BoatBanter.com - Cause & Effect ~ The Wind

* Bob Crantz wrote, On 5/23/2007 10:13 PM:
"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..
* Bob Crantz wrote, On 5/23/2007 11:42 AM:
If your feelings are hurt, I truly apologize. My point was simply to
offer up that "Earth Scientists" may have less science education than
engineers,
"May have less"??? Thos are prtty harsh words!

Damning words no less!

computer engineers and other "non-science" majors.

As a quite successful computer engineer I can state that its
altogether possible to hold an advanced degree in CS and never have
taken a true science or engineering course. (Not in my case though, since
I really majored in engineering and then physics.)

Show me the cirricula and the school. Even if you weasel your way through
some Cobol/business school scheme there are still engineering/science
courses.

Well, at MIT a CS degree requires freshman physics, but I would think
any "Earth Science" degree would include that. It also requires a bit
of math - Calculus, Diff Equations, Linear Algebra and Discrete Math.
But teaching high school math would also require this much. And of
course a lot of computer stuff. There really isn't anything I would
consider "hard science" or physical engineering. No Bio or Chem or
Mechanical, etc.

My wife got a Masters in CS taking all computer stuff with maybe one
math course.

I believe it is important for others to know this because these very
"Scientists" are predicting/echoing global
warming/cooling/warming/cooling/disaster/doom
This is where you're completely wrong. You're trying to make it sound
like the entire field of Earth Science has been made up of community
college dropouts.

No I am referring to college graduates.

OK, but you make it sound like they aren't "real" degrees.

The reality is that there is a huge amount of
advanced science, most of it published in respectable, peer reviewed
journals.

Show me one person with a BS, MS or PhD in Earth Science that has published.
Not a degree under the category Earth Science but a degree in Earth Science.
Just one.

What's your point? You're the one who claimed they were the ones
advocating Global Warming. Now you're claiming they're not.

In fact, a study was done to see how many scientific papers supported the
notion that man was a major cause of climate change, and how many
disagreed. Over 1000 papers were sampled, 75% agreed, 25% were "agnostic"
and had no opinion, but there was not a single paper that disagreed.
Although the study was criticized, even the critics admitted that it was
substantially correct.

Opinion poll - now that's science!

OK, 750 peer reviewed papers supporting the view the man is a
significant factor in Global Climate Change. Zero that disagree.
What's wrong with that?

Now let's say 5 years from now the
"consensus" is the exact opposite. What does this say about all those who
claim man was the cause of GW? How about 30 years ago when we were entering
into an ice age?

So you're now saying that the opinion of all of the "real" scientists
is meaningless, because they could be wrong? This is possibility in
all fields of science. It isn't a reason to claim everything is wrong.

How much government funding is available to show that man
is not a cause of global warming? Increase funding for the contrary opinion
then you'll see change. Scientists don't like to starve.

Grant money isn't given out to "prove" a theory. It's given to prove
or disprove it. All 750 papers had the possibility of showing that
they supported the "dissenting" view, but it never happened.

There is one group of people that were funded only to raise the
dissenting opinion - Exxon gave them lots of money, but they never
came up with anything that got published in a serious journal.
Recently Exxon gave up the practice.

Even the famous skeptics don't claim climate change isn't real, they
generally complain about the way it is described. For instance, there's
no way to prove that Katrina was caused Global Warming.

But do they claim man caused it as you assert above?

There is no way to prove that any individual event is caused by Global
Warming. It is, however, human nature to oversimplify in this way.
Scientists are looking at trends over many years; reporters are
looking at last weeks weather and trying to make a headline out of it.

Is it climate change or global warming? Why two concepts?

What two concepts? Are you claiming it doesn't exist because people
have used different words for it. That's as lame as claiming the
Theory of Evolution isn't real because its just a theory.

and are affecting the very lives, livelihoods, educations, social
structure based solely upon their credential as "Scientist".
Yes, all those PhD's from major universities are worthless because Crantz
claims they're "soft on science."

I was pointing out the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority". Your above
line is your conclusion, not mine.

"Appeal to Authority" is only a fallacy when it is used as an absolute
proof. The fallacy is that authority is sometimes wrong, not that it
is always wrong, or even mostly wrong.

The only point you seem to have made is that there *may* be some
degrees called "Earth Science" that have have less hard science or
engineering than others, but you can find this in any field. There
are certainly Math degrees that only qualify one for teaching high
school math.