sent2null space

[Comment posted to friends Facebook article thread today. He thought we were ruining the environment, and in this slice of time indeed we are...but a grander context shows this to be a blip on a long history of much bigger changes effected by other life systems on Earth before us.] In the eye blink of Geologic time that we've been here, Earth...over which we kvetch so, is going to "belch" and free herself of the scourge that is us. The belch may be a super massive Caldera explosion or it may be ...due to her crossing the path of a cosmic pebble dislodged from the Asteroid belt or it may be the next deep Ice Age...but the belch will come. We may go on to reign for 5,000 years of glory and yet...Earth then, can belch and throw *whatever* we evolve into ...headlong into chaos...no matter how powerful. The hiccup in the environmental system that we are indeed causing now will be rectified...and in the vast space of Geologic time to come will be remembered in her records as no...

I often get involved in discussion with people that center around various interpretations of scientific studies or papers in the soft sciences (climate science, biology...etc) that veer from objective analysis of the study or paper data being presented to assertions (on the part of those I am conversing with) that the underlying edifice of science is some how engaged in some conspiracy. I've often found it quite perplexing how people can draw that conclusion given the rigorous nature of scientific investigations and the pains to which scientists go to before drawing conclusions on acquired data. Sure , examples of failure to do this exist (Fleishman and Pons any one?) but they are exceedingly rare and if they do get to a peer review stage , are rightly cremated for the mistakes made. Yesterday, I engaged such a discussion with regard to one of the media darling "controversy" subjects , Anthropogenic Global Warming. Earlier this week, yet another massive study on climate d...