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debunkers.org
7/14/08 9:47 AM
debunkers.org
6/20/2008
thong lawsuit
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:47 am
I give this a boggle:
Comments (0)
6/19/2008
Global Warming causes seismic activity?
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
Media
— SPQR @ 6:06 pm
Why not …, since Al Gore et al are blaming everything from hurricane strength to the
http://www.debunkers.org/intro/
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heartbreak of psoriasis on it. The linked article is citing someone named “Tom Chalko
Msc PhD” as claiming that increased seismic activity is the result of global warming.
The mind boggles at the silliness of this.
The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth
increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the
problem of “global warming” is comprehensively and urgently addressed.
…
“Unless the problem of global warming (the problem of persistent thermal
imbalance of Earth) is addressed urgently and comprehensively – the rapid
increase in global seismic, volcanic and tectonic activity is certain.
Consequences of inaction can only be catastrophic. There is no time for
half-measures.”
Cites to a paper purportedly published by “Nujournal.net” - which seems to be
nothing but a vanity webpage for Chalko. The linked “paper” basis for claiming that
the “energy imbalance” is causing more earthquakes? Absolutely none. Chalko proves
absolutely nothing in this two page joke of a “paper”. It is a joke to even call this
junk science as there is no scientific content at all. The wire services will publish any
horse manure so long as it is disguised as a press release on global warming at all and so long as it is not skeptical.
( Discuss this in our Discussion Forum folder on Global Warming - reached by the
link on the right )
Comments (0)
5/30/2008
This stands on its own
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 3:08 pm
Where is stands, I am not sure.
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Comments (0)
5/27/2008
Phoenix Mars Lander
Filed under:
General
Education
— lane @ 12:45 pm
I know dlittlew posted the images in this thread on the discussion board, here’s a
you tube vid of it
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Comments (0)
5/19/2008
This made me laugh
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:08 am
As a certified pyromaniac, even I am not quite so, uhm, careless.
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Comments (0)
5/16/2008
Frothing through ignorance
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 6:23 am
Some may disagree, but this is hysterical:
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Put the smackdown on stupid pundit could be the title, too.
Comments (0)
5/6/2008
Hah, I’m back - and more important info
Filed under:
Creationism
Education
— lane @ 8:35 am
Here is (thanks to Chaon) proof that ID is correct and all those evilutionists are,
uhm, evil.
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Comments (0)
4/22/2008
Apology
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 9:11 pm
The rest of the management of this blog wishes to sincerely apologize for the last
blog entry. Those responsible have been sacked.
Comments (0)
4/19/2008
Gahhhhhh - Leonard Nimoy gone so wrong.
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:50 am
This scarred me, so I must share; I give pain with this:
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Comments (0)
4/12/2008
no news here, just gaming info
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:20 am
teh Zerg win
‘loves Kerrigan, yes, I am off.
Comments (0)
4/6/2008
Letter to BBC
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 5:51 pm
One of our members, John A, posted in the discussion forum a response to a Richard
Page 8 of 197
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Black BBC piece. With his permission, I’m copying it here:
=============
Richard,
I note your latest attempt in your continuing campaign to ignore and demean the
considerable and growing evidence of natural influences on climate change, and
especially on the cosmic ray/solar cycle hypothesis of Svensmark et al.
Last time you raced out of the blocks with an article entitled “No Sun link’ to climate
change” about a paper then yet to be published, and couldn’t be bothered beyond
leaving a few voicemail messages to contact Dr Svensmark for a response. The
paper of course was by Lockwood and Froelich.
Then of course, you didn’t bother reporting that reply from Svensmark because we
don’t want the license payers unnecessarily confused with a solid rebuttal, would we
Richard? Especially since that paper by Lockwood that you trumpeted was rife with
errors.
Here’s the reply from Svensmark.
Here’s another from Ken Gregory and here’s another from Anthony Watts.
Obviously you won’t spend any time reporting on them, because life’s too short isn’t
it Richard? After all, what with burning up all of those carbon credits to visit glaciers
calving perfectly naturally, and polar bear populations stridently not declining but
growing strongly, there’s no time for nuanced scientific reporting is there?
Now we have yet another example of your tawdry one-sided reporting with this one:
“No Sun link’ to climate change” (by the way, are you minimizing your carbon
footprint by recycling the titles to articles?). This time its a letter to a little known
and little read environmental science journal - so we’re a long way from any
expertise in statistics or solar science, aren’t we?
This time the two scientists are Sloan and Wolfendale, and would you believe it! They
come to the same conclusion as the one you want to hear! I’m not a betting man
but if I was, I’d bet they contacted you about their forthcoming letter and you got
some nice juicy “colour quotes” to pad it out to justify your BBC salary and the rest
is history!
Nobody cares, because nobody checks anything!
Except that even Sloan and Wolfendale don’t show that there is ”‘No Sun link’ to
climate change”, they say that even with their limited analysis of 20 some years, the
Svensmark process on its own contributed perhaps 25% of the warming. That’s not
insignificant.
That’s not “no link”, that’s “some link” Richard. Even this limited analysis showed
some connection between the Svensmark process and global climate.
You could have asked them to run the identical analysis looking at the correlation
between carbon dioxide rise and temperature over the same time period, but you
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don’t want to rock the boat by showing that the carbon dioxide link is even more
tenuous than the Svensmark process you’re trying to bury! Carbon dioxide has
continued to rise, while global temperatures appear to have stopped rising in 1998
having stabilized below the 1998 level and might even now be starting to fall. Even
the Met Office admits this - but you don’t report that of course.
But that doesn’t save the day, because in the same article that you failed to quote or
even link to (and I think I know why you didn’t link to it) comes this.
“However, Sloan and Wolfendale are not the only physicists to have
recently turned their attention to the cosmic ray hypothesis. Vitaliy Rusov
of the National Polytechnic University in Odessa, Ukraine and colleagues do
not agree with the IPCC’s view that man is to blame for the recent
warming. To prove their point, they looked for a direct connection between
cosmic ray flux and temperature.”
“The team constructed a model of the Earth’s climate in which the only
significant inputs were variations in the Sun’s power output and changes to
the galactic cosmic ray flux (arxiv.org/abs/0803.2765). They found that the
model’s predicted evolution of the Earth’s surface temperature over the last
700,000 years agrees well with proxy temperature data taken from
Antarctic ice cores (arxiv.org/abs/0803.2766).”
“Rusov agrees that Svensmark’s cosmic ray ionization mechanism cannot
fully account for the observed correlation between cosmic ray flux and
cloud cover, as Sloan and Wolfendale have demonstrated. But he believes
that a small but direct link between cosmic rays and clouds could itself
trigger a mechanism which causes further, and greater, changes in cloud
cover.”
So here was another model study over 700,000 years and the link between climate
change and the solar/cosmic ray variation was crystal clear.
But you couldn’t be bothered reporting it, could you Richard? It didn’t fit the
narrative you’ve constructed.
Between copying and pasting Greenpeace publicity and encouraging reckless damage
to the world economy and to the world’s poor in the “Green Room”, there simply isn’t
time in your day to even report accurately and fairly on environmental issues.
It doesn’t matter that the BBC Trust says that its not the BBC’s responsibility to save
the planet, nor is it responsible journalism to refuse to report on the criticisms of
well-qualified skeptics to the whole global warming scare, because with you and your
colleagues in the hot seat to set the agenda of continuing alarm, the BBC Trust can
go hang and the concerns of many BBC License payers are so much white noise to
be filtered out by the next “Alarm over…” or the next “The IPCC says…” story
concocted in the BBC tearoom from the latest mailshot from Greenpeace or Fiends of
the Earth or the WWF - those billion dollar multi-national corporations of public
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alarm.
Of course when you or Shukman or the others are travelling to the four corners of
the globe to report on why everyone else shouldn’t travel to the four corners of the
globe, there isn’t time to stop in small faraway places like New York and report on
major scientific conferences attended by hundreds of well-qualified scientists who
dispute the IPCC reports and the AGW scare? Who knows? You could have
interviewed the President of the Czech Republic after he give his keynote speech?
http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/newyork08.cfm
But no. No reporting because its not what you want to hear. So it wasn’t reported by
the BBC. Problem solved.
Your journalistic behaviour has at least been consistent: tawdry, one-sided, lazy,
propagandist, alarmist and disgraceful. This isn’t BBC journalism that John Reith
espoused, its more like extreme left-wing evangelization for the repeal of market
economies by way of a faked vision of environmental apocalypse.
I encourage you to get honest: just join Greenpeace’s publicity department officially
and have done with it. You’re doing the job already so you might as well get paid for
it.
Yours truly
John A.,
cc: The BBC Trust
Comments (0)
3/18/2008
An Easter-themed Post
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 8:59 pm
Its getting to be that time …
Time for a Peeps celebration!
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Comments (0)
3/13/2008
Pi day is tomorrow
Filed under:
General
Mathematics
— lane @ 6:09 pm
A heads up. Tomorrow is pi day.
Take pie to work, have pie parties, but most importantly, don’t forget pi.
There is serious pie happening at work tomorrow.
Binary 11.00100100001111110110…
Decimal 3.14159265358979323846…
Duodecimal 3.184809493B91864…
Hexadecimal 3.243F6A8885A308D31319…
or, for the more serious:
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105
820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982
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1480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811
17450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810
97566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692
3460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606
3155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113
30530548820466521384146951941511609…
and for the truly psychotic:
Pi to one million digits
Concern trolls will be in heaven.
Link for discussion
Comments (0)
3/12/2008
litter sucks, but…
Filed under:
General
Statistics
Chemophobia
Education
— lane @ 9:07 am
using questionable (read that as made up) information to try to ban plastic bags is
just as bad.
I bolded the interesting bits. They couldn’t even find a study to misinterpret. Sheesh.
Plastic bags are not killing animals.
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban
plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated
claims.
The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a
million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They
pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales,
dolphins and seabirds.
–snippy–
Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing
or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast
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numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has
established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose
any direct threat to marine mammals.
They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine
debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject.
Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste
produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main
culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals
are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”
He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals
ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few
species.For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”
The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000
marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this
figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in
Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more
than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by
discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.
Here’s the thread in the discussion area.
Comments (0)
2/29/2008
Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
— Jeff Norman @ 1:44 am
You’ve got to love those guys over at Real Climate. Okay, maybe not you but
someone surely, at least their mothers, maybe.
On Feb 12 they posted an article that I copied for this blo gentry
Cold? Yeah, We Knew That.
. Antarctica is
Despite the recent announcement that the discharge from some Antarctic
glaciers is accelerating, we often hear people remarking that parts of
Antarctica are getting colder, and indeed the ice pack in the Southern
Ocean around Antarctica has actually been getting bigger. Doesn’t this
contradict the calculations that greenhouse gases are warming the globe?
Not at all, because a cold Antarctica is just what calculations
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predict… and have predicted for the past quarter century.
Just to be clear, my interpretation of what “science historian” Spencer Weart is
saying here is that parts of Antarctica (most parts actually except for the relatively
small Antarctic Peninsula) are getting colder, that is the temperature trend is
generally downward. Further this colder trend has been predicted for the past quarter
century and presumably reported to all the right people who need to summarize all
the relevant information for policy makers.
So let’s see now… 2008 minus 25 equals 1983… so this has been common knowledge
in the climate community since 1983. Let’s test this hypothesis.
It is interesting and perhaps surprising that net contribution expected from
changes in the Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets is small. For both icesheets there are two competing effects³. In a warmer world, there is more
water vapour in the atmosphere which leads to more snowfall. But there is
also more ablation (erosion by melting) of the ice around the boudaries of
the ice-sheets where melting of the ice and calving of icebergs occurs
during the summer months. For Antarctica, the estimates are that the
accumulation is greater than the ablation, leading to a small net growth.
The footnoted reference is:
3. See for instance C.J. van der Veen, “State of balance of the cryosphere”,
REV. Geophys., 29, 1991, pp. 433-55.
It seems like the author of this quote was unaware that it had been well known that
colder Antarctic temperatures were to result from anthropogenic greenhouse
emissions. Just in case you missed it, for the Antarctic ice cover to grow faster than
it ablates, it has to snow more. For it to snow more there has to be more moisture
in the air. For there to be more moisture in the air the air has to be warmer.
Who is this author who was apparently out of the loop? I took the quote from: John
Houghton, “Global Warming - The Complete Briefing”, Second Edition, Cambridge
University Press, 1997, page 109.
I’m pretty sure 1997 was during the last 25 years.
The title page claims this John Houghton person was the “Co-chairman of the
Scientific Assessment Working-Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change”. I guess they forgot to tell him.
So why am I posting this here and not over at Real Climate. Mostly because they do
not welcome skeptical questioning of their premises.
Comments (0)
1/27/2008
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Sunday Geek Frivolity
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 2:11 pm
Comments (0)
1/23/2008
Real Life Ponzi Scheme in Virtual World
Filed under:
General
Polycon
Mathematics
Economics
— SPQR @ 7:48 pm
This is fascinating. It seems that being in a virtual world does not make people any
smarter. In Second Life, people fell for a Ponzi scheme.
As reported in this Baltimore Sun story:
The 33-year-old from Chicago, who played the game as a raven-haired
vixen called Zania Turner, deposited $140 in Ginko Financial and waited for
the money to grow. Instead, it vanished five months ago when Ginko,
perhaps the first Ponzi scheme perpetrated by three-dimensional online
avatars, left Second Life.
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“I was foolish,” Roberts said. So were many others. Ginko took with it
about $75,000 in real-money deposits, shaking faith in Second Life’s
venerated lawlessness - no cops, no courts, no government - and
unnerving Linden Lab, the usually laid-back San Francisco company that
created it.
Besides the usual wonderment at people investing in Ponzi schemes even in a game,
the really fascinating part is the interaction between Second Life’s owner Linden Labs’
attempt to impose regulation and the subsequent economic effects. If nothing else,
Second Life mimics some basic economic principles:
Within moments, there was a meltdown. ATMs didn’t work when players
rushed to withdraw their Linden dollars, which can be exchanged for U.S.
currency at a rate that hovers about 270-to-1. Stocks plunged and so did
real estate prices. Avatars - players’ digital doppelgangers - marched with
signs saying. “Give us our banks back NOW!!” and sent melancholy
messages: “We’re doomed.”
It was nearly a 3-D insurgency. “People are panicking,” said Margaret, a
British mother of two who in Second Life is Ragged Delec, an exotic dancer.
Margaret, who asked that her last name not be printed, hasn’t been able to
retrieve $400 she had squirreled away.
“This has done some serious damage to the Second Life financial industry,”
she said.
We will discuss this further in the Economics folder of the Discussion forum - link
found to the upper left.
Comments (0)
1/19/2008
MLK B-day
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 11:25 am
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Makes me tear up.
While his real b-day is 15-January, we get a monday in january off.
RIP, January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968, to a brilliant orator.
Comments (0)
1/18/2008
This is e-boy’s fault
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:25 pm
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this girl has some serious pipes
Comments (0)
1/17/2008
Scientology, need I say more???
Filed under:
General
Creationism
politics
— lane @ 11:43 am
Go here, YouTube or someone pulled it
Didn’t get a chance to watch the terrifyingly creepy Tom Cruise video
yesterday before Scientologists pulled it off YouTube? Well, we’ve managed
to get our hands on a copy and now we’d like to invite you to watch in all
its technicolor glory.
And people ask me why I mock EVERYONE.
You could not make this up, yet it is real life likeish.
………..
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Incoherent stupid is very amusing.
Comments (0)
1/15/2008
Ok, we’ve gawt angry kat below
Filed under:
politics
— lane @ 8:09 pm
But, sly sarcasm boy
Adds a layer of reality.
Still working on a post because I am lazier than a cat.
Comments (0)
Mythbusters
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 1:50 pm
Here at Debunkers, we occasionally discuss the Discovery Channel TV show
“Mythbusters”. So when I saw this on Icanhazcheesburger I laughed pretty hard.
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Here is a link to Icanhascheezburger if you are not already a fan funny pictures
If you don’t get the joke, look at this page.
Comments (0)
1/13/2008
FTC investigating Carbon Offset claims
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 10:22 pm
The NYT reports that the FTC is investigating carbon offset scams.
The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising claims, raised
the question Tuesday in its first hearing in a series on green marketing, this
one focusing on carbon offsets.
As more companies use offset programs to create an environmental halo
over their products, the commission said it was growing increasingly
concerned that some green marketing assertions were not substantiated.
Environmentalists have a word for such misleading advertising:
“greenwashing.”
With the rapid growth of green programs like carbon offsets, “there’s a
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heightened potential for deception,” said Deborah Platt Majoras,
chairwoman of the commission.
The F.T.C. has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known
as the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then, the agency did not create
definitions for phrases that are common now — like renewable energy,
carbon offsets and sustainability.
For now, it is soliciting comments on how to update its guidelines and is
gathering information about how carbon-offset programs work.
Comments (0)
1/12/2008
Carbon Credit Killers
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
politics
— SPQR @ 6:48 pm
I hurt myself laughing again. I really should not do that, as the physical therapist
bills are getting high, but at my age there is not a lot of choice.
What did it this time? Carbon Credit Killers.
This is a hilarious website attacking Al Gore’s carbon offset scam business with some
humor. One can buy a “carbon debit package”. And it is a funny set of packages too.
The “standard” package includes: “Tree Destroyed in Your Name”, “Email Sent to Al
Gore”, “Certificate of Carbon Debit Purchase”, and ”‘I Increased My Carbon Footprint’
t-shirt” – for only $19.95!
Don’t miss the Premier Carbon Debit Vacation Package.
What We Do
Very simply, we provide a way to fight the fallacy of Carbon Credits by
selling Carbon Debits. These are not just meaningless words but have
actions behind them as we remove a tree for every debit purchased.
After receiving a Carbon Debit purchase we would process it as follows:
1. Carbon Debit Purchase is recorded and Certificate of Purchase is emailed
2. Our Carbon Debit Specialist is notified of the Carbon Debit Purchase 3.
The Carbon Debit Specialist executes one tree for every Carbon Debit
purchased. 4. The destruction of the tree is relayed back to Carbon Debit
head-quarters for final Carbon Debit confirmation.
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Although our actions are obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek we take all Carbon
Debit orders seriously and will execute a tree and remove the equivalent of
one Carbon Credit from those who are trying to be guilt free in their
energy gluttony.
We also provide t-shirts and others items so that you may show those
around you that you have taken action on the threat of Global Carbon
Credits. Encourage everyone you know – buy a Carbon Debit today!
We are discussing this one in the Global Warming topic in the discussion forum. Our
discussion forum can be accessed using the link at the upper right.
Comments (0)
1/11/2008
Cross Site Printing
Filed under:
Polycon
Education
politics
— lane @ 1:55 pm
Great, just we need, more spam
Aaron Weaver has made a discovery the world could probably do without:
He’s found a way to spam your printer from the Web.
By using a little-known capability found in most Web browsers, Weaver can
make a Web page launch a print job on just about any printer on a victim’s
network. The Web site could print annoying ads on the printer and
theoretically issue more dangerous commands, like telling the printer to
send a fax, format its hard drive or download new firmware.
Comments (0)
1/6/2008
British TV host hoist by his own petard as it were
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 9:35 pm
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Jeremy Clarkson recently wrote a column. He wanted to explain to people that the
loss by the British government of personal data on seven million Britons in a
database was no big deal - that no one could use the information to defraud anyone.
So he included in his column his bank account number and routing code.
Bad idea it turns out as someone took that information, and evidently to teach him a
lesson, set up a debit from his bank account of 500 pounds ( what is that in real
money anyway?) to a charity.
He learned his lesson and wrote about it:
After the scale of his blunder became apparent, a chastened Clarkson
wrote: “Contrary to what I said at the time, we must go after the idiots
who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for
mercy.”
Last week it emerged that more than 28,000 people have signed a petition
on the Downing Street website calling for Clarkson to be made prime
minister.
Comments (0)
1/4/2008
Obama’s speech
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 6:22 pm
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Ok, I think much of what he is spouting is garbage.
But he can spout and turn a phrase that MLK would be proud of.
And is really a brilliant speech.
Comments (0)
1/2/2008
Netscape dies
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 1:32 pm
AOL announces the end of Netscape
An historic name in software will effectively pass into history in February as
AOL discontinues development and active support for the Netscape
browser, according to an official blog.
AOL will keep delivering security patches for the current version of
Netscape until Feb. 1, 2008, after which it will no longer provide active
support for any version of the software, according to a Friday entry on The
Netscape Blog by Tom Drapeau, lead developer for Netscape.com. The
Netscape.com Web site will remain as a general-purpose portal.
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It is kinda sad in a philosophical way. I haven’t used nutscrape for years, I use
Firefox and Safari. But I was there watching the IPO and launch of it.
So passes a legend.
Comments (0)
12/29/2007
cool sky stuff
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 7:02 pm
Go here for a pretty picture
The last time I was at stonehenge was 1979, the stupid (tagging) faction had not hit
the field and I could walk among the stones. Alas, no more. We must view that
brilliant architectural .. thing .. from afar now.
However, look at it is… a giant chunk o’ rock that tells the time.
Comments (0)
12/28/2007
File This Under “Don’t Hold Your Breath”
Filed under:
General
Govt Junk
politics
— SPQR @ 10:25 pm
Science Debate 2008
As you watched the scores of U.S. Presidential debates, did you ever
wonder why there has been no debate devoted to policy surrounding what
may be the most important social issue of our time: Science and
Technology?
We did and we want to make sure it happens.
Science Debate 2008 is a grassroots initiative spearheaded by a growing
number of scientists and other concerned citizens. The signatories to our
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“Call for a Presidential Debate on Science & Technology” include Nobel
laureates and other leading scientists, presidents of universities,
congresspersons of both major political parties, business leaders, religious
leaders, former presidential science advisors, the editors of America’s major
science journals, writers, and the current and several past presidents of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, among many others.
Don’t hold your breath, hypoxia can be fatal.
However, I was amused to look under the blogs supporting this proposal and found
this item:
David Archer, Michael Mann, Eric Steig, Ray Pierrehumbert
Real Climate
That’s amusing. The Real Climate blog does its best to suppress debate on Climate
Change, not foster it.
Further discussion is found in our Polycon folder of the discussion folder. Link at
right.
Comments (0)
The Internet is destroying our culture and other silliness
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 10:21 pm
David Harsanyi is a columnist at the Denver Post, but don’t hold that against him.
He’s actually a reasonably thoughtful guy. He recently wrote a review for Reason
magazine of a book titled The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing
Our Culture by Andrew Keen.
I love reviews that tell me I don’t need to read a book because I spend too much
money at the local bookstore and on Amazon.com as it is. ( And it is all Setnakht’s
fault too ). Probably the title would have warned me off this one but I had to share
the review with you.
From Harsanyi’s review:
Keen refuses to confess that there’s even a smattering of intellectually and
culturally worthy user-driven content online. If you do find something
decent in the “digital forest of mediocrity,” he attributes it to the infinite
monkey theorem: Even simians, if permitted to indiscriminately hit a
keyboard for an infinite amount of time, will one day bang out Beowulf or
Don Quixote. (Silly me, I was under the impression that monkeys had
hatched the idea for VH1’s Scott Baio Is 45…and Single.) Apparently, these
monkeys are discharging so much free content into the cyber-strata that
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they threaten to bury culturally significant work, dilute good craftsmanship,
and cost me, a journalist and “cultural gatekeeper,” my job. So I guess I’d
better take Keen’s thesis seriously.
Evidently the book is not completely devoid of insight …
Readers of The Cult of the Amateur may be surprised to learn that the
barbarians capable of obliterating thousands of years of Western culture in
their spare time are a horde of porn-addicted, gambling-happy, ungrateful,
musically challenged yokels.
Damn, he knows us after all.
Comments (0)
12/24/2007
this election race is getting more and more amusing
Filed under:
Polycon
— lane @ 3:33 pm
Clicky
MASON CITY, IOWA – Janice Easley’s fury over illegal immigration boiled
over Saturday as she confronted Republican presidential hopeful Fred
Thompson at the Music Man Square museum.
She said she recalled a film about Mexicans who wanted to take over
California and New Mexico. Calling illegal immigrants a taxpayer burden,
she wondered whether Americans could march in the streets of Mexico and
demand welfare. When Iowans call up the power company, she said,
“everything is in Spanish; it’s sickening.”
“You are so, so right,” Thompson responded. English should be the national
language, he told the retiree, and immigrants bear some of the blame for
the home-loan crisis. “A lot of them couldn’t communicate with the people
they were getting the mortgage from,” he said.
Yeah, that’s right. The sub-prime mortgage SNAFU is due to folx who don’t
understand english and not the cause of out of control lending to anything that
moves. Teh banks took a risk on lending at psychotic stupidity, and it’s the fault of
people who don’t speak english as a primary language.
Fred, I never liked you, but you have pretty well demonstrated that you are churning
the bottom of the barrel. And it ain’t butter.
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Comments (0)
12/22/2007
Winter Solstice
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:16 pm
Some interesting facts from the great orange satan about winter solstice.
Happy Winter, or Summer, as the case may be! The northern Winter
Solstice occurred just a few hours ago (Dec. 22, 1:08 AM EDT). That
means today will be about the shortest day of the year, and tonight a long,
glorious reign of winter darkness. But it doesn’t mean that the sun rose at
the latest time this morning, or that it will set at the earliest later today.
And now, if you haven’t heard this odd astronomical tale already, you’re
puzzled: How could the shortest day of the year not feature the latest
sunrise and/or earliest sunset? The key is they don’t happen on the same
day of the year, otherwise, yes, we’d have a problem.
And Kent will probably eat my face for this potentially simplistic link, but…
Comments (0)
12/21/2007
Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global
Warming Claims in 2007
Filed under:
Global Warming
Chemophobia
Evironmantalism
— lane @ 9:27 am
Link
Ok, whatever.
I am completely ambivalent on the whole global temperature thing. But, science
truth by volume really offends me and for that to be the title that Milloy mails out
makes me annoyed. Ya, that is the title used in the report, but it is dumb and for
him to reiterate it is bad
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Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently
voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus”
on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current
and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and
former Vice President Al Gore.
Comments (0)
more political candidate fun
Filed under:
Govt Junk
Creationism
— lane @ 8:44 am
I’m a tolerant person. Ok, I’m not really, but I can pretend until I see stuff coming
around the bend like Robert Novak reports
When Mike Huckabee went to Houston on Tuesday to raise funds for his
fast-rising, money-starved presidential candidacy, a luncheon for the
ordained Baptist minister was arranged by evangelical Christians. On hand
was Judge Paul Pressler, a hero to Southern Baptist Convention reformers.
But he was a nonpaying guest who supports Fred Thompson for president.
Huckabee greeted Pressler warmly. That contrasted with Huckabee’s anger
two months ago when they encountered each other in California. The
former governor of Arkansas took issue then with comments by Pressler, a
former Texas appeals court judge, that Huckabee had been a slacker in the
war against secularists within the Baptist church.
Delving a touch deeper, we find this funess
I’ll let you dredge through the site, it kinda makes me nauseous.
But as a quick sampler:
10. The Bible is true in matters of faith and practice, doctrine and morals,
but it is not necessarily true when it speaks on matters of interest to
history and science.
Article XII
WE AFFIRM that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all
falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
WE DENY that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual,
religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of
history and sci ence. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth
history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on
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creation and the flood.
I find this sentiment highly offensive. I know of no rational scientist or science
understanding person to even suggest that science is a mechanism to overturn
whomever’s belief in a god.
I have stated this many times, if your faith is so shallow that you will shut your mind
science and only believe in the writings from a compiled collection of articles from
deep history, your faith is failed on a different level. Get it people, faith is faith and
has no use in our political system. I do not want to live in a religious theocracy. I
don’t even want to hear the bone-heads in DC mentioning religion. Not because I
have an issue with their personal god or whatever, but because it is not the way we
should run our country.
Rant over. Player whawn.
Comments (0)
12/20/2007
tancredo
Filed under:
Govt Junk
Media
— lane @ 10:39 am
Well, it’s politics month so….
Tancredo to abandon presidential bid
The five-term Colorado congressman planned to make the announcement
at a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, the person said,
speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak for Tancredo or his campaign.
I could not care less in this presidential race, and as such, I am simply watching the
explosions.
Comments (0)
12/19/2007
der magna carta thingy
Filed under:
General
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— lane @ 1:12 pm
Copy of Magna Carta sold for £10m
13th century copy of the Magna Carta manuscript sold for more than £10
million at auction to an American businessman who said it will remain on
public display.
David Rubenstein, co-founder of private equity firm The Carlyle Group, paid
$21.3 million (£10.6m) when the document went under the hammer at
Sotheby’s in New York.
It is the most important document that was ever written. Without it, out constitution
could not exist and, in general, we would still be servile to some king under his
whim.
Comments (0)
12/18/2007
dr. dino redux, again
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:44 am
QUACKY QUOTES
No comment, just a classic list of hovind’s babblings
e.g.:
In spite of their ferocious look, many people would probably argue the TRex was a vegetarian. The ferocious teeth would have been great for, you
know, crushing stuffed pumpkins or something, you know. I don’t know if it
has ever been proven they were meat eaters. There is plenty of evidence
from cracks in the enamel with chlorophyll stains in them indicating they
were certainly eating plants.
[Claim originates from Carl Baugh who is not returning emails]
Truth Radio 28 September 2006 @ 10:00 (Tape 1)
Comments (0)
12/12/2007
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puke central
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:39 pm
From Crittenden pajama media continues to prove that they are also bankrupt:
In war, we know, the ends so often do justify the means, so who’s to
quibble about why impeachment proceedings are not going ahead; why
alleged U.S. “torture” just became a non-issue; why the Democratic
leadership in Congress is ready to fund the U.S. troops fighting terrorism
and trying to build a free nation in Iraq; and why, belatedly, said
leadership and other critics are acknowledging that the Bush counterinsurgency strategy there is in fact working?
Never does anything justifies its means. Ever.
Get a clue people.
Comments (0)
freepers continue to display mouth breathing
Filed under:
Evironmantalism
Education
— lane @ 12:14 pm
They have glommed on to a Daily Mail comment about climate change from teh
pope. And then started ranting while mouth breathing.
Problem is, it don’t say what they think it says.
The problems looming on the horizon are complex and time is short. In
order to face this situation effectively, there is a need to act in harmony.
One area where there is a particular need to intensify dialogue between
nations is that of the stewardship of the earth’s energy resources. The
technologically advanced countries are facing two pressing needs in this
regard: on the one hand, to reassess the high levels of consumption due to
the present model of development, and on the other hand to invest
sufficient resources in the search for alternative sources of energy and for
greater energy efficiency.
Climate change is still under review - what is happening is relevant to the planet.
Making it a political question is just stupid. Let the science will it out, kk.
Comments (0)
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trans fats redux
Filed under:
Medicine
Media
Education
— lane @ 10:32 am
The brit food agency, the Food Standard Agency, is going stupid, too.
FSA considers regulatory action on trans fats
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) will discuss tomorrow whether to
maintain a voluntary approach for food manufacturers in limiting harmful
trans fatty acids or whether to introduce mandatory restrictions.
Let’s review this concept:
People have been eating trans-fats forever. We have very well developed biochemical
pathways to deal with them. My first biochemistry teacher discussed this back in
1986. He was way on the edge of noting the stupid that was just beginning to
surface.
All beef related meat stuff has trans fats. Period.
We die. Period.
This is not rocket science people. This whole, remove everything from fun (be it food,
drugs, alcohol, etc) that may kill you 3 days earlier, is really getting tiresome.
This particular breakdown is …. amusing:
An industry breakdown showed the average trans fats amounts in different
sectors.
Margarine and fat spreads contain less that 1g per 100g.
Biscuits, cakes and pastries contain less than 1g per 100g.
Ice cream contains 0.2g per 100g.
Crisps and savoury snacks contain less that 0.35g per 100g.
Chips and processed potatoes contain less than 2g per 100g.
Confectionery products contain no more than 1g per 100g.
Recall back to the days when butter was declared evil and margarine was ‘good’?
Note that meat is not on that list. It can contain up to 10% of the fat as trans-fats.
Depends on diet and breed.
And before any of you out there start accusing me of being anti-meat, please read
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carefully.
Comments (0)
christmas
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:43 am
and insult to soooo many others
Clicky
Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.
Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many
other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians
throughout the United States and the world;
Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United
States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the
American population;
Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the
world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion
of about one-third of the world population;
Whereas Christians identify themselves as those who believe in the
salvation from sin offered to them through the sacrifice of their savior,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and who, out of gratitude for the gift of
salvation, commit themselves to living their lives in accordance with the
teachings of the Holy Bible;
Really, does the stupid never end in congress???
Not all christian faiths buy dec 25th as the birthday of jesus. In fact, anyone with a
brain recognizes that the catholic church took over a pagan festival for their own
gain.
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–
(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;
(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and
worldwide;
(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of
Christmas and the Christian faith;
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(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and
Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the
western civilization;
(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the
United States and worldwide; and
(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians
throughout the world.
GAH - I don’t really know where to go with these resolution. Though I think the main
direction is NO DUH.
This is not what our congresskritters need to be doing. As I have said an infinite
number of times, this is not an anti-religion rant, this is a simple do your business
rant.
I don’t know, like maybe actually pass a budget?
Comments (0)
home of the brave and the land of moral bankruptcy
Filed under:
General
Govt Junk
— lane @ 7:41 am
This latest bit about the CIA destroying tapes showing agents torturing people has
proven that this administration has devolved to the utter point of contempt.
No one needs to parse the law to the point where it is necessary to explicitly make
illegal what we have consistently deemed to be illegal. It makes a joke of our law.
And takes us down to level of the subhuman regimes that ‘we’ criticize.
The ends never justify the means. Ever. The argument that torturing someone to
save blah number of lives does not justify that it is utterly immoral.
Comments (0)
12/11/2007
GERD drugs clearedish
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:42 pm
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clicky
FDA has completed a comprehensive, scientific review of known safety data
for both drugs, which are used to treat the symptoms of gastroesophageal
reflux disease (GERD) and other conditions caused by excess stomach acid.
While long-term studies reported to the agency on May 29, 2007, collected
safety data, the study protocols did not specify how heart problems, such
as heart attacks, were defined or verified. As a result, evaluating the
information that was gathered about the safety of both drugs in these
studies was challenging.
Comments (0)
blame bruiser for this amazing guitar link
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 4:39 pm
for some AMAZING picking on a gorgeous guitar
Comments (0)
tattoos and safety
Filed under:
Medicine
— lane @ 8:29 am
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Hmmmm, a bit on tattoo safety comes out.
