For me, the issue is quality vs quantity. Avoiding cancer will increase the quantity of your life (+years), but if you have debilitating injuries that severely limit your motion then you'll probably have a dreased quality of life for the years you have left to you. In the example of knee injuries, they can make you just this side of crippled. The obligatory sedentary life that results brings with it a host of other health concerns so that the increased risk of cancer might be offset by the reduced risk of say, cardiovascular disease.
I think that this clinic is playing russian roulette with the FDA, but I hope these therapies aren't rejected out of hand because of the potential for increased cancer. Cancer will get you eventually assuming nothing else kills you. The sooner we find cures/treatments for all other illnesses, the sooner we can divert all biomedical research into curing cancer. (Yes I realize it's a pipe dream)
As for lock picking, have you ever seen someone do it? A seriously good lockpick will spend a good 15 minutes on his knees fiddling around with the tumblers (on a pin tumbler lock, forget lever locks) and is only really feasible if you have expensive locks. Otherwise the barrel will be drilled out as it is more efficient.
I had a friend in HS who used to hang out with me and wander the halls after school while waiting for my older brother to get done with which ever sport was in season at the time. I never got the hang of it, but he used to pick the locks to various classrooms. He'd get us into the computer lab for some solitaire time, into the chemistry lab so that he could steal a really nice digital scale to sell to the local pot dealer, or into the storage closet just to see what was in there. It usually only took him about a min, and he could do it while standing and talking to me. If someone came by it looked like we were just talking in the hall. In the real world, it would probably just look like he was having a little trouble finding the right key because he was distracted while talking to someone. That is fairly innocuous, and easily overlooked by neighbors that are disinterested in what's going on at your house (like the ones in every neighborhood I've lived in since I moved out of my parents house 10 years ago).
This is assinine. Sex offenders are frequently predators. They will hunt down children, women, etc. to victimize. Therefore, the registries serve the purpose of making harder for them to hunt. The Sex Offender registries do not in fact exist for the purpose of continued punishment.
Animal abusers on the other hand don't hunt for victims. They are usually people who lack the empathy to see why abusing animals is wrong (young kids, gang members, etc.). Once they are convited, it is easy to prohibit them from ever owning a pet in the future as part of their release. With that being the case, the purpose of an animal offender registry would be to ensure that even after they are tried, convicted and pay for their crime, the punishment will continue indefinitely.
We seem to have forgotten that people can do bad things and after being punished, regret their actions. Sex Offender Registries are justifiable due to the high recidivism rate of offenders. They frequently feel a compulsion to commit their crimes. I've never heard of any studies on the recidivism rate of animal abusers, and the absence of any data, find it hard to believe that they feel any compulsion toward their transgressions. Once the abuser has been punished, we need to learn to forgive. If you feel that they haven't paid enough, then change the law to allow for harsher punishment. Don't make it so that they have to go on some registry for the rest of their life for an act that they may have commited while suffering from a temporary laps in judgement, or for somethin they may never do again.
I'm not claiming Conspiracy by climate researchers, just that it is much harder for them to avoid political pressure. Besides, all of those other governments that are funding environmental research are either members of the UN, which has a decidedly anti-1st world agenda and a lot of credibility with the voting public. Anything that can be used as a tool to help lift the poverty in 3rd world countries at the expense of 1st world countries is used regardless of any data supporting its effectiveness. This makes sense because most of the countries in the UN are not 1st world nations. Poorer countries have more to gain by increased energy costs in the west, so blaming GW on the west will be popular there with the hope that this will make the rest of the world more competitive with the west.
Furthermore, If climate researchers had changed their tune they wouldn't have gotten more funding, because the findings that the Bush administration is reported to have wanted would have made more research less necessary. You don't need to spend money on something that isn't a problem. By agreeing with the Bush administration researchers would have been admitting that they didn't need the money, and I can't see a researcher ever saying that they didn't need anymore money. If there had been a method by which some could have interpreted their research in a way acceptable to the Bush administration, AND gotten more funding as a result I have no doubt that some would have done so.
The support from the UN, in conjunction with researchers seeing their own best interest is a more than plausible explanation for why researchers didn't change their tune during the Bush administration.
And for the record, I don't doubt the data. Global Average Temperatures have been increasing (although I have less faith in the Ice Core data since it precludes temperature sensing from anywhere other than the poles or very high altitudes). I doubt the interpretation of the data, which is far harder to keep from becoming biased by a researchers preconceptions or self-interest. They seem to believe that they have sufficient evidence that human activities are the ONLY POSSIBLE cause of the changing global temperature data, and I just don't buy it yet.
No, but if they find that Global Warming is real and caused by human activities they are likely to get MORE funding than if they find that it is a natural occurrence, or that it is a short term trend instead of an emerging catastrophe. They are also more likely to get funding if they find that anthropogenic global warming can be blamed on 1st world countries, because it makes the politicians feel guilty for damaging not only their portion of the globe but the rest of the world as well.
It's about the overall level of funding that they get to continue their research. All people are fallible, climatologists and environmentalists included. Is it really so hard for you to see the majority of them coming to ultimate conclusions that support further funding for their own work, which coincidentally is in their own best interest??
I'm not saying that there is a "Conspiracy", just that independence is harder to maintain in this situation.
There will always be problems with "indepenence" of scientific research when the main (only) funding agency is a political body and an incredibly long validation period. If you don't produce the results the political body wants, they'll cut funding. If they are the only funding source, your options are being broke but honest, or putting at least a little spin on your results to keep getting funded at some level.
My research has been pressured by funding agencies, but since the main funding source is industry I can always find funding from a competitor (it helps that there are several) to continue my work if the original funding agency doesn't like what my data indicates.
Herein lies a fundamental difference of intention. I do not participate in arguments on/. in order to "convince" anyone of anything. I simply highlight flawed arguments where I see them and provide arguments I believe to be more sound. I see obvious flaws in your arguments and have pointed them out. You can (and have) disregard them without hurting my feelings or making me feel like I've failed in some way. I fully expect most of those I argue with to do just that.
Ultimately, you very rarely can convince anyone of anything in the realm of politics and religion. Beliefs in these two areas are too deeply seated in who a person is and how they view the world for me to be able to force anyone to reflect on them. They can only reflect on new arguments when they are not under attack by some outside source. The best I can hope to do is make sound arguments that are memorable enough that when the person is in a more contemplative mood they will be remembered and considered.
You won't convince me because you have not made arguments more valid than my own. I will not convince you because your opinions are based in your religion and not in any rational argument (not that religious belief is inherently irrational, but that rationality is irrelevant to religion).
