"Where are you suggesting these pay checks issue from? What would the UN, say, stand to gain by influencing IPCC research toward alarmism -- or bias in any direction, for that matter? In the other corner, as it were, who is bankrolling the denial camp?"
I didn't write anything about "bankrolling" a "camp". That sound suspiciously like conspiracy theory to me. As for paychecks... they do come from somewhere, yes? I'm not suggesting any kind of big conspiracy, as you seem to be doing. I'm simply saying: AGW is what they're doing, and they are getting paid for it. Is there something about that with which you disagree?
"Also I am pretty sure the latest IPCC report made a point of stating more clearly and unambiguously then ever before that climate change is real and man-made. We discussed it here on/. at the time."
Yes, the report does make a point of saying so, in their executive summary. Which is just proving my point. Because the actual science in the report (pdf) does not justify the claim. If anything, the actual evidence is weaker than before. (That is a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Climate Change, by the way). 117 climate models were studied. Of those, 114 overstated the actual amount of warming (by, as I stated before, an ever-increasing margin), and the mean divergence between those 114 models and current reality was 100%. In other words, the models, on average, predicted 100% more warming than has actually been observed.
When the overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology say "AGW is real"
And yet the AGW models The overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology today get paychecks that rely on people being focused on their alarmism.
Regardless of that: I find it interesting that with the release of the IPCC AR5, which has toned down its predictions of things like warming, and weather extremes (in fact they dropped claims of AGW driving extreme storms such as cyclones altogether), and with AGW climate model predictionsshowing ever-increasing divergence from actual observation, the "sky is falling" cries have become even more shrill.
"It's not, and it would be nice if people tried to understand the processes involved instead of spouting nonsense."
Yes, it is (pdf), and it would be nice if you stopped saying that provable, well-recorded history is bullshit. Quote:
"In the past, the United States had an adequate supply of 238Pu, which was produced in facilities that existed to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program." [emphasis mine]
The reason is that the Pu-238 is a byproduct of the production of Pu-239 for weapons, but which has no practical use for those weapons. So it was extracted from the spent fuel used in weapons-grade plutonium production and used elsewhere. Primarily by NASA.
Since weapons-grade plutonium has not been manufactured in the United States in recent years, our supply has been dwindling.
So you can spout all you want about the process of its creation, but the FACT is that it in the United States, it was created and stockpiled entirely as a byproduct of weapons-grade plutonium manufacture. Regardless of whether your science is accurate, that's accurate history.
"Except tfs said it was a similar but worse toxin"
Well, point taken. But my point is still that these antitoxins are not even close to "antidotes". Also, apparently they are made available only to researchers.
I would like to see that too. It might be very interesting.
I know there is a correlation (though not a really strong one) between Mensa membership and % of atheists, but it isn't really practical to draw much conclusion from that. While they may be correlated, IQ isn't CRT, and Mensa members are not necessarily representative of those with high IQs.
I didn't "misunderstand". I'm simply disagreeing with someone's interpretation of the word "trivial".
As your own reference shows, there are many different ways to calculate "effect size". In fact, if the Pearson method was used, it was arguably inappropriate because it is intended for linear relationships, though it appears this effect is not linear. I'm not claiming it was an inappropriate choice, I'm just saying it may be.
Regardless, the opinion of "trivial" is based on a perception of how much this measured effect has on the real world, which is something we simply do not know. A small but statistically significant "effect" (in the statistical sense) can sometimes have a huge "effect" (in the real sense) in the real, physical world.
The author claims that he doubts it. That is opinion, not science.
I understand all this, but it's kind of beside the point.
My original statement was that I felt it would be a long time before they officially reveal this "secret" if they're waiting for an "antidote" for this strain of botulism, as OP claimed, because there simply isn't one for currently known strains.
And I don't trust that it will actually remain "secret" for that long. It will be leaked, and if anybody is inclined to do nasty things with it, they will anyway.
Happens all the time with such "secrets".
"There is a vaccine against the toxin itself. This is given to people at high-risk of being exposed to the toxin (researchers, personnel trained to deal with potential bioweapons attack). It probably isn't effective against this new toxin type."
