Do they mean that black kids haven't had access to math? Because that was an issue discussed when I was in Ed school... that historically lots of black kids didn't have access to Algebra and beyond. Which could be seen as a form of oppression.

Instead of punishing students for playing hooky to promote a political cause....

Most Lefties don't see climate change or gun control as mere "political causes." To them, these are matters of human survival that demand action now.

As for math being a tool of white supremacy, math is fairly absolute, at least in the orders of math taught to most students in public K-12 schools. And Leftism demands that any absolute truth be attacked.

In addition, math requires study and diligence, two things all too often derided as "acting white" in poor urban communities of color.

A rigorous math curriculum demands sacrifice and discipline from both the student and the teacher (and the administration). Teaching math well at the secondary level is not as easy as spouting the latest fashionable social justice mantras picked up in cocktail party banter, but requires the teacher have some in-depth knowledge of an esoteric subject and a degree of enthusiasm for it.

The experience of Jaime Escalante should serve as a warning to those who think a rigorous mathematics curriculum can be maintained in a bureaucratic and politicized education system.

The irony is thick when anyone suggests that children should be focusing their time on understanding math and science... as opposed to getting involved in "political" causes such as... climate change...

Anyone who believes that climate change is a political ideology as opposed to a set of coherent observations supported by rigorous scientific study is deeply confused.

It would be extraordinarily disingenuous for anyone to say they support science education but don't want children to learn about climate change because it is a "political cause".

Artemis, I'm not sure how skipping school to attend a climate change demonstration contributes to science education.

Observations about climate and climate change certainly fall within the realm of science, as do debates about the value of the data collected, the worthiness of the modeling and simulation, etc.

The trouble is, responses to our changing climate are political issues. It doesn't go without saying, it's not an objective truth that, to combat climate change we must take this action or that action. Worse, it's easy enough to claim that some policy is being followed on behalf of the environment when it's really about controlling people.

So no, I don't think the irony's all that thick, and while I don't believe climatology is a political ideology, responses to climate change certainly do reflect political ideology.

Hardly new, teachers were pushing progressive indoctanation 40 years ago. I remember class where all we did was make pro- union strike signs and told over and over how teachers are underpaid. Has it gotten worse? Probably. Every generation pushed a little more.

> historically lots of black
> kids didn't have access to
> Algebra and beyond

If all the other social forces which are boiling this year are successfully negotiated, this will be taken care of.

Fat chance, I fear.

It would be extraordinarily disingenuous for anyone to say they support science education but don't want children to learn about climate change because it is a "political cause".

What do you think they should learn about climate change? maybe we should start with how one conducts proper science, and ask Why doesn't Dr. Mann produce his work for open inspection? You know, not hand wave, but the same as required of pupils show your work.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/22/breaking-dr-tim-ball-wins-michaelemann-lawsuit-mann-has-to-pay/

“Michael Mann moved for an adjournment of the trial scheduled for February 20, 2017. We had little choice because Canadian courts always grant adjournments before a trial in their belief that an out of court settlement is preferable. We agreed to an adjournment with conditions. The major one was that he [Mann] produce all documents including computer codes by February 20th, 2017. He failed to meet the deadline.”

-- Tim Ball (emphasis mine)

I guess we should pay no attention to the Mann behind the curtain because that would require an acknowledgement that real world data is messy, and sometimes utterly confounding.

After that, perhaps they can learn about why LF Richardson, the father of numerical weather forecasting, failed miserably. And then see if those lessons are relevant to current numerical modeling, particularly when attempting to forecast on decadal and longer time frames.

I R A Darth Aggie Asks:

"What do you think they should learn about climate change?"

They should learn the general consensus scientific findings. This is the same standard for any other field of science taught at the secondary or elementary level.

As for teaching children "how to conduct proper science", that is beyond the scope of their level of understanding. Scientists need to know the specific details of how to conduct a scientific study.

When one learns biology we do not include a prerequisite for determining statistical significance.

If you want broad brush education for how science is conducted in general that would be fine. However each specific field requires different expertise and methods to perform the work.

This is precisely why you cannot just drop a solid state physicist into a biology lab and expect them to generate results. They wouldn't even be familiar with how to run all of the equipment in the lab space.

