re: #3 CuriousLurker

I’ve tried to understand AGW, but it’s so politicized and there is so much data that it becomes confusing and I give up in frustration. It doesn’t help that a lot of the data is in the form of graphs, charts and tabular data, or photos of things like smokestacks, OR it is described using terms/concepts I don’t fully understand.

So here is a fabulous resource written at an “everyday” level.

earthguide.ucsd.edu

This is a full course written at the freshman level from UCSD.

I think that in many ways AGW parallels the whole Islam is/isn’t compatible with Western society thing. In both cases members of a community are trying to get a message out, but either they aren’t being heard, aren’t delivering the message in a way people can understand, or the issue has been so politicized and the opposition so strident that some folks won’t believe anything they say regardless.

Well here we get into the entire whom do you trust aspect of this. Do you trust actual practicing Muslims who are obviously educated and decent floks about what their own religion says and does not say, or do you trust Fox News?

By the same standard, do you trust the legitimate scientific community, or do you trust Fox news?

Of course, there is an even deeper difference. Debates about beliefs can go on forever without resolution. It is easy to color language of belief or to take pieces of a doctrine out of context. This is so both by the practitioners of the religion and those on the outside. It is very easy for any charlatan to make what he will out of any faith - and if the message has the right mix of hatred and superiority, it will attract the basest and most vile sorts.

For certain, the Islam of someone from Hamas or the Taliban is not the Islam of an educated, kind hearted person. The Christianity of Fred Phelps, or Sarah Palin, is not the Christianity of Mother Theresa. Could you see either of those dedicated to a giving life of helping others in need? The Judaism of the rasha who assassinated Itzak Rabin is not the Judaism of the Rambam.

But with science at least, all of those conflicting voices who represent the best and the worst of us in the field off religion, are always secondary to the hard data. If you believe that God made the Universe according to His will, then you must believe that all natural phenomena are according to His will. As a result, the final arbiter in science, is God Himself. Paradoxically, with religion, the final arbiter of what people think God said, is always men.

Of course, failure to get out the message about AGW has more serious & immediate global consequences, which makes the need to deliver the message quickly & effectively all the more critical. (Though I’m certain Pam Geller & Robert Spencer would have people believe that that stealth jihadis sneaking around trying to impose sharia is the more immediate threat. :-))

Well said.

All that is leading up to my final point: I think members of the scientific community need to reach out directly to people through blogs like this one where people can get to know (and trust) them on a personal basis, and where they have a forum to explain the basics and can make themselves available to people who have honest questions or doubts.

I commend people like Ludwig who are making an effort to do exactly that, because I know how tough & time consuming it can be.

Thank you so much!