The audience knows what to expect and that is all they are prepared to believe,,,

The NRO has a blog that I placed below after dumping most of the eye wash.  The NRO is no fan of Al Gore, but this is a straight story you can check, if you are dubious.

The title is key line from  Tom Stoppard in Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead .  Richard Dreyfus said it twice, I recall. I suppose the title is the theme of my Footnotes' blog. 

The story below is about another one of the thousands of shoes dropping these days.  As I said a long time ago, scientists, especially who are being identified, will have no choice but to cover their asses. Short term money and careers have to give way to long-term reputation for the more serious of scientists.

The hack academics just go along to get along, but the reputable folks, if they have lost their objecivity, will pull back to the middle line when they see their evil ways, such as Sidall, below.  Once the hacks see the pendulum going the other way, they will try to run agead of it. 

Me, I am worried about global cooling, I think the false panic of 1976 had it right.  We need only wait two years to see if matters.

In all events,  Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead, which I rate it as a top 10 of all time, is a film you should own (but you still should see it.)  If you are not up on Hamlet, the play may be abstract, so first see Hamlet with Mel Gibson, who I believe got it right.  Yes, it is the same Mel Gibson.  In this version, as I recall, some scenes are moved about to provide a more linear story to the audience, as that is what they expect.

In the photo is Gary Oldman, one of the best, and the "Lie to Me" guy who is also superb.  Oldman played Lee Harvey Oswald to give you a sense of his range.  Charlton Heston was powerful in a role that didn't involve monsters, chariots, and so on.

”This above all: to thine ownself be true,
 And it must follow, as the night the day,
 Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Paper Reinforcing IPCC on Sea-Level Rise Retracted   [Daniel Foster]

A pair of scientists have formally retracted a paper that purported to back up IPCC conclusions about sea-level rise over the next 100 years. The paper concluded that sea levels would rise between seven centimeters and 82 centimeters by 2100. But a pair of mistakes were caught that undermined that conclusion:

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science."...

The paper – entitled "Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change" – used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct how sea level has fluctuated with temperature since the peak of the last ice age, and to project how it would rise with warming over the next few decades.

In a statement the authors of the paper said: "Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.

"One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes.",,,,

Yup, just as the man said, it was just one of those things that happens. 

This episode is an opportunity to see that "science" does not mean "facts." In today's use, to my mind, it means the procedure and tools used to examine and use what we call facts.  In a way, science is a noun which encapuslates verbs.  Greeks thought in terms of studying facts to determine causes, which remains close to a modern understanding, though they were far more philosophical. 

The point being, there is no "science" that means "facts."  There are assumptions, methods, and conclusions.  These may provide new assumptions.  There are hardly any real "facts," but my sophistry is showing.  As Einstein took pains to explain, really strong hypotheses are not facts. As he noted, geometry is not "truth."

So, if anyone tells you science says anything, recall this makes no sense at all.  It is like saying "economics" or "religion" says....  To permit such use is to permit others' opinions to parade as fact.   Indeed, similarly the fraud of others will be championed.  The idea of science is to overcome such illusion.