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In Brief
- A large number of major party contenders for political office this year took antiscience positions against evolution, human-induced climate change, vaccines, stem cell research, and more.
- Such positions are surprising because the economy is such a big factor in this election, and half the economic growth since World War II can be traced to innovations in science and technology.
- Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum have been guilty of science denialism. But the Republican version is particularly dangerous because it attacks the validity of science itself.
- U.S. voters must push candidates and elected officials to express their views on the major science questions facing the nation or risk losing out to those countries with reality-based policies.
More In This Article
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Sidebar
Rating the Candidates' Answers
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Overview
Science in an Election Year
It is hard to know exactly when it became acceptable for U.S. politicians to be antiscience. For some two centuries science was a preeminent force in American politics, and scientific innovation has been the leading driver of U.S. economic growth since World War II. Kids in the 1960s gathered in school cafeterias to watch moon launches and landings on televisions wheeled in on carts. Breakthroughs in the 1970s and 1980s sparked the computer revolution and a new information economy. Advances in biology, based on evolutionary theory, created the biotech industry. New research in genetics is poised to transform the understanding of disease and the practice of medicine, agriculture and other fields.
The Founding Fathers were science enthusiasts. Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer and scientist, built the primary justification for the nation's independence on the thinking of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and John Locke—the creators of physics, inductive reasoning and empiricism. He called them his “trinity of three greatest men.” If anyone can discover the truth by using reason and science, Jefferson reasoned, then no one is naturally closer to the truth than anyone else. Consequently, those in positions of authority do not have the right to impose their beliefs on other people. The people themselves retain this inalienable right. Based on this foundation of science—of knowledge gained by systematic study and testing instead of by the assertions of ideology—the argument for a new, democratic form of government was self-evident.
Yet despite its history and today's unprecedented riches from science, the U.S. has begun to slip off of its science foundation. Indeed, in this election cycle, some 236 years after Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, several major party contenders for political office took positions that can only be described as “antiscience”: against evolution, human-induced climate change, vaccines, stem cell research, and more. A former Republican governor even warned that his own political party was in danger of becoming “the antiscience party.”
Such positions could typically be dismissed as nothing more than election-year posturing except that they reflect an anti-intellectual conformity that is gaining strength in the U.S. at precisely the moment that most of the important opportunities for economic growth, and serious threats to the well-being of the nation, require a better grasp of scientific issues. By turning public opinion away from the antiauthoritarian principles of the nation's founders, the new science denialism is creating an existential crisis like few the country has faced before.
In late 2007 growing concern over this trend led six of us to try to do something about it. Physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, science writer and film director Matthew Chapman (who is Charles Darwin's great–great-grandson), science philosopher Austin Dacey, science writer Chris Mooney, marine biologist Sheril Kirshenbaum and I decided to push for a presidential science debate. We put up a Web site and began reaching out to scientists and engineers. Within weeks 38,000 had signed on, including the heads of several large corporations, a few members of Congress from both parties, dozens of Nobel laureates, many of the nation's leading universities and almost every major science organization. Although presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain both declined a debate on scientific issues, they provided written answers to the 14 questions we asked, which were read by millions of voters.
In 2012 we developed a similar list, called “The Top American Science Questions,” that candidates for public office should be answering [see “Science in an Election Year” for a report card by Scientific American's editors measuring how President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney did]. The presidential candidates' complete answers, as well as the responses provided by key congressional leaders to a subset of those questions, can be found at www.ScientificAmerican.com/nov2012/science-debate and at www.sciencedebate.org/debate12.
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Add CommentThe republican party is fundamentally anti-science because its ideology is fundamentally irrational. The objective of the republican party is to rob from the poor and give to the rich. There is nothing rational about extreme greed. It is self-destructive. So it suits them to align themselves with the other fundamentally irrational element of society, the religious. Now both the rich and religious can support each other in their rejection of science and rational policy decisions. The republican party's greatest enemy is an informed voter so all they want out of the public school system is employees and consumers. Every penny the government puts into improving the public school system is one less vote for the republicans. I've been speaking for a while about my idea for the ALL curriculum rather than the misnamed 3Rs; Arithmatic, Literacy and Logic. All other subjects employ one or more of those core subjects. Create a population capable of thinking their way out of difficulties rather than following the republican piper into the river.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Energy Corporations and Fox News are disseminating false information to defuse Regulations. Food Corporations are fighting the EPA with false information. They have the Bully Pulpit and the Public does not expect Media to broadcast lies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that it began with Sarah Palin, and the Koch Brothers and others took the ball and ran with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want an object example of the "reliability" of "science", consider Otto describing Jefferson as believing that "no one is naturally closer to the truth than anyone else". In other words, Jefferson saw all as equally superior. If you look to the August 12, 2012 entry in the blog "Gene Expression" on Discover Magazine, "And you shall find the light & the truth", Razib Khan described Jefferson as " a conventional white supremacist of his time". I took Khan up on this claim, describing "white supremacy" as basically a political type movement, rather than a point of view. This may cause this not to be printed, but in response, Khan, arguably one of the most insecure and vicious individuals ever to unethically get a paid position writing a blog for a website, claimed he never said that, called me "unhinged" and a "suboid", and, illiterately declared me banned. So did Jefferson see all as being equally able or was he a "white supremacist"?
RSchmidt said, "all [Republicans] want out of the public school system is employees and consumers." That is not correct--they do not even want that. Both employees and consumers can be found outside the U.S. Public education is a long-term investment. The plutocrats only care about the short-term -- that's what greed is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJulian Penrod writes about "the science that didn't" do this and that. It is clear that Penrod is an idealist. All ideologies embraced by conservatives/Republicans are idealistic, whether it's "free market" libertarianism or religion-based social conservatism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince when has SciAm become a political bully pulpit?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf there is any crisis in the public trust of science today, that crisis has developed because of this very thing. Many so-called scientists frequently forget that they are SCIENTISTS and start imagining they are political pundits, prophets of doom, saviors of the world or some other non-scientific talking heads.
Here are just a couple of questions that likely have answers that differ from what we are told.
Why not figure out how the Finger Lakes of New York State were actually carved? Certainly the last ice age didn't do it because the terrain is generally UP-hill the whole way from the Arctic Ocean and any ice accumulation would have been caused by the annual failure of all the winter snow to melt rather than some glacier flowing uphill from the north with no polar mountain slope to drive it. This issue is indeed rather irrelevant but it points out how we are fed claims that really make no sense.
And why not figure out how Life really began? It certainly requires a lot more than the correct chemical recipe in the correct environment. Real science has shown that All of Life is based on coded knowledge that everyone knows could NEVER have bubbled out of some ancient warm mud puddle. All this hue and cry about evolution always assumes complex, pre-existing code to begin with. Given those pre-existing codes, many useful things can be accomplished by editing the code. But, that does NOT mean that the code originally somehow self-assembled by natural means. This too is really an irrelevant issue because one need not know the origins of anything to understand the workings of it.
Another issue (not so irrelevant) is global warming, or, “climate change” as it has now been watered down to be called. Real science has demonstrated that water vapor holds by FAR the greatest grip on atmospheric temperatures. If the north polar ice cap is melting as indeed it apparently is, doesn’t it make more sense to suspect that the huge molten rock with a thin frozen crust which is our planet, is having some internal upheavals? If the molten rock on which we ride has enough flow rates to influence continental drift it seems reasonable that the crust may be temporarily thinning a bit right now in the north polar regions. I understand that the south polar ice is expanding recently. I simply do not believe that a 0.8ºF rise in the lower atmospheric temperature over the last 1-1/2 centuries has enough excess heat authority to melt a polar ice cap in any reasonable amount of time.
Lumping in opposition to AGW as “antiscience” is deeply arrogant, mistaken, misguided and self destructive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTens of thousands of Scientists oppose the claims of AGW, including me, and there is no body of evidence proving it, unlike all of the other bodies of Science.
The real “antiscience” ignorance movement, in the US especially, will be the only winners if this attitude continues.
SA asks are “antiscience beliefs jeopardizing US democracy” and then you try to politically categorize some examples.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said:
"Democrats tends to be motivated by unsupported suspicions of hidden dangers to health and the environment. Common examples include the belief that cell phones cause brain cancer (high school physics shows why this is impossible) or that vaccines cause autism (science has shown no link whatsoever)."
Then you said:
"Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota warned in 2011 during a Florida presidential primary debate that “innocent little 12-year-old girls” were being “forced to have a government injection” to prevent infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) and later said the vaccine caused “mental retardation.”
Hmm…it gets complicated doesn’t it?
You have now amassed quit a few examples of antiscience beliefs in these comments. Is it possible to politically categorize them? Sure some are easy, if the science indicates industry needs to make changes or if the public might need to pay a tax on fossil fuel consumption then the choice is easy but not necessarily when it comes to vaccines. Oh, unless the issue is to make it easier for new drugs to come onto the market…then we all know the category.
Maybe these responses will inspire some articles in upcoming SA issues. I sure hope so.
The article identifies, but quickly drops & ignores, the depolitization of the science community and its abandonment of any sense of social responsibility. While mentioning the role of fear of nuclear war in evangelical ideology, it ignores that the last times (now decades ago) the scientific community as a whole played any significant role - as in the campaign against above ground nuclear testing specifically, debates over "Star Wars" and the negotiation of nuclear arms limits in general.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that this ceding the ground of any responsibility for the social impacts of science & how science is presented, exists today. THis can be seen in the global warming debate and the relative isolation of the few such as Hansen who are willing to make clear and dramatic public statements. It also continues in the total silence and absence from the "14 questions" of discussion of the prioritization of funding of science, specifically the absolute domination of military spending in non-health (specifically non-NIH) related federal funding.
This abandonment of any social perspective or role by scientists is the larger problem - postmodernism was more a fad filling this void than anything else.
I fundamentally disagree with the results for Obama under SPACE because of one game-changer on his side; when cancelling Constellation they preserved the Orion Command Ship and are developing and testing it as a retasked Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle for work in high orbit environments and beyond. They even have a Facebook page. It flies in 2014. http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/mpcv/index.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA *test flight* of the MPCV is scheduled for 2014. Then an unmanned circumlunar flight is planned for 2017. The first manned circumlunar flight is not planned until 2019 to 2021, and that's if nothing goes seriously wrong during testing or is canceled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisconfirmed, a test flight of MPCV in 2014, but the program wasn't cancelled, it continues in a new role.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCramer's retort is the second time in two days I've been attacked for being idealistic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRememebr when being idealistic, shooting for the heights, used to be desired?
I've found that, oiften, when individuals eschew the idealistic in favor of the realistic, it's not so much over a disagreement with what is of value as it is out of a desire to aim for the bargain basement, because that's all the person was capable of or what they wanted to reduce mankind to. In other words, making the mendacious and trenchant the "ideal", rather than the noble and decent.
But, look, too, to the fact that Cramer uses condemning idealism as a "defense" for the condition of "science"!
How "science" has fallen! It used to be touted as the solution to all problems, the only thing that could be trusted, always right, always able to provide an answer. Now, "science" devotees have replaced "science" always being right with "science" always being willing to change its mind. And Cramer is "arguing" that it's unreasonable to expect "science" to be right even a fraction of the time or be able to give reliable information. If religion had all the flaws "science" is now touting as "virtues", "science" devotees would say religion should be outlawed!
This may cause this not to be printed, but, "science" is a fraud.
I agree about the importance of science in modern society, but this article is not helping any. First of all, Jefferson's idea that "anyone can do science..." is a philosophy. Thinking of this as a scientific hypothesis and then checking it would make it a science. A quick look at the comments here on S.A. indicate that some people either cannot or will not "do science", or do an honest attempt to see if their hypotheses are incorrect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, high school physics does not show that microwave radiation cannot influence the reproductive behavior of cells. Neither did any of the physics courses I took in college. Maybe there is something in biology, but my guess is the only conclusive evidence comes from basic science methodology: checking it.
Looks like we still have a ways to go to understand how to deal with the anti-science crowd. Maybe someone should look into hiring a marketing psychology expert.
http://www.change.org/petitions/house-science-committee-remove-rep-paul-broun
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to many, and to a few in particular, please do not conflate science with what passes for science reporting in the mainstream media. The latter is dumbed down and sensationalized, and is intended to be forgotten about once it's out of the news cycle. Recent examples include superluminal neutrinos (they aren't) and Gliese 581g (we don't even know if it's there, let alone whether or not it could support life).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's hard to defend the MSM, but the journals where real science is discussed are often locked up behind prohibitive paywalls and written in a way that is inaccessible to most in the general public. Outlets like SciAm and The New Scientist try to bridge the gap, but there's a lot of science going on and only so much editorial space available.
Scientists need to do a better job of communicating with the public. And journalists need to do a better job of helping them.
I think your assessment is largely correct. The creation of the NSF didn't foresee the consequences of the withdrawal of scientists from the public dialogue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNevertheless, it is a foundation idea of democracy and lies at the heart of the empiricism that has doubled our lifespans and changed all aspects of life. As to cell phones and brain cancer, microwaves are far weaker even that the 500 watts of infrared you are radiating as you read this. To cause cancer you need a wave energy high enough to knock an electron out of a carbon atom, "ionizing" it, thus altering the chemicals bonds and damaging DNA, causing cancer. That takes 11.26 electron volts. Carbon is in fact one of the most stable atoms. Light isn't strong enough to do that until you go up from microwaves through infrared, through all of visible light to the very bottom edge of ultraviolet - a whopping one million times as strong as microwaves. Microwaves are a million times weaker than the energy required to ionize carbon. That's equivalent to the difference between a wave and a tidal wave -- or being hit by a pea or a BMW Z-4. Which one can do more damage? This is defined by the basic high school physics relationship, E=hv, that Einstein defined in 1905 and part of why he won the Nobel prize.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"... Jeopardize U.S. Democracy"? Just a wee bit of unscientific hyperbole there, yes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo many trolls here who don't actually know any science. They probably aren't even subscribed to SciAm!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI subscribed to SciAm for 25 years after leaving college, until they started beating this same drum on "anti-science" (and also becoming about as useful as Newsweek for hard science information).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooks like SciAm has decided their core market is people who worship scientific materialism instead of wanting to follow real science.
Part 1 of "Embracing Mind" by B. Alan Wallace provides a crushing analysis of scientific materialism, and how it has led to many of the cultural problems surrounding both science and anti-science today.
People who worship scientific materialism may actually do more harm than those who practice "anti-science", because they are ostensibly more intelligent, and they are both wasting the social resource of their intelligence and blocking effective dialog between science and "not yet science".
Politics aside, science has gotten a few black eyes due to falsifying data and the constantly changing facts of the medical community (what was bad is now good, etc.) Many feel uncertain about whether science isn't just as bogus as UFO's anymore. Even the supposed science channels on cable carry more programs about UFO's, big foot type stuff and psychic/ghost themes in the name of ratings that it is no wonder that people in general are confused about what science really is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdd to that that most defenders of science are violently antagonistic against spiritual beliefs and you have a major polarization of society. Our politicians are selected from a broad cross section of society and reflect this confusion.
If you do not have the intelligence and education to know the difference from real science and what is set forth in public media, how can you not be confused? And if you do not have a clear definition of what it is to have integrity and be directed by a good moral compass, you can publish any kind of "science" you want that just dilutes and confuses real science. Religion has provided a moral compass in the past but now religion is a sore point for many scientists who feel that logic and reason are the only paths to truth. So now we use "reason" to justify our actions with nothing there to keep us from self justifying our own beliefs, desires and greed. And what do we end up with? Take a look around. What a mess the world is in today.
There was a time when most scientists were morally upright people. Maybe not religious but people of integrity that sought truth and not just fame, wealth or power. I wish I lived in such a society. Unfortunately, I have to make do with what is, not with what it should be. I choose to be a man of integrity as well as I can. I just wish more people would chose the same.
It is really about religion you know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo much of science repudiates and invalidates christain theological thinking. At one time christianity was the dominant perspective on the Universe, but no more.
Of course, if you are a christian then this is going to be a little upsetting to you and you will defiantly try to hang on to the validity of your belief system--by repudiating science.
The republican party has become largely anti-science because they have been taken over by religious zealots who are trying desperately to hang on to the old perspectives instead of embracing the new perspectives.
They are doomed to fail of course because if you can't change with the changing times then you are already finished. Sadly,however, these zealots are going to cause a lot of pain and suffering for everyone else as they continue to try to maintain their hold on a non-existent reality.
You should write these articles. You essentially summarized it in clear English and with less fluff than the article did. Very nice!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimple answer? The repugnicans are anti-science because science threatens their belief in the magic sky people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuggestive, if not telling, that TTLG recommends using "a marketing psychology expert" to convince people that "science" can be trusted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe very same people who convince people to pay for products that are poorly made and even unnecessary. Individuals who use craven, misleading terminology like "may" and "can" instead of "will". Individuals who promise "lifetime guarantees" that their products will work, leaving out the fact that the "lifetime" is not the user's lifetime, but that of the product! Essentially guaranteeing that the product will work until it stops working! Safelite auto glass had a commercial where they advertised that their mixture to fill in cracks and holes "works better than inferior brands". Well, of course a product is going to work better than one that's inferior to it, but that doesn't mean the product itself is of the highest quality! In all the cartoons called "Geico commercials", aimed at double digit IQ's, has anyone ever seen anything like an actual, necessarily tangible description of services?
In fact, "science" already uses some advertiser tricks. Notice how they opine against "the connection between vaccines and autism". And they can be said to have a point. But, then, no one, anywhere, even those who fight against certain vaccinations, ever said that all vaccines cause autism! But by the time that might be countered, the New World Order crowd of gullible will already have received their marching orders.
And not where Dragonfall's sensibilities lie. Not in disproving or even contesting what is said by those who don't toe the NWO line, rather, launching the accusation that, "They probably aren't even subscribed to SciAm!" As if it's a bad thing to comment on a story in the magazine if you don't subscribe! How apt to be in an article talking about the future of "democracy", "cash and carry ethics". replacing "free speech" with "fee speech".
What a load of nonsense. So I am anti science because I dont buy into the total scam of global warming? Me, A guy with a com sci and physics education?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, just because people dont buy the BullS*** theories of some government own scientists does not make the country or anyone else anti-science. Maybe anti-govenment funded science.
Granted people who think the universe is 9000 years old or whatever are morons but anti-science?
That said, the examples given that "prove" anti-science are flawed themselves.
Evolution or more specifically natural selection does appear to be mostly right except where the mutations come from. It makes much more sense to conclude all possible combinations of genetics started out at the beginning and we are the result of a whittling down to the good genetic choices after a billion years of natural selection. It would explain why periods like the Cambrian had millions more life forms than today and why so many could not survive. The current belief that mutations just appear out of nowhere and somehow randomly are exactly why is needed each time and somehow make an fully grown lifeform change is highly flawed and sounds more like evidence for a god doing the mutation as opposed to actual natural selection.
Human caused global warming. All we know is the planet seems warmer today than some decades ago with very loose evidence that some human effect has occurred. The skeptics are really disagreeing with the CO2 only cause, when it is just as possible this is natural or the mere presence of 7 billion humans producing heat in a variety of ways could be the problem. The prophetic outcomes are not believable and all of the solutions seem to involve taxation and some politicians getting power with some scientists getting money. This is not anti science this is anti-scam.
Vaccines being forced on people as in the HPV one in texas is a problem. Also, not all vaccinces should be done, such as the live polio vaccine which infects 1 or 2 children a year. The concept that some jackass liberals in washington can justify infecting 2 kids with polio because it gets more of other kids vaccinated over a shot type vaccine is problem.
