The Importance of Salesmanship in Science

What if you had a great new idea for a way to make bicycles 10% faster with the same amount of strength. But lets say you are either not very confident in telling others about your idea, and/or you don't really know who to tell, and/or you tell one company, get turned down, and now lack the confidence to make more calls, and/or you just aren't very good at telling your story; not a very good saleman. This happens every day in the world of commerce. As the president of a manufacturing company in the bicycle and advertising specialties business, we have many, many new product pitched to us. Many,if not most of these, come from shy tinkerers who don't have a clue about how to bring a new idea to market.

As a result of this process, many good ideas never get to first base. Similary, many good ideas get to a manufacturer only to fail in the marketplace. Now, this is sometimes due to the fact that the product is not a good one, is too expensive based on the value it offers, or is just plain unlucky. But I would propose that the biggest reason for the failure of good procucts is lousy marketing. The company who takes the product on may not have the resources (money, manpower, skills, entre) to get the product into the stream of commerce. Or, as is often the case, there is inadequate product championing in the firm, so it just dies from lack of attention.

This is a very long introduction to propose that this phenomenon is also very much in play in science. Right now Al Gore is using the power of his personality, the special kind of energy found in some like him, his unique entre in the market place of ideas, and the money that he can attract to push his concept of global warming.

Others, with far less charisma, money, time, energy, and ability may have better or more correct ideas, but they will lose the battle of ideas for all these wrong reasons. The public is not very good as discerning the difference. But the peril of choosing this way on so substantive an issue is dangerous indeed.

Public Universities Not Democratic - Consequences

Another unplanned thread of the Global Warming Conference last weekend at Caltech came from the floor as questioners of the panel brought up tyranny in the scientific ranks of the acadamy. We peons who are not privy to the politics of the university science departments suspect that those who have opinions that aren't in line with their superiors are likely to find advancement difficult. But one questioner put the case in an interesting light.

He proposed that the presidents of public universities are not elected by the people, the students, or the faculty. They are appointed. This is generally also true of the boards of directors (regents.) These, in turn determine who will be department heads. The department heads might create an elected group of professors within the department to help him make decisions about hiring, tenure, etc. However, we can only imagine the power of these department heads to influence who is on the faculty, who moves up, etc.

If you should believe that it is unethical to use embryonic stem cells harvested from aborted babies or cloned babies for research, do you suppose this would effect your ability to be hired or advance at Caltech where the president of Caltech is so clearly in favor of such research? Do we need to think the entire method by which we structure our universities when they have so much power? We know how power tends to corrupt.

Bush - Our "Bravest" President

Norma, at Collecting Our Thoughts, and I agree about pretty much everything except immigration solutions, and a few days ago she quoted one of the men I admire most, Richard Land. Richard, pictured above, is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and he is brillient, to say the least. If I didn't know this based on reading him and hearing his interviews, I would know it because he has said kind things about some of my writing. Yuk Yuk!

Anyway, Richard is now on record as calling George W. one of our bravest presidents. I would add indefatigable, tough minded, principled, and a few others. Land's point is that the president has staked out a set of principles, and he marches forward regardless of the hits he takes from the liberal press, or even sometimes his base. Norma lists some of those things where the President has stayed the course, but one she doesn't mention is immigration. See the complete post

Global Warming Solutions

One individual who stood in long lines at the Global Warming Conference put on by the Skeptic's Society last weekend, made the point (such a new idea) that less people on the planet would help with the CO2 problem. Several of us whispered in one another's ears that maybe the questioner would like to be the first to go.

Then, I found this terrific list of 10 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet.

1. Turn off faucets when not in use. While a single dripping faucet may not seem to be much of an environmental hazzard, the numbers really begin to add up when you're hosting a Sierra Club fundraising party for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. Have your domestic staff check to make sure that electonic sink sensors are working properly, and use other water conservation methods such as installing low-flow bidets. Remember to remind your guests: "If it's yellow, let it mellow."

2. Upgrade to a new Gulfstream G550. Next time you take off for Cannes

3. Crush a Third World economic development movement.

4. Don't Have Babies. Many people are shocked when they learn that fewer than 25% of the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild have been spayed or neutered.

5. Alternative fuel motorcades.

6. Go on a random killing spree.

7. "Green begins at home." ... For instance, have your groundskeeping staff lower the water levels in your koi ponds, and turn off your energy-wasting security cameras between 1 AM and 7 AM.

