The Sky is Falling

[oldgrowth]

I did that search and found links that led through either a Rush Limbaugh initiated story or a Steven Milloy (of Fox News) story to comments taken out of context from Dr. Osheroff..

Roger - I did a Google web search using osheroff “steven mallory” in the search string and did not come up with a single hit. Google is not able to find the story you referred to, can you point me to it. I always thought he was an OK reporter, but if he is doing what you are saying, I would like to know it. I did read a story that he did in 2003 shortly after the Columbia disaster, but he never quoted Dr Osheroff or even mentioned his name.

You say I am somewhat vague or marginally document what I say, HERE is the link to the only story I found so you know what I am referring to. By the way this story was contributed to by the Associated Press. Could you tell me what your quote about Steven Mallory, Fox News and Dr Oshreff being taken out of context was meant to imply?
or was it just another one of your brain farts :wink
________
Dave

 

[Hunkydory]

Roger and Ryder

Just because I haven't reached the same conclusion as you doesn't mean I haven't used the obvious common sense method in seeking scientific information to make an informed decision. In indicating I should do this you were suggesting it wasn't the way I have been. This is a typical response made by people who disagree. I have read expert scientific opinion and yes I believe its still opinion not scientific fact This does include the experts on both sides. Where as a lot of even scientific fact seems to have been built on shifting sand. Which is the reason I added this in a previous post. " When anyone states that Global warming is an absolute fact (truth) they have abandoned the principles of the scientific method and "The Theory" has became a religion instead of an hypothesis". I didn't dream that up it came out of a discussion I was having with my oldest living Son involving religion and science and He gave me a good lecture on the scientific method. For some of us the jury is still out and its not due to method of seeking information, political or other mentioned reasons including heads in the sand or being drawn to the koolaid crowd. By the way when I was a much younger man living in Mendocino County, Calif. I worked with and supervised many including Bob Kice and Larry Layton that were later involved in some of the more nasty stuff during and before the demise of the 900 plus people. Had several over to my home and spent many long hours trying to talk them out of going to what they thought was the promised land or there heaven here on earth. It was to no avail and hell prevailed instead. So yes I do also know the koolaid mentality better than most.

Historic and scientific data is available for the period of time the Vikings colonized Greenland and Iceland, as a matter of fact the only reason they were able to colonize them was the rapid raise in temperature at this time. The Inuits from present Northern Canada reached there also at approximately the same time. The Glaciers rapidly receded and opened up the fjords. This was followed up by a rapid decline in temperatures that ended up completely killings off the colonizers in Greenland. Very few fossil fuels in the link other than what nature was burning during this period. By the way this was before the more well known period called the little ice age in Europe caused by another decline then rise in temperatures not caused by man.

Most of my life has been spent on the minority side of opinion, but this is a new experience. Using writing to discuss this subject when I haven't written anything before joining the c-brats in close to 34 years has been quite a challenge and the main reason I have made the effort.

Jay

 

[dotnmarty]

I hate to add fuel to the fire, so to speak, but California is burning while we are 'fiddling'. Maybe we should listen to some of the experts. As my mom, who didn't finish high school, used to say, "It can't hurt".
Respectfully,

 

[C-Otter]

The people of Calif. have put themselves in harms way by building where they build. It's like building next to an airport and than complaining about the noise.

You don't have to be an expert to figure that out. C-Otter

 

[marvin4239]

This entire decusion has been very enlighteneing from a laymans point of view. We decided that government regualtions on freon probably didn't cause the space shuttle disaster and the banning of it might just be benificial. (see banding of asbestis.) If anything the bannig created research into a more user friendly substitue. I don't know much about the cause of the California fires but it sounds as if it may be caused by natural occurances that might just be prevented or controlled by man's envolvement? On the other had man has built homes in areas that are prone to these type of fires aiding to the problem. Then there's the issue of Red Tide. Those on the west coast describe entirely different symptoms than what we are experiencing on the east coast. I'm sure if you tried hard enough you could find a way to blame man on this phenomina or man's actions. I myself subscribe to the idea that Red Tide has become a generic term. Perhaps it's just a natural phenomia but around here the Commercial Scallop Fishermen blame it on all the cruise ships dumping their waste. Myself I don't know what casues it but I can't accept the fact we are attempting to altering the natural flow of the ocean and at the same time dumping our dredged spoil on our beaches. Is Al Gore a "the Sky is Falling" promoter or is he using his name recognition to bring out a problem that some of the scientific community seem to agree is a major concern. I once was given a job to rewire some cylos that were used to store silica. This was at a Budweiser Plant and silica is used in beer to keep down the foaming. When I balked on going into the tanks the Budweiser safety department assured me it was perfectly safe! That evening I researched the term silicosis. Silica as I understand it is just as dangerous as asbestosis. How long will it be before some "the Sky is Falling" type exposes the dangers of this natural substance? Got to go got and appointment with my pulmonary doctor!

