Russians Behind DNC attack!

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There is no control group, ergo you cannot know the cause inductively. We know the earth has gotten warmer over the past 150 years, we just don't know why.

We do know why, you're just denying the evidence because of a scientifically illiterate fixation on a control group.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The other molecules that were placed into the machine that produced a different pattern.

That's not a control group. A control group is when you are performing an experiment, and you have samples/subjects where you do not change the variable, in order to isolate the independent/dependent variables, and causality.

They peeked inside a molecule and observed a helical structure. That's it. It told them nothing about how it got that way, and observing other molecular shapes told them nothing about DNA helices other than not all molecules are helix shaped.

What actually tells us about the cause of the helix is a massive series of experiments and observations (some of which do have control groups) dealing with molecular orbital theory.

Anthropomorphic climate change is also based on a mountain of experimentation and observation that gives us a high confidence (>90%) that humans have contributed to the warming.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So if you agree that the atmosphere is a tremendously complex, chaotic system with many positive and negative feedback loops, why are you confident in our ability to predict it?

Years of science education and seeing unfathomably complex systems modeled in high detail. DNA replication, transcription, and translation is extremely complex, but we figured it out.

Ultimately it goes back to those two premises I stated. They are extremely well supported by the evidence, and they have the unanimous (>97%) support of the world's scientists, and I think it's more likely that the world's scientists are right about this than that they are all collaborating in a worldwide conspiracy.

There's also the fact that the people who reject climate change tend to also be the people who reject evolution (using similar mental gymnastics to what you're doing), and happen to belong to the party of oil and coal. And we've been through this exact ordeal in the past regarding CFC's and lead additives in gasoline: people who have something to gain out of the status quo trying to muddy the waters.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I am a pretty big environmentalist.

Being an environmentalist and a libertarian is like being a pedophile and a babysitter.

The environment is the #1 reason I'm such a statist.