Your non sequitur is even more incredible than mine.

You wrote:

Ok, sorry. So why is ND doing so well in this financial climate?

and

Look into the Bank of North Dakota. This a state bank which lends money to itself. All interest goes back to the state bank and not to a priviate bank such as the Federal Reserve.

I assumed you had a point. And the only connection I could make was the fact that ND has the only state-owned bank in the country. Perhaps if you make the point you intended, I could better reply to it.

 

...and then there is all that about putting the CO2 back into the atmosphere.

According to recent reports, AGW theory is on serious life support, if not dead already. Example:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/04/01/were-not-screwed/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html

Edit: and this one from today:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-climate-slowdown-idUSBRE93F0AJ20130416

 

According to recent reports, AGW theory is on serious life support, if not dead already. Example:

I don't believe economists when it comes to matters of science. I prefer to belive scientists.

 

I don't believe economists when it comes to matters of science. I prefer to belive scientists.

Me too!

...

Edit:

Let me be less flippant: Since just about everyone has their own personal biases and, for those deeply involved in any particular issue, an ax to grind, I tend not to believe *anyone* at face value. Credentials to me are relatively meaningless.

I prefer to look at the evidence, and use my own mind and judgement to draw a conclusion.

There are good economists and bad economists, just as there are good scientists and bad scientists. Unfortunately, AGW has long ago devolved into a religion. The proponents of AGW practice very little actual science anymore -- and by that I mean they have tossed the scientific method overboard. They are no longer objective in their approach to validating/disproving their own theories.

 

AWG is no religion. Proponents are the only ones practicing science. They have not tossed out scientific methods. Every publication is rigorously reviewed. I've examined what the distracters are writing, and in nearly ever case, they base their views on poor science. Bad economist or good economist is irrelevant. I listen to no economist because they are simply not qualified to write about science.

That article was a sham. The author used slight of hand to make his point rather than any logical argument. Notice how he brings up different issues, but only published the researcher's response to one? Also, he makes a vague and false statement at the end where it talks about how much of the findings of the scientists has relied on tricks, etc., without any proof or evidence. Lastly, pronouncing AGW dead on questions about a single study, right or wrong, is itself very unscientific.

 

...I prefer to belive scientists.

I'd like to propound on my thoughts just a little bit further: blind faith in science is just as, perhaps even more, detrimental to civilization as blind faith in religion. Early in the 20th century, there arose a scientific theory, and an associated popular movement, called Eugenics.

The growth of the eugenics, as a theory, popular movement, and political policy making, very much parallels that of today's AGW.

I will not debate the merits -- or lack thereof -- of eugenics here. But at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, it was the "science" of eugenics that made white supremacism socially acceptable -- and academically institutionalized -- leading directly to the rise of Hitler's Germany and the extinction of millions of individual lives (and all for the common good, of course!).

Are you sure that we have progressed so far that we should trust our very lives and fortunes to scientists of today, without even a question of whether or not they might be wrong???

Me? I will *always* be a skeptic...*especially* when matters of science and public policy meet.

 

Indeed, let's not believe in Science although Science is responsible for curing the plague, disinfecting our cities, developing medicine, creating infastructure, predicting hurricanes, etc. Let's all go back to the 17th century.

 

Indeed, let's not believe in Science...

Science is not something to be "believed in" -- that is the realm of mystics and priests.

Science is the practice of looking at the world objectively and trying to make sense of it. A good scientist is *also* a good skeptic. He will be the first to try to disprove his own theories.

 

What was that you were saying about being pedantic?

 

well... under capitalism the poorest are leeches of society as they have no money to consume since money is the vital part of the equation. If you eliminate money, then even the poorest person can trade a service for something they need

Which is what money is!

Money is nothing more than a medium of exchange for goods and services.

And this notion that you have to eliminate money before someone can trade a service for something they need is poppycock. People trade goods and services directly all the time. When I was working in fast food we had a guy that would come by once a week and wash the outsides of all the windows. In exchange, he a got free meals. He had worked out an agreement with the manager to exchange a service for a good. No money involved.

Now, from the federal government's perspective, a taxable event had occurred and the person should have reported the value of the food they received as self-employment income -- even though no money changed hands. That's because the government isn't really taxing the money you earn, but the value your labors create and they will continue to do so whether there is "money" or not.

But let's consider this utopia without money. I want some carrots for dinner and I make wood flutes, which are the rage and it seems like everyone wants one. But it turns out that guy that grows the carrots already has three and doesn't want any more and so won't trade me any carrots for any of my flutes. So now I have to find out what the farmer will take in trade for the carrots and what he wants is a pair of wool mittens. So now I have to find someone with a pair of wool mittens and, since they also have a flute, find out what they want. This chain of searching continues until I finally find someone that will trade a flute for whatever is at the end of that chain and then I have to carry out all these transactions in order to get my carrots for dinner. And how many carrots is a flute worth? How many mittens? How many mittens are a flute worth. I am stuck forever in tiny, evershifting markets that have no common reference.

