Anthropogenic Global Warming

The "myth" of basic science?

oracknows — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 08:10:34 +0000

The "myth" of basic science?

I'm a clinician, but I'm actually also a translational scientist. It's not uncommon for those of us in medicine involved in some combination of basic and clinical research to argue about exactly what that means. The idea is translational science is supposed to be the process of "translating" basic science discoveries into the laboratory into medicine, be it in the form of drugs, treatments, surgical procedures, laboratory tests, diagnostic tests, or anything else that physicians use to diagnose and treat human disease. Trying to straddle the two worlds, to turn discoveries in basic science into usable medicine, is more difficult than it sounds. Many are the examples of promising discoveries that appeared as though they should have led to useful medical treatments or tests, but, for whatever reason, didn't work when attempted in humans.

Of course, if there's one thing that the NIH and other funding agencies have been emphasizing, it's been "translational research," or, as I like to call it, translation über alles. Here's the problem. If you don't basic science discoveries to translate, then translational science becomes problematic, virtually impossible even. Translational research depends upon a pipeline of basic science discoveries to form the basis for translational scientists to use a the starting point for developing new treatments and tests. Indeed, like many others who appreciate this, I've been concerned that in recent years, particularly with tight budgets, the NIH has been overemphasizing translational research at the expense of basic research.

So it was with interest and disappointment that I read Matt Ridley's latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Myth of Basic Science. In it, he tries to argue that it is innovation and technology that drive scientific discovery, not scientific discovery that drives technological breakthroughs. It's a profoundly misguided argument that boils down to two central ideas. I'm quoting him directly because on Twitter he seems to be claiming that his critics are attacking straw men (they aren't):

"Most technological breakthroughs come from technologists tinkering, not from researchers chasing hypotheses. Heretical as it may sound, 'basic science' isn’t nearly as productive of new inventions as we tend to think."
"Governments cannot dictate either discovery or invention; they can only make sure that they don’t hinder it." (Or, as he quotes others elsewhere, government funding of research is not particularly productive.)

He starts out with what struck me as one of the stranger straw men I've ever seen, namely that because there has been so much parallel technological discovery, technology is fast on the way to "developing the kind of autonomy that hitherto characterized biological entities." (One can't help but wonder if he's been watching too many Terminator movies.) Here's a taste:

Suppose Thomas Edison had died of an electric shock before thinking up the light bulb. Would history have been radically different? Of course not. No fewer than 23 people deserve the credit for inventing some version of the incandescent bulb before Edison, according to a history of the invention written by Robert Friedel, Paul Israel and Bernard Finn.

The same is true of other inventions. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell filed for a patent on the telephone on the very same day. By the time Google came along in 1996, there were already scores of search engines. As Kevin Kelly documents in his book “What Technology Wants,” we know of six different inventors of the thermometer, three of the hypodermic needle, four of vaccination, five of the electric telegraph, four of photography, five of the steamboat, six of the electric railroad. The history of inventions, writes the historian Alfred Kroeber, is “one endless chain of parallel instances.”

All of which is true. However, the relevance of this observation to basic science being a "myth" is tenuous at best. So where's the straw man? It comes later in the article:

Politicians believe that innovation can be turned on and off like a tap: You start with pure scientific insights, which then get translated into applied science, which in turn become useful technology. So what you must do, as a patriotic legislator, is to ensure that there is a ready supply of money to scientists on the top floor of their ivory towers, and lo and behold, technology will come clanking out of the pipe at the bottom of the tower.

But, wait, you say. Isn't that what I just said, that there must be a continual flow of new scientific discoveries to be translated into therapies (or technologies)? Yes, and no. First of all, no one in who knows anything about science believes that "innovation can be turned on and off like a tap" or that you can just throw money at basic scientists and expect technology to come "clanking out of the pipe at the bottom of" the ivory tower. The process is way more complicated than that. Basic science is hit or miss; you can't predict what discoveries will or will not be translatable into something useful. In medicine, for instance, it's virtually impossible to predict whether the discovery of, say, a given enzyme involved in cancer progression will be a useful drug target. Moreover, anyone who knows anything about basic science being translated into useful products knows that both kinds of science are important. You need the basic science as the grist for translational science; there must be a balanced approach. In the case of medicine (and because I'm medical researcher I naturally concentrate mostly on medical research), complaints about the NIH are not that it's funding translational research but that its emphasis has become unbalanced.

Indeed, unwittingly, Ridley's examples actually support this view. For the sake of argument, let's not get into the weeds of whether technological advances are becoming akin to a self-sustaining, evolving system in which human beings a "just along for the ride," as Ridley puts it, because for what I'm about to say it really doesn't matter if that's true or not. (Personally, I think Ridley's view is exaggerated.) Think about why these various inventions were invented in parallel by so many people, and I bet you'll see where I'm going with this.

What if the reason for parallel inventions was that the necessary prerequisite discoveries in basic science and engineering had been made, thus making those inventions finally possible? By the early 1800s, the basic physics for photography, for instance, had been around for centuries, dating all the way back to the pinhole camera and the camera obscura. Optics had been worked out for microscopes and telescopes. All that was required was a means of recording images, and that took chemistry, and a number of scientists and inventors were working on that, leading to the Daguerreotype and William Fox Talbot's silver images on paper. Given that at the time a number of people were working on the problem of photography, it is not surprising that more than one discovered the chemistry that was needed to make photographs a reality.

Elsewhere, Ridley argues:

When you examine the history of innovation, you find, again and again, that scientific breakthroughs are the effect, not the cause, of technological change. It is no accident that astronomy blossomed in the wake of the age of exploration. The steam engine owed almost nothing to the science of thermodynamics, but the science of thermodynamics owed almost everything to the steam engine. The discovery of the structure of DNA depended heavily on X-ray crystallography of biological molecules, a technique developed in the wool industry to try to improve textiles.

This is a profound misunderstanding of how basic science is translated into useful products. For instance, it is true that there were steam engines before the laws of thermodynamics were worked out, and it's true that the steam engine had a huge influence in the formalization of the laws of thermodynamics. Actually, one has to ask which steam engine Ridley means, given that rudimentary steam engines date back to the first century AD and there were several varieties of steam engines developed in the 17th century. I'm guessing that what he means is the Newcomen engine, developed in 1712. Or perhaps he means James Watt's steam engine, patented in 1781, which was the precursor to the steam engines that powered ships and industry in the 19th century and beyond. Whichever steam engine he means, Ridley's description glosses over thermodynamic research done before the steam engine, such as Boyle's Law, which led to Denis Papin building a steam digester, which was a closed vessel with a tightly fitting lid that built up a high pressure of steam. (In fact, Papin worked closely with Boyle from 1676-1679 to develop the steam digester.) Papin later added a steam release valve that kept his machine from exploding. Watching the valve move up and down, he came up with the idea of a piston and cylinder engine but didn't follow through with his design. That was left to the engineer Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen and then, decades later, James Watt. In the 19th century, the steam engine was an excellent tool that helped scientists formalize the laws of thermodynamics. Basically, discoveries in thermodynamics, such as Boyle's Law, facilitated designing the steam digester and steam engine and later improving the steam engine. In turn, engineering improvements in the steam engine contributed to the understanding of thermodynamics during the 19th century.

Why did I go through all this? It's because, even if, as Ridley states, there was a linear view of progress, of translation if you will, from basic science discoveries to products, be they medicines or the steam engine, that view is long gone. It is now understood that basic science drives the development of products and those products drive basic science. So, yes, elucidating the double helical structure of DNA was not possible until the development of X-ray crystallography. So what if X-ray crystallography was originally developed for the wool industry. If I go back another step, X-ray crystallography itself depends on the understanding of so much basic physics, that it couldn't exist until after (1) X-rays were discovered and (2) diffraction patterns and X-ray scattering were understood. These all depended on discoveries taking place over a roughly 25 year period from 1895, when X-rays were discovered, to 1920, by which time the technique of X-ray crystallography had been validated on several crystals. Without the basic science of X-rays, diffraction, scattering, and crystallography, the structure of DNA wouldn't have been elucidated more than three decades after the 1920s. All of this leaves aside all the basic science discoveries in genetics and biochemistry that led scientists to know that DNA is the basis of heredity and to know a fair amount about its chemical structure before X-Ray crystallography nailed it down. Even taking this view ignores all the science from genetics and biochemistry from the preceding decades that had identified DNA as the basis of heredity, determined its chemical constituents, and gone a long way towards teasing out hints of how DNA might encode information, all information without which the X-ray crystallographic structure would have meant little

As I said, you never know what basic science will discover, which basic science discoveries will lead to useful products, or ultimately what sorts of uses they will be put to.

Basically, Ridley is attacking a straw man version of basic science, and nothing in his article rebuts the "myth" of basic science, as the title calls it. Through it all, he seems not to understand the difference between R&D, which is "translational research," research intended to result in a product or the improvement of a product, and research, which is, well, research with the intent of discovering new scientific knowledge. In computer companies, R&D might lead to computer chips. In a car company, R&D might lead to a more efficient engine that can be produced more cheaply. In basic science research, the goal is not nearly as defined, and scientists don't necessarily know what they will find or where their investigation will take them. In any case, there is nothing contradictory about a bunch of inventors or engineers tinkering and producing inventions like the electric light together, because basic science and technology have to progress enough to produce the prerequisite understanding before such inventions become possible. When that happens, when the conditions are ripe for inventions like the telephone to be invented by several people, it's because the basic science groundwork has been laid. It might have been laid decades ago and practical applications incrementally developed so that a specific invention becomes possible, or, as in the case with Papin working with Boyle to invent a steam engine, the basic science groundwork and practical application might progress rapidly hand-in-hand.

As I read Ridley's op-ed, I kept asking myself: What, exactly is he getting at? Why did he choose this example. So what if technological progress happens simultaneously in many places by many people? So what if technology is like an biological species, evolving in response to whatever selective pressures there might be?

Ridley's purpose becomes clear when he starts citing Terence Kealey, a biochemist turned economist. I had heard of Matt Ridley before, although not recently. He wrote one of my favorite science books, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. However, besides that, I was not very familiar with him. Kealey, on the other hand, I had never heard of. So I Googled him, and I quickly learned that he is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and is known for arguing that government money distorts the scientific enterprise. I also learned that he's an anthropogenic global climate change denialist and even chaired the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which has been described as the "UK's most prominent source of climate-change denial" and whose "review" of temperature records has been seriously criticized as incompetent and ideologically-driven.

OK, so Kealey is a climate change denialist, which casts his critical thinking skills with respect to science in great doubt, but maybe he knows economics:

For more than a half century, it has been an article of faith that science would not get funded if government did not do it, and economic growth would not happen if science did not get funded by the taxpayer. It was the economist Robert Solow who demonstrated in 1957 that innovation in technology was the source of most economic growth—at least in societies that were not expanding their territory or growing their populations. It was his colleagues Richard Nelson and Kenneth Arrow who explained in 1959 and 1962, respectively, that government funding of science was necessary, because it is cheaper to copy others than to do original research.

“The problem with the papers of Nelson and Arrow,” writes Mr. Kealey, “was that they were theoretical, and one or two troublesome souls, on peering out of their economists’ aeries, noted that in the real world, there did seem to be some privately funded research happening.” He argues that there is still no empirical demonstration of the need for public funding of research and that the historical record suggests the opposite.

This argument is strange. For one thing, no one that I'm aware of claims that "science would not get funded if the government didn't do it and economic growth would not happen if science did not get funded by the taxpayer." The question is what kinds of science that would and wouldn't be funded by private sources. Overwhelmingly, the kinds of science funded by nongovernmental sources tend to be R&D (e.g., pharmaceutical or technology companies doing research and inventors that can be directly translated into a product) or philanthropy-funded research, research funded by private charitable organizations (e.g. The Susan G. Komen Foundation, The March of Dimes, or other philanthropic organizations that fund research on a specific topic). So, yes, research would be funded without the government. It would tend to be much more "translational" and/or targeted at specific problems.

There's also this dubious assertion by Kealey, cited approvingly by Ridley:

After all, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. and Britain made huge contributions to science with negligible public funding, while Germany and France, with hefty public funding, achieved no greater results either in science or in economics. After World War II, the U.S. and Britain began to fund science heavily from the public purse. With the success of war science and of Soviet state funding that led to Sputnik, it seemed obvious that state funding must make a difference.

Huh? In the late 19th and early 20th century Germany ruled physics, producing scientists like Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and many others, who made revolutionary discoveries that laid the groundwork for modern quantum physics. Germany was a powerhouse in science back then (and still is, only nowhere near as dominant). For example, the early 20th century, Germany won 14 out of first 31 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. Just look at the Nobel Prizes in sciences! Until 1965, Germany won a larger percentage of science Nobel Prizes than any other country. I also note that the US didn't catch up with France on that score until the 1940s. Obviously, Nobel Prizes are not in and of themselves an measure of how good a country is at science, but they do suggest where the most innovative research has been occurring a one to a few decades earlier, given that the science that wins Nobel Prizes is usually at least a decade old, to give time to see its significance. One can't help but note that there is a correlation between the dominance of the US in Nobel Prizes and the start of government funding of science. Does correlation mean causation in this case? Not necessarily, given all the other factors that could impact this measure, but this observation is still a piece of data that at least calls Kealey's assertion into question.

Basically, Ridley postulates the "myth" of basic science as a means of arguing that current patent policy is too stringent and protects monopoly (which is an arguable point) and that government funding "crowds out" private funding and prevents discoveries from being made:

To most people, the argument for public funding of science rests on a list of the discoveries made with public funds, from the Internet (defense science in the U.S.) to the Higgs boson (particle physics at CERN in Switzerland). But that is highly misleading. Given that government has funded science munificently from its huge tax take, it would be odd if it had not found out something. This tells us nothing about what would have been discovered by alternative funding arrangements.

And we can never know what discoveries were not made because government funding crowded out philanthropic and commercial funding, which might have had different priorities. In such an alternative world, it is highly unlikely that the great questions about life, the universe and the mind would have been neglected in favor of, say, how to clone rich people’s pets.

At this point, I gave up on Ridley. First, he's downplaying the number of discoveries made with government funding, such as NIH and NSF funding. Also, the Internet is rather a big deal to dismiss so breezily as a "highly misleading" example, given how it has so thoroughly transformed our world over the last 25 years or so—mostly by private companies taking advantage of and building on the government-supported infrastructure and protocols. As for the last "what if" assertion, I did facepalm on that one, given that we actually do have a sort of "living experiment" going on right now regarding what happens when government funding dries up. The NIH budget has been more or less static for over a decade and thus has declined significantly in real dollars. As a result, private sources have stepped in. Have their priorities been better for the country? Not really:

Yet that personal setting of priorities is precisely what troubles some in the science establishment. Many of the patrons, they say, are ignoring basic research — the kind that investigates the riddles of nature and has produced centuries of breakthroughs, even whole industries — for a jumble of popular, feel-good fields like environmental studies and space exploration.

And:

Historically, disease research has been particularly prone to unequal attention along racial and economic lines. A look at major initiatives suggests that the philanthropists’ war on disease risks widening that gap, as a number of the campaigns, driven by personal adversity, target illnesses that predominantly afflict white people — like cystic fibrosis, melanoma and ovarian cancer.

A Nature editorial describes the problem well:

We applaud and fully support the injection of more private money into science, whether clinical or basic. Nevertheless, it is important for each funding body to take into account the kinds of research being heavily supported by the others, to avoid putting all our eggs into a few baskets and shortchanging areas that may yet have crucial contributions to make.

Ridley, given his seeming free market proclivities, might prefer market-based philanthropy to fund science over government funding (and that is his right), but he is sadly deluded if he thinks that private sources don't "distort" scientific priorities every bit as much as he accuses government funding of doing. At least governments try to look at what will benefit the nation (or large parts of the nation); private philanthropists might or might not do that. Many simply respond to personal interests, personal tragedies, and, sometimes, crackpot ideas. Now it's true that the government is by no means immune to crackpot ideas (witness the NCCIH, formerly known as NCCAM), but funding such ideas has to work within already established rules for peer review. The same is not true of private funding, where the philanthropist or foundation can basically make up any rules he or it likes.

In the end, I would argue that science should be funded by both government and private sources. What the optimal balance is will depend on the country, its priorities, and its economic resources. Contrary to what Ridley and Kealey argue, it doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

Finally, let's revisit Ridley's picture of technological progress as developing to become like a biological organism, complete with evolution in response to selective pressures. Now let's carry that analogy farther than Ridley did. Just because evolution by natural selection still occurs in animals and plants doesn't mean that selective breeding (i.e., guiding that evolution with human intent) doesn't remain useful and effective in specific cases, such as breeding crops, dogs, horses, pigs, and other animals. Similarly, even if scientific and technological progress is evolving like species of organisms, that doesn't mean that guiding certain the evolution of specific "species" of science by directing funding to human-decided priorities through government funding isn't useful and effective. In the end, all Ridley is arguing is that he prefers the science priorities of foundations, companies, and wealthy donors to priorities decided by government. To him one (private funding) is desirable and "natural," while the other is "distorting." Yet there is no fundamental difference in how much the whims of a few private donors and various industries "distort" science compared to government, other than that there are more checks and quality control on how government doles out research funds. In the end, Ridley just likes how private sources distort research priorities but doesn't like how government distorts them.

oracknows Tue, 10/27/2015 - 04:10

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A climate scientist becomes a denialist arguing vaccine pseudoscience

oracknows — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 05:30:59 +0000

A climate scientist becomes a denialist arguing vaccine pseudoscience

The human mind is amazing in its ability to compartmentalize. Many are the times when I've come across people who seem reasonable in every other way but who cling tightly to one form of pseudoscience or another. On the other hand, as I've noticed time and time again, people whose minds have a proclivity for pseudoscience tend not to limit themselves to just one form of pseudoscience. Indeed, my surgical and skeptical bud Mark Hoofnagle coined a term for this latter phenomenon, namely "crank magnetism." It's basically a pithy term to describe how people who are into one form of pseudoscience or crankery are often into other forms. Think Alex Jones. Think Mike Adams. Think the many antivaccine activists that I've discussed over the years. The list goes on.

Such were the thoughts going through my mind as I encountered this remarkable bit of compartmentalization from a climate scientist named Cynthia Nevison, Ph.D. posted on that website of the antivaccine group SafeMinds and entitled This Climate Change Researcher Weighs in on the Use of “Science” to Ridicule Parents who Question Vaccines. It's a near prefect example of someone who is correct about one area of science but has a major blind spot regarding other science, particularly vaccines. We've met Nevison before spreading antivaccine misinformation, and now she's back to do it again. It's not surprising, given that she is a board member of SafeMinds. Unfortunately (for her), her arguments have not improved since the last time I encountered her. If anything, they're worse:

In 1988 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote a book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, which describes how the media tend to present information from government sources as unquestioned truth while marginalizing dissenting opinions and effectively controlling the terms of the debate.
Herman and Chomsky’s astute observations are as applicable today as they were 27 years ago. The media have painted a largely black and white picture in which sensible, science-minded parents give their children the recommended 37 vaccine doses by age 18 months while irrational and uneducated parents balk at this regime.

In the majority of mainstream articles in newspapers, magazines, and on-line sites, one is either for vaccines or against them. The possibility of a middle ground is not acknowledged.

Here we go again: The fallacy of the golden mean, also known as the argument to moderation. It's a fallacy because it assumes that the best solution to a disagreement, that the best answer, must lie somewhere between the two positions. That might be a reasonable viewpoint to take when the arguments are political, but when the arguments are scientific or medical, quite often that is not the case. In fact, quite often, the answer is not somewhere between the extremes. It is the "extreme" supported by science. Surely Nevison must realize that based on her role as a climate scientist. Climate science has been under near-constant attack by anthropogenic global climate change denialists for a long time now, just as vaccines have been under attack by antivaccinationists since even before Andrew Wakefield first published his dubious case series in The Lancet linking the MMR vaccine to autistic bowel complaints, a case series that in the popular press was promoted, again, thanks to Andrew Wakefield, as evidence that the MMR vaccine caused autism. That paper was retracted due to Wakefield's scientific fraud, but the myth remains.

Certainly, Nevison does her best to feed the myth. her post is a collection of long-debunked (and easily debunked) antivaccine tropes so brain dead that she ought to be ashamed of herself. If, for instance, some FOX News pundit or some anthropogenic global climate change denialist spouted tropes this bad about climate science, Nevison would likely wax indignant, wroth even, and attack the denialists making the pseudoscientific arguments against climate change.

So let's take a look at her claims. They are pretty much the usual combination of non sequiturs, confusing correlation with causation, and bad science. For example, here's the first non sequitur:

1) The most pressing health problem facing American children today is not measles, but rather the rise in chronic immune system and neurological disorders. Asthma currently affects 9.3% of American children, 25-30% have allergies, more than 10% have ADHD, and over 2% of boys have autism.

American parents should not be mocked for wanting to protect their children from developing these chronic, sometimes debilitating, and often lifelong health conditions. Parents’ concerns for their children’s health and safety is grounded in data, not hype.

Of course, American parents are not being "mocked" for wanting to protect their children from these chronic conditions. Here's the problem. Nevison's underlying assumption is that vaccines are responsible for the prevalence of these conditions and that therefore being antivaccine is the same thing as protecting children from these conditions. It is not. We know from numerous studies that vaccines do not cause any of these conditions, particularly autism, a question that has been studied over and over and over not because there is compelling scientific question but because antivaccine activists like Nevison have been so persistent in promoting vaccine pseudoscience. Any "mockery" directed at antivaccinationists is in response to their well-documented promotion of ideas that, from a scientific standpoint, are so utterly ridiculous and devoid of supporting evidence that mockery is the most appropriate response.

Rather like the ideas being regurgitated by Nevison in this article.

Speaking of ideas worthy of ridicule, remember how Bill Maher tried to argue that "questioning" vaccines is not the same thing as questioning climate science. Remember how wrong he was? Nevison makes essentially the same bad argument, which is, as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman might put it, equally worthless.

See what I mean:

2) It is inappropriate to conflate climate change denial and concerns over vaccine safety as comparable examples of the rejection of science. (The fact that resistance to genetically modified foods is increasingly being cited as another example of the rejection of science raises questions about who is really behind this type of argument, but that is a discussion for another day.)

Why are so many parents questioning the official information coming from the mainstream media about autism and its potential link to vaccines? Are their fears based on facts or on emotion?

No, it is entirely appropriate to conflate climate change denial and antivaccine talking points (such as the nonsense that Nevison lays down, as being equally worthless antiscience nonsense. Ditto rejection of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In fact, if you doubt me, you might want to check out what that paragon of crank magnetism, Mike Adams, has written about this, for example, in an article entitled Same delusional people who say vaccines are safe also insist GMOs, glyphosate, aspartame, mercury and radiation are safe, too. The whole idea behind the post, in typical Mike Adams hyper-caffeinated prose, is that not only are skeptics and scientists who point out that science doesn't support the fear mongering against vaccines and GMO "delusional" but that they are dangerous. Amusingly, Adams is also an anthropogenic global climate change denialist, as evidenced by multiple articles on his site (e.g. Global warming data FAKED by government to fit climate change fictions and Global warming debunked: NASA report verifies carbon dioxide actually cools atmosphere).

Nevison bases her argument on five "facts":

Autism is caused by improper brain synapse formation
Empirical data shows autism is on the rise
Autism is caused by environmental triggers but the government continues to spend most of its money searching for the elusive “autism gene”
The increase in the number of childhood vaccines correlates with the increase in autism
Asking whether our packed vaccine schedule might be a trigger for autism is a scientifically plausible question that is not equivalent to climate change denial:

"Fact #1" is possibly true. "Fact #2" is actually arguable. Yes, the apparent prevalence of autism is on the rise, but, as has been explained many times, both by myself and others, it's not at all clear if the "true" prevalence of autism has increased. Rather, a combination of factors, including broadening of the diagnostic criteria back in the mid 1990s, along with increased awareness and screening, have contributed to the apparent increase in autism prevalence through diagnostic substitution and other factors. If there has been a real increase in autism prevalence, it is almost certainly very small, contrary to cries of "autism epidemic" or "autism tsunami" from antivaccinationists like, yes, the board of directors at SafeMinds, including Nevison.

As for autism environmental "triggers," Nevison's argument references a SafeMinds article (hardly a reliable source), which references two studies, a recent Swiss study that concluded that autism exhibits slightly more than 50% heritability of autism and autism spectrum disorders and a Stanford study that estimated autism/ASD heritability to be around 38%. Of course, note the assumption Nevison makes. If there is an environmental component to autism and ASDs that's important, it must be the vaccines. Indeed she makes it explicit:

Further, to the extent that the NIH admits that autism is rising, it blames illogical things like air pollution (despite the fact that U.S. air quality has improved over the past few decades). Are genetics and air pollution appropriate scientific research priorities for a condition that took off sharply in the late 1980s?

In that case, as I so often like to point out, it would be equally "logical" to examine organic food. Seriously, do I have to bring up this graph again:

Why isn't Nevison demanding studies to determine if organic food is an environmental cause of autism? Or let me use another of my favorite examples. Internet use took off, beginning in the early 1990s and correlating with the beginning of the "autism epidemic." Why isn't Nevison demanding studies on this? The answer is obvious. It's because "environmental causes" of autism is code among antivaccine activists for "vaccines." Whenever you hear "environment" coming from someone like Nevison, substitute the word "vaccines," because to antivaccine activists, it’s the vaccines. It always was the vaccines. It always will be the vaccines. To them, there really is only one "environmental cause" of autism that matters: Vaccines. Never mind that scientists have been looking for evidence of a link between vaccines and autism and produced in the process copious evidence that there is none that they can be detected.

Nevison has an answer for that as well, riffing off her outrage that anyone would compare being antivaccine to being a climate change denier:

The media present climate change denial and concerns that vaccines can cause autism as comparable examples of scientific ignorance. However, evidence for climate change comes from thousands of studies across a wide range of scientific disciplines, from ecology to oceanography to paleogeology. This evidence is rooted in fundamental principles of physics and chemistry involving the absorption of energy by greenhouse gases, and is supported by thousands of ground-based, satellite-based and ice-core derived records from around the world that have documented trends in vital Earth properties such as temperature, rainfall, snow depth, polar ice extent, and atmospheric chemical composition. In contrast, the evidence refuting a vaccine-autism link is based more or less entirely on a limited number of studies from just one scientific discipline, epidemiology, which is rooted in statistical correlations that do not and cannot address underlying biological mechanisms. Further, some of those epidemiological studies originally showed significant associations between autism risk and thimerosal (Verstraeten, 2003) and receipt of the MMR before age 3 (DeStefano, 2004), but were manipulated to make those associations go away. CDC senior scientist Dr. Bill Thompson, who has now become a whistleblower, has publicly stated that he was involved in research fraud on a key MMR study. Thompson’s admission provides evidence that parental concerns about giving MMR too early may not be irrational after all, yet the mainstream media has barely reported on his allegations. They also have not reported that two scientists at Merck are suing the company for exaggerated claims over the efficacy of the mumps portion of the MMR vaccine, falsifying data sets, and destroying evidence.

Epidemiology cannot address underlying biological mechanisms? Tell that to Sir Richard Doll and all the other epidemiologists who figured out that smoking tobacco products causes lung cancer! Let's just put it this way, to make it simple enough for even Nevison to understand, given that she is now trashing a discipline that she clearly does not understand. There has never been a randomized trial that shows that cigarette smoking causes cancer. There have only been epidemiological studies. There will only be epidemiological studies because they are the forms of studies that can be done ethically to address this question. Moreover, it is using the same epidemiological methodologies that have been used to identify smoking tobacco as a cause of lung cancer that epidemiologists have failed to find a correlation between vaccines and autism. One notes that that last bit about the MMR is nothing more than a rehash of Brian Hooker's painfully incompetent "reanalysis" of a single epidemiological study that created the "CDC whistleblower" (a.k.a. the #CDCwhistleblower) manufactroversy.

As for Nevison's point about "multiple disciplines" verifying climate change theory, in her eagerness to focus on a single discipline that she doesn't respect (epidemiology), she forgets that there are many studies from many other disciplines, such as neuroscience, immunology, chemistry, biology, and the like that address the plausibility of a vaccine-autism link and fail to find plausibility. In any case, it's rather blatant how Nevison likes to disparage the epidemiology that fails to find a link between vaccines and autism in contrast to "many disciplines" all converging on the same conclusion about global climate change when it suits her (i.e., to attack the negative studies) but latches on to a single study when it can be incompetently twisted to show a seemingly positive result. (Indeed, the reanalysis of that study was so bad that even a new journal ended up retracting it.) Seriously, if Destefano et al (the study to which Nevison refers) were ever found to be completely invalid, it would not change the scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism any more than removing one study would invalidate the scientific consensus that human activity is a major contributor to global climate change.

Let's just put it this way. Hooker himself has discussed how he reanalyzed the DeStefano et al dataset using a “very, very simple statistical technique” and brags that to him in statistics “simplicity is elegance.” He then follows up by saying that he’s “not really that smart” and therefore “likes easy things rather than much more intellectually challenging things.” So he did the “simplest, most straightforward analysis.”

Here’s a hint: In statistics, the simplest analysis is often not the correct analysis, and, boy, was this the case for Hooker’s reanalysis of the DeStefano et al dataset. Nevison, I'm sure, understands that using "simple" techniques isn't always the best in climate science. That's why those climate models she studies are complex. The same is true of epidemiology, but in her ignorance Nevison buys a "simple" analysis. None of this stops Nevison from ranting more about the comparison:

The conflation of vaccine safety concerns with climate change denial is a cynical and scientifically misleading tactic that seems hypocritical when one recalls that the media for many years helped perpetuate the idea that climate change science was highly uncertain, even “bogus.” The media’s biased portrayal of the issue in years past helped enable inaction on important steps, such as building a clean energy economy, that could have begun decades ago and spared our children and grandchildren some of the burden they now face in coping with future climate disruption.

Of course, the difference here is that the media started out enabling antivaccine viewpoints that Nevison likes. They did it for years. Only over the last five years or so are the media actually getting the vaccine/autism story much more correct than they did before. Now that that's happening, Nevison doesn't like it.

It's ironic in the extreme that someone like Nevison, who belongs to a discipline whose legitimacy and science have been questioned by denialists using intellectually dishonest tactics would use exactly the same sorts of intellectually dishonest tactics used by antivaccinationists to attack epidemiology and vaccine science. Truly, the human mind compartmentalizes.

Or Nevison is just an obvious hypocrite. Take your pick. Either way, she's a clueless denialist.

oracknows Tue, 03/10/2015 - 01:30

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It’s ironic in the extreme that someone like Nevison, who belongs to a discipline whose legitimacy and science have been questioned by denialists using intellectually dishonest tactics would use exactly the same sorts of intellectually dishonest tactics used by antivaccinationists to attack epidemiology and vaccine science.

Yes. There's something a bit off about it. Does she maybe have an autistic child? Or niece or nephew?
I find it all very...off.

The number of people willing to cherry pick what science they support never ceases to amaze me.

I find it interesting that the anti vaxxers continually bring up the number of vaccines as if our immune systems cannot handle them and cause allergies and asthma, while the actual hypothesis that is out there is that we may have cleaned up our environment too much, and our immune systems may be misbehaving because they are not being properly stimulated when we are young. That is, to me, an interesting contrast.

My mother is a great example of this. My youngest brother (now 25) is autistic (on the higher functioning end, but definitely not AS as he had significant language and developmental delays) and she believes whole hog in autism bio-med quackery, the autism-vaccine link (my brother "regressed" after receiving the MMR), the "autism epidemic," and the toxins gambit. I could probably write a novel on the psychological underpinnings of her belief.

My mother will post stuff from Mike Adams, then 5 minutes later post an article referencing James Inhofe's snowball throwing show on the Senate floor with a comment expressing frustration that such an "anti-science" climate change denialist is in a leadership position in our government. She'll post a ridiculous article from one of the autism bio-med crank blogs claiming that measles is no big whoop, then an hour later decry some state legislature's efforts to teach intelligent design in schools. The power of this particular blind spot is so intense it prohibits any self-awareness.

OMG almost puked in my mouth when I saw Manufacturing Consent used in this way - actually this is a reference I have used *often*, to combat conspiracy theorists since it offers a paradigm of so-called "media control" that requires no conscious planning and orchestration by our elites - it happens almost automatically. IN fact, the very philosophical approach of Chomsky/Herman, the *systemic* view, is completely at odds with a tradition conspiracy theory bent towards finding bad *individuals* and blaming changes on the actions of these few. I offer it as a way that CTers can come to understand propaganda and the media in way that might lead them away from their CT world - when I post about it, I am secretly hoping this is a gateway drug that will help erode some of their understanding...

....and now this... Was I a fool? Probably. Everything can be bent for "the cause", this book included... For it sounds like a complete misreading of their thesis, and I'm sad they had to misuse Chomsky (who is on the record forcefully discrediting CTs on 9/11 and the more cartoon-like understanding of "media control) and Herman to service this "propaganda" piece of their own.

There has never been a double blind study of the link between CO2 emissions and planetary temperatures.

It is interesting that in the three countries I have lived in (across Europe) these antivaccine tropes are not yet in the minds of people at all. There is plenty of pseudoscience, such as various miraculous cancer cures (not including the Gerson therapy, but including the "alkaline diet", "paleo" and various locally developed supplements that are supposedly the cure that is purposely hidden by doctors). But this antivaccine bullshit is completely new, and only recently entering discussion topics, for now it is usually laughed off.
It is interesting to see that elsewhere this is treated as a kind of "science" and it is a hot topic seriously being discussed. It would be very informative to write a piece about pseudoscience across the world, with examples of the main focus of quacks in different countries and continents. Perhaps it would be eye-opening to see that something thought to be ridiculous in the US is taken seriously e.g. in India, maybe allowing some reflection about one's own beliefs in a cure.

@6: Perhaps a "globally warmed" vs. "un-globally warmed" study is in order?

Yes, yes, selective science is a thing. Were it not we'd be building nuclear power plants to combat climate change.

Cause and effect: When car manufactioners removed the dimmer switch from the left side of our cars's floorboard in thew '60s, it left our left foot idle. This in turn modified the functioning of the right side of our brain, which in turn, along with eliminating public prayer from our schools, caused a malfunction therein resulting in a tremendous growth, in the past 50 years of STUPID in our society.

@ Esther:

Please fill us in: what countries were those?

Although she cites it, apparently Nevison either never read or read but failed to understand Verstraeten's 2003 publciation (PMID: 14595043)

Rather than finding evidence of "significant associations between autism risk and thimerosal" Verstraeten instead found "In no analyses were significant increased risks found for autism or attention-deficit disorder" and "No consistent significant associations were found between TCVs and neurodevelopmental outcomes."

[NB: 'TCVs' is an abbreviation for "thimerosal containing vaccines"]

re environmental vs genetic causes of autism:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31713147

She MUST have an autistic child and simply not be able to accept that it just happens sometimes. The need to know why such a thing befalls people who have everything else going for them is right up there with the need to answer, “why are we here?” with a god delusion.

The most pressing health problem facing American children today is not measles, but rather the rise in chronic immune system and neurological disorders.

A bit of provax JAQing off here,because I am not an immunologist.

Putting aside autism for a minute,has there been many studies that refute the frequent antivax claim wild infections like measles strengthen the immune system?That these infections can actually lead to (auto)immune disorders? Or is this something that hasn't been studied in the past,because of the widespread use of vaccines?

There seems to be a few.The at least are two areas where this has been studied,that I have been able to find.One is the connection of viruses like rubella to Type 1 Diabetes.

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/38932.pdf

The other is how wild measles can lead to longterm immunosuppression.

See here for example.
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/184/1/1.long

These studies have mostly been out of Africa,where vaccines are still lacking,but I suspect doctors and researchers will much more opportunity to study this phenomenon in the future,here in the first world.

I hope she gets fired or stripped of her credentials. Better no climate scientists than ones who can be easily attacked or already in the gateway of pseudo science. Bet she turns into a climate change denialist in five years or less.

