From the Australian Herald Sun comes The concert no warmist would applause where Bono’s hypocrisy is succinctly pointed out.

Bono was cheered in 2008 by the Keen for Green group for several reasons:

• Bono participated in a tree planting ceremony
• Bono and U2 participated in a protest against a nuclear power plant
• Bono is an avid recycler
• Bono drives an ethanol powered car

But, the article goes on, U2′s latest traveling show tours on six 747′s and uses 55 trucks (presumably semis).

Good gosh!  But, Bono’s an environmentalist or something, and his institute says it’s about raising awareness which is why he can in good conscience fly his hat first class.

Too bad his institute doesn’t contribute that much of the proceeds to the cause.

ONE gives only a pittance in direct charitable support to its causes — something Borochoff said the average donor might not realize.

The Bono nonprofit took in $14,993,873 in public donations in 2008, the latest year for which tax records are available.

Of that, $184,732 was distributed to three charities, according to the IRS filing.

Meanwhile, more than $8 million was spent on executive and employee salaries.

And he avoids taxes, which effects the amount of money available to the poor.

U2 moved their publishing arm to Holland in 2006 after the Government capped tax-free earnings for artists at €250,000. The band was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the royalties scheme. 

Nessa Ni Chasaide, of the DDCI, told Mr Lenihan millions of euro were being lost through similar tax-avoidance schemes which she claimed kept cash, in the form of foreign aid, from the poorest people in society.

Now to the points above.

• Tree planting ceremonies do nothing, which is why the root word ‘ceremony’ means ‘a formal event performed on a special occassion’.  Sorry, ‘raising awareness’ isn’t a justification in the web connected world of the new millenium.
• Protesting against a nuclear power plant?  What is the U2 approved alternative energy source in the United Kingdom?  Wind?  Nope.  Solar?  Nope.  Hope?  Nuclear is the U.K.’s best bet to get off coal and oil.
• Recycling is garbage. 
• Come on Bono, even Al Gore realizes that burning your food and poisoning your water while driving up food costs for the poor is not a good way to power a car.

Wonder what Al is whispering in Bono’s ear up there?  I’ll bet a dollar it’s “I’ve got them so whipped, I could shove this microphone straight into their keysters and they’d thank me for the revelation.”  And if not, well it would be worth a buck to hear them deny that’s what was said.

This condemnation,
laceration,
dissertation,
on my motivations..

Let it go, uh-huh, and so fade away-a-a

Oh, no, wait, those weren’t the words, were they?

This year’s climate party is in Cancun and after Brad Pitt was unable to save the world last year in Copenhagen, the delegates decided to get right to the point: money.

There are two aspects of the money issue.  One aspect is the paleo-climatic zealots demanding ever increasing fundings in a vain effort to find the physical evidence that would prove their dogma, while the second aspect is the world’s politicians capitalizing on the fear the eco-zealots have instilled in the population.

FoxNews reports from the Associated Press:

Hoping to revive momentum in the talks, delegates look for decisions leading to better terms for developing nations to obtain patented “green” technology from advanced countries, and toward a system for compensating poorer nations for protecting their forests.

In particular, the developing world wants a significant deal on finance, a decision to establish a green fund to handle billions in aid dollars pledged by developed nations to help poorer countries adapt to a changing climate by, for example, building shoreline protection and upgrading water systems to deal with drought, and to install clean energy sources.

But the undeveloped world and the developing world want the money now:

More immediately, less-developed nations will raise concerns about short-term aid, “fast-start finance” promised in the Copenhagen Accord.

“There’s been too little for small island developing states. It’s a trickle,” said Grenada’s U.N. ambassador, Dessima Williams, chair of an alliance of island states.

and:

Poorer nations complain much of the money may not be new, but funds simply reshuffled from other development programs. At Cancun, they’re expected to demand a clearer accounting of fast-start finance.

I seriously doubt any but the most naive tree hugger actually believed a continuous planet-wide party of 15,000 people was about the environment.

I’m all for helping people, and I’m proud that as an American I know my tax dollars support food, medicine and shelter for the less fortunate around the world.  I also like having the discretionary income available to contribute to the 2004 tsunami victims and the recent Haitian earthquake relief efforts and whatever else I want to donate my money to.  I don’t mind those monies spent at all.

I do mind however when governments come begging, saying I’m not giving enough, and demanding that I support their continued existence in their historical lands while they ignore geology and history and use inflammatory commentary such as the following to wrench out as many dollars from fools as possible:

If too little is done, temperatures this century may rise by up to 6.4 degrees C (11.5 degrees F), leading to severe climate disruption, say scientists of the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Now the threat is 11.5 degrees F this century!  The end is nigh, and always has been, for the zealots.

