Ok, maybe I'm misinformed, but I was under the impression that the laptop manufacturer designs the computer and chooses the laptop to match. That's why the laptop for my MBP is different from the one for another MBP model released a short while later. The internal electronics dictated the power requirements, which in turn dictated that the newer design required a slightly different battery. Therefor, the hodgepodge of different batteries used in laptops is a function of their differing power requirements and the responsibility of the computer manufacturers.
You are making a judgment call that is yours to make, but your arguments in favor of it are weak.
Is it worse to openly censor content, or covertly operate massive surveillance programs,
Wiretapping in the US is on a much smaller scale (both in real numbers and as a percent of the population), so the number of people who's rights are being violated are much smaller. The Chinese government is trying to censor 100% of their population, which means that they are trying to surveil 100% of the population (you can't censor someone you aren't surveilling). Even if the US government were to censor everyone they surveilled (which they haven't done), the scale would still not be comparable.
disappear your citizens without charge indefinitely, refuse their lawyers permission to even talk about the case, and have them tortured by third parties in an attempt to extract information?
Ok, maybe I missed something big, but Gitmo has been used to house only a handful of Americans, and IIRC they were all seized overseas and eventually given legal representation guaranteed to American Citizens. Gitmo is used almost exclusively for housing Non-American prisoners who where seized by military personnel during military action. I agree as to the reprehensible nature of torture, but the rights guaranteed to US citizens are not to be extended to hostile enemy personnel by default.
There is no presumption of innocence as soon as the word terrorism is invoked. What you call 'wiretapping' is now way beyond that, and mass tracking of citizens, their movements, and their communications has become routine.
I'd like a specific example or two before I'm willing to swallow that tinfoil pill. Claims about massive and covert "Big Brother" operations have existed for as long as I can remember. I've seen little (although not nothing) to support such claims, and unless you can point to something convincing and verifiable this just makes you sound like a crackpot.
By itself the use of "Trick" wouldn't be too alarming, just suggestive of a laps in their ethical education. Mildly inappropriate at worst. However, in the context of other poor word and phrase choices such as using the trick to "Hide" something instead of correct, the expressed willingness to destroy data to avoid sharing it, and to redefine the concept of peer review in order to silence those with opposing view points collectively cross the line between mildly inappropriate into the range of ethical misconduct.
I am a scientist and I can assure you that I have never hear of a correction or attempt to exlude statistical outliers as a "Trick". Not in my Stats classes, not by my advisor, not by our stats consultant, not my fellow graduate students, NO ONE! It may be because my advisor made a research ethics class mandatory for all 1st year students, in which the line between cleaning data and fraudulently manipulating it was discussed.
I'm not arrogant enough to believe I know absolute certainty that they crossed that line, but use of the word "Trick" to describe what they did is highly suggestive.
by extracting cells from the muscle of a live pig and putting them in a broth of other animal products where the cells then multiplied to create muscle tissue.
I've seen earlier attempts at this discussed in our graduate seminar in the animal sciences department at my University. I raised this point then and the general concensus was that I am correct.
The value of animal agriculture and animal products is that they enable us to convert moderate and low quality protein and energy sources into high quality protein and energy sources for human consumption. This describes taking high quality nutrient sources (muscle cells), incubating them in even higher quality nutrient sources (Purified animal growth products and nutrients), to yield a lower quality nutrient source (soggy pork). Even if they are able to apply tension to the growing cells and get acceptable meat quality is it still is net loss of efficiency.
You can feed a pig some pretty unappetizing stuff (wheat middlings, millrun, DDGS from the ethanol industry) and they will grow just fine, but cell culture work requires incredibly high quality inputs (blood, plasma, purified growth factors) to get marginal gains in outputs.
Choosing money over the environment means they are being greedy. Choosing security items like Food, shelter and healthcare over the environment are not being greedy, they are being practical, unless they already have these things in abundance like we do here in the West.
Since the entire discussion is attached to an article titled "Where the Global Warming Data Is" my post was entirely within context. That he was responding to a post that, to my eye, was obviously intended to be HUMOR is inconsequential.
He intentionally included not only the accusation of "Hippie" but 3 sentences dealing with the larger topic at hand. Namely reductions in CO2 are desirable outside of their GW implications. He also ended his post, in bold, with a sentence making direct reference to the environmental impact of pollution, which cannot be separated from GW in the context of this discussion.
