1. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #245423 by locri on September 10, 2008 at 5:08 pm

mrjonno

Science is not a democracy, 1 research scientists views are worth a million

I agree with this part for sure, but I don't see this being carried out in the case of AGW. There is a group of very vocal scientists associated with the IPCC that have a tendancy to shout very loud and throw in threats when their view is challanged even by a fellow scientist. Hansen (again, for example) has publicly stated he believes anyone who disagees with AGW should be stripped of funding and possibly sued.

I would also point out, though, that there have been instances in the past where science has been wrong. I believe that if things played out in an environment where the scientific method could play out truly rather than an overhyped, politicised environment that we wouldn't have to worry at all, the truth will be found eventually. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people at the moment saying that we have to act _now_ before we really know the implications of AGW and even the potential solutions. Some of the stuff they suggest sound safe (windmills, solar panels, alternative energy sources) but others could have quite a detremental impact and I'm very worried that these aren't thought out well enough beause of the hysteria to reduce CO2 as fast as possible (dumping lime in water, spending millions of dollars pumping CO2 into the ground, extremely draconian taxes which even many AGW people agree don't really do much to help the situation, but just give them money).

There have certainly been times in the past and there certainly will be times in the future where someone who is a "hobbist" or an "amateur" or whatever you want to call them makes a large and important discovery right under the noses of the scientists who sometimes have their eyes too close to the problem to really see whats going on. We can't deny someone just because they aren't "scientists" however we can deny people because they don't have good arguments or their arguments aren't logical.

vaillancourtroch:

Careful about putting words in my mouth. I didn't assume that you hadn't done research, what I said is that by just a little research of my own I found a few links to places that describe flaws in AIT. I disagree with you on the overall impact of the film as I think it's made AGW into too much of a hyped and politicised discussion rather than a civil scientific discussion it should be.

Using the same argument I could say that I feel "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is overall a good film because I believe it encourages people to research the issue and find out the truth of matters instead of listening to the hype the news puts out, but I'm disappointed that there are several factual errors and so I won't really call it a good documentary overall.

2. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #245306 by locri on September 10, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Oh, that's ok. Apparently Mann tried to do statistics with out having any relevant background. So I guess it's fine.

Ok, that was a bit trollish, I admit. The point is that if you actually look at the Peer Reviewed papers that were published you'd notice that they were focusing on the statistical methods used by Mann. You are avoiding the point. McIntyre is a professional statistician.

If I was a zoologist and said 1 (plus) 14 = Elephant, a mathematician would be entirely right to say I'm full of it without having to understand even a scant bit of zoology unless there was some bizarre zoologist-only mathematics language that only zoologists know, but that isn't the case here.

The best easy read site on the history of this whole topic that I've found is here:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html

Admittedly I won't be surprised if you disagree with this as well, but it's worth the read to find out the story of how the Mann hockey stick keeps on being resurrected with the same bad methodology and lots of politics.

3. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #245011 by locri on September 10, 2008 at 4:41 am

Buddha:

I said two _panels_ not people. Although both McIntyre and McKitrick were two people that first examined some of the Mann methodology. Calling them amateurs is not appropriate though as at least McIntyre is a professional statistician and he particularly focuses on the statistical analysis done in that case, so the area he knows.

Anyways, regardless of that the Wegman Panel and National Research Council both found the Mann Hockey Stick wanting. The hockey stick is controversial at best, and bad science at worst.

4. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #244919 by locri on September 9, 2008 at 7:43 pm

vaillancourtroch:

A little research shows some pretty simple things:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/09/court-identifies-eleven-inaccuracies-al-gore-s-inconvenient-truth

Also, the film uses the controversial Mann Hockey Stick which has been offically discounted by at least two separate research panels as using poor methodology.

AIT also uses some "footage" of glaciers collapsing, which (it turns out) is actually CGI from The Day After Tomorrow.

