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The skepticism will appear if you start saying "it matters where you stick the needles" and stuff like that.

Apparently, there is at least one study that showed sticking them at random was actually better, or at least statistically the same, as the whole qi line thing. It is sad that this thing will be twisted and misrepresented by the alternative medicine quacks and used as a 'Nya nya we told ya so,' to skeptics who already suspected that the body does release pain killers when poked full of multiple small holes.

When it comes to alternative medicine, pretty much any skeptic knows that there are three main ones which may have some merit (even if not enough to justify mainstream usage): chiropractic, because it actively affects the spine, naturopathy/herbal, because plants contain active ingredients, and acupuncture, because it actively affects the skin. What skeptics want is robust evidence indicating that these things work better that other traditional techniques, and those have simply not materialized, and until they do, color me skeptical about acupuncture as a whole, even if there is some method to the madness.

There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"

That's a load of crap. Skeptics make their first reaction to anything for which there is not sufficient evidence present "this is BS." That's a critical difference. As far as I know, acupuncture has not been exceptionally good at proving itself. It is based on the flow of some qi or whatever and claims to have all sorts of healing properties, neither of which have been proven in the least, and that is something to be rightfully skeptical about. If you make an extraordinary claim, I require extraordinary evidence. Plenty of new theories and ideas are accepted by skeptical types (for example, this was new, but there was no skeptic backlash, because it was a reasonable claim with reasonable evidence); just because some old time quackery is rejected doesn't mean skeptics are closed minded, that's just a way to distract form a lack of evidence. Medical skeptics have long admitted that minor injuries like sticking needles into yourself may trigger some pain-killer response, and this new thing, if indeed true, confirms that, not the validity of acupuncture. In fact, another study once showed that fake acupuncture outperformed 'real' acupuncture. It's not about simply denying everything, it is about denying everything until a reasonable amount of evidence exists to support it.

You know, homeopathy used to 'work' too, back when mercury was a medicine, because it didn't do anything whereas medicine killed you, which may be why it is still around. Chiropractic, originally claimed to cure all sorts of things, has the same affects as a good massage. Do they get vindicated too now? Sometimes things get lucky, or traditions are held for some reason, and maybe acupuncture is one of them due to this effect, but there is still no reason to not be skeptical about redirecting your qi or whatnot, or its ability to outperform any modern science based pain killing methods (I'd go with a good hit o' weed myself, but that's a different debate). It's good to have an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.

Ecklund is spinning the data, possibly to fit her pet hypothesis. For example, she claims that about half of scientists are "traditionally religious" but by her own data, 34% are atheists, 30% are strong agnostics, and 8% are believe in a higher power which they explicitly don't believe is "God." Given that, it is very hard to claim that half the scientific population is traditionally religious when three quarters aren't even theists. There are also some odd choices she makes in her definition of scientists. So for example, she includes all the social sciences but not mathematicians (something which I philosophically agree with but find sociologically suspect). There's an excellent analysis of her data by Jason Rosenhouse of her data at http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2010/05/scientists_and_religion.php. The most striking thing about the data, regardless of how Ecklund wants to spin it as showing scientists are religious, is how much less religious scientists are than the general population. Atheism is much more common among scientists than among the general population, as is agnosticism. Moreover, what religions are common if one looks at the theistic breakdown is very different. Evangelical Christianity for example is a much smaller percentage then one would get from a representative sample of theists.

She's in Texas, religious spin-doctoring is to be expected.

Ecklund is spinning the data, possibly to fit her pet hypothesis. For example, she claims that about half of scientists are "traditionally religious" but by her own data, 34% are atheists, 30% are strong agnostics, and 8% are believe in a higher power which they explicitly don't believe is "God." Given that, it is very hard to claim that half the scientific population is traditionally religious when three quarters aren't even theists. There are also some odd choices she makes in her definition of scientists. So for example, she includes all the social sciences but not mathematicians (something which I philosophically agree with but find sociologically suspect). There's an excellent analysis of her data by Jason Rosenhouse of her data at http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2010/05/scientists_and_religion.php. The most striking thing about the data, regardless of how Ecklund wants to spin it as showing scientists are religious, is how much less religious scientists are than the general population. Atheism is much more common among scientists than among the general population, as is agnosticism. Moreover, what religions are common if one looks at the theistic breakdown is very different. Evangelical Christianity for example is a much smaller percentage then one would get from a representative sample of theists.

Thankfully those who know how tend to be stable enough not to want to pursue such negative goals.

All it takes is one.

Ah really? Informed patients are one thing. But there are topics in which google is just an easy , easy way to get utterly, and catastrophically misinformed. Also, the disinformation is hard to distinguish for most people. Say you are a science geek that can at least recognize conspiracy bull from actual information, good for you. But what about the other people that don't enjoy of this benefit? Most of them just end up falling pray to complete BS.

