On Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:52:36 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

There are also some skeptics with "more than a grade school education in
science" in your country, Trevor. A very interesting article entitled
"Global Warming - Don't Wait up" appeared in a newspaper here in the UK last
week. Written by a chap called Ian Plimer, a professor of geology at the
University of Adelaide.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...t-control.html

Nice. Amazingly sane. The problem is that one can't get any research
funding for expounding the obvious and simple historical logic.

And some interesting stuff about 'those emails' and how the hockey stick
graph was produced.
Jeff L. You'll be interested in this one ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...send-them.html

Thanks. I've been following the story of the Harry Read Me file and
cooked data for a while.
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_ME.txt
It gets weirder by the day.

I kinda like this article:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/11/30/climategates-harry-read-me-file-is-a-must-read/
for the quotes, and photo of the IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri.
He's definitely been working too hard. Anyway, I've been in
situations where I had to "adjust" data to conform to a pre-ordained
conclusion. It's amazingly easy (see my example with the rainfall
data). However, it's not a pleasant place to be in.

I've also watched committees of "concerned scientists" and "industry
leaders" investigate some hot topic or pound out some obscure
standard. It is impossible to get them to agree on anything. Many
will take and vigorously defend a minority or obscure point of view
simply to get attention. It seems that research and academia are all
about getting funded, getting attention, accumulating power, and the
traditional publish or perish. One doesn't get those by agreeing with
the majority, accepting the obvious, or conforming to convention. One
gets acclaim by promoting the obscure, the weird, the odd, and the
strange, which is what gets all the attention. The 2007 IPCC report
had over 450 lead authors, with input from more than 800 contributing
authors, and an additional 2,500 experts to review the draft
documents, which makes me wonder why there is suddenly a consensus.
Either the danger is so obvious, no universal, and so desperate, that
anyone can see the obvious (in which case we wouldn't need the IPCC)
or something in the makeup and function of scientific committees has
change drastically overnight.

My guess(tm) is simple. If you do research that demonstrates global
warming is real, you get funded. If you demonstrate that it's not
real, no funding.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558