"The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact." - KURT GÖDEL
"According to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".
A guiding principle for accepting claims of catastrophic global events, miracles, incredible healing, invisible friends, or fill in the blank is:
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” - Carl Sagan
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." - H. L. Mencken
I would add irrational and highly delusional to the mix when faith requires one to accept magical violations of the well known, well tested or easily demonstrated laws of Nature. - PWL
"Science is Progress and the Future. Faith is regression to the Dark Ages." - PWL
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
"Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." - Alfred Korzybski
"Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence." - James Randi
"Hypotheses are nets: only he who casts will catch." - Novalis
"Nullius in verba. Take no one's word for it." - Motto of the Royal Society
"I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS." - Richard Feynman
"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." - Thomas Henry Huxley
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein
"Science is empirical. Knowing the answer means nothing. Testing your knowledge means everything." - Lawrence Krauss
"Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism - and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency." - Stephen Jay Gould
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work." - James Randi
We need to start asking those making the wild claims what they actually mean by “climate change”. What constitutes “climate change”? What defines “climate”? Is it just the range of limits of weather during some period of time? What the heck do they actually mean?
What are they actually freaked out about? 1c warmer?
If one looks at climate as being the range of weather over the last ~10,000 years then it’s clear that not much has changed at all and in fact it’s a wee bit cooler by something like -2c to -3c or there abouts. Damn the Romans had it warmer. Read the rest of this entry »
The Facebook user “Ecological Internet” makes some rather alarming statements:
“Earth poised to ecologically collapse bringing down biosphere, humanity & most if not all creatures. Avoidable but requires increase in knowledge & immediate biocentric action. – Ecological Internet on Facebook”
“We know Earth dying and being for all creatures coming to an end – deal with it and commit to reversing – or you are the problem.” – Ecological Internet on Facebook
“I will not respect a book of lies. I will not tolerate intolerance.
…
What we are witnessing are efforts by authorities to confer special secular and legal privilege on the intangible aura of sacredness — a figment of the imagination of deluded believers, which they insist all we non-believers must honor.
“Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. ‘A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,’ the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada, the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its analysis of 10 indicators that are ‘clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.’” – Slashdot.org article “Global Warming ‘Undeniable,’ Report Says”
Yikes, start packing for doomsday for the soothsayers are out and about using The Force to intensify propaganda after their self inflicted Climate Gate revelations of their Alarmist Scientist Core Cult members improprieties. Pack light though, it’s going to be a scorcher, allegedly. Hawaii at the North Pole. I really am beginning to wonder if all these alarmist scientists are just rapture christians firing things up for the coming end times? Nostradamus still beats any climate scientist with soothsaying doomsday predictions. Hands down, and he’s been dead a long time. Now how can that be? Let’s explore the science that prevents predictions of complex systems. Read the rest of this entry »
Bishop Hill [1] and WUWT [2] are reporting on the success of British beurocrates in letting the Climategate CRU criminals, Phil Jones, et. al. at UEA, escape from penalties for their frauds and cover up under the FOI Laws:
“I was told that while there appeared to be a problem, I needed to be clear that there would be no prosecutions under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, regardless of the final outcome of the investigation. Although withholding or destroying information is a criminal offence under the terms of the Act, apparently no prosecutions can be brought for offences committed more than six months prior. As anyone who has made a UK FoI request knows, it can take six months to exhaust the internal review process before the ICO even becomes involved. The ICO can then take another six months before starting his investigation.”
“I hope we see this as a bigger moment because the threat that happened to Haiti can happen anywhere in the Caribbean Island Nations. You know, they’re are all in peril because of global warming, they’re all in peril because of climate change. … [undecipherable gibberish] … We have to act now” – Danny Glover, Actor
It’s a truly sad day when idiotic thoughts like global warming are the cause of everything are all the rage uttered from every corner of society.
Let me spell it out for you Danny Glover and all Global Warming Alarmists, EARTHQUAKES are NOT caused by the falsified Anthropogenic (Man Made) Global Warming Hypothesis. Earthquakes are a Natural phenomenon. There are not even glaciers above Haiti so even if we wanted to trigger an earthquake by melting it with heat we could not have caused this quake! Man doesn’t cause earthquakes by burning fossil fuels for our cars or whatever. If you think we do then you know for sure that you’re a complete nutter.
Actually one could make the argument that the utter waste of resources on the imagined fear and subsequent hysteria of global warming has drawn necessary resources away from the solution of REAL problems.
In fact Danny Glover thinking that the Haiti Earthquake disaster is the result of the falsified AGW Hypothesis put him in the same repugnant category of really bad thinking as the horrific comment by Pat Robertson that the Haitians are suffering because they made a deal with the Devil to get out from under French rule!
