Slashdot Mirror
Of Diamond Planets, Climate Change, and the Scientific Method
A few weeks ago, we discussed the discovery of a diamond planet in orbit around a pulsar. One of the researchers behind the discovery has now written a followup article about reaction to the news from the media and laypeople. Quoting:
"The attention we received was 100% positive, but how different that could have been. How so? Well, we could have been climate scientists. ... Instead of sitting back and basking in the glory, I suspect we’d find a lot of commentators, many with no scientific qualifications, pouring scorn on our findings. People on the fringe of science would be quoted as opponents of our work, arguing that it was nothing more than a theory yet to be conclusively proven. There would be doubt cast on the interpretation of our data and conjecture about whether we were “buddies” with the journal referees. If our opponents dug really deep they might even find that I’d once written a paper on a similar topic that had to be retracted. Before long our credibility and findings would be under serious question. But luckily we’re not climate scientists."
Really, just because climate science has immediate implications in the real world doesn't make it politics nor the scientists doing that research political. People need to get their heads out of their butts and realize that science is science and if they don't like the implications of that then it is their own tough crap. Not that this will ever happen or that any climate scientists can ever expect to actually be treated in a fair, rational, or even civil manner by the barbarian hordes.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The difference is that when a scientist says "we believe that there is a diamond planet" people either say "cool" or "I doubt that, but it doesn't really matter". When climate scientists say is often used to justify restricting in various ways things that most people either rely on or enjoy. That's the difference.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
Tell a man there are a billion stars in the galaxy and he'll believe you; tell him the paint is wet and he'll touch it to find out....
Galileo once "turned political", that is he described scientific facts that had a political impact. No wonder he was treated like a political ! Damned pseudo scientists that go into politics !
The climate scientists are the experts. You're not suddenly compelled to rip apart the latest Computer Science study as an armchair computer scientist because you haven't studied it. Why are people suddenly compelled to call climate scientists -- who are basically the same figureheads in academia that computer scientists are -- into question? When did everyone get PhDs in climate science? Why wasn't I given one? And why are all the major journals publishing and defending global warming studies only to be ignored?
Surprise surprise, no one cares. You can point out the scientific consensus or ask why there are no political witch hunts in other fields and people just don't seem to even respond to my concerns because they just saw a two minute YouTube video and suddenly they're informed and ready to discredit someone who has devoted their life to studying this field and reading papers. CFCs were bad, that was okay, everyone gobbled that up. Everyone saw maps of the ozone layer and totally trusted the scientists that it was CFCs doing it ... not just a regular natural process. Show someone a map of ice coverage on the Arctic Circle and tell them it's greenhouse gases at work. Suddenly the same scientists are lying to them. What the hell is different about these two scenarios? I've pretty much given up the fight ...
My work here is dung.
Wouldn't it make more sense, then, to attack the policy and politicians, rather than deny the science ?
The problem is that to climate denialists, once you are a climate scientist you've already "turned political." It's inherent to the profession according to their view (although oddly enough, the few scientists (maybe I should put quotes around that) who put forward theories that suggest that the currently accepted theories are flawed never get this label...).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
When climate scientists say is often used to justify restricting in various ways things that most people either rely on or enjoy.
I challenge you to present me one published paper where a climate scientist tells me what I can and can't do. Or even where they merely suggest restrictions of what a person can do. All the papers I read say things to effect of "In X years, the northern ice cap could recede to Y size" or "Greenhouses gases have contributed to a rise in temperatures." What you want to do with that information is up to you. It's not the place of scientists to call for political or even international policy on carbon credits or cap and trade or whatever you want to do to control this problem. So why do the scientists get attacked? Attack the politicians and say "I'm okay with fucking up the Earth for my children because I want the freedom to buy a Hummer that gets 8 miles to the gallon." Use your voice and stand up for yourself, don't attack the scientists. They aren't setting the policies, they're just telling you what is happening. What's that? That sentence makes you sound like an idiot? Well, go ahead and attack the scientists then but be warned you've got an awful lot of targets.
