How stupid is air pollution ‘science’?

A friend of mine e-mailed me a November 2015 report from the European Environment Agency claiming that the air pollutant called PM2.5 causes 432,000 deaths in Europe every year. Is this plausible?

pretty much everyone wants this nuclear power plant to keep running, yet…

The Fitzpatrick nuclear power plant in upstate NY has a pretty solid record of safe and cheap operation. Everyone likes it. The locals (unlike in some other area) consider it a good neighbor, it provides a hefty chunk of CO2 free electricity, it’s reliable.

To quote Forbes magazine:
“Almost every constituency and politician involved says they really don’t want the plant to close, including the utility itself,the local community, the Governor of New York, the New York Representatives,the New York Senatorsand the Obama Administration.
“So why can’t something be worked out?”
=====
rest:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/11/10/if-no-one-wants-the-fitzpatrick-nuclear-power-plant-to-close-why-is-it-closing/

How to know you have influenza

I applaud this very nice essay in ACSH output for today on how to distinguish the flu–caused by influenza virus, from colds caused by any number of viruses.

Another reason to be concerned about illegals–gun controls will be imposed

Not to be ignored, this dem strategy of changing the demographic–and idiots like Paul Ryan open the borders.

One long term casualty of unchecked immigration is predicted to be the second amendment, according to this pin head UCLA Law School Prof.

Read here.

Nye is no science guy, he is a science duufus

But the man has a microphone and a camera, and in the world today–that’s better than competence, that’s notoriety and fame.

What about those illegals and invaders?

The Center For Immigration CIR, my go to source for in depth immigrations studies, provides an interesting and somewhat optimistic take on how to reduce the demographic train wreck.

The author says a lot of em will go back home on their own? Really? And what about the jihadis?

The executive branch is a criminal enterprise–IGs are neutered

Let’s talk about the Inspector General system when criminals control the White House.

Wanna tell me what the Treaty of Paree will accomplish

So here’s Stern talking about an agreement that is non binding, and doesn’t really amount to a treaty or something like that?

I think they should just have a nice time, eat some good French food, go to the sites, come home and shut up.

Todd Stern’s testimony sure doesn’t make much sense.

New Mammo guidelines are disputed

If you can figure out the best approach, you’re better than me.

Sure false positives are irksome but the downside risk of missing a cancer is much more important in consequences.

Shedding Light On Some of the Idealogical Origins of Anti-Science

Many people are puzzled by the clear rejection of scientific principles embodied in the arguments and the literature  of the global warming enthusiasts and other proponents of the leftist/collectivist agenda that is so common today and has come to dominate the college campuses. It is particularly difficult to reconcile the academic establishment’s espousal of free thought, academic freedom , and diversity with their actions that are clearly aimed at suppressing these very things.

 

But all of these disparate elements are nicely tied together in a brilliant article by Professor Thomas DiLorenzo. He points out that when institutional Marxism imploded in the late 80s/early 90s, the academic Marxists did not admit defeat but rather sidestepped into passionate environmentalism. Instead of justifying central government planning and control in order to benefit “the people” they simply substituted “Mother Earth”. They could easily make common cause with the environmental movement because both groups shared an essential hatred for human beings. DiLorenzo goes on to explain how adherence to this ideology necessarily led to an opposition to science and the imposition of a rigid academic orthodoxy that all but obliterated the diversity and freedom of thought that they professed to support.

 

But rather than attempt to repeat what Professor DiLorenzo wrote I would simply urge anyone who is interested in understanding how much of this came about to read the linked article.

 

The Infantilization of College Students

Bamstercare exchanges in dem controlled states waste 4 Billion–poof

democrat controlled states take government money to set up exchanges that are now going bankrupt.

This report shows that they were kinda sloppy about keeping track. GAO can’t find a billion or more.

Like the COOPS, the gravy train no doubt delivered to the lefties.

Hammering the Truckers with Air Pollution Junk Science

Here’s my friend James Enstrom, PhD MPH and warrior on the battle of air pollution nonsense by the EPA and it’s surrogate the California Air Resources Board.

