Comments on: Balancing Acts in Science

By: Larry Olson

Larry Olson — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 00:30:00 +0000

I totally loathe religionists who infer that creationism has any merit in science. But this false construct ‘denialism’ is a dangerous path to go down.

The term itself is kind of a gauntlet ‘denialism’ and pretty much ends the debate. And I don’t think politically-minded folk should be debating this topic without a clear understanding of atmospheric physics. To dismiss out of hand dissenting opinion is a power play and not a call to reasonable debate.

Many climatologists are talking out their behinds. They know it is a political cash cow (AGW) and so naturally fall in line with the rhetoric.

If you look at the AMS site you will note that Meteorologists chafe at this notion of the overwhelming majority diatribe. The same callousness was used in persecuting women as witches and I see the attempts to frame dissent as somehow purely unscientific as laughable.

I come to this site for science but not politics. Carbon credits, IPCC, Kyoto, all have a framework born of the sky is falling mindset.

Just something to ponder as non-scientists tell scientists what to think. That is not science.

By: Vince Whirlwind

Vince Whirlwind — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 04:28:25 +0000

Isn’t he in the “really, really old” category?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:22:55 +0000

Keith, I never made that claim. I would put him in the Deluded category.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:32:55 +0000

So, by Greg’s assertion, Nobel Laureate physicist Ivar Giaever is in the employ of Big Oil/Energy or being paid off by them.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214181/20110915/ivar-giaever-global-warming-climate-change-al-gore-ipcc-hoax-dissent-nobel-prize-winner-physicist-re.htm

And just what evidence does Greg have to support this claim?

By: Jim Thomerson

Jim Thomerson — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:12:19 +0000

I was well aware of what was going on when the stable continent paradigm gave way to the plate tectonic paradigm. I think this was a good example of Kuhn’s paradigm shift hypothesis. On the other hand the transition from Mendelian genetics to molecular genetics was a fairly gradual transition quite unlike the stable continent to plate tectonic shift. I suppose the earlier shift from biometricians to Mendelians was a Kunian paradim shift

Last I heard of Kuhn was a quote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “We do not know how science progresses.”

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:11:49 +0000

Thank you, thank you. I’m here Tuesday through Friday nights and in the Lizard Lounge on Saturdays. Thank you very much.

By: GFW

GFW — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:49:10 +0000

“I think Kuhn’s way of thinking made a lot of sense given how science had changed prior to his writing. Subsequently more and more people saw the nature of science as being different until finally there was enough of a difference in thought about Kuhn that his paradigm was overthrown.”

Beautiful, just beautiful.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:45:14 +0000

And an incorrect understanding of category.

There are two categories here. People who do this without meds and don’t think bigfoot is real, and those who, well, are in a different category.

By: itzac

itzac — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:41:08 +0000

Greg, Terry is saying you’ve made a category error. “Of course evolutionary biologists don’t believe in a young earth. They are defined as people who don’t believe in a young earth.”

Of course that argument requires a really naive definition of evolutionary biology.

By: Raging Bee

Raging Bee — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:57:37 +0000

I’ll add another point: an “alternative view” can be ignored when its advocates’ questions or objections have been answered, and the advocates show no sign of addressing those answers, but keep on repeating the same questions or objections with the pretense (spoken or not) that their questions or objections have never been addresed.