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Tom Chivers and “reasonable” apologia for science denial

Tom Chivers takes Lee McIntyre to task over his book How to Talk to a Science Denier. In the process he shows himself to be a crappy Bayesian and a “reasonable” apologist for science denial.

Earlier this week, I discussed the prevalence of what I called “reasonable” apologists for the antivaccine movement. This description also applied to the same sort of “reasonable” apologists for those promoting antimask, anti-“lockdown,” and, of course, antivaccine COVID-19 disinformation, because the Venn diagram of antivaxxers prepandemic and COVID-19 cranks is damned near a circle. Today, I plan on being more general and discussing how the concept of “reasonable” apologist can apply to the entire spectrum of science denial, of which the antivaccine movement and the anti-public health movement that’s been energized as a result of the pandemic is only currently the loudest and most visible component.

What inspired me, if you will, to generalize a bit on this topic was an article by Tom Chivers entitled How not to talk to a science denier. Basically, as is so often the case with “reasonable” apologists of science denial, Chivers starts with a seemingly reasonable premise, namely that demonization of one’s opponents can be counterproductive, and naïvely runs straight off the rails with it. In doing so, he falls prey to exactly the same problem that I discussed with respect to “reasonable” apologists just the other day. The wrinkle is how he invokes Bayesian reasoning—very badly—to justify his stance compared to the apparently “absolutist” thinking of Popperians.

Let’s start with Chivers’ reasonable criticism that doesn’t take long at all morph into the “reasonable” apologia for science denial and an assertion of his own moral and intellectual superiority because he is not so “absolute”:

Imagine you bought a book with the title How to Talk to A Contemptible Idiot Who Is Kind of Evil. You open the book, and read the author earnestly telling you how important it is that you listen, and show empathy, and acknowledge why the people you’re talking to might believe the things they believe. If you want to persuade them, he says, you need to treat them with respect! But all the way through the book, the author continues to refer to the people he wants to persuade as “contemptible idiots who are kind of evil”. 

At one stage he even says: “When speaking to a contemptible idiot who is kind of evil, don’t call them a contemptible idiot who is kind of evil! Many contemptible idiots find that language insulting.” But he continues to do it, and frequently segues into lengthy digressions about how stupid and harmful the idiots’ beliefs are. Presumably you would not feel that the author had really taken his own advice on board

This is very much how I feel about How to Talk to A Science Denier, by the Harvard philosopher Lee McIntyre.

I will admit that I have not read McIntyre’s book and thus cannot comment on whether Chivers’ characterization of McIntyre’s central premise is accurate—let’s just say that I suspect it’s…exaggerated—but, based on Chivers’ opprobrium, I think that perhaps I should look into acquiring a copy and reading it. He sounds like my kind of guy, and I also suspect that McIntyre was engaging in a bit of humor to make his point and that Chivers either didn’t get or didn’t like (or both) such a snarky approach. Still, let’s consider the germ of a reasonable point being made by Chivers. Yes, you’re not going to change anyone’s mind by dismissing them as evil. Again, I don’t know any science communicator who believes that, much less seriously argues that we should approach the job of science communication to those who have bought into the conspiracy theories of science denial. On the other hand, as I pointed out before, the key is to recognize whose mind is and is not open to evidence, counterarguments, and reason. To reiterate what I emphasized the other day, hard core antivaxxers have internalized their antivaccine belief system to the point where it is every bit as much part of their identity as their religion and political ideology. Think of how difficult it is to persuade someone to abandon their religion in favor of another (or of no religion). It’s possible, but only with great effort and then only in those who were already receptive to change anyway.

To be honest, though, from the blurb describing McIntyre’s book, I’m not sure why Chivers is so hostile to him:

Drawing on his own experience—including a visit to a Flat Earth convention—as well as academic research, McIntyre outlines the common themes of science denialism, present in misinformation campaigns ranging from tobacco companies’ denial in the 1950s that smoking causes lung cancer to today’s anti-vaxxers. He describes attempts to use his persuasive powers as a philosopher to convert Flat Earthers; surprising discussions with coal miners; and conversations with a scientist friend about genetically modified organisms in food. McIntyre offers tools and techniques for communicating the truth and values of science, emphasizing that the most important way to reach science deniers is to talk to them calmly and respectfully—to put ourselves out there, and meet them face to face.

This sounds almost exactly like what Chivers is arguing. So where’s the problem? Here’s where the “reasonable apologia” comes in. First, Chivers notes:

McIntyre wants to help us change people’s minds. Specifically, to help us change the minds of these strange, incomprehensible people called “science deniers”. He addresses five main groups of “deniers”: flat earthers; climate deniers; anti-vaxxers; GMO sceptics; and Covid deniers.

These are, of course, all science deniers. Granted, among the entire group, arguably the least harmful group of science deniers are the flat-earthers, who are a tiny group quite correctly viewed by the vast majority of the public as cranks. As Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy characterized Earth, as science deniers go, flat-earthers are “mostly harmless,” if not harmless. In marked contrast to the case with the other specific types of science deniers, though, flat-earthers are so obviously wrong that no one other than another flat-earther would think they are anything but cranks.

And that is where Chivers goes off the rails. He doesn’t like the other kinds of science deniers being lumped in with flat-earthers. Oh, no. He doesn’t like it at all, which leads him to opine:

The framing is that McIntyre goes and meets representatives of these groups and tries to persuade them out of their wrong beliefs. He goes armed with social-psychology research about how best to persuade people. His big trick (which I think is a good, if limited, one) is asking: what evidence would it take to make you change your mind?

But the whole book is premised on one idea: McIntyre is right, and the people he is “talking to” are wrong. 

And it’s true that all five groups are wrong, or at least their central claims are. The earth is in fact an oblate spheroid; the climate is warming, due to human influence, and will likely have severe negative impacts; vaccines work; GMOs are safe; and Covid is real.

The trouble is that by using these groups, McIntyre is playing on easy mode. When your example of a “science denier” is a literal flat-earther, it’s easy to say “look over there at the crazy deniers”.

Note the weasel words in Chivers’ characterization of the claims of the five groups. They’re wrong or “at least their central claims are” wrong. That qualification gives away his game as a “reasonable” apologist for deniers of climate science, vaccine science, GMOs, and the reality and severity of COVID-19.

Don’t believe me? Then behold, as Chivers dives straight into the fallacy of the middle ground, painting the less extreme science deniers as so very “reasonable”:

Even with climate change scepticism, sure, there are people who literally don’t believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are warming the planet. But those people are relatively rare. People who believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are warming the planet, but that the emissions are going to be hard to stop because of economic growth in the developing world and it would make more sense to concentrate on adaptation rather than mitigation, are much more common. Are they “deniers”? Certainly they’re often called deniers. But McIntyre himself acknowledges that China is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and that the IPCC says the sweeping global changes required to cut emissions sufficiently to avoid a 1.5°C warming are unprecedented.

What Chivers fails to understand about this particular variety of climate science denier is that this “adaptation not mitigation” variety is a result of goalpost moving. Climate science deniers shifted to that position as the evidence that anthropogenic global climate change is happening and is definitely largely caused by humans became incontrovertible. Indeed, there’s even a name for advocates of this form of climate science denial: Lukewarmers. Unlike hard core deniers, lukewarmers do not deny the physics of greenhouse gases and the now overwhelming mountain of evidence supporting the conclusion that CO2 generated by humans burning fossil fuels is warming the climate. Their game is cleverer. They use the same techniques that climate science denialists use, distortion and cherry picking evidence coupled with ideological arguments, in order to minimize the perception of the threat posed by climate change and therefore argue that the risks of climate change are not large enough to justify strong and urgent action by governments.

As is the case with a lot of science denial, the goal is ideological. Lukewarmers don’t like the government intervention and the disruptions to current industry models that will be necessary to decrease CO2 emissions sufficiently to mitigate the worst effects of climate change; so, instead of denying that climate change is happening or a problem, they say we can just adapt to it, which of course involves ignoring what are admittedly worst case scenarios in which climate change is so severe that it threatens the survival of human civilization. In this, the lukewarmers are a lot like COVID-19 deniers, who use a very similar gambit discussing mitigation measures to slow the spread of the disease. Unlike the crankier COVID-19 deniers who deny that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, exists (and sometimes even deny germ theory), this subtype of COVID-19 deniers (or, as I often call them, minimizers) cite, distort, and cherry pick science and evidence to argue that the disease is not as huge a threat as public health officials warn. The logical endgame of this argument is that mitigation (e.g., mask and vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and other interventions) are unnecessary overreactions that cause more harm than good, just as lukewarmers argue that global climate change is an insufficient threat to warrant strong action and that such action causes more harm than good. That Chivers can’t or won’t see this is rather odd, given that it’s an obvious characteristic of science denial movements; they subconsciously craft their denial to serve their ideologies.

What really irritates Chivers the most, though, is how McIntyre correctly understands the central role of conspiracy theories in science denial:

McIntyre constantly wants to make a clean distinction between “science deniers” and non-deniers. So, for instance, he says that there are five “common reasoning errors made by all science deniers” [my emphasis]. They are: cherrypicking, a belief in conspiracy theories, a reliance on fake experts, illogical reasoning and an insistence that science must be perfect. If you don’t make all five of those errors, you’re not an official McIntyre-accredited science denier.

Hang on, though. A “belief in conspiracy theories”? McIntyre spends a lot of time talking about the tobacco firms who manufactured doubt in the smoking/lung cancer link, and the oil firms who did the same with the fossil fuel/climate change link. He says that the spread of Covid denialism through the US government was driven by Republican desire to keep the economy open and win the election. Aren’t these conspiracy theories?

There is only one appropriate reaction to such rhetorical questions:

Godzilla facepalm
Seriously, Mr. Chivers? Do you even skeptic? How can you not know the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory?

I was tempted to include multiple other memes featuring the facepalm, but thankfully I restrained myself.

Assuming Chivers is correctly describing McIntyre’s argument, it is McIntyre who is correct, not Chivers, who appears to be disingenuously conflating genuine conspiracies with the concept of conspiracy theory in order to attack the idea that science denial is rooted in conspiracy theory. This isn’t even subtle, and his rhetorical questions about tobacco and fossil fuel companies’ efforts and the efforts of right wing populists that have infected the Republican Party to promote specific forms of misinformation are, quite simply, either disingenuous or evidence of black hole level ignorance that threatens to suck all science, knowledge, and reason into it.

Not that he doesn’t try to justify this conflation:

Ah, but for McIntyre these aren’t conspiracy theories, they’re conspiracies. The distinction is “between actual conspiracies (for which there should be some evidence) and conspiracy theories (which customarily have no credible evidence).”

So, since some anti-vaxx conspiracy theories like the polio vaccine giving children polio, or the CIA using fake vaccination stations to take people’s DNA, are true, does that mean anti-vaxxers don’t believe in “conspiracy theories” but “conspiracies”?

Obviously not. But the point is that there’s not some clear line between “real conspiracies” and “conspiracy theories”. When Alex Jones says that chemicals in the water are turning frogs gay, he’s referring to real claims that endocrine disruptors are affecting sexual development in lots of animals. It’s not easy to draw a line between real and fakeevidence-based and not evidence-based.

Chivers is making a really facepalm-worthy, cringe-inducing argument here. For one thing, none of the incidents that he cites were actual “conspiracies.” For example, let’s consider the first historical “conspiracy” that he cites, the Cutter incident. Regular readers know that the Cutter incident was a catastrophe in the history of vaccines that marred the very first mass vaccination campaign against polio in 1955. In brief, a manufacturer’s process failed to completely inactivate the polio vaccine being used to manufacture polio vaccine. As described in the link, more than 200 000 children in five western and midwestern states received this defective polio vaccine that still contained some live virus, and within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination program against polio had to be abandoned. Although a tragic incident, the Cutter incident was not a “conspiracy,” as a key component of conspiracy theories is that there must be someone powerful “suppressing the Truth,” and the conspiracy to do so must be ongoing. Going against this definition is the fact (as documented by no less a vaccine advocate than Dr. Paul Offit!) is that the Cutter incident was immediately and thoroughly investigated, an investigation that led to laws and regulations that made vaccines among the safest of medical products. As I’ve said many times, if the Cutter incident was “covered up,” it was the most incompetent coverup in the history of conspiracies.

That was just the most ridiculous example. Yes, the CIA did run a fake vaccination campaign to try to get DNA to identify Osama bin Laden. However, although that real conspiracy happened, it is not the same as the conspiracy theories woven by antivaxxers, who might point without actual evidence to that as an “example” to justify their claims about vaccines being a plot for “control.” As bad as this incident was, though, it was done for a very specific purpose, to identify and confirm the location where Osama bin Laden was hiding and was not part of a more general “conspiracy” of the type promoted by antivaxxers. As for that last part referencing Alex Jones, I couldn’t help myself. This was indicated:

Seriously, Mr. Chivers? Again? Apologia for Alex Jones now?

Here, Chivers appears to be conflating incidents, pieces of scientific evidence, or claims referenced by conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones to bolster their conspiracy theories with actual conspiracy theories themselves. One can’t help but wonder if Chivers buys the central antivaccine conspiracy theory behind, for example, the antivaccine propaganda-fest disguised as a documentary VAXXED because there was an actual heated disagreement between investigators at the CDC who did the study at the center of the conspiracy theory over what parts of the data to include in the final paper. Maybe he thinks that COVID-19 conspiracy theorists cherry picking various scientific reports that scientists denounce as poor science (or at least debatable) is the same thing as a conspiracy.

Chivers wouldn’t really like my point of view, I’m sure. Remember, I’ve argued (and backed up my argument) that antivax beliefs are a conspiracy theory at their core, as is all science denial. Whatever the form of science denial you examine, there will be a conspiracy theory behind it. Always. No one has yet been able to show me a type of science denial without a conspiracy theory at its core, and I keep looking, because I do test my ideas against reality.

Chivers: Only a Sith deals in absolutes
To paraphrase Chivers: “Only a Popperian deals in absolutes.”

Perhaps what irritates me the most about Chivers’ article is the part near the end, when he goes all “only a Sith deals in absolutes” on McIntyre:

I think the basic problem is that McIntyre is a Popperian. That is, in hugely oversimplified terms, he believes that no amount of evidence can confirm a theory: but evidence can falsify it. “If we find only evidence that fits our theory, then it might be true,” he writes. “But if we find any evidence that disconfirms our theory, it must be ruled out.” 

I, on the other hand, am a Bayesian. I have some prior belief and I assign some level of probability to it: “climate change is real and dangerous”: 90%; “the world is flat”, 0.1%. And then each new piece of evidence shifts my belief a little: if next year NASA say “we got new photos in, looks like Earth is sitting on the back of a turtle”, then I’ll upgrade my belief in a flat earth to, I dunno, 1.5% (but also upgrade my belief in there being mad people at NASA to 95%).

So I don’t need to draw a bright line between “denial” and “reality”. I can say: “I think it’s likely that tobacco firms conspired over lung cancer, but I think it’s pretty unlikely that NASA faked the moon landings.” And I can update my beliefs as new evidence comes in. I don’t have to “rule anything out”, I can simply downgrade how likely it is.

McIntyre, though, is stuck with two categories: things that might be true; and things which have been “disconfirmed”. If you believe things that have been disconfirmed, then you must be a “denier”. And so he needs to find ways of explaining why these “deniers” are so different from the rest of us. 

Chivers is, of course, simplifying the idea of Bayesian thinking to a level that made me cringe. His point of viewing scientific conclusions in terms of probabilities that they are true is more or less accurate, but his examples reveal that he’s a pretty piss-poor Bayesian. Let’s consider one of his examples. Chivers suggests that the possibility that the earth is flat is currently 0.1%. (Obviously, I’m ignoring the other part of his example about the giant turtle.) How many orders of magnitude too high is that quoted possibility? Let’s put it this way. There are some conclusions in science that are so settled, so supported by overwhelming mountains of evidence from many lines of study and many different scientific disciplines that there is no practical difference between Bayesian and Popperian thinking about them. The conclusion that the earth is not flat is one of them. A key part of Bayesian reasoning is assigning prior probabilities that are as accurate as possible to one’s statistics. Failing to do that leads to vastly overestimating or underestimating the probability that a conclusion is valid, and Chivers did both, ridiculously overestimating the probability of a flat earth and severely underestimating the probability that human-induced climate change is real and leading to potentially catastrophic effects.

I like to use the example of homeopathy to illustrate this principle. Yes, it is just barely possible that water might have memory and that diluting a remedy to the point where not a single molecule is likely to be left might produce an effective medical remedy. However, for this contention to be possible, the central well-established laws and theories of physics, chemistry, physiology, and biochemistry would have to be not just wrong but spectacularly wrong. How likely is it that these laws and theories would be found so wrong that homeopathy becomes possible? About as likely as the possibility that the earth could be flat, in other words, so low as to be, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

221 replies on “Tom Chivers and “reasonable” apologia for science denial”

Chivers doesn’t like the title of McIntyre’s book , which he thinks insults people by calling them science deniers. Yet McIntyre espouses conversing with these people respectfully and listening to their concerns. How can this be? Isn’t McIntyre a gross hypocrite whose efforts are doomed to failure?

Actually, McIntyre has emphasized that his book is not aimed at deniers themselves. He doesn’t expect that antivaxers or climate change deniers will pick up his book and be converted to reason. It’s intended as a guide for people with critical thinking skills on how to get deniers to change their minds. Using the term denier to their face is not how he sees calm and respectful conversation.

The reality however is that such folk are deniers, and it wouldn’t have helped matters to title his book “How To Talk To People Who Are Skeptical About Science”.

From hearing McIntyre interviewed, I think he’s far too optimistic in saying that there’s a possibility that every denier can be converted to reason.

Maybe I’m just not Bayesian enough to believe that there’s a .0000001 percent chance that the most far-out loons will get off the crazy train and renounce their ludicrous and harmful beliefs. Chivers said: “McIntyre…is stuck with two categories: things that might be true; and things which have been “disconfirmed”. If you believe things that have been disconfirmed, then you must be a “denier”. And so he needs to find ways of explaining why these “deniers” are so different from the rest of us.”

We don’t need to get tangled up in knots explaining why RFK Jr. is different from the rest of us. As Short Round said in Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom: “He’s not nuts. He’s crazy.”

Orac writes,

“The wrinkle is how he invokes Bayesian reasoning—very badly—to justify his stance compared to the apparently “absolutist” thinking of Popperians”.

MJD says,

A clear example of how not to communicate to respectful insolence minions and non-minions. WTF, it would take MJD (auto-moderated minion) a good part of the day to try and understand such writing.

@ Orac’s minions,

Can someone please simplify? Thereafter, I look forward to reading further through Orac’s interesting post.

I don’t know where to put this.
From Comic Sands

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly sparked outrage for his mishandling of his state’s battle with the pandemic, as the Delta variant of the virus has made Florida one of the epicenters of the latest wave of cases and deaths.

From banning mask mandates to refusing to encourage his state’s citizens to get vaccinated, DeSantis has seemed to many to simply be capitulating to the virus if not openly supporting it.

But now, it seems, the governor has changed his tune–in the most preposterous way possible. According to a tweet posted by his spokesperson Christina Pushaw, seen below, there’s a very reasonable explanation for Floridians’ refusal to get vaccinated. It’s simply because they believe masks work, you see.

DeSantis is getting worse by the day (every time Pushaw gets mentioned in the news, my sense that she’s crazy as a bag of frogs is bolstered). It appears that he has more lawsuits headed his way, but I’m really curious about the one that he’s already lost and intends to appeal. All of the reporting is toeing the “automatic stay” line, but I’m not so confident — it appears that one has to begin the appellate case to file for a stay if the trial court didn’t grant one.

^ Which is to say, a mere notice of appeal might not cut it. There are several administrative steps before one gets to court.

“the world is flat”, 0.1%.

This is a seriously stupid statement.

The probability that the Earth is flat is indistinguishable from 0. For the Earth to be flat, I would have to be writing here from South America (actually, I don’t know why the conspiracy theorists have nominated South America as the location for all the actors to be, given a flat Earth would mean … never mind, trying to impute logical processes into understanding conspiracy theories is a mug’s game).

Likewise, the probability of converting an anti-vaxxers to reality is also so low as to not be worth the effort in most situations. The anti-vaccine conspiracy has become part of how they view themselves. I have done all the affirming their belief is strongly held, etc. This only makes them more convinced they are correct. Plying them with evidence only makes them more convinced they are correct. Nothing will shift the ides, because they have become a core part of the person. Occasionally, they will have an epiphany and realise they were deluded all along, but that will be triggered by some outside action – an argument with another anti-vaxxer over how they are raising their children.

Maybe I have just become a grumpy old man, but frankly I am over pandering to conspiracy theorists. It never changes their minds and all it does is make the conspiracy sound more reasonable to others. The focus needs to be on immunising those who may be susceptible to the conspiracy theory with evidence, so they are less likely to fall victim to the charms of the conspiracy.

If space is curved then it makes sense that the Earth (and all other spheres) are actually flat. It is all relative .. and all just constructs to enable practical observations. For example, consider traveling in a speedy airplane “circling” the globe .. when you take in account the globe traveling “around” the sun, there are certain speeds the aircraft could attain that would cause the flight path to be accurately seen as a very straight line, depending on the vantage point of an extra-terrestial observer.

And if the aircraft remains parallel to the Earth’s surface as it circles, then the Earth below by definition would also be a straight, noncurved line, i.e. “flat”.

For example, consider traveling in a speedy airplane “circling” the globe .. when you take in account the globe traveling “around” the sun, there are certain speeds the aircraft could attain that would cause the flight path to be accurately seen as a very straight line [sic], depending on the vantage point of an extra-terrestial observer.

Do get out your slide rule and whomp up that magic value, Bobby.

that would cause the flight path to be accurately seen as a very straight line, depending on the vantage point of an extra-terrestial observer.

And if the aircraft remains parallel to the Earth’s surface as it circles, then the Earth below by definition would also be a straight, noncurved line, i.e. “flat”.

?

Perhaps there is some argument to be made that the special limited spherical coordinates, the 2-d polar coordinates, mapped onto a flat plane has some utility. But it emerges an infinity at one of the poles such that some of the modules endlessly spam nastygrams about it.

I went to Australia. It was bloody hot. The customs officer called me by my first name which was disconcerting. Some of the coppers wore shorts which was also disconcerting. Kookaburras are massive. Kangaroos and wallabies have claws like needles. I saw a restaurant with a giant shrimp on its roof. My aunt’s house had a garden full of little holes that turned out to be funnel-web spider lairs, which was disconcerting, and apparently there’s an animal called a quoll.

“the world is flat”, 0.1%.

This is a seriously stupid statement.

The probability that the Earth is flat is indistinguishable from 0.

Without having read the post yet, I suspect that smooth is a better word. The world is pretty damn smooth compared to its diameter.

The state is so flat that the off-the-shelf software produced a flatness value for it of 1. This value was, as they say, too good to be true, so we did a more complex analysis, and after many hours of programming work, we were able to estimate that Kansas’s flatness is approximately 0.9997. That degree of flatness might be described, mathematically, as “damn flat.”

Still a 1000 feet though. States are pretty heavy, that is probably enough for it to go on ahead and slide over on top of Missouri. I hope it doesn’t hurt anybody.

When I first encountered Bayesian reasoning, I was a bit skeptical, and the more I see examples of it being misused, the more skeptical I become.

If I understand correctly there are philosophical differences between frequentist and Bayesian statistics. (I am not particularly educated in the field of statistics.) If I also understand correctly mechanically Bayesian statistics are equivalent to conditional probabilities in frequentist statistics.

The potential problem arises when a Bayesian assigns prior probabilities. If the prior probability is unrealistic the conclusion will be unreliable at best. In the wrong hands it can become a case of assuming your conclusion.

Bayesian analysis is popular among phylogeneticists. (And tends to produce more resolved trees.) Here is a paper offering some words of caution.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10023391/1/Nascimento_Biologists_guide_Bayesian.pdf

No, it has not. Only when an upstart idea is translated into a proper theory and properly tested through the scientific method, then published for peers to challenge and replicate, does the upstart become notable for his or her breakthrough. If these efforts result in the theory being rejected and the upstart persists, (s)he becomes a crank.

Nah.

Progress is made by those who see things in a different light and have observational skills to collect, notate, calculate, think, relate, and offer clearly, an idea to support such a new view of what could be called reality.

The earth isn’t flat because it was denied by science. It is not flat because there is no evidence to support it being flat. Science is always happy to look at the evidence and observations. Currently, evidence supports a 3 dimensional planet. Why some people believe the earth is a 2 dimensional object is worthy of humor, and of course, observation.

Progress is made by those who see things in a different light and have observational skills to collect, notate, calculate, think, relate, and offer clearly, an idea to support such a new view of what could be called reality.

DMT it is then. “Clearly”, though? I can clearly offer that the idea of trying such a thing terrifies if induces the adaptation of “what could be called” reality seems desirable. Also pretty scarry if it leaves me frying and popping for that one thing.

I am unfit to join. Because of that one thing I do. Over and over and over again.

I, I often bubble sort just to drink time and fake a fever.

Protesters target a Salt Lake City bar and restaurant called The Bayou, after it establishes a policy of only serving those with proof of vaccination.

It does not go well. From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

“They weren’t disruptive to our business because they had clearly done about the same high quality of research on our business they’ve done on the vaccine — in the sense that they showed up when we were closed,” (co-owner) Alston said.

“Not only did they show up when we were closed, but they showed up with a significant number of small children, and we’re a bar. So I’m not sure what the point of having small children protesting that they can’t come into a bar is, but that was kind of how well they were researching.”

Most scientists ‘can’t replicate studies by their peers’

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778

Landmark research integrity survey finds questionable practices are surprisingly common

https://www.science.org/news/2021/07/landmark-research-integrity-survey-finds-questionable-practices-are-surprisingly-common

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

Cargo Cult Science: Richard Feynman On Believing What Isn’t True

https://fs.blog/2015/11/cargo-cult-science/

It was less than 100 years ago scientist were certain that Mars had canals and that they had received radio broadcast from the red planet.

