MTGradwell's Comments (100)

“"Scalia seemed truly baffled that a Christian cross represents Christianity!"

It's a cross. Lines which continue after meeting. Nobody is nailed to it. In Japan, a cross represents the number 10. A cross is also an element in thousands of Chinese characters. Are Japan and China secretly hotbeds of Christianity?

"The Catholic justice went on to proclaim that a cross self-evidently represented all war dead, not just fallen Christians­."

Not *a* cross. This particular cross. Presumably because that was the stated intention of those who first erected it, "Veterans of Foreign Wars". NOT "*Christian* Veterans". Dedicating it to "the dead of all wars", NOT the *Christian* dead.

Perhaps Jews and Muslims wouldn't choose to have a cross marking their graves, but this particular cross isn't a grave marker.

The original memorial was erected in 1934. The land became federal land in 1994. That's a 60-year precedence for the use of the land as a memorial.

"The transparent ploy of gutting the Constitution by creating an island of private property surrounding by a National Park"?

About 10 percent of the land within the preserve's boundaries is privately owned. There are already many "islands". How could creating one more, one which arguably should always have been an island, gut the constitution?

As for lining streets with crescents, and stars of David, why not? They're only patterns, after all. But somehow I think both you and the ACLU would have something to say about that, if it happened.”

“"Significant" in this case just means "marginally more than zero", Water's there, but you'd have to process vast quantities of rock to get even a small quantity of it. The processing plant used to extract that water would, when transport costs are factored in, cost at least twenty-five times as much as its weight in gold. So would most of the infrastructure required to service the plant. At least initially, only a very tiny proportion of the infrastructure could be manufactured in situ.

The moon is at the bottom of a gravity well. Not as deep as Earth's, only 1/6g, but still very significant. Fuel has to be expended not just to get there, but also to slow down rapidly once near. The final deceleration must be rapid, or else your expensive plant gets splatted, so you can't use efficient but weak propulsion such as ion drives.

By contrast, a comet contains water in abundance. You needn't process vast quantities of material to get it; just land and deploy a scoop; manoeuvring to land on the comet could be done using an ion drive; and there'd probably be plenty of other usable materials, including the He3 which is the supposed incentive for returning to the moon.

The only disadvantage of comets is their distance. This could be fixed by detaching a part of a comet when it approaches relatively close to the Earth, and manoeuvring it into Earth orbit.

Comets are the truly valuable real estate.”

“Oops.

When I wrote " ...merely to counter your assertion that all of the impressive names are on one side of the issue." I should have written "... merely to counter Aaror's assertion ...". Sorry.”

“I never said that Dr. Teller was admirable; only that his was an impressive name. I did that not to make a case against climate change, but merely to counter your assertion that all of the impressive names are on one side of the issue. petitionproject.org does mention other names that might be considered impressive, and i might come up with another of them if I was interested in making arguments from authority, but I'm not.

In any case, you describe Dr. Teller as a fanciful lunatic because he hoped to see peaceful uses for his 'baby', to leave a legacy that wasn't solely death and destruction. What excoriating epithet would you use on those who actually consider using H bombs in anger against innocent human beings? What would you call an entire nation which apparently tolerates the stockpiling of H bombs and other similarly vile abominations on its own soil, and which doesn't instantly remove from office any politician who talks about "leaving all options on the table" in these circumstances?”

“No, it's like saying that just because you can't read either primary OR secondary source documents for string theory, and you have to depend on a census of the opinions of those working in the field (a census which would likely exclude any dissenters automatically on the grounds that they can't possibly be trusted workers in that field), it is unlikely that a majority of laymen will be convinced of the validity of string theory. No matter how impressive the list of string theory proponents is, or how trusted they are in the field.

But even if we did have to depend on secondary sources for string theory - are you trying to say that the theory behind climate change is as complex and as difficult to explain satisfactorily in lay terms as string theory is? Or that the actual empirical evidence in support of climate change is only as powerful and unequivocal as the evidence supporting string theory?”

“One would certainly hope so. But what kind of data is it which cannot be fed to the general public without first being transmogrified firstly into opinion, and then back into data in the form of a count of opinion-holders?

I appreciate that tables of raw data may not mean much to the average layman, but what is so wrong with the notion of presenting graphs based on actual climate data, as opposed to graphs of shifts in opinions?

The graphs would have to be accompanied with a sufficient explanation of how they were compiled, so that viewers could verify e.g. that June 2009 data isn't being directly compared with December 2000 data. But surely that can be done. Also, there'd have to be links to the raw data so that interested parties could verify that there wasn't a 33 masquerading as a 38. Maybe that's the stumbling block, since I understand that a lot of raw data is jealously guarded. However, if you really want to turn the tide against global warming deniers, the way to do it is by presenting meaningful information based on, and linked to, actual climate data.”