The entire tone of his thread was, "It doesn't matter whether or not the data is fudged, we should do whatever is suggested anyway because of air quality concerns." That you can question the conclusions without disagreeing with the overall goals seems lost on both him and you.
You are being intentionally myopic. California and the US government have laws and regulations for air quality at considerable cost to the tax payers. The real deciding factor is quality of life.
in developing countries their are so many factors that are more important than clean air that pollution gets a free pass for now. Take china for example. The government there has chosen to place progress and increased quality of life over the environment. Many chinese still have to deal with real hunger on a daily basis, so for them potential starvation and illness is far more immediate than lung cancer 30 years from now. Once the majority of their citizens feel that they've reached an acceptable level of security in other areas, air quality will reach a more prominent position on their list of priorities and they will address it.
You don't seem to realize how many of the things you value more than clean air can be taken for granted in the west, thus enabling you to care about clean air.
I have a similar protocol for reading papers myself.
Unless it is a new area for me I skip the introduction and get straight to the materials and methods. Skim that to make sure their are no fundamental flaws with their design (inappropriate statistics, insufficient sample sizes, vague treatment descriptions, etc). Then I hit the tables and figures and come up with my own conclusions. I then look to see if they've seen something I missed. If so, I verify that I see what they see before using that for my own discussion of their research.
Actually, there are. There are people who would choose money over clean air any day of the week. All of China has done it for starters.
Not quite. They (The government, not "All of China") have chosen rapid progress and development over prolonged poverty and economic weakness. They've placed a higher priority on progress than the environment for now, but I don't expect that to continue indefinitely. That progress leads to a net increase in the standard of living for the Chinese people. What you described was a desire to increase the quality of your life. If you are starving, the air quality doesn't really matter as starvation is likely to kill you before lung cancer.
Once they are all at or near a US level standard of living, those at the top will start wanting improved air quality to further increase their standard of living. It is about ranked priorities. You don't seem to realize how many of the things you value more than clean air can be taken for granted in the west, thus enabling you to care about clean air.
I can't write that "Data was subjected to non-linear regression analysis" and then not include an equation describing the type of non-linear curve. Was it logarithmic, exponential, quadratic, cubic, quartic,... etc. The specific tests used need to be given so that readers can decide whether or not the stastical analysis was performed correctly. I've seen papers where authors use r-squared values to decide whether the linear or non-linear regression equation (quadratic) was a better fit. However, r-squared is a meaningless calculation in non-linear regression and a goodness-of-fit test such as boot-strapping or AIC should be used in that situation.
Specific tests matter as they can change the results and (as long as you are not convinced you know the answer ahead of time) potentially the conclusions.
I've said it before and will probably do so again. Just because your data is valid does not mean that your conclusions are equally valid. I reviewed a journal article in my own field in which the author's conclusions were contradicted by their own data.
That there are concerns with some of the data sets used, as well as with the objectivity of the researchers is of fundamental importance. The authors of the analogous paper that I reviewed had a track record of supporting one possible explanation over any other in their research. That tendancy prevented them from seeing that their own dataset apparently contradicted their previous conclusions.
Ultimately data is objective, but conclusions are inherently subjective. You take the data, look for trends and then decide based on the larger body of research what it all means. There is no P-value for a conclusion or population parameter, only for sample statistics. My reservations concerning their conclusions are not dependent upon their data being invalid or their ethics being questionable. Those things help reassure me that my skepticism is well placed, but are ultimately unnecessary.
Your first paragraph seems to indicate that there are those who would actually choose smog over clean air. Many who are concerned with CRU and the validity of certain global warming conclusions such as myself don't doubt that it is happening, or that we can and should be better environmental stewards. I'm just not convinced that the data supports their conclusions. Even if the CRU data is completely valid, it does not necessarily guarantee that their conclusions are correct.
Your second paragraph is a list of environmental problems that are unrelated to smog. algae blooms (which subsequently render the water virtually lifeless so you repeated yourself) are not caused by air pollution. Freshwater algae blooms are usually caused by Phosphorus run off from the soil because it is the nutrient that is limiting algae growth. Saltwater blooms are usually caused by Nitrogen run off because it is the first limiting nutrient in that aquatic environment. Nitrogen can come from the atmosphere, but not in the concentrations necessary to trigger an algae bloom.