Personally, I have a dislike of tattoos that borders on an irrational phobia.
There is the bit about epidurals and, must not snark about lower back tattoos on
women… the Mayo Clinic suggests that only fresh tattoos are a counter-indication.
Comments (0)
12/10/2007
more lane snark
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:09 pm
to add to a WaPo article on (D) Kucinch may be a nut, but he is running hand-inhand with the rest of the presidential candidates. and he acknowledges that he is an
outrider, but the wife is scary good at public speakage and totally hot.
You show up as a red-head and you win.
And, yeah, she ain’t Irish, but the red hair green eyes will back to there.
Comments (0)
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12/8/2007
NIE, Rebups and stupid
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:35 pm
The republicans (or some of them) latest response to the NIE response to the nonthreat from Iran is revolting to me.
I am not an intelligence person (as well noted , I am a biochemist); however, I
many very close ties to the folx that are the hard, hard core intel people. And I find
it highly offensive that the ‘tards in congress are accusing the latest report from the
NIE because they wish to perpetuate ’shrubs desire to bomb the ME. This
administration is really pissing me off.
Politic month continues.
Comments (0)
Armageddon and stupid people in control
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 12:51 pm
just a thought…
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Comments (0)
12/7/2007
abstinence only sex-ed
Filed under:
Creationism
politics
— lane @ 1:39 pm
A statistical blip or something more real?
The nation’s teenage birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years,
surprising government health officials who had no immediate explanation.
But several experts said that they have been expecting an increase. They
attribute the rise to increased federal financing for abstinence-only healtheducation programs that do not teach teenagers how to use contraceptives.
And, yes, I know that not all kids go down that line, but not all are
particularly forward thinking and removing eduction is stupid.
Some key sexually transmitted disease rates have also been rising,
including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. The rising teenage pregnancy
rate is part of the same phenomenon, said Dr. Carol Hogue, a professor of
maternal and child health at Emory University
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Nice. Let’s hope that it is a blip. ‘cause the suggestion that kids are going to let
some religious moral code override their hormones, is ludicrous. The additional
health complications from STDs makes the progenitors of these programs as an only
option, criminal.
And, yes, I know that not all kids are going to go out a have sex, but limiting
educational options is bad.
Comments (0)
12/6/2007
mittie’s briefs
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:22 pm
Who cares?
And those that do, need to get a grip on what is relevant in the real world
Clicky
Republican U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offered his views on
religion and faith in the United States Thursday, but not an explanation of
his faith.
“If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion,”
Romney, a Mormon, said in remarks prepared for delivery in College
Station, Texas. “A president must serve only the common cause of the
people of the United States.”
Guess what, I just could not care less less if you practiced demonology on your back
porch. Give some real reason that you are not another rube running for the prez. KK.
Not that complicated.
Really, anything religion related is meaningless.
Yeah, I see he is attempting to do that and the ‘tards that keep bringing his faith
into the discussion are, uhm, ‘tards. But we’ve done this before. The easy one is
Kennedy as a catholic.
Not tot repeat myself (but I will), GET OVER PEOPLES RELIGION
Comments (0)
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12/5/2007
democrats debate off teh camera
Filed under:
politics
— lane @ 6:36 am
As I said, this is politic month.
NPR had an Iowa caucus debate that was very scripted and to whatever point they
have (though I kinda liked the minimal questions)
If, and you probably did not hear this conversation proves to me that the dems are
just as stoopid as the repubs.
Please let me off at the next intergalactic bus stop
Comments (0)
12/3/2007
I’ll be good and post fewer YouTube things
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 11:10 pm
Robin admonished me, so I’ll try to be goodish, sorta, maybe
But the links are passive and I have word from people behind the firewalls from hell
that that isn’t the problem, but I’ll still try to be good, but I do live my life visually.
Comments (0)
12/1/2007
she’s guilty
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 5:52 pm
so says a barbaric justice system.
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Clicky
THE British teacher held for naming a teddy bear Mohammed has been
found guilty of insulting religion and has been sentenced to 15 days in
prison, her lawyer said.
She will also face deportation.
Looking tired and distressed, Gillian Gibbons, 54, earlier appeared in a
Khartoum courtroom for the start of her trial charged with insulting religion
and inciting hatred.
Comments (0)
artifact or conspiracy?
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:44 am
heh
Blame bruiser for this one
Comments (0)
11/30/2007
more creationism for jooo
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Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 2:32 pm
Clicky
Yesterday, I hinted that I was considering a visit to the Creation Museum in
Petersburg, KY. This decision was not without its dilemmas. First, there is
principle. How could a God-fearing scientist such as myself justify the
blasphemy of setting foot in a temple of wrongness?
Get Steve here. I am too lazy to think about this.
Comments (0)
11/29/2007
more executive branch BS
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 3:46 pm
WaPo article. Another point where this administration has decided that science is
irrelevant, and politics will take take precedence.
After concluding that a Bush administration appointee “may have
improperly influenced” several rulings on whether to protect imperiled
species under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service
has revised seven decisions on protecting species across the country.
The policy reversal, sparked by inquiries by the Interior Department’s
inspector general and by the House Natural Resources Committee,
underscores the extent to which the administration is still dealing with the
fallout from the tenure of Julie MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary
for fish, wildlife and parks who repeatedly overruled agency scientists’
recommendations on endangered-species decisions. MacDonald resigned
from the department in May after she was criticized in a report by the
inspector general and as she was facing congressional scrutiny.
I could not care less about the endangered species act. I like to watch wild critters,
but am ambivalent about specifics ‘cause DNA will win and diversity will. But the
effrontery of a political appointee ignoring her science kritters annoys me.
Comments (0)
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ok, I may go politic for awhile
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 3:34 pm
I have issues with the brits and Ireland and this song kinda represents it, along with:
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It is sad that folx mock his drunkenness, which has zero to do with his brilliance as a
song writer. And as a performer.
Comments (0)
snark to the max
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:57 am
Kosovo1[1]
Uploaded by TheoSpark
Comments (0)
11/28/2007
A different world right next door
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 3:48 pm
Click me
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – If you’re planning to vote in Virginia’s February
Republican presidential primary, be prepared to sign an oath swearing your
Republican loyalty.
If you could comment, there is a preemptive Godwin’s law invoked
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Ok, we are just over 420 days to our next dear leader.
I’ll go political, regardless of a previous post that says I’ll say apolitical.
Comments (0)
Brit teacher defended
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:33 am
Clicky for kid defending teacher
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A 7-year-old Sudanese student on Tuesday
defended the British teacher accused of insulting Islam saying he had
chosen to call a teddy bear Mohammad because it was his own name.
Guesses on time to lashes and imprisonment for the kid?
Comments (0)
Not picking on deists, but
Filed under:
General
Creationism
— lane @ 6:54 am
This is odd at best
Or former atheists, or anyone who has an answer they like. Every so often
I like to see how far one of my fundamental beliefs can be stretched by
intelligent opposition. Today I want you to try to convince me there is no
God, WITHOUT referencing “the problem of evil.” (In Islam God’s ultimate
goodness stems from the mercy of creation [the idea being it’s better to
exist than not exist], which contains both good and evil, so the existence
of evil isn’t the same problem it is in Christianity.)
You believe in doG, great, why does your faith need some kinda proof? Do you
actually understand what faith is?
Posted because of the proving a negative that seems to have seeped from the
creationists to the existence of doG.
Comments (0)
11/27/2007
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Hoomans or not?
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 2:11 pm
The latest StarCraft II trailer is making me wonder. Do I continue my hatred of
Terrans and stick with playing ‘toss and Zerg?
I may give them a second chance. Maybe.
But, the blades of Auir will probably win.
The engine that they have developed it drooley. IK and a hardcore physics engine,
drooooolllll,
Comments (0)
I don’t post political for a reason
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 11:29 am
But this is really pissing me off.
A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting
Islam’s Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear
Muhammad.
…
Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.
The BBC has learned the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes
or a fine.
On top of the woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes for the effrontery of being
raped, I kinda want to kill.
Following her appeal, a Saudi Court has increased the sentance of a gang
rape victim to 200 lashes and six months jail, punishment for travelling
alone in a car with a non-relative male prior to the attack. Her seven
attackers sentences now range from two to nine years.
Go here for discussion on the board.
Comments (0)
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11/21/2007
Stem cells from skin cells
Filed under:
Medicine
Creationism
Chemophobia
— lane @ 11:43 am
Will the wingnuts fight this one?
Scientists have managed to reprogram human skin cells directly into cells
that look and act like embryonic stem (ES) cells. The technique makes it
possible to generate patient-specific stem cells to study or treat disease
without using embryos or oocytes–and therefore could bypass the ethical
debates that have plagued the field. “This is like an earthquake for both the
science and politics of stem cell research,” says Jesse Reynolds, policy
analyst for the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, California.
…
Once the kinks are worked out, “the whole field is going to completely
change,” says stem cell researcher Jose Cibelli of Michigan State University
in East Lansing. “People working on ethics will have to find something new
to worry about.”
The article will publish in the 22-November issue of Science
Comments (0)
11/20/2007
karl snark
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 9:58 pm
This is too good
Creationism could be scientific if God wanted it to be, in the same way that
pi could equal 7 if that’s what God felt like doing. God hasn’t made
creationism a science yet, but he might be keeping his options open.
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He gets many free drinks the next time he’s back in the states
Discussion link
Comments (0)
when a furry rat wants food, he gets smart
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 11:56 am
Comments (0)
11/19/2007
Evils of turkey day .. again
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 1:04 pm
Clicky clicky
November 16, 2007 – New York, NY. Scientists associated with the
American Council on Science and Health analyzed the natural foods that
make up a traditional holiday dinner – and have found that they are loaded
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with “carcinogens”: chemicals that in large doses cause cancer in laboratory
animals. None of these chemicals are made by man or added to the foods.
Indeed, all of these “carcinogens” occur naturally in foods. But ACSH
scientists have good news: these natural carcinogens pose no hazard to
human health.
Comments (0)
I HATE FoxNews…
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:54 am
so, this is just apropos
Comments (0)
and this is only funny if you think it is
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 1:15 am
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Combines Weird Al Yankovic and WoW
Classic, at least to me.
And, looking a little deeper, it is a really well done production. I sure as hell couldn’t
get my guild that organized.
Comments (0)
11/18/2007
silliness, because I can
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 11:29 pm
And I play WAY too much online.
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HT to Boomer who did this, not me.
Comments (0)
Fiscal responsibility
Filed under:
Education
— lane @ 5:21 pm
click me
Q: What is the purpose of the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour?
A: The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour is designed to educate Americans about our
nation’s true financial condition and large and growing fiscal imbalance. By
stating the facts and speaking the truth to people outside Washington’s
Beltway, we hope to accomplish several key objectives: First, to encourage
more Americans, especially younger Americans, to become more informed
about and involved in this and other major public policy issues. Second, to
slow our fiscal bleeding as soon as possible. And finally, to help make sure
that fiscal responsibility will be addressed by Presidential and other
candidates during the 2008 elections.
Will it help?
Me hopes so.
Comments (0)
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me is high-school reading, I guess
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:57 am
I really need to stop rooting around on the tubes. I gots stuff I need to writes, and I
am not doing it.
Pulls add - not here, biotch
Comments (0)
stupid burns holes in my head
Filed under:
Chemophobia
— lane @ 8:30 am
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but you have to love his hair - never moves
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Comments (0)
11/17/2007
Video killed!
Filed under:
General
Media
— lane @ 12:20 am
Does it hate America?
/snark.
I just d/l’ded The Age Of Plastic. I was still on vinyl with the Buggles and other stuff
that I was just too cheap to get to digital.
What’s my point?
This is mid 70’s moosic. Listen on earbuds and they did stuff I don’t think they even
thought they were doing. Some geeks with a Moog synth, and…
I hate MTV and everything that it is, however
fixed
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was their launching video and is remains, also, amazing.
And, with age, they remain, brilliant:
10 pts to anyone who knows what ‘VTR’ means.
Comments (0)
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11/15/2007
Tie back to creationism
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 2:15 pm
Only because my brain works this way, here’s a tie back to this thread
And that huge ass non-bass guitar is so cool.
I saw the Femmes at the 9:30 club last year sometime, and they are still hawt. Have
only been following them since about 1982, so I don’t like to label ‘em - pseudo
punk? Buh, no care.
Comments (0)
Evil Santa, evil
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 12:26 pm
Drakens gets the blame for this post on the death of santa (primary link here)
a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could
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frighten children and was too close to “ho”, a US slang term for prostitute.
I can’t snark this idiocy.
Comments (0)
11/12/2007
Creationist cash cow
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 2:53 pm
Answers in Genesis has a gold mine at their Creation Museum.
PETERSBURG, KY. – Northern Kentucky’s Creation Museum is evolving
into a larger facility.
The museum will add 663 parking spaces, outdoor canopies and a
maintenance building and will move its main entrance as part of a
$500,000 upgrade.
Though they probably don’t like that evolving bit.
HT - Balloon Juice
And I found this while reading fark…
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Here’s John Scalzi (and it is brilliant and hysterical) on his tour of the museum, and I
use that term very loosely.
Let me say this much: I have to admit admiration for the pure balls-out,
high-octane creationism that’s on offer here. Not for the Creation Museum
that mamby-pamby weak sauce known as “Intelligent Design,” which tries
to slip God by as some random designer, who just sort of got the ball
rolling by accident. Screw that, pal: The Creation Museum’s God is hands
on! He made every one of those animals from the damn mud and he did it
no earlier than 4004 BC, or thereabouts.
Here’s the thread on the discussion board.
Comments (0)
11/11/2007
A little Johnny Rotten to cleanse my soul
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 9:54 am
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Comments (0)
Geographical midpoint locator
Filed under:
General
Education
— lane @ 9:32 am
HT to our resident tool guy in Taiwan.
This is really cool.
This calculator finds the geographic midpoint (geographic center) for two or
more places. For example, The point that lies halfway between Chicago and
Los Angeles is located at latitude 38°58′N and longitude 103°52′W, which
is a point that lies about 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Limon, Colorado.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the calculator is that after you
calculate the coordinates of the midpoint you can view a Google map with a
marker pointing at the exact location of the midpoint.
Karl noted that it made him realize that the earth is a sphere.
Those great circle things (and here’s a great circle mapper) will always mess up your
spatial sense. Pilots probably don’t have to think too much about them, but the rest
of us don’t use them daily.
Comments (0)
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11/10/2007
Hate
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:05 am
This is just a simple post about hate - my sad butt is being dragged into a hearing
(energy and commerce) because Dingall and Stupak can.
I really don’t do well in confrontational situations, adding in the congressional bit has
me on edge.
I’ll re-iterate HATE
Expect more senseless rants.
Comments (0)
Irradiating cockroaches
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 1:25 am
Still waiting on irradiated cockroaches.
But, mythbusters needs to deliver an answer that is different than mine from the
23rd-October-2007 post
Teh mail addy is mine in the contact list, so, please, go for it.
Responses remain off here because the lazy factor and the board is borked atm for
comments. Go to the discussion page, please
Comments (0)
11/9/2007
Cat blogging
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:48 am
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Does cat blogging include your cat trying to type? Hershey has a, habit, of using my
keyboard while I am doing anything.
And then she chews on me for the effrontery of moving her. Go down to my post on
not feeding cats, it’s funny because it’s real.
Comments (0)
11/8/2007
Entrepreneurs and a little torture
Filed under:
General
Education
— lane @ 2:15 pm
I was thinking about rambling about torture and various thoughts that are percolating
about. Blah isn’t torture because of some legal manipulations; or, blah is torture, but
it’s ok because americans won’t abuse it, only use it to get info out of ‘bad’ guys; or,
yeah, it’s torture and it’s bad. There are other sub-variants, but that pretty well
sums up the position of most, I think.
Then I realized that the discussion is bankrupt from the beginning. If you, as a
purported moral human, can countenance the abuse of another person simply
because you can, no matter what you will get out of it, you are not.
See what the interrogators did in WWII
For six decades, they held their silence.
The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum
of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work
interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.
When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time
since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the
way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures
used today in questioning terrorism suspects.
Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of
bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about
censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them
up. They played games with them.
“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or
Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an
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MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s
deputy, Rudolf Hess.
Ok, I did talk about it. But only to show my disgust.
On a more positive note, the youth of america are not lazy, and are being recognized
by Business Week in the Best U.S. Entrepreneurs Under 25. Go meet them.
HT to Marketplace
SCOTT JAGOW: Business Week magazine is tallying votes this week for its
list of the best young entrepreneurs in the country. They have to be 25 or
under. We thought it’d fun to meet one of these people.
Bryan Sims is CEO of Brass Media, based in Oregon. Bryan publishes a
magazine about money targeted to young people. When he was 19, he
dropped out of college – and gave up a full scholarship – to pursue this
business. Bryan, was the magazine successful at that time?
BRYAN SIMS: Um, haha . . . no, no. It was definitely not successful, and
there was a lot of people that were pretty skeptical and saying, “Oh, why
are you leaving school? You’re not gonna get another shot with
scholarships like this . . .” and so. I mean, it was the middle of 2003, and
we were trying to raise money for a company starting a lifestyle magazine
out of Corvalis, Ore. So, not exactly a lot of people were investing in the
idea at the time.
And, what I find quite amusing, is that the very skreed that some people complain
about the attention span of the under 30’s has turned into a viable market model.
But, then again Blizzard has already managed to prove that by managing to pull in
the paltry sum of $1.2 billion’ish a month (just on subscriptions) for a game. No, I
did not mistype that.
Blah, blah, about costs, who’s doing better, a game company, or GM?
Comments (0)
11/7/2007
The Enola Gay
Filed under:
General
Medicine
— lane @ 5:30 pm
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From here I end up with this:
The 80’s techno freaks (whom I love) took the Enola Gay and why she was what the
writers spoke of who she was … was and generated this:
Comments (0)
11/1/2007
I caved
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 2:32 pm
comments are open
Update: comments closed due to spam.
Comments (0)
more anti-quackery
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 2:17 pm
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I took the two small vermin-things for their booster Hep-A shots.
There were more wonderful flyers outside the office building discussing the hazards
of mercury (thiomersal) and aborted babies (cell lines from the 60’s) and why you
should not vaccinate.
A good education for the vermin on why stupid should be painful.
Comments (0)
time to be pissed
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 11:14 am
so I’ll post a cheesy anime version of Andrew W K’s Ready to Die
Which is better than me killing after when happened to me yesterday
Comments (0)
10/31/2007
More euro-pop
Filed under:
General
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— lane @ 6:42 am
Or is it skando-pop?
Comments (0)
Yes, I am on speed or crank or something today
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 6:31 am
I don’t do well when I am being spotlight-lighted – so my best reaction is to go into
overdrive and spaz out.
Comments (0)
oooohhh, more equator fun
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 6:27 am
The Dallas News has a fun article featuring a number various equator myths.
The author starts out with (note to whackoids, while I have linked the full article, I
have cut some (well, most of it) stuff out)
QUITO, Ecuador ? This may seem confusing, but there are two equators in
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Ecuador: the fake equator with the real monument and the real equator
with the fake science.
So, we go to
five minutes away, down a dirt road that borders La Mitad del Mundo, is
the real equator as measured by the Global Positioning System, or so they
say at the rustic, open-air Inti Nan Museum. There, a guide takes visitors
through several experiments, ostensibly to demonstrate the Coriolis effect
and to answer the big question: Does the toilet really flush in the opposite
direction in the other hemisphere?
Uhmmm, yeah. In a multi billion cubic metre pool far away from the equator it can
be detected (pardon passive voice)
Then teh author goes onto describe 3 speriments:
Experiment 1: Water swirl
Experiment 2: Egg balancing
Experiment 3: Vise grip
She had fun, I am assuming this was 100% tounge-in-cheek.
Comments (0)
My day today?- I hope not
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 5:07 am
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Not the love bit, but eated by the fires of hell.
Hmm - borkened at about 50%
Not as fun a version, but, it works, but it does have some nasty static.
Comments (0)
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10/30/2007
synthesizer/recording goes insane
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:00 pm
My BIL just sent me this mess Read the whole post; Ah skrew it, here’s most of it so
the whack jobs out there don’t accuse me of using ellipsis to edit the original.
I can’t tell which is funnier, this long-hated cheesebag-anthem turned into
a much more interesting, atonal mess in front of thousands of paying
customers or the hilarious soldiering on of the Van Halens as they look at
each other from inside the trainwreck. Eddie tries to transpose on the fly
and match the wildly fucked up keyboards but the great thing there is the
difference in pitch is non-musical - about 1.5 semitones sharp. So there’s
no frets he can choose to fix the problem!
So what happens when you’re Van Halen, the last song in your set list is
the million-seller ‘Jump’ with its synthesizer-keyboard opening?and the
recording you’re using to play back the synth is accidentally run at 48K
instead of 44.1K?
Technical stuff about what happened.
Comments (0)
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10/28/2007
more evil
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:51 pm
and I’ll add, she is awesome live.
Comments (0)
changes
Filed under:
Admin
— lane @ 11:44 am
teh link to admin e-mail address should be correct now, the one I see and may
repsond to.
other changes are irrelevant at this level.
Comments remain off — go here here to discuss any thoughts or reactions.
I am leary of allowing comment. But I can turn them back on if there is a decent
reason. Spam and I do not mix.
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Comments (0)
Bandwidth
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 8:26 am
This is a general skreed against what I consider self-righteous and self-serving, for
lack of a better word, people.
There seems to be a group of folx (which seems somewhat prevalent among the
exteme conservative right wing) who have decided that the use of ‘eating my
bandwidth’ has some relevance. From what I have read, the context normally goes
along the lines of ‘I paid for this, and if you use it against my wishes, you’re stealing’
It also seems to go-hand-in-hand with the idea that ‘my web slot is sacrosanct and I
can scream theft/abuse’ if you use ‘my bandwidth’
I started noticiing this just after (it may have been occuring before, don’t know) the
kid who was ’stealing’ a libraries WiFi had his laptop confiscated by our intrepid
defenders of justice. I guess you could argue that he was trespassing, sort of, in the
street.
Back to my point. If I actually have one. Bandwidth is not a commodity per se. You
can get upset if someone is using your WiFi without permission, though I fail to see
a problem unless the person using it is downloading kiddie pr0n, or such. But,
whatever. What annoys me is the folx on various high traffic blog/websites that claim
that you’re stealing from them writing text and, ’stealing’ bandwidth.
You entered a contract for x Mbit/s with a max total of x Mbit/month (or whatever
time frame). Even a 10k-word skreed aint gonna affect squat on your max. This is
virtual property, you have every right (it’s your site) to kick someone off, but please,
you have not been ’stolen’ from.
Comments (0)
10/27/2007
must post evil
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 1:42 pm
I have an odd bad like thing.
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Euro pop - and alizee is, uhm, HAWT and she has has a big red fish on her her butt.
Unfortunatly, she and I are married, but not not to each other // pout
And she’s the model for the female NE dance - or she copied it…
Comments (0)
10/25/2007
Don’t piss off a hungry cat by not waking up
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 6:09 pm
My sister sent me this link that is teh trooth
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Those of you that are owned by the feline beasts will see many truths
Do we need to add a ‘lane is posting annoying/stupid stuff’ catagory?
Comments (0)
Anti-quackery
Filed under:
Medicine
— lane @ 12:52 pm
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Picked up from Peter Bowditch’s Ratbags.com HT
An excellent debunkery of quack medicine for which Bowditch is so well known.
Comments (0)
10/23/2007
Bugs, radiation, dead people and stupid experiments
Filed under:
Medicine
Media
— lane @ 3:31 am
I am going to expand a little up here on a response to a post I made here
My knowledge base is food irradiation and how ionizing radiation does what it does to
various things that are on and in food. So I am slightly biased.
But. I said:
100 rad == 1 Gray (Gy) (I have to do the conversion so I can translate it
to something that I work with constantly and understand the biological
consequences)
Energy definition: One gray is the absorption of one joule of radiation
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energy by one kilogram of matter.
1000 rad == 10 gray - won’t event sterilize a fruit fly
10,000 rad ==100Gy - sterilize nothing, kill nothing
100,000 rad == 1 kGy will sterilze fruit flies, med fly and other insects in
food. Will do minor extension of shelf life, will dameage very little in the
bacterial world.
Sterilizing doses for food are 30-40 kGy - a 12 log reduction of any food
borne pathogen.
1000 rad == very dead human quite quickly
Their experiment if flawed from the start.
In response to the Mythbusters idea of irradiating cockroaches to see who will
survive a nuclear war.
Now, why did I say that the experiment was flawed? Simple. 1000 rad will kill 100%
of humans 100% of the time. 1000 rad will not do anything to insects or bacteria (of
any import, no studies look at much beyond sterility or death). I am not going to link
studies, but they are innumerable and the research is still going on for a variety of
reasons (say, look at recent dead people from E. coli contaminated meat or spinach,
etc)
Anyway, back to flawed experiments. Why is this flawed. What are they trying to
demonstrate? Dead bugs vs. dead humans? We lose. Period. The literature, which is
VERY extensive, on the effects of radiation exposure to insects and bacteria show
that the doses that they are going to use are irrelevant. 400-750 Gy (40,000 75,000 rad) are used to sterilize (not kill) insects on inported fruit to make sure that
the US is not afflicted with various pests that plague other areas. (ref, APHIS), yet, I
am guessing that Mythbusters is looking at an acute death rate, not a generational
study.
1 kGy (100,000 rad) may or may not kill cockroaches, I am guessing a minor death
toll. And those that live would (if allowed) probably not reproduce. But the whole
premise is flawed because radiation exposure is a time dependant dose. Mr
cockroach is not sitting at ground zero waiting to get the requisite dose, he’s running
around doing his cockroach thing of finding food. Mr. human is dead at 3-4 orders of
magnitude before Mr. cockroach has even noticed anything is going on.
These experiments have already been done. Adding cockroach to all the other insects
and bacteria is good TV, it is not remotely useful scientific information.
Comments (0)
10/21/2007
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guitar and song writer extraodinaire
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:36 am
Trying to find the response song he wrote later at the 1993 concert at Craweley titled
Mgb-Gt - a brit version of the american car song. But I can’t find it. So, go buy the
record I linked.
Here’s some info about the Black Vincent. There are not a whole bunch ‘em. Period.
Many fakes, few real.
And the key thing is what is called a metaphor. The Black Vinvent did not have key
ignition. And there are people that get upset about that line in the song.
Comments (0)
10/20/2007
politic is not our point, but..
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 1:28 pm
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I am not feeling like pontificating.
So
click me for a thought
Comments (0)
10/19/2007
teH engrish spreaking language stuff
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 12:57 am
The cat and I are stting here thinking about about how to deal with the wave of selfrighteous grammarians (I’ve seen way too many in teh last couple of days) that have
deveoped recently. In the sense of recntly that is within the last two to three years
because they now have venue to vent.
I have read a person who will not read a writer if he does not use the ‘correct’
version of past tense of ‘to shine’ (regrdless of the fact that the various variatiotions
are all, uhm, well, correct) (no link - I’m banned there)
Language is constantly evolving (bad word,I know) and the people that wish to keep
it constant are quite clueless.
The french and germans played war on england and we ended up with engrish and it
continues to change - get over it.
If you really hate change that much revert to greek. It’s the pure language, even
above latin.
Bah
make a thread in our discussion board if you wish to comment
Comments (0)
10/17/2007
Bugs that kill
Filed under:
Medicine
Creationism
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Statistics
— lane @ 3:19 pm
Our EBoy points out an interesting trend in this thread Drug-Resistant Bacterium
Spreading in the bad definition of interesting.
Not to point out the obvious, but the worst place for a sick person to be is in a
hospital.
Staphylococcus aureus is a very adaptable bug (well, all bacterium are) that will
learn rapdily how to survive. But, it also has long term toxins that are, uhm, bad.
HIV is bad, but some folx have lost sight of the fact that bacterium, such as S.
aureus, have about 3 billion years of evolutionatiary ‘info’ over us hoomans or a virus
such as HIV.
Take home message. A long term ear infection - check it out with an ENT. A long
term infection in general, don’t say, it’s just a pustule, I’ll wait.
Go here to talk about it
Comments (0)
10/10/2007
A Richard’s Poor Almanack made me think
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:23 pm
He comments on cat blogging to fill space
So, because I am too lazy to comment on anything relevant at the moment, I’ll
throw some video in the mix (and, uhm, yeah I know, many others do it too)
However, Black 47 is worth listening to if you enjoy innovative fusion music. Larry
Kirwan is also an amusing writer.
Though I am thinking that many may think his views as are rather socialistic. Weave
the music before you judge.
Enjoy, or not:
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Oh, and he came to New York as a dirty filthy illegal.
Comments (0)
10/4/2007
Skreed # 2 of the day
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:57 am
This one may be considered somewhat science based.
Why do people feel the need to blather on with 20k lines of (non) prose to attempt
to explain their POV on the web?
And, then, why do we read it?
Not good, in general.
Comments (0)
Boggle!!!!
Filed under:
General
Govt Junk
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— lane @ 10:37 am
Science is our primary focus, and this space is not political, but I feel a need to
comment on political stuff.
A post from Bill Quick is somewhat amusing, in the discontinuity sense of the word.
Call it what you will, William Jefferson Clinton is running for re-election as
president. For the second time. For a third term. Unconstitutionally.
Just like bushy2….
I don’t need to point it out, if you’re here, you’re smart enough to figure it out.
Comments (0)
9/30/2007
Music this time
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 7:53 pm
My last post was about language, this is one is music.
Richarch Thompson’s 1000 years of popular music.
Listen to brilliance.
Comments (0)
9/27/2007
Generic Annoyance
Filed under:
General
Education
— lane @ 11:55 pm
No junk science here. I have a grammar issue that is annoying me. It is not a new
one.
“I could care less.”
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vs.
“I could not care less”
Do people understand the difference? I could not care less what the vernacular is, it
is meaningless to use the first version. Or, just stupid.
Comments (0)
9/10/2007
Telephone Scam
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 12:40 am
This is a scam I had not heard of before. From St Louis Post Dispatch:
LAKE SAINT LOUIS • Ray Lambert admits he’s a skeptic, so maybe that’s
why he didn’t believe the man claiming to be a Cook County sheriff’s
deputy on the other end of the line this morning.
Lake Saint Louis police say if Lambert had done what the caller had asked,
he would have been the latest victim of a scam that could have racked up
hundreds of dollars in long distance telephone bills.
The caller told Lambert that he was Sgt. Smith, badge number 2384, with
the Cook County, Ill., Sheriff’s Department. He said a woman who was
involved in an accident that morning was in critical condition and had
Lambert’s number saved in her cell phone.
“He said they were trying to reach the next of kin, but I told him I don’t
live in Cook County, and I don’t know anybody there either,” Lambert, 62,
said.
Another red flag went up when Lambert looked at his caller ID, and the
screen said “prison.”
Lambert, 62, hung up. The man called back, and Lambert hung up again.
Then the man called a third time.
“He was very persistent and wanted me to call this number that began with
star (*) -7-2,” Lambert said. “He said it was the number of the hospital
where the lady supposedly was.”
Instead Lambert asked the caller to give him his phone number at the
sheriff’s department so he could verify who he was. The caller hung up –
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and didn’t call back.
According to an alert sent out by AT&T, *-7-2 is a custom feature for call
forwarding. When the customer dials *-7-2 followed by a telephone
number, it activates the call forwarding feature on their phone. All incoming
calls then ring at the other number.
At the end of the other line, the original caller’s partner in crime is able to
accept all collect and third-party calls, while telling callers to the victim that
they have the wrong number. The victim gets billed for all calls because
they are forwarded through their number. The call forwarding may go on
for several days before the victim is aware of it.
Lake Saint Louis Police Chief Michael Force said his department had gotten
about 10 complaints about the scam recently. Several of the calls had
originated from the Cook County Jail.
Comments (0)
8/25/2007
Part II - Fake Loan Fraud and Phishing.
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 8:57 pm
Fake Loan Fraud and Phishing
An amazingly large number of people fall for variations of the Fake Loan Fraud. For
some reason, most but not all of these scams seem to be based out of Canada. The
scammers spam out email or even go to the trouble of setting up websites that
advertise “loans” to people with poor or nonexistant credit. A frequent clue to these
being fraudulent websites is that they do not have any telephone numbers on them,
just email addresses. Sometimes the mailing address will be fake ( once I found one
that the office address resolved on Mapquest to the middle of a bridge on the
Mississippi river ). Often they will assume trade names that are the same or similar
to real legitimate financial institutions. They offer loans with interest rates that are at
or even below prime rate.
You would think that that alone would be enough of a clue to people that it is a scam
but evidently not. The victim is told that the “loan” is “secured” by prepayment of the
first few installments … up front. Another clue.
The victims usually need money enough that they wire several hundred dollars to the
scammer believing that the scammer will send the thousands promised in return.
Sometimes, promissory notes are even provided to the victim to sign and return to
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add to the seeming authenticity of the scam.
Simply put, no loan is really “secured” by prepayment of installments. No one who is
willing to loan you money is actually going to require you to send funds to them
first. And as always, never, never send money by Western Union to anyone you
don’t know. You will not see the money and you will not see your funds again.
Phishing
There is a reason that you get a lot of spam that purports to be from banks you
never heard of. Scammers are trying to get customers of that bank to use their
faked websites to log into their bank accounts and give the scammers their user
identification and passwords to that bank. Its a simple scam, once they get those
they will use the victims’ accounts to transfer money out of the accounts and also to
use the victims’ accounts as brief destinations for other victims’ monies.
Don’t ever use the link in an email to access any online bank or investment websites.
Also, never access your own online accounts from any public computer. And never
let your laptop browser retain passwords to any websites that have value in your
account. I suggest never allowing anyone to access your bank accounts electronically
for any excuse. Frankly, I don’t allow employers to do automatic deposit into my
bank accounts.
Never let your browser retain your credit card number in its cache either. There is
probably more fraud in face to face credit card transactions than online, but that
ratio will shift soon. Don’t give criminals the tools they need to steal from you.
Comments (0)
8/17/2007
A Scam in the News
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 11:13 pm
A non-recognized tribe will sell “membership” papers to illegal immigrants for $50.
Comments (0)
8/4/2007
Common Scams - Part I
Filed under:
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General
— SPQR @ 9:21 pm
A bicycle accident last week laid me up for a few days, and I spent the time with
more daytime television than I would have liked. I watched an episode of Oprah that
covered various scams.
