will do, though I doubt I'll understand the math behind it very well.

I'm actually using this kind of thing to help me with stock trading, I have a theory about it which may make me fantastical amounts of money if I'm right lol, I'm still working through it in my head though and I hope I'm not being too confident about it but basically I think with this kind of knowledge you can get ahead of the curve so to speak more than most people. I've realised though that you need a lot of patience to wait for everything to happen because I haven't realised just how far ahead you get of everyone, should be interesting to see what happens after the crash next year.

To put it simply, we know fuck all about space and other planets besides are own so how can we claim to know anything about our own planet?

Edit: I suppose you could say the same for evolution actually, if we saw the same behaviour from organic beings from other planets as well, then that would make evolution even more solid, but with evolution there is a lot more evidence to support it than there is with climate science, which I don't really believe is science, not just yet anyway.

I've seen these kind of numbers used to represent the opinion of an entire country unfortunately and from the BBC no less.

+100000

Many statistics are pushed by propaganda and not presented properly or people outright lie using them, so for instance, they'll present you with a poll from about 5000 people or something and then claim because 5000 people said this that automatically represents the majority of the people when that's barely going to be even a small portion of the actual country they are in. Bitcoinbitcoin113 you don't even need to understand math particularly well to understand bogus statistics when you see them, usually it's just a matter of reading through the fine print rather than just believing the simple percentages these dick heads come up with to fool people who don't know better.

My answers :


Climate change due to human influence hasn't been properly proved either way, we haven't even bothered trying to find and explore planets which have climates close to our own so why can people so readily take a side on this issue?

Evolution has already been determined to be true by Darwin, religious people find a way to deny anything.

edit: hmmm that's a pretty long list, I'll have to take more time on the answers for the other stuff at least, will edit this post to answer the other four things so bare with me.

How do you determine what to believe (or not) regarding these theories?

When I determine what to believe I look at the evidence presented ( if there is any actual fact based evidence, will explain that in the next bit ) if it contains convincing numbers or repeating examples throughout history then that is something that I will base my theories on, has someone who is very interested in economics and now actively trading in tiny amounts on the stock market I can tell you it works as a way of proving a theory right. As we have been told by people history often repeats itself, but what is much more reliable is mathematics that hasn't been messed with in any way by political lobbies, this is why I haven't taken a side on the climate change issue because both sides have been known to use propaganda rather than repetition and math to make their point.

What kind of evidence would convince you to change your mind?

It's hard to answer this one, because personally I can never trust anything 100% since that's how human beings are, there will always be things and situations that break a pattern, it can be something predictable but then it can be just something crazy or mind blowing that happens which completely throws off the current evidence. That's just the way humanity is though and I've learned to accept that, for the evolution side of things I think the only way I could be convinced to take a different view on it is if God himself appeared before me and presented everything he'd done, but so far, that just hasn't happened and I doubt it ever will.

In regards to climate change, I think the two sides are about even in the arguments they make, because they keep finding ways to one up each other every now and then, for instance, people who don't believe humans are doing anything have pointed out that mars has had it's ice cap melt before, you also have the fact that the sun is apparently burning more brightly than usual. Then there are the people on the opposite scale who present evidence saying that the gases we emit are being poured into the atmosphere which is also true, so to be honest I don't think either side has won yet so I'm just going to sit on the side lines and observe like an intelligent person rather than just jump to conclusions.

Why do you place trust (or not) in the consensus of the experts in these fields?

This seems to be the same question as the one before, as I stated, repetition of history/events and math, this is why we do experiments in science so we can repeat the results constantly, the problem is though there are people who will always deny this kind of evidence.

Given infinite resources, how would you determine the "truth"?

Lots of research and experimentation, that's what science is about, but then again there are some things we won't ever find the answer to.

Edit: there we go, didn't take as long as I thought it would

I'm sorry, I'd try and debate, but I'm completely distracted by the cute asian chicks with Katana.

