For good science on the skeptic side, see http://www.climateaudit.org/ and http://wattsupwiththat.com

Here’s a longer aside at that point-

I know, you can take any ID assertion example and deconstruct it. Either you claim “s/he’s not an ID scientist, s/he’s a real scientist” or “that assertion wasn’t an ID assertiion” or “evolutionary scientists never claimed that particular ID assertion wasn’t true” or whatever.

The point is, if ID scientists are proposing and testing hypotheses [sp?], then they are scientists, even if those hypotheses don’t meet your personal approval, and regardless of whether the hypotheses are found true or false. Same is true of classical-evolution scientists, regardless of whether they have opinions about the existence of one or more gods.

I don’t have any particular iron in that fire – I think evolution seems to reasonably cover change of organisms over time, and that it is vaguely possible that over huge amounts of time, that life might generate spontaneously. On the other hand, I don’t take as a given that nothing interfered in the process, that our universe has no God, or that the existence of God is untestable…which is primarily a religious question, and if scientists make that claim, they are making a religious claim, not a scientific one.

First, when a scientist says, “I am testing how this universe works when no God interferes with it,” he is doing science.

Second, when he says, “I have proven God is not necessary and therefore God does not exist,” he is doing religion. And if you look at his proofs, they are always tautological.

Lastly, when he says “I have proven that nothing has interfered in Earth’s evolution,” he is deluded. [There clearly isn't enough data for such an assertion, so no sane scientist would make such a claim.]

I see no problem whatsoever with putting on “deliberate blinders” when someone tries to get me to accept a patently silly, unprovable and untestable claim.

I didn’t try to get you to accept anything. After all the seriousness of the first three points, and the nasty hyperbole going back and forth on this site, I felt some levity was in order and added point 4 to deflate the over-the-top seriousness.

On the other hand, various ID scientists do propose testable assertions. Sometimes those assertions do result in scientific discoveries. That advances science, even if only in terms of requiring other scientists to put better foundations under their theories. I know, you can take any ID assertion example

I don’t see you requiring any of the anti-ID posters to defend with statistics their claim (for exaple Nemos 18 Apr 2008 at 2:50 pm ) that “No, none of them [ID sscientists] are real scientists.”

Celtic_Evolutionon 18 Apr 2008 at 12:15 pm

[Galileo/citation please with technical cites]

That’s a history fact from high school science class, circa 1975. I believe in high school I could have told you the name of the refuser. If you honestly care to study the question, search Aristotle, authority, Galileo, telescope, moon. Feel free to report back with citations debunking, if you actually find any. Here are a couple websites with relevant quotes:

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/galileo.html

It is said that what Galileo saw was so disturbing for some officials of the Church that they refused to even look through his telescope; they reasoned that the Devil was capable of making anything appear in the telescope, so it was best not to look through it.

http://www.adam.com.au/bstett/ReligGalileoMyth95.htm

Certain secular astronomers even refused to look through Galileo’s telescope to verify his observations, whereas the Jesuit astronomers in contrast were willing to look through his telescope and “saw the phenomena for themselves, were convinced, and turned to honouring and feasting Galileo: after all, was he not Jesuit trained, a true son of the Church, whose fame brought distinction to the Order?” (Ronan, 1974, p. 127).

That’s more of my time than it deserves.

Celtic_Evolutionon 18 Apr 2008 at 12:15 pm

Again, you resort to braod-stroke claims, but offer not even one single piece of anything that is other than your own personal opinion… no facts, no peer-reviewed studies… no evidence… just rhetoric… how is there “clearly more BS science” as you referred to in that last sentence? References, please…

Most of what appears on this board is plain opinion. You owe me a keyboard on “peer reviewed studies”… you want me to prove that global-warmism-BS is more prevalent than anti-global-warmism-BS with a peer-reviewed study? Very droll.

But I’ll be more specific in case you missed the real life examples in front of you.

I define BS science as things claimed to be science that are not testable or falsifiable. For instance, the claim that global warming caused X or y hurricane, or an increase in the average intensity of hurricanes, etc. You don’t strike me as someone who puts his fingers in his ears and says “lalalala” jsut because he doesn’t want to be proven wrong. If you honestly watch the media, you have seen these claims.

They are BS by that definition. They are on the pro-global-warming-alarmism side, as I stated in my prior post. I have therefore demonstrated their existence and numerical magnitude. If you care to line up lists of claims on the anti-global warmism that were similarly reported in the media, then I’d be happy to look at them.

More likely, you will dodge by saying that they were “not scientific.” internationally reported scientific pronouncements by an international pseudo-scientific body that is devoted to the scientific subject under consideration are not “scientific” in your eyes, so they get a pass.

Well, look back at my quote. That’s all I said – more BS pseudo-science on the pro-alarmist side. I clearly didn’t make the impossible claim that that BS pseudo-science in question was good science or had proceeded scientifically and qualified as wonderful science. I just said there was more BS science on the pro-alarmist side.

We could discuss the incentives in science that lead to this crap, but that is a different subject entirely. To my mind, global warming science is a bit like the Tobacco Institute in terms of wanting particular results. The temperature of Mars is up a few degrees and we only have one car there. Why? I’d love a good study, but you won’t see one funded any time soon.

I can’t really speak for cable channels, since I don’t have cable, but like NPR listeners, I doubt many will be swayed.