Recently in Science Category

It's been sixteen years since the publication of The Bell Curve. The evidence has only solidified in ways that was almost unthinkable back then.

The educational section in The New York Times is absolutely chock-full of IQ-related news. Parents want their children to have as high an IQ as they can produce, I guess realizing that it offers greater opportunity to be a productive citizen later on.

And most of us realize that IQ, or the idea that there's a general intelligence or g (see Arthur Jensen's g Factor) for people, is largely inherited. Not solely, but 60 percent+. I actually think the numerous, numerous studies put it closer to 80-85 percent.

If that's actually true and Darwinism continues its domination--intelligent design people are unpersuasive to me--then start having the courage and to connect the dots.

You may not realize the specific books that have done just that recently here and here.

A Wall Street Journal book review that is an excellent background is here.

As I mentioned in my regular Sunday post, ClimateGate is the gift that keeps on giving.

The type of data and computer code manipulation committed by climate scientists at the CRU apparently has also been committed by NASA and NOAA as well, with non-global warming supporting temperature readings being eliminated, in turn showing a false increase in temperatures.

We don't dispute the fact that there has been some cyclical warming in recent decades -- most notably from 1979 to 1998 -- but cooling took place from the 1940s to the late 1970s, again after 1998, and especially after 2001, all while CO2 rose. This fact alone questions the primary role in climate change attributed to CO₂ by the IPCC, environmental groups, and others.

However, the global surface station data is seriously compromised.

There was a major station dropout -- and an increase in missing data from remaining stations -- which occurred suddenly around 1990. Just about the time the global warming issue was being elevated to importance in political and environmental circles.

A clear bias was found towards removing higher elevation, higher latitude, and rural stations -- the cooler stations -- during this culling process, though that data was not also removed from the base periods from which "averages," and then anomalies, were computed.

The data also suffers contamination by urbanization and other local factors, such as land-use/land-cover changes and improper siting.

There are also uncertainties in ocean temperatures. This is no small issue, as oceans cover 71% of Earth's surface.

These factors all lead to significant uncertainty and a tendency for overestimation of century-scale temperature trends. A conclusion from all findings suggests that global databases are seriously flawed and can no longer be trusted to assess climate trends, or rankings, or to validate model forecasts. Consequently, such surface data should be ignored for political decision-making.

Many of the warmists say it doesn't matter if the data was cooked because they 'know' we're all doomed unless we impoverish the world and return to agrarian level energy usage. They believe no more debate or study is needed, only action.

But with more respected and credentialed scientists calling AGW into question and pointing to the fraudulent data and the incomprehensible and questionable computer code, neither the debate or the science is settled. Before we spend trillions of dollars on a theory of questionable validity, shouldn't we go back over all the data and modeling software and verify it's accuracy?

To add to the debate, it appears that if we look at just rural US MSS station data going back to 1900, there is no evidence of global warming.

Using data downloaded from NASA GISS and picking rural sites near, but not too near, to urban sites, a comparison has been made of the temperature trend over time of the rural sites compared to those of the urban sites. 28 pairs of sites across the U.S. were compared. The paired rural site is from 31 to 91 km from the urban site in each pair. The result is that urban and rural sites were similar in 1900, with the urban sites slightly higher. The urban sites have shown an increase in temperatures since then. The rural sites show no such temperature increase and appear to be generally unchanging with only ups and downs localized in time. Over a 111 year time span, the urban sites temperatures have risen to be about 1.5C warmer than the rural sites. So, the much touted rising temperatures in the U.S. are due to the urban heat island effect and not due to a global warming such as has been proposed to be caused by human emissions of CO2 due to the combustion of fossil fuels.

It's not just rural US stations seeing this non-trend. Canadian ground station in Ontario are seeing the same thing. If global warming were happening to the extent the warmists claim, wouldn't rural weather stations data show it as well? Or might we make the assumption that global warming is only an urban phenomenon? By positing such a hypothesis, might we also state the cure would be to do away with all urban areas (cities) and move everyone back into the countryside? (Yes, it is a ridiculous hypothesis and equally ridiculous 'cure', but both have as much validity as the present AGW theory and proposed cure.)

