I expected better

in the early morning on Monday, the 14th of May 2007 by Chad

Supposedly scientists are neutral politically, only after the truth, etc. So you’d expect a scientific magazine to be accurate, now wouldn’t you?

New Scientist unfortunately is now spinning the truth. What’s wrong with this opening paragraph?

Plans to vaccinate young girls against the sexually-transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer have been blocked in several US states by conservative groups, who say that doing so would encourage promiscuity.

Thats right boys and girls. They forgot a very important word. The word of the day is MANDATORY. As in the government stepping in and forcing you to take the vaccine.

Reading the entire story makes it sound like the mean evil conservatives have stopped this vaccine going out to anyone, and that little girls are dying left and right, now doesn’t it?

No, the vaccine is available to anyone who wants it. And its one thing to require mandatory vaccines for diseases like whooping cough and other highly contagious spread by air or light contact illnesses. But the bias exhibited by this so called “news article” is just unbelievable.

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23 Responses to “I expected better”

Rick Says:
May 17th, 2007 at 10:17 am +0
Yeah I live in Texas and Govenor Perry wanted this made mandatory but that got shot down last I heard. The problem is Perry has family that is involved with the Pharmaceutical companies and the damn this is almost $400. A racket if you ask me. Not to mention that although it is rare it can cause paralysis. Not worth it. My daughter won’t be taking it.
Katie Says:
May 21st, 2007 at 3:19 am +0
The government has to stop being the parent to our kids. So many regulations and laws that now will make the decisions for parents. Take the bike helmet laws and the new regulation that kids should ride in a car seat until they are 4′9″ - Heck, I’m so short, I might have had to go to the prom in one… Then, there is the ridiculous contradiction - in one hand, a high school can’t even hand out aspirin in school, but in the other, a minor child can have a major surgical procedure with potential life threatening complications without parental notification…

But back to the original topic. The immunization requires a series of 3 shots. Each shot costs $120 or more. Plus the costs of an office visit to the pediatrician. Most insurance companies still do not cover this cost. This is certainly a family decision. Certainly not a place for the government to butt in.
Rick Says:
May 21st, 2007 at 5:38 am +0
You know sometimes I think we are slowly becoming like Britain. Completely bogged down in asinine laws.
Paul Says:
May 24th, 2007 at 6:08 pm +0
I think that we already are bogged down by asinine laws. I agree with the comment that this should not be the government’s call.

As far as the integrity of the scientific community is concerned:
“Supposedly scientists are neutral politically, only after the truth, etc. So you’d expect a scientific magazine to be accurate, now wouldn’t you?”
This is one of the STUPIDEST things I have ever heard. Just because a magazine has the word science in its title does not mean that it is bound to objectivity. New Scientist is NOT peer-reviewed. The peer-reviewed journals (Science, Nature, Physics Today, etc.) are held to the highest standard of objectivity of any type of publication. Scientists publish their findings in the peer-reviewed journals. Reporters publish opinions in the non-peer-reviewed magazines.

I am a physicist, and I don’t understand the modern trend of Right wing people attacking the scientific community. Can someone please explain it to me? From my perspective, it has started to look like the old world situations of religious leaders attacking the scientific community. By the way, the Earth actually isn’t at the center of the universe, bloodletting doesn’t do any good, and the ice caps are melting.
Chad Says:
May 24th, 2007 at 8:25 pm +0
Well, I don’t believe it is the right wing attacking the scientific community at all. A smaller subset of people with various agendas attack the scientific community, and they happen to form part of the right wing. There is also a similar set of people on the left wing that attack science just as regularly. Such as those opposed to GM food. Those on the right would be evangelicals, because science directly contradicts their beliefs. While science doesn’t mean to attack the beliefs of fundies, that is the net result. And I can see that scientists would be unsure of why they were being counter attacked. BTW, Evangelical and fundamentalists only make up 14% of the electorate, so the right wing is much larger than just those groups.

Your point about peer-review is well taken, although there are also various issues with peer review. However, just like scientists feeling they are getting attacked by the entire right wing based on what they see in the media, the public face of scientists that everyone else sees is magazines such as New Scientist.

