'RWA' ='AFAF' by Niki2

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"You're not blindly accepting them because you've seen the data."

I have seen it. Not in raw form - instrument readings on a chart or readouts from a datalogger for example, b/c that is the RAW form of all data - but in tabular form. I've read the papers that presented the data, I've read the technical papers about how that data is acquired. Not ALL of them, but enough to understand the data is credible. I may be at sea when it comes to complex mathematical models, but I know a lot about acquiring data. And the CO2 data and temperature data are sound.

ETA
CTS, I'm going to make an observation about you, which is closer to the topic of the thread b/c it is, after all, about people. You CLAIM to be impartial. In fact, you are not. Your outlook is highly skewed b/c of your fear and hate of anything which even appears to have authority, even if it just the authority of experience and knowledge. The minute anyone claims knowledge superior to yours and says 'these are the facts' you rebell.

If you were to look IMPARTIALLY at ALL the data available - about global climate change, the efficacy of vaccinations, 9/11 - you would find overwhelming trends backed by research and reasoning. You would put the naysayers in the SAME perspective as you do the yeasayers and conclude that, on balance, the yeasayers had better data.

Instead, you refuse to give any credit to the yeasayers - subjecting their arguments to truly ridiculous objections - which can be brought to the futile endpoint of 'what is the nature of reality'. You are driven to question EVERYTHING, even down to the nature of your own existence, in order to not give that data any credit - at all.

OTOH you will believe ANY argument and set of data proposed by the naysayers, no matter how contradictory, unsupported by fact, or illogical.

Is that the essence of impartiality?

You are to me a fine example of how it is most people (except sociopaths) are driven by emotion, and how vulnerable most people are to a manipulator who has a handle on their driving emotion. Your handle is fear and hate of authority.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 8:14 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I have no problem with "my" threads being jacked, usually, and especially this one. I put things up; where they go from there is up to others. Thread jacking, maybe half the time, means the conversation has moved off in another direction, and hey, it's still a conversation! That's what we're here for, right?

And I don't start all threads, just to clarify. PN is way "ahead" of me...he's been ahead of everyone since I came. Anthony used to start as many as me, but I can't coax him back.

Wulf and Whozit start a fair number, and others. For the most part, mine are attempts to find topics we might enjoy discussing; this was an exception.

I’m with Kiki:

Quote:
I decided many years ago to square up what I do with what I believe. I don't work for a place whose mission I don't believe, I don't pass by anyone who needs help, I sniff test what I am asked to do.

There may be things I accept - like FACTS on global warming - but I don't blindly accept things just b/c an authority said so. OTOH I don't blindly rebel, either. Either blind path is a road to being manipulated to someone else's ends.

Aside for not working for a place in whose mission I don’t believe (I DID work for lawyers most of my career...), I do the same. To the best of my ability-—I know I fail at times; but how often have we seen Wulf or Kane ever admit they’re wrong or even MIGHT be wrong? Rather, the attacks on anyone disagreeing with them are consistent and anyone stating anything else is considered stupid, childish, etc. That’s AFAF, in my view.

But as to where the jacking has gone; the corrollary of a truck bearing down on me is, in my opinion, invalid. That's a case where it's pretty obvious one would accept that a truck IS bearing down on me, and not have to do a lot of calculations.

CTTS, you are missing the point. Of COURSE we all have aspects of the same things as AFs...Altemeyer caveats with that over and over again. The difference is that AFs take it to the EXTREME...it’s like mental illness; if some aspect of bipolarity or OCD or PTSD seriously affects your ability to function, it is a disorder. If it doesn’t, it’s just part of your personality. In personality disorders, it can be cured; in mood disorders, it can (supposedly) be minimized with meds, psychotherapy and many other things (most of the other things being depending on US for which to take responsibility).

Also, one of the aspects of AFs is that they DO think they’re always right and have good and correct reasons for the way the believe...they also, according to his experiments, believe they are better people. That doesn’t change the fact that when something is proven wrong beyond reasonable doubt that it is sensible to believe it. The prime example is “Bush’s book is established history”. When Bush HIMSELF admitted there were no WMD, out of his own mouth numerous times, then in his book states there WERE, the dichotomy is pretty obvious. Given the untruths we saw many times during his Presidency, to say his book is established history shows no questioning whatsoever of one’s beliefs or the authority who imparted them. That’s an AF trait; inability to ever question one’s beliefs or even consider one might possibly be wrong. I know I’m wrong sometimes, and I’ve freely admitted it.

As to Climate Change and most of what we hear, we cannot be 100% certain of ANYTHING, by your criteria. We are not able to view things with our own eyes when it comes to stuff like that, and are forced to determine what we believe by some other means. As for me, I've seen and read about the melting ice caps, the extreme weather happening around the globe (which was predicted), and other things besides the scientific data I've read. It's not specifically about global warming, it's climate change, and I believe it's happening.

Given the impact we've had on everything else, from air, water, land, ocean, etc., I BELIEVE it reasonable to assume we've affected the global climate as well. The point is, none of us can be 100% sure of ANYTHING; we can only self-educate as best we can (IF we even care to bother, which AFs don't do, that's part of what makes them AFs) and determine for ourselves what we believe.

By your criteria, we would believe NOTHING for certain. That means you can't NOT believe in Climate Change OR believe in it. That's not logical to me; going through life not believing anything is true isn't a way to live. I have no doubt my view is somewhat influenced by what I hear on a subject, but I try to be as objective as I can. Things like letting the taxes for the rich continue seems to me a stupid idea. Other things, like deregulating as much as Tea Partiers and the extreme right would like to, also doesn't seem logical to me. I learn as much as I can, look at history, and make a determination. That's all ANY of us can do.

I haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth”, nor listened to Gore, simply because it seems obvious to me that he’s completely convinced and is on a “mission”, ergo his view is obviously slanted. What you said about my belief in scientists is also wrong, very wrong. I don’t accept that meds “fix” things like bipolarity, I think that’s still an open question and will continue to be until they can prove beyond any doubt I may have that they work; AND until there is enough data from actual sufferers to back it up. I do, however, believe that meds help in some cases because they helped me and I observed their usefulness in Jo and with Choey, unquestionably; but I further believe that I takes far more than meds to truly mitigate these disorders. There are many things science says are true that I question.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 10:44 AM

HKCAVALIER

Hi CTS,

(As I prepare to post this, I notice that you've gotten a couple lengthy replies ahead of mine. I hope you don't feel piled on if I post this anyway, even if it covers some of the same ground as others.)

This discussion is reminding me of the kinds of arguments I got into in college. The winner of such arguments was never the person with the clearest understanding of the issues, but the person who could most consistently undermine the arguments of others. It was never about what anyone knew, it was about how lame you could make the other person's argument appear.

If we look at your actual argument as an argument FOR something, rather than a system of undermining OTHER's arguments, what are you advocating? That we know nothing? That reality is beyond our poor senses to perceive accurately? That if we come across someone who believes differently from us, we must concede that their beliefs are veridically indistinguishable from our own?

Does it really serve your argument to tell Signy that she doesn't know when a truck's gonna hit her because her perception of the truck is based on assumptions? Do you interrogate every detail of your perception before stepping out of the way when you see a truck bearing down on you?

The big, big problem with this kind of argument, this radical subjectivity, is that it is used to rationalize abuse of all kinds, even, historically, fascism. Because when "right" doesn't make "might"--because "right" is hopelessly subjective--then "might" will happily step in and make "right." It's Carl Rove telling us that there are no facts, only opinions (liberals, who are perversely fond of this kind of relativistic thinking, are particularly befuddled by this argument, while conservatives just make a point to have as much might on their side as possible, so it doesn't matter who's right).

Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? Did you ever rationalize your partner's abuse by saying to yourself that you didn't appreciate how it must seem from their point of view, the extraordinary pressures they must be under? We never get out of such relationships until we realize that our perceptions are more than mere opinion.

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
If you look at the body of research in social psychology, from Milgram's obedience experiment to Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment on down, you'll find a pattern. People, as a whole, often act in gullible, irrational, conformist, obedient, and submissive ways. This doesn't apply to just one type of personality or one type of ideology. It applies to most normal, regular people. Regular people like you and me.

Here is a list of some of the most famous ones:
http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/11/10-piercing-insights-into-human-natur
e.php

It is easy to come up with a label for people we perceive as authoritarian or obedient. But more likely than not, we ourselves have those traits too. We just don't see it when we ourselves do obedient, blind-faith, dogmatic, authoritarian stuff. WE tell ourselves we have good and correct reasons for our beliefs and behavior--THEY don't.

So the way I see it, if I invent a label for a certain trait, I would describe it in such a way that I could apply it to myself as well.

Demonization of ANY group of people is a bit dangerous. We are ALL "we." There is no "they."

JMHO.

I'm afraid your studies are no help, mired as they are in self-defeating notions of human nature. Ironically, it's science itself that undermines its own credibility by ignoring its most basic assumptions. These studies all perpetuate the grand "conflict" between reason and emotion. Scientists so often see themselves as fighting some tragically doomed Götterdämmerung against emotionalism. Emotion is the enemy, emotion must be done away with, or at least subdued, before reality can be apprehended with anything approaching fidelity. But if they've studied psychology at all, they know perfectly well that it is impossible; that in the end, human beings are emotional creatures. O, how very tragic! Poor science! And poor, frail humanity!

But when we look at our emotions--and by extension, our empathy--as the core of healthy mental functioning, these experiments begin to look very different.

The two pillars of mental health are high self-esteem and clear boundaries, but these are also two aspects of human experience that are hardest to quantify and systematize. They require of us a certain level of self-awareness and from that awareness, self-compassion, before we can appreciate their value. They are importantly not reducible to a set of rules, because rules engender rigidity and psychological rigidity is destructive to self-esteem and turns healthy boundaries into rigid, insensible walls. The key to reducing such rigidity is empathic awareness. And empathy is the first thing to go when Science sets down to analyzing its data.

