Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Z28Wilson
You're really just arguing semantics at this point. Is the "fact" that if I let go of a ball off the roof of a building the ball will fall, a scientific "rule" or "law" about gravity or a "fact"? The scientific community might not call these things "facts" but laws for any reasonable layperson are about as close.
BTW, my degree is in Computer Science.  |
It's not semantics; it's correct terminology. Science doesn't work the way most people think, and the best way to correct this is by extreme public humiliation-sorry; strike that; how about gentle nudges in the right direction?
I'm not trying to be snotty about it, but it seems to me that people's understanding of science parallels religion. They are not and cannot be the same. The reason we call it the "Law" of gravity is because to the best of our observations, gravity works the same everywhere else in the universe in exactly the same manner it does here on Earth. However, we have not been able to measure gravity elsewhere, or even to determine if ours is the only universe in existence. To go beyond calling gravity a "Law" is to make gross assumptions. That is not appropriate in science.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Z28Wilson
I didn't mean to imply that a researcher would take evidence and cover it up, or take findings and ignore them or manipulate their data. Research is largely the gathering of data. How one interprets that data is open for much debate, and is where bias and influence can come into play.
|
Well, this is exactly what I've been saying: Interpretation of data is as or more important as the method of its collection. There is no doubt in my mind that data has been manipulated for political and monetary reasons. We are seeing that right now with the global-warming issue. And notice I put "manipulated"; not "forged". You can take legitimate data and make it look like something it is not. That method worked for the tobacco industry for about 50 years, after all.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Z28Wilson
This is why I question the 1,000 year slice of our atmosphere's history telling us anything useful about a planet that is billions of years old. Yes, the data shows a warming trend but in what context? And compared to what? What was the trend in 1,000,000 B.C.? These are certainly legitimate questions.
|
I understand that we have ice core samples from the South Pole dating back 100,000 years. They have used these (which contain atmospheric gases trapped from the respective period) and matched them with tree trunk core samples to establish whether higher greenhouse gases affect the growth of the trees. The Joshua trees in California, for example, live several thousand years. Once you establish a baseline re. the trees vs. gas concentrations, you can look farther back among the ice core data and make educated guesses about what the climate was like many millenia ago.
Another method has been ocean sediment samples, which go back many millions of years. The ratio of certain plankton is directly indicative of ocean temperatures; some plankton are in warm water; others are in cold water. While these don't directly measure the gases present at the time, they do indicate climatic conditions.
You don't need to go back billions of years to get an appropriate picture of Earth's climate history, and whether we are manipulating it. I would guess that the most important question for us has been climate history since the first ice ages, which is pretty recent in geologic terms. I think that has the most bearing on our current concerns since it is kind of the most recent long-term mega-trend in the climate.
C
Linear Mode
