When Science Is Wrong: The Threat of ‘Truth’ by Consensus
Einstein may have been wrong. New evidence suggests that the speed of light, central to his special theory of relativity, may not be the ultimate speed limit. If the findings hold up, everything we think we know about the inner workings of our universe will need to be revised.
This potential discovery reminds us that science is a continual process which is rarely conclusive. That should inform our regard for politicized scientific claims.
A team of researchers at CERN pass the time by shooting muon neutrinos from Switzerland to Italy. While doing so, they noticed something they weren’t expecting.
… the particles showed up 60 billionths of a second earlier than they would have done if they had travelled at the speed of light.
This is a tiny fractional change — just 20 parts in a million — but one that occurs consistently.
The team measured the travel times of neutrino bunches some 16,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery.
But the group understands that what are known as “systematic errors” could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit.
That has motivated them to publish their measurements.
This is how real science works. Observations lead to hypotheses. Hypotheses are tested through experimentation. Results are scrutinized and duplicated to inform theories. Certainty is rare. Laws are few.
You wouldn’t know that as a causal observer of political discourse. Science is often evoked as an authority rather than an empirical yet uncertain process. Anthropogenic climate change is a “fact” established by “consensus,” its skeptics ranked alongside Holocaust deniers.
The potential derailment of Einstein reminds us of science’s limitations. They are the limitations of man, finite perception and finite knowledge. Our theories are all contingent upon the next unforeseen discovery.
If this finding holds up, it may not destroy they Special Theory of Relativity, just the standard interpretation of it. If these tests hold up, then Lorentzian interpretation is better than the alternatives.
“You see, a physical theory comprises a mathematical core and a physical interpretation of those core equations. The mathematical core of STR is the Lorentz transformation equations, which tell you how to calculate the spatio-temporal co-ordinates of an object relative to different frames of reference. But there are at least three different physical interpretations of those equations:
1. The original Einsteinian interpretation, which denied the existence of absolute space and time and envisioned physical deformations of 3-dimensional, physical objects enduring through time.
2. The Minkowskian interpretation, which denied the existence of 3-dimensional, physical objects enduring through time in favor of 4-dimensional objects existing tenselessly in spacetime. Once Minkowski proposed his spacetime interpretation in 1908, Einstein immediately abandoned his original interpretation for Minkowski’s, which has since become the standard textbook version of STR.
3. The Lorentzian interpretation, which like the original Einsteinian interpretation, affirmed the existence of 3-dimensional objects enduring through time but which, unlike the Einsteinian view, affirmed the existence of absolute space and absolute simultaneity, even if we cannot detect them empirically. Clocks and measuring rods in motion relative to the absolute reference frame (the “aether”) run slowly and shrink up as Einstein suggested.
These three interpretations have been until recently empirically equivalent, so that it has been impossible scientifically to choose between them. During the heyday of positivism, theories which were empirically equivalent tended to be regarded as just the same theory, despite the vastly different views of space and time they might involve, because there was no way to verify the differing interpretations. With the collapse of verificationism, philosophers of science are once more appreciative of the vast differences ontologically between the interpretations of Einstein, Minkowski, and Lorentz, differences that cannot be glossed over.”
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9089
It may be nothing as profound as the above. Special relativity admits the possibility of tachyons, however present views of causality do not. The CERN results are a problem however, because no tachyonic neutrino explanation makes sense. The numbers simply do not work. See
http://johncostella.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/do-operas-tachyonic-neutrinos-make-sense/
and see
http://johncostella.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/could-the-opera-tachyon-be-the-unbroken-higgs/
for a possible explanation that fits conventional theories.
I have also heard a more insidious cynical explanation that I do not believe. Europe is having huge financial problems, and this could be a ploy to keep the funding for particle physics alive.
Interesting indeed. So if the lorentzein model is correct, we could find the exact orientation of the universe if we can find a way to tell if our clocks are running faster or slower and moving away from the Earth at such speed relative to the Earth that our clocks run fastest? So if the speed of Light isn’t the absolute speed limit, what is? or is there one at all? Can we figure out a way to make our “speed” be relative to something far away to enable us to exceed the limit locally? Perhaps this is why the neutrinos are too fast. Then we just have to find out how they do it and we can go fast too. Great fun to think about anyway.
“One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.”
-Robert Heinlein in his short story ‘Life-Line’ (1939)
Poor old Pinero. It might just be hell knowing exactly when you are going to die and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it.
Hell no. Nothing would be more liberating than knowning for certen when you would pass.
Chris and Ruebacca provide us with a fine demonstration of Einstein’s “relativity”
“This is how real science works.”
Yup. Compare and contrast with non-scientific pursuits like astrology or climatology.
The problem with climatology is that we can’t do controlled, repeatable experiments like you can with physics.
Just so.
And that’s why climatology ain’t science and climatologists usually aren’t scientists.
That’s not true. Are you really trying to tell readers that science has nothing to say about the climate, or do you simply like to post comments? The argument is not that climatologists aren’t scientists, but that their modeling is incomplete.
As far as Einstein, his theory was incomplete so it is expected that new measurements will provide a more complete theory of everything, something Einstein would have praised.
What we see is MEDIA narratives at work, not science. The media loves to tear down authority.
NEUTRINO
KNOCK
KNOCK
M
Maxtrue..you wrote;
“That’s not true. Are you really trying to tell readers that science has nothing to say about the climate, or do you simply like to post comments? The argument is not that climatologists aren’t scientists, but that their modeling is incomplete.”
The compalint many of us have is not that their models are incomplete but they are skewed to represent a predetermined ideological result.
Rudolf Kalman, an engineer describes Prejudice in the creation of Mathematical model building as follows:
“Prejudice means assumptions unrelated to data, independent of data; assumptions which cannot be checked against the data.”
“Are you really trying to tell readers that science has nothing to say about the climate”
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m saying all right.
If you can’t test a proposition through experimentation…then what you’re doing ain’t really science.
Take a closed system of air. Pass infared laser through it. Up the CO2 content from 260ppm (0.026%) to 400ppm (0.040%). There is no way the heat capacity of the system will go up 3oC. Total BS.
You can modle this on bench top. Cloud chabers are 100 years old. Heat capcity mesurments were done 300 years ago.
It is truet that climatologists aren’t scientists.
A scientist is someone who follows the Scientific Method. That REQUIRES transparency of data and processes.
For climatologists, secret data and process are policy. As publicly admitted by Phil Jones. As documented for years at ClimateAudit by Steve McIntyre.
I suggest you educate yourself on the history and ethics of the “climatologists” behind the Hockey Stick, the IPCC, and the claims that there is “science” behind CAGW.
Its absolutely fallacious to say that “science” has to be restricted to the scientific method. Sure, the scientific method gives us the best way of viewing the world, but some pursuits that lie within science cannot be studied through experimentation. I mean, astronomy looks at how planets form, but we’ve never actually SEEN a planet form, instead we have modeled it on our super-computers. Geology looks at the earth and says, “We’ll, look how old it is” but we’ve never experimented with creating million year old layers of sand, have we?
So, climatology falls perfectly in the realm of science, and to say otherwise would radically reduce the scope of science to experimental biology, chemistry, and physics.
Right. Astronomers are not obligated to go into a lab a build a galaxy.
Experiments depend on observation. Astronomy is primarily an observational science, but it is observing experiments. It’s just that those experiments are not controlled. Fortunately, the scale of the experiments, in number and type, is so vast the lack of controls is irrelevant.
In fact the standard model for controlled scientific experiments is often better replaced with a statistical approach.
Climate Science is science, but climate science that claims more than what the data and our current understanding can justify is not science. It is fraud serving tyranny.
But in either climatology or Astronomy you have so many variables that can’t be known or modeled that there is no way to prove without a doubt that “this is the way it is”. You have to realize your models are limited, which many on the global warming issue refuse to do. The results of inadequate models are on display on every news program that has a weather section. They can sometimes make good guesses as to what is going to happen the next day but the next week is problematical. There are to many variables to keep track of.
Climatology, possibly. Environmentalism, no. Unless they can tell us the exact date when everything in the environment was perfect. Then environmentalists would know why they are trying to correct the environment and could sort of measure how successful they have been with their corrections. But since a basis for environmentalism has not been found, the are no axioms to work with. That is not to say that axioms will not ever be found. But environmentalists need to go to work finding a basis for their ideas before they start pontificating about scientific consensus. Scientists are entitled to their opinions, just like everyone else.
And that’s exactly the point! I don’t hear anyone saying the science of cosmotology is “settled”. The scientists at CERN aren’t being called “deniers” and ridiculed for questioning the “orthodoxy”. Therein lies the difference between cosmotology and climatetology.
Tom T., a nit, but I’m sure you meant to write Cosmology, not Cosmotology, no?
Fred,
Well…I was thinking about getting my hair cut. @_@
Actually, this is not correct. Climatology, like psychology, archeology, and the other “soft” sciences, is a science and can be tested. Remember, a “theory” is a model – almost always mathematical, based on observation, and tested by data not included in the model.
To verify a climatological model, you test it in the same way that a historian tests a theory about an ancient civilization – by using data that was not in the original set. An archeologist will use a theory to tell him where to dig next, and what should be found there. If he finds things that correspond to the theory, than it is upheld. If not, it is revised. Likewise, a climatologist would test a theory by first ensuring that it “predicts” all known past climactic conditions (using, of course, only data dating to prior to the “predicted” date). for instance, a good model should be able to reasonably predict the glaciation cycle and inter-glacial periods, phenomena like the Maunder Minimum and the desertification of the Sahara, and the current climate. Then, he would test it by seeing if it accurately predicts short periods into the future. Does it accurately predict El Nino and El Nina events, the severity of the U.S. East Coast hurricane season, and the rains of Africa? If so, than it should be a reliable model. Of course, this is only true so long as it continues to do so!
… and religion.
Uhhh … Andrew/Dave/Richard, you guys *do* know your “no experiment” claims are pure baloney, right?
And that you’re echoing word-for-word the tobacco industry denialism of the 50s?
Think it over, eh? And sheesh, if yah smoke, it sure would be healthy to stop, eh?
—————————–
Mythbusters tests global warming theory – does CO2 warm air?
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRd5GT0v0I
Uhhh… Johnny. You do know that the Tyndall effect is not the greenhouse effect, and the greenhouse effect is not AGW, and all the mythbusters apparatus was testing was the Tyndall effect…right?
I also find it interesting that a physicist would comment on AGW, and ignore the much more profound point about relativity.
So, Johnny? Hello? Anybody home? Do you know the difference between Tyndall, greenhouse, and AGW? Huh?
Nothing surprising here, snork.
Like all the rest of the AGW crowd, he’s not interested in science. He’s only interested in his political agenda.
I think the distinction between the academic mind and the scientific mind (mentioned above) applies here, if he can even be said to have an academic mind.
Read every post of his, and all you will ever find is argument from authority.
Set aside experiments: what about predictions? AGW cult is 0 for what now?
Think it over, eh? And sheesh, if yah smoke, it sure would be healthy to stop, eh?