If you, as an island nation floating on top of a coral atoll, wish to drink all the fresh water that you’re floating on and sink your island, it’s not America’s fault.

If you, as a forested nation that has yet to find a profitable existence, wants to extort money from America with the threat you’ll cut down your forests if we don’t give it to you, I’ll call.  Cut them down.  Cut them all down.  If you can make money from cutting them all down, your people would have done so a century ago.  You think we need the oxygen produced from your tiny amount of mature trees?  We don’t.  Growing plants use more oxygen than mature ones, and besides, the rain forests produce a very small amount of the world’s oxygen.  Look it up.

If you, as a nation that is undeveloped for reasons of cultural preference, are asking for money, I have to ask what you would want it for as it will only influence your cultural decision to remain as you have for thousands of years.

Money is the problem that drives this madness, so I say we stop giving money to those who ask.  Instead, we should give technologies, techniques, equipment, expertise and other items necessary to accomplish ends.

I expect if America simply said “no” to requests for money then there would be a great reduction in the numbers of hands reaching out, and that of those still asking for assistance almost all would actually require it, and would be appreciative of the assistance provided.

Got an auto reply from Dave Perlman’s email address which is a couple weeks off, looks like he’s deleting emails that don’t reach him during office hours:

I’m out of the office until Monday, November 15  If your e-mail is personal, try my home phone or resend it Monday. ALL incoming e-mails will be automatically deleted until I return.  Sorry, and many thanks.

========================================================
This e-mail message is intended only for the personal
use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not
an intended recipient, you may not review, copy or
distribute this message.

If you have received this communication in error, please
notify the sender immediately by e-mail and delete the original message.
========================================================

I have added a new category “emails to journos” where I will document correspondence or lack thereof between myself and those I choose to email.

This first piece regards the San Francisco Chronicles’ Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor and follows:

The story is the narrative not the science.

Like a good cheerleader, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor is merrily reporting the news that lakes are part of the environment and will warm as Earth’s temperatures continue to drive away from those experienced during the Little Ice Age.

Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor, is reporting on news that Lake Tahoe has warmed.  Let’s look at some of Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor’s article to see how he has chosen to frame his argument:

The world’s largest lakes, including Lake Tahoe, have been warming rapidly for 25 years as the global climate changes, NASA scientists report.

The above is a definitive statement that the world’s largest lakes have been warming rapidly for 25 years.  It leaves little to the imagination.

And a little further down Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor, makes another definitive statement:

In a report just published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Philipp Schneider and Simon Hook of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena say the warming rate of all the major lakes observed by the satellites has averaged nearly a full degree Fahrenheit per decade.

And then a quote from one of the JPL scientists involved:

“This is just one of several lines of evidence that global warming is really taking place,” Hook said. “The evidence is striking and worldwide.”

Yes, we are all in agreement that the aforementioned Little Ice Age has ended, the evidence is indeed striking and worldwide.

Further down we get the obligatory answer to “why do we care”:

As lakes like Tahoe grow warmer, the regular mixing of water between the surface and the bottom slows, Schladow said. Dangerous chemicals like heavy metals and phosphorous, which normally are locked in bottom sediments, become soluble, so they pollute the entire lake.

“The result is to change the lake’s entire ecology,” he said.

And after a bit more dutiful discussion of temperature and effects, we have some interesting numbers introduced into Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor’s article:

For their report, Schneider and Hook selected 176 of the world’s 364 largest lakes and gathered measurements only at night and only from selected lake areas, far from surrounding land.

I believe myself to be a reasonable person, and from the tidbits of facts and theory presented by Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor, I come away from the article with the impression that 176 of the largest lakes in the world were studied and found to be warming by as much as 1 degree F per decade, and that this will have detrimental impacts on the local ecologies of these lakes, potentially allowing dangerous chemicals to mix in the waters and creating oxygen free dead zones in the waters after some undisclosed and apparently unexplored temperature tipping point is reached.

Very horrible, and very much what Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor has selected for his readers to believe.

Being a science journalist should require the journalist to have the mind of a scientist, but sadly there is no such requirement.

Not being a science journalist myself, but simply a layperson, I am left wondering how lakes around the world contend with the detrimental mixing of heavy metals and phosphorous producing dead zones mentioned in this scare piece? 

Why, all the lakes in Africa must be positively poisonous and rancid as they are no doubt much warmer than Lake Tahoe.  Here the United States Geologic Survey states that Lake Tahoe varies from 40-50 degrees F in winter, and 65-70 degrees F in summer (several paragraphs down).  While here are the temps for Lake Victoria in Africa, which are given in degrees Celsius, and range from 55 to 104 degrees for the max and min when converted to Fahrenheit.

