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| 2005/8/12-15 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:39103 Activity:low |
8/12 I'm surprised this hasn't already been posted, but:
A military intelligence unit (Able Danger) identified a cell of the
9/11 highjackers a year before 9/11, but was blocked from passing
the info on to the FBI by Clinton Administration attorneys. Even
more surprising, the 9/11 commision was apparently never briefed on
this, although their staff was informed.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165268,00.html
http://csua.org/u/d0a (NYTimes)
\_ You know, this really isn't a partisan issue. It's probably a CYA
issue. Gorelick was criticized for conflict of interest because of
the "wall" memo during the commission, but stayed on.
\_ Canadian Yachting Association?
\_ Cover Your Ass
\_ Doesn't that seem like it would cast more doubt on the value
of the commision report?
\_ Absolutely. And that was the reason people objected to
Gorelick's remaining on the commission. It seems like they
should have another commission to investigate the first one.
\_ Who cares? Yeah Clinton messed up, but BUSHCO didn't do a bang
up job either.
\_ Who cares? The commision set up to fully investigate the
circumstances leading up to the greatest terrorist attack on
American soil ever completely misses the single failure that
could have prevented the attack, and your response is, "Who
cares?" Perhaps you'd rather talk about Mrs. Sheehan?
\_ What difference does it make NOW? So Clinton didn't
take action to prevent 9/11. So what? We already
knew that Clinton didn't care, otherwise he would
have acted after USS Cole.
If this info was SO important, why didn't they give
it to BUSHCO? There was a 6-8 mo window.
We need to get past the blame game and start dealing
w/ the real problem which is that a large portion of
the world is out to bring down democratic civilization.
\_ 12 October 2000, USS Cole. A Yemeni court charged
six people with carrying
out the October 2000 bombing.(The USS
Cole bombing occurred one month
before the 2000 presidential election,
so even under the best of
circumstances it was unlikely
that the investigation could have been
completed before the end of President
Clinton's term of office three months
later.)
six people with carrying out the October 2000
bombing. The USS Cole bombing occurred one month before
the 2000 presidential election, so even under the best of
circumstances it was unlikely that the investigation
could have been completed before the end of President
Clinton's term of office three months later.
\_ http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/12/01/uss.cole
They moved _quickly_. PP is a dumbfuck.
\_ I'm not talking about lame prosecutions.
They should have struck AQ and struck them
hard worldwide. But they didn't.
\_ While people should care, I don't think it's realistic
for the FBI to be briefed on every possible threat that
the U.S. as a whole comes across. In 20/20 hindsight it's
always easy to blame someone, but let's face it, during
the Clinton administration terrorism wasn't a real big
priority for either the public or the government. Should
it have been? Probably, given that the WTC had been
unsuccessfully attacked before and muslim terrorists
blew a big hole in the side of one of our military ships,
but since the collapse of the USSR we just didn't really
care all that much. I mean, for crying out loud, we
half-heartedly gave our tacit approval to the Taliban
government even when it was obvious that it was extremist,
backwards, and violated human rights left and right.
So the whole thing is like crying over spilt milk. No
administration is going to be able to prevent all future
threats to this country because essentially we're always
fighting yesterday's wars.
\_ While it's true that the FBI cannot take all threats
seriously, Able Danger knew that these guys were real
terrorists, and tried 3 times(!) to get the the
info to the FBI with a request to break up the cell.
\_ Pentagon lawyers != Clinton administration attorneys
\_ Read farther in the Fox article. I'm a little wary of the
quote myself, but that's what the guy says. -op
\_ It's pretty clear to me it's Pentagon lawyers, and his logic
is, since they were there at the time Clinton was in charge,
ergo Clinton administration lawyers
cares?" Don't you think you're taking partisan cynicism a
little far? I never said Bush was great, but that's a big
deal.
\_ I'm disinclined to believe that Pentagon lawyers would be
concerned "about the political fallout that occurred after
Waco ... and the Branch Davidians." That sounds more like
administration than Pentagon.
\_ Yeah, even if administration lawyers weren't involved,
I'll go along with it being consistent with the
pre-9/11 philosophy of having a wall in regards to
passing intelligence between the military and domestic
security.
pre-9/11 philosophy of making it difficult to pass
intelligence between military and domestic security
services.
\_ Any bet that Weldon will die within the year?
\_ Well, you know suicide is very common in these sorts of high
stress situations....
