"The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact." - KURT GÖDEL
"According to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".
A guiding principle for accepting claims of catastrophic global events, miracles, incredible healing, invisible friends, or fill in the blank is:
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” - Carl Sagan
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." - H. L. Mencken
I would add irrational and highly delusional to the mix when faith requires one to accept magical violations of the well known, well tested or easily demonstrated laws of Nature. - PWL
"Science is Progress and the Future. Faith is regression to the Dark Ages." - PWL
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
"Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." - Alfred Korzybski
"Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence." - James Randi
"Hypotheses are nets: only he who casts will catch." - Novalis
"Nullius in verba. Take no one's word for it." - Motto of the Royal Society
"I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS." - Richard Feynman
"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 Henry Huxley
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein
"Science is empirical. Knowing the answer means nothing. Testing your knowledge means everything." - Lawrence Krauss
"Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism - and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency." - Stephen Jay Gould
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work." - James Randi
One of many proofs against the existence of alleged gods goes as follows.
The Speed of Light Limit prevents all matter, energy and most importantly information from going faster than the speed of light, c. Since the universe is a very large place it takes a very long time for matter, energy or information to travel from one place to another should they not be near each other. For example the nearest star system to Earth’s Sol system that has a known planet is about 20 light years which means that it takes light and thus information 20 years to travel there.
The alleged gods are super alien beings because of their alleged super powers, specifically their alleged omni* powers, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence aka omnievil.
Unfortunately for these alleged gods their omni* powers are not possible in the actual objective reality of Nature due to the limiting factor of the Speed of Light. Read the rest of this entry »
The legal right of the government to lie to the people has always bothered me as it smacks of a lack of integrity by the very people allegedly empowered to have the highest levels of integrity and honesty by the people. The members of the government, in whatever capacity or role they are filling, have a special trust to uphold and when they use deception why are they allowed to get away with it and yet a different standard is applied to the people when they lie? If a defendant in a court case lies at any point while being investigated it’s treated with such great importance that it’s as if the world came to an end… but when the cult members of the cult of government lie it’s for the benefit of the people and lifted up as somehow an honorable trick that was played to get at the truth when in fact it’s no different for it was a lie, a deception, a non-truth, falsified information, a fabrication designed to give false impressions. It’s ironic that some of the best liars are likely working within the government and get rewarded for it.
Let’s explore this by way of two very interesting conversations, one from philosopher and physicist Paul Davies and the other from Stephen Wolfram.
Philosopher and physicist Paul Davies give a fascinating and thought-provoking talk on the possibility of an ultimate explanation for our universe. Dismissing the multiverse and God, he outlines an idea for finding an explanation for the universe and physical laws within the universe itself.
“Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. ‘A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,’ the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada, the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its analysis of 10 indicators that are ‘clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.’” – Slashdot.org article “Global Warming ‘Undeniable,’ Report Says”
Yikes, start packing for doomsday for the soothsayers are out and about using The Force to intensify propaganda after their self inflicted Climate Gate revelations of their Alarmist Scientist Core Cult members improprieties. Pack light though, it’s going to be a scorcher, allegedly. Hawaii at the North Pole. I really am beginning to wonder if all these alarmist scientists are just rapture christians firing things up for the coming end times? Nostradamus still beats any climate scientist with soothsaying doomsday predictions. Hands down, and he’s been dead a long time. Now how can that be? Let’s explore the science that prevents predictions of complex systems. Read the rest of this entry »
The articles linked here raise some very disturbing problems with the manner in which climate science is being conducted. This is especially important due to the HUGE public costs about to be undertaken over the next decades.
“The UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia have been refusing access to the data used for their global climate averages and scientific studies.” – slashdot
Opening Science is the way forward, the path through the darkness, the endarkenment of closed source science.
If’s it’s paid by the public purse it must be OPEN data that anyone can see and audit.
Yes, you feel certain that you are right about your science but lets see the actual data and the methods used by that science to prove that your certainty is justified.
