Even a Scientist Can Be Wrong

 

I recently heard of a statement made by Neil deGrasse Tyson that I thought must have been a misquote. I looked into it and, sure enough, that wise man who’s quoted on tee shirts and coffee mugs said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.”

Whoa. The list of superseded scientific pronouncements is a long one, but I seem to recall a couple of real bloopers from his own field of expertise. It was once thought – as late as the early 20th century – that our own galaxy was the extent of the universe. Lo and behold, it is now accepted that there may be 100 billion galaxies comprising the universe – and counting. Now that’s a major whiff.

Not to mention the fact that luminaries such as Einstein, Shapley, Hoyle, and Gold believed that the universe was static, that is until Hubble peered through the Mt. Wilson telescope and verified the findings of that crazy Catholic priest George Lemaitre who had been trying to tell them the universe was expanding, and had been since the explosion of the primal atom (I won’t say creation).

Stay tuned for more alterations in “settled science.” It’s the nature of things.

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  1. CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker
    @CarolJoy

    Taras (View Comment):

    @caroljoy — “carbon dioxide is an eensy weensy teeny tiny amount of a substance that is not significant.”

    Here’s Prof. Spencer again: “Sometimes I’m asked how something occupying such a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%) can have such a significant effect. It’s because each CO2 molecule undergoes billions of collisions with other atmospheric molecules every second, which allows CO2 to warm (or cool) all of the other molecules.”

    @caroljoy — “Anyone like yourself who feels that the good people at the Mainstream Media outlet known as CNBC are going to actually report anything other than the Corporate Fluff they are known for happens to be as guilty as what you are accusing me of, for not seriously considering the source.”

    Carol, evidently you forget that it was you who presented the link to that CNBC video, not me. If you consider that CNBC story untrue, a. why did you link to it; and b. what part of its story do you now disbelieve? There aren’t 26 donors? It isn’t a tiny project using a balloon?

    How does Prof Spencer explain away the fact that before the year 1500 there was an extended period of time when carbon dioxide levels were almost as high or higher than they are now? Did the world end twelve years into that heavy duty carbon dioxide cycle? Or what?

    • #121
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    @caroljoy — “carbon dioxide is an eensy weensy teeny tiny amount of a substance that is not significant.”

    Here’s Prof. Spencer again: “Sometimes I’m asked how something occupying such a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%) can have such a significant effect. It’s because each CO2 molecule undergoes billions of collisions with other atmospheric molecules every second, which allows CO2 to warm (or cool) all of the other molecules.”

    @caroljoy — “Anyone like yourself who feels that the good people at the Mainstream Media outlet known as CNBC are going to actually report anything other than the Corporate Fluff they are known for happens to be as guilty as what you are accusing me of, for not seriously considering the source.”

    Carol, evidently you forget that it was you who presented the link to that CNBC video, not me. If you consider that CNBC story untrue, a. why did you link to it; and b. what part of its story do you now disbelieve? There aren’t 26 donors? It isn’t a tiny project using a balloon?

    How does Prof Spencer explain away the fact that before the year 1500 there was an extended period of time when carbon dioxide levels were almost as high or higher than they are now? Did the world end twelve years into that heavy duty carbon dioxide cycle? Or what?

    I blame all those pre-Columbian SUVs.

    • #122
  3. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    @caroljoy — “This man would be screaming about the necessity of nuke power, and since all his teenager and older children were very environmentally concerned hippies, they would pester the father about “So where is the nuke waste going to go?” … he got red in the face and screamed: ‘Don’t worry about where we will put it – there are millions of acres of Indian reservation land and no one there to patrol most of the roads in and out at night. No problem just dumping it there.’”

    This sounds like a conservative father pulling the chain of his progressive children, assuming such a conversation happened at all. It is double hearsay, after all.

    In reality, the issue of where to put nuclear waste has been a fierce political battle for half a century.  At great expense a suitable repository was built at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but so far it has succumbed to pandering politicians. The idea that nuclear waste might instead be midnight dumped on Indian reservations is pretty comical.  You can’t hide it:  it’s radioactive.  Which also means it could be used to make dirty bombs, so the Feds monitor it carefully.  Fortunately it doesn’t take up much space, so it’s being stored on the grounds of the nuclear power plants that generated it.

     

    • #123
  4. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    @caroljoy — “Bill Gates … arranged with various agencies and officials for the Chinese to come down the St Lawrence Seaway and pump thousands of millions of gallons of pristine Great Lakes water into their super barges and then head on back to China.”

    Are you sure you didn’t confuse the Chinese with the aliens from the TV series, V

    The Chinese sailing supertankers full of water halfway around the world?  They have plenty of their own water:  they control the Himalayas.  And since when is Great Lakes water “pristine”?

    But I am not going to say any more about this until I see some kind of a source.

    • #124
  5. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    If Bezos, who is more powerful than Gates, can’t keep people from criticizing him, why do you think Gates can?

    Maybe because Gates won’t let them use Windows if they criticize him?

    That would be a reward for criticizing him …

    • #125
  6. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    kedavis (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    @caroljoy — “carbon dioxide is an eensy weensy teeny tiny amount of a substance that is not significant.”

    Here’s Prof. Spencer again: “Sometimes I’m asked how something occupying such a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%) can have such a significant effect. It’s because each CO2 molecule undergoes billions of collisions with other atmospheric molecules every second, which allows CO2 to warm (or cool) all of the other molecules.”

