Pretty much anybody will turn into a willing torturer with the correct social cues.
I personally believe that education can inoculate people to a certain extent. So perhaps we could blame our schools curriculum for not include important, possibly life saving information.
Our legal system is behind as well - based on a very 19th Century notion of the rational human being. Problem is, that it really has no basis in fact.
You see, that's the very core of the problem - professionals know this stuff, yet society still has a blind spot. The results are tragic.
Blaming the perpetrators, and pointing out illegality is worse than useless. It creates a moral barrier between oneself and the crime - a barrier that we have no right to erect, and it's a barrier based on ignorance. Blaming is akin to saying "I wouldn't do it" - pointing out one's own virtue. This is part of a chain that allows the problems to persist.
Milgram did his experiment because he wanted to understand why the holocaust happened. How did the German guards turn so brutal? There was a myth that it had to be something to do with the German character. Milgram dispelled that myth.
Ignorance of these facts will lead to more beatings in the future, and more deaths. China, Florida, Germany, it doesn't matter where.
In chasing the antecedents of blame, one must look at the organisers of the boot camp. Perhaps they should have known better.
That's because you're either *with* us, or *against* us. In so many different ways. So... are you pro-corporate america or not? And if you're against corporate america, then exactly what tribe *are* you from, and why are you even here!
Actually most climate scientists that I talk to openly tell me that no one has any freaking clue as to what is going on with global warming, whether it's man made or not.
For some reason I suddenly doubt that you know more than 1 or 2 students, and zero scientists. Who are these "most" climate scientists that you rub shoulders with? Have they published any papers?
The thing about having opinions is that they shape how we process the world, distort our memory, and filter information.
So you admit that climate scientists being paid by oil companies has no bearing on the veracity of their research?
On one side you have a bunch of scientists in an adversarial situation, trying their best to *understand*, which is why they became scientists in the first place. On the other side, is a bunch of marketing firms, some ghost writers, a few really smart people who really know very little about science or the climate (most of the denial literature is published by just a handful of people - most of them not even scientists), and a powerful vested interest in stalling any sort of policy decision. The latter side is not interested in understanding what's happening at all. So far, they have achieved their objective. You are their pawn.
I agree with your points however, be careful not to make the claim that just because big oil funds research means it is biased somehow makes federally funded research unbiased.
Sure, which is why one needs to look at the research - just a little bit. Follow the references. FUD falls on its face really quickly when you follow the references. The FUD works precisely because 99.9% of people can be relied upon not to bother, and fall back on the plausible assumption that *both* sides aren't listening to each other, and the truth must therefore be in the middle. Marketing firms worked that out a long time ago - they know how to get what they want, and it works. Sadly.
Biologist P.Z. Myers has criticized Kurzweil's predictions as being based on "New Age spiritualism" rather than science and says that Kurzweil does not understand basic biology.
Having some personal understanding of both, I heartily agree. Lets separate out wishful thinking and esoteric "knowing" - both are merely ungrounded speculation.
Myers also claims that Kurzweil picks and chooses events that appear to demonstrate his claim of exponential technological increase leading up to a singularity, and ignores events that do not.
I once seriously considered a strategy for building and artificial brain with a veteran professor of computer science. Examining the problem I gave up when I realised that the individual cells are "intelligent". I think this is vitally important How does the "mind" of a protozoa work? They can navigate obstacles, identify and assimilate food, run away from danger, and have a 20 minute memory. We can assume that a single neurone may well have all of these capabilities and more. I believe that we may be myopically focused on nodes and connections, without considering just how complex and capable a single node is.
So the complexity of the problem is probably an order of magnitude beyond 22 billion neurones and 220 trillion connections. Then consider the effect of 1000s of unknown neurotransmitters - and we know little about the "known" ones, such as serotonin and dopamine, except that they have a profound effect. And _then_, consider that the brain has structure, and we know comparatively little about that structure, and only a few hints about the algorithms and data structures that it uses.
if genetics didn't make us who we are, then dogs could talk and trade stocks. But they can't, because they are dogs, and they are dogs because of their genetics, epi-genetics, and biology.
OMFG! There is a fallacy here - just because language has some genetic basis (perhaps Chomsky's LAD), doesn't mean that everything has a genetic basis. In fact, even language acquisition has a very strong environmental basis, or do you think you know the words and concepts you do because they are programmed into your genes! Of course - they are learned
The brain is a huge information storage and processing device, and is designed to transmit that information to other brains. In effect, it's a better information transmission device than DNA (sex being the first conversation, some billion years ago). That information changes the brain, and the brain changes itself. This information, and these changes have a profound effect on our behaviour.
I play chess, and there's this saying: "between the opening and the endgame is this little thing called the middle-game". It's actually the most important part of the game to understand.
Your opinion is horrendously uninformed, and belongs to the category "doesn't know he doesn't know".
Your "thesis" would nullify the extraordinarily well established science of learning. If you're really interested in the whole nature-vs-nurture thing, then study developmental psychology.
Yes - no argument on that. I think the USA has been a little trigger happy in the last 50 years - definitely some grey murky territory at the very least - we can probably agree on that too, right?
