you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Tom_Bombadil 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

"The science is settled." Argument.

Any one who has a thorough understanding of science and the scientific method understands that science is never settled. Ever.
Scientific advancement will literally cease; if people are forced to stop challenging conventional thinking, and accept being frightened into silence.

The problem is the grant system. Resources are primatial granted to protects that "give the right answers".
Dissident scientists are underfunded/defunded and their work won't be published by gatekeeping journals.
At the same time, toadie scientists who are willing to massage the data get funded, and receive awards.

Look into the climate gate emails, where they admit to adjusting the data. Other scientists have asked for their data and climate models to evaluate them, but were refused access.
The excuse was that they didn't want other scientists to pick their findings apart.
They weren't willing to subject their hypotheses to the greater scientific community for analysis, and criticism. This goes against the absolute fundamentals of the peer reviewed scientific process.

This method of reasoning is not scientific. It is dogmatic.

Science should never ostracize scientists.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

This is all correct. However, just because people are trying to massage data to show a strong trend in a certain direction, doesn't mean that there is no trend. It just means that they're corrupt and lazy and you shouldn't pay attention to them.

Climate change is a hypothetical that, if true, bodes poorly for our success. And fossil fuels are running out anyway, so what's the harm in trying to mitigate our reliance on those?

[–]Dr_Douchebag 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

There is no harm if that is what people voluntarily choose to use for energy. The harm comes from the government forcing people to use a certain form of energy. Eventually fossil fuels will become rare and subsequently more expensive and solar will become cheaper. Until that happens though, forcing people to use more expensive forms of energy will harm poor people the most because they will not be able to afford it and will have side effects of making all things more expensive.

People will naturally move away from fossil fuels when it is economically viable. The government needs to get out of the way

[–]wizzwizz4 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

There is no harm if that is what people voluntarily choose to use for energy.

That has not been proven.

[–]Dr_Douchebag 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

My point was there is no economic harm if people are choosing something like solar for whatever reason. There is harm if people are being forced to use it

[–]wizzwizz4 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Economic harm is a subset of all harm. Please specify in future.

[–]Dr_Douchebag 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Cool, I actually explained it if you kept reading and didn't nitpick wording.

[–]wizzwizz4 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Did you? Where? If you did, I really need to work on my reading comprehension skills! :-)