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actually thoughtful at 05:48 AM on 21 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Compare #10 Sea ice has increased a bit, but satellites show total ice volume is lessening. to #10 Sea ice extent has increased a bit, but satellites show shrinking ice volume. So long as "shrinking" is accurate, it carries more punch. Also active voice is preferred for clarity & brevity (can't see how to de-passify "has increased" without making it longer -
VeryTallGuy at 05:39 AM on 21 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Great resource. Two suggestions for improvements: #28 "Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy" "Several investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident." I'd suggest focussing on the data as the average contrarian will dismiss investigations as part of the lizard man conspiracy anyway. How about: "Independent analyses of the data reach the same conclusions as the CRU, revealing this to be media hype" #30 "Climate sensitivity is low" "Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence." Whilst I understand this, I don't like it as "net positive" implies runaway whereas the radiative emissions always ensure a net negative feedback. How about "Ice ages cannot be explained without relatively high sensitivity" which focusses on well known phenomena - the other lines of evidence can be used as follow-up. And how about, on the 4-5 words challenge: #28 "Independent analysis agrees with CRU" #30 "This makes ice ages impossible" -
NewYorkJ at 04:28 AM on 21 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
I appreciate this. Downloaded it yesterday. Looks good! Quite frankly, I'm not sure when I'll use it in practice. I don't run into global warming contrarians too often in day-to-day life, and I bet the strong majority of those that might prompt me to use the app would probably dismiss it as a "warmist propaganda app". Oh well. It's nice to have the wealth of information at my fingertips anyways. -
JMurphy at 03:33 AM on 21 July 20101934 - hottest year on record
Perhaps the one-line argument should be : "1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally."Response: Better, I was really sweating on that 1934/1998/2006 inaccuracy. Thanks for the suggestion, I've updated it. -
apeescape at 03:26 AM on 21 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
This is great. When I was looking at many of the Arguments articles, frequently, the first paragraph would be very similar to the scientific argument. This provides a good one-liner plus the scientific details. -
JMurphy at 03:21 AM on 21 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
Um, how do I know if my mobile can run this app ?Response: If it's an Android phone, go to the Android Marketplace (or tap the Market icon) then search for 'skeptic'. If Skeptical Science comes up, click Install and you're on your way.
If it's not an Android phone, you probably won't have the Market icon to choose from. -
HumanityRules at 01:58 AM on 21 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
Persistent multi-decadal Greenland temperature fluctuation through the last millennium. Kobashi et al Climatic Change (2010) 100:733–756 DOI 10.1007/s10584-009-9689-9 A recent temperature reconstruction of Greenland suggesting the presence of decadal temperature fluctuations. Apparently recent warming fits well within this natural variability. Among many interesting points it marks the 1940's as the warmest decade in Greenland. Well worth a read. -
CBW at 00:50 AM on 21 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
chriscanaris @ 109: To what do they attribute the increase/lack of decrease in the size of the islands they studied? -
dcwarrior at 00:46 AM on 21 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
It's very interesting how the science community resists honing their arguments down to words that are concise and easy to understand. And how surprised they are when it works! Let me suggest something as a non-scientist who works in business: Because you people who are MORE science oriented than I do believe in empiricism and facts, consider that there is a whole body of work out there, both academic and trade-oriented about how to persuade people and what works when you do that. And yes, they do suggest boiling things down to what is important and persuasive, while also having done the homework and study (in your case, research) to back it up. It's not "dumbing down", it's being persuasive. And expecting other people to on their own do the study to think as you do is a loser strategy. Indeed, the expectation that such a strategy might work is itself a superstition, based on all the contrary studies out there in the business world. Kudos to the efforts shown on this thread, I think this path will work a lot better than the tack of trying to stuff every scientific argument in every response mode. -
KR at 00:34 AM on 21 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
chriscanaris - funny thing is, your peers don't have to be moral giants. They just need to be competitive. Bad arguments tend to be easy to take down! I think that's one of the best internal editors for science - if you publish junk, it will be noted and treated as such. It's a great incentive to do decent work. -
chris1204 at 00:27 AM on 21 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
KR @ 113 Always assuming that your peers are moral, disinterested, and not easily blinded by bells and whistles. Overall, however, I sincerely hope you're largely right. -
Ned at 00:16 AM on 21 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
... and, that's our dose of cranky curmudgeon for today :-) -
Ned at 00:15 AM on 21 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
