"Proof is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages. It's not for science." - Mann
Posted on 02/03/2016 9:01:32 AM PST by Starman417
Washington Posts's Steven Mufson and Joby Warrick gave a glowing account of President Obama's warnings on Climate Change:
"The growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other," Obama said in a speech at the Le Bourget conference center in Paris's industrial outskirts. "What should give us hope that this is a turning point, that this is the moment we finally determined we would save our planet."I find it interesting that leftists pride themselves on being pragmatic and pro-science when they so viciously reject mathematics at every turn. Why is this so? Before I go on to my main point I need to first address the 500 pound gorilla counter argument that lefties will race to respond with: evolution.Obama, who has staked his legacy on the fight against climate change, struck an ominous tone in describing the ravages of a warming planet, declaring that "no nation large or small, wealthy or poor, is immune." He urged the leaders to take action even if the benefits were not evident for generations.
Evolution is one place where I have to concede that the lefties have some of us. I cringe every time I hear arguments for creationism, as these arguments ignore too much evidence to go against scientifically provable timelines. The more current version that we hear along this argument is for Intelligent Design (ID). In a nutshell, ID argues that (H/T to David H. for the source):
Michael Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, claims that over the past decades, biochemical discoveries at the nano-scale have thrown Darwin's theory of evolution into an unresolved crisis. It simply cannot account for the molecular complexity of life. Recent advances in science have in fact discovered evidence of intelligent design, though sociological and philosophical factors have caused this discovery to be repressed.Personally, I don't agree with teaching this in a science class either, for the same reasons I'll be explaining why Global warming shouldn't be. While Behe brings up an interesting point that isn't as simplistic as Creationism as ID's detractors would suggest, getting into motive doesn't belong in a science classroom. I do think that this could be a good topic in a philosophy class, where ID could be presented alongside creationism and straight up random evolution. Speculating motive goes beyond the bounds of science class, which should stick to just provable facts.
That said, I do not believe that faith and science are incompatible. When the ID argument first got some national traction during the George W. Bush presidency my lefty DC pals were trying to dig at me on this issue one night when we were out for a few beers. My response was simple - the last biology class that I took was taught by a 70-something Catholic nun when I was a freshman in high school. When the subject of evolution came up she opened the lesson by stating something to the effect of, "The Bible says that the world was created in seven days, but it doesn't state how long those days were." And she proceeded to teach evolutionary theory that even the most rabid left wing atheist would have approved of.
Now with that out of the way let's get to the heart of this post. If there is one ironclad guaranteed way to annoy a leftist it's to ask them to quantify any kind of argument they're making. My favorite one to pester them with is on the cult of Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever it will be called next month. I admit I'm being a bit disrespectful in referring to Climate Change as a religious cult, but frankly I've lost patience with an ideology that so casually labels me a "climate denier" when they can't even detail what it is I'm supposedly denying. Help me out here, but is it really radical or extreme that before declaring a crisis that you at least establish what the norm or steady state is, how much is change is acceptable, and how is it being measured?
A few years ago I wrote a post showing how we could balance the budget today with no tricks, gimmicks or BS. I used a few relatively simple spreadsheets to bridge the budget gap using a system where everybody pays regardless of income level, and the tax rate is savagely progressive enough to please even the Sandernistas. One of my lefty pals on Facebook took exception with my assertions and I asked for his plan of how we balance the budget. I even told him I wasn't looking for something as granular as what I did, but something showing where my math was wrong or if he could show a plan that was in the ballpark of a balanced budget, and he just retorted that he didn't need math. Really.
In another case, I posted the recent numbers showing that despite being years into Obamacare, America still has over 32 million Americans without health insurance. Another lefty pal tried snarking at me that we got 14 million people health insurance (which I would point out was mostly from expanding Medicaid), so how could this be a failure? I responded by asking him why 46 million uninsured was a crisis that demanded hasty, poorly thought legislation but 32 million was a success. For that matter, what made 46 million the crisis number? Had we started out with 60 million uninsured and reduced the number to 46 would you be calling it a success? Or if we had started out with 32 million would you have called it a crisis and deemed 18 million a success? While we're at it - on any scale I've ever looked at when your goal is 46 and you score a 12 that's a failure by any measure - what makes this different? As you may have guessed, he went silent after that.
