The arrogant tone of your post would seem to indicate you assume I don't have any scientific training or education...interesting. I won't bite at that for now.
I'll simply ask - did you learn at some point what an unproven theory or hypothesis about future events means compared to a theory set pertaining to current, demonstrable, simple physical properties of matter? If you possess the knowledge that your tone would seem to suggest, I imagine that you do, and also why using gravitational theory as an objection is rather silly.
Global climate change is an eons-long process. The data sets needed to truly evaluate what constitutes a blip versus a true, long-term trend cannot be obtained because our cocky species just hasn't been around long enough to directly assess it. We can draw, at best, indirect and shaky information from core samples and the like.
Could we be experiencing global warming, in terms of a multi-millennia process? Sure, maybe. Or could we be experiencing global cooling, or a relatively stable trend? We truly don't know.
But, given the scientific knowledge that the tone of your response to me indicates you have, I think you are aware of these things. Assuming the global warming theory (unproven, and currently unprovable) doesn't help support other agendas you possess.
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Originally Posted by RWebb
I'm not sure you understand what the term "theory" means in science. As pointed out there is a theory of gravity also, yet we know gravity is very real. A scientific theory is a comprehensive set of tested hypotheses that have explanatory power with respect to observed phenomena. Generally, we want our theories to be mechanistic as well.
The common use of the word theory is more like what a scientist would call a "notion" or " mere speculation." There is nothing wrong with it, but it is not science - and it isn't publishable either. You can toss it out to a bunch of grad. students and that is about the only use.
Second: The span of time that we have been tracking temperatures extends back (via ice cores and other types of data) for many many thousands of years. That is still just a blink in Earth history (unless you don't believe in another theory, Evolution, and instead believe the crazy man who said Earth was only 6,000 years old).
The real question is whether the span of time that we have been tracking temperatures is adequate to test our theories of climate change and what is motivating the extraordinarily rapid, and apparently very dangerous, warming we see today. The answer appears to be yes.
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