From the Pen of T. A. Speaker

Good Money after Bad.

2011-01-09T20:39:00.016-05:00

Funding requested by seven federal agencies funding for climate research in FY 2011. From "How can climate scientists spend so much money?"

From Climate Quotes, we learn that federal funding for climate change research / indoctrination is slated to rise to $2.6 billion in FY 2011 — so states the American Association for the Advancement of Science in AAAS Report XXXV, Research and Development FY 2011, Chapter 15.

"Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which coordinates and integrates research over 13 executive branch departments and agencies, would increase 21 percent to $2.6 billion."

AAAS is an advocacy organization that “fulfills its mission to ‘advance science and serve society’ through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; … ." Its goals include the following:

Strengthening support for the science and technology enterprise;

Providing a voice for science on societal issues;

Promoting the responsible use of science in public policy;

Strengthening and diversifying the science and technology workforce.

None of these has anything to do with science per se, but instead relate to advocacy, social engineering and the acquisition of funding.

Indeed, the Association’s flagship publication, the journal Science, has been in the forefront of promoting global warming hysteria and denigrating climate change "skeptics" and "deniers."

Climate Quotes wonders,

"When 2011 is over will we look back at the published research and be satisfied with how our billions have been spent?"

To this one might add that the costs are not just dollars wasted on dubious research, but the economic distortion that will result (has resulted) from promoting the AGW / Green agenda. Indeed, if this year's winter is a harbinger of things to come, the suffering that results will be in direct proportion to the extent to which such policies are implemented.

For review of how the focus of American science shifted from inquiry to aggrandizement and self-promotion, see Lindzen, "Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?

For this site's view on how federal funding and pervasive political correctness corrupt science, go here.

Trader Rog.

2010-12-12T19:10:00.012-05:00

St. Gaudens double eagle ($20) first minted in 1907.

Gold and silver enthusiasts may be familiar with Roger Wiegand whose columns appear every few months at Kitco.com. Kitco publishes a variety of perspectives on the precious metals market — they also sell the stuff — ranging from bullish (gold though the roof) to bearish (it's got to come down). Wiegand falls into the former camp, in which regard, readers may find it interesting to compare his apocalyptic prognostications with the more measured predictions of Jon Nadler, Kitco's Senior Analyst. In brief, Wiegand preaches economic and political instability (you ain't seen nothing yet); Nadler, the fundamentals (diminishing Indian demand for gold jewelry, etc.), which he believes cannot in the long (medium? short?) term support current prices. Both gentlemen are far more knowledgeable about precious metals than your humble correspondent who can only observe that for the past couple of years, Wiegand has been more often right than wrong; Nadler, more often wrong than right. Eventually, of course, what goes up will come down. The questions are when and from what level. For gold, the answers range from "we've already seen the top," to "a lot higher."

Bearing in mind the uncertainties, we turn to "Trader Rog's" latest column, "Phase Two Of Greater Depression II Begins Now." Here are some tidbits (emphasis per the original).

"If you thought Lehman was fun get ready to see new price controls and acceleration of existing capital controls, with inflation that will knock your socks off. We have at least two to five more years of crash and burn in the financial markets before a new base is found.

Many of the very large global banks will be nationalized and some will fold into insolvency or merger. Roughly 90% of the derivatives and real estate toxic paper trash remains hidden on banker balance sheets. Not only was the problem never fixed, they’ve been piling on more bad loans-paper at a furious pace.

Corporate insiders, CEO’S, presidents, and other officers have been selling gobs of stock at a rate we last heard of as 1600 to 1. That’s 1600 shares sold for each one purchased. Mr. Ballmer, chief honcho at Microsoft is dumping well over $1 billion as we speak…that is only one example.
The next big government taking will be to steal the pension pools of national and international corporations. This is the last remaining honeypot for government theft and has already been practiced in South America.

Individuals holding pensions and government paper will wake-up one morning to find its all been seized and piled into 30-year USA bonds, which are sinking like the Titanic. There will be no buyers and no exits for those assets. The owners could get totally wiped out."

For retirees and those nearing retirement, the last is perhaps the most appalling. And it's been bruited about for some time. Something to think about as the year winds down.

Doing the Math.

2010-09-28T09:55:00.022-04:00

Ruth McClung is running for Congress in Arizona's 7^th congressional district against ORP lapdog, Raul Grijalva. You can learn more about Ruth here. Please support her if you can.

More often than not, TEA party candidates committed to rolling back the disastrous policies of Obama-Reid-Pelosi (ORP) are characterized as moonbat whack jobs devoid of education and intelligence. Ruth McClung, candidate for the House inArizona CD7, is anything but. With a degree in physics and work experience at an engineering firm, McClung brings to the table credentials that are both uncommon and difficult to disparage. Her background sets her apart from members of both the political and chattering classes, most of of whom wouldn't know the divergence of a vector field if it hit them in the face.

First Things First.

McClung's positions are solidly conservative: anti-big giovernment; pro-free enterprise; pro-liberty; pro-national security; pro-"border sanity"; pro-school vouchers; pro-life and pro-family. With regard to health care, she favors health insurance tax deductions for individuals, health savings account tax incentives, out-of-state insurance purchases and tort reform.

Her opponent, Raul Grijalva, is an ORP lapdog who attracted national attention by calling for a boycott of Arizona businesses in response to HB1070. Putting him out to pasture is a worthy objective.

CD7 is 45% Democratic. But, with a significant number of independents in the district, internal polling — both Democrat and Republican — suggests that the race is winnable — go here (starts at 3:00 minutes). Supporting McClung is a chance to make a difference.

Exception to the Rule. Generally speaking, credentialed intellectuals sort into two categories: the hopelessly naive, and the promoters of self-serving agendas. But to every generalization there are exceptions. Ruth is one of these. She complements professional training with good sense and a love of country. If elected, she will bring to Washington, an understanding of issues such as cap and trade that is sorely lacking. Ask supporters (Democrat and Republican) of carbon abatement about the physics of climate change and you'll get talking points, gibberish or both. Ask Ruth, and you'll get an explanation.

Doing the Math. For the obvious reasons, it's important that at least some of people voting on issues related to science know what they're talking about; that they understand what's known, and more important, what's not. That means being able to read the scientific literature for yourself, as opposed to relying on advisors to do it for you. McClung's training in math and physics will allow her to do that. What she doesn't already know, she can learn.

Contribute to Ruth's campaign if you can, and spread the word.

And She Doesn't Even Believe in Evolution!

2010-09-25T22:05:00.015-04:00

While internet contributions role in, cycical secularists paint Christine O'Donnell as a whack job.

Bill Maher has been going after Christine O'Donnell, most recently replaying a dozen year-old clip in which she characterized evolution as a "myth." Maher's object is to paint O'Donnell as a wack job. Like many liberals, he views evolution as a litmus test. According to this, expressed doubts as to its explanatory power are proof positive of the doubter's having been endowed, as Shakespeare so deliciously put it, with "a paucity of headpiece."

The paucity, of course, is Maher's, his dearth, being one of probity, not of intelligence. Like über-evolutionists Dennett and Dawkins, Maher is driven by a hatred for religion. And O'Donnell is a believer. Hate the belief; hate the believer. It's all very simple. And intellectually dishonest.

Facts. The author of The Origin was fond of pointing to his "facts," observations that "the view given by me … connects … by an intelligible thread of reasoning" [Darwin, 1863]. Here follow four facts of my own:

There are two theories of evolution, the pattern, what Darwin called "descent with modification," and the mechanism, often reduced to "variation plus selection," by which change transpires.

Since Darwin's day, evidence for common descent has accumulated steadily. It is in the hard parts and the soft, the physiology and the biochemistry, most fundamentally, in the genes. To deny the derivation of amphibians from lobe fin fish, of stem reptiles from labyrinthodont amphibians, of mammals from cynodonts, of humans from non-human primates, etc., is a prescription for looking foolish. The pattern is clear. Either new species have descended from old, or they have "come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species" [Wallace, 1855].

With regard to evolutionary mechanisms, the situation is different. Over the years, there has been a succession of ideas, and these ideas continue to change. The now not so Modern Synthesis, which is still taught in freshman biology classes, identified small variations as the "stuff" of evolution. But as more is learned about gene regulation and development [Carroll, 2005], this view increasingly is seen as incomplete. Even the "Lamarckian heresy," the inheritance of acquired characters, may be headed for a comeback, though this remains a minority opinion.

Importantly, no one has been able to "predict," retrospectively, of course, the broad outlines of life's history on this planet. Variation plus selection does not predict the pre-eminance of microbes during the first four billion years of earth’s history, i.e., as opposed to the first three, two or one billion. It does not predict the skeletization, if not the origin, of the major taxonomic groups some half a billion years ago. Nor does it necessitate the dominance of early Paleozoic seas by invertebrates, nor the subsequent and essentially simultaneous colonization of the land by insects and the limbed descendants of rhipidistian lungfish. It cannot tell us that dinosaurs and mammals would come into being at about the same time, and, regarding the latter’s 100 million year eclipse by the former, it says nothing. It is unable to tell us what would have transpired had the Chicxulub asteroid missed. And, of course, it cannot predict the emergence of man, much less the fact that humans would one day compose symphonies and argue as to whether or not God really does play dice with the universe.

Referring to Lamarck's changing views on transmutation, Steve Gould [1999] obsrved that
"Nature, to cite a modern cliche, always bats last. She will not succumb to the simplicities of our hopes or mental foibles, but she remains eminently comprehensible. Evolution follows the syncopated drumbeats of complex and contingent histories, shaped by the vagaries and uniquenesses of time, place, and environment. Simple laws with predictable outcomes cannot fully describe the pageant and pathways of life. A linear march of progress must raft as a model for evolution, but a luxuriantly branching tree does capture the basic geometry of history.”
Implicit in Gould's analysis is the presumption that, contingency notwithstanding, the history of life is explicable in purely materialist terms. But that is an article of faith, no less than the belief thatCreation requires a Creator. For those so inclined, there remains plenty of room for divine "tweaking."

Queerer Than One Can Suppose. J. B. S. Haldane, himself an atheist, observed that

"my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

Of course, what is "queer" depends on time and place. To the 18^th century naturalists who studied Nature in order to better understand Nature's God, the idea that new species are a consequence of secondary laws was unacceptable; likewise, the prospect that Nature's Supreme Author plays a direct role in the unfolding of events, to contemporary materialists. But who can say which belief will be deemed commonsensical a hundred years down the road?

Wiseguys like Maher have every right to go after O'Donnell for her political positions. When they trash her faith, they reveal themselves for what they are: politically correct bigots.

References.

Carroll, S. B. 2005. Endless Forms Most Beautiful. The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom. W. W. Norton. NY.

Darwin, C. 1863. The doctrine of heterogeny and modification of species. Athenaeum. No. 1852, (25 April): 554-55.

Gould, S. J. 1999. Branching Through a Wormhole. Lamarck’s ladder collapses. Natural History. 108: (March): 24-27, 76-81.

Wallace, A. R. 1855. On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species. Ann. Mag. Natural History. 16: 184-196.

A Stitch in Time.

2010-09-15T00:30:00.014-04:00

Time Magazine's gift to the Jewish people for the year 5771.

If you have access to a Hebrew calendar, you will discover that the world was created on the 25^th day of Elul. At sundown the fourth day following, on the eve of Tishrei 1, begins the festival of Rosh Hashanah, commonly known as "Jewish New Year." Unlike the civil New Year, Rosh Hashanah is a religious holiday. It celebrates the Creation. Children are taught that Rosh Hashanah is the "Birthday of the World."

Coming a week before the "Day of Atonement," Rosh Hashanah is a time for reflection and repentance. It is also a time for celebration. Traditionally, Jews wish each other a "sweet and happy year." But it has not always been thus. In 1943, the Gestapo began rounding up of Danish Jews the night of Tishrei 1, the date having been chosen because it was assumed that they would be in their homes celebrating.¹

This year's New Year gift to the Jewish people is an article, "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace," that appeared in Time Magazine on Tishrei 3 (September 11). The author's premise is that Israelis are too secure, too busy making money to bother about peace with their Palestinian neighbors, a latter day twist on the traditional "evil Jewish bankers" canard — go here for discussion.

Neither Karl Vick, the article's author, nor the editors of Time, who approved it, are Nazis, of course. They just wish that Israel would be more accommodating, neglecting for the sake of convenience the fact that continuing accommodation is an almost certain recipe for disaster. More precisely, the folks for whom Vick et al. carry water desire "peace" in the sense that the word applies to the cessation of violence that follows destruction of a hated foe. Hamas, the "more moderate" Palestinian Authority and the Arab world generally long for the destruction of the Jewish state and the expulsion, if not the outright slaughter, of its citizens. Should these dreams be realized, the folks at Time will have been as culpable as any Danish collaborator who provided names and addresses to the Germans in 5704.

No man, of course, is an island, and no magazine is published in a vacuum. The editorial proclivities of Time reflect the Left's view of Israel as a colonial state oppressing indigenous people. This view can be disputed, convincingly I believe, but that is not the subject of today's post. Rather, I wish to consider why a majority of American Jews continue to support those who would recreate the world as it was before 1948.

One answer is that American Jews are too comfortable, too secure to care about co-religionists half a world away; a second, that leftist secularism has replaced religion as their "moral" (I use the word advisedly) compass. Finally, there is habit, reinforced by an all too human reluctance to disavow past belief.

With regard to Jewish comfort and security, the increasingly out in the open alliance between Leftists and Islamists will prove salubrious. For the past decade, this association has been most in evident on college campuses. More recently, it has spilled into the public square as indoctrinated graduates made their way into politics and the media. That the President himself is one of these will further accelerate the process.

Regarding ascendant secularism within the Jewish community (I except the Orthodox), hard times tend to encourage traditional ways of thinking about man and his place in the universe. And it is hard times that have been amassed, bit by self-indulgent bit, these many years.

As to habit, generational turnover, if nothing else, will provide the remedy.

So there is no question that American Jews will get it eventually — "it" being the fact that the secular Left is their foe, and the Christian Right, their natural ally. "Eventually," however, can be a long time. And time is just as much an enemy of the Jewish people as any Jihadist intent on slitting an infidel's throat. "Tempora mutantur et mutamur" — "times change and we change." Indeed. But sooner is better than later. Best to stop, look and listen. Best to resolve this year, before the Book of Life is sealed, that conventional ways of thinking can be self-destructive.

Footnote.

1. The round-up was largely unsuccessful. Tipped off several days in advance, the Danish resistance and Jewish community leaders arranged for the escape and eventual transport to Sweden of nearly all of Denmark's 8000 Jews. A charming account, albeit with some not so subtle proselytizing, from the perspective of two Danish teenagers can be had in Robert Elmer's A Way Through the Sea.

Dogs Drool.

2010-09-06T17:08:00.026-04:00

"I love dogs. Really. Got one myself. See. Right here. Good doggy! And he don't drool. Just like a cat — nice 'n clean. Yup. Give me a dog any day. Just don't call me one. OK?"

Millions of Americans believe President Obama's a closet Muslim — which opinion raises two questions: Is he? and So what if he is? Regarding the first, here's a straw in the wind.

Speaking in Milwaukee this morning, the President went off teleprompter — never a swift move for the intellectually challenged — and unburdened himself:

"Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time and they're not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. That's not in my prepared remarks, but it's true." [Emphasis added]

Hmm. There's been no dearth of insults directed the President's way, true. But I rather doubt that "dog" is one of them. And even if it were, it would pale in comparison with some of the others. So what's with the dog business?

I sought out Muriel, the "bodacious lady shrink" who spurned my friend Phil's advances way back when (see here), for advice. "What the President's saying," she explained, "is that he's been the object of unspeakable invective, poor dear! To prove it, he hauls out an extreme example."

"But calling someone a dog is hardly an insult extraordinaire, unless, of course, you're a cat."

"Or a Muslim!" My attempt at humor had fallen flat. "Muslims don't like dogs," she continued. "They think they're unclean, especially their saliva. Having them in the house is like displaying animate pictures — keeps the angels away."

Ah the perils of ad libbing when you've got so much to hide.

"You think Obama unintentionally dropped another hint, you know, like his 'Muslim faith,' as to his true proclivities? Is that why Bo flies solus?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Hard to say. But, like I said, Muslims don't like dogs. Mohammad was a cat man."

And, indeed, they don't. Consider, for example, the counsel offered by Mufti Ebrahim Desai to a young Muslim concerned that her mother might purchase a dog:

"You can share this answer with your mother, since it is she who has to make the decision. You must be very polite in talking to her about this issue and let your love and concern persuade her to the right action. If she still insists you may have to live with it. In that case make sure you understand the issue of purity and take necessary precautions." [Emphasis added]

The "issue of purity" refers to the matter of saliva.

"The saliva of a dog is Najis (impure). If it touches the clothes or body, that portion also becomes impure and must be washed."

Also go here.

Never Gonna Stand For This.

2010-09-05T03:06:00.267-04:00

"Never Gonna Stand For This." Fine. But just what is it we ain't gonna stand for? The Feds running amuck? Intolerable governmental intrusion into everyday life? Corruption? Recently, William Curtis offered an alternative answer.

President Obama's critics divide into two broad categories: those who imagine his intentions for the republic to be benign and those who do not. The former marvel at his ineptitude; the latter decry his radical agenda, his Marxist proclivities, his all too obvious desire to punish these United States for historical sins committed principally against people of color. To the latter view, William Curtis, a retired real estate developer writing at IBD Editorials, offers a novel twist. I say "novel," but truth be told, one imagines that others have had similar thoughts as the specifics of hope and change have become manifest.

Curtis suggests

"that Obama's goal as president is to further what some have stated to be one of the goals of the Muslim world: 'to destroy America from the inside without firing a shot.'

"Why would he want to do that? Perhaps because he really sees himself down the road as becoming the leader of an America that twice a day kneels down facing Mecca — perhaps even the leader of a Muslim-dominated world!"

To support this conjecture, Curtis enumerates familiar facts consistent with Obama as restorer of the Caliphate. Among them:

His Muslim upbringing.

His association with Trinity Church and the Reverend Wright.

His various foreign and domestic policy initiatives.

His comments on the proposed "Victory Mosque."

To these, one might add Obama's disdain for a large segment of the population he governs, which segment, it just so happens, clings "bitterly" to a religion with which Islam has been at war for 1300 years. One might also note that whereas past American presidents have made nice to Islamic nations for the sake of oil, Obama's commitment to reducing America's carbon footprint suggests genuine affection.

None of this is confirmatory, of course. But for those willing to look, a pattern is emerging. And that pattern is deeply disturbing.

To summarize: Curtis expands the list of possible "truths" about this President:

Social democrat in the European mold.

Marxist radical, "a peoples' republic sort of guy," who views Islamists as natural, albeit temporary, allies.

Would-be leader of a restored caliphate who views the social justice crowd as useful idiots to be dealt with in due course.

Of these, the first has become increasingly implausible. Both the people with whom Obama surrounds himself and the methods he employs to advance his agenda suggest a commitment to democracy that will endure only as long it serves his purpose. That leaves Marxist radical and aspiring Caliph, neither of which is particularly attractive. Time, of course, will tell, even as it settled discussions on 7 December, 1941, as to the nature of Imperial Japan's true intentions. Meanwhile, look for extraordinary actions by this president and his lame duck Congressional minions should November bring the widely predicted Democrat debacle.

And enjoy the video linked to above.

Refusing to Name the Enemy.

2010-08-14T10:49:00.004-04:00

Steven Simpson has a powerful article over at American Thinker regarding our leaders' continuing refusal to identify the Mohammedan religion as prime motivator of what we euphemistically call "terrorism." Even more interesting than the article itself are some of the comments, several of which I reproduce here:

"As long as we are going to speak straight, why not refer to the challenge as that of "Islam". It is understood that not every Muslim is a suicide bomber, and that any generality can be attacked as being imperfect. Yet nobody denies that the Crusades were carried on by Christians. Here we do not address what the true interpretation of a doctrine is, but how it has operated. ... Today Islam is at war with all civilization, and aims at establishing Dar al Islam (the world of Islam) over Dar al Harb (the non-Islamic world). It makes no more sense to deny the terminology of Islam, jihad, or sharia, than it did to deny the terminology of communism, fascism, Russians, or Germans. Nor is it sensible to place Islam in the same category as Judaism or Christianity, but as their antithesis." — Allen777.

"Here in England I remember our big terrorist attack-7/7- on London's buses and underground trains.Victims were still being pulled out of the wreckage, when the chief of police and the Prime Minister appeared, seeming most concerned that, above all, we should not link these events with any particular religious group-certainly not Islam, f or as we know, it is a peace-loving religion ... However at the same time ... ''moderate'' Muslims warned us that if we in the West carried on with our foreign policies then we would suffer more and more outrages!" — Mike Harris.

"Islam is on the move again after a long quiescence and they have the numbers and, much more importantly, the will to remake the world. The liberal/progressive/socialist left in North America and Europe no longer has the will to defend Western civilization, having been for so long ambivalent about its value. While those on the left desperately seek to find some accommodating middle ground, no such common ground exists where the two such diametrically opposing civilizations could easily blend together. They are mutually exclusive and over time only one will prevail. One side realizes this, and the other side, our side, does not and has its proverbial head in the sand. ... . It certainly does not help to have a president who, if not a practicing Muslim, is certainly an active sympathizer and by extension basically anti-western." — Redhawk.

"As Andrew McCarthy and others have reported, there seems to be no doctrinal line of separation between "radical" and "moderate" branches of Islam. The Koran calls all the faithful to spread the rule of Islam throughout the world. The people we think of as "moderate" are merely among that branch of humanity as a whole that prefers not to murder. But there appears to be no ideological distinction from radicals, nor have we seen any willingness among the moderates to "police" their religion. Indeed, what doctrinal basis would govern such self-regulation? There appears to be none." — Rightman.

"Even the term "radical Islam", which is not PC, is too soft a term. Islam is the enemy, because wherever it goes, the radicals are there because the proportion of muslims who are radical is too high. It's a highly bigoted, intolerant, controlling, manipulative, and conformist religion, far more so than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or Buddhism. It recognizes no difference between religion, government, politics, military, and society." — AvgDude.

"The war on terrorism should have been an Air Force mission over Mecca September 12, 2001." — Standing Wolf.

Some, as the expression goes, "get it" — The question is whether enough of us will get it individually ere we all get it collectively. Tick, tick, tick.

Divining the Climate: Update.

2010-07-02T16:43:00.003-04:00

In our previous post, it was noted that seven of the fourteen "experts" surveyed by Zickfeld et al. are slatted to participate in AR5 in every case save one as Coordinating Lead or Lead Authors.

Now the Sydney Morning herald reports that the IPCC

will 'almost inevitably' make an increase in its predictions of sea-level rises due to global warming in its next landmark report in 2014."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

The 'Imp,' Rick Barber and the Two Hundred Buses.

2010-07-02T01:39:00.048-04:00

The 'Imp,' Phil's 1951 Imperial — presently in hock.

From time to time, this site posts (heavily edited) correspondence from your humble servant's old college buddy, Phil (here). Phil's a character, whose missives contain roughly equal amounts of wisdom and profanity — hence, the need for editing. A native Tennessean, he resides in southern Arizona where he rails against universities (in his senior year, Phil was expelled for mooning the Chaplain's wife), therapists (Phil was shot down by "a bodacious lady shrink" after "the incident"), global warming ("it's all UHI"), and so on.

Over the year's, Phil's been given to abrupt "career changes" — most recently from promoting "of course, it's legal" investment schemes to working as a "consultant" for an incumbent senator who should know better, but apparently doesn't. Is that Solon ever screwed!

