Academics can always find a few dozen peers to sign off on a study saying that the moon is made of green cheese.
If a bridge collapses or a microprocessor doesn’t work, no engineer would be stupid enough to claim that he had a consensus of people backing him up. It doesn’t matter how many flies eat shit, it is still shit.
As an engineer I try to argue engineering principles and methods to scientists that think they are qualified to engineer things. They are an arrogant bunch who don’t have the first clue how to make a safe, reliable, and affordable product that works. Or heaven forbid face market competition. If enough of their friends agree then that’s how it should be and the government should make it so or at the very least impede any competition because anyone who opposes their ideas are flat earthers and such. If it’s peer reviewed then there aren’t any problems, no unforeseeable results or consequences.
These people don’t even do FMEAs before they start screwing with the food supply or anything else. They don’t even know what a FMEA is. HALT? ALT? they haven’t a clue. They’ll don’t even understand modeling isn’t reality. I can make model of a part show whatever I want it to show, but my goal is to learn something from the process, not prove I’m correct like it is for them.
That is why most engineers (and anyone who has taken geology courses) think CAGW is a HOAX perpetrated by the clueless.
I am an engineering geologist (and geophysicist). Guess where I come done on AGW, or man-made climate change, or whatever it is called today?
Sob. “done” is “down”
Not to worry. Most Americans polled on ‘global warming’ are done with CAGW too.
A number of times on assorted blogs I have asked Greens whether they would be happy for their children to fly on an airliner designed by the likes of Hokey Schtick Mann or Jailbird Jim Hansen.
Curiously enough, I never seem to get a reply…
As a civil engineer, whenever w e use a model, we always try to err on the conservative side, because models aren’t perfect. we assume the loads are greater than they actually are, and that the structure is weaker than it actually is. These safety factors are to account for uncertainty.
I just came upon this old article about the “science” credentials among the staff at the “union of concerned pseudoscientists”: From Canada Free Press:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/29128
A good read. Particularly when he continues about wealth buying education. If you recall, Percy Sutton (who loves Obungler) implied the revelation that this was used to gin up phony credentials for the Marxist in Chief. Imagine the Saudi Billionaire who sends a nephew to Harvard, along with a gift of 10 Million for a new pavillion, e.g.
He says: “I want my nephew educated to the highest standards!” and dumps the kid on the university. But the kid only wants to play naughty now that he’s not under the thumb of Islam. So he’s partying, living wild, never attending classes. When all is said and done, does the University fail him out, and tell the Billionaire: “Your nephew is a loser”?
No. They graduate him with honors. And he may never have attended a class. Maybe that’s why some of Columbia’s most esteemed Political Science professors have no recollection of Obungler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIVO8MZYXo8
There was a 100% consensus among medical doctors why people yawn. Then one guy figured out the real reason. One guy. All 100% of medical doctors were way off. It wasn’t a conspiracy. They were just wrong.
It’s the lymph nodes.
In the case of climate alarmists, fear of losing funding is one motivator for sticking to the “consensus”; being “wrong” at the same time as not wishing to change their story.
PS: Do you have any links regarding the yawning thing?
About 30 years ago we figured out why people yawn, in a flurry of papers around 1984 or so…it’s buried in time, I can’t find it. I guess nobody got the memo because every so often you see somebody come up with another cockamamy reason for it. It was proven back then that yawning had nothing to do with oxygen or CO2 by one study, and then another study found out that when people yawn, the pressure in the lymph vessel that drained the lymph nodes in the throat (it drains into the vena cava) shot through the roof. Normally the pressure in this lymph vein is around 0 or slightly above. When you yawn it goes to 25. The reason people yawn is to force lymph through the nodes in the neck, at the same time you stretch your arms to force lymph through the axial nodes. Some animals also stretch their back legs for the lower nodes. Usually these acts of yawning and stretching are after periods of sleep, during which time lymph is not circulated.
Case closed, 30 years ago. No link, there was no internet then. You need to hit an actual library.
http://www.baillement.com/recherche/brian_nolman.html
I yawn a lot before I go to sleep, but almost never after I wake up.
I don’t stretch my back legs as much as I probably should to either.
. . ” It’s the lymph nodes. ”
My bird yawns. Does she have lymph nodes?
(PS. I don’t the foggiest idea, but am prone to thinking so.)
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Dang. Science is cool. Thanks for that. I had no idea.
An engineer’s view of a scientific theory …
“If you cannot use it to build something that works in the real world, it is speculation.”
I am not an engineer, but I like that philosophy.