We hear more about ClimateGate as time goes on, particularly from many professionals. One group we've been hearing from on a regular basis has been engineers. Maybe it's because we depend upon verifiable data and reproducible results as part of our jobs. No amount of wishful thinking will make what it is we design work if the scientific principles upon which it is based are false. This is something the so-called climate scientists involved in the ClimateGate scandal seem to have forgotten.

One of the latest engineers to speak out about ClimateGate is Ken Johnson, a registered Professional Engineer, retired professor of Mechanical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, and Metrology (that's metrology, not meteorology, a similar sounding but unrelated scientific field).

The appearance of [the websites that first made the ClimateGate data public] was probably the fruit of either a diligent hacker or the guilt easing effort of an honest, science dedicated, whistle blower who became disgusted with the dishonest actions of their employer at the East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU), in Britain, who supplies global temperature data to the UN. The material contained on the sites verified what many climatologists and meteorologists have been claiming for many years, i.e., there is no legitimate scientific data which indicates any unusual long term increase in the global temperature ('Global Warming'). Further, although carbon dioxide (CO₂) 'greenhouse gas' in the atmosphere could have a small effect on global temperatures, it is kept in check by the massive amounts of CO₂ loving vegetation on land and in the oceans (like kelp), which convert the CO₂ into our life sustaining oxygen and food.

The e-mails revealed there has been an organized "cabal" of politicians and others calling themselves "Climate Scientists" who for years have been supplying falsified global temperature data to the UN to promote their efforts at worldwide wealth redistribution through CO₂ emission rationing and taxing schemes, such as the US's upcoming 'Cap and Trade' (industrial CO₂ generation allotments), with a tax on all CO₂ releases. Following the first announcement that their scheme had been uncovered by the e-mails, the major players were on the Internet commanding file deletions, hard drive erasures, and demanding prosecution of those responsible for the releases. This whole episode was dubbed by some journalist as "Climategate". It has been an example of the radical environmentalists demanding the 'foot' must be made to fit the 'shoe'.

To base policies, taxes, regulations, and laws on patently bogus data used to 'prove' a theory not much more than scientific quackery is madness...assuming the theory wasn't designed for just that purpose.

UPDATE 1/13/10: Sorry, I forgot the link when I posted this last night. All fixed now.

Even members of the MSM can learn the lessons of ClimateGate. One reporter from northern California even changed his mind about AGW after seeing the overwhelming evidence of scientific fraud committed in the name of "climate science".

A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.

Boy, was I naive.

Since the Climategate emails and documents revealed active collusion to thwart skeptics and even outright fraud, I've been trying to correct the record of my earlier foolishness. In one of those columns, I even wrote: "And see Real Climate (www.realclimate.org) for global warming science without the political spin."

In fact, Real Climate was and is nothing more than the house organ of global warming activists, concerned more with politics than with science.

When the self-blinded finally come to see the light, the transformation is amazing to behold. Even if this fellow at some point decides we are at fault for (the presently reversing) global warming, at least it's likely he will come to this conclusion based upon real science and not the political pandering that has been masquerading as science.

There is hope, as illustrated by this one reporter.

Here's a list I can really get into:

Climate Change Is Natural: 100 Reasons Why

1) There is "no real scientific proof" that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man's activity.

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

--snip--

10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

I particularly like #'s 8, 10, 12, and 16.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing. Pay particular attention to some of the comments following the article as they are indicative of the closed-minded AGW faithful and their inability to actually debate the issue.

At first I couldn't believe it.

ABC World News was going to do a story about ClimateGate.

I thought, "Gee, at least someone other than Fox is paying attention." But that thought faded away as I watched the report, a piece that covered the hacked files and the so-called "smoking gun". Call it a CBS-Lite version of the scandal.

