Jovial Monk wrote on May 4^th, 2018 at 6:10pm:



And you need to get out of your tiny room and stop the self abuse.

Your pleasures must indeed be small.

Just because the President relies on his gut feelings over the facts and the information the SMEs bring to him doesn't mean you need to be that ignorant.

Thinking is great, but unless you're fully aware of the limit of your knowledge and what you don't understand rather than trying to fill in the blanks with what your gut tells you, you still need to fact check.

There is nothing scary about the truth and reality, even if it is counter to a preconceived position you hold. It's if nothing else a chance to learn more and gain a better understanding, even change your opinion on the situation.

The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii is getting a bit more active, causing lava to erupt and some big earthquakes. You watch all the ice age frauds like Dubyne, “Ice Age Farmer” etc scramble to say it is part of the GSM or caused by cosmic rays or other idiotic poppycock.

Read up on plate tectonics, the Pacific Ring of Fire etc, not fairy tales.

They could look up plate tectonics on wiki. Same with volcanoes.

Jovial Monk wrote on May 6^th, 2018 at 9:35am:


But you're asking scientific illiterate people to draw conclusions from what they've learned about.

Assuming they even obtained a sound understanding of the subject, what then?

Even on these forums, so many people who for example support Trump, they post article after article, youtube video after youtube video, even tweets, all "proving" their points.

But this content is all opinion.  It's not factual, it's just straight up "how I'd like it to be".  These people either can't tell the difference between facts and opinion, or they don't care.  They're just looking for information to support their already deeply held point of view.

If you want people to do their own research, the best first step to take is to get them to try and disprove their own beliefs.  Look for the information that proves them wrong.

Once they've done that, then take a grander look.

People want to be right, they don't want to be wrong.  The cognitive bias in that alone make it dangerous for scientifically illiterate people to think they've got science and the facts on their side because they dig their heels in even hard and refuse to accept anything that doesn't support them.

And that's ignoring that, in this day and age of Trump, the only facts that matter are the ones that you like.

That's not how it works.

What's the bet this is mentioned by the snake oil salesman his next You Tube "Dear Diary?"

Link.

Melting has started on the north east coast of Greenland. Be no melting in the south for a while, the warm air blowing into the Arctic has pushed the cold air south onto the south of Greenland and the Canadian Antarctic Archipeligo.

The effect on Arctic sea ice extent is still to be seen.