When knowledge is suppressed we all lose.

[GMT]

I think a few are confusing what head is talking about with poppers falsification principles of scientific enquiry. While a good scientist after finding evidence to support a theory should then try to find evidence to disprove it, an example of knowledge supression would be where the church had galilao (sp?) executed for spreading knowledge that bible was wrong when describing the workings of the solar system, or when the uk primeminister asked for the opnion of the experts on the harmfull effects of canabis and then not only ignored them, but then contradicted them.

45% of americans believe in creationism, some of them may buy genetics from respected breeders who use the laws of evolution to improve and create new strains of canabis. yet they dont see that they are contradicting their own misguided beliefs when doing so.

We live in a time when our lives are so filled with getting through each day, that we dont all get the chance to contemplate which of our own views are justifiable, and many dont have the mental facility to weigh up the arguements, they just look for the figure with the greatest authority and believe what they say to believe. Its sad but true that using this method to gain our views on reality alone would leave our species of animal picking berries off bushes rather than surfing the internet.

I struggle constantly to find the patience and compassion for the worlds natural berry pickers not to grab them and shake them in the hope of dislodging whatever blockage prevents the thoughts from forming in their minds, (metaphorically speaking) but the truth is we cant all sit in the sun (deliberate play on platonian teachings) and contemplate our belly buttons, or we'd all starve. We need the berry pickers and we need the contemplators, and the latter have to accept that the former wont be interested in our realisations unless they help them pick more berries.

 

[dagnabit]

Nope... your post was of no help at all... other than to highlight your confusion.
Did you not get that the "wtf?" clown emote was part of my post, you incompletely quoted?






Not "peril?" as what is the definition of peril... I have reference books for that sort of simple answer, had I not already known the definition.

"peril?" an in "what fucking peril? lmao... peril... pffft... I challenge you to present this trumped up 'peril'."

and ultimately, my challenge to identify this alleged peril was met with dumb silence, and silly sarcasm.

im not that fluent in the new pidgin english of mixed emoticon speak.
i was operating based on the level of comprehension you have demonstrated previously. it stood to reason based upon that demonstrated comprehension that you might need the definition.
the standard response in polite circles is not "i knew that" (paraphrased from your lengthy whine quoted above) rather, a polite human when presented with a helpful piece of information (whether that information is new to you or not) responds by thanking the person providing the information.
but manners are lost in today's culture.....

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

im not that fluent in the new pidgin english of mixed emoticon speak.
the standard response in polite circles is not "i knew that" (paraphrased from your lengthy whine quoted above) rather, a polite human when presented with a helpful piece of information (whether that information is new to you or not) responds by thanking the person providing the information.
but manners are lost in today's culture.....

Hmmm...
My apologies for responding to your sarcasm and thinly veiled attempt at insult in a less than polite manner.
Thank you.

 

[AntelopeDope]

When Barry Hussein is President, we all lose.

Heir Apparent, The Anointed One, The Astro Turf Terror...

Most of you are babbling in circles. Months later, Grateful and Zeppelin are still harping about global warming, scrapping arbitrary information together to hopefully create a logos to lift their argument up.

The only rising seas are the waters of the centralized, command and obey Obama White House. If real global warming doesn't surface soon, I'd bet they construct another Climategate - after all, the nation completely rebukes cap and tax and the sheeple must be educated by Our Dear Professor.

Grateful, your automatic acceptance of government controlled media "exonerations" serves as cornerstone to your continuing hypocrisy.

As you've said a few posts above:
"Getting your science from the media is often more detrimental to understanding than outright denialism."

.. with a post title of: "Example of how Poorly the media understands and presents scientific theories"

hmm...

Edit: just noticed Disco is still troll-blathering too! how pathetic.

 

[SpasticGramps]

This is a great thread about "Denialism." and being in denial. I'll be back later to comment of how so many people got bamboozled into believing the economy was recovering and the consequences this illusion will have for their future.

