On East Anglia CRU’s hacked files

One scientific issue that may polarize people even more than evolution is anthropogenic global warming – the idea that CO2 from human activity is throwing off the natural balance, leading to significant, possibly irreversible,  greenhouse warming.

The proponents argue that there is significant evidence that CO2 levels have risen faster since industrialization than any time in the geologic record, and that the temperature and climate profile are consistent with rising temperatures induced by GHG’s. Increased energy in the atmosphere could not only lead to rising temperatures, but increased storm activity, melting ice caps, increasing sea levels, and ultimately economic disaster and the displacement of a significant portion of humanity.

The naysayers claim that the evidence is inconclusive (at best) or nonexistant (at worst). Further, they argue that Global Warming Propagandists (or “Warmers”) are threatening global economic stability for personal agenda, or even personal gain.

Significant fuel for this dispute was tossed into the flames this week with the “hacking” of emails and data files from the University of East Anglia Climate Reasearch Unit (CRU). Selected exerpts mention using “tricks” in the data, and “hiding” a decline in temperatures. Sites sharing this information – purporting to blow the whistle – go over the top with rhetoric about how ALL of climate research from “warmers” and alarmists can immediately be dismissed because of clear evidence of fraud and conspiracy.

Folks, chill.

This leak of private information in no way informs the debate. None. This is private communication, out of context, taken illegally. Third party interpretation and trumpeting is not even remotely reliable. Why? because those spreading the files have as much of an agenda as they purport the “warmists” to have. Innuendo and quote mining is not the way to win an argument upon which the future of humanity may rest. Sorry, but it’s not.

There are legitimate scientific questions still outstanding about climate change, because we don’t have a control earth to compare with. But the venue to resolve those problems is in the scientific literature, not FOX news. But, you cry, how can we trust the Warmist conspirators to allow unbiased peer review? Well, the criminal responsible for stealing and publishing the CRU files has seen to that. Climate research will now undergo an extra-thorough level of review, simply because everyone is watching. Carefully. Of course, that goes for all climate research, including that indicating minimal anthropogenic effect. So perhaps the theft will have a beneficial effect in that scrutiny will be even more thorough (not that it wasn’t before), but perhaps it will also delay important research.

In the end, I suspect nothing useful will come from the stolen files, but the potential for setbacks to important research is significant.

Science. It works.

Love it.

Not as dumb as (you think) they look

A common argument against past human achievements – that they are either fraudulent, or the result of superhuman intervention – is the supposed impossibility of those achievements. The Nazca lines, the pyramids, astronmical discoveries, Stonehenge etc.  A whole field of woo, starting with von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? is based on the premise that past humans could not have been clever enough to do things, simply because we, today, don’t know exactly how they did it.

The argument devolves to “I can’t figure it out, so how could they figure it out?” or, more simply “Nobody in the past could possibly be smarter than me.”

That’s why I love this TED video. It shows a simple device invented millenia ago, but I would wager far fewer than 1% of people alive today – especially in the developed world – could figure out how to make one.

Newly discovered mutation protects against prion disease

A recent article in New Scientist is a perfect illustration of how mutations can be beneficial, how beneficial genes can spread rapidly, and how humans are still evolving.

The mutation is a single amino acid change that appears to provide complete resistance to kuru, a prion disease similar to CJD or mad cow disease. Kuru was passed on through ritual cannibalism in Papua New Guinea, when family members ate the brain of the dead out of respect. Of course, once the disease began to spread, more funerals would lead to more cannibalism, which lead to more disease.

The protective gene is thought to have arisen within the last 200 years, and spread rapidly due to the selective pressure of kuru on the community.

Quote of the Day

As a dancer and choreographer I’ve spent a tremendous amount of my life defending something that’s very hard to see. I mean, people see dance, they see the dancers, but they have trouble understanding why it’s valuable, what you are trying to say.  And in some ways I feel that’s reflected in what I learned initially from the physicists. It’s very abstract, it’s hard to see, people have trouble trying to understand it. It has tremendous value to us as a civilization but it’s not easy to explain.

 -Liz Lerman