I was going off of your question of , took "qualifications" to mean "stuff off of a c.v." and shortened it to "resumes". If that's NOT what you intended, no worries and my mistake. As far as "how I define sources"? That one's easy. I'll trust, say, NEJM over Wikipedia if I'm checking out medical stuff. I'll check out "Science" over un-footnoted Wiki stuff. I'll check out the links idog provided about the biology stuff. If they have conclusions that make sense to me, I'll probably adopt them in the face of nothing better. If I have questions (like in the posts above), I'll ask them. It's not really that tough. I'm not going to immediately discount a guy who writes a 100-page paper unless the stuff inside doesn't have merit. Here's another example...I read ESPN, Hoopshype, this site, nba.com and a few others. I'm not going to believe everything Hollinger says just b/c he's Hollinger (in fact, I have a couple of disagreements with him), but I'll definitely give him more of my time and energy thinking about things than the guy who decided Roy wasn't a top 10 SG for Hoopshype. I trust JA Adande over Pete Vecsey, but that doesn't mean I don't know that Adande loves K*be. As for debatable? Many things are.
You know I agree with alot of what you said about Korea and will profess ignorance of military models of fallouts so I retract that as I have not done the research. I agree with most things you said about NBC and the state of Korea including that we should be at a higher alert level. I was going more on the pulse of the media and people I know so that wasn't exactly a well founded argument. I'm also aware that the firebombings of Japan were even worse. That said Nuclear exchange I think is correctly regarded as an extremely serious and dangerous thing. I don't know the exact consequences but I'm pretty sure "drastic drop in material means of life and quality of life" was a certainty. I mistook your response to be in line with Blazerboy in contention that there is no need to change our behavior in any significant way. Your statement about changing your life was what led me to believe it. I apologize if I was wrong. It seemed like you were saying you don't want models to dictate future behavior, I agree that models are flawed. However, I think it's clear that we have been massively damaging the ecosystem and that things ought to change because of the scale of damage that is clearly emerging from scientific research of the past 30 or so years. I mean the list of things goes on and on. Have you read about the insane invasive species problems they are having in Florida? That sort of thing is happening all over the world just not with the same intensity. I apologize for the snarkiness and yes for me it is an emotional issue as I have a 9 month old son and thinking of the difference in fish and game between my grandfather's day and now is incredible especially when you scale that kind of depletion globally, the same with fisheries etc. etc. So I apologize to you and Denny and Blazerboy for being over the top, I just think this issue is absolutely critical to everyone on the planet and the majority of species as well.
Stalin wasn't a marxist socialist either. It isn't hard to see that control of the means of production by fiat or by outright state ownership is still control of the means of production. The purpose of control of those means is identical, and what makes them both socialist. Big govt. for the common good. Trotsky was an actual marxist, but his view of how Russia should be ruled was rather tossed aside in favor of socialism. What you seem to deny is that a benevolent dictatorship and a harsh dictatorship are both dictatorships. I'd also point out that the Chinese socialists enact slave labor. If you are so in favor of taking Liberty for the expense of a different environment, you might have read about how people are up in arms about companies selling goods (basketball shoes, for one) made by slaves.
Let's put it another way. Just about everyone in the world agreed (and there was significant scientific "proof") that asbestos insulation and CFC's were bad when that research came to light in the 70's and 80's. Though I was still in middle school, I understood when a large portion of school funds went to ripping out insulation and putting up "safe" stuff, causing a levy to be needed, taxes going up, etc. I understand when we needed to find another aerosol technology since CFCs were actually eating away at the ozone, and you could do experiments in the lab that correlated with observable conditions in Antarctica. So I can live without CFCs in my wife's hair spray. But for everything like that, there's the Spotted Owl controversy. Granted, what little i know I know from wikipedia and some pretty biased op-ed pieces, but there was a significant loss of jobs and increase of cost of timber in the 90's b/c the Northern Spotted Owl was declared Endangered and its habitat protected b/c of supposed human influence. Well, the species is now about extinct, even though we haven't been logging those areas, but because a larger, more aggressive owl is taking over the territory. So even with the cuts of jobs, the protection of the environment and habitat, and USFS care in trying to increase the survivability of the species, it didn't work and the NSO is going extinct. Is that due to our stewardship of the earth? Was the GDP cost (to say nothing of the loss of jobs in the area) worth the few remaining years the NSO was able to live? I feel that the owl story parallels a lot closer with the "global warming"/"climate change" scenario than the CFC or asbestos. I understand completely if you feel the other way.
I'd like to point out the following text from idog's own article: Not only do they admit their assumptions are faulty, they also use the lower bounds of number of species and the upper bounds of "endangered" to make their findings more scary. http://animals.about.com/b/2007/08/13/how-many-species-on-earth.htm How does that compare with the ~1.25M species claimed in idog's article? Or this: http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/thomas.wolosz/howmanysp.htm
This debating about who was Socialist and who wasn't is silly. If you wish to label Hitler and Stalin and everyone of the infamous dictators as Socialist, fine (you're still wrong, though). The fact that they were Socialist wasn't the problem. It was how they interpreted Socialism and what they did to preserve their edicts once they were in power. It's also a bit like saying there is only one form of Democracy. You'd also notice that General Obama's violent take-over of the auto industry, as you'd like to play it, was more along the lines of the auto-makers going to Washington and begging for money. Perhaps your memory is fading with the progression of mad cow, I don't know. If you've ever read the Gulag Archipelago you'd know that any attempt to even remotely tie together Obama and Stalin in any way, shape, or form is at the bounds of sanity if not inside of insanity or over-the-top partisanship. Very likely both as they seem to intersect quite a bit.
