Poll: Do you believe in global warming?

[Innegativeion]

*snip*

Well your standpoint still seems silly to me. Perhaps we can elaborate on this and reach some mutual understanding.

-If not

universal, impersonal natural laws apprehendable by science

then what is there?

-What do you define "material" as? Specifically. Reality is made up of a lot of stuff. Some of it might not fall under what you consider to be material.

-Natural selection is not a system built primarily upon chance.

 

[prpshrt]

I'm pretty sure many people have done EXTENSIVE research on the matter and they have proper evidence to show that global warming is real. I honestly feel this is kinda like asking someone whether they believe in evolution or not.

 

[HoneyVision]

I've always found this question more or less irrelevant. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter. We should still be doing our best to make sure our environment is clean and healthy. Obviously moderation is key, but even if Global Warming is a whole lotta crap, it doesn't mean we should be dumping endless amounts of garbage into the sea.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I believe the truth OP, so yes. I believe in climate change bought on by humans.

 

[TWRule]

*snip*

Well your standpoint still seems silly to me. Perhaps we can elaborate on this and reach some mutual understanding.

-If not

universal, impersonal natural laws apprehendable by science

then what is there?

-What do you define "material" as? Specifically. Reality is made up of a lot of stuff. Some of it might not fall under what you consider to be material.

-Natural selection is not a system built primarily upon chance.

Alright then, if you seriously want to understand...

I meant that science, by its method, makes certain presuppositions - metaphysically and epistemologically. These include, among other things, materialism and empiricism. Basically, that everything is material, and that we can gain knowledge of how the cosmos operates by using our sensory surfaces to directly observe and apprehend those material processes. I did not mean to imply that I subscribe to the same 'material/non-material' distinction that gave materialism its name, I was merely describing a common school of thought. The distinction is empty to me, but I imagine many would define it positivistically, as that which can be affirmed to exist through 'objective' empirical means. Moreover, in the same way that this distinction being empty to me means that I do not experience things as 'material', I also do not experience them as 'being composed of particles/energy', etc.

The idea that there are universal laws is an ancient idea, but they were thought to be either rational laws (which were intelligible to us primarily because it was assumed that both the cosmos was inherently rational, and that we were rational beings) or divine laws (which in many cases were 'personal', in that they had moral force founded in a relationship to one or more divine beings). These would be 'personal' or human-sensitive laws.

Modern science however, eschews the idea of any such ordering force in the universe that it cannot detect (naturalism, another of its presuppositions), leaving us with the predominant idea of a universe that is totally indifferent to our existence, and a nature that would as readily wipe us from existence as the next species. Our entire existence is and will always remain arbitrary and incidental - not significant for the life of the cosmos. This is what I meant by 'accident of natural selection', and because I have heard many prominent figures in the scientific and philosophy of science communities describe human consciousness as such - not because I meant to accuse all those with scientific worldviews of being indeterminists or some such (I was generalizing - I know there are many differing views that fall under what I'm referring to as 'the scientific worldview').

Furthermore, it lends itself to the assumption that there are universal laws, knowable to us, but only because it posits hypotheses that, although technically tentative and always falsifiable, are assumed to hold so long as statistically significant correlations under a certain number of reproduced experiments (of very specific types in accordance with the presuppositions of both the overarching scientific method and the hypothesis in question).

However, no amount of experimentation can ever validate much less prove the metaphysical presuppositions that science began with; there is no scientific way to validate the picture of the world that modern science has loosely cobbled together over the past few hundred years, nor would consistent, modest scientists ever pass off their work as 'truth' or 'fact' in an unqualified sense.

I have my own reasons for not taking on the metaphysical baggage that comes with a scientific worldview - namely, I don't think it provides us with a self-consistent or accurate understanding of human identity, but it does leave us imagining ourselves in a meaningless universe in which nihilism is the only pseudo-consistent philosophy. I prefer to continue the search for meaning rather than accept the popular authority of scientistic (that is, science-worshipping) persons who declare that my struggle is futile.

