We previously saw a Fox News pie chart that had a couple extra slices (here). Now, fair and balanced math adds up to 120 percent of voters indicating that they view the science on global warming to be rigged.
This is an interesting Rasmussen poll when you add up the number and discover that you are in a parallel universe.
The question is: “In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?” According to the poll, 35 percent thought it very likely, 24 percent somewhat likely, 21 percent not very likely, and 5 percent not likely at all (15 percent weren’t sure).
This rather dubious poll is offered to show that people are dubious about the science and math of global warming experts.
For the full story, click here
Buddah, posted a documentary called The Cloud Mystery by Henrik Svensmark for you here.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/12/14/leading-scientist-on-global-warming-has-heart-attack-during-debate-while-delegates-storm-out-over-impasse-over-the-agreement/#comments
He is the scientist who had the heart attack in the thread. Would like to know your thoughts and your analysis. Anyone else for that matter.
Buddah, posted a documentary called The Cloud Mystery by Henrik Svensmark for you here.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/12/14/leading-scientist-on-global-warming-has-heart-attack-during-debate-while-delegates-storm-out-over-impasse-over-the-agreement/#comments
He is the scientist who had the heart attack in the thread. Would like to know your thoughts and your analysis. Anyone else for that matter.
Slarti,
Someone else e-mailed me.
Apology accepted.
Bob,
Since Buddha has stopped reading this, I would appreciate it if you would email him and ask him to read my apology.
I must be communicating poorly, because you seem to have read a lot into my comments that I did not intend and do not feel. I thought that your analysis was very insightful and my comments were intended to show that approval. I have been discussing physics with Robert all day and after refuting assertions like ‘KE is not transformed into TE in collisions’ my dismissive tone with him has apparently bled over into my post to you. This was not my intent, and I apologize.
Budda said:
“And excuse? That’s just petty.
Like you don’t make typos.”
I meant it to be humorous. Since you obviously didn’t take it that way, I apologize – I meant nothing untoward.
Buddha said:
“I like you so I’m going to be perfectly frank for a minute.
You’re starting to act like evasive dick, not a scientist.”
I’m sorry you feel that way. I will attempt to behave better.
Buddha said:
“I have not denied your POSSIBILITIES. Nor have I done that with Bob SINCE YOU ARE BOTH USING ASSUMPTIONS.”
I did not intended to attack your possibilities, only to vigorously defend and clarify my possibilities and assumptions.
Buddha said:
“Your blindness to the symmetry issue is not my problem. You have done nothing to disprove what I’ve said other than make more assumptions and become insulting, something I have refrained from with you. You wanted to know what my problem was, so I told you. Your answer? Bullshit.”
I have argued so many points today that I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about here. I do not recall calling anything you said and certainly did not intend to call anything you said ‘bullshit’.
Buddha said:
“So I think I’ll retain my skepticism for the reasons stated. That you can’t grasp why is your problem. If you disapprove? Tough shit. You think I’m wrong just because you can’t explain the phenomena – a phenomena I’ve said needs explanation but that I’ve stipulate all along could be anomaly. Also an acceptable answer.”
I don’t disapprove of your skepticism. I have only been trying to explain why I don’t share it. Everything that I have argued is with the intent to show that Occam’s razor doesn’t favor CD. I think your wrong, you think I’m wrong. I wanted to find where our differences lied. I thought that they lay in our assumptions so I lay out my assumptions and justify them – I didn’t mean for you to view this as an attack on your assumptions, but rather as an invitation to attack mine.
Buddha said:
“Since now all you assumptions are pure fucking gold and everyone else’s are crap? I’m done with this. I afforded BOTH sides their assumptions. You attack mine based on a idea children can debunk with Legos? WTF?”
My assumptions aren’t better and other’s assumptions aren’t worse, my assumptions are just mine. Bob and Robert have both been misstating my assumptions (implying things like I think iron dropped from the top of the WTC will melt), in my zeal to establish exactly what my assumptions and assertions are, I have apparently stepped on your toes. Again, sorry.
Buddha said:
“And as far as comments from you on this topic? Tell it to someone who doesn’t think your full of shit now. You read that right.
I’m no longer discussing the WTC with you. Call back when you pull you “superior assumption” stick out of your ass. Because guess what? As an unprovable, your assumptions are not worth any more than anyone else.”