Sheesh! Once again you fall back into your bad habit of changing the subject. Go ahead and make another relevant claim such as: If yah play Russian roulette, it sure would be healthy to stop, eh? It doesn’t exactly enhance your hopeless defense of the global warming scam but at least it gives you an opportunity to get folksy, right?
“Uhhh … Andrew/Dave/Richard, you guys *do* know your “no experiment” claims are pure baloney, right?”
Is that a fact?
If it is then, why don’t you build a climate in a lab, introduce X amount of co2 into it, control for all other variables, and let us know how it all turns out?
Good luck, and I’m sure real scientists will await the results with bated breath, and will be anxious to repeat your experiment.
Do you guys even know how the “greenhouse effect” works? (Hint, it is only distantly related to how a greenhouse works).
Creationism in it’s many hideous forms comes to mind.
Hey look, an atheist troll who can’t spell its… SHOCKING!
Atheists are everywhere.
Boo!
Sheesh. We Deists are so underrepresented…
This is the continuing problem with the so-called “scientific community.” Well established theories are treated as facts until the observable data is so overwhelming they are forced to abandon it.
Fact: until about 300 years ago everyone knew you couldn’t go faster than 35 miles an hour, becasue you couldn’t breathe.
Fact: until about 200 years ago everyone knew you couldn’ go faster than the speed of sound.
Fact: Scientific theories will continue to be invalidated and changed as new data emerges, but only after that data becomes so prevalent that the religious views of the current set of theory holders are demolished.
I think you miss the overall point, as does the article. Of course as you say:
“Scientific theories will continue to be invalidated and changed as new data emerges, but only after that data becomes so prevalent that the religious views of the current set of theory holders are demolished.”
But the point about AGW is that it is a political conspiracy to turn a scientific theory into a campaign of fear to be used to achieve a political end – specifically the economic and political weakening of the developed world through de-industrialization as a means of massive wealth transference, ostensibly to poor nations.
While I agree with the essay, it really misses the point of what has been going on and what almost ruined our nation. Considering this regime’s predilection for circumventing Congress and ruling by fiat, the EPA may yet have its way.
I think you are right, but I think the reason is simpler and that would be the political pursuit of easy money.
I agree with you and JJ, Jim.
“easy money” = let’s get new revenue first, and worry about how we distribute it (to our supporters) later. That’s why such vehement demonization of deniers and skeptics that thwarted their dreams of power and unlimited money for the far future. And they are still at it.
Either keeping the money for themselves or disbursing it to other people is only an excuse for taking it away from the guys who earned it. The fact that communal farms didn’t produce as much food as private farms, and didn’t produce enough to feed everyone (hence famines where millions died) meant nothing to the commissars. The point was to take land away from the rightful owners. What happened later didn’t matter. The ultimate goal of all Leftists is to destroy existing societies. Utopian plans, by now known to be unworkable, are simply excuses for the destruction. Because they can’t destroy everything at once, they must keep survivors off-balance until their turn comes.
Special relativity has always seemed a bizarre but necessarily true feature of the universe. Necessarily true because of the clarifying arguments made in 1905 by Albert Einstein.
Einstein assumed that nothing travels faster than light in an inertial frame. For the sake of the argument let us accept as fact the CERN findings. One of the puzzling things that dogged Pysics for decades was the “missing” solar neutrinos. Within the last decade convincing evidence was found of “oscillation” among the three known neutrino “flavors” which accounted for the discrepancy. But prevailing theory required that the neutrinos have mass as well so now they cannot travel at the speed of light! What is more they must have a rest mass! But all observations heretofore had indicated a habitual velocity of c (the speed of light). So now we have evidence that muon neutrinos are slightly faster than c. A simple way out may be to assume that photons have a small mass as well! Which leaves us with an even bigger mystery: why aren’t photons/neutrinos ever at rest?
There’s a problem with that- if photons have mass, then they would propagate at different speeds depending on their energy. However, the Maxwellian Equations break down if that happens, and there is a great deal of experimental evidence verifying that photons always travel at the same speed, regardless of energy.
A more plausible solution would be to assume that instead of a zero or very small real rest mass, neutrinos (or at least muon neutrinos) have a small IMAGINARY rest mass, making them tachyons. Tachyons, according to special relativity, cannot travel at or slower than the speed of light in any reference frame (though some reference frames will measure them traveling backwards in time). They cannot carry electric charge because they’d lose all of their energy to Cherenkov radiation, and they cannot interact with ordinary matter (special relativity doesn’t account for quantum effects, which could explain how neutrinos have a small cross section for weak force interaction, but do not otherwise interact with ordinary matter).
As a “Layman”, I’ve always been confused by Einstein’s primacy of absolute light speed.
Speed is speed, and why the speed of one thing is more “special” than another escapes me.
Its been explained in several science classes throughout my life that the speed of light is “absolute and unchanging”….even when objects are moving toward or away from each other, the speed of light moving BETWEEN them , if I understood the theory, remains the same….a logical and intuitive impossibility for the “average” mind to accept, especially when considering other space-distance-time-movement relationships we are familiar with…from sound, to cars moving on the highway.
It just never made “sense” to us average people that because it was “light” and not, say, bullets, that such “physical impossibilities” in the speed between comparative moving objects should “have to” occur.
Same for the strangeness of shrinking rulers and slower clocks. Speed effects the ink of the stadia lines on my steel ruler, or the temper of my watch-springs? I could believe I would be made “thinner” at light speed (and thus injured in the process) by mere Newtonian physics due to “movement and G-forces” much more so than some esoteric “principal” that says I “had to”.
Whatever this recent discovery is, bad calibration data or real, the fact that we are shocked that something (might) travel “faster” than light, makes as much sense to me as being surprised things travel slower as well.
The speed of light is the only speed at which Maxwell’s equations are stable: electromagnetic waves neither blow up nor decay, and magnetic field lines have no ends. If light propagated at any other speed, in any reference frame, conservation of energy would not be obeyed, or else electromagnetism would behave differently depending on your inertial reference frame, when we know that all inertial reference frames must be equally valid.
Sir,
Once many many years ago, I tried to explain the basic principals of bullet trajectory, and therefore the need for rifle sight adjustments dependent upon range to target, to a group of native militia men who’s grasp of “science” knew not of TIME measured in anything less than HALF-DAYS.
Consider yourself to be in those same shoes, with regard to me comprehending the implications of your thoughtful reply to my post.
It is sometimes said that “Marine” stand for:
Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential
I, with regard to Quantum Physics, was a damn fine Marine!
Somewhere around the turn of the century from the 1800.s to the 1900′s there was a movement to replace religion with science. Science was held up to be the new religion of the rational mind. From that philisophical change was wrought Marixism as the Scientific form of government.
This philisophical change also distorted the definitions of Science from a search for the Truth to a bringer of the Truth. The very definition of Truth was under assault with relatavism, which has nothing to do with Einstiens Theories of Special and General Relativity. Truth under relativism became dependendent on the person reporting it.
A basic misunderstanding of the purpose of religion and science by the population at large let this happen. Religion delivers truth about the spiritual nature of man. Each religion believes they are the sole keepers of the truth. Science is the search for the truth using a method that trys to remove human bias in the search, the Scientific Method. A scientist understands that the search may not be able to deliver the final truth but with each new understanding and discovery we are moving closer.
There also seems to be a misunderstanding of the terms Hypothesis and Theory. A hypothesis is a speculation that appears true but has not been validated by direct observations and experimental confirmation. A theory has passed the first hurdle but cannot yet be proven to have no exceptions. AGW therefore is still a Hypothesis and has never risen through validation to a Theory. Scientists themselves should know better.
Actually, it was in the 1700, around 1781 or so, during the French revolution. The mob at that time even went as far as changing the calendar, down to re-defining the length seconds, minutes, weeks, months, which may explain why some folks still don’t like the metric system even though it is so much easier to calculate with than inches and feet, but I digress. Religion was outlawed, priests were directed / forced to swear allegiance to the state, nuns were raped and there was so much killing that even the so called leaders ended up with their heads in buckets. It took Napoleon to put a stop to it, showing once again, that when liberals get to their ultimate goal and everything falls apart, dictatorship is the only thing left to restore ‘sanity’. I sincerely hope that we, the US, will not allow that to happen to us but as I have been saying for a long time now, ‘Hope in one hand, defecate in the other, see which one fills up first’.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms, CA
I’ll go you one better. The culprit here is romanticism, which really got going in around the 1050s or so. Hard to say whether it was an outgrowth of Catharism or not, but it was a rejection of the Catholic World in favor of the Hellenistic. Romantic really should be Hellenistic, but it all got too mixed together to separate them. You’ve got everything from Popes swearing by Jupiter and Venus to the Courts of Love with Eleanor of Aquitaine in the early Middle Ages and then the slow influence of lay and sirvente over centuries, until in the Renaissance there are out-and-out rebels against the Christian worldview of the time. Two main tracks came out of the Renaissance among many smaller ideals: what we now call the Judeo-Christian worldview, and the Romantic worldview. While the Judeo-Christian worldview may not be perfect in every way, it’s infinitely superior to the Romantic, which gave us the Jacobins, the Communists, the Nazis, etc. It also is behind Darwinism, which despite scientific pretensions, is really just Victorian sentimentalism run to its logical conclusion. The supposed antagonism between science and religion is a red herring; there’s no such thing as science and there’s no such thing as religion. Both are continua, and overlap in many areas. The real problem is closed-mindedness, which is rife everywhere. I don’t really care if someone claims to be scientific or religious, if he also is a bigot. Bigotry trumps everything else, and is so commonplace as to be practically universal. Any student of any belief system should retain a healthy skepticism regarding all claims to superiority; I disbelieve Darwinism as much because quasi-scientists are telling me I must believe or else be regarded as an idiot. Fine, regard me how you will, it won’t change what I think, and if that’s your whole argument I’ll be against you always.
Since the sum of human knowledge is so far from being able to explain almost anything in our universe, I reckon it’s WAY too early to be declaring discussions closed. The scientific method is great at explaining what, mediocre at explaining how, and very poor at explaining why–except the accumulation of knowledge, which gives it another bite at the apple every so often. What we all ought to be working at is keeping the accumulation of knowledge going and improving, so that something we don’t understand today might provide a breakthrough in the future. Instead we get rent-seeking and fear-mongering. Where exactly do those fit in the scientific method?
People dont like the Metric system becasue we didnt grow up with it, and have no intuitive feeling for what “kilometers” and “liters” are.
20 years in The Corps, whenever a Order want out that said:
“move 9 klicks to Checkpoint Alpfa, and dig in”
The very NEXT question was inevetably “how fars that Gunney?”
“We roll our eyes at the ignorance of “flat earthers,” while forgetting that finite perception and finite knowledge once deemed their belief sensible. That was the “scientific consensus” of its time.”
No, a flat Earth was never deemed sensible. Any sailor could tell you it was nonsense. Archimedes accurately determined the the circumference of the Earth and the distance to the Sun in umpteen BC. He also knew we revolved around the Sun.