Because of this, I do not fear any form of the ever-so-common talk of the myriad ways the natural forces of the universe could possibly bring about humanity's downfall (the threat of global warming among them). I would not fear death in any case, but since I do not strictly and wholly identify my body with my self, I am even less concerned than I would be about its damage or destruction, and I see it as a weakness in others should they obsess over such things. To me, the real threat of the end of human life would be when we all embrace (consciously or not) and wallow in the meaninglessness of our existence.

So there you have it. Keep in mind that, as I said, I do not endorse negligence to the environment - but I do not think of the 'environment' in scientific terms.

I hope you understand my position better now - let me know if you have questions.

 

[Innegativeion]

*snip*

You seem to disagree with nihilism, labeling it arbitrary as the "scientific worldview", which will only get you weird looks.

Philosophy is a science (according to philosophers), but it's not THE science.

The purpose of science is in the dealing of facts. I find the idea that science necessarily demands a nihilistic worldview to be absurd. Plenty of scientific theories, particularly the anthropic principle or bio-centricism, run specifically counter to that regardless.

Quantum mechanics suggests that without observers, the universe would be static, since probabilities only collapse when observed; a cloud of super-positioned particles with no definite meaning or attributes. Every possible event occurring at once.

If that doesn't imply meaning, I don't know what does.

 

[Billy D Williams]

Well I don't have enough information to really come to a full conclusion, but from what I do know I'd say I'm about 70% sure. But still, I don't know, don't really care. I'm a fairly green person but there's nothing I can do to fix the environment past that so there's no point in my giving a shit.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well I don't have enough information to really come to a full conclusion, but from what I do know I'd say I'm about 70% sure. But still, I don't know, don't really care. I'm a fairly green person but there's nothing I can do to fix the environment past that so there's no point in my giving a shit.

You could petition your government, whatever one that might be. It's not really that you can't do anything beyond yourself, but if you don't want to, there's nothing anyone can really do to change that, probably.

 

[Do4600]

Personally if you read any non biased research not made by crazy environmentalists with their own agenda

Let me make a list of the major organizations that have concurred with the findings of the UN IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change):

Spoiler: so I don't take an entire page of this thread

-Australian Academy of Science
-The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
-The Brazilian Academy of Sciences
-Royal Society of Canada
-Caribbean Academy of Science
-The Chinese Academy of Sciences
-Institut de France
-Leopoldina
-Indian Academy of Sciences
-Indonesian Academy of Sciences
-The Royal Irish Academy
-Accademia dei Lincei
-Akademi Sains Malaysia
-Royal Society of New Zealand
-Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
-Turkish Academy of Sciences
-The Royal Society
-The Japan Academy
-The Russian Academy of Sciences
-Mexican Academy of Sciences
-Academy of Science of South Africa
-Cameroon Academy of Sciences
-Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
-Kenya National Academy of Sciences
-Madagascar National Academy of Arts, Letters and Sciences
-The Nigerian Academy of Science
-The Academy of Science and Technology of Senegal
-Sudan Academy of Science
-Tanzania Academy of Sciences
-Uganda National Academy of Sciences
-Zambia Academy of Sciences
-Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences
-African Academy of Sciences
-Polska Akademia Nauk
-American Association for the Advancement of Science
-Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
-United States National Research Council
-European Academy of Sciences and Arts
-European Science Foundation
-InterAcademy Council
-International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
-American Chemical Society
-American Institute of Physics
-American Physical Society
-Australian Institute of Physics
-European Physical Society
-American Geophysical Union
-American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America
-Soil Science Society of America
-European Federation of Geologists
-European Geosciences Union
-Geological Society of America
-Geological Society of London
-International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
-National Association of Geoscience Teachers
-American Meteorological Society
-Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
-Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
-Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
-Royal Meteorological Society
-World Meteorological Organization
-American Quaternary Association
-International Union for Quaternary Research
-American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
-American Institute of Biological Sciences
-American Society for Microbiology
-Institute of Biology
-Society of American Foresters
-The Wildlife Society
-American Academy of Pediatrics
-American College of Preventive Medicine
-American Medical Association
-American Public Health Association
-Australian Medical Association
-World Federation of Public Health Associations
-World Health Organization
-American Astronomical Society
-American Statistical Association
-The Institution of Engineers Australia
-International Association for Great Lakes Research
-Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand

Every last one of them, crazy organizations of environmentalists with their own agenda...

