SoAMadDeathWish

One very important thing, no observer can ever travel at the speed of light. We can, however, consider the same scenario if both observers are traveling at very nearly the speed of light. First of all, we always have to define the reference frames. One possible frame here is the Mars-Neptune frame, in which Mars and Neptune are at rest. The other two frames are that of each of the racers. Supposing that they start off an equal distance from Neptune, and leave at the same time and place in the Mars-Neptune frame, and so long as they travel at the same near-light speed speed, they will finish at the same time in the Mars-Neptune frame. Since they are traveling with the same speed, the two racers are at rest relative to each other in their frame, while Neptune is approaching them at very nearly the speed of light. In that frame, they still both observe that Neptune reaches them at the same time. However, your thought experiment is a clever demonstration of why it is impossible to have observers at light speed.

That is what you cause others to feel in your posting behavior. In addition to irritation. Now do I have your attention? Or do you have some more games to play? Michael Perhaps I do play too roughly with the other children. I guess I'll try to be more.....uhh... what's the word?..... n...... n... ni--... nice.... even though I find such nonsense absolutely disgusting...

I have no interest in being banned. Participating in this thread stopped being fun or interesting a while ago. I'm tired of it.

I don't agree with the rest of your characterizations, but I do agree with this. I'm glad you noticed because, after watching you do this over and over to others, I told you this is exactly what I was going to do. I even had to repeat it a few times for you to understand it. And I'm doing it. Does that irritate your highness? Michael Really, when have I ever done that except in your imagination? Before you said you got tired of these types of discussions because they degenerated into mudslinging, and that you would prefer for the forum to not degenerate into "kindergarten level" discussion. There's a lot of good arguments made by both sides here, even if the discussion gets a little pointed at times, but what you're doing is counterproductive, not only to others, but to everything you said you wanted. If you want to express your opinion on how terrible and stupid and deluded "AGW truthers" are, why not make your own thread about it? This is the Science and Mathematics subforum, I assume it's called that because it's for people who want to discuss math and science. If you wanna piss on people you don't like, then the politics subforum is for you.

THIS is so illustrative of the AGW truther mentality. When called on specifics and contradictions in the AGW truther's own statements, they finally admit they believe whatever the "mainstream climate scientists" say (whatever the hell a mainstream climate scientist is), AND CALL THAT CLARITY. They go from specific measurements and definitions to general mush for scientific reasoning. "Whatever those dudes say is what I believe." Is that science or faith? Michael Michael, You don't understand even the basics of the science involved. You don't even show any attempt to understand it. You don't contribute positively to the discussion in the slightest. You openly admit that you're doing nothing but trolling this thread. You adopt the least charitable interpretation of whatever I say just to get a dig at me. You plug your fingers into your ears and go "the reader can judge for himself!" when your misunderstandings are pointed out to you, and then you grasp at whatever even seems to remotely kind of sort of look like it supports your preconceived beliefs. Honestly, you are the last person here who should be opining on whether or not something is science or faith. PS: I never said that I believe whatever the "mainstream climate scientists" say, just that they're right about AGW.

Well then where's her data?

You know this for a fact how? - does the Maunder Minimum mean anything to you? From reconstructions of global surface temperatures here. Pretty sad. Relied on East Anglia. Data caveats. Interpretation caveats. Worse: they concede "Peak multidecadal warmth centered at A.D. 960 (representing average conditions over A.D. 940–980) in this case corresponds approximately to 1980 levels (representing average conditions over 1960–2000)." Busted flush, honey. I suppose you have better data then?

You've twice changed what your "position" supposedly is, the second time to endorsement of material you hadn't read when you confidently claimed that "AGW" has been proven, is subscribed to by every "reputable" climate scientist, is supported by thousands of peer-reviewed articles and countered by none. Do you even acknowledge yet that, no, your "position" - in any of its sequential versions - isn't subscribed to by every "reputable" climate scientist? As to the IPCC Summary Report - I'll have to look through it again to double check, but I think there isn't anything in it with which I agree. I have no interest in a debate with you, however, just in correcting some of the things you say. I want to address a particular statement you made in the beginning part of post #258, the part which you wrote yourself, and I might address some other issues later. Meanwhile, I have a quarrel with something Mr. Kolker said. Back in a bit. Ellen I have not changed my position, just made it clearer. My position has always been that the mainstream climate scientists are right about AGW, any differences in wording merely reflect my own understanding and knowledge of that position (which definitely isn't perfect). That's why I made post #258.

