2012 was warmest year in U.S. history

[Burke]

Good old Oak,

Have you figured out how to prove your senses are fallible yet without the use of those "fallible" senses?

(A simple contraction implied in your claim.)

[neisgator]

Cmon Fox, you can't expect Owl Gore and his merry band of dishonest "scientists" to include ALASKA?

[FoxGator]

Originally Posted by neisgator

Cmon Fox, you can't expect Owl Gore and his merry band of dishonest "scientists" to include ALASKA?

I guess CO2 hasn't found Alaska yet!

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by Burke

Rade,

Popper's approach is sometimes said to be the "guess then test" approach.

Essentially, if you want to know what the moon is composed of, you hypothesize that it is made of, say, blue cheese. You then (somehow) "falsify" that, hypothesize that it is made of something else, (somehow) "falsify" that, and continue the process until you (somehow) get it right

So, how do you ever "falsify" anything without knowing the truth somewhere?

And how did you know the truth when you discovered it?

And why don't you just use whatever means you had to determine those truths all the time?

I know that this may sound strange, but I don't think you can ever know the truth when you discover it, Burke, which is why we never let our students use the term "proved" when talking about the results of their experiments.

Now at this point I should qualify that I certainly believe in relatively absolute truth when dealing with simplistic questions which only require direct perception (e.g. how many stones are in this box?). I also really like the information that comes from randomized control experiments, but of course even some of these fail to replicate. So what happens if you try an experiment three times, get a positive result twice, and fail to get it once? Were there two false positives or one false negative? And many experiments are never even replicated once.

But this all really leads me to complex and/or rare phenomena where randomized controls are impossible, like do gun laws decrease crime? Do lower tax rates stimulate economic growth? Does TSA decrease the odds of a 9/11? And of course, can CO2 emissions cause global warming? We simply have no ability to replicate the Earth, so already we are at a disadvantage with finding the 'truth' to this question.

Fortunately, empirical study isn't the only tool at our disposal in trying to answer these questions, as we also have theory and logic. But still, these complex questions are an inexact science at best, and in my view, you should never believe that you have discovered the absolute truth to their workings.

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by FoxGator

I guess CO2 hasn't found Alaska yet!

Just remember your logic here the next time it snows in Houston, Fox.

[FoxGator]

Originally Posted by GatorRade

Just remember your logic here the next time it snows in Houston, Fox.

I have logic?

[Dreamliner]

I sure wish this global warming would hurry up and get here. I just about froze my ass off again last night.

[OaktownGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

Good old Oak,

Have you figured out how to prove your senses are fallible yet without the use of those "fallible" senses?

(A simple contraction implied in your claim.)

No contradiction.

I may have to rely on the perceptions of others in order to understand how fallible my senses might be.

If I have red/green color blindness and somebody tells me they see some pattern in red/green that I cannot see, my individual perception or my "absolute knowledge" says the other person is wrong... even when they are factually correct.

When multiple people tell me they see the same pattern, I can either keep spitting into the wind wrt to my perception, or come to the conclusion that my perception is seriously flawed... my absolute knowledge... is absolutely incorrect.

And what if nobody tells me? My perception is just as incorrect, whether they do or do not.

[Burke]

Rade,

I have no problem saying that we don't know everything, that we are not omniscient.

That's not the issue.

When you say that we can know no truth, you are engaging in a simple contradiction. And there are no contradictions in nature.

I start out by saying that everything we perceive is a fact, knowledge, that this is self-evident, and that every attempt to deny this entails a contradiction, someone claiming to know that he can know nothing, which is impossible.

Additionally, at the conceptual level, I observe that our senses are physical entities responding to physical stimuli according to the deterministic laws of nature. They are incapable of acting otherwise. The claim that they do is akin to alchemy.

BTW, what do you teach and where?

[Burke]

A final question, if you can know no truths with your rational faculty, how are you any different from a tribal witch doctor claiming to have mystical revelations?

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

I sure wish this global warming would hurry up and get here. I just about froze my ass off again last night.

I walked around late last night without a coat on in Maryland. So global warming must exist. Of course, we could rely upon large scale empirical observations, but that requires knowing things like statistical modeling, which seems hard. So why bother?

[Burke]

Oak,

Color blindness is just the inability to see a certain wavelength, isn't it? No different than the inabity to see X-Rays, infrared, ultraviolet? Or the inability to hear at frequencies higher or lower than our hearing can detect.

How does this imply that the things you are able to detect are giving you false info?

Which is what "fallible" senses are supposed to be doing.

[neisgator]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

I walked around late last night without a coat on in Maryland. So global warming must exist. Of course, we could rely upon large scale empirical observations, but that requires knowing things like statistical modeling, which seems hard. So why bother?

Your side does it everyday.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by neisgator

Your side does it everyday.

I'm really not as interested in "sides" as you seem to be. If somebody gives that argument, I would be happy to tell them that they are wrong, however they use the argument.

[OaktownGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

Oak,

Color blindness is just the inability to see a certain wavelength, isn't it? No different than the inabity to see X-Rays, infrared, ultraviolet? Or the inability to hear at frequencies higher or lower than our hearing can detect.

How does this imply that the things you are able to detect are giving you false info?

Which is what "fallible" senses are supposed to be doing.

Below is an image depicting what normal, able bodied people see, and what people with three types of vision impairments see:


In the worst case (protanope simulation), people likely wouldn't even see the number 2, unless they specifically knew to look for it.

How do we reconcile the wide disparity in these images, with statements that our senses provides us with "absolute truth"?

Is everyone's truth different?

How can our senses provide us absolute truth, when our senses are very limited, and also variable from person to person? And most of us are perceiving truth around us from multiple sensory inputs combined... if you're missing one or more of those senses completely, you're sense of the world around you, or the "truth" can be really limited. Conversely you can be confused by sensory overload.

I'm not trying to argue that we don't gather useful information with our senses... just that it is a big step to take say that information gathered is "absolute truth".

And then you get into the murky water of what we perceive from what we sense... this is affected by our experiences and biases, what we've had to drink or eat, how much stress we're under, how much relevant topical knowledge we can apply to a subject, how susceptible we are to influence by other people or groups, what types of influence have been brought to bear, and other factors.

Each person's view of the "truth" gets increasingly variable, with increasing likelihood of error when you add all that context.

[Burke]

"How can our senses provide us absolute truth, when our senses are very limited, and also variable from person to person?"

How does it follow from the fact that that our senses are limited that the data they do give is is false?

The fact that I can't see in infrared does not mean that an object I see on the visible light range is not there?

How does it follow that because another person is deaf that what I hear is not real?

The fact that our senses have a limited range does not mean they give us false info.

[OaktownGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

"How can our senses provide us absolute truth, when our senses are very limited, and also variable from person to person?"

How does it follow from the fact that that our senses are limited that the data they do give is is false?

The fact that I can't see in infrared does not mean that an object I see on the visible light range is not there?

How does it follow that because another person is deaf that what I hear is not real?

The fact that our senses have a limited range does not mean they give us false info.

Which of the four images in my prior post is the "truth"?

[Burke]

They are all the truth. None of the data they give is false.

The fact that a color blind person can't see the 2 doesn't mean that what he can see is unreal.

No more than the fact that you can't see the atoms in a table means that you can't see the table or that your view of it is unreal.

Take a picture in the dark, and you see almost nothing.

Add a thermal imaging device, and you may see an animal.

The data you receive in each instance reflects something real, not something unreal.

The fact that two stars appear as one because you cannot resolve them with your naked eye does not mean that what you do see is unreal.

The fact that our senses have a limited range does not mean that what they do reveal is not real.

The key to understanding this is grasping that perception based on sensory experience is very fumdamental. The "errors" you think you are making are errors of judgement.

That you have discovered with your infallible senses.

[OaktownGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

They are all the truth. None of the data they give is false.

The fact that a color blind person can't see the 2 doesn't mean that what he can see is unreal.

No more than the fact that you can't see the atoms in a table means that you can't see the table or that your view of it is unreal.

Take a picture in the dark, and you see almost nothing.

Add a thermal imaging device, and you may see an animal.

The data to receive in each I stance reflects something real, not something unreal.

The fact that two stars appear as one because you cannot resolve them with your naked eye does not mean that what you do see is unreal.

The fact that our senses have a limited range does not mean that what they do reveal is not real.

So, perhaps we're talking around each other over the word "truth". Saying that an individual perceives something within their limits and biases is fine; that is a data point among perhaps many data points. Considering that one perception (data point) to be "truth" is where I take exception.

With this understanding, literally anything can be considered "the truth" given any particular individual's cognitive limits, and perceptual biases... regardless of how far from the real truth, those limits and biases skew's the individual's perception.

The truth is that the earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa... no matter how apparent it was to earlier people that the sun revolved around the earth... which was "the truth" in their minds.

[ursidman]

More on the subject and rather than starting another thread here goes:http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/...ate-change/?hp The report is draft and subject to change but:

The natural conservatism of science has often led climatologists to be cautious in their pronouncements about global warming. Indeed, more than once they have drawn criticism for burying their fundamental message – that society is running some huge risks — in caveats and cavils.

To judge from the draft of a new report issued by a federal advisory committee, that hesitation may soon fall by the wayside. The draft, just unveiled for public comment before it becomes final, is the latest iteration of a major series of reports requested by Congress on the effects of climate change in the United States.

Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.”

The report cites stronger scientific evidence—developed since the last report of this type was published in 2009—that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary cause of these changes. It warns that if humanity fails to get a handle on emissions, the changes are likely to accelerate. And it cites numerous ways, from health problems to wildfires to extreme weather events, that climate change threatens human welfare – not in some distant land in some far-off time, but here in the United States, and soon.


Climate change is real. Science is admittedly an imperfect process but studies in so many disciplines coalesce around the fact of climate change. Ignoring it is political.