What all too often happens is the scientifically minded person confuses emotionalism with boundarylessness, lack of self control. When people are afraid of their emotions, it is because they fear that their emotions will force them to act one way or another and they will lose conscious agency. And because Freud has instilled in us a paralyzing fear of our unconscious selves, we suppress our emotions and we patrol the boundaries between ourselves and others like sentries itching for battle. We become unable to distinguish between mere confrontation and an attack, between disagreement and hostility--not only in others, but in ourselves.

I'd say low self-esteem is behind all the conclusions in your 10 studies. These experiments are very comforting to our low self-esteem (we all suck, and here's the proof), and annoying and specious to our higher self-esteem. In my view, these experiments are unwittingly designed to make the inevitable triumph of emotion over reason look as disturbing and dangerous as possible.

All I see demonstrated in these experiments is that emotional well-being is simply a greater human necessity than achieving moment to moment logic in our thought process. The more anxious and love-deprived we are (low self-esteem), the more we long for reassurance and group identity, the more susceptible to manipulation by authority figures. To leap from that to the idea that we have no control over ourselves, or that we're naturally inclined toward evil and conformity borders on the misanthropic.

The "halo effect" is a perfect example. The experiment cited shows me that the participants--college students, still very much children emotionally (when will science stop using anxious, dependent, habitually submissive children as the default test subjects in determining human nature???)--the students, then, longed to have someone treat them well, and that this ability of the professor to treat them kindly and with warmth informed their understanding of the experience at the deepest level. And they got more out of the lecture because of it. Well, why the hell not? Kindness and friendliness are often bi-products of real wisdom, no? That the subjects were unable to name their deep need for warmth and kindness from the teacher speaks volumes about how their conscious minds devalue their emotional needs. (Wisdom is another crucial, difficult to define aspect of high mental function--oh well!)

When the writer extrapolates from this experiment demonstrating to me the value of kindness, to the power of "designer" fashions to influence buyers, the connection simply isn't there unless you already want to believe that people are gullible, illogical and stupid.

The crucial premise of the Festinger and Carlsmith experiment in which subjects are asked to push objects around in a box for an hour is that such activity is intrinsically boring. That is the "reality" the experimenters take for granted. And furthermore, that this fundamental aspect of "boringness" can never be revised naturally upon reflection, or the introduction of a new emotionally charged context--no no, they say, such revision is always the result of lying to one's self.

Well, twaddle. Children will often push objects around in a box for several hours at a time, not just one. Ask them why, and the best you'll get is "cuz it's fun." Children in this mode are very unconscious creatures. Such activity is a natural trance inducer as well. So, the experiment specifically affects multiple levels of consciousness, accesses very primal child-states of consciousness (which, in addition to being highly susceptible to trance, also tends toward suggestibility and the need for approval) and yet in assessing the data, these various levels of experience are reduced to the one: what does the college student think he thinks?! (Just about the least reliable source of information available!) Again, if you have a need to show that people suck, well, lucky you! If not, like me, you're shaking your head.

And on and on with these freakin' studies. But none of them get at what seems to be the fundamental premise of the folk arguing against forming negative abstractions about other people in this thread. Are there no negative generalities that are legitimate? Do human beings never act collectively against the welfare of other human beings, consciously, and/or unconsciously? And are all of us humans so crippled mentally that we simply can't discern such things even if they do exist?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 12:27 PM

DREAMTROVE

HK

I think CTTS and I are on the same page: Advocating responsible solutions to actual problems, like deforestation, desertification and overfishing.

What we worry about is that well-intended environmentally concern will be redirected to create a global tax to support neocon thinktanks, which is where cap and trade came from, and where that money will go.

I've seen this happen too many times. "Ban the Bomb" was cleverly morphed into "Nuclear Free" with lots of covert help from the fossil fuel industry, and the result was a ban on the construction of nuclear reactors. What makes this even sadder is that now all of the reactors we have except for 2 are "chernobyl" style reactors, when modern reactors are far safer and far more efficient. We also might not be bombing Appalachia with more explosives than we used on Iraq and Afghanistan if we weren't still using coal powered reactors.

I saw this again with concern for endangered species and animal welfare being rerouted to the "Cruelty Free" campaign. Oh, yes, I'm against torturing small fuzzy animals, but every movement of the people which actually succeeds has some major corporation behind it, and this ban on animal testing was pushed by corporations who didn't want to do animal testing because it was expensive, delayed the release of products to market, and sometimes turned up nasty toxic side effects that meant the product had to be shelved entirely. Now those fancy new products are tested on we the people.

There's a lot of science out there on global warming, co2 changes, and then there are serious environmental concerns that so many environmentalists are ignoring because they're chasing the ball the neocons put out there. And that's the trap: This all ends in a global cap and trade, which is not just a tax to support the noecons, it's also a derivatives scheme.

I think CTTS is advocating thought here.

Quote:

Niki:
And I don't start all threads, just to clarify. PN is way "ahead" of me...he's been ahead of everyone since I came.

Niki

I said started threads, not posted little islands

To be a thread it need to be a conversation that leads to discussion, with other posts by other people.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 12:49 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

HKC

Much food for thought, as always. You are way ahead of me on this, and I can see it will take a lot of reading for me to understand your words, let alone your premise.

Thank you for joining the conversation.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 12:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
You CLAIM to be impartial.

Do I? Hmmm. I must have been absent the day that happened, because I don't remember ever having claiming any such thing.

Did you read where I said we ALL have our blind spots? Including me? Wasn't that the MAIN point of my last post?

It is true many of my views are influenced by my personal value system of anarcho-pacifism. I am a leftish libertarian, and that will color my positions.

But to be clear, I don't disbelieve everything just because it is supported by authority. I am only open, perhaps more than most, to the idea that authority may be wrong, even if *I* believe they are right.

So end result? I believe in gravity; I happen to agree with authorities that gravity exists. I just don't scorn at those who question it. See?

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 1:15 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"You CLAIM to be impartial."

"Do I? Hmmm. I must have been absent the day that happened, because I don't remember ever having claiming any such thing."

Here, from another thread, where you were very much partial to your own position but dismissive of others, all while claiming objectivity:

I study the evidence. Any expert interpretation of data has to stand up to skepticism and challenges--NO MATTER who they are, no matter whether you like what they say or not. That is what scientific objectivity means.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=46080

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 1:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
That’s an AF trait; inability to ever question one’s beliefs or even consider one might possibly be wrong. I know I’m wrong sometimes, and I’ve freely admitted it.

Maybe the problem is that I see this in everyone. I also see it in a good number of liberals here in RWED, as extremely as you see it in as Rap and Wulf, where they never apologize or admit error. They go on similar vicious personal attacks. The only difference I see? The liberals appear to be better educated and well spoken; they are not as vulgar and are more sophisticated in their ad hominems. But the AFAF part? Yeah, all there.

So for me, the AFAF trait, as you describe it, appears to be the rule rather than the exception.

Quote:
It's not specifically about global warming, it's climate change, and I believe it's happening.

That is fine. I have no problem with anyone believing what they want to believe (unless it is something untrue about myself, but I'm just sensitive that way).

Quote:
By your criteria, we would believe NOTHING for certain. That means you can't NOT believe in Climate Change OR believe in it.

Very astute, and absolutely right. Let me explain.

If you want to believe in Climate Change as a lifestyle, a value system, or a religion, I have absolutely no objection. Have at it, and have fun! :)

If you want to believe in Climate Change as a scientific theory, well, I won't stop you, but I am less enthused. Why? Because science is not about belief. There is no room for belief in science. It is an unending method of discovery, constantly challenging assumptions, trying to sort out spurious relationships from causal ones. Once you BELIEVE in a hypothesis or a theory, you lose that precious scientific objectivity and self-correction mechanism.

So you are right. In my view, in science, you can't believe in something or not believe in something. That is the only way for science to advance. I was trained as a scientist. I married a research research scientist. Science is my true love in a way that no other field can be. It breaks my heart whenever someone talks about "belief" and "science" in the same breath. It makes me sad enough to cry.

Quote:
That's not logical to me; going through life not believing anything is true isn't a way to live.

I believe in plenty of things. I just try to separate ideology from science. I can treat the same subject, e.g. medicine, very differently depending on whether I am speaking of medicine as a philosophy or medicine as a science. When I have my scientist hat on, I try my darndest to not to believe anything. But only when the scientist hat is on.

I hope that clarifies where I am coming from.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 1:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Here, from another thread, where you were very much partial to your own position but dismissive of others, all while claiming objectivity:

CTS: "I study the evidence. Any expert interpretation of data has to stand up to skepticism and challenges--NO MATTER who they are, no matter whether you like what they say or not. That is what scientific objectivity means."

Yes, I claimed to be objective when studying scientific evidence. I never claimed to be impartial--as a person. They are not the same thing.

Please allow me to explain. I have my biases and blind spots, like any other person. I am NOT impartial.

But when I study scientific evidence, I put on my scientist hat. I become objective. I'm not saying that prejudices never slyly creep in, cause I am only human. But I am aware of them most of the time, and it is a priority for me to catch them.

I actually have some nice tried and true tricks to try to catch myself being biased. For example, one of them is to read a research paper I find myself really excited about or rolling my eyes at, and pretend it found the opposite results. How would I find fault with the methodology, or rationalize the methodology, then? That helps me "blind" myself, as it were, to the results, to focus critically on methods and statistics.

When my scientist hat is off, I quite enjoy my biases. :) Hope that helps clarify matters.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 1:48 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Yes, I claimed to be objective when studying scientific evidence."

But you are so demonstrably not that, b/c you don't give both sides equal treatment in terms of objections and acceptance. I give you credit for trying, though.

How about this experiment: take an idea you 'believe' in, like gravity for example, which is relatively neutral and impersonal. Find a way to put it so you can feel your hackles rise. Scientists find that falls are an overwhelming cause of injury and death among elderly people, and the government will make safety measures such as handrails mandatory, for example, which is intrusive and personal. Whatever idea, whatever approach works for you. Try and figure out which element sparks that reaction. It may not be the facts per se, but the implications. If you can separate your reactions and see where they are coming from, you might get a better idea of how they are coloring your perceptions.