Even the editor of the Lancet (Richard Horton) said, “much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.” If scientist don’t trust half of the science printed, do you really expect the average person to trust it.

“don’t trust half of the science printed”

Science is a human endeavor and is subject to human frailties. However, even if your “statistic” is true that’s at least 50 times better than the babbling of cranks and kooks who can’t even achieve 1% correctness, and much of that is blind chance.

So who do you trust, and why? Be specific.

If the average person shouldn’t trust computer science, shouldn’t they refrain from reading and posting on Internet message boards and blogs?

Still waiting for the Bible to prove something healthy and also those who make bigley claims on the internet. Give us proof that the nattering nabobs know something at all — like you know — you.

Just because you think the science is wrong doesn’t mean it is or that by such objection you have found a better way. If you have a way to keep people healthy against disease put it out there for inspection. Still waiting.

You are all entertainment and laughing death. And we know it. Help people by proving you can help people through the most rigorous standards which keep them alive.

We are watching the unvaccinated die at an alarming rate and don’t believe certain people care. You can’t shuffle that because you aren’t up to it.

The quarter-dude entertains. Freaking liberals and their frog love (Beep beep)!

I almost have compassion for the stupid — I ain’t no Pope ya know and won’t bury them with a blessing. Make your choice to die, and as regular commuter and citizen, I like more space for me.

You damn right I got the blues.

“You damn right I got the blues.”

Work hard. Play hard. Eat hard. Drink hard. Sleep hard. Wear glasses if you need ’em. Just don’t get off on anything before the big game.

some rugby guy.

It may have been the same guy that he and many near him said “shoot the boot” to this other guy which is incomprehensible at the moment. I don’t understand. Is it a term of endearment and affirmation of victory? Lots of people recite it all together.

So “lukewarmers” are “science deniers” because they think that a more realistic approach to addressing climate change is adaptation. Meanwhile the proponents of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change offer as a solution the dismantling of the global economy, to address a single risk, even though climate always changes irrespective human influence. And this is touted as wisdom.

There have been a lot of analyses of the economic effects of a switch to low emission energy sources something like the Green New Deal. None that I’ve seen involve dismantling the global economy. For instance consider this article.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/would-a-green-new-deal-add-or-kill-jobs1/

By using the clean technologies that carbon taxes would promote, Americans would not have to travel less, freeze in the winter, take cold showers or cut the output of their manufacturing plants to reduce the U.S.’s carbon emissions. Our independent analysis, along with a growing body of research, suggests that a low-carbon economy is likely to be a stronger and more secure economy that also provides climate solutions.

BTW, do you consider dangerous heat levels in the Pacific Northwest, massive wildfires in California, persistent drop in rain and snowfall in most of the Southwest, hurricanes that cause flooding from Louisiana to New York, the pending flooding of our coastal regions, ocean acidification leading to the death of thousands of species and likely a big drop in global fish production to be “a single risk” ?

Whether or not a “lukewarmer” is a science denier depends on whether whatever degree of anthropogenic climate change they are willing to allow for is, in fact, a valid projection (as proposed to overly-optimistic diddling), and whether whatever approach to “adaptation” they may advocate is, in fact, likely to produce the mitigation claimed (again, as opposed to rosy-tinted propaganda). Orac makes this pretty clear in the OP. OTOH, by virtue of the account Chivers gives of the coal miners McIntyre interviewed — who “cheerfully accept the reality of climate change,” but merely prioritize their present jobs over any damage to the climate — other “lukewarmers” may not be science deniers, just amoral arseholes.

I’m all for the Green New Deal, of course, but I do fear even it is a bit optimistic, i.e. not enough to prevent the coming major climate catastrophes. I have little doubt that a program that would offer serious mitigation would also wreak a fair amount of economic havoc. But the point is, the thing that will actually dismantle the global economy, and lead to incalculable misery and death, are the effects of continuing business as usual burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, maintaining massive herds of methane-belching cattle, etc. etc.

1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility
https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a

We’re Facing a Fake Science Crisis, and AI Is Making It Worse
https://towardsdatascience.com/were-facing-a-fake-science-crisis-and-ai-is-making-it-worse-2169a6449c94

In cancer science, many “discoveries” don’t hold up
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328

Blinded with science
Enough that basing government policy on ‘peer-reviewed studies’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/blinded-with-science

Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?
“In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data.”

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60696-1/fulltext?rss%3Dyes

https://www.sciencealert.com/more-than-30-000-scientific-studies-could-be-wrong-due-to-contaminated-undying-cells

Sea of Doubts
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.372.6542.560

It even goes into the field of accounting.
https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/american-accounting-association-retracts-articles-by-professor-accused-of-misconduct

The ‘50% of all science maybe untrue’ is not my numbers but the editor of the Lancet.

I did find it interesting that in your answer to my post you stated.
“However, even if your “statistic” is true that’s at least 50 times better than the babbling of cranks and kooks who can’t even achieve 1% correctness, and much of that is blind chance.”

So you made up two numbers in an attempt to refute the written article and research I posted (cited), that is kind of ironic, don’t you think?

You don’t trust the science and you don’t trust me. Okay.

Who do you trust? Why do your trust them? Examples, please.

Science isn’t perfect yet but the alternatives are so much worse. I saw Jesus, and he told me to get a Covid-19 vaccine. I did. I hope he said the same to you. If he didn’t, hey I’d be worried.

In other news…

Hospitals in crisis in least vaccinated state Leah Willingham AP, now
Worth reading -btw- it’s Mississippi.

AoA today, Cathy Jameson complains that vaccination status indeed makes a difference** because of mandates being imposed by employers on nurses, teachers and bus drivers and by other institutions on potential organ transplant recipients, university students and military.
She now carries a copy of the US Declaration and Constitution to affirm her rights.

As I’ve remarked previously, adamant anti-vaxxers – for whatever reason, quasi medical or political- will find themselves excluded from various occupations, social and educational activities, which they will not like at all. Good.

** I’m sure that subjects of the AP article would agree

I see her understanding of law is about on par with her understanding of science. The Declaration, while of significant historical value, is of no legal value. Unless she’s going to claim a grievance with King George III.

After much contemplation, I figure;

Mask,
Vaccinate,
Respirate.*

*This one, You pay through the nose.

” *This one, You pay through the nose.”

Navage uses our patented \naegleria fowleri to clean your body’s air filter. Your nose. Any questions? Tell’em Dale Jackson sent ya.

Dreadful revelation: it isn’t just vaccines that contain “fetal tissue parts”.

You should avoid food sold by Wal-Mart and Target for the same reason. That’s according to a prominent attorney sanctioned by a judge recently over a 2020 Trump-related election lawsuit, and who has represented right-wing celebrities like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Simone Gold.

Oh, and John D. Rockefeller was a devil-worshipper. Do the research, connect the dots.

https://twitter.com/jannwolfe/status/1433617641680379907

*as God is my witness, I didn’t know that Target even sold food.

You had me at “You should avoid food sold by Wal-Mart and Target.”

These days, I try to avoid that stuff and everything else from a Wal-Mart or Target. For a pandemic, checkout fail, isle fail, packaging and bagging fail, ingress/egress fail, mask fail, facial recognition collection/tying to safer not cash payment fail. It is all a fail-whale, if you will.

Oh yeah, Target’s got the best price on canned cherry pie filling I’ve found! (There aren’t any WalMarts near me, and don’t start on home-made cherry pies, do you have any idea how hard it is to get sour cherries? They’re in season for like a week, in a good year, and most years are bad years, and most of the crop goes to … canned pie filling!)

But yes, some Targets actually sell fresh produce too, not just canned/boxed stuff.

do you have any idea how hard it is to get sour cherries?

There are other options.

Like apricots.

There’s a sort of mini-Target local to where I should be living, and they really manage to squeeze a lot into that space. Starbucks, housewares, overpriced liquor, and, yes, food of a sort. I have a friend who buys packaged cold cuts there.

With the limited shelf space and surly staff, though, I thought the VHF-handset system that they had implented to check for additional stock in the basement was a pretty bright idea.

I am a hard core anthropomorphic global warming denier. I base my stand on hard science. The physics of CO2 say it has as close to nothing to do with global warming as possible. Not only does its concentration pale in comparison to epochs in the past where the world thrived with normal temperatures and +10X CO2 concentrations, the historical record is that CO2 concentration is driven by (usually solar caused) temperature fluctuations, it is easily demonstrated the few small wave bands of infra red radiation it absorbs is already absorbed by the only true greenhouse gas 0 water vapor. Methane which is also blamed is in concentrations so low to be near undetectable and its tiny absorption band is equivalent to oxygen. Haven’t heard anyone demanded we limit the concentration of oxygen. yet. Finally the ice inventory in the Arctic hasn’t changed appreciably in hundreds of years, the Antarctic ice inventory is at record levels as is Greenland’s. When you accept true temperature data, not the tampered data the NOAA and NASA publishes which embarrassingly wipes out the 20s and dust bowl 30s huge temperature events, and their ‘adjustment’ to increase recent temperature data with a linear multiplier proportional to CO2 concentration, temperatures have been falling for the past over 100 years.

Got citations?

Otherwise, I’m inclined to regard your entire post as a load of bullshit.

Willys36: Does your opening sentence mean your intelligence is not quite up to the level of humans, or that you deny global warming is close to being a human, or simply that you are too stupid for your opinion to be worth anything?

Guess it pays to be an editor and support the pharmacy companies.

Payments by US pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to US medical journal editors: retrospective observational study

bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j4619

Surprising that you’d trust what’s reported in a medical journal.

Oh, and this:

“Of 713 eligible editors, 361 (50.6%) received some (>$0) general payments in 2014, and 139 (19.5%) received research payments. The median general payment was $11 (£8; €9) (interquartile range $0-2923) and the median research payment was $0 ($0-0)…For high impact general medicine journals, median payments were $0 ($0-14).”

Hey, if you can get $11 that’s probably enough for a Wendy’s triple-burger with cheese and a drink, and maybe even a small fries. I’d sell my soul for that if I was hungry enough.

And since some editors are getting sizable payments for research or whatever, it undoubtedly validates flat earth theory and AIDS denial.

Keep up the fine investigative work, Kay.

Guess it pays to be an editor and support the pharmacy companies.

That thar’s a good one, Remainder Bin. It’s as though you didn’t even get the point or understand what EICs do.

To the bacon (who doesn’t like bacon on a wendy’s hamburger)

It is painfully obvious,you just read the intro and nothing else. So yes about 600 didn’t get any money and only 713 could get money (out of 988) , but 361 did get money and yes some of them didn’t get anything, some got hardly anything, but some got a lot.

Please read the tables 1 and 2

From table 2

High impact general medicine, mean payment 14,341 ($) highest payment to an individual editor 78,617 ($)
Emergency medicine, mean payment 23,181 ($) highest payment to an editor 127,922. ($)
Orthopedics, mean payment 92,828 ($), highest payment to an editor 1,263,234 ($)

Those are lots and lots of hamburgers, and you sold your soul a long time ago, when you thought a cartoon character was a good name to use.
flat earth and aids (the government has spent over half a trillion dollars on aids in 20 years and we still don’t have a cure/prevention only treatments), straw man eating my burgers, isn’t going to happen.

but 361 did get money and yes some of them didn’t get anything, some got hardly anything, but some got a lot.

Large stroke? You have/are had/having? psst. can i get in on that action? put 2 on 1 and 5 on the last thing yo.

Actually read table 1. It tells now much money each journal gets, Mean and median values are very different, so trying to do statistics is useless.

the government has spent over half a trillion dollars on aids in 20 years and we still don’t have a cure/prevention only treatments

Could you restate this in English? Of course there are effective PrEP and PEP agents.

We need to explore the implications of “the median research payment was $0”.

Can it be that half of those editors not only didn’t receive money, they wound up with negative funds? Are they paying Pharma instead of the other way around? What secret hold does Pharma have over them? Are flat earth theorists correct in charging that Big Astronomy and its confederates in the “space exploration” industry are extorting $$$ from journals in addition to forcing them to support the fallacy of an oblate spherical Earth?

These are deep waters indeed, Watson.

@ Kay West

I was wondering when you would crawl out from under your rock again. I posted the following awhile back; but no reply from you, so I post it again. Overwhelming evidence that you either are extremely stupid, intellectually dishonest, etc.

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2021/08/23/geert-vanden-bossche-is-back-and-still-blaming-vaccines-for-covid-19-variants/#comment-449553

@ Kay West

Lets go point by point.

CLIMATE CHANGE:

You write, quoting an article on climate change (Cook, 2013) at:
Kay West says: August 29, 2021 at 4:46 pm where you quote some of the statistics from the article; but you missed:

“Among abstracts that expressed a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the scientific consensus. Among scientists who expressed a position on AGW in their abstract, 98.4% endorsed the consensus.

DISCUSSION

Of note is the large proportion of abstracts that state no position on AGW. This result is expected in consensus situations where scientists ‘. . . generally focus their discussions on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather than on matters about which everyone agrees’ (Oreskes 2007, p 72). This explanation is also consistent with a description of consensus as a ‘spiral trajectory’ in which ‘initially intense contestation generates rapid settlement and induces Figure 3. Percentage of papers endorsing the consensus among only papers that express a position endorsing or rejecting the consensus. a spiral of new questions’ (Shwed and Bearman 2010); the fundamental science of AGW is no longer controversial among the publishing science community and the remaining debate in the field has moved to other topics. This is supported by the fact that more than half of the self-rated endorsement papers did not express a position on AGW in their abstracts. The self-ratings by the papers’ authors provide insight into the nature of the scientific consensus amongst publishing scientists. For both self-ratings and our abstract ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time, consistent with Bray (2010) in finding a strengthening consensus.”

The discussion continues; but basically, the paper makes clear that the science of climate change is established, so when writing papers, it is basically taken for granted and the papers focus on such things as different methodologies, etc.

And you missed that at the top of the page were links to several other articles, including another by the same author (Cook, 2016) which states:

“The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al . . . We demonstrate that this outcome [non-climate scientists] is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. . . We have shown that the scientific consensus onAGW is robust, with a range of 90%–100% depending on the exact question, timing and sampling methodology. This is supported by multiple independent studies despite variations in the study timing, definition of consensus, or differences in methodology including surveys of scientists, analyses of literature or of citation networks. Tol (2016) obtains lower consensus estimates through a flawed methodology, for example by conflating nonexpert and expert views, and/or making unsupported assumptions about sources that do not specifically state a position about the consensus view.”

So, as opposed to you, I actually read the two above articles, plus several others, took about 15 minutes each and also have already read and have several of the previous reviews referenced. I do, however, thank you for drawing my attention to these articles, which I have added to my collection of around 300 papers on climate change, which I have read as well as several books. And I have watched most documentaries, including an excellent series that can be found on YouTube, “The Years of Living Dangerously.” There is a second season which can be purchased from Amazon, which I intend to do.

VACCINE EFFECTIVENESS ENGLAND:

You cite stats from a report by Public Health England (2021 Aug 20) at
Kay West says:
August 28, 2021 at 11:04 am

which I responded to, not rejecting, expressing even some concern they may be on to something; but with reasonable scientific questions, which you ignored. But I did thank you for reminding me I hadn’t checked UK on pandemic for awhile, so I went to their website and guess what I found? A paper published 6 days later by them that states: “The latest estimates indicate that the vaccination programme has directly averted over 82,100 hospitalisations. Analysis on the direct and indirect impact of the vaccination programme on infections and mortality suggests the vaccination programme has prevented between 23.8 and 24.4 million infections and between 102,500 and 109,500 deaths. (Public Health England (2021 Aug 26).” This paper goes into detailed analyses, including separate for the Delta variant. Since it was published two days before your comment, how did you miss it?

So the above just two examples of how you jump to conclusions based on not carefully reading papers and either not looking for additional papers or intentionally ignoring them.

MASKS

As for masks, I explained that within a couple of months science found that COVID-19 not transmissible from fomites, so masks could be and can be disposed of with trash. I then explained that our governments, Federal and States, could have done a better job of explaining this; however, I gave an example of how the vast majority of dog owners do pick up after their dogs; but there are always some who don’t. I also described how I’ve seen pizza cartons, water bottles, etc. thrown on the sidewalk and street, so some people won’t dispose of masks in trash cans; but I ALSO MADE CLEAR THAT IT IS A SEPARATE ISSUE OF EFFECTIVENESS OF MASK VS DISPOSAL OF, which you ignored. My use of dog poop on my lawn was just as an example of how vast majority of people are responsible; but some never will be. And I live in a dense urban environment with laws and it is illegal to not pick up after your dog, though seldom enforced. As for allowing homeless to camp on my property, what an absolute asinine thing to suggest. Since you claim you live in the country, not city, how about you doing this as you probably have much more land than me and wouldn’t have neighbors and cops complaining?

You write: “surgeons use their mask everyday and know how to properly put them on and take them off. Surgeons use mask to protect the patient. If you had watched Dr Fauci in his interview with 60 minutes you would understand.”

First, I never rely on anyone’s single interview, etc. I can find other statements by Fauci that are clearer. However, I posted awhile back a large list of papers I have read that includes studies comparing risks to mask users from COVID vs non-users, which you ignore. And I explained that the masks can both protect the user and others; but not 100%. Yep, higher percentage, depending on type of mask and whether used properly or not; but credible studies find even simple scarfs reduce transmissibility. I live in the real world, not black and white, so any reduction in risk of infection is better than nothing. So, you rely on one interview and I on over 50 papers. But there is one more point, something I would bet that the vast majority of people know, namely, that hospital staff wear personal protection equipment, including masks, when working in infectious disease wards or with individual patients with an airborne infection, not to protect the patient but themselves. So, even with medical staff masks used both to protect patients and staff. Either you really are ignorant or intentionally lied just to make one of your many unscientific biased claims. So, typical of you.

RECOGNIZING THOSE WITH MORE TRAINING AND KNOWLEDGE

I wrote above referring to Orac: “Yep, he is a good doctor, including a PhD in immunology, and he did change his position on the vaccine because, knowing much more about immunology than I do, he followed the vaccine development, the clinical trials, the follow-up reports around the world, etc. Yep, he changed his position as more data and studies came in; but you have never wavered, and jump at anything that confirms your position.”

You wrote: “JOEL “ knowing much more about immunology than I do,” at least you admit there is someone who is more learned than you……”

Interesting example of hypocrisy because you don’t admit that I am someone who is more learned than you. And you also ignore that Orac changed his mind as more science developed; yet, nothing changes your mind. And, by the way, yep, he knows more about immunology than I do; but I do have a strong understanding of the basics and if he wrote something would understand it or would read up on it or even contact a friend who is PhD immunologist. Just as I admitted didn’t know what a spline was, so downloaded half dozen papers and read them. I have NO problem admitting areas not knowledgeable about; but if important, I then devote time and effort into learning.

MY PERSONAL LIFE

Not that it matters; but you write: “your failed love life (and the blond Swedish teachers).” First, the one woman I ever lived with, in Sweden, wasn’t blond and wasn’t Swedish. In Europe, during the summer students can work in each others nations. At the time Sweden had only two TV stations, so student housing I lived in had two rooms, one for each station. During break I spoke with her and we hit it off, so that she eventually stayed next two months with me. Then I hitchhiked to her country, we went to Swedish embassy, and they gave her residency papers. When my grandfather died, butchered by a surgeon who eventually lost privileges at every hospital in area, my grandmother and mother cried in phone, so I finished my dissertation and moved back to states. She would have come with me, actually spent next two years visiting and phoning. She met my grandmother and loved her. We have stayed friends for OVER 40 years. During that time she worked in Zimbabwe for two years and when I wrote my grandmother was dying, she phoned her. I held the phone to my grandmother’s ear. I have made many mistakes in my life; but the biggest was to return to the U.S. I loved my family; but looking back, since one gets 5 weeks paid vacation per year and 2 weeks at Christmas and paid emergency family leave, I could have gone home for a couple of months and returned to Sweden. If I had, 90% chance we would still be together. But it wasn’t a “failed” relationship, it was a good relationship that I ended because I knew that the U.S. was not a good place for her. For instance, in her homeland and in Sweden, a woman could walk home at 2 am safely, not in U.S. and both had good quality healthcare, plus my job prospects were iffy, whereas I has numerous opportunities in Sweden. While this was none of your business, just wanted to show how you twist things. I have dated other women and actually am still friends with them, those still alive, still exchange e-mails, etc. You seem to think that there is something wrong with preferring books and a dog. Just one last example. Woman at time and I were to go to a party; but I read at last minute a Harvard professor, expert on Russian Revolution, was giving a free 2-hour seminar at local college so I told her she could come with me or I would meet her at party later. She wasn’t happy; but we continued our relationship until I got a job elsewhere. She had a great career job, but we are still friends. The bottom line is you twist just about everything I say. I have had a number of friends who are quite successful and never married. Also have a couple of highly successful couples as friends who never wanted children. You think something is wrong if people don’t marry and have children; but that is your bias, your blatant self-righteous viewpoint.

MY EXAMPLE SUPPORTING ORAC THAT MEDICAL ERRORS EXAGGERATED

You criticize that I mention my benign prostatic hyperplasia surgery and subsequent hemorrhaging; but I could just as well mentioned the stats on this surgery. The point was in agreement with Orac that much of what are called medical errors are NOT. Many medical interventions, even if carried out by the best doctors, done exactly correctly, can have less than positive outcomes. Just one more thing I write that you twist.

MY BACKGROUND EXPLAINS HOW MY PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS DEVELOPED AND MY KNOWLEDGE BASE

And you criticize my giving my background; but much of it is relevant to why I have formed my opinions, e.g., having lived in many different countries, extensive education, and extensive reading. You criticized me for reading, claiming not possible to read 2,000 articles; but I answered over time, actually only 1 hour reading per day. No response from you.

ACCURACY OF COVID DEATH NUMBERS

You linked to two articles about counting gunshot deaths as Covid deaths (Pavlitch, 2020; Rantz, 2020). I downloaded and read. Also checked out source and authors. Right wing and authors don’t believe in global warming. However, despite their biases, I actually believed the articles. I learned long ago as undergraduate in research methods courses about reliability and validity of measures. Quite simply, except for possibly some physics experiments, no measures are 100% accurate. This is why we, for instance, use confidence intervals/ranges when presenting data. We know that some covid deaths have been undercounted. For instance, if someone with mild congestive heart failure contracts covid and dies at home of heart attack, reasonable chance blood samples won’t be taken; but without infection with covid could have lived much longer. Let’s forget undercounting and look at over counting, e.g., gunshot deaths, etc. The U.S. is not one nation, one government; but many, States, Counties, Cities, each with their own respective public health agencies. In addition, we have 6,146 hospitals. We know that some are well-funded and staffed, others not so. We know that some resisted and others cooperated. We know that the level of training varies. So, the question is how many covid deaths were actually covid deaths? You would like to believe that the majority were not; but where is your evidence, a few cases of gunshot deaths? In addition, we have covid deaths from almost every nation on the planet. For instance, the Scandinavian nations have well-funded, well-staffed public health departments and are known for collecting data long before the current pandemic and they have a much lower rate of violent crimes. But I accept that even a few cases were missed and a few cases misdiagnosed. Of course, you want to believe that the entire world is lying, all to further the profits of vaccine makers. In any case, even if one assumes that 10% of cases were misdiagnosed, that would still mean over 500,000 deaths from covid. Even if one assumes 20% still over 400,000 cases. And there is NO way you could even make a case for 20%, let alone higher. So, despite the source of gunshot deaths being diagnosed with covid, which I accept, both my training and education and the large number of papers I have read and what I know about public health and data collection, the vast majority were from covid. Of, course, in your mind if any errors, then all or, at least most data false. Black and white, all or none.

So, let’s just summarize;

You were wrong about consensus on global warming.
You were wrong about vaccine effectiveness in England.
You were wrong about effectiveness of masks in reducing risks to both wearer and others
You, probably intentionally, twist why I mentioned people who don’t pick up after their dogs, just as example of some people just lack any sense of social responsibility
You, probably intentionally, twist why I mentioned my prostate surgery as an example of an outcome that was NOT a medical error
You were wrong about “failed” relationships, basically applying your personal value system to other people’s lives as if your values and life should be the rule
You point out that I easily admit when others have higher level of knowledge than me; but hypocritically then attack me for explaining my level of knowledge compared to yours
You ignore that I readily admitted, for instance, that I didn’t know what splines were, so, instead of making some statement out of ignorance, I actually read up on them. I have no problem admitting when I don’t know something and, if important, then learn it. And I have no problem changing my position on something if credible scientific research is produced, not one or two papers, especially when misread.
You find a few instances of misdiagnosing covid, which I accept, and think you have proved something. Some small amounts of misdiagnosing is a norm for public health. The question is how much and you ignore that we have data from all over the world, etc.

I could list more; but I think the above for anyone open-minded is enough to show beyond any reasonable doubt that you either don’t actually read carefully papers you refer to, pick and choose only what confirms your position, or are just a rigid intellectually dishonest ideologue. As far as I’m concerned your approach doesn’t differ from QAnon Believers, Racists, Anti-Semites, any and all people who rigidly defend the indefensible. Unfortunately, too many like you.

I wasn’t going to respond anymore; but your misuse of the paper on climate just was too good to pass up.

References:

Cook (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.

Cook (2016). Consensus on consensus – a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming.

Pavlich (2020 Dec 17). In Colorado, They’re Counting Gun Shot Fatalities as COVID Deaths by Katie Pavlich. Townhall.com

Rantz (2020 May 25). Gun shot victims counted as Washington coronavirus deaths. mynorthwest.com

Public Health England (2021 Aug 20). SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England – Technical briefing 21.

Public Health England (2021 Aug 26). COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report Week 34.

Thank you again for posting!

Good writing and to the points. Conflation and disingenuousness or, of course, just plain pooping in everyone’s lawn, seems to be the standard for that antivax death cult (conservative) position. Happy to read and learn just a little bit more!

Interesting that 30,000 breast cancer research papers were using the wrong cell line, (they were using a skin cell line). I don’t blame the researchers because they were just following the science of the people who supplied the cell lines.
But it’ kind of like using a Windows computer manual to fix a Mac Book.

