I thought it was:
1: If it makes money and it's legal, do it.
2: If it makes money and it's illegal but makes more money then it would cost to be legal, do it.
3: If it makes money and it's illegal but would cost too much to do, change the law.
If you want real information, get it from a place that focuses on actual science reporting or from the journal/research that the scientist published. In short, get your science information from the scientists. Not CNN/Fox/Daily Mail/MSNBC or whatever major news source is getting it wrong that week.
Silicon based systems are still terribly sequencial. While they do nicely augment what our brains are bad at (sequencial problems), they are absolutely terrible at what ours brains can do amazingly easily (Computer Vision, Strong AI, decision making, pattern recognition, face detection, path finding, etc).
Not to mention our brain balancing and controlling tens of thousands of bodily functions all at once and still having plenty of time to do other things. On the flip side, we know how silicon works, but we have no frackin' clue how the brain actually works.
Hahaha oh, thanks. I needed a good laugh tonight. One of their radio interviews quickly devolves into talking about aliens building the pyramids. Awesome stuff.
It is effective at treating light to light-moderate cases of depression. It has been shown no better than placebo for more severe cases. Plus, it has the added bonus of being impossible to know exactly how much of the drug you are taking, as concentrations will vary wildly by plant/time of year/soil.
Tree ring diverges from previous trends around 1960, so as a trending mechanism it is only good up to a certain point. It is unknown, afaik, why this happened, but up until that point it is still good, predictive data. So I had a misunderstanding as thought that there was an actual error in the collecting, which, perhaps, with this particular data set is possible, but I haven't read other papers showing differently. Thus it has not been used as a proxy for data past 1960 since 1998, when that paper was published, and the supposed "damning" email was warning of this in 1999. An explanation by CRU from Real Climate:
“Declines” in the MXD record. This decline was written up in Nature in 1998 where the authors suggested not using the post 1960 data. Their actual programs (in IDL script), unsurprisingly warn against using post 1960 data. Added: Note that the ‘hide the decline’ comment was made in 1999 – 10 years ago, and has no connection whatsoever to more recent instrumental records.
I also apologize for the tone of my previous message, I had not yet had my coffee:-)
You can falsify by finding data that makes no sense to your current theory and should be explained by the current theory. But thanks for playing.
I mean, would you also like us to recreate the Big Bang so we can "run a true experiment" on it or would you rather we look at observable data and draw a reasonable conclusion that Big Bang did happen?
Please please please stop misusing and cheapening the word "theory". It does not mean what you think it means. There is no higher word for a hypothesis whose testing has yielded positive results again and again.
Also science does not "prove facts", it gives models that best explain available data. Sometimes these models seem to always be true, in which case we can call them "facts", but other times the models are just really good but don't explain everything, in which case they are perfectly valid if used and analyzed correctly.
Also, afaik they threw out the data because it was bad data and there were problems with it, not because it would "confuse" people. It is certainly not always wrong to throw out bad data. You'd want to understand why it is bad, yes, but using it would be silly.
There was more to the Climate Research publication than that. The paper was submitted to an editor that was more sympathetic to anti-AGW papers, which is fine. That is normal par-for-the-course stuff when submitting a paper, if you're allowed to select an editor to submit it to for that journal you will of course submit it to the one who tends to agree with your viewpoint the most. And normally this is fine; scientists will have different viewpoints. However one thing should come above all viewpoints: whether the science is sound.
Apparently, the paper in question at Climate Research was approved by the single editor (as per the rules of that journal) and allowed in, despite heavy criticism from the other editors who viewed it as that particular editor ignoring what was wrong with the science of the paper to voice a viewpoint. This caused a majority of the editors to resign their posts at Climate Research, including the guy who was going to become lead editor the very next week. This is what Michael Mann was referring to. The journal had indeed became illegitimate because of the majority of editors leaving the journal in protest.
