Is Global Warming a Hoax?

[Poopadoop]

It's tempting to assume that because clever people say it's happening and dumb people say it's not, that the clever people are right.

Any argument should be evaluated on its own merits, independent of who is making it. The collection of arguments put forth in favour of AGW are stronger than the arguments against it imo (and also in the opinion of the experts who are more qualified to evaluate the evidence than I am).

The fact that the deniers aren't experts is irrelevant (though perhaps telling) - what's relevant is that their arguments are incomplete - to use the guy in OP as an example, he focuses on one bit of evidence and says 'it's not determinant' while ignoring all the other evidence.

Intelligence for me is the ability to understand one's environment.

Ok, well when a dolphin can show us it understands more about any part of the world (aside from other dolphins where I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt) than we do, then I'll take back what I said.

Manipulation of environment is a physical ability

On the contrary, it's almost entirely mental. The body is just the machine that does the moving; the real work goes on in the brain. The neural computations needed to coordinate the timing and force of the muscle contractions required to properly use (e.g.,) a screwdriver are enormous. When these neurons are destroyed, humans develop a condition known as apraxia, which is (grossly put) the inability to manipulate objects. There is no animal equivalent for this condition.

The fact that many actions strike us as effortless belies the sheer complexity of the task in terms of neural resources required. Consider that we have had a computer that can beat the world chess champion for over 20 years now but we haven't yet built a robot that can match the sophisticated movements of the human hand. And that's because of our advanced brain, not because our hand has some physical advantage over a robot hand (if anything the robot hand has all they physical advantages - certainly in terms of strength and endurance).

We probably are the most intelligent species on the planet. But it's not a given.

It is by any definition of intelligence you or anyone else has offered so far.

But if you want to be philosophical about it, then yes it's possible that dolphins are smarter than us and we just don't know it. In any case this is all interesting but really irrelevant to the discussion on AGW...

Well I don't think the residents of Tuvalau are waiting around for it to happen. They already have permission to evacuate to New Zealand if and when the time comes. There isn't really anything we can do to save Tuvalu, if the theory is correct. But it would at least serve as a wake up call, and the next vulnerable islands can prepare knowing that it's inevitable, rather than debatable. The deniers would have to acknowledge that they are wrong

The bolded would be true if the deniers were using logic and reasoning and looking at the big picture but they've already shown they're not. So my guess is the whole world could go under and they'd still try to argue it wasn't AGW that caused it and that we should keep using oil.

I trust science when it makes predictions based on facts that hold up to experiment.

If this is your criterion, then you will never trust science to answer the question of AGW and can only throw up your hands; scientists cannot do an empirical study of AGW because there is no way to control all the variables. The best they can do is make observations and model the systems involved. That may make the science less rigorous than experimental science, but it's the best we can do under the circumstances.