Your response to the IMPLICATIONS of global climate change - that the world will have to address it in a concerted effort - may be clouding your read of the actual science.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 2:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I hope you don't feel piled on if I post this anyway, even if it covers some of the same ground as others.

I appreciate the concern. I am just flattered I am getting so much attention.

Quote:
If we look at your actual argument as an argument FOR something, rather than a system of undermining OTHER's arguments, what are you advocating? That we know nothing? That reality is beyond our poor senses to perceive accurately? That if we come across someone who believes differently from us, we must concede that their beliefs are veridically indistinguishable from our own?

I advocate being skeptical in science. I advocate seeing science as a journey rather than a destination, a process of unending discovery rather than a body of "facts." I advocate thinking critically about where data come from, and asking if we had measured data differently, would we get different "facts"?

Siggy's example about the big rig was not the best analogy for the scientific process, and I see now it has confused readers. So yes, if I see a big rig coming towards me, I would jump out of the way. I am not questioning direct sensory observation.

But if the big rig were a metaphor for an important scientific finding that had implications for human behavior, absolutely, I would ask all those questions and challenge every interpretation of the facts. That is what science is about.

Quote:
Does it really serve your argument to tell Signy that she doesn't know when a truck's gonna hit her because her perception of the truck is based on assumptions? Do you interrogate every detail of your perception before stepping out of the way when you see a truck bearing down on you?

Yes, absolutely, if the truck is a metaphor for global warming or any other scientific theory. No, absolutely, if the truck is a literal truck.

Quote:
The big, big problem with this kind of argument, this radical subjectivity, is that it is used to rationalize abuse of all kinds, even, historically, fascism.

Yeah, I'm not in favor of radical subjectivity. I'm sorry you misunderstood my analogy.

Quote:
Have you ever been in an abusive relationship?

Yes.

Quote:
Did you ever rationalize your partner's abuse by saying to yourself that you didn't appreciate how it must seem from their point of view, the extraordinary pressures they must be under? We never get out of such relationships until we realize that our perceptions are more than mere opinion.

Interestingly, I never rationalized during the relationship. I just hated that person. After getting out and healing, I rationalized in my journey to forgiveness. But that's neither here nor there. :P

Quote:
These studies all perpetuate the grand "conflict" between reason and emotion. Scientists so often see themselves as fighting some tragically doomed Götterdämmerung against emotionalism.

I didn't get that when I read about these studies. To the best of my knowledge (but I may be wrong), the authors did not interpret these studies that way. They were looking more at cognitive mechanisms than emotional ones.

Quote:
The two pillars of mental health are high self-esteem and clear boundaries, ...They are importantly not reducible to a set of rules, because rules engender rigidity...The key to reducing such rigidity is empathic awareness.

Sounds okay. Empathy, self-esteem, boundaries = good mental health. No argument here.

Quote:
And empathy is the first thing to go when Science sets down to analyzing its data.

The empathy Science doesn't have and the empathy mentally healthy humans need are two separate entities. Science doesn't need good mental health; it is just an objective method of discovery.

Quote:

I'd say low self-esteem is behind all the conclusions in your 10 studies.

If that is true, there appears to be a lot of subjects with low self esteem. :)

Quote:
In my view, these experiments are unwittingly designed to make the inevitable triumph of emotion over reason look as disturbing and dangerous as possible.

I think the experimenters were just surprised that cognition can be compartamentalized the way it is. I don't see a big to-do about emotion here.

Quote:
All I see demonstrated in these experiments is that emotional well-being is simply a greater human necessity than achieving moment to moment logic in our thought process.

Interesting. For me, I see how powerless most people feel, which may have at its root an epidemic of low self-esteem, as you say.

Quote:
To leap from that to the idea that we have no control over ourselves, or that we're naturally inclined toward evil and conformity borders on the misanthropic.

I agree. I'm sure glad I didn't make that leap. As far as I know, none of the authors of those papers made that leap either.

Quote:
when will science stop using anxious, dependent, habitually submissive children as the default test subjects in determining human nature???)

They are convenient for the psychology professors, and cheap. But yes, it is a biased sample of the human race.

We are taught from birth, especially college students at Ivy League universities (where some of these experiments are conducted), to obey and respect authorities at schools, that success accompanies conformity. Is it any wonder that they obeyed and conformed?

But, MOST of us were taught from birth to obey and conform, so I think as biased as the sample may be, the results are generalizable within reason. That means, nobody here, least of all I, would claim any type of absolute predictor from these results. It is more of a soft probability, that people tend to behave thus. Very few people, after all, have really great mental health.

Hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 2:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
How about this experiment: take an idea you 'believe' in, like gravity for example, which is relatively neutral and impersonal. Find a way to put it so you can feel your hackles rise.

I like that. How clever.

But no, that would not make me NOT believe in gravity.

I know you don't believe me, but I DO know how to separate my political ideology from my scientific evaluation of evidence. I can see the difference between an objective scientific observation and the awful political things people want to do with it.

Quote:
Your response to the IMPLICATIONS of global climate change - that the world will have to address it in a concerted effort - may be clouding your read of the actual science.

No. If that were it, I would know, and I would tell you.

I simply do not find sufficient evidence to substantiate certain conclusions GW proponets accept as dogma. It doesn't mean I have discounted or dismissed them. I just think they are premature. Climate science is a very, very young science with very little experimentation and empirical feedback. Their methodologies are very limited. The kind of certainty GW proponents seek simply is not possible at this stage with our limited understanding of climate. Science is slow that way. Very frustrating for policy and practical purposes, but that is how it is.

If we want to change our lifestyle, we have to forge ahead based on values and philosophy, without claiming scientific backing. We need to focus on the HOW of solving the problem, as Frem says, instead of the nitpicking of WHY before taking action. If you look at my Pollution Solution thread, most of suggestions would take care of GW, without my having to "believe" in it at all.

----
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.
-- Ancient Indian Proverb

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 2:43 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"I would ask all those questions and challenge every interpretation of the facts. That is what science is about."

Not quite. What you are doing is more like denial. Again, b/c you don't approach things equitably. When your biased facts are answered with more complete facts, when your contradictory logic is uncovered, when your erroneous assumptions are made explicit, you change venue. You are not seeking the best truth available at the time, you are stonewalling it.

There's a difference, and what you are doing is most definitely NOT science, no matter how much you call it that.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 2:44 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I advocate being skeptical in science. I advocate seeing science as a journey rather than a destination, a process of unending discovery rather than a body of "facts." I advocate thinking critically about where data come from, and asking if we had measured data differently, would we get different "facts"?

And I absolutely agree. There have been several times in my scientific life when someone has proposed a hypothesis (along with supporting evidence) which ran counter to current scientific fashion, and I've smacked myself on the forehead and thought "DOH!" When you find a hypothesis that ties so many observations together, even if it runs counter to the current interpretation... well, that's like Christmas, birthday and the tooth fairy all rolled into one. I'm not even buying into the Big Bang theory. Most influential book? "Man Against Myth", which prefaces with unexamined assumptions. Believe me, I'm all about examining previously unnoticed assumptions!

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But if the big rig were a metaphor for an important scientific finding that had implications for human behavior, absolutely, I would ask all those questions and challenge every interpretation of the facts. That is what science is about.

On the other hand... are we all to go about our merry way without examining the assumptions underlying our CURRENT behavior? "Humans are too small to have a long-term impact on the environment"? " or "Individual freedom is the most important metric of human existence"? or "Not rocking the boat is more important than survival"?
I obviously don't know which assumptions are driving our current setup, but they are clearly dysfunctional and causing us to ignore critical data.

And I see Kiki and I xposted along the same lines. Skepticism is all well and good provided (1) it sprays out equitably in all directions and (2) it yields to the preponderance of evidence. Beyond that it just becomes partisan opposition.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 3:17 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

CTS

Sigh, I'm going to reply to you just once more - ever - b/c frankly, you are boring and a waste of my time.

I put 'believe' in quotes so you would understand that I wasn't talking about what most people think of as 'belief'. I don't know that there's a word for it, except it's something so reliable you don't question it anymore. There are things like that in your world, things you don't question even when they are part of accepted wisdom - or authorized fact.

I picked gravity b/c you mentioned it, but it was only an example.

You go FAR beyond questioning the conclusions - you deny the basic physical measurements of CO2 concentration, physically measured temperatures, the CO2 absorbance spectrum in the infrared, and so on. These things are the scientific equivalent of the truck coming down the street, the scientific sensory data. When they are carefully done, as they are; when they are repeatedly reproduced, as they have been; they reach a higher level of certainty, like the truck coming down the street.

But oddly enough, you don't subject alternative claims to the same scrutiny. You don't demand PROOF that the volcano vents CO2, that the CO2 being vented creates the Keeling curve stretching over decades, or even that the measurements are contaminated at all with volcanic CO2.

It's the blatant asymmetry that gives you away. And it's pretty obvious to others how truly biased you are. So, while you specialize in 'clever' arguments, the only person you're fooling is yourself.

ANYWAY, I'm done with you. I have better things to do with my time than to debate some random person's fantasies.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 3:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Instead, you refuse to give any credit to the yeasayers - subjecting their arguments to truly ridiculous objections - which can be brought to the futile endpoint of 'what is the nature of reality'. You are driven to question EVERYTHING, even down to the nature of your own existence, in order to not give that data any credit - at all.

OTOH you will believe ANY argument and set of data proposed by the naysayers, no matter how contradictory, unsupported by fact, or illogical.

Such as stating that the oil industry would support the big "global warming hoax" in order to cash in on sequestration, yet not being willing to discuss the possibility that the industry would make a helluva lot more money out of denying climate change and avoiding emission limits, and that the industry has a well documented record of doing just that.

No, CTS, I'll not let that one go, now that you've reminded me about it. It was such a ridiculous claim that I still can't quite believe that it was meant seriously.

CTS: "But when I study scientific evidence, I put on my scientist hat. I become objective."

Wow. Unless someone wants to discuss the nitty-gritty of the scientific evidence you cite, cause then you claim that you are not a scientist and do not have to actually understand or explain any of that science stuff.