I was not really happy with the coverage of scams that Oprah had, I felt it missed a
lot of common scams and didn’t give very complete advice. Not to mention that
Oprah gave an Ebay spokesman a chance to spin Ebay scams away from Ebay’s
incompetence, in my opinion. So I thought I start a series here that would discuss
some of the scams I’ve seen in my practice.
Common Forged Check Scams
There are a lot of scams out there obviously, but some are variations of common
ones. There are a lot of variations of forged check scams. Most of these take
advantage of something that most people seem unaware of. Over the last decade or
so, the Federal Reserve system has implemented several new regulations that are
designed to speed up check processing. Unfortunately, these changes make life
easier for scammers. Banks are required to make funds “available” to depositors
within a couple of days. Checks are also processed in a different system that makes
good checks move quicker through the system, but bad checks are still slow to
process. The result is that people deposit checks and believe that because the bank
let them use the money that they have gotten a good check. This may not be true. If
the check subsequently bounces, then the bank will expect the funds back and is
entitled to it.
Combine this with what in my experience is actually a less experienced, less
competent banking system, and a lot of people are getting scammed. Don’t think
that just because a bank teller or manager tells you that a check is good that they
have any idea what they are talking about. If the check subsequently is returned,
they will not be responsible for their bad advice.
The forged check scams often operate using forged “certified” or “cashiers’ checks” or
money orders. There are several ways that these get into their victims. There is of
course the times that people who are selling items on Ebay or Craigslist are offered
forged checks for payment for the goods. But that is actually a dangerous practice
for the scammer, because there is a delivery address or serial numbered good that is
traceable to the criminal. Often, the scammer will talk the seller into accepting a
forged cashiers’ check that is in excess of the amount of the transaction, and ask the
seller to wire back to the scammer the difference. By this method, the scammer gets
the victim to deposit the forged instrument, turn it into cash at the victim’s bank and
wire good untraceable funds back to the scammer. The check is later returned as a
forgery and the victim must replace the funds that the bank paid on the instrument.
Don’t fool yourself, the bank is almost never going to be responsible under current
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banking law.
To avoid being victimized, do not accept checks for more money than someone owes
you. Do not ever wire money to someone you do not personally know for any
reason. Period.
Most of the lottery scams work in a similar way. The scammer will send a letter or
email to the victim telling them that they are winners in some lottery that they never
heard of. The explanation is that the victim will receive the money after they pay
some form of tax, administration fee, customs duty or other costs. And the lottery
will even send them the money first, in the form of a check that the victim will cash,
and send back in whole or in part, before receiving the remaining money.
The check will be forged, and the money will be wired back to the scammer. Again,
do not wire money to someone you do not know. But more importantly, you can’t
win a lottery you did not enter; international lotteries are illegal under US law and
finally, why would someone that has millions to pay you require you to cash a check
and send it back? I’m always surprised how many people fall for this scam.
“Financial Agent” Scams
Another common variation of the forged check scams is the “financial agent” scam.
The victim, often unemployed and posting his resume on a job website like
Monster.com, is sent a “job offer” that goes like this: the company claims to be an
offshore company that sells goods to people in the United States. They claim to have
“trouble” getting their money out of the United States back to their country. They
claim that the victim will get checks from their customers, keep a portion, and
forward the rest to the company via Western Union. Often a long complicated
“employment contract” or application is sent to the victim that is often gibberish.
Almost always a customer check is sent then or soon thereafter. The victim then
deposits the check, and wires the funds to the scammer. When the checks start
bouncing, the victim is required to return the funds to the bank - funds he does not
have.
I have not only personally seen a lot of people lose a lot of money in this scam,
often unemployed people who can’t afford the losses, but in at least one case I’ve
seen the supposed victim prosecuted for forgery, fraud and money laundering
charges. To a bank out thousands of dollars to someone who is sending money out
of the country from forged checks, the supposed victim looks a lot like a criminal
themselves.
No real company has trouble “getting money out of the country”. There are plenty of
legitimate banks that will transfer funds out of the country. Again, do not use
Western Union to wire funds to someone you do not personally know.
Next:
Part II - Fake Loan Fraud and Phishing.
Part III - Mortgage Credit Fraud and Real Estate “Investment”
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Part IV - The Spanish Prisoner Con and Nigerian Scams
UPDATE: Since I mentioned Monster.com above, I though I would point out this
article about other fraud on Monster.com. It involved hackers getting access to
resumes supposedly only available to recruiting companies and using it to craft
personalized phishing emails.
/p>
Comments (0)
6/20/2007
Discussion Forum
Filed under:
General
Admin
— SPQR @ 3:16 pm
Just a reminder to our readers that this front page blog is not updated as often as
our Discussion Forum where all are welcome to see our ongoing discussion of
Debunking topics and related discussions.
Comments (0)
6/19/2007
Sarbanes Oxley costs
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 10:15 pm
Stephen Bainbridge has this op ed piece on the Examiner website refering to some
survey research on the costs and effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley bill regulating public
corporations. Hard to decide how effectively one can measure the cited effects, but
I’m most concerned about the cited effect of more ventures staying private versus
public offerings of shares.
Comments (0)
4/9/2007
Book Review: Shadowplay
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Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 10:10 pm
With his kind permission, below is a book review of the book “Shadowplay” authored
by Clare Asquith , review written by our own Setnahkt.
Subtitled “The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare”. “Secret
language” theories are popular right now, and this would not be the strangest I’ve
ever read (that would have to be a tie between the suggestion that Alice in
Wonderland is actually the secret sex diary of Queen Victoria and the proposal that
the Gospels were actually written in Polynesian.) The basic premise in this book is
that William Shakespeare was a crypto-Catholic, and that the plays, sonnets, and
other poems contain all sorts of hidden references to Catholicism that would have
been understood and appreciated by contemporaries. To elaborate, author Clare
Asquith proposes the following:
1. Henry VIII’s dissolution of the Church was entirely from above; the bulk of the
English populace remained at least internally Catholic. This caused a “spiritual crisis”
among the English people, who longed to return to their familiar religious rituals.
2. The Cecil family set up what was essentially a police state during the reigns of
Elizabeth I and James I, with a highly efficient security apparatus designed to
suppress Catholicism. Elizabeth and James were more or less figureheads in a
government run by the Cecils.
3. Shakespeare’s “coded” language was originally addressed to a small group of
Catholic nobles. As time went on, the plays were addressed to Elizabeth, then to
James, and finally to Prince Henry, the heir apparent, as pleas for more tolerance for
Catholics. The language was deliberately obscure to evade censorship.
I confess I only have an amateur’s interest in both Shakespeare and English history.
This book has rave jacket reviews from some respected sources - the Washington
Post, Commonweal, The Spectator - and Ms. Asquith has done some pretty serious
scholarship. I could be wrong, but I don’t find any of the arguments very convincing.
For point one, I don’t see a lot of evidence for the Dissolution being unpopular with
the general populace. Asquith seems to play fairly loose with her terminology here,
repeatedly referring to the Dissolution as “The Reformation” and to the English nonCatholics as “Lutherans” and/or “Puritans”. I’m not sure any of these usages are
correct for the time under discussion. As for popular resistance, there were some
uprisings against Elizabeth, but there had been various disturbances of one sort or
another throughout previous English history. Most of them seem to be more political
than religious. As for there being a “spiritual crisis” - a phrase used repeatedly in this
book - everything else I’ve read seems to show the English people were no less
happy with their spiritual life during late Tudor and early Stuart time than at other
times in history.
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For point two, I’ve never heard anybody seriously suggest that Elizabeth I was not in
charge of her own government. Maybe I’m wrong; perhaps the Cecil’s highly efficient
propaganda apparatus was able to make it look this way and nobody else has figured
it out before. Asquith suggest that later historians destroyed, forged or stole
documents that support her theory. Well, I suppose that’s possible, but it seems a
little convenient.
For point three, Asquith describes a lot of the “code words” and concepts that
Shakespeare supposedly uses. For example, characters that are “tall” and “fair” are
supposed to represent Catholicism, while those that are short and dark are
Protestant. Thus , Bianca in Taming of the Shrew, Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona
and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream represent Catholicism while Kate, Sylvia
and Hermia are Protestant. (Note that “representing” Catholicism or Protestantism is
not meant to imply that the character is Protestant or Catholic). Comments on time
(“The time is out of joint”) are supposed to mean the difference between the Julian
and Gregorian calendars. Puns on “moor” or “more” are supposed to refer to the
Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More, and puns on “right” are supposed to be about
church “rites”. Like any good conspiracy theory, there are quotes here that make you
want to headslap yourself and say “Of course! How could I not have seen that!”. But,
like any conspiracy theory, it’s almost all tautology; there’s such a volume of work by
Shakespeare that once you assume coded messages, it’s pretty easy to find them.
I did find this an interesting read; I certainly want to learn more about Tudor politics.
There are some spooky coincidences - for example, shortly before the first
performance of Twelfth Night, which features Duke Orsino of Illyria, Don Orsini of
Italy visited Elizabeth’s court. A clever appeal for Italian support to English Catholics,
or just not enough character names to go around? I find it perfectly reasonable that
there are topical references in Shakespeare - some of them depending on the
appearance and actions of the players, which are now probably lost forever. When
Shakespeare does include explicitly Catholic characters in the plays - Friar Lawrence
in Romeo and Juliet, for example - they’re usually shown with some sympathy.
However, I find it telling that none of Shakespeare’s contemporaries or nearcontemporaries seem to have figured out all this “coded language” enough to
comment on it - and this would include English Catholic exiles on the Continent, out
of reach of the supposed Cecil police state, and various rival playwrights, who would
presumably want Shakespeare out of the way. Overall, the lady doth protest too
much, methinks.
Thanks to Setnahkt for his permission to post his review as a blog post - SPQR
(Further discussion in our discussion forum)
Comments (0)
11/28/2006
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Climate that is real
Filed under:
Global Warming
Yesterday, Gavin Scmidt and Michael Mann (S&M) added an article on the recent
CRU paper (discussed here), which extends the southern Greenland temperature
record, at their RealClimate web site: Historical climatology in Greenland.
Extending the instrumental record of climate beyond the late 19th Century
when many of the national weather centers were first started is an
important, difficult and undervalued task.
[snip]
Why bother? Well, it is unfortunate, though probably not coincidental, that
the modern record starts at the same time that significant modifications of
atmopsheric composition (greenhouse gases, aerosols etc.) were occuring
on a global scale. Thus this period is not ideal for assessing the magnitude
of natural changes (both intrinsic and forced by natural processes like solar
variability or volcanic eruptions) since there is likely a contamination from
human-related causes. So extending instrumental records back as far as
possible is an important approach to providing a context for modern
changes.
Is this true? I thought the “instrument record” extended back to ~1850 and that the
“significant modifications of atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases, aerosols
etc.)” started after WWII (let’s call it 1950). I guess it’s a matter of semantics, how
do you define “significant”?
Let’s say prior to 1850 the atmospheric CO2 concentration was 280±10 ppm. In
1900 the CO2 concentration was ~290 ppm. I think we can agree that this was not
significant. In 2000 the concentration was ~350 ppm. I think we can agree that this
was significant. In 1950 it was ~300 ppm. Is this significantly different?
If you are talking about CO2 emissions from industrial societies then this graph
suggests emission rates take off ~1947.
Of course they’re not just talking about CO2, they mean “greenhouse gases, aerosols
etc.”. In this graph of Greenhouse gas emission scenarios, the World Resource
Institute uses 1950 as its baseline year.
So what is my point? It seems to me that S&M are saying that extending the
temperature record back as far as possible is important to provide “a context for
modern changes” and therefore by inference the temperature record between 1900
and 1950 was subject to “contamination from human-related causes”. This may be a
deviation from the IPCC conclusion that the global warming recorded prior to 1950
was “natural”. It is certainly a deviation from my understanding of the IPCC
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conclusion.
S&M point out that a longer instrumental record would be useful for calibration
proxy records though as far as I know, the only proxy records from Greenland are ice
cores and these are well calibrated compared to tree ring proxy records from other
locations, which may be problematic in that they respond well to early 20th century
warming but not to late 20th century warming.
They then go on to castigate Pat Michaels for his recent World Climate Report
article Cooling the Debate: A Longer Record of Greenland Air temperature. Whatever.
S&M however appear to be ignoring the elephant in the room. In southern
Greenland, the warmest period on record is not during the last 15 years and 1998
was not the warmest year. This appears to run counter to the conclusions derived
from MBH99 and well publicized around the world by the IPCC et al.
BTW, I notice that the link to the S&M article is
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/strawmen-ongreenland/]Historical climatology in Greenland
[my emphasis}
The irony meter is pegged.
Comments (0)
11/7/2006
The Planet in Peril?
Filed under:
Global Warming
Recently, Jim Hansen published a couple of articles entitled “The Planet in Peril”;
Parts I & II. For those who don’t know:
Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and
adjunct professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia
University’s Earth Institute.
In 1988 he made a speech to the U.S. Congress that is considered to be the start of
the whole global warming and/or climate change scare. At times he has presented
compelling information but of late he is beginning to sound more shrill and less
convincing. What is he saying now?
In Sweden and Norway, the treeline is marching northward and uphill as
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the snowline recedes. (1) In the Arctic, the polar bear finds its habitat
shrinking.(2) Elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, animals are slowly
moving north to escape rising temperatures.(3) Behind the silent
movement hides a disturbing story that we had better take note of before it
is too late. If the present warming trend continues, rising seawater will
claim coastal cities all over the world.(4)
(1) This is true and if the current trend continues perhaps these treelines will
eventually get to where they were 1,000± years ago during the Medieval Warm
Period.
(2) Is this true? Polar bear populations are generally growing (no really, they are).
How is this possible if their habitat is shrinking?
(3) To suggest wild animals are “moving north to escape rising temperatures” is just
silly. It anthropomorphizes the animals and suggests they have knowledge of climate
conditions in other locations and in the future. Animals (and plants) expand their
ranges whenever and wherever they can. While it has been recorded that some
Northern Hemisphere animals have expanded their ranges northward it has not been
recorded that the southern extent of their ranges have also moved north. It has not
been recorded that animals in the Southern Hemisphere have expanded their ranges
southward, though some penguins have been seen further north. I have seen reports
of grasses growing on the Antarctic Peninsula, but these are hardy varieties imported
by humans.
(4) If the present warming trend stopped, and average annual temperatures stayed
exactly where they are now or even were 50 years ago, rising seawater would still
claim coastal cities all over the world.
I received an e-mail from a man in northeast Arkansas about his
observations of the armadillo: “I had not seen one of these animals my
entire life, until the last ten years. I drive the same 40-mile trip on the
same road every day and have slowly watched these critters advance
further north every year and they are not stopping. Every year they move
several miles.”
The mobility of armadillos suggests that they have a good chance to keep
up with the movement of their climate zone, to be one of the surviving
species.
Here is a different take on armadillos expanding their ranges. This was from the first
(or second) item to pop up after a Google search.
The nine-banded armadillo has expanded its range northward into the
United States over the last 150 years. Prior to about 1850, the ninebanded armadillo was not found north of the Rio Grande river. The sudden
and extremely rapid armadillo colonization of the southern United States
has puzzled quite a few biologists. The degree of range expansion per year
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is nearly ten times faster than the average rate expected for a mammal.
Nowhere do you find a suggestion the southern extent of these armadillos is also
moving north. Hansen is either being very niave or deliberately skewing information
to suit his thesis that global warming is already having grave environmental impacts.
The concern here is that the information he is skewing is so easily checked and
shown to be inappropriate that it renders this particular point mute and casts doubt
upon any other “facts” he presents in the rest of his essay.
Hansen continues this theme for several paragraphs concluding with;
If we continue on this path, a large fraction of the species on Earth, as
many as 50 percent or more, may become extinct.
He does not present a reference for this conclusion. Are we to assume this is his
conclusion? He certainly endorses this conclusion and yet his speciality is recording
global climate and modelling future global climate conditions. This conclusion about
biodiversity cannot fall out of his analyses so he must be repeating some “known
fact” that we are expected to accept without question.
He has obviously been convinced of this inevitability and yet remains remarkably
unable to convince me of his argument despite his intelligence and articulation.
Where is the evidence? Where is the smoking gun? Where is the bullet? Where is the
body?
Yes, the world has obviously warmed “over the last 150 years”. Yes some of it might
be attributable to anthropogenic warming of the atmosphere through greenhouse gas
emissions. Beyond that there is precious little that shows this has been bad or will
get bad for the Earth and all its flora and fauna. What are the specific climatic
changes that have resulted in a mass die off of vast numbers of species? What are
the extinct species?
In the absence of evidence Hansen has resorted to preaching. This is not good for
him as a scientist or the people who rely upon his scientific findings.
Perhaps he is no longer a scientist but an advocate. If so then perhaps he should no
longer be presented as a scientist, as the “director of the NASA Goddard Institute for
Space Studies”. How has his advocacy skewed the science he is presenting now or in
the past? I am concerned.
Hansen finishes with:
The Earth’s creatures, save for one species, do not have thermostats in
their living rooms(*) that they can adjust for an optimum environment. But
people - those with thermostats - must take notice, and turn down the
world’s thermostat before it is too late.
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Turn down the world’s thermostat!? Just what we don’t need, global cooling. Anyone
who believes global cooling would be good is simply wrong. Anyone familiar with
history knows cooling trends are bad for human cultures and their environment. An
advocate in a position of influence who believes global cooling is good is dangerous.
Perhaps the growing shrillness I noted earlier is just a reflection of Hansen losing his
influence. It is something to hope for. Is it censorship when people stop listening?
(*) An afterthought… the Earth’s creatures don’t have thermostats but they do have
living rooms? Bizarre.
Comments (0)
10/6/2006
Paul Harvey - News and Myths
Filed under:
General
Media
— SPQR @ 12:04 pm
Earlier this week in Potpourri in the Discussion Forum ( and we do have daily
discussions there by the way - be sure to visit ), I posted an item about Paul Harvey
who does daily radio news and “commentary”. Harvey had earlier this week reported
on his news segment that old long-debunked myth about the Arizona State Patrol
finding a ‘67 Impala that someone had attached a JATO rocket to and crashed into a
cliff.
Complete hoax. And not merely a hoax but not a recent hoax. This hoax is probably
decades old.
I’m puzzled why Harvey decided to add this silly hoax to his news this week, but I’m
suspicious that he or his writer is pulling nonsense off their spammed email and
copying it into the script without any checking at all. Snopes would have quickly
informed Harvey or his staff of just how silly they look.
Today, he had a news item alerting his listeners at airports to watch out for a new
pistol that was indetectable, only 2 1/2 inches long but fired real bullets called a
“Colt Python”. This is obviously another fraud as Colt’s Python pistol is not
indetectable, not 2 1/2 inches long and among the least concealable pistols made. In
fact, a Colt Python is a large, heavy, all-metal, pistol usually chambered in .357
Magnum that looks like exactly what it is - a large heavy double-action revolver. Its
not a new item having been manufactured for half a century.
What is going on with Paul Harvey?
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Comments (0)
7/31/2006
More of Dembski’s Flawed Statements About Bayesian Methods
Filed under:
Creationism
Statistics
Mathematics
— Steve_V @ 7:45 pm
One of the more annoying things about Dembski is that he knows that science has a
perfectly valid tool for detecting design, the Bayesian method. We saw it in this post
on where we looked at Dembski’s bizzare claims about priors. An example was used
that Dembski has often used: the case of Nicholas Caputo. A quick review of this
example is that Caputo designed the ballots for elections, and it was known that
being at the top of the ballot was to a candidates advantage. The law held that the
person designing the ballots must use a method that assigns the top spot to
candidates randomly (presumably using with uniform probability). During Caputo’s
tenure the Democrats got the top slot 40 out of 41 elections. This example is used
again by Dembski as he continues to try and discredit the Bayesian approach.
Further, it was shown in the last post that the Bayesian method could lead to a
probability of Caputo cheating that is very close to 1. Cheating in this example was
Dembski’s version of “Design” whereas the randomized outcome was Dembski’s
version of “Random” (nevermind that both scenarios are in actuality designed).
Now Dembski claims the following about the Bayesian methods,
If Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to have come up (as
Caputo claimed), this event has probability approximately 1 in 2 trillion.
Improbable, yes, but by itself not enough to implicate Caputo in cheating.
Highly improbable events after all happen by chance all the time—indeed,
any sequence of forty-one Democrats and Republicans whatsoever would
be just as unlikely. What, then, additionally do we need to confirm cheating
(and thereby design)? To implicate Caputo in cheating it’s not enough
merely to note a preponderance of Democrats over Republicans in some
sequence of ballot line selections. Rather, one must also note that a
preponderance as extreme as this is highly unlikely. In other words, it
wasn’t the event E (Caputo’s actual ballot line selections) whose
improbability the Bayesian needed to compute but the composite event E*
consisting of all possible ballot line selections that exhibit at least as many
Democrats as Caputo selected. This event—E*—consists of 42 possible
ballot line selections and has improbability 1 in 50 billion. It’s this event
and this improbability on which the New Jersey Supreme Court rightly
focused when it deliberated whether Caputo had in fact cheated. Moreover,
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it’s this event that the Bayesian needs to identify and whose probability the
Bayesian needs to compute to perform a Bayesian analysis.
What does this really say? It says that the Bayesian has to look at both evidence
that occured and evidence that might have occured, but didn’t. Not only must we
look at the sequence,
D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D R D D D D D D D D D D D D D D
D D D D
But all of the sequences that have 40 D’s and 1 R. There is only one teensy-itsybitsy problem here for Dembski: This notion is positively non-Bayesian. One thing to
remember about Bayesian methods is that they generally depend on and only on the
data that was observed. Data that was not observed, but was at least theoretically
possible is something most Bayesians don’t even consider. The basic idea here stems
from a principle of statistics known as the Likelihood Principle, and for a Bayesian it
is not that controversial a concept. 1
The problem with the Likelihood Principle generally comes from those who espouse
the Frequentist veiw of statistics. In Frequentist statistics hypothesis testing
epitomizes the notion of taking into consideration data that could have been
observed but wasn’t.
From this point, the rest of this point contention that Dembski levels against
Bayesians is simply false for the very reason that is rests on a false premise. And
when Dembski writes,
The bottom line is this: The Bayesian approach to statistical rationality is
parasitic on the Fisherian approach and can properly adjudicate only among
hypotheses that the Fisherian approach has thus far failed to eliminate.
One has to wonder is Dembski a complete charlatan? The Likelihood Principle leads
to a complete rejection of the Fisherian/Frequentist view of statistics. To then claim
that the Bayesian method (which fits very nicely with the Likelihood Principle) is
parasitic on a rejected view of statistics is simply astounding. Mark Chu-Carroll has
claimed that Dembski isn’t even a competent mathematician, but is instead an
complete fraud and huckster. Statements like the above definitely serve only to
buttress Chu-Carroll’s claims.
_____
1 To be sure, there are Bayesians who are dissenters when it comes to this notion.
Comments (0)
7/18/2006
Dembski on Detecting Design: Elimination vs. Comparison
Filed under:
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Creationism
Statistics
This is another post looking at Dembski’s arguments on how to detect design and his
counter arguments to using the comparative approach (e.g. Bayesian or likelihood).
The first post in this series looked at Dembski’s false claim of “backpedaling priors”. I
argued that it isn’t backpedalling priors, but the introduction of a new hypothesis due
to the unsatisfactory performance of the current hypotheses. Further, that this is
precisely how science works and should work. When the existing hypotheses no
longer seem sufficient in explaining some phenomenon, looking for a new hypothesis
is not “backpedaling” it is actually quite reasonable.
The second post looked at Dembski’s arguments that on how his approach was
“rational” and non-ad-hoc. Here we saw Dembski throw around some jargon that he
created that when combined implied nothing or appeared to be contradictory,
irrelevant and so forth. Basically, Dembski’s arguments were at best incoherent
gibberish of his own creation that is simply designed to mislead not help the reader.
Now I want to take on Dembski’s argument claim that the comparative approach
needs prior probabilities [page 7 of the above link]. Dembski writes,
(1) Need for prior probabilities. As we’ve already seen, for the Bayesian
approach to work requires prior probabilities. Yet prior probabilities are
often impossible to justify. Unlike the example of the urn and two coins
discussed earlier, in which drawing a ball from an urn neatly determines
the prior probabilities regarding which coin will be tossed, for most design
inferences, especially the interesting ones like whether there is design in
biological systems, we have no handle on the prior probability of a design
hypothesis, or that prior probability is fiercely disputed (theists, for
instance, might regard the prior probability as high whereas atheists would
regard it as low).
First off, if one is using the likelihood approach then this claim is simply false. The
likelihood approach to evaluating hypotheses relies on the likelihoods for observing
the data given each hypothesis under consideration. Thus, there are no priors at all.
Another comparative approach put forward by Brandon Fitelson also does not rely on
prior probabilities either (well technically the priors have to be positive).
So this leaves just the Bayesian approach. Are the priors a problem for Bayesian
inference? Yes. Elicitation of priors is one of the more controversial parts of Bayesian
inference. However, I contend that for many this problem is vastly overstated.
Consider one of Dembski’s favorite examples, the case of Nicholas Caputo an election
official in charge of designing ballots. The placement of a candidate on the ballot is
seen as having a strategic value in terms of votes, hence the person designing the
ballots is to use a method of figuring who goes on top that is random and assigns
equal probability to the top slot. In the Caputo case Democrats had the top spot 40
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out of 41 elections. Suppose the actual sequence goes like,
(D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,R,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D)
Now, we want to use Bayesian methods to evaluate the hypotheses, Pr(Cheat|E) and
Pr(No Cheat|E). Further, suppose we were to let Dembski pick any prior he wanted
so long as it isn’t zero. Suppose that Dembski picks a prior probability for Cheat as,
Pr(Cheat) = 0.001
This is a pretty small number and indicates we strongly think that Caputo is not
cheating. By our assumption that we are considering only Cheat and No Cheat as
hypotheses we have the following for No Cheat,
Pr(No Cheat) = 1 - Pr(Cheat) = 0.999.
Now we need to specify the likelihood of observing the data under each hypothesis.
Suppose the following:
P(D|Cheat) = 0.95, and
P(D|No Cheat) = 0.5.
Now, after crunching through Bayes Theorem to update our priors 41 times what is
our final answer in terms of Caputo and cheating?
Pr(Cheat|E) = 0.99999993, and
Pr(No Cheat|E) = 0.00000007.
In other words, even by selecting a wildly ridiculous prior we still end up, after
looking at all the data, with the conclusion that Caputo was probably a cheating SOB
when it came to planning the layout of ballots.
We could also entertain other hypotheses such as the Stupid & Lazy hypothesis. That
is, suppose the Caputo is in fact rather dim and also lazy. So he tends to re-use
previous ballot layouts simply so he can go home early to watch television and eat
his HungryMan Dinner. The likelihood function here is a bit more complicated, but
we’d likely arrive at the same conclusion: Caputo was not using a valid method for
determining the top slot on ballots. Whether one wants to call this design or not is
another question.
However, the point should be pretty clear here. Even really inappropriate priors (i.e.
the person selecting the priors has a very heavy bias in favor of one of the
hypotheses) will eventually be swamped by the data. That, is the data will eventually
move a very biased Bayesian away from his initial prior probability assesments.
Further, there is nothing that says we have to pick one, and only one prior. We could
pick several different priors and look at the results under the different priors. For
example, suppose we have the priors, 0.001, .05, and 0.999 that Caputo is a
cheater. What are the results?
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Prior = 0.001; final Posterior = 0.9999999293
Thus, under a variety of prior probabilities we find that the results are still pretty
consistent, Caputo was cheating. Even if Dembski selects a prior like 1/
10,000,000,000 we still end up with a final posterior probability of 0.5856 that
Caputo cheated.
As for Dembski’s claim that “we have no handle on the prior probability of a design
hypothesis”, this too is quite amusing. Why don’t we have any kind of handle on such
a prior? How about because Design proponents like Dembski absolutely refuse to
spell out how design actually happens.
As for your example, I’m not going to take the bait. You’re asking me to
play a game: “Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal
mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position.” ID is
not a mechanistic theory, and it’s not ID’s task to match your pathetic level
of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is
responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense
to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True, there may be dots
to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and
with IC systems that is what ID is discovering.
In short, it is like saying, “I have a really great idea, it could revolutionize travel!
What are the chances it will work?” Since we know nothing of this idea attaching a
probability to its success is impossible. When asked to provide further information
about the design hypothesis Dembski et. al. demur. This also shows the scientific
vacuousness of ID. When we look at design by humans we specify the process and
from there look at what the data says about the hypothesis. But for some reason,
the (supernatural) design hypothesis is exempt from this.
So we see once again that Dembski is misleading and/or ignorant of the topic he is
supposedly an expert in. Further, we see that Dembski thinks that ID is exempt from
much of the requirements any other science faces…but that somehow ID is still
scientific. Is it any wonder that so many consider Dembski to be so dishonest?
Comments (0)
7/14/2006
Dembski Incoherent Arguments
Filed under:
General
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Time again to take a look at William Dembski’s psudeo-mathematical arguments for
Intelligent Design (ID). Often times Dembski will make up his own concepts and then
claim that these concepts have certain implications. For example, in the chapter from
his book, the Design Revolution, that looks at the detecting design by either
elimination versus comparison Dembski once again makes up a slew of terms and
then uses them to make various claims.
Early on in the chapter Dembski wants to establish that his method, which he calls
the Fisherian approach, is valid. To do this Dembski comes up several concepts. The
first is what Dembski calls replicational resources. What is this concept?
Consider again our example of tossing a coin ten times and getting ten
heads in a row. The rejection region, which matches this sequence of coin
tosses, therefore sets a significance level of .001. If we tossed ten heads in
a row, we might therefore regard this as evidence against the coin being
fair. But what if we didn’t just toss the coin ten times on one occasion but
tossed it ten times on multiple occasions? If most of the time we tossed the
coin its behavior was entirely what one would expect from a fair coin, then
on those few occasions when we observed ten heads in a row, we would
have no reason to suspect that the coin was biased since fair coins, if
tossed sufficiently often, will produce any sequence of coin tosses, including
ten heads in a row. The strength of the evidence against a chance
hypothesis when a sample falls within a rejection region therefore depends
on how many samples are taken or might have been taken. These samples
constitute what I call replicational resources. The more such samples, the
greater the replicational resources.–italics in the original
Frankly I am at a loss as to why Dembski has come up with this term. I don’t see
how it is much difference from the sigma algebra of set theory which undergirds
probability theory. After all, what are sample but subsets of the sample space,
especially in the discrete case (examples that rely on coin tosses, urns and balls,
dice, etc.). But Dembski has been known to come up new names for old ideas.
Dembski then goes on to talk about specificational resources which he never really
goes on to define.
Significance levels therefore need to factor in replicational resources if
samples that match these levels are to count as evidence against a chance
hypothesis. But that’s not enough. In addition to factoring in replicational
resources, significance levels also need to factor in what I call
specificational resources. The rejection region on which we’ve been focusing
specified ten heads in a row. But surely if samples that fall within this
rejection region could count as evidence against the coin being fair, then
samples that fall within other rejection regions must likewise count as
evidence against the coin being fair. For instance, consider the rejection
region that specifies ten tails in a row. By symmetry, samples that fall
within this rejection region must count as evidence against the coin being
fair just as much as samples falling within the rejection region that
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specifies ten heads in a row.–italics in the original
It appears that Dembski sees the rejection region as determine the extent to which
something is specified. I actually don’t have too much trouble with this as a general
idea. After all, Dembski says that 10 heads in a row are specified as is 10 tails.
Okay, sounds reasonably to me, and these two events also convey a probability of
.002 on observing either of these two outcomes. So, by selecting a rejection region
of .002 (in a two tailed test) we also determine what specifcation we are looking for.
The only problem I see is that the rejection region so far is subjective. I could pick a
rejection region that has either {10 heads, 10 tails, (9 heads,1 tails), (9 tails, 1
heads)}. Few would consider a coin that fell in this rejection region to be unbiased,
or at least they’d consider the coin more likely to be biased than not. But this
problem has plagued Fisherian (or using the more common name Frequentist)
statistics since its inception: how to select a rejection region. Is 0.05 good enough,
what about 0.01? The standard, as Dembski notes, in most social sciences has been
0.05. Why, I don’t know.
Debmski then tries to get around this problem by invoking complexity,
But rejection regions are also patterns and as such have an associated
complexity that measures the degree of complication of the patterns, or
what I call its specificational complexity. Typically this form of complexity
corresponds to a Kolmogorov compressibility measure or minimum
description length (the shorter the description, the lower the specificational
complexity—see http://www.mdl-research.org).
Here we can see Dembski making up a term for something for which a term already
exist. After all, if his specificational complexity corresponds to Kolmogorov
compressibility why not use the latter.
But now this is where things get really fun. After all this Dembski writes the
following,
Replicational and specificational resources together constitute what I call
probabilistic resources. Probabilistic resources resolve the first two worries
raised above concerning Fisher’s approach to statistical reasoning.
Specifically, probabilistic resources enable us to set rationally justified
significance levels, and they constrain the number of specifications, thereby
preventing chance hypotheses from getting eliminated willy-nilly.
Probabilistic resources therefore provide a rational foundation for the
Fisherian approach to statistical reasoning. What’s more, by estimating the
probabilistic resources available in the known physical universe, we can set
a significance level that’s justified irrespective of the probabilistic resources
in any given circumstance. Such a context-independent significance level is
thus universally applicable and definitively answers what it means for a
significance level to be “sufficiently small” regardless of circumstance. For a
conservative estimate of this significance level, known as a universal
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probability bound, see chapter 10. For the details about placing Fisher’s
approach to statistical reasoning on a firm rational foundation, see chapter
2 of No Free Lunch.
This part I had to re-read several times, because I sat there thinking, “Uhhh?” That
is, how the heck does replicational and specificational resources imply a rational way
to select the rejection region? After all, isn’t the rejection region what defines the
specification? Or is specification such that there are varying degrees of it, and only
when we meet some sufficiency condition does it qualify as the rejection region. And
what the heck happened to specificational complexity/Kolmogorov compressibility? It
seems we could have deleted the entire paragraph that talks about complexity and
lost nothing.
In short Dembski comes up with three knew concepts,
1. Replicational resources
2. Specificational resources
3. Probabilistic resources (which are just the previous two concepts taken
together).
Comes up with a conclusion he likes and does nothing to show how his concepts
imply the conclusion. It is just a bunch of made up gibberish that tells us, literally,
nothing about how to get out of the problem of selecting a rejection region that
allows us to conclude design. And this failure is fatal to Dembski argrument for this
chapter as well. You see, his contention is that we can use the eliminative/Fisherian
approach over the Bayesian/comparative approach and that the eliminative/Fisherian
approach is better since it doesn’t have any of this ad-hocness/subjectivity in regards
to the selection of a rejection region. But there is nothing that indicating a clear cut
way to choose the rejection region.