Recently, Phil and I spoke on the telephone. "Had to hock the car," he informed me, referring to his beloved, 1951 Imperial ['built like a tank'] that guzzles 2-3 gallons per mile in traffic, but 'makes up for it on the road.' "Should be able to buy it back next month. The fillies love it, you know." [Hope so. Phil and that monster go way back. Totaled a VW bug once, back in the days when they sold for $1599. Came through without a scratch. A self-proclaimed protectionist, Phil was pleased — 'Sorta like an import tariff.'] "Besides," he continued, "I figured it was time to see the rest of the country." [Is Phil avoiding local law enforcement? Did one of those investment schemes turn out to have been not quite legal after all?]

A week or so later, a letter showed up. I reproduce it below — edits (for the sake of decorum), clarifications, my reactions, etc., in square brackets.

"Hey, T. A. --

"Whoa! Excess! [Phil's favorite way of evincing enthusiasm.]

"How's that blog of yours? Any hits yet? Not many, I bet. [Sigh!] Told you before, the name's all wrong. Sounds like you're pushing woofers 'n tweeters. [Double sigh!] Told you so. You need pictures — [deleted] N [deleted]. Give the guys something to look at -- maybe that Russian spy dame. You know, the redhead. They still won't read the crap you write, but at least you'll get some hits! Or she will -- Get it? Ha! Ha! [Triple sigh!]

"[Deleted] still thinks I'm working for him. Whoa! In six weeks, he'll be cooked like a trout on a grill. Or flappin['] like a fryin['] flounder! Won't have a nickel to his name. [I believe that. Associates of Phil inevitably wind up poorer for the experience.]

"You see the election in Alabama? Guy named Barber -- class act. Gave him 100 bucks. Didn't ask for more. Whoa! Just said thanks. Great psi-op! Actually thought of sending him more. Excess! [Phil giving money? This is amazing.]

"Got [deleted]. Wants us to get out of the [deleted] UN. Birchers right all along. We thought [']em crazier than a [deleted]. Remember? [Deleted]s want to take over the world.

"Wants to get rid of the IRS! Whoa! My kind of guy [Phil's had a thing about taxes for years, which is odd, because he rarely pays any.]

"You know, they're heapin a whole lot of [deleted] on the Gov here. Bodacious lady! And Zero wants to make 'em all citizens -- so they can vote for him. [Deleted]!

"Do the math. School bus holds 60 - say 50. Round trip to Mexico from Nogales / Douglas takes maybe an hour. Run it 10 hours [a day]. That's 500 illegals. Take a hundred buses -- get 'em from that fraud, Nagin. That's 5000. Three million in the state. Six hundred days to send 'em back. Two hundred buses, less than a year! And once you start, half leave on their own. Whoa! Problem solved! Cheaper than the [deleted] fence -- they'll never build it anyway. [Is Phil on to something?]

"Gotta run. Absentee ballots. Maybe Breitbart will pay for the story. [Someone always pays when Phil's involved.] Buy back the Imp.

"Say Hello to the Missis. Fine lady. [Agreed] Can't see what she sees in you. [Sigh!]

"Phil"

Good old Phil. As always, he's more right — in a "Phillish" sort of way — than wrong. Barber is a class act, and with the courage of his convictions. As to the school bus scheme, it's hard to imagine the Mexican government's going along. But getting serious would surely result in considerable self-deportation. Maybe we should try it — if not as Phil suggests, at least by putting some large, prominent employers in jail.

Divining the Climate.

2010-06-29T18:11:00.053-04:00

Figure 1. Dr. Kirsten Zickfeld, lead author of "Divinations."

PNAS is at it again. Fresh from its publication of a truly despicable article on the credentials of consensus climatologists vis-à-vis those of their skeptical colleagues, the official organ of The National Academy of Sciences is now offering up Expert judgments about transient climate response to alternative future trajectories of radiative forcing (June 28, 2010. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0908906107) — a production to which we will here refer as "Divinations" — short for "Divining the Climate: A Survey of Oracular Opinion."

The lead author, Kirsten Zickfeld (Figure 1), works for Environment Canada. Don't be fooled by the blond hair and the baby blues. Zickfeld's got smarts. Among other things, she studies mathematical models of "thermohaline circulation" (THC), which is the scientific name (because both temperature and salinity are involved) for currents such as the Gulf Stream that deliver tropical warmth to higher latitudes — see , for example, the The Two Mile Time Machine by Richard Alley for an accessible introduction and here for an update.

Cursory review of Zickfeld's publications yields the following conclusions:

She's a serious scientist with considerable expertise in computers and modeling.

In contrast to "all-but-the-kitchen-sink" simulations, Zickfeld's models are phenomenological — she calls them "reduced form models." They consist of a relatively small number (< 10), of differential equations, something this site views as a plus.

Zickfeld's views her models as subroutines that can be plugged into larger schemes , so-called "integrated assessment models" (IAMs), that estimate the combined consequences of climatological processes and social policies .

She's a true believer. Early on in her doctoral dissertation, we read the following:
"Consequences of this [increased] rate of warming [since 1860], which is unprecedented at the human time-scale, are being observed in natural systems worldwide: glaciers shrink, sea-ice extent and thickness decrease, plants flower and birds breed earlier, and a number of plant and animal species extend their ranges northwards or upwards (for a review cf. Walther et al. 2003). ... [A]s long as anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are not effectively reduced, climate will continue to change. The most recent IPCC report projects a global mean temperature increase by 1.4–5.8 ±C relative to 1990 at the end of this century (Houghton et al. 2001). ... . [T]hese changes will mainly be felt through local modifications in other climate variables including precipitation, soil moisture, storminess and annual or diurnal temperature ranges. Extreme occurrences in most of these variables, i.e., droughts, floods and storms are likely to increase in magnitude and frequency in a warmer world (Houghton et al. 2001)." [References in the original]

That was in 2003. Since then, Zickfeld has continued to beat the drum. Interestingly, but not surprising given her research interests, her truth criterion is the output of more complicated simulations — general circulation models (GCMs) and the like. To this end, she parameterizes her models (adjusts the constants) to maximize concordance with the more detailed schemes. There is nothing wrong with this, of course. But it is important to note that what she is doing in no way makes independent contact with the real world.

Divinations. As summarized by The Independent,

"The 14 scientists, all experts in ... climate research, were asked about the probability of a tipping point [irreversible change] being reached some time before 2200 if global warming continued on the course of the worst-case scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Nine ... said that the chances of a tipping point ... were greater than 90 per cent, with only one saying that the chances were less than 50:50. "

Figure 2. Searching on "recovery act" at nsf.gov yields 6350 hits.

And the Joke's On Whom? Climate Depot is having fun with this, characterizing it as a "laugh riot" — the joke being that the due dates of tipping points past have come and gone absent catastrophe. But really, the joke's on us. These days, scientific research costs big bucks. You think it's coincidental, that

A good chunk of stimulus change (Figure 2) went to research projects, and

Scientists overwhelmingly favor the growth of government?

If you do, I've got a deal for you on a bridge.

A Non-representative Sample. The authors of "Divinations" went to considerable lengths (here) to achieve a common focus among interviewees. This is commendable. But like Zickfeld's truth criterion (above), their definition of "experts" is arguably myopic. All fourteen are associated with the IPCC (Table I). Nine were "Lead Authors" of one or more chapters of AR3 or AR4 (Third and Fourth Assessment Reports); the remainder, "authors," save for one, who was a "Reviewer." Additionally, six of the interviewees (Allen, Collins, Flato, Forest, Knutti and Weaver) are slated to participate in AR5 as Coordinating Lead or Lead Authors, and a seventh (Karl), as a Review Editor.

With rare exceptions, IPCC authors subscribe to the Panel's contention that anthropogenic increases (that's us) in atmospheric carbon is the principal driver of climate warming. To suggest that the experts polled by Zickfeld et al. represent anything more than the views of the converted is therefore equivalent to suggesting that the views of Roman Catholics, for example, represent those of all monotheists, or for that matter, of all Christians. Or, as Tom Lehrer put it in his inimitable characterization of existence, "Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it!"

Table I. Experts Interviewed by Zickfeld et al.
Name	Institution	IPCC Role¹
Allen, M.	University of Oxford, Oxford, UK	L²
Collins, M.	Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Exeter, UK	L
Flato, G.	Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Victoria, BC, Canada	L
Forest, C.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA	A³
Karl, T.	National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC, USA	L
Knutti, R.	National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder,CO, USA	L
Rahmstorf, S.	Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research,Potsdam, Germany	L
Schlesinger, M.	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA	L
Schneider, S.H.	Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA	L
Senior, C.	Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Exeter, UK	A
Stainforth, D.	University of Oxford, Oxford, UK	A
Stone, P.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA	R⁴
Weaver, A.J.	University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada	L
Wigley, T.	National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA	A
1. Contributions to Third and Fourth Assessment Reports - Working Group I (The Physical Science Basis). AR3 authors taken from http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-APPENDICES.PDF; AR 4 authors, from List of authors from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis and http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-annexes.pd f. 2. Lead author of one or more chapters. May also have been a co-author of additional chapters. 3. Co-author of one or more chapters. 4. Reviewer.

Gather Your Armies II.

2010-06-28T01:48:00.010-04:00

Rick Barber's latest "Gather Your Armies" video focuses on slavery. Donate to his campaign here.

Rick Barber has just released another campaign ad video. Gather Your Armies-II focuses on slavery, the contention being that a metastasizing federal government is making slaves of us all. The first third of the video has Barber once again conversing with resurrected American heroes. Of Lincoln, Barber asks, "What do you call it when one man's is forced to work for another?" The reply, soto voce as in GYA-I, is of course the "peculiar institution," as slavery's apologists used to call it, the abolition of which was the cause for which Union soldiers shed buckets of blood. No, Virginia. The Civil War wasn't about economics; it was about "social justice — the real kind. It was about erasing a stain on the American soul.

GYA-II identifies the "armies" of the first video as "armies of voters," some of whom we see being led by Lewis Schaeffer who sings a verse of "The Star Spangled Banner." Schaeffer, a former marine like Barber, has become a celebrity in TEA Party circles. Whatever his performances may lack in virtuosity, they make up for with palpable sincerity.

In this reviewer's opinion, GYA-II lacks the focused punch of its predecessor. This is a pity. Barber's point is spot on: Tyranny is on the march. Even were the present administration's intentions benign, what is being assembled is a machine that will surely turn free men into slaves — if not sooner, then later — most likely, sooner. Those inclined to dismiss this contention should dip into the The Federalist Papers. They should also revisit Huxley and Orwell.

Opinion polls commissioned back in February show the Democrat, Bobby Bright, defeating both Barber and his run-off opponent. But anger against Democrats has since been on the rise. Barber merits conservative support — now and in the general election. Donate if you can.

Gather Your Armies.

2010-06-26T17:39:00.013-04:00

Rick Barber's "Gather Your Armies" video. You can donate to his campaign here. Please consider doing so.

Rick Barber is an ex-marine, a small businessman, and a candidate for the House of Representatives (AL CD02) . In the June 1 Republican primary, he finished a distant second to Martha Roby, but was nonetheless able to force a runoff election on July 13. Roby had been endorsed by party regulars; Barber by Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs (see also here) and a few others. Roby's supporters claim she's a conservative; Barber's supporters charge RINO.

Roby's most recent posting (June 23) on her website announces the creation of a "Job Creator's Coalition," which to this correspondent's olfactory tissue, does, in fact, suggest the stench of an odd-toed, armored ungulate.

By way of contrast, Barber's positions are unimpeachable:

Immigration. While America is certainly a melting pot, our laws require that immigrants sign the guestbook on their way in.

The State of Israel. Israel is an island of democracy in the middle east and one of America’s closest allies in the world.

The Economy Small businesses create the vast majority of jobs in America. In a free market society like ours, the government should not be the engine of job creation.

Tax Reform. I fully support and will co-sponsor the FairTax bill.

etc.

Roby outspent Barber 7:1 in the primary, and Batber's website hasn't seen a new post since June 2. So is Barber's campaign out of gas? Perhaps. But even if it is, he's already done the country a service with his "Gather Your Armies" campaign ad (above) that attracted national attention and 330,000⁺ views on You Tube.. In the video, Barber is talking to a resurrected gathering of Revolutionary heroes: Sam Adams, Ben Franklin and George Washington. Pointing to a copy of the Constitution, he declares, "I took an oath to defend that. ... You gentlemen revolted over a tea tax. A tea tax! Are you with me?" To which, Washington replies soto voce "Gather your armies."

Critics, Repair_Man_Jack , for example, over at Red State, point to the ad as evidence that Barber is deranged — not his exact words, but read the article for yourself. Perhaps. Whatever the nature of the armies to be gathered, the ad can certainly be viewed as inflammatory.

But there is a larger point. This site believes that Barber has put his finger on something important: Bit by incremental bit, the lobster — that's us — in the pot is being cooked, the temperature of the water having been increased so gradually that he's only just now beginning to realize what's happening.

This nation has come a long, long way since the Founders established a government with limited powers. And the shackles intended to limit those powers have been mostly shattered. If Barber's sense of melodrama can help rouse the lobster from his heat-induced stupor, if it can inspire him to heave his denaturing proteins out of the pot, Barber will have done the country invaluable service.

That's Beck's message, and Beck's no nut job. As the poet wrote:

"For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."

Listen.

Waterworld.

2010-06-25T09:59:00.034-04:00

Figure 1. An English garden now (top) and with 2° (middle), and 4° C (bottom) warming. Note the changing the natural landscape in the background.

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty looks after Britain's historic houses, gardens, natural areas and so forth. Back in March, Mail Online published an article about the Trust's campaign to call attention to climate change. The campaign was based on computer modeling by the Met Office ("we're usually wrong , but we keep crunching the numbers") Hadley Center.

The Mail article quotes Mike Calnan, the Trust's head of gardens and parks.

'We looked at gardens in southern France and southern Portugal and, bearing in mind what we can grow in this country in mild locations, we came up with a list of probably things we could grow in the future.'

Calnan adds the requisite note of caution:

'All of this is unknown and there are a lot of ifs and coulds. We are not saying that this is what the future will look like, but we are asking whether it could look like this. It is a bit of an eye opener.'

Calnan's disclaimer will, of course, be generally ignored, and that, one imagines, is the intent. Still, the paintings (Figure 1) commissioned to support the Trust's fantasy are lovely. In the interest of aesthetics, and by way of illustrating principles of good propaganda, we reproduce them here.

Awful Changes. One is reminded of a passage in Volume I of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology — the book that Darwin took with him on his famous voyage. In 1831, Lyell imagined time without end, an endless cycle in which the earth and the creatures inhabiting it changed, but never really progressed — hence his delight at the discovery of the first Mesozoic mammals. Regarding a future warming of the climate, he wrote as follows:

Figure 2. Paleontology in a future age as imagined by Henry De la Beche in 1830. The famous cartoon lampoons Lyell’s view of geological history. Standing above a human skull (below the rock supporting the lectern) Professor Ichthyosaurus addresses an assemblage of conspecifics. The title and caption read as follows: "Awful Changes. Man Found only in a Fossil State – Reappearance of Ichthyosauri. 'You will at once perceive ... that the skull before us belonged to some of the lower order of animals; the teeth are very insignificant, the power of the jaws trifling, and altogether it seems wonderful how the creature could have procured food.’ " [emphasis added]

"Then might those genera of animals return, of which the memorials are preserved in the ancient rocks of our continents. The huge Iguanodon might reappear in the woods, and the ichthyosaur in the sea, while the pterodactyle [sic] might flit again through umbrageous groves of tree-ferns. Coral reefs might be prolonged beyond the arctic circle, where the whale and the narwal [sic] now abound. Turtles might deposit their eggs in the sand of the sea beach, where now the walrus sleeps, and where the seal is drifted on the ice-flow." [page 67 of the Penguin edition now available electronically]

Lyell was, of course, spectacularly wrong, not in predicting the eventual return of Mesozoic warmth — who can say about that? — but in his denial of biological progress. In the face of accumulating evidence, he eventually abandoned his views but not before a contemporary geologist had produced the cartoon reproduced in Figure 2. Here a future Professor Icthyosaurus addresses a toothy audience on the inadequacies of human jaws and teeth.

Peter Ward. Enter Peter Ward, a paleontologist at the University of Washington. In addition to his technical publications, Ward also writes popular books, one of which, The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps, is discussed over at An Objectivist Individualist. According to the review, which is actually a review of a review — the original having been published in Scientific American — the book focuses on the social and economic chaos consequent to climate warming and rising sea levels.

I haven't read Flooded; nor am I likely to, my previous experience with Ward's popular productions having been disappointing. Since Ward writes well and with authority, let me clarify this criticism with reference to one of his other books, Out of Thin Air, which I have read, and which is sitting on the shelf in front of me as I write.

Tidal and Continuous Flow Respiration. Out of Thin Air focuses on changing concentrations of atmospheric oxygen down through the millenia. One topic treated in considerable detail is the evolution of "continuous flow" respiration in birds and their dinosaur ancestors. Most land vertebrates have what is called "tidal" respiration — air into the lungs on the first breath; out on the second. But in birds, inspired air goes first to a series of air sacs at the back of the animal, then to the lungs and then to another set of air sacs (at the front of the animal) from which it is finally exhaled. The result is that four breaths (as opposed to two) are required to move a volume of air into, through, and finally out of the animal. More importantly, each breath (in or out) delivers fresh air to the lungs. This is more efficient than "in and out." It' s the reason the mountain climber atop Mt. Everest uses an oxygen pack, while the eagle overhead does not.

Ward's thesis is that declining levels of atmospheric oxygen towards the end of the Paleozoic selected for increased respiratory efficiency in the line that led to birds, which contention bears on the "active dinosaur" question. Active dinosaurs, in turn, bear on the contingent nature of evolution — if not for the impact that ended the Cretaceous, would H. sapiens be here to read and argue about blogs? Probably not — see, for example, Steve Gould's essay, "Dinosaur in a Haystack".

What is exasperating about Ward's exposition is the manner in which it is referenced. To be sure, there are citations for each chapter, but assertions in the text are not tied to specific references. That makes it difficult for the interested, dare I say "skeptical," reader to assess the credibility of particular claims.

Science in the Service of Ideology. Back to Flooded. The problem is not, as suggested by the poster at Objectivist, that Ward is "no scientist." As noted above, he is a paleontologist, whose principal interest is mass extinctions — those much argued about events that periodically wipe the biotic plate clean, thereby setting the stage for the next round of evolutionary diversification. Rather, the problem is that, like many contemporary members of his profession, Ward puts science to the service of ideology. In recent years, this proclivity has become increasingly common. The May 7 letter to Science by 255 (mostly non-climatologist) scientists defending their climatologist brethren (go here for discussion and links) is a case in point. Likewise, the despicable article by Andregg et al. on the relative credentials of anthropogenic global warming proponents and skeptics. That the latter, which effectively establishes a "black list" of "non-believers," should have been published by the National Academy of Sciences gives you some idea as to just how far we've traveled down the road of politicizing science. As noted here, an important contributing factor to this development is money in the form of government grants; another, the new priesthood's defense of proprietary knowledge and its claims to secular authority — go here for historical perspective.

Will the climate warm and the ice caps eventually melt? If we wait long enough, the answer is "probably yes." But then the sun will eventually go nova and incinerate the planet, which is to say that "long enough" may be very long time, indeed.

National Brotherhood Week.

2010-06-04T00:49:00.021-04:00

Lehrer sings "National Brotherhood Week."

Tom Lehrer started out as a mathematics student at Harvard, [1] only to discover that he could have more fun, and make more money, singing satirical songs on the night club circuit. He was (still is, I suppose) a very talented musician whose oeuvres include "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" (composed before tree huggers became a threat to humanity) and "National Brotherhood Week," the third verse of which brings us to today's post. (Listen now.)

Yup. "Everybody hates the Jews." Well, not quite everybody. Conservative Christians regularly speak out for God's People. There's also a fair sized cadre of mostly conservative Jewish columnists who stand up for for their own. And there's the Big Guy upstairs who, rumor has it, is inclined to help those who help themselves.

Yesterday, this correspondent did some "sloggin' through the bloggin'." Oink! [2] Even when the article was reasonable, a goodly fraction of the comments were not. The Jews this; the Jews that. Never has so much harm been done to so many by so few — to coin a not so original phrase. Then there was the "we stand with Israel" site that links to another featuring the anti-Semitic bilge of the intellectual class, tucked out, of course, as humanitarian concern — wonder what those clowns will say when an Iranian nuke goes off in Tel Aviv — "Tisk, tisk," I imagine.

Rounding things out were the effluvia of self-loathing Jews like Daniel Luban, who wrote a "thoughtful" piece on his transition from "liberal Zionist" to just plain "liberal." Thoughtful, my tush. Hey Danny boy! What you think them Islamists have in mind for you? A medal for being so stupid you don't know which side of your bread's buttered? Or maybe you figure it's just them Israeli Jews that's in their cross hairs?

Gentle Reader — when your faithful correspondent sat down to write this piece, he imagined something more erudite — about mankind's innate tribalism; how it's been selected for since before we were human; maybe an uplifting observation about our ability to do the right thing nonetheless. Appologies. What needs saying is this:

"If the Rachel Corrie sails south, put a torpedo in her belly. If the Turks send a naval escort, sink their bones to Davy Jones. If "Hopey Changey" menaces, ignore him. If go down you must, go down fighting, and if you fight, you mayn't go down after all."

Notes.

1. Lehrer taught mathematics as graduate student at Harvard and later as an instructor elsewhere. This author's "Lehrer Number" (inside joke) is 2 — I studied analytic geometry with a Prof. whose college classes included at least one in which Lehrer had been a teaching assistant.

2. There are good things out there, of course. I especially recommend Luboš Motl's remarks and Sarah Palin's — God bless her! Him too!

Rock 'em. Sock 'em.

2010-06-01T09:00:00.020-04:00

"Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. ... That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans." — General George S. Patton, 31 May, 1944 [1].

As Israel attempts to counter the predictable condemnation [2] of what is widely being reported as a bloody fiasco at sea, a disproportionate response in which "peace activists" were unconscionably murdered, her leaders would do well to consider the words quoted above.

Historically, admiration for Israel owed much to the derring-do of its military — Entebbe, Osirak, the Six Days War, crossing the Suez Canal and the encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army. Sadly, that admiration is a thing of the past — sadly, because developments in the U.S. and the Middle East are conjoining to make Israel's strategic position increasingly vulnerable.

Advice from the armchair is easily given, and the armchair being removed from the facts on the ground, often of dubious worth. Still, this site suggests that Israeli tentativeness — the start-stop, advance-withdraw campaigns of recent years — far from placating the nation's foes, has simply emboldened them. With the Obama administration tilting toward her enemies, Israel had better get used to standing alone. As noted previously,

"... the question is not if Obama will stand with Israel, but rather if Israel will stand with the American people who are just now beginning to appreciate the true nature of 'Hope and Change.' Israel can do this by being brave, strong and independent, above all, by surviving. The inspiration afforded thereby will allow the real America to again one day be 'a light unto the nations.' For the present, that task defaults to others."

For starters, Israel's leaders should read Patton's speech in its entirety, which, and with respect to a great general, can be summarized thusly:

"Rock 'em, sock 'em. Don't look back."

The alternative is death by a thousand cuts.

Notes.

1. Patton's famous speech was delivered to soldiers of the American Third Army as they prepared to embark on the Channel crossing that would end with the D-Day assaults. Searching on "Americans love a winner" yields different versions, apparently because the original is no longer extant — see here.

2. Noteworthy among exceptions to the general howl are Sarah Palin's remarks posted on Facebook.

Mr. Credit Card.

2010-05-30T00:46:00.058-04:00


Item:	Cost:
American flag	$25.00
Cigarette lighter:	$ 1.95
1/2 litre petrol.	$ 2.50
Setting yourself on fire when burning the American flag.	Priceless!
Some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Mr. Credit Card!

John Brennan is is an Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, On May 26, he addressed the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Conservative commentators, the folks at IBD Editorials, for example, seized on his remarks as evidence of political correctness run amuck. For the complete text of Mr. Bennan's speech, go here. The remarks that caused the fuss are as follows:

"Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind and, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear. Nor do we describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam meaning to purify oneself of [or] one’s community.