“Aaror,

The Global Warming Petition Project, petitionproject.org, is just one of several organized attempts to disprove the notion that there's scientific consensus on this issue. It currently claims that 31,478 American scientists have signed, including 9,029 Ph.D's. Only people with a degree are eligible to sign, and some effort appears to have been expended in verification and in the removal of fake or duplicate entries. Some of the names could be called impressive - Edward Teller, "father of the H bomb", for instance, could be said to be up there with Hawking, Einstein and Rutherford. He wasn't a climate scientist (and neither were/are those you mention), but 3,803 of the signatories are said to have qualifications in atmospheric, Earth or environmental sciences, while many thousands of others have qualifications in subjects which could be directly relevant , such as computing or mathematics. Is possession of a relevant degree indicative of intelligence and knowledge of the subject? I'd say that's at least a possibility,.

Of course, impressiveness is in the eye of the beholder; and, no matter how impressive the lists get, they will always be ignored or denigrated by those on the other side of the fence. Finally, as I said, these lists are compiled "as if that actually means something". It doesn't, any more than the talking heads mean anything. That's my point. Instead of trusting either, why not find some actual evidence you can trust? That way you can form your OWN opinion.”

“I think your 38% should be 33%. A simple human error, but it demonstrates one of the problems with using numbers. They aren't always right.

There's another bigger problem, though. Science isn't a popularity contest, or at least it shouldn't be. Even if there was complete unanimity among scientists, and even if all 104% or so of the population were convinced of their correctness, if the globe was actually cooling then it would continue to cool in complete indifference to any and all opinions.

You appear to "get" that, in the case of the masses. I doubt that you think the Earth will start cooling the moment that the proportion of the population who think it is cooling tops 50%. But neither side "gets" it in the case of scientists. Both sides put forward increasingly impressive lists of signatories backing their viewpoint, as if that actually means something.

Should "the collective opinions of thousands of professional meteorologists" be "equated to nothing more valid than the uneducated opinion of a radio host"? Yes, absolutely, if neither side puts forward compelling evidence. And if evidence is put forward then it's the quality of the evidence that matters, not the quality of the opinion-holders.

Finally, the survey wasn't about warming. It was about perceived coverage of the issue. If someone is convinced that warming is a threat but nevertheless believes that mainstream coverage is exaggerated, is that person at fault? Isn't it even remotely possible that the coverage is at fault?”

“"That chromosome number determines species;"

Other way around. What I said was: "The true mark of speciation isn't variation in size, habit or location, all of which can be reversed. It's a significant alteration in the arrangement of DNA, destroying the possibility of inter-fertility and COMMONLY ACCOMPANIED by a change in chromosome number". Commonly, but not invariably. Also, vastly different species can fortuitously have the same chromosome number.

So, if something has 36 chromosomes in each cell nucleus then it might be a Tibetan fox, or it might be a starfish; or something else which just happens to have a chromosome count of 36. However, if something is a Tibetan fox then (barring serious congenital illness) it will have a chromosome count of 36.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number_of_chromosomes_of_various_organisms for more.

"that the fact of evolution is different from theory"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution

"4 a : the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogeny b : a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory"

4a describes the undisputed fact of evolution. Do you really imagine that anyone thinks biological groups don't develop?

4b is about the theory. Note that 4a is different fron 4b.”

“"And you continue to confuse title and subtitle, no matter how many times you say it."

There is no confusion in my mind about distinctions between title and subtitle. None. Merely confusion about why anyone should care. YOU are the one who seems to ascribe huge mystic significance to the word "On". I say, if you want your On, you can have it. Even if the "Oxford's World Classics" edition is called "The Origin of Species". Oxford should bow to your superior wisdom and knowledge.

"I stand by my statements about your biological knowledge.­"

Unless you've been doing some digging, you know nothing about my biological knowledge except what is revealed in these discussions. And if you were right about ALL my biological assertions being "simply factually incorrect", then I would expect you to be able to point out at least one factual incorrectness, and back it up with a real (not joke) citation. We have ongoing disagreements, which I acknowledge, but I don't see anywhere where I am shown to be factually incorrect. Merely stating that I'm wrong doesn't make me so.”

“You said "take the trail yourself from there". WHAT trail? How do you get from Mirsky to Jones et al? Does the one reference the other? No. Is there a reference somewhere in the 69 comments? No. There are, however, various affirmations that domestic dogs are indeed one species, along with anecdotes about how mismatched canines were inventive enough to overcome the supposedly insuperable size difference.