Use your imagination, would you? Us dreamers are the only hope this planet's got left.
So in other words, you have nothing useful to contribute beyond a handful of poorly thought out pipe dreams (emphasis on the pipe, again).
The problems facing the world are real. If you don't want to take the time away from your bong to do the research and critical thinking necessary to validate your smoke inspired theories, then please refrain from contributing. When suggesting a solution to a problem it is your responsibility to do the preliminary validation of your solution. It is obvious to me that you didn't, as it took me less than 10 min to come up with my counter arguments. If you've actually thought about your solutions and have reasons why my arguments are not valid, or how they can be addressed, then I'm all ears. However, your response indicated the stereotypical attitude of the pot head. "Hemp can fix the world, but I'm too lazy (high) to think about why it hasn't succeeded beyond a handful of 'Anti-lobbyist' an 'Anti-corporate' rhetoric that is actually irrelevant to the topic under discussion."
I was explaining the situation within the bounds of a tightly controlled experiment, not all possible conditions under which E. coli might live. What would be a selective pressure in the lab, might not exist in other conditions. In those cases there would be no selective pressure either way. Attempts to extrapolate a single set of experimental conditions as being true in all conditions is either stupid, or willfully misleading.
If the data supported your argument, I suppose we could discuss that further.
I've yet to see you present any data at all, never mind an explanation that is actually supported by the data I presented.
...I’ll still claim that God did it.
And I'll not argue about whether or not God did it. I'm arguing with you over whether evolution is the "How" not the "Who" responsible for life. I believe that the infinite wisdom of God is sufficient for him to have set all of the universe in motion, using the tool of evolution to create man and all of the beasts. I also believe that He does not have the obligation to explain himself to us on our terms. Therefor, evolution does not contradict Him, it contradicts the bible which while divinely inspired was written by men with incomplete understanding of the mind of God. I am not so full of pride as to believe that I am capable of complete understanding with regards to God. However, I can strive to understand just how amazing his creation is, and understanding evolution helps me to appreciate His greatness.
The first half of that statement is a routinely observed effect. The second half is a theory which extends the phenomenon without any way of verifying that the phenomenon can be extended in this way.
The pivot point is “eventually”. In other words, they think it will, but they haven’t observed it yet. And they won’t ever, because the effect is theorized to take much longer to produce these results than they’ll be around to observe it.
I admitted that speciation has not been observed, but demonstrated evidence of both microevolution (E. coli) and macroevolution (giraffes and pigs) in process. What I posted can only be perceived as redundant if you are making a conscious attempt to ignore what that evidence suggests, namely that the evolution we have actually observed explains the speciation that the fossil records implies.
The second thing I “went” was “this guy sure thinks he knows a lot about giraffes, for someone who can’t spell their name.”
Yes, because misspelling a word automatically means that I'm wrong, or that my arguments lack merit. I can't spell well. It's been a problem I've had to deal with since elementary school. Didn't prevent me from getting a Ph.D. though, so I'm of the opinion that it's a minor problem.
The third thing I “went” was “still E. coli... still pigs... still giraffes...”
Which is the functional equivalent to going "Aha, they can interbreed so they haven't speciated". Try addressing that the predictions of evolutionary speciation are in fact supported by the fossil record. Attacking my spelling, or how repetitive I may be in my arguments (You're not the only one I've been arguing with so a little repetition is understandable) don't address the underlying validity of the points I'm making. They are stall tactics designed to derail the argument onto less relevant topics.
I never claimed that you did. Only that the logical extension of your claim that eating meat is unhealthy is also unhealthy. Moderation is key
I would wager that the average American consumes far more meat than they need to meet their nutritional requirements.
I don't disagree with you. However, there is nothing wrong with that IMO. I moderate my meat consumption by eating it frequently (usually every day) as a small portion of my total meal.
The greenhouse gas that cattle produce is mostly methane, not CO2. Even if you count the sequestration in the growing of the crops, the carbon is being converted into a more potent greenhouse gas.
The methane emissions are discussed in papers like the IPCC report in terms of CO2 Equivalents. They've accounted for the fact that it is a different gas and has different properties, and converted to a common unit. However, you need to remember that much of the corn plant stays on the field, thus continuing to sequester carbon and much of the carbon consumed by the animal is stored by the animal, with only a fraction actually being re-released as CO2 or Methane.
You are of course completely ignoring the fact that animal protein is a superior source of protein for humans. Animal protein contains a better mix of the essential amino acids and vitamins than any grain (which is why vegans need to take nutritional supplements). Furthermore, it is far more digestible, so more of the ingested protein is actually absorbed instead of ending up in feces.
As to the claim of healthfulness, I'd love to see some numbers for that published by someone not biased against animal agriculture to begin with. As outlined above, animal protein is superior to plant protein as long as it is consumed in moderation. (it is not the fault of agriculture if you decide to eat 2 big mac's a day without any roughage) Vegetarian/Veganism on the other hand requires otherwise healthy individuals to take nutritional supplements to make up for the nutritional deficiencies caused by restricting your food intake to plants. I'd argue that a little cholesterol is preferable to a inadequate Lysine levels in my diet.
Also, I'd like to see you post some numbers on the carbon footprint claim. I know that the UN has published some numbers that are suspect (including CO2 released by digestion without first including the sequestration that occurred during the growing of the crops; including transportation CO2 for moving animals around, but not the transportation CO2 for other industries; etc.), but I've not seen any response to those criticism from the IPCC.
Ok, survival is not a binary situation. I win/you lose. A bacterium can be at a disadvantage in one situation without completely dying off. Some bacterium reproduce much faster, but are more sensitive to changes in the culture medium and therefor have a competitive advantage under controlled culture conditions. However, in an environment subject to frequent change, they are at a disadvantage because more of them die off in response to each environmental stress. E. coli don't need to be able to metabolize citrate to survive. Especially it is growing in an environment devoid of citrate. This comes back to the third option of no selective pressure either way that you seem to be ignoring.
Ultimately, scenario A1 is the more likely of the explanations. Whether this is inconvenient for your argument that there is no evidence of evolution is irrelevant. The lab in question is continuing their work and is going to sequence the different generations to determine where the mutation responsible originated from. If your preferred explanation turns out to be true, then I'll have no problem admitting that the evidence does not support the hypothesis I believe to be more likely. Do you you have the same willingness to admit that you are wrong in the even that the data supports my argument? or will you just come up with some alternate explanation to further justify your belief in Creationism?
With sun-powered desalination of sea water we can make the deserts bloom.
Thus destroying the ecosystem of the desert and the culture of any indigenous people.
