Daily Archives: Sep 18, 2013

View 790 Wednesday, September 18, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

What we have is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

Ios7 warning

Hi Jerry,

Just a quick note and warning: beware of ios7, which comes out tomorrow. Setting aside some of the dubious design choices (they clearly ignore color blindness and over 40 year old eyeballs), the iPhone4 hardware is barely adequate to run it – it has a lot of user interface lags, to the point of nearly being unusable for some functions like deleting voice mail. Even on an iPad 3, it has issues with performance. There are also a number of bugs; it’s definitely a dot zero release.

This apple pie needs more time in the oven. Wait for 7.0.1 or 7.0.2 which are both in development….and maybe even for 7.1.

Cheers,

Doug

I have received other indications that installing IOS7 is contraindicated at this time…

And now for some good news from Australia:

PROFESSOR Tim Flannery has been sacked by the Abbott Government from his $180,000 a year part time Chief Climate Commissioner position with the agency he runs to be dismantled immediately.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt called Prof Flannery this morning to tell him a letter formally ending his employment was in the mail.

Public service shake-up as heads go

In the letter, Mr. Hunt tells Prof Flannery: "The Climate Commission does not have an ongoing role, and consequently I am writing to advise you that the Climate Commission has been dissolved, with effect from the date of this letter.

http://mobile.news.com.au/national-news/tim-flannery-sacked-climate-commission-dismantled-by-coalition/story-fncynjr2-1226722779566

It’s not likely that the present Administration will do anything of the sort, but the precedent remains.

World’s top climate scientists confess: Global warming is just QUARTER what we thought – and computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong

• Leaked report reveals the world has warmed at quarter the rate claimed by IPCC in 2007
• Scientists accept their computers may have exaggerate
• A leaked copy of the world’s most authoritative climate study reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong.
• The Mail on Sunday has obtained the final draft of a report to be published later this month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ultimate watchdog whose massive, six-yearly ‘assessments’ are accepted by environmentalists, politicians and experts as the gospel of climate science.
• They are cited worldwide to justify swinging fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy.
• Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that over the past 15 years, recorded world temperatures have increased at only a quarter of the rate of IPCC claimed when it published its last assessment in 2007.
• Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Global-warming-just-HALF-said-Worlds-climate-scientists-admit-computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html#ixzz2fJhkG0i3
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Global-warming-just-HALF-said-Worlds-climate-scientists-admit-computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html#ixzz2fJhaOUWs

The reverberations of this are running around the world. Suddenly “Deniers” are not such awful people after all. Of course a majority of Americans is coming to believe that Global Warming is a scam.

Some day a history of Global Warming showing how many smart people got taken in by it all will be written. A number of otherwise sane and competent scientists managed to swallow the bait hook line and sinker.

Scientists with conflicts of interest

Dear Jerry:

In your View dated 9/17/2013 you said:

"Since the academic budgets of a great number of people depend on the continued Global Warming Consensus, there is a conflict of emotions among the climate scientists."

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=15440 <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=15440>

Certainly their emotions must be conflicted as reality intrudes on their imaginings. I think we should also think about their conflicts of interest.

As Dr. Henry H. Bauer, an experienced and well-informed student of the history of science and the conduct of scientists, has written:

"The only way to avoid the consequences of conflict of interest is to avoid conflicts of interest altogether."

("Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth", McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012, Chapter 6.)

http://www.amazon.com/Dogmatism-Science-Medicine-Dominant-Monopolize/dp/0786463015/ <http://www.amazon.com/Dogmatism-Science-Medicine-Dominant-Monopolize/dp/0786463015/>

Scientists, science, and science-based institutions have changed greatly since you and I were in school half a century ago. Today science consists of networks of industries, universities, and governments, all with vested interests. Dr. Bauer’s well-documented review of these changes would be of great interest to your readers. Scientists themselves are often unaware of just how much thought and effort has gone into studying their activities.

In the past you posted some of my questions concerning the integrity of contemporary science. For instance, in Mail for August 31, 2012 I quoted Dr. John Patrick, founder of Augustine College as saying https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=9400#science

<https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=9400#science>

We have no idea now, do we, how much of the scientific literature is fabricated. And, of course, it’s very hard to imagine why it wouldn’t be fabricated. We’re merely reaping the rewards of what we have taught."

43:37 minutes into the talk at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYOTUEQinowAt <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYOTUEQinowAt>

Also, in your Mail for February 4, 2013, you posted my comment in which I cited the documentary evidence for 1) the nonexistence of the peer reviewers who supposedly maintain the integrity of the scientific literature and 2) the fact that the overwhelming majority of article retractions from scientific journals is due to fraud and misconduct.

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?m=20130204

<https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?m=20130204> Dr. Bauer’s book presents an extensive analysis of what has happened to science and why doubts about the integrity of science are fully justified. After reading his book I’ve concluded that things are far worse than I ever imagined.

Dr. Bauer concludes his book

"The inescapable fact is that something needs to be done so that scientific expertise can once more be relied upon to serve the public good as it did for many centuries." (penultimate paragraph on p. 263 of his book.)

Of course, it can be argued that science has always suffered from those scientists and institutions more interested in serving their personal political and social agendas than in searching for truth. The movie and book "Longitude" presents the case that the leaders of the Royal Society were perfectly willing to allow tens of thousands to die on the high seas rather than admit that an unschooled watchmaker had solved a problem whose solution had eluded for decades the most strenuous efforts of the most distinguished astronomers.

Best regards,

–Harry M.

Government funding will always have deep flaws. There needs to be a long discussion on the mechanisms for directing public money into meaningful research and into projects that accomplish something. Most does not. Look at California high speed rail and various mandated research such as the Stem Cell research funded by enormous bond issues. None of this has had much of a payoff.

The Manhattan Project had a goal.

And Dr. Huth sends more good news:

feynman lectures finally in web format

Jerry,

We’ve finally got accurate, formatted, device independent copies of the classic Feynman lectures on physics with exercises, errata, and notes. It’s a great resource.

http://www.feynmanlectures.info/