Category: Science

‘Unusually Thick Ice’ in Antarctica Traps Scientists With Unusually Thick Heads

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It probably seemed like an excellent idea: Load a bunch of tourists and journalists aboard a ship for an expedition to Antarctica in December (the height of summer at the South Pole) so they can see for themselves how global warming is melting the ice.

Alas, somebody forgot to tell the ice that “the science is settled”:

Most of the passengers and some of the crew stranded on a scientific expedition ship off Antarctica will be evacuated by a Chinese helicopter should the weather allow, Russian authorities say.
“A decision has been reached to evacuate 52 passengers and four crew members by helicopter from China’s Xue Long ship, should the weather allow,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Russian-flagged MV Akademik Shokalskiy has been stuck on an ice field since last week with 74 people on board. The multinational passenger list includes scientists as well as tourists and crew.
Snow gusts that severely hampered visibility on Monday forced the icebreaker Aurora Australis to turn around, passengers aboard the stricken MV Akademik Shokalskiy had been told to prepare for the “worst case scenario”. . . .
The expedition is being led by University of NSW Professor Chris Turney who continues to post updates on social media.

Try not to laugh at their ridiculous misfortune:

After nearly a week trapped by deep Antarctic ice, the 74 passengers aboard an expedition vessel could soon be freed.
An Australian icebreaker ship Aurora Australis is 28 nautical miles away from the Russian-flagged Akademik Shokalskiy and is waiting for snow showers to pass, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
The Aurora Australis needs better visibility before trying to break through the ice and reach the stranded vessel.
This attempt follows the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, which was just six nautical miles away from the trapped vessel when it couldn’t get any closer due to unusually thick ice.

Via Memeorandum, with more blog commentary by Doug Powers at MichelleMalkin.com, Weasel Zippers and Pirate’s Cove.

Special thanks to Susan Rector on Twitter for the joke I stole.

 

Last Night, I Hit Rand Simberg’s Tip Jar for $10, Because … Science!

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Global warming “hockey stick” theorist Michael Mann has sued several critics, a litigation that Mark Steyn calls “a textbook example” of “bollocks on stilts.” When Mann first sued in October 2012, Ken White at Popehat called it “Butt Hurt in the First Degree”:

[T]he complaint seems almost calculated to support likely conservative narratives about it. It’s very heavy on arguments by authority, citing the National Science Foundation and Columbia Journalism Review and Discovery Magazine and others for its propositions that the defendants are simply wrong in their criticisms of Mr. Mann. It fairly drips with righteous indignation over the existence of persistent global warming deniers. Global warming skeptics have been asserting that the scientific establishment is hostile to any dissent on global warming; this complaint isn’t going to dispel that impression. . . .
[T]he complaint misconstrues hyperbolic rhetoric and statements of opinion as false statements of fact.

Strong language is not defamation, and disagreement is not a tort, but attempting to sue one’s critics into silence is all the rage lately. There was an appeals court ruling in the Mann case and defendant Rand Simberg has a tip jar, so I hit it, with malice aforethought.

If there’s anything I hate worse than a phony scientific “consensus,” it’s a tenured academic suing honest citizens who work for a living.  Michael Mann is a professor at Penn State University. Has anyone in the vicinity of State College, Pa., heard any salacious rumors about Professor Mann? Molesting coeds, peddling methamphetamine, that sort of thing? Have you had a sordid encounter with Professor Mann at a Rest Area on the Turnpike? Now is the time to come forward and spill the beans.

Clearly, we must question the morals and/or sanity of a university professor who would sue Rand Simberg, and there have been reports recently that suggest America’s so-called “scientific community” is populated by madmen, criminals and degenerates. The Environmental Protection Agency’s top climate-change expert John C. Beale copped a plea for swindling the government and an Iowa State University professor faked an AIDS vaccine to defraud the National Institutes of Health for $19 million in research grants. Given this evidence of widespread moral turpitude among Official Credentialed Scientists, who knows what kind of depravity Professor Mann might be involved in, especially now that he has gone so far as to sue Rand Simberg?

So if there is gossip in Professor Mann’s neighborhood of a “rape dungeon” in his basement — ghastly screams in the night, truck-stop hookers buried in his backyard, etc. — please let us know.

Otherwise, go hit Rand Simberg’s tip jar, because . . . Science!

 


EPA Climate-Change Expert Admits ‘Historic’ Fraud for $900,000

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“I thought, ‘Oh my God, How could this possibly
have happened in this agency?’ . . . I’ve worked
for the government for 35 years. I’ve
never seen a situation like this.”

The story of John C. Beale,  the Environmental Protection Agency’s “highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change,” could be a stake through the heart of the global warming hoax comparable to the 2009 release of the “ClimateGate” e-mails.

