1. As a guest you have limited access to the forums.
  2. Membership is free.
  3. So why not Sign up now!

The pros and cons of opinions

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Affairs' started by pussycat, Jul 26, 2022.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. qwerty4321

    qwerty4321 Trusted Member

    I mostly agree, but not all experts are created equal. As in most walks of life there are scientists who will take the money to give whatever opinion the paymaster desires. The problem is checking the quality of an expert takes time and effort which most people (myself included) aren't able or willing to put in.
     
  2. MilaHot

    MilaHot Account Deleted

    With social medias, everyone with an opinion pretends to be an expert, now, or people believe anyone with an opinion, so its dangerous
     
    Dane likes this.
  3. MilaHot

    MilaHot Account Deleted

    Plato elaborates on the difference between knowledge and opinion. Both are "faculties," one enabling us to know, and the other to form opinions. The faculty of knowledge is infallible, while the faculty of opinion is subject to error.
     
    Dane likes this.
  4. Dane

    Dane Account Deleted

    But he also stated that even though the FACULTY of knowledge is infallible (which we now know that is not true because of how the brain
    works, or doesn't work, correctly) but the knowledge itself can be flawed.

    Same with Darwin. His evolution theory is an opinion as even he wrote in his book that if the theory could not be confirmed
    within a short time, that something else must be the answer.
     
  5. buffyfan

    buffyfan Moderator Staff Member


    It was Proven. Covid mutations.
     
    Incs, Dane and MilaHot like this.
  6. Dane

    Dane Account Deleted

    Shhhhhhhhh. Don't be the leak of the truth! They'll come after you next!:eek::eek:
     
  7. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    In Science, there are three basic states of knowledge. They are Postulates, Theory's, and Laws. Postulates are on par with opinions where you come up with an idea and you start testing it. A Theory is a Postulate that has been tested and all the tests has proven it to be valid. A Law is where after exhaustive testing, it is found that no test will prove it false. For example, everything the scientists purported to be true about Covid, are postulates. Everything purported to be true about Climate Change are postulates. So they are both opinions by scientific standards. Yet so many people believe them to be laws.
     
    MilaHot likes this.
  8. MilaHot

    MilaHot Account Deleted

    Well, to be fair, about the Climate Change, we do KNOW that Humanity affects it, we just don't know HOW MUCH we affect it.
     
    Dane likes this.
  9. Dane

    Dane Account Deleted

    The cavemen's campfires affected it. Everything affects it.

    But you are correct is that we really don't know how much we currently affect it.
    One thing, I am sure it is not as much as the alarmists claim.

    A study released in March by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Texas at Austin found that only about half of the meteorologists surveyed believed that abnormal global warming was occurring and fewer than a third believed that climate change was “caused mostly by human activities.”

    More than a quarter of the meteorologists and climate scientists in the survey agreed with the statement “Man-made global warming is a scam simply to make money,” the researchers found.

    United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had an unauthorized release of e-mail messages from a British climate research center last fall show that climate scientists had suppressed data that shows that current climate conditions are a
    natural Earth weather cycle.
     
  10. Dane

    Dane Account Deleted

    U (senate.gov)

    For some light reading on man-made climate change.

    Read page 94, 95, and 96 to see how this is a cycle.
     
  11. MilaHot

    MilaHot Account Deleted

    A caveman's fire didn't affect the atmosphere, no.
    Its our factories, all the industries. THAT affects the atmosphere, the climate. Not a dude in a cave setting up a fire
    And no, not ALL climate change is caused by Humanity, true. But we ACCELERATE it.
    Also, you tend to forget that many of these 'environmentalists' that say its not because of Humanity often are paid by factories or have their researches funded by governments or industries. So its a bit biased.
     
    pussycat likes this.
  12. buffyfan

    buffyfan Moderator Staff Member

    Agreed. If we are going to honor everyone with a PHD who disagrees? And it does not matter who paid for it? Smoking does not cause cancer? The study paid for by RJ Reynolds said so.
     
    pussycat likes this.
  13. Incs

    Incs Account Deleted

    I'm sure it is going to be far worse than people that don't feel alarmed believe. And it is too late to change that outcome.

    That seems like a preposterous claim. I'm not aware of such a study, but I am aware of an older George Mason study from 2016 that shows the exact opposite: the vast majority of meteorologists agree with the actual climate scientists.

    That, too, seems like a questionable statement and probably relates to much older (and debunked) news. Maybe you should reconsider your news sources?
     
  14. Dane

    Dane Account Deleted

    @Incs
    So I guess that report from the Senate is a questionable source too?

    @MilaHot @buffyfan

    My statement of the caveman's fire was tongue in cheek, just stating that everything affects everything else.
    You both do know of the "Butterfly Effect", don't you?
     
  15. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    That's a good one.

    With these guys, you might as well ask a compass to point south. :cool:
     
    Incs and MilaHot like this.
  16. Incs

    Incs Account Deleted

    You are kidding, right? That "Senate report" is a minority staff report apparently commissioned by Senator "Snowball" Inhofe. Unsurprisingly, the quality of the report matches the quality of the senator. Needless to say, average global temperatures have kept increasing by another 0.35C during the only 15 years since the time of the report and continue doing so with no slowdown in sight. But who would you trust, thermometers or a bunch of crank scientists, most of whom aren't actually doing active climate research despite being misrepresented in the report as such.
     
  17. Dane

    Dane Account Deleted

    No, I trust the scientist and their reports of the warming-cooling cycles of the planet over the millenium.

    Not just the most recent reports, but the reports I read and viewed in since the 1970s.
    They all agree.

    I just watched a report on major news station (ABC or NBC) that showed a graph of the global temps in the last hundred
    and fifty years.
    It was the most skewed graph I have ever seen.

    They put a line "x" at the bottom, one inch up was marked 1.00. Ok fine, but the next inch up was 1.25, one more inch 1.50 etc.

    So the top line, 5 inches up was 2.00.

    See the problem?? 2.00 should have been 2 inches up, not 5 inches up.

    Made for a visual that exagerated the rise in temp by 4 fold.

    So it is they who you trust with facts, right?
     
    UpNorthChris likes this.
  18. Incs

    Incs Account Deleted

    Which climate scientists claim that these are just cyclical changes? Those manning climate research stations in Antarctica? Or those collecting exabytes of data from satellites to analyze them on supercomputers? Those who do all of the actual measurements and calculations? I bet not!

    Where are your "alternative facts" climate reports published? Inhofe's minority senate report is not a peer reviewed journal. I also don't care what ABC or NBC show or don't show. TV is not a primary information source for me. I care about reports published in reputable, international, scientific journals. The truth is that the international community of climate scientists, the guys who collect all the data and generate all the models, the guys who do all of the actual work, is practically unanimous about climate change and its devastating consequences. Any other "scientists", those that don't do any of the actual work, are just pretenders and political shills.
     
    pussycat likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.