With making the UN admit that they have lost the war on drugs we could make the deserts bloom with few pesticide AND cover it with a fibrous carpet to slow down erosion, by growing hemp.
What makes you think that the blooming desert won't attact pests?? It's not like the pests happen to be endemic to the regions we just happened to be growing corn in. The pests follow their prefered food. Biosecurity can be useful in delaying the appearance or spread of pests, but they'll show up eventually (Sooner rather than later unfortunately) and then you'll be in the same situation. Furthermore, errosion is not a problem in the desert so I don't know what problem is being solved here.
The fertilizer is easily provided by the world's industry lobbyists, put their bullshit to good use.
Sooo, you're against pesticides, but in favor of widespread use of fertilizers?? Normally being against one means you are against the other. Either this means you are very uniquely open minded or you are unaware of the very real benefits of the former and the very real negatives of the later. Eutrophication of freshwater is caused in large part by runnoff of phosphorus from fertilizers, whereas eutrophication of saltwater ecosystems is caused by runnoff of nitrogen from fertilziers. Admitedly, not a whole lot of water in the dessert, but if we are going to be undertaking a massive irrigation effort in the dessert, we'll be creating an ecosystem of sorts, and at least some of the irrigation water is going to get back to natural aquifers and bodies of water. Also, I would assume that most lobbyist don't have access to large quantities of fertilziers themselves. Some might be able to acquire it from the industries that they represent, but it's not like the guy wispering in your senetors ear has a half acre lot piled 20 feet high with generic fertilizer somewhere.
Ultimately your post strikes me as a collection of half-thought out pipe dreams (emphasis on the pipe) and liberal prejudices (ie the nonsense about lobbyists) I'm not nocking hemp itself, just your belief that it is a panacea instead of just an alternate crop that got a bad rap due to it's kinship with marijuana.
You are an idiot. Food/Resource shortages are real. I'm in agriculture, on the animal production side, and I can assure you that there is a finite amount of corn available, and corn based ethanol production is resulting in higher demand. We've always produced more corn than was needed domestically, and much of the excess was then shipped overseas. The current trends for corn production and domestic corn use for human food, animal food, and ethanol production are going to reach a point where we don't have enough corn to meet all 3 and still export any. That won't cause (much) starvation here, only among those that are already finding it hard to afford enough food to eat (a real problem that is getting worse even if it is better than in other countries). However, decreased exports will lead to food shortages in other countries that have become dependent on US grain to feed their populace. That the starvation won't be happening in your neighborhood, doesn't mean it won't be happening.
As much as I agree with the sentiment that waste is a real problem that needs to be addressed, it is not sufficient to solve the problem. Current projections that get trotted out at every agriculture related meeting I've attended in the last 5 years are that we are going to need to Double Global Food Production by 2050. Not just here in the US, but everywhere. Decreasing waste would help push that doubling deadline back, but we don't waste 50% of our food now, so even if we eliminated waste completely (which is impossible) we still would need to increase food production from the current levels.
Ideally, the necessary increases in food production would be coming from countries that are currently dependent on handouts from countries like the US. However, the underlying problems in those countries, which people have been trying to fix for decades, are not likely to be fixed overnight. The US feeds far more people than live within its borders. You may not like our policies (I don't like some of our policies), but that doesn't change the reality that 35% of domestic corn production in the 2008 to 2009 market year was used for ethanol production compared with only 21% in 2007. This 14-point increase is despite corn production during the 2008-2009 year being the second hightest ever. If we have a bad corn year, which will happen eventually, none of the industries that depend on corn are going to require any less and corn prices are going to skyrocket again. That will lead to increased food costs in stores, and increased hunger/starvation inside the US. We need to get away from using food for fuel and I'm glad to see that cellulosic ethanol is finally getting competetive.
Depends entirely on what you decide is your baseline. I got my drivers license about a month before gas hit 99 cents in MA for the first time. I had a solid 4 years of gas hovering around a dollar per gallon, occationally dropping down to around 79 cents at a handful of stations in my home town. Like most of us, what I paid for something the first time I bought it is what seems normal to me. I'm not saying that gas should be 99 cents. I realized even then that it was an untennable price and that it could only go up in the long run. However, you can't honestly believe that the price of gasoline has trippled in the 14 years since I got my license simply because of inflation. Contributing factor, sure, but not even the primary cause.
If the price did triple and people like you were forced to use transit, the transit system would automatically improve: There'd be more money for it and the voters would demand it.
Major unfounded assumption that my personal (ie annecdotal) experience refutes. CityBus, the local bus system for the Greater Lafayette Area of Indiana (including Purdue University) has recently seen a dramatic increase in ridership. Largely due to increased fuel prices. The bus is still as much as 15 min late in the afternoons, and they've actually pulled their bus tracking system offline (admitedly for upgrades). This last year I went back to driving my car becase I could spend up to 45 min (they apparently cancel busses that are running too far behind schedule without dispatching another bus to make up the time) waiting for a 18 min bus ride after work.
In an ideal world you are correct, that increased use of public transit systems should lead to increased quality of those systems. However, the difference between what should happen and what has happened here is dramatic. I'm of the opinion that the reason for this lack of responsiveness is that public transportation is utilized predominantly by those with less income, and time for getting involved in local government. The increased ridership that City Bus saw is unlikely to be from those making $100k/year. It is probably coming from those like myself making $20k/year and working a lot of hours to earn that money.
I have to disagree. You can have the grad students do the majority of the work and then verify that it has been done right yourself, before submitting the files. As a graduate student, I wrote grants (successfully), designed and ran studies, and wrote up the 1st draft of all final reports for studies that had corporate sponsors (most of them). Graduate students, especially PhD students are just as capable as a new faculty member. It'll be good practice for those PhD's that will end up as faculty and facing FOIA requests themselves in short order.
Alternatively, if he decides to hire someone to handle the FOIA requests for him it wouldn't come out of his personal salary (which is paid by the university independent of current funding levels). It would come out of his operating budget. It might mean that he gets to hire one less graduate student, but it's all about priorities. My PhD advisor made about $112k/year, but spent far more than that each year on paying grad students (6 x 16 to 19k/year for MS and PhD student salaries without including ancillary costs like insurance, tuition remission, etc.). Never mind paying his lab tech, Post-Doc, secretary, actual cost of research projects, the Universities cut (around 50 cents for every $1 of grant money) for keeping the lights on, travel expenses for himself and students, etc.
Researchers may not be rich, but they do have access to a lot of money if they are successful.
