Anti-Intellectualism: Don't you just hate it?

[Sewblon]

I love the second comment where the idiot said scientists want us to live as we did in the 19th century, not knowing apparently that since the 1700s humans have produced huge amounts of CO2.

Wouldn't The Global Warming Apocalypse have happened by now if it was going to happen? OP That article didn't mention any thing about how many chemicals it would take to do serious damage to the Ozone Layer, so I guess we are safe. I don't have anything against the scientists, but I don't like people who espouse technocracy. Running a country takes a completely different skill set than running a lab, why do you think we don't have more technocracies?

 

[Skeleon]

Well, the problem is really half-knowledge.
People pick up something (maybe just one sentence or even just a few words out of context) and take it for fact without caring enough to really look into it. Considering I only really listen half the time anybody tells me anything, I can hardly blame them.
What makes this problematic is when people won't admit their knowledge is only half-assed and are determined to hold their position because of pride or shame or whatever.

I guess it's always up to both debaters not to back the other guy into a corner.
We see this on these forums, too.
When a discussion is held without flaming or other forms of overly strong pressure, people are more willing to look things up they may have misunderstood and admit they were wrong.
Believe me, this happened to me several times, too, and it's so much easier to admit you were wrong when the other guy doesn't rub your nose in it like a kindergartener.

 

[werkshop13]

That is not to say that we should just ignore the environment,...

Here, here!

 

[Angryman101]

I chuckle at those who think an authoritarian technocracy would work any better than 100% pure Socialism or Democracy.
The key to a working system is BALANCE. Balance with the world, balance with socio-economic practices, and balance with political ideologies. Keeping some elements of the past and learning from them while simultaneously pushing towards the future.
Nothing is ever solved by this black and white mentality. The many shades of gray in between are what we need to focus on.
/pretentious Buddhism-inspired political ideology.

 

[Finnboghi]

Unfortunately, you're being a massive hypocrite OP.

Being a scientist myself, and refusing to believe what 3 scientists say is true, and 497 say is false (this is actually how 'global warming' began - 3 members from a 500 member think tank did a study on how CO[sub]2[/sub] affects the climate. Unfortunately they were so sure of their findings that the wrote up a paper about it before seeking the approval of the other 497 members, whom all voted unanimously that, at the very least, more research was needed. Unfortunately, the media got their hands on it, and blew it all to hell.) I did some experimentation on global warming.

It's pretty simple, just test the 'greenhouse gas theory'.

Guess what?

It's wrong.

If you take two thermometers, put one in the sun, and one right beside the other, but under a piece of glass (hoisted high enough to allow air flow, of course - if you stop air circulating on one and not the other, then your experiment is useless), the one under the glass will always be colder.

There are many other factors which contribute to climate change actually shifting us towards an ice age, all easily proven through physics, mathematics, or chemistry.

If you want, I can explain why greenhouses are warmer than outside, but for now, it's irrelevant.

That is not to say that we should just ignore the environment, just that following the bandwagon of people you think are smart is just as anti-intellectual as disagreeing blindly, if not more-so.

That is NOT how global warming works! There are so many things wrong with you're 'experiment,' that I hardly know where to begin.

It's not?

Well then...

1. The greenhouse effect actually does not exactly work like a greenhouse. A greenhouse allows sunlight to heat up the air inside while preventing said air to dissipate through the rest of the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases absorb thermal radiation radiated from the Earth's surface after the surface absorbs sunlight, dissipating the radiation that otherwise would have gone back up into space into the atmosphere as heat, warming the Earth.

Unfortunately, you're ignoring the first half of the equation.

If you increase the resistance of the outer atmosphere to photons, then you stop both outgoing and incoming photons.

And, because 100% (obviously 100% of what comes in, comes in) comes in and some is stopped, there will always be less that's stopped as it leaves the atmosphere than is stopped entering the atmosphere.

2. I bet both thermometers were still in the open air, just with one with a plate of glass over it. Air from the outside is circulating around the air around the thermometer, contaminating what is supposed to be a closed system.

As it happens, this is a controlled open experiment.

Because they're side-by-side at the same time, then everything that happens to one happens to the other. This, despite being open, is controlled.

You're right that it's an open experiment, but trying to close an experiment that requires direct sunlight is a bit of an issue.

