First, Einstein was right. Then he was wrong. Then he was right due to a loose wire. Now he may have been wrong due to an oscillator. Many of us would just throw up our hands and say everything is relative with Einstein, but scientists at OPERA say that a second equipment problem may have led to a too conservative reading of the 730-kilometer journey of the neutrinos reported by the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN.
The oscillator is used to provide time stamps to synchronize the GPS systems which measure the travel time. The scientists believe that the oscillator problem may have canceled out the cable problem . . . and that the little neutrinos did move faster than the speed of light — beyond the cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second). That would contradict Einstein’s theory. So I guess we have to treat Einstein like a big dummy again . . . absent another loose cable or spilled coffee cup.
I am just waiting for a finding that neutrinos are sentient with a wicked sense of humor . . . and hovering around 299,791 kilometers per second just to mess with us.
Source: CBC
Bron, Think about this. The only solution ever proffered is to stop burning fossil fuels. This in turn would stop the amount of CO2 man emits into the atmosphere. Remember nature contributes as well and is not a constant. More animals born more CO2, more animals die less CO2. There have been many many animal deaths the last three years but this was do to cold temperatures. The current human death count is near 700 people for Europe this year.
Of course this is because warm creates cold and the heat went missing 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Scientist now believe, Global Warming Played ‘Critical Role’ In Snowpocalypse Winters
By Brad Johnson on Feb 28, 2012 at 11:17 am
We conclude that the recent decline of Arctic sea ice has played a critical role in recent cold and snowy winters.
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/28/433766/scientists-global-warming-played-critical-role-in-snowpocalypse-winters/?mobile=nc
however according to the habits of the bark beetle we can determine that winters are growing warmer and drier.
Halter’s short but disturbing new book, “The Insatiable Bark Beetle,” addresses one of the biggest and most visible issues facing global forests, and particularly the relatively large forests left in the U.S. and Canada. As winters grow warmer and summers drier, the West’s evergreen forests are being eaten alive. And the infestation is not showing any signs of slowing.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-global-warming-and-unstoppable-bark-beetles-20120226,0,1422452.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fscience%2Fenvironment+%28L.A.+Times+-+Environment%29
pete, it could not have been caused by global warming because Bron and Bdaman says there is no such thing. Maybe it was, as you suggest, a solar flare–or surplus hot air from the deniers.
Bron the only solution proffered is to stop burning fossil fuels which the whole world must do in order to control the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere. Scientist believe the exact amount that we will be safe from everything bad that CO2 will do to earth is around 350 ppm, the so called safe zone. You can read all about it at 350.0rg or read James Hansens 1988 congressional testimony.
So for such a complex system in which the increase of atmospheric CO2 will lead to more stronger and numerous everything which in turn causes the death and destruction of everything the answer is simple. The only thing we have to do to make us safe is stop burning fossil fuel and everybody will be o.k. There will be world peace.
you haven’t proved the fire was caused by montoya. it may have been caused by a solar flare.
Right after I read Bron’s statement, I watched the video of Juan Pablo Montoya’s #42 car crashing into the jet blow dryer at Daytona last night while the track was under caution. Under Bron’s rubric, the firemen and crowd should not have been so hysterical and taken their own sweet time putting out the fire.
Well said Gene. The only hysteria is coming from the deniers who won’t even admit the problems when they see artic ice melting away.
Gene,
If I may add one more to your list:
The hysteria surrounding the concern over economic recovery is reason enough not to prosecute torturers.
Tonight’s lesson in rhetoric is how to properly deploy the device of reductio ad absurdum: a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence
Original Statement:
“‘. . . as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.’
Plato
The hysteria surrounding GW is reason enough not to do anything.”
Reducito ad Absurdum deconstruction (x6):
1) The hysteria surrounding AIDS is reason enough not to do anything.
2) The hysteria surrounding rogue nuclear states is reason enough not to do anything.
3) The hysteria surrounding not having enough clean water is reason enough not to do anything.
4 ) The hysteria surrounding Wall Street criminals going unpunished is reason enough not to do anything.
5) The hysteria about the corporatist driven destruction of democracy and erosion of civil rights is reason enough not to do anything.
6) Change is the only constant so that is reason enough not to do anything about anything.
Here ends the lesson on how to deploy reductio ad absurdum.
The reason this is so easily demonstrated on the original statement lies in both a flawed understanding of Plato’s words and an application of facile logic. Plato’s admonishment wasn’t a statement about the futility of action in the face of change. It was a statement about the value of keeping an open mind in the face of change because change is inevitable. The root of the fallacy this facile logic creates a false dichotomy: change is inevitable and all actions to adjust for it are futile or change isn’t inevitable and all actions to adjust for it aren’t futile. This leaves out the excluded middle: change is inevitable and some actions to adjust for it are futile and some actions to adjust for it are not futile. In addition to applying facile logic covering a false dichotomy (a common affliction among binary thinkers), the original statement makes an appeal to emotion and a false equivalence by using the term “hysteria” as if it were interchangeable with the term “concern”.
