"If the paper doesn't mention climate change, how are you going to determine whether or not the paper is in support of the consensus view?"
You don't, because there is no way to tell. THAT IS THE POINT. Oreskes' paper is not a reflection of actual "consensus view" because there is no way to tell merely from the published papers. That's not the way science publishing works. And I'd be willing to be she knows that, and knew it then.
If you want to find out what meteorologists and climatologists actually think about greenhouse warming, you have to actually ask them. (Interesting, is it not, that neither Oreskes or this more recent "97%" paper did not actually ask anybody what they think, even though they were supposed to be about what people think?)
But that has been done. They were asked. And the results are very different from "97%".
"Publishing a paper about the climate is not promoting climate change. I see nothing wrong with the methods. If you do, please point them out."
I already did point them out. It just went over your head. That's not "flippant", it's a factual observation.
The POINT is that in 2004, the only climate papers that mentioned "climate change" were papers about greenhouse warming. But there were lots of papers about climate that did not mention "climate change" at all. Those were excluded from the study.
So Oreskes' sampling method (and similarly, another such "study" this year) SELECTED for papers that were about greenhouse warming. Keep in mind here that if somebody writes a paper about climate, and does not conclude that climate is significantly changing, they aren't going to mention "climate change" because the paper is not about climate change. They won't mention it because they aren't trying to disprove it... their paper is about something else.
There was a study done, however, using proper statistical methods. And the "consensus" they found was hardly overwhelming... 52%. That is the difference between the statistical error you did not see, and a properly done study. And that difference is pretty damned large.
"Are we to infer, then, that you believe a large majority of climatologists don't believe in ACC and are, for some reason, refusing to set the record straight by collectively pointing out flaws in the already-published literature?"
No. That would be an incorrect inference.
First, "majority" has nothing to do with it. Consensus is not science. But second, and more important, is that I was referring to scientists in general, not necessarily climatologists.
Trying to say "listen to climatologists about climate science" is disingenuous. Because you don't have to be a climatologist -- or even a scientist, for that matter -- to see that an improper statistical method was used, or that the math is inconsistent.
But even if you ARE confining it to climatologists, the whole point of this discussion was that they do NOT all agree. Or even 97% of them. Those are "statistics" that came from statistically invalid "studies".
I'm not making broad claims about how many do believe and how many don't... although I there is good evidence that it is nowhere near to 97%. Just for example: if it were, they wouldn't have to fudge their "studies", as it has been clearly shown they have.
But as it turns out, other people ARE making those claims. A comprehensive study of meteorologists HAS been done, which did not use fraudulent statistical methods. And the "consensus" it found amounted to 52%. Not exactly overwhelming,
Pardon me. I misread your comment a bit so that did not make a lot of sense. What I meant was to do a study that did not specifically search for "global climate change".
"What criteria do yo think will produce a significant number of papers which support the view that either global warming isn't happening, humans aren't causing it, or it isn't a serious problem?"
Simple: a thorough search of ALL climate papers. As opposed to a search for papers on "global climate change". Because papers about climate that don't support "global climate change" aren't likely to mention global climate change, for the simple reason that they aren't about global climate change.
You seem to assume that any scientific paper that isn't about "global climate change" must be attempting to refute global climate change. But normally, if a paper is about climate but does not come to the conclusion that climate is changing significantly, it isn't likely to announce what it DIDN'T find. That's not how it works. It will simply report the things that it DID find.
I repeat: searching for papers specifically about "climate change" is going to find papers that are attempting to show climate change. Because that's what papers do. It is not going to find the papers that aren't.
"Perhaps that's why you have so much trouble comprehending this issue..."
Calling names is not an argument. Do you have an argument to make?
"At the end of the day Science is a philosophy, your own track record of posts on AGW indicate you are unable to apply that philosophy to real world questions."
More ad-hominem. Easy enough to insult people, but that's not a refutation. What are the specific errors to which you refer? Would you care to share them, and show why they are wrong?
"This post is no different, first you say a valid survey means nothing,"
It's not valid and it's ridiculously easy to show that. A survey that self-selects for the thing it's trying to prove is not a valid survey. That's hardly a complex concept... it's Statistics 101.
"... then you say another survey, the Petition Project, proves the opposite."
The Petition Project wasn't a "survey", and I made no claim that it "proves" anything at all. It does suggest pretty darned strongly, however, that there was no overwhelming consensus among science professionals.
"Think about it like Karl Popper would, why do accept the politically inspired survey at face value but reject several other much more rigorous surveys that clearly show the opposite conclusion"
I have no idea what you're talking about. What "politically inspired survey"? If you mean the petition project, it was not a survey. But aside from that, why do you say that it was "politically inspired"? Do you have evidence of that? Further, why do you seem to feel that Oreskes' survey was NOT politically inspired? Do you have evidence of that?
