may be interested in this BBC article, outlining the BBC’s plan to join forces with a climate change study harnessing the power of thousands of personal computers. This quote sums up my concerns:
‘Frances McNamara, the BBC’s producer for the experiment, said the project would give people a chance to be part of efforts to tackle a warming world.’
Implicit in this is a wholesale acceptance of the phenomenon of man made global warming- scientists, public and media, a ‘full house’, apart from politicians. A BBC project is being undertaken where the story is already decided. I am sure this will be very cosy indeed. Nothing the BBC like better than to know the script before they start.
But historians in the future might be interested in how the ‘science community’ managed to distract themselves from discrete, important, specific science concerning the environment by means of a popular theory that was embraced as fact and became the way for science to unlock finances and the public interest in an irresistible way.
Of course they might not be interested in that at all, but it should be a condition of NEWS reporting that one never knows.
Could this be a prime example of ‘junk science’? (click the link to see what the big bad Fox has to say about the general state of play)
The BBC would never stoop to making trouble by publishing pictures….
Except if there’s no chance they will get attacked. (Abu Graib, UK forces etc.)
Oh and they’ll take all of 2 seconds to check they are real (piers moron’s piccies).
Now a German cartoonist has had to go into hiding. 3 death threats.
more here:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-15-n86.html
Off topic. The top story on the beeb. Pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib in 2003. Yes, the beeb is still pushing that story, even though the people responsible are in jail. Pathetic.
in response to the whole cartoon rage thing , there’s now an ISRAELI anti-semetic cartoon contest:
http://boomka.org/blog/?p=1
now THATS what i call self-deprecation.
made me laugh anyway.
geoff -> yeah. great timing (not). right after the news of the world. in the middle of cartoon rage.
makes me wonder if theres Iranian sleeper agents working for the western MSM.
Off topic. The top story on the beeb. Pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib in 2003. Yes, the beeb is still pushing that story, even though the people responsible are in jail. Pathetic.
Typical Al-Beeb ploy, to take the media heat off their favorite constituency for its shameful worldwide temper tantrums over a couple of cartoons.
I wonder why they don’t repeatedly show the pictures from the systematic execution of gays in Iran? Some gay online publications have published them.
Isn’t it time someone investigates Al-Beeb for its undoubted role as the Axis Sally of the War on Terror?
On the German cartoonist, it is on the BBC site in their 3 limers on other stories:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/news/newsstories.shtml
It links to this at the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1710020,00.html
Which includes some interesting “cartoon war” stuff like:
“In Iran scores of protesters hurled petrol bombs and stones at the British and German embassies in Tehran. The official IRNA news agency announced that Danish pastries had been renamed Roses of the Prophet Muhammad.”
And other amazing stuff lke:
“Iran’s bestselling newspaper, Hamshahri, yesterday defended its competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, saying it was a test of the free speech allegedly espoused by western countries. The contest is a serious exercise in debate, said Mohammadreza Zaeri, publisher of Hamshahri. “We do not want to make fun of anyone with this competition, we just want to raise a question to find an answer which is very important for us.”
Also on the BBC “in other news” section is this:
“Indian moral police burn Valentine’s cards
Reuters 15 February 2006
Hardline Hindu groups and radical Muslims burned Valentine’s Day greeting cards and held sporadic protests on Tuesday across India against celebrating the festival of love saying it was a Western import that spread immorality.”
O/T.
“Hamshahri, yesterday defended its competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, saying it was a test of the free speech allegedly espoused by western countries.”
It may be important to them but what do they think “western countries” will do? Boycott Iranian goods and go crying to the UN?
Western countries will ignore them, of course. As will most Jews.
What a totally pointless exercise. Cretins.
Iran, free speech?
Dont make me laugh.
Off-topic
BBC News reports on the “imams’ roadshow” “to beat extremism” in London and omits to mention the radical leanings of speakers at the event.
good god – read this times article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2040625,00.html
is this ANYWHERE on the BBC?