So, Lake Victoria is always 5 decades of warming greater than Lake Tahoe’s winter temperature, and as much as 500 years of warming greater than Lake Tahoe’s winter during each and every summer.  Lake Victoria’s summers are as much as 300 years of warming above Lake Tahoe’s summers.  Wherever the detrimental threshold is for Lake Tahoe, it is obviously quite a long ways off as I can confidently describe Lake Victoria as “flourishing”.  300-500 years has produced very many interesting changes in the climate as chronicled by Tony Brown at Climate Reason here.

Is Lake Victoria a particularly warm or hot lake?  I have no idea, I simply thought of it first.

Perhaps during their last eco-jaunt around the world to raise awareness for why not to jaunt around the world, the JPL scientists discovered Pitch Lake on Trinidad and Tobago?  Surely the IPCC has destined there?  Any Douglas Adams fans in the readership?  Remember the party that continuously circled the planet leaving trash and waste everywhere?  That’s the IPCC.

Maybe Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor was just being lazy, after all here is NASA’s press piece on the same study.  About the same information Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor supplied in his article.

Maybe Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor’s boss simply permits Dave to paraphrase NASA press releases?

What point am I driving home here?  That the story is the narrative not the science.  The science is not the story, only carrying water for the AGW crowd is the story.

Here is what I mean.  When I first read this story I was on MSNBC who chose to include more information than Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor chose to include.  MSNBC’s article is one by Seth Borenstein from the Associated Press who includes the following important information from the JPL scientest Simon Hook quoted above:

Overall, 41 lakes increased temperatures in a statistically significant way, with another 59 individually warming but not enough to be considered significant. Only four showed temperature drops, but not significantly, Hook said.

It turns out that only 41 lakes showed significant warming which is a far cry from the 176 reported by Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor.  By significant we have to remember that Simon Hook is a scientist, and he is therefore referring to statistical significance, meaning a clear trend, which is why Simon Hook, actual scientist and not a chronicle science editor, states that 59 did warm but it wasn’t significant.  And Simon Hook, actual scientist and not a chronicle science editor states that four lakes actually cooled.

Let’s check Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor’s math.  Dave Perlman, Chronicle Scientist Editor reports that 176 lakes warmed by up to 1 degree F per decade over the last 25 years.  The actual author of the paper Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor was paraphrasing states 41 lakes warmed in a statistically meaningful way and 59 others showed measurable but insignificant warming.  176 >> 41 + 59  (Dave that means 176 is “very much greater than” the sum of 41 and 59 (which by the way is only 100)).  And in actuality, only 41 warmed not 176, and a far cry from the opening paragraph which hints that all of the largest 364 lakes would show statistically significant warming, but that only 176 were sampled.

Why would some not be sampled?  This was conducted by satellite after all.  Surely, the remaining 188 large lakes could be easily sampled?  Why were these 188 large lakes not chosen for sampling?  Does this hint at Simon Hook’s strange word choice when he states that “only” four lakes cooled?  Were the 188 ignored based on the probability they had likely cooled, and the remaining minority of 176 were chosen because they likely warmed, and the JPL scientists were “only” wrong about four?  Any actual journalists alive anymore?

And, of course, Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor fails to mention the four lakes cooled in a statistically meaningful way.  That is, almost one tenth of the lakes cherry picked for this study showing a statistically measurable cooling trend.

Given the facts absent in the NASA press release, can I forgive Dave Perlman’s story (it’s now a story as it no longer can be considered an article)?  Only if one or more of the following are true:

• Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor only plagiarizes or paraphrases
• Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor has no journalistic skills
• Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor has no knowledge of the scientific method

Otherwise, Dave Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor is simply carrying water for the alarmist crowd that seems to populate the comments section on so many of the San Francisco Chronicle pseudo-articles that make it to the front pages of the news aggregation sites I read.

NASA is a national embarrassment for putting out press releases that allow shills like Dave Perlman to regurgitate rhetoric, disseminating half truths wrapped in folklore to perpetuate this religion of the Cult of the Carbon Cow.

Google currently shows 73,300 results for “nasa lake tahoe warming”, most of which on the first four pages are from shills like Dave Perlman.

If this rant seems familiar to the good reader, I’ve covered ridiculous reporting such as this before during the recent Peterman ice shelf calving scare.

Returning to the Associated Press article by Seth Borenstein and reported by MSNBC, we have this passage:

“It fits with what we see with air temperature measurements,” Hook said. “We were surprised that in some places the lakes appear to be warming more than the air temperature.”

