Heartland Institute surreptitiously pays people to say what they want.
And that's different from Greenpeace surreptitiously paying people to say what they want...how?
And if they are willing to do that, perhaps they also use their money to pay shills to flood social networking sites with their agenda.
Wait, wait, so maybe Heartland has been waging a PR campaign like Greenpeace, except with an order of magnitude *less* money?
Really?
Were you under the impression that the Heartland institute didn't have a PR goal? Are you under the impression that Greenpeace doesn't have a PR goal?
Look, some special interest group having an opinion on AGW, either way, and deciding to put money to support those that agree with you, is par for the course. Worse, though, is the public money funneled from unsuspecting taxpayers to push a certain agenda...and you'll have to admit that lays firmly on the warmist side of the debate.
Where do you see any evidence that the Heartland Institute are trying to defend science.
Seriously? You don't see the defense of skepticism regarding the "settled science" of catastrophic (or heck, even slightly uncomfortable) anthropogenic global warming as a defense of science?
There's a reason why the skeptics are winning this argument, and it's not because of money - it's because they're *right*. The science isn't settled, human CO2 emissions are not a primary driver of climate, and we don't need to decarbonize our economy in order to avoid armageddon.
You can't use the fact that they pay for scientific researchers to denigrate the organisation, and then turn around to imply that they don't do scientific research!
C'mon, that's they're PR machine and you know it. They're hardly "scientific researchers".
But you can bet that when the Greenpeace researchers publish anything it is under the Greenpeace banner.
Cite a single peer reviewed paper funded by Greenpeace.
Your problem is that you think that global warming is just a single theory. It is actually made up of a lot of theories in a variety of scientific disciplines.
Here's your problem - each individual micro-theory in various scientific disciplines can be correct, without the combination of said theories leading to the conclusion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. CO2 can increase in the atmosphere, and in the oceans, and at temperatures, and all see increases, but *none* of that means that it was all because of man's CO2 emissions, *nor* that such changes will be harmful to mankind or the world. That's apocalyptic handwaving, and you know it.
Start with a falsifiable hypothesis that unifies all of the micro-hypotheses you see as underlying your position. What observations will convince you that those micro-hypotheses don't fit together in the way you suspect?
Well, his book can be whittled down to less than a page and a half brochure, but he spends a lot of time going over the rationale behind why slow strength training works.
For me, I use free weights, and it's 3-5 slow reps (10 seconds up, 10 seconds down) of:
1) pushups 2) squats 3) side lying leg lifts 4) standing leg lifts 5) side arm raises 6) overhead arm raises 7) single arm back pull-ups 8) bicep curls 9) shoulder shrugs 10) abdominal crunches 11) heel raises
If I can do more than 5, I increase the difficulty/weight. If I can do less than 3, I decrease difficulty weight. Oh, and the first 3 seconds of each direction are *super* slow (less than an inch of movement), and the next 7 seconds are just slow. It's also pretty key to stay in good form rather than grunt your way through one more rep.
I've done it as often as twice a week, but mostly it's just 30 minutes a week. There are also versions for using gym machines he goes over, but I've never done that.
The quick theory behind it is that in order to send your muscles a signal to grow, you must exhaust your fast, medium *and* slow twitch muscles - and this slow strength training is thus far the most efficient way I've seen to do that. The signal to your muscles lasts about 7 days, so you really don't have to do it more than once a week to see benefit (although, it is gradual benefit).
Anyway, again, not a shill, but it works, so/gush/
...30 minutes a week, every week for the past 3 years, and still getting stronger every week. Slow strength training is by far the most effective exercise I've encountered so far, and the benefits for just 30 minutes a week are *crazy*.
Seriously? You find $6.5 million possibly budgeted to skeptical defenders of science, and you expect me extrapolate that to equal the *billions* siphoned off by warmists and alarmists over the years?
Oh, and for the record, it looks like a bunch of those docs were doctored:
Warmists insist that the science is settled. That kind of appeal to authority is anti-science, and those people who are supportive of rational and ruthless skepticism of doomsday predictions are defending science.