This is the sort of things you can learn at "Google U" : http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/jenny_mccarthy_shows_off_her_knowledge_o.php

This is not "empowerment" it is the opposite, it moves people back to the dark ages in a way.

Claims about the big bad pharma companies not wanting to research this due to the inability to patent are inaccurate. See this analysis: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/in_which_my_words_will_be_misinterpreted.php.

I support any plan that involves nuking the ocean. Perhaps the Chinese could package any ocean life killed into "tuna" cans. Topical image: http://scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/nukewhale.jpg

... in his Science Blog.

That's pure trolling from Cuccinelli, he has not asked for the data (which is open) related to the papers in question, but ALL of Mann's e-mail with about 20 people.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/05/cuccinelli_is_using_the_law_to.php

WHy didn't our founders say that government had to provide healtchare?

The constitution also didn't say that people had the right to free speech, nor the right to bear arms, nor the right to vote at 18, nor that people have the right not to be searched without a reason, etc etc etc. Why do you think the constitution has been amended 27 times? Times change, so do the needs of the country. Within 15 years of its creation the constitution had already been amended 10 times. The last time an amendment was proposed was 32 years ago. Maybe it's time for another one.

notice, how this has happened since the US started getting involved?

That's right, if there's one thing we know how to do, it's fuck up a system. That doesn't mean we can't eventually get it right, and it doesn't mean we should stop trying.

Universal health care is policy in all industrialized countries (except the United States which is currently in transition).
Surely you're not going to tell me that every other industrialized nation except the US is in imminent danger of failing.

Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889.

We have almost 130 years of experience to look at. It's no wonder that Germany is the model for the bill which was passed.

Most current universal health care systems were implemented in the period following the Second World War as a process of deliberate health care reform, intended to make health care available to all, in the spirit of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, signed by every country doing so. The US did not ratify the social and economic rights sections, including Article 25's right to health.

Some more interesting reading here:

Are Patients in Universal Healthcare Countries Less Satisfied?

Some interesting data in those tables.

Here's a personal story as well: in 2003 I was finishing up college and living in a house with 4 other roommates, two couples. One of them was a guy who didn't take very good care of himself, without going into too much detail it was pretty clear that his immune system wasn't very strong because of how he treated his body. During February and March of that year he became sick, he just had a flu or cold or something like that. One Sunday I saw him walking from the basement to his room sort of staggering, he seemed pretty tired. Later that evening his girlfriend reported that she wasn't able to wake him. We called the medics, got some firemen there to lift him out of bed (he was crying, not knowing where he was, very out of it). His parents transported him to the hospital, where he became combative with the staff. They sedated him, and it put him in a coma for the next several years. He eventually awoke, but never spoke, did not recognize anyone, couldn't eat, etc. He spent about 5 years in various hospitals and clinics, including the reknowned Barrow Neurological Center here in Phoenix. Each year of his care cost his parents several hundred thousand dollars. Each year. He eventually died in a hospice due to complications that occured there.

The single reason he didn't go to the doctor when he originally got sick, which lasted for over a month, was because he did not have insurance and didn't want to pay so much just to go get an antibacterial. He told me exactly that when I asked him why he wasn't going to the doctor. The infection turned into menengitis, and that was that. He was 22 when he got sick. The end result was death and around a million dollars in health bills for his parents.

The US has the highest GDP in the world, by a lot. We can do better than that.

Erik Klemetti's Eruptions blog has a recent post called Eyjafjallajökull flight cancellations: How the right decision is being made to look wrong defending the decision to cancel, with much discussion in the comments section. (IMO, that blog's recent series of posts on the Iceland situation has been the best place to read about the eruption.)

I hold a skeptics view to the whole Global Warming thing, they say that this is what the earth will do in 100 years...yet they can't guess what its going to do next week with any certainty.

That's because you don't understand the difference between climate and weather. The former is far easier to make intelligent predictions about than the latter. You can think of climate as the global, long-term average of local, short-term weather. This is why 2009 can be tied for the warmest year on record AND have record-breaking snowfall during the blizzard in the mid-Atlantic US states that year.

Think of it like baseball. It's far easier to predict what someone's batting average will be like next year than it is to predict whether they will hit the ball on their next swing. Whether a person hits the ball or not has a lot of uncertainty, but the batting average is a clear predictive trend.

That and I just read two articles on two different news sites on the Same Day, One claiming that the Spring storms come later and later each year due to global warming and the other claiming that spring comes earlier and earlier due to it.

You're confusing science "journalism" for science. That's a huge mistake that has unfortunately clouded many public policy-science debates. The list of sins by science reporters against public understanding of science are frankly too long to enumerate here. Just because newspapers want a sensational story doesn't mean that actual academics are in huge disagreement.

Also, how the hell can they use data that seems to work for centuries "tree rings" and then STOP using it when it doesn't support their conclusions over the past few decades ie the whole Hide the Decline Fiasco.