Stem cells. right now science is just goofing around with effects they see. Most of medical science is like that. Preventing the research is a bit too much but being wary of the liberal scientist willing to do anything to get a result. We dont need some scientist repeating Mengele by creating half creatures out of stemcells, which is what someone will do if we are not careful.
Be careful about what you ask for. A thinking population will not in anyway accept your socialist/liberal concepts of an elite class running a population of peasants living in equal misery. The schools run the way they are precisely to indoctrinate as many as possible into liberal thinking and if they change this, your oh so wonderful democrats and their marxist like ideology will be over.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'll let someone else handle you, but I would advise not spouting common lies (the "scam of global warming" comment just looks stupid, and you otherwise don't seem so much stupid as misled).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour last theory is pretty good. Mine is the 7 billion humans. Similar to a stadium full of people not needing to be heated because of the bodies. At the same time as the CO2 production, the human population has been growing and it is possible the heat from 7 billion humans, their billions of livestock, heat from homes, cooking, fires, smelting metals, generating electricity, making nearly every product, even pumping the oil out of the ground brings up heat from the interior of the planet in the hot oil and taking the alyeska pipline as an example, they disparate that heat into the atmosphere. In effect, 7 billion humans have created 100s of billions of heat sources none of which existed in these numbers before the industrial age and totally coincides with the warmer planet today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason none of the liberal scientists will even look at it, is there is no way to regulate, make money, tax or in some way start obtaining money and power if the warming is caused by simply existing in great numbers.
Science is no longer in favour in politics because science is the search for truth. With the lurch to the right by nearly all political parties, science (truth) has little to do with just making wealth. In fact science is now determining that the right wing focus on just accumulating ever greater wealth is actually leading to the distruction of the very foundations that wealth has come from....our planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would seem that humans are no smarter than every other species on this planet that has prospered only to eventually destroy itself by shitting in its own nest. One thing is for certain, we need the earth a lot more than it needs us!
What goes hand-in-hand with Penrod's idealistic thinking is his black-and-white thinking (and extreme at that): "Shooting for the heights" versus "bargain basement." "[Science] as a solution to all problems" versus "'science' to be right even a fraction of the time."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience and democracy is a meaningless connection. In WW2 the Nazis developed advanced rocketry while the USA produced the atom bomb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Soviets put cosmonauts into space as did the Americans.
The laws of physics that govern matter and energy are the same regardless of any ideological agenda.
Definition idealism from thefreedictionary.com:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The act or practice of envisioning things in an ideal form.
2. Pursuit of one's ideals.
I using definition #1, not #2.
You see when you make statements comparing democrats to marxists you clearly demonstrate your complete ignorance. The Democrats are very far to the right of any other western government and none of those governments could be compared to marxism by anyone who actually knows anything about marxism. Once again all you have succeeded in doing is showing that you are an idiot. I find it no coincidence that you are also a right wing fanatic. Thanks for showing us what the far right has to offer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe majority of the comments so far only serve to prove Otto's point. The populace is ignorant - a desirable state of affairs from a political standpoint. No - the crust of the earth is NOT "thining". Yes - the finger lakes of New York WERE created by glaciation. They began as Oxbow Rivers which were then cut off from their original source as the land rebounded from the (removed) weight of the glacier. Additionally, from either pole towards the equator it is ALWAYS downhill. Yes - the percentage of water vapor in the atmosphere is a major driving force behind weather events. When it reaches the saturation point however, it precipitates - rain, snow, dew - and carries it's specific heat OUT of the atmosphere. Not so with carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen compounds, or sulphur compounds. The temperatures available on earth are NEVER low enough to precipitate these substances from the atmosphere. They remain in solution and contribute to global warming/climate change. NO - life does NOT require a "pe-ordained" code. it CAN arise spontaneously and then evolve in complexity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: "Advances in biology, based on evolutionary theory, created the biotech industry."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the basis for such claim?
Julain Penrod asks why bringing up UFOs to a "scientist" elicits laughter. Perhaps the reason is that there remains no emperical evidence of UFSs. His comments regarding evolution (known to be true) and vaccines (known to provide resistance to selected diseases) speaks volumes of his ignorance of the subject at hand, specifically the antiscience attitudes of many in government. Science provided the technology he used to communicate his ignorance. Oh, and my assertion concerning evolution? If Mr. Penrose is of European decent, his genome contains between 2 and 4% Neanderthal DNA. That is evolution. If he wants to refuse vaccination from Small Pox, Polio, etc., that's fine by me. The sooner he is removed from teh gene pool, the smarter we all will be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNicely written. The nation that denies and refuses to believe knowledge derived from the scientific method in deference to myth and religion, will eventually be assimilated by those who don't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo embrace science is to embrace the universe on its own terms, to embrace myth and religion is to recast the universe as a human societal construct.
You gave away any chance you had at persuading anybody of anything when you mentioned UFOs! And my statement does not reflect bias, but simply an examination of the evidence and an understanding of Occam's Razor (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow... I'm surprised by how bad the logic of some of the posts is. I would like to make one clarification: you can agree or disagree with the article, but please don't confuse Science with the scientific establishment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are human beings and hence we are political beings, we promote our own agendas, have prejudices and make mistakes (<= i.e. Scientific Establishment).
The basis of science is that every hypothesis should be tested. You can then argue about whether the experiment was reasonable or not, or even about the conclusions that can be drawn from it. But the only way to resolve any dispute is to design a new experiment and test it again. Eventually enough evidence is gathered to convince our collective minds. Typically this "convincing" is based on practical results... most people agrees with quantum theory not because they understand it, but because the predictions we made based on it turned out to be accurate and we have modern electronics as proof.
Personally, I think we have enough evidence in favor of all the issues mentioned in the article, and I'll do my best to convince everyone else to act accordingly, but I don't think it's reasonable to start accusing people that think differently that they are part of a conspiracy or that greed is their only motivation.
And just as a personal peeve of mine, please stop saying that evolution requires life or genetic material to exist... this is wrong in so many levels... just because you haven't heard of an alternative explanation doesn't mean there isn't one. Actually the problem is we have too many and we don't know if any of them are true. And evolution can be widened to interpret phenomena outside biology (can be used in Economics, Information Theory, etc) or even separated from living beings (as in why the chemical balance in the Universe is the way it is).
Thanks!
The comments are a really depressing display of just how correct this article is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you so much for it.
Please do not stop.
In reply to papadick:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow! What an interesting diatribe! Let me comment on a few of your "facts."
You claim that the Earth's crust is Not thinning. How do you know? I never said it was. I just WONDERED if maybe it might be thinning locally under the Arctic Ocean.
You seem to know a lot about the origins of the Finger Lakes and going downhill from the poles to the equator. I wonder if you know that the Earth is NOT round? It is really an oblate spheroid with each pole being about 13 miles CLOSER to the center of the Earth than any point on the equator. (The polar diameter is about 26 miles less than the equatorial diameter.)
You also seem to be an expert in biology. Please point out one single experiment that has produced, by chance, even a tiny piece of coherent DNA in a completely sterile solution of any chemical recipe you can name.
It may interest you to know that a random DNA sequence only 30 bases long has more than 1,152 quadrillion possible arrangements. In contrast, there are fewer than 474 quadrillion seconds of time in 15 billion years! Figure it out for yourself. Don't take MY word for it! The unsubstantiated claim is, that Life appeared on Earth a bit less than 3.9 billion years ago! It sounds like a long time but actually, it is not what you may have been told.
I know. You will claim that a few hundred billion molecules were simultaneously working on the problem of learning to wiggle out of the mud.
And reproduce. Now, why would they want to do that?
What a desperate leap of Faith!
In reply to aarojasc:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, take it easy! I am really a fan of evolution if you mean small changes over time. I have been an Industrial Machine Designer for several decades and among other things, I am constantly amazed how I almost never come up with a good design on the first try. I always seem to think of excessively complex solutions to each of the various problems a given project presents. But, then it always takes a few (or a lot of) evolutionary iterations to arrive at a solution that covers all the requirements in the simplest, most practical way.
I just do not believe that the evolutionary theory in biology can be stretched to include the random, spontaneous origin of Life from a sterile environment. Why? Because the chances are too astronomically slim for coherent information to randomly bubble out of a mud puddle. Or billions of simultaneous mud puddles for that matter.
Believe what you want. Most folks will anyway. That is why a Crisis of Trust exists when so-called scientists make claims about subjects that can not be easily verified.
A case in point: I recently photographed Pluto on four consecutive nights as it drifted in front of the stars of the Milky Way. It is actually out there! I used my completely home made, prize winning 8" telescope (mounting, drive mechanism and optics - but not the SBIG ST-7 camera) that I built back in 1974.
This was a simple case of scientific verification. Until qualified people with quality instrumentation can routinely verify some of the claims that are currently seen as controversial, those claims will remain controversial.
It's interesting that all these viewers who are writing here that science is a detriment to civilization are doing so on a tool that was invented using science. As was the form of energy that powers the computer or laptop or ipad that they used. Detriment to civilization?? I don't think so. Man has progressed on this planet since the beginning of time because of science. Think the wheel as a starter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy what method do most of you nay sayers travel?
The combustion engine that powers the car that you use to get to work evolved thru science.
Which scientific invention would you have us eliminate?
It was thru science that we understand the functions of flight.
It was thru science that the dreaded children's disease of polio was eliminated.
Can someone explain intelligently how these scientific achievements are destroying democracy?
I would venture to guess that many of you who agree with that statement are the beneficiaries of a multitude of scientific achievements.
Because of science we went to the moon. I can hear some saying that it served no purpose just cost a lot of money. It would be wise for those persons to investigate how much medicine changed from experiments performed by and for our astronauts that are in use everyday of the year keeping people alive.
What on earth has that to do with destroying democracy?
I feel like I'm reading a 2012 version of the Scopes trial.
For those of you of unscientific nature you will have to look up what that statement references.
julianpenrod is a troll guys. I've read his comments several times and he's done nothing except try to acerbate people into an argument. Best not to acknowledge him or his beliefs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn an otherwise useful article, Otto's endorsement of the theory of Democrat-Republican moral equivalency on science denial is unfortunate, unscientific, and perhaps motivated by political calculation rather than intellectual honesty. For a book carefully documenting the recent extremism of the Republican party in Congress, see "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism" by Mann and Ornstein. The authors are the top Congressional scholars in the county, and Ornstein is employed at the very conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the theory that Democrats believe in microwaves or vaccines causing cancer or autism, Otto is most certainly wrong, at least with respect to Democrats in Congress. In contrast, nearly every Republican in Congress engages in global warming denial. As to rank and file Democrats, I've seen no data but I very much doubt that a majority of them buy into these myths. Does Otto have any data, or is he just taking cheap shots?
I'd let this point pass if it were not for a key point: the whole reason that a significant minority of Americans deny global warming (and it is only a minority) is that mainstream media believes in the same "there is error on both sides" theory that Otto buys into. Hence they give equal time to truth and error on climate change. In fact the two sides are not the same, and if you claim otherwise then you align yourself with science deniers.
As an aside, the nut case who claims that thousands of scientists agree with climate change denial is actually correct--and also ignorant. Scientific consensus is decided by experts in the field, not by outside scientists, and the consensus is clear. (Incidentally there are literally millions of scientists who do NOT engage in climate change denial.)
I was between 11th grade and 12th grade when the 1969 moon landing happened. There was no t.v. coverage, as it was in July. The only kids in school then were summer school kids...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was in Fairfax County, in Northern Virginia. An apparently well-regarded school district.
We never had televisions wheeled in to watch either launches or the one landing (the aforementioned July 1969 landing). I doubt most of the rest of the country did either.
Starting your article off with such a howler shows a lack of research about the era.
Personally, I'm amused with the state of science in America. The Asian kids think science and engineering is a key to power, the blacks and Hispanics think science is a tool of oppression. White kids seem to be in-between, but with an unhealthy focus on style over substance.
This is science sir. We don't care what you 'believe,' or don't. We do care a lot about what you can prove out to several decimal places.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is painfully apparent that looking over this discussion here and others I've had here on this site in the past is that the conflict we talk about has to do with the rejection of religion or even religious ideas by many atheist scientists like Dawkins and some posters here that is causing the turn against science as a whole even though there are many practicing scientists who actually believe in God. The atheists would try and ban God from every discussion, and they are the ones causing all the problems. This is the true cause of the problem and the turning of Republicans who are supported by the religious people to turn against science (unfortunate but understandable). I'll probably now be attacked by these same atheists. As long as they believe they have a corner on all truth there is going to be conflict.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've argued till I'm blue in the face that atheism of Dawkins variety is the most irrational position a person can take and I stand by that. If people who say they are scientists also take an atheist position of course people will lose confidence in scientists.
@ JDBishop5:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you can "prove out to several decimal places" actual answers to the few questions I have posed, I am willing to "consider the evidence." Those answers must be sustainable by repeatable experiments.
I have loved science for as long as I can remember and I have NO quibble with real, experimentally proven science. I only quibble with folks who spout answers to questions they do not understand very well and that they nor anyone else can prove without a shadow of doubt. Real science has no doubt. As long as there is legitimate doubt, there is only "science fiction." There ARE a bunch of questions that have NOT been proven beyond any shadow of doubt.
Insisting that one knows the answers to these types of questions is simply pushing dogma. Outrageous extrapolation is exactly that.
I cannot pretend to be an expert in origins research, but I do "keep up" on the latest discoveries. If you wanted to go find the evidence that refutes your points and lack of logic, going on to Amazon and shelling out 50 bucks for the latest book in the field should do the trick.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should note that SciAm had an article about life origins and protobionts some months or years ago. Please find it and read it before you comment further.
US democracy is more belief, albeit a pleasant one, than it is fact. Corporatocracy would be more accurate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf scientific research didn't have to be funded by MONEY, then politics and science would not have to clash. Belief is not the same as fact/data/knowledge, but most info out there is belief, not fact. As long as we revere MONEY(and the greed of demanding it NOW, as another commenter said) as the holy grail, anti-intellectualism will continue to flourish and critical thinking will keep on deteriorating.
The only current obligation of corporations (who fund most research) is to make obscene profits, so it's hard to imagine a more irresponsible force impacting the planet from every quarter (no pun intended).
If money is the only entity we "value", then we all deserve what we are getting.
HOW TO TURN THIS AROUND? Will it take the total collapse of society/environmental systems as we know it? Will humans learn from it if it does happen?
Wow.. many of you people have been watching far too much Fox News. Approximately 50% of the population need to wake up. The rest of the world is laughing at you. You're proving the point of the article. Which is that an uninformed populace cannot make informed decisions. "Science" has no agenda. It is simply telling you the truth, to the best of mankind's ability. When Jenny Macarthy tells you that vaccines cause autism, and every scientist in the world tells you that they do not, these are not two equally valid opinions between which you may choose your truth. You're just wrong. When you reject evolution, which is the foundation of all modern biology, you're not holding a valid opinion. All opinions are not created equally. You're living in a media bubble in which "truth" is defined for you by its ability to move the ratings dial, or how many celebrities embrace it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Real science has no doubt." --
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReal science crawls in doubt, in fact depends on doubt and skepticism. There is no certainty in science, only probability. Science does NOT prove theories true, it proves alternative theories false, thereby supporting a remaining theory. Your ignorance of this basic tenet of science (falsifiability) disqualifies you to comment on the scientific status of anything. And your view of the evolutionary origins of life reflects not a scientific perspective, but a religious one that despairs of the possibility that we might discover in the future a logical and understandable mechanism by which life could have originated. Instead of waiting to see if science uncovers this mechanism, you have decided it belongs permanently in one of the "gaps" in which God may still operate. The problem with this immature view of religion is that when science discovers the mechanisms involved, your religion suffers another body blow. And in the meantime, you spread your confused views of science and religion - two very different ways of knowing about the world that ultimately do not conflict with one another. Grow a more mature understanding of religion and faith, and do some serious remedial work on your basic understanding of science.
There may be a point here regarding the need for news vehicles to focus on a more didactic, unhyped science, that won’t feel compelled to include parascience (such as bigfoot) or overhyped discoveries (superluminal neutrinos, etc). There is too much bad, overhyped science being done, too much competitive flimsy announcements, as if normal science was just too boring to sell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(For instance, I’m still not entirely comfortable with the Reiss AI supernova at 10-15% less intensity than predicted being universally accepted as proof of cosmic xpansion acceleration, thus ‘Dark Energy’: the worst non-term ever since the XIX century – this 10-15% margin is just too small a deviation, and there are too many simpler explanations (neutrino opacity, 'tired photon', etc) and if there is one field there is no need to rush to conclusions, it is cosmology).
The role of the science journalism community would be to find a way to sell serious unhyped science.
Perhaps an emphasis on the human side of the story and the intellectual struggles of the scientists, along with a didactic explaining-the-basics done in a colorful edutaining way, could replace the clearly misguided way science is being dealt with in the media - which is negatively influencing the relation between science and society, thus affecting good science itself. Perhaps the scientists (and science teachers) themselves could be asked more often what the ideal science journalism would be like in their opinion.
"But much of the Republican Party has adopted an authoritarian approach that demands ideological conformity, even when contradicted by scientific evidence, and ostracizes those who do not conform. It may work well for uniform messaging, but in the end it drives diverse thinkers away—and thinkers are what we need to solve today's complex problems."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo it is only liberals that can actually do science? Each and every time I posit questions and facts that contradict the AGW hysteria what I get are attacks on me and not my thoughts or evidence. Talk about ostracizing someone who does not conform.
Here is a simple fact: worldwide temperatures have reached a plataeu for the past decade plus (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/HadCRUT4_accepted.pdf). Why? Clearly the linear trend of increasing temperature (placed through the time series data which has been artificially biased by showing the data as relative change versus an arbitrary starting point) is not correct as it cannot predict the plateau so obviously this trend cannot be trusted to perform a forward prediction.
Question: why is the temperature data not presented as the absolute values that have been recorded? Answer: because it does not look as spectacular in terms of an increase.
Before you assail my observations and questions please read the first part of the post and then address the data.
thanks for the interesting and thought provoking article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""Here is a simple fact: worldwide temperatures have reached a plataeu for the past decade plus (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/HadCRUT4_accepted.pdf).""'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisevosburgh, your pants are on fire.
What you just did is called quote mining; intentionally distorting facts to support your lies. Other denialists have referenced that data, without mentioning the inconveinent follow-up that clearly shows that your point is an outright lie.
Please stop being a troll.
I think that you yourself have not been watching enough FoxNews as you seem to buy one sides arguement without seeing what the other side has to say. The only way that you (or I or anyone else) can hold a valid opinion is to reveiw the information for ourselves and then make an educated decision on which line of reasoning is more valid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt kills me that people like you, who are clearly liberal, do not think that someone with a conservative viewpoint cannot think and make conclusions for themselves. In fact I tend to see things quite the opposite. Liberals are more than happy for so called 'experts' to do the thinking and make their decisions for them. I consider myself a centerist, per the political leanings tests I have taken, and I take pride in the fact that I do not take people's word at face value when it comes to interpretivie solutions. I enjoy digging into the data and finding ferreting out the assumptions that have been made and testing the logic behind those assumptions.
My personal research is that there are a lot of assumptions and holes in the logic behind the position that mankind alone is responsible for the 20th century increase in global temperatures and it makes me physically ill when I realize that people are out there accepting interpretive solutions that have very little foundation in reality which are being used to determine my freedoms. My tax dollars are going to fund programs and initiatives that are based on science that, in my opinion, is so poor that if I turned in a work product of that quality I would fire myself and save my boss the pain of having to do so. Of course, the university based 'experts' do not have to meet that bar because if they are wrong there are no consequences to them personally. If my conclusions are wrong enough times my paycheck stops showing up.
