DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Republicans against science

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As with evolution, which I agree happens, this planet evolves and changes...it's warmed and cooled for eons...long before we had underarm deodorant spray.

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We know that the Co2 in the atmosphere was put there by us. We know that Co2 is a pretty good greenhouse gas. We know that the other chemical components of the atmosphere as well as the sun are in relative equilibrium. So why shouldn't we blame Co2? What more must be done to show it as true? I mean honestly, what's missing?

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I agree with your Draft(believe it or not ) just a raw number, but there are around 6 billion people in the world...so lets just say around 2.5 to 2.7 billion of those people drive cars (Most of north America, Most of Europe, and parts of Asia)...and folks are telling me that "we" are not causing problems....whatever...these folks are just burying their heads in the sand...

God says were are supposed to take care of the Earth, we are to nurture it, and cultivate it...not do everything we can to destroy it...but thats just what we humans do...we destroy everything....for no real good reason....

i fully expect we will continue to drive cars for another 30-50 years....and the world will continue to pump that poisonous nonsense into the atmosphere....and one day....we will wake up to a real"doozie"...an Ice Age...perhaps something worse like a Hypercane....by the time we do anything real about this...it will be too late.....because most of the population is just apathetic....

Im sure Draft knows...but a Hypercane will make Katrina and any other cat 5 hurricane look like a spring time rain shower....A hypercane can have winds over 500 mph, capable of creating storm surges of 60ft, and eye nearly 190 miles across.....the clouds of it could reach 19 miles into the stratosphere.....warming ocean water is what causes...and the ocean just keeps getting warmer...one day soon....if we don't stop what we are doing....we human beings are going to cause a hypercane...and thats no joking matter....oh and experts believe hypercanes played a big role in the extinction of the dinosaurs

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Let's not pretend that science was so backward then that we were still bleeding patients to cure diseases.

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Really? How's that adding machine working for you? Or maybe you'd like a heart transplant where you'd have an almost 100% survival rate and a post-op lifetime of around 15 years? Could you see your house from 200 kilometers in orbit? While we weren't backward, we weren't anywhere near the level of technology that we have today.

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What did Perry say? Did he say Evolution is a Theory? YES OR NO, Is it a theory? It IS, isn't it. Did he say ANYTHING AT ALL about believing in it, or not? NO, HE did NOT, that is YOUR INSERTION.

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Are there gaps in the fossil record, yes, is this the data that fleshes out the theory, yes, is every smallest detail clearly mapped out how this works, no, so are there gaps, YES, in what is called a THEORY, yes.

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Now, is he pandering to his base, yes, did I like the comment on creation science, no, BUT, he did NOT say what you are suggesting he said.

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On the global warming article, IMO you are again attempting to re-direct the issue.

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lolz. You whippersnapper. I was using a Texas Instruments Business Analyst calculator in the 70's, hardly top of the line, but it did net present value, future value, etc. We also actually had computers! That heart transplant rate sounds pretty good. Don't know what to say about that. Satellites were capable of reading the headline on a newspaper.

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The good olde days, eh?

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Is coffee good for you? This study says don't do it, the next one says it will prevent some type of cancer, another says decaf only. There have been so many conflicting reports on all sorts of things.

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I happen to believe that God used a natural process of evolution, just like He uses natural processes for everything else He does in the universe.

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You're right that many people like to believe this. However, it's not science; there's no way to test it or invalidate that hypothesis. Therefore trying to give it equal time in biology classes and early science classes for children is undermining what it means to "do science." There's absolutely no reason to invoke a creator or designer when the natural processes are sufficient to explain the observed phenomenon. But, it makes for a great sunday school story. I loved reading genesis as a kid.

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(although there is growing evidence that what was believed to be supported by fossil evidence may not be after all)

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Ah, I vaguely recall the media surrounding it. Again though, how does it (begin to) invalidate evolution?

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We know that the Co2 in the atmosphere was put there by us. We know that Co2 is a pretty good greenhouse gas. We know that the other chemical components of the atmosphere as well as the sun are in relative equilibrium. So why shouldn't we blame Co2? What more must be done to show it as true? I mean honestly, what's missing?

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I agree with your Draft(believe it or not ) just a raw number, but there are around 6 billion people in the world...so lets just say around 2.5 to 2.7 billion of those people drive cars (Most of north America, Most of Europe, and parts of Asia)...and folks are telling me that "we" are not causing problems....whatever...these folks are just burying their heads in the sand...

God says were are supposed to take care of the Earth, we are to nurture it, and cultivate it...not do everything we can to destroy it...but thats just what we humans do...we destroy everything....for no real good reason....

i fully expect we will continue to drive cars for another 30-50 years....and the world will continue to pump that poisonous nonsense into the atmosphere....and one day....we will wake up to a real"doozie"...an Ice Age...perhaps something worse like a Hypercane....by the time we do anything real about this...it will be too late.....because most of the population is just apathetic....