As for me, I’m an engineer who has always loved science. Also I’m an atheist for all intents and purposes. On the other hand, the best people I have ever known were people dedicated to religion, and most of the assholes I’ve met over the years were firmly in the side of the enlightenment.
Katie Says:
May 25th, 2007 at 3:15 am +0
I will admit, I am neither a scientist or an engineer. My background is in history and law, with dalliances in education and health insurance. So, I’m trained to be a sceptic, and most importantly, I am trained to closely examine my sources. I am not an atheist, but I would never be described as being particularly religious. I guess I would be described as leaning towards the right.

I don’t attack the scientific community, but I do treat some of their findings with scepticism. Most scientists are funded by one group or another. Is it surprising that data can be slanted to support where the money is coming from?

I do find your comment about religion being anti science amusing, because I have believed that global warming is the new religion for many people. It certainly behaves like a religion. Dessenters are attacked and ridiculed. Carbon credits can be bought and sold like indulgences were by Catholics in Medieval times. There seems to be an alarming lack of debate on this topic. Then you get a politician (and who couldn’t have a bigger agenda than a politician) who comes out with a movie that is taken as total truth. And then our kids are forced to watch the movie, and told that it is completely true. So they are indoctrinating our young, with parents having little to no ability to stop them. And then to make everything even more ridiculous, you have a parade of actors doing tours preaching the faith of global warming. Last time I checked, actors, in general, are not necessily known for their scientific research. And then there is the laughable Global Warming concert this summer. (Because being a child of the 80’s I saw how great of a job LiveAid did with ridding Africa of it’s problems).

I’m not debating whether warming is happening. But, I do question how much is really man made. We all know that warming has occurred prior to SUVs. We know that there have been ice ages, that Canada was once covered in ice, and that obviously, it has warmed since. Greenland was settled by farmers who survived on agriculture during a warm period in the Middle Ages, and then the colony disappeared when things cooled down. The cave paintings in Lasceaux (please excuse my spelling), were painted when the caves were out of the water, and now divers are the only ones who can access the caves, so we know that water levels have risen and fallen significantly in the past. Even Mars has “global warming” and nothing that Al Gore can say can convince me that it is being caused by my car.

Maybe scientists are now getting a bad rap for going where it is questionable that they should go. Or for creating substances that initially were helpful, but in the long term have been detrimental (such as many of the agricultural chemicals). Or for some of the prescription drugs that have also proven to be fatal. Or maybe because many of them have a “better than thou”, how dare you question me attitude. Some scientists seem to forget that some non-scientists also are equiped with a brain.
Paul Says:
May 25th, 2007 at 6:58 pm +0
Chad,

You’re right, there are some issues with peer review. However, peer-reviewed journals are the most reliable sources of information available. There is the funding issue. After all, people will say anything to get money. In the end, however, my experience with science being done at universities is that it is “neutral politically, only after the truth, etc”.

Maybee my view of the right wing vs. science has become overblown from my having lived in the Bible Belt for a long time.
Paul Says:
May 25th, 2007 at 7:41 pm +0
Katie,

I do not side with the left or the right. I have major problems with both. Global Warming, however, is real, and it appears that it is mostly if not entirely due to human activity. Lets look at some numbers.

atmospheric CO2 concentration:

pre-industrial age: 280 ppm
1958: 315.98 ppm
2004: 377.38 ppm
projected 2030: 450 ppm

The highest pre-industrial age value in the last 650 thousand years was about 300 ppm. The planet does experience natural warming and cooling cycles, but CO2 concentrations represent a driving force on the system. More CO2 equals warmer planet.

In light of the facts, it is hard to believe that current warming trends are simply due to natural cycles. After all, the planet is not emitting massive quantities of CO2 on its own. The basic hypothesis that has been know to the scientific community for many years is correct.

