| Author | Message | ||
     Madduck |
One of the many conservative voices on the vaccine/autism pseudo science bandwagon is of course Robert F Kennedy,jr. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/m edical_examiner/2013/06/robert_f_kennedy_jr_vaccin e_conspiracy_theory_scientists_and_journalists.htm l If he had boobs he would be the actual leader of the movement. Hilary Clinton had a number of comments supporting the cause when speaking to the young, hip, rich northern California democrats. Well over half of Marin county private school children are unvaccinated. Pissing off billionaires is never a good thing. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
I don't see the big deal. Those that are vaccinated will survive and those that aren't will pay the consequences. Stop trying to shelter the idiots from their choices. Set Darwin free. | ||
| Aesquire |
Alas, that's not so. If you are an adult you got your vaccination against a bunch of childhood diseases when you were a child. Your immunity hasn't been tested in decades, & may have gone away. How would you know if your Rubella shot still holds the disease at bay? It's been eradicated from your society in the U.S.. then some immigrant who does not pass through the legal channels brings it back.............are you safe? Is the mail carrier safe? Your butcher? There's an awful lot of criminal trespassers working the food industry. Sure, most cases of food poisoning are from organic vegetables, and the odds that you get measles from a steak are low. Ground meat? Still low but higher. But even if your immunity is still good, what happens when the clerk at the quikeemart is coughing out some virulent third world virus and you try and run civilization with only people too smart to listen to Kennedy? If ONLY it were that easy. The Kennedy's will have their children vaccinated although Madonna may not. ( not picking on Madonna , she may be quite smart on the subject ) Why? Because as the above article shows, leftists lie. Kennedy is a serial liar. He has an agenda, although I can only guess what it is. The same as Margaret Sanger? Pure speculation, of course, but it fits the facts. | ||
| Reepicheep |
There will always be science denying whackos. They will always be a small minority. But when you politicize science (as we have done) and politically weaponize governmental agencies like the CDC, EPA, FCC, DOJ, IRS, etc, this is ***exactly*** the outcome you have invited. People can't trust you, and frankly, they should not trust you. The fact that they are wrong in the specific thing they don't trust you about is irrelevant, they are right on general principal not to trust you. http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press- release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regar ding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of -a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/ Here is the real science on vaccines. 1) Vaccines absolutely do more good than harm on the whole when responsibly applied to a population. 2) Some individuals in that population will have a much worse outcome (major lifelong health issues) as a result of vaccination than they would have had without that vaccination. 3) Governmental agencies have been correct and clear about the population wide benefits of vaccination. 4) Governmental agencies and a significant part of the medical establishment have been at best misleading and more likely flat out lying about the individual risks of vaccination. 5) Because of this misleading slant, some simple changes that could likely preserve the population benefits of vaccination while lowering the risks to the individual have not gotten "good science" applied to them. Conclusions? 1) Bad science always leads to bad outcomes, even if you have "good" intentions. 2) You can't trust everything the government tells you. 3) You should get vaccinated, though perhaps not as early as the government wants you to get vaccinated. And not because it is a no risk medical intervention, you do it because you loose more risk than you gain when you do it. | ||
| Aesquire |
That sums it up nicely. | ||
| Sifo |
 | ||
| Sifo |
2) You can't trust everything the government tells you. I would say that you can trust very little of what the government tells us. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/02/04/the-sad-truth-about-the-vaccine-debates-superstitious-roots/  | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Patrick, Game, Set, Match! | ||
| Aesquire |
I figured that was cute but b.s. I looked them up. Real. Sure, makeup makes a difference. Not nearly enough in the case of the quack. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/ globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperatu re-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html Homewood has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic, between Canada (51 degrees W) and the heart of Siberia (87 degrees E). Again, in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded. This has surprised no one more than Traust Jonsson, who was long in charge of climate research for the Iceland met office (and with whom Homewood has been in touch). Jonsson was amazed to see how the new version completely “disappears” Iceland’s “sea ice years” around 1970, when a period of extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy. One of the first examples of these “adjustments” was exposed in 2007 by the statistician Steve McIntyre, when he discovered a paper published in 1987 by James Hansen, the scientist (later turned fanatical climate activist) who for many years ran Giss. Hansen’s original graph showed temperatures in the Arctic as having been much higher around 1940 than at any time since. But as Homewood reveals in his blog post, “Temperature adjustments transform Arctic history”, Giss has turned this upside down. Arctic temperatures from that time have been lowered so much that that they are now dwarfed by those of the past 20 years. Homewood’s interest in the Arctic is partly because the “vanishing” of its polar ice (and the polar bears) has become such a poster-child for those trying to persuade us that we are threatened by runaway warming. But he chose that particular stretch of the Arctic because it is where ice is affected by warmer water brought in by cyclical shifts in a major Atlantic current – this last peaked at just the time 75 years ago when Arctic ice retreated even further than it has done recently. The ice-melt is not caused by rising global temperatures at all. Of much more serious significance, however, is the way this wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record – for reasons GHCN and Giss have never plausibly explained – has become the real elephant in the room of the greatest and most costly scare the world has known. This really does begin to look like one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time. | ||
| Sifo |
Hottest year ever? Skeptics question revisions to climate data
Of course, as long as you have a "consensus", you can adjust the data any way that suits you. Isn't that how good science has always been done?
