David Kelley's "The Primacy of Existence" - http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/2c...

By the way, I lived in the UK at one time, not far from a vineyard. UK has a good sized industry, but obviously tiny compared to France. There are plenty of varieties that can grow, though maybe different from the Roman varieties if it was warmer then.

No, knowledge does not require perfection. I have knowledge of gravity, even if I do not know everything about it.

I stole it too!!! (from Matt Ridley)

I answered in a bit more detail than was probably necessary because I wanted to be sure that I gave you an answer that was "...from this data..." and not just "because it is SO". I am much less attached to any one answer than I am to the concept that the answer be scientifically valid.

Jan

Exactly, there is no such thing as "perfect knowledge", only reductions of uncertainty. That is the purpose of any measurement in fact (Claude Shannon, 1948), we stop when we have enough accuracy for purpose, as in your house/earth example.
(We seem to agree on that, yet your comment was phrased like a counterpoint.)

I remember the burgeoning environmental movement in the late 60' and early 70's as the fever got whipped up to pass things like the Clean Air - Clean Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act, NEPA, etc - much of it signed into law by a Republican. As usual an initial valid concern got turned into a big government socialist agenda. I remember the Aberjona River flowed through my hometown. I used to fish for kibbies in that river and then started noticing that some had no eyes. Not just one fish, many. The water had oil slicks on the surface with grocery shopping baskets and automobile axles sticking out of the water. Right downtown.

So, when I went off to college in 1973 to major in Geology - a real science that is based on chemistry, physics, optics - hard traditional sciences - there was this science elective called Environmental Engineering. OK, we'll check it out. Turned out be a primer in Social Engineering instead. I was pretty angry. I didn't realize much at the time but did notice the railing against industrialization and the constant call for "national" initiatives, etc.

Environmentalist equals socialist in the meaning of today's global agenda politics. Rare is the discussion that a free society of individuals with private property rights, free markets with all the incentive to improve and produce, is the best societal organization for clean water, clean air, and productively "sustainable" land. Let alone "social justice".

I saw this in the west from the 1980's to the present with the federal efforts to get the ranchers off of the public lands. The 100 + years of settlement patterns of self reliance and production passed down through generations of ranchers was now - according to government environmental (social) "engineers" - destroying the pristine majesty of the magnificent open spaces of the west. Trampling wild flowers, driving off endangered species that have been there all along, befouling natural springs - even raising the dust that impairs the visibility at the Grand Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches - every aspect of their independent activity has come under attack by reams and reams of bogus studies of "ecosystems" by college spawned bureaucrats replete with federal grants, subsidies and revolving door connections with NGO's, Conservancy Trusts, alphabet agencies and the like.

I would say the traditional ranchers are the true environmentalists, but I would not insult them in such a fashion. They are the ones that watch the productivity of the land - gee - so that they can keep producing from that land, they are the ones that improved the springs, the flow of groundwater benefiting the stock and all kinds of wildlife. They are the ones that watched for the right time of seasons when cheat grass is still edible, moving the stock to stem it back and preventing late summer wildfires.

Now, with federal agencies having driven most of the ranchers off of the land or seriously reducing the AUM's, the public lands have become raging conflagrations under their "sustainable" management practices. I have personally known ranchers that when growing up in the 50's and learning how to round up stock, handle horses, irrigate crops, had never even seen a government bureaucrat. Now, they periodically have to go to town, to the BLM offices, to the FS offices, hat in hand, and grovel for their grazing "privileges" on the King's land. I heard one guy saying that getting up on those mornings to pay homage of feeling literally sick and knotted in the stomach and fearful for his livelihood.

Environmental equals social - in the worst meanings and intentions of those words.

"lukewarmist"... love it, I might steal that sometime :)