This is another example of another tempest in a teacup created by the media and people with a political axe to grind.

The "hide the decline" fiasco originated in an attempt to deal with a specific set of tree ring temperature proxy data that does not match actual temperatures on record. Proxy records are used for approximation and aren't perfect, and it's well known that after 1960 latewood tree rings show a decline in temperatures despite the fact that all of our other records, including direct temperature measurements by thermometers, show a trend of warming.

That's the "decline" that was being "hidden." Not an actual decline in temperatures -- a false decline from bad proxies. You don't stick with bad data when you have proof its bad. (Unless you're one of these types who actually prefers tree rings to thermometers or who just desperately clings to *any* data that conforms to your world-view no matter its relative merit.)

You can read more about it here.

Stop being a fucking moron. Stop mindlessly parroting right-wing denialist propaganda. The "clouds are not taken into account" nonsense was refuted ages ago. Now fuck off.

You are an idiot too. He made the claim that they stopped calling it Global Warming, which is a blatant lie. It shouldn't even be necessary to provide links showing that scientists are referring to it as Global Warming. That's how much of a moron he is.

Global warming and volcanoes are related.

What's your source for this?

Here's a few for you.

CO2 output from volcano's have not varied wildly meaning their effect on Global temperatures is minimal.

CO2 from eyjafjallajokull vs CO2 from Europe's airline industry.

I guess these aren't the citations the OP was looking for.

Uhm, I would like to point out that Big Bang theory works to within measurable experimental error (hence this XKCD comic).

Big Bang theory does not cover inflation, matter vs anti-matter, large-scale matter distribution, or whether or not the laws of physics are constant over all space and time. When you say that you sound like one of those Intelligent Design tards who claim that evolution is flawed because it doesn't explain the evolution of galaxies and stars.

Big Bang theory does cover the very initial conditions of the Universe, and with it we can predict what the cosmic microwave background should be to an astonishing degree of accuracy.

If you are interested in what modern physics thinks of the beginning of the Universe, I would recommend starting with the "The Greatest Story Ever Told" posts on Starts With A Bang

In other words, it predicts some statistical measurements with an extremely narrowly defined scope to high precision.

As a scientific theory, that's not very strong. We know that something is happening, but we don't know why.

Evolution, in comparison, explains the 'why' completely.

I'm not saying the Big Bang theory is wrong, it's just that it's not very explanatory, predictive (in breadth, not numeric precision), or backed by as much evidence as Evolution is.

Uhm, I would like to point out that Big Bang theory works to within measurable experimental error (hence this XKCD comic).

Big Bang theory does not cover inflation, matter vs anti-matter, large-scale matter distribution, or whether or not the laws of physics are constant over all space and time. When you say that you sound like one of those Intelligent Design tards who claim that evolution is flawed because it doesn't explain the evolution of galaxies and stars.

Big Bang theory does cover the very initial conditions of the Universe, and with it we can predict what the cosmic microwave background should be to an astonishing degree of accuracy.

If you are interested in what modern physics thinks of the beginning of the Universe, I would recommend starting with the "The Greatest Story Ever Told" posts on Starts With A Bang

What finally pushed the Congress into preparing to impeach Nixon was the revelation that Nixon was secretly (and, of course, warrantlessly) wiretapping Congress. Keeping Vietnam going, using the CIA to break into Democratic campaign HQ at the Watergate (and a shrink's office) - all just "business as usual". But the wiretapping was enough to push them over the edge.

So George Bush Sr, Republican National Committee Chair, went to Nixon to explain that enough Congressional Republicans would vote to impeach that he would be impeached. So Nixon resigned. And Ford, who Nixon had got to replace his original VP, Spiro Agnew, when Agnew was convicted of income tax evasion (on massive bribes he'd taken but not reported to the IRS), inherited Nixon's evil empire. George Bush Sr inherited the CIA.

And then Ford started warrantlessly wiretapping people, just like Nixon had. Nixon was wiretapping not only Congress, but all kinds of political enemies, including anti-war and environmentalist activists, counterculture figures like John Lennon. Nixon turned the White House into a Republican Kremlin. And Ford kept it that way.

In 1978, with Democrat Carter in the White House a Democratic Congress passed FISA, which was designed to be the supreme law controlling wiretapping. Nominally subordinate to only the 4th Amendment, which it violated by allowing exceptions to the Amendment's requirement of a warrant issued prior to any wiretapping.

Republican George Bush Jr inherited the presidency in 2000. And soon wiretapped every American, all our phonecalls and email, without a warrant. Even though the FISA court issued a warrant, before or after the fact, for every single one of the hundreds of thousands of requests it got, however invalid any of those requests might have been.

Even to the point of wiretapping conversations between defendants and their lawyers in cases brought by the Bush "Justice" Department, which was just ruled illegal, years later. With Bush leaving office unimpeached.

