I've heard this argued and it doesn't quite make sense to me... could you please clarify some things?
It was my understanding that wars can only be declared against sovereign nations - which clearly isn't Al Qaeda. How can you have a war against an organization?
The Geneva conventions explicitly protect anyone that is not currently engaged in hostilities. We have heard nothing from bin Laden for years, how can you argue that we knew he was engaged in hostilities?
If we can declare war against organizations, could congress declare war against, say, Walmart and kill their CEO legally? I understand this is unlikely, but is this a loophole that allows the gov't to legally kill whoever they wish?
"Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said. "
Ooh, look, in 10 years time, heavy show is causing chaos.
Literally, the article you link to says that there will be periods of heavy snow. The results apparently match fairly well with the prediction, which you didn't even read, from your own article. Confirmation bias much?
The dating problems you propose don't matter. Relative dating from fossils still prove that these are older than previous body fossils. Even though, yes, the first link is trash, as is the/. summary, the science itself is peer reviewed.
Also, while it is difficult to properly date rocks, there are several whole fucking fields of experts that are dedicated to that and do a pretty good job. Both of the problems you call our attention to are things that the experts 1. know about 2. take care of in their day to day business.
Almost every Proterozoic fossil is questionable. With the exception of the Ediacaran fauna, some Acritarchs, and some layered stromatalites, what you find in the Proterozoic are sorta vague, nebulous shapes. Same thing here. This doesn't mean the scientists is suspect; just that their results should be seen as evidence, not definitive proof.
The discovered "sponge" is not the same species as those found later; they are a new discovery, that hadn't been noticed before because they look different than we were expecting. We already had strong evidence that animal life survived the snowball conditions; molecular clocks provided that. And, there is debate about whether Snowball earth was a hard or soft freeze, which have not been resolved. The hard freeze theory does not have sufficient evidence backing it to have won that discussion--- but this doesn't even give evidence for one or the other.
And yeah, one way to falsify evolution would be to find entirely too large and complex fossils in a much early time then expected; like, say, a rabbit when you were 100 million years before the evolution of any land animals at all.
In comparison, this discovery is of something we have expected to find in that exact time period, but hadn't previously; and apparently, it was because what we were looking at looked a little different then what we were expecting. This fills a gap where we suspected that this exact kind of thing existed. Really cool. If they had found a bunny in these strata, instead of simple multicellular life, that would be a different story altogether.
The write up is terrible and misleading. This discovery does not falsify any of evolutionary theory; paleontologists have long suspected that the evolution of animals predated the record of hard parts. This discovery is actually well in line with that, and matches up neatly with the molecular data.
You're incredibly wrong. Go re read what PZ says, and what Kurtzweil says. Kurtweil says that we can get to the end of system by looking at the information contained in the genome.
You don't have to be able simulate electrons in a transistor to get that to work, but you do need to know how the system works. You can shortcut the electron simulation if you can describe the system.
PZ points out very, very clearly that we do NOT know how protein systems work and interact. The existence of Fold it, the protein folding game is testament to that problem. You are certainly correct that the presumptive brain model will not directly simulate the proteins, and PZ never says it does. But the problem is that we don't KNOW how to simulate them.
PZ says:
Let me give you a few specific examples of just how wrong Kurzweil's calculations are. Here are a few proteins that I plucked at random from the NIH database; all play a role in the human brain.
First up is RHEB (Ras Homolog Enriched in Brain). It's a small protein, only 184 amino acids, which Kurzweil pretends can be reduced to about 12 bytes of code in his simulation. Here's the short description.
MTOR (FRAP1; 601231) integrates protein translation with cellular nutrient status and growth signals through its participation in 2 biochemically and functionally distinct protein complexes, MTORC1 and MTORC2. MTORC1 is sensitive to rapamycin and signals downstream to activate protein translation, whereas MTORC2 is resistant to rapamycin and signals upstream to activate AKT (see 164730). The GTPase RHEB is a proximal activator of MTORC1 and translation initiation. It has the opposite effect on MTORC2, producing inhibition of the upstream AKT pathway (Mavrakis et al., 2008).
Got that? You can't understand RHEB until you understand how it interacts with three other proteins, and how it fits into a complex regulatory pathway. Is that trivially deducible from the structure of the protein? No. It had to be worked out operationally, by doing experiments to modulate one protein and measure what happened to others. If you read deeper into the description, you discover that the overall effect of RHEB is to modulate cell proliferation in a tightly controlled quantitative way. You aren't going to be able to simulate a whole brain until you know precisely and in complete detail exactly how this one protein works.
