Links With Your Coffee - Monday
- Think Progress » Christine Todd Whitman: ‘Definite correlation’ between global warming and hurricanes.
- Hulu - Triumph at the Republican National Convention, Part 1 (9/4/08): Late Night with Conan O'Brien(tip to Sarah)
- The Satirical Political Report - An Offbeat Look at the Hot-Button Issues of the Day » Shocker! McCain a Secret Member of Arizona ‘In-Depends’ Party
- Ben Smith's Blog: Debate schedule set - Politico.com
- Bad Science » The certainty of chance
Here, nestled away, halfway through their gushing barrage of data and facts, was an unmarked confession: this entire news story was based on nothing more than random variation.
There are many reasons why you might see differences between different areas in your survey data on how miserable people are, and people being differently miserable is only one explanation. There might also be, of course, the play of chance: 5,000 people in 274 areas doesn’t give you many in each town - fewer than 20, in fact - so you might just happen to have picked out more miserable people in Edinburgh, and miss the fact that misery is, in fact, uniformly distributed throughout the country. - Good with numbers? It's in your genes - brain - 07 September 2008 - New Scientist
If you think you're just "not a numbers person", you might be correct. It seems that some people are born with a naturally better sense of numbers than others - although that doesn't mean education can't improve your mathematical abilities.
Being good at maths is thought to depend on two factors: the inherent sense of numbers that children, and some animals, possess from a very young age, and the formal education they receive at school. How these factors relate to one another and how much this inherent "number sense" varies between individuals had not been investigated, until now.
- DIRECT eNewsletter for Democrats
Comments
I'm glad to see the debate schedule finalized, and glad that real professionals like Lehrer nor Ifill covering as moderators, rather than puerile hacks like Gibson or Stephanopoulos. If the debates stay focused on issues, I think Obama's chances of cleaning up are overwhelmingly. But, as we know from the Clinton debates, he doesn't do well when confronted with personal attacks. (Personally, I think part of it is an academic distaste for ingenuous and supremely confident stupidity that he just needs to get over, but...).
Does anyone know anything about Schieffer?
(On Brokaw, I'll keep quiet, and wait and see).
Yay for Target!
Thanks for debate schedule (great I'm busy on pres debate #2)
As someone who has tutored math, I have to add another factor to math ability: self-esteem, which if usually connected to a former math teach. Bad math teachers who are even less than helpful with the struggling students do a lot to encourage mental blocks in this subject.
Try it with some middle school or high school student who is behind: have them tackle a problem, a step at a time - they will often get it. Then set them off with paper and pencil and they're stuck. I saw this repeatedly.
And for you athletes and musicians who think you're bad at math - again, only on paper from my experience. You're computing math daily, just not on paper, and not with a calculator.
I hope in the debates they don't push about her being underqualified - I hope they let her stand on her record. How they push what a lousy job she has done as mayor of Wasilla and then as governor. How fiscally irresponsible she is, how she will gives tax breaks to corporations but (once again) middle class has to carry a larger burden and all the other Bush-like qualities she has...
A year and a half ago, her office had a drive thru window.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/129/319098225_e3fb99541f.jpg?v=0
I agree with you about focusing on the issues, but man, people should be frightened that someone that did so little could be sitting in the Oval office. Maybe we can install a drive thru on the Whitehouse to make her more comfortable.
So, other than an article claiming without proof that the hurricanes are tied to 'global warming', and then linking to an interview that says the same thing (with no proof) ... what proof is there?
How about we look at the NOAA chart from 1900-2000 - http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table4.htm. Hmm, seems things aren't as clear-cut as we're being told. 28 of 65 Category 3 or higher hurricanes since 1950? Basic math says that's not a majority.
Certainly Katrina isn't on that list, but most of the damage associated with Katrina had nothing to do with the storm (which was only Category 4 when it hit land) - it was the result of there being a massive city built below sea level with inadequate flood control and levees that weren't up to code. So, more of an engineering / general stupidity problem than a 'global warming' proof.
