The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

–Washington Post/AP, 1922 [H.T. - Anthony Watts]

I wonder if the AP back then ran pictures of depressed polar bears floating on ice chunks?

How can our identity and memories persist when our neurological chemistry is in a constant state of death and regeneration? Well, according to McCrone, the problem is much worse than the simple regeneration cycle that goes on in the rest of the body:

The issue of molecular turnover is starting to hit home in neuroscience, especially now that the latest research techniques such as fluorescent tagging are revealing a far more frantic pace of activity than ever suspected. For instance, the actin filaments in dendrites can need replacing within 40 seconds, making microtubules look like positive greybeards (Star et al, 2002).

A turnover time of five days for NMDA receptors seemed pretty steep when it was reported a few years back. (Shimizu et al, 2000). But recently Michael Ehlers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, reported that the entire post-synaptic density (PSD) – the protein-packed zone that powers synaptic activity – is replaced, molecule for molecule, almost by the hour. Ehlers had expected the turnover to take days and when he found no labelled protein on his first 24 hour assay, he thought he must have mucked up the experiment

Myelin and RNA molecules seem to last months. And DNA is of course fairly hardy, though it still needs continual repair. But on the kinds of figures that are coming out now, it seems like the whole brain must get recycled about every other month. And certainly everything points to the synapses as being about the most dynamic part of the whole system.

–John McCrone, Dichotomistic

So, the question remains as to how, on the physicalist model, an ego is maintained in light of the chemical “boil” that goes on within our neurochemistry. If Dave is identical to Dave’s brain, how does Dave persist when Dave’s brain is dying and being reborn in it’s entirety on a bi-monthly basis? Good luck with that one.

If you have a gas fireplace that has a wall switch or remote to turn on the flame, you don’t need A/C power in order to use it. The switch itself isn’t connected to the house power. It’s connected to a thing next to the pilot light called a “thermopile.” A thermopile is a device that converts heat into electricity. In the case of gas logs, all it needs is enough electricity to open the main gas valve, which would be just a few hundred milliwatts. So, in case you are in our same predicament you can rest assured that you can at least cordon off your living room and stay warm if you lose power.

Here’s some more info on gas log ignitor design:

http://hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/how_gas_works

For instance:

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

–James Delingpole, UK Telegraph

It struck me when I first read this section of the article that this is the exact thing that the intelligent design camp has been saying for years now. Michael Behe even documented his peer-review nightmare here. Intelligent design scientists have been systematically shut out of the peer-review process by being disallowed from the big journals, such as Nature, for years. Michael Behe isn’t the only one. If you haven’t heard of the whole “Sternberg” affair, go and check it out here. The idea that the peer-review system is some type of open process is just a total myth. Robert Higgs wrote about this back in 2007 for Nature:

Journalists, politicians and advocacy groups refer to “peer-reviewed research” and “scientific consensus” as the authoritative last words on controversial matters involving the natural sciences, from climate change to stem-cell research and genetically engineered foods. But many people have an unrealistic view of how the scientific community actually works.

The peer-review process is not, contrary to popular belief, a nearly flawless system of Olympian scrutiny. Any editor of a peer-reviewed journal who desires to reject or accept a submission can easily do so by choosing appropriate referees.

Unfortunately, personal vendettas, ideological conflicts, professional jealousies, methodological disagreements, sheer self-promotion and irresponsibility are as much part of the scientific world as any other. Peer review cannot ensure that research is correct in its procedures and conclusions. A part of the work in every discipline—from the physical sciences to economics—consists of correcting previous mistakes.
At any given time, “scientific consensus” may exist about various matters. Over time, however, new interpretations, tests or observations may demolish that consensus. For instance, in the mid-1970s, an apparent scientific consensus existed that our planet was about to enter another Ice Age. Drastic proposals, such as exploding hydrogen bombs over polar icecaps to melt them. and damming the Bering Strait to prevent icy waters from entering the Pacific, were put forth by reputable scientists and seriously considered by the US government.

The truth is that scientific research at the upper echelons occurs within a fairly small world. Leading researchers attend the same conferences, belong to the same societies, review one another’s work for funding organizations, and so forth. If you do not belong to this tight fraternity, it becomes extremely difficult to gain a hearing for your work, to publish in a “top” journal, to acquire a government grant, to receive an invitation to participate in a scientific conference, or even to place your grad students in decent positions.