The problem I have with all this is despite all these obvious errors, people still look to it as a good resource. At the same time, if they find even one little flaw in an opposing video, then most people that believe in AGW seem to throw that entire video out. It's a double standard, and that bothers me because it shows an obvious bias.

5. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #244712 by locri on September 9, 2008 at 10:43 am

Scot:

A discussion of what to do about AGW is certainly a good and proper discussion to have. Even so, we must at some point rely on experts to perform cost-benefit and risk analyzes and, hopefully, experts will come to a consensus. I'm not qualified to do this, nor am I qualified to argue about the accuracy of such analyzes.

I generally agree, it just concerns me when there are several scientists that talk more like activists than scientists concerned with facts. I would probably point to some of the ridiculous statements that NASA's Hansen has made. Also the fact that a lot of people in the general populace are listening to Al Gore who has no credentials in the area is a bit disturbing too. Yes, I know he has scientific advisers to back him up, but there are many points in his AIT film that have been proven wrong with no public withdrawal and many people still hold it up as an informative movie on AGW.

I much prefer a calmer, more reasoned debate where people (some of which are equally qualified scientists) aren't shouted down because they disagree with what is politically popular.

6. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #244546 by locri on September 9, 2008 at 6:21 am

Martin S:

It's a variant of Pascal's Wager. It says: If there is a choice of two or more positions you can hold on an issue, then, after proper and full risk assessment, you should adopt the one that offers minimum risk with maximum gain. That's all. The risk of an asteroid impact is tiny. And the level of investment to mitigate that risk (small scale sky surveys) is proportionate.

The guy in the YouTube vid mentioned earlier says it far better than I can here.

Yes, I've seen the YouTube video, but it doesn't make it any more logical.

Keep in mind that if you are arguing against a skeptic, you can't assume that AGW is A) Happening in the first place and B) Going to cause major disasters as to a skeptic those remain unproven. The reason for Pascal's Wager is that it assumes given a 50/50 chance of an outcome X, it would be better to go for a certain decision route because it will result in a good outcome regardless of the outcome of X.

I'm positing that there are many different catastrophes that we substitute for AGW that would be just as disastrous if we don't spend lots of resources preparing for them like they are suggesting we do for AGW. It's just not logical.

Also, the video assumes that there aren't "bad" effects from preparing for AGW related things. They don't take into consideration the vast amount of resources that need to be used on potentially (in the case of no AGW) pointless working against CO2. What if it's not AGW and because we remove so much CO2 from the atmosphere it causes some other problem we aren't aware of in a very complicated system like the climate.

For example, what would be the ideal amount of CO2? We know we need a fair amount in the atmosphere because it IS plant food and essential to life for, well, everyone on the planet. But then apparently we can't have too much, so how do we figure that out? How do we make sure that in our efforts we don't suck too much CO2 out of the atmosphere?

The video is overly simplistic and just shows that Pascal's Wager is NOT a good argument to put forth. I've heard of other arguments that are far better, and people that believe in AGW should definitely stick to those.

7. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #244454 by locri on September 8, 2008 at 7:08 pm

I just felt the need to point out that the Pascal's Wager argument is just as ridiculous here as it is in religion.

Let's say we replace "global warming" with "a giant comet from space". Using the same theory, the consequenses of -not- preparing for a giant comet from space are extremely dire. More dire then AGW I'd say. So, should we spend the same amount of resources you are suggesting on AGW on space technology to protect us from comets?

Heck, we even have proof that comets have devastated large chunks of land before which we don't have for AGW due to it being something that can only happen when man is around.

Seriously, if you think this is a good argument, you might very well have a biased prespective.

On a seperate note, (not taking any sides) but one thing I've never really heard from the AGW crowd is some falsefiable experiment by which we can test the AGW hypothesis to some standard. According to what I've read, both warm and cold temperatures can mean global warming (or climate change or what have you) so I'm kind of lost as to how one can bump this into the realm of "testable".

8. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #206515 by locri on July 8, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Buddha:

Ok, I kinda thought that was along the lines of what you were talking about, but I wanted to make sure. I have my own gripes with the positive feedback idea, but that's a whole other discussion.

