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Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:38 pm
by BarryW55
Interbane wrote:
You've read through my links and they go against what YOU think, plain and simple.
And, there are articles and websites that agree with what I think. How should we decide which is correct? Do you not contemplate the differences, and instead just agree with what you already believe?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Barry wrote: To think we evolved from some lower life form is ridiculous. LOL
That's a fallacy Barry.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
Barry wrote: I think it stinks that you dismiss out of hand the millions, if not BILLIONS of people that believe God created man from the dust of the ground.
That's another fallacy Barry. Sentence after sentence.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

The fallacies you use in your reasoning mean your reasoning doesn't work. It's a fact born from the examples above. Such poor reasoning is how you develop and maintain false beliefs. You ARE wrong Barry, and your faulty reasoning is a sign you can't ignore. You can turn around and say WE'RE wrong, but the flaws in your reasoning suggest otherwise. Your last two replies to me were filled with fallacious reasoning. There's no reason to think the rest of your worldview isn't similarly faulty.
But of course, your tens of thousands of scientists, that will say ANYTHING to keep their jobs and grant money, are right.
If you knew anything about the self-correcting nature of the scientific enterprise, you'd realize how silly this is. There is no vast conspiracy theory, Barry. The conclusions of science aren't born from a desire for more grant money. They're born from adherence to method. If money had the massive impact you believe, we'd be living in a very different world. Because in that world, money would trump the truth. The vast majority of scientists from all over the world would need to conspire in real time to subvert the results of their findings. The funding department of every government would need to believe the same thing, and influence the scientists in their countries in the same way, and even control their findings in detail. The coordination of belief is something we already know doesn't exist, especially across cultures and between governments, many of which are theocratic. Which means there is some other reason the entire world of scientists have arrived at the same conclusion - because it's true.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evil_Liber ... Conspiracy
Your whole argument is a fallacy. You, who may or may not believe in God, it really doesn't matter, are of the secular herd mentality. Meaning, you just CAN'T be wrong. Much like the whole Liberal (I am NOT saying you are a Liberal, I don't care one way or the other) movement this election. They just CAN'T have lost this election so they trot out one excuse after another while completely ignoring the fact that they had a WEAK candidate and an arrogant POTUS that had forced an unpopular agenda on a people that had just finally had enough. You THINK you have overwhelming evidence that really just doesn't hold up to REAL science. What REAL proof of evolution do you have?

There are several theories of evolution. Which is the correct one? Evolutionary scientist, Simon Conway Morris, said "When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: 'It happened.' Thereafter, there is little consensus, which at first sight must seem rather odd." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7400816797

On February 9, 2007, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, wrote:

“ "“The history of organic life is indemonstrable; we cannot prove a whole lot in evolutionary biology, and our findings will always be hypothesis. There is one true evolutionary history of life, and whether we will actually ever know it is not likely. Most importantly, we have to think about questioning underlying assumptions, whether we are dealing with molecules or anything else.” http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinis ... evolution/

So, there are many "theories" of evolution. You may not like these links, seeing they fly in the face of the deity of evolution. I mean, you have no evidence of evolution because you CANNOT demonstrate it. You CANNOT observe one whole species evolve into another one. That is why I really do not care that you smugly ridicule me or imply that I am not educated enough to dare debate you. lol I am past the childish "theory" that we somehow "evolved" from some lower life form. I don't need links or sources. It is an asinne theory that has been around since ancient times whem man first rebelled agaist his Creator.

Evolution is not so much a modern discovery as some of its advocates would have us believe. It made its appearance early in Greek philosophy, and maintained its position more or less, with the most diverse modifications, and frequently confused with the idea of emanation, until the close of ancient thought. The Greeks had, it is true, no term exactly equivalent to " evolution"; but when Thales asserts that all things originated from water; when Anaximenes calls air the principle of all things, regarding the subsequent process as a thinning or thickening, they must have considered individual beings and the phenomenal world as, a result of evolution, even if they did not carry the process out in detail. Anaximander is often regarded as a precursor of the modem theory of development. He deduces living beings, in a gradual development, from moisture under the influence of warmth, and suggests the view that men originated from animals of another sort, since if they had come into existence as human beings, needing fostering care for a long time, they would not have been able to maintain their existence. In Empedocles, as in Epicurus and Lucretius, who follow in Hs footsteps, there are rudimentary suggestions of the Darwinian theory in its broader sense; and here too, as with Darwin, the mechanical principle comes in; the process is adapted to a certain end by a sort of natural selection, without regarding nature as deliberately forming its results for these ends. http://www.iep.utm.edu/evolutio/


So, knock yourself out and stay in your little box. I broke out years ago and thank God I did.

