OT: Why Do People Reject Science - Wrap Up

Then on the other hand there is this thought I had many years ago. "Why get all up tight about environmental concerns? In the end, Mother Nature is going to win anyway!"

I sometimes wonder if all of our best efforts at preserving the environment will in the end only forestall the eventual demise of humanity, say delaying it from 5000 years from now to 6000 years from now?

Someday world population will have to cease growing. It is physically impossible for population to expand endlessly. Collapse, rather than leveling off, is the most likely eventuality, based on the history of animal species in the past. When that happens humanity will either learn to live in complete harmony with nature, or will once again be a small component of the earth's make up and start the cycle over again.

idamtnboy wrote:Then on the other hand there is this thought I had many years ago. "Why get all up tight about environmental concerns? In the end, Mother Nature is going to win anyway!"

I sometimes wonder if all of our best efforts at preserving the environment will in the end only forestall the eventual demise of humanity, say delaying it from 5000 years from now to 6000 years from now?

Someday world population will have to cease growing. It is physically impossible for population to expand endlessly. Collapse, rather than leveling off, is the most likely eventuality, based on the history of animal species in the past. When that happens humanity will either learn to live in complete harmony with nature, or will once again be a small component of the earth's make up and start the cycle over again.

You've overlooked a third possibility - extinction of the species. The geologic record shows that's what is most likely to happen.

Hose_Head wrote:You've overlooked a third possibility - extinction of the species. The geologic record shows that's what is most likely to happen.

That's what I mean by "eventual demise."

idamtnboy wrote:Someday world population will have to cease growing. It is physically impossible for population to expand endlessly. Collapse, rather than leveling off, is the most likely eventuality, based on the history of animal species in the past. When that happens humanity will either learn to live in complete harmony with nature, or will once again be a small component of the earth's make up and start the cycle over again.

It may not necessarily be the end of humanity - just civilization as some parts of the world know it. Many "civilizations" have come and gone, so it wouldn't surprise me to see one of the modern "civilizations" disappear. Think Roman Empire, the Aztecs, Incas, Greeks, Egyptians (or wherever the Pharaohs came from), Byzantines, etc. Some were wiped out by invaders, others are a mystery. There were large population reductions in the first and second world wars, not to mention the other wars that have been going on for forever somewhere in the world. What is wrong with Mother Nature deciding enough is enough already, and wiping out a large part of the globe - volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, anyone? Maybe even a large hurricane bringing large-scale floods to areas that think they have conquered Mother Nature?
Problem is that no one knows when it will happen, or where. Science fails to predict anything controlled by Mother Nature because the information needed to predict it is far from complete.
We should just be grateful for what we have right now ...

snuginarug wrote:
I don't know jack about climatology, meteorology, geological extrapolations of past climate changes, radiation, gas exchange, the theory of relativity. Because I didn't study them in college. I studied literature and teaching English as a second language. I didn't get multiple degrees in any of the sciences. I did not make it my life's work to understand climate. However, I personally know a climatologist. He is a world expert on drought. HE studied the sciences. HE got multiple degrees. HE has made it his life's work to understand climate. I think I'll go with his ideas on the topic, rather than my own.

I never went to College, instead i was taught to read and think for myself, and not to rely on teachers that can't do, to teach me so I can't do either. The Climatologist you know, has he ever cured a Drought, has his understanding of drought ever cured one. Can throwing $$$ at a drought , stop one, or does it just provide a way to redistribute wealth. Jim

If Man is the cause of global warming, wouldn't the best answer be less humands to cause the problem. If the global warming is going to kill off man, it sounds like problem solved. Maybe we could control the world population to ward off the problen, no that's not a option, well just sit back and throw money at it until it cures itself.

Maybe those learned professors with their paper degrees, should invent a Zeropoint Power source (ZPM Stargate powersorce), so we would have power without changing climate. Good idea but for the most part these people don't create anything. Jim

Goofproof wrote:i was taught to read and think for myself, and not to rely on teachers that can't do,

Goofproof wrote:Good idea but for the most part these people don't create anything.

I see. With your ability to read and think independently, what solutions have you created? It is very easy to criticize people trying to solve problems, from a comfortable arm chair.

RocketGirl wrote:
Thank you - yes. Exactly so. The only thing I'd like to add to your point is that the record actually goes back millions of years.