The next question to look at is why the lakes seem to be warming faster than the air or land, Hook said. One reason could be the way lakes warm — in a more gradual manner than land but also slower to cool.

None of our science reporters seem to pick up on these interesting statements by Simon Hook.

The first interesting statement is that the lakes are warming faster than the air surrounding them, thermodynamics tells us then that the air cannot be warming the lakes.

Alternatively, as suggested by the second statement, the lakes are warmer than the surrounding air due to the fact that heat capacitance of water is greater than that of air, and as the air around the lakes has cooled, the waters are slowly following the trend.  But, it can’t be cooling, right?  I don’t think it is, only four lakes showed statistical cooling trends, and after all these 176 100 41 lakes have shown a warming trend.  Or, I assume they have.

Has anyone actually read Simon Hook’s paper yet?  Oh yeah, the story is the narrative not the science.

If the climatologists have spoken and the future is known, then why are there still climatologists?

What’s the difference between an astrologer, a fortune teller, and a climatologist?   I don’t know either.

Ocean acidification is a call-to-alarmism phrase for the eco-loons as of late.  We’ve discussed it here and here.  Other sites have discussed it much better no doubt.

While surfing the tubes, I ran across this article regarding the oldest shrimp yet discovered.  Here he is in a Kent State pic:

Doesn’t look much different than what I’m currently feeding my blue ribbon eel and Atlantic lionfish.

I’ve discussed my salt water fish/reef keeping hobby several times on this site and would wish that every climatologist be required to take up the hobby and demonstrate proficiency before allowed any further grant monies.

What I believe the climatologists could learn from the salt water fish/reef hobby include:

• temperature swings of several degrees don’t matter that much
• temperature differentials do not cause currents in water
• lighting is the most important quality to the success of the creatures
• limestone buffers the effects of CO2
• pH changes are daily occurrences

If ocean acidification is such a threat, one would have to wonder about this quote from the tale of our shrimp friend up there:

“When the animal died, it came to rest on the seafloor,” he said. “The muscles then were preserved by a combination of acidic waters and a low oxygen content as the animal was buried rapidly.”

The shrimp apparently lived and thrived in water that was actually acidic, not alkaline as the “ocean acidification” scare cautions us about.

Now, would I suggest dropping the pH of a reef tank?  Of course not, the creatures populating the reefs today have evolved under the conditions that have persisted over the last many generations of their kind.  However, the article linked does prove conclusively that actually acidic water will not prevent shrimps from growing shells.  And given that so many of today’s species were evolving back when our shrimp friend was, it seems that metabolic processes can counter pH changes.  Just like in my tanks today.

And just in case there is some concern that perhaps this one shrimp species was unique, the article concludes:

The shrimp lived in deeper waters of the ocean where currents were too weak to destroy it. Other animals that were found in the same rock include the extinct ammonites, nautiloids, brachiopods and sponges.

The platypus is a strange creature.  When first discovered, that is presented to science for classification, it was considered a hoax akin to Piltdown man.

And why not?  The platypus is a venomous mammal that lays eggs, has a duck bill, beaver tail, webbed feet and echo-locates.  Who would believe such a bizarre creature exists?  The platypus truly has an interesting evolutionary history.

And the mighty platypus has an apparent superpower: stopping the construction of power plants.

A single platypus was discovered near the site of a proposed power plant in Australia, and activity on said power plant comes to a halt.  Over one platypus.

I suppose the greenies would argue that where there’s one, there’s many and therefore the land should be left undisturbed.  I agree with the sentiment when many animals are found, or in the case of say the Spotted Owl which caused so much consternation a couple of decades ago in North America.  I agree with setting aside large amounts of land to preserve biodiversity.  After all, mother nature has had billions of years to develop chemical compounds we may find useful, let’s preserve those.

In this case however, only one animal was found.  Does this justify holding up a much needed power plant for Australians?  I think not.

I don’t think so because I believe in springs.  Not artesian wells or other sources of fresh water, but mechanical springs.  I believe in them.  More specifically, I believe in the damping coefficient.  I make no apologies to the reader for introducing math into an article about a platypus, but I do caution the reader that the concept was introduced to the author during a differential equations (Calculus 4) course and should likely just be loosely scanned.  The wikipedia article linked has a great graphic on the right showing the concept with a bouncing weight on the end of a spring.

So, back to where we were.

A single platypus obviously cannot create a local population of the bizarre animals.  Given that several platypi (sp?) were not spotted, but a single animal, it seems that there is only one or generously two.