Your third paragraph is a second attempt to set up your straw-man. Namely that anyone actually wants to pollute the environment. It also trots out the timeless "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!" meme, Bravo! Every anthropogenic global warming skeptic I've met doesn't doubt the sense of taking care of the environment, only the conclusion that the world wouldn't be warming without us. I'm all for tougher enviromental standards, but there is a point at which I believe we are cutting off our nose to spite our face.
You can feel free to disagree, but I'd prefer it if you'd leave your straw-men and Parental Hysteria at home.
Valid Data do not by themselves equate to valid conclusions. You can have two researchers look at the exact same dataset and come up with differing conclusions. I've even reviewed a journal article in which the authors conclusions were CONTRADICTED by the results in their own study.
You are correct in that under ideal situations I should have a better theory with better data. However, that is not necessary. Especially since the world leaders are trying to completely re-engineer the global economy (which is a bit of a misnomer since it was never engineered in the first place)!
In my own field there is serious debate as to the relative bioefficacy of 2 sources of the amino acid (needed for protein) Methionine. DL-methionine is a purified source of the active amino acid, whereas 2-hydroxy-4-methylthiobutanoic acid (HMTBA) is an analog that can be converted to Methionine in the body. Over 80 years of research resulted in 2 contradictory conclusions A. they are equally good sources of methionine activity on a molar basis B. DL-methionine is a superior source of methionine activity (only 60 to 80% as efficacious depending on the specie)
However, recent work has actually shown that we've been running studies based on a false assumption (That is valid in most comparisons of this sort), namely that HMTBA will perform as a titration of DL-methionine when using regression and dose response curves.
It turns out that the efficacy is not a constant, but depends upon how close the dietary methionine concentration is to the animals requirement. This new evidence (rerunning the statistical analysis on older studies with a model that does not include the titration assumption) also explains not only the previous data better, but it also explains the handful of isolated studies in which HMTBA showed superior efficacy to DL-methionine.
No one was fudging the data. It was all valid based on the statistical methods applied. It just turns out that the methods used were not the best available.
Now look at some of the adjustments used on environmental data sets, including the programmers notes indicating the arbitrary nature of the adjustments. Then you might be able to understand, if not necessarily agree with, my reservations with regards to their conclusions.
Never said that I don't believe the climate is changing. In fact, an earlier post I state I DO believe it is changing. However, agreement with what is happening does not mean I agree with their conclusions. I've personally reviewed articles in which the authors conclusions were in direct contradiction to the actual results in their study, despite having a very good design and sound data. Not sure what the cause of the disconnect was, but it is illustrative.
Valid data does not by itself prove valid conclusions.
NOAA recently published an answer [noaa.gov] to that specific website. They took the 70 stations that surfacestations.org designated "best" or "good" and created a time series based on them. Then they used all 1218 stations to create another time series. Both of those time series are plotted on page 3. They're practically identical.
Of all the responses I've had to my post. You Sir, are the only one to have actually responded with evidence I can evaluate for myself. Thank You! I intend to read the NOAA report over lunch some time next week.
Yet when the "spurious" stations with AC:s, grills, pavement, etc are left out, the temperature data is practically unchanged. Hence you haven't heard from surface stations much lately.
Citation please! I highly doubt that the test you describe has actually been done, since this review is being undertaken by a 3rd party not officially affiliated with the US temperature sensor network.
According to what I've seen from the surfacestations.org report, only 11% of those sensors reviewed (82% of the entire network) are of acceptable quality (score of 1 or 2 out of 5). If you extrapolate that out to the entire 1221 sensor grid that works out to 134 acceptable sensors.
Do you honestly believe that 134 accurate sensors can correct for 1,087 inaccurate ones in the dataset? I've seen a SINGLE point skew the results of a dataset with an N = 96, or slightly more than 1% of the data.
Straw-man #1: That the glacier melting data is fabricated Straw-man #2: That my concern over the validity of one data set means I'm incapable of considering any of the datasets valid Straw-man #3: That increased hurricane strength an Al Queda have anything to do with each other.
I'm not saying that all the data is suspect, but the dataset that is frequently indicated to be the best is IMO suspect. Not necessarily completely invalid, but compromised. I'm not ignoring any other data, In earlier posts I indicate that I believe the climate is changing I'm just not convinced that their conclusions as to the causes and magnitude of the changes are accurate. Even valid data does not by itself indicate valid conclusions. I've reviewed papers where their work was good, but their discussion was completely off base and their conclusions were in direct contradiction with their own results.