"Anyone who believes that climate change is a political ideology as opposed to a set of coherent observations supported by rigorous scientific study is deeply confused."

You're half right. It isn't a political ideology. It's a religious ideology. I've spent hours and hours actually -- gasp! -- looking at the data. And guess what? The gloom-and-doom scenarios are simply not happening. It's all end-of-the-world proselytizing, with the same religious/cult traits as other such movements of the past, except that this one is more authoritarian and more nakedly lusting for power over other people's lives.

"Climate change" is a fraud. It's a quasi-Calvinist religious movement, and its teaching in schools violates the First Amendment's prohibition against government establishment of religion.

Cousin Dave Says:

"The gloom-and-doom scenarios are simply not happening. It's all end-of-the-world proselytizing, with the same religious/cult traits as other such movements of the past, except that this one is more authoritarian and more nakedly lusting for power over other people's lives."

Alright Dave... time to put your money where your mouth is.

Please show me the peer reviewed science publications that have "gloom and doom scenarios" that "simply are not happening".

I would love to see them.

Careerist aspirations: Climate fear affirms the (often displaced) influence of climate scientists as well as the governments responsible for their budgets.

Almost no one believes in doing anything about climate change. Almost everyone believes in making other people do something about it through the power of government.

Sane people resist.

Hi tranny.

John Jacob, just come out and say it: You're in love!

Peer review is careerist busy-making as much as science: It's mostly self-affirming check on the dicey integrity of degree'd professionals. The scientific method rolled merrily for thousands of years without it. Wiki— The State of California is the only U.S. state to mandate scientific peer review.

What more do you need to know?

The local kinderprison also indoctrinates the malleable inmates with a watered-down form of Christianity. And because of the superstitious leanings of this area, that's allowed and approved of.
Then, my daughter, who has never been abused with religious indoctrination, is ganged up on by the other kids who ask why she doesn't believe in god and told she's going to Hell.
(She wouldn't be attending the kinderprison except for the insistence of her ignorant mother, who still confuses schooling for education.)

+1 Crid at 8:04am

Climate changes. Giving government the power to violate life, liberty, and property because of this fact is always the wrong thing to do.

They should learn the general consensus scientific findings. This is the same standard for any other field of science taught at the secondary or elementary level.

Ah, so, it's to be propaganda?

You know how you get consensus in science? when all the nay-sayers have nothing to nay say about. Except there is a lot of nay saying going on WRT climate. Oh, and then there is that track record of failed predictions.

The life and eventual death of the Caloric Theory of Heat would be instructive.

Crid nail peer review quite well. I'll expound on it.

Author A sends paper to his buddy at Journal B. A & B have the same outlook on the subject at hand, and B sends the paper to Reviewers C, D and E, who just happen to have the same outlook. They're inclined to like the paper, and will suggest minimal changes, but approve publication.

And if B gets a paper at odds with his outlook? he'll either reject it outright, or ship it off to C, D & E and let them reject it. Won't matter that it is a rigorous paper and the authors can defend against critics, it offends the orthodoxy and will be rejected.

✓ I R A Darth Aggie at October 22, 2019 9:48 AM

> Ah, so, it's to be propaganda?

See here, bottom of page 62.

"Anyone who believes that climate change is a political ideology as opposed to a set of coherent observations supported by rigorous scientific study is deeply confused."

We don't have to debate which aspects of climate science have shown themselves to be tested and true in order to confidently assert that deciding WHAT TO DO about any given findings is, in fact, a political question. Giving up classroom time in order to have students attend any sort of political action, or directing them to agitate for any given "cause" is wrong, wrong, wrong. This principle is true and it applies whether students are pushing activism for a cause I personally believe in, or for a cause I find abhorrent.

Artemis, I've got four letters for you: IPCC. Do your damn homework.

Oh, and then there is that track record of failed predictions. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at October 22, 2019 9:48 AM

I'm old enough to remember a long litany of failed climate doomsday scenarios. In fact, not a single one has come true.

• That worldwide famine that was gonna starve us by 1975 never happened. (predicted in 1969)
• The hole in the ozone layer did not melt the polar ice caps and drown us.
• That ice age by 2000? Still waiting on it.
• All those other ice ages? Never happened.
• Paul Erlich's prediction that everyone would disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989 (yep, Google it)? That didn't come true.
• Paul Erlich's prediction of water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980. No ration books yet, 40 years later.
• That ice age by 2070 is looking less and less probable, too.