Science is based upon the notion of being able to validate or invalidate in whole or in part the “claims” made by various “hypotheses” put forward.
When you “BELIEVE” science you’re just another religion.
When you can’t audit the work of scientists whose work is the basis of public policy then you and the public are being endarkened and kept excluded. But why? For what or whose agenda?
As long as the data, the methods, the algorithms, the statical analysis, the step by step procedures are kept secret the work is suspect to scientific fraud.
Have the guts to open your science to the light of day, it will in the end be better for it once it’s vetted by more eyes and brains and math nuts and others poking holes in it.
ANY AND ALL CLAIMS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO KEEP THEIR SCIENCE CLOSED AND SECRET is suspect of FRAUD. What are they hiding? Are they simply embarrassed to admit that they might be wrong? That they’ve made mistakes? That they are afraid that others might gain an edge in the grant process and shut them out of funding?
Open Source Science is the way forward through the darkness into the light that empower verification and falsification and thus progress EITHER way!!!
When you “BELIEVE” science you’re just another religion. In fact, open source science is the BEST and ONLY WAY to avoid science from becoming the new religion as it has, for example, in the climate debates.
The scientific method is the tool for vetting the works of science and if the work of science is closed and secret and kept close to the scientists chests by refusals to share their data, methods, source codes, procedures, etc… then their work can’t be verified and might as well be works of fiction just like those of any religious cleric or priest or nutter.
If you can’t take others vetting your scientific work then maybe you don’t belong in science?
Open Source Science raises the bar and will in the long run improve the quality of the science that is done. Some progress is being made, much more needs to be done.
Climate science makes extraordinary claims about Anthropogenic Global Warming and Global Warming.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” – Carl Sagan
Yet when asked for the data that is claimed to provide some of the evidence the data is refused on POLITICAL grounds. Very disturbing.
Regardless of the reasons that the data is not provided the bad science attitude by the MET office hinders actual science from proceeding. Very disturbing.
When you can’t test a scientific hypothesis or read all of the supporting evidence for it you must then rely on “taking their word for it” which is also known as “accepting based upon belief alone”. This is the end of science bit by bit and leads to the path of the dark side, to an age endarkenment.
When people find science open to validate themselves with experiments that they can do themselves or by reading all the evidence and vetting the work of others belief is eliminated and tested knowledge is obtained by that person bolstering the accuracy of their representation of the universe.
Belief is the enemy of science. Open Source science is the path forward that helps to eliminate belief and lay the ground work for a new scientific enlightenment accessible to the masses.
Terminate belief. Grow your knowledge based upon the scientific method. Stop being a science geek who takes it up the ass from authorities just like the religious nut jobs who take it up the ass from The Pope and his ilk.
Very interesting graphs and data. Try your city or a place you’re interested in.
Plus Wolfram Alpha has Mathematica functionality built into it so you can use it to verify the computations of others.
Using Wolfram Alpha to compute “weather Canada” produced the following interesting information. The Alpha Wolf uses a weather station near the center of the place you ask for. As a result it picked Arviat, Nunavut, Canada (red dot in map of Canada above) as the closest weather station to the center of Canada. Since Canada is huge and goes quite far up North this makes the center of Canada quite far up north.
Most Canadians, some 75+% live within 90 miles of the USA border, in part due to historical reasons which is in large (aka huge aka the main friggin reason) part due to the frigging cold weather any further North. Take it from someone who has lived in Edmonton for eight of the coldest years in recent memory (the 1970′s), -30c to -45c for months at a time is really really cold especially when they don’t close the schools until -45c. Naturally it hovered at -43 for weeks… walking to school in -43c weather up hill in a snow storm… and walking uphill back home again in the same conditions but only deeper waist deep snow…. grrrrr arrrrg…
Darn, looking at that map it’s clear that Greenland should be part of Canada. Let’s start by taking Hans Island! Oh wait, that’s ours already. Onward to the mainland of Greenland! Oh, wait… nah… it’s just frozen Vikings there… Ok, Denmark you can keep Greenland but we get to keep Hans Island! Thanks.
