[MD] Global Warming: Science or Politics?

[ian glendinning]

Hi Case, you said,

On 2/19/07, Case <Case at ispots.com> wrote:
> They [scientists] tend to nit pick this to death. It is
> the source of a great many scientific disputes in all areas of science.
> Oversimplification of these kinds of arguments does indeed lead to much
> misunderstanding and misrepresentation.
>

 Look, Case, there are good scientists and bad scientists (just like
there are politicians) but the point you miss is the "death".
Mistaking correlation for causation is a schoolboy error surely, we
are beyond discussing that - no "scientist" worth the name will do
that (except in error) ?

You make a point I keep making, it is all to easy to pick holes
logically in "proof" of causation, and a good scientist will indeed
pick it to death - "careful with that razor, Occam". A better
scientist will realise that death is the only outcome, and look for an
interaction of bottom-up with top-down causation from outside the
level he is nit-picking, and bring that into the argument.

I'm tempted to quote "Cornflowers" again, but I've not used this one
in a while ...
Talking of "death" try this from Wordsworth's "Tables Turned"

"One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect."

Regards
Ian