Slashdot Mirror

It's widely accepted that there are fewer genetic similiarities between individuals of the same 'race' as there are between individuals from different 'races.'

It all depends on how you measure similarity. Difference however is easily seen since it's genetically reproducible.

http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/09/24/south-asians-as-a-hybrid-popul/

There's a good basic primer on the topic.

(Adding something like 1" of topsoil to America's farm land would sequester more CO2 than man has ever emitted, IIRC, and we could actually do that simultaneously with growing bio-fuels...!)

AGW (whether true or false) is just something for people to argue about while governments and corporations make the biggest power grab in the history of power grabs. Divide and conquer at work.

Hang on, buddy!

No one has ever come up with a theory of Modified Gravity that can explain the data we have , but Dark Matter does. http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/01/18/why-the-universe-needs-dark-matter-and-not-mond-in-one-graph/

I was in grade school in the sixties, and we were taught two indisputable scientific consensus facts:

That the great ice age was coming. In the early 70's, this was on the cover of Time Magazine.

Are you sure you remembered that correctly?
http://science.time.com/2013/06/06/sorry-a-time-magazine-cover-did-not-predict-a-coming-ice-age/
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/06/04/the-1970s-ice-age-myth-and-time-magazine-covers-by-david-kirtley/

And if you think that you were taught in the 1960's that Thomas Malthus essay PROVED we would all starve to death by the year 2000, well, you need to go find that teacher and have your grade changed to "F".
Thomas Malthus wrote that essay in 1798, and it had been debunked long before our great-grandparents were twinkles in our great-great grandparents eyes.

Aye, his blog is pretty damn excellent.

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/

Unfortunately after a billion years or so there'll be no humans left to see it, hopefully at some point we'll have moved some of our eggs elsewhere, perhaps with generation ships if Einstein was right and there's no other possibilities...

When big pharma pays a publisher to publish a fake journalâ¦

Well, you've demonstrated what I said; DDT is still in use globally.

As for the rest of what you're trying to imply, here's an article which points out all of the factors that combined to cause both the increase and decrease in malaria in South Africa that your article leaves out:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/09/28/ddt-use-in-south-africa/

Sorry, but you're wrong. Yes, in the '90s when those studies were done, it kinda looked that way. Since then, however, the percentage of single-parent homes has continued to skyrocket, only, funny thing, crime itself has gone way down. Read the above linked article, look at the graphs. Sure, some research says single-parent children may be more at risk for going to jail than those from two-parent households, but you can't explain the prison population that way, not without seriously cherry-picking your data.

Except the woman who wrote the article, Karyn Hede, is actually an instructor of scientific writing at UNC Chapel Hill in the Medical and Scientific Journalism Program. At the very least this should discredit the the UNC-CH scientific writing program...

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/15/strange-loops-dennis-ritchie-a/

Both AC and disposable60 were trying to explain to you the concept outlined by Mr. Thompson.

Read, and ponder.

And of course, you'd have to compile that code using a compiler that you wrote in assembly.

OK, you're a racist.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/wp-content/blogs.dir/470/files/2012/04/i-56483a6e9716d73ba0369eb27a275548-sci_racism.jpg

You can not add security, later.

In Unix systems, there’s a program named “login“. login is the code that takes your username and password, verifies that the password you gave is the correct one for the username you gave, and if so, logs you in to the system.

For debugging purposes, Thompson put a back-door into “login”. The way he did it was by modifying the C compiler. He took the code pattern for password verification, and embedded it into the C compiler, so that when it saw that pattern, it would actually generate code

that accepted either the correct password for the username, or Thompson’s special debugging password. In pseudo-Python:

    def compile(code):
        if (looksLikeLoginCode(code)):
            generateLoginWithBackDoor()
        else:
            compileNormally(code)

With that in the C compiler, any time that anyone compiles login,

the code generated by the compiler will include Ritchie’s back door.

Now comes the really clever part. Obviously, if anyone saw code like what’s in that

example, they’d throw a fit. That’s insanely insecure, and any manager who saw that would immediately demand that it be removed. So, how can you keep the back door, but get rid of the danger of someone noticing it in the source code for the C compiler? You hack the C compiler itself:

    def compile(code):
        if (looksLikeLoginCode(code)):
            generateLoginWithBackDoor(code)
        elif (looksLikeCompilerCode(code)):
            generateCompilerWithBackDoorDetection(code)
        else:
            compileNormally(code)

What happens here is that you modify the C compiler code so that when it compiles itelf, it inserts the back-door code. So now when the C compiler compiles login, it will insert the back door code; and when it compiles

the C compiler, it will insert the code that inserts the code into both login and the C compiler.