As to your irrelevant screed at the end. Talk about facts not in evidence.
The problem with knee-jerk reactionary types like yourself are that you jump to the emotional name calling instead of rational discussion involving actual data. I recognize that a lot of other skeptics may be less interested in actual discourse, but until you know more about a persons reasons you should give them the benefit of the doubt. By that I mean you should assume they are willing to look at evidence previously unseen and change their mind. I started out believing in the anthropogenic explanation for global warming, but the more I've looked at the data manipulations performed on the raw data, the less convinced I am.
My political affiliation has nothing to do with my judgements as a scientist. If anything my political affiliation is based on my scientific nature. I changed party affiliations based on the philosophical inconsistencies of those leading the party with which I was previously affiliated.
Also, I am by no means and ideologue. I only bothered to join a party at all so that I can participate in primaries. On election day I vote for the best candidate, regardless of party, and have probably voted for an equal number of Democrats and Republicans over the years.
So in summary, you built up several straw-men and then did an admirable job of knocking them down. However, none of those straw-men even remotely resembled me. You then proceeded to attach the character of a fictional "Climate Change Denier" as though he and I were the same without any evidence to support that assumption. In short, you provided nothing of any value by posting. Better luck next time!
Yeah, because the federal government is known for getting regulations right on the first try without being excessive. Whether you want to pin the blame on one party or the other, their track record for large legislation is less than stellar.
I don't doubt that we need to transition away from fossil fules. However, we need to do it in a gradual way that doesn't waste too much time, money, or effort. Congress tends to favor dramatic about faces that will waste all 3 in the long run.
Transformations are used to adjust for skew or outliers, they never "Hide" anything. That kind of language is reserved for research fraud. Anyone who's ever taken a class in research ethics aught to see that at once and never use that term. Sounds like if they aren't guilty of actual fraud, then their research ethics training has been neglected if not non-existant.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, maybe I'm misinformed, but I was under the impression that the laptop manufacturer designs the computer and chooses the laptop to match. That's why the laptop for my MBP is different from the one for another MBP model released a short while later. The internal electronics dictated the power requirements, which in turn dictated that the newer design required a slightly different battery. Therefor, the hodgepodge of different batteries used in laptops is a function of their differing power requirements and the responsibility of the computer manufacturers.
Unlikely, people don't do things for the heck of it.
Says the user posting for the heck of it, on the site created for the heck of it back in the day...
And now is making money as a commercial venture.
It might be better to have said that "People don't do things for the heck of it indefinitely."
Is it worse to openly censor content, or covertly operate massive surveillance programs,
Wiretapping in the US is on a much smaller scale (both in real numbers and as a percent of the population), so the number of people who's rights are being violated are much smaller. The Chinese government is trying to censor 100% of their population, which means that they are trying to surveil 100% of the population (you can't censor someone you aren't surveilling). Even if the US government were to censor everyone they surveilled (which they haven't done), the scale would still not be comparable.
disappear your citizens without charge indefinitely, refuse their lawyers permission to even talk about the case, and have them tortured by third parties in an attempt to extract information?
Ok, maybe I missed something big, but Gitmo has been used to house only a handful of Americans, and IIRC they were all seized overseas and eventually given legal representation guaranteed to American Citizens. Gitmo is used almost exclusively for housing Non-American prisoners who where seized by military personnel during military action. I agree as to the reprehensible nature of torture, but the rights guaranteed to US citizens are not to be extended to hostile enemy personnel by default.
There is no presumption of innocence as soon as the word terrorism is invoked. What you call 'wiretapping' is now way beyond that, and mass tracking of citizens, their movements, and their communications has become routine.
I'd like a specific example or two before I'm willing to swallow that tinfoil pill. Claims about massive and covert "Big Brother" operations have existed for as long as I can remember. I've seen little (although not nothing) to support such claims, and unless you can point to something convincing and verifiable this just makes you sound like a crackpot.
Nothing in my post fits the definition of "Troll"
Modding someone post as "Troll" is not a substitute for "I disagree!" If you think I'm wrong, then grow a pair and post WHY you think I'm wrong
By itself the use of "Trick" wouldn't be too alarming, just suggestive of a laps in their ethical education. Mildly inappropriate at worst. However, in the context of other poor word and phrase choices such as using the trick to "Hide" something instead of correct, the expressed willingness to destroy data to avoid sharing it, and to redefine the concept of peer review in order to silence those with opposing view points collectively cross the line between mildly inappropriate into the range of ethical misconduct.
