1

The Environment / Re: What role do cloud condensation nuclei (CCNs) play in climate change?

« on: 04/05/2017 12:34:29 »

I think you deeply misunderstand the notion of evidence.

That's not even the main point of the thread. Why diverting the thread to your magical belief that climate engineering is not real?
I trust the reader will understand that artificial CCNs utilization in the troposphere may impact cloud physics and enhance rainfall.

Well artificial climate control is certainly not the point of this thread.

2

Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: How would the body decompose if stuffed with drugs and money?

« on: 02/08/2016 17:53:20 »

See Iggy Pop.

3

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Are you aware of Synesthesia increasing human perception?

« on: 15/07/2016 09:05:00 »

Once we have progressed to the point of been able to utilize all of our sensing abilities and perform as one complete interconnected composite entity of trillions of self-aware cells, our dormant awareness will wake up allow us to reach out to the unimagined sources of joy, love peace, and health. Then we would never cease to be amazed at new wonder and reality of the world around us, in all its true blazing vivid multi-colored beauty.

It's drivel like this where you have stated your conclusion before any data what so ever has come in that means you are utterly unscientific in attitude.

4

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is the earth flat?

« on: 10/07/2016 16:41:16 »

The best, well I think so, way of demonstrating that the earth rotates, thus it must be round given that the sun comes up and sets at different times as you go East/West is the droped rock experiment;

Get a rock and tie a piece of cotton thread arond it so you can suspend it from a high point. This will have to be done in doors where there is no wind to push it off course. Churches are good for this but any high place will do, stairwell for example.

Have the rock dangle from the high point so it touches the ground. Make sure it's settled down and is not swinging about. Mark the position on the floor.

Then take the rock up to the top of what ever you suspended it from, a nail or hook or what ever. It will swing about horizontaly as you do this. Calm it down and have it a couple of inches below the high point.

The position you have marked on tghe floor is directly below the high point where you now have the rock.

Cut the cotton thread with something that will impart no sideways motion. Burning through it with a lighter will do nicely.

The rock will drop down and hit the floor a little East of the point directly below the high point.

This is because the ceiling is traveling faster than the floor. When the rock leaves the ceiling it has the same speed as the ceiling and whilst it is dropping down to the floor it is traveling slightly faster than the bits of wall it's passing.

It might be good to use a sand tray to both mark the position and to drop the rock onto as this will show the difference between the two and stop the rock bouncing all over the place.

You can calculate the size of the earth and your lattitude from this should you want to do the maths.

5

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is there a case for positive euthanasia for end stage Alzheimer sufferers?

« on: 09/07/2016 09:20:30 »

My step Grandmother died due to not drinking water for the last week of her life.

Whilst she was a horrid person, not a wet eye at the funeral, I would not wish such a death on anybody at all.

Surely in circumstances where we put to sleep a dog in missery without all this ethical fuss it is similarly clear in 99% of the times that it would have been a lot better to have doen the same to the old lady rather than allow her demented and lost mind to neglect her own body to death.

6

That CAN'T be true! / Re: There is a man doing trying to perform Head Transplants

« on: 03/07/2016 10:25:30 »

Should a science forum really be the platform to allow the mad to spread utter drivel?

7

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why can't I concieve a boy?

« on: 17/06/2016 12:33:08 »

Safia asked the Naked Scientists:
   I have 5 girls. For 15 years, I have wanted to have a boy - I changed diet, used ovlution kit & etc but they did not work . Could you please try to expline to my why I could not conceive a boy?
What do you think?

Congratulations on having 5 girls.

8

The Environment / Re: What criteria would be required to refute man-made climate change?

« on: 05/06/2016 09:19:02 »

To Bored Chemist,

It would be really nice to know what it would take in your case.

9

The Environment / Re: Are climate skeptics right that there is no link between CO2 levels and temperature?

« on: 07/04/2016 19:54:33 »

Here's one of the more polite ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Pleased to encounter another fan of Kruger and Dunning. Should be required reading for Her Majesty's Inspectorates. Perhaps Craig is a warranted inspector?

It is a bit odd that you would pick Dunning Kruger bias to attack Craig with. It's not generally used to explain why people agree with the consensus, or why a consensus of experts, or if you will, the most knowledgeable people about a subject at the time, might be wrong. (We can quibble about whether it's the oft quoted 97% or somewhat less, but I think its fair to say a consensus of climate scientists agree that human activity has been a primary influence over global temperatures in the last 250 years. )

The  Dunning Kruger bias is more often an explanation for why outliers (which might describe your own position more than Craig's - just sayin')  believe something they do. It came up a lot during the GOP debates to explain how Ben Carson, graduate of Yale and chief of neurosurgery at John Hopkins and practicing surgeon for 3 decades, could reject evolution or modern cosmology.

The Dunning Kruger effect also comes up in explaining why a certain number of scientists or medical doctors become anti-vaccination or anti-gmo activists. The bias doesn't simply say "dumb people are too dumb to realize they are dumb."  People lacking expertise in an area underestimate their lack of knowledge, and those who are very competent in another area may be even more prone to do this. What's more, the skill set of intelligent or well educated people makes them particularly adept at rationalizing or defending beliefs they may hold for irrational reasons.

At anyrate I would pick another cognitive bias to attack Craig with or the majority of climate scientists he agrees with (perhaps Bandwagon effect?) If you are going to use the argument that alarming studies get more attention, most climatologists are corrupted by money and political pressure, or peer review journals are a joke, it does sound a little tin-foil-hatty, the equivalent in most science forum discussions of over-turning the chess board. 

I wish this discussion hadn't dissolved into insults. I was getting interested.

Please tell us which climate scientist thinks that the direct heat released by combustion is significant in global warming.

If fools are allowed to peddle complete drivel without challenge then we will be back to the age of ignorance. It is necessary to show that there are right answers and all others are wrong.

10

That CAN'T be true! / Re: Is geoengineering destroying life?

« on: 27/03/2016 12:51:50 »

I know that it is good to be tolleratnt to those who need education. I am often in that catagory. But since this is a science forum should it be a platform for the mad to polute our collective mean space with utter drivel?

11

The Environment / Re: Are climate skeptics right that there is no link between CO2 levels and temperature?

« on: 26/03/2016 10:41:33 »

Thanks to Alancard and B.chemist.

In order to try to get this thread out of the time wasting but very needed destruction of psudo-science drivel I will try to set out some sort of claims which you can challenge, us being on the opposite side of the warmist/skeptic arguments.

The IPCC's predictions in the AR4 report were based on the 1998 hockey stick graph (it made it to the front cover) and had a range of predictions between (I think) +1c and +4.2c. These were from pre industrial temperatures. Why they chose the little ice age as the best climate for the world is s different point...

Since 1998 it has not warmed up. This is despite more CO2 being produced than their most extreme predictions.

Given that I feel it is reasonable to say (this is the claim) that the top half of the IPCC's range of predictions can be discounted, forgotten. Do you agree or not?