Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get. -- Mark Twain I believe in climate change -- at minimum, the climate in Georgia where I live changes four times per year. I call the phenomena "seasons." However, I don't consider "climate change" as something humans understand anywhere near well enough to control. Neither do I believe the sky is imminently about to fall because of human consumption of fossil fuels. Oil and natural gas seem to exist for a reason. Why shouldn't we efficiently put our natural resources to good use? As someone with a couple of decades worth of experience and formerly considered as something of an expert in the field of software development, I can say with complete confidence that only sheer hubris allows climate science experts to insist with any degree of certainty that their computer models can predict the future. The problem is simply too complex. There are far too many unknowns. For example, the forecast in Atlanta today is calling for between 3 and 7 inches of snow...quite a margin of error, wouldn't you agree? Now if the weather experts can't even accurately forecast how much snow is going to fall later today, how can they possibly say with total confidence they know what the weather will be like several years into the future? The butterfly effect is part of the chaos theory of mathematics. The term was coined by Edward Lorenz to describe his discovery that very slight changes to the input data for his weather models could produce a significant variations in the outcome, as if the flapping of a butterfly's wings in a … [Read more...]
Education versus indoctrination
Recently Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was visiting London when a reporter tried to sandbag him, asking if he was "comfortable" with and accepted the theory of evolution. Walker apparently sensed the question was intended to be a trap. So he replied that he was going to punt the question, cleverly adding that it was a topic on which politicians shouldn't be asked to give an opinion. Uber liberal Democrat Howard Dean then tried his best to turn Walker's non-answer into an advantage for his political party on CNN's Morning Joe. Dean said that because Walker dropped out of college his senior year and refused to say that he believed in evolution theory, he should be considered "uneducated" and therefore unqualified to be elected President of the United States in 2016. Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough accused Dean of taking a cheap shot at Walker, who had dropped out of Marquette to take a lucrative job with the American Red Cross. Scarborough correctly pointed out that people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg were merely a few examples of extremely successful businessmen lacking college degrees. Dean tried defending his comments. He stammered, "Evolution is a widely accepted scientific construct. People who don't believe in evolution easily, easily either do it for hard right religious reasons or because they don't know anything." Really? Howard Dean has a medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University after receiving his undergraduate degree in political science from Yale University. So I won't … [Read more...]
Willful ignorance
A couple of years ago, I faced the rather formidable challenge of engaging in public debate against Ed Buckner, former president of American Atheists. Ed was very experienced in that sort of thing; it was my first and remains as of today, the only formal debate I've ever had in my life. Therefore, my work was certainly cut out for me. Fortunately for me, video existed on You Tube showing Ed present his best arguments while debating a Muslim scholar in the U.K. named Hamza Andreas Tzortzis. So I took copious notes, seizing upon the opportunity to anticipate Ed's best shots. In fairness, Ed also should have been able to anticipate my best shots coming, if he'd bothered to read some of my work as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner. In my opening remarks, I enumerated the seven points that Ed made that were the foundation his best arguments for atheism and then eviscerated them, point-by-point. I sort of expected that once the logical flaws in Ed's argument were systematically exposed and shredded before he'd ever opened his mouth, we would then be able to spend the remainder of our time arguing about points about the science that has now officially become the crux of my Counterargument for God. Because I knew Ed to be quite an intelligent man, I will now confess that I was expecting the alleged "freethinker" would be a little bit more open-minded. I foolishly assumed that Ed would be able to defend his own beliefs, rather than simply attacking what he supposed to be mine with every opportunity.Sadly, Ed disappointed me. Also in my opening … [Read more...]