The Congress should've impeached Nixon. It should have impeached Bush. Hell, it should've impeached Reagan, for running the secret Iran/Contra wars, illegally supplying Iran with weapons and shipping drugs like cocaine and opium around on CIA planes - the investigation probably would have turned up warrantless wiretapping to protect the other illegal programmes.

But we didn't. And Republicans, even Bushes (and Cheneys) get to walk around free, free to run for office. And a large section of the public that believes "it's only a crime if you get caught" treats those criminals and traitors to their oaths to protect the Constitution as "statesmen".

As every time before, the next one will be even worse. Hi, president Romney, how ya doin'?

He does have historical precedent on his side - after all, Plato thought that the best form of government would be rule by philosopher-kings.

In terms of practical historical precedent, not so much. This sort of thing tends to end badly. I think it's far better for us to thrash these issues out now, so that in the future everyone will be more aware of the standard array of denialist tactics.

If you want to know more about the timeline of the Big Bang, the Starts with a Bang blog has a series of articles on it named "The Greatest Story Ever Told"; it starts here and continues in these.

Oh no! One of our founders was a socialist marxist pinko commie fascist! Run for your lives, I mean, money!

And that's why Texas has just written Jefferson out of the history books.

PZ Myers on beetle sex: You want to put WHAT in my what??!?

In some cases, probably a lot worse than the first time you did it. horrific beetle sex

Japan is no stranger to bizarre phone fads but the popularity of the ringtones is perhaps surprising given the flimsiness of the science behind them.

How about "Anti-HIV properties of... bananas?". And it's written by ERV, not some quack.

Like here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/oct/03/world.guantanamo

Or a nice writeup here: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/01/kiriakou_retracts_claims_on_wa.php

Or here: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/04/about_that_library_tower_plot.php

Etc.

There's really not a single shred of evidence that torture helped to prevent a single attack.

Of course, it might be classified, but I'm certain that neocons would have cried on every corner about their success if they had a single case to tell us about.

Like here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/oct/03/world.guantanamo

Or a nice writeup here: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/01/kiriakou_retracts_claims_on_wa.php

Or here: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/04/about_that_library_tower_plot.php

Etc.

There's really not a single shred of evidence that torture helped to prevent a single attack.

Of course, it might be classified, but I'm certain that neocons would have cried on every corner about their success if they had a single case to tell us about.

FYI, they removed the requirement that students study the impact of ideas from the Enlightenment and Thomas Jefferson's role as an Enlightenment scholar. Instead, they added Saint Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin, and removed the specific reference to the Enlightenment.

The original requirement was that students be able to:

"explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present."

It is now:

"explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone."

This is, quite frankly, a travesty. The first list had an actual thrust to it (you know, Enlightenment scholars in 1750+). This one is closer to just a list of philosophers that a council of morons thought sounded good - after all, Thomas Aquinas totally proved God exists! And John Calvin came up with Protestantism! Totally what every schoolchild in Texas (and by extension, a large part of the rest of the country) needs to know!

No. First of all, animals raised in human company are pretty much permanently stuck in a juvenile state. They have not been taught to fend for themselves and the urban and suburban environments aren't the same thing as "the wild" - available resources are far more restricted. Don't think that because your cat occasional brings a bird to the stoop that it could live a healthy life without any human support.

I think we should do an experiment. Release pets into the wild and see what happens.

Nature always finds a way.

And yet the Wikipedia article on Antimatter says,

Almost all matter observable from the Earth seems to be made of matter rather than antimatter.

So clearly we seem to have some way of discerning between matter and antimatter. From some more research, this result seems to come from the fact that we know what matter/antimatter annihilation looks like, and almost nothing we see in the cosmos looks like that (there's apparently a lot of it near the center of the galaxy, due to the intense gravity doing something-or-other). Therefore, almost everything we can see should be of the same type of matter, because it doesn't all explode constantly - and because it doesn't all explode constantly against us, it's probably all the same kind of matter as we are*.

Note that the link I cited is from 1998; here is a blog post that may more accurately reflect the current understanding of how the apparent disparity between matter and antimatter came about (I don't know, I'm not an astrophysicist).

*Seems like a good setup for a science fiction story, though - we finally develop FTL travel, but none of the ships ever come back. Eventually it turns out that oops the rest of the universe is made out of matter and we're the ones made out of antimatter.

Done.

Incorrect. A straw man fallacy does not actually back up anything.

For chrissake, every dictionary definition of dogma even says it's a synonym for religious doctrine.

Incorrect.

How can that not make sense?

Because -- unlike you -- I actually understand the word "dogma," and I know what religious doctrine is. You misunderstand one or the other, or both.

All definitions I've ever seen of dogma imply that the belief is not subject to examination, or isn't backed up by any evidence. I defy you to give a single example of Christine doctrine -- such doctrine as is held by all, or almost all, Christian sects -- that is not subject to examination or isn't backed up by any evidence.

