This is an open thread (and your last chance to get into the 500,000th comment contest).
More like this
I'd just comment like nuts if I were eligible for the 500,000th comment contest.
Call this an open thread. Go nuts! I'm too busy writing to blog anyway.
To celebrate the fast-approaching 500,000th reader comment, ScienceBlogs is running a contest.
To enter, all you need to do is post a comment on any of the blogs in the SB network, using a valid email address. Alternatively, you can sign up to the new weekly newsletter.
When the 500,000th comment…
It's that time of the month again, when we try to acknowledge the work of some commenter (or inanimate carbon rod) who has most delighted us by bestowing admission in the grand Order of the Molly. Just leave a comment here naming your favorite commenter or random object intended to mock the…
Maybe by now you've noticed the new box at the top of the comments, just below every post, asking you to enter the ScienceBlogs 500,000th comment contest. You have to submit your email address with your comment to be entered. Or sign up for the Sb weekly recap. Well, just click on comment below to…
You're not the only blogger doing this. Do you get a special prize if it's in your blog?
No, but I figured otherwise some other thread might get taken over...
I normally try to restrict my comments to Lancet posts, but special circumstances call for special exceptions. Perhaps a bootstrap is in order.
What's going to draw the lightning best?
Lancet?
Hansen?
Lott?
Maybe we could show that Hansen is somehow connected to the Lancet?
woot!
Did your sitemeter always work properly?
Come on 500,000!
Missed it, dang.
Was it me!? :)
Of course Hansen's connected to the Lancet study! Both names have six letters, the second, third, and fifth letters are the same, and both capitalise the first letter. Ergo, within experimental error, The Hansen is Dr Lancet.
Or something ...
(And yes, I do realise the spin-the-sitemeter contest is finished.)
I'm sure once they open their databases and programs to amateurs that there will be a recount, and a finding that the acual number is lower.
Maybe some intrepid amatuers can start taking pictures...
Best,
D
What do you win?
has it happened yet?
I'm proud to say it never occurred to me to comment, comment comment for this thing. It's a nice idea though.
Am I correct in thinking that at the last moment, there was a massive spike in comments? For days now, the number of comments has been steadily, but rather slowly, rising towards half a million. Then I suddenly look away for 48 hours or less, and the competition is over.
Which is to say, it would be mildly interesting to see some statistics about the comment posting rate.
Well, you delurked me...
I want to have a chance, too.
here is 500,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I win?
5x10 to the power of 5 would be the more appropriate notation in a scienceblog..
If I can borrow the open thread for a moment:
Bjorn Lomborg is about to shit out another opus.
Inexplicably, New Scientist has given this jack-ass more space than he deserves (i.e. none).
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/10/are-we-overreactin…
Some idiot in the comments section is regurgitating all the usual denialist horseshit. I no longer have the patience to deal with these people. Any volunteers?
Ian Gould: My (very eco-friendly) ecological economics prof recommended the standard Lomborg text to me, since I was skeptical of some of his ideas(specifically the blatantly unscientific ones). I gather from your comment I should be cautious, but would you recommend any specific companion or critique to read as I inevitably wade through it?
Bear in mind that Lomborg is a scientist in no respect:
Jeff:
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
To expand on what Frankis said, leading scientists in every discipline Lomborg wrote about have criticised his "blatantly unscientific" ideas.
My favorite example: Lomborg uses data from the eastern United States to claim that standard estimates of species extinction caused by deforestation are wrong. Problem: Lomborg looked at all species found in the eastern US not just the endemic ones. Then he argued that because some of those species were still found elsewhere (despite being wiped out in the eastern US) deforestation didn't cause extinction.
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2007/08/29/cool_it/index.html
A good review of "Cool it!" focusing on the economic issues.
Honestly given Lomborg's track record I don't see reading him as a useful exercise even as a means of challenging the orthodoxy.
Remember: "They laughed at Galileo. The laughed at Einstein. but then they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
Those links looks like fantastic help. I skimmed some of it, slurped/mirrored at least a sizeable chunk, but I'll try to dig as deep as I dig into the Lomborg text itself. I'll still read the text(I try to keep an open mind, especially when given advice from my profs), but I suspect I'll probably come to the same conclusions as the present company. We'll see :) Thanks!