A Bossy and Power-hungry Lot

James Lakely at Breitbart's BigGovernment writes up some of the proceedings at recent environmental conference (Keith Lockitch presented as one of a small minority of "deniers"). In such a conference, it seems that views in contrast to the accepted wisdom were not well received:

The 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference, held in Phoenix Feb. 1-3, isn’t the sort of place where global warming “deniers” are exactly welcome. In fact, by my observations, the skeptical caucus at the event consisted entirely of: James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute; Keith Lockitch, a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; and me. All the other attendees spent their time discussing how the U.S. government — or, even better, a “global government” — needs to compel us all to live “greener” lives through schemes like cap-and-trade. Environmentalists are a bossy and power-hungry lot. [links dropped, bold added]

The surprise of Lakely's post is his description of the speech of one William Sprigg, prominent global warming proponet, who shockingly told the gathered scientists that they should actually act like scientists. Lakely wrote:

In his 24-minute lecture, Sprigg also:

• warned of a growing perception that “the IPCC is biased, conflicted, [and] pushing political agendas.”;

• called for a new climate research agency supported not entirely by the government, but in conjunction with the private sector;

• and declared: “We need to stick to our scientific principles,” and “improve our peer preview process, and expand the stakeholders’ role to keep us all honest.”

Recalling the parallels to climate science discussed in previous posts about nutrition science, here is a relevant quote from Good Calories, Bad Calories, in which Taubes discusses Richard Feynman (p. 82-82):

In 1964, when the physicist Richard Feynman presented what would become a renowned series of lectures at Cornell University, he observed that it was a natural condition of scientists to be biased or prejudiced toward their beliefs. That bias, Feynman said, would ultimately make no difference, "because if your bias is wrong a perpetual accumulation of experiments will perpetually annoy you until they cannot be disregarded any longer." They could be disregarded, he said, only if "you are absolutely sure ahead of time" what the answer must be.

The other way the perpetually annoying accumulation of evidence could be disregarded is if you're in the "bossy and power-hungry lot" and your need for funding and desire for prestige and acceptance outweighs your adherence to scientific method, reason, and reality.

Squeezing Gas from a Stone

Via Mark Perry at CARPE DIEM,

By marrying and perfecting two processes into a technology called horizontal fracking, engineering has virtually created, from nothing, new natural gas resources, previously regarded as inaccessibly locked in useless shale deposits. Suddenly, the mammoth shale formations in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, North Dakota, and elsewhere have the potential to produce abundant amounts of gas for decades to come.

Human ingenuity has turned theoretical gas reserves — too costly ever to be exploited — into practical resources. [bold added]

Prior to this innovation, the natural gas in the shale could not technically be termed a resource. It was just gunk in some useless stone, as far as human benefit goes; human benefit being essential to the very definition of a resource.

This all sounds rather familiar. Does anyone know which industrialist or engineer is our real-life Ellis Wyatt?

Quiz Answer: Bad Science Is as Bad Science Does

It seems that yesterday's quiz may have been a bit too easy, as both Jason and Rational Jenn nailed it immediately: in the mid- to late-70's, the government, lead by George McGovern and backed by Ted Kennedy among others, issued a document called Dietary Guidelines that recommended that the entire country adopt a low fat, low cholesterol, high carb diet. After a short, loaded debate, the full force of the various federal agencies got behind it, and soon we had all sorts of bureaucrats urging us to eat more carbs and fewer saturated fats.

The quotes came from Good Calories, Bad Calories*, by Gary Taubes, and in chapter three, he details how the real scientific evidence to support such a diet for the purposes of decreasing heart disease was essentially nonexistent. Badly designed studies were willfully misinterpreted and misrepresented for the sole purpose of toeing the "established" and increasingly buzzworthy dogma about the American diet. Conflicting studies were ignored. Dissenting scientific opinions were stigmatized. The heavy hand of government then politicized the debate and turned a contentious, barely credible conclusion into a consensus. With next to no hard evidence to back it up, the science was nevertheless settled, despite many conflicting studies with better scientific support to show that the opposite was in fact true, and that such a diet was actually harmful.

As I read this book, and as Taubes piles example upon example of how myopic--if not downright malicious--scientists continue to push pet theories regardless of conflicting evidence, how government interferes to not only tip the scale but to knock the damn thing over in favor of those pet theories by throwing funding at the researchers and countless programs, initiatives, policies, and laws to advance them, while a fawning, sycophantic press shouts it all from the rooftops. . .well, it all reminds me of a somewhat more recent phenomenon.

As Jenn mentioned in her comment, this is a dead ringer for the global warming debate. I'm constantly struck by the parallels in the way established, politically connected scientific opinion blithely forges ahead in spite of contradictory evidence, and is used to steer public policy and public opinion toward politically favored stances. The nutritionists used shoddy epidemiological practices, poor scientific controls, elaborately creative statistics, and cherry picked evidence, and then used all of this to state forcefully that the science was settled.

Global warming alarmists use laughable computer models that can't even model current conditions to predict decades in the future, they distort temperature records, fudge evidence, blacklist dissenters, use magical statistics, and cherry pick evidence, and then use all of this to state forcefully that the science is settled.

In the first case, the government pushes a diet that is not just nutritionally neutral, but actively harmful, and most assuredly, many people have died because of it. In the second case, the government has already enacted policies that hamper the economy, and wants desperately to do much more, which most assuredly has diminished the standard of living in this country and will only get worse.

The full scope of the dastardly mess that makes up the history of nutrition science and policy in the last half century is something that is new to me. I wonder how many other areas of government interference in science -- and its predictably disastrous results -- are out there?


--------------
*Note to the jack-booted thugs: I bought Taubes' book with my own money, and the only thing I'm receiving in compensation is the satisfaction of attacking government power and stupidity.

QUIZ: Name the Destructive Mix of Science and Politics

I'm reading a book right now that details the disastrous mix of bad science backed by a political agenda (and government funds) in a particular scientific realm. Dear readers, see if you can guess the general area of scientific research described by the following quote. I'll post the answer tomorrow.

[The release of a document/policy/recommendation/program] was the first time that any government institution (as opposed to private groups like the ___) had told Americans they could improve ___ by ___. In so doing, [the doc/policy/etc.] sparked a chain reaction of. . .advice from government agencies and the press that reverberates still. It is hard to overestimate its impact. [The doc/policy/etc.] took a grab bag of ambiguous studies and speculation, acknowledged that the claims were scientifically contentious, and then officially bestowed on one interpretation the aura of established fact.