Do you want to know the list of QUALIFIED individuals(they hold a degree in a science relevant to climatology) who dispute anthropological climate change? There are 35 of them.

At this point anybody who disputes climate change is little better than those people who insist that man hasn't landed on the moon. There is a scientific consensus on climate change, just like there is a scientific consensus on the speed of light and the scientific consensus on evolution.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming is an idiot, since the a change in the earth's temperature is a measurable and indisputable fact. The question shouldn't however be whether or not you believe in global warming, but whether global warming is caused by humans, or whether it's a natural phenomenon.

See, I've never understood the issue over that. The answer seems like "both, obviously" to me.

Sure, things were getting warmer before the Industrial Revolution. But they've been getting warmer faster since then. Thus both seems like the obvious response.

And, if both is the answer, then it is even more important to be concerned with the human side. Global warming is bad (for humans) even if it is natural. Making it worse because of a hair-splitting semantics just seems idiotic to me.

Then again, idiotic is how I describe most things that occur on Fox News, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

 

[TWRule]

You seem to disagree with nihilism, labeling it arbitrary as the "scientific worldview", which will only get you weird looks.

I did not mean to draw an identity between nihilism and the scientific worldview - only to say that the logical consequence of the scientific worldview (in broad strokes) amounts to nihilism. There are plenty of other ideologies and worldviews that I think amount to nihilism at base. I've yet to see a consistent modern scientific account of 'value', for instance, that wasn't an absurd reductionist view.

Philosophy is a science (according to philosophers), but it's not THE science.

I've not encountered these philosophers that claim philosophy is a science (besides some of the ancients, but 'science' meant something very different for them). I certainly would never claim that philosophy was a science, myself - least of all in comparison with what we usually mean when we speak of 'modern science'.

The purpose of science is in the dealing of facts.

It's here that my skepticism comes in. If you consider a fact a certainty (or reliably high probability) that something is the case, then I think even many practicing scientists, and certainly many philosophers of science, would disagree with you; every scientific theory is tentative, even the most commonly accepted ones, and they must all be falsifiable to be considered scientific.

My main skepticism isn't even with the epistemological gap between scientific theory and 'fact' or 'truth' though, it's with the underlying assumptions that are added to those theories when they are embraced as fact. Namely the highly questionable assumption that because the scientific method discovers what it is designed to be able to possibly discover, those findings are evidence not only for the specific hypothesis in question, but for a specific greater metaphysical picture. That is, how do we get from "such and such statistically significant correlations have been found between X and Y natural phenomena when measured by method A" to "We live in a universe of such-and-such a nature where it is a fact that Q"? All too commonly are broad, invalid conclusions drawn from the results of scientific experiments.

I find the idea that science necessarily demands a nihilistic worldview to be absurd. Plenty of scientific theories, particularly the anthropic principle or bio-centricism, run specifically counter to that regardless.

It's not that a nihilistic worldview is a precondition to doing science, it's that if one embraces the metaphysical picture that modern science as it is widely practiced paints, then the logical consequence is nihilism (there is no coherent place for robust human consciousness, meaning, or value). We can derive no coherent ethical norms from the results of science, nor can science coherently model values without diverging significantly in method. I understand bio-centrism to be an ethical position, not a scientific theory, and the antropic principle as a metaphysical position, not something falsifiable and thus not a viable scientific hypothesis either.

Quantum mechanics suggests that without observers, the universe would be static, since probabilities only collapse when observed; a cloud of super-positioned particles with no definite meaning or attributes. Every possible event occurring at once.

That's right - and you'll note the enormous difficulty scientists are having with this; some want to deny this hypothesis and find a more traditionally reductive picture that better coheres with the conventional picture that all the other areas of modern science have been filling out for some time now, others think that these developments might call for a radical transformation of science itself (after all, as I said before, science as it is now is not self-aware as a method - the scientific method would have to be changed to take its own existence into account). I'm on board with the latter party, and perhaps a self-aware scientific enterprise would not suffer from the same criticisms that I've launched against modern science up to this point.

If that doesn't imply meaning, I don't know what does.

It does seem to imply that we are responsible for assigning meaning to the world; the question is, what should we do with this power? Modern science is not equipped to answer that question, hence why I've turned to philosophy.