And zomg Organofcorti You're intelligent! Well, I think with the fear about accidents with guns we can definitely reduce the problem by educating people about them, I don't think just banning them is the answer because as you say it's going to scare the hell out of people more than protect them, then there's the fact that I'm terrified of what might happen here in the UK for example if I was attacked. I'd feel a lot more safer with a gun, I think if gun control people are going to call for a ban though they'd better station some police outside schools, but of course you can bet people would object to that too.

I think the difference is between gun control and people who want guns is that the people who want guns want to take responsibility for defence themselves rather than rely on others and I can't help but side with that idea really since that idea is going to be much more useful if you happen to be alone when attacked or even if you get corrupt police etc. trying to attack you.

It does seem like it is a religion sadly, I find myself better able to argue with the so called gun nuts than with gun control people

Practising martial arts for 8 years now, still learning it and still have much to learn, a gun is definitely easier Also, I wouldn't bother arguing with FirstAscent, despite his claims he tends to ignore hard statistics and like many people in this world blame inanimate objects for the problems caused by human error.

If you seriously think that unarmed teachers are going to be able to do anything when people decide to get violent in a school you definitely haven't been to my previous schools, I hope all the other gun control advocates are as stupid as you are because once the initial shock of the Connecticut wears off people are all going to think you're morons.

Oh I know you are rat but I've seen this kind of thing before, there are twats out there who think this will be a fantastic idea, especially if they can cash in on it themselves.

lol I am immature, but not in the way you think, I'm not the one who's being an opportunistic twat like a number of other people on this forum and trying to politically stampede people because of a certain recent events, I think both sides are being pathetic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/14/mortality-statistics-causes-death-england-wales-2009

While this is 2009, it's still pretty damn recent, I'm sure you could find more recent data, but it shows that we die here in the UK more from disease and GASP! mental health disorder and disease than a bloody car or even inanimate objects in general, maybe we should be doing more about mental health than speeding etc.? Anyway, that's as much as I want to talk about the subject on an unrelated thread, go make your battleground some place else, but I suspect you're running around in other threads because you're getting your arse kicked by Science and Math.

I had a friend in school who died in a car crash, the reality is that these kind of deaths that you talk about don't happen as often as mainstream media claim, most people go about there lives perfectly happy without hurting anyone, it's all just bullshit sensationalism to make laws far tighter than they even need to be. I live in the UK where there are quite literally speed camera's anywhere, you think those fuckers ever gave a shit about my friend? No, they place them at the top of hills when you're about to accelerate to try and catch you off guard and then at the bottom when you're going to be going a bit faster than you normally would because of gravity. It's all just designed to make the government money with fines, in reality all it's going to do is make people more nervous than they need to be when they drive because they have more things to concentrate on. Oh and you think speeding and guns are the only fucking thing that get people killed? If I hadn't been on the look out and checking carefully before I exited places etc. I could very well have knocked over a good dozen of pedestrians, not through any particular fault of my own but because they weren't even bothering to watch where they were going since they were on their phones etc. or just in their own world, maybe there should be a ban on that sort of thing as well. Yes, you can't leave the house without making sure you're properly awake and don't drift off so you can react to your surroundings properly.

Sorry for the rant for those in thread and LOL it's funny you talking about reality FirstAscent, you sound like someone who has been living in a bubble their whole life.

poo I misread, sorry about that, I just woke up LOL

Now I read it better there's no way I'd let that happen because I actually follow my beliefs a lot of the people who claim to hold our beliefs and stuff don't actually follow them and just use it to blend in with society, like mainstream politicians. People end up being killed in accidents anyway no matter what you do though sadly, it's just a fact of life, there's little you can do to prevent it, so we may as well enjoy life until it happens, most of the time laws get brought about is because it's one or two people or a one in a million disaster when there are other perfectly careful people who do just fine normally.

They will not find me such easy prey

I get the feeling if I took this seriously I'd be trolled LOL

Being able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't hurt others in the process.

I guess I take a simpler view on it

ROFL! That's awesome!

Oh look, it's the next stage of a falling community, people crying out for the monetisation of the website in order to prop it up, remind you lot of anything?

Who are you morons? Parliament? Actually, forget it, you aren't worth the time any more.