Spurious Missives

“If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do the same thing ?” 

How many times did you hear that one as a kid?  It usually had to do with parents not wanting their children to go places deemed as unsuitable for any number of reasons.  Parents opinions were based on reason and experience, something most teenagers don’t have.

Similar to teenagers are today’s advocates of catastrophic global warming.  If you say you don’t  believe their sky-is-falling prognostications, you are called names, your reputation is questioned, and efforts are made to exile you from polite society.

We are being told that global warming will cause sea level increases of 20 feet in the next century.  People will tell you that “the weight of the evidence” proves the statement, and those who challenge this popular view are called “deniers” .  It is all an attempt to vilify intelligent and rational people so the alarmists won’t  have to defend an indefensible theory.

The interesting thing is that there is no empiracle evidence that sea levels will rise 20 feet.  This position rests on speculation derived attempts to model the earth’s climate system with models that have never made an accurate forecast. 

Modeling stuff does not produce real world values.  Models produce speculative results, and depend on a large number of assumptions about real world values that cannot be measured. 

So, take note of what at least one person observed about majority opinions.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.  Bertrand Russel (via iGoogle page)

I am glad to see that I am in good company when questioning a majority, unsupported opinion.

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