Stop being a sheep and buying people's crap at face value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou did not address either of the points that I made. The quote was placed there to illustrate that the author is making biased statements in an attempt to support his conclusion.
You are being equally biased through your ignornace regarding why placing a trend line on the data is not just wrong but that it is stupid. In my book stupid is ignorance with intent.
So address why a linear trend is valid on time series data and stop calling people names in order to feel superior when you clearly are not.
I am truely sorry that your belief system is so entrenched that you cannot be swayed by simple data based observations. I am equally sorry that your vote counts equally against mine.
It is always amusing to see a self-described scientist talking about evidence "proving" a scientific matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisevosbourgh:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is fine to dig into the data yourself, and examine assumptions and interpretations. However, it is arrogant to assume that your interpretation of the data is more likely to be correct than that of someone who went to graduate school in the subject area, and has performed as a professional in the field for some number of years. And when you quickly refer to "tax dollars are going to fund programs..." you reveal your real motivation - that is, saving your dollars, not finding out what is going on in the natural world. Trained scientists' motivation is finding out what is going on, and when we ignore or try to denigrate their findings because of economic or political motivation, we risk our financial and political futures. And that was the point of the original article.
OK, so what? When you are comparing a single record, in a time series that is too short, then what you find is that early on you are going to have a lot of record breakers and as the time series expands the record breaking events become exponentially fewer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat breaking a bunch of records means is that when comparing last year to the last 120 years or recorded records is only considering the maximum temperatures over 0.00000271% of the Earth's climate record.
Granted we do not have access to the rest of the 4.5 billion years worth of daily temperature records so it in impossible to determine if last year was truely record breaking when compared to the entire climate record. However, what we do know is that there is significant risk in assuming that last year was truely out of character for the climate system based upon the fact that we do not have the records to confidently make that assessment.
I have done the research. Where would you like me to send the data and analyses?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you actually stupid enough to quote a body of work that is presented without scales on many of the graphs and charts? As a matter of fact I have read many articles and books that discuss both sides of the arguement and then I went out and found the freely available data and ran some of my own regressions which is what I base my skepticisnm upon.
You keep proving my points with your ridiculous name calling. I suggest that you sit down and stop looking dumb because until such time as you go out and get the data and make your own conclusions all you are doing is parroting other peoples interpretations with no valid intepretation of your own to base your statements on.
I read and watch FoxNews multiple times daily, because I wish to avoid the kind of echo chamber in which you obviously find yourself. The world has gotten far too complex for you or anyone else to review the scientific data on all of these issues and come to your own valid opinion on anything but a miniscule number of them. The most rational way to deal with this is by accepting an overwhelming scientific opinion when one is present. Such is the case with evolution, climate change, vaccines, etc.. To assume that your opinion is more valid than that of the 99.9% of scientists who agree on these issue is, well.. deluded. But you go on believing whatever it is that the Koch brothers want you to believe. While you're at it, pick up a copy of "Idiot America: How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI must say it again
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen science quits trying to be the moral authority then Religion will leave science alone.
Nothing in science has disproved the existence of any god yet many scientist including Hawkings have made claims that it has without showing proof of their work.
Stick to science
You are actually the most dangerous kind of person out there because you actually think that you are smart and know what is going on when you are too ignorant to look outside of your own circle of knowledge and belief and question things for yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes it cause you physical symptoms to read things that do not fit into your idea of how the world should be? I mean please do not let the data or other people's opinions get in the way of what you believe.
As a note: each and everytime that I heard, or read, someone state that they 'think' something my radar goes up because I know that I am dealing with an interpretation.
By the way, is it wrong to point out what people say is not consistent, which is what you call quote mining?
And there is where you are wrong. I can actually determine is just about any interpretation is valid or not by looking at the assumptions that have been made. Granted, I do have the advantage of looking at time series data all day long day in and day out, but logic and scientific reasoning does not change from subject to subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example: when statistics and trend lines are applied to a given field the rules are still the same. So whether it is the climate or the stock market or nuclear physics or whatever the rules are all the same and as soon as you find the places the rules have been broken in the assumptions then you have grounds to question the conclusions based upon those assumptions.
I also have a deeper feeling for the issues because of my degrees in the earth scienses and the professional practices of those.
If you are going to believe whatever the so-called experts have to say without questioning so be it but you are not going to make me do so as I have a problem with that line of tought. If an expert cannot stand up and in a clear concise manner explain their conclusions and the assumptions that they made and then defend those assumptions then I am not going to listen to them and you should not either. Sound science will stand up to all and any criticism that is thrown against it.
By the way you are being just as stupid as you claim that I am if you think that a scienctific consensus on any topic equal scientific fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a hobby of collecting geology text books from before and after the issue of plate tectonics proposed and settled and let me tell you that the bad blood between those two camps was outrageous. Furthermore there is a body of articles from geologic community that is so hate filled that I cannot fathom how angry people on each side of the arguement were and they are a very interesting read even if you do not fully grasp the concepts that they are discussing. These people were calling each other out in refereed scientific journals in a manner that is less that befitting of such distinguished people.
Dogma is always bad. And also, just because 99% of the people polled beileive in the consensus does not mean that 99% of all people with a valid opinion agree. That is false logic and something that I will not accept.
7.quizzical said:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Why not figure out how the Finger Lakes of New York State were actually carved? Certainly the last ice age didn't do it because the terrain is generally UP-hill the whole way from the Arctic Ocean and any ice accumulation would have been caused by the annual failure of all the winter snow to melt rather than some glacier flowing uphill from the north with no polar mountain slope to drive it. This issue is indeed rather irrelevant but it points out how we are fed claims that really make no sense."
If the topography is up from the Artic Ocean, why are the Great Lakes where they are? Should they not flow downhill? What about the Niagara Escarpment or the Laurentian Mountains? These are significant features which run contrary to your logic.
Or, consider that the glaciers were really high (on the order of 3,000 meters), so add that to your topography estimates. Thicker in the north, would they not move out of that direction on their own weight?
In fact, they were so heavy that the north shore of Lake Erie continues to rise as the earth decompresses.
And then there's the glacial till in the region which gives evidence of how far rock was moved by the ice sheet.
What "makes no sense" is your argument here (FingerGate?). It proceeds from incomplete knowledge and logic. I suspect your other two subjects of argument bear similar deficiencies.
Defining a trend requires choosing a time scale. Trends can have cylces. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s Hadcrut4 was trending downward. For the last hundred years the overall trend is upward.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisevosburgh asks why temperature data is not presented in absolute values. Are you suggesting that the data be graphed in Kelvin and starting at zero kelvin? Your question suggests that you have little experience in data analysis. The purpose of the graph is to allow one to best visualize the data. When graphing, you adjust the scales to use the entire range of the x and y axes. The global temperature has remained between 288K and 289K in the last hundred years. If you graphed the temperature in Kelvin, you would choose a range of the y-axis to be 288 to 289. Pull up a 1-month chart of Apple on finance.yahoo.com -- you will see the y-axis going from $620 to $710. Therefore, whether you use a relative scale or an absolute scale, you still get the exact same graph.
You've got no evidence that there is a god or gods, and the hypothesis of the existence of such beings is INHERENTLY untestable, and therefore must be assumed false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour statement is untrue and you proved it. If you wanted to look at the data and not mask it as a differential from a given point then you do what they have done and show it as relative change. With your example I could just plot the range between 288 and 289K and still see the variance. Is it really reasonable to make a computation on a data set and present that result without also presenting the original data?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo now I ask: who is it that does not understand data analysis? Me who proposes plotting the measured data or you who thinks that plotting the change is representitive of the raw data.
Nice post. I once had a geology professor that called me out on my shading on a map and told me to go back to kindergarden and learn how to color. My advice to you is to go back to grade school science and learn how to make graphs.
So you really have no idea how to analyze data and all you are realy capable of doing is calling people names.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did not look at the trend from the last el Nino. What I did do is look at the last 122 years of data, starting from 1905, and determined that we had up and down trends with some flat spots: static temperature from 1905 to 1915, increase from 1915 to 1935, flat spot between 1935 and 1965, a down trend between 1965 and +/-1976, an increase from 1976 to 1997 and now a flat spot from 1997 to current. Overall there is an upward trend in the data but within that trend there are departures from that trend.
As far as using the terms liar and quote-mining you obviously have no other substance to your arguement which is why anyone with half a brain will understand that you know nothing and are doing nothing more than making noise in an attempt to make me look bad and disguise your lack of knowledge or inability to comprehend anything more than you have read in a single book.
BTW. I have made a plot of the data and scaled it down to 1 degC and guess what, the departure does not look as impressive. Also, when you compare the actual change in the past 100+ years of instrument data to the total data range it is not all that impressive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTherefore we get fed graphs that overstate the relative variance in the data set to prove a point that may be non-important.
evosburgh, you just repeated what I said: "With your example I could just plot the range between 288 and 289K and still see the variance." I already told you to do this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTry this -- Open up Microsoft Excel and graph the daily closing prices for Apple for the last month:
9/18 701.91
9/19 702.10
9/20 698.70
9/21 700.09
9/24 690.79
9/25 673.54
9/26 665.18
9/27 681.32
9/28 667.10
10/1 659.39
10/2 661.31
10/3 671.45
10/4 666.80
10/5 652.59
10/8 638.17
10/9 635.85
10/10 640.91
10/11 628.10
10/12 629.71
10/15 634.76
10/16 649.79
10/17 644.61
Now subtract $600 from the prices and graph it again:
9/18 101.91
9/19 102.10
9/20 98.70
9/21 100.09
9/24 90.79
9/25 73.54
9/26 65.18
9/27 81.32
9/28 67.10
10/1 59.39
10/2 61.31
10/3 71.45
10/4 66.80
10/5 52.59
10/8 38.17
10/9 35.85
10/10 40.91
10/11 28.10
10/12 29.71
10/15 34.76
10/16 49.79
10/17 44.61
You get the exact same graph. Does one graph look more "spectacular" than the other?
I'll remind you of your original question and answer:
"Question: why is the temperature data not presented as the absolute values that have been recorded? Answer: because it does not look as spectacular in terms of an increase."
Are you suggesting that a scientist should graph this data using an y-axis of 0 to 300 Kelvin, so that you can not see the temperature change between 288K and 289K?
Please tell me, because that's how I interpreted your question/answer. Otherwise, please clarify your statement, because I do not see how the scientists are trying to mislead us by making the data look more "spectacular."
It's amazing that it seems that our nation's leaders are trying to go back 800 years to a time when gawd was the only acceptable answer and to doubt him would bring about harsh punishment. Hey, maybe we can just round up all the scientists and mathematicians of the world and burn them all. The only caveat to that is that we have to refuse to use any equipment that science has brought about or improved throughout the objects existence. And we would need a good amount of kindling to get the fire going, being that pretty much all flammable liquids were developed through the evil magic of science. Communication is going to be a bit slower, no phones, computers or telegraph, no powered form of transportation to get letters from A to B; on the bright side of that, no more expensive data plans. The good news, no need for nursing homes and retirement pensions, because without medicine, there will be much fewer people and their life expectancy will be much shorter. Global warming would slow dramatically. Unless you live up north, forget about iced tea or any cold beverage. More good news, no more inflation, by killing all mathematicians we rid ourselves of the nuisance of money. Oh, wait, the church will need to have mathematicians to be able to figure out how much of everyone's harvest they must claim in the name of the load, anyone outside of the church attempting to learn or use math will be subsequently executed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSounds good to me, let's get started. Who's going to train the carrier pigeons?
That is not what most of the current graphs show. What they show is a change in temperature against one if the points in the graph. It does show the se information which is my original point, why show the difference rather than the actual values? Because placing the data on a non refenced baseline makes the difference look mor compelling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo address your final question: no I propose posting the data with an x axis of time and the y axis of 288 to 289. Then you see the actual values and compare them directly rather Han having to see through the computation to understand the graph.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading the posts by Julian Penrod and Quizzical, I weep for America. Penrod claims, "Science is more monolithically dictatorial than any tyranny so far because they claim the universe is behind their every word". At risk of pointing out the obvious the universe is open to inspection by all. I submit Penrods septic comments derive from the fact that the universe does not support his contentions or is the manifestation of intellectual laziness that prefers to demonise scientists branding them dictaorial or as others have claimed here, duplicitous liars thus relieving ones self of the obligation to actually examine what scientists are saying and why as though ones emotions or feelings or conspiracy theories constituted a superior means of discerning truth than getting off ones behind and finding out. Quizzical is a typical exemplar of this approach, "Real science has shown that All of Life is based on coded knowledge that everyone knows could NEVER have bubbled out of some ancient warm mud puddle." Really? Everyone? I can think of a number of books positing precisely this, clearly Quizzical has not condescended to consult them before pronouncing what is and is not the absolute truth upon the basis of his feelings. If this approach actually worked in the real world I would not have to turn up to my laboratory, I could just write up my experiments upon the basis of how I felt they should turn out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike those who refused to even look through Galileos telescope this kind of thinking is infantile and smug.
Dude, julianpenrod thinks that electricity is tiny aliens in the wires. Yes, really. People like that make me want to run away screaming, too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh thank the god I don't believe in, I reasonable human being!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have an observation, post 86, that does in fact show that I am not cherry picking the data but you conviently fail to address that in favor of more baseless statements in an effort to mak yourself look superior and me look stupid. What you are actually doing is just making noise instead if addressing the topic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest that before you post again you reread post 86 and then go get the data and see if my observations hold up. I have examined the entire hadcrut4 data set and made those observations in about 10 minutes.
Since you seem unable to think for yourself and address my points I suggest that you leave the thinking to the adults.
Also it is kind of infuriating to be called names isn't it. I further suggest that until you can have an adult discussion that you stick reading and not writing.
Additionally, if you think that posting is a waste of time then stop doing it. If you cannot defend your position with facts then stop wasting your time. You have yet to post a single fact nor observation of the data of your own. Stop while you are behind and we'll all forget the posts that you have made his far and write it off as an off day on your part.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is my analysis so flawed? I have a masters degree in the same field as many of the experts and I also work with time series data as a profession. I would say that I am uniquely qualified To call bs on the experts analysis. I know that what they have done is not up to spec and if they were doing this quality of work in the private sector they would be out of a job.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as my tax dollars go I have every right to my want to pay for other people's folly. I support scientific investigation that actually address the known and unknown and supplies a reasonable discussion of the potential error in the work.
My =not
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe response by "science" devotees only demonstrates a fatal flaw in so many that allows them to be misled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisna73x, for example, accepts that, if there is no empirical proof of a phenomenon, it is legitimate to mock it. It seems natural for na73x that the supposed lack of empirical evidence for UFO's legitimizes treating the subject with derision. And, in fact, there is empirical proof, it's just that those employed by research "laboratories", firms and the government refuse to acknowledge the proof as legitimate. And the fact that they refuse to admit it's real na73x takes as absolute "proof" that it isn't real.
And so easily na73x accepts that "evolution" is true. What is na73x's "proof"? And, by that, absolute, utter evidence, incontrovertible proof tangibly placed literally in the hands of the "rank and file". Not insistences from behind "laboratory" doors! What is na73x's "proof" that "fossils" aren't resin casts? Where is na73x's evidence that new species don't arise by spontaneous generation, springing full blown without ancestor? Thousands of new species, from insects to birds to monkeys, are being reported today, in areas that were extensively studied long ago. Basically, na73x endorses gullibility, accepting what you are told becuase someone told you to.
And note na73x's craven diversion of the issue about vaccines! No one, not even opponents, said all vaccines necessarily don't cure diseases. They said they cause conditions, too! Where is na73x's "proof" that they don't? The fact that "scientists" don't report the cases where vaccines do more harm than good? The fact is, there is evidently an enormous backlog of material where "scientific" claims didn't pan out, but "scientists" don't admit it.
The author poses a problem ["major party contenders for political office took positions that can only be described as “antiscience”:"] and decided to "do something about it" — namely, pushing for "a presidential science debate".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's it look like? Our two candidates sitting in front of a circle of maybe a hundred "scientists"? Each candidate being allowed to state his/her view on issues selected by the scientists present? Or use the author's own "Top American Science Questions”?
The absurdity of such a plan can be seen by imagining that the presidential candidates are replaced by two well-known scientists. Say, two Nobel winners. How many answers do you think the two scientists would respond to with which the other hundred scientists present would agree?
In the "world of science", there are NO "major science questions" on which the majority of scientists agree — not unless the "issues" are watered down to a superficial level. And if two scientists could sit in the hot-seats of such a debate without finding agreement amongst all present, what value would there be found to the lack of agreement with two presidential candidates?
It's absurd to even imply that the "existential crisis" of the "new science denialism" is being directed or controlled or can even be greatly influenced by a sitting, American President.
This "denialism" is a social movement — not a Presidential policy or program. If society in general chooses representatives who foment an "existential crisis" of the "new science denialism"— such is the nature of democracy!
In addition, one of the author's key phrases, "the new science denialism is creating an existential crisis" is not only grammatically incorrect, it's bombastic in style, intended to impress, but whose words are nonsensical. What exactly is an "existential crisis"? A crisis in human existence? A crisis in science which Americans "experience" (but then, what in the heck would *that* mean?)
I didn't find the article persuasive due to its many inferences and notions which seem to me to be either naive or absurd — especially when faced with the "existential" question: "So, what does it LOOK like in real life?"
Emil
evosburgh, then why did you say, "Because placing the data on a non refenced baseline makes the difference look mor compelling."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "difference" looks just as compelling when graphed on y-axis scale of 288 to 289 Kelvin. You seem to be talking in circles.
Ok. If you make take the data and reference each value to one of the valid in the data set then you are supposing that the reference point is a reference. It appears that in the latest report the values have been referenced to the mean value in the modern record. This supposes that the mean is diagnostic of the distribution which it is only when there is a Gaussian distribution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the question remains: why not just plot the measured data rather than some analysis thereof? Just about every graph that you see is not the measured data but some interpretation of that data. Any plot of any data that is not the actual values is an interpretation and I for one would like to see the raw data which is why I took the time to go out and find the data. I then plotted the values and the increase is relatively small compared to the range of the data.
Getting back to your stock analogy. The daily price is the actual value and the daily increase or decrease in value is the first computation made, the the percent change, then the quarterly performance, then the yearly performance and on. Why is it that this type of analysis does not happen when it comes to the climate data? I have no answer but it seems silly to treat different time series data sets differently when analysing them.
For three decades now SciAm has been dumbing down its content and tarting up its layout while pushing support for a leftist political agenda in pseudoscientific clothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA nuclear winter would be bad, so unilateral disarmament is the scientific position.
Overpopulation and disease are bad, so billions in tax-dollar aid to foreign dictatorships is the scientific position.
Climate change is going to cook or freeze us, or both, so a Soviet style command economy is the scientific position.
And all the time you bleed readers and revenue. You are lumbering, old, and increasingly laughable, and desperately try justify your irrelevance with politically correct editorializing. It's a shame, because you were once one of the world's great educational and intellectual institutions. Now your days are numbered.
When, like Newsweek and The Guardian, you finally go out of print you can comfort yourself that you've reduced you carbon footprint, along with your circulation, to zero.
The Democratic party is antiscience, believing in everything about global warming, even when the leading scientists disgracefully discedit a large part of their argument. The global warming debate has become more of a religion for them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Democratic Party is antiscience, denying the scientifically proven safety of GM crops or hydraulic fracturing.