John, I think this is a great idea, and very much worth doing. Thanks to Jan for coming up with these, and to you for editing them and making them so widely available. That said, I can't let this pass without telling a little story here: ------------------ Before the start of the Holocene, early humans lived in small bands, slowly wandering from Africa into Eurasia and spreading wherever their feet took them. When two of these groups crossed paths, they might scream at each other, make threatening gestures, and perhaps throw rocks or sticks to drive away the others. With the invention of agriculture, the world changed. People began to settle down. Surplus food permitted the development of more organized society. Writing was developed, the first maps were drawn, small cities grew up. Cities were linked into nations, and then empires. The written word became even more important as a means of passing down knowledge and communicating across great distances. Books and scrolls were precious objects, and the clerks and copyists who transcribed them were respected. With the invention of the printing press, it became possible to mass produce books. Literacy rates increased. By the time of the Enlightenment, in the mid-18th century, the western world was awash in intellectual debates on the subjects of politics, economics, religion, natural science, the arts, and other subjects ... all carried on through the medium of the book. Years passed, society and technology developed further, and people began reading fewer books and more newspapers and magazines. An invention called "talk radio" appeared on the scene, allowing people to argue about stuff with more brevity and at greater distances. Later still, the Internet formed out of previously disparate communications networks. People began reading "newsgroups" and "phpbb forums" and "web logs." They liked this, because they could shout at each other anonymously in comments on the web logs (or "blogs"). The discussion forums were popular, too, especially those that let the participants pick from an endless variety of ugly but colorful "avatars" to symbolize themselves. At the turn of a new century, as the older generation was shuffled off into obsolescence and nursing homes, their grandchildren invented "texting," "tweets," and other ways to exchange information in even shorter, more effortlessly digested blobs. With some of these methods, the user's fingers could actually do all the communication with no participation by the cerebral cortex at all. Eventually this arc reached its logical end point. Across the "developed" world, millions of people gave up on Twitter, which was now seen as too deliberative and too intellectually demanding. Instead, they began to interact by tossing handfuls of letter tiles from "Scrabble" at each other. If emotions ran high, the tile flinging might be supplemented by grunting or by emphatic gestures with the middle finger. Although this new means of communication ("B!" ... "G!" ... "auughn grrrhuhh?" ... "K!") would have been ill-suited to the style of discourse used by their grandparents and great-grandparents, it was perfectly adequate to convey the streamlined and softened thought processes that characterized the waning years of post-Enlightenment civilization. -------------- Millions of years later, alien archeologists traced the origin of this strange cultural transformation to the invention of one Philo Farnsworth in the mid-1900s.... -
KR at 23:20 PM on 20 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Actually, chriscanaris - in science and medicine your peers are usually "...sufficiently intelligent..." to catch immoral, greedy, and narcissistic work. That's one of the great benefits of peer review and lots of work being done in the field - junk gets caught. -
tobyjoyce at 23:14 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Great idea, great post. I have already been able to use some of the soundbites. While I generally despise the soundbite culture, realistically today people demand information in bite-sized chunks. The interested few will delve deeper. -
pdt at 22:10 PM on 20 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
Great app! Thanks! -
adelady at 21:40 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Perhaps we also need an English teacher - not just fewer words, but shorter words, preferably with fewer syllables. #10 Sea ice has increased a bit, but satellites show total ice volume is lessening. It's not just how it reads - it's how it sounds. Less, even as part of a longer word, has more impact than a slowish sounding word like decrease. Can't always be used, but it should be used more often. -
chparadise at 21:31 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
22. Thick arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid, unprecedented retreat. These are quite useful - they fit right into what I would call "bumper sticker slogans", and the more bumper sticker slogans that are developed that maintain scientific accuracy, the better, since it'll help out in the public policy debate. -
CBDunkerson at 21:12 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Some possible alternate wordings; #1 Since 1970 solar output has decreased slightly while temperatures have been rising. #10 Sea ice has increased slightly, but satellites show total ice volume is decreasing. #11 In the ice age cycle CO2 lags, but in other events CO2 increases come first. #17 1934 was one of the hottest years for the US, but nowhere near the hottest globally. #22 Arctic ice is currently melting despite being in the expanding phase of the ice age cycle. #26 Greenland had local warming around 1000 AD, and global warming is now making it green again. #37 Far north polar bears are still recovering from overhunting, but most groups are declining. -
Anne-Marie Blackburn at 21:02 PM on 20 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
Great little app - love it. Well done, folks at Shine :) -
HumanityRules at 20:10 PM on 20 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
