Like virtually all biomedical scientists, I use statistics routinely extensively in my work and have studied statistics throughout my professional career. I participate in teaching statistics to graduate students, and I am extensively familiar with the use of statistics to evaluate such things as blood levels of drugs and toxins, ligand interactions with biological molecules, changes in physiological function, epidemiological evidence for drug efficacy and toxicity, etc., etc. So waving your hands about while seriously intoning "statistics" does not impress me.
Actually, career biochemists tell me the dipeptide is particularly neurotoxic if not ingested as part of a more complete amino acid chain.
That makes little sense. Your body is very good at hydrolyzing peptide bonds, so it should be broken down rapidly into individual amino acids, the same as if it is present in a longer polypeptide chain. Research supports this rational expectation. Being a career neuroscientist, myself, most of the people I talk to every day are career biochemists or other types of bioscientists, so "some scientist told me" carries about as much weight with me as "I heard it from some guy in a bar." Can these unnamed "scientists" cite peer-reviewed research to support their assertion?
More to the point, while I dislike aspartame for scientific and rational reasons, and I dislike injecting mercury into my blood for scientific and rational reasons, to claim any of these causes some specific effect requires some epic level wizardry.
It would certainly require very high-quality research to support a claim that sounds so obviously ridiculous on its face, and that is not consistent with a large body of research and biological knowledge. But a lot of it would not be technically difficult. What is the evidence that the dipeptide is not broken down rapidly after oral administration? What specific biological targets does it bind to at concentrations comparable to those present in the body after it is administered orally? How, specifically, does it act on that target to produce neurotoxicity?
The study you cited (which was performed on a total of 21 subjects, so the authors do not regard it as conclusive) only deals with blood concentration of mercury.
You are grasping at straws. Read up a bit on pharmacokinetics. There is a huge body of evidence about the way substances distribute in the body. 21 subjects is actually quite a substantial number for a pharmacokinetic study, so the numbers should be reliable. Other tissues will be in equilibrium with blood, so blood levels can be reliably used to determine elimination half-life.
Thus, it's currently believed that it takes 120 days for the mercury that comes out of the thiomersal due to normal metabolic activity to clear the system.
People believe all kinds of crazy things. Show me data to support your claim.
As a side note, "the dose makes the poison" is not a view I subscribe to, personally
You may choose not to subscribe to belief in gravity, but that does not make it any less real. Parcelsus had an early, and quite brilliant, insight, but science has advanced considerably since the Renaissance. Dose-effect relationships are one of the most fundamental and most thoroughly established principles of pharmacology and toxicology and arise out of the fundamental physiology and physics of chemical interaction.
If thiomersal left the body at the speed of light, it would still be a good idea to work towards elimination of mercury in vaccines.
I would say rather that we should make decisions taking into account all costs and benefits rather than obsessing about a single component based upon pre-scientific notions of what a "toxin" is. Thimerosal at the levels used in vaccines has negligible, probably zero risk. There are real risks associated with contamination, and there are also risks (fewer people vaccinated, reduced herd immunity) associated with higher costs of vaccination.
True. As I pointed out, lots of deadly poisons can be tolerated in extremely low doses. Strychnine and arsenic come to mind, for example, if you didn't like the more commonplace example of chlorinated water.
There are very few things that are not toxic at some dose. Even pure water is toxic at sufficiently high dose.
False. Read the research again. "Quite rapidly" is when you pee out asparagus stench an hour after eating some. 120 days is not even slightly "rapid".
I've read the research. Elimination half-life of ethyl mercury is under a week. It is quite clear that it is rapid enough that bioaccumulation of mercury in vaccines is not a concern (which is the only way the exceedingly tiny amounts present in vaccines could conceivably pose any risk)
Still, if you like drinking small amounts of toxins, be my guest! It's extremely unlikely to do you any harm; people do it every day all over the world.
It's pretty much impossible to avoid. As noted above, water itself is toxic at sufficiently high doses even when absolutely pure. And of course, alcohol and formaldehyde (components of fruit juice) are toxic at high doses. With the use of highly sensitive assays, pretty much every toxic compound known to man, including mercury, can be found in drinking water at some level.
Yes, he was the guy in Congress who was the first to realize the social and commercial potential of the Internet, and worked within Congress to create the Internet (the canard that he claimed to have "invented" the internet was promoted by his political opponents). His investments based upon his understanding of the commercial potential of the Internet made him very wealthy. Bright guy, with great foresight.
While not himself a scientist, he was also the guy who made the general public aware of what the actual climate scientists had been warning about for years.
