Eco-heretic beset by hate campaign

Sunday Times (UK) ^ | 1/13/02 | JONATHAN LEAKE, SCIENCE EDITOR

[longshadow]

You know, there are two ways to have a discussion. One is to be polite, and another is to be sarcastic and smarmy. Smarmy is for people on the attack, and frankly you apparent notion of being intellectually superior is totally unfounded.

You are entitled to your opinion. I simply pointed out the error in your reasoning, while making a quick joke about Astronmers' nocturnal proclivities. If that offends you, so be it.

If you use a fixed point of reference, now, these are your words, how is it that you can call a star, or even our sun a stationary point, when in fact everything moves in the universe? [snip]

Stars a sufficient distance from us in the galaxy show no appreciable movement on a year-to year basis; hence these "background stars" can be used as "fixed" reference points.

[snip] The funny thing about moving the seasons, is that the seasons would fall in such a way as to appear support Global Warming.

You can swap Winter for Summer and Fall, for Spring, for all I care; 365 consecutive days of global temperature data is one year's worth, regardless of what season you start and stop the data.

[snip] You might even see that it would appear that there might be something to my argument.

Frankly, I haven't seen anything that would support your assertion, which as I've pointed out above, makes no sense.

If you have some argument to bolster your assertion, I'll be glad to consider it.

[untenured]

The way things work in bureaucratized academics is that you have to wait for one generation of entrenched intellectuals to die off/retire and be replaced with a younger crop, before orthodox "truths" accepted on faith can be truly re-examined by fresh, skeptical eyes.

"Knowledge advances one funeral at a time."
    --  Paul Samuelson (attributed)

[PatrickHenry]

Stars a sufficient distance from us in the galaxy show no appreciable movement on a year-to year basis; hence these "background stars" can be used as "fixed" reference points.

Indeed. There are only a very few stars which are near enough to show a slight shift in their position (relative to the rest of the stellar background), such shift being a result of the earth's motion around the sun. Photos taken at six-month intervals reveal these shifts. The difference is in our perspective, being at opposite ends of our orbital diameter every six months. This is called a parallex shift. Other than that, the stars just don't move enough for it to be noticeable (generally).

Because we know the size of our orbit, and the angle at which we observe the shifted stars, we can easily calculate the distance of such stars. Picture a very elongated isosceles triangle with its base perched on the earth's orbit, one angle anchored at each six-month position of the earth, and with the very acute angle ending at a point which is the star in question. Drop a line from that star perpendicular to the earth's orbit, and it will hit the sun, giving you a pair of right triangles. The rest is simple geometry. For either right triangle, we know the base (the radius of earth's orbit) and we know the angle at which the star is observed, thus we know the size of the other sides.

Because one Cepheid variable just happened to be near enough, we could determine its distance, and thus its true magnitude for that distance, and now we can use such stars as guideposts for determining distances of very distant clusters which contain such variables.

[longshadow]

Because one Cepheid variable just happened to be near enough, we could determine its distance, and thus its true magnitude for that distance, and now we can use such stars as guideposts for determining distances of very distant clusters which contain such variables. [emphasis added]

Right you are, PH.

The Cephied variables, whose period of variability is directly related to it's mass, and hence to it's luminosity, are often referred to as the "yardsticks" of the Cosmos" (or, for those of you accustomed to using the MKS system, "metersticks of the Cosmos.") By measuring the period of variablity and the apparent luminosity, we can calculate the distance required for a Cephied of that period to have the obseved brightness.

It's a darned convenient feature of the Cosmos for those Astronomers who aren't too busy wanking away the night "reading" Penthouse.

[PatrickHenry]

It's a darned convenient feature of the Cosmos for those Astronomers who aren't too busy wanking away the night "reading" Penthouse.

Penthouse is good for those cloudy nights when there's nothing else to observe.

[PatrickHenry]

The funny thing about moving the seasons, is that the seasons would fall in such a way as to appear support Global Warming. There is no such thing as Un-natural global warming. It happens because weather is cyclical, and anyone, especially meteorologists, and historians can tell you.

If the seasons moved around (which they would without leap-year corrections), all that we would notice is that February would be gradually getting warmer, while August would be gradually getting colder. Longshadow is correct when he points out that it's the average yearly temperature which matters.

[RadioAstronomer]

It's a darned convenient feature of the Cosmos for those Astronomers who aren't too busy wanking away the night "reading" Penthouse.

What else is there to do when you are waiting for data to roll in on a lonely night! ROTFLMAO!!!

[PatrickHenry]

What else is there to do when you are waiting for data to roll in on a lonely night!

As I have always suspected.

[RadioAstronomer]

As I have always suspected.

UhOh!! I let the cat out of the bag. I will probably be tossed out of the Astronomical secret society now! Sigh! :)

[longshadow]

What else is there to do when you are waiting for data to roll in on a lonely night! ROTFLMAO!!!

You cannot be condemned for that. Astronomy is, after all, the study of "heavenly bodies," isn't it? The enlightened Astronomer is the one who realizes that SOME "heavenly bodies" are decidely terrestrial in origin.... (though undeniably Cosmic in practice.)

[joanie-f]

Thanks for the ping, e-s.

It always amazes me (I guess I'm a slow learner) how these leftist who are so incredibly concerned about tree frogs/snail darters/ozone layers show so little reverence for human dignity. And how they always seem to live by two sets of rules (one as regards their right the spew their lies/venom, and yet another as regards anyone else's right to refute their lies, or justifiably react to their venom). I suppose the pie in the face thing is a little better than what we usually witness for them, though. It makes the idiot who perpetrated the indignity look at least as foolish as his victim.

What do you wanna bet Mr. Lomborg will not be invited to join the Union of Concerned Scientists (not that he'd want to, mind you)? :)

[VOA]

bump for visibility

[madfly]

bttt

[SunkenCiv]

"Global Warming" is the new Lysenkoism.

Bjorn Lomborg Again
James Hogan
Posted on January16, 2003

In March I posted an item about Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish statistician who was pilloried after going public with the politically incorrect truth that most of the environmentalist litany is myth, and things in general are getting better, not worse. It seems that George Orwell's prescience of "Recdep," the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, where news and history are rewritten to suit policy, is well attested to in Europe. For the story of the amateurish attempt to discredit Lomborg, making no attempt at objectivity and answering scientific references with slanted magazine articles, see James K. Glassman's Denmark's Ministry of Truth at TCS Europe. Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist was what started it all off.

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg