Climate change protesters

[Bentley Bullet]

How can you call predictions about future occurrences facts? How can they be facts if they haven't happened yet? How were they established if they can't be based on anything that has occurred before? How can they be established facts if they are prophesied by people whose forecasts have been inaccurate in the past?

[Bentley Bullet]

He was a bit of a loner at school apparently and it must have rubbed off a bit when his goalkeeping talent led him to be sent to Coventry.

He might be scoffed at for being as daft as a brush for not having the same views as hundreds of highly skilled scientists, but there are millions of religious people, for instance, who have different views to many of them also.

And then there are the many highly skilled scientists that are also religious too, like the great Sir Isaac Newton.

Which just goes to show SS, that their views are based on opinions more than facts.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BS.
It means entertainers are really good at entertaining, but I prefer to trust technical things to people who understand technical issues.

So, I'd trust someone who was an expert in physics and engineering to run a nuclear power station rather than a comedian.

And I'd put more weight on the studies of people who study climate science than in the batshit predictions of an ex-footballer who thinks the world is run by reptilian shape-shifters.


What religious belief has got to do with owt on this thread has properly baffled me though.

[i_ateallthepies]

"What religious belief has got to do with owt on this thread has properly baffled me though."

Only the usual suspects predictably trying (and failing as usual) to show how smart they are by arguing the toss in opposition to certain individuals on here BST.

[Boomstick]

BS.
It means entertainers are really good at entertaining, but I prefer to trust technical things to people who understand technical issues.

So, I'd trust someone who was an expert in physics and engineering to run a nuclear power station rather than a comedian.

And I'd put more weight on the studies of people who study climate science than in the batshit predictions of an ex-footballer who thinks the world is run by reptilian shape-shifters.


What religious belief has got to do with owt on this thread has properly baffled me though.

Well, I. Found this thread entertaining until you got involved.
Bet your a real delight at parties.

[drfchound]

BS. I used to find Rik Mayall quite entertaining but I wouldn't have trusted him to run a nuclear power station.

Well, not after blowing that house up in The Young Ones anyway.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm the life and soul BS.

I drink only unsweetened lemon juice and I sit in the middle of a circle explaining how Marxist economics work and explaining how we should storm Buckingham Palace and execute the Queen. The lasses wet their knickers over it.

[Bentley Bullet]

i_ateallthepies, this was a lighthearted thread that was diverted by the usual suspects in an attempt to show how smart THEY are - NOT the other way round.

 my point is that some scientists have theories that, for instance, oppose the belief that God ever existed, and some don't. That is proof in itself that they can't all be right. If they can't agree on theories of the past how on earth can they accurately predict the future as a matter of fact?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

There is no possible way of the scientific method EVER being used to prove the existence of non-existence of God. Scientists may have personal opinions and beliefs but they are not using the scientific method to support those beliefs.

So your introduction of the fact that some scientists do believe in God and some don't is pointless to the discussion about whether scientists can, by using the scientific method, show with a high degree of certainty that anthropogenic climate change exists.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST. It looks like you've won regarding turning what was a refreshing light hearted thread into yet another one of great seriousness.

Scientists do use scientific methods in an attempt to prove there isn't a God, by the way.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

I was joining in the light heartedness until the point where I had to explain my humour. Then I figured folk were getting serious, so I thought I'd join in being serious.

Which scientists were you thinking of?

[knockers]

Probably that one that used to upset Beaker every week!

[wilts rover]

Is this what they are protesting about?

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

Let me get this right. You're saying you trust the organisation that put a man on the Moon and a space probe out of the Solar System, rather than believe James Delingpole, Nigel Lawson and Mr Shellsuit?

[Bentley Bullet]

BB

I was joining in the light heartedness until the point where I had to explain my humour. Then I figured folk were getting serious, so I thought I'd join in being serious.

Which scientists were you thinking of?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/im-not-afraid-what-stephen-hawking-said-about-god-his-atheism-and-his-own-death/?utm_term=.e558aae13aee

[BillyStubbsTears]

That's behind a paywall BB so I can't read it.

[Bentley Bullet]

It's about what Stephen Hawking said about God. “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation".

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yeah. I've read similar from him.

But he's not using the scientific method to prove or disprove the existence of God. He's philosophising. Which is everyone's right to do.

[Bentley Bullet]

He's saying science offers a more convincing explanation. He's using his position as a scientist to disprove the existence of God.

[BillyStubbsTears]

No BB. He's not. He's arguing that science provides a more convincing argument. But he's not using the scientific method to do that. Because he is dealing with a concept that is fundamentally antithetical to the scientific method. Because there is no way to test your hypothesis (the existence of non-existence of God).

The scientific method requires you to be able to conduct experiments or make observations that have the possibility of proving your hypothesis wrong.

Here's an example. If I put forward a hypothesis that a flipped coin will always come down heads or tails 50% of the time.

How do you test that? You do loads of tosses and maybe after 100 you've got 47 heads and 53 tails. Maybe after 1000 you've got 510 heads and 490 tails. Maybe after 10,000, you've got 5020 heads and 4980 tails. You're pretty sure that your hypothesis is right.

If, after 10,000 tosses, you've got 4000 heads and 6000 tails, your pretty sure your hypothesis is wrong. To all practical purposes, you've disproved it.

That's essentially what climate change science does. There's a hypothesis that, since we know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, then if there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we expect global temperature, on average, to increase.