We have 25 papers retracted for fraud at a journal and now one of the co-authors is now editor of a journal. Maybe we should put Ken Lay in charge of the SEC.

250 papers on fish being effect/affected by higher levels of CO2 were all disproved, The 200 plus papers were dubbed loosing Nemo, so I guess Nemo was found and is ok.

The Lancet published the Wakefield study, so people followed the science of ‘that’ paper (newspapers, tv) all had stories about autism and vaccines. A few years later Lancet retracts the paper, ‘oops, our bad, it’s not true’.

The issues is science changes as we find out more and more information and in science there is no grant money or publication of ‘null’ finding. No one has any incentive to correct past bad/fraudulent science, so the bad science stays on the record. Even if fraudulent science paper is published it could take years before it is retracted, during that time other papers will use the fraudulent papers ideas and finding or cite them in new papers. Heck even after papers are retracted some are still getting cited. Science is never settled, despite what we have been told. Until the science community decides to fix the problems more and more people will not believe the science.

Some of you claim to be skeptics, but in fact you are defending the status quo

‘Science is more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogation of the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those that tell us something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs of the next charlatan, political or religious leader who comes ambling along’.
Carl Sagan

@ Clint

I don’t disagree with you, EXCEPT understanding of scientific methodology and, even if not immediate, the self-correcting nature of science, means that those who reject science because of its flaws jump from the frying pan into the fire. When I’ve exchanged comments with, for instance, antivaxxers, most admit they haven’t even tried to learn the basics of immunology or epidemiology, thus, falling for websites and social media based on nothing more than people’s beliefs, twisting or taking things out-of-context, or when there exists multiple studies, selectively choosing only those supporting their position, etc. Note even a perfectly done study, e.g., randomization, honest researchers, etc. can get a result that is wrong, that is, even when one randomizes between two groups, one group can get more of one or more variables that could be responsible for the result rather than the independent variable. All randomization means is in the long run the two groups will be equal on every variable that could influence the outcome except the independent variable. Which is what statistical significance means, e.g. p = 0.05, 5% probability result caused by some factor or factors other than independent variable.

Besides having a strong understanding of scientific methodology, I learned a long time ago not to overvalue one or two studies. In addition, though non-significant studies usually not published in peer-reviewed journals, often presented at conferences, etc. And these often can be found online.

We don’t live in a perfect world, so, despite all its flaws, science outweighs any other approach.

250 papers on fish being effect/affected by higher levels of CO2 were all disproved, The 200 plus papers were dubbed loosing [sic] Nemo, so I guess Nemo was found and is ok.

Exaggerate much?

@ Narad

Good link. Ended with: “Although replication efforts have blossomed in psychology, biomedicine, and other fields, they’re still rare in ecology, says biologist Shinichi Nakagawa of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The new paper “sets a great example,” says Nakagawa, who hopes it “will instigate and inspire more replication studies—not to prove previous results wrong but to make our science more robust and trustworthy.”

Clints 30,000 papers using wrong cell line? I found the following:

“It’s an open secret among cancer scientists that a staggering number of cell lines used in studies—one 2007 paper estimated a fifth to more than a third—are later discovered to be contaminated or misidentified strains of the disease. . . The mix-ups end up in tens of thousands of studies, costing billions of dollars and years of setbacks on the road to potential treatments.”

So, not good; but notice that if a fifth to a third wrong cell lines, then 2/3rds to 4/5th research used the correct cell lines. One more example that, despite everything, science is the best approach.

Article is based on a book that I intend to order:

Harris, Richard (2017). Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions.

Article: Harris, Richard (2017 Apr 14). The Impostor Cell Line That Set Back Breast Cancer Research: It’s but one example of a major problem in cancer science. SLATE

Hey Clint, who figured out that those researchers were using the wrong cell line? Or the problem with the fish research?

Random people on the internet, or other scientists?

That’s right, scientists.

Is every single thing in your industry perfect and above reproach, or do you work with humans, who are inherently variable and fallible? All human endeavors will have mistakes and errors because humans make mistakes. That doesn’t mean we should just give up and lie down on the floor. It means we should try harder. As the international bodies of science is trying, to do better science.

“Until the science community decides to fix the problems more and more people will not believe the science.”

I really recommend the book Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

I wouldn’t mind the skepticism from these people if they didn’t then go on to believe any old shite, as long as it’s different from what a scientist says. It’s like “ok, I can’t trust that guy because he once worked for a big pharmaceutical company but I’m quite happy believing that every vaccine researcher in the entire world is being paid, or threatened, to stay quiet about vaccines and autism and the secret population reduction agenda”. For f#£ks sake show a bit of consistent logic.

Clarification is needed on how much and what type of science we can throw out the window because some people in science were inaccurate or corrupt.

Should we dismiss all the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, because some papers about CO2 and fish were flawed? If a conflict of interest turns up in connection with a journal article about a cancer drug, are vaccines then not to be trusted? In the example given earlier, is it just publications in a specific field we must disregard if editors of a few journals in that field are found to have accepted corporate funds? Or do we throw out articles about entirely different subjects published in unrelated journals despite their not having been similarly “tainted”?*

It’s so confusing. 🙁

“No one has any incentive to correct past bad/fraudulent science, so the bad science stays on the record.”

Tell that to the increasing army of image sleuths and PubPeer contributors who’ve scrutinized suspect publications and compelled corrections and retractions.

*by similar “logic”, the Andrew Wakefield debacle and subsequent retractions of articles by antivaxers means that every journal article published about an “alternative” medical therapy should be ignored.

WHILST THE PANDEMIC RAGES , I find that facebook and twitter allow accounts that provide misinformationa bout vaccines and PH measures that work to control it… a small sample hat I follow … RFK jr / CHD twitter and FB; Joshua Coleman ( JOsh BUcky) FB; Del Bigtree- @ del bigtree and @ highwire talk, AoA FB, twitter, Katie Wright @ katiewr31413491 I truy hope that this comment will take ( odd format)

Out of curiosity: is anyone else experiencig VAST fromat hanges here – or is it only me? I can read recnt comments by Joel and Narad. I DID haveto re-dpwn load a browser recently if that provides a clue.

I use Firefox. On occasion (depending on deep details) when a web page fails to load due to it being down, busy or whatever, navigating by a bookmark continues to show the “unable to reach” page, even if the page is now reachable.

What you have to do is press the Reload button. That clears the cached status of the page and reaches out into the internet.

Of course your problem could be entirely different and this advice won’t help.

Probably what rs said about cache. Try holding shift while clicking reload button.

The past week, when submitting, I have gotten a couple splash pages stating data base broken or something like that. I figured the posts evaporated. They did not.

Mine is mainly a problem of getting the current version of the different pages to load. It was about four shift-reloads just to get here. When it’s really stubborn, a new post by someone is needed to unclog it.

“When it’s really stubborn, a new post by someone is needed to unclog it.”

Click on any comment (the date) then shift-reload.

I remain a bit dismayed that when Orac critiques articles he finds online, he seems unconcerned about where the sources are “coming from”, who’s paying the bills, what their larger agendas might be, how that might affect whatever “take” is being offered in the article discussed.

I’d never heard of Mr. Chivers, so clicking through to the article, I saw it’s on a site called UnHerd. That terminology immediately rang a warning bell, indicating the site styles itself as “brave maverick” exceptionalists to the mass of sheeple. Indeed, their Mission statement says as much, though more politely phrased than in many internet forums: “to push back against the herd mentality with new and bold thinking, and to provide a platform for otherwise unheard ideas, people and places.” Oh, there’s another alarm bell: the notion that their voices are “unheard”. You know, like all the Righties whining about being silenced… on their multiple appearances on Fox News.

So, who’s behind UnHerd? A British hedge fund multi-millionaire and Brexit enthusiast named Sir Paul Marshall put up the $$, and the originating editor was Tim Montgomerie, a right-wing journo who was formerly a Thatcherite but had “quit the Conservative Party… to protest David Cameron wanting to stay in the EU.” One of the featured writers on UnHerd is the rabidly anti-immigrant and IDW denizen Douglas Murray. In a critique of UnHerd, British journalist Mic Wright cites Chivers for providing the site with “the pseudo-emotion free trappings of ‘rationalism’.”

Chivers, … does the ‘eminently reasonable analysis of a current event from a tediously rationalist perspective’ pieces, providing ideological air cover for the real headbangers and bringing in the FBPE crowd.. Why do I dislike UnHerd? Because it purports to be ‘reasonable’, ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ while pushing a relentless right-wing, cruel and populist agenda. It clothes itself in respectability but it is as dangerous as any YouTube cesspool… Simon Childs [sums] up the lie of UnHerd’s commissioning policy perfectly: “The site that claims to be for unheard voices, while its contributors are a parade of people who already have big media profiles, or are think-tank directors with books out.” UnHerd exists as part of a right-wing ecosystem of people, think-tanks, and publications that cosplay as outsiders while having access to the people at the heart of power and often having had access to the levers of power themselves at some point UnHerd cries that no one listens to it, while holding a hedge fund boss’ golden megaphone. And its free thinkers just happen to say exactly what that Brexit-obsessed big boss likes to hear.

97% of scientist agree, You really think you could get 97 out of 100 scientist to agree on anything, you have never been in a room with more than 1 scientist in it. I was at a conference and watch two well respected researchers get into a physical fight over difference of opinions. Please show us any survey from 10,000 scientists in which 97% agree on anything.

Of the first study 10,257 people were surveyed only 3146 responded of that number, only 77 were used in the final number of which 75 said human-induced warming was happening.

11.944 papers were inspected only 41 stated that humans caused most of the global warming, so 99.7 did not say that CO2 caused most global warming. Of those that the study claimed humans caused most of the global warming. some of the authors of those papers were upset enough to give the following public statements.

“Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.”

—Dr. Richard Tol

“That is not an accurate representation of my paper . . .”

—Dr. Craig Idso

“Nope . . . it is not an accurate representation.”

—Dr. Nir Shaviv

“Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument . . .”

—Dr. Nicola Scafetta

forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/?sh=2578bcc23f9f

And if 97% of scientist agree on AGW and it’s settled science, why are we spending money on research, why all the discussion?

Maybe to investigate how? How much? Where will it be worst? What else could happen? How should we prepare? What else can we do? Just how deep and how far into the mountains should my bunker be?

Joel

I have chosen to not be a member of your make believe/surrogate family (on the internet) that you are using to make up for your missing or non existing family in real life.

You’re what Ross Perot referred to “crazy old aunt (uncle) in the attic” no one was willing to discuss publicly about.

Me and the CDC are up to about 3,000 on my revised predictions on number of new post.

@ Kay West

You write: “I have chosen to not be a member of your make believe/surrogate family (on the internet) that you are using to make up for your missing or non existing family in real life. You’re what Ross Perot referred to “crazy old aunt (uncle) in the attic” no one was willing to discuss publicly about.”

First, there are a number of commenters on this blog who actually comment more than me. I guess ALL, according to you, are making up for a “real life” and, thus, one should ignore whatever they write, even when backed with valid links.

Proof beyond a shadow of a doubt just how dishonest you are. I made a number of points and you have NOT addressed a single one. Thank you. And you ignore that much of what I write supports what Orac and several other commenters write.

You should read up on the Logical Fallacy of ad hominem attacks.

STUPID STUPID STUPID
INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST.

@Joel

Glad to see you’re still at it.

Must say I’m enjoying the shitshow nowadays.

Seems however, at least around here, that while antivaxxers have been and still are vocal, people have more or less come to understand that vaccines are not the devil.

I do expect a backlash in anti elitism having an impact in future elections, though. But overall, people seem to be more disciplined than they are vocal.

At least around here.

You’re what Ross Perot referred to “crazy old aunt (uncle) in the attic” no one was willing to discuss publicly about.

Joel is the budget deficit? Might want to work on that one.

@ Kay West

Oops! I missed a major point. You accuse me of devoting so much time to posting comments on this blog, claiming it compensates for lack of a real life; but you have sometimes made more comments, several quite long, following a number of Orac’s articles. I guess the pot calling the kettle black. Oh, too abstract for you. Simply, using your ad hominem illogic, must mean you lack for a “real life” as well.

And you fail to understand that this is what my training and education created. Now that I am not working anymore, I can still devote some time, usually much less than an hour, to promoting what my training and education gave me. And I ask once more, what do you base your claims on? Do you know the basics of immunology, microbiology, epidemiology, history and current status of vaccine-preventable diseases? Do you actually understand how the mRNA vaccines were developed and how they work?

In the future if I see you have posted a comment I will simply copy and paste my long refutation of many of your previous claims. Hopefully, more and more people following this blog will understand just how stupid and intellectually dishonest you are.

rs, coriolis, Narad: hard to see what I write beyond one line at a time ; TOTALLY different typefaces, old school-looking are all new issues. As before, seeing new comments takes long. Thus I am reduced to shorter, less easy to correct comments. My two comments did appear though.

ok so you said new browser? it sounds like accessibility settings or, like you think, font cache/settings.. possibly some pregotten (always nasty) plugin that tries to turn everything into comic sans but fails with a crash after “flegsmm tie.”

@ Narad et al: the odd look continues but only on RI and does NOT appear on an Andriod phone ( which I hate and can’t write on well).. I re-downloaded EDGE because they pressured me into it and there has been this Old Skool look and comments only show one line at a time. I didn’ touch settings etc.. At least I an read other comments well and probably adapt.

“the odd look continues but only on RI and does NOT appear on an Andriod phone”

O.k. Different browsers all misinterpret the designer’s intention differently. Like when people come across a bloated pile of greasy, rusted Brillo and think potato/potato/naked splotchy Egyptian hedge hog. This persists from “works best with IE/Chrome” and not any kind of standards hmm?

If it is not some addon or accessibility switch (even some “stop tracking scripts” in the settings, possibly) then {the browser} does not know how to display whatever orders comments.php and friends belched out.

“there has been this Old Skool look and comments only show one line at a time.”

Like an old BBS? with a bunch of unexpanded links aside? Again. Sounds like an javascript interpreter choked somewhere. I suspect that the Floriediette, Narad, could probably go through the page layout and give you the details. But, like myself who can not bare to look at that chicken scratch (also, licensing agreements), I think you may find it an obnoxious, unavoidably, maximally informative, what do I do with this moment. It is probably completely irresistible though.

“I re-downloaded EDGE because they pressured me into it”

blink
she redownloaded Edge.
blink
blink
Edge is maybe not the best. blink
I redownloaded Edge because pressure. blink
Edge.
Pressure.

<

blockquote> blink
I blink blink redownloaded Edge.
she redownloaded Edge.

the dumbest moron that ever lived: recursion detected exception not thrown fast enough

blink , MF. I think the customer should try something different.

P.s. I could be overthinking it. RI could just be nag-nudging you onto the RI app which promises a better UI and a more, intimate, session cookie.

And now, it has reverted back to the usual typeface and visible comment area! Woo hoo!

As I write. Ben Collins with Joy Reid discuss topics near to Orac’s and our collective hearts: how mis-information content providers benefit monetarily.

An inspiring new artwork has been produced on behalf of the Institute of Pure and Applied Knowledge, an establishment reportedly located in James Lyons-Weiler’s garage, at least until his wife makes him move the files because she needs space to store garden tools.

L-W says the piece was commissioned by IPAK to celebrate its battle against corruption in science and to promote Popular Rationalism, which we must depend on to thwart anti-ivermectin meanies with their insistence on “science”.

I’m just disappointed that the artwork is evidently a painting and not a limited edition of marble statuary.

https://i1.wp.com/jameslyonsweiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Science-in-Chains.jpg?ssl=1

to dangerous bacon, reductio ad absurdum or logical fallacy of appeal to extremes.

I am well aware of Elisabeth Bik’s/Retraction Watch and others work and I have had several exchanges of information with those working the issues. One problems is the ability or inability of journals to correct the errors/mistakes/fraud even when those issues are brought to the attention of those in “power” nothing is done to the offenders, as was pointed out some go on to higher paying positions or are even employed at the very journals they had the retracted papers. These people Bik et al. are not anti science but from the hate mail they get ……. with the added bonus of have to beg for money to continue their search. They are up against a multi billion dollar industry, who profits off of sensationalism and has no down side should the science be fraudulent.
A person who posted here pointed out that 20 to 30 percent of the science is wrong, could you please point out which science is correct or are we supposed to guess?

to joel, I wish I could pass this off as mine but a fellow researcher passed it along to me: passive-aggressive arguer. This type does not argue in good faith. They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. And so they become masters at a deflecting attention away from their weak ideas, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.

dangerous bacon, nice, logical fallacy of the appeal to extremes.

“Should we dismiss all the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, because some papers about CO2 and fish were flawed? If a conflict of interest turns up in connection with a journal article about a cancer drug, are vaccines then not to be trusted? In the example given earlier, is it just publications in a specific field we must disregard if editors of a few journals in that field are found to have accepted corporate funds? Or do we throw out articles about entirely different subjects published in unrelated journals despite their not having been similarly “tainted”?”

While it is nice that papers get retracted, I believe that number is around 1-2% and someone else said the number was 20-30%. and the time that it take to retract an article or revise it,months if not year have gone by. Now in the mean time other researchers have used those research papers to conduct their research thus expanding the errors in the science. If a paper is retracted for ‘fraud’ shouldn’t all the following papers who used the fraudulent paper also be retracted or at least revised.

Do you have a method to divine which papers are bad science and which ones are good science and consensus or majority are not a qualifier for good science.

The Piltdown man is a perfect example, while early on some believe that it was a fake (they were a small minority) it took 40 years to prove it.

“Someone else” said your claim that 20-30% of scientific journal articles get retracted is utter hogwash.

From an article in Science magazine (2018):

“The data confirm that the absolute number of retractions has risen over the past few decades, from fewer than 100 annually before 2000 to nearly 1000 in 2014. But retractions remain relatively rare: Only about four of every 10,000 papers are now retracted.”

Another analysis, published in Cureus last fall cited a retraction index for high impact journals of 0.75, meaning less than 1 article is retracted for every 1000 published.

(but maybe lots more have been secretly retracted or disappeared by nefarious parties, who can tell, oo.)

It’s not a logical fallacy, but ducking the implications of one’s beliefs isn’t very honest. How about answering the questions raised: Do problems in one field, whatever the extent, make you distrust and reject only the scientific consensus in that field – or in all scientific fields? Do you feel free to embrace HIV denialism because the data in some icthyology paper may be unreliable? Are vaccines to be rejected because the editor of an oncology journal consulted for a drug company?

I’d say that rigorously performed science that’s undergone close scrutiny by qualified peers, whose results are repeatedly replicated and borne out by decades of clinical experience is good science.

You know, like vaccine science.

“Someone else” said your claim that 20-30% of scientific journal articles get retracted is utter hogwash.

She was just plagiarizing from Charles a few posts up.

Good science could be replicated, Wait until many papers say same thing, if you are sceptical. This is how Judy Mikovits get caught.

@ Charles

You write: “to joel, I wish I could pass this off as mine but a fellow researcher passed it along to me: passive-aggressive arguer. This type does not argue in good faith. They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. And so they become masters at a deflecting attention away from their weak ideas, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.”

I suggest you Google the logical fallacy of ad hominem arguments. You did NOT address one point that I made; but, instead, in your immense dishonest irrationality attempted to attack me.

@ Sophie Amsden

First, the Piltdown man “controversy” was way before the rise of science as we know it today. Today we have thousands of medical journals and millions of scientists, etc. And Piltdown man did NOT affect how anything that would affect people was decided. Good science does NOT rely on one or two papers. Take Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 paper in the Lancet, took 10 years to retract. However, literally dozens of papers refuted it and, if one looks, many more prior to it. Yep, people, especially those not schooled in science, immunology, epidemiology, etc. will jump to conclusions based on their biases and, yep, sometimes science takes longer than one would like to overturn biased and/or simply poorly done research; but the alternative is to reject science and what?

I suggest you read a recent book by Brian Deer “The Doctor Who Fooled the World.” Documents history behind Wakefield.

And the reason I don’t rely on one or two studies is because I understand science. Statistical significance doesn’t mean important; but simply when one, for instance, randomized between two groups, one or more variables that could have affected the outcome could have landed more in one group than the other, so a, for instance, p = 0.05 simply means that the result of the study could have occurred by chance distribution of variables five percent of the time. So, we decide to go with the independent variable more likely. If either replicated or similar studies done, we can do a meta-analysis.

I love how someone like you drags up irrelevant examples like Piltdown man.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “While it is nice that papers get retracted, I believe that number is around 1-2% and someone else said the number was 20-30%. and the time that it take to retract an article or revise it,months if not year have gone by. Now in the mean time other researchers have used those research papers to conduct their research thus expanding the errors in the science. If a paper is retracted for ‘fraud’ shouldn’t all the following papers who used the fraudulent paper also be retracted or at least revised.

Do you have a method to divine which papers are bad science and which ones are good science and consensus or majority are not a qualifier for good science.”

In 1981 The New England Journal of Medicine published an article claiming coffee contributed to pancreatic cancer. It has NEVER been retracted; however, yep, led to numerous follow-up studies which not only could not replicate its findings; but some even found that coffee consumption reduced risk of cancers. So, just because a study is wrong, either methodologically flawed and/or simply fraudulent doesn’t mean follow-up studies will just reinforce it. On the contrary, follow-up studies have a good chance of refuting. And it doesn’t need to be retracted. Wakefield lost his medical license and numerous studies and newspaper articles made it clear his 1998 study was WRONG; but it wasn’t retracted until almost a decade later. Note, several of the studies listed below have extensive research lists. And I was a graduate student in Sweden at the time and we all just laughed at the study. Of course, it would have ended our mid-morning coffee breaks with pastries. LOL

As for method for divining bad science from good, as I wrote, I don’t rely on one or two papers. In addition, I have had numerous courses in research methodology, e.g., social psychology, educational psychology, and epidemiology and three courses in Philosophy of Science, basically how one draws causal arguments. And consensus actually is a good qualifier for good science. Global warming has a consensus of scientists around the world from many diverse relevant sciences. But even if 100 well-done studies all find the same conclusion, science is not a religion, no absolute certainty, so new studies could lead to modifying something or completely overturning it. However, on the whole, science has been “right” far more times than wrong. What alternative do you suggest? Science uses objective measures that others can recognize, makes public its methodology, etc. I live in the real world, not a world of absolutes or right or wrong. I assume human beings are flawed, some dishonest, some just incompetent; but science, despite everything else, is the best we have to offer.

The first randomized study of a medical intervention wasn’t until after World War II and the scientific world we now live in did not really begin until 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and the U.S. began emphasizing science education in public schools and vastly increased research grants, both long after Piltdown man.

Just as an example, a while back I posted in a comment over 40 articles on masks and COVID-19, some reviews, some empirical studies, including labs, and actual comparisons of those using and not using masks. Yet, despite this, numerous people oppose masks. So, should we base our decisions on numerous scientific studies of masks or what people choose to believe?

References:

Alicandro G (2017 Sep). Coffee and cancer risk: a summary overview. European Journal of Cancer Prevention; 26(5): 424-432.

Dong J (2011 Mar 7). Coffee drinking and pancreatic cancer risk: A meta-analysis of cohort studies. World Journal of Gastroenterology. 17(9): 1204-1210.

La Vecchia C (1987 Sep 15). Coffee consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer. International Journal of Cancer; 40(3): 309-13.

MacMahon B et al (1981 Mar 12). Coffee and cancer of the pancreas. New England Journal of Medicine; 304(11): 630-3.

Nie K (2016 Aug). Coffee intake and risk of pancreatic cancer: an updated meta-analysis of prospective studies. Minerva Medicine; 107(4): 270-8.

You state that only a very small percent of research is retracted, but retractions are a small part of bad science.
Go to a site called retraction watch and see how many papers they think should be retracted.

The peer review or close review by qualified peer, is now describe as ‘pal review’ as researchers are asked by editors to suggest people to ‘peer review their research.

The total time spent on peer review per research article is 4-8 hours, total, hardly a close review. Peer reviewers are not paid, so you get what you paid for. Again peer reviewers DO NOT replicated the research only that the research was reasonable.

springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5

1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility

‘More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist’s experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments’

nature.com/articles/533452a

You wish to lump all science fields together, then claim that others want to throw out all science, however some science fields have better track records than other fields. But what you posted was ‘believe all science or no science’
But as stated and shown 30,000 papers on breast cancers were using the a skin cell instead of a breast cancer line, How many of those papers passed peer review, were published and never retracted or even had an expression of concern post about them. I believe that Joel is the source of the source of that number, as I stated

“While it is nice that papers get retracted, I believe that number is around 1-2% ”

Please try reading what people post not what you think they post.

Again to the two points, how do we determine which is good science and which is bad science and why aren’t research papers that are built upon bad science retracted.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “‘More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist’s experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments’”

And how do you know this? Because the above also were published. Which contradicts your belief that scientist simply continue down the path of previously published studies. Yep, they try to reproduce and often don’t.

You write: “The total time spent on peer review per research article is 4-8 hours, total, hardly a close review. Peer reviewers are not paid, so you get what you paid for. Again peer reviewers DO NOT replicated the research only that the research was reasonable.”

How much time do you think it takes to carefully read most journal articles? And, “you get what you paid for?” And if were paid, received funding, would you then claim paid for bias, depending on source of funding? I don’t know about you; but when I’ve been asked to review someones paper, I take it seriously. No, I don’t drop everything and devote unending hours; but given my level of knowledge and education, as that of vast majority of reviewers, I devote a reasonable time. And, everyone who reads the articles can be considered peer-reviewers. Letters-to-editor often involve methodological critiques and/or pointing out contradictory studies. And, of course, finally attempts to replicate. As usual, you see world in black and white.

You write: “But what you posted was ‘believe all science or no science’
But as stated and shown 30,000 papers on breast cancers were using the a skin cell instead of a breast cancer line, How many of those papers passed peer review, were published and never retracted or even had an expression of concern post about them. I believe that Joel is the source of the source of that number, as I stated.”