I realize there are bothersome people on this site and I think decius is sadly a perfect example of the type of backlash that many people who don't agree with the AGW hypothesis gets. That type of attitude doesn't really help an argument out. It is far better to try to rationally discuss the arguments, but I guess some people just aren't up for that.

I tend not to post that often, though, because climate issues are just about the only thing on this site that I disagree with. I'm already a rather dedicated atheist and despite what other people think, I love science and logic.

9. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #206397 by locri on July 8, 2008 at 10:35 am

Buddha:

CO2 has an amplifying effect on initial sources of warming. There is plenty of evidence that many of the warming and cooling periods in Earth's history match up with orbital forcing, which is then amplifyed in effect by CO2 - a bit like wearing a jumper on a hot day.

Could you give me a link to a paper or good article describing how they know there is the amplifing effect that you are talking about here? Everything I've read seems to indicate a positive feedback cycle after the initial warming, but not amplifing it. I'd be interested to read more about this.

10. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #206393 by locri on July 8, 2008 at 10:30 am

Conclusion: Locri is a poor thinker, a dishonest debater, and has a deeply biased anti-scientific, anti-rational attitude. He is, in other words, a liability for a site which pride itself of being a clear-thinking oasis.

Wow, I think I've rarely seen something so insulting. Especially considering the fact that I came to this site precisely because I found Richard Dawkins (and many other atheists repeatedly mentioned on this site) to have wonderful critical thinking skills.

I'm not sure if it's worth it to respond to your drivel, but I might as well so maybe at least someone will see just how much of an ass you are being.

What I did was create a metaphor to describe why it is that many people who don't believe in the AGW hypothesis have issue with those that do. I said many people because I'm not the only person who has felt that way (do some research on the opinions of people who reject AGW and you will see several others that do). It's only a straw man if I build up an easily destroyed argument. You apparently have no clue what a Straw Man is. Avoiding the argument is something completely different.

And yes, I did avoid the argument. If you bothered reading farther down I admit that I might have missed some recent articles that could have invalidated my point on multi-planetary warning, therefore I thought it would be silly to jump right to defending that point. I was hoping some rational thinker would provide some links with evidence so I could be enlightened but that hasn't been the case yet.

If Steve Zara is indeed acting like a creationist in throwing out all other arguments simply because of one statement then he should feel guilty. A good scientific mind (in my opinion) should not be so petty as to do that. That was the point of what I was saying, actually. That is not a logical problem though.

I really don't get where you are going with the Denying the antecedent part. The reason I was comparing it to religion was the viciousness with which people rejecting the AGW hypothesis are shot down, not if it agrees with me or not. I rarely see evolutionist proponents being like that, but I do see religous people doing so.

And it's not a matter of throwing out established theory either. What I said (at least what I meant, you apparently interpreted a great deal wrongly) was that he was throwing out the rest of my arguments (not taking them into consideration) because of a single sentence.

Good grief you need to work on what a logical fallacy is! Read a bit, even Wikipedia would help with all the errors you have there.

P.S. If you are using Ad Populum as a logical fallacy, that means you have no way to support your arguments on a "consensus" view. It's the same thing. Just because a large number of people agree on something doesn't mean it's right.

11. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #206158 by locri on July 8, 2008 at 6:27 am

Phil:

Are you suggesting the absorption spectrums (which predate the GW debate and are lab based data) have been rigged?

CO2 has its effect in the hotter end of earth re-radiation, not cooler as you state.

No.. are we looking at the same graph? Because the absorption area that CO2 is in the "hot bits" is also where water vapor is. Considering that CO2 is a very small part of greenhouse gases, even if there isn't a lot (relatively) of water vapor there, there is still a lot compared to CO2.

NO THEY HAVEN'T. Read your own bloomin' links.

I'm afraid you've confused me with someone else. I have not posted a single link here on solar system warming. Cripes.