“Scientific consensus” often emerges because the members of this exclusive club, and those who support them, have too much invested in the reigning ideas to let go. In this context, it behooves bright young scientists not to rock the boat by challenging anything fundamental or dear to the hearts of those who constitute review committees of funders or journals. The terms “peer review” and “scientific consensus” often serve to suggest a process of disinterested neutrality and saintly pursuit of truth. Like every other human endeavour, however, science is conducted by people with the full range of human emotions and motives.

Good rules of thumb for the non-scientist might be the following: government-funded research that is used to justify that government’s policy should be suspect, whether or not it’s peer-reviewed; and the research of scientists who appear at press conferences in the company of politicians or activists whose agendas they are there to support should be suspect, whether or not the work upholds the consensus opinion.

–Bob Higgs, The Beacon

While I think that it’s great that global warming is in it’s death throws, I think the bigger lesson here is that whenever we hear the words “scientific consensus” it should immediately trigger our skeptic reflex. Science is an ongoing process of revolution and paradigm shift. It always has been. Today’s solid theory is tommorrows waste basket liner. Consensus in world of science is worth about as much as it is in the economics profession. That is to say, not much.

• If it’s new, be skeptical: Ok, this might sound like I’m a dinosaur or an old curmudgeon, but that’s not true. What I mean is that whenever something new hits the scene we have a duty to be skeptical about it until it’s been thoroughly researched and proven out. The idea of taking the flu vaccine every fall is something relatively new. It’s only been during the last 20 years or so that this idea has become prevalent. Before that, any talk of the flu vaccine was met with proper skepticism and only recommended for those where the risk of flu outweighed the risk of the vaccine side effects. This article from the NY Times in 1981 proves my point:
  

  In general, influenza is a bothersome disease, but not a serious one. Those who are most likely to develop serious and potentially fatal complications, including the elderly and people who are chronically ill, are advised to obtain flu vaccinations each year.

  –Jane E. Brody, NY Times

• If different rules apply to this one thing, be skeptical: What I mean here is that if there seems to be a different set of rules for this particular thing than are being applied to all the rest of a class of like things then you have to dig deep to find out why. For instance, the cold is a virus. Why aren’t we vaccinating that? And what about strep throat? And how about viral pneumonia? And, if we can’t vaccinate efficiently against all those things then why do we assume that the influenza virus is so susceptible to vaccination? It just seems that the flu is having different rules applied to it than every other disease. Seriously? A new vaccine every freakin year? That just doesn’t seem to fit.
• If an easy financial gain link can be found, be skeptical: Ok, just ask yourself for a moment who benefits from a national campaign to be vaccinated against the flu every year. It’s easy to see that drug companies would benefit greatly from this. The largest manufacturers of flu vaccine are Glaxo-Smith Kline, Novartis and Sanofi-Aventis. Familiar names to be sure. Such an obvious link between drug company profit and a public health scare should make anyone skeptical. Think of it this way. If all of the sudden the government came out with a report next month that said that buying a new car was necessary for health reasons because old cars harbour germs in the cushions wouldn’t you be a little skeptical that GM and Chrysler had something to do with it? Also, you have to wonder why nobody knows or reports on who actually makes these vaccines. All you ever see reported is “vaccine makers” said this, or “vaccine manufacturers” did that. They never actually use their company names. For example, do a google search for “largest manufacturer of flu vaccine” and notice that you only get like 8 hits. Seriously?! Eight hits? That’s fishy. What’s to hide?
• When you see fascism, be really, really skeptical: It’s fairly obvious to me that there is a mutual benefit scenario that plays out with annual flu-scare vaccinations. The government gets the benefit of the increased power and control that comes with any national “emergency” via the ratchet effect. And that plays perfectly into the profit motives of big, fascist pharma. If you know anything about me at all then you’ll know that I have absolutely nothing against profit. I’m an anarcho-capitalist to be sure. But profit by fascism is ill-gained and wrong.
• When the numbers lie, reject it: The truth about the whole flu thing is that the 36,000 flu deaths each year that the CDC reports is just complete aggregate nonsense. Statistics are easily skewed by using aggregated numbers. When you break down the actual causes of death in detail, you’ll see that less than 1000 people actually die directly from the flu complications each year and those almost always have complicating health factors such as severe asthma. Most all of those deaths are from people in the extreme age ranges and those who already have other illnesses like HIV. The numbers lie.

