Back over on FB, I posted a note about how Co-2 has been greening the world - peer reviewed and all the rest, numbers, notes, etc., and my fb friend, Mr. G decided to make light of it all. I may have detected a touch of sarcasm in there too.
So I challenged him to cite the one fact of the many that he was hanging his belief upon. He had mentioned that he had all sorts of citations, I didn't think that the request would be much of a burden.
Well, it seems that Mr. G is too busy with paperwork, his businesses, etc. I would have thought that saving the world would have been more important, but it seems my priorities are not his.
I only wanted one cite...
But I'm glad he is happy and comfortable in his beliefs, I wish I had that kind of certainty in anything.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Sea Level Rise
My dear sister, see last post, is worried about sea level rise and a lot of it. She is worried about 200 feet.
The current value is 2 to 3 mm per year. Let's do the arithmetic...
An inch is about 25 mm, I'm going to do some rounding here, so we have an inch every 8 years. The a foot every 96 years (12 * 8!). So to get to 200 feet we are talking about 96 * 200 = 19000 years. So let's mobilize now, because if nothing changes we are talking about severe problems by the year 21015 or so.
Of course this assumes that the rate stays constant like it has for the last 8000 years.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
If you look at the chart above, you might notice that there have been times when it's been a lot lower.
Still afraid? Sure you can assume all the ice at the polls is going to melt. But I'd expect that water levels will be a lessor worry than other things.
The current value is 2 to 3 mm per year. Let's do the arithmetic...
An inch is about 25 mm, I'm going to do some rounding here, so we have an inch every 8 years. The a foot every 96 years (12 * 8!). So to get to 200 feet we are talking about 96 * 200 = 19000 years. So let's mobilize now, because if nothing changes we are talking about severe problems by the year 21015 or so.
Of course this assumes that the rate stays constant like it has for the last 8000 years.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
If you look at the chart above, you might notice that there have been times when it's been a lot lower.
Still afraid? Sure you can assume all the ice at the polls is going to melt. But I'd expect that water levels will be a lessor worry than other things.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Evidence?
My sister, a charming person, posted on FB that some projections state that sea levels will rise 200 feet. And that will displace a lot of folks. From that projection she wants the country to declare WWIII and get busy saving these folks - no matter what the cost.
From Mr. G, a friend also on FB, recited the mantra that the polar bears would die, the mosquitoes would give us all malaria, the sea levels were coming up and several other points that are usually brought up if you believe that the party line about catastrophic global warming and its after-effects.
But none of this is evidence that it will happen. It might be evidence of why these folks are scared.
It's easy to assume part 1, then of course we have parts 2, 3, 4, etc. It's a nice means to avoid discussion of the reality of part 1. I judged a science fair project, high schoolers, and one of the projects started out with, "Due to the danger of global warming..." It's great to be able to assume that at the get go. I asked the kid about that. I don't remember the answer, but since the "science is settled," I guess it wouldn't really matter.
If you can make your response more emotional, then it's a bigger barrier to discussion, "think of the dead children!" And "future generations." Where does this stuff come from? Is this a defense mechanism to avoid having to think about it?
Why do we all leap to assume part 1 is true? Bias confirmation? No means to critically think about anything? No ability with numbers, or probabilities or understanding of uncertainty?
Uncertainty is an interesting concept that doesn't show up too much in day to day decisions. I got involved in it at work. If I tell you you have 2 of something, but my uncertainty is 4, do you really have anything? When is this "2" not truly a 0? What is my limit of detection? What the hell is a type I or II error? And should I care?
When the ad says that 6 is greater than 1, should I throw a brick at the tv? They are discussing medicine that helps with cold symptoms and their product addresses 6 symptoms/allergy factors and not the one that others deal with. Let's assume this is true. They wouldn't lie to us, would they? But is it meaningful? Maybe. But there is evidence that it isn't. What's that? you ask. If the other factors were significant wouldn't we have other products that addressed them? I'm assuming that these factors are already known and the "science is settled."
Thus, if one thinks a bit about it, there is evidence that this product might be better than the others, but probably not by much. Do all colds or allergies attacks have all of these factors? I don't know, but it would be useful to know before we decide to buy this new stuff.
Also, presumably there are different chemicals in the new pills. Should we worry about cross reactions with other stuff? It opens up a bunch of questions, yet we are presented with "6 > 1" as the selling point.