I think Dembski knows this, which is why he falls back on his universal probability
bound. This number/concept also doesn’t help Dembski as it seems to underscore the
incoherent nature of his arguments here. Basically, the universal probability bound is
some sort of uber-rejection region. That is, irrespective the circumstances, this
rejection region always implies design. Hence all the preceding discussion of
specificational resrouces, replicational resources, etc. are un-necessary so long as we
select our rejection region to coincide with the universal probability bound.
But here is the problem with this. The universal probability bound that Dembski
selects is so small that even a reasonable person cannot conclude that a coin flipped
100 times coming up heads is biased. Most of us would conclude that such a coin is
biased. Why? Because we use additional information to inform our assessment of the
biasedness of the coin. For example, most people are aware of the existence of two
sided coins, con-artists who use gimicks to fleece people of their money, etc. So, we
use this information in conjunction with the 100 heads (or tails) and conclude that
something other than flipping a fair coin is going on. But Dembski on the other hand
would still be betting money provided the payoffs are in his favor if the coin were
fair.
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Of course, Dembski could say that this is actually a feature of his filter. With such a
high bar for detecting design the filter wont pick up false positives. Or will it?
Granted the numbers in the link are as small as the universal probability bound, but
the point to consider is that information about the phenomenon can change the
probabilities of a given hypothesis being true as well. Consider the Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome (SIDS) case. If we use the population numbers of 0.5 deaths per
1,000 live births, the probability of seeing three such deaths is 1.25E-10 which is a
very small number. However, this ignores individual specific information (i.e. is there
a genetic component to SIDS), which when factored in the probability might become
much, much higher. This can apply even to cases where the initial probability
assessment is below the universal probability bound. Suppose we have a
phenomenon and the actual probability of it happening by chance is 10 -151. But then
upon further investigation we find that there were circumstances the made the event
100 times more likely bringing the probability to 10 -149. As I’ve argued in this post,
it is also possible that futher investigation could change some probabilities by over
121 orders of magnitude. In this case, the initial probability would drop from 10 -151
to 10 -30. In both cases, there is no design inference according to Dembski, but
because Dembski’s filter doesn’t consider this kind of “side information” it wouldn’t
catch this and conclude design when in fact such an inference would be incorrect by
Dembski’s own standards. The Bayesian method on the other hand does allow for
this kind of information. Using the SIDS case in the above link the likelihoods for the
observed deaths would be transformed to
Pr(3 SIDS Deaths|Mother Carries the Gene for SIDS, Murder) < < Pr(3 SIDS
Deaths|Mother Carries the Gene for SIDS, Tragedy)
vs.
Pr(3 SIDS Deaths|Murder) >> Pr(3 SIDS Deaths|Tragedy).
Note that the presence of the genetic information as part of the information we are
conditioning on changes the direction of the inequalities. There is no such mechanism
with Dembski’s Explanatory Filter for including this information, at least not formally.
So we get a bunch of made up words for concepts that don’t support the claims
Dembski makes. Further, he trotts out the universal probability bound…again, and
even that isn’t a sufficient guard against false positives. The typical stuff one comes
to expect from Dembski, lots of fancy sound jargon that doesn’t mean a damned
thing.
Comments (0)
Dinosaurs Warm Blooded and T-Rex Lifespan
Filed under:
General
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Speaking of dinosaurs here are two interesting articles. The first is about a study that
claims the larger dinosaurs were warm blooded.
Research suggests the largest of the prehistoric dinosaurs had body
temperatures even higher than the heat wave levels now wilting
Washington.
A new study says the seven-ton, 40-foot-long, meat-eating Tyrannosaurus
rex had a cruising temperature of just above 91 degrees, and the
Sauroposeidon – a 90-foot-long vegetarian that weighed up to 70 tons –
probably averaged a body temperature of 118 degrees.
[snip]
“These findings suggest that maximum dinosaur size may have ultimately
been limited by body temperature,” said lead author James F. Gillooly of
the University of Florida’s zoology department.
The body temperature of dinosaurs has long been a subject of debate in
biology.
For many years, scientists thought dinosaurs were coldblooded – or
ectotherms – with a slow metabolism rate that required the sun’s heat to
regulate their temperature.
But starting in the late 1960s, some began promoting the idea that the
beasts may have been endotherms – warmblooded creatures, much like
mammals and birds – with relatively constant high body temperatures that
were internally regulated.
I believe one of the first to suggest that some dinosaurs were warm blooded was
Bob Bakker.
Bakker has been a major proponent of the theory that dinosaurs were
“warm-blooded,” smart, fast, and adaptable. He published his first paper on
dinosaur endothermy in 1968. He revealed the first evidence of parental
care at nesting sites for Allosaurus.
And here is something I didn’t know about Dr. Bakker,
In addition to being a scientist, Bakker is also a Pentecostal preacher who is
a strong proponent of theistic evolution.
The second article is about the life span of the Tyrannosaurid Albertosaurus.
One species of tyrannosaur lived to be about 30 years old, a life span that
more closely resembles a large present-day mammal than a reptile,
researchers said.
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The researchers studied the metatarsals, or foot bones, of 22
Albertosauruses, a species of the feared carnivore, excavated from a single
site in Alberta, Canada, one of the world’s largest sources of dinosaur
remains. The authors were able to use the bones to determine the life span
of the dinosaurs, the researchers said.
“There is a lot of potential for this kind of research to understand these
animals, not just as representatives of their species, but as parts of
populations,'’ said Gregory Erickson, professor of biology at Florida State
University and coauthor of the study in tomorrow’s edition of the journal
Science.
The researchers found that mortality rates for Albertosaurus were high in
the first two years of life, possibly due to predation, and then decreased
until the teenage years, according to the researchers.
After age 13, the mortality rates jumped to 23 percent, researchers found.
Dinosaurs lived roughly 30 years, about the same length of time as bears.
Some reptiles can live 50 to 100 years or more.
Spiffy.
Comments (0)
Creationist Kent Hovind Arrested
Filed under:
Creationism
Kent Hovind, aka Dr. Dino, was arrested Thursday. Hovind is well known in Evo-Creo
circles as a proponent of Creationism and a bad one at that. Hovind is a young Earth
Creationist who holds the belief that Noah also had dinosaurs like Deinonychus
antirhoppus (a 10 foot long dinosaur, and those upraised talons on the foot were
deadly slashing implements) and Charcharodontosaurus-saharicus (this therapod is
believed to have been up 45 feet long, weighing 8 tons and having a 6 foot long
head with teeth 8 inches long…better be a big ark). Nevermind what things like this
ate or what Noah did with all that dino dung.
Any how it looks like Hovind has bigger worries than the current depredations of
Evilutionists. Hovind faces 58 charges which include income tax evasion, making
threats against investigators, and filing false complaints against Internal Revenue
Service agents. Hovinds wife Jo Hovind was also indicted on 44 counts. Oh well, so
much for Hovind’s notions that he doesn’t have to pay income taxes.
Comments (0)
7/9/2006
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Dembski’s Ignorance
Filed under:
Creationism
Mathematics
— Steve_V @ 4:08 am
In a chapter of his book, The Design Revolution, William Dembski tries to show how
the Bayesian approach to evaluating the design hypothesis is flawed. One of
Dembski’s objections is what he calls “backpedaling priors”.
The idea of a prior is probably a bit arcane. In Bayesian statisitics the researcher
might have prior information and or beliefs about a given hypothesis, H, which is
denoted Pr(H). This can be either subjective or objective. This probability is then
updated using Bayes theorem,
Pr(H|E) = [Pr(E|H) * Pr(H)]/Pr(E).
This is interpreted as the probability of the hypothesis in question given the evidence
is equal to the likelihood of the evidence given the hypothesis in question normalized
by the unconditional probability of the evidence.
When there are two hypotheses the above notation is modified slightly to be,
Pr(H1|E) = [Pr(E|H1) * Pr(H1)]/Pr(E), and
Pr(H2|E) = [Pr(E|H2) * Pr(H2)]/Pr(E).
The interpretations are still the same basically.
But Dembski wants to discard all of this. The reason is that to calculate the above
probabilities we have to determine
Pr(E|H1) and Pr(E|H2).
But that is the last thing any proponent of Intelligent Design wants to do. To do this
would require actually exploring the design hypothesis in terms of what process did
the designer use. For example, if the designer simply designed the universe to be
fine tuned, then it is questionable that the designer also designed the E. coli
flagellum. Similarly if the situation is reversed; why should the designer of the E. coli
flagellum be capable of designing the entire universe. Of course one could just posit
a designer that can do anything from designing the E. coli flagellum to the entire
universe…but then why develop any theory for anything including gravity,
meteorology, and so forth? This quickly leads to questions that would be very
unfortunate for the Intelligent Designs socio-political goals of removing
methodological naturalism from science and reinstituting a more religious centered
from of learning in public schools.
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So what does Dembski say specifically about the use of prior probabilities in Bayesian
inference? That Bayesians will use backpedaling priors.
(5) Backpedaling priors. As a variant of the last point, return to the earlier
example of an urn with a million balls, one black and the rest white. As
before, imagine that a fair coin is to be tossed if a white ball is randomly
sampled from the urn but that a biased coin with probability .9 of landing
heads is to be tossed otherwise. This time, however, imagine that the coin
is tossed not ten times but ten thousand times and that each time it lands
heads. The probability of getting ten thousand heads in a row with the fair
coin is approximately 1 in 10 3010 and with the biased coin approximately 1
in 10 458 (with ten thousand tosses, heads are bound to turn up for either
coin). A Bayesian analysis then shows that the probability that a white ball
was selected is approximately 1 in 10 2546 and the probability that the lone
black ball was selected is 1 minus that minuscule
probability.
Should we therefore, as good Bayesians, conclude that the black ball was
indeed selected and that the biased coin was indeed flipped (the selection
of the black ball being vastly more probable, given ten thousand heads in a
row, than the selection of a white ball)? Clearly this is absurd. The
probability of getting ten thousand heads in a row with either coin is vastly
improbable, and it doesn’t matter which urn was selected. The only
sensible conclusion is that neither coin was randomly tossed ten thousand
times. A Bayesian may therefore want to change the prior probability to
introduce some doubt about whether the urn and subsequently one of the
two coins were random sampled. But as in the previous point, we need to
ask what induces us to change or reevaluate our prior probabilities. Not
strictly Bayesian considerations but rather considerations of small
probability based on chance hypotheses that, as first posed, admit no
alternatives. The alternatives need then to be introduced subsequently
because Fisherian, not Bayesian, considerations prompt them.
There are two problems here. The first is suppose that we are in a situation that
there are only two possible hypotheses. If that is the case, then one or the other
must be true. What Dembski is saying above is that neither of the hypotheses is
true. Thus Dembski’s Fisherian approach is of literally no use at all since it leaves us
with precisely nothing at all in terms of an answer due to the unfortunate
circumstance of getting a very unlikely sample.
The second problem is some what derivative of the problem above. We have
postulated only two hypotheses. Upon observing the data and the sheer improbability
of either hypothesis being true we could postulate another hypothesis such as maybe
there was a mistake an the urn one million black balls and one white ball or that
both coins come up heads with probability 1, etc. These aren’t “backpedaling priors”
this is precisely how science is done. When a given hypothesis is found to be lacking
a search for a new hypothesis starts. But Dembski doesn’t want to do that. In this
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case, he wants to conclude magic. Simply put that isn’t science it is absolutely junk
science.
Comments (0)
7/6/2006
Dembski’s Impossible Assumptions
Filed under:
Creationism
Mathematics
One of the things that gets me when reading just about anything by William Dembski
is his continual use of probability calculations to try to support his claims about
evolution. For example, in this paper by Dembski on his “displacement problem” we
get the following,
Take the search for a very modest protein, one that is, say, 100 amino
acids in length (most proteins are at least 250 to 300 amino acids in
length). The space of all possible protein sequences that are 100 amino
acids in length has size 20 100, or approximately 1.27×10130. Exhaustively
searching a space this size to find a target this small is utterly beyond not
only present computational capacities but also the computational capacities
of the universe as we know it.
[snip]
When it comes to locating small targets in large spaces, random sampling
and random walks are equally ineffective.
There are two problems here. The first is Dembski’s assumption that there is a target
that has to be found. This implies the very thing that Dembski is trying to prove–i.e.
teleology. That is there is a purpose or goal that is being worked towards. The
problem Dembski has with evolutionary theory is that there is supposedly no goal. In
short, Dembski is smuggling in (and not very well) the conclusion he wants.
The second problem is this notion of a target also implicitly assumes that there is a
highly imporbably outcome when in fact that needn’t be the case at all. For example,
evolutionary theory, despite Dembski’s caricature of it, does not work towards a
target but merely what workds. That is, to use Dembski’s language suppose there
are two ideal targets for his protien of length 100, and call these two targets Ta and
Tb . Further, suppose that for each of these two targets that there is a neighborhood
about the targets where the proteins in that neighborhood would be sufficient for
whatever organism needs this protein to go on living, that is suppose we have B(T a)
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and B(T b ). Depending on how large these neighborhoods are around our ideal targets
the probability of getting inside one of these two neighborhoods might be much,
much lower than Dembski’s calculations imply. Then factor in that you might have
say 1 million organisms where each one is trying a different path in terms of getting
into one of these neighborhoods. Suddenly what appears to be highly unlikely might
be much more likely. And finally, suppose that instead of looking for a complete
protein of lenght 100 amino acids we need to go from 98 amino acids to 100.
Dembski’s calculations for his caricature is that a sample of 10 130 is needed. Indeed
a very, very large number. However, what is the number when we take into
consideration all of the above extensions to Dembski’s basic caricature? What if the
number is brought down to something like 10 10. Still a very large number, but there
is also another assumption thrown in by Dembski. He thinks that the probability of
success has to be about 0.63 for some reason. Why? The only thing that Dembski
writes about that number is that the probability of hitting his target in m independent
trials is 1 - (1 - p) m which approachs 0.63 as m approaches 1/p. But why should this
be the default cutoff for finding our way into the target neighborhoods? What if we
make it 0.25 or 0.10 instead. After all, evolutionary theory is perfectlyfine with
organisms going extinct. If the target isn’t found, oh well too bad for whatever it is
that is looking for these proteins. Including this change then the sample size required
drops down to 1,338,079,092. Again still a very large number, but note that this is
about 121 orders of magnitude larger smaller than Dembski’s number for sample
size.
In short, Dembski’s conclusions are highly dependent on his assumptions and his
assumptions as have been shown (and pointed out to Dembski) many times are quite
false. This is why many consider Dembski to be a dishonest hack when it comes to
his writings on evolution and Intelligent Design. I tend to agree and think that he
dresses up his discussions with mathematics to hide this from his average reader.
Comments (0)
7/3/2006
Another Reason Why Intelligent Design is Bad
Filed under:
Creationism
Besides the reasons that Intelligent Design (ID) is scientifically vacuous, that we
already have a method of detecting design (in general), and that ID often is the
Trojan horse for sneaking creationism back into publicly funded schools, there is yet
another reason why ID is just bad.
This is the reason. Here we have a psychic-reiki master-therapist-teacher-authorhttp://www.debunkers.org/intro/
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researcher-lecturer-broadcaster whose work could be the “Designer”. No joke. Lets
take a look at some of the ways IDists think of ID. First up is Michael Behe,
Q The whole positive argument for intelligent design as you ve described it,
Professor Behe, is look at this system, look at these parts, they appear
designed correct?
A Well, I think I filled that out a little bit more. I said that intelligent design
is perceived as the purposeful arrangement of parts, yes. So when we not
only see different parts, but we also see that they are ordered to perform
some function, yes, that is how we perceived design.–Page 44 of Behe’s
cross examination on Day 11 of the Kitzmiller trial.
And then there is Dembski,
“even though in practice inferring design is the first step in identifying an
intelligent agent, taken by itself design does not require that such an agent
be posited. The notion of design that emerges from the design inference
must not be confused with intelligent agency” (TDI, 227, my emphasis).
Basically, Intelligent Design does not have to imply an intelligence. That is, the
design might be the product of something else…what beats the heck out of me
because as I noted before IDists refuse to flesh out their hypothesis.
So, it is entirely possible that the design that we see is due to psychic energies,
crystals, the orbit of planets (see this link also), and other completely nonsensical
woo-woo crap. The problem stems once again from the blatant refusal of all IDists to
detail the design hypothesis. Notice that there is a detailed mechanisms for
evolutionary theory. For example there is random mutation, gene flow, genetic drift,
endosymbiosis, and natural selection. We see nothing at all like this from the ID
crowd.
The basic problem is that Intelligent Design is not clearly defined and as such
anybody who has an agenda can climb on the bandwagon such as the Raelians. This
isn’t science but simply junk science taken to a level previously not seen.
Comments (0)
6/27/2006
Why the Explanatory Filter is Bad for Science
Filed under:
Creationism
Mathematics
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Once again it is time to bash the soft-headed thinking of Joe G. over at the
misnamed Intelligent Reasoning. Joe G. has a post that “explains the explanatory
filter”. The idea being that if the rest of us scientific nazi’s just understood the
brilliant points that Joe G. and his ilk are making we’d accept this kind of wrongheaded methodology.
The Design Explanatory Filter has been getting bad press. However it is
obvious the bad press is due to either misunderstanding or
misrepresentation. Some anti-IDists argue that it is an eliminative filter.
Well, yeah! All filters eliminate. The EF eliminates via consideration. Would
they prefer we started at the design inference and stay there until it is
falsified?
This completely misses the point. The problem with the Explanatory Filter (hereafter
EF) isn’t that it eliminates, but how it does so. Normally scienctific theories are
evaluated in a contrastive manner. That is we look at how each theory fares given
the evidence. To make this somewhat more concrete we can posit the following.
1.
2.
3.
4.
We have two theories: T1 and T2.
For these theories we have E, which is the observed evidence.
We also have our initial assesments of each theory, call these Pr(T1) and Pr(T2).
Further, Pr(T1) + Pr(T2) = 1, and Pr(Ti) > 0 for i = 1,2.
The first two items in our list are pretty much self-explanatory. Notion number 3
captures the researchers beliefs about the theories prior to learning about the data
(hence the name of these probabilities: prior probabilities or priors for short). These
beliefs can be subjective or not. This is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the
Bayesian manner of comparing theories, but as I’ll argue latter this controversy is
somewhat overblown. The fourth part of our list is pretty much straight forward since
we are using probability theory to summarize our beliefs. Clearly, if we had Pr(Ti) =
0 for any i, that theory would be completely defunct. That is no amount of evidence
could increase its probability of being true. This is why one should be careful in
assigning a probability of 0 to any theory or hypothesis.
Now based on all of the above, we can construct the following two probability
statements,
Pr(T1|E) = [Pr(E|T1)*Pr(T1)]/Pr(E),
Pr(T2|E) = [Pr(E|T2)*Pr(T2)]/Pr(E).
If we have the case where Pr(T1) = Pr(T2) then the only crucial elements are,
Pr(E|T1) and Pr(E|T2). These are the likelihoods for E given each of our theories. If it
is the case that Pr(E|T1) > Pr(E|T2) then we should favor T1 over T2.
Now if Pr(T1) and Pr(T2) are not equal, then where does that leave us? Well, if all
we had was one bit of evidence or only a few bits of evidence we might be reluctant
to cast off T2 in favor of T1 since our priors could be the reason that we favor T1
over T2. However, the above procedure is also iterative. That is suppose we have not
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just E, but E1, E2,…En. That is a sequence of evidence. What then? We could
reconstruct the probabilities above as,
Pr(T1|E1) = [Pr(E1|T1)*Pr(T1)]/Pr(E1),
Pr(T2|E) = [Pr(E1|T2)*Pr(T2)]/Pr(E1),
Pr(T1|E2) = [Pr(E2|T1)*Pr(T1|E1)]/Pr(E),
Pr(T2|E2) = [Pr(E2|T2)*Pr(T2|E1)]/Pr(E2),
.
.
.
Pr(T1|En) = [Pr(En|T1)*Pr(T1|En-1)]/Pr(En),
Pr(T2|En) = [Pr(En|T2)*Pr(T2|En-1)]/Pr(En-1).
In other words, for each observable incident of evidence we could do the probability
calculation and use the ensuing probability as the new prior the next time we observe
some evidence related to the theories under consideration. Generally, the impact of
the initial prior will be short lived in that the data will swamp that prior pulling it
towards whatever value the data implies.
But what does all this mean when it comes to Dembski’s Explanatory Filter? The EF
doesn’t do any of the above save a highly dubious calculation of,
Pr(E|T1)
.
Dembski argues that if the above likelihood is small enough then we should reject T1
without knowing anything at all about Pr(E|T2). If it turns out that in reality the case
is Pr(E|T1) >> Pr(E|T2) then there is good reason not reject T1 even it Pr(E|T1) is
really really small.
Joe G. asks,
Can anyone propose a better way to look at evidence/ phenomenon? How
about a better way to make a design inference?
The answer is unequivocally, “Yes!” We want to see how likely the evidence is given
each of our two theories, at the very least. Only by comparing the two theories can
we make an intelligent choice as to which is the better of the two. But ID and the EF
do not do this, and when pressed to do this Dembski and other Design advocated not
only demur, they state quite baldly that they will never do it. This isn’t science, it is
an attempt to pass off personal world views as scientific concepts and it is quite
simply junk science.
Comments (0)
6/19/2006
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Lots of New ID Nonsense from Intelligent Reasoning
Filed under:
Creationism
Joe G. has been a busy, busy guy lately. Probably because I’ve been having some
fun going after some of his stranger notions of what science is. I’ll try to tackle
several of the goofy issues he has raised in some of his pots and comments.
The first one is his post at the top of the blog on Junk DNA. In comments to another
post I noted that Intelligent Design Creationists (IDCists hereafter) have made the
claims that IDC leads to the hypothesis that there would be less Junk DNA than
evolutionary theory would predict. That is, that much of what is considered “Junk
DNA” isn’t actually junk. (Side note: the term Junk DNA is somewhat misleading and
a better term could be non-coding DNA or DNA for which no function has yet to be
found).
I argued that IDC cannot make this claim as we don’t know anything about the
designer. The problem comes from the following probability,
Pr(IDC|Less Junk DNA) = Pr(Less Junk DNA|IDC)*Pr(IDC)*[1/Pr(Less Junk DNA)].
I noted that we can’t evaluate the likelihood on the right hand side, namely Pr(Less
Junk DNA|IDC) since we know nothing of the desiging intelligence. For example, the
argument of Less Junk DNA rests implicitly on the notion that the designer is a “good
code writer” and that extraneous bits of code would not be left over. However, if the
designer is a like the designer speculated by people like Guillermo Gonzalez (The
Privileged Planet) where the designer simply makes a life friendly universe there is
no reason to suspect that the designer is a “good code writer” and that there should
be less Junk DNA. In fact, any attempt to make any concrete statements, guess,
speculation about the designer is met with extreme resistence on the part of all
IDCists. They argue that questions about the designer are irrelevent, not necessary,
and so forth. But that is precisely the problem. Until something is said about the
designer the likelihood,
Pr(E|IDC), where E is any evidence at all
remains a completely unknown and as such we cannot evaluate the probability,
Pr(IDC|E). This is why many supporters of evolutionary theory claim that IDC is
vaccuous. There is no way to judge the efficacy of IDC relative to alternative
explanations such as evolutionary theory.
This problem was noted by Paul Nelson,
Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a fullfledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory now, and
that’s a real problem. Without a theory it’s very hard to know where to
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direct your research focus. Right now we’ve got a bag of powerful
intuitions, and a handful of notions such as “irreducible complexity” and
“specified complexity” - but as yet no general theory of biological design.
My argument is untill the IDCists are ready to start talking about the designer then
the above problem will never be resolved.
But what does Joe G. think of all this? Nothing. You see, if it turns out that there is
less junk DNA that initially believed, no problem for IDC. If junk DNA really turns out
to be “junk” then no problem for IDC. In short, IDC is immune whatever the data is
observed. Rendering one’s pet theory immune to the data is not science, it is the
epitome of junk science.
The next bit of nonsense that we get from Joe G. is this post. The problem with this
nonsense is that it implies that there is some sort of special evidence that would
convince all of us skeptics if we could just see it. The problem is that once again this
isn’t how science works. That is suppose we have three hypotheses, H 1 , H 2 , H 3 and
that we have evidence E. Then we would construct the following,
Pr(Hi|E) = [Pr(E|H i)*Pr(H i)]/Pr(E) for each i.
However, it is entirely possible the the probability of H 1 and H 2 both increase at the
expense of H 3 and that Pr( H 1 |E) is larger than Pr(H2 |E). Thus, even “good evidence
for H 2 could be even better evidence for H 1 . Hence the question itself is just not
helpful.
Next is this really silly post on the Explanatory Filter (EF). The post uses an old
IDCist dodge when discussing the EF: conflating human design with rarified design.
Look at it this way: How do forensic scientists approach a crime scene? Do
they run in guns blazing, kicking stuff around? No. They pick the place
clean looking for clues- macro and micro. The clues lead them to an
accidental or natural death or a homicide. Somewhere along the line there
may be a key indicator of agent activity, IOW something that was
determined couldn’t have occurred by chance.
Where to being? How about that from past experience (i.e. evidence or data) forensic
scientists know that there is likely going to be lots of evidence on or around the body
that will answer the question of natural, accident, or homicide. Further, there is lots
of evidence that indicates that if a person is murdered it was another human doing it
(i.e. supernatural murder just doesn’t happen). That is the forensic scientist can use
the following probabilities:
Pr(ND|E) = [P(E|ND)*Pr(ND)]/Pr(E)
Pr(AD|E) = [P(E|AD)*Pr(AD)]/Pr(E)
Pr(HD|E) = [P(E|HD)*Pr(HD)]/Pr(E).
That is, based on the evidence the forensic scientist will revise his intial probability
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assesments. And guess what, forensic science makes use of Bayes Theorem.
Shockingly, not one forensic scientist use the EF. And why should they, there is no
set method of how to use it. Even Dembski only uses it with the uniform probability
distribution which is probably not a good idea with forensic science involving a dead
body. After all, most dead bodies are probably the result of natural causes. The next
most likely are accidental, and finally murder brings up the rear being the least likely
explanation (a priori) as to why the person is dead. Basically, we don’t need the EF
at all.
These are all standard arguments used by IDCists and none of them really hold any
water. They rely on people not understanding how science works, how to reason
inductively via proability statements and general ignorance. This is no different than
any other form of junk science save perhaps that it has been elevated to a very high
level.
Comments (0)
6/11/2006
Quick Update
Filed under:
Creationism
In the post below, I argued that one should always check a Creationist’s sources.
While this is true, the other thing about the quote by Feduccia below highlights
another disingenuous aspect of Creationism, especially the Intelligent Design variety:
the lack of controversy.
Right there we see a controversy in biology/paleontology: where did birds come
from. Right now the dominant theory is that birds evolved from Theropoda while
Feduccia argues that the precursor for birds is Thecodontia. A real life controversy
that none of the Intelligent Design Creationists want to talk about. Instead, they
obsess about their faux controversy surrounding this bogus notion of design for
bioglogical structures.
Comments (0)
6/5/2006
Always Check the Source
Filed under:
Creationism
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This is always a good piece of advice when dealing with Creationists. Case in point,
this article, pointed out to us by Joe G. at Intelligent Reasoning. In that article in a
footnote related to Archaeopteryx we get the following quote,
Leading ornithologist Dr. Alan Feduccia wrote “Paleontologists have tried to
turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound feathered dinosaur. It is a bird, a
perching bird. And no amount of “paleobabble” is going to change that”.
Cited in J. Sarfati, Refuting Evolution, p 58, from Science, 259(5096), p
764-65.
Sarfati is one of the lesser known IDCists, but still check out these supposed
damning quotes. So a quick google search turned up this. The context is that there is
a big debate over whether or not birds evolved from a member of Thecodontia or
Saurischia. In other words, the above quote isn’t to dispute the evolution of the bird,
but exactly how birds evolved. Prime example of quote mining.
I was aware of the fact that many think Archaeopteryx was a transitional fossil, but
not an ancestor of birds. Hence the whole comment about Archaeopteryx in the
original article is highly misleading. Par for the course for Creationists (and one that
approvingly quotes Duane Gish no less).
Comments (0)
6/4/2006
The Problem with Creationists
Filed under:
Creationism
— Steve_V @ 1:57 am
One of the big problems with Creationists is that they don’t seem to understand how
science works, or sometimes even their own arguments. Case in point, our friend Joe
G., at Intelligent Reasoning. First up is this nice little quote by me, and Joe G.’s
response,
As for the use of the fossil record as evidence in favor of
evolutionary theory and against ID one only has to look to
Dembski’s new law of thermodynamics. That is the Law of
Conservation of Information. Basically, this law asserts that new
information (e.g. speciation) cannot come about purely by natural
means.
Seeing that both intelligence and design are natural, I would say you don’t
understand the debate.
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Joe G. is apparently unfamiliar with Dembski’s argument. Dembski’s argument is that
natural processes like those in evolutionary theory, are insufficient to produce the
new information that is embodied in things like the E. coli flagellum. Hence if natural
processes are insufficient, then Dembski must see the intelligence that he infers that
is behind the supposed design is supernatural.
Incidentally, I’ve never argued that intelligence and design are not natural. Humans
have intelligence and design lots of things, but humans are also part of nature.
Hence it is indeed the case that intelligence and design, in general, are part of
nature–i.e. are natural. So Joe G. really has to take this up with the Intelligent
Design crowd as they are the one’s that are positing a viewpoint that is strongly in
accord with the supernatural.
The other problem, not knowing how science works, is found in just about every
single post on that website. As I noted in my pervious post, judging a theory should
only be done by comparing theories and there probability of being true given the
evidence. But Joe G., as is all too typical of Creationists, argues that evolutionary
theory is simply wrong as if by succeeding here, Creationism or ID (but I repeat
mysefl) must be true by default. The problem with this is that even if some of the
problems that Creationists/IDists bring up are valid it doesn’t automatically convey
greater probability of being true on Creationism/ID.
For once, it would be nice to see a Creationists/IDists try to utilize the above
approach. Of course, they wont because to do so would mean that they have to talk
about the designer. They’d have to look at the designers motives, the processes he
uses (hint: currently ID has literally nothing for a process as to how this design took
place), and so forth. As soon as they do this, the curtain is pulled back and ID is
revealed to be nothing more than Creationism and another attempt to try and get
God into school curriculums via the side door.
Comments (0)
6/1/2006
How to Construct a Misleading Argument
Filed under:
Creationism
Over at the misnamed, Intelligent Reasoning, we have a prime example of how to
construct a misleading argument.
Evolutionists commonly use the fossil record and evidnence for their
“theory”. However fossils canNOT tell us anything about a mechanism.
Therefore in any debate pertaining to a mechanism, such as ID vs.
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evolutionism, the fossil record is totally useless.
Lets break it down. The claim, or premise of the argument is that the fossil record is
used to support the theory of evolution. The support for this claim though is
supposedly refutes a much more precise claim: the fossil record cannot be used in a
discussion of the mechanism of ID vs. evolution. While the latter might be true (I’ll
argue later that it isn’t depending on which aspect of ID you are talking about), that
does not mean that the fossil record doesn’t support evolutionary theory.
The fossil record is used primarily as a source of evidence for speciation. This is done
by looking at bones found in the right section of rock, and the look to see if the
bones are similar to other bones found previously. Scientists can then track changes
in the dinosaurs and make inferences as to which sets of bones are related to other
sets of bones.
The argument that there isn’t a clear pattern of speciation amongst marine
invertebrates is also misleading. Simply because the evidence is more clear with
vertebrates than it is with invertebrates does not render a theory false. Further, the
lack of transitional fossils is not proof that evolution didn’t happen. Consider the
following points:
1. There is considerable evidence of transitional fossils amongst vertebrates.
2. There is far less evidence of transitional fossils amongst invertebrates.
So, does this mean that evolution didn’t happen? Point number 1 supports the
hypothesis evolution happened, point number 2 on the other hand neither supports
nor undermines the hypothesis that evolution happened. Further, there is evidence of
transitional fossils for invertebrates. So, basically this argument is not only factually
wrong, it is logically wrong as well.
To see the latter recall from the previous post about Bayes Theorem. Bayes theorem
can be written as:
That is probability of theory i given evidence k, depends on the probability of
evidence k assuming theory i multiplied by our prior probability (i.e. our hunch that
theory i is correct) normalized by the probability of evidence k. Now, what if there is
no evidence, i.e. the evidence is the empty set. But the Pr(the empty set|Ti) = 1.
Thus, the above equation reduces to,
That is, the lack of evidence neither confirms nor disconfirms a theory. This is a good
thing in that even though a theory may predict something like transitional fossils,
there is no guarantee that transitional fossils have to exist. Fossilization is not a
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foregone conclusion given that just the right type of circumstances have to occur for
a fossil to form. Hence it is quite likely that many transitional species never leave
any fossils behind. Would we really want this sort of “bad luck” to disconfirm a
theory that in reality might be true? No.
So both factually and logially the argument based on the scant transitional fossils of
marine invertebrates is not necessarily evidence against evolutionary theory. The
only way for this to be evidence against evolutionary theory is if evolutionary theory
predicted a large number of such fossils, and to the best of my knowledge
evolutionary theory says little about the frequency of fossils, which is more the
purview of geology. Finally, not that in the above the denominator is nothing more
than a fancy version of the law of total probability. We could re-write it simply as
Pr(E k). Thus, the more unlikely E k is the better this is for the theory in question. For
example, the fact that the sidewalk is wet is strong evidence that it is raining. Not
because when it rains the probability that the sidewalk is wet is high, but because
usually the sidewalk is dry. That is the evidence that the sidewalk is wet is unusual
which prompts me to put a higher weight on the theory/hypothesis that it is raining.
As for the use of the fossil record as evidence in favor of evolutionary theory and
against ID one only has to look to Dembski’s new law of thermodynamics. That is
the Law of Conservation of Information. Basically, this law asserts that new
information (e.g. speciation) cannot come about purely by natural means. Since the
fossil record indicates otherwise (i.e., it supports the purely natural theory of
evolution) this is evidence against ID.
As for the notion that the fossil record is the only place that we observe evolution
that is pure nonsense. Evolution is observed everytime parents reproduce. The
combining of two seperate strands of DNA into a new unique DNA is part of the
evolutionary mechanism (sexual selection). Mutations are observed in labs all th e
time and are part of the mechanism of evolution. This idea that the mechanisms of
evolution are not observed anywhere save the fossil record is just flat out wrong.