32.mspelto It would be easy to assume that a warmer Southern Ocean is a direct result of AGW but I recently read another possible explanation in the literature. Unfortunately I don't have the reference because I came upon it in a roundabout way. My daughters school newsletter recently had a article about the erosion of our local Bayside beach and casually attributed this to climate change in the form of increased storm erosion. Being a good skeptic I decided to see if this was true and was only able to find research that suggested that air over Australia was showing a calming trend. That aside one of the papers connected coastal southern Australia climate to what was going in Antarctica. Specifically one point was made that greater sea ice trend acted as a insulator, trapping energy in the water. So that greater a warmer ocean and sub-surface melting may be a result of this process. -
batsvensson at 19:19 PM on 20 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
It is unclear to me what is meant with accelerated ice lose. In order for a process to accelerate it is not required to add more energy or mass because the system can use internal stored energy to convert it to work (for example the accelerated flow of a dam break does not require the addition of mass or energy.) However, a system relying only on internal stored energy will not be able to sustain the acceleration and will at some point in time reach a maximum and then decelerate. In order to sustain an acceleration material/energy will need to be integrated in time (with a derivate on the integration positive or equal to zero, else it will start decelerate at some point). Secondly, there is a difference in converting stored energy to work in a solid compared to liquid. A solid is able to convert energy to work in a discrete way by doing "nothing" for a long while and then suddenly breaking up in two or more parts. A liquid can not do this "trick" and its conversion of energy into work is a continuous process. Considering these two points, what do we mean when we says the ice loses is accelerating? -
macwithoutfries at 18:14 PM on 20 July 2010Climate sensitivity is low
I think on this subject somewhere at the top of this page the paper(s) from Spencer should also be clearly addressed - while Schwartz was probably what started this debate I believe right now the focus of the deniers is moving to Spencer ... -
John Russell at 18:14 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
These one line answers are vital in the battle with denialism. Well done Jan Dash and you, John. The important point that comes out of this is never to let someone get away with making a clever-dick denial comment that makes everyone nod their head in agreement, without immediately coming back at him. The more they do it and get away with it the more everyone starts to believe it's the truth; and then when someone does a survey it turns out that the majority of the population are sceptical about AGW -- not because they know anything about the subject, but because all their mates down the pub say so. -
chris1204 at 17:49 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Brings back childhood memories of reciting the Catechism but nevertheless a concise condensation of prevailing orthodoxy :-) -
RSVP at 17:32 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
The list is convenient in that it brings together many ideas in one handy location, however, it seems a little dangerous to assume one must agree with every one liner. Worst still if one concludes: "global warming is caused by man" AND "it is not due to human waste heat" AND "it doesnt matter if the total population of the Earth goes unchecked" AND "the problem will go away when we stop buring fossile fuels". -
chris1204 at 17:32 PM on 20 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
scaddenp @ 94 'True to a degree, but I'd say more regard for truth than average because learning a science discipline requires learning how not to fool yourself.' Alas, neither a science nor a medical degree confer morality, capacity for honest introspection on personal motives, or freedom from greed, narcissism, and allied character flaws. However, those with degrees in science or medicine usually are sufficiently intelligent to get away with it. -
chris1204 at 17:23 PM on 20 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
CBW @ 97: I'm happy to stand corrected when it comes to physics. However, CBW @ 97 & Michael Sweet @ 98: Funny Tuvalu should come up (pun intended). I hope this is specific enough for you. I even went behind the paywall to get this :-) From New Scientist 02 June 2010: 'AGAINST all the odds, a number of shape-shifting islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are standing up to the effects of climate change. For years, people have warned that the smallest nations on the planet - island states that barely rise out of the ocean - face being wiped off the map by rising sea levels. Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite: most have remained stable over the last 60 years, while some have even grown. Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji used historical aerial photos and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land surface of 27 Pacific islands over the last 60 years. During that time, local sea levels have risen by 120 millimetres, or 2 millimetres per year on average. Despite this, Kench and Webb found that just four islands have diminished in size since the 1950s. The area of the remaining 23 has either stayed the same or grown (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.05.003).' In fairness to all sides, the article concludes: 'Good news, but the warnings stand At its highest point, Tuvalu stands just 4.5 metres out of the Pacific. It is widely predicted to be one of the first islands to drown in the rising seas caused by global warming. Yet Arthur Webb and Paul Kench found that seven islands in one of its nine atolls have spread by more than 3 per cent on average since the 1950s. One island, Funamanu, gained 0.44 hectares, or nearly 30 per cent of its previous area. Similar trends were observed in the neighbouring Republic of Kiribati. The three major urbanised islands in the republic - Betio, Bairiki and Nanikai - increased by 30 per cent (36 hectares), 16.3 per cent (5.8 hectares) and 12.5 per cent (0.8 hectares), respectively.' Yet warnings about rising sea levels must still be taken seriously. Earlier this year, people living on the low-lying Carteret Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, had to relocate. Kench says anecdotal reports that the islands have been submerged are "incorrect", saying that instead erosion has changed the shape of the islands, forcing people to move.' -