My work here is dung.
The article hints at this but never says it outright: The reason climate change is controversial among those with little or no scientific background or training while diamond planets are not is because climate change research affects many governmental regulation policies. If the diamond planet idea is wrong, then corrections to theories are made, and the field moves on. If it's right, then it may contribute to the development of helpful technologies and discoveries. But if a climate change idea is wrong, then corrections to theories are made, and the field moves on, and either the world economy has suffered for no reason or people are experiencing famines that could have been prevented. Thus, controversial.
That's like saying a congressman becomes a scientist when he mentions inertia. Your flawed logic does not work here.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
"Climate science is being used to advance a political objective".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Watch this Heartland Institute video
statistical methods and conclusions from correlated data (as in the global warming debate) just DON'T carry the same logical force as objective, emperical, experimental science
Do you really believe that statistical analysis is unique to climate science? What do you think CERN publishes? What do you think its terabytes of storage are for? What do you think biologists, and epidemiologists, and biochemists, and evolutionary biologists, and developmental researchers, and medical researchers publish in their journals? What about chemists? What do you think these guys did to pull the tiny variances in data out that betrayed the existence of a planet made of diamond?
You really have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Besides, the author ignores the fact that the public and media scrutinity occurred because scientists themselves can't agree on the facts.
The fraction of climate science researchers who come down on the side of anthropogenic global warming is over ninety eight percent. You won't find a stronger concensus on a front-line research issue anywhere. There is no scientific debate on this issue. It's settled.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Hmmmm.
demanding trillions of dollars
Ah
coercive force of law
Yep
to dictate what mileage automobiles get
I see
outlawing 100W incandescent light bulbs
With hyperbole like that, I take it you're somewhat against the idea of reversing man-made global warming and trying to save our planet. Look, I'm sure you're an intelligent person. If you can't see that it is totally insane to continue using 100W light bulbs, there is no hope for any of us. You can light an entire house using less energy than that single 100W bulb would use, and the little photons of light would be perfectly adequate.
Look around you. See what is happening and get a god damn clue. Once you've done that, stop using the idiotic language you used above and become part of the solution, not part of the problem.
My apologies if you were trying to play devil's advocate (though if that's the case it was a bit pointless -- I don't think the scientists are asking why the climate scientists get so much stick -- I think they know already), but it didn't come across that way. If you were just trolling, grow up and do something useful.
global warming mongers are abusing science to create an atmosphere of urgency in order to pass legislation to satisfy a leftist agenda. Sorry to say, but that's the truth
I'll repost a link that I found above listing the complete agreement between virtually all countries academies of science that global warming is real...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_concurring_organizations
Then ask you: Where do you get your "truth"?
"They must find it difficult...
Those who have taken authority as the truth,
Rather than truth as the authority."
-G. Massey, Egyptologist
The difference between the diamond planet discovery and climate science is politics. The reason amateurs attack the climate science has nothing to do with the science and everything to do with a political objective. But the same can be said for the supporters. Al Gore is not a climate scientist. He has a significant financial interest in climate science reaching a particular conclusion. He has significant investment in the whole business of climate change.
Now, I'll agree that most who attach climate science are kooks. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that the whole issue is so incredibly polarized that no legitimate critique of climate science ever gets a voice because it is universally written off with the overwhelming number of idiots on the right. According to "everyone", climate science is 100% settled and there is no questioning it. But once you get past the people pushing the political agendas and talk to the real scientists, you'll find that the attitude isn't so set in stone. They want to keep studying it so they can understand more about it because they don't all believe that it's 100% set in stone.