When those "tree huggers" have a direct line to the general treasury fund of the United States of America, well, yeah, clearly the "tree huggers".
Really? And how did the "tree huggers" get such a direct line during the Bush administration, which was not notably friendly to either tree huggers or concerns about global warming.
And isn't it odd that those "tree huggers" somehow have managed to get a direct line not only to the US treasury, but to that of many other countries? After all, the scientific consensus about the reality and threat of human-caused global warming is international in scope.
Were they allowed to release the study in general or did the Koch brothers give them express permission to do so? It seems like they'd have ordered a suppression for something so counter to their interests.
It is hard to find scientists who will accept a research grant if the terms give the funding organization a veto over publication. Moreover, this study was widely publicized as the study that was going to prove that climate scientists had analyzed their data in a way that exaggerated the warming trend, so it would have been hard to keep it secret.
The problem with Mann's approach to McIntyre is that McIntyre had actually filed a valid bug report. All Mann needed to do was fix the bug, publish a supplement to his paper with less convincing hockey sticks, then go back to the grindstone to find data or an analysis of the data the proved what we all suspect on a foundation of watertight analysis. What any scientist working in dull obscurity would accept as everyday life.
McIntyre published a paper criticizing Mann's statistical approach. Mann and others carried out and published additional research using different statistical methods, and showing that McIntyre's criticisms had negligible impact on the conclusions. An independent peer review by the National Research Council of the US National Academy of Science, the nation's foremost independent scientific society examined the data, and concluded that McIntyre's criticisms were statistically valid, but that the deficiencies in the original analysis had little impact on the conclusions. This is pretty well summarized in the Wikipedia article on the controversy. All in all, it is a pretty good example of the way science is supposed to work.
You don't think there's money to fund scientists skeptical of global warming--from sources like the Koch foundation, which funded this study, or from the fossil fuel industry, which has contributed large amounts of money to global warming skeptic think tanks?
But good scientists follow the science, as in this case when the investigators started out with the expectation that the warming trend in the temperature record was exaggerated by weather station siting near urban heat islands--but ended up reporting that their data showed the opposite. Of course, they probably won't get more money from the Koch foundation.
But government grants for scientific research are based on peer review by other scientists, not agreement with a political agenda. The results show no indication of swaying with the political winds: the science was just as supportive of the reality (and the origin from human CO2 pollution) when the country was run by an administration and Congress hostile to that idea as when it was run by a more receptive administration and Congress
There is no safe amount of mercury exposure. It is a potent neurotoxin.
Of course there is a safe amount. Do you seriously believe that a single molecule will damage your brain? If so, why is it considered safe to eat fish in moderation?
When I was a child, parents would paint a mercury-containing antiseptic on every minor cut and scrape. This is no longer done, but no harmful effects were ever identified.
Toxicity is only observed at doses massively greater than present in vaccines. Moreover, it is quite rapidly eliminated from the body. Symptoms of mercury poisoning are well known and readily identifiable and quite different from autism and also from the known rare adverse effects of vaccination. So even if it were not abundantly clear that removal of mercury from childhood vaccines has had zero impact on the incidence of autism, the mercury toxicity hypothesis of autism would be implausible.
It's the diet sodas that cause autism and ADHD. Aspartame is toxic.
Not particularly. There is no evidence for toxicity at the doses used for sweetening, and it is merely a dipeptide of amino acids present naturally in foods (which it is rapidly broken down to), so it is highly implausible
I don't think that people should be required to have injections. But I also don't think that people who have not had their vaccinations should be allowed to put other people at risk by attending public schools, day care centers, etc.
Actually, Wakefield's "research" had nothing to do with mercury. He blamed autism on the MMR combination vaccine, which never had mercury in it to begin with. Of course, Wakefield's work was later shown to be fraudulent and was withdrawn, and subsequent studies showed that there was no such link.
It is generally accepted that the use of PCA in Mann's initial ground breaking study had some deficiencies that could under certain conditions bias the conclusions (although nobody ever managed to come up with conditions whereby this statistical flaw could result in the kind of dramatic "hockey stick" profile that Mann found). Subsequent studies using a variety of other statistical methods have supported Mann's conclusions. A good summary can be found in the Wikipedia article on the hockey stick controversy
No, this study did not confirm that the warming is caused by man. There is an alternative hypothesis:
1. Although it has been known for a century that CO2 can produce warming, and although the degree of modern warming is in agreement with that predicted as a result of increased atmospheric CO2, there is some other unknown mechanism (something to do with clouds, maybe?) that limits CO2 warming.