I wrote: “Clints 30,000 papers using wrong cell line? I found the following:
“It’s an open secret among cancer scientists that a staggering number of cell lines used in studies—one 2007 paper estimated a fifth to more than a third—are later discovered to be contaminated or misidentified strains of the disease. . . The mix-ups end up in tens of thousands of studies, costing billions of dollars and years of setbacks on the road to potential treatments.”
“So, not good; but notice that if a fifth to a third wrong cell lines, then 2/3rds to 4/5th research used the correct cell lines. One more example that, despite everything, science is the best approach.”

Are you just stupid and/or plain dishonest? I have NEVER stated one should “believe all science or no science.” I have plainly explained that I don’t rely on one or two articles, that I look closely at methodology sections, and that, science is self-correcting, though some results take longer than others; but, on the whole, science is the overwhelming best and only way to learn things because it uses objective methods that others can critique and can try to reproduce.

Let me give a poor analogy, criminal justice. According to several credible reports literally 10s of thousands of incarcerated people are TOTALLY innocent. This is beyond horrible. But, the vast majority of those incarcerated are guilty. As an aside, one can question guilty of what? Actions that endanger life, limb, or property of others or just things people don’t like? In any case, if one simply focuses on the innocents imprisoned, should we then abolish criminal justice? Or improve it?

I can think of several steps that could be taken to improve science. First, separate poor methodology from fraud. Poor methodology, if articles give clear methodology section, can easily be dealt with. Fraud is another story. We should create teams of investigators to look at potentially fraudulent papers. If “overwhelming evidence” finds fraudulent, the researcher or researchers should be fined, fired, and banned from receiving any research funds, depending on extent of fraud, 10 years or more. How should one define fraud? A number of points: literally study not done, study done but focus on subset of original subjects without listing and explaining why, study done with numerous statistical analyses; but only reporting one or two that found significance without explaining other analyses and why these were chosen, etc. However, be careful not to label as fraud just because goes against what is currently accepted.

You write: “Please try reading what people post not what you think they post.
Again to the two points, how do we determine which is good science and which is bad science and why aren’t research papers that are built upon bad science retracted.”

I responded directly to both and you ignore. It is you who needs to actually read what people post! ! !

And, as I already explained, even a well-done study can find results based on chance distribution of other variables other than those being looked at ending in one or other group. Actually, would be better to stop using statistical significance or downplay it and use confidence intervals.

So, as usual, you ignore what I and others write and/or are just too stupid and/or dishonest.

Please explain what your alternative to science should be???

Again to the two points, how do we determine which is good science and which is bad science

“We,” Sophie? I doubt you could determine whether an egg was past its time without written instructions.

and why aren’t research papers that are built upon bad science retracted.

You want the job? Here’s an exercise for the audition: (1) Pick a retracted paper. (2) Find every paper that cited it. (3) Contact the corresponding authors of those papers and see whether they think the retracted item materially affects their results. (4) Ask them whether they will self-retract or issue a corrigendum if so. (5a) If they don’t respond, issue cart00neys to the authors and publisher and threaten to retract it yourself. (5b) If they do respond but say, e.g., that the retracted paper was one among several that they cited for any particular point, proceed as in step 5a. (6) Return to step 1 for each and every paper that cited one of the papers in the previous tier.

I’m sure it will be very rewarding.

““We,” Sophie? I doubt you could determine whether an egg was past its time without written instructions.”

Or as they say in Texas, “not fit to pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel”.

“In 1981 The New England Journal of Medicine published an article claiming coffee contributed to pancreatic cancer. It has NEVER been retracted; however, yep, led to numerous follow-up studies which not only could not replicate its findings; but some even found that coffee consumption reduced risk of cancers.”

Joel in your own words you just confirmed what I was saying. Bad/wrong science lives forever in the record without being retracted or an expression of concern. How many papers on Covid have already been retracted or had expressions of concern or are still floating out there that should be removed but never will be. Even Orac was taken in by a fraudulent paper on Covid, where was the peer review and careful study (DB’s words). If Orac can get fooled how is the average person suppose to not get fooled.

You are easily offended, the comment “believe all science or no science.” was clearly directed at Dr Bacon as that was the feeling he expresses.

And your reference to the criminal justice system is another item that you have actually supported my post. The retraction of a paper for fraud or some other misdeed should lead to the retractions of papers that used that paper or data from that paper or cites that paper. In the criminal justice world it’s called the ‘fruits of the poisonous tree”. In construction a wall built on a poor foundation will crack or fail, it should work this way in science.

Again to the two points, how do we determine which is good science and which is bad science and why aren’t research papers that are built upon bad science retracted.”

I responded directly to both and you ignore. No your really didn’t respond to the question you provided a path that could be taken in the future and explained why the bad science was still in the record but that didn’t answer the fundamental question why is it still in the record.

And who or what entity is going to separate poor methodology from fraud, (I thought that’s what peer review was meant to do and what the editors jobs were) who is going to look at the papers to determine if fraud occurred and who is going to pay for this reproducibility project (there is one of those but way underfunded and subject of much criticism by other ‘scientist’).

Again there is no money or motivation or incentive to correct the record.

In the criminal justice world it’s called the ‘fruits [sic] of the poisonous tree”.

So you want to play exclusionary rule? Fantastic. I can see it now: peer review replaced by a bona fide Journals Court, appeals system, the works. Would “actual innocence” keep one out of the pokey after a conviction? Would citing retracted papers leave one at risk of Journals RICO?

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “You are easily offended, the comment “believe all science or no science.” was clearly directed at Dr Bacon as that was the feeling he expresses.

And your reference to the criminal justice system is another item that you have actually supported my post. The retraction of a paper for fraud or some other misdeed should lead to the retractions of papers that used that paper or data from that paper or cites that paper. In the criminal justice world it’s called the ‘fruits of the poisonous tree”. In construction a wall built on a poor foundation will crack or fail, it should work this way in science.”

First, whether directed at Bacon or me, it basically expressed how you view science. And I’ve read numerous comments by Bacon and his understanding of science far exceeds yours. As for retracting other papers based on one fraudulent or poor methodology paper. Nope. If someone believes finding from another paper and carries out research based on a sound methodology it should NOT be retracted. Could turn out the fraudulent or poorly carried out paper could still be correct or the follow-up paper could show it to be wrong. If a crime lab screws up on its DNA tests, for instance, then retrains, gets better equipment, would you still reject findings? Your analogy to poor foundation just doesn’t work because follow-up studies have to stand on their own. However, if crime lab found to be substandard, then previous convictions can be overturned. Not the same thing. You really don’t understand that an analogy has to have similar properties.

Nope, papers don’t need to be retracted. Wakefield’s wasn’t retracted for 10 years; but he was proven beyond any doubt to be a fraud much earlier and besides, as I wrote, there were many papers that refuted what he wrote. Even the case of the use of the wrong cells for cancer research shows that the vast majority of studies used correct cells and I promise you that they have implemented new procedures to double and triple check the cells being used. Yep, even some papers on Covid were either fraudulent or just poor methodology; but as you continue to ignore, they were caught early on, both by attempts to replicate, by letters-to-the-editor, etc. But I have followed the pandemic since its outbreak in January 2020, read over 2,000 papers, averaging an hour per day of reading. The pandemic is real and the vaccines an overwhelming success.

In fact, when I heard they were looking for volunteers for phase 3 Moderna mRNA vaccine, I devoted several hours over several weeks to reviewing what I knew about mRNA, found numerous articles on previous developments in mRNA vaccines, found numerous articles on S-Spike protein, and decided to volunteer. By the way, the previous mRNA vaccines were found to work quite well in Animal, Phase 1, and Phase 2 studies, only reason didn’t continue on to Phase 3 was the diseases, e.g., SARS disappeared, so no money. And since receiving the vaccine I have donated plasma every four weeks. Blood bank reports my antibody levels quite high, which is really good since I am in my mid 70s. But I still wear a mask when shopping. I could go on; but you ignore what I write. Nope, don’t need to retract studies, especially if only poor methodology and there are a lot of people out there, professionals, who understand methodology.

Yep, Orac was fooled for a very brief time. So what? If you want certainty, go to church, synagogue, or mosque; but if you want valid information, there is no alternative to science and despite what you choose to believe, the science about covid and the vaccine is overwhelming, carried out by scientists the world over. So, yep, some bad studies and probably some fraudulent. As I asked, please suggest an alternative.

And just as Wakefield’s was shown to be a fraud, he still has a strong following. Are you one of them??? Has nothing to do with science; but what some irrational illogical scientifically uninformed people choose to believe. Again, I suggest you read Brian Deer’s “The Doctor Who Fooled the World”

And please explain what you base your views of science on? Do you actually understand science, e.g., immunology, microbiology, epidemiology, biostatistics, history and current status of vaccine-preventable diseases? How many papers on Covid and Covid vaccine have you read? And how are you able to judge their validity.

You are tiresome. Yep, reject science for what??? Do you want to end double-blind placebo controlled trials of various medical interventions? Many that lead to replication attempts, etc. What is the alternative.

Bad/wrong science lives forever in the record without being retracted or an expression of concern.

SOMEBODY PURGE PHLOGISTON, STAT!

And watch your back, Pons.

@Sophie Amsden Paper’s method is explained in its method section, Here you can check the method. Statistical methods are quite obvious Just ask pollsters. How many of them will predict winner elections after interwieving just 30 people. Some people write papers li9ke that, and others will cite them. As a pilot study, they are legimitate, but you should understand that they are preliminary.
Other example is double blinding. It means that investigator does not know who got the drug. He does not know how to please this funder, even if he is so inclined.
Other is forgetting age adjustment (or other relevant adjustments.) You could fiddle with numbers and procents with you hearts content, too.
These are some examples how to spot a bad paper. Some critical reading is required
Another part of critical thinking is read many papers, not just one. Replicated evidence is more trustworthy.
Fruits of poisonous tree doctrine is explained here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
“A doctrine that extends the exclusionary rule to make evidence inadmissible in court if it was derived from evidence that was illegally obtained.”
It is not, as you seems to believe, that you cannot a lawyer’s testimony if some lawyer is misbehaved.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “And who or what entity is going to separate poor methodology from fraud, (I thought that’s what peer review was meant to do and what the editors jobs were) who is going to look at the papers to determine if fraud occurred and who is going to pay for this reproducibility project (there is one of those but way underfunded and subject of much criticism by other ‘scientist’).

Again there is no money or motivation or incentive to correct the record.”

Nope. Peer-review can’t determine if fraudulent, can only look at methodology as written in paper. Maybe sometimes; but usually discovered by various means, e.g., two studies published by same author with exact same results, number of studies during period of time impossible, number of subjects highly unlikely; but this requires investigations of institutions which actually have been carried out. And just how stupid are you? Wakefield’s 1998 study alone led to dozens of studies that refuted his, to dozens of letters-to-editor, etc. Given a world of seven billion people with millions of scientists, replication studies are carried out. Perhaps, not exactly called replication. For instance, if a vaccine successfully goes through required studies in U.S., Swedes and other nations do their own studies, including follow-up studies of effectiveness and adverse events. Who pays for this, Swedish, Danish, Canadian, etc. governments. I have been following research for decades, over 40 years and have found lots of follow-up studies that could be considered variants on reproducibility studies.

Again, you make clear you don’t trust science, so what do you suggest as an alternative??? Prayer, Holy Scripture, Soothsayers? Or, maybe, we should nominate you to be Director of National Institutes of Health?

As for my being offended, starting in early 1980s I read almost every article on climate change in Scientific American. Read International Government Panel of Climate Changes reports. Read and own half dozen books. Watched almost all documentaries, best series entitled “Years of Living Dangerously.” And yet people like you denied climate change and now it is here and we are past the tipping point. Worst fires in decades, oceans rising, droughts, etc. So, I followed the science and we could have done something. Now, too late, though eliminating fossil fuels will significantly reduce premature deaths and disability from toxins in fossil fuels. So, all the deniers have left a world to their kids, grandkids, etc. that will NOT be a pleasant one. And yet we are deciding if we can reduce carbon emissions by, say 2050. Yep, I am offended, upset, sad, you name it because people rejected science, just as many are rejecting the Covid vaccine and we are seeing an upsurge in cases, long covid, and deaths.

Courts are taking a more and more active role in the research/publishing area as the publishing of research papers has been concentrated to fewer and fewer publishers. As more and more researchers have sought relief thru the court system (for not publishing papers and for retractions of papers). Several posters to this site have called for civil/criminal prosecutions of the purveyors of ‘misinformation’ (which is a good thing). Think of all the researchers who have published fraudulent papers in journals. Who would attorneys get more money from JFK Jr. or Springier/Elsevier.

Interesting that you would bring up RICO as it applies to both civil and criminal cases and would not only apply to the researchers but to the publishers themselves. Several cases that have been investigated by the Office of Research Integrity, this has been discussed with the US attorneys office on several occasions.

OK, now that the really dumb part has been addressed….

Courts are taking a more and more active role in the research/publishing area as the publishing of research papers has been concentrated to fewer and fewer publishers. As more and more researchers have sought relief thru the court system (for not publishing papers and for retractions of papers).

Hunny-bunny, do you know what “area” I worked in before N**n Gupta sank the *Bismarck and I decided to check out of $4/hour freelance Grifterville? (I did have one fine, upstanding, client along the way. Yall might be familiar with her.)

I note that you were too bloated with pomposity to actually identify any of these researchers who somehow manage to send their crappy lawsuits back in time to create the present continuous tense with the wrong actors. Moreover, I’m not going to root around at RW for lawsuits alleging asshurt in the first degree for either of your predicates and then head on over to PACER.

How many people around here do you imagine have read a publication agreement? Really, I’m curious. Do you think that they should have arbitration clauses that would punt the retraction to an administrative law judge? Are EOCs vandalism? C’mon, let your freak flag fly.

Next time they would sue New York Times not publishing their article . Ridiculous.

dangerous bacon and joel I realize you mean well but…

how many more studies on the reproducibility of science (only about 30 to 40%) do you need to read before you admit that ‘science’ has a problem. Lashing out at critics do not add to you credibility and tends to make you look myopic. You both keep defending bad science and haven’t offered a formula on how to determine good science from bad science.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4461318/

You both keep defending bad science and haven’t offered a formula on how to determine good science from bad science.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4461318/

I am becoming more and more confident that Clint is a Sophie sockpuppet, at least part of the time. The tells are accumulating.

But anyway, Clint proffers Freedman et al., none of the authors of which appears to have any scientific credentials. Instead, it’s economists with an eye on insider information faster drug development. This is, of course, a well-known formula for determining “good science.”**

Simcoe, sadly, hasn’t requested an erratum to note that his affiliation went bust. I’m sure this story would be even more amusing if I gave a rat’s ass about wannabe super-administrators.

For me, there is exactly one worthwhile element:

Who would attorneys get more money from JFK Jr. or Springier/Elsevier.

Look closely, and then put on *Young Frankenstein.”

“Courts are taking a more and more active role in the research/publishing area as the publishing of research papers has been concentrated to fewer and fewer publishers”

Seriously? There has actually been tremendous growth in journals, especially of the lower impact and even predatory variety.

Joel if we have past the tipping point then, I will quote someone else: ‘At this point what difference does it make?”

You express concern for our children and grandchildren.
Right now the US debt is at about 29 TRILLION dollars, that represents 228,322 per tax paying citizen (do you have that much money to pay your part of the debt?).
The interest on the US debt will soon be the second leading part of the US Budget.
The Unfunded liabilities of the US is now at 156,369,106,987,358 dollars.
Those two items debt/unfunded liabilities represent more than the total worth of everyone including government lands and property.
Medicare will be bankrupt by 2026 and Social Security will be out of money by 2032, only two options with that raise taxes (a lot) or cut benefits.

So yes I am worried about my children and grandchildren.

As too rising sea levels you have failed to read original data.

and you can use this link to any station. this gauge located at Battery park in New York has seen only a 2.88 mm rise (every year) since 1850 with no surge in the steady rise.

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslUSTrendsTable.html

don’t like that gauge try the longest tide gauge in existence at Kronstadt. since 1777 about 3 mm per year with no acceleration.

psmsl.org/data/longrecords/ReportsFGI_2000_1.pdf

In September 1988 scientist told us that the Maldives would be underwater in 30 years. Well, 30 years later and they are building new airports and resorts to handle the tourist traffic I guess those are float planes and the tourist are wearing scuba gear.

trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102074798

Hurricanes are not getting stronger, they are getting more expensive as the coastal areas are being built up.

nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

And death world wide from all disasters has fallen from the millions in the 20’s to under 100,000 now.

ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters

Fire acres burned according to the National Interagency Fire Center, in 1931…… 51,607,000 acres of forest were burned in 2019 on 4,664,364 acres were burned in the US.

web.archive.org/web/20201124062942/https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html

but of course you watched some tv shows and read something so that makes it better.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “but of course you watched some tv shows and read something so that makes it better.”

Are you completely daft? My point was that people rejected science and now we are past the tipping point. And I read 100s of articles, almost a dozen books, and watched a number of documentaries; but how does that make things better? Again, my point was that people rejected science, perhaps, because a few papers were fraudulent or just poor methodology. Thank you for again proving just how STUPID you are, totally ignoring the point I was making.

And we are also dumping millions of tons of plastic in the oceans, larger chunks killing the animals, microscopic particles attracting toxins which we imbibe, and also, together with increased ocean temperature and acidity is killing the phytoplankton which is responsible for 80% of oxygen in this world.

And, by the way, our total debt is much much higher. The Social Security Trust Fund is composed of Treasury Certificates. The monies were loaned to the government, starting with Ronald Reagan, but since Federal accounting doesn’t consider loans between Departments as debt, it made the current deficit appear smaller. And one has to take into consideration the debts of States, Counties, Municipalities, Water Districts, etc. Making the U.S., perhaps, the biggest debtor nation in the world and our current trade deficit is huge. And the majority of Americans are maxed out on the credit cards.

But, your STUPIDNESS, you ignore the point I made that, despite fraudulent and poorly done studies, the bulk of scientific studies prove valid. Plus you wanted not only the poorly done studies retracted as well as the fraudulent. Did you know that several Foundations as well as Universities and Government have scanned in numerous old documents, including those claiming disease due to the four humors, etc. Maybe you think we should eliminate from public view the previous mistakes, etc. of the past???

Once more, how in hell did my pointing out that by rejecting science through extensive study does that make it better?

I was raised to believe we are stewards of the planet and our job is to leave a better world to the next generation. We have TOTALLY FAILED!

YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP

@Sophie AmsdenStates never pay their debts. Only interests are paid. Actually, if a state tries to reduce the debt, there will be a penalty.
This, of course, applies only to creditworthy states.
You should really cite the original papers. Usually reliable sources are very unreliable, if they have a political axe to grind

DB

‘(but maybe lots more have been secretly retracted or disappeared by nefarious parties, who can tell, oo.)’

Maybe this will answer your question.

“Notice-Lack of
No Notice was published by the Journal or Publisher, and the article is removed from the publishing platform.

Notice-Limited or No Information.
A notice provides minimal information as to the cause of the notice, or the original items is watermarked as retracted or corrected without explanation.”

retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/retraction-watch-database-user-guide-appendix-b-reasons/

So to answer you question DB science does remove research by secret retraction.

So how many papers are cited after they were retracted, turns out lots and lots. Of just 10 (top 10) papers a total of over 4,000 research papers cited those 10 after they were retracted.

retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard/top-10-most-highly-cited-retracted-papers/

Scott Reuben fraudulent research (he actually spent time in a federal prison for it.) was cited over 250 times and only 1/4 of them correctly noted the retraction after 5 years.

retractionwatch.com/2015/07/14/half-of-anesthesiology-fraudsters-papers-continue-to-be-cited-years-after-retractions/

springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-015-9680-y

or

Effects of article retraction on citation and practice in medicine.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC226618/

Aarno ‘Good science could be replicated”

but most science is not replicated, so who would know what is good science.

Narad

So you’re ok with bad science being published and not being retracted? You want people to believe in science then clean up science, maybe more people would believe it.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “Aarno ‘Good science could be replicated”

but most science is not replicated, so who would know what is good science.

Narad

So you’re ok with bad science being published and not being retracted? You want people to believe in science then clean up science, maybe more people would believe it.”

First, as I’ve written umpteen times, the fact that most science is not replicated is a GOOD thing. That is what science is all about. Even well done studies may not be replicated because of an unknown non-random distribution between groups.

Nope, more people won’t believe in science no matter what we do. Those who oppose the current covid vaccine reject any and all explanations. I have probably 3 – 400 articles carried out all over the world that show the vaccine works with far less risk than from the actual disease; but people choose to believe Fox News, social media, etc. Just look at racists. One can show how Blacks have contributed to the defense of this nation, including Revolutionary War, one can give umpteen well-done studies on genetics, etc; but racists reject.

So, I agree it would be nice to reduce the number of fraudulent studies; but won’t change how many people think. So, how do I and others know when “good science” has been conducted, while not simple, looking carefully at methodologies, looking for replications, looking for studies that aren’t exactly replications; but related. We now have numerous studies on Covid vaccine safety carried out in numerous nations. Nations with different cultures, economic, political, religious, educational, etc. systems. Do you really believe all of them are either incompetent and/or could care less about the welfare of their fellow citizens.

And again, for the umpteenth time, please give an alternative to science. Oh, Fox News and social media?

And it isn’t just science. Our politicians often lie to us. But what can one expect living in the U.S., that government of the corporations and super wealthy, by the corporations and super wealthy, and for the corporations and super wealthy.

Narad

So you’re ok with bad science being published and not being retracted? You want people to believe in science then clean up science, maybe more people would believe it.

Not exactly. Let me rephrase: I’m persuaded that you have no knowledge of either academic publishing (or culture) or scientific research. The whole “whur’s mah tast for gud sienz” routine is painfully, droolingly stupid. A paper in the arXiv, for example, is basically as good as published (as opposed to “bioRχiv”).

So, what is {Sophie, Clint, Charles} actually advocating for? Getting somebody to do something about this? (This one is left as an exercise for the Mouseketeers.) Wholesale bitching and moaning under random posts? If I order now, can I get a free potato ricer or something?

Oh, dear, I missed this gem:

You want people to believe in science then clean up science, maybe more people would believe it.

Sophie, if you don’t “believe in” science, I hear that a combination of bleach and ammonia is twice as good for cleaning as either in isolation.

I hear that a combination of bleach and ammonia is twice as good for cleaning as either in isolation.

He is just trying to scare you with such partisan vitriol. It is bleach and hydrochloric/sulfuric acid that does a number on you. I know it is probably still too late, but you knew the drill. L8r, babe.

You stupid bitch. Your kid put it on youtube. There is no way I’m killing you in that special such a way as was asked of me nicely now.

If science is not replicated, it is irrelevant science. As Narad said, you refer a paper by economists, not knowing about science.
Reuben case is analysed here:
Emmanuel Marret, Nadia Elia, Jørgen B. Dahl, Henry J. McQuay, Steen Møiniche, R Andrew Moore, Sebastian Straube, Martin R. Tramèr; Susceptibility to Fraud in Systematic Reviews: Lessons from the Reuben Case. Anesthesiology 2009; 111:1279–1289 doi: https://doi.org/10.1097/ALN.0b013e3181c14c3d
Conclusion is that most reviews remain valid after Reuben papers are removed. As I have said any number of times, you should not rely in one paper.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “So to answer you question DB science does remove research by secret retraction.

So how many papers are cited after they were retracted, turns out lots and lots. Of just 10 (top 10) papers a total of over 4,000 research papers cited those 10 after they were retracted.”

There are approximately 2.6 million publications every year. So, 4000 isn’t a lot and you ignore how many papers, letters-to-editor, etc. critiqued, failed to replicate, etc. As I pointed out, up to 100,000 innocent people are in prison; but a far greater number of guilty. You keep finding negative; but I’ve asked you over and over, what is your alternative to science???

You are too too dishonest to answer. There is NO alternative; but science can be improved; but retracting fraudulent articles won’t do it. As I’ve mentioned several times, Andrew Wakefield was exposed as a fraud long before his 1998 article was retracted, exposed by investigative journalists Brian Deer; but also numerous papers/studies that refuted his 1998 paper. And by the way, last time I looked one can still find his retracted paper online with words RETRACTED printed over it.

Is the glass half full or half empty? In your case, you emphasize NOT half-empty but mainly empty. So, what is the alternative?

And, as my previous comment showed, you really are STUPID, totally missed the point I was making and twisted beyond logic what my conclusion was?

You haven’t posted for awhile and now you are back. Are you off your meds???

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “Joel if we have past the tipping point then, I will quote someone else: ‘At this point what difference does it make?”

First, I also pointed out that the toxins in fossil fuels are responsible for up to 100,000 premature deaths from respiratory, cardiovascular, and cancer. And many more with reduced quality of life. Second, we are past the tipping point; but the question is what happens if we continue to poor CO2 in the atmosphere? Of course, we will make global warming even worse and it will take much longer for the Earth to heal.

Just one example of your ignoring what I write and asking a stupid question? Quoting someone else is still you asking it

@ Clint

You write: “dangerous bacon and joel I realize you mean well but…
how many more studies on the reproducibility of science (only about 30 to 40%) do you need to read before you admit that ‘science’ has a problem. Lashing out at critics do not add to you credibility and tends to make you look myopic. You both keep defending bad science and haven’t offered a formula on how to determine good science from bad science.

I won’t bother to cut and paste, just point out just how dishonest your comment is. I both discussed problems of reproducibility, made some suggestions how to deal with fraud, pointed out the it is exactly lack of reproducibility that invalidates studies. You are real jerk claiming we defended bad science and haven’t offered suggestions. I currently own a half dozen books on the history of bad science, scientific fraud, and hundreds of articles. I don’t like fraud one iota; but as I asked Sophie Amsden, what alternative does she offer to science?

READ CAREFULLY ALL MY RESPONSES TO SOPHIE AMSDEN, THEN IF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE OF HONOR YOU WILL ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG!

