[Coral-List] Great Barrier Reef is rapidly losing coral

[Steve Mussman]

   Doug,


   You are spot on, as usual.
     * As Thomas Webler emphasized, we shouldn't allow these arguments to go
       unchallenged.
     * Doing so just reinforces those who have been swayed by questionable
       analyses.
     * The scientific method encourages criticism until reality speaks for
       itself.
     * Those who have orchestrated the challenge to climate change science
       have succeeded in establishing an alternative reality.
     * Real science is on the verge of becoming pseudo-science to far too many.
     * This  effectively creates paralysis in any attempt to move society
       forward on the issue.
     * I'm now hearing it all the time. The "reasonable" position on climate
       change  has  morphed into "perhaps the changes we are experiencing
       are simply the result of the natural cycle".
     * In  the  world  outside the  scientific  community,  anthropogenic
       causation is being relegated to the extreme.


   Steve


   -----Original Message-----
   From: Douglas Fenner
   Sent: Nov 1, 2012 3:17 AM
   To: August Heim
   Cc: Steve Mussman , "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov"
   Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Great Barrier Reef is rapidly losing coral
   August,
       I wish it were that simple.  Fact is, people make these arguments to
   sway those who are reading but not writing messages.  When someone feels
   that another person has sent out a message that will mislead people, they
   want to correct it.  With climate change you are quite right, no one is
   likely  to change the opinion of the main people who are arguing these
   points.  In fact, the main feature of "pseudoscience" is that people will
   not abandon their views no matter how many times their views have been shown
   by evidence to be wrong.  In science, once something has been disproven,
   then you have to either change the theory or get a new theory, the old one
   is dead.  The argument at this point is which side is pseudoscience.
   Wikipedia has some interesting pages on pseudoscience for those that are
   interested.
     [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
   also their page listing different kinds of pseudoscience
   [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscienc
   e

   On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 5:32 AM, August Heim <[3]august.heim at gmail.com>
   wrote:

     Why is this conversation continuing? The first rule of discourse is do you
     forsee any conditions with which your mind will change?  If not then there
     is no point in discussing.

   On Oct 31, 2012, at 11:31 AM, Steve Mussman wrote:
   > [4]http://www.icrs2012.com/Consensus_Statement.htm
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References

   1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience
   3. mailto:august.heim at gmail.com
   4. http://www.icrs2012.com/Consensus_Statement.htm
   5. mailto:Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
   6. http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list