The Democratic Party is antiscience, denying that cultural circumstances within the black community have much larger role in holding back blacks than racism at this time in history, even if science proves otherwise
I could go on and on, but it is almost completely fruitless, Group Think reigns in liberal circles, including Sci AM. I am saddened, I am still a subscriber, but was considering cancelling several times when their liberal bias bled through the pages (quoting the recently resigned public editor of the even more biased New York Times)
You have not carefully read the article. I most certainly do not equate republican and democrat science denial. I specifically state the republican brand is far worse and more dangerous. And I do not "buy into" any false balance argument - I take the media on on this very point in the article. You are reading your own conclusions into the article, then wrongly criticizing it for your own careless reading. I would encourage you to read my book on this, which is far more in depth. http://bit/ly/foolme2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is a method for determining theory. If the theory is correct, it allows the outcome of an experiment or observation to be predicted. Where science has gone awry is the construction of a scientific establishment which is believed to be correct by consensus, and this has allowed theories which are based on extrapolation, not demonstrable fact. That tendency predates the scientific method, and is not going to go away. People are invested in their careers, and they want reinforcing theories to be true, even if they can't prove it. As Max Planck once noted, “Science advances one funeral at a time”.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisevosburgh said, "This supposes that the mean is diagnostic of the distribution which it is only when there is a Gaussian distribution."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a bogus red herring statement. Using a base reference temperature does not require a Gaussian distribution or an average temperature. It has no effect on the analysis. Does calling it a "temperature anomaly" give you a problem.
Giving a percentage change in temperature also adds zero value to the analysis.
Graphing the temperature anomaly rather than the absolute temperature is purely a defintion -- no "analysis thereof" is required to convert between the two.
No more can be said.
Thmjones this is incorrect. What scientific consensus really represents is the overwhelming preponderence of the observed evidence, which has been put through withering peer review and testing by others who would make their careers if they could shoot it down. AGW is supported by literally billions of measurements across multiple lines of data. In science, consensus is not simply shared opinion, it is an evidence-based conclusion supported by measurement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice article though I cringed at the mention of economic growth near the start. Science surely tells us that on a finite planet, economic growth must end. Whilst possibly our most pressing problem is climate change, science must also make clear that the striving for endless growth is also straining the planet's limits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""The Democratic party is antiscience, believing in everything about global warming, even when the leading scientists disgracefully discedit a large part of their argument."""
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOutright lie.
"""The global warming debate has become more of a religion for them."""
Outright lie.
"""The Democratic Party is antiscience, """
Outriht lie
"""denying the scientifically proven safety of GM crops or hydraulic fracturing. """
Half true; fracking is very risky.
"""The Democratic Party is antiscience, denying that cultural circumstances within the black community have much larger role in holding back blacks than racism at this time in history, even if science proves otherwise"""
That is incomprehensible and sounds worryingly racist.
"""I could go on and on, but it is almost completely fruitless, Group Think reigns in liberal circles, including Sci AM. I am saddened, I am still a subscriber, but was considering cancelling several times when their liberal bias bled through the pages (quoting the recently resigned public editor of the even more biased New York Times)"""
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
We have no evidence that string theory is provable either so it must be assumed false as well. We also do not have proof that life exists elsewhere in the universe so it must be assumed as false as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was you type of logic that was applied so well during the dark ages as well. We have no evidence that the earth is not the center of the universe, so we must be. We have no evidence the earth is round so it must be flat. Lack of data does not prove or disprove anything.
Standard right wing tactics. When the facts don't fit, lie. "even when the leading scientists disgracefully discedit a large part of their argument," is nothing more than a lie. You have nothing to back that up. "denying the scientifically proven safety of GM crops or hydraulic fracturing" another lie. We have evidence that there are health concern with both of these. But the bigger concern for GM crops are food security and gene transfer. Again, issues that have been demonstrated in situ. And more lies, "denying that cultural circumstances within the black community." Again no evidence. Nothing but racism. "I am still a subscriber, but was considering cancelling several times", how many times have we heard that one? You have likely never been a subscriber and only troll here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce again we see the low moral character of the radical right as it uses lies, racism and misinformation to advance a political agenda in direct opposition to science. You've done nothing more than shown us the kind of people you are. That is why so many people oppose the republican party, because not only are the policies abhorrent to civilized people but its seems to attract sociopaths to its ranks.
"""We have no evidence that string theory is provable either so it must be assumed false as well. We also do not have proof that life exists elsewhere in the universe so it must be assumed as false as well."""
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorrect.
"""It was you type of logic that was applied so well during the dark ages as well. We have no evidence that the earth is not the center of the universe, so we must be. """
Lie.
"""We have no evidence the earth is round so it must be flat. """
Lie. 99% of people in the Middle Ages knew that the world was round.
"""Lack of data does not prove or disprove anything."""
That's why I say "assume". It is an assumption pending further evidence, and hence cannot be used as evidence for anything else.
Case in point. The right wing is a bunch of misled Bible-thumpers, and Mitt Romney sound a little too much like the evil plutocrat leader in "The Iron Heel", by Jack London. The evil plutocrat character has the same sentence structure and outright disdain for anyone poorer than he is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be noted, though, that string theory actually has some math to back it up, and therefore demands due consideration. There is also a definite way to disprove string theory (simply find a situation where the math doesn't fit the model), although it hasn't been done yet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSofistek, that may be true under the current model, but the "current model" is in constant evolution. Your view presumes a zero-sum-game economic argument. In fact, science has over and again changed the zero-sum-game and there is no reason to assume that human innovation cannot do so again, producing more economic activity while also reducing or reversing negative environmental impact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a dangerous time. There are many vested interests for whom an ignorant, uninformed population represents an ideal environment. The reasons, as always, have to do with power and money. What we end up with, is short-sightedness on a massive scale, and a populace that is savagely unsympathetic to each other. Both ingredients in a recipe for extinction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooking at Romney and his wife on TV, I can see that they are spoiled, entitled brats who have never needed to do anything for themselves. Romney could barely control his obvious disdain for the moderator on Tuesday, and very disrespectfully told the President to shut up. I know that it's a heated debate, but the man's still President, and so deserves a little respect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last time that a candidate like Romney said that he could do everything that his opponent could, just better and cheaper, his name was Alfred Landon, and he lost to FDR in the largest Electoral College landslide ever, and by the biggest margin in the popular vote since 1820.
You demonstrate my point. What has been shown is that global temperatures have risen over the last several centuries, which does not seem inconsistent with the earth emerging from the last ice age. What has also been shown is that CO2 in the atmosphere has been rising exponentially during that period. What has been propounded is that the latter is the cause of the former. Our original assertion, that temperatures are rising, has become one that CO2 is responsible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf one curve matches the recent temperature rise with CO2, which is visually tempting, one will also discover long intervals over which the correlation is terrible. This is noticeably the case for the last 14 years, and at this point one might remember that correlation is not causation.
There is another problem. Although we can demonstrate in the lab that CO2 will warm the atmosphere, the numbers don’t match, and they certainly don’t match alarmist proclamations about the future. However, we can insert positive feedbacks to the required level to produce any warming we like. What feedback factor actually exists? Well, there are about twenty to choose from, ranging from highly positive to mildly negative. So, take your pick, or make up your own.
You might notice that we have gotten rather a long distance from reproducible results. Is it possible that our assertion was wrong, that atmospheric CO2 plays only a minor role in global warming?
Complicating that issue, the government generously supports any assertion of a strong link. They have adopted that notion completely, and they really,really hate to say that they were wrong. This has resulted in almost any instance of a warming planet being the direct consequence of burning of fossil fuel. Some of this has really been funny.
It is tempting to blame the whole thing on uneducated anti-scientists who will believe anything, led into thinking wrongly by paid oil-company shills. I have found that to be exactly wrong. What you find is a whole lot of amateur scientists, many of which were university-trained and did things other than Academe, and they really don’t think much of the science that is being done.
And what of consensus? If you review the history of science, you will find shocking instances of consensus that were later shown to be dead wrong. Consensus counts for little or nothing in science. What counts are reproducible results. Consensus is a valuable idea in religion and politics.
Your point being?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the government is a bunch of right-wing hacks. The House "Science" committee contains two AGW denialists, Son-of-a-Quayle, Todd “legitimate rape” Akin the Magic Vagina Guy, and Paul Broun the insane creationist. I don't see those clowns offering unconditional support for any paper that supports AGW.
You happened to mention Climate Change, so I responded on that issue, but the same thing is true of evolution. Mutation and adaptation of species seems to be easily demonstrable using bacteria. Extrapolation to complex organs requires an intellectual jump which has not yet been proved, and may be unprovable. Occam’s Razor makes this a pretty easy jump for me, but I could be wrong. Edward O. Wilson, an accomplished jumper if ever there was one, once observed that scientists should say into the mirror daily, “I could be wrong”. Keeping that in mind is probably not a bad idea. That some logical thinkers deny evolution is hardly evidence of anti-science thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""Extrapolation to complex organs requires an intellectual jump which has not yet been proved, and may be unprovable. """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFalse. We have intermediaries that prove this. Irreducible com[lexity is a load of hookum.
"""That some logical thinkers deny evolution is hardly evidence of anti-science thinking. """
But is denying evolution logical? I know of exactly zero people who deny evolution but are not creationists (an inherently religious viewpoint).
"...literacy and logic..." Perfect! Exactly what is needed to think for one's self; must begin with earliest points of educating. Anyone, person or sect, who disapproves of logic should be looked at with suspicion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you, RSchmidt!
Through the looking glass darkly...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjulianpenrod is obviously suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Do not feed him, pay attention to him, or alow him access to sharp objects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFunny how you stop posting when someone calls you out on your BS that you cannot support with fact and then jump on to more personal attacks in an attempt to prove your point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is an interesting observation from the debate: why is it that Mr. Obama did not directly answer a question and when Mr. Romney pressed him with facts and figures all he had in reply is 'that is a lie'. Interesting that you and he have the same tactic. When you do not have the truth behind your arguement you resort to unfounded statements that you hope will sway people to believe your foundationless arguement.
I can see that both you and Mr. Obama come from the same school of debate: if you do not have a valid counter-point start calling names and ramp up the personal attacks to deflect your lack of knowledge.
While your rants are somewhat interesting to read they are making you look very unintellegent.
Dude, you seriously need a tinfoil hat. I can offer you six models in two separate lines in a variety of colors, with three additional tinfoil accessories for maximumprotection. My "Best Buy" is the AlienFear Basic; the top-of-the-line version is the Paranoia Deluxe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFunny how you're FOS and yet have people who try to correct you deleted. You are not worth spit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""Here is an interesting observation from the debate: why is it that Mr. Obama did not directly answer a question and when Mr. Romney pressed him with facts and figures all he had in reply is 'that is a lie'."""
Because everything that Romney said was an outright lie, according to Politifact.com, which is a nonpartisan fact-checking source. Romney had no facts, no figures, and no specifics. He is a lying, plutocratic weasel, and you are a gullible fool for believing him.
evosburgh said, "Funny how you stop posting when someone calls you out on your BS that you cannot support with fact and then jump on to more personal attacks in an attempt to prove your point."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf that's not the pot calling the kettle black...
Evosburgh, you should read your own comments.
I know, right? An AGW denialist calling someone else a BSer. Leaf calling the grass green.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do you not just post 'full of sh*t'? Are you that chicken?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently it takes one to know one.
Please go to this link and find figure #12:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/HadCRUT4_accepted.pdf
Now go to my post #82 and please tell mje why I am so 'FOS' to prove your intellectual superiority.
I am going to make a prediction: you are not going to do that and if you do you are going to see that I am: (1) not cherry picking and (2) have correctly called the trends within the trend. Both of these discoveries on your part are going to go back to my first point which is that you CANNOT place a linear trend through time series data to forcast the future behavior of the system as a whole.
What you are going to do is make another outrageous attack on my character rather than admit that you are in fact wrong and are nothing more than a parrot that repeats what it has heard without thinking for yourself.
I anxiously await your next post and I hope that I am wrong about your ability to perform some simple research on your own.
I did not stop posting to your comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you cannot understand that creating a graph that contains data that has already had mathematical operations done to it does not skew the original data then I cannot help you. I can explain something but I cannot help you learn it.
You still don't get it. You are cherry-picking and quote mining, and even if you weren't, you only have one study to baack you up. You are full of shit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not a study which means that you did not go to the data did you? Answer: No.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reference is the latest publication of the Hadcrut worldwide temperature data which is in fact published from the university that was the subject of the climategate scandal (which was not so much a scandal as it was sloppy data handling).
So I would like your specific reference to what it is that I am cherrypicking and we all know that you 'think' I am full of it so please prove it.
I know that you cannot so please reply again.
I cannot argue with you, as you have successfully deluded yourself into thinking that your pseudoscientific views are correct (when actually they are as FOS as you are).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, I am I to take it that you are not going to go to the publication of the worldwide temperature data and look for yourself and you are just going to keep saying I do not know what I am talking about without checking for yourself?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf so then it is you sir/madame who is full of it and you keep proving it with each successive post by not going and cross referencing the data set and my observations thereof.
You really are killing me. Are you so stubborn that you will not take five minutes to do so?
I am not the one who is deluded here it is you and your absolute faith in the dogma you have been fed.
I'm a dude, and I looked at your data. You're still FOS. If I see a huge amount of data that contradicts AGW, I will give your baseless views due consideration. Until then, I am going to ignore you and spend the rest of my free time for today playing Chessmaster on my computer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI never once said that there was not an overall trend in the data and you did not go and look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you had actually read my posts and then looked at the data you would see that you CANNOT place a linear fit through that data and use that to predict the future. The linear fit does not represent the variance from the trendline that is present in the data.
You have to history match the data with your model to predict the future and not use a simple linear trend. This is what I said and I am correct. There is an overall warming trend in the data and within that trend are increases and decreases and falt spots. Therefore using a linear trend to predict past the end of the data set is just plain stupid.
Please stick to the chess as it appears that you have just as much chance of understanding time series data analysis as you do as posting a coherent reply.
BTW - I am now going to go back to performing the time series data analysis that I get paid to do everyday (and I must be pretty good at it considering the size of the paycheck I just cashed).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisevosburgh, I was primarily referring to your ad hominem attacks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou still haven't given an adequate explanation of why graphing temperature anomalies skews the data versus graphing absolute temperatures.
My guess is that you originally thought the y-axis should be scaled from 0 to 300 Kelvin. I believe you are smart enough to realize this was wrong when I pointed it out to you. However, you simply can not admit you made an error, so you keeping talking in circles and using red herrings such as Gaussian distributions in an attempt to prove you are smart (and therefore correct).
I believe you are smart enough to know that graphing temperatures on a scale of 0 to 300 does not make sense; and graphing on a scale of 288K to 289K creates the exact same graph as using temperarture anomalies -- the data is not skewed either way.
I'll remind you of your original statement: "Question: why is the temperature data not presented as the absolute values that have been recorded? Answer: because it does not look as spectacular in terms of an increase."
You're smarter than that. Anyone that even knows what a Guassian distribution is should know better.
"""Interestingly, these scientists are not even willing to submit their own conclusions to the tests that empirical science call for. """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLie. The exact opposite is true.
"""Darwinian evolution is not supported by any of the tests of empiricism. """
Lie. Again, the opposite is true.
"""Even the most vociferous anti-design advocate, Richard Dawkins, admits that there is no proven starting point for life on earth. The idea that a single cell could have been generated here on earth through natural processes has been shown to be a theoretical impossibility by the non-CHRISTIAN mathematician, Chandra Wickramasinge. """
Lie. Wickramasinge was a crackpot with no actual biological knowledge or training.
"""His calculations showed that the probability of life forming through natural processes is 10 to the 40,000th power, where anything over 10 the 50th power is considered impossible. """
Lie. Both parts are demonstrably false.
"""Likewise there is global warming but there is also global warming on Mars, and that is definitely not caused by any biological activity. """
Your point is???
"""As to when life starts, the DNA of a one cell human being has all the same qualities as that of any person walking around on the face of the planet. """
An opinion, not a fact.
"""Humanness is not defined by stage of development, location or age. """
Again, an untestable opinion.
"""Until science adheres to the strict doctrines of empiricism"""
It already has.
""" then the theories put forth from the scientific establishment should be seen as just that: theories. """
Precisely, although you seem to misunderstand the term "theory". A theory has so much evidence backing it up that it is most likely fact. The popular term "theory" is approximately equivalent to the term "hypothesis", or "educated guess".
Here is what I think I said and what I actually mean as clearly as I can write it:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you plot the deviation of the actual measured values of a data set from one of the points in that set (which is normally what you see when global temperature data is plotted) then you are assigning a meaning to the point which was used as the zero point. From this point on I will call that baselining the data. So instead of plotting the measured values you are plotting a comptuation based on those values.
If I make a graph of the data that has been baselined then what I am representing is the deviation of the data from the point that I have chosen as the zero point. While this may be valid it does not allow the person viewing the graph to understand the original trend in the data points.
Therefore I think that posting baslined data is neither representitive of the data itself nor honest if you do not also post the original data. Furthermore, my comment about the Gaussian distribution is not a red herring. If you post data that has been baselind and it does not have a Gaussian distribution then I feel (yes my perception) that it is very underhanded to use present that data in an unbiased manner. I feel this way because a non-Gaussian baselined data distribution imparts another layer of bias in the graphical display that is difficult to ferret out.
As far as the range goes I did not and do not think that you would plot the original data from 0 to 300 as that violates each and every thing that you learn about posting data. What I have done is take the data and plotted it on a 288 to 289 scale and while you see the overall increase in the trend the scaling does not make the deviations from the baseline linear trend (which is a whole different can of worms) look as extreme.
My opinion is that any data set that is being discussed should be plotted as the actual values and then any other analysis that is done should be shown in subsequent plots. With computers and Excel and other graphing packages there is absolutely no reason not to do this as it is not even the least little bit labor intensive.
Therefore I think we are more in line than the previous posts would suggest and it is the downfall of posting rather than laying the data out on a table and discussing it.
evosburgh, you seem to think that modeling future temperatures anomalies is as simple as doing a time series analysis. Climate models are much more complex than that. I bet you can't find any serious scientific papers that attempt to use ARIMA, ARCH, GARCH, etc to model climate (I'm talking about a real climate model used to predict future temperatures, not some type of ancillary study).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate modeling is exactly time series analysis. Please explain how it is not. You have data over a time period that you are analyzing there is absolutely no difference. When I say that it is wrong to use linear trends that is a duh for the people that understand that but not for the people watching movies and the news that present the simple graphs with those lines on them. Those people take that image away and then defend AGW to the death without understanding even the most basic bit of the science. Every time I see Al Gore put that graph with the line up I want to puke because I know that people are going to see that and make up their mind without knowing what they are looking at.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the climate models go that is the tool used to get away from the regressions and attempt to model the flucuations which I applaud. The problem is that the models are so rudimentary, for all of the sophistication that they may have, that they have about zero chance of producing a reasonable result.
Climate modelers are not the first people to build these types of models nor are they at the top of the heap when it comes to build, running and history matching their models.
I have yet to see a reasonable paper that discusses an actual monte carlo uncertainty analysis of a climate model that represents the real variation. There have been attempts but it is hard to run such analyses when your models do not contain some of the most critical parameteres (water vapor and clouds) accurately.
Please do not take this previuous paragraph and then shoot the IPCC graph that stacks all of the models and then states the uncertainty as the range of deterministic solutions because that it not uncertainty it is the range of solutions from different deterministic models and is not representitive of the error range of the individual models.
evosburgh, I disagree. We are not more in line than our comments suggest. You have been attempting to say that using temperature anomalies skews the data such as to create a bias to more "spectacular" temperature rise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's something that I found that may clear up my position.
http://how-it-looks.blogspot.com/2011/01/temperature-anomalies-and-graphing-data.html
This blog post show graphs of temperatures in Kelvin and discusses our same "polemic."