Chris G at 14:59 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
For #26, I prefer Greenland's ice sheet is thousands of years old. That's actually a bit too simplistic, but then, so is the original statement. The point is, you are arguing with someone who hasn't considered the effect of having thousands of square miles of ice not too far off. It could not have been all that lush or warm. It really doesn't matter as far as recent warming is concerned anyway; it's just another, it's-been-warmer-before argument. #51 The line of argument I like starts with: Saturation arguments regarding CO2 most commonly rely on density not decreasing with altitude. What you have is just as good; just a different line. -
ScaredAmoeba at 14:29 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Thank you for this! The short response is useful in certain circumstances, and where more detail is required, it's available. -
muoncounter at 14:07 PM on 20 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Tragic news, but hardly off topic. Here is what Schneider had to say in 1989. "Unfortunately, if society chooses to wait another decade or more for certain proof, then this behavior raises the risk that we will have to adapt to a larger amount of climate change than if actions to slow down the buildup of greenhouse gases were pursued more vigorously today." Still rings true. He was concerned that CO2 had passed 350 ppm. Of course, gasoline was under a $1 per US gallon. Those were the good old days. -
Tom Dayton at 13:54 PM on 20 July 2010It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
ptbrown31, your contention is not quite correct. The actual definition is "the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Index is defined as the leading principal component of North Pacific monthly sea surface temperature variability (poleward of 20N for the 1900-93 period)." -
ptbrown31 at 13:27 PM on 20 July 2010It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
"Obviously the PDO as an oscillation between positive and negative values shows no long term trend. In contrast, temperature displays a long term warming trend." This PDO index shows no trend because the globally averaged SST is subtracted out. The globally averaged SST is subtracted out because it is assumed that the PDO is not effecting global SSTs but is rather a mode of variability on top of global SSTs. As far as I know this is not a robust conclusion and therefor I feel that it is misleading to compare the "trendless" PDO to globally averaged surface temperature the way that it is done in the above graph. -
kdkd at 12:47 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Something useful to do might be to make each sentence short enough to be a tweet (less the @handle of the person you're responding to, and the shortened url of the actual page containing the argument)Response: Actually, I have done that. See my response to comment #3 - last week while working on the one-liners, I trimmed down every one-liner to less than 100 characters so they're ideal for a tweet + a bit.ly URL. As soon as I get time, I'll publish the one-liners along with a shortened bit.ly URL for each skeptic argument (am open to suggestions on how to best make tweeting the arguments as easy as possible). -
Rob Honeycutt at 12:12 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
I would also suggest that framing likely applies to categories rather than individual arguments. I'll try reading through a bunch of these and see if I can craft some initial framing. Again, though, this is fantastic!! Stuff like this one is absolutely perfect: "1934 was not the hottest year globally, only in the US." The more brief they are the more powerful.Response: The first thing I think when I read "1934 was not the hottest year globally, only in the US" is that, well, actually, it's statistically indistinguishable from 1998 and 2006 and a USHCN v2 adjustment actually put 1998 and 2006 above 1934. So it takes a great act of discipline to not include all that information in the one-liner. The big picture here, what people need to know, is that global temperature is a more appropriate metric for global warming than regional temperature. You have to find that one core truth and let the rest of the details come out in the subsequent discussion. -
Bern at 12:09 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Good work with these summaries - being able to bat the ball back over the net is very valuable, as it puts the 'denier' or 'contrarian' on the back foot. They then have to come up with (or try to come up with) evidence to support their argument, and those will be a lot easier to counter than the initial one-liner! I'm going to post a copy on the noticeboard at work for people to peruse.Response: Let us know how that pans out, would be interesting to hear the reactions. -
MattJ at 12:07 PM on 20 July 2010Irregular Climate podcast 8: Journalismgate, prawngate and rock n roll
The article lists several directions for heat to go into, all directions the 'skeptics' would like us to forget about: the oceans, the air temperature, the land. But there is still one missing that I would expect to be quite significant, since the heat of evaporation of water is SO huge compared to its heat capacity or heat of melting. How much heat is taken up by evaporating the water of the oceans, or by sublimation of ice? That will not show up as increased air temperature since the temperature remains constant during evaporation. -
Rob Honeycutt at 12:04 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
