Denialism. Why people believe unbelievable things.

fast_eddie_72

Define weird tricks?

...what if he made 4.49999 billion (years) happen in a 10th of a second?

That.

(edited to make sense, even though it makes no sense to begin with)

So...why would that be a weird trick on someone? That makes no sense.

For instance...if I want to boil a pot of water, I'm not going to just set it out and hope it gets hot enough, I'm going to turn up the burner on my stove and set it on the maximum temperature so it happens as fast as possible.

If you were making something, wouldn't you want it to happen quickly and not take 4.5 billion years?

That's probably it. God was in a bit of a hurry.

doorki

Define weird tricks?

...what if he made 4.49999 billion (years) happen in a 10th of a second?

That.

(edited to make sense, even though it makes no sense to begin with)

So...why would that be a weird trick on someone? That makes no sense.

For instance...if I want to boil a pot of water, I'm not going to just set it out and hope it gets hot enough, I'm going to turn up the burner on my stove and set it on the maximum temperature so it happens as fast as possible.

If you were making something, wouldn't you want it to happen quickly and not take 4.5 billion years?

That's probably it. God was in a bit of a hurry.

Deadlines plague us all....

CJisinShape

I have an engineering degree; i have a background in data collection, data analysis, and modeling.

When your model fails to make accurate predictions, it's wrong - you have failed to account for significant variables.

If you're changing your model to fit your observations, it's wrong - you have failed to account for significant variables, but now you've shown a bias to a desired output.

And *that* my friends, is the definition of 'anti-science'.

Science is the pursuit of the truth, not an agenda.

This, or, at least that's what science is supposed to be.

ccrdragon

'When your model fails to make accurate predictions, it's wrong - you have failed to account for significant variables.

If you're changing your model to fit your observations, it's wrong - you have failed to account for significant variables, but now you've shown a bias to a desired output.

And *that* my friends, is the definition of 'anti-science'.

Science is the pursuit of the truth, not an agenda.'

^^^ this!!!

I do not deny that climate change exists, I do not deny that man probably has a small part in the change - what I do deny is that it is a holocaust-type event that man is rushing towards and is about to fall off the cliff over!

A couple of points why:
1. there is no model in existence that has predicted or accounted for the current 15 year flatten temperature range (all of the global temperature changes whether cold or hot have fallen within ranges that cannot be anything other than normal statistical variances) - simply pointing out that the current models are wrong and since every prediction is based on those models, the predictions must then be wrong!
2. all of the original data that most of the models are based on has been destroyed - why?
3. the '97% consensus' quoted by the UN on the subject of scientists believing in 'man-made' climate change is total crap and based on picking and choosing data points that agreed with a preset goal (you can look this up on the web - there are plenty of sites that can explain the results better than I can).

sklarbodds

Define weird tricks?

...what if he made 4.49999 billion (years) happen in a 10th of a second?

That.

(edited to make sense, even though it makes no sense to begin with)

So...why would that be a weird trick on someone? That makes no sense.

For instance...if I want to boil a pot of water, I'm not going to just set it out and hope it gets hot enough, I'm going to turn up the burner on my stove and set it on the maximum temperature so it happens as fast as possible.

If you were making something, wouldn't you want it to happen quickly and not take 4.5 billion years?

That's probably it. God was in a bit of a hurry.

You're obviously confused that I'm offering this as an option. I was merely pointing out the fallacies of limiting what God I'd defined as.

I do appreciate you helping make my argument of showing an obvious bias while clamoring for science

My point was never to argue against the age of the world in fact I said originally that I didn't believe the world was 6000 years old. Just simply that often God is placed in a tiny box we call "human understanding".

BinaryPulsar

My husband is a physicist and he is the principle designer on developing science based alternative energy. He has been passionate about this his whole life. So, just letting you know that there are people hard at work to help with climate change. And deniers of science and climate change are ranting about things they have no education about. They think they are educated, without learning. Even the media does not understand how to report on science because the journalists do not understand the science, so they report on it wrong and then people think they are informed by wrong information. This happens when the media reports on my husband's work. It can be frustrating, but we just have to tune it out. The biggest obstacle up to this point has been funding issues.