All of those earlier predictions were presented by "a consensus of scientists" and/or the "best scientific minds" of their generations.

Some of us have become just a bit cynical about "scientific" predictions warning of an imminent global apocalypse. We've heard so many.

That doesn't mean that, some day, one of those global doom alarmists won't be right, but we've earned our cynicism. And it's gonna take something more than a histrionic 16-year-old, a globe-trotting celebrity activist, a dishonest film-maker, or a data-concealing chart maker to convince us.

And peer review won't do it either - not since those East Anglia researchers decided to collaborate on suppressing articles that ran counter to their pre-determined narrative.

Shoulda put just "scientists" instead of "climate scientists" at October 22, 2019 8:04 AM, because every little lab rodent in every chemistry/bio/physics venture on the planet is going to feign expertise. Dr. Laura was a physiologist.

(Good at radio, but still.)

Hi, Orion!.

More links soon. Many.

The power of consensus.

The idea that math is somehow oppressive to minorities is so absurd i'm leaving spittle all over my keyboard. Go look at grad school classes in math, engineering, CS--whites are in a minority in many schools. Why? 1) Chinese are smarter, 2) foreign minorities love the subjects because they are willing to work hard and won't get graded down because of their poor english.

If you look at how much time kids spend on homework it is asians>whites>blacks or hispanics. Time spent on a subject does influence how you do, as do books in the home. Blacks and hispanics could do better in school, but to even suggest that they try is "racism"--see how easy that is?

The first time I heard Hitch, he put it like this:

Now, just one thing on this thing I've been taunted about about allies. I can't really tell you why it is that if 90 percent of people disagreed with me I would still hold the position I do. I'll just let you guess. If I'm told, "Well, you may say that, but I know ten other people who don't," I'm not impressed. How does that affect the argument? It doesn't affect it at all.

'Tain't.

I R A Darth Aggie Says:

"Ah, so, it's to be propaganda?"

Your understanding of how science education works is deeply and profoundly flawed.

In general ideas, concepts, and facts are introduced to children long before they have developed the cognitive tools to truly understand how those concepts, ideas, and facts were generated.

This isn't some vast conspiracy or propaganda machine Aggie. It is that we as a species recognize that delivering the results of scientific inquiry is vastly easier than teaching someone how to generate those results.

Assuming for a moment that you are not a flat earther and that you accept the heliocentric model of the solar system, let's use the facts that the earth is roughly spherical in shape and that it orbits the sun as examples.

At what age do we explain to children that the earth is round?... at what age do we explain to children that the earth orbits the sun and that there are a collection of other planets within the solar system that also orbit the sun?

These are concepts and ideas that are familiar to pretty much all elementary age children. These concepts are introduced long before they have the relevant mathematical tools to even attempt to verify these facts independently.

For example, for a child to even attempt to verify that the earth is a sphere and to determine it's approximate radius they would need a detailed understanding of trigonometry. However, trigonometry isn't a subject they are usually ready for until early high school.

What would you propose, we not tell children the earth is round until they are well into their teens?... that would be preposterous.

Our job is to teach children about the best available model we have for reality and then teach them how we arrived at those conclusions when they have mastered the relevant mathematical tools.

That being said, the vast majority of adults haven't even learned how to verify that the earth orbits the sun on their own. They *could* if they were particularly interested in learning how to take precision astronomical measurements and purchased the a few thousand dollars with of amateur observation equipment.

There really isn't a significant "barrier" here for someone to learn if they have the time, money, and aptitude to replicate the results of Copernicus. That being said, these skills also aren't considered part of general education.

What's... how do you suggest we introduce concepts born out of quantum mechanics or general relativity?

Do we just refrain from ever mentioning to anyone that things like black holes exist until they have learned how to solve Einstein's field equations on their own?

Your conspiratorial mindset here is really misplaced.

There are likely a multitude of facts about the world around you that you lack the skills to demonstrate on your own.

The reason none of that makes for propaganda is that when it comes to science, if you are really interested and have the talent you can always opt to try and further your education.

No one is stopping you from learning how to solve partial differential equations with imaginary components in order to better understand the phenomena of quantum tunneling... it's just that the mathematics required here goes well beyond the elementary or secondary level.