I suspect that you have chosen not to believe this hypothesis not on its own merits, but because you do not want to be identified with those who do believe it. You obviously can’t stand the left wing, and you contest anything that the lefties support. I agree that Gore’s movie is politically charged, which does a disserviece to the basic science. As you said, “nothing that Al Gore can say can convince me that it is being caused by my car.”

You are equipped with a brain, right!? USE IT! Don’t listen to Al Gore, me, or anyone else. Don’t read subjective magazines, or get your info from the talking heads on TV. Instead, read some peer-reviewed papers and DECIDE FOR YOUR SELF! I think that you will find, as I have, that it is very hard to deny that your car is causing global warming.
Paul Says:
May 25th, 2007 at 7:46 pm +0
Here is a pretty good article:

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12347/1066/
Katie Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 7:25 am +0
From what I understand, recent studies have found that the CO2 increase is actually happening after the warming occurs. Pointing to the idea that cO2 increases might be a result of the warming, but are not the cause.

I do find it interesting that the CO2 figures that you state only go back at the most 250 years (assuming that we are looking at the first English Industrial period in the late 1700’s), and that these numbers only account for a tiny pin prick of time on the Earth time line.

In addition, even if man is completely screwing up this planet, it doesn’t explain why the ice caps on Mars are melting.

I do, however, believe that conservation is a good idea. Not because I believe that my car choice is going to have a huge impact on the climate, but because I do not believe that we should be wasteful. I would love for America to get off the crack pipe-like dependence on foreign oil. I would love it if we could create reliable renewable energy. I would be able to drive a more fuel efficient vehicle if the government hadn’t meddled so much. I cannot put a child in the front seat, because of the government mandated air bag. I cannot stick all my children on the bench seat in the back, because their car seats require too much space. So, I am forced to drive my mini van, but, when I purchased the van, I did actually pay attention to the gas mileage and tried to pick out the most efficient.

I do find it interesting, that in the past, warm periods were periods of great prosperity. The warm period in the Middle Ages was a period of economic and social boom. While periods that were colder saw a decline in populations and product. Yet today, we look at it with fear.

Oh, and I am not a left wing hater. There are some true nut-jobs on both ends of the spectrum. There are also some amazingly hypocritical people on both sides. I was actually quite lib very the vast majority of my life. The reason that I changed my view had nothing to do with global warming. I had too many students who were not able to read. And too many parents who could care less that their children couldn’t. I saw too many able bodied people walk into the law office and whine that they couldn’t work, and were on disability. I was too many clients who truly believed that the “man” did him wrong. Too many people who truly couldn’t understand that they needed to actually show up at a job, on time. Too many people whose only job seemed to be collecting welfare.

And I am not cold hearted about it. It kills me when I see what people will do to their children. the horrid things that they expose their children too - drugs, violence, etc. And how are children to thrive if their parents don’t even care about them?

Sorry, I am completely off topic now. But, as you should clearly see, I have a brain. And I use it. And I think that this country has far greater problems than solving global warming. My real thoughts about scientists - admiration. To be able to create, solve, improve - a remarkable gift.
Rick Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 7:35 am +0
1. The polar ice caps are melting on mars.
+
2. The suns output has increased according to scientists.
=
Shit’s getting hot around here.
Ice cubes melt in the sun.
Is it that simple?
Probably.