My brother was diagnosed with PDD-NOS in 1991, at around 26 months (he was barely talking, zero social interaction, self-stimulating bx, unbelievable tantrums, etc). My mother initially felt a lot of guilt and blamed herself for his disability, I remember that time really clearly (I am 10 years older than this brother) as including lots of crying spells from her... I believe that the vaccine-autism link (and later, the whole autism bio-med movement/woo) gave her a reprieve from the shame she was previously heaping upon herself - inappropriately, of course. She seems unable to accept the idea that sometimes, things like this happen for no good reason - so if she were to let go of the "stolen child" hypothesis, she'd have to go back to blaming herself.

Without any research into Ms. Nevison’s background and only informed by what I have read here and at Safe Minds, I am tempted to offer a very speculative association of thought, lacking any evidence:

The results from her basic field of study, and by implication her work, has been attacked by large business interests generating bad, misleading information, denying that they might be causing damage. Other large business interests are saying that vaccines, etc. are safe, so they, too, are probably denying damage to us and our children. Basically, big business lied before, so they are doing it now. If someone close to her has autism, this could be an influence. Her association with Safe Minds is not helping. My grandmother might have said she has made poor choices in her companions.

I now turn off the speculation channel and return to my simple, mundane life.

Sirhcton: Or she might be being bribed into discrediting herself. Stranger things have happened in America.

Oh thank heavens for NaturalHealth365 and their unrelenting willingness to spread FUD: http://vaccineworldsummit.com/

Mercifully, none of these nuts seem to turn up in real life.

@Esther

Unfortunately, pseudoscience asshattery has made inroads into many countries in Europe.

German is in the midst of a large measles outbreak, fueled largely by folks who refuse vaccines because of a fear of autism, etc.

Oh for pete's sake. She *opens* with the "recommended 37 doses by 18 months" malarkey, making it obvious he doesn't even know what *is* recommended, since you can only arrive at the scary number of 37 doses through some serious fudging of what you're counting as a "dose". I count a maximum of 26 doses, assumign the kid gets three influenza doses in, and gets Hep A on the earlier end of the recommended timeframe.

So excuse me, but I already know she's just parroting crap she got off an antivax website ,and didn't take the time to properly examine. I don't have to read any further to know that, becuase the ONLY way you can reach the conclusion that we give our kids 37 doses routinely is if you've been lied to. So if he can't even be bothered to google "CDC recommendations", the *first result* of which is the actual CDC recommendations, I honestly don't think she's worth listening to at all.

I'm sure she's just feeling sensitive because antivaxxers do get lumped in with climate change denialists. But there's good reason for that comparison, as Orac beautifully explains, and in fact a lot of them really are the same people. And she's just stepped in the evidence. That she can't smell the quality of what she's stepped in shows I'm not really convinced I can trust her on climate change either.

Just for fun, I looked up Nevison's two papers on autism. The first is from 2014 and it attempts to compare the increased rates of autism with the environmental factors she discusses above. As she says, many of those factors are going down, except two, the amount of glyphosate applied to GMO corn and soybean crops and cumulative amounts of aluminum adjuvant in vaccines. OMG, this is as crazy as Orac's comparison with organic foods or internet use. Here's the reference for this paper:

Nevison, C. D. (2014). A comparison of temporal trends in united states autism prevalence to trends in suspected environmental factors. Environmental Health : A Global Access Science Source, 13, 73. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-13-73

By the way,so far this paper has been cited 3 times and one is coauthored by Nevison.

Here's that reference:
Bilbo, S. D., Nevison, C. D., & Parker, W. (2015). A model for the induction of autism in the ecosystem of the human body: The anatomy of a modern pandemic? Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease, 26, 26253. doi:10.3402/mehd.v26.26253 [doi]

I have yet to read this paper but I couldn't help laughing at this: "The most compelling argument that autism is a modern pandemic is based on a simple deduction: since modern culture has led to immune system dysfunction, and since immune dysfunction is a hallmark of autism, then autism is a result of modern culture."
Here's the rest of the paragraph: "With as much as 40% of the population affected by allergies or autoimmune conditions, no debate exists regarding the well-documented rise of immune dysfunction in modern society. However, the association between autism and immune dysfunction merits review."

In their conclusion (subheaded as "the best way to determine if autism is a preventable, inflammation-associated pandemic is to see if autism can be prevented", lol) their magic fairyland ideas include this: "However, the nature of autism can be resolved decisively by conducting one experiment – Remove potential triggers for autism, normalize immune function in the human population, and monitor the levels of cognitive disease."

I'll try to read these better later, but if Nevison (as a climate scientist) ever said that the best way to resolve the nature of climate change was to conduct an experiment to remove all of the potential triggers for climate change, normalize the global climate and monitor the levels for change, wouldn't she be laughed off the planet?

A bit OT, but still somewhat vaccine-related:

Speaking of Google-searching, here is a little article about the recent initiative by the guys from Google to try to sort search results a little more by accuraccy of content rather than by popularity:

http://www.thisweekintomorrow.com/vol-2-no-19-1-trust-and-the-truth-acc…

Dear Jenny and Mikey got a mention as examples of an internet search going badly.

I am also not surprised that she is anti-GMO considering she cites Chomsky. This position and even tend to be more political than scientific.

Aluminum salt-based adjuvants have been used for decades....long before the supposed link to the increase in autism.

So, what's their point again?

By the way, I had posted a comment with a link to this post at SafeMinds. It posted as is; no obvious notice about moderation and now, guess what? it's gone.

I just posted another, let's see how long that remains. Anyone else here comment there?

Something else I found today and wanted to share here. This time, it's clearly related to the topic of vaccine and autism.

It's a little piece written on Feb 6 by a woman on the spectrum. It's title: I’m Autistic, And Believe Me, It’s A Lot Better Than Measles.

The part which caught me the most:

Someone who refuses to vaccinate their children because they’re afraid of autism has made the decision that people like me are the worst possible thing that can happen to their family, and they’re putting everyone at risk because of it. I’ve been told by some anti-vaxxers that they don’t mean my brand of autism; they mean non-verbal autism, or as they are so fond of calling it, “profound autism.” I’m not about to take any solace in the idea that they’re willing to make exceptions for autistic people who can perform as neurotypical, or at least pose as little annoyance to neurotypicals as possible. That just means that I will cease to be of any value to these people if I am no longer able to pass as one of them, and that they see no value and no humanity in anyone who communicates or behaves differently from them. Tell me again who has the empathy problem?

@Lawence #26

Aluminum salt-based adjuvants have been used for decades….long before the supposed link to the increase in autism.

So, what’s their point again

My understanding, after perusing the linked article (link in #23), is that it regards the "cumulative amount of postnatal aluminum adjuvant administered to U.S. children by 18 months of age" which has gone up considerably over the past few decades.
Link to figure from linked paper.
http://www.ehjournal.net/content/13/1/73/figure/F5

She also appropriate caveated the paper with these words at the beginning of the final section:

"Correspondence between temporal trends in autism and environmental factors is a useful method for identifying possible triggers of autism to help focus future research. However, it must be emphasized that the correlation in temporal trends between autism and PBDEs, cumulative aluminum adjuvants, and glyphosate shown here is not proof of causation, especially given the ecological nature of this study, in which the exposure data were aggregated at the group level"

The fact that resistance to genetically modified foods is increasingly being cited as another example of the rejection of science raises questions about who is really behind this type of argument, but that is a discussion for another day

No, no, let's discuss it now. Who is the mysterious shadowy force behind the curtains of history who invented and is using the "science-rejectionist" comparison to discredit the speakers of truth?
Tell us more about the conspiracy; put it in writing before it is too late. I will not be able to sleep until I know.

It's surprising that she didn't mention this study paid for by her own organization.

@Beth #29

The problem is that the "cumulative" amount of aluminum adjuvant is irrelevant because it doesn't accumulate in the body - it is eliminated in the urine Furthermore, the rise in bloodstream aluminum after i.m injection of aluminum adjuvants is so small in relation to normal levels that it couldn't even be measured until modern radiolabeling techniques were developed.

@Roger Kulp #15

has there been many studies that refute the frequent antivax claim wild infections like measles strengthen the immune system?

This is a difficult question to answer because the whole idea of "strengthening" the immune system is vague to the point of meaninglessness. The immune system comprises many different pathways, some of which are antagonistic to one another - if one is up-regulated, the other is down regulated. To give a concrete albeit over-simplified example, if you "strengthen" the inflammatory response too much, you get damage to the host, which is why there are mechanisms such as regulatory T cells in place to down-regulate inflammation. On the other hand, if the Tregs get out of control, you get immune suppression and decreased ability to fight of certain kinds of infections. In short, and again over-simplifying a bit, it is more important for the immune system to be "balanced" than "strong."

Nevison sounds pretty much like the chunderheads one meets at dailykos.com, except that dkos attracts gangs of ill tempered flying monkeys that scream and throw stuff to drown out the point. One of them counter attacked your correlation diagram of autism/organic food with a fairy tale about people watching other children die of autism so naturally they turn to wholesome organic food for protection.

The Herman and Chomsky story is a nice touch, for that kind of thing comes up over and over and over again. The loon makes a great noise in drawing attention to some bit of malfeasance, thirty or fifty or seventy years ago, then sits back and smirks - safely in the assurance that Team Loon with interpret this true incident as proof positive that some kind of skulduggery MUST be taking place in the specific time and specific place that he is alleging. Which annoys me, personally, because we all know that bad things have happened and that bad things will happen again: the question, to be decided on facts and evidence, is whether the specific bad action alleged is in fact taking place in the manner alleged. Anything else is conspiracy theory and proof by accusation.

@Sarah #29

Thank you for the additional information, but I wasn't making any claims regarding the “cumulative” amount of aluminum adjuvant and autism. I was responding to Lawrence about why Dr. Nevison had examined the correlation.

I did not find the linked study particularly helpful though. It only gives the abstract which states "The in vitro dissolution and in vivo absorption studies indicate that aluminum-containing adjuvants which are administered intramuscularly are dissolved by alpha-hydroxycarboxylic acids in interstitial fluid, absorbed into the blood, distributed to tissues, and eliminated in the urine." It also references tests performed on rabbits.

Are there any studies showing that human babies are able to eliminate the aluminum they receive in vaccines at the rate that would be predicted by the results this study? What is the variability and is there any danger to children who are not able to eliminate the aluminum as expected?

@Denice: Hungary, UK, Ireland. I am not saying it is nonexistent in these countries, just that other pseudoscience is the main focus of quacks.
@Darwy: indeed, a bunch of people in Germany have "embraced" the antivaccine movement, also in Germany and Austria homeopathy is very commonly used and is often prescribed by GPs.

So Beth, what was the real point of her paper then?

She's addressing two things here; one, that the rise in autism is real and two, that the rise cannot be due environmental pollutants whose levels have trending down (however, she didn't rule out if the levels remaining might still have the effects she's looking at). Then she correlates the rise in autism two things she doesn't like that have increased (she doesn't mention the organic foods Orac does though).
I don't think she does a good job with the second part, I need to look closer at the first.

My quick take on her first premise: she says that even if autism was not properly diagnosed in young children that those children would surely have been properly diagnosed by the time they were 18 (to be counted among the IDEA data she used) when diagnostics were improved. But I think that is a big assumption to make.

I'd like to see a more thorough appraisal of this paper. I'm not sure I'm qualified for that. I'm flagging it for future citations to see who refers to it later.

Beth( #34), you asked Sarah an interesting question. What do you think? Do you really think such experiments can be done on babies. Would you volunteer your baby for such a study.

Can you point to any studies that show that we are sure that the cyanide compounds in apple seeds (surely ending up in applesauce and juice) can be detoxified by infants? Again, I doubt such studies have been done, but we accept that those compounds can be metabolized just fine.

If you guys are interested, in Hungary the following things are popular that may not be known elsewhere:
- deuterium-depleted water as a cancer cure
- wheat germ extract, amino-acids, a mix of mushrooms in respective supplements as cancer cures
- anti-candida diet
- aloe vera (supposedly cures everything)

In UK:
- osteopathy (it has a different meaning than in the US)
- "Ukrain" (chelidonium majus) as cancer cure
- remedial face and jaw alignment (don't even ask)

Just for fun, I looked up Nevison’s two papers on autism. The first is from 2014 and it attempts to compare the increased rates of autism with the environmental factors she discusses above. As she says, many of those factors are going down, except two, the amount of glyphosate applied to GMO corn and soybean crops and cumulative amounts of aluminum adjuvant in vaccines.

Like Seneff, Nevison uses the IDEA client base as a proxy for autism prevalence. Unlike Seneff, she is at least aware of the problem that IDEA did not exist until 1975, and provided a strong incentive for assigning a disability to a child so they can receive funding, so naturally the numbers increased rapidly in the first few decades of its existence.

Nevison's argument is that the search for genetic causes of autism is misguided (since the heretability is less than 100%) so she looks to the environment instead, and comes up with various plausible-sounding mechanisms by which environmental toxins could affect neural development. All fair enough. Then she assembles a line-up of environmental toxins.

One of them is mercury... her analysis shows that thimerosal does *not* fit the hypothesis, but she is reluctant to let it off the hook and performs a little Distraction Dance about "maternal flu vaccinations" and "possible confounders", to avoid accepting her own logic. And as Orac noted above, she is willing to forget her paper and return -- in the way of dogs and vomit -- to the myth that "Thimerosal causes autism but scientists suppressed the story".

Anyway, she sets out to test the idea that "environmental toxins can drive a rise in autism", and she ends up proving that a long list of potent environmental toxins *don't* drive autism rates (because recent down-turns in toxin exposure do not match the autism data). Evidently those plausible-sounding mechanisms are not happening.
At that stage, the parsimonious conclusion would be that "environmental exposures are not a factor, and the two possibilities not yet excluded are merely false positives."

Unless, of course, you are already committed to the idea that vaccines are to blame.

Genetics and autism - there is a fairly strong heritability component. 38-50% is not a trivial number. Almost no disease are 100% heritable - a few are most autosomal dominant, but for autism that up to 50% heritability factor is pretty high. The problem the anti-vax crowd want to find the smoking gun. The latest research I read is that autism genetics isn't pointing to a single smoking gun gene but rather to an increase in SNPs (on certain chromosomes in particular) that appear to be a driving force behind development of autism. I am doubting one gene will ever by identified conclusively but this research is quite intriguing. It also helps explain the link between older parents and an increase in autism among children (particularly fathers) as an increase in errors in the chromosomes carried by sperm. Unfortunately not much we can do about it.
For aluminum, as either the or one of the most common elements in the earths crust, it is literally everywhere and we consume lots of it daily. The body eliminates aluminum just fine. If an infant couldn't (for some reason) eliminate aluminum (which they are also exposed to daily) then I don't think they would last too long.

It also references tests performed on rabbits. Are there any studies showing that human babies are able to eliminate the aluminum they receive in vaccines at the rate that would be predicted by the results this study?

You could try this (PDF).* Once again, though, we're back to comparisons with parenteral nutrition. Vaccines just aren't in the ballpark.

* Or, more generally, here.

Your argument about the ability of epidemiologic studies to rule convincingly establish that vaccines do not contribute to autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders is not quite accurate. From the Institute of Medicine's 2011 report on vaccine safety: “Epidemiologic analyses are usually unable to detect an increased or decreased risk that is small, unless the study population is very large or the difference between the groups (e.g., vaccinated vs. unvaccinated) at risk is very high (e.g., smoking increases the risk of lung cancer by at least 10-fold). Epidemiologic analyses also cannot identify with certainty which individual in a population at risk will develop a given condition. These studies also can fail to detect risks that affect a small subset of the population. (p. 50)”

The fact that several epidemiologic observational studies have shown no correlation between MMR / other vaccines and autism does not on its own lead to a clear conclusion that "Vaccines do not cause autism." That is playing fast and loose with the word "cause." Such a conclusion assumes: (1) that what we call autism has one single cause and (2) that finding no average correlation between vaccination and autism diagnosis at the population level means clearly establishes that such a correlation could not exist for small vulnerable subgroups. Both of those assumptions are likely false.

Also, the comparison with epi studies on the tobacco and lung-cancer link is specious because in that case the epi studies showed a strong correlation and in this case the best epi studies showed no association.

@Narad

Thanks for the links. They were fascinating, albeit it did take some effort to understand them. I think they simply reinforce the point that I think Dr. N is making - what little we know about the effect of aluminum injected into infants isn't particularly encouraging regarding the safely of that particular ingredient in vaccines.

For example,

" Maternal dietary exposure to excessive amounts of aluminium during gestation and lactation resulted in neurobehavioural abnormalities in mouse offspring"

"Little is known about the impact of aluminium-containing antacids in human pregnancy and lactation."

"Modest evidence of an effect exists for reproductive toxicity following oral exposure, for neurological toxicity following either oral or injection exposure, and for bone toxicity following injection exposure. "

- all of this would support the idea that vaccines with aluminum given to pregnant women might negatively affect the child.

"From animal studies and the clear association of aluminium exposure and DAE, it is clear that high levels of aluminium in CNS can lead to neurotoxicity." - this does not make me sanguine about the safety of aluminum in vaccines either. There will always be variation in how well different individuals will process these chemicals. We know that vaccines can cause serious adverse effects in some rare cases, presumably they are genetically more susceptible to something in the vaccine. It's not beyond possibility that even Al levels that don't exceed the MRL might adversely affect a small proportion of the population. 1 in a million maybe?

The other article, which specifically looked at the aluminum exposure to infants via vaccines concludes with "The body burden associated with dietary uptake from either breast milk or formula during the first several months of life and from semisolid food during the remainder of that first year is estimated to reach approximately 0.1 mg. This value is lower than the estimated body burden of approximately 4 mg that would result from consuming aluminum at a rate equal to the MRL of 2 mg/kg per day. The body burden attributable to vaccines may be expected to fall between the two except for a period of a few days following individual vaccinations."

In the body of the paper, they mention ". Table 1 identifies
the range of aluminum content for relevant injections
by age, and the vaccination curve in Fig. 1 applies to the
maximum aluminum doses. That curve is below the MRL [Minimal risk level (MRL)] and above the dietary intake curves, and shows spikes on the injection day followed by rapid elimination during the first few days. Overlaps occur between the MRL and vaccine curves during the first 1–3 days postinjection."

This means that there are times when vaccines will cause a spike in the level of aluminum in their body above what is considered 'safe' or below the minimum risk level. The graph shows this quite clearly.

Sorry I can't edit. Please ignore the next to last paragraph above. That was an accident.

The problem the anti-vax crowd want to find the smoking gun.

I'd say it's closer to a wholesale reliance on "the elusive 'autism gene'" as caricature. The irony is that the very same boneheads for whom regular genetics is Too Complicated, thus leaving them with nothing but weird spluttering, are perfectly happy to turn to babbling about epigenetics.

“The most compelling argument that autism is a modern pandemic is based on a simple deduction: since modern culture has led to immune system dysfunction, and since immune dysfunction is a hallmark of autism, then autism is a result of modern culture.”

There's a major [citation needed] in that sentence. I'm not an autism expert by any means, but I thought that autism was defined as a class of inappropriate ("abnormal") responses to many kinds of stimuli. IOW, more neurological than immunological. Is there any evidence, other than Google University, that autism is actually correlated with immune disorders?

“the best way to determine if autism is a preventable, inflammation-associated pandemic is to see if autism can be prevented”

Circular reasoning is circular.

This means that there are times when vaccines will cause a spike in the level of aluminum in their body above what is considered ‘safe’ or below the minimum risk level.

I suggest that you attend more closely to the portion of the text where MRLs are introduced (section 4.5), in particular, the units. The beginning of section 5 might help, as well.

IOW, more neurological than immunological. Is there any evidence, other than Google University, that autism is actually correlated with immune disorders?

I recall a Portland friend waving about a meme on Facebook stating that scientists have discovered that inflammation is the cause of depression. So I was kind of going, "I doubt the etiology is that simple," and poked around a bit to find the actual studies involved. In short, yeah, it's not that simple - about a third of people with clinical depression have higher-than-average levels of inflammation, although it's 45% in people with treatment-resistant depression. Thing is, a third of people with depression have lower-than-average levels of inflammation, and treatment with anti-inflammatory agents could make them worse.

In any case, what annoyed me about the meme was pretty much the sloppy associations in evidence when it comes to the whole "gluten-gut-inflammation-allergy-yadda-yadda" "theory" of autism. I'm just waiting now for one or more friends to start yakking about how it's the evil chemicals and gluten that make people depressed (by way of inflammation, natch) and Big Pharma is duping people into taking antidepressants instead of going on a paleo diet or whatever-the-f*** and the inevitable stabby feelings that will result.

As regards autism: I am having a hard time finding any credible sources linking it to inflammation, let alone allergies or, obviously, aluminum. This might not mean, necessarily, that there is no correlation, just that, while running a search, so far all I am seeing is pages and pages of biomed BS.

Is there any evidence, other than Google University, that autism is actually correlated with immune disorders?

With the caveat that this is an unfiltered search, yah, it's been attracting a fair amount of attention lately.*

Not of the "ZOMG epidemic of lump-of-things-that-vaguely-involve-the-immune-system!!1!" variety, mind you.

* I'm reminded of one AoA commenter who was on about "getting rid of microglia" or something.

@KWill:

Give me a break. While it is true that epidemiological studies can never 100% prove a negative, when enough well-designed studies all point in the same direction, the difference between failing to find a correlation between vaccines and autism and concluding that, to the best of our ability to detect, vaccines do not cause autism. Some of these studies are pretty darned big, too, for instance a study from Montreal looking at nearly 28,000 children. A more recent systematic review than the 2011 IOM report (which, BTW, did not find associations between serious adverse events and vaccines) concluded that "there is strong evidence that MMR vaccine is not associated with autism" and "we found evidence that some vaccines are associated with serious AEs; however, these events are extremely rare and must be weighed against the protective benefits that vaccines provide."

It's not as though I haven't heard this sort of nonsense that you're laying down before.

That is playing fast and loose with the word “cause.” Such a conclusion assumes: (1) that what we call autism has one single cause and

We know that there isn't a single cause of autism so nice fat strawman there.

(2) that finding no average correlation between vaccination and autism diagnosis at the population level means clearly establishes that such a correlation could not exist for small vulnerable subgroups. Both of those assumptions are likely false.

Argumentum ad Healy again. The very crux of Nevison's argument that vaccines are somehow the main/majority/only cause of autism is just what you are trying to argue against. Why don't you describe these elusive "vulnerable subgroups" and how vaccines have cause their autism.

The Spudd predicted this: "I believe vaccines cause autism and climate change is a hoax."

http://thespudd.com/i-believe-vaccines-cause-autism-and-climate-change-…

Such a conclusion assumes: (1) that what we call autism has one single cause

Autism can have a number of causes.
Vaccines are not among those causes.
What part of this is so difficult?

@ JP:

Believe it or not, some woo-meisters attribute nearly all ills to which flesh is heir to inflammation ( e.g. PRN). Ingesting meat, dairy, baked goods, alcohol, processed food, corn, cooked foods, non-organic, GMOs, sugars, omega 6 oils etc causes inflammation.

Of course, drinking green juices and using dried, powdered vegetables and fruits with handfuls of supplements can cure that easily.

@Denice:

Oh, I believe it. I am personally acquainted with some folks of this sort, although they are probably not so extreme as PRN.

Also, you forgot fluoride. Not that it actually causes inflammation, but hey, what're facts good for? (Portlanders are evidently quite concerned about their precious bodily fluids.)

@ Beth

Sorry, I forget not everyone's computer is on a University network. Narad's references are more relevant, anyways. It seems as if you're obsessing over a tiny, purely theoretical risk that aluminum adjuvants may cause injury, while ignoring the fact that there's no evidence that they actually do and plenty of evidence that they don't. Sure, everyone's susceptibility to toxins is different, but that doesn't mean, for example, that the fact that water is toxic in large amounts means that its plausible to think that some small subset of people could be killed by a glass of water. So I guess the real question is, what would it take to convince you that aluminum adjuvants are safe (for a reasonable definition of the word "safe"?)

@NARAD:

This means that there are times when vaccines will cause a spike in the level of aluminum in their body above what is considered ‘safe’ or below the minimum risk level.
I suggest that you attend more closely to the portion of the text where MRLs are introduced (section 4.5), in particular, the units. The beginning of section 5 might help, as well.

From section 4.5: " The agency used this end point in developing an oral MRL, or dose which is expected to be safe for human exposure."

From section 5: The MRL curves in Fig. 1 are based on low and average weight infants consuming aluminum at an amount equivalent to the MRL each day starting from birth

What did you think I needed to attend to? If you feel my statement was in error, could you explain why?

My apologies for the poor editing.

@KWill:

You have to keep in mind that the driving force behind the idea that vaccines cause autism is that fact that both autism diagnoses and the number of vaccines in the pediatric schedule increased around the late 80s/early 90s. The entire hypothesis relies on the assumption that a) the increase in diagnoses was due to a genuine increase in incidence, and b) vaccines are responsible for most, if not all, of the increase. Ignoring the first assumption (which is also probably not true), if vaccines were responsible for even a tiny fraction of the increase in autism diagnoses, they'd have to be causing autism in an appreciable fraction of kids - certainly more than 1 in 12,000, which is the number of cases of intussusception which epidemiological studies were able to attribute to the RotaShield vaccine.

Sarah A: "You have to keep in mind that the driving force behind the idea that vaccines cause autism is that fact that both autism diagnoses and the number of vaccines in the pediatric schedule increased around the late 80s/early 90s"

Don't forget the DSM IV in 1994. I was assured in 1991 that my non-verbal three year old did not have autism because he smiled, laughed and followed verbal instructions, did not qualify under DSM III.

Last week he qualified as high functioning autism under both DSM IV and DSM V.

@Yvette#52:

The Spudd did indeed predict it, but only by seconds (figuratively):

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/01/09/lawrence-solomon-fantasies…

The Professional Ignoramus does it again.

@Sarah "It seems as if you’re obsessing over a tiny, purely theoretical risk that aluminum adjuvants may cause injury, while ignoring the fact that there’s no evidence that they actually do and plenty of evidence that they don’t. "

I think that the plausibility of risk to infants is there. I don't know what that risk is, but my reading of these papers is that it increases with the number of vaccines given at one time. What I'm trying to say is that I think the parents who are concerned about these things have a legitimate cause for concern. Spacing out the shots may indeed make a difference for the small percentage of children that are more sensitive to Al.

As for convincing me the current schedule is the safest, you needn't bother. I'm a grandmother now. I don't have to make these decisions for anyone but myself at this point.

It's parents of young children that need to be convinced. If they are intelligent and research the issue and this is what they find, I cannot blame them for not being reassured about the safety of vaccines.

As for your analogy with a glass of water, I don't think it's particularly applicable. Among other findings was that the toxicity of aluminum varied with how it was acquired - orally and by injection differ significantly. Apropo to your water example, I can state that air is not a problem when it is swallowed even in large amounts, but it's deadly if even a small amount is injected.

My understanding, after perusing the linked article (link in #23), is that it regards the “cumulative amount of postnatal aluminum adjuvant administered to U.S. children by 18 months of age” which has gone up considerably over the past few decades.
http://www.ehjournal.net/content/13/1/73/figure/F5

So Nevison's hypothesis predicts a six-fold leap in autism incidence between children born in 1988 and those born in 1989, matching the change in adjuvants in recommended vaccines. With smaller but still dramatic jumps for the years 1998-1999 and 2003-2004, then reaching a plateau and staying there.

Her evidence contradicts her predictions conclusively.

@Orac: Ceteris parabus, the sample size of an epidemiological study is not directly relevant to its ability to detect rare causal associations among vulnerable subgroups. The coefficients reported in epidemiological studies are averages. In the presence of heterogeneity that is not explicitly modeled, it is well known that those averages are often biased. Check out the work of Christopher Winship, Yue Xie, or more recently Jennie Brand if you'd like to learn more about estimating causal effects in the presence of heterogeneity.

Could you link the more recent review that you reference? The 2012 Cochrane Library report concludes that the evidence was insufficient to draw conclusions about whether there is a causal association between the MMR vaccine and autism, as well as several other disorders: "We could assess no significant association between MMR immunisation and the following conditions: autism, asthma, leukaemia, hay fever, type 1 diabetes, gait disturbance, Crohn's disease, demyelinating diseases, or bacterial or viral infections. The methodological quality of many of the included studies made it difficult to generalise their results."
Their summary conclusion states: “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate."

Careful reading of the report linked above makes it clear that if there are adverse effects of vaccines, they affect a very small proportion of the population. But we do not have sufficient evidence to move away from the position that vaccines may be associated with the adverse outcomes listed above for some individuals. In epi, average estimated causal effects (or their absence) do not always equal causal effects in specific individuals. In the presence of unmodeled heterogeneity, average risk (or its absence) isn't even average risk because that heterogeneity can seriously bias the estimates. IOM and Cochrane appear to understand this. I'm happy to provide links and explain more if you would like more info.

@Sarah: Thanks for the info. I think it is important to clarify what one means by the claim "Vaccines cause autism." I'm sure you are right that some people believe that 100% of cases of autism (or even 75% or 50% are caused by vaccination). People believe all sorts of crazy things as I am sure all of you who are most engaged in this debate with extreme anti-vaxxers know better than I. The IOM and Cochrane report that I discussed aren't really addressing that question--they are referring to whether vaccines are causally associated at any non-zero magnitude with particular adverse outcomes--not that they are THE cause of these outcomes. This hypothesis does not rest on the assumptions that you mentioned. In other words, the idea that vaccines might be linked to particular adverse outcomes in some cases does not require the incidence of those adverse outcomes to have increased over time in parallel to some changes in the vaccine.

Could you link the more recent review that you reference? The 2012 Cochrane Library report concludes that the evidence was insufficient to draw conclusions about whether there is a causal association between the MMR vaccine and autism, as well as several other disorders: “We could assess no significant association between MMR immunisation and the following conditions: autism, asthma, leukaemia, hay fever, type 1 diabetes, gait disturbance, Crohn’s disease, demyelinating diseases, or bacterial or viral infections. The methodological quality of many of the included studies made it difficult to generalise their results.”
Their summary conclusion states: “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”

Why stop here? Shouldn't you have also included, "Currently, this is the only review covering both effectiveness and safety issues of MMR vaccines. In agreement with results from other studies and reviews a significant association between autism and MMR exposure was not found. The study of Wakefield (Wakefield 1998), linking MMR vaccination with autism, has been recently fully retracted (The Editors of The Lancet 2010) as Dr. Wakefield has been found guilty of ethical, medical and scientific misconduct in the publication of the paper; many other authors have moreover demonstrated that his data were fraudulent (Flaherty 2011)."

And, "Existing evidence on the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccine supports current policies of mass immunisation aimed at global measles eradication and in order to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with mumps and rubella."

Vaccine safety monitoring should constantly strive to improve surveillance and standardisation, you won't get any argument there. But where you will get push back is trying to raise the spectre of "vulnerable subpopulations" without defining who or how re: autism. And do you really want to make the argument that they might exist therefore end vaccine programmes until every "vulnerable subpopulation" is identified? You might want to give some thought to what you are trying to advance before coming off as a smarmy ponce under the guise of "just being reasonable".

Hmmm, what about my child who was born in 1976 and was diagnosed with intellectual and physical impairments and "autistic-like" behavior (not autism), under the DSM II Diagnostic Criteria?

Prior to the passage of PL 94-142 (1975) millions of disabled children were "exempt" from attending school and hundreds of thousands of children were not provided appropriate special education services:

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/idea35/history/index_pg10.h…

The reason why there are no case studies that link vaccines, the ingredients in vaccines, the spacing/timing of vaccines and the onset of autism...or allergies, or immune disorders, or diabetes...is because.....

vaccines.do.not.cause.those.disorders.period.

What did you think I needed to attend to?

One more time:

I suggest that you attend more closely to the portion of the text where MRLs are introduced (section 4.5), in particular, the units.

Ceteris parabus [], the sample size of an epidemiological study is not directly relevant to its ability to detect rare causal associations among vulnerable subgroups.

All what things being equal?

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!

The Guardian reports on an Australian study with the refreshingly frank headline:

Homeopathy not effective for treating any condition, Australian report finds

@Beth: the MRL number was derived by taking an amount that showed no effect in rats, and for safety dividing that by 3 because humans aren't rats, then for EXTRA safety dividing again by ten -- here alreadycompensating for the fact that some people may be particularly bad at getting rid of aluminum -- to get a daily oral consumption rate of 2mg/kg.

The MRL curve shows the amount of aluminum that would have accumulated in an infant's body if they daily consumed 2mg/kg of aluminum; according to the chart (note the logarithmic scale on the left axis) a two month old would have built up to .7mg, a year old up to 4 mg. By comparison, the highest spike from vaccination is 1.6 mg at 2 months. So, yes, for 2-3 days, a two-month old's body will contain more aluminum from a vaccination than if they had daily orally consumed an amount that has been doubly compensated for safety.

A fairly small two month old weighs 4kg. A fairly small 1 year old weighs 8 kg. On the day of the shots, vaccinations could give a two month old with normal aluminum consumption .4 mg of aluminum per kilo of kid. The 1 year old with a year's worth of daily consumption of the MRL would have .5 mg of aluminum per kilo of kid. I personally don't find that troubling at all.

@ScienceMom: "And do you really want to make the argument that they might exist therefore end vaccine programmes until every “vulnerable subpopulation” is identified?"

I absolutely did not make this argument. My point is only about risk of adverse effects while vaccine policy should (and does) balance average population risk of adverse effects with average population benefit of protection from infectious disease. On that count, the science is clear that the benefits of vaccination to the population and to the majority of individuals far outweigh the costs. But especially since this is a science blog, I think it is important that we be honest about the state of the scientific evidence on risks of serious adverse effects of vaccines. I'm not cherry picking citations here--these are very large systematic reviews from the IOM and Cochrane written by teams of experts who reviewed hundreds of studies.

The public dialogue on vaccine safety sometimes implies that the science clearly shows that vaccine X could not have contributed to adverse effect Y for any child. All I'm saying is that for the 135 vaccine adverse event pairs that IOM 2011 reviewed and for the adverse outcomes mentioned by Cochrane with respect to MMR, that absolutist position on vaccine safety is not scientifically justified, at least according to two of the most respected unbiased sources of scientific knowledge on health and medicine.

@Beth
"I think that the plausibility of risk to infants is there. "

Based on what? Your lacking understanding of dosage? You should work on that (an on your massively flawed analogies as well)!

On that count, the science is clear that the benefits of vaccination to the population and to the majority of individuals far outweigh the costs. But especially since this is a science blog, I think it is important that we be honest about the state of the scientific evidence on risks of serious adverse effects of vaccines.

And being a science blog which you might not have taken the time to peruse, I guessed you missed the thousands of comments and scores of posts which clearly discuss the types and risks of vaccine associated adverse events.

I’m not cherry picking citations here–these are very large systematic reviews from the IOM and Cochrane written by teams of experts who reviewed hundreds of studies.

You're cherry-picking quotes; I also quoted from the 2012 Cochrane MMR review. You also seem to be operating under the assumption that we Luddites don't seem familiar with the Cochrane Collaboration and the IOM.

The public dialogue on vaccine safety sometimes implies that the science clearly shows that vaccine X could not have contributed to adverse effect Y for any child.

Another strawman.

All I’m saying is that for the 135 vaccine adverse event pairs that IOM 2011 reviewed and for the adverse outcomes mentioned by Cochrane with respect to MMR, that absolutist position on vaccine safety is not scientifically justified, at least according to two of the most respected unbiased sources of scientific knowledge on health and medicine.

That does not seem to be all you're saying or rather implying. Don't you think all of this is known already? Read the post, Nevison's position is absurd and that's what is being discussed. Are you here to defend it? Don't hold back, nothing you have just stated is at odds with what we already know so what is it you really wish to say?

@ScienceMom: If I came across as attacking this blog or this post, that was not my intention. Although I reread my comments and they don't seem to be antagonistic to me. As I mentioned in the first sentence of my first comment, I was only addressing one specific point in the post. I wrote: "Your argument about the ability of epidemiologic studies to rule (sic) convincingly establish that vaccines do not contribute to autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders is not quite accurate."

Clarifying that point was my only intention. I don't dispute the value of this post or the legitimacy of questioning Nevinson's claims.

