"The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact." - KURT GÖDEL
"According to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".
A guiding principle for accepting claims of catastrophic global events, miracles, incredible healing, invisible friends, or fill in the blank is:
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” - Carl Sagan
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." - H. L. Mencken
I would add irrational and highly delusional to the mix when faith requires one to accept magical violations of the well known, well tested or easily demonstrated laws of Nature. - PWL
"Science is Progress and the Future. Faith is regression to the Dark Ages." - PWL
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
"Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." - Alfred Korzybski
"Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence." - James Randi
"Hypotheses are nets: only he who casts will catch." - Novalis
"Nullius in verba. Take no one's word for it." - Motto of the Royal Society
"I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS." - Richard Feynman
"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." - Thomas Henry Huxley
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein
"Science is empirical. Knowing the answer means nothing. Testing your knowledge means everything." - Lawrence Krauss
"Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism - and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency." - Stephen Jay Gould
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work." - James Randi
“Video of helicopters water-bombing nuclear reactor, close-up shots of Fukushima”
RT reports that allegedly only four helicopter loads of water have so far been dropped, and that 100 loads of water are needed to even have any cooling effect. Not good.
“17 March: During the morning, Self-Defense Force helicopters dropped four containers of water on the spent fuel pools of Units 3 and 4.[35] In the afternoon it was reported that the Unit 4 spent fuel pool is full with water and none of the fuel rods are exposed.[36] Construction work was started to supply a working external electrical power source to all six units of Fukushima I.[37]”
– Fukushima I Nuclear Accidents, Wikipedia
When the last resort is dropping water onto nuclear rectors from helicopters is the solution being used you know it’s really bad. It looks like most of the water spray misses the target (hard to tell from the camera angle).
Clearly nuclear reactor designs must be revisited to take into account a complete loss of the coolant systems. Safer designs are a must, and designs that don’t have the flaws seen at Fukushima are a must.
The evidence is clearly in. Godzilla Caused the QUADFECTA of Earthquake, Tsunami and Whirlepools, Nuclear Meltdown Explosions, and Volcano Eruptions! No doubt about it. Oh, and HAARP too.
2012 arrives 19 months 12 days early! The QUADFECTA of Doomsday:
(1) 8.9-9.0 Earthquake with hundreds of aftershocks which moved the entire island of Japan 8ft and tilted the Earth on it’s axis!,
(1b) not to mention the electrical power outage doomsday, or lack of food doomsday, or lack of emergency responders doomsday;
(2) 10 Meter Tsunamis Surge Waves crushing everything washing away towns and cities,
(2b) not to mention a massive Tsunami Whirlpool sucking ships to their doom;
(3) Multiple Nuclear Meltdown Incidents, caused by the 10 meter tsunamis wiping out the backup power diesel generators, in progress with Impressive Hydrogen Explosions and radiation releases;
(4) and the icing on the cake of 2012 doomsday writ 20 months early, Volcanic Eruption in Japan at Shinmoedake Volcano!
Ring of Fire indeed.
Just how does one defend against each of these “doomsday scenarios”, let alone when they all happen at once?
(1) Earthquake Doomsday.
(2) Tsunami Wave Surge Doomsday.
(2b) Tsunami Whirlpool Doomsday
(2c) Post Tsunami Devastation. Would you really build here again? Really?
(3) Nuclear Doomsday.
Fukushima Unit 1 Hydrogen Explosion
Fukushima Unit 3 Hydrogen Explosion
(4) Shinmoedake Volcano spewing hot magma destruction Doomsday.
The 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami was massive, possibly the largest ever recorded in Japan. There are many people injured or killed or missing. There were massive tsunami surge waves that have devastated the coastlines of parts of Japan. In addition to the Earthquake, Tsunami Surge Waves, and human toll there is a serious risk of a nuclear incident unfolding.
