Gorebal Warming

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Mar 15 2007, 03:44 PM) [snapback]406273[/snapback]</div>

Agreed, however it is made out to be a belief system and one nearing religious dimensions, hence our uncompromising stance on giving the other sides belief a chance.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Lywyllyn @ Mar 15 2007, 01:46 PM) [snapback]406319[/snapback]</div>

Science is often used by media as a "belief" system. Science is never dogmatic ("you must believe this to have grace"), follows the scientific method (title, problem, literature review, hypothesis, methods, materials, data, results, summary and analysis), not anecdotal "shooting from the hip." When scientific findings are portrayed as "belief" they must be considered false, noncredible, unreliable, not reproducible and suspect.

Science can accept what cannot be shown to be false (vs. deciding on an end point at the beginning) and keeps testing. Science is a process, not an end point.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Mar 15 2007, 04:55 PM) [snapback]406322[/snapback]</div>

Hear hear!

So it is about faith after all. A believe that a finding at the end of the road will lead you to new insights and perhaps elevate you to a new understanding about the world you live in.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Lywyllyn @ Mar 15 2007, 06:02 PM) [snapback]406328[/snapback]</div>

No ... I think you misunderstood the prior post. If anything science is about a lack of faith, because whenever anything is asserted, scientists rush to disprove it, to question it, to find the flaws in the assertion.

Faith asserts belief in something absolute that cannot be tested (hence the word, "Faith").

Science may start off with a theory -- which you may mistake for faith, but really, it is doubt in such theories that drives a good deal of experimentation, as many scientists will try to punch holes in it. Only after a theory has survived rigorous assault (i.e., evolution) will it become accepted as fact.

If anything, science is a doubt-based system, a disbelief system.

 

But how do you proof faith to be false? You have to have faith in your process, else why try to prove or disprove something. Most science is output driven is it not? You set out to prove or disprove something, you don't just trundle about on a scientific path and discover something by accident. However discoveries are made on the path of some other theory, that may or man not be related.

Maybe I am mixing up trust and faith, however the way science is used these days, it is a religion to some, is it not?

 

Ten to twenty years ago scientists were telling us that the oceans will rise 2 inches due to global warming. 2 inches isn't likely to raise much alarm and didn't at the time.

Al Gore says the water level of the ocean will rise 20 feet due to global warming. This information is being fed to our children during current events discussions in school and on television. Twenty feet is an astounding number compared to the 2 inch number originally used 10-20 years ago.

Here are some facts any school child, or school teacher, can, and clearly should, look up in their own library:

Surface area of the Earth: 510,065,600 Km^2 (square Km) Surface area of the oceans: 362,146,576 Km2 (square Km) Total volume of ice on Earth: 29,300,000 km^3 (cubic Km)

These are really big numbers. For most people these numbers can be simplified by truncating everything after the first comma:
Surface area of the oceans: 362
Total volume of ice on Earth: 29

Simply dividing the total volume of ice by the surface area of the oceans:
29/362 = 0.081 meters, or 8.1 cm, or 3.2 inches

If ALL the ice in the entire world completely melts and runs into the oceans, the oceans will rise 8.1 cm, or 3.2 inches. This assumes all of the ice is on land, not already in the ocean. Ice already in the ocean, such as the Arctic ice, is already 90% submerged (hence the term, "only the tip of the iceberg") so melting will only contribute 10% in volume. Taking into account ice already in the ocean, the 2 inch number used in the past looks pretty good but even that assumes that ALL ice COMPLETELY melts.

I guess this means that winning an oscar doesn't require the ability to look up facts in an encyclopedia or do fourth grade math (division).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nicos @ Mar 15 2007, 06:57 PM) [snapback]406475[/snapback]</div>

If only it were that simple.....

You left out the effects of isostasy, and thermal expansion which incidentally they calculate will be the largest cause of sea level rise.

Back to the drawingboard.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nicos @ Mar 15 2007, 09:57 PM) [snapback]406475[/snapback]</div>

Nicos,

...and someone better at math please correct me if I'm wrong...but your 362 is square km and your 29 is cubic km, so just dividing 29 by 362 seems inaccurate to me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Lywyllyn @ Mar 15 2007, 07:21 PM) [snapback]406381[/snapback]</div>

You can't prove faith to be false. Hence, it is faith. You take it on faith. You believe.

For example, you can't draft an experiment to prove or disprove the existence of God. Or what a soul is. Or if there is one. These topics are so physically insubstantial/spiritually overwhelming that science just can't do much for them either way. They lie outside the realm of science, and many of my favorite scientists (i.e., Stephen Jay Gould) are just fine with that, and it didn't stop him being a practicing Catholic or doing stimulating work on evolution all his life.

Scientific theories are often proven false, and then discarded, or, if possible, amended. When enough experiments and proofs uphold a scientific theorem, then, yes, it is trusted.

I would say our current religion is not science but consumerism -- inherently unscientific, in that it begs us to abandon critical thinking and buy things we don't need on the slightest impulse. Science, on the other hand, argues with itself about everything (thus making certain theories such as gravity, evolution, global warming, extraordinary for the minority of dissension oppossing them).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nicos @ Mar 15 2007, 05:57 PM) [snapback]406475[/snapback]</div>

Wow! I see you never got past fourth grade arithmetic yourself. Let's do that exercise again, only CORRECTLY this time:

Let's re-express the relationship to clarify where you goofed up: Take a flat circular plate 1 kilometer thick whose circular surface area is 29.3 million square kilometers and flatten it out with a large rolling pin until its circular surface area is 362 million square kilometers, so it'll cover the whole ocean - how thin would it wind up? It'll have the same volume, so 362 million sq kilometers times "X" kilometers thin = 29.3 million cubic kilometers. "X" = .081 KILOMETERS, not meters. You have to keep the units of measure THE SAME. It's 2nd grade arithmetic, remedial level.

8.1% of a kilometer is 81 meters, or about 270 FEET.

I've heard figures of about 20 meters (more than 60 feet) of sea level increase if the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps melt as expected, one quarter the "total" scenario posed above, so the 20 meter estimate is probably quite conservative.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Mar 16 2007, 01:28 AM) [snapback]406671[/snapback]</div>

OK you win

 

Doberman, you missed the obvious error. Despite someone spelling it out.

29km^3/362km^2 = 0.081 KILOMETERS or 81 metres, or 270 feet.

But who am we to point out nasty liberal things like facts.

Maybe maths has a well-known liberal bias?

Personally, I assume you're just reposting the original error in an attempt to push the correction out of sight. An inconvenient truth, eh?

 

270 feet.. I just looked up on Google Earth where we live, we are at 322 ft, so I am staying cause will have Ocean views ... oh yeah!

Road to town will be washed out, but incidentally I can fashion a rudimentary float from all the flotsam and jetsam from dbermanmd's house

 

And the poll results are:

F8L: Polite
MegansPrius: Polite
AirportKid: Not Polite
KMO: Nasty :angry:
Dbermanmd: Polite.
nicos: Instigator :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Mar 15 2007, 05:55 PM) [snapback]406322[/snapback]</div>

In reality most take science as FACT, dispite what other people say.... Then there are the scientists that do not get the same findings as those in the loop thus they speak out against the loop and are then labled as wackos, false, noncredible, unreliable ie black balled in the scientific community...

Hmmm sounds just like the liberal party..... :mellow:

I may be pro-bush on some topics, but I have to admit since his 2nd term, he seems to have tripped and hit his head some where... As his rational thinking isbecoming more & more clouded... :mellow:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Mar 16 2007, 09:37 AM) [snapback]406812[/snapback]</div>

You are most welcomed.