And there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children."

What does one make of this? The phrase, "religion of peace" is widely viewed as laughable. Yet here is Brennan, nine years after 9/11, and with all that has happened since, making the same claim.

The IBD editorialist believes that Brennan was duped Citing one of the more explicit, "smite the infidels" exhortations in the Koran, he writes,

"It's plain that Brennan has been told by Muslim leaders what jihad does or doesn't mean without finding out for himself."

That "Muslim leaders" could pull the wool over Brennan's eyes is difficult to swallow. Brennan's been around. He's a career CIA officer; has a masters degree in government, with concentration in Middle Eastern Studies. Surely he remembers Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11; surely he recalls the American flag being burned in the streets. Surely he's seen pictures memorializing suicide bombers in West Bank homes. Surely he knows the history of Islam, the meaning of the word "dhimmi", the "rights of the Rayah", etc. Surely he knows that there is enormous sympathy for jihad in the Muslim world — not the inner struggle kind of jihad, but the "smite their necks" variety.

So what's going on? The answer is in the words that follow those quoted above. "[C]haracterizing our adversaries this way [as jihadists]," Brennan writes,

"would actually be counterproductive. It would play into the false perception that they [the terrorists] are religious leaders defending a holy cause when in fact, they are nothing more than murderers, including the murder of thousands upon thousands of Muslims. ...

"Moreover, describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie propagated by al-Qaida and its affiliates to justify terrorism, that the United States is somehow at war against Islam. The reality, of course, is that we have never been and will never be at war with Islam. After all, Islam, like so many faiths, is part of America." [Emphasis added]

Brennan believes that characterizing Muslim terrorists as jihadists legitimizes their acts in the minds of Muslims disinclined to violence. At best, this is a pious hope. What workaday Muslims think about the people we call "terrorists" depends on many things. But the words non-Muslims use to describe such individuals isn't one of them. In recent years, European governments, France's proscription of the veil notwithstanding, have been nothing if not sensitive to Muslim sensibilities. And the result has been what? "Immigrant" violence on a massive scale; "Asian" youth on the prowl for women to assault; "suburbs" so dangerous that municipal authorities dare not enter; neighborhoods where "weekend entertainment" means "carbeque." This is in addition to the organized violence that periodically erupts in spectacular bombings.

Brennan argues that criminality is distinguishable from the "real" Islam." In effect, he sets himself up as an authority on the Muslim religion. This is presumptuous. Only Muslims can, will and should be the ones to decide what their religion is about. Brennan's conceit is also laughable. Imagine, if you will, an eleventh or twelfth century imam distinguishing Crusaders from the "real Christians" who practice a "religion of love." Imagine him telling the faithful that they should distinguish those who "hijack a religion" from the religion itself. I doubt such a preacher would have had much of following. To be sure, only a fraction of Europe's population set out for the Holy Land. But, at least initially, the Crusades were enormously popular. To have claimed that the Crusaders were anything but agents of Christendom would have been viewed as preposterous — because that's what it would have been.

The comparison is worth pursuing. At the time of the Crusades, Muslims of the Levant, were in no position to take the fight to the infidels' homeland. But they could resist the invaders. Eventually, they drove them out, and, when circumstances changed, Muslim armies swept into Europe itself. The Eastern Roman Empire fell; Constantinople became Istanbul; Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. Anyone who sees the "War on Terror," a term of admittedly dubious distinction, as anything other than one more battle in the centuries old struggle between Islam and the non-Islamic world is kidding himself.

By and large, the governing class, the academics, the media don't get it. For the most part, they are secular. "For God, for country and for Yale" is still the final verse of the Yale alma mater, but to most graduates of that school and other elite universities, the words mean little. The idea of killing, to say nothing of risking death, for religion is alien to their view of the world. The best they can come up with is that poverty breeds despair; despair, rage and rage, violence.

The American public, as distinct from their leaders, is more inclined to take religion seriously. The public understands commitment to God. They recognize that from such commitment both good things and bad can follow. Whether or not bin Laden's "Letter to Muslims" represents the "true" nature of Islam is beside the point. What's important is what the followers of Islam believe that nature to be. And the available evidence suggests that many subscribe to an "us-them" view of the world. How many? Enough. Enough to prevent a level of revulsion within the Muslim community that would shut the terrorists down. For ultimately, they depend on that community for cover and support. It is a worrisome state of affairs. It is not something that can be fixed from without. It is not something that can be massaged away by aid, collaboration and sensitivity. Nor will acquiescing to small assaults on American values and traditions forestall larger assaults in the future. To the contrary, it will encourage them.

Surely, Brennan must know these things. This site therefore agrees with the IBD editorialist when he wrote that Brennan was told what to say. But we doubt that the instructions came from "Muslim leaders."

Elsewhere in his speech, Brennan speaks of the importance of maintaining a strong economy. "Prosperity," he writes,

"a strong, innovative and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity is essential to our future and the future of generations yet to come."

The American economy, of course, is in the toilet, and the man Brennan works for is doing everything he can to see that it stays there. As we run up the bill on Mr. Credit Card, we compromise our ability to meet the dangers against which Brennan is tasked with protecting us. Some things, indeed, are priceless — the survival of America as we know it, among them.

How Overhead Corrupts Science and Promotes the Radical Agenda.

2010-05-26T09:16:00.045-04:00

Turtle and elephants supporting the world. Go here for commentary.

Dr. Jones. Consider the case of Dr. Jeremiah Jones, "Jerry" to his friends, an up and coming herpetologist (snakes, lizards, etc.) at the University of the Antipodes (UTA). Dr. Jones wants to study the Great Turtle (right) on whose back, he believes, the world really does rest. Brushing aside objections that there is no such beast, that the earth is a sphere, not a plate nor even a hemisphere, orbiting the sun sans Turtle, he submits a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) [1]. The proposal is well crafted, and to his colleagues' amazement, mirabile dictu, the Foundation awards Jones $250 K for a year's preliminary investigation. If the results are promising, he is encouraged to submit a follow-up proposal requesting the standard 3-5 years' funding.

Figure 1. The overhead scam. When Professor Jones was awarded an NSF grant, the University of the Antipodes took 35% off the top. Graduate student salaries and fringe benefits (2 × $25K) included in "Research;" Dr. Jones' summer salary, $18K, and fringe benefits, in "Dr. Jones."

Figure 2. The overhead scam as shown in Figure 1, but with UTA incentives and NSF award criteria added. Incentives encourage Dr. Jones to jump through whatever hoops the foundation decides upon. These include promoting social engineering under the rubric of "Broader Impacts."

Indirect Costs. UTA's administrators are, of course, delighted by Dr. Jones' success. They should be. For every dollar (excluding major equipment) Dr. Jones requested, they added an additional 55¢ as "indirect costs" (Figure 1) [2]. In the present case, UTA's take was about $88 K, more than enough to pay Dr. Jones' salary for the year in question. Since he will continue to teach, UTA in effect will secure his services as an instructor gratis.

"Overhead," as indirect costs are often referred to, was originally envisaged as a way of encouraging universities to promote faculty research, essentially by defraying the cost of maintaining their laboratories. That was the theory. In practice, indirect costs effectively go into the general operating fund. By "effectively," I mean that, while there are activities upon which overhead cannot be expended, bricks and mortar, for example, the uses to which it can be put are gratifyingly numerous. UTA consequently encourages its employees to seek extra-mural support. The incentives (Figure 2) are both positive and negative: pay raises, promotions and reduced teaching loads for those who bring back the bacon; stagnant salaries, increased teaching and, in some cases, outright dismissal for those who don't.

In recent years, and like most other public universities, UTA has had to deal with shrinking state appropriations. As a consequence, overhead returns have become increasingly important. As on many other campuses, a fraction of the total is returned to individual departments. These returns can be critical, serving to supplement university allocations that for many departments cover little beyond salary line items. In short, what began as a device to facilitate research has become a sine qua non. Or, to put it another way, overhead is the crack cocaine of the academy. It is highly addictive, and it distorts everything.

Dr. Jones' Budget. It comes as no surprise that Dr. Jones' award (Figure 1) includes money for research: transportation to the Edge of the Earth (and access to the Turtle), salary for two graduate student assistants, equipment, publication page charges, reimbursement for monies expended (travel, registration, food, lodging) while attending the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR), and so forth.

Because Dr. Jones' appointment at UTA is for the academic year, the grant also includes summer salary, which he otherwise would not receive. Summer salary is calculated as 2/9 of what he draws for the ten months he is officially on campus. To this, and to the salaries of his graduate students, UTA tacks on an additional 30% to cover fringe benefits, a figure previously negotiated with the Foundation.

Outreach. Dr Jones' award also includes funds for "Outreach." From the ranks of UTA's "underrepresented" (women, blacks, Hispanics) undergraduates, Dr. Jones will select individuals to work in his lab as interns. Along with his graduate students, they will also participate in presentations at inner city schools and at the local community college that minority high school graduates often attend before transferring to UTA. The message will be that science is for the "underrepresented;" the objective, to increase their presence in UTA's biology program. Pursuant to this objective, Dr. Jones and his high school / junior college faculty counterparts will establish a formal program with a suitably catchy acronym. For the moment, his colleagues' participation is stricty pro bono. But down the road ..., visions of government funding dance in their heads. Likewise, at the SSAR meeting, Dr. Jones and his students will man a table touting minority / female opportunities in biology at UTA. Convenient to these efforts is the fact that one of Dr. Jones' graduate students is Hispanic; the other, female.

Broader Impacts. Given a choice, Dr. Jones would not have included Outreach in his proposal. If pressed, he will tell you he thinks affirmative action is a good idea. Like most of his colleagues, Dr. Jones is a good liberal and, being white and male, feels a not inconsiderable obligation to help to right the wrongs of generations past. However, he will also tell you that studying theTurtle will be difficult (and dangerous) enough without the added burden of Outreach. But Dr. Jones had no choice. His proposal, like most others, was evaluated according to two very different criteria: "intellectual merit" and "broader impacts." The latter, he understands from Chapter III of the NSF's 2009 Proposal Guide, divides broadly into two categories:

"Integration of Research and Education."

"Integrating Diversity into NSF programs, projects and activities."

Regarding the extent to which proposals address these categories, the Guide poses the following questions:

"How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning?

"How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)?

"To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?

"Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding? What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?" [Emphasis added]

Elsewhere on the Foundation's website, Dr. Jones finds a document listing specific activities [3] that "broaden the participation of underrepresented groups."

Dr. Jones knows that the trick is to address as many of these objectives as possible in a way that relates naturally to his research. Initially, Dr. Jones will focus on items #1-3 above, and, in the case of #3, on educational partnerships. In the future, he intends to add scientific partnerships to his quiver.

As everyone knows, the Edge of the Earth is ringed by the Great Arabian Desert. To the north, half way round the world from UTA, lies the city of Al Arabica. With the local university, Dr. Jones hopes to initiate a collaborative relationship that will involve faculty and student exchanges. Not just the Great Turtle, but reptiles generally, and desert ecology, more generally still, will be the partnership's focus. Dr. Jones imagines that he can tie this part of next year's proposal to global warming. Sex determination in reptiles is known to be temperature-dependent (Janzen, 1994). As the world warms, male/female ratios will decline. But what about species in environments that are always hot? Perhaps desert reptiles can offer clues as to how this adverse consequence of climate change can be countered? An added bonus, Jones hopes, will be the international nature of the collaboration, and with a nation upon whose friendship (and petroleum) the United States depends. This year, he will lay the necessary groundwork by having a University of Al Arabica biologist join him en route to their historic encounter with the Turtle.

Summary. Overhead anables government acting through the funding agencies to coerce research grant recipients into engaging in social engineering. These activities have nothing to do with the proper purpose of research grants, which should be to promote scholarly activity — period. The universities, to which the contracts are awarded, have a tangible financial interest in seeing to it that their faculty apply for such funding and further that the latter jump through whatever hoops the funding agencies require. Let me put this more precisely with reference to Figure 2. Increasing university incentives to secure funding (because of overhead) feeds back to increase the diversion of time, effort and dollars from research to Broader Impacts.

Three related points in closing:

NSF's mandate is defined by Congress. "Increased participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics]" is the third of eight items [4] describing the Broader Impact Criterion in this year's NSF authorization (H.R. 4097). Responsibility for using research grants for unrelated societal purposes thus lies with the politicians.

One consequence of promoting "underrepresented groups," as opposed to worthy individuals who happen to belong to such groups, is that it politicizes scientific inquiry in ways that historically have led to bad science and outright abuse. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, the "barefoot professor," having been promoted by the Soviet establishment because of his peasant origins, was, in effect, a product of affirmative action — in a different place, at a different time and under a different name — but affirmative action nonetheless (Roll-Hansen, 2005). And it is worth remembering that the traditional academics who sponsored him eventually reaped the whirlwind. In addition, Soviet genetics was destroyed utterly. In the U.S. today, promoting "underrepresented groups" feeds the radicalism already rampant on the nation's campuses.

Governmental manipulation of science is not confined to social engineering. It can also involve the promotion of specific hypotheses that are politically / ideologically congenial to the politicians. Regarding the leaked East Anglia emails, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, the doughty editor of Energy and Environment, had this to say in a memorandum submitted to the British Parliament:
"The CRU [Climate Research Unit] case is not unique. Recent exposures have taken the lid off similar issues in the USA, the Netherlands, Australia, and possibly in Germany and Canada. There may be a systemic problem here, and it would be neither fair nor helpful to make CRU and the UK Meteorological Office the sole fall-guys. It is at least arguable that the real culprit is the theme- and project-based research funding system put in place in the 1980s and subsequently strengthened and tightened in the name of 'policy relevance'. This system, in making research funding conditional on demonstrating such relevance, has encouraged close ties with central Government bureaucracy. Some university research units have almost become wholly-owned subsidiaries of Government Departments. Their survival, and the livelihoods of their employees, depends on delivering what policy makers think they want. It becomes hazardous to speak truth to power." [Emphasis added]"

Boehmer-Christiansen could just as easily have been speaking of Lysenkoism, which stood in opposition to the "bourgeois science" of Morgan and Mendel.

Dr. Jones and his Great Turtle project are, of course, "fig newtons" of this author's imagination. But the NSF policies referred to are real, as the reader can readily confirm by following the links. Americans are just now awakening to the fact that government has for decades been betraying their interests in every possible way, squandering their money, in particular. The excesses of the apparatchiks who dole out research dollars are no exception. Just another entry in a list that is both long and depressing.

Notes.

1. At the Foundation's website, one learns that

"The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 'to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…' With an annual budget of about $6.9 billion (FY 2010), we are the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing."

As of this writing, NSF's budget is projected to rise to $10.7 billion by FY 2015.

2.Indirect cost rates (modified total direct costs — excludes capital equipment) are negotiated individually between individual universities and the Foundation, and therefore vary from one institution to the next. Noll and Rogerson (1997) provide rates for a representative sample. For the 70⁺ (I didn't count) schools listed, the rates ranged from 31.5% to 77%. The data are for the year 1992. Since then, rates have come down a bit, but not by much. For example, in 1992, the University of Michigan rate was 59%; in 2009-2011, 54.5%. In 2012, it will increase to 55.5%

3. Among activities addressing the Broader Impacts requirement, the Foundation lists the following:

"Establish research and education collaborations with students and/or faculty who are members of underrepresented groups.

"Include students from underrepresented groups as participants in the proposed research and education activities.

"Establish research and education collaborations with students and faculty from non-Ph.D.-granting institutions and those serving underrepresented groups.

"Make campus visits and presentations at institutions that serve underrepresented groups.

"Establish research and education collaborations with faculty and students at community colleges, colleges for women, undergraduate institutions, and EPSCoR [Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research] institutions.

"Mentor early-career scientists and engineers from underrepresented groups who are submitting NSF proposals.

"Participate in developing new approaches (e.g., use of information technology and connectivity) to engage underserved individuals, groups, and communities in science and engineering.

"Participate in conferences, workshops and field activities where diversity is a priority."

4. The complete description of the Broader Impact Criterion in H.R. 4897 is as follows:

Increased economic competitiveness of the United States.

Development of a globally competitive STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] workforce.

Increased participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM.

Increased partnerships between academia and industry.

Improved K-12 STEM education and teacher development.

Improved undergraduate STEM education.

Increased public scientific literacy.

Increased national security.

Note that #8, national security, replaces “How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training and learning?”

References.

Janzen, F. J. 1994. Climate change and temperature-dependent sex determination in reptiles. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA. 91: 7487-7490.

Roger G. Noll, R. G. and W. P. Rogerson. 1997. The Economics of University Indirect Cost Reimbursement in Federal Research Grants. Northwestern University - Department of Economics. Stanford University Department of Economics WP 97-039.

Roll-Hansen, N. 2005. The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science. Humanity Books. NY.

And if the Climate Cools?

2010-05-24T00:35:00.038-04:00

Skeptic Conference. The Heartland Institute is a conservative think tank, often portrayed as being in the pocket of big oil and tobacco. Last week, Heartland put on its "4^th International Conference on Climate Change" in Chicago. Leading skeptic climatologists participated, along with like-minded members of the political class.

Superficially, the conference resembled a meeting of one of the smaller scientific societies. But, for those readers who have never attended one, it's important to point out that this was not a scientific meeting in the usual sense. To be sure, there were plenary sessions with keynote speakers, concurrent sessions, sessions on science, economics and public policy and so forth. And many of the participants were Ph. D.s with expertise in relevant disciplines. But there were no contributed sessions at which the general membership of scientific societies get their 15 minutes in the spotlight. So far as I can tell, you didn't get to speak at the Heartland conference unless invited, and you didn't get invited unless you stood in opposition to conventional wisdom. "Luke warmists," such as the Pielkes (father and son), were not in attendance, though, for all I know, they may well have simply declined invitations. In short, the conference was more like a workshop at which invited participants linked by commonalities of interest, methodology, etc., exchange findings and ideas. Nothing wrong with that — workshops can be extraordinarily useful — often far more so than the sprawling affairs put on by outfits such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But workshops, unless specifically conceived to address controversy, do not as a rule represent wide ranges of opinion. Nor did the conference in Chicago.

Figure 1. Alternating periods of warm and cool temperatures during the past 5000 years. From Easterbrook (2010).

Figure 2. Projected global cooling during the next 20-30 years. Note, in addition to the three scenarios (blue), IPCC predictions (red) that forecast continued warming. From Easterbrook (2010).

The Looming Threat of Global Cooling. One presentation, the subject of today's post, has attracted considerable attention. It was delivered by Don Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Washington, who offered the following three-fold take:

Global temperatures are always in flux, with alternating periods of warmer and cooler temperatures coming every 20-30 years (Figure 1).

The alternations correlate with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and with solar activity (sunspot cycle) — see Livingston and Penn (2009) for discussion of recent changes in solar activity, including the possibility that sunspots may disappear by 2015, and here for review of renewed interest in the sun as the ultimate driver of terrestrial climate.

The next thirty years is likely to witness significant cooling. Just how much cooling, Easterbrook didn't predict, but instead gave three possible scenarios (Figure 2). Not shown is really severe cooling comparable to what the world experienced during the so-called "Maunder Minimum" (1600-1650), at which time sunspots virtually disappeared. The Maunder corresponds to one of several colder episodes within the Little Ice Age (LIA), itself a period of reduced temperatures that may have begun as early as 1300 and is generally agreed to concluded by the end of the 19^th century.

Predictions of temporary cooling are not new. Two years ago, Keenlyside et al. (2008) forecast several decades of regional cooling in the North Atlantic due to reductions in meridional overturning circulation (MOC). (The term MOC refers to ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream, that deliver the warmth of tropical waters to higher latitudes.) What makes Easterbrook's presentation noteworthy is the assertion that the coming chill is part and parcel of the repetitive ups and downs of a climate system that is never at equilibrium. His views are thus of a piece with those of Syun-Ichi Akasofu, founding director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who has long championed the idea that contemporary climate change is best viewed as the superposition of multi-decadal oscillations ("natural" variability) on long-term warming, the latter being reflective of the earth's recent emergence from the LIA.

A Relevant Anecdote. I am reminded of a story related to me by an acquaintance who works at a university that is up to its eyeballs in environmental nonsense generally, Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) in particular:

"We were interviewing prospective graduate students. So in walks this girl who, after the usual pleasantries, announced that she wanted to study the consequences of global warming to, I think it was tree physiology. 'And what will you do,' I asked, 'if the climate cools?' She looked at me disbelieving. So I pulled a copy of Richard Alley's book (Allee, 2001) off the shelf and showed her a couple of figures indicating enormous fluctuations (Figure 3) in temperatures past that, whatever their cause, had nothing to do with human activity. She looked at them, muttered something about not knowing much about paleoclimatology and terminated the interview. That was back around 2000, and before the recent stabilization of global temperatures. I sometimes wonder what she thinks of it."

Figure 3. Snowfall accumulation and temperature estimated from analysis of Greenland ice cores over the past 17,000 years. Note the extent to which temperature variations associated with the LIA and MWP (left) are dwarfed by earlier fluctuations. From Alley, R. (2001).

Figure 4. Carbon isotope ratios in the bones of Greenland Vikings and estimated fractions of their diets obtained from the sea. As the climate cooled, the Vikings became increasingly dependent on marine sources of sustenance. From Arneborg et al. (1999).

What-Iffers. The prospective graduate student aspired to join the ranks of those I have elsewhere called "what-iffers," scientists who have built their careers by piggy-backing on the global warming hysteria. These people do "what if" studies: what are the consequences to X if the climate warms, where X is a species, a renewable resource, an ecological process, etc.

Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, scientists move in herds: Jump on the bandwagon; don't make waves; follow the gold. Of course, there are risks. Hitching your wagon to a star doesn't work if the star turns out to be a meteor. That's a risk to yourself. The risk to science is that the more folks on the wagon, the less ithe likelihood of someone's noticing that the wheels are coming off. There's also a risk to society. With both the scientists and the funding agencies riding the AGW wagon, the social and economic costs of carbon abatement tend to be neglected. Flogging the horses — this is a Green wagon — racing full tilt to the precipice just round the bend are the ideologues, the politicians and the NGO apparatchiks.

Intriguingly, Michael Mann, he of the hockey stick (Mann et al., 1998) is now a "what-iffer," having recently been awarded (along with four others) $1.8 million to study the effects of global warming on malaria (search on "vector-borne diseases). Of the total, his employer, Penn State University, will skim roughly $600K off the top in overhead — not chump change in an age of decreased funding for public universities. And one wonders why Penn States's investigation of Mann's role in Climategate amounted to a white wash.

What Vikings Ate. Paleoclimatologists study ice cores, tree-rings and other proxy variables believed to correlate with temperatures past. In Greenland, there ids additional evidence (Arneborg, J., et al., 1999) for cooling as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) transitioned to the LIA. This evidence comes from changing carbon isotope ratios in Viking bones exhumed from a graveyard (Figure 4). From these data one concludes that, with the passage of time, the Greenland Norse obtained more and more of their food from the sea and less and less from terrestrial sources, i.e., milk and meat from their livestock. This, of course, is what one would expect if the climate cooled.¹

When asked about the Greenland Vikings, AGW proponents will tell you that the LIA was confined to the North Atlantic basin, possibly caused by a shut down of the Gulf Stream, i.e., reduced MOC. Likewise, they will tell you that the MWP, if it existed at all, was also a local phenomenon. For a good review of evidence to the contrary, that the MWP was a global phenomenon, albeit with regional variations, go here.

"Natural" climatic variability, by which I mean variation independent of human activity, doesn't invalidate the anthropogenic hypothesis. Depending on one's view, it could either have exacerbated or partially masked late twentieth century warming. At the same time, evidence for past climates as warm those we are presently experiencing undercuts the claim that human activity is responsible for unprecedented warmth. This explains the Climategate correspondents' furious reaction to publication of the paper by Soon and Baliunas (2003) and their characterization of the MWP as "putative."

