> I just saw this review and I think it may be a book I want to read.

> I have been thinking on similar lines that Americans have for some time
> been exhibiting a high degree of anti-scientism.  To me it appears that
> there are two reasons for this.

> First, pre-college education in the country has split in two directions
> with the top students getting an excellent grounding in science, while
> the rest of the students are "managed" and passed along and out of the
> system without any great learning.  As a consequence, they lack the
> critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate risks - or even to
> recognize that there is a risk that is necessary to evaluate.  Lacking
> the critical thinking skills, they are easy prey to superstition and
> suggestion.  To them, then, stories about past incidents of scientific
> error loom over all current claims for scientific knowledge and create
> mistrust.

> Second, science has in no small part become the property of big
> business.  The pharmaceutical industry is a good example.  No longer do
> universities do most of the research in this area of medicine.  And,
> even if they do some, it is usually sponsored by (paid for by) a large
> pharmaceutical company.  And big business has lost the trust of the
> public.  A generation of movies where big corporations are the center of
> evil has seen to that, even if it were not for a parade of deceptions
> and failures to control quality that have numbed the consuming public.

> As a result of both of these factors, a large segment of Americans are
> deeply afraid and lack the intellectual tools to dispel the fear.

>I just saw this review and I think it may be a book I want
>to read.

>I have been thinking on similar lines that Americans have
>for some time been exhibiting a high degree of
>anti-scientism.  To me it appears that there are two reasons
>for this.

>First, pre-college education in the country has split in two
>directions with the top students getting an excellent
>grounding in science, while the rest of the students are
>"managed" and passed along and out of the system without any
>great learning.  As a consequence, they lack the critical
>thinking skills necessary to evaluate risks - or even to
>recognize that there is a risk that is necessary to
>evaluate.  Lacking the critical thinking skills, they are
>easy prey to superstition and suggestion.  To them, then,
>stories about past incidents of scientific error loom over
>all current claims for scientific knowledge and create mistrust.

>Second, science has in no small part become the property of
>big business.  The pharmaceutical industry is a good
>example.  No longer do universities do most of the research
>in this area of medicine.  And, even if they do some, it is
>usually sponsored by (paid for by) a large pharmaceutical
>company.  And big business has lost the trust of the public.
>  A generation of movies where big corporations are the
>center of evil has seen to that, even if it were not for a
>parade of deceptions and failures to control quality that
>have numbed the consuming public.

>As a result of both of these factors, a large segment of
>Americans are deeply afraid and lack the intellectual tools
>to dispel the fear.

>I just saw this review and I think it may be a book I want
>to read.

>I have been thinking on similar lines that Americans have
>for some time been exhibiting a high degree of
>anti-scientism.  To me it appears that there are two reasons
>for this.

>> I just saw this review and I think it may be a book I want
>> to read.

>> I have been thinking on similar lines that Americans have
>> for some time been exhibiting a high degree of
>> anti-scientism.  To me it appears that there are two reasons
>> for this.

> A small, sort of topical anecdote.

> I was at an event the other night in Harrisburg (Concert for Darwin)
> in which biologist Ken Miller (who was an expert witness at the Dover
> trial in 2005) spoke to the audience with a little powerpoint
> presentation. He flashed up this graph on the screen:

> http://tinyurl.com/ydcl7jb

> As you can see from the graph, only Turkey, of the 34 countries, is
> dumber than the US, by population. Or to be less pejorative, slightly
> less anti-science than Turkey.

> Miller told the story that when he was looking at this graph on his
> computer, one of his grad students walked by, who happened to be from
> Turkey.  He called him in to show him the graph and an accompanying
> article. After reading the article and the graph, he hung his head and
> started moaning: "I can't believe it! This is terrible!" to which
> Miller asked "What?".

> He replied " I'm so ashamed for my country. We can't even beat the
> United States!"

> John P

>> A small, sort of topical anecdote.