Population growth can be modeled using differential equations which include the damping coefficient illustrated by the bouncing spring on the Wikipedia article linked above.  Doubt it?

Let’s perform a thought experiment assuming there are two platypi, a male and a female while introducing the concept of a damping coefficient.

Cute little guys aren’t they?

Let’s suppose in our thought experiment that the male and female are of child bearing age and produce a clutch of eggs.

Some of these eggs may not hatch due to the damping effect.  Some just might not contain viable offspring.

Some of the eggs that hatch might produce young that are weak or sickly, again the damping coefficient makes its mark.

Some of the viable, healthy young will succumb to the environment (disease, virii, malnutrition, etc).  Damping again.

Some of the viable, healthy young will be eaten by carnivores.  More damping.

Some of the above effects may not apply to any particular clutch of eggs, but some damping will occur.  In our thought experiment, let’s assume half the eggs eventually produce healthy young adults and furthermore let’s assume that there were originally ten eggs, so we have five healthy offspring that grow to breeding age.

Now what?

Now the platypi have only their siblings or parents to breed with.  There are maybe three or four of each sex, likely a different distribution. Some of the adults will get eaten, some will wander away and never mate. Some will choose not to mate.

The remaining will mate with their close genetic relatives. Any genetic issues will manifest themselves in the next generation, and this is the strongest damping effect.  A population that shares a significant percentage of genetic code is susceptible to wholesale demise from a single genetic factor.

Consider a population wholly derived from itself with a susceptibility to a killer disease.  If one member of that population comes into contact with the disease, the disease is quickly spread within the whole population and every animal dies. In other cases, detrimental birth defects will occur.

It is understanding this damping effect which caused my differential equations professor to state that no population can be derived from only one male and one female.  I have no reason to argue. In our thought experiment, we have to consider that platypi aren’t over-populated in Australia, if they were there would of course be no need to protect them. So the natural (plus man made) damping effect acting on the platypi population seems to exceed the birthrate.

So how do populations thrive?  That is, what really is the theory of evolution?

First off, much to the chagrin of Republican candidates everywhere, the theory of evolution simply does not state or even suggest in any way that humans derived from monkeys.  Or apes. Republicans: you do know chimps are apes, right? No tails?

Nope, the theory of evolution states that we derived from monkey-daddies, which I suppose is worse from your point of view.

And to my brother’s old friend Chuck: the theory of evolution does not suggest that there should be “fish people” as you described.  Nor should humans have wings, as I read in an election thread today.

The modern basis of the theory of evolution is really simple and based on an equally simple observation: genetic mutations occur.  Now, I am of course not suggesting Darwin knew about genetic mutations, but he did know about Mendel‘s pea plants, although Darwin didn’t quite put it all together.  Neverless, we’ve known about the effects of genes since we began farming and practicing animal husbandry, but we didn’t exactly know about genes specifically nor mutations, only inheritance.

There are three possible consequences of a genetic mutation with respect to an organism’s long term survival: (1) the genetic mutation helps the organism reproduce, (2) the genetic mutation hurts the organism’s likelihood of reproducing, or (3) the mutation has no bearing on an organism’s ability to reproduce.

Examples of a genetic mutation that might make an organism more likely to mate would be a larger display in the male peacock, or a more muscular build in a bull.

Examples of a genetic mutation that might make an organism less likely to mate would be a modification to a fish’s scales that increases drag, or a mutation in a robin that causes the female to produce thin eggs.

Examples of a genetic mutation that would have no bearing on an organism’s likelihood of mating would include skin color or hair color in humans.  Yes, we’re still evolving.

Let’s perform a second thought experiment.  Let’s imagine we are witnessing the common ancestor to the monkeys, apes, and hominids, a mammal population of some sort alive many millions of years ago. How many generations might that be? Let’s say we’re going back 10 million years and our ancestor had an adult breeding age of 10 years, not unrealistic in a higher mammal, human breeding can occur every 13-15 years or so and rats can breed on the order of months. So, 10 years on average per generation and 10 million years of time, that is one million generations. One million generations of compounding mutations.

Just to spite Christine O’Donnell, let’s assume our thought experiment animal is already more or less monkey like.

I could have gone back much further, well beyond the dinosaurs even, back to the time of dimetrodon around 270 million years ago.  Dimetrodon is related to mammals by virtue of the fact that mammals today have differentiated teeth (cuspids, incisors and molars), and dimetrodon had differentiated teeth. Not much else does.  Dimetrodon was a proto-mammal that existed millions of years before dinosaurs.  Christine, your lineage is many hundreds of millions of years old, and here is dimetrodon:

Not so cute.

