Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

Perhaps, you might want to live in the highlands in San Francisco.

Oddly, while the Northern Hemisphere sea ice has suffered a frightening and severe melting this summer, Antarctic sea ice reached a record high just last month.

Oh yes. Greenland seems to be melting, Alaska too.

I wasn't sure if you meant San Francisco, California or San Francisco, Ecuador.

I lived in the former (at one point in a 1904 Victorian in the Lower Haight that survived the quake and fire). But you have to think that enough land to grow three avocado trees in Pacific Heights would cost just slightly less than the GDP of several countries.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

A few weeks ago, I was called a totalitarian.

For the last time, I never called you a totalitarian. Give me the quote where I labeled you that.

For a while after a variation on 'environmentalists are nazi' argument is presented, I'll use 'denialist' rather than 'skeptic.' I find it far more truthful to say the denialists are denying something than to say I am advocating totalitarian government. I'm a 'will of the majority checked by the rights of the individual' guy. If the denialists are willing to disown the 'environmentalists are nazi' form of argument, I'll switch back to the word 'skeptic.'

I just find 'invisible stars' much more descriptive than Justin's 'stellar topography.' The (cough) 'theory' centers on radiation that has not been measured coming from stars that have not been observed. There is no way to present such a (cough) 'theory' with any dignity.

OK, just making sure that this isn't about global warming.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

OK, just making sure that this isn't about global warming.

There seem to be three levels of conversation going on. At one level, people are snarking and insulting others who they perceive of as snarking and insulting. This is universal to the forum. Some people are here for the joy of snarking and insulting. I'd sort of like less of this to happen, but that is the only thing some people are going to be doing. For the time being, I've got a thing against the whole "fill-in-the-blank are nazi" style of argument. Don't expect me to be entirely rational when this is used. While I'd be pleased to work at other levels, it seems that the only way to communicate with a snarker is with snark.

A second level focused to a great extent on this thread might be the question of what is a science, and what it takes to establish or discredit a scientific theory. In this latest go around, the pro AGW crowd is quoting Newton and Popper. Haven't seen much from the other side about what the burden of proof ought to be. There seems to an extrapolation that because the AGW crowd on this forum has not yet accepted any of the arguments presented, that we will accept no arguments. Seemingly, to prove we are open minded, we must admit we are wrong. Until then, an entire field of science is held to be invalid. This is an interesting bit of epistemology, which I haven't quite bought into yet. I'd be pleased to see a more rational approach.

The third level would be the various scientific arguments related to global warming. For all that Justin's various 'theories' are way out there, he is the primary source of 'scientific' criticism and counter theories on this thread. His stellar cartography and solar variation theories are at least testable. One could prove or disprove them by making observations, crunching calculations and performing experiments. I would like to see more discussion on this level, but few seem ready to do their homework.

Alas, we disagree greatly on the levels of proof required for good science. We seem to be way off at the epistemology level. I'm still with Newton, though I supposed I ought to reword his quotes to be good with Popper's post modern doublespeak. Simply proposing a hypothesis does not discredit observations of nature. One needs to back one's hypothesis with real world verifications before it should be embraced.

I'd be pleased to lower the snark level, agree on what standards of science are reasonable, then discuss the best alternate theory the skeptics would care to present. Want to play?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Um, yeah, the "fairlyland junk science" that I was so recently ridiculed for bringing up was done by actual real-life scientists sending expeditions to the bottom of the ocean. So please spare me the lecture.

Could you give me the name of one of those real-life scientists? I'd really like to see something on how much heat is being thrown out of said vents.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

So maybe the only answer to the Global Warming/ New Ice Age debate is that the current human population is ultimately unsustainable, no matter what we do. In the end hundreds of millions of people are going to die, and there's nothing we can do about it. Best we can is live more sustainably now to mitigate the damage that's coming, so that it's only hundreds of millions rather than billions.

Zero Population Growth is a necessity, global warming or not. it's going to be very difficult to tell people that they must live drearier lives so that there can be more people. Banality that results from overpopulation is not sustainability.

Overpopulation need not manifest itself in people starving on the streets; it can mean traffic jams in longer commutes, a plethora of strip malls and box stores, tacky subdivisions, and other ugliness. It means resource depletion and environmental ruin -- and that's in the Developed world. It means mass unemployment and underemployment, both of which feed radical causes, Right and Left, and radical causes attract sociopathic leaders who start horrific wars.

