When a Scientist Believes Data Does Not Support Theory in Climate Models, What Then?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Faizal_Ali

What makes you think I have not watched those videos?

1–Because I’ve said here about ten times now that no one here has watched them but Crispr and myself, and you’ve never contradicted that, and you love contradicting me at the first opportunity;

2–Because your discussion of them on this page indicates no familiarity with them;

3–Because you have a long-standing habit of making judgments against people you don’t like (e.g., Denton) based on a very limited acquaintance with their material, and it makes sense that you would treat Tour in line with that habit, i.e., would assume all his stuff is bad based on your judgment of only a little of it, and avoid spending much time on further exposure. Since it might take you two to five hours before you hit on the parts of his videos containing the experiments we’re talking about, I can’t see you taking the time to do that, given your prior low opinion of the man.

@Faizal_Ali

What exactly do you find faulty about my parallel?

I read it once, and could see immediately it was off-base, and I can’t be bothered trying to explain to you why. Your willingness to BS about articles you have not seen and remarks of Tour you have not heard means that you haven’t earned any further explanation. But if you do go to the trouble of listening to the whole Tour series, and are able to locate his discussion of the articles Crispr and I are talking about, and share the results with us, out of gratitude for your labor I would try to wade through your painful parallel again, and give you an answer.

In the meantime, I’m trying to decide whether to eat late and have beer and pizza for the debate tonight, or eat a more proper meal earlier and watch it after supper. The advantage of eating earlier, I suppose, is that I would be less likely to choke upon hearing Farina’s (expected) barbaric utterances. I also have to make sure I pipe it through to an old TV I don’t care about, in case I have the powerful urge to hurl a steel-toed boot at the screen when Farina speaks. I need to preserve my good TV to watch my collection of classic pre-modern films.

[misterme987 (Andrew P.)]

@Eddie

But while we are at it, I notice that your description of yourself on your profile reads: “Christian universalist (not pluralist).” Can you elaborate for me what you mean by those terms? Do they denote a traditional, orthodox “Nicene” Christian, or something else?

This is getting quite off-topic. But what I mean by that is that I am a Christian universalist — I believe that all people will be saved through faith in Christ — rather than a religious pluralist (the view that all religions are equally valid, and so all will be saved). This is an important distinction, because these two views are often confused, even though they’re very different.

No, I am not a Unitarian Universalist. That would fall under religious pluralism (and as I said, I am not pluralist).

Now, can we get back to the scientific discussion? I’m happy to elaborate on my beliefs, but I don’t see what that has to do with this thread at all.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

Thanks for clarifying your religious terminology. I’m still not sure that you were the second Christian Mercer had in mind when he made his comment, but it’s good to hear something of your views, which sound considerably more traditional than the views of some other people here.

As for “off-topic”: it’s off the current main topic, which has shifted to Tour vs. Farina, but it was a subject introduced by Mercer, and never clarified by him, so I wanted to tie up the loose end.

Further, don’t forget that Peaceful Science was founded by Joshua, who has said that Jesus is by far the most important thing in his life, even more important than science, and one of his goals in founding PS (not the only one, but one of them) was to show that evolutionary science, and science more generally, does not conflict with Christian faith. So I don’t think occasional discussions of what the Christians here believe about God, creation, Jesus, etc. are inappropriate on this site. In fact, I think the specifically Christian thoughts of the Christian posters here (scientists or not) are too often invisible, whereas the specifically atheistic thoughts of the atheist posters here are often very visible, creating an imbalance of tone and content not reflective of the position of the site’s founder. But enough on that for now.

“Now, can we get back to the scientific discussion?”

We have said all we can possibly say, given that only two people here ever saw the Tour discussions in question, and those two can’t remember where they can be found in the videos. There is no point arguing endlessly about articles we can’t find and comments by Tour that we can’t find. So I will not continue this discussion any further, until someone finds the places in the Tour videos where the exact statements of the articles and of Tour can be found.

However, there is a debate coming up tonight with Tour and Farina – see the notice way up above – and it’s possible that they will return to some of the points discussed here, and then we will have something we can pin down. At that point, I would be open to a fresh discussion. But someone should start a new topic, since already we are off topic from climate models. The new topic might explicitly highlight tonight’s debate. But I consider this hybrid discussion (global warming/origin of life) to be a dead end, and am exiting. Thanks again for your polite tone and your attempts to be clear and direct in your meaning.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

I’m a bit surprised to see Tour spouting this batshit-crazy “but they BOUGHT the chemicals!” argument. Previously I’ve only seen that from the lowest of the low-intellect bottom fishers of the creationist frauds. But I guess he’s broadening his audience. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this argument show up on AiG’s list of “arguments so bad you probably shouldn’t embarrass yourself by raising them.”

[Tim]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I’m a bit surprised to see Tour spouting this batshit-crazy “but they BOUGHT the chemicals!” argument.

I must admit to wondering what the counter-factual is on this claim – dig up some ooze from some pond or some undersea volcanic vent, and then zap it with radiation to kill off all the pre-existing bacteria? Go to the chemical supply store and buy a pound of ‘Guaranteed Pre-biotic Ooze™’ instead?

Yes, chemical experiments use chemicals. These can either be store-bought or synethesised by the chemists themselves (but again, from store-bought chemicals). What is the alternative?