Not much new here in this news. This has been going on for a long time now. Dishonest science really sucks! | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398261/debun king-anti-vaccine-pseudoscience-thomas-sowell | ||
| Torquehd |
Just came across Boston Dynamic's newest quadruped. Getting better all the time. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398591/all-h ail-science-jonah-goldberg Why does the Left get to pick which issues are the benchmarks for “science”? Why can’t the measure of being pro-science be the question of heritability of intelligence? Or the existence of fetal pain? Or the distribution of cognitive abilities among the sexes at the extreme right tail of the bell curve? Or if that’s too upsetting, how about dividing the line between those who are pro- and anti-science along the lines of support for geoengineering? Or — coming soon — the role cosmic rays play in cloud formation? Why not make it about support for nuclear power? Or Yucca Mountain? Why not deride the idiots who oppose genetically modified crops, even when they might prevent blindness in children? Some of these examples are controversial, others tendentious, but all are just as fair as the way the Left framed embryonic stem-cell research and all are more relevant than questions about evolution. (Quick: If Obama changed his mind about evolution tomorrow and became a creationist, what policies would change? I’ll wait.) The point is that the Left considers itself the undisputed champion of “science,” but there are scads of issues where they take un-scientific points of view. Sure they can cite dissident scientists — just as conservatives can — on this or that issue. But everyone knows that when the science directly threatens the Left’s pieties, it’s the science that must bend — or break. During the Larry Summers fiasco at Harvard, comments delivered in the classic spirit of open inquiry and debate cost Summers his job. Actual scientists got the vapors because he violated the principles not of science but of liberalism. During the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration dishonestly claimed that its independent experts supported a drilling moratorium. They emphatically did not. The president who campaigned on basing his policies on “sound science” ignored his own hand-picked experts. According to the GAO, he did something very similar when he shut down Yucca Mountain. His support for wind and solar energy, as you suggest, isn’t based on science but on faith. And that faith has failed him dramatically. The idea that conservatives are anti-science is self-evident and self-pleasing liberal hogwash. I see no reason why conservatives should even argue the issue on their terms when it’s so clearly offered in bad faith in the first place. I've had discussions on "evolution" here before. I "believe" in evolution. To be precise, I think the basic concept of survival of the fittest and that critters, and systems evolve, is self evidently true. It's also obvious to me that Darwin could not POSSIBLY be the last word on the subject, or even the first one, since Gregor Mendel and others had done some good work on plant & animal breeding.....centuries before we finally had the tools to "see" DNA. Can I describe the mechanism of Evolution? No, but there are multiple theories on the mechanism of Gravity, and as always, the science is not settled. If you have a better explanation, I'm interested. I also note that GR is not settled, no matter how many professors tell you it's Holy Writ. Why do I care? Because current theories on GR seem set in stone, and don't allow for some exciting technical developments like a reactionless drive, or faster than light travel. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/word-2010 -and-me-new-physics/ Dark matter and dark energy Hello Jerry, “Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either. Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.” As you point out, the scientific method has been changing over the last few decades. Formerly, scientists made observations and devised theories to explain them. When observational data called the theories into question, the theories were modified, or replaced with new ones that explained the observations better. Now the theory is sacrosanct, particularly GR. When observations contradict GR, the universe is modified to preserve GR. In this case, the physicists, noting that matter, as observed, was not behaving as GR predicts, simply added a bunch of undetectable matter/energy until they had enough, with the proper distribution, to make the universe behave as decreed by GR. For what it is worth, Dr. Mike McCulloch, a physicist who teaches at a British university, has devised a theory under which the universe behaves as observed, but requires no unseen/unseeable matter/energy. He has a blog, here: http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com for those who are interested. As a side note, he claims that his theory also predicts thrust from EmDrives and the magnitude and sign of the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, although