--- In [email protected], "PaliGap" <compost...@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" > <jstein@> wrote: > > [snip] > > > > (james Randi) "...as far as humans are > > > concerned, ten times more > > > people die each year from the effects of cold > > > than die from the heat. > > > > Not true. (Also completely irrelevant.) > > > > http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12146 > > Just to pick you up on this point. > > I don't know where Randi gets his "ten times" from. > > However your flat "not true" seems pretty over- > dramatic seem as how it appeared to be based only on a > New Scientist report of just the U.S. (and pointing up > the lack of aircon as opposed to central heating). > > Randi referred to "humans" and not the US only. > > In any case "Not True" based on one study does not > seem to show much feel for the ways of Science. Just > how easy do you think it would be to test and falsify > or validate such conjectures? Very, very difficult > indeed I'd say. Highly fallible.
But it's not fallible if Randi claims it's true based on *no* studies? The reporter does cite the actual study. Is it possible that study cites similar studies by others that cover more ground? > I have seen it argued that if you attempt to correlate > the rise and fall of civilizations with conjectured > temperature records, then that suggests that > relatively warm periods coincide with "better" times. > Maybe that was what Randi had in mind? I don't know. Seems like he could easily have said that if it's what he had in mind. And even if it were, it wouldn't address the current situation. > But a VERY healthy scepticism over all such claims > seems right to me. Plus lots of scepticism too over *a > priori* claims that climate change MUST make the world > a worse place. "A priori" claims?? Please. It's *already making* the world a worse place. Look at Peru, for instance, or Bangladesh. I find it amusing, in a horrible sort of way, that conservatives who ferociously defended Dick Cheney's "1 percent doctrine"--if there's even a 1 percent chance of an enemy acting against the United States, it's imperative that we do whatever we need to do to eliminate the threat--claim that any less than 100 percent total certainty about the threat from global warming means we should *refrain* from taking any action to forestall it. I'm not saying that's what you're doing. But while skepticism is fine in the abstract, with regard to AGW it really only applies around the edges, not to the main thesis, first of all; and second, the potential scope of the consequences is *so* huge and the evidence so strong that it makes no sense to drag our feet even if we don't have complete certainty. (*How* we act against AGW is a different question with all kinds of economic and political angles.) > And you say "Also completely irrelevant". > > The rational response to (some) scientists banging on > about looming climate *change* is to think in terms of > a risk assessment. It matters a lot in terms of that > risk assessment whether the consequences of warming > might be benign, universally dire, or a thorough > mixing of the two. If Randi's statement were correct, > it would definitely feed significantly into that risk > assessmnet. > > And so it would be very relevant. Only if you define "die from the heat" to mean "die from the effects of global warming." But then how would you define "die from the effects of cold"? I think you're, um, being generous in assuming that's what he meant. I suspect he was thinking of how many excess deaths there are due to cold waves versus to heat waves--which *would* be irrelevant.