Each and every 'analysis' that goes beyond data collection is an interpretation and therefore an opinion. The value of that opinion is judged by the repeatibility of the analysis and interpretation of the results.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTherefore, your opinion.
And Wikipedia is hardly a 100% reliable source of information although your citing it does start to bring your point of view into focus.
Clearly you are not comprehending what I am saying and so you are correct in the fact that you have not gotten to the point that I have gotten to with my analysis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo do so please go out and get the HADCRUT data and put it in Excel and plot the y axis as 288 to 289 which is not what it suggested in the blog post you reference.
What that blog says, as I understand it, is that you cannot look at the full range of the data and see the subtleties which is 100% wrong. You have to scale the data to bring that out and doing what the blog suggests is diluting the message that is found within the raw signal.
You cannot rely on others to do your thinking for you if you want to have a valid opinion on a topic. Let me put it this way: I didn't go to medical school so when it comes to things that my doctor says I am going to have to take their opinion but I am still going to question that opinion if I see a flaw in their logic. To do any less is ludicris.
Please, just provide the time series climate models instead of trying to prove that you are a smart guy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to have some background in statistics, but just enough to get you in trouble. Since you keep touting your resume. I have a MS in statisics and mathematics from NYU (Courant) and a BS in Chemical Engineering. You are not fooling me.
evosburgh, you obviously did not read the blog.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had my opinion long before I saw that blog. The way I found the blog was googling for a graph of temperature data in Kelvin.
I help you further about the blog: Read more of it. Try scrolling down the page rather than simply looking at the first graph. He plots the temperatures in Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin, and Rankin. All graphs look identical to a plot in temperature anomalies. Where are the "subtleties?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeliever - You are right on!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't worry about Bird/Tree's twittering, that is exactly what it is. I am so disgusted with the tone this discussion has taken on. This entire foolish fist fight has convinced me that those who use the crudest language are the most ignorant. You of course, note that bird/tree simply bad-mouths you and others and never points to any clear evidence for his rants. That is what makes me fearful for the upcoming election. There are too many folks that have no real backing for their baseless beliefs - they only spew their faith based claims louder and louder.
A case in point. I did some more research on the origin of the Finger Lakes. What I found is admittedly not "scientific", but it shows precisely how folks like bird/tree would understand the information. This quote comes from the Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance web site:
"Our lakes are old and natural, none man made. Native American legend explains the Finger Lakes this way: the Creator looked upon this land with special favor and reached down to bless it, leaving the imprint of His hand, hence, the Finger Lakes.
Geology tells a different story, as the last ice age ended, the final glaciers covering what is now the northern reaches of the United States receded. The incredible grinding pressures of the receding glaciers gouged enormous holes in what is now the Finger Lakes region."
Now, this is just one small case of how supposed "facts" are disseminated as real science when they are in fact totally in error. Why? Because, even if there was "incredible grinding pressure" during the slow annual accumulation of the enlarging polar ice cap, there was certainly no "incredible grinding pressure" applied anywhere as the ice slowly melted from year to year.
I would just like someone to help me with a good mathematical model to understand the claim that an expanding polar ice cap could generate enough horizontal force over hundreds of miles of up hill terrain to bulldoze these several lake beds that are really in fact, widened and deepened river valleys that flowed down hill toward Lake Ontario to the north.
One character pointed out to me that it is always down hill from the poles to the equator when in fact, the terrain from the Hudson Bay area to the Finger Lakes area trends generally up hill. (Up hill or down hill always refers to the oblate spheroid that represents the global sea level, however high or low that may be.)
All hypotheses have to make at least a LITTLE sense you know!
Clearly we are going to disagree because baselining data does in fact affect it. An anomoly, by definition, is a change versus a static point. If you want to hang the data from the first value as the baseline fine, but in the last publication of the HADCRUT it appears that they used the mean which is wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the rest of it I am tired of explaining things that I know to people that do not know it. I am happy to do so but I have once again come to the realization that you cannot make people do or think what they do not want to do or think.
Do you really not understand that recording temperature versus time and then trying to predict forward is not time series analysis in 4D?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf not then you need to do some more reading.
Nice veiled insult.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are still not getting the point are you?
Evosburgh, if you also continue to further into the blog it gives an excellent explanation of why anomalies are used. If your knowledge of statistics is solid, you can understand why differences are most often better to use than absolutes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's one excerpt:
"Our analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. Temperature anomalies are computed relative to the base period 1951-1980. The reason to work with anomalies, rather than absolute temperature is that absolute temperature varies markedly in short distances, while monthly or annual temperature anomalies are representative of a much larger region. Indeed, we have shown (Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987) that temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000 km. For a more detailed discussion, see Our analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. Temperature anomalies are computed relative to the base period 1951-1980. The reason to work with anomalies, rather than absolute temperature is that absolute temperature varies markedly in short distances, while monthly or annual temperature anomalies are representative of a much larger region. Indeed, we have shown (Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987) that temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000 km. For a more detailed discussion, see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html."
Source of this excerpt was http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
You're right and I am tired of trying to explain my point of view. By knowing this blog so intimately it is clear that you did more than just Google it to get the graph.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you want to hear me say that you are right there is no difference between the processed analysis results and the raw data.
I agree with the blog that the variances are big in short time periods and therefore it is problemsome to try and predict those. I read that article, or IPCC report, where that is postulated (I honestly cannot remeber) but it is in the predicting of those variances that the climate models fail. Whether or not that is important I do not know but I know that those failures, when compounded, do make huge differences that make my predictions go awry pretty quickly when I blind test my models against known data.
I see no reason why there we (consumers of climate model results) should not hold the climate model to the same standards that my models are held. I am just predicting fluid flow and if I am wrong money is lost for my company. If the climate models are wrong and we use those to make policy then we risk global economic crisis. Just a thought on playing forward the risk of making decisions on incomlete science. I have to consider that every day and it is my job to explain my potential failings so are climate scientists not required to do so?
evosburgh wrote, "As to the rest of it I am tired of explaining things that I know to people that do not know it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, there is a lot I do not know. And I would like to thank you for prompting me to learn something new today.
I did not realize that it is impossible to determine a global average absolute temperature. The 288 to 289 Kelvins is only an estimate -- it is somewhat meaningless. Climate change can only be modeled using anomalies -- i.e. we can only calcuate the average of all temperature anomalies and not absolute temperatures.
To start see this:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
Vulvox, a dust bowl and a drought are two different things. First, Dust Bowl should be capitalized because it is a name of an event (the dust storms of the 1930s). So maybe it would be better to refer to dust storms. Second, there has been no significant dust storms this year. In the 1930s, dust from Oklahoma blacken the skies all the way to New York.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease stop spamming the comment sections with hostile one-on-one debates. Name-calling and insults here are unacceptable. We are only interested in comments that advance dialogue directly related to the material in the content on the site. Commenting on this site is a privilege, not a right. Stop abusing this privilege or we will have to delete your accounts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the averages are based on the absolute measurements so how can it not be based upon the absolute values? This seems counter intuitive to me. The actual data is wrong but a computation is not?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBringing this all back to the article, which claims that conservatives are anti-science and are putting democracy at risk, how can we have an open dialogue if the experts are going to make such ridiculous statements as the basis of their point of view? Silly unsubstantiated statements do not advance any debate try just distract people from understanding the issues at hand.
From this point forward I will keep my opinions and any supporting evidence to myself as this board has become nothing more than a place for people to post their attacks on anyone who dares to have a different opinion than theirs.
SciAm Admin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould you please me more specific. This article was on antiscience beliefs against evolution, human-induced climate change, vaccines, stem cell research, and more...
Are you saying that the anti-science beliefs posted here should go unchallenged?
evosburgh said, "But the averages are based on the absolute measurements."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, the averages are based on anomalies. Please read:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php
Looking on Politifact I can see that the Republican party has cornered the market on antiscientific statements; they have over 95% of such statements. In retrospect, whenever one candidate was starting to have problems from scandals, the first one to say something shockingly antiscientific would get a huge poll bounce. Heck, Rick Perry was the front-runner for his evolution denial, at least up until he opened his mouth and the country said "Wow, he's REALLY dumb!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy position is not that averages can be completed without an input data set.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease read what I have linked to.
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7.
Why use temperature anomalies (departure from average) and not absolute temperature measurements?
Absolute estimates of global average surface temperature are difficult to compile for several reasons. Some regions have few temperature measurement stations (e.g., the Sahara Desert) and interpolation must be made over large, data-sparse regions. In mountainous areas, most observations come from the inhabited valleys, so the effect of elevation on a region’s average temperature must be considered as well. For example, a summer month over an area may be cooler than average, both at a mountain top and in a nearby valley, but the absolute temperatures will be quite different at the two locations. The use of anomalies in this case will show that temperatures for both locations were below average.
Using reference values computed on smaller [more local] scales over the same time period establishes a baseline from which anomalies are calculated. This effectively normalizes the data so they can be compared and combined to more accurately represent temperature patterns with respect to what is normal for different places within a region.
For these reasons, large-area summaries incorporate anomalies, not the temperature itself. Anomalies more accurately describe climate variability over larger areas than absolute temperatures do, and they give a frame of reference that allows more meaningful comparisons between locations and more accurate calculations of temperature trends.
8.
How is the average global temperature anomaly time-series calculated?
The global time series is produced from the Smith and Reynolds blended land and ocean data set (Smith et al., 2008). This data set consists of monthly average temperature anomalies on a 5° x 5° grid across land and ocean surfaces. These grid boxes are then averaged to provide an average global temperature anomaly. An area-weighted scheme is used to reflect the reality that the boxes are smaller near the poles and larger near the equator. Global-average anomalies are calculated on a monthly and annual time scale. Average temperature anomalies are also available for land and ocean surfaces separately, and the Northern and Southern Hemispheres separately. The global and hemispheric anomalies are provided with respect to the period 1901-2000, the 20th century average.
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Here's a paper from some mathematicians that claim it global warming is a hoax because global temperatures can not be measured (and that's why anomalies must be used -- which is where they mess up).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes a Global Temperature Exist?
Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. February 2007, Volume 32, Issue 1, Pages 1–27.
Preprint:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/globaltemp/GlobTemp.JNET.pdf
Journal Link:
http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jnet.2007.32.issue-1/jnetdy.2007.001/jnetdy.2007.001.xml?format=INT
"But just try to talk to a "scientist" about UFO's withouit getting laughed at!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've 4 letters for you buddy: SETI
Dude, don't encourage julianpenrod, he's clearly having some trouble because he doesn't trust Big Pharma and so doesn't take his schizophrenia meds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot "anti science", just anti "bu## sh##"! A while ago "scientists were warning about a coming "ice age", then more recently "global warming" by that eminent bu## sh## artist Al Gore and the "consensus" of scientists. Global conspiracy is what is happening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""Not "anti science", just anti "bu## sh##"! """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUh-huh.
"""A while ago "scientists were warning about a coming "ice age","""
But those were guys on the fringe, and nobody in the greater scientific community took them seriously.
""" then more recently "global warming" by that eminent bu## sh## artist Al Gore and the "consensus" of scientists. """
Thing is, Al Gore and the scentific consensus have massive amounts of evidence at their backs.
"""Global conspiracy is what is happening."""
Need a tinfoil hat? Because I make and sell them as a hobby. I have two lines, the affordable AlienFear and the fancier Paranoia, each with Basic, Standard, and Deluxe versions, all available in a variety of colors and purchasable in gift packages with additional tinfoil accessories for extra brain protection.
All because certain foolish people wanted desperately to be the first to be able to say, "See? I TOLD you so!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAl Gore was and is a politician. Actually, he is a "has been" politician. His hyped movie was a ploy to bring the world to his feet. It was only allowed to be shown in British schools if it was preceded by a disclaimer pointing out the dozen or so false or exaggerated claims.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that the republican anti-science stance results from their courting of the extremist sides of the Southern Baptists and fundamentalist Christian groups starting in the 70's and 80's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour claim is exxagerated and neglects to mention that the disclaimer was put there by right-wing denialists, but correct in the essentials. Funny thing: Before Gore poked his partisan nose into AGW, going green was bipartisan. Right-wing war hawks thought that it was a good way to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, McCain and Lieberman got together and praised green tech, et cetera. Gore just made the whole mess partisan, so now we can't get a solution without the radical right screaming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExactly. Bible-thumpers offered to vote for whoever denied evolution, and Newt Gingrich decided that he was willing to sell his soul.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current wave of anti-science has much to due with our liberal revolution of the 1960's but very little to do with left vs. right politics. Once we decided that students could get through high school and college with out some exposure to science we became doomed to this type of polarizations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoliticians both on the left and right pander to the camps on their respective side of the divide. Currently the right gets more support from the science deniers, while the left exploits those prone to science faddism. For those not old enough to remember the lefts abuses please reference the great Alar scare of the 1990's with all the support from the high minded of the Hollywood libs.
Both parties activities drags the overall perception of science into question by the general public. This is not helped by the playboys of science running about making unrealistic claims in order to garner TV coverage or perhaps get the holy grail; a series on discovery channel.
Yet there is hope. Never has science interest been more pervasive in the public as evidenced by the proliferation of science programing on TV and through the internet. Further with penetration of mobile connectivity into all facets of our lives, at a gut level people understand how essential science is to our daily existence.
We may be seeing a national mental compartmentalization phenom regarding science. Certain factions may give fealty to some rather nutty ideas from time to time but where the rubber meets the road, few will actively campaign against science. This may not be the world those in science want but it may be the best we can do for awhile.
Would someone please define pro and anti science? Those labels are being flung around a lot, and I'm not sure what they mean. Is science the application of the scientific method to the acquisition of knowledge, or is it obeying the judgements of scientific "authorities", or something else. If scientific authority is somehow involved, what makes one an authority?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a soft patch midway through Mr. Otto's otherwise fine article. The comments on the "philosophical movement called postmodernism" are not substantiated and reduce many divergent interests into a single, anti-science, irrational posture, which is ridiculous. The reference to Allan Bloom, the scion of conservatism and overall weak scholar who once penned a flashy title to a forgettable work, does not bolster the claim, either. Where are there any leftists denying objective reality? Where? Name ONE! Who are these famed "postmodernists" and where do they kick objective reality aside? More pointedly, who constitutes the hordes of postmodernists that according to Bloom, "infiltrated a generation of American education programs"? If the infiltration was so long-lasting and deep, you would think a single name, a single work, a single flimsy argument could be cited by this science-and-objectivity-respecting author; instead of which, Mr. Otto takes us up the garden path for a moment in an apparent desire to establish objectivity, showing that he does not as a rule favor the left. The oddity in this is that the detour through a caricature of "postmodernism" comes right before Mr. Otto's decrying the tendency of people to want to appear to balance both sides of any given issue while not bothering to weigh facts or present evidence: "This kind of false balance becomes a problem when one side is based on knowledge and the other is merely an opinion, as often occurs when policy problems intersect with science." Ah, yes, Mr. Otto, see evidence of this deleterious tendency just above your comment, at the top of Page 5 of your article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's a kind of paranoia implied in the thrust of this article, as if there's an "enemy within" that needs to be rooted out and exposed. It suggests that allowing individuals to form their own values, opinions and beliefs about scientific claims is dangerous and potentially subversive. It targets specific communities, such as religious denominations and also secularists who simply have different interpretations of scientific data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "urge to purge" is dangerous in itself, and potentially far more so than a community of secular skeptics and doubters, as well as people whose personality directs them to a more spiritual interpretation of their lives. All scientific progress is owed to those who see things differently, who challenge prevailing orthodoxy and who persist in the face of ridicule and persecution. The reason that science has proceeded as it has is due to these skeptics, doubters and heretics.
What may be happening now is that an entrenched scientific orthodoxy is attempting to solidify its status and power by attempting to stigmatize and marginalize critics. When you read the alarmist statements of orthodox scientists about the pernicious effects of skeptics you tap into a real fear – a kind of insecurity that should not be there among people who claim certainty and legitimacy in their claims. Perhaps there are inner doubts that they are trying to deny and suppress by suppressing others.
More to the point, scientists may try to buttress their status and prestige by contrasting the highly ritualized and systematized process by which they authenticate their claims by the apparent off-handed and casual manner in which they are contradicted or challenged. Often, however, what is challenged is not the science involved but the far less objective economic and social claims made by scientists with political agendas and groups who agree with them.
Scientific findings are also used by opportunistic political forces to justify courses of action they were already predisposed to or which appeal to them for non-rational ideological reasons. There have been cases in which science was distorted to further political agendas and much of the “opposition to science” is really opposition to these agendas and not to the scientific method itself.
You’ll get no argument from me that religious claims are non-scientific and have far more to do with the individuals involved than the issues in question. I am not religious myself but I respect people who are. Scientists can also develop strong emotional and non-rational attachments to their beliefs often accompanied by an unnecessary contempt and intolerance toward their critics. A willingness to debate and engage others on issues of science suggests a kind of intellectual integrity and openness that ridicule and scorn does not.
"Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man" C.S. Lewis
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisterrette, the problem is real. I refer you to my book. Postmodernism is part of education & J-schools today, & is undermining our ability to form arguments based on evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany postmodernists are now acknowledging they created a problem by teaching a generation of leaders that there is no such thing as objectivity.
Consider Michael Bérubé's moving insights here: http://www.democracyjournal.org/19/6789.php?page=all
"now the climate-change deniers and the young-Earth creationists are coming after the natural scientists...using some of the very arguments developed by an academic left that thought it was speaking only to people of like mind."
or consider the regret of Bruno Latour:
"Entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth…while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives. Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies? Is it enough to say that we did not really mean what we meant? Why does it burn my tongue to say that global warming is a fact whether you like it or not?"
This is the political correctness that drove some people to conservatism and drove Rush Limbaugh to leadership by lambasting it, making millions.
We now have a generation of politicians schooled in the humanities who hate the left but who also absorbed the core lesson that it is all bulls$%t and the winners write the history books.
Bérubé concludes:
"these days, when I talk to my scientist friends, I offer them a deal. I say: I’ll admit that you were right about the potential for science studies to go horribly wrong and give fuel to deeply ignorant and/or reactionary people. And in return, you’ll admit that I was right about the culture wars, and right that the natural sciences would not be held harmless from the right-wing noise machine. And if you’ll go further, and acknowledge that some circumspect, well-informed critiques of actually existing science have merit (such as the criticism that the postwar medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth had some ill effects), I’ll go further too, and acknowledge that many humanists’ critiques of science and reason are neither circumspect nor well-informed. Then perhaps we can get down to the business of how to develop safe, sustainable energy and other social practices that will keep the planet habitable."
Paleontology has a similar problem; the BANDits. Led by the Dark Lord of the Sith, Alan Feduccia, these crackpots (excuse the slang) use any means possible to try to "prove" their baseless belief that birds are not descended from theropod dinosaurs. They engaged in quote mining, cherry picking, and worse, and even make their conclusions BEFORE EVEN STARTING TO GATHER INFORMATION!!! They selectively ignore anything that contradicts their hypothesis, which leaves them sounding more and more ridiculous as more discoveries are made.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost paleontologists try to ignore the BANDits, but they are REALLY annoying.
@ your first comment: Put that way, the Republicans sound worryingly like the Soviets or the Taliban.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"They redefined pregnancy to begin at fertilization, rather than implantation in the uterine wall, and argued that abortion was murder."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo nice of you to talk about the beginning of pregnancy and not human life. Can you tell me, from the scientific point of view, when did my existence as a human organism begin? What's so unscientific about thinking that it happened when my father's sperm fused with my mother's egg, and my unique genetic makeup was determined?
That single cell back then was me. Had my mother chosen to get an abortion, it would be me who would effectively get killed. But yeah, it wouldn't be murder because I was too little.