As for the grammar challenged "dissuading" quote, you know very well what its intent is - you can hardly assert that they were trying to stop chemistry and physics classes (i.e., science), they were obviously referring to the pseudo-science of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Look, you want to play the science game, state your falsifiable hypothesis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming:)
Name a single bit of actual scientific research that Greenpeace funds. I'm not talking about hiring a bunch of interns to go play in some 3rd world country collecting frog turds and trying to correlate them to evil CO2 with a glossy pamphlet (that ends up cited by the IPCC), I'm talking about actual scientific research, published in peer reviewed journals.
Tell you what, when you want to play the science game, come at me with your concise falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
1: WTF makes you think this represents even a small fraction of the money being spent.
So, if we see them spending $1, then they're really spending $1,000,000 that we can't see? Why doesn't that hold for leftist environmentalist advocacy groups as well?
What works for terrorists works for corporations.
And apparently works even better for warmist organizations who can funnel involuntary taxpayer dollars, right?:)
Wrecking the planet is usually cheaper than not.
Hand waving in the extreme. Cheap energy has brought us out of poverty and misery into the modern world. Focusing on cheap energy means we can help those who haven't made it to the 1st world standard of living up. Focusing on magical unicorn solar panels that can compete with something like natural gas only wastes resources.
Look, the point stands - if we're going to be horrified at the money spent by the Heartland Institute to advocate for its positions, we should be horrified by the money spent by the warmists as well (which is well over an order of magnitude greater).
Funny, though, with 486.429 BILLION, ExxonMobile apparently has only managed to funnel 6.5 million of that to defenders of science?
The fact of the matter here is that if you follow the money, the vast majority of it has been spent on perpetuating the alarmist cause. Money funneled from taxpayers through the government to warmist supporters has vastly outweighed any money spent by any corporations to skeptics.
Make no mistake about it - if you want to argue that the problem here is money, the warmists have a way bigger problem.
And heck, even if you want to argue the problem here is science, the warmists have yet to present a cogent falsifiable hypothesis of catastrophic anthropogenic warming:)
So it hasn't occurred to you that maybe our understanding of the biology of DDT might have advanced just a little in the last fifty-plus years?
Go ahead, read *any* of the various cites from nih.gov. Here's your typical abstract from 2011:
"Compared to the reported DDT levels demonstrated to have toxic effects on frogs, DDTs in the present frogs are unlikely to constitute an immediate health risk. However, the adverse impacts of high DDTs residues in eggs on the hatching success and their potential toxicity to the newly metamorphosed larval frogs, should be further assessed."
Or how about this one, also from 2011:
"Apoptosis correlated to DDE exposure (p=0.040), as previously found. DNA damage also correlated to DDT (p=0.005) and DDE (p=0.004) levels. However, *neither exposure to DDT or DDE and oxidative damage, nor oxidative damage and apoptosis, were significantly correlated.* Children living in Lacanja, Chiapas, one of the communities studied in this work, *had the highest levels of exposure to DDT and its metabolites, yet had the lowest percentage of apoptosis*."
50+ years of research, and we *still* haven't found any toxic effects of DDT on mammals or birds (or, in this case, amphibians).
As for echo chamber blogs, they've got cites well past 1962:
"20. Human ingestion of DDT was estimated to average about 0.0026 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (mg/kg/day) about 0.18 milligrams per day. [Hayes, W. 1956. J Amer Medical Assn, Oct. 1956]
21. In 1967, the daily average intake of DDT by 20 men with high occupational exposure was estimated to be 17.5 to 18 mg/man per day, as compared with an average of 0.04 mg/man per day for the general population. [IARC V.5, 1974].
22. Dr. Alice Ottoboni, toxicologist for the state of California, estimated that the average American ingests between 0.0006 mg/kg/day and 0.0001 mg/kg/day of DDT. [Ottoboni, A. et al. California's Health, August 1969 & May 1972]
23. “In the United States, the average amount of DDT and DDE eaten daily in food in 1981 was 2.24 micrograms per day (ug/day) (0.000032 mg/kg/day), with root and leafy vegetables containing the highest amount. Meat, fish, and poultry also contain very low levels of these compounds.” [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 1989.Public Health Statement: DDT, DDE, and DDD]