 

[rogerbum]

I did that search and found links that led through either a Rush Limbaugh initiated story or a Steven Milloy (of Fox News) story to comments taken out of context from Dr. Osheroff..

Roger - I did a Google web search using osheroff “steven mallory” in the search string and did not come up with a single hit. Google is not able to find the story you referred to, can you point me to it. I always thought he was an OK reporter, but if he is doing what you are saying, I would like to know it. I did read a story that he did in 2003 shortly after the Columbia disaster, but he never quoted Dr Osheroff or even mentioned his name.

You say I am somewhat vague or marginally document what I say, HERE is the link to the only story I found so you know what I am referring to. By the way this story was contributed to by the Associated Press. Could you tell me what your quote about Steven Mallory, Fox News and Dr Oshreff being taken out of context was meant to imply?
or was it just another one of your brain farts :wink
________
Dave

Dave,

Here's my best attempt to reconstruct what I did when I started following your suggestions to learn about the alleged connection between freon and the Columbia shuttle disaster. I admit that I did not keep detailed notes of my web clicks so I cannot say with certainty that this is exactly the path I took - but it's close.

When I did the search you originally suggested - columbia shuttle disaster freon - (using Google) the first link I got was to a Wikipedia article on the topic which pointed out that the piece of foam that hit the wing was the older composition foam.
The second link I got was was to a Fox News article entitled "Did PC Science Cause Shuttle Disaster?" written by Steve Milloy. I thought - oh at least this explains how the story got legs - a lot of people listen to Fox.
Tbe 3rd link I got was entitled "Whacko Environmentalism and the Link to Columbia Shuttle Disaster" and was posted on the site nodnc.com.

The 4th link was to a left wing site and was entitled "Limbaugh promoted false theory that EPA regulations banning Freon caused space shuttle Columbia disaster". The audio clip to Limbaugh was missing there so I went to his site and did a search on "freon" which turned up a recent transcript of his A 'global warming update' dated Sept. 27th 2007 in which he still promotes the idea that freon and the Columbia disaster are still somehow connected. So, now I really can understand how this story stays around. We have both Rush Limbaugh AND Fox news reporters repeating this stuff and the have a powerful voice and a large audience. (As and aside, Rush was quite selective in his "reporting" on the Nature article relating to the chemical reaction rate that was discussed above - e.g. he didn't point out the quotes that I did from the scientists involved which said "Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. “Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. ".

So I tried to determine where this thread of information - e.g. the claimed connection between the use of freon and the Columbia disaster came from. About the 9th link from the above search was an article by John Berlau from 2003 entitled "Shuttle Tragedy Debate Continues" which is one of the earliest articles I could find that makes the claim of a connection between freon free foam and the Columbia disaster and which cited some statements from Osheroff out of context. John Berlau is currently the director of The Competitive Enterprise Institute -"a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government." By the time that I got to this link (and had clicked on a lot of related links that took me to other right leaning sources of information), I decided to contact the first expert who was cited that I could easily get in touch with - Dr. Osheroff.

So - I cannot find an example where Rush Limbaugh OR Steve Milloy took the comments of Dr. Osheroff out of context and you are correct that I misstated that. However, the search you suggested does lead first to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh (if you exclude Wikipedia which is often the first link for anything anymore). The way that Google prioritizes search results is roughly by the number of links from other web sites that also contain the search terms. Hence the fact that the Wikipedia article, the Fox News article and the Rush Limbaugh stuff turned up high in the list is an indication that these sites have been linked to in many other sites and hence the wildfire of information spread can be traced predominately to these sites.

And therein lies the problem with "research" done predominately on the web. The frequency of occurrence of a given statement is more related to the influence of the people who make it and repeat it than it is to the underlying data or "truth" of the statement. This makes is very difficult for any normal person to sort the fact from the fiction and in particular it makes it very difficult for the non-scientist to determine what is really the consensus opinion of the experts or the "best" current understanding of a given topic. It can appear that there are equal numbers of "experts" on both sides of an argument when you judge by volume (either of volume of links or audio volume in the case of Rush Limbaugh).