>> I was at an event the other night in Harrisburg (Concert for Darwin)
>> in which biologist Ken Miller (who was an expert witness at the Dover
>> trial in 2005) spoke to the audience with a little powerpoint
>> presentation. He flashed up this graph on the screen:

>> http://tinyurl.com/ydcl7jb

>> As you can see from the graph, only Turkey, of the 34 countries, is
>> dumber than the US, by population. Or to be less pejorative, slightly
>> less anti-science than Turkey.

>> Miller told the story that when he was looking at this graph on his
>> computer, one of his grad students walked by, who happened to be from
>> Turkey.  He called him in to show him the graph and an accompanying
>> article. After reading the article and the graph, he hung his head and
>> started moaning: "I can't believe it! This is terrible!" to which
>> Miller asked "What?".

>> He replied " I'm so ashamed for my country. We can't even beat the
>> United States!"

>> John P

>That chart is truly humiliating.  We need a solution to this
>situation.  Education must be part of it, but is it enough?

>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:06:20 -0600, barbara fister
>> <bfis...@hickorytech.net> wrote:

>>> Mike Burke wrote:

>>>>> You missed one factor, though it is more blatant recently - and that
>>>>> is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with the
>>>>> rise of political religious fundamentalism.  (not that it hasn't been
>>>>> down through the ages, but it seems more so in this country recently)
>>>>> --  
>>>> And here too - in the process jeopardising whatever tenuous claims its
>>>> practitioners might have had to respect.
>>> For example? Just curious.

>> For example?  How's life been on the dark side of the moon, Barbara?

> Further to the above.  Says it better than I can.

> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7684/

> Mique

>>> I just saw this review and I think it may be a book I want to read.

>>> I have been thinking on similar lines that Americans have for some
>>> time been exhibiting a high degree of anti-scientism.  To me it
>>> appears that there are two reasons for this.

>> A small, sort of topical anecdote.

>> I was at an event the other night in Harrisburg (Concert for Darwin)
>> in which biologist Ken Miller (who was an expert witness at the Dover
>> trial in 2005) spoke to the audience with a little powerpoint
>> presentation. He flashed up this graph on the screen:

>> http://tinyurl.com/ydcl7jb

>> As you can see from the graph, only Turkey, of the 34 countries, is
>> dumber than the US, by population. Or to be less pejorative, slightly
>> less anti-science than Turkey.
>> Miller told the story that when he was looking at this graph on his
>> computer, one of his grad students walked by, who happened to be from
>> Turkey.  He called him in to show him the graph and an accompanying
>> article. After reading the article and the graph, he hung his head and
>> started moaning: "I can't believe it! This is terrible!" to which
>> Miller asked "What?".
>> He replied " I'm so ashamed for my country. We can't even beat the
>> United States!"

>> John P

> That chart is truly humiliating.  We need a solution to this situation.  
> Education must be part of it, but is it enough?

>> Mike Burke wrote:
>>> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:19:44 +1100, Mike Burke <mbu...@pcug.org.au>
>>> wrote:

>>>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:06:20 -0600, barbara fister
>>>> <bfis...@hickorytech.net> wrote:

>>>>> Mike Burke wrote:

>>>>>>> You missed one factor, though it is more blatant recently - and that
>>>>>>> is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with the
>>>>>>> rise of political religious fundamentalism.  (not that it hasn't been
>>>>>>> down through the ages, but it seems more so in this country recently)
>>>>>>> --  
>>>>>> And here too - in the process jeopardising whatever tenuous claims its
>>>>>> practitioners might have had to respect.
>>>>> For example? Just curious.

>>>> For example?  How's life been on the dark side of the moon, Barbara?

>>> Further to the above.  Says it better than I can.

>>> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7684/

>>> Mique
>> Mique,

>> I have been trying hard to understand what you are saying in
>> these last few posts.  I am having trouble.  Are you saying
>> that there is a general wrong impression that science is
>> just another belief system, or are you saying that science
>> is just another belief system, or are you saying something
>> else altogether?

> Neither of the above.  I was simply supporting Wes's view (above) "
> that is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with
> the rise of political religious fundamentalism".