“Explosion rocks third Fukushima reactor
14 March 2011
First published: 3.08am GMT
UPDATE 1: 3.25am Addition of background information
UPDATE 2: 3.49am Technical details on pressure
UPDATE 3: 4.34am Injuries, radiation rates and pressure data
Another hydrogen explosion has rocked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, this time at the third reactor unit. Initial analysis is that the containment structure remains intact.
The blast that occurred at 11.01am today was much larger than the one seen at unit 1 two days ago. An orange flash came before a large column of brown and grey smoke. A large section of the relatively lightweight roof was seen to fly upwards before landing back on other power plant buildings.
…” – World Nuclear News WNN
The benefits of carbon dioxide supplementation on plant growth and production within the greenhouse environment have been well understood for many years. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is an essential component of Carbon Based Life on Earth.
There would be NO GREEN without the ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT CO2. MORE CO2 = MORE PLANTS. Inconvenient FACTS of PLANT BIOLOGY. More CO2 = More Plants = Cleaner Air. More CO2 = Plants = More Food For Humans. More CO2 = A Good Thing.
GROWING MORE PLANTS WITH CO2 IN GREENHOUSES TODAY
“The benefits of carbon dioxide supplementation on plant growth and production within the greenhouse environment have been well understood for many years. Read the rest of this entry »
The Pioneer Spacecraft: Pioneer 10 now soars toward the constellation Taurus, and 11 aims for Aquila
Thirty years ago, NASA scientists noticed that two of their spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, were veering off course slightly, as if subject to a mysterious, unknown force. In 1998, the wider scientific community got wind of that veering—termed the Pioneer anomaly—and took aim at it with incessant, mind-blowingly detailed scrutiny that has since raised it to the physics equivalent of cult status. Now, though, after spawning close to 1000 academic papers, numerous international conferences, and many entire scientific careers, this beloved cosmic mystery may be on its way out.
Slava Turyshev, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., and Viktor Toth, a Canada-based software developer, plan to publish the results of their strikingly comprehensive new analysis of the Pioneer anomaly in the next few months. Their work is likely to bring a conclusion to one of the longest and most tumultuous detective stories of modern astrophysics.
NASA launched Pioneer 10 in the spring of 1972 and Pioneer 11 one year later. The spacecraft’s joint mission was to gather information about the asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn (in the case of Pioneer 11), and their moons. As they hurtled past those various celestial objects, the probes measured previously unknown properties of their atmospheres and surfaces; they also photographed Jupiter’s Red Spot and Saturn’s rings up close for the first time. Then, after completing their “flyby” missions in the mid-1970s, the Pioneers kept going. Carrying identical plaques depicting a man and a woman, the atomic transition of hydrogen, and the location of our planet within the galaxy—a message to aliens—the probes became the first manmade objects ever to plunge beyond the solar system into the inconceivable cold and dark of interstellar space. [1]
This is a fascinating story for many reasons: (1) it has parallels to the entire climate debate, (2) complex computer models of various forces of Nature such as gravity and heat, (3) 1,000s of scientific papers peer reviewed none-the-less attempting to find the cause of the anomaly, (4) destruction of the data (almost), (5) refutation upon refutation leading nowhere, (6) a mystery of great complexity, (7) models that are just to inefficient or full of errors, (8) mistaken idea after mistaken idea, (9) complexity, (10) tenacious independent non-official scientific oriented people dedicated to solving the problem on their own time, (11) …, (N) the list of valuable comparisons goes on and on. Read the rest of this entry »
The legal right of the government to lie to the people has always bothered me as it smacks of a lack of integrity by the very people allegedly empowered to have the highest levels of integrity and honesty by the people. The members of the government, in whatever capacity or role they are filling, have a special trust to uphold and when they use deception why are they allowed to get away with it and yet a different standard is applied to the people when they lie? If a defendant in a court case lies at any point while being investigated it’s treated with such great importance that it’s as if the world came to an end… but when the cult members of the cult of government lie it’s for the benefit of the people and lifted up as somehow an honorable trick that was played to get at the truth when in fact it’s no different for it was a lie, a deception, a non-truth, falsified information, a fabrication designed to give false impressions. It’s ironic that some of the best liars are likely working within the government and get rewarded for it.
