Posts with Comments by Nanonymous
Prediction markets
And Mann is still on the show.
Wow, wow, wow. This is truly amazing! It's almost like the man owns major journals. In 10 years, 10 papers in Science and 6 in Nature. This must be some sort of a record. Seems likely that, outside of fachionable biology, the number of labs with such record can be counted on one hand (if any exist!) Global warming certainly served Mann well.
And BBS writing about his latest paper as if it is totally unaware of that minor episode involving Mann is pretty unusual too.
Wow, wow, wow. This is truly amazing! It's almost like the man owns major journals. In 10 years, 10 papers in Science and 6 in Nature. This must be some sort of a record. Seems likely that, outside of fachionable biology, the number of labs with such record can be counted on one hand (if any exist!) Global warming certainly served Mann well.
And BBS writing about his latest paper as if it is totally unaware of that minor episode involving Mann is pretty unusual too.
John Emerson:
The single thing that has done most to convince me that GW (actually, global climate change) is a reality is the difficulty that the anti GW people have had in getting credible people to support them.
OK, let us start with *firmly* distinuishing between "global warming" and "anthropogenic global warming". I don't think anyone argues that 20th was seriously warmer than 19th. The argument is about what causes it and whether we can do or should anything about it - big difference.
Now, you are a reasonable and rational person. For some reason, though, the landscape of the squabbles around scientific subject convinces you *most* in where the scientific truth might lie... Hope this was just a hyperbole.
Now, (this should take you no more than five min), could you please look at the famous graph and tell me how it is, in your opinion, possible that the anthropogenic greenhouses release *caused the same rate of warming* in the first and the second halves of the last century? Don't you feel that what the graph says and what the GW "alarmists" say about it are very diffeent things? And if so, wouldn't you be at least a liitle suspicious of what alarmists say about other graphs and subjects? (Those that are not as obvious).
Also, re: credible people.
Say what you will, but McIntyre *is* a credible man. He may very well have an agenda and it is easy to imagine that he behaves the same as his opponents - yes. But he is serious and he does know his stuff! Time and time again, he has shown that he knows statistics way better and that he is a much more attentive researcher. That he is not an acedemic means absolutely nothing. Besides, there are more than a few academics that one can count to be in the "sceptics" camp. Plus, as you may imagine based on the HBD examples, with the money *and* political pressure flowing one way, what do unconvinced hapless Assistant Profs mostly do? Vocally oppose prevaling PC? Right...
Re: No, I was not joking about "nutrition sceince" (I prefer the term "dietology" because it describes better what these people do most). Most of the solid things that it knows come from good old biochemistry. And if you really delve in the literature, you will recognize that the connection from the basic things (e.g, "vitamin D is important") to the more complex thing with immediate practical implications ("one should have this much vitamin D in the blood for optimal health") is in most cases tenuous at best.
The single thing that has done most to convince me that GW (actually, global climate change) is a reality is the difficulty that the anti GW people have had in getting credible people to support them.
OK, let us start with *firmly* distinuishing between "global warming" and "anthropogenic global warming". I don't think anyone argues that 20th was seriously warmer than 19th. The argument is about what causes it and whether we can do or should anything about it - big difference.
Now, you are a reasonable and rational person. For some reason, though, the landscape of the squabbles around scientific subject convinces you *most* in where the scientific truth might lie... Hope this was just a hyperbole.
Now, (this should take you no more than five min), could you please look at the famous graph and tell me how it is, in your opinion, possible that the anthropogenic greenhouses release *caused the same rate of warming* in the first and the second halves of the last century? Don't you feel that what the graph says and what the GW "alarmists" say about it are very diffeent things? And if so, wouldn't you be at least a liitle suspicious of what alarmists say about other graphs and subjects? (Those that are not as obvious).
Also, re: credible people.
