If I can't see it then it isn't happening philosophy?

Question

I would like the opinions of others... do you think these situations are similar?

1. The logic that global warming isn't real because they can’t see it (i.e. the temperatures are colder on a specific day or we had record snow falls in this area, etc).
2. The Sun revolves around the Earth because it looks like it does.

Answer 1

The problem is that a lot of people think that when you close the drapes the world disappears. It is hard to believe something when you can't see it, but that's why we have other senses and (supposedly) a brain to figure out things from facts presented to us.

Answer 2

The thing about the first philosophy mentioned applied to global warming is that you can see the physical results of climate change. I went to Alaska in 2004 and you can literally see the glaciers breaking apart. Huge chunks of ice are falling off every minute, and when you look at the big picture, the results are not subtle. This picture ( http://www.swissinfo.org/xobix_media/images/sri/2006/sriimg20060831_7021566_0.jpg ) shows the change in a certain glacier over a one hundred year period. Water levels are rising and polar bears are even drowning because of the melting ice. It is only a matter of time before these affects are irreversible. The most frustrating factors to me are that people are 1) not taking responsibility for climate change and 2) that those who do recognize it as a problem think they have to drastically change their lives to help the cause. I recall reading somewhere that if every household in the US replaced one bulb with a CFL, it would prevent more than thirteen billion pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. That would be like taking more than one million cars off the road for one year. If more people realized this, we would see change fast. The longer we wait, the more we will have to do to reverse our negative affects on the environment. Collectively, we can all make a difference and keep greenhouse gas emissions where they might be otherwise if the government stepped in and actually imposed the mandatory CO2 caps and fuel-efficiency standards!

Answer 3

Not many people look at the world from an abstract view. We try to explain things and find that we can only draw from the things we see happening around us. If the weather is colder in a person's specific area, they are likely to conclude that the world must be getting colder. We don't experience the weather in other places and, therefore, think that what is happening in one location is happening in the rest of the world. The truth is often uncovered when you look at everything as a system, not just as individual parts.

Answer 4

Well some poisons gases cannot be seen. If u put your mouth on the end of your tail pipe. (don't really do it) The effects would be deadly. So where are all the emissions that we produce as a world go each day. In our lungs so its OK to pollute. Humans can just keep filtering the poison in the air by using our lungs. We should use our heads instead to help lessen our impact we have on earth. I know how do you?

Answer 5

You can also look at it this way:

1. The logic that global warming is real because we see warming and someone claims that the entire globe is warming.

2. The Sun revolves around the Earth because it looks like it does and someone told them that is what's happening.

Answer 6

Yes, I think your 2 situations are similar. Both are cases of people evaluating a large-scale event based on small-scale observations.

The funny thing is, people here often make claim #1. How often do we see people pose questions like "if global warming is real, why is it so cold today?"? It happens all the time! Of course not all global warming skeptics are guilty of this, but it's still frighteningly frequent.

Answer 7

A little logic should show u that it is not true. The environmentalist chose the bad gas CO2 because they wanted to show that we were using more fossil fuel than we should. They don't seam to know much about CO2 as it is so heavy 90% is withen 6 ft. so how would that reflect back all this energy. Then it seams that GOD put plants here to recycle just this gas. Plants need CO2 as much as u need oxygen . This is not just trees it is every plant and the plants make their food out of it.

Answer 8

People do that all the time . One person learns one thing and dismisses something ells that the other person had learned .

Check this out ( www.first-molecule,com ) Alternative energy company . I invested a little chump change in this and so far he seems to be on the up and up. I have been talking to him for the past year and he does send progress reports every month . Some of the things he talks about take me a month of study to figure out what he,s saying but hey I'm no genius .

Answer 9

Study the Philosophy of Knowledge.

Truth is the intersection of knowledge and belief. Not only must people see something, they must believe it means what you say it means. Then they will accept it as truth.

Our childhood stories teach us to be cynical. Unfortunately those stories don't teach us to get off our asses and find out the truth for ourselves, they just teach cynicism.

Answer 10

This has nothing to do with real science, I cringe when I hear people saying number 1.

I could easily turn it around and say
1. Global warming is real because I saw a polar bear in the water and not on ice.
2. The earth revolves around the sun because I saw it.