I was working in the electronics industry in the early days of custom integrated circuits. Design faults were very expensive in time and money, so designers would circulate final designs to colleagues and test engineers with promises of rewards, like a pint of beer, for every problem discovered.
I can’t imagine a climate scientists doing that with their models and data.
Faults still happened, but that’s life.
And another great post 🙂
Climate scientists HIDE their data and procedures because they are AFRAID they have made a mistake.
Mt guess is they KNOW they are in error.
Where is Mt. Guess? Sorry. “My…”
pa.. I hope you don’t mind, but I have copied this to a thread on JoNova. 🙂
I worked for Gillette before it was savaged by the corporate raiders. They did the same thing. After pilot studies and consumer use testing but before anything was built anyone connected to the new product was gathered into a large auditorium various presentations were given and savaged by the audience. Saved lots of money. I pointed out at least two or more problems even though I am just a BS chemist.
When I did the same at the presentation at another company I was trounced on by the lead Chem Engineer who later saw to it I lost my job. (I was proved correct and it really made him angry.)
Ego and protecting salary and promotional opportunities explains a lot when it comes to bad science (and engineering) It is the brick wall I repeatedly rammed my head against. Unfortunately being correct just gets you hated.
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
But he who hates reproof is stupid.
Proverbs 12:1
“It doesn’t matter how many flies eat shit, it is still shit.”
I have to say… that is probably the most appropriate sentence concerning the CAGW meme that I have ever read !!!!!!
There is an add on to that sentence.
There is a reason why spelling and grammar matter:
You know your shit.
You know you’re shit.
It is the second sentence that applies to Climastrologists but they keep trying to tell us it is the first.
My Dad’s favorite of those was:
She has freckles on her butt she’s pretty.
She has freckles on her, but she’s pretty.
Common core teaches kids the correct answer is the one everyone agrees on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Si-kx5-MKSE#t=4114
Humanity won’t even be able to retain the level of technology of 4000 years ago this way.
Bah. link to the correct time failed. 1:08 in.
Oh … an hour and 8 mins … I tried 1 min 8 secs and that obviously was not it …
“Humanity won’t even be able to retain the level of technology of 4000 years ago this way.”
It’s okay. The (few) engineers (around) will still need ‘those drones’ to gather straw, mix clay with water and cast that into fireable bricks …
I like to look on the bright side.
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Now you know why Masons passed on “Secret Knowledge” from father to son. Among other things it kept the information alive and also kept them from being treated as serfs/slaves by the aristocracy. (The Elite have hated Engineers/Masons ever since, which explains all the nasty stuff written about the Masons.)
This recent comment over at TallBloke’s Talkshop from p.g.sharrow comes to mind.
It’s all just lost technology and method. Stone bearings is a lost technology. Technology is fragile. I understand they think if they can dumb everyone else down they will have power by keeping the knowledge to themselves. They’ve been doing it for a century plus in the modern sense. But the problem is this technological society functions on dispersed knowledge combined with creativity and the ability think independently. Destroying that ability will eventually result in a much lower standard of living for the political elite and the wealthy that run them.
It doesn’t take much to render their private jets no better than a residence at a trailer park.
+1
The purpose of Federal educational standards and techniques is to intellectually cripple our children. Why? Because properly educated citizens are the greatest danger on Earth to the Powers That Be.
A smart rancher does not want independent, thinking cattle.
This is frightening!
B says: @ May 22, 2014 at 3:48 pm
Common core teaches kids the correct answer is the one everyone agrees on….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is STRAIGHT out of the Marx/Hegelian philosophy
This is why Skeptics are called Den!ers and why so much emphasis is placed on a 97% ‘Consensus.’ Why we see papers like Loony Lew’s “NASA Faked the Moon Landings — Therefore (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science” actually accepted in a “pee-reviewed’ journal. (It should have graced the back pages of the National Inquirer.) SEE: Frontears of mediocrity: Lewandowsky & Mann on the march for the latest on the continuing Loony Lew saga.
It is why the fact the IPCC climate models do not agree with real data is of no consequence and a recent paper pointing this out was rejected.
This is why what we see as cognitive dissonance is worsening. These people really do believe in mind over matter. At least as long as it advances the ‘Cause’
Notice that in all of this THERE IS NO SCIENCE OR ENGINEERING. If everyone agrees 2+2=5 then reality must change to conform to the consensus.
Gator, this is part of the reason for the breeding for stupidity you mentioned yesterday. (Darned if I know where the Elite expect to get their scientists and engineers from.)