Is It Wiser To Listen To The Experts And Researchers?

[thesometimesaint]

We are already locked into a 2 degree C temperature rise. What we choose to do from now on can limit that rise to 2 degrees C. If we continue as we are then 6 degrees C is likely. Not a happy thought.

[Stargazer]

alternative medicine that works is simply medicine. I am talking about the alternative "medicine" not endorsed by medical doctors, we should stay away from them.

I stand in slack-jawed amazement at the fascinating example of Reverse No True Scotsman fallacy you have just demonstrated. You know what No True Scotsman is, of course, and the reverse is nobody is a true Scotsman unless they are.

"Alternative medicine that works is simply medicine." But until you know it works, what is it? That's right! Alternative medicine!

Just because some medical doctor (or several) doesn't know that something they never learned about in med school works, does not make it something we should stay away from. Until Dr. Tu Youyou discovered that the active ingredient in sweet wormwood, artemisinin, cleared out the plasmodium parasite faster than any other substance, this is how the conversation went:

Doctor: Here, take this Fansidar capsule for your malaria. Any questions?

Patient: OK, but my cousin is a Chinese Traditional Medicine practitioner, and he says that with whatever else I do, I should also take some extract of sweet wormwood.

Doctor: Never heard of it.

Patient: He says that they've used it for malaria since 340 AD...

Doctor: Whatever. I highly recommend that you have nothing to do with it. I've heard that wormwood is poisonous. This so-called drug will probably kill you.

Patient: Oh. OK, then.

Dr. Youyou discovered the efficacy of sweet wormwood in 1971 (the Red Chinese kept it secret at the time), and in 2015 she got the Nobel Prize for Medicine because of it. And the Lasker Prize in 2011.

But according to the Reverse No True Scotsman, sweet wormwood was a quack medicine. Until they found that it wasn't.

Another thing is this: my wife tried a number of more or less bogus therapies to deal with her colorectal cancer, and one of them was a treatment that included wormwood as a principle part of the treatment. She got the treatment from one of the most lying and misrepresentational books by a "doctor" I had ever read. It was the one "therapy" that she started to do that I told her I would absolutely not support, and as a result she gave it up. I was justified by the fact that the genuine quack who proposed the treatment made claims as to the cause of cancer that were in fact totally fraudulent.

It just so happened that I first read about the artemisinin yesterday. So it was nice to be able to bring it up in this topic. But in an effort to learn more about it so I could use the information in this little discussion, I read a bit further than I had yesterday, and do you know what I found? A pilot study on the use of the artemisinin derivative artesunate yielded promising results for the treatment of colorectal cancer!!! Which is what she was suffering from.

 

"A Randomised, Double Blind, Placebo-Controlled Pilot Study of Oral Artesunate Therapy for Colorectal Cancer" found that "Artesunate has anti-proliferative properties in CRC and is generally well tolerated."

 

Now, three years ago my wife was gearing up heavily to follow the therapy recommendations of the quack Dr. Hulda Clark, which included heavy doses of wormwood extract. Because Dr. Clark claimed that cancer was caused by a parasite that can only live in Southeast Asia, I knew that she was a complete quack. I therefore stopped her from using this quack's therapy. Based on what I found out yesterday, I think it is certainly possible that I prevented her from using one of the few alternative therapies that might actually have worked for her. I am feeling a bit gobsmacked right about now, and that is a fact.  That I prevented her from using it based on a completely valid assessment of the therapy's originator is of some comfort, but not much. 

So, do you see why I say that just because your doctor never heard of it, doesn't mean it's quack medicine?

Edited October 16, 2015 by Stargazer

[Meadowchik]

I stand in slack-jawed amazement at the fascinating example of Reverse No True Scotsman fallacy you have just demonstrated. You know what No True Scotsman is, of course, and the reverse is nobody is a true Scotsman unless they are.

"Alternative medicine that works is simply medicine." But until you know it works, what is it? That's right! Alternative medicine!

Just because some medical doctor (or several) doesn't know that something they never learned about in med school works, does not make it something we should stay away from. Until Dr. Tu Youyou discovered that the active ingredient in sweet wormwood, artemisinin, cleared out the plasmodium parasite faster than any other substance, this is how the conversation went:

Doctor: Here, take this Fansidar capsule for your malaria. Any questions?