Nevertheless, the symbiotic relationship known as pregnancy, when a mother becomes host to a developing embryo and her body undergoes the hormonal changes that entails, cannot be said to occur before implantation. It may be hard for you to accept, but between one third and one half of all fertilized embryos are flushed naturally before they implant, without a woman's awareness. What are they? Miscarriages? Murders? Abortions? Something else? Your question can be extended: what if your father's sperm had been damaged? That, too, would have involved you not being born. This can be extended to any variety of past circumstances in the reproductive chain. Is every sperm then sacred? Is every one of the 1.5 million or so eggs a woman carries in her ovaries a life, and sacred? Are they being murdered when a woman dies? Should they all be harvested and nurtured into existence? Where should the line be drawn? Is it a life if we transform adult skin cells into stem cells and those into sperm and egg and then fertilize one with the other? And is that a clone or something else? Is it a life if we design its genome on a computer, as
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have done, buy a DNA synthesizer on eBay for $8,000 or so, use it to make fragments of the genome we designed, chemically stitch them together, inject the complete genome into a cell with an empty nucleus, and shock it into replicating? What is life? Is life an unbroken chain of genetic code, running down through the generations, endlessly recombining in new forms? Is it software? When does it become an individual with rights? Where do we draw the legal line? The moral line? Can we draw a line at all? Is that the right way to be thinking about it? Our best guide is not to arbitrarily decide, but to decide based on careful observation and ethical and moral reflection.
Your position is an opinion, not a fact. A more accurate idea of when life begins is the 90% viability point sans modern technology, at about 30 to 36 weeks gestation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut you'll continue to believe what you want, because anti-abortioners are inherently religious, and religious beliefs are fundamentally irrational.
Excellent arguement. Good to know that there are a few rational people here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Four days later radio commentator Rush Limbaugh blasted Romney on his show,".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt takes very few seconds to realize Limbaugh is a religious fascist. What europeans may find most disturbing is that US mainstream media allows a fascist a pulpit.
@ quizzical:
- Science have figured out how life began, through RNA. The area has moved on to narrow down the possible pathways.
Your idea that previous information is necessary is erroneous btw. It isn't necessary for galaxy formation and it isn't necessary for spontaneous protocell formation (see Shoztak's work).
And if it would be, we all know randomness maximizes information. (Say, as Kolmogorov complexity.) If you compress an image of noise it takes more bytes than a regular image.
- _Climate_ science has shown that _change_ in the CO2 GW gas is the current major driving force in climate _change_. You are discussing the background steady state.
- Plate tectonics is not sensitive to small gradients by local surface temperatures. The average gradient over the crust is ~ 1000 K, see Wikipedia.
It is more sensitive to subduction rates, compare ocean crust thickness (~ 20 km) with land cratons (~ 100 km).
They won't believe you. The cranks live in a fantasyland where the President is a socialist Muslim, Islam is evil, God (in the Christian sense) created the world (which is flat) in a couple of weeks, AGW is a hoax, and Politifact is Satan. Obviously, this is insane, but the right wing doesn't care. I suggest that you watch the "We can change it" RNC episode of "The Daily Show" on the Comedy Central website.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShawn, I do not understand the confusion between the concept of "parts" as opposed to "assemblies." Both ova and sperm are clearly "parts" and as soon as they come together, you have a unique individual who is now an "assembly." The "parts" are certainly wonderful but they do not constitute a unique individual until they are assembled at fertilization.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf that individual fails to attach to the uterine wall and is flushed out, it can rightly be called a "miscarriage."
Arguing about when life begins in this way, is just as silly as arguing if an individual is a human before or after uterine attachment; before or after birth; before or after the umbilical cord is cut; before or after first grade; before or after high school graduation or before or after voting age?
You demonstrate the same confusion with your questions about "What is life"? Certainly, software is not life! Please excuse the obvious question, but are you just trying to stir up some comments or are you really that befuddled?
Could even a 10-week fetus survive premature birth, even with modern technology? Think about that, and realize how silly the anti-abortion position really is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTorbjörn,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me try to clarify my hypothesis on arctic ice melting. I KNOW that plate tectonics is not sensitive to small gradations in local surface temperatures as you point out. I also highly doubt that a 3/4 degree C rise in lower global atmospheric temperature is able to melt significant amounts of polar ice in any reasonable amount of time.
I was just wondering if local surface temperatures might be affected by the goings on in the magma that circulates at various depths in the earth. You rightly point out that the earth's crust is quite a bit thinner under the oceans than it is under the continents.
Regarding the DNA/RNA codes of Life. Galaxy formation requires no coded instructions. The formation of a viable living cell DOES require coded instructions. Avoiding the question, "Who wrote the code?" doesn't prove that no author was required. I never heard of any code or language that wrote itself. I understand that information theory has it that all information proceeds from previous information or from an intelligent author. Maybe you are aware of some other code that has no intelligent author. If so, please educate me.
I think that claims made about the source of global warming, equating galaxy formation with origins of life, etc. are just some of the very reasons why there is a crisis of faith in so-called scientific pronouncements today. Galaxies, as grand as they are, are really only gravitationally bound whirlpools of matter. There are no instructions required to assemble them. Living Cells, on the other hand consist of multitudes of specialized machines that perform specialized tasks needed to keep the cell healthy. When any of those machines breaks down for whatever reason, the cell dies.
If you think randomness maximizes information, I suggest you work on a PHD by studying the information you may find in the millions of scrabble letters that would be strewn over the landscape by a huge a train wreck.
You never know what you may learn!
Birdtree,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did think about that and that is why I come to the conclusion that abortion is equal to the murder of an innocent person simply for convenience of the perpetrator.
It's most often life-or-death for the mother, not just convenience. This is the fundamental logical fallacy of anti-abortion fundies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI understand that it is RARELY life or death for the mother. You will need to come up with a better angle than that. Actually. I do not have actual statistics but I would like to see some. Who could I trust to tell the truth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was able to look up some statistics on reason for abortions and found the following:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe National Right to Life Committee lists about 4% of abortions have to do with the mother's health. A somewhat lower percentage would be "life or death" issues.
A 1998 study by International Family Planning Perspectives found that 2.8% of abortions were due to concerns for the mother's health. Again these were not all "life or death" issues but health issues in general.
I am sure there are other sources but I did not have time at the moment to look further. Planned Parenthood was no help.
As far as your claim that most abortions are performed on poor women - there are simply more poor women than rich women. Your allegation reveals your apparent hate for whoever you are blaming and it is quite baseless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain, this is another reason why there is a crisis of faith in so-called science these days. Anyone, regardless of their qualifications has the ability to spout all kinds of name calling and any old opinion they may have without any responsibility for what they say. That is why, the cheaper the gutter language and name calling that is used, the less the opinions are respected. That goes for the presidential debates right on down to us blog commentators.
So ... Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.
(Sorry, I do not know your gender, that is just an old Dick Tracy line from Dragnet.)
Aaahhh...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvident to see that there are those who read this article that don't understand "science" but there's hope - at least you're reading something that has the word "science" in it...
Science is NOT about belief or faith. It's not about what I "think" or "feel." It's about being able to measure and replicate. If you can't measure and replicate it, it's your opinion, nothing more than that. I can feel or believe in a God or Higher Power but that is my belief. That's part of what faith is - belief in things unseen.
Evidently, there are people out there who want me to believe as they do. I can appreciate that - I want you to believe as I do. But here's the rub - I am not so interested in your "salvation" that I am willing, against your will and belief, to try to legislate my belief in such a way that you MUST believe as I do or suffer the consequences.
God, if you believe in him, gave you a brain. If you want to glorify his ideals, you might want to try to use that. Your emotions consistently appear to get in the way.
And for those of you who seem to think that the author is using the "bully pulpit" to make a political point, cheers! At least there's someone making an effort to break through the nonsensical arguments about what you "feel" and "believe" to get you to see a little bit of (say it with me) measurable and verifiable truth. For those of you opposed to this, please go back to your flat earth holes and pull the rock back over your heads.
Morons!
"""The National Right to Life Committee lists about 4% of abortions have to do with the mother's health. A somewhat lower percentage would be "life or death" issues."""
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's a biased source. Find something nonbiased, and I'll give you due consideration.
It's a Joe Friday line; Dick Tracy was not a character on Dragnet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact is that antiabortionism is just as irrational as creationism.
It is certainly true that we are fed false claims all the time; which is why it is important to INVESTIGATE claims and figure out what is and is not true based on the facts. After doing the research, it usually becomes clear very quickly which claims are just opinions mashed together with some bullshit technobabble by someone to sell, and which are either facts that aren't immediately self evident, or theories which are genuinely supported by evidence, but the evidence might not be conclusive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, the claim about the finger lakes totally misses the point of how glaciers carve out lakes. While it is true that glaciers generally form from higher up towards downhill areas, the geological impact comes not from glaciers forming, but from glaciers receding and melting, which would happen from lower areas back uphill.
As to the second claim, "everyone knows could NEVER have bubbled out of some ancient warm mud puddle". I know no such thing. Rhetoric aside, we are talking about countless puddles over the course of hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of years. Statistically, the "impossible" is going to happen several times.
For the final claim, as the article points out, there are literally millions of measurements that temperature worldwide is increasing. To your credit, you do not contest this. This is true for the South pole as well, including areas where ice sheets are increasing (overall, land ice is decreasing while sea ice is increasing). Since temperature is increasing while ice coverage is increasing, the effect seems to be that increased moisture has thus far outweighed increased temperature, but this may or may not continue. At any rate, it is not true that temperature is only increasing in the north pole, which suggests worldwide atmospheric change. Since water vapor levels are remaining more or less constant, on a global scale, it is only greenhouse gases that could cause such a change.
Exactly! Case in point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour first paragraph describes very well how folks need to handle Al Gore's movie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding your second paragraph about glaciers carving the Finger Lakes, you are partially correct. Mountain glaciers do form at higher elevations, snowflake by snowflake, and then slide slowly down mountain valleys, grinding grooves in the rocks as they go. However, receding glaciers do not grind anything with force. They only melt, ice crystal by ice crystal. In the mean time, the remaining ice continues to slide down hill more slowly than the ice is melting away at the lower end. Hence they "recede". The only "digging" possible may be done by the melted glacier water eroding the valley below. In the case of a polar glacier caused by an ice age, NONE of the above conditions apply. What DOES apply is:
(1) The terrain is lower at the north pole(-13,000 feet)than it is in the Finger Lakes area(+1,600 feet). (2)For ice to pile up high enough to "flow" south, the polar ocean would have had to freeze solid to the bottom. Someone has pointed out that the land is still rebounding from the released weight of the ice. If that is true (which I am not contesting), the polar ocean floor would have been pressed down even further than it is now, which would make the uphill grade from the pole to the Finger Lake region even steeper.
(3) Then the receding ice would have melted very slowly, summer by summer, until it finally disappeared from the southern areas. the water generated by that melting would have trickled away every summer until no ice was left. No grinding forces happening there. No glaciers ever recede in a violent recoil fashion like earth worms do when they are touched on their front ends. Rather, they just fade away.
If that layman's description has any serious errors, please let me know.
Regarding the possibility of coherent code just spontaneously bubbling out of a mud puddle. You may believe what you want. I for one, know that does not happen. EVER. If you find a case you can prove, please enlighten me.
As far as average global temperature goes, I have read somewhere recently that it is mathematically impossible to determine from the available measurements if the earth is warming or cooling, given the variability of the measurements. You say that "the water vapor is remaining more or less constant on a global scale." actually, if the atmosphere is remaining at about the same relative humidity and at the same time is warming (who knows how much) then there is really MORE water in the atmosphere than when it was cooler.
"""(1) The terrain is lower at the north pole(-13,000 feet)than it is in the Finger Lakes area(+1,600 feet). """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIrrelevant. The glaciation spread from the Canadian mountain regions.
"""(2)For ice to pile up high enough to "flow" south, the polar ocean would have had to freeze solid to the bottom. """
Outright lie.
"""As far as average global temperature goes, I have read somewhere recently that it is mathematically impossible to determine from the available measurements if the earth is warming or cooling, given the variability of the measurements. """
Whatever you read is blatantly false. There are literally hundreds of studies that directly contradict it.
"""actually, if the atmosphere is remaining at about the same relative humidity and at the same time is warming (who knows how much) then there is really MORE water in the atmosphere than when it was cooler."""
Outright lie.
In short: Hello, Governor Romney.
Thanks for the clarification! I really know almost nothing about Dick Tracy, Joe Friday or Dragnet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever I hold that both "anti-abortionism" and Creationism are totally rational.
I will just agree to disagree.
You sound like you think truth can be discovered by vote. I hope it is not that bad!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow are they rational? Both are unsupported by the evidence, and creationism is untestable. Neither are rational POVs in any way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that the evidence shows that you are a liar, and I am not afraid to say so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists these days are to effette and afraid of their professional reputations. They need someone to sling some mud.
The Canadian mountain region? Wonders never cease! Then, how did the Finger Lakes end up aligned approximately toward the lower lands in the north between some higher elevations to the northwest and northeast? The question is, "Where is the driving slope that could push ice hard enough to gouge out these lake beds"? (I am using the elevation indicator on Google Earth)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are doing a wonderful job!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd you are FOS, proving that your baseless views are just that: baseless. I'm not going to do your homework for you; do some actual research of reputable studies before proclaiming yourself an expert and claiming that the Ice Ages never happened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout Dragnet? I just have a passion for listening to the radio version with Jack Webb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"But just try to talk to a "scientist" about UFO's without getting laughed at!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLaughter is the sound of surprise, so how any scientist could not know there are still stupid people in the world is beyond me.
The greatest threat to our republic is the Obama administration's attempt to drive us into debt that we cannot recover from and put us in the position of great peril similar to the unsustainable debt thaat is looming and which has paralized the European Union. The next largest threat to the union is the ignorance of the American Public. If an Evangelical Christian cares to espouse Creationism to the dismay of the Secularists, I would prefer to name the Christian as a friend as opposed to a Secularists that thinks it is quite acceptable to murder unborn and about to be born children. That my freinds is the old Eugenics movement of the Nazis (and Planned Parenthood) that decided that Jews were inferior and who decided to cleanse the world of these inferiors much as our brothers the Muslim Radical wish to rid the world of anyone opposed to their radical views. Last time I checked, there were no Evangelical Christians murdering their neighbors because their neighbor didn't believe in creationism. Your contention that the Republican Party is anti-science is less credible that my contention that people that hold the views that Christians,Jews, Hindu, Buddists and other peaceful religions are a threat to the Republic (the United States, it is NOT a Democracy by the way). I long ago dropped my subscription to "Scientific American" because it espouses jumk science and attempts to promote the political views of a bunch of radicals thaat are placing our Nation in the peril of bankruptcy..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjulianpenrod can only be defined as deranged.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNature isn't just the final authority on truth, Nature is the Only authority. There are zero human authorities. Scientists do not vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature owns it. We find out what Nature's vote is by doing Scientific [public and replicable] experiments. Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the only source of truth. [To be public, it has to be visible to other people in the room. What goes on inside one person's head isn't public unless it can be seen on an X-ray or with another instrument.]
Science is a simple faith in Scientific experiments and a simple absolute lack of faith in everything else.
"Science and Immortality" by Charles B. Paul, 1980, University of California Press.
Science is the ultimate Protestant Reformation in which Religion is reformed out of existence. Priests were no longer necessary when everybody could read the source of knowledge. Science takes the next step: Ancient text is not the source of knowledge when every person can find out the truth by carefully following a procedure called "Science" for him/herself.
In the book: "Revolutionary Wealth" by Alvin & Heidi Toffler, 2006 Chapter 19, FILTERING TRUTH, page 123 lists six commonly used filters people use to find the "truth". They are:
1. Consensus
2. Consistency
3. Authority
4. Mystical revelation or religion
5. Durability
6. Science
Reference: "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch. Religion is mentally DISABLING.
@ bird/tree in comment 217
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, now, Bird/Tree, You are not paying attention. I never claimed the Ice Ages didn't ever happen.
I am simply wondering how a polar icecap that expanded little by little, year by year and snowflake by snowflake as the climate cooled from the previous hot, CO2 laden industrial era, could possibly gouge out the Finger Lake beds without the benefit of a steep mountain slope in the north to drive it.
If you are so rational and scientific, why don't you just help my unbelief with a rational, scientific answer?
Then, you would not need to call me all those disrespectful names and I would finally get the benefit of learning some real knowledge.
I seriously wondered whether it made any sense to respond to your comment. Be that as it may, all you really have to do is use one of the steps in scientific research and observe. The testing has been done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this7,49,50,57,78,150,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this7,49,50,57,78,150,
You seem to be having me deleted. If you persist, I will report every single comment that you make from now on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not having ANYONE deleted! Please do not accuse me of something that I am innocent of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, comments 223 and 224 are from me but were not deletions of anything. I was just trying to compose a reply to 222 terryatwinnipeg. Something was not working right. I hope whoever is able will have it fixed now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ terryatwinnipeg (comment 222)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for erroneous comments #223 and #224. My computer was doing funny stuff, probably my operator error.
You apparently haven’t been following this thread from the beginning. I have been describing my OBSERVATION that the explanation we get for the origin of the Finger Lakes does not make sense in all cases. i.e. “Ice does NOT flow uphill", as can be noted in the following list of comments: 7,49,50,57,150,171,192,194,195,197,198,199,206,208,209,212,221.
You may be correct in that the testing has already been done. However, if that is the case, I would have expected that SOMEONE would have pointed it out to me instead of all the juvenile mud slinging that has frequently occurred on this thread. Those who have pointed out to me some relevant studies, have been generally supportive of my concern that we are not being told the whole truth about many subjects. I was just using the “Origin of the Finger Lakes” question as a case in point.
The thrust of this article is, how the anti-science crowd is influencing politics. My point of view is that there are no anti-science folks. There are only folks who are rightly suspicious that they are being fed dogma.
If anyone is really anti-science, it is those who swallow unprovable claims about things that cannot be tested but are rather, just hypotheses masquerading as science. Those folks are truly anti-science because they champion points of view they have learned about, but have not seriously questioned. Real scientists are always skeptical until all the details of a proposition are proven. What may remain unproven are details that are simply opinions and should be labeled as such.
So-called science, these days, has entirely too many unprovable propositions and not enough experimentally provable facts. But, we are all supposed to swallow all that is CALLED science when much of it is only suppositional notions.
Demanding that the presidential candidates have a science debate is badly missing the point of the debates. Especially if it comes down to what they believe on given issues. A president needs to be an expert in choosing advisors of merit. IMO, the current administration has a poor history of that.
"""If anyone is really anti-science, it is those who swallow unprovable claims about things that cannot be tested but are rather, just hypotheses masquerading as science. """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike AGW denialists, such as you.
"""Those folks are truly anti-science because they champion points of view they have learned about, but have not seriously questioned. """
Exactly. Applying your own logic, you are a gullible fool.
"""Real scientists are always skeptical until all the details of a proposition are proven. What may remain unproven are details that are simply opinions and should be labeled as such."""
Err...not quite getting your point.
Shawn, your assertion that “a person reading this blog is giving of 500 watts of infrared” is in error by a factor of ten. As near as I can discern, a body at rest (sitting reading) gives off only about 50 watts of heat. Am I wrong?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI still recall an article in SA quite a few years ago, about how sharks can detect weak electrical currents in sea water. The title paragraph claimed that sharks (no species given) can detect one millionth of a volt over a distance of one centimeter in sea water. They further claimed that this was analogous to detecting the current of a 1-1/2 volt battery with one pole in the waters of Long Island Sound and the other pole wired into the waters off of the Florida coast. This caught my attention so I grabbed my calculator.
