Pangloss

Nobody wants to defend Britain's Incitement to Ethnic or Racial Hatred law? I'm kinda surprised, I thought that was an example of how progressive Europe was over the barbarous United States. (Wups, that didn't make anyone hate me, did it?)

I agree this may not be a heating issue, but just to toss this out there in case it helps, a couple things you can do to check on overheating issues are temporarily boosting your air conditioning, and taking the cover off the computer and directing a fan over the opening. If that changes the situation, you'll know it's overheating. I once built a system that was identical to a buddy of mine in a gaming guild who happened to live in Wisconsin. Mine kept rebooting when we played games online together, but his was always fine. One day I finally asked him, what room temperature he was at? He was keeping his thermostat at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Mine was at 75. That small difference in ambient cooling was tripping the crashes.

On a more positive/upbeat note, ABC News ran a story last night about the CHILDREN of Christian evangelicals and how they're all talking about the government helping the poor, universal healthcare, and amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country. The number of under-25 evangelicals who consider themselves Republicans has dropped from 55% in 2004 to 40% in 2007. (Note that I don't think that means they're switching allegiance, I think it means that they're less inclined to adhere to their parents' point of view.) And they're VERY excited about Obama. Of course, they don't typically vote in the numbers or percentages that their parents do, but it's a sign of movement in the right direction. (No, the right direction is not left.)

I asked what people meant by rhetoric in context here, not for a definition (thanks Cap'n, at least somebody was helpful there). If half the responders are just gonna be a jerk about this, or split hairs or "drown me out", I see no point in continuing. Ridicule and derision are not the same as logic and reason. I believe I've raised reasonable concerns here. Most of you disagree. Some of you don't. Far as I'm concerned, that's a successful thread, and I'm movin' on.

"I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles" So said Mike Huckabee over the weekend. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1711811,00.html I know it's a bit out of context, but none of their statements are ever truly out of context during an election campaign, and this one was certainly aimed in the direction of a specific political group. (sigh)

I'm not sure what you guys mean by "rhetoric" in this thread. Can you elaborate on that a bit? Regarding the uncertainties, I respect where you're coming from there, but I would just point out that when we're talking about jail time for negligent homicide, we really need to move past uncertainties -- the "shadow of a doubt", remember? Presumption of innocence? If I'm their lawyer all I need to do is point out that the IPCC said "likely", not "certain", and those "criminal" politicians are walking.

Sure, I can just point out that the conclusion of human contribution to climate change is based on statistical correlations of data. They make the basic assumption that there are no additional variables worthy of contemplation. We KNOW that we don't know all the variables, so we KNOW there is some degree of guesswork here. And as I said above, where there's guesswork, there's politics. Therefore there is a political aspect to the acceptance of human contribution to climate change. Q.E.D. So they say. In fact what happens is more presumption and guesswork. We presume the variables to be accounted for when in fact we have no clue whether they are or not. Later when we find out they weren't we go back and modify the model and find out what the REAL situation was. But if Suzuki gets his way, by then, however, we've already jailed a politician for ten years for negligent homicide for not enacting legislation based on the earlier flawed model. Nice. Because I don't believe their efficacy has been established to the degree of certainty necessary to obtain a legal conviction for not enacting them, resulting directly in negligent homicide.

I disagree. I think scientific acceptance is often political. This is especially true in medicine right now -- look at all the drugs that get declared safe and effective only to find out later that they did absolutely nothing, or in fact actually HARMED people. You cannot tell me that there's no socio-political aspect to the drug approval process. Note that I'm not saying that's wrong! Perhaps it is the best that it can be at the moment, given the need for long-term, high-patient-count studies. I'm just saying that there HAS to be a certain level of opinion and presumtiveness -- they guess. And when guesses are being made, politics are most definitely in play. Always. I bumped it on the mod board, but it's the one Swansont is talking about above. No, that's not my position. Yes, I have a problem with the second premise, but not because I don't think global warming can or will kill people. What I think is that it has not been established that we can stop these presumed (and even likely) deaths by acting in the manner he proscribes. I've made this point several times now and I think you owe me a recognition of that important distinction.

Wow. The above is a good example of how a person should not debate an issue. Talk about missing the point, failing to support, begging the question, strawman... Guys... Is this some act or parady to get the membership to realize how stupid arguments don't convince anyone?