Other groups tried to counter this politicization of science by releasing papers that questioned the conclusions, the science, and all other aspects, but they were excoriated by government agencies and a complicit press amid, among other things, claims of conflict of interest because of ties to industry. A prominent scientist who, over his career, had received "perhaps $10 million in grants from" the government, and "$250,000 from industry," and had served on government boards for years, because "he now disagreed with the [doc/policy] publicly, he was accused of being bought."

Scientists were believed to be free of conflicts if their only source of funding was a federal agency, but all . . . knew that if their research failed to support the government position on a particular subject, the funding would go instead to someone whose research did. "To be a dissenter was to be unfunded because the peer-review system rewards conformity and excludes criticism," [wrote one scientist.] The [government] expert panels that decide funding represent the orthodoxy and will tend to perceive research interpreted in a contrarian manner as unworthy of funding.

So, what area of science, industry, and politics is this concerning? Post your ideas in the comments.

Climate Science Forecasts: Opinion In, Policy Out

To those inclined to rational skepticism about the claims made by proponents of anthropogenic global warming, the recent revelations of Climategate greatly serve to validate what they have suspected all along: the models, forecasts, and predictions of AGW are heavily biased towards the opinions of the scientists. A simple layman's review of prominent computer models and forecasts shows they don't pass the sniff test. This is exemplified in the common thought that "if the weatherman's equipment is more sophisticated than the climate scientist's and even he can't predict local weather accurately for more than a few days, how can we trust forecasts of global catastrophe 50 or 100 years from now?"

A more specific and credible assessment of climate models comes from physicist Freeman Dyson:

I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.

Still, such models, and more importantly, the recommendations and forecasts of the scientists who create such models, are commonly used by policymakers, and feature prominently in IPCC reports. This is a disconcerting thought -- that billions of dollars and lives hinge upon such activities -- but nevertheless, forecasting is one of the cornerstones of climate policy, and the subject of much media attention. When the choice of what to cover is a relatively simple statement of what may happen in 20 years (especially if it claims looming disaster) versus detailed charts and graphs of temperature proxies that require pages of technical explanation, it's not at all surprising that we regularly read predictions of doom in the newspapers.

The science behind the forecasts is far from settled as the battle rages over the validity of this or that proxy series, and this or that model. But what of the accuracy and validity of the forecasting itself? Is there a way to empirically assess what a good forecast is?

The answer is: yes.

Authors KC Green and JS Armstrong describe basic principles of proper forecasting and how they apply to climate science in their 2007 paper Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts. These principles are ranked based on the strength of evidence supporting them, "for example some principles are based on common sense or received wisdom. Such principles are included when there is no contrary evidence. Other principles have some empirical support, while 31 are strongly supported by empirical evidence."

They go on to say that some principles are even counter-intuitive, and that "those who forecast in ignorance of the forecasting research literature are unlikely to produce useful predictions." They then name "some well-established principles that apply to long-term forecasts for complex situations where the causal factors are subject to uncertainty (as with climate)."

• Unaided judgmental forecasts by experts have no value. This applies whether the opinions are expressed in words, spreadsheets, or mathematical models. It applies regardless of how much scientific evidence is possessed by the experts.
  Among the reasons for this are:
  a) Complexity: People cannot assess complex relationships through unaided observations.
  b) Coincidence: People confuse correlation with causation.
  c) Feedback: People making judgmental predictions typically do not receive unambiguous feedback they can use to improve their forecasting.
  d) Bias: People have difficulty in obtaining or using evidence that contradicts their initial beliefs. This problem is especially serious for people who view themselves as experts.


• Agreement among experts is weakly related to accuracy. This is especially true when the experts communicate with one another and when they work together to solve problems, as is the case with the IPCC process.


• Complex models (those involving nonlinearities and interactions) harm accuracy because their errors multiply.. . .


• Given even modest uncertainty, prediction intervals are enormous. Prediction intervals (ranges outside which outcomes are unlikely to fall) expand rapidly as time horizons increase, for example, so that one is faced with enormous intervals even when trying to forecast a straightforward thing such as automobile sales for General Motors over the next five years.


• When there is uncertainty in forecasting, forecasts should be conservative. Uncertainty arises when data contain measurement errors, when the series are unstable, when knowledge about the direction of relationships is uncertain, and when a forecast depends upon forecasts of related (causal) variables. For example, forecasts of no change were found to be more accurate than trend forecasts for annual sales when there was substantial uncertainty in the trend lines (Schnaars and Bavuso 1986).

The application of these principles to our post-Climategate world should be obvious, especially the first two. Both unaided forecasts by experts, and the amount of agreement between said experts, has little to no relation to the accuracy of their opinions. Green and Armstrong address this question directly by questioning basic assumptions:

But is it necessary to use scientific forecasting methods? In other words, to use methods that have been shown by empirical validation to be relevant to the types of problems involved with climate forecasting? Or is it sufficient to have leading scientists examine the evidence and make forecasts?

Why is this an important question? As noted before, potentially disastrous public policy is at stake here, and "Many public policy decisions are based on forecasts by experts. Research on persuasion has shown that people have substantial faith in the value of such forecasts. Faith increases when experts agree with one another."

After listing some examples of expert forecasting gone horribly wrong and describing studies in the field of forecasting science, they state the conclusion succinctly:

Comparative empirical studies have routinely concluded that judgmental forecasting by experts is the least accurate of the methods available to make forecasts. [bold added]

What does this have to do with computer models currently used in climate science?

The methodology for climate forecasting used in the past few decades has shifted from surveys of experts’ opinions to the use of computer models. Reid Bryson, the world’s most cited climatologist, wrote in a 1993 article that a model is "nothing more than a formal statement of how the modeler believes that the part of the world of his concern actually works" (p. 798-790). Based on the explanations of climate models that we have seen, we concur. . . . Climate models are, in effect, mathematical ways for the experts to express their opinions. [bold added]

In this context, the emails between prominent proponents of AGW take on a particularly sinister quality. A "trick" may truly mean that the scientist is coming up with a novel hack to deal with a problem, but when it is used to "hide the decline" one has to wonder whether science has become the handmaiden to a political agenda. Couple that with the attempt to silence dissent, expel nonconformists, and blackball journals (and this is just scratching the surface of what Climategate shows us), as well as the original Opinion-generating Engine, the climate model behind the infamous Hockey Stick Graph, and it's difficult to see how any of this meshugas is taken seriously at all.

Sadly, it still is, because as the authors note repeatedly, "people have substantial faith in the value of such forecasts." This is why it is important for rational people to be able to question the very nature of the forecasts we hear every day, rather than simply quibbling about the validity of one proxy series over another, or going through a he said/she said about whether polar bear populations are decreasing or not.

