Science + Logic + Reason

[Leonid]

Just a thought...

Science + Logic + Reason = Earth - a safer and better place

[Antoshka]

hm

science is based on logic
no logic = religion

sounds like a sweet sugar (funny)
how on earth sugar can not be sweet ?)?)?)

[Leonid]

Originally Posted by Antoshka

science is based on logic
no logic = religion

Yeah... but logic is not necessarily science

And what does it have to do with religion?

Religion is in opposition to science and logic.

Religion is a narrow, rigid, singular point of view. Supernatural phenomenon created by humans.

Now what do we do ? For many it is their absolute belief period !

[Leonid]

Originally Posted by Perley

Religion is in opposition to science and logic.

Religion is a narrow, rigid, singular point of view. Supernatural phenomenon created by humans.

Now what do we do ? For many it is their absolute belief period !

There are people who believe that science was “created” by religion (by God, etc)

The question I’m seeking an answer for is: How do we make religious people understand that action had to be taken if we want something to be done?

I’m not against religion, it is people’s personal choice, therefore must be respected. But how do we make people realize that religious belief is not enough?

The religious people would have to get direction from their leadership. From top down.

A foudation of eligion is based on guilt and expiation of guilt. That is the only way ! The apocalyptic paradigm is this is the way and it is right !

You have gor me and it is subject for debate. Unless someone finds a ancient script written by ? (Jesus or the great one) that says: IT IS MY WILL THAT WE ALL HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER TO SAVE OUR PLANET. IT IS THE WAY !

We are stuck. It is ther choice and they will follow like lambs if they are directed too.

Other opinions from religious people who I do respect (as long as the are not in my face ) What do religions have to say ?

[Sveta]

I don’t think that religious people believe that God will save the planet or change anything in global, at least I have never met a religious person who thinks like this. As a matter of fact most religious people are very active in helping solving the poverty problems and other world problems. Religion is more about loving and caring about each other. If people would love each other, we wouldn’t have any wars, the environment we live in would be safer and cleaner. The problem is that people will never change and most of them would care only about themselves. But at least religious people are actually doing something to make our world a better place, while some scientist will just do what they are told to do, not carrying about how it will affect people around them. Nowadays religion doesn’t influence science at all, so I don’t see how religion can be an obstacle in the mission of saving the world? What I am trying to say is that religious people do believe in science and actually they are the one who are making a difference in our community, even if this difference is small and not very significant in solving the global problems. By the way I think that the scientist, who believes in God, will put more effort in trying to save the world and help people, than the scientist who does his job only for the money.
P.S. I am not very religious, but I support many of the ideas that religion brings.

[Sveta]

I also think that it depends how people interpret the religion. For example I belief that it is very important to care about each other and help each other and that is my way of understanding the religion. Some people think about religion differently and unfortunately that’s why we had so many wars based on the religious beliefs.

[Leonid]

Thanks for your opinion, Sveta!

Allow me not to comment, except for this:

…then the scientist who does his job only for the money.

A true scientist will work for the sake of science, not money and religion. The question is how many true scientists are out there and how independent is our science.



P.S. Would be extremely interesting to see Diane Wolf's view point upon the issue of religion.

[Preciouslife1]

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours
in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in
front of him. When the glass began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise
jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.


The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the
jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf
balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.


The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.
The students responded with an unanimous "yes."


The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and
poured the entire ***********************************s into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the
sand. The students laughed.


"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things--your
family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything
else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house
and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff. "If you put the sand
into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The
same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have
room for the things that are important to you.


"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play
with your children.
Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner.
Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care
of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest
is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee
represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem,
there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Aachems Razor: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the best one.

[Leonid]

Great parable!
Thanks, Mark!

[Preciouslife1]

Warming debate shifts to ‘tipping point’

Some scientists worry it’s too late to reverse climate change

An aerial photo shows icebergs floating in the water near Greenland’s Ilulissat glacier, which has shrunk by over 10 kilometers in just a few years.

View related photos
var hasRelatedPhotos = '';if (hasRelatedPhotos=='true'){var vRPL = document.getElementById("viewRelatedPhotosLink");i f (vRPL!=undefined) vRPL.style.display = "";}Slim Allagui / AFP - Getty Images file






By Juliet Eilperin
Updated: 11:31 p.m. ET Jan. 28, 2006

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.
This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.
There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe.