 

[Innegativeion]

*snip*

>>>First of all, don't mis-define my terms for me. A scientific fact is a notion upheld by repeatable experiments.<<<

The rest all sounds like entirely arbitrary, subjective interpretation.

There is no authoritative consensus in the scientific world that says how anyone should interpret the world outside of provable concepts, as most philosophy tends to be (outside provable concepts that is).

Your insistence that science, our most reliable and enduring method for understanding reality, invalidates human agency is laughable to me still.

Most religions and philosophies are unprovable; They can't be substantiated or unsubstantiated, so they fall within the realm of what science does not even concern itself with. Science is not out to get your spirituality or sense of meaning or whatever. Your only reason to think so is your own repeated insistence.

Science does not make moral judgements.

Science does not make aesthetic judgements.

Science does NOT tell you how to use scientific knowledge.

Science does not draw conclusions about the supernatural.

Science just doesn't work the way you insist it does.

(in broad strokes)

I think this here is your problem.

I don't know what got you on this "science logically points to inherit meaninglessness" shtick, but in terms of broad strokes, it's broader than the English channel. Broad sweeping generalizations tend not to mesh well with a lot of people. Myself in particular.

 

[Silvanus]

I did not mean to draw an identity between nihilism and the scientific worldview - only to say that the logical consequence of the scientific worldview (in broad strokes) amounts to nihilism. There are plenty of other ideologies and worldviews that I think amount to nihilism at base. I've yet to see a consistent modern scientific account of 'value', for instance, that wasn't an absurd reductionist view.

I don't think you really understand what science is. It doesn't prescribe an ideology-- there's no such thing as a "scientific worldview".

Take the concept of "value", the example you gave. Science simply does not tell you what you should value, because that's subjective. That doesn't mean that those who believe in science don't value anything-- that's simply absurd. You'll notice that scientists tend to place different value on different things. Science does not prescribe value or morality. It deals with fact and theory.

Saying that you haven't seen a "scientific account of value", is like saying you haven't seen an "Economic account of why kittens are cute", and concluding from that that the "economic worldview" is bunkum. Economics deals with the economy, and Science deals with objective conclusions and theories that accurately account for observation. This is what Innegativeion is saying (probably better than myself).

 

[TWRule]

*snip*

>>>First of all, don't mis-define my terms for me. A scientific fact is a notion upheld by repeatable experiments.<<<

The rest all sounds like entirely arbitrary, subjective interpretation.

There is no authoritative consensus in the scientific world that says how anyone should interpret the world outside of provable concepts, as most philosophy tends to be (outside provable concepts that is).

Your insistence that science, our most reliable and enduring method for understanding reality, invalidates human agency is laughable to me still.

Most religions and philosophies are unprovable; They can't be substantiated or unsubstantiated, so they fall within the realm of what science does not even concern itself with. Science is not out to get your spirituality or sense of meaning or whatever. Your only reason to think so is your own repeated insistence.

Science does not make moral judgements.

Science does not make aesthetic judgements.

Science does NOT tell you how to use scientific knowledge.

Science does not draw conclusions about the supernatural.

Science just doesn't work the way you insist it does.

(in broad strokes)

I think this here is your problem.

I don't know what got you on this "science logically points to inherit meaninglessness" shtick, but in terms of broad strokes, it's broader than the English channel. Broad sweeping generalizations tend not to mesh well with a lot of people. Myself in particular.

I did not mean to draw an identity between nihilism and the scientific worldview - only to say that the logical consequence of the scientific worldview (in broad strokes) amounts to nihilism. There are plenty of other ideologies and worldviews that I think amount to nihilism at base. I've yet to see a consistent modern scientific account of 'value', for instance, that wasn't an absurd reductionist view.

I don't think you really understand what science is. It doesn't prescribe an ideology-- there's no such thing as a "scientific worldview".

Take the concept of "value", the example you gave. Science simply does not tell you what you should value, because that's subjective. That doesn't mean that those who believe in science don't value anything-- that's simply absurd. You'll notice that scientists tend to place different value on different things. Science does not prescribe value or morality. It deals with fact and theory.

