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Wingnut bait:

GOODBYE air pollution and smoky chimneys, hello brighter days. That's been the trend in Europe for the past three decades - but unfortunately cleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred.

Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone.

Hook...Line...Sinker...

Sundries Shack:

I mean, who doesn’t like clean air?

I’ll tell you you who doesn’t like it. The Earth. The Earth doesn’t like clean air, at least not quite as much as Woodsy the Owl and that crying Indian led us to believe.

And your children and grandchildren are probably going to want it just a little bit dirty because, as it happens, clean air seems to contribute heavily to global warming. [...]

My guess is that in thirty years we’ll look back and find that this study is where the Cult of Climate Change well and truly jumped the shark. From today, their explanations are only going to get more ridiculous and hard to believe.

Don Surber:

A-ha!

So the problem with the SUV is not that it emits carbon dioxide (which is an essential ingredient to plant life) but rather its catalytic converter.

We’ve made the air too clean.

And remember how we banned spray-on deodorants because of global cooling in the 1970s?

That worked.

Too well. [...]

Look, it does not take a rocket scientist to realize that these people do not know what the hell they are talking about.

Moonbattery:

Once again we see that there is the farthest thing from a consensus on how human activity affects the climate — if it does at all. The only sure thing is that the climate will always change. Nonetheless the global warming hoax marches forward, as the governmedia self-servingly assures us that only totalitarian measures and a radical reduction in our standard of living can save the planet from cataclysmic doom.

The Earth doesn't like clean air? We banned spray-on deodorants because of global cooling?!? And of course the obligatory: bloggers are smarter than scientists!

Holy. Fucking. Shit. That's just too brilliant to say anything more about!

Next up from the world of science:

Pacific nations threatened with disappearing beneath the waves as sea levels rise have been given a partial reprieve – for a few decades at least. But Europe and North America could be at much greater risk of floods than previously appreciated.

Quick! Someone page Drudge!

Uhhmm, wingnuts...

...I'm pretty sure Al Gore meant carbon emissions that are beyond what's already part of the natural carbon cycle. You know, those that accumulate faster than they can be cycled back?

Today's excellence in wingnut science award goes to Noel Sheppard, Bryan Preston, and Robert Bryce for being the the stupidest wingnuts on the planet!

Update: Some background on Bryce that indicates he's nowhere near the wingnut I've made him out to be. Noel and Bryan, on the other hand...

The rewards of taxation. And donation.

This is funny in a geeky sort of way. Newsbusters, the conservative Media Research Center's blog created to "not only prove — through sound scientific research — that this bias exists, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene" decided to tackle some results they found skimming New Scientist.

New Scientist: People Love to Pay Taxes? Absurd 'Study' Presented as Fact
Posted by Warner Todd Huston on June 15, 2007 - 06:25.

If this isn't junk science, then nothing meets the requirement to be called such! A new, money wasting university "study" was written about by New Scientist Magazine [...] this month that was presented as a "surprising discovery" somehow "proving" that people secretly love to pay taxes. And people wonder why "science" can be so easily scoffed at these days... or why it's so hard to believe what you read.

On top of the bad reporting, this story is more proof of the constant waste of money that is perpetrated by our National Universities. Instead of teaching useful information and conducting meaningful studies, this University is trying to "prove" that people really secretly LOVE paying taxes.

Gee, why do they want that little absurd concept floating out there, do you think? And why is this news outlet propagating this foolishness?

It's likely Warner Todd Huston never bothered reading the original article appearing in Science (maybe because it's subscription restricted?). The experimental paradigm involves a number of trials in which the subjects were told that they were going to receive $100, but of that money either $0, $15, $30, or $45 would be set aside to go to a charity. In some trials the subjects had no choice in how much money they would give to the charity (simulating a mandatory "tax") in other trials the subjects had a choice in either accepting or rejecting the amount presented to them (simulating a donation to that charity). In most of the trials, however, subjects were told the "taxation" amount and then asked to accept or reject the voluntary donation they were asked to give in addition to the tax. All monies collected from the subjects (either through the tax or the voluntary contgribution) went to the Lane county food bank.

Results: the lower the mandatory part was, the more willing the subjects were to accept the proposed donation amount:


Granted, the NewScientist article wasn't entirely effective at pointing this out, but you'd think that rather than scoff at this study, an ultra-conservative place like Newsbusters would wholeheartedly embrace such a finding. After all, the conservative mantra is that if we lower taxes there'll be more charitable giving, therefore helping society more than high taxation rates would. But oh no, they saw the word tax used in a positive way and went off the deep end:

What unbelievable balderdash! This "study" is so obviously flawed and absurd that it boggles the mind.