I was not aware of this and there is no mention of it in Wikipedia, but of course Wikipedia is not the definitive source for all things. If so, it is possible that is what they meant. But I doubt it, because even though it might be a different strain of botulinum, the toxin is presumably the same.
You have strayed so far in this rambling from what was actually said, and the actual point, that I really don't feel a reply is justified, other then maybe this explanation of why I am not replying.
"Yes, it is. It's an economic policy enforced by a political entity."
And Socialism isn't???
You are arguing against yourself. If you want to argue that Socialism is an economic policy, fine. It is. Technically. But if you want to argue that "redistribution of wealth" is an economic policy "backed by a political entity", then you have to accept that as a practical matter, so is Socialism. Everywhere that it exists.
Considering that there is no antidote for regular botulism, my guess is that this "censorship" is doomed to failure.
Unlike software patches, which may take days or weeks, it looks like it could be years for this. While I'm not a big supporter of giving ammunition to terrorists (just for example), I doubt very much this secrecy will get very far. It usually doesn't. So it looks like a false sense of security ("security theater") to me.
"And that's exactly how the Tea Party hijacked the Republican party. Same thing happened with the Democratic party when the Socialist Party was on the rise."
But no, you are missing my point.
The Democratic Party borrowed from the Socialist Party, when they began to get pressure from the far Left. But the Socialist Party did not "usurp" the Democrats. Rather, the Democrats simple became a bit more Socialist. There is a difference.
In the same vain, members of the Republican Party did not "become" the Tea Party. They just adopted some of the ideas. The only difference is that they actually call themselves Tea Party, even though they are not. They might call themselves that, but they're just Tea-leaning Republicans.
But there is no way in hell Democrats would ever call themselves Socialists, even if they have adopted Socialist ideas.
"Even if you funded all schools entirely from the federal budget you'd still probably have a huge amount of inequality between them."
That may be true but I don't agree with your idea of a "socialist" model. It is "getting all the money from the Federal government" that would be a socialist model.
"One of the biggest reasons the libertarian and Green Parties get glossed over is that about 80% of their platforms are functionally identical or compatible to existing platforms of other parties."
Just no. First, the Greens are primarily a one-issue party. And second, while there are a few vague similarities between Libertarian values and the Republican platform, they are not even remotely the same. Especially when you consider that even when it comes to those similarities, the Republicans over the last few decades have been almost all talk and no walk. 80% is way, WAY off. If you are measuring actions, rather than words, try 10%.
Not that I blame you personally. The Libertarian party is widely misunderstood, in part precisely because of misinformation from both the Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats, in particular, have frequently characterized Libertarians as being "far right", when nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, it's not even close. The Republicans, on the other hand, simply try to marginalize the Libertarians, because the Libertarians really mean what the Republicans only pretend, when it comes to "smaller government". (But again, that's only a part of the Libertarian platform.)
"That might be more believable if the Tea Party had not challenged republicans who held safe seats in government during the primaries just to lose the general election to political adversaries. What you are claiming would require the republicans to actually defeat themselves in an attempt to make themselves win under a false pretense. That's a little like a bank robber asking the cops to drive the get away car at his next heist."
You are arguing against yourself, and and making MY argument for me. Tea Partiers running against Republicans? Then how could Republicans BE Tea Partiers? This is actually part of my own argument. The Republicans saw the writing on the wall. They saw they were getting stiff opposition so they leaned in the direction the wind was blowing. But even those Tea Party principles they claim to have adopted, they adopted in weakened form. And they only did so because they were being challenged by the Tea Party.
"I think the recent government shut down proves you wrong on this. It was ineffective action but if you paid attention to the contents of Ted Cruze's speeches or the speeches of the Tea Party members who were behind it, you would understand that they did it specifically because the people asked them too do something."
No shit. I repeat: they saw the writing on the wall, and saw that the American public was highly supportive of the Tea Party. So they do those things. There is no conflict or contradiction there with what I was saying. Example: Ron Paul ran on the Republican ticket, yet few people would mistake him for anything but a Libertarian (although he does hold a few typical Republican values that conflict with Libertarian values). On the other hand, I don't think anybody would mistake Ted Cruz for anything but a Republican.