I'm almost happier with "sea levels will rise" and "all the polar bears will die."
From Mr. G, a friend also on FB, recited the mantra that the polar bears would die, the mosquitoes would give us all malaria, the sea levels were coming up and several other points that are usually brought up if you believe that the party line about catastrophic global warming and its after-effects.
But none of this is evidence that it will happen. It might be evidence of why these folks are scared.
It's easy to assume part 1, then of course we have parts 2, 3, 4, etc. It's a nice means to avoid discussion of the reality of part 1. I judged a science fair project, high schoolers, and one of the projects started out with, "Due to the danger of global warming..." It's great to be able to assume that at the get go. I asked the kid about that. I don't remember the answer, but since the "science is settled," I guess it wouldn't really matter.
If you can make your response more emotional, then it's a bigger barrier to discussion, "think of the dead children!" And "future generations." Where does this stuff come from? Is this a defense mechanism to avoid having to think about it?
Why do we all leap to assume part 1 is true? Bias confirmation? No means to critically think about anything? No ability with numbers, or probabilities or understanding of uncertainty?
Uncertainty is an interesting concept that doesn't show up too much in day to day decisions. I got involved in it at work. If I tell you you have 2 of something, but my uncertainty is 4, do you really have anything? When is this "2" not truly a 0? What is my limit of detection? What the hell is a type I or II error? And should I care?
When the ad says that 6 is greater than 1, should I throw a brick at the tv? They are discussing medicine that helps with cold symptoms and their product addresses 6 symptoms/allergy factors and not the one that others deal with. Let's assume this is true. They wouldn't lie to us, would they? But is it meaningful? Maybe. But there is evidence that it isn't. What's that? you ask. If the other factors were significant wouldn't we have other products that addressed them? I'm assuming that these factors are already known and the "science is settled."
Thus, if one thinks a bit about it, there is evidence that this product might be better than the others, but probably not by much. Do all colds or allergies attacks have all of these factors? I don't know, but it would be useful to know before we decide to buy this new stuff.
Also, presumably there are different chemicals in the new pills. Should we worry about cross reactions with other stuff? It opens up a bunch of questions, yet we are presented with "6 > 1" as the selling point.
I'm almost happier with "sea levels will rise" and "all the polar bears will die."
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Hormesis
I work in a fringe of the nuclear field and the effects of radiation exposure come up as part of my business. Actually I'm involved in the measurement side of what someone might have ingested or inhaled. The health effects of that are someone else's area.
I found out about hormesis in re radiation exposure. I did a bit of digging and realized that most biological systems have a hormesis reaction.
Simply put, hormesis is an over-reaction to a supposed threat. It's why vacines work and why your arm might react a lot to a bug bite. The body is preparing for war and it doesn't know how much fighting it will do and the initial gear up for that war came be an overreaction.
There have been a couple of cases where the hormetic response to a radiation field has been demonstrated. There were a block of apartment buildings in Taiwan which were built with highly active rebar. The occupants were exposed for about 15 years (if memory serrves!) and when the smoke cleared the health of the occupants were better in re cancer rates than a comparison population.
The other example is an area in India where there is a very high background field. It's natural due to the type of rock the area sits upon. Again, the health of the folks is better than others.
Ok, finally to the point. Governments do this too. Hmm, perhaps we all do. Scary headline and we go nuts. The UK government wants to take kids away from parents if the kids might be too radicalized -- whatever that is.
Post 9/11, airport security would be another example.
Might be that like a biological reaction, people overreact as a survival tool.
Having stood in too many airport security lines, I wish we could also step back and think about what we did and maybe relax a bit.
Joke: what's the difference between a cow and 9/11? You can't milk a cow for 14 years.
There is a lot riding on the 9/11 reaction.
I found out about hormesis in re radiation exposure. I did a bit of digging and realized that most biological systems have a hormesis reaction.
Simply put, hormesis is an over-reaction to a supposed threat. It's why vacines work and why your arm might react a lot to a bug bite. The body is preparing for war and it doesn't know how much fighting it will do and the initial gear up for that war came be an overreaction.
There have been a couple of cases where the hormetic response to a radiation field has been demonstrated. There were a block of apartment buildings in Taiwan which were built with highly active rebar. The occupants were exposed for about 15 years (if memory serrves!) and when the smoke cleared the health of the occupants were better in re cancer rates than a comparison population.
