Follow-up Clarification on Science and Religion

I had a great question offered by some people dear to me regarding my last post (and some before) about my views on Global Warming.  I guess I have been coming across too strongly, because it is not that I actually disbelieve that Global Warming could be a trend.  I believe that the mishandling of our resources has a huge negative impact on the environment and we should be mindful of that responsibility and act accordingly.

What I don't believe is that all the extreme findings that some people feel support Global Warming are factual enough to propel legislation and shouldn't be used as a means to combat a religious view of the world.  The language of the scientific community is often abrasive against those who would see a divine influence on the state of affairs in the world. I acknowledge that those who claim to be in the religious camp can be equally combative and disrespectful.

As I have read scientific findings over the years, I am very mindful of the often slanted way that "evidence" can be presented.  Any scientist is familiar with this problem and should be on the look-out for mis-represented facts.  When you look at charts, you will see that proportions and findings can be exaggerated to support or contradict findings.



We were told in college to choose a chart, like those above, that best represented the findings we wanted to show in our scientific research.  A visual is very powerful at communicating. And can be very effectively manipulated.

Applying this idea to the trends or evidence that supports Global Warming, we see that there are many charts addressing "Climate Change," a more recent adaptation of Global Warming.

We have this one:



and this one:



and this one:



and this one:




As we can see, there are so many ways to organize information to look like what we want it to be.

Over the years, the tickles of argument in my head from college and anti-religious scientific have remained as I have tried to look at what they have to offer. I don't think we should put our head in the sand. I don't think we should discredit science and be combative like people have been since Copernicus.

I just want different ways of interpreting information to not only be honored, but taught.

The following article from ABC news reflects something Quinn shared with me about Al Gore's misinformation shared through his video, "An Incovenient Truth". I have included both the link and the article in its entirety below because I think it is a valuable look at what happens when people are so determined to manipulate the voice of science that it shouts down other possible interpretations.

Before you read that, though, this is my position:
I feel that science is making land-mark progress in helping us understand the world around us. I feel that God inspires scientists, in fact, to help us be more responsible and aware of our impact on the world around us, and that we can create a symbiotic relationship with our living planet that supports and sustains its beauty and well-being. I believe this is also God's intention. I believe that science and religion work together in a beautiful way to support and explain much of what has happened and is happening in the world around us. 

When we stop attacking each other and start looking for what each "side" has to offer, we may in the end realize that there never were sides and that our pursuit of truth is shared.

ARTICLE:

The verdict couldn't have come at a less convenient time for Al Gore.

One day before Friday's announcement that he was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a British High Court judge ruled that Gore's global warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," while "broadly accurate," contained nine significant errors.

The ruling came on a challenge from a UK school official who did not want to show the film to students. High Court Judge Michael Burton said that the film is "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact" but that the errors were made in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration."

Burton found that screening the film in British secondary schools violated laws barring the promotion of partisan political views in the classroom. But he allowed the film to be shown on the condition that it is accompanied by guidance notes to balance Gore's "one-sided" views, saying that the film's "apocalyptic vision" was not an impartial analysis of climate change.

The claim was originally filed by truck driver Stewart Dimmock, whose two children have not yet seen the film.

"I got finished watching the documentary and felt I had watched a science fiction film," he told ABC News' Joseph J. Simonetti. "The court ruled nine inaccuracies. How many more exist?"

Dimmock criticized the British government's use of the film in schools, saying, "It was about time someone got off their backside and say, 'Oh, you're wrong.'" Yet he admitted, "I'm not an expert on global warming, then or now. I'm just a lorry driver."

The ruling resurrected the heated debate over the film's arguments between Gore's supporters and climate change skeptics.

His spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said that Gore was "deeply gratified that the court upheld the fundamental thesis of the film" and "affirmed it as a valid educational tool."

As for the errors, Kreider said, "Of the thousands of facts, the judge seemingly only took issue with a handful. We've got peer review studies that back up those facts. There were a couple of cases where we feel the film wasn't quoted accurately."

Climate change skeptics felt vindicated by the ruling.

"A lot of people have been criticizing the science in 'An Inconvenient Truth' but they've been dismissed as not credible or put forward by fronts for the oil industry," said Joseph Bast, the president of the Heartland Institute, which has spent more than $700,000 in recent months to place ads challenging Gore to a debate on climate change. "Now we have the British High Court identifying 11 specific errors. Some of the media articles squeezed three of those errors into one."

The British claim was not the first time that the film's use in schools has been criticized. Earlier this year, parents in Federal Way, Wash., complained to the local school board about plans to show the film in schools and eventually pressured it to impose a ban on screenings for two weeks.

Frosty E. Hardison, a computer consultant and evangelical Christian, was outraged when he learned that the film would be shown in his daughter's seventh-grade science class. He sent an e-mail to the school board, declaring, "No, you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming."

Other parents in the community were just as outraged -- that the school board would even consider banning the film.

"The general consensus was that most people were upset for even questioning the issue of climate change as a serious scientific issue," said Chris Carrel, whose daughter's seventh-grade class was planning to see the film. "The superintendent did his review and reported back to the school board that most of the film was scientifically well-supported, but in areas of controversy, in terms of the proper policy response, the teachers needed to present different viewpoints."

Climate change skeptics wish that such a debate would take place. In addition to challenging Gore to a debate with Chris Horner, the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism" and a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, some critics have offered $125,000 to anyone who can prove global warming.

"We've received lots of inquiries but no serious entries so far," said Steven J. Milloy, who runs the Web site junkscience.com and started a mutual fund that seeks to counterbalance the work of so-called ethical investment funds.

Gore has not responded to calls for a debate.

"Our strong feeling is that the debate about whether global warming is real is over," said Kreider. "Even the president of the U.S. agrees the debate is over. ... It's very 1980s to debate whether global warming is real. Should we be debating whether smoking causes cancer?"

The Alleged Errors Highlighted by High Court Judge Michael Burton:

1.) The sea level will rise up to 20 feet because of the melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future. (This "Armageddon scenario" would only take place over thousands of years, the judge wrote.)

2.) Some low-lying Pacific islands have been so inundated with water that their citizens have all had to evacuate to New Zealand. ("There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.")

3.) Global warming will shut down the "ocean conveyor," by which the Gulf Stream moves across the North Atlantic to Western Europe. (According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor will shut down in the future…")

4.) There is a direct coincidence between the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature over the last 650,000 years. ("Although there is general scientific agreement that there is a connection, the two graphs do not establish what Mr. Gore asserts.")

5.) The disappearance of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro is expressly attributable to global warming. ("However, it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mount. Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.")

6.) The drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. ("It is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution" and may be more likely the effect of population increase, overgrazing and regional climate variability.)

7.) Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is because of global warming. ("It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.")

8.) Polar bears are drowning because they have to swim long distances to find ice. ("The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one, which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.")

9.) Coral reefs all over the world are bleaching because of global warming and other factors. ("Separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as overfishing and pollution, was difficult.")