Except that it didn't. They have gone back and determined an important mutation took place somewhere around generation 20,000 (of 40,000+). If he re ran the study from anything less than generation 20,000 (he'd saved samples every 500 generations since the study began), the bugs would not develop the ability to utilize Citrate (a defining characteristic of E. coli) even when given another 20,000 generations. However, if he used generation 20,000 or newer, the ability would eventually evolve again.
I find your argument that the ability to use citrate was pre-existing but turned off to be specious. Genetic sequencing of bateria is very recent, and long before that baceriologists used agar plates with various nutrients, or nutrient deficiencies as a method of determining which bacteria were present in any given sample. The inability to grow on agar with Citrate as the sole source of energy is one of the defining characteristics of E. coli and is the the very reason that it was included in the culture medium for all of these generations. If a single microbe could evolve the ability to utililize citrate, it would possess such a strong competitive advantage that it's population would explode in a short period of time.
Don't disregard the science unless you've actually taken the time to read the study, or even the articles wirtten about the study which would have shown you just how wrong your explanation was.
They have observed evolution on the short term thousands of times. There is a lab at Michigan State that has been growing E. coli contiuously for over 20 years and observing the changes. This labs work has made headlines here on/. at least twice that I found 12.
Furthermore, domesticated species have evolved under selective pressure right before our eyes. Around the turn of the century, swine genetics resulted in animals that are much slower growing, much fatter, and the sows had far fewer piglets/litter. More modern genetics have almost double the number of pigs/litter, backfat measurements in the fraction of an inch range, and grow to market weight in half the time. They haven't speciated, but they have evolved over the last century.
AFAIK, speciation has not been observed during our life time, but we do have some pretty convincing evidence that it happens as theorized. Take Girrafes for example. There are several different species of Girrafe that overlap in the regions to which they are indiginous. Individuals from one specie will not breed with the other. However, in zoos they have been able to get them to breed successfully. This is a first importat step in speciation. They are no longer voluntarily mixing genetic information with each other. As the gene pools for these different girrafe population diverge, they will continue to evolve in different directions.
Besides, even if you read the above and go "Aha, they can interbreed so they haven't speciated" we do have genetics and the fossile record showing the incremental changes in phenotype from species that no longer exist to the current ones, and the gradual transitions predicted by evolutionary speciation. If ice cores are an acceptable substitute for direct observation of average global temperatures, then I fail to see how the fossile record is any less valid.
Ok, "Evolutionism" does not exist. The suffix "-ism" implies that it is some sort of philosophy, and there is no philosophy based on evolution.
There is the routinely observed effect that is called evolution consisting of short and long term accumulation of changes that eventually result in large changes in genotype/phenotype. There are those that are willing to accept the large body of evidence that supports evolution as an explanation for the origin of life. However, finding the evidence convicing is not the same thing as believing in a creator in the absence of any actual evidence. One is subject to being falsifiable, at which point the explanation must change to match the data. The other is infaliable, and when the data contradicts the scriptures the data must be undermined in order to match the explanation.
I'm not knocking religion (I go to church every Sunday with my family and try to be a good Christain), but that doesn't make ID or Creationism into science. Conversely, an incomplete fossile record, or incomplete understanding of a phenomenon does not make evolution into a philosophy.
The goal when talking with critics is to address only those willing to consider your evidence. You are talking about the much smaller, although much more vocal, group of skeptics unwilling to listen. They've decided, and no amount of evidence will change their minds.
You could call me a skeptic. Originally, I doubted that GW was happening. Now I don't doubt that global temperatures have been increasing, at least in the last several decades, but I do doubt the Anthropogenic explanation for GW. The data has been validated to my satisfaction, but I require further convincing as to the conclusions regarding the cause. (Probably because I'm involved in science where I can control most of the factors in the design experiments, as opposed to being dependent mostly on observational data.) However, I am willing to listen and consider new evidence as it is presented to me. I am equally frustrated with those unwilling to listen, because they make it much harder for me to get a reasoned debate going. They hijack threads and poison the waters with those in possession of the facts I need if I want to make up my own mind.
Furthermore, I work in an industry that is plagued by just as many doubters. Although, they are not quite as unified in what specifically they are objecting to. I've learned that some are not worth my time, because they made an emotional decision and no amount of facts can really match faith. However, the vast majority of those with no training and a lot of questions are willing to listen. With those individuals I've made a lot of headway. The trick is discerning, with a high degree of accuracy, which camp someone new falls into as quickly as possible.
Nobody said science was easy, and nobody said that communicating science to laypeople would be problem free. If anything that makes it more important that we communicate effectively with those actually interested in a dialogue, as opposed to the monologues so popular with the kind of people you are describing.
I tried finding an introductory class in programing for non-CS students while in graduate school. I was unable to find anything in the CS department, and instead found an introduction to programming for the life sciences. It was taught by a professor with a joint Biology/CS appointment. The class had been around for 5 years off and on so that his students could get class credit for him teaching them basic perl, html, and MySQL.
Up until that point I was forced to buy programming books and teach myself. If you want researchers outside of CS departments to have high quality, documented, easily readible code it might make sense for classes to be offered that are targeted at students from the rest of the university. Kind of like statistics classes or english classes targeted at the rest of the community.
1) Do you seriously think that the whole climate science depends on one scientist's data?
No, but his work does include suggestions that regulators pay close attention to based on his status within the community. If he were posting on this very same topic, but was not being used as a primary source by regulators then I could see your point. However, that is not the case and theoretical situations are not really relevant.
2) CRU was trolled by FOIA requests. They are nuisance to deal with, as far as I was told.
Then hire someone to handle them for you, or have grad students do it.
I could say the same thing about publishing and peer review. It's a major PITA to get formatting done just right, making sure that those outside of my small sphere of research can understand what I did without getting lost in all of the jargon. Suck it up! It is an unfortunate, but necessary part of doing research at a public institution.
3) Scientists are people, people have emotions. That's why peer review is used.
Not sure what this has to do with anything. Peer review is valuable and necessary, but it has never pretended to be about accuracy of the data. It's about cleaning up the presentation so that it is clear, reproducible, and free from OBVIOUS error.
As a reviewer, I don't know what exactly was done, but if a list of numbers that should add up to 100 instead adds up to 120, then I can catch that. Whether the problem is due to a typo, or sloppy data fabrication, or a computer error is not something I can ascertain. I have to trust that the authors explanation and fix are true and accurate, in which case I am trusting that they are honest, competent and attentive. The more of their data and methodology that they expose to scrutiny, the less faith I have to have and the more I can ascertain for myself directly.