It seems to me that the value that this blog and its participants place on scientific evidence is a huge contribution. I share those values and assumed that my point would be taken in the spirit of open scientific dialogue and in ensuring that the science is communicated as accurately as possible. Ultimately, it sounds as if you agree with my basic argument, so I'm not sure what the problem is. It would be totally understandable if the degree and number of extreme anti-science crackpots that you likely have to deal with here contributes to some degree of defensiveness and annoyance at those who offer honest critiques that seem to challenge some basic assumptions.

I think there is much to be gained in having a civilized non-defensive discussion like real scientists who are open to new information/interpretations. Much of the value of science lies in the recognition and acceptance of uncertainty. If these views are not welcome here, though, I'm happy to leave you to it.

@Emma

Thanks for the additional explanation, but I am aware of how safety margins are computed. I don't see that your explanation invalidates my assessment.

@Narad - If you have a point to make, feel free to do so explicitly. Otherwise I'm going to assume that your objection to my statement was invalid rather than read through that section one more time and try to discern why you think it was incorrect.

'the evidence refuting a vaccine-autism link'
inherently implies that such a link exists.....

#75 Kwill,

The point you are making does get the hackles up on this blog.

You can swear up and down that you are in complete agreement about the physical reality, and about desirable public policy, but presenting this particular epistemological critique somehow brands you as 'the enemy'.

I attribute it pretty much to the hammer/nail phenomenon; if you have spent a long time with a narrow focus using a narrow set of tools, there is a natural defensiveness when a broader perspective intrudes.

So, I would agree with one point Nevison makes, which is that climate science is quite different from what is being discussed here. Much more complexity of technique and reasoning.

And I don't think Exxon, the Koch brothers, et al, are funding the anti-vax disinformation campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars, so the noble warriors here are hardly the Spartans at Thermopylae they seem to fashion themselves.

Are there any studies showing that human babies are able to eliminate the aluminum they receive in vaccines at the rate that would be predicted by the results this study?

Eell, they don't see to have any trouble eliminating the far greater amounts of aluminum they're exposed to from drinking breast milk or formula: over the first 6 months of life an infant could be exposed to a maximum of 2.5 mg of aluminum as the result of routine immunizations.

During those same 6 months it would be exposed to 10 mgs of aluminum if it's breast feeding; if receiving formula instead we're talking about a 40 mgs of aluminum, and as much as 120 mgs if it's receiving a soy-based formula.

"‘the evidence refuting a vaccine-autism link’
inherently implies that such a link exists….."

To the exact same same extent, I guess, that "the evidence refuting the occurrence of a catastrophic global flood as depicted in Genesis" implies that such a flood actually occurred, I suppose.

Which is to say, not at all.

@ #80: Exactly...

Her epidemiological argument is a big strawman. She is attacking evidence that does not exist. There is no evidence refuting the vaccine-autism link because no link exists.

You’re cherry-picking quotes; I also quoted from the 2012 Cochrane MMR review. You also seem to be operating under the assumption that we Luddites don’t seem familiar with the Cochrane Collaboration and the IOM.

Yep. I daresay I (and we) are far more familiar with the evidence than Kwill. There also comes a point when listing all the qualifications on the evidence yet again becomes very repetitive. I suppose that's a hazard of having been a blogger for a decade and having blogged this topic hundreds, if not thousands, of times over those years. I realize that most newbies don't go back and read old posts and each post has to stand on its own. On the other hand, too much repetition bores regulars and, far more importantly, there also comes a point when the failure to find a correlation despite having tried so hard is pretty compelling evidence that there almost certainly isn't one.

Indeed, I've come to find the saying that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" to be painfully trite and simplistic. Whether this saying is true or not depends very heavilly upon how hard you've actually looked. If, in fact, if we've looked very hard for evidence that vaccines are associated with autism and failed to find it (and we have, for nearly two decades now), then absence of evidence does become pretty compelling evidence of absence. It's never 100%, because epidemiology can never really 100% prove a negative. However, it does eventually reach a point that, for all practical intents and purposes, the negative has been proven as well as it feasibly can be with the scientific tools at hand and that, barring the unlikely appearance of new and unexpected evidence it becomes unreasonable to argue otherwise.

We are at that point with vaccines and autism in terms of epidemiology.

As for Kwill's near flouncing away:

I think there is much to be gained in having a civilized non-defensive discussion like real scientists who are open to new information/interpretations. Much of the value of science lies in the recognition and acceptance of uncertainty. If these views are not welcome here, though, I’m happy to leave you to it.

So present your evidence. So far, all I've seen are cherry picked quotes from a couple of reviews that don't really refute what's been written, all coupled with borderline concern trolling. I'm with Science Mom here when she says:

That does not seem to be all you’re saying or rather implying. Don’t you think all of this is known already? Read the post, Nevison’s position is absurd and that’s what is being discussed. Are you here to defend it? Don’t hold back, nothing you have just stated is at odds with what we already know so what is it you really wish to say?

Or, let's just put it this way. This isn't the my first time around the block, nor is Kwill the first apparent newbie who's shown up in the comments all sanctimoniously self-righteous about how I (and my commenters) are supposedly "rigid" and "unscientific" and don't adequately "acknowledge uncertainty" based on a reading of a single post. As the 11th Doctor so famously put it in his first appearance, there have been so many before.

To be honest, the longer I blog about this topic, the less obligated I feel to include long disclaimers about the "uncertainty" in the findings because more and more the evidence fails to support a vaccine-autism link, to the point where practically and functionally it is possible to say with a high degree of certainty that vaccines do not cause autism. I used to bend over backwards to repetitively include those disclaimers in every post. No longer, because the evidence has reached the point where I feel such disclaimers are no longer necessary, if they ever were, and, again, they become very repetitive for my regular readers, not to mention me as the writer.

@Orac: Point taken. I get that there is an insider-outsider dynamic here and I fully admit to being an outsider who does not have knowledge of the history of this blog. I absolutely do not question that you have more knowledge about vaccines than I do and I apologize if I sounded sanctimonious. But as a social scientist and demographer who conducts epidemiologic research on population health and teaches graduate and undergraduate statistics (although, admittedly, you have no way of knowing that), I thought that my observations about some of the limits of causal modeling in epidemiologic research, particularly in the presence of heterogeneity might be useful. I tried to look through previous posts and comments and didn't see that this issue as well as the IOM and Cochrane perspectives on it had been addressed previously but maybe i missed it.

I have great respect for your goal of promoting science and quelling anti- and psuedo-scientific misinformation. I can only imagine the perfectly understandable frustration that comes along with that battle. It seems my comments are distracting from that goal so I'll bow out.

If you are so inclined, though, I wonder if you could further indulge me and clarify one thing about your position re the IOM and Cochrane conclusions on vaccine safety and I'll accept that as the last word:

The IOM report, in particular, appears to me to be a very careful, exhaustive (and scientifically beautiful) assessment of the state of scientific knowledge on vaccine safety that thoroughly considers not only the number and/size of studies on this issue but more importantly their quality, strengths and limitations. They agree with you that we have reached the point where the evidence favors rejecting a causal association of MMR vaccine with autism, even while recognizing that this conclusion doesn't address possible vulnerabilities in small subpopulations. Yet for 135 of the vaccine-adverse event pairs they examine (some of which are pretty serious chronic conditions), they do not reach this conclusion and instead conclude that the evidence is insufficient to reject or fail to reject a hypothesis of no causal association. They say that for most of the pairs they examine, we just don't know.

I respect your expertise here and if you'll indulge me, I really want to know what you think about this. Am I missing something or does this conclusion suggest that there is a lot we don't know about potential adverse effects of vaccines (excluding autism). I'm just honestly curious and I'd love to be able to ignore this conclusion and move on. I'll accept whatever answer you have and leave you all to your important work.

One problem I have is people, in general, leaps people take from that idea that there might be one kid in all of America who was affected in this way because we can never prove that there cannot be that one kid with some particular combination of rare sensitivities.

A skip and a hop later and we've leaped to

Something so extremely rare that happens at a level so low it is unlikely you will ever detect it and this disease is becoming so very common we have to find something to blame that happens to almost all kids as we, in general as humans, love to find the one true cause to rule them and demonize the heck out of it.

Krill: "But as a social scientist and demographer who conducts epidemiologic research on population health and teaches graduate and undergraduate statistics (although, admittedly, you have no way of knowing that), I thought that my observations about some of the limits of causal modeling in epidemiologic research, particularly in the presence of heterogeneity might be useful."

This looks oddly familiar. I think I saw someone use the same arguments and claim to be a social scientist at the Science Based Medicine blog, but with a different username.

I can't find it. But it is familiar enough, that the ploy has been tried a few times.

The thing is that Wakefield did a fraudulent study on "the" MMR. Except the UK had introduced three different versions in 1988, and removed two in1992 due to the mumps component. Plus Wakefield had an American who had been given an MMR version that had been use since 1978.

So could someone clear up which MMR is supposed to cause autism. And if it the American version, where is the evidence dated before 1990 it caused autism to sore during the 1980s?

I just have to add by way of apology: As further evidence that I am an outsider (and probably also evidence that I am an old-fogey Luddite), I previously had no idea that a "concern troll" was a thing. Upon further investigation, ouch. I guess I can understand if my comments came off that way.

In my defense, I can only say that I am pro-vaccination, a zealous advocate for science, and very supportive of what you are doing here. I just have a question about the IOM and Cochrane conclusions on vaccine safety / the epidemiologic evidence and I honestly want to know--without antagonizing you--what the participants (and author) of what seems to be a high quality science-minded blog think about this. Maybe no one agrees but it did not seem to me to be an entirely crazy or illegitimate point/question, given the sources (IOM and Cochrane). But, again, if raising the question or the way I did it was some sort of violation of the comment etiquette please accept my apologies.

On the aluminum question, we know (from unfortunate contamination of parenteral feeding solutions) that even adults and babies with impaired kidney function can excrete vastly more aluminum than is present in any vaccine. People taking aluminum-based antacids absorb and excrete literally thousands of times more aluminum that is present in a vaccine. The blood concentrations that cause neurological problems are hundreds of times higher than those seen post vaccination. In fact the amount of aluminum absorbed from the injection site each day is very similar to that absorbed from food, water and air each and every day.

As for the vaccine-autism link, the only plausible mechanism I have seen proposed is the immune stimulation and fever that vaccination can cause. It seems to me that if this led to autism we should have seen a massive fall in autism since hardly any children go through the childhood infections that almost all children experienced just a few decades ago. It seems extremely implausible to me that a measles vaccine could cause autism when measles did not.

@Narad – If you have a point to make, feel free to do so explicitly.

You introduced the statement with "ceteris paribus." What are the other things that are supposed to be equal?

For that matter, how was sample size "not directly relevant" to getting here and thence to here in the case of Pandemrix and narcolepsy?

@Narad ?????

I'm have no idea what you are talking about or what point you are attempting to make. You indicated my understanding of a particular outcome from one of the papers you linked earlier was lacking, but I have yet to figure out why. If you can't explain why my statement was incorrect, I'm not going to take your criticism seriously.

And what does the sample size on two additional papers that I've not seen before have to do with the previous discussion?

I’m have no idea what you are talking about or what point you are attempting to make.

MRLs are measured in milligrams per kilogram per day. A one- or two-day excursion above the curve is meaningless.

And what does the sample size on two additional papers that I’ve not seen before have to do with the previous discussion?

I wasn't replying to you. That's why I quoted Kwill.

@Narad: I think you are confused. I am not the one who wrote the following: "@Narad – If you have a point to make, feel free to do so explicitly." I believe that is a quote from Becky.

Also, my point about sample size had nothing to do with a discussion about Pandemrix and narcolepsy or vaccine adjuvants but may be relevant to your discussion with Becky.

*Beth* not Becky.

Yet for 135 of the vaccine-adverse event pairs they examine (some of which are pretty serious chronic conditions), they do not reach this conclusion and instead conclude that the evidence is insufficient to reject or fail to reject a hypothesis of no causal association. They say that for most of the pairs they examine, we just don’t know.

It is a reasonable and honest position to take. And you will find here that advocating for vaccines while acknowledging there are risks and serious adverse events do occur; these are not mutually exclusive positions. If we knew everything science would stop right?

I just have to add by way of apology: As further evidence that I am an outsider (and probably also evidence that I am an old-fogey Luddite), I previously had no idea that a “concern troll” was a thing. Upon further investigation, ouch. I guess I can understand if my comments came off that way.

I don't think that anyone is losing sleep over your comments so don't fret but it's nice to see that you have self-awareness. This isn't a journal club or academic blog per se so the conversation tends to be more casual. There are no insiders, unless of course you count the minions so please stick around. I for one think you can add to the conversation here.

MRLs are measured in milligrams per kilogram per day.

Yes.

A one- or two-day excursion above the curve is meaningless.

And you know this because....?

@Narad: I think you are confused. I am not the one who wrote the following: “@Narad – If you have a point to make, feel free to do so explicitly.”

Ah, I did screw that up, sorry.

Also, my point about sample size had nothing to do with a discussion about Pandemrix and narcolepsy or vaccine adjuvants

The statement was that "the sample size of an epidemiological study is not directly relevant to its ability to detect rare causal associations among vulnerable subgroups." Unless one excludes analysis of postmarketing surveillance data from "epidemiological study," I'm not seeing how the two are orthogonal.

And, again, all what other things being equal?

I suppose that a very large study that excludes (or under-represents) a vulnerable subgroup would not find those rare causal associations in those selfsame vulnerable subgroups. Or, to put it another way, just because a study was large doesn't mean it was necessarily comprehensive. Is that what was meant?

I would think it would be impossible to find rare causal associations without a large sample size, but then, I am not an epidemiologist nor do I play one on TV.

I suppose that a very large study that excludes (or under-represents) a vulnerable subgroup would not find those rare causal associations in those selfsame vulnerable subgroups.

Part of the problem and why I objected to raising the spectre of "vulnerable subgroups" is that the term itself is so meaningless. Who are these "vulnerable subgroups" and what "vulnerability" do they possess that make them "vulnerable" to vaccine reactions?

@Science Mom,

Who are these “vulnerable subgroups” and what “vulnerability” do they possess that make them “vulnerable” to vaccine reactions?

I think that's an excellent question. I've occasionally asked what test one might perform besides vaccination to determine whether someone is particularly vulnerable to a vaccine-related injury. I've not gotten a good answer to date, but I think it's a valid question.

Beth @96: I think (and I might be off) that the confusion about the amount of Al is that the MRL is discussing a *chronic* exposure (how much an infant can eat every single day for a year. what you are describing in a vaccination with an alum adjuvant is an *acute* exposure, which usually has a much higher safety threshold because it is a single event.

Yes, that one shot might be more Al than you get through feeding, but since it isn't repeated tomorrow and the day after, your body has plenty of resources to get rid of it.

I hope that answers your question.

Who are these “vulnerable subgroups” and what “vulnerability” do they possess that make them “vulnerable” to vaccine reactions?

To be fair, this is an entirely plausible scenario...ultra-rare genetic variation could cause severe, yet vanishingly rare adverse events. Even though this subgroup is small, it's still a subgroup.

I’ve occasionally asked what test one might perform besides vaccination to determine whether someone is particularly vulnerable to a vaccine-related injury. I’ve not gotten a good answer to date

If there are well-known genetic underpinnings of the vaccine reaction, it would be easy to genotype the causal variant(s) to help guide treatment, similar to current efforts to use genomic data to reduce adverse drug events driven by genetic heterogeneity. Again though, this would only work for rare, severe vaccine reactions driven by a small number of rare yet high-effect-size alleles.

AdamG

If there are well-known genetic underpinnings of the vaccine reaction, it would be easy to genotype the causal variant(s) to help guide treatment, similar to current efforts to use genomic data to reduce adverse drug events driven by genetic heterogeneity.

I entirely agree with you. To rephrase my question, then, it becomes: what is the test we can do to determine whether someone has a predisposition to being harmed by a vaccine, and how do you know that?"

And frankly, that's an important question. If we had some test to say "you shouldn't immunize this person against chicken pox because the vaccine would be as bad as or worse than the disease", it would be a valuable advancement to medical science. In my opinion.

To rephrase my question, then, it becomes: what is the test we can do to determine whether someone has a predisposition to being harmed by a vaccine, and how do you know that?”

This is an area of active research. Here's a good place to start:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104366181400139X

A one- or two-day excursion above the curve is meaningless.

And you know this because….?

Because MRLs come with a very substantial safety factor - usually 100-fold, but often higher.

Apropo to your water example, I can state that air is not a problem when it is swallowed even in large amounts, but it’s deadly if even a small amount is injected.

This is a quite meaningless example, because the impact of air injected is entirely physical and has nothing to do with toxicity.

@AdamG - that's great, I'll be happy to see the eventual results.

In all honesty, though, the original ASIA (Steve Howe, Carl Palmer, John Wetton, and Geoff Downes) was better than the various other ASIAs (even when they replaced John Wetton with Greg Freakin' Lake).

@Esther
– anti-candida diet
– aloe vera (supposedly cures everything)

The other bits of quackery you mentioned aren't familiar to me (although no doubt someone out there in the US is into them) but those two are extremely common. You can find information and supplies for both of them at any health food store or Whole Foods (fancy grocery store chain with a focus on 'natural'). Quite a lot of places will put aloe vera in your smoothie as well.

shows spikes on the injection day followed by rapid elimination during the first few days. Overlaps occur between the MRL and vaccine curves during the first 1–3 days postinjection.”
This means that there are times when vaccines will cause a spike in the level of aluminum in their body above what is considered ‘safe’ or below the minimum risk level. The graph shows this quite clearly.

Figure 1 in Keith et al. is a *hypothetical* curve for aluminium. It assumes that all the aluminium-hydroxide adjuvant becomes biologically available the moment it's injected (by analogy with Priest's trials with soluble aluminium citrate) and is then eliminated according to a power law.

But the whole point of an adjuvant is that it *doesn't* immediately disperse through the bloodstream. It hangs around the location of the injection, winding up the immune response, shouting "Let's you and him fight!" to white cells. So those spikes are a complete kettle of red herrings.

lilady@67

I wish I knew more about your son,and the problems your son had.I suspect they were chromosomal or metabolic.

As you know,I am older than he was,and I had my first diagnosis of autism,and other stuff,but I do not know what,in 1971.I was reevaluated and rediagnosed as an adult.

I don't know where your son went to school,but where I went to school,in Baltimore County,Maryland,all elementary and junior high schools had multigrade special education classrooms in the regular schools,This was in the late 1960s to mid 1970s.I had autism,and multiple learning disabilities,but none involving speech.For a number of years in school,I went back and forth between "regular ed" and special ed classes in the same school building.

I also have a lifelong history of medical issues that are probably as complicated as any your son had to deal with.I was lucky.I had a mother who cared enough to keep me out of an institution or group home.I lived with her until her death almost three years ago.I survived a few close calls with death,to get to where I could take full benefit from all of the remarkable advances we have seen in autism medicine in the 21st Century.

Make no mistake about it, the advances are there,especially in the areas of immune and mitochondrial/metabolic disorders.I now have at least three distinct metabolic diagnoses,and am working my way towards a diagnosis of what is likely,a rare or unique type of mitochondrial disorder.I am working with a couple of the top specialists in mitochondrial and metabolic autism.Treating these disorders has allowed me to live on my own.

Krebiozen @88

It is well accepted by doctors familiar with mitochondrial autism,that fever can trigger regression when there is underlying metabolic and mitochondrial disease.Any fever.Vaccine induced or wild.The mitochondria do not care.Once more this proves the antivaxers wrong when they say wild infections make kids,or adults,stronger.Not just one regression,but over and over again,unless the underlying mitochondrial disease,or IEMs are treated.And not only regression,but other problems as well,be they medical problems,or things like vision or hearing loss as well as autistic regression.This was the case with me well into adulthood.

It really too bad this blog is so bogged down with fighting the antivaxers,and cannot spend any time covering these advances,but that's what we have bloggers like Paul Whiteley,in the UK for.

What is even sadder,is that antivax parents don't abandon their antivax beliefs*,and start exploring these avenues for their children.It is not easy to get a diagnosis of some of these emerging immune or metabolic disorders.It involves work,and lots of tests.Some of which may have been only available through clinical trials,but the results are so much more rewarding than following the antivax path.

*This includes the belief their kids were "perfect" before vaccines.Most of these diseases are related to family history.

One of the complications of the immune system is that unlike pretty much every other system, there are cells that do a random reassortment of part of their DNA. This is one mechanism that allows us to generate so many different immunoglobulin types. Dreier discovered this at Cal Tech about half a century ago. This would potentially complicate testing for rare immunological conditions resulting from the existence of a particular antibody. It would be hard to predict how identical twins would turn out in this kind of testing, but they won't automatically show the same distribution of antibodies since the rearrangements are somatic.

As an aside, I think that the fringy resort to "weakening the immune system" as an explanation for all things that are as yet unexplained is unscientific and unlikely. What the fringe has going for it is that the immune system is complex and involves many opposing and balancing activities (as another commenter pointed out), so it is hard to refute a statement as vague as "weakening the immune system."

One other point that is fairly minor unless you are the medical examiner working on a particular kind of murder case. As one famous ME wrote in a book describing his career, the injection of air into a vein is not necessarily immediately fatal after a small amount of air is injected. It might take more, depending on luck and the particular victim. I can't remember which book I read this in, but I did read it. Scuba divers get air bubbles in their blood routinely upon ascent. You need to avoid an excess bubble load.

To be fair, this is an entirely plausible scenario…ultra-rare genetic variation could cause severe, yet vanishingly rare adverse events. Even though this subgroup is small, it’s still a subgroup.

Absolutely Eric however the anti-vaxxers just love putting this cart before the horse. We must first establish the genomic and proteonomic characteristics of these "vulnerable subgroups" before understanding any potential vulnerability to an adverse vaccine reaction.

If there are well-known genetic underpinnings of the vaccine reaction, it would be easy to genotype the causal variant(s) to help guide treatment, similar to current efforts to use genomic data to reduce adverse drug events driven by genetic heterogeneity. Again though, this would only work for rare, severe vaccine reactions driven by a small number of rare yet high-effect-size alleles.

An example would be those with mitochondrial gene defects. Once diagnosed even they are vaccinated albeit differently than the general population. The "vulnerable subgroups" are often used as shields or swords by anti-vaxx groups without so much as an understanding of what they are even invoking.

This is an area of active research. Here’s a good place to start:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104366181400139X

Ooof, not a good example. Shoenfield has developed, shall we say, a rather active imagination with regards to autoimmune vaccine reactions and ASIA specifically.

@Beth #62 etc

Aluminum isn't a food, but neither is it some strange artificial substance.
It is the most common metal in the Earth's crust, so there's aluminum in organic oatmeal, broccoli, pure seawater and in playground dirt.

One of the complications of the immune system is that unlike pretty much every other system, there are cells that do a random reassortment of part of their DNA.

I'm rather fond of ERV's take.

An example would be those with mitochondrial gene defects. Once diagnosed even they are vaccinated albeit differently than the general population.

How so?

@Science Mom and @AdamG: Thanks so much for addressing my question and for the dialogue more generally. All great points.

@Mephistopheles O'Brien(#98): "I suppose that a very large study that excludes (or under-represents) a vulnerable subgroup would not find those rare causal associations in those selfsame vulnerable subgroups."

Although that is true, it is not even necessary that the vulnerable subgroup be excluded from the study for the rare causal associations to be obscured. If the rare vulnerable subgroup is small in the sample relative to the nonvulnerable subgroup who is not negatively affected (or who may even be positively affected by vaccination), that subgroup's contribution to the overall average coefficient estimate will be very small and undetected. Even if you had census data on the whole U.S. population that included vaccination history and all medical diagnoses, if the adverse effect was rare and you didn't know where to look for it, it would likely not show up. Of course, you can detect it if you explicit model it (i.e. in cohort studies, test the interaction between vulnerability X and vaccination) in predicting adverse outcome Y.. But you have to know what the vulnerability is and where to look and it has to be measured in your data. That is very difficult (currently impossible?) for outcomes like autism in which the etiology is not completely understood and therefore the vulnerabilities are not (all) known. All of this is complicated even more if the outcome of interest is caused by multiple factors so that only some of those with vulnerability X who are vaccinated will be diagnosed with the problem.

In sum, it's true that having a big enough sample is a necessary precondition to even getting some of those in a theoretical "vulnerable subgroup" in the sample, but a large sample is not at all sufficient for being able to detect negative causal effects in that vulnerable subgroup if one does not know where to look.

It sounds as if from what others have said that this "vulnerable sugroup" language is a tactic used by anti-vaxxers and, as @ScienceMom notes, this is putting the cart before the horse. I absolutely agree that just because there may be small vulnerable subgroups that we have not identified and therefore there may be small adverse outcomes that would not have been detected in the research to date, that does not mean that these subgroups even exist and all and it is certainly no justification for undermining national vaccination programs or changing recommendations. In my mind, all it means is that there is more we can learn about potential adverse effects of vaccines and we need to do more research (a trope among scientists, I realize--we always want more research!).

But--and this is question, not an assertion---doesn't this also mean that there is no scientific justification for saying to any individual parent (without knowing more about the specific case), "The science is clear that vaccines did not contribute to your child's autism?" To be clear, I'm not saying anyone here has ever said that but I think there are examples of this language in the larger public dialogue. And, I'll add that I'm simply asking the question and I'm not asserting this as fact. I know that may be perceived as an inflammatory statement and I'm very open to hearing it if you think the answer is no and/or the question is irrelevant.

doesn’t this also mean that there is no scientific justification for saying to any individual parent (without knowing more about the specific case), “The science is clear that vaccines did not contribute to your child’s autism?”

It doesn't mean that.
The link between vaccines and autism has been looked at. One meta-analysis used over 14 million individuals. No correlation was found. In a sample size that huge, if there was a susceptible subgroup, even if it was 1 in 1000 autistics, it would have been detected.
We have looked for the possible correlation exhaustively. There comes a point where absence of evidence has to be regarded as evidence of absence. The "susceptible subgroup" has reached that point.

Narad,

Quite a lot of places will put aloe vera in your smoothie as well.

I came across NCCAM's page on aloe vera recently. I was surprised to see that in 2002 the FDA required all OTC aloe vera laxatives to be removed from the market because of a lack of evidence for safety. Also, ingested aloe vera causes cancer in rats when given for long periods and has been linked to acute hepatitis (though not very convincingly), and topical aloe vera may inhibit healing of deep surgical wounds. So much for it being a panacea! I'll pass on the smoothie, thanks.

Kwill

But–and this is question, not an assertion—doesn’t this also mean that there is no scientific justification for saying to any individual parent (without knowing more about the specific case), “The science is clear that vaccines did not contribute to your child’s autism?”

If the epidemiological evidence was all that was available I would agree, but it isn't. For example, we have a lot of evidence that autism starts long before any vaccines are given - the only known causes of autism are congenital rubella syndrome and the use of some anticonvulsant drugs during a very specific window of pregnancy. There is also the evidence from twin studies that strongly suggests a large genetic component to autism.

Incidentally, the idea that vaccines can cause encephalopathy has been challenged.

How so

How are they vaccinated differently? According to this, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1096719208002035 most are given the recommended schedule however my interwebz meanderings have indicated that mito paediatric patients are often vaccinated fully but "selectively", as in one jab at a time.

@JulianFrost: Thanks for the input. But you have to think about what a correlation is. It is a statistical average. Averages can and often do obscure a great deal of heterogeneity. In statistics, this is called the "tyranny of the mean" or the "tyranny of averages." Here is a completely unrelated example from my own research. There is this longstanding correlation between marriage (vs. being unmarried) and better health. It's a pretty large positive association and hundreds of observational studies have observed this in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. I've done some of those studies myself. Then I found my research showing up in policy justifications for programs that advocated moving welfare money to programs that would promote marriage among low-income single mothers (the rationale being, they won't need welfare and they'll be healthier and happier if they marry). But whether this average benefit of (later) marriage would apply to single mothers specifically is an empirical question that no one had looked at. We got an NIH grant to look at this in a longitudinal cohort study that had data on >12,000 adults over a period of 30 years. What we found, and are continuing to find, is that that average benefit of marriage just doesn't apply to single mothers. And for some (African American single mothers who had a birth prior to age 24), later marriage is actually linked to worse health outcomes. We can't prove causality with observational data of course but use propensity score models and quasi-experimental methods to get close than just a regular correlation would).

The point is that 50 years of research on the links between marriage and better health hadn't detected this negative effect in this subpopulation because it wasn't looking for it. This average positive correlation was observed in the same data that we used and it was still positive and strong even though those single mothers were in the sample. Again, if the vulnerable subgroup is small relative to the nonvulnerable group, It just doesn't show up unless you model it explicitly. The fact that there are some in the sample for whom the marriage-->health correlation is negative was obscured by the fact that the overall average correlation is positive (because most people who marry had not had a nonmarital birth and weren't in the "vulnerable subgroup). This would be no different if the study had a sample of 1 million. Beyond having a random sample of sufficient size to even include the vulnerable subgroup, increasing the overall sample size does not itself increase the probability of detecting an adverse effect as long as the size of the vulnerable subgroup is small relative to the total population.

Obviously, this is a very different example than that of vaccines because not marrying really doesn't harm the population and not vaccinating does. That's why it would be crazy to suggest we have policies requiring people to marry but it is completely justified to have policies requiring people to vaccinate. Still, the underlying statistical reasoning regarding the tyrrany of averages is the same. Correlations do not give you any information about the presence of vulnerable subgroups. The size of the standard deviation/confidence intervals can give you a hint but it still doesn't tell you where to look to find a potential vulnerability. For that you need information about the etiology of the disease in question and you need to have measures of those vulnerabilities in your data.

@Krebiozen: That makes sense, thanks. And I'm sure you know more about the state of the science on the causes of autism than I do. My limited understanding of epigenetics is that even phenotypes with a strong genetic component can result from an interaction with non-genetic factors to influence gene expression. But maybe this has been ruled out in the case of autism. Again, I'm sure you all know more about this.

Also, re when autism starts--this seems an important point. Is the conclusion that we're pretty sure that all/most cases of what is classified as autism have some identifiable genetic or other physiological characteristic at birth that those who are not later diagnosed with autism do not have? If that's the case, I agree that would be strong evidence against a contributing role of vaccines.

#116 Kwill,

The answer is that it depends, and sometimes people can be sloppy in their reasoning or language-- and it's difficult to sort out which.

For example, the commenter at #119 Krebiozen has previously replied to one questioner in a manner that contradicts his current claim

"If the epidemiological evidence was all that was available I would agree".

(Perhaps his understanding has matured since then.)

So, yes, “The science is clear that vaccines did not contribute to your child’s autism." is a perfectly good answer if the scientific consensus is clearly articulated: "Vaccines do not contribute to autism."

The problem arises, in my humble opinion concerning science communication, when we fail to make clear the entire knowledge construct that leads to the conclusion. So, you get the 'absence of evidence' response-- which is not surprising if you are offering nothing more than some handwaving with probabilities.

Kwill:

Averages can and often do obscure a great deal of heterogeneity.

As I mentioned above, that meta-analysis looked at over 14 million people. At that level the sensitivity is mindblowing, so any heterogeneity, like the previously hypothesised susceptible subgroup would STILL have been detected.
Finally, for someone who claims to not be JAQing off, you're behaving suspiciously like someone who is.

I recall a Portland friend waving about a meme on Facebook stating that scientists have discovered that inflammation is the cause of depression. So I was kind of going, “I doubt the etiology is that simple,” and poked around a bit to find the actual studies involved. In short, yeah, it’s not that simple – about a third of people with clinical depression have higher-than-average levels of inflammation, although it’s 45% in people with treatment-resistant depression. Thing is, a third of people with depression have lower-than-average levels of inflammation, and treatment with anti-inflammatory agents could make them worse.

Somewhat off-topic, but fwiw: There's also quite a lot of research suggesting that inflammation is (in some sense) "the cause" of psychosis -- ie, it appears to play a part in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.

I didn't know it was potentially implicated in treatment-resistant depression. And -- as you so very rightly say -- even what little is known about the etiology of serious mental illness is not that simple. (Bio-psycho-social; genetic predisposition; and so on).

But I have to say: At least in the abstract, it actually makes more sense than none that it would be.

^^That doesn't mean that it's remotely reasonable to say that vaccines (or any of the other, assorted, usual suspects in the "it's-environmental!" line-up) cause any of those disorders, though.

Lest it needs saying.

zebra,

For example, the commenter at #119 Krebiozen has previously replied to one questioner in a manner that contradicts his current claim
“If the epidemiological evidence was all that was available I would agree”.
(Perhaps his understanding has matured since then.)

De enlighten me. Where precisely have I suggested that the epidemiological evidence alone is sufficient to categorically state that vaccines never cause autism?

Or even, "do enlighten me".

@JustaTech #101

Yes, that one shot might be more Al than you get through feeding, but since it isn’t repeated tomorrow and the day after, your body has plenty of resources to get rid of it.I hope that answers your question.

Thank you for your response. My understanding of the paper in question is that it converted amounts with respect to ingestion and injection in order to make the direct comparison. The question I asked had to do with how can we know those spikes above the MRL caused by vaccines are not going to cause problems for the individual. I’m afraid your response does not answer that question.

@ChrisP #105

Because MRLs come with a very substantial safety factor – usually 100-fold, but often higher.

100 fold - could you give a source for this? In engineering, a 6 sigma safety margin is common, which is a similar concept but a very different way of computing it.

I would agree that there is no evidence that such spikes are going to be harmful. But that is not the same as concluding they are safe. It means it falls into the ‘we can’t be sure’ category.

@Spectator #113 – One of the papers linked earlier that I read and have been discussing makes clear that there is a large difference in outcomes between AL that is ingested and AL that is injected. Very little of ingested AL is absorbed into the body. It is also well-established as a neurotoxin.

The question I asked had to do with how can we know those spikes above the MRL caused by vaccines are not going to cause problems for the individual. I’m afraid your response does not answer that question.

Because kidneys. And here is an updated version of Keith et al. which does a better job (in my opinion) of modelling IM Al kinetics. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22001122

The question I asked had to do with how can we know those spikes above the MRL caused by vaccines are not going to cause problems for the individual. I’m afraid your response does not answer that question.

Because it doesn't spike above the minimum risk level for single exposure. And it is one.

In order for it to be above the MRL for daily exposure, the individual would have to be vaccinated daily.

@Beth --

In the event that the distinction still isn't clear:

You know how you can have an ice cream sundae every now and again without gaining weight, even though if you ate three ice cream sundaes every day you would?

Same thing.

Beth,

The question I asked had to do with how can we know those spikes above the MRL caused by vaccines are not going to cause problems for the individual. I’m afraid your response does not answer that question.

There are no spikes above the MRL, as Herr Doktor Bimler explained at #108. They assume that all the aluminum in the vaccine is absorbed immediately, which does not happen. The entire point of an aluminum adjuvant is that it is not absorbed for a long period.

We know, from experience with aluminum contaminating IV feeds, and kidney dialysis fluids, that aluminum doesn't cause problems unless blood levels are maintained of greater than 60 micrograms per liter. We can measure large spikes in blood aluminum after patients are given aluminum-containing antacids, which can result in up to 80 micrograms per kg body weight per day (5,600 micrograms per day in a 70 kg adult) being absorbed, which is rapidly excreted by the kidneys.

Compare a single dose of less than 1,000 micrograms in a vaccine injected intramuscularly where it dissolves slowly over a period of weeks, leaching into the blood at a rate of less than 0.4 micrograms per kg per day. When you consider that the normal range for blood aluminum is up to 6 micrograms per liter, and that we absorb up to 0.5 micrograms per kilogram per day from foods (that's 2 micrograms per day in a 4 kg baby), 0.4 micrograms per day is negligible. As has been pointed out, the increase in blood aluminum after vaccination is barely measurable.

In summary, we have a large excess capacity for excreting aluminum, and the tiny amounts in vaccines are simply too tiny to be of any concern.