Cousin Dave,

How about you actually just provide the links to the peer reviewed research publications that demonstrate what you are asserting.

Then any conversation is firmly seated in evidence.

As it stands I have seen far too many times sober and carefully constructed scientific studies blown completely out of proportion by the media.

For example, there was an incident within the last decade where researchers tool extremely carful measurements that suggested the possibility that some particles were moving slightly faster than light... the researchers were very careful to indicate that they were still verifying what was going on and that they needed more replications to debug if the observations were real or the result of experimental error.

Do you know how this was reported in the media?... with sensationalist titles declaring how that team of scientists had just proven Einstein wrong.

The way the media captures and often distorts scientific findings is to make sensationalist headlines.

This is why we go to the source material.

Present your peer reviewed examples and then we are on firm footing for a discussion. Before you can do that there really isn't much to discuss.

Wordy.

Crid,

Perhaps now would be a good time for you to familiarize yourself with Brandolini’s law.

We're all grateful for your reading suggestions, but your example doesn't beguile.

Crid,

Out of curiosity, do you actually believe you have developed the skills to independently verify all of the facts about reality you have been exposed to since you were born?

Would you mind explaining to me in detail how you verified that matter is comprised of atoms?

Conan,

I took a look at your "failed predictions" list and want to note a few things.

The predictions you reference made by Paul Erlich aren't published in the scientific literature.

They are from a book he authored with his wife.

They could have just as easily written about crystal healing and the power of interdimensional vibrations to cure cancer.

This is why I talk about peer reviewed scientific literature as being the standard here.

Scientific articles aren't written to fly off the book shelves.

Furthermore, there hasn't been a scientific consensus on the earth entering into a new ice age.

Nor would anyone have good reason to believe that the hole in the ozone layer would results in the polar ice caps melting away and drowning us.

None of what you have stated is valid for the purpose of what is being discussed.

There was also a completely discredited publication that linked vaccination to autism... just 1 paper... followed by thousands that disproved that association.

Yet antivaxxers harp on a single debunked cherry picked citation to believe their nonsense.

Scientific consensus is achieved when the same conclusion is consistently reached along multiple lines of independent inquiry and the field settles into a general understanding of what the data means in context.

None of your examples fit that criteria.

They are from a book he authored with his wife. ~ Artemis at October 23, 2019 3:24 AM

And they were profoundly influential. As was Earth in the Balance and Silent Spring, both causing similar hysterics and proving in the end to be mere conjecture.

As for peer review being "the standard," it may have been at one time, but can no longer be relied upon to light the way. The East Anglia emails blew that standard out of the water.

Michael Mann's refusal to release his data and his "new statistical approach to reconstructing global patterns of annual temperature" should set off alarm bells in the minds of anyone relying on "scientific consensus" and "peer review." Instead, it was widely accepted and even promulgated by other "scientific" institutions (IPCC, anyone?).

When Canadian mathematician, Steve McIntyre, tried to replicate the Mann and company work, he asked Mann for copies of the underlying data and methodology. His request was met with silence.

McIntyre persevered and "gradually established that Mann et al. had adopted a complex methodology that selectively emphasized certain temperature proxies over others in order to reverse-engineer the 'shaft' of the stick to get a pre-determined desired outcome."

Did the lawsuits and lack of peer review stop anyone scientific or political from citing Mann's "hockey stick?" Not at all. So much for your "standard." The politicization of science is complete.

None of your examples fit that criteria. ~ Artemis at October 23, 2019 3:24 AM

All of them fit the criteria used for citing them. They were influential, consequential, stirred up a public furor, and ultimately proved to be false.

And all of them left the public who lived through them tired and just a bit cynical about the next round of doomsday predictions, peer reviewed or not.

There is a certain element in any human society that craves destruction of the human race, that must believe in it. From the Aesir to the Zoroastrians, death cults have been with us since the dawn of humanity. This is simply another manifestation of an ancient paranoia.

Nor would anyone have good reason to believe that the hole in the ozone layer would results [sic] in the polar ice caps melting away and drowning us. ~ Artemis at October 23, 2019 3:24 AM

And yet they did. Laws were passed to ban CFCs in order to "save the ozone layer." The public grumbled that there was no proof, but was forcibly switched to non-aerosol products.