And what "rigorous" surveys do you refer to? I haven't seen any. So far I've seen 3 studies that (A) pretend to take themselves seriously, and (B) purport to support an overwhelming consensus supporting greenhouse warming. Of those 3, the first is the discredited Oreskes study of 10 years ago.
Of the other two, the Cook survey commits the same cardinal statistical sin that Oreskes did, with a "survey" that was essentially self-selecting. Further, out of 10,000 survey questionnaires sent out, the "results" were cherry picked from only 75 of the returns. And not only that, but memos regarding that study were made public which make it very clear that the "study" was performed with the clear intent to demonstrate a consensus... that is to say, the conclusion was foregone. If you want an example of an ADMITTED "political" motivation for a survey, there you have it.
The third study, by William Anderegg et al., used clearly political criteria such as opposition to the Kyoto protocol, rather than actual opinions on whether greenhouse warming is real, to categorize its results. So it doesn't show what it pretends to show either.
"If that's not enough to convince you that you are being used as a useful idiot then just look at the tortured logic of your post, all to try and prove black really is white."
Why should that convince me? By what crazy rules of the universe should a plethora of evidence suggesting skewed (possibly even dishonest?) surveys on the side of the greenhouse gassers, and an utter LACK of evidence of any wrong doing on "the other side", convince me? What is there to change my mind?
So, no. If anything, what appear to be deliberate attempts to skew survey results does not "convince" me at all. Rather the opposite: it tends to make me even more skeptical of their science.
If it appears that survey results are being skewed, what reason would I have to think they aren't faking their science results, too? After all, they're some of the same people.
"Ahh, yes, the old Oreskes essay "scandal". It was not published in Nature, but in Science. Small quibble, but if you're going to be critical of something, at least get your facts correct."
It was 10 years ago, and I didn't want to dig it up. You are correct, but it makes little difference.
No, it wasn't. It was exactly what it claimed to be. The phrase used did not include the word "global"; it was just "climate change" (which could go either way -- remember all those supposed "global cooling" papers from the 70s? They would still qualify as they referred to "climate change").
Again, pardon me, as I said it was a long time ago. Yes, theoretically it could go either way, but get real; in the real world it did not. Nobody in 2004 who was publishing papers on climate change were predicting "global cooling". However, a substantial body of scientists were also publishing climate papers that were not predicting climate change. And therein lies the important difference, because those papers did not mention "climate change". And why should they? They weren't about climate change.
Yes, she chose "climate change" because, you know, all those papers on the reproduction cycles of ring-tailed lemurs are not so relevant to the subject.
I will be polite and say that is disingenuous. There were other CLIMATE papers that did not mention "climate change". Those were EXCLUDED from her search, which is enough to INVALIDATE her statistics. Do you get it yet?
"She did not select papers about greenhouse global warming, as those were not her search terms."
Yes, she did, because the only papers ABOUT "climate change" in 2004 were about greenhouse global warming. That's WHY her statistics were invalid. Seriously, do you still not get it?
I was going to address the rest of your comments but I'm just going to stop here. Either you missed the entire point or you're pretending certain fundamental rules of statistical study don't exist. Either way, there is no reason for me to continue.
""Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97â"98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"
"... of the climate researchers most actively publishing". Uh-huh.
"the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers"
Uh-huh. Wow, how about that?
So they found that the people most actively promoting climate change were in agreement with climate change. Big surprise.
And then they base more of their results (ii) on ad-hominem: "the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC..."
Haha. That latter is really a hoot. "Hey... let's judge people's science based solely on their reputations, and how many papers they've published! We'll show those deniers!"
"I can guarantee you that there is no possible selection criteria that would result in a significant number of peer-reviewed papers that claim that global warming isn't happening, that humans aren't causing it, or that global warming isn't quite dangerous. I'm sure you can find some, but they won't come anywhere close to the number that support global warming."
Then quitcher bitching and do it. Because until it *IS* done, there are no good statistics. Bullshit is bullshit.
Well, some kind of explanation would be nice, but it's not as easy as it might seem.
If you're a developer, an explanation such as "It's kind of like make for Ruby" might suffice. But really, it's not quite like make, and strictly speaking it's not just for Ruby. So more than a very basic comparison with make gets pretty complicated.
And if you're not a developer... well, it's a tool that tells compilers how to compile source code into programs. Sort of.
"Those giant dragonflies and other large insects existed when the oxygen level of the atmosphere was considerably higher than it is now. It wouldn't be possible for them to get that big at the current level of oxygen because of the limitations of insect respiratory systems."