So back to the population of early mammals who are far more advanced than the proto-mammals and are about to stand on two feet.  How might this have happened?

A series of genetic mutations that were either beneficial or not detrimental would have had to occur.  Let’s take our first genetic mutation to be an opposable thumb superior to that of the monkey-daddies, or that of what would become monkeys or apes.  Humans are after all the only species with a truly opposable thumb.

What would this genetic mutation entail?  Well, basically it would have reduced the length of the palm, placing the thumb within reach of the tips of the fingers.  This doesn’t seem like it would reduce the likelihood the organism that first had the mutation would breed.  As a matter of fact, it might have increased the likelihood of the organism breeding as food would have been easier to obtain with the increased dexterity and grooming a potential mate would have been easier.

And just like how your grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins don’t disappear when you have children, the original population is still around when this mutation occurs.

So, we have a single individual within a population with a favorable genetic trait.  That trait would either be dominant or recessive.  If dominate, a single occurrence of the gene causing the trait would produce the trait in offspring.  If recessive, then both the mother and father would have to pass the gene to the offspring for the trait to manifest itself.

Let’s assume the trait is dominant, then all the offspring of the individual with the mutated gene for an opposable thumb would have opposable thumbs.

Let’s assume the trait is recessive, then the trait would take much longer to become established in the population.  An individual receives a gene from both the mother and father for each trait (greatly simplifying here and not considering traits that are expressed as a combination of genes), if the individual receives one copy of a dominant trait, then the individual expresses that trait.  In order to express a recessive trait (such as blue eyes in humans) an individual must inherit the recessive trait from both parents.

So, obviously, recessive traits take much longer to express themselves in a population, even ones that are beneficial to the population.

The four possible combinations of inherited genes and the expressed trait are following:

1. both the mother and father provide the gene for the dominate trait and the dominate trait is expressed
2. only the father provides the gene for the dominate trait and the dominate trait is expressed
3. only the mother provides the gene for the dominate trait and the dominate trait is expressed
4. both the mother and father provide the gene for the recessive trait and the recessive trait is expressed

So dominate traits spread rapidly through a population, while recessive traits spread slowly.  In each case of a trait that is perpetuated throughout a population for generations, the trait must have originated from a genetic mutation that increased the organism’s likelihood of reproducing, or had no detrimental effect on the organism’s likelihood of reproducing.

So, the reader may assume the above mentioned opposable thumb mutation was dominate or recessive, it doesn’t matter.  The trait will be expressed among the descendants as it is a trait that leads to the likelihood of a successful mating.  Dominant traits aren’t necessarily beneficial either, dominant or recessive simply refers to the conditions under which the gene is expressed, without regard for the effect on the organism.  Keeping the above paragraph in mind, a dominant mutation with a detrimental genetic expression does not pass into the population through successive generations, as the organisms with this detrimental trait are not likely to successfully mate. Damping.

Our first genetic mutation, opposable thumbs in our thought experiment, is just one genetic change in the organism, so a young with the inherited trait would be able to mate with other members of the population that do not have the trait.

Imagine the next genetic mutation produces a trait that is an improvement to the pelvis that allows those individuals with the trait to stand up higher and see above the grasses on the Savannah and thus see predators approaching sooner than their contemporaries.  Clearly, this is an advantage.

And again, grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins are still free to breed organisms without this trait.  This mutation occurs for only one branch of this family tree.

Imagine another genetic mutation that slightly alters the ankle, allowing for an increase in the run speed of the organism.  We now have three advantageous traits in one branch of an organism’s family tree.

Each of the above genetic mutations would be slowly working their way through the population derived from the single branch of the family tree in our thought experiment until eventually there are some individuals with each of the three advantageous traits breeding true, that is whether the traits are dominate or recessive, all young have each of the three traits because they are advantageous.

In the case of recessive traits, then both the mother and father handed down the trait which means the young have two genes for the trait and can therefore only pass down the trait.

In the case of dominate traits, then the trait is so prevalent in the population that both the mother and father have two copies of the gene for the trait, so the young would inherit two copies also.

Now, this is where it gets difficult for individuals such as Christine O’Donnell.  At this point, there is not enough genetic separation within the population separating those with all three beneficial traits from those with two, one, or none to prevent breeding.  The population is still freely mixing.

Until something happens.

Maybe a selfish gene becomes dominant, such as a genetic preference to only mate with taller individuals who provide more food and attention to the mate, that is those who can stand up, run fast, and groom in a certain way.

Maybe a cataclysm segregates a subsection of the population with the genetic mutations from the rest.