> There are stacks of examples where scientists have sold their souls
> (birthright, if you will) for a mess of pottage.  For example, the
> second-hand tobacco hysteria is one famous recent example.  The
> various global cooling/warming panics are another.

> Whether we agree or not with any particular view, it's undeniable that
> scientist have become more political than before and that scientific
> funding is directed to the "politically correct" in preference to the
> skeptics.  Stay in line or perish is the message.

> This is why I say that scientists (and inevitably science itself) must
> be accountable politically for their errors as they are are rewarded
> for their successess.  When they trade in the GIGO marketplace, as
> they have been doing, they lose any credibility they might once have
> had.

> One interesting conclusion drawn by pollsters from surveys in this
> country was that those who were global warming skeptics were
> predominantly older people, aged 50+ if I remember correctly.  The
> conclusion was that as we were older, we were likely to be less well
> educated, even stupider, than the younger generations who
> overwhelmingly believed in the current dominant paradigm.

> It seemed never occurred to these mental that we auld phartz have seen
> all this before, many times, and have a healthy skepticism borne of
> bitter experience.

>> That is why I have always insisted that we need to get a tighter hold
>> on our "experts" in case they stampede our politicians into even
>> sillier and even more dangerous stunts like the coming Copenhagen
>> circle jerk promises to be.

> I personally am looking forward to some scientist explaining how our
> dependence on fossil fuels has been influencing the current global
> warming trend....on Mars.

> Yes, that's right. Our neighbor one planet out is currently in a warming
> cycle. Perhaps it's the sun we share. Ya think?

> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

>> Mike Burke wrote:
>>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:08:41 -0500, "Francis A. Miniter"
>>> <famini...@comcast.net> wrote:

>>>> Mike Burke wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:19:44 +1100, Mike Burke <mbu...@pcug.org.au>
>>>>> wrote:

>>>>>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:06:20 -0600, barbara fister
>>>>>> <bfis...@hickorytech.net> wrote:

>>>>>>> Mike Burke wrote:

>>>>>>>>> You missed one factor, though it is more blatant recently - and that
>>>>>>>>> is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with the
>>>>>>>>> rise of political religious fundamentalism.  (not that it hasn't been
>>>>>>>>> down through the ages, but it seems more so in this country recently)
>>>>>>>>> --  
>>>>>>>> And here too - in the process jeopardising whatever tenuous claims its
>>>>>>>> practitioners might have had to respect.
>>>>>>> For example? Just curious.

>>>>>> For example?  How's life been on the dark side of the moon, Barbara?

>>>>> Further to the above.  Says it better than I can.

>>>>> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7684/

>>>>> Mique
>>>> Mique,

>>>> I have been trying hard to understand what you are saying in
>>>> these last few posts.  I am having trouble.  Are you saying
>>>> that there is a general wrong impression that science is
>>>> just another belief system, or are you saying that science
>>>> is just another belief system, or are you saying something
>>>> else altogether?
>>> Neither of the above.  I was simply supporting Wes's view (above) "
>>> that is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with
>>> the rise of political religious fundamentalism".

>>> There are stacks of examples where scientists have sold their souls
>>> (birthright, if you will) for a mess of pottage.  For example, the
>>> second-hand tobacco hysteria is one famous recent example.  The
>>> various global cooling/warming panics are another.
>> I did not think there was any dispute on the subject of
>> second-hand smoke:
>> http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS

> No, there's lots of dispute on the subject.  Not so much on the
> adverse effects of smoking on smokers, although religious zealotry has
> trumped reason even there.  But there are heaps of contrary opinions
> on second hand smoke the alleged dangers of which were trumpetted as
> justification for official persecution and prosecution of smokers
> throughout the English-speaking world.