For deeper time than that, there are cores of sediment taken from the ocean floor; they get us back 20 million years or more. Small fossils in the mud record the chemistry and temperature of the ocean at the time they died. Like the ice cores or the leaves of a book, ocean sediments are layered. Hundreds of cores have been taken, and compared, and compared again by groups of scientists all over the world, to build up the information we now have about Earth's past climate. Further back than that, the rocks themselves hold records through fossils, isotopes, and their chemical composition. We actually have a remarkably clear picture of Earth's climate in the past - not just from 1870 or so, but millions and millions of years.

I am a climate scientist. I've spent my life studying this stuff. I can talk about it for hours (and regularly do, with school kids and anybody else who has questions).

Which of course means that you are totally incompetent to have an opinion on this because we all know scientists are just liars and are padding their agenda. The only people really in the know are those that are not scientists and have imaginary friends feeding them intuitive information, sort of like the pope who imprisoned Galileo for saying the world circles the sun. I mean you are quoting that science stuff and the world is only 6000 years old. Yeah right.

And just notice that all those idiots are using computers to say all this stuff. Buddy, who do you think invented all those computers, iphones, touchpads? The pope? They aren't giving up their cars or GPS systems and they want the latest in medical technology when they get sick.

Goofproof wrote:
Maybe those learned professors with their paper degrees, should invent a Zeropoint Power source (ZPM Stargate powersorce), so we would have power without changing climate. Good idea but for the most part these people don't create anything. Jim

Who do you think discovered the idea behind the technology you are typing these messages on? They create ideas and concepts that other people apply. For those little minds it is the big difference between pure science and applied science. Engineers (applied science) are pretty useless when they don't have pure science theories to apply. Science fiction is all very well but it doesn't work in real life. Go and read some from the 50's and 60's and see how well they did. You might as well point to Harry potter for a design source.

Why Do People Reject Science?

Are we talking about these people? -> http://www.twitvid.com/QM7T7 Riot over $2 waffle maker in WalMart

We never evolved.
We are still monkeys.
Savage, stupid, gullible.
Why, then are we here anyway?

chunkyfrog wrote:We never evolved.
We are still monkeys.
Savage, stupid, gullible.
Why, then are we here anyway?

http://www2.astro.psu.edu/users/stark/fun/BOB.html

or

http://www.allaboutworldview.org/why-are-we-here.htm

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Eoxt1h ... re=related

or....................................................................?

cheers

Mars

Goofproof wrote:[The Climatologist you know, has he ever cured a Drought, has his understanding of drought ever cured one. Can throwing $$$ at a drought , stop one, or does it just provide a way to redistribute wealth. Jim

If Man is the cause of global warming, wouldn't the best answer be less humands to cause the problem. If the global warming is going to kill off man, it sounds like problem solved. Maybe we could control the world population to ward off the problen, no that's not a option, well just sit back and throw money at it until it cures itself.

Maybe those learned professors with their paper degrees, should invent a Zeropoint Power source (ZPM Stargate powersorce), so we would have power without changing climate. Good idea but for the most part these people don't create anything. Jim

One of the most important scientific realizations of recent years was the understanding, finally, that Earth's climate is far more complex than anything we have ever created. We can mess with climate through our profligate use of fossil energy, but we can't stop drought. We can't stop or start the rain. We can't head off a single earthquake or volcanic eruption.

But we can figure out where the greatest risks are for those things, and we can help people and animals adapt to what nature throws at them. And we can figure out how to cope with a changing climate.

It's funny you should choose drought as your example, because I grew up in a farming community, and I saw the scars of drought every day. It's why I chose the field of study that I chose. And I don't know a single climate scientist who doesn't have a somewhat similar story. None of us went into this to make money, because it's not a lucrative field. None of us went into this for power or glory, because slogging around in the dust or mud for decades just to learn how it all works isn't the road to those things. There have been times when I could have tripled my salary if I'd taken the offer from the energy company, or the climate deniers group, or the lobbying firm, but those would have been the wrong path for the likes o' me.

I don't suppose there's any way to say this without seeming either stupidly idealistic or pretentious or both, but those of us who spend our lives in science do so in order to make a difference, and because we love it.

Once many decades ago I was part of a team that advised a community about the sand that was choking their only village well. They kept shoveling and the sand kept coming. They were in danger of having no water and nowhere to go. We did a scientific analysis that showed them that a major dune system was coming; there was no way to stop it and no way to divert it. If they wanted water, they were going to have to build a pipe system to bring the water out from under the encroaching sand. They did that, at modest cost, and the community thrives. I helped save lives with that work.

I (and many others) worked for many years on the damage to agricultural land that drought causes, and how farmers could avoid the worst of it; and we have worked to understand exactly what will happen to coastal lands as sea level rises, and how to cope with it. That work saved livelihoods and the production of food where food is always scarce. It also saved a goodly number of beautiful wildlife species that we'd be much poorer without.