Maybe a dominant trait mutates detrimentally, but no individual expressing the recessive trait will breed with the individuals expressing the dominant trait. Consider that the human brown eye trait becomes associated with a birth defect, but blue eyed individuals within the population had already stopped mating with brown eyed individuals. In this case, only the blue eyed individuals would survive.

In any event, something occurs which causes a subset of the population to only breed within itself.  This subset of the original population will continue to produce genetic mutations, and this whole process continues and repeats with new genetic mutations such as a lack of body hair which quite likely led to a mating preference for the same reason it does today: beauty.

The original population of individuals who are breeding without producing the three genetic mutations listed above are still free to mate, and will continue to do so.

Over time, the two groups will drift to the point where they can no longer interbreed.  This is how new species are born, and it takes a very very long time.  The original population would over a very long time produce monkeys, apes, lemurs, hominids, and other species we haven’t found a fossil record for.

People such as Christine O’Donnell don’t believe the world has been around for a very very long time, which is why they just simply cannot wrap their little minds around the concept of genetic drift.

Eventually, the original population of successfully breeding individuals would have produced so many offshoots with traits that are superior that they will be out competed for resources by their genetic descendants and will cease to exist.  That is, the successful production of genetically superior offspring will doom the original population as they are out competed by their descendants for food and shelter.  Brutal.

So, Christine, that is why the common ancestor is no longer around, and that is why platypi are real, and platypi are clearly the product of genetic drift within the mammal kingdom, and so are you.  And no, you’re not descended from a monkey, quit saying that’s what the theory of evolution states, you’re making those of us who understand basic science and vote a certain way look bad by association.

I wish He could reach out with His noodly appendage and pasta-pass the wisdom into your closed little mind, but that’s not possible of course.

Kiribati is a Pacific nation of 33 islands with fantastic jewels such as this:

The above are known in the aquarium hobby as Christmas tree worms and are one of my favorite species to keep.

The president of Kiribati, President Anote Tong seems to recognize that his nation has the greatest economic potential as a tourist destination and led the cause to set aside much of his nation’s territorial waters as discussed in this interview.

I can appreciate President Anote Tong’s environmental sentiments.  As discussed on this blog numerous times and as mentioned on the About page, I believe in conservation.

President Anote Tong gets the Blockhead designation though for some of the last comments he made in the above interview.  After the usual amount of alarmism over sea level rise, Tong states:

It is important not to forget we are talking about the fate of a people here. We’re not talking about polar bears. I think the polar bears are precious and I do not wish to see them disappear. But nor would I want to see our people disappear.

The polar bears are not threatened, their numbers are increasing and they lived through warmer times in the past.  Invoking the image of the polar bear and tying that to the people of Kiribati is insincere and simply to illicit emotion.  Attribution of sea level rise to CO2 has become boring.

The seas will rise and the seas will fall as they always have regardless the CO2 content of the atmosphere.  I suspect Tong knows this and is simply panhandling for a donation while recognizing his nation produces nothing the world wants other than a pristine dive destination.

Prince Charles is a blockhead, as we’ve discussed before.

One set of rules for the United Kingdom, one set of rules for him.  Here is a nice pic of Charles:

Look out U.K.!  I know what he plans to do with that thing.  You’re not gonna like it.

Why is Charles so adamant that action must be taken on global warming now, and that specifically offshore windmills should be the solution for the U.K.?

Well, who would have guessed, Charles owns the coasts and he is going to tax the peasants (that’s YOU U.K.) to the tune of $70 million a year to implement the solution he wants. 

How generous of the royals to allow the commoners the usage of the coasts on which to construct windmills, subsidized by the peasantry, so everyone can pay ten times the cost for their electricity while funneling the royalties to the royals.

Seriously, U.K., why do you put up with such foolishness?

How funny, the Queen wants you to pay her heating bill while her son wants to bill you for the project that will allow you to overpay for electricity while lining his well tailored pockets.

Is there any question why Charles is so green?

I’ve decided to start cataloging prominent people who say undelicate or under-educated things about carbon dioxide while impirically or otherwise emphatically insisting they are correct.

Congratulations, Simon Singh, you are the first to make the list although you most certainly will not be the last (Prince Charles is about to join you).

Simon Singh is an otherwise intelligent guy who was maligned and put up his own money to defend science and his reputation.  Hats off to you, sir.

But then while being interviewed regarding the matter, you go and say:

Part of the problem is that if anybody has a gut reaction about an issue, they can go online and have it backed up. That said, they can also find support for their ideas in the mainstream media—because when the mainstream media gives a so-called balanced view, it’s often misleading. The media thinks that because one side says climate change is real and dangerous, the other view is that it’s not real and not dangerous. That doesn’t reflect the fact that something like 98 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and dangerous.