The problem is, many folks seek power, and they will suppress information and dissent. They will try to establish an “orthodoxy”, and you damned well better get on board. Most people cave to bullies, but there are always a few brave souls. However, it can take an awful long time to get past such orthodoxy tyrants and get to the truth. They do an awful lot of harm in the meantime.
We really came close with this AGW nonsense. Even the Right was buying into it. Fortunately, the jig is up. Al Gore’s lunatic raving got him divorced, finally, it seems. Zealots are unbearable.
Ooops. I said (___). Sidles will be showing up soon. Guess he would have, anyway, though.
Galileo had the same problem with the establishment that we have with ours today.
Not true. You need to read up on that.
Roughly 3000 years ago the Bible said the earth is round and is suspended in space:
“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth…” (Isaiah 40:22,NIV). (By the way, the Hebrew language at that time did not have a word for “sphere,” only for “circle.”)
“He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7, NIV).
I wonder how they knew?
I’m almost certain that the speed of light should be re-checked and confirmed
before we leap to believing that a “Neutrino” is propelled ever so slightly
faster than light; recalibration of test instruments is in order. Also, the award of the prize for the claimed proof that the universe is expanding should be retracted; at least until these geniuses demonstrate the reason that Andromeda is not speeding away from the Milky Way Galaxy as
their theory would require be extrapolated.
The fact that the Andromeda galaxy is moving toward our galaxy does not contradict the expansion of the Universe.
Local movement within the Universe can overcome the general expansion of the Universe. This is especially easy when the local objects are very close to each other compared to the scale of the Universe.
Isnt it also simply true, that some particles/debris in any explosion can travel towards echother (relatively speaking), and even collide while still moving “away” from the source of the explosion?
There is a minority view that C has been declining over time. No, it’s not just creationists, either.
They seem to have some good evidence to back it up.
There was a young woman from Kite/Who thought she’d fly faster than light She took off one day (in a relative way) AND RETURNED THE PREVIOUS Night!/
Students of science and the history-of-science have seen similar rhetoric before.
Back in the 1930s, the ideology-first media (IFM) of Germany’s National Socialist Party published a book titled One Hundred Authors Against Einstein (1931, link below).
The ideology-first skepticism and disinformation of the National Socialist IFM disguised itself as a scientific search for truth, but the real motivation was (of course) the fear and animus of Germany’s political far-right for the freethinking cultural tradition that Einstein represented, as exemplified in both Einstein’s science and his essays on scientific responsibility.
This was the “Threat of Truth” that motivated Germany’s far-right ideology-first media (IFM) to launch a disinformation campaign against Einstein.
For a period of about 14 years, the fear-driven, willfully ignorant, politics-first skepticism of Germany’s National Socialist IFM … well … and their associated practice of spreading politics-first anti-science disinformation … well, these politics-first anti-science practices *did* work for awhile, didn’t they?
A great portion (but not all) of today’s AGW skepticism similarly represents a blend of fear-driven willful ignorance and politics-first disinformation that is spread by ideology-first media outlets (IFM).
———————————————————–
Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein
Mit Neiträgen von Del-Negro
URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=kmi4AAAAIAAJ
This was the “Threat of Truth” that motivated Germany’s far-right ideology-first media (IFM) to launch a disinformation campaign against Einstein.
The Nazis did not originate nor did they represent the “far right” in Germany.
A great portion (but not all) of today’s AGW skepticism similarly represents a blend of fear-driven willful ignorance and politics-first disinformation that is spread by ideology-first media outlets (IFM).
It’s not the skeptics who are demonstrating “fear-driven” tactics or displaying “willful ignorance” on this subject. That would be Al Gore, his cronies and their syncophants. Claiming that “the science is settled” IS, in fact, promoting ignorance and is anti-scientific.
Sorry Moira. In a hard-hitting essay in Business Week, prominent Republican Bob Inglis now asserts:
(1) Al Gore was 100% right and Rush Limbaugh was dead-wrong about AGW.
(2) It’s time for American conservatism to accept this reality.
(3) Understood properly, climate change is a golden opportunity for American conservatism.
That’s good to know, eh?
————————————————
Conservative Means Standing With Science on Climate
by Bob Inglis (former Republican Representative)
URL: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-02/conservative-means-standing-with-science-on-climate-bob-inglis.html
And this replies to Moira’s point…how, exactly? her point is correct:
“It’s not the skeptics who are demonstrating “fear-driven” tactics or displaying “willful ignorance” on this subject. That would be Al Gore, his cronies and their syncophants. Claiming that “the science is settled” IS, in fact, promoting ignorance and is anti-scientific.”
It’s not the skeptics who have been screaming “We’re all gonna DIE!” over the AGW myth.
Why do you refer to yourself as ‘A physicist’, when all your arguments are politically-driven appeals to authority?
I’ll trump your “prominent Republican” with………The British Royal Society. What are your Republican’s scientific qualifications? I’m sure you, as a “physicist”(?), have heard of the Royal Society. This house full of real scientists also trumps Al Gore, Jim Hansen, etc.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html
Want less stressful reading? How about Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Always with the argument from authority.
Only your “authorities” keep getting more ridiculous.
Moira my dear uneducated girl the NAZI’s were the “National SOCIALIST German WORKERS Party”nothing whatsoever to do with the “right wing’ at all. In fact they had much more in common with their hated ‘RIVALS” the COMMUNISTS with whom they competed bitterly to get the German WORKERS as supporters.
My sincere apology’s Moira I did not read your post correctly. You do indeed know that the NAZIs are LEFT WINGERS not RIGHT WINGERS and you correctly stated they resemble the Green NAZI’s with their AGW SCAM.
Godwin violation. Over in the corner. Now.
I got it! I got it!
Parsons “…an ideal member of the Outer Party: an uneducated, suggestible man who is utterly loyal to the Party, and fully believes in its perfect image.”
2+2=5. The Self parody of A parsons is a feature –
A parsons nice to see that you have kept up your membership in your National Socialist IFM party. Do you bring your banners to Antiques Road shows?
“…the ideology-first media (IFM) of Germany’s National Socialist Party” If the Party fits, your it.
A good description of the A Parsons allowed world view –
“The ideology-first skepticism and disinformation of the National Socialist IFM disguised itself as a scientific search for truth, but the real motivation was (of course) the fear and animus of Germany’s political far-right.
2+2=5 therefore “Socialism” = the real “political far-right”
“This was the “Threat of Truth” that motivated Germany’s far-right ideology-first media (IFM)”.
As if A parsons is a clean as Mr. Clean. Why? Because he says so. Why are socialists “political far-right”? Because he says so. Not really, the links tell him how to think.
Quite sad that our educational system has turned out such a fake, allegedly waving a piece of paper, while mouthing “disinformation” in a manner much like the fairy tale socialist “political far-right” that he emulates.
This is the A parsons Uncertainty Principle exhibited on the marco level. The more closely A parsons looks at some thing, the less knowledge he possesses. A parsons, not knowing that this applies only locally, feels that everyone dumbs down to his method of “logic”. Therefore the absurd public spectacle of A parsons self mutilating in its own mirror lined echo chamber, and then calling it whatever his masters decide.
Got a link? Fry it for breakfast. Real warming you can use.
Einstein also represented what the Nazis called “Judenphysik”, as many of Germany’s leading physicists were Jews. Hundreds of “Juden” scientists escaped to the UK and US, aiding the war effort that finally defeated the Nazis. When I briefly studied engineering at Rensellaer some 40-odd years ago, some of those Jewish exiles were found among the professoriate.
Follow where the money goes, Bozo, and you will get closer to the truth about what is going on with AGW.
Dude:
“National Socialist Workers Party” (Nazis), doesn’t sound terribly “right wing” to me. It’s one of those false narratives by the Left to say that the Nazis were “right wing.” Even Mussolini the Fascist called himself a “man of the left (Sono della Sinistra!).”
Even now there is a “National Bolshevik Workers Party” in Russia, who’ve borrowed all the Nazi paraphernalia, and simply replaced the swastika with the hammer & sickle. Hitler modeled his concentration camps after the Gulag.
Actually, Einstein never said that it was impossible for anything to have a velocity greater than c (the accepted notation for the speed of light, 186,262 miles per second or 300,000 km/sec.)
Rather, he stated that as material objects approach c, time (relative to the “static” universe) slows proportionately, and effective mass increases. Exactly at c, time (theoretically) stops entirely, and mass (theoretically) becomes infinite.
Einstein then postulated (that’s science speak for “made an informed guess”) that if the above were true, anything in the regime’ below c should never be able to attain c. And that anything in the regime’ above c should never be able to slow to a velocity less than c. Based on the time and mass constraints.
However (and this is the bit everybody misses- yes, even Carl Sagan), Einstein pointed out three caveats;
1. Observational technology was insufficient to confirm the hypothesis. Because we had exactly no systems capable of detecting an object (including single particles) moving at superluminal (plus c) velocities.
2. The hypothesis assumed masses consistent with the known qualities of normal matter. It did not take into account the characteristics of types of matter whose masses are defined by imaginary numbers. That means, among other things, antimatter. (NB: “imaginary numbers” do exist in mathematics. And since Einstein’s time, actual particles of antimatter have been created in high-energy physics labs- one such being CERN.)
3. Einstein’s work on the subject was unfinished. He had already noted what we today call “quantum pairing” which seemed to contradict the mass/time c limitation; he referred to it as “spooky action at a distance”. He was still working on the equations covering these areas, in the Unified Field Theory (sequel to the General and Special Relativity Theories) at the time of his death in 1955. Leaving the UFT as a whole unfinished.
Far from “refuting” Einstein, the CERN work would seem to be confirming that his work was correct, as far as it went. CERN is now going into the areas Einstein didn’t have time to finish.
That’s how science works. Everybody builds on the work of those who went before. Sometimes they prove that their predecessors were wrong (as with the phlogiston theory). What more often happens is that they just find things their forebears didn’t have the techne’ to confirm.
Fun fact; Ernst Mach was one of the mathematicians Einstein referenced in his work, who was famous for defining the speed of sound (1,086 feet per second, aka 331 meters per second, 740 MPH or 1184 KMH) in the late 19th century. Which is why we, today, refer to the speed of sound as “Mach 1″.
In fact, the speed of sound was first discovered, and accurately defined as such, in 1741 by a British researcher named Benjamin Robins, who was working on the ballistics of cannonballs. In firing everything from Brown Bess muskets to 16-pounder naval guns across a test range, he noted “an astonishing increase in the resistance of the air occurring between one thousand and one thousand one hundred feet per second”, which he correctly identified with the speed of sound.
With his available technology, Robins was unable to take the work any further, although he published it in his 1742 treatise, “New Principles of Gunnery”. Mach started from there with his work, which is why we say today that an F-22 Raptor has a maximum speed above Mach Two, rather than “above Robins Two”.
And that’s how real science works.
cheers
eon
Thanks for your excellent post.
As you point out in your second point, this ‘new’ empirical information does not negate Einstein’s analysis of the nature of mass that does and will continue to exist in a spatiotemporal mode confined to ‘c’, the speed of light.