I'm no rural utopian; I know the deficiencies of rural life all too well. If anything, overpopulation will ensure that rural people will be pressed harder to produce food. "Back to the farm" is the utterly inappropriate for many.

Greater Los Angeles was a far more pleasant place before it had all the people. When the area was full of orange groves, it even had a better climate -- cooler and moister. It has become an overcrowded city in a desert of its own creation. It's not the population mix, by the way, in case someone is looking for a smear against ethnic minorities.

It's been argued that a larger population means more creative people. Bullhist! Shakespeare didn't write his plays in a box store, and Beethoven didn't compose while stuck in traffic jams. It's hard to imagine what artistic inspiration a new Renoir could derive from the banality of suburban sprawl.

Finally: the Malthusian comes out.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

There seem to be three levels of conversation going on. At one level, people are snarking and insulting others who they perceive of as snarking and insulting. This is universal to the forum. Some people are here for the joy of snarking and insulting. I'd sort of like less of this to happen, but that is the only thing some people are going to be doing. For the time being, I've got a thing against the whole "fill-in-the-blank are nazi" style of argument. Don't expect me to be entirely rational when this is used. While I'd be pleased to work at other levels, it seems that the only way to communicate with a snarker is with snark.

A second level focused to a great extent on this thread might be the question of what is a science, and what it takes to establish or discredit a scientific theory. In this latest go around, the pro AGW crowd is quoting Newton and Popper. Haven't seen much from the other side about what the burden of proof ought to be. There seems to an extrapolation that because the AGW crowd on this forum has not yet accepted any of the arguments presented, that we will accept no arguments. Seemingly, to prove we are open minded, we must admit we are wrong. Until then, an entire field of science is held to be invalid. This is an interesting bit of epistemology, which I haven't quite bought into yet. I'd be pleased to see a more rational approach.

The third level would be the various scientific arguments related to global warming. For all that Justin's various 'theories' are way out there, he is the primary source of 'scientific' criticism and counter theories on this thread. His stellar cartography and solar variation theories are at least testable. One could prove or disprove them by making observations, crunching calculations and performing experiments. I would like to see more discussion on this level, but few seem ready to do their homework.

Alas, we disagree greatly on the levels of proof required for good science. We seem to be way off at the epistemology level. I'm still with Newton, though I supposed I ought to reword his quotes to be good with Popper's post modern doublespeak. Simply proposing a hypothesis does not discredit observations of nature. One needs to back one's hypothesis with real world verifications before it should be embraced.

I'd be pleased to lower the snark level, agree on what standards of science are reasonable, then discuss the best alternate theory the skeptics would care to present. Want to play?

Any tampering with the world's climatic system is potentially dangerous. There will be gainers (western New York State would have some excellent seaports open year round should the sea level rise to the level of Lake Ontario) and losers. Someone who owns future waterfront property that is now a farm stands to gain big. Some grand old cities (London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, New York, Tokyo) would be inundated; some (Paris, Vienna, Chicago) would survive as what is left and become the grand cities of their time. That's the result of sea level rises alone. Much excellent cropland would be inundated, too.

There's little question that the weather patterns would change ( weather patterns over a long time is practically the definition of climate). Even if we are to accept a sea-level rise as a cost of further exhaustion of fossil fuels to preserve some "lifestyles", we must question whether those changes are worth it.

Two dangers exist. One is that the changes might be less desirable than one thinks. Will the rains fail in some places and appear in places in which they will be useful? I can't be certain that more rainfall in the Sahara and Arabia will expand agricultural potential appreciably; savannas and tropical grasslands are poor places for agriculture. If lands now fertile (let us say the north shore of the Mediterranean Sea or the southeastern US) becomes desert because the rain-bearing westerlies move away, then one has a disaster. Even without desertification, the transformation of an area like the southern coastlines of Australia and South Africa and the Argentine pampas from having mid-latitude climates to having tropical climates will be disastrous for agricultural productivity.

Repeat after me: it's agricultural productivity that keeps food on our tables even if we don't do any farming.

Second, the potential exists for global warming, if fast enough, to cause rapid outflows of fresh water that freezes in the Arctic and sub-arctic regions. The rapid release of meltwaters from Greenland and Antarctica could shut down the flow of ocean currents and cause ice sheets to form anew in Scandinavia, Iceland, and northern Quebec, triggering a new cold era. Did you see what the world was like during the Early Dryas -- the roughly 2000-year cold age short of an Ice Age? That was an unpleasant time in Europe.