If the observed temperatures in reality don't fall within that range, are you saying that the model which predicted temperatures within that range is therefore falsified, or is it still just a "minor discrepancy"? See, it would be nice if you would actually answer my questions, rather than bluffing and blustering while avoiding them. I have to wonder why you refuse to answer the questions. Is it because you know that once you actually identify precisely what you mean by "minor discrepancies" versus observations which would falsify a given model, then we can begin to apply your own stated standards to the "consensus scientists'" models, at which point you'd have to try to explain why so many of them are outside of your own stated acceptable range? So, once again, the unanswered questions are: What standards are you using to judge a "discrepancy" to be "minor" versus "major," and, more importantly, how large can a "discrepancy" be before it would count as falsifying an AGW model. How far off from reality could AGW models be in their predictions before you would classify the models as falsified? Yes or no, if a model fails to "explain at least 50% of the variation in temperatures with 95% certainty," has that model therefore been falsified? If your answer is "no," then which observations in reality would falsify the model? J Yes, at the 95% level.

You know this for a fact how? - does the Maunder Minimum mean anything to you? From reconstructions of global surface temperatures here.

That's for sure. Total brain shut-down. Rand called it a blank-out. Gotta like this discussion style: We can debate anything you agree with me on--and it doesn't have to make sense. But anything you disagree with me about doesn't count. And by the way, don't ask me for a fucking yes or no! I've never seen a clearer case of this. Michael Have you stopped beating your wife yet? It's a simple "yes or no" question.

Sure. It fails to explain the Medieval Warm Period when Greenland was green. Personally I'm in favor of global warming, which is much preferable to global cooling. I'm also in favor of industrial production, mechanized farming, and kicking the U.N. out of New York. For a good laugh, check out the East Anglia Climate Centre's history. It was founded by oil companies to gin up the global cooling scare of the 1970s. East Anglia University doesn't even dent the Top 10 UK research ranking. Until recently, it was a little community college known for bookbinding, American media studies, and Victorian architecture hooey. This has already been addressed in the thread earlier. The Medieval Warm Period was restricted to parts of the north hemisphere, while the global temperature overall was lower than today.

I don't see why any of this is relevant. post #258 makes my position clearer than I ever could have by myself. If you disagree with any of the claims made there, then say which ones and why, and we can have a debate.

Frantic Tard, Why don't you start answering direct questions with direct answers? I'm not interested in wasting my time digging through one of your document dumps and trying to guess what you think it means, and how you think that it answers the questions that you're being asked. In post 302, I responded to your false assertions about results that would not count as falsifying a hypothetical scenario that you proposed. You didn't respond to my question about what standards you are using to judge a "discrepancy" to be "minor" versus "major," and, more importantly, you didn't answer my question about how large a "discrepancy" would have to be before it would count as falsifying AGW. How far off from reality could AGW models be in their predictions before you would classify the models as falsified? J It's difficult to answer your questions because answering them would require me to give you an entire course on statistics, specifically with regard to regression analysis, and on top of that I'm using a simplified example to explain very complicated and subtle concepts. But I guess I can try anyway: When climate scientists report that "greenhouse gasses explain at least 50% of the variation in temperatures with 95% certainty", what that means is that, we can expect that 95% of the time, if a model (that accounts for only ghgs) predicts that the temperature will go up by 1 degree, then the observed temperature increase will fall within at most a 50% range of that prediction , i.e. between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees. The null hypothesis is that, at the 95% level, the models using only ghgs will be able to explain less than 50% of the variance in temperature. So that, if we collected the data and found that, more than 5% of the time, a predicted increase of 1 degree matched with an observed increase that fell outside of the range between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees, then we cannot reject the null hypothesis, and the model's predictions would not be statistically significant at the 95% level. That is, any fit between the model and the data would more likely be due to mere chance than anything else. EDIT: It's actually a lot more complicated than this, but this is the basic gist of it.

Run from clarity? Post #258 couldn't be clearer if you melted it into glass.

Anybody who refuses to answer a question like that, but instead furnishes a long copy/paste dump, is trying to deceive people. "Yes" and "no" are words we all learned when children. They shouldn't be difficult to deploy for alleged experts... Michael I'm not sure where she's getting 1. 4 is out of context. 3 is a more detailed version of 2. My post after hers is supposed to be a direct answer to: "Which of these claims is the one which you assert has been proven, is subscribed to by every "reputable" climate scientist, is supported by thousands of peer-reviewed articles and countered by none?" Happy?

The reason our AGW truther did not answer Ellen's questions about what AGW means is not because she has no answers. It's because--using the crusade of the faithful method mentioned in my quote from the NIPCC--the correct answer is it doesn't matter what AGW means just so long as humans are to blame. And that sounds really ugly and boneheaded if one is pretending to talk about proven science. Michael Well actually I did answer her questions, right in the post after hers:

There is absolutely nothing which corroborates this. Anybody can look at the methodology used in the IPCC's report and see that that assessment is based on nothing more than the authors' say so.

No, for any variation in the data which the models don't explain, one needs to either a) find an additional mechanism which explains the as of yet unexplained variation or b) find a new theory which explains both the already explained variation and the unexplained variation. (part b is where the theory would be falsified in favor of an alternative hypothesis).