8. Phase out the entertainment industry by 2011. If there is one sector of our economy that typifies America's obscene energy waste,

9. Commit suicide.

10. Support eco-friendly organizations and political candidates.

This is far funnier if you read the whole thing. Go here

I would add. Just kill all the rich people in the world. They use far more energy and create far more CO2 than the rest of us.

HT to The Commons

Science Establishment Lacking in Imagination

After thinking about the Global Warming Conference for a few days, it occurs to me that with a couple of exceptions, most of the speakers that day, and most of those who are getting national attention (AlGore and others) can only imagine one scenario. That scenario is: earth is getting warmer because of CO2 concentration in atmosphere caused by man. The CO2 will continue to increase because of man, and thus the warming trend will continue. There may be a tipping point where the positive feedback will intensify this warming. In any case, the eventual outcome of this certain path is a long list of calamities for mankind, other species, and the planet itself. Lets examine alternative possibilities one-by-one.

1. The earth has been getting warmer, but might not. The change could happen as a result of lack of understanding of at least:
A. Solar Activity
B. Cloud Activity
C. Plant Activity
D. Ocean Activity
E. Healing effect of three atmospheres

2. Earth might be getting warmer not because of CO2, but because of:
A. Solar Activity
B. Ocean Activity
C. Normal historic trends not fully understood

3. CO2 increases (noted in earlier natural cycles before man and before industrial revolution) might have nothing to do with man, or only partially to do with man, and may reverse as they have in past historical cycles. Most scientists on the panel felt these increases were only partially due to man, if at all, and therefore they might continue no matter what we do or don't do.

4. There may be a tipping point where increases in CO2 concentrations and or warming might result in reversal of one or both. There may not be a tipping point.

5. Recent and ancient increases in the average planet temperature have actually been beneficial to the planet. Therefore, one or two additional degrees of warming might actually be a good thing, on balance.

6. There may be some calamities, many calamities, or none. Maybe there will even be fewer calamities if the temperature goes up. It seems odd to me that the only vision of the future that these scientists and pundits can imagine are horrific.

7. If we interfere with the climate with the intent of decreasing warming, we might exacerbate a natural trend toward cooling that we were not able to discern. Global cooling of 3 or 4 degrees might be much more troubling than a few degrees of warming. Personally, I've lived in St. Louis, and I've lived in So Cal. I prefer So Cal.

So, this is a call to global warming scare mongers. Open your mind and let a little light in. Hit your alpha zone and contemplate alternatives to the popular notion among the cloistered. I even suspect that there are another dozen or 100 alternative scenarios that I couldn't think of in this 15 minute post.

UPDATE: Here is a well written and researched article that I ran across just after finishing this post. Supports this position quite nicely.

Speaking of Something Hot . . . as in Dog

I am eclectic, or so say my friends. The Daily Spork author is slightly beyond eclectic. The folks who dreamed up this picture are way beyond strange.

What Do Men Really Want - The Answer Was In the Bible All Along

Here is yet another study, a quite extensive one, on what men want:

"So what makes a man happy in a marriage?

"Acceptance and appreciation. We want to be needed," he said.

Psychiatrist Scott Haltzman, who drew on his experience as a marriage counselor for his book "The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever," offers a similar revelation: Men have a tremendously strong sense of commitment.

"They take it very seriously. They really want to be a hero. And it's really important for a man to know that he is having an impact on you in a positive way," he said."

The rest of the article is here.

We want to thank the researches for their excellent work in confirming what the Bible said 2000 years ago in the book of Ephesians. Turn to Eph 5:33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Clouds Virtually Unexplored Factor in Climate Change

One thing was clear at last weekend's Global conference; Science knows very little about clouds. In fact, two satellites were sent into space last year with the express purpose of trying to understand more about how clouds are formed, how they disperse, and so on. I would propose the following analogy.

For the first 60 years that psychology was being developed, we studied external aspects of behavior. Stimulous/response, fight or flight, sensory perception. We drew our conclusions and made our predictions based only on these aspects. More recently, we have started to study the brain in great detail. As we have done so, pschology has moved from the couch to the pill, and even therapy is moving to behavior modification and away from long, drawn out psychotherapy.

