(Totally OT) Re: DMD 0.175 release

John Reimer terminal.node at gmail.com
Mon Nov 27 12:09:51 PST 2006


What are the chances that a large meteorite will hit the earth and  
eliminate all further arguments on the matter of global warning? :)

What are the chances that we are all deteriorating from "pollution" of  
food-sources and over-dependecy on industrialization and manufacturing in  
which companies inject hydrogenated fats and trans-fats into most packaged  
foods (uninhibited), while many worry about our future of global warming  
in a whole system that has been known to be slowly running out of "steam"  
(entropy).

Folks, it's not just about junk science, it's about propaganda,  politics,  
and media and the pet issue of the times. The fear of global warming,  
there is no doubt about it, has been pushed at the public by media and  
politicians in tandem with a crowd of easily manipulated "scientists".   
Billions of dollars have been contributed to the cause (and the Kyoto  
protocol)...

And, no, the "majority" of scientists do not necessarily support all the  
conclusions made -- perhaps the "majority" of outspoken and public  
scientists have supported it.  Unfortunately, those that disagree haven't  
been near as vocal: the peer pressure has been huge to comply with the  
conclusions made in what I'd call "popular" science; those that don't  
comply, even respected scientists, have been ostrasized -- they lose their  
jobs for questioning the conclusions.  This is becoming a more common  
situation with the science of our times as research grants are frequently  
sourced from powerful and biased parties.

What consititutes "junk science" seems to depend more on whim and  
subjectivity than on rigid scrutiny of the techniques implemented in  
analysis.  Howevery, even "good" science can go completely awry when  
research is based upon wrong fundamental assumptions (every scientist  
assumes some pre-conditions to the universe).  Science is not perfection,  
and I'm pretty sure most scientists admit that it's more like groping in  
the dark and making hypothesis after hypothesis until some model is  
devined that maps closely to observed patterns.

Further, popular global-warming theory seems to point its finger at  
pollution as the focus of the "problem". Pollution should be corrected for  
much more obvious and direct reasons than the ambiguous conclusions of  
global warming (I fear that's is used as political turbo system for the  
cause).  Pollution of most sorts are bad for society directly (through  
direct contact, indirect contact (vegetables, animals), ingestion, or  
inhalation), let alone for debatable future cataclismic climate changes.

The money that goes into solving this "problem", one in essense that is  
really a fuzzy picture of the future and based on even fuzzier data  
collection and interpretation, seems to have been outrageously ill-spent  
(especially the kyoto protocol) and based on more public herding of  
opinion than a sincere desire to find solutions to a "problem" (that's an  
opinion). :)

-JJR



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