The only part of ClimateGate they covered were the incriminating e-mails, something they tried to explain away. No mention was made about the FORTRAN source code used to create results the CRU crew wanted to see, or the Read Me text file accompanying the computer code. No mention was made of destroyed data nor machinations to prevent skeptics from being able to question CRU's conclusions or publish dissenting articles. Nor did they say anything about Jones stepping down as head of CRU or of the UK government investigating the affair. There was also no mention of Penn State University investigating another member of the CRU cabal, Michael Mann, he of the discredited Mann "hockey stick" graph.

Instead they tried to make AGW skeptics seem deranged, even more than the AlGoristas have tried to do.

From comments made to the ABC News blog post about the report, it appears few are buying ABC's attempt to minimize the story.

It's good to know that it's not only white people who are the cancer of the planet, as Susan Sontag is infamously remembered for having sputtered. We're all at fault if we breath out that poisonous gas carbon dioxide that's a "threat" to the public safety.

Silly me for thinking that that gas was good for plants in their production of oxygen and sugars. That's at least what my grandfather, a Ph.D. in biology, constantly taught me when we went down to visit him in Naples, Florida. Photosynthesis, no?

Obviously I should be sent to a re-education camp for siring more than two or three children. (I have four.) All that poisonous carbon dioxide!

Wait. I'm a gun-toting, Bible reading, weekly church attending, conservative. I think there are moral absolutes, truth, and Haydn is better than Lady Ga Ga. They won't even bother wasting time on me. I'm hopelessly reactionary.

During a fascinating interview with his friend Charlie Rose not too recently before his death, Michael Crichton's attack on man-made global warming (at 22:18) with the "garbage in/garbage out" summation following his detailed look at the computer modeling makes him look...well, even smarter. And he was one super smart man.

Charlie Rose was aghast at the climate skepticism, acting as if his friend were denying the Trinity!

The free ranging interview covers a lot of topics, including gene patenting and his most recent book, Next.

Being that smart, that tall (6'7" to 6'9"), that handsome--it's no wonder he married a bunch of women.

I, as well as many others, have been beating the ClimateGate meme to death. It's about time AGW met its long overdue comeuppance. Despite claims by many of the AGW faithful that the fraud committed by the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was not major, being that the CRU was only one of many climate research institutes, they have overlooked the fact that the CRU was a major clearinghouse for climate data used by other institutions to generate their climate models. That meant they were using the same 'corrected' data as the CRU, which in turn meant the other models were wrong, too. And one must keep in mind that the CRU data and models were used by the UN IPCC to generate their reports. The fraud committed by the CRU did not affect just the CRU, but any research team or institution using their data to create climate models and the resulting predictions.

As an aside, I came across this presentation about Anthropogenic Global Warming (available here in both PDF and PowerPoint format) given by Burt Rutan at Oshkosh this past summer. (Yes, that Burt Rutan of SpaceShip 1 fame.) For anyone not familiar with Burt Rutan, he is an aeronautical engineer extraordinaire. And as such, he has a considerable amount of experience analyzing test data and putting it in formats easily understood (and reproducible) by just about anyone wishing to spend the time to do so. With that in mind, Burt applied his considerable data analysis skills to the theory of AGW...and totally shreds it. Using readily available data from a number of sources including NOAA, NASA, as well as from global warming advocate sites and organizations, he delves into the data and its presentation to the world.

As he states more than once in a number of ways, it isn't always the amount of data you have that 'proves' a case like AGW as much as how it is presented. In this case he shows how climate data has been manipulated in ways that change the meaning as well as the context in order to sell a theory that is pretty crappy at best. Never mind the data massaging and corrective algorithms applied at the CRU to make it look like we're all doomed because of AGW. He shows how data analysis should be done to show what's really happening and why, regardless of one's personal beliefs one way or the other.

I must remind you that Burt Rutan is not a climate scientist, nor has he studied climatology or meteorology or atmospheric physics. He is an aeronautical engineer and he makes his living designing aircraft and spacecraft. Part of his engineering duties include analysis of flight test data and making sure the analysis is accurate. His job demands accuracy and an elimination of bias because if he gets it wrong people die. This isn't something abstract like AGW. If he fails in his job the aircraft or spacecraft he's designed and built will fail and those on board will die. That gives him great incentive to get it right. And so it is with his analysis of AGW.