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For me, the issue is quality vs quantity. Avoiding cancer will increase the quantity of your life (+years), but if you have debilitating injuries that severely limit your motion then you'll probably have a dreased quality of life for the years you have left to you. In the example of knee injuries, they can make you just this side of crippled. The obligatory sedentary life that results brings with it a host of other health concerns so that the increased risk of cancer might be offset by the reduced risk of say, cardiovascular disease.
I think that this clinic is playing russian roulette with the FDA, but I hope these therapies aren't rejected out of hand because of the potential for increased cancer. Cancer will get you eventually assuming nothing else kills you. The sooner we find cures/treatments for all other illnesses, the sooner we can divert all biomedical research into curing cancer. (Yes I realize it's a pipe dream)
As for lock picking, have you ever seen someone do it? A seriously good lockpick will spend a good 15 minutes on his knees fiddling around with the tumblers (on a pin tumbler lock, forget lever locks) and is only really feasible if you have expensive locks. Otherwise the barrel will be drilled out as it is more efficient.
I had a friend in HS who used to hang out with me and wander the halls after school while waiting for my older brother to get done with which ever sport was in season at the time. I never got the hang of it, but he used to pick the locks to various classrooms. He'd get us into the computer lab for some solitaire time, into the chemistry lab so that he could steal a really nice digital scale to sell to the local pot dealer, or into the storage closet just to see what was in there. It usually only took him about a min, and he could do it while standing and talking to me. If someone came by it looked like we were just talking in the hall. In the real world, it would probably just look like he was having a little trouble finding the right key because he was distracted while talking to someone. That is fairly innocuous, and easily overlooked by neighbors that are disinterested in what's going on at your house (like the ones in every neighborhood I've lived in since I moved out of my parents house 10 years ago).
This is assinine. Sex offenders are frequently predators. They will hunt down children, women, etc. to victimize. Therefore, the registries serve the purpose of making harder for them to hunt. The Sex Offender registries do not in fact exist for the purpose of continued punishment.
Animal abusers on the other hand don't hunt for victims. They are usually people who lack the empathy to see why abusing animals is wrong (young kids, gang members, etc.). Once they are convited, it is easy to prohibit them from ever owning a pet in the future as part of their release. With that being the case, the purpose of an animal offender registry would be to ensure that even after they are tried, convicted and pay for their crime, the punishment will continue indefinitely.
We seem to have forgotten that people can do bad things and after being punished, regret their actions. Sex Offender Registries are justifiable due to the high recidivism rate of offenders. They frequently feel a compulsion to commit their crimes. I've never heard of any studies on the recidivism rate of animal abusers, and the absence of any data, find it hard to believe that they feel any compulsion toward their transgressions. Once the abuser has been punished, we need to learn to forgive. If you feel that they haven't paid enough, then change the law to allow for harsher punishment. Don't make it so that they have to go on some registry for the rest of their life for an act that they may have commited while suffering from a temporary laps in judgement, or for somethin they may never do again.
I'm not claiming Conspiracy by climate researchers, just that it is much harder for them to avoid political pressure. Besides, all of those other governments that are funding environmental research are either members of the UN, which has a decidedly anti-1st world agenda and a lot of credibility with the voting public. Anything that can be used as a tool to help lift the poverty in 3rd world countries at the expense of 1st world countries is used regardless of any data supporting its effectiveness. This makes sense because most of the countries in the UN are not 1st world nations. Poorer countries have more to gain by increased energy costs in the west, so blaming GW on the west will be popular there with the hope that this will make the rest of the world more competitive with the west.
Furthermore, If climate researchers had changed their tune they wouldn't have gotten more funding, because the findings that the Bush administration is reported to have wanted would have made more research less necessary. You don't need to spend money on something that isn't a problem. By agreeing with the Bush administration researchers would have been admitting that they didn't need the money, and I can't see a researcher ever saying that they didn't need anymore money. If there had been a method by which some could have interpreted their research in a way acceptable to the Bush administration, AND gotten more funding as a result I have no doubt that some would have done so.
The support from the UN, in conjunction with researchers seeing their own best interest is a more than plausible explanation for why researchers didn't change their tune during the Bush administration.
And for the record, I don't doubt the data. Global Average Temperatures have been increasing (although I have less faith in the Ice Core data since it precludes temperature sensing from anywhere other than the poles or very high altitudes). I doubt the interpretation of the data, which is far harder to keep from becoming biased by a researchers preconceptions or self-interest. They seem to believe that they have sufficient evidence that human activities are the ONLY POSSIBLE cause of the changing global temperature data, and I just don't buy it yet.
No, but if they find that Global Warming is real and caused by human activities they are likely to get MORE funding than if they find that it is a natural occurrence, or that it is a short term trend instead of an emerging catastrophe. They are also more likely to get funding if they find that anthropogenic global warming can be blamed on 1st world countries, because it makes the politicians feel guilty for damaging not only their portion of the globe but the rest of the world as well.
It's about the overall level of funding that they get to continue their research. All people are fallible, climatologists and environmentalists included. Is it really so hard for you to see the majority of them coming to ultimate conclusions that support further funding for their own work, which coincidentally is in their own best interest??
I'm not saying that there is a "Conspiracy", just that independence is harder to maintain in this situation.
Mod this guy up.
There will always be problems with "indepenence" of scientific research when the main (only) funding agency is a political body and an incredibly long validation period. If you don't produce the results the political body wants, they'll cut funding. If they are the only funding source, your options are being broke but honest, or putting at least a little spin on your results to keep getting funded at some level.
My research has been pressured by funding agencies, but since the main funding source is industry I can always find funding from a competitor (it helps that there are several) to continue my work if the original funding agency doesn't like what my data indicates.
Herein lies a fundamental difference of intention. I do not participate in arguments on /. in order to "convince" anyone of anything. I simply highlight flawed arguments where I see them and provide arguments I believe to be more sound. I see obvious flaws in your arguments and have pointed them out. You can (and have) disregard them without hurting my feelings or making me feel like I've failed in some way. I fully expect most of those I argue with to do just that.
Ultimately, you very rarely can convince anyone of anything in the realm of politics and religion. Beliefs in these two areas are too deeply seated in who a person is and how they view the world for me to be able to force anyone to reflect on them. They can only reflect on new arguments when they are not under attack by some outside source. The best I can hope to do is make sound arguments that are memorable enough that when the person is in a more contemplative mood they will be remembered and considered.
You won't convince me because you have not made arguments more valid than my own. I will not convince you because your opinions are based in your religion and not in any rational argument (not that religious belief is inherently irrational, but that rationality is irrelevant to religion).
Cheers
Why, because E. coli can’t find citrate in the wild?
