you two are truly fucking idiots. Please tell us what idiot taught you all the nonsense you spew forth daily.
I don't spew nonsense. I may fuck, but I'm not an idiot.
A theory can come from anywhere. It can come from counting polar bears or watching an episode of Sponge Bob. It can even come as a dream while you sleep (Alfred Nobel would set an alarm to wake himself at night to write in his notebook his own dreams).
A theory is an explanatory argument. All theories begin as circular arguments. A circular argument is simply one that uses its own conclusion as a predicate. By itself this is not a fallacy. The other name for the circular argument is called 'faith'.
What takes a theory beyond the simple circular argument and into the realm of science is the test of falsifiability. The theory must have a null hypothesis (the question, "How can I destroy this theory?"). The test must be available, must be practical to conduct, must be specific, and must produce a specific result. As long as a theory can survive such tests, it is automatically part of the body of science. It will remain so until the theory is falsified (a test for the null hypothesis is successful).
Nonscientific theories have no such test. The remain as they started, circular arguments (or arguments of faith), forever.
Examples of theories of science that were later falsified include the Theory of the Geocentric Universe, the Theory of the Heliocentric Universe, the Theory of Absolute Speed, and the Theory of the Luminiferous Aether. Galileo falsified the Theory of the Geocentric Universe. Newton falsified the Theory of the Heliocentric Universe. Einstein falsifed the Theory of Absolute Speed. Michaelson and Morley falsified the Theory of the Luminiferous Aether. Other theories have come and gone in science in this way.
Theories that remain unfalsified include the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics and the Stefan-Boltzmann law, all of which are simply denied by members of the Church of Global Warming.
Examples of nonscientific theories include the Theory of Evolution, the Theory of Creation, the Theory of Abiogenesis, the Theory of the Big Bang, and the Theory of the Continuum. These are religions, best defined as some initial circular argument with arguments extending from it. Since one cannot test any theory about some past unobserved event without going back in time to see what actually happened, the test of falsification is not available. Proxies are useless as data because they depend on leaping to a conclusion. They are not used in science.
The Church of Global Warming is simply a circular argument, that the Earth is warming. All other arguments extend from that initial circular argument. Since 'warming' itself is not defined, and since it is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth, this can only result in a circular argument at best. Neither 'global warming' nor 'climate change' are defined, yet it is possible to have a religion based upon these phrases.
Attempting to prove a circular argument or to use one in a proof is the Circular Argument fallacy. This is what a fundamentalist does. This is what makes the Church of Global Warming and the Church of Green fundamentalist style religions. Both of these religions stem from the Church of Karl Marx, and are used as a method to further the socialist cause.
Climate cannot be a science because science is a set of falsifiable theories. That test against the theory must be specific and produce a specific result. Climate is not quantifiable, and therefore no specific test is available. Climate is a subjective term, describing types of weather, such as desert climate, tropical climate, marine climate, mountain climate, etc. A desert may disappear or a new desert may appear, but that does not change 'desert climate'. It still means the same thing. There is no global climate. Earth is made of many climates.
The term 'warming' has problems of it's own. From when to when? This necessarily describes two points in time. Why are those two points significant? Why are any other two points NOT significant? Such a statement presumes you have absolute measurements taken at these two points in time.
It is not possible to measure the temperature of Earth. Temperature on the surface alone can vary by as much as 20 deg F per mile. That is not particularly unusual. To produce a global temperature, you must use statistical math. This branch of mathematics requires the use of raw data. That data must be unbiased (or you get a meaningless result), and uncooked (or you get a meaningless result since an analysis hasn't been run yet!). For temperature, time is significant. Storms move, the Earth spins, the weather and atmosphere are in constant motion. The biasing influence of time MUST be removed. Readings MUST be taken simultaneously by the same authority.
Location grouping is a also significant. Putting 100 thermometers in a city or on a roadway tells you nothing about a temperature away from cities and roads. Averaging them as 100 thermometers biases the result, making it useless. Thermometers MUST be uniformly spaced to eliminate this biasing influence. You cannot cook the data to compensate because that would presuppose you have already run an analysis, which you haven't. Cooked data is useless. Raw data MUST be used.
Statistical mathematics and probability mathematics make use of random numbers. These are imported from another mathematics Domain. Their use removes the inherent predictive nature of mathematics. Thus, statistical mathematics is incapable of prediction. It can only summarize the past or present data.
Another requirement of a statistical analysis is the calculate of the margin of error. This stems from the possible range of data (for something like temperature, the temperature gradient), and not the data itself. I have personally seen gradients as steep as 20 deg F on a fairly regular basis. These can happen across weather fronts, due to a compression wave from a nearby mountain range, varying degrees of cloud cover, or even an eclipse of the Sun. The Earth has 197 million square miles of surface. NASA is using approx 75000 thermometers, all of which are located in cities or on roads (they must be serviced). You do the math.
Satellites can measure temperature, but only relative temperature. They are incapable of measuring an absolute temperature, which is required to determine the temperature of the Earth. They can only measure light. They must depend on the Stefan-Boltzmann law to convert that to some idea of temperature. The emissivity of Earth is unknown, and varies widely even over the space of a single inch. The only way to measure emissivity is to first accurately know the temperature of the surface you are measuring, then comparing the light you see coming from the surface to the ideal black body reference at the same temperature.
So satellites are great and finding where warm currents are (such as the Gulf Stream), but not how warm they actually are. You have to turn to thermometers to measure that.
Anyone that tells you the temperature of the Earth, either now or in the past, is making up numbers to do so, or quoting someone else that made up numbers to do so. In either case, using random numbers as data is a fallacy, known as an 'argument from randU' fallacy. (a randU is a type of random number, the kind thought up in someone's head...the so-called 'predictable' random number).
Any time you see someone make an argument based on 'everyone', 'rarely', 'no one', 'most', 'few', or an actual number to embellish an argument, you are seeing an argument from randU fallacy.
So what is data? What makes data valid data? My standards are much higher than most and with good reason. Anyone can mug up numbers and call them 'data'.
For me to even consider data as valid data, I must know:
* who collected the data
* when the data was collected
* where the data was collected
* the purpose for collecting the data
* the instrumentation used for collecting the data, if any
* the calibration source of that instrument
* must have the raw data available and published in a form that I can examine
* if a summary of the data is presented, the margin of error must be shown, along with the source of variance.
Data is simply data. It is not a crystal ball, a set of magick holy entrails, or a prediction in any way. There is nothing 'scientific' about data in any way. Data is simply data, or it is not. Data is only evidence. It is not a proof. All of it is the result of an observation, and all observations are subject to the problems of phenomenology.
Hence, observation itself is not a proof. It is only evidence.
I've covered several related subjects here. Read through it until you understand it. Then you will understand why I take the position I do.