2. Although none of the known mechanisms that have been identified as responsible for earlier warming episodes in earth's history, such as changes in the earth's orbit or the sun's output, have been found to be present today, there is some other unknown (but natural!) mechanism that is producing the modern warming, which only coincidentally matches the warming predicted from CO2.
3. And whatever the cause of this natural warming might be, it is temporary, and is just about to give way to natural cooling (in fact, I think it's a bit cooler today than yesterday, so doubtless it has already begun!)
At a hearing on September 26, it turned out that Samsung was seeking a royalty of 2.4% of the chip price for each (!) of its asserted patents. In today's ruling, the Dutch court says that Samsung's offer was so far out of the FRAND ballpark that, in the court's opinion, Samsung has failed to honor its obligation to make an offer on FRAND terms.
It is clear that Apple created something. After all, other companies had tried to create tablet computers, but none had achieved much mass market penetration. The technology was there for any company to create an iPad like device, but none did. Indeed, the conventional wisdom was that tablet computers would not sell, and that consumers preferred cheap netbooks. Other companies were making smartphones, including touch capabilities, before the iPhone, but none achieved the iPhone's success.
So clearly Apple created something that was special and unique--so much so that it is now being widely imitated. Indeed, virtually all of Apple's competitors are now offering devices with look and feel far closer to the iDevices than what they were selling before. Why shouldn't companies that make this kind of contribution be rewarded with a limited term monopoly? If the current patent/copyright system does not adequately protect what Apple created, whether it is the invention of new technology or simply combining existing hardware and software technologies in a distinctive way that is perceived by both consumers and competitors as offering substantial added value, then perhaps we need a new category of patents that does protect this kind of achievement.
Not only do such patents support the existence of companies that introduce unique and successful design ideas into the marketplace, but they also encourage other companies to innovate rather than simply copying what is already in the marketplace. For example, it is generally agreed that the WebOS and Windows devices are not imitative of Apple. And if it ultimately turns out that Apple has found the absolute best way to make a tablet or a phone...well, those patents will expire in a couple of decades.
The major patents Samsung is asserting are standards-based patents, which they are obligated to license for a reasonable price. Apparently, Samsung has demanded exorbitant license fees from Apple, and the courts have so far taken a dim view of this. Apple, on the other hand, has asserted patents that are not so encumbered, and which they are not obligated to license at all if they do not choose to do so.
This was early on. There's no question that Apple was outmaneuvered by MS. Apple really wanted MS Word and Excel on Macintosh. Microsoft was reluctant, raising concerns that they would have to use Apple user interface elements. They insisted that Apple license those aspects of the Mac interface to Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft was using a very different approach to Windows, with "panes" instead of overlapping windows, and Apple apparently saw little harm. Once they had the license, Microsoft released a new version of Windows with overlapping windows and many other Mac-like features. Apple sued, but unfortunately for Apple, the license to MS was not limited to a particular version of Windows or to particular programs. The courts found that the features licensed to MS were precisely those that Apple had the strongest claim to having created.
The power of traditional publishers inherently derives from their control of the means of production, which itself derives from the large overhead of printing and distribution of physical books. It now seems inevitable that physical distribution will increasingly become a niche form of publishing devoted mostly to things like art books, with conventional publishing being replaced by electronic distribution and (to a lesser extent) print-on-demand. It is unlikely that Amazon would be able to step into the role of the traditional publisher as the gatekeeper to the means of production, because Amazon's strength as a retailer is largely dependent upon its inclusiveness. Locking out authors would only make them vulnerable to competition, and e-retailing is less dependent upon large physical investment (yes, Amazon has server farms, but they are not the only provider, and for similar reasons, it does not pay to deny access to competitors, such as Netflix).
This implies a fundamental shift in the power relationship between authors and publishers--for example, publishers will have less power to demand subsidiary rights. So instead of the current situation in which authors sort of work for the publisher, we are likely to see evolution of a system in which publishers work for authors--or at least a more equitable relationship than currently prevails.
With production no longer part of their business, the main services that publishers will be able to offer to writers will be editing and promotion (and in some cases, translation). These are areas where current publishing houses have considerable expertise. Virtually all writers require editing services, of course. Promotion is probably less important to writers who have already established a large following (or those who will never appeal to more than a niche market), but is likely to help those who have the potential to break into large mass-market sales. However, this is an area where e-tailers like Amazon will have an inside track, perhaps by offering promising writers promotion of promising works on their websites and ebook readers in return for an additional cut of the sales. However, there may remain room for independent promotion firms as well. It seems likely that the boundaries between literary agents, publishers, editors, and advertisers will increasingly become fuzzy, with multiple ways of combining these services to appeal to authors.