\_ Sure. I will bet you any amount you care to wager. -ausman
\_ Right wing column claiming Gorelick was warned that 'the Wall'
would cost lives:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/51737.htm
\_ Good article. Clinton-appointee Mary Jo White was right:
Not having a wall when it comes to terrorism was the better
policy.
username postyuck@mailinator.com
password postyuck |
| 2005/8/12-15 [Transportation/Bicycle] UID:39104 Activity:nil |
8/12 Some info on bike trailers:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/08/recycler_make_y.php |
| 2005/8/12-15 [Recreation/Computer/Games] UID:39105 Activity:nil |
8/12 Anyone have a download of the video of the baseball players smacking
into each other.
\_ which baseball players?
\_ http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/story/8730257
\_ http://csua.org/u/d1j (Mets site; not for the faint of heart) |
| 2005/8/12-15 [Science/Biology, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:39106 Activity:high |
8/12 I'm not sure I understand the ID argument. Here is the way that I
see the argument: at the moment of the big bang the fundamental
constants could have taken on any set of values, however the vast
majority of these sets would not give rise to life, so the prob.
that the constants have the values necessary for life is so small
that it couldn't have occurred w/o intelligent intervention.
Isn't this the same as saying that the odds that I have the winning
lotto ticket is so small that if I were to win the lottery it was
b/c my mom rigged it for me?
I don't understand why it is more plausible that there was intelligent
design than the fact that we just got lucky?
\_ ID is a crock of shit. Why it should be discussed at all is merely
an indication of how pervasive religion still is in modern U.S.
society. It's a waste of everyone's time, especially the
scientific community if they have to address it, and it causes
the general populace to ignore more important issues like
health care, social security, stem cell research, and who's
going to win the World Series. To discuss ID or any other half-baked
psuedo-science crap is just a waste of everyone's time. It has
nothing to do with science, and everything to do with pushing
a political and religious agenda. If this topic were to be
brought up in any other developed country, the proponents would
be laughed off the stage. None of what ID says is new, it's merely
rehash of the same old arguments that religious zealots have
been proposing ever since the Scopes trial.
\_ I don't believe in ID, but if it science had all the answers,
there wouldn't be an ID. When your religion of science has
all the answers, you'll be in a better position to call people
names. If this topic were to be brought up in any other
developed country, they'd shoot it down in favor of their
local version of Creationism. Give a definition of "developed"
that doesn't directly include "doesn't believe in ID" and
we'll go from there. A real scientist should welcome a debate
like this. Real scientists question everything. Real scientists
can back up their claims and aren't afraid to drop the false
ones. There is no such thing as wasting the time of the
general population. That is why we have things like the World
Series in the first place. Bread and circuses.
\_ Science will never have all the answers; science is a
continual process of discovering new questions. Physics,
for example, was once believed to be nearing completeness,
with only a few minor problems like black-body radiation to
work out; those problems led directly to quantum mechanics
and the realization that we may never know what's really
going on.
But ID has no place in a scientific debate. Essentially,
ID is "well, science hasn't answered all the questions
about evolution, so it must be magic!" -tom
\_ Maybe science won't have all the answers because there
really is some sort of Divinity? Maybe there really is
magic. Until proven otherwise, magic is just as good
an answer as "well there is a scientific explanation,
but...." That's no different than Faith. And frankly,
who cares what the general population thinks anyway?
Quantum mechanics *is* magic as far as 99.99% of people
are concerned. An explanation people can't understand
is no different than telling them "its magic, read this
book about this carpenter and don't worry about it".
\_ It depends on what your definition of magic is. If
the population at large thinks that today's curable
diseases are cured because God wants them cured, they'll
wonder why we need to support the NIH. If they think
that they're cured by magic, but all magic is discovered
by magicians who have phd's in subfields of magic like
biochemistry, and who need to do magic research that
has to be well-funded, that wouldn't be so bad.
It is, as you say, roughly the current situation.
All this is orthogonal to the ID "debate", however,
since ID has nothing to do with either science or
philosophy. It's politics, pure and simple.
\_ I think you're a good argument against Intelligent
Design. -tom
\_ Thanks for participating. You added so much to
this. I'm not sure why you bothered posting. I'm
sorry if my offhand thoughts were too deep for you
to respond with anything more than a personal
attack. Perhaps we should discuss biking for you
instead?
