RE: [asa] Teaching ID and teaching that Gobal Warming is not real

I agree. As mentioned before on this list, we had Dr. Kim Cobb of GA Tech
who is a Climatologist come an present to our RTB Chapter last year and she
said exactly what Don stated below. Their is consensus among scientists
about the warming and even anthropogenic warming, but their is much less
data and consensus supporting what exactly the options are and what can
reasonably be done about it. Her presentation is online at the link below
but that site appears to be down at the moment though.
 
John
 
http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/~kcobb/

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Don Winterstein
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 9:26 AM
To: Michael Roberts; asa
Subject: Re: [asa] Teaching ID and teaching that Gobal Warming is not real

Frankly, I think the "400 Prominent Scientists" deserve more of a hearing
than most participants in this forum seem willing to give them. In
particular, the "scientific consensus" doesn't appear to be as much of a
consensus as some are claiming. Many of the statements contained in that
referenced report (U. S. Senate Report:...) have at least some ring of truth
to me as one who has been a professional Earth scientist (geophysicist) for
25 years.
 
Not that I think there is no basis for the "scientific consensus" on global
warming; as far as I know, the climate scientists who join in that consensus
are doing "good Earth science." But once again I insist that Earth science
is not physics, and much thought, debate and investigation must precede any
political action that is based on Earth science predictions. The oil
industry must spend its hundreds of millions drilling wells on the chance
that their Earth scientists' predictions might be right; but to gamble in a
similar way with the world's economy is a whole other level of risk-taking.

 
It's fairly clear that economic development has been the road to improved
standards of living. Politicians must be very careful about erecting
roadblocks.
 
Further, I find the term "GW deniers" offensive when applied loosely to
anyone who questions any part of the "scientific consensus." I consider
this expression, among others in a similar vein, to be part of an attempt to
intimidate people and inappropriately shut down dissension. (Jump on our
bandwagon, you idiots!) I suspect just about everybody acknowledges
evidences of climate warming, particularly as it manifests itself in the
northern polar regions and in observed glacier shrinkage. Not everyone is
willing to accept the "scientific consensus" predictions concerning what
those evidences mean. The predictions may well be the best that scientists
can do from their models, but Earth science models are notoriously prone to
error.
 
Scientists must generate the best possible models, but in Earth sciences
they must be willing not to take them too seriously and improve them over
time.
 
Unlike Earth scientists' predictions in the petroleum industry, which are
tested regularly, the climate scientists predictions have never truly been
put to significant tests. It's one thing to get a good match with the past,
it's an entirely different thing to predict the future. Earth science is
full of unknowns, and it necessarily relies on data that often need to be
"conditioned." And unlike in physics, no one controls the systems being
investigated.
 
Don
 
 

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Roberts <mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
To: David Campbell <mailto:pleuronaia@gmail.com> ; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 3:41 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Teaching ID and teaching that Gobal Warming is not real

We also need to note that GW deniers include Calvin Beisner who has weird
ideas of the curse, yet is listened to by the Acton Inst , SBC and gave a
hairy deposition to the senate last year.
See the various depositions on
:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing
<http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_
ID=e39940af-802a-23ad-4371-252edd78194f>
&Hearing_ID=e39940af-802a-23ad-4371-252edd78194f.

: Here's what he wrote!

. On July 25, 2006, the ISA responded with An Open Letter to the Signers of
"Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action"...and Others Concerned About

Global Warming, signed by more than 130 scholars, theologians, scientists,
economists, and other leaders, including James A. Borland, D. A. Carson,
Guillermo Gonzalez, Wayne Grudem, James Kennedy, Michael Oard, Joseph A.
Pipa, Robert L. Reymond, and Jay W. Richards.

Thank goodness Cizik and Ball are countering this kind of nonsense.

Michael

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Received on Sat Jan 5 11:38:56 2008