“The study did not include participants with severe substance use, alcohol use or mental health symptoms.”
What Would We Do Without Experts?
Robert Graboyes: Experts Agree! Scholars Don’t.
Put Down The Cookie
Pick up the bacon.
National Library of Medicine- Effect of meat (beef, chicken, and bacon) on rat colon carcinogenesis
The results suggest that, in rats, beef does not promote the growth of ACF and chicken does not protect against colon carcinogenesis. A bacon-based diet appears to protect against carcinogenesis, perhaps because bacon contains 5% NaCl and increased the rats’ water intake.
What Would We Do Without Peer Review?
A top international science journal funded by the federal government recently acknowledged that thousands of its published research papers may contain misleading language.
More than 2,600 of the papers from “Science,” the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the world’s top academic journals, were examined in depth by another research journal, “Scientometrics.” It found in a study that from 1997 to 2021, the use of “hedging” words have fallen by about 40%.
The study’s co-author and Nanjing University linguist Ying Wei said this revelation ought to be concerning because “essentially, the nature of academic knowledge is indeterminate.”
In academic writing, “hedging” means using cautious language (i.e., “could” or “appear to”) to avoid sounding overconfident and giving readers a misleading conclusion.
In 1997, there were about 115.8 hedging examples per 10,000 words. But by 2021, there were only 67.42 for the same amount.
Put The Cookie Down
India On The Moon
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft touched down softly near the moon’s south pole today (Aug. 23), notching a huge milestone for the nation. India is now the fourth country to stick a lunar landing, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.
The historic touchdown occurred at 8:33 am ET (1233 GMT or 6:03 p.m. India Standard Time), according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). “We have achieved soft landing on the moon! India is on the moon!” ISRO chairman Sreedhara Somanath announced after the landing.
Let’s Check In On California’s Permanent Drought
Via Brian Sullivan: 16 of California’s 17 reservoirs are now above historical average. 3 are close to capacity.
Put Down the Cookie
In video ad.
Y2Kyoto: The Science Police
This post is inspired by the successful efforts last week of climate activists — including three widely-cited scientists — to enforce misinformation by the legacy media. In a nutshell, ABC News wrote an accurate story about how climate was not a major or even significant factor in the Lahaina, Maui fire and disaster. After being mobbed by the enforcers, the story was changed to emphasize the role of climate. These sort of activist scientists who seek to enforce preferred public narratives have been called the “science police.”
Today’s post pushes back against this narrative enforcement with some actual science. Have a look at the panel below. It shows three versions of a climate time series for annual counts of North Atlantic major hurricanes from 1995 to 2050. Two of the graphs include a large change in climate, one of them does not.
I Feel Better Already
The Daily Sceptic- Why Medicine Safety Will Get Worse Not Better
Unlike other safety-critical sectors, medicine safety is managed in relative terms, not absolute. Take aviation for example. Aircraft are designed to meet absolute safety targets such as the number of fatal incidents per million flying hours. In contrast, MHRA do not set safety targets for licensed medicines like ‘no more than x deaths or y serious adverse events’. Instead, MHRA licenses a medicine if the clinical trials data indicate that ‘the benefits outweigh the risks’. That’s a charter for collateral damage to start with.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Everything keeps getting older.
Archaeologists have new evidence suggesting that humans occupied Oregon more than 18,000 years ago. This makes it one of the oldest known sites of human occupation in North America.
A 2023 radiocarbon dating analysis was made based on findings at the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter near Burns, Oregon. The University of Oregon Archaeological Field School has been excavating at the site, which features a shallow overhang in an otherwise open environment. The field school has been working in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management since 2011.
Archaeologists have been studying how and when people migrated to the Americas for over a century. While researchers used to assume that no humans were on the continent until about 13,000 years ago — when they walked over the Bering Land Bridge during the last ice age — both genetic and archaeological evidence have been pushing that date back further and further. However, these dates have spurred controversy.
The time has come to have a conversation on a name change. (link fixed)
What Would We Do Without Experts?
Experts and the Power of Self-Deception
Experts are ordinary human beings, with all the fallibilities that come with membership in our species. Like everyone else, experts sometimes suppress truth and disseminate falsehoods for self-preservation or personal gain. Sometimes, they do so in service to some larger cause. Experts, short on time or resources, may cut corners, publishing information they hope is correct, while knowing it may not be. In all these situations, the expert knows his or her information is or may be false.