Your citation makes absolutely no statement of a falsifiable hypothesis for discerning whether or not something is to be considered a forcing or a feedback. It claims that it is a *result* of the model, rather than an assumption, but that's semantics - they programmed the model so that it would be a result.
It's exactly the opposite of what you think. The theory is most precisely and quantitatively expressed in the mathematical model. The words "forcing" and "feedback" come after; they are not hypotheses, but merely jargon invented to describe in a qualitative way how the model behaves. And I've already pointed you to many predictions and tests of the model. Do you need to see it again?
The trick here is timing. If the swinging comes first, and the movement of the ball comes second, the swing is the cause. If the movement of the ball comes first, and the swing (most likely in the other direction) comes second, the ball is the cause.
Right. And when the temperature rises first and CO2 follows after, then something else, such as a change in the earth's orbit or the sun's energy output, initiates the change. When CO2 rises first and temperature rises after, the CO2 rise has initiated the change. This is how the physics and mathematics of the model behaves, and it is what is observed in nature.
You seem to want to believe that once a correlation is made, that causality just doesn't matter - why is that?
Of course causality matters. Scientific theories are all about causality. In this way they differ from statistics, which is only about correlation. And since the null hypothesis applies only to statistics, a theory of causality can never be a null hypothesis. Correlation comes first. If the null hypothesis of zero correlation is not rejected, there is no reason to consider causality. One only considers the question of causality after the statistical null hypothesis has been rejected.
You're back pedaling a little bit there, but you've got a long way to go. Any non-trivial form of AGW makes the claim that human CO2 emissions *cause* significant and specific warming.
But it is only reasonable to construct a hypothesis of how CO2 and warming are related because the null hypothesis of zero correlation between CO2 and warming has been rejected. Climate models make no distinction between "human CO2" and CO2 in general. In the model, CO2 is CO2, whatever its source.
Now, given that you're trying to *prove* a causal relationship, isn't it obvious that the null hypothesis is that there is no causal relationship?
No, for about the tenth time, the term "null hypothesis" has a well defined meaning in statistics--it is the statistical hypothesis of zero difference or zero correlation, and thus cannot be used to refer to a theory of causality. You don't get to redefine the meaning of the term so that you can pretend that your own notions have some privileged status, and should be exempt from intellectual discipline that scientists apply to all causal models--the expectation that a model should be expressed in a well-defined, mathematical form that makes testable, quantitative predictions. If you think that there is a model of "natural" causality that is equal to the models developed by climate scientists in terms of ability to make testable predictions that agree with actual observations, then produce it. Otherwise, no matter how many "sciencey" terms you throw around, you are only doing cargo cult science, and you will never have any credibility with genuine scientists.
If you cannot simply explain how to discern between a "feedback" and a "forcing", simply admit it. Citing unspecified "fundamental physics" is a cheap cop out.
I already provided you with a citation to an explanation of this. Which part where you unable to understand?
So I take my bat, swing it at a t-ball, and now you're going to claim that somehow that the ball is the other side of a see-saw, and can be the *cause* of my bat starting to swing?
No, but many interactions in physics are reciprocal. When you strike the ball, you feel an impact on the bat. What causes the ball to fly away, the bat pushing on the ball, or the ball pushing on the bat? Would it make sense to you if I tried to tell you that swinging the bat cannot be responsible for the ball flying away, because I can throw a ball at a stationary bad and it will bounce off and fly away? That's pretty much what you are doing when you insist that increase of atmospheric CO2 cannot be both a cause and a result of warming. Again, I've provided you with explanations of this in terms of basic physics. Which part were you unable to comprehend?
How can you discern from observation, which one is pushing which, or which one is pushing which *more*? If we're adding CO2 to the atmosphere from a temp independent source, *AND* we're having an increase in solar radiation absorption because of say, UV variations, or cloud cover variations, or any number of temp independent sources, how can you tell which is the larger push?
Here is where mathematical modeling functions as an indispensable sanity check to prevent scientists from confusing themselves with vague hand-waving arguments, much as you are managing to do. With the ball and the bat, where you can work out how much of the velocity of the hit ball arises from the throw, and how much arises from the swing, by building a mathematical model of the basic physics and how it depends upon the basic physical properties: the masses, velocities, and elasticities of the bat and the ball. Similarly, climate scientists work out a mathematical model, based on measured properties: vapor pressure of water, solubility of CO2, radiation physics of CO2. If the physics is correct, then that model has to work for periods when the solar energy output or the earth's orbit changed, but also for the effect of volcanic eruptions and for the industrial rise in CO2. Fortunately, the problem is simple for the modern warming, because all other potential sources of warming have been measured and shown not to correlate with the increased temperature (which also agrees with what the models predict).