24. The World Health Organization set an acceptable daily intake of DDT for humans at 0.01 mg/kg/day.
25. “Air samples in the United States have shown levels of DDT ranging from 0.00001 to 1.56 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3), depending on the location and year of sampling. Most reported samples were collected in the mid 1970s, and present levels are expected to be much lower. DDT and DDE have been reported in surface waters at levels of 0.001 micrograms per liter (ug/L), while DDD generally is not found in surface water. National soil testing programs in the early 1970s have reported levels in soil ranging from 0.18 to 5.86 parts per million (ppm).” [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 1989.Public Health Statement: DDT, DDE, and DDD]
26. Feeding primates more than 33,000 times the average daily human exposure to DDT (as estimated in 1969 and 1972) was “inconclusive with respect to a carcinogenic effect of DDT in nonhuman primates.” [J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 1999;125(3-4):219-25]
27. A nested case-control study was conducted to examine the association between serum concentrations of DDE and PCBs and the development of breast cancer up to 20 years later. Cases (n = 346) and controls (n = 346) were selected from cohorts of women who donated blood in 1974, 1989, or both, and were matched on age, race, menopausal status, and month and year of blood donation. “Even after 20 years of follow-up, exposure to relatively high concentrations of DDE or PCBs showed no evidence of contributing to an increased risk of breast cancer.” [Cancer Epidemiol Biomar
Second, if by "humans and animals" you actually mean "mammals and birds,"
Yes, I do.
go back and read the Wikipedia page
Which I did.
If that doesn't convince you, fine, follow the references.
Which I did.
DDT cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called non-toxic.
It absolutely can. The purported effects on mammals and birds espoused by Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring" were lies. DDT is safe for mammals, including humans, and safe for birds.
"10.Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote “Dr. DeWitt’s now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched.” DeWitt’s 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the “control”" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt’s report that “control” pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs."
Your wikipedia cite notes that DDT was an effective deterrent to even resistant mosquitos:
"DDT can still be effective against resistant mosquitoes, and the avoidance of DDT-sprayed walls by mosquitoes is an additional benefit of the chemical. For example, a 2007 study reported that resistant mosquitoes avoided treated huts"
Rachel Carson's lies about DDT in "Silent Spring" were enough to scare the world away from a safe, effective chemical, regardless of any specific policy recommendations she did or didn't make.
Do you realize that the farmers were literally plowing thousands of gallons of DDT into the soil to kill crop eating bugs? You think this was a good thing?
In a word, yes.
DDT is safe, effective and non-toxic to humans and animals, period.
"In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result.
The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim "is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner," said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6. Citing a five-year pilot program that reduced malaria cases in Mexico and South America by distributing antimalaria chloroquine pills to uninfected people, U.N. officials are ready to push for a "zero DDT world." Sounds nice, except for the facts. It's true that chloroquine has proven effective when used therapeutically, as in Brazil. But it's also true that scientists have questioned the safety of the drug as an oral prophylactic because it is toxic and has been shown to cause heart problems.
Most malarial deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where chloroquine once worked but started failing in the 1970s as the parasite developed resistance. Even if the drugs were still effective in Africa, they're expensive and thus impractical for one of the world's poorest regions. That's not an argument against chloroquine, bed nets or other interventions. But it is an argument for continuing to make DDT spraying a key part of any effort to eradicate malaria, which kills about a million people -- mainly children -- every year. Nearly all of this spraying is done indoors, by the way, to block mosquito nesting at night. It is not sprayed willy-nilly in jungle habitat.
WHO is not saying that DDT shouldn't be used. But by revoking its stamp of approval, it sends a clear message to donors and afflicted countries that it prefers more politically correct interventions, even if they don't work as well. In recent years, countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia have started or expanded DDT spraying, often with the help of outside aid groups. But these governments are also eager to remain in the U.N.'s good graces, and donors typically are less interested in funding interventions that WHO discourages. "
Sadly, WHO's about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists," says Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria. "Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don't benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes."
It's no coincidence that WHO officials were joined by the head of the U.N. Environment Program to announce the new policy. There's no evidence that spraying DDT in the amounts necessary to kill dangerous mosquitoes imperils crops, animals or human health. But that didn't stop green groups like the Pesticide Action Network from urging the public to celebrate World Malaria Day last month by telling "the U.S. to protect children and families from malaria without spraying pesticides like DDT inside people's homes."