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:56 pm
by BarryW55
Chris OConnor wrote:Great post, Interbane.

One thing I think would be helpful with logical fallacies is to dentify them when they occur AND give an example of that fallacy being committed where it clearly leads to an invalid conclusion. People that use bad reasoning are probably not ever going to go study logical inductive fallacies, suddenly realize their mistakes and then work towards becoming more reasonable.

But maybe with relatable examples of fallacies they might get it without having to go do the necessary research. Not that you or anyone else should have to provide such examples. That sure would be a lot of work for a forum post. But it seems to me like that might help.

I almost feel a fallacy website needs to be created that has each fallacy on a separate page (for easy linking) accompanied by a dozen easy to understand examples of the fallacy.

Maybe this site exists.

In reality poor thinkers still might not get the examples.
lol And it is arrogant thinkers that think they can't be wrong. Your theory of evolution is filled with fallacies. Poor reasoning and faulty science.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/philosop ... chemistry/

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2017 3:15 pm
by BarryW55
Chris OConnor wrote:One question I have is how you would rebut the argument that climate change believers are just jumping on the bandwagon and committing the argument ad populum fallacy.
The ad populum fallacy is the appeal to the popularity of a claim as a reason for accepting it.

The number of people who believe a claim is irrelevant to its truth. Fifty million people can be wrong. In fact, millions of people have been wrong about many things: that the Earth is flat and motionless, for example, and that the stars are lights shining through holes in the sky.

The ad populum fallacy is also referred to as the bandwagon fallacy, the appeal to the mob, the democratic fallacy, and the appeal to popularity.

The ad populum fallacy is seductive because it appeals to our desire to belong and to conform, to our desire for security and safety. It is a common appeal in advertising and politics. A clever manipulator of the masses will try to seduce those who blithely assume that the majority is always right. Also seduced by this appeal will be the insecure, who may be made to feel guilty if they oppose the majority or feel strong by joining forces with large numbers of other uncritical thinkers.
There is clearly a difference between...

1. blindly accepting positions because those positions are popular and
2. trusting in positions held by qualified scientists in their relevant areas of expertise after peer-reviewed research

How would you argue that accepting the conclusions of climate scientists is not the ad populum fallacy?
This definitely will not fit into your worldview. Or, like Obama, do you believe climate change is "settled science" and anyone questioning it is overwhelmed with fallacy? lol

http://www.dailywire.com/news/9767/9-th ... on-bandler

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2017 9:52 pm
by Interbane
Chris wrote:How would you argue that accepting the conclusions of climate scientists is not the ad populum fallacy?
It depends on what, exactly, you're appealing to. If you're appealing to the belief of these scientists, then it's a fallacy. If you're appealing, collectively, to the methods these scientists used, it's not a fallacy. Which means, you need to trust that they're actually doing their job and following procedure. Peer review does much of this trust work for us.

Any appeal can have an iceberg's worth of information underneath it which is required to avoid the fallacy. In climate science, you can dig deep into any and every piece of evidence. By extension, you're appealing to all these pieces of evidence. It's not perfect, but I can't see how there is a better method.
One thing I think would be helpful with logical fallacies is to dentify them when they occur AND give an example of that fallacy being committed where it clearly leads to an invalid conclusion. People that use bad reasoning are probably not ever going to go study logical inductive fallacies, suddenly realize their mistakes and then work towards becoming more reasonable.
That won't help at all. For some reason, it doesn't matter when you point out that people's reasoning is wrong. It's as if they don't understand that they're reasoning is what leads to them being right or wrong. It just doesn't matter. Before these people accept the fact that they aren't reasoning correctly, they'll blame logic. The entire freaking school of logical thought is wrong in their mind. God is greater than logic, and they are correct even though they are being illogical.
Barry wrote: Your whole argument is a fallacy.
Which fallacy, specifically? There are many, and I might have missed one. But I don't think I have. Instead, I think you don't really understand what a fallacy is, and you're falsely accusing me. Search through the database of fallacies(yes, there is a database of them), and point to the one I'm guilty of.

