Society Science

What is good science reporting? Not just raw science and not politicized science. Equations or alarmism won’t substitute for critical thinking when presenting science to citizens.
 
Science journalism now falls way “below the bar”,  hiding bad science and promoting alarmist politicized scientists. But some journalists are not bowing to this group think. 
 
With recent medical frauds, social science bias, climate hyping, and nature fakery … critics are saying: Enough! … of this abuse of science for political, moral and personal ideologies. And it seems the rebellion is spreading 
The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal - UK Dail Mail (8 Dec 2011) Above all, the BBC has been guilty of abusing the trust of its audience, and of all those compelled to pay for it. On one of the most important and far-reaching issues of our time, its coverage has been so tendentious that it has given its viewers a picture not just misleading but at times even fraudulent,” Christopher Booker said.

The BBC: less trustworthy, more dangerous than a cannibal polar bear - UK Telegraph (8 Dec 2011) – … when a man of Attenborough’s stature, popularity and apparent reasonableness trots out a line on television many of his audience will be inclined to believe him, regardless of whether what he’s saying is gospel truth or nonsense on stilts. And in the case of last night’s Frozen Planet it was mostly the latter.

Across the Atlantic, and up in the Arctic,  the science versus journalism debate is (dare I say it?) heating up

Beauty Below

Recently released, here is the “best Earth video ever” (h/t Lubos Motl)

And here is a gentle reminder of just some of what is waiting for us down there.  :-)

        

        

        

       

Even some of the humans down there seems to see optimistic possibilities for our enjoyment of this planet-

         

“… feeding six or even nine billion in 2100 would take far less land than feeding seven billion requires today. A greater proportion will live in cities, freeing still more land. And with more people able to afford fossil fuels, fewer will depend on forests for cooking fuel (or bushmeat), freeing still more land from human pressure. If they wear synthetic fleeces instead of wool and live in steel and concrete buildings instead of wooden ones, the footprint of their lives will shrink. Even their carbon footprint will fall as gas replaces coal and oil. Imagine, too, that water use grows steadily more efficient with the spread of drip irrigation (where water is delivered straight to plant roots from a tube, with only 10 per cent wastage), and that fish farming provides a greater part of our protein, taking pressure off wild fish stocks. It is quite possible that your great grandchildren will not only be fewer in number, but will live in a world with huge nature reserves, vast forests and rich seas.”

Beautiful thoughts (which detractors find particularly difficult to counter with facts) that increasingly point to the trends (not predictions) of a wonderful future for us humans.

What a beautiful rational world! 

Too late for the stake

Happy Heretics,
This amazing piece of scientific clarity is now “going viral” around the world’s best scientific-method-based science blogs (no, many are not).
            
“Be of good courage, brother Ridley, and play the man; for we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Matt Ridley has set himself up for the stake, but it maybe too late The tide appears to have turned with Enlightenment ideals resurging again. It seems that the beginning of the 21st Century could go down in history as the age when humans finally shrugged off the statist and mental chains to free and rational scientific thought. The end of the battle? No. But possibly the end of the beginning.
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     Faith of the Heart - Rod Stewart
an enchanting song of the possibilities of human achievement…
It’s been a long road, Getting from there to here
It’s been a long time, But my time is finally near
And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing’s in my way, And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No they’re not gonna hold me back
I can do anything, I’ve got strength of the soul
And no one’s gonna bend nor break me, I can reach any star
It’s been a long night, Trying to find my way
Been through the darkness, Now I finally have my day
And I will see my dreams come alive at last, I will touch the sky
I’ve known a wind so cold and seen the darkest days
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change
I’ve been through the fire and I’ve been through the rain, But I’ll be fine.
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Here are some stirring words:
What sustains pseudoscience is confirmation bias. We look for and welcome the evidence that fits our pet theory; we ignore or question the evidence that contradicts it. We all do this all the time. It’s not, as we often assume, something that only our opponents indulge in. I do it, you do it, it takes a superhuman effort not to do it. That is what keeps myths alive, sustains conspiracy theories and keeps whole populations in thrall to strange superstitions.