Anyway, what does Jones give us? The fabled assertion that dogs are distinct species? No, of course not. Jones et al are serious scientists, so they are careful to talk about "breed characteristics" without once suggesting or hinting that breeds might be distinct species.

"Mirsky was serious, just using humor to make a point."

That's why he couldn't bring himself to say, even in jest, that chihuahuas and mastiffs are distinct species; only that they SHOULD be. Even he acknowledged that "the 180-pound English Mastiff and the two-pound Chihuahua [are] both considered members of Canis lupus familiaris­." If he can say it, why not you? Why dou you cite, in support of your point, a joke article which directly contradicts your point?

And what am I supposed to do next? Follow the alleged "trail" to yet another unguessable destination that yet again fails to support your point? Why should I do this? How many times should I do this?”

“I understand now. "Are Dog Breeds Actually Different Species? A humorous take on using dog breeds to prove evolution By Steve Mirsky" is in Scientific American, therefore it must be scientific. But the clue's in the title. "A humorous take". It's a JOKE. Even so, it correctly states the accepted wisdom: "the 180-pound English Mastiff and the two-pound Chihuahua [are] both considered members of Canis lupus familiaris­."

"Every point you've made is wrong, and when it is pointed out as so, you just ignore and move on".

I've addressed your so-called rebuttals, in some cases repeatedly. Except for the insults, which are generally too broad to merit serious attempts at rebuttal ("every point you've made is wrong") your points fall into just two categories.

1) "On the Origin of Species" IS TOO the title. I've already spent far too much time on that one; and

2) little dogs and big dogs (or even same-sized but physically separated dogs) are distinct species. You support this with a JOKE citation.

Then you make unfounded claims about the validity of my biological knowledge, and you pretend my points are unsupported assertions. even though I support them with quotes from your own article, or from non-joke publications. It's just as well the discussion is set to end here. Unfortunate, though, because you weren't always this bad.”

“I knew you wouldn't be able to find any authorities saying that Chihuahuas and St. Bernards are distinct species. Columbia Encyclopedia says "On the basis of genetics, scientists now include in a species all individuals that are potentially or actually capable of interbreeding and that share the same gene pool". Given just physical proximity and the existence of intermediate-sized mutts, DNA from a tiny dog can and does transfer to a huge dog in just a couple of generations. THAT's a shared gene pool.

Darwin didn't talk about chromosome counts because he didn't know about chromosomes (or DNA, or genes). However, I suspect that he would have descended into such "silliness", had he known about it.

I truly don't get your point about the title. The word "A" was included in the original of "A Tale of Two Cities". Some abbreviate it to "Tale of Two Cities", and even have the temerity to file it under T instead of A. So?

Normally font size is immaterial. However, when four words are so much larger than the others that they leap out of the page, and the rest is so small as to be almost invisible, that surely means something. From a distance, the title of Darwin's book looks like

.. THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES .. ..... ... ....... ........., .. ... ..........­... .. ......... ..... .. ... ........ ... .....”

“The complete first edition title is actually:

[tiny font]On
[huge font] the Origin of Species
[tiny font] by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

If I was trying to infer a short title from this, I might ascribe some significance to the font sizes.

Be that as it may, the 6th edition was published in 1872. Darwin died in 1882. It seems reasonable to assume he had some say in the title of the 6th edition.

I doubt you'll find any authority who says St. Bernards and Chihuahuas are distinct species. Domestic dogs form a continuum, with DNA able to pass freely between the smallest varieties and the largest. It just takes a couple of generations instead of one. Even if by some unprecedented disaster all medium-size dogs were obliterated, it wouldn't take long to re-establish the continuum by breeding St. Bernards for smallness and Chihuahuas for largeness.

The true mark of speciation isn't variation in size, habit or location, all of which can be reversed. It's a significant alteration in the arrangement of DNA, destroying the possibility of inter-fertility and commonly accompanied by a change in chromosome number. Cats have 38 chromosomes, Dogs have 78, chimps have 48, etc. It follows that these are all distinct species.

However chromosome number changes, it surely isn't by "the accumulation of innumerable slight variations". If we're trying to explain speciation, I'd say we need some OTHER explanation.”

“'The original and correct title of Darwin’s book is, On the Origin of Species'.

Not quite.

'In fact the complete title is, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.'

Bingo! See why people might want to abbreviate?

'Darwin himself defined evolution as "descent with modification, caused by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good to the possessor.­" What is truly amazing about this statement is that Chuck D not only discovered evolution, but anticipated the mechanism ..'