So I take it back: Sweden would be speaking Russian today, not German. Thanks for the correction!
=)
Read about Operation Sealion - it's fascinating stuff. If Germany was ever going to defeat the UK, they would have done it before the entry of either the USSR or the USA.
Also, due to some absolutely brilliant technology, determined fighting, (but perhaps mediocre command), the Commonwealth essentially drove the Germans and Italians out of North Africa before the USA really entered that theatre. (Operation torch.)
Also, don't underestimate the power of the minor nations either. The forces of Norway, Greece, Poland and Finland all gave the Germans and USSR more trouble than it was worth. The Swiss and Swedes had great defences, and would not have been overrun that easily. Hungry, Romania and Finland supported axis, with much needed resources and manpower, but switched sides.
Perhaps the one *huge* error the Nazi's made was to view the USSR as populated by some homogeneous inferior race. The Ukraine greeted them as liberators - a sentiment short-lived when the Nazi racial policy set in. If the Nazi's really did liberate the Ukraine, then they would have gained access to a vast pool of natural resources and people that probably would have tipped the balance on Russia. There were many other ethnic groups in the USSR who really weren't fond of the Russians as well. Instead, the Nazi's turned a route into "The Great Patriotic War".
If it weren't for the U.S. involvement in WWI and WWII, Sweden would be speaking German today, so how's about you get some fucking perspective? Is that too much to ask (he queried, knowing the answer)?
The USSR and UK bore the brunt of WWII. Esp. the USSR. They are the ones who actually went out and fought the Germans en-masse, developed much of the technology, and did most of the manufacturing. The USA was "the arsenal", but it's debatable if Germany would have been victorious over the UK and the USSR even if the USA didn't step in. The British navy controlled the seas, and the USSR was too big, too cold, and there were too many of them. They also fought tenaciously.
The US involvement in WWI was late in the game, and after Germany was doomed. Like when the USSR declared war on Japan in 1945.
You talk about fucking perspective - you'll find it in history books.
So, if the US doesn't spend $quintilliion on the military, then someone else would rise up and take over? That's a little grandiose. The US keeps its grip because of it's economic power, which is waning, and will continue to wane. Most empires fall shortly after they enact a large standing military.
On the other hand, it seems more prudent to think about ways to spend less on killing machines. The SALT talks helped limit nuclear armament in a way detractors never suspected. Conventional weapons could be limited as well. And that would extend the life of US hegemony.
If the US and UK didn't waste half as much on military, then the rest of the world would sigh in relief and spend less as well. Don't forget that its the US that is getting into wars every few years, and spends as much on the military as the rest of the planet. Way to go peacekeepers! I think we'd all be better off *without* your guns.
I hate to break it to you, but for the last 3 or so months that you were in the womb, you were floating in your own excrement
Excrement is foul only because of the levels of bacteria and microbes growing in it. Same with urine. AFAIK, the womb is essentially sterile, and the fetus' stomach hasn't been seeded with e-coli. So your statement is really quite misleading. It's not excrement as we think of it, but rather, recycled amniotic fluid, and a few cells from an unformed, unused intestine. Finally, it's also a very small amount.
What I don't understand is what the journals need all that money for. Scientists write the articles, and do the peer-review for free. Distribution is electronic, and the marginal cost close to free. (If we can find server-space for a hundred linux distributions, we can find server-space for a bunch of pdfs.) All the journal gives is tradition and prestige.
And for that, they charge whatever they can get away with, and take our copyrights. Truly inefficient economics.
So, what you're saying is that the computer works for people instead of the other way around?
That was the intention, but the result was a mess. It would have been better if the computer required valid input in the first place, and the world would have saved a fortune.
Nice, you couldn't even point out one error in McIntyre's paper, and yet you stubbornly cling to your conspiracy theories.
It is often very difficult to process information that is outside of one's schema. Go back and look at it again - it's right there. I linked to an entire paper on the flaws in McIntyre's paper. I guess you didn't read it. I also summarised out 3 flaws. Perhaps you missed them.
You then might notice that I did not want values from models, but experimental values.
If your theoretical derivation doesn't match observed data, then one must assume that there's something missing from the theory. You wanted some derivation about 10m of CO2, and I responded by linking to the derivation for the entire atmosphere. Considering the linked derivation is in close agreement with measurements , then we must conclude that the linked derivation uses the current theory correctly. It's a pity that the linked paper was for the real-world atmosphere, and not a theoretical 10m tube - though I don't think it'd make a difference to you.
I dug around on the internet and discovered the "CO2 can't be a greenhouse 'cause it saturates at 10m" argument. This argument must have some flaw, because real-world measurements show CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas - see the paper that I linked.
You do know that the standard deviation has a very precise definition (really, go look it up), and that what you wrote is so muddle-headed, vague, and just plain meaningless.
More important than the mathematical definition, is how it is applied to real-world problems. The standard deviation isn't some rosetta stone for deciphering reality - it's just an equation, which must be applied precisely. Hence, I explained why its application was inappropriate in this case. So if you think it should applied, then explain to why.