The truth is this flawed study treated taxes and charitable giving as one and the same function, a fatal flaw at the heart of their attempts to "prove" anything.

The study goes on to compare the brain scans of people giving charitable donations to those who are "paying taxes" (not that their study actually has anyone really paying taxes in it). The entire concept, however, makes a fundamental mistake in definition. Taxes are NOT charity. They are forcible redistribution of income -- even if for legitimate reason in some cases. Charity and taxes are in no way comparable. Further, it shows that these concepts have not been taught to these students before this idiotic study was conducted and no control group of people chosen for their proper understanding of the definitions of taxes and charity was assembled for this program.

This misses the point, which is to dissociate the reward of voluntary giving from that of simply giving. From the Science article:

Every society needs public goods, but the mechanisms used to fund them vary. For example, taxation and government spending are lower in the United States than in most European countries, but philanthropy is higher (1). To economists, this charitable giving is a puzzle: Money is a good, so why are people willing to give it away? One possible explanation is in terms of a "pure altruism" motive (2). Individuals with such a motive receive satisfaction from increases in a public good, such as the provision of basic services to the needy. This altruistic concern provides a motive to give, but there is also an incentive to keep money for oneself, because the cost of such charity is entirely paid by the giver, whereas the benefits are spread out over all those people who care about the needy. Only those people with a very large pure altruism motive would give voluntarily, and taxation is the normal social solution to the resulting free-riding. Pure altruism implies that people should get some satisfaction even when public goods are supplied through mandatory taxation, because, by this account, people care only about how much of the public good is provided and not about the process by which the transfer occurs. A second possible motive for charitable giving is the sense of agency associated with the act of voluntary giving. This reward from giving has been termed "warm glow" (3, 4). If givers were driven exclusively by the warm-glow motive, they should derive satisfaction from making a voluntary gift, rather than from the increase in the level of the public good itself. On the other hand, taxation should not produce a warm glow, because paying taxes typically does not involve a voluntary choice.

The distinction between pure altruism and warm-glow motives for giving is important for several reasons. First, if giving is motivated by pure altruism, tax-funded government expenditures to provide a public good will reduce private giving, potentially dollar for dollar, as people cut their voluntary contributions in response to these higher taxes (5). There should be no similar effect with warm-glow givers, as their benefit derives from the amount of their gift. Second, a warm-glow motive for altruism provides an argument in favor of policies that encourage voluntary giving, because the warm-glow benefit provides a reward to the giver that exceeds the benefit from paying an equivalent amount in taxes (6).

Of course the concept that some people might accept taxes should never enter the minds of a Newsbusters reader. In fact, similar studies have been performed in the past that have yielded similar results. This study simply links the actions of the subjects with brain reward circuitry as measured using fMRI. The results of this study actually show...

...that both the increased payoffs and the ability to choose lead to increased neural activity and satisfaction

In other words, though the reward circuitry is activated when a subject is forced to pay, it's activated even more if the subject can choose to donate or take home the money. Imagine that. Hmmh. That sounds rather libertarian, don't it? But not for Warner Todd, who's found flaws in the study's methodology:

Problem #1- GAVE

These girls were not spending their own hard earned money. It was money that was simply handed to them with no efforts on their part past signing up for the study. These girls had no emotional attachment to the money, no sense of having earned it, no real assumptions that it was "theirs" at all. It was merely Monopoly money used for this study in their minds. It should be no surprise, then, that these subjects had no adverse reaction to the "spending" of their $100 on taxes.

No effort? Spending two hours sticking your head into an fMRI for 13 minutes at a time? As for "monopoly money," they were paid one randomly chosen voluntary and one randomly chosen mandatory scenario at the end of the day. Cold hard cash. More Warner Todd:

Problem #2 STUDENTS

Chances are, the bulk of these same girls don't work for a living, either. So, their experience with earning money that they are utterly dependent upon for themselves and their family is also an emotional concern they are not accustomed to. They are probably taken care of by grants, loans and parents' funds, so they have little understanding of the "worth" of the $100 they were handed.

Wow. Just wow. Here's what the methods section tells us about the subjects...

Our sample included 20 female subjects recruited from the population of economics and psychology students at the University of Oregon. Female subjects were selected to control for any potential inhomogeneities in brain structures between genders, and because variation in charitable giving decisions was a critical component of our analysis and behavioral evidence suggests greater price sensitivity to giving in females

WTodd, the "sensitive" male concludes:

Another thing that makes this study completely meaningless is the lack of context. Few sensible people are against taxes just on principle. Even die hard tax protesters understand that taxes are a necessary evil at some level. But, context is important to the question of taxes. How is it being spent? Is the government program effective? Is it free of graft? These questions change the desire of people to pay taxes and must be answered to fully study people's true reactions to taxes.