If the Climate Cools. Easterbook maintains that the socio-economic consequences of global cooling are likely to be far worse than the those of the warming imagined by AGW activists. He gives four reasons:

Extreme cold kills more efficiently than extreme heat.

Colder temperatures will reduce food production.

Colder temperatures will increase per capita demand for energy.

The effects of reduced food production and increased energy demand will be exacerbated by the world's burgeoning population.

To this it should be added that warmist policy prescriptions for reducing atmospheric carbon, reduced energy production overall and increased dependence on biofuels especially, will limit mankind's ability to respond to problems consequent to global cooling. Nor will the resulting disasters occur at some distant time in the future. If Easterbrook is correct, the cooling is already on us, and this past year's winter, but a foretaste of what is to come.

Note.

1. Readers more interested in the Greenland Norse than in the climate may enjoy John Harris' The Lost Viking. Harris' believes that the Greenland settlers, having effectively been enslaved by the Church, decamped for the New World seeking freedom eventually wound up in British Columbia. This is unconventional. Nor is the present author competent to evaluate its plausibility.

References.

Allee, R. 2001. The Two Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future . Princeton Univ. Press. Princeton, N.J.

Arneborg, J., et al. 1999. Change of diet of the Greenland Vikings determined from stable carbon isotope analysis and ¹⁴C dating of their bones. Radiocarbon. 41: 157-168.

Keenlyside, N. S., Latif, M., J. Jungclaus, J., Kornblueh, L. and E. Roeckner. 2008. Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector. Nature. 453: 84-88.

Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and M. K. Hughes. 1998. Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries. Nature. 392: 779-787.

Penn, M. and W. Livingston. 2009. Are sunspots different during this solar minimum? Eos. 90: 257-264. See also here.

Soon, W. and and S. Baliunas. 2003. Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years. Clim. Res. 23: 89–110.

And One Man in his Time Plays Many Parts.

2010-05-19T01:00:00.079-04:00

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts," — As You Like It, II, 7.

Figure 1. Blogger Paul MacRae.

Paul MacRae (Figure 1) blogs at False Alarm. He is a former Canadian newspaper editor, a global warming skeptic and an admirer of T. H. Huxley. Last year, these interests came together in an essay titled "Consensus Climate Science: What Would Thomas Huxley Say?"

Thomas Henry Huxley — bulldog of Darwin; bearder of Wilberforce; baiter of Booth. What would he have said, indeed? Nothing positive, MacRae assures us. Consensus climatology violates Huxley's views as to what constitutes good science.

There is much to like about MacRae's analysis. Huxley's prescriptions are unimpeachable; their juxtaposition with contemporary climatological practice, a compelling study in contrast (Table I). Arguably, the analysis could be strengthened by distinguishing more carefully what working scientists have been saying from activist talking points. But that is a quibble. The former have long been in bed with the latter, which is one of the more important conclusions to emerge from the ClimateGate emails. Moreover, the world's scientists, both individually and through their professional organizations, such as the National Academy of Sciences, are increasingly involved in promoting policy — go here, for a recent example. This is extraordinarily worrisome. Instead of individual investigators promoting their ideas, we have large segments of the scientific community tied to particular opinions. The pressure to defend these opinions, lest the community as a whole appear foolish, is increased thereby. This undercuts the self-correcting nature of science, which is what distinguishes scientific prescription from other forms of advocacy.

Table I. Huxley vs. Consensus Climate Science According to Paul McRae.
Huxley	Consensus Climate Science
Scientific certainty does not exist.	The evidence is so overwhelming there’s no need to discuss it any further.
A strong theory must be “in entire accordance” with the data.	Ignore data … that doesn’t fit the theory …
Data not in accord with previous experience should be regarded with suspicion.	Ignore previous experience … if it doesn’t fit the theory.
Theories must be able to predict accurately.	Nothing, so far, predicted accurately.
Extreme claims require extreme proof.	If the proof doesn’t exist, fall back on the precautionary principle.
Science doesn’t operate by consensus.	Yes, it does.

At different times in his career, Huxley assumed the mantle of both critic and defender of the conventional wisdom. That is the subject of today's post. In passing, I will touch on the science vs. religion aspect, still on-going (Witham, 2001) of course, of the evolution debates, the Huxley-Wilberforce exchange, in particular, and on the scientific criticisms initially leveled at "Darwin's dangerous idea" (Dennett, 1995). Returning to anthropogenic global (AGW) warming, I conclude that whether or not the world goes marching down the path of carbon mitigation will likely depend, not on the confirmation or rejection of AGW as a scientific hypothesis, but on chance correspondences.

Huxley. Darwin's bulldog didn't always practice what he preached. His assertion that

"an inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it" [Emphasis added]

notwithstanding, he could nonetheless cling to an idea in the face of evidence that was strongly contradictory. Like today's proponents of AGW, Huxley stuck to the facts when they were in his favor and dissembled when they were not. When disputing Owen's claim that the hippocampus minor (Gross, 1893) distinguishes man from ape, he relied on anatomy (Huxley, 1853) — because he could. But when responding to Thomson's calculation that the earth had been habitable for no more than 100, and perhaps as few as 20, million years (Thomson, 1862, 1866), he fell back on "mother-wit" and his considerable rhetorical skills — because he had to.

A Matter of Time. William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) was the discoverer of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which holds that there are no perpetual motion machines and that the universe must one day run down. With uniformitarian geology and its assumption of essentially limitless time (Burchfield, 1990; 1998), Thomson had a bone to pick : The earth was once a molten sphere; the time required for it to cool to its present temperature could be estimated; the number that resulted placed an upper bound on geological time. While rock still flowed, there could be no oceans, no sedimentary deposition and certainly no life. Physical law trumped geological estimates that required unverifiable assumptions. During the course of his long career, Thomson returned repeatedly to the age of the earth and to that of its star, a preoccupation that antedated The Origin's publication and was thus arguably independent of his views (Thomson, 1871) on evolution and religion. With each refinement, and to the Darwinians' dismay, the estimates grew shorter. Writing in 1895, the celebrated English geologist, Archibald Geikie, would later observe (1895),

"Geologists have not been slow to admit that they were in error in assuming that they had an eternity of past time for the evolution of the earth’s history. They have frankly acknowledged the validity of the physical arguments which go to place more or less definite limits to the antiquity of the earth. They were on the whole, disposed to acquiesce in the allowance of 100 millions of years granted to them by Lord Kelvin, for the … whole … of geological history. But the physicists have been insatiable and inexorable. As remorseless as Lear’s daughters, they have cut down their grant of years by successive slices, until some of them have brought the number to something less than ten millions." [Emphasis added]

Thomson's arguments were mathematical, and to Darwin and his supporters, Huxley among them, impenetrable. And so Huxley wrote (1869b) as follows:

"Biology takes her time from geology. The only reason we have for believing in the slow rate of change in living forms is that they persist through a series of deposits which, geology informs us, have taken a long while to make. If the geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to do is to modify his notions of the rapidity of change accordingly." [Emphasis added]

Correspondingly, in the 6^th and final edition of The Origin (Darwin, 1872), we find the following:

"It is, however, probable, as Sir William Thompson [sic] insists, that the world at a very early period was subjected to more rapid and violent changes in its physical conditions than those now occurring; and such changes would have tended to induce changes at a corresponding rate in the organisms which then existed." [Emphasis added]

Figure 2. Anchiornis huxleyi, a four-winged dinosaur named after Thomas Huxley and close to the ancestry of birds. Feather colors inferred from the size and shape of melanosomes — see Li et al. (2010).

Figure 3. Skeletons of man and apes compared. From Huxley (1863).

Figure 4. Samuel J. Wilberforce strikes a characteristic pose. Originally published in Vanity Fair Magazine. From Zoonomian.

Huxley and Darwin were being disingenuous. The assumption of essentially unlimited time during which species could be transformed, bit by imperceptible bit, the one into the other, had been central to the transformist hypothesis since the days of Lamarck. Thomson robbed evolutionists of time, even as his colleague and business associate, Fleeming Jenkin (Stevenson, 1887), relieved them of variability (Jenkin, 1867). Together, these two gentlemen eviscerated the Darwinian argument (Eiseley, 1959).¹ What was left were Darwin's "facts," patterns of taxonomic affinity, homologous structures, vestigial organs, the recapitulatory nature of embryological development and distributional patterns in time and space. For such observations, descent with modification offered an economical accounting, or, as Darwin put it (1863), connected them "by an intelligible thread of reasoning." Most important was accumulating paleontological evidence for the prior existence of intermediate forms now extinct — Archaeopteryx, Neanderthal Man, three-toed horses, etc. As a result, the case for evolution grew. With the passing of Louis Aggassiz, the last major Special Creationist, in 1873, its scientific acceptance became near universal.

Professionalization of Science. Darwin and the naturalists of his generation were amateurs. But by 1867, the professionalization of science had proceeded apace. When Jenkin published his review of The Origin in the North British Review, he felt obliged to insert the following disclaimer:

"The cardinal facts [pertinent to Darwin's argument] are the production of varieties by man, and the similarity of all existing animals. About the truth and extent of those facts none but men possessing a special knowledge of physiology and natural history have any right to an opinion; but the superstructure based on those facts enters the region of pure reason, and may be discussed apart from all doubt as to the fundamental facts." [Emphasis added]

Jenkin, an engineer and no biologist, would concede the particulars of physiology and biology to the specialists. It was only with the conclusions induced from those facts that he felt entitled to argue.

To the professionalization of science, Huxley was an important contributor. He helped found the journal, Nature, to which he contributed an editorial (Huxley, 1869) that appeared in its first issue. He was also a charter member of the highly influential X Club (Barton, 1998). Both organizations figured prominently in the struggle of the rising generation of professional scientists to wrest control of British science, the Royal Society, in particular, from the older generation of gentleman amateurs (Lucas, 1979; Di Gregorio, 1982; Jensen, 1988; Barton, 1998).

Huxley was, of course, one of the young Turks. As Jensen put it, referring to the legendary exchange (see below), between Huxley and Wilberforce,

"The battle was not only between the Darwinists and the divines, but between the Darwinists, generally the younger scientists, and the older, more conservative scientists, with [some] notable exceptions … At the British Association meeting in 1894 the Marquis of Salisbury looked back at the 1860 meeting and said that 'in many cases religious apprehension only masked the resentment of the older learning at the appearance and claims of its younger rival'."

Huxley's defense of Darwin was thus at least partly an exercise in self-promotion. Huxley may, indeed, have had sensible prescriptions for doing good science. But he also labored on behalf of a larger cause: replacement of the old, churchly priesthood by a new, secular authority — as insulated from common opinion by claims to proprietary knowledge as its predecessor, and equally determined to control it. The scientific establishment today, the East Anglia white washers, in particular, are heirs to this tradition.

All my Children. It is no exaggeration to suggest that intellectuals of all stripes view their creations in much the way that "regular folk" regard their children. Of Fidelio, his first and only opera, Beethoven wrote

"Of all the children of my spirit, this one is dearest to me, because it was the most difficult to bring into the world."

It follows that scientific revolutions result not just from observations that undermine the "older learning.". As important to the passing of old ways of looking at things is the passing of those who do the looking. Darwin was not unaware of this when he wrote (Darwin, 1860) Huxley,

"I can pretty plainly see that if my view is ever to be generally adopted, it will be by young men growing up & replacing the old workers, …"

In short, habit and predisposition play important roles in the succession of constructs whereby science contemplates Creation. Stereotypically, habit is a product of age; the inclination to novelty, an attribute of youth. As a rising scientific luminary, Huxley could embrace natural selection with the enthusiasm of a convert (but see, DiGregorio, 1982). "My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin,'" he would later reminisce (Huxley, 1887)

" was, 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!' … The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace [1858] dispelled the darkness … ."

A decade later, when the new consensus to which Huxley had contributed was itself threatened by considerations of time and inheritance, he could only respond with sophistry. His position, if you will, was that of a population trapped on a sinking peak in an adaptive landscape (Wright, 1932) — doomed, and with nowhere better to go. Like the men and women of Jacques' soliloquy (above), Huxley, "in his time, played many parts."

Huxley and Wilberforce. Huxley's scientific achievements include the deduction that birds derive from small, carnivorous dinosaurs (Figure 2) and the demonstration of bone for bone anatomical correspondence between man and the the great apes (Figure 3). He is best known, however, as evolution's tireless defender, in particular for his besting of Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, in the famous "debate," actually an impromptu exchange, at the 30^th annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "Soapy Sam," so called because he was so smooth, alternatively, because he often rubbed his hands together as though washing them (Figure 4), viewed the argument of The Origin as "unphilosophical." By this he intended that it was speculation unjustifiably raised to the level of hypothesis. According to one recounting (Lucas, 1979, see also Jensen, 1988), Wilberforce asked Huxley whether he, Huxley, was maternally or paternally descended from a monkey. To that, claws and beak claws already sharpened up, Huxley replied that he

"was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth."

Huxley's rejoinder is often portrayed as a turning point in the struggle between science and religion — see, for example, Eldredge (2005). Other writers, Lucas (1979) in particular, regard this view as exaggerated if not downright inaccurate.

The Argument Against Darwin. At the time of the "debate," Wilberforce had recently written a review (Wilberforce, 1860), then still unpublished, of The Origin. Undoubtedly, he believed that good science would inevitably harmonize with theology. But the bulk of his written review, and presumably that of the Oxford lecture, is devoted to scientific arguments. The review totals 40 pages, and it is not until page 31 that he finally gets round to Revelation. And even here, Wilberforce maintains that scientific questions need to be resolved by scientifically. "Our readers will not have failed to notice," he wrote,

"that we have objected to the views with which we have been dealing solely on scientific grounds. We have done so from our fixed conviction that it is thus that the truth or falsehood of such arguments should be tried. We have no sympathy with those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or to any inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to contradict what it appears to them is taught by Revelation. We think that all such objections savour of a timidity which is really inconsistent with a firm and well-instructed faith …" [Emphasis added]

Lucas (1979) summarizes Wilberforce's approach as follows:

“[He] may not have told his audience … that it was … possible that Darwin’s theory was true, in which case humanity would have to eat humble pie, but it is clear that he did not argue that Darwin’s theory must be false because its implications about the nature of man were unacceptable. As he saw it, and as most of his audience saw it, he was showing that it was, as a matter of scientific fact, false, and only having established this did he go on to say in effect ‘and a good thing too’.” [Emphasis added]

Of course, Wilberforce may have appealed to scientific arguments as a matter of practicality, having concluded that to have argued on theological grounds would have been unproductive. But the fact often overlooked when we view reaction to The Origin through the lens of modern understanding is that direct evidence for Darwin's thesis was at the time thin. Within-species variability did appear to be constrained; domestic breeds were not reproductively isolated; the fossil record did not provide examples of intermediate forms. To these objections, Thomson and Jenkin would add paucities of time and variation, which inconveniences evolutionists were forced to live with for the next forty years (Bowler, 1992)

Two Theories. At least within the scientific community, Victorian objections to descent with modification have since been answered to just about everyone's satisfaction. Yet even today, the observation (Grant and Grant, 2009), of a new species, appropriately enough, a Darwin's finch, in apparent statu nascendi, is deemed an important discovery. The reason for the interest is that the mechanisms by which transmutation is effected remain murky (Gould and Lewontin, 1979; Segerstråle, 2000; Witham, 2001). There is evolution, the fact, what has happened, for which the evidence is overwhelming, and there is evolution, the theory, how it happened, which remains in flux. And that brings us to the essential point. It was Darwin's "facts," not the plausibility of the Darwinian mechanism, that ensured the idea's survival. Darwinians had no real answers to Jenkin and Thomson, but their faith in evolution was sustained by accumulating evidence that it had somehow occurred.

And this brings us back to AGW. The climate system is enormously complicated. Understanding it well enough to accurately predict its behavior is unlikely. But predictions can succeed for two reasons: because one actually understands the system and for some other reason, which is to say, "by chance." It is because one can get the right answer for the wrong reason — see Cohen (1966) for a non-trivial example — that, when a theoretical prediction is sustained experimentally, the next step is to generate a new prediction and perform a new experiment. Only when repeated attempts at falsification fail, can hypothesis be elevated to the level of theory. And only when more such attempts fail does theory become "law." Because AGW has become so politicized (see, for example, Dan Botkin's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal), it is reasonable to anticipate that any continued warming, be it a consequence of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations or simply one of the repetitive ups and downs of a non-equilibrium system, will be seized upon by activist-scientists as "proof" of the theory, in just the way they attempted to so portray the post-1970's warming, now abated. The climate system being almost certainly chaotic, and therefore ever changing, it's a crapshoot. May the Gods of Chaos protect us.

Note.

1. To varying degrees, subsequent writers (Vorzimmer, 1963; Gould, 1985; Morris, 1994; Bulmer, 2004) have attempted to qualify this assessment. Alternatively, it may be argued that the popularity of neo-Lamarkiansism, orthogenesis and other now discarded ideas during the latter part of "Darwin's century" can only be understood in terms of perceived inadequacies of the Darwinian mechanism. All that changed during the first decades of the 20^th century. With the rediscovery of Mendel, came the realization that variation is not blended out; with the discovery of radioactive decay, that the earth was even more ancient than the evolutionists had imagined.

References.

Barton, R. 1998. Huxley, Lubbock and half a dozen others. Professionals and gentlemen in the formation of the X Club, 1851-1864. Isis. 89: 410-444.

Bowler, P. 1992. The Eclipse of Darwinism. Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore.

Bulmer, M. 2004. Did Jenkin's swamping argument invalidate Darwin's theory of natural selection? Brit. J. Hist. Sci. 37: 281-297.

Burchfield, J. D. 1990. Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth. Univ. Chicago Press.

Burchfield, J. D. 1998. The age of the earth and the invention of geological time. In Blundell, D. J. and A. C. Sco'rr. (eds.) Lyell: the Past is the Key to the Present. Geological Society. London. Special Publications, 143: 137-143.

Cohen, J. E. 1966. A Model of Simple Competition. Harvard Univ. Press. Cambrudge. Mass.

Darwin, C. 1859. Letter to T. H. Huxley. 25 November.

Darwin, C. 1860. Letter to T. H. Huxley. 2 December.

Darwin, C. 1863. The doctrine of heterogeny and modification of species. Athenaeum. No. 1852, (25 April): 554-55.

Darwin, C. 1872. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. 6^th edition. John Murray, London.

Darwin, C. and A. R. Wallace. 1958. On the Tendency of Species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. J. Proc. Linnean Soc., Zool. 3: 45-62.

Dennett, D. 1995. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Simon and Schuster. New York.

Di Gregorio, M. 1982. The dinosaur connection: A reinterpretation of T.H. Huxley's evolutionary view. J. Hist. Biol. 15: 397-418.

Eiseley, L. C. 1961. Darwin's Century. Evolution and the Men who Discovered it. Anchor Books. Doubleday. New York.

Eldredge, N. 2005. Darwin's Other Books: "Red" and "Transmutation" Notebooks, "Sketch," "Essay," and Natural Selection. PLoS Biol. 3: e382.

Geikie, A. 1895. Twenty-five years of Geological Progress in Britain. Nature. 51: 367-370.

Gould, S. J. 1985. Fleeming Jenkin revisited. Natural History. 94: 14-20.

Gould, S. J. and R. C. Lewontin. 1979. The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm. Proc. Roy. Soc. London B. 205: 581-598.

Grant, P. R. and R. B. Grant. 2009. The secondary contact phase of allopatric speciation in Darwin’s finches. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA. 106: 20141–20148.

Gross, C. G. 1993. Hippocampus minor and man’s place in nature: A case study in the social construction of neuroanatomy. Hippocampus. 3: 403-416.

Huxley, T. H. 1863. Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. MacMillan. London.

Huxley, T. H. 1869a. Nature: Aphorisms by Goethe. Nature. 1 (Novermber 4): 9-11.

Huxley, T. H. 1869b. Geological reform. In, Huxley, T. H. Collected Essays. Vol. VIII. Pp. 305-339. S. Appleton. N. Y. Reprinted in Huxley, T. H. 1894. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 25: 38-53.

Huxley, T. H. 1887. On the reception of the 'Origin of Species'. Pp. 179-204. In, Darwin, F. (ed.) The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. Vol II. John Murray. London.

Jenkin, F. 1867. (Review of) The Origin of Species. The North British Review. 46: 277-318.

Jensen, J. V. 1988. Return to the Wilberforce--Huxley debate. British Journal for the History of Science. 21: 161-179.

Li, Q., Gao, K., Vinther, J., et al. 2010. Plumage color patterns of an extinct dinosaur. Science. 327: 1369-1372.

Lucas, J. R. 1979. Wilberforce and Huxley: A legendary encounter. The Historical Journal. 22: 313-330.

Lyell, C, 1839-1833. Principles of Geology. 3 Vols. John Murray, London.

Morrell, J. and A. Thackray. 1981. Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Oxford Press.

Morris, S. W. 1994. Fleeming Jenkin and The Origin of Species: a reassessment. Brit. J. Hist. Sci. 27: 313-343.

Stevenson, R. L. 1887. Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York.

Segerstråle, U. 2000. Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate. Oxford University Press. NY.

Thomson, W. 1862. On the Age of the Sun’s Heat. Macmillan's Magazine. 5(March 5,): 388-393.

Thomson, W. 1866. The "doctrine of uniformity" in geology briefly refuted. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh. 5: 512-513.

Thomson, W. 1871. Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Edinbugh, 1871. Reprinted in Thomson, W. 1894. Popular Lectures and Addresses. Vol. 2. Geology and General Physics. Pp. 132-205. MacMillan, London.

Vorzimmer, P. 1963. Charles Darwin and blending inheritance. Isis. 54: 371-390.

Wilberforce, S. J. 1860. (Review of) On the Origin of Species, etc. By Charles Darwin, M. A., F.R.S. London, 1860. Quarterly Review. 1860: 225-264.

Witham, L. A. 2001. Where Darwin Meets the Bible. Creationists and Evolutionists in America. Oxford Univ. Press. NY.

Wright, S. 1932 The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding, and selection in evolution". Proc. 6^th Int'l Congr. Genetics. Pp. 355-366.

A Letter to Paul Nathan.

2010-05-16T18:07:00.013-04:00

A reader illustrates the Faustian nature of Obama Care by offering his house gratis to admirers of The One.

Paul Nathan publishes a weekly financial newsletter (commentary and market update) to which one can subscribe by writing him at Paulnathan2000@aol.com. Recently, he included an amusing, but nonetheless insightful, email from one of his readers. I reproduce it here with permission:

"Written by an unknown author:

"I was in my neighborhood restaurant this morning and was seated behind a group of jubilant individuals celebrating the successful passing of the recent health care bill. I could not finish my breakfast. This is what ensued:

"They were a diverse group of several races and both sexes. I heard the young man exclaim, 'Isn't Obama like Jesus Christ? I mean, after all, he is healing the sick.' The young woman enthusiastically proclaimed, 'Yeah, and he does it for free. I cannot believe anyone would think that a free market would work for health care. They are all crooks and thieves and don't deserve all of that money.' Another said, 'The stupid Republicans want us all to starve to death so they can inherit all of the power. Obama should be made a Saint for what he did for those of us less fortunate.' At this, I had had enough.

"I arose from my seat, mustering all the restraint I could find, and approached their table. 'Please excuse me; may I impose upon you for one moment?' They smiled and welcomed me to the conversation. I stood at the end of their table, smiled as best I could and began an experiment.

"'I would like to give one of you my house. It will cost you no money and I will pay all of the expenses and taxes for as long as you live there. Anyone interested?' They looked at each other in astonishment. 'Why would you do something like that?' asked a young man, 'There isn't anything for free in this world.' They began to laugh at me, as they did not realize this man had just made my point. 'I am serious, I will give you my house for free, no money what so ever. Anyone interested?' In unison, a resounding 'Hell Yeah' fills the room.

"'Since there are too many of you, I will have to make a choice as to who receives this money free bargain.' I noticed an elderly couple was paying attention to the spectacle unfolding before their eyes, the old man shaking his head in apparent disgust. 'I tell you what; I will give it to the one of you most willing to obey my rules.' Again, they looked at one another, an expression of bewilderment on their faces. The perky young woman asked, 'What are the rules?' I smiled and said, 'I don't know. I have not yet defined them. However, it is a free home that I offer you.' They giggled amongst themselves, the youngest of which said, 'What an old coot. He must be crazy to give away his home. Go take your meds, old man.' I smiled and leaned into the table a bit further. 'I am serious, this is a legitimate offer.' They gaped at me for a moment.

"'Hell, I'll take it you old fool. Where are the keys?' boasted the youngest among them. 'Then I presume you accept ALL of my terms then?' I asked. The elderly couple seemed amused and entertained as they watched from the privacy of their table. 'Oh hell yeah! Where do I sign up?' I took a napkin and wrote, 'I give this man my home, without the burden of financial obligation, so long as he accepts and abides by the terms that I shall set forth upon consummation of this transaction.' I signed it and handed it to the young man who eagerly scratched out his signature. 'Where are the keys to my new house?' he asked in a mocking tone of voice. All eyes were upon us as I stepped back from the table, pulling the keys from pocket and dangling them before the excited new homeowner.

"'Now that we have entered into this binding contract, witnessed by all of your friends, I have decided upon the conditions you are obligated to adhere from this point forward. You may only live in the house for one hour a day. You will not use anything inside of the home. You will obey me without question or resistance. I expect complete loyalty and admiration for this gift I bestow upon you. You will accept my commands and wishes with enthusiasm, no matter the nature. Your morals and principles shall be as mine. You will vote as I do, think as I do and do it with blind faith. These are my terms. Here are your keys.' I reached the keys forward and the young man looked at me dumb founded.

"'Are you out of your freaking mind? Who would ever agree to those ridiculous terms?' the young man appeared irritated. 'You did when you signed this contract before reading it, understanding it and with the full knowledge that I would provide my conditions only after you committed to the agreement.' Was all I said. The elderly man chuckled as his wife tried to restrain him. I was looking at a now silenced and bewildered group of people. 'You can shove that stupid deal up you're a** old man, I want no part of it' exclaimed the now infuriated young man. 'You have committed to the contract, as witnessed by all of your friends; you cannot get out of the deal unless I agree to it. I do not intend to let you free now that I have you ensnared. I am the power you agreed to. I am the one you blindly and without thought chose to enslave yourself to. In short, I am your Master.' At this, the table of celebrating individuals became a unified group against the unfairness of the deal.

"After a few moments of unrepeatable comments and slurs, I revealed my true intent. 'What I did to you is what this administration and congress did to you with the health care legislation. I easily suckered you in and then revealed the real cost of the bargain. Your folly was in the belief that you can have something you did not earn; that you are entitled to that which you did not earn; that you willingly allowed someone else to think for you. Your failure to research, study and inform yourself permitted reason to escape you. You have entered into a trap from which you cannot flee. Your only chance of freedom is if your new Master gives it unto you. A freedom that is given can also be taken away; therefore, it is not freedom.' With that, I tore up the napkin and placed it before the astonished young man. 'This is the nature of your new health care legislation.'

"I turned away to leave these few in thought and contemplation and was surprised by applause. The elderly gentleman, who was clearly entertained, shook my hand enthusiastically and said, 'Thank you Sir, these kids don't understand Liberty these days.' He refused to allow me to pay my bill as he said, 'You earned this one, it is an honor to pickup the tab.' I shook his hand in thanks, leaving the restaurant somewhat humbled, and sensing a glimmer of hope for my beloved country."

A Faustian bargain indeed.

Paul also posts at Kitco, the precious metals site. His most recent column, "Deflation Lifts its Ugly Head," discusses signs that point to a coming economic downturn.

The Second War Between the States.

2010-05-13T10:48:00.039-04:00

Today, good men everywhere must stand with Arizona. Go here.

Some time ago, I met a man who calls himself "Mr. Wells." He claims to be from the past and to have traveled to the future. On his most recent return therefrom, he brought with him a book, the copyright of which indicates that it was (will be) published in the year 2032 — which is to say, two decades and two years hence. When I expressed surprise that books would still exist as print on paper in that future time, Mr. Wells replied that antiquities had (will) become all the rage, and with some rather startling results. Passenger trains, resurrections of The Twentieth Century and the Super Chief, would once again link New York and Los Angeles, affording their riders incomparable passage and a three day vacation. Of course, there would be teleporters aboard, just in case someone needed to get somewhere in a hurry.

Mr. Wells' book is called The Second War Between the States, and the preface is (will be) written by the retired first President of of the Reconstituted United States of America (RUSA). In part, she writes as follows:

The "New South."

"As everyone knows, the opening shots were fired by federalized guardsmen at citizens protesting the contested election of 2012. What followed were more protests, work stoppages, mass arrests and finally secession of the twenty-seven states that inaccurately came to be called the "New South." Five years of intermittent negotiation and sporadic conflict, from which the the armed forces remained blessedly aloof, ensued. Eventually, things got sorted out at the Second Constitutional Convention that restored the republic to something that the Framers might possibly have recognized and of which, I'd like to believe, they would have approved.

"Commentators say it was the attack on unarmed demonstrators that stirred the nation into rebellion. But, in a real sense, the fuse was lit two years previous when the governor of Arizona signed into law two measures passed by her state's 'take no prisoners' legislature. The first (SB 1070) allowed police officers to determine the immigration status of individuals suspected of other crimes; the second (HB 2281) proscribed the teaching of classes advocating 'ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.' Ironically, neither law would have had much effect on the problem it addressed. Even had it survived the inevitable court challenges, SB 1070 would have done little to curb illegal immigration. Nor would HB 2281 have given pause to the multiculturalists who controlled the state's schools. But the Left overplayed its hand. They unleashed a firestorm of acrimony and invective, organized boycotts and generally sought to ostracize the decent folk of Arizona from the body politic. In response, those stubborn Arizona patriots promulgated a third law (SB 1024) requiring Presidential candidates to prove that they meet 'the residency requirements for President of the United States as prescribed in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.'

"Another firestorm of leftist outrage ensued. The legislators were reviled as "birthers," racists, the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, and so forth. Of course, producing a birth certificate is something most of us have had to do at one time or another. But, as everyone knows, one candidate refused to do this, even while claiming that he had already done so. His name did not appear on the state ballot and the subsequently organized write-in campaign failed. Arizona's electoral votes went to an Independent; and the election, to the House of Representatives. When the House deadlocked, there followed the infamous "Gadsden Purchase" email, the attempt to shut down social networking sites, the march on Washington and the Massacre on the Mall.

"Professor Smith, author of the present volume and a distinguished historian with more than twenty books to his credit, reviews these events with his usual thoroughness and attention to detail. Especially riveting is his account of the attempt to bribe the Arizona congressional delegation, the origins of the plot and how it would almost surely have succeeded but for the courage of two junior staffers who ultimately paid with their lives.

"Professor Smith argues that America's Second Civil War was the inevitable result of a clash of world views — espoused, on the one hand, by secular, communitarian intellectuals and, on the other, by heirs to the yeoman farmer, Judeo-Christian tradition upon which the nation had been founded. The former's role in the purposeful creation of a permanent underclass as a device for growing government and enhancing their own authority is laid out with chilling clarity; likewise, the latter's almost-too-late rediscovery of the fact that liberty and self-reliance are inseparable.

"Of course, Professor Smith's conclusions will not be the final word. Future historians may, almost certainly will, proffer alternative views. But the important point is that a nation that forgets its history is a nation in danger of losing its soul. Let us remember that fact, and let us reflect — RM."

Whether or not the man who calls himself Mr. Wells and the historical Mr. Wells, the novelist and historian, are one and the same, I do not know. Nor can I say if revealing what he says is to come will change what does. What I do know is that today good men everywhere must stand with Arizona. As for tomorrow, she awaits, as always, obscured by an impenetrable veil.

What Integrity?

2010-05-07T05:36:00.063-04:00

Gleick, P. H. et al.. 2010. Climate change and the integrity of science. Science. 328: 689 - 690. DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.689.

The May 7 issue of Science Magazine contains a letter deploring "the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular." [emphasis added] The two hundred and fifty-five signatories are members of the National Academy of Sciences, which is once again sticking an activist snout into the public's business. One would think that the folks at Science would want to maximize the letter's accessibility. Apparently not. You can't read it at their website unless you're a subscriber. Fortunately, The Guardian has published the full text, here reproduced with commentary: Original in bold; comments, in square [ ] brackets. A follow-up post will focus on the signatories.

"We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet."

["Assaults" presumably refers to the email scandal, commonly referred to as "Climategate," and to the furor that ensued. To dismiss the latter, which does include investigations — this site hopes there will more — of the principals, as "political" is misleading. What the emails reveal is a small group of scientists conniving to promote their own work and to silence their critics. Further revealed are conscious, coordinated efforts to mislead the readers of the journals in which they published, i.e. their fellow scientists, the agencies that funded their research and the general public. The emails further show the principals conspiring to resist Freedom of Information requests that were legitimate, not only in the legal sense, but also in the sense that the individuals making the requests had both a genuine interest in the scientific issues and the requisite skills necessary to re-analyze the data. In some instances, the requesters were arguably better equipped by virtue of temperament and training to analyze the data than the scientists themselves.

All of this was done at taxpayer expense and with the purpose of promoting policies that, whatever their merit (or lack thereof), carry an enormous price tag. It was not, in short, an edifying performance, being, to the contrary, despicable, counter to the general welfare and detrimental to science.

"But wait," as the man hawking housewares says in the commercial, "There's more!" One of the files, Harry_Read_Me.txt leaked by the Climategate "hacker" documents problems with the methods by which East Anglia scientists, more accurately, their graduate students, attempted to measure the earth's temperature. One does not, after all, simply grab hold of a large rectal thermometer and ask the old girl to bend over. They don't make them large enough; and if they did, she probably wouldn't. Nope. What one does is to piece together weather station records, thousands of them, from around the globe. Problem is the stations were never intended to function as part of a world-wide network capable of estimating the earth's average temperature to ±0.2° C. The stations move around; cities grow up around them; instrumentation changes and, LOL, their identity codes change. Writes "Harry," a programmer brought in to clean up the code,

"Now, I admit the lats and lons aren't spot on. But c'mon, what are the chances of them being different? The two year 2000s are almost identical.

0 -1550 12450 12 KURI BAY AUSTRALIA 2000 2006 -999 -999.00
9420800 -1548 12452 29 KURI BAY AUSTRALIA 1965 1992 -999 -999.00

"Or:

0 -1550 12810 11 WYNDHAM AUSTRALIA 2000 2006 -999 -999.00
0 -1550 12820 11 WYNDHAM AERO AUSTRALIA 2000 2006 -999 -999.00
9421400 -1549 12812 11 WYNDHAM POST OFFICE AUSTRALIA 1968 2000 -999 -999.00
9421401 -1547 12810 20 WYNDHAM (WYNDHAM POR AUSTRALIA 1898 1966 -999 -999.00

"Come On!! This is one station isn't it."

Over at The Strata-Sphere, A. J. Stata reproduced additional gems. Try this one:

"But what are all those monthly files? DON’T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that’s useless ... ."

Most important, the stations don't always report. As a result, the scientists felt compelled, to adjust, to average and to interpolate. And did they ever! There was raw data, original data, adjusted data, gridded data — Lord knows what else. To compensate for the urban heat island (UHI) effect, older temperatures were reduced, the consequence in some (many? most?) cases being to increase the apparent warming. Even worse, missing records were replaced with "synthetic" data. Get that? Numbers were invented; "-999" became the average of "nearby" stations, where "nearby" could mean hundreds of miles away.

As Richard Brook observed,

"The complexity of the calculations, and the considerable element of human judgment ... leave the process wide open to error and bias. Thus, the final results may actually reflect, to one degree or another, no more than the opinions of the scientists producing them."

Brooks' assessment is mild. Not only was the methodology ad hoc, but the computer programs implementing it, poorly documented and "buggy." At one point in the log that records his efforts to sort things out, Harry remarks,

"Had a hunt and found an identically-named temperature database file which did include normals lines at the start of every station. How handy - naming two different files with exactly the same name and relying on their location to differentiate! Aaarrgghh!!"

Often, sometimes on purpose, run-time errors, the bane of programing, were not trapped for, with the consequence that programs could continue merrily on their way, generating garbage with no one the wiser. "So with a somewhat cynical shrug," writes Harry,

"I added the nuclear option — to [allow the user to] match every WMO [World Meteorological Organization] possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... . In other words what CRU [Climate Research Unit at East Anglia] usually do[es]. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." [hat tip HJS]

In short, there is staggering contrast between the cocksure comportment of the Climategate principals and the mess on which they based their conclusions. Like the rooster cock-a-doodle-doing from the highest dung heap in the barnyard, these self-appointed lords of the manor — dare I say, "manure" — didn't look down.

John Tierny, writing in the New York Times ("all the news that fits, we print"), put it this way:

"While Harry’s log shows him worrying about the integrity of the database, the climate scientists are e-mailing one another with strategies for blocking outsiders’ legal requests to see their data.

"While Harry is puzzling over temperatures ... the scientists are confidently making proclamations to journalists ... and plotting revenge against those who question the dangers of global warming. When a journal publishes a skeptic’s paper, the scientists ... focus instead on retaliation against the journal and the editor ... ."

The thermometer record is one of the principal pillars on which rests the argument for anthropogenic warming (AGW), and the problem is, not that there is "some uncertainty," but that it is utterly unconvincing. What about the other pillars? Well, there's the models and there's paleoclimatology. Regarding the models, I will comment below. As to paleoclimatology, three considerations undercut using it to justify anything with real world consequences.

Reconstructions of climates past rely on proxy variables: tree ring widths, isotope ratios, etc., all of which can be influenced by multiple factors. As such, the view they provide of temperatures past is "through a glass darkly."

Trying to distinguish "signal" from "noise" led to the use of esoteric statistics — calculations of the 'lies, damned lies and statistics" kind. This, in turn, resulted in considerable wrangling regarding over the calculations' legitimacy, the brouhaha surrounding the hockey stick, being a noteworthy example. Based on his own experience, admittedly limited, the present author believes that such techniques should be used with caution. Better to put time and money into searching for proxies with higher signal to noise ratios.

Paleoclimatologists have not been above resorting to deception when the results don't go their way. "Mike's Nature trick" to hide the infamous "decline" — see Marc Sheppard's explication — is one example; replacement of the hockey stick in IPCC3 by the "spaghetti graph" in IPCC4 is another.

It is worth emphasizing that these considerations interrelate in multiple ways — see The Hockey Stick Illusion by A. W. Mountford.

Bottom line: The precautionary principle cuts both ways. Failure to base policy on what the NAS signatories characterize as "compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence," far from posing a "dangerous risk to the planet," will, in the short term, avert catastrophic damage to the world's economy and its human population. As to the consequences fifty or a hundred years down the road, only the Fellow Upstairs, by virtue of expertise and experience, is qualified to an opinion.]

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modelling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial— scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That's what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of "well-established theories" and are often spoken of as "facts."

[This is sophistry. To equate AGW with the discoveries of Galileo etc. betrays cynicism on a truly grand scale. Who, but the ideologically committed, blinded by faith — see Botkin on "Global Warming Delusions" — would believe it? And let's get this straight. There are no potentially falsifying experiments. The models are "tuned," their parameters adjusted to fit the data already in hand. By the time predictions begin to fail, the modelers have a new set of models, better ones, they tell us, better because they are bigger, because they incorporate more processes, each of which requires more parameters to be estimated, more fudge factors to be adjusted. Moreover, the complexity of the models is such that it is impossible to understand their behavior mathematically. What the climate modelers offer humanity are models that can't be understood as substitute for a system that isn't understood. And for this, mankind pays — today, in treasure; tomorrow, in blood.

Historians of science have debated whether or not Eddington fudged his data in the famous experiment that confirmed General Relativity. The current opinion is that he did not. But the important point is that the theory could have been falsified. Had things worked out that way; had the theory failed, had Einstein been obliged to concoct a new one consistent with discordant observations, what would would have been been gained? A new hypothesis, nothing more. And that is the critical point. The climate models are hypotheses. What comes out of them are predictions, not results.

Right now, those predictions aren't doing very well. From 1970, to 1995, if you believe the folks at East Anglia, the forecasts seemed to be holding: Atmospheric carbon was on the rise, and so was temperature. Since then, [CO₂]_atm has continued to increase, while temperatures have stabilized. Natural variability? Apparently. Soon to be overwhelmed by continuing greenhouse gas accumulation, maybe yes, maybe no.]

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5bn years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14bn years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today's organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: there is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

[More sophistry. In the first place, the theories with which AGW is compared are well established. AGW is a far weaker hypothesis. Gorian sturm und drang to the contrary, there is no convincing evidence that humans are causing climate change, nor, for that matter, that contemporary climates are in any way extraordinary. Second, note the spin. What is known and what remains problematic are blended together. Take the "fact of evolution," what Darwin called "descent with modification." For this, the evidence is overwhelming and continues to accumulate. But the pattern, common descent, should be distinguished from the mechanism that produces it, and about that matter, hypotheses continue to come and go.

Even if one accepts the reality of late twentieth century warming, and that's a big "if," one is left with question as to "Why?" And, if the mechanism turns out to be other than AGW, what then? What if today's stabilized temperatures are harbingers of tomorrow's cooling? What if we reduce our capacity to produce energy and wake up one morning to find the glaciers once more advancing? I'll tell you what: Should the future bring ice, not fire, today's proponents of carbon abatement will hang from lamp posts — from which vantage they can contemplate a freezing, starving and, yes, vengeful humanity, whose misery will have been exacerbated by science in the service of ideology.]

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected.

[Ah yes! The fabled thousands! But, as those familiar with the IPCC process know full well, the folks who write the reviews and those who write the literature on which the reviews are based are far fewer in number. And guess what? Surprise! Surprise! The folks who do the reviewing and the folks who do the research are often the same. Let's be clear. I'm not speaking of camp followers. I'm speaking of the Mann's, the Briffa's, the Jones's, etc. For it is on their shoulders that all else rests. Of course, there are thousands of others — mainly environmental scientists of one stripe or another — who piggyback on the process. I call these people "what-iffers;" they do "what if" studies: what are the consequences to X if the climate warms, where X is a species, a renewable resource, an ecological process, etc. Like the birds that follow army ants, "what-iffers" rely on beaters to flush out the next meal. In the case of the birds, the beaters are the ants, whose passage through the forest is marked by an eruption of insects leaping out of the foliage to escape being being devoured by the advancing column. In the case of "what-iffers," the beaters are climatologist fear mongers, who stir up taxpayer dollars. An acquaintance tells the following story: A prospective graduate student walked into her office announcing that he intended to study the consequences of global warming to some ecological process. "And if the climate cools?" my friend inquired. The student, unnerved by such heresy, mumbled something incoherent and fled.]

But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

[See above. See also recent studies supporting the reality of the Medieval Warm Period (hotter than now, but without concomitant elevations in [CO₂]_atm), and that of the Little Ice Age from which we are now recovering. See studies (below) suggesting that most of the late twentieth century warming may be artifactual (UHI). See studies suggesting the existence negative feedback (adaptive iris) omitted from most (all?) general circulation models (GCMs). See studies suggesting the importance of fluctuating solar output, etc.

With regard to UHI, Roy Spencer recently posted the graph shown at the right. Here, raw data are used to sort rates of twentieth century warming (° C / decade) by population density (persons / Km². Unsurprisingly, the least densely populated regions manifest the least warming, less than half than the 0.2 ° C / decade estimated by Jones. If one extrapolates the curve back to zero density, the estimate of the "true" warming is 0.06 ° C, less than a third of Jones' estimate and well within the range of observational error. Of course, this was posted on a blog — no peer review. We'll see if Spencer gets it past the lions defending the gate.If he doesn't, I'd like to read the reviews.

And note the spin. Evidence contrary to AGW is not a recent phenomenon. It has been emerging at a steady pace, the efforts of the Climategate correspondents to suppress it notwithstanding.]

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

[Studies of Pleistocene deglaciation suggest that increasing [CO₂]_atm follows, rather than precedes, increasing temperatures. To say that this is consistent with AGW is like arguing that lynx, by virtue of being predators, exert a negative effect on hare populations even were the latter to increase when there are more lynx. Were this the case — it's not, the example is hypothetical — one can imagine explanatory scenarios: maybe lynx eat other predators that prey on the hare; maybe lynx eat animals that compete with the hare for food. But they don't just eat "wabbits." Nor would assuming such allow you to predict the consequences of ordering a halt to the taking of lynx for their pelts.

Once again, note the spin: No significant warming for the past 10+ years — Jones now says since 1995 — and unpredicted in simulo, becomes "a snowy winter in Washington."]

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

[If one accepts the reality of past temperatures in excess of those currently observed, the correct conclusion is that increasing [CO₂]_atm isn't the principal driver of temperature.]

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

[This is a postulate, more accurately, the cardinal precept of AGW canon. For the past 10-15 years, temperatures have been stable, whereas [CO₂]_atm has continued to increase.]

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

[These and related claims are all subjects of dispute. Most recently, tropical upper ocean heat content appears to have declined precipitously. Regarding this observation, Roger Pielke Sr. writes as follows:

"An interesting question is to where this heat has gone. It could have moved north and south in the upper ocean, however, to the extent the sea surface temperature anomalies map to the upper ocean heat content, there is no evidence of large heat transfers except, perhaps, in the tropical Atlantic see [here].
The heat could have been transferred deeper into the ocean. However, if this is true, this heat would have been seen moving to lower levels, but, so far, there is no evidence of such a large vertical heat transfer.

The heat could, of course, be lost to space. This appears to be the most likely explanation." [Emphasis added.]

So we are back to my friend's question: "And if the climate cools?"]

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

[More what-iffing.]

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world's scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business- as-usual practices. We urge our policymakers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels.

[Two points: First. The world's scientific societies, etc. need to get out of the business of promoting policy and back to the business of doing science, which is figuring out how Nature works, as opposed to predicting the unpredictable. The climate system is the mother of all nonlinear dynamical systems. It is undoubtedly chaotic — where else could all those cycles: AO, PDO, etc., come from? And predicting the time evolution of chaotic systems is effectively impossible. Failure to get back to doing science will result in the scientific community's being perceived as what it has already become — another interest group sucking the public teat, concerned principally with the promotion of its own agenda: power, money, influence; power, money, influence; ... .

Second. The burning of fossil fuels is what makes civilization as we know it possible. Shut down the coal mines; stop the flow of oil and calamity is certain and immediate, not probable and not prospective.]

We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: we can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

[Pulease! Whether or not the behavior of the Climagegate principals was illegal, it stinks to high Heaven. What they did, they did with taxpayer money. When you feast at the public trough, your business becomes public business. Neither the climatologists, nor the "what-iffers," etc., were forced to become scientist-activists. They did this on their own, worked hard at it and, having done so, became public figures subject to public scrutiny. As to the "good news," sober economic analysis suggests that if one accepts AGW premises, carbon abatement will achieve little beyond wrecking the world economy. The NAS signatories, being men and women of intelligence, one can only wonder if that isn't what they really want: consigning H. sapiens to his proper place, the diminution of his works and especially his numbers — go search on "Optimum Population" if you think that's a stretch.]

Adams, Robert McCormick, University of California, San Diego

Amasino, Richard M, University of Wisconsin

Anders, Edward, University of Chicago

Anderson, David J, California Institute of Technology

Anderson, Wyatt W, University of Georgia

Anselin, Luc E, Arizona State University

Arroyo, Mary Kalin, University of Chile

Asfaw, Berhane, Rift Valley Research Service

Ayala, Francisco J, University of California, Irvine

Bax, Adriaan, National Institutes of Health

Bebbington, Anthony J, University of Manchester

Bell, Gordon, Microsoft Research

Bennett, Michael V L, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Bennetzen, Jeffrey L, University of Georgia

Berenbaum, May R, University of Illinois

Berlin, Overton Brent, University of Georgia

Bjorkman, Pamela J, California Institute of Technology

Blackburn, Elizabeth, University of California, San Francisco

Blamont, Jacques E, Centre National d' Etudes Spatiales

Botchan, Michael R, University of California, Berkeley

Boyer, John S, University of Delaware

Boyle, Ed A, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Branton, Daniel, Harvard University

Briggs, Steven P, University of California, San Diego

Briggs, Winslow R, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Brill, Winston J, Winston J. Brill and Associates

Britten, Roy J, California Institute of Technology

Broecker, Wallace S, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia University

Brown, James H, University of New Mexico

Brown, Patrick O, Stanford University School of Medicine

Brunger, Axel T, Stanford University

Cairns, Jr John, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Canfield, Donald E, University of Southern Denmark

Carpenter, Stephen R, University of Wisconsin

Carrington, James C, Oregon State University

Cashmore, Anthony R, University of Pennsylvania

Castilla, Juan Carlos, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Cazenave, Anny, Centre National d' Etudes Spatiales

Chapin, III F, Stuart, University of Alaska

Ciechanover, Aaron J, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

Clapham, David E, Harvard Medical School

Clark, William C, Harvard University

Clayton, Robert N, University of Chicago

Coe, Michael D, Yale University

Conwell, Esther M, University of Rochester

Cowling, Ellis B, North Carolina State University

Cowling, Richard M, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Cox, Charles S, University of California, San Diego

Croteau, Rodney B, Washington State University

Crothers, Donald M, Yale University

Crutzen, Paul J, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Daily, Gretchen C, Stanford University

Dalrymple, Brent G, Oregon State University

Dangl, Jeffrey L, University of North Carolina

Darst, Seth A, Rockefeller University

Davies, David R, National Institutes of Health

Davis, Margaret B, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

De Camilli, Pietro V, Yale University School of Medicine

Dean, Caroline, John Innes Centre

DeFries, Ruth S, Columbia University

Deisenhofer, Johann, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

Delmer, Deborah P, University of California, Davis

DeLong, Edward F, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

DeRosier, David J, Brandeis University

Diener, Theodor O, University of Maryland

Dirzo, Rodolfo, Stanford University

Dixon, Jack E, Howard Hughes Medical Center

Donoghue, Michael J, Yale University

Doolittle, Russell F, University of California, San Diego

Dunne, Thomas, University of California, Santa Barbara

Ehrlich, Paul R, Stanford University

Eisenstadt, Shmuel N, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Eisner, Thomas, Cornell University

Emanuel, Kerry A, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Englander, Walter S, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Ernst, W, G, Stanford University

Falkowski, Paul G, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey

Feher, George, University of California, San Diego

Ferejohn, John A, Stanford University

Fersht, Sir Alan, University of Cambridge

Fischer, Edmond H, University of Washington

Fischer, Robert, University of California, Berkeley

Flannery, Kent V, University of Michigan

Frank, Joachim, Columbia University

Frey, Perry A, University of Wisconsin

Fridovich, Irwin, Duke University Medical Center

Frieden, Carl, Washington University School of Medicine

Futuyma, Douglas J, Stony Brook University

Gardner, Wilford R, University of California, Berkeley

Garrett, Christopher J R, University of Victoria

Gilbert, Walter, Harvard University

Gleick, Peter H, Pacific Institute, Oakland [corresponding author]

Goldberg, Robert B, University of California, Los Angeles

Goodenough, Ward H, University of Pennsylvania

Goodman, Corey S, venBio, LLC

Goodman, Morris, Wayne State University School of Medicine

Greengard, Paul, Rockefeller University

Hake, Sarah, Agricultural Research Service

Hammel, Gene, University of California, Berkeley

Hanson, Susan, Clark University

Harrison, Stephen C, Harvard Medical School

Hart, Stanley R, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Hartl, Daniel L, Harvard University

Haselkorn, Robert, University of Chicago

Hawkes, Kristen, University of Utah

Hayes, John M, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Hille, Bertil, University of Washington

Hökfelt, Tomas, Karolinska Institutet

House, James S, University of Michigan

Hout, Michael, University of California, Berkeley

Hunten, Donald M, University of Arizona

Izquierdo, Ivan A, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul

Jagendorf, André T, Cornell University

Janzen, Daniel H, University of Pennsylvania

Jeanloz, Raymond, University of California, Berkeley

Jencks, Christopher S, Harvard University

Jury, William A, University of California, Riverside

Kaback, H Ronald, University of California, Los Angeles

Kailath, Thomas, Stanford University

Kay, Paul, International Computer Science Institute

Kay, Steve A, University of California, San Diego

Kennedy, Donald, Stanford University

Kerr, Allen, University of Adelaide

Kessler, Ronald C, Harvard Medical School

Khush, Gurdev S, University of California, Davis

Kieffer, Susan W, University of Illinois

Kirch, Patrick V, University of California, Berkeley

Kirk, Kent C, University of Wisconsin

Kivelson, Margaret G, University of California, Los Angeles

Klinman, Judith P, University of California, Berkeley

Klug, Sir Aaron, Medical Research Council

Knopoff, Leon, University of California, Los Angeles

Kornberg, Sir Hans, Boston University

Kutzbach, John E, University of Wisconsin

Lagarias, J Clark, University of California, Davis

Lambeck, Kurt, Australian National University

Landy, Arthur, Brown University

Langmuir, Charles H, Harvard University

Larkins, Brian A, University of Arizona

Le Pichon, Xavier T, College de France

Lenski, Richard E, Michigan State University

Leopold, Estella B, University of Washington

Levin, Simon A, Princeton University

Levitt, Michael, Stanford University School of Medicine

Likens, Gene E, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer, National Institutes of Health

Lorand, Laszlo, Northwestern University

Lovejoy, Owen C, Kent State University

Lynch, Michael, Indiana University

Mabogunje, Akin L, Foundation for Development and Environmental Initiatives

Malone, Thomas F, North Carolina State University

Manabe, Syukuro, Princeton University

Marcus, Joyce, University of Michigan

Massey, Douglas S, Princeton University

McWilliams, Jim C, University of California, Los Angeles

Medina, Ernesto, Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research

Melosh, Jay H, Purdue University

Meltzer, David J, Southern Methodist University

Michener, Charles D, University of Kansas

Miles, Edward L, University of Washington

Mooney, Harold A, Stanford University

Moore, Peter B, Yale University

Morel, Francois M M, Princeton University

Mosley-Thompson, Ellen, Ohio State University

Moss, Bernard, National Institutes of Health

Munk, Walter H, University of California, San Diego

Myers, Norman, University of Oxford

Nair, Balakrish G, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases

Nathans, Jeremy, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Nester, Eugene W, University of Washington

Nicoll, Roger A, University of California, San Francisco

Novick, Richard P, New York University School of Medicine

O'Connell, James F, University of Utah

Olsen, Paul E, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

Opdyke, Neil D, University of Florida

Oster, George F, University of California, Berkeley

Ostrom, Elinor, Indiana University

Pace, Norman R, University of Colorado

Paine, Robert T, University of Washington

Palmiter, Richard D, University of Washington School of Medicine

Pedlosky, Joseph, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Petsko, Gregory A, Brandeis University

Pettengill, Gordon H, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Philander, George S, Princeton University

Piperno, Dolores R, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Pollard, Thomas D, Yale University

Price Jr. Buford P, University of California, Berkeley

Reichard, Peter A, Karolinska Institutet

Reskin, Barbara F, University of Washington

Ricklefs, Robert E, University of Missouri

Rivest, Ronald L, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Roberts, John D, California Institute of Technology

Romney, Kimball A, University of California, Irvine

Rossmann, Michael G, Purdue University

Russell, David W, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center of Dallas

Rutter, William J, Synergenics, LLC

Sabloff, Jeremy A, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology

Sagdeev, Roald Z, University of Maryland

Sahlins, Marshall D, University of Chicago

Salmond, Anne, University of Auckland

Sanes, Joshua R, Harvard University

Schekman, Randy, University of California, Berkeley

Schellnhuber, John, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Schindler, David W, University of Alberta

Schmitt, Johanna, Brown University

Schneider, Stephen H, Woods Institute for the Environment

Schramm, Vern L, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Sederoff Ronald R, North Carolina State University

Shatz, Carla J, Stanford University

Sherman, Fred, University of Rochester Medical Center

Sidman, Richard L, Harvard Medical School

Sieh, Kerry, Nanyang Technological University

Simons, Elwyn L, Duke University Lemur Center

Singer, Burton H, Princeton University

Singer, Maxine F, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Skyrms, Brian, University of California, Irvine

Sleep, Norman H, Stanford University

Smith, Bruce D, Smithsonian Institution

Snyder, Solomon H, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Sokal, Robert R, Stony Brook University

Spencer, Charles S, American Museum of Natural History

Steitz, Thomas A, Yale University

Strier, Karen B, University of Wisconsin

Südhof, Thomas C, Stanford University School of Medicine

Taylor, Susan S, University of California, San Diego

Terborgh, John, Duke University

Thomas, David Hurst, American Museum of Natural History

Thompson, Lonnie G, Ohio State University

Tjian, Robert T, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Turner, Monica G, University of Wisconsin

Uyeda, Seiya, Tokai University

Valentine, James W, University of California, Berkeley

Valentine, Joan Selverstone, University of California, Los Angeles

Van Etten, James L, University of Nebraska

Van Holde, Kensal E, Oregon State University

Vaughan, Martha, National Institutes of Health

Verba Sidney, Harvard University

Von Hippel, Peter H, University of Oregon

Wake, David B, University of California, Berkeley

Walker, Alan, Pennsylvania State University

Walker John E, Medical Research Council

Watson, Bruce E, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Watson, Patty Jo, Washington University, St. Louis

Weigel, Detlef, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology

Wessler, Susan R, University of Georgia

West-Eberhard, Mary Jane, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

White, Tim D, University of California, Berkeley

Wilson, William Julius, Harvard University

Wolfenden, Richard V, University of North Carolina

Wood, John A, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Woodwell, George M, Woods Hole Research Center

Wright, Jr Herbert E, University of Minnesota

Wu, Carl, National Institutes of Health

Wunsch, Carl, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Zoback, Mary Lou, Risk Management Solutions, Inc

Note.

1. The signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but are not speaking on its behalf. [Signatory affiliations, originally available as a supporting document, added by The Guardian, along with links to signatory web pages — hat tip.]

A Matter of Ballots.

2010-04-25T00:45:00.041-04:00

Many believe that the TEA party movement should remain non-partisan in the sense of not becoming a political party. This site disagrees. We think it's high time to get TEA Party candidates on the ballot — in every state and at every level.

A TEA Party political party should take as its model the Conservative Party (CP) of New York. Most of the time, CP runs the Republican slate. However, should the Republican nominee lack conservative credentials, there's always the option of running someone else. CP nominees often wind up losing three-way races; but not always, the most notable instance being the election of Jim Buckley to the U.S. Senate in 1970. That year, the left-liberal vote split between the Democrat and a liberal Republican, and Buckley won with 39% of the vote. More recently, CP House candidate Doug Hoffman came within a couple of percentage points of defeating Democrat, Bill Owens. In fact, Hoffman would probably have prevailed, but for the perfidy of Dierdre Scozzafava, the Republican nominee who, trailing badly in the polls and a sore loser to boot, withdrew shortly before the election and endorsed Owens.

Banking on the GOP to do the right thing is an invitation to disappointment. Especially at the national level, Republicans have time and again betrayed conservative principles. Mmes. Snowe and Collins, Messrs. Graham and McCain, to give four better-known examples, differ from the Democrats they run against in degree, not kind. To ensure Republican fidelity to conservative principles in the choice of nominees, the fat cats, the apparatchiks and, yes, the voters too must be given proper incentive. To this end, we propose the choice shown in the accompanying figure: Nominate conservative candidates or lose.

America is a center-right country. Among the electorate, if not the media-concocted caricature thereof, conservatism is on the ascendancy. Let liberal Republicans and Democrats squabble, like stray dogs for a handout, over the diminishing abundance of left-liberal votes. Attractive TEA Party candidates running against a Democrat and a business-as-usual Republican should have a good chance of winning. If short-term considerations be one's guide, this is a good time to stand on principle; if long-term considerations, it's always a good time.

Will Israel Stand with Us?

2010-04-23T00:13:00.022-04:00

On the occasion of Israel's 62^nd Independence Day, Caroline Glick lays out the case for America's maintaining its historic alliance with Israel. Glick approaches this question from the American point of view. Among her arguments are the following:

"Only Israel [by virtue of its democracy, and unlike other states in the region] ... is a reliable, permanent US ally."

"The US and Israel share the same regional foes ... Israel['s] successes redound to the US's benefit."

"Israel remains the US's most reliable source for accurate intelligence on the US's enemies in the region."

"In both military and non-military spheres, Israeli technological achievements ... are shared with America."

"A strong Israel is the best guarantor of ... [America's permanent strategic] interests[: 1] ensuring the smooth flow of affordable petroleum products from the region; [2] preventing the most radical regimes [and other entities] ... from acquiring the means to cause catastrophic harm; and [3] maintaining the US's capacity to project its power to the region."

Ms. Glick's reasoning is impeccable, but unlikely to resonate with the present administration. To see why, consider the following possible interpretations of BHO's behavior toward the Jewish state.

By virtue of stupidity and / or inexperience, he really doesn't understand what he's doing.

He's a people's republic kind of guy bent on transforming the U.S. from a representative democracy into a dictatorship of the proletariat. As such, and like Lenin, he will avoid the distraction of foreign entanglements.

He's a black supremacist who views the Arab-Israeli conflict through the prism of white, European exploitation of non-white, indigenous peoples — hence his sympathy for the Palestinians, whom he regards as the legitimate occupants of what is now Israel.

As imagined by some on the Right, he's a closet Muslim and sees Israel's enemies as his natural allies.

The first possibility, I believe, can be rejected out of hand. Obama may, indeed, be the "affirmative action President," but, his fondness for the teleprompter notwithstanding, he is obviously intelligent and politically adroit. To suggest that he is naive, that he doesn't recognize what the likes of Ahmadinejad, Abbas and Assad are about, is to strain credulity.

The remaining propositions are more plausible. Note that if even one of them holds true, appealing to BHO's sense of American self-interest is beside the point. Obama's America, the one that he is straining to bring into being, bears little relation to its historical antecedents. What is in its interest has little to do with American interests as they have been viewed traditionally, say since the end of World War II.

If one accepts the foregoing analysis, the question is not if Obama will stand with Israel, but rather if Israel will stand with the American people who are just now beginning to appreciate the true nature of "Hope and Change." Israel can do this by being brave, strong and independent, above all, by surviving. The inspiration afforded thereby will allow the real America to again one day be "a light unto the nations." For the present, that task defaults to others.

Fast of the Ninth Day.

2010-03-22T15:07:00.033-04:00

The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez.

For nearly 2000 years, Jews have fasted on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av (Tisha B'Av), thereby commemorating the destruction of the Temple by Roman legions in 70 A.D. Will future generations of American ex patriots similarly mark the 21^st day of March? On this black morning, such thoughts flood the mind. One recalls somber, grief-stricken Parisian faces in old news films as Hitler's Wehrmacht jackbooted into their city. As les citoyens de Paris then, so we now — adrift.

Colonel Allen West. In any tempest, there are sources of purchase, and this one is no exception. One such is Colonel Allen West, candidate for the House in Florida's 22^nd Congressional District. Colonel West's personal story is inspiring; his positions on the issues (also here), uncompromising; his spirit, indomitable. He will take the fight to the Temple's would-be despoilers.

A student of military history, West recalls the heroism of Joshua Chamberlain, a Union colonel who turned the tide at Gettysburg. Applying, his predecessor's example (see also "The Lesson of Phidippides") to our present predicament, he writes as follows:

"... As casualties mounted, water ran out, and so did ammunition. The men of the 20^th Maine Regiment felt all was lost. Chamberlain knew that if he retreated, the entire Union Army would be encircled, destroyed, and there would be nothing to prevent General Robert E Lee ... from marching south to Washington DC.

"Chamberlain then uttered the one word that would save the day ... : “Bayonets”! It was a word command [sic] never given by a Union Commander to that point, the spirit of the bayonet and the offensive initiative had always been with the Confederate forces. ...

"I say 'Bayonets' to let us all remember the story of Little Round Top [Chamberlain's position]. Let us all remember the leadership and courage of Colonel Joshua L Chamberlain. Let us all remember that regardless of how bad it may seem, we don’t quit, we don’t retreat, we don’t surrender……..WE CHARGE! That is the American spirit, that is what we all must embody in this 2010 election cycle year." [Emphasis added]

Colonel West pledges to reverse yesterday's assault on American values. His website is here; his recent address to CPAC, here, May his words, his eloquence and, above all, his fighting spirit inspire us.

[Revised 26 March, 2010. The author has no connections to Col. West or to his campaign.]

"When in the Course of Human Events."

2010-03-13T10:42:00.061-05:00

Figure 1. Interacting memes and consequences (blue) that afflict the American body politic.

Memes. A necessary precursor to "transformative change" is the proliferation of mutually re-enforcing ideas, the combined authority of which eventually overwhelms majoritarian indifference. Professor Dennett, with whose strident atheism I must one day pick a bone, calls these ideas "memes". Like animal species in nature, memes can interact in a variety of ways. The most potent, and potentially the most dangerous, participate in mutualistic associations, deriving benefit from each other even as hummingbirds and long-tubed flowers exchange pollination services for energy (nectar).

There are also costs, and there can be cheaters as well, topics best left for another occasion. For now, we note that as mutually-re-enforcing memes propagate, their ability to dominate the public discourse increases. The result can be an abrupt shift in the ideological landscape. In mathematics, such changes are called "catastrophes;" in engineering, "hard excitation."

Often there is a trigger — for example, the importation of Lenin into Czarist Russia. But triggers only work when there is powder to ignite, i.e., when the memes are already potent, but not sufficiently so to spark revolution by themselves. Importantly, the trigger can itself be a mimetic consequence. This is because proliferating memes alter the societal context in which they exist. This, in turn, produces feedback (positive or negative) affecting the memes' ability to propagate, influence and survive. In short, there is a nonlinear dynamics of memes, though, so far as I am aware, this has never been studied in a serious way.

Shown in the accompanying figure are some of the memes and mimetic consequences that threaten America as we know it:

Resurgent Marxism, in the guise of "affordable housing," contributed to the current economic melt-down, which, due to rising unemployment, drives calls for Healthcare "Reform" (HR).

Marxism also promotes HR under the banner of "social justice."

Increasing demands on finite medical resources leads to rationing, i.e., to Sarah Palin's "Death Panels" (SPDPs).

The need for SPDPs is exacerbated by economic decline.

By its very nature, Marxism promotes statism (Big Brother).

Neo-Fascism and Political Correctness also promote ascendency of the state — gotta keep the hoi polloi in line.

The theory of anthropogenic warming (Church of Global Warming) promotes "Cap 'n Tax," which, if enacted, will further cripple the economy and, by extension, generate more work for SPDPs.

"Malthusian alarmism" and environmentalism promote "optimum populations" via family planning and reduced energy consumption. The short-term result is a distorted population structure — proportionately more oldsters — again more work for SPDPs.

Not shown, because there would be too much "spaghetti," are the negative economic consequences of an aging workforce — just ask any indigenous European.

Figure 1 is provisional and incomplete. Missing is technological advance that facilitates government intrusion into everyday life. Likewise absent is Baby-Boomer narcicissm, a consequence (one of many) of which has been declining fertility. This further contributes to population aging, to declining per capita productivity, to more demands on the health care system, etc.

Readers may wish to add other boxes and arrows, relabel the ones already drawn, etc. Still, Figure 1 sharpens the more diffuse perceptions that motivate TEA party supporters: Things are getting out of hand; absent major pushback, they will necessarily get worse — consequence of positive feedback.

Figure 2. What comes out of the cauldron depends on what we put into it.

To Secure These Rights. What comes out of the witch's pot in Figure 1 is not the only possibility. From The Declaration of Independence we read:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, ... . That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it ... . Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; ... . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, ... evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security [Emphasis added]."

Article V. The preceding passage refers to dissolving the "political bands" that connected Britain and her North American possessions in Colonial times. Today, things are different. There is no occupying power. If there is an enemy, it is ourselves. Fortunately, we have the Constitution and mechanisms that provide for its amendment. Of these, one entails Congressional passage of amendments; the other, a call by the states for an "Article V" Convention:

"The Congress, ... on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which ... shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof ... ." [Emphasis added]

Ours to Choose. The second procedure has never been utilized, in part, because of fears that it could lead to a "runaway" convention. And, indeed, the Philadelphia Convention far exceeded its charge, which was to amend the failing Articles of Confederation. Put crudely, a constitutional convention is a "crap-shoot." In 1787, uncertainty as to the outcome was outweighed by facts on the ground. So it is today:

The government is dysfunctional; the nation, headed toward bankruptcy.

Our existing Constitution, having become a "living document," no longer effectively limits governmental action. To the contrary, all three branches do pretty much as they please — witness House intentions to deem the Senate Health Care Bill "passed" without actually voting on it.

The past hundred years' history suggests that judicial remediation is improbable; likewise, legislative. Nor will Congress, which bears a heavy responsibility for the current state of affairs, likely approve and send to the states curative amendments.

Ineluctably, our present course leads to the replacement of republican government by a totalitarian state. More precisely, the interlocking consequences of legislation, both pending and impending, will result in governmental control over just about every aspect of our lives. What remains uncertain is the character, benign or malevolent, of this control — in which regard, one recalls Lord Acton's admonition.

Regrettably, the choice that confronts us is not between patient sobriety and precipitous action. The choice is instead between Figures 1 and 2; between changing the system and being changed by it. No middle ground; no easy outs. And, yes, there is risk. [Updated, 17 March]

Wilders Addresses Britain's House of Lords.

2010-03-08T17:46:00.021-05:00

Geert Wilders leads the Dutch Freedom Party.

Last week, Geert Wilders delivered a remarkable speech to Britain's House of Lords. In an age of political correctness, Wilders is an inspiration to those who believe indigenous European culture to be threatened by an encroaching star and crescent. Referencing Winston Churchil, he concluded that

"To the previous generation, that of my parents, the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope in my country, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. ... ‘This is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon.

"What will be broadcasted [sic] forty years from now? Will it still be 'This is London'? Or will it be 'This is Londonistan'? Will it bring us hope? Or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery? The choice is yours. And in the Netherlands the choice is ours.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will never apologize for being free. We will and should never give in. And, indeed, as one of your former leaders said: We will never surrender."

Wilders' remarks can be read in full here.

Sarah Palin.

2010-02-08T09:06:00.018-05:00

Sarah Palin addresses the Tea Party Nation's National Tea Party Convention on 6 February.

We caught SP's speech last Saturday and note the following:

She remains the de facto leader of popular revulsion against big government run amuck — in particular, against all things Obama. Her critics will continue to cry "racism," and they will continue to be wrong.

Her attention to foreign policy was in welcome contrast to the neo-isolationism that pervades parts of the TEA Party movement.

When she mentioned John McCain, there was polite silence. Sarah would do well to rethink her decision to campaign for him in the Arizona primary.

Occasionally, as when discussing energy and health care, she pulled her punches, a response, we imagine, to the continuing attacks to which she and her family have been subject.