Im sure Draft knows...but a Hypercane will make Katrina and any other cat 5 hurricane look like a spring time rain shower....A hypercane can have winds over 500 mph, capable of creating storm surges of 60ft, and eye nearly 190 miles across.....the clouds of it could reach 19 miles into the stratosphere.....warming ocean water is what causes...and the ocean just keeps getting warmer...one day soon....if we don't stop what we are doing....we human beings are going to cause a hypercane...and thats no joking matter....oh and experts believe hypercanes played a big role in the extinction of the dinosaurs

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i'm not trying to be glib about your comments, but why wouldn't God wait to divinely inspire the writing of His story until man had the knowledge to comprehend the reality of the universe?

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Ah, I vaguely recall the media surrounding it. Again though, how does it (begin to) invalidate evolution?

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From what I can remember, it showed more of a parallel development for Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal as opposed to evolutionary steps where one begat the other. Interbreeding with Cro-Magnon, rather than evolutionary extermination, did away with Neanderthal man.

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"To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." With that tweet, Jon Huntsman set himself apart from every other candidate in the Republican primary field. Despite his phrasing, Huntsman, who is barely registering in most polls, was clearly hoping that the public would believe most other candidates to be a bit loopy by contrast.

Agreeing with the scientific community has become a key issue in recent presidential campaigns. Evolution came up at a debate during the previous Republican primary season, and Rick Perry, the current front runner, was put on the spot about it at a recent campaign event (he flubbed his answer on several levels). And, as Huntsman's tweet suggests, the reality of climate change has been a hot topic.

How did science become such a prominent political football? It really hasn't. The candidates' responses to questions on scientific information have become a proxy for other things, and people across the political spectrum are listening to what those responses say about the candidates' way of thinking.

It's not what you know, it's who you listen to

The basic principles of natural selection are pretty easy to understand. So are the rough outlines of how the greenhouse effect operates. If a candidate evaluates that information, I'd certainly hope they'd come to the same basic conclusions that most of the scientific community has. That said, I'd certainly forgive a presidential candidate if he or she didn't know them; it's not generally what we elect presidents to know. The same is true for many things, such as the economics of offshore wind power. We elect people in part because of the general shape of their policies, and in part because we hope that, should they be called upon to know these things, they will find the most reliable sources of information and listen to them.

Questions about evolution work in this manner on multiple levels. Obviously, on a scientific level, the evidence for evolution is extremely compelling. If you would rather defer to expertise than study it yourself, every scientific society out there that has voiced an opinion on evolution has supported the science and its place in the biology classroom. Finally, the US court system has determined that creationism and its milder cousin, intelligent design, are inherently religious and therefore cannot be taught as "science" in the public school system.

All of which make the actions of Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, who have continued to promote the teaching of intelligent design, a bit odd. But those actions pale in comparison to Rick Perry, who not only thinks there are problems with evolution and that creationism should be taught in schools, but actually thinks the schools in his own state are actually doing so.

On the climate side, a number of the candidates have never accepted the expertise of groups like the National Academies of Science; a few others have done so (Gingrich and Pawlenty have both supported policies to limit CO2 emissions) but have since disowned that position. Mitt Romney is no longer sure that the planet is warming at all. And Rick Perry has once more staked out the most extreme position, saying that it's all just a fraudulent attempt to get grant money. "I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects," he has said. "And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change."

Actually, the consensus about anthropogenic climate change doesn't appear to be changing; the argument that scientists are in it for the money is transparently bogus.

So, what have we learned from this? With the exception of Huntsman, the candidates don't know science, haven't bothered to ask someone who does, and, in several cases, don't even know anything about the settled policy issues (judicial precedent and investigation of claims about fraud). Why would we want these traits in a president?

Actually, some people do

However, the fact is that Huntsman is barely registering in most polls, and the leading candidates in the Republican party are successful in part precisely because they are voicing an opinion that runs counter to expertise. For many in the US, expertise has taken on a negative cultural value; experts are part of an elite that thinks it knows better than the average citizen. (This is accurate, for what it's worth.) Very few object to that sort of expertise when it comes time to, say, put the space shuttle into orbit, but expertise can become a problem when the experts have reached a consensus that runs against cultural values.

And, for many in our society, scientific expertise has done just that. Abstinence-only sex education has been largely ineffective. Carbon emissions are creating a risk of climate change. Humanity originated via an evolutionary process. All of these findings have threatened various aspects of people's cultural identity. By rejecting both the science and the expertise behind it, candidates can essentially send a signal that says, "I'm one of you, and I'm with you where it counts."