So far the cautious approach -- the null hypothesis -- must be with the recognition that global warming poses risks not worth taking. One had better have stronger proof against global warming than that global warming reflects what is best for energy consumption. "It's not too bad so far" is no rationale for going too far. We all know how to cook a frog alive: you slowly raise the temperature of the water so that the frog thinks that it is getting a nice warm bath until it is stupefied enough that it doesn't know enough to jump out when escape is still possible. We may be smarter than frogs, but we will have no viable escape.

Abortion is murder. The Zero Population Growth movement is composed of racists, Xer-haters, and Simpsons characters.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I was thinking the same thing. But I'm glad someone else said it, so I didn't have to risk accusations of further snark-attacks. I think you are safe from those, from what I've seen.

That's fine. But nothing poses as much risk of making Malthus right than does catastrophic change in the climatic order.

Things get nasty long before they get dangerous.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Um, yeah, the "fairlyland junk science" that I was so recently ridiculed for bringing up was done by actual real-life scientists sending expeditions to the bottom of the ocean. So please spare me the lecture.

You didn't effectively connect that study to the rest of the evidence.

And the point I made about "open-mindedness" still stands.

Originally Posted by The Rani

http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/expedition2/crew.html

All kidding aside, this does look like one cool expedition. I look forward to reading about what they find.

Originally Posted by The Rani

What on earth are you talking about? There was no study or evidence. Just a bunch of people going down to the bottom of the ocean looking at stuff.

Well, exactly. You haven't come up with an alternate explanation for global warming. It appeared to me that you went off on a tangent.

Hah! I'm still waiting for the quote where someone besides me and Justin, other than snarking or building a strawman, made a statement on this thread that AGW might not be the cause of arctic melting. Until then, your point is el crapola.

I gave you a pile of quotes last night. You have not yet commented upon them. Were they not to your satisfaction? If not, please say why.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'll say it again ... slowly ...

I ... was ... not ... trying ... to ... come ... up ... with ... an ... alternate ... explanation ... for ... global ... warming.

All right. Was your point rather that science sometimes has to deal with the unexpected, such as was stated in your link to the Polar Discoveries site:

The Gakkel Ridge is the deepest mid-ocean ridge, ranging from 3 to 5 kilometers (1.8 to 3 miles) deep, and it is also perhaps the slowest-spreading ridge. Consequently, scientists had predicted that there wouldn’t be much volcanic activity on the Gakkel Ridge. They thought the Gakkel Ridge would be more like a crack in the planet where the slowly spreading-apart ridge pulled up solid rock from deep down in Earth’s mantle to form new seafloor.

Much to their surprise, scientists aboard the 2001 cruise dredged up rocks from the Gakkel Ridge that appear to have been chemically transformed by hydrothermal venting. Sensors on their dredging lines also detected whispers of warmer water, chemicals, and particles that are present in plumes of vent fluids that billow out from small vents.

I'm no geologist, but I would guess that is pretty exciting stuff for them. However, just before you posted that link, you made this speculation, still within the context of a discussion about global warming:

Maybe someday they'll find out that a tectonic plate shift caused a big old underwater volcano under that hole up there. I mean, it's not really symmetrical, is it? Weird.

Nothing wrong with musing aloud. But could an underwater volcano melt the Arctic ice? Is there enough heat involved? And can it account for the change from 1979 to 2007 that was documented in Odin's posted photos?

One has to ask the serious questions.

Stop reading Bob's strawman posts and stick with what Justin and I have said, and it will make a lot more sense.

Oh, I do intend to go back over this thread again (with a fine-toothed comb, since I need to tease the data out of the snark and ad-homs).

None of them were from the recent line of discussion about arctic melting, which is what prompted my "screwed-up logic" comment. I guess mostly it was directed at Bob and Mike, since most other people were just silent about the issue, while those two seemed to go off the deep end over it.

Okay. None of them were "recent." Why does that matter?

Originally Posted by The Rani

What I actually don't like is the screwed-up logic that won't even allow for the possiblity that an idea might be wrong. As I've said many times, I couldn't care less about global warming itself one way or another. Whether we're causing it, something else is causing it, or it's just a big illusion, we'll find a way to deal with it. But first, we have to be honest about what we know versus what we don't. From what I've seen on this thread, which may or may not be representive of the argument in general, the pro-AGW crowd seems like a rather militant and unyielding bunch. Thanks to you guys, I've gone from a believer to a skeptic ... though an indifferent one, so it's not a big deal anyway. I keep waiting for you guys to show some impartiality about the issue, but so far it hasn't happened, which makes me more and more convinced that something about it just isn't right.