> I've detailed here before my own personal experience with official
> medical professional advice to RAAF policy makers that the dangers of
> second hand smoke were insignificant except _possibly_ in the case of
> pregnant women in the first trimester when the risk was in the order
> of something slightly less than 2 percent, ie well within the
> statistical ground clutter and, thus also statistically insignificant.
> Jane has researched the subject in detail and has concluded that there
> are _no_ credible studies in support of the proposition.  If I
> remember her argument, she found that all such studies are exercises
> in assuming the conclusion - situating the appreciation as we used to
> call it in the military.

> A very forthright article on the process is here:

> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7626/
>> As to global climate change, thousands of climate scientists
>> have endorsed the view that we have already entered a period
>> of global warming and that it has been caused in part, at
>> least, by much increased human consumption of energy.  Now,
>> science operates best when it looks backward and accounts
>> for facts that have already happened.  Modeling for future
>> events requires the specification of certain assumptions.
>> The question is always whether the modeling has picked up
>> all the relevant factors and excluded all irrelevant
>> factors.

> No.  Thousands of climate scientists have done no such thing, Francis.
> It's been shown conclusively by the leading skeptics that these
> "thousands" are really only a relatively tiny clique whose work has
> been criticised by equally prominent "experts" - mostly retired, and
> therefore "fireproof" scientists - as highly suspect.  The IPCC
> "Report" was the work of fewer than 50 people, most of whom were not
> scientists at all, who actively suppressed data and conclusions
> contrary to their political view.  

> The classic is the destruction of the credibility of the Mann Hockey
> Stick - on which the whole anthropogenic global warming scare is
> largely based - by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKittrick.  If you really
> want to see the depths to which the so-called Hockey Team is prepared
> to stoop, go to www.climateaudit.org and do some extensive reading.
> Not only did McIntyre and McKittrick destroy the Hockey stick by
> demonstrating that Mann et ors had misused and abused statistical
> methodology to produce the stick effect - and showed that their
> methodology and algorythms would produce a hockey stick virtually out
> of any data fed into it, even random numbers, but also they have since
> shown that the core data used was unsuitable for the purpose.

>>> Whether we agree or not with any particular view, it's undeniable that
>>> scientist have become more political than before and that scientific
>>> funding is directed to the "politically correct" in preference to the
>>> skeptics.  Stay in line or perish is the message.
>> I have not seen this.  What I have seen that is do not like
>> at all are the publication of "research" conducted by
>> scientists in the pay of big business.  All too often the
>> results so obtained favor the political position of the
>> business which paid for the research.  This was highly
>> noticeable during the Bush II presidency, when conservative
>> based think tanks published reports that there was no global
>> warming at all (please don't look at the places where
>> glaciers used to exist in Alaska and B.C., or the former ice
>> shelf in Antarctica and especially do not look at the
>> navigable Arctic Ocean).

> Really?  And yet there is still no evidence that any of this is
> anthropogenic and it is simply nonsense to claim that there is.

> It's nice of you to concede that big business does a lot of good
> research.  In fact it's probably true that the overwhelming majority
> of good research is done by or on behalf of big business and that the
> rogues represent a small minority.  The only instances of good
> research initiated and conducted by government authorities (outside
> the Warsaw Pact) were those instigated organisations like the old
> Australian CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industial Organisation),
> which did good stuff for the wool and textile industries, and with
> other agricultural research.   Another was the Australian Serum
> Laboratories, also a government instrumentality, which did much
> pioneering work in anti-venoms.  A third is a military scientific
> research organisation here which has often been at the forefront of
> weapons research but consistently constrained by successive Oz
> governments from marketing their technological breakthroughs.  
>>> One interesting conclusion drawn by pollsters from surveys in this
>>> country was that those who were global warming skeptics were
>>> predominantly older people, aged 50+ if I remember correctly.  The
>>> conclusion was that as we were older, we were likely to be less well
>>> educated, even stupider, than the younger generations who
>>> overwhelmingly believed in the current dominant paradigm.

>>> It seemed never occurred to these mental that we auld phartz have seen
>>> all this before, many times, and have a healthy skepticism borne of
>>> bitter experience.