PZ basically spent his entire article saying that we don't understand how the biologic equivalent of electrons in a semi conductor work, and it's really, really tough to figure out. Transistors are simple. Proteins are not. The amount of computational power that can be put into simulating a single protein is staggering. And until you work out shortcuts for each protein in the system, you can't just jump to your proposed end game. That's the point.
This is a way less damaging way of revenge than most things you could do to someone you don't like for 35 bucks. It's not classy, it's not good, but it's not that awful, either.
The problem is that there are all kinds of inorganic deposits that look a lot like fossil bacteria. Differentiating between them is very, very difficult. The standards are pretty high for declaring things to be ancient microbial fossils from Earth, and even then there are mistakes and debates. The standard for something from Mars has got to be even higher, and when all you have is an oblong shape that is very, very small, well, it's not very strong evidence.
DNA breaks down pretty quickly, in geologic time. The will not find intact strings of DNA in ALH84001, period, and actually looking for living organisms on Mars is going to be very difficult.
Also, if we some day find microorganisms on Mars that share the genetic code of Earth's life, that doesn't prove it's not native Mars live; panspermia and selection both could reasonably explain it. Finding a different code, however, would be excellent evidence for unique origin or long, indpendent evolutionary history.
I think the OP overplayed his hand, but since dragonflies are a pest species, then primary research into their diversity and behavior can let us make useful predictions about their behavior, potential risks to human endeavors, and evolutionary trajectory.
Sure, what you'd learn is that a scientist's best bet to get a lot of money is to come up with revolutionary evidence that the AGW theory is incorrect; and the denier's best bet to get a lot of money is to start a consulting company and get giant grants from oil companies to sling dirt at the scientists.
If the scientists did have evidence to show that AGW is wrong, they'd publish it and get famous. Think Nobel. Think front page of every news magazine and giant speaking appointments. The reason this hasn't happened yet is that the evidence isn't there. I'm not saying that the theory is correct, but the evidence that has been collected is pretty one sided.
Currently, the material in scientific journals is dominated by scientists who support AGW, because their money is spent on doing science. The sphere of public opinion is dominated by deniers, because that's where they spend their money.
Just take a moment, and actually consider that the scientists might be more right than wrong. You might learn something.
But, that's not what is happening here. The systems of genetic transfer and mutation are very well understood. There are extremely robust models that explain this exact process and how to detect that have withstood the test of time.
For an example, here's one from wikipedia:
B causes A (reverse causation)
The more firemen fighting a fire, the bigger the fire is going to be.
Therefore firemen cause fire.
The above example is simple and easy to understand. The strong correlation between the number of firemen at a scene and the size of the fire that is present does not imply that the firemen cause the fire. Firemen are sent according to the severity of the fire and if there is a large fire, a greater number of firemen are sent; therefore it is rather that fire causes firemen to arrive at the scene.
In that example, the absurdity is that we know that larger fires are responded to by firemen, and more come when there is a fire. You're arguing that unless we actually saw the fire growing THIS time, we can only say there is correlation. That's stupid. We have a model of fire growth and fireman response then has been developed through empirical observation. We have a model of evolutionary change and of horizontal gene transfer that has been tested and validated through many, many studies. You need to present an alternative that is more likely in order to explain this away, not just wave your hands, close your eyes, and go "Nyah nyah nyah!"
We are in the middle of one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history and we are the cause and there's no debate about that one.
Blatant lie wrapped up in an assertion of absolute truth.
The Holocene mass extinction is actually well documented, with rates estimated at 100x background. While it hasn't reached the levels of say, the End Permian extinction, this one isn't over yet. While the OP's statement is a bit strong--- it's closer to reality then what you offered.
1. Show that combustion of coal, gas, andother fossil fuels does not emit carbon dioxide.
2. Show that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has not changed due to the release of human combustion; one way this could happen would be some uptake mechanism kicking in.
3. Show that carbon dioxide's absorption spectrum is such that is does not absorb shortwave infrared radiation, or is not transparent to longer wave radiation.
4. Show that the heat that ends up trapped at the Earth's surface escapes in some other manner that is proportional to the increase in temperature.
Okay, get at it! Good luck!
Mind you, the interactions in the extremely complex weather system you mention are tougher to deal with, but they're a result of people trying to figure out what the effects of warming will be; not an effort to measure the warming itself, and thus not necessary to address your one question.
PS- Phil Jones said there was no statistically significant warming; and any time series with as much noise as global temperature measurement and only 15 measurements since 1995 will be impossible to find a statistically significant (p.05) change. Of course, we have a lot more data then that, and we do have statistical significance in longer time series.
But one model that we can have a good deal of confidence in is the very simple one of how CO2 reacts to various electromagnetic wavelengths. Simple experiments, you can even do them yourself at home.