Defenders of the climate-change “scientific consensus” will, of course, claim there is no larger significance to Beale’s bizarre fraud, in which he told his bosses he “was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job“:

Beyond Beale’s individual fate, his case raises larger questions about how he was able to get away with his admitted fraud for so long, according to federal and congressional investigators. Two new reports by the EPA inspector general’s office conclude that top officials at the agency “enabled” Beale by failing to verify any of his phony cover stories about CIA work, and failing to check on hundreds of thousands of dollars paid him in undeserved bonuses and travel expenses — including first-class trips to London where he stayed at five-star hotels and racked up thousands in bills for limos and taxis.
Until he retired in April after learning he was under federal investigation, Beale, an NYU grad with a masters from Princeton, was earning a salary and bonuses of $206,000 a year, making him the highest paid official at the EPA. He earned more money than Gina McCarthy, the agency’s administrator and, for years, his immediate boss, according to agency documents.
In September, Beale, who served as a “senior policy adviser” in the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, pled guilty to defrauding the U.S. government out of nearly $900,000 since 2000.

Among his many lies, this one is classic:

He also claimed to be suffering from malaria that he got while serving in Vietnam. According to his lawyer’s filing, he didn’t have malaria and never served in Vietnam. He told the story to EPA officials so he could get special handicap parking at a garage near EPA headquarters.

So, the “senior policy advisor” is an admitted liar, but don’t worry: His lawyer says Beale is also crazy!

“With the help of his therapist,” wrote attorney John Kern, “Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”

In other words, a top EPA official was a corrupt liar because he was mentally ill — “highly self-destructive and dysfunctional” — but that is no reason (the global warming fanatics will assure us) to doubt the validity of their implausible hypothesis.

 


The Atheist Creep Lawrence Krauss

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Professor Lawrence Krauss on Australian TV, February 2013.

“Science is based on telling the truth, which is a really important ethical boundary. It’s one that I don’t think religion shares, in fact. . . . I think that science can offer a better world.”
— Lawrence Krauss

“Jen McCreight, who describes herself as ‘a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted feminist atheist,’ wrote a blog post in which she recounted several tales of alleged harassment. She then deleted some of those tales, which involved a prominent author and academic who threatened to sue her. McCreight said she had two sources who ‘are too terrified to openly speak out against him in’ public.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “No Love for the Godless,” The American Spectator, Aug. 9

Chris Packham is an atheist who was offended by Dr. Lawrence Krauss in the new documentary The Unbelievers:

Krauss is an accomplished cosmologist and theoretical physicist who is capable of speaking eloquently on the areas of his expertise, such as quantum mechanics and, presumably, dad-khakis. But this isn’t a film about science; it’s a meta-conversation about unwelcome religious intrusions into science. The film documents a joint tour with Krauss and zoologist Richard Dawkins, who give a series of talks about the importance of rationality, skepticism, and atheism.
The difference between Dawkins and Krauss is that Dawkins can be funny. Krauss doesn’t use humor; he openly mocks people who disagree with him in front of audiences who do. Dawkins effortlessly demonstrates his expertise to his philosophical opponents; Krauss shouts his expertise at people he could be trying to persuade. Where Dawkins is cranky about the intrusion of superstitious religious belief into the public sphere, Krauss emanates wavy, cartoon stink-lines of smugness with his own superiority.
“While you mentioned quantum mechanics,” he sneers at a polite young Muslim scholar during a debate, “I actually understand it.” . . .
Krauss has the extremely uncharismatic tendency to view himself as a victim, referring to his “fight against evil” and describing his work as “under attack.” Let’s be clear: Krauss is a wealthy member of a highly educated and privileged class. . . .
So yes, he’s got the Boomer-defining lack of self-awareness; that’s obvious from his “cool” wardrobe and his open confusion about why people call him “strident.” But at one point — after stridently bitching about polls that show atheists are as unpopular as rapists — he draws a rhetorical parallel between believing in religion and believing it’s OK to have sex with animals.
I’m not saying he’s a villain, but he has a villain’s smugness. They’re always sure that their righteousness overcomes their unpleasantness. They lash out at straw men instead of regarding the human beings right in front of them. And they do things like invoke “science” to publicly defend their billionaire friends who confess to child rape.

Ah, yes, there is that, isn’t there? Vouching for the pervert:

“Jeffrey [Epstein] has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed. As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people. . . . I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it.”

Jeffrey Epstein, who molested girls as young as 12, is just a swell guy, says Professor Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University. And what do atheist women say about Professor Krauss?

“When women come to me to warn me about what speakers to avoid at conferences or confide in me sexual harassment they’ve experienced, Lawrence Krauss is by far the most common name I hear.”
— Jen McCreight

Oh, we wouldn’t want to forget that episode, would we?