^ "blood levels are maintained at greater than 60 micrograms per liter"

@Julian Frost: I think this is the study you are referencing: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367 and I agree that it is a valuable meta-analysis. It shows that in the combined sample from 5 case-control studies and 5 cohort studies, there is absolutely no significant average correlation of vaccination generally, vaccination with MMR specifically or thimerosal exposure with ASD or autism. It may not be relevant except to demonstrate this this may not be the study you are talking about: the combined sample size is 1,256,407 so correct me if I have the wrong study.

However, this study does not address or in any way disprove my point about the inability of the average to provide information about whether there are adverse effects in vulnerable subgroups. You note that, "In a sample size that huge, if there was a susceptible subgroup, even if it was 1 in 1000 autistics, it would have been detected." What would a correlation coefficient (or, in this case, odds ratio) that detected the adverse effect in the susceptible subroup look like? Are you saying that if vaccination contributed to the autism of 1 out of 1000 autistic children but did not contribute to the autism of 999 out of 1000 autistic children, then the meta analysis would have revealed a significantly greater odds of autism among the vaccinated compared to the non-vaccinated (rather than the nonsignificant odds ratios that it did produce). I'm sorry and I don't want to sound like I am attacking you because you seem to think that I have some sort of anti-vaxx agenda here, but I don't know how else to say it: That is not how odds ratios or correlations work even in very big samples. If you don't believe me, I'll quote the IOM again because, come on, it's the IOM! Don't we trust the IOM? See especially the last sentence “Epidemiologic analyses are usually unable to detect an increased or decreased risk that is small, unless the study population is very large or the difference between the groups (e.g., vaccinated vs. unvaccinated) at risk is very high (e.g., smoking increases the risk of lung cancer by at least 10-fold). Epidemiologic analyses also cannot identify with certainty which individual in a population at risk will develop a given condition. These studies also can fail to detect risks that affect a small subset of the population. (p. 50)”

If you are interested, here is a fairly detailed statistical explanation: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/faculty/pages/docs/elwert/Elwert%20Winship%…
All of this gets at the well-known problem in epidemologic research that population risk is not the same as individual risk and it is a fallacy to assume that it is. What's more, even the population average estimates (such as the nonsignificant odds ratios in the vaccine autism meta-analysis) can be biased in the presence of heterogeneity that is explicitly unmodeled (i.e. if the association is different in some subpopulation than it is in the rest of the population) as the Ellwood and Winship paper above shows. Believe me, as someone who conducts epidemiologic observational research, I don't like this any more than you do.

Here is another discussion and demonstration of the issue: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2531765?sid=21106095850763&uid=2&…

and here:
http://www.biostat.harvard.edu/robins/prob-caus-89.pdf

I don't know what else to say about this other than this is a well-documented and well-known issue that is the subject of a substantial body of research. As someone who works in a field in which epidemiologic grant proposals get reviewed by experimental and clinical scientists, I get reminded of these limitations all the time. I only say this by way of explaining why it may seem like common knowledge to me but I understand if it is not common knowledge more generally. I'll add that I just think it's an important point to make in this group and for other science-minded folks to understand. My intent is not to prove you wrong personally.

On the positive side, there are methodological advances that appear to improve on the ability to modelling stochastic individual risk in epidemiologic studies but these are pretty new and not widely implemented.

Regarding this: "Finally, for someone who claims to not be JAQing off, you’re behaving suspiciously like someone who is." I'm trying my best here to make my point about the limits of epidemiologic research for detecting potential adverse effects in small subgroups be clear that this point in no way should undermine confidence in or the scientific justification for vaccination policy, which is clearly and undeniably beneficial to the population. If you'd like to tell me how to do this more effectively without raising your suspicion, I am happy to comply.

Can iask which paper you linked to suggesting different outcomes? All I'm finding your link @29 which doesn't indicate such.

There actually isn't a significant difference in outcome for ingested dietary aluminum versus adjuvant aluminum delivered by IM injection: while only a less of the total dietary aluminum you're exposed to is abosrbed in the gut compared to the total adjuvant aluminum you're exposed to by IM injection, in both cases once absorbed distribution to tissues and organs is essentially identical and in both cases the absorbed aluminum is effectively eliminated (see, for example, PMID:9302736).

As for aluminum being a neurotoxin, not at exposure levels achievable as a consequence of routine childhood vaccination. Always important to remember that it's the dose that makes the poison.

@Ann #130

Because it doesn’t spike above the minimum risk level for single exposure. And it is one.
In order for it to be above the MRL for daily exposure, the individual would have to be vaccinated daily.

This does not jive with my understanding of fig 1 in the paper linked by NARAD in #41. It plots the aluminum body burden contributions form diet and vaccines relative to the MRL level intake. Since days is the parameter shown by the x-axis, it seems to me that MRL shown is for a daily basis and clearly shows a spike above the MRL at slightly before 100 days old. If you don’t think this is the case, could you explain why my understanding is incorrect? Perhaps you could link to a paper that provides the MRL for a single exposure and compares that with the body burden contribution for vaccines showing that no spikes above the MRL occur?

@Krebozen #132

There are no spikes above the MRL, as Herr Doktor Bimler explained at #108. They assume that all the aluminum in the vaccine is absorbed immediately, which does not happen.

This is not true. In fact, they give the exact formula they use (equation 1) in their paper to compute the body burden from injections.
@JGC #135

Can I ask which paper you linked to suggesting different outcomes?

It was linked by NARAD in #41. “HUMAN HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT FOR ALUMINIUM, ALUMINIUM OXIDE, AND ALUMINIUM HYDROXIDE
Daniel Krewski,1,2 Robert A Yokel,3 Evert Nieboer,4 David Borchelt,5 Joshua Cohen,6 Jean Harry,7 Sam Kacew,2,8Joan Lindsay,9 Amal M Mahfouz,10 and Virginie Rondeau11
It states (bolding mine): “Regardless of the duration of exposure, the toxicity attributed to aluminium is dependent upon the physiochemical properties (solubility, pH, bioavailability, etc.), type of aluminium preparation, route of administration, and physiological status (presence of renal dysfunction). “

Kwill,

this study does not address or in any way disprove my point about the inability of the average to provide information about whether there are adverse effects in vulnerable subgroups.</blockquote.
As previously mentioned

1 in 12,000 [was the rate of] intussusception which epidemiological studies were able to attribute to the RotaShield vaccine.

My point was in a sample size that large, if there was a susceptible subgroup, even one of less than 0.1%, there would have been a detectable difference, and the epidemiologists would have drilled down and investigated, and identified said susceptible subgroup.

Epidemiologic analyses also cannot identify with certainty which individual in a population at risk will develop a given condition. These studies also can fail to detect risks that affect a small subset of the population.

True, but they're not talking about a sample of literally millions.

Beth,

"There are no spikes above the MRL, as Herr Doktor Bimler explained at #108. They assume that all the aluminum in the vaccine is absorbed immediately, which does not happen."
This is not true. In fact, they give the exact formula they use (equation 1) in their paper to compute the body burden from injections.

They explicitly state, "Uptake following injections is taken as 100%". The point is that body burden isn't really relevant to toxicity, it's bioavailability that is important. If I have a milligram of insoluble aluminum hydroxide sitting at an injection site in my triceps slowly dissolving into my interstitial fluid, it isn't elevating my blood levels and causing neurotoxicity.

Perhaps it's your use of the word "outcomes" that's confusing me. The only unique outcome I see the paper note associated with an IM versus parenteral route of adminsitration macrophagic myofasciitis at teh site of injection, which it notes is only observed with excessively high exposures to alluminum adjuvants--and which, according to the WHO from an epidemiological perspective, has (with few exceptions) only been observed in France. Even in France we're talking of about 200 cases in total.

@Krebiozen #138 - You are correct. I missed that phrase. What uptake rate should they have used?

@JGC - By 'outcomes' I was referring to the toxicity of the dose. A specific dose ingested orally could be non-toxic while the same amount injected could be dangerous.

@Julian Frost: Thanks, really! The clarification that you are talking about the RotaShield study helps a lot. I admit I hadn't previously seen the rotavirus study so I took a close look and it appears we are talking about different research designs / statistical calculations (in the rotavirus study and the vaccine-autism meta-analysis) http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/2001/04000/Population_based_study…

One reason the rotavirus vaccine study was able to calculate a predicted risk of 1 in 11,073 children, I think, is that they had complete data from 10 managed care organizations. From the study: "The main advantage of the study was that the MCOs had known denominators of vaccinated and unvaccinated infants, allowing calculation of incidence rates and attributable risks of intussusception." The other factor is that they also had a very large number of unvaccinated children, perhaps because they were only looking at one specific type of vaccine--Rotashield. Only 56,000 children out of 463,000 in the study received this vaccine so 407,000 were in the "unvaccinated" group. This allowed them to calculate an estimate of how many cases of intussusception occurred in vaccinated children and compare that to how many cases occurred in unvaccinated children. That's basically how they come up with the 1 in 12,000 "vaccine attributable risk."

It's not entirely clear to me why the vaccine-autism meta analysis that we discussed did not attempt to calculate a similar vaccine-attributable risk. Is the problem that there aren't enough unvaccinated children with autism to power such an estimate? For this vaccine attributable risk calculation, I totally, agree having a bigger sample would be important. Is even the 1,256,000 in the meta-analysis not sufficient? This seems like an important question. Does anyone know of studies that have calculated vaccine "attributable risk" for autism, specifically? If not, why not?

Whatever the reason, the vaccine-autism meta-analysis does not incorporate these denominators of vaccinated and unvaccinated children and therefore it does not present any calculations of individual vaccine-attributable risk similar to the rotovirus study. All they present are average odds-ratios which cannot pick up sources of heterogeneity in the effects unless you know where to look.

Thanks again, though, for pointing me to this study and the vaccine attributable risk calculation. I'm going to poke around in the literature out of curiosity and I'll be sure and share if I find a similar study on vaccine attributable risk for other outcomes outcomes.

Beth,

What uptake rate should they have used?

Yokel and McNamara estimate 0.07–0.4 µg/kg/day, based on Flarend's work on rabbits. Basing this on rabbits and not humans isn't ideal, but mammalian muscle physiology is very similar, and I think it's a fair assumption that uptake rates will be similar. That is supported by the barely measurable increase in blood aluminum levels after vaccination, at least 100 times lower than the levels required to cause toxicity. Remember that we are talking about very low quantities of aluminum; a milligram of aluminum isn't very much - a drop of water weighs about 50 milligrams.

macrophagic myofasciitis at teh site of injection, which it notes ... only been observed in France.

Has *anyone* reported it outside of Gherardi's group of aluminium alarmists?
Keith &c are droll about nationality as a risk factor: "observed primarily in immune-compromised Frenchmen".

I didn't see anyone mention that Nevison only publishes in open-access journals and doesn't note her affiliation and obvious COI of Safeminds. While not enough for a retraction, it does show she's hiding it or is horribly sloppy.

Also, get rid of the two concern trolls.

Nevison only publishes in open-access journals

Is that relevant? Nothing wrong with OA journals per se. "Environmental Health" is from BiomedCentral (and ultimately part of the Springer group), while "Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease" is part of the Taylor & Francis group

I've published two articles in PLoS ONE; so I don't think publishing in open access journals is a bad thing.

100 fold – could you give a source for this?

Leaving aside the fact that, as noted, this is a red herring, the total uncertainty factor for the ATSDR intermediate-duration* MRL to convert from the murine LOAEL is 300 (PDF). Note that this is the 2008 version, not the 1999 version used by Keith et al., which hinges on a different Golub paper.

* There is no acute MRL.

^ LOAEL NOAEL (PDF)

@JayK
"Also, get rid of the two concern trolls."

I think that was directed at me. I just have to say after looking more into this "concern troll" phenomenon, it strikes me as an entirely appropriate critique in ideological or political discussions but problematic for legitimate scientific inquiry. I guess I misjudged the primary focus of this blog (or at least some of its participants) in assuming it was scientific rather than ideological. I'll just leave you with this from rational-wiki.

"The danger, of course, is that not everyone with a concern is a concern troll - and not every concern is unreasonable. In environments of genuine groupthink, applying the concern troll label may serve as a means of enforcing conformity and punishing (or silencing) dissent. And even without actual groupthink in play, many Internet posters find dismissing an argument much quicker and easier than evaluating it. In addition, the term "concern troll" focuses not on what the person is actually saying, but on some alleged agenda. Thus, if misused, it is the perfect refuge for someone who has no counter to the actual argument: simply ignore the points made, allege some other position, and then accuse the other person of lying if they deny that that is what they're really saying. It's a combination of straw man and argumentum ad hominem: make up something to attack, and ignore their actual points on the basis that since the points were made by someone acting in bad faith, they need not be addressed."

#149 KWill,

First, your contribution has been extremely useful to me at least-- I brought up this same (statistical) issue in a previous post, but I don't have your background and was unable to provide the (quality) references you did. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that you are a troll; if you are, you are better than any I have seen, and I can't wait for you to spring your trap.

I would, though, observe that your style is perhaps overly solicitous, and *that* is often a red flag for concern trolling or "Just A Question". Me, I come right out and say 'hey this is wrong'-- I get called arrogant and stuff like that but only the not-too-bright ones think I'm concern trolling. Of course, I can't say that a good scientific debate inevitably follows, because the defensiveness and chimp-troop behavior still manifests itself-- you should realize that many of these people are here simply to pile on some pretty sad characters from the anti-vax camp.

As I pointed out in my original comment, it doesn't matter how many times you demonstrate that you agree about the fundamentals of the topic-- they cannot concede any even marginally critical point.

Anyway, thanks again for a couple of good bookmarks, and I wish you better luck finding an interlocutor at your own level to engage with. I continue to believe that there are unbiased lurkers who learn from honest discussions-- I am one at least in many cases.

@Krebiozen #142

Thanks for answering my question. That does make sense.

@Zebra: Thanks, I appreciate it. I admit ignorance to some of the more esoteric rules of online engagement and default to being polite and respectful but I see how that has pitfalls too.

FWIW, I was seeking a scientific discussion that is divorced from the vitriol and ideology that is so prevalent on this issue (from both sides) and it seems this is not the place for that discussion. When the response to a presentation of the core conclusions of two summative statements from the most unbiased sources of the published scientific consensus (the IOM and Cochrane Library reports) on vaccine safety is that I must be a cherry-picking concern troll, that is clear evidence that this group (or t least some of its individual members) is more interested in ideological groupthink than an open and honest scientific discussion.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having an ideological anti-vaxx crusade, I guess, but when you do it under the guise of a "science blog" but then refuse to engage with the science, all I can say is that is very very bad for science.

The other thing you may want to consider if you want to actually do something about the threat of less than 100% vaccination rates rather than just bemoaning all the idiots who don't understand science: Look at the research which shows that >50% of respondents in a nationally representative study indicated that they have concerns about vaccine safety. Most of those people currently vaccinate and most aren't extreme anti-vaxx nutjobs. But if your response to them is something along the lines of "the science is clear and vaccines are perfectly safe for your child" and "you are suspiciously anti-science if you question the scientific consensus on this (although it is some other scientific consensus that exists somewhere other than in the publications of the IOM and Cochrane. In other words, if your response is "your concerns are ridiculous and get out of my face," then you stand to be as much as part of the problem of falling vaccination rates (by pushing some of that very large group of concerned/questioning but currently vaxxing parents into the other camp) as your apparent enemy is.

This is coming a little late, but it is unfortunate to see someone who appears to be good about being skeptical of some areas of science have such an anti-science attitude regarding climate change. Real science requires predictions of theories to match reality. Unfortunately many poorly informed people seem completely unaware that climate models do *not* meet this very basic requirement well enough to be taken seriously.

Unfortunately many folks don't know about about computer modeling and physics and math to grasp that the climate research field is very much a work in progress despite the attempt by "true believers" to pretend it is akin to a religious certainty where heretics who dare to question the faithful should be denounced as "deniers" to avoid needing to confront rational objections. If someone created a computer system that claimed to be able to predict the temperature one year from today to within a degree, or the dow jones average one year from today to within one point, then people would expect that such extraordinary claims would be backed by extraordinary evidence. Yet gullible true believers hear that supposed "scientists" claim models based on sparse data make long term projections and oddly blindly accept it.

Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture (transcripts are around the net) on "cargo cult science" which follow the superficial trappings of science but lack the crucial ability to be sufficiently skeptical of their own conclusions. This happens because science is a human process which can become temporarily dysfunctional. The theory of paradigm shifts acknowledges this human element, recognizing that even well intentioned fields have become temporarily stuck on a certain way of looking at the world and resist contrary viewpoints for too long until the old guard leaves the field or outsiders manage to step in and question things. Unfortunately in this case the PR war seems to be won by those who pretend their "science" can't be critiqued. They scream bloody murder at the thought their standard of certainty should be the same as say a field like particle physics... but then get away among some with pretending that they should nevertheless be granted as much credibility as those physicists, and surprisingly some otherwise skeptical people who know little about the field fall for the scam.

CommonSense (ha, ha), please go over to Greg Laden's Blog or to Stoat and spout your rubbish there. They need some fresh meat and you'll be perfect.

Unfortunately many folks don’t know about about computer modeling and physics and math

You're doubly in the wrong place, then, honeybunch. Take Julian's advice and go pontificate where it's on topic.

re: Julian & Narad's comments.

Those are of course typical of the sort of emotional rants that junk scientists give when challenged, since they can't respond with simple evidence and logic since their case isn't based on that. The very basic complaint against junk science claims is usually that tests indicate their claims don't match reality. The results of climate models don't match reality well enough. Some might appear to when cherry picked, but that isn't good enough, it'd be like basing a design of an aircraft on equations that *sometimes* seem to sort of work if you pick the right way of looking at it.

Unfortunately the field is complicated so you people within it can make complicated arguments that obfuscate the simple reality that we simply don't know enough about many of the processes involved to model them accurately. There are many good researchers in the field I'm sure, but the final claims are the results of complex climate models produced by a comparatively small number of people that people are blindly trusting. There are people that try to claim they can magically know what future climate will do without those models, but that isn't science since there are complex feedback interactions that need to be modeled quantitatively to even have the slightest ability to try to claim to know something about the future.

The very fact that there is debate within the field over how to explain a "pause", and that they can't yet agree on how to explain it, should clue people in to the fact that it is a work in progress. They need to be able to explain it to even attempt to claim they have credible models, and those models then need to demonstrate that they match reality. Instead people try to claim certainty that somehow they know what the future holds, despite the fact they haven't yet completed working models. Just as with alternative medicine, they invent lots of excuses for why they shouldn't be held to the same standards of evidence as other fields, or why their predictions should be trusted despite a lack of understanding of many things and despite the lack of credible evidence.

Different models are tweaked to get similar results.. despite having internally different physics. Many climate scientists have tried to claim for 25 years or so, even with vastly less data and understanding of the physical systems. They certainly didn't know enough to have a credible science based claim for their assertions back then, and even if they have more data now.. they still don't even if they obfuscate things enough so many people fall for the scam. Its like the same games that alternative medicine folks play with their complex theories they twist to match whatever results, non-falsifiable in essence since people don't require their results to match realty well enough. They don't have sufficient models of uncertainty and reliability of these complex models with sparse uncertain data and calculations with limited numerical accuracy and approximations due to it being of course a sparse model that can't model everything. They aren't validated the way models in other fields are. Given limited historical data, it is too easy for them to wind up calibrating the models against reality.. and then using the same data to test with (sometimes indirectly by having tweaked models so they are in the same ballpark as other models.. which have been tweaked to match the real data).

Common Sense, Respectful Insolence deals with quackery, pareidola and the logical fallacies that lead us to embrace the two. Greg Laden's Blog and Stoat both deal with climate science and climate change denialism. Please go there.

Common sense, let's assume for the sake of argument that although all models predict continued rise in global mean temperatures and a rising sea level, computer modeling of the likely outcomes of climate change needs improvement to allow us to accurately predict how rapidly GMT will rise and how the Maldives, Kiribati, Tuvalu etc. will dissappear beneath the waves.

This doesn't argue that global warming is not occurring and a genuine concern, that anthropogenic factors are not a principle contributor to the observed rise in global mean temperature, or that the adverse consequences we already see occurring as the result of climate change are not do not demand we take what action we can to reduce human contributions to rising GMT.

Oh, goody. Common Sense is an anthropogenic climate change denialist. I wonder if he's figured out yet that climate science denialists are about as welcome here as antivaccinationists, creationists, and quacks because they are cut from the same cloth.

Re Common Sense

Common Sense repeats the big lie that there has been a "pause" in the increase in global temperatures. The apparent pause is due to the result in 1998 which was an inordinately hot year due to a very strong El Nino condition. This is an outlier. When the result of 1998 is deleted, the "pause" disappears. Of course, the big lie continues to be propagated by the deniers like Common Sense.

Orac:

Science requires theories to match reality, just like the junk science you critique which doesn't stand up to testing *neither does climate research*. Yet true believers like you emotionally defend it because I suspect you have fallen for the "argument by authority" that supposedly it is "real science". I very much doubt you could make any sort of coherent defense of why you believe in climate change that doesn't rely on merely deferring to the authority of those you are trusting without skeptically examining their work. It would be like reading a homeopath make a claim and then blindly trusting it because they published it in a "journal".

It is unfortunate that you have this backwards. As far as I can tell you are skeptical about some things, but a "true believer" regarding climate change, *you* and the string of posters above you on this page engaging in mere disparaging rants remind me very much of the sort of junk scientists you usually critique. I'm sure you have seen people who know little about medical science being duped by alternative medicine. Unfortunately you and others like you seem to fail to consider the possibility that you know little about climate research and are the one that has fallen for a scam.

As someone who has read "real science" and looked into climate science.. it is difficult to believe anyone who knows much about science who actually looks into it takes the alarmist claims seriously. It requires a lack of understanding of how real science and modelling is done (on the part of the climate researchers), which allows people to be misled by climate researchers that obfuscate the basic problem that their theories do not yet match reality.

"Common Sense", it is obvious you have only read the title of this article.

As someone who has done mathematical modeling of dynamic structures, I can say with authority: you do not have a clue. Go away, you annoying flea.

And again instead of someone making a coherent argument, we get "go away you annoying flea" and an attempt at argument by authority. Yet again: in real science, theories need to make predictions that match reality before they are taken seriously. In junk science, there are all sorts of rationalizations as to why we should believe their claims despite that. In this case, just as religions denounce anyone who dares to question as a "heretic", with climate research those who dare questioned are labelled "deniers" and told to shut up and not annoy the true believers.

Climate science puts on the trappings of science, without being held to the same standards of evidence as other sciences. It is truly surprising how many otherwise skeptical people fall for it. I suspect it may be partly because it involves lots of math and physics that goes over the head of many from other fields, all the details obfuscate consideration of the simple issues such as: do the predictions match reality and are uncertainty and error factors properly accounted for within any claims.

Those who have objections to questioning a theory whose predictions don't yet match reality should question why they shouldn't be viewed as the ones who are "anti-science". Many here rightly complain about junk scientists whose theories don't match reality yet who still try to persuade people to believe them. (and anyone with the least bit of scientific skepticism and curiosity can easily find discussions about the models not matching reality with a bit of searching... and should guard against the obfuscations used to rationalize believing in them anyway by some of the less skeptical sites, unfortunately those who don't know much about the topic might easily fall for the excuses if they aren't careful apparently).

re: " it is obvious you have only read the title of this article."

Oh, and contrary to that unjustified claim, I read the article. The author seems to find it odd that a climate researcher might fall prey to junk science, whereas I don't find it at all surprising, especially given the culture in Boulder. There are many good scientists in Boulder, but in addition it is a hotbed of alternative medicine and other junk scientists. With a huge pot of money coming here for climate research, many who have doubts are scared to raise them, especially given some of the high profile alarmists nearby. There is for instance the noted alarmist Kevin Trenberth who famously tried to change the "null hypothesis" for the field. He decided climate alarmists no longer needed to actually prove their case but should be declared victorious by default, his beliefs cast in stone as if handed down from on high, and assumed to be "true" by default, unless proven otherwise.

Those are of course typical of the sort of emotional rants that junk scientists give when challenged, since they can’t respond with simple evidence and logic since their case isn’t based on that.

OK, what part of the v₂ bending mode of CO₂ and line broadening do you not understand?

Yawn, clueless clown is now boring.

Climate science puts on the trappings of science, without being held to the same standards of evidence as other sciences. It is truly surprising how many otherwise skeptical people fall for it.

I take it you similarly discard this sort of nonsense as merely having "the trappings of science."

Unfortunately you and others like you seem to fail to consider the possibility that you know little about climate research

Project much? One might note that you've failed to display the slightest trace of the knowledge of "computer modeling and physics and math" that you started out bemoaning the lack of here. Instead, you're just repeating bland complaints about models and the failure of everyone to recognize your keen insight.

How do you feel about solar system ephemerides? How would compare them with this bit of, erm, "analysis"?

They don’t have sufficient models of uncertainty and reliability of these complex models with sparse uncertain data and calculations with limited numerical accuracy and approximations due to it being of course a sparse model that can’t model everything. They aren’t validated the way models in other fields are. Given limited historical data, it is too easy for them to wind up calibrating the models against reality.. and then using the same data to test with (sometimes indirectly by having tweaked models so they are in the same ballpark as other models.. which have been tweaked to match the real data).

I mean, it must be awfully premature to start spending millions of dollars to put things at so-called "Lagrangian points." Drug design by simulating molecular dynamics? Are you krayzee? There's no telling what that stuff might do.

Yawn, clueless clown is now boring.

I know. We need a more creative, entertaining variety of climate science denialist.

Common Sense,

As someone who has read “real science” and looked into climate science.. it is difficult to believe anyone who knows much about science who actually looks into it takes the alarmist claims seriously. It requires a lack of understanding of how real science and modelling is done (on the part of the climate researchers), which allows people to be misled by climate researchers that obfuscate the basic problem that their theories do not yet match reality.

I have read a lot about climate science, including a lot of the denialist stuff. I find it difficult to believe anyone who has the slightest understanding of the science involved takes the denialist claims seriously. There is no doubt at all that our planet is warming, and very little doubt that humans are largely to blame. Current climate modeling is remarkably accurate, particularly when looking at temperature changes over the past century.

please go over to Greg Laden’s Blog or to Stoat and spout your rubbish there.

^^ That's pretty fun advice, CommonSense.

I was allowed to deny all manner of things there; Just don't mention Eric Holdren's *sterilants in the water* veiws as coauthored in Ecoscience (1977) as that seems to have gotten me banned (either that, or the Chew,Chew Baby cartoon clip I gave to hilight stereotypical cannibalism).

orac:

re: "clueless clown is now boring"

You seem to have lost sight of the guide post that claims in science need to be tested against reality, no matter what excuses people try to make to get away with avoiding that which are oddly given a pass by folks like you who confuse the label of "science" with real science.

What is boring is the inability of you to exhibit any signs of ability to be skeptical about the subject. You and the others behave exactly like alternative medicine adherents in your defense of theories that don't yet match reality, You and the other posters here act exactly like junk scientists who react emotionally to skeptics daring to question the topic. Just like many fans of alternative medicine in the public don't know enough about science to productively question some alternative practitioners, and get snowed by their explanations, you exhibit the same behavior regarding climate research. This is a complex phenomenon they are trying to model, and extraordinary claims to have done so require extraordinary proof, not gullible acceptance.

It is truly astonishing that folks that so many people who likely know little about physics or modeling are so vehement in their defense of claims they can't fully assess merely because others claim to be "scientists". I'm sure some homeopaths who claim to have done scientific research convince some in the public who don't know about science that self-labeling their views as "science" makes them so.

Common sense, you're speaking as if the climate models predicting the consequences of rising GMT have not been tested against reality. Why?

What is boring is the inability of you to exhibit any signs of ability to be skeptical about the subject.

Skepticism in the absence of credible evidence arguing that climate change isn't occurring, or that human activities have not been and are not now a significant contributor to the observed rise in global mean temperature, is hard to justify. Surely you're not saying we must be skeptical climate change is occurring simply for the sake of skepticism alone?

Regarding extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof, what claims regarding climate change and the likely outcome of continued rising GMT do you beleive are extraordinary, or that are not adequately supported by the current available evidence? Be specific.

It is truly astonishing that folks that so many people who likely know little about physics or modeling are so vehement in their defense of claims they can’t fully assess merely because others claim to be “scientists”.

Strangely, you keep saying this while providing no evidence whatever that would cause one to suspect that you know anything about either.

C'mon, walk everyone through the v₂ mode.

100 Quatloos that CommonSense also advocates for Men's Rights and human biodiversity.

@Orac - Thanks for admitting epidemiology cannot prove a negative.
Tons of epidemiology can't do no better at not-proving a negative, as you illogically claim here.
If that were true (I know you need it to be), then whoever has the money to produce the largest studies, no matter how skewed, would be creating "the truth", no matter how false.

@Orac - In your original post you again fall back on diagnostic substitution, while admitting autism diagnoses have increased... lol. How many bases are we trying to cover.
In your ridiculous graph you pretend that the correlation of increasing organic food consumption and increasing autism suggests there is a link... but what you don't mention, and with "good" reason, is that organic foods have never been proved-to-cause or linked-to-causing neurological injury/death, physiological injury/death, or immunological injury/death... as vaccines have.

That's according to the Vaccine Injury Table and the MMR package insert.
Vaccine Injury Table -
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/vaccinetable.html
MMR package insert -
http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Let's have it Orac... where is your evidence that organic foods cause neurological, physiological or immunological injury/death?
Microwave use and cell phones increased in the same time period... while mandatory vaccinations tripled... many of those vaccines had/HAVE 250 X the EPA safe level of oral ingestion of mercury/kg body weight... injected all at once into infants and toddlers... THAT was on par with eating organic foods, as you, Orac, imply with your organic graph?
Your graph is pretty organic, I have to admit, in that it's major characteristic is stank!

Nothing like being straightforward about the health and welfare of kids... and nothing like being straightforward can't not be expected from the naysayers on this page, including the leader of the pack.

@Chris - Again you use your child's developmental problems as if that gives you some expertise or authority in this matter.
If anything, your completely subjective situation eliminates your voice from logically and unemotionally contributing on this issue... especially when taking such nonsensical positions and making obviously fraudulent statements.

Let's take comment #60 - You claim that high-functioning autism was a diagnosis in the DSM-IV.
No. The DSM-IV did not cover or propose an autism spectrum.
In the DSM-IV autism was ONE diagnosis out of 5 categories, those five categories came under under Pervasive Developmental Disorders.
High-functioning autism was never a diagnosis in ANY DSM until the 2013 DSM-5, which I haven't yet read.
But the final draft did not have "High functioning Autism" as a spectrum diagnosis, per say.
But it appeared that would be the way in the new world of the DSM-5, in conversations I had with APA personnel.

The DSM-IV narrowed the definition of autism because the DSM-III allowed for too many false positives. That was one of the DSM-III problems acknowledged by the APA when holding conferences to create the DSM-IV.

That you publicly claim your child has a developmental disability loses its impact when you destroy your own credibility by creating and then repeating easily exposed "mistakes".
If I was the father of a child with autism I would have supported references for everything I was talking about, 100% of the time.
YOU Chris, I have exposed as not merely ill-informed, but obstinate in the face of overwhelming evidence, refusing to back down from any post... much like the leader of the pack you are a member of.

As Always,
For the protection of children,
In the interests of truth and science,
Michael Polidori

Polidori, you are still an idiot... and a cyber stalker.

"That’s according to the Vaccine Injury Table and the MMR package insert.
Vaccine Injury Table "

So what is the ratio of compensated claims versus vaccine doses?

"MMR package insert –"

You still don't get that lawyer written CYA bits are not scientific citations.

First, I am not anti-vaccine, as Chris, and some others commenting here, have stated many times in other blogs.

Herd immunity is the only way we can partially protect kids and adults who CANNOT be vaccinated from common childhood diseases (people w/ genetic or acquired PERMANENT immune impairments).

Herd immunity also protects kids and adults who are temporarily immune compromised through drugs or cancer treatments (Chemo, Enbrel, Remicade, Nasonex, Flonase, Humira... and dozens more).

Even if vaccinated, people undergoing treatments that impair immunity can be overwhelmed by a live-vaccine booster or wild strain infection (Nasonex package insert warns patients to notify their doctor if they are exposed to measles, but don't detail if it's wild strain, direct vaccination or contact with a recently vaccinated person).
Persons with temporary immune impairment or no previous exposure can be infected by someone who was recently vaccinated with a live virus or bacteria (MMR package insert)

Herd immunity partially protects those who choose not to vaccinate.

Herd immunity partially protects those whose immune systems don't react to vaccines (In the MMR package insert, Mumps effectiveness ranges from 95% to 65%, in MERCK'S clinical studies!!).

@Chris - Chris wants to ignore the package inserts, because (he claims) they are written by lawyers.
A package insert is a contractual agreement, and therefore must be reviewed and edited by lawyers... as ALL contractual agreements are.
This includes car/phone/appliance/service warranties, food ingredients labels, rental contracts... is Chris implying that ALL contracts contain false/fraudulent information or exaggerations?

The warnings precautions and contraindications are created by doctors and research scientists.
Lawyers make sure the document is worded properly, protecting their clients in accordance with the law.
This doesn't include LYING/EXAGGERATING in the document.
Creating a false document also creates legal liability.

Chris' argument falls flat on it's face EVERY time he uses it, and he uses it a lot.

Chris also seems to have abandoned his claim that high-functioning autism was a diagnosis in the DSM-IV.

He's also not questioning my statement that the DSM-IV NARROWED the definition of autism, because the DSM-collaborators stated the DSM-III led to false positives.

Yet Chris takes up his leader's banner, defending Orac's deceptive/ridiculous graph correlating organic foods and autism.
Gorski/Orac PRETENDS that claiming vaccines are correlated to autism is as ridiculous as claiming organic foods are correlated to autism.
But vaccines are proved to injure the brains, bodies and immunity of kids and adults, while organic foods never do.

@Chris - Chris now admits vaccines cause injury and death, but says the number of compensated claims is small.
This deception implies the number of ACTUAL injuries and deaths caused by vaccines is small (the WRONG implication he wants readers to draw).

But Chris again ignores the fact that there is NO ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM in the USA.

NO ONE knows how many injuries and deaths are caused by vaccines every year.
So Chris implying that the cases compensated at the NVIP are the limit of how many vaccine injuries and deaths happen each year is a horrible deception.

But at least Chris has now admitted that "safe" vaccines do injure and kill.

Also Chris, regarding your implication that I am stalking you by commenting on your posts -
If you don't want to have a conversation about these issues, then stop falsely/fraudulently/deceptively PUBLICLY commenting on the issues I have knowledge about.
Especially these issues about children's health, vaccines' adverse events and adverse reactions and conflicts involving drug company profits (paying for the damage vaccines are known and proved to cause).

I have been researching/blogging about these issues long before you started attacking and personally insulting me.

As Always,
For the protection of children,
In the interests of truth and science,
Michael Polidori

I forgot to mention a couple of things... but I will only post ONE here, now.

Those kids Chris ADMITS were injured and killed and were compensated by the NVIP?...
THEY are the ones that should not have been vaccinated...
The ones that have been partially protected by herd immunity...
The reason we need to create complete science-based screening criteria... so we find those kids BEFORE we vaccinate them.

We need to enforce screening using current package inserts, until new ones are created.

MERCK clearly states in the pamphlet that parents/guardians/patients must be told of all the precautions/warnings/contraindications/adverse-events/adverse-reactions - EVERY TIME ANYONE IS VACCINATED.

Reviewing those 11 pages and answering the multiple questions that would bring up would take a large amount of time.
NO HEALTHCARE PROVIDER properly uses the 11 pages of the MMR package insert when they administer an MMR vaccine.
They should. It's the only way we have right now to identify kids susceptible to vaccine injury.

Ironically, the kids and adults that are injured or killed by vaccinations are the same people who should have been partially protected by herd immunity.

About 10% of us should not receive live vaccinations.
The CDC/FDA/Merck all admit that 10% of us have chronic cell-mediated immune issues, which makes live pathogen vaccinations very risky.

