Slashdot Mirror


User: dave420

dave420's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
10,936
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 10,936

  1. Re: The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 1

    On matters of climate, which we are discussing, you are correct. That's how science works.

  2. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 0

    Flamebait for pointing out a massive conflict of interest in a person stepping outside their area of expertise? I see at least one person hasn't read the moderation guidelines.

  3. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Their migration and behaviour is affected by sea ice coverage, as that's where they congregate. She should know that. She should also know that sea ice is affected by climate. That's where her expertise ends. She can't call out climatologists who use climatology to understand the situation, as she's not a climatologist. She also is paid by the Heartland Institute, so she's massively biased in this discussion. She also specialised in dog evolution, not walruses or other pinnipeds, so her poking her neck out to criticise this reeks of unprofessionalism.

  4. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 0

    No, she's doubting the explanation offered by climatologists (who are engaged in climate science). She is not a climate scientist. Her opinion on whether the climate is to blame for this or not simply doesn't matter, especially when we consider she has been bought by the Heartland Institute.

  5. Re: The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well done! You've read the subject of the thread you're commenting in. Now read the post I replied to, which offered this rebuttal from the good Doctor herself:

    The attempts by WWF and others to link this event to global warming is self-serving nonsense that has nothing to do with science...this is blatant nonsense and those who support or encourage this interpretation are misinforming the public

    That's my point. She's voicing her opinion on fields outside of her speciality (which is paleozoology and dog evolution, btw). Her opinion on this matters just as much as every other layperson's - not a jot. Couple that with her paycheques from the Heartland Institute and you see that she's not being entirely honest or professional by stepping outside her field and criticising others.

    So yeah - she's not an expert in this context. In prehistoric dogs, maybe, but definitely not in matters of climate.

    Or are you saying that because she's a scientist her opinion on anything at all science-related is worth the same as specialists from the precise field in question? Because that would be sheer lunacy, for obvious reasons.

  6. Re:And still nothing in the US on Japan's Shinkansen Bullet Trains Celebrate 50th Anniversary · · Score: 1

    It might be simpler to rent your own car, but it's not recommended to drive your car at ~200MPH while drinking beer, watching movies, sleeping, and/or having dinner. Trains like these also aren't as expensive as you might imagine, and coupled with a decent citywide public transport system, make getting around ridiculously easy. This isn't rocket science. And no, it's probably not cheaper to just have jets, as trains stop at stations along the way, which jets don't. You'd have to compare many jets to a single train - the train clearly wins. Plus factor in the waiting time associated with jets, and again the trains start to look even better.

  7. Re: anti-science idiocy on Antarctic Ice Loss Big Enough To Cause Measurable Shift In Earth's Gravity · · Score: 1

    No, it's scientifically correct to tie this to global warming, if global warming has something to do with it. Politics has nothing to do with it - that is a different discussion entirely.

  8. Re:The last sentence in the summary... on Antarctic Ice Loss Big Enough To Cause Measurable Shift In Earth's Gravity · · Score: 1

    The silence is deafening.

  9. Re:The last sentence in the summary... on Antarctic Ice Loss Big Enough To Cause Measurable Shift In Earth's Gravity · · Score: 1

    No, just that in climatology periods of ~30 years are used to measure differences. It has nothing to do with the age of a phenomenon, but how quickly it changes. I think you can understand that the climate can change a lot quicker than geological processes can.

  10. Re:The last sentence in the summary... on Antarctic Ice Loss Big Enough To Cause Measurable Shift In Earth's Gravity · · Score: 1

    What? A denier had his facts wrong and guessed a bunch of stuff which turned out to have never even been claimed in the first place? No waaaay!

  11. Re:The last sentence in the summary... on Antarctic Ice Loss Big Enough To Cause Measurable Shift In Earth's Gravity · · Score: 1

    Because it takes more than just those who haven't been poisoned by the Koch brothers to make a change. We need a concerted effort by all those who can in order to achieve the best results. The only reasons for not wanting to help are ignorance or selfishness. Your pick.

  12. Re:And still nothing in the US on Japan's Shinkansen Bullet Trains Celebrate 50th Anniversary · · Score: 1

    You can also switch at Brussels, which doesn't require leaving the station. You then go on to Geneva via Cologne.

  13. Re:Missing out on Man Walks Past Security Screening Staring At iPad, Causing Airport Evacuation · · Score: 1

    You missed "slow, easily defeatable" when describing those alternative weapons. If you think they're as deadly and effective as guns, why do people want guns for self defense? Just use a knife, steel pipe, baseball bat, wrench, box cutter, hammer, screwdriver, ice pick, awl, or a straight razor for protection.

