Re: [asa] Creation Care

Strikingly similar to the "evolution controversy".
 
Best,
Charles
 
_______________________________
Charles W. Carrigan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Geology
Olivet Nazarene Univ., Dept. of Physical Sciences
One University Ave.
Bourbonnais, IL 60914
PH: (815) 939-5346
FX: (815) 939-5071
ccarriga@olivet.edu
http://geology.olivet.edu/
 
"To a naturalist nothing is indifferent;
the humble moss that creeps upon the stone
is equally interesting as the lofty pine which so beautifully adorns the valley or the mountain:
but to a naturalist who is reading in the face of the rocks the annals of a former world,
the mossy covering which obstructs his view,
and renders indistinguishable the different species of stone,
is no less than a serious subject of regret."
          - James Hutton
_______________________________

>>> "Randy Isaac" <randyisaac@adelphia.net> 1/18/2007 9:05 PM >>>

Dave,
    One of the questions I particularly wanted to investigate was the source and extent of the controversy and uncertainty. As we all know, the key to good science is to know what you know and know what you don't know. Folks outside any particular specialty often don't understand what is known and what isn't. In climatology, the factors are so vast and complex that it is very easy to believe that we know very little. What I found is that the "controversy" and "uncertainty" within the scientific community of climatology is vast indeed--but not regarding the big picture of global warming trends, anthropogenic influences, likely consequences of action or inaction, etc. The uncertainties lie in the range of specific impacts and detailed factors. The source of the idea that climate models are very inaccurate and highly untrustworthy seems to be those who are outside the professional community and who amplify various uncertainties, extrapolating them to the point where we can't really trust what the scientists say.
    In other words, the scientific literature has no significant controversy. One review I found in Science scanned 928 papers on the topic and found 75% explicitly or implicitly in agreement and 25% that didn't address that issue and none with a contrarian view. Another review analyzed 2,000 papers and found 2 that disagreed with the consensus perspective. That means that contrarian views are being expressed elsewhere and not in the professional scientific literature. No one has published a model that substantively differs from Jim Hansen's climate modelling, for example. Quantitative details differ but the conclusions aren't significantly different. In other words, people outside the professional community seem to have taken differences and uncertainties of details and extrapolated to a "controversy" which isn't really going on inside the community. There are also some scientists who have published alternative scenarios--like a strong solar effect, which I discussed with some of the folks--and have received a lot of publicity outside the scientific community while the mainstream folks have published corrections to the erroneous assumptions in those papers. I don't consider that a "real controversy."
 
    If anyone is interested, I can provide a few more details in coming days.
 
      Randy
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: David Opderbeck
To: Randy Isaac
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Creation Care

 To my surprise, for example, the global warming issue is quite clear with no controversy in the community of scientific expertise in the field. I found that global warming is significant and is primarily due to anthropogenic sources.

Based on what I've read and also not being an expert by any stretch, I'm inclined to agree that warming is a real problem with anthropegenic sources. I don't know how you can say, however, that the issue is "quite clear with no controversy in the community of scientific expertise in the field." What I've seen suggests the question is clear as mud, particularly when it comes to the extent of human causation and the projected rate, trends and effects of warming, and further that every position in the scientific community is significantly affected by politics. Why are you saying it's so easy to brush off every criticism?
 

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Received on Thu Jan 18 23:36:13 2007