Doomsday predictions based on the "expanding" hole in the ozone layer had people being fried alive. One prediction had tropical zones becoming too hot for human habitation as our protective ozone layer melted away and Antartica becoming a temperate zone - all because we were using hair spray.

None of what you have stated is valid for the purpose of what is being discussed. ~ Artemis at October 23, 2019 3:24 AM

What is being discussed is he use of pseudo-scientific claptrap to rationalize increasing government power and reducing individual liberty. Discussing whatever foments public hysteria to that end is certainly relevant.

Conan,

I am honestly trying to help you here.

You are being extraordinarily irrational in your approach.

Let's put things into perspective.

Paul Erlich, a biologist, published a book about overpopulation with his wife that wasn't vetted by any outside science experts or professional science editors. Inside that book were predictions unsupported by any scientific evidence, experiment, or theoretical framework.

As a result you have concluded that vetted scientific publications from a completely different field of inquiry cannot be trusted.

Please let that sink in for a moment.

There is no direct or coherent logic that gets you from point A to point B.

It would still be wrong, but at least slightly more logical to conclude that you cannot trust the field of biology because of Paul Erlich.

"And yet they did. Laws were passed to ban CFCs in order to "save the ozone layer." The public grumbled that there was no proof, but was forcibly switched to non-aerosol products."

No Conan... the rational for saving the ozone layer had nothing to do with preventing the ice caps from melting.

The ozone layer is the protective layer over the earth that absorbs ionizing UV radiation from the sun. Ionizing radiation causes cellular damage.

It just so happened that the largest hole was over the pole... it never had anything to do with melting ice.

Your scientific literacy is extremely poor.

I am happy to help you, but you need to be willing to ask questions and learn.

No questions, Darling... After several years of your tween-aged, gender-indeterminate terror at sharing anything of your background, it just wouldn't be appropriate.

More to the point, you're nakedly evading the distaste for careerist pretense offered by at least five commenters here.

Golly!

Conan,

Please read the following for more information:

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/4-ways-ozone-hole-linked-climate-and-1-way-it-isn’t

In particular this part:

"The ozone hole did not cause global warming
Because the ozone layer normally blocks ultraviolet (UV) light, an ozone hole allows more UV light than usual to reach the surface. However, the additional energy added to the Earth system from the ozone hole is so small that it couldn’t be responsible for the warming trend that’s been occurring.
How small? Well, the vast majority of sunlight is the light we can see—visible light with wavelengths of 400-700 nanometers. UV light is only about 8 percent of all sunlight to begin with, and the ozone layer and oxygen (both of which absorb UV) only permit a fraction of that to reach the surface. The additional amount of UV that the Antarctic ozone hole allows to reach the surface for a month or so each year is a small fraction of an already small amount of sunlight—too small to explain global warming.

That doesn’t mean the ozone hole isn’t important, however. UV light can cause sunburns, cataracts, genetic mutations, and cancer. It can damage land and ocean-based marine life, including the tiny phytoplankton that form the base of the ocean food web."

Your understanding of the relevant science is way off.

Please note how everything above is consistent with what I just told you in my previous post.

It is okay for you not to understand the science... but ignorance should not breed confidence.

It should breed curiosity.

Crid Says:

"More to the point, you're nakedly evading the distaste for careerist pretense offered by at least five commenters here."

It is born out of conspiracy theory nonsense.

Just to be clear, your criticisms of the peer review process demonstrate you haven't the slightest idea what is involved in the process.

I understand that you have no respect for knowledge or expertise.

Flat earthers have similar misgivings about the field of astronomy.

Young earth creationists have similar misgivings about the field of geology.

Creationists have similar misgivings about he field of evolutionary biology.

The issue here is one of scientific literacy and a real practical understanding of how scientists make discoveries.

Artie, I grew up in the middle of the ozone scare and melting polar ice was definitely part of the fear mongering, whether scientifically accurate or not. So tell me more about the era in which I grew up and in which you did not.

Conan,

I grew up during the exact same time frame.

The melting of the ice caps was most certainly was *not* associated with the UV from the ozone layer.

You just don't know what you are talking about.

Conan,

Here is another reference for you:

www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6502/650202.html

Pay close attention to this part:

"Global warming and ozone layer depletion are two different problems (see the sidebar “Misconceptions about Global Atmospheric Change” on page 95)."