@ Charles

You write: “Courts are taking a more and more active role in the research/publishing area as the publishing of research papers has been concentrated to fewer and fewer publishers. As more and more researchers have sought relief thru the court system (for not publishing papers and for retractions of papers). Several posters to this site have called for civil/criminal prosecutions of the purveyors of ‘misinformation’ (which is a good thing). Think of all the researchers who have published fraudulent papers in journals. Who would attorneys get more money from JFK Jr. or Springier/Elsevier.”

First, you give you references, so what does it mean “more and more researchers.”

Second, the fact that courts play any role in research and publishing is not something to be desired. Yep, sometimes courts get it right; but many times they don’t. One clear example is a book by Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, “Science on Trial” where she documents a case where a jury awarded a huge sum that that together with following lawsuits put a company out-of-business. Only problem as she clear explains, the plaintiff provided no evidence of harm and, in fact, later research proved the product not responsible. Juries often reward based on sympathy for individual and belief in greed and deep pockets of company. I don’t like that Elsevier makes so much money on journals and textbooks. When I was a student, textbooks cost around $10, now similar ones cost $150, way over inflation; but this is par for the course in an ever more greedy American.There is an excellent book by Robert A. Kagan “Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law. Makes a compelling case that neither our criminal justice system nor our civil legal system approaches the just results of several other nations. I’ll just point out a couple of things. In many other nations one goes through law school, then does a masters in criminal or civil law, then an apprenticeship under a judge, etc. In U.S. we either elect judges or appoint them, claiming our law is unbiased; yet, the political parties and wealthy supporters push for specific candidates, not because they believe they will judge impartially.

In any case, first you quote an ad hominem attack on me, then you write a comment without anything to substantiate it and with ignorance of the harm the judicial system could do to science. I wonder how our Supreme Court currently would rule on requiring creation science be taught along side evolution given we now have several fundamentalist Christians on the Court?

“There are approximately 2.6 million publications every year. So, 4000 isn’t a lot and you ignore how many papers, letters-to-editor, etc. critiqued, failed to replicate, etc.”

You obviously failed to read the links posted.
Those 4,000 plus citations for retracted papers is just for the top 20 papers that were cited AFTER they were retracted. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

You quoted a paper linking coffee and cancer, how many papers cited your original paper after it was disproved. Do you not understand how toxic this modern science is and how people can be mislead and billions of dollars in research is wasted and the lives lost because researchers were looking a skin cells not cancers cells? I would bet that in 20 years after covid is over half to 3/4 of what ‘science’ we followed today is disproved/debunked or just out right fraudulent.

I posted a link and others have posted links that show that most of modern science research/experiments can not or have not be reproduced, even by the very scientist who devised/researched and published the results. Yet you or others claim that reproducibility is the mark of good science.

You and DB keep defending the status quo because you are incapable of changing you thought pattern. It is you who are dishonest, you claim to have 6 books on bad science and hundreds of articles yet you never post any of that information. Someone asked the original question that no one has answered, ‘What/which science is right and how do we know” And I don’t want to hear about criminals or non related stuff. You and DB defense of science is a defense of belief or faith. You have a faith/belief that the science is self correcting, that smacks of religion.

you claim to have read Scientific American and believe what they write to be true.
Try this article from Scientific American
“The Science of Breeding Better Men”
eugenics.us/scientific-american-the-science-of-breeding-better-men-1911/448.htm

people believed in that science too.

I did notice that when someone disagrees with you, you have a tendency to claim they are on medication or need help. When you resort to that kind of response you signal that you have lost the argument.

and to quote you

“THEN IF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE OF HONOR YOU WILL ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG!”

@Sophie Amsden In case of coffee and cancer, research was replicated and claim was found incorrect. So no damage here. Only problem is that someone would pick this claim prematurely. And of course, not drinking coffee would not endanger your health.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “You and DB keep defending the status quo because you are incapable of changing you thought pattern.”

You keep proving just how incredibly STUPID you are. I NEVER defended the status quo. I agreed that there is fraudulent science and poor science. But I keep pointing out that it is only science, that is published work, that can be viewed by other scientists, critiqued, and sometimes quickly, other times, not so quickly; corrected. And there is NO alternative to this. People are flawed, some people are dishonest; but science is the only discipline that has the tools to deal with this. I defend science not the status quo. You are too stupid to understand what I write and the difference.

You write: “I would bet that in 20 years after covid is over half to 3/4 of what ‘science’ we followed today is disproved/debunked or just out right fraudulent.”

Yep, researchers around the world are all stupid, incompetent, or outright dishonest. And the nurses I know in my hometown and doctors are ALL lying about the cases of Covid. And if 20 years from now the overwhelming evidence favors what is already known about Covid or, if a new more virulent strain develops and kills even more, what will you say? NOTHING.

Have you ever even read/studied any history of epidemics and pandemics?

YOU ARE A DESPICABLE EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “you claim to have read Scientific American and believe what they write to be true.”

First, as I have made clear over and over, I do NOT rely on one paper. As for, for instance, climate change, yep, read most articles in Scientific American, plus International Panel on Climate Change, plus articles in Science and Nature magazines, etc. And finding one wrong, even stupid article, is typical of you. As I wrote, the New England Journal of Medicine, consider by many the absolute best medical journal, published an article associated coffee with cancer. Not a fraudulent article, just poor methodology, Not retracted; but overwhelming studies found wrong. So, does this mean every article or the majority in New England Journal of Medicine is fraudulent or just wrong? And if you believe this, then I suggest you and your family avoid doctors because they base their medical knowledge on journals, especially NEJM. In fact, I know my primary care physician devote a few hours per week to just reading medical journal articles.\

So, go to a homeopath, faith healer, or whatever.

Oh, this morning I donated blood plasma since I got the Covid vaccine and my antibody titers are quite high for a man in his mid-70s. According to Blood Bank, my donation used for up to four hospitalized patients. I guess you think I’m wasting my time. I donate every four weeks and will continue to do so as long as Covid patients hospitalized. After that may switch to donating platelets, used for cancer patients. I’m sure you think that also would be a waste of time.

You are incredibly STUPID STUPID STUPID.

Aarno, Narad and Joel

Please come into the 21st century.

women/female researchers are suing publishers for sexual discrimination (based on past rejection of papers authored by females, (as a pattern of behavior).
It has been proven many times over (in research) that if a female is a listed author of a paper it is likely to be rejected, however if a female uses just initials it will be accepted. Courts are going to decide what is acceptable science, get use to it. You forced this issue by your intractable ways.

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-015-1775-3

Joel you repeatably admit the science is bad and will be wrong but ‘People are flawed, some people are dishonest; but science is the only discipline that has the tools to deal with this. I defend science not the status quo.’
But in fact you are defending the status quo and science has not developed the tools necessary to deal with it, but has chosen to turn a blind eye to it, you yourself have given examples of how the science does not self correct but just moves on to the next new and shinny object. You’re a fossil stuck in the old ways of thinking and doing.

I have noticed that your replies are different when a woman disagrees with you, than when a male disagrees with you as you tend to think that a woman needs counseling or is off her meds if they don’t agree with you.

‘YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP’
‘Are you off your meds???”

No male you responded to was treated this way.

It is no wonder you haven’t gotten married.

You are a sexist. I would call you a pig but that would be degrading to a pig.

that a woman needs counseling or is off her meds if they don’t agree with you.

They are often stupid. Especially women.

Oh, come on, butt hurt. You are flaming burning, rock chewing stewpid dumb. I’m not judging, I’m just saying.

And what if the girl in the quarry was because chicken shit and Thiokol wanted to test rocket motors there? That is right. She dead anyways. Well? they failed to do that there or anywhere else for the last 40 years. Cost Plus is da bomb.

Sexual discrimination is another thing, off course, if it can be proved. There are quite many female reseachers around, actually. Exact sciences remain problematic.
Problem is that a fraudster can harass journals with frivolous lawsuits (defending against them costs money). This would make situation really bad, like accepting fraudter’s charter.
Scientists can make mistakes actually, but their research could be duplicated. If nobody bothers to do that, results are insignificant. If someone reports cure of any diseases, this would be significsnt indeed

Kay, isn’t Joel the poster who called you ‘Deary” (the exact quote “Not very scientific, deary”).
and “Honey’ and told you that it was not the ‘right time to post’ (when it comes to females we all know what he was referring to).
He directed this one at me“Do you have self-carnal knowledge of Sophie?”

And when you told him you were Jamaican he asked if you were black because some Jamaicans are white. Only a certain group of people are concerned about skin color.

And he keeps posting that he replies to all questions, but when I posted the stuff on sea level, acres burned, natural caused deaths and the Maldive being underwater in 2018 or the fact that the spending by the us government was a bigger problem than climate change, there was no refutation.

He bragged about reading Scientific American and all the articles on global warming. It was pointed out to him that Scientific American promoted the science of eugenics as early as 1911.

And even if he might agree a little with what you post, he will still show you where you are wrong and he is correct
“@ Clint I don’t disagree with you, EXCEPT” joel of course went on to explain how Clint was wrong and he (Joel was right)

I copied from Charles, as it never had occurred to me that this describes Joel, I‘ve always considered him just a bully/troll.

Passive-aggressive arguer. This type does not argue in good faith. They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. And so they become masters at a deflecting attention away from their weak ideas, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.

Joel is just the steer in the herd and doesn’t know what happen.

This type does not argue in good faith. They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. And so they become masters at a deflecting attention away from their weak ideas, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.

Fuck off, Chikka. I’ll see you at the BBQ then?

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “Kay, isn’t Joel the poster who called you ‘Deary” (the exact quote “Not very scientific, deary”).
and “Honey’ and told you that it was not the ‘right time to post’ (when it comes to females we all know what he was referring to).
He directed this one at me“Do you have self-carnal knowledge of Sophie?”

And when you told him you were Jamaican he asked if you were black because some Jamaicans are white. Only a certain group of people are concerned about skin color.”

Nope, didn’t address anyone as “Deary” or “Honey”; but, yep, asked Kay if she was Black. Because I was involved in Civil Rights demonstrations during early 1960s and continue to oppose any form of racism, Islamophobia, anti-Oriental, anti-Semitism. So, if she responded that she was Black, my comments may have been milder because in this country she has more than likely been mistreated umpteen times, something terribly wrong. But, good for you Sophie, once again using the Logical Fallacy of an Ad Hominem attack. What would anyone of the aforementioned say about the validity of my position of Covid or Vaccines. But, of course, you also, as well as Kay, played down how much I have read, seminars attended, etc., since you both just intuitively know and understand more than I do, By the way, given your immense stupidity, if you are at all interested in research that overwhelmingly shows that Blacks not one iota inferior to Whites in intelligence, etc. while I own over a dozen books, the best is: William H. Tucker. “The Science and Politics of Racial Research.” I know you won’t read it. If Kay had answered in the affirmative, I would have recommended the book to her.

You write: “He bragged about reading Scientific American and all the articles on global warming. It was pointed out to him that Scientific American promoted the science of eugenics as early as 1911.”

Yikes! THANK YOU FOR ONCE AGAIN SHOWING JUST HOW UTTERLY STUPID YOU ARE. YEP, EUGENICS WAS A BIG MOVEMENT IN U.S. 100 YEARS AGO. Wow! But even then Scientific American also contain credible articles. And I pointed out that I also read articles in Nature and Science Magazine, attended seminars, etc. I also have half dozen books on the Eugenics Movement and have watched the PBS documentary “The Eugenics Movement” several times. So, if you want to find articles, either racist, eugenics, just wrong by going back to scientific journals, newspapers, magazines, etc. then I suggest, as I already did, that you avoid doctors since their education and training is based on such journals. The world does change. Maybe you think if you are ever seriously sick it is because of an imbalance in your four humors? I suggest bleeding.

And finally, you copy/add to: “I copied from Charles, as it never had occurred to me that this describes Joel, I‘ve always considered him just a bully/troll.

Passive-aggressive arguer. This type does not argue in good faith. They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. And so they become masters at a deflecting attention away from their weak ideas, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.

Joel is just the steer in the herd and doesn’t know what happen.”

Obviously you are too much an asinine moron to actually enter into an intelligent dialogue, so continue to resort to ad hominem attacks. I got news for you, one of the two developers of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, the most comprehensive study of etymology of the language, was a convicted murderer permanently housed in a mental hospital. Doesn’t detract one iota from his genius with languages. I could give more examples of loners, curmudgeons, etc. who have made major contributions to the sciences, arts, etc. I am not one of them, that is, haven’t made major contributions; but your description, ad hominem attacks, just boomerang back on you as a dishonest, despicable excuse for a human being.

And you ignore that I posted a comment where I refuted point by point what Kay West wrote and then ignored and added one more ad hominem attack. That is what lowlifes like you do,

You and Kay are truly stupid, intellectually dishonest, sick individuals, not because of your positions on certain issues which just displays a lack of open-mindedness and bias; but your continuing to either use ad hominem attacks or find one or two articles and ignore everything else.

Keep making a fool of yourself

@ Sophie Amsden

I also asked if Kay was Black because I thought we might enter into a dialogue where we agreed on many things, could share experiences, suggest books and articles, just as the YMCA I went to before the lockdown had Moslems who I often drank coffee with, went to lunch with, and asked questions and told them what I had learned so far, asking for critique. As much as I support Black Lives Matters and have devoted time my entire life to reading on racism, etc. I can NEVER completely understand what others have been through, so always welcome more info.

And one can still point out scientists who write books and articles attempting to prove racial differences; but excellent critiques of their methodology exists. Why? Because if they publish in any journal, they have to give their methodology, including sampling, and, thus, others can read and critique. Same with any subject within science and, yep, some will still quote the articles claiming racial differences. I don’t like it; but what is the alternative? Censorship? As I wrote earlier, if proven fraudulent, then the individual(s) should potentially lose their jobs, lose eligibility for research funds, etc. But if poor methodology, then just critiqued. But, I don’t reject science because we don’t live in a perfect world and despite your continuing pointing out problems, science is a methodology, not a result, and there is nothing even close that can replace scientific methodology.

Of course, you and Kay have already made it clear that my decades of education, training, reading in immunology, microbiology, epidemiology, statistics, history and curren status of vaccine-preventable diseases and continuing reading in these areas is and was a waste of time because of your expertise on my personality defects and your expertise on the aforementioned subjects. Golly gee! I wish I had known you and Kay years ago, I could have saved a lot of time and energy and just asked your “expert” opinions.

But you and Kay have commented on this site because you are against the Covid vaccines and downplay the risks of covid and you are both super wrong. Despite your attack on science, as i wrote, e.g., covid vaccine safety studies have been conducted by scientists all over the world. Do you really think all are stupid, incompetent, dishonest, don’t care about their respective fellow citizens? The evidence on the effectiveness and safety of the mRNA vaccines is overwhelming. Nope! Neither 100% effective nor 0% risk; but compared with the disease you downplay, the benefits to risk ratio high.

And I asked you, given I donate plasma every four weeks that is being used for hospitalized covid patients if you think I am wasting my time. After all, they use my plasma because I got the Moderna mRNA vaccine and tests show high antibody titer and, of course, claims of hospitalized covid patients lies according to you. So, am I wasting my time. After all, in mid-70s, driving to Blood Center having needle in my arm for over an hour and then extremely dehydrated for rest of day, maybe not worth it? Dehydrated because they take approximately two pints of plasma, so drink tons of water rest of day.

@ Sophie Amsden

I wrote: “PBS documentary “The Eugenics Movement”

Actual title was “The Eugenics Crusade”

Right after I posted comment, realized gave wrong title.

@ Sophie Amsden

You write: “I have noticed that your replies are different when a woman disagrees with you, than when a male disagrees with you as you tend to think that a woman needs counseling or is off her meds if they don’t agree with you.”

You “have noticed?” Just additional proof of how stupid and dishonest you are. I suggest you go back to my responses over several months. First, the majority of those who I disagreed with were women, so naturally, given their, like your, ignoring of what I write and/or twisting it, called for a reply; but if you check out when I disagreed with men, my reactions were similar; but again, so what? The main point, which you continue to ignore/avoid is whether what I write about the particular subject/science has any validity, i.e., if I back it up. Look, for instance, of some of my comments to Scott Allen, clearly a male’s name. And once again you divert attention from the points in question.

Oh, couple more examples of major contributors to science: The Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Franklin Stroud, whose papers and books on ornithology became the standard. And Nobel Prize winning mathematician, John Nash, who was also schizophrenic. I could give you a list of major contributors to science with a diversity of mental and/or social problems; but if you disagreed with them, based on you ignorance, lack of study, of subject, you would focus on their mental and/or social problems.

And in yours and Kay’s case, I do wonder if you are off your meds. I don’t state that I know you were on meds or not, simply wondered. There is a difference; but not something you would understand. However, exchanging comments with you reminds me of my internship at a psychiatric hospital and extensive readings of people who are certain they are right, basically ignoring reality. I won’t diagnose you; but doubt you are so severely disturbed; but may suffer from mild symptomatology.

You should check on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, sometimes explained as people too stupid to know they are stupid!

“First, the majority of those who I disagreed with were women”

You may consider doing a bit of the honky honky maw maw on the nearest counter top for this next part.

— 17% of champion women tennis players use snuff.
— 28% of champion women tennis players used to be men.
— a poor/mediocre/excellent troll is generally gender fluid.

Joel can’t be a racist because he has had black/muslim/female friends. (the term is tu quoque fallacy)

For The Umpteenth Time: Having A Black ‘Friend’ Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Racist

huffpost.com/entry/for-the-umpteenth-time-having-a-black-friend-doesnt-mean-you-arent-racist_n_59948617e4b0d0d2cc83a9af

Why Every Racist Mentions Their Black Friend
Feeling threatened leads people to overestimate the importance of past actions

psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-inertia-trap/201405/why-every-racist-mentions-their-black-friend

Why ‘I Have Black Friends’ Is a Terrible Excuse for Your Racism

everydayfeminism.com/2017/03/black-friends-excuse-for-racism/

As for your good deeds, maybe you are compensating for you bad deeds or just feel a little guilty, because you sit at home while making others work and pay taxes to support you ?

‘asinine moron,truly stupid, intellectually dishonest, sick individuals,UTTERLY STUPID YOU ARE.lowlifes like’

Well at least you didn’t suggest that I was off my meds or need professional help or was my time, so maybe you are learning but again when you resort to name calling you have lost the argument.

For The Umpteenth Time: Having A Black ‘Friend’ Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Racist

Let me know when you let “Lord Great Black Fox” crash in your place and wash up on a night when his van wasn’t enough. Hell, we weren’t even friends.

@ Kay West

As usual you moron, you assume facts not in evidence. I’ll give you some background that you, in your extreme dishonesty, will ignore. When I was a young kid my dad worked at a locker club in the early 1950s. Sailors weren’t allow to change into civilian clothes on the ships, so locker clubs with steam baths, pool tables, restaurants, cleaners, and tailors. My dad used to invite sailors over for Sunday barbecues, both black and white sailors and they played with me, e.g., riding on their backs, so at a very early age I interacted in very positive ways with blacks. We also had a black maid and her husband was our gardener. At the time they did not have kids, so she sort of adopted me. On her day off she would bring me a chocolate cake. They lived in a bad part of town and were saving up to move elsewhere. My parents invited them to stay in our spare bedroom. We only had one bathroom. They declined; but I think that says a lot about my family. When I moved elsewhere, I always visited them when visiting my parents. Also, at 8 years of age I joined the downtown YMCA, which had blacks and Hispanics. We swam together, ate bagged lunches together, played together and then I went to the YMCA summer camp, which also had blacks and Hispanics. We hiked together, did dishes together, swam together, etc. So, I have had positive experiences with black and hispanics my entire life and the YMCA I went to until the pandemic lockdown had many blacks and hispanics and we worked out together, drank coffee and went to lunch. I could go on and on; but, though you are completely wrong, even if you were rights, would be using the Logical Fallacy of an Ad Hominem attack. I won’t bother; but I could find in history real racists who made great scientific discoveries. And I listed much of the flaws in your comments, which you avoided. I could try to contact some of my black friends; but how many would need to post comments for you to admit you are wrong? Probably no amount and since moving home to take care of my mother I lost contact with a lot of friends, many others I’ve outlived, and I don’t have personal contact information for those I worked out with at YMCA. I would have absolutely NO problem if a black family moved next door, or hispanic, or arab, or Moslem because in my view such categories don’t in any way, shape, or form say if someone is honest, friendly, intelligent, etc. Though I’ve read probably 30 or 40 books on genetics, eugenics, racism, etc and 100s of articles over my lifetime, the book that had the most lasting effect was John Howard Griffin “Black Like Me”, which came out in 1962. I read it and literally had nightmares that I could be the exact same person just wake up with my skin darker and be treated horribly. All the other books I’ve read just gave the scientific support to what I already knew, both from the book and from having so many positive experiences with people of various colors and ethnic groups. I am still in contact, though sporadic, with a Palestinian I knew as an undergraduate who is a retired professor living in the Palestinian Authority/West Bank. There is an excellent film, was on Netflix, no longer; but Amazon Prime has it: “The Other Son”/”L’autre fils” best film I’ve seen on what is terribly wrong with the State of Israel. Israel is NOT a Jewish State. It is a rejection of everything I learned that Judaism stands for, starting with Biblical “Be Kind to the Stranger in your Midst, for were you NOT once Strangers in the Land of Israel. And when I lived in Israel there was a significant number of Israeli Jews that wanted one nation with separate of Church and State, treating Palestinians, both Christian and Moslem as equals. Unfortunately, Israel has gone from bad to worse.

You write: “As for your good deeds, maybe you are compensating for you bad deeds or just feel a little guilty, because you sit at home while making others work and pay taxes to support you ?”

You really are stupid and dishonest. I am almost 75 years old. I paid taxes when working and paid into Social Security. Perhaps, you are some right-winger that thinks Social Security is a bad thing. And I still pay taxes on my home and, of course, sales taxes, etc. What an absolute stupid thing to say.

You write: “Well at least you didn’t suggest that I was off my meds or need professional help or was my time, so maybe you are learning but again when you resort to name calling you have lost the argument.”

My name calling is directed at you and Sophie’s ignoring or twisting what I write; so to some extent justified; but if you think that loses me the argument, what does you and Sophie’s claims of my home life, overall psychological state, say? Once more you prove what a friggin hypocrite you are.

Why don’t you go back to my list of claims you made that I clearly refuted and attempt to respond, e.g., misreading article on percentage including human contribution to climate change, ignoring UK website with article giving high value of vaccine, etc. You and Sophie are two of a kind, both dishonest to the core.

@ Kay West

You write: “Why Every Racist Mentions Their Black Friend”

Yep; but does that mean that non-racist can’t also mention their Black Friends? NOTE I wrote friends in plural because even earlier I gave more than one example. Just typical how you ignore what I and others write. You are friggin dishonest through and through.

We I am sorry for you that your rich parents had both a black maid (did she make you pancakes too) and a black gardener. So that makes you not a racist?

Your understanding of how social security system works is very limited. You may have put money into the social security system your who life (if you put in the max from 1968 to ten years ago when you turn 65 and worked and contributed 45 years you put into the system about 240,000 dollars you have used up about half of the money you put into the system. But that is not how the system works, the present day workers pay for the social security checks of those that have retired. Much the same as you paid someone else SS when you worked.
You blamed Ronald Reagan for raiding the social security fund, which shows just how dishonest/misleading and what a lair you are. the federal government automatically puts all of the money that should be set aside for the Social Security Trust Fund into the general fund. Raiding the Social Security Trust Fund was a precedent set in 1968 by president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to help pay for the Vietnam War, but you were in Canada when that happened. To date, the federal government has borrowed over $2 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund to spend on other programs. There is no money in the trust fund to pay future benefits there is no lock box with piles of 100 dollar bills, there are just IOU’s . The program faces a severe demographic crisis as members of the baby boom generation begin to retire, meaning there are more people taking money out of the system then putting into it, meaning, raise taxes a lot or cut benefits a lot, but even you admitted that there is more debt then we can service now.

to quote you
‘dishonest to the core’

@ Kay West

You write: “We I am sorry for you that your rich parents had both a black maid (did she make you pancakes too) and a black gardener. So that makes you not a racist?”

First, my father had a lower middle class income; but things were much cheaper. Second, you pick out one of the many examples I gave, just typical of your immense dishonesty. And, yep, sometimes she made lunch for me and we ate together. And when I visited at the home they eventually bought, always invited me to lunch or dinner.

You write: “You blamed Ronald Reagan for raiding the social security fund, which shows just how dishonest/misleading and what a lair you are. the federal government automatically puts all of the money that should be set aside for the Social Security Trust Fund into the general fund.”

The Trust Fund existed since FDR; however, Reagan cut taxes on corporations and the rich resulting in a huge deficit, so the amount of the FICA tax and cap were raised quite a bit and then the money was loaned to the general fund, which gave appearance that deficit was reduced. And I am NO fan of LBJ. Civil Rights, yep; but he knew the war in Vietnam was wrong and couldn’t be won; but with an election coming up he escalated, sending more troops to be killed, wounded, and kill more Vietnamese.

You write: “To date, the federal government has borrowed over $2 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund to spend on other programs. There is no money in the trust fund to pay future benefits there is no lock box with piles of 100 dollar bills, there are just IOU’s . The program faces a severe demographic crisis as members of the baby boom generation begin to retire, meaning there are more people taking money out of the system then putting into it, meaning, raise taxes a lot or cut benefits a lot, but even you admitted that there is more debt then we can service now.”

The IOUs are treasury certificates just like the rest of our government debt, so do you suggest we default on just those owed to Social Security Trust Fund? And it isn’t just how many people support social security; but value of economy. We could up the cap on Social Security to what it was in 1980 which, according to last report, would cut the projected deficit by over 80%. We could also increase slightly the FICA tax on higher incomes. They would still have left far more than they did a few decades ago. Yep, Reagan, Bush Jr, the Trump lowered taxes on corporations and rich, leaving shrinking middle class and working class to pay the interest and eventually pay out social security benefits. Yep, during this period of time the middle class shrunk, working class saw little gain in income, while CEOs of corporations went from 40 times average employee wage to 800 times, stock values went up (even during current pandemic) and on and on it goes.

