Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score 1) 327

What makes you think US-passed laws have anything to do with Antigua and Barbuda, a foreign nation with its own laws? US laws aren't being "overruled", they simply don't apply outside the US.

There are international organisations such as the WTO and WIPO that set trade rules that both these nations have each agreed to abide by. The US is free to lodge a dispute with them, but they might not get very far considering it was the US who violated those rules in the first place.

And of course, the US has no power to "shut down" the WTO. They can continue to ignore it and keep violating WTO rules where it suits them, but then more nations will do simply the same and follow in Antigua/Barbuda's footsteps.

If the US wants others to follow the rules and respect its copyrights, it will have to follow the rules itself.

Comment Re: You're an idiot... (Score 1) 444

Individual scientists have overturned long-standing consensus for the entire history of science.

This same argument is also used by the countless wrong people too.

Sure, it does happen - but only after a) the method and conclusions are shown to be rock-solid, b) confirming evidence is found by third parties, and c) the existing body of evidence is also explained in the new context. This does not happen commonly - it's far more often that attempts to challenge the status quo fail one or all of the above, and are quickly forgotten.

it has very often turned out that the minority was right

And how often has that minority been wrong?

When I can easily identify errors in a scientific paper, then yes, my judgment is better than theirs. When scientist B points out an error in scientist A's paper, which I can verify for myself is true, then yes, my judgement is better than that of scientists A.

And when Scientists A and C point out errors in Scientist B's critique, who do you believe then? You have no idea even of how much you don't know in the complex field of climatology, yet you're still certain you can "easily" identify errors that the paper's authors, their peer reviewers and the great bulk of climatologists somehow missed completely. Or perhaps you're just selecting the conclusions you want to believe.

who do you think is the one suffering from Dunning-Kruger?

My answer stands :-)

rather than evaluating the actual science in each case.

I'm not capable of evaluating the science at that level. Neither are you, unless you have a PhD and years of work in climate science that you haven't mentioned. We don't have the training or the experience, we haven't been reading all the relevant literature for the last decade, we don't even know what we would need to know to do that. The conclusions sound reasonable to me, but so do the critiques - and so do the counter-critiques. How is a layman supposed to tell who's the most accurate? It's not high-school level stuff.

That's science for you. Actual figures, peer-reviewed paper. If you have a problem with it, refute the science, not my comment about the science.

I assume you're referring to Fyfe et al (2013). And no, I have no problem with it. The models are clearly failing to robustly predict surface temperature variability, and if you read the paper itself, you'll see that it offers a number of possible reasons for this, including the ENSO and AMO oscillations, stratospheric aerosols, model base factors like climate sensitivity, or just unusual natural variability. There's a lot of factors involved, and nobody's claiming that the science is perfect yet, not even close. But we do know, for example, that ocean warming (where 90% of the heat imbalance goes) is continuing unabated, as does ocean acidification. Surface temperatures, while important to humans, are only a small part of the overall rising trend - and they can fluctuate up just as quickly as down.

What I do have a problem with, is the prodigious assumptive leap that a paper like Fyfe's somehow provides evidence that all climate science is therefore junk, that AGW must therefore be insignificant, or even that the 180-year global warming trend has suddenly ceased. This paper does not begin to suggest that, merely that our surface temperature models need more work, nothing more. Meanwhile, other peer reviewed papers like Santer et al (2013) conclude unequivocally that "Our results... underscore the dominant role human activities have played in recent climate change." (I can cite half a dozen others that say the same, if you want).

Comment Re: You're an idiot... (Score 1) 444

YOU are ignoring the great many scientists who do disagree with IPCC

Not ignoring (I've read some of Dr Lindzen's papers, and others); just giving more weight to the far greater numbers of practicing climate scientists who support the IPCC's conclusions. Dr Lindzen and the others you mention are very much in the minority, according to numerous studies from many different parties, and of course the IPCC's own many authors, backed by their reviews of the last 5 years of climate papers. If you want to call listening to a 97% majority "cherry-picking", I don't really know how to respond.

your reliance on consensus as an argument suggests that you actually don't know much about how science really works

It's not consensus of uninformed opinions, it's confirmation of expert results. I'm sure you're smart enough to realise that, so I can only imagine you don't want to.