As I mentioned above, you are correct. There was more oxygen in the atmosphere. But it is also noteworthy that that time was also a LOW PERIOD of CO2. In fact it was about the same as today. Times before and since had FAR greater concentrations of CO2... yet life continued to thrive.
"Basically, an AGW-supporting scientist polled a number of his AGW-supporting scientist friends and co-workers - 30 or so - and asked them if they thought AGW was real."
Not quite true. The original "huge consensus" rumor was started by an article (NOT a peer-reviewed paper) that appeared in Nature by one Naomi Oreskes, years ago. Oreskes claimed to have surveyed a database of science papers and concluded that none of them (not one) disagreed with the greenhouse gas global warming idea.
It was soon shown that Oreskes' "study" was in fact a textbook example of cherry-picking. She had searched the database for papers that included the phrase "global climate change". Only those were included in her analysis. The problem with that being that at the time, only papers that were ABOUT the effects of greenhouse gas warming mentioned the phrase "global climate change" at all. So, in effect, she selected out of the scientific literate just the papers about greenhouse global warming, and then conclude that they all agreed about greenhouse global warming! How surprising!
The fact was, of course, that the majority of climate papers were not about greenhouse warming and never mentioned the subject at all. But those weren't counted.
This "consensus" idea was bolstered by people claiming that almost all of the "thousands" of scientists behind the latest IPCC report had agreed about it. This, too, was a distortion of the truth. The scientists involved in the AR report at the time numbered in the hundreds. There were about 2,500 or so reviewers, and not all of those were scientists. Further, not all of them actually agreed.
Shortly after that, the Petition Project was undertaken to show that scientists in fact did not agree. Some 30,000 people with actual science or engineering credentials signed the petition DISagreeing with greenhouse global warming, and their names and professions are still publicly available at petitionproject.org. More than 9,000 of those were PhDs... far more than the 2500 who supposedly agreed, again many of whom had no advanced degrees.
Another "study" was done in this last year, which came up with that "97%" figure. Unfortunately, THAT "study" suffered from exactly the same flaw as the discredited Oreskes study: it searched the literature for papers that contained the phrase "global climate change". Self-selection at its finest.
And of course then there's the real kicker here: even if these "studies" had not been statistical nonsense, the fact remains that "consensus" is not science. If consensus were a scientifically valid measure of anything, we'd still be in the stone ages.
"Why is it so very hard for people to accept that increases in CO2 in the atmosphere, whatever their source, is not a good thing for a lot of species?"
Because the evidence says otherwise. When CO2 levels were somewhat higher (and there WERE times when it was), life was diverse and thriving. There were dragonflies with 20-inch wingspans.
Why is it so very hard for people to accept the actual examples from history?
"Yeah, yeah, no true Scotsmen put sugar on their oatmeal. I know."
Except it's not a "true Scotsman" argument. Because I'm not just defining "Libertarian" off-the-cuff, as would be required for a True Scotsman argument. The Libertarian party has a very definite, written, official platform and it is there on their website for anybody to read. So there is no ambiguity about what a "true" Libertarian is. It is not a matter of opinion or interpretation. Therefore it's not a "true Scotsman" situation at all.
Seriously, man. Take a class on debate. Learn how to tell the REAL logical fallacies from something that just kind of looks like one in your opinion. (THAT'S not a "true Scotsman" argument either, because like Libertarians, logical fallacies are well-defined.)
Yes, it's better than most of the alternatives we've tried (though as I've said modern socialism is showing a LOT of promise), but it's still far short of the point where a group of impartial ethics judges could be reasonably expected to agree "this is an ethical way to distribute the wealth of a society".
I don't see how it's not impartial. If it makes more peoples' lives better, and simultaneously improves their freedom of choice, why would you NOT call that ethical? Certainly our current "system" in the US does not always treat people well, and could use improvement, but saying the system that has had the most ethical results is unethical because it's not perfect is a bit disingenuous, in my opinion.
But in regard to "modern socialism showing a lot of promise", how so? Statistically it hasn't. It is easy to show that as countries have gradually grown more "modern socialist" in nature, their economies have done less well. In the U.S. (just for one example, as it has grown more socialist in its government policies, income inequality has skyrocketed, and more people are below poverty level, per capita, than at just about any time in the past except the Great Depression.
Similarly, most economies in Europe have also further stagnated as they became more socialist.
I'm not making big claims of cause-and-effect here, but the correlation is undeniable. There are only a couple of exceptions, and they aren't very great exceptions.
Yes, that is exactly what I did. I showed you that all of economics assumes what I quoted above. You were trying to use it as an argument against the Austrian school, and I pointed out that it is common to ALL of economics. So if the Austrians are wrong about that, then so is everybody else.
