Which of these two did he choose to highlight as immoral? The poor person of course, not Apple's or his own immoral behavior.
While I agree with you substantively, I would like to point out that there is no shortage of people who will point to Apple's behaviour and highlight it as immoral.
You're missing the role of courts and lawyers in the interpretation of the law. There are many avenues to get around annoying rules without recourse to sponsoring politicians -- which really isn't a big problem in Australia.
Actually, the government makes the rules in consultation with courts. So expensive tax lawyers issue interpretations of tax law (usually ridiculously optimistic), and they become defacto interpretations of the law until the ATO (tax office) takes the company to court over a legal interpretation. The company essentially cannot get in trouble, because they were following legal advice. It is a game of cat and mouse, with the odds stacked against the ATO.
Also, when people talk about cheating behaviour... then it is important to distinguish between what is legal and what is moral. If you think everything legal is also moral, then things like slavery and Jim Crow are automagically moral because the state says so. Furthermore, it would have been immoral for American colonists to rise about against the crown, simply because it was illegal.
Here is the problem. profits == revenues minus costs. A certain Japanese car company used to import cars from the mother company at retail price, and then resell them at retail price. Lots of revenue, but huge on paper losses. The money was made by the importing company. If there were a simple solution, then it would be applied already.
One reason why I like GST is that it is so simple, so such a pain in the neck to avoid, although I'm sure some super-rich do a pretty good job. Maybe instead of taxing companies, they should pay directly for the services they use, although I have no idea to what extent that would be possible. It would certainly be a political no-starter.
Just because you don't like that doesn't make it not true.
Actually I *do* like the idea that string theory gets buried. My point still stands. Science deniers everywhere (esp. in the social sciences) will have to find a new branch of physics to rail against in order to rationalize their motivated reasoning.
In my experience, most of the anti-physics, anti-string-theory sentiment is based on "look, those really smart guys aren't so smart, so I must be smart too, or at least smart sounding."
I'm a mediator too. I'm also a cognitive scientist. In my personal experience, meditators attempt to fool themselves into some sort of "direct perception", which if you think about it, is a delusion. How could you know? And isn't it obvious that the mind is constructing thoughts? And by thoughts I mean/everything/ that you see and hear and feel and believe, and a lot more besides that you cannot ever have conscious awareness of. For example, did you know that you mind has band-pass filters in it? If you have direct perception, and it is obvious, then why can't you "see" it? Read what Sam Harris (another meditator) has to say about belief in "direct perception".
If every person in every culture in all times comes to believe or understand a concept (e.g., morality), then you can bet your bottom dollar that it is innate. You can also see evidence for morality in other animals. The bible says that we have veridical knowledge of good and evil, which itself is a delusion, but on par with what buddhists et al. teach about direct knowing.
Don't mistake the minds plasticity for *unlimited* plasticity. Also, that feeling of being right -- that is a construction of the mind. If you look into what thoughts have to do (their purpose), you'll see that It is a necessary signal to deal with an intractable problem. But don't confuse your feelings of certainty with reality. It doesn't matter how direct your perception seems, or how certain you feel about something, you could be completely barking wrong and never know it.
There is some basic level of perception which seems to preside outside (or around) the ego (so to speak); however, you must understand that that basic perception itself is a mental construction.
I get it. But you specifically called out "low climate sensitivity" as a falsification criteria, then failed to specify a value or an argument.
Great, so you agree that you can falsify AGW and CAGW without reference to climate sensitivity.
Note that this all started when I responded to your claim that AGW and CAGW are not falsifiable. I included the relevant information in the first post I made to you. Now think how hard it was to communicate this very mathematically-simple idea. It has taken days and half a dozen posts for you to concede that AGW and CAGW are actually falsifiable. The main problem was that you honed in on one point which you wanted to attack, but ignored the larger argument -- effectively attempting to bury it. This is a cliche mechanism that ensures no progress gets made in these types of discussions.
If we are going to plunge ahead, you need to promise to restrict yourself to very specific topics, address the *strongest* argument, and gracefully concede points when appropriate. If you cannot do this, then there is no point talking. I will do the same, in good faith, that you have managed to admit that AGW and CAGW are indeed falsifiable.