You cannot do it.

That's not to say it is PROVABLE. But evidence and proof are not the same thing. It's also not to say you will accept or appreciate the evidence, but that's hardly interesting to whether or not something is dogma.

Who said anything about rational?

Um, you.

The phrase is 'reasoned with'.

Yes, you said that too: and people who cannot be reasoned with are "irrational." That's what the word means.

You can't reason with people who exclude evidence because some book tells them to exclude it.

You're incapable of demonstrating a single thing in the Bible that tells anyone to exclude any evidence. You're just inventing something that doesn't exist.

You may be willing to judge them out of ignorant assumptions in absentia

Huh. That's what YOU were doing to "religious people." I was just playing along in the game you started.

Unless you can point me to evidence that this group has done nothing else, made no other efforts, then I reject the validity of your judgement.

And I reject the validity of your ignorant judgment against religious people.

Also, your ignorant spelling of "judgment."

That makes no sense. You literally can't back that up so it's meaningful.

Done. For chrissake, every dictionary definition of dogma even says it's a synonym for religious doctrine. How can that not make sense?

it's easy to rattle off many, many rational religious people throughout history

Who said anything about rational? Any sane person is rational to some degree. The phrase is 'reasoned with'. You can't reason with people who exclude evidence because some book tells them to exclude it.

They don't want rational argument

We know only about this present escapade, not about any previous efforts they may or may not have made. You may be willing to judge them out of ignorant assumptions in absentia, but that only makes you unreasonable and subjective, the worst foundation from which to make judgement. Unless you can point me to evidence that this group has done nothing else, made no other efforts, then I reject the validity of your judgement.

Well know liar? He's a professor at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, Queensland. And if you had watched more than 30 seconds of the first part of his lecture, and also the rest of the parts, you would see that the temperatures and warming rates of our time are statistically insignificant. In fact from the look of things, we are heading into another mini ice age.

Again, you failed to address the fact that he has a history of lies, and merely parroted the same old right-wing anti-science lies. We are not heading into a mini ice age.

There has been no statistical warming for the past decade.

What do you base that claim on?

Why do you think those emails caused such a stink?

Because of creationist-like quote-mining and misrepresentation of the contents.

They admitted it themselves.

They did no such thing.

Even climategate's Phil Jones conceded in a recent interview with the BBC that there had been no statistical warming recently which belies their own models.

Oh dear. You are quoting the misinformation from the Daily Fail, aren't you? You are evidently extremely ignorant of even basic science. The "statistical significance" comment takes more than half a brain to understand, and you evidently don't have that. Educate yourself instead of showing off your amazing ignorance and dishonesty.

Not some random female, but a greenpeace activist was who he was talking to.

Again, this is completely irrelevant. What some random activist things is not even remotely relevant to what the actual scientists are saying.

In it, he queries her motives and how she investigated the science. And we learn that she never actually did, but instead took unquestionably the propaganda pumped out by greenpeace as truth. This is the problem with most of the alarmists; it's no longer a scientific debate, but a matter of faith as is the case in religion. An utterly abhorrent stance in my opinion, and not one that should be taken when making decisions that could bankrupt our country.

The hypocrisy here is quite amazing. Monckton is a dishonest and disgusting liar who himself will only parrot right-wing lies. He hasn't a scientific bone in his body. Never mind the fact that the video is completely irrelevant to the scientific facts. It's just more hand-waving to get people to ignore the science.

It's patently obvious you have made up your mind regardless of the actual science, as demonstrated by repeated links to pro-AGW sites. If you have any real unmarred data sets (not hockey stick graphs constructed with manipulated data sets) which prove your position, then I would be more than happy to evaluate them.

You wouldn't know unmarred data if it punched you in the face. The way you are linking to videos of the retarded moron Monckton process that you are nothing but a denialist.

Please point out any half-truths I may have used. Is it a half truth that in the historical temperature record, CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around? That's a fact. Another fact; The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been ten times what it is today, yet all life did not cease to exist. Quite the opposite in fact, life thrived.

Indeed. The Gish Gallop. Typical brainwashed denialist drone. Here are the actual facts that refute your dishonest talking points:

Climate myths: Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to glob

I'm sorry, but random YouTube videos featuring well known liars does not count as "education". I tried to see what Bob had to say, and it was the old "not a pollutant" canard.

Well know liar? He's a professor at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, Queensland. And if you had watched more than 30 seconds of the first part of his lecture, and also the rest of the parts, you would see that the temperatures and warming rates of our time are statistically insignificant. In fact from the look of things, we are heading into another mini ice age. The IPCC will no doubt believe it can stop this occurring with bankrupting taxation too? Quoting the same pro-warming (pro-catastrophe) websites do nothing for your cause; Unless you enjoy preaching to the choir?

This disgusting liar claims that it is not warming.