But, as Einstein himself pointed out, there is more to mass and time than this particular relation defined by ‘c’, and this is the realm where mass is not confined by ‘c’ and interacts within the relations defined by imaginary numbers. Note: ‘imaginary’ does not mean a realm defined by musings of the human mind. Imaginary numbers in this analysis refer to negative values (of space and time). Mass existing within these values interacts differently with other mass than it does within the values confined by ‘c’.
Mass existing within the spatiotemporal boundaries of ‘c’ and that without those boundaries are not in an Either-Or relation. That is, a specific mass can’t switch its full identity into one or the other; these different modes of spatiotemporal existence co-exist.
That means that different modes of space and time, rather than the one with which we are existentially familiar, exist.
And antimatter has real masses. Charge and quantum properties are reversed for antiparticles as compared to their particles, but they have the same mass.
“I’d piss on a sparkplug if I thought it’d do any good.”
Sorry – that’s my “War Games” quote for whenever scientists start talking WAY over my head! Fascinating stuff. I just have no idea what it means.
Excellent post.
Somewhere a few years ago I read that Einstein said that he did not see why C could be constant.
I’m still looking for an authoritative source for that….
Scientists should never work by consensus. They have a scientific method and they have peer review in respected scientific journals.
But the rest of us don’t have much choice. Those of us who are not scientists, and don’t have the scientific and mathematical background that they do, have to rely on the advice of competent experts.
Example:
Suppose you feel really ill. Your doctor tells you that you have a life-threatening illness and you have to undergo surgery immediately. You get a second opinion, and that doctor tells you the same thing. A third opinion agrees. And a fourth and a fifth.
Finally, you manage to locate a sixth doctor who tells you that there’s nothing really seriously wrong with you and you will recover eventually on your own. That’s what you’re hoping for–to avoid surgery and harsh treatments.
Now which doctors’ advice are you going to take? The five doctors who said you need surgery now, or the one doctor who said don’t worry about it?
You can’t say “Just give me all the lab reports and the X-rays, I’ll study them myself and make my own diagnosis.” You don’t have the knowledge, the training, or the experience to do that.
It’s only prudent that you accept the possible worst-case scenario that the five doctors warned you about. You don’t go with the sixth doctor only because he’s telling you what you want to hear.
What if four of the five doctors that recommended surgery get a kickback from local hospitals and surgeons?
You know, a person doesn’t need years of scientific training to see through the crap that is AGW or other such scams. Read a few college-level books and you’ll be fine.
Remember scientists are human: follow the money.
Or, you could just have cursory level experience with high school science, and realize that data…
REAL reliable DATA, on the earths “temperature” history, simply does not exist.
Temperature of the Indian Ocean, surface, 10 feet, and 50 feet deep, last 10 thousand years…
done with a calibrated +/- .01 degree F thermometer…
Show me.
Air temperature over Pacific, 10 feet, 100 feet, 10,000 feet,
same time frame, same thermometer…
show me.
Poles, equator, land water, same threshold,
Show me.
No one knows, because there IS NO DATA older than 100-200 years, and that itself is so scant as to be laughable to know what even occurred, much less predict what will occur, to such minutia level second place decimal points.
Tree rings and ice cores are tree rings and ice, not temperature. Without gobs and gobs of “accurate to .001 degree” data, from thousands of locations, over thousands of years, they have NOTHING with which to postulate the ‘norm” in variation they supposedly see now.
Much less, dare to assign a CAUSE.
Hint:
That big ball of burning gasses called the sun MIGHT have something to do with it…
Wheres the million year .001 degree data log on THAT thermal trend, hmmmm?
“Tree rings and ice cores are tree rings and ice, not temperature. Without gobs and gobs of “accurate to .001 degree” data, from thousands of locations, over thousands of years, they have NOTHING with which to postulate the ‘norm” in variation they supposedly see now.”
Well said. Since tree rings and ice cores only seem to exist in places that are basically cold enough to support huge trees and glaciers, I wonder what we could use as historical analogs in, say, Arizona or Saudi Arabia? Rocks? Sand?
Yeah, I love Monument Valley…
You can see the color strada of the isolated “monuments” is the same as the far-away mountains, so just where DID all that missing land mass go to?
Cubic MILES of mass, all gone.
Imagine if they could have measured such “alarming disproportional” rates of erosion in Monument Valley way back when, and what they would have tried to make us do to “stop it” from getting “worse”.
Good grief! A “political commentator” commenting on science.
Did Newton prove Euclid wrong?
Did Einstein prove Newton wrong?
Did Heisenberg prove Einstein wrong?
Each gave an experimentally provable mathematic theory to the next, which in it’s environment (platform) was right and accurate.
Each ‘next’ built from the the last.
Does the existence of a 99th floor of a building wipe out the existence of the underlying 98?
Yeesh! Go back to advising the president on economic theory and how redistributing a wealth creator’s product to looters will cause more wealth to be created.
The previous post surveyed anti-science disinformation motivated by ideology.
Now we will discuss anti-science disinformation motivated by profits.
The above disinformation sure sounds familiar, eh?
The preceding industry-funded, anti-science, profits-first ad campaign was sustained for more than a decade, by a skillful disinformation campaign created and run by paid lobbyists. And too many politicians, in both parties, proved eager-to-be bought by tobacco-industry dollars.
The tobacco industry’s disinformation campaign successfully delayed, for many highly profitable years, at the price of many thousands of cancer deaths, the eventual determination by the US Surgeon General in 1964 that cigarette smoking indeed caused lung cancer.
It’s simple: as with cigarettes in the 1950-60s, so with carbon-burning today.
Today’s AGW disinformation is spread by an unholy alliance of Big Carbon, Muslim Oil, and Russian Oligarchs … and in the long run, the toxic effects of climate-change disinformation are as bad for America today, as cigarette smoke was in the 1960-60s.
———————————–
A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers (1954)
by the Tobacco Industry Research Committee
URL: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Frank_Statement_to_Cigarette_Smokers
Still not confident enough in the science of AGW? Still pushing the propaganda instead of the science?
Sad, really, to see a fanatic in such a state.
LOL … Rob, it’s equally a pleasure to push the AGW science *and* the history!
—————————————–
The Vatican Takes On Climate Change
It’s cheaper to fix now
URL: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/05/anthropocene-vatican-climate-change-group-coins-name-for-our-era.ars
Dude.
Seriously.
it’s equally a pleasure to push the AGW science *and* the history!
Con artists out to make a few bucks enjoy what they do, as well. And even they have their defenders. So it is with the global warming hucksters and the apologists who carry water for them. You really should stop being such an enabler. Or are you more of a worshiper?
You read more like a religious fanatic than a historian to me.
……..or a “physicist”.
Just because you are good at substituting words doesn’t make you right.
Actually your argument could equally well be used against you. Much of AGW hysteria could be seen as an attempt to reap profits from fear. Certainly Al Gore and his cronies have done well by it. If you are a physicist then you must be aware of the thermodynamics of energy usage. In the near term it is virtually impossible to find a substitute for the highly compact and portable form of energy known as fossil fuels. Certainly not without eliminating about 80% of the earth’s human population. I have no doubt that some day alternatives will be found. However, that will not happen by funding politically correct companies. It’ll only happen by the generalized exploration of all possible means of energy production and will likely be in some form none of us anticipates.
Mr. Grumpy, in this week’s Business Week former Representative and solidly Republican conservative Bob Inglis tackles your points head-on.
Does this mean that Al Gore is right and Rush Limbaugh is wrong?
Yes that’s exactly what Bob Inglis’ essay says it means.
And American conservatism needs to get over it.
—————————————
Conservative Means Standing With Science on Climate
by Bob Inglis (former Republican Representative)
URL: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-02/conservative-means-standing-with-science-on-climate-bob-inglis.html
From your article:
“If we did, the price of gasoline and coal-fired electricity would rise significantly, but hidden costs paid in hidden ways would decline commensurately. If we simultaneously eliminated all subsidies, we’d unleash real competition among all fuels. Markets would powerfully deliver solutions. New power turbines would come to market that remove the sulfur and the mercury from coal before combustion, burning only the hydrogen. Emission-free nuclear power plants would be built. Electric cars would rapidly penetrate the market — not because of clumsy government mandates or incentives, but because sharp entrepreneurs would be selling useful products to willing customers awakened by accountable pricing.”
My English teacher would have called this a “glittering generality”. There are no specifics. It strikes me as wishful thinking. So you fail. Again.
OK, Mr. Pfizyx, here are one question that doesn’t seem to get answered.
If we do take drastic action to “stop” global warming, how will we know when we are done?
That question also implies a second, possible more important question: If we overshoot and cause global cooling? What will we do then?
If A plus B equals C, then D plus E must also equal C? Straw men are more easily created.
Physicist, why do you continuously promote the dishonest philosophy that scientists can deliberately violate the principles of the Scientific Method?
Trofim Lysenko (and Michael Mann) would be proud of you.
You can give a rat cancer by force feeding it cigarette smoke…its true.
Been done so many times, its not argued that A- can (but not always will) cause B.
But can you show me similar DATA or SET OF EXPERIMENTS that proves, with the same statistical confidence (standard deviation, T-test, Power factor? repeated over and over) that global warming is even HAPPENING at all?
Do it without a selective fudging of numbers beforehand to show what you “believe”?
The fact is, we have NO DATA to prove or disprove “warming” at all, let alone to suggest its “man caused”
My first statictics class taught me:
“all statistical models are wrong, but some can be useful”
Boy, do you guys have that “useful” part down pat!
While claiming the “statistics” (that you dont even have) arent ever wrong
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
c is not just some arbitrary figure.
The speed of light, c, emerges from Maxwell’s equations which were developed a half-century before Einstein. The null result of the Michaelson-Morley experiment demonstrated c is independent of reference frame.
If you look at the recent super-luminal neutrino results, you see a very tiny increase in c. This scale suggests error or improvement in the understanding of c. It could also mean c has been exceeded.
There are proposed ways to sneak past c that don’t toss Al’s work in the trash. Maybe the neutrinos gave us a hint.
Before we start putting on Star Trek costumes we should remember that French scientists had a hand in this and those sneaky little creeps will do anything to cause trouble.
Winning comment of the thread.
True. Look what French philosophers did to the liberal arts in the latter half of the 20th century. Do we really want them mucking around with science?
If the CERN scientists are correct (this will require much more experimentation to confirm), and have discovered that the speed of light is more flexible than Einstein postulated, then we are definitely within some new territory within the realm of physics as currently understood.
One of the reasons the Standard Model has been so successful is because it has been shown to hold up in EVERY experiment conducted! However, physicists DO recognize that they still operate within a number of technical limitations. For instance, what happens when we examine the physical world below the Planck threshold? Our technology can’t even begin to probe something that tiny (on the order of 10^-35 meters). Scientists have a number of very interesting educated guesses (string theory and M-theory being two of the more popular), but so far it is still within the realm of mathematical constructs instead of experimental evidence (much like “climate change”, but with responsible science behind it).
As successful as the Standard Model is, however, there are still a number of unanswered questions, which some of the posters above have alluded to. Quantum entanglement is a very bizarre mystery that no one really understands. If anyone says they do, they’re lying, which also holds true for most of quantum chromodynamics. We know *what* is going on, but have very little idea of *why* it takes place, even as we exploit it to run our society.