Hi, I think that you have given a reasonable topology. I seriously doubt any simple explanation for passing between stage to the other, or even if it can be done. For example:
(4) probably requires brain damage (a tumor) or some genetics as the major causal factor -- but still one amongst many.
(3), most happy people, with "normal" thought processes actually let their thoughts and behaviours dictate their opinions and likes, as opposed to the other way around. I remember having an interesting discussion with such a person at school: not everyone has the luxury of just trusting their thoughts in this way.
(2) is definitely problematic way to deal with intrusive thoughts and can become pathological for the individual. Still, I believe that not everyone taught about good and evil will adopt this strategy, and that people who are not taught about good an evil will still adopt the strategy. We all implicitly label (pretty much every) thought as good and bad. Really this is on a spectrum of cognitive styles, which almost certainly has genes as a major causal factor. (See Turkheimer link in previous post.)
(1) is a healthy way to deal with intrusive thoughts, so my thoughts are covered above.
Thanks for sharing and letting me think about this.
If you want to understand how liberals deny science, then social constructionism is the best place to start. (Radical environmentalism is not a mainstream liberal view -- but would also qualify.)
I agree 100% with you on the psychological projection bit. This history of abuse part -- not so much.
If that is the argument we had better ban violent films too, because seeing someone murdered on screen makes you more likely to murder them in real life.
I've written on this very topic, and been in contact with top researchers in the field: Huesmann, Bushman, Anderson, and Strasburger. If you are interested in an erudite argument on why moral panic over violent media is overblown, then please see: Pinker "The blank slate", Trend "The myth of media violence", and Freedman "Media violence and its effects on aggression". I, of course, read extensively on both sides of the issue, and contacted the aforementioned, along with Trend, to find out their perspective on what is true, and how you know it. My personal opinion is that if media violence has any effect on real violence, then the effect is tiny, non-obvious, and non-linear. (Violence is a threshold behaviour.)
Extrapolating from that to sexual crime is another matter -- and that should be obvious.
People don't generally wrestle small furry animals while watching graphic violence of the day. If you were to press me for an opinion, I'd say that I really don't know, and further that moralizing about the issue is itself going to be counter-productive if you believe that action should be grounded in understanding.
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity, how it is measured, and why a specific value of it would be considered a falsification?:)
Try and read this very carefully.
I'm saying that AGW and CAGW can be falsified by observations that have *nothing* to do with climate sensitivity. I even gave examples, and tried to point out that you are systematically ignoring them. Now, this is about the sixth time I've said this, and you're still to catch on. So I've made a bet with my gf whether you get it this time or not.
Well that all depends on your model of human nature. If you believe in a hydraulic model of emotions (and emotions motivate behaviour), then synthetic pictures are *good* in that they can reduce the chance of a real living breathing victim. On the other hand, if you believe that indulging in behaviour promotes similar behaviour, or (orthogonality) if you believe that societal structure prevents crime, then synthetic pictures are *bad* because they would increase the likelihood of a real living breathing victim.
The hydraulic model of emotions has not credibility, and clinical psychologists *and* buddhists are likely to tell you that enacting an emotional state will increase the likelihood and intensity of similar future states. (The Dalai Lama says "like begets like" or something like that. Neurologists may make an argument based on the dark side of brain plasticity.)
Now, I don't believe any of that. (For real, my model of human nature is actually quite different to anything listed above.) But the point is that the world is more complex than: "I defy you to find the victim in that".
Hi, HS, if you want to talk about sensitivity, then you first have to admit that AGW and CAGW is falsifiable via other tests. You see, we have to settle one issue at a time, otherwise there is no point.
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity,
Not just low sensitivity. (face-palm.) Go back and read the thread.
Hi HS, if you want to discuss what constitutes low climate sensitivity, then you have to first admit that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable hypotheses for other reasons that you have been raised and ignored. Denial specifically works by changing the topic before such an admission. If you cannot be intellectually honest, then I have no time for you.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if the change in climate sensitivity would be met with surrender rather than an ad hoc special pleading
Yet this is exactly what you are doing.