I feel like Idog's argument is so much broader than that, though. I'm sure there are some issues that are more uncertain/contentious than others (i.e. global warming), but the fundamental truth is that we're blindly attacking what we depend on to survive (clean air, fresh water, plantlife, etc.). Like I said earlier, if the plight of animal and plant species doesn't peak our concern, humanity's should. I think there's a tendency to believe that we're still only destroying and exploiting non-human environments. But it simply isn't true. Whether it's the tar sands projects in Western Canada, mining operations in South America, overfishing just outside the Western Africa, or clearcutting almost everywhere, we are already destroying human habitats to sustain our status quo. This happens unchecked, because in a free-market economy the major (only) impetus for change is outrage from a certain population class. And there's too much of a disconnect (economic, distance, cultural) between that group and those being victimized to create any outrage. With worldwide wealth disparity continuing to increase, the number of people whose environment can be taken from them without consequence will only increase with it. Under our current norms, the amount of land that we tacitly allow to be destroyed will increase exponentially.
We've deliberately killed off species for the common good, and we'll continue to do so. Like the polio virus, anthrax, or certain insects that destroy our crops. What does it say about Evolution if we use our intelligence to thwart it, or if we don't take part in it as a proper player. Proper player means we would kill off anything that's a threat and even eat all the species that we find tasty.
I would say that evolution factors in the ability of a species to think intelligently and not just act off of basic instinct. So our intelligence isn't thwarting evolution but is in fact a part of the evolution equation.
Right! Exactly my point. It is that a shark uses its traits which include sharp teeth and powerful jaws, and our traits include the opposable thumb and intelligence. If we kill ourselves off and 99.9% of the rest of the species, that's Evolution at work. Maybe if we don't, we're obstructing evolution's natural path.
Wait, so if we use our intelligence to destroy the earth it's evolution at work. But if we use our intelligence to avoid that fate, its contrary to evolution? Evolution isn't determinism, dude.
And Nietzsche wasn't an empirical skeptic Brah, you're like...totally confusing him with Sextus Empiricus and that's harshing my mellow! Non-sequitor, but I felt I needed to follow your mix of philosophical point mixed with surfer writing voice.
This is true, but I think it's generally accepted that diversity is healthier than monocultures. (examples being inbreeding and diseases spreading across crops because they lack diversity in genes) Sure it would still be evolution, but not good for us. It would in some ways "set back" evolution. So what i'm saying is, if you're okay with the human race going extinct (yes this is a worst case scare tactic scenario), then it is still "evolution either way"
How so? Evolution may have contributed in the development of our intellectual faculties, but it doesn't prescribe how we must use it. Maybe humanity will collectively decide that they want to "watch the world burn" at some point down the road. But I don't think I'm taking a leap when I assume that we're all inherently selfish beings. Thus, the "right thing to do" is what benefits us the most. Not destroying our own habitat falls pretty neatly within that goal.
You know the funny thing is I believe in determinism in the form of Karma. Which makes my participation in this thread even more funny. I also believe in the immortal soul. Finally, I believe that this series of crises around the globe in the myriad forms (financial, environmental, war etc.) is actually putting pressure on humanity to evolve spiritually. When we do we won't have to debate any of this stuff. It may even be that Denny's right and we'll kill ourselves off. If that happens the Universe will just have to continue spiritual evolution without us. That's what I believe at the deepest level.
The aside caught my attention. I'm curious what point you were making about string theory vs. other areas of physics. Could you flesh that out a bit more? I'm honestly not clear what you are trying to imply. How many PhDs have been awarded in string theory vs. other areas? And what relation do you draw between that and the advances made in the past 25 years? barfo
That's not actually true. There were a vocal minority who claimed the ozone hole was all a crock made up by socialist totalitarian fascist nazi environmentalists who just wanted to control our bodily fluids. Even more interesting, some of those same people who were ozone hole deniers are global warming deniers today. There were indeed significant job losses. Of course, the timber industry was on a steep decline for reasons other than the owl - the owl just got all the blame. As for supposed human influence - the owl's habitat was old growth forest. I don't think anyone can reasonably assert that humans have had no effect on old growth forest in the NW. Yes, quite possibly it is. I'm no owl expert, but it seems to me that logging off quite a bit of their habitat probably weakened their ability to survive. And the other owl? Did it move into this territory due entirely to non-human effects, or was their territorial change due in some part to human activities? barfo
I happen to subscribe to an attitude of non-interference, in the sense that I like to live my life in a way so that I harm or interfere with other people/beings as little as possible. I'm not pretentious enough to expect others to live the same way, and I don't think you can shape policy around that expectation. That's why, when it comes to environmental concerns, I always start from human self-interest. This George Carlin bit is the best way to explain it, IMO: [video=youtube;KtqSPahiMxw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtqSPahiMxw[/video] It sounds like a very strong critique of environmentalism, but I feel like it's a call for a more pragmatic environmentalism. Check out how he closes the rant, talking about how we'll die off and the Earth will continue on surviving. If we get through the fluff and rhetoric of environmentalists, that's what it is at the core. We're killing ourselves by destroying our habitat. If you're not suicidal, I don't see how you can't be motivated by that fact.
