iNow

I actually couldn't agree with you more here, Mr.Skeptic. Your method is solid, and is focused on the root of the issue, not the symptoms. The difficulty, however, is in the likelihood of success. After all... I wasn't even able to get him to agree that thermometer readings were objective. I'm not optimistic that he'd agree there is no conspiracy no matter how solid of a case I make. He's tied to the narrative, not to the truth. I've encountered the same problems in discussing evolution with him. It's just a waste of time. You need to know, however, that I'm not sitting here calling him a moron or a ridiculous asshat. While I feel more comfortable severing relationships online, I work with these guys, and have to see them each and everyday... So I need to be much more attentive to nurturing the relationship, even if it makes me sick to my stomach sometimes. I'll keep fighting the good fight, but sooner or later I'm just going to give up and write them off, because... to be perfectly honest... and you probably know this about me already... I'm really not that patient of a person. Cheers.

I'll take the hit on that one, Moo. The resurrection was mine, as I wanted to share the graphic below. As for the poster above, I really have no interest going around in circles with a kid who thinks homosexual activity results in illness the same way that cigarettes and alcohol do. Some comments are just so silly that they really are not even deserving of correction. Going to the mat with such a blatantly ridiculous claim would imply that our readership is too dumb to see how stupid such an assertion truly is. In essence, I'll treat his claim the same way I would someone claiming that the farts of pink unicorns cause erections in leprechauns. With a disheartened shake of the head... http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2009/12/the_same-sex_marriage_debate_g/samesexmarriage.jpeg

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0270(97)00058-7 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9023726 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109690094/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 I just googled estimate synapse number in animals.

Indeed, but in addition to the hippocampal and amydalal activation, the cortical areas (temporal, parietal, prefrontal, occipital, etc.) are also being activated, which was the point I was trying to convey. The neocortex is active in very similar ways when awake as when dreaming. I imagine our knowledge has greatly advanced on this topic since I studied it a dozen years ago though, so I welcome any corrections you would be willing to share when needed.

Let me give you an example of an actual conversation. HIM: Temperatures have not been increasing during the last several decades. That's all a big lie. ME: Well, they have been increasing, so if you reject something even as simple as that, I'm not sure we can have a productive conversation about this. HIM: Oh yeah, well how do you know they've been increasing? You're just taking the word of others who want you to think temperatures are increasing. ME: I know because we have this technology called a thermometer which reads the same thing no matter who is looking at it. HIM: Did you actually read the thermometer, or are you taking the word of someone else who did? ME: I'm taking the word of the thermometers which feed their data directly into databases, and I'm looking at the graphs which are formed based on that raw data. HIM: Well, as the hacked emails demonstrate, we can't trust those databases. How do you know they didn't bias their data which went into them? ME: Because the results are consistent across different databases programmed by different people with different ideas, politics, and agendas... and despite all of their differences, the data is consistent. HIM: But you don't know that it hasn't been tampered with, and neither do I, so my claim that temperatures have not been increasing is just as accurate as your claim that they have been. ME: No, I have evidence from thermometers supporting my position. HIM: But you said yourself you did not personally read the thermometers, so you're just accepting the propaganda they've been feeding you. You don't know that it's been warming, and you can't prove it. ME: Okay. We're done here. I'm going to lunch. I kid you not, that's almost word for word. These are people whom I have to trust and respect on work-related projects, mind you. How can I reasonably take instruction from someone who thinks that way, or trust them to make quality decisions based on the data available? In short, I cannot. They've lost my respect, and I'm like a lone wolf in the office right now... the only one who doesn't reject or deny basic science or empiricism. It's quite disheartening and sad, really.

I like that they're putting it on the front page.

My pleasure. Thank you, as well.

Some oxygen will go from the air into the water, but it happens at a much slower pace than the algal growth uses up that oxygen. So, the fertilizer makes the algae grow like it's on steroids, the algae uses up a large amount of oxygen, and the water becomes an environment of very low oxygen. While oxygen from the air will enter the water, it won't enter in a fast enough pace to keep up with how quickly algae is using that oxygen... especially when the algae is boosted by fertilizer runoff.

However, you might be able to say that the hypoxic environment caused their normal food source (aquatic plants and things like that) to die which caused the beavers to get thin, emaciated, and maybe even starve in some instances. That could work... Just bear in mind that they also eat the inner bark of trees, so that would help reduce the impact of the lost aquatic plants in their diet. It could be a vitamin deficiency issue... Less aquatic plants in their diet so they're not getting the vitamins and minerals they need so they are more prone to illness and disease. I should probably stop now. While I'm having fun with this, it's your assignment, not mine. Good luck.