I belive this is a gross mischaracterization of our "side".

I think The Grey Badger summed it up best:

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Ah. A secular version of Pascal's Wager. Agreed.

PS, thanks to GB for making me look that one up.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I don't believe he 'proved' anything. He only proposed a hypothesis that has not yet been falsified.

Gah, nice catch, there!

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Where we may be stumbling is in the denialists attempting to discredit a theory without proving it false. Proposing an alternate theory does not discredit the established theory unless it better explains the data, the observed reality. Proposing a test which might possibly discredit the theory does not discredit the theory. One must actually perform the test.

The disconnect seems to be in the burden of proof. The AGW advocates see in the work of the professionals lots of data gathered, lots of numbers crunched, lots of observations explained. They see an established theory which should only be discarded by conflicting data and/or a better theory that better explains the data.

The denialists might propose an alternate hypotheses, but are not providing data, observations or calculations that verify their alternate hypothesis. They might provide an approach to disproving the main line theories, but don't provide data that would actually disprove the main line theory, or more likely enhance or enrichen it. There seems to be a presumption that the possibility of a future disproof, or the possibility of a future better theory, means that the existing theory should be disregarded or ignored, has already been discredited.

Exactly. "Intelligent Design" people and various conspiracy nuts use the same bad reasoning, as well.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Cosmic topology as you used it is NOT known to influence climate.

Umm.. Variations in the cosmic ray flux (the largest-scale example being travel through the spiral arms) are, over the large scale, among the most significant drivers of climate change. I'm frankly a bit surprised by your apparent dismissal of that fact.

Vulcanism likewise is NOT known to influence climate.

The NOAA disagrees. But that's just them, you know. By the way, since you mentioned a heat-balance, let's ignore the 12,000,000,000 cubic meters of ~1200C molten rock (let's call it a heat addition of 5.65*10^9MJ, spread over a month it comes to an almost .1% increase in the heat input to the system (that is, to the heat input into the entire planet, assuming an average ocean-water temp of 17C). Instead, let's just look at the fact that temperatures of water emerging from the vents ranges from 200-400C. Picking an example paper I found, that's in the neighborhood of 3800MW for a single vent. Not too shabby, really. A hundred of those (not a particularly large number for many known fields) and you've got another .2% increase in the overall system heat input. Considering the fact that for a 100x60-meter field to have in excess of thirty vents is nothing remarkable, it's not unreasonable to think that an event of venting along (for example) the Gakkel ridge could represent an integer-percent increase in system heat input.

(hopefully this goes a bit of the way towards answering the question, "could it melt that much ice?")

References:
Properties of magma
Mid-Ocean Ridge background
Example of newly-discovered type of hydrothermal vent
Another set of newly discovered ones
Shallow Water hydrothermal vent fields
Those Gakkel vents
Indirect techniques for finding vents
Mapping, modeling, and outputs of hydrothermal vents

Originally Posted by The Rani

That's the difference between you and me. You take sides, and I call things like I see them, regardless of whose "side" someone is on. Probably why people like you get pissed off when they can't seem to figure out which team I'm playing for.

whoa, how wily and rebelious of you.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Umm.. Variations in the cosmic ray flux (the largest-scale example being travel through the spiral arms) are, over the large scale, among the most significant drivers of climate change. I'm frankly a bit surprised by your apparent dismissal of that fact.

I don't dismiss this idea at all. If you look at figure 9 in my climate model webpage you will see me citing Dr. Shaviv's work (ref 24) on this topic. What I dismissed was YOUR ridiculous assertion that changes in cosmic ray flux could be responsible for recent climate change on a multi-decade time scale. Dr. Shaviv makes no such claim, because the very idea is ludicrous. For cosmic ray flux to change our solar system has to move a signficant amount with respect to other galactic features. Such movement results in dramatic changes in the constellations viewable from Earth. Cosmic ray flux change occurs on a time scale that is longer than the time it takes for the constellations to become unrecognizable. Since this hasn't happened over millenia (and certainly not in my lifetime) the idea that changes in cosmic ray flux into the solar system could have occurred in my lifetime is really silly. Besides we measure the damn thing and we know it hasn't changed.

I'm not dismissing Dr. Shaviv's or Dr. Svensmark's thought-provoking assertions; I'm dismissing YOURS.

