GOP Rep. John Shimkus stated:

"The planet won't be destroyed by global warming because God promised Noah"

There is more facepalm worthy commentary by him in this article here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328366/John-Shimkus-Global-warming-wont-destroy-planet-God-promised-Noah.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz14tyG7z9Q

Perhaps the most frightening thing is he has a shot at becoming the chair of the powerful House Energy Committee. So does Joe Barton who apologized to BP.

11/11/2010 10:54:39 AM

11/11/2010 10:58:42 AM

11/11/2010 11:22:46 AM

Yay ... finally someone making sense in washington.

Much rather have him than Al Gore in charge of it.

11/11/2010 11:34:20 AM

Quote :

"Representative John Shimkus insists we shouldn't concerned about the planet being destroyed because God promised Noah it wouldn't happen again after the great flood."

God destroyed the planet during the flood? I must be thinking of a different flood.

Quote :

"The Illinois Republican continued: 'I believe that is the infallible word of God, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation. 'The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."

Here's the thing these people don't get. We're not going to destroy the planet; we're just going to make it a reaeeeeeeelly shitty place to live.

11/11/2010 11:48:39 AM

I'd say what they really don't get is that they're referring to a bunch of man-made desert myths.

11/11/2010 12:29:24 PM

Its one thing to elect idiots like Shimkus. The only real qualification for being a congressman is getting enough people to vote for you.

Its an entirely different thing for committee appointments to go to unqualified members.

Quote :

"It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying. "

11/11/2010 1:19:04 PM

"God told me so" is almost as convincing as "this simulator I wrote told me what I wanted to hear!"

11/11/2010 2:08:26 PM

^hey look. an otherwise smart person is twisting themselves into a pretzel to toe the corporate line. how surprising!

11/11/2010 2:49:34 PM

Pot, meet kettle. The corporate sponsors for Cap & Trade are just as big as the corporate opponents. Global warming is big business, not that corporate sponsorship would matter in the face of proof, but proof is hard to come by in this debate.

11/11/2010 3:21:26 PM

Quote :

"'Today we have about 388 parts per million in the atmosphere. I think in the age of dinosaurs, when we had the most flora and fauna, we were probably at 4,000 parts per million. "

Quote :

"'I believe that is the infallible word of God, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation.'"

Sure you do.

11/11/2010 5:26:22 PM

Quote :

""God told me so" is almost as convincing as "this simulator I wrote told me what I wanted to hear!""

You really should know better than this

11/11/2010 5:39:19 PM

^it's like the numbskull hasn't heard of "peer review" and "scientists who wanna become world-fucking-famous for proving the consensus wrong"

11/11/2010 8:10:42 PM

There are many aspects of Global Warming that are science based. We know higher CO2 concentrations should warm the planet. But there are also aspects, namely the simulators claiming to prove what percentage of past warming was due to CO2 and then using that to predict future climate changes, complete with feedbacks, that are not much better than dusty scrolls claiming to be the word of God.

11/11/2010 8:17:47 PM

^^ what good is peer-review when it's done by the same people who did the study in the first place, or when it's done by the close friends of those who did the studies. Look up the Wegman report if you want to see just how fucked up the peer-review process is with regards to AGW. Hell, the Climategate emails even showed how the bigwigs were manipulating the peer review process so that only pro-AGW reports would get out.

11/11/2010 9:55:36 PM

ITT we treat a subject with a scientific consensus supporting it the same as a subject with a scientific consensus against it

11/11/2010 10:04:48 PM

if you have to talk about a "consensus," it means you don't have the actual EVIDENCE to back it up.

11/11/2010 10:11:05 PM

Quote :

"We're not going to destroy the planet; we're just going to make it a reaeeeeeeelly shitty place to live. "

Life seemed to flourish the last time the earth was warmer.

11/11/2010 10:25:48 PM

wow

This thread was thrown off track pretty badly (thanks to LoneSnark...).

The idea that some congressman thinks the Earth can't be destroyed because of one of the most blatantly figurative stories in the Bible is SOOOOOO far removed from the level of uncertainty that there is in climate research.

There's a thousand reasons why delusional religious people are worse than some scientists who suck at math.

11/11/2010 10:43:42 PM

Yea, but delusional religious people in Congress is not news. Neither is delusional climate doomers in Congress.

11/11/2010 10:56:04 PM

even if it's not news it's still important

it represents a threat to the republic

11/11/2010 11:03:41 PM

^ Only when they start passing legislation based upon it, otherwise it is just a lovable foible making them electable. Last I heard, neither side had any legislation on the table.

11/12/2010 1:02:43 AM

just wait

the agents of intolerance will not rest until we are all enslaved by the strictures of fundamentalist Christianity

11/12/2010 1:22:20 AM

So what is a delusional climate doomsayer?

Someone who thinks climate sensitivity is 2-4 degrees C? Someone who thinks positive feedbacks will bump it up to 4-10 degree C? Or someone who proposes any sort of regulation whatsoever to combat greenhouse gases?