The other example is an area in India where there is a very high background field. It's natural due to the type of rock the area sits upon. Again, the health of the folks is better than others.
Ok, finally to the point. Governments do this too. Hmm, perhaps we all do. Scary headline and we go nuts. The UK government wants to take kids away from parents if the kids might be too radicalized -- whatever that is.
Post 9/11, airport security would be another example.
Might be that like a biological reaction, people overreact as a survival tool.
Having stood in too many airport security lines, I wish we could also step back and think about what we did and maybe relax a bit.
Joke: what's the difference between a cow and 9/11? You can't milk a cow for 14 years.
There is a lot riding on the 9/11 reaction.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Some Day
The day a liberal looks at anything Paul Krugman says with any kind of a skeptical eye, I will roll over dead.
His last column was about the wonders of Denmark and their heavy tax, heavy support way of government.
It seems the Danes don't like to game the system and it seems to work for them.
I wonder if the current experiment in this kind of government will last another 20 years.
I'm pretty sure it would raise hell with US productivity.
His last column was about the wonders of Denmark and their heavy tax, heavy support way of government.
It seems the Danes don't like to game the system and it seems to work for them.
I wonder if the current experiment in this kind of government will last another 20 years.
I'm pretty sure it would raise hell with US productivity.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
A recent big surprise
Back to facebook once again.
The recent shooting in Oregon was in the news. I didn't say anything about it for a while, but then a cartoon resonated with me and I shared it.
A correspondent was unhappy and thought it was "highly offensive" and "we are talking about dead children."
I think he read the post incorrectly and his comments were not on point.
But the big surprise was that this guy works in a medium and has a job that deals with on air discussions of various things. I don't want to get to specific, as I said in the first post, I don't want to embarrass anyone.
"Highly offensive" and "dead children" are emotional blasts designed to limit debate. If you think about it, a lot of public policy might eventually lead to dead children - car safety, bike helmets, climate stuff, big gulp drinks, etc. Thus by extension none of that policy can be discussed or debated or there might be more than one legitimate way to look at it?
Coming from a guy in the business seemed surprising. I'd assume that he would recognize the remark for what it would do. Was it deliberate? I don't think so. I think he, like a lot of us, reacted emotionally and that was that.
The recent shooting in Oregon was in the news. I didn't say anything about it for a while, but then a cartoon resonated with me and I shared it.
A correspondent was unhappy and thought it was "highly offensive" and "we are talking about dead children."
I think he read the post incorrectly and his comments were not on point.
But the big surprise was that this guy works in a medium and has a job that deals with on air discussions of various things. I don't want to get to specific, as I said in the first post, I don't want to embarrass anyone.
"Highly offensive" and "dead children" are emotional blasts designed to limit debate. If you think about it, a lot of public policy might eventually lead to dead children - car safety, bike helmets, climate stuff, big gulp drinks, etc. Thus by extension none of that policy can be discussed or debated or there might be more than one legitimate way to look at it?
Coming from a guy in the business seemed surprising. I'd assume that he would recognize the remark for what it would do. Was it deliberate? I don't think so. I think he, like a lot of us, reacted emotionally and that was that.
Political Columnist
He is new to me and quite funny - my opinion of course:
http://www.nationalreview.com/author/jonah-goldberg
http://www.nationalreview.com/author/jonah-goldberg
Freedom of Speech
There is a petition out there (I'm guessing, a person on FB posted it, I'm going to assume it's true) that seeks to keep Donald Trump off of the Saturday Night Live TV show.
I responded with the thought that the petition was attempting to stop the speech of folks that the poster didn't agree with.
She came back with a reply that said that her opinion was still valid.
Now, this is the typical kind of thing I find myself involved with. She and I are talking about different things. I'm talking free speech and she (I think, it wasn't really clear to me) was talking about the fact that Trump was unfit for office.
It was not an aborted discussion of whether DT is a fit president, but, to me, the habit of some folks who want to stifle speech they don't like.
The bigger issue to me is why I saw this petition so differently from my friend. Is my logic that bad?
Here is a bit from the petition's page:
"Mass deportation is not funny! By allowing Donald Trump to host Saturday Night Live, NBC is excusing and even validating Trump's hateful comments about immigrants and Latinos. Tell NBC to dump Donald Trump as host of Saturday Night Live!"