3. The reason the thermometer under the glass is colder is because the glass is reflecting sunlight away from the thermometer. Greenhouse gases, however, do not reflect.

That's true, but they don't have to in order to cool the Earth; the Ozone Layer (the one being destroyed by energy-absorbing greenhouse gases) is the outer-most layer of our atmosphere.

This means it's where all the radiation into space occurs.

Because of this, stopping more energy closer to the upper-most layer, will actually make it easier for the heat from the sun to radiate off into nothingness.

And are you suggesting the entire theory of greenhouse gases? It's what's keeping our planet from being like Mars and is why Venus is hot enough to melt lead.

Well said - Venus is boiling, and covered in volcanoes and the like.

It's also much closer to the sun.

Mars is also very cold.

However, Mars is significantly farther than we are from the sun.

It also has about 1% of the Earth's atmosphere.

The simple fact is, we're in the Goldilocks zone (look it up if you don't believe me). That's why we're alive. However it won't last forever - the sun is always changing, and it's only a matter of time before it reaches the point that the Earth becomes uninhabitable, no matter what we do.

I don't know what kind of scientist you are, but you are CLEARLY no climatologist.

You're right, I'm not a climatologist (to be honest, I can't stand them; they can be quite annoying, but I do not let that affect my view on their theories).

I'm just a normal scientist who still believes in the slowly dying system that;

A) Science is repeatable, and;
B) Experimentation is not the proof for a hypothesis, it's the grounds for the conclusion.

P.S. I have a right to my goddamn opinion too, you know.

You're right, you do.

Just like the people you're tearing to shreds in your original post.

 

[Galduke]

I believe people are easily corruptible no matter what position they're in and are likely to abuse their power whether they're scientist, politicians, religious leaders, professors, anyone. Just think back to the last time a professor of yours brought up politics in a classroom when the coarse had NOTHING to do with it? So why WOULDN'T a scientist lie just to rake in more funding so long as they justify it in their own minds? Have you never ONCE lied just to save your own skin? It's only good instinct to take anything anyone says with a grain of salt.

As far as anti-intellectualism goes, how does arguing against global warming make one anti-intellectual? Environmentalist are no more scientist than than any group supporting racial purity, hence the use/abuse of the term "nazi". Perhaps you also think anyone whom didn't vote for Obama the living ball o' charisma were simply acting on a deep seated racial bias? I know plenty of so-called "intellectuals" believe so, and in the end taking the title of intellectual is nothing more than patting one's self on the back.

 

[katsa5]

Actually, the volcano fact was true.
But what would I know. ^^ I'm an art major, not a scientist. LOL! I'll just sit here and eat popcorn while listening to other people. This forum is like watching rams butt heads.

 

[Jark212]

So I was in my Geology class today and we discussed this article (http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/2009/08/28/nitrous-oxide-fingered-as-monster-ozone-slayer.html) about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration nitrous oxide being a potential cause for ozone depletion. What really burned my toast was some of the comments, such as:

"I thought caring about the ozone layer went out of fashion since the invention of global cooling...er, warming...sorry, climate change. Nature creates more CFC's than mankind does. A volcano releases more CFC's into the atmosphere than mankind has ever produced in its history.

This stuff is fake. Fake, fake, fake. It's a bunch of envriomental Nazis who want to tell you how to live (notice that the supposed global cooling AND global warming were both caused by bad old fossil fuels). They overstate, obfuscate, and outright lie to make you believe that we can "save" the Earth only by living like it was the 19th century."

and

"Once again NOAA staff using too much of a sample gas in the lab and trying to find an excuse. The real question is, Was the reporter inhaling?"

What the hell is with all the assholes thinking they know better than a bunch of professional research scientists? Do they think that they just make up stuff for shits and giggles? I can tell you the one you thinks CFCs, a synthetic chemical that is in no way found in the environment, comes from volcanoes is certainly no expert. Y'know, it's times like these a technocracy ran by scientists looks pretty good.

Well I see your point, all Human activity's only account for less than 3% of CO2 in the Carbon cycle...

 

[Foolishman1776]

You know what I hate? Arrogant scientific zeal. I can't stand it, people looking at the world thinking their beliefs are the only ones that could possibly be correct, even if they only marginally understand the "science" behind the increasingly bizarre theories being posited because "religion can't possibly be true".