Look at his presentation and decide for yourself whether he's on to something or not.

Michael Bellesiles=Phil Jones

Notice both now have stepped down from their lofty respective perches but in Bellesiles's case he is now back teaching at an obscure school in Connecticut. He sounds unrepentent. It's another indication of how lousy academia is.

Do you want to win in Pashtun land, Obama? The only feasible way is this. Send in the lawyers. Lord knows, we're going to be producing an excess number of them as record numbers are taking the LSAT.

UPDATE: I'm not alone in making the connection. Though I was there first.

I find it interesting (but not surprising) the AlGoristas are not willing to discuss or debate the ClimateGate scandal, turning instead to invective, ad hominum attacks, and the old stand by - repeating the same old tired mantra "But the scientific consensus is..." over and over again as if that's all that's needed to make AGW come true.

A perfect example of all three can be found in the comments to this op-ed piece by MIT Professor of Meteorology Richard Lindzen.

The general support for warming is based not so much on the quality of the data, but rather on the fact that there was a little ice age from about the 15th to the 19th century. Thus it is not surprising that temperatures should increase as we emerged from this episode. At the same time that we were emerging from the little ice age, the industrial era began, and this was accompanied by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. CO2 is the most prominent of these, and it is again generally accepted that it has increased by about 30%.

No argument there. But then Lindzen does the unforgivable, at least in the eyes of the AlGoristas: He questions the validity of the claims that GW is real and that we, human beings, are the sole cause.

At this point there is no basis for alarm regardless of whether any relation between the observed warming and the observed increase in minor greenhouse gases can be established. Nevertheless, the most publicized claims of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deal exactly with whether any relation can be discerned. The failure of the attempts to link the two over the past 20 years bespeaks the weakness of any case for concern.

He goes on to make his case, showing the science is, at best, very weak and that the models are useless because they give too much weight to some factors and not enough (or none) to others. It is this that drove the comments of the faithful to go over the edge and cease being a debate. One comment in particular sticks out, trying to discredit Professor Lindzen despite his impeccable credentials and expertise in the science of climate.

At age 70, Professor Lindzen just isn't current on the research, it's that simple. He's done distinguished work in the past, but his current opinions [are] at best outliers. He's not involved in the current research.

His view is that the computer models are unreliable. Considering the capabilities of computer modeling at the time he received his Ph.D, which was 1964, that view is understandable. His expertise in the state of computer modeling is just outdated.

So the argument put forward is that he's too old, which means he is incapable of understanding the science (and the math) behind climate research? The commenter, one Arthur Kreitman, believes that just because Professor Lindzen is 'old' that he is out of touch, implying perhaps that he is senile. He also assumes that the professor's knowledge ossified and that he's learned nothing new since 1964! He is assuming based upon facts not in evidence. Kreitman's comments are a perfect example of an ad hominum attack. Don't argue the facts, argue instead the qualifications of the one you disagree with and make the allegation that he is incapable of understanding the science behind the fraud that is AGW.

But on the other hand, I liked this one because, if nothing else, it explains a few things I've noticed, too.

I too have a theory and a model. Through careful observation of the night sky, I have determined, within a few percentage points of perfection, the winning numbers for every lottery drawing over the last 20 years. But something always goes wrong, and the numbers drawn are not quite right. I've decided that this is clearly the work of extraterrestrials, who are screwing with the night sky to fudge my numbers and deny me my rightful winnings. I had all the data to prove this, but I threw it away when my computer's hard drive got overloaded. Nevertheless, my theory is a fact, because I say it is. And since no one has ever published data proving me wrong in a peer-reviewed journal, no one can say I'm wrong.

The exact same thing happened to me, too!

Michael Bellesiles=Phil Jones.

HT: The Michigan Posse

After the hacked and leaked e-mails and data files from the University of East Anglia's CRU became public, the hew and cry from both sides of the AGW debate rose to a level I've not witnessed before. The leaked information illuminated the fraudulent, dishonest, and in some cases, illegal activities of some of the 'premier' global warming researchers, both in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Cover ups, destruction and willful denial of publicly financed research data to those requesting it under both the UK and US Freedom of Information laws, and collusion to 'jigger' data to eliminate evidence that show climate models are wrong and to bolster preconceived ideas about human-caused climate change.