Now, you compile the C compiler with itself – getting a C compiler that includes the back-door generation code explicitly. Then you delete the back-door code from the C compiler source. But it’s in the binary. So when you use that binary to produce a new version of the compiler from the source, it will insert the back-door code into

the new version.

So you’ve now got a C compiler that inserts back-door code when it compiles itself – and that code appears nowhere in the source code of the compiler. It did exist in the code at one point – but then it got deleted. But because the C compiler is written in C, and always compiled with itself, that means thats each successive new version of the C compiler will pass along the back-door – and it will continue to appear in both login and in the C compiler, without any trace in the source code of either.

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/15/strange-loops-dennis-ritchie-a/

All I can say about global warming is that when I was a kidd these same people where saying we where headed to and Ice Age.

No, they weren't. Nobody was ever seriously predicting we were heading into an ice age. That "next ice age" played well in the media-- it made Time and Newsweek--but it was never a scientific consensus. Check out "The myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus" in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, or the discussion and links here: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/09/18/now-out-in-bams-the-myth-of-th/

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/07/kozm_LSS.jpg
shows stuff coming towards us.

No, it doesn't. Perhaps the color coding was chosen poorly, but it doesn't show things moving towards us at all. Quite the opposite.

Tossed that out for a response, thank you.

I did search it out first
http://www.aao.gov.au/2df/manual/2df_manual.html
and
http://www2.aao.gov.au/2dFGRS/Public/Publications/colless_specz.pdf

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2dF_Galaxy_Redshift_Survey

I couldn't find anything to grab on to, other than "8.2 Simple redshift completeness mask" of the PDF but figure I was on the wrong track
(ie: made no sense to me).

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/07/kozm_LSS.jpg
shows stuff coming towards us.

No, it doesn't. Perhaps the color coding was chosen poorly, but it doesn't show things moving towards us at all. Quite the opposite.

This is a sig I've seen someone use on /. the article says to me dark matter was here, then nothing exploded.

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/07/kozm_LSS.jpg
shows stuff coming towards us. I've heard so many space programs say everywhere you look everything is moving away from us,

Maybe not.

Does Fluoride Make Your Kids Dumb?
Dr. Mercola: Visionary or Quack?
FDA Orders Dr. Joseph Mercola to Stop Illegal Claims
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations - 2011
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations - 2006
Joe Mercola: 15 years of promoting quackery
The New PuritansWhen did liberals become so uptight?

Very early on in the process of dogs coming out of wolves...it may have been more about natural selection. (Maybe) Early man only allowed the wolves that were tame to hang around...and it was beneficial for the tamer wolves. It seems when you select for tameness....you get more than just that as you go along. I am sure everyone has already heard of ths.

In fact, because he is a member of the National Academy of Science, he could publish paper on PNAS (Proceeding of the NAS) without much peer review (or find sympathetic scientists to review his paper). In the old day, there was an honor system with respect to publishing in PNAS that the author should get their paper properly peer-reviewed. Pauling submitted a series of very shoddy vitamin studies to the PNAS and as a result, he single handedly changed this policy and now makes publishing to PNAS a lot more rigorous. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/02/18/vitamin-c-and-cancer-has-linus-pauling-b/

basically a global EMP

I was starting to think I was on the wrong website, I had to read down this far before someone finally understands the threat is more than a just a mess of power line knocked down in a storm. Sure humans were built to survive without electricity, but not in the vast numbers created by our invention of civilization. The numbers supported by a civilization are directly related to its technology level. Without electricity we will be metaphorically back in the 1920's with 7X the number of people on our little rock requiring food and shelter.

If the damage takes too long to fix civil war and mass migration is a likely outcome, which will be hard to believe for people who think that drought has nothing to do with the Syrian war.

yeah — like ken thompson's C compiler exploit:

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/15/strange-loops-dennis-ritchie-a/

For debugging purposes, Thompson put a back-door into “login”. The way he did it was by modifying the C compiler. He took the code pattern for password verification, and embedded it into the C compiler, so that when it saw that pattern, it would actually generate code
that accepted either the correct password for the username, or Thompson’s special debugging password. In pseudo-Python:

    def compile(code):
        if (looksLikeLoginCode(code)):
            generateLoginWithBackDoor()
        else:
            compileNormally(code)
With that in the C compiler, any time that anyone compiles login,
the code generated by the compiler will include Ritchie’s back door.