About 6 months ago in this thread I commented on the value of "conventional wisdom" in science and how I try to evaluate scientific arguments when I'm not an expert. I pointed out that "in my world EVERYTHING is a theory" there are just some theories that I have greater confidence in than others. This is very consistent with what Jay says and I agree with his comments about the principals of the scientific method - he's absolutely correct there (in my opinion and regardless of whether he has formal training in science or not). The main concern I have with many strongly stated opinions on scientific matters (some stated with apparent certainty) is that even when people " have read expert scientific opinion" that does "include the experts on both sides", if the opinions are only obtained from the media and the net it's hard to get a good feel for
1) Who the "real" or "best' experts are and
2) How many are on each side of a given argument.

I'll try to see if I can't come up with some objective advice to provide on how to do separate the "wheat from the chaff" but this is a tough problem. I think it contributes to creating a lot of controversy about science in public discussion even when there is little controversy amongst the vast majority of scientists in a given field. I wish I could help solve this problem.

 

[dotnmarty]

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," [Yossarian] observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed."

 

[lloyds]

I have been reading this line with a lot of interest, and I actually voted. No, I did not vote because of what I know. I voted like most, by what I feel, formed by reading, listening, and observing. Although I voted "hysteria", that was not meant to mean that it isn't at least partially correct, we are doing some harm to the environment. I have no doubt of that. But the warming? Warming and cooling have been going on throughout the ages. This earth has endured countless calamities on a scale much greater than anything we can imagine, and it has managed to endure and cleanse it self and survive the changes those calamities have wrought. I believe it will continue to do so. As a society I know we can do better, we can treat our environment, and our neighbors, better. We try to do better. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In my own life I watch the Willamette River. My ancestors grew up along that river, probably contributed to the pollution of it, and also did what they could in the near past to cleanse it. I recorded my journeys and activities on that river in the Salem area in journals for several years as I was striving to become a better bass fisherman. One year I logged at least some of each of 210 days on that river. The river is now cleaner but as we speak the decision to quit dredging is destroying it. The gravel bars are building up because dredging permits are no longer easily obtained, the sloughs and backwaters are silting in, the water temperature is rising. I saw temperatures one day last year in a backwater I used to fish, at over 90 degrees. The only thing alive in there now is carp, and they are obviously not healthy. The weeds and mud are choking it. I don't have the credentials of Roger, or the intellect and skills of Dave, but I do know and love the earth I live on and will continue to try to do right by it in my own way. I truly hope this topic does not result in hard feelings on the part of some. We all love the water and we all love our boats. When this thread first started I thought oh my god, hard feelings are coming. I truly hope we can all keep this in perspective.

 

[dotnmarty]

There's an eight hundred pound gorilla in this room, so I'm leavin'.

 

[Bill.Secure]

Roger,

Unless I am mistaken, one of the contributing factors to this problem is that scientific journals seem to be either unavailable or minimally available online. Many (perhaps all?) are available with a fee, but unless things have changed, the fees were substantial. Additionally, although I'm less sure of this statement, I don't think search engines like Google have access to them. As you pointed out, if they were searchable, they would probably show up late in the Google listing as links to other material would probably be minimal. Even if they were readily accessible, they are often difficult for anyone without expertise in a given field to understand. I say this as an ex-physical chemist (Masters at Duke but ended up in IT and computer security).

Another but I think related problem I've experienced with some pain, is the different thought process used by those of us with scientific training. On my job at a quasi-government agency, I would, without even realizing it practice the basic steps of the ol' scientific method i.e. collect data, generate hypotheses, etc. . This caused considerable consternation for my non-scientifically trained colleagues. If one of them had even modest familiarity with an IBM or Microsoft or particular in-house solution to a problem, they would push vigorously, even emotionally for that solution. There was a very large propensity for these individuals to encounter someone who claimed familiarity with a particular problem space but in fact was just pushing their view point or product (and possibly not even knowing they were doing that).

I, on the other hand, might still be seeing if we had all the data, listed all possible solutions, discarded the absurd ones but looked more closely at the remainder, etc., etc.. The amount of on-the-job friction this generated was immense. I tended to come out on top on sixty to seventy precent of the issues in the cases where computer security was involved only because I felt the issues were so critical and realized that if I tilted at the windmills long enough, I'd eventually nick a blade. Over the years I developed techniques for ameliorating some of the interpersonal friction but that's a different topic.

As political and budgetary issues increasingly require astute and accurate evaluation of scientific research and engineering proposals, the two problems I've cited make doing so increasingly difficult. As a result it becomes easy for political agendas or profit motivation to cause information to be masked, altered, misinterpreted or not reported. An example is the censorship of the recent CDC report on the impact of rising temperatures.

I wish I knew a solution as well as I think I understand the problem.