There has been no statistical warming for the past decade. Why do you think those emails caused such a stink? They admitted it themselves. But of course they would never do so in public lest they jepardise their hefty grants. Even climategate's Phil Jones conceded in a recent interview with the BBC that there had been no statistical warming recently which belies their own models.

I'm sorry, but what on earth does this have to do with anything? Never mind the fact that Monckton is an insane liar, but what difference does it make what some random female on the street has to say?

Not some random female, but a greenpeace activist was who he was talking to. And if you had actually watched the video instead of once again switching it off after 30 seconds, you would have known that. In it, he queries her motives and how she investigated the science. And we learn that she never actually did, but instead took unquestionably the propaganda pumped out by greenpeace as truth. This is the problem with most of the alarmists; it's no longer a scientific debate, but a matter of faith as is the case in religion. An utterly abhorrent stance in my opinion, and not one that should be taken when making decisions that could bankrupt our country.

I think it's becoming clearer now... You don't actually listen to the scientists. You prefer to base your opinions on random ignoramuses on the street (one example being Monckton).

It's patently obvious you have made up your mind regardless of the actual science, as demonstrated by repeated links to pro-AGW sites. If you have any real unmarred data sets (not hockey stick graphs constructed with manipulated data sets) which prove your position, then I would be more than happy to evaluate them.

By the way, I notice that instead of addressing my comment, you are doing a Gish Gallop.

Please point out any half-truths I may have used. Is it a half truth that in the historical temperature record, CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around? That's a fact. Another fact; The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been ten times what it is today, yet all life did not cease to exist. Quite the opposite in fact, life thrived. One more fact; even if what you say is true, and the whole world went back to the stone age for 60 years, it would only reduce the temperature by one degree. Are you willing to give up your pc, tv, phone, social life, education, existence?

I'm sorry, but random YouTube videos featuring well known liars does not count as "education". I tried to see what Bob had to say, and it was the old "not a pollutant" canard.

Well know liar? He's a professor at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, Queensland. And if you had watched more than 30 seconds of the first part of his lecture, and also the rest of the parts, you would see that the temperatures and warming rates of our time are statistically insignificant. In fact from the look of things, we are heading into another mini ice age. The IPCC will no doubt believe it can stop this occurring with bankrupting taxation too? Quoting the same pro-warming (pro-catastrophe) websites do nothing for your cause; Unless you enjoy preaching to the choir?

This disgusting liar claims that it is not warming.

There has been no statistical warming for the past decade. Why do you think those emails caused such a stink? They admitted it themselves. But of course they would never do so in public lest they jepardise their hefty grants. Even climategate's Phil Jones conceded in a recent interview with the BBC that there had been no statistical warming recently which belies their own models.

I'm sorry, but what on earth does this have to do with anything? Never mind the fact that Monckton is an insane liar, but what difference does it make what some random female on the street has to say?

Not some random female, but a greenpeace activist was who he was talking to. And if you had actually watched the video instead of once again switching it off after 30 seconds, you would have known that. In it, he queries her motives and how she investigated the science. And we learn that she never actually did, but instead took unquestionably the propaganda pumped out by greenpeace as truth. This is the problem with most of the alarmists; it's no longer a scientific debate, but a matter of faith as is the case in religion. An utterly abhorrent stance in my opinion, and not one that should be taken when making decisions that could bankrupt our country.

I think it's becoming clearer now... You don't actually listen to the scientists. You prefer to base your opinions on random ignoramuses on the street (one example being Monckton).

It's patently obvious you have made up your mind regardless of the actual science, as demonstrated by repeated links to pro-AGW sites. If you have any real unmarred data sets (not hockey stick graphs constructed with manipulated data sets) which prove your position, then I would be more than happy to evaluate them.

By the way, I notice that instead of addressing my comment, you are doing a Gish Gallop.

Please point out any half-truths I may have used. Is it a half truth that in the historical temperature record, CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around? That's a fact. Another fact; The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been ten times what it is today, yet all life did not cease to exist. Quite the opposite in fact, life thrived. One more fact; even if what you say is true, and the whole world went back to the stone age for 60 years, it would only reduce the temperature by one degree. Are you willing to give up your pc, tv, phone, social life, education, existence?

I'm always reminded of this. Long story short, cancer researcher's mother-in-law dies of cancer. Then there are these douchebags out there saying that people like that are out to suppress all the cheap miracle cures, meaning that that guy could have saver his in law, but was too greedy to let the wonder cure slip just this once. People actually believe that. What assholes.

Perhaps your should educate yourself, instead of blindly accepting propaganda:

I'm sorry, but random YouTube videos featuring well known liars does not count as "education". I tried to see what Bob had to say, and it was the old "not a pollutant" canard. How predictable. Again, you need to educate yourself. You could also read up on Bob The Liar Carter over at scienceblogs.com.

This disgusting liar claims that it is not warming.