There never was going to be a recovery and the reality is becoming harder and harder to deny, but many still do and like lemmings we all go over the cliff together.

So I reserve my spot to opine at length about "economic denialism" and how the Keynesian propaganda machine destroyed the country. When knowledge of Austrian economics is lost, we all lose.

Until then HERE is something for you to watch while you enjoy the "Summer Of Recovery!!" lmao.

 

[dagnabit]

Hmmm...
My apologies for responding to your sarcasm and thinly veiled attempt at insult in a less than polite manner.
Thank you.

apology accepted.

not sure why you included the masturbation reference.....

ohhh wait your apology was a backhanded passive aggressive " thinly veiled attempt at insult in a less than polite manner".

got it

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

gramps, WTF does the economy have to do with scientific denialism?
you just gotta try and work your politics into everything doncha?
Whatever... If you get on topic I may bother paying attention to you, until then
your political rhetoric bullshit will be henceforth silently lol'd and publicly ignored.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

dagnabit, you're slowly coming up to speed... ;D

Thing is... my sarcasm was thick, with emotes chosen for emphasis.
no subtlety implied or intended.

 

[GMT]

"So I reserve my spot to opine at length about "economic denialism" and how the Keynesian propaganda machine destroyed the country."

That right there is the problem. So few understand what they are talking about. It was ignoring Keynesian economic recomendations that brought us to our knees. Though from what you say I am starting to think that you're an egalitarian, diety worshiping fellow. And no matter what is said to you, if its not in the bible, you wont believe it. So the only thing I can assume is that you want to avoid people believing in scientific data in case it weakens the grip religion has on their lives. But you need to realise that if god existed and wanted everyone else to believe in what you do, he would have made us that way. If god is all powerfull, then what the rest of the world believes in is exactly what he wants us to believe in, so why try to change what we bellieve in? And if he doesn't, then you need to change what you believe in, either way, we will continue to push for an enlightened and rational aproach to learning about reality, and you should back up really and just pray that we change our minds.

 

[dagnabit]

dagnabit, you're slowly coming up to speed... ;D

yup i made the mistake of assuming you were human...

but im slowly coming up to speed.

 

[dagnabit]

GMT, WTF does religion have to do with scientific denialism?
you just gotta try and work your politics into everything doncha?
Whatever... If you get on topic I may bother paying attention to you, until then
your religious rhetoric bullshit will be henceforth silently lol'd and publicly ignored.

That right there is the problem. So few understand what they are talking about. It was ignoring Keynesian economic recomendations that brought us to our knees. Though from what you say I am starting to think that you're an egalitarian, diety worshiping fellow. And no matter what is said to you, if its not in the bible, you wont believe it. So the only thing I can assume is that you want to avoid people believing in scientific data in case it weakens the grip religion has on their lives. But you need to realise that if god existed and wanted everyone else to believe in what you do, he would have made us that way. If god is all powerfull, then what the rest of the world believes in is exactly what he wants us to believe in, so why try to change what we bellieve in? And if he doesn't, then you need to change what you believe in, either way, we will continue to push for an enlightened and rational aproach to learning about reality, and you should back up really and just pray that we change our minds.

this new religion of algoreisim is just as imaginary as all the zoroastrian based religions you hold such contempt for.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

Al Gore has never had any effect at all on any of my beliefs or on the science demonstrating global warming.
That you imagine otherwise shows just how sorely confused you are.


Only asshats get their science from the media or from politicians.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

That right there is the problem. So few understand what they are talking about... either way, we will continue to push for an enlightened and rational aproach to learning about reality, and you should back up really and just pray that we change our minds.

=]

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

yup i made the mistake of assuming you were human...

but im slowly coming up to speed.