Again, fail. A causal correlation *from* temperature *to* CO2 is your assertion. The null hypothesis for that has not been rejected.
You keep using that term, "null hypothesis" but it does not mean what you seem to think it does. It is scientifically illiterate to talk about a "null hypothesis" in terms of cause and effect. Null hypothesis has meaning only for statistics, which does not address cause and effect, and refers specifically to the zero hypothesis: zero difference or zero correlation. The null hypothesis is thus that there is zero correlation between CO2 and temperature, which is easily rejected using elementary statistics. Words in science have actual meaning.
My assertion to you is that any effect of anthropogenic CO2 is inconsequential with respect to predicting global average temperature.
That's "cargo cult" hand-waving. Show me a physically realistic mathematical model in which CO2 has little effect on temperature, and show me that it does at least as good a job of matching observations regarding past and present temperature and CO2 levels, as well as other tests that have been applied to climate science models, and I'll start to take you seriously. I ask you again: if this is a plausible assumption, why is
There's always something new "around the corner." This matters only to the handful of tech enthusiasts who have to have the latest and greatest. Apple's target of the upgrade was clear; iPhone's typically sell on a 2-year contract, so the main target market was (1) iPhone 3gs owners with recently expired contracts, (2) owners of "dumb" phones, (3) Android owners eligible for a upgrade who would like to move over to the more polished and regulated Apple ecosystem. For those in groups 1 & 2, the iPhone 4s is a huge upgrade, while for group 3, the upgrade brings the iPhone family up to approximate hardware parity with recent Android phones. The sales indicate that Apple has fairly accurately gauged these potential customers.
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Like virtually all biomedical scientists, I use statistics routinely extensively in my work and have studied statistics throughout my professional career. I participate in teaching statistics to graduate students, and I am extensively familiar with the use of statistics to evaluate such things as blood levels of drugs and toxins, ligand interactions with biological molecules, changes in physiological function, epidemiological evidence for drug efficacy and toxicity, etc., etc. So waving your hands about while seriously intoning "statistics" does not impress me.
That makes little sense. Your body is very good at hydrolyzing peptide bonds, so it should be broken down rapidly into individual amino acids, the same as if it is present in a longer polypeptide chain. Research supports this rational expectation. Being a career neuroscientist, myself, most of the people I talk to every day are career biochemists or other types of bioscientists, so "some scientist told me" carries about as much weight with me as "I heard it from some guy in a bar." Can these unnamed "scientists" cite peer-reviewed research to support their assertion?
It would certainly require very high-quality research to support a claim that sounds so obviously ridiculous on its face, and that is not consistent with a large body of research and biological knowledge. But a lot of it would not be technically difficult. What is the evidence that the dipeptide is not broken down rapidly after oral administration? What specific biological targets does it bind to at concentrations comparable to those present in the body after it is administered orally? How, specifically, does it act on that target to produce neurotoxicity?
You are grasping at straws. Read up a bit on pharmacokinetics. There is a huge body of evidence about the way substances distribute in the body. 21 subjects is actually quite a substantial number for a pharmacokinetic study, so the numbers should be reliable. Other tissues will be in equilibrium with blood, so blood levels can be reliably used to determine elimination half-life.
People believe all kinds of crazy things. Show me data to support your claim.
You may choose not to subscribe to belief in gravity, but that does not make it any less real. Parcelsus had an early, and quite brilliant, insight, but science has advanced considerably since the Renaissance. Dose-effect relationships are one of the most fundamental and most thoroughly established principles of pharmacology and toxicology and arise out of the fundamental physiology and physics of chemical interaction.
I would say rather that we should make decisions taking into account all costs and benefits rather than obsessing about a single component based upon pre-scientific notions of what a "toxin" is. Thimerosal at the levels used in vaccines has negligible, probably zero risk. There are real risks associated with contamination, and there are also risks (fewer people vaccinated, reduced herd immunity) associated with higher costs of vaccination.
There are very few things that are not toxic at some dose.
Even pure water is toxic at sufficiently high dose.
I've read the research. Elimination half-life of ethyl mercury is under a week. It is quite clear that it is rapid enough that bioaccumulation of mercury in vaccines is not a concern (which is the only way the exceedingly tiny amounts present in vaccines could conceivably pose any risk)
It's pretty much impossible to avoid. As noted above, water itself is toxic at sufficiently high doses even when absolutely pure. And of course, alcohol and formaldehyde (components of fruit juice) are toxic at high doses. With the use of highly sensitive assays, pretty much every toxic compound known to man, including mercury, can be found in drinking water at some level.