Yeah, I won't let that one go either, not when you keep doing the same thing. How can you claim to be forming impartial scientific "beliefs" (the fact that you continue to use that word shows that the science hat really doesn't fit you well) when you refuse to question the actual science? Or I guess, as Kiki says, you only question that which doesn't agree with what you already believe.

You are a strange one, CTS. I understand that I rub you the wrong way, and I really don't mean to. I seriously had forgotten that you were the one from the Ruddiman discussion until you brought it up again. But now that I'm looking closer, you do seem to follow the pattern that Kiki pointed out, and honestly I find it a bit fascinating.

Relating this to the "AFAF" deal: I have noticed that when people have their assumptions questioned, especially if the questions expose the biases they don't even realize they have, they tend to interpret the questions as personal attacks and get extremely defensive. That way they need not address the questions, nor be forced to see and face their blindspots. And by not backing down from the question, I only prove myself to be that much more the attack dog in their minds. I really don't mean to. I just want to discuss the issue.

BTW, I have a bunch of pictures of an exhibit from U of Alaska Fairbanks Museum that shows, quite clearly, a significant increase in temperature - not some computer model, but actual thermometer temperature measurement in Alaska over the past 50-100 years. The exhibit also had several past/present pictures of glaciers disappearing and the vegetation changing as temperatures increased.

Unfortunately, I've lost the cable that transfers pictures from my digital camera to my computer. But here are two my dad took. The temperature graph is, unfortunately, poorly framed so you can't see the data plotted off to the right. But it was fascinating - and it was real, actual temperature data, that showed an obvious trend.

Someday I'll find that data cable and put of those graphs up. I was thinking of the Ruddiman thread when I took the pictures last summer.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 4:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
"Humans are too small to have a long-term impact on the environment"? "

Never been my argument.

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"Individual freedom is the most important metric of human existence"?

For me, it's compassion.

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"Not rocking the boat is more important than survival"?

Hahaha. You KNOW that doesn't apply to me, right?

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Skepticism is all well and good provided (1) it sprays out equitably in all directions and (2) it yields to the preponderance of evidence. Beyond that it just becomes partisan opposition.

You and I agree on this. We just don't agree what "preponderance of evidence" is.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 4:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
ANYWAY, I'm done with you. I have better things to do with my time than to debate some random person's fantasies.

What a relief! Have a nice life!

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 4:22 PM

HKCAVALIER

Hi CTS,

What makes the analogy of the big rig meaningful to me is that one's judgements about where it's headed is a matter of survival, as is the issue of GW. Folk stand on the GW side of this argument and see you interrogating the data as if the result doesn't matter either way. Your lack of urgency, your resistance to interpreting the evidence as cause for alarm, leads folk to think you've made up your mind already. If you were remotely interested in really considering the possibility of global warming, you wouldn't be so nonchalant about it all, and you wouldn't be presenting these ludicrous, wholly unsympathetic analogies like pouring a cup of boiling water into the ocean--see what I mean? It gives folk the (false???)impression that you believe GW is pure crap, or a conspiracy, or a religion, or anything but a scientifically arrived at conclusion requiring immediate action from all of us. When there are lives at stake, the rhetorically winning retreat into pure scientific integrity comes across as nearly inhuman, or at least condescending. I don't have much of a dog in this fight, myself, and I know you and Signy are hereditary enemies from the Time Before Time, but I see you address all advocates of GW theory with the same contempt you feel Signy has earned.

How is it that you are so convinced that GW is untrue, while you claim to maintain skepticism toward all conclusions? At what point do you feel it is important to stop endlessly debating the minutia and actually do something to stop a cataclysm from happening, knowing that you will never have absolute certainty to guide your steps?

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
These studies all perpetuate the grand "conflict" between reason and emotion. Scientists so often see themselves as fighting some tragically doomed Götterdämmerung against emotionalism.
I didn't get that when I read about these studies. To the best of my knowledge (but I may be wrong), the authors did not interpret these studies that way. They were looking more at cognitive mechanisms than emotional ones.

Well, yes, that's what they were looking at, but not necessarily what they were actually dealing with. I find the assumptions I noted extremely problematic, both dealing directly with emotional reality (the impact of warmth and kindness in a professor upon students, and the presumption that any action "A" can be objectively defined as "boring" or "not boring"). I have a wholist perspective on these matters, while scientists tend to concern themselves with particulars and what they perceive as isolated, isolable, cases. All too often, what the scientist thinks she can limit her focus on looks to me like carving out a piece from a living whole and making far reaching pronouncements about that whole, because the tiny bleeding portion she's taken back to her lab doesn't move.

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And empathy is the first thing to go when Science sets down to analyzing its data.
The empathy Science doesn't have and the empathy mentally healthy humans need are two separate entities. Science doesn't need good mental health; it is just an objective method of discovery.

What I meant was that the Scientists themselves jettison empathy the way zoologists jettison "anthropomorphism" before they even get started. I submit that taking emotion out of their reasoning damages their ability to reason. Repeat after me: HK is not SignyM, HK is not SignyM.

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I'd say low self-esteem is behind all the conclusions in your 10 studies.
If that is true, there appears to be a lot of subjects with low self esteem. :)

Well, yeah. Most? Nearly all? We teach our children to focus on punishment/reward, teach them to find validation only in sources external to themselves, in authority and obedience and then study our warped children to learn about human nature??? It's disgusting.

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In my view, these experiments are unwittingly designed to make the inevitable triumph of emotion over reason look as disturbing and dangerous as possible.
I think the experimenters were just surprised that cognition can be compartamentalized the way it is. I don't see a big to-do about emotion here.

Of course you don't! Neither did the researchers! Good god, what scientist is gonna go out of his way to examine the emotional implications of a study when he sets his parameters around cognition and manipulation and control and so forth? Scientists don't want to touch emotion unless it's with a ten foot pole, preferably with a low level electrical charge.

Another one of your studies richly contaminated with emotional interference: the social identity theory study where boys were given a pair of paintings, one by Klee and one by Kandinsky, and told to choose a favorite; and further told that their choice would determine how they would be divided into two groups. It would seem fundamental to the efficacy of the experiment that the choice between Klee or Kandinsky be arbitrary, irrational, in no way significantly meaningful.

No doubt the choice of two "abstractionists" seemed "safe" to the researchers.

But, where I come from, art expresses meanings, particularly emotional ones, and the choice of a favorite work is exceptionally meaningful. Right now, science can't tell the difference between a Klee and a Kandinsky, but that doesn't mean a 14 year old boy can't intuit one. What if we say Klee is strongly politically active, passionately anti-fascist and Kandinsky an apolitical hedonist? Is it not just possible that these different temperaments might come out in their paintings and so indicate some aspect of the temperament of the people who favor one over the other? Or lets just say the particular Klee work is a warm, happy piece evocative of small towns, sunrise, spring time and the Kandinsky a complex, ambiguous assemblage notably menaced by a large black circle ringed by fiery orange in the upper left hand corner--'cause, well, they are--would you be surprised that choosing one piece as your favorite might imply things about your emotional nature?

Even their titles, the straight forward "Red Balloon" vs. the purely academic "Composition 8" tells us how different these paintings are.

But no, the researchers are astonished to see that the two groups of boys see their identity and values expressed more in one than the other painting.

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All I see demonstrated in these experiments is that emotional well-being is simply a greater human necessity than achieving moment to moment logic in our thought process.
Interesting. For me, I see how powerless most people feel, which may have at its root an epidemic of low self-esteem, as you say.

Yes. Absolutely epidemic. Particularly in wartime. Chicken & egg musing: do wars cause low self-esteem to spread exponentially around the world, or does pandemic low self-esteem lead people to choose war as their best tool to solve whatever the problem is?

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when will science stop using anxious, dependent, habitually submissive children as the default test subjects in determining human nature???)
They are convenient for the psychology professors, and cheap. But yes, it is a biased sample of the human race.

To put it mildly.

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It is more of a soft probability, that people tend to behave thus. Very few people, after all, have really great mental health.

But it isn't used as a "soft probability" it is invoked as definition of human nature and the rationale you use to tell Niki that she can't possibly know what motivates other people to do what they do.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 4:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Such as stating that the oil industry would support the big "global warming hoax" in order to cash in on sequestration, ...

No, CTS, I'll not let that one go, now that you've reminded me about it. It was such a ridiculous claim that I still can't quite believe that it was meant seriously.

You don't have to let it go, Mal. But I am.

You kept insisting I believed and said things that I didn't believe and say. I tried various different ways to clarify what I really meant, but you didn't seem to understand me. I simply don't think I communicate in a way that makes sense to you. That happens sometimes. In these cases, I just usually give up rather than keep banging my head against the wall. Or the other party does, as Kiki just did.

I hope you do not take it as an insult. It is not meant to be. You have my warm regards.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Your lack of urgency, your resistance to interpreting the evidence as cause for alarm, leads folk to think you've made up your mind already.

What everyone else sees as a big rig about to crush me, I see as an indistinguishable dot in the far horizon. My lack of urgency comes from my attitude of, "I think it is premature to panic. Let's take a closer look at it before we jump to conclusions."

Quote:
If you were remotely interested in really considering the possibility of global warming, you wouldn't be so nonchalant about it all,

I am interested, or I wouldn't be looking hard at that dot in the horizon. I can't help it if all I see is a dot.

Quote:
but I see you address all advocates of GW theory with the same contempt you feel Signy has earned.

That is unfortunate and certainly not intended. I try very hard to be civil and uncontemptuous, to not deal out the kind of contempt I feel I receive. Then again, maybe you all have a different definition of contempt than I do. I dunno.

Quote:
How is it that you are so convinced that GW is untrue,

How is it that you are so convinced that I believe GW to be untrue? I am not saying there is no big rig. I am saying, I am not sure it is a big rig. For me, there is a difference.

Quote:
At what point do you feel it is important to stop endlessly debating the minutia and actually do something to stop a cataclysm from happening,

How do you know I am not already doing something? Have you read my thread, Pollution Solution? I have posted many times that I absolutely support doing something BEFORE being sure.

Quote:
HK is not SignyM.

LOL.

Quote:
But it isn't used as a "soft probability" it is invoked as definition of human nature and the rationale you use to tell Niki that she can't possibly know what motivates other people to do what they do.