I can't recommend reading this paper highly enough, but let me conclude by excerpting the abstract of the paper for those who just want the soundbyte version:

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group One, a panel of experts established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, issued its Fourth Assessment Report. The Report included predictions of dramatic increases in average world temperatures over the next 92 years and serious harm resulting from the predicted temperature increases. Using forecasting principles as our guide we asked: Are these forecasts a good basis for developing public policy? Our answer is “no”.

To provide forecasts of climate change that are useful for policy-making, one would need to forecast (1) global temperature, (2) the effects of any temperature changes, and (3) the effects of feasible alternative policies. Proper forecasts of all three are necessary for rational policy making.

...We audited the forecasting processes described in Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report to assess the extent to which they complied with forecasting principles. ... The forecasting procedures that were described violated [many] principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical.

The forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’ predictions are not useful in situations involving uncertainly and complexity. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder. [bold added]

Hand Waving

I unfortunately don't have time to get into detail about the recent hacking of global warming alarmists' emails and subsequent posting of them for all the world to see. Luckily, Peter Cresswell at Not PC has collected a number of links worth checking out.

He also has this to say:

That’s really the crux of it right there. The world is not warming. They don’t know why. And it doesn’t fit any of their models.

Which means the “consensus” is a bust, the “science is settled” meme is a bust – and The Team themselves know that.

All the rest is hand waving.

He also quotes Andrew Bolt saying, "Most of the media reporting is easing into this Great Global Warming Conspiracy story sideways, but the tide is slowly turning . . . " I certainly hope he's right, and that I'll have reason to blog about this issue again and again because it has blown up into a media firestorm. If it does, it will be about damn time that the MSM pays attention.

I'm not going to hold my breath, though. If nothing else, people's ever-increasing ability to evade reality is one thing that continues to amaze me.

Unambiguously No

The Bottom Line
The earth’s climate (in contrast to the climate in current climate GCMs [General Circulation Models]) is dominated by a strong net negative feedback. . . . such warming as may arise from increasing greenhouse gases will be indistinguishable from the fluctuations in climate that occur naturally from processes internal to the climate system itself. [bold added]

This comes from Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, explaining how climate models and the IPCC's assumptions compare to actual observational data of sea surface temperatures and actual heat radiated into space.

Climate models are all based on the IPCC-accepted assumption that there is a positive feedback loop such that with increased temperature, greenhouse gases like water vapor will respond by blocking even more heat from escaping. By this logic, adding other greenhouse gases like CO₂ will only make it worse.

According to Lindzen and studies he cites, not only is this positive feedback not confirmed by observational data of heat radiation into space, the opposite is true.

Here is an easily appreciated example of positive and negative feedback. In your car, the gas and brake pedals act as negative feedbacks to reduce speed when you are going too fast and increase it when you are going too slow. If someone were to reverse the position of the pedals without informing you, then they would act as positive feedbacks: increasing your speed when you are going too fast, and slowing you down when you are going too slow.

Alarming climate predictions depend critically on the fact that models have large positive feedbacks. The crucial question is whether nature actually behaves this way? The answer, as we have just seen, is unambiguously no. [bold added]

Am I a climate scientist? No. But I certainly appreciate an analysis of evidence, rather than an appeal to suspect computer models and the "settled" consensus of politically-motivated authorities.

Also, the logic of the following statement Lindzen made in a recent presentation is unassailable:

Why do we need to deconstruct global warming? Simply because it has been an issue that has been routinely treated with misinformation and sophistry abetted by constant repetition, institutional endorsements, and widespread ignorance even (perhaps especially) among the educated. Because of the increasingly dangerous and expensive approaches being promoted to deal with this alleged problem, it is, I think, important to understand what is being said as well as to understand how climate actually works.

[HT: HBL]

Human Ingenuity: The Real Renewable Resource

A recent advertising campaign by the natural gas industry lobby, America's Natural Gas Alliance, states (paraphrasing), "we have a 100 year supply of natural gas and it's growing all the time," and that "we can't revitalize our economy by buying overseas oil," and that "natural gas is twice as clean as coal," and is thus much "greener."

As different sectors of the energy industry try to compete in today's hyper-regulated non-market, this pandering to both environmentalism and mercantilism ("energy independence" is the new "buy American!") is becoming a common strategy. It's an unfortunate, pragmatic, but also understandable reaction to a market that gets less free with every session of Congress and every presidential term.

The crushing weight of governmental regulation isn't the only thing industry is reacting against. As the government dedicates millions of redistributed dollars to "renewable" energy and "green jobs", thus denying legitimate, voluntary investment in the best available opportunities, it's not surprising to see real businesses respond to the distorted market by trying to offer options that try to take advantage of the situation. Producers still need to respond to demand in order to survive and profit, even if government distorts the demand beyond all reason.

An industry that raised the standard of living in not just the United States but in the whole world by a nearly immeasurable margin -- the petroleum industry -- has been demonized by the environmental lobby for decades, and attacked on all sides by government regulation and "reinvestment." And instead of developing a vibrant "green economy," such interference has only inflated energy prices, stifled real innovation, and wasted billions of dollars. Recall that Jimmy Carter tried to birth the solar power industry and its continued failure even during supportive later administrations cannot be dismissed as a partisan issue, or one which simply needs more taxpayer money thrown at it. Decades of government support for renewable energy has gotten us nowhere. [As a side note, if you happen to disagree and think that the oil industry is only an exploiter of the poor and of the environment, may I suggest some required reading?]

Assuming for the moment that we really do need "energy independence" and "green energy," and considering that government involvement has not solved these "problems," what are the alternatives? There just so happens to be a socio-economic system that has been proven throughout history to be perfect for handling just such quandaries.

Capitalism unleashes the political and economic possibilities of the best within humanity. All of the creative, positive, progressive aspects of human activity are fostered -- not oppressed -- by the socio-political framework of capitalism, which means the system that fully and consistently protects individual rights in all areas of human interaction, leaving men free to produce, to solve problems, and to make enormous sums of money in the process. Nearly every modern convenience and life-sustaining technology that we take for granted today is ultimately the product of men who were free, at least in part, to use their minds, to innovate, and to produce.

On the other hand, nearly every seemingly unsolvable socio-economic problem we face today can be traced to government interference. In the energy sphere, government distorts the market by restricting free inquiry and pushing an environmentalist agenda. Using redistributed dollars, government actively promotes one type of solution while regulating others out of existence. Individual rights and the freedom of supply and demand are ignored as irrelevant, while government directs private industry toward supposed socially- and environmentally-friendly goals that continually fail to deliver real return on investment (even the pseudo-investment of "public" dollars). Solar cells, windmills, etc., are subsidized again and again, despite the fact that the market is never there, and the desired innovation never comes.

