Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 9:49 am Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
nero wrote:
fossilnut2 wrote:
As a sedimentary geologist I am confident that the so-called 'science' of Peak Oil is more or less a pile of crap not unlike all the crap 'science' linking man-made carbon emissions and global warming.
Just like that "crap science" called evolutionary theory eh?
Sorry for the off-topic outburst but the irony of a sedimentary geologist saying "Nobody knows and anyone who claims to know is either self-deceiving or a charlatan." must have the creationists in hysterics.
No. You are wrong and don't understand science. Evolution is based on evidence which produces a threory called evolution. A theory verified by measurable evidence of which there is a consensus in the scientific community.
Peak Oil (not small caps 'peak oil') is based on a 'faith' that the evidence presented is correct and sufficient to make specific predictions that can be verified. Creationism is also based on 'faith' and like the Doom and Gloom cult of Peak Oil 'wanting to believe'...this leads to cherry picking evidence and dismissing contrary theories only because they are 'contrary'.
Joined: Sep 30, 2005 Posts: 69 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:04 am Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
fossilnut2 wrote:
Put a bunch of economists, sociiologists, demographers, etc. in a room and let them achieve a consensus on a future socio-economic model....bring you sleeping bag and be prepared to sleep in the conference room for several decades while they hash it out.
So economics, demographics and sociology are not sciences, they're religions.
I agree that there is a certain amount faith involved in the PO community, particularily among what I like to call doom-fetishists, but the fact that oil production started from zero and must ultimately return to zero means that there must be an in between and the evidence used to calculate that in between includes mathematical models, geology, economics...
The science is inexact because the data is fuzzy, much like biological evolution or psychology, but to reduce it to a religion is absurd. _________________ The U.S. is the only country in the world that encourages people to drive themselves to work in Army vehicles.
Joined: Oct 16, 2004 Posts: 1497 Location: Appalachian Foothills of Virginia
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:29 am Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
fossilnut2 wrote:
[
No. You are wrong and don't understand science. Evolution is based on evidence which produces a threory called evolution.
Actually, evolution is both a theory and a fact. Fact: it is occuring. Theory: how it is occuring.
Quote:
Peak Oil (not small caps 'peak oil') is based on a 'faith' that the evidence presented is correct and sufficient to make specific predictions that can be verified.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:30 am Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
Renfield wrote:
fossilnut2 wrote:
Put a bunch of economists, sociiologists, demographers, etc. in a room and let them achieve a consensus on a future socio-economic model....bring you sleeping bag and be prepared to sleep in the conference room for several decades while they hash it out.
So economics, demographics and sociology are not sciences, they're religions.
I agree that there is a certain amount faith involved in the PO community, particularily among what I like to call doom-fetishists, but the fact that oil production started from zero and must ultimately return to zero means that there must be an in between and the evidence used to calculate that in between includes mathematical models, geology, economics...
The science is inexact because the data is fuzzy, much like biological evolution or psychology, but to reduce it to a religion is absurd.
I agree with you. This is why those who elevate 'Peak Oil' to a cult status blind themselves to critical assessment. The actual physical oil that can be recovered by practical means and the demand for that oil is not subject to popularity contests. What people believe or don't believe doesn't have any impact on reality.
How much oil is out there? We don't know. The rational response to this unknown is to prepare for a worse case scenario.
Joined: Sep 30, 2005 Posts: 69 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:39 am Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
Okay, well, I'm brand new here, but you look pretty new here, too. It seemed to me that you painted a pretty broad stroke over the entire community that is probably not deserved by many here. I've been reading a lot here and there seem to be plenty of rational people here who do look at evidence and, in fact, there actually seem to be a fair amount of actual scientists. Maybe you just came off a little gangbusterish... _________________ The U.S. is the only country in the world that encourages people to drive themselves to work in Army vehicles.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:43 am Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
I believe ASPO has changed years numerous times, always around 2010-2005. Actually, I believe that 2010 as peak for all liquids was was mentioned in their first newsletter (jan 2002).
Quote:
Peak Oil (not small caps 'peak oil') is based on a 'faith' that the evidence presented is correct and sufficient to make specific predictions that can be verified.