This is not some purely partisan phenomenon. On other issues, rejection of scientific information tends to be associated with the political left—the need for animal research and the safety of genetically modified foods spring to mind. These positions, however, are anything but mainstream within the Democratic Party, so candidates have not felt compelled to pander to (or even discuss) them, in most cases. That's created an awkward asymmetry, one where a single party has a monopoly on public rejection of scientific information and certain kinds expertise.

For Jon Huntsman, that's a problem. In an ABC News interview, he argued that the leading candidates' stance would make them unelectable. "The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party—the anti-science party—we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012. When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science—Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position."

It's a reasonable concern. Personally, I wouldn't vote for a candidate who rejects science and expertise, and as a voter, I'd like to have a viable choice between two qualified candidates. At the moment, it's looking like I won't.

My biggest concern is that, ultimately, Huntsman may be wrong. We're in an environment where economic concerns will almost certainly dominate the election. And the campaigns will be covered by a press that cares more about the strategy of what a candidate said than its accuracy, a press that thinks it achieves balance by pretending there are two sides on every issue that merit serious consideration. In that environment, it's entirely possible that the US electorate may not recognize or care much about the implications of a few scientific questions.

Besides, a candidate who rejects science can apparently use that position to attract the support of somewhere above a quarter of the electorate. That's not a bad start for a presidential campaign.

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One was not necessarily an evolutionary descendant of the other as many have theorized. That's the part that appears to be at odds with evolution dogma.

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For instance, people look at Neanderthals as a failed attempt, yet they were successful on this planet far, far longer than we have been.

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We know that the Co2 in the atmosphere was put there by us. We know that Co2 is a pretty good greenhouse gas. We know that the other chemical components of the atmosphere as well as the sun are in relative equilibrium. So why shouldn't we blame Co2? What more must be done to show it as true? I mean honestly, what's missing?

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And we also know that the LARGEST and most effective greenhouse gas is water vapor. Put into the air by natural evaporation from the oceans and seas.

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And we also see an Increase in Solar activity

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We also know that the methane produced by decomposition and even just Cows, trumps the amount of CO2 we are pumping into the air.

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We also know that a CO2 rich atmoshpere is a GREAT atmosphere for PLANT GROWTH

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shall we keep going with what you are mising???

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Yes, please keep the smoke screen coming

Look, I'm not advocating sweeping changes to how we live our lives to cut back on Co2 output. All I want to do is explain to people the in's and out's of scientific theory, and that there's quite a bit of evidence out there that people, especially politicians, deny because it doesn't back up their personal beliefs.

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All I want to do is explain to people the in's and out's of scientific theory, and that there's quite a bit of evidence out there that people, especially politicians, deny because it doesn't back up their personal beliefs.

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There is also a tremendous amount of fear-mongering out there that people, espcially the other politicians, use because it supports their own agenda and excites their own base...

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That statement is 100% false. Solar activity is relatively unchanged. Again, if solar activity played as much of a role as some would like to hypothesize, we'd see a more drastic affect on climate due to the solar minimums and maximums.

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That statement is 100% false. Solar activity is relatively unchanged. Again, if solar activity played as much of a role as some would like to hypothesize, we'd see a more drastic affect on climate due to the solar minimums and maximums.

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I think not....

http://www.space.com/2942-sun-activity-increased-century-study-confirms.html

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The rise in solar activity at the beginning of the last century through the 1950s or so matches with the increase in global temperatures, Usoskin said. But the link doesn't hold up from about the 1970s to present.

"During the last few decades, the solar activity is not increasing. It has stabilized at a high level, but the Earth's climate still shows a tendency toward increasing temperatures," Usoskin explained.

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You're comparing the atmosphere to a skillet? That's possibly the worst comparison I've ever seen.

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You're comparing the atmosphere to a skillet? That's possibly the worst comparison I've ever seen.

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I agree, the atmosphere is like a box of chocolates.

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You're comparing the atmosphere to a skillet? That's possibly the worst comparison I've ever seen.

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I agree, the atmosphere is like a box of chocolates.

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It's closer than a skillet ...

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You're comparing the atmosphere to a skillet? That's possibly the worst comparison I've ever seen.

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I agree, the atmosphere is like a box of chocolates.

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It's closer than a skillet ...

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does this skillet have bacon grease embedded into it due to having never been washed?

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You're comparing the atmosphere to a skillet? That's possibly the worst comparison I've ever seen.

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I agree, the atmosphere is like a box of chocolates.

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It's closer than a skillet ...

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does this skillet have bacon grease embedded into it due to having never been washed?

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It's self cleaning ..... and we really have no clue just how much dirt it can handle.

The weird part is that it is also self dirtying. (is that a word?)

Every so often the skillet will do things that seem self destructive .... but somehow the skillet recovers. If it cuts or rots a hole in itself, it fixes itself. It's weird.

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