>> Uh, Mique, how old are you that you have seen a

>>> That is why I have always insisted that we need to get a tighter hold
>>> on our "experts" in case they stampede our politicians into even
>>> sillier and even more dangerous stunts like the coming Copenhagen
>>> circle jerk promises to be.

>> I personally am looking forward to some scientist explaining how our
>> dependence on fossil fuels has been influencing the current global
>> warming trend....on Mars.

>> Yes, that's right. Our neighbor one planet out is currently in a warming
>> cycle. Perhaps it's the sun we share. Ya think?

>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

>Not if the following from Wikipedia is accurate:

>-----------------------
>The Sun is presently behaving unexpectedly in a number of
>ways.[117][118]

>     * It is in the midst of an unusual sunspot minimum,
>lasting far longer and with a higher percentage of spotless
>days than normal; since May 2008, predictions of an imminent
>rise in activity have been regularly made and as regularly
>confuted.
>     * It is measurably dimming; its output has dropped
>0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at EUV wavelengths in
>comparison with the levels at the last solar minimum.[119]
>     * Over the last two decades, the solar wind's speed has
>dropped 3%, its temperature 13%, and its density 20%.
>     * Its magnetic field is at less than half strength
>compared to the minimum of 22 years ago. The entire
>heliosphere, which fills the Solar System, has shrunk as a
>result, resulting in an increase in the level of cosmic
>radiation striking the Earth and its atmosphere.
>------------------------

>> Lynn Allen wrote:
>>> On 2009-11-09 20:43:04 -0800, Mike Burke <mbu...@pcug.org.au> said:

>>>> That is why I have always insisted that we need to get a tighter hold
>>>> on our "experts" in case they stampede our politicians into even
>>>> sillier and even more dangerous stunts like the coming Copenhagen
>>>> circle jerk promises to be.
>>> I personally am looking forward to some scientist explaining how our
>>> dependence on fossil fuels has been influencing the current global
>>> warming trend....on Mars.

>>> Yes, that's right. Our neighbor one planet out is currently in a warming
>>> cycle. Perhaps it's the sun we share. Ya think?

>>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

>> Not if the following from Wikipedia is accurate:

>> -----------------------
>> The Sun is presently behaving unexpectedly in a number of
>> ways.[117][118]

>>     * It is in the midst of an unusual sunspot minimum,
>> lasting far longer and with a higher percentage of spotless
>> days than normal; since May 2008, predictions of an imminent
>> rise in activity have been regularly made and as regularly
>> confuted.
>>     * It is measurably dimming; its output has dropped
>> 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at EUV wavelengths in
>> comparison with the levels at the last solar minimum.[119]
>>     * Over the last two decades, the solar wind's speed has
>> dropped 3%, its temperature 13%, and its density 20%.
>>     * Its magnetic field is at less than half strength
>> compared to the minimum of 22 years ago. The entire
>> heliosphere, which fills the Solar System, has shrunk as a
>> result, resulting in an increase in the level of cosmic
>> radiation striking the Earth and its atmosphere.
>> ------------------------

> Not sure that wiki in this case is accurate, Francis.  Check out some
> of @BadAstronomer's columns in "Discovery" onlne.  One of his recent
> columns addresses the sunspot issue, at least, and the reputed warming
> up of the sun, as well.

> Problem with the crap (on all sides of this debate) that one reads on
> line and in the press is that almost every article has some blatant
> political agenda.  The anthropomorphic global warmers (of which I
> currently buy into, since their evidence seems more compelling to me)
> seem to end their articles with, "so there! You neocon
> knuckle-dragging philistines!""  And the deniers seem to end their
> articles with "Take that! Neener,neener!  You wingnut liberal idiotic
> tree-huggers!"