11/12/2010 2:33:48 AM

Quote :

"Life seemed to flourish the last time the earth was warmer."

In most cases, life also gets millions of years to adapt to slowly changing conditions.

11/12/2010 7:19:55 AM

Quote :

"Or someone who proposes any sort of regulation whatsoever to combat greenhouse gases?"

Just someone who proposes the wrong (not my preferred) sort of regulation to combat greenhouse gases. And anyone that opposes the most destructive form of regulation is clearly a corporate shrill denier hell-bent on world destruction.

11/12/2010 10:29:47 AM

ITT Lonesnark compares pro-global warming scientists to Christian creationists

[Edited on November 12, 2010 at 11:05 AM. Reason : or is it "anti-global warming"? the ones that believe global warming exists]

11/12/2010 11:03:15 AM

good carbon regulation: flat carbon tax enforced equally.

bad carbon regulation: carbon credits given to friends of legislators

Carbon credits are a huge scam and you're really a huge idiot if you dont understand why. Carbon credit based regulation is a great way to encourage nepotism, corruption, and enforcement holes.

Another example of retard legislation is highly specific bullshit feel good stuff (ex: ban on gulf coast drilling or ban on specific financial tools).

A retard will look at those and say "DURR THEY WERE A BAD THING LET BAN IT!!" because they dont understand that its a specific instance and wont solve anything in the future.

An example of proper regulation would be to remove the caps on liability for gulf coast drilling. If someone fucks up, you can make them responsible for fixing the entirety of the mess. Not just one specific thing you regulated against.

You wont see that kind of regulation because no legislator would be willing to risk their income from the folks it would regulate. What you will see is horrible feel-good regulation that wont have any impact.

[Edited on November 12, 2010 at 11:11 AM. Reason : .]

11/12/2010 11:10:22 AM

^^ I do. They both want to use non-evidence as proof they need to make their friends rich. In the face of the actual uncertainty that pervades the GW science, one should stick to regulations that do no harm. A carbon tax is just another regressive tax, offset it by cutting some other regressive tax and society is no worse off while the very real possibility that GW is a problem is satisfied. Instead, they want to bootlegger/baptist their way to corporate welfare that doesn't actually cut carbon emissions, causing real damage to society based upon non-proof.

11/12/2010 12:33:50 PM

Quote :

"Life seemed to flourish the last time the earth was warmer."

true, but then again the life that is currently on the planet is not the same as the life that was on the planet "back then"...

11/12/2010 12:44:56 PM

^^I agreee, but you don't see me comparing one side of the scientific debate to religious fantasy.

Quote :

""God told me so" is almost as convincing as "this simulator I wrote told me what I wanted to hear!""

11/12/2010 1:15:45 PM

I did not make myself clear. There is a very real possibility that God exists and will send us all to hell for not passing laws in his name. Not quite as possible as the Earth warming a whole bunch, but they are in the same "Do this or bad things could happen, no way to prove either way."

Well, just as with the GW nuts, the religious nuts should stick to regulations that do no harm until they find proof.

11/12/2010 1:31:06 PM

I don't really want to get into the specifics of global warming science since there is already a beasty thread on that but my question is:

"how much proof is needed?"

This really goes for any science debate where legislation in the interest of the public health is on the table (chemicals, air standards, etc).

The best example I can think of is cigarettes. People had been calling cigarettes "cancer sticks" since before WWII but tobacco companies were able to deny the link between cigarettes and lung cancer because most of the evidence was simple correlation between smokers and lung cancer incidence. Not until 1998 was science able to actually establish a definite link and mechanism between chemicals in cigarettes and tumor suppressing genes (and eventually win settlements). Thats 60+ years of mounting evidence!


So in these scientific questions, where there is always room for doubt (since that is the nature of science), how much evidence is needed before we can act?

11/12/2010 1:56:57 PM

The answer to your question is "Depends on the costs of acting." In the case of global warming, acting sensibly (carbon taxes coupled with elimination of, say, the payroll tax) costs almost nothing, so although the evidence is poor, we should go ahead and act. But, for something else, such as smoking, the evidence is much stronger (double blind studies say yes) but you must consider the costs of acting rashly. High taxes or bans produce bad outcomes (fuel organized crime, penalize the poorest among us, etc) so even though the evidence is good, "acting" in terms of legislation should still probably stop at modest taxation, nothing more.

Similarly, if all an angry god asks of us is hanging a donated copy of the ten commandments on the courthouse wall, we should do that too. Yes, the evidence is terrible, but odds are someone would even volunteer to hang it for us, so it costs us nothing to head off a possible apocalypse, until definitive proof can be found that there is no God. We'd be stupid not to.

11/12/2010 3:48:34 PM

Quote :

"Similarly, if all an angry god asks of us is hanging a donated copy of the ten commandments on the courthouse wall, we should do that too. Yes, the evidence is terrible, but odds are someone would even volunteer to hang it for us, so it costs us nothing to head off a possible apocalypse, until definitive proof can be found that there is no God. We'd be stupid not to."