More interesting, more likely, and more dangerous are those situations where the expert sincerely believes his or her falsehoods to be correct, owing to the lure of self-deception.
Another good essay by Robert F. Graboyes, who is generous with his free content. Pour a coffee and consider subscribing to his always excellent substack.
Y2Kyoto: Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai
The current heat wave is being relentlessly blamed on increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is a much more plausible explanation, one that is virtually endorsed by two of the world’s leading scientific organizations. It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year-and-a-half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have.
So, why has atmospheric water vapor increased so dramatically? Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year that I – probably along with you — had never heard of. The mass media ignored it because it took place 490 feet underwater in the South Pacific. Don’t take it from me, take it from NASA …
h/t Robert L
Where Would We Be Without Peer Review?
Tell Me You Have Secret Alien Technology
Without telling me you have secret alien technology.
Y2Kyoto: Run Fer Yer Lives!
What the IPCC really says about extreme weather.
…for those who want to know what research actually says on the relationship of extreme weather and climate change, that information is readily available. Today I’ll share the excellent work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarizing what its most recent assessment says about various types of extreme weather and climate change.
When you read the below you will realize that the difference between what you see in the news (including statements from leading scientists) and what the IPCC has concluded could not be more different. One day PhD dissertations will be written about our current moment of apocalyptic panic.
“Hot enough for you? No? Change the measurement.”
What Would We Do Without Peer Review?
Roger Pielke Jr: A whistleblower shares shocking details of corruption of peer review in climate science
I have been contacted by a whistleblower with a remarkable story of corruption of the academic peer-review process involving a paper published in 2022. The whistleblower has provided me with relevant emails, reviews and internal deliberations from which I recount this disturbing episode — which ends with an unwarranted and politically-motivated retraction of a paper that some climate scientists happened to disagree with.
The paper at the center of this story is not particularly significant, as it mainly reviews the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on trends in weather extremes. The paper does venture a bit too far (in my view) into commentary, but that is neither unique nor a basis for retracting a paper – if it were we’d have a lot of retractions!
To be clear, there is absolutely no allegation of research fraud or misconduct here, just simple disagreement. Instead of countering arguments and evidence via the peer reviewed literature, activist scientists teamed up with activist journalists to pressure a publisher – Springer Nature, perhaps the world’s most important scientific publisher – to retract a paper. Sadly, the pressure campaign worked.
The abuse of the peer review process documented here is remarkable and stands as a warning that climate science is as deeply politicized as ever with scientists willing to exert influence on the publication process both out in the open and behind the scenes.
Good Question
Trust the “experts”.
Maryanne Demasi, reports- What’s in the placebo?
We tried to find out what was in the “placebo pill” of one of the most controversial statin trials ever conducted.
…the exact formulation of a placebo is rarely disclosed in the peer-reviewed publication of a clinical trial. Further, medical journals do not require authors, nor drug manufacturers, to disclose the contents of a placebo or publish the CoA. Placebos may contain excipients such as chemicals, dyes, or allergens, which might unintentionally cause side effects, raising concerns about the reliability of trial data and the transparency of important information.
What Would We Do Without Researchers?
“Explain it to me like I’m 5”.
Two new Studies are underway at the University of Saskatchewan looking at a variety of factors that impact long-haul truck drivers in the province. One study is evaluating what benefits driving simulator training can offer truck drivers in Saskatchewan, and the second is looking to evaluate the amenities available at truck stops. PhD candidate Mackenzie McKeown is leading the studies. She joins Gormley to discuss the safety concerns she has about the current state of the trucking industry and how she hopes her studies will help create a better work environment for Saskatchewan Truckers.
If you can make it to the end, you’re a better person than I.
Y2Kyoto: When They Think No One Is Watching
@Kenneth72712993 points out that 90 papers were published on the warming hiatus which lasted from 1998 – 2015 with warming trend 0.03 C, yet now Hadcrut / UK Met Office shows this period warming at 0.14 C. pic.twitter.com/iVIQgHo4ui
— Siyu Yume (@SiyuYume) July 7, 2023