Say what you will, but McIntyre *is* a credible man. He may very well have an agenda and it is easy to imagine that he behaves the same as his opponents - yes. But he is serious and he does know his stuff! Time and time again, he has shown that he knows statistics way better and that he is a much more attentive researcher. That he is not an acedemic means absolutely nothing. Besides, there are more than a few academics that one can count to be in the "sceptics" camp. Plus, as you may imagine based on the HBD examples, with the money *and* political pressure flowing one way, what do unconvinced hapless Assistant Profs mostly do? Vocally oppose prevaling PC? Right...
Re: No, I was not joking about "nutrition sceince" (I prefer the term "dietology" because it describes better what these people do most). Most of the solid things that it knows come from good old biochemistry. And if you really delve in the literature, you will recognize that the connection from the basic things (e.g, "vitamin D is important") to the more complex thing with immediate practical implications ("one should have this much vitamin D in the blood for optimal health") is in most cases tenuous at best.
To liberalbiorealist: Re: Points #1-5.
Exactly!
To anyone sane and unbiased, it should be obvious that all of these are very, very uncertain at present. Which is not a fault of climatologists: The system is too complex, the good data is difficult to get and thus the questions are very hard to answer.
Take, for example, the simplest of them, #1. It makes perfect physical sense. Now let us take the most reliable - by far - historical temperature data we have:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
(and even here, for simplicity's sake, we must disregard complexities and uncertainties of local vs global!).
Now, it is clear that the temperature increase is almost the same for periods 1910-1945 and 1970-2005. But this simply *cannot be* if #1 is exactly right! (Because we know quite well the historical amounts of anthropogenic CO2 release.) To reconcile this graph (commonly used as one of the pieces of unequivocal evidence of human-made GW) with the claim #1, one absolutely must come up with additional, much less veryfiable, assumptions, qualifications or fugde factors.
The way I see it, climatology at present is something like dietology. Both are very soft sciences because their subjects are very hard. Both make very bold conclusions and predictions based on very limited and shaky data. Much of what dietology said in the past turned out to be wrong. No doubt, much of what dietology says now will also turn out to be wrong. Personally, I don't see why climatology should be any different. it probably isn't. (And the CRUHack only confirms that suspicion.)
There *is*, of course, one big difference:
Thanksfully, there is no international commission that just about convinced all major governments to drastically and urgently abandon the way we eat and live - radically changing world's economy in the process.
Exactly!
To anyone sane and unbiased, it should be obvious that all of these are very, very uncertain at present. Which is not a fault of climatologists: The system is too complex, the good data is difficult to get and thus the questions are very hard to answer.
Take, for example, the simplest of them, #1. It makes perfect physical sense. Now let us take the most reliable - by far - historical temperature data we have:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
(and even here, for simplicity's sake, we must disregard complexities and uncertainties of local vs global!).
Now, it is clear that the temperature increase is almost the same for periods 1910-1945 and 1970-2005. But this simply *cannot be* if #1 is exactly right! (Because we know quite well the historical amounts of anthropogenic CO2 release.) To reconcile this graph (commonly used as one of the pieces of unequivocal evidence of human-made GW) with the claim #1, one absolutely must come up with additional, much less veryfiable, assumptions, qualifications or fugde factors.
The way I see it, climatology at present is something like dietology. Both are very soft sciences because their subjects are very hard. Both make very bold conclusions and predictions based on very limited and shaky data. Much of what dietology said in the past turned out to be wrong. No doubt, much of what dietology says now will also turn out to be wrong. Personally, I don't see why climatology should be any different. it probably isn't. (And the CRUHack only confirms that suspicion.)
There *is*, of course, one big difference:
Thanksfully, there is no international commission that just about convinced all major governments to drastically and urgently abandon the way we eat and live - radically changing world's economy in the process.
No one believes genes affect personality
The reasoning "dramatically different personalities between brothers, then personality is genetic" could be logically true (or maybee not...), but it is much counter-intuitive.
Only to people with no understanding of basic biology (or in denial).
Only to people with no understanding of basic biology (or in denial).
Recession = less death?