So, one can look at it that we paid for previous generations Social security; but then my dad’s generation paid for my public school education, including low tuition universities and then when I worked my generation paid for next generation. Would you end this? My Dad’s generation built dams, bridges, libraries, etc. which benefited the next generation. Was that also wrong? Should each generation consider itself only?

And what is your solution? End social security? Currently pays almost entire income of about 60% of recipients and significant portion of up to 80%. We could all invest in 401k; but the current stock market is way overpriced, earnings-to-income ratio and fund brokers take out significant commissions, etc. Social Security has low administration costs. And every modern advanced democracy has some form of social security that gives much higher amounts and they, as we, project future problems; but they don’t feel like abandoning, increasing levels of poverty of seniors who have worked their entire lives to build the economy, so their approach is to find ways to maintain. Many Americans, like you, think only of themselves. Oh, probably none of your business; but my combined SSA and Swedish pension not even middle class. Fortunately, when I worked I saved up, always lived on less than half net income and purchase home in 1968, so own it outright.

In fact, several governments, e.g., Orange County relied on stock market funds to pay for infrastructure, etc. and ended up bankrupt because taxpayers wanted all the benefits; but didn’t want to pay the taxes, including funding public employee pensions. Prior to this, the pay packet, total cost of an employee, included monies to be invested in secure low risk bonds that grew, perhaps, a couple of percent over inflation; but then to compensate, Orange County and others invested in high-yield risk stocks.

As usual, you claim facts-not-in-evidence. Not rich. In fact, because my father’s income was below a certain amount, I got what was called a “needs” scholarship that helped pay tuition and books. You really are an evil sick person. And you don’t understand Social Security. So what else is new? I could recommend several books on history of Social Security and probably 100 or more papers.

You and Sophie just keep proving how dishonest and sick you are, ignoring what I write, taking one example, one person, out of many, assume wealthy and on and on it goes.

@ Kay West

You write: “You write: “You blamed Ronald Reagan for raiding the social security fund, which shows just how dishonest/misleading and what a lair you are. the federal government automatically puts all of the money that should be set aside for the Social Security Trust Fund into the general fund.”

So, the following refutes what you claim. You just almost never get anything right. And, again, I have several books on history of Social Security.

LBJ and Social Security Trust Fund. From Brenton Smith (2014 May 8). Did Lyndon Johnson Steal From the Social Security Trust Fund?:

“LBJ’s term as president expired before Social Security was moved into the Unified Budget process. There is no historical record of any money moving improperly out of the Social Security Trust Fund. And even there were a paper trail of money moving, the sums in the Trust Fund during the time of LBJ were relatively very small. At the time, Social Security was a pay-as-you-go system, leaving almost
nothing for LBJ to steal.”

From book: Allen W Smith (2013). Ronald Reagan & The Great Social Security Heist: How Reagan Gave Birth to the Looting of Social Security.

The money’s gone! Social Security doesn’t have $2.7 trillion stashed away for paying benefits, as so many people believe. It cannot pay benefits for another 20 years, as is often claimed. In fact, Social Security does not have enough money to pay full benefits, even for 2014, without borrowing money from China or another of our creditors. How can this be? Wasn’t Social Security fixed by the Social Security Amendments of 1983, which included a large increase in payroll taxes? That’s what we were told at the time. President Reagan signed that legislation into law with great fanfare on April 20, 1983. With his comments at the signing ceremony, Reagan gave the impression that it was a proud day for America. But, instead of being a proud day for America, as Reagan implied, the day the new legislation was signed into law, turned out to be a day of shame for the United States. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 laid the foundation for 30 years of government embezzlement of Social Security funds. The money was used to pay for wars, tax cuts for the rich, and other government programs. The payroll tax hike of 1983 generated a total of $2.7 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue. This surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds, which would be held in the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But not one dime of that money ever made its way to the Social Security trust fund. The 1983 legislation was sold to the public, and to Congress, as a long-term fix for Social Security. With the help of Alan Greenspan, Reagan was a super salesman, who could have sold almost anything to the public—even a scam. And that’s exactly what he was selling. Reagan intended to use the surplus Social Security revenue to replace revenue lost because of his unaffordable income tax cuts. Instead of being set aside for the retirement of the baby boomers, as was the intent of the legislation, the extra Social Security revenue was deposited directly into the general fund just like income tax revenue. From the very beginning, Reagan and his advisors had no intention of saving and investing the new revenue for the retirement of the baby boomers. They needed additional general tax revenue, and an increase in the payroll tax would be much easier to enact than higher income taxes. Also, the potential to get vast amounts of revenue was much greater with a payroll tax increase than from an income tax increase. The baby boomers, the largest generation of Americans who ever lived, were already making large contributions to the Social Security fund. Like all previous generations, prior to 1983, the boomers were being required to pay the full cost of benefits paid to the previous generation. But, the proposed new legislation would hit the boomers with a double whammy. In addition to paying for their parents’ benefits, the new law would require the baby boomers to also pay enough additional taxes to prepay the cost of their own benefits. This would generate a potential gold mine of surplus revenue that could be tapped and used for other purposes. But none of the $2.7 trillion in additional Social Security revenue was ever saved or invested in anything. The actual surplus money was replaced with nonmarketable government IOUs, which cannot be converted into cash or used to pay Social Security benefits. It would have been bad enough if only Reagan had looted Social Security money. But George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all followed in Reagan’s footsteps and spent all of the Social Security surplus revenue for non-Social Security purposes, just like Reagan. This book is a must read for all who care about the future of Social Security and the integrity of their government.

AND BY GIVING SENIORS A REASONABLE INCOME, BECAUSE MOST AREN’T RICH, THEY SPEND IN LOCAL ECONOMY. LOOK UP THE MULTIPLIER FUNCTION IN INTRO TO ECONOMICS TEXTBOOK. Whereas the rich and corporations spend approximately 15% of funds in economy and rest just buying and selling stocks and other investments. The financial sector of U.S. economy has doubled in past 30 years; but the middle has shrunk and working class have stagnated and economic growth smaller than previous decades. See book Thomas Pikkety “Capitalism in the 21st Century” or watch two-hour documentary. I watched documentary, have book, skimmed so far certain sections. Also, for first time in probably a century life-expectancy of Americans has dropped whereas Europeans continue to increase. Even life-expectancy of wealthy Americans not as good as several European middle classes

I would bet that every lower middle class income people had black servants, yep, heck we all did and we allowed them to sleep in the master bedroom too, because that was to show them that we were good people.

Yes Reagan and Bush lowered taxes but did not lower the FICA taxes but it did have an effect/affect as contributions during Reagan and Bush went up not down. Simply go to the SSA website to contributions over time.

So you mislead and deceive and lie and are dishonest.

You claim 401 etc maybe bad investments/over priced but right now several members of the senate, house and administration are considering taking over private 401 etc. to close the budget deficit. but you know Sweden pension is so great.

Guess what I put myself thru college without help from any government, and I would guess my fathers income was below yours and we didn’t have money for a maid or a gardener.

I don’t ignore what you post and note that you continue to be misleading, deceitful and dishonest, not to mention boastful and egotistic. You lie about simple things that can be proven yet you demand people believe you in the bigger things. I am still waiting for the water marks to show up on my covid card.

You post sexist, bigoted things without realizing it, and demand that people treat you like a saint for all the sacrifices you claim to have made.

@ Kay West

You write: “I would bet that every lower middle class income people had black servants, yep, heck we all did and we allowed them to sleep in the master bedroom too, because that was to show them that we were good people.

Yes Reagan and Bush lowered taxes but did not lower the FICA taxes but it did have an effect/affect as contributions during Reagan and Bush went up not down. Simply go to the SSA website to contributions over time.”

First, back in the 50s was a different world. Yep, we had a black maid and gardener; but my grandparents, also lower middle class first had a Japanese gardiner, then an Hispanic. And my later mother had a Mexican maid, who when my mother was in the hospital, on her day off came with flowers because my mother treated her so well. And I didn’t say the master bedroom, dishonest as usual, I said the spare bedroom. And they weren’t servants, they were independent workers. In fact, Thelma, the maid, made it quite clear that she was choosy about the families she worked for. And, as usual, you continue to focus on just one of the minority people I discussed. I experienced literally dozens of blacks, hispanics, orientals, etc. from my earliest years. Perhaps, you don’t even know that Martin Luther Kings first lawyer and good friend was a Jew; but because in younger years before Stalin’s atrocities became known, attended a few meetings of Communist party. And two of the three civil rights workers killed were Jews. So, in your immense stupidity and dishonesty you ignore everything I write and assume that I grew up prejudiced.

During the 50s we had milk in glass bottles and other dairy products delivered early morning to our doorstep, not because we were wealthy but just about everyone did. Costs were quite different then. And Reagan did lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy; but increased significantly the FICA tax. Did you even read my comment you utterly stupid dishonest lowlife.

You write: “Guess what I put myself thru college without help from any government, and I would guess my fathers income was below yours and we didn’t have money for a maid or a gardener.”

Well, I didn’t mention it; but my junior and senior years in college I worked full-time during the summer. My first year of college I worked 20 hours a week at the post office, 10 hours Saturday and Sunday, another job sophomore year of college and junior and senior years of college, so, you weren’t the only one who worked their way through college; but since I attended Loyola University, a private Catholic College, tuition and books as well as living costs, getting a “needs” scholarship was helpful. A good friend of mine who also came from a lower middle class family had a father who was too proud to fill out the application for the scholarship for his son. My dad almost thought of me first, so, he filled out the form, admitting he couldn’t afford to help me. As for the maid and gardener, they are inexpensive and since both my father and mother worked, my father six days a week, and we just had a small lawn, didn’t cost much. And maybe your father’s income was below mine, so what? You really are despicable.

You write: “I don’t ignore what you post and note that you continue to be misleading, deceitful and dishonest, not to mention boastful and egotistic. You lie about simple things that can be proven yet you demand people believe you in the bigger things. I am still waiting for the water marks to show up on my covid card.

You post sexist, bigoted things without realizing it, and demand that people treat you like a saint for all the sacrifices you claim to have made.”

I only explained the “sacrifices” I made because you keep attacking me, not to be treated like a saint; but since you and Sophie continue to ignore, lie, distort, take out context what I say, I respond. You are really incredibly dishonest. Despite what I’ve written, growing up with lots of positive experiences with many blacks, Hispanics, orientals, etc. you twist and distort what I wrote about one example and try to label me a racists. If it is boastful to simply explain my education and training, the time I devote to learning things, including reading several books on history of social security and dozens of articles, think what you will. Calling me sexist and bigotted just shows how paranoid sick you are. If I disagree with you and point out your dishonesty, then I am sexists and bigoted. If i point out how you were wrong about percent of climatologists who believe man responsible for climate change and back up with a complete reading of article you linked to and added an additional article, proving you were wrong, if I go to same website you linked to and find you wrong about what UK wrote about effectiveness of Covid vaccine, etc. etc. So, the fact that I actually go to websites you link to, read carefully articles that you refer to and find, literally cut and paste from the, that you were wrong, that makes me a sexists and bigot???

And telling that I am a plasma donor isn’t bragging, it is explaining how getting the vaccine not only helped me; but allows me to help others. And I wrote in a comment awhile back that I feel guilty I didn’t join the job corps or peace corps, people who I admire, much better people than me. And I didn’t participate in freedom rides in South, partly because of my age and partly probably because of cowardice. I wouldn’t call this bragging. On the other hand, I try to do something for others and my plasma donation is one thing. I also have called several food banks to volunteer; but said they have enough and will get back to me. I may try again. And I am editing the next edition of a colleagues undergraduate microbiology book, not being paid. All I will get it a couple of free copies and my name in the acknowledgements which no one every reads. So, yep, I have an extremely good education; but, of course, you know and understand more than I do. As I wrote, had I known you years ago I could have dropped out of school and just contacted you for your infinite knowledge and wisdom. NOT REALLY!

YOU ARE ONE SICK PERSON.

I realize that you and Sophie, in your immense ignorance, not understanding immunology, not understanding how vaccines work, not understanding the history of and current status of vaccine-preventable diseases, and your belief that Covid not such a dangerous disease, ignoring the reports from researchers in nations around the world, well, you just know more than me.

YOU ARE ONE SICK PERSON! ! !

Do you really believe because your family didn’t have a gardener that others with low middle class incomes didn’t. And when I became around 8 years old I started mowing the lawn for an allowance which I used to buy one book a week and go to the movies. And Thelma used to visit us on her day off, not every week; but often and still brought me chocolate cake. You are one sick person. And as I learned during my internship in psychology, the sicker the person the less they recognized it.

Now it’s time to walk my dog. And as I wrote in a previous comment, I will pick up after him. It is dark out and besides biodegradable bags, I carry a little pocket flashlite.

I was getting hungry for some of Thelma’s chocolate cake, until I realized that the recipe has probably been secretly retracted

Hopefully our resident science denialists have cottoned on to the fact that computer science is just as prone as other science to corruption, unreliability and even retractions*. Better stay off the Internet.

It isn’t safe. They’re tracking you.

*36 papers in a recent ten year period.

@ Kay West

Oops! I wrote: “Well, I didn’t mention it; but my junior and senior years in college I worked full-time during the summer. My first year of college . . .”

It should have read “my junior and senior years in high school I worked full-tie during the summer, saving up money for college.

Interesting Joel, you claim to refute everything that people post that is in disagreement with you, but I posted this original information on tides that show the rise is sea level is not accelerating, that hurricanes in the 21 century are less numerous and less sever then they were in the late 20th century, our forest fires burn less than 10% of the acres that they did just 60 years ago and fewer people die from natural disasters than they did just 40 years ago. All those things you claimed were happening, really are not.

this is how you respond by ‘And we are also dumping millions of tons of plastic in the oceans,” guess what was the number 1 plastic pollution item in 2020, yep disposable face masks. and this gem ‘acidity is killing the phytoplankton which is responsible for 80% of oxygen in this world.” This has been disproved in the article titled ‘sea of doubt’ and other published research.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7815143/

FROM MY ORIGINAL POST
“As to rising sea levels you have failed to read original data.

and you can use this link to any station. this gauge located at Battery park in New York has seen only a 2.88 mm rise (every year) since 1850 with no surge in the steady rise.

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslUSTrendsTable.html

don’t like that gauge try the longest tide gauge in existence at Kronstadt. since 1777 about 3 mm per year with no acceleration.

psmsl.org/data/longrecords/ReportsFGI_2000_1.pdf

In September 1988 scientist told us that the Maldives would be underwater in 30 years. Well, 30 years later and they are building new airports and resorts to handle the tourist traffic I guess those are float planes and the tourist are wearing scuba gear.

trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102074798

Hurricanes are not getting stronger, they are getting more expensive as the coastal areas are being built up.

nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

And death world wide from all natural disasters has fallen from the millions in the 20’s to under 100,000 now.

ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters

Fire acres burned according to the National Interagency Fire Center, in 1931…… 51,607,000 acres of forest were burned, in 2019 only 4,664,364 acres were burned in the US.

web.archive.org/web/20201124062942/https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html

You claim no one answers your assertions, I think you are guilty of that.

Very interesting that a person with you high researching abilities would quote from a book written in 2013 about Social Security and regale us with all the books and articles you have read about social security.

when all you had to do was go to the SS website it answers 5 common question.

ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths2.html

Q1. Which political party took Social Security from the independent trust fund and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

Most likely this question comes from a confusion between the financing of the Social Security program and the way the Social Security Trust Fund is treated in federal budget accounting. Starting in 1969 (due to action by the Johnson Administration in 1968) the transactions to the Trust Fund were included in what is known as the “unified budget.” This means that every function of the federal government is included in a single budget. This is sometimes described by saying that the Social Security Trust Funds are “on-budget.” This budget treatment of the Social Security Trust Fund continued until 1990 when the Trust Funds were again taken “off-budget.” This means only that they are shown as a separate account in the federal budget. But whether the Trust Funds are “on-budget” or “off-budget” is primarily a question of accounting practices–it has no effect on the actual operations of the Trust Fund itself.

Q3. Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A3. The taxation of Social Security began in 1984 following passage of a set of Amendments in 1983, which were signed into law by President Reagan in April 1983. These amendments passed the Congress in 1983 on an overwhelmingly bi-partisan vote.

Q4. Which political party increased the taxes on Social Security annuities?

A4. In 1993, legislation was enacted which had the effect of increasing the tax put in place under the 1983 law. It raised from 50% to 85% the portion of Social Security benefits subject to taxation; but the increased percentage only applied to “higher income” beneficiaries. Beneficiaries of modest incomes might still be subject to the 50% rate, or to no taxation at all, depending on their overall taxable income.

This change in the tax rate was one provision in a massive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) passed that year. The OBRA 1993 legislation was deadlocked in the Senate on a tie vote of 50-50 and Vice President Al Gore cast the deciding vote in favor of passage. President Clinton signed the bill into law on August 10, 1993.

You are highly partisan in you belief, and believe that republican are evil and what you read has a built in bias (confirmation). I happen to believe that both republicans and democrats are evil.

You keep posting several times over and over again.

YOU ARE ONE SICK PERSON! ! !
sick you are
dishonest.

Seems to me that others have used that same idea of repeating a lie often enough and people will believe it.

As to your sexism. have you ever posted to ANY male these two questions.

‘YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP’
‘Are you off your meds???”

@ Kay West

You write: “You claim 401 etc maybe bad investments/over priced but right now several members of the senate, house and administration are considering taking over private 401 etc. to close the budget deficit. but you know Sweden pension is so great.”

Actually I didn’t state Swedish pension is great, just better than U.S. And Investopedia did a recent comparison of pensions in numerous nations. And whether members of Congress want to take over 401k or not says nothing about their worth nor just because a few members consider if it will be more than just a few considering; but in short run, yep, could shore up SSA deficit; but increasing cap, slightly increasing FICA and including capital gains would do it. You think I am a leach for collecting minimal Social Security, so does or did your parents and grandparents? Would you have deprived them of it? Do you plan on collecting or out of conscience refuse? Hypocrite!

“The quality of pension systems available to workers varies greatly across the globe. The Netherlands has the best system, while the U.S. isn’t even close to the top, according to the Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index 2020 (formerly the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index). . . The index compares retirement income systems and rates each based on
its adequacy, sustainability, and integrity.” Jean Folger (2021 Jun 4). Best Countries for Pensions and Retirement: How the U.S. compares may (or may not) be a surprise. Investopedia.

Sweden is ranked 7 and U.S. ranked 18. Keep in mind that pensioners as well as all Swedes are covered by a quality health care system, coverage includes dental, home health care, and nursing homes. So, even with Medicare, American seniors can have high out-of-pocket payments, dental costs, and home health care costs. Medicare covers home health care following hospitalization for a short time. And nursing homes can bankrupt a family. Must have under so much in assets, so first pay full costs, etc. Sweden isn’t great, nor perfect, nor is any other nation; but the U.S. ranks poorly on almost every measure, including pensions and health care.

@ Kay West

You copied a document from Social Security that stated: “But whether the Trust Funds are “on-budget” or “off-budget” is primarily a question of accounting practices–it has no effect on the actual operations of the Trust Fund itself.”

This says absolutely NOTHING about whether the funds were actually diverted or not. Don’t you actually understand what you read? The article I posted a quote from debunked your claim LBJ diverted funds from SSA, all the SSA web article say is he changed how it was presented. And the book made clear how Reagan used SSA funds for his purposes. I did go to the link you provided earlier, which showed increases in the cap; but then found actual increases in the FICA tax, not as much as I thought; but still Reagan’s increases more than previous increases. Reagan’s increase was 0.300 for individual and 0.300 for employer for a total of 0.600 increase. Prior to that SSA was basically pay-as-you-go, money in, money out. Together with increases of the cap/Tax Max, The Trust Fund which contained very little; then it skyrocketed. You can find at: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/taxRates.html

I just found an article by the author of the book that explains much better than the summary I cut and pasted from Amazon.com

Allen W. Smith (2013 Oct 11). Ronald Reagan and The Great Social Security Heist. Fedsmith.com

As for: “As to your sexism. have you ever posted to ANY male these two questions.

‘YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP’
‘Are you off your meds???”

I’ve only used “off your meds” a couple, three times in several years. As for “need professional help,” not sure if used exact phrase; but stated on numerous occasions to male commenters that they were mentally ill/sick, etc.”

But, as I’ve stated over and over again, whether I am a sexist or racists or Martian has nothing to do with the validity of my arguments. However, I finally think I understand what you are doing by accusing me of being a sexist and racist, hiding the fact that you are a Jew-hating anti-semite. I can’t be sure; but why else would you make comments about my home life, etc??? Of course, I really don’t know what you think of Jews; but I can choose to believe whatever just as you do.

Oh, in you ignore that I debunked your claiming my family rich. I received a “need” scholarship and just like you worked my way through colleges, even before worked to save up for college while in high school and forgot to mention that from 8 years on for several years, mowed neighbors lawns to earn money to mainly buy books. So, now that you explained you worked your way through college, what degree or degrees do you have?

Oh, I found one more website with comparative rankings of pensions in various nations. It lists, using different criteria, Sweden as 3rd. Doesn’t even list U.S.; but stops at 25. https://www.blacktowerfm.com/best-countries-for-pensions-in-the-world/#section05 But it is typical of you to claim I called Sweden’s pension great. Just one example of how you and Sophie twist and exaggerate what I write. I NEVER stated I support the status quo of publications, simply that science, not individual publications is what I support and I would love to find some way to minimize fraud, including prison time and fines. And I NEVER claimed Sweden or any country was great. All nations have flaws, all nations are composed of people; but compared to U.S. many nations are far better. Latest research shows life-expectancies in European nations, many already longer than U.S. continue to increase while U.S. is decreasing.

And you failed to address whether you think it wrong you parents and grandparents, if they lived in U.S. collected Social Security and since you believe it is robbing the following generation if you will voluntarily refuse it, after all do you want to be a thief???

@ Sophie Amsden

Sea Level Rise:

You write: “In September 1988 scientist told us that the Maldives would be underwater in 30 years. Well, 30 years later and they are building new airports and resorts to handle the tourist traffic I guess those are float planes and the tourist are wearing scuba gear.”

I guess you missed: “One example is Hulhumalé, a newly constructed
artificial island northeast of the capital, Malé. . . The new island, built by pumping sand from the seafloor onto a submerged coral platform, rises about 2 meters above sea level, about twice as high as Malé. The extra height could make the island a refuge for Maldivians who are eventually driven off lower-lying islands due to rising seas. It could also prove to be an option for evacuations during future typhoons and storm surges (Voiland, 2021).”
However, the article also mentions: “There is one piece of positive news: natural processes on coral reef atolls (like those in the Maldives) might
make the islands more resistant to sea level rise than their low elevations might initially suggest (ibid).” This doesn’t change the fact that the sea levels are rising and it uses the word “might.”

And: “Global mean sea level has risen about 8–9 inches (21–24 centimeters) since 1880, with about a third of that coming in just the last two and a half decades. The rising water level is mostly due to a combination of meltwater from glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion of seawater as it warms (Lindsey, 2021).”

And: “Satellite data confirm what computer models have warned for years: Oceans are rising faster as the planet warms, and coastal communities face increasing flood risk (Berwyn, 2018).”

The article you refer to states: “By interpretation of the Kronstadt gauge materials it is necessary to take into account peculiarities of observations in different epochs, methods of the series restoration, instability of its various zero points, geodynamic and anthropogeneous (technogeneous) changes in the region. For example, the insignificant increase of the level recorded since the 1950s, which is associated by some researchers with the World ocean level increase as a result of the so-called “Greenhouse” effect and thawing of the Antarctic Continent and Greenland continental glaciers, can be explained by other reasons. Thus, it is in this period that: change of the departments responsible for observations at the Kronstadt gauge has occurred and observation regulations have been changed . . . the level regime has changed as a result of the construction of the Leningrad dam (the complex of flood defence facilities) (Bogdanov, 2000).”

So, the one paper you refer to clearly explains that changes in observation methods, in level caused by, for instance, Leningrad dam, could explain why their observations don’t match others around the world. Plus, the paper only goes to 1993.

Hurricanes:

“Tropical cyclones are becoming more powerful with the most dramatic increase occurring over the North Atlantic. The increase is correlated with an increase in ocean temperature (Eisner, 2009).” Read the book! ! ! Note. I have more; but this book summarizes quite well most everything.

Fires:

“In the midst of record or near-record heatwaves across the northern hemisphere this summer, deadly wildfires have swept through many regions, such as the western US, Europe and Siberia. This has focused a great deal of public attention on the role that climate change plays in wildfires. Recently, some commentators have tried to dismiss recent increases in the areas burnt by fires in the US, claiming that fires were much worse in the early part of the century. To do this, they are ignoring clear guidance by scientists that the data should not be used to make comparisons with earlier periods. The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which maintains the database in question, tells Carbon Brief that people should not ‘put any stock’ in numbers prior to 1960 and that comparing the modern fire area to earlier estimates is ‘not accurate or appropriate’ (Hausfather, 2018).

So, the very center that you link to with stats on fires states: “people should not ‘put any stock’ in numbers prior to 1960 and that comparing the modern fire area to earlier estimates is “not accurate or appropriate (ibid).”

Additional references for wildfires:

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (accessed 2021 Sep 14). Wildfires and Climate Change.

EPA (accessed 2021 Sep 14). Climate Change Indicators: Wildfires.

Gramling C (2020 Dec 21). Wildfires, heat waves and hurricanes broke records in 2020. Science News.

Patel K (2018 Dec 5). Six trends to know about fire season in the western U.S. NASA: Global Climate Change.

Ocean Acidification, Plastic and Phytoplankton:

“Microplastics (tiny pieces of plastics that have broken up) resemble the food of zooplankton and thus become enticing to a hungry little crustacean. . . plastics introduce a variety of toxic chemicals into their host. Whether these be chemicals stemming directly from the plastic composition itself (like BPA), or a toxin that attached to the plastic while it spent time floating in a marine environment (like DDT), anything that eats plastic stands to be impacted by the toxins (Macklin, 2021).”