[djkriese]

It surprised me as well. Made me recall a moment when Gauger made another protestation basically against the scientific method.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I wouldn’t be surprised to see this argument show up on AiG’s list of “arguments so bad you probably shouldn’t embarrass yourself by raising them.”

Do you mean AiG’s list of ‘arguments so widely discredited that your conversee may already know what’s wrong with them’?

Though these days it’s more ‘Arguments used by rivals from whom we are trying to poach supporters’.

The strength (or lack of) of an argument has never been relevant to its inclusion on such lists.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Eddie

1–Because I’ve said here about ten times now that no one here has watched them but Crispr and myself, and you’ve never contradicted that, and you love contradicting me at the first opportunity;

2–Because your discussion of them on this page indicates no familiarity with them;

3–Because you have a long-standing habit of making judgments against people you don’t like (e.g., Denton) based on a very limited acquaintance with their material, and it makes sense that you would treat Tour in line with that habit, i.e., would assume all his stuff is bad based on your judgment of only a little of it, and avoid spending much time on further exposure. Since it might take you two to five hours before you hit on the parts of his videos containing the experiments we’re talking about, I can’t see you taking the time to do that, given your prior low opinion of the man.

I see. Well, your detective skills aren’t as great as you think they are.

So maybe consider your failure here when you try convince yourself you can determine what OOL researchers are thinking in their minds without even reading their papers.

At the end of the day, all your verbiose blathering cannot obscure the fact you wish to avoid: You claimed OOL researchers had claimed that certain chemicals were found in a pure state on prebiotic earth, and you have been forced to admit that you do not know this. In fact, don’t even know which papers you were referring to, never mind having read them.

@Eddie

I read it once, and could see immediately it was off-base, and I can’t be bothered trying to explain to you why.

“Can’t be bothered”? Or just “Can’t explain” because it wasn’t. No one else here seems to think it was off base, or at least the members who gave my comment a “Like.” So I guess we have to decide whether you are just that much smarter than the rest of us, or are just wrong. LIke you were about whether Tour had claimed dinosaurs might have died out only a few thousand years ago. Or about OOL claiming certain chemicals were found in a pure state on prebiotic earth.

[misterme987 (Andrew P.)]

The Tour-Farina debate was a complete dumpster fire. Although I think Farina won, he didn’t need to repeatedly insult Tour, much less the audience. And Tour just yelled over Farina and spouted technical jargon that the audience couldn’t understand. I don’t think the majority of the audience learned anything, which should be the point of a debate: to learn from both sides.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@misterme987

I don’t think the majority of the audience learned anything, which should be the point of a debate: to learn from both sides.

That is never the point of such debates!

[misterme987 (Andrew P.)]

@Mercer

That is never the point of such debates!

Maybe not in the case of creationism/evolution debates, but IMO all debates should help people learn.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

I definitely agree on should.

[djkriese]

I feel like debates are terrible.

The format is incredibly inefficient compared to learning on one’s own.

The theatre and aim of persuasion can be entertaining yet is not a great search for knowledge.

Moderation feels largely like a joke and they are in an impossible place. How many people would agree to it if they were held accountable for things said?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

@Mercer

Alleging is not unwittingly implying.

You’re right, I should have chosen a different word; they didn’t “allege” that.

A refreshing bit of honesty!

@Eddie

@Mercer

Implying is not correct, either. Inferring might be, but you haven’t read the papers, so there’s no basis for your inference.

But I have read the exact portions of the papers that Tour objects to.

That’s no excuse for conflating inference with implication. I suspect that you haven’t read the parts that would be relevant to your revised claim, either.

@Eddie

Unlike you, who haven’t read them at all,

Cite them and I will.

@Eddie

…and haven’t heard Tour’s description of their experiments and reasoning, and therefore can’t possibly know whether “implying” or “inferring” is the right word.

Sure I can. Tour claimed that proteins with less than 100 amino-acid residues aren’t functional. That’s on a level of ignorance with “[peptidyl transferase is] an enzyme (an aminoacyltransferase enzyme to be exact), and enzymes are proteins…”

Given that, I don’t trust Tour’s descriptions of anything and you shouldn’t either.

And I don’t need to see the video to know that you are falsely conflating inference and implication. Anyone who brags about his mad English skillz like you do has no excuse for doing so.

@Eddie

What’s stopping you from spending a few hours watching the video series, as I did?

Life. What’s stopping you from REviewing them and providing links to those places?

@Eddie

You’re retired now, and you clearly have several hours a week to blow here, bickering, often with non-scientists who have nothing to teach you about chemistry.

You vastly overestimate my time here. I don’t suffer from logorrhea.

@Eddie

Why not listen to what a world-class scientist has to say about the chemical processes described in specific research papers?

Because he obviously doesn’t know what he is talking about, or is simply lying, if he claims that proteins need more than 100 residues to have function as he did in that “debate.” That’s a less-than-Wikipedia level of knowledge. Look at the “Type” column in the table here:

List of human hormones

There are many active peptides that are not hormones, but this gives you an idea of Tour’s ignorance (or dishonesty, or both).

@Eddie

Or are you less interested in learning the nitty-gritty of those experiments than in bashing Tour?

I’m not going to learn any nitty-gritty from Tour. Nor did you, or you would have provided at least a speck of grit here.

@Eddie

Anyhow, Tour may clarify some things in the debate tonight.

He did indeed. He doesn’t care about the truth.