Otherwise, don't use the word, because you're abusing it. It's disheartening how often I see the words "logical", or "fallacy", or "knowledge" misused and abused by creationists. These words have meanings, and if you use them incorrectly, you are wrong. Learn what these words mean. Learn the application of the words.

Not a single letter of any word you write matters if your supporting reasoning isn't sound. Good reasoning is required. Absolutely essential. If your reasoning isn't sequitur, it's useless. None of these arguments from you mean a thing unless the methodology of your reasoning is on point. You're giving examples in every single post you make that show you have no clue what it means to use correct reasoning. You give a thousand words worth of poor reasoning. It doesn't matter how much you type. Learn the structure to proper reasoning before you go an inch further.
So, there are many "theories" of evolution. You may not like these links, seeing they fly in the face of the deity of evolution.
There is only one theory of evolution. I've read the exact articles you linked already. Another creationist named Stahrwe came through booktalk and posted the same links, along with countless others. The same EXACT links. They aren't new, and they pose arguments that have already been overcome and dismissed on these forums. Which is why I said you should go through the archives.

But I know that's a pain in the butt and could be seen as a cop out. Pick a single argument from a single link(for brevity's sake), and I will respond to it again. Make your own argument on top of the link, so you're not just copy/pasting. Pick your trophy horse on a single specific topic and I'll gladly respond to it once again.
You CANNOT observe one whole species evolve into another one.
It's happened many times now, in spite of the fact that we haven't had enough time to expect to witness speciation. We've been lucky. It shouldn't have been witnessed in the few hundred years we've had. Here's a question: Do you think we need to witness evolutionary speciation in action in order to know it happens?
So, knock yourself out and stay in your little box. I broke out years ago and thank God I did.
I don't know what you intend with this statement, but you're most definitely still in a box. Bad reasoning leaves you trapped.
This definitely will not fit into your worldview. Or, like Obama, do you believe climate change is "settled science" and anyone questioning it is overwhelmed with fallacy? lol

http://www.dailywire.com/news/9767/9-th ... on-bandler
Yeah, no

https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:33 am
by BarryW55
Interbane wrote:
Chris wrote:How would you argue that accepting the conclusions of climate scientists is not the ad populum fallacy?
It depends on what, exactly, you're appealing to. If you're appealing to the belief of these scientists, then it's a fallacy. If you're appealing, collectively, to the methods these scientists used, it's not a fallacy. Which means, you need to trust that they're actually doing their job and following procedure. Peer review does much of this trust work for us.

Any appeal can have an iceberg's worth of information underneath it which is required to avoid the fallacy. In climate science, you can dig deep into any and every piece of evidence. By extension, you're appealing to all these pieces of evidence. It's not perfect, but I can't see how there is a better method.
One thing I think would be helpful with logical fallacies is to dentify them when they occur AND give an example of that fallacy being committed where it clearly leads to an invalid conclusion. People that use bad reasoning are probably not ever going to go study logical inductive fallacies, suddenly realize their mistakes and then work towards becoming more reasonable.
That won't help at all. For some reason, it doesn't matter when you point out that people's reasoning is wrong. It's as if they don't understand that they're reasoning is what leads to them being right or wrong. It just doesn't matter. Before these people accept the fact that they aren't reasoning correctly, they'll blame logic. The entire freaking school of logical thought is wrong in their mind. God is greater than logic, and they are correct even though they are being illogical.
Barry wrote: Your whole argument is a fallacy.
Which fallacy, specifically? There are many, and I might have missed one. But I don't think I have. Instead, I think you don't really understand what a fallacy is, and you're falsely accusing me. Search through the database of fallacies(yes, there is a database of them), and point to the one I'm guilty of.