Reality be dammed, as long as it doesn't make you happy you can ignore any equation that fits the data and provides a theoretical understanding.
You said, and I quote "I'd be quite interested if you'd actually be able to find flaws in this." Is that really true? If you are quite interested, then show it by putting your money where your mouth is.
I only want to work with your understanding of the equation, and your numbers, because, otherwise, I suspect you'll declare any fault I find to be a problem with my understanding. You see, I really just want you to table your argument precisely, cause otherwise pointing out a flaw is like trying to hit a moving target.
I asked for specifics, quoting more accusations about McIntyre without being able to provide attribution to what he has written will be taken as proof that said accusations are baseless.
I gave you his paper, a paper showing the mistakes and a summary. I also linked a page summarising where McIntyre has got it wrong. If that's not sufficient to add some basis to the accusations, then I can't help you, and I suspect no-one can. I give up, try to have a good day.
"A derivation" has a precise meaning, it means from first (physical) principles. A calculation does not mean the same thing. BTW, providing answers isn't really helpful when the point is to follow the reasoning as to how the answer was arrived at.
Well, a linked paper had a derivation of how CO2 absorbs energy in the earth's atmosphere. This calculation was in accordance with observations. The "10m CO2 tube" stuff is a red-herring, since science has the sums and data from the real world. Do you understand that? REAL WORLD OBSERVATIONS. And not just 10m, from the ground all the way to space.
Once again, the specific claim was that no one has taken the observed temperature readings, and calculated the standard deviation
I did some thinking about this. It's a meaningless calculation because the error will very quickly approach the size of what's being measured. For the same reason, we can't know the location of Mars in 10000 years. But we do know where it's orbit should be. Likewise, we can't know the temperature in New York in 1 years time, but we do know what the range should be. So calculating the standard deviation on a point estimate in 1 years time is not very helpful.
The dry adiabatic lapse rate on wikipedia isn't well formatted enough for you?
No it's not. I give up. Forget it. This is a waste of my time.
What mistakes - specifics examples from his 2005 paper please?
Read the McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) report. It's been discreted by Rutherford et al. (2005) If you read my post carefully, you'll realise that I made those accusations, and backed them up by referring to Rutherford's paper. For the lazy, this is the short of it:
M&M used the wrong version of Mann et al. (1998). (that should be enough right there.)
M&M eliminated 70% of Mann's data due to some methodological misunderstanding. (I will not summerize, you must read. It's on page 13-14.)
Mann et al.s reconstruction is reproducible, and within close approximation (2 standard deviations) of other methods. M&M's is not.
Interestingly, the hockey stick does appear in a reconstruction using M&M's method and subset of data. This fact is left out of their report.
"I want to know what the observed experimental data is, from a ~10 meter tube, or the observed atmosphere, or such, not computer models" - the absorption spectrum of CO2 is measured by a spectrometer over ~1cm, I think it's important to have done the (simple) experiment that would verify we know how CO2 behaves over longer distances, if it's a fundamental part of our models.
Here is a derivation. Here is an article on observations of CO2 absorption. Also, the linked diagram was observational data.
I did some googling, and I think I found the argument your putting forward - that CO2 absorption saturates after 10m. See here
My specific claim about standard deviation is that no one has taken the observed temperature readings, and calculated the standard deviation from that, for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year. If you've read a paper which has this value, please provide a quote, and link.
Anyway, you wanted to know what's wrong with the equation you specified, *I don't care about the rest*. Please upload a well-formated copy somewhere, with the numbers and working for Earth and Venus. I'll figure it out and get back to you.
It's rather disingenuous to expect me to provide a simpler derivation
If you say so, however, I'm not after a simpler derivation. I'd like to see your working with your numbers, and formatted so I can read it without having to write is out from scratch. I don't want to do the leg work only to have you tell me I didn't do it right. I want to see you do it, and be happy with the equation, and then I'll do the leg work.
Given that the climate science debate is essentially scientists on one side, vs. a bunch of marketing firms on the other, it's no wonder that scientists make ad-homiems against McIntyre, who persistently makes clever, but flawed claims. The guy/could/ be genuine, which would make him psycho, or he could be dishonest, or he could be an unsung genius who just makes lots of mistakes in all his papers, and keeps making erroneous claims, but is "right" at heart (which is psyho - I'm a psych major).
Anyway, if he's got something cogent to say, people will and have responded. We know that, because scientists respond to his non-cogent claims. For example, where he's cherry-picking data, or making conclusions outside the statistical strength of the data (even if it wasn't cherry-picked). After doing this a couple of times, people just role their eyes, and think: "he goes McIntyre again, and we're expected to take him seriously." The vitriol and ad homiems reflects a certain level of frustration, but lets just leave them aside, and go to the core claims. Can you find a single cogent claim by McIntyre that hasn't been discredited? Link me a paper.