And the source, Pierre-Paul Grasse, has a pretty heterodox view of mutations. So
quoting him is definitely a case selectively chosing one’s sources.
Basically this kind of stuff is what Creationists are very good at. Tossing out a
completely bogus argument knowing full well that most of their audience wont have
either the background knowlege to know it is bogus or the time to verify if the
argument is bogus. Add on top of that, the desire to believe these bogus arguments
because they fit with the preconcieved views of many in their audience and they can
get away with guite a bit of nonsense.
To discuss this post, go to our forums.
Comments (0)
I Don’t Think You Know What That Word Means
Filed under:
Creationism
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Mathematics
Over at Intelligent Reasoning, we have the PRATT List in regards to intelligent
design. The first part shows the rather shallow understanding of science and the
scientific method on the part of the author, Joe G.
This is just dumb. Lets consider the following: what created the E. coli flagellum?
Most scientists would say, “Evolutionary theory”, and by this they’d mean mutation,
gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, etc. In short, we’d have an explanation for
the causal agent/force. Would this prohibit us from making an inference? Nope. This
is how the inference would work (if you are a Bayesian):
P(Evo|Data) = P(Data|Evo)P(Evo)/P(Data).
That is we’d look at the probability of observing the data that was observed given the
hypothesis that evolution is responsible for the flagellum. We also, have the
probability that evolution is “true” and this basically represents our personal view as
to the validity of evolution being true. And last is the probability of observing the
Data given any and all theories–i.e. the unconditional probability of a specific type of
data.
Some make a big deal about P(Evo) arguing that one could stack the deck by setting
this probability very high or even to 1. If this (prior) probability is set to 1, then you
know right off the bat that the person is dogmatic and no amount of evidence will get
him to change his mind. If the probability is set very high–i.e. close to 1, but not
quite 1, then what this implies is that you’ll need quite a bit of data to swamp that
prior, but it can be done. That is, a high prior isn’t necessarily a bad thing or that the
person holding such a prior is unreasonable.
But the idea that we can’t make an inference given that we know the process, agent,
or force involved is just utter nonsense.
Knowing who designed something adds nothing to the understanding of the
design unless the designer conveyed all that information to you.
On the contrary, it allows us to refine our inference above. For example, suppose we
want to know how X (some event happened)? The probability,
P(X),
Tells us very little. However,
P(X|Data),
Allows us to use the machinery of Bayes theorem to learn about the validity of X.
However, Intelligent Design Creationists (IDCists) refuse to discuss the designer. This
is why Dembski came up with his Explanatory Filter. Scientists have used Bayesian
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methods to evaluate not only scientific thoeries, but also the possibility of an
intelligence agency being at work for some time now (mainly due to the
improvements in computing power). For example, we can use the Bayesian methods
to determine the probability that Nichola Caputo, one of Dembski’s examples,
cheated (i.e. intelligently designed) the ballot positions during elections. We don’t
need the Explanatory Filter for this, we can just use a mathematical result that has
been around for over 200 years (and Ironically was discovered by a believer in God).
We can use known examples of designed objects to show that we don’t
need to know the designer in order to understand the design.
Uhhhmmm no. We look at a fork, or belt buckle found at an archeological dig and
conclude design in large part because we know people were present and that people
design things. This kind of extrapolation from natural design (i.e. humans designing
and making things) to rarified design (design by a supernatural being that IDCists
refuse to discuss) are not equivalent and it is a logical fallacy to assume that the
reasoning processes are the same.
Obviously knowing who designed something the detection process can be
skipped.
Again, no. When we do any kind of inference, especially using the Bayesian method,
we want to condition on all the relevant information. Not conditioning on all the
relevant information can lead to apparent paradoxes (note that there isn’t really a
paradox, simply what appears to be a paradox due to an error in conditioning). The
above is like saying, “We know that X is an important part of phenomenon Y, but we
are going to ignore it in all our inferences.” Most people would find this specious…and
it is.
In any investigation of a dead body, first you would attempt to determine
the cause of death and attempt to identify the body. If homicide is inferred
then you use the evidence to run an investigation to determine the
killer(s). If they knew the killer before the investigation, what an easy job
they would have.
This is misleading. Note that the author has shifted from knowing that there is “a
killer” to “knowing the killer”. These two things are not the same. A forensic scientist
might know that a person was murdered, and hence that there is a killer, but he
may not know who the killer is.
Who designed the designer?
Who designed the designers of Stonehenge? We can only study what we
can observe.
This is also misleading. The idea behind ID is that certain biological structures could
not have arisen purely by natural means. Given this, it seems reasonable to ask if
the designer is as or even more complex than that which is designed. If the answer
is yes, then the question of where did the designer come from becomes pertinent.
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The problem is that it leads to either infinite regress (the designer has a designer,
who in turn had a designer, who also in turn had a designer, and on and on forever)
or we have to posit a supernatural designer. Once you go supernatural, this runs
right into certain Constitutional restrictions on what can and can’t be taught. In
short, bringing up this question threatens the non-scientific goal of the ID movement
which is to get a form of Creationism back into the classroom.
How was it designed?/ How was the design implemented?
Without direct observation or input from the designer, although interesting
questions answering them is not necessary to achieve the objectives of IDthat is the detection and understanding of the design.
This is contradictory. We can’t understand design if we can’t answer how it was
designed and why. Note that evolutionary theory proposes a mechanism that explains
how it happened and why. Granted, it isn’t detailed in that a mutation-by-mutation
explanation, but it gives a mechanism which is far, far more than ID. Further, this
mechanism is what gives rise to testable hypotheses. Without a mechanism there
really is no way to test ID save to say, “Well we think it was designed, but we can’t
say for sure.” So ID can’t even out do the “We don’t know” position. Pretty pathetic
form of understanding.
ID is another way of saying “I give up looking.”
Nothing could be further from reality. In reality whenever design is
detected the work is just getting started, just ask any archaeologist or SETI
researcher. To say my car was designed affords absolutely no knowledge
about the car. To gain that knowledge research must be conducted.
Well here we see the problem with ignoring the designer. Sure saying, the car is
designed doesn’t tell us much. But this is precisely a criticism of ID. Most people
would say, the car is designed by other people. That additional bit of information
would tell us a great deal about the design. It would indicate that the car is designed
to accomodate people, that it serves some need people have, etc. However, with ID
there is nothing else. We can’t ask, “How was it designed?” as the author has
already stated that this question is not relevant and IDCists refuse to speculate
about the designer. We can’t ask, “Why was it designed?” either. This would also
need a designer and the goals and motivations of the designer to brought up. Note
that an archaeologist would ask both of these questions. The would look at how
some artifact was designed and what purpose did it serve. From this, the
archaeologist could then go on to make inferences about the goals and motivations
of the designer.
The design is a poor design. Why would a good designer allow so
many extinctions and so many obviously cobbled-together systems?
I would love to see the critics who use this line of attack do a better job.
However I digress. No one says that the design had to be perfect or that
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even if it started out “perfect” that it had to remain that way.
Right, this is the hallmark of ID: Stupid, therefore designed.
The net result of all of these “Points Refuted A Thousand Times” is that Intelligent
Design is scientificially empty. It leads to no interesting questions, hypotheses, or
results. In fact, given things like Dembski’s Explanatory Filter, which supposed will
produce no false positives and “sweeps the field clean” in terms of naturalistic
explanations, there is no more need to look for natural causes of whatever is
deemed to be designed. In short, Intelligent Design is anti-science at its core.
To discuss this post, go to our forums.
Comments (0)
2/15/2006
Hockey Stick Under Fire
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
— SPQR @ 12:00 am
If you have not been following Steve McIntyre’s blog, then you have been missing
some truly yeoman work by McIntyre on the junk science of the Hockey Stick team.
The “Hockey Stick” refers to the graph used by the IPCC reports based on the paper
MBH ‘98 which purported to show that recent global warming is historically
unprecedented. The paper purported to “prove” by statistical analysis of what are
termed “proxies”; ie., measurements that infer historical temperatures. McIntyre and
McKitrick published a paper that showed some pervasive and at times suspicious
errors and omissions in the MBH paper. A key finding of their’s that has never been
refuted by Mann et al is that their result is actually dependant solely upon the
inclusion of one proxy - that of the tree ring widths of bristlecone pines - that
dominate the shape of the graph. And McIntyre has shown several references from
experts on the bristlecone pine that shows its tree ring widths are influenced most
not by temperature but by moisture.
McIntyre’s blog has since documented his experiences in trying to get the Hockey
Stick team to live up to their obligations as scientists to publish their data and
methodologies to enable others to verify their paper. It has shown that the global
warming advocates intentionally violate peer-reviewed journal processes and
procedures to defend their work.
Some recent work by Steve:
Politics in the hockey stick science
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McIntyre has been having fun responding to purported rebuttals of his work.
Review of Osborn and Briffa - a recent supposed confirmation of the Hockey Stick
Comments (0)
1/18/2006
Mythbusters Outtakes
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 11:25 pm
Here at Debunkers, we obviously keep a close eye on those Johnny Come-Lately
“Mythbusters” on Discovery Channel. Here are some outtakes from their program.
Enjoy.
Comments (0)
8/30/2005
Katrina Relief
Filed under:
General
Admin
— SPQR @ 10:29 pm
Glenn Reynolds has a list of links to ways you can donate to relief efforts in the
aftermath of Katrina. I will be making a donation to the Salvation Army.
Comments (0)
8/16/2005
RU-486 Nonsense
Filed under:
Polycon
Chemophobia
Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger and pundit has written a post about the
supposed dangers of RU-486, the “morning after” abortion pill. And what a complete
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load of utter nonsense it is. There isn’t much to add after Bill Ardolino delivers a
brutal smack down on Malkin’s complete nonsense. Bill notes that the risk posed by
RU-486 is extremely low and compares it to such things as penicillin.
Yeah, so can penicillin, at a greater mortality rate than RU-486:
The risk of penicillin fatal allergy is about 1 in 75,000.
Further, note this snide comment by Malkin,
Interesting that the usual crowd of pharmaceutical-bashers, who
undoubtedly would have lobbied for any other drug with such health
outcomes to be pulled, have nothing to say about these deaths.
Seems quite apparent that Malkin has a certain degree of disdain for those she call
“the usual crowd of pharmaceutical-bashers”, but at the same time we see Malkin
doing precisely the same kind of thing on the flimsiest of evidence. Perhaps the true
motivation for Malkin’s post is not the safety of RU-486, but that she is exploiting
these recent deaths for her own anti-abortion agenda?
Part of today’s Beltway Traffic Jam.
Comments (0)
8/12/2005
Frist Offers Hope for Embryonic Stem Cell Research (UPDATED: A
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?)
Filed under:
General
— lane @ 10:53 am
Posted with permission
Frist Offers Hope for Embryonic Stem Cell Research (UPDATED: A Wolf in
Sheep’s Clothing?)
By Aubrey Noelle Stimola
In a surprising move pitting him against President Bush and religious conservatives,
Senate majority leader Bill Frist announced last week his support for a bill to expand
federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Michael
Castle (R-DE), passed in the House but has stalled in the Senate, where several
alternative stem cell bills are vying for consideration.
Amidst the applause for Frist, though, it may be forgotten that he has not necessarily
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changed his views much at all. Expanding stem cell research only to leftover embryos
from in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures that would have otherwise have been
discarded does not necessarily mean Frist has stopped seeing those embryos as
human beings – in which case, his small step in favor of expanded research could
easily be followed by his support for, say, a ban on all somatic cell nuclear transfer
(SCNT), that is, the creation of new embryos specifically for research purposes. That
means the man lauded for advancing stem cell research today could easily prove to
be one of its most restrictive opponents at the same time, and without any changes
in his underlying position throughout.
Current policy restricts use of federal funding to research on the seventy-eight
embryonic stem cell lines created before August 2001, only twenty-two of which
have proved viable for study. These limitations, many researchers argue, have held
back U.S. progress in the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine. Countries such
as the UK and South Korea have made far more headway in this arena.
The new bill would allow federal funding on stem cell lines extracted from frozen
embryos left over from in vitro fertilization procedures, embryos that would otherwise
be discarded. If the bill passes in the Senate, President Bush has threatened to stop
the measure with the first veto of his presidency.
Embryonic stem cells have long been the hypothesized key to understanding,
treating, and perhaps one day curing numerous diseases and conditions suffered by
millions of Americans. Their use, however, is controversial, as the extraction of these
cells, which have the potential to develop into all of types of human tissue,
necessarily destroys the five-day-old embryos from which they are removed. To
those who believe these thirty- to 150-celled embryos are morally equivalent to
human beings, embryonic stem cell research is tantamount to murder.
Frist’s announcement is surprising given his statement just last month that he did
not back expansion of the current policy “at this juncture.” Frist’s new stance that
“the president’s policy should be modified” on grounds that the current limitations
will “slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases” may give
undecided Senate republicans political license to back the legislation, likely to be
voted on in September. As the Senate’s only physician, Frist is often looked to by his
colleagues for advice on medical matters.
Second Thoughts on Frist Thoughts
While Senator Frist’s announcement seems a boon to embryonic stem cell research,
it has raised some understandable suspicions and led many to speculate that this
apparent reversal of opinion might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Frist maintains that
his moral convictions have not changed. He continues to view embryos as nascent
human life, the argument relied upon by opponents of policy expansion, but says he
now views this matter as one of science as well as faith. “I am pro-life. I believe
human life begins at conception,” Frist claims on one hand. He also states, however,
“Cure today may be just a theory…but the promise is powerful enough that I believe
this research deserves our increased energy and focus. Embryonic stem cell research
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must be supported. It’s time for a modified policy.”
Translated, Frist believes an embryo is human life, but he also believes that there
are cases in which it is justifiable to destroy human life. Such a tension can only be
resolved if the Senator qualifies his position by saying that he only condones the use
of frozen embryos in research because they will otherwise be discarded and these
already existing embryos can and should be put to use to save other lives. Given
Frist’s unchanged views on the status of the human embryo, it stands to reason that
this is the stance he is now taking, though he has not explicitly said as much.
As a result, scientists wary of this unprecedented shift fear that the expansion of
federal funding to leftover embryos might come with a tremendous caveat. There
have been murmurs of legislation that, while granting researchers access to surplus
embryos, would bar any and all use of a stem cell-producing technique called
“somatic cell nuclear transfer” (SCNT) – on the grounds that the new availability of
surplus embryos would negate any need for SCNT. To many stem cell experts,
including Bernard Siegel of the Genetics Policy Institute, this is anti-science at its
absolute worst.
SCNT involves the insertion of the genetic material from an “adult” (non-embryonic)
cell into an egg from which the nucleus has been removed. This new cell, with the
appropriate stimulus, will behave like a fertilized egg and will be allowed to develop
for three to five days, at which point embryonic stem cells would be extracted. These
individual cells would be an exact genetic match to the adult cell donor and, ideally,
could be used for various disease treatments in that individual. This procedure would
bypass the risk of immune rejection typically posed by transplantation procedures;
instead, a patient could receive perfectly matched cells – genetically, his own.
This technique, called therapeutic cloning, has too frequently been lumped together
with the more ominous sounding “reproductive cloning,” considered abhorrent by
most researchers. The only difference is that a therapeutically cloned embryo only
develops to the thirty-to-150-cell stage, whereas reproductive cloning involves the
implantation of the cloned embryo into a uterus with the intent of live birth. The
latter is the technique first employed by Dr. Ian Wilmut in the creation of Dolly the
sheep and most recently used by Dr. Woo-Suk Hwang in the creation of the world’s
first cloned dog.
Many researchers feel that access to federal funding for research using surplus IVF
embryos should not come at the cost of SCNT, given its potential to overcome tissue
rejection and other immunity-related problems. Those in favor of SCNT-restricting
legislation often fear that the use of SCNT for therapeutic purposes will necessarily
lead us down a slippery slope to human reproductive cloning.
The Frist decision might impact the efforts of American researchers who have been
lagging behind countries like South Korea, the UK, and Singapore in the field of stem
cell research. Be warned, it is possible that there might be serious drawbacks to
what seems like progress toward expanded research. Advocates of embryonic stem
cell research are advised to pay close attention to the fine print of any proposed
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stem cell legislation, particularly as we approach a possible Senate vote in
September.
Aubrey Stimola is an assistant director of public health at the American Council on
Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
Comments (0)
7/29/2005
Ewww?
Filed under:
General
Medicine
— lane @ 11:29 am
Omega-3 Fatty acids in milk
A “SUPERMILK” containing Omega 3 fatty acids derived from oily fish is to
go on sale this week.
It is produced by cows which are given a special fish oil blend along with
their normal feed. A 250ml serving contains ten times more of the Omega
3 acids known as DHA and EPA than regular milk but is said to taste the
same.
This is more of an FYI. Omega-3’s are pretty well established as being “good” for
you, but this one doesn’t pass my sniff test for ickiness.
Fish and milk don’t mix, even if you can’t taste or smell the mix.
Comments (0)
7/26/2005
Neo-Creationists Deceptions
Filed under:
Creationism
Well I guess I should be happy that they at least admit that they take the writings,
comments, and speechs of biologists out of context and abuse them for their own
purposes.
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Who’s to blame for this mess? Maybe biologists themselves, at least in
part, suggests Rudy Raff. Raff, long a leader and mentor in the field of evodevo, periodically writes editorials warning about the growth of ID and
skepticism concerning naturalistic evolution. His most recent, “Stand up for
evolution” (Evolution and Development 7 [July 2005]:273-275), advises
biologists to police their own language when describing biological systems.
As Raff writes:
…let us not play into the hands of ID propagandists. For instance, be
careful about using teleological words to describe biological entities in our
teaching and writing. Calling cells “machines that do X,” or describing
biological structures as “well designed to do Y” will be duly cited in ID
propaganda as one more biologist-supporting design.
This is precisely correct in that the Intelligent Design proponents grab onto anything
that remotely hints at design and abuses it. Case in point: William Dembski blaming
Peter Ward for Dembski’s misuse of something Ward wrote.
Paul Nelson is making it like the biologists are in the wrong, but when you have your
writings constantly taken out of context and twisted to support a position 180
degrees counter to what you actually believe who is really acting in a despicable
manner?
Part of today’s Beltway Traffic Jam.
Comments (0)
7/5/2005
More Intelligent Design Whining.
Filed under:
Creationism
Now it is Jonathan Witt that is whining about the perceptions surrounding The
Privileged Planet. Before diving into the issue, let me first say I have not read the
book The Privileged Planet, nor have I seen the documentary. I have considered
reading the book, but since my time is limited I’m not sure I’m ever going to actually
get it let alone read it. My problem is that the very concept of the book defies logic.
Part of the hypothesis in the book is that the universe is fine tuned for life. This,
along with the other observations, the authors argue, suggests design of the
universe, the solar system and our planet (hence the title). The problem is that the
fine tuning argument actually does not suggest design. The argument that a fine
tuned universe implies design is fatally flawed and can be seen pretty simply. From
an abstract point which is the stronger argument for design:
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1. Prob(Life|Fine Tuned)
2. Prob(Life|Not Fine Tuned)?
The first one might very well be very, very low, but the second one according to the
IDers who are sympathetic to Cosmological Intelligent Design (CID) is impossible–i.e.
the probability is zero. In other words, the fact that we live in a fine tuned universe
is evidence against design. That is, the only way to have life in a non-fine tuned
universe is for a supernatural entity to generate that life and some how sustain it.
Now that last part, the supernatural designer, is one that some might object to, but
lets not kid ourselves we are talking about a being that designed the cosmos so that
our planet would have life on it. Is this being really the result of a natural process? If
so, then the rest of ID (Biological Intelligent Design) goes right out the window. If
natural processes are sufficient to lead to a being that can create the entire cosmos
then natural processes are more than sufficient to create a flagellum in e. coli.
When people cannot accept the above logic with regards to the fine tuning argument,
I am reluctant to invest both time and money to see what the rest of their
arguments are. This and the fact that Gonzalez and Richards can’t seem to bring
themselves to discuss this designer leaves me thinking this is just the same old crap
we get from the Intelligent Design community.
Comments (0)
6/29/2005
A Little Cheese To Go With That Whine Perhaps?
Filed under:
Creationism
Jay Richards over at ID the Future is complaining about how others are using the
term intelligent design. He cites two examples.
The first was a written document he recieved from somebody who claimed to have
information channled from extraterrestrials where the author had whited out the
name for his theory and put in its place the words, “intelligent design”. The other
was about a story I noted here about a mechanism for Intelligent Design (ID). Both
are laughable stupid. But I think at least part of the problem is due to the ID
proponents (the real ones, not these whacky Johnny-come-latelies).
The problem is that ID proponents have not layed out exactly what theory underlies
ID. You don’t see this kind of problem with actual scientific theories such as particle
physics theory, quantum theory, etc. Why? Because these areas of physics have well
developed theories, they have people doing things that ID proponents never do, such
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as experiments. When you leave something almost completely undefined you run the
risk of having other people come in and try and define it for you. IDers can’t say,
”Oh, no this idea that intelligent design is connected to astrology is wrong,” because
ID is completely undefined. We can’t look at ID and say, “Nope astrology is not
allowed,” because there is nothing inherent in the concept of ID that prevents such a
connection. ID merely says that evolutionary theory and natural law is not sufficient
to account for the diversity of life we currently observe. Beyond that nothing more is
said as to why this has to be true. Could be aliens…could be astrology, some sort of
divine being, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
So it is with much amusement that I watch the IDers out there actually have to
spend (waste?) time responding to these kinds of crank concepts. Also, it is with
amusement that I watch the supposedly “Big ID Tent” get smaller as one group of
IDers try to toss other groups out. It is also with amusement that I watch IDers use
non-ID science to do this,
The conclusion simply doesn’t follow. I could just as easily point out how
none of us (not to mention the universe) wouldn’t exist without gravity,
and point out how gravity has some unusual properties, and use similar
logic to argue that gravity is the mechanism of intelligent design.
Yes, one could do precisely this and there is absolutely nothing in ID that would
prevent one from making such a statement. I tell you, you can’t make up stuff like
this.
Comments (0)
6/24/2005
Do Hybrids Payoff
Filed under:
General
Do the cost savings associated with hybrid cars translate into savings? The answer
appears to be no.
The auto researcher Edmunds.com did a recent study comparing hybrids to
non-hybrid vehicles. Their conclusion, the cost savings on gas may not
offset the higher price tag on hybrids.
For example, the study compared the Toyota Prius to the Toyota Corolla
and found you’d have to drive the Prius 66,500 miles a year just to break
even. Why? A hybrid can cost as much as $5,200 more than its non-hybrid
counterpart.
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I think this is somewhat significant since there is the possibility that tax payer money
will be used to subsidize hybrid cars. If the cars are not going to result in a net
savings unless one drives quite a bit, then the policy of subsidizing the cars may be
mis-guided.
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority owns nine hybrids, all of them,
the Prius. According to the JTA’s Director of Transportation Tom Jury, the
average mileage on the agency’s hybrids is far less than 66,500 annually it’s more like 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year.
On the face of it, that looks like bad news for the taxpayers who funded
the new cars. But Jury points out, the JTA paid slightly less than sticker
price for its hybrids, shelling out $18,370 for each one.
And he says there are other factors to consider, telling First Coast News,
“It’s not just the economy or the fuel mileage on the vehicle it’s also the
reduced emissions as well.”
While it is true that things like reduced emissions are a benefit and one that is not
easily measured, it is still questionable that it fully offsets the costs associated with
hybrid cars. This is one of the problems with many environmental issues. The
problems are externalities (i.e. external to the market) and hence there is little way
of getting a good idea on the monetary impact of these externalities.
Comments (0)
One Brain Cell Needed To Recognize Celebrities
Filed under:
General
You know, this seems so fitting.
It takes one brain cell to recognise a Hollywood celebrity, according to a
study into how the mind recalls a familiar face. Faces of stars such as
Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry and Brad Pitt each stimulate a nerve cell in the
brain that seems to recognise that face alone.
Considering how dippy so many celebrities are, it seems quite fitting that only one
brain cell is need to recognize them.
The research that the above is based on also sounds interesting,
The findings suggest that individual brain cells, rather than being mere
electronic relays for signals, are miniature computers in their own right.
Instead of brain cells acting as a network of individual units, scientists may
revitalise an older theory suggesting a separate cell is responsible for
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recognising a familiar face.
Comments (0)
Stamping Out Poverty
Filed under:
General
This is a bit off the beaten path for junk science, but I think it is somewhat relevant.
Bob Geldof has recently come out in favor of stamping out poverty. A noble goal, but
is it realistic? After all, Bob Geldof organized the first Live Aid concert to help a
famine stricken Ethiopia. And what do we see today? An Ethiopia still struggling with
famine.
So what is the problem? Is it a lack of generosity on the part of the West/Developed
world? No. My guess is that the real problem is a lack of institutions that promote
economic growth and improvement. Property rights, representative government, and
a market economy. Of course these are actually bad things to people like Geldof and
other celebrities. The market economy is seen as the source of famine, poverty and
other things like global climate change, chemical pollutants, and so forth.
One of the things about science is that you look at the evidence and based on that
evidence evaluate the validity of various hypotheses. Here is a hypothesis for people
like Geldof to consider: That one reason the West/Developed world are so well off is
precisely because of the market economy, property rights and a representative
government.
Comments (0)
The materialist creation story, i.e., Darwinism
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 9:05 am
Not my words, rather a quote froim an article by Mustafa Akyol in Tech Central
Sation
In a nutshell, Intelligent Design is the theory that argues life on Earth is the
product of natural laws, chance and intelligence. Darwinism, on the other
hand, accepts only the first two causes, because, according to materialist
philosophy, intelligence does not exist unless it evolves over time from
mindless matter.
Materialist philosophy. Huh?
Go read it
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Many critics of ID wrongly assume that we infer that intelligence from the
Bible or the Koran, but in fact we infer it solely from nature. As Mount
Rushmore compels an observer to conclude that an intelligent cause was at
work there, the “specified complexity” of life points to an intelligent
designer.
Wow. Just wow. I don’t know where to start on that analogy. Mt Rushmore – ID –
therefore evolutionary theory is bogus. Yeah, I’m convinced, now, bring me some
snakes that I can play with.
Another argument by Mr. McHenry against ID is that it is not “testable.”
Well, neither is Darwinism. Both theories talk about phenomena many
millions, or even billions, of years old and never yet to have been observed
occurring. That’s why they constitute a specific area of science called
“origin science.” Also included in this realm is the Big Bang theory, which
explains the origin of the universe. We definitely can’t observe, test and
repeat the Big Bang. We just infer it from the evidence. The same holds for
ID, too.
Can you say strawman, yeah, I’m sure you can. We don’t need to go through this
again, though.
Another problem in Mr. McHenry’s piece is that he attaches to us some
arguments that we don’t make. We don’t say, for example, “We don’t know
this yet; therefore, it is unknowable.” As biochemist Mike Behe, the leading
theorist of ID, repeatedly emphasizes, ID is not based on what we do not
know. Rather, it is based on what we have learned in the recent decades.
Again, huh? What have we learned in the recent decades that move rational thinkers
toward ID?
Crickets chirping.
Looking at DNA evidence (my training is in enzyme mechanics and relationships
between structure/function, which involved significant amount of sequence
comparison, so I’m most comfortable here) along with the archaeological evidence
and the fact that evolution is observable, I think the evidence of ID is just about
zilch. Add in the argument from ignorance/god of the gaps specious garbage that the
IDers use, let me rephrase that, it is zilch.
This is my favorite bit, though.
Perhaps, just perhaps, one day Mr. McHenry can come to the same
conclusion, too. The only thing needed is to follow the evidence where it
leads. That is what we “IDers” do.
Blink.
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Blink.
Blink.
Comments (0)
6/20/2005
Dover Creationism Case
Filed under:
Creationism
The school board in Dover PA recently has enacted a policy to teach ID in the public
shools. The issue is going to trial, but there has recently be a rather surprising
incident for the Creationist side. Several of the Discovery Institutes experts, William
Dembksi, Stephen Meyer, and John Campbell, were removed as expert witnesses by
the Thomas More Law Center (via Panda’s Thumb).
This is definitely good news for those who oppose Creationism in our schools.
Dembski is a very big name in the ID community loaded with more degrees than
most people have shoes. Meyer is also quite eloquent and would have been a good
witness. Definitely a blow to those who were hoping this would be the big case that
put ID in public school classrooms.
It looks like the problem is that the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) had taken a
position that really put the Discovery Institute (DI) into a bind, as Ed Brayton at the
Panda’s Thumb notes,
The DI has been in a bind from the moment this case started. For the past
few years, both sides in this dispute have been waiting for the case - the
legal test case that would determine once and for all whether ID can be
taught in public school science classrooms or whether the previous
precedents against teaching “creation science” will be applied to ID in a
similar manner. That’s what all of the activity in this area for the last
decade has been building toward. Everything that ID advocates have done
during that time has been designed (yes, intelligently) to put legal distance
between ID and the type of creation science that was banned from public
school science classrooms in the Edwards decision. It’s not by accident that
the Wedge strategy was worked out by an attorney, Phillip Johnson.
Johnson knew that the courts would not allow an explicitly religious idea be
taught in public schools, so it was necessary to distance ID as much as
possible from religion and make it appear to be religion-neutral.
This is why you hear constantly from ID proponents that the designer is not
necessarily God, it could also be, for instance, aliens (never mind that this
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is flatly contradicted by the fact that the DI’s official definition of Intelligent
Design includes the claim that “certain features of the universe” are “best
explained by an intelligent cause” - the makeup of the universe itself is well
outside the reach of “aliens”, because aliens, like humans, are part of the
universe itself. No, their definition requires that the designer be outside the
universe itself and hence “supernatural” because their definition combines
cosmological and biological design). This is also why the DI was so upset
by the discovery and release of the Wedge Document, because that
document makes explicit the fact that the entire ID movement and strategy
was designed as part of a larger campaign of Christian cultural renewal
(which is also why the DI changed the name of its ID component from the
Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture to merely the Center for
Science and Culture). The DI is nothing if not politically savvy and they
know that these little rhetorical details make a big difference. They also
know that the success or failure of a court case to determine whether ID
meets constitutional muster for public school science classrooms depends
largely on how well they separate ID from religion.
Of course, even putting Dembski and Meyer on the stand would have been
problematic. These two both believe that the designer isn God, and nothing else.
They have paper trails that pretty much confirm this and as such ID would have a
very tough uphill battle in court. I imagine that in the next few months we’ll be
reading about the rather pathetic demise of the Dover case.
Comments (0)
6/18/2005
Intelligent Design Mechanism Discovered
Filed under:
Creationism
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for Intelligent Design (ID), aside from the
methodological nightmare it presents, is that it has no mechanism for how it works.
For example, evolutionary theory has such mechanisms as genetic drift and natural
selection. ID has never had a mechanism until now. Dr. Kelly Hollowell has recieved
an e-mail university professor who wishes to remain anonymous that describes the
fundamental mechanism behind intelligent design. The fundamental mechanism is
amazing,
For example, the changes from one life form to another may require only
slight alterations and/or additions to the overall structure of the DNA
molecule. These small structural changes would not occur by mutation as
the theory of evolution suggests, but rather by EMF causing and creating
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ever-increasing complex relationships between the nucleotides along the
DNA strand. The combined effects of these small structural changes to the
DNA molecule would be sufficient to create progressively complex physical
life. This explains how a human has only double the number of genes as a
fruit fly. The amount of DNA didn’t need to proportionately increase with
human complexity; rather complexity of the relationships among existing
nucleotides needed to increase.
Yes, it is that simple. EMF is the driver of evolution. Of course, in following Dr.
Hollowell’s link we find a bit more on how this mechanism works,
Now we can begin to understand the ‘mechanism’ behind the final stages of
increasing material complexity as God transforms simple biological life
forms into all the more complex plants and animals we see in the world
today. Beginning with the first simple forms of biological life which God had
already created He now only has to send messages by Light from the nonphysical (spiritual) existence to the physical world commanding that His Will
be carried out and that all the necessary more complex forms of plant and
animal life must come to be. These changes from one stage to another,
from the simple to the more complex, require only slight alterations in the
overall structure of the DNA molecule. These small structural changes in
the DNA molecule are determined by information transmitted by photons
(Light energy) to the atomic structures making up the DNA molecule,
instructing them to move into slightly different arrangements in one or
more small areas of the long and complex structure of the overall DNA
molecule. The combined effect of these small structural changes to the DNA
molecule are sufficient to bring about any desired changes in the next
progressively complex physical form to be expressed (all of the various
plants and animals) which are required by God to facilitate the continued
unfolding of the physical creation according to His Plan.
Now, if I read this right what it is saying is that God sits in his spiritual abode and
using a flashlight sends out signals of light that contain information on when a cat is
to change into a dog, and a giraffe into a goat.
Via Panda’s Thumb.
Comments (0)
6/14/2005
Michigan Says No to Intelligent Design
Filed under:
Creationism
Education
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Well it is nice to know that my home state isn’t filled only with complete dunces. The
Gull Lake school board voted unanimously not to allow the teaching of Intelligent
Design (ID) in the public schools (link). Also, the book Of Pandas and People can no
longer be used in the classroom either. This is good news for the 7th graders at the
Gull Lake schools.
Ed Brayton’s points are totally correct.
Specifically, I quoted Bruce Gordon’s statement that ID had been
“prematurely drawn into discussions of public science education where it
has no business making an appearance without broad recognition from the
scientific community that it is making a worthwhile contribution to our
understanding of the natural world.”
Absolutely right. ID has produced nothing in the way of a testable hypothesis let
alone actually constructing experiments, gathering data, or anything else that is
normally associated with science. To date, ID has been little more than an amalgam
of arguments that claim evolution can’t be right, or the only process at work. The
implication is that if evolutionary theory is somehow wrong, ID is correct by default.
So a set back for the proponents of ID and a victory for sound science education.
Comments Off
5/23/2005
Stay out of the sun – Or not?
Filed under:
Medicine
— lane @ 10:33 am
Remember how we’ve been told how going out in the sun is going to be the end of
our healthy, skin-cancer free, life? And that we should always wear sunscreen!!!
Well, it seems those that were advocating that idea may have been a bit, uh,
premature. Or, to state it a little more forcefully, that suggestion, if followed to the
letter, may have actually been increasing the overall cancer rate.
Insufficient exposure to ultraviolet radiation may be an important risk
factor for cancer in western Europe and North America, according to the
author of a new study that directly contradicts official advice about
sunlight.