What I actually said was this. Please note where I capitalized this time for emphasis:

Quote:
CTS: If you look at the body of research in social psychology, from Milgram's obedience experiment to Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment on down, you'll find a PATTERN. People, as a whole, OFTEN act in gullible, irrational, conformist, obedient, and submissive ways. This (pattern) doesn't apply to just one type of personality or one type of ideology. It applies to most normal, regular people. Regular people like you and me....(insert link)
It is easy to come up with a label for people we perceive as authoritarian or obedient. But MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, we ourselves have those traits too.

So first, I did NOT tell Niki that "she can't possibly know what motivates other people to do what they do." I said and implied no such thing, HK.

Second, everything I said, I said in the context of a soft probability. Note the words I capitalized for emphasis this time around: pattern, often, more likely than not.... I did not invoke any definition of human nature. Frankly, I don't know where you are getting it.

----
The use of strawman arguments, when you put words into my mouth that I never said and proceed to tell me why those imaginary words are all manner of horrible, is dishonest in civil discourse. I appreciate refrain from such tactics.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:46 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, to get back to topic ... I suppose it comes down to the question - can a complex mind encompass itself enough to know itself?

Logically, there is an argument to be made that the answer is no. So one might then conclude that people will never be able to know how they think, let alone how another person thinks. But that would be unwarranted to conclude. B/c it implies that since you can't know everything, you can't know anything. And that's simply not true.

To go back to the example of the truck coming at you - what is the nature of gravity? How do we know that the truck simply won't float off? Or that you won't? What is the nature of inertia? How is it that kinetic energy is 'stored' simply b/c one object is in relative motion to another? Maybe the truck will be able to stop. What is the nature of friction? Why wouldn't the bonds between molecules - whatever they are - simply instantaneously fix the truck in place?

I could go on, but my point is that what we might think of as a 'simple' situation is deeply unknowable to us in its complexity.

But while we don't know everything, it's not like we don't know anything. We do know some things, enough to act and get out of the way.

So, when it comes to trying to figure out how people work - it is possible to learn some things. As long as we keep in mind that they are rough approximations, that more information or better interpretation may come along, we will be OK discussing that which we have learned.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But oddly enough, you don't subject alternative claims to the same scrutiny. You don't demand PROOF that the volcano vents CO2, that the CO2 being vented creates the Keeling curve stretching over decades, or even that the measurements are contaminated at all with volcanic CO2.

It's the blatant asymmetry that gives you away.

This comment is not addressed to Kiki, but to Sig and whoever else. Kiki brought up a good point I felt I should address.

If someone challenged the idea that the volcano vented CO2 or that the CO2 data was contaminated with volcanic contributions that had to be corrected for, I would ABSOLUTELY give that challenge the same scrutiny. But as far as I know, all global warming proponents stipulate this as true, so I have nothing to scrutinize there.

(I never asserted that the Keeling curve was created by volcanic CO2, so that is a non-issue.)

If you all must know, on most issues I argue with you all on, I am just as unwelcome in the other camp. When I am there, I criticize their arguments just as harshly. Nobody likes me anywhere. Well, ok, maybe they like me a tad more than you guys do. But only a tad.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:58 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"I never asserted that the Keeling curve was created by volcanic CO2, so that is a non-issue."

"There are those who challenge the Keeling curve; they do know that Mauna Loa is an active volcano, and CO2 is a volcanic gas right? ;)

The point is, there IS a debate, based on how one measures and defines the "amount of carbon dioxide.""

See what I mean, Mal? This is the pattern of her 'debate': I never said that. I never used those words, exactly. You misunderstand me. I didn't mean it. I can never explain myself. I'm just a poor defenseless victim being picked on. " In these cases, I just usually give up rather than keep banging my head against the wall." And when proved wrong, she will simply go away, though completely convinced she's right of course.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 8:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
CTS: "I never asserted that the Keeling curve was created by volcanic CO2, so that is a non-issue."

CTS previously: "There are those who challenge the Keeling curve; they do know that Mauna Loa is an active volcano, and CO2 is a volcanic gas right? ;)

This one is truly my bad. I thought it was clear the second part was a joke. Note the ;) wink. I wanted to put it in parenthesis so it could appear more "jokey" but the parenthesis would interfere with the wink. Anyway, I apologize for this misunderstanding.

It's not that there isn't an issue with volcanic contributions (any time data has to be corrected, caution is introduced), but those corrections are not the main reason for the dispute with the Keeling Curve.

Here is what Tom Segalstad, a Norwegian geologist at the University of Oslo, says is his dispute:

Quote:
During the same period atmospheric CO2 measurements were started near the top of the strongly CO2-emitting (e.g., Ryan, 1995) Hawaiian Mauna Loa volcano. The reason for the choice of location was that it should be far away from CO2-emitting industrial areas. At the Mauna Loa Observatory the measurements were taken with a new infra-red (IR) absorbing instrumental method, never validated versus the accurate wet chemical techniques. Critique has also been directed to the analytical methodology and sampling error problems (Jaworowski et al., 1992 a; and Segalstad, 1996, for further references), and the fact that the results of the measurements were "edited" (Bacastow et al., 1985); large portions of raw data were rejected, leaving just a small fraction of the raw data subjected to averaging techniques (Pales & Keeling, 1965).

http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.htm

Another challenge to the Keeling curve has a mixture of the other debates re CO2 (mentioned right before this quotation): the Ernst Beck data, dispute over the ice core proxies, etc. They put the Keeling curve in a different context, where it doesn't look like a smooth dramatic rise.

BUT, more importantly than a badly worded and misplaced joke, is the fact that I mentioned the challenge to the Keeling curve as an example that the debate exists regarding CO2 levels. Please note that OTHERS are doing the challenging, not me. Here is another case of confusing me with the people I cite as examples of dissenters.

Even with the joke misunderstanding, *I* never asserted that the Keeling curve was created by volcanic CO2. So again, it is a non-issue.

Quote:
CTS: The point is, there IS a debate, based on how one measures and defines the "amount of carbon dioxide.""

Yes. I stand by that.

----
"The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know."
-- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 8:42 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

THERE IS NO DEBATE - NONE AT ALL.

The IR technique is a completely validated and accepted method. While SOME may have had questions about it compared to wet-chemical techniques in 1958, it is now the preferred method of measuring CO2. The technique is fully validated and accepted, which means that the "issue" of IR measurement is one that's been dead and buried for four decades. As that argument should have been. But which you posted. Despite your claims of diligent impartiality, which WOULD have uncovered that simple fact if you had bothered to question the source. Instead you accepted a ridiculous claim at face value without any shred of your self-proclaimed skepticism and impartiality, simply b/c you agreed with it.

As for the claimed 'sampling errors', that is the beauty of reproducing the data with many measurements made in many places around the globe with many different techniques by many different people. No? I've pointed this out already, as has SignyM, but you, apparently blew right by it. Again, if you truly were impartial, you would have uncovered that simple fact. But you aren't, and you didn't.

I really don't want to repeat myself yet again on what should be a simple point. This trend is well validated. Global CO2 has gone up. Get over it.

And just to point out, I did a pretty good job predicting what you would do - 'I didn't mean it.' And the 'I'm just this well intentioned misunderstood victim who would never stoop to such a thing, and everyone is just SO mean to me' act.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 8:45 PM

Hi HK,

I wanted to address the psych study comments separately from the GW arguments.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
What I meant was that the Scientists themselves jettison empathy the way zoologists jettison "anthropomorphism" before they even get started. I submit that taking emotion out of their reasoning damages their ability to reason.

Ahhh, I see. Very interesting. You may well be right on this count.

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Scientists don't want to touch emotion unless it's with a ten foot pole, preferably with a low level electrical charge.

Well, some do, but usually not in the domain of social psychologists.

Quote:

But, where I come from, art expresses meanings, particularly emotional ones, and the choice of a favorite work is exceptionally meaningful. ...--would you be surprised that choosing one piece as your favorite might imply things about your emotional nature?

This is an excellent point. Certainly, this is a huge confounder in the experiment.

Now I see your point. The hidden emotional content is a big confounder in all the experiments. It puts them all in a different context. Yeah, I see.

Thanks for clarifying. Good points.

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Friday, November 12, 2010 8:08 AM

FREMDFIRMA

CTS, I will refer you to near the end of THIS thread, where I was essentially sayin much the same, only (no offense, HKC, you're usually far more coherent than I!) in a fashion that might be a little more accessible to us non highbrow kinda folk.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=46114

Quote:
The whole of it is actually better summed up by it's extremism - cause I kinda reject "Lucifer Effect" of the type suggested by the Stanford Prison, Milgram and other related experiments, as well as propaganda like Lord of the Flies due to both essential sample corruption, and that they seem to be "cooked" in a fashion to support a premise that is at best flawed, if not unsustainable.

You can't take a sample from a society in which folks have their humanity crushed out of them from the very cradle, pull it from one of the most authoritarian institutions on the planet (public/college "education") and then suggest that humans are naturally inhumane and authoritarian - because your "study" has been inadvertently pre-loaded to produce that exact result whether you meant it or not.

That is why the MK-Ultra and other experiments failed, cause via mass-media, propaganda (like Hearst, father of yellow journalism) and other social interventions, often times downright physical ones, like seizing children from "undesirable" subcultures (native americans, mormons) and "re-educating" them - we'd ALREADY *been* involved in pyschological manipulation and programming/conditioning on a grand scale, and the damn fools running things didn't seem to realize they were running their experiments in an ant farm which was itself a larger experiment by people who'd been doing it ever since Plato suggested it.

Lest one forget, I am a Rosseau-Kropotkinist, a belief I did not come by arbitrarily, but by seeking the CAUSES of behavior, rather than their outcomes, and the singlemost disastrous concept we have is that "People are naturally evil, and must be controlled for thier own good!" - a concept for the most part offered to us with one hand BY people offering a leash in the other, for their own reasons...

So you can't take a group of people CONDITIONED for twenty some (or even ten, as in Lord of the Flies ) years to a certain behavior, and then try to make the case that it's inborn, that's bloody ridiculous - and many recent studies by researchers overseas have shown it, by pointing out that unconditioned children for the most part do not display those behaviors.

