Category Archives: Science And Society

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

Another Amicus Brief

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This one is from Steve McIntyre:

In the end, an objective review of these reports quickly reveals their flaws and omissions. As The Atlantic has noted, competent investigations into these issues could “have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific consensus. But no, the reports make things worse. At best they are mealy-mouthed apologies; at worst they are patently incompetent and even wilfully wrong.” Given this accurate assessment, the reports cannot serve as the basis for a “clear and convincing” finding that the Appellants had serious doubts about the alleged falsity of their statements.

It nicely complements the one from Judith Curry. I’m told to expect one more from the other amici who supported us the last time; they got an extension until Monday.

Business, Culinary, Economics, Health, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society, Weird

Pig-Human Organ Farming

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“…doesn’t look promising yet.”

[Update a while later]

On the other hand, there’s this: They’re figuring out how to make store-bought tomatoes taste good. But we have to encourage them:

Consumers, known to gravitate towards the least expensive option, will have to vote with their wallets to keep flavorful tomato options on market shelves.
“The next time you’re in the store, you might consider paying a little more for a more flavorful tomato,” Klee says. If you do, you might find that the tomatoes of the future taste a little sweeter.

As someone who does shop price on tomatoes, I’ll have to try that. Lately I’ve been using fresh where I used to use canned, partly to avoid the extra salt (though you can get canned with no salt added). I may try better ones in my next tomato sauce.

[Update a few minutes later]

Forget growing organs in pigs; we may be able to 3-D print them soon.

Business, Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Paleo Diet

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Gee, so it turns out that it won’t kill you after all:

Even short-term consumption of a Paleolithic-type diet improved glucose control and lipid profiles in people with type 2 diabetes compared with a conventional diet containing moderate salt intake, low-fat dairy, whole grains and legumes.

The biggest nightmare for Big Pharma is that we can treat Type 2 diabetes (which seems to be a diet-related “disease”) with an improved diet.

Law, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Lawsuit Update

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Tomorrow is the deadline for filing amicus briefs on our behalf. Judith Curry has filed another one. I haven’t read it yet, but I expect it to be good.

[Update a while later]

Reading through it, it would seem to make a strong case for her own defamation, though she’s above that.

[Update late morning]

Some thoughts on “alternate facts” in the climate debate:

My tweet asked the climate scientists on my feed whether they agreed with the statement specifically the use of the word “all”. My expectation was that a reasonable core of climate scientists would agree that Dr. Mann had overstepped the science. This was not the case. Instead, what I got was overwhelming support for Dr. Mann with not a single non-skeptic initially commenting negatively. It was as if Dr. Mann was the pope and the climate community his congregation. Nothing he said could be considered to be anything less than the truth, even if it took huge convolutions of logic to make it true. In the last couple weeks the term “alternative facts” has entered our lexicon. Well in the next few paragraphs I want to unpack Dr. Mann’s “alternative fact” and see if it is indeed defensible. Then I will go into what I feel this means for the climate change debate.

RTWT.

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

First-Amendment Rights

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..of public employees: A quick cheat sheet.

What I found amusing about the tweets from Badlands National Park yesterday (which were cheered by the supposed fans of “science”) were how either they weren’t “scientific facts” (no, it is an opinion, not a fact, that last year was the “hottest on record”) or trivial and irrelevant chemistry (“A gallon of gasoline puts X pounds of carbon into the atmosphere when burned). But I was also amused at the concern that the employees who had done so had probably been fired.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s the story for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.