Now comes the really clever part. Obviously, if anyone saw code like what’s in that
example, they’d throw a fit. That’s insanely insecure, and any manager who saw that would immediately demand that it be removed. So, how can you keep the back door, but get rid of the danger of someone noticing it in the source code for the C compiler? You hack the C compiler itself:

    def compile(code):
        if (looksLikeLoginCode(code)):
            generateLoginWithBackDoor(code)
        elif (looksLikeCompilerCode(code)):
            generateCompilerWithBackDoorDetection(code)
        else:
            compileNormally(code)
What happens here is that you modify the C compiler code so that when it compiles itelf, it inserts the back-door code. So now when the C compiler compiles login, it will insert the back door code; and when it compiles
the C compiler, it will insert the code that inserts the code into both login and the C compiler.

Now, you compile the C compiler with itself – getting a C compiler that includes the back-door generation code explicitly. Then you delete the back-door code from the C compiler source. But it’s in the binary. So when you use that binary to produce a new version of the compiler from the source, it will insert the back-door code into
the new version.

So you’ve now got a C compiler that inserts back-door code when it compiles itself – and that code appears nowhere in the source code of the compiler.

The thing being missed in the current privacy fuss is that right now everyone is only worrying about the US government. That leaves out two other classes of players...

1 - I know that the US government is far from perfect, but compared to some other governments out there they're downright benign. That's not to excuse their behavior in any way, that's just to point out that there are bigger threats to be aware of.

2 - Don't forget corporations, particularly multinational corporations. At some theoretical level, the US government has the best interests of US citizens as its motivation. (I'll agree that it may be "theoretical" and one may have to say "SOME US citizens', but there is still that element there.) Corporations have their own profit and revenue as their primary motivation, the good of their customers is secondary, important as a continuing source of profit and revenue. As for non-customers, their importance is as a future source of profit and revenue. Nothing there about peoples' best interests if they don't align with the companies'.

While the boogeyman of the US government is certainly present, one should not forget that they are probably not the worst boogeyman, there are probably much worse out there. In other words, it's worse than you think.

On backdoors, don't forget this one:
  http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/15/strange-loops-dennis-ritchie-a/

To build windows, you have the use the windows compiler, I guess. Well, that's that then:

Self-referencing C Compiler

link to story about trojan compiler

Computers can pick totally random numbers, they're called TRNGs (True Random Number Generator) it's a basic requirement of a lot of cryptographic systems as any bias significantly weakens the system. The example Tepples posted with the least significant bit of an audio source is one example, another common one is the thermal noise from measuring temperatures of internal components. If for some reason a machine needs a lot of random numbers, more than these common sources can provide in a given time, then there are actually radioactive decay based random number generators available for computers- set it so there's a 50% chance of a GM tube detecting a decay event in a given (short) time and enjoy some true quantum random numbers, or just have a lot of thermal noise sensors in a single device..

Have a look at any of the discussions about how /dev/random works, or have a read of Random.org

Humans on the other hand can't produce truly random behavior, or at least that's the result of most studies- both clinical and ad hoc. Have a look at Is 17 the most random number? where people were asked to pick a number between 1 and 20. Our brains may actually have a mechanism to choose a totally random outcome from a series of possibilities, there's a lot of uncertainty still on how the brain works at the most fundamental levels, but trying to consicously choose a random decision involves filtering through all of the personal and cultural biases into the conscious mind it's nowhere near random. "A number from one to twenty? Hmm. Eight. Hold on, no, I live at number eight, and have been thinking about going home. Must remember to buy milk. Twenty? Too obvious, it's the top and is a crit on a d20 in D&D, everyone'll choose that. Nineteen? Bah, only thinking of that because I can't use twenty. Thirteen? Well, it would show that I'm not superstitious but it's still too obvious. I'll go for seventeen, no one will choose that!"

Everything depends on where you are. In some places it's plenty possible already..

That mythbuster's episode is completely offbase. It starts with the incorrect assumption that the "greenhouse effect" works like an earthbound greenhouse. It doesn't -- that term is just an erroneous simplification to make the mechanics seem understandable. See The greenhouse effect is not the effect that warms greenhouses.".