But months before this last guy I got into it with two more leftists, the argument over success of Obamacare. This led to two more questions from me, the first involved trying to get one guy to explain how he determined that "the curve is bending downward." When he kept regurgitating White House talking points I asked him to what data or study he used to quantify that claim his response was:
"There are figures (Bob), I have seen things; suggest you Google them. I speak in generalities only to point you in the right direction. I'm not doing hours of research to try to convince someone who is motivated only by hatred if the president"
The second guy responded to my question of how many enrollments in Obamacare were needed to considered a success. The response I got was:
"A large number of people who previously didn't now have insurance. That was the goal. That was the success. Period. Full stop."
Basically the two responses were "I'm right - go google it", and "It doesn't matter. The law is awesome because I say it is". Not coincidentally, this was the point where I realized both of these guys were completely full of dung and stopped taking anything they said on the subject seriously.
A couple of Facebook food fight anecdotes hardly equate research, but they illustrate the general problem with the left's war on math.Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott explains that Feds lack the data to determine how well key Obamacare provisions are working:
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
what non sequitur? Liberals believe in the theory of evolution, but the mechanism of the theory of evolution is survival of the fittest, which is objectionable to every liberal that I’ve ever encountered, maybe even you, and they want the government to stop it from happening.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility
The step where much of modern “science” fails, but gets glossed over and ignored.
(Which means the scientific method is not being followed.)
Leftists are the masters of the science of propaganda, brainwashing and deception.
Think of it this way. Bob believes in the chemical process that takes place when something burns up. However, Bob is a fireman who tries to put out wildfires. Is Bob in denial or just a hypocrite? Or is there no connection at all?
Yes, with math you can prove a theorem, so that, barring some flaw in the underlying assumptions of mathematics, it can be taken as 100% correct.
With science, a theory can only be said to be “well established”. Such a theory would seem to be the best explanation for observed phenomenon, and would also have made predictions that were verified by experiments or observation. However, even the best established theories are subject to being revised, or thrown out completely, if new experiments or observations raise problems.
True, we have whole branches of “science” now that simply cannot ever follow the scientific method.
I like to refer to those as “speculative sciences”, because when they cannot answer a question with actual science, they simply speculate to fill in the gaps. Really, they should be classed with philosophic pursuits, rather than scientific pursuits.
Should, but won’t.
Some of it, like “global warming” or whatever they’re calling it now, have so much invested in it that the very facts themselves don’t matter.
It is very much like a cult.
Wonder when the human sacrifices to gaia begin.
(Otherwise known as “population control” to appease gaia.)
The left ignores science about abortion since a DNA test prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the mother and preborn child are separate, individual human beings.
Depends on what you value. if you value the snail darter, you’ll try to stop its extinction caused by a fitter species - homo sapiens.
Did LBJ's "War On Poverty" end up making the lives of the most of the people it was intended to help a lot worse? Sure, but it doesn't matter. The Dems were trying to help those people. That's what counted.
Apparently, the medical axiom for doctors as far as treating patients "first do no harm" is not known by liberals. Because every time they step in with a program, they make things worse.
It used to be "All gave some; some gave all"; but these post-Marxist entitlement morons not only don't give any; they take more than their share and refuse to do the math.
Liberals will readily agree that all creatures evolved including humans. But they will then say that although all creatures evolved, and some members of the same species are different in physical attritutes and mental abilities, humans are somehow excluded from these evolutionary traits.
For leftists, all humans are exactly equal in physical and mental traits. That is scientifically stupid. It's patently obvious that there are many groups of humans that differ from one another in physical and mental abilities.
Liberals have done weird mental gymnastics to "prove" that human embryos are in fact not human life. It basically defies belief and science.
What they should admit, as does Camille Paglia, that abortion is barbaric. Paglia is pro-abortion, but she doesn't try to make demonstrably false statements as to whether human embryos are human life or not.
Global Warming on Free Republic here, here and here
PING!
Math is hard, science is easy (for a liberal). All they need to settle science is take a vote.
It's right up there with "liberals are tolerant and conservatives are bigots" and "Democrats supported the Civil Rights movement and Republicans were the segregationists."
Science is not about conclusions, beliefs, consensus: it is about finding the exceptions to the best description available, and revising said description to encompass all the ‘facts’.
Playing with the factual data to achieve agreement with a pet idea is the opposite of science, in fact, it is the political practice of altering perception to achieve an agenda.
I agree with you 100%.
If evolution were allowed to operate at any reasonably efficient level, Transi/Prog/Lib/Commie/Democrats would be extinct within 20 years.
Perhaps they know that.
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