Daily Archives: March 1, 2010

Back to the Woodshed with You

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Last week I took George Will to task for his scientific illiteracy and misrepresentation of the “no statistically significant warming” statement that has given every global warming denier a naughty tingly feeling during the past few weeks.

I missed something.

I was going to include a graphical example, and I should have, because I would have found one more problem with the statement. I was reading a post over at Skeptical Science, where graphs were included, and did a mental reconstruction and realized my error of omission. I’ll grab the GISS graph from that post (slightly different slope, but the concept is the same), and add in two lines: one representing no increase in T, and one representing twice the amount slope of the best fit.

temp change

Now, one can see here that even though it’s obviously not the best fit to the data, the “no increase” line is a semi-plausible fit. It’s possible. But here’s the problem: look at the temperature in 1995 based on the two scenarios. If one is going to claim that the temperature has not increased in the last 15 years, one also has to admit that it’s about a tenth of a degree warmer than we thought it was. So all of the global warming that “didn’t happen” before is even worse, and harder to explain away.

Personally, I think not distorting the science in the first place is probably the best way to proceed.

Hard to Swallow

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Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.

The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.

“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek.”

Why?

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Feynman discusses the “why” question, and why he can’t give a satisfactory explanation of magnetic attraction/repulsion.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

When you explain a “why,” you have to be in some framework that you allow something to be true. Otherwise you are perpetually asking, “Why?”

I’ve pointed out before that science doesn’t really address the question of “why,” and this is the reason.

I really can’t do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something else that you’re more familiar with, because I don’t understand it in terms of anything else you’re more familiar with.

In other words, you have to explain to the level of your audience.