"So you suggest that the republican party put on masks and pretended to be tea part members for some sort of gain. What type of gain have they received? what gain has the republicans received when it only divided the party showing the difference between the establishment and the tea party conservatives? Your own president marks a clear distinction between the two, so which is it? One in the same or two separate movements?"
I'm not "suggesting" it. It's a statement of fact. Look it up. They had to adopt "Tea Partier" principles or lose elections. It's that simple.
"So no, it is NOT about IQ. No matter how many times you claim it is."
I stand corrected, but only partially.
From the quote above, it employs 11 items from the "science literacy battery", and 10 items from the CRT. So we were each approximately half wrong, and half right.
I can accept that. Are you happy with it? Just curious.
More important to me is that the "science literacy battery", according to that quote, is used in public opinion studies, while the CRT measures "conscious, effortful information processing".
While opinions vary, I personally give far more weight to the latter.
"This is about scientific knowledge. Not IQ. They are not the same."
No, it isn't. This is about the Cognitive Reflection Test, which is correlated with IQ, and which has no direct relationship to education. Do I detect a hint of Dunning-Kruger showing through?
"At least read that link you posted all the way to the end."
I did. He claims that the difference is "trivially small", yet elsewhere he shows that it is statistically significant. I'll stick with the numbers rather than his opinion, thanks very much! He even admits that his opinion has been biased. So I'll adhere to the science.
Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Neither can he. Statistically significant and "trivially small" are mutually incompatible. One is science, and the other is opinion, and they are in conflict. Given that, I'll go with the statistics. Also, saying in effect "I wouldn't be surprised if it reversed" does not lead to the conclusion you appear to assume; perhaps he thinks they will undergo a shift in membership.
"Like I said, lies, damn lies and statistics. Understand what you're measuring and how to measure it."
From what you have written in the last couple of comments, I am pretty confidant that I understand it better than you do.
"Yes.
He divided the results into 3 groups. 1. Liberal 2a. Conservative 2b. Tea Party"
Your very choice of numbering indicates a bias. But let's leave that aside for now. While what you say is not false, you present it in a very misleading way. To avoid confusion, I'm going to call them 1, 2, and 3, because they are 3 distinct subgroups of the sample population.
He compared 1 to the population as a whole, and 2 to the population as a whole, and found no significant difference between the results. He then compared 3 to the population as a whole, and found a significant difference.
You are presenting 2 and 3 as 2a and 2b as though there is some kind of statistical impropriety or shenanigans going on. He compared each of the 3 groups to the population as a whole, as is right and proper. Your insinuation that there is something wrong or weird about the way it was divided up is just so much hot air. If he had not compared each against the whole population, then there would have been something strange; but such is not the case.
In fact, his own statements show that what you seem to be implying is false. He states:
"It turns out that there is about as strong a correlation between scores on the science comprehension scale and identifying with the Tea Party as there is between scores on the science comprehension scale and Conservrepub.
Except that it has the opposite sign." [emphasis mine]
Clearly, then, any implied "bias" that might arise from combining your "2a" and "2b" is more than made up for by the difference in scores.
"You are almost right. The association with republicans leans from the fact that most of the tea party objections to the parties line up with the facade the republicans would put forward to get elected but forget about once in office. This was highlighted enormously with the bank bailouts, the GM bailouts, and the slush fund created under the guise of the stimulus in which the tea party movement more or less was created.
In short, it was easier to hijack the republican party then to create a new party and complain that they don't get any respect like the libertarians and the greens party do."
Sorry, but that's backward There is no way an "independent" party could "hijack" the enormous Republican party. The very idea is laughable. If they could have, there would have been no need for a third party at all. They could have just joined the Republicans and then reformed the party.
So it was actually the other way around.
The Republicans realized that the Tea Party (which, again, contained a significant number of former liberals) was actually trying to do what the Republicans SAID they were doing for decades, but not actually doing. This could have been devastating to the Republican party. So the Republican donned the masks of the Tea Party and pretended to be them. Successfully. And some of them are even halfway serious about it.
But make no mistake: this isn't the original Tea Party, even though some people have hung on. You will find no liberals there. You will probably find a lot of rhetoric about smaller government and lower taxes, but little real action.
