Political Science

I haven’t been terribly prolific in my blog writing, but I did keep bookmarking items as I came across them. So in an attempt to clean up my bookmark folder, here is a run down of political science.*

Not the academic field of political science. I’m writing about what happens when politicians let their political ideologies override common sense.

So, in no particular order…

Former Massachusetts Senator and New Hampshire Senatorial candidate Scott Brown can’t seem to remember the research on climate change. In 2012 during the Massachusetts race against Elizabeth Warren, Brown “absolutely” knew that climate change was real and anthropogenic (man made). But now in 2014 in the NH contest, he’s sure that there is no climate change.

Instead of citing the scientific journals, Montana Congressional candidate Ryan Zinke referred to the Wall Street Journal when he declared that climate change is not settled science. On another issue, Zinke thinks that fracking is environmentally friendly.

Rep. Joe Barton is in the Hall of Fame of science deniers. In 2007, Barton shows his vast knowledge of climate by pontificating on the effect on temperature by cloud shapes. “Tall clouds or skinny clouds, short clouds, fat clouds, high clouds, low clouds.” Ignoring the nearly unanimous scientific consensus of climatologists, he opposes any legislation on climate, because "You can't regulate God. Not even the Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress can regulate God."

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe says that climate change is really a harmless act of God.” This came during a debate on unemployment benefits. In a different debate, Inhofe cited a petition that proclaims that greenhouse gases do not cause climate change. Fortunately not everyone elected to the Senate is an idiot. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse noted that the petition includes future Nobel Prize winners, The Spice Girls.

Did you know that it’s all a complete hoax anyway. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher stated

Just so you know, global warming is a total fraud and it is being designed by—what you’ve got is you’ve got liberals who get elected at the local level want state government to do the work and let them make the decisions. Then, at the state level, they want the federal government to do it. And at the federal government, they want to create global government to control all of our lives. That’s what the game plan is. It’s step by step by step, more and bigger control over our lives by higher levels of government. And global warming is that strategy in spades.… Our freedom to make our choices on transportation and everything else? No, that’s gotta be done by a government official who, by the way, probably comes from Nigeria because he’s a UN government official, not a US government official.

So climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a Nigerian. Rohrbacher also thinks that a dramatic change in climate 55 million year was caused by dinosaur farts. 

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith. Smith doesn’t understand a review of the scientific literature. “The IPCC does not perform science itself and doesn't monitor the climate, but only reviews carefully selected scientific literature.”

Then there’s Lenar Whitney, Louisiana state representative and Congressional candidate. She really thinks the Earth is getting colder and that a ten-year-old-child can disprove climate change with a thermometer. When a Washington Post reporter asked her to back up her claims, “she froze and was unable to cite a single scientist, journal or news source to back up her beliefs.

In Kentucky, state Sen. Brandon Smith was able to disprove the nearly unanimous consensus among climatologists. He knows that “the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody would dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”

Finally, there is Rep. Dan Benishek. “Well, I am a scientist. You know, I believe in peer-reviewed science. But, I don’t see any peer-reviewed science that proves there is man-made catastrophic climate change.” Let’s review his credentials. Benishek graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in biology. Okay. UM is a prestigious university. He went to Wayne State University’s medical school, received his M.D. in 1978, and has worked as surgeon. That’s actually pretty impressive. Except there no evidence he has any experience in climatology or any of the related fields.

What do real scientists say on the matter of climate change? A meta-analysis of the literature found that out of 11,944 articles published between 1991 and 2011, only 0.7% rejected anthropogenic global warming. Among the articles expressing a position on the issue, 97% of researchers in the field - not some ransom petition signed by the Spice Girls - are convinced that humans are a driving force in climate change. Of course, if you'd like to read some of the climatology literature for yourself, you should first visit the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Here’s a quick roll call of other non-scientists who openly ignore the vast research that conclusively shows climate change is happening and is man made.