“To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.” – Charles Darwin
Reprint from the NZ CLIMATE TRUTH NEWSLETTER NO 257, NOVEMBER 28th 2010.
ANATOMY OF CLIMATE FRAUD
by Vincent Gray
Environmentalists believe that humans are destroying the earth (or as they prefer to call it,“the planet”), and they routinely manipulate news items that can be distorted to support their views. “Resources” are being “depleted”, oil is about to run out, everything is about to become extinct, all chemicals are “toxic” and all human activities must be prevented because they “damage the environment”
The “greenhouse effect” was a golden opportunity to blame every climate event on humans and prevent many classes of industrial activity.
The “greenhouse effect is a real physical phenomenon, although it has nothing to do with what happens in a greenhouse. A greenhouse inhibits convection and confines the air warned by contact with the ground that has been heated by the sun’s radiation.
The “greenhouse effect” results from absorption of part of the infra red radiation from the earth by several trace gases in the atmosphere, causing an increase in the surface temperature of the earth,
In order to show that there are increases in this effect caused by humans which are damaging the climate several propositions had to be proved.
• Greenhouse gases are increasing because of human activity
• The temperature of the earth is increasing
• This rise is damaging the climate
• Future changes can be predicted to be disastrous
Derren Brown, illusionist, “travelled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories and contacting the dead. Read the rest of this entry »
Please stick to the actual science claims Phil Plait.
“So I’ll be clear: climate change is real. The average temperature of the Earth is increasing. This is almost certainly due to mankind’s influence on the environment.” – Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy [1]
Where is your evidence for that?
Here is an analysis that shows the above assertion is not supported by the Temperature and CO2 data.
These two articles by Girma Orssengo, B. Tech, MASc, PhD provide a key insight using a verification check calculation to show that the CO2 has not impacted Temperature as predicted it would. Read the rest of this entry »
1d) 0.96 Pacific PDO + Atlantic AMO Ocean + Solar Activity v.s. Temperature.
2) While CO2 has increased in the last 50 years the 130 yr temp linear+cyclic tiny upward tend remains unchanged based upon observational data.
“Observed Global Yearly Mean Temperature Anomaly (GMTA) from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the Hadley Centre.” from Predictions Of Global Mean Temperatures & IPCC Projections, by Girma Orssengo, B. Tech, MASc, PhD. [See 2d].
2a) The correlation between CO2 and Temperature [1a] is very weak at 0.44 and certainly does not show causation. The central claim of catastrophic climate alarmism is falsified by the actual temperature and CO2 observations in Nature.
2b) Put another way, for seventy or so years the temperature was rising slightly with a linear and cyclic trend, then as we pumped CO2 into the atmosphere in increasing amounts since after WWII that same slight linear and cyclic trend continued unchanged.
2c) As a result of this, Nature falsifies the alarmists claims, including their IPCC climate model predictions. Read the rest of this entry »
The Facebook user “Ecological Internet” makes some rather alarming statements:
“Earth poised to ecologically collapse bringing down biosphere, humanity & most if not all creatures. Avoidable but requires increase in knowledge & immediate biocentric action. – Ecological Internet on Facebook”
“We know Earth dying and being for all creatures coming to an end – deal with it and commit to reversing – or you are the problem.” – Ecological Internet on Facebook
“The purpose of language is to communicate and as long as you’ve communicated getting the nouns and verbs in the right order, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, or any of that correct is irrelevant.” ~ Powell Janulus, Master of Language, Speaker of 80+ Languages, Language Teacher, Court Translator, (paraphrased).
“I will not respect a book of lies. I will not tolerate intolerance.
…
What we are witnessing are efforts by authorities to confer special secular and legal privilege on the intangible aura of sacredness — a figment of the imagination of deluded believers, which they insist all we non-believers must honor.
“It is only those who claim to know things like the mind of god and the origins and destination and intention of the universe, it is they, and only they who owe the explanation, and so far this evening haven’t cared to furnish it.” – Christopher Hitchens.