One link that has been gaining more and more solid independent research behind it is the link between Vitamin-D and cold/flu contraction. There is a lot of good evidence now showing that Vitamin-D deficiency is a main factor in a weak immune system. You can read about it here on Steve Gibson’s Vitamin-D page and the video below is a good reference too. Vitamin-D is actually not a vitamin at all. It’s a sort of super-hormone that the body uses for all kinds of things. It’s not naturally found in food either. But you won’t find any of this in any of the CDC/HHS propaganda literature because Vitamin-D isn’t patentable so it therefore doesn’t help big pharma to push that headline.

First, you must make up a random date and then make a big claim that you don’t intend to substantiate:

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

Then, you clear the playing field so that you don’t have to actually provide hard evidence for any of the stories you are about to make up:

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin’s time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today’s apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree.

…the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.

“This find is far more important than Lucy,” said Alan Walker, a paleontologist from Pennsylvania State University who was not part of the research. “It shows that the last common ancestor with chimps didn’t look like a chimp, or a human, or some funny thing in between.”

The neo-darwinians have been trying to do this for years now. Establish the idea that there actually was no transitional form between apes and man. They realize how absurdly weak the fossil record is and that it’s never going to get any better for them. So instead, they change their story. Now, there isn’t any “missing link” they need to find. Instead, there is only a mythical “common ancestor” that they don’t have to find. Convenient, no?

Now, let’s bring in some radiometric dating nonsense:

The Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were discovered in Ethiopia’s harsh Afar desert at a site called Aramis in the Middle Awash region, just 46 miles (74 kilometers) from where Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis, was found in 1974. Radiometric dating of two layers of volcanic ash that tightly sandwiched the fossil deposits revealed that Ardi lived 4.4 million years ago.

This is simply impossible. I’m sorry, but the flaw here is in misunderstanding the magnitude of what “millions” of years really means. Look, it takes teams of researchers sometimes decades to reconstruct and understand events from just a few hundred years ago. Why, do these people think they can possibly know who or what lived 4 MILLION years ago. Just stop and think about that for a minute. A million years. I cannot believe that we have instruments capable of accurately measuring in millions of years. I’m just not buying it. It’s naive.

And, here’s where we get into the typical Lucy BS. Skeletal amalgamations:

While important, however, none of those earlier fossils are nearly as revealing as the newly announced remains, which in addition to Ardi’s partial skeleton include bones representing at least 36 other individuals.

The way this works is that you take various bones from all sorts of critters and you just put them all in an arrangement that looks as much like a hominid as possible. This “skeleton” contains bones from 36 different creatures.

Now, with all of the preliminaries out of the way, we can move on to the meaty stuff. The storytelling. This is how modern hollywood-like science is done. You clear the field, throw out a bunch of claims, and then get on with spinning a good yarn that you couldn’t possibly really know happened:

The biggest surprise about Ardipithecus’s biology is its bizarre means of moving about.

All previously known hominids—members of our ancestral lineage—walked upright on two legs, like us. But Ardi’s feet, pelvis, legs, and hands suggest she was a biped on the ground but a quadruped when moving about in the trees.

Combined with modifications to the other toes, the bone would have helped Ardi walk bipedally on the ground, though less efficiently than later hominids like Lucy. The bone was lost in the lineages of chimps and gorillas.

Modern chimps and gorillas have evolved limb anatomy specialized to climbing vertically up tree trunks, hanging and swinging from branches, and knuckle-walking on the ground.

“What Ardi tells us is there was this vast intermediate stage in our evolution that nobody knew about,” said Owen Lovejoy, an anatomist at Kent State University in Ohio, who analyzed Ardi’s bones below the neck. “It changes everything.”

But it doesn’t stop there. No, he has to go full-silliness with a line like this:

Lovejoy sees these changes as part of an epochal shift in social behavior: Instead of fighting for access to females, a male Ardipithecus would supply a “targeted female” and her offspring with gathered foods and gain her sexual loyalty in return.