You debate with all the skill and savy of a kindergardener.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

Thank god man-made global warming was proven to be a hoax. Just imagine what the world might have looked like now if those conspiring scientists had been telling the truth. No doubt NASA would be telling us that this year is now, so far, the hottest since humans began keeping records. The weather satellites would show that even when heat from the sun significantly dipped earlier this year, the world still got hotter. Russia's vast forests would be burning to the ground in the fiercest drought they have ever seen, turning the air black in Moscow, killing 15,000 people, and forcing foreign embassies to evacuate. Because warm air holds more water vapour, the world's storms would be hugely increasing in intensity and violence - drowning one fifth of Pakistan, and causing giant mudslides in China.

The world's ice sheets would be sloughing off massive melting chunks four times the size of Manhattan. The cost of bread would be soaring across the world as heat shriveled the wheat crops. The increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be fizzing into the oceans, making them more acidic and so killing 40 percent of the phytoplankton that make up the irreplaceable base of the oceanic food chain. The denialists would be conceding at last that everything the climate scientists said would happen - with their pesky graphs and studies and computers - came to pass.

This all happening today, except for that final stubborn step. It's hard to pin any one event on man-made global warming: there were occasional freak weather events before we started altering the atmosphere, and on their own, any of these events could be just another example. But they are, cumulatively, part of a plain pattern where extreme weather is occurring "with greater frequency and in many cases with greater intensity" as the temperature soars, as the US National Climatic Data Center puts it. This is exactly what climate scientists have been warning us man-made global warming will look like, to the letter. Ashen-faced, they add that all this is coming after less than one degree celcius of global warming since the Industrial Revolution. We are revving up for as much as five degrees more this century.

Yet as the evidence of global warming becomes ever clearer, the momentum to stop it has died. The Copenhagen climate summit evaporated, Barack Obama has given up on passing any climate change legislation, Hu Jintao is heaving even more coal, David Cameron has shot his huskies, and even sweet liberal Canada now has a government determined to pioneer a fuel - tar sands - that causes three times more warming than oil. True, the victims are starting to see the connections. The Russian president Dmitri Medvedev has been opposed to meaningful action on global warming, until he found the smoke-choked air in the Kremlin hard to breathe. But if we wait until every leader can taste the effects of warming in their mouths, the damage will be irreparable.

Given the stakes, the reasons why so many people still refuse to accept the evidence can seem oddly trivial. A common one is: "It snowed a lot in the US and Britain last year. Where was your warming then, eh?" But scientific theories are based on patterns, not individual events. You might know a 90-year old woman who has smoked a pack of cigarettes every day of her life, and is totally healthy. (I do.) It doesn't disprove the theory that smoking causes lung cancer. In the same way, one heavy snow-fall doesn't prove anything if it is part of a wider overall pattern of dramatic warming. And that snow provably was. While it snowed a lot in a few places, there were at the very same time harsher, more bitter droughts in many more places - making it globally the fifth hottest winter ever recorded, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (All the others were in the past decade). And that winter is your punchline proof that warming isn't happening?

But the broader public mood, smeared like sun-screen over us all, isn't active denial. No - it's the desire to endlessly postpone this issue for another day. In 1848, a 25 year old man called Phineas Gage was working on constructing the American railroads. It was his job to lay explosives to clear rocks out of the way - but one day his explosive went off too soon, and a huge metal rod through into his skull and out the other side. Amazingly, he survived - but his personality changed. Suddenly, he was incapable of thinking about the future. The idea of restraining himself was impossible to grasp. If he had an urge, he would act on it at once. He could only ever live in an eternal present. As a civilization, we are beginning to look like Phineas Gage on a planetary scale.

Yet scattered among us there is a fascinating group of people who are offering a path to safety. Every summer since 2006, ordinary British citizens have built impromptu camps next to some of the most environmentally destructive sites in Britain, and taken direct action to shut their pollution down. So far, it has worked: they played a crucial role in the cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow and a big new coal power station at Kingsnorth.