So, tell me what is the difference between your claim regarding global warming above and your fight against being able to describe the chiropracters for what they are?

Surely 98% of chiropractors would agree they are useful and practice a respected medical discipline.  And where do you get 98%, generally people say 97% of climatologists agree, which is unsupportable, but you’ve inflated this number to 98, why?

You’re a blockhead, I’ve saved the article linked above, and I’ll write to you when this all blows over for an explanation.

Panspermia is a fun topic to think about, that being: were the seeds of life, or life itself, brought to Earth?

Panspermia of course doesn’t address what caused life to flourish elsewhere, only the mechanism by which life arose on this planet.  It’s an interesting idea to me as we discover more extremophiles, those organisms that flourish under harsh conditions and those that seem to hibernate for years in space.

Here is an article on red rain that fell in India.  While not necessarily any hint or suggestion of panspermia in itself, one physicist, Godfrey Louis, raises the idea.

No DNA was found in the cells comprising the rain, and interestingly they seem to reproduce at 121 degrees C.

Is it life?  I don’t know.  Is it proto-life (viral)?  I don’t know.  Is it interesting to me?  Yes.

I agree with the criticisms in the comments, this likely isn’t an example of panspermia.  However, if we ever did identify non-DNA based replicating organisms, I think it could be argued strongly that they would be sufficiently differentiated from life on Earth as to suggest an alternative place of origin.

Fun stuff.

The upcoming November 2nd election in the States will hopefully remove from power the eco-zealots that want to do stuff like this.

FoxNews reports on the Government Accountability Offices’s suggestion to begin geoengineering to combat ‘climate change’.  For an Economics 101 explanation of the abusrdity of the term ‘climate change’, see this post.

The GAO was asked to compile the report at the request of Representative Bart Gordon, a Democrat from Tennessee, and Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, which is why I say the elections are ‘just in time’.

Any effort at geoengineering should wait until it’s actually necessary and should be debated by individuals who can pass basic science exams.

Here is Democrat Representative Hank Johnson cautioning us about the effects of the military buildup on the island of Guam:

Representative Hank Johnson who expresses a concern for environmentalism, the coral reefs, and global warming, actually believes the island of Guam can flip over! And this idiot debates public policy?!

That’s the intellect we’re up against dear reader.

MSNBC reports on a paper by Serina Diniega of NASA’s JPL.  Diniega compared photos of Martian gullies taken by NASA spacecraft since 1997 and concluded that the Martian gullies were carved out during winter leading to her conclusion that it was the freezing of CO2 and not the melting of water that carved the gullies.

Just one more reason not to waste effort and time on exploring Mars, but to invest in the exploration of Europa and Titan.  The reader is encouraged to use the search feature on the site for ‘Europa’ for more discussion.

I see the problem with the BBC, upper management just doesn’t get basic science.  Several of the musings of the BBC have been criticized by me on tCotCC, and I’m about to do so again.

This time we have the BBC using taxpayer money to see if ice will melt in relatively warm water.  Well, more precisely to see if a small boat made from wood pulp and ice makes for a sound craft.  Turns out, no, no it doesn’t.

Some fun quotes from the article:

Lynette Slight, production coordinator of the show, said: ‘They had just got out of the marina when it began to sink.

‘It was all a little bit strange. I don’t think they realised what was going to happen. In the end it just tipped upside down.

‘It was taking on too much water at the back and the engine became too low. They thought they could get it to Cowes – they couldn’t, but you never know until you try it.’ 

Giles Harrison, director of the show, blamed the failure on a fault, which meant water poured into the vessel sooner than expected.

He said: ‘There are a couple of reasons why we did it. There was the proposal in the Second World War, when they were running low on steel to use ice with wood pulp in it.

‘It was an idea taken quite seriously, until the war ended and it was forgotten. We were essentially using that concept to see how composite materials work.

‘We did anticipate that something would go wrong but we hoped to get further out than we did.

‘I think we’ve proved that Pykrete works but it is unstable.’

To make the production coordinator and director not seem so foolish, I guess, the article asks Jon Edwards from the Royal Society of Chemistry for his take, to which he replies:

It’s hardly a surprise that the boat sank

A spokesperson from the Institute of Physics supported the idea that it wasn’t a surprise that ice melts in water.  It’s the whole “surface area to volume” thing.

Good stuff!  Unless you consider that the director of this show had to sell his idea to the same upper management at the BBC that approves the other science programs and news spots…then I suppose it’s just sad commentary on the state of basic science knowledge at the BBC.