The research, published this week in the journal Cancer (2002;94:186775), examined cancer mortality in the United States. Deaths from a range
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of cancers of the reproductive and digestive systems were approximately
twice as high in New England as in the south west, despite a diet that
varies little between regions
Sunlight prevents cancer, study says
It seems that 4+ articles have come out very recently that all point to this juicy little
tid-bit of information. The authors and I don’t advocate going out and frying
yourself, but some sun exposure without sunscreen isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it is
probably a good thing.
Comments (0)
5/20/2005
Science or Religion?
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 2:33 pm
Go see what Pat Hayes at Red State Rabble dug up:
A group of 14-year-old hackers – each sporting numerous tattoos and body
piercings – at a Red State Rabble safe house extracted this document from
a secret online archive at the Discovery Institute’s “Evolution News and
Views” blog.
A flow-chart to beat all flow-charts.
Comments (0)
5/18/2005
Kirby’s “Evidence of Harm,” Evidently Stoking Fear
Filed under:
Medicine
Chemophobia
— lane @ 4:54 pm
by Aubrey Noelle Stimola
Here are the responses at ACSH
Talk about it here on our board
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Government conspiracies and industry cover-ups make gripping plots for books and
movies, never mind arresting media headlines. That may be what motivated
journalist David Kirby to write Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism
Epidemic: A Medical Controversy (St. Martin’s Press, 2005). Undoubtedly, the story
will sell many copies. I heard there is even a movie deal in the works. But I fear it
will cause parents to balk at vaccinating their children against a host of preventable
diseases for fear of autism.
Indeed, the rise in diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders – the causes of which are
not known – is striking and worthy of investigation, with some incidence estimates at
one in 166 children. However, the large majority of reputable scientists and
physicians agree that available data do not support a causal relationship between the
ethylmercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal and neurodevelopmental
disorder. As a result, Kirby’s Brockovich-esque page-turner, featuring a group of
parents of autistic children as David and big pharma/big government bureaucrats as
Goliath, must be taken for what it is, a story of parental love and determination –
and not for what it isn’t, an instructional and unbiased medical text.
Early suspicions of a link between vaccines and autism were based on observations
that symptoms of autism generally manifest around the age at which children receive
many routine vaccinations. The 80s saw a failed attempt to link autism with the
diphtheria-pertussis vaccine. In 1998, a study published in The Lancet, which was
later renounced and retracted, hypothesized that autism was brought on by an
atypical response to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Now there are
stirrings of a scare blaming aluminum.
Meanwhile, motivated by a study about similarities between symptoms of autism and
symptoms of mercury poisoning, a group of distraught parents began investigating
thimerosal. Used since the 1930s, when safety studies were not required for new
pharmaceutical products, thimerosal never underwent the current rigorous drug
approval process and was essentially grandfathered into use. Anxiety understandably
worsened in
1999 when the Academy of Pediatrics suddenly recommended that thimerosal be
phased out of pediatric vaccines. This move was based on the realization that
changes to the pediatric immunization schedule had caused children to receive bolus
doses of ethylmercury in excess of the established safety doses for its more toxic
cousin, methylmercury. Thus, the battlefield was set.
Evidence chronicles the journey of the parents who began the crusade to prove a
causal relationship between thimerosal and autism. On their quest they encounter
countless beasts and obstacles, all of which serve to heighten their suspicion of
conspiracy: unfazed pediatricians, deaf politicians, defensive drug makers, even a
rider added surreptitiously
to the Homeland Security Bill that would provide indemnity to pharmaceutical
companies and the FDA against vaccine-related suits. In light of those factors alone,
who wouldn’t worry there was something to hide?
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But despite the unsavory, self-protective actions of the above parties, at the end of
the day, the best scientist will only rely on objective, hard, and replicable scientific
data, which Kirby, as a journalist, simply does not. Alas, though even the most
heartless readers might find themselves hoping these families will find unequivocal
proof that
thimerosal caused the current “autism epidemic,” even Kirby himself admits that
there is at best evidence of harm, and that ultimately, temporal correlation does not
equal causation.
In my effort to confirm the consensus arrived at by most reputable members of the
medical community, that thimerosal does not cause autism, I have attempted to
analyze whatever currently available, objective, and scientifically-sound studies I can
get my hands on. In April, in an attempt to keep up-to-date on the current research,
I attended a Vanderbilt University event, “Living with Autism: Rates, Causes and
Treatment.” The position held by each and every one of the prestigious presenters –
all renowned in the fields of genetics, epidemiology, pediatrics, toxicology,
neuroscience, psychology, cognitive development, or statistics – was the same: there
is no proof that thimerosal, or even mercury in general, plays a causal role in
autism’s development.
I was not surprised, as readers of Kirby’s book might be, that little time was spent at
the conference examining the vaccines/autism link, other than one lecture on the
lack of evidence to support it. Additionally, ten parents of autistic children from
around the country attended the four-day seminar, nine of whom gave short shrift to
the thimerosal theory, merely using it as an example of a distraction from finding
real treatments and interventions. (Even activists who remain convinced of
thimerosal’s culpability should be pleased to know thimerosal was removed from all
pediatric vaccines in 2001, with the exception of some influenza vaccines; the last
lots of thimerosal-containing vaccines should have expired by 2003.)
While Kirby’s page-turner reads like a Clancy novel, conjuring fear that something is
rotten in Denmark – particularly within the insensitive medical and federal
establishments encountered by the parents Kirby describes – readers should be
reminded that Evidence is not a medical text or a resource for scientific information
about autism. Unfortunately, it may be construed as such by desperate parents, the
population most vulnerable to buying into conspiracy theories and media hype.
Regrettably, a book written instead on the data presented at Vanderbilt by CDC
pediatrician and epidemiologist Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp (whose study of autism
prevalence trends indicates that the “epidemic” may be attributable to better and
broader diagnostic criteria) would probably sit on bookstore shelves gathering dust.
As we all know, cries of “the sky is falling!” turn far more heads than “all’s well!”
Like many others, I almost find myself wishing that thimerosal was to blame,
providing us with a clear-cut perpetrator to hold accountable and forever banish. As
yet, there is no such culprit we can point to, but there has been progress, more of
which will be made as attention shifts from thimerosal to other avenues of inquiry.
For example, a recent UCLA study indicated that a region of DNA on chromosome 17
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may be involved in autism. Interestingly, the gene mostly affects boys, which may
help explain autism’s low incidence in girls.
Generally speaking, most experts agree that autism is likely due to numerous and
complex genetic factors, many of which may be acted upon by environmental
influences. Perhaps it will even be determined one day that some of these genetic
factors predispose some autistics to particular sensitivities, maybe even to heavy
metals, casein, gluten,
loud noises, bright lights, infectious diseases, or any of the countless other
environmental influence that have been associated with autism. And perhaps
awareness of these sensitivities, all of which should be researched, will be the basis
for the alleviation of symptoms. But the fact will remain that these factors are not
causative in and of themselves.
Those who have fought against the demonizing of thimerosal have to put up with
absurd accusations of being industry shills. In actuality, many of those who are
fighting against the fear – some of them parents of autistic children themselves –
strive to make clear the value of vaccinations. Ironically, while the incidence of
vaccine-preventable illness goes down, as a direct result of the vaccination program,
so too does faith that vaccines are necessary. Suddenly, they are accused of doing
more harm than good. But one need only look at the increases in pertussis cases in
the U.S. and the spread of polio in Africa to realize that we need vaccines still. False
and misleading attribution of harm, regardless of intent, only impairs our ability to
improve public health. This must be kept in mind as Evidence is read.
Aubrey Noelle Stimola is Assistant Director of Public Health at the American Council
on Science and Health. Her letter in the New York Times about Kirby’s book appeared
on May 15, 2005.
Talk about it here
Comments (0)
5/9/2005
Intelligent Design Smorgasbord
Filed under:
Creationism
Wow, this site is simply amazing. A site dedicated to ferreting out the signs of design
in scientific journal articles and newspapers everywhere. For example, here is a fun
entry right at the top.
The Metasequoia genus has been effectively unchanged for 100 million
years. And this tree is not alone in this regard, as there are many
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creatures that have exhibited stasis over a long period of time.
For some reason this implies design. I don’t know why? Maybe it implies a
superlative design hence the tree is so old and hasn’t died out…I guess. I love it
when the Creationists trot out this argument. As far as I know there is nothing that
says an organism has to evolve (i.e. one species giving rise to another). In fact, I’d
say many life forms have not evolved (most are now extinct–e.g. Tyrannosaurus
rex).
This one is also fun in that is suggests a complete lack of understanding of the notion
of complexity in Intelligent Design. Mr. Miller appears to think that the word complex
in any article is important in that it suggests design. The problem is that complexity
in ID is fairly well defined. For example, Dembski’s definition of complexity amounts
basically to having a really low probability of random assembly (of course random
assembly is rather meaningless in evolutionary theory, but hey it isn’t like these guys
really care to be accurate). Behe’s version of complex is only meaningful in the sense
of irreducible complexity. That is, Behe isn’t looking at any and all complex
structures, but those that are only irreducibly complex. Thus, the fact that something
is complex does not indicate design (neither does irreducible complexity, but hey lets
not be too harsh). The other highlighted parts refer to the optimality of the biological
system. Now, it is often said that evolution is not about optimality. I suppose Mr.
Miller might be seeing biological systems that are optimal as indicating design. After
all, designers often care about optimality right? But we don’t have to get optimality
strictly via design. For example, the maximum of a six sided die is six. I can roll it
and randomly achieve the maximum. If for some reason 6 is the best outcome then
rolling the die and getting a 6 is an optimal outcome. Was this outcome directed? No.
In other words, optimal outcomes can occur via chance.
I find it rather fascinating how a person has to look so hard to justify their religious
views of the world. That the fingerprints of God must be so readily apparent in the
natural world. This seems to contradict the notion of faith.
Comments (0)
5/4/2005
“Science” Magazine … isn’t
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
— SPQR @ 6:07 pm
Science magazine has long been descending into the depths of political hackdom.
That the descent is complete is shown in this exchange of correspondence by Benny
Peiser regarding his attempt to replicate the bogus “research” by Oreskes regarding
the “consensus” in global climate change.
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There is room for argument about the merits of the global warming hypothesis.
Which makes it all the more telling that the science establishment fears nothing more
than the reasoned debate that is itself science. They’ve forfeited all deference with
this behavior.
Hattip to John at Climate Audit.
Comments (0)
Evolution, Abiogenesis and Creationism
Filed under:
Creationism
The other day I wrote a post at Outside the Beltway about the latest gimmick from
the Creationists. The gimmick are ten questions that students can “challenge” their
biology teachers on in regards to evolution. Overall the questions are the standard
mish-mash of Creationist tripe that has been recycled for decades. The first is the
conflation of abiogenesis with evolution. As seen here, this is a favorite Creationist
tactic.
This [my claim that abiogenesis is seperate from the Theory of Evolution] is
the old definition switch Evolutionists are so fond of. If you point out the
flaws in astronomical measuring techniques, they claim that has nothing to
do with Evolution, then turn right around and use those same flawed
techniques as an argument for Evolution.
What? What the heck does astronomical measuring techniques have to do with
abiogenesis? Abiogenesis is related to evolution as the Big Bang is related to various
theories in physics. Still, if we learned that the Big Bang were false or that it was
actually God does that mean the speed of light is now 15 MPH or that the sun really
does revolve around the earth? I don’t think so. The Theory of Evolution is a theory
about how the diversity of life came about. As such the Theory of Evolution accepts
as given that life is present. Now abiogenesis is part of biology and if true is related
to the Theory of Evolution in that it provides an explanation for what the Theory of
Evolution takes as a given. Still if the current theories/hypotheses of abiogenesis turn
out to be false it does little to nothing to the Theory of Evolution.
This next part is priceless.
Berkley’s Museum of Paleontology (A hornets nest of Christian
Fundamentalism if there ever was one, right) explains the Cambrian
Explosion this way:
This event is sometimes called the “Cambrian Explosion”, because
of the relatively short time over which this diversity of forms
appears.
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The International Subcommission on Cambrian Stratigraphy in Würzburg,
Germany says this:
So because some call it the Cambrian Explosion and there is a relatively short time
(hint: a relatively short time in geological terms is millions of years) it must be true
that the Cambrian Explosion violates the evolutionary model. Of course, what this
also entails is a bunch of people being completely deluded. It sure would be nice if
Mr. Lewis could provide a clear and concise explanation as to exactly how this refutes
the evolutionary model. After all, the biologists haven’t done it, so he should be able
to since it is all so obvious.
And to cap of the hillarity, there is this,
The archaeopteryx is placed in the Tithonian Age, which is the first Age of
the Malm Epoch, which is the first epoch of the Jurassic period. But the
dinosaurs it is supposed to have descended from are said to be of the
Ladinian Age, which is the first age of the Middle Triassic Epoch. While
possessing all of the traits of a modern bird, it is dated millions of years
BEFORE the dinosaurs it is supposed to have descended from. Perhaps in
addition to flight it had developed the ability to time-travel.–link
Okay, lets go over this.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Archaeopteryx shows up in the Tithonian Age of the Jurassic Period.
Dinosaurs show up in the Ladinian Age of the Middle Triassic Epoch.
The Triassic precedes the the Jurassic.
But some how Archaeopteryx precedes the dinosaurs.
I tell ya…you just can’t make stuff like this up. I don’t know what we call this other
than a complete misunderstanding of geological time periods. As for the ancesters of
Archaeopteryx, most of the theorized ancestors such as the Ornithopoda are no
longer considered ancestors of Archaeopteryx. Might there be textbooks suggesting a
link? Yeah, probably, but my guess is that these would be older books. The best way
to characterize Archaeopteryx is as follows,
Archaeopteryx is a bird because it had feathers. However, it retained many
dinosaurian characters which are not found in modern birds, whilst having
certain characters found in birds but not in dinosaurs. By virtue of this fact
Archaeopteryx represents an example of a group in transition - a
representative which, although on the sidelines in the dinosaur to bird
transition, an echo of the actual event, still allows a brief glimpse into the
possible mechanism which brought about the evolution of the birds and by
its very existence shows that such a transition is possible.
If a textbook does not do this, then it is either an early textbook and the mistake is
honest, or it is a badly written textbook and should not be used. Still the fact that a
textbook might be badly written does not in anyway present a challenge to the
evidence supporting evolution. It is delusional to think otherwise.
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Comments (0)
5/2/2005
Link Whoring
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 9:37 am
Again, I have nothing to add:
This post by Steve, over at Deinonychus antirrhopus, just posted a link to some
drivel from from our dear friend, William Dembski.
I’m very proud of myself, too. I removed most of the snark.
Neo-Creationist William Dembski seems to have sunk to a new low. After
being taken to task for quoting Peter Ward out of context Dembski puts the
blame for his intellectual dishonesty on…Peter Ward.
Comments (0)
4/26/2005
‘Cause You Know Hollywood Celebs are Smart
Filed under:
Global Warming
Evironmantalism
— lane @ 12:48 pm
An article in the Washington Post describes Salma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal’s trip
to Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut (Baffin Island, Canada) to champion the evils of
western civilization.
The 38-year-old Hayek is neither a scientist nor a global warming expert,
she’s the first to admit. She’s a native of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, where “a
lot of Santa Clauses would pass out in their suits,” the star of “Frida” told
Iqaluit residents. “I came here to learn from the ice and the Inuit people,
more than to come to preach.”
Well, maybe a little preaching.
At a news conference before heading for the ice, the Oscar nominee
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delivered a scathing critique of how the Western world’s addiction to
burning fossil fuels – which release heat-trapping greenhouse gases linked
to climate change – endangers human survival. A recent four-year study
by an international coalition encompassing the United States as well as
Russia, Iceland and several other countries concluded the Arctic is heating
up two to three times faster than the rest of the globe, a harbinger of
things to come farther south.
“We are committing, in our civilization, suicide,” Hayek announced. “All we
have to do is listen to the land, which is sending us messages on how to
survive and how to self-destruct. . . . We are going to have to deal with
the consequences of our lifestyle. Go talk to the ice, go talk to the wind, go
talk to the ocean. There’s no negotiation here.”
In my previous post, I said I didn’t have much to add. Nor do I here.
There is just so much wrong with this charade that I don’t know where to start.
Comment in this thread in Global Warming
Comments (0)
Gene Therapy
Filed under:
Evironmantalism
— lane @ 11:55 am
Driving the EviroWhackos™ Nuts. Ok, so that may be impossible since that’s where
they started.
An excellent quote from a blog I just found. “It’s a gene, it’s not Soylent Green!”
An excerpt:
“It’s a gene, it’s not Soylent Green!”
That’s what my wife Gretchen had to say about this quote:
Environmentalists say that no one will want to eat the partially humanderived food because it will smack of cannibalism
The quote is from this bit of drivel from the Independent
Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops in
a dramatic extension of genetic modification. The move, which is causing
disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that
GM technology is creating “Frankenstein foods” and drive the controversy
surrounding it to new heights.
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Not much to add to Hawks’ wifes comment. Well said.
The sooner people start realizing that a gene product is just a gene product, and not
some sacred thing that is somehow associated with its origin, the faster they will
lower my blood pressure.
Comments (0)
No point at all
Filed under:
General
Admin
— lane @ 7:28 am
We don’t get a huge amount of traffic here. I like to think it’s quality over quantity.
Heh.
But we did finally get our 20 thousandth hit.
The B board is a different matter. I don’t keep track there, but that’s where most of
this site is happening.
With a birth date of 10 May, 2004, I’m thinking that’s slightly less than one year.
Comments (0)
4/22/2005
Roy Spencer on Earth Day
Filed under:
Global Warming
Evironmantalism
It is usually a good idea to read an article by Prof. Roy Spencer. This one is no
exception.
The arrival of Earth Day each year provides teachers with the opportunity
to help educate students about environmental issues. There is no question
that the Earth’s inhabitants need to be good stewards of natural resources,
and teaching our children about the environment is necessary part of their
upbringing.
Unfortunately, too often the lesson stops short of equipping the student
with the reasoning skills that will allow him or her to make informed
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decisions about environmental issues. “Pollution is bad, planting a tree is
good” might seem like a reasonable theme, but unless we explore
environmental issues more deeply, we will continue to produce
environmentalists whose ideals are stopped cold when they bump up
against economic and practical realities.
A perfect example, IMO, is the Kyoto Treaty. Even some of its supporter admit the
treaty will do little to prevent global warming. 1 But at the same time many think the
costs of Kyoto will be quite large. So should we spend say $100 billion on a waste of
effort or direct that money at some other endeavor that will yield a far higher return?
_____
1 Thomas Wigley, “The Kyoto Protocol: CO2, CH4, and Climate Implications,”
Geophysical Research Letter, Vol. 25, 1998, pp. 2285-88.
Comments (0)
Thimerosal: Junk Reporting
Filed under:
Chemophobia
I find that this article is particularly bad.
A mercury-laced preservative once widely added to pediatric vaccines
exposes infants’ brains to twice the neurotoxin previously suspected,
offering evidence that health guidelines may underestimate the risk
newborns face, researchers say in a report being published today.
What is the problem? The problem is that while it is well known that exposure to
methyl mercury can lead to very serious problems with infants, less is known about
ethyl mercury. It is the latter substance that is found in thimerosal. The article in no
way makes a distinction between the two compounds.
“We’re talking about a low-level delivery of a toxin given to a baby on the
first day of its life,” said mercury expert Boyd Haley, chairman of the
chemistry department at the University of Kentucky, who was not involved
in the study.
“What’s needed is a total study of the sensibility of the vaccine program.
Why would you want to vaccinate a baby on the first day of its life?”
Is this guy joking? Well let me hazard a guess here: to prevent disease. That covers
the why for vaccinations. As to the first few days, how about because that is when
infants are likely to be in the hospital? Ya’ think? After all, if we wait for a couple of
months what would that do to the vaccination rate? My guess is it would only lower
it. It sure as heck wouldn’t improve it.
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This is largely a past concern for the United States, given the predominance
today of thimerosal-free vaccines.
Regarding the autism link, which is pretty much the only reason why thimerosal is a
news topic, this suggests a natural experiment. Prior to 2001, thimerosal was used
quite a bit. Now it has been phased out. Consequently we’d expect to see some sort
of effect in the number of children with autism if there is a thimerosal-autism link.
Comments (0)
Carbon Trading Scheme or Tax
Filed under:
General
Which is better a carbon trading scheme where there are a limited number of permits
for emitting a set amount of carbon or a tax on carbon emissions themselves? This
was my initial thought when reading about the comments by the CEO of Duke Energy
(via GreenWatch),
“Duke CEO Paul Anderson has finally shown the true colors of the energy
rationing advocates,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow
Marlo Lewis. “Rather than trying to hide the costs of carbon suppression
behind an allegedly market-based trading mechanism, he’s come out with
the more candid option – a massive increase in the tax burden on American
consumers.”
The answer is not immediately obvious to me, although I lean towards the trading
scheme. Under the tax on carbon emissions there would be an inefficiency due to the
deadweight loss associated with taxes.
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Of course, a trading scheme would also likely need a bureaucracy to administer it
which would likely require a tax as well. Still, despite this, I would prefer the trading
scheme as the funding for the bureaucracy that administers the emissions trading
scheme could be paid for with general funds vs. a special and specific tax on carbon
emissions.
Of course, the position by Paul Anderson might also be a nice example of rent
seeking behavior.
Advocates of suppressing carbon dioxide emissions in the name of
combating global warming have long argued that their goals could be
accomplished cheaply and easily by industry, without imposing significantly
higher costs on American consumers. Duke Energy has now admitted that
the costs will be significant. However, Duke Energy itself plans to avoid
these costs by moving rapidly to nuclear energy.–emphasis added
With a carbon tax, this would make the price of energy that is generated in carbon
emitting processes more expensive thus makeing nuclear generated energy relatively
more competitive in price.
As for the position of CEI that a cap-and-trade scheme hides the costs of carbon
emissions I disagree. It is not uncommon for advocates of a (free) market to point
out that the price contains all the information about the costs of the good. If carbon
emissions impose an external cost (or benefit) then the price does not contain all the
relevant cost information. Hence a cap-and-trade scheme would result in making the
costs explicit. Kind of a strange position to take for an organization calling itself the
Competitive Enterprise Insititute. Maybe they need refresher course on competitive
markets.
Comments (0)
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Global Warming Caused by…Tech Stock Prices?
Filed under:
General
Well, looks like it. Steve McIntyre used some tech stocks, used Mann, Bradely and
Hughes 1998’s (MBH98) method on the data and got some hockey sticks. Which
supports McIntyre and McKitrick’s claim that the MBH98 methodology finds hockey
sticks even when there is little likelihood that there is a hockey stick present in the
data.
Clearly McIntyre isn’t trying to make the case that higher tech stock prices are
causing global warming, but that there are problems with the methodology in
MBH98. Further, that while the possibility that the “Hockey stick” (that so many of
the global warming claims hang on) may unfounded, it does not “disprove” the global
warming hypothesis.
Comments (0)
The “Teach the Controversies Lie”
Filed under:
Creationism
One of the big talking points the IDists are currently using is a well crafted lie about
teaching the controversies that are present in current evolutionary theory. The
problem with this view is that the controversy that the IDists see are not really
controversies in evolutionary theory.
For example, the claim that the blood clotting cascade is irreducibly complex has
been shown to be false.
KM:
So it’s not irreducibly complex?
MB:
In the same sense that a rattrap is not, that’s correct.
KM refers to Kenneth Miller and the “it” he is talking about is the blood clotting
cascade. MB refers to Michael Behe, the originator of the notion of irreducible
complexity. Here we see none other than Michael Behe admitting that was once
initially thought to be an irreducibly complex biological system is not irreducibly
complex.
The actual controversies in evolutionary biology are about things like sympatric vs.
allopatric speciation. I doubt many people know what that is. Teaching something
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like this in a high school biology course which will touch briefly on evolutionary
theory is completely inappropriate. So what the IDists really mean is their version of
psuedo science and superstition. The teach the controversies line is pure bunkum. It
is a lie to hide the true agenda of the ID movement which is to replace scientific
naturalism with religion approved science.
Comments (0)
Michigan Joins the League of ID Idiots
Filed under:
Creationism
Well a few Michiganders at least. The short version of the story is that a school
district in Michigan was caught teaching not only Intelligent Design (ID), but also
Young Earth Creationism (YEC). I am always amazed at the YECers. Here are a bunch
of people who come up with some of the most amazing and convoluted reasons for
disbelieving the Earth is billions of years old.
Comments (0)
4/21/2005
Why Intelligent Design is Bad
Filed under:
Creationism
William Dembski points out, indavertantly, why intelligent design (ID) is bad.
I’m predicting that Bush and Benedict XVI will play much the same role in
the distintegration of evolution (i.e., the ateleological materialistic form of it
that currently dominates the West) as Reagan and John Paul II did in the
disintegration of communism.
This raises two points to me.
1. Do we really want religions and politics determining sound science? I should hope
the answer is no. The first group is by definition dogmatic in many of their views.
The second group is comprised of opportunistic individuals who’ll use either side of
an issue that is most advantageous.
2. Do we really want to destroy scientific materialism? One thing the IDists refuse to
do is discuss what scientific materialism would be replaced by? As this Panda’s
Thumb post demonstrated intelligent design can even be linked to astrology. Do we
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really want to replace neo-Darwinism with the belief that people are the way they
are because of the position of the planets?
The intelligent design movement is actually anti-science and is actually a movement
to enshrine superstition and dogmatism as science.
Comments (0)
4/18/2005
I’m sad
Filed under:
Admin
— lane @ 2:17 pm
This is all Steve’s fault. We must be failing somehow.
Update – Hmm, seems adding an evilness link ups our evilness quotient:
If I keep doing this will we get to 100%? So if you click on the link, it may have
changed again.
Comments (0)
4/15/2005
Let Them Eat Questionnaires…
Filed under:
General
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— lane @ 7:02 pm
From Gladimir at Vagabondia
Posted with permission: I’m cranky, it’s tax day, the formatting was a PITA.
A recent press release by United Nations rapporteur Jean Ziegler reveals an alarming
increase in malnutrition rates among children in Iraq since the invasion. The report
claims the number climbed from a 4% acute malnutrition rate just before the U.S.
led invasion to a 7.7% acute malnutrition rate after the invasion. Let’s be brutally
honest here. That is an appalling rate similar to that of nations like Haiti and
Pakistan. However, even more disturbing is the proclivity of many in the blogosphere
and the corporate media to attribute this increase to the U.S. military. Jean Ziegler,
a Swiss professor of sociology and member of the executive committee of Socialist
International, certainly makes it clear that is exactly the reason for the plight of
these children. Some othes, like Terry Jones in his article Let Them Eat Bombs, even
go so far as to claim Iraqi children were better off under Saddam Hussein.
A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that
Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are
now.
Of course, that is absolutely true if, like Terry Jones and the Guardian UK, you agree
those malnourished children would be better off dead! UNICEF’s Iraq Child and
Maternal Mortality Surveys of 1999 became a mourning cloth for many opposed to
the sanctions against Iraq. The survey reveals that U.N. Oil-For-Food funds provided
to Saddam Hussein did nothing to abate the sky-rocketing infant and child mortality
rates in Iraq.
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Is it possible that the funds made available from the Oil-For-Food program simply
were not enough to reverse this humanitarian disaster? There does exist convincing
evidence to the contrary. When Oil-For-Food funds were made available to the
Kurdistan Regional Government, operating under the protection of U.S. and British
warplanes, child and infant mortality rates decreased to levels below that of
Saddam Hussein’s utopian Iraq of 1989.
I have a feeling those northern Kurds don’t share Terry Jones’ wistful reminiscing of
the good old days under Saddam Hussein. In fact, considering that UNICEF At-AGlance statistics show improved child and infant mortality rates of 125 and 102,
respectively, in 2003, and the United Nations Statistics Division reports further
improvement, listing Iraq with an Infant Mortality rate of 83 through January 2005; I
would surmise that most Iraqis aren’t pining for the gentle ministrations of the
Butcher of Baghdad.
Of course, all of these mortality figures do nothing to refute the 7.7% acute
malnutrition rate cited by Jean Ziegler, and I don’t pretend to have the analytical
skills to do so even if that were my intention. However, Ziegler’s remarks have not
gone undisputed.
The UK’s Department for International Development says the Unicef and
Iraqi statistics suggests a decline in child malnutrition from 17.3% in 2000
to 11.7% in 2004. - BBC
The problem here is that Ziegler has singled out acute malnutrition (low weight
for height or wasting) from the other measures of malnutrition, which are
underweight (low weight for age) and chronic malnutrition (low height for age or
stunting). So, I decided to hunt down that report to figure out what happened to
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those other numbers. The source of that 7.7% number is reported to be a survey
performed by Norway’s Institute for Applied International Studies, but I was unable
to find the actual report with all the malnutrition data. Again, I can’t overstate the
travesty of that malnutrition rate and want to re-emphasize that an average acute
malnutrition rate of 7.7% means that some areas must have rates much, much
higher.
One of the problems with these numbers from Saddam Hussein’s paradise is that he
had huge portions of the population segregated into sprawling slums containing
millions of people, such as Sadr City, without access to food, healthcare, or even
electricity. These days the people living in these slums are benefitting from a more
democratic distribution to all these services, though certainly far from adequate.
Contrast that to the treatment these slum-dwellers received under Terry Jones’
bygone days of Saddam Hussein reported in the BBC:
Another mass grave has been discovered in Iraq at Salman Pak, just south
of Baghdad, in the grounds of what used to be a sprawling military
complex. Most Iraqis at the site are from Baghdad’s Sadr City, a Shia slum
formerly known as Saddam City. - BBC
I can’t say whether the more than two million inhabitants of this slum alone were
ever included in the U.N. surveys performed under Saddam Hussein’s rule. I have
found what appears to be a very comprehensive survey of 28,500 households
performed by the World Food Program in the latter half of 2003.
Before the war started in March 2003, aid agencies were saying that 60
percent of the population was dependent on food aid. However, there was
no real way of making an accurate assessment during Saddam Hussein’s
rule.
“This is the first comprehensive study of its kind in Iraq as the political
environment before the war made it impossible to analyse the level of
poverty and hunger in the country,” Torben Due, Country Director for
WFP’s operations in Iraq, told IRIN. “For the first time, we are getting an
accurate picture of people’s access to food. As a result, we are much better
able to plan assistance,” he added.
“This survey is unique and one like this has not been done on this level in
Iraq before. It provides a foundation for other surveys,” Turner pointed
out.
- IRIN
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First Post-Saddam Survey
This study seems to refute the 7.7% rate of malnutrition with a 4.4% acute
malnutrition (wasting) rate. However, a measure of 27.6% suffering from stunting is
a few points higher than the 22% reported in the U.N. At-A-Glance chart of data
gathered between 1995 and 2003.
I think the conclusion that could be gathered from all of this is that Iraq still has
many problems to sort out. However, to say that things were better under Saddam
Hussein is incredibly cynical and incredibly self-serving. The Kurdistan Regional
Government found out that Oil-For-Food funds, minus Saddam Hussein and his
cronies at the United Nations, can improve the situation. It would not surprise me if
people all over Iraq found that proper funding, minus Saddam Hussein and the OilFor-Food middlemen, also results in improvements. I not only think that Iraq is
better of without Saddam Hussein, but also that the world is better off without
Saddam Hussein.
Heres’ the thread – talk about it
Comments (0)
4/13/2005
More Funness from RealClimate
Filed under:
Global Warming
Statistics
— lane @ 4:02 pm
Another tidbit From JohnA in response to a RealClimate post entitled Water vapour:
feedback or forcing?
Congratulations Gavin, on demonstrating the commonest failure of the beliefs of proglobal warmers on this weblog and elsewhere: that climate models and their program
inputs are themselves scientific data and can prove or disprove anything at all. They
are parameters for a computer program, not experimental data. They prove nothing
at all.
The distinction, I know, is lost on you. But for the rest of us, the fact that you claim
to simulate a climatic event in a simplistic model of a non-linear system like the
Earth’s climate does not lead to the conclusion that the model simulates reality or
has diagnostic value. For example we do not know the “publication bias” of exactly
how many computer runs, twiddles, tweaks, “flux adjustments”, and other
parameterizations were done before you got the “right” answer.
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If you’d have actually referred to real experimental data, then I might have been
impressed. More impressed if someone else could replicate your work. Really, really
impressed if it could so much as predict the next El Nino.
You even start with a classic straw man argument: that “contrarians … will inevitably
claim that water vapour is being unjustly neglected by ‘IPCC’ scientists”. If you’d care
to actually read the IPCC TAR you’ll see that the IPCC does exactly that. On its listing
of forcings and feedbacks it stacks up the tiny contributions of the other greenhouse
gases into a scary mountain and does not even bother to quantify either the role of
water vapor or any estimate of the uncertainties in those contributions. (see the IPCC
SPM fig.3)
The IPCC also ignores in that diagram the greatest climate forcing of all: the
variation of the solar flux because of intrinsic variation as well as changes in the
orbital geometry of the solar system. The IPCC simply implies that the solar
contribution (without a scintilla of scientific justification) is more than three times
smaller than that from carbon dioxide alone even though such a parameterization is
characterized to be on a “very low” level of scientific understanding. How the IPCC
got to this conclusion when the clear imprint of solar variation on climate has been
described by multiple teams over many years (dear me, and they were peerreviewed and published in quality scientific journals as well), is simply beyond me. I
think the IPCC should get out more from its deterministic, politicized ghetto and
smell the scientific air.
I doubt very much you’ll allow this to be posted, since censorship of opposing views
is what realclimate is famous for, but I’m an incorrigable optimist (or just a fool
wasting his time).
And the response was:
Response: This kind of tiresome posting is exactly the kind of thing we try
to avoid on this site. Mainly because it adds nothing but noise to the
debate. However, as an exercise in reasoned discussion, I will take the time
to point out the numerous problems with your point of view.
- I have not claimed to ‘prove’ anything. Given a system like the Earth’s
climate, the best one can hope for is a reasonable match to observations.
Radiation models (such as I used here) have matches to line-by-line
observations good to about 10%. All I did was demonstrate in those
models the importance of various terms. That the results are similar to
those from a completely different model (RC78) written over 20 years ago
should indicate that they are reasonably robust.
- Climate models cannot be “used to prove anything at all”. The proof of
that is that no-one has ever made a model that cools when greenhouse
gases increase.