OK, stop the presses, there is an article about study done by NCAR on the simulation of winds and how that might move water in dramatic ways. That is all fine and good except for the connection to the following religious notions and the fact that US Government Funds were used in this obviously religious study in violation of the strict Separation of Church and State in the USA.
“The parting of the waters described in the book of Exodus that enabled Moses and the Israelites to escape the pharaoh’s army is possible, computer simulations run by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder show.
To test the theory that the biblical account may have depicted actual events, the researchers studied maps of the region, archaeological records and satellite measurements to find a topographical feature where such an event might have been possible. They settled on an area south of the Mediterranean Sea where some oceanographers say a branch of the Nile River drained into what was called the Lake of Tanis, a coastal lagoon 3,000 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
“[Pope Joseph] Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity… for baring women from the priesthood as if a penis is an essential tool for pastoral duties!” ~ Richard Dawkins, 18th September 2010, London, England
Hitler was a Roman Catholic Christian as is evident from his own writings and speeches:
“The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.” – Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 3
“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.” – Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936
‘The poster was printed for the Reichstag election of 12 November 1933, when voters were already being presented with a single list of candidates to be approved or rejected as a group: the “Hitler list”. The poster is titled “Why is a Catholic obliged to vote for the parliamentary list of Adolf Hitler?” It answers this question by enumerating the benefits to the Church of the concordat negotiated by Pius XII, and signed just months before.
…
Translation
Why is a Catholic obliged to vote for the parliamentary list of Adolf Hitler? Because in the National Socialist state intrinsically and through the Reichskonkordat
1. the Faith is protected,
2. peace with the Church is assured,
3. public morality is preserved,
4. Sunday is hallowed,
5. Catholic schools are maintained,
6. the Catholic conscience is no longer burdened,
7. a Catholic has equal rights before the law and in the life of the nation,
8. Catholic organisations and associations, insofar as they exclusively serve religious, charitable and cultural purposes, can operate freely. Therefore a Catholic is obliged on 12 November [1933] to vote thus:
Referendum: yes
Parliamentary election: Adolf Hitler
“I have followed [the Church in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.” – Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pp. 239-40
Richard Dawkins gives an epic speech on the topic of Pope Joeseph Ratzinger’s anti-atheist statements.
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to entering to possess, and drives out before you many nations, and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Do not all any of them to live. This is what you are to do to them: break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their trees and burn them in the fire. For you are a people chosen by the Lord over all others on the face of the Earth.” – From the Old Testament of the Bible, Deuteronomy 7: 1-2, 5-6.
When God is on our side we can commit any crime. We are absolved individually from that crime by believing that we have a higher sanction and that is the danger of religion in that it allows people to do that, it allows them to kill without a shred of conscience. ” – Kevin Annett, former minister
Kevin Annett was expelled from the United Church for bring this matter of their crimes to their attention. Finally a priest with some actual ethics and morals who wouldn’t take it up the ass from his church hierarchy. Read the rest of this entry »
Professor James Duane and Officer George Bruch talk about why you should never talk to the police.
James Duane is a Regent University School of Law professor and Fifth Amendment expert.[1] He has come under fire for his suggestion to never talk to police under any circumstances.[2][3] His reasoning is that police sometimes lie to criminal suspects; police may have substantial evidence against even innocent witnesses; and individuals convinced of their own innocence may have unknowingly committed some crime.[4] This is along the lines of Justice Robert Jackson’s reasoning in Watts v. Indiana. [*1]
“Everything he [Professor James Duane] said was true, and it was right and it was correct.” – Officer George Bruch
“Though the videos are reflective of American law, the principles are largely applicable here in Canada. Though we do not have a 5th Amendment, Canadians have long had a right to silence which is now constitutionally entrenched in s. 7 of the Charter (see R. v. Singh, 2007 SCC 48 for a discussion).” – [*2]
Let’s explore this by way of two very interesting conversations, one from philosopher and physicist Paul Davies and the other from Stephen Wolfram.
