Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Thursday, May 15. 2014

Thursday morning links

What's your favorite - granite or gelato? Pic is my fresh mandarin orange granite in the nifty town of Noto


Hilarious Graphs Prove That Correlation Isn’t Causation


Making cymbals


A new book by Ephemeral New York!


We can’t have the American people thinking that hard work leads to success...


A Millennial Trashes the Class of ’14


Michael Gerson: Americans’ aversion to science carries a
high price


Judicial Watch Obtains New Documents Showing IRS Targeting Came Directly From
Washington D.C.


Obama to loosen lending standards to boost
home ownership. What could go wrong?


Rocking out in Israel despite the hate






Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:14 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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Gerson's piece is ignorant BS. He uses aversion as an accusation for those who don't blindly follow the "scientists", i.e., are skeptical. He goes along nicely till he can rush to say that rising sea levels, failing crops, etc. are likely based on, well, nothing but supposition.

He claims conspiratorial that so many from so many countries might get on the band wagon for some supposition, but neglects to address the latest example of that very trend. Just last week, we learned the attack on saturated fat and dietary cholesterol was not based on erroneous science, but bad science. Bad "experiments", bad subject selection, bad timing (Lent), and yet there was consensus among the so-called scientists across organizations and countries for decades. Was there a conspiracy or just a lot of technicians running about playing scientist? And what did the "community" do to those such as Atkins who just offered alternatives that didn't conform to the consensus?

Americans don't have an aversion to science, they have a skepticism of the "scientists". Basically, we are all from Missouri now, "Show me."
#1 JKB on 2014-05-15 08:01 (Reply)
Glad you said it, b/c I'm tired of saying this exact thing.

Another low IQ journalist who feigns logic and understanding while he pushes dogma and compliance.
#1.1 DrTorch on 2014-05-15 08:18 (Reply)
If the WashingPost wants ant-sciience THIS is it: http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/14/lennart-bengtsson-resigns-from-the-gwpf/

A disgrace. A complete and utter disgrace.
#1.2 Richard Quigley on 2014-05-15 08:43 (Reply)
Unfortunately, most Americans are pretty ignorant of Scientific Method thanks to our High Schools and colleges. That leaves them susceptible to nonsense phrases like “scientific consensus.”

Global Warming due to CO2 emissions is a Hypothesis for which the Predicted results have never occurred.

Without any repeatable Experimental or Observable results that fit the prediction, it can be considered a dis proven (bad) Hypothesis.

Furthermore, the modeling and data collection was so shoddy and secretive, no real peer review has taken place. So the “Global Warming” hypothesis never even progressed to the Theory stage. It’s just a stupid idea that nobody can prove.
#1.3 NJSoldier on 2014-05-15 11:15 (Reply)
Absolutely true.

I tell the young folk in my office, who always call me "the skeptic" that skepticism is a GOOD, whereas cynicism is most likely not.

Skepticism is an important part of the scientific process, and I was taught that by my HS physics teacher and college physics professors.

Skepticism must be allayed properly and fully for a scientific finding to be adopted as acceptable. Simply saying "we all agree with the hypothesis even though the data keeps changing and isn't consistently pointing in one direction" is meaningless.
#1.3.1 Bulldog on 2014-05-15 13:26 (Reply)
To All You Deniers:

The Ice Age is Comin'. Science promised us it would be here by 1975 and by 1975 it will be here. Because, Science!

For all your Denier Needs.
#1.4 Frigate on 2014-05-15 11:51 (Reply)
So it the Rapture. Which one will get here first?
#1.4.1 JKB on 2014-05-15 20:19 (Reply)
"Yesterday I cud not spel *sciience*tist, today I can deny I are wun."
#2 Richard Quigley on 2014-05-15 08:48 (Reply)
By the rules, only climate scientists can speak on the subject, Gerson not being one can be ignored.

Believe I'll have the granite, looks tasty, easy to make and might go well with a say jigger or two of white whisky.
#2.1 walt moffett on 2014-05-15 11:31 (Reply)
"Resistance in the United States to evolution is often associated with conservative religion. And skepticism about climate change is correlated with libertarian and free-market beliefs."

Sure, MG. The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in full glory...
#3 Jess1 on 2014-05-15 09:28 (Reply)
...Correlation Isn’t Causation. The earliest debunker I remember was back in the early '50s when someone found nearly perfect linear correlation between annual rainfall someplace in China and the murder rate someplace in Europe. IIRC. (It was a long time ago.) I was a budding bacteriologist at the time and paid attention to such things. Also, doing a linear correlation back then was an all, or several day job on a Friden or Marchant, depending on the amount of data.
#4 BillH on 2014-05-15 10:49 (Reply)
How does one cite vitamins as an example of anti-science then declare climatologist infallible?

Does he truly not know that vitamins were once a major scientific discovery and the importance of vitamin supplements was a scientific fact?

The problem isn't just a lack of scientific knowledge, it's also our ignorance of history.
#5 B. Moe on 2014-05-15 11:25 (Reply)
I wonder--do you suppose that the increase in our admiration of this country's mafia groups have anything to do with a decrease in our innovation and entrepreneurial efforts?

Met a young woman demonstrating her new pasta here in the Costco store. She was so thrilled because she has "the opportunity" to be in Costco. What she has yet to experience is what a company like that will do to her/her company if/when her pasta becomes a big money maker. YES, absolutely she will get taken out--one way or the other. In the 1950-early 60 period that was reprehensible. Todays young people grow up hoping they will be tough/smart enough to come out with a fair deal. HOWEVER, the point I wish to make is this: if they choose to stay with and maintain ownership/control of their own company/ideas/business for a lifetime--that is no longer an option in today's Amerikka! They know it--they see it on tv in the entertainment section all the time. The idea that a successful mom/pop local operation can stay in business without being harassed by the bad boys is no longer.
I believe that subliminally that realization has had an effect on the last two generations. Who wants all that grief--why bother?
The tragedy of course is that today's young woman are being taught to shout "anti capitalism" slogans, while not understanding that what they have to do is to have the courage to build a set of acceptable ethics of operation that they will not permit to be crossed over during their reign. We did not and that was wrong.
#6 faulty wife on 2014-05-15 11:26 (Reply)
ProTip: if you're going to slag America, the conventional spelling is "Amerikkka", with a triple "k", not your double "k". Three "ks" invokes the Klan and is vaguely both German, hence Nazi, as well as Soviety. Proper nomenclature is all that stands between you and epic rant.
#6.1 Frigate on 2014-05-15 12:00 (Reply)
This is how you play the cymbals.
#7 The Ka of Morello on 2014-05-15 11:44 (Reply)
Must have hit a nerve if that is all you can criticize! Seriously though: what is the code of ethics that today's young people have in place for dealing with corruption?
#8 faculty wife on 2014-05-15 21:10 (Reply)
As a young, urbane, man-about-town I believe ethics should be strictly controlled by our immigration laws and all of them deported.
#8.1 Frigate on 2014-05-15 22:30 (Reply)
But Frig, that wouldn't be ethnical.
#8.1.1 BillH on 2014-05-16 10:40 (Reply)
Out here in the Ornament, we think differently.
#8.1.1.1 Frigate on 2014-05-16 10:57 (Reply)

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