Consider the frustration level in the science-vs-marketing-firms debate. Lets not get too side-tracked here. If you RTFA, you'll find a very poor quality piece of pseudo-science by Carlin, being quashed by the EPA, and a legion of people talking about scientific bias, and therefore no action should be taken on AGW. That's specifically the result that the marketing firms want. They don't want to discredit AGW (that's a dream), they just want to stall any policy decision. There wasn't scientific bias in the EPA-Calin case; the problem is obvious: Carlin didn't have a scientific paper. If he's really got something to say, he should respond to criticism by updating and resubmitting a higher quality piece of work.
The previously cited McIntyre & McKitrick article was discredited by Rutherford, Mann, Osborn, Bradley, Briffa, Huges & Jones (2005). Reading through Mann, then McIntyre & McKitrick and then Rutherford et al - is enough to realise that McIntyre just isn't producing a quality evidence based argument. McIntyre has not responded to this rebuttal - so we can assume that he just doesn't know how to. It's been 4 years.
Despite that, people still respond to his clever rhetoric, and as I pointed out, sometimes revise their position. (Show me evidence of McIntyre doing that.)
You claim that climate scientists aren't using standard-deviations in their work. Can you be a little more concrete? What piece of work are you talking about exactly. Your claim is too general. For example, I could point out that standard deviations are used in Jones & Mann (2004), in which Mann shows the faults with the little ice-age and medieval warm period arguments. Good enough? I didn't think so. What articles are you talking about!
You say you want to see observed or experimental data for a ~10 metre tube of CO2. AFAIK, the linked diagram was from actual measurements. It seems like you want me to do some calculations for you that you don't know how to do yourself??? That just makes no sense. If you're really interested, and don't know how to do it yourself, then I recommend visiting a professor at a university, who can point you in the right direction.
Also, I can't really follow your short-hand maths. Can you scan a neat copy and upload it. Do the equation for Earth as well. You say it fits, I don't want to second-guess you. I want to see the equation, _and_ the numbers and working that you use. I will take it to a physics professor and talk about it - understand what's going on. I have done physics and maths at an undergraduate level, however, I'm a psych major. So I can follow the arguments. It's been a decade since I had my paws in differential equations
If you can do this, then I can do my thing, and work out if what you're saying actually makes sense. Right?
You should be aware that McIntyre (of climateaudit.org) has been implicated in publishing a paper McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) that tries to reinstate the medieval warm period by censoring the data used in analysis. Furthermore, there paper fails statistical verification tests - it's mathematically unsound. Just something to be aware of. Note that the scientific community does listen to McIntyre, despite this proven intellectual dishonesty. The US temperature record was changed slightly when McIntyre correctly pointed out an aberation in 1999-2000 US data, due to data collection technicalities.
Anyway, are you saying that the simple equation you provided fits temperature measurements on Earth? Earth's temperature variations must be due to a change in atmospheric pressure then, right? The equation for Venus isn't really that useful, since it's known that CO2 doesn't actually trap very much heat. So fill in the numbers for Earth... and we'll see where that goes.
like what is the decrease in transmission for various wavelengths for say a ten meter insulated tube with various atmospheres, is it still logarithmic over atmospheric distances?
You can see a diagram here, that shows water, ozone and CO2 cooling and heating various parts on the atmosphere, at specific wavelengths. This diagram is reproduced from Claugh & Iacono (1995), you can read the original paper if you want to see how to get from raw data to the diagram.
I would like to know, quantitatively about feedback, the length of CO2 in the atmosphere, clouds, and many other processes, either from first principles, or experiment, and somewhat fundamentally, the calculated standard deviation of the weather for 1 year, 2 years, etc.
It sounds to me that you want me to dig up the details on climate models. They are in the IPCC reports. They don't include standard deviations for weather, but they do include averages and standard deviations for climate change. You can find them on here. The models come with documentation for how they are put together, data visualisation tools, point estimates, and standard deviations (which are required to make point estimates meaningful).
As for your exact equation - I know that atmospheric dynamics are actually much more complex than that. For example, the earth's temperature is reactive to CO2 concentrations on a logarithmic scale.
I will look further into this equation, however, there are some flaws in the argument that I can point out:
CO2 isn't much of a greenhouse gas. The most potent greenhouse gas on earth in H20. CO2, on the other hand, has a subtle but persistent effect. For example, a small increase in CO2 will lead to a small increase in temperature will lead to more water vapour, will lead to more temperature, will lead to more CO2 (it leaches out of the ocean) and H2O, etc. The earth can't really have a run-away greenhouse effect - other factors are at play. Increases in CO2 will lead to temperature changes that persist for 1000s of years, because the CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a long time, and it also takes a long time for the ocean-atmosphere to reach CO2 equilibrium.
Also, does this equation predict the temperature on Earth/Mars/etc? If not, then what's different? Venus' atmosphere is very different to Earths, and so is the pressure, and altitude of the continents. It's/known/ that CO2 doesn't trap that much heat, and that's pretty much all Venus has.
Therefore, it's entirely plausible that Venus has almost all CO2 for atmosphere, however, the CO2 doesn't really trap that much heat. That doesn't challenge the notion that CO2 is dangerous on Earth.