The NOAA disagrees. But that's just them, you know.

This article mentions nothing about climate effects.

By the way, since you mentioned a heat-balance, let's ignore the 12,000,000,000 cubic meters of ~1200C molten rock (let's call it a heat addition of 5.65*10^9MJ, spread over a month it comes to an almost .1% increase in the heat input to the system (that is, to the heat input into the entire planet, assuming an average ocean-water temp of 17C).

You come up with a heat input of of 5.65 x 10^9 MJ per month based on that 1783 eruption mentioned in the article you cited, which works out to 2200 MW. Your then assert that this is 0.1% of the heat input to the entire planet. The area of the earth is roughly 3.14 x (7918 mi * 1609 m/mi)^2 = 5.1 x 10^14 m^2. If I divide your heat by this area the heat output you calculated translates to a "forcing" of 0.000004 watts per sq meter which is really tiny. Where does this 0.1% thing come from?

Instead, let's just look at the fact that temperatures of water emerging from the vents ranges from 200-400C. Picking an example paper I found, that's in the neighborhood of 3800MW for a single vent. Not too shabby, really.

~40000 gpm is a pretty hefty flow rate for a vent. Which one did you have in mind? Please cite the specific article so I can find it.

A hundred of those (not a particularly large number for many known fields) and you've got another .2% increase in the overall system heat input.

Well if I do my math a hundred of these 3800 MW vents would generate 3.8 x 10^11 watts, which when divided by the surface area of the Earth works out to 0.00075 watts per sq meter. Which is pretty tiny compared to ~2 watts per sq meter of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing.

I took the same tack you did. But I figured, instead of trying to calcuate the heat flux for a vent, what I really wanted was an estimate for the heat release at ridges, which is what ultimately powers the vents. I figured this is such an obvious source of climate heat that it must be really tiny or it would figure more prominentally in climate models. So what is it?

Here's a lecture from a course.

http://www2.ocean.washington.edu/oc540/lec01-11/

They estimate heat flux from a few vents and get values in the 10 MW range, about the same as those I estimated myself. You must have picked a pretty big boy to get your 3800 MW. But that's not what I wanted, because the output from a single vent is useless to be because how many vents are there?

Fortunately in this same lecture they give a value for the total heat driving the vests:

We earlier estimated the global convective heat loss in the axial circulation cell to be 2.5 x 1019 cal/y which is 3.3 x 1012 W.

Their value for power input is enough to power about 870 of the big boys you calculated, more than the hundred you threw into the pot.

This heat influx into the Earth's ocean+atmosphere+surface system amounts to about 0.0065 watt/m^2. Solar insolation contributes about 240 watts/m^2. So this geothermal energy comes to about 0.003% of "system energy". The 2 watt/m^2 contribution from anthropogenic greenhouse forcing alone is some 300 times bigger than the geothermal contribution. This is why geothermal energy isn't factored into climate change.

But of course we aren't interested in global effects, but local effects. Specifically we are interested in the metling of ice in the a region that looks to be about twice the area of Alaska or 1 million square miles. So just put 100 of Justin's big boys right at the center of this melted spot. That is, lets deliver 11% of the total global geothermal output right in the middle of this region. If in one spot this would be Rani's "big ole volanco", but we will spread out the vents over enough square miles of space so their noise cannot be detected seismically.

So we deliver 3.8 x 10^11 watts directly to the underside of that million square miles of ice. Now a a square mile is 1609^2 = 2.59 million sq meters so the area of the ice is about 2.6 x 10^12 sq meters. So Justins' big boy field delivers 0.15 watts per square meter to the ice from below while the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is delivering 2 watts per sq meter to the topside. So even if we give every break to Justin's argument we find that the greenhouse effect is still 13 times more important--and we haven't even added in the fact that the greenhouse effect is MORE pronounced at higher lattitudes.

Of course none of the scientists studying these vents are saying that they exert a signficant effect of climate change, because it is obvious to them that it does not--they actually took courses like the one I linked. Taking courses like that is part of their training, which is how they became scientists in the first place.

Originally Posted by The Rani

And ask them in a serious manner. Invoking fairies does not qualify.

Well, it depends on whether you'd rather focus on the snark or the science. I just read Mike's analysis above and even though I don't understand all the details, I think he dealt with the question seriously.

And he probably spent quite a bit of time on it, showing some respect for the question even if the results don't appear to contradict the conventional wisdom.