Take that data, add the information on what em radiation leaves Earth's surface, and you can make some pretty straightforward predictions about how it affects net energy flux. This has been known for a long time. No reasonable evidence refutes it. Modeling the total energy flux in and out of the Earth isn't that complicated.
The climate models have come along since then, and are obviously dealing with the details of the much more complicated system-- exactly where in the system is the energy going to pool? Yes, a tougher problem, but still predicated on basics that aren't that tough.
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard this argued and it doesn't quite make sense to me... could you please clarify some things?
It was my understanding that wars can only be declared against sovereign nations - which clearly isn't Al Qaeda. How can you have a war against an organization?
The Geneva conventions explicitly protect anyone that is not currently engaged in hostilities. We have heard nothing from bin Laden for years, how can you argue that we knew he was engaged in hostilities?
If we can declare war against organizations, could congress declare war against, say, Walmart and kill their CEO legally? I understand this is unlikely, but is this a loophole that allows the gov't to legally kill whoever they wish?
No.
Graphing things in R is much faster.
plot(foo$bar,foo$blarg)
Done.
As opposed to highlightning columns, switching to insert chart, inserting.... makin sure everything is in the right place...
This is unlikely. The east coast isn't geologically active in a way that would cause this.
"Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said. "
Ooh, look, in 10 years time, heavy show is causing chaos.
Literally, the article you link to says that there will be periods of heavy snow. The results apparently match fairly well with the prediction, which you didn't even read, from your own article. Confirmation bias much?
Is this a record for longest time to dupe?
I think you just proved that slashdot is a religion, too. I think you need to reassess what your definition of religion is.
shit I mean there could be motherfucking MAGNETS in there gotta watch out
Stupid scientists... always doing more research!
The dating problems you propose don't matter. Relative dating from fossils still prove that these are older than previous body fossils. Even though, yes, the first link is trash, as is the /. summary, the science itself is peer reviewed.
Also, while it is difficult to properly date rocks, there are several whole fucking fields of experts that are dedicated to that and do a pretty good job. Both of the problems you call our attention to are things that the experts 1. know about 2. take care of in their day to day business.
....Startling to me was finding out that fruit bats and insectivorous bats are very much unrelated...
What are you smoking? Source pls?
Almost every Proterozoic fossil is questionable. With the exception of the Ediacaran fauna, some Acritarchs, and some layered stromatalites, what you find in the Proterozoic are sorta vague, nebulous shapes. Same thing here. This doesn't mean the scientists is suspect; just that their results should be seen as evidence, not definitive proof.
The discovered "sponge" is not the same species as those found later; they are a new discovery, that hadn't been noticed before because they look different than we were expecting. We already had strong evidence that animal life survived the snowball conditions; molecular clocks provided that. And, there is debate about whether Snowball earth was a hard or soft freeze, which have not been resolved. The hard freeze theory does not have sufficient evidence backing it to have won that discussion--- but this doesn't even give evidence for one or the other.
The write up is the stone cold worst.
And yeah, one way to falsify evolution would be to find entirely too large and complex fossils in a much early time then expected; like, say, a rabbit when you were 100 million years before the evolution of any land animals at all.
In comparison, this discovery is of something we have expected to find in that exact time period, but hadn't previously; and apparently, it was because what we were looking at looked a little different then what we were expecting. This fills a gap where we suspected that this exact kind of thing existed. Really cool. If they had found a bunny in these strata, instead of simple multicellular life, that would be a different story altogether.
No, no, not at all.
The write up is terrible and misleading. This discovery does not falsify any of evolutionary theory; paleontologists have long suspected that the evolution of animals predated the record of hard parts. This discovery is actually well in line with that, and matches up neatly with the molecular data.
You don't have to be able simulate electrons in a transistor to get that to work, but you do need to know how the system works. You can shortcut the electron simulation if you can describe the system.
PZ points out very, very clearly that we do NOT know how protein systems work and interact. The existence of Fold it, the protein folding game is testament to that problem. You are certainly correct that the presumptive brain model will not directly simulate the proteins, and PZ never says it does. But the problem is that we don't KNOW how to simulate them.
PZ basically spent his entire article saying that we don't understand how the biologic equivalent of electrons in a semi conductor work, and it's really, really tough to figure out. Transistors are simple. Proteins are not. The amount of computational power that can be put into simulating a single protein is staggering. And until you work out shortcuts for each protein in the system, you can't just jump to your proposed end game. That's the point.
This is a way less damaging way of revenge than most things you could do to someone you don't like for 35 bucks. It's not classy, it's not good, but it's not that awful, either.