The point you need to absorb is that apparently you have spent your entire life holding onto a belief because you have a held onto a scientific misconception from your youth.

You now have the option to accept that you have been mistaken about this all this time and learn something new.

OR... you can insist against all evidence to the contrary that you just know it in your bones that you were right all along.

This isn't revisionist history Conan. I grew up during the exact same time and I learned the science correctly.

You are literally holding entire fields of science accountable because you didn't manage to learn something properly in your youth.

Maybe you had a bad teacher who screwed it up... or maybe you just confused things yourself.

Needless to say, your personal misconceptions are not the responsibility of the scientific community at large.

"Present your peer reviewed examples and then we are on firm footing for a discussion."

There are none because Mann, Hansen et al will not release their data or models for review. Mann just lost a lawsuit against someone he libeled, because he would not release data for the court's review. Keeping his secrets is so important to him that he'd rather have to pay a libel judgement than let anyone else look at his research. What does that tell you?

Cousin Dave,

There are 1000s and 1000s of published peer reviewed scientific studies in the field of climate science.

You don't have a single one with a failed prediction because of Mann?

Look, if you do not know how to search the scientific literature that is fine, just say so and I will give you some suggestions.

“There are 1000s and 1000s of published peer reviewed scientific studies in the field of climate science.”

And if you are never allowed to see or validate the underlying data, and what has been excluded and included in the study, they are all garbage. Nothing more than a large academic circle jerk based on the same corrupted data.

Your tax payer dollars at work. Academics kissing each other’s asses in a two fur, scarfing up grant money in furtherance of their political goals.

“Hide the decline”

Bjorn Says,

What data from the published research are you interested in seeing?

"And if you are never allowed to see or validate the underlying data, and what has been excluded and included in the study, they are all garbage."

I've already been through this, but just out of curiosity... let's say you got your hands on the half ton of hard drives worth of data used to generate the publications for the recent observation of black holes... what approach would you take to "validate" it?

I am genuinely curious what your methodology would be in analyzing the data and what super computer you would use to run your custom software?

I am genuinely curious what your methodology would be in analyzing the data and what super computer you would use to run your custom software?

Artemis at October 23, 2019 7:58 AM

Apples and oranges. There is no political or financial motive for hiding or massaging the observational data on black holes.

As usual you missed the main point.

Bjorn,

Not apples and oranges... you said that if you cannot see or validate the underlying data then it is all garbage.

The point I am trying to make is that you don't actually have the means or knowledge to validate scientific data even if it was delivered right to your front door.

Tell me what methodology you would use to construct and run your own climate model and what super computer you would use to run it?

Wheelchair guy?

As usual you missed the main point. ~ Bjorn at October 23, 2019 8:32 AM

He always does.

Once again Artie has hijacked a thread, missing the forest while quibbling over a tree. And, as usual, he's dragged everyone here into the swamp with him.

Artie's argument style is disingenuous and dishonest - as is he. He scans innocuous pieces for sentences he can willfully misconstrue. Then, he presents those misconstrued sentences a proof of a flaw within the person who offered them. Finally, he trumpets the conclusions drawn from his deliberate distortions as proof of his intellectual superiority over everyone else. He may be educated, but he's not very smart.

And yes Artie, if you're 40 or older, you've been inundated since childhood with scientists (biology is a science) and other influencers warning of imminent disaster, apocalyptic or otherwise, due to nature's fury and mankind's indifference - in all the examples I cited, and even more. Environmental doomsayers have a zero percent success rate and have cost more lives than they've saved.

Tell me what methodology you would use to construct and run your own climate model and what super computer you would use to run it?

Artemis at October 23, 2019 8:35 AM

It can’t be done. The system they are trying to model is too vast (an open system) and they don’t have the means to model it. This is apparent because the models and the data points selected have failed to predict anything with any degree of accuracy for the last thirty years.

Sometimes the best science is realizing that the experiment/ model/ observation is beyond the capabilities of current knowledge and technologies.

You don’t get to adjust/fudge the data time and time again and pretend that you are generating meaningful results to keep the cash flowing into your fraudulent “science”.

When a company like Theranos operates that way, the principals end up charged with fraud for good reason.

