final

Question 1

what is a created controversy?

Answer 1

refers to a situation where people are deliberately generate a dispute, argument, or disagreement, often by manipulating information or exaggerating issues

Question 2

how is creating controversy a helpful strategy for those who do not like some particular conclusion?

Answer 2

it leads people to doubt the conclusion leading

Question 3

why do groups try to create doubt, rather than simply denying inconvenient scientific conclusions?

Answer 3

denying needs a burden of proof so creating doubt does not require proof, it is easier to keep a small lie than a large lie

Question 4

what are some key strategies for creating controversy?

Answer 4

magnify uncertainty, cherry-picking data, ignoring disagreeable evidence

Question 5

what is meant by the phrase “epistemically dependent”?

Question 6

what is meant by the phrase “motivated reasoning”?

Answer 6

cognitive bias where people interpret and evaluate info in a way that aligns with pre-existing beliefs

Question 7

how would the earth’s climate be different if all atmospheric gases were transparent to all infrared radiation?

Answer 7

all infrared radiation would escape the atmosphere and the earth would be much colder

Question 8

why was john tyndall interested in the effects of atmospheric composition on global climates?

Answer 8

he wanted to find out what caused the ice age

Question 9

the estimates of arrhenius and hogbom, concerning human effects on the climate, included two important assumptions, understandable but mistaken. what were these assumptions?

Answer 9

Arrhenius suggested that halving the atmospheric co2 would reduce average global temperatures by 8 degrees

Hogbom calculated the amount of co2 added to the atmosphere through human activity was less than 1000th that is already in the atmosphere

Question 10

whose work in the 1950s challenged previous ideas about co2 absorption rate of the oceans?

Answer 10

dave keeling

Question 11

what does the keeling curve measure?

Answer 11

the concentration of carbon dioxide (co2) in earths atmosphere

Question 12

whose theroy related ice ages to variations in the earths orbit?

Answer 12

milutin milankovitch

Question 13

which of the following are transparent to infrared radiation: oxygen, nitrogen, co2, methane

Answer 13

oxygen and nitrogen

Question 14

approximately how many parts of the atmosphere (per million) were co2 in the late 1950s?

Answer 14

315ppm

Question 15

approximately how many parts of the atmosphere (per million) are co2 today?

Answer 15

412ppm

Question 16

what is the decadal instrumental record going back to the 1980s?

Answer 16

warmest decade was 1990 then 2000, then 2010, now 2020… its getting warmer every year

Question 17

scientists use air bubbles from ice cores to measure and infer what?

Answer 17

provide samples of what the atmosphere was like when that layer of ice formed

Question 18

why are sea levels rising

Answer 18

global warming is causing the ice caps to melt

Question 19

what is the main complication in evaluating the effect of cloud coverage on climate patterns?

Answer 19

clouds reflect solar radiation back into space and absorb infrared radiation and clouds have both a warming and cooling affect so you wont know what balance there will be

Question 20

how do climate models provide evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for recent climate change?

Answer 20

give the models all of the info including human-made greenhouse gases they track everything but it is left out then the models will say it should stay flat

Question 21

what are the three most significant ways in which human activity produces greenhouse gas emissions?

Answer 21

burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation

Question 22

what is the biggest health concern associated with global warming?

Answer 22

access to fresh water

Question 23

what are the four ways in which the science/religion relationship was conceived by Barbour?

Answer 23

conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration

Question 24

For purposes of reconciling scientific and religious views, what’s one significant problem with
“Independence”?

Answer 24

some of the questions asked by science and religion are the same, casuing them occasionally run together, which makes it hard to be independnet from each other

Question 25

For purposes of reconciling scientific and religious views, what’s a significant challenge for “Dialogue”?

Answer 25

The challenge is to come up with a compelling case that religious claims contribute to the common interest, a nice idea that science and religion help understand issues together but who to say science by itself wont be enough – no beneficial dialogue –

Question 26

Why is ‘teach the controversy’ a dubious strategy?

Answer 26

then any form of controversy can be taught, such as a flat earth, and the belief of Atlantis

Question 27

Why is it a mistake to think that evolutionary theory implies complex organs and organisms arose by chance?

Answer 27

because evolutionary theory implies that if you have variants in a population and they are abundant, then the dominant characteristic will spread through the species over time and turn into a variation of that species.

Question 28

CO2 occurs naturally in the atmosphere. Why is this a poor reason for supposing it can’t be harmful?

Answer 28

There are many substances that occur naturally but are still potentially fatal

Question 29

Less than 1% of the atmosphere is CO2. Why is this a poor reason for supposing it can’t be harmful?

Answer 29

Just because it is a small percentage does not mean it is not harmful

Question 30

What does the Suess effect predict?

Answer 30

The proportion of carbon-14, relative to the total carbon in the atmosphere, should decline

Question 31

Why is ‘natural variability’ a problematic explanation of recent climate change?

Answer 31

it is way too vauge - denies humans having a hand in global warming

Question 32

What proportion of climate researchers support the tenets of anthropogenic climate change?

Answer 32

97%

Question 33

True or false: the cycle of ice ages is the result of variations in atmospheric CO2.

Answer 33

false

Question 34

Who introduced the phrase ‘non-overlapping magisteria’?

Answer 34

paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould

Question 35

What’s an important difference between Lamarck’s and Darwin’s theories of biological evolution?

Answer 35

Only Darwin argued that distinct species are descended from common ancestors

Question 36

How quickly could eyes evolve from a patch of light sensitive cells, according to Nilsson and Pelger?

Answer 36

less than 400,000 years

Question 37

What is biological essentialism?

Answer 37

biological influences precede cultural influences and set predetermined limits to the effects of culture

Question 38

What percentage of scientists in the biological and medical fields declared a belief in God, according to a 2009 poll?

Answer 38

51%

Question 39

Explain the difference between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism.

Answer 39

Metaphysical naturalism is believing there is nothing supernatural that exists
Methodological naturalism is explaining something in a natural way rather than a supernatural