“Ocean plastic is entering the human food chain and killing wildlife . . Plankton is the foodstuff of myriad marine animals, from krill to whales, and with plastic particles outnumbering plankton 26-to-one in some areas, these toxic microplastics inevitably climb the food chain, becoming more concentrated as they go. . . phytoplankton produces more than half the oxygen we breathe (Draven, 2021).”

“Our model results, guided by a synthesis of disparate laboratory studies, indicate that pCO2 -related dierences in competitive fitness are of sufficientmagnitude to considerably alter phytoplankton community function over the coming decades (Dutkiewicz, 2015).”

“The toxins that leach into seawater severely affect bacteria that provide perhaps 20 percent of Earth’s oxygen . . The toxins the material leaches into seawater inhibit the growth and photosynthetic efficiency of the bacteria Prochlorococcus, which is responsible for producing an estimated 20 percent of the oxygen we breathe. That means Prochlorococcus is also responsible for 20 percent of carbon capture on this planet (one molecule of carbon goes in, one molecule of oxygen goes out), theoretically spelling trouble for humanity’s quest to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere . . . Unfortunately, the researchers found that in addition to carbon, the bacteria are taking in plastic toxins leached into the water, known as leachates (Simon, 2019).”

“We show leachate exposure strongly impairs Prochlorococcus in vitro growth and photosynthetic capacity and results in genome-wide transcriptional changes (Tetu, 2019).”

You write: “‘acidity is killing the phytoplankton which is responsible for 80% of oxygen in this world.” This has been disproved in the article titled ‘sea of doubt’ and other published research.”

The article you reference doesn’t mention phytoplankton at all! ! ! (Nagelkerken, 2021)

I could only find online the ABSTRACT for the article: Enserink H (2021 May 21). Sea of Doubts. Science; 372(6542): 560-565. So, I will contact a colleague who has access to a university library. However, the ABSTRACT states: “A group of whistleblowers has asked three funding agencies for a misconduct investigation into a series of 22 research papers, many of them on the effects of ocean acidification on fish behavior and ecology.”

However, I did find this: “In his News Feature “Sea of doubts” (7 May, p. 560), M. Enserink reports on fraud allegations in about one-fourth of the studies analyzing the impact of ocean acidification on fish behavior. As institutions work to determine whether there is truth to the allegations, which have not yet been independently verified, the public and policy-makers should remember that the outcome will not change the current scientific consensus: Ocean acidification is a major threat to marine species, ecosystems, and associated services. . . No single article, research team, or approach can explain the complexity of the consequences of ocean acidification (1). Over the past two decades, thousands of scientific articles have been published in this field, combining a wide range of approaches and methods from monitoring, paleo investigations, and modeling to laboratory, natural, and field experiments (Dupont, 2021).”

I realize that even if later found not fraudulent won’t change your mind. You don’t believe in climate change, don’t believe Covid-19 a serious threat, and clearly don’t believe in mRNA Covid vaccines and NOTHING will ever change your mind.
You write: “guess what was the number 1 plastic pollution item in 2020, yep disposable face masks.”

I don’t doubt it; but just as we can dispose of other things in more environmentally sound ways, we could do the same with face masks. While I realize you don’t believe they protect the wearer or others, overwhelming science does, so if we stopped using face masks before COVID, especially the Delta variant, subsides, we could have 100s of thousands more deaths. In your world it is either or. In my world, it requires a balance. We will NEVER stop some people from just throwing things out; but we can reduce the improper disposal of face masks significantly. And, to some extent we can blame this on our government who pushed face masks, as science dictates; but didn’t consider how they would be disposed of. Not good! ! ! One can claim that the hospitalizations, deaths, and long Covid focused their attention; but after a number of months one would expect they would also widen their perspective; but they didn’t. Yep, I don’t blindly support every response to a pandemic.

So, the science of plastics, ocean’s warming, and acidification is NOT conclusive; but if I’m wrong, all that we need to do is eliminate dumping of plastics and reduce our carbon footprint. If I’m right and there is every indication I am, if we don’t act, we will literally destroy the planet. I prefer the precautionary principle. We can change our use of plastic and convert to renewable energies, especially if we stop bailing out corrupt corporations and having a military budget totally unrelated to actual national defense.

However, you write: “[I] claim no one answers [my] assertions, I think you are guilty of that.”

First, I didn’t write “no one”; but for the most part people have NOT addressed actual points I have made or picked one or two out of a much larger number, so I congratulate you on at least addressing my points; but as above shows, I also addressed yours and, on the whole, refuted them, though I agree with your describing the damage done by disposing of masks; but if it isn’t masks it is something else. It only takes a minority of people to do a majority of damage and I also agree that the mask disposal is mainly because our government didn’t instruct people what to do with them, how to dispose of them; but our government also hasn’t done anything about all the other garbage dumped in the oceans.

References:

Dupont S et al. (2021). Ocean acidification science stands strong. Science 372(6547): 1160-1161.

Hausfather Z (2018 Sep 8). Factcheck/ How global warming has increased US wildfires. Carbon Brief.

Berwyn B (2018 Feb 12). Sea Level Rise Is Accelerating/ 4 Inches Per Decade (or More) by 2100. Inside Climate News.

Bogdanov VI et al. (2000). Mean Monthly Series of Sea Level Observations (1777-1993) at the Kronstadt Gauge. Reports of the Finnish Geodetic Institute.

Draven J (2021 Jul 14). Hot topic – The truth about plastic pollution in our oceans. National Geographic.

Dupont S et al. (2021). Ocean acidification science stands strong. Science 372(6547): 1160-1161.

Dutkiewicz S et al. (2015 Jul 20). Impact of ocean acidification on the structure of future phytoplankton communities. Nature Climate Change.

Eisner JB & Jagger TH (Eds.) (2009). Hurricanes and Climate Change.

Lindsey R (2021 Jan 25). Climate Change/ Global Sea Level. Climate.gov

Macklin M (2021). Plastic Pollution is Killing Plankton. How the Loss of This Species Threatens the Oceans. One Green Planet.

Nagelkerken I et al. (2021 Jan 21). Ocean acidification boosts reproduction in fish via indirect effects. PLOS Biology.

Simon M (2019 May 17). Now Ocean Plastics Could Be Killing Oxygen-Making Bacteria. WIRED.

Tetu SG et al. (2019). Plastic leachates impair growth and oxygen production in Prochlorococcus, the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria. Communications Biology; 2(184).
Voiland A (2021 Apr 8). Preparing for Rising Seas in the Maldives. NASA Earth Observatory.

@ Kay West

You write: “I happen to believe that both republicans and democrats are evil.”

To some extent I actually agree with you; but over the past three decades or so the Republican Party has been by far the worst of the two; but that doesn’t mean I like the Democratic Party. We are NOT a democracy. A democracy would have proportional representation where one could choose among several parties, e.g., Libertarian, Green Party, etc. So as not to have too many small parties, requiring, for instance, a minimum of 5% of votes. Currently, at least for me, it is choosing the lesser of the two evils. One of the things I liked about Sweden, five parties ranging from left to right. High voter turnout, not voter suppression. And when one has proportional representation, one votes for a party with a reasonably consistent platform and history of following it. We often vote for individuals based on what? Obama’s couple of years in Illinois legislature, one year in Senate or Trump based on ??? Your fired???

When I lived in Sweden the two most popular, liked politicians were the leader of the communist party and the leader of the conservative party, the extremes with three parties in between. My friends often would say if either were in another party they would vote for them; but still, would love to have them as next door neighbor. In Sweden one votes for a party with a platform, not an individual with 30 second financed soundbites, etc.

So, to some extent I agree with you; but one has to choose the lesser of the two evils or not vote at all and end up with the worst of the two. Not pleasant.

joel
I really don’t care what a pension program is in any other country. the social security program was and is NOT a pension program nor was it ever intend to be a pension but a supplemental to the meager pensions at the time and was also used by FDR to ease/reduce unemployment in 1935, and has been used as a political tool for many years. Remember when they said grandma was going to have to eat dog food because someone was going to cut SS, yea right, I should eat as well as my dogs, I spend more on their food then I do on my own food, the only ‘fast food’ they eat is what drops from the table, before the other dogs eat it.

i am concerned for your safety, as your reply to my post is not your usual researched articles (some of then are very informative (others are just opinion pieces), which some I disagree, but none the less I bookmark) but instead you post a book/article review that was posted on Amazon, having not even read the book/article. Are you being held hostage or has someone hacked your account?

‘I just found an article by the author of the book that explains much better than the summary I cut and pasted from Amazon’

I do mean this, with all due respects, I post from the SSA website what actually happened in the 60 thru the 90’s as pertaining to SS and your best rebuttal is a cut and paste of a journalist interpretation of a book/article on AMAZON, really. Something is seriously wrong with your account, I know that this site is infected with many viruses/spam/hacks but your post is so out of character.

@ Kay West

You write: “i am concerned for your safety, . . . Are you being held hostage or has someone hacked your account?”

You really are too stupid to continue exchanging comments with. As I explained, the reference you gave from Social Security website didn’t deal with how the funds were used; just how they were names. And, as I wrote previously, I have several books and numerous papers on Social Security. I just referred to book and paper by one person because it summarized what I have learned. Again, you really don’t even understand what the Social Security paper said and didn’t say.

But you are right in one respect, Social Security was never meant to be the sole source of a person’s retirement, as opposed to the government pensions in other nations. And that is the problem. For many years, people who worked a lifetime for one company, Sears, a bank, etc. got an additional guaranteed pension; but few companies offer that, people don’t work for one company, no loyalty either way, so we have 401ks which are simply gambling on the Stock Market. As I wrote, life-expectancy is going down in U.S. while increasing in many other nations. Just one example of what is wrong with the Social Darwinistic United States were that government of the corporations and super rich, by the corporations and super rich, and for the corporations and super rich callously increases its wealth and power at the expense of the 99%. Besides our huge debt, our huge trade deficit, we are dependent on India and China for most pharmaceuticals and even medical personal protective equipment.

let me start with an easy one.

‘Recently, some commentators have tried to dismiss recent increases in the areas burnt by fires in the US, claiming that fires were much worse in the early part of the century. To do this, they are ignoring clear guidance by scientists that the data should not be used to make comparisons with earlier periods. The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which maintains the database in question, tells Carbon Brief that people should not ‘put any stock’ in numbers prior to 1960 and that comparing the modern fire area to earlier estimates is ‘not accurate or appropriate’ (Hausfather, 2018)”.

In 1910 in just one fire alone burned 3 million acres (thats about 75% of ALL the fires burned in 2020) and that happened in about 48 hours, but according to someone its ‘not accurate or appropriate’ did those people not know how to count acres.
But maybe the usda doesn’t know how to count acres either. And this was just one fire that year.

fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5444731.pdf

but I guess all these scientist back in 1995 didn’t know what they were doing and they too didn’t know how to count acres burned

‘Historically, fire has been a frequent and major ecological factor in North America. In the conterminous United States during the preindustrial period (1500- 1800), an average of 145 million acres burned annually. Today only 14 million acres (federal and non-federal) are burned annually by wildland fire from all ignition sources. Land use changes such as agriculture and urbanization are responsible for 50 percent of this 10-fold decrease’

archive.org/web/20201101021334/https://www.nifc.gov/PIO_bb/Policy/FederalWildlandFireManagementPolicy_2001.pdf

and a computer model is better then historical records, you do know that carbon brief is a lobbying group?

“did those people not know how to count acres”

How many acres is your parking space at the trailer park? Does that count?

In 1910 in just one fire alone burned 3 million acres (thats about 75% of ALL the fires burned in 2020) and that happened in about 48 hours

No, Sophie, over 1000 did. You’re really not even good at reading your own sources:

“Depending on who was doing the counting, there were either 1,736 fires burning in northern Idaho and western Montana on August 19, or there were 3,000. Most of the fires were under control. Then, on Saturday afternoon, August 20, all hell broke [loose]” (emphasis added).

let me start with an easy one.

Heh.

@ Sophie Amsden

How convenient you ignore all but one of my refutations addressing what you wrote. Yep, Carbon Brief is a lobbying group. Doesn’t mean they are wrong; but does allow one to question. However, they could be right and other papers more or less support them; however, they only go back to 1960s or 80s. But this is typical of you. You don’t believe in climate change, so no matter how many points I score, you will find one that may or may not support your position. Just proof positive it is a waste of time exchanging comments with you.

By the way, yesterday I got the high-dose quadrivalent fluzone shot. Last year when I went to get it they were out at several clinics, finally driving around found clinic with only 3 left. So, this year contacted my doctor’s office and they promised to hold one so I didn’t have to rely on flu vaccine clinic at their office building. I know you don’t believe in vaccines. In addition, Costco was selling packs of 20 of N95 masks, so I bought two packs to add to those I already own and have decided in the future to always wear a mask when I go shopping, Costco, Trader Joe’s mainly. Doesn’t guarantee anything. Even high-dose flu shots not highly effective; but better than nothing and together with mask, according to all the science I have followed, at least give me a better than 50-50 chance to stay healthy.

You do know that seatbelts and airbags only reduce deaths and serious injury by about 50%; but I have used seatbelts since purchase first car back in 1969, it had lap seatbelts. Without even thinking, put them on, and anyone riding with me had to do same. Long before public service announcements and longer before mandatory.

As I wrote earlier, I have been following climate change since early 1980s and every prediction has come true, including CO2 isotopes in atmosphere that can be traced to fossil fuels and correlate almost perfectly with increase in use of fossil fuels. It is already here; but I may or may not live long enough to see it really explode; e.g., as land glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland end up in oceans, at first will just raise sea levels, something you don’t believe it; but when they melt, instead of white ice (albedo) repulsing sun, blue water will absorb and climate change will accelerate. Believe what you want; but even if I don’t live long enough, you probably will and I wonder if you will regret being among those who denied it, leaving a horrible world for your kids, grandkids, etc.

And as I wrote earlier, which I’m sure you disagree with, fossil fuels release toxins in atmosphere that are estimated to contributed to up to 100,000 premature deaths and many more disabilities. I’m sure you disagree.

@ Sophie Amsden

So, you refer to “The Great Fire of 1910” I actually saw a documentary on it. It was HORRIBLE; but the circumstances almost totally different. There was NO clearing of forests, no spotters, no trained firefighters, no specialized equipment, etc. By the time they reacted it had grown enormous. Today, though not as well-funded as it should be, we clear forests, have spotters, trained firefighters and equipment; yet fires are getting out of control. Typical that you ignore the very different circumstances. They are also finding certain types of wood that weren’t involved in previous fires or less so are nowadays. So typical of you, ignoring the old adage that the exception proves the rule. And by the way, many lobby groups do it because they have legitimate cause; but others are funded by industry, and they publish articles, industry that doesn’t want to lose profits, e.g., coal, oil, etc.

And your emphasis on problems with research, etc. and demanding retractions. Back in 19th century medical journals had articles blaming infection on miasmas, they were wrong; but haven’t been retracted; but given top medical journals still around today published them, well, as you pointed out 1911 article on eugenics in Scientific American, that means that recent and current articles in Scientific American and the 19th century medical journals can’t be “trusted.”

I have and read a fascinating book on some of the greatest scientist of all time. The book gives examples of gross blunders made by them, so I guess we should ignore everything from them.
The book: Mario Livio (2013). Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein.

Also, even the absolute best doctors have made diagnostic errors, so, together with your overall distrust of medical research, I again suggest you avoid doctors at all costs.

I realize that you are posting on this website just to get attention and annoy people because this website is, as its sister blog Science-Based Medicine, dedicated to science, not a science without flaws; but the best and only method that allows development of knowledge, not always immediately; but no alternative.

Now, back to reading a book I just received a complementary copy. I have on occasion exchanged e-mails with author and he sent me some draft chapters which I made a few suggestions. The book is about the discovery of DNA, My name is in the Acknowledgments. Nope, not an expert on DNA; but well-read, probably dozen books and several hundred articles. So, glad my suggestions were used, love getting complementary copies of books with my name in the Acknowledgements.

1910 fire was one event it was repeated, if you actually looked at the history of fires in the US. Carbon brief is a lobby, had I or anyone else used a news release from an oil/coal or what ever group you would have gone ballistic.

but moving on to tides and currents

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

and NOAA

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslUSTrendsTable.html

3 mm trend for a hundred years with NO acceleration (I linked to the tide gauge at the Battery park as the land around the gauge is stable and neither rising or sinking) but feel to disagree with NOAA on rising sea levels.

don’t like NOAA pick you station(s) from this group. then do the math 3mm +-.

psmsl.org/data/obtaining/map.html

Want a long term study on sea level rise about 18,000 years ago the sea level started to rise and finally slowed about 8,000 years ago the rise at that time was 120 meters, do you really think the modern rise is any where near the nature rise, that was long before the SUV.

fws.gov/slamm/changes%20in%20sea%20level_expanded%20version_template.pdf

You want the Jason (s) and Topex satellites to measure sea level well “The primary instrument on Jason-3 is a radar altimeter. The altimeter measures sea-level variations over the global ocean with very high accuracy (1.3 inches or 3.3 centimeters, with a goal of achieving 1 inch or 2.5 centimeters).”

sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/jason-3/summary/

So your dependence on measuring the sea level to MILLIMETERS is a device that only has an accuracy of 2.5 CENTIMETERS.

this is real data not a model of 4 inches per decade, remember when someone predicted that in 20-40 years “West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water.” and that “And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds.”those predictions were made, in 1988

Greenland is not even close to melting away, in fact last Sunday it recorded the biggest ice gain in any September, Greenland has been gaining ice for that last 5 years

polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/

The Glaciers are returning to pre 2000 extent and some have even gone past 1980 extent.

polarportal.dk/en/greenland/glacier-front-positions/

I am posting real data, not a WAG by a researcher. ‘data is only data when it is collected and observed. once data has been tampered with it is no longer data is becomes analysis

And WHAT THE HECK DO SEAT BELTS HAVE TO DO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE.

“They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. AND SO THEY BECOME MASTERS AT DEFLECTING ATTENTION AWAY FROM THEIR WEAK IDEAS, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.”

I am posting real data copying and pasting from Tony Heller’s joint,** not a WAG by a researcher. ‘data is only data when it is collected and observed. once data has been tampered with it is no longer data is becomes analysis

** And he’s Real Smurt.

You can use NOAA data for sea level, of course, so why NASA dependency ?
Greenland data is here:
ttps://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147728/shrinking-margins-of-greenland
Perhaps 5 years is not long enough ?
Sea level data is here:
tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750
Where did you get number millimeters per century ?
Sea level was low during the ice age, or course. I doubt that coming will save us.

You want the Jason (s) and Topex satellites to measure sea level well “The primary instrument on Jason-3 is a radar altimeter. The altimeter measures sea-level variations over the global ocean with very high accuracy (1.3 inches or 3.3 centimeters, with a goal of achieving 1 inch or 2.5 centimeters).”

sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/jason-3/summary/

I take it that you didn’t explore the “Missions” subsection too thoroughly, Sophie.

Hell, I should be cleaning, not brushing up on this.

I am posting real data, not a WAG by a researcher. ‘data is only data when it is collected and observed. once data has been tampered with it is no longer data is becomes analysis

No, Sophie, you are not. All space altimetry (i.e., geodetic) measurements are referred to a reference frame, which is a realization of a reference system. This is not really done with plastic tubes stuck in the ground here and there.

I don’t know what the processing pipeline looks like (and I’m not going to try) for the current satellites is, but the second thing that you’re failing to grasp here is that more data from more satellites improves resolution. The particulars surely differ, but the closest thing that I am familiar with is very long baseline interferometry — with enough stations, one can achieve the same resolution as a single telescope the size of Earth.

You’re just going to lead her to WUWT to claim that black holes are massless, or something.

@ Sophie Amsden

First, the Greenland iceberg did gain ice; but it is also moving. And why are they lobbying? Maybe because they think they have a just cause. Every person and/or group that takes a position and tries to push it can be considering lobbying. Just how STUPID are you?

You write: ““They generally have fragile, prickly egos. The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth. AND SO THEY BECOME MASTERS AT DEFLECTING ATTENTION AWAY FROM THEIR WEAK IDEAS, and at creating the kind of confusion in which they can control the dynamic.”

Again, you return to ad hominem, can’t stick to simply addressing what I write

Go to HELL you lowlife sack of shit. Yep, that is exactly what you are. I won’t bother even addressing more of what you wrote because you ended any civil discourse with your final paragraph.
The past few exchanges were civil; but I knew you couldn’t stick to it.

sorry you’re having to reread the 800 page text book that you claimed to have edited 5 months ago, or did you fess up to one more exaggeration or lie in you list? I am not sure you know but the search option on this site is pretty good and when you lie/distort/bendthetruth it is obvious and checkable.

But yes all the predictions made by environmentalist are coming true, much the same as followers of William Miller aka millerites

thefederalist.com/2015/04/24/seven-big-failed-environmentalist-predictions/

@ Ed

You write: “sorry you’re having to reread the 800 page text book that you claimed to have edited 5 months ago, or did you fess up to one more exaggeration or lie in you list? I am not sure you know but the search option on this site is pretty good and when you lie/distort/bendthetruth it is obvious and checkable.”

I suggest you get hold of Tortora et al. (2019). Microbiology: An Introduction (Thirteenth Edition). Pearson Publishing.

go to page viii Acknowledgements 1st paragraph:
“Special thanks to retired epidemiologist Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH for his thorough review and editorial suggestions.”

And no where did I claim I edited it 5 months ago, more like a couple of years ago and currently I have been devoting about one hour a day since last November or December to next edition, doing a lot more this time. And I could give you similar Acknowledgements for other textbooks.

So, like Sophie and Kay, one more person who attacks me based on facts-not-in-evidence and proves who is the dishonest one. Do check out the book.

I have stated several times that I am NOT a genius; but of above average intelligence and have devoted my life to learning. For example, Economics, have read Adam Smith, Karl Marx, F.A. Hayek, Father of Libertarian Economics, and many others. And, I don’t see world in black and white. I actually found things in each that I considered valid; but not how they generalized and drew conclusions. The world is complex and even those I disagree with can experience, notice things I haven’t; but when people like Sophie, instead of addressing the points I make, including my references while I did so with hers; but instead hypothesizes my home life, my dishonesty, as you do, etc. you are the ones who show your stupidity and intellectual dishonesty. Do check out the above book.

Sophie doesn’t like a paper because it came from a lobbying group and asks what my reaction would be if she referred to a paper from a energy company lobbying group. Well, what if a community lives downstream from a plant, experiences a high rate of child stillbirths and deformities, hires chemist from university to sample water, then forms a group to lobby legislature to stop plant from dumping toxins in water? Of course, they could just sue; but they could also create a lobby. What about someone who just loves nature and forms a group to lobby against cutting down a forest? Is there NO difference in her mind between lobbying just to make money and lobbying for other reasons? If the paper I referred to had been written by someone else, she still would have rejected it.

So, are you like her, attacking me, asking me to “fess up” to what? Telling the truth???

List is not very good. Besides of that logic is strange. Why would the fact green revolution prevented mass hunger imply that climate change is a hoax ? Actually this example shows that problem was averted because corrective action was taken.

So don’t address the point, except concede that Greenland is gaining ice and not loosing (as are the glaciers), I believe that was part of your post.
but they aren’t

“land glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland end up in oceans, at first will just raise sea levels, something you don’t believe it; but when they melt, instead of white ice (albedo) repulsing sun, blue water will absorb and climate change will accelerate.”

Again what do seat belts have to do with climate change?

I did notice that when you are confronted with the truth you attack with an ad hominid.

I really, really don’t care about attention, you on the other hand do.
And I gave you science based facts from original sources and you respond like

And have you ever told a man to “Go to HELL you lowlife sack of shit’.

But I am the one who is not civil?

“Typical that you ignore”
” Just proof positive it is a waste of time exchanging comments with you.”

Please cite your ORIGINAL sources on sea level, 100,00 premature deaths and more disabilities or that Greenland is loosing ice or the sea level is rising more then the normal 3 mm +- per year as it has in the past 100+ years.

And have you ever told a man to “Go to HELL you lowlife sack of shit’.

Oh, I think I’ve done better than that with Lowell Hubbs over at SR several years ago.

@ Sophie Amsden and Ed

Nope! No more time wasted. 97% of world’s experts on climatology believe humanity is causing global warming based on literally 10s of thousands of papers based on different measures and methologies. Just as you reject the current Covid mRNA vaccines despite research on its effectiveness and safety carried out by researchers around the world and can always find a few who disagree, nothing I write will change your mind. And you and Kay and now Ed will continue to attacking me, my home life, etc.

You are a lowlife intellectually dishonest sack of shit!

Federalist paper? Wow! A right-wing think tank that opposes government regulation of industry, etc. Golly gee, I’m sure their critique of climate predictions not biased??? Come on Sophie, is it OK if Ed refers to a paper by another Lobbying group? Of course, they supported Trump’s judicial nominees, so you must be for them.

Am still waiting on you sea level answer, the Greenland growing ice sheet, expanding glaciers and your misuse of JASON1-2-3 a systems that is off by a inch/2.5 centimeter at best, trying to measure things that are millimeter in size

and to aaron mm per century ????? go back to the NOAA website and re read, that is 3 mm per year.

97% agreement, no matter what group you chose you will never have a 97% agreement. You keep bring that number up which has be proven to be false and misleading.

“97% of scientist agree, You really think you could get 97 out of 100 scientist to agree on anything, you have never been in a room with more than 1 scientist in it. I was at a conference and watch two well respected researchers get into a physical fight over difference of opinions. Please show us any survey from 10,000 scientists in which 97% agree on anything.

Of the first study 10,257 people were surveyed only 3146 responded of that number, only 77 were used in the final number of which 75 said human-induced warming was happening.

11.944 papers were inspected only 41 stated that humans caused most of the global warming, so 99.7 did not say that CO2 caused most global warming. Of those that the study claimed humans caused most of the global warming. some of the authors of those papers were upset enough to give the following public statements.

“Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.”

—Dr. Richard Tol

“That is not an accurate representation of my paper . . .”