Bjorn Says:

"It can’t be done. The system they are trying to model is too vast (an open system) and they don’t have the means to model it."

You are all over the place.

First your complaint was that you couldn't evaluate the data on your own... now you are saying the data doesn't matter because the effort itself is impossible.

You haven't even demonstrated any knowledge or insight into how one would go about creating a model or running the simulation, so how exactly have you determined that it "can't be done"?

As it stands what you appear to be doing is making an Argument from Incredulity... which is fallacious reasoning.

Conan,

As has already been demonstrated, you are scientifically illiterate.

You apparently cannot tell the difference between climate change and overpopulation.

You apparently cannot tell the difference between climate science and biology.

You hadn't the slighted clue that ozone layer depletion and global warming were two distinctly separate things.

"And yes Artie, if you're 40 or older, you've been inundated since childhood with scientists (biology is a science) and other influencers warning of imminent disaster, apocalyptic or otherwise, due to nature's fury and mankind's indifference"

If this were true you should be able to provide a bunch of citations from the scientific literature backing this up.

Why does this appear to be an impossible task for you?

You've got decades worth of publications to aid you in demonstrating that there was ever a scientific consensus about some "doom and gloom" prediction that never came to pass.

Rant and rave all you like, but you don't appear to have any facts.

“First your complaint was that you couldn't evaluate the data on your own... now you are saying the data doesn't matter because the effort itself is impossible.”

Correct. The data doesn’t matter because the tools don’t exist to sample enough of it, or to determine what is meaningful.

When you cherry pick your data to fit your theory, that isn’t science. Nor is continually moving the goal posts.

When your model isn’t predictive, you adjust your theory, you don’t manipulate the data to cover the fact that your prediction was wrong.

Science doesn’t operate by consensus. Arguments from authority are meaningless.

This would all be a mildly amusing and meaningless academic argument if it wasn’t for the fact that, like Lysenko, climate “scientists” around the world are demanding that western governments trample their own republics and destroy their economies to “do something” about a problem that may not even really exist or if it does, cannot be remedied by renewable energy, conservation or deindustrialization.

Bjorn Says:

"Correct. The data doesn’t matter because the tools don’t exist to sample enough of it, or to determine what is meaningful."

You do realize that you completely shifted your argument from what you were originally complaining about, right?

In any case, please outline in specific detail what tools would be necessary to model the climate and what the current state of the art tools are so we can compare.

If you cannot answer the above question you really aren't in a position to make any of the statements you are making.

"When your model isn’t predictive, you adjust your theory, you don’t manipulate the data to cover the fact that your prediction was wrong."

You haven't even established that anything like this took place.

That is just an evidence free assertion.

"Science doesn’t operate by consensus. Arguments from authority are meaningless."

Science does operate by consensus.

One gathers evidence across multiple lines of inquiry and evaluate and design different experiments that are intended to look at a particular issue from multiple angles.

It is about consensus and convergence of the data such that everything makes sense in context.

That isn't an argument from authority Bjorn... when the data and predictions from multiple lines of inquire match up you can have confidence that you understand what is going on.

Bjorn,

Also... no one is demanding "that western governments trample their own republics and destroy their economies".

Conversion to renewable energy is a natural economic consequence of the fact that the technology is rather mature at this stage and is already taking advantage of economies of scale.

Here is a Forbes article on the subject:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/01/13/renewable-energy-cost-effective-fossil-fuels-2020/#795296764ff2

In particular the conclusion is that renewables are pretty much already consistently cheaper.

Moving towards renewables makes economic sense regardless of climate impacts.

That is a business analysis... or do you not trust those either?

You're just too eager to smother arguments rather than answer them, and too clumsily anti-social in any case.

Maybe it was a wheelchair, maybe it was a group home, maybe it was a demented religion in another country, but something kept you perfectly constrained… And now you're desperate to show others how it works. October 23, 2019 1:18 AM & 1:32 AM are the perfect example; An exhausting (if not exhaustive) response affording no common ground, and then a second layer of barbed wire with no new insight. You're not answering arguments, you're merely corralling them. There's no real-life setting where this kind of resentful perimeter-patrolling does any good. You're trying to prove something to the wrong people.

Wheelchair, or residential facility?

Crid,

These aren't "arguments"... they are unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that haven't been backed up with any evidence.