No, what's amazing is that farmers made huge improvements to livestock apparently without having the slightest notion about how crossing the best strains might help. Dog breeders and pigeon fanciers also produced animals which met their specifications exactly, apparently by chance.

'Theory means a body of facts or accepted data set offered to explain diverse phenomena organized under a unifying and usually simplifying concept or principle.­'

The 'body of facts' is merely supporting evidence. The explanation, the concept, THAT is the theory. It is ALWAYS tentative.

'Nothing in all of science is more certain than evolution'

True, if you're referring to the FACT of evolution. We know offspring differ from their parents. The THEORY of evolution is something else. It's about how (the fact of) evolution supposedly explains origination of species. Unless resistant bacteria are a new species, resistance is irrelevant. Stuff about DNA, atoms etcetera: also irrelevant. What's relevant?

'we have witnessed speciation'.

Citation?”

“Abundant? Yes. "Not particularly valuable?" - The price tag says otherwise.

"we glance around to see how others are reacting" - that is how almost all material goods, legal tender and specie are evaluated; not just diamonds. If you think diamond mania is ridiculous, wait till you see how attached people get to rectangular pieces of paper tinged with green ink. At least diamonds have uses, and they survive wetting and other ill-treatment. Just leave the bits of paper in your pocket for one wash and they turn into a soggy mess. And with diamond the supply is at least finite. The green paper is printed by vast incompetent organizations as a way of escaping the consequences of their incompetence; an incompetence which has no known limits.

"fools being separated from their money"

Oh, I see you've heard of the green stuff already.

"with religion the fable is god; both narratives can survive only because we abandon critical thinking".

One workable definition of god is "that which is most important". By this definition, god would be a fable only if nothing is more important than anything else.

Your analogy is perhaps more accurate than you realize, because diamonds ARE a god; and, as the case you put forward so eloquently show us, they are a false god. They are one aspect of the god which the New Testament calls "mammon".”

“Thanks for responding.

I wasn't disputing that the baby would be considered unlucky. I said "yes" to that. I was challenging the "truly random world" bit.

If a square is selected randomly from a checkerboard, there's a 50-50 chance that the square will be white. This doesn't make the board random. Selection of one particular baby doesn't make the world random.

Take something that's generally considered random, a coin toss. The outcome depends on whether the coin turns over an odd or even number of times. The trajectory is determined by laws of conservation, seemingly as deterministic as anything in the realm of physics. Yet we say the toss is random. This statement, ostensibly about the state of the coin, is actually about the state of our knowledge. We don't know which way up the coin is/will be.

Similarly with card shuffling. At every stage, the positions of the cards depend on their positions a moment before. A superhumanly observant being, having watching the shuffle, could say precisely where each card is. Yet we say they are random. Again, this is only ostensibly a statement about the cards. It's actually an admission that we aren't superhumanly observant

Extrapolate to the subatomic. Why should we believe 'subatomic events are random' is a statement about the world,as opposed to a statement about our knowledge of it?

I don't really blame Hairy for the accident of his birth; However, if we have a choice, I think we should avoid being spiders.”

“P.S.

"I used to think that the US press was guilty of distortions. Recent events changed my mind, as UK anti-Cameron papers tried to cut and paste from my talk to weaken him by trying to demonize me. "

Perceived mistreatment by a *British* paper causes you to revise your opinion of the *US* press? Does that make any sense?”

“Climate: You say your views were summarized by "Climate change is not man-made". The Guardian website currently has "Climate change may not be man-made". Maybe they've edited, but then they should say so. "Climate change may not be man-made" seems a fair summary of "even I don't believe that carbon thing is necessarily anthropogenic [man made]", which you are quoted as saying.

Mangan doesn't say you're a "climate change denier" (unless it's somewhere I haven't found). She said you were "the author of a book that could easily cause [you] to be summed up as a recession-loving, tax-hating, climate-change denier". As a Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering you should understand that someone who says what you said risks being summed up as a climate-change denier.

Crashes: You weren't just *portrayed* as someone who "loves crashes". You're *quoted* as saying ""I like crashes". If you didn't say that then you may have a basis for a lawsuit. (However, I'm not a lawyer).

Tax: Watts claimed you say it's wrong for the rich to pay higher taxes to help the less well-off. You're quoted as saying "If you are losing money in 2009 you get a bigger tax break. It is the opposite of everything I believe in". Since those who are losing money generally get multi-mill­ion-dollar bonuses, they can hardly be described as "less-well off". On this you *definitely* have a basis for a lawsuit. Go for it! (Again, IANAL).”