Looks like large part of it can be explained by a five years phase offset.
g in a monkey?
Sounds like a research for the sake of publishing papers. So, individuals differ in complex traits? Really? That is quite a shocking discovery!
Does anyone need a study to find out that individuals differ in "athletic abilities"? And isn't it obvious that the broadly defined "athletic ability" has a lot in common with the "g"? (Both being crude compound factors that describe something we don't really have a firm idea of but that can be
derived as a parameter from statistical data).
Does anyone need a study to find out that individuals differ in "athletic abilities"? And isn't it obvious that the broadly defined "athletic ability" has a lot in common with the "g"? (Both being crude compound factors that describe something we don't really have a firm idea of but that can be
derived as a parameter from statistical data).
Another candidate gene association bites the dust
The wide-scale "replication" of variant-trait associations is predominantly due to publication bias rather than an indicator that these associations are genuine
Doubt it. Any study, no matter how mundane, involving humans is a major hassle and expense. As a consequence, there is a pressure to publish even "negative" results. And yes, there are tons of such papers published. That's also because psycho/medical community realizes an importance of such results - primarily because of the growing acceptance of the value of meta-analysis. Case in point: p-ter refers to meta-analysis to conclude that 5-HTT's association with depression is bogus. From the very definition of the meta-analysis - ergo, the publication bias is not a huge factor long-term!
Doubt it. Any study, no matter how mundane, involving humans is a major hassle and expense. As a consequence, there is a pressure to publish even "negative" results. And yes, there are tons of such papers published. That's also because psycho/medical community realizes an importance of such results - primarily because of the growing acceptance of the value of meta-analysis. Case in point: p-ter refers to meta-analysis to conclude that 5-HTT's association with depression is bogus. From the very definition of the meta-analysis - ergo, the publication bias is not a huge factor long-term!
the only reason anyone looked for association in MAOA to begin with is because it's compatible with known physiology and biochemistry and makes general sense. that's why it's a candidate gene.
No! The reasons it became a candidate gene are 1) Brunner syndrome, 2) transgenic mice.
yes, the psychiatric genetics community (or some subset therein) has the tendency to take a single popular polymorphism (the repeat upstream of the seratonin receptor, nonsynonymous changes in COMT, DRD4, etc.), and try to associate them with any and every phenotype you can imagine.
Yeah, they are taking an easy route and doing what's doable. Happens in "normal" science (and biology in particular) all the time. I understand why you are jaded but don't think it's a good enough reason to throw out the baby with wash water.
check out the list of things this single maoa polymorphism is supposed to affect
Well aware of that. Agree, some of that stuff may very well turn out to be crap but it's hard to see how all of it can be. After all, a single strong effect allele can have a zillion of weak effects to be detected at a near noise levels in many "small N" studies.
No! The reasons it became a candidate gene are 1) Brunner syndrome, 2) transgenic mice.
yes, the psychiatric genetics community (or some subset therein) has the tendency to take a single popular polymorphism (the repeat upstream of the seratonin receptor, nonsynonymous changes in COMT, DRD4, etc.), and try to associate them with any and every phenotype you can imagine.
Yeah, they are taking an easy route and doing what's doable. Happens in "normal" science (and biology in particular) all the time. I understand why you are jaded but don't think it's a good enough reason to throw out the baby with wash water.
check out the list of things this single maoa polymorphism is supposed to affect
Well aware of that. Agree, some of that stuff may very well turn out to be crap but it's hard to see how all of it can be. After all, a single strong effect allele can have a zillion of weak effects to be detected at a near noise levels in many "small N" studies.
not every gene that causes a monogenic disease also harbours common variation influencing phenotypes related to that disease.
Sure. But in the case of MAOA the literature is full of the evidence of association. And it is compatible with known physiology and biochemistry and makes general sense, too.
Sure. But in the case of MAOA the literature is full of the evidence of association. And it is compatible with known physiology and biochemistry and makes general sense, too.
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