Saying that you haven't seen a "scientific account of value", is like saying you haven't seen an "Economic account of why kittens are cute", and concluding from that that the "economic worldview" is bunkum. Economics deals with the economy, and Science deals with objective conclusions and theories that accurately account for observation. This is what Innegativeion is saying (probably better than myself).

You both are misunderstanding me; I *agree* with you that science does not - and cannot - make value judgments or tell us how to think. That is exactly part of my point. I am not criticizing science itself, but a view that has been called 'scientism' - that is, taking science as an authority on truth and scientific models as being identical with the way the world *is* (a faith in science that could be seen as an attempt to have it serve the role of religion in someone's life). Everytime scientific results are unqualifiedly conflated with universal truths or 'facts', this ideology gains strength. It's exactly because these people still actually make value judgments, yet can't consistently do so while holding the other views they do, that I think the flaws in their thinking are shown. It is how science has been interpreted (by some scientists, but mostly by non-scientists), and a certain unreflective attitude toward it that I am against.

Put in terms of this thread, it is not that I am questioning the data that scientists have collected, I am questioning the attitude of fear that pervades these discussions on global warming - an attitude that I think stems from some people implicitly holding problematic metaphysical/ontological positions that they themselves have not properly challenged.

If we disagree, it's on the 'objectivity' of science. Like I said earlier, science makes certain presuppositions in its method of what counts as evidence or a phenomenon to be considered, it can only possibly find what its paradigm allows it to look for; these presuppositions imply *value* judgments having been made beforehand. Your saying things like 'science is the most reliable method we have...etc.' implies that you subscribe to those values and presuppositions. I do not. By this I mean that science may be an acceptable way to understand certain types of phenomena (keeping our conclusions limited to theoretical models), but not all types.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. No amount of experimention conducted under the scientific method can prove that the method itself is apprehending 'truth'. At best, it gives us a conditional, limited, perspective-bound form of 'fact' in the form of "If X method is followed under R conditions, Y is the likely result." It fills out one way to look at the world, but it cannot say that that is the only or best way to look at it 'in general' or depending on our goal.

However the implicit question in these discussions isn't really "Do you believe that scientists found X data?" it's "Do you feel compelled to act in a certain in response to this?" A possible mishandling of the latter question is what I've been addressing.

 

[Innegativeion]

Your saying things like 'science is the most reliable method we have...etc.' proves that you subscribe to those values and presuppositions. I do not.

uhm... right. Science doesn't have 'values' really, in the ethical sense. Science makes no assumptions further than what is observable, or what is implied by said observations (in the case of 'dem crazy maths). I don't even understand what 'presuppositions' of science are so outlandish to you. We've covered that science makes no judgements upon ethics or morals. There's nothing metaphysical about science. Observation, hypothesizing, experimenting, concluding, verifying. That's all science is.

This 'paradigm' you described is ANYTHING that can be observed. So... like, all information available to use that isn't IMAGINARY.

Seriously.

Think about what you're saying. The scientific method is not the most reliable method of studying nature... or in other words...

Evidence, consistency, and studying nature is not the most reliable method of studying nature.

What the fuck would even be the alternative?

 

[TWRule]

Your saying things like 'science is the most reliable method we have...etc.' proves that you subscribe to those values and presuppositions. I do not.

uhm... right. Science doesn't have 'values' really, in the ethical sense. Science makes no assumptions further than what is observable, or what is implied by said observations (in the case of 'dem crazy maths). I don't even understand what 'presuppositions' of science are so outlandish to you. We've covered that science makes no judgements upon ethics or morals. There's nothing metaphysical about science. Observation, hypothesizing, experimenting, concluding, verifying. That's all science is.

This 'paradigm' you described is ANYTHING that can be observed. So... like, all information available to use that isn't IMAGINARY.

Seriously.

Assuming that your sensory surfaces have direct epistemological access to how things metaphysically are, that things are such by nature to be compatible with that (or that the universe is inherently compatible with human mathematics), and most importantly that everything that *isn't* observable directly through those sensory surfaces (or by mathematical reasoning) isn't real...well if you don't think there are a host of metaphysical presuppositions (that have to be chosen among other possibilities, hence *evaluated*) to arrive at the starting point of science, then I suppose we are going to have to agree to disagree.