It turns out it is very hard to test the assertion that so-called greenhouse gasses cause warming. So hard that it has never been empirically tested, only modeled in computer simulations. (To prove me wrong, just cite the researcher who conducted an experiment demonstrating the effect). The assertaion that so-called greenhouse gases, especially CO2, contribute to near-surface atmospheric warming is contradicted by well-known physical laws relating to gas and vapour, as well as to general thermodynamics.

In the late 1800s, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius discovered a correlation between greenhouse gas concentrations and surface temperatures. However, he did not demonstrate cause and effect. It could well be that temperatures affect CO2 concentrations, rather than the other way around.

No, belief in a creator is not like winning the lottery. It's a pure true/false question. We know the Universe began somehow. Atheists believe in no deity and claim that a Universe can just spring up from nothing. A creationist believes that something must have caused it to begin. Observation dictates that the creationist is probably correct.

You are missing a lot of possibilities here. What if the universe (or multiverse, or whatever you wish to call it) has always existed, and our observable universe began from a phase change in that larger entity about 13.8 billion years ago? Or, we are are a 3+1-dimensional brane in a higher-dimensional multiverse?

Why? 1. Observe the Universe and everything has a cause and effect.

Already wrong at this point. Say, an uranium atom decays just now. What made that happen at that precise moment? Nothing.

2. If a Universe could just pop up from nothing what has prevented numerous additional Universes from popping up within ours,

Why would those universes have to pop up within our universe? If our universe sprang up from something in a higher vacuum state dropping to its ground state, that could have happened many times, with the other universes being outside ours? Or, as scientists like Stephen Hawking have at some point surmised, what if our black holes give birth to other universes, which create their own space-times?

Because there is no proof, and no way of proving the answer to the question Philosophers through history have given it a 50/50 shot.

Not any philosophers I'm aware of. Perhaps you could provide some references.

Most atheists, yourself obviously included, dismiss the creator question because of Religious teaching, not because the question has been invalidated by any science. The question is still a very valid, and as mentioned previously it's an extremely healthy question to try and solve.

No, I don't dismiss it. I dismiss any personal, interacting god. I dismiss any biblical and such creator gods, who create the universe in an already-evolved state. A creator who just pushes the button, so to speak, and ends the interaction there, is an option that must be considered possible. For example, if our universe is a computer simulation, the entity who started the simulation would qualify as such a creator. However, I find this option rather disinteresting. How would you show that this is what really happened? I don't see a way, and we'll be stuck in a situation of "we don't know what happened". As long as science can hypothesize testable (at least in principle) theories of the beginning of the universe, that's the way to go.

As to this:

How laughable can you get? Your evidence is two popular accounts of a scientific theory? And the "U of M" site has its latest reference from 1995, do you think that Wiki might have a bit more up-to-date info?

No, the Wiki does not have the most up to date information for Big Bang. The age of the Universe by most cosmologists is closer to U of M's information than Wiki's information.

You really are banging on your ignorance of the subject. Who are these "most cosmologists", who claim that the universe is about 15 bn years old, instead of 13.8 or thereabouts. The latest data by the Planck probe gives the age as 13.8 bn years, and that was a minor surprise to most cosmologists, as that's some 80 million years higher than our previous-best data indicated. Read all about it here: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/03/21/what-the-entire-universe-is-made-of-thanks-to-planck/

I can tell you that in elementary school in Michigan we were taught the Big Bang, as are most kids. In the decades that followed

Now we are in the information age and people are extrapolating computers implanted in our brains. I don't think it will happen.

http://scienceblogs.com/sciencepunk/2013/02/20/implanted-bionic-eye-allows-the-blind-to-see-again/

http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/two-rats-communicate-brain-to-brain-130227.htm

I see no reason why I wouldn't want more bandwidth between my mind and the Internet. Keyboards and touchscreens are clumsy.

Climate can change and it will change but predicting these kinds of trends to 2050 with any kind of accuracy is ludicrous at best, since they cannot even predict whats the weather next weekend.

Again, the above is a perfect example of bullshit, or if you want a more polite term, "poppycock" or "humbug". Quoting from the above link...

Bullshit is commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising.

"bullshit" can be sometimes be distinguished from lying...

"Bullshit" does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication; with only basic knowledge about a topic, bullshit is often used to make the audience believe that one knows far more about the topic by feigning total certainty or making probable predictions.