There are many different *observations* that would disprove AGW and CAGW, and you're just trying to split hairs over one, but shifting the target from sensitivity to the effects of heating. And ignoring all the other ways that AGW and CAGW can be disprovien. My bet is that you will do this for many, many years to come.
Here's the problem - lacking any sort of specificity as to what "low climate sensitivity" is, or the specific nature and magnitude of both negative and positive natural feedbacks, you setup a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition.
Again this is absurd, since "low" is defined in terms of an actual amount of change... The more complex question is what is a safe amount of change, which is orthogonal to the sensitivity. But you can still disprove AGW by showing a low sensitivity.
And through any of the other things I listed, and almost certainly a dozen more.
1) how has IPCC's estimate of climate sensitivity changed over the years?
The estimated sensitivity hasn't changed much in 100 years.
2) what negative feedbacks have been excluded from existence?
And what positive feedbacks too. The more important question is why this would be done.
Hs, asking questions does not make you smart. If you had intellectual integrity, you would now admit that CAGW and AGW are both falsifiable theses, since they make predictions, and rely on theories that can be disproven. If you are a denier, then you will just move to another claim, or start talking about Popper while making up whole cloth a new philosophy of science that has nothing to do with realism. (Hint: if you don't see the connection, then that is proof that you don't know what you are talking about.)
Regarding the liberal/conservative thing: I am a scientist.
Evolution has a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Catastrophic global warming does not.
This is absurd. If we show that climate sensitivity is low, or that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that humans didn't put it there, that that there are negative feedbacks -- any of those lines of evidence will falsify AGW, and therefore CAGW as well.
What *precisely* is catastrophic is problematic because people have different value systems. Nonetheless, no warming would not be CAGW, and 10C warming would make many places unlivable -- as in animals would be slowly cooked. So it is more nuanced in pointing out possible or likely changes at certain levels of warming.
I'm sure you think you know more about this than me, but all I see is motivated reasoning clothed in "science"... I'm sure you'll weasel out some alternative claim so that you can keep preaching your religion.
Hi hs, it seems to me that some motivated reasoning is going on here. We both established that Pb has a short time-course, so paleolithic measurements of Pb aren't really relevant. If it only lasts upwards to 200 years, you only need to look back... 200 years. Also, there is no global Pb level, since the time-course is too short for global mixing. So any Pb measurement is necessarily local. Figure 2 shows the Pb measure growing by half to a full order of magnitude. The locality of the measurement is consistent with its distance for industrialized centres. The Saragossa Sea measurement shows a 15-fold increase over preindustrial levels. That Pb is coming from somewhere.
Also, it is important to realize that *everything* is a proxy. You think your thermometer isn't a proxy? It doesn't tell you the temperature in the room, there are all sorts of subtle local climates that aren't accounted for. A "skeptic" will point to unknowns about local climates to claim that the proxy isn't good enough. Good enough for *what* precisely is never discussed, because it is the underlying conclusion that is being avoided.
You will always be able to find some uncertainty, either directly in the measure, in the operationalization of the measure, or both. As such, it is an easy, and lazy game to point to uncertainties. Given the Pb measurements in corals, their locality, and what we know about gasoline usage, we can be fairly certain where the Pb came from. Sure there could be another source. Magic pixies could have created it. As such, we have no reason to believe that magic pixies didn't create the Pb.
You strike me as the type of person who is scientific only insofar as it jives with your politics, which is to say, you hate the thought that some forms of environmentalism is scientifically based, and therefore you are motivated to make hay out of uncertainties, even long after the balance of evidence has moved.
As such, you should apply for a job at Heartland, since that's what they do there.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not looking for something to prove AGW is true.
2) if they are not observed, then the *only* logical conclusion is AGW/CAGW. (sufficient)
Both cannot be true.
Just not social considerations, apparently.
I believe Cook is brand building, but also believes that environmental hatred is a legitimate threat to america.
Which of these two did he choose to highlight as immoral? The poor person of course, not Apple's or his own immoral behavior.
While I agree with you substantively, I would like to point out that there is no shortage of people who will point to Apple's behaviour and highlight it as immoral.
You're missing the role of courts and lawyers in the interpretation of the law. There are many avenues to get around annoying rules without recourse to sponsoring politicians -- which really isn't a big problem in Australia.