“The extraordinary Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, currently before the House, gives ministers power to amend, repeal or replace any legislation simply by making an order and without having to bring a Bill before Parliament.”
O/T
To illustrate the story about the Commons reinstatement of the ban on the glorifying of terror…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4714578.stm
…We have a picture of armed police officers. Not plumbers bearing placards with blood-curdling exhortations which would surely be more relevant to the story.
Jeffrey:-
It’s pretty clear that average global temperatures are increasing,
No, it isn’t at all, in fact. Temperatures in some parts of the northern hemisphere – but not Greenland, for one – may be rising. In the southern hemisphere, they may be falling. In Antarctica, they are doing both, in different places.
The cheerleader for the doomsday view of affairs is the IPCC. The IPCC relies on the interpretation of data that is deeply suspect. For example, the IPCC’s claim that the temperature has risen rapidly only in the last 100 years, having previously fallen steadily for 900 years, is based on inference from tree-ring diameters. This data fails to reflect the well-known Mediaeval Warming and Little Ice Age. These are validated by O18/O16 analysis of stalagmites in Alaska, south Africa, and New Zealand, and also by archaeological evidence of arable farms in Greenland and wine manufacture in Scotland.
Tree rings fail to reflect this because they are a lousy and inaccurate proxy. Tree growth is a function of temperature and rainfall only in the growing season.
The 100-year data that “proved” warming was just as intellectually dishonest. First off it came from a different source, grafted in to the 900-year “data” to tell the PC story. Most of the supposed rises in average temperature are anyway statistical artefacts. The lows have risen while the highs stood still. The average temperature has risen, but only in the same way that the average person has 1.97 legs.
and it would be astonishing if man made activity did not contribute to that.
Argument from personal incredulity. Can I play? “I can’t believe Blair is PM, so he must not be, then.”
If warming were anthropogenic it would originate at ground level. The troposphere would be cooler and gradually warming. Satellite data proves this is not happening.
Indeed a recent article in Scientific American said that human activity had raised temperatures since 8000 BC and probably held an Ice Age at bay!
And was probably complete rubbish based on made-up spurious data. Was this the same Scientific American that in the 1970s thought there was going to be an ice age round about, well, now?
The problem is that we don’t know if the planet is warming naturally in which case we need to really cut back on green-house gases pronto or are we staving off another Ice Age.
We don’t know there’s a problem, so we’ll address it just in case? Tell me, how much luck do you have managing the temperature inside your home to within 0.005 of a degree? Why do you think we’re going to have any more luck managing the temperature of the planet?
For my own part, coupled with the evidence that daylight is a lot less bright than even 40years ago – probably due to particles from air flights in the upper atmosphere
“Probably”? Is that as good as it gets ? “Probably”?
I think we need to cut back on the green house gases.
Why on earth do you think that? Have you ever seen an analysis that compared CO2 in the atmosphere with human CO2 emissions and proved a correlation? No you haven’t. You know why not? Because it doesn’t exist. In 1992 atmospheric CO2 stood still. In 1998 it fell! Why did it do that, if we’re supposedly belching all this CO2 into the atmosphere? Where’d it go? Don’t ask the IPCC, they have no answer and merely to ask the question is blasphemy.
Kyoto is probably a bad way to do it, maybe nuclear/renewables is better.
Not if you’re in the 3rd world. If you are, you have no emissions cap. The rich west can only meet its Kyoto target by buying reductions in your unlimited emissions and booking the credit. This means a huge influx of western taxpayers’ money – for nothing. Free! There is no downside in Kyoto for India, Jeffrey. Just for the first world.
By the way – and this is a trick question – which historically has come first: a buildup in atmospheric CO2, or a rise in the average temperature? What do you think? The CO2 buildup came first?
Exactly wrong I’m afraid.
Oh, and the Gulf Stream thing. The Atlantic Conveyor may well weken due to global warming as the Arctic glaciers melt.
Alternatively, it won’t. Data taken at sea since 1854 shows that it fluctuates on a 65-year cycle called the Atlantic MultiDecadal Oscillation (the AMO) which has nothing to do with global warming.