"We must take a position based on the science and the data," said WHO's malaria chief, Arata Kochi, in 2006. "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual spraying. Of the dozen or so insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT." Mr. Kochi was right then, even if other WHO officials are now bowing to pressure to pretend otherwise."
But that's not the important part of even a useful undergrad degree; any reasonable institution will have advanced topics classes of much smaller size and much more difficult material, which cannot be effectively learned on one's own.
Name one. I managed a double major in electrical engineering and computer science without ever seeing a class smaller than 100.
You appear to be seriously suggesting that there is no benefit from trying to learn a topic from someone who has mastered it.
I think then I'm not communicating clearly - I'm suggesting there is no benefit in being required to learn a topic from someone who has mastered it, *in person*. I get just as much out of Feynman's lecture series today as I would had I been alive when he gave them. While at one point in time, we may not have had any choice about how to learn a craft, or how to learn a topic, today, with literally a *world* of information at ones fingertips, there simply no reason to limit ourselves to what can be done in person, *especially* when the in person time is really just a token of effort which we use to rationalize a professor's salary.
If there were any topics that absolutely required in-person training, I'd assert they're generally limited to physical ones. Martial arts, dance, machining, all probably benefit a great deal from in-person, hand-to-hand presence of a master - it's certainly *possible* to learn without that (note the rediscovery of european sword arts, that were abandoned for hundreds of years), but it helps in those cases to actually have someone there.
For intellectual pursuits, be it from theoretical physics, to women's studies, to even english majors, I've got little faith that the in-person presence of a master is truly of any great benefit. Certainly, I've learned more on my own regarding intellectual pursuits, from proxy "masters" who didn't have to be physically (or even temporally) present, than I've ever learned from any in person mentor.
professor gives lectures to a group of students, and the students can ask for clarification as he continues.
In a lecture hall of 500, you simply don't have time to get the lecture done, and even answer a single question from 1/10th of the audience.
Students requiring more in-depth explanation can utilize the professor's office hours
That begs a few questions - 1) lmgtfy.com and 2) just how many students can a single professor see during office hours? Scalability is a harsh mistress.
Your system: if a student doesn't understand a lecture, he's screwed.
No, if a student doesn't *watch* the lecture, he's screwed. Not understanding the application of the content of a lecture to classical "homework" problems is the whole point of moving that to become "classwork".
Classes separate into two groups -- people who understood the lectures and therefore don't need class time (why have the professor?) and people who can't learn the material by watching youtube and are therefore failed (why have the professor?).
Actually, that's a *really* good point - why have the professor? For those people who need one-on-one tutoring, have them pay for an education run by personal tutors (aka professors). For those people who can just learn by reading and watching recorded lectures and going through curriculum on their own, why not just let them only pay for getting tests administered and graded? With a two-tiered pricing system, you could become much more efficient in actually educating people.
I watched a few of them before signing up for the class, and I couldn't stand it -- I couldn't focus my attention on them, and sometimes even started nodding off.
Did you ever nod off in class?
the lectures really were irreplaceable and at least half the material was new every year.
What kind of class was it that required new material every year? iOS programming?
God, even just writing that reminds me of the intense boredom of watching educational videos (and yes, I've seen Khan Academy).
I'm not sure if I understand the difference between intense boredom in a lecture hall filled with 500 kids, or intense boredom watching the same lecture in my pajamas at 2am.
Perhaps what we need is only the best of the best to create captivating lectures that will overcome your intense boredom, and then have your average joe educator in person help you through actually doing problems and exercises.
So pretend for a moment 90% of the kids don't watch the lectures at all. The show up to the first "classwork" session, have obviously not seen the lecture, and the professor kindly informs them that they've just failed the class, please come back next semester.
If you want *everything* done in the classroom, I think you're arguing for military boarding schools where students are given no choice but to actually perform under the strict supervision of superiors.
I'll argue the other way, and assert that what is necessary is both freedom, but also personal responsibility. If 90% of the kids don't watch the lectures, then they get to fail the class. Period. Done.
Actually, I think that's debatable - my bet is that you're going to get more drop off during a lecture than failure to actually watch a lecture video on your own time, complete with fast forward and rewind, but I'd be open to see actual data to back up either option.