The parent poster seems to implicitly (and deliberately?) confuse climate and weather. There are numerous quality discussions about chaotic systems, the differences between climate and weather, and how climate is predictable farther into the future than weather. The existence of these arguments, and the poster's seeming ignorance of them seems to indicate to me that the poster simply does not care about the truth, but cares rather only to appear to be truthful to those less well-read in science. As such, he falls nicely under Princeton Professor Harry Frankfurt's definition of a bullshiter given in his 2005 monograph 'On Bullshit':

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

Hmm yes. It's entirely psychogenic. It may be that if you give someone a fake injection, or a sugar pill which they think has curative properties it puts someone in a positive frame of mind that alleviates worry or fixation on the condition and provides some space for it to improve. It does not mean the placebo is doing it, or that it's acceptable to give someone magic sugar pills in place of an effective treatment. It's also not hard to find articles such this, which methodically demolish notions about placebos usually put about by homoeopaths.

If we could use open source, we could at least read the source and even compile it to ensure the source we read was the binary which was compiled

Or maybe not.

Of course, you could argue, "well, that wouldn't happen if I could see the source code of the compiler!" but then malware-authors can just shift the problem back one level into the hardware.

Open Source is not a guarantee of security. It can help, sure, but it is not a panacea. In fact, it can even be counter-productive if anyone can see the source-code since then they can see vulnerabilities you may have missed. Which is not to say that closed-source is necessarily any better, but one should not assume that open source is always the answer.

Eat shit dude: http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/2013/01/17/clinical-trial-of-fecal-transplant-gets-impressive-results-synthetic-poop-is-in-the-works-2/
OK not exactly but if I had your problem I'd try that stool (synthetic or otherwise) transplant therapy first before resorting to the parasitical worm therapy...

We have never risen above primal tribal & religious bickering. What makes you think we'll ever be able to do that.

Also, there are several trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and 200 billion galaxies.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/01/05/how-many-planets-are-in-the-universe/ [scienceblogs.com]

So if we're a billion to one coincidence, we're not all that special.

We have never risen above primal tribal & religious bickering. What makes you think we'll ever be able to do that.

Also, there are several trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and 200 billion galaxies.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/01/05/how-many-planets-are-in-the-universe/ [scienceblogs.com]

So if we're a billion to one coincidence, we're not all that special.

We have never risen above primal tribal & religious bickering. What makes you think we'll ever be able to do that.

Also, there are several trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and 200 billion galaxies.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/01/05/how-many-planets-are-in-the-universe/

So if we're a billion to one coincidence, we're not all that special.

We've had primal tribal & religious bickering our entire existence.

What makes you think we can get beyond that?

Also, there's several trillion planets in our galaxy alone. And 200 billion galaxies.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/01/05/how-many-planets-are-in-the-universe/

If we're a billion to one coincidence, we're not all that unique.

And that is the case in climate studies, thermometers are frequently placed in locations that introduce errors, so the data has to be adjusted; the locations are not spatially uniform so the data has gridded; and on top of all that, the thermometers recorded Tmin and Tmax so historically the data point, Tave was the midpoint between Tmin and Tmax. The reality is any real direct measurements is very remote to climatology.

Your post makes a

( ) theoretical (X) specious ( ) crackpot ( ) incoherent

argument denying anthropogenic global warming. You are wrong. Here is why you are wrong.

(X) Your post contains one or more logical errors
(X) Logical fallacy
(X) Your post contains one or more factual errors
( ) Online searching has failed to find scientific support for the posted theory(s)
( ) Your source or reference is not from the field of climate science
( ) Your source actually never said that
(X) Citation please
( ) An idea is not responsible for the people who support it
( ) The mothership is not coming to save us
( ) Please use a keyboard that you know

Specifically, you fail to understand that

( ) Global warming is a long-term global trend
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate

( ) Local trends have little to do with long-term global trends
( ) Short-term trends have little to do with long-term global trends
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_uncertainty_analysis

( ) Peak temperatures only happen every once in a while
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

( ) The Earth is warming up
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasa-giss_1880-2009_global_temperature.svg

(X) Surface temperature measurements are valid and meaningful
(X) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/temperature-record-reliability-attack.php

( ) Other planets are not warming up
( ) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/theres-global-warming-on-mars-too.php

( ) The sun is not warming up
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png

( ) CO2 levels have increased 35% in 150 years due to human activity
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

( ) Factors other than CO2 also affect climate
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

( ) The absorption of infrared radiation by greenhouse gases is well understood
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

( ) Water vapor is fully represented in all climate models
( ) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/climate-scientists-hide-water-vapor.php

( ) Scientists did not predict an ice age in the 70s
( ) http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

( ) CO2 fertilization effects are far too weak to offset current rates of increase
( )

And that is the case in climate studies, thermometers are frequently placed in locations that introduce errors, so the data has to be adjusted; the locations are not spatially uniform so the data has gridded; and on top of all that, the thermometers recorded Tmin and Tmax so historically the data point, Tave was the midpoint between Tmin and Tmax. The reality is any real direct measurements is very remote to climatology.