"SERIOUSLY? Even within my small home town of 10,000, the quality of public school that you went to was pretty directly related to how wealthy your parents were. The school that all the doctors' and lawyers' kids went to? Renovated every 10 years, 20 or less kids per class, teachers' aides in every room, a number of gifted programs, and a lab full of modern PCs, along with PCs in every room, laptop carts, smart white boards, etc."
And their property taxes paid for that school district's budget. All that remodeling, and all those teachers. It all ultimately came out of those people's pockets.
If you don't like that, then pressure government to stop paying for schools via property taxes. Maybe you'd rather pay out of your pocket? Or maybe it should be from state sales taxes? If the latter, at least you wouldn't have one district far richer than another.
"Short on thinking the government is the source of all compassion. You can't claim that someone is short on compassion because they don't support your enforced-via-taxes government-is-the-only-way compassion model."
Well said. Compassion for one pet cause equals putting someone else in the poorhouse. Obamacare is a classic example. In only the smallest of 3 categories are premiums projected to be "less than expected", but what that report omitted was that all 3 categories are expected to have higher premiums... it's just that the one is going to be less higher "than expected".
How can you justify a program that was promised to have "no significant effect" on rate-payers, which was repeatedly going to "make no difference", yet is actually driving premiums up for almost all of America?
Forbes Magazine actually published an article asserting (and providing some evidence) that the healthcare.gov site works poorly on purpose, because the government doesn't want you to know how high the actual rates are.
"Learn to use the English lexicon correctly - sarcasm is not satire."
Perhaps you should study a bit more yourself before criticizing others. While not all satire is sarcasm, some sarcasm is indeed satire. In fact I think this particular instance is a very good example.
Slashdot Mirror
"Where are you suggesting these pay checks issue from? What would the UN, say, stand to gain by influencing IPCC research toward alarmism -- or bias in any direction, for that matter? In the other corner, as it were, who is bankrolling the denial camp?"
I didn't write anything about "bankrolling" a "camp". That sound suspiciously like conspiracy theory to me. As for paychecks... they do come from somewhere, yes? I'm not suggesting any kind of big conspiracy, as you seem to be doing. I'm simply saying: AGW is what they're doing, and they are getting paid for it. Is there something about that with which you disagree?
"Also I am pretty sure the latest IPCC report made a point of stating more clearly and unambiguously then ever before that climate change is real and man-made. We discussed it here on /. at the time."
Yes, the report does make a point of saying so, in their executive summary. Which is just proving my point. Because the actual science in the report (pdf) does not justify the claim. If anything, the actual evidence is weaker than before. (That is a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Climate Change, by the way). 117 climate models were studied. Of those, 114 overstated the actual amount of warming (by, as I stated before, an ever-increasing margin), and the mean divergence between those 114 models and current reality was 100%. In other words, the models, on average, predicted 100% more warming than has actually been observed.
Put that together with the increasing number of new studies that contradict the very foundations of most AGW climate models, and the only reasonable conclusion is that these ever-more-shrill pronouncements are nothing but hot air (pun very definitely intended).
When the overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology say "AGW is real"
And yet the AGW models The overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology today get paychecks that rely on people being focused on their alarmism.
Regardless of that: I find it interesting that with the release of the IPCC AR5, which has toned down its predictions of things like warming, and weather extremes (in fact they dropped claims of AGW driving extreme storms such as cyclones altogether), and with AGW climate model predictions showing ever-increasing divergence from actual observation, the "sky is falling" cries have become even more shrill.
"It's not, and it would be nice if people tried to understand the processes involved instead of spouting nonsense."
Yes, it is (pdf), and it would be nice if you stopped saying that provable, well-recorded history is bullshit. Quote:
"In the past, the United States had an adequate supply of 238Pu, which was produced in facilities that existed to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program." [emphasis mine]
The reason is that the Pu-238 is a byproduct of the production of Pu-239 for weapons, but which has no practical use for those weapons. So it was extracted from the spent fuel used in weapons-grade plutonium production and used elsewhere. Primarily by NASA.
Since weapons-grade plutonium has not been manufactured in the United States in recent years, our supply has been dwindling.
So you can spout all you want about the process of its creation, but the FACT is that it in the United States, it was created and stockpiled entirely as a byproduct of weapons-grade plutonium manufacture. Regardless of whether your science is accurate, that's accurate history.