Otherwise, don't use the word, because you're abusing it. It's disheartening how often I see the words "logical", or "fallacy", or "knowledge" misused and abused by creationists. These words have meanings, and if you use them incorrectly, you are wrong. Learn what these words mean. Learn the application of the words.

Not a single letter of any word you write matters if your supporting reasoning isn't sound. Good reasoning is required. Absolutely essential. If your reasoning isn't sequitur, it's useless. None of these arguments from you mean a thing unless the methodology of your reasoning is on point. You're giving examples in every single post you make that show you have no clue what it means to use correct reasoning. You give a thousand words worth of poor reasoning. It doesn't matter how much you type. Learn the structure to proper reasoning before you go an inch further.
So, there are many "theories" of evolution. You may not like these links, seeing they fly in the face of the deity of evolution.
There is only one theory of evolution. I've read the exact articles you linked already. Another creationist named Stahrwe came through booktalk and posted the same links, along with countless others. The same EXACT links. They aren't new, and they pose arguments that have already been overcome and dismissed on these forums. Which is why I said you should go through the archives.

But I know that's a pain in the butt and could be seen as a cop out. Pick a single argument from a single link(for brevity's sake), and I will respond to it again. Make your own argument on top of the link, so you're not just copy/pasting. Pick your trophy horse on a single specific topic and I'll gladly respond to it once again.
You CANNOT observe one whole species evolve into another one.
It's happened many times now, in spite of the fact that we haven't had enough time to expect to witness speciation. We've been lucky. It shouldn't have been witnessed in the few hundred years we've had. Here's a question: Do you think we need to witness evolutionary speciation in action in order to know it happens?
So, knock yourself out and stay in your little box. I broke out years ago and thank God I did.
I don't know what you intend with this statement, but you're most definitely still in a box. Bad reasoning leaves you trapped.
This definitely will not fit into your worldview. Or, like Obama, do you believe climate change is "settled science" and anyone questioning it is overwhelmed with fallacy? lol

http://www.dailywire.com/news/9767/9-th ... on-bandler
Yeah, no

https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
lol YOU say don't believe everything you read on the internet? Pot, kettle, black. Look, in a nutshell. I believe God is the beginning of life. You don't. I believe you are wrong, period. Darwin was wrong. Period. You require billions of years to back your claim. How easy is that? I believe the world is around 4 billion years old but mankind only happened on the scene around 15-20 thousand years ago. As we are NOW. No evolution needed. You look down your nose at anything that disagrees with your little worldview. Sorry if I burst your bubble. You can quit laughing now. I couldn't care less what you think. You and me both will die one day. That we can agree on. This debate will continue long after that. You will still be wrong.

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 2:10 am
by Robert Tulip
Bill Nye is visiting Australia, and I just heard him interviewed on the radio.

Far from being "the science guy" or even an entertainer, he is a religious zealot, and a delusional zealot at that.

First he said wind power is free. Then I read an article in the newspaper explaining how in Germany their shift from nuclear to wind involves putting major new transmission lines underground at massive expense. Strike One.

Next he carried on about how climate politics is a conflict between old denialists and young informed. There is a basic problem in this promotion of political bigotry, namely that even though climate change is real, the rent seeking for renewable energy (see point one) that he advocates as the answer will not stabilise the climate. Denialists, even though their arguments against climate change are not based in fact, are primarily and rightly concerned that the strategies advocated by the climate lobby will cause massive harm and no benefit. Strike Two.

The third claim from Mr Nye that I found offensive and stupid was his assertion that he is on the side of facts while his opponents are on the side of fantasy. There is a vast unconscious apocalyptic mentality behind this arrogant belief from Nye, involving the vague unformed idea that if only we could destroy economic growth and stop humans from breeding we could save the planet. So the unstated intention of renewable power is to destroy growth, since they involve massive hikes in electricity bills. In fact, renewables have a basic problem in relation to climate, that they do nothing to remove carbon from the air, and so do nothing to stabilise the climate. That fact is denied by Nye. Strike Three.

The climate lobby is consumed by these delusional beliefs promoted by Nye. It is a social pathology.

