Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Day After Tomorrow . . . Is Sunny And Mild?

If you get out too far in front of a scientific theory, you may want to "slow your roll." Suddenly you look around and you're all alone (well, just you, Al Gore and an indian chief with a rolling tear).

Scandal at the East Anglia Climate "Research" Unit! Hackers release emails showing falsification of statistics? Skeptical voices in the scientific community snuffed out? Empirical "tricks" to substantiate warming trends? Beautification of climate change graphs for mass consumption?

It's all sham! I guess there are actually six steps to the Scientific Method: Problem, Hypothesis, Experiment, Observation, Conclusion, and, lastly, prevarication. And it's the "global warming scandal of the century" for gadfly Michelle Malkin. I guess the only question left here is what did Obama know, when did he know it and why won't he release his "long form" birth certificate proving he is a muslim from Kenya. Oh despicable "Culture of Corruption."

On the other hand, calling a bunch of emails from a couple of scientists at one university the death knell of the global warming/climate change/hotter-than-balls-now movement may be a bit hyperbolic.

Now if you will excuse me: I need to leave all the lights in my home on before I drive to the store 300 feet down the road in my 1984 Cadillac Seville with no muffler while drinking coffee out of a styrafoam cup and spraying an entire aerosol bottle of Aquanet on my hair.

"Paper or plastic, sir?"

Plastic, but double bag it. Don't triple bag it. I lead a practical life.

Monday, October 27, 2008

The "Anti-Elitist" Drag

Christopher Hitchens makes it know he is, um, a "bit displeased" at the selection of Governor Palin and her stunted views on scientific knowledge:

"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

Hitchens refers to this race towards the intellectual bottom as the "GOP ticket's appalling contempt for knowledge and learning."

Despite the Anti-Elite, we've still come a long way in terms of scientific advancement since God created the earth 6,000 years ago. Cut them some slack, Hitch.