It’s not your fault, but everything you’ve stated above is factually unsubstantiated. Most similar claims to the same effect are made only for selfish reasons of personal or national economic greed.
You are being lied to, and you have been had for a mug.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…sia/ 4716820.stm
We have the ‘T’ word used in this story, albeit in quotations.
Strange how for Chinese deaths in Pakistan the ‘T’ word gets rolled out, but not for Israeli/US/UK/other deaths.
the_camp_commandant
You are basically correct.
Global warming stories are given prominence in proportion to their Chicken Little “the sky is falling” strength.
Every time I hear a report that the Earth has had its warmest year for, take your pick, 500, 1000, 8000, years I somehow hope against hope that the report will include an explanation of WHY it was so warm then. Now such an explanation would have to either admit that it was due to some non-anthropogenic factor, in which case perhaps the current warming is so caused, or else it was man made by, for instance, all those Roman SUV chariots.
Thanks for the link, Grumpy Troll.
I find this a little odd.
Adults are attending roadshows to have their scriptures explained to them in order to clear up “misconceptions” and make them better people?
These sessions sound like Bible-classes for adults. It all sounds so fluffy.
This sort of BBC toadying is absurd. The imams are the problem, not the solution to the problem, for Darwin’s sake. I strongly suspect this is an about telling Muslims how to make Islam sound more palatable to Infidels but the gullible reporter doesn’t even seem mildly curious.
Peter Hitchens versus Galloway roughly 10 minutes in
daily politics : realplayer stream:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/daily_politics/latest.ram
no surprises – Galloway comes out against free speech.
JohnOfBorg ”Among biologists, evolution is not a remotely contentious issue. It’s rather like the second law of thermodynamics: a logical tautology.”
For you and all omnipotent biologists here comes a wake up call…
http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/dafa/dafa.html
Yoy.
Who designed god?
It wasna me….asked She Who Must Be Obeyed and she just smiled…
BTW has the Nottinghamshire police force issued a description of the burglar who shot the WPc? I know that if they have done so, the BBC would broadcast it because they are both anxious to seek help from the public, aren’t they. Or do I do I have to go to the BNP’s website to get some facts on this case?
Who designed god?
Dunno. Dawkins?
Yoy.
I read the introduction to the David Stove book you linked.
His supposedly profound objections read like the quiblings of a rather backward student that just can’t ‘get it’.
He prefixes his argument by suggesting that anyone who disagrees with him is being closed-minded and dogmatic.
He seems to think that evolution by natural selection explains all of life except humanity.
What a complete idiot.
If you want to gain insight into a subject, it’s generally best to read a book written by someone who understands it.
err… i thought this site was about BBC bias? there’s plenty of other places to debate the whole creationism vs evolution issue.
re the shot wpc
not even the notts police are releasing a description of the gunman:
http://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/news/
bizarre.
re: glorification of terrorism bill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4715478.stm
where is the government definition of what “terrorism” actually is?
the bill infringes on freedom of speech – so what exactly is “terrorism” according to the law?
anyone got links?
from the link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ conne…cnaccupunct.xml:
“[Even though the television commentary was technically accurate,] by omission and emphasis, viewers were [are] left with a false impression”
beautiful!
i’d like to issue a challenge to anyone to find a better, more succinct expose of the BBC’s MO than this
and yes, i do think i’m being kind by leaving in the part referring to technical accuracy…i did so just to provide context for the remainder of the statement
remember the woo-hah about control orders and the “sunset clause”?
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/2006/02/prevention_of_terrorism_act_20.html
the “sunset clause” is now no more – and the bill went through,without a vote.
Yoy,
Why on earth would the book you link too wake the sane people of the earth up?
Apart form badly deconstructing evolution with lies, half truths and sslight of hand…. DOES IT PROPOSE AN ALTERNATIVE????
Believe the fairy tale if you want.
