Sunspot Minimum or "Is the sun going to sleep?"

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by IndySam

When I was your age all the "experts" said we were in a period of global cooling and were also predicting that we were heading into the next ice age.

Let's take this argument for one second, and keep applying it recursively throughout history. If every generation used this argument to call into question modern advances in science because the previous generation held a different scientific conclusion, we'd still thinking the Earth was the center of the Universe, there were only five chemical elements, and if you throw lead in a pot and chant loud enough, it'll turn into gold.

This same argument, applied to a criminal investigation might look like this: There was a murder in Someville, and the murderer is still at large. In the years following the crime, there is little compelling evidence and they meet many dead ends. The case is officially declared cold. Thirty years later, DNA testing becomes widespread, and the case is reopened. Also, a witness to the crime comes forward no longer fearing retribution from a now aged murderer. The existing evidence is tested for DNA, and a match is found for a known criminal that matches testimony from the witness. Is it perfect evidence? No. But is it better than what they had thirty years ago? Yes. Will it be enough to go beyond reasonable doubt? That's for the jury to decide. But using your argument, this would say "Bah humbug about DNA evidence pointing to John Doe as primary suspect. The 'expert' investigators in my day said this case would never be solved!"

The only way this argument would hold merit is if technology did not advance. If the technology available now was identical to that 30 years ago, then it would be hard to draw new conclusions from data, and anything new could more easily be construed as running on nothing but hot air. But because technology advances, especially in the computing department, we can now process data trillions of times faster than 30 years ago. The enormous amount of computer data processing alone can analyze data much more thoroughly than can be done by hand, and ascertain subtle causation and correlation patterns in existing data. This data can then be used to create more accurate simulations which better reflect reality.

Engineering is a prime example of this. 100 years ago they had no such thing as CAD, computer simulations, or even a sort of mechanical calculators. Back then math was done by hand, and if they wanted a really precise answer, then that took loads of math. The more accurate they wanted, the more math. So they approximated a lot more back then. The Brooklyn Bridge was over-engineered by many orders of magnitude because the designers of the late 1800s did not possess a means of efficiently processing the vast amounts of equations necessary to build it just right. So they wasted a lot of money in extra materials as they erred on the safe side. Nowadays we have the computing power to do full bridge simulations on a computer, and engineers use that data to design a bridge that meets the safety requirements without being over-engineered. This saves time, money, and resources.

Originally Posted by IndySam

My biggest question is why don't the global warming experts allow scientist with opposing viewpoints make presentations at the global warming conferences, what are they afraid of?

Unless opposing viewpoints have opposing evidence and facts to back them up, they are rightfully being kept out of science conferences. If opposing viewpoints have compelling evidence, then most scientists - as highly rational people - will accept this new held evidence into the mainstream. Over the last few centuries of modern science, there have been many "Earth-shattering" revelations in science (such as black holes, DNA, and optical Doppler Effect to name a few) that were ridiculed at first, but with enough evidence and repeatable results, gained their rightful place.

There have also been just as many scientists ridiculed and kept out of science conferences for perfectly legitimate reasons. The number of people who've claimed to invent "huge breakthroughs" and create "infinite free energy" aren't being kept quiet because of a huge conspiracy. They're being kept quiet because there is no data to support them, and therefore no scientific merit for their ideas.

Originally Posted by IndySam

Global warming, or now what they call climate change because the earth has stopped warming in the 21st century, has become too much of a religion and not a science. Until experts like the Prince of Wails stops predicting that the earth will be ruined in ten years or the Chief High Priests of the Church like Al Gore stop calling non-believers Nazis I won't take them seriously.

Actually, even though most current scientists stand behind global warming, the Earth will actually be quite fine regardless of Global Warming. The Earth has survived over four billion years already, surviving everything nature has thrown at it, and is on track to survive at least another five billion years.

The problem with global warming is not the Earth, but life. And not just human life, but everything down the food chain from us. We need food to live, and we don't have the technology to feed the entire planet from food grown in petri dishes.