As Always,
For the protection of children,
In the interests of truth and science,
Michael Polidori

THIS IS A CORRECTED REPEAT OF THE ABOVE COMMENT -

Those kids Chris ADMITS were injured and killed and were compensated by the NVIP?...
THEY are the ones that should not have been vaccinated...
The ones that should have been partially protected by herd immunity...
The reason we need to create complete science-based screening criteria... so we find the kids at risk of being injured by vaccines BEFORE we vaccinate them.

We need to enforce screening, using current package inserts, until new ones are created.

MERCK clearly states in the pamphlet that parents/guardians/patients MUST be told of all the precautions/warnings/contraindications/adverse-events/adverse-reactions - EVERY TIME ANYONE IS VACCINATED.

Reviewing those 11 pages, and answering dozens of questions that would bring up, would take a large amount of time.
NO HEALTHCARE PROVIDER has that kind of time and thereby NO HEALTHCARE PROVIDER properly screens, using the 11 pages of the MMR package insert.
They should. It's the only way we have right now to identify kids susceptible to vaccine injury.

Ironically, the kids and adults that are injured or killed by vaccinations are the same people who should have been partially protected by herd immunity.
Those are the same ones who are injured or killed by wild virus strains.

About 10% of us should not receive live vaccinations.
The CDC/FDA/Merck all admit that 10% of us have chronic cell-mediated immune issues, which makes live pathogen vaccinations very risky.

As Always,
For the protection of children,
In the interests of truth and science,
Michael Polidori

But Chris again ignores the fact that there is NO ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM in the USA.

Your claim there is no all-caps ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM in teh USA is false, however: you're forgetting the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which monitors 9.2 million people annually in 8 geographically diverse US health care organizations. (PMID:21502252)

NO HEALTHCARE PROVIDER properly uses the 11 pages of the MMR package insert when they administer an MMR vaccine.

Which may be an argument that health care providers should more effectively inform their patients prior to adminstering a vaccine but is in no sense an argument that routine chiildhood vaccination is neither appropriately safe nor effective.

Agreed?

Is Polidori still cyber stalking me? I usually ignore his idiocy. He has been told multiple times that package inserts are not scientific citations, so he is obviously unable to learn with his welded shut skull.

Yvette:

The Spudd predicted this: “I believe vaccines cause autism and climate change is a hoax.”

From The Spudd link:

"Published on January 2, 2015"

From the Mike Adams nonsense:

"Friday, August 15, 2014"

Don't mistake observation for prediction.

Debunking climate change denialism

gregladen — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:54:02 +0000

Debunking climate change denialism

Climate change science denialism has pretty much run its course. We've been experiencing a large number of climate change related events (see this list for a brief summary) lately. It may well be that the number per year of such alarming events will go down and up over time. It may be that we will forget that some of them are happening because we grow used to them. But they are happening at a larger rate than just a few years ago, the years are getting warmer and warmer, and the effects predicted by the science have been manifest as predicted, but for on thing: They are happening sooner, faster, and worse than predicted in many cases.

But even tough climate change science denialism is now being moved aside (rightfully so) it is still out there an you may encounter it. Many of the active denialists can't really back down because they are so invested in the denialism that doing so would require that they admit that the effects of denialism on policy have been deadly. Science denialists do, in fact, kill people indirectly whether it be in the form of anti-vax denialism, climate change science denialism or some other form.

There is a web site that specializes in addressing the various questions denialists raise in order to cast doubt on the real science. We are no longer at the point where pro science people need to have the answers ready when the denialsts show up, because that just gives them more credit than they deserve. Rather, the appropriate response is to point them to this site: Skeptical Science

Oh, and guess what. There's an app for that! Here: Skeptical Science on the iPhone or iPad
. If you want the app for Android or some other platform, click through to the site and look in the sidebar.

________________________________________

More information on global warming and climate change HERE.

gregladen Wed, 01/09/2013 - 03:54

Tags

Alt-Truth

Climate Change

Anthropogenic Global Warming

Denialism

global warming

Start with a simple one.

If we take the consensus from the IPCC forecasts, we find that the variance is narrower than a single study. ie. A meta analysis.

What you find is that the actual temperature is outside the prediction.

Now science is theory, predict, test. If your prediction is true, you have evidence for the theory. If its not, your theory fails.

Now given there haven't been any large unpredictable events such as large eruptions, its actually a biased test towards the prediction. One would expect temperatures higher than predicted.

it's a major fail, pure and simple.

Isn't skepticism and/or denialism about the role of human activity in this? I doubt that anyone is going around debating whether temperatures change from year to year or not.

Laura, no, not really. Climate science denialism is not a search for understanding, but rather, a shot-gun attack on climate science. There is plenty of yammering in the current denialism blogosphere about how there is not really any warming at all. I just saw a blog post today claiming that 2012 was an average year in terms of heat .

In your comment, you may have conflated causes of global temperature increase ("this") with variation. Doubting that anyone is debating variation is not the same thing as doubting that anyone is debating that recent warming is natural variation, or that recent warming is natural warming.

Citations Nick?

Greg, thanks for the kind comments re Skeptical Science. For those who have to respond to misinformation, I also recommend you check out our Debunking Handbook (http://sks.to/debunk) which is a practical guide to debunking misinformation and a short, concise explanation of the psychology of reducing the influence of misinformation.

Greg please jus get over it. Your lack of certainty leads you to go ver the top when people quite rightly show a real net rest in the s ence and if they do not agree with you then you call then Deniers. That us not science and trus scientists Re pleased that folk take a real rather than a blind interest
Fact is we are in a long term cooling period of many thousands of years and during these changes it has always been the case that there are upticks lasting up to a thousand years
How do you explain the current 16 year temperature stasis ?
All the best
Graeme

Nick, where the IPCC "predictions" failed (they were really stated as a range of "probabilities") was that most have been TOO conservative, that ice loss is higher than predicted, that heat gain in the oceans--where most of the temperature increase has taken place--has been more (to the tune of 2 Hiroshima bombs/second), and that extreme weather events have become more extreme. There's been fail, but NOT in the direction you assert. The theory has held up quite well, in the face of empirical, observed data.

Sorry...misspelled my own nick...;)

@Graeme edwards:

Could you retype that in English? Google Translate can't figure out what language that is. There are some English words in that reply, but they don't seem to be put together in a form I can identify.

Certain bloggers on this comment thread would have us believe that the Earth’s climate is not changing and, even if it is, it’s all due to natural causes.

The disappearing Arctic sea ice did not get the memo.

The melting Greenland ice sheet did not get the memo.

Melting alpine glaciers did not get the memo.

The warming and expanding troposphere did not get the memo.

The cooling and shrinking stratosphere did not get the memo.

The melting permafrost in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia did not get the memo.

The northward migrating pine bark beetles in North America did not get the memo.

These are just a few of the numerous other lines of evidence corroborating the reality of manmade climate change that are being documented and experienced on a daily basis by scientists and ordinary people throughout the world.

Graeme edwards is an anti-science climate denier, so there.

Greg that is pathetic
I come from science not ideology
It is clearly a waste of time talking to non scientific ideologists
You plainly do not know your science and just repeat the learned platitudes of ill informed warmists

Greg - natural variation looks nothing like the global warming observed so far. See this SkS post: Observed Warming of the Ocean and Atmosphere is Incompatible with Natural Variation

I explain the alleged "current 16 year temperature stasis" by pointing out that it's (a) it's not actually stasis - the period shows warming, but not quite to the level of statistical significance, and (b) that result is a statistical artefact of a carefully cherry-picked time period. Why 16 years, rather than a more normal climatological period of 20 or 30 years? Because either would show statistically significant warming. In this particular case, a shorter time period would also show statistically significant warming - you have to use the dramatic outlier of 1998 as your start point in order to avoid acknowledging the obvious fact of continued warming. And that's why this particular talking point has recently changed from 15 years to 16 years...

Graeme .... yet, you seem to not be able to resist wasting your time.

I'm impressed with Greg's ability to deal with Graeme's repeated lies across multiple threads.

I'm disheartened so many folks think, and act, the way Graeme does.

Graeme:

It is clearly a waste of time talking to non scientific ideologists

I agree, which is why IMO you should slink off to whatever denialist dirtpile you get your misinformation from and leave the discussion to people committed to trying to get a grip on climate change.

Because "non scientific ideologist" (and a dishonest one, to boot) is precisely what you are.

Ah well .......ad hominem attacks are the last refuge of the uninformed
Don't worry about the science-just attack the messenger

Graeme, we've addressed the science. You and your science denialist friends are the ones who are (willfully, I think) uninformed and anti science. That is why you are known as science denialists.

Graeme, those weren't ad-hominems. You fail on that bit of knowledge as well. Saying that you are a serial liar on this issue is simply a statement of fact.

Graeme:

Greg that is pathetic
I come from science not ideology
It is clearly a waste of time talking to non scientific ideologists
You plainly do not know your science and just repeat the learned platitudes of ill informed warmists

Graeme edward is either a poe, or the paradigmatic victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Messrs. D & K proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1) tend to overestimate their own level of skill ("I come from science not ideology");

2) fail to recognize genuine skill in others ("You plainly do not know your science...");

3) fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy ("...the learned platitudes of ill informed warmists");

D & K held out hope for Graeme, by further proposing that victims can:

4) recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill.

If he'd only avail himself of the abundant genuine scientific skill outside the denier blogs 8^(. With a couple of clicks, he could absorb Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming, or exert himself a little further by taking a free online Introduction to the Science of Climate and Climate Change from the University of Oxford. If he truly "comes from science," he'll undoubtedly have no trouble with the material.

Those are pretty big ifs, though. After all, those who fulfill the first three criteria are unlikely to expose themselves to the appropriate training! I don't have high hopes for Graeme, but perhaps he'll prove me wrong ;^).

Graeme, take heart. My own experience of these people is that ANYONE who does not fully comply with their personal beliefs is a “denier”, even though they may be in agreement with most of what they say. Take a look at John Hartz: a list of events that are a good demonstration that there is global warming (and which no-one disagrees with) – but this CANNOT be a natural event, it HAS TO BE human-induced! Not too sure how he would explain away those times in history when similar, or the reverse, effects occurred when there were considerably fewer, if any, humans around.

How about this quote: “… this past century was the hottest ever on record…” Pretty scary, huh? However, it conveniently overlooks that, as it is the only century with sufficiently extensive direct recording ever, that is not a hard target to hit; it could also be, “…the coldest century ever on record…”, “…the wettest…”, “… the driest…” All other recordings are by proxy, and so open to debate. What we DO know is that it was the century that saw the greatest human expansion ever, and that expansion will surely have some effect on the climate, and the whole biosphere, though, as yet, we still lack a huge amount of data to create a sound theory. But to accept and admit that means that you are a “DENIER”, and should be stripped of all your accolades, honours, awards, certificates, qualification, entitlements, jobs…even your life, according to one “philosopher” (to great applause from her audience, and, as I read it, Mr. Greg Laden). Something similar happened around the middle of the last century in the USA, which most Americans now treat with a certain amount of embarrassment, under Senator Joseph McCarthy.

This stridency is over the temperature flat line that the UK Met Office admits over the past 16 years (though in my maths, 2012 – 1998 = 14, but anyhoo…), while the CO2 concentration has risen inexorably. It will be interesting to see what the alarmists will say when/if the global temperature starts to fall.

Finally, these attacks on you are ad hominem, as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary: “2(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining, and dean and Mal Adapted handily confirm that.

Radical, please explain how an ad hominem attack is a problem? The argument about climate change is not ad hominem. The argument about climate change is based on the science (and Graeme has got it completely wrong, as do you apparently). The ad hominem attack is on deniers who have slowed down the process of addressing climate change for selfish reasons, and who are, therefore, bad people.

You have confused ad hominem argument with ad hominem attack. The attack has become appropriate, you deniers are bad people, please don't think you can tell us we an't say that because you have a Latin word for it. But telling the deniers that they are bad people is not part of the climate change science argument. That's just the science.

radical, as Greg pointed out, you are confusing a statement about the person with a statement about the person's "argument.". Whether this is in error or intentional is difficult to say, although suspicions about which is the correct conclusion strongly favor intentional, since you repeat the incredibly dishonest

This stridency is over the temperature flat line that the UK Met Office admits over the past 16 years ...

bit to argue that the effects of climate change have stopped.

Give us something other than the category of "Statistical Ignorance and Stupidity" for a change. Maybe a little reading of the science and some honesty?

What you need to know about Frankenstorm Hurricane Sandy

gregladen — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 16:52:30 +0000

What you need to know about Frankenstorm Hurricane Sandy

If you are in the path...the thousand mile wide path...of Hurricane Sandy, a.k.a. Frankenstorm, then you should make sure you know what the storm could do in relationship to where you are. If you are in or near an area with mountains, look for very serious flash flooding. The winds will be strong everywhere. If you are near the coast, be aware that the highest storm surges seen in years are expected in many areas. At the same time, it is important for those of us writing or talking about this storm to be realistic and careful in making predictions. This is becasue every case of dire prediction that does not materialize is a morsel of ignorance that will be served up later by climate change denialists who profit from confusing the general public about the connection between climate change and storminess. Here, I'd like to do the following: Give a brief overview of what Sandy is all about; address the question "Can you attribute Sandy or any other large storm to Global Warming?"; and tell you about some recent research related to that question. I'll also throw in a little bit of historical background by way of discussing a nightmare scenario that actually didn't happen.

Nightmare Storms

First the nightmare scenario. Years ago, my first long distance trip anywhere not involving aircraft was a road trip from Albany, NY to the Southeast, the Southwest, California, and back. This was in the 1970s, and it took months. On the way out, I encountered a storm in Texas that stranded me there, in Big Spring, for several days. The state was covered with a layer of ice, and there was no way to handle it. Months later, on the way back, I drove through the aftermath of that storm and a very long time after the storm had passed though, there were still wrecked semis littering Routes 30 and 40.

I did not live in Boston at the time, but that was the year Boston was hit with a very severe storm, was part of the same system that iced the Lone Star State. In Boston, so much snow fell during rush hour that the cars on the major beltways that go around the urban core were trapped in situ. People died of exposure in their own cars, or en route on foot to "safety" from more remote parts of the road. Hundreds of homes and cabins along the coast were destroyed.

That was one of several storms leading to changes in zoning and regulation along the north Atlantic coast in the US which led to no more building and in some cases the aggressive removal of structures on the open coast or barrier islands. A couple of years later I did move to the coast, and spent a fair amount of time on the shores of Cape Cod, Plumb Island and elsewhere. As an archaeologist, I fully enjoyed encountering the remains of homes or small settlements. There would be nothing standing, but the remains of houses and their contents would be poking up here and there. It was always interesting to try to figure out based on the position and location of the largest bits where the home may have originally sat, and based on the degree of deterioration of the remains, which of the recent storms had destroyed the home or cabin.

One of the great historical events one learns of while working, in historic preservation and archaeology in New York and New England is the Great Storm of 38. The big storm in the 70s happened 35 years ago, and 35 years or so before that a storm came up the Atlantic, crossed Long Island, slammed into Rhode Island and Southeast Massachusetts, and generally made a mess of the interior, destroying lots of homes and killing lots of people. We now think it was a hurricane, but the people of New England at the time, including fisherfolk who's lives and livelihood depended on the sea and on knowledge of the weather, had not even heard of a "Hurricane" before. Surely, hurricanes had come up the coast before, but with such infrequency that they were not a named phenomenon. Just another (big) storm. Years after the Storm of '38, when I was busy climbing all the High Peaks in the Adirondack Mountains, I was often challenged by "slides" and blowdowns caused by that storm. Anyone who knows the ADK's of the 1960s and 1970s or earlier knows of the big slides on Giant and the other steep sloped mountains, and the blowdowns on the Dix range. Those features of hiking and climbing are mostly courtesy of the big storm of '38.

Here's the thing. Imagine that a storm like Sandy came along in either of two years; 70 years ago or 35 years ago. Sandy is much larger and contains much more energy than the '38 storm, or for that matter, of any known storm of the North Atlantic (we'll get to that below). If Sandy hit the region in the 1930s, it would have been without warning, and it would have been prior to the reconstruction of seawalls and the development of flood mitigation measures inland that have happened in recent decades. Sandy, in '38, would kill tens of thousands and destroy thousands of structures. That would be an average Sandy, a Sandy not being as bad as the most dire predictions we are considering today as the storm begins to take a grip on the eastern seaboard.

A Sandy of 35 years ago would have been predicted. The ability to see hurricanes coming was in place, but not as well developed as it is today. We would have seen Sandy coming, but her massiveness and extent, and her exact trajectory, would probably have been unknown. But at least there would be warning. Many of the seawalls and flood mitigation systems would have been in place, but the overbuilding on barrier islands and other vulnerable coastal regions would have been at or near a peak. With evacuations, Sandy would not kill 10s of thousands... probably only hundreds. But the number of buildings destroyed would be unthinkable. Most of those buildings are now gone or shored up. A Sandy in 1975 would have left some very interesting coastal archaeology for me to have observed during my trips to the shore in the 1980s. Very interesting indeed.

Do you remember the October storm of 1991, a.k.a., the Halloween Nor'easter a.k.a. The Perfect Storm? I do. I was living in Somerville, Ma. After the storm raged for hours and finally calmed down a bit I went out for a walk. Power lines and large tree fragments littered the landscape. There would be no driving for a day or two in many neighborhoods. I was able to get out the next day, and I drove right up to Cape Anne, near Gloucester (Bass Point to be exact), where the Andrea Gail had sailed from never to return. I had not heard about the Andrea Gail yet but I went down to Glouscter to see the waves.

Is Sandy Caused By Global Warming?

I remember parking the car along side the road, and climbing over a granite riprap structure to get to the shore. I stood on that high point, and from there could see a few dozen people milling around at a much lower elevation, taking pictures of the waves that were rolling in. I did a rough calculation. How far inland would a wave wash if it was double the size of those I could see now? Double and triple size waves ... rogue waves ... would not be unlikely after a storm like this. When I realized that my shoes would probably get wet, and all the people down at a lower elevation would probably get washed away, if that happened, I went back to the car and drove to the clam shack in Ipswich for lunch. Later that day, I hear, the authorities cleared the beaches. The waves I was watching were 10 meters if they were a centimeter. Indeed, 30 meter waves were recorded asea in Nova Scotia, and high waves killed a couple of looky-loos on Staten Island. That storm was one of several that hit New England since the big storm of the 1970s. Everybody who lives in the region knows that the storms have become more common and more severe, and probably lager, wider, in extent.

But is there any evidence to support that?

Well, yes, actually, there is. Here's the abstract from a recent paper:

Detection and attribution of past changes in cyclone activity are hampered by biased cyclone records due to changes in observational capabilities. Here we construct an independent record of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity on the basis of storm surge statistics from tide gauges. We demonstrate that the major events in our surge index record can be attributed to landfalling tropical cyclones; these events also correspond with the most economically damaging Atlantic cyclones. We find that warm years in general were more active in all cyclone size ranges than cold years. The largest cyclones are most affected by warmer conditions and we detect a statistically significant trend in the frequency of large surge events (roughly corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923. In particular, we estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in warm years compared with cold years (P < 0.02).

So, over the years, it gets warmer and colder and in warmer years there is more stormosity, as it were. Warm=storm. At the same time, the amount of warm (number of warm years and how warm they are) has been going up. More storms over time, just as any honest Salt can tell you. Here's a nice graph from the same paper:

(A) Average surge index over the cyclone season. (B) Observed fre- quency of surge events with surge index greater than 10 units/y (surge index > 10 units) and linear trend (black). (C) Accumulated cyclone energy for US landfalling storms. (D) Annual average global mean surface temperature anomaly from GISTEMP (23), shaded to show warmer and colder than median temperatures. Thick lines in A, B, and C are 5-y moving averages. Inset in A shows locations of the six tide gauges used in the construction of the surge index.

Now, here is what you'll hear a lot of people say. People will tell you that "you can't attribute any given storm to global warming." There is a certain way in which that is true, but there is also a certain way in which it is wrong, and the importance of recognizing the relationship between global warming and storminess is now so important that the former has become little more than a pedantic nuisance and we'd better start focusing on the latter.

One of the reasons why this statement is true is a little unfair to those saying it, or for that matter to the phrase itself, and is extrinsic to the logic of the statement itself, yet is still a valid reason. Here's the thing. People often say "Well, you can't attribute a given weather event to climate change" or, more importantly, people often hear that said, and then in their brains a disconnect between climate and weather is established or verified. In other words, people use that phrase to give themselves permission to not worry about climate change vis-a-vis storminess. One might argue that it does not matter that people use this phrase incorrectly, it is still true. But it does matter a great deal because the bigger, overwhelmingly important issue is the lack of social and political will to tackle global warming as a problem. Phrases that are a) technically true but b) miss the point and c) contribute to the end of civilization do not deserve our protection. Just. Stop. Saying. It.

The other way to look at it, the way in which we might fairly and logically say that warming weather can be said to be the cause of a particular storm, is best viewed in a thought experiment first. Suppose there were no Nor'easters, like Sandy. Suppose hurricanes were never, ever known to travel north of Georgia and were not that common. Now, imagine that we warm the world up a bit and this warming causes Nor'easters to start to form, and it causes hurricanes to start heading farther north, and then, some of those Nor'easter low pressure systems combine with some of those hurricanes and cause Frankenstorms.

Those Frankenstorms were caused by global warming.

In a world in which storms generally are more severe, more common, bigger, go farther north, or do some other nasty trick (any subset of this list may pertain, it is not necessary that all are true), one might well ask the question: "Is there any way to say that a given North Atlantic Frankenstorm emerged from the sea and the atmosphere without any of the added energy of global warming contributing to the severity, size, and northerly track of that storm?" And the answer is, "No, of course not, don't be a bonehead."

It is often said that storms are going to happen anyway, but global warming ramps up the probability, which is akin to saying that there is always going to be variation in temperature or some other weather related factor but global warming raises the baseline. That's true. But the corollary to that is NOT that you can't link climate change to a given storm. All storms are weather, all weather is the immediate manifestation of climate, climate change is about climate. Before we started talking about global warming, storms were caused by ... things. Climate things. Did we ever say, back in the 1950s when a hurricane hit Florida, "Oh, ya, that was some hurricane, but the thing is, you can't really attribute a given hurricane to the Intertropical Convergence Zone's relationship to warm Mid Atlantic currents. The former is a weather event and the latter is a climate system." Why did we not ever say that? Because it would have been irrelevant, even dumb.

The truth is, we experience more Atlantic severe storms because of global warming, though we are still working out the details of which features of which kinds of storms are affected most. Beyond this, it may well also be possible that something I hinted at above is true: We may be experiencing kinds of storms today that were very rare in recent centuries, because of global warming.

In any event, there's more. From the paper:

We detect a statistically significant increasing trend in the number of moderately large surge index events since 1923. We estimate that warm years have been associated with twice as many Katrina-magnitude events compared with cold years in the global average surface temperature record.

I recommend this recent piece by Neela Banerjee on the link between climate and weahter, as well as Storms of my Grandchildren by James Hansen.

What is Sandy Going To Do?

Jeff Masters, at The Wunderblog, has an excellent post on Sandy, what's going on now, and what might happen. It is here. Keep in mind that by the time you click through to that he may have put up a newer post, so check for that. Meantime, here's a few salient items you may want to know about:

Sandy, the storm, is of record size, larger than any storm ever seen before. It is over 1,000 miles wide, with 12 foot seas covering that entire area. There's been a couple of storms with this or that dimension exceeding Sandy, but in some other way they fell short. Sandy wins.
You already know about the whole "landfall" problem with storms, so I won't go into this here. The thing is, even while Sandy's worst rains and winds are no where near the coast, she is putting up storm surges already, and roads are being washed away as we speak with days of storminess ahead of us. (This is the thing about "Nor'easters... they go on for much longer than mere hurricanes!)
Sandy will generate modest storm surges from South Carolina to Canada, with severe storm surges from Delaware to Massachusetts.
The storm surge in New York City may be higher than ever seen before, and has about a 50-50 chance of flooding the subway system in the vicinity of the Battery. That has never happened before.
Tropical force winds will batter 1000 miles of coast on Monday and Tuesday, with hurricane force winds covering a 500 mile section of coast.
Remember all the flooding associated with Irene in 2011? Sandy will also cause major inland flooding, but not as much rain overall will fall, so overall the flooding will be less. However, what "less" means is relative. If you are in a hilly region of Pennsylvania or some other part of the northeast, you may well experience worse flooding with Sandy than you did with Irene. Or not. Overall, there will be less, but it will still be bad.
And yes, there will be snow. The usual places that get snow during Nor'easters are at risk. Any place with a high elevation or that is up north has a good chance of getting a few inches, or in some cases, a couple of feet.

Go to Jeff's post for more details.

Indeed, the end of civilization is near! Ish!

I found it very interesting that the Maya recently came out to ask people to stop suggesting that somehow their cyclic calendar was going to cause the end of civilization, or the world, or whatever, at the end of the present year. This is a case of a traditional people well versed in their own indigenous technology (in this case, time tracking technology) noticing that the "civilized Western world" was making a major fool of itself, as usual, and then helpfully suggesting that certain people STFU. At the same time, we are doing it wrong for real and truly putting the future at risk, and not just with climate change, but how we address climate change. We are not making it part of the conversation in national elections, we are not making it part of our budget considerations, we are not making it part of our shovel-ready-stimulus activities. We are not even letting ourselves keep track of what we are ruining. The number of satellites that will be available to track storms like this will probably fall off in the near future to the extent that we won't be able to do it. Talk about the end of civilization! Even if we didn't simply screw up plans for putting up more satellites, we have this other growing problem with space junk. Our technology is warming our planet and at the same time blinding us, hampering our ability to manage the problem we are creating.

Stay safe.

_____________
Grinsted, A., Moore, J., & Jevrejeva, S. (2012). Homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209542109

gregladen Sun, 10/28/2012 - 12:52

Tags

Climate Change

Global Warming

Hurricane

Anthropogenic Global Warming

global warming

hurricane

Increased Storm Activity

Sandy

Wiping New York and Washington off the map? Sounds like a good start to me. Anyway we can ensure that Congress and the Senate are all there at the same time? Go Sandy Go!!

As for Global warming. Please don't make me laugh. So we have big storm now and then. Big frigging deal. England was growing grape vines in the Middles ages because it was so warm!! Nothing but a con to meddle with our planet and completely cock things up.

It's just a kind of gasoline tax.

Sandy, the Hallowe'en witch?

Why not posit that geoengineering has caused such things as Sandy? Would this undercut the concept that man is God and can control all systems of the Earth?

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/07/19/is-the-cure…

Nice work, Mr. Laden. I am impressed with your reserve in discussing the politics in the last couple of paragraphs.

I hope more people read your post; I've linked to it from Facebook, and from a post I did on Mitt Romney's saying it's "immoral" to continue FEMA funding: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/what-does-superstorm-sandy-t…

We estimate that warm years have been associated with twice as many Katrina-magnitude events compared with cold years in the global average surface temperature record.

Well, according to your data, we've just had 30 years of 'warm years' and no other Katrina event. Sandy is NOT a hurricane, it's a tropical storm caught up in the jet stream and pushed into a precipitating Arctic COLD front.

You have defeated your premise with your own statements, and deliberately obfuscated the nature of the Sandy event to serve your premise. That's not science, that's religion.

Sandy was a Hurricane.

Has anyone read a book recently? The monster was not named Frankenstein, it was just a nameless monster. To call this "Frankenstorm" makes you (and everyone else) sound like an idiot.

person: I know right? But really, "Frankenstein" is, in our present culture, a word we use for a particular monster, who was not even the monster in Shelly's book, but rather, the one in the movies with the big spike in his neck.

We Bangladeshi people many time faces many Hurricane. Religion view : when God is angry Natural disaster may happens any where any moment. So, what we follow : we pray to God more and more. So, Faith is important - what we do not see but we trust and belief. If any one ignore, none can help.

Dear Greg,

Thanks for your BLOG on various subjects.
About Sandy - my opinion please record for all of your readers. Its urgent and top priority for all human being.

May i request you, please start a BLOG on a new subject name is, "The Faith"
I am very much interested to reply on religion view about any one any question on The Faith. What is faith. Faith is what we do not see but we trust and belief on GOD.
Thanks for your cooperation.

Best regards,
M S Alam
Bangladesh.
Email : alammsalam@ymail.com

This Sandy will hit coming US Election very badly.
Which is impossible to meet Obama.
New time waiting for Romney.
Let him stay beside the victims more and more.
Faith - what we do not see but belief.

Sandy caused for many mistake.
Nature never angry without reasons.

To Alam I like how you brought up something about the election and how "Sandy" will effect the election but in my opinion even if it do hit the election badly it won't do that much damage worldwide.

NOAA Data Confirm Hurricane Sandy Was Not A Result Of Global Warming

http://www.thegwpf.org/noaa-data-confirm-hurricane-sandy-result-ocean-w…

I can remember watching clips of the 1974 Lions tour and wondering why the Lions had so much support. It was from the non-white part of the ground.

The Texas Republican Party platform: Creationism, denialism, "health freedom," and "vaccine choice" all rolled up into one big antiscience ball

oracknows — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:50:47 +0000

The Texas Republican Party platform: Creationism, denialism, "health freedom," and "vaccine choice" all rolled up into one big antiscience ball

And now for something completely different.

Except that it isn't really. I say that it isn't really different because, although this post will seem to be about politics, in reality it will be about a common topic on this blog: Anti-science. And where is this anti-science? Sadly, it's in the platform of a major party of one of the largest states in the country. It also meshes with the anti-science inherent in a lot of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and all comes together in one place: The proposed 2012 Platform of the Republican Party of Texas. It's all there, as you will see.

I learned about this platform on, of all places, Facebook, where it is popping up like so much kudzu. The part of the document that most people seem to be concentrating on involves education, but there's so much more antiscience in there than just that passage. Still, the section on education is as good a place to start to look at what's wrong with this document. Three passages pretty much sum up the approach to education espoused by the Texas Republican Party. Here are the first two:

"We believe the current teaching of a multicultural curriculum is divisive. We favor strengthening our common American identity and loyalty instead of political correctness that nurtures alienation among racial and ethnic groups. Students should pledge allegiance to the American and Texas flags daily to instill patriotism."
"We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind."

The first denies reality every bit as much as the second in that it denies a basic fact: That the U.S. is multicultural. It always has been. It always will be. Whenever I see someone ranting against "multiculturalism," what I see is a fear of change and a fear of the other.

The second is ridiculously problematic, in essence recommending policies that would inscribe the "teach the controversy" tactic of denialists like creationists into state law. The first thing that one has to understand is that evolution is not a controversial theory among biologists. No matter how much creationists try to make it seem so, it just isn't. It's religious groups that turn the theory of evolution into a pseudocontroversy, or, as we sometimes call it, a "manufactroversy." The theory of evolution is one of the best-supported theories in science. None of this is to say that there aren't letgitimate scientific controversies swirling around the theory of evolution, but these controversies are not what the creationists now controlling the Republican Party in Texas want you to think they are. Creationists want you to think that the very theory of evolution is in question, when its essential elements (evolution through natural selection and common descent) are not. True, scientists will argue over how much evolution is due to natural selection versus other forms of selection, but they don't argue over whether evolution is the mechanism by which the diversity of life has developed.

Yet, that's exactly what the Texas Republican Party wants to "empower" teacher to do: Question whether evolution is happening or not, mountains of evidence from multiple different disciplines supporting it be damned. In brief, the platform advocates giving teachers the freedom to teach bad science that was repudiated long ago but, like the proverbial undead, keeps rising from the dead to eat the brains of the living. Unlike most political issues, in many scientific issues there really aren't "two sides" to the story. I'm all for teaching where various scientific theories break down or areas they don't explain very well and where there is therefore room for improvement or modification. However, "intelligent design" creationism is not one of these "other sides" to a scientific issue.

Similarly, AGW denialism is not, as usually argued by denialists, a valid challenge to AGW science. Like most forms of denialism, pseudoscience, and crankery, it is largely based on misinformation, cherry picked studies, and willful misinterpretations of existing evidence. It's questions that scientists have asked and answered (with evidence and experimentation!) a long time ago. As much as ideologues try to make it seem as though the occurrence of global climate change characterized by warming is a scientific controversy or that human activity isn't a major contributor to it. The scientific consensus might not be as strong as the consensus behind evolution, but it is nonetheless a very strong scientific consensus indeed, backed up by data from multiple disciplines that converge to support the hypothesis. As is the case in evolution, what this platform is doing with respect to AGW is to "empower" teachers to indoctrinate children with their own religion-inspired dogma ("intelligent design" creationism) or ideological viewpoint (AGW denialism).

But this platform is even worse than that.

Don't believe me? Then get a load of this passage, which is a dagger aimed at the heart of critical the thinking skills of future generations of Texans:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Because we obviously can't have children learning critical thinking skills in school, can we? Yes, I realize that teaching higher order thinking skills and outcome-based education are educational systems that aren't completely without controversy, but notice the key part of the passage. It's not the part that attacks a specific educational method. Rather, it's the part where the Republican Party of Texas declares that it doesn't want schools to teach anything that challenges the student's fixed beliefs or undermines parental authority. Of course, it's painfully obvious that the "fixed beliefs" that the Republican Party doesn't want to see challenged are conservative Christian religious beliefs. In fact, I highly doubt that the people who drafted this platform can even imagine the potential unintended consequences of demanding that schools never challenged a student's fixed beliefs or undermine parental authority. What, for instance, if the parents are Communists? What if the parents are jihadists who think America is the root of all evil? Would the Texas Republican Party support not allowing schools to teach anything that might undermine those fixed beliefs the authority of parents who instill those fixed beliefs? One group's "critical thinking skills" have always been another group's challenge to accepted dogma. What this platform wants to do is to impose one dogma (a vision of America as white, homogeneous, and based on Christian religion) that can't be questioned because it might make parents uncomfortable while turning science into postmodernism, where "questioning" is enough to elevate any old crank idea to the level of being a challenge to accepted science that students need to be taught about.

The whole thing is utterly ridiculous and transparent. It's not possible to teach anything of substance without challenging someone's fixed beliefs anywhere. Maybe that's the idea behind the platform: Reduce education to the lowest common denominator, teaching to national achievement tests and emphasizing rote memorization rather than problem-solving and creative thinking. A better recipe for an uninformed and uncreative populace that's susceptible to pseudoscience I have a hard time imagining. Again, maybe that's the whole point. Certainly, a lack of basic critical thinking skills will make a person more susceptible to blandishments based on emotion and logical fallacies than he otherwise might be.

That's not all, though. Let's head on over to the section on health care, shall we? What sorts of health policies does the Texas Republican Party advocate? Well, besides the predictable promise to "repeal and replace" the Patent Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPCA, otherwise known as "Obamacare") there's this rather telling passage:

We deplore any efforts to mandate that vitamins and other natural supplements be on a prescription–only basis, and we oppose any efforts to remove vitamins and other nutritional supplements from public sale. We support the rights of all adults to their choice of nutritional products, and alternative health care choices.

I'll give the Republican Party some credit here. This is cleverly worded. No one that I'm aware of is trying to outlaw vitamins or make them available on a prescription-only basis. No one. What has been happening in intermittent fits and starts is an attempt to tighten up the regulation of some nutritional supplements, which, thanks to the DSHEA of 1994, are now in essence very close to unregulated. Basically, as long as a supplement manufacturer doesn't make specific health claims for its products, keeping them on the level of "boosts the immune system" or "supports health," they can sell pretty much what they want. Even egregious examples of chemicals that are not in any way nutritional supplements being sold as such take the FDA a long time to shut down. What this passage really means is that the Texas Republican Party is supporting the supplement industry and its push to keep nutritional supplements unregulated. In other words, the Texas Republican Party appears to have aligned itself with the "health freedom" movement, which I like to call by its intent: The freedom of quacks from pesky government interference. That is particularly obvious from the last sentence about "all adults" being free to choose whatever nutritional products they want and "alternative health care choices."

And they say that alternative medicine and supplement woo is primarily a phenomenon of the left! Ditto antivaccinationism. Well, not really:

All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.