This one is particularly interesting, as it exposes that most alarmists completely ignore the scientific evidence and choose to believe unequivocally what most of these vested interest groups propagate verbatim:

I'm sorry, but what on earth does this have to do with anything? Never mind the fact that Monckton is an insane liar, but what difference does it make what some random female on the street has to say?

I think it's becoming clearer now... You don't actually listen to the scientists. You prefer to base your opinions on random ignoramuses on the street (one example being Monckton).

By the way, I notice that instead of addressing my comment, you are doing a Gish Gallop.

Perhaps your should educate yourself, instead of blindly accepting propaganda:

I'm sorry, but random YouTube videos featuring well known liars does not count as "education". I tried to see what Bob had to say, and it was the old "not a pollutant" canard. How predictable. Again, you need to educate yourself. You could also read up on Bob The Liar Carter over at scienceblogs.com.

This disgusting liar claims that it is not warming.

This one is particularly interesting, as it exposes that most alarmists completely ignore the scientific evidence and choose to believe unequivocally what most of these vested interest groups propagate verbatim:

I'm sorry, but what on earth does this have to do with anything? Never mind the fact that Monckton is an insane liar, but what difference does it make what some random female on the street has to say?

I think it's becoming clearer now... You don't actually listen to the scientists. You prefer to base your opinions on random ignoramuses on the street (one example being Monckton).

By the way, I notice that instead of addressing my comment, you are doing a Gish Gallop.

Perhaps your should educate yourself, instead of blindly accepting propaganda:

I'm sorry, but random YouTube videos featuring well known liars does not count as "education". I tried to see what Bob had to say, and it was the old "not a pollutant" canard. How predictable. Again, you need to educate yourself. You could also read up on Bob The Liar Carter over at scienceblogs.com.

This disgusting liar claims that it is not warming.

This one is particularly interesting, as it exposes that most alarmists completely ignore the scientific evidence and choose to believe unequivocally what most of these vested interest groups propagate verbatim:

I'm sorry, but what on earth does this have to do with anything? Never mind the fact that Monckton is an insane liar, but what difference does it make what some random female on the street has to say?

I think it's becoming clearer now... You don't actually listen to the scientists. You prefer to base your opinions on random ignoramuses on the street (one example being Monckton).

By the way, I notice that instead of addressing my comment, you are doing a Gish Gallop.

I dug around a little, and it looks like yes, the naturalpathic/alternative/traditional medicine industry certainly does make enough money to buy Congressmen: $45 billion in 2009 from integrative medicine and $2 billion from the practitioner channel supplement market. For the $45 billion figure I don't know how much is alternative medicine as it's a mixed approach. The $2 billion figure however is unambiguous. Besides I'll see you a Congressman and raise you a Senator: Tom Harkin of Iowa. Normally not that bad (I voted for him once when I was in school) but he's firmly in the bag for alternative medicine, for instance telling a Senate panel that he was disappointed that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine had disproven too many alternative therapies. That's from Respectful Insolence on ScienceBlogs where a lot more can be found on the Senator.

If by parsing the morality, can one judge that either the alternative medicine industry or big pharma is the more moral entity, I'd have to say maybe, although I wouldn't necessarily use the term "moral" to describe the matter. Big pharma is very tightly regulated and must demonstrate efficacy under controlled conditions, and must also know what the side effects are. When we get recalls and lawsuits we see a real consequence of failure, either from deliberate manipulation of the data or simply missing side effects. There's lots of medicines out there and the body is a horribly complex biochemical system so the majority of the recalls seem to be from the latter case. The alternative medicine industry is not under any real regulatory control at all. Treatments often aren't tested in any meaningful sense and recalls don't happen. Notorious frauds are common--homeopathy is a roughly $400 million a year scam in the US from different reports I found online. I can't think of a reason not to judge big pharma, warts and all, as having fewer "morality" problems than the alternative medicine industry.

Time is not always the variable with respect to which physicists differentiate. Take, for example, work. Let work equal W, force F, and one-dimensional position x (all force is assumed to be applied along the x-axis). Then dW/dx = F (in its most common form, it states that work is the integral of F with respect to x, although this is equivalent). In this case, physicists look at the change in work with respect to displacement.

Are you still not convinced? The person here critiques the argument in a much more in-depth manner

Thanks for that comment. It inspired me to post a snippet of a similar conversation I had months ago, with your links and some others added:

Is it right, however, to lump together those who are skeptical of evolution with those who are skeptical of AGW, particularly CO2-driven AGW ?

Creationists confuse religious faith with falsifiable science. Among the general public, climate-change contrarians (and your average Greenpeace/PETA loony) confuse political affiliation with falsifiable science. In both cases, scientists are much less likely to agree with either claim, and that likelihood decreases with increasing relevance of the scientist's field. That's probably why both groups tend to accuse the scientific community of conspiracy and/or widespread incompetence.

