Not A Bad Idea
John Coleman, founder of Weather Channel states:
“Since we can’t get a debate, I thought perhaps if we had a legal challenge and went into a court of law, where it was our scientists and their scientists, and all the legal proceedings with the discovery and all their documents from both sides and scientific testimony from both sides, we could finally get a good solid debate on the issue,” Coleman said. “I’m confident that the advocates of ‘no significant effect from carbon dioxide’ would win the case.”
I could probably support this idea provided the presiding court is not the 9th circuit court of appeals. If this is the court then I already know the rulling.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Lol, if our public policy was based on ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and ‘beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt’, we would NOT be in Iraq right now.
March 15th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
We should do this with evolution as well. And while we’re at it, maybe we can do it with the whole “universal” argument for emotions. I’m tired of reading both sides to that debate. Maybe we can even settle some of those left over arguments with relativity. I can’t wait!
March 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Actually, evolution has met up with creationism in court. Unsurprisingly, evolution kicked the crap out of creationism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
There was a similar issue with holocaust denialism a while back too.
March 16th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
So you’re trying to tell me that in the case of evolution there was overwhelming evidence in support of it, yet some people still didn’t agree? Get out!
March 16th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Surely Darwin supports the defendants in this case. They simply just want to inform the students of alternative possible explanations for life on this planet. What could be wrong with legal mandating that all the information is available to the student.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Don’t forget that we also need to be using time and resources to teach students leprechology so that they can make informed decisions for themselves about whether wave properties or leprechauns are responsible for rainbows.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I wonder if science teachers are then allowed to teach scientific method right after reading the statement while pointing out science (evolution) vs. faith (ID).
March 17th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Steve, that’s like saying I would want packages of brownies to have the nutritional information of cereal on them, just to make sure sonsumers got all teh information. Kids can learn what teh scientists believe in science classes, and tehy can learn what the church believes in church, and they can learn what their parents believe at home. As long as each of the seperate groups teaching them is honest about their position and evidence, it’s not encumbent on any one to teach stuff they think is wrong. Certainly it would be wrong of any of them to try to prevent one of the other theories from being taught at all.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I’d love to see an intelligent, informed debate on the issue of Global Warming, based on empirical evidence. I don’t think it needs to happen in a court room, but if it came to that you can bet I’d follow it.
I don’t think you can argue that Gore or anyone involved in carbon credits has committed financial fraud, since so many people (scientists and otherwise) do believe in the greenhouse theory. I don’t think a court case could really materialize, but I’d still like to see a good debate.