Embryo's No Longer Needed For Stem Cells
The pro-life movement is awash with news of the successful production of 'embryonic' stem cells from adult cells. The 'progress at all costs' movement is mostly silent, including the politicians who supported the killing of human life for medical research. One response I have found from the dark side, is this article by John Tierney on a New York Times blog.

Some Republican presidential candidates are breathing easier because of the news on stem-cell research, and some religious leaders are proclaiming a truce in their conflict with scientists. But I wouldn’t bet on any longterm peace, for a couple of reasons.

Yep..the article already sounds like a 'they were right, but so what' childish response.... John doesn't disappoint.

First, despite the breakthrough in producing stem cells without using embryos, researchers will continue working with embryos. Some still believe it’s the most promising approach for stem-cell therapy, as Nature reports. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the scientist who reported the first creation of stem cells from cloned monkey embryos (the other big news last week), says that the embryos is the only “perfect reprogramming machine” and is confident that this method of producing stem cells will be the first to show therapeutic value.

Someone should tell these 'intelligent' and 'objective' scientists that there are already some 70+ therapeutic uses of adult stem cells, so his 'confidence' is, well, stupid...uneducated...wrong.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good whinge. John then precedes to play dumb (I kid you not), about what 'scientism' (here is a hint...wikipedia talks about it - 'As a form of dogma: "In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth."') and whether scientists actually think there is no difference between humans and animals (Here is a hint...metaphysically and morally, many scientists do). But the facts aren't really convenient for John, so he continues to play dumb...funnily enough...it suits him.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, November 27, 2007 0 comments

 
Global Warming Reporting Sucks
I saw an article in the Sunday Mail last weekend, a clear example of Global Warming fearmongering by Chicken Littles who have been doing it for decades. The article claims that the Antarctic was warming faster than everywhere in the world (wrong - no warming trend exists in the Antarctic) and that the melting ice was due to global warming (wrong - wind patterns unrelated to warming have been fingered as the likely culprit) and that the melting antarctic threatened to catastrophically raise sea levels (wrong - the Antarctic ice is continue to increase in size and reaching record levels)

Blatant falsehoods presented as fact are a staple of the man-made global warming moonbats.

Coyote blog has noted a similar themed newspaper article. Of course, he has pretty graphs...the show off. Check it out
- posted by Alan Grey @ Wednesday, November 14, 2007 0 comments

 
Climate Change - Anatomy of Bad Science
More and more, Climate Change shows itself to be bad science.

Real science, I am told by my evolutionist friends,
1) follows the evidence where it leads and is based on skepticism
2) is repeatable
3) is open
4) always tries to refute itself (I've lost track of the number of times I have been told that evolutionists always try to disprove evolution, as they would become famous if they did!)

Enter 'Climate-Audit', and Steve McIntyre, who is auditing the statistics used to underpin all the alarming man-made global warming claims. Steve has had several successful projects about various statistical flaws (for instance, the Hockey Stick graph and NASA revising data).

For the most part, Steve has faced an uphill battle because most of the papers are based on data and statistical methods that have not been released (thus breaking points 2 + 3), but even so, he has managed to identify significant issues.

So how do major science blogs react to Climate Audit winning the best science blog (subject to the organisers verifying the numbers)? Bad Astronomy...ostensibly run by a skeptical astronomer? He calls Climate Audit an 'anti-global warming site' and was thinking of endorsing Pharyngula to try and beat Climate Audit so that 'a real science site would win the award'

Pharyngula shows a similar bent, saying of Climate Audit "Then there are the myopic little nitpickers, people who scurry about seeking little bits of garbage in the fabric of science" but the real clarify about these 'science blogs' comes from another comment "You can quit whining that you and McIntyre are finding valid errors; it doesn't matter, since you're simultaneously spreading a plague of lies and ignorance as you go.". Finally, he comments "Everyone else, please do vote for Bad Astronomy. Real scientists can see the big picture and understand that the real power of science lies in the explanations, not the pettifoggery with statistics — not that I expect the right-wing gomers at the Weblog Awards who nominated the purveyors of junk science for their award"

You see, to these people, it doesn't matter if their are valid errors. It doesn't matter how much global warming is really happening, the statistical significance of the claim, or even how much of the change is due to humans interference (try and find and fast numbers for that one). What matters is 'the big picture', the meta-narrative that it is all evil capitalist greed's fault. It doesn't matter that there are competing explanations either...as long as it agrees with their own ideological bias, they are happy, and to hell with repeatability, openness, accuracy or skepticism. Just like most of the man-made global warming community.

And, to answer Steve McIntyres question, that is why the debate seems to line up on left/right lines. Because the science isn't settled, but left wing moonbats have tried to settle the debate with propaganda, not science. Which is why they don't deal with Steve's statistics, but instead just hurl insults.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, November 09, 2007 0 comments

 
Tim Flannery was wrong about the drought
Tim Flannery, who has wrongly predicted that global warming will cause Syndey's dams to dry up (they're full), blames the droughts on global warming (never mind we have had a lot of droughts in Australia's history...he is sure, this time, that it is global warming. For sure!)

Now the UN's World Meteorological Organisation, tells us that it is because the water is too cold!!! Tricky stuff this global warming.

Another win for the Australian of the Year!

Of course, read the full article, and note how the climate scientist from Hobart contradicts the journalist (I doubt the science writer noticed, as the article is written as if they agree)
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, November 01, 2007 0 comments

 
Election 2007 - Politicians and Lies
At least John Howard waited until a few years of being in power before being caught lying. It seems Kevin Rudd is too stupid to manage that political feat and has already obviously lied multiple times to the public before the election...and no, I'm not referring to the numerous political backflips Rudd has done in the name of electioneering (whilst simultaneously hanging his front benchers out to dry....maybe his campaign motto should be, "There is no team in Kevin 07"

First, there was the Strip Club incident, where he "couldn't remember a thing" because he was too drunk, and then suddenly turned around and said he remembered completely and was a 'perfect gentleman'.

Now, we have Kevin's ear wax eating in parliment caught on video, where Kevin says he was apparently just 'scratching'.

If he is too dumb to avoid being caught in multiple lies before the election, he sounds like the perfect labor party candidate, and is probably not politically astute enough to be the leader of Australia.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, November 01, 2007 0 comments