Patient: OK, but my cousin is a Chinese Traditional Medicine practitioner, and he says that with whatever else I do, I should also take some extract of sweet wormwood.

Doctor: Never heard of it.

Patient: He says that they've used it for malaria since 340 AD...

Doctor: Whatever. I highly recommend that you have nothing to do with it. I've heard that wormwood is poisonous. This so-called drug will probably kill you.

Patient: Oh. OK, then.

Dr. Youyou discovered the efficacy of sweet wormwood in 1971 (the Red Chinese kept it secret at the time), and in 2015 she got the Nobel Prize for Medicine because of it. And the Lasker Prize in 2011.

But according to the Reverse No True Scotsman, sweet wormwood was a quack medicine. Until they found that it wasn't.

Another thing is this: my wife tried a number of more or less bogus therapies to deal with her colorectal cancer, and one of them was a treatment that included wormwood as a principle part of the treatment. She got the treatment from one of the most lying and misrepresentational books by a "doctor" I had ever read. It was the one "therapy" that she started to do that I told her I would absolutely not support, and as a result she gave it up. I was justified by the fact that the genuine quack who proposed the treatment made claims as to the cause of cancer that were in fact totally fraudulent.

It just so happened that I first read about the artemisinin yesterday. So it was nice to be able to bring it up in this topic. But in an effort to learn more about it so I could use the information in this little discussion, I read a bit further than I had yesterday, and do you know what I found? A pilot study on the use of the artemisinin derivative artesunate yielded promising results for the treatment of colorectal cancer!!! Which is what she was suffering from.

 

 

Now, three years ago my wife was gearing up heavily to follow the therapy recommendations of the quack Dr. Hulda Clark, which included heavy doses of wormwood extract. Because Dr. Clark claimed that cancer was caused by a parasite that can only live in Southeast Asia, I knew that she was a complete quack. I therefore stopped her from using this quack's therapy. Based on what I found out yesterday, I think it is certainly possible that I prevented her from using one of the few alternative therapies that might actually have worked for her. I am feeling a bit gobsmacked right about now, and that is a fact.  That I prevented her from using it based on a completely valid assessment of the therapy's originator is of some comfort, but not much. 

So, do you see why I say that just because your doctor never heard of it, doesn't mean it's quack medicine?

 

Hindsight is sometimes so much clearer, isn't it???

 

But, we can only live in the now.  God knows this, and I'm sure your wife knows this, too.

 

"We do what we could with what we knew at the time, and when we know better, we do better."  Paraphrased from Maya Angelou and my mom

Edited October 16, 2015 by Meadowchik

[Ahab]

Dieter F. Uchtdorf said,

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/it-works-wonderfully?lang=eng

This question is of particular interest to me because of my late wife's choice to rely upon alternative medical information rather than conventional cancer treatment. My brother pointed out that even conventional treatment enjoys only a 66% success rate (i.e. a 5-year survival rate after treatment only 2/3 will survive colon cancer), so her choice may have made no difference in the end -- with no way of knowing whether it would have or not.

I don't necessarily want to see this discussion restricted to medicine. Any other subject area that can involve experts and researchers is welcome.

But PLEASE don't anyone bring up anthropogenic global warming. I'd rather stay away from that particular rabbit hole.

The question for me is: How can I know when I am presented with truth I can rely on?

And who is the most expert of all other experts?

There is a good reason to rely on what God tells us, regardless of what anyone says to the contrary. All we need to know is how to learn from God.

[SmileyMcGee]

Dieter F. Uchtdorf said,

 

 

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/it-works-wonderfully?lang=eng

This question is of particular interest to me because of my late wife's choice to rely upon alternative medical information rather than conventional cancer treatment. My brother pointed out that even conventional treatment enjoys only a 66% success rate (i.e. a 5-year survival rate after treatment only 2/3 will survive colon cancer), so her choice may have made no difference in the end -- with no way of knowing whether it would have or not.

I don't necessarily want to see this discussion restricted to medicine. Any other subject area that can involve experts and researchers is welcome.

But PLEASE don't anyone bring up anthropogenic global warming. I'd rather stay away from that particular rabbit hole.

Ah yes, Uchtdorf's argument from authority. And who are the experts? Prophets? Apologists? What makes one an expert? And why shouldn't the experts be questioned?  

Edited October 16, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

[Zakuska]

Alternative Medicine such as "Prayer Only" approach?