Bill
Edgewater, MD

 

[rogerbum]

Roger,

Unless I am mistaken, one of the contributing factors to this problem is that scientific journals seem to be either unavailable or minimally available online. Many (perhaps all?) are available with a fee, but unless things have changed, the fees were substantial. Additionally, although I'm less sure of this statement, I don't think search engines like Google have access to them.

Bill,

Nearly all scientific journals are available online but most still require a subscription. However, this is changing as many scientists have been pushing an open access publishing model and many journals are moving in this direction. The web makes publishing cheaper but not free as there is still significant expense in managing the editorial process (finding reviewers etc). So, many of the larger, well established journals have not yet gone completely free as they haven't figured out a way to replace the revenue needed to publish. What is starting to happen though is that some journals are releasing articles for free viewing after a 6-month to 1 year embargo period. In some cases this is being driven by governmental policy changes (which in turn were driven by persistent scientists who wanted more open access to papers). The logic is fairly straightforward - the research was usually paid for by public funds, the results should be freely available. Unfortunately, the traditional models of publishing AND the funding from NIH, NSF, etc was not created to support an open (free) access model. None-the-less, this is clearly the direction that science is moving and I serve on the editorial boards of 3 open access journals and one that is not free. We're working to get the latter to publish freely available articles but haven't yet come up with a good way to fund that. Advertising is the obvious method but of course there are concerns about perceived or actual biases depending on who advertises in the journal.

Regardless, Google does have access to many scientific journals through paid subscriptions and a lot of science is indexed (see Google Scholar). Still if you do a typical google search, you will find the top hits are to sites which are linked to most frequently by others and these will typically not be the primary sources of data but rather the most well known or influential sources of information. Many of the primary sources of information are in fact searchable. For example, for biomedical research, the NIH run database PubMed provides a free, publicly available search engine for nearly all the published biomedical research - this will allow one to find primary sources of information based on the published abstract of an article but the article itself is often not free (but as I said above, this is changing).

I think that one issue is that science articles are by their very nature, fairly technical, detailed and often boring to anyone other than someone closely involved in research related to the article. Hence, they won't get a lot of press and won't be linked very highly in generic search engines.

As you pointed out, if they were searchable, they would probably show up late in the Google listing as links to other material would probably be minimal. Even if they were readily accessible, they are often difficult for anyone without expertise in a given field to understand. I say this as an ex-physical chemist (Masters at Duke but ended up in IT and computer security).

Another but I think related problem I've experienced with some pain, is the different thought process used by those of us with scientific training. On my job at a quasi-government agency, I would, without even realizing it practice the basic steps of the ol' scientific method i.e. collect data, generate hypotheses, etc. . This caused considerable consternation for my non-scientifically trained colleagues. If one of them had even modest familiarity with an IBM or Microsoft or particular in-house solution to a problem, they would push vigorously, even emotionally for that solution. There was a very large propensity for these individuals to encounter someone who claimed familiarity with a particular problem space but in fact was just pushing their view point or product (and possibly not even knowing they were doing that).

I, on the other hand, might still be seeing if we had all the data, listed all possible solutions, discarded the absurd ones but looked more closely at the remainder, etc., etc.. The amount of on-the-job friction this generated was immense. I tended to come out on top on sixty to seventy precent of the issues in the cases where computer security was involved only because I felt the issues were so critical and realized that if I tilted at the windmills long enough, I'd eventually nick a blade. Over the years I developed techniques for ameliorating some of the interpersonal friction but that's a different topic.

As political and budgetary issues increasingly require astute and accurate evaluation of scientific research and engineering proposals, the two problems I've cited make doing so increasingly difficult. As a result it becomes easy for political agendas or profit motivation to cause information to be masked, altered, misinterpreted or not reported. An example is the censorship of the recent CDC report on the impact of rising temperatures.

I wish I knew a solution as well as I think I understand the problem.

Bill
Edgewater, MD

 

[thataway]

Roger makes an extremely valid point. As I have followed "Google" as a search engine it had changed with time and the profit model--the main pages are often flooded by both paid articles and "news"--pseudo science etc. "Google Scholar" on the other hand gives valid scientific articles. Certainly in medicine, most of the good journals are available on line. One of the reasons I threw away literally hundreds of doctor magazines, with "articles" in them which arrived in my office monthly, is that they were filled with advertising. The medical (and many other good scientific) journals for the most part, do not have biased advertising.

Bill also makes a very valid point--that is that many people are not trained as scientists and thus do not ask the questions which need to always be asked before "jumping" to conclusions. They will read the Wikipedia, and think that they have a "scientific" opinion.