Buddha:

Likewise it does not provide evidence that CO2 does NOT have a warming effect, as you seemed to infer in your original post. The point of the article is that CO2 may not necessarily initiate warming, but it will certainly amplify it considerably when it happens.

The point of talking about the 800 year lag and positive feedbacks is that scientists are speculating that that is what happened, but they have no good evidence that it IS what happened. But yet they want to use that as evidence that that's what will happen to us. If you look at the potential heating from CO2, it's actually quite minimal without positive feedback loops. However as you say:

It's a fast moving and very complex field of research and our knowledge is being refined on a daily basis.

Which is exactly my point. It's a complex field and they are trying to say they definitively know things which they certainly don't seem to considering just how much they have to change what they say in the past few years.

A combination of CO2 and Milankovich forcing is the best theory we have to explain the various hothouse periods in Earth's history. That includes the late Cretaceous - T-Rex was wearing speedos and sunglasses in Alaska at the time. ;-)

Yes yes, but do you have proof that it was the CO2 that caused the temp spike? If CO2 amount follows temp rises for the most part then it's something else causing the temp changes which is what everyone is worried about here. If there was a good solid proof that CO2 caused these things in the past we wouldn't be bothering to question that it might now.

Steve:

This statement alone shows that you have not researched this in any detail, and just aren't qualified to comment.

Wow, how petty of you. This is why many people feel that AGW has nearly reached the status of a religion. It's a common issue that Creationists feel that if they find one thing that's even possibly wrong with evolutionary theory that they can throw the rest out happily. You asked for a summary and I gave it to you. I allow for the possibly that my research in some areas might not be as intense as others, so there is the possibility that I might have missed some recent article that explains it all, but your attitude is very lame to base the entire post on one simple sentence.

Is the article you refer to the one about temperature spikes just before and partway through a major ice age?

12. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205867 by locri on July 7, 2008 at 8:32 pm

I put to you this challenge. Please could you summarise briefly all current ideas about global warming, and the theories behind them.

Ok, it's late so I might miss some stuff and I'm going to summarize quite a bit because frankly there is a lot of ideas about global warming. You might look to my previous posts to already get an idea that I've done research on this though as I mention things like positive feedback and the fact that yes, CO2 has been verified to warm air in a closed lab environment. Fairly simple starters, but some people don't even bother with the basic foundations of the theory which I think is why we get in the trouble we do.

So the basic idea is that manmade greenhouse gases (those above and beyond what are natural and are put into the air because of the industrial nature of our society) is unbalancing the natural climate via absorbing more energy into the atmosphere which should (according to their theory) warm the layers of the atmosphere down to the Earth itself.

This warming will cause more ice to melt, which would cause the oceans to rise. CO2 in the air would theoretically make the ocean more acidic (although the freshwater of the ice caps is supposed to dilute the salt at the same time.. but I'll let you figure that out). Also because of less ice there would be more sunlight absorbed by the Earth itself due to increased exposed landmass.

There is a general fear that this warming will spiral uncontrollably due to positive feedback forces (which is what they use to blame previous warming on CO2 even though they aren't really sure).

Many of the scientists seem to completely ignore the MWP and the Little Ice Age which make their graphs seem a lot more dire. They use computer models that assume CO2 is a driver and therefore of course if it increases the model temp will increase. If you look at the history of the models used they have to constantly be refined again and again to properly fit the temp curve and can't be given data in the past as a starting point and properly predict what we know to have happened. It's an extremely complex system and yet they claim to know it.

There's also the (in)famous dendroclimatology by Micheal Mann which has been disproven in at least two peer reviewed papers and a review committee. He used an extremely select set of trees along with a flawed algorithm that you could combine with stock market data and STILL get a hockey stick curve as proof of warming from the past. For more information, I think Steve McIntyre has pretty much done this topic to death far better than I could ever say.

There are also theories on solar cycle things, which might have some validity considering that the current solar cycle (24) has been pretty much dead... a few specs, but no real proper sun spots. There are some things on cosmic rays, which I can't entirely be sure about but it does potentially add to the complexity.