Further, there is a difference between the personal satisfaction of giving to a charity and feeling of "pleasure" from having helped someone else and the different emotional "pleasure" of having done your duty as a citizen when paying taxes. Duty is a personal satisfaction based on a sense of accomplishment for yourself first. Charitable giving is a "pleasure" of having helped someone else. Yet, both feelings can be erased or materially harmed when the money thus given is misused. This study neither takes any time to quantify the two feelings of "pleasure" nor factors in the ultimate use of that money.

All these deficits of logic and method makes this study a farce.

But, here we are being told of the "surprising discovery" of this study which is presented as if it is all ascertained fact. This "secret pleasure" is presented as some amazing, unexpected human reaction to taxation.

And, again, why would such a study be made? Is this another effort to soften the blow of taxation? If so, this is quite against the grain of the American experience which has been built on decades of a dislike of taxation and a mistrust of government.

In the end, all we have here is propaganda for the left from New Scientist and the University of Oregon.

I'll just let the authors take care of that one:

In summary, we find that three very different things—monetary payoffs to oneself, observing a charity get money, and a warm-glow effect related to free choice—all activate similar neural substrates. This result supports arguments for a common "neural currency" of reward (25–29) and shows that this model can be applied not just to choice over money, risk, and private consumption goods, but also to more abstract policy choices involving taxation and charitable giving (12). Our results are also important for understanding why people give money to charitable organizations. First, these transfers are associated with neural activation similar to that which comes from receiving money for oneself. The fact that mandatory transfers to a charity elicit activity in reward-related areas suggests that even mandatory taxation can produce satisfaction for taxpayers. A better understanding of the conditions under which taxation elicits "neural rewards" could prove useful for evaluating the desirability of different tax policies. Second, we show that the opportunity for free choice is associated with increased activity in regions implicated in processing rewards, as well as with higher reported satisfaction. Furthermore, this effect is not entirely accounted for by increased payoffs. In the context of charitable giving, this choice-related benefit is consistent with a warm-glow motive for giving.

In combination, these results suggest that both pure altruism and warm glow are important motives for charitable giving. Future work may reveal whether the free-choice effect found here extends to other situations, and under which conditions taxation elicits "neural" rewards. A related question is whether people who vote for a tax to provide a public good get a warm-glow benefit. Last, public goods by their very nature are seldom traded in markets, and so we cannot observe the prices people will pay and then use these to measure value. The finding that neural activity predicts voluntary donations suggests that such activity could eventually help measure values and determine optimal levels of public goods.

Will these people ever stop attacking science as having a perceived "liberal" slant?

Take me out to the Frame Game!

Bases loaded...

David DeWalt is up to bat. Leebruhl media pitching.

Twice during the Republican presidential debates and once at a forum for Democratic candidates, candidates were asked about evolution. [...]

As several commentators have pointed out, these are trick questions, because "evolution" was never defined. Do I believe that the Corvette has evolved over the years? Yes, I do. Do I think that it evolved by random mutation and natural selection? No, I don't.

Ball one. Comparing Corvettes to tadpoles is wingnutty, but the whining tone is insufficiently manly-man.

However, there is increasing skepticism among thoughtful scientists of a central claim of neo-Darwinism, namely that complex living systems can be generated from mindless processes like random mutation and natural selection. Thus, the question that Wolf Blitzer should have asked would be along these lines: "Do you think that the topic of Darwinian evolution should be taught objectively in our public schools, with evidence for and against the theory?"

Strrrrike! Good effort on the skepticism part, but hits it way out with a long and complicated question.

But we have heard that rhetoric elsewhere. For example, Al Gore has famously said that the debate is over regarding global warming. Even assuming that human beings cause global warming, scientists vigorously debate how significant the human contribution is and how beneficial remedial measures would be. "The debate is over" really means, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts." [...]

Some may have the illusion that science is devoid of politics. But whether we debate the efficacy of a pharmaceutical drug, the risks of electromagnetic radiation, or the potential benefit of embryonic stem cells, financial and ideological agendas are not easily set aside. As bad as political correctness may be in the humanities and social sciences, we should be particularly alarmed by a threat to the right to dissent from the "mainstream" when it comes to scientific knowledge, often a critical component of our public policy.