It may be that assigned readings might be more difficult for some folk who aren't very adept at learning by reading, than watching a lecture, but I think in the end it all comes down to personal responsibility. In the end, it is the student's responsibility to learn, and no amount of teaching can change that.
...have kids watch taped lectures at home, and come to the classroom to do problems and ask questions of the professor in person. Make "homework" "classwork", and make lectures "homework".
Slashdot Mirror
And that's different from Greenpeace surreptitiously paying people to say what they want...how?
Wait, wait, so maybe Heartland has been waging a PR campaign like Greenpeace, except with an order of magnitude *less* money?
Really?
Were you under the impression that the Heartland institute didn't have a PR goal? Are you under the impression that Greenpeace doesn't have a PR goal?
Look, some special interest group having an opinion on AGW, either way, and deciding to put money to support those that agree with you, is par for the course. Worse, though, is the public money funneled from unsuspecting taxpayers to push a certain agenda...and you'll have to admit that lays firmly on the warmist side of the debate.
Seriously? You don't see the defense of skepticism regarding the "settled science" of catastrophic (or heck, even slightly uncomfortable) anthropogenic global warming as a defense of science?
There's a reason why the skeptics are winning this argument, and it's not because of money - it's because they're *right*. The science isn't settled, human CO2 emissions are not a primary driver of climate, and we don't need to decarbonize our economy in order to avoid armageddon.
C'mon, that's they're PR machine and you know it. They're hardly "scientific researchers".
Origin of that quote for you: http://www.rferl.org/content/environmental_group_greenpeace_turns_40/24329362.html
Cite a single peer reviewed paper funded by Greenpeace.
Here's your problem - each individual micro-theory in various scientific disciplines can be correct, without the combination of said theories leading to the conclusion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. CO2 can increase in the atmosphere, and in the oceans, and at temperatures, and all see increases, but *none* of that means that it was all because of man's CO2 emissions, *nor* that such changes will be harmful to mankind or the world. That's apocalyptic handwaving, and you know it.
Start with a falsifiable hypothesis that unifies all of the micro-hypotheses you see as underlying your position. What observations will convince you that those micro-hypotheses don't fit together in the way you suspect?
Can you do it? :)
Well, his book can be whittled down to less than a page and a half brochure, but he spends a lot of time going over the rationale behind why slow strength training works.
For me, I use free weights, and it's 3-5 slow reps (10 seconds up, 10 seconds down) of:
1) pushups
2) squats
3) side lying leg lifts
4) standing leg lifts
5) side arm raises
6) overhead arm raises
7) single arm back pull-ups
8) bicep curls
9) shoulder shrugs
10) abdominal crunches
11) heel raises
If I can do more than 5, I increase the difficulty/weight. If I can do less than 3, I decrease difficulty weight. Oh, and the first 3 seconds of each direction are *super* slow (less than an inch of movement), and the next 7 seconds are just slow. It's also pretty key to stay in good form rather than grunt your way through one more rep.
I've done it as often as twice a week, but mostly it's just 30 minutes a week. There are also versions for using gym machines he goes over, but I've never done that.
The quick theory behind it is that in order to send your muscles a signal to grow, you must exhaust your fast, medium *and* slow twitch muscles - and this slow strength training is thus far the most efficient way I've seen to do that. The signal to your muscles lasts about 7 days, so you really don't have to do it more than once a week to see benefit (although, it is gradual benefit).
Anyway, again, not a shill, but it works, so /gush/
I only wish.
http://www.thescienceisstillsettled.com/
More than happy to see you disclaim warmist shills like this as anti-science :)
...30 minutes a week, every week for the past 3 years, and still getting stronger every week. Slow strength training is by far the most effective exercise I've encountered so far, and the benefits for just 30 minutes a week are *crazy*.
http://slowburnfitness.com/
No, I don't get kickbacks, but I'm forever grateful to Fred Hahn for figuring this crap out.
Seriously? You find $6.5 million possibly budgeted to skeptical defenders of science, and you expect me extrapolate that to equal the *billions* siphoned off by warmists and alarmists over the years?
Oh, and for the record, it looks like a bunch of those docs were doctored:
http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/15/heartland-institute-responds-stolen-and-fake-documents
What will you think of the "leakers" of these docs if the juiciest bits are falsified?