Scientists want to learn more. They want to understand the incredibly complex system that is our environment. They want to know more about how things work so they can make better predictions about what is coming. They don't care about pushing a political agenda. But they're too busy working on research to tell the general public that the politicians are misrepresenting their findings.
the political objective becomes a logical product of the climate science. you are suggesting the science is being used by leftists. what if the science just naturally and inevitably supports what leftists are saying?
example: evolution. the idea we evolved from now extinct species that were more like apes, then rodents, then sea slime, challenges religious beliefs that posits that, for example, a god made man in his image. a religious scholar might comment that atheists are using evolution to destroy religion. but what if evolution just naturally and without any prompting, challenges age-old religious beliefs?
at some point, you are going to have to concede that the science challenges your political beliefs, without any contrived or phony effort or dubious agenda. then you are going to have to give up your political beliefs, or continue to cling to them in denial of what science says. not because leftists have won, but because reality has won
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
GOD DAMNIT READ HIS POST.
You're the third person to claim he's attacking the scientist(s), and you even quoted the freaking sentence!
Often used? By the scientist(s)?
Nope! Turns out he said absolutely nothing about whether or not the scientist(s) is(are) wrong, or right, or ordering you around, or simply providing information. He said that the information provided by the scientist(s) in question is used by *someone* to justify restrictions. You are attacking the OP for saying the exact same thing you yourself are saying.
All clear?
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
It's the secret that famed astronomer Dr. Ron Paul is taking to his grave...
Nobody's demanding trillions of dollars in infrastructure changes because of the diamond star. Nobody's using the coercive force of law to dictate what mileage automobiles get becaus of the diamond star.
Unmitigated climate change, will, at best conservative estimates, cost us 20% of the worlds output, plunging the world economy into depression - as well causing an unprecedented extinction event, and causing millions of people to become refugees. In contrast, taking action now will cost us much less - maybe 3-5% of the worlds GDP for a few years while we upgrade our infrastructure and transport strategies. The adult response is to live with the fact that our light bulbs and vehicles are now better than they were before. The adult response is to recognise that we have the responsibility to act, that we have no right to steal from and impoverish the generations that will follow us. The adult response is to recognise that we cannort expect someone else to fix our boo boo.
And if they did, would this affect the quality of their research, or their expertise, or their credibility in their field?
Your point is of course that nobody cares what scientists waffle on about, until those conclusions might affect them personally, and possibly in a negative way (positive conclusions are readily accepted, of course). At which point, these people will vigorously shoot the messenger in their efforts to cling to their precious status quo.
We know that nobody likes change or uncertainty, but when a few thousand highly experienced & credible climate scientists get back from doing their jobs and almost unanimously conclude that change is upon us, and that the costs of ignoring the coming change dramatically outweigh the costs of preparing for it - it's time to pull our heads out of the sand and start listening to these particular scientists, just like we listened to all the others over the last 500 years.
Reality does not care about our beliefs or wishes. Adapt, or suffer the consequences.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Why should WE be restricting ourselves to "save the planet", when the Chinese are brutally raping their own landscape and polluting everything in sight to serve their rampant industrial conquest of the world...
And if the Chinese jumped off a building, you would too?
-- My Mother
I'm not so sure that everyone who isn't "on the AGW/ACC bandwagon" are _denying_ the science of climate study. Rather, I think they are questioning the knee-jerk solutions to a "problem" not yet fully defined, the sometimes overreaching conclusions made from a dataset still in development, and also motives of those politicians and scientists who stand to profit from said 'solutions', yet who preach loudest about applying their pet 'solutions' *right now*.
"The climate" is not, nor has it ever been, a static system. We have only begun to study it in earnest. Let's let the science and data develop, before we go salting the oceans with rust to cause plankton blooms, and other such possibly world-changing 'solutions'. Let's employ rationality and healthy skepticism to further our understanding, before we go trying to "fix" what may well prove to be natural forces in action.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
That is truly one of the most ignorant and idiotic statement I have read on slashdot. That ranks right up there with the "electric" universe and flat earthers.