Oh, and the other planets in the solar system have been warming up... I kinda don't think that our CO2 production has been screwing with them, so there is something else going on.

Both CO2 and temperature have been much higher in the past and didn't cause a catostrophic tipping point like the AGW believers would like you to think. Assuming AGW pretty much means you have to ignore the fact that the Earth does have some natural varience and we are well within that possibility. Even if not, but still taking natural varience into account the impact being caused by CO2 very little unless you assume we would naturally be decreasing in temp.

I'm sure I've probably missed some things here and there, but if there are any topics you think I should also hit, give me a nudge or two and I could go on about those. I've been researching this topic for nearly 2 years now and frankly, things just don't mesh well for the AGW crowd.

Oh, keep in mind that the "consensus" of scientists includes people who have simply reviewed the IPCC reports and even some who disagree with it because the IPCC put their names in anyway. There was even at least one case of a scientist that had to threaten a lawsuit to get his name removed from the list.

If we are looking at numbers alone, then technically the consensus would be on my side because of the 31000 or so signatures signed by a variety of scientists rejecting the idea of AGW:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64734

Admittedly some of those have been noted as faked signatures, but unless the signal to noise ratio is very low there are a lot of people rejecting AGW. More than the 2500 the IPCC claims, easily.

13. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205831 by locri on July 7, 2008 at 8:07 pm

The curves shown on the site illustrate this point perfectly. I saw this rubbish ages ago, but then they hid some of the data to hide the error in the theory. The hidden data was what made me suspicious of it in the first place.

Funny, is that why the only area that CO2 covers that Water Vapor doesn't cover is in one of those colder bits? (Near the middle, the only part that isn't overlapped by water, you know.) Not to mention in a dip in the Upgoing Thermal Radiation area. I suppose it doesn't help that water vapor composes nearly 90% or so of the greenhouse gases.

And if you are worried about hidden data, you should look up information on the Mann hockey stick graph... there is tons of hidden and overselected data there (although that topic has been done to death elsewhere so I'd rather not bother with it. If you want links I can help).

14. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205617 by locri on July 7, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Given that a simple lab experiment shows Arrhenius was correct about the heat trapping properties of CO2 and that a simple model of the earth (with a fixed albedo and an oxygen / nitrogen atmosphere) will heat up more when insolated (sic) with more CO2 present, the onus is on you to hypothesise why in a complex world this might not be the case.

You might want to look up the heat absorbtion properties of CO2 as compared to the other (and more dominant) greenhouse gases. Water vapor, for example, covers almost all of the same range that CO2 does and is in greater supply already, therefore there is not a lot more energy that CO2 can absorb. Even then, there is a logorithmic curve on the ability of CO2 to absorb energy. A fourfold increase in CO2 wouldn't have the same effect as, say, a twofold increase. (Edited for clarity.)

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/a-window-on-water-vapor-and-planetary-temperature-part-2/

15. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205612 by locri on July 7, 2008 at 2:04 pm

Buddha:

The point still stands. On the very links you posted RealClimate mentions that CO2 couldn't have caused the initial 1/6 of warming and it only "could" have caused the other 5/6ths. The don't know what really caused that warming. They suspect that it's a positive feedback effect, but suspicion does not equal evidence.

The most important part is they admit that climate is not usually driven by CO2, but now because man is in the equation things obviously must be so different. I don't quite follow that logic. There is so little we truly understand about the climate and to make such definite statements is kinda silly.

Do you have proof that CO2 caused a giant warming spike that effected the dinosaurs? If not, leave silly statements like that out please.

And yes, La Nina is happening, but just a short few years ago 2008 was supposed to be "the worst year yet" just like almost every other year. The apocolypse keeps getting pushed back because it isn't fitting their computer models. That doesn't inspire much confidence. They know the cycles of La Nina, so they should have been able to figure that out years ago. (If they know the climate as well as they say they do.)