I like your enthusiasm, but that would be tough since beavers tend to live above water where oxygen is still available to them in the air, and the death of animals to which I referred above was specific to animals living under water where the lack of oxygen due to algal bloom has its impact. That means things like fish, clams, oysters, lobsters, and other similar.

Ah... Then perhaps your best bet is to explore the idea of plankton blooms and the resulting dead zones which occur from fertilizer runoff into the water. Essentially, the fertilizer causes a huge surge of algae growth, and that growth leads to a lack of oxygen in the water (which kills animals, fish, and even other plants). If you're looking for a realistic angle, that might be a good path to explore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_%28ecology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom EDIT: It seems CharonY beat me to the same idea by just a few short seconds.

You could frame your article about how happy the beavers are for the extra fertilizer... something about it helping tree growth in the region and them having extra materials for building dams. "This just in... Bruno the brown beaver thanks golf course field crew for their use of extra fertilizers. He was quoted as saying, "Thanks to them, I was able to add a second story and a guest bathroom to my dam." After all... It is fiction, right? Why not have some fun with it?

I offered a source which does exactly that. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged More here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-early-20th-century.htm More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#Detection_vs._attribution As for Lindzen and others, it would sure help his case if he could offer a plausible alternative mechanism which could account for the changes we are seeing. Barring that, all indicators point to human contributions of CO2 as the primary driver and the evidence in favor of that conclusion is abundant.

My background and training are in that field, just for your reference. However, I'm not a practicing scientist now, so will not belabor the point. In particular, it's the dismissal of evolution and the dismissal of anthropogenic climate change, but beyond that, it's their flawed logic and inability to support an argument with something other than mockery and ridicule. In short, I can make the most bullet-proof pristine argument in the world, supporting every single point with multiple sources and articulating it so clearly that a child could grasp it... and yet, they have had their "faith is more important than evidence" position reinforced so consistently that they simply dismiss all of that data as "propaganda" and "bias" and then start going off on tangents about how science is often wrong and other stupid nonsense. Their regular participation with religion... the regular reinforcement they receive that "faith is good" and that accepting things without (and often despite) evidence is a strength, not a weakness... it leads them to feel the same way about other things in life. It's far too often what underlies peoples denial of science and rejection of the need for evidence. It's strikingly similar to what we see here online... someone comes in to bash evolution, and it's a direct result of their religious training and indoctrination. I trust that you accept that premise here as it happens at SFN, so I'd be surprised if you could not extend that as something which happens offline as well. It's really bothered me about my friends at work, and perhaps I'm taking some of that out on respondents here. That's not my intention, but certainly possible, and I apologize if that's the case. It's just so disappointing, and stories like this one where peoples kids are going through such torment because of religious belief just pushes me over the top. Yes, it does. I've been on many projects with these folks where religion is obviously not even a factor, but their diminished critical thinking skills are readily on display there, as well. Please note: I was using the term "extinguished" as it's used in conditioning literature, and was not intending to suggest their ability to think critically was being completely erased... Just significantly impacted toward the negative.

I don't disagree that the central issue is with the actions which caused the detriment to the child(ren). All I'm saying is that it's inappropriate to try sweeping the role religion played (or, to use Padren's example, the role alcoholism played) under the rug. It was a prominent factor, and while the action itself is the target of contempt and disapproval, the surrounding context of that action is wholly relevant and appropriate for discussion. Based on the structure of the human brain, it almost has to. So, yes. It's not an across the board phenomenon, or anything, but it is a logical inconsistency in peoples approach to the world, and their neural architecture will be impacted accordingly... even if it is as simple as something like cognitive dissonance.

This just made me chuckle.