It is human ego to believe you can affect a change that can reverse warming of this rock we float on.
Chad Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 8:09 am +0
Paul-
Peer review journals are the best things there are now. Could there be improvements? Sure, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to know what it is. The one thing I do know is that very few people read them. I suppose the people who really need to know do.
So I guess my gripe is actually with the media mostly, and the few talking heads on each side that seem to delight in goading the other side. The media is 95% at fault because at the core they are a profit making institution, not the saintly defenders of freedom they like to claim. The writers are clearly unqualified for what they do. They must be able to understand the journals they read and properly “dumb it down” for mass consumption. Somehow, all I hear is complaints that they completely miss the entire point of what the story is about. Because of that, it is no wonder the vast majority have misguided ideas on what the eggheads are doing. Of course the opposite is true: most reporters think they are part of the enlightened ones, and like to sneer at the redneck religious types, so anything they say is taken way out of context also.
Lets boil down the global warming argument for a minute to see how distorted things get. Global Warming is a horrible name because many areas have seen record cold snaps. Climate change is a better name, but still not perfect. The sun getting warmer along with the Mars through Pluto increases in temperature is the next thing that has to be explained properly. Most people are pretty logical, so the climate change folks who come out and say that there is no effect on Earth are completely disbelieved, because that has to be absolute horseshit. They’ll look at the past ice ages and hot spells that have gone in cycles for billions of years and realize that although it is complicated, the hot spells have matched the solar cycles. But that isn’t the tact thats taken, and people figure it is just politics then. The climate change scientists have to shut up for a while, go back to the models, and come out and say something like “You’re right, the solar cycle heating up is responsible for 45% of the increase. So man is still responsible for 55%. But to get things back to the so-called normal point, we have to undo what we did along with balance out the additional 45% solar contribution.”
Also needing explained coherently is the actual effects. Models coming out saying the entire seaboards will be under water do not jive with the known effects from when the temperature was the same in the past. These are the extreme effects, but this is exactly what the press is reporting as virtually the only option.

I would like to see something of the effect where scientists who write any article for publication from a study is required to also write a small article in layman’s terms explaining it. That is what would go out in the press release. This would make it much harder for reporters to completely screw up the stories.

On the other hand, scientists becoming a little more thick skinned would be nice also. A scientist is just like a religious preacher who must go out and convert the heathens. The scientist just has to learn how to ignore those that won’t see the Truth and move on to convince the rest and not worry about the couple percent of folks. If they believe or not will make no difference. Worry about defending the research from those within the scientific community who have different results.
Paul Says:
May 28th, 2007 at 12:34 pm +0
Katie,

Are you questioning the existence of the greenhouse effect? There is definately a causational relationship between CO2 concentration and global temperatures. Solar irradiance is peaked in the green wavelengths (this is why plants are green). The earth reflects a portion of the light back to space, and it absorbs some. The absorbed radiation then heats the earth’s surface, and the earth emits thermal radiation peaked in the infrared wavelengths. Greenhouse gasses, which are transparent to visible light, absorb infrared radiation. Thus, rather than allowing the earth to reradiate absorbed solar radiation back to space, greenhouse gasses serve to store reradiated energy, and to then reradiate a portion of the energy coming from the surface of the earth back. The major gasses responsible for this phenomenon are CO2, methane, and water vapor. If it were not for the greenhouse effect, the average global temperature would be about 0 degrees rather than the current 60 degrees. Therefore, higher CO2 concentration equals warmer planet. There may be a feedback mechanism by which higher global temperatures trigger the release of CO2, but this in no way calls into question the validity of the greenhouse effect.

With ice core samples in Antarctica, we can measure the CO2 and global temperature as far back as 650 thousand years ago. Human activity of the last hundred years or so has produced a major spike in the CO2 concentration.

As far as economic prosperity is concerned, previous cooling and warming cycles were correlated with relatively weak fluctuations in CO2 concentration (relative to the current spike in CO2, that is). Thus, we could see future climate variations that are unprecedented over the range of human existance. There is no telling how future climate changes are going to take place or how they are going to affect economic prosperity. The worst case scenario is that rising oceans displace billions of people and a lack of glacial melt water displaces billions more.
Paul Says:
May 28th, 2007 at 1:25 pm +0
Chad,

Believe me, I have plenty of gripes with the media on both sides too. Certainly TV is useless if not detrimental. I don’t watch it. Newspapers and magazines are a little better. Peer-reviewed journals are the best, but it is difficult to find good, free peer-reviewed papers. I don’t know what the solution is.

As far as climate change, here is a good abstract:

“We study, by using a wavelet decomposition methodology, the solar signature on global surface temperature data using the ACRIM total solar irradiance satellite composite by Willson and Mordvinov. These data present a +0.047%/decade trend between minima during solar cycles 2123 (19802002). We estimate that the ACRIM upward trend might have minimally contributed âˆ¼1030% of the global surface temperature warming over the period 19802002.”

