Re: global sea ice levels now same as levels in 1979

On Thu, 8 Jan 2009 01:02:05 +0100, "Bill Sloman"
<bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>
It's one thing to tell Chicken Little that the sky isn't falling,
but telling the world's best climatologists that they've got
the science wrong, and that they are silly to worry about rising
greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, does exhibits a
worrying degree of over-confidence.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to actually have to be
comprehensive in our studies and knowledge in a particular area of
science in order to form informed criticism of that particular area?
We could all just sit in our rocking chairs looking out upon the world
and tell everyone what is right and wrong about their business then,
without having to do a lick of real work.

One unfortunately reality, and you'd want to think that engineers
would be more versed on this fact than many (and in fact, I frequently
see engineers here acting exactly that way towards folks ignorant of
electronics trying to tell them about electronics and how it should be
-- certain ignorant individuals come to mind as such targets here), is
that in order to form informed criticism worth being listened to by
those who specialize in an area one needs to actually put in a fair
amount of work in order to gain a comprehensive view of theory and
practice to gain some detailed understanding.

I understand laziness, of course, and limited schedules. But if one
cannot afford the time then one has little business criticizing. If
not comprehensively studied on the subject, one should refrain and
instead be listening carefully. Good critical reasoning questions are
fine. But judgments about which one has little knowledge is the
manifest territory of fools. Which is what shocks me about some
engineers here. They should know better and if the tables were turned
would react like a tiger, too. But they can't seem to even see their
own behaviors. Oh, well.

Jon
.

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