My apologies. It turns out that I was mistaken. I'm surprised to hear you discuss this so simplistically, DH, as you truly are smarter than that. Climate is a complex system, and it's about more than simple 1:1 relationships. In essence, there are other factors to consider besides just "CO2 concentrations." In that spirit, I believe I have found a very well referenced and internally consistent answer to the concern you have posed regarding the different temperature levels in the 1910 - 1940 period versus the 1975 - 2005 period, and I will share that below. http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/fileadmin/publikationen/Reports/max_scirep_345.pdf Instead, and much more indisputable, we propose here that the warming was caused by the steadily increasing transport of warm water into the Barents Sea driven by increasing south westerly to westerly winds between Spitsbergen and the northernmost Norwegian coast. Between 1920 and 1940 the observed pressure gradient increased by some 8 mb corresponding to an average geostrophic wind anomaly of 6 ms-1. This lead to increased transport of warm water into the Barents Sea, with a major reduction of sea ice in this region, where the largest atmospheric temperature anomalies also occur. As we will further demonstrate using model simulations, the reduced sea ice coverage is the main reason for the increased Arctic temperature. A close link between observed sea ice and temperature variability has also been established by century long sea ice analysis (Johannessen et al., 2003, Zakharov, 1997), supporting the model simulations. <...> The Arctic 1920-1940 warming is one of the most puzzling climate anomalies of the 20th century. Over a period of some fifteen years the Arctic warmed by 1.7 °C and remained warm for more than a decade. This is a warming in the region comparable in magnitude what is to be expected as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change in the next several decades. A gradual cooling commenced in the late 1940s bringing the temperature back to much lower values although not as cold as before the warming started. Here, we have shown that this warming was associated and presumably initiated by a major increase in the westerly to south-westerly wind north of Norway leading to enhanced atmospheric and ocean heat transport from the comparatively warm North Atlantic Current through the passage between northern Norway and Spitsbergen into the Barents Sea. It should be stressed that the increased winds were not related to the NAO, which in fact weakened during the 1920s and remained weak for the whole period of the warm Arctic anomaly. We have shown that the process behind the warming was most likely reduced sea ice cover, mainly in the Barents Sea. This is not an unexpected finding because of the climate effect of sea ice compared to that of an open sea, but intriguing since previously available sea ice data (Chapman and Walsh, 1993) did not indicate a reduced sea ice cover in the 1930s and 1940s. However, as we have shown here recent sea ice data sets (Johannessen et al., 2003 for a detailed presentation) actually showed a retreat in this period. Experiments with an atmospheric model forced with different sea ice data sets as well examination of a coupled model integration are in quantitative agreement with the observational data, broadly suggesting a 1°C warming for a reduction of the Arctic sea ice with 1Mkm2. An evaluation of the coupled model suggests that a major part of the warming is caused by transport of warm ocean water, in the upper most 125 m of the ocean model, into the Barents Sea, driven by stronger than the normal surface winds.

What led to your decision to exclude non-land based measurements when calculating the annual global average? AFAICT, you're looking at land only, and ignoring readings over oceans, hence the different data. Perhaps I'm mistaken?

Fair enough. How about "retain" then? I'm referring to the population who does not walk away from these faith-based systems, and more specifically, to those who change their entire life and pattern of behaviors and thoughts as a direct result of them. So many... just like these parents... have a very specific idea in their head of what god wants. They often fail to meet the reasonable person standard because they are so often caught in a god-fog, and I don't think it's appropriate to discount the role religion plays in this nor to suggest that these people were just idiots to begin with and wash our hands of it... case closed... nothing to see here...let's move along folks. If idiocy was, in fact, a pre-existing condition, then that idiocy was given a place to incubate in religion, and given a safe-haven to grow and take on more prominence in the psyche of the believer... Protected and given safety within the community. While there are clearly outliers in religious populations, I'm suggesting that the mean population of these folks exhibit behaviors where they must lack critical thinking skills... or at least suspend those skills for a significant part of their world view. In fact, the concept of faith by definition requires a lack of critical thinking... and this lack of critical thinking is reinforced as a very positive thing... rewarded socially and encouraged. In my estimation, that's a rather dangerous system of reward to setup and elevate. Critical thinking gets extinguished through these types of beliefs (I'm talking about behavioral conditioning here... the reinforcement is against questioning claims and solving problems analytically). It's also about accepting dogma which does not align with reality, and rejecting the parts of reality which contradict said dogma. I consider it stupid to reject reality, but YMMV. line[/hr] I'll take that under consideration. Are there any other parts of my style or overall posting gestalt and technique on which you'd like to offer your wisdom and critique? Please, that'd be great. Apparently when I put an ellipsis it causes people to go all apeshit and act all batty, and I'd rather not let that happen again, so your "posting for dummies" snippet would be welcomed. You know the frakkin crazy part in all of this? I had thought better of what I originally posted... realized it was inappropriate... so came back to edit it out. I self-censored, and look at all of the bullshit I'm putting up with as a result of doing so. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose. The evidence certainly skews in a particular direction, especially since she's refusing to even help her lawyer with the case since "god will take care of" her. I don't think she's smart enough to be using a "convenient excuse" on this one. I think she's had her mind poisoned by the cancer which is religious practice. I suppose we can't tell for sure, though, but it would be rather disingenuous of people to suggest that religion played no role here. It absolutely did, and the only question under consideration is the extent of the role played. line[/hr] Circle gets the square. Well done, my good man. It was more about the fact that she looked "normal" because her beliefs carried the protection of being based in religion and god. I think that's probably fair, but I suggest a bit short-sighted. Yes, had people known she was not feeding her kids, our evolved sense of community and morality would have compelled someone to take action. The point, however, is that religion is always this taboo subject and people don't feel comfortable questioning the decisions of people who claim to be acting on faith or who claim to be following the will of god. Let me give an example. Let's say people did see the malnourished kids, and spoke with her about it. Imagine what the response would have been if she'd responded, "Oh, we've been fasting. It's part of our communion ritual." It's like a get out of jail free card... even if it had nothing to do with her religion... even if she was lying, and those kids were starving due to nothing related to her religion... The fact that she raised the concept of faith and religious practice when questioned would have allowed her to skew the response away from one of abhorrence and toward one of acceptance. Those kids could have been dangerously ill, but people would have been reluctant to do anything about it the moment they heard it had something to do with her religion. I'm suggesting a milder form of the same thing here. People did not see the red flags sooner because these beliefs are so accepted in society. It's dangerous because her style of thinking is considered perfectly normal... normal, at least, in the context of religious faith. Precisely. line[/hr] Yes, I agree, but I'm not seeing how you can classify any of my posts above as a personal attack. I was actually responding to one, not making one. If you feel otherwise, then please have the courtesy to quote which post or comment I made which has stirred this up (even if you only send it in a PM). AFAICT, people took umbrage with my tone, with the fact that I am unashamedly discussing sacred cows, and apparently others are choosing to wholly ignore what provoked my response such that all blame can be summarily lain at my feet.