Oh, on a climate note Hans Island will play a role as the following events have unfolded of late:
Hans Island News
March 17, 2007 – Scientists from the University of Toronto and the Technical University of Denmark announced plans to install an automated weather station on the island, some time in the summer of 2007.
July, 2007 – Canada updates satellite photos and recognizes international border as crossing through the middle of Hans Island, not to the east of the island as previously claimed.
Very cool, Canada now shares an actual land border (1.3 kilometers long) with Denmark, a European country! Actually now both Canada and Denmark have borders with two countries each! Wow! So, Hans Island is where North America and Europe physically meet! Very cool that it’s way North of 60, wow, it’s north of 80! Yikes. Brrr…
I wonder if the weather station was installed and if there are any data from Hans Island? Oh, it looks like the Hans Island Ice Flow observation and weather station might have been delivered now. Maybe that desolate place is useful after all.
Danish and Canadian researchers are co-operating to establish a weather station on Hans Island, reports Ritzau. Even though Denmark and Canada do not agree about who owns the 1.3 sq km rocky island located in the Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada, scientists from the two countries say they co-operate and use the island for scientific purposes. For that reason, a weather station was shipped up to Hans Island last week, by Preben Gudmandsen, professor emeritus at the Technical University of Denmark. The weather station will initially be located at the base in Alert in northern Ellesmere Island. From there it will be flown by helicopter to Hans Island. Weather permitting, the station should be operable in May. Information from the weather station will offer researchers the data they need to work out a better weather model for the area and determine how ice from the Arctic Ocean is transported south through the Nares Strait.
The ongoing fuss about Hans Island might be entering its last verse. The small, wind-blown island located between Greenland and Ellesmere Island in Canada which has given Danish and Canadian diplomats gray hair will most likely house a joint Danish-Canadian meteorological weather station. Work on the weather station is expected to begin at the start of the International Polar Year. If all goes according to plan, initial data will tick in starting next year. The joint effort has been organised by professor emeritus Preben Gudmandsen from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Prof Kent Moore of the University of Toronto. The project is seeking the blessing of the Danish Foreign Ministry and will subsequently be sent for approval to the Canadian Foreign Ministry, writes Polarfronten. After the formal details have been worked out, it’s just a matter of digging in. DTU and the University of Toronto have agreed to split the work based on their individual abilities. In the real world, that means the Canadians will end up with the heavy loads with establishing and financing the technical aspect while the Danes are responsible for expertise and collecting data from the area. Both Gudmandsen, the University of Toronto and the Danish and Canadian foreign ministers are looking forward to the plans so the meteorological research station can provide more than answers to researchers’ questions.
Still looking to see if the weather station went ahead or was stalled due to geo-arctic-politics. Anybody know?
While Canada is absorbing islands into the fold let’s have Canada merge with the Turks and Caicos Islands to warm up our temperature average in Canada, which is what would statistically happen, right? Call it Canadian Warming or Warming of Canadians who visit the newest island of Canada. It’s also a sure way, and maybe the only way to truly claim that Canada’s Arctic is warming up – see the average for the whole country goes up when we add in a nice toasty island to the mix. Ah the wonders of lies, damned lies and statistics. Ah the wonders of curing a serious Vitamin-D deficiency on a warm sunny beach.
Anyway back to the topic, here is what part of the Canadian weather info provided by the Alpha Wolf, oh, Wolfram Alpha, looks like. Oh, is that a cooling trend? Nooo, it couldn’t be…
You can get at the underlying data. Too bad it’s only ten years… Cooling trend? I suppose that depends on how many years and which years you’re looking at and how you compute the trend and how you “skew” the data in your favor, oh pardon me I meant to say how you “filter” the raw data which isn’t good enough for publication, oh, darn, drats, damned data is a mess. Let’s fix that the proper way shall we?