This is, of course, a very silly plank in the platform. Adults already have the legal right without penalty to choose which vaccines they take and always have. Parents also more or less already have the legal right to refuse vaccinations for their children in 48 states, which allow religious exemptions. In twenty states, philosophical exemptions are allowed, and in the states in which philosophical exemptions are not allowed parents frequently claim religious exemptions, whether valid or not. Moreover, Texas itself already allows both religious and philosophical exemptions to school vaccine mandates; so the issue is a moot point there, unless there is a movement in Texas that I'm not aware of that is trying to make it more difficult to get philosophical exemptions. Also notice how the platform plank conflates vaccine exemptions with a Big Brother-style database containing personal records of citizens. The two don't go together logically; one can only assume that they were put together to obscure the Texas Republican Party's obvious alignment with the antivaccine movement in its embrace of opposition to tightening up school vaccine mandate exemption requirements.

Lest you doubt me regarding the increasing seeming alignment between right wing politics and the antivaccine movement, though, I can't help but point out a post by Kent Heckenlively on that other wretched hive of scum and antivaccine quackery, Age of Autism, trumpeting how the Tea Party has joined the antivaccine crank party the Canary Party in opposing vaccine mandates in California:

In a sign of increasing political strength, the Canary Party has achieved an alliance with the East Bay Tea Party, one of California’s largest tea party groups, on the issue of AB2109, a measure sponsored by California Assembly Member, Dr. Richard Pan. The bill seeks to limit the ability of parents to obtain a philosophical exemption to refuse a vaccine or modify the schedule by requiring them to get a note from a doctor if they wish to vary the schedule or chose to decline vaccinations.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. The bill in question, AB 2109, is all about informed consent, as opposed to misinformed consent, as I've written before. Unfortunately, in the case of AB 2109 it was a party line vote, with Democrats in favor and Republicans all opposed. In any case, all AB 2109 requires is that a parent seeking a religious or philosophical exemption to vaccination see a pediatrician for a discussion of the benefits and risks of vaccination; i.e., an informed consent discussion. That's all. It won't prevent anyone from getting an exemption. All it will do is make it a little more difficult. Parents won't be able just to sign a form; they'll have to have an informed consent-like form signed by a health care provider. Unfortunately, in a late addition to the bill, that now includes naturopaths. Given that naturopaths are notoriously prone to antivaccine views and often advocate not vaccinating, this addition to the bill has greatly weakened it and is not justified on a scientific or medical basis given that naturopathy is a hodgepodge of pseudoscience, quackery, and supplements.

But back to the Texas Republican Party platform. There's so much more in the platform that's wrong, including pseudo history, blatant calls for what would be in effect the mixing of church and state, and claims that the U.S. is a "Judeo-Christian" nation. The platform, including the blatant calls for letting teachers teach religious and ideologically motivated pseudoscience such as creationism and AGW denialism without interference of pesky scientific standards to stop them, has clearly come down on the side of anti-science, much as, sadly, the Republican Party as a whole seems to have done these days. It's basically crank magnetism put into a political document.

oracknows Wed, 06/27/2012 - 21:50

Michael Mann: Evil Mastermind or Distinguished Scientist?

gregladen — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:00:40 +0000

Michael Mann: Evil Mastermind or Distinguished Scientist?

Quite possibly Pete Sinclair's best and most important videos yet.

Click here to get more background from Peter Sinclair's site.

The post refers to this book: The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines

gregladen Thu, 03/08/2012 - 02:00

Tags

Uncategorized

Anthropogenic Global Warming

Thanks, that was good. Effective summary.

I'm looking forward to reading Mann's book. Good post -cheers!

HeartlandGate: Anti-Science Institute's Insider Reveals Secrets

gregladen — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:16:32 +0000

HeartlandGate: Anti-Science Institute's Insider Reveals Secrets

This seems to be fairly big news. The Heartland Institute is a conservative and libertarian "think" tank that cut its teeth on denying the dangers of cigarette smoking back in the 1990s. These days the Heartland Institute seems to be focused on Anthropogenic Climate Change Denialism and Science Denialism in general.

A piece of one of the revealed documents suggesting that the Heartland Institute wants to "dissuade teachers from teaching science."

Well, just a few hours ago, members of the climate change science, journalism, and blogging community received an interesting Valentine's Day gift from someone who must be a Heartland Institute insider: The institute's budget, fundraising plan, climate related strategy, and numerous other things. The story broke here on Desmog Blog.

Here's the details:

The 2012 fundraising plan ((1-15-2012) 2012 Fundraising Plan.pdf) claims that Heartland will raise $7.7 million in 2012, up by 70% from 2011. One of the most interesting revelations of this document is an "anonymous donor" who gave just under one million in 2011 and who plans to give 1.25 million for 2012.

The budget ((1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf) gives an idea of the institute's activities (lots of communications and lobbying). Most interesting are the funds that will be spent on fighting science in schools and other venues. $75,000 is set aside for:

K-12 Climate Education Project
Payments to David Wojick for K-12 Global Warming Lesson Plan modules plus a Website featuring the same. Estimate quarterly payments of $25,000 in June, September, and December.

We know this to be an effort to fight the teaching of good climate science in schools, much like efforts we've seen before to force creationism into science classes in order to damage science teaching. It is probably in the interest of those who donate to Heartland to have a poorly informed populace when it comes to science.

The documents include an agenda for a January 17th 2012 meeting of the directors of the Heartland Institute (2 Agenda for January 17 Meeting.pdf), a 2010 Federal IRS Form 990 (2010_IRS_Form_990 (2).pdf) and a Janurary 2012 document addressing the 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy (2012 Climate Strategy (3).pdf)

In that document we learn about efforts to increase climate related fundraising, noting the "key Anonymous Donor" and additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The afore mentioned K-12 Classrooms project is outlined. Specifically, the document states:

Development of our "Global Warming Cirriculum for K-12 Classrooms" project.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased towards the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming cirriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort wil focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain -- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.

There is a larger document that appears to be supporting materials for the January 17th meeting (Binder1 (2).pdf). One of the more interesting parts of this document is the discussion of decreased funding to the institute (on page 15 of the PDF file).

The details of the board of directors of the Heartland Institute are provided in one document (Board Directory 01-18-12.pdf). That includes their emails and phone numbers in case you want to contact any of them and ask why they hate the Planet Earth or something. And finally, a cover memo for the entire package for the January 17th meeting (Board Meeting Package January 17.pdf)

(And, yes, I did just give you all these links is approximate reverse order that the documents were probably originally passed out originally.)

I have no idea who the individual is who passed these documents on, nor do I have an idea who the Anonymous Donor with all the money to spend on ruining the planet and messing with the education of our children. The former is something of a hero, the later, a villain.

Here are a few other blog posts on the material:

I'm have a hard time stifling the "bwahahaha."

Disclaimer: The Heartland Institute is now claiming that these documents have likely been altered or faked, and are threatening to pursue criminal and civil charges against all bloggers who posted comments on them or links to them.

I can not prove that these documents are real or fake. I will certainly pass on to you any information that comes along about this. Have a look at the documents and make up your own mind (before I am forced by guys in suits to take down the links).

gregladen Tue, 02/14/2012 - 15:16

Tags

Alt-Truth

Climate Change

Anthropogenic Global Warming

ClimateGate

Denialism

Heartlandgate

The fundraising plan has a list of past donors, corporations and individuals.

I hope that main stream media contacts those corporations and individuals to get an understanding of what they are trying to convey.

I think the whistle-blower doesn't have to worry, they have a written whistle-blower policy. (IRS 990 page 6 line 13). ;)

Have any of these shills testified about AGW under oath?

I note that Wojick is one of the authors at the "Scholarly Kitchen Blog" which has a decidedly anti-open access bent. See my post for a little bit more detail on this. Not sure if/how the anti-open access stance related to the anti-science stance but it is certainly curious.

Ahhh the ol' C02 is natural/necessary argument.
So is selenium. Go eat excessive amounts of that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium#Toxicity

Who gives a shit about Al Gore's movie? Please stop derailing the thread. Please address points that were actually made/discuss topics that were actually discussed.

This is why scientists say the debate is over, you guys don't debate. You make up crap and change topics with irrelevant/paranoid/made up/ anti-intellectual rants.

I like the way J.Doug Swallow calls others "unscientific" in a paragraph full of confused science. Well, he seems confused by it all, anyway...

J.Doug Swallow - Thank you for that quote from the great climate scientist Mark Twain. As my daughter would say, "Are you for real?"

Interesting that the quoted section at the top doesn't even mention anthropogenic at all. Just that climate change is controversial and uncertain (which is obviously not true).

daedalus2u - I wouldn't keep my hopes up regarding the mainstream media. If they dig into it at all, they will just fall back on the usual he said / she said non-reporting.

In all seriousness, J.Doug Swallow's posts should be removed and further posts blocked.

Giving any kind of voice to these kinds of people may be entertaining in their absurdness, but is exactly why in 2012 we still have a confused public that does not know who to listen to, and why countries like the US have made no progress towards meaningful climate change mitigation.

Wow. Seldom do I see naked evil like this. We all know this is what they're doing, and I think deep down, they know it too, but to see it spelled out like that is rare. Normally they lie even to themselves, I think -- how else could they justify what they do? And there's a bit of that even here, with that "alarmist" term at the beginning. But, to admit to "dissuading teachers from teaching science", as a goal? That's cartoon villain territory.

Which makes me wonder, a little, if this document is legitimate.

charlatans want people to believe ... that a trace gas that comprises .036% of the total atmosphere and that is essential for life on earth as we know it, CO2, ... is somehow responsible for what something as complicated as the earth's climate

The funniest thing about Swallow's argument is (1) CO2 is a trace gas that can't do anything as significant as affect climate and (2) CO2 is essential for life on earth. That's right. Carbon dioxide is both impotent and essential. Oops.

Coincidentally every lab experiment every done trying to correlate "warming" with CO2 has failed! If you can show me some empirical test results I would be glad to look at them - NOTE not computer models or explanations - test results. Everyone is well aware of IR radiation on CO2 and that CO2 infused atmospheres cool slower but to date there has not been one reproducible experiment that links CO2 to warming in the atmosphere - a rather inconvenient fact wouldn't you say?

We're conducting that experiment on a large scale, currently. We've taken an inhabited planet and are pumping the atmosphere full of greenhouse gasses and tracking the result.
The vast majority of the experts observing the experiment agree that the result is likely to be negative for the subjects - there are disagreements about how negative, and how fast, and what steps might be taken to prevent a negative (or more negative) result. Because of this, they have suggested that the experiment be stopped on ethical grounds.
There are others observing, of course, who aren't convinced yet that the experiment is going to be bad for the subjects. Persumably, if it turns out that it was, they'll just say "oops" and move on to the next...
Um, I mean relocate to the other...
Hmm, they'll reset the test by simply...

Oh, dear.
"Oops".

J.Doug Swallow, perhaps you would like to try this school experiment to see how CO2 causes warming.
You could also ask yourself how glaciations end without the input of CO2, and why the PETM was so deadly.

I'm dumbstruck by Swallow. The hubris of ignorance full throttle. Your comments are so profoundly ignorant, it's tantamount to trying to argue that the world is flat. That Co2 and other greenhouse gasses is so fundamentally well understood, so well demonstrated, that to argue the opposite is baffling.

I'll assume for now that you're not being disengenous. Do you have any evidence for the position you're taking? As far as I am aware the weight of evidence is against you and it looks like you're just making stuff up.

There are no properly designed experiments to show that CO2 causes warming that have -failed-. CO2 causes warming every time it's tried.

The reason can be verified with any spectrograph. CO2 absorbs heat from the earth's surface on its way out to space and reradiates it in random directions. Any diversion toward the ground during this exit warms the earth.

Simply check any satellite spectrum of the light being emitted by the Earth, and two big valleys at around 4 and 14 micrometers show the energy trapped in the atmosphere by CO2. Global Warming is occurring, CO2 is the largest man-made culprit, and CO2 from fossil fuels now accounts for approximately 40% of that in the air -- and it's rising at up to 3% per year.

p.s. Those who mention water vapor forget one thing: rain.

OP:

The Heartland Institute is now claiming that these documents have likely been altered or faked, and are threatening to pursue criminal and civil charges against all bloggers who posted comments on them or links to them.

If they are faked, why pursue "criminal and civil action"? Sounds suspiciously like "Those are documents are not ours! And you are violating our copyright by posting them!"

Don't feed the (ignorant or lying) trolls on a topic this important. Note how at least half of this thread has been distracted from the methods, aims and funding of the Heartland Institute.

Now we return to the regularly scheduled topic...

Swallow, I do not believe you.

Swallow, you're not real bright are you? I enjoyed reading all the different examples of how insignificant a number like 392ppm must seem to an idiot. So obviously an increase of 100ppm or so must seem even less significant to your tiny brain.

Well I have a question for you. Did you know that the gas hydrogen sulphide is toxic at 10ppm and will kill you at concentrations as small as 50ppm. That's an increase of only 40ppm so it must be pretty insignificant. Perhaps you could write a list of examples of similar ratios and then deny that the hydrogen sulphide will kill you. Perhaps you could attempt to prove it with an experiment - go and inhale 50ppm and write back when it doesn't kill you.

I think it can be taken as read that, until J.Doug Swallow carries out the CO2 experiment I provided a link to; thought hard about the PETM and how glaciations works; and states whether he would enter a room with an iddy biddy amount of H2S (or HCN) in the air, he can be looked on as a troll without much of a clue.
Surely there can't be people like that in real life ?

If you check out various comments pages around the web (the Guardian, etc), you'll see that Swallow is pretty unusual, yet fairly typical. He's unusual, in that he hasn't mentioned Heartland at all, yet typical in that in order to avoid Heartland, they are going back to basics (CO2 is life!).

The level of denial over the documents is fantastic. The trolls have started by arguing that the documents are fake. No, and Heartland admits that only one is fake (which one?).

Then they say its doesn't matter, and that its fair comment, even though the documents clearly refer to influence peddling. This arguement then gets sidelined by attacking Desmogblog, Skeptical Science, Real Climate, etc. Since its the documents which are in question, this line is less than convincing.

Then they just hand wave. Its a truely wonderful sight, as cognative dissonence completely takes over. Watts Up must be a blood bath, as his true believers try to explain away the $44 grand he gets from Heartland. Actually, having just checked it, its even sadder. The memo is apparently a fake (although Desmogblog points out that the details in it are similar to other authentic documents). There are lots of other points that they make, but this one stood out

'It gets the operational details ( budget) wrong â especially the points about my project, rounding up to $90,000 from a very specific budget number of $88,000. This suggests trying to inflate the number for a purpose.'

The extra two grand does point to a monumentual conspiracy, doesn't it?
The commenters are currently trying to have a go at the Guardian, etc. My guess is that the rights talking point will be that there is nothing to see, and the memo is clearly a fake, so Heartland is being sinned against. Whether the hacks go for that line remains to be seen. Hopefull someone will start asking Lawson questions, and it will be interesting to see what he says.

In the meantime, buy beer and popcorn...

OK - its worse -

one comment on WattsUP -

'Now we have a document which is so fraudulent it instantly brings to mind The Protocols of Elders of Zion forgery.

What is worse is that the climate doomsday cult and its followers expect people to believe the narrative is true even if the document itself is forged.

This is like saying âjust because the protocols proved to be forgery doesnât mean Jews arenât out to get youâ.

The hypocrisy, the duplicity, the ignorance, the gullibility, the hard-headedness, the closed-mindedness and the malevolence of the CAGW True Believer would put any anti-semite to shame.'

Yep, they really are nuts, although apparently not as crazy as the fact that James Delingpole is apparently rooting to Barack Obama. We have truely entered the Twilight Zone.

I love the way the commenters at WUWT are all coming out with combinations of the following :

'It's not true.'

'Even if it is true, how can the wonderful Mr Watts survive without making money - it's about time he got some reward.'

'It may be true but it's nothing compared to the squillions spent on Hansen and by Gore.'

'I don't care. Here's some (more) money, Mr Watts.'

'This is a criminal act, unlike the hero who released (definitely not hacked !) the CRU emails.'

'Look, a squirrel...'

J.Doug Swallow, would you enter a room with an iddy biddy amount (i.e. a minor constituent) of H2S (or HCN) in the air ?

" I have worked around Hydrogen sulfide; therefore, I know more about it than you do."

Given your other blatant lies and misrepresentations, why should anyone believe this?

Their biggest expense is editorials, apparently a million dollars (times a couple of dozen similar organisations) is all it takes to buy the free press these days.

I call Poe's Law on Swallow...

What is the deal there Drivebyposter? You do not think that CO2 is natural or necessary? How well do you think life on earth would do lacking it? Then you say this: "Please stop derailing the thread. Please address points that were actually made/discuss topics that were actually discussed."
Was the issue about selenium? Maybe in your delusional mind it was; but, actually it was not. I stuck to the issue far more than some fool like you has that will not even present their own name and I can see why you will not.

This is an excellent example of the child-like concrete thinking that underlies a lot of pseudo-scientific belief. The concept of arguing for one thing, by drawing an analogy to another thing, seems beyond him.

"Swallow," how about we immediately replace one out of every million molecules in your body with a molecule of plutonium and see how it treats you.

There are a lot of suspicious things about the "2012 Climate Strategy.pdf" document that Heartland says is fake (the one that all the shocking quotes come from):

1. It uses the term "anti-climate" to refer to Heartland's position -- which neither Heartland nor any other climate skeptic outfit ever uses.

2. It is written in the 1st person, yet with no indication of who wrote it.

3. The PDF is time-stamped with a Pacific Standard Time timestamp, even though Heartland is in Chicago, and none of its directors are in the Pacific Time Zone, nor even in a State adjacent to the Pacific Time Zone.

It appears likely that, as Heartland claims, the document really is a fake, and a clumsy one, at that.

Updating the denial from around the web, check out the Richard Black's BBC blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17048991 - you can clearly see the lines of defence, which are pretty much as JSmith laid out.

Most of the commenters pounce on the 'forgery' claim, while bypassing the rest of the documents. Since one of the documents is possibly 'faked' (according to Heartland), there is evidently no need to actually probe what the documents actually say. In fact its seems to be a rapidly developing meme that the hack/'fake' doc is some kind of deep black ops by 'warmers', and by reporting the story, the BBC is going to be sued.

Next tactic is false equivalence - Greenpeace gets much more money, Solyana, Al Gore, etc. Watts apparently deserves all that money, becuase graphs are hard.

Then you have the hardwavers, CO2 is not to blame, etc.
What surprises me is the huge number of comments (238), and the vast majority are by deniers. I suspect the word has gone out, and the line has been decreed (or its some kind of mass hysteria). 'Oh look..a squirrel....'

As an admitted non-scientist (I love humanities!) I am disappointed to see that having come here to read a scientific debate I see something that has been turned political.

Here is someone (me) who has as much apparent scientific knowledge as "Swallow" begging not to let people like him with obviously political motives hijack the scientific discussion.

When he is allowed to point the discussion AWAY from science he has won. Scientists are easily manipulated by people like this. It needs to stop and we need to return to science.

DON'T let people like this yank your chain: you will never win against a religious perspective that is immune from empirical evidence. Faith is all he needs snd you will never change that.

I tried to question Watts over on WUWT with regard to the statement he made last year :

"Heh, I've yet to see that check or any from Exxon-Mobil or any other energy or development company. Somebody must be stealing checks out of my mailbox. /sarc â Anthony."

I tried to discover whether he knew the Heartland money was coming to him at that stage; whether he was in the processing of searching for money from such organisations at that time; and why he had limited his decription to oil, energy and development companies, i.e. could he add in Heartland and similar organisations into that quote and still claim it as being true.

First attempt was censored. Second attempt disappeared.
What's up with that indeed !

(By the way, with regard to the BBC being swarmed by those in denial, that probably comes from some commenters at WUWT, who are also encouraging all the Wattsits to complain to the BBC, MPs, Regulators (whoever) in writing, email, text, pigeon, etc. They are not happy little bunnies)

JSmith - Its not just the BBC, the Guardian has a huge number (although there is now some pushback), and a fair number on the NYT. They must be really unhappy to make so much noise, so the attacks are hitting home.

I notice 'Dave Burton has turned up here as well with exactly the same post as he has on Stoat and every other website I've checked out (He's 'ncdave' at the Guardian). Someone has been very busy, although copying and pasting does save a lot of time...

Someone on the Guardian comments page does make the observation: 'You seem remarkably familiar with the language, location and inner workings of all Heartland employees, office work and communications and to some degree this extends to all other skeptical outfits too. How would that be? Sounds like you may even work for them yourself.' - Indeed.

Heh. Newsflash! Heartland Institute Spends It's Millions Doing Pretty Much Exactly What We've All Suspected For Years!

Regarding the blog WattsUpWithThat, JSmith wrote: "First attempt was censored. Second attempt disappeared. What's up with that indeed !"

Come on, you know Anthony never censors or deletes polite comments from his blog. All his faithful followers tell us so!

/sarcasm

Of course, in the end, you knew it was just another Alarmist failure...

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/peter-gleick-admits-to-dec…

The strategy document was a fraud and Peter Gleick broke the law to steal the rest of the documents from Heartland. A massive fail for the always credulous CAGW faithful. As usual.

Where do you get "the strategy document is a fraud" from that?

What peter did, actually, would get him a Pulitzer prize if he was a journalist.

1. There is nothing in that story that supports the notion that the strategy document is a fake. And its pretty clear now that all the other documents are genuine.
2. Its not clear that any laws were broken.
3. Gleick, unlike the CRU email thief has come forward and taken responsibility and apologized for his actions. Advantage AGW consensus.
4. Revkin's crocodile tears regarding:

The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the ârational public debateâ that he wrote â correctly â is so desperately needed.

are revolting.

The strategy document was a fraud...

You might want to work on your reading comprehension. The link you provided does not assert that, let alone provide any solid evidence.

A massive fail for the always credulous CAGW faithful.

And this changes the scientific evidence...how exactly?

@34, Dave Burton:

3. The PDF is time-stamped with a Pacific Standard Time timestamp, even though Heartland is in Chicago, and none of its directors are in the Pacific Time Zone, nor even in a State adjacent to the Pacific Time Zone.

Additional detail (in later posts) now out now points to an explanation: that was the first document, which Gleick (based in Oakland, California) says he received via snail mail.

Exactly who are you? A wacko environmentalist in need of attention and a purpose in life or just some sorry as fag?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The people who said the earth was not flat were, basically, burned at the stake. Funny how the same thing is happening today to anyone who questions the validity of the science behind man-made global warming/climate change theory.

James, you are an absurd little man.

James,

"The people who said the earth was not flat were, basically, burned at the stake."

James, your grasp of science appears to be matched by your grasp of history. Which is to say you have no grasp of either.

Ok, it was 'witches' (women), Muslims, Jews, and anyone the Catholic Church, and some other Chistian denominations, didn't feel keen on, that were burned at the stake. You might have noticed Greg's post on this recently. Heretics tortured, imprisoned, and murdered in hideous ways-- by the high-minded, anti-science god-fearin' men in robes who thought they were the enforcers of divine truth-- these deaths likely numbered in the millions.

So, no it wasn't the 'flat-earthers' that were burned at the stake; the flat-earthers who were hold outs on the whole notion that the earth was not a spheroid body, as late as the 1800's. (And apparently 2014, if we count you James):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

"English writer Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1885), writing under the pseudonym "Parallax," produced a pamphlet called Zetetic Astronomy in 1849 arguing for a flat Earth and published results of many experiments that tested the curvatures of water over a long drainage ditch, followed by another called 'The inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scripture.' One of his supporters, John Hampden, lost a bet to Alfred Russel Wallace in the famous Bedford Level Experiment, which attempted to prove it. In 1877 Hampden produced a book called "A New Manual of Biblical Cosmography".

See James, the earth is not, um, actually flat. So if you're saying it was unfair of those meanie sciency types to tell the flat-earthers that they were wrong, and so it's also wrong for those meanie sciency types to tell anthropogenic climate change denialists, evolution denialists, 'earth is more than 6000 years old' denialists, that they are all simply wrong, then you are, in technical terms, addled in the brain-pan.

And scientists have not been in the habit of persecuting people, even when they hold ridiculously false beliefs; no James, that's been the ultra-religious maniacs over countless centuries, when their fairy tales and delusions run smack up against basic reality, that have felt the need, and assumed the right, to murder people for simply asking questions. Scientists settle things with data and reasoned argument. Religious fanatics, of all stripes, scream, threaten, discriminate, enslave, demean and murder those that disagree. So it has been for millennia, so it is today.

Balancing Acts in Science

gregladen — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:40:30 +0000

Balancing Acts in Science

How do you know when alternative views are real alternatives, and thus should be considered in a "balanced view" vs. when those views are not any longer valid and should be ignored? This sounds like a hard thing to do but it is not as hard as you might think. I suggest two different approaches: "Tipping Points" and "Clues that Something is Wrong Here."

The Tipping Point approach works like this: As the percentage of qualified scientists that hold a particular view diminishes, when it reaches about 25 percent or so, the view should continue to be references but as a minority view. Many points of view have been around that range in the past and we are glad we did not eliminate them. For instance, the role of Archeopteryx in bird evolution has moved in and out of favor such that what may well be the correct view may have been close to that sort of minority at various times in the past. As plate tectonics started to develop as a theory, it was held at about this level of minority for a while. The idea of particulate inheritance lost favor for decades prior to the New Darwinian Synthesis, and may have been in that range for a while. Minority vies should be maintained, but labeled clearly as such, in science reviews or in policy development.

But when that view goes to single digits, something else happens. We remember that the percentage of people who think that they've been abducted by aliens, or that are certain they've seen ghosts, or other impossible things, is around there. If 90 percent of scientists in a given field thing that A is likely correct and B is not, then is time to start ignoring B.

The second aproach, "Clues that Something is Wrong Here," works quite differently. Some people are going to not like this approach because it rings of ad hominem argumentation or argument from authority. And it is. But note that this is the second approach being suggested for a reason, and I think once you see how it works you'll agree that it is valid.

There are many possible clues, and I suggest only a few here:

The main proponents of the minority opinion are not part of the mainstream science.
The most vocal proponents of the minority opinion are often politicians who are linked to a party or political movement with a priori reasons to hold this point of view.
The main arguments being made at the policy level are non-scientific, and often include accusations of unfairness or bias.
The main arguments made at the policy level about the validity of a certain interpretation of the available evidence is that it should be given more consideration because no one believes it any more. In other words, the argument is made that a particular point of view is right because the vast majority of practitioners in the field are certain that it is wrong.
The victimization of the minority point of view starts to come into play.
The appeal to support the fading minority point of view shifts primarily from the scientific community to easily swayed politically motivated members of the public.
The appeal to support the fading minority point of view shifts primarily to those calling for investigative agencies to intervene on behalf of the view that is widely seen as wrong.
And finally, the primary argument against the fading, by now fully discredited point of view is reference to the idea that there must be a conspiracy afoot against it, otherwise why would it appear to be completely wrong. And therefore it must be correct

You can see now why this is not a simple argument from authority or ad hominem. What has happened in the typical case is that those still stumping for the incorrect view are no longer valid experts, but rather, biased political entities or crazy people (or some combination of the two). There isn't a single zoologist who thinks Bigfoot is real. Today, bigfoot "exerts" are either charlatans or disturbed individuals. There is not a single evovlutionary biologist who things the earth is 6000 years old. Today, each and every Young Earth Creationist is a preacher or a con artist or, again, disturbed. There are almost no climate scientists who think that Global Warming and other related climate change is not a) real and b) human caused in the majority. Those who defy this point of view these days are either in the employ of energy companies or, perhaps, Tea Partiers or biased Senators. It is not an ad hominem argument because the validity of the science is not being questioned on the basis of qualities (or lack thereof) of those supporting the views, but rather, the minority view is being ignored because those still professing it are not qualified to even enter the debate to begin with.

gregladen Sun, 09/25/2011 - 09:40

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Anthropogenic Global Warming

Hear, hear!
I would only like to add a qualification to your description of the "Tipping Point" methodology. As stated, it sounds like pure argumentum ad populum. "If 90 percent of scientists in a given field thing that A is likely correct and B is not, then is time to start ignoring B." I'd like to add "until further credible evidence is found."

True. My formulation assumes that scientist are using evidence to place themselves in one or another camp, but it is very much worth adding.

You should probably define "science". Trying to apply your principles to economics is a little tricky. Mainstream economics has run into a very rough patch recently, and they had pretty secure domination of their field though I'm not sure it was 10%.

I was referring to real sciences, not social sciences or any other thing that uses the word "science" to describe itself (Christian Science, Scientology, etc)

[duck, run for cover]

I think we need to keep in mind the comment that no two scientists are in complete agreement on everything. Secondly, the idea that two informed and honest persons may interpret a set of data differently. I think there are a small number of climate change deniers who are both qualified and honest in their opinion. Incidentally, I don't agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion. The right to an opinion is not an entitlement, but must rather be earned through study of the matter. I think a large number of the people we disagree with have not earned the right to their opinion.

What do you think of Thomas Kuhn's thesis that ordinary science progresses because most scientists share the same paradigm?

I mean, "90%".

âCatastrophic CO2 Climate Change Crisisâ is the worst disaster imaginable, so until we see these scientists in their countless thousands, marching in the streets and ACTING like itâs the emergency they said it was, we will conclude academic exaggeration. We will be thankful and grateful the planet and Humanity have been spared a comet hit of a climate crisis and the ultimate peer review is the voting majority you see before you of âformerâ climate blame believers. Nobody is going to vote for taxing the air to make the weather colder and hand over the management of the planetâs temperature to carbon trading markets run by politicians and corporations.
Obama is now a denier as well since he didnât even mention the âcrisisâ in his state of the union address after 25 years of CO2 crisis warnings. And where were the thousands of consensus scientists when they were completely snubbed by Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for climate change and as NP stated; his ârole in meeting the great climatic challengesâ? So follow our leader and get ahead of the curve planet lovers because Obama sees Climate Change Crisis for what it was, another Iraq War of lies and fear mongering. The CO2 mistake has made omen worshipping fools out of all of us for the history books. Meanwhile, the UN had allowed carbon trading stock markets to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 25 years of climate CONTROL.
If you really love the planet and want to get the corruptive influence of politics out of science, do the right thing. Fear is never sustainable so letâs leave that to the neocons shall we?
Billions of children were falsely condemned to a CO2 death knowingly, so letâs get the charges over with sooner than later:
U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001
By Phone: Department of Justice Main Switchboard -202-514-2000
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line -202-353-1555

I think we need to keep in mind the comment that no two scientists are in complete agreement on everything.

That may be true, but that is also the sort of thing that is typically misunderstood and willfully misused by science denialists.

I think there are a small number of climate change deniers who are both qualified and honest in their opinion.

Not really. Not any more. (Assuming qualified does not mean dillusional). There may be people in various sciences ancillary to climate change sciences who have convinced themselves of something that no serious and honest scientist believes, but no, at this point, if you're truly qualified and truly honest you KNOW that we are in a strong warming trend that spans "natural variation" and is caused primarily by the release of fossil carbon and damage to carbon reservoirs. Nobody who is qualified and honest doesn't believe that. Really. It's over.

What do you think of Thomas Kuhn's thesis that ordinary science progresses because most scientists share the same paradigm?

John: Right. Having 90 percent thinking more or less one thing (though as Jim points out not agreeing on everything) is not necessary for a mainstream position to be the mainstream position. I didn't actually say that though I can see that I inadvertently implied that. Having only 10% of your peers think a certain thing is likely, when that number has only gone down and nothing new is going on, is strong evidence that you're wrong. The rest of the field might be 60-30 split on two other competing ideas.

I think Kuhn's way of thinking made a lot of sense given how science had changed prior to his writing. Subsequently more and more people saw the nature of science as being different until finally there was enough of a difference in thought about Kuhn that his paradigm was overthrown.

These lab coat consultants of climate blame hysteria have done to academia what abusive priests did for the Catholic Church.

There is something about this article's overall thesis that just doesnt pass the bovine excrement sniff test. First of all, an alarm goes off, or should, whenever anyone begins using the dismissive term "impossible things" regarding other peoples ideas, whether they be about ufos or spooks or anything else in this rather large and reliably unpredictable universe.
When Pasteur began suggesting that there might be tiny nightmarish invisible animals crawling on our skin and causing disease, that was laughably, almost insanely impossible. Some of his concerned colleagues actually did suggest that he be committed.
When the first European explorers came back from Australia reporting seeing a fur bearing animal with a duck's beak and laying eggs but then milk nursing its hatched young, they were howled at as frauds presenting a species bending "impossibility".
And I can still remember well when a group with Nixon visited China and was shown examples of acupuncture being used in hospitals and surgeries there, and so many medical authorities here in this country standing up to say that this is just a trick photography of some kind, that they knew all about anatomy and this was (again, that word) impossible.
Im sorry to not list the many more historic examples but I want to post this just after reading the article pretty quick so I am typing very much off the cuff here.
The point is not about any specific ancient or modern issue or discovery, but about the nature of new (or "alternative") ideas and their introduction to the accepted consensus in general. Obviously we can see that any new ideas will inevitably at first be held only by a minority. Sometimes a minority of one. Thats why they are new. And that is true whether the new thinking turns out to be completely valid or utterly unusable. And just as this article begins by saying, sometimes they circulate around in the background and resurface to new interpretations and new evidence and even occasionally, ultimate acceptance.
My concern is that this blogpost could well have had the alternative title "How to decide what ideas we can ignore". And my strong feeling is that the reply should always be- none.
Limiting our thinking by poll taking and then defining a consensus by majority is exactly how good thinking stops, not where it begins. In my own work, I actually dont use the concept "impossible". It simply isnt relevant to processing data, and data is all there is. Ever. Observe, analyse, hypothesize, experiment, theorize. Forever and ever, amen. And to preclude anything, anything at all, from that process is to deny the very nature of its power. If my neighbor rushed in right now and said there was a unicorn on the lawn I would not call around to the "authorities" to see what the majority recommended I believe. I would simply go and look. Consider this... todays headlines are that the researchers at CERN are reporting a faster that light particle. I have no idea how this observation might play out, but I am fairly certain that if you asked a group of prominent physicists even a few months ago if such a controversy was likey, a great many of them of them would have said "no, its not possible."
Keep looking. At everything. Even for the unicorns on the lawn. That is the only strategy for truth seeking that works. Consensus is merely something to hide behind, and hiding is really not the kind of fun we want to have. Not in this endlessly expanding universe. Reserve the term "impossible" for when the person across the street with the unkempt appearance and the strange look about them invites you out to lunch. Of course I will just come back another day and ask you all over again, I wont ever be discouraged, but you can always try.
open.salon.com/blog/jusboutded

Jus, this has nothing to do with ideas coming on the scene. It has to do with ideas leaving the scene and when to simply say good bye and when reporters, for instance, should stop feeling the need to refer to them.

We're not talking about the Okapi in 1908. We are talking about Bigfoot in 2008. And yes, "How to decide what ideas we can ignore" is a perfectly good alternative title. Sorry, but we really really can ignore Bigfoot.

Thanks for your concern, though!

Well written post Greg. I just wanted to draw your attention to Kurt Wise a Harvard educated geologist who believes in the young earth 'theory".. I'm sure there are other misguided loons out there..

Yeah, I know that guy. He falls under the charlatan category. He has openly admitted that he has no interest in evidence and if all the evidence in the world were massed against something the bible said he would not change his mind.

Isn't Wise the "scientist" who wrote about going through the Bible, deleting everything that didn't agree with the science he had learned, then realizing if he was going to continue being a christian he'd have to ignore the science?

That's the guy.

So on point one the fact that there is not a single scientist, "climate" or otherwise, in the world who is independent of government funding, except Greg alleges, himself, who supports the catastrophic warming story means it should be rejected.

The fact that no supporters of the story feel capable of discussing it scientifically and depend on ad homs and obscenity mean they should be rejected with contempt.

Or was that not what you meant and you are just looking for an excuse to engage in

Um...they are acting like it's a real emergency: they're publishing what they know as honestly and credibly as they can. That's how scientists respond to emergencies when they discover them. If they started marching in the streets, people like you would call them commie agitators and accuse them of exaggerating and behaving irrationally.

And after that bit of self-serving BS, the rest of your comment can be safely ignored as transparently dishonest crap.