 

[somekindarobot]

1. The greenhouse effect actually does not exactly work like a greenhouse. A greenhouse allows sunlight to heat up the air inside while preventing said air to dissipate through the rest of the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases absorb thermal radiation radiated from the Earth's surface after the surface absorbs sunlight, dissipating the radiation that otherwise would have gone back up into space into the atmosphere as heat, warming the Earth.

Unfortunately, you're ignoring the first half of the equation.

If you increase the resistance of the outer atmosphere to photons, then you stop both outgoing and incoming photons.

And, because 100% (obviously 100% of what comes in, comes in) comes in and some is stopped, there will always be less that's stopped as it leaves the atmosphere than is stopped entering the atmosphere.

Actually, no. As I said earlier, greenhouse gases don't block light, they absorb and scatter it. While the atmosphere and the Earth's surface do reflect sunlight back into space, greenhouse gases don't really increase the reflectiveness of the atmosphere. Also, photons are not just photons, as greenhouse gases don't really absorb the visible light photons that dominate the solar spectrum nearly as much as they absorb the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's surface after it absorbs sunlight.

2. I bet both thermometers were still in the open air, just with one with a plate of glass over it. Air from the outside is circulating around the air around the thermometer, contaminating what is supposed to be a closed system.

As it happens, this is a controlled open experiment.

Because they're side-by-side at the same time, then everything that happens to one happens to the other. This, despite being open, is controlled.

You're right that it's an open experiment, but trying to close an experiment that requires direct sunlight is a bit of an issue.

What I meant was that both experiments were open to the surrounding air. That means even if the air under the glass heated the heated air would float away. It doesn't matter if both experiments have the same contamination as long as it's a contamination. And you can close off the surrounding air while letting in sunlight. For example, you could put the thermometer in an airtight glass cube while the control is a thermometer in a plastic cube. Or better yet, make them both plastic and fill the variable cube with actual carbon dioxide. I don't think glass is a good substitute.

3. The reason the thermometer under the glass is colder is because the glass is reflecting sunlight away from the thermometer. Greenhouse gases, however, do not reflect.

That's true, but they don't have to in order to cool the Earth; the Ozone Layer (the one being destroyed by energy-absorbing greenhouse gases) is the outer-most layer of our atmosphere.

This means it's where all the radiation into space occurs.

Because of this, stopping more energy closer to the upper-most layer, will actually make it easier for the heat from the sun to radiate off into nothingness.

First of all, ozone depletion and the green house effect are only tangentially related. The article I mentioned had to do with a chemical (nitrous oxide) that could deplete ozone. Incidentally, nitrous oxide is also a greenhouse gas, but that's due to a different property of it. The greenhouse effect may increase ozone depletion somewhat by keeping the infrared radiation in the troposphere, cooling the stratosphere and thus deplete some ozone, but for the most part, they are separate processes. Speaking of layers of the atmosphere, this brings me to the next problem in your argument: the ozone layer is not next to space. It's a thin layer of ozone (that's a substance with a molecule with three oxygen atoms, by the way) within the stratosphere, which is above the troposphere, the layer we live in, but still below the mesosphere, the thermosphere, and the exosphere. And since the greenhouse gases scatter the radiation in the troposphere, the lowest layer, it is by no means any more likely to be radiated into space.

And are you suggesting the entire theory of greenhouse gases? It's what's keeping our planet from being like Mars and is why Venus is hot enough to melt lead.

Well said - Venus is boiling, and covered in volcanoes and the like.

It's also much closer to the sun.

Mars is also very cold.

However, Mars is significantly farther than we are from the sun.

It also has about 1% of the Earth's atmosphere.

The simple fact is, we're in the Goldilocks zone (look it up if you don't believe me). That's why we're alive. However it won't last forever - the sun is always changing, and it's only a matter of time before it reaches the point that the Earth becomes uninhabitable, no matter what we do.

Indeed. But I'm afraid you miss the point. Venus would be warmer than Earth irregardless, but the fact of the matter is it's huge carbon dioxide atmosphere makes it much warmer than it would otherwise be, even hotter than Mercury in the daytime. Earth would also be cooler than it would otherwise be if it weren't for greenhouse gases, which I might add, most are perfectly natural and we couldn't do without, it's just the surplus gases pumped into the air by human industry too rapidly that could cause complications that are the problem. Mars used to be warmer when it had more atmosphere, as evidenced by signs of past liquid water, but much of the atmosphere was lost and Mars became colder and dryer.