If I wanted to spike the hell out of Milgram, I'd simply select the sample from entirely FreeSchool/HomeSchool children, and lay good odds you'd not find one in ten who would follow through.

Genetics might load the gun, but it's environment which pulls the trigger - and sure, while there's some exceptions to that, misfire an whatnot, this is the bulk of humanity, they're trained to a behavior that is unnatural, unhuman even cause for a fact were we really inherently like this - how the hell did we ever build civilization in the first place ?

Cause if you buy into all that rot, you wind up with a chicken-and-egg problem - namely, how did we build civilization to civilize us, if we need to be forcibly civilized to get anything done ?
(And I use the term civilized in a very tongue in cheek sense here!)

Which is, of course, always and ever my stance on that particular topic.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, November 12, 2010 9:10 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
If I wanted to spike the hell out of Milgram, I'd simply select the sample from entirely FreeSchool/HomeSchool children, and lay good odds you'd not find one in ten who would follow through.

Sure! Milgram would have no problem with that. In fact, he repeated the experiment under various settings, with different populations, and in different countries.

I don't think either he nor I ever argued that the experimental findings were a result of genetics. Or that ALL people will behave this way.

Something like this, it is simply an observation that regular people, raised in the regularly awful ways you and HK describe, tend to behave in certain patterns. A soft probability that if you picked an "average" person off the street, there is some likelihood that he might behave in this pattern.

There is no discussion about what causes it. Psychology is far from the ability to determine causation. And always, the regular disclaimers about generalizability apply.

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Friday, November 12, 2010 9:59 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Wow. Great debate, what joy. I'm not educated enough on the concepts you guys got into, so I won't express an opinion.

The only one I will address is

Quote:
Skepticism is all well and good provided (1) it sprays out equitably in all directions and (2) it yields to the preponderance of evidence. Beyond that it just becomes partisan opposition.

I think the fact that at least one person besides me got the impression you dismiss or don't accept climate change shows that at least in expressing your point of view, you indicate a disbelief in climate change. You say you haven't made up your mind and aren't dismissing it, but your arguments do tend to "debunk" the idea. So it makes me wonder what facts exactly it would take for you to believe in the theory...and to wonder if you, and those who feel like you (not to even mention those absolutely convinced it DOESN'T exist) would be skeptical no matter what, OR would retain their skepticism to the point of no return?

Isn't there a point, when things affect us seriously, that one needs to make a determination of what is true and what is not true, in order to act for one's self-preservation? Back to the truck, tho' you're right in that it's not a good analogy, but I'll use it to make this point. If it's bearing down on you, how long do you take to determine if the threat is real and you need to move? In that case the threat is direct and our brains make the determination faster than we "think" about it, but things such as climate change happen slowly, take the effort of many to change, and we can't know the complete outcome.

So if one stays skeptical of everything, doesn't one chance staying skeptical so long as to make any action too late?

I would also like to know how you have weighed what facts have been presented both pro and con climate change, and why you have rejected one and not the other (if true) and what it would take for you to definitively come down on one side or another.

Snark on a totaly different subject; maybe our discussions/debates need to be more complex and intellectual to avoid the snarks of the uglies...I notice they're missing from this one for quite some time now. Maybe it's too much to read or too complex for them? Dunno, just found it amusing that there are no nasty one-liners in the most recent back-and-forth in this thread.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, November 12, 2010 12:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I think the fact that at least one person besides me got the impression you dismiss or don't accept climate change shows that at least in expressing your point of view, you indicate a disbelief in climate change.

If GW were a religion, I consider myself an agnostic, not an atheist.

Quote:
So it makes me wonder what facts exactly it would take for you to believe in the theory...and to wonder if you, and those who feel like you (not to even mention those absolutely convinced it DOESN'T exist) would be skeptical no matter what, OR would retain their skepticism to the point of no return?

THT just asked something like this recently. So I started a new thread to discuss it. I can't speak for other skeptics, but I know what would convince me.

The Great Global Warming Debate
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=46205

Quote:
If it's bearing down on you, how long do you take to determine if the threat is real and you need to move?

I have no problems with taking voluntary precautionary actions just in case there really is a truck bearing down on me. I just don't like it when people want to FORCE everyone to move or when people want to say, "It's scientifically proven, so that gives me the right to force you to move." So in a nutshell, jump out of the way if you want to, but don't call it science and don't force it on others.

Quote:
I would also like to know how you have weighed what facts have been presented both pro and con climate change, and why you have rejected one and not the other (if true) and what it would take for you to definitively come down on one side or another.

Very good question. I'd like to answer it on the other thread, if you don't mind posting it there again. And thank you for your kind civility. I know it is silly, but civility in RWED is sometimes so rare that I'm tickled pink every time I see it.

Quote:
Dunno, just found it amusing that there are no nasty one-liners in the most recent back-and-forth in this thread.

Oh, the snarks were there. They were just more sophisticated, coming from better educated folk. I'm not innocent either, though I do try to be.

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Friday, November 12, 2010 12:46 PM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I have nothing against snarks, it's pure, intentional ugliness I abhor. I always TRY to be civil; with some it's harder than with others, and with some things people SAY it's harder.

I read the other thread (as much as I could understand on it), but it's too complex for me. I thought there might be a simpler way for one to determine pro or con. I have a question to ask, so I'll do it there.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, November 12, 2010 3:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Such as stating that the oil industry would support the big "global warming hoax" in order to cash in on sequestration, ...

No, CTS, I'll not let that one go, now that you've reminded me about it. It was such a ridiculous claim that I still can't quite believe that it was meant seriously.

You don't have to let it go, Mal. But I am.

I laugh in your general direction CTS! You said, not just a few days ago:

"Then I just remembered you were the one who kept on misconstruing everything I said, with a certain measure of hostility no less, back when we were talking about Ruddiman's book.

Right. History of communication impasse. Cease communication.

Have a nice day."

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=46080#813755

You let it go my ASS. You ONLY DAYS AGO refused to get into a discussion with me over a completely non-related topic because of your poor wittle hurt feelings over the Ruddiman thread. You really don't get how blatantly you prove yourself wrong, huh?

CTS said: "I tried various different ways to clarify what I really meant, but you didn't seem to understand me. I simply don't think I communicate in a way that makes sense to you."

OK - so rather than whinging about your hurt feelings, actually get into that whole making sense thing. Give me hard numbers as to how the petroleum industry would make more money out of carbon sequestration than it would out of denying climate change. Tell me about all those non-existent temperature readings that show no climate change, and use real scientific language to explain away the many that do. (And referring to some random web page does NOT suffice.)

I've posted some poorly taken pictures, and on that other thread I put in a whoooooole bunch of data plots that you never addressed because of those hurt feelings of yours. So how about getting over it and talking science? Put on that unbiased scientist hat girl! Wear it proudly! Show us that you can handle the heat!

Let me guess: you can't, can you? You'll continue to vilify me, and bemoan the "communication failure", because you have no other recourse. You have no actual facts to back up your "beliefs."

That's because you have beliefs, while the rest of us have scientific theories.

Kiki said: "See what I mean, Mal? This is the pattern of her 'debate': I never said that."

Yes. I've been there. CTS is incredibly dishonest intellectually, but as you've said, the one she's trying so hard to fool is herself. She does a good job with that.

And so I consider threads like this more an investigation of the mind that can fool itself then a discussion of science or economics. Which is quite interesting in its own way.

A really telling thing: CTS continues to compare climate change (though you'll note she still cannot say "climate change", no matter how often it is explained to her, but must continue to call it "GW") to a religion. She has no capacity to separate a belief system from an observation-backed scientific theory.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Friday, November 12, 2010 4:44 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I have never been entirely comfortable with assigning labels to people.

It's human nature to do so. I do so without thinking about it. Classifying things for easy identification, and assigning behavioral response routines to them, is essential to survival. Survivalists do this. Garden Snake and Coral Snake and Cobra and Anaconda all need to be classified differently and assigned response routines for optimal survivability. That's just a simple, gross example.

Unfortunately, our society is a higher-function construct than mere 'survival' and so we at times have to fight our instincts.

This is the most important thing to understand: It doesn't even matter if your classification system is *usually* right.

In a society, once you assign a classification to someone and name them, you have armed yourself with a host of oppressive tools. You can chain them with your expectations and preconceived notions, unwilling to accept that they may have behavior outside the limits you've assigned to them. You can frame them for others and infect other people with your classification system. Finally, you can use the classification as a stick and beat them. It's a simple IF/THEN thing. IF they are Bad/Dangerous/Misguided/Unteachable THEN we must respond THIS WAY.

It's essentially a version of pre-crime. If we know you are X type of person then we can just ignore/oppose you right off the bat and not deal with you as a unique individual.

So what if your classification and behavior system is right 99/100 times? I doubt anyone here would be happy with a 99% effective death penalty, one that only executed innocent people 1% of the time. Many of the same people anxious to slap labels on folks would oppose the death penalty on principle for many reasons, not the least of which is: You can't be completely sure.

If you operate on labels and pre-programmed expectations, you will not only place limits on others, but also upon yourself. You will not experience reality, but rather a pre-programmed perception of reality that you have chosen, your personal ideal 'survival filters.' Worse, you may obliterate the only tools available to make bridges between your Self and the Other.

The harder question is how to separate survival classifications from social classifications. I have no idea. I'm as biased as anyone, fully loaded with offensive programming and selective lenses.

--Anthony

Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 8:35 AM

HKCAVALIER

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Your lack of urgency, your resistance to interpreting the evidence as cause for alarm, leads folk to think you've made up your mind already.
What everyone else sees as a big rig about to crush me, I see as an indistinguishable dot in the far horizon. My lack of urgency comes from my attitude of, "I think it is premature to panic. Let's take a closer look at it before we jump to conclusions."

I'm sorry CT,

I think you're misunderstanding why I posted this stuff. Not your fault, I wasn't entirely clear. I was hoping that my questions might lead you to consider the issue in another light. But I fear you've just added me to your list of "them" and lost anything fresh that I might have brought to the conversation.