Cal Tech has already said that it was explained by the pattern of heat radiation from the spacecraft. I have no idea if Dr. McCulloch is right or not, but I am very predisposed to WANT to believe someone who tells me that the universe is actually made up of stuff that we can see/detect, rather than being >95% invisible/undetectable (other than being ‘detected’ by being necessary to make our sacred equations match observations). Bob Ludwick And I will close with another quote from the Goldberg piece. In other words, thanks to scientists, the words of creationists are transported through the sky into my phone or computer. And, while I haven’t checked, I’m pretty sure they don’t believe that their e-mail was carried to me on the backs of pixies. I’m also pretty sure that the vast majority of creationists drive cars, take antibiotics, watch TV, and eat foods with preservatives in them. For liberals, perhaps this is proof of some kind of hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance. And maybe it is, though I don’t see it. But it’s also a demonstration that having your faith — or your superstitions — bump into one of the farther borders of scientific knowledge doesn’t require one to reject all of science. It’s not a binary thing. Belief in something unconfirmed or even disproved by science is not a rejection of all science. Just as a refusal to believe unicorns are real doesn’t mean I have to reject the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Kate Upton, or other allegedly mythical creatures. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398561/gover nment-dieticians-tell-us-never-mind-our-decades-ba d-advice-julie-gunlock | ||
| Aesquire |
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list -of-failed-climate-predictions/ comment by Jerry Pournelle on above article. It is well to understand that none of the expensive – very –expensive models employing many people at high pay – has ever predicted anything that Arrhenius didn’t know in 1900, or that you didn’t know in grade school. It is warmer now than in 1776, ad seems to heating at about 2 degrees F per century. You also learned that it was warmer in Viking times than now. We certainly would not call Nova Scotia “Vinland” now; perhaps in fifty years. We do not know why temperature cycles. There are many theories, but we do know Mars has temperature cycles, and we can guess it has to do with the Sun. | ||
| Aesquire |
To make myself clear to those who think I'm a Luddite. Climate change is real. Ask the Viking Colony on Greenland... What? You can't? They're gone? Why? Climate change. Ask the Pueblo Cliff Dwellers... same answer, silence, climate change destroyed their civilization. Petra. Dead. Climate change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra ( Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade location ) This winter has been brutal for some, moderate for others, that's WEATHER. The Sun, Ocean currents, give you a completely rational explanation. Washington hauled cannon across the Delaware River on the ice. Not something I'd want to try most years, but it was a freaking COLD CLIMATE PERIOD in 1776. Do humans affect the climate? Sure. YES. I've been a glider pilot, humans affect small and large scale weather patterns with our roads and structures. You don't lay down the NY Thruway and it's mega square miles of grey/black asphalt without changing the local patterns... across over a thousand miles. Glider guys know there is often a "blue street" stretching along the Thruway. ( a "cloud street" is when there are clouds, indicating lift, in a line you can run a glider down at astonishing speed. A "blue street" is the same lift phenomena, without the moisture to give the visual cues ) Too local? ok, Sahara Desert. Humans, livestock, expanding desert. Or, Persia. Humans, irrigation systems, then war, irrigation systems smashed by Tamerlane, desert. CO2? yeah, that might be an issue. And we really have to stop spending the energy capital that is fossil fuels. Consider them the kickstarter to cheap nuclear and orbital solar. Oil is too important as chemical feed stock to burn. We really need a better understanding of Climate Change, because it is real, and it will affect our lives. However, the Climate Change Movement is a political one, based on faulty computer models that AFAIK have yet to predict last year, or last decade. They might work someday, but using them today for public policy decisions is literally insane. Like basing law on Tarot cards. Also the Movement has had one goal, one answer, one solution, ever since it was "the ice age is coming" through "winter will never come again" and up to "everything is Climate Change... including Earthquakes and Volcanoes." SAME answer. That one solution? Take your money and your freedom and give it to bureaucrats who know better than you how your life should be lived. Cheap energy is good for freedom and prosperity, so tax it and take your money and your rights. End Nation States and create a planetary bureaucracy to Rule All The Peasants. ( that's working GREAT for Europe, so let's make it Planetary! ) So we have a real phenomena, a proven fact, used by a lot of dishonest people to rip you off. Of course, I could be wrong. But the Climate Con folk NEVER are. That alone should tell you who's honest. Meanwhile we're having a Heat wave locally. It may get above freezing for a few hours... then back to arctic cold. | ||