Here is a description of the events, the paper in question, and the critiques of the paper that were ignored by the editor. Which, obviously, goes kind of against the whole concept of "peer review" if your peers' opinions are ignored and a unilateral decision is made. This seems like a perfectly legitimate comment by Mann to me, as the journal had lost credibility for failing for adhere to the peer review process and publishing faulty research.
I'm admittedly unfamiliar with the events at GRL though.
And how exactly is the Terahertz spectrum related to normal cell phone usage? From the paper, the damage mostly appears to occur at frequencies that resonate within the molecules. Since these frequencies are rather specific, anything outside of the THz range should be A-OK. Since 4G uses the highest bands, in the 2.5-2.7GHz range, I'd say we're quite far away from having to worry about THz resonate damage.
However, it is good to know that with prolonged exposure to certain THz frequencies that damage can occur. Thankfully (AFAIK) nothing we use every close to our bodies every day operates in that spectrum. Except for background radiation. But we've been dealing with that since life began.
Agreed. This seems similar to the/. story posted near the beginning of the summer about a test where they would wheel in a big contraption with dishes and blinking lights that was totally inert, and people who claimed they got headaches from wifi would instantly get one.
They would also have a huge wifi antenna in the ceiling sending out signals. No one was ever effected by the real antenna, only the visual stimulus they thought was sending out signals. It is all psychosomatic.
If you want to know who funded it, read the published paper. Generally studies are required to say which grants the money used from the study came from.
And there is security vs payola in the way of "if you get caught, that's your career" and is generally not worth it. Also the idea is that your results are repeatable, and your reputation is severely damaged if you are publishing bad science.
I also don't know where you are seeing the conflicting views in this. Some concerns have been expressed in the past, but no one has ever shown any effect that cell phone use has on cancer at all. You might want to loosen your tin foil hat.
Well yeah, that is how all budgets are. If you don't spend the money this time you obviously don't need it next time, right? Sigh...
But yes, there is always "today's next hot thing" that will allow for easier grant money, but that doesn't mean the work can be shoddy, nor does that mean you personally will make more money. If the work from the grant isn't published in a good journal because it is a piece of shit, you'll have a hard time getting grants in the future too. So it comes down to "Can you do good work in Hot New Field that will stand up to peer review and stand the test of time (not tarnishing your reputation if the HNF house of cards falls)." If you can then do it. Let them buy you a fancy lab or more grad students because the topic is big right now, but that doesn't mean it will be bad science.
Also, even if you can buy new equip you might not really need, or hire a grad student or two extra, you still can't take any of that money for yourself, to, say, buy a house or vacation. You might get a computer out of it, but most IT jobs will give you that too.
But those people get rich off their schemes. I find it hard to believe a climate scientist (or pretty much any research scientist) is going to get rich by peddling bad science. Maybe they'll sell a book or something, but even then, you're not going to get the kind of money (by which I mean researchers really make shit money) you would if you told people "God said give me your money!".
Plus the latter is a hell of a lot easier than getting a PhD.
Unless you are suggesting that their lives are improved by making people believe stupid things. Seems like an awful waste of a lifetime's worth of work though.
How exactly does this follow? Their careers and livelihoods are only improved if they are right (through recognition maybe getting them a better job at a better uni or something).
Maybe they will get more funding to carry out more science, but you do know that they don't get to have any of that money, right? It is extremely tightly regulated and controlled by the grant providers.
Disclaimer: I am a researcher in a university lab.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought it was:
1: If it makes money and it's legal, do it.
2: If it makes money and it's illegal but makes more money then it would cost to be legal, do it.
3: If it makes money and it's illegal but would cost too much to do, change the law.
Nintendo might beg to differ...
Well, you're kind of trolling here by being a huge dick, but whatever. I'll bite. Here is what happened:
Daily Mail is a flaming turd bag of an information source. They either purposefully or ignorantly distorted his research (as most major news orgs will, since they cannot cover science with any degree of accuracy).