Will/would the Donald be a funny guy on SNL? Would his presence be validating of hateful speech? I'd guess NBC is much more interested in rating than anything else.
Some words my father told me a long time ago: "If someone is wrong about something, the best way to make that clear is to let him speak and let them speak often and to the largest audience possible. Soon everyone will find them misguided and they will either vanish or change their ways."
But the worst thing you can do it try to shut them up.
The other reason to shut someone up is that you feel their ideas are dangerous.
I responded with the thought that the petition was attempting to stop the speech of folks that the poster didn't agree with.
She came back with a reply that said that her opinion was still valid.
Now, this is the typical kind of thing I find myself involved with. She and I are talking about different things. I'm talking free speech and she (I think, it wasn't really clear to me) was talking about the fact that Trump was unfit for office.
It was not an aborted discussion of whether DT is a fit president, but, to me, the habit of some folks who want to stifle speech they don't like.
The bigger issue to me is why I saw this petition so differently from my friend. Is my logic that bad?
Here is a bit from the petition's page:
"Mass deportation is not funny! By allowing Donald Trump to host Saturday Night Live, NBC is excusing and even validating Trump's hateful comments about immigrants and Latinos. Tell NBC to dump Donald Trump as host of Saturday Night Live!"
Will/would the Donald be a funny guy on SNL? Would his presence be validating of hateful speech? I'd guess NBC is much more interested in rating than anything else.
Some words my father told me a long time ago: "If someone is wrong about something, the best way to make that clear is to let him speak and let them speak often and to the largest audience possible. Soon everyone will find them misguided and they will either vanish or change their ways."
But the worst thing you can do it try to shut them up.
The other reason to shut someone up is that you feel their ideas are dangerous.
Thoughts on this thing and why I'm going to try to do it...
Hi,
I've rattled and bumped folks at facebook that I rather wouldn't have ruffled. But it seems hard for me to back away from stuff. Well, it is usually stuff I find a bit silly and then why I feel compelled to try to shed light on their stuff and end up doing the ruffling.
So I wanted to explain a bit of why I feel some stuff is silly and why it bothered me. I grant right up front that I am a sensitive soul and probably shouldn't have gotten riled in the first place, but it's who I am.
I'm guessing that a lot of what I put down here will disturb more than electrons and probably rile the folks that I originally riled a bit more. As I mentioned, I don't really want to do that.
I really want a discussion about the events and thoughts of the day. That doesn't seem to happen much on fb. Might be whom I have a friends. Mostly they seem be liberals, which is not on my side of the bell curve these days.
I used to be liberal and over the years that's changed a lot. I was and am happy to be optimistic and generous, but a small understanding of economics and people, leads me to think that's not a logical attitude.
Will I get the discussion of things and ideas that I seek here? I'll remain optimistic! We shall see.
I'm going to post and type a bit and I welcome comments. I'm going to try and not embarrass anyone, but folks might correctly see themselves in what is written. I'll apologize in advance for any future distress - again, I'm not looking to strew unhappiness, but conversation.
Rich
I've rattled and bumped folks at facebook that I rather wouldn't have ruffled. But it seems hard for me to back away from stuff. Well, it is usually stuff I find a bit silly and then why I feel compelled to try to shed light on their stuff and end up doing the ruffling.
So I wanted to explain a bit of why I feel some stuff is silly and why it bothered me. I grant right up front that I am a sensitive soul and probably shouldn't have gotten riled in the first place, but it's who I am.
I'm guessing that a lot of what I put down here will disturb more than electrons and probably rile the folks that I originally riled a bit more. As I mentioned, I don't really want to do that.
I really want a discussion about the events and thoughts of the day. That doesn't seem to happen much on fb. Might be whom I have a friends. Mostly they seem be liberals, which is not on my side of the bell curve these days.
I used to be liberal and over the years that's changed a lot. I was and am happy to be optimistic and generous, but a small understanding of economics and people, leads me to think that's not a logical attitude.
Will I get the discussion of things and ideas that I seek here? I'll remain optimistic! We shall see.
I'm going to post and type a bit and I welcome comments. I'm going to try and not embarrass anyone, but folks might correctly see themselves in what is written. I'll apologize in advance for any future distress - again, I'm not looking to strew unhappiness, but conversation.
Rich
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