Philosopher and physicist Paul Davies give a fascinating and thought-provoking talk on the possibility of an ultimate explanation for our universe. Dismissing the multiverse and God, he outlines an idea for finding an explanation for the universe and physical laws within the universe itself.
Thank you Christopher Hitchens for your incredible and erudite explanations of the pure evil of all forms of religion. You’ve made an amazing positive difference in the world. Focus on healing. You deserve to live life to it’s maximum potential even as you’ve burned the candle at both ends. Get well now!
By DAN BARKER – FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
Added: Tuesday, 24 August 2010 at 7:26 AM
Rev. Marion “Pat” Robertson August 23, 2010 The Christian Broadcasting Network 977 Centerville Turnpike Virginia Beach VA 23463
Dear Rev. Robertson,
On behalf of our organization’s more than 16,000 members nationwide, and representing millions of atheists and agnostics, I am writing to protest your inflammatory and slanderous hate speech against nonbelievers, specifically your advice that no Christian should marry an atheist. During a program aired last year on the Christian Broadcast Network that has been recently rebroadcast, a woman with an atheist fiancé asked, “How do you think we can interact with each other peacefully when it comes to spiritual matters?” You responded unpeaceably:
I’m sure this is a nice guy, and you like him a lot, but the bible says, “What fellowship hath Christ with Belial?” There is no fellowship between an atheist and somebody who is a believer in God. . . . I hate to tell you, you’ve got to go find somebody else. . . . I mean, he’s gonna be serving the Devil and you’re gonna be serving God. It’s just that simple.
That remark is a blanket prejudicial smear against the character of all nonbelievers. If you had said the same thing about other minority groups — such as the recent controversy caused by Laura Schlessinger’s thoughtless use of the N-word on her show, suggesting to a caller that she should not have married “outside your race” — the country would be demanding your resignation, asking affiliates to cancel your show and calling on viewers to boycott your extremist, intolerant program. If you had told the woman to break up with a Jewish fiancé because Jews are “reprobate, dissolute and uncouth” (which is what “Belial” means), you would be properly branded an anti-Semite. If you had told her to dump her African-American fiancé because blacks are “worthless and useless” (which is also what “Belial” means), you would be quickly exposed as a racist. Likewise, labeling the entire class of nonbelievers as “demonic and evil,” and as the Devil itself (the meaning of “Belial” in the verse you misquoted), is equally abhorrent. Read the rest of this entry »
Stephen Wolfram proves with his New Kind of Science that certain systems generate randomness from within the system – no outside randomness needed, no randomness in initial conditions needed. The system itself generates randomness thus making it unpredictable as a first principle of science. Oh, and these systems can be incredibly simple and yet generate inherent randomness from within the systems. Let that sink in. Read the rest of this entry »
“Adnan Oktar (born Ankara, February 2, 1956), also known by his pen name, Harun Yahya, is a Turkish proponent of Islamic creationism, anti-Zionism,[1] and, more particularly, supports Old Earth creationism.[2][3] Oktar denounces Zionism as racism and Freemasonry, and Darwinism as the source of terrorism.[4] He has created controversies in the past few years by sending out thousands of unsolicited texts advocating Islam and creationism to schools and colleges in several European countries and USA.[3][5] Oktar had defended his views by litigation; he is responsible for the blocking of numerous, high-profile Web sites in Turkey. Read the rest of this entry »
”Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, science is belief in the presence of evidence.” ‘When the evidence disagrees with a scientific proposition, the proposition is discarded. When the evidence disagrees with a religious proposition, the evidence is thrown out’. – Victor J. Stenger
I work to eliminate belief and faith from my life, now I’m not talking about the “belief” that I left my car parked in it’s spot and whether or not it’s still there, I know I left it there but it’s possible that it is no longer there for a variety of reasons all possible within the known limits of objective reality. I’m talking about the kind of belief and faith that asserts “truths” or “facts” or “aspects” of the objective reality of Nature, about the very nature of Nature itself without any evidence to stand on. That is the kind of belief and faith that is the most pernicious and dangerous. I prefer knowledge that can be verified or proven with hard evidence or even better, proven with experiment done by yourself.