So you check the carbon dioxide concentrations and you check the temperatures and if they are consistently increasing together (with some inconsistencies, because it's not perfect) then you think your hypothesis is looking positive. So you predict what will happen in future to temperatures if carbon dioxide increases at a certain rate. And then you see what happens. And if the actual outcome ties in pretty well with your predictions, you have more confidence in your hypothesis.

It's never 100% nailed down. You might be missing something. It might be in future that CO2 goes up and temperatures plummet. Then your hypothesis is disproved. But the longer that doesn't happen, the more confidence you have in your hypothesis as a sound working model.

And there's the key. You NEVER prove anything. You can either have a hypothesis that hasn't been disproved, and so is a decent explanation. Or you have a hypothesis that has been disproved and so is wrong. But you can only disprove a hypothesis by having hard evidence that it's prediction is wrong.

(Brief aside. Here's a thing about science. Scientists make their names by DISPROVING conventional wisdom. That's how science advances. Einstein disproved Newton's concept of motion and became world famous for it. There's a massive incentive to go against the tide. To try to find ways of disproving what everyone believes. Because you'll be the Nobel Prize winner. But no one has remotely convincingly disproved the link between man made CO2 and temperature rise.)

Anyway, back to Hawking. He is categorically NOT using the Scientific Method to disprove the existence of God. Because there is no experiment you can do and no observation you can make within our Universe to test something which, by definition (if it exists) resides outside our Universe.

What Hawking us doing is giving HIS OPINION that science provides enough answers that it removes the NEED for the existence of God. But he's not proving that God doesn't exist, because he cannot do that.

[Bentley Bullet]

Of course, he can't prove God doesn't exist. Nobody can! But he said “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”

That, in my opinion, is a scientist using his position as a scientist to disprove the existence of God.

[BillyStubbsTears]

You'e lost me in that post BB. You start by saying (correctly) that nobody can prove that God doesn't exist. Then you say (incorrectly) that Hawking is using his position as a scientist to prove that God doesn't exist.

He might well be using his position as a scientist to HYPOTHESISE that God doesn't exist. But he's not using the METHODS that scientists use to test that hypothesis! That's the point.

If that article is anything like other stuff I've read by Hawking on this subject, he's using his authority as a scientist to bolster his opinion on something that cannot be addressed by the methods that scientists use, and is more in the realms of philosophy. He cannot apply the scientific method because there is no experiment or observation he can make which gives any firm evidence either way. (Actually, maybe he CAN now that he's corked it...)

Which is why I said earlier that scientists' differing opinions on the existence or non-existence of God has no connection whatsoever to scientists' methods or findings on climate change. Because climate change, like any other science, works on the basis of testing hypotheses.

If two scientists have different hypotheses about climate change, they can conduct experiments and gather data to see which hypothesis is better supported by the facts. That's precisely what has been done for decades and the overwhelming bulk of the evidence says that a) climate change is happening and b) climate change is real. As I said before, if a scientist could disprove those findings, they would win the Nobel Prize and save humanity a shit load of trouble and money. The incentives to do that are enormous, but no-one has. In fact the real leaders of climate change scepticism are politicians and commentators with a history of lying, and Big Oil.

[Bentley Bullet]

Billy, the fact that nobody can prove that God doesn't exist doesn't detract from the fact that people will listen to who was probably the most influential scientist of our time and believe every word he says. all the rest you go on about is just a typical example of why your gobbledygook is so out of touch with reality.

[BillyStubbsTears]

My gobbledygook is out of touch with reality?

That might be the single most depressing thing I've read on here from an intelligent person.

What you call "gobbledygook" is the process which has given you bridges and high speed trains and mobile phones and computers and jet engines and medicine. It's what the reality you experience every day of your life is founded on. Why on earth would you be so dismissive of it?

[Axholme Lion]

So the plod are stood there doing nothing while Tarquin and Jemima from Surrey are having their little protest with their pals from Uni. I'll bet they'd be quick enough to get the batons out if Terry and his mates from Deptford were stood there causing an obstruction for five minutes.

[MachoMadness]

Interesting that it's a "light-hearted" thread when it's taking the piss out of those bloody lefties. When someone makes a crack about Brexit voters needing zimmer frames, all of a sudden it's disgusting abuse of the worst kind. Bloody snowflakes, eh?

[Axholme Lion]

My gobbledygook is out of touch with reality?

That might be the single most depressing thing I've read on here from an intelligent person.

What you call "gobbledygook" is the process which has given you bridges and high speed trains and mobile phones and computers and jet engines and medicine. It's what the reality you experience every day of your life is founded on. Why on earth would you be so dismissive of it?

Isn't that all the stuff the protesters want to get rid of?

Did you listen to Nick Ferrari this morning? He tore them to shreds on his phone in.

NF: Why are you making everyone's life a misery?
Caller: We're raising awareness and when the Government come to talk to us we will stop.
NF: You do know they are on holiday, why protest now?
Caller: No,er er er. I didn't pick the time,er,er,er….

[idler]

Nick Ferrari is a buffoon. I get the Sunday EXPRESS every week for the sport and crosswords (the best bits). His page is absolutely one sided and bombastic. Jacob Rees Mogg complained that he was used to talking to Nick Ferrari when the other journalist destroyed him in the radio interview the other week.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Listen to Nick Ferrari? No. I was sticking pins in my gonads. I find it less painful and more useful.

[Axholme Lion]

Listen to Nick Ferrari? No. I was sticking pins in my gonads. I find it less painful and more useful.

I suppose you were waiting for James O'Brien for his balanced views. Arrggghhhh!!!!!!