Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Alarmism as Religion

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From my friend Shawn Mitchell:

There may never have been a less scientific campaign than the public face of Global Warming Alarmism.

As the warming pause approaches two decades; the models and their predictions stand in shatters without rationale, and predicted disasters regularly are falsified (much to the polar bears’ joy) you would think an authoritarian movement to seize control of our energy, consumption, and economy would be moved to “pause” and reflect on the merits and uncertainties of its case. You would be wrong.

The wronger they look, the shriller they get, the more absolute their demands, the more sure and vituperative their response to skepticism. They are a religion impervious to empiricism or doubt.

Has anyone noticed any parallels in the subject oft-debated in these pages?

Comments
No model can ever predict future (or past) environment - neither today nor in a million years. There are simply thousands and thousands of variable changing over milliseconds to track.the bystander
September 23, 2014
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"They are a religion impervious to empiricism or doubt." What meaning does this sentence intend to impart? Let's reframe it slightly. "They are a science impervious to empiricism or doubt." There it is ... science is meant to be empirical and raise questions, and an impervious science is unexpected.redwave
September 23, 2014
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I find the "God wouldn’t do something like that" argument, if it could be called one, is arrogant and/or ignorant. Arrogant because it implies one understands the subject completely and knows a better way. Ignorant because further study always proves it to be so. I remember watching the floppy film "A Flock of Dodos" some years back and a featured vascular surgeon said a particular artery was too small; that God wouldn't do it that way. He completely left out how the pump (heart) would have to change, the metabolism and other components to make the larger pump possible. If the disputer isn't ignorant of the mechanics, he's ignorant of Judeo-Christian theology, which is usually the God at issue. That death is a result of sin. That creation was corrupted or marred and not what was originally intended. It's all diversion because creation, and more specifically biology, aren't what we would see if they were cobbled by mindless forces either. Far from it. Even with all the flaws, they're much closer to what we would see if they were designed. Materialism doesn't square with Ockham's razor. Psalm 14:1 - "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good."bb
September 22, 2014
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Going along with ba77 in @3: If people want to use the idea that "God wouldn't do something like that" as evidence for a position, they should be required to show that they can infallibly determine what other people would do in a large number of circumstances. If they are unable to accurately predict what humans--who have limitations in their understanding and other capabilities--would do, they are not in a position to make claims about what an omniscient being would or would not do.RalphDavidWestfall
September 22, 2014
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Semi-related: Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.htmlbornagain77
September 22, 2014
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There must be a very powerful and evil authority behind the global warming scare. They have spent an awful lot of the people's money worldwide on this campaign over the last couple of decades. I know it's not Al Gore. Al is either a bumbling agent or a crass opportunist. Who is really behind this massive lie and why? Inquiring minds and all that.Mapou
September 22, 2014
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worth a repost: Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Metaphysical Dilemma of the Left - Sept. 2014 Excerpt: In the first go-around, these anti-capitalists (the left) tried to capture the science of economics, forming theories about how capitalism is a system of exploitation that will impoverish the common man, while scientific central planning would provide abundance for all. Let’s just say that this didn’t work out. When it turned out that central planning impoverishes the common man and capitalism provides abundance for all, they had to switch to a fallback position. Which is: to heck with prosperity—too many material goods are the problem. Our greed for more is destroying the planet by causing environmental catastrophes. This shift became official some time in the 1960s with the rise of the New Left. Some of the catastrophes didn’t pan out (overpopulation, global cooling) and others proved too small to be anything more than a speed bump in the path of capitalism (banning CFCs and DDT). But then along comes global warming—and it’s just too good not to be true. It tells us that capitalism is not just exploiting the workers or causing inequality or deadening our souls with crass materialism. It’s destroying the very planet itself. http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/19/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-metaphysical-dilemma-of-the-left/bornagain77
September 22, 2014
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