As we see the Earth isn’t always a hospitable place to live. The planet is constantly changing and moving. Change is Natural. The planet is a moving dynamic place that is constantly changing… what is more amazing is how stable it really has been for so long to support our form of life.
The following video shows the results of a deep programming and cult inculcation of a “radical ecological green” belief system. This deep devotional commitment is in part fostered during a long period of fasting and indoctrination with fellow cult members. It is very disturbing as it reveals a deeply commuted individual that would be willing to take just about any action in “the revolution”.
“Ecological Sustainability is an absolute unequivocal non-negotiable necessity. … Long Live the Revolution!” – “Paul”, a member of the Cult of Ecological Sustainability aka “Climate Justice”
A very dangerous video for anyone who falls for it. At the end under the increasing music he utters “Long Live the Revolution!”.
The deep and disturbing power of belief in ecological sustainability at any cost forms the foundation of The Potently Dangerous Militant Cult of Ecological Sustainability.
“We’re talking about the fate of all of human kind and the kind of future we’re going to leave for our children!” – David Suzuki
David Suzuki interviewed by Canada’s CBC Power and Politics host Evan Solomon. Wow, epic rant there David! With “beliefs” like you have David Suzuki no wonder you’re freaking out epic! Slooow down. Don’t panic! Check the science dude.
Now we break net and bring you to backwards world where protesters FOR AGW are fighting with the police out side of the Copenhagen climate change meeting followed quickly by the epic rant of Suzuki!
Given the passionate belief stricken masses of people dedicated to the proposition that man is responsible for so called global warming climate change it’s getting dangerous out there!
George Orwell never imagined that the Mad Men of Madison Avenue would get involved in masterful media manipulation.
Don’t fall for their end of the world propaganda. Water World is a fictional film as is An Inconvenient Truth.
“Nullis in verba. Take no one’s word for it.” – Motto of the Royal Society since 1660!
Ask, no demand, to be shown the evidence for AGW. Take no one’s word for Mann-Made Global Warming Climate Change! Ask for the hard factual verifiable (that’s always the part that is missing) evidence! Where is the proof? Don’t just tell us that there are mountains of evidence, that isn’t acceptable since it’s just your word for it. SHOW the evidence. Show the mountain of proof. Show the data. Show the calculations. Open the climate science to public scrutiny. Prove it don’t attempt to sell it! I need proof and evidence that the soothsayers of climatic doom are actually have a predictive science rather than just readings of dead tree entrails!
Well obviously it “Beg(ley)s the Question” (sorry I couldn’t resist) about why Ed Begley hasn’t read or seen the part of Climategate that shows that the so called “peer review” was hijacked and stacked and thus can’t be trusted! Oops! Obviously Ed’s not up on the latest developments or is choosing to ignore the evidence of the Very Serious Climategate Peer Review Process Corruption that has taken place!
Begging the question (or petitio principii, “assuming the initial point”) is a logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise. Begging the question is related to circular argument, circulus in probando (Latin for “circle in proving”) or circular reasoning but they are considered absolutely different by Aristotle.[1] The first known definition in the West is by the Greek philosopher Aristotle around 350 BC, in his book Prior Analytics, where he classified it as a material fallacy.
Worse than “Begging the Question” Begley uses the “Appeal to Authority” argument for constructing his belief based view of reality. In the video Ed Begley goes on and on literally yelling to control the interviewer with intimidation spouting “peer review” repeatedly in so many ways thus making an appeal to authorities. Unfortunately it fails for him due to the fraudulent representations of the Climategate alleged scientists. Regardless appeals to authority are not substantive in science, what is substantive in science is the cold hard verifiable evidence that either proves or refutes a hypothesis!
For intelligent people who require actual factual evidence of a claim in question the appeal to authority holds no value. What hold value to evidence based people is the actual factual verifiable and repeatable evidence! Prove your hypothesis conclusively with review by anyone with the skills to peer review it! Basing one’s important decisions on appeals to authority in science is just asking for serious trouble and invites cult style belief systems of thought. Verifiable Open Evidence is the knife that separates the facts from the fiction in science.
Source A says that p.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.
This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false). It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). [1]
The Journals must be quivering under the Climategate revelations of peer review corruption. I wonder how many will crumble as a result? Or will they get their footing back and survive? I wonder how peer review journals will adapt their policies to correct for this pernicious corruption of the scientific process?
“By Ed’s reasoning, excluding everyone who is “not a degreed climate scientist” that rather puts Dr. James Hansen out of the picture, and many others, including Al Gore.” – Anthony Watts
So yes, according to Ed Begley no one without a PhD in “climate science” can be trusted. Not even Al Gore!. Not even Ed Begley himself who is giving advice! Oh wait, if Ed Begley can’t be trusted then neither can his advice about people having a climate science PhD after their name! Oh the hypocrisy abounds as does the lack of understanding of the scientific process! Read the rest of this entry »