"... i.e., the whole is more than the individual parts."
Right. But in many of the examples given here, the whole is not significantly "more than" the sum of its parts. They're still just a collection of parts. (E.g., pencil + eraser and can opener + crowbar).
"Much like the rise of curated computing, nobody did it for so long because it was seen as a business suicide plan. But Apple proved that you just need to have an army of die-hard fanboys first."
Haha. That's probably true. I use OS X for development, but for practical reasons, not because I am a "fan". I use the one-click when I (rarely) purchase something from the App Store, but only because I have to. I hate it.
"At the heart of any patent, there should be some trade secret."
I think most people would disagree with you. The majority of ills in our patent system today are due to patented "trade secrets". For example: nearly all "software patents" are actually patents on "business methods" (which are trade secrets).
On the other hand, the workings of most useful INVENTIONS usually become pretty obvious at the point the invention hits the market; thus the need for a patent in the first place.
And I would also like to repeat: the predictive value of AGW models has been nothing short of awful. So, even if the theory is 120 years old, since a theory is only as good as its predictive value (ask any scientist), it isn't a very good one.
You might also want to loop up Dr. Pierre Latour's analysis which claims that the Stefan-Boltzman law actually refutes the notion of AGW, directly contradicting Arrhenius. Whether you agree with him or not, it is at least interesting.
Okay. Maybe current AGW theory is based on Arrhenius' work, which in turn was based on Fourier's.
BUT, your quotation confirms what I stated before: current AGW theory does not account properly for convection (see the links, above, that I posted a few minutes ago), and as your quotation confirms, neither did Arrhenius.
So, I concede that Arrhenius' work may be the foundation of current theory. However, THAT idea only reinforces my argument that it does not properly account for convection. Again, see the papers at the links I posted earlier.
"Would you kindly elaborate what exactly is the difference between 1) and 2)"
The difference should be obvious if you know about (or were to read about) Fourier's work. It consisted of "closed" systems, and was not intended to be extrapolated to the atmosphere.
Also, see the links I posted above to papers that show how current AGW models do not properly consider convection.
Fourier considered convection, which is notably absent from significant mention in the majority of current climate models.
Citation?
I could choose from many, but HERE is mention of Fourier's consideration of convection.
HERE is a discussion of cooling via convection vs. radiation at differing pressures.
HERE is a discussion of how the climate models do not properly account for convection. (Paywalled but you can read the abstract if you don't want to pay for the paper.)
And also HERE. (NOTE: I do not claim the site that offers the paper for download is unbiased, but that is irrelevant to the content of Dr. van Andel's paper. It is also available elsewhere.)
"Primary sources, do us all a favour and start using them!"
Do you want to argue with what I actually wrote, or not? You are attempting to argue with me about something I didn't claim. But then, it's hardly the first time you've done that.
Let's look at your argument in the context of what I said:
First, the article you pointed me to is not a "primary source" in this context, since it is a discussion of the movie. Therefore, it was written after the movie was made. (Apparently before it was RELEASED, but that's irrelevant.)
Third, there is no mention in that article of the unlabeled axes, which is the issue I actually raised. Remember that the movie was made for the masses, not for scientists. Responsible people do not give their axes misleading scales or leave the labels off altogether. The only time someone with half a brain does that, it's for propaganda purposes.
"It's just conservation of energy, which is actually very well established."
No, back-radiative forcings are not JUST "conservation of energy". There is a lot more going on there (and a lot more assumptions) than JUST that.
If it were ONLY about whether conservation of energy were real, I would have to agree with you. But it isn't, and I don't.
By claiming that ONLY conservation of energy is necessary for the phenomenon of greenhouse warming to exist, you are lying. If not deliberately to me, then to yourself.
You are also distorting the whole argument, by implying that I disagree with the concept of conservation of energy. That's ridiculous.