Not always, No! Even if present, it may be in very low concentrations relative to some other potential energy yielding substrate.
I am sticking to my original explanation, as it is perfectly well supported by the evidence.
No it's not, and I've explained why.
since you seem to think I never made an attempt to explain the evidence.
I indicated that you'd never given an explanation that is consistent with the evidence, not that you hadn't presented any explanation.
Use your imagination, would you? Us dreamers are the only hope this planet's got left.
So in other words, you have nothing useful to contribute beyond a handful of poorly thought out pipe dreams (emphasis on the pipe, again).
The problems facing the world are real. If you don't want to take the time away from your bong to do the research and critical thinking necessary to validate your smoke inspired theories, then please refrain from contributing. When suggesting a solution to a problem it is your responsibility to do the preliminary validation of your solution. It is obvious to me that you didn't, as it took me less than 10 min to come up with my counter arguments. If you've actually thought about your solutions and have reasons why my arguments are not valid, or how they can be addressed, then I'm all ears. However, your response indicated the stereotypical attitude of the pot head. "Hemp can fix the world, but I'm too lazy (high) to think about why it hasn't succeeded beyond a handful of 'Anti-lobbyist' an 'Anti-corporate' rhetoric that is actually irrelevant to the topic under discussion."
If the data supported your argument, I suppose we could discuss that further.
I've yet to see you present any data at all, never mind an explanation that is actually supported by the data I presented.
...I’ll still claim that God did it.
And I'll not argue about whether or not God did it. I'm arguing with you over whether evolution is the "How" not the "Who" responsible for life. I believe that the infinite wisdom of God is sufficient for him to have set all of the universe in motion, using the tool of evolution to create man and all of the beasts. I also believe that He does not have the obligation to explain himself to us on our terms. Therefor, evolution does not contradict Him, it contradicts the bible which while divinely inspired was written by men with incomplete understanding of the mind of God. I am not so full of pride as to believe that I am capable of complete understanding with regards to God. However, I can strive to understand just how amazing his creation is, and understanding evolution helps me to appreciate His greatness.
The first half of that statement is a routinely observed effect. The second half is a theory which extends the phenomenon without any way of verifying that the phenomenon can be extended in this way.
The pivot point is “eventually”. In other words, they think it will, but they haven’t observed it yet. And they won’t ever, because the effect is theorized to take much longer to produce these results than they’ll be around to observe it.
I admitted that speciation has not been observed, but demonstrated evidence of both microevolution (E. coli) and macroevolution (giraffes and pigs) in process. What I posted can only be perceived as redundant if you are making a conscious attempt to ignore what that evidence suggests, namely that the evolution we have actually observed explains the speciation that the fossil records implies.
The second thing I “went” was “this guy sure thinks he knows a lot about giraffes, for someone who can’t spell their name.”
Yes, because misspelling a word automatically means that I'm wrong, or that my arguments lack merit. I can't spell well. It's been a problem I've had to deal with since elementary school. Didn't prevent me from getting a Ph.D. though, so I'm of the opinion that it's a minor problem.
The third thing I “went” was “still E. coli... still pigs... still giraffes...”
Which is the functional equivalent to going "Aha, they can interbreed so they haven't speciated". Try addressing that the predictions of evolutionary speciation are in fact supported by the fossil record. Attacking my spelling, or how repetitive I may be in my arguments (You're not the only one I've been arguing with so a little repetition is understandable) don't address the underlying validity of the points I'm making. They are stall tactics designed to derail the argument onto less relevant topics.
I did not advocate strict vegetarianism/veganism
I never claimed that you did. Only that the logical extension of your claim that eating meat is unhealthy is also unhealthy. Moderation is key
I would wager that the average American consumes far more meat than they need to meet their nutritional requirements.
I don't disagree with you. However, there is nothing wrong with that IMO. I moderate my meat consumption by eating it frequently (usually every day) as a small portion of my total meal.
The greenhouse gas that cattle produce is mostly methane, not CO2. Even if you count the sequestration in the growing of the crops, the carbon is being converted into a more potent greenhouse gas.
The methane emissions are discussed in papers like the IPCC report in terms of CO2 Equivalents. They've accounted for the fact that it is a different gas and has different properties, and converted to a common unit. However, you need to remember that much of the corn plant stays on the field, thus continuing to sequester carbon and much of the carbon consumed by the animal is stored by the animal, with only a fraction actually being re-released as CO2 or Methane.
You are of course completely ignoring the fact that animal protein is a superior source of protein for humans. Animal protein contains a better mix of the essential amino acids and vitamins than any grain (which is why vegans need to take nutritional supplements). Furthermore, it is far more digestible, so more of the ingested protein is actually absorbed instead of ending up in feces.
As to the claim of healthfulness, I'd love to see some numbers for that published by someone not biased against animal agriculture to begin with. As outlined above, animal protein is superior to plant protein as long as it is consumed in moderation. (it is not the fault of agriculture if you decide to eat 2 big mac's a day without any roughage) Vegetarian/Veganism on the other hand requires otherwise healthy individuals to take nutritional supplements to make up for the nutritional deficiencies caused by restricting your food intake to plants. I'd argue that a little cholesterol is preferable to a inadequate Lysine levels in my diet.
Also, I'd like to see you post some numbers on the carbon footprint claim. I know that the UN has published some numbers that are suspect (including CO2 released by digestion without first including the sequestration that occurred during the growing of the crops; including transportation CO2 for moving animals around, but not the transportation CO2 for other industries; etc.), but I've not seen any response to those criticism from the IPCC.
Ok, survival is not a binary situation. I win/you lose. A bacterium can be at a disadvantage in one situation without completely dying off. Some bacterium reproduce much faster, but are more sensitive to changes in the culture medium and therefor have a competitive advantage under controlled culture conditions. However, in an environment subject to frequent change, they are at a disadvantage because more of them die off in response to each environmental stress. E. coli don't need to be able to metabolize citrate to survive. Especially it is growing in an environment devoid of citrate. This comes back to the third option of no selective pressure either way that you seem to be ignoring.
Ultimately, scenario A1 is the more likely of the explanations. Whether this is inconvenient for your argument that there is no evidence of evolution is irrelevant. The lab in question is continuing their work and is going to sequence the different generations to determine where the mutation responsible originated from. If your preferred explanation turns out to be true, then I'll have no problem admitting that the evidence does not support the hypothesis I believe to be more likely. Do you you have the same willingness to admit that you are wrong in the even that the data supports my argument? or will you just come up with some alternate explanation to further justify your belief in Creationism?
With sun-powered desalination of sea water we can make the deserts bloom.