Actually, the government makes the rules in consultation with courts. So expensive tax lawyers issue interpretations of tax law (usually ridiculously optimistic), and they become defacto interpretations of the law until the ATO (tax office) takes the company to court over a legal interpretation. The company essentially cannot get in trouble, because they were following legal advice. It is a game of cat and mouse, with the odds stacked against the ATO.
Also, when people talk about cheating behaviour... then it is important to distinguish between what is legal and what is moral. If you think everything legal is also moral, then things like slavery and Jim Crow are automagically moral because the state says so. Furthermore, it would have been immoral for American colonists to rise about against the crown, simply because it was illegal.
19% to the company's revenues made here
Here is the problem. profits == revenues minus costs. A certain Japanese car company used to import cars from the mother company at retail price, and then resell them at retail price. Lots of revenue, but huge on paper losses. The money was made by the importing company. If there were a simple solution, then it would be applied already.
One reason why I like GST is that it is so simple, so such a pain in the neck to avoid, although I'm sure some super-rich do a pretty good job. Maybe instead of taxing companies, they should pay directly for the services they use, although I have no idea to what extent that would be possible. It would certainly be a political no-starter.
In fact I don't know any professional physicist whose criticism of string theory is motivated by such childish considerations.
Not physicists... I'm talking about wingnuts in the social sciences, and science deniers of other kinds as well. Sorry for not being clear.
Just because you don't like that doesn't make it not true.
Actually I *do* like the idea that string theory gets buried. My point still stands. Science deniers everywhere (esp. in the social sciences) will have to find a new branch of physics to rail against in order to rationalize their motivated reasoning.
String theory did produce predictions... like a graviton leaving the brane.
In my experience, most of the anti-physics, anti-string-theory sentiment is based on "look, those really smart guys aren't so smart, so I must be smart too, or at least smart sounding."
I'm a mediator too. I'm also a cognitive scientist. In my personal experience, meditators attempt to fool themselves into some sort of "direct perception", which if you think about it, is a delusion. How could you know? And isn't it obvious that the mind is constructing thoughts? And by thoughts I mean /everything/ that you see and hear and feel and believe, and a lot more besides that you cannot ever have conscious awareness of. For example, did you know that you mind has band-pass filters in it? If you have direct perception, and it is obvious, then why can't you "see" it? Read what Sam Harris (another meditator) has to say about belief in "direct perception".
If every person in every culture in all times comes to believe or understand a concept (e.g., morality), then you can bet your bottom dollar that it is innate. You can also see evidence for morality in other animals. The bible says that we have veridical knowledge of good and evil, which itself is a delusion, but on par with what buddhists et al. teach about direct knowing.
Don't mistake the minds plasticity for *unlimited* plasticity. Also, that feeling of being right -- that is a construction of the mind. If you look into what thoughts have to do (their purpose), you'll see that It is a necessary signal to deal with an intractable problem. But don't confuse your feelings of certainty with reality. It doesn't matter how direct your perception seems, or how certain you feel about something, you could be completely barking wrong and never know it.
There is some basic level of perception which seems to preside outside (or around) the ego (so to speak); however, you must understand that that basic perception itself is a mental construction.
I get it. But you specifically called out "low climate sensitivity" as a falsification criteria, then failed to specify a value or an argument.
Great, so you agree that you can falsify AGW and CAGW without reference to climate sensitivity.
Note that this all started when I responded to your claim that AGW and CAGW are not falsifiable. I included the relevant information in the first post I made to you. Now think how hard it was to communicate this very mathematically-simple idea. It has taken days and half a dozen posts for you to concede that AGW and CAGW are actually falsifiable. The main problem was that you honed in on one point which you wanted to attack, but ignored the larger argument -- effectively attempting to bury it. This is a cliche mechanism that ensures no progress gets made in these types of discussions.
If we are going to plunge ahead, you need to promise to restrict yourself to very specific topics, address the *strongest* argument, and gracefully concede points when appropriate. If you cannot do this, then there is no point talking. I will do the same, in good faith, that you have managed to admit that AGW and CAGW are indeed falsifiable.
Deal?