 

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1877352,00.html

 

There are quite a few parents who are being prosecuted for praying only and letting their children die.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/herbert-catherine-schaible_n_3138001.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/19/us-couple-sent-to-prison-for-2nd-prayer-death/5612317/

Edited October 16, 2015 by Zakuska

[Zakuska]

We are already locked into a 2 degree C temperature rise. What we choose to do from now on can limit that rise to 2 degrees C. If we continue as we are then 6 degrees C is likely. Not a happy thought.

 

Ah yes the mythical "2C tipping point". How many times has that been predicted over the last 40 years and then when the prediction comes and goes without any dire outcome it keeps getting revised?

 

1. 2015 is the ‘last effective opportunity’ to stop catastrophic warming

World leaders meeting at the Vatican last week issued a statement saying that 2015 was the “last effective opportunity to negotiate arrangements that keep human-induced warming below 2-degrees [Celsius].”

Pope Francis wants to weigh in on global warming, and is expected to issue an encyclical saying basically the same thing. Francis will likely reiterate that 2015 is the last chance to stop massive warming.

But what he should really say is that the U.N. conference this year is the “last” chance to cut a deal to stem global warming…  since last year when the U.N. said basically the same thing about 2014’s climate summit.

2. France’s foreign minister said we only have “500 days” to stop “climate chaos”

When Laurent Fabius met with Secretary of State John Kerry on May 13, 2014 to talk about world issues he said “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

 

Ironically at the time of Fabius’ comments, the U.N. had scheduled a climate summit to meet in Paris in December 2015 — some 565 days after his remarks. Looks like the U.N. is 65 days too late to save the world.

3. President Barack Obama is the last chance to stop global warming

When Obama made the campaign promise to “slow the rise of the oceans” some environmentalists may have taken him quite literally.

In 2012, the United Nations Foundation President Tim Wirth told Climatewire that Obama’s second term was “the last window of opportunity” to impose policies to restrict fossil fuel use. Wirth said it’s “the last chance we have to get anything approaching 2 degrees Centigrade,” adding that if “we don’t do it now, we are committing the world to a drastically different place.”

Even before that, then-National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center head James Hansen warned in 2009 that Obama only “has four years to save Earth.” I wonder what they now think about their predictions?

4. Remember when we had “hours” to stop global warming?

In 2009, world leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark to potentially hash out another climate treaty. That same year, the head of Canada’s Green Party wrote that there was only “hours” left to stop global warming.

“We have hours to act to avert a slow-motion tsunami that could destroy civilization as we know it,” Elizabeth May, leader of the Greens in Canada, wrote in 2009. “Earth has a long time. Humanity does not. We need to act urgently. We no longer have decades; we have hours. We mark that in Earth Hour on Saturday.”

 

5. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was only 50 days left to save Earth

2009 was a bad year for global warming predictions. That year Brown warned there was only “50 days to save the world from global warming,” the BBC reported. According to Brown there was “no plan B.”

Brown has been booted out of office since then. I wonder what he’d say about global warming today?

6. Let’s not forget Prince Charles’s warning we only had 96 months to save the planet

It’s only been about 70 months since Charles said in July 2009 that there would be “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.” So the world apparently only has 26 months left to stave off an utter catastrophe.

 

7. The U.N.’s top climate scientist said in 2007 we only had four years to save the world

Rajendra Pachauri, the former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2007 that if “there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late.”

“What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,” he said.

Well, it’s 2015 and no new U.N. climate treaty has been presented. The only thing that’s changed since then is that Pachauri was forced to resign earlier this year amid accusations he sexually harassed multiple female coworkers.

8. Environmentalists warned in 2002 the world had a decade to go green

Environmentalist write George Monbiot wrote in the UK Guardian that within “as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.”

In 2002, about 930 million people around the world were undernourished, according to U.N. data. by 2014, that number shrank to 805 million. Sorry, Monbiot.

9. The “tipping point” warning first started in 1989

In the late 1980s the U.N. was already claiming the world had only a decade to solve global warming or face the consequences.

The San Jose Mercury News reported on June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”

That prediction didn’t come true 15 years ago, and the U.N. is sounding the same alarm today.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/04/25-years-of-predicting-the-global-warming-tipping-point/#ixzz3okPf6Eby

Edited October 16, 2015 by Zakuska

[ERayR]

We are already locked into a 2 degree C temperature rise. What we choose to do from now on can limit that rise to 2 degrees C. If we continue as we are then 6 degrees C is likely. Not a happy thought.

