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SBS doco

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Created by log man > 9 months ago, 9 Aug 2011
log man
VIC, 8289 posts
9 Aug 2011 11:52PM
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www.sbs.com.au/programs/genre/Documentaryprogram/scienceunderattack Interesting!

Mark _australia
WA, 23724 posts
9 Aug 2011 10:45PM
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Main thing I got from it is apparently you can make a 1000 year duration temperature graph from tree ring observations, then from 1960 to present use thermometer readings (even though they disagree with the tree ring observations 1960-now) and tack the 2 together and THAT is science.
Hmmmm

And they can't understand why people were sceptical and a newspaper ran with it....

choco
SA, 4187 posts
10 Aug 2011 8:17AM
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so the earth was always flat after all

Gizmo
SA, 2865 posts
10 Aug 2011 9:54AM
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Interesting term in that program "Data splicing", science has certainly had a credibility hit over recent years.
The concept of splicing is probably quite apt...

Science + big business wanting profits = fudged figures
$$$ + Politicians = corruption
Gov $$$ + science = what data would you like?
Politicians + using scientists to sprook a message = lack of credibility for both.
Politicians + Scientists + Gov.$$ + big business wanting profits + Cutting costs + Nuclear energy = Concerned and Sceptical population.

dinsdale said...

How the science got 'settled ...










SomeOtherGuy
NSW, 807 posts
10 Aug 2011 11:53AM
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choco said...

so the earth was always flat after all


Good analogy choco. Even in the time of the ancient Greeks since Aristotle, all through Roman times and through the middle ages educated people knew the earth wasn't flat. That was the domain of the uneducated herd.

Things haven't changed much.

log man
VIC, 8289 posts
10 Aug 2011 2:25PM
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Mark _australia said...

Main thing I got from it is apparently you can make a 1000 year duration temperature graph from tree ring observations, then from 1960 to present use thermometer readings (even though they disagree with the tree ring observations 1960-now) and tack the 2 together and THAT is science.
Hmmmm

And they can't understand why people were sceptical and a newspaper ran with it....


So I think Mr. Nurse's observations about finding one small point(of dubious relevance)of difference and then constructing a whole basis of thought around that point is true. it's unbelievable really that from a 1 hour doco that you found 1 point that fitted your belief .... so that's what you thought of the doco. By the way, did you hear the fella from East Anglia explain his graph ,the reason for it and the context it was used in? did you think that was reasonable?

evlPanda
NSW, 9207 posts
10 Aug 2011 3:16PM
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Science is fuzzy. Nature is fuzzy. By fuzzy I mean probable. It's probably getting warmer, that particle is probably there. It is impossible to be 100% sure. That's the way nature really is.

Mark _australia
WA, 23724 posts
10 Aug 2011 1:50PM
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log man said...

Mark _australia said...

Main thing I got from it is apparently you can make a 1000 year duration temperature graph from tree ring observations, then from 1960 to present use thermometer readings (even though they disagree with the tree ring observations 1960-now) and tack the 2 together and THAT is science.
Hmmmm

And they can't understand why people were sceptical and a newspaper ran with it....


So I think Mr. Nurse's observations about finding one small point(of dubious relevance)of difference and then constructing a whole basis of thought around that point is true. it's unbelievable really that from a 1 hour doco that you found 1 point that fitted your belief .... so that's what you thought of the doco. By the way, did you hear the fella from East Anglia explain his graph ,the reason for it and the context it was used in? did you think that was reasonable?


Where did I tlak about my belief in that post? Actually I don't have a belief either way.
My point was not that I only took one thing on board from the doco. My point is that the doco was (1) pondering why people don't believe scientists anymore,and
(2) to convince us that climate change is real. Their example they wished to refute ("climategate" / data splicing in the graph, which you call
a small point) was not convincingly refuted at all.
All it does is show dubious scientific method.

The pro climate change community believe that temp readings can be taken from tree rings for the last thousand plus years.
Then they say that the tree ring data from the last 50 years does not match the thermometers. BUT they use the two sets of data in one graph,
which does up n down wiggles for a thousand years, then suddenly 50 years of rising temp like never before.
Sorry. That is crap. The blokes explanation for data splicing left a lot to be
desired. But forget data slicing, let's pretend it is great and it is scientifically valid, see blow.

The NASA section was hardly convicing. He showed they can predict cloud and
wind activity a week or so ahead, and then have what really happened on another screen and they are similar - that was remarkable.
But it reeks of a nice presentation based on what we know about the current world and last few years of weather,
to make people go oooh ahhhh and believe they must be able to model historical data.
However flash computer modelling still does not change the fact that garbage in = garbage out and they
need to know the temps from thousands of years ago thru to present with certainity before they can be sure of climate chage being man made.
Now how good is that historical data when they take tree ring temps from a thousand years ago as gospel -
when they know the tree ring data from 1960 - 2000 does not match the thermometer data

Then the flipside - the anti lobby reckon solar activity is reflected in the presence of a certain Carbon isotope
in stalactites and stalagmites, and it correlates with world temps for all of history,

thus it must be solar flares responsible for global warming.
Trouble is, all their research is from one cave! You'd need to do at least a variety
of caves - even better, northern, southern and middle latitude caves
if thinking about sun exposure.
It also ignores the fact that stalactites/mites may not be that old,
considering they've been found in 100year old building
basements some may form much more rapidly that previously assumed.

.

log man
VIC, 8289 posts
10 Aug 2011 6:47PM
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Can someone else take my spot, I need to have a lie down.

Mark _australia
WA, 23724 posts
10 Aug 2011 6:21PM
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log man said...

Can someone else take my spot, I need to have a lie down.


Why, did "Now how good is that historical data when they take tree ring temps from a thousand years ago as gospel -
when they know the tree ring data from 1960 - 2000 does not match the thermometer data" make you all giddy?

Carantoc
WA, 7301 posts
10 Aug 2011 8:46PM
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evlPanda said...

Science is fuzzy. Nature is fuzzy. By fuzzy I mean probable. It's probably getting warmer, that particle is probably there. It is impossible to be 100% sure. That's the way nature really is.


So how come physicists have universal laws ? Why are the three laws of thermodynamics universal laws ?

I am with you, seems to me more likely that everything has a probability, and that nothing is fixed, or true, or universal.

Now, maybe something can be infinitely probable, but still not fixed.

Doco on the other night about infinity. Some were arguing infiinity does not exist, that the concept it as poor as the theory of God's wrath to explain hail storms, or witches to explain sour milk.

I could see their point after they explained it.

So, maybe there is a probability that infinity doesn't exist and that probability is infinite.

log man
VIC, 8289 posts
10 Aug 2011 11:11PM
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Mark _australia said...

log man said...

Can someone else take my spot, I need to have a lie down.


Why, did "Now how good is that historical data when they take tree ring temps from a thousand years ago as gospel -
when they know the tree ring data from 1960 - 2000 does not match the thermometer data" make you all giddy?


yes I'm defeated.



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"SBS doco" started by log man