Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Science is settled!

Since the 1960s, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the physical sciences.

In a 2015 retrospective on Kuhn, the philosopher Martin Cohen describes the notion of the ‘Paradigm Shift’ as a kind of intellectual virus – spreading from hard science to social science and on to the arts and even everyday political rhetoric today. Cohen claims that Thomas Kuhn himself had only a very hazy idea of what it might mean and, in line with the American philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend, accuses Kuhn of retreating from the more radical implications of his theory, which are that scientific facts are never really more than opinions, whose popularity is transitory and far from conclusive.

Yeah but here are the facts:

1. CO2 levels have in fact been rising year over year for some decades.

2. That does in fact increase temperature long term. That has been measured.

3. However, the effects are complex and there are interrelationships. For instance, ocean warming evaporates more water, which makes more clouds, which deflects sunlight to some extent. Therefore the EXACT outcomes are difficult to predict.

4. The models keep getting better as more data is measured. Our best predictions right now are that the world average temperature will rise between 3.5 to 5.2 decrees Centigrade by 2100.

5. The Paris accord, which President Trump wisely scrapped, would only have changed this outcome by about 0.2 degrees. It was not worth its cost to the US.

6. 75% of all CO2 now in the atmosphere will stay there for 500 years. If we stopped all fossil fuel burning right now, the earth would continue to warm.

7. The oceans will rise. Period. How much depends on many factors difficult to predict.

8. The warming will not stop in 2100.

Those are the facts. All else is supposition and politics, on both sides.

Yeah but here are the facts:

1. CO2 levels have in fact been rising year over year for some decades.

2. That does in fact increase temperature long term. That has been measured.

Those are the facts. All else is supposition and politics, on both sides.

Apparently your "facts" have been superseded by newer "facts". I read a paper the other day which stated CO2 levels follow increasing temperature!

+1, there is no denying that every time I start my truck there is heat introduced into the atmosphere that was not there before. Same with my AC condenser, etc. How much difference is it really - damn little, a drop in the ocean but it's there. I think a moderate approach is appropriate - be conscious of what we are doing but don't go crazy with it. Makes one wonder what a huge forest fire does or a long cold winter?