The other day I posted an article that had a Google Video of Episode 1 of the UK’s Channel 4 three part series The Genius of Charles Darwin and while I haven’t seen a contiguous Google Video for Episode 2 I did find it published as a series of YouTube Videos and I post them here:
Richard Dawkins’ Genius Of Darwin – Part 2 (1 of 5)
Richard Dawkins’ Genius Of Darwin – Part 2 (2 of 5)
Richard Dawkins’ Genius Of Darwin – Part 2 (3 of 5)
Richard Dawkins’ Genius Of Darwin – Part 2 (4 of 5)
Richard Dawkins’ Genius Of Darwin – Part 2 (5 of 5)
The blooger ScruffyDan has been duking it out this summer with the infamous Political Operative Denier Marc Morano and Morano (and the Deniers in general) are taking a beating.
They are both well worth the time reading if you’re interested in seeing and understanding how the Denier campaign of disinformation works and does it’s damage.
For those of us who are still thinking that Nuclear Energy is a viable economically wise answer to our energy problem (I’ll admit that I’ve been one of them although I am starting to change my mind in that regard) we have news (via Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog.com) that …
Nuclear Energy: Expensive, Dangerous, Not Cost-Effective
16 Aug 08 — Amory Lovins and Imran Sheikh have penned a new report on nuclear energy as a fossil fuel option, concluding that nuclear is still dangerous and complicated, not particularly reliable, creates a pollution problem that lasts for many millennia and is therefore a waste of money that could be spent more productively on renewable energy.
Perhaps most devastating to the free market fans, Lovins and Sheikh note that "nuclear power plants are unfinanceable in the private capital market because of their excessive costs and financial risks and the high uncertainty of both."
"During the nuclear revival now allegedly underway, no new nuclear project on earth has been financed by private risk capital, chosen by an open decision process, nor bid into the world’s innumerable power markets and auctions. No old nuclear plant has been resold at a value consistent with a market case for building a new one."
The hat tip here goes to Steve Milloy, Junk Scientist extraordinaire and unreconstructed PR guy, who pointed to the Lovins’ paper in a hyperventilating screed on the Fox News wire. Thanks Steve.
By the way for anyone who wasn’t already aware of it do you know all those google ads you see at the time where there is this guy who wants to debate Al Gore in regard to Global Warming Global Climate Disruption*** and more recently Canada’s David Suzuki? Well Richard Littlemore has accepted that challenge and wants to take on the British nobleman Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley! Read all about it:Monckton vs. Littlemore: A Debate in the Waiting.
Republican Presidential Canidate John MCCain on the Russia-Georgian Condflict:
"…but in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations and we will decide in subsequent days as to whether degree of provocation and who was right and who was wrong. "
People who know me personally will know that for a while now I have been saying that the U.S. has taken a path in the last seven years as far as world leadership is concerned that has put us on the same path that the Great Britain, once the world’s great super power, followed in the last century and we will probably all watch China rise to the fore in the next century.
Robert Roy Britt, the Managing Editor of LiveScience writes about it this article:
As the world focuses on China during the Olympics and keeps a watchful eye on Russia’s military moves in Georgia, there is an underlying expectation — and for some, fear — that China is poised to become the world’s new No. 1 superpower.
In fact, a good number of people in many countries believe the torch has already been passed.
In Japan, 67 percent of the people think China will supplant the United States as the world’s premiere superpower, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Fifty-three percent of Chinese see that as their fate.
"Most of those surveyed in Germany, Spain, France, Britain and Australia think China either has already replaced the U.S. or will do so in the future," according to the Pew report released in June.
In the United States, hope reigns: 54 percent of Americans doubt China will win out.
[...]
Four elements of a superpower
A superpower "is a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time," according to Alice Lyman Miller, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and an associate professor in National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Four components of influence mark a superpower, Miller says: military, economic, political, and cultural.
1/3 of Chinese Emissions Attributable to Western Consumption
It seems that in virtually any long winded debate you get in to with a group of Global Warming Global Climate Disruption*** Deniers eventually after you won all the arguments and debunked all their pseudo-science and non-science eventually one of them will throw up the argument that even if Global Climate Disruption is taking place we (the U.S.) are not the worst offenders, China is (although not by much in terms of total contribution, and very certainly not so on a per capita basis).
Well today I read something that I’ve long suspected in regard to China’s contribution. The article in the blog Celsius I read today reported that:
…the real culprit in rising Chinese emissions may be the rest of us.
A recent study by Carnegie Mellon University economics professor, Christopher L. Weber suggests that as much as 1.7 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, or roughly 1/3 of China’s emissions, are related to goods being exported and consumed in the West.
"We found that in 2005, fully one-third of China’s greenhouse gas emissions were due to production of exports. This proportion has risen quickly, from 12 percent in 1987 and only 21 percent in 2002," said Weber, a research professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. – Science Daily
Record pollution and smog aside, China’s contribution to climate change is cause for great concern….
[...]
Well I don’t know about putting their "Record pollution and smog aside" (a video series I also learned about this past week via Celsius profiles The Most Polluted City on the Planet – Linfen, China and it appalling if not scary to watch) but to those fellow Americans of mine who want to shirk, avoid, or ignore the American contribution to Global Climate Disruption really need to examine their foolish idiotic logic.
The United Kingdom’s Channel 4 has put together a three part series The Genius of Charles Darwin. Fortunately for us here in the United States the first episode in the series can be viewed via Google Video:
THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2008 Forward vs. Backward Thinking
I’ve begun to wonder if there are only two different ways to think about truths in reality. The non-scientific mind tends to reason ‘backwards’ and scientists are trained to think ‘forwards’. I believe ‘forward thinking’ is superior but it takes some work to explain why ‘backward thinking’ doesn’t work yet appears, on the surface, to be legitimate.
I’ll look at these two ways of thinking by imagining a murder scene:
and then goes on to illustrate how those modes of thinking often manifest themselves:
[...]
This, I believe, is the fundamental trap that theists fall into. They become backward thinkers. They start with an obvious conclusion (god exists, Jesus lived, Mohammed was the final prophet) and look only for evidence to support it. Conflicting evidence is ignored or a twisted explanation is offered. They are not interested in changing their conclusion – they want to be right.
Forward thinkers don’t assume any knowledge. They use a much more difficult mental process that forces them to base a conclusion on all available evidence – even if this conclusion conflicts with what they hoped was the right answer.
So, how do we teach a new generation to abandon backward thinking? Certainly more science education but teachers need to spend more time on the process (collecting evidence) and less time on giving the solution and asking students to confirm it….