John, this is fantastic! And as for the 4 to 5 word versions... give it time. It took a while for one liners to come out of full paragraphs. It might take a while to distill these down to simple "frames" as discussed by George Lakoff. Think of it this way: The shorter versions don't have to describe the issue, only frame it. Think of the genius of the right wing in framing the abortion issue as "Right to Life." If we could apply that same kind of genius to climate then no one could ever disagree with AGW. -
Gneiss at 12:02 PM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
These are good! -
robert way at 11:37 AM on 20 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
Arkadiusz Semczyszak, I must follow up further with more criticisms (like those of Peter Hogarth). You seem to be claiming that you did not cherry pick the studies that you showed and just seem to be indicating that these are just independent studies which argue to the contrary. The thing about your argument is that it has already been shown to you that the methodology used in that study was inadequate for mass balance estimates of Antarctica. Why do you continually ignore this point? The reason Wingham has moved on to newer methods is because of the obvious flaws in using low resolution radar altimetry for ice sheet mass balance estimates.... I don't know why you highlighted isostatic rebound because all grace, icesat and radar altimetry studies are corrected for this. It is not a novel idea, it is something which has to be corrected for in order to get appreciable results. You also should note that you pointed to mass gains on the antarctic peninsula which is completely and utterly incorrect. Part of the spine is gaining ice but the total mass balance of this region is around -60 Gt Year (According to Pritchard and Vaughan, 2007 and Rignot et al. 2008). This is supported by Cook et al. 2005 which shows that a survey of 244 tidewater glaciers in the regions has 87% in retreat with 14 having retreated more than 2 km since the earliest air photos. Sometimes scientific appraisal is required. You can repeat the same study's findings over and over again but when they are not supported by any of the evidence then you have to move on and accept reality. -
MattJ at 11:29 AM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
This is magnificent progress! After all, it is the widespread easy acquiescence to the appeal of "one-liners" that has left the so-called 'skeptics' with the edge in the public mind for much too long. Now we finally have the means to blunt that edge. As for the Antarctic ice, example, there is nothing wrong with cutting them off ahead of time in the following manner: Skeptic: Antarctica is gaining ice Scientist: No, it is not. It is only seasonal ice over water that is gaining, but seasonal ice does not count. It is land ice that counts. That is being lost Now the skeptic cannot simply respond with "Yeah, but Antarctica is gaining ice". True, it is no longer a one liner. But notice how it heads them of at the pass. If you absolutely must have a single English sentence, then you could reword as: "Total ice is not what counts, land ice is what is being lost, and THAT is what counts". Note how important the order of clauses is: the first clause refutes the deception, the second brings in the real facts of the case, the third seals up the matter quite tightly replacing disinformation with real information, and that in a memorable form, even if it does have the feel of a run-on sentence;) Now speaking of memorable forms, since I have not seen the case of Antarctic ice put in such memorable form, and am relying on memory as I write this, I realize the value of what I write may be vitiated by my own imperfect memory of what the facts of the case really are:( But I hope the idea is clear. Not only can you counter ignorance with brevity, but you must do it; otherwise you are handing victory to your opponent. There is, after all, a REASON people have long said "brevity is the soul of wit". The 'skeptics' understand this reason very well. -
Riduna at 11:27 AM on 20 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
Goddard might be interested in observations made by the Grace satellites and the fact that EAIS and WAIS are different. While parts of WAIS cover a far flung archipelago, it is largely a marine ice sheet resting on the sea floor. It is vulnerable to melting in summer due to warming air temperatures, particularly over the Peninsula where over 700 glaciers are in retreat. WAIS is particularly vulnerable to melting from contact with a warming Southern Ocean and warmer currents from equatorial regions flowing directly on to the ice. Grace shows that WAIS is now loosing ice at a rate of 132 gigatonnes per annum and the rate of loss has been increasing over the last 5 years. It is expected to continue increasing. 1 gigatonne = 1 sq.km. of water. The EAIS covers (and depresses) most of Antarctica’s land mass, rising to some 4,000 metres above sea level. Where lubrications is present, gravity ensures that ice flows towards the coast where glaciers contact relatively warm water causing calving. Traces of surface melt lakes have been observed and these would have contributed to lubrication, as would the massive weight of ice. Grace shows that EAIS has been loosing ice at a net rate of some 55 gigatonnes per annum since 2006, indicating it was loosing ice at a slower rate in prior years. The rate of loss has increased and will continue to do so as sea and surface temperatures rise. -
hadfield at 11:16 AM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
I disagree, wildrunar. I think the one-liners are great. Sure trading one-liners is no way to conduct a scientific debate, but a lot of people think in one-liners (or use them as an alternative to thinking, as you point out). If you can't respond succinctly, you lose the point. Each one-liner in John's table links to a more complete statement of the sceptic argument (such as it is) and the rebuttal. Brilliant.Response: Think of them not as the definitive answer but as "batting the ball back over the net". It's just a lead-in to more detailed discussion.