Fair enough, I'll accept your assertion that climate change will not be catastrophic for either humanity, or the world in general.
So, if climate change *isn't* going to be catastrophic, why should we worry about our CO2 emissions?
Warmists insist that the science is settled. That kind of appeal to authority is anti-science, and those people who are supportive of rational and ruthless skepticism of doomsday predictions are defending science.
As for the grammar challenged "dissuading" quote, you know very well what its intent is - you can hardly assert that they were trying to stop chemistry and physics classes (i.e., science), they were obviously referring to the pseudo-science of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Look, you want to play the science game, state your falsifiable hypothesis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming :)
Name a single bit of actual scientific research that Greenpeace funds. I'm not talking about hiring a bunch of interns to go play in some 3rd world country collecting frog turds and trying to correlate them to evil CO2 with a glossy pamphlet (that ends up cited by the IPCC), I'm talking about actual scientific research, published in peer reviewed journals.
Tell you what, when you want to play the science game, come at me with your concise falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
So, if we see them spending $1, then they're really spending $1,000,000 that we can't see? Why doesn't that hold for leftist environmentalist advocacy groups as well?
And apparently works even better for warmist organizations who can funnel involuntary taxpayer dollars, right? :)
Hand waving in the extreme. Cheap energy has brought us out of poverty and misery into the modern world. Focusing on cheap energy means we can help those who haven't made it to the 1st world standard of living up. Focusing on magical unicorn solar panels that can compete with something like natural gas only wastes resources.
Look, the point stands - if we're going to be horrified at the money spent by the Heartland Institute to advocate for its positions, we should be horrified by the money spent by the warmists as well (which is well over an order of magnitude greater).
Funny, though, with 486.429 BILLION, ExxonMobile apparently has only managed to funnel 6.5 million of that to defenders of science?
The fact of the matter here is that if you follow the money, the vast majority of it has been spent on perpetuating the alarmist cause. Money funneled from taxpayers through the government to warmist supporters has vastly outweighed any money spent by any corporations to skeptics.
Make no mistake about it - if you want to argue that the problem here is money, the warmists have a way bigger problem.
And heck, even if you want to argue the problem here is science, the warmists have yet to present a cogent falsifiable hypothesis of catastrophic anthropogenic warming :)
...people spending 6.5 million to defend science, while a handful of warmist organizations have budgets of nearly 500 million?
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/02/with-tiny-budgets-like-310-million-100.html
C'mon, guys, if you're going to say that money is a corrupting influence here, *follow the money*.
Go ahead, read *any* of the various cites from nih.gov. Here's your typical abstract from 2011:
"Compared to the reported DDT levels demonstrated to have toxic effects on frogs, DDTs in the present frogs are unlikely to constitute an immediate health risk. However, the adverse impacts of high DDTs residues in eggs on the hatching success and their potential toxicity to the newly metamorphosed larval frogs, should be further assessed."
Or how about this one, also from 2011:
"Apoptosis correlated to DDE exposure (p=0.040), as previously found. DNA damage also correlated to DDT (p=0.005) and DDE (p=0.004) levels. However, *neither exposure to DDT or DDE and oxidative damage, nor oxidative damage and apoptosis, were significantly correlated.* Children living in Lacanja, Chiapas, one of the communities studied in this work, *had the highest levels of exposure to DDT and its metabolites, yet had the lowest percentage of apoptosis*."
50+ years of research, and we *still* haven't found any toxic effects of DDT on mammals or birds (or, in this case, amphibians).
As for echo chamber blogs, they've got cites well past 1962:
"20. Human ingestion of DDT was estimated to average about 0.0026 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (mg/kg/day) about 0.18 milligrams per day. [Hayes, W. 1956. J Amer Medical Assn, Oct. 1956]
21. In 1967, the daily average intake of DDT by 20 men with high occupational exposure was estimated to be 17.5 to 18 mg/man per day, as compared with an average of 0.04 mg/man per day for the general population. [IARC V.5, 1974].