So it's a better opinion because there's only a very low probability that it will happen? Huh? This isn't about fear, jeskill, it's about ideas. His are fasist, and they're getting support here. That's what I'm talking about -- the art and science of moral suasion. You know -- politics. So again, how is that any better? Again, this "failure to act" notion is still premised on an assumption. I agree that it's an opinion that's backed by evidence, but so is the contrary opinion. So you're still talking about throwing people in jail over an opinion. If we're going to decide to do something about human contribution to global warming, then let's do that through a democratic process, not by FORCE. Don't get me wrong, if we make a societal decision and then pass laws requiring certain actions, then those actions should be enforced, I agree. But that's not what he's saying at all, even YOU agree on this. There is no "intergenerational crime" or general "failure to act" statute to enforce, and he damn well knows it. David Suzuki is proposing an action that is fascist in nature. And the ONLY reason you're letting him get away with it is that he's in favor of Global Warming.

This was my first, telling people something they already knew. Nice way to say hello. Lol. But I got a nice reply from Martin. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5903

It's an interesting notion. If you have grandparents around, your children are more likely to produce children -- something along those lines. Seems plausible.

I did some work in this area a couple years ago, building a little AI engine for basic document analysis and routing, as part of a class learning about AI. I found the ACM and IEEE Journals to be most helpful, as well as the Russell/Norvig text (this one). In particular you might want to check out Naive Bayes Classifiers (NBC). There's an article on NBC in the Wikipedia here. You may also want to check out the Wikipedia article on document classification systems, which mentions other approaches. You can probably access the ACM Portal through your school account, if you have one. If not a student membership is really cheap. http://www.acm.org Good luck!

How is that any better? Again, this "failure to act" notion is still premised on an assumption. I agree that it's an opinion that's backed by evidence, but so is the contrary opinion. So you're still talking about throwing people in jail over an opinion. If we're going to decide to do something about human contribution to global warming, then let's do that through a democratic process, not by FORCE. Don't get me wrong, if we make a societal decision and then pass laws requiring certain actions, then those actions should be enforced, I agree. But that's not what he's saying at all, even YOU agree on this. There is no "intergenerational crime" or general "failure to act" statute to enforce, and he damn well knows it. David Suzuki is proposing an action that is fascist in nature. And the ONLY reason you're letting him get away with it is that he's in favor of Global Warming. That's right, he's pretty obviously an environmental advocate now. No longer a scientist. Your past tense, not mine, but I wholly agree. He has certainly thrown on the garbage pile any moral authority he may have once conveyed as a scientist making a case using logic and reason. You are absolutely right, and hey, thanks for pointing it out.

It's really obscure, but it rears its ugly head every once in a blue moon. I'm pretty sure I remember it coming up during Kennedy's 1980 run. (In which he actually won several primaries against a sitting president! Talk about drama!) No no, O'Reilly would completely agree with you, and denounced the rapper's comments. But yes, I share your pessimism about what this may mean. Rappers are hyper-connected with the African American social community -- he had to be reflecting something he had heard somewhere. I really think it's easily dealt with, though -- just get a few rappers to come out against the idea. I think part of it may lie in the fact that Obama's support has been primarily amongst the more affluent and politically-minded. It's almost as if the lower-economic-tier African American community, less familiar with politics and feeling honor-bound to vote for Clinton after the economic improvements of the 1990s, is embarassed not to be voting for a black man, and needs a reason.

Evidence? Politicization? Um, dude, we're talking about politics. This is the Politics subforum. Christ, two weeks ago you and Swansont insisted that contrary opinions be removed from a "science" global warming thread because only facts should be allowed (which I called odd because in fact that discussion is ruled by opinion -- one single opinion -- but whatever). I was told that if we wanted to discuss opinions on this subject, we should do so on the politics forum. Well here we are, expressing our opinions, and talking about politics. So give me a break, huh? Well that is your opinion, and more power to you. But you propose that we decide that one opinion is to be used as the basis for the application of criminal penalties against any politician who does not carry out an aggressive promotion of that opinion. I ask again, what's the rush? Staunch adherents of human contribution to global warming have, right here in this forum, spoken AGAINST the radically short time frames proposed by the likes of Al Gore. Why this desperate need to toss out the power of persuasion and reasoned discourse and just start throwing people in jail? In fact that's exactly what he's proposing. You've commented that this is about politicians, not scientists. In the arena of politics, the issue is not the truth, but rather what people believe. We dance around this all the time at SFN, and elitistly dismiss it as idiocy amongst the common people, but the fact remains that most people lack the facility to understand most of what scientists and engineers (or even politicians, or any kind of specialist) do. It always comes back to trust and faith. An important truth about our society is that evolution isn't taught over creationism because evolution is right and creationism is wrong. Evolution is taught over creationism because people's faith in scientists and engineers is greater than their faith in religious leaders or politicians. (Thank... god!) Dr. Suzuki suggests that we leverage the faith he and his people have constructed in the presumption of humans being the primary cause of global warming by incarcerating politicians who do not conform to that faith. And if he gets his way, do not think for one moment that his success will be based on anything other than faith. Faith held by one group of people, over a different faith held by another.