The AGW skeptics, including yours truly, can point to the files to show that scientific integrity has been lost, that all AGW alarmist doom-and-gloom predictions are based upon fraudulent, cherry-picked data and algorithms designed to produce a predetermined outcome regardless of the data fed into them.

That in itself might be a major news story, but the deafening silence from the MSM implies the fix is still in. Other than Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and a few other news outlets, there has been little, if anything from the major media. About the only exception has been the New York Times, and that surprised me (though it appears they tried to downplay the significance of the leaked data). The rest of the media are acting like nothing's changed, still publishing iffy reports laying out "We're all gonna DIE if we don't impoverish ourselves NOW!!" scenarios. But readers/listeners/watchers aren't buying it, making comment after comment about Climategate and lambasting the media for acting like it doesn't exist.

But what disturbs me more than lack of attention by the MSM and the governments of the UK and the US are the comments posted by the faithful AlGoristas, bending over backwards to explain away the leaked e-mails, data, and jiggered computer code. Reading the comments to the WSJ article linked above, it is quite apparent that quite a few of those trying to debunk the leaked information have an ax to grind, their reasoning having absolutely nothing to do with the AGW fraud exposed. They blame the WSJ (as if reporting about the hacked and leaked data was somehow 'just not done'). They blame George Bush (I haven't quite figured that one out). They blame a nameless conspiracy bent on the destruction of the human race (I haven't figured out the logic of that one, either). Others seem to be lamenting the fact they won't receive the financial gains they expected due to AGW carbon credits/alternative energy schemes/complete control over the energy production portion of the economy. And yet others claim the multi-megabytes of e-mails, data, and computer code is all a hoax, created to discredit the researchers and their sainted AlGore. Never mind that the folks at the University of East Anglia say it appears the files posted onto the 'net are genuine. That will not deter the true believers.

As the old saying goes, don't confuse the issue with facts. The Warmists will not be denied despite evidence saying their beliefs are based upon falsified data and computer climate models that are little more than means of manipulating other data to 'prove' AGW regardless of what the data really says.

Anyone reading my humble blog knows I am a proponent of nuclear power, probably one of the 'greenest' forms of generating electrical power when all factors are taken into account. Even one of the founders of Greenpeace, Dr. Patrick Moore, sees nuclear power as leading the way to a greener energy. So why aren't those in Congress pushing for reductions CO₂ emissions by promoting more nuclear power?

Could it be it's an emotional issue, one that too many on the Left see as the so-called 'third rail' of environmentalism? It would appear (to me) that that's the case.

Three Mile Island and Chenobyl have been used for decades as an argument against nuclear power. While Three Mile Island was the worst accident at a commercial nuclear power station in the West, no one died, no one was injured, and the safety systems did what they were supposed to do even though the humans running the plant screwed up.

Chernobyl was a different matter...and a different reactor design. Between a very poor design (a graphite moderated reactor), lack of a containment vessel, and a major screw-up by both the plant engineers and the overseeing Soviet government, it's no wonder the reactor destroyed itself, killing hundreds (if not more) and making the surrounding area not habitable. One thing constantly overlooked by people against nuclear power: none of the RBMK type reactors like that at Chernobyl exist here in the US. But that doesn't stop people from being against nuclear power.

US designs have a great safety record, Three Mile Island notwithstanding. There's only one thing I can say I don't like about the nuclear power industry in the US and that's the lack of standardization. There are over 100 nuclear plants operating in the US (not counting those on US Navy ships and submarines), and every one of them is custom built. No two are alike, even those built side-by-side at the same time. If we ever get around to building the next generation of nuclear reactors for power production, we should go to a standardized design.

Standardization makes for less costly plants, the ability to use modular construction, and greater safety because all plants will be identical. The learning curve for workers moving from one plant to another becomes very shallow and very short because all the valves, switches, access panels, electrical components, and critical subsystems will be in the same place in every plant.