> Hard to have serious opinion when both sides engage in character
> assassination, or to find the forest due to the political trees.
> --  

> Wes Struebing

>> Mike Burke wrote:
>>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:01:27 -0500, "Francis A. Miniter"
>>> <famini...@comcast.net> wrote:

>>>> Mike Burke wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:08:41 -0500, "Francis A. Miniter"
>>>>> <famini...@comcast.net> wrote:

>>>>>> Mike Burke wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:19:44 +1100, Mike Burke <mbu...@pcug.org.au>
>>>>>>> wrote:

>>>>>>>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:06:20 -0600, barbara fister
>>>>>>>> <bfis...@hickorytech.net> wrote:

>>>>>>>>> Mike Burke wrote:

>>>>>>>>>>> You missed one factor, though it is more blatant recently - and that
>>>>>>>>>>> is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with the
>>>>>>>>>>> rise of political religious fundamentalism.  (not that it hasn't been
>>>>>>>>>>> down through the ages, but it seems more so in this country recently)
>>>>>>>>>>> --  
>>>>>>>>>> And here too - in the process jeopardising whatever tenuous claims its
>>>>>>>>>> practitioners might have had to respect.
>>>>>>>>> For example? Just curious.

>>>>>>>> For example?  How's life been on the dark side of the moon, Barbara?

>>>>>>> Further to the above.  Says it better than I can.

>>>>>>> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7684/

>>>>>>> Mique
>>>>>> Mique,

>>>>>> I have been trying hard to understand what you are saying in
>>>>>> these last few posts.  I am having trouble.  Are you saying
>>>>>> that there is a general wrong impression that science is
>>>>>> just another belief system, or are you saying that science
>>>>>> is just another belief system, or are you saying something
>>>>>> else altogether?
>>>>> Neither of the above.  I was simply supporting Wes's view (above) "
>>>>> that is science has become more politicised, and it corresponds with
>>>>> the rise of political religious fundamentalism".

>>>>> There are stacks of examples where scientists have sold their souls
>>>>> (birthright, if you will) for a mess of pottage.  For example, the
>>>>> second-hand tobacco hysteria is one famous recent example.  The
>>>>> various global cooling/warming panics are another.
>>>> I did not think there was any dispute on the subject of
>>>> second-hand smoke:
>>>> http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS
>>> No, there's lots of dispute on the subject.  Not so much on the
>>> adverse effects of smoking on smokers, although religious zealotry has
>>> trumped reason even there.  But there are heaps of contrary opinions
>>> on second hand smoke the alleged dangers of which were trumpetted as
>>> justification for official persecution and prosecution of smokers
>>> throughout the English-speaking world.

>>> I've detailed here before my own personal experience with official
>>> medical professional advice to RAAF policy makers that the dangers of
>>> second hand smoke were insignificant except _possibly_ in the case of
>>> pregnant women in the first trimester when the risk was in the order
>>> of something slightly less than 2 percent, ie well within the
>>> statistical ground clutter and, thus also statistically insignificant.
>>> Jane has researched the subject in detail and has concluded that there
>>> are _no_ credible studies in support of the proposition.  If I
>>> remember her argument, she found that all such studies are exercises
>>> in assuming the conclusion - situating the appreciation as we used to
>>> call it in the military.

>>> A very forthright article on the process is here:

>>> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7626/
>>>> As to global climate change, thousands of climate scientists
>>>> have endorsed the view that we have already entered a period
>>>> of global warming and that it has been caused in part, at
>>>> least, by much increased human consumption of energy.  Now,
>>>> science operates best when it looks backward and accounts
>>>> for facts that have already happened.  Modeling for future
>>>> events requires the specification of certain assumptions.
>>>> The question is always whether the modeling has picked up
>>>> all the relevant factors and excluded all irrelevant
>>>> factors.

>>> No.  Thousands of climate scientists have done no such thing, Francis.
>>> It's been shown conclusively by the leading skeptics that these
>>> "thousands" are really only a relatively tiny clique whose work has
>>> been criticised by equally prominent "experts" - mostly retired, and
>>> therefore "fireproof" scientists - as highly suspect.  The IPCC
>>> "Report" was the work of fewer than 50 people, most of whom were not
>>> scientists at all, who actively suppressed data and conclusions
>>> contrary to their political view.  