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 9:09 am
by LanDroid
Bill Nye has zeal, but he is not promoting anything regarding religion. I didn't hear the exact quote you mention, but I'm sure everyone understands that although the original sources of wind, solar, and hydroelectricity are free, obviously the infrastructure required to harness that power is not.

Your received message is we should do absolutely nothing to combat climate change. We should dive for the lowest cost energy and manufacturing processes regardless of consequences. Actively extracting CO2 from the atmosphere is the only solution. The fact that no carbon mining projects are ramping up is somehow further justification; we shouldn't even try to slow increases of greenhouse gases. (No carbon mitigation + no carbon reduction = doing nothing.)

Going a little further, if we took your advice it sounds like we should maximize coal mining and all low cost processes that increase CO2 and stop or dismantle green projects that reduce carbon production. At the same time we should start carbon mining/reduction. For unknown reasons doing both carbon mitigation and carbon reduction is extremely bad - we should mine only. However it is unknown if carbon reductions would counteract the increases. Also there's no plan to mitigate inevitable consequences such as increased pollution, health risks, and safety risks to workers.

There's no mention, let alone a plan, on how money for full scale carbon reduction projects would be mined from the public with non-coercive methods that have zero negative effects on energy prices or economic markets.

Add to that your complaints about the "delusional religious zealotry" of climate change activists while engaging in similar zeal by calling them delusional, bigots, and sociopaths. (We should probably set aside your theories on the precession of the equinox, Jesus as a solar myth, astrotheology, etc.)

I've asked for clarification of your received message before, but don't recall any response. Disclaimer: I'm asking, not attacking.

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 8:45 pm
by Robert Tulip
LanDroid wrote:Bill Nye has zeal, but he is not promoting anything regarding religion.
I call it religion when a person promotes a moral argument that will not brook criticism about the lack of evidence supporting that argument. That is what Nye is doing about renewable energy, even though he mixes that with science based perspectives on other topics. It is also possible to have a religious perspective that engages in rational dialogue, but that is a different sense of the term religious.
LanDroid wrote: I didn't hear the exact quote you mention, but I'm sure everyone understands that although the original sources of wind, solar, and hydroelectricity are free, obviously the infrastructure required to harness that power is not.
But Nye makes the propaganda claim that renewable energy is free. That is a partisan political message aimed to delude hearers. The program I listened to yesterday which prompted my comments here is at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... ld/9014748 (sixteen minute radio interview covering space, climate change and vaccination).
LanDroid wrote: Your received message is we should do absolutely nothing to combat climate change.
If you think that is my “received message” you ignore what I say. Even in this comment, leaving aside my other Booktalk discussions, I stated that “climate change is real”, and that “renewables have a basic problem in relation to climate, that they do nothing to remove carbon from the air, and so do nothing to stabilise the climate.” Those are purely scientific arguments, but because the climate lobby is consumed by its partisan religious morality, my experience is that people don’t engage on facts but instead force everything into their preconceived agendas, what in literary terms we could call a partisan procrustean prism.
Reducing emissions does not stabilise the climate. My interest is opening discussion about strategies that do stabilise the climate. Unfortunately the apocalyptic mentality that infests the climate movement means it is more interested in the failed strategy of emission reduction than in achieving climate stability.
LanDroid wrote: We should dive for the lowest cost energy and manufacturing processes regardless of consequences.
No, that is a distorted caricature of my view. Externalities should be factored into investment costs. My interest is to develop methods whereby the fossil fuel industry can become sustainable by addressing the externality of emissions, converting waste into useful products.
LanDroid wrote: Actively extracting CO2 from the atmosphere is the only solution.
Yes, and that argument has a simple mathematical logic which is ignored by the climate lobby in favour of religious zeal about emission reduction. The Holocene sea level depended on a stable 280 ppm CO2 level for nearly ten thousand years. The only way to avoid extreme economic crisis due to rising sea level and other climate catastrophes is to remove the extra 125 ppm of CO2 that industrial civilization has added to the air.

