I want to document one more of your errors in our discussion on global warming. I said NOBODY in the scientific community denies that we are in the midst of a warming trend. You said they do and asked me to look up "global cooling". I've done so. You're wrong again. Here's a fairly comprehensive list of scientists that disagree with the main IPCC findings. NONE OF THEM deny that the earth is warming. They deny that man is the cause, think the consequences aren't large, etc. None deny the obvious fact that we are in the midst of a serious warming trend. If you are going to claim that your views are based on science, logic, and intellectual reasoning and yet you are going to reject the UNANIMOUS conclusions of the scientific community I think you have to admit you have to drop the "science" part in your "science, logic, and intellectual reasoning." You do not follow science. Feel free to ignore science. Just don't pretend your views are based on science.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Follow Up Email to Dutko on Global Warming
I sent Bob this email just now regarding the phone call I made into his program earlier:
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5 comments:
Jon,
You are beginning to sound like the man in the asylum who kept banging his head against a wall and yelling in pain.
When asked why he continued has said
"gee it feels great when I stop.”
Dutko will NEVER be proven wrong in view of his public. He simply can't because he will continue to attack your arguments with furphies after you stop being on air... and if you look like you will he'll simply not take your calls on air.
He is an entertainer not a scientist, his purpose is to give faux salve to his primary demographic 'those whose mentally needs an emotional bubble where everything is defined, predictable, Black or white. Anything else challenges their modus operandi and as such is 'threatening” .
He may or may not really believe his medieval strictures but I wonder if it's really worth the effort to prick their bubble. Enlightenment (IN sight) comes from within not from out.
My 87 yo Mum (widow) has become a fundie... I see no point in destroying her emotional 'crutch' , it gives her an explanation/comfort to her end of life. I doubt she would cope with her increasing frailty and inevitable death otherwise.
Again I draw your attention to Neuro psychology that is unlocking the bio. Electro chemical make up (genetics) that to some degree influences our mentalities... not every one can cope with or is able to grasp the lack of cognitive purpose of life .
Dutko's audience are looking for confirmation that their 'world view is sound etc'
The logical truth is that you can never prove emphatically something doesn't exist. Even Cosmologists don't know for sure what existed before the big bang. Or when the newly discovered original Higgs Bosum came from or even if that it the ultimate source of mass or if it is made up of smaller entities.
From a scientific perspective one doesn't normally build a house from random constructions one starts at the base units bricks and planks etc. If some one is trying to build up an alternative structure ( explanation) they must first understand the strengths/ weaknesses of the building blocks ( Bums on the ground base research its basis its exclusions ...what it is measuring etc). Then look at the modules built from those blocks (analysis the methodologies statistic significances) then the conclusions.
i.e. would you trust a DYI home builder ( Dutko, his non scientific qualified researchers and some of his like minded mates) to build say an empire state high apartment block? Then why accept armchair experts or even Journalist's INTERPRETATIONS of a set of issues that is even more complex with it's multiplicity of issues like That which is AGW?
Sure we can watch many documentaries and even read guides on how building of this complexity are designed and built and have a rough idea but to find flaws in resonance, stress calculations, concrete Kpa loadings, drying factors , tensile factors etc Much less build one. .... come Onnn!
Having helped my youngest daughter physically with gaining sample data (in the wild) for her Science and Environmental Planning Degrees I can tell you is hard dirty arduous and precise work (up to my waist in dirty swamp water to get samples twice a day for 3 months ). Then to watch the computer programming an then miles of stats printouts and then analysis. Not once but multiple times from different perspectives testing different ideas before a small book of to me incomprehensible language and statistical analysis for a 10000 word scientific paper her input was a part of it. I would suggest that Dutko wouldn't be able to decipher the data to know if it was flawed or that it's limitations/methodologies would support his DYI theories. Which are in the building analogy the equivalent of being based the the docos and idiots guide to....
If you want a closer armchair View of AGW Skeptical Science , Real Climate and Climate Speculator.
All we can do is put the fact as they are to the likes of Chad and leave enlightenment up to him.