The newer designs have taken the lessons learned from the older plants to heart, making them simpler, more reliable and efficient, and easier and less expensive.

The next generation of reactors so-called Generation III units is intended to take everything that's been learned about safe operations and do it even better. Generation III units are the reactors of choice for most of the 34 nations that already have nuclear plants in operation.

The current generation of nuclear plants requires a complex maze of redundant motors, pumps, valves and control systems to deal with emergency conditions. Generation III plants cut down on some of that infrastructure and rely more heavily on passive systems that don't need human intervention to keep the reactor in a safe condition reducing the chance of an accident caused by operator error or equipment failure.

Nuclear plants also have an envious record in regards to the amount of 'up-time', meaning how long the plant is online generating power before it's shut down for routine maintenance or refueling. Fossil fuel plants require intense and frequent maintenance of their boiler systems, meaning they must be shut down far more often compared to nuclear plants. It is not uncommon for nuclear plants to run continuously for two years without a shut down. Fossil fuel plants (particularly coal plants) may have been shut down three or four times in that same period. And because nuclear plants run for much longer periods than conventional fossil fueled plants, both their operating costs and cost per kilowatt-hour are lower. They aren't affected by the fluctuations in fuel prices.

Continued in Part II - Why nuclear waste isn't an issue.

It seems the "settled" debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't so settled after all.

More questions continue to be asked by scientists about the still unproven theory that climate change over the past 100 years or so has been driven entirely by human activity. Some cling to AGW as if it were their raison d'être and anything that puts it into question will not be tolerated.

Reading the comments in the op-ed linked above, the AGW faithful are in a full uproar, calling skeptics "deniers", like those who deny the Holocaust ever took place. But skeptics are just that, skeptics. They want someone to show them irrefutable proof that global warming is caused only by humans. So far AGW proponents can't. They can show some data (some of it carefully selected while that which disputes their claims is ignored or marginalized as 'not important to the debate'), but data in and of itself isn't proof. Skeptics demand such proof, particularly before we end up spending trillions of dollars on a 'fix' that, by the AGW supporters own admission, will have little effect on the global temperatures between now and 2100.

The faithful resort to repeating the same mantra over and over again - The science is settled. The science is settled. The science is settled. - as if this will somehow make it so. They also repeat long discredited 'evidence' for the same reason. Wild claims are made, such as "90% of scientists agree that global warming is happening and that we are the cause," but they can never tell us where that number came from. Or with some digging (ain't Google great?), it's found that the number comes from a little known survey that covers a very small percentage of scientists that are already known to be in the AGW camp while ignoring those outside that group, or the 'scientists' are involved in fields that are in no way related in any way, shape, or form to the study of climate and the forces that can affect it (how is it a 'political' scientist's opinion is given the same weight as a climatologist, geologist, or physicist?). The faithful commenting to the op-ed resort to name calling, character assassination, ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, and the la-la-la defense - "I'm not listening! La-la-la-la-la-la...." But they won't debate the merits of their case, aren't willing to admit it's possible they are wrong, and aren't willing to question their own dogma. They point to the 'consensus of experts' as that's all that's needed to end the debate, to prove the theory of AGW. But consensus is meaningless when it comes to science because science is rarely about consensus. To paraphrase Albert Einstein: "It doesn't matter if 10,000 scientists agree with me. All it takes is one to prove me wrong."

I've come across quite a few actual scientists involved with climate studies in related fields, and almost all of them agree that there's a good reason to remain skeptical. It comes down to this: the AGW camp hasn't done its homework. There are too many factors they've chosen to ignore that have an even greater effect on Earth's climate than any carbon dioxide generated by we puny humans. Many of the models being used as proof are one dimensional, giving far too much weight to carbon dioxide as the driver of global temperatures. None of the models being used have been able to predict what the climate would be like in the 70's, 80's, or 90's using valid data from the late 1880's forward (the models didn't even come close). So how can anyone give any credence to predictions about climate in 2100 using those same models?

So the debate rages on and is gathering steam.