22. Dr. Alice Ottoboni, toxicologist for the state of California, estimated that the average American ingests between 0.0006 mg/kg/day and 0.0001 mg/kg/day of DDT. [Ottoboni, A. et al. California's Health, August 1969 & May 1972]
23. “In the United States, the average amount of DDT and DDE eaten daily in food in 1981 was 2.24 micrograms per day (ug/day) (0.000032 mg/kg/day), with root and leafy vegetables containing the highest amount. Meat, fish, and poultry also contain very low levels of these compounds.” [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 1989.Public Health Statement: DDT, DDE, and DDD]
24. The World Health Organization set an acceptable daily intake of DDT for humans at 0.01 mg/kg/day.
25. “Air samples in the United States have shown levels of DDT ranging from 0.00001 to 1.56 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3), depending on the location and year of sampling. Most reported samples were collected in the mid 1970s, and present levels are expected to be much lower. DDT and DDE have been reported in surface waters at levels of 0.001 micrograms per liter (ug/L), while DDD generally is not found in surface water. National soil testing programs in the early 1970s have reported levels in soil ranging from 0.18 to 5.86 parts per million (ppm).” [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 1989.Public Health Statement: DDT, DDE, and DDD]
26. Feeding primates more than 33,000 times the average daily human exposure to DDT (as estimated in 1969 and 1972) was “inconclusive with respect to a carcinogenic effect of DDT in nonhuman primates.” [J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 1999;125(3-4):219-25]
27. A nested case-control study was conducted to examine the association between serum concentrations of DDE and PCBs and the development of breast cancer up to 20 years later. Cases (n = 346) and controls (n = 346) were selected from cohorts of women who donated blood in 1974, 1989, or both, and were matched on age, race, menopausal status, and month and year of blood donation. “Even after 20 years of follow-up, exposure to relatively high concentrations of DDE or PCBs showed no evidence of contributing to an increased risk of breast cancer.”
[Cancer Epidemiol Biomar
Yes, I do.
Which I did.
Which I did.
It absolutely can. The purported effects on mammals and birds espoused by Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring" were lies. DDT is safe for mammals, including humans, and safe for birds.
http://junkscience.com/1999/07/26/100-things-you-should-know-about-ddt/
"10.Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote “Dr. DeWitt’s now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched.” DeWitt’s 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the “control”" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt’s report that “control” pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs."
Your wikipedia cite notes that DDT was an effective deterrent to even resistant mosquitos:
"DDT can still be effective against resistant mosquitoes, and the avoidance of DDT-sprayed walls by mosquitoes is an additional benefit of the chemical. For example, a 2007 study reported that resistant mosquitoes avoided treated huts"
Rachel Carson's lies about DDT in "Silent Spring" were enough to scare the world away from a safe, effective chemical, regardless of any specific policy recommendations she did or didn't make.
In a word, yes.
DDT is safe, effective and non-toxic to humans and animals, period.
I refer you, dear sir, to the wonderful documentary "Not evil, just wrong." - http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/General/malaria-politics-and-ddt.html
"In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result.
The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim "is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner," said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6.
Citing a five-year pilot program that reduced malaria cases in Mexico and South America by distributing antimalaria chloroquine pills to uninfected people, U.N. officials are ready to push for a "zero DDT world." Sounds nice, except for the facts. It's true that chloroquine has proven effective when used therapeutically, as in Brazil. But it's also true that scientists have questioned the safety of the drug as an oral prophylactic because it is toxic and has been shown to cause heart problems.
Most malarial deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where chloroquine once worked but started failing in the 1970s as the parasite developed resistance. Even if the drugs were still effective in Africa, they're expensive and thus impractical for one of the world's poorest regions. That's not an argument against chloroquine, bed nets or other interventions. But it is an argument for continuing to make DDT spraying a key part of any effort to eradicate malaria, which kills about a million people -- mainly children -- every year. Nearly all of this spraying is done indoors, by the way, to block mosquito nesting at night. It is not sprayed willy-nilly in jungle habitat.
WHO is not saying that DDT shouldn't be used. But by revoking its stamp of approval, it sends a clear message to donors and afflicted countries that it prefers more politically correct interventions, even if they don't work as well. In recent years, countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia have started or expanded DDT spraying, often with the help of outside aid groups. But these governments are also eager to remain in the U.N.'s good graces, and donors typically are less interested in funding interventions that WHO discourages. "
Sadly, WHO's about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists," says Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria. "Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don't benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes."