 

It depends on the assumptions one plugs into the computer model. 

Edited October 16, 2015 by ERayR

[HappyJackWagon]

It's wiser to do our due diligence and make an informed decision on whom we should trust. An authority, an expert, the internet, ourselves? The answer could be different in various circumstances. Dissuading people to consider various resources is dangerous unless we absolutely know that resources is ALWAYS wrong. Every resource is wrong SOMETIMES, but ALWAYS is a pretty high threshhold to meet.

[thesometimesaint]

The question for me is: How can I know when I am presented with truth I can rely on?

And who is the most expert of all other experts?

There is a good reason to rely on what God tells us, regardless of what anyone says to the contrary. All we need to know is how to learn from God.

 

I have no problem with God. I do have plenty of problems with what mortals claim He said. IE; I never went to medical school, have no training or expertise as a medical surgeon. Can I pick up a sharp knife and do open heart surgery on you if I claim God told me how to do it?

[thesometimesaint]

Ah yes the mythical "2C tipping point". How many times has that been predicted over the last 40 years and then when the prediction comes and goes without any dire outcome it keeps getting revised?

 

http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/04/25-years-of-predicting-the-global-warming-tipping-point/#ixzz3okPf6Eby

 

List of scientific organizations that accept Global Warming.

SEE

[ERayR]

I have no problem with God. I do have plenty of problems with what mortals claim He said. IE; I never went to medical school, have no training or expertise as a medical surgeon. Can I pick up a sharp knife and do open heart surgery on you if I claim God told me how to do it?

 

If I get confirmation from God yes. Otherwise put up the scalpel and keep your hands to yourself.

[Zakuska]

 

List of scientific organizations that accept Global Warming.

<snip>

 

A recent peer reviewed survey shows that:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

 

 

Not all scientists agree that global warming is man-made. Nearly half of meteorologists and atmospheric science experts don’t believe that human activities are the driving force behind global warming, according to a survey by the American Meteorological Society.

The survey of AMS members found that while 52 percent of American Meteorological Society members believe climate change is occurring and mostly human-induced, 48 percent of members do not believe in man-made global warming.

Furthermore, the survey found that scientists who professed “liberal political views” were much more likely to believe in the theory of man-made global warming than those who without liberal views.

“Political ideology was the factor next most strongly associated with meteorologists’ views about global warming. This also goes against the idea of scientists’ opinions being entirely based on objective analysis of the evidence, and concurs with previous studies that have shown scientists’ opinions on topics to vary along with their political orientation,” writes survey author Neil Stenhouse of George Mason University.

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/26/poll-nearly-half-of-meteorologists-dont-believe-in-man-made-global-warming/#ixzz3oktFZkqM

Edited October 16, 2015 by Zakuska

[thesometimesaint]

If I get confirmation from God yes. Otherwise put up the scalpel and keep your hands to yourself.

 

The problem is that appeals to God have a built in confirmation bias. I'm not saying God doesn't answer, but that us mortals have a hard time telling the difference. We need more information besides just our God, and/or our desires, telling us.

 

Really I have no desire to do surgery on you or anyone else for that matter.

[jkwilliams]

A recent peer reviewed survey shows that:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

 

 

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/26/poll-nearly-half-of-meteorologists-dont-believe-in-man-made-global-warming/#ixzz3oktFZkqM

The survey showed the following:

 

Our findings regarding the degree of consensus about human-caused climate change among the most expert meteorologists are similar to those of Doran and Zimmerman (2009): 93% of actively publishing climate scientists indicated they are convinced that humans have contributed to global warming. Our findings also revealed that majorities of experts view human activity as the primary cause of recent climate change: 78% of climate experts actively publishing on climate change, 73% of all people actively publishing on climate change, and 62% of active publishers who mostly do not publish on climate change. These results, together with those of other similar studies, suggest high levels of expert consensus about human-caused climate change (Farnsworth and Lichter 2012; Bray 2010).

Where are you getting your numbers?

ETA: I found it. It's only when you count meteorologists who have never published anything that you get the 52% number. Given that only about a third of nonpublishers accept AGW, that would skew the numbers downward. You do realize, by the way, that the AMS includes the TV weather kind of metereologist, as well as publishing scientists.