Climate science isn't pushing a political agenda anymore than anthropology is. The only people making it political are politicians backed by big money interests who stand to lose money by policy changes. You act like this is the first time this has happened. It isn't. Every time a big company or multiple big companies stand to lose money due to a policy change the exact same shit occurs. It happened with asbestos. It happened with tobacco. It happened with lead. It happened with acid rain. It happened with the ozone hole. And now, it's happening with climate research.
Politics has nothing to do with it. It is about money and what companies will do to protect their cash cows. Whenever a new issue crops up, the money starts flowing to politicians and the same PR firms that have been used since the 40's and 50's to spread FUD and attack the messengers.
Eventually, the shit hits the fan though. Things get so bad or or the evidence becomes so obvious that they give up. We should be reaching that point within the next couple of decades. Until then, enjoy your ignorance. I hear it is quite blissful.
~X~
"Let me give you a lesson in practical politics." Senator Burt looked at his wristwatch, leaned back and smiled. "It is a mistake," he said, "to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort.
"Now then, young man, don't ask me to stop the Pumping. The economy and comfort of the entire planet depend on it. Tell me, instead, how to keep the Pumping from exploding the Sun.
Lamont said, "There is no way, Senator. We are dealing with something here that is so basic, we can't play with it. We must stop it."
"Ah, and you can suggest only that we go back to matters as they were before Pumping."
"We must."
"In that case, you will need hard and fast proof that you are right."
"The best proof," Lamont said stiffly, "is to have the Sun explode."
Isaac Asimov 1972.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
The Good People of DeBeers would like to remind you that, while "A Diamond is Forever"(tm), any extraterrestrial diamonds that may or may not have been discovered by astronomers, likely just making things up in an attempt to grub for telescope time, are not a worthy substitute for DeBeers Genuine Diamonds, harvested by hand from the heart of Our Home.
A xeno-diamond says "My love for you is cold, alien, and almost unimaginably distant, just like this diamond."
A good, old-fashioned terrestrial diamond, however, "My love for you is worth dying for, like the poor sucker who mined this thing may just have..."
Make the right choice, or die unloved and alone!
You sound like an avid consumer sound-bites, but they have little (if anything) to do with reality. Consider total investment in clean energy last year. China = $34.6 billion, US = $18.6 Billion. Hmmm. China ain't perfect, but at least they are putting money where it counts.
A few settled psychological facts :
Settled psychological facts? This should be good
1) violent tv causes people to act violently, whether we're talking adults or kids, low or high iq, ... the smaller the kids, the more pronounced the effect, but there is a definite effect even on 50-year-olds
This isn't settled at all. The best anyone has done is correlate violent media with violence (not causation) which can easily be explained by saying "violent people like violent media". And until someone proves causation, it's the only conclusion that can really be made. If you think this is settled, show evidence.
2) violent computer games are much, much worse than tv, and also cause violent behavior. Including adults
Even less settled than above, several studies have proven that violent video games aren't any worse than other violent media. Surprise, surprise, still no one has proved causation. Millions of people enjoy violent video games and the violent crime rates have gone down. There's a correlation shown between the violent games and aggression, but this doesn't prove anything about violent behavior nor causation. Sorry, try again.
3) the basic principle of communism "to each according to need, from each according to ability" doesn't work. At all. In every conceivable test, everybody finds ways to improve their needs and decrease their abilities ... A majority of people will lie to claim more entitlements, in some studies up to 90%.
This one I can agree with, that a majority of people will lie to claim as much as they can. It's a basic human nature to be greedy, and finding people who won't lie for greed is hard to do.
So how can one possibly defend the claim that something like climate science isn't massively influenced by societal pressure ?
On the same note, how can one possibly claim that the detractors to climate science aren't massively influenced by societal pressure? The difference is that the climate science has been repeatably tested over and over. By hundreds of thousands of scientists. Not only that, but it makes sense to an observer of the way things work too.