It's no coincidence that WHO officials were joined by the head of the U.N. Environment Program to announce the new policy. There's no evidence that spraying DDT in the amounts necessary to kill dangerous mosquitoes imperils crops, animals or human health. But that didn't stop green groups like the Pesticide Action Network from urging the public to celebrate World Malaria Day last month by telling "the U.S. to protect children and families from malaria without spraying pesticides like DDT inside people's homes."
"We must take a position based on the science and the data," said WHO's malaria chief, Arata Kochi, in 2006. "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual spraying. Of the dozen or so insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT." Mr. Kochi was right then, even if other WHO officials are now bowing to pressure to pretend otherwise."
...it's called DDT. Contrary to the lies of Rachel Carlson's "Silent Spring", DDT is safe, effective, and non-toxic to humans and animals.
http://www.wnd.com/2005/06/31095/
Name one. I managed a double major in electrical engineering and computer science without ever seeing a class smaller than 100.
I think then I'm not communicating clearly - I'm suggesting there is no benefit in being required to learn a topic from someone who has mastered it, *in person*. I get just as much out of Feynman's lecture series today as I would had I been alive when he gave them. While at one point in time, we may not have had any choice about how to learn a craft, or how to learn a topic, today, with literally a *world* of information at ones fingertips, there simply no reason to limit ourselves to what can be done in person, *especially* when the in person time is really just a token of effort which we use to rationalize a professor's salary.
If there were any topics that absolutely required in-person training, I'd assert they're generally limited to physical ones. Martial arts, dance, machining, all probably benefit a great deal from in-person, hand-to-hand presence of a master - it's certainly *possible* to learn without that (note the rediscovery of european sword arts, that were abandoned for hundreds of years), but it helps in those cases to actually have someone there.
For intellectual pursuits, be it from theoretical physics, to women's studies, to even english majors, I've got little faith that the in-person presence of a master is truly of any great benefit. Certainly, I've learned more on my own regarding intellectual pursuits, from proxy "masters" who didn't have to be physically (or even temporally) present, than I've ever learned from any in person mentor.
In a lecture hall of 500, you simply don't have time to get the lecture done, and even answer a single question from 1/10th of the audience.
That begs a few questions - 1) lmgtfy.com and 2) just how many students can a single professor see during office hours? Scalability is a harsh mistress.
No, if a student doesn't *watch* the lecture, he's screwed. Not understanding the application of the content of a lecture to classical "homework" problems is the whole point of moving that to become "classwork".
Actually, that's a *really* good point - why have the professor? For those people who need one-on-one tutoring, have them pay for an education run by personal tutors (aka professors). For those people who can just learn by reading and watching recorded lectures and going through curriculum on their own, why not just let them only pay for getting tests administered and graded? With a two-tiered pricing system, you could become much more efficient in actually educating people.
Did you ever nod off in class?
What kind of class was it that required new material every year? iOS programming?
I'm not sure if I understand the difference between intense boredom in a lecture hall filled with 500 kids, or intense boredom watching the same lecture in my pajamas at 2am.
Perhaps what we need is only the best of the best to create captivating lectures that will overcome your intense boredom, and then have your average joe educator in person help you through actually doing problems and exercises.
So pretend for a moment 90% of the kids don't watch the lectures at all. The show up to the first "classwork" session, have obviously not seen the lecture, and the professor kindly informs them that they've just failed the class, please come back next semester.
If you want *everything* done in the classroom, I think you're arguing for military boarding schools where students are given no choice but to actually perform under the strict supervision of superiors.
I'll argue the other way, and assert that what is necessary is both freedom, but also personal responsibility. If 90% of the kids don't watch the lectures, then they get to fail the class. Period. Done.
Actually, I think that's debatable - my bet is that you're going to get more drop off during a lecture than failure to actually watch a lecture video on your own time, complete with fast forward and rewind, but I'd be open to see actual data to back up either option.
It may be that assigned readings might be more difficult for some folk who aren't very adept at learning by reading, than watching a lecture, but I think in the end it all comes down to personal responsibility. In the end, it is the student's responsibility to learn, and no amount of teaching can change that.
...have kids watch taped lectures at home, and come to the classroom to do problems and ask questions of the professor in person. Make "homework" "classwork", and make lectures "homework".