  14. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    The same Susan Crockford who receives a monthly salary from the Heartland Institute, who is also not a climatologist or even a zoologist, but a paleozoologist specialising in Dog evolution? That's not real science, but an opinion bought by the Heartland Institute.

  15. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 5, Informative

    The same Susan Crockford who gets paid by the Heartland institute every month, and who is:

    a sessional adjunct professor in Archaeozoology in the Pacific Rim with research focuses on the domestication and breed development, evolutionary theory and the evolution and history of the domestic dog.

    Her opinion on climate science simply does not matter.

  16. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 1

    You seem to have missed the "Global" part of "Global warming". It doesn't matter if the whole of the US is under fifty feet of ice - if the globe has warmed up, global warming has happened.

  17. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are absolutely right - it's not a scientific debate. The science is settled. We're beyond that now. The debate amongst climatologists is for accuracy, not whether AGW exists or not. We're many decades past that point. The fact that there is such an overwhelming body of evidence showing AGW exists, and yet organisations and governments deny it exists shows that there are people willing to ignore science for other reasons. As long as that happens, science can't be used to convince them otherwise, as they have already deemed it ignorable if it proves antagonistic to their desired position.

    So yes, science is not well served by shouting down, but it's even less well-served by people simply ignoring it because it's telling them things they don't want to hear. Once that starts to happen, what should people do? Accept the purposeful ignoring of science as a valid position, and applause people for ignoring evidence?

    The sceptics have been proven wrong time and time again - they trot out the same weak arguments which have already been debunked, and get all indignant when that's pointed out. They pretend to play the "science game" - by using the correct language and going through the motions - but they don't listen to the answers when science provides them. They're the Glenn Becks of this discussion - they're asking questions but not bothering to hear, or even interested in, the answers, and definitely not bothering to change their position when it is demonstrated to be fundamentally at odds with every shred of evidence gathered.

    Of course not everything is caused by global warming, but conversely when the science shows that something is definitely affected by it, we can't point at alarmist media and claim that reflects the quality or content of the science. That is incredibly disingenuous.

  18. Re: The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 2

    You just made all of that up. Those are not the three choices we have. A systematic drive to use more green technology and to cut our pollution would help, but seems strangely absent from your list. You are not helping the situation by being so intellectually dishonest.

  19. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 0, Troll

    I doubt you'd ask a climatologist to explain the mating behaviours of fruit flies, so asking a zoologist about climate change seems equally bizarre. She's voicing her opinion, not fact.

  20. Re:The problem with double standards. on 35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska · · Score: 2

    You seem to be confusing what you hear on the news with what the actual scientists are saying. Pointing out you confusing the media with the science isn't "questioning the orthodoxy", just pointing out you are getting your scientific information from the mass media, which is never a good idea.

    Stick to the peer-reviewed papers, or to credible sources which perform actual analysis.

  21. Re:FP? on David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures · · Score: 1

    So? A larger country has more people to help with the switch-over, and a larger budget to deal with it. It's not as if Ireland spent as much money on conversion as, say, the US would. I seem to remember you trotting this nonsensical excuse out when discussing why the US's internet access is so generally terrible. It wasn't applicable there, and it's most certainly not applicable here.

  22. Re:FP? on David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures · · Score: 1

    Yes, some black people were hideously evil, but the entire population of grate swathes of Africa were victimised. Get a grip - you sound angry, scared, and confused.

  23. He was slightly more than just anti-Semitic - he actively helped the Nazis...

  24. He was "independently wealthy" - he sold his PayPal stock and was incredibly rich. He could have just poured it into an investment fund and been set for life.

    He literally was weeks away from losing everything. If that Space-X flight had not worked, all his money would literally have gone up in smoke.

    I get it - you're super jealous of the guy. That's no reason to chastise others for pointing out what actually happened.

  25. Re:Fristy Pawst! on Ebola Has Made It To the United States · · Score: 1

    You can do the exact same thing in these other countries, too. They have public healthcare for everyone, and if you want private, you can pay extra to get whatever you want, whenever you want. This is where it gets even more awesome - because the prices for the procedures/drugs/etc. are defined by the public healthcare system, the private prices are ridiculously cheap, should you want to pay for it yourself (which sounds ridiculous, as treatment in these socialist hellholes is fucking genius).

    It sounds like you are arguing from someone else's perspective, and that person doesn't know much about this subject. Either that or you assume your ignorance is the bastion of knowledge. Either way it's strange for someone to so vehemently argue in favour of something which is demonstrably incorrect, and rail against something which is demonstrably correct. But I guess as we're talking about the US healthcare system, it should be expected.