Thursday, May 01, 2008
Cooling currents
The major commentators have done an excellent job on this, so no need to rehash the details.
Polistra has been tracking the gradual backing-away from Total Gaia in the world of science. First the 11-year cycle of sunspots is taken into account (which it should have been from the start, because it's been known forever) ... then the fact that heat evaporates CO2 from the oceans was taken into account (ditto) ... and now the effects of ocean current oscillations are taken into account. These drivers are sufficient to account for all real change, but the establishment continues to treat them as minor exceptions or counter-trends against the "real" (i.e. nonexistent) greenhouse effect.
The recent backing away, seen by itself without the accompanying context of religious and political certainty, would be part of normal science. Good science.
A parallel but non-political example: For many years speech scientists believed that the larynx produced voice vibrations by direct muscular action. In other words, when you sing a middle C, the muscles in your vocal folds are contracting and relaxing 256 times per second. When you sing a high note, the muscles might be contracting and relaxing 3000 times per second. This theory never made sense, because no other muscle in a mammal can vibrate much beyond 10 times per second. So the fastest muscle couldn't approach even the lowest voice pitch. As better thinkers came along, and better instrumentation could read the relevant nerve impulses and view the rapid flapping of the folds, a better theory gradually took hold: the muscles only set the shape of the folds, and the vibration results from air-pressure valving, just like the reed of a clarinet. This theory continues to agree with newer measurements, and continues to yield good therapy methods, so it stays in the books.
That's how science normally moves. One theory is proposed; many people test it with gradually better methods and instruments; if the theory holds up, it becomes more solid. If it doesn't hold up, new theories are proposed and tested.
If we could skip the religious and political crap, we'd see the same thing happening now with climate. The Greenhouse theory never made a lick of goddamn sense, so it would quickly end up as a dim heirloom in the minds of a few elderly scientists while better methods and measurements developed better theories, or better mixes of theory and speculation.
Unfortunately and lethally, WE ARE NOT PERMITTED TO SKIP THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CRAP. Anyone who tries to do that will be ostracized or fired, and the advocates of the nonsensical theories own all the levers of power and money.
Polistra is infuriated by the backhanded arrogance of the establishment: they gin up a 20-year-long campaign of vicious and deliberate fraud, then after the fraud has succeeded in turning all political, cultural and religious authorities into craven little slavies, working at 1000% intensity for a galaxy-scale scam, the science-ists casually walk away, whistling a merry tune, resuming normal operations while civilization commits suicide on their behalf. At least they could thank us. ¶ 4:02 PM
Polistra has been tracking the gradual backing-away from Total Gaia in the world of science. First the 11-year cycle of sunspots is taken into account (which it should have been from the start, because it's been known forever) ... then the fact that heat evaporates CO2 from the oceans was taken into account (ditto) ... and now the effects of ocean current oscillations are taken into account. These drivers are sufficient to account for all real change, but the establishment continues to treat them as minor exceptions or counter-trends against the "real" (i.e. nonexistent) greenhouse effect.
The recent backing away, seen by itself without the accompanying context of religious and political certainty, would be part of normal science. Good science.
A parallel but non-political example: For many years speech scientists believed that the larynx produced voice vibrations by direct muscular action. In other words, when you sing a middle C, the muscles in your vocal folds are contracting and relaxing 256 times per second. When you sing a high note, the muscles might be contracting and relaxing 3000 times per second. This theory never made sense, because no other muscle in a mammal can vibrate much beyond 10 times per second. So the fastest muscle couldn't approach even the lowest voice pitch. As better thinkers came along, and better instrumentation could read the relevant nerve impulses and view the rapid flapping of the folds, a better theory gradually took hold: the muscles only set the shape of the folds, and the vibration results from air-pressure valving, just like the reed of a clarinet. This theory continues to agree with newer measurements, and continues to yield good therapy methods, so it stays in the books.
That's how science normally moves. One theory is proposed; many people test it with gradually better methods and instruments; if the theory holds up, it becomes more solid. If it doesn't hold up, new theories are proposed and tested.
If we could skip the religious and political crap, we'd see the same thing happening now with climate. The Greenhouse theory never made a lick of goddamn sense, so it would quickly end up as a dim heirloom in the minds of a few elderly scientists while better methods and measurements developed better theories, or better mixes of theory and speculation.
Unfortunately and lethally, WE ARE NOT PERMITTED TO SKIP THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CRAP. Anyone who tries to do that will be ostracized or fired, and the advocates of the nonsensical theories own all the levers of power and money.
Polistra is infuriated by the backhanded arrogance of the establishment: they gin up a 20-year-long campaign of vicious and deliberate fraud, then after the fraud has succeeded in turning all political, cultural and religious authorities into craven little slavies, working at 1000% intensity for a galaxy-scale scam, the science-ists casually walk away, whistling a merry tune, resuming normal operations while civilization commits suicide on their behalf. At least they could thank us. ¶ 4:02 PM