Ice Escapades

Ice Inquisitors.
[escapade - a wild or exciting adventure, esp one that is mischievous or unlawful. ]
Here’s probably one of the best short episodes of highly Politicized Science that has been seen since …. oh … last week! 
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The famous Times Atlas has been caught out in a big Green debate about Greenland Ice.  
a) First, the press release for the New Times atlas claimed: ”for the first time, the new edition of the (atlas) has had to erase 15% of Greenland’s once permanent ice cover – turning an area the size of the United Kingdom and Ireland ‘green’ and ice-free…This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of the planet forever – and doing so at an alarming and accelerating rate…We are the best there is. We are confident of the data we have used and of the cartography. We use data supplied by the US Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC)in Boulder, Colorado.” 
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You’re as Cold as Ice (Foreigner 1977)  
  
You’re as cold as ice … you’re willing to sacrifice our love
You never take advice … someday you’ll pay the price, I know
I’ve seen it before, it happens all the time …
You’re closing the door, you leave the world behind
You’re digging for gold, you’re throwing away
A fortune in feelings, but someday you’ll pay
You want paradise, but someday you’ll pay the price, I know. 
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b) Then NSIDC sicentists complain: ”While it is possible that the Times Atlas obtained data from NSIDC, they may have made their own interpretation of the data, independent of advice of NSIDC. 
c) Then the Times Atlas replies:  “we issued a press release which unfortunately has been misleading with regard to the Greenland statistics…We came to these statistics by comparing the extent of the ice cap between the 10th and 13th editions (1999 vs 2011) of the atlas. This was done without consulting the scientific community and was incorrect.” … but The Times Atlas still says: “We stand by the accuracy of the maps in this and all other editions of The Times Atlas.”  Amazing! … isn’t it hard for us humans to just say that  we were wrong.
d) James Dellingpole, in The UK Telegraph, writes a satirical piece about the next 14th edition of The Times Atlas

Times Atlas To Print New World Map Without Tuvalu, Maldives, Manhattan etc 

e) The Maldives Government doesn’t think this is funny and demands an apology …
The Maldives’ acting high commissioner in London has written to the newspaper’s editor seeking a clarification and apology. “He said the post had implied that his country’s climate change plight was a con-trick, and this, he said, was despicable and hurtful.”
.”… while building 11 new airports for more future tourists: “There will be a 200 bed hotel, a yatch marina and a transit hotel in every airport in order to make the airport viable and facilitate tourism and travellers.”
f) finally … at the end of that fascinating week of Politicized Science we have this brilliant Josh cartoon satarizing the whole sorry Times Atlas saga.                 

But wait! … there’s more from last week too. What fun! Popcorn ready? Let’s goooo….. Getting ready for the UN’s (2nd last?) climate conference, in Durban next month, the usual group of high volume (global warming) media journalists have been praising the new “independent” US Berkeley University re-examination of the worlds temperature records that proclaimed … loudly … (you guessed it) … the ice is melting … the world is warming … and no more skepticism is needed … until …2 “inconvenient truths” were noticed.
Temperatures have been flat for the last 13 years (despite CO2 going up) and THE lead group of activist climate scientists are now having doubts. How inconvenient, for the UN.

Below is part a great list (h/t Climate Depot) of boring evidence which climate catastrophists are slowly waking up to: 

Evidence based Education

Evidence Epicureans,
There appears to be a disconcerting discrepancy between My Plate and your palate  Balancing eating and exercise seems all that is needed to keep the body healthy. However more paternal steering is thought necessary from governments … and the food industry.
   
The US 1992 Food Pyramid and 2005 My Pyramid has just been replaced by the 2011 My Plate. However scientific evidence is lacking for these lovingly crafted art works. Where’s the cake, mate!  
   
Even us Swedes are wondering about the 1978 “6 to 8 bread slices a day” , the “key hole mark” and other state food advice given over the years.  Shame on these food “educators”.  ————————————————————————————–
Musical accompaniment: “Scientific Dance” about the love of living on Planet Earth   
 Shame Shame Shame on You (Izabella Scorupco 1992)  
 
 Can’t stop me now…hear what I say!…
My feet..want to move..so,…get out my way!..
I’m gonna have my say, I’m goin to levitate today,
I’m gonna dance, dance, dance, ’til the break of day!
It’s a shame, shame, shame,….shame on you,..if ya can’t dance too…
Shame on educators who won’t dance the scientific-evidence-and-logical-argument dance.
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Here in Sweden again, the Gender Wars continue. A few radical Gender Studies social scientists had lobbied some fluffy education politicians and so are now infiltrating kindergartens, schools, universities and teacher training courses across the kingdom. However the ranks of The Gender Resistance are swelling 
                        
Mathematician Tanja Bergkvist’s blog and IT speaker Pär Ström’s blog Gender News are leading the charge against this ideological and unscientific Gender Studies attack on schools. Even the world’s Media is shaking it’s head in amazement that Swedish teachers must oppose the facts of biology.

