[Cerek]

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior Well, what does it hurt you that THEY think the sky is falling, if that were indeed the case? You're seperated from it by your own admissions. I shake my head and smirk at those 2012 doomsayers but because I feel no such fear, I can pretty much move on with my life. Now, unlike these nudnicks, scholars and scientists utilizing survey and intelligence, coupled with real-time experimentation have come to a conclusion. But still and once again, they don't demand you believe it. Whether you do or don't - it changes nothing. Just don't see the point, is all. *shrug*

Uhm...except you keep saying we should listen to the doomsayers, just in case they are right. And even if they aren't, it won't hurt to do what they say anyway.

I don't feel any fear from their prediction either because I'm skeptical of the research that has been done rather than following it blindly.

It also isn't completely true that the scientists do not demand anyone believe them. If they truly didn't care, then there would be no reason for them NOT to share their data with other scientists for testing. The fact they did refuse such a request, and openly admitted the other scientists "just want to find something wrong with it", calls the validity of their data and subsequent research methods into question.

Re-testing of data by other scientists is one of the foundations of science. And even if another group IS trying to prove the data is flawed, the initial scientists should have no concerns unless there is some basis to the allegation. If the data is true and the research was solid, then testing of the data should yield the same results. Again, this is Science 101.

When I took computer science in college, our professor would give us the parameters the program was supposed to meet. After we wrote our programs, he would deliberately enter invalid parameters to see if our programs rejected them or if they crashed. The point is that, IF our program was written well enough, it would not matter how hard the professor tried to "find something wrong with it", because his attempts would fail and the program would still work. Same thing with science. IF the data and research is valid, then re-testing of that data should yield the same (or very similar) results.

I have trouble simply accepting the word of the scientists that their findings are correct when they take measures to prevent anyone else testing their data. As you have said yourself, they should say "Absolutely, test it for yourselves and you will see our conclusions are correct." Instead, they seem to be saying "We've already done the testing so there is no need to test it again. Just take our word that our conclusions are correct".