[W]hen atheist blogger Jen McCreight had the temerity to repeat what she said women told her about Krauss’s behavior, she had to delete those stories because Krauss tried to intimidate her:

Well, Famous Skeptic is vaguely threatening to sue me. Since Famous Skeptic is rich and I am poor, and since my two sources are too terrified to openly speak out again him (I wonder why), I have removed the part of my previous post that refers to him so I don’t go bankrupt with legal fees.

Creep. Not saying I want bad things to happen to Dr. Krauss. Just saying it would be terrible if anything good happened to him.

 

 

Remember: ‘Climate’ Is Not ‘Weather’ (Unless Scientists Tell Us It Is)

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Once you realize that anthropogenic global warming (also known as “climate change”) is a non-falsifiable theory, the pretzel logic is amusing: Any extreme or damaging weather — including extreme cold — can be cited as evidence of “climate change,” and anything that looks like contradictory evidence can be dismissed as irrelevant because . . . well, there’s a scientific consensus, and nobody can argue with a scientific consensus. In other words, the science of global warning is not science. It’s actually the exact opposite of science, because real science requires that a theory conform to the evidence, rather than attempting to conform the evidence to a theory. Don’t expect the global warming fanatics to have an explanation for this:

It snowed in Cairo today for the first time in, well … a long time! According to the Los Angeles Times, “Local news reports said the last recorded snowfall was more than 100 years ago,” while the AFP quotes a Cairo meteorologist saying that this is the first snow in “many years,” which is about as vague and unhelpful as it gets. Reports that this is Cairo’s first snowfall in exactly 112 years (see: Business Insider, Buzzfeed) seem to be based on a tweet by one local man who later acknowledged he was just guesstimating. Whatever the exact number is, though, the point is that it basically never snows in Cairo.

How dare you mere mortals doubt an Official Scientific Consensus!

 

 


The Science Is Settled: Feminism Is Wrong

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Men and women are not the same:

By analyzing the MRIs of 949 people aged 8 to 22, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found that male brains have more connections within each hemisphere, while female brains are more interconnected between hemispheres. . . .
By analyzing the subjects’ MRIs using diffusion imaging, the scientists explored the brains’ fiber pathways, the bundles of axons that act as highways routing information from one part of the mind to the other. After grouping the image by sex and inspecting the differences between the two aggregate “male” and “female” pictures, the researchers found that in men, fiber pathways run back and forth within each hemisphere, while in women they tend to zig-zag between the left, or “logical,” and right, or “creative,” sides of the brain. . . .

I’d quote more of the article, but it’s written by a woman and therefore cluttered up with a lot of silly irrelevant “creative” stuff.

This is something you learn to deal with as a news editor: It’s not that female writers can’t write straightforward just-the-facts journalism, but they tend to be better at feature-style writing — generally speaking, I hasten to add, because if you don’t add that qualifier, people will accuse you of stereotyping, which hurts women’s feelings, and we all know how they are about that, right? Anyway . . .

Contrary to the Archie Bunker stereotype of myself, I actually try to help female journalists and one way to help female journalists is to encourage them to WRITE MORE LIKE A MAN.

Ladies, don’t let yourself get trapped in the ghetto of “soft” journalism and, for God’s sake, avoid that awful Feminist Pundit racket.

There are women who get paid to be feminists. We call these people “Women’s Studies professors.” Writers who aspire to bring “the feminist perspective” to journalism are, without exception, tedious bores — and constantly angry. Why are they angry? Because their lives are miserable and their career opportunities are drastically curtailed by their self-selected niche. If all you ever wrote about was rape and abortion and income inequality, you’d probably be angry, too.

LADIES, DON’T DO THAT TO YOURSELVES!

Here’s a better role model for you: Christina Bellantoni, who just got named editor of Roll Call. Bellantoni was a Capitol Hill reporter for the Washington Times when I worked there, and never let herself get shoved off into the feature-writing ghetto. She does good work.

 

Your Tax Dollars at Work: PETA Protests Weird Animal Sex Research Projects

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Apparently, if you’re an official NIH-funded scientist, you can get paid to do things that sadistic serial killers do in their spare time:

1. Mice and rats electrically stimulated after penises mutilated and injected with chemicals
Location: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Experiments: Experimenters cut all the skin off the penises of live mice and rats, electrically stimulated their penises with electrodes for up to five minutes, and injected their penises with various chemicals to see if they’d sustain an erection. The animals were then killed, and their penises were cut apart.
Cost to taxpayers: $2,792,144