The speech's "hate filled rant" characterizations put forth by her critics, to whom we will not link, remain as incomprehensible as they are unfounded. Sarah is decent, caring and intelligent (but not an intellectual) — a woman with much to offer and more guts in one finger than the opposition can muster in toto.

When the Dawn Comes Up Like Thunder.

2010-01-31T19:25:00.043-05:00

On the Road to Mandalay adapted from Kipling's poem.

Johnny Comes Marching Home. A recent letter from Phil complained about robo calls and Sarah Palin's announcement that she will campaign for John McCain. Phil's advice to Sarah (Think she'll listen?): "Stay out of Arizona til after the primary. If McCain wins, fine. Then you can indulge your sense of obligation. He's a RINO fer sure (immigration, cap and trade, etc.), but better a RINO than a Dem. And if he loses, we're all on the same side, which is where we belonged in the first place!" This columnist agrees, but worries that McCain's millions, the local press, who will abandon him in the general, and lingering affection for an old war hero will carry the day. More to the point, he fears that Republican voters may succumb to the "Better than a Dem" argument before the general, i.e., that they will fall hook, line and sinker for the claim that only McCain can win — which brings us, in a round about way, to the subject of today's post.

Puzzle in a Poem. Long puzzling to this author are the geographical and ichthyological references in Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, Mandalay, later set to music (video). On the face of it, Kipling's allusions, to "China", "the bay" and "flyin'-fishes" make great verse, but not a whole lot of sense. Some have suggested geographic ignorance / poetic license and let it go at that. But, as we shall see, poetry and reality can be reconciled, remarkably, if you will indulge me, in a way that bears on the aforementioned election. First, the relevant lines of the poem:

"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"

...

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
..." [Emphasis added]

Figure 1. The spectacular pagoda at Moulmein.

Geography. Mandalay is the old royal capital of Burma. The city is inland and upriver (north) on the Irrawaddy of Rangoon, the present-day capital. Moulmein, home of the spectacular "old Mulmein Pagoda" (Figure 1), is south and east, on the other side of the Gulf of Martaman (Figure 2), and China is far to the north and the east. Importantly, the Irrawaddy was the "road to Mandalay," or so the British called it — hence the references to "the old Flotilla" (river boats based at Mandalay) and "their paddles clunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay."

Questions.

If one is going up the Irrawaddy by paddle steamer from Rangoon, how does the sun rise over China, which is in the wrong direction and hundreds of miles distant?

The only "bay" in the vicinity, the Bay of Bengal, is to the south and west. How can China be "'crost the bay"?

Where frolic the flying fishes? Not in the Irrawaddy. The family Exocoetidae is entirely marine.

Previously. This correspondent is not the first to ponder the problem. Over at Old Poetry, several readers weigh in on the subject:

Charley Noble suggests, and I agree, that "China" refers to Indochina, in which case the sun can rise due east. Charley notes that the Irrawaddy was "the road to Mandalay" — hat tip — and further suggests that the setting is Moulmein harbor. With the last I disagree because it would make India, not China (Indochina), the land across the bay.

David Beierl suggests that the first line above "should read '... lookin' lazy at the sea'. The change ['lazy' to 'eastward']," he writes, was made "by the folks who set it [the poem] to music," and that, the sea being west of Moulmein, "the alteration doesn't make sense." Clearly, if one is looking seaward from the pagoda, one is facing west. However, while "lazy at the sea" shows up towards the end of the poem, Project Gutenberg gives the first reference to sea gazing as "lookin' eastward'." That having been said, a survey of other internet links yields multiple occurrences of both versions.

Figure 2. To the east of Rangoon, and on the other side of the Gulf of Martaman, is the town of Moulmein. Mandalay lies to the north.

My Solution. Kipling imagined (he was only in Burma for a couple of days) going upriver from Rangoon to Mandalay, and, as suggested by Noble, "China" is Indochina. The "bay" is the Gulf of Martaman, wherein cavort the Exocoetidae (flyin'-fishes). The first reference to "lookin'," has Kipling in Rangoon gazing towards Moulein and the girl who thinks of him, hence, the sun rises in the east — "outer China" and "'crost the bay." In the second reference, it is the temple that looks seaward. As Beierl correctly observes, "east" won't do. So Kipling substitutes "lazy at" for "eastward," and, while he's at it, changes "lookin'" to "looking."

Unresolved. If we take Kipling's words at face value, the flying fish are still in the Irrawaddy. Perhaps, having never himself made the journey, he imagined them incorrectly in the river. Perhaps, as others have suggested, meter and rhyme trumped accuracy, i.e., Kipling knew full well that the fish were in the bay, but couldn't get that to work. Or perhaps, from time to time, hapless individuals try their luck in freshwater — sort of like conservatives voting for RINOs.

Update (1 February, 2010): Additional discussion of these issues at Waepedia — probably elsewhere as well.

Venimus; Vidimus; Vicimus!

2010-01-20T07:58:00.029-05:00

The "we" in our title being "we the people" generally, and of the TEA Parties in particular, you might say we're all "we-we'd up" — OK, bad pun. But consider the following:

"If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since ... the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform ... . But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process” — Barney Frank, 19 January, 2010. [Emphasis added]

It's not often that this correspondent finds himself in agreement with the bloviator from Bayonne. But on this occasion, I say, "Bully for Barney!" — the business about discussions with "some Republican Senators" — watch yourselves, Olympia, Susan — notwithstanding. Let's hope Barney's newfound "respect for democratic procedures" isn't a flash in the pan.

Memo to Self. All politicians betray their constituents, the only questions being "To what extent?" and "When?" In Scott Brown's case, let's hope the answers are "not a whole lot," and "not for a while."

Sed nunc gaudeamus!

It's the People's Seat.

2010-01-12T13:33:00.013-05:00

"With all due respect, it's not the Kennedy seat, and it's not the Democrat's seat. It's the people's seat" — Scott Brown, responding to Massachusetts Senate debate moderator David Gergen's question on whether he [Brown] would be willing to sit in "Ted Kennedy's seat" and cast the 41^st vote to block health care reform.

At The Other McCain, poster Smitty mused, "I wonder if Gergen realizes that was the election?" Let us hope so, and Bravo Scott! For Brown's other stands on the issues, go here. Hat tip to Americanglob.

The Only Train Running on Time.

2010-01-11T06:06:00.028-05:00

A Peppercorn class A1 Pacific hauls snowbound commuters to Dover after power to the third rail failed, disabling the more "modern" electrics that usually provide motive power.

This site likes trains, especially when steam's on the point. Watts Up With That posted this photo back in December when Tornado, a Pacific (4-6-2) class locomotive, was the only engine running in southeast England. The remainder, electrics, were inoperative due to the cold.

In days past, the Brits used to name their locomotives — at least the larger ones — the most famous being The Flying Scotsman that hauled passengers from London to Edinurgh.

The Flying Scotsman in 1989. Note the name plate over the middle driver.

Said Mark Allatt of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust,

"If any operators want to modernise their services by using steam trains, I would be happy to give them a quote."

Meanwhile, The Daily Mail has published an article suggesting that the world may be in in for 30 years of global cooling. Well, every cloud has its silver lining. Perhaps we'll see more iron horses as the glaciers advance. Small solace, but solace nonetheless.

Scott Brown.

2010-01-11T05:04:00.010-05:00

Scott Brown, Massachusetts candidate for U. S. Senate. Go here to learn more.

Dad was a great admirer of John Kennedy. Not so, brother Teddy, who, Dad liked to remind us, had a ringer take one of his exams while attending Harvard. That was long before Chappaquiddick and long before Teddy became an icon of liberalism run amuck.

I think Dad would be rooting for Scott Brown, the conservative candidate for Kennedy's now vacant Senate seat, and who, by some accounts, is within striking distance of defeating his Democratic rival. Here's a link to Brown's stand on the issues and another if you're inclined to contribute to his campaign.

Brown says he'd provide the forty-first vote to stop Obamacare and Cap and Trade by filibuster. That's enough to earn this site's endorsement.

According to Wikipedia,

"He is a 30-year member of the Massachusetts National Guard, where he currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. Brown was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service in homeland security following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.[10] LTC Brown has also completed Airborne school and been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal."

If you live in Massachussetts, vote for him; if not, send some shekels. There's a lot riding on this.

ClimateGate Gleanings III: Maybe Religion.

2010-01-08T19:32:00.050-05:00

John Ray, the "father of English natural history," believed that the wisdom of the Creator could be comprehended by studying His Creation. Today, the John Ray Initiative seeks "to bring together scientific and Christian understandings of the environment in a way that can be widely communicated and lead to effective action."

Onward Christian Soldiers. Tim Mitchell was one of the graduate students at East Anglia responsible for the code discussed in the Harry_Read_Me file. As sleuthed by "Wearedoomed" (post # 832 at Tickerforum.org), Mitchell is a devout Christian who believes that doing the Lord's work necessitates participation in the fight against Global Warming. In an article published in Evangelicals Now, he wrote as follows:

"What can individual Christians do? ... [W]e all have the vote, and environmental issues ought to be among those that we weigh up carefully before casting our vote. We are also each responsible for a small part of the daily emissions of greenhouse gases. ... The government urges us to reduce our energy usage so that we may indulge ourselves in other ways, but we have a higher motive for reducing waste (1 Timothy 6.17-19). ... [H]uman pollution is clearly another of the birth pangs of creation, as it eagerly awaits being delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans. 19-22)." [Emphasis added]

That was back in 2000, and the article identifies its author as working "at the Climatic Research Unit, UEA, Norwich." Mitchell continued to publish in Evangelicals Now. In 2001, the identification changes to "Dr. Tim Mitchell, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research;" in August, 2004, to "Dr. Tim Mitchell, Climate Scientist;" in July of 2006, to "Dr. Tim Mitchell, formerly a scientist, now a student at LTS [London Theological Seminary (evangelical)]" and later that year, to "Dr. Tim Mitchell, Highbury Baptist Church." Evidently, Mitchell received his Ph.D. in 2001, worked at CRU for several years, probably as a post-doc, and then abandoned climatology in favor of a higher calling.

Immediate Controls. In 1997, Mitchell promoted a statement calling for immediate controls on carbon emissions. To Tom Wigley he sent the following request:

"Attached ... is a Statement, the purpose of which is to bolster or increase governmental and public support for controls of emissions of greenhouse gases in European and other industrialised countries in the negotiations during the Kyoto Climate Conference in December 1997. The Statement was drafted by a number of prominent European scientists concerned with the climate issue, eleven of whom are listed after the Statement and who are acting as formal sponsors of the Statement."

In Wigley, Mitchell apparently hoped to find a supporter for speedy action, and, in this, he would be disappointed. "Dear Eleven," Wigley wrote (Email - 880476729.txt) the statement's authors in a letter copied to Mitchell,

"I was very disturbed by your recent letter, and your attempt to get others to endorse it. Not only do I disagree with the content of this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the IPCC 'view' when you say that 'the latest IPCC assessment makes a convincing economic case for immediate control of emissions.' In contrast to the one-sided opinion expressed in your letter, IPCC WGIII SAR and TP3 review the literature and the issues in a balanced way presenting arguments in support of both "immediate control" and the spectrum of more cost-effective options. It is not IPCC's role to make "convincing cases" for any particular policy option; nor does it. However, most IPCC readers would draw the conclusion that the balance of economic evidence favors the emissions trajectories given in the WRE paper. This is contrary to your statement." [Emphasis added].

One is tempted to say "bully for Wigley," until one remembers that, like the other Climategate principals, he wore multiple hats: scientist, IPCC poohbah, Lord knows what else.

Ironically, Wigley's present-day enthusiasm for the IPCC 's prescriptions is decidedly tepid. A decade after the exchange with Mitchell, he would argue (Pielke, R. Jr., Wigley, T. and C. Green. 2008. Dangerous assumptions. Nature. 452: 531-532.) that the IPCC had greatly understated the difficulties in achieving meaningful carbon reduction. Had this opinion already begun to form in 1997? And if so, was Mitchell aware of it? If yes to both questions, the latter's decision to approach Wigley would be explained.

The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation. Tim Mitchell isn't the only environmentalist inspired by Christian Faith. Another such individual is Sir John T. Houghton, presently chairman of The John Ray Initiative. JRI describes itself as "an educational charity with a vision to bring together scientific and Christian understandings of the environment in a way that can be widely communicated and lead to effective action." Houghton, a former professor of atmpspheric physics at Oxford, was the lead author of three IPCC reports and the former chief executive officer of the Met Office, which organization's "warm, warmer, warmest" forecasts were recently reviewed by Richard North. "From a fuddy-duddy organisation created in 1854 to provide a service to mariners, and then aviators when the aeroplane was invented," North writes, "the Met Office ... has since transmuted into a powerful advocacy unit that sees its main mission to convince the world that we are prey to 'dangerous climate change'. Much of this," North continues,

"is down [sic] to one man - John Houghton (now Sir John) who was the director-general and later chief executive of the Met Office between 1983 and 1991.

"It was he, way back in 1988, who attended the first World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in Toronto and later became the first scientific chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"It was Houghton who, with one of her senior advisers, Sir Crispin Tickell, convinced the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to fund a new Met Office unit called the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. Opened in 1990, it is now based in Exeter and employs more than 200 staff, having become a temple to what many regard as the climate change 'religion'."

Houghton's take on climate change and the need for theologically-inspired activism is summarized in "An Urgent Call to Prayer" issued by himself and the Bishop of Liverpool. "There is therefore an inescapable moral imperative," they write,

"for rich countries to avoid further damage by rapidly reducing their carbon emissions and to share their wealth and skills with developing countries to enable them to adapt to climate change and to build their economies sustainably."

There follows discussion of the need to limit the rise in world temperatures to 2 deg. C., condemnation of America's lack of leadership and a consensus-view summary of the consequences of failing to act:

"By the second half of this century, there could be hundreds of millions of environmental refugees whose homes are no longer habitable either because of rising sea level, gross flooding or persistent drought. The impact on the world’s ecosystems will also be large. Many species are already threatened by the destruction of tropical forests; climate change is adding to this. Millions of species are likely to be lost in the coming decades. Even if the global average temperature rise is contained below 2 deg C the damages are likely to be serious. Above that target level, the damages will be increasingly more devastating in many parts of the world."

Nowhere in any of this is there mention of the chance that mainline climate scientists might just possibly have it wrong, of the fact that the last 8-15 (depending on how you count) years of stable / cooling temperatures were unpredicted in simulo, of the uncertainties surrounding paleo-temperature reconstructions, etc. Indeed, the authors' religious fervor is exceeded only by their faith in the infallibility of contemporary science.

Worth noting is the fact that JRI and its contributors do not shy from getting down to brass tacks. A recent post on their Forum Page links to Climate Prayer on Twitter, from which, I reproduce the following:

"Pray for a good energy & climate bill in US in 2010. Can loving our neighbours trump politics?"

"Pray birders realise impact climate change will have on birds. 'Some will run out of habitat'"

"Pray asset managers understand climate risks when investing. Report says many don't."

"UK government offers scrappage deal on household boilers. Pray many get new efficient boilers."

"Indonesia - 3rd biggest CO2 emitter - says will cut emissions by tree-planting. Pray their sums are right."

Amusing to this author is an exhortation to "Pray for China to take climate seriously." That the "60 year snow record," to which this suggestion also refers, may be a harbinger of things frigid to come seems not to have occurred to the supplicant.

Considerably less cause for mirth is the hope for a "good energy & climate bill in US." By this is meant legislation that cripples the American economy, puts millions out of work and, as I have written elsewhere, consigns the old and the infirm, to the mercies of Sarah Palin's "death panels." Already, pensioners in England are burning books to keep warm, the per pound cost of the printed word, at least when purchased second hand, being less than that of coal. And this circumstance, these people seek to export to "the Colonies" — thank you very much!

JRI takes its inspiration from the notion of "stewardship." As stewards of the earth, they believe, humanity has an obligation protect God's Creation — to leave the planet, if not in its pre-human condition, then at least as we, the present generation, found it. The earth in their view is a garden, which must be tended. "The Genesis stories," they write, "contain a beautiful description of this partnership when they speak of God ‘walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Genesis 3.8). We may wonder what God and Adam and Eve talked about on those evening walks. They would surely have talked about the garden and how humans were getting on finding out about it and caring for it." [Emphasis added]

A Supernatural Punisher. Whereas Mitchell and Houghton appeal to our better natures, Robert May contemplates the need for a harsher tack. May is the Baron of Oxford, the former Chief Science Advisor to her Majesty’s Government, former President of the Royal Society, current President of the British Science Association, etc. Arguably – they don’t do polls on this sort of thing – he is the best known and most influential scientist in Britain. By training a mathematical physicist, May switched fields in the early nineteen-seventies, thereafter becoming one of the world’s pre-eminent theoretical ecologists. More recently, he has been out-spoken on the issue of climate change, in which regard he holds human activity responsible for late twentieth century warming. Like other warmists, May predicts catastrophic environmental collapse absent the stabilization of atmospheric carbon.

Unlike, Mitchell et al., May is a self-proclaimed atheist: "I think I was eight years old," he reminisced, "when I first encountered, and was disturbed by, the biblical injunction, relating to the doubting St Thomas: 'blessed is he that seeth not, yet believeth'." May detests resurgent fundamentalism, which he regards as a threat to civilization generally, to the fruits of The Enlightenment, in particular. Nonetheless, as reported in the press, he has recently pondered the possibility that organized religion might be usefully enlisted to help make the world green."

"Religious leaders should play a frontline role in mobilising people to take action against global warming … [R]eligious groups could use their influence to motivate believers into reducing the environmental impact of their lives. The international reach of faith-based organisations and their authoritarian structures give religious groups an almost unrivalled ability to encourage a large proportion of the world's population to go green … ." [Ian Sample, The Guardian (7 September, 2009)] [Emphasis added]"

"Lord May ... said religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again. … [T]he committed atheist said … the world was on a ‘calamitous trajectory’ brought on by its failure to co-ordinate measures against global warming. ‘Maybe religion is needed,’ said Lord May … . ‘A supernatural punisher may be part of the solution. … Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective … if you invested that power … [in] an all-seeing, all powerful deity … . Such a system would be ‘immensely stabilising.’" [Richard Alleyne, The Telegraph. (7 September, 2009)] [Emphasis added]

There are three reasons why May's views merit careful consideration and serious concern.

He is terribly well connected, politically adroit and a prime mover in the world of science. When May speaks, others listen. More importantly, what he says usually represents the views of the community, dare I say, cabal, of elite scientists who control which papers get published in prestige journals such as Nature, and, more generally, which opinions are deemed "respectable." Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, scientists "move in herds." People like May, to a far greater extent than most on the outside imagine, determine whither the herds tend.

He is no fool. The policies he endorses will cause pain, suffering and death on a planetary scale. His ruminations on controlling peoples actions via fear of a wrathful God should therefore serve as a wake-up call for just what the environmentalist community has in mind.

Recently, Stehr and von Storch have written about the impatience with which climate scientists view the democratic process:
"Within the broad field of climatology and climate policy one is able to discern growing concerns about the virtues of democracy. It is not just the deep divide between knowledge and action that is at issue, but it is an inconvenient democracy, which is identified as the culprit holding back action on climate change. As Mike Hulme [director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research and one of the Climategate correspondents] has noted, it can be frustrating to learn that citizens have minds of their own." [Emphasis added]
Stehr and von Storch identify specific calls for carbon abatement policies by authoritarian fiat. Thus, while May mulls persuasion via the pulpit, important climatologists prefer the counsel of Smith and Wesson.

The most important reason for taking May's words to heart is that they indicate the environmental movement's fallback position if the evidence goes against anthropogenic warming. In two recent addresses, the first to Autralia's Lowy Institute Institute for International Policy, the second to the British Science Association, May argues that climate change is a "multiplier" that exacerbates a more fundamental problem, which is that mankind's current "ecological footprint" exceeds the earth's biological capacity. "I find it astonishing," he writes
"that more than half the atoms of nitrogen, and also of phosphorus, incorporated into green plants today come from artificial fertilisers (produced with a fossil fuel energy subsidies) rather than the natural biogeochemical cycles which constructed, and which struggle to maintain, the biosphere." [Emphasis added]
"The planet’s biological capacity," he continues,
"ultimately depends on the number of people multiplied by the average per capita footprint. It could thus correspond to more people each casting a smaller footprint, or alternatively to fewer people with larger footprints." [Emphasis added]

The alternatives (not mutually exclusive) that follow from May's analysis boil down to impoverishment (reduced per capita consumption), limits to procreation (reduced recruitment of newborns) and murder (accelerated losses, of the elderly and the infirm, for starters).

Coming soon to a planet near you. The environmental movement's real prescription for "sustainability."

Optimum Population. If the foregoing sounds extreme, check out the Optimum Population Trust [OPT]'s website. Here, we find the following:

"For a 'modest' world footprint of 3.3 gha/cap [global hectares per individual] (without allowances for biodiversity or change of biocapacity), the maximum sustainable population is 3.4 billion; the optimum population would be around 3 billion." [Emphasis added]

Of course, OPT would allow for biodiversity, but, on the scale being considered, that is a triviality. The principal point is this: Currently, the world's population is something in excess of 6 billion, and it will rise to around 9 billion by 2050 before beginning a slow decline in response to diminished fertility. What OPT is calling for is thus a two thirds reduction in the human population that will obtain absent intervention or catastrophe. For the present, I leave it as an exercise to calculate just how such a reduction might be obtained. But the qualitative conclusion is that, in the short-term (which I take to be decades), human numbers can only be reduced to such an extent by dramatic reductions in fertility and / or increases in mortality. Even though world fertility has now dropped below replacement levels, the simple fact is that humans live too long for natural mortality to do the trick on the time scale of interest.

This is the conclusion that few dare to speak, save by allusion to the need for third world "family planning." That it is nonetheless widely held, I would argue, explains much. It is the reason, I believe, environmentalists are untroubled by the possibility that climate scientists may be wrong, the reason they are are undismayed by the scandals of malaria control and prospective health care rationing, the reason they are uninterested in the use of nuclear energy. The countering arguments of course, speak to other things: scientific consensus, environmental degradation, etc. But the unstated commonality is that the diminution of humanity's numbers, by whatever means, is, in their view, a step in the right direction. Significantly, China is already demanding monetary compensation for souls not born — the result of its one child policy.

"'As a result of the family planning policy, China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions a year,' Zhao [Vice-Minister of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission] said."

The next step down this road is the valuation (in global hectares, of course) of "life years" and monetary reward for their abbreviation. God save us all!

Kill the Bill.

2009-12-16T08:29:00.026-05:00

Michelle Bachmann et al. address Tea Partiers near the Capitol on 15 December. Click to enlarge.

In recent weeks, this site has been preoccupied with ClimateGate. This interest reflects our opinion (1) that anthropogenic warming remains an unsubstantiated hypothesis, (2) that the CRU(d) cabal's behavior, as revealed by the leaked emails, is a stain on the profession, (3) that the computer codes used by CRU(d) are sufficiently dubious to raise questions as to the reliability of at least some of the "data" on which the AGW "consensus" is based and (4) that the "solutions" being proposed to address this (non-)problem will have catastrophic socio-economic consequences.

With regard to the last, we have noted that there is a direct tie-in with health care: 'Cap and Tax' (aka 'Freeze and Starve') will wreck the world's economy, thus giving irresistible impetus to the rationing of medical services and the realization of Sarah Palin's 'death panels.' Additionally, both measures promote the Green movement's ultimate goal, which is the reduction mankind's ecological footprint via the diminution of both total numbers and per capita energy consumption. Regarding this assessment, which some would deem hyperbolic, we can only say that we have rubbed shoulders for too many years with too many environmental scientists and activists — all too often, one and the same — to believe otherwise. These people view humanity as a cancer on the planet, and we all know how one deals with malignancy.

As to health care, a recent article in Politico about the latest Tea Party rally contra the legislation in statu nascendi is hopeful. A majority of Americans are dead set against it. Sooner or later, their voices will be heard.