Going back to the previous discussion, I tried to read the source paper, but they wanted $9.

These researchers also go on to point out that the current warming models do not take solar fluctuation into account, and the role of CO2 is therefore overexpressed. However, we are still responsible for the majority of current warming trends. Also, through all of the past warming and cooling cycles, CO2 concentration has not exceeded 300 ppm. We’re at 380 ppm now, and we’ll be at 450 ppm before long. We are in uncharted water, and I am scared of what might happen if we don’t curtail emissions and attempt some form of carbon sequestration. We could see global temperatures higher than have ever existed for as long as humans have been around!

What do you think about nuclear energy as a solution? Certainly, we must stop burning coal. Not only does it release huge amounts of CO2, but it also gives off other pollutants such as mercury.

What do you think about a fee-bate system? This is a plan to encourage the purchase of high efficiancy vehicles by penalizing excessive gas consumption, and rewarding efficient fuel use. By the way, I ironically drive an SUV. It is not my commuter vehicle, though. I commute on the bus, and I only use the SUV when I need it.

Unfortunately, solar is still to costly to be a realistic alternative. Wind, however, shows much promise. I live in Albuquerque, and 15% of our energy comes from the wind. We could economically get most of it from the wind, and I suspect that in future years we will. After all, once you pay back the windmill, everything thereafter in free energy!

As an amusing side note, I know some geophysicists at the University of West Virginia. They have been doing the same type of research on porous rock since the mid 90’s. In the Clinton years, they were funded because they claimed that the rocks that they were studying would provide storage for CO2 sequestered from the atmosphere. After Bush took office, their funding for this project dried up. They then wrote new grant proposals claiming that their research could provide insight into ways to extract more oil from existing wells. This project is now being funded, and the entire time, they have been doing the exact same research!
Chad Says:
May 28th, 2007 at 8:30 pm +0
Antartic ice cores. You mean this?

Global temperature variation for the past 425,000 years. The present is at the right. The horizontal 0 line represents the 1961-1990 average global temperature. The numbers on the left show the variation from that baseline in Â°C.

The data were derived from an analysis of ice cores taken at the Vostok station in Antarctica. Find out more about how temperature estimates are made from proxy data.

Image based on data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Katie Says:
May 29th, 2007 at 3:00 am +0
Can someone tell me what Earth’s perfect temperature is. Did it miraculously occur on July 31, 1900?

Global temperatures have varied by extreme amounts in the past, and logically, will do so in the future. I remember, when I was in elementary school, the fear was the next ice age. Now, I am supposed to believe that in thirty years, we have gone from ice age to burning up the Earth.

All of this reminds me of an old George Carlin comedy routine. One part, that he jokes about the people who are trying to save the Earth. As he put it, we are not trying to save the Earth, the Earth was hear before us, and will be here after us.

My main point is that there is still room to debate on this issue. I am not an idiot simply because I believe that there is room for debate. And I do find it interesting that there has been recent discussion about which comes first - warming or CO2 increases. Because some of the recent findings point to the idea that warming comes first, and then the CO2 follows.

I would put more effort into this, and find the websites that have the above findings, but the kids have had me up most of the night, and now it is time to get them ready for school.
Chad Says:
May 29th, 2007 at 7:23 am +0
OK, now that I’m slightly awake, let me comment on the graph I posted. Even though we’re getting waaaay off topic!
Making conclusions from that graph:
1. We were due for an temporary increase.
2. In another 125,000-135,000 years, there will be another one.
3. Something is causing a very regular pattern. That something cannot be industrialized man, as that has not existed.
4. Overall (and this is difficult to verify without additional trending lines) the Earth is getting cooler over the course of that 425,000 years.

For peer review, I heard one possible solution that was a little complicated but made much more sense. For example, certain sciences are much more resistant to outside political pressures, such as physics, cosmology, etc., than ones that certainly can be tainted by the funding wars, such as climatology. The answer I read was something like, there would be several judges. 2 would be in the field the paper was written in, and the others would be scientists from completely different fields of study. The initial two would be anonymous to each other at first. They would write up their opinions and also explain field specific items. The other four would read the article along with the other two writings. The two anonymous peers would balance each other, preventing any one viewpoint from having control, while the others from outside the field would be able to both find flaws where the paper might touch upon their areas of expertise, and also find bias that exists inside the field.