Your post makes a

( ) theoretical (X) specious ( ) crackpot ( ) incoherent

argument denying anthropogenic global warming. You are wrong. Here is why you are wrong.

(X) Your post contains one or more logical errors
(X) Logical fallacy
(X) Your post contains one or more factual errors
( ) Online searching has failed to find scientific support for the posted theory(s)
( ) Your source or reference is not from the field of climate science
( ) Your source actually never said that
(X) Citation please
( ) An idea is not responsible for the people who support it
( ) The mothership is not coming to save us
( ) Please use a keyboard that you know

Specifically, you fail to understand that

( ) Global warming is a long-term global trend
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate

( ) Local trends have little to do with long-term global trends
( ) Short-term trends have little to do with long-term global trends
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_uncertainty_analysis

( ) Peak temperatures only happen every once in a while
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

( ) The Earth is warming up
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasa-giss_1880-2009_global_temperature.svg

(X) Surface temperature measurements are valid and meaningful
(X) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/temperature-record-reliability-attack.php

( ) Other planets are not warming up
( ) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/theres-global-warming-on-mars-too.php

( ) The sun is not warming up
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png

( ) CO2 levels have increased 35% in 150 years due to human activity
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

( ) Factors other than CO2 also affect climate
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

( ) The absorption of infrared radiation by greenhouse gases is well understood
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

( ) Water vapor is fully represented in all climate models
( ) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/climate-scientists-hide-water-vapor.php

( ) Scientists did not predict an ice age in the 70s
( ) http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

( ) CO2 fertilization effects are far too weak to offset current rates of increase
( )

And that is the case in climate studies, thermometers are frequently placed in locations that introduce errors, so the data has to be adjusted; the locations are not spatially uniform so the data has gridded; and on top of all that, the thermometers recorded Tmin and Tmax so historically the data point, Tave was the midpoint between Tmin and Tmax. The reality is any real direct measurements is very remote to climatology.

Your post makes a

( ) theoretical (X) specious ( ) crackpot ( ) incoherent

argument denying anthropogenic global warming. You are wrong. Here is why you are wrong.

(X) Your post contains one or more logical errors
(X) Logical fallacy
(X) Your post contains one or more factual errors
( ) Online searching has failed to find scientific support for the posted theory(s)
( ) Your source or reference is not from the field of climate science
( ) Your source actually never said that
(X) Citation please
( ) An idea is not responsible for the people who support it
( ) The mothership is not coming to save us
( ) Please use a keyboard that you know

Specifically, you fail to understand that

( ) Global warming is a long-term global trend
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate

( ) Local trends have little to do with long-term global trends
( ) Short-term trends have little to do with long-term global trends
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_uncertainty_analysis

( ) Peak temperatures only happen every once in a while
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

( ) The Earth is warming up
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasa-giss_1880-2009_global_temperature.svg

(X) Surface temperature measurements are valid and meaningful
(X) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/temperature-record-reliability-attack.php

( ) Other planets are not warming up
( ) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/theres-global-warming-on-mars-too.php

( ) The sun is not warming up
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png

( ) CO2 levels have increased 35% in 150 years due to human activity
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

( ) Factors other than CO2 also affect climate
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

( ) The absorption of infrared radiation by greenhouse gases is well understood
( ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

( ) Water vapor is fully represented in all climate models
( ) http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/climate-scientists-hide-water-vapor.php

( ) Scientists did not predict an ice age in the 70s
( ) http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

( ) CO2 fertilization effects are far too weak to offset current rates of increase
( )

You wouldn't take people's freely written statements as being evidence of what they think?

Well, you shouldn't always. Some people do act in bad faith.

I remember way, way back, actually right here on Slashdot, I learned about organized bad faith public discourse for the first time.

The occasion was that an organization called "The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution" had published a book on Linux, which was widely reported as being a commissioned hit piece. In the ensuing discussion, someone linked to the blog of Tim Lambert, an Australian computer science professor, which was very enlightening.