Neil, you still haven't explained exactly why "government funding" (As if there's only one government at work here) makes a scientist less reliable than he would otherwise be.

Cops and prosecutors also depend on "government funding." Does that make their word unreliable? And what about this "government funded" Internet thingie?

@Jus:

And I can still remember well when a group with Nixon visited China and was shown examples of acupuncture being used in hospitals and surgeries there, and so many medical authorities here in this country standing up to say that this is just a trick photography of some kind, that they knew all about anatomy and this was (again, that word) impossible.

That did actually turn out to be impossible. In addition to the acupuncture, all the patients were doped to the gills on conventional anaesthetics.

@Greg:

I think you've got some good thoughts here. But beware of Goodhart's Law. I dread the day being a scientist is perceived to give you some kind of "voting right", because that's the day that scientific positions start to be distributed as part of the usual political merry-go-round, rather than on merit.

No zoologists believe in Bigfoot, and no Evolutionary Biologists believe in a young earth.

Wow.

How very profound!

Uh - do you by any chance know what an Evolutionary Biologists IS?? Saying no Evolutionary Biologists believe in a young earth is a lot like saying no Geocentrists believe the Sun is the center of the universe; the two points of view are mutually exclusive! Evolution requires VAST AGES of time!

Terry, I don't get the point you are making, care to take another stab at it? And yes, I do have an idea of what an Evolutionary Biologist is. Being one an all.

I'd like to add another point to "Clues that Something is Wrong Here". Advocates positioned as skeptics of the majority view lend credence to advocates that deny the majority view.

I'll add another point: an "alternative view" can be ignored when its advocates' questions or objections have been answered, and the advocates show no sign of addressing those answers, but keep on repeating the same questions or objections with the pretense (spoken or not) that their questions or objections have never been addresed.

Greg, Terry is saying you've made a category error. "Of course evolutionary biologists don't believe in a young earth. They are defined as people who don't believe in a young earth."

Of course that argument requires a really naive definition of evolutionary biology.

And an incorrect understanding of category.

There are two categories here. People who do this without meds and don't think bigfoot is real, and those who, well, are in a different category.

"I think Kuhn's way of thinking made a lot of sense given how science had changed prior to his writing. Subsequently more and more people saw the nature of science as being different until finally there was enough of a difference in thought about Kuhn that his paradigm was overthrown."

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Thank you, thank you. I'm here Tuesday through Friday nights and in the Lizard Lounge on Saturdays. Thank you very much.

I was well aware of what was going on when the stable continent paradigm gave way to the plate tectonic paradigm. I think this was a good example of Kuhn's paradigm shift hypothesis. On the other hand the transition from Mendelian genetics to molecular genetics was a fairly gradual transition quite unlike the stable continent to plate tectonic shift. I suppose the earlier shift from biometricians to Mendelians was a Kunian paradim shift

Last I heard of Kuhn was a quote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "We do not know how science progresses."

So, by Greg's assertion, Nobel Laureate physicist Ivar Giaever is in the employ of Big Oil/Energy or being paid off by them.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214181/20110915/ivar-giaever-global-war…

And just what evidence does Greg have to support this claim?

Keith, I never made that claim. I would put him in the Deluded category.

Isn't he in the "really, really old" category?

I totally loathe religionists who infer that creationism has any merit in science. But this false construct 'denialism' is a dangerous path to go down.

The term itself is kind of a gauntlet 'denialism' and pretty much ends the debate. And I don't think politically-minded folk should be debating this topic without a clear understanding of atmospheric physics. To dismiss out of hand dissenting opinion is a power play and not a call to reasonable debate.

Many climatologists are talking out their behinds. They know it is a political cash cow (AGW) and so naturally fall in line with the rhetoric.

If you look at the AMS site you will note that Meteorologists chafe at this notion of the overwhelming majority diatribe. The same callousness was used in persecuting women as witches and I see the attempts to frame dissent as somehow purely unscientific as laughable.

I come to this site for science but not politics. Carbon credits, IPCC, Kyoto, all have a framework born of the sky is falling mindset.

Just something to ponder as non-scientists tell scientists what to think. That is not science.

CloudGate: Denialism Gets Dirty, Reputations Are At Stake

gregladen — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:53:06 +0000

CloudGate: Denialism Gets Dirty, Reputations Are At Stake

There has been a major dust-up in the climate denialist world. A study published in late July made false claims and was methodologically flawed, but still managed to get published in a peer reviewed journal. The Editor-in-Chief of that journal has resigned to symbolically take responsibility for the journal's egregious error of publishing what is essentially a fake scientific paper, and to "protest against how the authors [and others] have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions" taking to task the University of Alabama's press office, Forbes, Fox News and others.

Let me break it down for you

The paper, by Spencer and Braswell, was called "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance" and it made the claim that the Earth's atmosphere releases more heat into space than climate scientists had estimated, thus removing concern about the warming effects of fossil CO2 being released into the atmosphere. The following things were also true:

1) The paper was published in a journal, Remote Sensing, that normally does not address climate science, although there were some atmospheric scientists on the editorial board.

2) The authors, in particular Spencer, had a reputation for being "climate change denialists" which is not a kind of scientist, but rather, a politically motivated contrarian pretending to be a scientist, in this case with some scientific credentials.

3) Author Spencer was known to have made major mistakes in his research in the past.

4) The research in the paper had glaring errors, discussed in more detail below.

At the time, I wrote in a Research Blogging review of the paper:

"On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance" is a big ol' bunch of hooey. I eagerly await an explanation from the journal's editors, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner and Mr. Elvis Wang and the editorial board as to what they are up to with this paper.

Dr. Wagner's resignation as Editor-in-Chief, which is available in print here (pdf), is a rather startling and definitive explanation! In short, the paper should never have been published.

What was wrong with the paper?

There were two major things wrong with the paper. First, the conclusion that the Earth's atmosphere could not heat up with extra CO2 contradicted the very important facts that the Earth's atmosphere has heated up and this heating up correlates to increases in atmospheric CO2 very much in the manner expected if the "greenhouse model" was correct. In addition, the basic idea of a greenhouse effect is pretty simple, solid, and well understood science. If something other than the greenhouse effect was happening, that would be major news.

But that sort of "flaw" -- a claim that contradicts what we are very certain of -- could be a virtue. A paper contradicting what everyone knows to be true would be brilliant, an amazing discovery, the stuff of awards and accolades. But, unfortunately for the paper's hapless authors, there were other things wrong with it as well.

The numerical results presented in the paper lack statistical significance, but this is hard to detect because error bars or estimates of statistical uncertainty are presented poorly or left out. The methods used in the paper are not described well enough to verify that they could work.

When these results were examined more closely they were found to be not replicable.

The statistical strangeness of the results are explained in part by looking at the scale at which the work is being done. Standard climate models look at climate variables over various time scales from less than a decade to centuries of time. The Spencer and Braswell research inappropriately mixed time scales in a way that seems to have given them results they were looking for rather than a valid finding.

What they did, essentially, was watch a car veering towards the curb because it was trying to avoid hitting a cat, extrapolating the direction that car was moving at that moment to predict a long term pattern (which would put the car in a neighbor's back yard rather than grocery store, where it was actually going).

In this case, Spenser and Braswell used observational data from a short time period (veering around the cat) in a model involving long term variation (the whole drive to the grocery store averaging out all the little backs and forths one effects while driving anywhere).

Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo exposed this aspect of the work's flawed nature in an essay posted here on Real Climate. The flaws of the paper are also discussed here and here.

Clearly the research was flawed. Likely, it was intentionally flawed to support an unscientific politically motivated denialist view. This would make the paper a scientific fraud. As Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner might have seen himself a little like a bank manager who accidentally left the vault open so crooks could steal the gold, thus his resignation. But how much of a failure of the peer review process was this?

There is another element at work here, I think, that should be considered. Remote Sensing is one of a new breed of journal, called "Open Access" which has a very different model for how journals should work. It is, frankly, the much preferred model over the traditional way things are published, but the fight between "closed" and "open" styles of publishing has been rather vitriolic. Indeed, the term "Open Access" uttered in some academic settings will produce sneers and disgusted looks among those who don't understand what it is or how it works. And, to make things worse, it may even be the case that there are some commercial Open Access journals that are over-commercialized (though I have no credible evidence of this at hand ... it is just something that "people say" as far as I know).

Had a major well established traditional "Closed Access" journal published this paper, it is possible that the Editor-in-Chief of that journal would not have resigned just because of a major dust-up over one paper. However, in this case, it may have been necessary because of the somewhat tenuous nature of this sort of publishing venture. Dr. Wagner does not explicitly state this in his resignation but he does make direct reference to the challenges of earning a good reputation in the scientific publishing field and the qualities of the two and a half year old journal.

In the end, the peer review processed worked because a paper clearly recognized as something that should not have been published has been rather spectacularly identified as such with this resignation, which is published in the very same journal in the form of an editorial. It could make sense to also withdraw the paper but it may be the case that there is no mechanism for this. And, this is the scientific literature after all. The paper is a testament to the efforts, worthy or not, of its authors. It should stay there amid the literature surrounding it, for posterity.

There is an explanation for why this paper was published that applies generally to all bad papers as well as to good papers. The peer review process is designed to meet several different objectives. Relevant to the present case are two of them: 1) Filtering out true drek -- A zoology journal would not even consider the latest summary of bigfoot sightings from the north woods, and a medical journal would not even consider a study comparing different ways to make healing solutions from homeopathic crystals; and 2) Ensuring the quality of the research itself, methodologically, logically, substantively, and so on with carefully done and thoughtfully managed peer critique.

The first objective is sometimes summarily met by editors who simply do not consider manuscripts that are inappropriate, or by reviewers to whom the manuscripts are sent. When one receives a manuscript there is the option to return it unreviewed or with a note that it is out of range for the publication being considered. (This step is often avoided by sending potential reviewers an abstract, asking if they would be able and available to conduct a review.) The second objective is met by having appropriate reviewers ... people who know the relevant specialty and literature very well ... carefully go over the paper and critique it, and along with the detailed critique, provide a recommendation about publication.

In this case, according to Dr. Wagner's resignation letter, three reviewers looked at the paper and had only minor criticisms. Given that this paper is deeply flawed, this means that either the reviewers did not really look closely at the paper (meaning, frankly, that they did not do their jobs) or they are also climate denialists and this was all some sort of conspiracy. I can think of no other alternatives to explain this pattern.

How likely is it that a given reviewer would simply glance at a paper, pretend to have read it carefully, and send back a poorly done review having ignored the details? This is not likely but I would guess that it does happen. What are the chances that three reviewers would do the same thing, by random chance? Very very unlikely, but it is also possible that all the oxygen molecules in a room could randomly migrate to one corner, suffocating everyone present. Well, OK, the latter is significantly more unlikely, but the chance of three poorly done reviews happening at once for a paper is not large.

If there happen to be three bogus reviews from slacker reviewers, one would expect the editor managing the paper to notice this. There would be signs. The editors read the papers and must have some idea of the quality of the reviewers' critiques when they come back.

However, there is another way that this could happen, if an editor is not really on top of the game, a way that reviewers (or some subset of them) end up providing an inappropriately positive ranking for a paper on purpose. The authors could have submitted the paper to an inappropriate journal but made a reasonable argument that the journal should publish it anyway. That leaves open the possibility of the authors writing their own ticket for passage through the peer review process.

Many journals allow, or even encourage, authors to submit names of potential reviewers. For that matter, authors can submit names of people who either should not review a paper, or if they do, should be watched closely by the editors because of potential bias against the authors. This is a reasonable and even necessary part of the peer review process because there are factions and there is infighting in science, and there are historical quibbles or institutional rivalries or other similar cultural phenomena that should not stand in the way of science, and need to be worked around by sensitive and thoughtful editors.

It is quite possible that this paper was submitted to a journal that wouldn't quite know how to handle it, along with "helpful" information of the kind that in other cases might have been, well, helpful, but in this case served to derail the normally earnest and honest process of peer review. That something like this happened was certainly on my mind when I first saw this paper in this journal. Since certain parts of the process of review are kept confidential (for good reasons) we may never know this. Ultimately, though, Dr. Wagner may have felt that the gate-keeping (in a good way) function of the editorial staff was inadequate, and thus his very powerfully symbolic resignation.

It is possible, I suppose, that the research in Spencer and Braswell's "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance", way down deep beneath the trickery, the bad methodology, and the scandalous politically motivated lack of scientific rigor has in iota of scientific merit. If so, this paper is on the table and available for examination, and the hypotheses embodied there could be further considered by climate scientists.

As you know, I've just started blogging at a second venue, called "The X Blog." I'm going to use this opportunity to put a list of links related to Wagner's resignation and the demise of Spencer and Braswell's credibility over there.

Sources:

Spencer, R., & Braswell, W. (2011). On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance Remote Sensing, 3 (8), 1603-1613 DOI: 10.3390/rs3081603

Wagner, Wolfgang. (2011). Taking Responsibility on Publishing the Controversial Paper "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance" by Spencer and Braswell. Remote Sensing 2011, 3, 2002-2004; doi:10.3390/rs3092002

gregladen Fri, 09/02/2011 - 14:53

Tags

Anthropogenic Global Warming

global warming

Climate and Weather

earth science

It's too bad this happens, because the people most likely to run off with the fake story are those who wish it to be true: Fundamentalist Christians (FC's). I know, I used to be one. And by practice, FC's deliberately maintain a closed community of contact, only looking to the outside for secular ideas (science) that support their beliefs (thus giving them a false perception that they are not closed off), then re-circulate the later-to-be-debunked story/finding among their faithful for years to come, and continue to block out any disconfirming information from the outside. So, like the prayer study, they will only talk about the original flawed study for years to come, and be ignorant of the scientific process that discovered the original story to be bunk and published that debunking article.

It is why FC's look ridiculous when years after being debunked, they are using those debunked stories or concepts thrown around their churches all those years that necessarily cut them off from the real world out here, to try and 'argue' with 'worldly' people. They then take the scoffing that necessarily occurs, and call it Christian persecution.

Greg,

All I want to know is if you have any evidence other than temperature proxies and GCM's to support your position. I've looked thru all sides of this issue and see no empirical evidence to support your warmist ideas.

Gordon Andelin

Gordon, are you asking if there is any evidence for global warming other than increased temperatures and the scientific measurement and modeling thereof?

Please don't insult yourself by evading the questions. Do you have empirical proof? If so, please provide it.

Gordon, the proof that temperatures have gone up is that ... well, temperatures have gone up. The proof that it is linked to CO2 is the basic well established science behind green house gasses and the straight forward measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere.

I'm wondering, if when you use terms like "proxy" you are trying to fool people wh don't know much about this stuff into not trusting basic scientific data. You do know, right, that when you read a thermometer nailed to a post outside y

... continued ... your home, you are reading a proxy of temperature?

Greg,

I see a few problems at work here:

1) This journal was marginal for this paper. They should have rejected it as inappropriate immediately.
2) Per the journal's policy Spencer had to provide a list of 5 potential reviewers. I think you could come up with a list of 5 potential reviewers (starting with Lindzen...) who would all look favorably on this paper.
3) Not being familiar with this particular debate reviewers who are specialists in the earth energy budget field (such as Trenberth). I think this was the hole that Spencer was trying to exploit.
4) Reviews come back generally positive and Spencer deals with the criticisms. Paper gets (rightly so, as Wagner says) the green light.

The caca hits the air movement device when:

1) UAH issues a presser overhyping the results.
2) Targeted press outlets overhype the results.
3) Scientists who are actually familiar with this specialty take the paper, rather convincingly, to task. Trenberth in particular was able to point to a 2007 paper which brought the results into question, the results of which were not addressed in the Spencer paper. (Fatal flaw).

Wagner seems to feel that he got taken for a ride by factors 1 and 2 in the in the first list and then was used by the authors for factors 1 and 2 in the second list. He was honorable enough to realize after reading the literature on this subject to realize that he had been taken for a ride. I suspect there is some backstory to this that we will never know having to do with MPDI management...

As far as for sale open access journals, take a look at Bentham Science. They recently published a rather gruesome exercise in curve fitting by Lohle and Scafetta and have developed quite a reputation for publishing anyone who will pay the page fees.

And as you well know there are some very good open access publishers, PLoS One and associated journals being a well regarded example, especially in biology.

Gordon, here's a good breakdown of temperature measurements:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermed…

The EPA's got a more elementary breakdown:

http://epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/slideshow.html?placeValuesBefor…

NASA's got a good list of reference papers:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page7.php

If those are not good enough. What would you accept as evidence?

Greg, love the blog. I saw this one single paper in my local conservative newspaper. Then I sought it make the rounds shortly after on every conceivable right-wing denialist outlet.

Imagine if every paper that confirmed the consensus on global warming got half the coverage?

That some open access publishers are sharks is clear. I get multiple invitations every month to be on the board of journals published by these sharks - they don't care whether I have relevant expertise or not. They require that members of the board submit to the journal at least once per year, and pay near $1k 'submission fee'. They publish rubbish (or in a few cases, nothing at all). But there are plenty of good open access journals (PLoS, for instance).

Yes, but do you have any other evidence besides the evidence you have??

Please don't insult yourself by evading the questions. Do you have empirical proof? If so, please provide it.

This post doesn't seem to be about fundamentals, it's about a sad story having to do with a journal that has been bamboozled. Did you notice?

Anyway, assuming you're not just trying to change the topic and divert discussion from the post topic, learn more about anthropogenic global warming by visiting Dr. Spencer Weart's comprehensive Discovery of Global Warming. It's on the web, a permanent feature of the American Institute of Physics: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

About a month ago you pointed out the paper and said quite prophetically that it was a bunch of crock.

While I agreed that your analysis was most likely correct, and being reasonably well versed in the subject matter, I decided to give it a read. Based on my recollection, I believe you overstate one point where you state:

"First, the conclusion that the Earth's atmosphere could not heat up with extra CO2"

My recollection is that the paper gave a pretty standard start with:

1. CO2 will heat up the Earth's atmosphere,

2. The amount of temperature rise will be based on the forcing by CO2 plus or minus the feedback loops.

(Feedbacks loops either increase the temperature by more than would be expected by C02 alone, or have a negative feedback below the expected value. (While mathematically possible to have a negative feedback strong enough to actually decrease the temperature, my opinion is such a result would be practically impossible in a system driven solely by CO2 forcing per Spencer, et al's, modeling.))

3. They then blamed clouds for lack of accuracy in satellite data (why do they always use the excuse of clouds?), come up with an LRC Circuit equivalent by adding in thermal mass, and come to the conclusion that their model fits the data better than the IRC without having to have a large climate sensitivity to C02.

So, in other words, I think you did not correctly analyze the paper's conclusion. I think a better phrasing would be that the paper concluded that more data and analysis is needed before it can be determined how much warming is caused by CO2 and how much is caused by environmental noise from clouds. (Basically BS, just kicking the ball down the field).

.................................

My own analysis was that I could find no internal flaws with the paper (which is probably the reason it got by the review board), but I did have some significant questions which the review board missed such as:

A. This is a pretty extraordinary claim for a pretty skimpy paper. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence). This journal is about remote sensing, but the paper is not about remote sensing, but instead about challenging the accuracy of remote sensing using environmental model, not data per se.

B. One would expect those boneheads at NSAA and the NOAA to program the satellites to parse through cloud problems. I mean clouds do give a different IR signature, don't they?

C. The system modeling used is pretty simple, wouldn't someone else have done it already and come up with these rather unusual results.

D. What, indeed, is the data that they're basing the paper on?

At this point my personal conclusion was that Spencer, et al, were probably crackpots. But not being an atmospheric scientist and being without access to how the satellites were programed, or the raw data itself, I decided to let someone.

........................

I'll give 10 points to anyone who can explain why this NASA Earth observatory picture of the day is so red on the west coast. The picture looks at long wave IR radiation -- the same type used by the Spencer, et al, paper. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=51848 It has been cold all summer. My kids keep trying to turn on the heat. The picture is quite interesting, but NASA's explanation is a little off.

Specifically, on the date in question July 22, 2011, I was in Santa Cruz, CA, which is on the north side of Monterey Bay, just south of the San Francisco Bay Area. There are a ton of Redwood trees in the area, i.e., lot'sa foliage. It was not a hot day.

Oh, here is a NASA picture for temperature for that week http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=51617 . Like I said, it has been cold.

But the climate gate emails showed the reality , they rigged the peer review , kept real science out , rigged the computer code and even stated its not about science it political It is impossible to predict chaotic theory with models which is what climate is , they did not even take into account the normal climate and it is also impossible to measure all the c02 in the oceans which is where most of it is stored , and not counting live volcanoes ? what a racket .

You spent too many words on a barely relevant matter. There is no reason to be pissed about a bad paper unless you are a reader of the journal it appeared in. The only purpose of peer review is to improve the signal-noise ratio for the reader, making a journal more useful. Peer review will never be perfect an deliminate all noise. And it does not have to. Our knowledge is not what has been published in scientific journals, our knowledge is what remains relevant. If the paper is as bad as you write it is, and I have no reason to doubt that, it cannot matter in the long run. What is your motivation for not simply ignoring something that must, to the best of your knowledge, remain irrelevant and become forgotten soon?

It's an interesting fact that if you graph CO2 level, temperature, human population, use of technology, travel, sea level, pollution from fossil fuels, and energy consumption, all these graphs will have lines that show an increase since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and several for the past fifty years will look like hockey sticks.

Coincidence? Not impossible, but rather unlikely.

Gordon Andelin:

I've looked thru all sides of this issue and see no empirical evidence to support your warmist ideas.

The empirical evidence is very plain: CO2, H2O and other gases absorb IR as empirically determined in the lab. Most of the exiting greenhouse effect comes from H2O and there is no reason to believe that will not continue as the CO2 increases.

I am not an atmospheric scientist either, but I will provide the information I received a few years ago in my liberal college (read, not fundamentalist Christian college), named the Ohio State University, that caused me to recognize, as a layman, why it seems more likely that Global Warming is occurring due to our CO2 levels.

It was a graph which I can't reproduce here, but it was based on polar ice core readings (pioneered by none other than an OSU researcher) which are demonstrably very good records of when and how intense CO2 levels were going back several hundreds of years. There is a rise and fall (cycle) of CO2 level throughout history which correlates exactly (on such a geographic scale) with the global temperature rises and drops being slightly delayed (again, on a geographical scale) behind CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

This goes on up until we get to the mid 1700's, when we start putting CO2 into the air with our industrial age, where at first a gradual introduction of extra CO2 slowly raises the temperature peaks along with it, and the drops are not as deep.

But then as we progress past 1900, the natural CO2 peaks and valleys stay the same, but human cause of CO2 begins to spike VERY high, where CO2 readings show the CO2 levels off-the-charts so to speak, spiking exponentially higher than they ever have in the past... and guess where the temperature bar is...?

On a upswing, exactly where ii should be if it is to follow suit with the CO2 levels and spike straight upward along with CO2 like it ALWAYS, 100% of the time, has in the past.

In other words, even if it is UNPROVEN, there is SUCH good reason to take it seriously and plan for it even if it turns out not to be true. The levels and related temperature projection is terrifying.\

But then as we progress past 1900, the natural CO2 peaks and valleys stay the same, but human cause of CO2 begins to spike VERY high, where CO2 readings show the CO2 levels off-the-charts so to speak, spiking exponentially higher in recent years than they ever have in the past... and guess where the temperature bar is...?

On an upswing, exactly where it should be if it is to follow suit with the CO2 levels and spike straight upward along with CO2 like it ALWAYS, 100% of the time, has in the past.

Remo, I don't agree at all. The paper may have a few words in the beginning that give some credit to the idea that the greenhouse effect is theoretically real but it then proceeds to make the case that what is thought to be warming is not, and to explain this.

Please go back to my original post and see why the claim is being made by me and others that the paper is wrong.

You spent too many words on a barely relevant matter. There is no reason to be pissed about a bad paper unless you are a reader of the journal it appeared in.

Then I'm OK, because I "read journals" ... all of them. Not every paper in every one, but journals, generally. Thefore I am a reader of the journal it appeared in. So therefore I have your permission to be pissed! Thank you very much.

Peer review will never be perfect an deliminate all noise. And it does not have to

That is true to some extent but there is a limit. Parents are supposed to reduce the noise of their children too, but we give them a lot of slack. Yet, there are limits even to that and occasionally parents do in fact, under social expectation and as part of normative behavior, walk out of the conference hall with the screaming toddler so that all the people who paid to see the talk can do so.

In this case, your concern that nothing happened here is firmly obviated by the actual resignation of an actual Editor-in-Chief. That weakens your claim that this is all normal and every day and of no consequence. Which, in turn, is the point of the words I spent on this matter.

I do admit the essay could be tightened up a bit but you are doing little more than producing a distraction here, I'm afraid. I wonder why.

it cannot matter in the long run. What is your motivation for not simply ignoring something that must, to the best of your knowledge, remain irrelevant and become forgotten soon?

My motivation is stated in the first sentence.

You are so typical. Nothing of what you just said is empirical proof of anything.

And you do get that you are the perfect denialist, right? You don't
like something, like "higher temperature is higher temperature" so you
stomp you feet and whine and cry and say "IS NOT IS NOT"???

You make me laugh. At you, not with you.

Laugh all you want. Your movement is dying on the vine. Phil Jones even said there has been no warming since 1995. Where have you been?

Phil Jones has made the claim that global warming is for real and warming is for real. Your statement about his "no aarming since 1995" is a very serious bit of misquoting and cherry picking. He was asked by a rather aggressive interviewer if he could show a statistical significance of temp. change over a certain five year (or so) period, and of course, you can't.

Think of it this way: If you measure your own body weight over a few weeks, will there be a statistically significant change over that time? Almost certainly not, ever, for most normal humans who don't get an amputation or something. However, do people grow much larger or much smaller over time, as they eat more or diet a lot or whatever? Yes.

Nice try, but you are once again quite wrong, Gorodn.

@Gordon Andelin | September 3, 2011 10:17 AM :

Laugh all you want. Your movement is dying on the vine. Phil Jones even said there has been no warming since 1995. Where have you been?

Please watch this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp-iB6jwjUc&list=PL029130BFDC78FA33&inde…

informative youtube video or read this :

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Phil-Jones-says-no-global-warming-since…

Also note from that site :

http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.h…

answers your original and repeated demand - and plenty of other evidence is all around if you do a few minutes research.

Gronod sounds like another "citizen auditor" suffering from DK syndrome.

The problem is, as usual, not that there's insufficient empirical evidence to prove that global warming is happening -- it most assuredly is happening, and there most assuredly is abundant evidence, itemized in the lists @25. The problem is we're dealing with people who not only move the goalposts for convincing them that the science is the science and that the temperature is the temperature -- they don't even have goalposts at all. They've disassembled their goalposts and no amount of perfect field kicks will ever score. They've decided it's not happening, and they'll keep screaming "there's no empirical evidence" even if we were to compile all the evidence in heavy binders and drop them one at a time on their heads.

Since it's grossly unlikely any denialist will actually click those links, I'll take the liberty of pasting a blockquote from the BBC interview with Phil Jones explaining the statistical significance problem of "no warming since 1995".

BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Phil Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Phil Jones: I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

Emphasis mine.

Iâm wondering, is there a Global Warming Awareness Day? I mean I know there is Earth day, but maybe something more specific to global warming? If not, I think we should make an attempt to organize one, and on that day spam all denialist boards with rebuttals to all 3 major âproofsâ they have against global warming (they are, if you donât know, climate-gate, last monthâs article that is refuted above, and Phil Joneâs quote that was misinterpreted). Iâve never seen a denialist argument that wasnât centered around at least one of the above, and right now we have undeniable evidence that refutes all of those (Michael Mannâs vindication, cloud-gate, and the real quote from Phil Jones). Itâll be much better to make a coordinated effort than to sporadically attack as a lone wolf and be driven away by shouts of âNO ITâS NOT. NO ITâS NOT.â

Mr. Andelin sounds like an evidence junkie.

The recommended response to the evidence junkie is to demand evidence for their own claims. So, Gordon: what evidence can you give us that you've "looked thru all sides of this issue"?

and don't forget, the THREE satellites that could have showed the complete evidence for atmosphere warming have all failed on launch. at least 2 of them were by ULA, and had identical skirt/fairing failures. the other one out of Vandenburg,with a questionable check out failure.

another one going up next month. lets see if it gets to orbit.

there have been some questions.....

To me, the most curious thing about denying that the Earth's atmosphere could not or did not heat up from *extra* CO2 is that concept being incongruous with the basic idea that there is known to be a basic "greenhouse effect" of a planet's surface being warmer due to an atmosphere than if it had none - and experimentally verified, true? Most people don't realize that technically, the "greenhouse effect" means that basic effect, rather than *mean* a specific claim of how much more or what response curve and possible feedbacks, randomness etc. affect final result of given state and/or changes.

Furthermore, if you realize that if there were no CO2 at all the atmosphere would have to be cooler, then there has to be some baseline response curve (like the generally accepted logarithmic curve of X degrees C per doubling.) The only question is, "how much" and how in combination with other effects (forcing factor etc.)

Finally, radiative balance is not the same issue as whether the Earth is getting warmer on average over a long time scale. Indeed, a warmer or colder planet "in radiative balance" would stay the same temperature, it's not the same issue as "change." If the Earth radiated less or more than it received in any significant way, the temperature change would be dramatic and more defined over time. I don't think you'd expect to see radiation budget changes well enough to account for a few tenths of degree C average per decade, true? So the premise of the paper is basically misframed, correct?

The paper does not seem to have been retracted.

As I understand things, the usual scenario when things go badly wrong with a paper submission, the paper gets retracted. Only after the retraction, or simultaneously with that retraction are there any resignations. This does not seem to be the chain of events here.

How often does this sequence happen?

TMLutas, I'm pretty sure that is not true. First, retractions are usually done by authors or with the author's involvement. Second, I can't think of an editor resigning because of such a retraction though I may simply be remembering wrong.

Having an editor admit that a paper should not have been published is rare but it happens: Usually related to creationism or denialism of some kind, as is the case here. Again, resignation of the editor is fairly rare. Do you know of any cases?

I'm sure the authors do not want to retract this paper. And, they will write similar papers in the future and try to get them published.

Gordon Andelin:

Nothing of what you just said is empirical proof of anything.

Since you deny the emprically observed absorption of IR by CO2, first measured by John Tyndall 150 years ago and re-measured many times since, the only logical name for your behaviour is science denialist.

Phil Jones has, of course, updated his comment with regard to the statistical significance of the current warming :

"The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn't significant at the standard 95% level that people use," Professor Jones told BBC News.

"Basically what's changed is one more year [of data]. That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years - and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years.

"It just shows the difficulty of achieving significance with a short time series, and that's why longer series - 20 or 30 years - would be a much better way of estimating trends and getting significance on a consistent basis."

But those who misunderstood/misquoted/misinterpreted/ the original quote will not be interested sadly.

Isn't there a way to just summarily respond to deniers bringing up the same ridiculous points over and over and over again. Perhaps just a brief link to one of the excellent stock answer sites? That or just ignore them?

Advice for dealing with deniers: Offer them a journey to the glaciers in Scandinavia / Alaska and let them see for themselves how much the glaciers have shrunk the last decades. Or let them see how much apine tundra that has been transformed into woodland in a short while.

How likely is it that a given reviewer would simply glance at a paper, pretend to have read it carefully, and send back a poorly done review having ignored the details? This is not likely but I would guess that it does happen.

Hahahahahahaha...Greg, I'm guessing that you haven't reviewed any papers for journals that send the reviews to the reviewers as well as the authors? Because many of the ones I review for do, so I've seen the results. And I can tell you that when you have three reviewers, the chances that one will give it a pass and completely very serious flaws is nearly 100%. One paper used different naming conventions in the captions of photos and the labels on the photos themselves, but the other reviewer didn't even notice that.

The chances of all three being so careless is obviously much lower, but throw in one or two who are recommended and therefore friendly, and their odds are dramatically improved. Some journals may only use two reviewers in the first place, so that makes it easier as well.

Midnight, we know for a fact that three reviewers were used, and we know what the summary sentence is for what each reviewer said, so we don't need any conjecture there.

The chance that any one reviewer actually liked the paper for valid reasons I set at zero because it is impossible. The chance that someone "passed" it because they never really looked at it is non zero, the chance that a reviewer "passed" it as part of a conspiracy is non zero. So, some combination off the two is likely.

Greg, I'm guessing that you haven't reviewed any papers for journals that send the reviews to the reviewers as well as the authors? Because many of the ones I review for do, so I've seen the results.

I've reviewed a lot of papers, but I've got to say, I'm not sure that I've seen that ever as part of the normal routine. That might have to do with the nature of the disciplines; these tings do vary across disciplines.

I have been asked to do special reviews a number of times where I get the reviews done previously and I'm supposed to help settle some question or convert, say, vitriolic reviews that are obviously biased or ad hom. but that include valid points, into something an author and editors can use (and add my own review). For this reason, it is possible that I've gotten copies of other reviews but that is not standing out in my memory.

By the way, FWIW, I don't think I've ever done a review where I did not uncloak myself to the extent allowed/possible. I think the ability to be anonymous is more important than actually being anonymous.

They should all be required to clime Mount Kilimanjaro during those periods when the mountain is "closed" because what is left of the glaciers are falling off the side of the mountains.

"Laugh all you want. Your movement is dying on the vine. Phil Jones even said there has been no warming since 1995. Where have you been?"

Gordon, if you were intellectually honest, you would at this point withdraw the claim that Phil Jones admitted there has been no warming after 1995 since Greg, Jason and StevoR have provided evidence debunking your claim. But I don't expect that you will.

Hasn't it been well established that deforestation in the lands surrounding Kilimanjaro is the cause of the ice cap retreat, not global warming? The temperature up there has not increased and remains well below freezing. The moisture that makes it up there is decreasing because of deforestation. So when are you planning your hiking trip, Greg?

Juice: perhaps the deicing of Mt. K is not from increased CO2 after all, but any general trend would be expected to have additional events including counter moves, coincidental changes for other causes, etc. BTW, the is less CO2 above a high mountain to absorb IR anyway.

They are melting in Peru (and Bolivia, and Columbia, and Ecuador, and Venezuela) also Juice - what are you going to cobble together in a lame attempt to explain that?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17113441/ns/us_news-environment/t/perus-mou…

Juice, no, not at all. I assume you are referring to Kaser et al 2004. There is a reasonable argument that reduced precip has reduced glacial size at Kilimanjaro (which may or may not be, in turn associated with deforestation...)

However, if there was such an effect, is was certainly only part of the effect, and the assertion that the reduced precip accounts for Kilimanjaro's glacial loss is probably not true.

The idea that it is "well established" is certainly not even close to the mark.

If you have data over the pertinent time scales (i.e. ca 1850 to the present ... because the Kilimanjaro argument links to a parallel Lake Victoria argument covering data going back to the mid 1800s) the I'd love to see it! (And a ride in your Tardis would be great too!)

If you are talking bout the troposphere at that level generally, then no, it has not cooled. For the period for which we have data there is a pronounced warming trend from 1960 to the present in the tropics. Which is what you would expect if warming was melting glaciers.

Greg, I was speaking generally because that's what it sounded like you were doing, rather than the specifics of how this paper was reviewed. FWIW, I'm an invertebrate biologist. Among the ones I know of, Molecular Ecology/ME Resources, Insect Systematics & Evolution, and the Journal of Morphology send out the decision letters (including editors' comments and all reviews) to the reviewers as well as authors; Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution and Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society don't.

morganism: "...there have been some questions...

What a novel concept: U-Pick conspiracy theories!

Hasn't it been well established that deforestation in the lands surrounding Kilimanjaro is the cause of the ice cap retreat, not global warming?

If you don't believe global warming is a problem, there is no reason to take seriously your feigned concerns over deforestation.

Hasn't it been well established that deforestation in the lands surrounding Kilimanjaro is the cause of the ice cap retreat, not global warming?

First, how, exactly, would deforestation cause an ice-cap retreat, except by contributing at least to regional if not global warming?

And second, how could global warming NOT cause ice-cap retreat?

Raging Bee:First, how, exactly, would deforestation cause an ice-cap retreat, except by contributing at least to regional if not global warming?