And you call that a "trick".
I am a scientist and I can assure you that I have never hear of a correction or attempt to exlude statistical outliers as a "Trick". Not in my Stats classes, not by my advisor, not by our stats consultant, not my fellow graduate students, NO ONE! It may be because my advisor made a research ethics class mandatory for all 1st year students, in which the line between cleaning data and fraudulently manipulating it was discussed.
I'm not arrogant enough to believe I know absolute certainty that they crossed that line, but use of the word "Trick" to describe what they did is highly suggestive.
by extracting cells from the muscle of a live pig and putting them in a broth of other animal products where the cells then multiplied to create muscle tissue.
I've seen earlier attempts at this discussed in our graduate seminar in the animal sciences department at my University. I raised this point then and the general concensus was that I am correct.
The value of animal agriculture and animal products is that they enable us to convert moderate and low quality protein and energy sources into high quality protein and energy sources for human consumption. This describes taking high quality nutrient sources (muscle cells), incubating them in even higher quality nutrient sources (Purified animal growth products and nutrients), to yield a lower quality nutrient source (soggy pork). Even if they are able to apply tension to the growing cells and get acceptable meat quality is it still is net loss of efficiency.
You can feed a pig some pretty unappetizing stuff (wheat middlings, millrun, DDGS from the ethanol industry) and they will grow just fine, but cell culture work requires incredibly high quality inputs (blood, plasma, purified growth factors) to get marginal gains in outputs.
No, it's not.
Choosing money over the environment means they are being greedy. Choosing security items like Food, shelter and healthcare over the environment are not being greedy, they are being practical, unless they already have these things in abundance like we do here in the West.
Since the entire discussion is attached to an article titled "Where the Global Warming Data Is" my post was entirely within context. That he was responding to a post that, to my eye, was obviously intended to be HUMOR is inconsequential.
He intentionally included not only the accusation of "Hippie" but 3 sentences dealing with the larger topic at hand. Namely reductions in CO2 are desirable outside of their GW implications. He also ended his post, in bold, with a sentence making direct reference to the environmental impact of pollution, which cannot be separated from GW in the context of this discussion.
The entire tone of his thread was, "It doesn't matter whether or not the data is fudged, we should do whatever is suggested anyway because of air quality concerns." That you can question the conclusions without disagreeing with the overall goals seems lost on both him and you.
The above is SPAM!!
The link is completely irrelevant to the discussion in this thread or the original topic. It is an advertisement for some pills of some sort.
You are being intentionally myopic. California and the US government have laws and regulations for air quality at considerable cost to the tax payers. The real deciding factor is quality of life.
in developing countries their are so many factors that are more important than clean air that pollution gets a free pass for now. Take china for example. The government there has chosen to place progress and increased quality of life over the environment. Many chinese still have to deal with real hunger on a daily basis, so for them potential starvation and illness is far more immediate than lung cancer 30 years from now. Once the majority of their citizens feel that they've reached an acceptable level of security in other areas, air quality will reach a more prominent position on their list of priorities and they will address it.
You don't seem to realize how many of the things you value more than clean air can be taken for granted in the west, thus enabling you to care about clean air.
I have a similar protocol for reading papers myself.
Unless it is a new area for me I skip the introduction and get straight to the materials and methods. Skim that to make sure their are no fundamental flaws with their design (inappropriate statistics, insufficient sample sizes, vague treatment descriptions, etc). Then I hit the tables and figures and come up with my own conclusions. I then look to see if they've seen something I missed. If so, I verify that I see what they see before using that for my own discussion of their research.
Actually, there are. There are people who would choose money over clean air any day of the week. All of China has done it for starters.
Not quite. They (The government, not "All of China") have chosen rapid progress and development over prolonged poverty and economic weakness. They've placed a higher priority on progress than the environment for now, but I don't expect that to continue indefinitely. That progress leads to a net increase in the standard of living for the Chinese people. What you described was a desire to increase the quality of your life. If you are starving, the air quality doesn't really matter as starvation is likely to kill you before lung cancer.
Once they are all at or near a US level standard of living, those at the top will start wanting improved air quality to further increase their standard of living. It is about ranked priorities. You don't seem to realize how many of the things you value more than clean air can be taken for granted in the west, thus enabling you to care about clean air.
No it's not!!