The war is now in it’s 8th year at a high level of intensity. I have many friends and allies in the CA scientific and business/Transportation community.

Diesel engine emissions have always been an obsession of the enviros in CA and at the EPA. When you hear small particles, just think diesel, even though the small particle could be dust or some other naturally occurring air particle as well–the toxicology and epidemiology research is pretty damn sloppy, but the EPA doesn’t care.

Enstrom is critical as an epidemiologist who said, based on a comprehensive study of California that there is no small particle air pollution death effect in CA. His study refutes the claims of hundreds of thousands of deaths put out by the EPA to justify their air regs on diesel and engine emissions.

I like Jimmy for that.

Roundup is a very useful herbicide, and it is safe

Even maninstream media, a lefty outlet for sure, can find good things to say about Roundup.

Marita talks about the nonsense of fracking causing earthquakes

Consider this, nuclear testing didn’t cause earthquakes.

But more improtant, as described, if you put the seismographs on alert, guess what, they will find earthquakes.

Patrick Moore celebrating carbon dioxide–an inspiration

Patrick Moorewas formerly a crazy enviro–devoted to the idea that he was smarter than the rest of us.

He was a founding and active, energetic member, an out front guy for the Greenpeacers.

Take a look at his recent speech, that makes good sense, just like the speeches he has given at Heartland Climate Conferences.

What is science? Is medicine and biology science? Let’s discuss

A regular commenter took off on the Economics is not a science discussion to suggest Medicine and Biology are not science. My answer below is, Sometimes and It Depends.

Commenter:

Much of medical and biological studies are observational and not do not qualify as science either.

Commenter says–It’s mostly just conjecture. “Well I suppose” leads to “maybe”. Not science.

People are talking about the movie “The Martian” and the phrase in there about “science the poop out of it” or something like that. Not science. Hard work, observation and engineering. In my dad’s day they knew the difference between science and engineering. Now anything even remotely technical is “science”.

Disagree with your dictionary definition. “3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.” Especially not. Also, “4. systematized knowledge in general”. Not. It’s science because it’s systematized? Huh? My grandkids legos are systematized in little bins but it’s NOT science. Good grief.

So, my turn.

In medicine we like the term evidence based and that means repeat, rinse, repeat and test your hypothesis against the evidence, that’s the critical scientific methodology.

In the complex world of biological structure and function, much of which is still not understood, there are lots of opportunities to to be wrong. Miss a confounder and your hypothesis is an empty one.

Good examples of biological science in action–Koch’s postulates for proving the cause of a disease, with particular emphasis on infectious diseases.

Another scientific method is the Bradford Hill rules on proving causation, for example beneficial or toxic effect, which look a lot like the Koch postulates for chemicals or physical effects on living organisms.

The Koch postulates can be used to disprove a cause of a infectious disease and modified to provide knowledge of non infectious diseases.

The Bradford Hill rules can be used to prove or disprove a toxic or beneficial effect of an exposure to a physical or chemical agent or condition. .

From WIKI
Koch’s postulates are the following:

1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms.
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.

The Bradford Hill Rules can be turned for positive and negative evidence of effect, toxic or benificial.

The Bradford Hill Rules, from Wiki:

The Bradford Hill criteria for causation are a group of minimal conditions necessary to provide adequate evidence of a causal relationship between an incidence and a possible consequence, established by the English epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill (1897–1991) in 1965.

The list of the criteria is as follows:

1 Strength (effect size): A small association does not mean that there is not a causal effect, though the larger the association, the more likely that it is causal.
2 Consistency (reproducibility): Consistent findings observed by different persons in different places with different samples strengthens the likelihood of an effect.
3 Specificity: Causation is likely if there is a very specific population at a specific site and disease with no other likely explanation. The more specific an association between a factor and an effect is, the bigger the probability of a causal relationship.
4 Temporality: The effect has to occur after the cause (and if there is an expected delay between the cause and expected effect, then the effect must occur after that delay).
5 Biological gradient: Greater exposure should generally lead to greater incidence of the effect. However, in some cases, the mere presence of the factor can trigger the effect. In other cases, an inverse proportion is observed: greater exposure leads to lower incidence.
6 Plausibility: A plausible mechanism between cause and effect is helpful (but Hill noted that knowledge of the mechanism is limited by current knowledge).
7 Coherence: Coherence between epidemiological and laboratory findings increases the likelihood of an effect. However, Hill noted that “… lack of such [laboratory] evidence cannot nullify the epidemiological effect on associations”.
8 Experiment: “Occasionally it is possible to appeal to experimental evidence”.
Analogy: The effect of similar factors may be considered.