Yes, he was the guy in Congress who was the first to realize the social and commercial potential of the Internet, and worked within Congress to create the Internet (the canard that he claimed to have "invented" the internet was promoted by his political opponents). His investments based upon his understanding of the commercial potential of the Internet made him very wealthy. Bright guy, with great foresight.
While not himself a scientist, he was also the guy who made the general public aware of what the actual climate scientists had been warning about for years.
Really? And how did the "tree huggers" get such a direct line during the Bush administration, which was not notably friendly to either tree huggers or concerns about global warming.
And isn't it odd that those "tree huggers" somehow have managed to get a direct line not only to the US treasury, but to that of many other countries? After all, the scientific consensus about the reality and threat of human-caused global warming is international in scope.
It is hard to find scientists who will accept a research grant if the terms give the funding organization a veto over publication. Moreover, this study was widely publicized as the study that was going to prove that climate scientists had analyzed their data in a way that exaggerated the warming trend, so it would have been hard to keep it secret.
McIntyre published a paper criticizing Mann's statistical approach. Mann and others carried out and published additional research using different statistical methods, and showing that McIntyre's criticisms had negligible impact on the conclusions. An independent peer review by the National Research Council of the US National Academy of Science, the nation's foremost independent scientific society examined the data, and concluded that McIntyre's criticisms were statistically valid, but that the deficiencies in the original analysis had little impact on the conclusions. This is pretty well summarized in the Wikipedia article on the controversy. All in all, it is a pretty good example of the way science is supposed to work.
You don't think there's money to fund scientists skeptical of global warming--from sources like the Koch foundation, which funded this study, or from the fossil fuel industry, which has contributed large amounts of money to global warming skeptic think tanks?
But good scientists follow the science, as in this case when the investigators started out with the expectation that the warming trend in the temperature record was exaggerated by weather station siting near urban heat islands--but ended up reporting that their data showed the opposite. Of course, they probably won't get more money from the Koch foundation.
But government grants for scientific research are based on peer review by other scientists, not agreement with a political agenda. The results show no indication of swaying with the political winds: the science was just as supportive of the reality (and the origin from human CO2 pollution) when the country was run by an administration and Congress hostile to that idea as when it was run by a more receptive administration and Congress
Of course there is a safe amount. Do you seriously believe that a single molecule will damage your brain? If so, why is it considered safe to eat fish in moderation?
When I was a child, parents would paint a mercury-containing antiseptic on every minor cut and scrape. This is no longer done, but no harmful effects were ever identified.
Toxicity is only observed at doses massively greater than present in vaccines. Moreover, it is quite rapidly eliminated from the body. Symptoms of mercury poisoning are well known and readily identifiable and quite different from autism and also from the known rare adverse effects of vaccination. So even if it were not abundantly clear that removal of mercury from childhood vaccines has had zero impact on the incidence of autism, the mercury toxicity hypothesis of autism would be implausible.
Not particularly. There is no evidence for toxicity at the doses used for sweetening, and it is merely a dipeptide of amino acids present naturally in foods (which it is rapidly broken down to), so it is highly implausible
I don't think that people should be required to have injections. But I also don't think that people who have not had their vaccinations should be allowed to put other people at risk by attending public schools, day care centers, etc.
Actually, Wakefield's "research" had nothing to do with mercury. He blamed autism on the MMR combination vaccine, which never had mercury in it to begin with. Of course, Wakefield's work was later shown to be fraudulent and was withdrawn, and subsequent studies showed that there was no such link.
It is generally accepted that the use of PCA in Mann's initial ground breaking study had some deficiencies that could under certain conditions bias the conclusions (although nobody ever managed to come up with conditions whereby this statistical flaw could result in the kind of dramatic "hockey stick" profile that Mann found). Subsequent studies using a variety of other statistical methods have supported Mann's conclusions. A good summary can be found in the Wikipedia article on the hockey stick controversy
No, this study did not confirm that the warming is caused by man. There is an alternative hypothesis:
1. Although it has been known for a century that CO2 can produce warming, and although the degree of modern warming is in agreement with that predicted as a result of increased atmospheric CO2, there is some other unknown mechanism (something to do with clouds, maybe?) that limits CO2 warming.