When a scientist publishes a paper, especially one that contradicts current thinking, we don't immediately throw out all our textbooks; first, other scientists try to confirm their results. Particularly in complex fields, there is debate - are the conclusions actually supported by the data? Are there any questionable assumptions, are the techniques applied appropriate, are there any important factors that have been overlooked, are the interpretations of the data reasonable, that sort of thing. Peer review catches the obvious errors, but particularly for papers that challenge the status quo, the biggest question is usually, how do you reconcile this result with the existing body of evidence? Declaring everybody else to be "wrong" doesn't get you far; you have to find other data that confirms your own results, and you have to explain how all that existing counter-evidence doesn't apply to your conclusions. If you can do that convincingly, other scientists will support your work. If you can't, your results are considered suspect and are assumed to have a flaw, at least until more confirmation can be found. After all, if two observations disagree then either they're observing different things, or one is just wrong.

This is a crucial part of the scientific process, as much as peer review. It's what saves us from crackpots and wasting time on free-energy machines, it protects us from inadvertently flawed results, and it's also what keeps the majority of science and engineering focused and on track. We can't all be experts in every field, so we defer to those that are. I personally don't have the expertise or experience to properly judge Dr Lindzen's work, but his colleagues do - and if the vast majority of them still aren't convinced by his claims after 15 years, then it's fairly safe to for the lay person to assume that his claims (and those of the handful of scientists who continue to deny the results of the thousands of other climatologists) are most probably either flawed, or just don't apply.

Of course, if you still believe that Scientist A's pet theory is right when Scientists B through Z have all produced peer-reviewed results that disagree, you either have to believe your own judgement is superior to theirs (hint: it isn't), or that they're all in a huge conspiracy to supress the truth. I'll leave you to decide which is more likely.

Comment Re: You're an idiot... (Score 1) 444

You might want to re-read this bit:

Be careful about cherry picking your science, or letting others do so for you.

Dr Lindzen's claims about climate change have so far failed to convince most of his colleagues. While I sincerely hope he turns out to be correct, most climate scientists disagree with him - and the conclusions of AR5's broad review of recent science papers reflect that (as do numerous other surveys and studies). A summary of the results of thousands of peer-reviewed studies carries considerably more scientific weight than a lone dissenting voice with unconvincing evidence. Further, choosing to believe a single scientist's opinion while dismissing nearly all other climate scientists' opinions is a prime example of selection bias.

Your comment is really just more evidence of what I was saying.

Comment Re: You're an idiot... (Score 3, Informative) 444

Let's stick to the science, whether it supports AGW or not (at the moment the probability of AGW being the most significant factor in our climate is decreasing - as far as I can tell).

Then maybe you should be looking more closely at the actual science, as the IPCC AR5 review upgraded their assessment of the majority of climate change being human-caused to "extremely likely" (95%+ probability). And while a few specific effects of climate change are now considered less likely, others such as polar ice melt have been outstripping projections.

Be careful about cherry picking your science, or letting others do so for you. Read the AR5 executive summary for yourself; it's by far the most comprehensive review of the actual science. And its conclusions are not that everything's fine - quite the opposite.

Comment Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score 1) 479

Ah yes, detailed, studies conclude that mitigating climate change will save us trillions by 2100, but you prefer to believe some guy on YouTube who naïvely extrapolates a number he pulled out of thin air (exactly where did he get that ridiculous starting figure from anyway?). You're right about the "simple" part.

Comment Re:Chrome for Android (Score 1) 329

Nope, and it won't until more devices have solid video encoding support. The Android MediaRecorder is still limited to encoding from the camera only, and I'm not sure if any MediaCodecs can be made to encode from an OpenGL buffer.

You'll have to stick to DLNA (wouldn't it be nice if Chromecast supported that), or hope that Koush et al persist in their efforts. Or just pay $40 for a generic Android stick and run a DLNA server on that.

Comment Re:What they really broke: (Score 1) 329

Agree completely. Personally I was really hoping for the Chromecast stick to support DLNA rendering robustly (and maybe it will yet be hacked to do so).

In the meantime, while I sincerely hope Koush continues his efforts, it's no surprise that his little workaround got broken. Might even be deliberate like he claims, but the API warning is right there in black & red.

Let's see what's possible after the API is finalised; Google may not be willing to throw the content gates too widely open, but they've always been hacker-friendly for the two-brain-cell market.

Slashdot Top Deals

Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.

Working...