"Except tfs said it was a similar but worse toxin"
Well, point taken. But my point is still that these antitoxins are not even close to "antidotes". Also, apparently they are made available only to researchers.
"Different isotope, different production process, different quantity needs, etc."
No, it's a byproduct of the production process.
All the while, NASA's Plutonium shortage is threatening the future of deep space exploration.
"I'd love to see the CRT results for ..."
I would like to see that too. It might be very interesting.
I know there is a correlation (though not a really strong one) between Mensa membership and % of atheists, but it isn't really practical to draw much conclusion from that. While they may be correlated, IQ isn't CRT, and Mensa members are not necessarily representative of those with high IQs.
"You misunderstand the statistics."
I didn't "misunderstand". I'm simply disagreeing with someone's interpretation of the word "trivial".
As your own reference shows, there are many different ways to calculate "effect size". In fact, if the Pearson method was used, it was arguably inappropriate because it is intended for linear relationships, though it appears this effect is not linear. I'm not claiming it was an inappropriate choice, I'm just saying it may be.
Regardless, the opinion of "trivial" is based on a perception of how much this measured effect has on the real world, which is something we simply do not know. A small but statistically significant "effect" (in the statistical sense) can sometimes have a huge "effect" (in the real sense) in the real, physical world.
The author claims that he doubts it. That is opinion, not science.
My original statement was that I felt it would be a long time before they officially reveal this "secret" if they're waiting for an "antidote" for this strain of botulism, as OP claimed, because there simply isn't one for currently known strains.
And I don't trust that it will actually remain "secret" for that long. It will be leaked, and if anybody is inclined to do nasty things with it, they will anyway.
Happens all the time with such "secrets".
"There is a vaccine against the toxin itself. This is given to people at high-risk of being exposed to the toxin (researchers, personnel trained to deal with potential bioweapons attack). It probably isn't effective against this new toxin type."
I was not aware of this and there is no mention of it in Wikipedia, but of course Wikipedia is not the definitive source for all things. If so, it is possible that is what they meant. But I doubt it, because even though it might be a different strain of botulinum, the toxin is presumably the same.
You have strayed so far in this rambling from what was actually said, and the actual point, that I really don't feel a reply is justified, other then maybe this explanation of why I am not replying.
"Murders don't happen all the time simply because most people aren't psychopathic cunts. But, in Cheney's case, it takes one to know one."
Hahaha! I bet a lot of people are saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"
"There is botulism antitoxin to the previously known forms of botulism."
According to Wikipedia, it isn't much of an antitoxin. The best it does is prevent the condition from worsening... it is very far from an "antidote".
"Yes, it is. It's an economic policy enforced by a political entity."
And Socialism isn't???
You are arguing against yourself. If you want to argue that Socialism is an economic policy, fine. It is. Technically. But if you want to argue that "redistribution of wealth" is an economic policy "backed by a political entity", then you have to accept that as a practical matter, so is Socialism. Everywhere that it exists.
You can't have it both ways.
Considering that there is no antidote for regular botulism, my guess is that this "censorship" is doomed to failure.
Unlike software patches, which may take days or weeks, it looks like it could be years for this. While I'm not a big supporter of giving ammunition to terrorists (just for example), I doubt very much this secrecy will get very far. It usually doesn't. So it looks like a false sense of security ("security theater") to me.
"And that's exactly how the Tea Party hijacked the Republican party. Same thing happened with the Democratic party when the Socialist Party was on the rise."
But no, you are missing my point.
The Democratic Party borrowed from the Socialist Party, when they began to get pressure from the far Left. But the Socialist Party did not "usurp" the Democrats. Rather, the Democrats simple became a bit more Socialist. There is a difference.
In the same vain, members of the Republican Party did not "become" the Tea Party. They just adopted some of the ideas. The only difference is that they actually call themselves Tea Party, even though they are not. They might call themselves that, but they're just Tea-leaning Republicans.
But there is no way in hell Democrats would ever call themselves Socialists, even if they have adopted Socialist ideas.
And technically redistribution of wealth, via spreading it all out via the Federal government, is an economic policy, not a political policy.
"Even if you funded all schools entirely from the federal budget you'd still probably have a huge amount of inequality between them."