I'm not going to bother to prove it any further because just about any college economics book you can find will frigging well tell you the same thing.
I have nothing further to say. I made my point, I demonstrated its truth, and further argument from you means nothing to me.
"It DOES involve putting in more cells. But far fewer than you'd need to put in to subdivide the cells, in the normal cellular paradigm, to get the same amount of bandwidth reuse multiplication."
From the descriptions, it sounds like it's basically phased-array technology, which has been in use in radar systems for decades. Of course this is a vastly different application and involves active feedback, so while the physics might be the same the rest isn't.
This was actually done for public wi-fi many years ago. It worked, but it turned out the cost was not much if at all lower than just coverage with simpler hotspots. But again: this is a different application and these are different circumstances. It might turn out better.
I have absolutely zero problem with the idea. I just don't think bitching about the situation is called for, when the solution to it has been available to them all along. Failure to take advantage of it was nobody's fault but theirs.
Having said that: sure, it might not be nice for NSA to spy on people, but the UK is approximately as guilty, so there still isn't much room to bitch.
"There is not a scap of evidence for what you claim in your post, unless of course you belive in the fanciful IRIS theory."
Well, there's rather more than a shred. In fact prior to the greenhouse gas bandwagon, it was generally recognized that clouds make the earth cooler.
Since I'm posting here on Slashdot, I'd also like to mention that unfortunately for the theory OP mentions, Arctic sea ice is at perfectly normal levels right now and Antarctic sea ice is at a new record for this time of year.
"Strobed high intensity NIR is the right track. Sync the vehicle camera shutters with the strobe dead time. Use a shuttered camera so the IR doesn't leave lingering effects on the focal plane. Heck, you can even use the NIR for camera illumination and use very fast shutter speeds."
Yeah, I hadn't thought of syncing. That's a good idea.
"My solution: confiscate the passengers' cameras and enforce the no photos policy strictly."
Well, I wouldn't use the word "confiscate". I'd just say all cell phones must be put in a repository (metal can) when they board the bus, and they get them back when they leave.
But I agree: that would probably be the best approach. Enforce it with a decent EM detector(cheap on Ebay). That would take only a quick once-over of the bus once everybody was onboard, and maybe again halfway through the trip. Say 2 minutes total.
"he problem is that many of the successful hosted services are in the USA, so while the ping stays within Europe, when you email from Sweden to Italy, it probably hits up Gmail in the USA."
That's even less of a real issue! Yes, the companies are American. That's because they were started via American ingenuity, work, and investment. They started here, they got big here.
If they want to use other services, then they can damned well build their own. They have even less of a moral leg to stand on in that respect! If they don't want to use American companies, then they can fucking well use German companies. Nobody is stopping them.
"Yeah, I call bullshit on the fact that that's not what libertarians actually say at all. "
Then you haven't been listening to "real" Libertarians. By that I mean people who are members of the actual party, or who are familiar with and subscribe to its actual principles.
Of course, it also depends on whether you are speaking of "libertarian" (a general attitude) or "Libartarian" (an actual philosophy and political party). It is unclear which because you have spelled it both ways.
Many people call themselves Libertarians who aren't. Just as many people who call themselves Republicans are really RINOs, or how some people who are really Socialists call themselves Democrats. Hell, some people have even mistaken Tea Party for Libertarian, when they aren't even close to the same things. Others seem to think Libertarians are really Anarchists, but there are very few if any similarities.
The ACTUAL Libertarian party backs the U.S. Constitution, and all the laws and regulations that are NECESSARY to make that work. No more, no less. If you have a problem with that, then tell me what it is.
"I don't disagree that Smith described part of an efficient economic system, though even he acknowledged that it was only part of the solution, and that there was a moral need to provide succor to the inevitable losers in the game."
Yes, he did, but he -- like Jeremy Bentham -- felt that should be private charity and outside "the economy" per se. He gave his personal "blessing" to Bentham's book on the subject.
" As soon as you discuss how things "should" work you've departed from reality."
Just as does EVERY discussion of economics. You cannot discuss the theory otherwise, so that's hardly a criticism.
"And by that measure capitalism still falls far short as an ethical economic model."
Short of what? If capitalism has (as it demonstrably has) generated more wealth for the common man, such that fewer have gone hungry than ever before, how does it "fall short"? You mean compared to all those other models that just as demonstrably worked less well, and resulted in more starvation?
If so, I think that's a pretty weird definition of "ethics".
Slashdot Mirror
"If the paper doesn't mention climate change, how are you going to determine whether or not the paper is in support of the consensus view?"
You don't, because there is no way to tell. THAT IS THE POINT. Oreskes' paper is not a reflection of actual "consensus view" because there is no way to tell merely from the published papers. That's not the way science publishing works. And I'd be willing to be she knows that, and knew it then.