My point about the press release is different than the abstract. The abstract is written as a teaser to other scientists in the field. You give that to some journalist who went to a party school, and it comes out that “The sun is responsible for some part of global warming. Since current models do not take into consideration this factor, the sun could be responsible for between 0.1 and 99.9% of global warming.”

For nuclear energy, I am so all for pebble bed reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor) because they’re as safe as anything else, extremely controlled for waste, modular (need more power? just plug in another one), and all but impervious to tampering. I’m also hugely interested in the Polywell fusion model shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell and I hope it gets the funding it needs.

Paul… my email to you bounces!
Katie Says:
May 30th, 2007 at 5:51 am +0
Here is an interesting interview that I found.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_492572.html

I found this especially interesting

Q: Is the rising CO2 level the cause of global warming or the result of it?

A: That’s a very good question because in the theory the claim is that if CO2 goes up, temperature will go up. The ice core record of the last 420,000 years shows exactly the opposite. It shows that the temperature changes before the CO2. So the fundamental assumption of the theory is wrong. That means the theory is wrong. … But the theory that human CO2 would lead to runaway global warming became a fact right away, and scientists like myself who dared to question it were immediately accused of being paid by the oil companies or didn’t care about the children or the future or anything else.

And yes, I realize that Tim Ball may or may not be funded, in part, by oil companies. But there seems to be room for debate on this issue.
Paul Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 7:14 pm +0
Sorry about the email. The address posted this time is my current one.
Paul Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 7:31 pm +0
So there is alot of misinformation on both sides. To be honest with you, I simply took the global warming consensus by face value without doing much research. Also, the greenhouse effect seems to be a very sound theory from a purely physical basis. If anyone comes across a peer-reviewed paper that explains the theory that global temperatures are not driven by CO2 concentration, please let me know. Even if you can only get the abstract, I will see if I can get the whole paper through my university’s library. I read some crap online that supported this theory, but most of it seemed more like propaganda than science. Also, what is the financial motivation for supporting the global warming theory? I have seen anti-global warming people say that the global warming scientists are involved in a conspiracy and that they have a specific agenda, but I can’t figure out what that agenda is. On the other hand, the motivation for discrediting the hypothesis is clear: there’s still lots of oil to sell.
Paul Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 8:00 pm +0
Chad,

That Polywell model looks pretty cool! However, I think that the first people to achieve break-even with fusion will be the pulsed power people. This, however, would probably not yeild a workable reactor because of logistics. The have a pretty cool experiment set up at Sandia National Labs involving a Z-pinch http://www.sandia.gov/media/z290.htm . Hopefully someone will eventually figure fusion out, but it is not to be relied upon. We need a sustainable power source in the meantime. I think that fission can provide that. We have some mining and storage issues to work out, but fission is, in my opinion, the best option. Also, people should reexamine the way that they build houses, but I don’t want to get into that. In fact, maybee you should just start a discussion on energy issues.
Chad Says:
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:47 pm +0
Hey, here’s a good thing to read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6711895.stm

One other thing I saw recently is that CO2 as a greenhouse gas is only responsible for like .17% of all greenhouse effect, with water vapor being like 98%. All of which is entirely naturally generated. Can’t find that source now, but that was interesting. Went out and looked for the source, and found a rather troubling variation. It seems that water vapor, depending on which source you look at, is responsible for between 30 and 100%, with CO2 equally as responsible. So is it just me or are the models showing a huge difference depending on what numbers are plugged in?

Anyways, agreed on fission. That is why I like the pebble bed reactor designs. Even when fusion works with positive energy gains, it may only give you a small net positive amount.
Chad Says:
June 4th, 2007 at 9:08 am +0
I really need to start a new climate change post or something, but check this out:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af&p=1