Let's see . . . one millionth of a volt per centimeter. That would be the same as one million centimeters per volt. A 1-1/2 volt battery would therefore be worth one and a half million centimeters. The question I had was, "Is 1-1/2 million centimeters approximately the distance from New York to Florida?" It turns out that 1-1/2 million centimeters equals about 9.3 miles. Hardly the distance claimed. A letter to the editor for clarification produced no response. I never even found an entry in their “Errata” section. So much for “Scientific” American! I remain disappointed.
That is just one instance of scientific pronouncements being made in error with no apparent effort to correct the mistake. It is NO WONDER that many folks are reluctant to believe whatever they are told about complex subjects. All reasonable people SHOULD be suspicious that they are having the wool pulled over their eyes. It happens all the time.
Bird/Tree, I accept your apology in comment #229. I am surprised that you would think such a thing of me. My question to you is, "Why do you persist in calling me derogatory names? You really don't sound very mature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you think all of the so-called science you are told is really true, I would suggest that you sharpen your critical thinking skills.
Again, how does ice (or water) flow uphill? And, how does a retreating glacier grind grooves in the landscape with little or no evidence of glaciation between the grooves?
Just curious.
Nit-picking again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are correct. It's more like 50-90 watts at rest, depending on metabolism and other factors, not 500. Under heavier physical activity and a faster calorie burn it can go up to about 5x that. Thanks for catching my posting error.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour critical thinking skills either need attention or are nonexistent. You are picking the smallest of nits in order to try to discredit a theory that you are unable to disprove. In short, you are a quote-mining troll, and should be banished as such. You are deliberately refusing to admit that Minnesota is lower in elevation than the Rockies, and so prove your inherent lack of cogent, logical thought. You are merely parroting what you have heard more prominent denialists say, and thus are gulity of hypocrisy, double-standarding, and unoriginal thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShawn,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for that clarification.
Maybe you can help me find the article on a shark's ability to detect weak electric currents in sea water. I am sorry I don't recall what year it was, but I think the article was noted on the top line of the cover. I am worried that I may not have the story straight! Thanks for any help you can provide.
It constantly amazes me how few scientists understand what makes fundamentalism tick. People who wouldn't dream of sending a slapdash article to a journal think they can toss off clisches about the Religious Right and expect to be taken seriously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOpposition to evolution is driven entirely by a drive to preserve the inerrancy of the Bible. If fundamentalists can sell someone on the concept "the Bible is true in every detail," then all they need to do to settle a point is to point to a text in the Bible. (Of course, someone who really knows their Bible can often point to a text that refutes their claim, but too few scientists can do that.) On the other hand, if they can't prove claims by simply pointing to the Bible, life gets a lot more difficult. Many of their claims are difficult or impossible to prove, or become downright untenable.
scientists and politicians are people, people can have an agenda and want to skew things their way, which leads them to lie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhen the lies are repeated over and over as truth, some may accept it, but those who know better, no longer trust the government or scientific community for their lies.
we are now seeing the truth come out over the lies, and those who spread the lies have to live with the results of people not trusting them anymore.
Case in point. I just can't understand the fundamentalist worldview.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou omit the most anti-science political position of all: the Democrat Party's denial of the scientific fact that human life begins at conception.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBird/Tree, Just calling folks "liars" never changes any facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcept that the facts support me. You cannot provide a legitimate data set that backs up your claims, and neither can the other guy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJudging from your general views, I doubt if you will comprehend the following:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do many folks seem to be confused between the concept of "parts" as opposed to the concept of unique "assemblies"? Both the code carried by ova and the code carried by sperm are clearly "parts" and as soon as they come together, you then have a unique individual who is now an "assembly." The "parts" are certainly wonderful, but they do not constitute a unique individual until they are assembled at fertilization.
If that individual fails to attach to the uterine wall and is flushed out, it could rightly be called a "miscarriage."
Arguing about when life begins in this way, is just as silly as arguing if an individual is a human before or after uterine attachment; before or after birth; before or after the umbilical cord is cut; before or after first grade; before or after high school graduation or before or after voting age.
In all due respect, if you had only been considered a human at birth, you are very fortunate that your mother did not decide to flush you down the toilet! It seems perfectly scientific to me to believe that you were fully a human being right from the moment of conception.
Welcome to the world! But, please, try to be more gentle with the rest of us.
Actually, no one qualifies as human at the several minutes to hours of conception. There is no scientific data to back up your position.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImprecisely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDevelopmental biology shows that functioning neurons aren't even present until relatively late; and a bunch of partially organized cells with no mind does not qualify as human.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour opinion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWrong. The science is at my back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a moderate, in the 1950s, '60s, even into the '70s, I used to vote for as many Republicans as Democrats. They had differing points of view, of course, but they generally respected each other and, building off a common knowledge base, sought to find the compromises that would best serve the citizenry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen the Republican party moved violently rightward, leaving moderates stranded with no place to go but into the more moderate wing of the Democratic party. Republican leadership became more and more ideological, less and less fact-based. The ignorance level of Republican leaders, I suppose, reflects the general failure of education and religious institutions in the United States.
Now, as the truly ignorant candidates of the Tea Party gain prominence among Republicans, one wonders how anyone could vote for people whose ignorance would destroy the country.
"Anti-science beliefs..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour memory is pretty short. When I was growing up in the US in the 1950s (I'm not there now, thank the Deity) McCarthy was at large and 'egghead's were routinely scorned as useless and possibly queer. Anyone who showed intelligence or thoughtfulness was dismissed and avoided (conveniently ignoring the scientists and engineers toiling away inventing stuff like H-bombs, Atlas rockets, and transistors). Politicians made hay by painting the opposition as intelligent. Adlai Stevenson was scorned as an Egghead - and lost the '52 and '56 elections to Eisenhower. I'm not sure if the derogatory terms 'nerd' and 'geek' arose quite then, but they came into use soon after. Tough life for a science oriented teenager, and discouraging to anyone wanting to enter the field!
It took Sputnik to administer a whack upside the head that made the US realize it no longer held its assumed lofty perch, and science started to gain some respect. Kennedy solidified this with his challenge to get to the Moon by 1970. Now the (mainly)Republican trogdolytes are taking the country right back to the 50s.
Quizzical is a reasonable thinker. He shows real imagination. Please read his or her comment. What has science got to do with democracy? You don't get to vote on science. One person, especially this over-certain preacher, doesn't talk for science. I, too, lament that science is misrepresented more and more by scientists who need funding rather than by those with something to say. And that there seems to be is a correlation between the physics-challenged scientist and their reliance on rhetoric to "prove" their point. Consensus science is when two or more measurements agree within errors, not when two or more models disagree by factors of two, but trend in the same direction due to the goal-based constraints built into the code. I hesitated to contribute to this political drivel which used to be a science magazine, but I had to applaud quizzical. We need more of that kind of thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ quizzical
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) there's a reason its called the 'ice cap'. When you've got a mile-thick ice sheet over N. America, what you see as uphill today was downhill from the top of that ice sheet.
2) google 'emergent', 'self-organizing', and 'complexity' all in one search. If you still aren't convinced nature can't create complexity out of simple molecules, try reading "Holland, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems"
3) you need a better understanding of thermal dynamics to see why 'climate change' can't be put down to internal planetary heating (or carbon discharges from volcanoes, or planetary precession). These are all things scientist thought of years ago when the first evidence began to come in that something was happening to our atmosphere. The bottom line is, we know roughly how much drilled hydrocarbons humans have burned in the past 200 years, and we know roughly how much vegetation produced those hydrocarbons, and we know roughly how long it took for that vegetation to grow and remove carbon from the ancient atmosphere and die to create those hydrocarbons we suck out of the ground. We're talking millions of years to create these pools of hydrocarbons. It doesn't take a lot of fancy math to realize that throwing the carbon that took millions of years to be removed from the atmosphere back into a closed system (our atmosphere) within the space of a couple of hundred years, will have a demonstrable effect. That's basic chemistry--the same chemistry our entire modern civilization is based on--so we have a pretty good understanding of those interactions. And we can compare the results to a growing amount of data indicating normal climatic variations going back millions of years--even including orbital variations over that time. Are there gaps? Of course, but like any puzzle that begins to reveal itself even when pieces are missing, it is already more than evident that something geologically and historically unique is going on with our atmosphere. And it can only begin to be explained by adding human-induced burning of hydrocarbons together with all the known natural sources of atmospheric gases affecting our atmosphere.
4) Don't let the small numbers fool you. The number you've chosen, 0.8F temp increase is really at the lower boundary of what will cause significant changes in the global environment in coming decades and centuries. Anything over 2.5F is considered a threat to human civilization. Experiment with your home freezer, you'll be surprised how much can change over time with small temp increases.
@ yyyypo
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess for you 'science' is nothing more than another gubmint welfare program, eh? Well, the 18-20 years it takes to earn a science doctorate makes them some of the hardest-working welfare queens around, doesn't it? Never mind that the private sector wouldn't even exist without them. They're still just egg-headed, good-for-nuthin, liberal-lovin, deadbeats, right?
Anti-science? To state that conservative views jeopardize democracy in the USA is base politics, not science. Consider observing the destruction of world economy. F. A. Hayek lays out a fearless argument for capitalism v.s. central planning with precision; 'The Fatal Conceit' reads much like Bohr and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, economics is the evolved and uninhibited collection of information floating somewhere, or nowhere, in the statistical vapor of billions of throws of God's dice. Our success at prediction and determinism reveals the flaw, and the correlation with economics is like genius stumbling toward that instinctive search for the theory of everything, and now, toes on the edge of another very careful and painful mistake, it's too easy for the self annointed few to ask for complete control of our destiny... this time the sacrificial victims are the Christians. Would the scientific or political community have the courage to focus their disdain on the paternalistic Muslim world and their violent retreat from equal treatment of women? Seems democracy is becoming simple mob rule as our once free press join to mass produce opinion... a scientist today requires courage to embrace the fading art of honest evaluation of facts. We are toes on the edge of another very painful mistake, and to be sure, slipping off the scientific foundation, but we aren't slipping, we are being pushed by the creators of opinion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThought provoking questions, thank you. But I will reply to your last question with another: How do you explain the loss of glaciers in US parks and the snow amount on Mt Kilimanjaro? Polar thinning of the crust just does not cut it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It is hard to know exactly when it became acceptable for U.S. politicians to be antiscience."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI trace the change (in this decade) to the increase in political involvement by the fundamentalist/evangelical Christians in the 1980s and '90s. Theologically conservative themselves, they gravitated to the more conservative of the two major parties, bringing with them their rejection of science when it contradicts their interpretation of Scripture. Hence, rejection of evolution in favor of the Genesis creation myth became the camel's nose under the tent flap. If science is wrong on this fundamentally important issue, the thinking goes, we can't trust it on things on which the Bible is silent, such as climate change and, by extension, any other issue on which science contradicts our pastor.
Now these Christians are a major voting bloc in the body politic. The Republican Party has most of them safely in its corner, but no politician wants to cross them, so their world-view has entered the mainstream of thought in the United States.
You don't have to be an atheist to make this observation; I'm a man of faith myself. Yes, greed and other character defects probably also are at work in promoting the antiscience world-view, but I think increased political involvement by fundamentalist and evangelical Christians probably is the key.
Yeah, the fundies and evangelicals just can't accept science. It's probably because science goes against 99% of what they believe and hold to be true, and humans will always try to discredit the other side before doubting themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is not held in high esteem for many deserved reasons. I have a masters in science education and am also disappointed by the state of science today. Climate change is more due to a change in sun cycles than a very small rise in CO2 levels. Man should not be dreaming about going to other planets because human bodies can not tolerate space and it is only a place where robots should go. Theoretical physics is filled with unprovable mythology about black holes, parallel universes, worm holes, n dimensional space, dark matter, etc. This is Real bullshit and this is just some of the untruths, lies, and deceptions of modern day science. Science has no moral code as evidenced by the fraud in clinical studies on the efficacy of new drugs. I have a solution to all these problems which science and the world has. Read my book HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD: HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD; THE TRUTH ABOUT EVERYTHING available on Kindle or Nook Book by searching under my name.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisModern theoretical physics is the new rampant mythology of unprovable theories. Science has no moral code and many have committed fraud with politically correct views on global warming which is more due to sun cycles and not very small rises in CO2 levels. Many have committed fraud on clinical studies of drug effects. There is a solution to scientific decay and lack of respect as outlined in my book, available on Kindle and Nook Book by searching under my name, called HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD: HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD; THE TRUTH ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no reason for those on this site to dabate the issue. We are the ones who think science is important, Rep or Democrat. The other 95% of the American population cares more about who Justin Bieber is with. I'm sorry but in my opinion the tanker is about to run aground and there is nothing we can do about it, except hope Homo Sapiens evolves into a superior species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisName-calling, ad hominem attacks and hostile comments are not acceptable here. We will delete the accounts of commenters who persist in these behaviors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnfcapitalist,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you actually believe there is much of a debate of capitalism vs central planning? Do you believe many Americans would prefer restructuring the US economy to something similar to China's? Your argument is a straw man. Do you understand the type of socialism that Hayek was refuting in The Fatal Conceit?
I don't believe many Americans believe Apple or Google should be owned by the US govt. I also don't believe people want to go back to price controls on industries such as airlines, trucking, telecommunications, etc as it was in the 1970s. That's central planning. Most people simply want that their PROPERTY RIGHTS be protected. In your libertarian world (especially one with right-wing "tort reform") property rights are not protected. The powerful are able to loot or destroy the property of the less powerful -- see Somalia.
All we want are Rules of the Road (including enforcement). Should there be speed limits in school districts? One can make the same argument against speed limits as can be made against enviromental regulations. I.e. the "free market" will decide the fate of the malefactor.
Each utopian extreme (i.e. libertarianism and socialism) results in the same outcome. A vast majority of people lose their entrepreneurial drive because it is unlikely they will reap the fruits of their labors. Again, see Somalia.
Two quotes by Dr. Michael Crichton can sum up what is happening at Scientific American:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHistorically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
"Aliens Cause Global Warming" - A lecture at the California Institute of Technology (17 January 2003)
and;
"Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid — and merits universal acceptance — only if it can be independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method means it is utterly apolitical. A truth in science is verifiable whether you are black or white, male or female, old or young. It's verifiable whether you like the results of a study, or you don't." Testimony before the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (28 September 2005)
Scientific American should go back to Science and get away from Politics. You have become a spectacle and intolerant. Very tragic indeed. I preferred it when you were a Science Magazine. Drop the Politics. Anita M Bjorklund
Crichton's statements are, ironically, self-contradictory. Consensus in science means precisely what Crichton said is the gold standard: independent verification, by a vast majority of other researchers. He was a global warming denier and was playing with words to try to fool people. And his is right: it's been verified, whether you like the results of the study, or you don't. It's been so solidly verified that the very conservative National Academy of Sciences now says man-made global warming is supported by so many independent lines of objective data that it must now be regarded as "settled facts." Were he still with us, Crichton would have undoubtedly changed his position, since such an overwhelming preponderance of evidence has since accumulated (we are talking billions of measurements) that other credible skeptics, such as Richard Muller, have since changed their positions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour #1 point is well taken in comment 252. However, I have been unable to find any data on how thick ice must be to flow like cold molasses. I have been told that the ice was 3000 meters thick. I don't know where they got that figure. That boils down to 1.86 miles. I have also been told that the terrain under the ice was pressed down by the weight and is now still rebounding on the north shore of Lake Erie. No one seems to have any idea how deep the depression was. In any case, I stand by my original claim that the current terrain rises from sea level at the lower tip of the Hudson Bay to about 1,600 feet just south of the largest lakes. Some of the "scientific" folks on this thread have posited that the lake beds were carved by the grinding force of the retreating ice. That is one of the claims that i find very unlikely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding point #2, I checked out the self organizing properties of matter and found much about growing crystals.
However, these organizations of matter do NOT contain any information about anything. DNA and RNA, on the other hand, contain specific information that directs cellular assembly and subsequent operations.
Point #3 seems to gravitate right back to atmospheric constituents as if that were the only possible explanation for the very slight increases we have seen in the last century or two.
In point #4, my "small numbers" were indeed too small. I meant to refer to the 0.8ºC temperature rather than 0.8ºF. In any case, If the amount of heat required to melt a ton of ice without changing its temperature at all, is about the same as is required to warm a ton of water by 80ºC., where does all that energy come from? Hardly from a ¾ºC temperature increase in the lower atmosphere over a century or two.
Failing to answer one question by posing another is suspect;-). I do not know much about the park glaciers, as I haven't been on any since 1959. However, I have been privileged to climb Kilimanjaro twice, once in 1964 and once again in 1974. I do know one thing. It is VERY cold up there! Day and night. Actually, it is halfway to outer space if one considers the atmospheric pressure. Yes, the ice has been diminishing up there, primarily by sublimation and NOT by melting. It has been drier for whatever reason and the snow accumulation has therefore diminished. It is just as cold as it ever was, as far as I know. Of course 18,000 to 19,000 feet can barely be considered the "lower atmosphere."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, I must point out - I am not trying to deny global warming or the cause of it, or dictate when human life begins or anything else. In all my comments, I was just trying to point out how many so-called "scientists" like to claim full understanding on controversial issues and therefore try to sweep any legitimate questions under the rug.
Bringing these types of uncertain issues to a political debate is, in my opinion, extremely misguided.
A must watch...documentary video, "The Quants: Alchemists of Wall Street" where the quants talk and tell you about the fictional formulas they use and this is all about the mortgage scam so maybe more will be sued. The software designer who created the mod package is on there and he never dreamed banks would take it and do what they did with their business models they created, a real eye opening, about 60 minutes long. There's a lot of dirty math and code floating around out there when there's billions to be made. This is a big part of what is ruining science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/02/attack-of-killer-algorithmsdigest-links.html
Your crude language doesn't seem to be improving. I am not "out of my mind" as you claim. But you certainly have come up with strange interpretations of some of the facts that I have mentioned. Maybe I just don't express myself clearly enough. Anyway, I would appreciate if you would stop your emotional diatribes and name-calling and THINK through some of what you read before you respond.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are irrational. I will ignore you from now on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMedicalQuack,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou hit the nail on the head referring to "fictional formulas" and the "mortgage scam."
However, the documentary "The Quants: Alchemists of Wall Street" unfortunately does not mention anything about fraud. Yes, the entire documentary is about the shortcomings of mathematical models. However, the greatest threat from these models is that they enable fraud by misrepresenting the bank's risk. Capital requirements are determined by the estimated risk of the bank's holdings. Underestimating this risk allowed the banks to leverage up to levels as high as 35-to-1. Believe me, they knew the risks, they just covered them up (moral hazard of employees benefiting from gains, but not at risk of loses).
Because they don't want to lose moderates to right-wing rhetoric.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know. I didn't say that politics made sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVulvox, are you watching too much Fox News?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPresident Obama has been very clear about his position on global warming. Here is what he said today (10/26/12 MTV special): "I believe scientists, who say we're putting too much carbon emissions into the atmosphere and it's heating the planet and it’s going to have a severe effect."
You can't be more precise than that:
1) Climate is warming.
2) It's anthropogenic.
3) It will have a "severe effect."
As opposed to Romney's view, which is whatever the Koch brothers want.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisvulvox said, "[President Obama] finally came out and said [anthropogenic global warming is real]."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe has continuely communicated this position. Here's what he said at the DNC in September:
"Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it."
Here's what Romney said at the RNC:
"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. And to heal the planet, my promise is to help you and your family."
Romney was mocking what Obama said at the 2008 DNC.