That may be true but I don't agree with your idea of a "socialist" model. It is "getting all the money from the Federal government" that would be a socialist model.
"One of the biggest reasons the libertarian and Green Parties get glossed over is that about 80% of their platforms are functionally identical or compatible to existing platforms of other parties."
Just no. First, the Greens are primarily a one-issue party. And second, while there are a few vague similarities between Libertarian values and the Republican platform, they are not even remotely the same. Especially when you consider that even when it comes to those similarities, the Republicans over the last few decades have been almost all talk and no walk. 80% is way, WAY off. If you are measuring actions, rather than words, try 10%.
Not that I blame you personally. The Libertarian party is widely misunderstood, in part precisely because of misinformation from both the Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats, in particular, have frequently characterized Libertarians as being "far right", when nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, it's not even close. The Republicans, on the other hand, simply try to marginalize the Libertarians, because the Libertarians really mean what the Republicans only pretend, when it comes to "smaller government". (But again, that's only a part of the Libertarian platform.)
"That might be more believable if the Tea Party had not challenged republicans who held safe seats in government during the primaries just to lose the general election to political adversaries. What you are claiming would require the republicans to actually defeat themselves in an attempt to make themselves win under a false pretense. That's a little like a bank robber asking the cops to drive the get away car at his next heist."
You are arguing against yourself, and and making MY argument for me. Tea Partiers running against Republicans? Then how could Republicans BE Tea Partiers? This is actually part of my own argument. The Republicans saw the writing on the wall. They saw they were getting stiff opposition so they leaned in the direction the wind was blowing. But even those Tea Party principles they claim to have adopted, they adopted in weakened form. And they only did so because they were being challenged by the Tea Party.
"I think the recent government shut down proves you wrong on this. It was ineffective action but if you paid attention to the contents of Ted Cruze's speeches or the speeches of the Tea Party members who were behind it, you would understand that they did it specifically because the people asked them too do something."
No shit. I repeat: they saw the writing on the wall, and saw that the American public was highly supportive of the Tea Party. So they do those things. There is no conflict or contradiction there with what I was saying. Example: Ron Paul ran on the Republican ticket, yet few people would mistake him for anything but a Libertarian (although he does hold a few typical Republican values that conflict with Libertarian values). On the other hand, I don't think anybody would mistake Ted Cruz for anything but a Republican.
"So you suggest that the republican party put on masks and pretended to be tea part members for some sort of gain. What type of gain have they received? what gain has the republicans received when it only divided the party showing the difference between the establishment and the tea party conservatives? Your own president marks a clear distinction between the two, so which is it? One in the same or two separate movements?"
I'm not "suggesting" it. It's a statement of fact. Look it up. They had to adopt "Tea Partier" principles or lose elections. It's that simple.
"So no, it is NOT about IQ. No matter how many times you claim it is."
I stand corrected, but only partially.
From the quote above, it employs 11 items from the "science literacy battery", and 10 items from the CRT. So we were each approximately half wrong, and half right.
I can accept that. Are you happy with it? Just curious.
More important to me is that the "science literacy battery", according to that quote, is used in public opinion studies, while the CRT measures "conscious, effortful information processing".
While opinions vary, I personally give far more weight to the latter.
"Your logic is flawed. Satire may employ sarcasm, but that is not the same as saying that sarcasm is satire."
Hahaha! MY logic is flawed???
Repeat: some sarcasm can be satire. If that were not the case, satire could not "employ" it. You have hoist yourself with your own petard.
"This is about scientific knowledge. Not IQ. They are not the same."
No, it isn't. This is about the Cognitive Reflection Test, which is correlated with IQ, and which has no direct relationship to education. Do I detect a hint of Dunning-Kruger showing through?
"At least read that link you posted all the way to the end."
I did. He claims that the difference is "trivially small", yet elsewhere he shows that it is statistically significant. I'll stick with the numbers rather than his opinion, thanks very much! He even admits that his opinion has been biased. So I'll adhere to the science.
Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Neither can he. Statistically significant and "trivially small" are mutually incompatible. One is science, and the other is opinion, and they are in conflict. Given that, I'll go with the statistics. Also, saying in effect "I wouldn't be surprised if it reversed" does not lead to the conclusion you appear to assume; perhaps he thinks they will undergo a shift in membership.