As a UK resident, you are responsible for - twice as much CO2 emissions as a person from china. For Australians and Americans, it is double that again. And notably, a large proportion of chinese emissions are actually due to their huge industrial base - the purpose of that base being: to make goods for the west. If we didn't buy those goods, then chinese emissions would go down. Fairly sure we shouldn't be adopting a posture of moral outrage against the chinese on this issue.
"Darwinism" - survival of the fittest as a concept - has been used as an argument for laissez-faire capitalism, which is something of a libertarian ideal. However darwanism as concept hasn't much to do with evolution as science. For one thing people forget that "fittest" means "most survivable", not "best", because "best" is ill-defined. There's no a priori reason to suppose that economic darwinism would result in an optimally efficient economy. That's a matter for economists and I couldn't tell you whether there was a concensus, much less what it was.
Short answer: no, evolution doesn't have much to do with the political beliefs of the left and right, although I'm sure plenty of people think it does.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The thing is, it becoems suspicious when new science supports the pre-existing policy positions of those who are claiming that the science demands that we adopt those policy positions, especially when that new science arrives on the scene right at the point when their previous argument as to why we "must" adopt those policies has been proven wrong.
Only if you believe that those people who benefit more from a preservation of the status quo aren't pouring millions into research designed to prove the opposite. Do you think that the academic left have vastly superior resources to the entire petro-checmical industry?
dimwitted idiots think evolution says something about racism. callous class warfare proponents think evolution says something about society
evolution has to do with speciation. it has nothing to do with racism or class warfare, no matter how many dimwitted fools try to force that round peg into a square hole
in the same way, all of the red herrings you reference above mean nothing, because anyone with a malformed, dimwitted understanding of a scientific concept can say that the scientific concept supports almost any random belief they want it to. this has more to do with the idiocy of the person with the bad beliefs and tghe weak understanding of science, than it says about the actual hard cold facts of the actual science
climate science says the earth is warming. this is verified cold (pun intended) hard truth. what some idiot thinks that fact says about the beliefs they hold, whether left or right, means nothing
but anyone who directly denies the actual truth of what science says: they lose. no matter what somebody with contrary beliefs thinks has "won" because of their dimwitted understanding of science
you don't get to criticize hard science because some dimwit who doesn't understand the science thinks it supports their beliefs that you don't like. you can criticize their beliefs, but not the actual science. or you are equally a fool. got it?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The reason is that the diamond planet is not being used to advance a political objective.
1. Scientists identify a potentially serious problem, one that could very easily lead to disaster, famine, and war.
2. Scientists study that potentially serious problem, make predictions based on their theories, and determine that so far reality is basically matching their predictions, except that the problem is even bigger than they originally thought.
3. Scientists go to politicians and the public and say "We have a serious problem if we keep doing things the way we are doing them. Here's what we need to change." (note that they don't say how they think the politicians should make that change, just that the change is needed)
4. Economists and others study the problem of how to make the change happen. They come up with one proposal that has worked in practice (cap-and-trade) and one that would work in theory (using a tax to make sure the externalities get factored into decisions).
That's about where things are now. Here's where we seem to be heading:
5. Politicians ignore the scientists and economists, because they want political donations from corporations that will have to pay those taxes or cap-and-trade costs. Some dismiss the economists' solutions as left-wing nonsense.
6. Disaster strikes as the scientists predicted. Politicians proceed to defend themselves with phrases like 'nobody could have predicted this'.
The only bias I see at work in steps 1-4 is the pro-reality bias. As far as steps 5-6, consider that politicians failed to heed the warnings of many economists back in 2005-2006 that there was a major bubble forming in housing, their inaction bought by trading firms like Goldman Sachs, and then were quite happy to state that nobody had been able to see the problem.
I am officially gone from
Actually, you raise an interesting point. The diamond planet can be used as an example of how common diamonds really are, how their supply is intentionally kept artificially low by companies such as DeBeers for the sake of fixing extremely high prices.