What is "not-x"? If a theory predicts an observed value to be 45.365458985632 and the actual value is 45.365458985633, is it falsified? That kind of thinking would "falsify" everything in science. Literally, every last thing. That's why this naive view of the scientific method is wrong. Yes, they most certainly do have a climate theory, and they use that theory to build models.

The IPCC rejected using a null hypothesis and thus abandoned falsifiability. They stepped outside the scientific method. (That is you.) Dude, are you even serious right now? Do you even know what it means to reject a null hypothesis?

I read that Wikipedia article, too. Try linking to it next time, though. Here let me help you: Null hypothesis. But I'm calling bullshit on you. And this is the last I am going to discuss this particular point about null hypothesis with you because the level of the discussion has gone so far down to elementary errors on your end--and I'm the lay person, this is just not worth rebutting. I'll let the reader decide after this. Now, you dummy. Read correctly. The paper is not defining what a null hypothesis is for the field of statistics. The wording is a bit clunky, but it is saying that a null hypothesis needs to be used and that the null hypothesis used needs to be "the simplest hypothesis consistent with the known facts." Get it? And why does a null hypothesis need to be used? Because an "alternative hypothesis" needs to be used for testing. Just because the writer said "alternative and null hypothesis" rather than "alternative hypothesis which is also a null hypothesis for testing the human input of climate change," that does not mean we are in kindergarten. The "null" part refers to human causation of climate change, the hypothesis supposedly being tested by the wise ones lauded by the IPCC. The "null" part does not refer to random measurements of ducks or donuts or whatever the hell is in your head, nor does it refer to a "hypothesis which states that all outcomes of an experiment are equally likely," as you just just claimed. I agree with Jonathan. You're making shit up. The alternative hypothesis of the NIPCC is there is no HUMAN relationship in the climate change measurements, only natural ones. (My wording.) The "alternative" part refers to natural causes and the "null" part refers to human causes. Another way to say it to align it with your precious Wikipedia article is the "alternative" part refers to natural relationships to climate change measurements and the "null" part refers to human relationships to climate change measurements. That is not saying it is true or false. It is only a baseline hypothesis with specific characteristics for testing: the simplest as the alternative and null for human input. Would you prefer the most complicated alternative and null hypothesis? That would make the experiments meaningless, especially since human input is being hellishly complicated to prove. Therefore, for the best testing, the best alternative hypothesis is "the simplest hypothesis consistent with the known facts." The writer said "alternative hypothesis," not just "null hypothesis." So where's the damn Wikipedia article on "alternative hypothesis" so you can try to play gotcha with that one, too? Is being a Wikipedia warrior the best you can do? Jeez. You're supposed to be the expert. Some expert. How did you make such a stupid mistake? This is way too low a standard for intelligent discussion. What a load of crap. Michael Nope, you're still confused. There are two kinds of variables in question, anthropogenic variables and natural variables. The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between the anthropogenic and natural variables and temperatures. The possible alternative hypotheses, state that there is some significant relationship between one or more of these variables with temperatures. The null hypothesis has been rejected in favor of AGW, as the IPCC report shows.

Man I hate this gotcha stuff, but "explained by nothing at all" and "completely unpredictable" are not what a null hypothesis means. To quote from the paper I am reading: An "alternative and null hypothesis" as a standard to gage human causation of global warming has to be "the simplest hypothesis consistent with the known facts." Why? Because the hypothesis being tested needs to be gaged against something plausibly real, not something imaginary that could never exist. The null hypothesis for AGW is that there is no HUMAN relationship between the different measurements, not that there is no causation at all and that matters are "completely unpredictable." Not unless you want to fall off into la-la land and use a hypothesis where the actions of physical phenomena don't have causes. Then you step outside of reality. I'm just learning this stuff, but it's becoming obvious to me that you don't really know it. You're faking knowledge and trying to teach others something you don't know. Michael Thanks for proving that the NIPCC are full of it. This is the standard usage of the term "null hypothesis" from wikipedia: The null hypothesis is most certainly not "the simplest hypothesis consistent with the known facts". It is simply the hypothesis which states that all outcomes of an experiment are equally likely. What the NIPCC are doing is distorting the technical term "null hypothesis" so that their position is supported by default. They are hypocritically doing what they accuse, wrongly, mainstream scientists of doing.

Not true. The question is how much of the warming is due to natural drivers and how much to human activity. No one denies that CO2 has an effect and atmospheric temperature, but how much does CO2 concentration determine the average atmospheric temperature? To answer questions like this we need a genuine -science of climate- which we do not have at present. Part of the difficulty is reckoning non-linear dynamics. Ba'al Chatzaf Well I guess if you repeat it often enough, it must be true...

Jonathan, Why don't you educate yourself on statistical analysis before you start spouting mere ignorant contradiction of everything I say? Read chapter 10 section 10.2 of the full IPCC report, and maybe then you'll have some idea of how science is done by the grown-ups.