Penn & Teller BULLSHIT! Vids...

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:48 am

Good ol fashioned skeptic entertainment.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=p ... r+bullshit

Kow, there are a few new ones on here. :)

kowtaaia · Post by **kowtaaia** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:41 am

Goody!

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:47 am

I bet these two showmen are libertarians, sometimes they make some good points, but overall they ignore vast amounts of scientific data to make their own libertarian arguments seem stronger than they actually are; they constantly circumvent facts to strengthen their own views.

kowtaaia · Post by **kowtaaia** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:00 pm

...especially their take on recycling. They miss the point of it.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:03 pm

Ryan Rudolph wrote:I bet these two showmen are libertarians, sometimes they make some good points, but overall they ignore vast amounts of scientific data to make their own libertarian arguments seem stronger than they actually are; they constantly circumvent facts to strengthen their own views.

So true, and sooo entertaining. :)

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:05 pm

kowtaaia wrote:...especially their take on recycling. They miss the point of it.

The fitness one as well. They ignore the real reasons for exercise.

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:34 pm

kowtaaia wrote:...especially their take on recycling. They miss the point of it.

ok then what is the point of recycling?

Jamesh · Post by **Jamesh** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:01 pm

...especially their take on recycling. They miss the point of it.

Yeah, I though so to. The first couple of shows I saw were pretty good, but I thought they dropped the ball when they carried on about global warming.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:15 pm

I'll start it off...

The point of recycling is two-fold. 1. Conserve non-energy resources. 2. Conserve energy resources.

In the cases of tin, aluminium and glass, non-energy resources trump energy resources. Apparently, according to P&T, in the case of plastics, energy resources trump non-energy. Therefore recycling plastics is wasteful.

Edit: My logic is flawed. In the cases of tin, aluminium and glass energy and non-energy resources are presumablely conserved.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:20 pm

Maybe a better way to put it is in terms of overall costs both $$ and environmental. The external cost (to the environment) of recycling paper and plastic makes it more effecient and better for the environment to start from fresh.

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:30 pm

beebuddy wrote:Maybe a better way to put it is in terms of overall costs both $$ and environmental. The external cost (to the environment) of recycling paper and plastic makes it more effecient and better for the environment to start from fresh.

The experiment seeing how far people would take sorting different things was kind of interesting though. I've always been irritated with the different colored cans that they want me to use... especially since my school has a bad habit of not having a trash can anywhere near the recycling cans.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:46 pm

BeeBuddy wrote:

Maybe a better way to put it is in terms of overall costs both $$ and environmental. The external cost (to the environment) of recycling paper and plastic makes it more effecient and better for the environment to start from fresh.

They may actually be correct regarding the inefficiency of recycling plastics, but the paper argument doesnâ€™t sound like a strong argument to me.

You have to clean, sort, and remove labels from plastics â€“ (a lot of labour and energy dissipated), but recycling paper requires less steps and therefore less energy input.

Also they suggest that most paper is derived from tree farms so it isnâ€™t a bad thing because space has been set aside to harvest trees, but this is blatantly incorrect. A huge amount of paper is derived through the clear cutting of private and governmentally owned land.

Here is my logic, the more paper that is recycled, the less clearcutting happens in actual forests, and therefore the forests that have been already clearcutted are able to regenerate faster because there is less affected area.

It seems logical to want to conserve and recycle finite resources.

And even if the kilo-jewels of energy input are higher to recycle paper, most of that energy is dissipated through human labour, which should not be held in the same regard as the energy derived through the destruction of forests.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 5:42 am

Ryan,

I didn't do any research, other than watch the P&T vids. :) So I don't really know. I am curious though. They did point out that forest destruction is basically not happening. Apparently there are plenty of trees.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:01 am

This outlines the deforestation trend in the US over the last few centuries:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mblowers/def.html

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:04 am

Dude, that's virgin timber. Old-growth forests are far more beautiful, but the same amount of trees or more are still around today.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:43 am

Beebuddy wrote:

Dude, that's virgin timber. Old-growth forests are far more beautiful, but the same amount of trees or more are still around today.

Are you absolutely certain of this or are you just repeating twiddle-dee and twiddle-dumb off google videos? I want some hard scientific data to support your claim.

I find it hard to believe that America hasnt lost a significant amount of forests considering scientists are now claiming that in fifty years, the ocean's fish will be completely exhausted.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:56 am

Ryan Rudolph wrote:Beebuddy wrote:

Dude, that's virgin timber. Old-growth forests are far more beautiful, but the same amount of trees or more are still around today.
Are you absolutely certain of this or are you just repeating twiddle-dee and twiddle-dumb off google videos? I want some hard scientific data to support your claim.

I find it hard to believe that America hasnt lost a significant amount of forests considering scientists are now claiming that in fifty years, the ocean's fish will be completely exhausted.

First off, the pics you provided clearly state that they pertain to "virgin timber." Secondly it's considered common knowledge that the timber industry replants every tree that is cut. It's so well known & obvious that it's almost impossible to find any data on it.

Third, your argument contains a non-sequitur, or a fallacy of composition, depending on how you look at it. The fishing industry is qualitatively so far removed from the timber industry that the comparison is laughable.

Sorry I don't have any scientific data for you, I looked. The fact is is that most people know that there are lots of trees because they see them everywhere. Virgin timber is different, those are the trees that where here when the white man landed. Is it any surprise that there aren't many left?

Anyway, ask around, slash & burn forestry was abandoned in this country a long long long time ago.

Kevin Solway · Post by **Kevin Solway** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:15 am

beebuddy wrote:Dude, that's virgin timber. Old-growth forests are far more beautiful, but the same amount of trees or more are still around today.

The problem is, one tree does not equate with another.

We could log a giant tree from a stand of virgin timber and replace it with a microscopic trees in the lab (or plant a tree in a plantation). Technically, we are would be maintaining the number of trees, but in reality we are destroying the forests.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:37 am

The "forests" as you call them are almost completely gone, if you are talking about virgin timber. The stand of trees across from my apartment have been there since the 1800's and are 100% hardwood. Is it less a "forest" because it isn't virgin?

I am not advocating using virgin timber, I would like to see it stay put. Still, we have forests and plenty of trees in North America. If anything, modern logging practices are responsible for preserving the trees across from my apartment.

This country isn't gonna get much worse. The planet really stands to lose a lot in terms of biodiversity in the developing world.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:52 am

I had a few articles that suggest that tree-replanting is not as successful as scientists have hoped because they'll replace a clear cutted area that was once diverse with many different species with one type of tree which dwarfs the forest's growth as a whole and makes the forest more susceptible to disease, harmful insects and so on.

The end result is you have uniform looking, weak, frail and shoddy young growth forests. And the problem is that many of these companies will not replant a diverse selection of trees because it costs too much money.

The western world would probably be better off not replanting at all and allowing the natural world to give birth to new forests through wind travel, birds, etc and so on.

beebuddy · Post by **beebuddy** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:39 am

It's true, and Kevin has a good point also.

edit: except fot the part about not replanting. Trees store much more carbon than is present in the atmosphere. Growing more trees is probably the most reasonable solution for getting greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 2:44 am

Beebuddy wrote:

except fot the part about not replanting.

It's not that replanting won't happen, I'm just suggesting that we should allow nature to do the work, Man does a poor shoddy job of trying to imitiate the chaotic order in nature, his efforts are usually disasterous and cause more harm than good.