"The point of the GP is that even a simple patent like Amazon's one-click can be obfuscated, given an army of lawyers, into something unintelligible for most people, judges included. Since there doesn't seem to be a clause for lack of clarity being grounds for patent rejection (which would help a lot in situations like this), the judges just accept them instead of trying to learn or, worse, looking foolish for acknowledging that they don't understand the patent (gasp!)."
Incompetence is not a valid excuse for awarding bad patents.
"OneClick was something new; my recollection is that nobody had done anything quite like it - but not because it was novel or innovative. Nobody had done it before because everybody thought it was a bad idea."
It might have been new but it fails the "non-obvious" test.
Apparently you missed my point. It might have been useful, but it didn't do anything NEW. Erasers already existed, pencils already existed. My example of the can opener and the crowbar are the same: nothing new is added. It might be useful, or even more useful; it might be more convenient. But neither of those are considerations for the award of a patent.
Patents are only supposed to be awarded to things that do something new, or that do things that are not new, but in significantly different way. The pencil + eraser example does neither.
Further, while Fourier postulated an "insulation effect", and it is even called a "greenhouse effect", it bore very little resemblance to current CO2-based AGW theory, which is only a few decades old at most. Just for example: Fourier considered convection, which is notably absent from significant mention in the majority of current climate models.
skep ti cal [skep-ti-kuhl]
adjective
1. inclined to skepticism; having doubt: a skeptical young woman.
2. showing doubt: a skeptical smile.
3. denying or questioning the tenets of a religion: a skeptical approach to the nature of miracles.
4. (initial capital letter) of or pertaining to Skeptics or Skepticism.
If they present one side without question or doubt, they aren't being skeptical.
On the other hand, they may be forgiven for not being skeptical, since evolution via some natural-selection-like means has been a theory for over 200 years, its predictions have been tested, and it has consistently shown to be correct (or at least more correct than prior theories).
AGW, in its current form, on the other hand, is a very new theory, is still soundly being debated by real, reputable scientists, and has been pretty terrible so far at making actual predictions.
I know what you were getting at, but I laugh. They are not even remotely comparable, from a scientific perspective.
"Oops. I mistakenly thought you said the analogy that "calories in > calories spent = weight gain" was "actually false". That mistake is probably related to my being a mentally disabled clueless asshole..."
Apparently so, since your own statement here is actually false in at least two different ways.
First, the sentence was actually
"calorines in > calories spent it = weight gain. "
... which makes no sense. But even if it was what you wrote above, it is still untrue. Calories aren't weight, and a simple difference between calories in and calories burned is simply not representative of the actual process.
As a general concept it may be fine, but we're being actual here.
So since you actually just fucked it up, does that make you brilliant?
I would hardly call it "public service", since there are parts that are provably untrue.
For example, the IPCC didn't present a giant chart of two trends that had an approximately 300-year time differential, and "conveniently" forget to properly label the the axes.
"True, but it's largely irrelevant whether the bias is in error or deliberate since bias is not the problem when exhibited by a scientists as it would be if exhibited by a jurist. 'Bias,' that is, as in Einstein was biased in favour of relativity, Galileo was biased in favour of a heliocentric solar system. On the whole climate scientists, of course, are similarly biased, which is the say that overwhelmingly they really do believe the model is supported by their data."
Since I was referring to journalistic bias, all this is moot.
Slashdot Mirror
"... i.e., the whole is more than the individual parts."
Right. But in many of the examples given here, the whole is not significantly "more than" the sum of its parts. They're still just a collection of parts. (E.g., pencil + eraser and can opener + crowbar).
"Much like the rise of curated computing, nobody did it for so long because it was seen as a business suicide plan. But Apple proved that you just need to have an army of die-hard fanboys first."
Haha. That's probably true. I use OS X for development, but for practical reasons, not because I am a "fan". I use the one-click when I (rarely) purchase something from the App Store, but only because I have to. I hate it.
s/loop/look
I could have worded that better. I meant to make an electric fan OUT OF (mostly) potato chips.
