On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 3:05:55 AM UTC-6, Mike Collins wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote:

On Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 12:37:38 PM UTC-6, Mike Collins wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote:

Ever heard of the red Sirius problem? Maybe we don't know as much as we
think we do about stellar evolution.

Remember the Greeks had no word for blue.
Hence the "wine dark sea".

Really? With half the environment blue they didn't have a word for it?
Pure baloney:

https://translate.google.com/?tl=el#en/el/blue

That's modern Greek.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-guy-deutscher

This seems rather asinine to me, particularly when it comes to the color
of stars. Certainly, different forms of color blindness are evident. My
father had difficulty distinguishing blue from green and some people see
in black and white, or with BW plus reddish ... but EVERYONE? And only
2000 years ago? And then suddenly everyone saw in full color?

Furthermore, if they saw Sirius as red, then they would have seen ALL stars
as red and wouldn't have singled out Sirius. I thought Burnham wasn't very
smart to include that in his discussion of the red Sirius problem.

Universities get grants from governments.

But in the UK the government does control the research done. The hospital I
worked in had government funds which depended mostly on the quality of the
published research. My own unit was funded by earnings from clinical
trials.

And "quality" is determined by peers who also get government funds?

However outside the USA the oil industry generally acknowledges AGW.

Irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant. It shows the intensity of industry propaganda and
misinformation generated by industry in North America. This is directly
comparable to the propaganda used to deny the link between smoking and
cancer.

Or it shows that commercial industries outside NA are weak and cave in to
government pressures.

I don't trust ANY of them. Why do you trust the "experts" who are
supported by politicians?

I don't. I trust genuine scientists to some extent.

I trust "genuine" scientists to some extent, too. When considering fields
where the scientific method is weak or absent, my skepticism strengthens.
And when the results affect me personally, I require a very high degree of
confirmation.

I live in a country where the distribution of most government funds to
science are not controlled by politicians.

They're controlled by bureaucrats who owe their jobs to governments, hence
politicians are involved.

No they are controlled by representative of the sciences.

And where do they get their funds? Science is not independent.

I have been involved in hundreds of clinical trials. Those funded by drug
companies were generally sound but it eventually became evident that some
trials of failing drugs were unnecessary prolonged.

That's merely human nature. One doesn't like to see one's resources and
energies wasted. It happens everywhere, even to climate "scientists.".

It shows insufficient control by the companies.

Companies controlled by bureaucrats who don't understand the science involved.
Many years ago I worked on a technology that was considered crucial to an
important product that the company was trying to sell to the government.
Serious problems came up and suddenly everyone was wanting to know what was
going on and why are we having this problem. I lectured them for many hours
explaining the entire process, which no one cared about previously. They
went away thinking that we were working the problem in an intelligent way
and forgot about it again.

It became easy to spot the dubious drug trials. For instance a drug with
suspected liver toxicity would have extra liver function tests . Internal
hospital projects were closed when they failed to produce results and the
funds diverted to other projects.

"Tests" is the operative word. That's a crucial part of the scientific
method, which is weakened in astronomy and AGW.

Neither you nor I nor Peterson have any effect whatsoever on the debate.
You can believe what you want and it doesn't matter.

It always matters.

No, it doesn't. We have no effect on the worst polluters.

The public is made up of individuals.

The public doesn't matter. You'd do better lecturing those in China and
India and other developing countries. They'd surely appreciate your telling
them to return to groveling in the mud.

We all need to do our bit to combat public ignorance especially when so
many lives depend in it.

But do they really? Is it moral to use scare tactics? Does the supposed
end justify such means? If you believe it does then YOU are the real problem.

Every small reduction in CO2 is a gain.

Baloney. Every small reduction in CO2 just means that Al Gore can use
that many more kilowatts.

I just came back from a family reunion. Some of my cousins are farmers;
you know, those who grow the stuff that keeps you and everyone else alive?
They don't believe in AGW. So why don't you argue AGW with them? Well,
not a good idea, they'd just run over you with their tractors :-)

Most farmers in the USA reject evolution despite having to deal with its
consequences like insecticide and pesticide resistance.

That's not evolution. That's (un)natural selection. That's why green moths virtually disappeared in England and gray moths became dominate during the
industrial revolution. There were always a small fraction of gray moths,
but they had a clear advantage near the cities. I imagine there are still
some green moths in the countryside.

Farmers in the UK generally have the same level of AGW acceptance as the
rest of the public. They also experience the increasingly extreme weather
and are more affected by flooding and storms. (River management often needs
the authorities to decide which area is flooded and areas with low
population are sacrificed first.)

Areas with low population include farms. Sounds to me like you advocate
biting the hand that feeds you :-)