Deep Kimchi
17-11-2005, 16:37
And I ran across this:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/17/EDGODFP0BQ1.DTL
Dr. Gray is in Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Gray
but not too much on him there.
And I still have to get this book and read it:
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=42
Free Soviets
17-11-2005, 17:10
And I ran across this:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/17/EDGODFP0BQ1.DTL
maybe i missed it, but when the author (speaking in their own voice) said that they found it odd that this study (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686) didn't find any peer-reviewed articles that rejected the consensus view, did they at least point to some evidence that the global warming deniers actually were engaged in science and publishng in peer-reviewed journals? i mean, surely there must be a whole host of relevant peer-reviewed articles that reject the consensus that can easily be found by searching under appropriate terms in one of the standard databases, right? so why didn't they go do just that?
the line about consensus view doesn't go "this is the consensus - so no more questions." it goes "we appear to have reached consensus - almost nobody who is engaged in any relevant science and actively taking part in the scientific discussion has provided any scientific reason to disagree."
Deep Kimchi
17-11-2005, 17:14
maybe i missed it, but when the author (speaking in their own voice) said that they found it odd that this study (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686) didn't find any peer-reviewed articles that rejected the consensus view, did they at least point to some evidence that the global warming deniers actually were engaged in science and publishng in peer-reviewed journals? i mean, surely there must be a whole host of relevant peer-reviewed articles that reject the consensus that can easily be found by searching under appropriate terms in one of the standard databases, right? so why didn't they go do just that?
the line about consensus view doesn't go "this is the consensus - so no more questions." it goes "we appear to have reached consensus - almost nobody who is engaged any relevant science and actively taking part in the scientific discussion has provided any scientific reason to disagree."
The question that another poster asked a while back (Gymoor?) was whether or not there was any valid science behind the idea that humans are not behind global warming.
I'm still looking - I personally don't have an opinion one way or the other as I haven't finished reading up on the subject.
A good example of where scientists reached consensus - the wrong consensus - and were overcome by a simple examination - not by further peer-reviewed science - is the Rule of 48.
The Rule of 48 was intended as a humorous reminder to scientists, and referred to the massive literature collected in the late 1940s and the 1950s concerning the human chromosome number.
For years it was stated that men had forty-eight chromosomes in their cells; there were pictures to prove it, and any number of careful studies. In 1953, a group of American researchers announced to the world that the human chromosome number was forty-six. Once more, there were pictures to prove it, and studies to confirm it. But these researchers also went back to reexamine the old pictures, and the old studies--and found only forty-six chromosomes not forty-eight.
"Usually the number of chromosomes is constant in a given species, although it may vary between different species even of the same genus. In man the chromosome number is forty-eight...." [Human Genetics and its Social Import, by S. J. Holmes (1936), pp. 8. The illustration above appears on p. 9.]
"... the number of chromosomes is in general constant for any given species. Thus in each cell of a human being there are 48 chromosomes (24 pairs)...." [Principles of Heredity, 3rd. ed., by Laurence R. Snyder (1946), p. 26.]
When and how did the discovery take place? Here's a first hand account from biologist, Maj Hultén, who was then an undergraduate student in Stockholm:
I was walking in the culvert linking the Institute to the Animal House, carrying my mouse cages. It was late at night the day before Christmas Eve, on December 23, 1955, when I suddenly heard the clapping (and echoing) sound of clogs behind me, and a heavy hand landed on my left shoulder. I got mighty afraid, but recognizing it to be the diminutive Chinese visiting scientist, Joe-Hin Tjio, I wondered what on earth this was all about. "I can see that you are equally kind to everybody around here. Would you like to come to my room? I have got something interesting to show you", he stuttered. "Yes, please", I found myself answering.
Peering down the microscope, situated on the bench to the right in Tjio's office cum lab, I was amazed to see the human chromosomes well spread out and separated from each other, and when Tjio demanded: "Count", I did so. My first comment was "You have lost two", but then in metaphase after metaphase there could be no doubt, the chromosome number was 46. It was a cliché to say that I can remember it as if it was yesterday, the stinging smell of the acetic orcein (making Tjio's broad thumbs bright red also when squashing the cells) blending together with that of Turkish coffee made by Tjio.
from "Numbers, bands and recombination of human chromosomes: Historical anecdotes from a Swedish student," by M. A. Hultén, in Cytogenetic and Genome Research 96: 14-19 (2002), pp. 15-16.