I can't write that "Data was subjected to non-linear regression analysis" and then not include an equation describing the type of non-linear curve. Was it logarithmic, exponential, quadratic, cubic, quartic,... etc. The specific tests used need to be given so that readers can decide whether or not the stastical analysis was performed correctly. I've seen papers where authors use r-squared values to decide whether the linear or non-linear regression equation (quadratic) was a better fit. However, r-squared is a meaningless calculation in non-linear regression and a goodness-of-fit test such as boot-strapping or AIC should be used in that situation.
Specific tests matter as they can change the results and (as long as you are not convinced you know the answer ahead of time) potentially the conclusions.
I've said it before and will probably do so again. Just because your data is valid does not mean that your conclusions are equally valid. I reviewed a journal article in my own field in which the author's conclusions were contradicted by their own data.
That there are concerns with some of the data sets used, as well as with the objectivity of the researchers is of fundamental importance. The authors of the analogous paper that I reviewed had a track record of supporting one possible explanation over any other in their research. That tendancy prevented them from seeing that their own dataset apparently contradicted their previous conclusions.
Ultimately data is objective, but conclusions are inherently subjective. You take the data, look for trends and then decide based on the larger body of research what it all means. There is no P-value for a conclusion or population parameter, only for sample statistics. My reservations concerning their conclusions are not dependent upon their data being invalid or their ethics being questionable. Those things help reassure me that my skepticism is well placed, but are ultimately unnecessary.
Excellent straw-man!!
Your first paragraph seems to indicate that there are those who would actually choose smog over clean air. Many who are concerned with CRU and the validity of certain global warming conclusions such as myself don't doubt that it is happening, or that we can and should be better environmental stewards. I'm just not convinced that the data supports their conclusions. Even if the CRU data is completely valid, it does not necessarily guarantee that their conclusions are correct.
Your second paragraph is a list of environmental problems that are unrelated to smog. algae blooms (which subsequently render the water virtually lifeless so you repeated yourself) are not caused by air pollution. Freshwater algae blooms are usually caused by Phosphorus run off from the soil because it is the nutrient that is limiting algae growth. Saltwater blooms are usually caused by Nitrogen run off because it is the first limiting nutrient in that aquatic environment. Nitrogen can come from the atmosphere, but not in the concentrations necessary to trigger an algae bloom.
Your third paragraph is a second attempt to set up your straw-man. Namely that anyone actually wants to pollute the environment. It also trots out the timeless "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!" meme, Bravo! Every anthropogenic global warming skeptic I've met doesn't doubt the sense of taking care of the environment, only the conclusion that the world wouldn't be warming without us. I'm all for tougher enviromental standards, but there is a point at which I believe we are cutting off our nose to spite our face.
You can feel free to disagree, but I'd prefer it if you'd leave your straw-men and Parental Hysteria at home.
What about the above post is trollish?
/. when discussing environmental data.
The post is short on citation, but that is par for the course on
Valid Data do not by themselves equate to valid conclusions. You can have two researchers look at the exact same dataset and come up with differing conclusions. I've even reviewed a journal article in which the authors conclusions were CONTRADICTED by the results in their own study.
You are correct in that under ideal situations I should have a better theory with better data. However, that is not necessary. Especially since the world leaders are trying to completely re-engineer the global economy (which is a bit of a misnomer since it was never engineered in the first place)!
In my own field there is serious debate as to the relative bioefficacy of 2 sources of the amino acid (needed for protein) Methionine. DL-methionine is a purified source of the active amino acid, whereas 2-hydroxy-4-methylthiobutanoic acid (HMTBA) is an analog that can be converted to Methionine in the body. Over 80 years of research resulted in 2 contradictory conclusions
A. they are equally good sources of methionine activity on a molar basis
B. DL-methionine is a superior source of methionine activity (only 60 to 80% as efficacious depending on the specie)
However, recent work has actually shown that we've been running studies based on a false assumption (That is valid in most comparisons of this sort), namely that HMTBA will perform as a titration of DL-methionine when using regression and dose response curves.
It turns out that the efficacy is not a constant, but depends upon how close the dietary methionine concentration is to the animals requirement. This new evidence (rerunning the statistical analysis on older studies with a model that does not include the titration assumption) also explains not only the previous data better, but it also explains the handful of isolated studies in which HMTBA showed superior efficacy to DL-methionine.
No one was fudging the data. It was all valid based on the statistical methods applied. It just turns out that the methods used were not the best available.