To keep up his end of the deal, a male needed to have his hands free to carry home the food. Bipedalism may have been a poor way for Ardipithecus to get around, but through its contribution to the “sex for food” contract, it would have been an excellent way to bear more offspring. And in evolution, of course, more offspring is the name of the game.

This is typical neo-darwinian story telling pure and simple. They do provide pictures though.

From this:

They got this:

Complete and utter silliness.

My wife and I had a really good physics teacher in college that always did an excellent job of making hard concepts easy and clear. He gave an explanation once of what’s really going on when you “square” a number mathematically and why it’s called squaring in the first place. It was really cool, and I always wondered why in the world math wasn’t taught that way in school. What a shame. Reason #598 to homeschool I guess.

Also, here is the Richard Feynman video that prompted the GM one. It’s very good too. It’s Feynman explaining how trains stay on the track and manage to turn corners without a differential mechanism. h The coning sounds similar to how constant velocity transmissions work. Thanks for posting these Lew. Good stuff.

The claim is that this lemur monkey fossil is “the missing link in human evolution.” That’s the claim, and that’s what should be evaluated. It doesn’t matter if it’s a really cool fossil, or if it’s “almost complete”, or any of that. What matters is whether or not it is clearly and distinctly a transitional form between ape and man, as the headlines are blazing it. What you will see, rather, is just a mega-hyped version of the usual stuff. I’ll show you here how to read one of these articles properly. I’ve read so many missing-link articles over the years that I have it down to an art form. I could analyze one and make a sandwich at the same time. Let’s look at the article [my comments in brackets]:

So, there we have it. An entire article about the missing link discovery with only 3 short paragraphs about why it’s actually the missing link. And those paragraphs are just your usual Darwinian fairy tale story turned into science. And looking at the stupid marketing website it becomes really obvious what this is all about and why David Attenborough is so involved:

David over at Crev has a good writeup on it today as well. What a load.

I sometimes marvel at how people who should know better simply miss the obvious. She flatly says that she “may not discriminate against the content of other displays” because she allowed a nativity first. Well, I know exactly what I would do. I would go down to the capital and place a big display of Godzilla eating some Japanese folks and breathing fire and claim he is my deity. Uh oh! Somebody beat me to the punch:

What a complete waste of everyone’s time. Our government has lost all vestiges of common sense. It’s freakin Christmas! You know, that holiday that represents the birth of Christ. Of course you can discriminate against atheist signs on CHRISTMAS!!! The vision of the nativity is embedded in the very word for cryin out loud. Please, you militant atheists, either get your own holiday or go put up some anti-religion signs in Syria during Ramadan. Oh, wait. I forgot all of you were too yellow to do something like that. Just shut up then.

All that being said, let me get to the point. In Blasphemy there is an interchange between the lead scientist on the supercollider project and a local missionary preacher. Through the whole interchange the preacher is portrayed as a fiery know-nothing idiot who doesn’t know how to get out of bed in the morning without his bible. The lead scientist, on the other hand, is the gracious, noble model of sincerity. Preston describes him as having a “warm smile” and a “warm and sincere” voice, and being the model of patience. Now contrast that with Melinda’s treatment of Richard Dawkins in her blog post:

Now, Melinda’s handling of Dawkins was gracious and very accomodating. On an ideological front, Dawkins is her mortal enemy. But that didn’t make her resort to caricature. She cares more about getting to the bottom of what Dawkins was actually saying and responding to that, rather than some straw man made in his image. After all, he could’ve been right. Just because someone doesn’t share our worldview, it doesn’t mean that everything that comes out of their mouth is wrong. I’m sure that Melinda and Richard both agree that killing people for fun is wrong. That truth is not somehow wrong when Dawkins says it just because he’s an atheist.

So to Douglas Preston and like-minded authors, I would say this. Give Christianity a fair treatment. I’ll say the same thing I said in one of my Neil Peart posts. Attacking Christianity via caricature and straw men is beneath your level. You’re too smart for that. It’s much too easy. In fact, I can probably do it better than most atheists could. It’s more challenging to respond to our well reasoned arguments coming from the big Christian thinkers of our time. And it makes people like me have more respect for you in general.