| Aesquire |
Weather somewhere else.... Mars’ Massive Erupting Clouds Still Puzzle Scientists Editor’s note: The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Enormous cloud-like plumes reaching 260km above the surface of Mars have left scientists baffled. This is way beyond Mars’s normal weather, reaching into the exosphere where the atmosphere merges with interplanetary space. None of the conventional explanations for such clouds make sense—neither water or carbon dioxide ice nor dust storms nor auroral light emissions usually hit such heights. These “mystery clouds” came as a surprise, in particular when considering they were first spotted by a string of amateur astronomers in 2012. After all, an international fleet of five orbiters and two rovers is currently operating on and around Mars, and one may be excused thinking the red planet has little left to hide and its exploration has become routine. A survey of images from the Hubble Space Telescope and amateur astronomers revealed massive clouds had been seen on Mars before, but none as prominent as the 2012 observations. So what caused these clouds? An international team of scientists led by Agustin Sánchez-Lavega has now published an investigation in the journal Nature. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14162.html (Message edited by aesquire on February 21, 2015) | ||
| Daddio |
A(BPVR)MGCC Anthropomorphic (By Proxy Via Robots) Martian Global Climate Change Since it wasn't observed prior to human's robots' arrival, obviously the robots caused it. | ||
| Aesquire |
Yeah, it couldn't be the Sun or anything like that... You can't control the Sun by Social Engineering. Social engineering is the Purpose. Global Warming is the Excuse. If you really wanted to control the Climate ( and I don't believe we are yet smart enough, but that's a different question ) you would use Science instead of Politics. No one in the Con is calling for actual science.... except, I admit, "Carbon sequestration" which strikes me as a wonderful way to create natural disasters. "hey, let's pump a buttload of CO2 into holes in the ground where we pulled out oil! What could possibly go wrong?" | ||
| Sifo |
 | ||
| Sifo |
I'm not sure it's ever very good to mix science and religion. I manage to deal with my religious beliefs in a scientific world. I can't imagine trying to deal with science in a religious world though. That is exactly what has happened with the global climate change crowd though. Forcing science to fit their beliefs. There's just no way to get good science out of that. Now the outgoing IPCC Chief has basically admitted to exactly that. And then people wonder why skeptics are so freaking skeptical on this issue? Outgoing UN IPCC Chief reveals global warming ‘is my religion and my dharma’ | ||
| Aesquire |
I agree. I quite understand how atheists feel in a very religious community. Very sectarian too. The Green series of created religions, to coin a phrase, have serious dogma clashes. The overall religion is arranged to unite the factions in fundraising and demonstrating, and does a good job in keeping the internal arguments in private. Consider the differences between vegan-critter-huggers, & wilderness-everywhere & other special interest groups. | ||
| Aesquire |
Btw..... is it just me? Or do "mystery clouds on Mars" remind you of the beginning of "War Of The Worlds"? | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/11433786/Sol ar-eclipse-to-disrupt-power-supplies.html Did you ever expect to see a serious headline? Solar eclipse to disrupt power supplies | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.babbel.com/magazine/myths-of-fluency?sl c=engmag-a37-vid-bv12-fluencymyths-tb&utm_source=t aboola&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=cd_engall_gen_c us_fluencymyths | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414526/shame ful-climate-witch-hunt-rich-lowry | ||
| Ducbsa |
Renewable energy not realistic? Apostasy from the Daily Kos http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/03/ener gy-sense-from-an-unlikely-source.php | ||
| Sifo |
Interesting read Ducbsa. I do have to comment on one thing...
This ignores a huge part of the problem. Natural gas power plants operate by heating up huge boilers to create steam to run turbines. You don't simply "turn on" a huge boiler. It takes many hours to do so. The end result is that you wind up keeping the boiler up to temperature all the time so that you can turn on the turbines when needed. The actual savings from this is almost non-existent. It's interesting to see this compared to Denmark being able to switch to hydro-electric power. That is something that can be switched on very quickly. As the point out though, it requires some very unusual geography. |