Now look at some of the adjustments used on environmental data sets, including the programmers notes indicating the arbitrary nature of the adjustments. Then you might be able to understand, if not necessarily agree with, my reservations with regards to their conclusions.
Never said that I don't believe the climate is changing. In fact, an earlier post I state I DO believe it is changing. However, agreement with what is happening does not mean I agree with their conclusions. I've personally reviewed articles in which the authors conclusions were in direct contradiction to the actual results in their study, despite having a very good design and sound data. Not sure what the cause of the disconnect was, but it is illustrative.
Valid data does not by itself prove valid conclusions.
NOAA recently published an answer [noaa.gov] to that specific website. They took the 70 stations that surfacestations.org designated "best" or "good" and created a time series based on them. Then they used all 1218 stations to create another time series. Both of those time series are plotted on page 3. They're practically identical.
Of all the responses I've had to my post. You Sir, are the only one to have actually responded with evidence I can evaluate for myself. Thank You! I intend to read the NOAA report over lunch some time next week.
Yet when the "spurious" stations with AC:s, grills, pavement, etc are left out, the temperature data is practically unchanged. Hence you haven't heard from surface stations much lately.
Citation please! I highly doubt that the test you describe has actually been done, since this review is being undertaken by a 3rd party not officially affiliated with the US temperature sensor network.
According to what I've seen from the surfacestations.org report, only 11% of those sensors reviewed (82% of the entire network) are of acceptable quality (score of 1 or 2 out of 5). If you extrapolate that out to the entire 1221 sensor grid that works out to 134 acceptable sensors.
Do you honestly believe that 134 accurate sensors can correct for 1,087 inaccurate ones in the dataset? I've seen a SINGLE point skew the results of a dataset with an N = 96, or slightly more than 1% of the data.
Straw-man #1: That the glacier melting data is fabricated
Straw-man #2: That my concern over the validity of one data set means I'm incapable of considering any of the datasets valid
Straw-man #3: That increased hurricane strength an Al Queda have anything to do with each other.
I'm not saying that all the data is suspect, but the dataset that is frequently indicated to be the best is IMO suspect. Not necessarily completely invalid, but compromised. I'm not ignoring any other data, In earlier posts I indicate that I believe the climate is changing I'm just not convinced that their conclusions as to the causes and magnitude of the changes are accurate. Even valid data does not by itself indicate valid conclusions. I've reviewed papers where their work was good, but their discussion was completely off base and their conclusions were in direct contradiction with their own results.
As to your irrelevant screed at the end. Talk about facts not in evidence.
The problem with knee-jerk reactionary types like yourself are that you jump to the emotional name calling instead of rational discussion involving actual data. I recognize that a lot of other skeptics may be less interested in actual discourse, but until you know more about a persons reasons you should give them the benefit of the doubt. By that I mean you should assume they are willing to look at evidence previously unseen and change their mind. I started out believing in the anthropogenic explanation for global warming, but the more I've looked at the data manipulations performed on the raw data, the less convinced I am.
My political affiliation has nothing to do with my judgements as a scientist. If anything my political affiliation is based on my scientific nature. I changed party affiliations based on the philosophical inconsistencies of those leading the party with which I was previously affiliated.
Also, I am by no means and ideologue. I only bothered to join a party at all so that I can participate in primaries. On election day I vote for the best candidate, regardless of party, and have probably voted for an equal number of Democrats and Republicans over the years.
So in summary, you built up several straw-men and then did an admirable job of knocking them down. However, none of those straw-men even remotely resembled me. You then proceeded to attach the character of a fictional "Climate Change Denier" as though he and I were the same without any evidence to support that assumption. In short, you provided nothing of any value by posting. Better luck next time!
Well, if you do it smartly
Yeah, because the federal government is known for getting regulations right on the first try without being excessive. Whether you want to pin the blame on one party or the other, their track record for large legislation is less than stellar.
I don't doubt that we need to transition away from fossil fules. However, we need to do it in a gradual way that doesn't waste too much time, money, or effort. Congress tends to favor dramatic about faces that will waste all 3 in the long run.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
Transformations are used to adjust for skew or outliers, they never "Hide" anything. That kind of language is reserved for research fraud. Anyone who's ever taken a class in research ethics aught to see that at once and never use that term. Sounds like if they aren't guilty of actual fraud, then their research ethics training has been neglected if not non-existant.