I am really looking forward to what new breakthroughs we will see as a result of this new and fascinating discovery.
Just to say, Lord Squirrel, that is a thoughtful & well-written post! Please consider this as fan mail!
Conveniently for us engineers, the radius of curvature of space where we humans live is very large, and so the geometric effects of that spatial curvature are very small (although satellites like Gravity Probe B have measured it).
When it comes to quantum entanglement, there are many aspects of quantum dynamics that scientists *have* come to understand better-and-better in recent years — to the point that we now can reliably engineer (for example) practical quantum imaging technologies and AGW radiative transport models based upon that understanding — and yet your post is entirely correct too that we don’t (yet) see how to merge quantum physics with general relativity physics.
So there’s still plenty of mystery to unravel. Good!
—————————————-
Gravity Probe B In A Nutshell
URL: http://einstein.stanford.edu/Media/GP-B_Nutshell_Video.html
Thanks for the fan mail, “a physicist”!
As it happens, I studied physics as an undergrad for several years before I really discovered that I have almost no aptitude for the mathematics involved. it turns out my real aptitude is for technical writing. I do still love the concepts in physics and have read a fair number of lay-persons books on the subject.
I recall at least one of my physics professors talking about how nothing we’ve learned in the Standard Model and General Theory of Relativity have really been *wrong*. Rather, it’s that our understanding of the physical world was simply incomplete. That’s why physicists and other scientists probe deeper and deeper into the natural phenomena. At one time, scientists were known as “natural philosophers”. I think at their core, scientists worthy of the name are *very* deep ponderers about the world and our place in it.
The boundary discontinuity between the Standard Model (quantum mechanics) and General Theory (gravity) represents one of the greatest mysteries in physics. Both work fantastically well within their respective frames of reference, so why do they break down as they approach each other (e.g. black holes)? Any group of scientist (or single scientist) able to unravel that mystery will definitely be worthy of the same accolades we give Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, and others.
How can you be in two places at once when you’re actually nowhere at all?
As the elder told Jonathon Livingston Seagull, “perfect speed is being there”.
Silly goose.
Algore never said anything about the science on Einstein being settled.
Yet.
No, but the center of the earth is millions of degrees. Algore said it’s true, therefore the consensus of scientists is that it’s true. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
Millions of degrees would be seriously hot, I’m sure. Al Gore is retarded, but he is an accomplished politician, proving only that at least some politicians are retarded.
The likelyhood that the neutrino experiment will hold up and discredit special relativity is pretty damn small, I wouldn’t even put it in the “suggests” category at this point. If you are going to use it to illustrate a larger point about science, I think the reaction of the the Physics community would be a better starting point than the experiment’s potential to overturn an accepted part of Physics. Which is to say, physicists aren’t marching on the Italian lab, trying to get it defunded, keeping the results out of the journals, and accusing it of collusion with big Oil. Mostly, they suspect that some error has been made in the measurement and they will wait until various possibilities along that line have been investigated. If the results still look good a year or two from now, someone will think of other experiments that might show the effect or try to replicate the Italian measurements. So on and so forth. If at the end of all that the result if still standing, then it will be accepted. I will point out that Physics at the fundamental level is highly mathematical and very sophisticated, but in some ways is simpler than climate science for that very reason. There are far fewer variables that have significance at those high energies.
All true, but the real difference between the scientists who produced this finding and Team Climate is that they are furnishing all of their data and calculations and asking the larger physics community to check the work. If this were Team Climate, they’d publish the findings, and play coy with the data and calculations. These real scientists don’t mind being found wrong, and somewhat expect to be found wrong. At this point, I don’t think very many physicists expect these results to hold up, although that could change depending on what they find. This is profoundly different from Team Climate, where the conclusion is always determined, and the evidence is made to fit the conclusion.
If the findings hold up, everything we think we know about the inner workings of our universe will need to be revised.
No, NO, NO. There are thousands of experimental tests of Special and General Relativity, and they’re not going to go away any more than Newton’s F=ma stopped being valid in general use because of Special Relativity. What will happen is that some edge cases — in this case, very high energy quantum interactions — will need to be extended, just as Einstein had to extend the physics of 1900 to account for the conflict between the Michelson-Morley experiment (which was consistent with Maxwell) and the usual intuitions about velocity.
Prominent former Republican representative Bob Inglis speaks up for America’s business community:
Yeah, it’s good to see that America’s sensible conservatives and hard-nosed business folks are now abandoning PJM/Tatler‘s moronic brand of ideology-first AGW skepticism.
Does this mean that Al Gore was right and Rush Limbaugh was wrong?
Based purely on the facts, yes that’s exactly what it means.
And American conservatism needs to get over it.
—————————————
Conservative Means Standing With Science on Climate
by Bob Inglis (former Republican Representative)
URL: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-02/conservative-means-standing-with-science-on-climate-bob-inglis.html
So?
You do realize that Americans are healthy now and live longer ( even with obesity) than at any other time in HISTORY? And that, in no small part, is do to relatively cheap and easy energy. It grows our crops so we have good food. It refrigerates our food so it doesn’t spoil. It removes our trash so that pestilence remains at bay. So when you want to just stop using oil, I say to you: What exactly are you going to replace it with so that billions of people don’t die? Please answer that question. And don’t blow smoke with solar and wind. They can’t possibly supply our current energy needs. I don’t believe there is even enough copper for the windings for all the wind turbines that would be needed. So when on your soap box, I want to hear REALISTIC solutions. Not fantasy.
Use aluminum instead of copper for the rotor windings and transmission lines.
Problem solved. Yah happier now, Grumpy?
Though most likely Cliff Stearns’ Big Carbon donors ain’t happy.
My heart sure doesn’t bleed for *them*.
——————————————-
Shocking claim by Republican Cliff Stearn: “US can’t compete with China”
URL: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/185329-rep-stearns-us-cant-compete-with-china-on-green-energy-programs
Aluminum? And you call yourself a physicist? Aluminum worked SO well when it was used for home wiring.
“Use aluminum instead of copper for the rotor windings and transmission lines.”
Sure A parsons. Another example of the A parsons Uncertainty Principle.
As if Aluminum + fairy dust = Copper.
You know, you may yet get your grant from Mr. President. #1 would be the inability to conceive that something you disagree with may have some merit. There is that same protective touchiness, all the while keeping others a predetermined protective distance, and really believing in that 57 state theory too.
Stalin would have loved you. So malleable on command. For a while anyway.
Hey, how’s that link coming? Did the magnifying glass do the trick? Mmmm, mmm, mmm.
Your enthusiasm and love-of-learning are commendable, Mr. Lucky!
Yes, the technical details of Cu vs Al make absolutely fascinating reading.
——————————————————-
Copper versus Aluminum: Which is Better?
A fact sheet from The Alpha Transformer Company
URL: http://www.alfatransformer.com/coppervsalum-hd.htm
Yes, and your love of mindless boot licking linking is adorable. Is that the suppressed Fashion Designer Scientist in you A parsons trying to get attention for a job well done?
John Waters is calling you. You’ll be simply Divine! Cu with Al in the next movie!
Get a little closer A parsons, that windmill will put a forever smile on you face, just like Tweety Bird! And, hey look, there’s a Unicorn handing out free energy too. Science at it’s best!
Johnny. They do use aluminum in overhead transmission lines. They have for decades. And nobody uses it in motor windings. Three guesses why. C’mon. I know you can do it if you put your thinking cap in (you can take the dunce cap off and come out of the corner for your earlier Godwin violation now).
How odd that every major magnet wire vendor in the world supplies both copper and aluminum wire … could it be so engineers can make their choice choice based cost-versus-performance? … could it be because copper and aliminum are *both* widely used in motors, generators, transformers, and transmission lines?
Could it be that claims like “there’s not enough copper for wind power” are pure bogus disinformation?
Duh.
————————————————
Realities of a Mining Economy
URL: http://waterlegacy.org/A_Mining_Economy
That was completely non-responsive. Now go show me a commercial motor, generator, or transformer that uses aluminum windings. Not a freeking spool of wire.
And while your’e at it, tell me about the difference between the Tyndall effect, the greenhouse effect, and AGW. ^^^
Snork, companies like AO Smith Motors already offer aluminum as an option across their electric motor product line (link below).
As copper prices rise, the aluminum option becomes more attractive.
As every engineer understands, eh?
————————————
Aluminum as a winding material
AO Smith Motors, Incorporated
URL: http://www.aosmithmotors.com/motornews/default.aspx?id=565
Dude. Read your links before you post them.
LOL … snork, *someone* just posted “nobody uses it [aluminum] in motor windings”
And that person was dead-wrong, eh?
In a world with no copper, electric generators/motors would still work just fine.
The world economy would scarcely hiccup, eh?
No. Aluminum means much larger volume, which means more iron, which means more hysteresis losses, which means lower energy efficiency. That’s progress, huh?
And that’s not even getting into issues of thermal expansion, and what that does to these things.
And BTW (for the third time), explain to me how mythbusters’ demonstration of the Tyndall effect proves AGW. I’m all ears.
During WWII there was a copper shortage. Commercial aluminum production wasn’t available. The Manhattan Project required what were, for that time, very powerful magnets for the purpose of isotopic separation. What to do?
So they arranged to borrow some silver from the Treasury, and built their magnets. After the war, the silver was returned.
Copper is the best metal for thermal conduction, gold is the best for electrical conduction, by the way. But silver does pretty well.
Silver conducts better than gold. It’s #1 among the metals. Copper and gold are about a push. Aluminum is #4. They use gold in electronics when it’s important that a contact not corrode, and in a few circumstances in the European lead-free components.
And yes, that’s true about using silver from the treasury in WWII. They also used it in the aluminum mills that the government built for the war, and then after the war, they made enough AL to make replacement buss bars. They didn’t worry about theft as long as there was 300 volts on them.
I’ll trump your “prominent Republican” with………The British Royal Society. What are your Republican’s scientific qualifications? I’m sure you, as a “physicist”(?), have heard of the Royal Society. This house full of real scientists also trumps Al Gore, Jim Hansen, etc.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html
Want less stressful reading? How about Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Aluminum for transmission? Are you really that stupid? Do you actually have anything to do with your life besides lie about global warming? Go get a girl, or whatever tickles your fancy and leave us alone.
So what if one pol has been convinced by formulas that would have produced a ‘hockey stick’ graph no matter what data was input? The hubris of AGW is beyond anything in a Greek tragedy. I expect to see Nemesis explaining the consequences of your actions soon.
John, repeatedly copy-and-pasting the same goddamn story multiple times in the same thread is *real* close to spam. People have been banned for it.
Yah want variety, Charlie?
From senior rock-solid Republican conservatives, eh?
Just say so!
———————————————————
Retired Republicans Push GOP to Confront Climate Change
URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/retired-republicans-push-gop-to-confront-climate-change/246029/
Just to make things crystal-clear, Charlie, what those senior GOP leaders are saying is:
(1) Al Gore is right about AGW.
(2) Rush Limbaugh is dead-wrong.