Once is Happenstance.

2009-12-13T04:35:00.034-05:00

Some of the ClimateGate links to which I previously linked have moved; others have disappeared. At this writing, the zip file (emails plus miscellany) is still available here; the emails, chronologically, and as a searchable data base, here; and the HARRY_READ_ME.TXT file, here, which is a new location.

Sadly, L'Ombre de l'Olivier is no longer reachable.

ClimateGate Gleanings - II.

2009-12-12T10:10:00.033-05:00

In 2001, John Houhton of the IPCC made the case for anthropogenic warming, with the organization's poster child graphic in the background. Roger Pielke Jr. discusses this and related matters here.

We continue this site's review of some of the more interesting recent developments in the continuing ClimateGate saga:

Context. Having failed to contain the burgeoning scandal, defenders of AGW have taken to suggesting that the "hacked" emails have been taken out of context. Enter Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre with a detailed exegesis of the correspondence relating to "tricks" employed to hide the infamous, albeit widely misunderstood, "decline." McIntyre, for those unfamiliar with his work, has earned the respect of many — this correspondent included — for his efforts to understand exactly how scientists such as Michael Mann and Keith Briffa convert proxy data, tree ring widths, for example, into paleo temperatures. His essential point is that the results reported in scientific papers should be reproducible given the original data and the methods reported; his subsidiary point, that many of climatological papers provide neither sufficient data nor sufficiently detailed descriptions of the methodology to permit independent replication. Most famously, he and Ross McKitrick [2005. Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32. L03710, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750; also comments by von Storch and Zorita and Huybers and replies thereto by M&M in the same journal and year; also, McIntyre, S. and R, McKitrick. 2005. The M&M Critique of the MBH98 northern hemisphere climate index: Update and implications. Energy and Environment. 16:69-100] argued that the (in)famous "hockey stick;" poster child of IPCC-3, is most economically interpreted as a methodological artifact.

Regarding the context of the ClinateGate emails relevant to "hiding the decline," McIntyre wrote on 10 December as follows:

"The Climategate Letters show clearly that the relevant context is the IPCC Lead Authors’ meeting in Tanzania in September 1999 at which the decline in the Briffa reconstruction was perceived by IPCC as 'diluting the message', as a 'problem', as a 'potential distraction/detraction'. A stone in their shoe."

The "message", as summarized in Figure 2.21 of the IPCC Third Assessment Report was that temperatures had been more or less steady for at least a thousand years prior to the the onset of 20th century warming (the plot in the background of the BBC photo above), which is when the industrial revolution gets going in earnest.

Subsequently, and in response to the ensuing deluge of comments (264 as of this writing), McIntyre modified his conclusion somewhat: "I agree," he wrote,

"with critics who observe that the proximate objection to the Briffa reconstruction ... was not that the decline per se diluted the message, but [that] the Briffa reconstruction overall diluted the message and interfered with a 'tidy story'."

Regardless of which version one accepts, the take home points are the same: the ClimateGate correspondents had something to sell; they were intent on leaving no loose ends upon which dissenters could seize; as IPCC chapter authors, they could promote their personal views from behind the scenes.

A Letter from Wigley. In email 880476729.txt, Tom Wigley, one of the ClimateGate principals, proclaimed that "It is not IPCC's role to make 'convincing cases' for any particular policy option; nor does it." This characterization of the IPCC as a disinterested summarizer of established "facts" is belied by the ClimateGate principals' concern that nothing cloud the message that contemporary temperatures are outside the range of "normal" variability and therefore a likely consequence of human activity. This is the "tidy story," and its effect was to galvanize the push to curtail emissions — not after further study had nailed everything down — but ASAP. To suggest that the ClimateGate correspondents intended otherwise is to strain credulity.

Fraud. In reviewing McIntyre's analysis, Roger Pielke Jr. concluded that

"The 'trick' does not show scientific fraud. It does not show that climate science is a sham. What it does show is a group of scientists at the highest levels of the IPCC stage managing their presentation of climate science for the greatest possible effect via their creation of a graphic showing paleoclimate reconstructions -- the so-called 'hockey stick.' It also shows the conflict of interest faced by an IPCC lead author with responsibility for placing his own work into broader context.

...

"Not only does McIntyre put the "trick" into its contemporary context, but his efforts also helps [sic] us to understand the present spinning by the scientific community suggesting that the 'trick' is just science-speak for a clever method. It is not. The 'trick' in context is clearly an effort by activist scientists at the highest levels of the IPCC to misrepresent scientific complexity to policy makers and the public." [Emphasis added]

Of the three sentences emphasized, this site endorses the second and the third. There was, indeed, a conflict of interest — "you betcha," as someone dear to our hearts might say — and, yes, a group of activist scientists sought to misrepresent the facts as they were then known in a document designed to influence politicians and the public at large.

As for the first emphasized sentence — here, it may be argued that Pielke is narrowly correct, but off base in the large. To expand upon this, the key word is "scientific." IPCC publications, despite their being widely cited in the scientific literature, are not scientific papers; they are the output of an intergovernmental agency. So any fraud, deception, "spinning" — call it what you will — is not scientific fraud, deception, etc. Rather, it is political fraud, deception, etc., which, given the known proclivities of politicians, is not particularly surprising. Of course, in this case, the politicians were scientists, but, when they were working for the IPCC, they weren't doing science. What they were doing was promoting their own work, a prescription for deceit. It was an especially powerful prescription since the principal target audience was, not other scientists, but politicians, real ones, who, in addition to formulating policy, are the ultimate sources of the shekels that keep large-scale science afloat. In short, the IPCC principals were able to further their own pecuniary interests, as well of those of their respective institutions, which undoubtedly returned the favor in kind. Many of the ClimateGate principals were also motivated by a genuine belief in the justness of their cause, which is say that they were / are environmental extremists who availed themselves of the opportunity of "doing well by doing good." From this it follows that the IPCC model is inherently unworkable. The resultant concentration of power results in practices that are essentially monopolistic, and with monopoly comes tyranny, in this case of the worst possible sort. The end result of the IPCC process, what is being haggled over in Copenhagen, even as these notes are being composed is an all-controlling central authority. The old Parsee prayer, "I praise aloud, the thought well thought, the word well spoken, and the deed well done," so eloquent in its encompassing simplicity, will be perverted to "Think what we tell you to think; say what we tell you to say; do what we tell you to do." But I digress.

What about scientific fraud, the thing that Pielke tells us has not transpired? That possibility can only be resolved by evaluation of the papers published in the scientific literature. In other words, what must be determined is whether or not the ClimateGate principals' penchant for pushing a point in IPCC productions extended to their own research publications. That determination will require full disclosure of the data, both before and after it was "processed," of the computer programs that did the processing and of whatever correspondence about these matters was exchanged — an extended and unpleasant undertaking, indeed.

The Overhead Connection. Michael Mann is probably the best known of the ClimateGate principals and a faculty member at Penn State. From that university's Daily Collegian, we read the following:

"'More than $760 million in grants are given annually to research within Penn State,' [University spokeswoman, Annemarie] Mountz said. 'There will be no sanctions or restrictions placed on Mann or any grants during the inquiry.'" [Hat tip to Climate Audit.

Of course there won't be any restrictions. From the $760 million, Penn State collects roughly $250 million in overhead returns, a not insubstantial amount in these days of shrinking state expenditures — see also, in the same issue the article entitled "University Funding Still in Limbo."

So what is overhead? Suppose I'm a professor at the University of the Antipodes, and suppose I ask the National Science Foundation for $1,500,000 to study the turtle that holds up the earth on its back. That's a lot of money, but going to the end of the world is expensive, to say nothing of being dangerous — if you fall off, what awaits is the Abyss. Now, of the total, only $1,000,000 goes to my laboratory. The rest goes to the UotA as "overhead." In theory, these moneys are intended to compensate the university for maintaining my laboratory and providing ancillary support; in practice, most of it goes into the general fund. Over the years, overhead has become an increasingly important component of university budgets. As one wag described it, "overhead is the crack cocaine of the academy." It distorts everything: from the kinds of scholarly activities undertaken by individual faculty to universities' positions on matters that have little to do with scholarship and everything to do with ideological agendas. About these matters, we will have much to say in the future. For the present, it is sufficient to note that universities have very concrete reasons to contain the scandal, no less than the innumerable other entities with vested interests in promoting the green agenda.

Making Sausage. What surprised this correspondent was not the contents of the ClimateGate emails, but that of the "Harry_Read_Me" file, in which the amount of "processing" that goes into generating the thermometer record is nade painfully apparent. I think most people imagine it's simply a matter of collecting and averaging temperatures, but as discussed briefly in an earlier post, things aren't so simple. Weather stations come and go; they move; the surrounding environment changes; not all stations report all of the data all of the time, etc. As a result, outfits such as CRU use complicated, and, if the code documented by Harry is any indication, poorly implemented algorithms to adjust existing data and to construct "synthetic data," when real numbers are unavailable. In other words, what gets displayed in "temperature anomaly vs. time" diagrams is sausage, and what goes into that sausage — well, if you haven't read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, this might be a good time.

Prior to ClimateGate, this author's preferred hypothesis was that 20^th century warming was real, but that the case for the case for anthropogenic warming remained unproved, if not unlikely. Today, he entertains an alternative, which is that some, perhaps a substantial, fraction of the warming we are said to have experienced is a lie — possibly inadvertent; possibly, deliberate.

Copenhagen Climate Challenge.

2009-12-09T06:07:00.034-05:00

An "Open Letter to Secretary-General of United Nations ... " challenging AGW alarmists on ten principal talking points has been prepared by Copenhagen Climate Challenge. In part, the letter reads as follows:

"Climate change science is in a period of ‘negative discovery’ - the more we learn about this exceptionally complex and rapidly evolving field the more we realize how little we know. Truly, the science is NOT settled. …

"We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation." [Emphasis added]

As of morning 9 December, there were 141 signatories, including some prominent skeptics: Akasofu, Happer, Lindzen, Plimer, Spencer, etc. To read the complete letter and sign, go here.

N.B. CCC checks your credentials before adding your name. It takes a while.

Update (14 December). The number of signatories has remained constant since the preceding first posted. Apparently, the CCC crew asleep at the switch. Too bad! They were even listed briefly on Drudge. These things require follow through.

Update (20 December). The authors of CCC are once again adding names to their letter, this time distinguishing between climatologists and signatories in allied disciplines. If you haven't already signed it, please consider doing so.

ClimateGate Gleanings.

2009-12-03T23:30:00.062-05:00

Clippy is always ready to help. From Borepatch.

Here are some gleanings from the web plus commentary:

FOIA. At Watt's Up with That, Willis Eschenbach juxtaposes FOIA resistance by the Climategate principals, as revealed by their emails, and his own attempts to gain access to CRU(d) data / codes. The resulting chronology sheds new light on the goings on at CRU(d) — who did what, when and why. An added bonus for most readers: you get to add a new word to your not for polite conversation vocabulary.

Fisking Nature. A point by point rebuttal of Nature's recent editorial, ("Climatologists under pressure," Nature. 462: 545) has been posted at L'Ombre de l'Olivier. The first Nature editorial, "Aphorisms of Goethe," by T. H. Huxley, was published in 1869. In his early years, Goethe, better known as a poet and the author of Faust, made important contributions to natural history, in particular the discovery of what we now call "serial homology" and "the law of compensation or balancement of growth." These phenomena would later be deemed compatible with Darwin's selection theory — hence the significance of Huxley's choice of subject matter. In greater detail, Nature was founded by Huxley and a handful of associates as a means of promoting scientific professionalism and, by extension, their own careers and agendas, one of which was the advocacy of evolution — see, for example, Barton, R. 1998. Huxley, Lubbock, and half a dozen others: Professionals and gentlemen in the formation of the X-Club, 1851-1864. Isis. 89: 414-444.

A hundred and forty years later, the journal's agenda-driven character persists, and, in recent years, it has been firmly in the AGW camp. Yesterday's defense of beleaguered climatologists thus comes as no surprise. It is also regrettable. As one of the world's two premier scientific publications, Nature is enormously influential.

To L'Ombre de l'Olivier's analysis of the recent editorial, I offer a comment or two concerning the magnitude of the stakes as perceived by its author. Experience suggests that many (most? nearly all?) of these gatekeepers of scientific expression are undismayed by the possible economic and social consequences of carbon abatement. Got to break a few eggs, etc. What they do care about is the restriction of scientific discourse to those "entitled" to an opinion.

In "Huxley and Wilberforce: A legendary encounter," J. R. Lucas (1979. The Historical Journal 22: 313-330), observed,

"Science, in the first half of the nineteenth century ... , was part of the intellectual culture of mankind, into which all might enter and from which all might profit. But from 1860 onwards it becomes more of a closed shop, with its own puritan ethic, from which amateurs are more and more excluded. ... The men of science who attended the British Association in 1860 and were hearing from Professor Draper, M.D., of New York 'On the Intellectual Development of Europe' were to give way to the academics we know, for many of whom it is a point of professional pride to know nothing outside their own special subject."

Thus, by 1867, Fleeming Jenkin, in his devastating review of The Origin of Species, felt compelled to justify his right to an opinion on a subject outside his area expertise — Jenkin was an engineer. "About the truth and extent of those facts [observations reputed to contradict Darwin's theory]," he wrote,

"none but men possessing a special knowledge of physiology and natural history have any right to an opinion; but the superstructure based on those facts enters the region of pure reason, and may be discussed apart from all doubt as to the fundamental facts." [Emphasis added]

Like the contemptuous dismissals by Mann, Jones, et al. of "outsiders" like McIntyre, the message of the more moderately worded Nature editorial is "Trespassers W." Understandably so. Money, influence, political power, all in staggering abundance, are involved. With the advent of the internet, supremely capable "amateurs" like Steve McIntyre are once again gaining a voice, even as the high priests of the temple defend their turf. It is no exaggeration to say that Climategate is really about "Who shall rule?"

The MWP. For reviews of the evidence supporting the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) as a global phenomenon, and discussion of why this is important. go here and here. The MWP, of course, is that time in the earth's climatological history that Michael Mann characterized as "putative" and sought to "contain."

Bishop Hill. CRU(d) Mail highlights available here.

Judith Curry. A recent interview with the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech is posted here. In a previous piece published at Climate Audit, Curry called for greater transparency even while attempting to explain, if not excuse, CRU(d) gate principals' behavior. Her more recent statements are less "understanding," and appear motivated, at least in part, by feedback from the rest of the scientific community, i.e., people outside climatology. These folks are appalled.

Sarah Palin. The heroine of grass roots conservatism has weighed in on CRU(d)gate:

"Policy should be based on sound science, not snake oil. I took a stand against such snake oil science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population has increased. I’ve never denied the reality of climate change; ... But while we recognize the effects of changing water levels, erosion patterns, and glacial ice melt, we cannot primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes. The drastic economic measures being pushed by dogmatic environmentalists won’t change the weather, but will dramatically change our economy for the worse." [Emphasis added]

Indeed.

It's the Code, Stupid!

2009-11-27T10:22:00.087-05:00

Bad code offsets are rumored to have been purchased in bulk by the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit.

Previously, it was suggested that the CRU programmers are "in over their heads." As people dig further into the "hacked" files, the truth of this assessment becomes increasingly evident. Take, for example, the file in which "Harry" records his (possibly FOIA motivated) efforts in 2006-2009 to resurrect / repair his predecessors' handiwork.

The programs in question process data from thousand of weather stations world-wide. Now consider the following: Each station has an ID, of course. But, Station IDs don't conform to a standard format. Neither do the data they report. From time to time, the IDs change; likewise the format in which the data is reported. Not all stations report all of the data all of the time. Sometimes they report some of it; sometimes, none at all. For better or worse, the folks at CRU substitute "synthetic" data for the missing numbers which they create from data reported by nearby sites. To determine which sites to use, they locate each station on a map and draw circles around its position. If another station lies within the circle, its data goes into the mix. But coastal stations make for a problem because land temperatures and sea temperatures are handled differently. So a station's position (latitude and longitude) can be critical. And sometimes the stations move. In short, assembling the numbers from which CRU computes global temperature "anomalies" is a book-keeping nightmare. Add to this the fact that the programming was done by graduate students, who left thousands of poorly (if at all) documented files for their successors to puzzle over, and you get a witches' brew that cries out for external review and / or independent replication.>

Here are some gems culled from the Harry_Read_Me file by TickerForum.org poster Asimov — my comments in square brackets. They've been referenced elsewhere, but some things in this life merit repetition. Also, as of 1041 h (EST), 29 November, the site is unreachable:

"Well, dtr2cld is not the world's most complicated program. Wheras [sic] cloudreg is, and I immediately found a mistake! Scanning forward to 1951 was done with a loop that, for completely unfathomable reasons, didn't include months! So we read 50 grids instead of 600!!"

"... have just located a 'cld' directory in Mark New's disk [Mark New was one of the student programmers], containing over 2000 files. Most however are binary [and therefore unreadable] and undocumented."

"The conclusion of a lot of investigation is that the synthetic cloud grids for 1901-1995 have now been discarded. This means that the cloud data prior to 1996 are static. ... For 1901 to 1995 - stay with published data. No clear way to replicate process as undocumented. For 1996 to 2002: ... This should approximate the correction needed." [Emphasis added]

"I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation [new to this author] - apparently linear [as opposed to great circles on a sphere?] as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. [Not sure why, but for now, I'll take Harry's word for it] It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too." [Emphasis added]

"On we go.. firstly, examined the spc database.. seems to be in % x10. Looked at published data.. cloud is in % x10, too. First problem: there is no program to convert sun percentage to cloud percentage. I can do sun percentage to cloud oktas or sun hours to cloud percentage! So what the hell did Tim [Mitchell, the other student-programmer] do?!! As I keep asking." [Emphasis added]

"Then - comparing the two candidate spc databases: spc.0312221624.dtb [and] spc.94-00.0312221624.dtb[,] I find that they are broadly similar, except the normals lines (which both start with '6190') are very different. I was expecting that maybe the latter contained 94-00 normals [not sure what these are, but apparently they're important; maybe 1994-2000 averages], what I wasn't expecting was that thet [sic] are in % x10 not %! Unbelievable - even here the conventions have not been followed. It's botch after botch after botch. Modified the conversion program to process either kind of normals line." [Emphasis added]

"Decided to go with the 'spc.94-00.0312221624.dtb' database, as it hopefully has some of the 94-00 normals in. I just wish I knew more." [Emphasis added]

"These [results of a trial run] are very promising. The vast majority in both cases are within 0.5 degrees of the published data. However, there are still plenty of values more than a degree out." [As Asimov notes, "He [Harry]'s trying to fit the results of his programs and data to PREVIOUS results." N.B. While discrepancies of 0.5 to 1.0 degrees C may not seem especially troubling, it should be recalled that a century's worth of CO₂-induced warming (according to the models) is on the order of 3-5 degrees C.] [Emphasis added]

Runtime Errors. Additional discussion of the coding issues can be found at L'Ombre de l'Olivier — two posts, "The HADCRU Code as From the CRU Leak" and "More CRU Code Thoughts". Their author, a retired programmer, categorizes the various infelicities. Arguably the one with the greatest adverse potential is the

"use of program libra[r]y subroutines that ... fail at undefined times and ... when the function fails[,] the program silently continues without reporting the error" [Emphasis in the original].

Sigh! Runtime errors are the bane of programming. If they do something dramatic, like crash the program or produce obviously nonsensical output, it's OK. Eventually, you find the bug and squash it. But if the effects are subtle, your first notice that something's wrong may be a query from a colleague / competitor wondering why he couldn't replicate your results.

Quality Control. The mess that is CRU bears on quality control standards, on peer review and on the changing nature of scientific research. With regard to quality control, our L'Ombre de l'Olivier correspondent observes:

"When I was a developer, in addition to the concepts of version control and frequent archiving, one thing my evil commercially oriented supervisors insisted on were 'code reviews'. This is the hated point where your manager and/or some other experienced developer goes through your code and critiques it in terms of clarity and quality."

Obviously, nothing of the sort transpired at CRU, most likely because there were no "experienced developers" to go through the codes. This raises the question: "Should it have transpired?" Poster Patrick, at L'Ombre observes that "It is probably better to have scientists writing bad code than programmers doing bad science." Other posters note that confidence in science results, not by someone's approving the "how" of what was done, but by independent replication — if an experiment, then on someone else's lab bench; if a theoretical calculation, then with someone else's algorithm and if data analysis, then with someone else's ad hoc assumptions and the code that implements them. These are valid observations, but there are two important caveats. The first is that replication really has to be independent. A bot mot (at the expense of the computational physics crowd) that has stayed with me over the years involves the passing of code from one lab to another, gremlins intact. That's true for things as run of the mill as differential equation solvers, matrix inverters, etc. The important point is that as soon as things get too complicated to prove , i.e., proposition, lemma, theorem, Q.E.D, what's going on, one is doing experiments. So, if it's differential equations being studied, the sensible investigator convinces himself that his results are not solver-dependent. Likewise, in the case of data analysis, one wants to be sure that the results are robust with regard to the programs that crunch the numbers and, when data are manipulated prior to analysis, and, boy, are climatological time series ever, that trends, "statistical significance," etc. aren't artifactual.

Finally, there's the source of the data. AGW proponents like to point out that similar results have been reported by different groups. But as McIntyre, McKitrick and others have pointed out, the same data sets are used over and over, and the analyses therefore not independent. This appears to be the case in both paleoclimatological and historical studies that rely on a limited number.

Peer Review. In my honors and upper division classes, I insist that students reference the peer reviewed literature. If it's not peer reviewed, I tell them, they have no way of judging the truth of the conclusions. I also tell them that every scientific paper that's ever been published is wrong, the only questions being how wrong and how long it takes the scientific community to discover the errors. So how much protection does peer review actually provide? Not a whole lot if the article in question fails to provide enough information to allow the reader to replicate the results. Many (most? all?) of the climate change papers that I have seen fail this test resoundingly. Indeed, most reviewers restrict themselves to assessing a paper's overall plausibility, the appropriateness of the methods, the extent to which the results are consistent with previously published studies, etc. Only occasionally does a reviewer attempt to reproduce the results, and, in such cases, the editorial response is unpredictable. Sometimes, the reviewer receives a letter thanking him for going the extra mile; on other occasions, one accusing him of attempting a hit job. And, of course, reviewers sometimes have an ax to grind. If the paper in question goes against their own work, they may do what they can to see that it is rejected. Correspondingly, if the paper supports a reviewer's work, he may be inclined offer a favorable response, even if there are problems. Finally, peer review, to say nothing of the funding process, discriminates against ideas and approaches that are outside the box. Let me be clear. My object is not to deny the utility of peer review, but to suggest that it is something less than a guarantee of accuracy.

The Changing Nature of Science. More and more, scientific research is being carried out by teams who tackle projects that, because of their sheer magnitude, do not lend themselves to checking. This is true across disciplines, and it is certainly true of climatology. To verify the results of an outfit like CRU, one needs another group of roughly comparable size. Now it is true that CRU is not the only entity engaged in large-scale climate studies. But it is also true that there are only a couple of others, and they all cooperate. The result is what amounts to monopolistic practices and the need, for the scientific equivalent of anti-trust legislation.

0	-1550	12450	12	KURI BAY	AUSTRALIA	2000	2006	-999	-999.00
9420800	-1548	12452	29	KURI BAY	AUSTRALIA	1965	1992	-999	-999.00

0	-1550	12810	11	WYNDHAM	AUSTRALIA	2000	2006	-999	-999.00
0	-1550	12820	11	WYNDHAM AERO	AUSTRALIA	2000	2006	-999	-999.00
9421400	-1549	12812	11	WYNDHAM POST OFFICE	AUSTRALIA	1968	2000	-999	-999.00
9421401	-1547	12810	20	WYNDHAM (WYNDHAM POR	AUSTRALIA	1898	1966	-999	-999.00