czMU4-vNkiE

They are not mutually exclusive, but my own (rather biased and insensitive) interpretation is that religious belief tends to attract more stupid people than educated/critical thinkers. There are, of course, outliers, but I'm speaking of the mean population. This would suggest that stupid comes first, and when coupled with religion, it can very often lead to bad things... But... as I said... not mutually exclusive. Religion rather often does make stupid people who would otherwise be pretty bright. I work with several people like that.

One example which immediately springs to mind is the refusal to offer their children vaccinations... like even flu vaccines. That (IMO) constitutes terrible child care (especially for folks like myself who are immunocompromised), and they justify it (oddly enough) through a desire to protect their children. When you break it down, though, it has zero to do with religious belief... so seems to meet your criteria. How these parents justify it seems (in my mind) more related to ignorance, misunderstanding, and the acceptance of half-truths than anything else. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Hasn't this already been established from the case of Kara the diabetic girl, and these kids in the story I just recently shared who went malnourished and without food for 11 days because their mom didn't do anything to find work or food since "god would provide for them?" I'm not saying that this occurs in all cases... That would be both unfair to most theists and also plainly untrue. However, it can lead to such unreasonable choices/decisions, and often does, so can't we accept that premise as valid and discuss it as given?

If you disagree with my interpretation, then fine. However, it's very likely accurate, so there's always that to consider. Yeah, I'd love to. I was just responding to what I perceived as a personal attack. If someone punches me in the face, I tend to respond forcefully. If you're unprepared for a forceful response, then don't punch me in the face.

If he truly did not know why my post consisted only of an ellipsis, then he shouldn't have responded in the manner which he did, Cap'n (or he should not have responded at all to the ellipsis, or should have made his response an inquiry instead of an attack if he truly felt compelled to respond). He did, however, respond, and he chose to respond in a very specific way and with a very specific tone. The fact is that your assertion that he responded the way he did due to "an uncertainty" simply does not hold up to even remedial scrutiny. It seems painfully obvious that he responded that way because he desired to attack me, a desire stemming from the fact that I openly challenged one of his sacred cows. Since he did respond, I addressed said response calmly and accurately, and I might add that your admonishing me now for it seems rather inappropriate, biased, and lacking in balance and objectivity. You enjoy your night, now.

... Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Get a grip, A_Trip. I had posted a response which was more personal and mocking than I felt was appropriate, and so I came back to delete it... hence, my ellipsis. The ellipsis was merely to overwrite the previous text, and satisfy the requirement vbulletin has of a post containing at least three characters prior to allowing submission. Unfortunately, non-staff at SFN don't have the option to delete a post, even when others have not yet responded to it. So, as I said at the start, get a grip. And, btw... It's spelled "Damn"... There are no spinning turbines to be found in this context, Hoover or otherwise.