If you want to find out what meteorologists and climatologists actually think about greenhouse warming, you have to actually ask them. (Interesting, is it not, that neither Oreskes or this more recent "97%" paper did not actually ask anybody what they think, even though they were supposed to be about what people think?)
But that has been done. They were asked. And the results are very different from "97%".
"Publishing a paper about the climate is not promoting climate change. I see nothing wrong with the methods. If you do, please point them out."
I already did point them out. It just went over your head. That's not "flippant", it's a factual observation.
The POINT is that in 2004, the only climate papers that mentioned "climate change" were papers about greenhouse warming. But there were lots of papers about climate that did not mention "climate change" at all. Those were excluded from the study.
So Oreskes' sampling method (and similarly, another such "study" this year) SELECTED for papers that were about greenhouse warming. Keep in mind here that if somebody writes a paper about climate, and does not conclude that climate is significantly changing, they aren't going to mention "climate change" because the paper is not about climate change. They won't mention it because they aren't trying to disprove it... their paper is about something else.
There was a study done, however, using proper statistical methods. And the "consensus" they found was hardly overwhelming... 52%. That is the difference between the statistical error you did not see, and a properly done study. And that difference is pretty damned large.
"Are we to infer, then, that you believe a large majority of climatologists don't believe in ACC and are, for some reason, refusing to set the record straight by collectively pointing out flaws in the already-published literature?"
No. That would be an incorrect inference.
First, "majority" has nothing to do with it. Consensus is not science. But second, and more important, is that I was referring to scientists in general, not necessarily climatologists.
Trying to say "listen to climatologists about climate science" is disingenuous. Because you don't have to be a climatologist -- or even a scientist, for that matter -- to see that an improper statistical method was used, or that the math is inconsistent.
But even if you ARE confining it to climatologists, the whole point of this discussion was that they do NOT all agree. Or even 97% of them. Those are "statistics" that came from statistically invalid "studies".
I'm not making broad claims about how many do believe and how many don't... although I there is good evidence that it is nowhere near to 97%. Just for example: if it were, they wouldn't have to fudge their "studies", as it has been clearly shown they have.
But as it turns out, other people ARE making those claims. A comprehensive study of meteorologists HAS been done, which did not use fraudulent statistical methods. And the "consensus" it found amounted to 52%. Not exactly overwhelming,
"Do what, specifically?"
Pardon me. I misread your comment a bit so that did not make a lot of sense. What I meant was to do a study that did not specifically search for "global climate change".
"What criteria do yo think will produce a significant number of papers which support the view that either global warming isn't happening, humans aren't causing it, or it isn't a serious problem?"
Simple: a thorough search of ALL climate papers. As opposed to a search for papers on "global climate change". Because papers about climate that don't support "global climate change" aren't likely to mention global climate change, for the simple reason that they aren't about global climate change.
You seem to assume that any scientific paper that isn't about "global climate change" must be attempting to refute global climate change. But normally, if a paper is about climate but does not come to the conclusion that climate is changing significantly, it isn't likely to announce what it DIDN'T find. That's not how it works. It will simply report the things that it DID find.
I repeat: searching for papers specifically about "climate change" is going to find papers that are attempting to show climate change. Because that's what papers do. It is not going to find the papers that aren't.
"Perhaps that's why you have so much trouble comprehending this issue..."
Calling names is not an argument. Do you have an argument to make?
"At the end of the day Science is a philosophy, your own track record of posts on AGW indicate you are unable to apply that philosophy to real world questions."
More ad-hominem. Easy enough to insult people, but that's not a refutation. What are the specific errors to which you refer? Would you care to share them, and show why they are wrong?
"This post is no different, first you say a valid survey means nothing,"
It's not valid and it's ridiculously easy to show that. A survey that self-selects for the thing it's trying to prove is not a valid survey. That's hardly a complex concept... it's Statistics 101.
"... then you say another survey, the Petition Project, proves the opposite."
The Petition Project wasn't a "survey", and I made no claim that it "proves" anything at all. It does suggest pretty darned strongly, however, that there was no overwhelming consensus among science professionals.
"Think about it like Karl Popper would, why do accept the politically inspired survey at face value but reject several other much more rigorous surveys that clearly show the opposite conclusion"
I have no idea what you're talking about. What "politically inspired survey"? If you mean the petition project, it was not a survey. But aside from that, why do you say that it was "politically inspired"? Do you have evidence of that? Further, why do you seem to feel that Oreskes' survey was NOT politically inspired? Do you have evidence of that?