Thus destroying the ecosystem of the desert and the culture of any indigenous people.
With making the UN admit that they have lost the war on drugs we could make the deserts bloom with few pesticide AND cover it with a fibrous carpet to slow down erosion, by growing hemp.
What makes you think that the blooming desert won't attact pests?? It's not like the pests happen to be endemic to the regions we just happened to be growing corn in. The pests follow their prefered food. Biosecurity can be useful in delaying the appearance or spread of pests, but they'll show up eventually (Sooner rather than later unfortunately) and then you'll be in the same situation. Furthermore, errosion is not a problem in the desert so I don't know what problem is being solved here.
The fertilizer is easily provided by the world's industry lobbyists, put their bullshit to good use.
Sooo, you're against pesticides, but in favor of widespread use of fertilizers?? Normally being against one means you are against the other. Either this means you are very uniquely open minded or you are unaware of the very real benefits of the former and the very real negatives of the later. Eutrophication of freshwater is caused in large part by runnoff of phosphorus from fertilizers, whereas eutrophication of saltwater ecosystems is caused by runnoff of nitrogen from fertilziers. Admitedly, not a whole lot of water in the dessert, but if we are going to be undertaking a massive irrigation effort in the dessert, we'll be creating an ecosystem of sorts, and at least some of the irrigation water is going to get back to natural aquifers and bodies of water. Also, I would assume that most lobbyist don't have access to large quantities of fertilziers themselves. Some might be able to acquire it from the industries that they represent, but it's not like the guy wispering in your senetors ear has a half acre lot piled 20 feet high with generic fertilizer somewhere.
Ultimately your post strikes me as a collection of half-thought out pipe dreams (emphasis on the pipe) and liberal prejudices (ie the nonsense about lobbyists) I'm not nocking hemp itself, just your belief that it is a panacea instead of just an alternate crop that got a bad rap due to it's kinship with marijuana.
You are an idiot. Food/Resource shortages are real. I'm in agriculture, on the animal production side, and I can assure you that there is a finite amount of corn available, and corn based ethanol production is resulting in higher demand. We've always produced more corn than was needed domestically, and much of the excess was then shipped overseas. The current trends for corn production and domestic corn use for human food, animal food, and ethanol production are going to reach a point where we don't have enough corn to meet all 3 and still export any. That won't cause (much) starvation here, only among those that are already finding it hard to afford enough food to eat (a real problem that is getting worse even if it is better than in other countries). However, decreased exports will lead to food shortages in other countries that have become dependent on US grain to feed their populace. That the starvation won't be happening in your neighborhood, doesn't mean it won't be happening.
As much as I agree with the sentiment that waste is a real problem that needs to be addressed, it is not sufficient to solve the problem. Current projections that get trotted out at every agriculture related meeting I've attended in the last 5 years are that we are going to need to Double Global Food Production by 2050. Not just here in the US, but everywhere. Decreasing waste would help push that doubling deadline back, but we don't waste 50% of our food now, so even if we eliminated waste completely (which is impossible) we still would need to increase food production from the current levels.
Ideally, the necessary increases in food production would be coming from countries that are currently dependent on handouts from countries like the US. However, the underlying problems in those countries, which people have been trying to fix for decades, are not likely to be fixed overnight. The US feeds far more people than live within its borders. You may not like our policies (I don't like some of our policies), but that doesn't change the reality that 35% of domestic corn production in the 2008 to 2009 market year was used for ethanol production compared with only 21% in 2007. This 14-point increase is despite corn production during the 2008-2009 year being the second hightest ever. If we have a bad corn year, which will happen eventually, none of the industries that depend on corn are going to require any less and corn prices are going to skyrocket again. That will lead to increased food costs in stores, and increased hunger/starvation inside the US. We need to get away from using food for fuel and I'm glad to see that cellulosic ethanol is finally getting competetive.
Depends entirely on what you decide is your baseline. I got my drivers license about a month before gas hit 99 cents in MA for the first time. I had a solid 4 years of gas hovering around a dollar per gallon, occationally dropping down to around 79 cents at a handful of stations in my home town. Like most of us, what I paid for something the first time I bought it is what seems normal to me. I'm not saying that gas should be 99 cents. I realized even then that it was an untennable price and that it could only go up in the long run. However, you can't honestly believe that the price of gasoline has trippled in the 14 years since I got my license simply because of inflation. Contributing factor, sure, but not even the primary cause.
If the price did triple and people like you were forced to use transit, the transit system would automatically improve: There'd be more money for it and the voters would demand it.
Major unfounded assumption that my personal (ie annecdotal) experience refutes. CityBus, the local bus system for the Greater Lafayette Area of Indiana (including Purdue University) has recently seen a dramatic increase in ridership. Largely due to increased fuel prices. The bus is still as much as 15 min late in the afternoons, and they've actually pulled their bus tracking system offline (admitedly for upgrades). This last year I went back to driving my car becase I could spend up to 45 min (they apparently cancel busses that are running too far behind schedule without dispatching another bus to make up the time) waiting for a 18 min bus ride after work.
In an ideal world you are correct, that increased use of public transit systems should lead to increased quality of those systems. However, the difference between what should happen and what has happened here is dramatic. I'm of the opinion that the reason for this lack of responsiveness is that public transportation is utilized predominantly by those with less income, and time for getting involved in local government. The increased ridership that City Bus saw is unlikely to be from those making $100k/year. It is probably coming from those like myself making $20k/year and working a lot of hours to earn that money.
I have to disagree. You can have the grad students do the majority of the work and then verify that it has been done right yourself, before submitting the files. As a graduate student, I wrote grants (successfully), designed and ran studies, and wrote up the 1st draft of all final reports for studies that had corporate sponsors (most of them). Graduate students, especially PhD students are just as capable as a new faculty member. It'll be good practice for those PhD's that will end up as faculty and facing FOIA requests themselves in short order.
Alternatively, if he decides to hire someone to handle the FOIA requests for him it wouldn't come out of his personal salary (which is paid by the university independent of current funding levels). It would come out of his operating budget. It might mean that he gets to hire one less graduate student, but it's all about priorities. My PhD advisor made about $112k/year, but spent far more than that each year on paying grad students (6 x 16 to 19k/year for MS and PhD student salaries without including ancillary costs like insurance, tuition remission, etc.). Never mind paying his lab tech, Post-Doc, secretary, actual cost of research projects, the Universities cut (around 50 cents for every $1 of grant money) for keeping the lights on, travel expenses for himself and students, etc.
Researchers may not be rich, but they do have access to a lot of money if they are successful.
