This is a weird comment thread on a post about the latest crusade of the nanny state — against salt.
This would actually be good for me, because I have cut way back on the salt over the past few months, and have thereby reduced my blood pressure, but neither my salt intake, or anyone else’s, is the business of the FDA.
[Update late morning]
More thoughts on the FDA and sodium at Reason.
…comes the ice. Thoughts on a new book by Jerry Pournelle.
It depends on whether or not it serves “the cause” (to use Phil Jones’ words):
For those of you who are confused, let me remind you: the only meteorological phenomena that count are the ones that confirm the climate alarmist case. It doesn’t matter what it is — drought, flood, blizzard, heat wave — if it can be made to support fear about the climate, it matters and it needs to be thoroughly analyzed and widely publicized.
Meteorological phenomena that, to the unsophisticated, might appear to undermine the case that WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE if we don’t immediately pass a stringent carbon treaty, are meaningless and should be ignored.
A spate of hurricanes is climate; an absence of big storms is weather. The absence of any major hurricanes for six years is a meaningless phenomenon; should a couple of big ones hit in any given year, then every editorial page in the country will fill with hand wringing, dire warning and I told you so.
Bet on it.
In context. From comments:
I love all these claims of “out of context”. Maybe Jones et al can explain to us the correct context in which it is acceptable to:
Request a colleague to delete E-Mails material to an FOIA (a potentially criminal act)
Collude to block the work of professional scientists from publication
Attempt to have an editor of a scientific journal fired from their job
Cheer when a non AGW believing scientist dies
and so on and so on.
Strangely – ha ha – we never hear what this correct context is.
No, we don’t.
One wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I actually largely agree with Andrew Sullivan. The notion that intelligence is not heritable is ludicrous, and if it is, the notion that every “race” is going to be equivalent in that regard is equally so.
Yes, I know that (Marxist) Stephen Jay Gould desperately attempted to make the case, but he failed. I have no firm opinions on which “race” is smarter than which (and yes, one can agree that race is a social construct while also recognizing that groups of genetically related people will share some inherited traits), but I don’t believe the acceptance of the notion that some are born smarter than others, and that some genetic groups may be on average smarter than others makes one a racist per se. Moreover, I don’t even care, since this fact should play no role in either public policy or individual interactions. The only people who believe that it should are collectivists, who believe that people should be dealt with as groups rather than individuals. Thus, if anyone is racists, it is them.
[Update in the afternoon]
It should be noted that I am not defending The Bell Curve or any specific research. I’ve never even read it. I’m simply defending the notion that different “races” could have different average “intelligence.”
…is Photoshop. The science is settled.
How not to do it.
As Bret Stephens notes, it’s hard to kill off a religion — Marxism persists, after all — but this one is losing much of its force.
[Update a few minutes later]
A funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse.
…so we can think better. Some interesting research on the role of humor.
We are dealing with liars:
Your explanation of your statement is this:
At the end of the IPCC process, chapters, formal comments and responses are all published and that is the appropriate place for this information. It is important that scientists should be allowed free and frank discussion during the writing process. I might also point out that I decided not to take part in AR5 because of the time commitment it requires.
That sounds perfectly logical … if we were dealing with honest men. But if the Climategate emails have shown anything, they have shown that we are not dealing with honest men. Far too many of the leading AGW supporting climate scientists have been shown by their own words to be serial liars like yourself.
But in any case, only scientists with something to hide need privacy to have a “free and frank discussion” about science. Honest scientists have no reason to hide their views. Honest scientists discuss these scientific issues on the web in the full light of day. Why on earth would someone need privacy to discuss the intricacies of the climate models? Do you really have to go into a closet with your best friend to speak your true mind about atmospheric physics? Is it true that you guys actually need some kind of ‘private space’ to expose your secret inner ideas about the factors affecting the formation of clouds? From my perspective, these kinds of private discussions are not only not what is needed. This two-faced nature of you guys’ statements on the science are a large part of the problem itself.
This is quite visible in the Climategate emails. In your communications, you and many of the scientists are putting out your true views of other scientists and their work. You are expressing all kinds of honest doubts. You are discussing uncertainties in your and other scientists understandings. You are all letting your friends know which papers you think are good and which you think are junk, and that’s valuable information in the climate science discussions.
But you never say any of this in public. Not one word. For example, in public it’s all about how great Michael Mann’s science is, not a word of criticism, while in private some of you guys justifiably tear both him and his work to shreds.
I find this double-speak deceptive and underhanded. It has nothing to do with “free and frank discussion” as you claim. I think that if AGW supporting scientists actually broke down and told the truth to the public, you would fare much better. I think that if you disavowed your beloved Saint Stephen (Schneider) and his advice, and you expressed all of your doubts and revealed all of your uncertainties about the climate and told the plain unvarnished truth about your opinion of other scientists’ work, we’d be infinitely better off. Nobody likes two-faced people. You would be miles ahead if you said the same things in public you say in private, and so would the field of climate science.
But it wouldn’t serve “the cause.” When will people realize that the climate “scientists” have not been engaging in science? And they’re not just liars. I don’t know what the FOIA laws are in England, but I think that if Jones had done here what he did in East Anglia, he could be subject to criminal prosecution. And would be, at least under an administration that was more interested in enforcing the law than in maintaining politically correct pieties. I hope we’ll get an administration like that some day.