And what "rigorous" surveys do you refer to? I haven't seen any. So far I've seen 3 studies that (A) pretend to take themselves seriously, and (B) purport to support an overwhelming consensus supporting greenhouse warming. Of those 3, the first is the discredited Oreskes study of 10 years ago.
Of the other two, the Cook survey commits the same cardinal statistical sin that Oreskes did, with a "survey" that was essentially self-selecting. Further, out of 10,000 survey questionnaires sent out, the "results" were cherry picked from only 75 of the returns. And not only that, but memos regarding that study were made public which make it very clear that the "study" was performed with the clear intent to demonstrate a consensus... that is to say, the conclusion was foregone. If you want an example of an ADMITTED "political" motivation for a survey, there you have it.
The third study, by William Anderegg et al., used clearly political criteria such as opposition to the Kyoto protocol, rather than actual opinions on whether greenhouse warming is real, to categorize its results. So it doesn't show what it pretends to show either.
"If that's not enough to convince you that you are being used as a useful idiot then just look at the tortured logic of your post, all to try and prove black really is white."
Why should that convince me? By what crazy rules of the universe should a plethora of evidence suggesting skewed (possibly even dishonest?) surveys on the side of the greenhouse gassers, and an utter LACK of evidence of any wrong doing on "the other side", convince me? What is there to change my mind?
So, no. If anything, what appear to be deliberate attempts to skew survey results does not "convince" me at all. Rather the opposite: it tends to make me even more skeptical of their science.
If it appears that survey results are being skewed, what reason would I have to think they aren't faking their science results, too? After all, they're some of the same people.
"Ahh, yes, the old Oreskes essay "scandal". It was not published in Nature, but in Science. Small quibble, but if you're going to be critical of something, at least get your facts correct."
It was 10 years ago, and I didn't want to dig it up. You are correct, but it makes little difference.
No, it wasn't. It was exactly what it claimed to be. The phrase used did not include the word "global"; it was just "climate change" (which could go either way -- remember all those supposed "global cooling" papers from the 70s? They would still qualify as they referred to "climate change").
Again, pardon me, as I said it was a long time ago. Yes, theoretically it could go either way, but get real; in the real world it did not. Nobody in 2004 who was publishing papers on climate change were predicting "global cooling". However, a substantial body of scientists were also publishing climate papers that were not predicting climate change. And therein lies the important difference, because those papers did not mention "climate change". And why should they? They weren't about climate change.
Yes, she chose "climate change" because, you know, all those papers on the reproduction cycles of ring-tailed lemurs are not so relevant to the subject.
I will be polite and say that is disingenuous. There were other CLIMATE papers that did not mention "climate change". Those were EXCLUDED from her search, which is enough to INVALIDATE her statistics. Do you get it yet?
"She did not select papers about greenhouse global warming, as those were not her search terms."
Yes, she did, because the only papers ABOUT "climate change" in 2004 were about greenhouse global warming. That's WHY her statistics were invalid. Seriously, do you still not get it?
I was going to address the rest of your comments but I'm just going to stop here. Either you missed the entire point or you're pretending certain fundamental rules of statistical study don't exist. Either way, there is no reason for me to continue.
""Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97â"98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"
"... of the climate researchers most actively publishing". Uh-huh.
"the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers"
Uh-huh. Wow, how about that?
So they found that the people most actively promoting climate change were in agreement with climate change. Big surprise.
And then they base more of their results (ii) on ad-hominem: "the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC..."
Haha. That latter is really a hoot. "Hey... let's judge people's science based solely on their reputations, and how many papers they've published! We'll show those deniers!"
Statistical garbage.
"I can guarantee you that there is no possible selection criteria that would result in a significant number of peer-reviewed papers that claim that global warming isn't happening, that humans aren't causing it, or that global warming isn't quite dangerous. I'm sure you can find some, but they won't come anywhere close to the number that support global warming."
Then quitcher bitching and do it. Because until it *IS* done, there are no good statistics. Bullshit is bullshit.
Well, some kind of explanation would be nice, but it's not as easy as it might seem.
If you're a developer, an explanation such as "It's kind of like make for Ruby" might suffice. But really, it's not quite like make, and strictly speaking it's not just for Ruby. So more than a very basic comparison with make gets pretty complicated.
And if you're not a developer... well, it's a tool that tells compilers how to compile source code into programs. Sort of.
"Those giant dragonflies and other large insects existed when the oxygen level of the atmosphere was considerably higher than it is now. It wouldn't be possible for them to get that big at the current level of oxygen because of the limitations of insect respiratory systems."
As I mentioned above, you are correct. There was more oxygen in the atmosphere. But it is also noteworthy that that time was also a LOW PERIOD of CO2. In fact it was about the same as today. Times before and since had FAR greater concentrations of CO2... yet life continued to thrive.