‘We've got to do something’
The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth's average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would "imply changes that constitute practically a different planet."
"It's not something you can adapt to," Hansen said in an interview. "We can't let it go on another 10 years like this. We've got to do something."
Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer, who also advises the advocacy group Environmental Defense, said one of the greatest dangers lies in the disintegration of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets, which together hold about 20 percent of the fresh water on the planet. If either of the two sheets disintegrates, sea level could rise nearly 20 feet in the course of a couple of centuries, swamping the southern third of Florida and Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village.
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• More science stories


While both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets as a whole are gaining some mass in their cold interiors because of increasing snowfall, they are losing ice along their peripheries. That indicates that scientists may have underestimated the rate of disintegration they face in the future, Oppenheimer said. Greenland's current net ice loss is *************************alent to an annual 0.008 inch sea level rise.
The effects of the collapse of either ice sheet would be "huge," Oppenheimer said. "Once you lost one of these ice sheets, there's really no putting it back for thousands of years, if ever."
Small shift may key big changes
The report concludes that a temperature rise of just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit "is likely to lead to extensive coral bleaching," destroying critical fish nurseries in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Too-warm sea temperatures stress corals, causing them to expel symbiotic micro-algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food, and thus making the reefs appear bleached. Bleaching that lasts longer than a week can kill corals. This fall there was widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad that killed broad swaths of corals, in part because ocean temperatures were 2 degrees Fahrenheit above average monthly maximums.
Many scientists are also worried about a possible collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, a current that brings warm surface water to northern Europe and returns cold, deep-ocean water south. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who directs Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has run multiple computer models to determine when climate change could disrupt this "conveyor belt," which, according to one study, is already slower than it was 30 years ago. According to these simulations, there is a 50 percent chance the current will collapse within 200 years.
Some scientists, including President Bush's chief science adviser, John H. Marburger III, emphasize there is still much uncertainty about when abrupt global warming might occur.
"There's no agreement on what it is that constitutes a dangerous climate change," said Marburger, adding that the U.S. government spends $2 billion a year on researching this and other climate change questions. "We know things like this are possible, but we don't have enough information to quantify the level of risk."

Related story
NASA climate expert says agency muzzling him



Scientists under scrutiny
This tipping point debate has stirred controversy within the administration; Hansen said senior political appointees are trying to block him from sharing his views publicly.
When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to withdraw the information because he had not had it screened by the administration in advance, according to a Goddard scientist who did not want to be identified. More recently, NASA officials tried to discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for this article and later insisted he could speak on the record only if an agency spokeswoman listened in on the conversation.
"They're trying to control what's getting out to the public," Hansen said, adding that many of his colleagues are afraid to talk about the issue. "They're not willing to say much, because they've been pressured and they're afraid they'll get into trouble."
But Mary L. Cleave, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Office of Earth Science, said the agency insists on monitoring interviews with scientists to ensure they are not misquoted.
"People could see it as a constraint," Cleave said. "As a manager, I might see it as protection."

[Preciouslife1]

Global Warming part#2

‘We will adapt to it’
John R. Christy, director of the Earth Science System Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said it is possible increased warming will be offset by other factors, such as increased cloudiness that would reflect more sunlight. "Whatever happens, we will adapt to it," Christy said.
Scientists who read the history of Earth's climate in ancient sediments, ice cores and fossils find clear signs that it has shifted abruptly in the past on a scale that could prove disastrous for modern society. Peter B. deMenocal, an associate professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, said that about 8,200 years ago, a very sudden cooling shut down the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt. As a result, the land temperature in Greenland dropped more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit within a decade or two.
"It's not this abstract notion that happens over millions of years," deMenocal said. "The magnitude of what we're talking about greatly, greatly exceeds anything we've withstood in human history."


These kinds of concerns have spurred some governments to make major cuts in the carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming. Britain has slashed its emissions by 14 percent, compared with 1990 levels and aims to reduce them by 60 percent by 2050. Some European countries, however, are lagging well behind their targets under the international Kyoto climate treaty.
Speeding toward an iceburg?
David Warrilow, who heads science policy on climate change for Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that while the science remains unsettled, his government has decided to take a precautionary approach. He compared consuming massive amounts of fossil fuels to the strategy of the Titanic's crew, who were unable to avoid an iceberg because they were speeding across the Atlantic in hopes of breaking a record.
"We know there are icebergs out there, but at the moment we're accelerating toward the tipping point," Warrilow said in an interview. "This is silly. We should be doing the opposite, slowing down whilst we build up our knowledge base."
The Bush administration espouses a different approach. Marburger said that while everyone agrees carbon dioxide emissions should decline, the United States prefers to promote cleaner technology rather than impose mandatory greenhouse gas limits. "The U.S. is the world leader in doing something on climate change because of its actions on changing technology," he said.
Stanford University climatologist Stephen H. Schneider, who is helping oversee a major international assessment of how climate change could expose humans and the environment to new vulnerabilities, said countries respond differently to the global warming issue in part because they are affected differently by it. The small island nation of Kiribati is made up of 33 small atolls, none of which is more than 6.5 feet above the South Pacific, and it is only a matter of time before the entire country is submerged by the rising sea.
"For Kiribati, the tipping point has already occurred," Schneider said. "As far as they're concerned, it's tipped, but they have no economic clout in the world."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Preciouslife1]

Why did the Bellatrixian Sub-Mega chicken cross the hyperspacial bypass?
Who cares?

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't.

Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

When planets run around and around in circles we say they are orbiting. When people do it, we say they are crazy.

If you're in a vehicle travelling at the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?

Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive.

COMMUNICATION - Dialogue and mutual respect

" The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the worlds problems" _ GHANDI