CJisinShape

Never really understand why I get silence in response to what appears to me to be a well-thought out, logical, non-combative viewpoint. Ugh. Am I just wasting my time? Lets try again:


The fact is, we are constantly being told what the facts are, and that we should believe them. But scientific fact keeps changing. In addition, what is observable, like humans, or simpler, an ant, has not yet been fully understood even after thousands of years of study and observation have been made. Nevertheless, the scientific community will attempt to explain the brilliance of nature by dumb accident, and string bits and pieces of ideas to support the conclusion, while being unable to observe or test these ideas.

I know I'm dating myself to admit this, but when I was in college, my professor was working on the Human Genome Project. He said that he was disturbed by the ideologues in his field, who essentially, like the article you mentioned, are blinded by their belief -- in macroevolution. He took issue with their unwillingness to admit that there are many, very large holes in the theory (enough to throw turkeys through, was the phrase he used). Where was their scientific curiosity, their empirical quest for truth?

An archaeologist finds in the sands, a broken piece of pottery. They will carbon date it back to a certain time in history and paint a picture for us about the people who made the "sophisticated" artwork. And yet, another scientist will consider a human being, for all our symmetry and beauty and consider this incredibly sophisticated art as something NOT designed? Ask an artist how difficult it is to draw hands, ask a roboticist how difficult it is to make a robot walk and not fall over. The brilliance in the earth is astounding.

George Washington Carver embraced science and faith, and was a better scientist for it. He enraged other scientists, because his method of discovery was not the scientific method, and yet he continued to make an abundance of scientific discoveries. When brought before congress to testify, they asked him where he was able to attain such knowledge. "From an old book," he said. "What book?," they asked. "The Bible," he replied. They asked, "does the Bible say anything about the peanut?" No, but it does say about the God that made the peanut.

Scientists are still making discoveries about humans and ants, although we have been studying both for thousands of years. Very sophisticated, I would say.

sklarbodds

Never have I seen such a succinct answer to this. From the Bill Nye (evolution) vs. Ken Ham (creationism) debate, which is VERY good watching, look for it on Youtube.



edit for picture that fits

on the surface that would seem very succinct, but it's actually a massively stupid question. If science cannot prove that something does not exist then in fact by definition nothing could change someone's mind that believes God does exist.

mister_universe

Remember when the 'climate change' side was actually 'global warming'?

In my opinion, climate change is the ideal example, and clearly shows how people will shift their objection rather than compromise "who they are". Global warming is still a fine way to phrase it. I believe the phrase fell out of favor, in part, due to a very effective misinformation campaign from the deniers. How many times this winter have you looked on Facebook and seen people making "global warming" jokes because it's cold. No mention of record high temperatures in Australia or even Alaska. Climate change is just a more accommodating way of phrasing it because it correctly includes more of the likely effects of global average temperature rise. Many times, those will be seen locally as sever weather events that are not particularly warm.

And the shift from "climate change" to "man made climate change" is the accommodation the deniers made when it because very difficult to deny that the temperature was, in fact, rising in a measurable way.

The people who said "it's getting warmer because we're putting too much carbon into the atmosphere" still say what they've always said. The people who first denied it was getting warmer at all have now found a new, more defensible position that doesn't require them to change their world view. Fist they denied it was getting warmer. Now they accept that it is getting warmer, but still insist they were right all along. But the fact remains - the overwhelming (more so every year) mountain of observational data confirms that the climate is changing as a result of carbon in the atmosphere.

So there's no room for science minded people who don't see the evidence of climate change as being overwhelming? I'm disappointed.

Look, my dad is about as science minded as people get, probably more so that anyone on this board. He's been published by NOVA (among others) for his research on black holes (or the lack of them). And yet...he can poke a zillion holes in global warming/climate change theory. Not because he's religious (he's agnostic), not because he's a conspiracy theorist (though he does watch FOX, so...), but because the science behind it, while well intentioned, is so flawed that the conclusions cannot be trusted. Climate change advocates are leaping to conclusions that are not supported by the data they have, in part because the data they have is not suitable for the purpose it's being used for.