So, if you are honest about testing the postulates and the rules–you can produce reliable, reproducible explanations or you can prove up your hypothesis as valid. That’s evidence based science. You can’t cherry pick the rules however for the ones that work to prove your hypothesis. They come as a unit, and exceptions to the proof are less scientifically reliable. There are some exceptions, for example the organism sometimes are hard to culture in the case of Koch’s postulates.

A modification of the Koch’s postulates can provide diagnostic criteria for diseases that are not infectious.

If you hold to the rules, you can test a hypothesis, and in fact infectious disease, diagnostic nosology, pharmacology and toxicology can be made scientific.

Medicine is only science if it is scientific and evidence based–otherwise it may or may not be right based on observational anecdotal information or “fly by the seat of your experience or the experience of others,” but it is not scientific, evidence based medicine unless it is reproducible and falsifiable. When I say testable and reliably reproducible, that covers the Popper requirement that it be falsifiable.

An example of an organized effort to produce evidence based medicine is the Cochran Project that is devoted to gathering reliable medical research and identifying unreliable research.

http://www.cochranelibrary.com/

Simple examples of the problem of reliable science in medicine is the confounder of an unknown or even known–some genetic unknown or the known problem of placebo effect. So that’s why when medicine gets serious it does Randomized Controlled studies that are blinded and placebo controlled to test drug effects.

In the case of the second inquiry–biology, the scientific knowledge of living things requires the use of chemistry, physics, and observational disciplines like anatomy and functional anatomy to determine both complex and not so complex functions of living things. Biology can begin with cold cuts, microscopic studies and chemical analysis to achieve reliable knowledge, but when we go to complex functionalities it gets harder.

One example is that at the cellular level anatomy and chemical functionality are not simple–they are as complex for the one-celled as the much more complex organism. No simple way to make DNA reproduce or membranes function properly, so bacteria have the same cellular complexities as the cell of an elephant or a human.

Henry Kissinger–a talker and a compromiser, rumiinates with his buddies on nuke war

Junky psychology and social/political ideas produce junk foreign policy and foreign relations. The latest exhibit from the evidence room is the Iran appeasement deal that gives the game changing opportunities to confirmed vicious terrorists.

I always thought it odd that a guy like Kissinger who lived in America from his high school years, could maintain his Bavarian “accent” for a lifetime. He reminds me of people I know who had a Brit accent after spending a year or two studying in England.

However, Kissinger’s accent is a part of his persona and his influence set us on a road to maybe extinction while he has never apologized for all his mistaken appeasements and compromises. Agreements with thugs don’t work, but he is a man with a hammer, or should I say a mouth and a pen. He believes he can talk to a viper and makes deals with criminals.

Henry left us a blizzard of paper work, commentary and a number of meaningless and ineffective treaties and agreements and is still spoken of by the foreign policy and political establishment like the sacred Council on Foreign Relations, as an iconic giant.

Habitat exchange another property rights grab by the enviros

Here’s another fanatic EPA and Department of the Interior attempt to steal property rights for some bird or animal–and a discussion about how the concept of habitat trading would expand.

And government always does expand, doesn’t it?

Paul Driessen discusses the new inquisition–intolerance of the enviro totalitarians

Paul has an important one here:

How the intolerant left pushes and demands to end dissent or opposition.

Inflation, what inflation?

The Feds control the reports, don’t they and the report no inflation, no social security adjustment–so I suggest you ask someone on a fixed income about the cost of living, for example food costs.