- Given that you clearly don’t believe a word I say, I don’t know why I’ll
bother to point this out, but no tweaks, adjustments, twiddles or other runs
were done to get these results. None. Not one. The proof is that the source
code for the model and the input data I used are all available on the GISS
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model website. Anyone is perfectly at liberty to demonstrate for themselves
that the answers are what the model gives. Given your penchant for audits,
I would have thought that you would have already started…
- A straw man eh? How about this particular gathering only a day after my
article? (William Kininmonth paragraph 11). I would also point out that it is
bad debating style to claim that an argument is a straw man, and then go
ahead and use it.
- This may surprise you, but I have actually read the whole of IPCC WG1,
not just the Summary for policy makers. More to the point I actually
understand what is being shown in the figure you highlight. These are the
estimated forcings on climate - things which change the radiative transfer
through the atmosphere, and to which the climate responds. Water vapour,
since it responds so fast (as illustrated above) acts as feedback and not a
forcing, and so quite sensibly does not appear on the diagram of forcings.
Why you think there are no error bars on the figure is a little more
mysterious, since they are quite plain in my view. For the well-mixed GHGs
the error is the total error for all the gases and it’s small because we
actually know quite a lot about GHGs…
- Orbital forcing over the period 1850 to 2000 is neglected in the figure for
the obvious reason that it is small, and in particularly in the global mean,
very close to zero (and with very little uncertainty).
- Long term solar forcing estimates by contrast are indeed rather uncertain,
and so your confidence that they must be must larger than accepted by
IPCC is curious. Uncertainty works both ways remember. The numbers used
by IPCC come from reasonable extrapolations of the measured values of
solar irradiance during the satellite era - and there’s much more than a
scintilla of scientific evidence there (Lean et al, 1995, Lean 2000, Foukal
2004 etc.). I have actually written a number of papers on the solar forcing
of climate, and your claim that the observations imply a much larger recent
solar forcing is simply not supported by evidence. Cooling during the Little
Ice Age for instance is completely consistent with the ‘IPCC’ forcing (solar
and volcanic), canonical climate sensitivity and the historical temperature
data (within the uncertainties of each) (see here). If you have a direct line
to someone who has demonstrated otherwise, let me know.
- I cannot comment on your optimism. But I have formed an opinion on
your foolishness….
-gavin]
To which our inestimably valuabe KGB (his comments are in itlalics) responds:
Response: This kind of tiresome posting is exactly the kind of thing we try
to avoid on this site. Mainly because it adds nothing but noise to the
debate.
That tells me all I need to know, as a scholar and scientist, about the site.
no tweaks, adjustments, twiddles or other runs were done to get these
results. None. Not one.
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Frankly, knowing what I do about computational simulation in general and the
uncertainties of climate modelling in particular (especially oceanic inputs and cloud
modelling) I find this almost impossible to believe. If it’s true, then the match to
data is almost certainly serendipitous.
You be the judge of who is correct: here’s the thread at our discussion board.
Comments (0)
4/8/2005
How Serious Is Europe on Kyoto?
Filed under:
General
Evironmantalism
— SPQR @ 4:07 pm
We are repeatedly told that the US is the one that isn’t serious about reducing Global
Warming. And so I’m amused by this story about wind power in Britain.
The wind turbine near a prison will be turned off during certain periods of the day
because the flickering shadows during certain sun alignments annoy the prisoners.
To think Britain once ruled an empire. Explain how to me again?
Comments (0)
2/22/2005
Realclimate: Try deleting this!
Filed under:
Global Warming
— lane @ 5:11 pm
A contribution from John A. over at Climate Audit
The authors of realclimate.org do have something that’s robust: their
moderation policy. They feel free to make the most ridiculous replies
to comments, in the sure and certain knowledge that if someone calls
them on it, they can just delete the reply rather than publish and be
damned.
So it is with serial climate history denier, Bill Connelley. This was
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in response to his posting on Moberg et al, (2005) a new
reconstruction of the last 1000 years of climate history, which
restored amongst other things, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little
Ice Age as global climatic events. In his comment on Moburg, Connelley
wrote:
These results are bound to stir up interest beyond the
scientific community, since the “hockey stick” shape of previous
reconstructions has become so totemic (although just about everyone
agrees that there is no need for this “totemising”.
I replied:
“Of course, the mere fact that the “totemizing” was propagated by the
IPCC, the environmental lobby and especially the authors of this blog
as “the scientific consensus” should cause disinterested viewers to
wonder as to who is trying to fool who.
Isn’t it interesting that now Mann, Connelley et al don’t produce the
“scientific consensus” and “peer-reviewed” rhetorical weaponry any
more? Could it be because those two phrases, which have been used to
bludgeon scientific debate into the ground, are now worthless after
M&M were published with full and open review in Geophysical Research
Letters?
Moburg et al 2005, on its own, does not prove anything definitive
about climate. It does however destroy the pretentions of some people,
not a million miles from this blog, that their previous work was
“robust, to moderately high levels of confidence” when it was clearly
nothing of the kind.”
Of course, having posted this, Connelley couldn’t resist a follow-up
reply to make more ridiculous statements. I replied to this piece by
piece, and being true to form, Connelley applied the robust censorship
of opposing views for which realclimate.org and its authors are justly
famous.
So here’s what you won’t read on realclimate:
William Connelley wrote:
in fact the totemising has mostly been done by the
skeptics.
Really? I didn’t think your memory was that poor, Bill. The claim that
1998 was the “warmest year of the millenium” came directly from MBH99
and repeated endlessly by the IPCC and its hangers-on (just try
googling that phrase). It certainly didn’t come from those skeptics.
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They used to lead on the satellite temperature record,
until that started to show warming, and then different versions showed
even more warming.
Actually those skeptics still refer to the satellite record, which
shows a slight warming since 1979, and being the only truly global
measure of temperature and properly baselined by balloon measurments,
shows that the surface record is warming anomalously, probably because
of poor record keeping as well as the Urban Heat Island error.
M&M was reviewed by GRL, but certainly not “openly” journal review is not an open process.
You mean, because Dr Mann contacted the editor of Geophysical Research
letters to try to persuade him to not publish the McIntyre/McKitrick
paper, that means it wasn’t open? The MM05 paper was available in
pre-print on Ross McKitrick’s site and all the supporting
calculations, data and source code used availiable on climate2003.com
Journal review is not an open process, but McIntyre and McKitrick
openly showed all their working, so that anyone could see it, which is
why people on this website including Mann, could refer to it in their
sometimes intemperate and frequently misleading responses.
Which reminds me, when is Mann going to show all his calculations and
source code?
As the post explicitly pointed out, Moberg doesn’t
strongly affect the “consensus” - indeed everything written in
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=86 remains true with the Moberg
record.
Moburg does demolish the notion from MBH99 that the natural variation
of climate was minimal in the last 1000 years until suddenly disturbed
in the 19th Century by “greenhouse warming” - a key claim by Mann et
al. It also re-establishes that the Medieval Warm Period and the
Little Ice Age were truly global events, something that Mann et al
specifically claimed were “limited to the North Atlantic region”
The idea that this paper destroys previous work is wrong.
As the post says, there will be a (scientific) debate, and an idea of
what is correct will emerge
Only in your imagination, Bill. Meanwhile we play our game of “Spot the Hockey
Stick” and put the spotlight on the promoters of global warming
like you, Bill, on the British
Antarctic Survey website who use the Mann Hockey Stick as the
sole reconstruction of climatic change for the last
1000 years.
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Comments (0)
2/15/2005
Climate Audit Blog
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
— SPQR @ 3:19 pm
I’ve added Climate Audit to the links at sidebar. This is a must-see site for those
interested in the work of McIntyre et al in showing the incredible bad science ( at
best … ) that resulted in the infamous Mann “Hockey Stick” diagram that the IPCC
used to claim that current warming was unprecedented.
Comments (0)
1/28/2005
Theory BAD!!!
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 7:14 pm
The evolution sticker quandary rears is ugly head again.
Two weeks after a federal judge ordered Cobb County to remove evolution
disclaimers from science books, a state lawmaker has introduced a bill
requiring that only “scientific fact” to be taught in public schools. To
Republican State Rep. Ben Bridges of Cleveland, that rules out the theory
of evolution.
Link
This is giving me a headache. Really. But it’s cocktail time, so I’ll make it go away.
News flash: Gravity really caused by angels pushing stuff around.
Don’t look at me that way. It’s a perfectly legitimate hypothesis. If you think like
these people do.
Update:
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Ok, I skrewed that one up. Without the cocktail. (as the resident lush, I can say that)
On my trip to fix my pre-dinner drink, I realized why Rep. Ben Bridges’ (of
Cleveland, Republican) idea gave me such a headache.
“A theory can be wrong. If it’s wrong, or possibly could be wrong, don’t
teach it. Teach it with facts. If you’ve got facts to back it up, that’s great,”
Bridges told 11Alive News Reporter Jon Shirek.
Read those two paragraphs carefully. He has no clue what science is. You don’t teach
“facts”, you teach what is observed and then how those observations can be
collected to form a hypothesis. And then, as more info is found, you generate a
theory to explain your hypothesis. Teaching “facts” is sorta “deifying” science, when
science and scientific theory are constantly evolving (should I use the term ‘changing
over time’) to incorporate new observations.
An example, Spontaneous generation was once a well known scientific “fact”
From the time of the ancient Romans, through the Middle Ages, and until
the late nineteenth century, it was generally accepted that some life forms
arose spontaneously from non-living matter. Such “spontaneous
generation” appeared to occur primarily in decaying matter. For example, a
seventeenth century recipe for the spontaneous production of mice required
placing sweaty underwear and husks of wheat in an open-mouthed jar,
then waiting for about 21 days, during which time it was alleged that the
sweat from the underwear would penetrate the husks of wheat, changing
them into mice. Although such a concept may seem laughable today, it is
consistent with the other widely held cultural and religious beliefs of the
time.
Until, over time, people started questioning it, and Louis Pasteur finally laid it to rest.
(ok, that was a “Readers Digest” version, but you get the point)
Back to my angels-pushing-stuff posit. Can anyone actually ’splain the through space
interactions that are inherent in gravitational or electromagnetic theory? Don’t bother
wasting time looking. We observe it, we can predict it, we can use it, but we can’t
’splain how it happens with absolute solid “facts”.
Blink…
Blink…
So, this bill will basically (if taken at absolute face value) cripple the ability to teach
anything meaningful. Science does not have all the “facts”, those of us who do it
realize that it is an ongoing process. Politicians, who think that all the “facts” are in,
are scary. (Do I actually need that dependent clause?)
And while evolutionary theory has, uh, evolved over time, ID/creationism is not
science. The basic concept of change and adaptation over time has not been tossed.
The mechanism gets continual refinement, as it should, but, it is an observable
phenomenon and to attempt to throw your religious dogma at the scientific method
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in an attempt to “discredit”, or not teach, evolution, is not going to help the students
of Cobb County. Or any place. Period.
Use this link (or this one at the top) to comment in our discussion board.
Comments (0)
1/20/2005
ID: The Word Intelligent Seems Somewhat, uh, Wrong
Filed under:
Creationism
— lane @ 6:31 pm
Ooooh, it’s so sparkly
More on the evolution sticker issue.
From Fanatical Apathy, and jumping on a blogosphere pig-pile
Is God a lobster? No, probably not. Hard to say, really. But in the new
Darwin debate, He’s got pincers. One arm is the old standby you’ve heard
of, The Bible. You know, the big book He wrote that tells about Charlton
Heston growling at people and other stories. That book. But the other arm
of the pincers is the new Science of “Intelligent Design.” The discipline lives
up to its name - it’s intelligently designed. But because the scientific
community tends to unfairly dismiss it as “pseudo-science” and “fraudulent”
and “bullshit,” I thought I’d provide you all with a Q&A entitled The
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Intelligent Design.”
Comments (0)
1/7/2005
Anti-Science in Abstinence-Only Sex Education
Filed under:
General
Medicine
Statistics
— lane @ 4:04 pm
By Aubrey Stimola
Originally posted at http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.482/news_detail.asp
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Posted with permission
Sexual behavior has historically carried moral and ideological import, particularly
when it comes to young people. But it also raises issues of health and safety. So
deciding what kinds of information sexual education courses should include is a
notoriously controversial task. One school of thought supports “comprehensive sexual
education,” which promotes abstinence but also includes information about condoms
and other forms of contraception in order to educate young people about how to
protect themselves if they become sexually active. Others favor programs that
emphasize abstaining but provide no information, other than failure rates, on other
forms of contraception – based on the assumption that such details contradict and
undermine the abstinence-only message and encourage sexual activity. Whichever
school of thought one belongs to, there should be no controversy over the goal of
adolescent sexual education programs should be: educating youth on how best to
protect themselves against the known risks associated with sexual activity – such as
unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) – if they choose to
become sexually active. Alarmingly, the current federal approach fails to meet these
ends.
Since the 1996 passage of the welfare reform act, the federal government has spent
over $800 million on “abstinence-only” education, most of it under the Bush
administration. (1) Millions of young Americans, ages nine to eighteen, have
participated in these programs. However, according to a comprehensive
congressional staff analysis ordered by Rep. Henry Waxman, eleven of the thirteen
most widely used abstinence-only curricula funded by the federal abstinence initiative
contain scientifically false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive
health.(2) We at ACSH have not reviewed the study that yielded the results reported
by Waxman, but if the results are correct, they are cause for concern.
The report points out that abstinence-only programs have not been proven to reduce
sexual activity, pregnancy, or STDs (whereas comprehensive programs have), nor
have abstinence-only programs been reviewed for accuracy by the federal
government. These revelations lend weight to the speculation that these programs
are motivated less by a desire to provide adolescents with scientifically accurate tools
to make informed decisions about their sexual activity, and more by beliefs about the
appropriateness of such activity in young adults. Manipulation of and withholding of
facts to support an ideological message have no place in discussions of health risks
and disease prevention, and are irresponsible, if not Orwellian, given the potential
consequences.
The Waxman report found that many youths participating in federally funded
abstinence-only programs have been taught false and outdated information about
abortion risks. For example, one curriculum includes such claims as: (3)
–studies show that 5-10% of women will never again be pregnant after having a
legal abortion;
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–premature birth, a major cause of mental retardation, is increased following
abortion of a first pregnancy;
–following abortion, women have a higher risk of tubal and cervical pregnancies;
–following abortion, women are more prone to suicide.
Modern obstetrics texts, however, indicate that abortion does not affect fertility and
that common abortion methods have no affect on preterm delivery incidence or
premature birth-weight, nor do they heighten the chances of ectopic pregnancies.(4)
Regarding increased suicide risks, an expert panel of the American Psychiatric
Association does not support these findings, nor does a longitudinal study of women
ages fourteen to twenty-one. (5) , (6)
In a free society, it is certainly acceptable to be against abortion on moral grounds,
but it is not acceptable to distort facts about the risks related to abortion and its
after-effects.
Waxman’s findings also indicate that several curricula exaggerate various
contraceptives’ rates of failure at preventing both disease transmission and
pregnancy. For example, many curricula included such statements as:
–the popular claim that “condoms help prevent the spread of STDs” is not supported
by the data;(7)
–condoms fail to prevent HIV approximately 31% of the time; (8)
–the actual ability of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV is not definitively
known. (9)
These statements are in stark contrast with actual findings. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) report that latex condoms, when used consistently and
correctly, are highly effective in preventing HIV transmission.(10) Additionally, recent
data from both the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that
condom usage is associated with reduced acquisition of syphilis and chlamydia by
men and women, gonorrhea by women, and urethral infection by men. (11)
Disturbingly, none of the curricula give information on how to select a birth control
method and use it effectively and several exaggerate condom failure rates in
preventing pregnancy. Many also understate condom effectiveness rates by failing to
acknowledge the distinction between “typical” and “perfect” condom use, and by
confounding condom failure – breakage or slippage – with incorrect and inconsistent
use. For the record, condoms have typical-use failure rate of 15% and a perfect-use
failure of 2%. (12) With proper education, “perfect” use is an easily attainable goal.
According to the WHO, breakage during proper condom use is uncommon. (13)
Among other scientifically erroneous components of federally-funded abstinence-only
curricula are the assertions that
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–touching another person’s genitals can result in pregnancy; (14)
–twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the
father combine to make an embryo (the correct number is 23);(15)
–problems such as jealousy, poverty, heartbreak, sexual violence, loss of honesty,
and embarrassment, among others, can be eliminated by being abstinent until
marriage;(16)
–half of homosexual male teens have tested positive for HIV; (17)
–HIV can be transmitted via sweat and tears. (18)
There is no scientific support for any of these assertions. In particular, according to
the CDC, contact with saliva, sweat, and tears has never been shown to transmit
HIV. (19)
In addition to distorted or blatantly erroneous science and the purposeful omission of
irrefutable science, many federally-funded abstinence-only curricula present valuebased, disputable material as fact. For example, some clearly perpetuate gender
stereotypes by stating that “women gauge their happiness and judge their success
by their relationships” while “men’s happiness and success hinge on their
accomplishments.”(20) On a list of the “5 Major Needs of Men,” one curriculum
includes “domestic support, sexual fulfillment, and physical attractiveness.” The “5
Major Needs of Women” include “financial support, affection, and conversation.”(21)
Another curriculum includes a tale of a knight who rescues a princess from a dragon.
The princess advises the knight to kill the dragon with a noose or with poison instead
of the bolder method of attacking with a sword, and the alternative means work but
leave the knight feeling “ashamed.” The knight ultimately chooses to marry a village
maiden, but “only after making sure she knew nothing about nooses or poison.” The
curriculum concludes: “Moral of the story: Occasional suggestions and assistance
may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man’s confidence or even turn him
away from his princess.” (22)
Other moralism offered as scientific fact in some programs includes a description of
the forty-three-day-old fetus is a “thinking person” and a description of sex within
marriage as “the expected standard of human sexual activity.” (23) , (24) Some of the
curricula explicitly blur the line between science and religion. For example, in a
newsletter accompanying one curriculum, an author states that in modern times we
are no longer valued “as spiritual beings made by a loving Creator.” The section
signs off: “in His service.”(25)
Subjectivity has no place in discussions of risk, which is not a matter of opinion but
of fact. One could go so far as to view elements of these abstinence-only programs
as a modern equivalent of the old claim that masturbation causes blindness, a scare
tactic used to discourage a safe behavior that was widely viewed as immoral. Sexual
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education programs should not be forums for imposing such beliefs but for reporting
facts in an unbiased manner.
While no one would dispute that abstinence from sexual activity of any kind is the
most effective means of preventing both pregnancy and the transmission of STDs
and, as such, should be part of every sexual education program, promoting
abstinence is clearly not enough. The latest national study shows that many
adolescents are already having sex. Among females, 30% of fifteen- to seventeenyear-olds and 69% of eighteen- to nineteen-year-olds have had sexual intercourse.
Among males in the same age groups, the percentages are 31 and 64%,
respectively.(26) That said, not only do the current federal programs fail to provide
these adolescents with the information and tools they need to protect themselves –
tools that have been scientifically proven to work – but the programs may actually
put adolescents at greater risk.
Effective decisions result from having accurate information, which millions of young
Americans do not. There is no excuse not to use the best science we have to protect
young people, making abstinence the best option, but not the only one.
(1)
http://www.ppnyc.org/facts/facts/federal_policy.html
The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs.
http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20041201102153-50247.pdf
(3) Me, My World, My Future, 157.
(4) F. Gary Cunningham et al., Williams Obstetrics 21st Edition, 877 (2001).
(5) N.E. Adler et al., Psychological Factors in Abortion: A Review, American
Psychologist, 1194-1204,1202 (Oct 1992).
(6) S.Edwards, Abortion Study Finds No Long-Term Ill Effects on Emotional WellBeing, Family Planning Perspectives, 193-4 (July-Aug, 1997).
(7) A.C. Green’s Game Plan Coach’s Clipboard [Teacher’s Manual], 34.
(8) Why kNOw, 91.
(9) I’m in Charge of the FACTS (middle school curriculum), 111.
(10) U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Male Latex Condoms and
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Jan 2003)
http://www.cdc.gov/std
(11) K. Holmes et al., Effectiveness of Condoms in Preventing Sexually Transmitted
Infections, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 454 (June 2004)
www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs243/en/
(12) WHO, Effectiveness of Male Latex Condoms in Protecting Against Pregnancy and
Sexually Transmitted Infection (June 2003)
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheet/fs243/en/
(13) WHO, Effectiveness of Male Latex Condoms in Protecting Against Pregnancy and
Sexually Transmitted Infection (June 2003)
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheet/fs243/en/
(14) Sexual Health Today, slide 52, p. 112, Comments.
(15) Why kNOw, 166.
(2)
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(16)
Choosing the Best Path, 19.
Middle School FACTS, 112-113.
(18) WAIT Training, 219.
(19) CDC, Which Bodily Fluids Transmit HIV? (Dec 15, 2003)
www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/faq/faq37.htm
(20) Why kNOw, 122.
(21) WAIT Training, 199.
(22) Choosing the Best Inc., Choosing the Best Soulmate, 51 (2003).
(23) Me, My World, My Future: Teaching Manual, 77.
(24) This requirement is part of the federal definition of abstinence-only programs.
Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act, P.L. 104-193.24
(25) Why kNOw, In the kNOw (2004).
(26) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newssearch.php?newsid=17656
(17)
Aubrey Stimola is a research intern at the American Council on Science and Health._
Comments (0)
12/31/2004
The Great Tsunami
Filed under:
General
— SPQR @ 6:28 pm
We’ve been discussing the physical effects here of the tsunami.
But I’d like to discuss charitable donations.
Just the Amazon.com sponsored donations to ICRC are nearly $10 million dollars as I
write this post.
If like some of us, you don’t care for the Red Cross, here is a list of charities from
Winds of Change.
The generosity of the American people is always a joy to witness.
01/04/04: $200 million in private US donations. Wow.
Comments (0)
12/17/2004
The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares of 2004
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Filed under:
General
Medicine
Chemophobia
Evironmantalism
— lane @ 4:28 pm
I am simply posting the Introduction, the indivual scares are linked to the ACSH page
– lane
By Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D., Aubrey Stimola, Rivka Weiser, Lynnea Mills
Introduction
Pediatric Vaccines and Autism
PCBs in Salmon and Cancer
Cell Phones Cause Brain Tumors
Nightlights and Leukemia
Chemicals in Cosmetics
Mercury in Seafood Causes Neurological Problems in Humans
Cheeseburgers and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD)
Antibiotics Cause Breast Cancer
Teflon Causes Health Problems in Humans
Soda Causes Esophageal Cancer
Dishonorable Mention
Deodorants, Antiperspirants Cause Breast Cancer
Plastics Cause Cancer
Project Coordinator:
Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D.
Introduction
Since its founding in 1978, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) has
been dedicated to providing scientifically sound health information to American
consumers. As part of that mission, ACSH has frequently countered misleading and
alarmist health news in print, broadcast, and online media. In a classic ACSH
publication, Facts Versus Fears: A Review of the Greatest Unfounded Health Scares of
Recent Times,(1) ACSH evaluated 27 of the greatest health scares of modern times,
reviewing the basis of each, describing their presentation in media, and presenting
scientifically accurate information on each topic. The current publication, The Top Ten
Unfounded Health Scares of 2004, is organized along similar lines.
Unfounded stories, or those based mainly on hyperbole, focus attention on
hypothetical risks and divert attention from real problems. While we acknowledge
that media coverage of health stories is, of necessity, brief and cannot take all
nuances of scientific and medical research into account, there is considerable room
for improvement in health reporting—particularly when it comes to sorting out health
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facts from health hype.
We are not alone in this position. A poll by the Canadian Medical Association in 1999
found that 66% of Canadian physicians believed that news media coverage of
medical health information was inaccurate. Since that poll was taken, coverage has
apparently not improved, according to a recent editorial in the New England Journal
of Medicine .(3) Specifically, Dr. Edward Campion, author of the editorial, noted that
because most health reports are based on research findings from expert scientists,
the public tends to place a lot of trust in what they read in health stories in the press
and other media. He cautions, however, “There is a tendency for health reports to
describe events as exciting, major advances or as immediate, threatening dangers.”
This characteristic, especially combined with anecdotal reports of amazing cures or
newly discovered “risks,” can mislead consumers about the relevance of a particular
story to their lives or health. And the reach of the stories can be vast. For example,
Campion notes that one research report led to over 340 news stories.(4)
In reviewing 2004 health stories for this report, we found several characteristics that
made many much less than reliable:
Ignoring the basic toxicological principle that “the dose makes the poison.” Some
stories suggest that the tiniest dose of a chemical or toxin is a significant threat
to human health. The incorrect implication is that the only way to deal with the
supposed risk is to completely eliminate the targeted substance from food, air,
water, and toys or other consumer products.
Misunderstanding or misinterpreting a statistical correlation to mean that a
causal connection is present between an observed condition and a risk to health.
A good example is the flurry of concern about the possibility that the apparent
increased incidence of autism in children was linked to childhood vaccinations.
As we explain in this document, the fact that autism tends to emerge at about
the same age that children are given various vaccines does not mean that the
vaccines caused the disease.
Assuming that if large doses of a substance given to animals cause cancer or
reproductive harm, then even trace amounts of that substance will cause the
same result in humans. ACSH has repeatedly pointed out the fallacy of
predicting human cancer risk based on animal studies. For example, our classic
Holiday Dinner Menu details the many animal carcinogens that are naturally
present in our foods but are present in such tiny amounts that they do us no
harm. Further, a substance that is carcinogenic in one species is not necessarily
carcinogenic in another. Even relatively closely related rodent species like rats
and mice can differ in their reactions to a particular chemical. A more extensive
examination of this issue will soon be available in the ACSH book America’s War
on “Carcinogens”: Reassessing The Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human
Cancer Risk.
Presenting only one side of a health-related issue. Reiterations of incorrect
information in the popular press can lead consumers to assume that some
health advice is accepted by mainstream scientists when it is not. Thus,
information should be presented in context, and if contentious, both sides of the
argument should be given. An example of this type of imbalanced reporting is
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presented in our section dealing with chemicals in cosmetics. A number of
websites discuss the ingredients in cosmetics as though everyone agrees that
they are human carcinogens, when in fact this is not the case.
Failing to acknowledge that there can be risks associated with not using a
product because of exaggerated fears. For example, neglecting to have children
immunized against various diseases because of unsubstantiated fears of
vaccines carries a real risk of increasing the occurrence of those diseases.
Having noted these shortcomings in many health reports, ACSH must also emphasize
that at least some of the time, the media do make an effort to be balanced and to
advise readers when information is preliminary. We applaud these efforts and would
like to see them applied more widely.
It is our hope that this 2004 roundup of unfounded health scares will encourage
consumers to be skeptical the next time a report trumpets the discovery of either a
new chemical threat or miracle cure, and we hope, so will journalists and their
editors.
Go to the Forums to discuss (general link since there are so many catagories)
Comments (0)
12/15/2004
World to End, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit
Filed under:
General
Global Warming
— SPQR @ 8:09 pm
The above is the punchline from a joke about how different newspapers cover God’s
announcement of the end of the world. The line is associated with the joke’s concept
of how the New York Times would lead the story.
Tim Blair uses it here for the story that Ryan put in our discussion forum here about
the silly comments of a Canadian delegate to a UN conference on so-called “Climate
Change”.
Severe weather caused by global warming can pose greater physical
danger to women than men, a Canadian attending a UN conference on
climate change said Friday.
“For instance, often women don’t know how to swim, so in a flood situation
that can lead to a higher instance of death or injury,” Angie Daze, a
program manager with a Canadian group called Reducing Vulnerability to
Climate Change, said.
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A program to teach every woman on the planet to swim would be cheaper than the
entire Kyoto Protocol ….
Ah, those crazy Canadians.
Comments (0)
12/6/2004
Death of Environmentalism
Filed under:
General
Evironmantalism
— SPQR @ 7:28 pm
Anne points us to this piece.
“On Dec. 8, former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach will take up the cause, in a
speech… ‘The Death of Environmentalism,’ to be presented at the Commonwealth
Club in San Francisco. Several National Public Radio affiliates plan to broadcast the
speech a few days later. In it, Werbach will argue that the modern environmentalism
must die in order for a new movement to be born.
”…Last week, Carl Pope, the current Sierra Club director (whom Werbach admires),
sent grant-makers a remarkable 6,650-word counter-argument to the “Death of
Environmentalism” treatise. He called it divisive, self-serving, less than original,
based on ’shoddy research,’ and that it has ‘actually muddied the water and made
the task of figuring out a comprehensive and effective set of strategies more
difficult.’
Nonetheless, Pope does acknowledge lack of progress on global warming; and that
environmentalism shares, with the rest of the progressive movement, “a set of
increasingly outmoded organizing, advocacy and political approaches.
Werbach is being attacked this week by many of his closest environmentalist
friends…”
on in our form here.
Anne adds: “Oh my, discord amongst the do-gooders.”
As some say, heh.
Comments (0)
11/19/2004
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Know Your Intelligent Design Creationists
Filed under:
Creationism
Via Panda’s Thumb comes this useful introduction to two of Intelligent Design’s (ID)
leading proponents, Michael Behe and William Dembski. They provide a very nice
introduction into the basic contributions to ID by these two. The discuss Behe’s
notion of irreducible complexity and Dembski’s explanatory filter.
The authors note that neither Dembski nor Behe offer anything in terms of a theory,
but means for undermining the current theory of evolution. Few people on the
Creationist side of this debate seem to realize that this is a problem for
Creationist/anti-evolutionists. Merely debunking the dominant theory while in some
sense neccessary it is far from sufficient.
Discuss this topic here.
Comments (0)
More Thimerosal & Autism
Filed under:
Medicine
Chemophobia
Despite the recent study by the Institutes of Medince (IOM) indicating no link
between thimerosal and autism the recent flu shot shortage has brought out those
who believe there is a thimerosal-autism connection.
Here is my problem with this kind of research. It tends to rely on frequentist
statistics. Frequentist statistics takes a view of statistics that develops methods that
“on average” work. That is, if you are looking for a result at a significance level of
95% then if you do a large number of studies then that frequentist methods will
report the correct answer 95% of the time. This sounds good, but you also have the
problem of reporting the wrong answer 5% of the time. If the right answer is that
there is no link, then we would still expect to see the occasional study showing a
link.
One quick way to check this is to collect all the studies on thimerosal and see how
many show a statistically significant link and how many don’t. If the no link studies
make up about 95% of the studies we’d have some additional evidence indicating
that there is no link. Now, one problem we have to be careful of with this kind of
analysis is publication bias. Studies/research that reports statistically significant
results is more likely to get published than studies/research with statistically
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insignificant results. Of course, this bias would tend to work in favor of those who
support the hypothesis that there is a link between thimerosal and autism.
The idea that there is a widespread conspiracy as Dr. Boyd Haley, who is also
associated with the ToxicTeeth.org group, displays a fine example of rule 2 of the
Woo-Woo Credo.
Always favor the conspiracy angle over the boring angle. Mundane
explanations (like saying that Roswell was a balloon) are for dullards and
government drones. If you want to sleep with that curvaceous new-age
chick, don’t tell her you think astrology is bogus! (Non woo-woos may
benefit from that advice temporarily).
Dr. Haley also mis-states some of the findings of the IOM study. Dr. Haley says that
the conclusion of the IOM meeting was not to study thimerosal ever again.
Haley: “They’re bright, educated people, and how anyone can look the data
presented at that meeting, the last IOM meeting? I was there and I
presented and to make that statement that we should never look at
thimerosal as casual and abort all research in this area (is) transparent and
systematic of somebody participating in a big cover-up for reasons I can
not tell you.”
Haley is referring to the 2001 report/meeting and yet still in 2004 the IOM is urging
more yet more study of the issue.
A 14-person panel of experts urged more research on autism but said
further pursuit of possible links between vaccines and the devastating
neurological disorder is probably not worth the money and effort.
This kind of dishonesty does not help the cause of those who believe in the
thimerosal-autism connection. This kind of thing makes one look like a kook,
especially when one tosses in the conspiracy/cover-up claim.
As for future research, I think a Bayesian approach would be better. The Bayesian
approach would tend to reduce the problem of publication bias in that the Bayesian
would be interested both in research that supports a given hypothesis as research
that does not.
Also, part of the problem here is that there is a very strong desire to engage in the
logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. This is basically where one notes that
event B follows event A, and thus one concludes that A caused B. Autism tends to
happen early in life, usually within the first three years. Many innoculations and
infants recieve flu shots in those years. So, do these innoculations cause the autism
or is it just mere coincidence that a child recieves a shot then a week or two later
starts showing the signs of autism?
According to the Autism Society autism occurs 1 time in 250 births. Lets take 1/250
as the probability of a child developing autism. Now, lets assume that out of all the
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children born between 2000 and 2003 (all 13,000,000 of them) and who have autism
(based on the 1/250 number that means about 52,000 children with autism) that
1/100 of them develop autism shortly after recieving a flu shot or innoculation. We
expect to see at least 520 such children. So while 520 might sound like alot of kids
to develop autism within a short time of recieving the shot it may in fact be exactly
what we expect with no causal connection between thimerosal and autism. Now
these numbers are rough back of the envelope calculations and the actual numbers
might change things around, but the point is that simply because one event follows
another does not mean there is a causal connection. Either that or the rooster really
does cause the sun to rise every morning.
Discuss this topic here.
Comments (0)
11/8/2004
Evolution Disclaimers?!
Filed under:
Creationism
Well, looks like it is Georgia’s turn in the idiot chair. The trial on Cobb County’s
textbooks with disclaimers about evolution is getting underway. Disclaimers for
evolution? Hasn’t anybody told these people that evolution is a fact. Lifeforms
evlove. It has been observed. The only possible question is in the theory of how life
evolves.
“What the [Cobb County] school system did was dramatically improve its
evolution instruction,” said school system attorney Linwood Gunn,
defending the disclaimer inserted into Cobb’s science textbooks that says
evolution is “a theory, not a fact.”
Whooops, I guess somebody forgot to tell the attorney evolution is a fact.
Here is an analogy. Suppose I have a coin. I flip it a large number of times and we
get roughly the same number of heads as tails. Now we come up with the hypothesis
that the coin is “fair”. Lets call this hypothesis/theory the Fair Coin Theory. We point
to the data of roughly the same number of heads as tails. The heads and tails are
facts. We obtained them via coin flips. They are what they are. Now the theory that
explains the number of heads to tails is “just a theory”. The results of the coin tosses
are facts. Indisputably.
So when some bumpkin attorney says that evolution is a theory not a fact, you know
you are dealing with somebody who is scientifically ignorant. If this is the attitude of
the Cobb County Board of Education (or whatever the body is that makes decisions
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about textbooks) then they are guilty of also being scientifically ignorant. The latter
is particularly egregious in my opinion.