Among meteorologists who have actually published on climate change, the study shows the following:

78% believe global warming's cause is "mostly human," with another 10% saying it's "equally human and natural."

Among nonpublishing meteorologists, the numbers look like this:

38% believe global warming's cause is "mostly human," with another 8% saying it's "equally human and natural." Tellingly, 16% of these nonpublishers say either they don't know if global warming is real (8%) or say it isn't happening at all (8%).

Edited October 16, 2015 by jkwilliams

[mfbukowski]

I'm a modern scientifically-oriented member of the Church, and I actually do believe in a real-life Adam and Eve. It's non-falsiable, sure, but so are many other things that are true but for which there's no evidence, one way or another. Even if we found a grave containing a man and a woman with an appropriate carbon-14 dating, whose names were found on carved stone to be Adam and Eve (what language?), we still could not definitively say that that's who they really were. Do we know how to recognize the bones of people who managed to live to age 900 would even look like? Clearly not. We'd say it's impossible, in any case, and wouldn't believe it if we saw it.

The earth is obviously 4.5 billion years old. The matter that make up the earth is at least 13.8 billion years old. It might even be older, if the matter that came into existence at the time of the Big Bang pre-existed the Big Bang in some fashion. And how do you look at a single atom of hydrogen and determine that it is X billion years old or even X² years old? Hydrogen atoms do not have growth rings, or even gray hair.

 

I can accept the notion that there was no Universal Flood, but it need not have been universal to have been real. There are enough variants on it from different cultures to believe that there must have been something that happened in the Eastern Mediterranean that corresponded to it. Heck, even my northern California Indian tribe has a creation story that sounds suspiciously like a Noah's Ark story!

Can a tower of Babel have existed and we not know about it? I say of course it could have existed, and by some supernatural means humans might have had their languages divided -- but how would it be proven? Again, non-falsifiable, but this doesn't mean that it didn't happen, or something like it didn't happen. Stranger things have happened, and in real history. Consider the creation of the Cherokee Syllabary by Sequoyah. Philologists generally consider alphabets to have evolved over centuries from primitive roots, but Sequoyah worked on his for only 12 years, and very little modification has occurred since then. It is still used today to write Cherokee, and is marvelously well-adapted to the purpose. Far more than Roman letters are adapted to express English.

I've come up with alternative explanations for the genesis of Adam and Eve, and the mechanism of the Fall, that wouldn't be falsifiable but could conceivably be plausible given the application of supernatural power in just the right places. Or maybe not even supernatural power! And that even does not violate the idea of organic evolution. Am I clutching at straws? I cheerfully admit that it might be, but at the same time I claim that God is a pretty smart person and He would certainly be able to do something quite extraordinary and cloak it in allegorical language for telling Moses about it.

I aspire to be a professional science fiction writer. You better believe I could tell the story of Genesis in such a way that would be perfectly plausible scientifically and at the same time make the Genesis story as found in the Bible look plausible as an allegorical expression of the fictional story. And could you prove my story wrong? I'd bet that you couldn't -- non-falsiablity again.

 

Here we go with global warming, but there are a few people who believe in a Flat Earth, too, and so what? Let them! One needn't believe that humans are the primary cause of climate change to believe in climate change. The opposite belief, namely that humans are in fact the primary cause of global warming, leads some people to believe that we can stop global warming. This may in fact be a false notion. If all 8 billion of us held our collective breaths, maybe then we could stop it. Fat chance. My conviction is that we have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping it, so we might as well do what we can to adapt to it. Watch the convicted AGWs go apoplexic if you dare suggest that. It becomes clear after a time that the primary reason they want to do something is that it would require the obtaining of absolute power in order to force people to change their behaviors, and who wouldn't want to be the Hegemon, if push came to shove? It becomes very political. And to quote a famous Mormon scientist, I seek not for power, but to pull it down.

 

I agree.

Maybe I should go and write my science fiction Genesis story now.

For what it's worth I agree with you completely.

 

There are so many ways this all could have happened, including allegorical and symbolic interpretations I think the most important thing to do is to not worry about it, take it all as the word of God revealed for our good and to learn the lessons we can from it all.

 

The years I have spent studying scriptures have changed my life and made me a much better person, and I now feel more spiritually linked to God than ever.   I have no idea how it happened but guess what?  That is not important.  What is important is the effect of these beliefs that I see in my life.