It’s not enough to read Plato, Bron, or anyone else. You have to understand what you read and be able to properly apply it. You again demonstrate the fundamental flaws of binary thinking and why half-knowledge is as dangerous as no knowledge: it lends a veneer of respectability (in this case by appealing to authority) but hides serious logical deficiencies.
“. . .as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.”
Plato
Science has a way of doing that and how many programs has government gotten involved with and spent billions or trillions of dollars on, only to abandon when the facts showed otherwise.
The hysteria surrounding GW is reason enough not to do anything.
Amen Elaine and OS.
Bron,
Stop using fossil fuels!
Elaine, I would change that slightly:
You can lead a fool to information, but you cannot make him think.
Eric Hoffer said it even more eloquently:
Tony C:
those are limited observations. As far as ice cores go, how many times have the poles melted and refrozen in the last 100 million years?
By the way lets assume I agree that man is the main contributor to climate change. How do we solve the problem ?
Gene & Tony,
You can lead a horse to water–but you can’t make him drink.
@Gene: True, including multiple ice cores, seabed cores, amber-trapped gasses, even pore count and sizes of fossilized leaves. Just off the top of my head, there may be many more.
Bron,
I stipulated that it is proxy data rather than direct observation so I didn’t spread misinformation.
You did, however, when you said “We have a limited view of climate change over the last few billion years, all we can do is take some data and come to a conclusion on a limited number of data points.”
Paleoclimatology’s conclusions are actually based on a very large number of data points.
@Bron: No, everything is not up for grabs. I am also certain of many things in science. I do not doubt plate tectonics, I do not doubt the ribosomal translation of genetic bases into amino acids, I do not doubt the existence of natural quasicrystals. I do not doubt the conceptual underpinnings of evolution as the driving force in biological variation.
I do not doubt global warming is producing climate change and humans are responsible. I am serious, some things in science are still up for grabs because there remain unanswered questions. Newtonian gravity is one of them; the predictions on velocity of stars within a galaxy are flat wrong and the only way to “save” classical gravity is by proposing dark matter that nobody on EARTH can prove actually exists. Thus, Newtonian gravity is suspect, and several mainstream physicists have worked on alternatives that would fit ALL of the data.
Inflation theory is so full of holes it is laughable, it relies on a particle (the Inflaton) that nobody can identify in any model of particles, and had to exist for only the first trillionth billionth of a second of the Big Bang and then disappear forever; the theory might as well rely on elves riding unicorns.
I believe things when evidence is presented that cannot be denied; not because somebody told me it is true. I believe in climate change and human causation because it is by far the best explanation of the data.
I do not know WHY you deny it, but I suspect your denial cannot possibly be evidence based, I suspect it is irrational emotionality.
Tony C:
so everything but climate change caused by humans is up for grabs?
Are you really serious or are you just having fun?
Gene H:
“False.”
Why do you always spread misinformation? We only have a sporadic view of the earth’s climate in the past. And our assumption is that trees grew the same 200 million years ago as they do today, what atmospheric considerations were there then that we have no way of knowing how they effected tree growth rates. Maybe higher or lower oxygen content or increased cloud cover, or more solar radiation. And the same can be said for the oceans, PH levels, oxygen content, etc.
Scientists are making all kinds of assumptions they can only speculate about.
@Bron: I did not say we do not know the cause, I think we do. I said we do not need an iron-clad result on causes and mechanisms to conclude that climate change is real and humans are the cause.
Physicists, biologists, geologists, astronomers and more have been investigatng to find causes of phenomenae for thousands of years and they have. What Newton and Maxwell did was science even if they did not invent quantum theory, what Darwin did was science even if he did not discover the double helix of DNA.
Discovering ultimate causes is not a necessity for scientific certainty. Newton did not have to know the quantum nature of photons to observe that a prism split sunlight into colors but a second prism would not split an individual color any further into more colors. He could be certain of that component theory of white light, and so can a third grader by repetition, without having to know precisely why that is true.
The same is true for climate change, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the hypothesis that it exists and humans are causing it. I do not believe that on faith, I believe that because I agree. That is not true for all topics: I do not believe in the Inflation Hypothesis, I think String Theory is a disaster. I will even entertain the idea that the current theory of gravity is an approximation open to refinement. I am skeptical of myriad claims in science, but climate change and its human cause isn’t one of them.
Observed changes in top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and upper-ocean heating consistent within uncertainty
“We find that the difference between the heat balance at the top of the atmosphere and upper-ocean heat content change is not statistically significant when accounting for observational uncertainties in ocean measurements,” the study states. In other words, rather than finding the missing heat, the new paper basically says there was no missing heat in the first place.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1375.html