With the current trend of global warming research, are we headed for another Dark Age of superstition?

Question

Religion and politics is based on belief. Science, unlike religion, does not depend on belief but on healthy skepticism.

In the current global warming debate, Inquisition like behavior occurs to stifle the scientific process and bury views that do not agree with an "authority sanctioned" view point, with the Church replaced by the IPCC. Remember what happened to Galileo and Bruno? This has happened in the past and people were called heretics and in another age, witches. Today they may be called incorrectly "religious conservatives." The scientist being attacked could very well be an evironmentalist and liberal. It is unfair to label someone as something they are not just because they are trying to do honest research.

Science is based on the scientific method and not on consenses. For any hypothesis, there is going to be an antithesis. We went through the Enlightenment to free ourselves from the Church, we don't need a new Church of IPCC to replace it.

I'm hoping for less emotional responses and character insults and more rational, dispassionate debate as to whether science should allow skepticism and dispassionate debate or fall into character insults and accusations like we had in the dark ages.

dtwladyhawk, doesn't matter what you think of me. Are you willing to look at research such as this:

http://www.spacecenter.dk/

with an open mind or willing to listen to the scientists speak in this movie:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4499562022478442170&q=global

with an open mind or are you allowing the media and political climate to cencor your mind to information that might not agree with "accepted" truth.

If you see the above movie from begining to end, I'd be kinda impressed.

Answer 1

We now have in this country a new religion made up of political followers that will believe anything that their favorite politician or party member has to say without even questioning where the source came from,and anyone that questions the source will be branded as a nazi witch,no different than the old days of the inquisition

Answer 2

Ok, man of many erroneous opinions. Religion is based on belief that has yet to be disproved scientifically. Politics is a fact. Science is in fact, fact when proven, theory until then. If scientists were skeptical about finding a cure for breast cancer I would be dead. They are hopeful, dedicated, unsung hero's in a world that needs them. I see here you are passionate, but, you lack logic. You are all over the place. What do you want to debate? Everything? As far as global warming goes, I choose to believe that we will find a way t stop it thru using alternative fuels. If not, hundreds of years down the road after I and all my grandchildren are gone, there will be a hot time in the old town tonight. Um, are you related to Rosie O'Donnell? I don't mean by blood but by action? You seem to me to need to climb to Mt Everest or some other death defying feat to bring you back to reality. I wish you luck.

Answer 3

Bob, I think a big chunk of this is partly to blame on religious conservatives.

If you'll look over the years they have politicized EVERYTHING!
We have these politicians who believe that the bible is a history and science book and they speak in sound bites. This is not helpful to the general populace.

You could also go as far as to say that the American public in general is not intelligent enough to understand that our climate is affected by many different factors.

The extremist view is to say that Global warming is happening and is caused by man-period or that it's junk science and is not happening at all.

Facts are the Earth is getting warmer. Ice caps are melting, and our man-made pollutants are not helping our environment at all.
Now the big question is what is causing all this?
Sunspots have a direct impact on our climate, as well as many other cycles that our planet goes through (precession, changing of magnetic polarity, etc.).

This doesn't mean that have no culpability in the warming of the globe, but it does mean we need to have serious discussion on what is actually happening.

Answer 4

We may be headed for a dark ages if there is devestation on the Earth enough to destroy the governments. Evironmental change as i understand it starts of slow, gains momentum and then wham hits you all at once. Though all at once once on a geological scale may be within a thousand years. We are definitly screwing up our atmosphere and who knows whether it will be 25, 100, or 1000 years before there are worldwide reprocusions.