This notion that scientists are somehow conspiring to drum up CO2 fear to grab money and power is a little absurd. There are institutions across the USA falling over themselves to fund any sort of serious challenge to the scientific argument. Any scientist with a decent study will be able to get funding from Exxon and friends. The arguments and data in these theoretical studies will need to be answered by the scientific community. So far there exists no study with a cogent argument against AGW. (If you think you know one, then please share.) Perhaps no-one is clever enough to do such a study. We know the financial incentive for such studies is there because Exxon on friends fund a bunch of marketing firms and think tanks specifically to "create" such studies, as well as communicate their "message" to the public. Carlin's study (that the EPA quashed) is an example on one such study. It was quashed, because it doesn't meet the standards of a peer reviewed article - for example, the references are merely web-pages, which themselves don't reference any data.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty much anybody will turn into a willing torturer with the correct social cues.
I personally believe that education can inoculate people to a certain extent. So perhaps we could blame our schools curriculum for not include important, possibly life saving information.
Our legal system is behind as well - based on a very 19th Century notion of the rational human being. Problem is, that it really has no basis in fact.
You see, that's the very core of the problem - professionals know this stuff, yet society still has a blind spot. The results are tragic.
Blaming the perpetrators, and pointing out illegality is worse than useless. It creates a moral barrier between oneself and the crime - a barrier that we have no right to erect, and it's a barrier based on ignorance. Blaming is akin to saying "I wouldn't do it" - pointing out one's own virtue. This is part of a chain that allows the problems to persist.
Milgram did his experiment because he wanted to understand why the holocaust happened. How did the German guards turn so brutal? There was a myth that it had to be something to do with the German character. Milgram dispelled that myth.
Ignorance of these facts will lead to more beatings in the future, and more deaths. China, Florida, Germany, it doesn't matter where.
In chasing the antecedents of blame, one must look at the organisers of the boot camp. Perhaps they should have known better.
That's because you're either *with* us, or *against* us. In so many different ways. So... are you pro-corporate america or not? And if you're against corporate america, then exactly what tribe *are* you from, and why are you even here!
I think it's a bizarre polarisation.
Actually most climate scientists that I talk to openly tell me that no one has any freaking clue as to what is going on with global warming, whether it's man made or not.
For some reason I suddenly doubt that you know more than 1 or 2 students, and zero scientists. Who are these "most" climate scientists that you rub shoulders with? Have they published any papers?
The thing about having opinions is that they shape how we process the world, distort our memory, and filter information.
So you admit that climate scientists being paid by oil companies has no bearing on the veracity of their research?
On one side you have a bunch of scientists in an adversarial situation, trying their best to *understand*, which is why they became scientists in the first place. On the other side, is a bunch of marketing firms, some ghost writers, a few really smart people who really know very little about science or the climate (most of the denial literature is published by just a handful of people - most of them not even scientists), and a powerful vested interest in stalling any sort of policy decision. The latter side is not interested in understanding what's happening at all. So far, they have achieved their objective. You are their pawn.
I agree with your points however, be careful not to make the claim that just because big oil funds research means it is biased somehow makes federally funded research unbiased.
Sure, which is why one needs to look at the research - just a little bit. Follow the references. FUD falls on its face really quickly when you follow the references. The FUD works precisely because 99.9% of people can be relied upon not to bother, and fall back on the plausible assumption that *both* sides aren't listening to each other, and the truth must therefore be in the middle. Marketing firms worked that out a long time ago - they know how to get what they want, and it works. Sadly.
Biologist P.Z. Myers has criticized Kurzweil's predictions as being based on "New Age spiritualism" rather than science and says that Kurzweil does not understand basic biology.
Having some personal understanding of both, I heartily agree. Lets separate out wishful thinking and esoteric "knowing" - both are merely ungrounded speculation.
Myers also claims that Kurzweil picks and chooses events that appear to demonstrate his claim of exponential technological increase leading up to a singularity, and ignores events that do not.
I once seriously considered a strategy for building and artificial brain with a veteran professor of computer science. Examining the problem I gave up when I realised that the individual cells are "intelligent". I think this is vitally important How does the "mind" of a protozoa work? They can navigate obstacles, identify and assimilate food, run away from danger, and have a 20 minute memory. We can assume that a single neurone may well have all of these capabilities and more. I believe that we may be myopically focused on nodes and connections, without considering just how complex and capable a single node is.
So the complexity of the problem is probably an order of magnitude beyond 22 billion neurones and 220 trillion connections. Then consider the effect of 1000s of unknown neurotransmitters - and we know little about the "known" ones, such as serotonin and dopamine, except that they have a profound effect. And _then_, consider that the brain has structure, and we know comparatively little about that structure, and only a few hints about the algorithms and data structures that it uses.
if genetics didn't make us who we are, then dogs could talk and trade stocks. But they can't, because they are dogs, and they are dogs because of their genetics, epi-genetics, and biology.