That's how earlier this week I found myself on a high wooden siege tower in a camp in the Scottish hills, staring down across a moat towards the glistening, empty offices of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). You own this bank: 84 percent of it belongs to the taxpayer after the bailouts. Yet it is using your money to endanger you, by funding the most environmentally destructive behavior on earth, like burning the tar sands. The protestors chose to come here democratically - everything at the climate camps is done by discussion and consensus - because they have a better idea. Why not turn it into a Green Investment Bank, transforming Britain into a global hub for wind, solar and wave power? Why not go from promoting misery across the world to being a beacon of sanity?

So the protesters risked arrest in marching on RBS' offices because they know the stakes. As Professor Tim Flannery, one of the world's leading climate scientists, explains: "My great fear is that within the next few decades - it could be next year, or it could be in fifty years, we don't know exactly when - we will trap enough heat close to the surface to our planet to precipitate a collapse, or partial collapse, of a major ice shelf... I have friends who work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and they say [when a collapse happens] you'll hear it in Sydney... Sea levels would rise pretty much instantaneously, certainly over a few months. We don't know how much it would rise. It could be ten centimeters, or a metre. We will have begun a retreat from our coasts... Once you have started that process, we wouldn't know when the next part of the ice sheet would collapse, we don't know whether sea level will stabilize. There's no point of retreat where you can safely go back to... I doubt whether our global civilization could survive such a blow, particularly the uncertainty it would bring."

Nature doesn't follow political fashion. Global warming may not be hot today, but the planet is - hotter than ever. When you stare out over the wave of Weather of Mass Destruction we are unleashing, who looks crazy - the protesters, or the people who have yet to join them?

Excellent source of clear, and accessible explanations and videos debunking denialist claims can be found here and here.

 

[SpasticGramps]

gramps, WTF does the economy have to do with scientific denialism?

I consider the study of economics to be fair game in the realm of scientific discussion and hence "denialism."

Though from what you say I am starting to think that you're an egalitarian, diety worshiping fellow. And no matter what is said to you, if its not in the bible, you wont believe it.

I don't believe in God and think organized religion is one of the main reasons we are in such trouble. You must have missed my discussion in the religion forums. Your couldn't be more off base. The Bible? lmao.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

I consider the study of economics to be fair game in the realm of scientific discussion and hence "denialism."

You seem to consider a lot of things to be something other than what they actually are.

Economics has nothing to do with scientific denialism.
leave your politics at the door, please.

economics |ˌekəˈnämiks; ˌēkə-|
plural noun [often treated as sing. ]
the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.

science |ˈsīəns|
noun
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment

politics |ˈpäləˌtiks|
plural noun [usu. treated as sing. ]
the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, esp. the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power
• the activities of governments concerning the political relations between countries
• the academic study of government and the state
• activities within an organization that are aimed at improving someone's status or position and are typically considered to be devious or divisive

 

[SpasticGramps]

What is political science then?

Mathematics is not used in the discourse of economics? I would consider math to be the base of economics and thus valid when talking about science and denialism.

You seem to consider a lot of things to be something other than what they actually are.

Maybe your just narrow minded?

 

[Mezz Mezzrow]

What do you do when "Science" the institution lies? Are you still a scientific denialist if you disagree? For example it is well known to cardiovascular specialists that radioactive isotopes absorbed from phosphate fertilizer by tobacco plants are the primary cause of lung cancer in smokers, but it is only acknowledged in private. Millions of people have died horrible deaths because the scientific establishment has largely kept this information from reaching the public.

 

[dagnabit]

You debate with all the skill and savy of a kindergartener.

when were we debating anything?

you made an interrogatory statement.
i provided you with the appropriate response to your inquiry.
you responded in a very defensive and childish manner.
i pointed out your lack of civility.
you made an irrelevant comment about the second stage of elementary education.
this does not constitute a "debate". maybe you should avail yourself of the reference books you claim to own. if you did you would not label our discourse debate.

if we were to debate i would point out that the real "denialisim" is the acceptance on the part of some in the scientific community that correlation is tantamount to causation.

but i avoid debates with creation "science" believers,man made global warming proponents,9/11 truthers,scientologists and all other doomsday cult worshipers. you will never get through to these types their faith is their shield.