• Sen. John Boehner
• Gov. Rick Scott
• Sen. Marco Rubio
• Senatorial candidate Joni Ernst
• Gov. Bobby Jindal
• Rep Michael Grimm

And the list will goes on. I wonder what other settled science these morons will dispute.*

*I have so many items bookmarked that I could only deal with climate change here.

Are Dinosaurs a Renewable Energy Source?

Greg Gutfeld is the guy on Fox’s The Five who supposed to provide jokes that are intentionally funny. More often I find him humorous when he’s not trying to be funny.

CREDIT: Fox News

Last week during a discussion on climate change on The Five, he asked, "Isn't fossil fuels the ultimate renewable energy? It's renewed once. It used to be a dinosaur. Now it's fuel. How is that not renewable?"

Notice how the other four completely ignore Greg.

Now forget the fact that dinosaurs are extinct; petroleum doesn’t even come from dinosaurs. Both petroleum and natural gas was formed by the decomposition of phytoplankton and zooplankton   many millions of years ago. Coal on the other hand was formed by the decay of terrestrial plants during the Carboniferous Period 360 million years ago.

Can someone explain to me what is so difficult to understand about petroleum, natural gas, and coal being non-renewable energy sources?

Kansas to Teach Evidence Against Germ and Atomic Theory

Remember Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister?  They were two of the scientists responsible for the acceptance of germ theory - the theory that some infectious diseases were caused by microorganisms and controversial before the 19th century and the scientific evidence in its favor,

Remember Antoine Lavoisier, John Dalton, Robert Brown, J.J. Thompson, and Ernst Rutherford? These were some of the chemists and physicists responsive for demonstrating the reality of the atom and its subatomic constituents. Another example where the evidence conclusively pointed toward the existence of these once hypothesized particles.

CREDIT: University of Kansas

Now thanks to the Kansas House Education Committee, students will have to review not only the germ theory, but the competing miasma theory of disease.  Students will have to consider the counter evidence to the atomic theory presented by alchemy and the Classical Greek science of the four elements (air, fire, water, earth).

What does the K stand for in KU and K-State?  One day, it won't be knowledge.

CREDIT: Kansas State University

Breaking News: News Anchors Get Science Wrong.

From Feb. 7, 2013

CREDIT: Fox News

During a Fox and Friends segment on solar energy, a host claimed that that the outlook for the U.S.'s solar power industry is "dim." 

Shibani Joshi, a Fox Business reporter, then went on to say that solar power is "working out great" for Germany.  Why is it working out great for Germany?  Joshi says, "They've got a lot more sun that we do."

Nein, nein, nein.  Parts of the southwest get two and a half times more sun than Germany.  The only part of the U.S. that gets a comparable amount of sunlight as Germany is the Seattle/Tacoma area.  The fact is that Germany has better governmental policies towards solar power generation that we do.

CREDIT: National Renewable Energy Laboratory via Thurstone Energy

To Joshi's credit she corrected herself the next day on www.foxnews.com.

I incorrectly stated that the chief difference between the U.S. and Germany’s success with solar installations had to do with climate differences…

From Feb. 9, 2103

With the hubbub over the close pass of asteroid DA14, CNN anchor Deborah Feyerick led an interview with Bill Nye with the following question:

Is this an effect of perhaps global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion?

I would like to nominate Bill Nye for an award.  He handles these sorts of questions without rolling his eyes, without snark, and without in any way making the anchor self-conscious.  I believe she was trying too hard to transition from a story about the recent snow storm in the East to the asteroid item, but still I wish these anchors would do a bit of preparation for these stories. 

Oceanside Real Estate in Whittier

If you currently own real estate to the north of Whittier Boulevard, you're in luck.  Should sea levels rise by 60 meters - that's almost 200 feet, you are the proud owner of prime oceanside property.

However, don't get too eager.  Kenneth Miller of Rutgers University says "The natural state of the Earth with present carbon dioxide levels is one with sea levels about 70 feet higher than now." Miller and his colleagues estimated* global sea levels 2.7 to 3.2 million years ago during the Pliocene Era when the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was the same as today's.