Think about what you're saying. The scientific method is not the most reliable method of studying nature... or in other words...

Evidence, consistency, and studying nature is not the most reliable method of studying nature.

What the fuck would even be the alternative?

I've already touched on this. Science is a reliable method for studying 'nature' according to what it assumes 'nature' to mean at the start. If someone didn't already have some bias as to what 'nature' meant, how would they know how to design a method to study it? The answer is that you make assumptions about what it is so that you can investigate it in the way one would investigate something of that sort. The method already stipulates what counts as evidence.

I even admitted that until a better, self-aware science comes along, modern science is probably the best tool we have to gain a practical understanding of certain sorts of natural phenomena.

 

[Frission]

Your saying things like 'science is the most reliable method we have...etc.' proves that you subscribe to those values and presuppositions. I do not.

uhm... right. Science doesn't have 'values' really, in the ethical sense. Science makes no assumptions further than what is observable, or what is implied by said observations (in the case of 'dem crazy maths). I don't even understand what 'presuppositions' of science are so outlandish to you. We've covered that science makes no judgements upon ethics or morals. There's nothing metaphysical about science. Observation, hypothesizing, experimenting, concluding, verifying. That's all science is.

This 'paradigm' you described is ANYTHING that can be observed. So... like, all information available to use that isn't IMAGINARY.

Seriously.

Assuming that your sensory surfaces have direct epistemological access to how things metaphysically are, that things are such by nature to be compatible with that (or that the universe is inherently compatible with human mathematics), and most importantly that everything that *isn't* observable directly through those sensory surfaces (or by mathematical reasoning) isn't real...well if you don't think there are a host of metaphysical presuppositions (that have to be chosen among other possibilities, hence *evaluated*) to arrive at the starting point of science, then I suppose we are going to have to agree to disagree.

Think about what you're saying. The scientific method is not the most reliable method of studying nature... or in other words...

Evidence, consistency, and studying nature is not the most reliable method of studying nature.

What the fuck would even be the alternative?

I've already touched on this. Science is a reliable method for studying 'nature' according to what it assumes 'nature' to mean at the start. If someone didn't already have some bias as to what 'nature' meant, how would they know how to design a method to study it? The answer is that you make assumptions about what it is so that you can investigate it in the way one would investigate something of that sort.

I even admitted that until a better, self-aware science comes along, modern science is probably the best tool we have to gain a practical understanding of certain sorts of natural phenomena.

Are you going full on Rene Descartes on us? If that's so, he did insist that there was different realms. "Physical" and "Mental". He classified things of the physical realm, as energy and matter which could be measured and thus could be studied by the scientific method.

At one point you argue that science is not a coherent model of ethics, forgetting that they are not supposed to be. Would you expect philosophy to be an adequate vehicle for studying geological formations? No, because they are different fields of study, concerned with different goals and with different methodologies. Saying that science can not work because it doesn't fit "in metaphysics", as you've said (If I understood the argument correctly) is disingenuous, because science does not concern itself with metaphysics and it doesn't have to.

Do I have to say that the scientific theory separates questions which can be tested and questions which can't be tested? If you're complaining about the "culture of fear", then I can only shrug at what media and activists do. It all makes perfect sense on models and in research.

This is again the gist of what I've gotten from your argument. Unless you're going that way, I have no idea what you're talking about. I genuinely don't. It's not supposed to be insulting. I can't debate what hasn't been made understandable and you're all over the place.

Climate change is a complex problem because the earth is a set of systems which affect each other. Simplifying it to the max, it's not possible to make models of all the different systems. You just have to make models of smaller air masses for example and then compare that with real occurrences and adjust, hopefully getting a more accurate model.

EDIT: I think I've understood. Doing something in face of climate change is not the same as "believing" in climate change, even if that impression might be given, since those who deny climate change have a tendency to also be reluctant to act and may not believe simply because they don't wish to act, whereas those who are in agreement with our understanding of climate change also have a tendency to act upon the data.

You don't have to agree with current policies on how to deal with climate change to agree on climate change itself.

