On Tue, 24 May 2005 21:45:53 GMT, "Coby Beck"
"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
On Tue, 24 May 2005 19:03:34 GMT, "Coby Beck"
Two problems for me with using summer and winter to make the general point
about short term chaotic behaviour and long term patterns. First, it is
not really an analogy about climate and weather, it is the very issue at
hand. Analogies work by putting an aspect of the unfamiliar into a familiar
context. Second, the cycle of summer-winter can be thought of as a steady
state, cettainly it is not a pattern that will be affected by global warming
(at least not in a broad sense). I think it does not successfully isolate
the easiest way to debunk the classic "you don't know if it will rain
tomorrow, how can you tell it will be warmer in 100 yrs".

Climate is per definition average weather, so there are two operators
in that classic, one, how can you predict average weather, when you
cannot predict isolated instances of weather, and two, how can you
predict the average result of some forcing which influences the
weather, when you cannot predict what will result from that forcing
on any particular day. I'd say the cyclical annual change in
insolation over the seasons should demonstrate quite well, that one
can indeed predict the former rather more reliably than the latter.

Yes, this all make perfect sense. I guess the deeper philisophical question
here is how to provide a serious and thoughtful rebuttal to a shallow and
ridiculous claim.

I think a shallow and ridiculous claim cannot be dealt with the same
way in circumstances where 'reason is king' is acknowledged, as it can
in circumstances where that is not the case. In the former case
rebuttal would likely center on the claim itself, the assumptions that
underlies it, and its implications.

In the latter case the strategy would likely have to be completely
different, the weight being put on discreditation of the claim by any
effective means, with no options taken off the table, rather than
through strictly rational rebuttal. A thoroughly scientifically minded
person would not be very good at this.