In that case, Bellflower, Paramount, and Compton residents can enjoy a walk to the beach several hundred years from now.

Play with the map or learn more about how the map was made.

*High tide of the warm Pliocene: Implications of global sea level for Antarctic deglaciation, Kenneth G. Miller, James D. Wright, James V. Browning, Andrew Kulpecz, Michelle Kominz, Tim R. Naish, Benjamin S. Cramer, Yair Rosenthal, W. Richard Peltier, and Sindia Sosdian, Geology, March 19, 2012. http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2012/03/16/G32869.1.abstract.

The D Word

CREDIT: senate.la.gov/Walsworth/

Dumb is a word that I try hard not to use.  To me, it always seemed to have a bit of playground cruelty to it.  It's a word that kids used when they really wanted to be mean, although maybe today's youth have graduated to more colorful language.

That being said, Louisiana state senator Mike Walsworth is D-U-M-B, dumb.  The video below was taken during testimony involving Senate Bill 374 that would repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act.

This anti-science law seems rather innocuous.  It states that the state board of education will allow and assist school districts 

to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

Notice how it singles out the politically controversial topics of evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.  Jerry Coyne, professor of biology at the University of Chicago, sarcastically noted,

Yep, we don’t need more critical thinking in areas like physics, chemistry, or medicine—just human cloning, evolution, and global warming.

The attempt to repeal the law never made it out of committee.

But I digress.  Back to the dumb state senator.

During testimony on SB 374, the senator asked Ms. Reeves, a retired science teacher with 31 years of experience, if there were any experiments that demonstrated evolution.  She began describing Richard Lenski's E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project.  He interrupts her and asks,

They evolve into a person?

Remember the old saw about there being no dumb questions?  This is a dumb question.  Does Senator Dumb-Dumb really think that biological theory predicts that humans evolved from E. coli?  Does he think that biological theory predicts that this occurred over a few generations?  Does he even begin to comprehend what 4.5 billion years is?

Yet there is some good news from Louisiana.  Zach Kopplin, a 17 year-old student, is leading the fight to repeal the idiocy. The Orleans Parish school board prohibited the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, and the Baton Rouge Advocate asked why the Loch Ness monster, presented as evidence against evolution, is part of the science curriculum.  The paper went on to call for the education department to

open its eyes to this kind of educational malpractice before children’s futures are endangered.

Education. It prevents the dumb.

Election Year Science

In election years, science issues rarely rise in importance to the level of ones involving the economy, foreign policy, and the military, but in my not-so-humble opinion, this is dangerous; science affects all aspects of our lives.  Climate change may not influence the way you live your life today, but your children and grandchildren will know a world greatly changed by our dependence on fossil fuels.

I care how you vote, though I care more that you vote.  We need to be responsible for the direction this country takes.  So when you are in the voting booth on Nov. 6, go ahead and vote your self-interests, but also vote for the interests of those we will leave behind.

With that said, let's look at some of our elected representatives and their wrong views on science.  I do not identify these politicians by their party affiliations, because that's not necessarily the issue, even if there is a correlation.

Rep. Todd Akin from Missouri:

 It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.  

 I don’t see [evolution] as even a matter of science because I don’t know that you can prove one or the other. That’s one of those things. We can talk about theology and all of those other things but I’m basically concerned about, you’ve got a choice between Claire McCaskill and myself. My job is to make the thing there. If we want to do theoretical stuff, we can do that, but I think I better stay on topic. 

Well, I’ve taken a look at both sides of the thing. And it seems to me that evolution takes a tremendous amount of faith.  To have all of a sudden all of the different things that have to be lined up, to create something as sophisticated as life, it takes a lot of faith. I don’t see it as even as a matter of science, because I don’t know if you can prove one or the other.

Rep. Paul Broun from Alabama:

All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell.

Gov. Rick Perry from Texas:

[Evolution is] a theory that's out there. It's got some gaps in it. 

Rep. Mo Brooks from Alabama:

The last 4 or 5 years*, have they been cooler or warmer?