You're right, and I stand corrected. I was getting my geologic eras confused.
"Basically, an AGW-supporting scientist polled a number of his AGW-supporting scientist friends and co-workers - 30 or so - and asked them if they thought AGW was real."
Not quite true. The original "huge consensus" rumor was started by an article (NOT a peer-reviewed paper) that appeared in Nature by one Naomi Oreskes, years ago. Oreskes claimed to have surveyed a database of science papers and concluded that none of them (not one) disagreed with the greenhouse gas global warming idea.
It was soon shown that Oreskes' "study" was in fact a textbook example of cherry-picking. She had searched the database for papers that included the phrase "global climate change". Only those were included in her analysis. The problem with that being that at the time, only papers that were ABOUT the effects of greenhouse gas warming mentioned the phrase "global climate change" at all. So, in effect, she selected out of the scientific literate just the papers about greenhouse global warming, and then conclude that they all agreed about greenhouse global warming! How surprising!
The fact was, of course, that the majority of climate papers were not about greenhouse warming and never mentioned the subject at all. But those weren't counted.
This "consensus" idea was bolstered by people claiming that almost all of the "thousands" of scientists behind the latest IPCC report had agreed about it. This, too, was a distortion of the truth. The scientists involved in the AR report at the time numbered in the hundreds. There were about 2,500 or so reviewers, and not all of those were scientists. Further, not all of them actually agreed.
Shortly after that, the Petition Project was undertaken to show that scientists in fact did not agree. Some 30,000 people with actual science or engineering credentials signed the petition DISagreeing with greenhouse global warming, and their names and professions are still publicly available at petitionproject.org. More than 9,000 of those were PhDs... far more than the 2500 who supposedly agreed, again many of whom had no advanced degrees.
Another "study" was done in this last year, which came up with that "97%" figure. Unfortunately, THAT "study" suffered from exactly the same flaw as the discredited Oreskes study: it searched the literature for papers that contained the phrase "global climate change". Self-selection at its finest.
And of course then there's the real kicker here: even if these "studies" had not been statistical nonsense, the fact remains that "consensus" is not science. If consensus were a scientifically valid measure of anything, we'd still be in the stone ages.
"Why is it so very hard for people to accept that increases in CO2 in the atmosphere, whatever their source, is not a good thing for a lot of species?"
Because the evidence says otherwise. When CO2 levels were somewhat higher (and there WERE times when it was), life was diverse and thriving. There were dragonflies with 20-inch wingspans.
Why is it so very hard for people to accept the actual examples from history?
"Yeah, yeah, no true Scotsmen put sugar on their oatmeal. I know."
Except it's not a "true Scotsman" argument. Because I'm not just defining "Libertarian" off-the-cuff, as would be required for a True Scotsman argument. The Libertarian party has a very definite, written, official platform and it is there on their website for anybody to read. So there is no ambiguity about what a "true" Libertarian is. It is not a matter of opinion or interpretation. Therefore it's not a "true Scotsman" situation at all.
Seriously, man. Take a class on debate. Learn how to tell the REAL logical fallacies from something that just kind of looks like one in your opinion. (THAT'S not a "true Scotsman" argument either, because like Libertarians, logical fallacies are well-defined.)
Yes, it's better than most of the alternatives we've tried (though as I've said modern socialism is showing a LOT of promise), but it's still far short of the point where a group of impartial ethics judges could be reasonably expected to agree "this is an ethical way to distribute the wealth of a society".
I don't see how it's not impartial. If it makes more peoples' lives better, and simultaneously improves their freedom of choice, why would you NOT call that ethical? Certainly our current "system" in the US does not always treat people well, and could use improvement, but saying the system that has had the most ethical results is unethical because it's not perfect is a bit disingenuous, in my opinion.
But in regard to "modern socialism showing a lot of promise", how so? Statistically it hasn't. It is easy to show that as countries have gradually grown more "modern socialist" in nature, their economies have done less well. In the U.S. (just for one example, as it has grown more socialist in its government policies, income inequality has skyrocketed, and more people are below poverty level, per capita, than at just about any time in the past except the Great Depression.
Similarly, most economies in Europe have also further stagnated as they became more socialist.
I'm not making big claims of cause-and-effect here, but the correlation is undeniable. There are only a couple of exceptions, and they aren't very great exceptions.
"Nope. That's not what you did, and you know it."
Yes, that is exactly what I did. I showed you that all of economics assumes what I quoted above. You were trying to use it as an argument against the Austrian school, and I pointed out that it is common to ALL of economics. So if the Austrians are wrong about that, then so is everybody else.
I'm not going to bother to prove it any further because just about any college economics book you can find will frigging well tell you the same thing.