It's a wingnut home run! Weaving together Al Gore, global warming, drug efficacy and embryonic stem cells, David DeWalt hits it out of the ballpark of rational discourse and directly into the cheering crowds of think-tankers and right-wing ideologues. But he doesn't stop there.

Those with the courage to challenge reigning orthodoxies ought to be able to follow the scientific evidence where it leads. Some may study the scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution and conclude that there is no God. Some may study the evidence for intelligent design and conclude that atheism is irrational. Some may reach the conclusion that Darwinian evolution and religious faith are perfectly compatible. The question of how best to explain the appearance of design in the universe should be fair game; scientists, teachers, and students should have the right to reach the answer that each finds most satisfying.

Perfect. Some may try to impose their views of a higher being onto science, but even if they're unable to test that hypothesis, should nonetheless be able to offer their data. If they're prevented from doing so, we'll condemn them for politicizing science.

Maggie's Law

Maggie Gallagher has some deep thoughts on science:

The amount of scientific evidence needed to establish a moral truth is inversely proportional to the degree to which this truth is congruent with liberalism's moral ends.

That pretty much defines wingnuttia's approach to science: as long as Al Gore and the leebruhls accept the data for what they are and propose policy based on those data, we don't like the data.

Excellence in Wingnut/Wanker science

It's early in the day, but we've already got a winner! Ed Morrissey links to this article about animal-human chimeras and writes:

Now Britain wants to allow real Frankensteins to create “cybrid” mixes of animals and humans. What happened to all of the European concern over genetic purity?

OK, he's pretty whack, but even I don't believe he meant what's implied by that phrase (think Nazis)...Either way, genetically speaking, these "cybrids" are purely human. There's no cow or pig DNA left.

Make no mistake about it. This is what happens when we start talking about how the ends of curing disease justifies all sorts of means. Scientists used to tell us that they had no use for cloning people, and that cloning technology would only be used to grow specific tissues. They insisted that they could protect the sanctity of human life by creating and destroying embryos.

Let's take a look at the graphic provided by The Telegraph. [In lieu of a news article at Science or Nature, you can read along here for more information]:



The phrase "would only be developed for up to 14 days" is key here: outside of the mind of an extremely twisted wingnut, it'd be difficult to create a Dr. Moreau's Island out of these chimeras. Moreover, no human embryos are destroyed. Unless you count an adult's skin cell DNA as a human embryo. Don't get a cold, you might sneaze some embryos! The Captain concludes:

Now that we have mostly allowed that bright line to be crossed, researchers want to cross an even brighter line for the same reasons. They want to look into embryonic stem cells, and again promise that they will cure Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, and a host of other plagues on modern humanity. All we have to do is let them start creating laboratory cybrids and the cures will flow faster than ever.

Hogwash. We still haven’t seen cures from normal hEsc research after years of it, while adult and cord stem cells have developed dozens of therapies for disease. If hEsc was as promising as the researchers have insisted, they wouldn’t need to create cybrids to get their therapies. We don’t need to create a real Island of Dr. Moreau to know that this road is fraught with peril, and we are already sliding down the slippery slope if Western nations blithely allow for human/animal genetic mixes.

Dozens of therapies? Try two. The rest of this fear-mongering drivvel is too stupid to even comment on, so I'll just let it stand as it is.

Excellence in Wingnut/Wanker Science!

Today's winner, AJ Strata who really could be any day's winner, links to Inhofe's "blog" and concludes:

Laymen like Gore are not accustommed to the scientific process. Gore especially could be easily confused trying to liken the scientific debate to that in the Senate - the most votes win: right or wrong. The fact is the debates are fluid and shifting while the scientific community debate the alternatives. Theories come up, gain support, are investigated in detail. Then there are inconsistencies discovered, contradictions to face. A new theory arises and gains support and the whole process repeats. This cycle continues to refine humankind’s knowledge and expertise until the immutable reality appears. Those peddling man-made Global Warming were just jumping on an early and unsubstantiated theory that was at one time popular. Now a better understanding is coming to light. And those wedded to the old models need to ‘move on’ and ‘keep up’.
[emphasis mine]

Uhm. Ever notice how Senator Inhofe is also a "layman"?

Wanker science: stem cell edition

In the conservative mind, whatever might be perceived as a "liberal" issue is greeted with immediate contrarian hyperventilating which often results in either a complete block of funding (when Republicans are hold majorities in Congress) or reduction of funding to such a level that whatever is being considered cannot succeed. Once there is even the tiniest evidence that the "conservative" alternative is working, they roll out the spinmeisters to hype how great their way of doing things is and how misguided those "liberals" were in thinking that their plan would ever succeed.

