re: #309 Backwoods_Sleuth

followup to my Kentucky legislators’ denial of climate change page, the star of the page (Sen. Brandon Smith) responds:

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Yeah, I’ve seen one of those “out of context” defenses being raised by a RWNJ on a chat network. Basically, that guy claimed it was taken out of context, and that the honorable gentleman from Kentucky meant the rate of temp change.

Only that don’t work so well either. I won’t make your eyes glaze over by going through the details, but basically, the argument fails on three points.

(1) The Inverse Square Law dictates that the energy of any given source decrease the further from the source you go.

(2) If you are trying to establish a correlation between the temperature changes of two planets, you need longitudinal data, preferably over both the well-known 11-year or so solar cycle, but also the less known one which spans centuries.

(3) Because of (1), the changes in temperature on Mars will be minute, which means that you need a precision temperature sensor for your longitudinal data (see (2)). Such sensors have not been on the surface of Mars long enough. This guy was claiming that one could measure temperatures of remote stellar bodies, but failed to take into account the margin of error of such measurements, especially when it comes to planetary bodies (basically, the margin of error is greater than the minute variations).

And then the guy began claiming that I was using a strawman…. Am I retarded, or isn’t the “out of context” argument, at least in this form (rate of change) not only DoA, but still born?

Bonus Derp:

Probing what knowledge this guy has generally, I decided to do a pop quiz on him about protective signs, with the result that he would not hesitate to attack targets with a red square standing on its corner or three orange dots in a row.

When I point out to him that these are international protective signs and that the United States is party to the treaty which defines them and AFAICT, has them written into law, he begins a tirade about how the US does not need to respect no stinking UN commie signage.

And this guy often implies he has US military training and that he is prepared for when the revolution comes. Yet he doesn’t seem to know how to keep himself out of the very deep shit (sorry, there’s no other way of putting it) he will be in if he attacks protected targets.

*SMH*