Thank you riverat1, Gadget_Guy, Arlet, berbo, and tbannist for correctly repeating that a solid undergraduate statistics education helps one to determine how long a timespan has to be in order to separate the long term climate sea level signal from short term weather noise (using a realistic noise model) by producing a 95% (for instance) confidence interval that's entirely positive.

The reason ocean levels have fallen is most likely because Thailand, Pakistan, Australia and a few other places have all experienced massive record-setting floods. There's actually been enough flooding to show up as a small dip in the measure of ocean levels. [tbannist]

Yes, the sea level has gone down the past couple of years. The main reason for that is all of the major precipitation events that have been going on around the world. The puts the water on land that take several years to return to the ocean. The GRACE satellites have shown by measuring gravity an increase in the areas where the precipitation has occurred. [riverat1]

You're both right; the GRACE analysis was performed by Carmen Boening at JPL. She showed that most of the precipitation fell in Australia and Brazil. As Josh Willis explained, this is because of a very strong La Nina.

... the main alternative to dark matter, MOND, was recently quite thoroughly refuted by new experimental data showing that gravity acts the same at both local and galactic scales, as measured by red-shifting of light climbing out of gravity wells (not the usual redshift due to the light source receding at a rapid speed).

I agree that dark matter explains the sum of available evidence better than MOND, but I've never heard of this particular experiment before. Could you post an arxiv link so I can learn about it? Thanks.

I rather think it silly to want to sue someone on Slashdot for something they said. It's about as silly as accusing them incorrectly of committing libel. ... You're not a lawyer, but that's still no excuse for using using terms inaccurately.

Your statements are false, and the baseless arguments you're repeating have done harm to the scientific community. I've documented these facts extensively. The third criterion seems redundant; making false statements means that by definition you made them without adequate research into the truthfulness of your statements. I don't think that scientists count as celebrities, but even if they do, 'intent to do harm' seems to be supported by the hyperbolic insults and malicious language you've used to baselessly accuse scientists of outright lying and making ridiculously incompetent mistakes.

But you're right, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe you would be able to successfully defend yourself in a libel trial by arguing that you were simply one member of a legion who were all repeating these libelous accusations, so it's difficult to prove that your particular repetitions caused any damage on their own. But why take that chance? If you don't want to be accused of libelling scientists, you might consider finding a hobby that doesn't involve libelling scientists. Would that really be so difficult?

Flush your GI tract with some Fleet's and a antibiotic chaser. Are you still 90% bacteria? No. So obviously "we" are not made of bacteria.

You're also not going to be able to properly digest food, and the population will recover within a few days. The fact that you can temporarily reduce the population of microflora in your large intestine doesn't mean that normal, healthy humans don't require the presence of these symbiotes to extract energy from food efficiently. That's why the ScienceDaily article says "healthy adult human" and the Savage article said "normal human organism". If you actually managed to completely eliminate intestinal microflora permanently, I suspect that would result in serious health consequences.

If I love to call you a dogmatist, then surely you can find at least one quote from me supporting that accusation?

"I try very hard not to be a dogmatist." -ShakaUVM

"I think you need to keep trying." -Khayman80

Care to print a retraction? No? Of course not.

How depressingly repetitive all these conversations are. Remember that Jane Q. Public threw around accusations of fraud like it was going out of style. Then she misinterpreted my description of her accusations of fraud as though I was accusing her of fraud, and threatened to sue me. When I mentioned this incident to you, you had some choice words to say about her behavior.

So let's look at the exchange you actually quoted, the way I actually wrote it:

I think I finally understand your confusion with me. I try very hard not to be a dogmatist. ...

I think you need to keep trying. In the meantime, I'll start to address all the weird assumptions you wrote right after that statement, but I'll have to group them with all the other similar statements you've made that I haven't addressed. So this might take a while.

Notice that I was saying "I think you need to keep trying to understand my 'confusion' with you," not "I think you need to keep trying to not be a dogmatist."

In fact, if you read your original comment, you'll notice that after you finished musing about Galileo and praising yourself for not being a dogmatist, you continued: Your mind is overly reductive, though. You equate someone looking at an issue from an oblique angle, and reduce that to one side or another. If I come up with a way to test ID as a scientific theory, you reduce that to mean that I'm an IDer (I'm not, I simply think it'd be fun to test). You see me say that Watts contributed something with his surface station survey? You reduce that to mean that I agree with Watts on every issue. You see me take issue with predictions of the Greenland ice melt, you reduce that to me thinking all predictions are nonsense.

In other words, you were accusing me of being "overly reductive", contrasting that with your noble non-dogmatic approach, and saying that you finally understood me. So I pointed out that your understanding was wrong; you need to keep trying to understand why I don't like being called a dishonest idiot dogmatist by every programmer with an axe to grind. Hint: it isn't that I'm not trying as hard as you to not be a dogmatist.