\_ The problem for me is that there are some answers
\_ The problem for me is that maybe there is an answer
out there waiting to be discovered. Putting every-
thing down to a rigged deck and leaving it at that
seems lazy to me; if you stop asking questions before
even beginning to look at the problem, there's no way
you're ever going to find any of the answers. There
may be other things at work in the creation of the
universe than an all or nothing "the physical constants
allow for life" or they don't. Perhaps, as someone
mentioned a couple days ago, the constants change over
time. Perhaps if one changes, the others change to
compensate. Or perhaps there are processes involved
in the big bang that push the constants into certain
patterns, and in the creation of any universe they will
always wind up creating conditions conducive to life.
This science is so young, there's so much more room for
new things to discovered.
If we automatically assume a guiding hand and stop
there, there's no way we'll ever find real evidence of
that guiding hand. -sax
\_ I find it a bit odd to have a changing constant.
I don't automatically assume a guiding hand. As I
said, I don't believe in ID, but there remains no
disproof or proof of Divinity as yet. Going back
further than the origin on life on this planet to
the origin of the universe itself (since you mention
that), I find the Big Bang no more convincing than
"God did it in 7 days", or "it was magic" or "it was
always just there". What preceeded the Big Bang?
Where'd all that energy/stuff come from? How long
was it there? What is "time"? The Big Bang sounds
just like "it was magic" to me.
\_ There seems to be some amt of proof that the
speed of light and the fine structure constant
are changing:
http://tinyurl.com/c64o4 (space.com)
There is at least 1 theory that says that nothing
preceded the big bang. The big bang was a quantum
tunneling event where the void tunneled into
something.
The big bang isn't magic - it is based on
observations re the rate of expansion of the
universe and on the cosmic background radiation
for a start. My understanding is that GR also
requires it.
\_ Why do you want Baby Jesus to cry?
\_ ID does not address big bang, or the origin of life. ID only
talks about refuting evolution. So, I can understand why
you are confused.
\_ Not it's not the same. -- ilyas
\_ No it's not the same. In order to avoid having to assume God you
would have to assume an infinite number of completely unobservable
entities (parallel Universes). God is a pretty expensive assumption,
but at some point you have to wonder if the cure is worse than
the disease. -- ilyas
\_ This is the dumbest and most specious argument ever proposed.
The next thing you're going to tell me is that in order to
avoid believing that Crusty the Clown exists the bumble bee
must would have to be aerodynamically desgned in order to
fly. I mean, seriously, if you want to pick a philosophy to
dick around with, try Liebnitzian monadism before going back
to a Judeo-Christian monotheistic doctrine which doesn't even
have a fun and whacky premise that you can chew the fat on
during lunch breaks.
\_ I think it's spelled 'Krusty the Klown', williamc. -- ilyas
\_ (Q1) Is the argument something like:
(a) The set of values a given constant can take is an
infinite set AND
(b) ONLY 1 particular set of values of the constants
gives rise to life as we know it THUS
(c) The overall probably of this particular set occuring
is basically 0 THEREFORE
(c) ONLY external intervension could result in this
(d) ONLY external intervention could result in this
particular set.
But this is based on at least 2 unproven (afaik)
assumptions:
(1) that the set of values that a given constant can
take are infinite and unchanging AND
(2) ONLY 1 particular set determined at the outset
can give rise to life
I sucked at math, but I remember that stuff gets really
wacky when you are dealing with infinities - couldn't
there be an infinite set of values for which life could
occur?
\_ I don't assume (b). I merely assume the set which
gives rise to life is much smaller than the general set,
which is reasonable, I think. Most constants will not
even give rise to chemistry let alone life. If two
sets are infinite, there is a well defined way to talk
about their sizes, developed by set theorists.
-- ilyas
\_ If you don't assume (b), then I don't get it at
all. If there might be more than 1 arrangement
of the values that the constants could take in
order to give rise to life, why is intelligence
required to chose our set?
It seems more (or at least equally) plausible
that the values randomly happened to be ones
that gave rise to life.
Any books/urls you might recommend re infinite
sets comprehensible to a total dumbass?
\_ Well, you need to learn about 2 separate issues.
The first is how one infinite set can be 'smaller'
than another infinite set. For instance the set
of all natural numbers is smaller than the set of
all reals. Mathematicians say that a set A is
smaller than set B if there exists a 1-1 function
from A to B. Actually there are 2 generalizations
of the conventional notion of 'less than' for
infinite sets. The first I just discussed, the
second says A is smaller than B if 'you can add
1 a bunch of times to A to get B.' Any basic set
theory book will discuss this. The other issue is
how to spread a 'finite amount of butter'
(probability mass) over an 'infinite amount of
bread' (infinite set). For this, you need to
understand measure theory. That is a little
harder because you also need some real analysis.