At my blog, the following statement is both legible and has popup titles describing why that link was chosen. Here it is without the links first: "And, in my experience there's a significant overlap between the two groups. Most of their arguments seem to be at similar intellectual and educational levels."

And, in my experience there's a significant overlap between the two groups. Most of their arguments seem to be at similar intellectual and educational lev els.

My argument is similar to the argument for modern art. For example, a computer(/robot) could trivially create this... but if one did, would it still be considered (by some, at least) worthy of display in a museum? The intent is the entirety of the creation!

The problem is that people believe it's real medicine, and so they think it'll actually work. And when it doesn't, they don't necessarily go look for the stuff that actually will: Homeopathy Kills a Child

FYI, every large scale, properly blinded study of acupuncture done so far has found it to be as effective as sham acupuncture - and depending on how you define some of those other modalities you mentioned (light and air therapy are basically bullshit, but going outside isn't), they may also be just as effective as placebo.

I'm glad homeopathy is getting a beatdown in the UK, but it's really just the most obvious bullshit in health care.

Beyond simple lying, which is certainly common enough, and cluelessness, also common enough; there is a legal loophole(in the US) that is sometimes being exploited in such cases.

Unlike "dietary supplements", which are virtually unregulated(the FDA basically has to have a bunch of reports of them killing people before they can do anything), homeopathic medicines are under the FDA's purview. However, they are subject to very much lighter scrutiny than standard drugs(none of that "safety and efficacy testing" or "clinical trials" stuff). It's a very convenient category to fall under if you don't want to have to put "This product not intended to treat, diagnose, or cure any disease" on your packaging, like the "dietary supplement" guys do; but don't want to bother with any clinical trials or other expensive effort.

In order to qualify as a homeopathic drug, your substance simply has to be prepared from something in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States by homeopathic techniques. Since a "1D" dilution is simply 10% concentration plus shaking, and a "1C" is simply 1% plus shaking, you can legally sell all kinds of stuff, at pharmacologically active concentrations, as "Homeopathic".

Since homeopaths generally believe that more dilution = greater potency, the stuff they produce tends to be quite safe(for everything except your wallet) typically containing nothing but dilutant(water, sugar, occasionally ethanol). This is a very lucky thing in certain instances(no, I'm not kidding about the plutonium, and neither are they).

Occasionally, though, among those using the "homeopathic" label as a cover for selling pharmacologically active preparations of various stuff, there are issues. "Zicam" 10% zinc gluconate was perhaps the most dramatic recent example.

That their argument centres around a tabloid. 90% of the "sceptics" I have dealt with get their information from places like the Daily Mail (centre of the climategate non-troversy). For extra sarcastic effect I post a screenshot of the Mail's home page with giant red circles around the trashy celebrity stories (takes a few minutes, the Mail's homepage should be full of them). Also these tabloids have a long history of libel suits. If they refuse to be sceptical of their own information sources and blindly trust a tabloid, they fail basic scepticism and are just looking for confirmation bias.

How to talk to a climate sceptic is a good site which has plenty of information, I've used this a few times with good effect but it helps to have an understanding of the subject matter (high school level of science education (Australian High School)). Above all else remain rational, point out their straw-mans and thought-terminating clichés rather then engaging in them yourself, however tempting it may be.

Many sceptics are not ignorant, many just don't know or understand the science. I've met a few people that did not understand we literally test air from 1000's of years ago that's been frozen in ice cores, nor that this is backed up with geological or palaeobotanical evidence.

Score one for the Daily Mail.

Sorry, but the Daily Mail is lying as usual.

In other words, "I desperately tried to cherry-pick some better numbers by manipulating the cutoff date, but even that failed. But it almost worked."

No, that is your dishonest misrepresentation of what he said.

In other words, "I stand by the conclusions that my funding depends upon, no matter how thoroughly discredited the research becomes, no matter how much data I fail to produce, or how many FOI requests I have to ignore. Dude, it's all about the funding!"

Again, your dishonest misrepresentation of what he said. Pathetic indeed.

Remember when 1998 was supposed to be the hottest ever? Then that was debunked and it was 1934.

1934 is (almost) the hottest year on record in the (contiguous) USA .

The hottest year on record globally is 2005. 2009 is a statistical tie with 1998 (and a couple others in the noughties) as second-warmest. 1934 doesn't come close. The last decade is the warmest on record.

All relevant graphs are conveniently located there.

Well if ol' Phil is right and we haven't seen any statistically significant warming for fifteen years....

Then it has crap all to do with the existence of trends that can only be detected over more than 20-30 years, as Phil himself points out in the bit that you blanked out of your mind, right?

and the proposed solution (seizing most of the world's wealth, eliminating most of the current industrial base, etc.)

Hm. OK. Never mind.

We both know the difference between science and arguments to win points in the mass media and influence the electorate, right?

Apparently not.

Okay, how's this? A mathematical formula for perfect pancakes...