How could I accuse you of making strawman arguments, when you're obviously conflating my arguments with that of a person (Jane Q Public) that I've never even heard of?

As I just said, you definitely have heard of her, because I mentioned her and you called her a nutcase. I'm not conflating your comments with hers, just pointing out the fact that you're following the same sad pattern that Jane Q. Public did. She threw around accusations of fraud, and got so confused that she thought I was accusing her of fraud when I was actually just rebutting her latest accusation of fraud. You tried to explain that you understood "my confusion" with you, which apparently has to do with my not trying as hard as you to not be a dogmatist. I then pointed out that you needed to keep trying to understand why I'm objecting to this endless stream of insults. The fact that you twisted this exchange around as me accusing you of being a dogmatist gives me serious deja vu regarding Jane's mistake.

It's only libelous if they're untrue, not because you get offended by them. It would be more accurate of you to call them insult, which is what they were.

I just spent over 60 pages explaining that your libelous insults aren't true. Of course you're libelling scientists.

Making mistakes is not the same as being a dishonest idiot. Being biased is not the same as being a dishonest idiot. Being a dogmatist is not the same as being a dishonest idiot.

As I've repeatedly explained to you and to Jane Q. Public, when the two of you make a fundamental mistake about graduate-level physics, that isn't evidence that you're dishonest idiots because you shouldn't be expected to understand physics that's taught in classes that you haven't even taken. However, when you accuse a professional physicist of making a ridiculously incompetent mistake, that certainly is an accusation of being an idiot.

You getting your panties in a bunch by me calling the RC.org people politically biased does not make said statement dishonest, libelous, or untrue. ...

I'm curious. Do you really think you haven't accused scientists of lying?

... if you want to argue that stuff living in our GI tract is part of "us" you have to explain this as well.

Again, you should be having this argument with the biologists who wrote those peer-reviewed papers saying that only 10% of the cells in the normal human body contain the human genome.

If our muscle cells were 90% bacteria running around in disguise, then we'd lose a significant portion of our weight when we took antibiotics.

Sadly, I need to repeat that this would only be true if bacteria weren't thousands of times less massive than human cells. And that nobody you're talking to is talking about muscle cells.

Funny, it was my college biology professor that made the point that - in a number of significant ways of looking at it - our GI tract and other things are treated by our bodies as being exterior to our body.

This is depressingly typical. I quoted and linked peer-reviewed articles showing that only 10% of the cells in the human body contain the human genome. Those articles are very clearly using the definition that the GI tract is part of the human body. Then you make a vague reference to a professor saying something contrary, without naming the professor or referencing his peer-reviewed paper or showing why it's relevant to the articles that I linked.

Your problem is that while you love to call me a dogmatist, the simple truth of the matter is you can't bend your mind around different ways of looking at things, even if they are true.

Wow! If I love to call you a dogmatist, then surely you can find at least one quote from me supporting that accusation?

I just explained that you were wrong to call me and my colleagues dishonest idiot dogmatists (not to mention all the other libelous smears you've thrown at us). Bizarrely, you then claimed that I was calling you an idiot dogmatist, when I'd just explained to you and to Jane Q. Public that obtaining a graduate-level understanding of the physics of the climate requires... well... taking actual graduate level courses in physics related to the climate. A non-physicist who doesn't understand graduate-level physics isn't an idiot, as I carefully explained to Jane Q. Public. However, a professional physicist has no such excuse, which is why Jane's accusations (and your incessant accusations) that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community are lying and/or making ridiculously incompetent mistakes really are accusations that we're dishonest idiots.

If history is any guide, this is the point where you claim that you've never made any of these accusations, and that I'm making up strawman arguments. Please do that. I plan to eventually collect all your accusations of dishonesty, and then display them next to all your statements that you're not accusing scientists of dishonesty. Adding more examples will make the cognitive dissonance more amusing.

Think about why semen is salty some time. I'll let you get back to me on that one.

I'll pass, thanks. Is this really the legacy you want to leave behind?

I did. Read my other posts in this thread, you'll see I've been very careful to make this point every time.

I just quoted all your posts in this thread to show that the people you were lecturing about biology weren't making claims about bacterial cells in blood or muscle, and neither is the scientific literature. That's just something you latched onto once your original point about dropping from "400 pounds down to 40" was shown to be based on an incorrect assumption.

... believe it or not, the large intestine is external to your body. Think of the hole in a donut. If there is bacteria in the donut hole, do you say that donuts are made of 90% bacteria? It's a completely misleading statement, which has led to the scientific urban legend status it has now.

If the donut used its donut hole to digest food, yeah, I'd say donuts are 90% bacteria. But the point is that biologists treat the large intestine and other body orifices as part of the human body when they say that only 10% of the cells in the human body contain the human genome. Again, I'm just a physicist, not a biologist. Your problem is with the biologists who stubbornly refuse to use the ShakaUVM definition of the human body.