The problem is that the word “belief” has SO many meanings and people often don’t mean the same thing by the word. In addition when talking with “believers” it’s a huge pile of dogma that you’re taking about when you use the word “belief”, it’s not just one belief.
The point Stegner is making is which determines what you accept as real, the faith based beliefs and dogma, or the hard evidence? If the beliefs and dogma determine what is real, that is religion, that is highly dangerous, that is what leads to delusions. If the evidence determines what is real that is science, that is rationality, that is being connected with the objective reality of Nature where we actually exist.
Of course it all hinges on what the evidence is. There is good evidence and then there is bad evidence and faulty proofs. Read the rest of this entry »
What happens after you die? Nature is a harsh mistress indeed.
What happens after death is very clear, your body rots as it’s being recycled by Nature and “you” are permanently and utterly obliterated… you cease to be… no magical heaven, no roasting hell, you just cease to be… when your brain stops working… that’s it… nothing more.
What happens when you take something apart, such as a car? As you begin to remove non-critical pieces it’s still a car, you can take the roof off and it’s still a car, you can take the hub caps off and it’s still a car, you can even take the doors off and it’s still a car; taking the wheels off and while it’s still a car it’s now a disabled car… but at some point as you remove parts – critical parts – it’s no longer a car; and if as you take those parts off the car and destroy them so there is no chance of putting it back together either… that’s what happens with humans and other living things… at some point a critical component or critical components are removed or cease functioning that are critical for it to be alive and that’s it… that is the moment you cease to be – when your brain stops functioning, just like a car ceases to be….
Now to be sure, did the car go to “car heaven”? Nope, it simple ceased to be, it vanished… it’s car-ness is no more… it existed from the point that it’s critical parts made it a car and was a car while it was a car and then it ceased to be after it was disassembled at that critical moment when enough parts where removed that it ceased to be…
Enjoy being alive. It is all that matters. Everything else is meaningless.
There is no mystery about death. Only people who don’t want to face it or those that don’t like it make it mysterious and invent alleged gods and being saved by jesus to a futile pitiful attempt to defy the objective reality of Nature in it’s harshness and cold fact of obliterating end of life.
Science wins over mythology. If after reading the attached article/document you still believe in the resurrection of jesus you know that you’re highly delusional and denying the facts of life in the objective reality of Nature.
BE. Even BE kind to others. For no other reason than the shocking horror of our own ceasing to be.
Here is the science:
Beyond the Grave – Understanding Human Decomposition
by Arpad A. Vass, Senior Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in Forensic Anthropology.
Reprinted from MICROBIOLOGY TODAY, page 190, VOL 28/NOV 2001.
This verbatim copy below ( PDF version Beyond the Grave – understanding human decomposition – no photos v1) of the text has been sanitized of the horrific graphic photos.
Warning: original version with highly graphic photos of actual bodies decomposing. PDF: Not suitable for most people.
Human decomposition begins approximately 4 minutes after death has occurred. The onset is governed by a process called autolysis – or self-digestion. As cells of the body are deprived of oxygen, carbon dioxide in the blood increases, pH decreases and wastes accumulate which poison the cells. Concomitantly, unchecked cellular enzymes (lipases, proteases, amylases, etc.) begin to dissolve the cells from the inside out, eventually causing them to rupture, and releasing nutrient-rich fluids. This process begins and progresses more rapidly in tissues that have a high enzyme content (such as the liver) and a high water content such as the brain, but eventually affects all the cells in the body. Autolysis usually does not become visually apparent for a few days. It is first observed by the appearance of fluidfilled blisters on the skin and skin slippage where large sheets of skin slough off the body. Meanwhile, the body has acclimated to ambient temperature (algor mortis), blood has settled in the body causing discoloration of the skin (livor mortis) and cellular cytoplasm has gelled due to increased acidity (rigor mortis). After enough cells have ruptured, nutrient-rich fluids become available and the process of putrefaction can begin. Read the rest of this entry »
“Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. ‘A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,’ the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada, the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its analysis of 10 indicators that are ‘clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.'” – Slashdot.org article “Global Warming ‘Undeniable,’ Report Says”
Yikes, start packing for doomsday for the soothsayers are out and about using The Force to intensify propaganda after their self inflicted Climate Gate revelations of their Alarmist Scientist Core Cult members improprieties. Pack light though, it’s going to be a scorcher, allegedly. Hawaii at the North Pole. I really am beginning to wonder if all these alarmist scientists are just rapture christians firing things up for the coming end times? Nostradamus still beats any climate scientist with soothsaying doomsday predictions. Hands down, and he’s been dead a long time. Now how can that be? Let’s explore the science that prevents predictions of complex systems. Read the rest of this entry »
I thought the heat is just starting with the various investigations underway? Monckton is just warming up his instruments to apply the heat.
“Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a “Perspectives” article in this week’s issue of Science.”
It’s not heat, it’s “believed heat”. It’s “conjectured heat”. It’s predicted “heat” based upon, ahem, models meaning it’s “soothsaid heat”. “Illusionary” indeed.
How about getting BETTER TOOLS for better observations before spouting off about your pet hypothesis? Oh right, GREEN grant $$$MONEY$$$.
It’s fine to have a hypothesis, but please indicate that that is what it is. It’s like the NOAA et. al. temperature anomaly graphs that use fabricated data via interpolation without labeling indicating that the visualization is based upon invented, fabricated data via statistical interpolation.
Where in the world is Joules and where did he hide the heat? Joules who? How do you hide heat? It want to radiate in all directions by default. Water or air or ice or magma or rock would need to move it.
“I’m going to guess that the heat jumped into the mantle, and that’s why Iceland popped.” Read the rest of this entry »
“Jesus Never Saved Anyone From Dying, Not Even Himself. Three Day Rotting Dead Corpses Shall Not Rise From The Dead, So Sayest Natural Biology! Sorry Zombie Fans.“
The real climate “deniers” are the ones denying access to the data.
The real climate “deniers” are those that say the science is settled when it’s notl
The real climate “deniers” are those that deny the problems with the wild claims alleged.
The real climate deniers are those that allege the AGW hypothesis based upon flawed statistical pseudo-science.
The real climate deniers are those that deny that at the heart of the scientific method is criticism that can falsify the alleged hypotheses put forward by supporters of a hypothesis. Read the rest of this entry »
CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman
Adapted from the Caltech commencement address given in 1974.
During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas–which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn’t work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked–or very little of it did.
But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFOS, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I’ve concluded that it’s not a scientific world.
I beat you to it David Brin. I called for the prosecution of Al Gore on fraud charges way back on August 28th, 2009. I’m sure I’m not the first either.
Ocean acidification doesn’t scare me that much… it is relatively linear. And thus ought to be reversible.
“What frightens me are the vast stores of methane locked in permafrost or hydrate ices, in arctic seas. Those might see a sudden tipping point, as the planet heats up, abruptly releasing megatons of the stuff into the atmosphere, causing yet faster, accelerated warming. This kind of runaway effect is nonlinear and cannot be reversed by any conceivable kind of geoengineering.” – David Brin[1] (plus all subsequent block quotes in this article).
You’re really funny David Blin, I mean seriously you’re kidding right? You must be kidding because that is so sad. Read the rest of this entry »
“Those that are proponents of the alleged AGW hypothesis need to either to put up and show hard conclusive evidence that humans are causing global warming climate change, or shut up if they can’t.
The best anyone has been able to do is to produce nothing but the hot air of a weak statistical correlation that can’t even withstand basic scrutiny.
Those making the claims must show the evidence. Those making extraordinary claims – as those alleging the AGW hypothesis are – must show extraordinary evidence. So far not even ordinary evidence. That is a failure by the proponents to put up.“
So put up or shut up.