But now I go to the farmer and say, "I know you don't want a flute, but I'm hungry and I have neither the time nor energy to track down a means of trading a flute for the mittens you want. So how about I give you this piece of paper that says that I will give a flute to whoever brings me this piece of paper? Then you can trade that promise to someone else in exchange for your mittens." Guess what? I have just created a paper money system. Pretty soon people are waling around with paper certificates for bread, blacksmithing, babysitting, meat, hairstyling. So now when I go to the farmer to get carrots and he says that he wants mittens, I look through my stash of papers and see if, by chance, I have one from someone that makes wool mittens. If I do, I am in luck, although we still have to work out how many carrots I should get for this wool mitten certificate.

While inefficient, it works. But what if I get the notion that I can get everything that I want just by giving out flute certificates right and left? This is "printing money" and it will work for a while but eventually I will give out more than I can possibly redeem -- I just can't make flutes fast enough to honor all the certificates I've given out. Once that happens, the value of my flute certificates, both any new ones and the ones that people already hold, goes down. When I die or move away or just stop making flutes, they become worthless.

Pretty soon, someone sees how inefficient all this is starts going around offering to directly trade certificates of one kind for another. He doesn't want any carrots from the farmer, but we will trade some of the certificates he has for the farmer's carrot certificates in addition to whatever certificates from other people the farmer has. We've just invented a stock market in which people can trade claims on the services and products of others.

But this is still unwieldy, so someone say, "Okay, here's a new type of certificate. This one doesn't allow you to claim any particular good or service from any particular person, but if you will trade me one flute certificate for fifty of these "reserve" certificates then I promise that, at some point in the future, if I have a certificate for something you want I will accept some number of those reserve certificates in exchange for it. Pretty soon, people start valuing their commodity and service certificates in terms of these generic reserve certificates and, not too long after that, they realize that they don't have to even deal with the certificates for goods and services as all. I start trading my flutes directly for reserve certificates and take some of those to the farmer and trade some of them to him for some carrots. We now have a full-up reserve note banking system.

 

Science is not something to be "believed in" -- that is the realm of mystics and priests.

To believe in good science is not the same as having a 'belief' as in mystics and priests. To believe in good science is to have an open mind about the wonders of our universe.

Science is the practice of looking at the world objectively and trying to make sense of it. A good scientist is *also* a good skeptic. He will be the first to try to disprove his own theories.

Of course. Once he's reviewed his work, and so has his collegues, it can be accepted along with the known body of science, until and unless it is subsequently proven wrong.

 

Money is nothing more than a medium of exchange for goods and services.

Excellent analysis, WBahn!

As I usually don't have nearly the time to expound at such lengths, I usually direct comments about the 'evil of money' for Francisco D'Anconia's money speech:

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speech/

 

To believe in good science is not the same as having a 'belief' as in mystics and priests. To believe in good science is to have an open mind about the wonders of our universe.

Good vs. bad is simply a matter of opinion. And opinions should have little or no place in science. And before you throw my words back in my face, please note that I referred to "good scientists" -- not "good science" -- in my previous post.

Of course. Once he's reviewed his work, and so has his collegues, it can be accepted along with the known body of science, until and unless it is subsequently proven wrong.

No! Review of the accuracy/acceptability of ones work, whether by the scientist himself or his peers, *does not* make a theory valid. Only experimental testing can do that. A theory must be testable, and the results of the tests must be predictable prior to the test itself. If not, the theory must be entirely discarded.

This is where AGW fails miserably. AGW models are *excellent* at predicting the past. They have completely failed to predict the future.

 

Good vs. bad is simply a matter of opinion. And opinions should have little or no place in science. And before you throw my words back in my face, please note that I referred to "good scientists" -- not "good science" -- in my previous post.

Good science was my words alone. You protest too much.

No! Review of the accuracy/acceptability of ones work, whether by the scientist himself or his peers, *does not* make a theory valid. Only experimental testing can do that. A theory must be testable, and the results of the tests must be predictable prior to the test itself. If not, the theory must be entirely discarded.

A review includes reviewing data and measurement techniques. So, by any measure, a good science review includes measurements and experimentation.

This is where AGW fails miserably. AGW models are *excellent* at predicting the past. They have completely failed to predict the future.

AGW has not failed. Nobody can say whether they have failed to predict the future or not. To say so would be the providence of mystics.

 

Nobody can say whether they have failed to predict the future or not.

Thank you. You have just proved that AGW is not science.

 

Thank you. You have just proved that AGW is not science.

I've done nothing of the sort. I claim that nobody can say yet because the future is yet to come.

 

Thank you. You have just proved that AGW is not science.

What is not science is claiming that a single, poorly implemented study is a basis for upending years worth of data and scientific evaluations.

You must review data over and over, something that has torn the study you claim to be the only "real" study apart. You cannot pick and choose what studies are science and which are not based on a personal belief.

 

I've done nothing of the sort. I claim that nobody can say yet because the future is yet to come.

Then I shall belabor to repeat myself:

A proper theory must be both testable and falsifiable. You have admitted that AGW is neither. Therefore, AGW is not science.

 

...the study you claim to be the only "real" study ...

Are you quite sure this is what I claimed?

 

Then I shall belabor to repeat myself:

A proper theory must be both testable and falsifiable. You have admitted that AGW is neither. Therefore, AGW is not science.

I've admitted no such thing.

AWG is testable and falsifiable. Whether or not it can predict the future is another matter altogether.