(3) PJM/Tatler editors are dead-wrong too.
Apologies if this hurts yer feelings, Charlie … but according to these senior GOP leaders, “them’s the facts.”
Any brand of conservatism that can’t face up to sobering facts, or is cheaply bought-and-sold by special interests, is no brand of conservatism at all.
That’s the point, eh?
Ah, yes. Phoney appeals to authority couple with leftist sneers. And a total unwillingness to engage in honest debate. How liberal of you.
So why are you unwilling to discuss the deliberate violation of the Scientific Method by your “climate scientists”, physicist? Is George Soros or the WWF, or ? paying to to promote Lysenkoism here?
Andrew, the reality of honest debate is that eventually one side loses.
Once upon a time, the “cigarettes don’t cause cancer” folks lost the debate.
Nowadays the “CO2 doesn’t cause climate change” folks are losing the debate.
That’s the thrust of what senor GOP leaders now are saying, eh?
That’s why Big Carbon, Muslim Oil, and Russian Oligarchs are unhappy, eh?
But Big Carbon’s unhappiness doesn’t bother *me* in the slightest.
“Muslim oil”? I’ll remember you said that.
Yes, snork … that’s the whole point …
… Rep. Inglis wants the record to plainly show…
… that some conservatives both faced-up to the science of climate change…
… and didn’t sell-out to special interests.
And integrity like Rep. Inglis’ is a good thing, eh?
——————————
Rep. Inglis on the Record
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVlIT__w6A
I look forward to the next time you claim being a senior GOP leader as a credential in a scientific debate.
LOL … Charlie, now yah got the skeptical “circular firing squad” all in-place.
• Skeptics can’t trust scientists `cuz they’re ivory-tower.
• Can’t trust politicians `cuz they ain’t scientists.
• Can’t trust business CEO `cuz they’re short-sighted.
• Can’t trust the Vatican `cuz they ain’t businessmen.
• Can’t trust World Scouting `cuz they’re just kids.
• Can’t trust hunters and fishers `cuz they’re “green”.
• Can’t trust military leaders `cuz … just `cuz.
But somehow, skeptics *DO* trust Rush Limbaugh, Big Carbon, and Muslim Oil.
Yah know Charlie, that doesn’t sound all that smart, eh?
John, if you actually considered yourself a scientist, you’d be ashamed of yourself.
You’re right. I don’t take the scientific “consensus” at face value — because that’s just an argumentum ad populam. I don’t take the fact that you found a Republican who believes in CO2AGW as enough to make up my mind; I don’t take the Pope as enough to make up my mind; I don’t take the derision of a not very successful academic who can’t apparently get a tenure track appointment and who does medical imaging as enough to make up my mind; I don’t take the opinion of admirals and generals, or politicians, or NASA guys who are making themselves rich off activism, or ex-politicians who barely passed “Rocks for Jocks” or 12 year old girls who cry on cue in order to make up my mind.
I don’t even take adolescent displays of repeated emoji as something particular compelling.
I make up my own mind.
If you go back to the “Reasons to be a climate skeptic” post, I made a number of essentially technical points. There, as here, you answered with copy-and-paste appeals to authority.
Frankly, I no longer think you capable of making a technical argument. You’re a joke.
How awkward that the leftie nutjobs at Forbes …
… have pinpointed the ultimate weakness of ideology-first AGW skepticism!
—————————————-
An Open Letter to Climate Change Deniers and Skeptics: The Final [Chocolate] Straw
URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/10/04/an-open-letter-to-climate-change-deniers-and-skeptics-the-final-chocolate-straw/
“An Open Letter to Climate Change Deniers and Skeptics: The Final [Chocolate] Straw”
Yeah, yeah.
Typical leftoid idiocy. Don’t be decieved by the fact that worldwide cocoa production has increased by 400% just since 1961, global warming is about to wipe out cocoa production, and the AGW fantatics will miss out on their daily ration of chocolate milk..
Any day now. Trust me.
Cocoa production 1961: 1,000,000 tonnes. Cocoa Production 2007: Over 4,000,000 tonnes. Leftoid i.q. any year: 0.
Dave, the Forbes article was *humor*.
Even conservative business mags like Forbes use it.
So chill, eh?
Meanwhile, here’s a conservative & serious Forbes article that you’ll just *LOVE*.
———————————————-
Why Most Forbes Readers Know More About Global Warming than Most Climate Scientists
URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/07/28/why-most-forbes-readers-know-more-about-global-warming-than-most-climate-scientists/
“Prominent former Republican representative Bob Inglis…”
Never heard of him.
But, if he thinks he has some data that supports the AGW hypothesis, I’m willing to give it a look.
No need to wait, Dave:
Aye, this is the *true* voice of conservatism.
——————————————-
Rep. Inglis on the Record
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVlIT__w6A
I don’t mind waiting.
Inglis can present his data any time he feels like it, and I’ll review it.
I’m not holding my breath in the meantime, however, on account of it doesn’t look like he has any data.
Dave, perhaps Rep. Inglish surveyed the climate-change evidence …
… and was neither frightened by it nor accepted cash to ignore it, eh?
————————————–
NASA Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?
URL: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
That’s Hansen and Schmidt’s outfit, right? You really want to hang your hat on that hook?
Snork, many folks say sceptics are hangin’ their hats in a dumber place.
“Dave, perhaps Rep. Inglish surveyed the climate-change evidence”
Impressive site. I’m sure kindergarteners all over the world are suitably awed.
I notice that, like yourself, the boys at NASA like to talk about arctic sea ice coverage, but they seem to have no interest in antarctic sea ice coverage.
Wonder why?
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, if that’s where Inglis got his “information”
NASA has no interest in Antarctic ice flow?
That’s funny … `cuz *someone* forgot to tell NASA …
And so, yet again, skeptical claims are ludicrously-wrong-on-the-facts!
———————————————-
Antarctic Ice Flow, Faux Climate Controversy, and More
NASA News Roundup, September 2, 2011
URL: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2011/09/02/news-roundup-antarctic-ice-flow-faux-climate-controversy-and-more/
“NASA has no interest in Antarctic ice flow?”
And, as always “A physicist” refuses to address the issue, and simply changes the subject (from the extent of sea ice coverage to ice flow over land masses).
Well, nothing new there.
Uhhhh … gosh Dave … maybe that’s `cuz accelerating Antarctic ice flow is a key climate issue, eh?
So the strategic reason for NASA’s focus is obvious, eh Dave?
——————————————–
Antarctic Ice Flow Revealed
URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6048/1386.full
“Uhhhh … gosh Dave … maybe that’s `cuz accelerating Antarctic ice flow is a key climate issue, eh?”
No, I think you refuse to mention or acknowledge increasing antarctic sea ice coverage because it doesn’t support your totally unproven theory.
AGW fanatics, like yourself or the boys at NASA, prefer to ignore or falsify data that doesn’t fit in with their political agenda.
Like all propagandists of the dishonest variety do.
Yah mean … broad-band surveys like this one?
——————————-
s Antarctica losing or gaining ice?
URL: http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice-intermediate.htm
“Yah mean … broad-band surveys like this one?”
No, I mean people like yourself who dishonestly and deliberately present only the data that supports your preconceived opinion, with the intent to decieve folks who don’t know the whole story.
That’s why NASA has their little AGW for third graders site which mentions a decrease in arctic sea ice coverage and completely omits any mention of the increase in antarctic sea ice coverage. It’s lying AGW propaganda aimed at the woefully ill-informed.
If I’d meant broad-band surveys (whatever that is), I would’ve said something about broad-band surveys.
Dave, “broad-band” is engineering slang for “carries lots of information”.
Yeah, NASA’s information on antarctic sea ice definitely *IS* broad-band!
NASA’s been doing a *terrific* job, fairly covering *all* the issues, eh?
———————————————
NASA Feature Article: Antarctic Sea Ice
URL: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page4.php
Funny – neither Antarctic ice flow nor Arctic ice coverage has much to do with global warming, anthropogenic or not. Antarctic ice flow is more determined by precipitation than temperature (since even a warm temperature in Antarctica is pretty cold) and Arctic ice coverage is determined more by currents through the region.
BTW, very few AGW “deniers” have said that the climate is absolutely not getting warmer. What is argued against is that if it is, in fact, happening that 1) this warming is necessarily a long-term climate change, as opposed to a short-term effect, and 2) that is is necessarily due to human activity, as opposed to – say – solar activity.
“Does this mean that Al Gore was right and Rush Limbaugh was wrong? Based purely on the facts, yes that’s exactly what it means. ”
Include references, please. A critique of the propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, by a noted climatologist will also be acceptable and appreciated. But I know that’s never happened, and never will. I never heard of Bob Inglis. What are his scientific qualifications?
And where there’s alarmism, there is politics. Even the British High Court, as scientifically illiterate as judges are, was able to find at least 9 errors in Gore’s propaganda movie:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/TenWays/story?id=3719791&page=1
No, it’s just that the AGW climate models – setting aside for the moment the fraudulent data and other behavior – have not been demonstrated to be correct. As a matter of fact the data and assumptions upon which they are based has been shown to be erroneous. Unless and until these models can be demonstrated to be accurate (as described in another reply) they are useless.
The mistake that climate “scientists” make is the same one the libwits make all the time.
Systems are not static. Complex systems adapt to changing conditions, and therefore the results are rarely what is predicted.
So on the surface, it seems to make perfect sense that raising taxes will raise tax receipts. But we know for a fact that it isn’t always the case. The truth seems to be quite different. Total taxes paid seems to remain pretty constant, despite attempts to raise more. Of course, to be totally realistic, that could change as well, under different conditions.
But real scientists don’t don’t make stupid mistakes like that…which is proof that climate scientists aren’t real scientists at all.
Guys, what does it matter? The universe will end when God’s mother makes him put his toys away and go to bed. Let’s just hope we are a long time away from his bedtime.
I plan to be the most surprised SOB in hell, so I hope this doesn’t happen.
There is so much new information, real info, (not the Global Warming BS) – that liberal academia just ignore. “This is the way things are.” I find it surprising and curious, that liberal academics – who hang so much of their personal identity, credibility, and self-worth on science are among the first to dismiss new information that doesn’t “line up” with progressive thinking. Liberal academicians are the true Flat Earth Thinkers.
The good news is that they have this all figured out in the universe next door.
Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up!!! Seems to be the mantra of liberals, who are the majority of folks preaching AGW. IF the globe is indeed warming and it seems that for a bit it was, ‘It’s the Sun, stupid!’ would be my ‘heretical and common sense’ cry. I’m old enough to remember the NY Times and Time magazine, those uber liberal disseminators of misinformation, frightening or attempting to frighten us with a coming ICE AGE. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms, CA
I suspect systematic error here, but I hope I’m wrong. If confirmed, this measurement would open up a really new era in experimental and then theoretical physics.