One of the basic problems is that even the simple things, like temperature collection, have no consistency. The locations for data collection have changed. When the data gets "cleaned up" to show the data that does match, guess what happens to the conclusions? That's right, evidence for warming/climate change evaporates.

In addition, climate change models tie increases in carbon (chiefly) in the atmosphere to increases in temperature (which was cited in the quote above). That works great for the climate change models as long as the temperature rises as expected. But if it doesn't (as has happened, there's been a slight cooling period in the last 15 years rather than the accelerated warming that IPCC climate models predicted) then the entire model tying carbon dioxide to increases in temperature needs to be reexamined. It's not that we've experienced a slight cooling that's weird. The models allow for that, even if the prediction was directionally wrong. What's weird is that temperature has gone down while carbon dioxide has gone up. The models are based on that never happening. So the conclusions of climate change are now based on a theory that can't explain it, yet I'm still supposed to swallow that it's true because a majority have now bought in. No thanks.

All of that said, I'm a HUGE believer in changing our behavior toward a more conservation oriented approach. That's how I live my life now, not as a "green freak", but as one who is conservation-ally minded where I can be. Why, if I don't believe in global warming, why should it matter? Why am I not driving a 4x4 as big and as loud as I can? It's simple. It's the right thing to not be wasteful. It's the right thing to impact the environment as little as we reasonably can (with what's reasonable being another debate entirely, of course), simply because we don't know the effects of our actions, and simply because taking care of our stuff is smart and the right thing to do. Just like the temperature data is incomplete and skewed, and the climate change theory needs some work, so are the data of our own existence and our utility of earth's resources. It's foolish to draw conclusions based on bad or incomplete data, or known faulty theory. Right now we have a lot of that going on, and it's on both sides.

QuietBloom

IMO the largest reason that climate change deniers exist is because of the poorly constructed method by which it's been debated (in politics). The fact that climate change is even considered a political issue is comical and more the root of the problem IMO.

The politics of lies is destroying the U.S. :brokenheart:

Suddenly you are interesting in discussing? Funny how that happens.

QuietBloom

Define weird tricks?

...what if he made 4.49999 billion (years) happen in a 10th of a second?

That.

(edited to make sense, even though it makes no sense to begin with)

What if God exists outside of time? He created it, and is independent of it (unlike us). I think that is a pretty cool trick myself.

Lemmy_Gonau

I believe in ALIENS!
I believe in FATE!
I believe in FAERIES!!!!

I BELIEVE I BELIEVE I BELIEVE IN LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.
http://youtu.be/E8-bMgDANEk

sure, that's all good but, do you believe in unicorn's?

I do have to admit... That at this point in time, I do believe in unicorns.
Yes.

Well then, the world is indeed in a nice, warm spot.

FemmeFatale83

This is an interesting article an I agree with a lot of it. We really aren't raised to look at things objectively for the most part. I think conspiracies are so easy to believe b/c they are scary and represent an unstable/unpredictable world and sometimes involve a certain amount of truth, small though it may be. This article also made me think of victim blaming. Like when something undeniably horrible happens to someone but everyone around them focuses on finding fault in them. Maybe this is also a form of denialism b/c people want to believe the world is good and safe, but if bad things are happening, how can that be true? So rather then believe there were also uncontrollable factors involved, many people reason that the victim was the main cause, allowing them to continue believing in a world that is predictable, safe and stable (so long as they feel in control). I know there is much more to it then that, it's just something I was chewing over in my head while I was reading the article. Thanks for posting this, love this kind of stuff!

Sinisterly

I believe in ALIENS!
I believe in FATE!
I believe in FAERIES!!!!

I BELIEVE I BELIEVE I BELIEVE IN LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.
http://youtu.be/E8-bMgDANEk

sure, that's all good but, do you believe in unicorn's?

I do have to admit... That at this point in time, I do believe in unicorns.
Yes.

Well then, the world is indeed in a nice, warm spot.

Indeed! And soooo sweet, too!