OMFG! There is a fallacy here - just because language has some genetic basis (perhaps Chomsky's LAD), doesn't mean that everything has a genetic basis. In fact, even language acquisition has a very strong environmental basis, or do you think you know the words and concepts you do because they are programmed into your genes! Of course - they are learned
The brain is a huge information storage and processing device, and is designed to transmit that information to other brains. In effect, it's a better information transmission device than DNA (sex being the first conversation, some billion years ago). That information changes the brain, and the brain changes itself. This information, and these changes have a profound effect on our behaviour.
I play chess, and there's this saying: "between the opening and the endgame is this little thing called the middle-game". It's actually the most important part of the game to understand.
Your opinion is horrendously uninformed, and belongs to the category "doesn't know he doesn't know". Your "thesis" would nullify the extraordinarily well established science of learning. If you're really interested in the whole nature-vs-nurture thing, then study developmental psychology.
I presume we can agree on that. :-)
Yes - no argument on that. I think the USA has been a little trigger happy in the last 50 years - definitely some grey murky territory at the very least - we can probably agree on that too, right?
So I take it back: Sweden would be speaking Russian today, not German. Thanks for the correction!
=)
Read about Operation Sealion - it's fascinating stuff. If Germany was ever going to defeat the UK, they would have done it before the entry of either the USSR or the USA.
Also, due to some absolutely brilliant technology, determined fighting, (but perhaps mediocre command), the Commonwealth essentially drove the Germans and Italians out of North Africa before the USA really entered that theatre. (Operation torch.)
Also, don't underestimate the power of the minor nations either. The forces of Norway, Greece, Poland and Finland all gave the Germans and USSR more trouble than it was worth. The Swiss and Swedes had great defences, and would not have been overrun that easily. Hungry, Romania and Finland supported axis, with much needed resources and manpower, but switched sides.
Perhaps the one *huge* error the Nazi's made was to view the USSR as populated by some homogeneous inferior race. The Ukraine greeted them as liberators - a sentiment short-lived when the Nazi racial policy set in. If the Nazi's really did liberate the Ukraine, then they would have gained access to a vast pool of natural resources and people that probably would have tipped the balance on Russia. There were many other ethnic groups in the USSR who really weren't fond of the Russians as well. Instead, the Nazi's turned a route into "The Great Patriotic War".
Gotta love hubris.
If it weren't for the U.S. involvement in WWI and WWII, Sweden would be speaking German today, so how's about you get some fucking perspective? Is that too much to ask (he queried, knowing the answer)?
The USSR and UK bore the brunt of WWII. Esp. the USSR. They are the ones who actually went out and fought the Germans en-masse, developed much of the technology, and did most of the manufacturing. The USA was "the arsenal", but it's debatable if Germany would have been victorious over the UK and the USSR even if the USA didn't step in. The British navy controlled the seas, and the USSR was too big, too cold, and there were too many of them. They also fought tenaciously.
The US involvement in WWI was late in the game, and after Germany was doomed. Like when the USSR declared war on Japan in 1945.
You talk about fucking perspective - you'll find it in history books.
Score 1 for systemic madness!
So, if the US doesn't spend $quintilliion on the military, then someone else would rise up and take over? That's a little grandiose. The US keeps its grip because of it's economic power, which is waning, and will continue to wane. Most empires fall shortly after they enact a large standing military.
On the other hand, it seems more prudent to think about ways to spend less on killing machines. The SALT talks helped limit nuclear armament in a way detractors never suspected. Conventional weapons could be limited as well. And that would extend the life of US hegemony.
omfg.
If the US and UK didn't waste half as much on military, then the rest of the world would sigh in relief and spend less as well. Don't forget that its the US that is getting into wars every few years, and spends as much on the military as the rest of the planet. Way to go peacekeepers! I think we'd all be better off *without* your guns.
I hate to break it to you, but for the last 3 or so months that you were in the womb, you were floating in your own excrement
Excrement is foul only because of the levels of bacteria and microbes growing in it. Same with urine. AFAIK, the womb is essentially sterile, and the fetus' stomach hasn't been seeded with e-coli. So your statement is really quite misleading. It's not excrement as we think of it, but rather, recycled amniotic fluid, and a few cells from an unformed, unused intestine. Finally, it's also a very small amount.
All in the name of financing the journal.
What I don't understand is what the journals need all that money for. Scientists write the articles, and do the peer-review for free. Distribution is electronic, and the marginal cost close to free. (If we can find server-space for a hundred linux distributions, we can find server-space for a bunch of pdfs.) All the journal gives is tradition and prestige.
And for that, they charge whatever they can get away with, and take our copyrights. Truly inefficient economics.
That's not particularly evil - the itunes-iphone connection does more than just sync files. What is borderline insanity is:
Psycho
So, what you're saying is that the computer works for people instead of the other way around?
That was the intention, but the result was a mess. It would have been better if the computer required valid input in the first place, and the world would have saved a fortune.
Nice, you couldn't even point out one error in McIntyre's paper, and yet you stubbornly cling to your conspiracy theories.
It is often very difficult to process information that is outside of one's schema. Go back and look at it again - it's right there. I linked to an entire paper on the flaws in McIntyre's paper. I guess you didn't read it. I also summarised out 3 flaws. Perhaps you missed them.
