They just scrubbed the Antares launch of Cygnus to ISS, because the range was red due to a boat downrange. Am I the only person who thinks that this rule is stupid, and needs to be revised? As I said on Twitter, I don’t care if there’s an armada of boats in the box, as long as someone is flying a banner “AT OWN RISK.” Holding up a flight over this is insane. It’s the kind of hypercaution that keeps us from making more rapid progress in space.
The New Consensus Study
Our search resulted in 487,629 papers that mentioned “evolution” or “natural selection” in the abstract. However 451,412 of those could not definitively be placed into one of our seven position-defining categories*, no matter how hard we tried with our group of 20 reviewers. [The consensus view among us is that these reviewers are completely independent and objective; their common participation at our web site devoted to presenting pro-selection arguments, but nothing to the contrary, is just not relevant in this case.**]
Of the remaining 36,217 papers, 35,167 (97.1%) supported the consensus position that over half of the observed evolution over the twentieth century is due to natural selection. The fact that only 126 of these 35,167 papers were actually focused on critically evaluating the topic at hand, i.e. the different possible mechanistic explanations of observed evolutionary change and/or speciation (e.g. random drift, founder and other stochastic events, mutation rate variation, instantaneous genetic barriers, etc), is an irrelevant point, a complete red herring. We can reasonably assume that in at least the majority of 50% of the time, none of these 35,167 authors would indicate agreement with a position that they themselves had not carefully investigated, without having more than half of a predominantly pretty good reason for so doing***. It’s just not really half as difficult as people make it out to be when you boil it down. As we have now done. For you.
In conclusion, there is very clearly a very strong consensus as to the influence of natural selection on evolution during the twentieth century and this consensus has been increasing as the evidence increases. It is important that policy makers realize this and take action. Please pick this up and disseminate it widely so everybody knows about it; everyone else is, so you will be part of the consensus effort if you do. Thank you.
Heh.
Sharyl Atkisson’s Laptop
“Worse than anything the Nixon administration ever did.”
And how about this? “Both CBS and the White House declined to comment.”
You don’t say.
[Update a few minutes later]
If Sharyl Attkisson didn't want a virus on her computer, she should have self-quarantined against bad news about the Administration.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) October 27, 2014
[Update a while later]
Thoughts from (lawyer) John Hindraker at Powerline:
If this were a Republican administration, every reporter in Washington would be on the story, as would various law enforcement agencies. Given that we are talking about a Democratic president, Attkisson shouldn’t expect any help. If I were she, I would hire one of the top litigation firms in Washington and look into suing appropriate federal agencies. That won’t be easy; the most obvious obstacle is that she has to have evidence that a particular agency was involved in the hacking/spying operation in order to survive a motion to dismiss, but it will be hard (maybe impossible) to get that evidence without the ability to do discovery in the lawsuit. But having her own lawsuit allows her to run her own show, and private lawyers are generally far more effective at unearthing and processing information than, say, Congressional committees.
Yup.
#Gamergate
Who is the player, and who is the played?
Physical threats against women are unacceptable, but it’s not clear who has been doing that, and being threatened doesn’t magically place you beyond criticism, though the Left would like to wrap her in moral outrage as a noble victim.
The CA Drought
Will Californians (particularly southern Californians) get some relief this winter?
Maybe. I sure hope so. Even ignoring the economic issues, winter is my favorite time of year here, with the rainy season, which almost completely eluded us this past January/February.
STS-93
Wayne Hale has a riveting (well, if you’re a space systems engineer) account of the other time we might have lost an orbiter.
Financial Planning For Life Extension
An interview with Joel Garreau. Not sure I agree with this:
Boomer octogenarians in 2030 have “too many hard miles on their chassis” to fully benefit, but younger people may have trouble imagining the onetime prevalence of sickness and death.
I won’t be quite that old, but I think that there’s a good possibility that even for octo/nonoganerians there will be potential reversal of damage, and rejuvenation by then. And current government policies based on Scenario 1 (i.e., pretty much business as usual) are doomed to bankruptcy.
How We Won In Vietnam
…but are losing at home.
The “Time Served” Model Of Education
…is breaking down. This, I think, is the key point:
The conventions of the credit hour, the semester and the academic year were formalized in the early 1900s. Time forms the template for designing college programs, accrediting them and — crucially — funding them using federal student aid.
But in 2013, for the first time, the Department of Education took steps to loosen the rules.
The new idea: Allow institutions to get student-aid funding by creating programs that directly measure learning, not time. Students can move at their own pace. The school certifies — measures — what they know and are able to do.
The public-school paradigm is also based on a century-old model: industrial learning. Time to abandon it, but it’s hard, because it so benefits the status quo, even if it’s a disaster for the kids.
The Gods Of The Copybook Headings
…are back.
Every generation must relearn the lessons. Unfortunately, it’s even harder to teach them when people who find them personally inconvenient to their agendas are in charge of the educational system.