The last time the earth had 400 ppm of CO2 in the air the sea was thirty feet higher. We have the driver in place for that to happen again, but don’t know if the tipping point will take years or centuries. It is a massive risk, as the Atlantic hurricanes are showing. But against that scale of threat, emission reduction, renewable energy and carbon taxes are ineffective, like pushing on a string. Unfortunately, the traction gained by those policies is entirely due to how they fit with the emotional comfort of partisan politics, not because they have a workable theory of change.

Germany is spending a trillion dollars on renewable subsidies but will still fail to meet its useless emission targets by a wide margin. In the face of such massive failure, a new paradigm based on research and development of carbon mining technologies is the only answer to deliver climate stability. The emission reduction emperor has no clothes.
LanDroid wrote: The fact that no carbon mining projects are ramping up is somehow further justification; we shouldn't even try to slow increases of greenhouse gases. (No carbon mitigation + no carbon reduction = doing nothing.)
The reason few carbon mining projects are ramping up is that politicians like Ms Merkel send a very strong signal to investors that such ideas are unwelcome because they undermine the emission reduction agenda. Luckily Trump has a different view, with Secretary Perry’s announcement of $36m for carbon capture and storage research, even though that is only a small start against the real scale of the problem. https://energy.gov/articles/secretary-e ... on-capture
LanDroid wrote: Going a little further, if we took your advice it sounds like we should maximize coal mining and all low cost processes that increase CO2 and stop or dismantle green projects that reduce carbon production.
Again LanDroid your caricature makes me smile. I would like to see a high carbon future world, using carbon for roads, buildings, large scale plastic construction at sea, as well as fuel, food, feed, fertilizer and fabric. So the myth that we could fix the climate by decarbonising the economy is stupid and wrong.

Coal mining is fine, but only if the industry can convert its emissions into hydrocarbons. That requires photosynthesis at a scale that is only possible in the world ocean, since on land we cannot get the energy, space and nutrient to do it. But industrial scale algae at sea, despite NASA’s excellent OMEGA research and the work of Ocean Foresters, appears to be rejected on principle for unstated or incoherent reasons.
LanDroid wrote: At the same time we should start carbon mining/reduction. For unknown reasons doing both carbon mitigation and carbon reduction is extremely bad - we should mine only.
It is not for unknown reasons, it is due to the simple mathematics of order of magnitude. Humans add ten cubic kilometres of carbon to the air every year. What you call “mitigation”, also termed emission reduction, can address about one tenth of a cubic kilometre, about 1% of the problem. Mitigation is two orders of magnitude too small. Carbon mining could address 200% of the problem using 2% of the world ocean, rapidly providing a realistic path to climate stability.
LanDroid wrote: However it is unknown if carbon reductions would counteract the increases.
If carbon reduction was scaled up to double the size of total emissions, then yes, it would counteract the increases. That is physically possible.
LanDroid wrote: Also there's no plan to mitigate inevitable consequences such as increased pollution, health risks, and safety risks to workers.
Carbon mining would involve piping emissions from coal fired power stations and other concentrated sources to large scale algae farms at sea. That would remove all the electricity pollution from the air near where the coal is burnt. Carbon mining using algae factories would cool and clean the sea near threatened environments such as coral reefs, protecting and restoring biodiversity while also delivering new food sources to address global food security, delivering big health and safety benefits.
LanDroid wrote: There's no mention, let alone a plan, on how money for full scale carbon reduction projects would be mined from the public with non-coercive methods that have zero negative effects on energy prices or economic markets.
Thanks again for sharing such questions LanDroid. Recall that carbon taxes, as envisaged by the Paris Accord, aim to mine money from the public by making energy more expensive, subsidising renewables, putting sand in the gears of the world economy, fixing the climate by making everyone poor and causing a world economic depression. By contrast, money for carbon reduction, as I propose it, would come from selling produced hydrocarbon commodities into free markets for fuel, food, feed, fertilizer, fabric and industrial scale infrastructure. Carbon mining aims to use the supply and demand factors of free markets, with government involvement limited to regulation and possible research investment, not operational subsidy or equity. By contrast, carbon taxes would increase the intrusion of government into society and target key inputs to industry.
LanDroid wrote: Add to that your complaints about the "delusional religious zealotry" of climate change activists while engaging in similar zeal by calling them delusional, bigots, and sociopaths.
All of my comments are open to evidence-based critique. The social pathology (a technical phrase with a different meaning from your misquote of sociopath) I describe from the climate lobby is quite simply the false theory that emission reduction is an effective way to stabilise the climate. That is entirely a matter for scientific analysis, even though we see no such analysis from the advocates of emission reduction, but instead see handwaving dismissal. Any mass delusion can be called a social pathology.

