Verbal

Dear oh dear.

So let's see where we are. Left-ish, well-rounded, intelligent, socially adept posters - three cited pieces of scientific research Foaming-at-the-mouths - zero.

No that's true. That's the secret right wing bit of me coming out.

It started out lighthearted - then it turned out to be true! But I agree, it's wasted money - we knew it already.

It's the other way around.

Since I do, yes - it is all true. Sorry JB, but for what it's worth, I've always thought highly of your ability to rise (slightly) above your disability.

Is that you Deppo?

Are you now dead? (Neck up-wise)

As I say, buy and put EVERYTHING you've got into it. Please.

Desire - the company that keeps claiming it's about to find oil in the Falklands and never does. Buy away.

Looks like you've finally found a home.

They could also draw attention to themselves.

How would you recognise each other?

Don't be such a supercilious pedant. His point is clear enough - you only need to change the words living things to mammal. I love the unintentionally ironic 'to be fair'...before launching into your reductio ad absurdum.

No they won't. If the rurals turn up on my Westminster townhouse doorstep in their silly foxfur hats, I'll set the mastiff on them. Tear them limb from limb.

Real Madrid?

So why were foxes introduced by huntsmen in the hitherto fox-free Isle of Wight?

Einstein's general theory of relativity IS a theory of gravity, as are Newton's equations. The problem with gravity isn't to do with origins, but rather that Einstein's theory describes only the weakest of the four forces of nature, and quantum theory describes the other three. The problem for physics is: how can we make sense of a world that requires one theory of the universe at large scales (including gravity), and another theory to explain the universe at very small scales (quantum theory). Hence the proliferation of GUTs - Grand Unified Theories. This is not to say that relativity and quantum theory are wrong - but incomplete. String theory, for example, is a mind-bogglingly complex series of mathematical equations that attempts to unify general relativity and quantum theory by proposing a universe that exists in eleven dimensions rather than four. (This is why string theory is called a 'theory of everything, by the way - not because it can explain why Turkish picks his nose, but because it purports to combine all known forces in the universe.) String theory itself may be supplanted by another theory of everything with greater explanatory power - but that doesn't mean the theory is wrong in the sense of being useless (useless in the sense that phlogiston theory was). All of which is to say that scientific theories do not have the meaning that we commonly ascribe to the word in everyday usage. So to say, in scientific terms: 'it's just a theory' is more often than not nonsensical. Climate science theorises - models - climate change, and is also built on the foundations of organic chemistry and atmospheric physics. Layers of theory producing testable hypotheses and experiment designs - the very definition of a successful research programme. In the face of this, dune looks out the window and says no.

If you were taught phlogiston you're not kidding about your grandad status! Karl Marx was making fun of it in 1848! It was a seventeenth century theory that was overthrown by the eighteenth century - and was a failed attempt at dealing with alchemists' ideas, especially that there were four basic elements, fire, water, air and earth. Phlogiston was added as a correction to alchemy. So its status as science is open to question. Phlogiston was of course replaced by a better (and scientific) theory and discovery - oxidation and oxygen. With the essentially anti-science stance of many deniers, there is a growing divide between them and the scientific community - for which the febrile and nonsensical world of the internet is largely to blame. As some of the arguments on here have shown, we're heading back to a world where modern-day equivalents of phlogiston theory are preferable simply because they yield a more comforting result. The idea of what counts as a scientific theory, or a hypothesis, or observation, or verification, has basically gone to hell in this weird world of denial. Your point about the moon landings isn't essentially different from mine, is it? Or have I missed something? Newtonian gravity rules over short distances (relatively speaking!).

Damn those cypriots.

Technically hypotheses are derived from theories and observations - and it can get quite circular because no observation is independent of an underlying hypothesis. Hypotheses do not develop into theories but are to some extent derived from them. A theory in this case could be anything from the fundamentals of atmospheric chemistry and physics to a model of climate dynamics (models and theories are pretty interchangeable in this latter instance, in a way that hypotheses and theories are not.) Scientists don't mean the same thing as you or I when they refer to 'theories'. No scientist worth his or her salt, for example, would argue that the theory of quantum mechanics is wrong (incomplete, yes; but wrong, no) - and if it were wrong, we'd be in a very troubling state of ignorance. Theories are not 'guesses' but 'research programmes'. And theories tend not to be displaced by evidence but by better theories - which still doesn't mean the old theories are not practical (the moon landings were plotted using Newton's theory of gravity, not Einstein's)

You missed the rest out! Besides, the processes explained by Andy are well understood and not contested by atmospheric chemists, or by any scientist worthy of the name - and if THEY turned out not to be true you'd be forced to concede that basically chemistry itself is fundamentally wrong.

If you really, think this, then you need to try and understand how scientists construct their theories, collect evidence, and verify their hypotheses. No it's not just 'a theory'.

That's as succinct an explanation as I've seen in a while (although I think you missed a 'not' in the penultimate sentence.) Add Tim's numbers to this and it's hardly surprising the climate-scientific community en masse is pretty alarmed.

Really? So hunting in the Isle of Wight, where they actually had to introduce foxes in order to hunt them, serves a purpose?