I don’t believe that my assumptions are better, I just didn’t want to be tagged with assumptions that I didn’t make (and let me be clear, you never did this to me or anyone else). It seems that in my attempt to clarify and define what my assumptions were, my frustration with others caused me to write something that you found very insulting. Once again, this was not my intent and I sincerely apologize. I have found this discussion extremely interesting and I think that your input into it has been very insightful and uniformly positive, even when you’ve disagreed with me. I would hate to see you leave it because of something I said, so I ask you humbly to reconsider.
Done reading it too.
Byron,
I’m out. I don’t care any more. My reasons are clear and I’ve said my piece. If some of you disagree, fine. If you fine a plausible explanation, that’s fine too. Slarti took all the joy out of it for me. Mot because of his numbers, but because he has superior assumptions to everyone else as his rationale.
as·sump·tion \ə-ˈsəm(p)-shən\, n.,
5 a : an assuming that something is true b : a fact or statement (as a proposition, axiom, postulate, or notion) taken for granted
As in unprovable no matter who says them.
If I wanted that kind of nonsense? I’d be troll hunting.
Ya’ll enjoy. This is my last post to this thread.
Buddha:
you make a good point about the collapse being straight down and not to the side. I think if you look at one of the collapses the top floors do lean one way and then start falling down as an entire unit of 30 or so floors.
I think this can all be explained by fire and relative heat of the columns as they increase in distance from the fire. The ones closest to the fire would loose strength first and the forces would be redistributing for a period of time to other columns as the building worked to balance the loss of some of the supporting members.
Your analogy of a Lego block structure is not quite correct as you have to take into account tensile forces which are helping to restrain the side of the building first hit by the jet plane. Think cantilever or a teeter totter. The floors would act like large beams and the portion of the core left intact would act as a “fulcrum”. The external columns and other interior columns would act as “counterweights”.
I think the buildings “exoskeleton” has quite a role to play in all of this which causes the collapse to be different from a building with internal supports.
So I think there is a rational explanation for a fairly structured collapse.
Maybe because of my educational background I have a blind spot, in that I am able to come up with reasonable, at least in my mind, explanations for the failure. I don’t see it as chaos but as an expected event based on engineering principles.
And excuse? That’s just petty.
Like you don’t make typos.
I like you so I’m going to be perfectly frank for a minute.
You’re starting to act like evasive dick, not a scientist.
I have not denied your POSSIBILITIES. Nor have I done that with Bob SINCE YOU ARE BOTH USING ASSUMPTIONS.
Your blindness to the symmetry issue is not my problem. You have done nothing to disprove what I’ve said other than make more assumptions and become insulting, something I have refrained from with you. You wanted to know what my problem was, so I told you. Your answer? Bullshit.
So I think I’ll retain my skepticism for the reasons stated. That you can’t grasp why is your problem. If you disapprove? Tough shit. You think I’m wrong just because you can’t explain the phenomena – a phenomena I’ve said needs explanation but that I’ve stipulate all along could be anomaly. Also an acceptable answer.
Since now all you assumptions are pure fucking gold and everyone else’s are crap? I’m done with this. I afforded BOTH sides their assumptions. You attack mine based on a idea children can debunk with Legos? WTF?
And as far as comments from you on this topic? Tell it to someone who doesn’t think your full of shit now. You read that right.
I’m no longer discussing the WTC with you. Call back when you pull you “superior assumption” stick out of your ass. Because guess what? As an unprovable, your assumptions are not worth any more than anyone else.
Slarti,
Really? Impacting one side of a structure causes it to fall DOWN and not OVER.
You my friend are clearly not a lumberjack. Or a builder. Or a football player. Or a martial artist.
I made no assumptions other than what I stated. You did though by assuming an asymmetrical blow would cause symmetrical damage to all sides to causing them to be equally damaged (to failure) and in a time frame that allows for ordered collapse – what would be required for a downward collapse.
You are making an assumption to answer a question you have no explanation for is not an adequate answer.
Go knock out a corner or side of building. Or a couple. I’ve demoed a building with machinery, not explosives. Several in fact, including the hospital I was born in. As in I ran the site and drove a bulldozer (my dad did after all own a construction company that kept me employed as a teen). If you don’t take out all the load bearing members fairly contemporaneously? Over, not down. It doesn’t fail uniformly downward. It topples. Sloughs down at best.