>>> The classic is the destruction of the credibility of the Mann Hockey
>>> Stick - on which the whole anthropogenic global warming scare is
>>> largely based - by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKittrick.  If you really
>>> want to see the depths to which the so-called Hockey Team is prepared
>>> to stoop, go to www.climateaudit.org and do some extensive reading.
>>> Not only did McIntyre and McKittrick destroy the Hockey stick by
>>> demonstrating that Mann et ors had misused and abused statistical
>>> methodology to produce the stick effect - and showed that their
>>> methodology and algorythms would produce a hockey stick virtually out
>>> of any data fed into it, even random numbers, but also they have since
>>> shown that the core data used was unsuitable for the purpose.

>>>>> Whether we agree or not with any particular view, it's undeniable that
>>>>> scientist have become more political than before and that scientific
>>>>> funding is directed to the "politically correct" in preference to the
>>>>> skeptics.  Stay in line or perish is the message.
>>>> I have not seen this.  What I have seen that is do not like
>>>> at all are the publication of "research" conducted by
>>>> scientists in the pay of big business.  All too often the
>>>> results so obtained favor the political position of the
>>>> business which paid for the research.  This was highly
>>>> noticeable during the Bush II presidency, when conservative
>>>> based think tanks published reports that there was no global
>>>> warming at all (please don't look at the places where
>>>> glaciers used to exist in Alaska and B.C., or the former ice
>>>> shelf in Antarctica and especially do not look at the
>>>> navigable Arctic Ocean).
>>> Really?  And yet there is still no evidence that any of this is
>>> anthropogenic and it is simply nonsense to claim that there is.
>> And if there is evidence, you will deny it anyways.  Have
>> you read the IPCC Fourth Assessment Reports (2007)?  It came
>> in three parts.

> Yes, Francis, and Reports two and three before that.  

> Now I know you haven't even glanced at Climate Audit, because if you
> had you'd understand why the IPPC's love affair with the Hockey Stick
> destroyed any tiny vestige of credibility it might have had.

> And no, I don't deny evidence.  I deny speculation.  I misspoke above.
> There is evidence of some anthropogenic warming, but nobody knows how
> much is caused by human action, or which agent, eg CO2 or whatever.
> It's also not clear whether the rise in CO2 causes global warming or
> whether it is, itself, caused by global warming.  IE, correlation
> isn't causation. If it were CO2, its constant increase would be
> reflected in constant temperature rise.  Yet, so far, according to
> authorities every bit as eminent as Mann and Co, despite the ceaseless
> ad hominem sliming they receive in the media and from so-called
> scientists, there is insufficient evidence to justify any sort of
> drastic action let alone the sorts of actions proposed that will
> bankrupt nations and impoverish whole generations of people to satisfy
> the political ambitions of left wing extremists - which is what this
> is all about.  It's certainly not about science.
>>  >  The
>>> glaciers have been melting for centuries.
>> Rate of melt has drastically changed.  And as my
>> brother-in-law David Holland (who hold the title (among
>> others) of Director of CAOS) has been finding, in Greenland,
>> the glaciers are now melting from below as well as from
>> above.  See
>> http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2008/10/david-holland-et-...

> So what?  Once again, show us your evidence that any of this is caused
> by human activity.  It's only in the last 20,000 years that there has
> been any ice on earth at all.

> No, I won't concede that, because that particular expedition has been
> a laughing stock, and not merely from the right.  It had to be rescued

>> Denialism personified.

> And your attitude is?  What?  Blind faith in a totally corrupt UN
> organisation?  Confidence in "experts" who have failed to maintain a
> professional detachment but who have allowed themselves be corrupted
> by the easy money being poured into their pockets by self-interested
> politicians and hucksters like Al Gore who is, not incidentally,
> making billions putting his mouth where his money is?  

> All I can hear from the average "warmist" is "BAAAAAAAAAA".  

> Gimme a break.  

> Mique

>>> Denialism personified.