Here's another way they could be useful - tweets with a link back to a page with more details. I intentionally trimmed down every one-liner to less than 100 characters so they're ideal for a tweet + a bit.ly URL (I'm also working on a database of bit.ly URLs for each skeptic argument). -
Megan Evans at 11:07 AM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
"This makes a handy resource to carry in your pocket in case a skeptic jumps out at you on the street". Haha. This is a great resource (yet again), thanks Jan and John. -
wildrunar at 11:04 AM on 20 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Hah. Wouldn't it be simpler to say: "I'm sorry, you don't know what you're talking about." The way I see it, technical arguments are only as good as the technical background of the person making them/hearing them. Most people who say, or rather parrot, those arguments don't really know what they mean; it's just something that gives them comfort. So you can't actually refute the argument because...well, there is no argument. If a know-nothing says, "Antarctica is gaining ice," and we hit back with "Antarctica is losing land ice," they will respond with "Yeah, but Antarctica is gaining ice." You cannot conquer ignorance with brevity.Response: Well, it needs a hint of specificity - "Satellites measure Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate". Then you can go into more detail about how the GRACE satellites measure changes in gravity and other ways that satellites measure the ice sheet's mass balance. Well, that's the theory anyway. -
johnd at 09:28 AM on 20 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
JMurphy at 08:32 AM, what you can do is firstly providing references that INCLUDE objective comparisons to fires PRIOR to 1900. Please elaborate exactly which of your references do that if you feel that you have already done that. The 2009 Royal Commission is very subjective and concentrated on events since 1900 as this submission to the Royal Commission, together with it's analysis, makes perfectly clear. submission to 2009 VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES ROYAL COMMISSION If you find that the Royal Commission includes any objective analysis for fires prior to 1900, please provide a link. -
scatter at 08:46 AM on 20 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
Hurrah! Nice one :) -
JMurphy at 08:32 AM on 20 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
johnd, I'm sure you know what you are trying to say, and that is all that matters. Until you attempt to discover any sources that use the 2009 fires as comparison, I cannot see how I can do any more. -
johnd at 08:14 AM on 20 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
JMurphy at 04:35 AM, before accusing others of only seeing what they want, consider how your own selective vision led you to be so confused. My post johnd at 06:29 AM on 19 July, 2010 included the following extract. ""The largest Australian bushfire in European-recorded history that burnt an area of approximately 5 million ha. which covered a quarter of Victoria." Source: 1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2004." NOTE THE SOURCE IS REFERENCED. My post to which are responding posted a direct link to :- "1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2004 Previous ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 27/02/2004." Not fully reading the information posted obviously led you to your response; not understanding what it all means or the lack of desire to compare apples with apples is what you now have to overcome if you want to put it all into perspective. When comparing apples with apples between the 1851 and 2009 fires, which was the worst, and by what criteria? -
VeryTallGuy at 06:38 AM on 20 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
The similarities with creationism is something I've thought about before, but the point which struck me here was about the converging lines of evidence, and how it is the totality of what is presented which makes the case for AGW so compelling rather than any individual "killer fact". This is in stark contrast to the self - appointed auditors who essentially make the case that disproving, or even showing errors in any single observation falsify the entire case; a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific method, which often seems willful, but may be more in error or ignorance. What can we do about it? Well, it strikes me that rather than just continue to attempt to show the error of these misplaced analyses or audits, we should tell stories to match the power of the story of conspiratorial big government. A story of a future free from energy dependence on malign dictatorships, where humans co-exist rather than fight against our environment and where we can all live fundamentally more fulfilled lives freed from the tyranny of every increasing competition for resources. A future we will be proud to hand on to our children rather than ashamed of. Wishful thinking, I know, but I've tried the rational way (together with Graham and others on the Guardian CiF site), and seen the futility of logic on human reactions.
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