Children with blocks know this and that you would assert differently makes me think you must think I’m stupid to buy that line of bullshit. Seriously.
And it happened 3 times. Uh huh. 3. Once is an anomaly. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.
The causualty number was for illustrative purposes only. The actual number would have depended on which way the tower toppled. Don’t quibble over that because you can’t explain what I’ve pointed out.
Buddha said:
“The Elastic Question Pt. 1 – Begging the question. No issue there. That’s where the Gödel comment came from. [BTW – have you ever read ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ by Douglas Hoffstader? I think you would enjoy it.] I was hoping he’d catch that error on recalculation. [Not sure what error you mean here] ”
I pretty much think the next part hits the nail on the head, if you’ll forgive the pun.
Buddha said:
“However, convincing him it is relevant may be an issue and I’ll tell you why. It’s an assumption true enough, but you and I are used to a harder logic and Slarti is used to the Method. It’s a raw logic versus a process. They are related but different creatures as we both know. However, he’s likely to consider the fallacy a harmless one because of that damned word “reasonable”. It’s an assumption, not one that covers all the bases either, but from a SM perspective? It’s a reasonable assumption. In the normal course of events melting comes after energy is applied. Method treats time as linear as applied by 99% of all scientists because it’s usually appropriate to use linear time as that’s how we perceive time in general. Slarti has some issues with time. [Ed. Note: and I don’t know anyone who has said there is a problem with time here – except me from the very beginning.] Physicists sometimes snicker at that because they realize time behaves more like a fluid than an arrow but they also know linear time is a useful tool so a snicker is all that they give. Kind of a “that’s not exactly it, but close enough for government use” snicker. Kinda like how I treat most people’s abuse of Occam’s Razor.”
When thinking about time as a concept, I tend to go Einsteinian and think 4 dimensionally. The fluid paradigm is not exactly it, but close enough for government work. (Snicker) I wont let Robert go quantum and no relativity for the Buddha. Bob’s comments have been very educational on Occam’s Razor (and Kant).
Buddha said:
“Your view though, Bob, suffers from a lighter version of the same fallacy as Slarti – while it is a more through type of reductionist logical analysis to look pre and post impact for ALL explanations, it begs an assumption too and that is molten metal (an energy transfer) before impact and that thermite or some other element had something to do with it (based on a post impact observation – not contemporaneous or pre-impact chemical observations). Now while that would comport to the rest of your analysis as reduced from specific verified knowledge, it is still just an assumption as all our actual physical evidence comes post crash and from watching how the buildings fell. To PROVE your assumption, we’d need exactly that – proof metal was taking energy sufficient for heat of fusion before impact and a sufficient mechanism that cannot be rationally explained by another process. And I think thermite is now right out as a contender for the mechanism since there is now a possible explanation of the residue – residue that probably is complicating this analysis because it’s an energy carrying compound that MAY have added energy or not (but if it did I think it did so minimally and crudely – see below). This absence of proof however is not a proof of absence as related to explosives. You’ve assumed an explosive. You’ve erred in assuming a wrong kind of explosive but that error comes from Kant’s method. It was perfectly reasonable as a matter of reductionist logic that thermite could be the cause. We now have a viable alternative explanation of the residue though. You need to propose an alternative mechanism and we need something more than just the explosions themselves as visual evidence. We need more chemistry.”
Wow. I wish I could do that.
Buddha said:
“Every theory has an assumption. The problem is his assumption leads to an inaccurate in defining all the KE/PE – Slarti still has missing energy.”
Tell me what you think is missing. (Unless I address it below.)
Buddha said:
“Your fallacy on the other hand, isn’t a “true” ergo propter hoc fallacy. It is part of your Kantian method. You’re a reductionist and your assumptions come from your methods operation, not out of thin air like this one (one of the freedoms and problems of using the Method over raw logics – less formal constraints). Kant is geared to find basic principles through logical reduction. The Method is really about pattern recognition and verification through testing based on observations. Apples and oranges. Both tasty and delicious, but not always interchangable in the kitchen. Not all tool are created equal. Not all errors are created equal. I’ve said all along I have energy deficiency issues. I think Slarti is off on his nets and that your questions about the missing joules are dead on. But you must see you too are making an assumption – the assumption molten metal existed/started to fuse before the impact. True, it explains the heat of fusion issue better. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong or Kant is wrong in his method.