An argument needs to have a claim supported by evidence.

"An exhausting (if not exhaustive) response affording no common ground"

Crid, how about you show me how it is done... what exactly is the "common ground" with someone who insists that the earth is flat and peddles unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about how astronomers are lying and the moon landing was a hoax?

You're not the sort of personality to enrich the lives of strangers with a high-schooler's chatter about epistemology. Your pompous enthusiams are multiply-critiqued as careerism or oblivious pandering to careerists... But you won't take the point.

Very well... Carry on! Like Hillary ignoring Wisconsin, you be you!

Bill tried warn her, y'know? But here grad students had charts and graphs....

That is a business analysis... or do you not trust those either? ~ Artemis at October 23, 2019 7:43 PM

That's not a "business analysis" at all. That's a propaganda piece, an op-ed by a columnist repeating a claim by an organization pushing solar and wind power - the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

It's not a thorough "analysis" either. Generating electricity is only one of the issues with supplying power to cities and other power-using entities. Storage, transmission, and the ability to adjust to peak usage hours also need to be considered, but were not mentioned in the op-ed. These have generally been the stumbling points with alternative energy generation - clouds and still days play havoc with photovoltaic cells and windmills.

Conan,

Just because the facts do not agree with what you want to believe does not make something propaganda.

You are really deep into tin foil hat territory at this point.

Who exactly would you expect to calculate the costs of renewable energy generation?

You can look up numbers from the DOE and NREL as well.

You are going to get the same answers. Renewable energy gets cheaper each and every year and has already crossed over in many scenarios to become the cheaper alternative for future investments.

"Storage, transmission, and the ability to adjust to peak usage hours also need to be considered, but were not mentioned in the op-ed."

Because no one envisions just shutting down all of the fossil fuel and nuclear power generation plants overnight and replacing them with a bunch of wind farms.

The entire point is that you construct new power generation from renewables, which happen to generate the most power during peak usage times.

No one here is talking about replacing the grid in it's entirety overnight.

As a result your talk about "cloudy days" doesn't really apply.

Crid,

Do you actually have a legitimate scientific criticism here that you would like to discuss?

It seems to me that you are just upset that there are entire collections of professionals who make expert judgments about the meaning and results of research... and you aren't in the club.

No one would be interested in you barging your way into the hospital to start diagnosing patients either.

Professionals have developed knowledge and experience you just do not have.

None of that is "careerist".

If you actually have real questions about the science I am happy to try and explain it to you.

I'm even happy to explain to you how the publication process actually works as opposed to the one that you have made up.

This illustrates neatly what I said earlier about "lowest content/syllable signal/noise ratio".

Get to the point, Arty. You're not being paid by the word here.

> If you actually have real
> questions about the science
> I am happy to try and
> explain it to you.

Why for the love of Sweet Jesus would anyone imagine you're competent to do so? You're a child.

Radwaste,

We've been through this before.

Your pet metric of "content/syllable" doesn't make any logical sense.

No one looks and "me tarzan" and "hello, my name is tarzan" and concludes that the first introduction is superior because it has higher content per syllable.

Crid,

In case you haven't noticed... when I answer scientific questions I provide references.

You don't have to trust if I am "competent".

The real issue is why you don't seem to believe that anyone is competent.

I'll also point out that you have become more aggressive than usual since I expressed empathy for your current situation.

I must have struck a nerve.

> you don't seem to believe
> that anyone is competent

I don't believe that you're competent. You shouldn't imagine yourself on the same team with Hitchens, or anyone else, or imagine that their reputations are wounded when your own carries no currency.

Of course you empathize with my "current situation." Everyone does! I'm fantastic.

Crid,

I am curious why you think anyone cares what your opinion is?

You're just a lonely nobody, and yet somehow you imagine that random folks on the internet are concerned what you think about them.

Please try and imagine how ridiculous it would seem to someone leading a horse to water only for the horse to bitch and moan about "competency".

In our conversation you're just the horse.

The next time a teacher offers stupid opinions in class, I want to see one or several kids walk out. Then, when the teacher or admins order punishment, the child(ren) should sue for First Amendment violation and the parents should back them up.

Even today I can't see a court failing to agree that if the school permits this kind of walkout for one belief, it must allow it for all beliefs.