But it is certainly a fact that there is only so much petroleum on the Earth, and at some point, someday, it could run out. What this should say to a free people is that there is a potential market there for someone ingenious enough to capture it, when the time is right. Is so-called renewable energy the place to look? Who knows? But it certainly isn't the government who knows.

Let us look at renewable resources themselves for a minute. Admittedly, wind is wind, and sun is sun; these things are "renewable" in that they will continue to be available in essentially their current forms until the Earth ceases to exist. But nothing about this means that they will necessarily be economically useful right now, or will benefit human life in the same way that petroleum has. They certainly may, someday, but only on their own timeline, as determined by the individual efforts of creative men, the needs they face, and the values they want to gain.

Was sunlight a useful energy source a few million years ago in the same way we think of energy now? Obviously not. What about wind? This is even more absurd. Wind was more of an enemy -- feeding wildfires while killing cooking fires, chilling bodies, blowing away seeds and arrows -- than it was a useful resource, though it was as plentiful then as it is now. The sun and the wind thus share something fundamental with any other resource. Imagine early Homo sapiens stumbling into a pit filled with a black, viscous, smelly liquid. What good was it to him?

Oil, just like sun and wind, is simply an obstacle until and unless the human mind reshapes it to its own purposes. Obviously, the human mind, reason, and ingenuity are the only things that can transform inanimate matter into life-sustaining values.

Human ingenuity, not wind, not sun, is the only truly renewable resource. Without it, nothing in nature would be transformed to further human life. Your car, your clothes, your food -- none of these things are naturally occurring. If all we can do is take what we get, then we are but hunter-gatherers without tools or any remnants of cognition to help us along. But because humans are rational animals, we can identify the materials in our environment and mold them to suit us.

Be it stones or soft metals or iron or oil or electricity or fusion -- or the sun -- the human mind is the inexhaustible resource that makes all others possible. It is time for the government to recognize this alternative energy source, and to unleash it fully upon the world by getting the hell out of our way.

Mini Global Warming Roundup

Poll Numbers Down

The WSJ's "Best of the Web Today" feature by James Taranto highlights a recent NYTimes post about global warming's dropping poll numbers.

...there is a widespread belief that the voters handed President Obama a mandate to "do something" about global warming. A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center, however, calls this into question.

"According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its own, ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. . . ."

[The Times] also links to a Rasmussen survey that finds Americans increasingly skeptical about the science behind global warmism:

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity. . . .

In July 2006, 46% of voters said global warming is caused primarily by human activities, while 35% said it is due to long-term planetary trends.

This is quite a shift. In two years, there was a 9 point surge in the numbers of those who take the reasonable view that man is not the primary cause of global warming (assuming it's even happening).

Taranto goes on to discuss a recent study that claims that humans have already done so much damage that it will take one thousand years to fix, assuming we stop all greenhouse gas emissions right now. The following is an excerpt from an article about the study, followed by Taranto's appropriately exasperated response:

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years," lead author Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a telephone news conference. "That's not true." . . .

Solomon said in a statement that absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans and release of heat from the oceans - the one process acting to cool the Earth and the other to warm it--will "work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than 1,000 years."

Is it absolutely crucial to the planet's future that we curtail greenhouse gases this instant, or would it not make any difference anyway? If the latter, what sense does it make to be alarmed? And that last quote by Solomon is a classic head-scratcher. We're supposed to worry that temperatures will be "almost constant for more than 1,000 years"? That's what they mean by global warming?

Weather forecast for the year 3009: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. ["The more things change, the more they stay the same" -ed]

The Boston Globe is delivered to my doorstep every morning, and since the inauguration I have noticed a sharp uptick in climate change hysteria (note: they do not say "global warming" anymore, to hedge their bets), along with calls for drastic action and obvious elation that we now have an administration that will "do something." The study by the NOAA scientist was presented as "news" in urgent tones, trying desperately to spin the interpretation of the reader towards the view that things are much worse than we ever anticipated. Taranto's derision is a welcome change, as are the poll numbers showing that people are starting to look behind the curtain.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Despite growing evidence calling into question the theory of global warming, increased skepticism by the public (see above), and more and more public statements by prominent scientists debunking the theories... politicians and alarmists are pushing full speed ahead.

Today, John Lewis and Paul Saunders at Principles in Practice discuss the latest high-profile scientist to speak up.

The Obama administration continues to appoint radical environmentalists who want us to commit industrial suicide on behalf of nature. Meanwhile, top-rank scientists continue to renounce claims of a coming climate disaster.

The latest scientist to voice his conclusions is retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon. As chief of several NASA programs from 1982 to 1994, Theon was responsible for all weather and climate research...

"I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009.

It is always good to have more voices speak out for reason. But Lewis and Saunders go further and examine why politicians, in the face of mounting evidence in contradiction to their stated positions, continue to push for drastic and harmful regulations to "protect the planet."

In summary, while the vast majority of scientists are going in one direction—repudiating claims of a man-made climate disaster—politicians are going the other direction—embracing such claims and shackling industry on those “grounds.” Why? Why, as the scientific case for man-made global warming collapses, are politicians all the more determined to impose draconian controls on industry?

The answer is morality. Politics is directly dependent upon morality. Politicians who follow a morality of sacrifice will impose laws that enforce that “ideal.” Conversely, those who follow a morality of rational self-interest will act to protect our rights—including our rights to productive action.

The observations, analyses, and conclusions of scientists have never deterred those who are committed to the morality of sacrifice. This latest disparity between science and politics is yet another example of this fact. [bold added]

This is a crucial point to remember, both when trying to fathom how people could be so out of touch with the facts (i.e. reality), as well as when trying to fight the environmentalist menace. It is not only a scientific question, but more importantly a moral one.

Farming in Greenland

A new feature-length documentary has been made that confronts anthropogenic global warming alarmism head on. According to the website and trailer for the film, Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria examines and debunks the claims made by Al Gore's fake-umentary and those of prominent environmentalists like Ed Begley Jr. and James Hansen of NASA.

The trailer has a surprisingly pro-capitalist message, and hopefully it is carried throughout the film. The Irish filmmakers, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, have said that the "... theme is how environmentalism seems to harm the poorest people in the poorest places on the planet." This is certainly true, because as the green movement seeks to destroy our industrial society, those hurt first will be those with the fewest resources. For me, the key to the value of this movie will be if the filmmakers realize that the solution to this problem -- the impact on the most vulnerable populations by environmentalist policy and ideology -- is capitalism and the life-sustaining qualities of industrialization.

Based on the trailer, I'm optimistic that they "get it." If they recognize that human life is the standard of value, the thing that needs to be protected, and that capitalism is the tool to accomplish it then this movie could be great.

Here are some quick quotes that really jumped out at me:

"A lot of environmental activists still have not come to accept that the humans are a part of the environment." -- voiceover from one of the contributors

"You're comparing bugs with people! You'd rather save the bugs and lose the people." -- An African woman who lost her son to malaria, talking about the ban on DDT.

Perusing the website, the list of contributors is interesting -- from scientists and media to average Americans and Africans being impacted by environmental policy, with some enviro-alarmists thrown in for contrast -- and provides select quotes from the movie in addition to biographical information for each person. A professor from the University of Virginia named Fred Singer was quoted as saying the following:

The 20th Century is certainly not the warmest in 1,000 years. It was much warmer 1,000 years ago than it is today. There was agriculture in Greenland and they were growing wine grapes in England!, in Yorkshire.

Here's hoping that the film is as good as it looks and that enough money can be raised for a full theatrical release in the United States.

[HT: HBL]

Global Warmings: Not Just for the Earth Anymore

There is an interesting review at Capitalism Magazine of Lawrence Solomon's The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud. The book is based on a series of newspaper articles he wrote as he interviewed leading climate scientists who question the validity of an anthropogenic global warming crisis.

Gus Van Horn blogged about this review yesterday, highlighting the point made by Jay Lehr (the reviewer) that most intelligent people seek a second opinion for their medical care, but that global warming activists try their hardest to make this seem like an absurd thing to do in the case of global warming. They instead repeat the mantra, "the science is settled." Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

This is certainly an important point to note. In reading the review I found something else that jumped out at me that I wanted to mention. While it is true that there has been some warming on Earth in the past decades, ours is not the only planet in the solar system experiencing this.

In Solomon's interview with Friis-Christensen, the scientist states he was originally optimistic about the work IPCC [UN panel on climate change] would do in studying the sun's influence on climate change. To his surprise, however, IPCC refused to consider the sun's effect on the Earth's climate as a topic worthy of investigation. IPCC conceived its task only as investigating potential human causes of climate change.

That is a huge omission, [Habibullo] Abdussamatov [Russian Academy of Science] points out. He notes there has been global warming on other planets and moons in the solar system, and this demonstrates other forces may be at work regarding the Earth's moderate recent warming. "Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians," he observes.

Abdussamatov, at the pinnacle of Russia's scientific establishment, is one of the world's most eminent critics of the notion carbon dioxide is driving global warming. He argues these "parallel global-warmings observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth--can only be a straight line consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance." [all emphasis mine]

What? I can't believe I had never heard this before. Upon a moment's reflection, it seems obvious that if the solar cycles were heating the Earth, other planets would be affected too. I'm aware of the research concerning the 11-year solar cycles and the idea that the sun is responsible for most of the temperature increase. But it never occurred to me to draw the connection to other planets that DO NOT HAVE HUMANS ON THEM.

I know that such simple logical arguments will have little impact on those who have their emotional/environmental blinders on and who consider any critical analysis of global warming alarmism akin to denying the Holocaust. But this one point, that other planets in the solar system are warming up too, practically screams to me that anthropogenic catastrophic global warming is total bunk. It's the SUN, stupid!

Bombarded by the Arbitrary

Recently, Gus discussed an interesting story about a parrot that was able to string together the sounds that, to human ears, made up its address. He observes that "this episode reminds me of a discussion of the epistemological status of the arbitrary, in which Leonard Peikoff likens arbitrary pronouncements to the squawkings of a bird."

While this doesn't directly relate to the following story, I think there might be some tie-in. Recently, I learned of a memoir by a woman who has a near-perfect recollection of everything that has happened to her for the last 34 years. Jill Price's book is called "The Woman Who Can't Forget," and the review of it in Newsweek is quite fascinating.

Essentially, Price can recall nearly every mundane, non-essential thing she has experienced. Give her a random date from 20 years ago, and she can recall what color socks she wore, and if it was humid that day.

In and of itself, this doesn't seem like it would be debilitating, except that she apparently can't stop the memories. In fact, she has what she describes as a movie of seemingly random memories playing in her mind at all times, that she must actively ignore in order to function. She said in an interview, "Well, like I'm sitting here talking to you but I also have a running movie of endless memories that just are constantly flowing through my head, free flowing. So it's not anything that is connected to one other thing. It's just constant, you know, memories throughout my life. It's like watching a home video." In essence, she is constantly bombarded by the arbitrary. From Gus' link to the Ayn Rand Lexicon:

An arbitrary claim has no cognitive status whatever. According to Objectivism, such a claim is not to be regarded as true or as false. If it is arbitrary, it is entitled to no epistemological assessment at all; it is simply to be dismissed as though it hadn’t come up . . . The truth is established by reference to a body of evidence and within a context; the false is pronounced false because it contradicts the evidence. The arbitrary, however, has no relation to evidence, facts, or context. It is the human equivalent of [noises produced by] a parrot . . . sounds without any tie to reality, without content or significance.

Her memories are not arbitrary themselves. They did actually happen. But as a steady and random stream with little or no bearing on her immediate perceptions or thoughts, they become arbitrary (assuming that they don't actually represent the subconscious.)

My first thought upon hearing her story was that I wondered if she leads a truly concrete-bound existence. Can she form abstract concepts like most people? Can she collect facts, strip away non-essentials and then generalize? Or is she irrevocably tied to the the perceptual level, battling the flood of random memories, trying to keep her head above the torrent? Based on what I read, that does not appear to be the case, and she lives and functions rather well.

It's such a bizarre situation that it's difficult for me to imagine having to deal with it. Sure, sometimes I would like to have a better recollection of certain situations, but think of how much perceptual data you "throw away" on a daily basis because it simply isn't needed. It isn't useful information, it doesn't add value to your life or help you reach greater levels of understanding on any topic. The fact that you ate beets for dinner three years, six months, and five days ago is so irrelevant as to be absurd. Now imagine not being able to forget it, and then imagine that and every other mundane memory bombarding you, every waking minute of your life.