—Dr. Craig Idso

“Nope . . . it is not an accurate representation.”

—Dr. Nir Shaviv

“Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument . . .”

—Dr. Nicola Scafetta

forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/?sh=2578bcc23f9f

And if 97% of scientist agree on AGW and it’s settled science, why are we spending money on research, why all the discussion?”

Sorry I had to cut and paste from a post that you didn’t read the first time.

your link to nasa was from 2010 and only covered 6 years worth of data (2003-2009). can you get something a little newer?

the polar portal covers over 40 years of data and is put out by the danish meteorological service. but then they are probably right wing, big oil…..
(just out wonder, why do you all believe in the conspiracy of ‘big oil’ but don’t believe the conspiracy of big Pharma. The 5 big oil companies only have a profit of 93 billion dollars, while big Pharma has a profit of 8.6 TRILLION both of those are net profits)

newsweek.com/big-pharma-companies-profits-industries-study-1490407
americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2014/02/10/83879/with-only-93-billion-in-profits-the-big-five-oil-companies-demand-to-keep-tax-breaks/

‘You posted five year data about Greenland. Not very convincing’

Greenland was losing ice in prior years but has been gaining ice for the past 5 years and is almost back to 1990 ice levels, all you have to do is look it up on the website.

@Sophie Amsden You copy and paste from a site we all know. If there is an actual study about climate scientist and climate change, cite the the study itself.
This is newer data from NASA;
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/greenland-antarctica-melting-six-times-faster-than-in-the-1990s
Where did you get idea that pharmaceutical companies have TRILLIONS of net profit ?
Source, please. Actually US GDP is 23 trillion (2021 estimate). TRILLION is a big number, you know. Global pharmaceutical market was 1.27 trillion at the end of 2020.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263102/pharmaceutical-market-worldwide-revenue-since-2001/
There is Forbes Global 500:
https://fortune.com/global500/
Check oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, and their revenues. There is profit problems now, but these are not normal times,

@ Sophie Amsden

I want to make this absolutely clear. I could care less what you think; but I have time on my hands and it gives me a chance to update my files and see if my perspective is still reasonable (Note. I don’t assume I am absolutely right; but high probability based on my studying subject). I also added to my collection any links you give. And if one of the larger Antarctic or Greenland icebergs makes it in my lifetime to the open sea, what will you say when coastal waters rise enough to flood low-lying areas of U.S.? I doubt you will ever admit you are wrong.

LOBBYING

Should one automatically reject any and all claims/research if from a group that lobbys? Several groups lobby for protecting endangered species, e.g., whales. International data supports that some whale species are on brink of extinction. So, should we automatically reject any groups that lobby to stop this? Carbon Brief is a respected non-profit. Do you really give equal criticism of clearly for-profit lobbys such as oil and gas to non-profits based on . . .? And the article refers to “The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which maintains the database in question, tells Carbon Brief that people should not “put any stock” in numbers prior to 1960 and that comparing the modern fire area to earlier estimates is “not accurate or appropriate”. (see below)

CLIMATE CHANGE

You link to a paper by Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, a for-profit think-tank, and author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,  arguing that if we look at the whole picture, human flourishing requires that humanity use more fossil fuels not less (see below Premature Deaths). Epstein started as a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, basically castrate government and allow for a free-for-all. For someone who rejects papers by lobbying groups, including non-profits, what a hypocrite to refer to a for-profit! ! !

FIRES

You rejected paper I cited because it was from a lobbying group, Carbon Brief. which included: “The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which maintains the database in question, tells Carbon Brief that people should not “put any stock” in numbers prior to 1960 and that comparing the modern fire area to earlier estimates is “not accurate or appropriate”.

So, I checked out the National Interagency Fire Center’s website, found some papers; but not exactly what I was looking for; but didn’t give up, phoned them, and they e-mailed me links to a paper that discusses the above:

Their e-mail stated: “Current wildland fire data is obtained through modern, scientific mapping processes. Because data prior to 1983 could not be verified using current data and mapping processes, it was removed from our statistics page, as NIFC cannot guarantee its accuracy nor verify, through current scientific processes, that the previous statistics were correct.”

Then the linked to paper:

“The longest time period is covered by the archival summary reports, ,1916 to 1997, from the US Forest Service (USFS). . . Burned-area estimates based on fire perimeters, which often include significant unburned portions, are typically biased high (,15–30%). . . All remotely sensed datasets intended for analyses of wildfire activity, per se, must be carefully screened to remove areas burned intentionally in both agricultural areas and wildlands, which may account for 80% of the total area burned in the US in any given year . . . It is inappropriate to compare, for example, the early total area burned estimates, which factor in ‘prescribed fire’, with the statistics in later USFS reports, which omit it.” Karen C. Short (2015 Jul 2). Sources and implications of bias and uncertainty in a century of US wildfire activity data. International Journal of Wildland Fire.

FIRES, TEMPERATURE, LATITUDE

One thing I doubt you understand is that climate change isn’t even across the globe; but effects greater further one gets from the equator.

“Record-breaking hot and dry conditions have spurred historic wildfire outbreaks in far northern Europe and within the Arctic circle. . . Sweden’s summers are normally mild. In May 2018, several cities experienced their hottest May days in 150 years of recordkeeping. Temperatures cooled off in June, but returned to record highs in July.” NASA Earth Observatory (2018 Jul 17). Scarcely Seen Scandinavian Fires.

When I lived in Gothenburg, Sweden, only one building had air-conditioning, IBM mainframe computer. Now many of my friends are installing air-conditioning. Heat reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. When I lived there NEVER higher than low to mid 80s and only for a few days.

97% CONSENSUS

“Among abstracts that expressed a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the scientific consensus. Among scientists who expressed a position on AGW in their abstract, 98.4% endorsed the consensus.

DISCUSSION SECTION OF PAPER

Of note is the large proportion of abstracts that state no position on AGW. This result is expected in consensus situations where scientists ‘. . . generally focus their discussions on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather than on matters about which everyone agrees’ (Oreskes 2007, p 72). This explanation is also consistent with a description of consensus as a ‘spiral trajectory’ in which ‘initially intense contestation generates rapid settlement and induces Figure 3. Percentage of papers endorsing the consensus among only papers that express a position endorsing or rejecting the consensus. a spiral of new questions’ (Shwed and Bearman 2010); the fundamental science of AGW is no longer controversial among the publishing science community and the remaining debate in the field has moved to other topics. This is supported by the fact that more than half of the self-rated endorsement papers did not express a position on AGW in their abstracts. The self-ratings by the papers’ authors provide insight into the nature of the scientific consensus amongst publishing scientists. For both self-ratings and our abstract ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time, consistent with Bray (2010) in finding a strengthening consensus.”

The discussion continues; but basically, the paper makes clear that the science of climate change is established, so when writing papers, it is basically taken for granted and the papers focus on such things as different methodologies, etc.

And you missed that at the top of the page were links to several other articles, including another by the same author (Cook, 2016) which states:

“The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al . . . We demonstrate that this outcome [non-climate scientists] is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. . . We have shown that the scientific consensus onAGW is robust, with a range of 90%–100% depending on the exact question, timing and sampling methodology. This is supported by multiple independent studies despite variations in the study timing, definition of consensus, or differences in methodology including surveys of scientists, analyses of literature or of citation networks. Tol (2016) obtains lower consensus estimates through a flawed methodology, for example by conflating nonexpert and expert views, and/or making unsupported assumptions about sources that do not specifically state a position about the consensus view.”

SEA LEVEL RISE:

“Global mean sea level has risen about 8–9 inches (21–24 centimeters) since 1880, with about a third of that coming in just the last two and a half decades. The rising water level is mostly due to a combination of meltwater from glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion of seawater as it warms. In 2019, global mean sea level was 3.4 inches (87.6 millimeters) above the 1993 average.” Lindsey R (2009 Aug 30). Climate Change: Global Sea Level. climate.gov

See also:

Nerem RS et al. (2018 Feb 27). Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era. Proceeding of the National Academy of Science: 115(9): 2022-2025.

NOTE. 6 inches, from 1993 to 2009, and still rising at an accelerated rate, may not seem like much; but results in more flooding from storms, etc. and if continues will result in low-lying coastal areas being under water, even in U.S.

I also suggest you check out, including number of climate experts involved in each report, etc. Both deal with ocean rise, temperature, Antarctic, etc:

American Meterological Society (2021 Aug). State of the Climate in 2020.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021). Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Basis. Note. they give for each measure level of confidence, so not all measures as certain. So what? The overwhelming majority are.

CARBON DIOXIDE ISOTOPES:

Just one of the measures that clearly indict fossil fuels by literally measuring a certain CO2 isotope from fossil fuels to measures of fossil fuel usage, etc.:

Bauska TH et al. (2016 Mar 29). Carbon isotopes characterize rapid changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the last deglaciation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science; 113(13): 3465-3470.

Harrington S(2018 Nov 26). Isotopes point to culprit behind climate change Yale Climate Connection.

NOAA (accessed 2021 Sep 16). Global Monitoring Laboratory: Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases.

PREMATURE DEATHS FROM FOSSIL FUELS UNITED STATES

I found several studies on premature deaths due to fossil fuel toxins and additional on decreased quality of life. I’ll just give the studies for premature deaths:

“200,000 early deaths occur in the U.S. each year due to U.S. combustion
emissions”
Caiazzo F et al (2013 Nov). Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005. Atmospheric Environment; 79: 198-208.

“50,000”
Larson (2020 Dec 15). Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts. Princeton University.

Abel D (2021). Burning fossil fuels kills an estimated 350,000 Americans a year, including 7,600 in Massachusetts, study finds. Boston Globe.
In Table 1. Number of deaths attributable to exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) generated by fossil fuel combustion for the population >14 years old. Vohra K et al. (2021 Apr). Global mortality from outdoor fine particle pollution generated by fossil fuel combustion: Results from GEOS-Chem. Environmental Research; 195.

So, 100,000, well, based on some earlier papers I have; but two recent papers put at 200,000 and higher; but, as opposed to you, I include one lower than my estimate, a meager 50,000 deaths. I won’t bother giving studies on decreased quality of life. But, you could care less about, if only 50,000, premature deaths!

GREENLAND:

“The Greenland Ice Sheet, spanning 660,000 square miles (1.7 million square kilometers) — an area almost as big as Alaska — and with a thickness at its highest point of almost 2 miles (3 kilometers), has the potential to raise the world’s oceans by more than 20 feet (6 meters). Situated in the Arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, Greenland fell
out of balance in the 1990s, and is now shedding more ice in the summer than it gains back in the winter.” Viñas (2015 Aug 25). Warming seas and melting ice sheets – Climate Change/ Vital Signs of the Planet. Viñas MJ & Rasmussen C (2015 Aug 25). Warming seas and melting ice sheets – Climate Change/ Vital Signs of the Planet. NASA’s Earth Science News Team

See also: Harvard University (2020 Nov 25). Ice sheets on the move: Evidence of the interconnectedness of global climate. phys.org

And there are some studies that show more snow on certain areas of Antarctic and Greenland; but not all and this doesn’t change fact that the ice sheets are moving towards the open seas caused by underground melting.

‘In 2019, global mean sea level was 3.4 inches (87.6 millimeters) above the 1993 average.” Lindsey R (2009 Aug 30). Climate Change: Global Sea Level. climate.gov’

that would be 26 years (between 1993 and 2019) and 87 millimeters rise in 26 years, that would be 3 mm per year, just at the noaa tides website shows and what I said.

you keep using research papers, I am using the actual measurement from NOAA, from their measurements (it has year range, trends, confidence intervals and even breaks it down between mm per year and feet per century. The bottom line about 3.3 mm per year with no increase of speed/acceleration. I don’t know how much clearer the people at NOAA can make it. And why did Lindsey start with 1993 and end with 2019, why not use 10 year intervals or 20?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslGlobalTrendsTable.html

‘And there are some studies that show more snow on certain areas of Antarctic and Greenland; but not all and this doesn’t change fact that the ice sheets are moving towards the open seas caused by underground melting.”

of course the underground is melting and the ice is flowing to the ocean, just as it has for 100,000 of years, it is what causes/makes icebergs. Gravity affect/effect ice much the same as it does water. If you have ever been to central park in new york you will find lot of rocks that have been shaped by the flowing ice that covered new york in 1 mile of ice.

Some interesting science has discovered underground geothermal activity is causing Greenland’s ice cap to melt from below

phys.org/news/2020-12-newly-greenland-plume-thermal-arctic.html
medindia.net/news/volcano-deep-down-could-be-melting-greenlands-ice-30702-1.htm
livescience.com/46194-volcanoes-melt-antarctic-glaciers.html

We live on a very dynamic planet of which we know very little about, we know more about the surface of the moon and had more people visit it, then we have had people and probes explore the oceans floor, below 5,000 feet.

@ Sophie Amsden (2021 Sep 17)

So, I addressed a number of claims you made; but rather than admitting you were wrong, you focus on one, sea level. Typical.

You write: “And why did Lindsey start with 1993 and end with 2019, why not use 10 year intervals or 20?”

I guess you missed that Lindsey wrote: “Global mean sea level has risen about 8–9 inches (21–24 centimeters) since 1880, with about a third of that coming in just the last two and a half decades.”

In case you can’t do the math, 1880 to today is 140 years, two and a half decades is 25 years, so sea level increase of 1/3 in 17.8% of time, so approaching almost twice the increase and studies show increasing more.

But then you end with: “We live on a very dynamic planet of which we know very little about, we know more about the surface of the moon and had more people visit it, then we have had people and probes explore the oceans floor, below 5,000 feet.”

Basically that is an indirect admission that you can’t refute the overwhelming evidence of global warming, e.g., earlier stats on fires, so we should assume processes currently not aware of. Wow! You do realize that this could go either way, that is, processes we are unaware of could exacerbate things? In fact, Yellowstone super volcano is overdue to erupt, of course, not in any way caused by any human action; but it could put a damper on climate change for a year or more, blocking out sun, cold.

In any case, I have two questions:

First, why do you post comments on this website. Isn’t it obvious to you that Orac and the vast majority of commenters support/believe in the, for instance, Covid vaccines and climate change? So why do you bother? You can’t really believe that your comments have an effect?

Two, now that Orac has posted several new articles and almost no one is monitoring this exchange, why do you bother? I am an old man with plenty of time on my hands, so devoting, on average, an hour per day to reading Orac’s articles and comments, and writing my own no big deal; but I assume you are much younger; yet devote time to searching internet for articles, and posting comments aimed at me. I won’t hypothesize on your mental condition, family/home life, perhaps, work life; but either amusing you devote so much time to one old man or sad that you have so much time on your hands, for reasons I won’t speculate on.

In any case, I have way over 100 books on an array of subjects that I have collected over the years and would like to read before I die (biographies, economics, histories, specific infectious diseases, etc) and I have wasted too much time and effort on comments to you, Kay, and others (though did help me add papers to various areas of interest), so I will either remove Respectful Insolence from my morning checking or just read what Orac writes and ignore comments. So feel free to get the last word, again either amusing you would devote so much energy to one old man or sad that you have so much time on your hands.

@ Joel:

Hey, don’t desert us! You contribute really valuable material that supplements Orac’s and other SBM posts. You go into detail and lead us to great reads and research as well as explaining how a SB person arrives at their conclusions- a complex process.

Because you are SB and articulate about many subjects, you raise the ire of alties and science denialists. They single you out because you contribute SO MUCH that contradicts their worldviews.. I was in a similar position when I directly addressed the nonsensical anecdotes/ posturings of anti-vaxxers leading to their insults and wishes for my demise or incapacitation. All of which made me upset: I have counselled/ educated people from many walks of life in different areas of concern and I have never heard such nasty, vicious reactions to SBM and good, plain sense, in my life. So why waste my talent/ time with ungrateful, unrealistic denialists whom I could never affect and bend towards the real world? So I stopped addressing them entirely and said so publicly. You should remember that many readers here never speak up but just come to learn.

There are other ways of addressing SBM and sharing information

I instead began to address commenters in general, or responded- and elaborated- to particular regulars/ less arrogant newbies- about our common areas of concern. People like you or me may serve as surrogates for Orac and his position on various topics, so often, their aggression may be really directed at him but they are too afraid of having their arses handed to them publicly through his inimitable stylings. As Dr DG remarks on twitter, you have many “admirers” . That’s because you both show them the error of their ways and rile them up. Mike Adams and Gary Null have both written/ spoken reams of hate for Dr DG because he has shown how and why their “science” is worthless and how they are in it for fame and money, cutting into their potential audience.

Your detractors are not worth your time and effort but RI readers ( mostly) are!
I often have asked alties if their pet theory/ worldview is taught anywhere at any universities? And I don’t mean as an example selected for critique in a critical thinking course. They can’t answer that.
In addition, unlike your critics, you have published posts fro SBM. edited SBM books and taught college level courses. Have any of them? That should tell you everything.

I was addressing your comments in a logical order, not in your frenetic shotgun blast and stray thoughts.
If you notice I addressed your ignoring of the past fire data as inaccurate. but as usual you jumped to the next topic.
I then addressed your sea level claim in which you addressed the 25 years between 1993 and 2019 (which as a math wizzard does make a difference) but you dismiss the past fire data but show the past sea level data, which is selective of which historical data you choose to believe is correct. And why start at 1993, as NOAA tide gauges show the sea level rise actual declined in 1991-1993 , which as a scientist knows made the data raise look more impressive. If the researcher had used a start date of say 1985 to 1990 it would be unimpressive and wouldn’t be as sensational.
You choose to believe a science paper which uses a mix satellite data which is only accurate to 2.5 centimeters but claims to measure millimeter changes.
You keep bringing in other items to a discussion to deflect your poor skills or cherry picked data (Yellowstone super volcano, I don’t ever remember that being anywhere close to what we were posting). Here are a couple of interesting facts, Between 1978 and 1985 NOAA had the highest jump in temperatures (most of the rise is temperature reading were night time readings), then came the pause. Do you know what two things happened in that time frame. NOAA switched to all electric thermometers. NOAA also changed the paint on the Stevenson Screens. From the original ‘white wash’ to latex, now both paints reflected sun light in the correct wave length, however the latex retained the suns heat longer then traditional white wash, thus increasing the after sunset temperatures, The pause was a man made caused, in that the steep rise was ‘paused’ as all the stations now had a new normal average.
I have never said/posted that our planet is not warming, I have contested the rate and if man/co2 was causing the warming, when NOAA has to ‘infill’ (guess) almost 50% of the data because of missing information and then adjusts over .6 degrees upwards I question just how much we really are warming or how fast. If a researchers job and income depends on showing that the planet is warming, their research will show the planet is warming.
And again you are being sexist as to my mental condition/homelife/worklife (as you have never said those things about a male poster) and for the first time you will not speculate on something. I guess I should be content, that you haven’t called on Orac to ban me as you have others who disagree with you.
You complain that no one is monitoring this exchange, As others have said ‘I do feel bad for you, that you are so disappointed in your substitute family”.

Lijndsey started with a sunspot minumum and ended with one. Thus effect of sun variability was minimized.
There is NOAA sea level data:
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/decade-of-global-sea-level-measurements-jason-2-marks-tenth-year-orbit
There is NOAA temperature data:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature
No jump seen, expect if you pick a specific timeframe. Seriously, NOAA cannot measure temperature, but a certain Sophie Amsden, who do not understand what TRILLION means, a here to fix things.
Before speaking about satellite data analysis, read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis#History

I wasn’t cherry picking the data or years, I was using the NOAA data on trend line. I am sure that if I were to pick a few years out of the long term data (which is what Lindsey did) I could find a trend in either direction. If you had looked at the example of the Battery tide gauge in New York (a very stable bed rock site, that the lane is neither sinking or rising) you will find periods of acceleration of sea level rise just as you would find periods of lowering of sea level but the long term rise over 170 plus years in about 3 mm per year.

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

And you want to use wikipedia as a source, I thought that was a no-no on a SB site?

Here are two quotes from this thread about sea level and links to NOAA and JPL/NASA on satellite measurements. I have never said there isn’t sea level rise, nor have i claimed the earth is getting warmer. I don’t care how long Jason 3 has been going around the earth the instruments can only measure the sea level to 2.5 centimeters.

“I am using the actual measurement from NOAA, from their measurements (it has year range, trends, confidence intervals and even breaks it down between mm per year and feet per century. The bottom line about 3.3 mm per year with no increase of speed/acceleration. I don’t know how much clearer the people at NOAA can make it. And why did Lindsey start with 1993 and end with 2019, why not use 10 year intervals or 20?
tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslGlobalTrendsTable.html
I then addressed your sea level claim in which you addressed the 25 years between 1993 and 2019 (which as a math wizard does make a difference) but you dismiss the past fire data but show the past sea level data, which is selective of which historical data you choose to believe is correct. And why start at 1993, as NOAA tide gauges show the sea level rise actual declined in 1991-1993 , which as a scientist knows made the data raise look more impressive. If the researcher had used a start date of say 1985 to 1990 it would be unimpressive and wouldn’t be as sensational.
You choose to believe a science paper which uses a mix satellite data which is only accurate to 2.5 centimeters but claims to measure millimeter changes.”

This is the actual press release from JPL/NASA on Jason and Topex and response.

You want the Jason (s) and Topex satellites to measure sea level well “The primary instrument on Jason-3 is a radar altimeter. The altimeter measures sea-level variations over the global ocean with very high accuracy (1.3 inches or 3.3 centimeters, with a goal of achieving 1 inch or 2.5 centimeters).”
sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/jason-3/summary/

I don’t care how long Jason 3 has been going around the earth the instruments can only measure the sea level to 2.5 centimeters.

You are mistaken, and stamping your feet and repeating a quote don’t make you any more correct.

“This accuracy figure [3 cm] pertains to a few-kilometer spot on the ocean surface directly beneath the satellite. By averaging the few-hundred thousand measurements collected by the satellite in the time it takes to cover the global ocean (10 days), global mean sea level can be determined with a precision of several millimeters.

“To verify the accuracy of measurements independently, CNES and NASA each established a verification site along the ground track of the satellite. The CNES verification site is on the French island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea; the NASA site is on the Harvest, an offshore oil rig at the eastern entrance to the Santa Barbara Channel, off the coast of central California. Each site is equipped with tracking systems (e.g., GPS, SLR) that enable accurate surveying of the stations into the reference frame that underlies the satellite orbit computations (POD). This survey information is combined with local measurements of the water level (from tide gauges) to derive an independent estimate of the ocean height relative to the center of the earth. Every 10 days the Jason-3 satellite flies directly overhead, and the two independently derived measurements of the instantaneous sea level (satellite vs. “ground truth”) are compared in an analysis called “closure.” With sufficiently redundant instrumentation at the experiment site, along with careful monitoring of potential systematic errors, any unexpected mismatch between the satellite and “ground truth” measurements can be attributed to an error in the satellite measurements. The “closure” data from Corsica and Harvest, along with similar information from other verification sites and observing programs, are used to continuously monitor the performance of these ocean altimeter satellite measurement systems.”

So we have a satellite in orbit that needs 2 ground based stations that it flies over every couple of days and then has to be adjusted to match what the altimeter is showing on the satellite. So the measurements are being continually adjusted to match what the ground/ocean stations are reporting.

I checked your cut a paste and found the NASA website (question why didn’t you link is for another post)

I did note in reading the information from the site that you failed to mention.

“ For these missions, this process supports the determination of the satellite orbital height with an accuracy of about 1 centimeter (0.5 inches).”

So the satellite is starting off with a +- of 1 centimeter error in its location relative to the center of the earth (which is very important if it is going to measure oceans height.

“The range measurements are subtracted from POD-derived estimates of the satellite orbital height, resulting in ocean height measurements that are good to 3 centimeters (just over 1 inch) relative to the center of the earth.”

and even in your own post

“global mean sea level can be determined with a precision of several millimeters.”

That’s a lot of error ‘several millimeters’ for something that only changes 3 mm per year.

I keep having to repeat because people like you don’t read or read the US government links I provided. Heck you didn’t even read what you copied and pasted from the government website

“precision of several millimeters”

I checked your cut a paste and found the NASA website (question why didn’t you link is for another post)

I did. Twice. You’ll maybe get millimeter-level satellite earthquake imagery tomorrow, but Barney Frank was right. Geodesy is perhaps not the right subject for someone who can’t recognize a link.

It’s ancient history now and I couldn’t find a quick reference, but when the GPS satellites were first put up, the true location signal was encrypted and the unencrypted signal that the public could access was spoofed to be off by 100 meters or something like that.

The idea was to give the U.S. Military an advantage in knowing exactly where their troops, planes, ships, etc. were.

But it only took a few months for scientists to figure out how to calculate the accurate data by averaging out the random errors in the signal data.

The scientists working on the Jason measurements are probably doing something very similar.

After a few years, the U.S. gave up and switched to just broadcasting the correct data.

<

blockquote> The idea was to give the U.S. Military an advantage in knowing exactly where their troops, planes, ships, etc. were.

No. The idea was to give them some indication of where I was not.

“Selective Availability”.

It could be worked around by either long-term averaging, which was impractical for a lot of applications, or by using Differential GPS (DGPS) where a GPS receiver in a known position sent radio signals to other GPS receivers that gave the offset between the GPS location and the real location, allowing GPS devices with appropriate DGPS receivers to compensate for the error. This was possible because the introduced errors were roughly constant over a reasonably large area.

DGPS also compensated for other sources of GPS error, like the influence of the state of the ionosphere.

The first widespread military use of GPS in conflict was in the 1990–91 Gulf War, where Wikipedia says: “the shortage of military GPS units caused many troops and their families to buy readily available civilian units. Selective Availability significantly impeded the U.S. military’s own battlefield use of these GPS, so the military made the decision to turn it off for the duration of the war.” This is a complete reversal of the intended use of Selective Availability.

Selective Availability was switched off in 2001 following an executive order from Bill Clinton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System#Selective_availability

Satellite data is not used model one year change, it is used to model hundred year change. So we speak about feet, not millimeters,

This does not sound right as I have long been modeling in mm over hours. But I lack the expertise to refute your assertion. Carry on.

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