It just means Gödel was right. [We know he was right, he proved it ;-)]
Every theory has an assumption. Your assumption comes from reduction. Slarti’s come because he’s limiting himself with time in his starting point for analysis. But I think yours fits the facts better than Slarti’s at this point because of the still missing joules. (Holy crap! It’s turning into a Cary Grant movie!)”
Are you referring the the starting point of after the planes hit but before the collapse or the starting point of my process?
Buddha said:
“I also think thermite is right out as a demo material, especially since there is now a viable chemical mechanism that might explain the residue. However, while I do think the impact could have created a kind of primitive thermite? It couldn’t have done it uniformly or timely and we are back to distribution and symmetry again.
I don’t disagree explosives could have been used. And after watching the dissected tape? Those explosions were in a set sequence that sets my suspicion alarm to red. Honestly? I’ve heard explosions and I’ve heard failures. Those were explosions. BOOM! not KERACK! Compression failure makes an entirely different noise from a concussive blast. And at the bottom of this rabbit hole, that is what we are talking about: compression failure versus concussive failure. But what caused those explosions? It is a mystery. Whatever it was? It wasn’t thermite. Even visually the blasts you could see were too energetic to be thermite – they were fast hard concussions. I’ve seen thermite in action. It burns almost as slow as gunpowder. We know themalitic compounds were found but now we have a possible reason as to why with the chemistry being filled in. But is there evidence for some other HE? C-4? Centex? Even TNT should have left nitrates everywhere. Some Top Secret compound? I don’t know. But I do know concussion and heat damage things differently. Again absence of proof is not proof of absence. But those four big booms were not thermite. I’d bet a dollar on that. I also don’t think they were the Tooth Fairy either. But that’s just my opinion.”
I’m not saying anything about this because I don’t have anything to say as a scientist. I have my own opinions about these things, but they are just that.
Buddha said:
“Slarti went to the argument by analogy which I thought I addressed on the meteor question but I think the Chixalub details distracted him from my main point: energy at certain thresholds induces phase changes in materials and that his view of inelastic and elastic events was askew. Eh, my cretaceous geek got me and I wasn’t as clear as I could have been.”
I hate it when my cretaceous geek gets me. So you think that my viewing the impact as a single, inelastic collision is leading me to miss ‘escaping’ KE in the rubble during descent/impact? That’s a legitimate concern. Here is my explanation justifying my assumption:
What we know for sure is this: one moment there was falling rubble with a couple of billion GJ of kinetic energy and shortly after that there was a pile of rubble with no kinetic energy. Since we know this energy must still exist, it must have been either transferred elsewhere or transformed into a different kind of energy. I have identified several candidates for for destination energy in collisions: 1) Sonic energy. This is atmospheric shockwave emanating from the collapse. I assumed that the collapse was as loud as a rocket engine and lasted for a minute and accounted for the energy accordingly. My assumptions, as always, are open to debate. Tell me why you think it was louder than a Rocket engine or longer than one minute and I’ll change it. I have accounted for this energy in my calcuations. 2) Seismic energy. This is the shockwave emanating from the impact and propagating through the earth. There were seismic monitors that recorded the collapse. I assumed that the collapse registered a 2.1 on the Richter scale (I honestly don’t know where this number comes from and if anyone knows of a better seismic record, please let me know). 3)Thermal energy. The energy that went into heating the pile of rubble. I have put all energy that isn’t otherwise accounted for into this category. Before we get to the last category, let me say that I picked these forms of energy because they were all that I could think of. I will happily include any significant energy form which I have not considered if it is pointed out to me. 4) Miscellaneous. This includes redirected KE from elastic collisions, energy doing work to pulverize either the rubble or the ground, and energy doing work to deform either the rubble or the ground. (the sonic and seismic components of this I consider as accounted for above) Since the rubble pile is eventually at rest this kinetic energy has eventually been converted into other forms i.e. it’s being accounted for elsewhere in the calculation and should be ignored here. Energy doing work to pulverize the rubble remains in that pulverized rubble as thermal energy as does energy used to deform rubble. Energy deforming or pulverizing the ground remains as heat in the ground. Since the rubble pile ends up resting on the ground, the energy used to pulverize/deform the ground effectively ends up as thermal energy in the rubble pile. From this argument you can see that I believe that the energy used to collapse the building’s structure and pulverize the materials (but not energy ejected in the pyroclastic flow) end up in the rubble heap. Even though I believe this energy ends up as thermal energy in the rubble pile, I did not include there in my calculation. Additionally, this is energy that CAN be used to melt iron. How fast do you have to bend an steel beam into a horseshoe to make it melt? How fast can the collapse of a 110-story building bend a steel beam into a horseshoe? As I hope you can see, I may have been glib about this in the discussion, but I thought everything out carefully when I constructed my model. As I’ve said before, I’m limited by the language.