JohnOfBorg
So let me get this straight
John Stove is a ‘complete idiot’, yes this Peter Stove… http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/davidstove.html
author of one or 2 books http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books-uk&field-author=Stove%2C%20David/026-7325081-1647620
…and instead I should listen to someone who thinks he’s in Star Trek.
Hmmmm Tough one
‘Apart form badly deconstructing evolution with lies, half truths and sslight of hand’
Such as…
Yoy, listen to who you like but do it somewhere else…. unless you can possibly link this to BBC Bias then we should all duck out of this particular thread.
(queue response of “oh look! Evolutionist retreats, silencing dessent yada yada….”)
getting back to bbc bias – can somebody point me to a government definition of “terrorism”, in light of the “glorification” law passed today.
i cant seem to find it on the BBC site.
Pretty crap designer.
Anyway back on topic…
http://eurota.blogspot.com/2006/02/msm-banner-headlines-no-doubt-being.html
“Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the US-Britain invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not?” 77% say it was worth it, while 22% say it was not.
Looks like anyone who beleives the BBC deliver news will be even more out of touch with reality.
Looks like anyone who beleives the BBC deliver news will be even more out of touch with reality.
Rob Read | 15.02.06 – 8:52 pm | #
Nah!
The mighty BBC laughs in the face of truth.
Reality, Pah!
The BBC will soon show you what it thinks of reality.
(where do you think they got the idea for the film ‘the Matrix’?)
Reality is created by the BBC….
How DARE you question it!
Will ‘animal rights’ activities be classed as terrorism? I do hope so; in which case it’s a GOOOOOOD law!
At last we’ve got he “glorification of terrorism” bill.
Now, we don’t have to hear another word about Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara….
as would U.S. military operations in Iraq.
the definition of terrorism in the terrorism 2000 act is very vague and it covers outside countries as well.
in fact its so vague, that Tony Blairs invasion of Iraq could well have contravened the terrorism 2000 bill.
heres the definition of “terrorism”
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00011–b.htm#1
(1) In this Act “terrorism” means the use or threat of action where-
(a) the action falls within subsection (2),
and in subsection two:
2(b) involves serious damage to property
4(d) “the government” means the government of the United Kingdom, of a Part of the United Kingdom or of a country OTHER THAN THE United Kingdom.
ha ha …
i’m pro-iraq war by the way. just pointing out the idiocy of these laws.
Hw can Parliament ban the glorification of “terrorism”? According to Al-Beeb, it doesn’t exist!
Well Susan, next time Gerry Adams visits Downing Street he will be arrested, tagged, and made to clean off all those paintings on houses in Belfast glorifying the IRA
re the shot wpc
not even the notts police are releasing a description of the gunman:
Well Notts does have a Chief Constable who wanted officers to wear green ribbons of solidarity with the “Muslim Community” after them suffering so badly when those four boys got killed on 7th July last year
“Gerry Adams visits Downing Street he will be arrested, tagged, and made to clean off all those paintings on houses in Belfast glorifying the IRA”
and Ian Paisley will have to be arrested as well, and made to clean off all those murals in East Belfast glorifying the UDA and UVF.
it is odd isnt it?
they’ve just passed a law thats banned mural painting in Northern Ireland.
but Ian Paisley is a Westminster MP and they are exempt from the law; Gerry Adams is just paid as an absentee MP so he is special
“Among biologists, evolution is not a remotely contentious issue. It’s rather like the second law of thermodynamics: a logical tautology.”
I gather you don’t know what ‘tautology’ means, then?
Tautology (noun)
(1) in general: useless repetition (eg. “To say that something is `adequate enough’ is a tautology”)
(2) in logic (specialist meaning): a statement that is necessarily true (eg: “The statement `he is brave or he is not brave’ is a tautology”)
There is no useless repetition here, so the first meaning does not apply.
And the second definition does not fit either.
Both the Theory of Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics may be almost certainly true, but not necessarily so. All science is subject to falsifiabilty and thus cannot ever be necessarily true.