Except that it didn't. They have gone back and determined an important mutation took place somewhere around generation 20,000 (of 40,000+). If he re ran the study from anything less than generation 20,000 (he'd saved samples every 500 generations since the study began), the bugs would not develop the ability to utilize Citrate (a defining characteristic of E. coli) even when given another 20,000 generations. However, if he used generation 20,000 or newer, the ability would eventually evolve again.
I find your argument that the ability to use citrate was pre-existing but turned off to be specious. Genetic sequencing of bateria is very recent, and long before that baceriologists used agar plates with various nutrients, or nutrient deficiencies as a method of determining which bacteria were present in any given sample. The inability to grow on agar with Citrate as the sole source of energy is one of the defining characteristics of E. coli and is the the very reason that it was included in the culture medium for all of these generations. If a single microbe could evolve the ability to utililize citrate, it would possess such a strong competitive advantage that it's population would explode in a short period of time.
Don't disregard the science unless you've actually taken the time to read the study, or even the articles wirtten about the study which would have shown you just how wrong your explanation was.
They have observed evolution on the short term thousands of times. There is a lab at Michigan State that has been growing E. coli contiuously for over 20 years and observing the changes. This labs work has made headlines here on /. at least twice that I found 1 2.
Furthermore, domesticated species have evolved under selective pressure right before our eyes. Around the turn of the century, swine genetics resulted in animals that are much slower growing, much fatter, and the sows had far fewer piglets/litter. More modern genetics have almost double the number of pigs/litter, backfat measurements in the fraction of an inch range, and grow to market weight in half the time. They haven't speciated, but they have evolved over the last century.
AFAIK, speciation has not been observed during our life time, but we do have some pretty convincing evidence that it happens as theorized. Take Girrafes for example. There are several different species of Girrafe that overlap in the regions to which they are indiginous. Individuals from one specie will not breed with the other. However, in zoos they have been able to get them to breed successfully. This is a first importat step in speciation. They are no longer voluntarily mixing genetic information with each other. As the gene pools for these different girrafe population diverge, they will continue to evolve in different directions.
Besides, even if you read the above and go "Aha, they can interbreed so they haven't speciated" we do have genetics and the fossile record showing the incremental changes in phenotype from species that no longer exist to the current ones, and the gradual transitions predicted by evolutionary speciation. If ice cores are an acceptable substitute for direct observation of average global temperatures, then I fail to see how the fossile record is any less valid.
Ok, "Evolutionism" does not exist. The suffix "-ism" implies that it is some sort of philosophy, and there is no philosophy based on evolution.
There is the routinely observed effect that is called evolution consisting of short and long term accumulation of changes that eventually result in large changes in genotype/phenotype. There are those that are willing to accept the large body of evidence that supports evolution as an explanation for the origin of life. However, finding the evidence convicing is not the same thing as believing in a creator in the absence of any actual evidence. One is subject to being falsifiable, at which point the explanation must change to match the data. The other is infaliable, and when the data contradicts the scriptures the data must be undermined in order to match the explanation.
I'm not knocking religion (I go to church every Sunday with my family and try to be a good Christain), but that doesn't make ID or Creationism into science. Conversely, an incomplete fossile record, or incomplete understanding of a phenomenon does not make evolution into a philosophy.
The goal when talking with critics is to address only those willing to consider your evidence. You are talking about the much smaller, although much more vocal, group of skeptics unwilling to listen. They've decided, and no amount of evidence will change their minds.
You could call me a skeptic. Originally, I doubted that GW was happening. Now I don't doubt that global temperatures have been increasing, at least in the last several decades, but I do doubt the Anthropogenic explanation for GW. The data has been validated to my satisfaction, but I require further convincing as to the conclusions regarding the cause. (Probably because I'm involved in science where I can control most of the factors in the design experiments, as opposed to being dependent mostly on observational data.) However, I am willing to listen and consider new evidence as it is presented to me. I am equally frustrated with those unwilling to listen, because they make it much harder for me to get a reasoned debate going. They hijack threads and poison the waters with those in possession of the facts I need if I want to make up my own mind.
Furthermore, I work in an industry that is plagued by just as many doubters. Although, they are not quite as unified in what specifically they are objecting to. I've learned that some are not worth my time, because they made an emotional decision and no amount of facts can really match faith. However, the vast majority of those with no training and a lot of questions are willing to listen. With those individuals I've made a lot of headway. The trick is discerning, with a high degree of accuracy, which camp someone new falls into as quickly as possible.
Nobody said science was easy, and nobody said that communicating science to laypeople would be problem free. If anything that makes it more important that we communicate effectively with those actually interested in a dialogue, as opposed to the monologues so popular with the kind of people you are describing.
I tried finding an introductory class in programing for non-CS students while in graduate school. I was unable to find anything in the CS department, and instead found an introduction to programming for the life sciences. It was taught by a professor with a joint Biology/CS appointment. The class had been around for 5 years off and on so that his students could get class credit for him teaching them basic perl, html, and MySQL.
Up until that point I was forced to buy programming books and teach myself. If you want researchers outside of CS departments to have high quality, documented, easily readible code it might make sense for classes to be offered that are targeted at students from the rest of the university. Kind of like statistics classes or english classes targeted at the rest of the community.
1) Do you seriously think that the whole climate science depends on one scientist's data?
No, but his work does include suggestions that regulators pay close attention to based on his status within the community. If he were posting on this very same topic, but was not being used as a primary source by regulators then I could see your point. However, that is not the case and theoretical situations are not really relevant.
2) CRU was trolled by FOIA requests. They are nuisance to deal with, as far as I was told.
Then hire someone to handle them for you, or have grad students do it.
I could say the same thing about publishing and peer review. It's a major PITA to get formatting done just right, making sure that those outside of my small sphere of research can understand what I did without getting lost in all of the jargon. Suck it up! It is an unfortunate, but necessary part of doing research at a public institution.
3) Scientists are people, people have emotions. That's why peer review is used.
Not sure what this has to do with anything. Peer review is valuable and necessary, but it has never pretended to be about accuracy of the data. It's about cleaning up the presentation so that it is clear, reproducible, and free from OBVIOUS error.
As a reviewer, I don't know what exactly was done, but if a list of numbers that should add up to 100 instead adds up to 120, then I can catch that. Whether the problem is due to a typo, or sloppy data fabrication, or a computer error is not something I can ascertain. I have to trust that the authors explanation and fix are true and accurate, in which case I am trusting that they are honest, competent and attentive. The more of their data and methodology that they expose to scrutiny, the less faith I have to have and the more I can ascertain for myself directly.