You then might notice that I did not want values from models, but experimental values.
If your theoretical derivation doesn't match observed data, then one must assume that there's something missing from the theory. You wanted some derivation about 10m of CO2, and I responded by linking to the derivation for the entire atmosphere. Considering the linked derivation is in close agreement with measurements , then we must conclude that the linked derivation uses the current theory correctly. It's a pity that the linked paper was for the real-world atmosphere, and not a theoretical 10m tube - though I don't think it'd make a difference to you.
I dug around on the internet and discovered the "CO2 can't be a greenhouse 'cause it saturates at 10m" argument. This argument must have some flaw, because real-world measurements show CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas - see the paper that I linked.
You do know that the standard deviation has a very precise definition (really, go look it up), and that what you wrote is so muddle-headed, vague, and just plain meaningless.
More important than the mathematical definition, is how it is applied to real-world problems. The standard deviation isn't some rosetta stone for deciphering reality - it's just an equation, which must be applied precisely. Hence, I explained why its application was inappropriate in this case. So if you think it should applied, then explain to why.
Reality be dammed, as long as it doesn't make you happy you can ignore any equation that fits the data and provides a theoretical understanding.
You said, and I quote "I'd be quite interested if you'd actually be able to find flaws in this." Is that really true? If you are quite interested, then show it by putting your money where your mouth is.
I only want to work with your understanding of the equation, and your numbers, because, otherwise, I suspect you'll declare any fault I find to be a problem with my understanding. You see, I really just want you to table your argument precisely, cause otherwise pointing out a flaw is like trying to hit a moving target.
I asked for specifics, quoting more accusations about McIntyre without being able to provide attribution to what he has written will be taken as proof that said accusations are baseless.
I gave you his paper, a paper showing the mistakes and a summary. I also linked a page summarising where McIntyre has got it wrong. If that's not sufficient to add some basis to the accusations, then I can't help you, and I suspect no-one can. I give up, try to have a good day.
"A derivation" has a precise meaning, it means from first (physical) principles. A calculation does not mean the same thing. BTW, providing answers isn't really helpful when the point is to follow the reasoning as to how the answer was arrived at.
Well, a linked paper had a derivation of how CO2 absorbs energy in the earth's atmosphere. This calculation was in accordance with observations. The "10m CO2 tube" stuff is a red-herring, since science has the sums and data from the real world. Do you understand that? REAL WORLD OBSERVATIONS. And not just 10m, from the ground all the way to space.
Once again, the specific claim was that no one has taken the observed temperature readings, and calculated the standard deviation
I did some thinking about this. It's a meaningless calculation because the error will very quickly approach the size of what's being measured. For the same reason, we can't know the location of Mars in 10000 years. But we do know where it's orbit should be. Likewise, we can't know the temperature in New York in 1 years time, but we do know what the range should be. So calculating the standard deviation on a point estimate in 1 years time is not very helpful.
The dry adiabatic lapse rate on wikipedia isn't well formatted enough for you?
No it's not. I give up. Forget it. This is a waste of my time.
Read the McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) report. It's been discreted by Rutherford et al. (2005) If you read my post carefully, you'll realise that I made those accusations, and backed them up by referring to Rutherford's paper. For the lazy, this is the short of it:
Good enough? If not, I don't care - honestly. There's a whole page on McIntyre and McKitrick myths. I think James Annan said it best on google-groups: Steve McIntyre has found a molehill and is doing his best to make a mountain out of it.
"I want to know what the observed experimental data is, from a ~10 meter tube, or the observed atmosphere, or such, not computer models" - the absorption spectrum of CO2 is measured by a spectrometer over ~1cm, I think it's important to have done the (simple) experiment that would verify we know how CO2 behaves over longer distances, if it's a fundamental part of our models.
Here is a derivation. Here is an article on observations of CO2 absorption. Also, the linked diagram was observational data.
I did some googling, and I think I found the argument your putting forward - that CO2 absorption saturates after 10m. See here
My specific claim about standard deviation is that no one has taken the observed temperature readings, and calculated the standard deviation from that, for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year. If you've read a paper which has this value, please provide a quote, and link.
Is this some oblique way to assert that prediction models don't have standard deviations built into them? Here is a model from 2002, that includes variance of estimates
Anyway, you wanted to know what's wrong with the equation you specified, *I don't care about the rest*. Please upload a well-formated copy somewhere, with the numbers and working for Earth and Venus. I'll figure it out and get back to you.
It's rather disingenuous to expect me to provide a simpler derivation
If you say so, however, I'm not after a simpler derivation. I'd like to see your working with your numbers, and formatted so I can read it without having to write is out from scratch. I don't want to do the leg work only to have you tell me I didn't do it right. I want to see you do it, and be happy with the equation, and then I'll do the leg work.
