Are scientists calling for the immediate tracking down and execution of the heretic?
No, but religions -- like science -- seldom call for the immediate tracking down and execution of individuals, and even seldomer follow through with it. The point is that dissenting opinions, far from being treated as challenges, are treated as threats.
People have much more subtle ways of suppressing dissent than simply killing people. Scientists who don't toe the line on global warming are being ostracized, and their opinions are downplayed in the media while those of the establishment are played up.
Again, this is not to malign science at the expense of religion, or vice versa, simply to say that religion and science are both tools, and morally neutral in and of themselves. It is what people do with them that matters.
[Religious institutions] are, quite frankly, used to believing things on faith and without question, not testing those axioms to say whether they are true or not.
What rubbish is this? Religion is not based on accepting things without question. Religious people test stuff all the time -- we pray in the expectation that prayers will be answered; we use theology to predict people's behavior. Faith is proceeding based on an assumption, or an incomplete understanding of a situation. Not credulously swallowing dogma with glazed eyes.
I presume you aren't acquainted with many religious people?
You could say that Ethnic cleansing has been based on Darwinism, but does that buy any more salt than 'Invading Iraq was God's will'? They are both obviously third parties misusing a tool, but that doesn't mean that the tool is invalid or it's readings are wrong.
I've never seen anyone claim that the Iraq war was God's will, except in parodies. Eliminating WMDs, liberating the Iraqis, deposing a dictator, taking over the Middle East, stealing oil, manipulating the economy, etc., are a far cry from "God wants me to do this" or even "This should be done because it is in accordance with the moral imperative that God has laid out".
As for misusing a tool, that is something I agree with. That's actually the point I believe I was trying to establish all along, but whether that was your original position or something you just now decided, then fair enough -- we can conclude that part of the debate.
Oh, and as for that report at the top, even the worlds top meteorologist is calling it rubbish...
So far, I've only seen people attacking the people who produced it, trying to discredit their reputations. Or people simply saying the documentary is incorrect without providing proof. Show me a refutation of the science involved.
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You can't have it both ways. If you can argue that science has never gone for "control", that it's all the fault of unscrupulous people hijacking it for their own ends, then I can argue the same for religion.
Except you can't.
People go for control, yes. But science as a process is not one of control but investigation and rationale. Religion, in contrast, is dedicated to control - controlling the act of worship.
Religion is not dedicated to control. Religion is about discovery, both about the self and about God, or Nirvana, or the Ultimate. It is people who decide to use science as a tool for control, and it is people who decide to use religion as a tool for control.
Now, I don't see the 'science vs religion' argument as relevant here
I don't see it as relevant either, if we're talking about global warming. I wasn't the one who started it, though.
It's not as simple as you're making it.
We have observed a warming trend in the planet beyond that which you would expect. Particularly once global dimming is factored in. Computer simulations, amongst other things, have been used to establish a strong degree of certainty that man-made actions are affecting the climate of the planet on an atmospheric scale.
What sort of warming trend have we "expected"? Twenty years ago people thought the world would be cooling. Their expectations were certainly proven wrong.
People agree that the climate is fluctuating -- as it has always done -- but disagree on what the short-, medium-, and long-term trends are. Volcanic activity, solar activity, and livestock digestion have all been cited as causes of global climate change too. Many scientists argue that any human contribution is just a drop in the bucket -- on par with peeing into Niagara Falls.
The global temperature isn't historically unusual anyway. It's about the same today as it was in 1600.
Given the vast damage that global warming would inflict (climatological, economic, social devastation) when it hits (not this century, probably, but in time for our grandchildren), and given the established likelihood of a human role (i.e. very), then the only safe conclusion is that we avert this already very likely risk or face catastrophe.
The earth has survived meteor impacts, cataclysmic solar events, hypercanes, and supervolcanos with life coming through unscathed. Humans have survived plagues, wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, and an ice age. Neither people nor life is in any danger from global climate change.
If the effects of global warming will take 100 years or more to manifest, then there's no harm in waiting 20 years for testable hypotheses to be proven true or false before taking action. If we're already past the point of no return and irrevocably doomed, then there's no point in taking any action, and we may as well sit back and enjoy it.
The point is, global climate change is very poorly understood, even by the standards of the most radical proponents. Reacting in a knee-jerk fashion, or running around doing something just to look busy, is a recipe for disaster. We'd be just as likely to do harm as good.
I would remind you that the IPCC has a role which requires considering every single piece of research, is naturally conservative by nature of its existence, and yet has come to the conclusion we are in severe danger.
So we're fine for the time being then. We should keep studying this so we know exactly what's going on. We certainly shouldn't make needlessly restrictive regulations on something we have incomplete understanding of.
Science has been co-opted for control before, and will be again. Phrenology has been used to justify jailing innocent people, Darwinianism has been used to justify eugenics and racial cleansing, and global warming is being used to justify, as Bobboau said, increased government power.
Except none of this has a bearing upon the science, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up except for FUD purposes.
I'm saying it to establish that science has been mistaken in the past, will be mistaken in the future, and is likely mistaken now. We need to understand what we're dealing with before we start dealing with it.
Except that the IPCC has historically under estimated climate change
Under-estimated by whose definition? Their own. (Or, equivalently, other global-warming proponents.) Nobody has yet offered any sort of hypothesis that has borne out under testing; all we have is wild speculation. Back in the seventies the climatologists' claim was that the Earth would undergo a new ice age within twenty years, and that prediction turned out to be completely false.
Under-estimated by recorded fact since reports were made (for example, the 2001 reports' maximum estimate was just about the recorded rise that actually occured in the relevant time period) - I'm pretty sure I already mentioned this.
The full report isn't out yet. What we have now is a series of summaries that may have been misinterpreted for political expediency. Perhaps we can defer a conclusion until May 2007, when the full report comes out?
Anyway the IPCC is a political institution, not a scientific one. It's run by the UN, after all.
As regards to the 1970s ice age; I'm afraid you are simply wrong - http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/. See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94 for the summary (in essence, the media, not scientists, were making this prediction).
From Wikipedia:
"In the 1970s, there was increasing awareness that estimates of global temperatures showed cooling since 1945. The general public had little awareness about carbon dioxide's effects: at the time garbage, chemical disposal, smog, particulate pollution, and acid rain were the focus of public concern, although Paul R. Ehrlich mentions climate change from the greenhouse gases in 1968. Not long after the idea of global cooling reached the public press in the mid-1970s, the temperature trend stopped going down."
So the temperature was decreasing from 1945 to 1970, at least. And the temperature has been increasing from 1970 to today. I made the mistake of sensationalizing the trend (cooling = Ice Age), but by the same token, the global warming activists should be wary of making the similar mistake (warming = catastrophe).
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The religious right in America wants to destroy the environment. Why? Because they believe that their "savior" will come soon and so none of this will matter. They want the world to end. It's scary that a country with the power and wealth that the US has is effectively run by people with a deathwish.
Patently ridiculous. Are you going to debate, or would you rather toss strawmen around?