Now to David Brin’s silly political claim that isn’t supportable.
“They see 100% of scientists as corrupt… while the oilcos are all sweet reason innocents.” – David Brin [1]
David Brin, that is utter nonsense. David, you’ve got some weird conspiracy nutter chatter going on upstairs if you actually believe that. Where the heck do you David get the idea that people “see 100% of scientists as corrupt”?
David set aside your whacked in the head beliefs that allow you to create generalized falsisms like that and embrace actual science rather than slosh political dialog.
I don’t deny anything that is actually real. I do deny made up crap because, well, it’s made up or doesn’t reflect the objective reality of Nature.
Prove to me the alleged AGW hypothesis is real in the actual objective reality of Nature were we exist and there can be no way that I’d deny it once I’m convinced. In the process I will certainly challenge any proof or evidence, that is the scientific method after all. If it doesn’t stand up to challenges then the alleged AGW hypothesis should fall (as it looks like it has).
You’ve got it wrong and backwards David Brin, it isn’t a war on science, it’s a war FOR hard verifiable and open science with integrity and the highest standards that the scientific method can bring to bear on climate science!
“The schism over global climate change (GCC) has become an intellectual chasm, across which everyone perceives the other side as Koolaid-drinkers. Although I have mixed views of my own about the science of GCC, and have closely grilled a number of colleagues who are front-line atmospheric scientists (some at JPL), I’m afraid all the anecdotes and politics-drenched “questions” flying about right now aren’t shedding light. They are, in fact, quite beside the point.
That is because science itself is the main issue: its relevance and utility as a decision-making tool.” – David Brin [1]
David Brin wasn’t discussing the science of climate change at all in the above article. Instead he’s making some false arguments. Yes, “science itself is the main issue” and cool-aid drinking by anybody should be saved for fun summer days at the beach. Unfortunately David Brin takes some huge gulps himself gorging on the political fumes put off by the alleged AGW hypothesis instead of dealing with ensuring that hard science is applied to climate science.
These are excellent videos that make many excellent points about the tracking of temperature data.
It is a scientific crime to invent and fill in missing data, certainly without indicating that that was done and precisely where and how.
However the bigger point is that averaging temperatures itself is a violation of the principle of the integrity of the data as averaging of temperature data “fills in” the “temperature” of the geographic locations in-between stations which is making up those intermediate temperatures and that doesn’t reflect reality with certainty.
Made up data is fraud. Pure and simple. It is misleading. It distorts objective reality.
The fog that has been hiding the conflicts of interest and predetermined agenda driven propaganda of the IPCC is lifting. The Economist Magazine [1] has a few choice and pointed words:
“THE past month has not been a good one for Rajendra Pachauri (pictured above), the charismatic chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of TERI, an Indian research institute. His numerous positions on boards and industrial advisory panels, in India and beyond, have led to charges of conflicts of interest. His intemperate defence of mistakes about Himalayan glaciers in the most recent IPCC report had to be followed by a public statement of regret as it became clear that the IPCC had indeed been wrong—and that its source has been a magazine article rather than a piece of scientific literature. And, to cap it all, public mockery of mildly salacious passages in his recently published novel (he writes poetry, too) has added further spice, if not substance, to the stories.” Read the rest of this entry »
“Earth poised to ecologically collapse bringing down biosphere, humanity & most if not all creatures. Avoidable but requires increase in knowledge & immediate biocentric action. – Ecological Internet on Facebook”
“THE past month has not been a good one for Rajendra Pachauri (pictured above), the charismatic chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of TERI, an Indian research institute. His numerous positions on boards and industrial advisory panels, in India and beyond, have led to charges of conflicts of interest. His intemperate defence of mistakes about Himalayan glaciers in the most recent IPCC report had to be followed by a public statement of regret as it became clear that the IPCC had indeed been wrong—and that its source has been a magazine article rather than a piece of scientific literature. And, to cap it all, public mockery of mildly salacious passages in his recently published novel (he writes poetry, too) has added further spice, if not substance, to the stories.”