It wouldn't be anything new. It's still a fan. It's still potato chips (and presumably some wire, etc.).
But if you could make it so it was still edible, you'd have something new. Nobody today makes edible electric fans.
It wasn't a very good example. It was late.
"According to the government http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp, patents can be for an improvement to a process. "
There is no contradiction here. A significant improvement to a process, by definition, does something in a significantly different way.
"Software patents are effectively patenting an idea."
Yes, but those are patents on business methods, not "inventions" per se.
"At the heart of any patent, there should be some trade secret."
I think most people would disagree with you. The majority of ills in our patent system today are due to patented "trade secrets". For example: nearly all "software patents" are actually patents on "business methods" (which are trade secrets).
On the other hand, the workings of most useful INVENTIONS usually become pretty obvious at the point the invention hits the market; thus the need for a patent in the first place.
Also, as "riverat1" mentions above, the extrapolation of the greenhouse effect to the whole Earth was done by Arrhenius, after Fourier's work.
And I would also like to repeat: the predictive value of AGW models has been nothing short of awful. So, even if the theory is 120 years old, since a theory is only as good as its predictive value (ask any scientist), it isn't a very good one.
You might also want to loop up Dr. Pierre Latour's analysis which claims that the Stefan-Boltzman law actually refutes the notion of AGW, directly contradicting Arrhenius. Whether you agree with him or not, it is at least interesting.
Okay. Maybe current AGW theory is based on Arrhenius' work, which in turn was based on Fourier's.
BUT, your quotation confirms what I stated before: current AGW theory does not account properly for convection (see the links, above, that I posted a few minutes ago), and as your quotation confirms, neither did Arrhenius.
So, I concede that Arrhenius' work may be the foundation of current theory. However, THAT idea only reinforces my argument that it does not properly account for convection. Again, see the papers at the links I posted earlier.
"Would you kindly elaborate what exactly is the difference between 1) and 2)"
The difference should be obvious if you know about (or were to read about) Fourier's work. It consisted of "closed" systems, and was not intended to be extrapolated to the atmosphere.
Also, see the links I posted above to papers that show how current AGW models do not properly consider convection.
Fourier considered convection, which is notably absent from significant mention in the majority of current climate models.
Citation?
I could choose from many, but HERE is mention of Fourier's consideration of convection.
HERE is a discussion of cooling via convection vs. radiation at differing pressures.
HERE is a discussion of how the climate models do not properly account for convection. (Paywalled but you can read the abstract if you don't want to pay for the paper.)
And also HERE. (NOTE: I do not claim the site that offers the paper for download is unbiased, but that is irrelevant to the content of Dr. van Andel's paper. It is also available elsewhere.)
"Primary sources, do us all a favour and start using them!"
Do you want to argue with what I actually wrote, or not? You are attempting to argue with me about something I didn't claim. But then, it's hardly the first time you've done that.
Let's look at your argument in the context of what I said:
First, the article you pointed me to is not a "primary source" in this context, since it is a discussion of the movie. Therefore, it was written after the movie was made. (Apparently before it was RELEASED, but that's irrelevant.)
Second, it is a joke to pretend that RealClimate is an unbiased source .
Third, there is no mention in that article of the unlabeled axes, which is the issue I actually raised. Remember that the movie was made for the masses, not for scientists. Responsible people do not give their axes misleading scales or leave the labels off altogether. The only time someone with half a brain does that, it's for propaganda purposes.
"It's just conservation of energy, which is actually very well established."
No, back-radiative forcings are not JUST "conservation of energy". There is a lot more going on there (and a lot more assumptions) than JUST that.
If it were ONLY about whether conservation of energy were real, I would have to agree with you. But it isn't, and I don't.
By claiming that ONLY conservation of energy is necessary for the phenomenon of greenhouse warming to exist, you are lying. If not deliberately to me, then to yourself.
