gregladen | October 13, 2013UPDATE:
Happy to announce that @Dnlee5 post is now back up: http://t.co/XVentvp35T #SciAmBlogs
— Bora Zivkovic (@BoraZ) October 14, 2013
This just in...
A Message from Mariette DiChristina, Editor in Chief
Scientific American bloggers lie at the heart of the SA website, pumping vitality, experience and broad insight around the community. Unfortunately our poor communication with this valuable part of the SA network over the recent days has led to concerns, misunderstandings and ill feelings, and we are committed to working to try to put this right as best we can.
We know that there are real…
gregladen | October 13, 2013UPDATED:
Happy to announce that @Dnlee5 post is now back up: http://t.co/XVentvp35T #SciAmBlogs
— Bora Zivkovic (@BoraZ) October 14, 2013
This is a very interesting and important question, and it probably requires more context than I have the ability or time to give, but I think it is worth putting on the table.
If you look at the twitter hashtags #standingwithDNLee and #IstandwithDNLee (which, interestingly, have distinctly different groups of people using them, which itself is worthy of study ... perhaps an example of Tweet Drift?) you'll be able to catch up if Twitter does not drive you…
gregladen | October 7, 2013I just finished "Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook" (Second Edition) by Shantanu Tushar and Sarath Lakshman. This is a beginner's guide to using shell scripting (bash) on linux.
Usually, a "cookbook" is set up more like a series of projects organized around a set of themes, and is usually less introductory than this book. "Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook" might be better titled "Introduction to Linux Shell Scripting" because it is more like a tutorial and a how too book than like a cookbook. Nonetheless, it is an excellent tutorial that includes over 100 "recipes" that address a diversity of…
gregladen | October 6, 2013
People are getting mad.
GOP Rep. Randy Neugebauer Confronts Park Service Ranger at WWII Memorial: You Ought to Be 'Ashamed'
On Wednesday afternoon at the Word War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) confronted a female U.S. Park Service Ranger as she was preventing non-veteran tourists from entering the temporarily-closed park due to this week's government shutdown. "How do you look at them and deny them access?" Neugebauer asked the unidentified ranger. "I don't get that." In his breast pocket, he carried a small American flag.
"It's difficult," the ranger…
gregladen | October 5, 2013Over the last 48 hours or so a weather system slowly moved across the southern Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. It was in part shaped and positioned by the jet stream, and it was so slow moving because of the unusually curved nature of the jet stream. This is very much like what happened a few weeks ago in Colorado, but with less of an effect. Nonetheless, there was a damage and injury causing tornado in Nebraska and Iowa, and nine inches of rain in Winona, where there was some very inconvenient flooding. The huge multi-foot snow storm in the Dakotas was part of this system. People…
gregladen | October 3, 2013The anemic (perhaps due to climate change, perhaps not) Atlantic Hurricane Season has finally produced a storm that might turn into a hurricane and will hit the Gulf Coast.
Tropical Storm Karen is just north of the Yucatan and is strengthening and heading due north towards Louisana, Mississippi, Alabama or the Florida Panhandle with the current (and very much subject to revision!) bulls eye somewhere around or just east of Mobile.
The current projections indicate that the storm will turn into a hurricane while over the gulf, then weaken to a tropical storm before striking land. But it…
gregladen | October 2, 2013First, get a list of over a dozen things you want to say. They don't have to be true, and many, even most, of them can be versions of each other. Then, when you are in the debate, do this:
Scientist: “If there’s one thing you should take away from this discussion, it’s...
Denialist [interrupting]: Thing one, thing two, thing three, thing four, thing five.
Scientist: “Actually, that thing four you said, that’s not really true ..
Denialist [interrupting]: Thing six, thing seven, thing eight, thing nine, thing ten.