As Kimberly Strassel reports, the number of Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics is growing by leaps and bounds, despite what you may have heard from the MSM.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

What is driving the growing number of skeptics? Evidence. Worldwide data that disputes or invalidates many of the clams being made by AGW proponents, and in turn, putting the various theories about AGW to the test. In this case, a test they are failing.

But that hasn't stopped the US Congress from going forward with legislation that is based upon the ever less relevant AGW theories. After all, Congress doesn't want to be confused by facts. Instead, they'll push to throw a monkey wrench into the US economy that will do nothing to abate AGW, but it will make them feel better. After all, the Left is all about feelings.

With the continuing brouhaha about whether Anthropogenic Global Warming is real or a hoax, it could be that it will be Australia that will finally end the debate, and not the way that AlGore or Dr. Hansen want it to be.

As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this legislation's collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US--and to the whole global warming hysteria.

Since the Australian government first introduced its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation--the Australian version of cap-and-trade energy rationing--there has been a sharp shift in public opinion and political momentum against the global warming crusade. This is a story that offers hope to defenders of industrial civilization--and a warning to American environmentalists that the climate change they should be afraid of just might be a shift in the intellectual climate.

Much of this shift is due to a book authored by Australian scientist Ian Plimer, Heaven and Earth, Global Warming: The Missing Science. When a staunch global warming advocate like Australian Paul Sheehan is swayed by Plimer's book and comes to realize global warming is a crock, then it's a pretty good indication that Plimer may have more than enough verifiable evidence that disproves global warming, at least as it applies to human activity. Sheehan writes:

Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive."...

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable--human-induced CO2--is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.

But that one factor is the entire basis of AGW theory. All other factors are ignored or marginalized. Skeptics are labeled as 'deniers' or 'tools of the oil and coal companies.' No debate is possible because the so-called warmist doctrine must not be questioned in any fashion. But supporting such doctrine becomes more difficult when former supporters of AGW theory look deeper into the data and research and find it doesn't match the theory.

But things like facts don't matter much to many in the US Congress. Instead, it is feelings that matter and if they feel that global warming is the greatest danger (or the greatest opportunity to grab power), then that's all the justification they need to pass draconian measures like the Waxman-Markey "cap and trade" bill. Never mind there's no real need for it.

Back in March I posted the news about a group of researchers for the US Navy have proven that cold fusion does exist and that Pons and Fleischmann were right. There was quite a bit of buzz about the announcement and peer reviewed paper presented by the research team.

A number of scientific journals and magazines presented articles discussing the claim, and comments ran fast and furious by readers, some asking questions, wanting some clarification, while others claimed fraud or scientific blasphemy. Yet others discounted the discovery as nothing more than another bit of "science as religion" dogma. It is to this last faction that I am addressing today's post.

Perusing an article about the cold fusion research in the British publication New Scientist, I came across a comment by one skeptic that tried to shove science into the same category as religion, showing his Luddite tendencies (and lack of an adequate education in regards to scientific method and history) to all.

However, my question..pertaining to the religion and following blindly expression.....

If we accepted that science is just as far out and WRONG as most religions, would the world be a more united place?

If we didn't have a bunch of people walking around pretending they know what's going on in this world, would there be less of a tendency for those that "understand" to control the the sheep?

If science were indeed as "far out and WRONG as most religions", would we have the technological and scientific marvels we live with today? Obviously not. The world would likely not be a united place. There would likely be more wars, more death from disease, more misery. And as far as those "pretending they know what's going on in this world", the folks he's disparaging probably do have a better grasp than he does. But most of them also know something this guy doesn't: They know they don't know it all. They know what they don't know, they know they don't have the answers, and that's probably the most important thing they know. But they're also looking for the answers to questions big (cosmological) and small (quantum). Many of the other commenters lambasted this guy for his ignorance.

But what peeves me is that there are a lot of people out there that believe the same thing as this guy, looking upon science as nothing more than just another religion. But true religion deals with faith, putting trust into a higher being without needing proof. It is something of the spirit, of the soul.