You are also distorting the whole argument, by implying that I disagree with the concept of conservation of energy. That's ridiculous.
"The point of the GP is that even a simple patent like Amazon's one-click can be obfuscated, given an army of lawyers, into something unintelligible for most people, judges included. Since there doesn't seem to be a clause for lack of clarity being grounds for patent rejection (which would help a lot in situations like this), the judges just accept them instead of trying to learn or, worse, looking foolish for acknowledging that they don't understand the patent (gasp!)."
Incompetence is not a valid excuse for awarding bad patents.
"OneClick was something new; my recollection is that nobody had done anything quite like it - but not because it was novel or innovative. Nobody had done it before because everybody thought it was a bad idea."
It might have been new but it fails the "non-obvious" test.
Apparently you missed my point. It might have been useful, but it didn't do anything NEW. Erasers already existed, pencils already existed. My example of the can opener and the crowbar are the same: nothing new is added. It might be useful, or even more useful; it might be more convenient. But neither of those are considerations for the award of a patent.
Patents are only supposed to be awarded to things that do something new, or that do things that are not new, but in significantly different way. The pencil + eraser example does neither.
Further, while Fourier postulated an "insulation effect", and it is even called a "greenhouse effect", it bore very little resemblance to current CO2-based AGW theory, which is only a few decades old at most. Just for example: Fourier considered convection, which is notably absent from significant mention in the majority of current climate models.
"No, Talk Origins is skeptical about evolution because they critically examine the evidence regarding evolution."
Not no. Yes. Just in case you did not understand my prior comment: you do not get to redefine English words to mean whatever you want them to.
You are wrong.
I'm wasn't "handwaving". I quoted the fucking dictionary.
You arguments have been a great deal less than impressive.
So? In that time, what has been its predictive value when it came to climate?
Until a few years ago, exactly zero. And since then, not much. Nearly all AGW models have consistently overstated warming.
skep ti cal [skep-ti-kuhl] adjective 1. inclined to skepticism; having doubt: a skeptical young woman.
2. showing doubt: a skeptical smile.
3. denying or questioning the tenets of a religion: a skeptical approach to the nature of miracles.
4. (initial capital letter) of or pertaining to Skeptics or Skepticism.
If they present one side without question or doubt, they aren't being skeptical.
On the other hand, they may be forgiven for not being skeptical, since evolution via some natural-selection-like means has been a theory for over 200 years, its predictions have been tested, and it has consistently shown to be correct (or at least more correct than prior theories).
AGW, in its current form, on the other hand, is a very new theory, is still soundly being debated by real, reputable scientists, and has been pretty terrible so far at making actual predictions.
I know what you were getting at, but I laugh. They are not even remotely comparable, from a scientific perspective.
"Oops. I mistakenly thought you said the analogy that "calories in > calories spent = weight gain" was "actually false". That mistake is probably related to my being a mentally disabled clueless asshole..."
Apparently so, since your own statement here is actually false in at least two different ways.
First, the sentence was actually
"calorines in > calories spent it = weight gain. "
... which makes no sense. But even if it was what you wrote above, it is still untrue. Calories aren't weight, and a simple difference between calories in and calories burned is simply not representative of the actual process.
As a general concept it may be fine, but we're being actual here.
So since you actually just fucked it up, does that make you brilliant?
I would hardly call it "public service", since there are parts that are provably untrue.
For example, the IPCC didn't present a giant chart of two trends that had an approximately 300-year time differential, and "conveniently" forget to properly label the the axes.
"True, but it's largely irrelevant whether the bias is in error or deliberate since bias is not the problem when exhibited by a scientists as it would be if exhibited by a jurist. 'Bias,' that is, as in Einstein was biased in favour of relativity, Galileo was biased in favour of a heliocentric solar system. On the whole climate scientists, of course, are similarly biased, which is the say that overwhelmingly they really do believe the model is supported by their data."
Since I was referring to journalistic bias, all this is moot.