I have close friends who've given their entire careers working to understand and eventually to predict when and if a tsunami will hit, or when a volcano will blow. Some of them lost their lives in the process. But thanks to their work, we are now usually able to give warning in time for people to get out of the blast path. That wasn't the case just 30 years ago.

So your statement that scientists don't create anything is, as we say in science, "unsupported by the evidence." What we create is knowledge, and knowledge allows real people to take real actions to save real lives and to protect the lands, plants, and creatures that mean everything to them. To us.

As I said above, we aren't at a place where we can stop a drought (or a flood, or an earthquake, or an eruption) but we are at a place where we can stop doing things to make them worse, if we so choose. Furthermore we are at a place where we can adapt our behaviour to survive those things and minimize the damage from them.

Those are all the choices we have: adapt, or mitigate. Or both. Or do nothing.

It's probably not much of a surprise that I would say, "do both."

RocketGirl wrote: None of us went into this to make money, because it's not a lucrative field. None of us went into this for power or glory, because slogging around in the dust or mud for decades just to learn how it all works isn't the road to those things. There have been times when I could have tripled my salary if I'd taken the offer from the energy company, or the climate deniers group, or the lobbying firm, but those would have been the wrong path for the likes o' me.

I don't suppose there's any way to say this without seeming either stupidly idealistic or pretentious or both, but those of us who spend our lives in science do so in order to make a difference, and because we love it.

I hate to break the news to you but, people in the pursuit of profits are the ones most responsible for lifting much of the world out of poverty. Capitalists seeking profits for themselves are the ones who develop 99.9% of the products and services that the world relies on. Products and services that make the health, nutrition, shelter, and education of poor people and ordinary people much better.

What your graduation speakers told you - that it is the people who go into public service and charity work that make the most difference - certainly sounds high minded and noble and I would agree that the intentions are correct. But the idea is flat false.

The engineers, chemists, financiers, workers, and managers who went into their field seeking good pay/bonuses/benefits/profits do the great majority of the things that pull people out of poverty and help enrich their lives. These profit-seekers are the ones who are responsible for technologies, materials, supply chain efficiencies, and financing that directly bring the products and services that will be used by that village in Africa to get a new, reliable, safe water supply.

Who do you think developed the pipe and the materials the pipe is made of for that village that needed water? Who do you think developed a supply chain that made it practical and cost effective to get the pipe to the village? Who loaded the trucks? Who drove the trucks to the port? Who developed the machinery to dig the trenches and bury the pipe? Who developed the pumps? Who refined the fuel to power the pump? Who developed the technologies to ensure the safety of the drinking water?

It was capitalists seeking profit! The dedicated, charitable, "noble-minded" person working with the poor villagers can accompish nothing without the capitalists.

If my father were still alive I would ask him to write here about his life growing up using an outhouse and taking baths in a tin tub. He will gladly tell you that his family was able to move out of poverty due to the capitalists they eventually went to work for. The churches, the social services, and the charitable organizations were not able to pull them out of poverty. Only the profit-seeking capitalists could offer them the opportunity to work for their own profit and pull themselves out of poverty and lead rich lives.

So give me one person who goes to work everyday and works faithfully for his family and himself and you can keep 99 Peace Corp volunteers.

And tell your graduation speakers I said so.

My my - such anger. You're entitled to your opinions, but you aren't entitled to put words in my mouth.

Nowhere did I say anything about capitalism being bad, nor did I say that it is wrong to work hard for money to pull yourself out of poverty. Your father isn't the only person who struggled against poverty. Education and hard work are what allowed me to escape from utter and abject poverty, and they are what have allowed me to build a good life and to put my child through college. I believe in education, and I believe in hard work.

What I DID say is that scientists don't go into science for the money. Being as I am one, and have spent my life around them, in academia, industry, and government, I know what scientists do and what motivates them. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with doing your life's work because it's what you want to do and you believe in it.

And if you were to actually look for the data, you might be surprised at how many ex Peace Corps are in high places in industry. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

And now with any and all due respect, I am closing my part in this conversation. I entered to anwer questions that had been asked, and to share information about climate science and about what scientists do. But you've taken the topic in a needlessly personal and combative direction, and I don't intend to enable that.

RocketGirl, I think I love you! Are you married? I'm intelligent, funny, resourceful, I do have a few sleep/health issues, but a bit of forced warm air seems to be helping in that department. I collect environmental data for a living. I don't know what my wife will think of all this, I'm not sure she's big on polygamy, maybe I'll just have to move her on!