If you keep picking at it....

Scandals are a lot like sores.

If you keep picking at it, it won't go away.

Well Obama keeps poking at this Wright mess.
Hope!

Models versus Reality

One of my main issues with Global Warming models is the faith people will put into computer models.

The big problem with climate science is the same as geology. It's not repeatable and thus harder to study correlations, and linking causes and effects.

I've worked with computer models and the phrase "Garbage In Garbage Out" is very true. Your inputs determine how accurate your outputs can be.

Another factor is that your assumptions and governing equations. The model will only tell you what you model it to do.

So if critical feedback mechanisms, like the effects of increased water vapor are not computed properly...

This is why I was always skeptical of people touting Climate Models. Climatology is much more difficult to model than a lot of engineering problems. Especially since simulation results on engineering problems like fluid dynamics, structural, and heat analysis can be compared to experimental tests.

Climate studies do not lend such an elegant verification method.

More information is given here.

From Ace

And rom Ed (linked by Ace)

The nice thing about moral equivalence and nuance...

Is how flexible it is.

Not only can you use it to explain why some racists are beyond the pale while others must have their hate understood within their context.

But it also allows for media bias and selective reporting.

Tamara has a related question about KIAs in the war.

Clarke, Science, and God

Give my "timeliness" I'm sure most of you know Arthur C. Clarke has died.

Despite his long life it's still sad.

Rand has some good thoughts on it.

I can really agree with the sentiment that Clarke's work helped inspire one to go into science and engineering.

He also mentioned CP. Snow's two cultures.

Now I'm going to commit the sin of posting something I got from Wiki without verification

"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question -- such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? -- not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."

I like the point here. Well-rounding is key, a scientist or engineer should be able to understand and appreciate the arts, but similarly someone in the humanities should at least have a basic knowledge of science and physical laws.

Rand also cited a very good short story by Clarke "The Star".


It reminds me of one things about God. You can't disprove the existence of an omnipotent being, and what's more worrying is the opposite. If there ever were proof of God... what kind of God would that be?

Why I should add Achewood to the Link List

Comedy. It's really that easy

Spitzer & Blackmail.

Well, I'm late on this subject. Rand Simberg is a source for some info on the former governor.

Independent of any morality or legality two things strike me.

First, the pure schedenfreud of a "moral crusader" being taken down by the very thing he's railed against.

Another is the potential for blackmail. Spitzer was very unpopular, being a bullying arrogant man that used his power as a cudgel. This means that a scandal would sink him, as it just did.

So anyone that had proof that Spitzer was doing these things, had great leverage against him. Regardless of any legality, there are somethings people that work with sensitive information (I'd think a governor would count) should not do, and that's put themselves in a situation where an outside force can have leverage against you.

And Spitzer did just that.

Expensive Oil

From Popular Mechanics comes a reasoned, if breif, look at what the high oil prices mean.


It takes an economic look at events and does more than just the blind panic most articles dealing with "peak oil" mention.

Higher prices in oil will decrease demand which will ease some supply issues (and more efficiency and conservation), but more importantly they will make areas that used to be unprofitable worth looking into. It also spurs development to help extract more oil out of existing sources.

The third effect, obviously, is creating interest in alternative energy sources, and ones that may be viable.

It's a nice little article on energy situations.