Hi, I think that you have given a reasonable topology. I seriously doubt any simple explanation for passing between stage to the other, or even if it can be done. For example:
(4) probably requires brain damage (a tumor) or some genetics as the major causal factor -- but still one amongst many.
(3), most happy people, with "normal" thought processes actually let their thoughts and behaviours dictate their opinions and likes, as opposed to the other way around. I remember having an interesting discussion with such a person at school: not everyone has the luxury of just trusting their thoughts in this way.
(2) is definitely problematic way to deal with intrusive thoughts and can become pathological for the individual. Still, I believe that not everyone taught about good and evil will adopt this strategy, and that people who are not taught about good an evil will still adopt the strategy. We all implicitly label (pretty much every) thought as good and bad. Really this is on a spectrum of cognitive styles, which almost certainly has genes as a major causal factor. (See Turkheimer link in previous post.)
(1) is a healthy way to deal with intrusive thoughts, so my thoughts are covered above.
Thanks for sharing and letting me think about this.
Easy: with a strong probability, the viewer itself has been a victim (or witness) of sexual abuse in his past.
Social constructionists want to believe this; however, it is probably not true. The great unspoken alternative hypothesis which is too controversial to be even mentioned in most of academia almost certainly explains why there is a small correlation between abuse and history of abuse. What is true or not is a complex question that I do not see being addressed anywhere on this issue.
If you want to understand how liberals deny science, then social constructionism is the best place to start. (Radical environmentalism is not a mainstream liberal view -- but would also qualify.)
I agree 100% with you on the psychological projection bit. This history of abuse part -- not so much.
If that is the argument we had better ban violent films too, because seeing someone murdered on screen makes you more likely to murder them in real life.
I've written on this very topic, and been in contact with top researchers in the field: Huesmann, Bushman, Anderson, and Strasburger. If you are interested in an erudite argument on why moral panic over violent media is overblown, then please see: Pinker "The blank slate", Trend "The myth of media violence", and Freedman "Media violence and its effects on aggression". I, of course, read extensively on both sides of the issue, and contacted the aforementioned, along with Trend, to find out their perspective on what is true, and how you know it. My personal opinion is that if media violence has any effect on real violence, then the effect is tiny, non-obvious, and non-linear. (Violence is a threshold behaviour.)
Extrapolating from that to sexual crime is another matter -- and that should be obvious.
People don't generally wrestle small furry animals while watching graphic violence of the day. If you were to press me for an opinion, I'd say that I really don't know, and further that moralizing about the issue is itself going to be counter-productive if you believe that action should be grounded in understanding.
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity, how it is measured, and why a specific value of it would be considered a falsification? :)
Try and read this very carefully.
I'm saying that AGW and CAGW can be falsified by observations that have *nothing* to do with climate sensitivity. I even gave examples, and tried to point out that you are systematically ignoring them. Now, this is about the sixth time I've said this, and you're still to catch on. So I've made a bet with my gf whether you get it this time or not.
so I defy you to find the victim in that.
Well that all depends on your model of human nature. If you believe in a hydraulic model of emotions (and emotions motivate behaviour), then synthetic pictures are *good* in that they can reduce the chance of a real living breathing victim. On the other hand, if you believe that indulging in behaviour promotes similar behaviour, or (orthogonality) if you believe that societal structure prevents crime, then synthetic pictures are *bad* because they would increase the likelihood of a real living breathing victim.
The hydraulic model of emotions has not credibility, and clinical psychologists *and* buddhists are likely to tell you that enacting an emotional state will increase the likelihood and intensity of similar future states. (The Dalai Lama says "like begets like" or something like that. Neurologists may make an argument based on the dark side of brain plasticity.)
Now, I don't believe any of that. (For real, my model of human nature is actually quite different to anything listed above.) But the point is that the world is more complex than: "I defy you to find the victim in that".
Hi, HS, if you want to talk about sensitivity, then you first have to admit that AGW and CAGW is falsifiable via other tests. You see, we have to settle one issue at a time, otherwise there is no point.
So wait, what you're saying is that the falsification only happens if *all* the things you mention are observed?
To falsify AGW and/or CAGW, you just have to show *any* of them. "or" is correct. Just show A, or B, or, ..., or Z, and AGW/CAGW is toast.