Like hell. According to this logic, you should be obeying pretty much every bizarre demand made by every religion. I mean, when the alternative is the apocalypse or eternal damnation, sacrificing a virgin every now and then seems like a pretty sensible thing to do, no?

11/12/2010 4:19:39 PM

im the angry god itt

[Edited on November 12, 2010 at 4:23 PM. Reason : t]

11/12/2010 4:23:46 PM

^^ Murder is a pretty high cost to bear. For that level of demand, the nuts would need quite a lot of proof, more evidence than currently exists for global warming nuts. Hell, more than currently exists for the smoking and cancer link.

11/12/2010 4:48:32 PM

Demanding evidence is not exactly a trademark of religious fanaticism.

11/12/2010 4:50:34 PM

^ But just as we are not global warming fanatics, neither are we religious fanatics. As such, we should demand proof before we either wreck the economy or execute a virgin.

11/12/2010 5:00:12 PM

Not if the alternative is global catastrophe (in either case), per your cost/benefit reasoning. Once you've conceded that the apocalypse is on the horizon, there really aren't many actions that could be deemed "too costly" if thought to stand a chance at holding it off.

11/13/2010 9:49:56 AM

Except the benefit of such actions is 0 so any amount of cost into them is sunk and useless.

This is one of the reasons why religion sucks and is bad for our species' long term survivability. Praying = doing nothing. Worse than doing nothing, because it encourages other people to do nothing.

11/13/2010 9:55:54 AM

Quote :

"Praying = doing nothing. Worse than doing nothing, because it encourages other people to do nothing."

Neurological studies reveal that praying is anything but doing nothing. The question is if we can extract those good things from the theism which is poisonous in a way that's culturally palatable

11/13/2010 9:57:41 AM

Ok, praying in the attempt to avert global disaster = doing nothing.

Also, I'll find you the study where heart patients that were prayed for did worse than the ones that were not. There is almost certainly a placebo affect for people that pray for themselves, but there is absolutely no evidence that prayer does more than dick for reality beyond yourself.

[Edited on November 13, 2010 at 10:11 AM. Reason : .]

11/13/2010 10:10:48 AM

Quote :

"Except the benefit of such actions is 0 so any amount of cost into them is sunk and useless."

Well, this is where the atheist and the agnostic bump heads. To an atheist, yeah, that benefit of sacrificing a virgin is nil. But an agnostic, who presumably contends that there is at least some chance that there exists an angry god who would capriciously destroy his creation unless the proper propitiation is made, must at least consider the possibility that hacking up some virgins might be a good idea "just in case".

Quote :

"beyond yourself"

I'm pretty sure he was talking about the effects of prayer on the [er, the person praying].

[Edited on November 13, 2010 at 10:13 AM. Reason : ]

11/13/2010 10:12:16 AM

Quote :

"Ok, praying in the attempt to avert global disaster = doing nothing. Also, I'll find you the study where heart patients that were prayed for did worse than the ones that were not. There is almost certainly a placebo affect for people that pray for themselves, but there is absolutely no evidence that prayer does more than dick for reality beyond yourself."

Well it depends on the prayer ritual; it can affect a crowd of people in interesting ways and amplify in ways that individual practice doesn't realize

Of course you can't pray for something to happen and have it magically come true, is that even on the table?

11/13/2010 10:23:27 AM

If someone honestly believes that God is going to answer their prayers, and cure their cancer, or put food on the table, or help them find a job, it will surely make them feel better. The problem is that the prayers won't actually do anything, and the person is less likely to search for real solutions. The same thing applies here. Some Christians really do believe the prophecies, so when reality comes into conflict with that, we run into problems.

I encounter people arguing that religion is a necessary institution, or that the benefits gained from prayer/belief in God are worth having. Usually, those same people are the ones that reject "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" as pure absurdity. That is to say, they reject individualism. According to them, some people need God, or a God-like state, to empower them.

11/13/2010 10:44:44 AM

Quote :

"The problem is that the prayers won't actually do anything, and the person is less likely to search for real solutions. "

This is not necessarily true. The prayer itself won’t do anything, but prayer is a form of meditation, and the act of praying is going to focus their thoughts to where they might think of solutions. Then they will attribute these thoughts to the Christian God, rather than the meditation it is that all religions have. Then they will believe that other religions are wrong, and theirs is right, and begin to hate other religions.

A single religion is not a necessary institution but human brains are hard-wired, for the most part, to accept supernatural things (luck, karma, etc.) which means there will always be some kind of religion.

11/13/2010 10:48:12 AM

Hardwiring implied that it's ingrained in your way of thinking. That can't be true, because many of us don't believe in the supernatural. Belief in the supernatural is a product of some knowledge gap. When you see or experience something you can't understand, you seek an explanation.

11/13/2010 10:56:35 AM

Quote :

"That can't be true, because many of us don't believe in the supernatural."

I think he was saying that the ability (or inability) to believe in the supernatural is hard-wired. Kind of like being gay or straight.

11/13/2010 11:40:29 AM

What's the difference between the ability to believe in the supernatural and the ability to believe something untrue?

11/13/2010 11:53:52 AM