    @caroljoy — “Anyone like yourself who feels that the good people at the Mainstream Media outlet known as CNBC are going to actually report anything other than the Corporate Fluff they are known for happens to be as guilty as what you are accusing me of, for not seriously considering the source.”

    Carol, evidently you forget that it was you who presented the link to that CNBC video, not me. If you consider that CNBC story untrue, a. why did you link to it; and b. what part of its story do you now disbelieve? There aren’t 26 donors? It isn’t a tiny project using a balloon?

    How does Prof Spencer explain away the fact that before the year 1500 there was an extended period of time when carbon dioxide levels were almost as high or higher than they are now? Did the world end twelve years into that heavy duty carbon dioxide cycle? Or what?

    I blame all those pre-Columbian SUVs.

    This seems to be a garbled reference to the Medieval Warm Period, ca. 900-1300 A.D., when Scandinavian colonists herded cows in Greenland.  Warmer temperatures, at least in northern Europe and the north Atlantic, apparently due to a low level of volcanic air pollution, not CO2.

    To find CO2 levels as high as today’s, you have to go back a few million years.

    Go back a few tens or hundreds of millions of years, and you find hyperverdant ecosystems with both temperatures and CO2 levels much higher than ours.

    • #126
  7. CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker
    @CarolJoy

    Taras (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    @caroljoy — “carbon dioxide is an eensy weensy teeny tiny amount of a substance that is not significant.”

    Here’s Prof. Spencer again: “Sometimes I’m asked how something occupying such a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%) can have such a significant effect. It’s because each CO2 molecule undergoes billions of collisions SNIP  which allows CO2 to warm (or cool) all of the other molecules.”

    @caroljoy — “Anyone like yourself who feels that the good people at the Mainstream Media outlet known as CNBC are going to actually report anything other than the Corporate Fluff they are known for happens to be as guilty as what you are accusing me of, for not seriously considering the source.”

    Carol, evidently you forget that it was you who presented the link to that CNBC video, not me. If you consider that CNBC story untrue, a. why did you link to it; and b. what part of its story do you now disbelieve? There aren’t 26 donors? It isn’t a tiny project using a balloon?

    How does Prof Spencer explain away the fact that before the year 1500 there was an extended period of time when CO2 levels were almost as high or higher than they are now? Did the world end 12 years into that heavy duty carbon dioxide cycle? Or what?

    I blame all those pre-Columbian SUVs.

    This seems to be a garbled reference to the Medieval Warm Period, ca. 900-1300 A.D., SNIP Warmer temperatures, at least in northern Europe and the north Atlantic, apparently due to a low level of volcanic air pollution, not CO2.

    To find CO2 levels as high as today’s, you have to go back a few million years.

    Go back a few tens or hundreds of millions of years, and you find hyperverdant ecosystems with both temperatures and CO2 levels much higher than ours.

    You’re able to state this supposed irrefutable “fact” that to  experience such high levels of CO2 we’d have to go back hundreds of millions of years is because the references to the  carbon dioxide surge of a time period right before the 15th century have been scrubbed. I did find a scientist I used to talk to a bit so I emailed him today, as he has the data on the time frame I am referring to. 

    I believe the CO2 spike I am thinking of was after the Medieval Warm Period.

    Right now, the situation with the search engines is payments made by this force and that force to keep the “Official Story” pegged to the first 154 pages of the search engine’s results. So  type in “stolen election” + “Trump had his election stolen” you’ll see 489 pages of results letting the searcher know that Trump did not even have a single vote stolen.

    That is how every single topic  of any controversy stands right now.

    • #127
  8. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    How does Prof Spencer explain away the fact that before the year 1500 there was an extended period of time when CO2 levels were almost as high or higher than they are now? Did the world end 12 years into that heavy duty carbon dioxide cycle? Or what?

    I blame all those pre-Columbian SUVs.

    This seems to be a garbled reference to the Medieval Warm Period, ca. 900-1300 A.D., SNIP Warmer temperatures, at least in northern Europe and the north Atlantic, apparently due to a low level of volcanic air pollution, not CO2.

    To find CO2 levels as high as today’s, you have to go back a few million years.

    Go back a few tens or hundreds of millions of years, and you find hyperverdant ecosystems with both temperatures and CO2 levels much higher than ours.

    You’re able to state this supposed irrefutable “fact” that to experience such high levels of CO2 we’d have to go back hundreds of millions of years is because the references to the carbon dioxide surge of a time period right before the 15th century have been scrubbed. I did find a scientist I used to talk to a bit so I emailed him today, as he has the data on the time frame I am referring to.

    I believe the CO2 spike I am thinking of was after the Medieval Warm Period.

    Right now, the situation with the search engines is payments made by this force and that force to keep the “Official Story” pegged to the first 154 pages of the search engine’s results. So type in “stolen election” + “Trump had his election stolen” you’ll see 489 pages of results letting the searcher know that Trump did not even have a single vote stolen.

    That is how every single topic of any controversy stands right now.

    I searched “stolen election 2020” on DuckDuckGo and Bing.  DuckDuckGo had a “news” stripe of mostly negative stories, but the rest of the first page was “pro-stolen” stories.  On Microsoft’s Bing the first window leaned a little more negative but you couldn’t miss the stories that support the stolen election narrative.

    Moral:  STOP USING GOOGLE.

    I think you misunderstood what I wrote about CO2 levels in the past.

    • #128
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