If you want real information, get it from a place that focuses on actual science reporting or from the journal/research that the scientist published. In short, get your science information from the scientists. Not CNN/Fox/Daily Mail/MSNBC or whatever major news source is getting it wrong that week.
Silicon based systems are still terribly sequencial. While they do nicely augment what our brains are bad at (sequencial problems), they are absolutely terrible at what ours brains can do amazingly easily (Computer Vision, Strong AI, decision making, pattern recognition, face detection, path finding, etc).
Not to mention our brain balancing and controlling tens of thousands of bodily functions all at once and still having plenty of time to do other things. On the flip side, we know how silicon works, but we have no frackin' clue how the brain actually works.
Hahaha oh, thanks. I needed a good laugh tonight. One of their radio interviews quickly devolves into talking about aliens building the pyramids. Awesome stuff.
This whole thing is way off topic, but whatever.
AGW Data and Methods from CRU/NASA/other researchers. Enjoy.
It is effective at treating light to light-moderate cases of depression. It has been shown no better than placebo for more severe cases. Plus, it has the added bonus of being impossible to know exactly how much of the drug you are taking, as concentrations will vary wildly by plant/time of year/soil.
Source: NIH/NCCAM
And if you're that worried about secrets, write your own damn code and don't use the GPL. Simple.
Nope! I've never seen one in the versions of OS X i've used.
Tree ring diverges from previous trends around 1960, so as a trending mechanism it is only good up to a certain point. It is unknown, afaik, why this happened, but up until that point it is still good, predictive data. So I had a misunderstanding as thought that there was an actual error in the collecting, which, perhaps, with this particular data set is possible, but I haven't read other papers showing differently. Thus it has not been used as a proxy for data past 1960 since 1998, when that paper was published, and the supposed "damning" email was warning of this in 1999. An explanation by CRU from Real Climate:
:-)
“Declines” in the MXD record. This decline was written up in Nature in 1998 where the authors suggested not using the post 1960 data. Their actual programs (in IDL script), unsurprisingly warn against using post 1960 data. Added: Note that the ‘hide the decline’ comment was made in 1999 – 10 years ago, and has no connection whatsoever to more recent instrumental records.
I also apologize for the tone of my previous message, I had not yet had my coffee
You can falsify by finding data that makes no sense to your current theory and should be explained by the current theory. But thanks for playing.
I mean, would you also like us to recreate the Big Bang so we can "run a true experiment" on it or would you rather we look at observable data and draw a reasonable conclusion that Big Bang did happen?
Have you tried looking for the data? And exactly what "funny business" was actually going on?
Please please please stop misusing and cheapening the word "theory". It does not mean what you think it means. There is no higher word for a hypothesis whose testing has yielded positive results again and again.
Also science does not "prove facts", it gives models that best explain available data. Sometimes these models seem to always be true, in which case we can call them "facts", but other times the models are just really good but don't explain everything, in which case they are perfectly valid if used and analyzed correctly.
Also, afaik they threw out the data because it was bad data and there were problems with it, not because it would "confuse" people. It is certainly not always wrong to throw out bad data. You'd want to understand why it is bad, yes, but using it would be silly.
There was more to the Climate Research publication than that. The paper was submitted to an editor that was more sympathetic to anti-AGW papers, which is fine. That is normal par-for-the-course stuff when submitting a paper, if you're allowed to select an editor to submit it to for that journal you will of course submit it to the one who tends to agree with your viewpoint the most. And normally this is fine; scientists will have different viewpoints. However one thing should come above all viewpoints: whether the science is sound.
Apparently, the paper in question at Climate Research was approved by the single editor (as per the rules of that journal) and allowed in, despite heavy criticism from the other editors who viewed it as that particular editor ignoring what was wrong with the science of the paper to voice a viewpoint. This caused a majority of the editors to resign their posts at Climate Research, including the guy who was going to become lead editor the very next week. This is what Michael Mann was referring to. The journal had indeed became illegitimate because of the majority of editors leaving the journal in protest.