The problem is that there are all kinds of inorganic deposits that look a lot like fossil bacteria. Differentiating between them is very, very difficult. The standards are pretty high for declaring things to be ancient microbial fossils from Earth, and even then there are mistakes and debates. The standard for something from Mars has got to be even higher, and when all you have is an oblong shape that is very, very small, well, it's not very strong evidence.
DNA breaks down pretty quickly, in geologic time. The will not find intact strings of DNA in ALH84001, period, and actually looking for living organisms on Mars is going to be very difficult.
Also, if we some day find microorganisms on Mars that share the genetic code of Earth's life, that doesn't prove it's not native Mars live; panspermia and selection both could reasonably explain it. Finding a different code, however, would be excellent evidence for unique origin or long, indpendent evolutionary history.
I think the OP overplayed his hand, but since dragonflies are a pest species, then primary research into their diversity and behavior can let us make useful predictions about their behavior, potential risks to human endeavors, and evolutionary trajectory.
So, while the OP is wrong, you're just as wrong.
Sure, what you'd learn is that a scientist's best bet to get a lot of money is to come up with revolutionary evidence that the AGW theory is incorrect; and the denier's best bet to get a lot of money is to start a consulting company and get giant grants from oil companies to sling dirt at the scientists.
If the scientists did have evidence to show that AGW is wrong, they'd publish it and get famous. Think Nobel. Think front page of every news magazine and giant speaking appointments. The reason this hasn't happened yet is that the evidence isn't there. I'm not saying that the theory is correct, but the evidence that has been collected is pretty one sided.
Currently, the material in scientific journals is dominated by scientists who support AGW, because their money is spent on doing science. The sphere of public opinion is dominated by deniers, because that's where they spend their money.
Just take a moment, and actually consider that the scientists might be more right than wrong. You might learn something.
But, that's not what is happening here. The systems of genetic transfer and mutation are very well understood. There are extremely robust models that explain this exact process and how to detect that have withstood the test of time.
For an example, here's one from wikipedia:
In that example, the absurdity is that we know that larger fires are responded to by firemen, and more come when there is a fire. You're arguing that unless we actually saw the fire growing THIS time, we can only say there is correlation. That's stupid. We have a model of fire growth and fireman response then has been developed through empirical observation. We have a model of evolutionary change and of horizontal gene transfer that has been tested and validated through many, many studies. You need to present an alternative that is more likely in order to explain this away, not just wave your hands, close your eyes, and go "Nyah nyah nyah!"
We are in the middle of one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history and we are the cause and there's no debate about that one.
Blatant lie wrapped up in an assertion of absolute truth.
The Holocene mass extinction is actually well documented, with rates estimated at 100x background. While it hasn't reached the levels of say, the End Permian extinction, this one isn't over yet. While the OP's statement is a bit strong--- it's closer to reality then what you offered.
... - if secrecy, intolerance, conspiracy against dissenters and sheer dishonesty and sloppiness is frequent at the top levels of a discipline,....
A half dozen emails in 10 years of correspondence is frequent?
Sure, AGW can be falsified.
Here are some ways, just off the top of my head:
1. Show that combustion of coal, gas, andother fossil fuels does not emit carbon dioxide.
2. Show that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has not changed due to the release of human combustion; one way this could happen would be some uptake mechanism kicking in.
3. Show that carbon dioxide's absorption spectrum is such that is does not absorb shortwave infrared radiation, or is not transparent to longer wave radiation.
4. Show that the heat that ends up trapped at the Earth's surface escapes in some other manner that is proportional to the increase in temperature.
Okay, get at it! Good luck!
Mind you, the interactions in the extremely complex weather system you mention are tougher to deal with, but they're a result of people trying to figure out what the effects of warming will be; not an effort to measure the warming itself, and thus not necessary to address your one question.
PS- Phil Jones said there was no statistically significant warming; and any time series with as much noise as global temperature measurement and only 15 measurements since 1995 will be impossible to find a statistically significant (p.05) change. Of course, we have a lot more data then that, and we do have statistical significance in longer time series.
Sure, any model is just that, a model.
But one model that we can have a good deal of confidence in is the very simple one of how CO2 reacts to various electromagnetic wavelengths. Simple experiments, you can even do them yourself at home.
Take that data, add the information on what em radiation leaves Earth's surface, and you can make some pretty straightforward predictions about how it affects net energy flux. This has been known for a long time. No reasonable evidence refutes it. Modeling the total energy flux in and out of the Earth isn't that complicated.
The climate models have come along since then, and are obviously dealing with the details of the much more complicated system-- exactly where in the system is the energy going to pool? Yes, a tougher problem, but still predicated on basics that aren't that tough.