Given that the climate science debate is essentially scientists on one side, vs. a bunch of marketing firms on the other, it's no wonder that scientists make ad-homiems against McIntyre, who persistently makes clever, but flawed claims. The guy /could/ be genuine, which would make him psycho, or he could be dishonest, or he could be an unsung genius who just makes lots of mistakes in all his papers, and keeps making erroneous claims, but is "right" at heart (which is psyho - I'm a psych major).
Anyway, if he's got something cogent to say, people will and have responded. We know that, because scientists respond to his non-cogent claims. For example, where he's cherry-picking data, or making conclusions outside the statistical strength of the data (even if it wasn't cherry-picked). After doing this a couple of times, people just role their eyes, and think: "he goes McIntyre again, and we're expected to take him seriously." The vitriol and ad homiems reflects a certain level of frustration, but lets just leave them aside, and go to the core claims. Can you find a single cogent claim by McIntyre that hasn't been discredited? Link me a paper.
Consider the frustration level in the science-vs-marketing-firms debate. Lets not get too side-tracked here. If you RTFA, you'll find a very poor quality piece of pseudo-science by Carlin, being quashed by the EPA, and a legion of people talking about scientific bias, and therefore no action should be taken on AGW. That's specifically the result that the marketing firms want. They don't want to discredit AGW (that's a dream), they just want to stall any policy decision. There wasn't scientific bias in the EPA-Calin case; the problem is obvious: Carlin didn't have a scientific paper. If he's really got something to say, he should respond to criticism by updating and resubmitting a higher quality piece of work.
The previously cited McIntyre & McKitrick article was discredited by Rutherford, Mann, Osborn, Bradley, Briffa, Huges & Jones (2005). Reading through Mann, then McIntyre & McKitrick and then Rutherford et al - is enough to realise that McIntyre just isn't producing a quality evidence based argument. McIntyre has not responded to this rebuttal - so we can assume that he just doesn't know how to. It's been 4 years.
Despite that, people still respond to his clever rhetoric, and as I pointed out, sometimes revise their position. (Show me evidence of McIntyre doing that.)
You claim that climate scientists aren't using standard-deviations in their work. Can you be a little more concrete? What piece of work are you talking about exactly. Your claim is too general. For example, I could point out that standard deviations are used in Jones & Mann (2004), in which Mann shows the faults with the little ice-age and medieval warm period arguments. Good enough? I didn't think so. What articles are you talking about!
You say you want to see observed or experimental data for a ~10 metre tube of CO2. AFAIK, the linked diagram was from actual measurements. It seems like you want me to do some calculations for you that you don't know how to do yourself??? That just makes no sense. If you're really interested, and don't know how to do it yourself, then I recommend visiting a professor at a university, who can point you in the right direction.
Also, I can't really follow your short-hand maths. Can you scan a neat copy and upload it. Do the equation for Earth as well. You say it fits, I don't want to second-guess you. I want to see the equation, _and_ the numbers and working that you use. I will take it to a physics professor and talk about it - understand what's going on. I have done physics and maths at an undergraduate level, however, I'm a psych major. So I can follow the arguments. It's been a decade since I had my paws in differential equations
If you can do this, then I can do my thing, and work out if what you're saying actually makes sense. Right?
You should be aware that McIntyre (of climateaudit.org) has been implicated in publishing a paper McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) that tries to reinstate the medieval warm period by censoring the data used in analysis. Furthermore, there paper fails statistical verification tests - it's mathematically unsound. Just something to be aware of. Note that the scientific community does listen to McIntyre, despite this proven intellectual dishonesty. The US temperature record was changed slightly when McIntyre correctly pointed out an aberation in 1999-2000 US data, due to data collection technicalities.
Anyway, are you saying that the simple equation you provided fits temperature measurements on Earth? Earth's temperature variations must be due to a change in atmospheric pressure then, right? The equation for Venus isn't really that useful, since it's known that CO2 doesn't actually trap very much heat. So fill in the numbers for Earth... and we'll see where that goes.
like what is the decrease in transmission for various wavelengths for say a ten meter insulated tube with various atmospheres, is it still logarithmic over atmospheric distances?
You can see a diagram here, that shows water, ozone and CO2 cooling and heating various parts on the atmosphere, at specific wavelengths. This diagram is reproduced from Claugh & Iacono (1995), you can read the original paper if you want to see how to get from raw data to the diagram.
I would like to know, quantitatively about feedback, the length of CO2 in the atmosphere, clouds, and many other processes, either from first principles, or experiment, and somewhat fundamentally, the calculated standard deviation of the weather for 1 year, 2 years, etc.
It sounds to me that you want me to dig up the details on climate models. They are in the IPCC reports. They don't include standard deviations for weather, but they do include averages and standard deviations for climate change. You can find them on here. The models come with documentation for how they are put together, data visualisation tools, point estimates, and standard deviations (which are required to make point estimates meaningful).
I will look further into this equation, however, there are some flaws in the argument that I can point out:
Venus' temperature is caused *only* by ~92 atmosphere of pressure.
Well, I'm not really sure what that has to do with AGW?? Can you relate your equation to the AGW debate?
It's unfamiliar to me, however, I'm interested in any sound arguments against global warming, so please indulge me with more information.