer supply of natural gas and a huge
amount of coal. But I agree, no since in using more energy than
necessary. Today I bought more insulation for the attic.


Dan

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:11:03 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Oct 24, 9:11*pm, Hawke wrote:

Dan, if you actually understood how the scientific community thinks
about global warming you would see why people like Ed make fun of people
with your position. At this point it has gotten to where the only people
who still disbelieve in global warming are conservative republicans.
Everybody else thinks the opposite.

If you understood how much agreement that there is in the scientific
community of the correctness of the climate change theory you would see
why your side is treated with disdain. Among at least 80% of the world's
top scientists this is not a debatable question any more. When you take
the view of the small minority don't expect respect from anyone that
isn't in your group of right wing zealots, because that's all that's in
your group. And they aren't known for their rational thinking prowess.

Hawke

What I object to is Ed making fun of people. He does it in a mean
way. He uses ridicule instead of rational arguments. As one of the
other people in RCM said Ed is not someone that you would enjoy being
with.

As far as my position on global warming. it is that there is still a
lot of research going on. While the amount of CO2 ought to be causing
some warming, there is not agreement on how much is caused by CO2.
And there is not agreement on how much is caused by man and how much
is happening because of whatever has caused climate changes in the
past. I expect there will be a lot learned in the next ten years and
we should wait until the science is more exact before enacting laws
and regulations. And when we do enact regulations, we should look at
unentended results. Look at ethanol. There is considerable doubt as
to whether ethanol made from corn is useful in reducing the amount of
petroleum used for gasoline. But little doubt about the effects on
corn prices and the effect on food prices world wide. Now there are
lots of people with a vested interest in requiring the use of ethanol
in gasoline, but little that says it is a good thing.

Dan


Scientists have shown Repeatedly..that CO2 increases FOLLOW warming, not
proceed them.

So increased temp levels CAUSED increased Co2..but were not Caused by
Co2.

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that,
in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers
and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are
not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
Gunner Asch