If the result holds up, it doesn’t invalidate Einstein. His theory has been confirmed through many decades of experimental work. If it were seriously incorrect, the big accelerators all over the world basically wouldn’t have worked at all. It applies to photons. If the CERN observations are valid, that would mean that neutrinos are a little odder than anyone believed. Theorists will be busy for years trying to fit the new results into existing theory. A version of the Correspondence Principal would apply, any new theory would have to apply to existing experimental results. But something very fundamental would have to change in theory, higher dimensions or whatever.
Either way, we’re going to know in a year. Nobody is going to waste any time beating each other to the confirming experiments. We won’t have long to wait to know if this is an error.
Precisely. That’s what’s so odd about the “consensus” in climatology. Normally, scientists are a pretty cut-throat bunch, very eager to rip each other’s theories to shreds. The problem with modern climatology is that the people that control the grants are expecting specific answers!
“since the nature of government is force”
-well, there is a subatomic reality you are missing here. We are not automatons; and so the application of force depends on something more fundamental, the exchange of opinion about what is sacred and enforceable. Whatever instincts to self-preservation an individual has, they are not sufficient to explain why any organized group succeeds or fail. While all human interaction is primarily dependent on opinion, it is true that when society A is at war with society B, the two societies give up any attempt to mediate their differences through an exchange opinions when they choose war. But the government of each society at war remains dependent on the exchange of opinions about why they are at war. Force, at any organized level, requires a motivation that cannot be reduced to any purely physical, instinctive reality. Sometimes entire societies give up the ghost and dissolve without much fight (when faced, say, with only a handful of Spaniards on horesback). Sometimes the David societies defeat the Goliaths. Force is not half of it. The application of force reflects the primacy of the prisoner’s dilemma and the human need to solve it.
“I mean, astronomy looks at how planets form, but we’ve never actually SEEN a planet form…”
Yeah, and that’s why I’m skeptical as hell about that and various other aspects of astronomy.
Since we can’t make it happen in a lab, and we can’t even observe it happen over time, ideas about planet formation are scientifically unproven.
No problem…as long as astronomers don’t start claiming that the “science” is settled when it comes to planet formation, or some baloney like that.
“Certainty is rare. Laws are few.”
From the point of view of a scientist (I’m not talking about a climatologist or a phrenologist…I’m talking about real scientists), certainty is non-existent, and we don’t have a clue how many laws there are.
That might not always be the case…but, it is now.
“A team of researchers at CERN pass the time by shooting muon neutrinos from Switzerland to Italy.”
If I was the Italians, I’d be raising hell. It’s not like I want a bunch of guys in Switzerland shooting neutrinos in my direction, just for kicks.
The solar neutrino flux at earth orbit has been estimated at 6.5 x 10**10 per sq. cm. per sec. So if the sun goes out, we can all feel much safer.
Cosmic Gall
Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids through a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
And painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed – you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
John Updike
You are more likely a tiny part of the Obama campaign than a participant in the physical sciences. But John Updike is a very talented writer of fiction.
“All who bring bad news are enemies” …
Jim, ain’t that attitude the living definition of bad leadership?
Heaven help America if we ever elect such an ideology-first “leader” to be president.
`Cuz facing-up to sobering news is key to being an effective American president.
But heck … ideology-first AGW skeptics don’t appreciate *that*, eh?
Wow! A 60 billionths of a second faster. Who could have guessed that that ol’ fool could have been that far off. He had all the modern technology of his time at his disposal and I mean real pencils and paper and still he blew it. Thank God we didn’t put his name on our dollar. This is so embarrassing.
Basing science on computer models is only as valid as the assumptions made when creating the computer model.
People who base science on computer models usually defend their assumptions by accusing anyone who questions their assumptions of being “anti-science”.
Careful. Scientific theories are models, usually mathematical ones. The problem with climatology isn’t that it’s based on models, but that the politicians are biasing those models (by controlling the grants that pay for them) to yield certain politically expedient results and are discouraging the proper scientific skepticism and debate that would normally work to validate or invalidate them.
In the Einsteinian curvature of light-defined space, is the path of a muon nutrino a chord?
http://c450913.r13.cf2.rackcdn.com/snf20110923hrjz.mp3
Those leftie nutjobs at Forbes have posted a hard-hitting article.
Forbes now is claiming that ideology-first skepticism gravely harms America.
Oh wait. The folks at Forbes ain’t “leftie nutjobs” … they’re hard-nosed conservatives.
So if Rush Limbaugh wants to see America’s worst enemy … he need only look in a mirror?
Well, *that* explains a lot. Food for thought, eh?
———————————————-
Why Anti-Science Ideology is Bad for America
URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/08/31/why-anti-science-ideology-is-bad-for-america/
I would starve if this was food for thought. Why is it that you insist on calling people “ideology-first AGW skeptics” when simply calling them “deniers” would suffice for your arguments? But, I will go with being one of your “ideology-first AGW skeptics”, if you will indulge me in my reply. Why would I be an ideology-first AGW skeptic if I am only waiting for you to provide something a little beyond arguments from authority as a basis for your belief in AGW. Notice that I have never foisted my theories about climate change upon anyone. I have always thought it would be up to the believer to explain his/her belief to the unbeliever. If you want to deride me as some sort of unwashed infidel because I am not already convinced of what you believe in, so be it. But until you provide me with a less assailable argument for AGW than “everyone is believing it”, I will remain one of your “ideology-first AGW skeptics”.
You also might be surprised to learn that you have just set a new record for most links to other people’s opinions supplied on one comment thread. Congratulations, most people couldn’t have done this, I’m sure.
Jim, certain PJM/Tatler editors/readers have sensitive feelings … they ask not to be called “deniers.”
“Here is what the science conclusively tells us: climate change is real, it is already underway, and it is largely due to human activities.” (emphasis added).
While I respect Forbes for their financial knowledge, the above is simply and demonstrably untrue. A good conservative does not demand specific results from science, but they do insist on properly validated theories.
Paul, like many posters on this forum, your post too reverts to pure Luke Skywalker skepticism: ““No! That CAN’T be TRUE! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!”
Paul, ain’t it getting kinda lonely being an ideology-first skeptic?
Now that even the hard-nosed business community is convinced, eh?
Those hard-nosed conservative business folks at Forbes are convinced by a body of climate-change science that speaks loud-and-clear, to all but the ideology-first “Skywalkers” among us.
——————————————-
Climate Change Science in a Nutshell
American Institute of Physics
URL: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm
Where science and scientists get in trouble usually is on the topic of science FACT. While there may be a few unchangeable scientific facts the vast majority of the out comes are theory, otherwise known as a working model of what one thinks is true, until it is proven false. It must be this way if one is going to continue to investigate, research and progress.
Why we have gotten into this idea that everything must be proven to be true, RIGHT NOW? The more we study, the more research is done the more progress we make. Even if you prove a theory to be wrong you have progressed by weeding out an outcome, freeing the process to move forward. Most real scientist understand this. It is the public, the bean counters, college presidents and politicians that can’t get a handle on the idea. They want concrete answers and they want them right away. Either we continue to expand our knowledge base or we stagnate. Those are the only choices.
Yes money is tight. Yes I don’t see what a particular experiment has to do with life as we know it right now but no one can know if that particular line of thinking won’t lead someday to the development of sustainable energy, the cure to diseases or the elevating of human kind. One can’t see the future but in order for there to be a future someone has to prepare and anticipate it.
Or we could all sit home, live vicariously through reality TV and drink to excess. It’s a tough choice.
“Science is not a belief system. Science proclaims no dogma. Science is not democratic, and its findings are certainly not contingent upon consensus.”
You’re talking about the scientific IDEAL here. Science as practiced by human beings does not always correspond to the ideal. There are, in fact, scientists for whom science is a belief system, for whom the scientific method and the truths it has revealed are dogma, and for whom the concensus of scientists does or at least should mean the science is settled.
I think it’s important to remember that some scientists consider science (and, by extension, themselves) to be under assault by religious people. In this atmosphere, any questioning of a scientist’s assertions by a non-scientist is likely to be seen as a threat. If enough scientists feel this way, they will close ranks and “defend” the assertion from the “superstitious” people. This may give the impression of a concensus. Presumably, if we left the scientists alone they would go back to arguing among themselves over the same assertion they defended.
Or they might go right back to spending their time picking the taxpayers pockets by making their plays for government grant money.
‘NASA’s been doing a *terrific* job, fairly covering *all* the issues, eh?’–A Propagandist
No, they haven’t. That’s why on their propaganda site (aimed at the marginally sentient) they claim that decreasing arctic sea ice coverage is evidence of AGW, while they fail to even mention increasing antarctic sea ice coverage.
Here’s another one of the claims made on their AGW for Nitwits site
“The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950.”
And, here’s a list of extreme temperature recordings, by state. This is data that has been around for years, and written down on paper, and thus can’t be “adjusted” by groups like NASA (because if they try and tweak these, they’re going to get caught in about ten seconds).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes
See if their claim matches up to some actual raw temperature data.
Dave, it now appears “sinister forces” have erased all evidence of your claims from NOAA’s record of “Global Climate Change Indicators.” Only one conclusion is possible: the conspiracy is hugely bigger than you thought!
Because … uhhhh … it’s unthinkable that AGW could be real, eh?
——————————————–
Global Climate Change Indicators
URL: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/
The usual cheap propaganda trick from A nitwit. I never said a word about an NOAA site.
And, as per usual, a Physicist flatly refuses to address what I DID say.
Boring.
Yeah Dave,
The fact the SPACE administration is looking at terrestrial ice at the bottom of the plantet is suspect in and of itself.
On a smaller scale, my town government just re-painted all the lines, arrows, and crosswalks at the bussiest intersection in town in the RAIN….the whole thing is now an indistiguishable mess.
Just because “experts” say it “needs to be done”, says they have “data” to back up the decision, that the decision makes SENSE, and its COST EFFECTIVE in the long term, dont buy it.
Cause they’ll sure as shit have you outside, painting in the rain….
Science actually gets us ever closer to understanding reality – a fact hard to see with the sad state of science today. Done properly, science can only help increase our certainty. It’s like puzzle building – as we add more pieces, clarity improves, even if our explanations shift.
As a scientist friend puts it “Sadly, science today is often not properly done. Rarely do they look for causes. Physicists in particular heve grown too enamored of math, while they often disregard coming up with a cause and effect explanation.”
Jim, scientific understanding and the path(s) by which folks come to that understanding both are interesting … the second topic being itself a branch of science called “cognitive science”.
Take for example NASA’s visualization (link below) of Antarctic ice flow.
(1) Some folks can see for themselves that AGW is real and serious.
(2) Other folks prefer to trust institutions and professions; these folks repose some measure of trust in (for example) the Pope, his Pontifical Academy, America’s military leaders, the international shipping community, the World Scouting Organization, America’s hunting-and-fishing organizations, the mathematics, science, and engineering community, coalitions like Republicans for Environmental Protection, candidates like Jon Huntsman, and senior Republican leaders … all of whom say AGW is real, serious, and accelerating.
(3) And there’s a decreasing number of ideology-first skeptics who use pure Luke Skywalker cognition: “No! That CAN’T be TRUE! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!”
—————————————–
NASA: Full Map of Antarctic Ice Flow
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlDO0C8r_ws
(4) Some folks can see for themselves that AGW is a hoax being perpetrated by the pseudo-scientific political community for purposes of getting their hands on other people’s money, pure and simple.