With this, I think the final paragraph of the Newsweek review is rather illuminating, both for the observations the reviewer makes, and the conclusions he draws (and doesn't draw) from them:

But the sobering thing about Price's book is how banal most of her memories are. The days go by, lunch follows breakfast, 10th grade turns inexorably into 11th... Her life was not without excitement... or drama of a conventional sort: her parents separate and get back together; her mother survives a tumor... No one should gainsay her feelings, but knowing what was playing on the TV during these events doesn't add much to our understanding of them, or of her. I hate to admit it, but confronted with a memoir that is guaranteed to be completely accurate, I can't help thinking that, with the same material, a writer with a little imagination could have written a much better book. (emphasis added)

It's interesting to ponder whether the very fact that Price can't stop the flood of arbitrary memory, and can't forget the detailed mundanities of daily life that the rest of us happily let go of, makes it impossible for her to write a memoir with "a little imagination."

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Also see Glenn Beck's interview with her.

The Wonders of Modern Medicine

Sometimes a small thing makes me sit back for a second and ponder just how wonderful it is to be alive in this day and age. This past Saturday, my 4-year-old daughter A. developed a fever, but other than that seemed fine. On Sunday she was worse, and my wife noticed some telltale white spots on one of her tonsils.

We got an emergency visit at her pediatrician's office at 10am, and she was examined by a nurse practitioner. The nurse did a rapid strep test, and the result was positive (just barely). She prescribed an antibiotic which we picked up from the drug store at 11:30, and by the evening, A.'s fever was gone, her throat no longer hurt, and she was back to her spunky precocious self.

In less than a day -- on a Sunday, no less -- an infection was accurately diagnosed and treated, and my daughter's life was back to normal, but for the twice daily spoonfuls of pink medicine (luckily, her favorite color). This was my first encounter with the rapid strep test, and I just shook my head in wonder at how amazing it is that such a thing exists. I remember getting strep as a child and waiting two days for the cultures to come back. I believe the pediatrician just gave me antibiotics right away based on his judgment and the look of my throat, but the confirmation of the diagnosis was 48hrs away. On Sunday, it took 5 minutes.

Penicillin was discovered just 80 years ago, and before that, something that now seems run-of-the-mill, like a case of strep throat, could be dire. A Group A strep infection can be serious in some cases if left untreated, leading to heart valve, kidney, liver and joint problems from a post-infection autoimmune response. Now, not only do we have antibiotics to attack the infection, we have a relatively inexpensive 5 minute-long test that gives doctors a higher level of certainty in their diagnosis while the patient is still in the room, and it can be acted upon immediately.

Consider this a tip of my hat to the scientists, doctors and entrepreneurs who make things like this possible.

Peanut Allergy Solution?

Because of a close personal connection to this issue, I thought I'd mention an article that just came out with a headline of "Expert sees peanut allergy solution within 5 years."

I think that any research they do to further the scientific understanding of this baffling problem is great. And if a prominent researcher claims he thinks that a solution is near, that's even better.

I can't help but be skeptical, however. How many times have we seen research about a current affliction gets lots of hype but produces no results? Also, the following bit raises more questions than it answers:

[Dr. Burks] said that because several peanut proteins are involved in the allergic response, the process of altering enough of the peanut allergens to make a modified peanut that is less likely to cause an allergic reaction would probably render the new peanut no longer a peanut.

"You could end up with a soybean," Burks said. [bold added]

Great that they are targeting specific proteins that trigger the autoimmune response. But what I immediately thought of was that one of the theories of peanut allergy is that peanut proteins are everywhere, in products you'd never expect, and some think that this sudden overexposure may have something to do with the allergy.

If that is actually the case, or even a contributing factor, would modifying the proteins be a long-term solution? In decades (or less) the pervasive newly-modifed proteins could cause the same problems. And comparing them to a soybean? Soybeans are even more pervasive than peanuts. I know that wasn't the point, but in context it just made it sound even worse.

In spite of my skepticism, I'm really glad to see that this type of article come out, and also "that there are multiple types of studies that are ongoing now." Here's hoping that the full force of human intellect and creativity is applied to this problem.

Book Review: The Baroque Cycle

Neal Stephenson's trilogy, The Baroque Cycle, is a must read if you are interested in any of the following: history, The Enlightenment, science, philosophy, reason, how ideas shape world events, the birth of capitalism, pirates, battles, or love stories. Yes, this isn't so much a book review as a trilogy review, but the books can't really be separated.

Stephenson is perhaps best known for his "cyberpunk" science fiction work, most prominently Snow Crash (1992). The Cryptonomicon (1999) was a break from the pure sci-fi realm, and was a brilliant integration of the themes of pre-Internet bubble high-tech entrepreneurship, cryptography, and WWII history. Yes, the book really did span from WWII to the late 90's, and it worked.

However, The Baroque Cycle is unlike anything else he has written, in theme, scope, and depth. It's not just a work of historical fiction, but a celebration of reason and ideas, and the impact both had on the world. First, let's look at the history.

The books follow three primary fictional characters as they weave in and out the massive scientific, philosophical, economic and political changes of the period from 1680 to 1713, and the real world people who shaped the events. As a quick refresher, here is a short list of some of the events from that period in history, all of which are integral to the novels:

• The failed 1683 siege of Vienna by the Ottomans
• Protestant revolution and Oliver Cromwell
• The Restoration
• The Glorious Revolution in England (overthrow of James II and the Catholics)
• 30 Years War
• War of Spanish Succession
• The rise of the Hapsburgs
• Principia Mathematica and the philosophical battles between Newton and Leibniz
• The emigration of Protestants from England to the American colonies
• The Spanish Inquisition

The first character we meet is Daniel Waterhouse, an eminent Natural Philosopher, member of the recently established Royal Society, and close friend of Isaac Newton. The second main character is Jack Shaftoe, an English vagabond who by chance takes up with the Polish army at the siege of Vienna, meets and kills a Janissary (Ottoman warrior), and in the process rescues the third character, a young slave girl from the northern British Isles, Eliza.

Through the course of the novels, these fictional characters interact with all sorts of famous historical figures, from Newton and Leibniz to Kings (James II, William III, Louis XIV), Queens, Electors, a young Ben Franklin, Peter the Great and John Locke, just to name a few. The reader follows them on travels throughout Europe, the Middle East, India, the Americas, and Japan. There are thrilling naval and ground battles, political intrigues, and sword fights.

This is just the backdrop, however. The primary focus of the novels is to showcase the enormous changes in the "system of the world" as Stephenson put it, and these changes were wrought by ideas.

Through Daniel Waterhouse, we see the battle of ideas between reason and mysticism, science and religion, at the start of the Enlightenment. We see the political changes in England, the fight for representative government and religious freedom.