Deforestation (reginoally) can contribute to reduced rainfall. It might actually be the case that I was the first scientists to suggest this (in 1992) but my work was IGNORED!!!!

Anyway, reduced rainfall means that the grow-melt-grow-melt cycles of glaciers over the normal seasons would have less grow but the same amount of melt, thus decreasing their size. And that could happen, but it is not the reason for the melting of all of the tropical glaciers.

And second, how could global warming NOT cause ice-cap retreat?

While the lower atmosphere heats up, the upper atmosphere cools down. Thus, the idea that glaciers, stuck up high and all, would be in a place that does not warm up. However, the part of the upper atmosphere that cools down is not where these glaciers happen to be! So that idea is dead too.

Climate Change Update

gregladen — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:41:25 +0000

Climate Change Update

Relying heavily on the excellent resource known as Dr. Jeff Master's Wunderblog and a few other sources, I've compiled a quick list of a few of the highlights of weather events related to global warming in the news these days, in preparation for this weekend's radio show "The Science of Global Warming: Science V Denialsim" on Atheists Talk #126, with Kevin Zelnio and John Abraham.

Here goes:

In recent months we have experienced the largest fire on record in Arizona, the largest fire in the history of New Mexico, the most extreme precipitation in the US ever, the hottest day in hell aka the Texas Panhandle,

The most expensive severe storm period, in terms of insured losses in US history was the US Severe THundrstorm Outbreak of May 20-27th according to the insurance industry. If you pay home owners insurance in the US midlands, your insurance went up (or your coverage went down) over the last few years because of unprecedented damage due to storms over the previous decade. You can probably expect a similar or greater increase in insurance over the next couple of years as the insurance industry struggles to keep up (and maintain a high profit, of course). In one severe storm event (or series of events, really) 11,000 people were evacuated in North Dakota due to fooding. (See also this.)

the 6th warmest may on land and 11th by sea according to NOAA including the third lowest extent of Arctic Ice which appears to be in record retreat. Overall we have experienced, globally, the most exterme weather since the early 19th century. June was also extremely hot and stormy, and may have been the seventh warmest June on record.

Here's the NOAA summary for June:]

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for June 2011 was the seventh warmest on record at 16.08°C (60.94°F), which is 0.58°C (1.04°F) above the 20^th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F).

June 2011 was the 316^th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20^th century average. The last month with below-average temperature was February 1985.

The June worldwide average land surface temperature was 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.3°C (55.9°F)—the fourth warmest on record.

The global average ocean surface temperature was the 10^th warmest June on record, at 0.47°C (0.85°F) above average. Neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions were present during June 2011. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, these ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue into the Northern Hemisphere fall 2011.

The first half of 2011 (January–June) was the 11^th warmest on record for the combined global land and ocean surface temperature. Separately, the worldwide average ocean temperature was also the 11^th warmest January–June and the worldwide average land temperature was the 12^th warmest such period.

Multiple Hollywood epic film size sandstorms engulfed Phoenix and some are now predicting that this sort of massive sandstorm will become more common in the future. Famine in Somalia. Deadly US heat wave. And look at this. This is just the records set on July 22nd!

gregladen Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:41

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Anthropogenic Global Warming

climate change

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global warming

No offense, but you might want to hold off on speculation about dust storms in Phoenix becoming 'more common'. As a 16 year resident of the area, these things happen EVERY summer, an ordinary result of the basic dry conditions combined with summer thunderstorms having the same old huge downdrafts of cold air that stir up all the dust. You'd know that if you lived here. They are literally common right now and have been going back for probably as long as this dry place has had summer thunderstorms.....

I suppose there may have been less of them in pre-industrial days when cars and tractors weren't disturbing the ground. But that of course doesn't have a thing to do with climate change.

GISS temperatures are below Hansen's 1988 Scenario C - which was zero emissions after the year 2000.

New Mexico had larger fires in the 1890s. I used to be a forest ranger in the Santa Fe National Forest.

No hurricanes have made landfall in the US for over 1,000 days.

Severe tornadoes have been on the decline for 60 years.

Calm down.

More common as in how many of them happen per year.

@Steven Goddard

GISS temperatures are below Hansen's 1988 Scenario C - which was zero emissions after the year 2000.

Leaving off the little detail that Hansen's work assumed a climate sensitivity of 4.2Â°C/2xCO2 which has been known to be almost certainly high for quite some time. If you substitute the more current best estimate of 3Â°C/2xCO2 you end up with Scenario B, (which is basically what happened), slightly underestimating current temperatures.

Do try to catch up on the last quarter century of research.

RC: You'd know that if you lived here.

I did that.

Anyway, you must have been out of town because the July 5th duststorm was not a run of the mill event that happens a few times every summer.

"Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at Weather Underground, notes that this storm had a higher amount of dust than usual for such storms, and says the amount of dust the storm carried could be attributed to the severe drought conditions the region has been experiencing. ... Climate Central draws a link between the latest storm and climate change. It reports that scientists have predicted that rainfall will become increasingly scarce in the southwestern U.S. in the coming years. As a result, droughts will become more frequent in this region. So when the summer monsoon thunderstorms occur, they can whip up large amounts of dust off the dry ground, which would cause dust storms like the one seen on Tuesday."

source: http://www.peoplesworld.org/huge-phoenix-dust-storm-tied-to-climate-cha…

I suppose there may have been less of them in pre-industrial days when cars and tractors weren't disturbing the ground.

That is probably a factor.

But that of course doesn't have a thing to do with climate change.

Well, ironically, it does in interesting and complex ways. On one had you have the use of fuel that our expanding and increasingly industrialized population entails. On the other hand, maybe some of that dust will reduce insolation and thus mitigate slightly against climat change.

For those just tuning in, Steven Goddard (2) is a well known climate change denialist, expert cherry picker of data, teller of untruths and all round drone. And a neocon right wing fascist yahoo.

(accusation of ad hominem attack in 3 .. 2 ... 1 ...)

How dare you make such a vicious personal attack on Steven Goddard, calling him a neocon right wing fascist. He may be a climate change denialist, an expert cherry picker of data, a teller of untruths, an all round drone, and a neocon right wing fascist, but he is *not* a porn star.

Well, the value of his comments had already been dealt with so I figured I'd go for the juglar. He likes it.

All these predictions are based on models constructed from satellite data, which have only been available in the second half of the last century. prior to this the data was too crude and the tools to crunch the data and accurately model the climate were not available. As such all it does is highlight the short term noise that we are seeing now. Granted this may very well be a precursor to a warmer world and yes we are now in the anthropocene epoch.

I am totally mystified as to why people obsess over the symptom and not the disease. By the end of the century there will be 14 billion people on the planet and regardless of anything that may be put in place, without tackling the population question there is no hope at all that the rate of increase in CO2 can be tackled, let alone reduced. By that time we will have had total collapse of wild fish stock and most large iconic wild mammals will either be extinct of threatened with extinction. There will be no wilderness areas anywhere only remnant pockets that cannot maintain genetically healthy populations. Farmland will be at the maximum extent and degradation will be the name of the game. Your descendants will have miserable lifestyles breathing polluted air in over crowded cities and the nation they live in may be in perpetual war for simple thing like clean water or arable land.

Greg it would be nice if you could just once stand in a higher place and see the forest instead of wandering around the forest floor seeing nothing but tree trunks. You have considerable talents which are going to waste chasing red herrings.

For the record I believe the evidence points to the fact that we are indeed in the anthropocence. I just wish we could acknowledge what the real problem is.

I would imagine that the first temps that I present will be called cherry picking but they are still what the temperature was on these days:
Here are some weather records for high temperatures for Billings, MT and note the dates of these records: Jan., 75.0*F(01/18/1897), April, 92.0*F(04/25/1910), May, 99.0*F(05/16/1901), July, 112.0*F(07/31/1901), Dec., 75.0*F(12/30/1896),

What follows are world record high temperatures: World (Africa) El Azizia, Libya; Sept. 13, 1922, (136F):
North America (U.S.), Death Valley, Calif.; July 10, 1913 (134F);
Asia; Tirat Tsvi, Israel, June 21, 1942, (129F):
Australia ,Cloncurry, Queensland; Jan. 16, 1889 (128F):
Europe, Seville, Spain,Aug. 4, 1881 (122F):
South America, Rivadavia, Argentina; Dec. 11, 1905 (120F):
Canada,Midale and Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan, Canada; July 5, 1937 (113F):
Oceania;Tuguegarao, Philippines, April 29, 1912 (108F):
Persian Gulf (sea-surface): Aug. 5, 1924 (96F):
Antarctica; Vanda Station, Scott Coast, Jan. 5, 1974 (59F):
South Pole, Dec. 27, 1978, (7.5F).
Highest average annual mean temperature (world): Dallol, Ethiopia (Oct. 1960 Dec. 1966), 94Â° F.
Longest hot spell (world): Marble Bar, W. Australia, 100Â° F (or above) for 162 consecutive days, Oct. 30, 1923 to Apr. 7, 1924. Notice anything regarding the dates of these records? Anyone heard of the dust bowl & wasn't that in the 30s
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001375.html

The thing that I wonder about regarding these listed world record high temperature is, if the earth is in the clutches if this devastating anthropogenic global warming that is because of CO2, then why don't the records confirm that and show recent temperatures to be in excess of these all time high records? I do not contest that perhaps the earth is warming and has since the last ice age, other than the times when there were little ice ages. The thing I find totally unbelievable is that man is the cause of this warming. It has been far warmer in the past, such as the medieval warm period that Mann and Gore felt comfortable to disregard and not show on their; therefore false, hockey stick graph. There was little burning of fossil fuels during that time, so how can man now be the cause of this warming?

Just how sure are you of your "Facts" if you are an alarmist? "The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. " Is it of interest who reported this? the IPCC, the Meteorological Office.... No, that was the US Weather Bureau in 1922."
"...to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigtsen, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1915, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that to-day the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same region of 1865 to 1917. Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and that the favorable ice conditions will continue." (They say favorable ice conditions because Norway mines coal in the arctic, I think it is the most northern mine in the world; therefore, they observed conditions on a continual basis.)

That is not true. Climate science makes extensive use of a long record of proxyindicators that could not fairly be described as crude.

By the end of the century there will be 14 billion people on the planet and regardless of anything that may be put in place, without tackling the population question there is no hope at all that the rate of increase in CO2 can be tackled, let alone reduced.

Not addressing fossil CO2 release and related issues because there is arguably a bigger problem is not a good idea. But yes, that is a problem.

Also: What would you ask an expert on climate change?

John: Just how sure are you of your "Facts" if you are an alarmist?

I think you have your causal arrow going int he wrong direction, denialist.

Is it of interest who reported this? the IPCC, the Meteorological Office.... No, that was the US Weather Bureau in 1922."

Are you actually trying to make the claim that CO2 release is something only relevant to the last decade or so?

I think by now most people can recognize cherry picking when they see it. Plus the double standard of suggesting that an excellent and developing proxy record is no good if it suggests AGW, but anecdotal crap you pulled out of your hind quarters is evidence of something you want everyone to accept.

(or are delurked lurker and john swallow not in agreement?)

Greg; do you think that what follows may have something to do with your hero, James Hansen and his flawed information. As I have mentioned before; according to the Buddhist, "a half truth is a whole lie"

Rural US Sites Show No Temperature Increase Since 1900
Using data downloaded from NASA GISS and picking rural sites near, but not too near, to urban sites, a comparison has been made of the temperature trend over time of the rural sites compared to those of the urban sites.Â 28 pairs of sites across the U.S. were compared.Â The paired rural site is from 31 to 91 km from the urban site in each pair.Â The result is that urban and rural sites were similar in 1900, with the urban sites slightly higher.Â The urban sites have shown an increase in temperatures since then.Â The rural sites show no such temperature increase and appear to be generally unchanging with only ups and downs localized in time.Â Over a 111 year time span, the urban sites temperatures have risen to be about 1.5C warmer than the rural sites.Â So, the much touted rising temperatures in the U.S. are due to the urban heat island effect and not due to a global warming such as has been proposed to be caused by human emissions of CO2 due to the combustion of fossil fuels.

John, why would you imagine that your cherry picked data would be called cherry picked data, when you can have the real thing. Here, like this:

YOUR DATA ARE CHERRY PICKED YOU HAVE NOT CRIDIBLITIEZ!!!!

There now you can save your imagination for something else!

"North America (U.S.), Death Valley, Calif.; July 10, 1913 (134F)"

While widely reported as the North American record high, 134 is apparently a bad number. It's inconsistent with other regional stations for that date. It was a hot day, but not that hot. Someone may have left the thermometer out in the sun, misread it, wrote the number down wrong or something. IIRC something around 125-128 has been estimated as closer to what reality probably was.

I know nothing about the other numbers quoted, but do wonder if they've been checked.

greg@10

You said

"That is not true. Climate science makes extensive use of a long record of proxyindicators that could not fairly be described as crude."

interesting, I think your interpretation is that I was implying that the science of climate study is crude. Far from it but you can see the difference between data from rudimentary analog instruments sources dating from the decade before the 1960's as well as data from tree rings, ice and sediment cores and to the quality satellite data we have today. The models are weighted to the recent data because the recent data is accurate. Hence my caution in placing that much emphasis on what maybe short term noise.

Not paying ANY attention to the real problem and pouring all your energies is addressing symptoms seems illogical to me.

Delurked lurker: You present a great observation and make a very valid recommendation to this totally out of touch individual, Greg Laden, when you say this: "Greg it would be nice if you could just once stand in a higher place and see the forest instead of wandering around the forest floor seeing nothing but tree trunks. You have considerable talents which are going to waste chasing red herrings." This is what Greg thinks and his writing show his intellectual immaturity regarding this subject.

"If you are a blogger and they comment on your blog, you need not be intimidated by screechy references to the "First Amendment" ... just delete their blaterhing or change their links to point to the web site of the Spam Museum, a major Minnesota Attraction. Or whatever.

When you look upon a global warming denialist, you are not seeing a person who is deluded, wrong, misinformed, or misguided. You are seeing a person who is intent on killing your grandchildren. You may want to treat them politely, you may want to be a dick to them. Do whatever works. But don't let them think for a second that you do not know what the consequences of their actions are. Don't let them get away with it." http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/06/why_is_anthropogenic_global_w…

Please don't make the mistake of lumping me in with the Monckton crowd. I know all the arguments for and against and there is no doubt, we are living through one of the greatest extinction events seen on this planet. Its caused by us. Billions and billions of us. every year another 75 to 80 million added. 4 extra mouths to feed every second. 4 extra efficient CO2 emitters every second. It gets worse decade by decade and every time we hit a limit we do what we do best and apply science to the problem and pass that limit. It solves nothing it just buys some time. Without doing anything about the real problem you are depriving our descendants any hope of living a life better than ours. I find that very sad.

I have a tiny carbon footprint that I am justly proud of. It easy to do and these days it saves you lots of money. So not only do I reap the benefits, the environment is better for it.

My $0.02 worth

Delurked lurker: One must look at the population question and realize that as a society prospers and advances its birth rate drops to the point that without immigration the numbers are unsustainable.(Even Greg should be able to verify this FACT with out having to revert to some obscene remark such as: "but anecdotal crap you pulled out of your hind quarters is evidence of something you want everyone to accept." If you firmly believe what I presented to be "anecdotal crap" you can look it up for your self at this site.
"The newspaper article was located in the Library of Congress archives by James Lockwood.
Here is the text of the Washington Post (Associated Press) article:")
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2472134/posts

There can be no argument that the reasons for the advancement of these nations is on the back of fossil fuels and their use to advance the populations of these nations beyond the level of mere survival to the fulfillment of their citizens full potential. Now we have some that do not possess the intellectual ability to connect the dots regarding this and instead want to lecture someone on the horrors of CO2. At .038% of the atmosphere and being one and one half times heavier that air, CO2 makes no difference as to what the climate does at all. The whole mission of these who think that they are elitist and so much wiser than the average proletariat is the control factor and they could care less about the environment, the earth in general and lastly the welfare of its human population.

Achrachno: You say correctly that "I know nothing about the other numbers quoted" so were you at Death Valley, Calif.; July 10, 1913 when someone, by some method, recorded this temperature of 134F? I assume that you imagine they just stuck a finger in the air and said that it really seems hot or some other nonsense that fits into your line of "reasoning".

John Douglas Swallow just cited an Associated Press article in the Washington Post by giving us a link via Free Republic. While the article itself might be interesting, I find it saves a lot of time when you dismiss freepers out of hand. They're nucking futs and they frequent a sinkhole of right-wing slime and abuse.

And if you think that was merely an ad hominem, it was actually based on years of observation. Free Republic. WorldNetDaily. NewsMax.com. All are pure propaganda mills. Point and laugh.

Greg: In March of 2010 I did the Annapurna circuit trek that takes one over the highest trekking pass in the world, Thorung La Pass, that is 17,769' high at its summit. I know from this experience that at this elevation there is approximately 50% of the O2 that is available at sea level. It is a FACT that the atmosphere is made up of 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, (99.03% of the atmosphere is made up of these two gases). I also know from my experience flying airplanes in WY, MT. and AK. that there is a very real thing called density altitude and there has been more than once when I would not take off from the Dubois, WY airport that is over 7,000' because I wanted to live to fly another day. Another thing from my flying experience that I well recall is being able to detect hypoxemia brought about by having a low O2 blood level and generally one could only remain above 12,000' without O2 for 1/2 hr., according to FAA rules. The percentage of oxygen in the air is always 21 percent no matter how high you go and we would assume that for CO2 it would be .038%, but itâs 21 percent or .038% of a smaller total air pressure. At sea level the partial pressure of oxygen is 21 percent of 760 torr, while at 10,000 feet it is 21 percent of only 199 torr. (torr definition is: Unit of pressure equal to 1/760th of an atmosphere or 133.32 pascals. Named after the Italian scientist Evangelista Torricelli (1609-47), the inventor of mercury barometer.)

Now another FACT for you to consider. CO2 is one and one half times heavier than "air". This point was sadly proven on Aug, 21, 1986 when Lake Nyor in Cameroon released about 1.6 million tons of CO2 that spilled over the lip of the lake and down into a valley and killed 1,700 people within 16 miles of the lake. "Carbon dioxide, being about 1.5 times as dense as air, caused the cloud to "hug" the ground and descend down the valleys where various villages were located. The mass was about 50 metres (164Â ft) thick and it travelled downward at a rate of 20â50 kilometres (12â31 mi) per hour. For roughly 23 kilometres (14Â mi) the cloud remained condensed and dangerous, suffocating many of the people sleeping in Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos

Greg, this is no "anecdotal crap you pulled out of your hind quarters is evidence of something you want everyone to accept." but a FACT. So, now given these FACTS, please tell me how much of this natural gas that is essential for life as we know it on earth, CO2, that, as stated, makes up .038% of the atmosphere is at the altitudes you think it would be at to have any affect as a "green house" gas. Also please note that H2O constitutes what makes up 95% of what causes the green house effect on planet earth and when I was at close to 18,000 feet on Thorung La Pass there were clouds over head and another thing, I for sure didn't see any glaciers disappearing before my eyes but did witness some pretty impressive avalanches across the valley from Thorung Phedi that is 14,596 feet high and where we left from early in the morning to go over the Pass and then on into Muktinath where we spent the night and it makes for a long day for some one almost 70 years old but it was disappointing to see some of your liberal know it all types one half the age of my friend and I turn around and go back to Manang. If you think that this is "anecdotal crap you pulled out of your hind quarters is evidence of something you want everyone to accept." and since I have your email address I will send you photographic evidence of all of this so you can dream up some total bit of unadulterated BS about that also.

Zeno: You appear to be a total dud that is incapable of looking anything up on your own. Why don't you look at the actual site and cut the innuendos and other such crap? I wouldn't even take the time to point and laugh at someone such as you. Goethe had you in mind when he said this: 'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe
"The source report of the Washington Post article on changes in the arctic has been found in the Monthly Weather Review for November 1922. It is much more detailed than the Washington Post (Associated Press) article. It seems the AP heaviliy relied on the report from Norway Consulate George Ifft, which is shown below. See the original MWR article below and click the newsprint copy for a complete artice or see the link to the original PDF below:"
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/200389-Flashback-1922-Extra-Extra-Rea…-

Greg: "The atmosphere is divided into five layers. It is thickest near the surface and thins out with height until it eventually merges with space.
1. The troposphere is the first layer above the surface and contains half of the Earth's atmosphere. Weather occurs in this layer.
2. Many jet aircrafts fly in the stratosphere because it is very stable. Also, the ozone layer absorbs harmful rays from the Sun.
3. Meteors or rock fragments burn up in the mesosphere.
4. The thermosphere is a layer with auroras. It is also where the space shuttle orbits.
5. The atmosphere merges into space in the extremely thin exosphere. This is the upper limit of our atmosphere."
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/layers_activity_print…>

The question that I now present to you, in addition to the one regarding just how much of this trace gas, CO2, that I hope you agree makes up a scant .038% of the earth's atmosphere and that is 1&1/2 times heavier than air is present at different layers in the earth's atmosphere and at what layers is it a "principle green house gas" when we know that water vapor, at .4% of the atmosphere causes 95% of what is known as the green house effect? I am sure that you realize the atmosphere is made up of 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, (99.03% of the atmosphere is made up of these two gases) .93% argon and .0001% neon, helium and krypton for constant components and .4% water vapor that constitutes 95% of what cause the green house effect and we had best not forget CO2 at .038% and the rest is made up of trace gases such as CH4,SO2,03 and NO, and NO2. These trace gases are very important, H2O being the most important because it contributes 95% to the green house effect, and with out these gases the surface of the earth would too cool/cold to support life as we know it. I hope that these FACTS have been established and that you will not come back with your "anecdotal crap" reply.

Now I present you with another set of FACTS for you to ponder and try to come back with your ignorant "anecdotal crap" reply.
There are some obsessed with the supposed increase of 280 ppm to 392ppm of CO2 and I know that you are among their numbers. I hope that this information will help you to sleep better at nights. This, I hope, will put this into some kind of a perspective that makes one understand just how insignificant this increase is.

A part per million is like 1 drop of ink in a large
kitchen sink.
A large kitchen sink is about 13-14 gallons. There
are 100 drops in one teaspoon, and 768 teaspoons
per gallon.
Some other things that are one part per million areâ¦
One drop in the fuel tank of a mid-sized car
One inch in 16 miles
About one minute in two years
One car in a line of bumper-to-bumper traffic from
Cleveland to San Francisco.
One penny in $10,000.
I know that you understand that these 112 additional ppm are spread out over this 16 miles in different one inch segments and wouldn't it be a task to be told to sort out the 392 pennies from the number that it would take to make up $10,000.
At 392 parts per million, CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished. Please explain how this CO2 is going to act like a pane of glass in a green house when, as the various spheres that compose the earth's atmosphere increase in altitude, they obviously increase in area and when was the last time you were able to "trap" anything using a gas?

Now to present a motive for the actions of you and like minded folks:
"Warmists 'Want To Control Every Aspect Of Your Life': 'What you eat, what you drive, where you drive, what you believe, what you say, what you can own, how many children you can have...'
'how much you can travel, how much money you have, what your kids are taught, how big your house is, the temperature of your house, how your house is heated, how far you live from your work, what kind of light bulbs and other appliances you have ......... Global warmers make Lenin's Bolsheviks look like libertarians. In Soviet Russia, polar bears eat Bolsheviks'"

"The urban sites have shown an increase in temperatures since then. The rural sites show no such temperature increase and appear to be generally unchanging with only ups and downs localized in time."
Only an urban dweller would believe this. For those in the northern countryside, the horticultural scale of zones where you can grow things, has pushed most places warmer by a notch. The growing season is now longer by a week or so.

@JDSwallow 24- "Now to present a motive..." . That's were you've tipped your hand sir and finally stated your bias (read, political). According to you, scientists working in the field and laboratories around the world (and who know what they're doing), as well as people who just give a damn about the environment and the future, such as myself... we're all just part of a world-wide Bolshevik conspiracy out to "control every aspect of your life"?
Really, now?
Sorry, I have no desire to "control" anybody's lifestyle. I do appreciate the work of scientists, like Greg, who point out that our energy consumption and CO2, (etc...) pollution has gone out of control and does affect our environment (read, our children's future). I realize I have an obligation to do my part, however small that is. If that means I don't buy certain energy wasting light bulbs... then so be it.
I must be a Bolshevik! I hear that green is the 'new red' in political fashion circles. Where do I sign up?

John Douglas Swallow(s the bullshit that Fox News tells him to) @ 24:

At 392 parts per million, CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present.

Ergo, at a few ppm, carbon dioxide cannot cause any changes.

Johnny boy, try this experiment: Obtain a very small amount of Ethyl ({2-[bis(propan-2-yl)amino]ethyl}sulfanyl)(methyl)phosphinate. Just a tiny amount, say, 5 micrograms for every kilogram of your body weight.

This would be about 5 parts per billion.

Get someone to watch while you place this ignorably miniscule amount on your hand, and have them report back to us on the results, 'K?

See, just because you are impressed with number juggling doesn't mean those of us who actually understand the numbers have to be impressed too.

ACH "While widely reported as the North American record high, 134 is apparently a bad number. It's inconsistent with other regional stations for that date. It was a hot day, but not that hot. Someone may have left the thermometer out in the sun, misread it, wrote the number down wrong or something. IIRC something around 125-128 has been estimated as closer to what reality probably was."

SWALL "so were you at Death Valley, Calif.; July 10, 1913 when someone, by some method, recorded this temperature of 134F? I assume that you imagine they just stuck a finger in the air and said that it really seems hot or some other nonsense that fits into your line of "reasoning".

It appears that my one little observation has undermined a very rigid and uncomprehending world view. How else can I explain such an unhinged response?

Swall "At 392 parts per million, CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present."

NJ "Ergo, at a few ppm, carbon dioxide cannot cause any changes."

Along the same lines as your thought experiment NJ, I was thinking we should ask Swallow if he'd be willing to sit in a room with CO (that's carbon monoxide, Swall) at that "minor" concentration of 392 ppm.

Sailor: You state this; "For those in the northern countryside, the horticultural scale of zones where you can grow things, has pushed most places warmer by a notch. The growing season is now longer by a week or so." If this is true, is a bad thing? Do you think that soon the Danes will be raising wheat, milk cows and setting up farms complete with towns to support them in Greenland soon like the Vikings had in place during the Medieval Climate Optimum?

Achrachno: Why in the world would your distorted mind lead you to be wanting to browbeat me over this record temperature observed in 1913? I offered the site that this information came from; therefore, if you have an issue with this information, take it up with them.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001375.html

I also must remind you that the discussion is about the trace gas that occurs naturally and is essential for life on earth, CO2, and not CO and that point hits close to home because I had brother die from a faulty gas heater that produced CO but that of course was back when we still needed heaters in Wyoming before the banana trees started to grow, according to some fools with out a clue.

Hey Greg...what caused these severe weather events?

1903 : Hundreds Killed In Kansas City Flood

1908 Earthquake Killed 100,000 In Italy

1900 : Texas Hurricane Worse Than Don

1966 Italian Flood â Worst Since The Middle Ages

1937 : Floods Wreck Towns In Eleven States

1950 : Severe Floods In The Midwest

Are you gonna talk about 3 dead polar bears, scientific misconduct or that heat is escaping back into space at a much higher rate than the theory predicts? What would it take to convince YOU that global warming alarmism was had dramatically overstated the actual rate of warming? How is this theory falsifiable?

Zeno: I assume that if this information came from Move On, Media Matters, Wonkette or the Smirking Chimp, you would find it more to your liking but it would qualify as being a gag and puke exercise, because of all of the unsubstantiated garbage they produce for folks like you to digest and believe.

Having done much boating in S. E. Ak., I have great respect for what these sailors of the past accomplished. Keep in mind that Geo. Vancouver's ships were wind powered; therefore, he wasn't spewing out any diesel smoke to start this massive retreat of these glaciers. "The explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait, at the south end of Glacier Bay, choked with ice in 1794. Glacier Bay itself was almost entirely iced over. In 1879 naturalist John Muir found that the ice had retreated almost all the way up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier was at the head of Tarr Inlet about 100 km 65 miles from Glacier Bay's mouth. This is the fastest documented glacier retreat ever. Scientists are hoping to learn how glacial activity relates to climate changes and global warming from these retreating giants."

KnightBiologist: You can't be so naive as to not see the political motives that have surrounded this issue from the very beginning. That you may have no desire to "control" anybody's lifestyle doesn't mean that there are not those that would like to use this issue to do exactly that and it would also bring about great changes to how you conduct your affairs and some of them probably would not be to your liking. Go through what these people propose and see what you think:

âWe need to get some broad based support, to capture the publicâs imaginationâ¦ So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubtsâ¦ Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.â - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

âUnless we announce disasters no one will listen.â - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

âIt doesnât matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.â - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

âWeâve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.â - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

âNo matter if the science of global warming is all phonyâ¦ climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.â - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

âThe only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.â - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

âWe require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the publicâs desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary.â - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

âIsnât the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isnât it our responsiblity to bring that about?â - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (This is the same SOB that is partnered up with Al Gore, whose company, Generation Investment Management, which is now worth over $200 million. Strong spends most of his time in China, the worst polluter on the planet, (CO2 is not a pollutant but an essential ingredient for life on earth) & he is doing what he can to make this communist country the world's next superpower.)

âA massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.â - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

âThe only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We canât let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.â - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

âGlobal Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.â - Professor Maurice King

âComplex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.â - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

âThe prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.â - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

âGiving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.â - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

âThe big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.â â Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

âMy three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with itâs full complement of species, returning throughout the world.â -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

âA total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.â - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

ââ¦ the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.â - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

âIf I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.â - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

âI suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.â - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

âThe extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.â - Christopher Manes, Earth First!

âChildbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.â - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

As for myself, this is what I think about this issue of anthropogenic global warming, or is it now, since warming isn't happening, known as climate change? But then when hasn't the climate been changing or one could go kill some poor old wholly mammoth for sport like some idiots still kill elephants, for sport?

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley [Al says that the debate is over, how ludicrous]

As the sainted Mencken once quipped, "I love liberty and I hate fraud."

NJ: How interesting that you can attempt to use my name to be used for some childish sort of insinuation as to where I get my information. I, unlike you, at least get some information regarding this issue from many sources and I hate to burst your CO2 bubble but Fox News is not one of them, since I live in Thailand. Speaking of Thailand, be aware of this FACT:
"20 provinces in Thailand facing winter disaster
Submitted 1 day ago [12-19, 2010]
The Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation on Sunday declared winter disaster zone in northern and northeastern 20 provinces in Thailand.
Director-General of the Department Viboon Sanguanpong said people in 10 northern provinces as well as another 10 provinces in northeastern part are currently suffering from harsh winter.
The temperature in those 20 provinces has been lower than eight degree Celsius.
According to the Director-General, a special relief center has been set up following an instruction from Interior Ministry and winter stricken provinces will be primarily granted one million baht (33,168 U.S. dollars) for initial mitigation."

Why don't you use your own name and not hide behind a phony two letter identity like NJ?

Achrachno: Here is another site that you can set straight on your "Not the Hottest Day On Record" crusade.
This a good site to find records and I could care less if you believe them or not. Make up some of your own that suit you better.
"Warmest Days in US History: 134 F. Recorded at the Greenland Ranch in Death Valley on July 10, 1913. For a time, this also was the warmest recorded temperature in World History. It was surpassed less than ten years later, however, when a temperature of 136 was recorded in the Sahara Desert at Al Azizia, Libya, on Sept. 13, 1922."
http://www.epicdisasters.com/index.php/site/comments/coldest_and_warmes…

Here is one for you to ponder; but, I notice that when Greg mentions HOT events, then that is a sign of Climate Change use to be known as anthropogenic global warming until the warming stopped in 1998, but when it is COLD events it is always just a weather thing. Floods and fires, famines in Somalia have more to do with the horrible Islamic caused break down of all social functions, and I've even heard that the earth quakes are caused by this climate change brought about by CO2, If you believe all of this, you are not too bright.
30th December 2010
"BRITAINâS winter is the coldest since 1683 and close to being the chilliest in nearly 1,000 years.
Latest figures reveal that the average temperature since December 1 has been a perishing -1C.
That makes it the second coldest since records began in 1659.
The chilliest on record was 1683/84, when the average was -1.17C and the River Thames froze over for two months."
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/169577/Winter-may-be-coldest-in-10…

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/the_last_word_on_global_warmi…

"...you must have been out of town because the July 5th duststorm was not a run of the mill event that happens a few times every summer..."

Afraid not on that point. I was right in the center of it. I also was in two dust storms that preceded the July 5 one by several weeks, and in the one that came a week after it. Those other dust storms were the typical sandy gritty types with other bits of debris in them. The July 5 one had the unique quality of carrying the finest powder I've ever personally seen, which is why it looked so impressive along with its aftermath. My apartment complex looked like a nuclear holocaust nightmare the morning after.

The hitch here concerns Masters saying "...the amount of dust the storm carried could be attributed to the severe drought conditions the region has been experiencing..." If that kind of fine powder was NOT seen in the others, or even the one that occurred just last night, then how is the July 5 one any direct indication of the severe drought? Couldn't it instead be that a highly unusual source of extra powdery dust was simply picked up in the south Chandler/Gilbert area? I believe our rainfall last year was at normal, and I heard we are right now only less than an inch off normal accumulation.

"...More common as in how many of them happen per year...."

One more bit to add, for those not living in the area: I may have been too subtle about it in my post at the very top, but these dust storms do NOT blow out of a clear blue sky. They are entirely the result of the thunderstorm downdrafts I mentioned. Yes, we do have dusty winds here at other times of the year, but always within sight of the 'epic' dust clouds discussed here are huge thunderstorms, either in the process of dying out or getting bigger. Immediately following the dust storm I was in two days ago at the east of the valley was a 1/2" deluge of rain.

In this case, I don't see how we can have have predictions of worsening drought brought on by global warming, and increasing thunderstorm-caused dust storms. More dust storms like this = more water content in the air = increased likelihood of rain = more plantlife to retain the dust = ultimately less dust storms..... right?

The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming and it is more than 90% certain that humans are causing it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This opinion is shared by 97% of climate scientists. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists are among the biggest doubters, with only 47 and 64 percent respectively believing in human involvement. It stands to reason that Petroleum geologists may have a conflict of interest and meteorologists only look at short term weather conditions. Fossil-fuel companies like Exxon and Peabody Energy â which obviously have a business interest in slowing any attempt to reduce carbon emissions â have combined with traditionally conservative corporate groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and conservative foundations like the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, to raise doubts about the basic validity of what is, essentially, a settled scientific truth.
All of the American broadcast media, and most of the print media as well, are owned primarily by wealthy individuals. Direct ties to the biggest of big businesses are almost unbelievably extensive. Big tobacco companies used this same tactic of denial and claims of scientific uncertainty and they got away with it for decades. Isn't it time the American people woke up and realized the obvious. Log on to
http://greensentry.net/index.html and make your voice heard.

Religion has no place in our schools. That is why we do not allow prayer in school. If we did, who would choose which religious beliefs to teach. Teach what you want in your own place of worship. There is no need to tie Science with religion. Science is based on facts and religion is based on beliefs. The scientific community is 90% certain that the earth is warming due to man's burning of fossil fuels. 97% of climate scientists believe climate change is caused from the burning of fossil fuels. So does the International Panel on Climate change, NASA, U.S. Global Change Research Program, International Arctic Science Committee, American Association for the Advancement of Science and at least 32 national science academies around the world. Its time the propaganda spread by the fossil fuel industry is put to rest. We need to tell our elected officials to stop listening to corporate lobbyists and do the work of the people. Log onto http://greensentry.net/index.html to see how.

Sorry the above comment was for the climate change initiative blog.

Matt, what is your source for those numbers on "meteorologists" ... I'm pretty sure that is changing.

Greg:

I got this form a 2009 survey done by the University of Illinois. So the data is three years old. Here's the site http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/uoia-ssa011609.php . A 2010 survey was done with similar results.
The American Meteorological Society, however, does agree with
the rest of the scientific community on mans influence on climate change.