Now there are smug people on the left fringe who think by driving a Prius they are saving the world and anyone who isn't doing as they are is as you phrased it, "a Nazi". But the keyword there is fringe. The majority of civilized people won't call those which don't agree with them Nazi. For as many people as there are on the fringe giving a bad rep to a political idea (on either the left or the right), there are most likely 10 or more normal, reasonable people who agree with the idea, but won't give it a bad rep by acting like the fringe.

And besides, science in its true form cannot be a religion. Science doesn't ask you to believe anything blindly, purely out of faith. Science provides you with a determinate way to gather data, run experiments, and draw conclusions. And unless something has the data to back it up, it cannot be a part of mainstream science. While scientists 'believe' things, they mostly believe in the fact that their conclusions are the best possible result at the given time from the available data.

Originally Posted by Mr. Pockets

1.) I don't understand what is wrong with drawing your own conclusions from the data. The scientists studying global warming don't know everything about it (or why would they still need to be researching it) so what makes you so sure that your conclusions would be incorrect?

If I'm sick and go to the doctor, and they tell me I have XYZ illness, I don't look at them and tell them I think they're wrong because I read on the Internet that coughing and nausea are symptoms of ABC illness, not XYZ illness.

If I sign a contract with someone and they breach it, and I want a lawsuit to get what I'm legally entitled to, I don't tell the lawyer they are doing their job wrong because Judge Judy does it a different way.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with people drawing their opinions from data. But there is a serious problem with spreading a belief that your amateur "conclusion" has as much weight as the conclusions of those which devote their lifetimes to it. No, you can have an opinion, but unless you actually go to graduate school, or law school, or med school and leave with a diploma, you are not qualified to form an equal conclusion to what they are.

If this was the case, why even bother going to college to become an engineer if Joe Sixpack can form a conclusion equal to a senior engineer on critical details of a nuclear reactor? Or why go to med school if Jane Doe is just as qualified to treat medical conditions as a practicing doctor because she reads WedMD? Or why go to grad school for meteorology if John Smith can form a conclusion equal to a scientist based solely upon reading Drudge Report?

We have institutions of higher learning for a reason! Like it or not, people with genuine diplomas (honorary ones don't count!) from these colleges and universities are more qualified than Joe Sixpack in their specific field. Period.

Originally Posted by Mr. Pockets

2.) Just because their is a consensus among the scientific community doesn't necessarily mean that that consensus is correct. Bear in mind that it was once generally accepted that the world was flat and orbited by the sun.

Actually, most ancient cultures with any kind of advanced learning independently discovered the world was round. The Egyptians, Romans, etc all hypothesized that the Earth was round, because of several pieces of evidence, such as how ships would disappear over the horizon, or that at noon on a particular day in Egypt the sun would hit the bottom of one well but only get halfway down in another well 80 miles away. Actually, because of the latter, the Egyptians were actually able to calculate the diameter of the Earth to a startlingly accurate number thousands of years ago based solely upon these observed phenomenon.

By the time Christopher Columbus wanted to sail to India in 1490s, the educated people didn't honestly think he would sail off the edge. They knew the world was round, but rather their sticking point was that they believed Columbus was seriously underestimating the length of the journey east to India, hence their reluctance to fund him. When he returned home and claimed to have reached India but only traveled half the expected distance, they called shenanigans, and postulated that he hadn't reached India but rather found an entirely new continent - the Americas.

Now your part about the sun orbiting the earth was widely held belief for quite a long time. Copernicus and Galileo were not only ridiculed, but literally put on house arrest by the Church at the time they released their findings supporting heliocentricism because they contradicted with the then currently held geocentric ideas of the Catholic Church. (This was despite the fact that Galileo was a devout Catholic, and has actually been very good friends with the then Pope before he was the Pope, and they both had agreed that science and religion were not clashing but working together to solve different facets of the same problem. I guess a lot changes when you're in power.)