-- ilyas
(Q2) Why do we need an infinite number of parallel universes
in order to explain the values of the fundamental
constants? (Please see below)
(Q1.1) Even if you play exactly 1 game of lotto, the game
has to have a result right (ie each ball has to
take on a value)?
(Q1.2) The prob. that a particular arrangement will
result is VERY small, BUT non-zero correct (we
are here, thus it has to be non-zero)?
(Q1.3) If the prob. is non-zero then this particular
arrangement could have occurred naturally right
(ie the product of pure chance rather than by
design)?
(Q1.4) So why is it more likely than not that the outcome
was b/c of selection rather than pure chance?
\_ Well, even if there is only one Universe, and even if
there is no 'intention' involved at all, and even if
there aren't any parallel Universes at all, then the
there is no 'intention' involved at all then the
constants we have could certainly have arisen by blind
chance. However, this is even harder to swallow than
the similar claim that something like a bacterium can
arise from chemistry given a long enough span of time.
With the constants, they would have to have assumed their
values 'instantaneously' before time even existed per se.
-- ilyas
\_ There could also be some reason why the constants
are the way they are, that has nothing to do with
the idea of a creator; there may be meta-forces
which tend to cause the constants to be the way
they are in our experiential Universe.
In any case, positing a creator does not solve
the problem of why the universe is the way it is;
it only begs the question, why is the creator
what he is? -tom
\_ There could be. There could be 'meta-forces.'
At this point though, you are countering one
unfalsifiable claim with another. Didn't you
just say science was just a way of discovering
more questions? So now you say positing a
creator 'begs more questions,' as if that was
a bad thing. -- ilyas
\_ The difference between tom's meta-forces
and the old one is that you might actually
figure out whether they exists and why.
With the old one you are left with nothing
useful. You can never figure out what he/it
is made of or why something is the way that
it is or what made him.
\_ A rose by any other name. Tom's
meta-forces is just another label slapped
onto something we fundamentally do not
understand, and never will. How do you
know those 'meta forces' lack intention?
Intention obviously exists in the world
(us), why the strong bias against it on
'larger scales.'? -- ilyas
\_ Maybe because every mysterious force
that people once thought was caused
by the intention of some deity turned
out to have a scientific explanation
instead. The god-worshipers have never
once been right in thousands of years
of human history; why should we assume
they're right now? -tom
\_ Well, we are now talking not about
'God' per se, but whether some force
has intention or not. Science has an
extremely poor track record of
showing intention in _anything_ by
experiment
\_ I think scientific explanations by
necessity will not involve
consciousness or intentionality
because those phenomena seem poorly
understood, and difficult, maybe
impossible, to approach empirically.
So of course scientific explanations
will not involve 'minds.' Whether
'minds' actually exist in the world
is a question I am not sure how to
approach. Saying things like
'science never came up with a 'minds'
explanation, so 'minds' do not exist!'
is silly. An emerging theory of
intention and consciousness from
empirical science is something I am
looking forward to. So far, I have
seen things like 'reductive
materialism' which don't really
address any of the mystery of minds.
There are some 'descriptive' things
being tossed around, like 'the
neural correlates of consciousness.'
Again, cataloguing physical events
that correspond to internal events
is both plagued with difficulties,
and leaves many things unexplained.
-- ilyas
\_ A mind is a processor of sensory
information (and emotions/feelings
that may be generated by non-
conscious coprocessors), that
makes decisions. I don't really
see huge issues with the theory
of conciousness; to me it's a
matter of scale. It does get
confusing trying to pin down the
physical aspects. But I don't
see any fundamental problem that
would require supernatural
explanations. As for intention
applied to the universe at large,
again I don't see the reason to
suppose that is true given how
little we understand about it.
As Tom points out, this kind of
assumption generally turns out
to be wrong. And since it raises
more questions about the nature of
that intention it is a more
"expensive" theory to assume. (I
know you probably disagree there
but I'm not as skeptical about
the "unsolved problems" as you
appear to be.)
\_ I disagree with the "never will." It's
possible that at some point people will
be able to examine the conditions which
gave rise to the big bang. Or create
other universes to see how they work.
In the long term this continuing
scientific examination will have a
positive influence on human quality of
life. cf. Pasteur questioning
assumptions about illness and creating
vaccines. cf. Einstein challenging
Newtonian physics, leading to quantum
mechanics and all sorts of helpful
technological innovations. Cutting the
funding at "we can't explain it yet, so
there must be a benevolent higher being"
is in the long term hurtful to humanity
at large.