On the other hand, science requires proof, requires testing, requires skepticism, requires review by peers. It is something quantified. Religion is not. Religion cannot be measured, can not be plugged into an equation, because it is something intangible that has no metric.

Science is something that requires updating as new things about our universe, big or small, are being discovered. Something is observed or a thought occurs that makes us ask a question. That in turn has us looking into the how or why of the event or thought, which then leads construction a hypothesis. We then test the hypothesis with experiments, analyze the data, and compare it with the hypothesis. If the experiments show that part or all of the hypothesis is wrong, then it is modified based upon the data collected and analyzed and tested again until the data - all the data - can be predicted by the hypothesis. Injecting a religion-like faith into such a cycle means you are either ignoring data that disproves the hypothesis, or you are running a con game.

We've already seen the effects of just this phenomenon when it comes to those confusing science with religion.

One example is the aforementioned cold fusion. Too many are willing to cast it aside because it doesn't fit into the canon of the knee-jerk deniers. They aren't willing to look at the hypothesis with a critical eye and test it. Instead they'll tell you why it can't work or come up with an alternative theory to explain away the observations that prove the hypothesis. They won't actually test the alternative theory because they have faith they are right and that everyone saying different is wrong.

Another wide ranging example is the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. A number of hypotheses have been put forth, all quite similar. The only problem? They aren't provable or falsifiable. Instead, we're supposed to take it on faith that the hypotheses are right. That's where it ceases to be science and instead becomes a false religion. And that's exactly what AGW is, a false religion.

Data that disproves the hypotheses are ignored or ridiculed as not germane, while other data is so heavily massaged it magically 'proves' the hypothesis. But that same data is totally unrecognizable as it bears no resemblance to the original data set. Again, that's not science but 'religion' masquerading as science.

Science, on the other hand keeps asking these same folks the same questions: "Can you prove it? Can you show us the experiment(s) you used to prove/disprove/refine your hypothesis? How did you analyze your data?" Far too often the answers do not come close to meeting the burden of proof to show their hypotheses aren't worthless.

Because of this, people start questioning the validity of true science, being unable to distinguish between it and the pseudo-scientific 'religious' mumbo jumbo being peddled as science. It's a con game. What makes it worse is that some of the perpetrators don't even realize it's con job, having been fooled by their own beliefs or passions, abandoning tried and true methods for determining what is and isn't true because they know the truth.

Is it any wonder science has been falling out of favor, seen as nothing but yet another failed 'religion'?

First, it's the communicator, capable of contacting anyone anywhere on the planet, translated into the Motorola StarTAC Flip Phone cell phone. Then it's the medical diagnostic bed in the form of CAT, MRI, and PET scanners. After that it's high energy lasers capable of destroying missiles and artillery shells in flight or performing surgery with little or no bleeding. Then it's the transporter, even if it's only capable of teleporting a photon from one side of a lab to another. There are even cloaking devices and Bird of Prey stealth aircraft.

Many of the technological wonders of Star Trek have become reality, even if not quite in the form many might have liked. So what's next?

How about the Warp Drive?

If you think it's nothing but something from a science fiction movie, think again.

With the latest installment of the Star Trek franchise packing theaters, researchers are again speculating about the feasibility of building a faster-than-light "warp drive" similar to the one powering Star Trek's "Enterprise" star ship.

Researchers at Baylor University (Waco, Texas) claim that dark energy--the force causing the universe to expand--could power a warp drive by expanding the fabric of space behind the ship while simultaneously contracting space ahead of it. The scheme could theoretically enable a ship to traverse light years in distance without violating Einstein's prohibition on faster-than-light travel.

This space-warping mechanism for faster-than-light travel (without actually exceeding the speed of light) was first proposed in 1994 by the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre. At that time, there was no known mechanism to explain how the effect could be realized. Thanks to string theory, the Baylor scientists claim that dark energy could theoretically be harnessed to realize a warp drive.

To quote Glenn Reynolds (and no pun intended). "Faster, please."

It's bad enough people are questioning the validity of global warming theories, now they're actually backing up their skepticism with hard evidence.

What will Al Gore do now?