As I said, I don't have a lot invested in the GW debate at all. Psych and human nature? Dear god, yes (and thanks, btw, for the kind words about my analysis of the infamous psych experiments

)! But GW is not my issue. I just thought I noticed a disconnect here: Signy and others passionately invested in this debate and you acting like they were idiots. Calling your fellow scientists idiots is not the fast track to making friends.

"But I didn't call them idiots!" you cry.

I'm sorry, but when you say that what they see as a mac truck speeding to run them down is really nothing but an "indistinguishable dot in the far horizon," you're calling them idiots.

It seemed to me a fair amount of the harshness in this thread might be attributable to your disregard for their very real fears. I thought if you saw the issue in something closer to their emotional context, communication might become easier for everyone.

You weren't just disagreeing with their science, you were lampooning their fears, lampooning the debate per se, and it seemed unkind. If people you care about are terrified of something you don't perceive as a threat, do you automatically ridicule them? Can you blame them if they get angry?

Quote:
Quote:
If you were remotely interested in really considering the possibility of global warming, you wouldn't be so nonchalant about it all,
I am interested, or I wouldn't be looking hard at that dot in the horizon. I can't help it if all I see is a dot.

No, you can't help it, but you certainly could show a teensy bit of compassion for the folk who see an imminent threat, even when you don't--especially, when you don't. When you disregard their feelings on the matter, you might as well say, "Oh no, I agree with you, I just think you're an idiot!" See what I'm saying?

Quote:
Quote:
but I see you address all advocates of GW theory with the same contempt you feel Signy has earned.
That is unfortunate and certainly not intended. I try very hard to be civil and uncontemptuous, to not deal out the kind of contempt I feel I receive. Then again, maybe you all have a different definition of contempt than I do. I dunno.

Uh-oh. What's this "you all" now? Remember: HK is not Signy (hereafter to be referred to as the HINS axium). Seriously, don't play that game. We both know what contempt is. When you ask a question which you know is absurd and to which you already know the answer--a question along the lines of "...is it like pouring a cup of boiling water into the ocean?"--you've crossed the line, don't you think?

You've been called out on this attitude before and you keep saying that is not your intent, and yet you don't change your behavior. It's a little bit like if a person says, "Hey, you're standing on my foot!" and you reply, "Oh, I assure you, that was not my intention!" but you don't remove your foot!

Quote:
If you look at the body of research in social psychology, from Milgram's obedience experiment to Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment on down, you'll find a PATTERN. People, as a whole, OFTEN act in gullible, irrational, conformist, obedient, and submissive ways. This (pattern) doesn't apply to just one type of personality or one type of ideology. It applies to most normal, regular people. Regular people like you and me....(insert link)
It is easy to come up with a label for people we perceive as authoritarian or obedient. But MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, we ourselves have those traits too.

This is trickier. I can see how you, looking at your remarks in an emotional vacuum, read your qualifying statements as "soft probability." I recognize that your intentions are genuine and not unfriendly.

But I gotta say that within the context of your quite unintended but kinda flagrant disregard for the concerns of the folk who disagree with you, your qualifying remarks here start to look like the way one might talk to a particularly slow student. The gist of your quote in that context is: "If you look at the psychological evidence, you don't have a leg to stand on, do you? Because you lack anything remotely resembling objectivity."

You want to speak plainly, but communication is not unilateral; it is collaborative, dependant on a meeting of minds. We all need to try our best to at least see the context in which our words are received, if not share that context for the sake of the discussion. Your intended meaning is only part of the story, and if you ignore, as I think you continue to do here, the inflammatory emotional context of the discussion, claiming to be "plain" and "objective," pushing all the emotional responsibility onto others, you're just gonna keep alienating people.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 8:43 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

My goodness, this is still going on? Not a problem, just got a giggle out of where it's gone.

Anthony, I'm sorry, I just can't stop: Sooo kewl to see you again!! And your rational, relatively unjudgmental remarks. You make my day.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:38 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I find there are two ways not to be an authoritarian, no matter which end of the political spectrum you're from.

One way is to be objective, or at least try to be.

We all have an analog "model" of the world in our heads: what observations are important and which can be ignored, how they interact with each other and us, how they interact within a larger context. Some people's models are relatively limited and not well thought out. Emotions are evoked in some contexts but not others (For example, Finn would say "Human life is sacred" in the context of abortion but dismiss civilian deaths as "Collateral damage" in the context of war.) etc. That is the nature of human thinking: it IS contextual, and often driven by our lizard-brain, which remembers, correlates and acts without our conscious knowledge.

To be objective, one must take one's biases into account and eliminate them as much as possible, and bang one's assumptions, hypotheses and predictions against the real world. IF you can explain more of the data than anyone else and you can make accurate and timely predictions about the future, then you prolly have a better grasp of underlying reality than those who do none of the above. So for example, the fact that I accurately predicted the previous economic meltdown and am predicting another one should give more weight to anyone who trying to objectively think about the world. But BEING OBJECTIVE IS DIFFICULT.

The other way is HKs. And that is not to deny emotion and bias, but to use it to understand the world even better.

Quite frankly, I have no idea how HK does what he does. It's all very mystical to me, but the depth of insight that HK brings to the board astounds me, especially since I can't even begin to fathom how it happened. I SUSPECT THAT EMOTIONAL WISDOM IS EVEN HARDER THAN BEING OBJECTIVE.

Both paths are difficult, but that is presumably what makes us independent. Authoritarians are those who rely on other to tell them how the world is, and then seek to impose that viewpoint on others. Independent thought is the antidote IMHO.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 10:06 AM

I see what you're getting at now, HK.

First, thank you for taking the time to share your concern and observations re my communication (ahem) problems.

Quote:
I just thought I noticed a disconnect here: Signy and others passionately invested in this debate and you acting like they were idiots.

Goddamn it. I hate you. No, you're right. I do think they are idiots. I tell myself I am being civil to them. I try not to call them idiots the way they call me an idiot. But apparently, my underlying emotions show through. And I hate you for seeing through that and calling me on it. I guess I was kidding myself that if I didn't call them "fucking illiterate retards," it was enough. (It's good you called me on that. Painful, but good. Goddamn you all the same though. I bet your psychotherapy patients hate you too, but keep coming back.)

Quote:
Calling your fellow scientists idiots is not the fast track to making friends.

That's just it, HK. I don't see them as fellow scientists. Obviously, they don't see me as one.

Quote:

It seemed to me a fair amount of the harshness in this thread might be attributable to your disregard for their very real fears.

Yeah, I get it now. I think the harshness is attributable to my being an arrogant ass. No wonder no one likes me.

Quote:
I thought if you saw the issue in something closer to their emotional context, communication might become easier for everyone.

Yes, indeed. Thank you. But only if I stop being an arrogant ass.

Quote:
it seemed unkind. If people you care about are terrified of something you don't perceive as a threat, do you automatically ridicule them? Can you blame them if they get angry?

No. Though, if I may offer one word in my own defense, their overt hostility towards me by calling me cowardly, dishonest, uneducated, blind, idiotic, etc is ALSO unkind. It makes me not care about them so much. Not an excuse for my lack of compassion, but just sayin'.

Quote:
We both know what contempt is. When you ask a question which you know is absurd and to which you already know the answer--a question along the lines of "...is it like pouring a cup of boiling water into the ocean?"--you've crossed the line, don't you think?

Actually, that was more patronizing than contemptuous. That is how I teach my 10 year old about what significance means. But yeah, I get it. Patronizing, contemptuous, cut it out.

Quote:
You've been called out on this attitude before and you keep saying that is not your intent, and yet you don't change your behavior.

Well, no. I've been called names before, like "You arrogant ass." My response is, "I don't mean to be an arrogant ass, I'm sorry." But I don't change it because I just think they're namecalling, and I'm not REALLY an arrogant ass.

You're the first person who has taken the time to explain WHY I'm an arrogant ass, in a nice and non-name-calling way so that I can think about it seriously. It's different.

Quote:
The gist of your quote in that context is: "If you look at the psychological evidence, you don't have a leg to stand on, do you? Because you lack anything remotely resembling objectivity."

I have to disagree with you here. I can sort of see how you read it that way. But while I may have implied that her assertions are not objective and criticized them, I was not attacking Niki personally at all. I do not have any ill feelings the way I do for.. ahem.. some other folks here.

I gotta run, but thanks, HK.

Edited to add: I had to run before completing this. I don't know if my attempt at buddy humor went awry or not. If it did, I don't hate you or curse you. I appreciate the insight. Many times, I have wanted to leave RWED, and I have. I keep coming back because of moments like this. Thank you.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 11:03 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
You've been called out on this attitude before and you keep saying that is not your intent, and yet you don't change your behavior. It's a little bit like if a person says, "Hey, you're standing on my foot!" and you reply, "Oh, I assure you, that was not my intention!" but you don't remove your foot!

This, along with DT's remarks about being called an arrogant ass, is communication style. It gets to me, too, I admit it, and I react rather than being objective. But I've been called a lot of names, here and elsewhere, for my "style", and it's not meant to be condescending or like I know it all (except when it is sarcastic or deliberately condescending

). It's how I write. From y time here, I would say it's the same sort of thing for DT, and the internet complicates things by omitting tone of voice, facial expression, etc. I have difficulty with his style from time to time, but I empathize.

Quote:
communication is not unilateral; it is collaborative, dependant on a meeting of minds. We all need to try our best to at least see the context in which our words are received, if not share that context for the sake of the discussion. Your intended meaning is only part of the story, and if you ignore, as I think you continue to do here, the inflammatory emotional context of the discussion, claiming to be "plain" and "objective," pushing all the emotional responsibility onto others, you're just gonna keep alienating people.

Excellent point.

I'm glad you wrote what you did, Cav. I didn't even REALIZE how or why what DTw rote was frustrating me, but you nailed it. The sense of dismissiveness seemed to obviate any effort to get across that for me, it's a very real danger, along with pollution, etc., and one I take seriously. Thank you, you helped me understand my own reactions.