I think if more people understood diamonds scientifically and economically they would be less likely to waste money on them for jewelry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_p8gFmFzp4 (skip to 1:35)
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Unmitigated climate change, will, at best conservative estimates [wikipedia.org], cost us 20% of the worlds output, plunging the world economy into depression - as well causing an unprecedented extinction event, and causing millions of people to become refugees. In contrast, taking action now will cost us much less - maybe 3-5% of the worlds GDP for a few years while we upgrade our infrastructure and transport strategies.
Wow, you must be a huge booster for absolute free trade everywhere, and radical globalization! Because there is a consensus amongst economists that would make a much bigger positive difference to the world GDP than the cost of GW you cite. And that consensus is based on computer models of a much simpler system (the world economy, which involves only 10^10 actors) than the Earth's climate.
So, given you are so profoundly concerned about the future of the global GDP, could you please post some links on your vigorous advocacy of globalization and global free trade? Thanks!
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
But for comparison purposes, Exxon spent $23 million for climate research in 10 years. The US government spent $79 billion on climate research and technology since 1989 - to be sure, this funding paid for things like satellites and studies, but it's 3,500 times as much as anything offered to sceptics. (Source [abc.net.au]) Exxon also spent $600 million on biofuels research.
... which is dishonest by itself. Most of the money goes to weather monitoring and weather forecasting. Some of the largest computer clusters in the Top 500 list are purposebuilt for weather simulation and weather prediction. Many civilian satellites are weather satellites. The weather modelling got pretty good in recent years. While about 20 years back weather forecasts very valid only for about 24 hrs to 36 hrs, today's models are good at predicting the weather for the next three days, and the week forecasts are often correct.
So the infrastructure to collect weather data, to process it in simulations and to build models which resemble real weather processes is there - built for weather forecasting. And if someone starts to take all that raw data, processes it with all the dirty tricks and adaptions weather forecasters have developed to overcome faults and systematic errors, and which proved themselves in thousands of weather forecasts in the last 30 years, and then applies the same models that are so successful for the foreseeable future, to longer periods of the past and finds out that they work remarkably well even for runs over 50 years or 100 years and resemble the raw data results for those last 50 or 100 years, and then let the same models run 50 or 100 years in the future, he suddenly is a dishonest liar, whose only purpose in life is to get grant money from an overreaching government in its quest to control everybody?
Most climate scientist run experiments all the time - they try to predict the weather for the next days or weeks or months. They are pretty good at it. But a large share of the U.S. population (AGW deniers are much less in other countries) doesn't like the conclusions they come to, if they run their models for a longer period, and suddenly climate scientists are an evil bunch.
AGW deniers should stop believing the weather forecasts. It's pure hypocrisy to believe weather forecasts to be mostly correct and at the same time AGW to be a conjured scheme to funnel government money to climate scientists pockets. Because in fact they are the same people responsible for both, and the same theories backing their predictions.
It's sequestered carbon.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
"The climate" is not, nor has it ever been, a static system. We have only begun to study it in earnest. Let's let the science and data develop, before we go pumping CO2 into the atmosphere to cause tropospheric warming, and other such possibly world-changing problems. Let's employ rationality and healthy skepticism to further our understanding, before we go trying to change what may well prove to be a critical part of the environment we live in.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
No, what's purposefully invoked is the similarity in how argumentation goes with people who deny that the Holocaust happened, and how argumentation goes with people who deny AGW is happening. In both cases it's a never-ending merry-go-round of arguments that have been long debunked, conspiracy theories and cherry-picking of who is a true expert and who isn't.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
science will be used in politics. you need to make peace with that. this notion you have that it somehow shouldn't may be a nice platitude, but that wish of yours will never be reality
given that i accept that ugly truth, my point of view is the correct one: policy derived from science, no matter the flaws, is superior to policy derived in opposition to science
now you can continue to wish for the impossibility of science not intersecting with politics. or you can accept that it will, and make a choice as to which policy you support. you don't have the luxury of not choosing, unless you wish to choose to be irrelevant in the discussion
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it