>> And your attitude is?  What?  Blind faith in a totally corrupt UN
>> organisation?  Confidence in "experts" who have failed to maintain a
>> professional detachment but who have allowed themselves be corrupted
>> by the easy money being poured into their pockets by self-interested
>> politicians and hucksters like Al Gore who is, not incidentally,
>> making billions putting his mouth where his money is?
>> All I can hear from the average "warmist" is "BAAAAAAAAAA".
>> Gimme a break.
>> Mique

> Mique,  you are doing a yeoman's work standing up for the first
> scientific principle: reproduction of results.  Results should always be
> scrutinized, and often are not.  It was interesting to see the
> Einstein's Theory of Relativity discussed in light of new evidence taken
> from space telescopes.  What was interesting (to me at least) was the
> fact that people still question results, even someone like Einstein.
> In my world, taxonomists categorize species interrelationships based on
> DNA sequencing, before any consensus on the technique has been obtained.
>  Yet the work goes forward, and often gets taken back resulting in
> confusion. Perhaps I'm naively undergraduate in thinking that science
> can ever obtain a consensus.  But the more you know the more you realize
> that everything is 'opinion'.

> Question authority

> K Barrett

>>>> Denialism personified.

>>> And your attitude is?  What?  Blind faith in a totally corrupt UN
>>> organisation?  Confidence in "experts" who have failed to maintain a
>>> professional detachment but who have allowed themselves be corrupted
>>> by the easy money being poured into their pockets by self-interested
>>> politicians and hucksters like Al Gore who is, not incidentally,
>>> making billions putting his mouth where his money is? All I can hear
>>> from the average "warmist" is "BAAAAAAAAAA". Gimme a break. Mique

>> Mique,  you are doing a yeoman's work standing up for the first
>> scientific principle: reproduction of results.  Results should always
>> be scrutinized, and often are not.  It was interesting to see the
>> Einstein's Theory of Relativity discussed in light of new evidence
>> taken from space telescopes.  What was interesting (to me at least)
>> was the fact that people still question results, even someone like
>> Einstein.
>> In my world, taxonomists categorize species interrelationships based
>> on DNA sequencing, before any consensus on the technique has been
>> obtained.  Yet the work goes forward, and often gets taken back
>> resulting in confusion. Perhaps I'm naively undergraduate in thinking
>> that science can ever obtain a consensus.  But the more you know the
>> more you realize that everything is 'opinion'.

>> Question authority

>> K Barrett

> In principle, that is very nice.  But reality imposes a lot of
> limitations.  For instance, how many expeditions are going to get funded
> to send teams of people to Greenland to measure the rate of melt along
> various parts of the glaciers for a five year period?  Or, how many
> expeditions to Antarctica are going to be funded so that temperatures
> under an ice shelf (in the frigid waters) can be measured along with
> speed of flow of the water down there?

> Measurements like these are difficult and costly, not to mention
> dangerous, to obtain.  When performed by scientists whose methods are
> known and carefully described, the data so received is accepted as
> accurate.  Even if an environmental study could be done the following
> year, it cannot exactly replicate the study data from the previous year.
> Conditions have changed.

> How does one question measurements on one-time astronomical events?  For
> instance, a star is perceived as going supernova by the sudden and brief
> increase in elementary particles observed going through an underground
> body of heavy water.  That observation is incapable of reproduction.  Do
> you just throw away those results because they are forever incapable of
> reproduction?

> Mike is not standing up for reproduction of results.  He is maintaining
> that almost all scientific inquiry is marred by association with
> political interests.  His is a position of extreme denial of evidence.  
> The IPCC reports, which he rejects, came to their conclusions on the
> basis of thousands of results obtained by scientists around the world.
> Reproduced and/or consistent findings.  Does Mique accept that?  He
> proclaimed in this thread that he did not.  What then could convince
> Mique if the examination of so many tests is not enough?  Nothing, I
> think.  He has made up his mind, evidence or no evidence, and that is
> that.  The earth is not warming; secondhand smoke will not hurt you.
> Evidence to the contrary has to be wrong.

> Hellppp!  We're doomed!  We're all going to die!

> Or not.

> Ellen