While there are some, I think I would change it to "calling SCIENTISTS" idiots, not just fellow scientists. One can rationally disagree with scientists, and some of them are overbearing louts for sure, to dismiss them isn't logical, to me; to refute their theories or methods or something is valid, but to just call them idiots is wrong. Becoming a scientist pretty much precludes being an "idiot" as the term is understood, doesn't it?

It also pretty much negates ANY scientific theories put forth on the subject, which makes communication and especiallyd ebate on the issue impossible.

I would also again reiterate my comment that everything AFs, etc., display are things we all have and all display; where the correlation disappears is that these are people I view as having an extreme version of these aspects, extreme to the point where communication becomes impossible. I'm not talking about the traits themselves, just the extreme version of them.

And, as an aside, when it comes to the terms RWA and AF, I never thought you were attacking me personally, I'm just frustrated that you dismiss these concepts out of hand and rely on your opinion that they are biased, ergo totally invalid. And you didn't "imply" that my assertions were not objective, when it came to RWA, you said it straight out, in pretty derrogatory terms...not just about my assertions, but to the point of dismissing Altemeyer completely in a distinctly negative way. You may not agree with him--obviously you don't--but that doesn't automatically mean his theories are bullshit; it's your opinion, that's all.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 12:20 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, I have to say that I KNOW I come across as being arrogant, dismissive, condescending, patronizing etc. And I do it on purpose. I do.

Because if I bring something real to the table, only to get jerked around time and time again, I get kind of annoyed, and after a while I don't even bother to try to communicate. It's not very productive, I know. If I can't communicate nicely, I should just stop.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 12:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Because if I bring something real to the table, only to get jerked around time and time again,...

My 1-2-3 is real. I brought that to the table and feel jerked around because I get told everything that is wrong with ME, but still no one would take the request seriously and just give me a damn mean and SD. Or take it seriously and say, no, the SD doesn't exist, so you'll never be convinced until it does--which is absolutely true.

I already know the SD doesn't exist. That is why I can put out the challenge so confidently. And I understand why it doesn't exist. The reasons why it doesn't exist is precisely the why climate science will always be, for me, a "soft" science, a science of probabilities rather than certainties. If it ever did exist, as it does in other sciences, then I would be convinced, just as I said.

I was hoping one of you would just come out already and say the SD doesn't exist. Then I'll say the SD is the climate equivalent of WMDs in Iraq, and we can move on. We would finally get to the bottom of it, which is what I have said before: Climate science is a young science with a lot of inherent limitations that will NOT allow its conclusions to be certain for a long, long time. You'll disagree and we'll never talk climate again.

But then, all I get is, "You've seen it already." Which I know is completely untrue, because even if I have Alzheimer's, I cannot have seen something that doesn't exist.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 12:50 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

YOUR 1-2-3 is bogus. You say you will only accept evidence that meets your (very narrow) criteria. Like I said in the Global Warming thread, if that is how you approach evidence, then you are not a scientist in any sense of the word. Evidence comes by many different pathways. The world is like the elephant and the blind men, and deciding ahead of time that you will only accept some observations and not others is a sure path to folly.

The only way to get to the truth is to stay open. A scientist's job is to figure out what the evidence is telling her, not to put preconditions on what she will or will not accept.

However, let me assure you that the data you are seeking exists. Scientists have been taking temperature measurements and carbon dioxide measurements around the globe for decades. That data was accessed and processed for the UN report, and in fact the average global temperatures have been reported yearly for at least a decade now. You would have to assume there is some grand conspiracy at work... that unless you can see the raw data FOR YOURSELF.... all of the scientists involved in the effort are just making shit up.

Here's one site

www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/

There are a lot more.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 12:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
And, as an aside, when it comes to the terms RWA and AF, I never thought you were attacking me personally, I'm just frustrated that you dismiss these concepts out of hand and rely on your opinion that they are biased, ergo totally invalid. And you didn't "imply" that my assertions were not objective, when it came to RWA, you said it straight out, in pretty derrogatory terms...not just about my assertions, but to the point of dismissing Altemeyer completely in a distinctly negative way. You may not agree with him--obviously you don't--but that doesn't automatically mean his theories are bullshit; it's your opinion, that's all.

I assume you are talking to me, and not HK anymore?

First, let me just say, everything I say IS my opinion. If I say, there are no WMD's in Iraq, that's my opinion, even if I say it like it's a fact. It is just hard to preface everything I say with, "IMHO." So I just assume everyone knows everything that comes out of my keyboard is my opinion.

If I think that some notion is invalid, in my opinion obviously, I would just say so. I think I should be allowed to say so, and you are allowed to disagree, right? I did think you were biased in seeing the pattern in Rap and Wulf but not in others, which is also my opinion. Whether I shouted this opinion or implied it as I imagined--well that doesn't matter--that's what I think. I am not sure what the problem is here, that you are frustrated with my opinion. You disagree. We're not going to agree on everything. I'm sure there are plenty of things I say that you think is invalid and biased. Eh, that's where debates come from.

The part that bothers me is that I used "derogatory terms" to say you were biased. I don't really see where the derogatory terms are and definitely did not mean to do that. Like I said, I like you and have no ill feelings towards you like other RWEDs who attack me every chance they get. You're cool. I thought I was just offering an alternative viewpoint. Sigh.

Just as an afterthought, it is weird to me that I get all this grief for being an arrogant ass and using derogatory terms I didn't know I used--when people are calling me dishonest and fraudulent and stupid outright--and I don't see anyone giving THEM any commentary about using "derogatory terms."

------
I'll work on not being an arrogant ass. But don't expect miracles overnight.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 1:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
While there are some, I think I would change it to "calling SCIENTISTS" idiots, not just fellow scientists. One can rationally disagree with scientists, and some of them are overbearing louts for sure, to dismiss them isn't logical, to me; to refute their theories or methods or something is valid, but to just call them idiots is wrong. Becoming a scientist pretty much precludes being an "idiot" as the term is understood, doesn't it?

What gets me is how some people spend an hour here, an hour there looking at some scientific theory, and then they claim they see huge gaping holes in the research that scientists who spent a lifetime working on this stuff somehow missed. It's such conceit! Like antimason and his anti-evolution. Like CTS and her anti-climate change "but there are NO temperature measurements!"

And then, to make it worse, when I put time and effort into presenting the facts to them, they brush it off and refuse to address the holes in their own reasoning. So - they put themselves up on a pedestal of judgment, but refuse to be judged themselves. On top of conceit, I add hypocrisy. It's easy to poke holes in what other people do (especially when you don't understand it) Less easy to answer to people questioning YOU.

Yeah, I get frustrated with this, and I lose all respect and empathy with people who put so much effort into preserving their ignorance and their biases. And while I wish I had the saintliness to forever talk all nice to them, I don't. I get snarky and condescending, which doesn't help, but hey - lost cause.

Which relates back to the AFAF thing. Even I did try as hard as possible to be cordial forever, it wouldn't matter. I am challenging their ingrained beliefs, so they will see me as an attacker. They will MAKE me into an attacker if they have to.

I'll note that those who've built an obvious resentment towards me, those who think I'm the Big Bad, won't find anyplace I called them names. They have to twist my posts to find the attack in there. Because I never attacked them personally, I only questioned their arguments and tried to make them think.

Some people really really hate to think. Well, they hate to think new thoughts anyway.

Quote:
And, as an aside, when it comes to the terms RWA and AF, I never thought you were attacking me personally, I'm just frustrated that you dismiss these concepts out of hand and rely on your opinion that they are biased, ergo totally invalid.

Niki - are you talking to DT? I've been astounded at how you've made such a deliberate effort to explain that this is not an anti-conservative thing, yet he absolutely insists on seeing it that way. Again there's that underlying conceit: he knows what you're thinking and saying better than you do. He can't respect you enough to hear and believe what you've told him several times.

I hadn't thought this AFAF mentality applied to him until I saw how these recent threads went. I wouldn't call him Authoritarian exactly, but I do think he's got some particular reality processing handicaps.

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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 1:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
A scientist's job is to figure out what the evidence is telling her,

The existing evidence I've seen tells me that the earth MIGHT be warming, and CO2 levels MIGHT be rising.

Quote:
not to put preconditions on what she will or will not accept

The preconditions are for what will convince me that the earth IS warming, and CO2 levels ARE rising. See the difference? Those are my standards for a higher level of certainty.

Quote:
However, let me assure you that the data you are seeking exists.

Then show it to me.

I'm betting the little dignity I have in RWED that the evidence doesn't exist. So prove me wrong and rub my face in it. Go ahead. You know you want to.

Quote:
that unless you can see the raw data FOR YOURSELF....

Nope. I've told you 2x now, I have never asked to see raw data. I want to see THE MEAN that is calculated from raw data. The mean only, not the raw data. If I ask for a lasagna made out of 5 cheeses, I don't want to be taken to a cheese cave. I want the lasagna, the end product.

Go to the other thread. I even wrote out a fictitious answer in the format I would accept, as an example. No raw data in it.

Quote:

www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/

Yeah, my 1-2-3's not there, Siggy. It's temperature data to be sure, but there is no absolute GAST (global average surface temperature) that I can find. And there certainly are no SD's of the absolute GAST.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 1:20 PM

And speaking of reality processing...

I have a relatively easy time seeing the blindnesses that people bring to scientific theories. I just ask questions, and if I get defensiveness and hostility rather than rational discussion, that's a pretty telling sign.

But as much as I get frustrated with these people, I know I'm not immune to the same thing. I have my own blindspots; I have in the past, and I'm sure I've got some going now. Not toward science so much, because I know how to be skeptical and open to contrary evidence there. (Not to say I don't take sides, but I'm pretty damned sure I'll put full consideration into challenges, and can be swayed by scientific evidence.)

But how do I test my biases outside science, the things that aren't so measurable? That are in fact invisible to me? We all have blindspots, ideas that we unwittingly hold to, even if they make no logical sense. But if we're blind to them by definition, how do we make ourselves see them?

So I'm curious - how do you folks out there uncover your own biases? Do you even try?

We're all susceptible to being AFA, right. So how do we minimize it?

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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 1:37 PM