So, do you work for the Obama campaign or no?
LOL … Jim, I represent the honored spirits of Teddy, Dwight, and Ronald.
Say Jim, why don’cha tell us how those sneaky scientists fool the Pope, the World Scouts …
… and the senior Republican leadership?
Who also represent the honored spirits of Teddy, Dwight, and Ronald.
For which, good on them!
———————————–
Retired Republicans Quietly Try to Shift GOP Climate-Change Focus
National Journal
URL: http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/retired-republicans-quietly-try-to-shift-gop-climate-change-focus-20110930
I couldn’t care less what the Pope, or the senior Republican leadership believe, Bozo. And the senior Republican leadership don’t purport to represent anyone but themselves, and no one represents spirits, even if they do believe in them. So, are you working for the Obama campaign or no?
Let’s review the bidding, Jim. Yah don’t like physical theory, yer suspicious of physical data, and yah don’t trust authorities or institutions of any kind.
So I reckon we’ll classify your brand of AGW skepticism as the Luke Skywalker variety: “No! That CAN’T be TRUE! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!”
The scientific faction that I support was conceived by folks long-dead: Franklin, Priestley, Jefferson, Paine. And with specific regard to AGW: Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius, Chamerlain, von Neumann. And many more (see link below).
These great thinkers all are long-dead … and yet their ideas live on.
That’s good, eh? Very good indeed!
————————————————-
The Discovery of Global Warming: A Timeline
The American Institute of Physics (AIP)
URL: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm
This potential discovery reminds us that science is a continual process which is rarely conclusive.
Just as a note, however, science very rarely radically changes theoretical models from one generation to the next; it is almost always an evolutionary process. Take, for instance, the progression of the model of the shape of the Earth. A “flat” Earth model works perfectly well, and is based on observational evidence, so long as you don’t have to travel more than a few hundred miles from home, or sail more than a 5 or 6 miles from shore. A spherical model works nicely so long as you don’t have to sail more than a few hundred miles across the ocean. Note that people didn’t go from a flat Earth to, say, a pyramidal Earth. An oblate spheroid (wider at the equator than from pole-to-pole) is better than a sphere – and not much different – and works until you try to launch spacecraft. And so forth.
Newton’s equations work perfectly well so long as you stay at velocities much lower than that of light. Einstein’s equations are simply Newton’s with bits added; the relativistic parts of Einstein’s equations are simply so close to zero at low velocities that they can be effectively ignored. Einstein’s equations work perfectly well until you’re playing with weird neutrinos. I suspect that whatever replaces them will turn out to be the same equations with a few extra bits added. (It’s those bits, of course, that make life interesting when you know what to do with them).
“JERUSALEM (AP) — When Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman claimed to have stumbled upon a new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate the laws of nature, colleagues mocked him, insulted him and exiled him from his research group.”
“After years in the scientific wilderness, though, he was proved right. And on Wednesday, he received the ultimate vindication: the Nobel Prize in chemistry.”
http://news.yahoo.com/vindicated-ridiculed-israeli-scientist-wins-nobel-183256852.html
And…once again we find that consensus means zippo, even in a real science, like chemistry.
LOL … Dan Shechtman withstood five years of criticism … for which, good on him!
James Hansen has withstood thirty years … for which, good on him!
In the end, both Shechtman and Hansen were vindicated by a blend of theory and observation.
Although even today, both quasicrystals and AGW are rejected by a minority of skeptics
And, I repeat for those who are a little slow on the uptake…
And…once again we find that consensus means zippo.
Other lesser-known, more-technical examples of new theories supplanting old theories that come to mind include: (in chemistry) the Kohn-Sham equations and (in particle theory) quantum chromodynamics and (in classical mechanics) Kolmogorov-Arnol’d-Moser (KAM) theory.
When we look at science and medicine on a fine scale (or practice them), we see a relentless Darwinian struggle for better-and-better explanations and better-and-better treatments, in which incremental evolutionary improvements are far more common than revolutionary leaps forward (although both do occur).
A pretty good book on this topic (meaning, well-written, well-regarded, fun-to-read, and yet rather eccentric) is David Deutsch’s Fabric of Reality
It’s a solidly conservative process that Deutsch describes, eh?
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The Fabric of Reality
by David Deutsch
URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=2LqEPNf9jXsC&pg=PT11
So, are you working for the Obama campaign or no?
Jim, these are the guys I really work for!
You never knew any of those guys so how can you be working for any of them? So, are you working for the Obama campaign, or no?
“Dave, the Forbes article was *humor*.”
Obviously one has to be amused when some halfwit AGW religious fanatic looks at the available data (a 400% increase in cocoa production over the last fifty years) and concludes that, thanks to man-made global warming, there will be LESS chocolate in 40 years.
But, it’s no more amusing than the rest of the twaddle they’re constantly spewing.
LOL … Dave, for a “halfwit moron” Dr. Gleick is uncommonly lucky, eh?
Or else … the “fanatic” AGW conspiracy is even deeper than yah dreamed!
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Peter Gleick Receives MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gleick
Yeah, I’m always impressed when lefties get together and tell each other how smart and creative they are.
Not.
Here’s a picture of radical lefties in action.
Ideology-first conservatives were appalled.
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These Lefties Weren’t Even Ashamed!
URL: http://presidentgeorgewashington.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/signingconstitution.jpg
Thanks to “A physicist’s” complete inability to formulate a coherent argument, we’ve gone from an absolutely absurd prediction about future cocoa production (from some leftard who knows not whereof he speaks) to the interesting assertion that the founding fathers were radical lefties (aka socialists) in just a handful of posts.
Un-freaking real.
“And that you’re echoing word-for-word the tobacco industry denialism of the 50s?”
More “A Physicist” baloney.
The effect of tobacco smoke on living animal tissue has been established by both scientific experimentation, and by non-scientific statistcal analysis.
The AGW proposition has not and CANNOT be tested by either method.
We can’t conduct tests of that nature because we only have one climate to work with, and even if we had a bunch of them to study, they wouldn’t fit into a lab.
Dave Surls (and other PJM/Tatler skeptics), yah’all might heed the latest Tweet from Australia’s brand-new 2011 Physics Nobelist Brian Schmidt:
Prof. Schmidt’s Tweet provides a link to the Australian Academy’s Report, which indeed is terrific:
It’s good that scientists are addressing the concerns of PJM/Tatler AGW skeptics … clearly, politely, rationally, and firmly.
It’s bad that Australia’s AGW skeptics are responding largely with smears and death threats.
Are the smears and death threats of Australia’s climate change skeptics — and worse of all, their willful ignorance about AGW — really the best face of 21st century conservatism?
Most thoughtful folks don’t think so.
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Physics Nobelist Brian Schmidt’s Tweets
URL: http://twitter.com/#!/cosmicpinot/status/76209823355641856
So, are you working for the Obama campaign or not?
Alas, more recent investigations revealing an experimental error are looking more and more like the experiment was flawed and that the speed of light remains inviolate. We need to keep an eye on this and be prepared to remove this post soon as it will no longer be useful for inspiring skepticism of science in people and instead bolster it.
Global Climate Fraud
When 31,487 American environmental and climate scientists, 9,029 of whom hold PhDs, agree that ”limits on greenhouse gasses would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology and damage the health and welfare of mankind,” can they all be wrong?
If they are, that would mean the cockamamie claims of Al Gore, the IPCC, and the whole horde of “greenies” who have been claiming for years that CO2 emissions are hazardous to the planet are a crock.
When those scientists subscribe to the view that, “there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth,” it would mean that Gore and Company should be branded as criminals for knowingly advocating a plot which would deprive mankind of those benefits.
(See the petition which includes the identities and qualifications of the signers at http://www.petitionproject.org/.)
In point of fact, the global warmists/coolists/changeists–they and their ilk have pushed all of those senseless panics over the past three decades but will be referred to here as simply the warmists and their cause as global warming–are responsible for perpetrating a scam so massive that Bernie Madoff would blush for not thinking of it first.
The immediate occasion for citing The Petition Project, which began with some 17,000 signatories in the late nineties and which has, of course, been dismissed by the warmist lobby as fraudulent despite the identification of every signatory, is the recent brouhaha over what scientist said what and what did he mean about global warming.
UC Berkeley Professor Richard Muller, member of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST) team, alleged last week that he and his team had concluded Mother Earth was indeed warming and temperatures had increased by almost one degree centigrade over the course of 60 years.
As the warmists exulted over that announcement, made just in the nick of time for the gathering of the U.N.’s climate summit in Durban, S.A., a BEST colleague of Prof. Muller’s took issue with his opinion. A day later, Britain’s DailyMail.com also rained on Muller’s warmist parade by pointing out that his fellow climatologist had basically called Muller’s claim bunk.
Professor Judith Curry, chairperson of the highly-prestigious University of Georgia’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said Muller had made “a huge mistake,” prof-speak for, Muller, you’re a ninny and/or a shill for the warmists. Curry also corrected Muller’s conclusions by adding factual analysis that there has been no global warming for at least ten years . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5918.)
Wood doesn’t burn. You probably thought it did. Paper doesn’t either. You can boil water in a paper cup with a flame under it. Things only burn after they become hot enough to release gases. Some gases do burn.
Unleashed! Duke of Edinburgh Disses Wind!
In spite of rumors to the contrary, the 90 year old Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Consort to Queen Elizabeth II, really does have a mind of his own, at least insofar as wind farms are concerned.
The rarely-seen Philip outside the company of Queen Liz on state occasions and who even more rarely says anything of consequence, thinks wind farms are bloody tommyrot, in Brit slang.
Of course, royalty doesn’t use slang but he was equally-emphatic on the functionality of those blots on the landscape and seascape which generate far more profits for developers than they produce reliable electricity. As Phil said, they are “absolutely useless,” a position shared by his son, the less than bonnie prince Charlie who has put the kibosh on any thoughts of building windmills on his Duchy of Cornwall lands.
That very politically incorrect opinion of the House of Windsor might be seconded by the House of Kennedy clan which opposed the construction of windmills but primarily because they would obstruct their Hyannis Port view of Nantucket Sound: To hell with being eco-friendly, not in our front yard!
To hell with the Kennedys, said the Obama administration when it gave the okay to mar the Kennedy vista and ignore one of early-supporter Uncle Teddy’s final wishes last year,
Prince Philip has little worry that wind farms will be erected anywhere near Buckingham Palace or in proximity to any of his other and his bride’s royal pads. Unlike the Kennedys, however, he takes issue with the whole concept of wind-gerated energy on practical, not self-serving grounds.
He calls the idea “a disgrace,” contends it will “never work,” and accuses those who buy into the scam of believing in a “fairy tale” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=6176.)
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Now that is thinking outside the box! But beware of difficult questions, which will arise, that haven’t been addressed yet.
Well, I did say “rarely”. The only times that I can think of off-hand when scientists had to completely throw out an old explanation for a new theory were the Michelson–Morley experiments disproving the existence of aether and the development of plate-tectonics.