2. Mice’s sex drive tested after brains burned
Location: Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
Experiments: Experimenters locked female mice into restraint devices, drilled holes into their skulls, and burned lesions into their brains. The females were then presented with urine samples from castrated and intact males, and the amount of time they spent sniffing each urine sample was recorded. In a subsequent experiment, the females were placed with males and the females’ sexual receptivity as indicated by their back-arching behavior was observed and rated. All of the mice were killed and dissected.
Cost to taxpayers: $1,505,173

3. Rats’ sex drive tested following Prozac injections and removal of ovaries
Location: Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas
Experiments: Experimenters injected female rats with antidepressant drugs and placed them with male hamsters. The females’ sexual receptivity, as indicated by the downward arching of their backs, was observed and measured. The experimenters then manipulated the female rats, surgically removing their ovaries and injecting sex hormones, and again observed the rats’ sexual behavior.
Cost to taxpayers: $2,024,949

4. Hamsters’ sex drive tested following brain damage
Location: University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California
Experiments: Experimenters cut into the skulls of female hamsters and implanted tubes into their brains and pumps into their scalps. Saline or hormones related to sexual behavior were pumped into the females’ brains, and the animals were videotaped as they were able to see, smell, and hear—but not touch—a male hamster. The sexual receptivity of the females to male hamsters was measured through their vaginal scent markings. Experimenters used brushes to stimulate the female hamsters, and the extent of sexual receptivity as indicated by their back-arching behavior was observed and rated. The animals were then killed, and their brains were dissected.
Cost to taxpayers: $1,817,502

While I’m not a supporter of the animal-rights movement, I’d probably be opposed to taxpayer funding for these evil experiments even if they were performed using Amanda Marcotte as a research subject.

 

But If They’re ‘Born That Way’ …

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. . . why are there more lesbians than ever?

More women than ever are having same-sex experiences — or at least more women than ever are reporting it.
This week, a long-term British survey found a fourfold increase over the past two decades in women reporting at least one sapphic fling. Self-reported same-sex behavior among men, however, has remained somewhat constant. Now “the proportion of women reporting sexual experience with same-sex partners . . . exceeds that of men, at least at younger ages,” says the survey. Neither this increase nor the gender difference can be explained by a change in sexual self-identity, according to the study.
This isn’t just a British thing, either. Indiana University sex researcher Debby Herbenick tells me that her U.S. research has yielded similar results: 8 percent of men and 15 percent of women report same-sex sexual behavior in their lifetime. . . .
Why the gender difference, and why the increase?
Meredith Chivers, a sex researcher at Queen’s University, says, “Women have a greater capacity for gender-fluid sexual expression than men do. This might relate to women’s capacity to become sexually aroused by a broader range of sexual stimuli, including images of women.”

What we’re seeing here is the opportunistic quality of radical arguments. Never mind the contradictions. As long as the conclusion serves to encourage immoral perversion, logical consistency is optional.

Feminist writer Tracy Clark Flory of Salon happily discards the genetic-destiny “gay DNA” argument that was essential to the egalitarian “civil rights” claims of gay-rights activists in the 1990s. At the same time, however, she also abandons the androgyny-as-equality arguments of feminists, who insist that there are no meaningful differences between men and women. Now we must believe:

  1. Sexuality is culturally influenced, so that decades of social change can produce an increase in the incidence of lesbianism;
    and
  2. Women are so different from men that their “gender-fluid sexual expression” makes them more susceptible to social influence.

Of course, most of the “women reporting at least one sapphic fling” are not exclusively lesbian, but would properly be classified as bisexual (at least, on a temporary or experimental basis) and, if you think about it, promoting this kind of opportunistic bisexuality is entirely acceptable to the gay community if their interest is primarily in obtaining a greater number of more attractive sex partners.

WHAT? Did I just suggest that some people may be less interested in “gay rights” as an abstract political concept than they are in increasing their chances of getting it on with a hottie? Holy cynicism, Batman!

Consider the implications: If homosexuality is so widely accepted that it is considered hateful to disapprove of it, then no one would dare take offense at being propositioned for gay sex, lest they be accused of homophobia and discrimination. Thus the childish peer-pressure claim that “Everybody’s doing it” (or at least, everyone is open to doing it, except haters) cloaks itself in “civil rights” rhetoric, and anyone who would refuse the offer of gay sex is a bigot.

Stigmatizing heterosexuality as a sort of prejudice is thus exposed as the next stage in the progress of radicalism, and if the arguments made tomorrow are inconsistent with the arguments made 10 or 15 years ago — when the claim of sexual identity as hard-wired from birth was crucial to the radical movement’s immediate goals — the only people who would call attention to this inconsistency are haters.

The gay-rights “argument” is therefore ultimately a coin-flip: Heads, they win; tails, SHUT UP, YOU THEOCRATIC HOMOPHOBES!