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity,
Not just low sensitivity. (face-palm.) Go back and read the thread.
Hi HS, if you want to discuss what constitutes low climate sensitivity, then you have to first admit that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable hypotheses for other reasons that you have been raised and ignored. Denial specifically works by changing the topic before such an admission. If you cannot be intellectually honest, then I have no time for you.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if the change in climate sensitivity would be met with surrender rather than an ad hoc special pleading
Yet this is exactly what you are doing.
There are many different *observations* that would disprove AGW and CAGW, and you're just trying to split hairs over one, but shifting the target from sensitivity to the effects of heating. And ignoring all the other ways that AGW and CAGW can be disprovien. My bet is that you will do this for many, many years to come.
Saddam impeded the inspectors at every turn.
The actual inspectors on the ground disagree with this assessment.
Here's the problem - lacking any sort of specificity as to what "low climate sensitivity" is, or the specific nature and magnitude of both negative and positive natural feedbacks, you setup a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition.
Again this is absurd, since "low" is defined in terms of an actual amount of change... The more complex question is what is a safe amount of change, which is orthogonal to the sensitivity. But you can still disprove AGW by showing a low sensitivity.
And through any of the other things I listed, and almost certainly a dozen more.
1) how has IPCC's estimate of climate sensitivity changed over the years?
The estimated sensitivity hasn't changed much in 100 years.
2) what negative feedbacks have been excluded from existence?
And what positive feedbacks too. The more important question is why this would be done.
Hs, asking questions does not make you smart. If you had intellectual integrity, you would now admit that CAGW and AGW are both falsifiable theses, since they make predictions, and rely on theories that can be disproven. If you are a denier, then you will just move to another claim, or start talking about Popper while making up whole cloth a new philosophy of science that has nothing to do with realism. (Hint: if you don't see the connection, then that is proof that you don't know what you are talking about.)
Regarding the liberal/conservative thing: I am a scientist.
Evolution has a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Catastrophic global warming does not.
This is absurd. If we show that climate sensitivity is low, or that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that humans didn't put it there, that that there are negative feedbacks -- any of those lines of evidence will falsify AGW, and therefore CAGW as well.
What *precisely* is catastrophic is problematic because people have different value systems. Nonetheless, no warming would not be CAGW, and 10C warming would make many places unlivable -- as in animals would be slowly cooked. So it is more nuanced in pointing out possible or likely changes at certain levels of warming.
I'm sure you think you know more about this than me, but all I see is motivated reasoning clothed in "science"... I'm sure you'll weasel out some alternative claim so that you can keep preaching your religion.
Hi hs, it seems to me that some motivated reasoning is going on here. We both established that Pb has a short time-course, so paleolithic measurements of Pb aren't really relevant. If it only lasts upwards to 200 years, you only need to look back... 200 years. Also, there is no global Pb level, since the time-course is too short for global mixing. So any Pb measurement is necessarily local. Figure 2 shows the Pb measure growing by half to a full order of magnitude. The locality of the measurement is consistent with its distance for industrialized centres. The Saragossa Sea measurement shows a 15-fold increase over preindustrial levels. That Pb is coming from somewhere.
Also, it is important to realize that *everything* is a proxy. You think your thermometer isn't a proxy? It doesn't tell you the temperature in the room, there are all sorts of subtle local climates that aren't accounted for. A "skeptic" will point to unknowns about local climates to claim that the proxy isn't good enough. Good enough for *what* precisely is never discussed, because it is the underlying conclusion that is being avoided.
You will always be able to find some uncertainty, either directly in the measure, in the operationalization of the measure, or both. As such, it is an easy, and lazy game to point to uncertainties. Given the Pb measurements in corals, their locality, and what we know about gasoline usage, we can be fairly certain where the Pb came from. Sure there could be another source. Magic pixies could have created it. As such, we have no reason to believe that magic pixies didn't create the Pb.
You strike me as the type of person who is scientific only insofar as it jives with your politics, which is to say, you hate the thought that some forms of environmentalism is scientifically based, and therefore you are motivated to make hay out of uncertainties, even long after the balance of evidence has moved.
As such, you should apply for a job at Heartland, since that's what they do there.