 

The effects of believing in experts in science are wonderful scientific advancements.

 

The effects of believing in experts in spiritual matters are a closer relationship with God.

 

You want to know about history, you ask a historian.  You want medical advice, you ask a doctor.

 

But the bottom line is that you are the only one who can evaluate all these experts and incorporate or remove this advice from the way you live your life.

 

You are the author of your own world view- you are creating your own world from matter unorganized and we all get to do that.

 

Even that statement can be taken spiritually philosophically or literally.  You make your bed and you lie in it, you reap what you sow.  All of those words say the same thing.   Only you can choose, for better or for worse, how to construct your own life and how you handle the challenges life gives you.

Edited October 16, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Zakuska]

The survey showed the following:

 

Where are you getting your numbers?

 

The Graph:

 

AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY JULY 2014

Edited October 16, 2015 by Zakuska

[thesometimesaint]

 

 

 

 

A recent peer reviewed survey shows that:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

 

 

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/26/poll-nearly-half-of-meteorologists-dont-believe-in-man-made-global-warming/#ixzz3oktFZkqM

 

 

Facts have a definite liberal bias.

[Gray]

 

But PLEASE don't anyone bring up anthropogenic global warming. I'd rather stay away from that particular rabbit hole.

 

Just saying

[jkwilliams]

The Graph:

 

AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY JULY 2014

Yeah, I read the graph. Did you? Did you notice the high levels of acceptance of AGW among those who have actually published in the field, or are you content to rest on the opinion of those who haven't published?

[Zakuska]

Yeah, I read the graph. Did you? Did you notice the high levels of acceptance of AGW among those who have actually published in the field, or are you content to rest on the opinion of those who haven't published?

 

From the conclusion:

 

Third, engagement efforts should include refutation of the idea that members who do not share the consensus view in climate science are lacking in expertise. A substantial number of expert AMS members—22% of the most expert group in our sample—do not subscribe to the position that global warming is mostly human caused. Climate experts are not completely homogenous in their views on global warming, just as climate skeptics have been shown to have a variety of nuanced opinions (Hobson and Niemeyer 2013). Any suggestion that all those with nonmajority views simply need to be “educated” is inaccurate and is likely to be insulting to a substantial number of AMS members. Discussion based on an understanding that views are more nuanced would be more productive.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Zakuska

[jkwilliams]

From the conclusion:

22% is a heck of a lot less than what you were claiming. Again, almost half of that 22% believes it's equally human and natural, leaving 12% who say humans have no part in global warming. The way your quote was phrased, it sounded as if only half of those with expertise in climate science believe global warming is mostly human-caused. So, I'm glad you are clarifying.

Edited October 16, 2015 by jkwilliams

[TheSkepticChristian]

22% is a heck of a lot less than what you were claiming. Again, almost half of that 22% believes it's equally human and natural, leaving 12% who say humans have no part in global warming. The way your quote was phrased, it sounded as if only half of those with expertise in climate science believe global warming is mostly human-caused. So, I'm glad you are clarifying.

 

Zakuska spends hours online trying to find anything that contradicts the consensus. He just sits there with the hopes of disproving important scientific theories. 

 

Among those respondents with climate expertise who have published their climate research, Zakuska own survey found that 93 percent agreed that humans have contributed significantly to global warming over the past 150 years (78 percent said it's mostly human-caused, 10 percent said it's equally caused by humans and natural processes, and 5 percent said the precise degree of human causation is unclear, but that humans have contributed.

 

Even his original 52% claim is still high enough for us to take Global Warming seriously. 

Edited October 16, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[TheSkepticChristian]

It depends on the assumptions one plugs into the computer model. 

 

that is your big assumption. The past tells us about the consequence of rapid climate change. 

 

 

Just because some medical doctor (or several) doesn't know that something they never learned about in med school works, does not make it something we should stay away from.

 

I am talking about all medical doctors in General. If all tend to agree that something is not good, we should probably stay away from it. 

 

Alternative medicine can be a useful placebo, but nothing more. 

[ERayR]

Zakuska spends hours online trying to find anything that contradicts the consensus. He just sits there with the hopes of disproving important scientific theories. 

 

 

CFR that Zakuska spends hours as described above.  Put up the references for you claim or retract. If you don't I will report.