       
Gender studies activists, please meet the ancient chemical testosterone.  The burst of testosterone hormone in a 6 week human fetus masculinizes a boy’s brain while still in the mother’s womb.  So, from birth girls are more interested in smiling, communicating and people, boys with actions and things. The stucture of a girl’s Corpus Callosum is markedly larger than boys. A girl’s brain functions are more spread out over the two hemispheres, the boys more restricted. Girl’s behaviour is then based on better language skills and boy’s more on the spatial and mathematical. At puberty 20x more testosterone shoots through boy’s veins than girls locking in behaviour differences for life. Genes, not culture, drive childhood behaviour.
 
Like green eyes and blue eyes: Different ≠ Unequal. This is the Gender Ideology fallacy that all its feel good evidenceless moralising cannot cover-up. Shame on you too.  
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Do Smartboards make Smart students?
Evidence appears to show that extra money made available for school technology tools cannot be balanced by spending cuts on teachers and textbooks … and still give a good education. 

In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores
Some quotes I find particularly appealing are: 

Sailing Dreaming & Summer Science Reading

Summer Science Sailors,

Gaze below and tell me you are not tempted to captain this ship
Drink in the video and say you are not intoxicated, I dare you 

“The 18 ft skiff is currently one of the fastest monohulls on Earth … The high speed makes it hard to handle and requires extremely fast reflexes …” Love it! 

A supreme example of man’s success in adapting nature to human pleasure. 
The meaning of life? You decide.

Here in Sweden we have just completed a long sizzling sunny summer. Even though our national weather agency, SMHI, scored just 45% in it’s predictions (coin flipping anyone?), competing well with the UK Met Office for dismal predictive performance.

  
“Do you trust Swedish weather forecasts?”- No said 76%   

Dan Gardner’s excellent Future Babble explains how common this expert failure is around the world, and through the ages, suggesting more critical thinking from the populace.
Good boy Dan! Famous Neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland presents in Braintrust convincing evidence that morality originates in the biology of the brain.

Maybe this latest neuroscience research can explain why now in Sweden 3 year olds are questioned and recorded by Gender Studies ideology, currently plagueing our schools here, about their views on: love between boys and girls, identifying foreigners and belief in a god.

This Politically Correct thinking is subjected to a withering analysis in Stefan Collini’s That’s Offensive. Criticizing the “Right to not be offended” he also highlights the currently popular “respect” response, that is now used to create an “intelligence apartheid” separating those that can debate with evidence and logical argument from those assumed incapable, and so must be given “respect”.    

Finally Tim Harford in his Adapt also argues for turning away from grand vision experts, leaders and gurus to solve complex, unpredictable problems in today’s world. Instead he lays out evidence for bottom up, improvised, baby step, trial-and-error responses to making our world an even better place.

Adapting human nature for human pleasure? I’ll sail to that! 

Captain Adapting Brady

Our Local Universe

Neighbourhood Watchers,

What’s been happening recently in our neck-of-the-universe?
Well for one thing we have a new map, so we won’t get lost on our upcoming wanderings

You’ve never seen the universe like this before. Astronomers on Wednesday unveiled the most complete 3D map of the local universe, covering a distance of 380 million light-years, ever created

And here’s a map with road signs ,and a video, to make it easier for you to get around
     

A bit closer to home? Well, Saturn is still in a stormy mood.
     The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This picture, captured on Feb. 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet.

Even a bit closer?
Well, please say hello to asteroid Vesta, now orbited by the human’s Dawn spacecraft.

On 15 July 2011, NASA’s ion-propelled Dawn probe will become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.  Dawn will orbit Vesta for one Earth-year, studying the giant space rock at close range to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system’s history.

After a year Dawn will be off again, then to rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres. We live in interesting exploratory times

And from the Earth-space boundary …

The Pretense of Knowledge

Q: More Bottom-Up or More Top-Down?