 

[oldgrowth]

Roger - I would like to copy the text of this article and paste it here, but said I would not past complete articles here anymore, so I have to ask you to read it. It is not a technical article but a well thought and written article by Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. It deals with the different scenarios to the cost of Global Warming. I have heard these arguments before but not by Professor Lomborg.
________
Dave

 

[B~C]

I like copenhagen, I grew up eating that stuff but it's gotten so durn expensive though.

 

[oldgrowth]

Roger – I just want to point out one thing for you about Rush Limbaugh. You said in an earlier post . . .
(As and aside, Rush was quite selective in his "reporting" on the Nature article relating to the chemical reaction rate that was discussed above - e.g. he didn't point out the quotes that I did from the scientists involved which said "Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. “Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss.")

I try to read all the links you add to your post but sometimes it takes a while. Here is the paragraph I assume you are referring to about Rush Limbaugh.

The atmospheric chemists had even convinced a number of unbiased climate scientists that we understood stratospheric ozone completion. It now turns out -- and this is a story from the journal Nature.com. It turns out that a key chemical reaction that was part of the theory that manmade chemicals are causing destruction of stratospheric ozone has been found to be almost ten times weaker than assumed. As a result, at least 60% of the stratospheric ozone loss in recent decades can no longer be explained. However, the last paragraph of this story illustrates quite plainly that these scientists are nevertheless circling the wagons around the Freon ban saying they still think that manmade chemicals are to blame in some way even if they don't understand the mechanism. So the faith of the disciples of Freon destroying the ozone remains unshaken, despite the fact that we can no longer explain 60% of the ozone depletion in the stratosphere.

To me it is obvious he did say what the scientist claimed in the last paragraph of the Nature article. I can understand how you could have missed it. A long transcript and there is a lot of reading to keep up on this. You probably were skimming the transcript for the shuttle/Freon issue and missed it. Just wanted to clear it up for people.
________
Dave

 

[rogerbum]

If you think "circling the wagons" accurately reflects what the scientist said, I can't help you.

 

[Hunkydory]

Ken---finally a one liner I get :lol:

Dave---Some who think they have your number may be in for a surprise if they read the article you asked Roger to read.

Jay

 

[rogerbum]

Jay, the only real surprise is that we finally got an article that is fairly sensible.

Dave - good article. I think that guy has many valid points to make. I would argue that the magnitude of the changes caused by global warning are not well estimated and that he has taken some of the lower estimates but in general, he's correct in stating that there are many things that could be done more sensibly - including how we discuss this issue. I found his approach to this FAR more useful than that of Rush Limbaugh or Fox (faux) News. I also note that even he does not dispute "that climate change is real and that we've helped cause it. There is no hoax." He also goes on to say "But neither is there a looming apocalypse." and I agree with this too - at least in the short term. As I stated before, the direction and magnitude of feedback in most models makes it difficult to determine where things are actually going to wind up.

Another factor that is difficult to determine is how humans will respond to change in the long run. It's very clear that Asia and India are rapidly growing in population AND are also becoming larger energy users on an individual basis. Exactly what will happen with their energy usage in the next 30 years isn't clear under any model and there is a big human factor here. I would still argue that reducing carbon emissions (especially through conservation) is a very wise approach to not only potential problems from global warming but also air pollution and our dependency on foreign oil.

 

[oldgrowth]

Roger - how about this one from The Wall Street Journal. It is shorter and easy to read. The problem is, articles of the type that I linked to in this post and my previous post, get very little press coverage, while Al Gore gets a lot. That is part of our frustration. I can point you toward article after article after article that are similarly well reasoned, arguing the opposite side of Al Gores an inconvenient truth and the global warming issue.

By the way Professor Lomborg will not argue about the amount of global warming the more reasonable scientist say we will get. While he may disagree with them, he will stipulate their figures are right, just to get off that issue and get them to talk about what we can do to fix it, without bankrupting this and other countries. One other point I should bring up. I first heard the Professor on the Rush Limbaugh’s radio program some time ago and his (Rush’s) web site has links to Professor Lomborg’s articles.

I do try to get as many points of view as I can so I can make an intelligent decision.

________
Dave

 

[oldgrowth]

Ken---finally a one liner I get :lol:

Dave---Some who think they have your number may be in for a surprise if they read the article you asked Roger to read.

Jay

Jay - the problem is most of the people (out there and in here) will not read it. That is not meant to be a disparaging comment about them, it is just a fact. They have more important things to do. I do believe Roger will read them and maybe give the other side of this issue a little thought. He is an very intelligent person, but don’t tell him I said that. I don’t want it to go to his head.

________
Dave