"Like I said, lies, damn lies and statistics. Understand what you're measuring and how to measure it."
From what you have written in the last couple of comments, I am pretty confidant that I understand it better than you do.
"Yes. He divided the results into 3 groups. 1. Liberal 2a. Conservative 2b. Tea Party"
Your very choice of numbering indicates a bias. But let's leave that aside for now. While what you say is not false, you present it in a very misleading way. To avoid confusion, I'm going to call them 1, 2, and 3, because they are 3 distinct subgroups of the sample population.
He compared 1 to the population as a whole, and 2 to the population as a whole, and found no significant difference between the results. He then compared 3 to the population as a whole, and found a significant difference.
You are presenting 2 and 3 as 2a and 2b as though there is some kind of statistical impropriety or shenanigans going on. He compared each of the 3 groups to the population as a whole, as is right and proper. Your insinuation that there is something wrong or weird about the way it was divided up is just so much hot air. If he had not compared each against the whole population, then there would have been something strange; but such is not the case.
In fact, his own statements show that what you seem to be implying is false. He states:
"It turns out that there is about as strong a correlation between scores on the science comprehension scale and identifying with the Tea Party as there is between scores on the science comprehension scale and Conservrepub.
Except that it has the opposite sign." [emphasis mine]
Clearly, then, any implied "bias" that might arise from combining your "2a" and "2b" is more than made up for by the difference in scores.
"You are almost right. The association with republicans leans from the fact that most of the tea party objections to the parties line up with the facade the republicans would put forward to get elected but forget about once in office. This was highlighted enormously with the bank bailouts, the GM bailouts, and the slush fund created under the guise of the stimulus in which the tea party movement more or less was created.
In short, it was easier to hijack the republican party then to create a new party and complain that they don't get any respect like the libertarians and the greens party do."
Sorry, but that's backward There is no way an "independent" party could "hijack" the enormous Republican party. The very idea is laughable. If they could have, there would have been no need for a third party at all. They could have just joined the Republicans and then reformed the party.
So it was actually the other way around.
The Republicans realized that the Tea Party (which, again, contained a significant number of former liberals) was actually trying to do what the Republicans SAID they were doing for decades, but not actually doing. This could have been devastating to the Republican party. So the Republican donned the masks of the Tea Party and pretended to be them. Successfully. And some of them are even halfway serious about it.
But make no mistake: this isn't the original Tea Party, even though some people have hung on. You will find no liberals there. You will probably find a lot of rhetoric about smaller government and lower taxes, but little real action.
"SERIOUSLY? Even within my small home town of 10,000, the quality of public school that you went to was pretty directly related to how wealthy your parents were. The school that all the doctors' and lawyers' kids went to? Renovated every 10 years, 20 or less kids per class, teachers' aides in every room, a number of gifted programs, and a lab full of modern PCs, along with PCs in every room, laptop carts, smart white boards, etc."
And their property taxes paid for that school district's budget. All that remodeling, and all those teachers. It all ultimately came out of those people's pockets.
If you don't like that, then pressure government to stop paying for schools via property taxes. Maybe you'd rather pay out of your pocket? Or maybe it should be from state sales taxes? If the latter, at least you wouldn't have one district far richer than another.
"Short on thinking the government is the source of all compassion. You can't claim that someone is short on compassion because they don't support your enforced-via-taxes government-is-the-only-way compassion model."
Well said. Compassion for one pet cause equals putting someone else in the poorhouse. Obamacare is a classic example. In only the smallest of 3 categories are premiums projected to be "less than expected", but what that report omitted was that all 3 categories are expected to have higher premiums... it's just that the one is going to be less higher "than expected".
How can you justify a program that was promised to have "no significant effect" on rate-payers, which was repeatedly going to "make no difference", yet is actually driving premiums up for almost all of America?
Forbes Magazine actually published an article asserting (and providing some evidence) that the healthcare.gov site works poorly on purpose, because the government doesn't want you to know how high the actual rates are.
"Learn to use the English lexicon correctly - sarcasm is not satire."
Perhaps you should study a bit more yourself before criticizing others. While not all satire is sarcasm, some sarcasm is indeed satire. In fact I think this particular instance is a very good example.