And I'd love to hear a reply to my last bits on testable experiments as no one has taken on that yet. This is where (contrary to others on this thread) I relate AGW believers to Creationists. They can't give atheists like myself a testable hypothesis for creationism and it doesn't seem like the AGW crowd can either. The target keeps moving around and it seems almost everything proves AGW, so how can we really know what is what?

16. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205550 by locri on July 7, 2008 at 12:45 pm

I consider myself a pretty moderate fellow, but I have been deeply worried about climate change, as a result of researching what has happened when CO2 has risen to similar levels in the past.

Not to be a party pooper, but the levels of CO2 measured in the past (via ice core samples) have been determined to have an average of an 800 year lag after temperature at high resolutions of the timescale. Therefore, in the past CO2 has decidedly NOT caused warming. There are many that believe because things are different (influenced by man, this time) that the rising level of CO2 now will cause temperature increase, but that's a different argument than what happened in the past.

CO2 has only been shown to increase temperature with certainty in a closed laboratory environment and not an open planetary environment.

Also, if you look at the temperature trends of the last bit, there hasn't been a lot of warming despite the increases in CO2. Comparing temp graphs to Hansen's "drastically cutting CO2" scenario we are actually at a lower temp than that (and much lower than the "no change" scenario).

The IPCC has recently said that the warming effects are "taking a break" and will pick up again in a few years. Huh?

The major problem I see with AGW is that there seems to be nothing falsifiable according to it's proponents. Temp goes up? AGW. Temp goes down? AGW. Drought? AGW. Floods? AGW. Etc etc...

If they really know so much about how the climate works to say we are definitely screwed, they should be able to give us a good testable method to verify if it is truly happening or not and I just have not been seeing it.

17. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117102 by locri on January 28, 2008 at 9:15 am

I found this article very interesting and definitely agree that a lot of what is behind "New Atheism" is basically just anti-dogmatism. It's obvious that many of the prominent authors of "New Atheism" are anti-dogmatic when topics like Stalin and Pot Pol (sp?) are brought up.

The big question I have after reading this is, what's left of religion when you get rid of dogma? Seriously... the foundations of religion ARE dogma. If you take it away you just have a social group of people and you might as well be talking about the local chapter of 4H or something.

18. The New Atheism: An Interview with Mitchell Cohen

Comment #77950 by locri on October 11, 2007 at 8:41 am

Two things:

I'm a bit confused... people above are saying that the interviewer is stupid, but from the looks of the article it's Cohen interviewing himself. Am I wrong on this one? It's an interview OF him BY him.

And also, I really dislike his implication that atheism is somehow tied in with left-wing thinking and that it's only important for left-wing intellectuals. Why does it matter if you are left-wing or right-wing? New Atheism still matters for ANY intellectual or any person in general IMO.

19. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72288 by locri on September 20, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Every time I read something like this I really have to wonder: What the heck DOES it take to be considered "knowledgeable" enough to criticize religion?

Seriously, I'm quite sure Dawkin's has read both The Bible (both old testament and new) as well as a few other religious books... frankly, there isn't much more "knowledge" to religion other than the books that some people wrote who were supposedly inspired by god or possessed by god or something along those lines.

Gah... such inane arguments and they are all the same because there is little else they can do except claim "oh, that's not MY god, you must be thinking some other god".

20. Another view

Comment #66513 by locri on August 30, 2007 at 7:24 am

Veronique:

The major problem with the wikipedia quote you have there is that it only talks about moderate to severe cases rather than what St. John's Wart is normally used for which is mild to moderate.

Check out http://healthlibrary.epnet.com/GetContent.aspx?token=e0498803-7f62-4563-8d47-5fe33da65dd4&chunkiid=31050 entry from iHerb's health library. They do a fairly good job of showing a balanced viewpoint on most herbal remedies. You'll note in the same article that it discusses how there is no evidence for St. John's Wart helping in a variety of other conditions that it's been rumored to help with.