Here is a description of the events, the paper in question, and the critiques of the paper that were ignored by the editor. Which, obviously, goes kind of against the whole concept of "peer review" if your peers' opinions are ignored and a unilateral decision is made. This seems like a perfectly legitimate comment by Mann to me, as the journal had lost credibility for failing for adhere to the peer review process and publishing faulty research.
I'm admittedly unfamiliar with the events at GRL though.
Their peers have to be convinced first. They are a much harder filter to get through than Joe Average.
Ah, I only saw the two threads above and missed the first one. Oops! I suppose that that is what happens when I'm sleepy.
And how exactly is the Terahertz spectrum related to normal cell phone usage? From the paper, the damage mostly appears to occur at frequencies that resonate within the molecules. Since these frequencies are rather specific, anything outside of the THz range should be A-OK. Since 4G uses the highest bands, in the 2.5-2.7GHz range, I'd say we're quite far away from having to worry about THz resonate damage.
However, it is good to know that with prolonged exposure to certain THz frequencies that damage can occur. Thankfully (AFAIK) nothing we use every close to our bodies every day operates in that spectrum. Except for background radiation. But we've been dealing with that since life began.
Agreed. This seems similar to the /. story posted near the beginning of the summer about a test where they would wheel in a big contraption with dishes and blinking lights that was totally inert, and people who claimed they got headaches from wifi would instantly get one.
They would also have a huge wifi antenna in the ceiling sending out signals. No one was ever effected by the real antenna, only the visual stimulus they thought was sending out signals. It is all psychosomatic.
If you want to know who funded it, read the published paper. Generally studies are required to say which grants the money used from the study came from.
And there is security vs payola in the way of "if you get caught, that's your career" and is generally not worth it. Also the idea is that your results are repeatable, and your reputation is severely damaged if you are publishing bad science.
I also don't know where you are seeing the conflicting views in this. Some concerns have been expressed in the past, but no one has ever shown any effect that cell phone use has on cancer at all. You might want to loosen your tin foil hat.
Well yeah, that is how all budgets are. If you don't spend the money this time you obviously don't need it next time, right? Sigh...
But yes, there is always "today's next hot thing" that will allow for easier grant money, but that doesn't mean the work can be shoddy, nor does that mean you personally will make more money. If the work from the grant isn't published in a good journal because it is a piece of shit, you'll have a hard time getting grants in the future too. So it comes down to "Can you do good work in Hot New Field that will stand up to peer review and stand the test of time (not tarnishing your reputation if the HNF house of cards falls)." If you can then do it. Let them buy you a fancy lab or more grad students because the topic is big right now, but that doesn't mean it will be bad science.
Also, even if you can buy new equip you might not really need, or hire a grad student or two extra, you still can't take any of that money for yourself, to, say, buy a house or vacation. You might get a computer out of it, but most IT jobs will give you that too.
But those people get rich off their schemes. I find it hard to believe a climate scientist (or pretty much any research scientist) is going to get rich by peddling bad science. Maybe they'll sell a book or something, but even then, you're not going to get the kind of money (by which I mean researchers really make shit money) you would if you told people "God said give me your money!".
Plus the latter is a hell of a lot easier than getting a PhD.
Unless you are suggesting that their lives are improved by making people believe stupid things. Seems like an awful waste of a lifetime's worth of work though.
How exactly does this follow? Their careers and livelihoods are only improved if they are right (through recognition maybe getting them a better job at a better uni or something).
Maybe they will get more funding to carry out more science, but you do know that they don't get to have any of that money, right? It is extremely tightly regulated and controlled by the grant providers.
Disclaimer: I am a researcher in a university lab.
Because the government is the only one still hiring?
I really have no idea what is even being discussed anymore. Umm... *car analogy*
lol wut?