We watch as Eliza rises to become a brilliant, self-interested and rational capitalist, playing and creating the early stock markets, all the while orbiting in the nobility around Louis XIV. As a former Turkish slave, we see her use her money, influence and intelligence to battle slavery and attack the Asiento trade.

Through Jack Shaftoe's travels and adventures, we explore the state of the rest of the world and see the stark contrast between the brilliant energy and progress of England and the backward mysticism and barbarism of the Spanish colonies, India, and southeast Asia. We see Jack struggle with understanding the economic changes in the world as the feudal systems are replaced by markets, banks, complex investments and production of wealth.

All of these threads are woven together in a great heroic story, and through it we witness an amazing period in history as old systems of government, economy and science are turned on their heads, and the stage is set for the birth of a new nation in the Americas. The books end in 1713, but they present the rebirth of reason, progress of representative government, and nascent ideas of individual rights that were exported from England and were the bedrock of American thought.

Stephenson portrays these ideas with a great sense of life and expert skill. The books aren't without some philosophical problems, but they are minor. Overall, they make up a brilliant work of art, and you will be glad to have read them.

If you intend to buy the books...
On Amazon, you will notice that there appear to be many more than just three books in the series. This is because after they were initially released, Stephenson split them into sections, roughly three per original book, and sold as smaller volumes. I recommend buying the original three, however. Their titles are:

• Quicksilver (Vol. 1)
• The Confusion (Vol. 2)
• The System of the World (Vol. 3)

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Update: Make sure to read my review of Ed Cline's Sparrowhawk series. If you would be interested in an amazing historical fiction portrayal of the American Revolution that rivals (and I think betters) the quality and scope of The Baroque Cycle, you'll want to read this review and then the books.

Bio-Industrialist Creates Life, Collectivist Sneers

There is a new field of genetic engineering emerging called "synthetic biology", and the possibilities are mind-blowing. As described in the Boston Globe, "Instead of just modifying existing organisms - as genetic engineers have done for 30 years - synthetic biologists are itching to build all-new life forms from artificial DNA."

One of the things about this approach that really stands out is that these scientists and entrepreneurs are challenging the old academic ways of genetic research and stripping them down into industrial components and processes.

Too much of genetic engineering... has involved tweezing a strand of DNA here or inserting a bit of DNA there, and then waiting to see what happens. What is needed are standardized parts and assembly procedures so that swaths of DNA and other genetic structures can be created without the biological equivalent of constantly re-inventing the wheel.

"Old-fashioned genetics was mostly about trial and error and/or single-gene modifications," said George M. Church, professor of genetics at Harvard. "Synthetic biology is about systems-engineering, i.e. computer-aided design using . . . interoperable, standardized parts." [emphasis added]

This is a fascinating and amazing approach. Some of the possible applications mentioned in the article include "'living' computers made of biocomponents, synthetic body cells programmed to hunt tumors, ... and even roses rigged with genetic "switches" that cause them to bloom and exude perfume on your birthday." And this type of work is not being done solely in the academic labs of universities:

Indeed, J. Craig Venter - the razzle-dazzle researcher-entrepreneur who played a key role in sequencing the human genome - announced earlier this year that his scientific team had assembled the entire genetic structure of a bacterium from off-the-shelf chemical components. That is just a baby step from forging synthetic life, a feat Venter expects to accomplish by the end of this year.

"If our plan succeeds, a new creature will have entered the world," Venter recently told reporters.

He sounds rather proud of his accomplishments. I hope he makes a boat-load of money with this.

Another area of application is in fighting disease, and some scientists with grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are working on a way to cheaply mass-produce a potent anti-malarial drug that currently is made using a compound from sweet wormwood. (Of course, if we could use DDT to wipe out mosquitoes, we wouldn't be as concerned with quinine-resistant malaria, but that's beside point of this article.) Sounds good, right? People should be happy about this, right?

Wrong.

But opponents see this humanitarian endeavor as a threat.

"What happens to struggling farmers when laboratory vats in California replace [wormwood] farms in Asia and East Africa?" asked [Jim] Thomas, the antisynthetic biology activist.

"It's a microcosm of what's occurring everywhere in the field: Alliances are building between big academia, big chemical companies, big energy companies, and big agribusiness," he said. "Scientists are making strands of DNA that have never existed, so there is nothing to compare them to. There's no agreed mechanisms for safety, no policies." [emphasis added]

His arguments against these breakthroughs are 1) even if it's cheaper and can help more people, "what about struggling farmers?!", and 2) no one has ever done this before so how can we know it's right? He goes further, objecting to these scientists creating new life:

"Synthetic biologists aren't just mapping genomes and manipulating genes; they are making life from scratch," said Jim Thomas... "The science is proceeding with very little in the way of societal debate or regulatory oversight." [bold added]

To sum up, scientists and businessmen are making giant breakthroughs in genetic engineering that have the potential to benefit human life in many ways, while making them a ton of money in the process. Meanwhile, opponents imply that we shouldn't be doing any of this because no one has done it before, it might hurt poor farmers in Asia, society hasn't had a chance to debate it, politicians haven't been given the chance to agree or reach consensus, and we don't know how to regulate it.

In other words, Jim Thomas wants the industrialists and scientists to ask for permission before creating and producing new products. He wants time to allow government to regulate production. He wants the needs of the poor farmers in Africa to take precedence over the independent functioning and actions of J. Craig Venter's mind. This is nothing new, and we see examples of this every day. I was just shocked at the open and explicit nature of Thomas' views.

Thankfully, Venter likely doesn't even know that leeches like Thomas exist.

"The future of life depends not only in our ability to understand and use DNA, but also in creating new synthetic life forms," Venter said in a recent academic lecture delivered on the BBC. "That is, life which is forged not by Darwinian evolution, but created by human intelligence." [bold added]

Other things, et cetera, and so on #4

Israel Readies for Iran

Here is more evidence in support for Scott Powell's contention that Israel may be ready to make a strike against Iran. From the World Tribune, we have "Israel readies largest exercise ever to prepare for Iran-Syria missile war":

The government has been preparing for a five-day exercise in April that would simulate conventional and nonconventional missile strikes from Iran, Lebanon and Syria. Officials said the exercise would test emergency response as well as evacuation of cities struck by enemy missiles.

No mention is made in the article of any military preparations, but one can assume that, though not publicized, they are certainly under way.