Finally, Bruce Perens got the occasion to ask Kenneth Brown outright: What would it take to get you to stop attacking Linux and start defending it instead? "We can talk about that" was apparently his reply.

So yes, some people do argue in bad faith. If you keep assuming these people argue in good faith, they win, so sometimes it's necessary to call out. But obviously it shouldn't be done lightly either.

Some things to consider:

1) This chart does not include albedo change due to Arctic ice extent change. Likely because this is from the 2007 IPCC report - which probably means the data is from 2006 or earlier. Ice loss has been dramatic since then: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/files/2012/10/201209-record-low-monthly-arctic-extent-590x441.png

2) For this comparison you would need to look at albedo change due to decrease in Arctic summer ice extent vs radiative forcing of CO2 added in a single year. This will give you a good approximation of how many years worth of CO2 you would need to put back in the ground to address the forcing added by the albedo loss.

Ridiculous. I see an article about citizens stopping armed robberies and attempted murders nearly every day, and it's not like I go out of my way to look them up. As an aside, a public shooting was stopped short three days before Sandy Hook, and one three days after.

And most of us aren't "crossing our fingers" that someone won't be accidentally shot in our home. It's rare. Like, death by avian influenza, rare. Remember there are roughly as many firearms in this country as there are citizens, but your swimming pool is 100x's more likely to kill someone than your firearm[1]. Perhaps it's that we appreciate that firearms are potentially dangerous mechanisms, that people are shockingly responsible with them. Contrast this with peoples behavior when driving... a vastly more dangerous activity even when you're doing it properly.

There's a terrible picture being painted that's wholly contrary to reality and totally inconsistent with your own observations. If it weren't such a highly politicized issue, Slashdot would be the first place to point out the logical and statistical folly of gun bans, just like any other security theater.

We're better than this, and we shouldn't be torching the Bill of Rights because a newspaper scared us... first amendment or second.

[1] http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2001/07/27/levittpoolsvsguns/

MPU

Ken's Backdoor

Heh, Zicam. A homeopathic 1X dilution of zinc gluconate, which is 10% w/v, or 10 grams per 100mL. You might as well be snorting pure powder. Though there was nothing "semi" about the permanent loss of smell for some people.

Intelligence, however, doesn't seem to be one of them. For example, there's a reason why there aren't so many female chess grandmasters, but it's not native ability.

Note that this is radically different from "plenty of exceptions"; especially in the case of intelligence that you cited.

And so long as we're trading useless anecdotal impressions... back when I was taking engineering classes, I tried to get partnered with the female students for projects - because I noticed they worked hard and tended to actually be good at engineering. Given schmuck attitudes like yours, the selection pressure was pretty damn high.

Also, PZ Myers on Kurzweil.

Considering the statistics, one could make a better case for doing away with baseball bats than guns.

Ferran: We Must Stop Baseball Bat Violence!

Against the gun control that won’t work

National Review: Gun Control Doesn't Work

The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue.

Nope. The political angle has been apparent for quite some time - I figured it was an attempt to stop the developing world from advancing. Say to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage.

So, to be clear: you believe that Manabe and Wetherald's landmark 1967 paper (which built on Manabe and Strickler 1964) that calculated the amount of warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses, was work that was actually done "to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage"? Do you have any evidence for this whatsoever? Can you find some 1964 references saying that politicians were seriously worried about "China and India becoming the dominant players on the world stage," much less were instructing scientists to make up data to prevent it?

... I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again.

That's been debunked ages ago. The "next ice age" played well in the media-- it made Time and Newsweek--but it was never a scientific consensus. Check out "The myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus" in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 , or the discussion and links here: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/09/18/now-out-in-bams-the-myth-of-th/

...One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.

Sorry, but this is the way science happens: the overall physics is understood, and then the details are slowly filled and the error bars are refined and the calculations get better.

Let me remind you that the overall physics of the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had been remarkably constant. Today's best estimate of the warming effect is still within the error bars of Manabe and Wetherald's original 1967 calculation, and if you plot their predictions against the actual measured temperatures, using the measured values of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the data fits perfectly.

We have pretty good confidence that we know the physics of the greenhouse effect. Scientists has not been "keeping changing your story"-- it's been physics that's been well understood for over a hundred years, and the same overall calculation with the same net result, to within the error bars, for close to fifty years.