 

[TWRule]

Are you going full on Rene Descartes on us? If that's so, he did insits that there was different realms. "Physical" and "Mental". He classified things of the physical realm, as energy and matter which could be measured and thus could be studied by the scientific method.

I don't see how you could have gotten this if you were reading me with any care. I even explicitly said that the 'material/non-material' distinction was meaningless for me in an earlier post.

If I'm taking after any philosophers in my arguments here, it's Nietzsche and Heidegger being channeled.

At one point you argue that science is not a coherent model of ethics, forgetting that they are not supposed to be.

As I again already explicitly clarified, I was arguing against people who take science for granted as a source of metaphyisical knowledge and then try to make ethical prescriptions on top of those faulty assumptions. Never once did I argue that science should be expected to provide a coherent model of ethics.

Would you expect philosophy to be an adequate vehicle for studying geological formations? No, because they are different fields of study, concerned with different goals and with different methodologies.

Again, I agree with you, on this, as I thought I made pretty clear in my recent posts. Science is acceptable for what it does, but it can't get at 'Truth' or the possibility of 'Meaning' (some people expecting that it is an authority on such things is what I've been arguing causes the attitude of fear I'm against).

Saying that science can not work because it doesn't fit "in metaphysics", as you've said is disingenuous, because science does not concern itself with metaphysics and it doesn't have to.

I don't know how you derived that first statement from what I've said. My argument was always that science, in its very methodology, implicitly presupposes a metaphysics, not that it 'doesn't fit' in some pre-constructed metaphysics. Of course scientific practice itself does not concern itself with metaphysics - it takes the method and leaves its own metaphysical presuppositions without scrutiny. That's what I mean when I say that science is not self-aware. It's been left up to philosophers of science to question such things (not that this is to be taken as a criticism against scientists, per se).

Do I have to say that the scientific theory separates questions which can be tested and questions which can't be tested?

That would be too broad of a definition, as they are plenty of other ways to 'test' things; but if you meant that scientific theory separates questions which *the scientific method* can test and questions which it can't test, then we are in agreement.

If you're complaining about the "culture of fear", then I can only shrug at what media and activists do. It all makes perfect sense on models and in research.

This is again the gist of what I've gotten from your argument. Unless you're going that way, I have no idea what you're talking about. I genuinely don't. I can't debate what hasn't been made understandable and you're all over the place.

The media is partly at fault, but that alone doesn't get at the crux of my critique. I'm interested in the root of this attitude of fear. In my thinking, if people didn't fear the worst case scenario of a disaster that could come out of global warming (or the countless other ways that science has lead us to imagine could cause our extinction), then no amount of media fear-mongering would have an effect.

No, I think it goes roughly like this (to greatly over-simplify): People believe in scientific materialism/naturalism, the model of an indifferent cosmos that not only readily wipe them from existence as though they were of no significance, but can easily do so because, after all, what I call my 'self' is ultimately just more material stuff that can be blown away like dust in the wind (relative to cosmic material forces acting on and around me). Because of this, death is certainly the end, and my life will have meant nothing at all - just the play of particles.

That is *not* my view, and perhaps few people explicitly think such things, but that is more or less what happens when one chooses to uncritically adopt popular contemporary scientific models as though they were unqualified truth, and piece them together into a whole picture of reality (like those guilty of what I've been calling 'scientism' or 'the scientific worldview' do).

If you still have no idea what I'm saying then I guess I should give up - I don't know how better to explain my position right now. I'd recommend looking up critiques of modern thought by Edmund Husserl or Martin Heidegger. If you want to understand more about the spirit of my ethical critique on this doomsday attitude, look to Nietzsche - though I can't promise any of them will be easier to penetrate than my plain prose.

 

[Frission]

The media is partly at fault, but that alone doesn't get at the crux of my critique. I'm interested in the root of this attitude of fear. In my thinking, if people didn't fear the worst case scenario of a disaster that could come out of global warming (or the countless other ways that science has lead us to imagine could cause our extinction), then no amount of media fear-mongering would have an effect.

No, I think it goes roughly like this (to greatly over-simplify): People believe in scientific materialism/naturalism, the model of an indifferent cosmos that not only readily wipe them from existence as though they were of no significance, but can easily do so because, after all, what I call my 'self' is ultimately just more material stuff that can be blown away like dust in the wind (relative to cosmic material forces acting on and around me). Because of this, death is certainly the end, and my life will have meant nothing at all - just the play of particles.

