Category Archives: Science And Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Space Science, Technology and Society

Terraforming Mars

16 Comments

Fuggedaboutit:

“The rate of loss of gas today is very low — slow enough that it would take billions of years to remove the equivalent amount of gas that is in the atmosphere,” principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said in an email. There is some CO2 left in the polar ice and in carbon-bearing materials, he added, but not nearly enough to warm the temperature significantly if it somehow was put back in the atmosphere.

“There isn’t a source of CO2 that could replenish the atmosphere — even outgassing of CO2 from volcanoes has got to be incredibly slow today,” Jakosky added. “If we wanted to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise temperatures significantly, it would take something like 10 million kilometer-sized comets (if they were all made entirely of CO2). This is just not feasible.”

I think there are other possibilities (e.g., bombarding it with carbonaceous and other asteroids, and comets, and manufacturing the CO2 on the surface), but largely, I consider the obsession with Mars to be much more romantic than practical, at least as a new earth.

General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Peer Review

13 Comments

It’s gotten to the point that it’s worse than useless, and has become an active shield against actual scientific inquiry:

…according to you, the NAS committee was right to ignore these official documents because they were not “peer reviewed.” What does it even mean to “peer review” official EPA documents?

You have similarly dismissed the evidence presented of clear and present conflicts of interest between EPA and the NAS board (BEST) that sponsored and organized the review. What does it mean to have evidence of conflicts of interest “peer reviewed”?

Is it a “violation of [NAS] policy” to consider official EPA documents and other documented evidence of potential NAS/EPA wrongdoing in a review of a controversy borne out of acknowledged EPA wrongdoing?

The other chief witnesses (Drs. John Dunn & Stan Young) at the August 24, 2016 public hearing (which was held for the specific purpose of taking our testimony) cited specific EPA documents and peer-reviewed literature in their testimony.

The other two commenters at the hearing (Dr. James Enstrom and Albert Donnay) also cited peer-reviewed literature.

But the NAS committee inexplicably ignored everything we presented. And now you have as well.

Although the NAS has a conflict of interest policy, you have not even bothered to consider my request in the context of this policy. So why have the policy if it will not be applied?

The entire federally funded scientific establishment seems to be rotting at the core.

[Update late morning]

The saga continues.

[Friday morning update]

The obfuscation continues in round three.

[Bumped]

Education, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Bill Nye, The Cognitive Dissonance Guy

11 Comments

I haven’t been able to get all the way through this interview yet, but he sure is full of himself. I found this a little amazing:

Is there anything about Trump’s administration, and here I’m thinking specifically of Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, that leads you to believe the government will support the kind of innovation you’re hoping for?

I’m going to wait to see on Scott Pruitt. I want to engage you on this question, but I think maybe you’re politicizing something that doesn’t need to be politicized. I mean, the EPA was created by Richard Nixon. The EPA and the National Parks were set aside by conservatives. With respect to Scott Pruitt, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bureaucracy just sort shrugs its shoulders at his directives and says “we’re going to be here long after you’re gone. We’re going to carry on doing what we were doing.”

That reminds me of the saying, “The function of an institution is to perpetuate the institution.”

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about laws.

No, you’re talking about a lawless agency that Pruitt was brought in to rein in and get under control. He seems to be as ignorant of how government works as he is about science and climate.

Rick Perry showed up at the Department of Energy and realized what’s involved, that he’s in over his head, and now he’s going to let the thing run the way it was being run. But in contrast, Mr. Scott Pruitt — it’s not that he’s unqualified, it’s that he thinks the EPA shouldn’t exist.

If he really believes that, he’s profoundly ignorant of Scott Pruitt. It’s frightening that so many young people pay so much attention to this ignoramus.

Education, General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Race And Science

8 Comments

“Stop trying to get me fired for things I didn’t say and don’t believe“:

I thought that writing 5,000 words about what I think genes influence and don’t, how much variation is likely attributable to genetics, and discussing the predictive powers and limitations of IQ would be sufficient to prevent people from deliberately misreading my post as an endorsement of race science. Sadly, that is not the case, and so of course Twitter is accusing me of believing literally the opposite of what the very first lines of the first post said.

The vast majority of (violent) protestors against Charles Murray, who insanely believe he’s a “white nationalist,” have never read a word he’s written. I personally have no opinion about average IQ of various “races,” but I think the notion that something heritable won’t have an effect on a population is the kind of nutty thing that only a leftist could believe. I understand why some are uncomfortable with studying it, but I’ve never understood why the fact that a member of a group that has a certain characteristic must be treated as a member of that group, rather than as an individual. But since leftists hate treating people as individuals, believing only in the collective, I guess that would explain it.

Health, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Vitamin D

9 Comments

Should we be supplementing, or not?

As is often the case, the science is iffy. I’m taking 5000 IU of D3 daily (or at least when I remember to take anything). No idea if it’s helping, but I don’t generally spend a lot of time in the sun. In fact, I have a solar-powered watch whose battery occasionally runs down because I spend so much time in my office. So it seems likely that I’m somewhat deficient.