We're* being asked to undermine America's economy based on this guesswork speculation.

Rep. Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota: 

The science* indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc. 

Rep. Joe Barton from Texas: 

Global warming* is 'unequivocal'? It's just flat not true! 

Sen. James Inhofe from Oklahoma:

This* 97% [of climate scientists accepting human-caused global warming], that doesn't mean anything. I named literally thousands of scientists on the floor...and these were top people. 

The claim* that global warming is caused by man-made emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science. 

C02* does not cause catastrophic disasters-actually it would be benefitical to our environment and our economy.

The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous. 

Rep. Ben Quayle from Arizona: 

Our planet has warmed and cooled since the beginning of time. 

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher from California: 

Is there* some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rain forests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases? Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?

Rep. Ron Paul from Texas: 

You notice* they don’t call it global warming anymore. It’s weather control.

There is* no consensus in the scientific community that global warming is getting worse or that it is manmade.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin:

Our rovers* on Mars have indicated that there has been a slight warming in the atmosphere of Mars and that certainly was not caused by the internal combustion engine.

I personally* believe that the solar flares are more responsible for climatic cycles than anything that human beings do.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

My view* is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet.

I exhale* carbon dioxide. I don’t want those guys following me around with a meter to see if I’m breathing too hard.

I'll end this with the following comment made by Rep. Ed Markey from Massachusetts during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce:

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to a bill that overturns the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet. 

However, I won’t rise physically, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating around the room. 

I won’t call for the sunlight of additional hearings, for fear that Republicans might excommunicate the finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. 

Instead, we will embody Newton’s third law of motion and be an equal and opposing force against this attack on science and on laws that will reduce America’s importation of foreign oil. 

This bill will live in the House while simultaneously being dead in the Senate. It will be a legislative Schrödinger’s cat killed by the quantum mechanics of the legislative process! 

Arbitrary rejection of scientific fact will not cause us to rise from our seats today. But with this bill, pollution levels will rise. Oil imports will rise. Temperatures will rise. 

And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. That is, unless a rejection of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is somewhere in the chair’s amendment pile.

*original sources at http://www.skepticalscience.com/skepticquotes.php

Tennessee Didn't Learn Its Lesson In 1925: Another Anti-Science Law Passed

From funnymonkeysite.com

On March 19, the Tennessee state legislature passed HB 368 (SB 893).  While these bills acknowledge that "an important purpose of science education is to inform students about scientific evidence and to help students develop critical thinking skills necessary to becoming intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens," it authorizes the state board of education, school boards, and school administrators to "assist" elementary and high school teachers in finding ways to address scientific controversies.  Teachers can help students "understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories."

You may know that in 1925, Tennessee enacted a statute that made it illegal for a public school teacher "to teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man descended from a lower order of animals."  Soon thereafter, John Scopes was arrested and indicted.  The trial, known at the time as The Monkey Trial, held the nation's interest, especially when Clarence Darrow, Scope's attorney, questioned the state's prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, although the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the conviction on a technicality.  What the trial did accomplish was it was a significant setback for anti-science forces.

Creationists had another court room defeat in 2005 when their thinly veiled religious doctrine "Intelligent Design" was prohibited from being taught in Dover, Pennsylvania.

The issues today in Tennessee are evolution and climate change.  Today I'll address climate change.  Let's review some of the data.

Global temperature increase since 1973.

Global temperatures from 1880.

Correlation of atmospheric CO2 (dark blue) and global temperature (light blue)
over the last 600,000 years.  The red line is projected CO2 levels. 

IT"S GETTING WARMER!  And it's anthropogenic - a fancy word for caused by people.  There's no controversy about this; that is, unless you deny the science.  

What's different about this crisis from the creationist attempts to dumb down our children is that there are global consequences.  It won't be a pretty world if we don't do something.

For more information. I recommend 350.org and the International Panel on Climate Change.

Organizations opposing this bill include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Nashville Tennessean, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, and all eight Tennessee members of the National Academy of Sciences, including one Nobel Prize winner.