Month: January 2010

Book of the Week: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

You guys know that I’m a sucker for this sort of thing: and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is written by the same guy who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!, so I’m doubly going to be down with that. Just the way it is.

And so a farewell to Tongues of Serpents.

Any excuse to put up a Feynman speech… #rsrh

…is a good one; but as commenter Skip notes here, this is a particularly good time to remind the universe of this particular speech.

But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school–we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Hey, that Richard Feynman guy was kind of smart, wasn’t he? Wonder how he would have reacted to the IPCC meltdown.

The headline some of you thought you’d never see. #rsrh

Mind you, I always thought that we would, although I guessed that it’d take about 20 months to show up, not 12.

“GOP to tie Obama to Dem candidates.”

Isn’t it pretty? More:

The challenge will be to link Democrats with the administration on such issues as spending, bailouts, healthcare and cap-and-trade while not personally attacking Obama, who remains personally well-liked even as his standing erodes. So, at least in purple states or districts, don’t expect to see an ad where the faces of Democratic candidates are morphed into that of the president—a time-honored approach from past campaigns.

But Republicans are unmistakably enthusiastic – and downright giddy in some cases – about the prospect of Democrats stumping with the president in their states, a vivid reminder about how starkly different the political landscape seems now than when Obama took office.

Thus, expect a lot of the President being lumped in with such… iconic… Democrats as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Murtha, and Al Franken (add your own favorite clown, crook, or creep, of course). Which suggests that there’s an interesting counter-move for this administration…

Moe Lane

IPCC science settles in transit. #rsrh

Oh, my aching head. Via Drudge:

UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

Well, maybe there was still actual science going on…

…one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

Or not.

Moe Lane

PS: Here’s a little secret about scientific consensus, folks: it assumes – it has to assume – that trusted users are not lying. Nobody can check everything, all the time, so eventually you have to rely on people not abusing the fact that they’re going to have their word taken on their results.

It generally works, too. You have to remember that.  Most scientists play be the rules, which is why we continue to see scientific and technological advances.  But when they don’t play by the rules, you get scandals like this.

Maybe – *maybe* – teaching Obama?

(Via Hot Air Headlines) Let me add a thought to this observation by Jazz Shaw:

It seems to me that Obama is a good enough politician that he can read the writing on the wall. He’s going to have to start dealing with a significantly more powerful Republican force in Congress next year and seems to be laying the groundwork to get something done. Smart for the Republicans. Smart for Obama. The problem is, a lot of the President’s most liberal supporters are clearly having a hard time coping with the idea of both parties having some input to the governmental process. They’ll come along kicking and screaming sooner or later, but for now it’s going to remain The Audacity of Cope.

…which is this: the President does not need a Beijing Consensus in order to look good.  In fact, a drubbing of his party in November would probably be excuse enough for him to abandon what are a whole raft of unpopular policy positions, appear ‘bipartisan,’ and run on that in 2012.  It would require a certain willingness for the President to throw his legislative colleagues under the bus en masse, though: and, really, how likely is that?

Moe Lane

PS: Primary challenge?  Bless your heart, but the President’s already having the rules changed so that others cannot not do unto him as he did unto Clinton.  Gotta love those top-down political organizations, yes?

Crossposted to RedState.