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Re: Global Warming?



At 7:10 PM -0800 2/15/01, Zach Wolff wrote:

...I was quite stricken at the time, and still consider
it something of a loss of innocence with regard to the
media and academia (most of these people had Ph.D
after their name).

I've never understood why anyone would want to put PhD after his
or her name. It has always seemed an affectation of a pretentious
nature to me. I suppose that's cultural. Our daughter does it;
our sons do not. One's arguments should stand on their intrinsic
merits. That it matters by whom the arguments are made is the
actual meaning of the *ad hominem* logical fallacy. That it could
matter what letters appear after the name is an illogicality of
an even higher order.

Please don't take what I say here as critical of the many members
of this group who do use the form I disdain. As I said, it's
cultural, and I'm somewhat tolerant - "present company excepted,
of course".

I'm afraid my impressions regarding the disinterested status of
the combatants in the "debate" over global warming are very much
like Zach's. I will add, however, that it seems that a great
majority of the "concerned scientists" who are participating in
it do not seem to be specialists in climate science. The great
majority of climate scientists, on the other hand, are much more
conservative in their public pronouncements than are those who
appear foremost in the media.

My own objective opinion on the subject: I will accept what the
climate scientists mostly believe, that we* don't know very much
yet, but we are learning. Patience and prudence would seem to be
in order.

Leigh

*This is the scientific "we". Crowned heads and clergy have their
special personal pronouns, and we scientists have ours, too.