The bigotry I mentioned was Nye’s blanket polarisation of the political debate by setting young versus old, science versus delusion, emission reduction versus fossil fuels. The problem is that fixing the climate is not so simple. Just mobilising a popular front to decarbonise the economy will not actually work to fix the climate, but the efforts of those like Nye to whip up hatred against fossil fuels do involve a dangerous level of bigotry that is unwilling to engage in rational dialogue.
LanDroid wrote: (We should probably set aside your theories on the precession of the equinox, Jesus as a solar myth, astrotheology, etc.)
I am perfectly happy to engage on any courteous conversation about these topics, which I think are illuminating about the psychology of mass delusion in human culture, which extends from ancient myth through to modern mythologies like emission reduction. So I would prefer not to set these aside, but rather engage on how they enable an evidence based cosmogony that helps to explain mass delusion in modern politics.
LanDroid wrote: I've asked for clarification of your received message before, but don't recall any response. Disclaimer: I'm asking, not attacking.
I have responded to your similar questions before LanDroid, and am very happy to revive this conversation.

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 12:50 pm
by LanDroid
People don't put up wind turbines because they are hippies. No, they put them up because wind energy is free.
That's a quote I got from the Bill Nye interview. It supports my contention that although wind itself is free, people understand the cost of putting up wind turbines certainly is not. Your statement about the interview requires focusing only on the 2nd sentence and ignoring the 1st (or focusing only on "free" while ignoring the "putting up" requirement.)

I used the phrase "received message" because I was sure I didn't have it all correctly, thanks for clarifying. I don't have the energy to engage fully, but I'd say your concept of piping coal mine emissions large distances across mountains into the ocean seems really far fetched. Also you ignore other problems with the coal industry in this country that you may not be aware of. Grey Mountain by John Grisham is a page-turner summarizing some of the rapacious treatment coal workers, property owners, and the environment receive from coal mine owners and politicians. Ramping up that industry again would make those problems worse.

Obviously $36 million from Rick Perry is not nearly enough to start carbon mining. If that continues I'd say my equation holds true: No carbon mitigation + no carbon reduction = doing nothing.

Thanks & sorry, that's about all I've got for now...

Re: Is Bill Nye really a "science guy" ?

Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 3:42 pm
by Robert Tulip
Thanks LanDroid. I appreciate your responses. Just a few points of clarification.

I did not suggest piping emissions "across mountains". That is an addition you have made, perhaps again illustrating how a 'received message' can twist what is said against preconceptions of the hearer, without listening carefully to what is said. Any first use of coal emissions would be at the cheapest source, perhaps on the Taiwan Strait. All the emissions from the Taichung Power Plant could go into a submarine fabric vessel to be towed out to the mid Pacific Ocean at low unit transport cost, helping to clean the air of China. An even better and cheaper CO2 source is the Gorgon gas project in Australia, which plans to bury an immense quantity of CO2 at high cost.

That is a medium term idea, the type of idea scotched by Nye's partisan religious focus on existing renewable industries. Industrial farming of algae at sea could only evolve as an incremental process. It needs to start small and steadily grow, with a range of innovations needing to be proven before full scale use of coal emissions could be possible as algae feedstock. No one could imagine a 747 at Kitty Hawk. And no one seeing hippos swimming in estuaries fifty million years ago could have thought that in a short geological time they would evolve into blue whales.

The Australian newspaper kindly published a letter from me today on this topic of the madness of renewables: "The social pathology of belief in wind and solar is skewered by Judith Sloan (“Aid for renewable energy simply cannot be justified”, 7/10), who observes that Germany is spending a trillion on renewables but will fail to achieve its 2020 emission target by a wide margin, and is reduced to begging for coal power from Poland while wrecking the stability of Europe’s energy market."