Doesn't that apply to all scientific theories? Hoping that the data you have will allow you to make predictions?
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:07 pm Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
DefiledEngine wrote:
I believe ASPO has changed years numerous times, always around 2010-2005. Actually, I believe that 2010 as peak for all liquids was was mentioned in their first newsletter (jan 2002).
Quote:
Peak Oil (not small caps 'peak oil') is based on a 'faith' that the evidence presented is correct and sufficient to make specific predictions that can be verified.
Doesn't that apply to all scientific theories? Hoping that the data you have will allow you to make predictions?
Yes, but 'data' is a broad description of evidence that is based on science and 'data' is also non-evidence based on speculation. There is lots of data out there supporting Creationism but it doesn't make Creationism any more valid. One can create a mathematical model and throw in all types of data and use logic to show that the world was created 3000 years ago and will the End is coming next year.
Peak oil certainly isn't as bogus as creationism but the same pitfalls are in the way of valid conclusions. We don't know what the numbers are and we don't always know what the important variables are. Numbers are guestimated and reserves are speculated and social and economic trends are fuzzy. Scepticism isn't a bad word in science but is at the very heart of every discipline.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1437 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:26 pm Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
Actually fossilnut2 I mostly agree that Peak Oil is "crap science". I do however have more respect for the scientific effort associated with global warming and would not put that into the same catagory at all. (don't respond in this thread if you simply want to assert that global warming is "crap science" go to a climate change thread instead.) There is the possibility, however, that the science of Peak Oil could improve. It's not impossible and I took issue with your blanket statement that it is fundamentally "unknowable". That is exactly the kind of critisism that Creationists make with regard to evolutionary theory. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 1:58 pm Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
Wildwell wrote:
By 2008 they will be pushing it back to 2015, by 2013 they will put it back to 2020 and so on...
Pehaps peak oil is a scam to sell Prozac?
More likely PO is crap science...perhaps
Even crap science can have a correct conclusion.
Think of a number between one and ten. The answer is seven. I may pick the right answer without any scientific basis.
What are Saudi reserves? 250 billion? Three trillion? Seven billion? I've read reporte of all these numbers. One of them 'might' be right but it doesn't mean that the study's reason for chosing that number was based on accurate scientific analysis. Wrong variables can offset eachother or 'round figures' are just convenient and thrown out. Often in studies you'll read a statement such as 'if we take 10%' or similar. 10% is not 8% and not 11.5%. Start using an inaccurate figure as the basis for further conclusions and the final answer can become meaningless scientifically but still be, by chance, randomly accurate.
10% of 100 is 10. divide that by 2 and the answer is 5. Now take the real numbers that weren't estimated. Take 8.5% of 92 and divide it by 2.2 and the answer is 20% or different. Oil reserve guestimates and recoverable oil guestimates are even more off the mark and create greater discrepencies.
I can accept an analysis that advises there might be a shortage of oil within the next 30 year perid. I can't accept an analysis that picks some arbitrary year or even hones it down to a particular decade. No one has that type of reliable data to work with.
I ramble on. Too much the aging scientist who bemoans the demise of scientific methodolgy. I enjoy working with rocks because they are always exactly what they are even when I misidentify them.
Joined: Sep 30, 2005 Posts: 69 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 2:11 pm Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
But isn't it more like meteorology? The farther out you are the harder it is to make predictions. A meteorologist may be able to say with 80% certainty that it will rain tomorrow, but he can't say what will happen on December 25. He can make a reasonable assumption based on fuzzy data that it may be a cold winter, though. Isn't Hubbert modeling much the same? Much easier to apply it an individual field than a whole country. Much easier to aply it to a country than to the whole world. Easier to apply it over the next year than the next decade or two. Meteorology isn't junk science, it's just doing the best you can with fuzzy data in a variable jungle. I think it's the same with modeling oil production into the future. A doom fetishist may take the conclusions and form a religion around it in much the same way an astrologer can use data from an astronomer to say the world will end in 2012. Doesn't make astronomy a junk science. Most models aren't perfect, they're just useful. _________________ The U.S. is the only country in the world that encourages people to drive themselves to work in Army vehicles.