Well, that just goes to show you. Smart people can certainly say some stupid things. Have a nice day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's sad that politics is having such divisive effects on America. Could there be a hidden agenda involved?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne maxim I learned many years ago has explained to me the persistence of conflicts. Like inertia, when there is a conflict which persists, there is a hidden third party actively keeping the flames of that conflict alive. Only by an awakening -- awareness of that third party and their lies -- is it possible for the conflict to dissolve. This is similar to the external force in the case of inertia. It's not a perfect analogy, granted, but it helped me visualize the effect of the third party.
I had not been too fond of politics for most of my life. Now semi-retired, I have more time for such things. I have time to dig deep and to research the issues and the candidates. What I found made me sick.
First of all, I found that the Constitution of the United States has been slowly and progressively eroded. The ultimate effect is that the once-precious document will soon be gone -- overwritten by unconstitutional laws that eliminate all of this nation's foundation.
Here's an example. The most recent presidential race included a fraudulent GOP primary season, fraught with ballot stuffing, physical abuse, ignored votes, changed votes and many more injustices, many of them documented on video (available on YouTube) -- people caught in the act. One GOP chairperson in St. Charles, MO, was arrested while addressing the caucus body. The police would not tell him the charges until he had been removed to the police station. The charge? Trespassing! And why, you may ask, didn't they arrest all of the caucus body members? Could it have been for disruption so that the favored candidate could win? Most of those in attendance were Ron Paul supporters.
But perhaps far more troubling is the fact that both parties' presidential conventions have effectively eliminated voting and Roberts Rules of Order. They go through the motions, but ignore the votes. Here's the proof:
RNC Scripted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKaXqoC4DjE
DNC Scripted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmaE2Aez_XY
Who could be doing this? To what purpose? One might start to think that someone wants America out of the way and they have the clout to make it happen.
I saw a video earlier today that showed that America's standing in the academic world has plummeted over the last several decades. Bureaucratic bungling or planned effect?
The Corporate Party media has done a great job of demonizing those who question. What better environment for tyranny to thrive.
AAAAAHHHH!!!! Conspiracy! Both parties are secretly mind-controlled by evil aliens! ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can one expect a bunch of politician, largely lawyers versed in obfuscation, and who reflect that masses addiction to fairy stories about gods and paradises and other paranormal BS, to have an inkling about how science works? Those in power (politicians, fat cats, huge corporations...) additionally work to keep these masses ignorant of science and reproducible truths to keep them in their place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBird, I believe Rod Martin is saying it's corporations that are "conspiring." It might be better to call it group-think around an Ayn Randian ideology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe mass addiction is most evident on TV "educational" networks such as the History Channel and the Discovery Channel that seem to mostly have shows about ghosts and ancient aliens. The Science Channel is not much better. I guess this is what America wants. I am happy that SciAm has not sold itself out (contrary to what many conservatives post on this site who are the primary audience to shows about ancient aliens).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, we already knew that Romney does whatever the Koch brothers say. Is he trying to say that the dems are the same way?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNat geo has dumbed down their programming, too. One of their newer shows is "Billy the exterminator", featuring a small, scrawny, odious little man who reminds me of a Norway rat, and who makes ludicrous and scientifically incorrect claims about snakes while killing colubrids inhumanely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, I have seen some of the History Channel aliens episodes, and I am starting to get the sneaking paranoid suspicion that Miles Standish was actually an alien from the Pilgrim Planet of Plymouth. ;)
Nat geo has dumbed down their programming, too. One of their newer shows is "Billy the exterminator", featuring a small, scrawny, odious little man who reminds me of a Norway rat, and who makes ludicrous and scientifically incorrect claims about snakes while killing colubrids inhumanely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, I have seen some of the History Channel aliens episodes, and I am starting to get the sneaking paranoid suspicion that Miles Standish was actually an alien from the Pilgrim Planet of Plymouth. ;)
I wouldn't call it equal, but both parties are bought by corporate interests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFacts are not democratic. You cannot claim to be fluent in a foreign language (see the Onion article "I bet I can speak Spanish") unless other speakers agree you are fluent. Saying that they're biased or they laugh at your accent proves only how far from fluency you are. Likewise you're not qualified to comment on science unless other qualified people accept you as an equal, and you prove you're qualified by actually making contributions to science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis stuff doesn't even rise to the level of being wrong - it's merely babbling. Ice - indeed any fluid, can flow uphill if something provides force. Water in any fast moving stream surges over rocks because of its momentum. In the case of ice, the greater thickness in the middle of the ice dome creates pressure that can push ice over obstacles. And why are you concerned about the Arctic Ocean? Maximum ice thickness was in Canada. As for your second issue, there's a journal called the Journal of Molecular Evolution. I suggest you find a library with it and start with Vol. 1 No. 1 and commence reading. Come back when you're up to the most recent issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This abandonment of any social perspective or role by scientists is the larger problem." On the contrary. It's the endorsement of social and philosophical agendas by scientists that is largely responsible for the perception on the Right that science is hostile to them. Gay marriage and abortion are not scientific questions, certainly not questions that a chemist or physicist has any business taking a position on and mentioning his scientific credentials.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, wait. Do you mean that scientists should not have social opinions, or that they should not closely associate those opinions with their work? Be careful with your wording.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjulianpenrod
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this04:11 PM 10/16/12
'But just try to talk to a "scientist" about UFO's withouit getting laughed at!'
Judging by your comment, you probably believe in fairies too!
Well, he/she does believe that electricity is tiny aliens. It's both funny and scary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this8. HowardB
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this06:27 PM 10/16/12
'Lumping in opposition to AGW as “antiscience” is deeply arrogant, mistaken, misguided and self destructive.'
Why? Denial of the scientific evidence is ideological and not scientific.
'Tens of thousands of Scientists oppose the claims of AGW, including me, and there is no body of evidence proving it, unlike all of the other bodies of Science.'
A flawed pseudo petition that IIRC, was organised by the Marshall Institute and funded by Exxon. Most of the signatories had no professional qualification in anny form of atmospheric physics. How much does an Electrical Engineer, a Veterinarian or a Dentist know about climate?
¡ɥɔnɯ ʇou sı ɹǝʍsuɐ ǝɥʇ
Excellent points. These people are irrational.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeveral independent surveys find 97% of climate scientists who are actively publishing peer-reviewed climate research agree that humans are causing
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisglobal warming. But some groups publish propaganda to try to fool the public. The Oregon Institute petition which deniers often refer to when they say "tens of thousands of scientists oppose the claims of AGW" is a propaganda effort designed to fool people. It was produced to make it look exactly like a National Academies document. But in fact the petition is open to anyone with a bachelor of science degree. These are their "scientists". 99.9% of the "scientists" listed in the Petition Project are not climate scientists, but mechanics, medical doctors, computer scientists, architects, and others with an undergraduate BS degree.
This article is an advertisement for the Obama campaign. It was written by Shawn Otto who works for the liberal Huffington Post. Most of the article is Romney and conservative bashing. It is mostly opinion justified by the careful and biased selection of only three references one of which is written by Otto himself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is the systematic study of some subject and the systematic organization of the study results that may lead to opinions, theorems, basic principles, laws until debunked by superseding studies.
Otto would have us believe that if we eliminated all of the conservative and religious population we would have a science utopia.
I can’t believe that Scientific America would allow such diatribe within its covers.
Why do scientists bash the MittBot so much? Because he's such an easy, anti-science target.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps it is because the general public has lost confidence in science as a reputable, reliable, responsible discipline. These day it seems science spits out findings so fast and then these are actioned upon, only to find that the "discovery" is incorrect, harmful (as in pharmaceutical) political (as in genetically modified foods tied to the biotech industry who funds them); or scientific papers being published then revoked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the scientific world has to look within to revisit their values and purpose and avoid becoming a toy and shill for the corporate world that is encroaching rapidly into the academic world with large grants that seem to sway the supposed scientific research.
Trust is a huge issue and the scientific world must once again come together as one unit and reclaim its credibility and dependability.
Unscrupulous people have taken money to alter their findings and/or beliefs since long before modern humans were even a distinct species. Please do not take this to mean anything about science in general.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for your fears of GM foods; the biggest drawback is that many such foods require more fertilizer (although the energy efficiency issue is currently the center of much work). Furthermore, many "ordinary" food plants, such as tangerines, grapefruits, and common wheat, count as GM because they contain DNA from more than one parent species (three, in the place of wheat).
Wow, Boehner got incredibly stupid on climate change after what appeared to be a fairly rational starting point. Can I use that reasoning on my dissertation? "I exhale carbon dioxide--it can't be bad for the atmosphere!" Who needs research methodology? Causality? Who cares? All this high falutin' languages is for the elites who insist on "understanding" things. You don't need understanding--all you need to do is breathe! This brings to mind that excellent Glenn Beck critique of evolution in which he cited the fact that his grandmother wasn't a cat as clear contrary evidence. I think I also raised that notion once, in third grade on the playground.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't wait to tell China they've been wasting their time trying to go green.
"""This brings to mind that excellent Glenn Beck critique of evolution in which he cited the fact that his grandmother wasn't a cat as clear contrary evidence. """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow. Just...wow.
In fact, every claim and statement in the article is supportable by citations, but Scientific America does not publish articles with end notes. And I do not work for the Huffington Post, nor have I ever. You should do a little "systematic study" of your own before you voice your opinion. Then it might actually carry some weight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou raise some good points. Trust is definitely an issue, as is the growing complexity of science itself. But in defense of scientists and science, it's more often journalists who write sensational stories and draw incorrect, overgeneralized or sweeping conclusions based on the papers but not actually supported by the science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is historically incoherent: America has never been more secular than it is right now. How on Earth did the Scopes generation defeat the Nazis and put a man on the moon?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRIGHT ON, wnelson! I too, am aware that our country is more secular than ever today. AND, the belief in creation clearly has had NO detrimental effect on the scientific discovery of the many facts that have improved the lot of mankind. This whole nonsensical argument about evolution/creation has, in my opinion, only generated a whole lot of heat and absolutely NO light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""RIGHT ON, wnelson! I too, am aware that our country is more secular than ever today. """
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLie.
"""AND, the belief in creation clearly has had NO detrimental effect on the scientific discovery of the many facts that have improved the lot of mankind. """
Lie.
"""This whole nonsensical argument about evolution/creation has, in my opinion, only generated a whole lot of heat and absolutely NO light. """
Because creationism is inherently a load of hookum.
In the real world, do politicians get elected to public office by NOT reflecting, at least on their surface, the beliefs of a majority of their constituents? Have politicians ever been elected based on their “education, wisdom and courage” and scientific knowledge? Does anyone really think that they ever will be?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it true that there has been some time in history where science has been used and believed in by more people and their elected politicians than today?
If ignorance were a great destroyer of democracy, wouldn't the U. S. have been destroyed long ago?
First para: Maybe not here, but I think that it has happened in Europe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond: Probably, most likely in the mid-twentieth century.
Third: Actually, it almost was (many times, in fact, and mostly because of willful ignorance).
Science is great. On the other hand, forcing people to do things in the name of science should not exist in a democracy. I think forcing the world population to have "smart" meters and "smart" appliances serves no purpose except to put money in the hands of giant corporations. Reasons I don't want a "smart"meter: 1. I don't want my home regulated. 2. Smart meters are a security risk. 3. I choose to believe the World Health Organization and Environment Medical Association and thousands of studies that indicate "smart" meter non-ionizing radiation alters cell functions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother excellent article from Mr. Otto.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for speaking the truth.
I think many of us have been wringing our hands in frustration as we have seen this most recent anti-science political dynamic evolve over the past ten years or so.
If we, while making our public policy decisions, are unable to rely upon some basic empirical standards, then we are left adrift in a sea of opinion where he who shouts the loudest wins the arguement. Combine this with the Citizens United decision, where money equals speach -and more money equals more speach, and we end up with the socio-political climate that we now find ourselves in......Honest men and women of science facing a monolithic unholy alliance between powerfull big-money interests and an army of highly organised, highly dedicated fundamentalist christians devoted to forcing their primitive ideologies upon the children of this nation.
Same is true of atheists as well and psuedo-scientists like yourself! Your commentary does not help the cause of science but only makes it harder for scientists to reach the public. But of course you don't care until your own funding gets cut and your out of a job.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should have made this point: I am commenting on your comment about Evangelicals and people who believe in God. This is not the realm of science and for scientists to either argue for or against. It should be left alone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut neither does religion have a place in science. If science is to leave something as inherently irrational and unscientific as religion alone, then religion must stay away from science. That means no restrictions on stem cell research, no creationists, no other religious fringe groups, et cetera. Can you accept that, or are you just trolling for the fundies?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, I consider myself an agnostic. Since the existence of a deity or deities is untestable, I logically must accept the null hypothesis that such beings do not exist. If religion ever becomes testable, then I may go either way.
Please stop calling me a pseudo-scientist. You are not familiar with me or my work. Also, I resent being compared to people like Alan Feduccia.
Science education and science literacy, two different things but connected by one important goal--to make science into something most Americans don't feel threatened by. I advocate science education and would like nothing more than to see more people, especially young people embrace it and be enlightened by its methods. It is a difficult thing to teach with rigor. Many would be immensely helped if scientists taught its methods and the fruit of this research without threatening people of faith that they are wrong about their beliefs. This is my point. The Dawkins-types in the scientific community make the job of advocating scientific literacy difficult. I have to explain that science inherently does not go against their beliefs and convince them first before trying to encourage them to explore scientific theories such as Evolution and Global Warming on their own.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen people set aside their fears and explore by reading and understanding the methods that caused a majority of scientists to come to the conclusion that Global Warming is a real threat then that is a big step. But if this step can't be taken because of arguing over religion then science loses. As we have seen it is no longer a given that science education will advance automatically. It happens one person at a time.
Science and religion can coexist because there are more rational reasons to believe than not to believe in God. This is my opinion. But I am not going to mix the two methods of knowledge together except in my personal life,and I am not going to push my beliefs on anyone else.
Seriously? Your Republican bashing has nothing to do with science or you would bash Democrats as well. Both parties use science to their advantage and ignore it when it does not fit their ideology. Science is politicized and - until that can be removed, we will suffer as a nation. Whether it be anti-nuclear or anti-climate change, both extreme sides do those of us with rational minds a disservice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't forget Mother Jones and Think Progress. They only tout scientific evidence that fits their agenda every bit as much as Fox News(?) and right-wing morons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not going to comment on what Republicans want from public education. But I have voted nothing but Democrat when it come to education in Michigan and even with a Democratic majority on the state board of education, we are still on the same crap path we were 40 years ago, lumping all students together and falling further behind the rest of the world in math and science. It is a systemic problem, not a this party versus that party problem. Rise to the Top and No Child Left Behind both failed students.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere we go. The Blow-hards are at it again. There are BH's on the Left and Right, vying for your agreement. All science is <eventually> wrong! What? I'm chuckling,n now. Just think about it. As scientist discover new Truths, the old Truths die. New discoveries make past discoveries obsolete. And, while these cycles continue, you have the "owners" of the old discoveries "buying" the lawmakers so that their ownership is perpetuated. When inquiring minds think "outside the box," discoveries will move us along through history, despite the desires of a few Doctors that feel that leeching is the best medicine. Naturally, an article like this is a popular read, here. I have a malady. Will someone please pass the Hirudo medicinalis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell put!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi. I love your examples of "UFO to a scientist" because we should always look for what we expect to find as well as what we do not expect to find. Those who discover something new and better, do something new and better. Sadly only time, not science, shows proves what is better to stand the test of time. Drug safety being one example we both agree on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you do not listen to the "Jefferson Hour" you might like it.
Kindly,
Allen
Your comments might have been written by me. Certainly scientists weren't the only ones ceding responsibility, but as a group, their absence has been important.I think this is also relevant http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/liz_coleman_s_call_to_reinvent_liberal_arts_education.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery true. See also http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/liz_coleman_s_call_to_reinvent_liberal_arts_education.html
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomething else has happened that has been important in the rise of "antiscience" in the general population.
Over the past 35 years there has been a huge increase in concentration of wealth in this country.
This increased wealth among entrenched interests has translated into their increased influence over the media (and hence the people), and over politicians (and hence policy).
When science makes claims which threaten entrenched interests, they are now in a better position to fight back. And they have.
It is not entirely clear why they have allied themselves with the religion fundamentalists, or the vaccine haters, or with others in areas where their financial interests and power are not much threatened. However, they both share authoritarianism at their root, and science, by its nature, is anti-authoritarian and hence poses an ever present threat common to them.
There is another factor which was touched on in the article. There has been over the past decades increased specialization and compartmentalization in all fields of science and liberal arts. This is discussed by Liz Coleman http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/liz_coleman_s_call_to_reinvent_liberal_arts_education.html . It seems to me this tends to result in citizens with less integrated views of the world and perhaps less error checking/correcting that would put a damper on some of the widespread fatuous beliefs.
Problem is, I can understand this move to a certain extent...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy explanation is that we fail to differentiate between science and business. An example is the discussion on genetic manipulation. Regarding GM my stance is that I am fervently opposed to commercial applications, but definitely *not* to scientific research in the area. The reason is clear: there is absolutely insufficient knowledge about the effects of GM. More knowledge is needed, ergo: more scientific research. What is happening is that commercial firms are too eager to jump on the bandwagon with numerous "incidents" that reflect not on commercial exploitation, but (irrationally but possible orchestrated) on science. I think that if we communicate more on the differentiation between commerce and science, we might help a little in alleviating the negative buzz around science and help politicians as well.
The real tragedy here is how poorly scientific american actually researched this issue. There is clearly as much anti-science on the left as on the right, perhaps more. Genetically modified crops, immunizations, along with uncounted claims about the dangers of various foods, and the 'advantages' of local crops are among the many unsupported, unscientific claims on the left.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the right, you have evolution and climate change, and only on evolution is the science on the side of this editorial. On climate change, if they bothered to research the issue, they would discover that no scientist denies climate change. The scientific debate is over the magnitude and urgency of the situation. And as time goes on, it become more and more clear that there is no urgent danger from climate change.
So the question becomes, why is Scientific American, a supposed scientific publication, pushing the agenda of the left on this? And why didn't they do the research to get actual scientific data on their claims? Shame on you Scientific American for publishing such a partisan screed.
It is not the country that is becoming anti-science. It is professional science that is failing the country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a PhD physicist, and I am deeply disturbed and ashamed of the position that major scientific institution in this country have taken on so called anthropogenic global warming issue.
This issue is a case study of dangers that excessive and politically motivated government funding poses to the pursuit of science. When the fever breaks, we may all perhaps ask the question what are the effects of increasing a funding to an obscure field by tenfold for the sole purpose of proving a preconceived notion that is favored by politicians.
Shame on scientific institutions, including this journal, for going along with the charade. Consequences will be serious, as reasonable and decent people will begin to legitimately question whether science originating at institutions which are paid for by the taxpayer can be actually used to set public policy, given how easily can such science be corrupted.
As a physicist I will repeat again: shame on American Physical Society, which has failed all members by the one sided posture it adopted in a rush to join the bandwagon.
You say "Postmodernism adopted ideas from cultural anthropology and relativity theory to argue that truth is relative and subject to the assumptions and prejudices of the observer." One thing I like about classical texts is that those that survived are time-tested, and thus contain some wisdom about human nature. The example I am thinking about is the story of Pontius Pilate. He asked, "What is truth?" This is the sort of question you can expect from a person who was the greatest cop-out of all time, someone who washed his hands of his responsibility. That is the lesson to be learnt from it, if you look for it. He was not someone others should seek to emulate. Truth is truth, only devious people seek to equivocate it.
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