2. Although none of the known mechanisms that have been identified as responsible for earlier warming episodes in earth's history, such as changes in the earth's orbit or the sun's output, have been found to be present today, there is some other unknown (but natural!) mechanism that is producing the modern warming, which only coincidentally matches the warming predicted from CO2.
3. And whatever the cause of this natural warming might be, it is temporary, and is just about to give way to natural cooling (in fact, I think it's a bit cooler today than yesterday, so doubtless it has already begun!)
The Dutch court found that Samsung's license demands were unreasonable:
It is clear that Apple created something. After all, other companies had tried to create tablet computers, but none had achieved much mass market penetration. The technology was there for any company to create an iPad like device, but none did. Indeed, the conventional wisdom was that tablet computers would not sell, and that consumers preferred cheap netbooks. Other companies were making smartphones, including touch capabilities, before the iPhone, but none achieved the iPhone's success.
So clearly Apple created something that was special and unique--so much so that it is now being widely imitated. Indeed, virtually all of Apple's competitors are now offering devices with look and feel far closer to the iDevices than what they were selling before. Why shouldn't companies that make this kind of contribution be rewarded with a limited term monopoly? If the current patent/copyright system does not adequately protect what Apple created, whether it is the invention of new technology or simply combining existing hardware and software technologies in a distinctive way that is perceived by both consumers and competitors as offering substantial added value, then perhaps we need a new category of patents that does protect this kind of achievement.
Not only do such patents support the existence of companies that introduce unique and successful design ideas into the marketplace, but they also encourage other companies to innovate rather than simply copying what is already in the marketplace. For example, it is generally agreed that the WebOS and Windows devices are not imitative of Apple. And if it ultimately turns out that Apple has found the absolute best way to make a tablet or a phone...well, those patents will expire in a couple of decades.
The major patents Samsung is asserting are standards-based patents, which they are obligated to license for a reasonable price. Apparently, Samsung has demanded exorbitant license fees from Apple, and the courts have so far taken a dim view of this. Apple, on the other hand, has asserted patents that are not so encumbered, and which they are not obligated to license at all if they do not choose to do so.
This was early on. There's no question that Apple was outmaneuvered by MS. Apple really wanted MS Word and Excel on Macintosh. Microsoft was reluctant, raising concerns that they would have to use Apple user interface elements. They insisted that Apple license those aspects of the Mac interface to Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft was using a very different approach to Windows, with "panes" instead of overlapping windows, and Apple apparently saw little harm. Once they had the license, Microsoft released a new version of Windows with overlapping windows and many other Mac-like features. Apple sued, but unfortunately for Apple, the license to MS was not limited to a particular version of Windows or to particular programs. The courts found that the features licensed to MS were precisely those that Apple had the strongest claim to having created.
The power of traditional publishers inherently derives from their control of the means of production, which itself derives from the large overhead of printing and distribution of physical books. It now seems inevitable that physical distribution will increasingly become a niche form of publishing devoted mostly to things like art books, with conventional publishing being replaced by electronic distribution and (to a lesser extent) print-on-demand. It is unlikely that Amazon would be able to step into the role of the traditional publisher as the gatekeeper to the means of production, because Amazon's strength as a retailer is largely dependent upon its inclusiveness. Locking out authors would only make them vulnerable to competition, and e-retailing is less dependent upon large physical investment (yes, Amazon has server farms, but they are not the only provider, and for similar reasons, it does not pay to deny access to competitors, such as Netflix).
This implies a fundamental shift in the power relationship between authors and publishers--for example, publishers will have less power to demand subsidiary rights. So instead of the current situation in which authors sort of work for the publisher, we are likely to see evolution of a system in which publishers work for authors--or at least a more equitable relationship than currently prevails.
With production no longer part of their business, the main services that publishers will be able to offer to writers will be editing and promotion (and in some cases, translation). These are areas where current publishing houses have considerable expertise. Virtually all writers require editing services, of course. Promotion is probably less important to writers who have already established a large following (or those who will never appeal to more than a niche market), but is likely to help those who have the potential to break into large mass-market sales. However, this is an area where e-tailers like Amazon will have an inside track, perhaps by offering promising writers promotion of promising works on their websites and ebook readers in return for an additional cut of the sales. However, there may remain room for independent promotion firms as well. It seems likely that the boundaries between literary agents, publishers, editors, and advertisers will increasingly become fuzzy, with multiple ways of combining these services to appeal to authors.
Which authors have been forced into exclusive contracts with Amazon?
It's exactly the opposite of what you think. The theory is most precisely and quantitatively expressed in the mathematical model. The words "forcing" and "feedback" come after; they are not hypotheses, but merely jargon invented to describe in a qualitative way how the model behaves. And I've already pointed you to many predictions and tests of the model. Do you need to see it again?