To contend it was ‘necessarily true’ would make it out to be a religion, like Christianity, Islam, Anthropomorphic Global Warming, or (of course) any statement issued by the Pope, the BBC, or other authority whose wisdom passeth all human understanding.
OT: a reply to JEM
I admit that I used the term ‘tautology’ loosely. This is something you can do if you know what it means without having to look it up online.
If you understood the 2nd law of thermo, you would know why I described it as a tautology. If you also understood evolution, you would have appreciated my tongue-in-cheek comparison with the 2nd law.
Any theory that has withstood testing as robustly as the theory of evolution will never be proved wrong. The most that could possibly happen is that it will acquire additional qualifying assumptions, rather like Newtonian mechanics. In any case, that there is no supernatural superman tinkering with the universe is already an assumption of all of science, not just evolution.
Science provides a definition of truth in recognition of the fact that ‘eternal’ truth is unknowable in the absence of complete information.
Do you believe in the existance of atoms? I suspect that the only evidence you could give would be a logical fallacy: an appeal to authority. Just like religion. Such is life.
Oh and by the way I generally avoid nit-picking, but FYI it’s anthropogenic global warming, and I consider it irrelevant, in case you were wondering.
JEM: a reply to OT
And if you knew anything about science, you would know that the Second Law, Evolution, etc., can never be tautologies.
The very essence of science is that a theory is subject to disproof; in other words, precisely and exactly, whatever else it may be, it is not and can never be a tautology.
Newtonian mechanics did not “acquire additional qualifying assumptions” but were proven entirely false by Einstein. They remain a reasonable approximation for most day-to-day purposes, but Einstein proved them untrue.
A bit like anthropogenic global warming, if you like. The central theoretical basis (popularly called the ‘hockey stick’) is coming apart at the seams just as our BBC friends build up the ‘sky is falling in’ panic based on it:
Take a look at http://landscape.sdsc.edu/~davids/enm/?p=34
where the same ‘hockey stick’ result is achieved using random numbers! Also, I hear a German statistician has produced the same hockey stick using German unemployment numbers.
Why is this important?
Because without this evidence, there is no basis whatever for believing any present day warming is in any way artifical, and if it is natural it is (1) probably not going to get all that hot and (b) far too powerful a natural process for us to prevent in any case.
We better just stop behaving like Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army and calmly learn to live with the inevitable.
OT: more insults from JEM
JEM: And if you knew anything about science, you would know that the Second Law, Evolution, etc., can never be tautologies.
*Sigh*. I already said I used the word loosely. Perhaps ‘truisim’ would have been better. Thanks for accusing me of knowing nothing about science, by the way. Science, in particular maths, physics and computing, has been a consuming passion of mine since I was a child, and it’s that kind of moronic jibe that spurs me into doing some extra reading on a subject that I love.
Ah, how gratifying. According to Wikipedia, the 2nd law of thermo is “a mathematical consequence of statistics”. Couldn’t have put it better meself. Heh, it being Wikipedia, I could have written it myself for all you know :). But anyway that’s what I was getting at in my original statement – I now wish I had put it a bit less poetically.
JEM: Newtonian mechanics did not “acquire additional qualifying assumptions” but were proven entirely false by Einstein. They remain a reasonable approximation for most day-to-day purposes, but Einstein proved them untrue.
No scientific theory can claim to be anything but a good approximation, to within the limits of measurability. Newtonian mechanics remains true (in this sense), provided that masses are not too big or too small or spinning too fast, and that velocities are not too close to c. This is what I meant by ‘additional qualifying assumptions’.
That’s an interesting link you provided, thanks.
My only interest in the anthropogenic global warming debate is the fact that politicians and bureaucrats are using it as a pretext to increase their own power, egged on by state-worshipping envy-driven authoritarian socialists and their naive supporters who see it as a way to undermine capitalism and further their own agenda. I’m not particularly interested in climatology per se.
So apart from the semantic nit-picking and the credential impugning, I’m not actually sure what it is we are arguing about.