I don't know what kind of scientist you are, but you are CLEARLY no climatologist.

You're right, I'm not a climatologist (to be honest, I can't stand them; they can be quite annoying, but I do not let that affect my view on their theories).

Well then, what makes you think you know more about a field than a specialist in said field?

I'm just a normal scientist who still believes in the slowly dying system that;

A) Science is repeatable, and;
B) Experimentation is not the proof for a hypothesis, it's the grounds for the conclusion.

Still, what kind of scientist are you? Not one scientist outside of movies describes themselves as just a scientist. Every scientist picks a field and studies it. To be honest, you're elementary mistakes make me suspicious if you even are a scientist. I have only you're word for it, you know. Besides, most of the global warming experiments have been repeated, and they consistently shown the same results. And not everything in science is repeatable, like ice core data for paleoclimatologists, although they can be collaborated, like with other ice core samples. I have no idea what the hell that last point means. Perhaps that evidence should be seen as possibly disproving a hypothesis? If so, then yes, but that doesn't mean that if it does support a hypothesis it's wrong.

 

[somekindarobot]

Also, does no one remember that we were talking about ozone depletion earlier?

 

[Mcface]

The earth goes through semi-extreme climate changes every 100 years or so.

it was so hot at one point, a whole species of beetles went extinct.

and even if we are speeding it up... I could honestly give a fuck.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Life is full of pretentious dick heads

 

[Mcface]

A technocracy has always sounded good, dude. ALWAYS. If we geeks ruled the world, there would probably be fewer wars and much more focus on development of non-military technology. As it is, yeah, you're gonna find idiots like that all over the place.

Also, I was confused for a bit there, might want to put the comments in quote boxes. The tags (if you don't know already) are [*quote]yourtexthere[*/quote] minus the asterisks.

EDIT: Also, broken link on the article.

If Geeks were truely smarter, they would rule the world.

What the hell is with all the assholes thinking they know better than a bunch of professional research scientists? Do they think that they just make up stuff for shits and giggles? I can tell you the one you thinks CFCs, a synthetic chemical that is in no way found in the environment, comes from volcanoes is certainly no expert. Y'know, it's times like these a technocracy ran by scientists looks pretty good.

Yo dawg, the jury's still out on whether or not Global Warming is an actual occurrence. If I had to guess, I'd say there's likely heaps of evidence supporting both sides, too.

So I wouldn't bash Republicans simply for the fact that they disagree with Al Gore. I'm a Republican myself, and am undecided on the issue.

Holy smoke, a Republican on the Escapist. I'd wear full body armor if I were you.

I love it..

Liberal - An open minded, free thinker.

and yet this is something you will hear often from them.
"All Republicans are inbred rednecks. They are all wrong."
how is that any different than say..
"All Liberals are whiney ladyboys. They are all wrong."

They are one in the same, blinded by ignorance.

the difference? it's "cool" to be a liberal/democrat now.
You want my respect? Go be a liberal in North Korea, and see how different it is.

 

[somekindarobot]

That isn't "anti-intellectualism". There is a number of credible scientists who have different opinions on global warming and it's causes and the effects of humans on it in general. And yes, just a few decades ago it was "global cooling". And the whole thing with fridges of one mark supposedly creating holes in ozone layer - which in my knowledge was absolutely fake and just a business move.

What you hate is people who have different and in this case equally correct opinions. Yes, we all should agree with you, except, fucking no.

First of all, there never was a complete scientific consensus that the Earth was cooling in the 70s, some media outlets just took hold of a dip in some ocean temperatures and ran wild with them. But there is a large consensus of scientists who agree that global warming is most likely real and anthropogenic. Sure there are a few scientists who say otherwise, but these scientists are much in the minority, and as far as I know, a lot of them are on the Heartland Institute's bankroll. Truth is, there are many academics who have rather batty ideas, but unless they have the evidence to refute the mainstream theory, their opinions don't matter to the scientific community. They still have the right to their opinion, to be sure, but they still need evidence to make their opinion matter in the field.

You know what? I don't care about your opinion. But I still think to pretend you know more about science than a scientist is the vanguard of asshatery.