Right. And when the temperature rises first and CO2 follows after, then something else, such as a change in the earth's orbit or the sun's energy output, initiates the change. When CO2 rises first and temperature rises after, the CO2 rise has initiated the change. This is how the physics and mathematics of the model behaves, and it is what is observed in nature.
Of course causality matters. Scientific theories are all about causality. In this way they differ from statistics, which is only about correlation. And since the null hypothesis applies only to statistics, a theory of causality can never be a null hypothesis. Correlation comes first. If the null hypothesis of zero correlation is not rejected, there is no reason to consider causality. One only considers the question of causality after the statistical null hypothesis has been rejected.
But it is only reasonable to construct a hypothesis of how CO2 and warming are related because the null hypothesis of zero correlation between CO2 and warming has been rejected. Climate models make no distinction between "human CO2" and CO2 in general. In the model, CO2 is CO2, whatever its source.
No, for about the tenth time, the term "null hypothesis" has a well defined meaning in statistics--it is the statistical hypothesis of zero difference or zero correlation, and thus cannot be used to refer to a theory of causality. You don't get to redefine the meaning of the term so that you can pretend that your own notions have some privileged status, and should be exempt from intellectual discipline that scientists apply to all causal models--the expectation that a model should be expressed in a well-defined, mathematical form that makes testable, quantitative predictions. If you think that there is a model of "natural" causality that is equal to the models developed by climate scientists in terms of ability to make testable predictions that agree with actual observations, then produce it. Otherwise, no matter how many "sciencey" terms you throw around, you are only doing cargo cult science, and you will never have any credibility with genuine scientists.
I already provided you with a citation to an explanation of this. Which part where you unable to understand?
No, but many interactions in physics are reciprocal. When you strike the ball, you feel an impact on the bat. What causes the ball to fly away, the bat pushing on the ball, or the ball pushing on the bat? Would it make sense to you if I tried to tell you that swinging the bat cannot be responsible for the ball flying away, because I can throw a ball at a stationary bad and it will bounce off and fly away? That's pretty much what you are doing when you insist that increase of atmospheric CO2 cannot be both a cause and a result of warming. Again, I've provided you with explanations of this in terms of basic physics. Which part were you unable to comprehend?
Here is where mathematical modeling functions as an indispensable sanity check to prevent scientists from confusing themselves with vague hand-waving arguments, much as you are managing to do. With the ball and the bat, where you can work out how much of the velocity of the hit ball arises from the throw, and how much arises from the swing, by building a mathematical model of the basic physics and how it depends upon the basic physical properties: the masses, velocities, and elasticities of the bat and the ball. Similarly, climate scientists work out a mathematical model, based on measured properties: vapor pressure of water, solubility of CO2, radiation physics of CO2. If the physics is correct, then that model has to work for periods when the solar energy output or the earth's orbit changed, but also for the effect of volcanic eruptions and for the industrial rise in CO2. Fortunately, the problem is simple for the modern warming, because all other potential sources of warming have been measured and shown not to correlate with the increased temperature (which also agrees with what the models predict).
You keep using that term, "null hypothesis" but it does not mean what you seem to think it does. It is scientifically illiterate to talk about a "null hypothesis" in terms of cause and effect. Null hypothesis has meaning only for statistics, which does not address cause and effect, and refers specifically to the zero hypothesis: zero difference or zero correlation. The null hypothesis is thus that there is zero correlation between CO2 and temperature, which is easily rejected using elementary statistics. Words in science have actual meaning.
That's "cargo cult" hand-waving. Show me a physically realistic mathematical model in which CO2 has little effect on temperature, and show me that it does at least as good a job of matching observations regarding past and present temperature and CO2 levels, as well as other tests that have been applied to climate science models, and I'll start to take you seriously. I ask you again: if this is a plausible assumption, why is
There's always something new "around the corner." This matters only to the handful of tech enthusiasts who have to have the latest and greatest. Apple's target of the upgrade was clear; iPhone's typically sell on a 2-year contract, so the main target market was (1) iPhone 3gs owners with recently expired contracts, (2) owners of "dumb" phones, (3) Android owners eligible for a upgrade who would like to move over to the more polished and regulated Apple ecosystem. For those in groups 1 & 2, the iPhone 4s is a huge upgrade, while for group 3, the upgrade brings the iPhone family up to approximate hardware parity with recent Android phones. The sales indicate that Apple has fairly accurately gauged these potential customers.