Scientist: We can’t be sure of everything but one thing we are pretty sure of…
gregladen | October 2, 2013A few days ago I wrote a note to each of several trusted fellow political activists asking them to provide me with a short list of which of the many candidates running for Mayor of Minneapolis they would feel comfortable with winning this important race. I did not ask for their number one choice, but rather, which of the candidates they would be reasonably comfortable with if they won. These fellow travelers in local politics were assured that I would include any and all names they gave me on the list, the list would be alphabetical and not ranked, there would be no indication as to who…
gregladen | October 2, 2013Popular Science, one of the longest running and, well, popular, magazines that deals with science has a website. Last Tuesday, on-line editor Suzanne LaBarre announced that Popular Science would no longer have comment sections on most of its pages. The reason sited was that "Comments can be bad for science." She noted:
A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another…
gregladen | October 1, 2013An interview with Michael Mann on metastable shifts in climate:
Published on Sep 24, 2013
In recognition of climate week, Thom talks with renowned climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann about the dangers of global warming. Dr. Mann in concerned we may be running out of time to rein in global temperatures.
gregladen | September 30, 2013Paul Douglas from Weather Nation (and elsewhere):
For the 5th time in 23 years, the world's leading climate scientists have released an update on the state of the climate. WeatherNation Chief Meteorologist reviews the highlights plus shares the panel's predictions for the rest of the century.
gregladen | September 29, 2013I've been a guest or interviewer on Minnesota Atheist Talk radio a number of times. I never talk about atheism because I'm nothing close to an expert on that or related issues (though I do have a chapter in a book about it, here!). And, of course, I'm very involved, professionally, in certain church-state separation issues (like this and this). But on Atheist Talk Radio I mainly engage in either science (lately climate change science but also evolution) or the afore mentioned church-state separation issues vis-a-vis the evolution-creationism "debate."
Anyway, I've been meaning to finally…
gregladen | September 29, 2013The fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just come out, and Greg Laden joins us this Sunday to tell us what it means. What do over 800 representatives of 85 countries have to say about the state of consensus in scientific literature? More importantly, what do we need to do about it?
Additionally, various memes denying the science of climate change have popped up again in anticipation of this report. What might you have been hearing about climate change recently, and why is it wrong?
CLICK HERE to access the podcast.
gregladen | September 28, 2013We call it "weather whiplash." This is not just meteorologists being funny. It is a phenomenon that perhaps has always been with us to some degree, but that has recently become much more common, apparently. If you were under the impression that there is a lot of strange weather going on out there, you may be right, and weather whiplash may be the phenomenon you've noticed. Importantly, there is good reason to believe that weather whiplash is the result of anthropogenic global warming. In other words, it's your fault, so please do pay attention.
Weather patterns tend to move…
gregladen | September 28, 2013From the Minneapolis City Pages:
The New Ulm Actors Community Theater has decided to cancel its planned production of "Inherit the Wind" thanks to pressure from local evangelicals who object to the way the play portrays the evolution/creationism debate.
And from the New Ulm Journal:
NEW ULM - The New Ulm Actors Community Theatre's production of "Inherent the Wind" was canceled last week due to cast dropouts stemming from objections by Martin Luther College professors and local WELS members over the play's depiction of the evolution/creationism debate.
A typical day in New Ulm, Minnesota.…
gregladen | September 27, 2013Each of these graphs from the IPCC policy summary shows the global surface temperature relative to a 1961-1990 arbitrary baseline. The upper graph shows the annual average, and thus captures a sense of variation reflecting a wide range of causes, but with a general trend from the early 20th century to the preset of increasing temperatures. The second graph shows the same data but using a decadal average. Notice that when you squint your eyes, turn your head sideways, and take some LSD you can see a highly significant decline, hiatus, pause, or even cooling in global temperatures that, if…
gregladen | September 27, 2013Eight hundred and thirty or more authors and editors representing eighty five countries wrote this thing. It is about climate change, and reflects pretty much all of the current (except the most most current of course) peer reviewed literature on climate change, with the intention of providing the basis for governmental policy related to this topic.
The most important conclusion of this report is that humans have caused the warming of the planet that has been observed over the last several decades. More exactly, human activity has led to both cooling and warming effects, with the net…
gregladen | September 26, 2013“We won’t include gays in our ads, because we like the traditional family. If gays don’t like it, they can always eat another brand of pasta. Everyone is free to do what they want, provided it doesn’t bother anyone else.”
Details here.
gregladen | September 23, 2013... on Skeptically Speaking:
This week, we’re diving back into neuroscience, to learn how common conceptions of the brain stand up to real research. Desiree Schell speaks to neurologist and author Robert Burton, about his book A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves. She’s joined by neuroradiologist Jeff Anderson, to get the scientific perspective on the differences between the brain’s right and left hemispheres. And she’ll speak to cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, about the promise and peril of the push back against pop neuroscience.