“Why it’s not in my job description as an environmentalist.”
[Afternoon update]
Category Archives: General Science
Extreme Weather, And Climate
Thoughts from Judith Curry, whose previously scheduled congressional hearing this week (with Michael Mann) has been indefinitely postponed.
A Human-Extinction Denier
Yes, call me one, too. This hyperbole from the warm mongers is counterproductive to their cause.
Born That Way
These kinds of “studies” drive me nuts:
“The idea there that sexual orientation is fluid, that people change as people grow,” Lawrence Mayer, a co-author of the report and a scholar-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University’s psychiatry department, as well as a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University, told The Christian Post. “There are probably some people that identify as hetrosexual [sic] that then later on identified as homosexual, so it goes both ways. The importance there is the fluidity and flexibility that these things change in time.”
Of course there are many people for whom sexual orientation is “fluid.” They’re called (wait for it) “bi-sexuals.” They’re born that way. I was born straight, gays are born gay, and there are many people who are born “fluid.” It doesn’t mean that no one is born straight, or gay. I have no idea why this is such a hard concept for some people, including “scholars.”
[Wednesday-morning update]
I discussed this issue previously here:
My theory would explain why some of the most vociferous opponents of homosexuality often (more often than one might have guessed) turn out to be attracted to the same sex — they have a choice, and they feel morally superior to those upon whom they project their own bisexual orientation, and thus assume that people who don’t uphold their own standards of morality are merely weak-willed. These would also be the people who really could be counseled to go straight for religious reasons — they really had been influenced by their postbirth environment, and were capable of going the other way. So this might explain the twin conundrum as well. The twins who are both homosexual either were born homosexual or were born bi and both chose homosexuality. The ones where only one twin had that trait (as with the Collins brothers) were born bi, and made different choices. I know that if I were heterosexual with an identical twin, I would find it mind blowing to be told he was gay, because then I would be wondering why I wasn’t. But in Jason’s brother’s case, maybe he’s thinking: “Well, I decided to do the marriage-to-a-woman-and-have-kids thing, but I can see his point of view.”
I can’t see his point of view, but I’m willing to accept that it’s his point of view.
The Great Lakes
Demonstrate the flaws in climate “science”:
…if the lakes’ huge fluctuations in the past weren’t caused by mankind’s burning fossil fuels, why are scientists so convinced that the far more minor changes happening today are? The reason is simple. Climate scientists can blame anything they want on global warming. The climate models are imprecise enough that no matter what is happening they can point to it as proof that man-made climate change is happening. Too much rain, too little rain, bitterly cold winters, mild winters, more snow, less snow, rising water levels, falling water levels — they can attribute “climate change” as a cause of it all.
A theory for which all evidence is evidence of it, and thus not falsifiable, is not science.
BTW, blogging has been light because I’ve been wiped out by the ISDC for the past five days, and this morning I was at a meeting at ISS Commercialization at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. More meetings tomorrow, then back to LA tomorrow night, where I hope things will get back to normal.
Moon Books
There are a bunch of new ones out as part of the fiftieth anniversary. Here’s a list (including some old classics as well).
Silent Spring
After fifty-seven years, Rachel Carson’s book is not aging well. It will always have its defenders, though.
[Not sure why headline says “at 40.”]
[Thursday-morning update]
OK, it’s because the article is from seventeen years ago. Unlike Carson’s book, though, it does still hold up.
They Don’t Know Clouds At All
But maybe they can get better at modeling them. Our lack of ability to model clouds to date is one of the things that makes me a skeptic on climate alarmism.
Radical Green Ideology
It has taken over and corrupted professional engineering and science societies.
Aging Brain Decline
Thwarting a protein reverses it in aged mice:
The team used two techniques to block VCAM1: One of them genetically deleted the protein from the mice’s brains. Another injected an antibody that binds to it to stop anything else attaching. Both methods prevented signs of brain aging in young mice infused with old plasma and reversed existing markers in elderly mice brains. The researchers then gave the mice learning and memory tests. In one, which involves remembering which of several holes is safe to drop through, treated elderly mice performed as well as youngsters once fully trained. “The aged mice looked like they were young again in terms of their ability to learn and remember,” Dubal says. “It’s remarkable.”
Faster, please.