Sigh of Relief

Last week I mentioned that my dog, Jazmine, had surgery to remove a tumor on her spleen. (note: it was 8 lbs.!) She came home last Thursday, and despite the humiliation of wearing a T-shirt to keep her from licking the 12 inch incision, she's doing great. Nearly all the bruising is gone, she's happy and active (though we are keeping her from being too active) and everything is looking good. The best news is that the testing of the tumor and the biopsy of the liver showed no cancer. The prognosis for dogs with this condition and no cancer is extremely good, so here's hoping that she will be around for many more years.

I really marvel that this level of medical care is available for pets. Jazmine had an ultrasound, x-rays, biopsies, and major surgery to remove a tumor and a damaged organ. One interesting part of this whole process was the money. We were given an estimate for the cost (with an upper and lower bound), including all drugs, anesthesia, the surgeon's fee, etc. The actual cost was right in the middle of the range -- less than $1500. It made me wonder what human health care would be like if it was left to a free market.

A Righteous Anger

I am angry. Yes, given the state of the world, this is an unfortunately common state of being. But current circumstances have incited a particularly strong sense of it.

I'm not surprised that Google has taken this stand. In fact, I would have been surprised at a principled defense of capitalsim and individual rights. My anger rises not from Google's support for Earth Hour, but for the fact that a supposed paragon of the free market has betrayed its foundation so completely, and so obviously.

It is to be expected that Google would side with this movement. It is blasé. Boring.

And that is what causes the intense anger. Why is it taken as given that the most productive, the most innovative, will side with those who see the extinguishing of light as the goal?

However, I have hope. Frankly, it is dim hope, but hope nonetheless. Men and women of like mind are taking a stand, and speaking out against the patent irrationality of this position. They are speaking out in favor of human life and human achievement, in favor of reason and productivity and human happiness.

In support of this ideal, and in support of science, objectivity, and reason, take a stand in the next few days and send in your endorsement of the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change. Don't take my word for it. Read the Declaration and decide for yourself whether you support its ideas and aims.

I know it's a small step. I know that signing your name to what amounts to a petition seems very small. However, it is something, and I think that it is worth doing. I have read the Manhattan Declaration and support it. If you do too, follow the instructions and email your endorsement. I understand the deadline for endorsements is noon, April 1, 2008. It's an interesting experiment with laudable goals. If it can make some waves, or poke some holes in the IPCC, it will have accomplished much.

Now, therefore, we recommend –

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth”.

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008

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Others who are fighting the absurdity of Earth Hour:
Productivity Hour
ManHour 2008
Wyatt's Torch

Other things, et cetera, and so on #1

On Moths, Soup, and Memory

A recent study appears to show that moths retain caterpillar memories. Please check out the article for details, but to sum up, the researchers trained some tobacco hornworm caterpillars to avoid a certain smell by shocking them, and even after metamorphosis, the resulting moths also avoid the smell.

Having been delinquent in maintaining my up-to-date knowledge of moth metamorphosis research, there were a couple of things that really jumped out at me from this article.

1. Caterpillars can be trained? Upon a moment's thought, it seems obvious that just about any organism with any sort of somewhat sophisticated neural system would be able to develop a kind of sense memory, or learned response to stimuli. I just hadn't pondered the particular case of the caterpillar.
2. On the face of it then, it doesn't seem totally alien that the resulting moth would retain some of the caterpillar-ian memory. It is the same organism, regardless of its form. That is, until I learned the following.
3. During the pupa stage (in the cocoon), the metamorphosis apparently isn't just a rearranging of parts.

"The intriguing idea that a caterpillar's experiences can persist in the adult butterfly or moth captures the imagination, as it challenges a broadly-held view of metamorphosis -- that the larva essentially turns to soup and its components are entirely rebuilt as a butterfly," says senior author Martha Weiss, an associate professor of Biology at Georgetown University. (bold added)

Soup?! As I said, I haven't kept up with moth science, but I had never heard that metamorphosis was such a radical tear-down and rebuilding. I mean, what happens here? Do some enzymes get activated that liquify all the body parts into constituent proteins and genetic material? Or individual cells? Or groups of cells/proto-organs? How does the rebuilding take place? Some cellular structures must be controlling this process, but I can't reconcile a soup-theory with any other process I know about.

Can anyone out there shed some light on this Soup Theory? I've done some cursory searches to find out more advanced explanations of the metamorphosis of moths and butterflies, but I have yet to find anything satisfying. I'll keep looking and post what I find, but if anyone has any links to check out, please post them in the comments.

To me, this issue is crucial to understanding the caterpillar-to-moth memory trick. If the Soup Theory means that even the neurological system is dismantled or even dissolved and then rebuilt, retaining memory seems impossible. This leaves the question of whether some structures are retained (like the 'brain') and the rest of the 'soup' organizes around them.

I first heard this story this morning on NPR, and the researcher who was interviewed made an offhand joke at the end, saying in effect, "We may be getting closer understanding metamorphosis, but we still have no idea why moths crash into porch lights." This was rather annoying to hear, because a pretty good theory for this behavior has already been put forth.

Name That Religion

Here are some quotes from an article about intra-religious clashes in the middle east between hardcore members and more mainstream members over properly modest dress and other public actions.

Dr. H_ is a modern (religious) woman who dresses modestly, ... and observes the (tenets of the religion). One day driving home, she saw that someone had put up a sign in her neighborhood that read "Don't pass here unless you dress modestly."

"I find that offensive," she says. "I don't think that anybody should impose dress codes on the public."

When she tried to haul the sign down, some ultra-(religious people) pelted her and her car with rocks. Dr. H_, who asked that her full name not be used, went to the local police, but she says they did nothing.

...

That rock attack was hardly an isolated incident. People driving on the (holy day) have been bombarded with rocks. Earlier this year in B_, a young ... woman was sitting next a (national) soldier on a public bus when ... men assaulted both of them and forced the woman off the bus. Men and women, they said, should be segregated. Later, (a member of the same religion) who stood up to the zealots within his own community was himself brutally beaten. He said it was like a pogrom.

If I was reading this post, I'd think the quotes came from an article about Iran. That would be wrong. The story from NPR is about ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel.

The parallels between ultra-orthodoxy in Judaism and Islam (and Christianity, too) are very striking.

I don't see any greater lesson here than that, however. It's not surprising in the least that religious zealots would do something like this, regardless of the religion. And though there may be some extra-crazies making things tough on the not-quite-as-crazies, either in Iran or Israel, at least the Jews aren't turning out anti-Western terrorists hell bent on our destruction.

But while we focus on the terrorist threat, and even though some are starting to come around to the view that we really are fighting militant Islam, it's important to remember that the essential nature of all religion -- subjugation of self to the supernatural, and denial of an individual's right to their own life -- is the defining characteristic that makes the pogroms possible.