Quote from the above mentioned page:
"Taken as a whole, research suggests that St. John's wort is more effective than placebo and approximately as effective as standard drugs."

"The big problem with these products, be they naturally derived or synthesised, is that they are sold as 'cure-alls' with no regulation. They are prescribed by people under no regulation and with somewhat spurious training."

Yes, I would absolutely agree... but one of the reasons there is no regulation on these products goes back to what I was saying before, no company wants to run the tests because they would have to spend a lot of money for little to no profit. It would be nice if there was enough money to do actual good studies of best dosage and such, but that sadly doesn't seem to happen.

21. Another view

Comment #66371 by locri on August 29, 2007 at 8:29 pm

Sorry, correction... Viagra was originally researched for high blood pressure and some cardiac disease.

Oh, and I also wanted to add that there are many cases where the scientific medicine only treats the symptoms rather than the base cause, which isn't necessarily a good thing either.

22. Another view

Comment #66369 by locri on August 29, 2007 at 8:25 pm

Although I generally liked "Enemies of Reason" there were a few parts that did actually bother me. The primary thing that did has to do with the fact that while science as an overall thing is fantastic and can do wonderful things, Dawkins is not taking into account the human aspect of scientific medicine.

The main thing I want to get across here is that lots of stupid things happen in the scientific medical industry (like wendelin's experience of what sounds like a bad prescription) that happen because of greedy and corrupt people. Or just the bizarreness of how the medical industry works.

Examples: Because of greed, there are many great alternative medications that DO work like St. John's Wart, 5-HTP, Valerian, Melatonin, etc. that aren't put into rigorous trials and prescribed because drug companies couldn't make any money off of them. They are all non-patentable substances and some of them exist in nature so can be easily produced.

Hand in hand with this is that oftentimes Doctors overlook perfectly reasonable and cheap solutions in favour of prescribing expensive and unnecessary drugs.

Another thing is that sometimes the medical industry discovers things not by a well laden process of creating something to help with a specific illness but rather try tons and tons of variations on different formulas and see what their effects are. While this might help in some cases, it gives me (at least) the impression that it might in some cases mess with a body more than it helps. Cue the giant list of side-effects included in all the drug commercials. If you don't believe me, read up on how Viagra was accidentally discovered in the process of finding something to help out with heart attacks.

And in all, scientific medicine can do wonderful things, but there are many remedies out there that haven't been scientifically backed, but do work nonetheless and it's a bit arrogant to say that scientific medicine is flawless when there have been definite cases of things going wrong. I wish Dawkins would, for the sake of full disclosure, talk about that as well.

23. Ditching God: Emboldened Atheists Are Finding Purpose In Coming Out Of The Closet

Comment #57928 by locri on July 22, 2007 at 11:28 am

Although I think it's a great thing that organizations like CFI exist, I do have a few things I feel like I have to say.

I live nearby the particular center mentioned in the article and have been there twice. The one time I went there and there were actually a fair amount of people I was rather disappointed that there seemed to be a lot of clique-ishness in the group. I tried to start up a conversation with a few people but no one really seemed interested.

There were two people closer to my age that were pleasant to talk to for the bit that I did, but seemed absorbed into other things so I wasn't able to talk to them much either.

Maybe it was just a bad day for me and the people I tried to talk to, but it didn't feel as welcoming as I had hoped. I'm not quite sure why. I hope this experience isn't common when trying to join Atheist/Freethought groups, but I've noted that there is a similar trend in religious groups. It's very easy to call yourself a part of that group, but to truly be part of the community can become a difficult thing.

24. Study: Religion is Good for Kids

Comment #34868 by locri on April 25, 2007 at 1:30 pm

"But when parents argued frequently about religion, the children were more likely to have problems."

I think this is the primary issue with the study. I'd imagine if a lot of arguing was done in front of small children regardless of what it's about, it could cause issues.

This, however, wouldn't be an issue in a household with two atheist or agnostic parents. As Rtambree said, "Rubbish"