Why are you here? Did you like the movies? Have you read any of Rand's books/

Good youtube. Txs

In 1979, Theodore Sturgeon wrote a forward for "Image of The Beast" by Philip Jose Farmer in which he describes;
"There is a vast number of honestly simple-minded people who can, without hesitation, define: Pornography, science fiction, God, communism, right, freedom, evil, honorable peace, liberty, obscenity, law and order, love--and think, and act, and legislate, and sometimes burn, jail, and kill on the basis of their definitions. These are the Labelers, and they are without exception the most lethal and destructive force ever faced by any species on this or any other planet, and I shall tell you clearly and simply why." .....
"The lethal destructiveness inherent in Labelling lies in the fact that the Labeller, without exception, overlooks the most basic of all characteristic of everything in the universe--passage: that is to say, flux and change. If he stops and thinks (which is not his habit) the Labeller must concede that rocks change, and mountains; that the planets change, and the stars, and that they have not stopped because of the purely local and most minor phenomenon that he happens to be placing a Label on in this place at this point in time."
"Passage is most evident in what we call life than in any other area. It is not enough to say that living things change, one must go further and say that life is change. That which does not change is abhorrent to the most basic laws of the universe; that which does not change is not alive, and in the presence of that which does not change, life cannot exist."
"This is why the Labeller is lethal. He is the dead hand. His is the command, STOP! He is death's friend, life's enemy. He does not want, he cannot face, things as they really are---moving, flowing, changing; he wants them to stop."

Sturgeon goes on to explain why the Labeller does these things, but what I've quoted defines for me, quite perfectly, the religion of environmentalism, the environmentalist. He fears change, he wants to feel safe, he feels that if only everything was like yesterday (like yesterday being his image of yesterday) everything would be perfect. He doesn't realize in his simple, non-thinking beliefs that others have moved into the priest positions of his religion with more malevolent purpose, and are using him to further their goals of control and power over all. He sees a perfect, Eden like life of safety and love. He's become pro-death and anti-life.

You are pushing Karl Popper's point of view of science. Popper is wrong. Knowledge is not about "perfect knowledge". To have perfect knowledge you have to omnipotent. A person building a small house is not wrong (does not have knowledge) if he assumes the Earth is flat. He has more than enough knowledge to build his house.

I am not a warmist - because I know that historically that Roman Britain (~50 BC to about 500AD) and Norse Greenland (~9th to 12th C AD) were as warm or warmer than now, and the world population was only about 300M then. (Roman vineyards in S Britain!) I am keeping an eye on the icers (though I am not amongst them) because I fear they might actually have evidence on their side. (Yikes!) Watching...

I am a lukewarmist. I observe that temperature has increased slightly but not per hysterical prediction.

I totally agree that the correct solution is to get the government out of the picture and take the governors off technology and industry. That is where the good solution to energy lies (and if GW does occur, then it will solve that in passing).

I am glad you like the distinction I drew. It is frustration that people call names instead of doing science.

Jan

please see my comment above to williamshipley ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/2c... )

I think that David Kelley's The Primacy of Existence (posted by scott today - http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/2c... ) addresses this difference. at 20:45 he gives an analogy of drivers through the scope of a realist, skeptic and idealist. It may be helpful to the discussion.

It's hard for me to think of a philosophy as anything other than a belief system. You can say I doubt therefore I think, and I think, therefore I am, but after that certainty starts to bog down and you have to actually believe something.

If you assume that what you believe is actual truth then you risk being blind to your own errors.

I believe that the scientific method can be used to find truth and that it can be used to understand any aspect of the real world. I cannot prove either of those propositions.

I don't 'believe' in gravity -- I accept observations of its existence as a working hypothesis in the absence of contradictory data.

I have not heard that distinction before, and it works well conceptually. This subject area is so complex however, that I think on both sides very few people actually understand the science and the math, and so tend to state "because it is so". Both sides also have data to back up their opinions.
Personally I do not think there will ever be a "win" like that. I think we should concentrate on fighting against the statist policy solutions, not against the science.

...perhaps not as I will be inclined to use it...

Jan

If both sides respond with, "Because it is SO!" then you are correct.

If one side responds instead with, "...from this data..." then it is not so.

If both sides respond with, "...from this data..." then it is a discussion, not a religious war, and science triumphs (whichever side 'wins').

Jan

I like it!

the handy-dandy search feature

How did you dig that up so fast!? Two years ago that post was up.

They're dried up and angry without a succulent juicy slab of perfectly seared blackstrap of elk. I'm convinced of that. Fats, healthy and necessary, are an integral part of happiness.

I have a good friend who's wife is an PhD climatologist. He has agreed to provide me clear evidence of causality. I look forward to this critical review. Will pass anything I learn on.

Get note. Did not know about Lenin's birthday. That is a 365:1 odds-against scary statistic. I guess, if you consider it could be a coincidence, Lenin, Marx and Che, it could just be ~100:1. Still scary.

I respectfully disagree about beliefs and science. Anything we learn (ie. not instinct) is a belief... anything we deem true. Belief in science is based on evidence, and in religion is based on faith.
Science never has any certainty about anything. All theories have a level of doubt, which is reduced every time testing does not break the theory. As WilliamShipley said, even the theory of gravity has a tiny level of doubt.