\_ What do you mean by intention?
Do you mean that there is some
intention behind the current
state of affairs OR that each
person acts out of his/her
own intention?
I'm not sure I can buy either
claim. I don't really see any
proof of either.
\_ So you think humans lack intention?
Do you yourself lack intention?
-- ilyas
\_ I can't really convince myself
that there is anything more than
chemical/mechanical stimulus
response involved in what is
generally termed intention.
I also can't convince myself
that something intended for us
to be here - the dinosaurs
would probably still be "ruling"
the earth if not for a big rock
falling out of the sky. If we
were supposed to be here, why
let the dinosaurs have at it
for millions of years? Just so
we could have some nice birds
and gas for our hummers? Surely
there is a more efficient way.
\_ There could very well be
nothing more than chemical
mechanical stimulus response
involved. This does not mean
intention does not exist, it
obviously exists. You are
equating a physical
implementation of intention
with the impossibility of
intention. Or, to put it
another way, you are
concentrating on describing
physical events and making
an intuitive argument that
there can be no 'floating
ghost' associated with these
events somehow. I am fairly
convinced of the existence of
the 'floating ghost'
corresponding to myself.
-- ilyas
\_ I don't get it. If it
is all just some chemicals
moving around in my head,
then where the heck is the
"floating ghost"?
The sense of "I" seems to
me an illusion created by
the chemical rxns in my
head that makes it easier
for the body to survive.
\_ "If the functioning of
the computer is just
semi-conductor
electronics, then where
the heck is software?"
See Goedel/Escher/Bach
for the relevant
discussion. -- ilyas
\_ There's a nice discussion.
Why would you think there is
a "floating ghost" there? The
idea appears to be absurd.
Clearly people and animal
minds are affected by brain
alterations.
\_ There clearly _is_ a
floating ghost. I don't
really understand what
you mean by 'consciousness
is an illusion.' It has
none of the properties of
an illusion, it's more
correct to say we don't
understand what
relationship exists
between physical events
and qualia. I should
clarify that when I say
'floating ghost' I do
not mean that I am
a Cartesian dualist,
merely that the human
internal world is a real
thing, just like software
state is a real thing.
-- ilyas
\_ software state isn't
a magical ghost. I
don't know what you're
going on about.
\_ I see, this is just an application to science of the
general trend to equate improbability with God. Oh
thank God, by a miracle I survived this plane crash!
\_ People don't have good intuitions about very
small probabilities. I think the way quantum
mechanics works, pretty much _anything_ can happen
with some positive probability. However, if you
look at our macroscoping world, it's very
predictable, and random things don't happen.
Improbability always leaves you some wiggle room
to say things 'just happen,' but given the way
low probability events work in practice, you still
have some explaining to do. Surviving a plane
crash is not even in the same ballpark as
instantaneous bacterial self-assembly. -- ilyas
\_ Who is claiming that a bateria self
\_ In the world of living things, random things
seem to happen all the time. Meteors hit,
storms arise, water pools in some cave giving
rise to a unique creature, etc. Your existence
as opposed to some other combination of egg
and sperm is almost impossibly unlikely if
you look at what had to happen from even that
first "magic bacteria". And even though
crash survival isn't all that low probability,
or winning the lotto, there are loads of
examples of people believing it was divine.
I was just pointing out the fallacious mode
of thought. I think it's pretty safe to
assume that bacteria didn't spring into
existence fully-formed. As for the constants,
well they are observed. It would be like
using the improbability of events leading up
to your birth as proof that someone designed
you to happen, to say that someone had to
design the constants to support life. Maybe
there are many universes and life is in the
one that supports it.
\_ Sigh. You didn't even read this entire
thread, did you? Anyways, there is so
much circularity and repeated arguments
here that I am stopping, I think. -- ilyas
\_ Who is claiming that a bacteria self
assembled? AFAIK, the components of
bacteria came from even simpler forms
of "life" like rna or its precursors
which may self assemble.
Also, my understanding is that given
enough time every improbable event
can occur, so something like rna could
have come into being on its own given
several hundred million years.
\_ No simpler form of of independently
replicating life than a bacterium is either
known or postulated. The claim about
constants spontaneously taking on 'nice
values' is even less probable than the
bacterium-from-nothing claim, which is why
I brought it up. If you claim there is
something between bacterium and nothing
I invite you to tell me what that something
is and how it reproduces. -- ilyas
\_ Your claim is false. Other reproducing
things as simple as molecules have not
only been postulated, but have been
shown to exist. In your brain, it's
possible for a protein to spontaneously
fold in a certain undesirable way.
