Category Archives: Science And Society

A New Wrench In The Works

for climate models? And Warmmongers like Gore?

Precisely accounting for everything in the atmosphere that can influence changes in global temperatures is critical to scientists’ quest to accurately predict what Earth’s climate will be in the future. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assessed the potential risks of human-induced climate change, notes that the overall effect of clouds and aerosols on the amount of heat held in the atmosphere is still uncertain. Finding a previously unknown ingredient in the mix further complicates an already complex picture, but it also holds out the promise of resolving some nagging problems in climate change science.

Save The Planet

We’ll just starve all those pesky Asians:

…the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting this week in Bangkok concludes that rice production was a main cause of rising methane emissions in the 20th century. It calls for better controls.

“There is no other crop that is emitting such a large amount of greenhouse gases,” said Reiner Wassmann, a climate change specialist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

A Missing Question

This seems like kind of a strange symposium:

There is a growing debate among conservative thinkers and pundits about whether Darwinian theory helps or harms conservatism and its public policy agenda. Some have argued forcefully that Darwin’s theory provides support for conservative positions on family life, economics, bioethics, and other issues, while others have countered that the effort to justify conservative policy positions on Darwinian grounds is fundamentally flawed. Does Darwin’s theory help defend or undermine traditional morality and family life? Does it encourage or discredit economic freedom? Is it a spur or a brake to utopian schemes to re-engineer human nature?

Doesn’t it matter whether or not the theory is valid? Is it only something to be discussed in terms of its effects on conservatism (or for that matter progressivism)? If it turns out that it somehow is harmful to traditional morality and family life (I’m not sure that the empirical evidence bears this out, even if it does in theory), does that mean that it shouldn’t be taught in science classes, even if it’s the best scientific explanation for the fossil record (and human behavior)? What is the point of this symposium?

Good News For Alzheimer’s Patients

The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.

Good News For Alzheimer’s Patients

The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.

Good News For Alzheimer’s Patients

The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.