If you want to pick out all the sarcastic comments and just complain about how badly you're being treated, feel free -- but in the meantime the scientists are going to do their work.

Uh, because I was talking about the most recent exchange, where Mike and Bob had a minor meltdown.

Ah, so you were being deliberately selective in the part of the thread you would consider. Okay.

forget it, Rani. you can sit home and poilsh your Ferrous Cranus. i am done.

Originally Posted by Odin

Exactly. "Intelligent Design" people and various conspiracy nuts use the same bad reasoning, as well.

The Rani made a serious charge implying that modern scientists are closed minded and will not even consider credible alternatives to anthropogenic climate change. The key issue here is credible. Scientists should be able to reject incredible alternatives offered without evidence, without being considered close-minded dogmatists.

The skeptic approach has been to offer incredible alternatives without evidence and then complain of close-mindedness or political agenda when these alternatives are rejected. We see a microcosm of it here, with Justin and the Rani offering incredible alternatives and then complaining when their suggestions are rejected for being incredible.

I was going to ignore the Rani's comment about the volcano, but then she pointed out that nobody has addressed her comment seriously, instead focusing on the Semo and Pink Splice show.

Just how do you address a comment in which the idea that warming climate melted ice was rejected in favor of an undersea volcano that had apparently been erupting for 30 years yet never been detected seismically?

And what was her and Justin's response. Did they say oh yeah, I didn't think about seismographs. No, they switched the focus from undersea volcano (quite possibly big enough to melt a lot of ice) to geothermal vents (way too small).

Did the Rani have a reason to believe that the *heat* produced by the vents was enough to melt the ice? No. When I dismissed the idea that they had such a quantity of heat, she implied that I was dismissing the work of "real scientists" (a slam on me, supposedly I am not a "real scientist", I must be an imposter who has been fooling my employer for 19 years). The real scientists the Rani referred to were not going to look into possible ice melting/climate-affecting capability of these vents (because that is silly). No, they are interested in the vents themselves because they are fascinating natural phenomena.

Justin did actually look into heat generation by vents but came up with some rather weird conclusions. He will probably now drop it.

I of course did look into it before I wrote. Vulcanism certainly releases heat--why isn't it considered as a climate driver or as an ice-melting candidate? The only thing I could think of to explain the absence of geothermal contributions in the climate literature that its effect is really small. And when I looked into it I found, unsurprisingly, that the effect is really small.

But the skeptics, who accept as an article of faith that climatologists must have an agenda and are repressing legitimate dissent, cannot accept that the geothermal effect is small. No, it must be due to global warming dogma that refuses to hear the arguments for geothermal energy or cosmic topology, or whatever they come up with next, as an important contributor to at least some aspect of global warming. So they continue to beat their dead horses, as Justin is still trying to do with cosmic topology.

Why? Because they don't like anthropomorphic climate change anymore than biblical literalists like evolution. And so they tout their skeptics just as the biblical literalists tout their creation science.

Originally Posted by The Rani

No, Mike, I meant that you are closed-minded.

You did make a more general accusation here.

The scientists are losing their scientifity, and turning into dogmatics. The reason that concerns people like Justin and me is that the more they do that, the more reason and logic die off in favor of a different flavor of religion, which is just as threatening to real progress.

Unless that somehow fell outside the parameters of what we're supposed to be quoting back to you...?

Originally Posted by The Rani

No, Mike, I meant that you are closed-minded.

I don't buy numerology, astrology, young-earth creationism, "fat burning" pills, or generational dynamics. I also don't believe that alien spacecraft are visiting the Earth or that bigfoot exists. I will continue to disbelieve in these things unless convincing evidence is produced (e.g. an alien spacecraft is found). So yes, my mind will remain closed to all the "science" surrounding these things until such evidence is presented.

As a physician do you have an open mind to fat burning pills, or "scientific diets" that claim that its not how many calories you eat, but when you eat them that matter? That you can eat as much as you want, not exercise, and lose 11 lbs in 9 days?

You are saying that I should be open minded about fat burning pills, yeti, astrology and other codswallop? I could just nod my head and say "hmm, you have a point there" whenever someone serves out climate pseudoscience. Isn't that patronizing? Is that what you want me to do, humor you?

Thanks for finding the numbers, Mike. I was imagining Old Faithful dumping hot water on the ice cap, picturing how much of the ice cap would melt, then wondering how many Old Faithfuls would be required to take out the whole cap. Adding some math to the process clarifies a lot...