QuietBloom

This is an interesting article an I agree with a lot of it. We really aren't raised to look at things objectively for the most part. I think conspiracies are so easy to believe b/c they are scary and represent an unstable/unpredictable world and sometimes involve a certain amount of truth, small though it may be. This article also made me think of victim blaming. Like when something undeniably horrible happens to someone but everyone around them focuses on finding fault in them. Maybe this is also a form of denialism b/c people want to believe the world is good and safe, but if bad things are happening, how can that be true? So rather then believe there were also uncontrollable factors involved, many people reason that the victim was the main cause, allowing them to continue believing in a world that is predictable, safe and stable (so long as they feel in control). I know there is much more to it then that, it's just something I was chewing over in my head while I was reading the article. Thanks for posting this, love this kind of stuff!

Very good application of denialism right there!

Slacker16

1. Religion + Climate Change + Pseudo-Science =


2. One thing that people don't get about science, and which you can see a lot of in this thread, is that doesn't look for absolute rules of the universe. It looks for models that provide accurate predictions.

There is no such thing as "THE TRUTH", there are merely ways of modelling truth which account for empirical observations to a greater or lesser extent.

Changing an otherwise valid theory to make it fit current observations is exactly what you're supposed to do, junking a theory because it doesn't fit current observations perfectly is exactly what you're not supposed to do.

doorki

Never really understand why I get silence in response to what appears to me to be a well-thought out, logical, non-combative viewpoint. Ugh. Am I just wasting my time? Lets try again:


The fact is, we are constantly being told what the facts are, and that we should believe them. But scientific fact keeps changing. In addition, what is observable, like humans, or simpler, an ant, has not yet been fully understood even after thousands of years of study and observation have been made. Nevertheless, the scientific community will attempt to explain the brilliance of nature by dumb accident, and string bits and pieces of ideas to support the conclusion, while being unable to observe or test these ideas.

I know I'm dating myself to admit this, but when I was in college, my professor was working on the Human Genome Project. He said that he was disturbed by the ideologues in his field, who essentially, like the article you mentioned, are blinded by their belief -- in macroevolution. He took issue with their unwillingness to admit that there are many, very large holes in the theory (enough to throw turkeys through, was the phrase he used). Where was their scientific curiosity, their empirical quest for truth?

An archaeologist finds in the sands, a broken piece of pottery. They will carbon date it back to a certain time in history and paint a picture for us about the people who made the "sophisticated" artwork. And yet, another scientist will consider a human being, for all our symmetry and beauty and consider this incredibly sophisticated art as something NOT designed? Ask an artist how difficult it is to draw hands, ask a roboticist how difficult it is to make a robot walk and not fall over. The brilliance in the earth is astounding.

George Washington Carver embraced science and faith, and was a better scientist for it. He enraged other scientists, because his method of discovery was not the scientific method, and yet he continued to make an abundance of scientific discoveries. When brought before congress to testify, they asked him where he was able to attain such knowledge. "From an old book," he said. "What book?," they asked. "The Bible," he replied. They asked, "does the Bible say anything about the peanut?" No, but it does say about the God that made the peanut.

Scientists are still making discoveries about humans and ants, although we have been studying both for thousands of years. Very sophisticated, I would say.

So you are arguing for Creationism? Which method of creationism? The Judeo-Christian 6 day model? The Egyptian rising from the sea? The Fon of Western Africa believe that the creation deity was carried from place to place by a rainbow dragon. The Mayans believed that man was made from Maize because they did not have a soul when made from wood.

I understand that Intelligent Design can be an attractive view of how we got to where we are but I feel that it is the easy way out and does not answer the "how" that science seeks. Also, depending on your cosmology, it opens up the question of "why" which can then muddy the waters and obstruct research.

As I stated above, both religion and science can suffer from views of immutability. I have yet to meet a scientist who feels that they know all of the answers or are not open to new views. That being said, there are plenty of scientific theories that have been researched and tested to the point that they are accepted as fact yet some scientists continue to peel back the layers of the onion.

BinaryPulsar

Climate issue aside.

The usage and burning of fossil fuels is bad for the environment and we are running out.