Very cool, thanks Leo. That's some nice work, there.

The pending-assassination theory is also common in the African American community. One of my students expressed it to me the other day. And I saw a bit on Bill O'Reilly last week quoting a famous rapper saying the same thing (which may well be where my student got it). It's almost like a pre-conspiracy conspiracy theory. (lol)

Also, if God buds copies of himself, do we still have to do what he says? Lol, trust a bunch of geeks to find all the loopholes!

There may be no contrary evidence of global warming, but there's plenty of contrary evidence on human contribution to it, which is what we're actually talking about here. And all KINDS of evidence countering the immediacy agenda being pushed by extremists like Suzuki. I have to say it's a pretty neat trick. First, get a few experts to agree that you're right. Second, chill the opposition by playing the politics game long and well enough to get more than half of the experts on board, so you can say you have a majority. Third, begin declaring any evidence to the contrary to be either non-existent or counter-productive, and if somebody says otherwise, follow-up with funding cutoffs and "crackpot" demonization, or just accuse them of being wrong because they work for a corporation (never mind our own corporate funding). And finally, when you've achieved all of this and have the authority, throw any politician who doesn't do as they're told in jail. Wow, that sure beats discussion and slow forward progress! After all, the planet's dead if we don't act within ten years -- Al Gore says so! So all of this is justified. It would be great if we had the luxury of time, but we don't, so off to jail and the sooner the better. No, Cap'n, that's not the issue at hand here. The issue at hand here is, what's the rush? The issue at hand here is, if the science is right, why do you need to throw people in jail? The issue at hand here is, why are we abandoning truth as irrelevent, and now resorting to force? We've gone from trying to convince everyone to saying we're in the majority, might makes right, and global warming must be solved by any means necessary. And later if it turns out we really weren't the main cause, well, no biggie -- at least those dirty, non-compliant politicians (spit) got what they deserved!

What scientist is going to ever publish findings that go against the notion of global warming if politicians are being THROWN IN JAIL FOR ACTING ON THEM?

Swansont, what will your position be when it is "discovered" that no laws have been violated by any politicians? Because surely if such violations could be found they would already have BEEN found and brought up! It's not as if there's a shortage of zealotry on both sides of this issue. So when that happens, does he just shrug and say "Sorry, i thought maybe, you never know.................." Riiiiiight. Yeah, that was just an honest inquiry into the legal possibilities of prosecution. That's why he made his suggestion at a pep-rally for the cause! Sure he was. "Yay team! Now go out there and grab your baseball bats and hangin' ropes and... and... <cof cof> Find, uh, a LEGAL reason to take care of those awful politicians! Yeah, that's it!"

You're giving the benefit of reasonable doubts to him. Like I said, more power to you. But he felt a need to issue a press release saying he was just being sarcastic. And I'm clearly not the only one even here at SFN who got that impression from his words. So I've established a reasonable case for concern, at the very least. That's your opinion. Mine is that he's trying to incite the use of force over freedom of speech and impartial investigation of the truth.

We really need a lot more computer scientists. Definitely on the software side, but also the oft-forgotten hardware side. Computer science programs are still doing okay at major universities, but the second-tier schools have emptied out rapidly in the face of the broadening base of client-server, data-driven business programming and its proliferation at the career-college level. We will have our next generation of Einsteins, but what we need are the hard-working men and women who follow in their footsteps, contributing the important correlative ideas that don't always generate the most attention, but which are often the real keys to future technological successes. Put another way, the journals are pretty boring these days.

Yes, I think regardless of whether he meant what you think or what I think, this was a mistake on his part. Giving people the perception that they're going to be thrown in jail if they don't agree with GW is every bit as damaging over overzealous criticism of GW, wouldn't you agree? We need to be coming together on that issue, not tearing each other apart. Demanding that politicians be thrown in jail for 20 years of non-support for GW is akin to yelling "get a rope" at a rally against hate crime legislation. At best it's well-intended sarcasm giving the wrong impression. At worst it's just proving their point for them. Although, again, from where I sit, he meant every word of it, and he meant it to be a chilling effect on free speech and open, honest investigation that disagrees with his point of view. But as I said, your mileage may vary, and if you disagree, fine.