This protein can then catalyze other
proteins to fold in the same undesirable
way, in the environment of your brain.
Similarly, molecule chains which self
replicate in the "primordial soup" of
the early Earth have been postulated.
\_ A prion isn't alive, and a prion is
almost certainly not on the
evolutionary path between nothing
and bacteria. Read what I actually
said. -- ilyas
\_ What about (s/r)RNA?
\_ RNA is a molecule that can reproduce
in the right chemical environment.
So is the claim nothing -> RNA ->
bacterium? -- ilyas
\_ The way I understand it it is:
basic elements -> organic non-
replicating molecules -> RNA ->
DNA -> protocells -> { Bacteria,
Eukaryotes, Archaebacteria }
Something had to come before
bacteria b/c mitochondria (which
is present in all bacteria iirc)
\_ False. Mitochondria are
not present in all bacteria.
Mostly (exclusively?) in
Eukaryotes.
were originally a separate form
of life.
\_ The problem with this picture
is that:
(a) at the RNA/DNA stage,
things don't 'eat' each other,
so there is no natural
selection. This means, things
had to get pretty complex in
a random way without the
shielding of a cell wall.
(b) Nobody knows what
protocells look like, even
without any burden of
falsifying evidence. -- ilyas
\_ RNA/DNA don't have to eat
each other for NS to work.
If one form of RNA replicates
faster or is more robust
to environmental conditions
than other forms its copies
will gradually win out over
other versions.
I agree re proto-cells, BUT
clearly a bacterica is not
the simplest form of life
b/c it is an amalgam of at
least two separate more
primitive life forms:
some sort of cell and what-
ever mitochondira was before
it was incorporated into
a bacteria. And even mito-
chondria is pretty complex,
meaning it came from something
more basic.
The problem w/ going back
that far is that anything
that primative probably
(1) didn't get fossilized
or (2) got killed by newer
forms of life and isn't
around anymore.
My problem w/ saying that
the big guy just put it
together, is that it tells
you nothing. You can't/don't
know why he did it, or how
or how he knew how to do it,
&c. It also leaves open the
question of where the big
guy came from and who made
him.
\_ You're seriously saying that there isn't
even a hypothesis about life simpler
than a bacteria? Have you read Paul
Davies' "The Fifth Miracle"? -emarkp
\_ I am sorry, I haven't read Davies'
book. What is his theory, other than
'life came from archaea deep
underground.' -- ilyas
\_ and then I want to ask what this has to do with evolution?
It's like saying, "I don't know whether my car was made in
Detroit or not, therefor I shouldn't eat any sandwiches
today." Regardless of whether there was any higher power
at work in the creation of the universe, evolution is a
theory whose tenets are demonstrable.
\_ If the debate is soley over evolution/natural selection
then I don't understand why there is a debate at all b/c
natural selection has been demonstrated.
\_ this debate is kind of like those mysterious circular patterns
that appear overnight in cornfields. some people tried to find
the answer to what created them in some natural phenomenon,
while others tried to find out if it's some jokers who created
them. |
| 2005/8/12-15 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:39107 Activity:nil |
8/12 Oopsiedoodle!
http://csua.org/u/d0y (yahoo! news)
"Atmospheric researchers studying global warming have sought for years
to determine why readings taken from weather balloons didn't show the
same increases as readings on the ground. The difference has fueled
skeptics of global warming.
"Now, researchers at Yale University say exposed instruments on the
balloons may be the problem."
\_ Full paper is in
/csua/tmp/climate_science_paper_Sherwood_08-12-05.pdf
\_ Basically: Ground readings showed increasing temps. High-altitude
readings from both weather balloons and satellites showed
decreasing temps. Therefore, there was global cooling, since
the satellite and weather balloons were more accurate.
However, it turns out that the weather balloons in the past
registered too hot because of poor shielding from direct
sunlight. The new weather balloons are built correctly and register
the correct temperatures. This was interpreted to mean: Past,
hot; now, cool; therefore cooling. However, with the correct
understanding, temperatures measured by the balloons show increases.
What about the satellites? Another research group found a mistake
in the analysis of temp measurement. The revised calculations show
that the satellites are measuring a temperature increase.
Three new studies in Science.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8917093
\_ amazing with what alacrity Science publishes these results but
ignores Mann. |