I have nothing further to say. I made my point, I demonstrated its truth, and further argument from you means nothing to me.
"It DOES involve putting in more cells. But far fewer than you'd need to put in to subdivide the cells, in the normal cellular paradigm, to get the same amount of bandwidth reuse multiplication."
From the descriptions, it sounds like it's basically phased-array technology, which has been in use in radar systems for decades. Of course this is a vastly different application and involves active feedback, so while the physics might be the same the rest isn't.
This was actually done for public wi-fi many years ago. It worked, but it turned out the cost was not much if at all lower than just coverage with simpler hotspots. But again: this is a different application and these are different circumstances. It might turn out better.
Yep. And good for them.
I have absolutely zero problem with the idea. I just don't think bitching about the situation is called for, when the solution to it has been available to them all along. Failure to take advantage of it was nobody's fault but theirs.
Having said that: sure, it might not be nice for NSA to spy on people, but the UK is approximately as guilty, so there still isn't much room to bitch.
And before anybody tries to call bullshit:
HERE is the Arctic ice extent and thickness from a week ago, and
HERE is information about the current Antarctic sea ice.
"From human perception, there is no difference between these statements, and that's the problem addressed."
From a mathematics perspective, there is a world of difference. One is correct; the other is not.
"There is not a scap of evidence for what you claim in your post, unless of course you belive in the fanciful IRIS theory."
Well, there's rather more than a shred. In fact prior to the greenhouse gas bandwagon, it was generally recognized that clouds make the earth cooler.
Since I'm posting here on Slashdot, I'd also like to mention that unfortunately for the theory OP mentions, Arctic sea ice is at perfectly normal levels right now and Antarctic sea ice is at a new record for this time of year.
"Strobed high intensity NIR is the right track. Sync the vehicle camera shutters with the strobe dead time. Use a shuttered camera so the IR doesn't leave lingering effects on the focal plane. Heck, you can even use the NIR for camera illumination and use very fast shutter speeds."
Yeah, I hadn't thought of syncing. That's a good idea.
"My solution: confiscate the passengers' cameras and enforce the no photos policy strictly."
Well, I wouldn't use the word "confiscate". I'd just say all cell phones must be put in a repository (metal can) when they board the bus, and they get them back when they leave.
But I agree: that would probably be the best approach. Enforce it with a decent EM detector(cheap on Ebay). That would take only a quick once-over of the bus once everybody was onboard, and maybe again halfway through the trip. Say 2 minutes total.
"he problem is that many of the successful hosted services are in the USA, so while the ping stays within Europe, when you email from Sweden to Italy, it probably hits up Gmail in the USA."
That's even less of a real issue! Yes, the companies are American. That's because they were started via American ingenuity, work, and investment. They started here, they got big here.
If they want to use other services, then they can damned well build their own. They have even less of a moral leg to stand on in that respect! If they don't want to use American companies, then they can fucking well use German companies. Nobody is stopping them.
"Yeah, I call bullshit on the fact that that's not what libertarians actually say at all. "
Then you haven't been listening to "real" Libertarians. By that I mean people who are members of the actual party, or who are familiar with and subscribe to its actual principles.
Of course, it also depends on whether you are speaking of "libertarian" (a general attitude) or "Libartarian" (an actual philosophy and political party). It is unclear which because you have spelled it both ways.
Many people call themselves Libertarians who aren't. Just as many people who call themselves Republicans are really RINOs, or how some people who are really Socialists call themselves Democrats. Hell, some people have even mistaken Tea Party for Libertarian, when they aren't even close to the same things. Others seem to think Libertarians are really Anarchists, but there are very few if any similarities.
The ACTUAL Libertarian party backs the U.S. Constitution, and all the laws and regulations that are NECESSARY to make that work. No more, no less. If you have a problem with that, then tell me what it is.
"I don't disagree that Smith described part of an efficient economic system, though even he acknowledged that it was only part of the solution, and that there was a moral need to provide succor to the inevitable losers in the game."
Yes, he did, but he -- like Jeremy Bentham -- felt that should be private charity and outside "the economy" per se. He gave his personal "blessing" to Bentham's book on the subject.
" As soon as you discuss how things "should" work you've departed from reality."
Just as does EVERY discussion of economics. You cannot discuss the theory otherwise, so that's hardly a criticism.
"And by that measure capitalism still falls far short as an ethical economic model."
Short of what? If capitalism has (as it demonstrably has) generated more wealth for the common man, such that fewer have gone hungry than ever before, how does it "fall short"? You mean compared to all those other models that just as demonstrably worked less well, and resulted in more starvation?
If so, I think that's a pretty weird definition of "ethics".