“It WAS Hairy's fault. If he had just tinted his webs a delicate shade of mauve, and placed them in an art gallery, he could have sold them for a million dollars each, minimum, and bought all the flies that he wanted.

Luck only trumps personal responsibility when we have only one strategy, which we pursue relentlessly regardless of the outcome. THAT was Hairy's problem. Put another way, his problem was that he was an orb weaver spider.

"In a truly random world, good and bad luck exist; luck is real. A baby born into poverty and hunger to a broken home, burdened with a terrible disease and a negligent mother would universally be considered unlucky."

Yes, but in a truly random world there would be a chance, however small, that *no* babies would be so afflicted. And another chance, however small, that *every* baby would be in that fix. In the real world there is a certain number of babies who are born into poverty etcetera. That number is affected by (non-random) human actions.”

“p.s. It's interesting that you refer to the "original Coke identity". Why do you you think Coke is called Coke nowadays, even though its proper name is Coca Cola? Could it be because both Coca and Cola (but especially Cola) are generic words? The same way that "Sci Fi" is generic? Coke needs to distinguish itself from the thousand other colas out there, and the only way to do that is with a trademarked non-generic name.”

“"So when people are looking for Science Fiction, do you think they are going to look for "syfy"?"

If they see it mentioned in a discussion such as this one, then, yes. Or, if they see a set of program listings for SyFy in a newspaper or magazine and want to know more, then, yes. And the good news is, they'll find it. Very different from the situation prior to now.

Of course, if they don't want the channel, if they just want a dose of science fiction and don't care where it comes from, then they'll search for "science fiction" and they'll get the Wikipedia entry, exactly the same as they used to. And there's just a chance, a minuscule chance, that they'll stumble upon the sci-fi / ScyFy channel. That hasn't changed one iota. After all, ScyFy aren't going to stop using the expressions "science fiction" and "sci fi" in their program listings. What has changed is that people will no longer have to be both persistent and lucky in order to find a site when they know it exists and they even know what it is called”

“I don't get it. Are you saying that SyFy should have followed the example of organisations that have gone under? That they should have gone under themselves? If so, why do you point people to them on Facebook?

You know about the Sci Fi channel already. You follow them avidly enough to know about the name change, and to point other people towards their new site. But there are many others who know nothing about the channel, or they have heard of it but that's as far as it goes. They see a reference to it on a web page (maybe here, even) or in a magazine article, and they want to find out more. So they Google. They NEED a non-generic word or phrase, one that actually stands a chance of pulling up the site they're searching for.

The long-term fans who don't know about the rebranding don't lose out because when they try to visit the old site they are automatically redirected to the new one.”

“There is one reason for the rename. It's a very good reason, and it's the reason behind nearly every rename and rebrand of recent years. It's so obvious, it should shout out to everyone here. You shouldn't even need to think about it. It can be summed up in one word. Google.

Google "Sci Fi" and you'll get festivals, books, toys, Wikipedia, countless other websites, and the latest blockbuster films. You'll get Jules Verne, H.G.Wells, E.E. "Doc" Smith, Brian Aldiss, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Clifford D. Simak, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, James Blish, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Ursula le Guin, William Gibson, Greg Bear and a thousand other names, and information about all their works and derivatives. If you're really lucky, somewhere in there you might find something about the Sci Fi channel.

Google SyFy and you'll find silly articles about how stupid the channel was to rename itself.

Countless great organisations and great bands, some of them very successful in the days before Internet, have gone under because they happened to have generic names. Should SyFy have followed their example?”

“"there is a greater danger that an unstoppable chain reaction will begin: the rubbish will crash into other pieces of rubbish, causing it to shatter into smaller chunks that will then crash into each other -- and on, and on, until the earth is circled by a haze of unpassable metal debris that remains there for millennia. "

Except ... in every new collision, much of the stupendous kinetic energy is expended in the deformation of the colliding objects. The average speed of the resulting debris must therefore be lower than that of the initially colliding objects. The vast majority of potentially colliding junk is in low Earth orbit, travelling just fast enough to stay up. ANY reduction in speed, however slight, should be enough to bring it down.

Suppose a post-collision piece of junk does maintain enough speed to stay in orbit. Even so, the chance it will stay up is negligible. A low Earth orbit is nearly circular, hugging the Earth maybe just a couple of hundred miles above the surface, as the name implies. Unless the fragment moves exactly horizontally, just as it did before the collision, it will have an elliptical orbit. The ellipse will necessarily intersect the Earth's surface or atmosphere, even if the initial movement is upwards. Even the most glancing contact with the atmosphere will eventually bring anything down.

The threat is enormously overblown. Why does nobody point this out? As is usually the case, it's because the threat makes a good story.”