That is *not* my view, and perhaps few people explicitly think such things, but that is more or less what happens when one chooses to uncritically adopt popular contemporary scientific models as though they were unqualified truth, and fit together into a whole picture of reality (like those guilty of what I've been calling 'scientism' or 'the scientific worldview' do).

If you still have no idea what I'm saying then I guess I should give up - I don't know how better to explain my position right now. I'd recommend looking up critiques of modern thought by Edmund Husserl or Martin Heidegger. If you want to understand more about the spirit of my ethical critique on this doomsday attitude, look to Nietzsche - though I can't promise any of them will be easier to penetrate than my plain prose.

Okay I'm going to focus on this part, since I suppose we've come to agreement more or less on the issues that I misconstrued.

You're interesting and different, but you're not an easy person to debate with. It's times like these that I regret having only debated and studied philosophy on my own. Martin Heidgger was interested in questioning and always questioning like Socrates (at least on my very brief look of him), and I'm still looking up Edmund Husserl.

On the attitude of fear, there are models which predict catastrophic scenarios and those that predict a worst case scenario (which is still pretty devastating, it just doesn't mean the end of humanity). We can't make a whole model, but in simple terms of possible situations, even the least catastrophic situations where systems like the ocean conveyor belt don't shut down, we are facing a necessity to adapt to climate change, not only mitigate climate change( I insist on the term). A good comparison is the japanese and their earthquake resistant buildings, except we are talking on a larger scale of changing infrastructure (which can mean a variety of strategies).

We're going into the realm of politics here, but I suppose that the catastrophic scenarios were needed to actually get action. I am not familiar with the subject of activism. I know that it's difficult to get credence in a subject which is rife with misinformation because of special interests, especially on such a difficult subject. Even on this thread, among those who agree with climate change, there are many errors. It's not easy even among the earth scientists to reach an understandable consensus, since geologists don't understand the fragility of systems (since geology is an anti catastrophism discipline) of the ocean and the climate and the ecosystem, things that are known to hydrologists, climatologists and biologists.

I would much prefer that we talked about the danger of ecosystem collapse such as the disappearance of coral reefs, or the danger of perturbation in agriculture, or even the political instability from possible droughts due to less wind going to and from the equator and poles (since winds are to simplify are a way to make up the temperature difference between the two areas). Yet gigantic tsunamis and hurricanes seem to have captured the attention. I would again shift the blame on those who are responsible for creating this image of climate change, since professors and lectures on this subject have focused on changes due to climate change that are straight out of an apocalypse movie.

I don't understand the last sentence of science predicting that we would destroy ourselves. I never saw that attitude. In fact there's actually alot of optimism involved in the process of discovery, from my experience. I would yet again blame popular depictions of science or science philosophers (not to insult them, since it is an important role).

Media can make many claims on science, precisely because there's an ignorance of the scientific process.

We have made a distinction earlier that there's a difference between science and science philosophy right? I think that's where there is a disagreement. While some scientists may espouse a view of existence, death and the universe that may be disagreeable, it does not strictly relate to the process of science aka the scientific method and such.

The scientific theorem is a system which does insists that nothing is proven right, only that it has not been proven wrong. In the context of climate change, it hasn't been proven wrong and as the bearers of the burden of proof, we have furnished proof, which only continues to accumulate. From the numerous attempts to discredit climate change, there hasn't yet been a piece of evidence that has disproven climate change.

Now, whether the views that some people have gotten due to an enthusiasm for science (or a misinformed idea of science) is unfortunate, it's not strictly directly correlated. Do you blame Nietzsche for having adolescents say that everything is pointless? No, because if the belief in scientific naturalism/materialism may be due to individuals incorporating elements of science into their worldview, it doesn't mean that science is intricately tied to this view.

 

[Frission]

Also this is entirely unrelated, but I've seen this enough times already and this is directed to everyone. The proper term is climate change! We might even have areas in the world which will become colder!

The word you have to use is climate change not global warming! Please! It's a minor thing to get hissy about, but it's a easy thing to learn and memorize!