How do you even begin to debunk such a shoddy argument? There are so many holes you'd need an army of Dutch boys to plug them. And at the end you're still faced with the question: what, realistically, could mankind do even if hurricanes were increasing due to 'global warming'? Stop existing? Give Al Gore some more 'carbon credit' money?
Calligraph, you have demonstrated time and again that you do not care about truth. Your record shows that you are not interested in increasing your understanding, much less anybody else's. Instead, you interchange fact and fiction at will to sow confusion and doubt.
You are a fraud.
wait - here's yet another Target you tube link for calli:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0pjm40RxEw&feature=related
(sorry, my markdown skills and the file I used for reference went bye bye over the summer)
I think two issues are being conflated that need to be separated.
First, is global warming real, and does it threaten to produce seriously bad consequences? On this, I'm going to go with what most experts on climate and ecology say, crazy at it sounds. For more local purposes are arguing on this, I'm content to defer to the massive amount of evidence that Tim has so assiduously collected here and here and
Second, were Katrina and Gustav attributable to global warming? Honestly, I don't know.
The point is these are separate issues. Even if Katrina was not caused by global warming does not mean it's any less real, or less of a potential threat.
Thanks for the Conan link, Sarah (and Norm). I highly recommend the sequel, which is also quite hilarious
Recent evidence is suggesting that the hurricane-warming link is weak.
Note also that the latest IPCC was pretty equivocal on this subject as well. This from WG4 summary:
"Likely" in IPCC speak is 66-90% chance.
In an enlightened society, this kind of scientific debate might lead people to TRUST science more (as being self-correcting), since it doesn't jibe too well with the 'there's a liberal science conspiracy bent on ruining our lives' concept. But, alas, I'm afraid it often has the opposite effect. Or, rather, that deniers have made up their minds already that Climate Change is a scam, and they fix the facts to meet their preconceived notions.
Finally one further point (for Adam): my impression is that the deniers are quickly shifting the goal line from "global warming is not real" to "global warming may be real, but it ain't human caused."
This is just like the Evolution debate, where the goal line shifts from young earth...to...old earth but no new species...to...new species but only microevolutionary changes like cichlids...to...OK, macroevolutionary changes too, but no way am I an ape!
peace!
I think you made one point that should be emphasized. The IPCC published its fourth report in 2007 and the case for global warming has strengthened considerably since its 3rd report. In both reports, the IPCC have tried to provide error estimates and confidence limits on their data and conclusions. There is no "hysteria" - just careful reasoned analysis of available data.
Most environmental organizations don't make claims because causation is hard to prove. But..
Fact: the earth is getting warmer
Fact: the waters of the Caribbean are warmer
Fact: Hurricanes get stronger over warmer water.
It's actually not that far below sea level, It's below the river level, which is damned to diverted to keep the port open. A port vital to our economy. The miserable levy system is a story of federal funds drying up over 30 years and locals mismanaging what funds they had.
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I assume this was some sort of test and not kisses.
Well, if you like they can be kisses. I love all you guys and gals.
This is a family site - 'xxx' comments will not be tolerated!
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I'm trying out the reply to comment with the preview it sort of works now.
I kinda figured that was what you were doing. I like the changes, BTW.
Why is it that the same people who deny global warming are the same who have had to constantly rewrite their opinions on the two wars we are losing simultaneously? They are also trying desperately to deny evolution, like children trying to push back the waves at the beach. They say that scientists reporting on the melting polar ice are fear-mongers, yet these are the guys who want us to be scared shitless of every Muslim on the planet. Al Gore is worse than Hitler to them because...I don't really get that one. He isn't offending about 95% of the scientists on the planet, so why are the Jesus freaks so freaked out over his slide shows?
Forget about the fact that a consensus of the world's climate scientists agree on global warming and man's role in it. I don't know about you but I haven't completely relinquished my own common sense. A child could look down out of the window of a plane landing at LAX, see the 18 lane San Diego freeway packed with vehicles, and figure out that we are probably screwing up the environment.
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