He'll never be convinced of anything that he doesn't want to understand (a denier). Dutko is at best, of the same ilk at worst he's a denialist (professional denier)
When you're talking about someone like your mother, absolutely I agree with you. Her beliefs about God aren't going to change, and why should you want them to change? It gives her comfort.
AGW is a different story. Bob has a pretty sizable audience, and the erroneous beliefs he fosters in them are going to cause real destruction. First among poor Africans, Haitians, and Indians, and subsequently amongst that have a little more wealth. This is some real damage he's doing.
I'm not saying he'll change his mind, but from listening to him I don't believe he's a cynic. I don't believe he's saying what he doesn't believe. Part of the reason I say that is because I actually think he's modified his rhetoric based on what I've told him.
He used to say that Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map. I corrected him on the air and he told me I was wrong. But subsequently I heard one of his callers say Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map and he said "Actually, he didn't quite say that." Regarding evolution he's often claimed that evolution predicts the abundance of transitional fossils. I corrected him to say that in fact evolution predicts that the majority of fossils we would find should be of things that appear from our perspective to be presently extinct, not transitions. I've noticed him modify his rhetoric in light of this.
I'm not saying I'll change his mind on AGW, but I think there's a chance he'll stop using some of these bad arguments. I don't think he'll claim that scientists say the earth is cooling. And he will probably continue to say that some popular magazines were predicting an ice age in the 70's but he might not say that this is really what the scientific community said.
So I guess my goal is to reduce the number of bad arguments he propounds. Maybe it will make a small difference for his listeners.
Everyone is going to be admitting that the earth is warming within several years I think. I think hearing these phony arguments will delay the realization. More delay is more destruction and suffering. I'm hoping to speed awareness along. It may not work. But doing nothing guarantees it won't work.
Jon,
I'll bow to your superior knowledge of the person. I've never listened to the man.
He in Australia we have similar spruikers (denialists and those who talk to the the same demographic)
the 'average'( sic) person.
This is BS and non defined term term and reasoning. In reality their demographic isn't the mean average.
A basic understanding or actual analysis of 'bell curve' statistics would suggest given the US literacy level that like in Australia the actual average is something like 'a 32 y.o. single woman with a better than a high school education.
Talk back radio tends to have an audience that is the far reaches of the 1st and second std deviation from the mean (average) in essence part of the lessor rump.
This coincidently coincides with the majority of TV and MSN consumers.A survey here found that the average listener was in fact less educated.
Put it another way Aust had e spate of Indian (foreign student) prejudice attacks. Idian media immediately cried that the Aussies were a bunch of drunken 'bogans'. The reality was some what different I.e. there were 4 high profile attacks one was a gang of Vietnamese first generation migrants teenagers.
And the other 3 were by uneducated 'dead end' 'white trash' (excuse the terms but they are to get the point. Given the number of foreign students in the country these represented .00001%.
It didn't even equate with the white on white violence of .002%
Note also 56% of those were in lower socio-economic areas. Compared to the racist/ religious violence in india it was at best an unrealistic media created anomaly.
Keep in mind only the sensation gets to be be news.
All this shows that the average audience of people like Dutko is from the 30% Tea party types.
It could be argued that they are usually the most vulnerable to fear driven manipulation by the denialists (those who have self interest reasons to continue with the status quo that favours them.
Keep in mind in any group of people only the most committed (tending towards the extreme i.e. those who most perceive they have something to gain or defend)are those who are the most vocal (noisy).
Take a look at P&T groups in schools the office bearers tend to be run by the same people and they fight new comers or reformers. Most political groups are the same.
I doubt very much that the real average American (USA) citizen is the core of Dutko's audience or even Chad. I'd suggest that he is at the outside edge of of the 1st SD. he argues active Self interest.
To conclude I don't know Dutko but Statistically he is talking to an audience at the far reaches of the 1st SD to the right of the mean at best... i.e. those that listen to Talk back radio. Numerically speaking they are a minority of the people. I'd suggest that the problem with both sides of politics is that they are tending to veer towards this faux average and in actuality it explains why the choices offered to the real mean is increasingly a choice of the better of the poor options (hobs' choice) that would explain why Both sides (the real majority) are un happy with both parties.
lets see them deny this one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/scienceofclimatechange
So much for cyclical variation or not human induced
;)
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