Buddha said:
“When I pointed out his error about inelastic explosions, I confess I missed his contention by implication about KE gained via free fall because what I was addressing was the plane impact. I should have been clearer and I should have read better both what you and he said in those posts (it’s been one of those weeks, my game is more than a bit off). If I had, I’d have asked Slarti how much does he think he weighs at sea level. The planes were an inelastic explosion. Not enough KE to cause the right kind of phase change and get rebound. The collapse of the towers was elastic however. The rebound threw shit all over the Island. Whatever actually caused the collapse imparted sufficient energy to induce phase changes. Was that energy sufficient to create long lasting pools of molten metal all derived from gravity? Alas, that is the question. Also another arrow pointing toward those missing joules. Yeah, I was being oblique about phase changes but Slarti sh/could have picked that up.”
Sorry Buddha, I’m trying to do a lot here. It’s late and I want to get this posted, so ask about it again if you want me to comment…
I second the Gleick recommendation. It’s well written and easy to read (I read it in high school before I knew all about the math).
Buddha,
Caddyshack. Good excuse.
Fair warning guys, big post coming through!
Byron,
You’re right. The whole point of control theory is to engineer chaos out of the system.
homophonebic – fear of homonyms
Buddha said:
“I’m referring to a CD style downward collapse that left a minimal damage footprint area wise to the more likely toppling that would have been a truly epic scale disaster wiping out blocks of skyscrapers. That was the most likely outcome of an asymmetric event like the impacts, an asymmetric result.”
You make an assumption here that I think is unwarranted. I think that toppling is an extremely unlikely event. There is no evidence to indicate that toppling is a favored mode of collapse.
Buddha said:
“Down, straight down, is order after an asymmetrical strike. It’s an unlikely optimization to happen as an anomaly (although I don’t discount that chance – I do follow Finnagle’s Law (Larry Niven) “The perversity of the universe tends toward the maximum.”)
That is the order I am plagued by.
That 3,000 people died bothers me.
But what really bothers me more is that 10,000 people didn’t die from this event.
It’s the more likely outcome.
Order from chaos.”
As far as the casualties, I would have to estimate what kind of casualties would be expected before I would take a firm stance on them being higher or lower than expected, but I suspect that they were lower than expected but not suspiciously so. I think that the evidence of the three tallest structures ever to collapse, in addition to everything we know about gravitational collapse from controlled demolition suggests that ‘straight down’ is the preferred mode of collapse for such structures. That probably accounts for the different shapes of our probability hats. (Did you see I got the orc blood out?)
Byron,
Seriously, check out James Gleick’s book “Chaos”. It’s a wonderful primer. As an engineer, it will make your head hurt I promise. But hey! It’s the holidays and what’s a little intentional infliction of scientific pain between friends. 😀 Give you an excuse for that extra glass of egg nog with the alka-seltzer chaser. 😉
Here’s his website/blog.
http://www.around.com/
Slarti,
I knew it was Smale. I plead being tired and having seen Caddyshack once too often and having a proclivity for abusing homophones – even close ones.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrpx4NAtsFQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Buddha:
I am an engineer, we like order and completeness. F . . . chaos, it isn’t good for business.
I don’t understand chaos theory anyway. The universe is pretty orderly, otherwise we couldn’t figure it out. I know, I know quantum mechanics, just a hiccup of randomness/chaos in an otherwise rational universe.
We will figure it out one day.
IE is evil. So is Chrome. And Safari just sucks.
Use Firefox. Use it with ADBlock Plus, Flashblock and NoScript extensions. I also suggest TOR and FoxyProxy. You have to train NoScript and FlashBlock, but after you do?
The internet is much better without all the advertising vomited on you.
Byron,
Complexity/Chaos applies to all systems just like the Incompleteness Theorems do. It’s built into the universe as much as the basic forces.