Again, you have trouble wrapping your mind around a concept it's not very familiar with. ... Don't revel in your ignorance.

Charming.

So, once again, you say you've just been making a point about topology this whole time? Let's see if that makes any sense...

90% of the cells in the human body are bacterial

Modern urban legend that isn't even vaguely true. Ask yourself - if you take a powerful wide-spectrum antibiotic, do you suddenly drop from your natural 400 pounds down to 40?

This doesn't seem like a point about topology. It seems like you jumped from "90% of the cells in the human body are bacterial" to "90% of the mass of the human body is bacterial." That's an incorrect assumption because bacterial cells are thousands of times smaller than human cells. For instance, each E. coli masses a femtogram, while each human cell masses a nanogram. Therefore, E. coli cells are ~1000x smaller than human cells, so they can outnumber our cells 10 to 1 while only making up ~1% of our mass.

Also, I can't help but notice that epine didn't say 90% of the cells in our blood or muscle are bacterial. He just said "90% of the cells in the human body are bacterial", which is entirely consistent with statements made in the peer-reviewed literature. You said this was a "modern urban legend that isn't even vaguely true".

Now, there really is a modern urban legend regarding biology involving a 10% statistic that "isn't even vaguely true": the notion that we only use 10% of our brains. That's evolutionarily absurd because the brain consumes a whopping 20% of the body's energy. If humans only used 10% of the brain, it would wither away like the appendix. In fact, we pay an even greater cost: the diameter of the female pelvis limits our skull size at birth, so human infants are helpless for much longer than other primates and mammals.

It's wrong to call both of these ideas "modern urban legends that aren't even vaguely true." There really are 10x as many bacterial cells than human cells in the human body. You just don't consider your large intestine to be part of your body, apparently.

by count you have more bacteria than cells read this.

Right, I've read that article before. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true. It doesn't say where all these bacteria are supposed to be living. You know - the ones that it claims outnumber us 10 to 1? It makes vague references to the gut and the skin, which might very well be true, but it's certainly not true for us, overall. When we actually have bacteria running around at those levels in our blood, it's called septicemia, and it kills you.

Yes, not everything on the internet is true. But that particular article matches statements made in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. So you're wrong to imply that it's just an urban legend.

And it most certainly is true for us "overall", defined as counting the total number of cells in the human body containing the human genome (~10^13) and counting the total number of cells in the human body without the human genome (~10^14). Also, I can't help but notice that the ScienceDaily article didn't say 90% of the cells in our blood or muscle are bacterial. It just said "The number of bacteria living within the body of the average healthy adult human are estimated to outnumber human cells 10 to 1", which is entirely consistent with statements made in the peer-reviewed literature.

It seems like you're trying to parse too much into it because you're letting yourself get hung up on an idea which is only in your head. By mass, yes, bacteria aren't dominant. By cell count (which I believe is what they're talking about)? Quite believable that there are more bacteria cells inside the volume of the human body than cells containing the human genome. Bacteria are prokaryotes (cells without nuclei or mitochondria), which sharply limits their size. IIRC, they may be up to three or four orders of magnitude smaller than eukaryotic human cells. And at any given time, there are likely to be an awful lot of them in your gut. A significant percentage of what you crap out is bacteria.

Right, as I said, the article only vaguely refers to where all these bacteria are supposed to be, with the skin and gut - which are both outside the body, topologically speaking - being the likely places. We simply don't have that many bacteria running around inside of our muscles or blood. If we did, they'd show up on blood screens or under a microscope. That's what I'm trying to say - "we" are not 90% bacteria. It's turned into something of a science-based urban legend that we're full of shit. Basically.

I can't help but notice that someone didn't say 90% of the cells in our blood or muscle are bacterial. He just said "there are more bacteria cells inside the volume of the human body than cells containing the human genome", which is entirely consistent with statements made in the peer-reviewed literature.

Yeah, that's why I leave my large intestine at home if I don't plan on using it while I'm out.

Have you ever studied biology? Or evolution? The reason the GI tract and similar things are the way they are is because they are external to our bodies. You can, in fact, flush everything out of them without any harm, thus proving they are not part of our bodies.

Wow, you really don't consider your large intestine to be a part of your body. I guess that goes for your mouth and various other body orifices too. That's why people are able to quickly and easily shrug off minor inconveniences like rape; nothing actually penetrated their bodies in a topological sense, so no harm, no foul. Or maybe that ridiculous conclusion demonstrates that most people don't use your definition of what is a "part of our bodies".

In fact, it's not just the general public who disagrees with you. Notice that the peer-reviewed literature also treats the large intestine, the mouth and other body orifices as part of the human body. Before you start implying that other people haven't studied biology or evolution, perhaps you should try to get actual biologists to use your definition in their papers.