The parents contend the placement of the disclaimers restricts the teaching
of evolution, promotes and requires the teaching of creationism and
Intelligent Design and discriminates against particular religions.
Anybody who thinks that creationism and Intelligent Design are not synonymous is a
fool. Intelligent Design (ID) theorists are quite coy about their “theory”. They usually
work rather hard to omitt any reference to God, and instead talk about a “Designer”.
They leave it open so you could have aliens, God, or little pink bunnies with lollipop
whiskers as the designers. The only problem is that with any designer other than
God, you run into the problem of infinite regress. Who defined the aliens? More
aliens? Well who designed those aliens? Yet more aliens?
Further, ID is not a theory. A theory must explain the data. Like in our coin example
above, the data is explained quite nicely by the theory that the coin is fair. A new
theory about the coin would have to explain the data either in a more parsimonious
manner or perhaps explain something that the current theory does not. ID fails on
both counts. ID points to gaps in the current theory and says, “Magic”. We don’t
know how that data was generated, and we will never know…hence magic, or God,
or aliens. That is not a theory at all, but an embracing of ignorance and supersition.
The people of Georgia should be embarassed by this. It isn’t that religious beliefs are
bad, wrong, or stupid, but that they are not science and trying to sneak these beliefs
into the classroom is embarassing. Ask yourself this, if you are in favor of ID, would
you be open to a discussion in the classroom of Allah being the designer and reading
parts of say the Koran if applicable to the issue of diversity of life? How about some
the Hindu, Aztec and Norse religions?
Update: Looks like Wisconsin also decided to join the Legion of Idiots.
Joining the ranks of school boards in Kansas and Ohio, the Grantsburg
School District has passed a motion permitting “various theories/models of
origins” to be incorporated into its science curriculum.
Unlike the motions in those two states, which were overturned,
Grantsburg’s is active - making the public school board the only one in the
nation to allow theories other than evolution to be taught in the classroom.
I find it amazing that a teacher of science can hold the following views.
But Greg Stager, who teaches physics, chemistry and environmental science
at Grantsburg High School, agreed with Burgin.
“Evolution is a theory, just as much as creationism is a theory,” he said.
“There is contradictory evidence for both.”
Contradictory evidence for evolutionary theory. I suppose he’d trot out some sort of
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bunkum much like the crap William Dembski pushes.
Comments (0)
11/3/2004
Powerlines Double Risk of Cancer in Children
Filed under:
General
This item is a few days old, but what the heck. This is that old story about the EMF
and how it kills people, you know those currents of death things.
Dr Gerald Draper of the Oxford-based Childhood Cancer Research Group
said a recent study he led looked at 35,000 cases of childhood leukaemia
and other cancers between 1962 and 1995, and results suggest a slightly
higher chance of children living within 100 metres of a high-tension
overhead cable developing the disease.
Notice that there are some studies that show an effect and some that don’t. It sure
would be nice to get an idea of how many studies have been conducted in total. If
there are say 100, and the studies are approximately the same then statistically we’d
expect some to show some statistically significant results even when there is, in
reality, no relationship. Articles like this don’t help resolve the uncertainty, but make
it harder to determine what impact if any powerlines have on the incidence of various
types of cancer.
Discuss this item in the forums.
Comments (0)
Nanotech Documentary
Filed under:
Nanotechnology
Via Nanodot.
knh productions based in Toronto has made a documentary on
nanotechnology. Produced by Ken Hama, Naomi Matsuura and Selva Nair,
this documentary claims to explore “the hypes, hopes and facts of this
fascinating field as seen through the eyes of award-winning scientists,
industry leaders and writers.
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For more, including the trailer, click here.
Update: Here is a brief bit about the documentary.
“N is for Nanotechnology” is a 30 minute documentary exploring the hypes,
hopes and facts of this fascinating field as seen through the eyes of awardwinning scientists, industry leaders and writers.
Discuss this item in our forums.
Comments (0)
Arctic Ice Melt Accelerating
Filed under:
Global Warming
Well, looks like New York is going to be underwater in 1,000 years.
The Arctic is warming almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet due to
global warming, according to an eight-nation report compiled by 250
scientists. “The big melt has begun,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of the
WWF’s global climate change campaign.–link
Discuss this item here.
Comments (0)
Creationism and Intelligent Design
Filed under:
Creationism
The American Society for Cell Biology has a page up on Creationism and Intelligent
Design. It contains several links to some of the current and not so current issues in
regards to Creationism and the attempts to get the neo-Creationist “theory”
Intelligent Design into public schools.
Via the Panda’s Thumb.
Discuss this post in the forums.
Comments (0)
The Lancet Study
Filed under:
Medicine
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Statistics
A recent study in the Lancet claims that the number of deaths post invasion due to
violence is up 100,000 than it otherwise would be. Some are saying the study is
bogus, others that it is valid…or something.
My take on it is it is bogus. It is bogus due to this reason right here,
Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of
Falluja. If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1•5-fold (1•1–
2•3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98 000 more deaths than
expected (8000–194 000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja
and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included.
Normally, if your confidence interval for your risk ratio contains 1 the results are
considered to be statistically insignificant. In this case, the lower bound of the
confidence interval is just a hair above 1. This study is hanging it’s hat on a tenth.
Further, the concept of a confidence interval means that you are confident that 95%
of similarly constructed intervals would contain the true parameter of interest. 1 So
the true value could be anywhere inside that interval or even outside of that interval.
So the value just as well be 1.1 vs. the 1.5 that the authors are going with in their
interpretation.
Would we expect to see an increase in the number of violent deaths when a country
is invaded? Sure. Would we expect to see a study that is wildly at odds with other
studies? Agin, sure. But it is a mistake to assign a great deal of weight to this study.
Also, despite the claims of Daniel Davies at Crooked Timber, the accelerated
publication time frame is eyebrow raising.
There is something intrinsically suspect about accelerated peer review. As
John pointed out not so long ago, the time taken for peer review is
determined by academic procrastination above all other factors. Every
academic paper could complete its peer review very quickly if the reviewers
got their finger out because they thought it was important. The suggestion
that people are trying to make here is that reviewers for the Lancet usually
spend six months humming and hawing over the data, to the exclusion of
all other activity, and that this process was short-circuited by politically
motivated editors wanting to rush something into print without anyone
having a proper look at it. No such six month scrutiny ever takes place, and
this objection is also Simply Not True.–italics in the original
It is true, that the research could be deemed highly important from a
medical/scientific viewpoint and thus the publication process is sped up. However,
this article basically has the message: War Kills Civilians Too. That isn’t shocking it is
to be expected. Another reason that “the reviewers got their finger out because they
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thought it was important” is because it was viewed as being politically important. The
above complaint about viewing the shortened review/revision/publication process with
suspicioun is just lame.
Moreover, when John Lott was doing his analysis of gun’s and crime there was a
problem where some counties might not have any murders for an extended period of
time. This proved to be a bit of a problem is you just used standard regression
analysis. I could see a similar problem here as well in that say a single unfortunate
incident of a high percision bomb going astray and hitting a school at the wrong time
of the day could inadvertenly drive up the body count for children. Extrapolating to
the entire population, especially that part of the population living in areas where
there was little or no tageting would be methodologically wrong (note there is no
evidence this happened, but it is a potential problem with this kind of analysis).
Another possibility is the use of children as soldiers. This too could raise the death
toll for children and not be representative of the country as a whole (again I have no
evidence of this, but it is something to keep in mind when reading the report or
listening to the new coverage about it).
In regards to the issue of the motivation, I think the final paragraph contains some
explanation for the motivation.
In view of the political importance of this conflict, these results should be
confirmed by an independent body such as the ICRC, Epicentre, or WHO. In
the interim, civility and enlightened self-interest demand a re-evaluation of
the consequences of weaponry now used by coalition forces in populated
areas.
Hence, I don’t see this paper as being motivated by a dispassionate scientific inquiry,
but with a motive of changing the rules of modern warfare by coalition forces. Hence
the notion that publication was rushed for political reasons seems not as silly as
some have suggested. Finally, the issue isn’t that there are fewer deaths due to the
war, at least for me. I question the notion of 100,000 dead due to the war.
There is currently a discussion of this article here.
_____
1 This does not mean that any single confidence interval contains the parameter of
interest with a probability of 95%. That is an incorrect interpretation of confidence
intervals.
Comments (0)
10/29/2004
There’s an Unvaccinated Sucker Born Every Minute
Filed under:
Medicine
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— lane @ 4:05 pm
Rivka Weiser
With severe limits on flu vaccine availability, it is only natural that the public will try
to seek out other effective means of flu prevention. Feeding off the widespread
panic over the flu and the desire for alternatives in flu prevention, an abundance of
“flu remedies” is now available on the Internet, making strong and misleading
claims. Vulnerable people, relatively unregulated “dietary supplements,” and the vast
territory of the Internet combine to create fertile ground for misinformation.
A simple Internet search reveals a wide variety of products making grand claims
about their ability to prevent and/or treat the flu, boost the immune system, and in
some cases prevent or treat everything from cancer to wrinkles. The three products
below were among those advertised in the top sponsored links for a Google search of
the word “flu”:
- Some may be happy to hear that they can actually order a tiny bit of the flu
vaccine online in the form of Influenzinum 30C, an oral homeopathic remedy that
uses an extremely diluted form of this year’s vaccine and is “effective,” according to
the advertisement on Google. However, before you get too excited, realize that you
would need to buy a volume of Influenzinum equal to more than 300 septillion times
the volume of the sun in order to get the amount of flu vaccine present in one dose
of the traditional vaccination. (1) Even that amount – were the manufacturer
somehow able to provide it and were you somehow able to ingest it – would
probably not do much for you, as the vaccine needs to be injected.
- The website of Total Body Defense claims that the product is the “#1 recommended
flu shot alternative” and also includes a statement formatted to seem as if it was
ripped out of a newspaper, stating, “Doctors recommend TOTAL BODY DEFENSE to
prepare for the upcoming flu season due to a shortage in flu vaccines.” (It also
claims that the product can “induce daily fat loss” and “fight aging,” among other
things.) However, there was not even one specific doctor mentioned as an endorser
on the site, nor any indication that anyone aside from the manufacturer endorses it
as the top “flu shot alternative.” Furthermore, the website details the supposed
effects of seven of its ingredients but cites specific studies for only one of them
(other references to scientific studies are vague or do not give a specific citation).
Also, no part of the site mentions the potential side effects, contraindications, or drug
interactions of any of its ingredients, such as ginkgo, which should not be used by
pregnant women or people taking blood-thinning medications such as aspirin.
- Perhaps the most troubling “remedy” in the search results was Mesosilver (a
colloidal silver solution), marketed by Purest Colloids, Inc. The homepage of Purest
Colloids, Inc. states that, “While we make no health claims about the use or
effectiveness of our product line, our customers have found our products helpful in a
wide variety of applications.” This disclaimer, like others on its site, is likely present
due to the Food and Drug Administration’s 1999 ruling that colloidal silver is not
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recognized as a safe or effective treatment in over-the-counter products for any
condition, and its manufacturers therefore cannot make drug-like claims about the
product. Despite the disclaimer on the company’s homepage, the flu-related site for
Mesosilver states that the “effectiveness of colloidal silver is unparalleled” and that
“Mesosilver is the most effective colloidal silver.” If those are not claims about the
product’s effectiveness, it is hard to imagine what is.
The product’s website also states that “no adverse side effects have ever been
reported.” However, use of colloidal silver products has long been recognized to
cause argyria, a permanent blue-gray discoloration of the body. The company’s
website claims that their product does not cause argyria because it only contains
actual colloidal silver particles, as opposed to other types of silver such as silver
salts. While the data on argyria focuses on particles such as silver salts, the adverse
effects of the form of silver in Mesosilver have’t been scientifically studied in detail.
An abundance of products is marketed as flu remedies based on unsubstantiated
claims. This underscores the importance of basing flu prevention strategies on sound
science, and the importance of not trusting obscure companies to disclose adverse
reactions or contraindications. Many companies are trying to cash in on the potential
health crisis posed by extremely limited flu vaccine availability. Rather than relying
on their unproven measures, take simple and proven preventive measures such as
frequent hand washing, avoiding touching your nose and mouth, and avoiding crowds
and people known to be sick with the flu.
(1) Assuming
a 0.5 cc dose, diluted by 100 (1 part of flu vaccine to 99 parts of water
or alcohol [as Influenzinum’s website details]) 30 successive times, one dose would
be spread into 5 * 10^59 cubic centimeters. The sun’s volume is about 1.4 * 10^33
cubic centimeters.
Rivka Weiser is a research intern at the American Council on Science and Health.
Link to the article at ACSH
American Council on Science and Health
The conversation continues here
Comments (0)
10/22/2004
The terrorist nuissance, in summary.
Filed under:
General
— billholt @ 3:05 pm
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Sometimes, one of the members of the board will sum up an important and complex
issue, perfectly. So did Gladimir, with this:
Have you ever heard the name Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as
the blind cleric? Like Osama Bin Laden, he master-minded the bombing of the
World Trade Center, only he did it eight years earlier killing six people and
wounding more than a hundred.
To all those who think the War on Terror should focus only on Osama Bin
Laden and simply becomes a nuisance after his capture, let me remind you
that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman was in prison when the World Trade Center
was destroyed in September 2001.
The discussion continues here.
Comments (0)
10/1/2004
The Debates Drag On
Filed under:
General
There’s a problem in America. It’s not a new problem but one that’s been
exacerbated by television. The stupid people - aka, for this discussion, the “feelers” have been deluded into believing that they’re thinking, when they’re really just
feeling. Before television, when reading was a necessary prelim to making a claim of
thought, the feelers were relatively harmless and easily self-identified. Now, with
television, the feelers can collect pre-packaged thoughts and have learned to
regurgitate flash-frozen lines on demand. Now, without actual, independent thought,
they have phrases to use in conversation which emulate cerebral activity. And now,
because it’s what they do, the feelers measure the value of a thought by the
smoothness with which a statement is delivered. Dan Rather is a thinker, to the
feelers. And now, because it’s not what they do, the feelers belittle and disappreciate
all indications of thought, before speech, especially facial expressions which
commonly coincide with concentration. A bland, happy smile while delivering a bland
happy line is the way to impress a feeler with your thought.
Have a good day!
So there’s my statement of the problem, and to be fair about it, here’s my suggested
solution. Since it’s damned unlikely that we’ll ever be able to limit the debates to
radio or to print, where the feelers’ distractions are minimized, all future television
debates should be “performed” with the stars dressed in drag. At least that would
free the feelers of the distractions of the signs of thought in progress. The following
are offered as an aid for you to envision the result.
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The discussion continues here.
Comments (0)
9/27/2004
Ping!
Filed under:
General
Media
A recent report says that an asteroid, large enough to kill everyone on the planet, is
about to pass within a million miles of Earth - the closest miss in a century. Ho hum,
we say, a million miles. But I wonder; If we look at this event from a different
perspective, by reducing the scale to something more familiar, is it such a nonevent?
Instead of the Earth, let’s think in terms of something the size of your head. For
example, your head. Now, rather than an asteroid traveling at incredible speeds
through dark, cold space, let’s think of a neighbor, a half mile away, who likes to get
drunk and shoot pigeons off the roof of his garage with his 22 caliber rifle. The
garage is approximately on line between you and the neighbor, causing the bullets
which miss the roof to scatter in your direction, much as the Sun causes asteroids to
cruise through that part of space which we prefer to think of as secure.
Now, this asteroid will miss us by about 1,000,000 miles - about 125 diameters of
the Earth. On our scale model, the 22 caliber bullet that your drunken neighbor is
about to fire will pass within about 125 diameters of your head. That’s something
like 50 feet, so the bullet may pass through the window of your garage and hit the
bumper of your car, making a nice little ping.
I wonder if that’s not close enough to merit some sort of attention.
Comments (0)
9/11/2004
A picture, a Caption, and CBS’s Shame.
Filed under:
General
Polycon
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One of the regular contributors to the board, which is the main thrust of this site,
shared the following. It’s a nice summary of where we, and CBS, are.
Thanks Greg.
Comments (0)
9/8/2004
Oh goodie! Let’s be like France!
Filed under:
General
Polycon
Media
Today , Drudge links to an interesting little article on a site I’m not familiar with. I’m
putting no life into the link info for the reason I’ll give later. The article address is:
http://www.iht.com/articles/537873.html (Use copy/paste if you wish to visit this
site, but I suggest that you read the note first.)
The gist of the story is that if the election for U.S. President were held today, and the
only voters were residents of other countries, then Kerry would win in a landslide.
Gosh and golly. The survey purported to collect several tens of thousands of
responses from around the globe with Bush winning almost no-where. With rare
exception, he won not in Asian countries, nor African, nor European. Kerry won
convincingly - of what I have no idea - in France. So, if you’d like for our country to
be more like the collection of third world countries, and France, you should vote for
Kerry!
Site link note: I did not make the link one of the automatic sort because you may
want to be cautious about visiting it. This is one of those sites that surreptitiously
collects your personal info - more than the IP you rode in on - for some undisclosed
purpose. Since, by doing a reverse IP trace I note that the site is associated with
“New York Times Digital” I would not expect it to be especially trustworthy.
Misc. France note: My regard for France has dropped to new levels in the last day
or so … since the French suggestion, that the Russians should talk to the people who
murdered some hundreds of Russian children. The only reason to talk to them is if
their voice could be used for targeting. Now, the Russians have apparently declared
their own “War on Terror.” Here’s hoping that George W. will offer every cooperation,
especially intelligence, and express appreciation for any that they may offer in return.
Of course, the EU, a collective of twenty-five nations, officially objects to pre-emptive
actions. In response to this objection, I personally suggest that the EU should
collectively insert its head where the sun does not shine - and see if it notices any
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difference.
Misc. Jimmy Carter note: Go to Hell, Jimmy. Your suggestion that Miller should be
condemned for being unfaithful to the party is a blend of stupidity - I say in an
attempt to be kind - and short-sighted malice that I’m amazed to hear from even
you. People who put faithfulness to country ahead of faithfulness to party are the
only sources of good leadership we have. Of course, your miserable failure of
leadership suggests that you probably have no understanding of that task. And to
think, a long time ago, I actually voted for you … once. May I never be so stupid, so
gullible, again. Please, never.
Comments (0)
9/3/2004
Murdered children.
Filed under:
General
Polycon
I have nothing to add to the pictures but wish there were a certain way for us to
relay the horror with which we view this act and the sympathy we feel for the victims
of this crime and their families.
Pictures by the AP
Comments (0)
8/30/2004
The Three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Filed under:
Polycon
Evironmantalism
The Property and Environment Research Center has a policy paper on the Eight
Myths of Recycling.
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1. Our Garbage Will Bury Us–The idea here is that we were running out of landfill
capacity. Today, we not only are not being buried by our trash, there is more
capacity than ever befor. What happened? People were counting landfills and
ignoring their capacity and underestimated the ability to add capacity.
2. Our Garbage Will Poison Us–Pretty simple idea here, there are problems with
leachate, noxious emissions, and so forth that will poison us, our water, and the
environment. This is one of those open-ended assertions. Just about anything
can be a threat to people. I could probably kill somebody with a ball-ppen
hammer. Maybe we need national legislation to register all ball-peen hammers.
3. First Wrap It Up, Then Put in a Box, Then Seal It in Plastic and Finally Put in a
Baggie–The U.S. has a huge problem with trash because we over pacakage
things. However, here is a thought…maybe packaging helps reduce trash.
Packaging at commercial facilities might allow for economies of scale that would
not be available otherwise. Also good packaging might reduce breakage, and
thus reduce waste. Also, lets keep in mind what we are talking about: profit
maximizing firms. No profit maximizing firm is going to engage in “frivolous”
packaging.
4. Trash Independence–No inter-state dumping of trash. Frankly I don’t see any
support for this…it seems completely irrational.
5. We Squander Irreplacable Resources When We Don’t Recycle–Eventually we will
start running out of stuff so lets forestall that day by recycling. Again this
ignores the impact of a price signal. If something starts to become scarce the
price will rise and people will respond. One way to respond is via recycling.
Now, perhaps there is a massive external effect that is distorting the market
price, but if there is I don’t know what it is.
6. Rcycling Always Protects the Environment–Nany see this as axiomatic. The
problem is that recycling is a manufacturing process like any other and has an
environmental impact. In my neighborhood on trash day three trucks drive
down the street. One for trash, one for yard waste, and one for recyclables.
However, many residents don’t always put out their recyclable trash bin as they
aren’t yet full. Is the net effect a reduction in pollution? That is an empirical
question and not an axiom.
7. Recycling Saves Resources–The idea here is that reusing some resource means
using less of that resource in total. The problem here is similar to one with cars
with better gas milage. Do people use less gasoline, or do they drive more and
end up using just as much gasoline?
8. Without Forced Recycling There Would Be No Recycling–The argument here is
that firms build in planned obsolence which is inconsistent with recycling. Once
again we see a discconnect on the economics here. For example, an automobile
manufacturer could build a care that needs replacing after a year. But with all
the safety and pollution requirements the car is still expensive. So is there
competitive pressure to build cars to last longer?
The idea that one should keep in mind is that firms as profit maximizers are also cost
minimizers at the profit maximizing level of output. This means firms are going to try
and use as few resources as necessary when producing something. Now this doesn’t
mean there is no opportunity for recycling, but one thing seems obvious, the
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government tends to do a piss-poor job at making people do things in an optimal
way, especially when done at a national level. In fact, mandantory recycling could
end up doing more harm than good.
Comments (0)
Paging Kent Hovind..
Filed under:
Creationism
…and other Creationists. This post over at Panda’s Thumb points to an interesting
conundrum for Creationists. Humans and other primates do not produce ascorbic
acid. Humans and other primates are missing a key enzyme. Further, of those
primates studied the gene responsible for the production of this enzyme is “broken in
the same manner” in all of them.
However, humans et al. are missing a key enzyme, L-gulano-gammalactone oxidase, which is involved in the synthesis of ascorbic acid.
However, we do have the non-functioning remains of this gene still in our
DNA, as do other primates which have been studied: chimps, gorillas,
orangutans, and macaques. In all five species the gene is broken in the
same way (deletion of same exons) and is found in the same place in the
genome.
So what does this say? It strongly implies that a common ancestor to current day
primates had a deletion that rendered the production of ascorbic acid not possible.
Further, that this deletion was passed on, and is still evident in current day primates.
The problem this poses for Creationists is that it means that either God created an
imperfect animal, or that “humans and monkeys” are related. Actually the last one is
a bit sarcastic as evolution does not posit that modern day humans are descendants
from modern day monkeys, but that both have a common ancestor. In any event,
neither of these two propositions are allowed by Creationism (with the exception of
what I like to call neo-Creationism as proposed by Behe, et. al.).
Comments (0)
8/19/2004
Shizuo Kakutani: RIP
Filed under:
General
Mathematics
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Shizuo Kakutani, mathematician is dead at the age of 92.
Perhaps Kakutani’s most famous theorem (at least for economists) is the fixed point
theorem that bears his name (The Kakutani Fixed Point Theorem) which is an
extension of Brouwer’s Fixed Point Theorem that extends the result to a broader
class of functions (Brouwer’s theorem applies to continuous functions, whereas
Kakutani’s applies to upper-hemi continuous functions).
To discuss or comment on this post, click here.
Comments (0)
8/14/2004
The Quest for Truth - Why We Lose
Filed under:
General
An exchange today with Coronus in the “Demon Tobacco” forum remineded me of
the following editorial, which is reproduced here, in full, with permission. The writer,
John Ziegler, is a radio talk show guy, now in L.A. From his time in Louisville, I
concluded that he’s a genuine truth seeker. In this editorial he discusses why Truth is
at a disadvantage.
Why Truth Can’t Win
Date Monday, June 28, 2004
Why Truth Can’t Win
There was once a time when, perhaps naively, I actually thought that the
“truth” would always win in the end. Then, after having lived a couple of
decades and witnessed the enormous power behind the forces of deceit in
this world, I came to believe that the “truth” was actually a slight underdog
in the never ending battle for hearts and minds. Now, I have become
resigned to the reality that in the vast majority of cases the “truth” actually
has little or no chance of emerging on top or even surviving intact.
Four recent news stories have provided ample evidence for the validity of
this sad assessment.
First came the 10th anniversary of O.J. Simpson killing two people and the
inevitable interviews that the murderer gave to various friendly media
outlets. Just by virtue of the fact that there are news organizations in this
country more than willing to be “friendly” to a man who brutally killed his
wife and friend and then purposely divided the country to get away with it,
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should be proof enough that the “truth” is big trouble.
Simpson was not only given network air time by NBC and Fox News
Channel, but he was also provided assurances by both interviewers/suitors
(Katie Couric and Greta Van Susteren) that their questions would not deal
with the facts of the case. I am morally certain that only just a few years
ago doing an interview with O. J. Simpson and agreeing not asking him
questions about the facts of the murder case against him would have been
unthinkable on its face and would have been career suicide for any
“journalist” who took part in such a farce.
Why am I so sure? Because back in 1995 NBC and Katie Couric canceled a
post-acquittal interview with Simpson because O.J. wanted restrictions on
the questions!! So what changed since then? Among other things, an
increased value in our media/culture on celebrity and a decreased
importance placed on our old friend the “truth.”
NBC commissioned a poll for their embarrassing interview with Simpson in
which they revealed that 22% of Americans still believe him to be innocent
of the murder charges. In other words, almost a quarter of the people in
this country believe something to be true that is completely false and,
because of the massive amount of evidence against him and all the
unprecedented attention the case received, for which there is absolutely
(other than severe birth defects) no excuse for being wrong about.
While there are many reasons why this is the case, one of the most
important is that the dynamic of how the news media reports reality has
made it almost impossible for there to be unanimity among Americans on
even the most basic of facts. In their attempt to APPEAR as if they are
being fair to both sides of any given argument, virtually equal weight is
given to each, almost no matter how ridiculous one of them is.
One of the many problems that this matrix poses for the “truth” is that, by
definition, the truth is static, but a lie only has the boundaries that the
storyteller is willing to place upon it.
Think of it this way?2+2 will ALWAYS equal four. So, if you are trying to
convince people that 2+2=4, you have only one argument you can make
and it cannot be exaggerated. Conversely, if you want your audience to
NOT believe that 2+2=4, you can get creative. You can claim that 2+2
actually equals 100. The other side will say, no, it is equal to four. Then
the news media, in an effort to appear “fair,” will tell both “sides” of the
story and leave the impression that, since no one is to be completely
believed any more, that the “truth” must be somewhere in between. So, in
this case, the public gets the idea that 2+2 probably equals something
close to 52. In that scenario who has won? Obviously it is not the “truth.”
While the O.J. case was extreme example because his lawyers were trying
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to convince people that 2+2=1,000 and because the news media had a
ratings/financial interest in allowing people to have at least some doubt as
to his guilt, the same template has become the enemy of truth in the
political arena as well.
No one has benefited more from this phenomenon than Bill Clinton.
This was once again exposed as he began his “reinvention” tour to promote
his new book. Here we have the former President hawking a 900 page
autobiography titled “My Life,” forcing him to provide unprecedented access
to an eager news media. One would think that this would mean that
virtually ANY question would not only be fair game, but it would be
demanded, especially if Clinton had never been asked it before. Sadly, this
could not have been further from the case.
As difficult as it is to fathom, Dan Rather not only failed to ever even
MENTION the words “perjury” or “obstruction of justice” ("Impeachment”
got used just once), but he left the strong impression that Clinton had been
impeached for having sex with an intern and that there was no question
that it was the worst thing and perhaps the only bad thing he did in his
entire Presidency. Of course, neither proposition is even close to being true
and yet huge portions of the American public believe that they are.
While reasonable people can certainly differ over whether Clinton should
have resigned, been impeached, or removed from office (or not), why can’t
we even establish the most simple of realities that he WAS, in fact,
impeached and that it was NOT because he had sexual relations with an
intern? Well, when a main network news anchor appears to not have a
grasp of this simple truth, how can the rest of America possibly be any
better?
Even when Rather’s interview with Clinton did dare to tread on the relevant
issues regarding impeachment (like lying under oath), the former President
was allowed to elude the truth more easily than O.J. used to evade wouldbe tacklers. For instance, Clinton was permitted by his feeble questioner to
once again posit the absurd theory that he didn’t really lie under oath in his
Paula Jones deposition because the definition of “sexual relations” he was
given was so convoluted. This would be interesting if it were remotely true,
or if Clinton hadn’t also testified that he was never “alone” with Monica, or
that he had actually been impeached for having perjured himself in that
deposition (the rabid, right-wing House of Representatives voted NOT to
impeach him on that charge).
About the same time that Clinton was once again getting away with further
imbedding his lies into the American consciousness, the news media was
busy creating a brand new one with regard the conclusions of the 9/11
commission.
A recently released “staff report” (not a commission “conclusion") stated
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that “We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on
attacks against the United States.” This would appear to be a very
straightforward and not terribly controversial finding. However, this is not
at all the way it was reported or used by others for political gain.
Virtually every major television network newscast and newspaper made
exactly the same “mistake” in the way that simple conclusion was
conveyed to the American people. They all claimed that the commission
had found no evidence of ANY significant ties between Iraq and al Qaeda,
and then went on to opine that this was proof the Bush administration had
been caught in another lie about the reasons for the invasion.
This reporting went WAY beyond showing bias or even being misleading.
This was a flat out lie. The commission staff finding dealt only with
evidence that Iraq helped in the attacks of 9/11, which should not have
presented much of a mystery because, after all, it is the “9/11
Commission.” The Warren Commission investigating the assassination of
JFK, found that there was no mob connection to the killing, they did NOT
conclude that there were no organized crime ties to JFK, Jack Ruby or Lee
Harvey Oswald. Similarly, saying that there is no evidence that Saddam
Hussein helped in the 9/11 attacks (a finding which the Bush administration
has agreed with since just days after 9/11), does not in any way indicate
that there was no significant relationship between the two.
Why was this such a difficult distinction for the press to make? I honestly
don’t know. Not believing in conspiracies, it is very difficult for me to
understand how and why so many news outlets could get it so wrong in
almost exactly the same way. All I know is that it did happen and that both
John Kerry and Al Gore repeated the erroneous media conclusions to
crowds of happily ignorant voters who lapped it up probably honestly
believing that they were hearing the “truth.” Unfortunately, despite the best
efforts of both the President and Vice President, and some minor efforts at
“clarification” on the part of the news media, they were certainly not alone
in being duped.
Finally, there is Michael Moore’s new movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.” As many
have already said, the movie is not a documentary. It is nothing more than
a propaganda piece intended to promote the defeat of George Bush, and
Moore has essentially admitted as much. No one is really even CLAIMING
that everything in the movie is true and yet the news media continues to
report on it using the very same matrix of “Is it true or not?” and allowing
people to believe that it is reasonable to conclude that it is a factual
account of the events surrounding 9/11.
Much like O.J.’s lawyers, Michael Moore and his celebrity supporters are
asserting that 2+2=1,000 and the news media thinks that suggesting that
maybe the movie isn’t completely “true” gets them off the hook from
having actually having to take a stand on what the “truth” actually is. If we
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lived in a culture where the average citizen was educated and intelligent
enough to be able to discern for themselves what is bullcrap and what is
real, this would only be mildly exasperating. However, because we don’t
live in that world, and because the stakes in the war on terror are so high,
this is extremely dangerous.
Americans have now, understandably, been conditioned not to believe
anyone about anything. They think that the “truth” is always somewhere in
the middle (one of the many reasons that our national elections have been
so close lately) between what the two “sides” are claiming it is. As a radio
talk show host, I know first hand that the left have marginalized my
medium to such great effect that anything I say is automatically seen
through that prism of suspicion. I am hardly suggesting that anything I or
any other talk host says should be taken as “gospel,” but I feel strongly
that it should not be presumed that what we, or anyone else that is
deemed to be “credible,” say has no chance of being the “truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth.”
This type of cynicism is usually well founded, but when taken to its
extreme it also has very negative repercussions because it insures that the
truth cannot win. In the case of Moore’s movie, millions of Americans think
they are “learning” about how our war on terror began and how it is being
fought. While the vast majority will understand that his story is not 100%
accurate (that reality is probably actually INCREASING ticket sales), the
fact that most have been allowed to think it rational to conclude that ANY
of it is accurate is a damning indictment of our resolve in the war on terror,
the pathetic nature of our public discourse, and the remarkable weakness
of what was once to thought to be a force more powerful than almost
anything else: the truth.
Comments (0)
8/12/2004
Dembski Debunked
Filed under:
Creationism
Over at Panda’s Thumb, there has been alot of work with regards to Dembski’s latest
paper (which apparently has been submitted to an actual journal).
This posts points to a post that really takes apart Dembski’s paper.
Dembski’s paper seriously mis-represents the nature and use of information
theory in a wide range of fields. What he puts forward as a new
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construction is in fact a particular case of a far more general idea, which
was published forty-four years ago. That construction is extremely wellknown and widely used in a number of fields in which Dembski purports to
be an expert, namely information theory, hypothesis testing and the
measurement of complexity. The manuscript contains exactly no new
mathematics
Ouch.
This post looks at Dembski’s inconsistent behavior.
Bill requested his ‘critics’ to ‘check the mathematics’ since he did not want
to ‘reinvent the wheel’? When critics did find significant “reinvention of the
wheel” issues, Dembski seems to suggest that he did not consider his
critics to be able to evaluate the mathematical foundations of his claim (but
why then did he send an email to his critics requesting just that?
Something just does not seem to add up.) But maybe this addition is math
beyond my comprehension.
And the post, The Evolution of Dembski’s Mathematics is a nice summary of all the
mathematical mistakes Dembski has made over the years. My favorite part is,
Understanding the NFL theorems may require some work, but the basic
flaw in Dembski’s argument is easy, even trivial, to spot. It is that the NFL
theorems only tell us something about the avergae performance of a fitness
algorithm over all possible fitness landscapes. It tells us nothing about the
performance of an algorithm on any given fitness landscape. End of
discussion.
This one is a must read. It makes one wonder how Dembski can be considered
anything but a crank by anybody, IMO. Those creationists who link themselves with
Dembski do so at their own risk. Dembski’s arguments have been shown over and
over again to be flagrantly wrong. Yet, many think this kind of Bravo Sierra should
be taught in public high school classrooms. Here is a hint to the creationists out
there: To get something into a science class it first has to be right, especially
mathematics which is provable. Trying to get something that is demonstrably wrong
into the classroom highlights that you are an enemy of learning and knowledge and
that you should absolutely nothing to do with any school curriculum anywhere.
Discuss this here.
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