The struggle of Reason against Emotion occurs not just with the 3 Bad Boys of science (climate, environmental & health science) but also in Economics. Here is a vivid new video explaining clearly, with captivating rap music, the battle in our world financial system, again between evidence and models. The human’s Great Game has many versions

 
A broken red thread of Skeptical and Critical Thinking runs deeply in all these 4 beliefs. Reason vs Emotion, Head vs Gut …

 … Hayek vs Keynes, Democracy vs Dictatorship, “More Bottom-Up or More Top Down?”, the fight continues down through history and in many forms.  

“The lesson I’ve learned? It’s how little we know,
the world is complex, not some circular flow
the economy’s not a class you can master in college
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge!

Here are some more related videos explaining this financial contest:
                  

The  struggle in our Ape-Human stone age brains continues. 

 

Sun Sun Sun

Solar Systemers,

In quick bursts of recent activity “light has been shed” in more ways than solar.  
Cryptic? Yes. Read and click on … with a song 

if the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’

  
UK Eco-warrior Mark “6 Degrees” Lynas has just defected to the Skeptic camp, surprised by another major IPCC blunder and consequent Green vitriol. Welcome to The Party, Pal.

  

7 June 2011 - A “never seen anything like this before, spectacular” amazing prominance eruption with associated solar flare imaged by the new Solar Dynamics Observatory. Incredible, especially when you consider that each of the black “drops” are Earth sized and the “splash” covers half the solar surface. WOW!

Contrary to the UN, government’s, politician’s and The Media’s long held statements of “no solar influence on Earth’s climate” … but in keeping with the Climate Skeptic/Realist decades-old position of ”major solar influence on Earth’s climate” … the American Astronomical Society has just made a ”major” solar  announcement predicting the slowing/halting of the sunspot cycle: 
 

All three of these lines of research point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while. “If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

    

So, what about a Sun-Earth climate connection?

École Enamoured Ecology Ethics

[UPDATE: 14/6 - UK school curriculum reviewers say science lessons in climate change "should go". Will Sweden's Skolverket follow ... and cut out other "Green issues" too? ]

Studious Students,

It has not escaped my notice (to paraphrase Watson & Crick) that the newly instigated and now printed Swedish Primary and Lower Secondary School Curriculum 2011 (Lgr 11) seems to be overtly fond of the political movement of environmentalism. 

   

Here are some new requirements for Year 9 students to get a Grade A in Biology:

“The students should be able to investigate the influence of different factors on ecosystems and populations and describe complex ecological relationships and explain and generalise about energy flows and systems. Furthermore the students should have well developed and well based arguments about how humans influence nature and show from different perspectives the advantages and limitations of some actions which can contribute to ecological sustainable development.”

Question: Is it ethical to require teachers to encourage students to lie … to be parsimonious with the truth … to get good grades? You see, the scientific basis for environmentalism and ecosystems appears to be … (how should I put it) … missing. Here, for example, are 2 recent articles, from opposite ends of the political and scientific spectrum, that apparently agree about the dubious basis of the “balanced ecosystem” concept:

1988 Arizona Biosphere 2 failled to build, even with millions of dollars, a balanced ecosystem

How the ‘ecosystem’ myth has been used for sinister means
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history. Tansley admitted he had no real evidence for this. And what he was really doing was taking an engineering concept of systems and networks and projecting it on to the natural world, turning nature into a machine. But the idea, and the term “ecosystem”, stuck.
   
” … in 1926 when Smuts created his own philosophy. He called it Holism. It said that the world was composed of lots of “wholes” – the small wholes all evolving and fitting together into larger wholes until they all came together into one big whole – a giant natural system that would find its own stability if all the wholes were in the right places.“ 

A Brief History of Ecology
” … the idea of a ‘balance’ proved to be more politically useful, especially in an atmosphere of political disillusionment. The claim that there exists a ‘balance’ means that environmentalists don’t have to work so hard to demonstrate anything: they just have to suggest that the ‘system’ is changing, and the precepts of balance and interconnectedness did the rest.”

There are many similarities between the 1910s worldwide Eugenics movement and the 2010s Environmentalist movement. Swedish teachers I’ve met are aware of these grey chapters in human history and are interpereting the new Swedish Lgr 11 school curriculum accordingly. Good!    

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Another gripe about Lgr 11. Remember this catchy little sentence (ideologically?) inserted into our new Lgr 11 curriculum?:
“Schools have a responsibility to oppose traditional gender roles.”