This is true for any number of issues, like mass transit vs highways, high-speed rail vs airline travel, etc, and is also true for the issue of federally funding stem cell research. Federal funding for embryonic stem cell reserach was blocked based on dubious ethical grounds that on the one hand stated it's akin to murder, but on the other hand didn't ban it outright.

Without federal funding, the basic research on stem cell therapies--adult or emryonic--simply is not done since private money is quite risk-averse when it comes to paying for cutting-edge science which may or may not lead to cures a long time down the road. Translational research--that which takes the basic research almost to the point of the first clinical trials is also quite risky for private investment, and often just not done by pharmaceutical corporations alone. The depth and breadth of federally-funded academic science working in conjunction with private industry makes translational research more effective. Both of those early steps pretty much require people to be paid to do things that might fail in coming up with a cure. That's not to say that corporations don't engage in either basic or translation research, it's that the risks of pumping money into experiments that might never actually produce cures is far too great for corporations to take, so they limit that type of research and depend on federally funded research to take those first tentative steps towards potential cures. It's in the clinical trials phase where private (corporate) money is most involved and federal money is least required since at this stage, the risks are relative low, though not absent.

So here we are, after years of federal funding going only to adult stem cell research and lookee here, those experiments are starting to yield results indicative of possible cures:

The results show that insulin-dependent diabetics can be freed from reliance on needles by an injection of their own stem cells.

That's great, and it shows how when money is spent on something, it sometimes actually gets results that are useful to people! What it does not show is that embryonic stem cells are somehow inferior to adult stem cells and blocking their funding was therefore justified. Captain Ed:

What has changed since lasty year? Majority control of Congress has shifted to the Democrats, and they perceive Bush to be even weaker than he was when he issued his first and only veto of his presidency. The science hasn't advanced for hEsc development at all. Researchers still have not implemented a single therapy from embryonic stem cells. One of the proponents of the bill, the firm Geron, says it will start the first US human tests of hEsc-based therapy "soon".

This time, the Senate will allow an alternative bill to get a floor vote. Sponsored by Norm Coleman and Johnny Isakson, it proposes to use stem cells from clinically dead embryos, hoping to bypass the ethical and moral dilemmas that have kept hEsc research from getting federal funds. Some researchers scoff at the proposal, saying that such cells would almost certainly be suspect even if still alive when extracted, but Coleman and Isakson argue that the alternative will never pass into law anyway.

Perhaps that's because stem-cell research continues to show that hEsc is not as promising as other techniques.

Uhm...no. Perhaps that's because there has been asymmetric funding favoring one alternative over the other. For this, and because Captain Ed is a respected wanker (unlike this goofball whose musings on the topic are way too stupid to quote. Even here, and that's saying something!), he wins today's "excellence in wingnut/wanker science" award. Congratulations Captian Ed!

Every breathe you take...

Dan Riehl attempts to breathe new life into the "Carbon is Life" argument which took its last breath a long time ago.

Supreme Court: Government Can Regulate Breathing

Yes, that's correct. Thanks to a runaway Supreme Court, still tilted left by liberal justices, it has determined that the federal government now actually has the right to regulate how and when you breathe.

Dan Riehl: The Breathalyzer!

By classifying Carbon Dioxide as an air pollutant and mandating that the EPA regulate its discharge, they have however unwittingly and stupidly, supplied precedent for government to actually regulate the air you breathe, okay, actually the by product of breathing that you discharge - same difference as a matter of fact.

Uhm...don't hold your breath?

The point isn't if the federal government would ever implement such a silly regulation - the point is that a group of five unelected, aging to the point of senility in some cases, individuals have reached into the Constitution and discovered something not a single founding Father would have ever imagined being there - the right of the federal government to regulate human breath.

OK Dan. Breathe, breathe...

Government is ultimately the problem and we are fast approaching a point where no democratic effort can correct our course, particularly as there is no democratic option for controlling a runaway Supreme Court. Unfortunately, even allegedly conservative governments have shown that they have no qualms with growing government while taking away more and more of our freedom. If you think government can right itself, I'd suggest you not hold your breath. But then, given the courts ruling on carbon dioxide, there could come a day when you have no choice.

You take my breath away, Dan.

Sadly, good Americans may one day find themselves at a point where only revolution will be able to secure their so-called inalienable rights.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of hot air.

I guess I could have gone into lung volume vs engine displacement volume; oxygen, the carbon cycle, fossil fuels, and carbon dioxide emissions; etc., etc. But it's actually quite self-explanable, so today's winner of excellence in wingnut/wanker science is Dan Riehl!