Joined: Sep 13, 2005 Posts: 276 Location: A land called Honalee
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 8:34 pm Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
Quote:
It wouldn't matter an iota. Unlike on TV or in the movies computers don't produce evidence. Computers use evidence. Evidence is used to produce or verify theories.
Huh? I have yet to see a computer "use" evidence, and I have worked with them more or less daily for the last 20 years.
Quote:
Back to the cliche: Garbage in. Garbage out.
A cliche that applies to "Von Neumannesque" machines, not necessarily human minds.
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There is no consensus among your 'scientists' what the fossil fuel reserves are or the oil reserves.
I get your point, but it's a dumb point at best. There is no consensus among your scientists exactly what year a given basin may have been created (reckoned by modern dating systems, say) or exactly how fast a glacier may have been moving over a given patch of land 50,000 years ago.
Sure, reserve estimates vary, and they will always be nothing more than estimates no matter what effort might go into it. However, as with most other groups of observations in science, we can couple different observations and create a coherent model for what's happening. Which is what most peak oil geologists are doing.
Quote:
Science is about evidence and not speculation.
Nonsense. If Science were only about evidence and had nothing of speculation, we would have no science. Quine argues for this quite well; or at least, this seems reasonably derivable from indeterminism, which in turn seems immanently reasonable to me.
Quote:
On the non-science side: if the doom and gloomers can point to a consensus of opinion then fine. i don't see it. Put a bunch of economists, sociiologists, demographers, etc. in a room and let them achieve a consensus on a future socio-economic model....bring you sleeping bag and be prepared to sleep in the conference room for several decades while they hash it out.
Is this any different from the progress of science generally? Can you point to a single theory in the whole body of every discipline of science that was accepted instantaneously and was not subject to harsh debate and criticism? Aside from trivial discoveries such as "Human beings exist" or "the world is a pretty big place" or "the sun is awfully bright" or something along those lines, I can't think of a single one.
Quote:
Evolution is based on evidence which produces a threory called evolution.
So the evidence, itself, produces a theory? How so? It seems to me that human minds produce theories, based on evidence. Evidence itself doesn't do anything.
Quote:
A theory verified by measurable evidence of which there is a consensus in the scientific community.
I'm not aware of a single reputable scientist that holds to the theory of verificationism. It's demonstrably flawed.
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Peak Oil (not small caps 'peak oil') is based on a 'faith' that the evidence presented is correct and sufficient to make specific predictions that can be verified.
As is every other bloody theory or law in all of science. You mentioned evolution. Suppose, in what turns out to be the greatest bit of investigative journalism ever, someone shows that all the fossils resting in all the museums all over the world are elaborate fabrications, and that cladistics and genetic analysis are also based on evidence made from whole cloth. I'm not saying I think that will ever happen, but clearly, to believe in evolution, you have to have faith that, as you say, the evidence presented is correct.
As for the sufficiency of evidence...I'm not sure what that means. There will never be a sufficiency of evidence, no matter how much we accumulate, for anything. No matter what, our evidentiary theories may be wrong.
Quote:
Creationism is also based on 'faith' and like the Doom and Gloom cult of Peak Oil 'wanting to believe'...this leads to cherry picking evidence and dismissing contrary theories only because they are 'contrary'
I'm a doomer, but I can't possibly understand why anyone would want to believe in it. I sincerely hope I'm incorrect. I'm happy that there appears to be some evidence that Peak will be pushed back a few years. But I'm not going to be lulled into thinking that the problem is resolved on a wink and a promise.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: ASPO pushes peak date back (again) to 2010
I'm sick of people on this board thinking that these small little things make a difference. So what if it is 2010, instead of 2007? Who cares if it's 2050?! The fact of the matter is, we are going to run out of SOMETHING before you know it. This world is finite, people don't seem to realise that.
I'm not sure the age of the people on this board, but, that could make a difference. All of the people over, say, 55 shouldn't be too worried. But, on the other hand, the younger viewers and their children will have to pay for the growth we sustained, and the resouces we permanently depleted.
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! I don't think so,only a small % of people know anything about it 
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