Our efforts to understand, predict, or effect weather are similarly limited by our lack of understanding of clouds. The picture above is one of the first images coming back from the CloudSat satellite. In a couple of years we will have a substantial increase in our understanding of the brains of the atmosphere. Maybe it will help us have a far greater understanding of global weather trends. More

Coming Soon to 007

How Cool is this!?! The clandestine operator can now jump out of his plane 120 miles from the landing site, and fly himself to a pin point landing. This getup even has stealth. Most remarkable of all. It's real!!! See more here

HT to drudgereport.com. If you aren't visiting Drudge once or twice a day, you are missing a bunch.

Extreme Bias of Scientists at Global Warming Conference Not Flattering

"Dr. David Baltimore is the president of Caltech and one of the world’s most influential biologists. Awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 37 for research in virology, Baltimore has profoundly influenced national science policy on such issues as recombinant DNA research and the AIDS epidemic. He is an accomplished researcher, educator, administrator and public advocate for science and engineering."

So states the information on the leadoff speaker at the Global Warming Conference recently produced by the Skeptics Society.He was the first, but not the last, of the speakers to engage in a rant against President Bush and gratuitously slam those who don't buy into Darwinism. His comments on these two subjects were so biased, dismissive, and hard edged, that it caused this observer to wonder how unbiased, evenhanded, and contemplative his analysis of scientific subjects would be.

The primary fixations of the Caltech President and others who followed with regard to the presidents policies were around the hot button issues of embryonic stem cell research, creation science, the morning after pill (plan B), and, of course, global warming. Other panel members and audience members added abstinence as a tool in the aids epidemic to the list.

I will, in a later post, point out the abject unfairness of the criticism in each case. However, the point of this article is to wonder aloud at whether the "academy" has become too biased to do its job? Michael Crichton would later ask this question in the context of financial interest. Others would point to the non-democratic nature of major universities and its impact on junior members' willingness to "swim against the tide" of the opinion of the "academy." One or more also wondered aloud whether those in the establishment were too insular to even be aware to the foundational issues of the "other sides" position.

At the core of our assumptions about scientists would be that they approach their subject with an open mind. While it would take great discipline, the ideal scientist would reopen his mind even as he continues inquiries into his major field. To the extent that previous research creates a bias in either the direction or the method of future analysis, we will get poor science. To the extent that political points of view and cultural lack of empathy colors ones thinking, we can have dangerous use of science (e.g. We are so much better than you, we will impose our solutions on you.)

I have been attending fundamentalist churches for the last 20 years, and have gone to countless conferences during that time. I can't remember a single time when positions were taken in those meetings that were so pompous, so biased, or so lacking in humility. Those in the leadership of the Christian "right" never say that the debate is over. In this conference, that was the refrain. I think there is a problem in our scientific community. The consequence of this problem may only result in horrible science, but it could result in tyranny.

Undocumented Workers and the Legal Concept of Acting in Reliance

reliance n. acting upon another's statement of alleged fact, claim, or promise. In contracts, if someone takes some steps ("changes his position" is the usual legal language) in reliance on the other's statement, claim or promise then the person upon whom the actor relied is entitled to contend there is a contract he/she can enforce. However, the reliance must be reasonable.

This is the legal definition as found here. The definition leaves out the fact that one might also find their contract rights have been diminished or eliminated by their failure to act. This is why you find language in any good contract that requires a writing to change the contract. However, these words do not absolutely end the rights of a defendant who has acted in reliance on the failure of plaintiff to enforce elements of the contract.

For example, a landlord might include in a lease that the tenant may not have a dog. The tenant gets a dog anyway. The landlord learns of the dog and does nothing to enforce that term of the lease. Five years later, the landlord decides to enforce the claim in hopes of forcing the tenant out. The landlord may have given up his right.

Sound anything like what we are dealing with in the immigration debate? For those who went to USC, and don't see the connection, local, state, and the the national government have all failed to enforce laws dealing with immigration. In many cases this failure has been overt, with governments specifically stopping law enforcement from doing anything to arrest or deport illegal immigrants, even when caught for another crime.

The community at large has been very welcoming of these people, hiring them to take care of their children, infirm adults, lawns, etc. This lack of enforcement and overt approval has led individuals to make decisions related to their lives that are very significant such as buying homes, getting married, starting businesses, making investments, and so on. When judges evaluate the reliance defense, equity requires that the harm to both parties be considered in deciding whether to now enforce the contract or whether the harm to the defendant would be much greater than the harm to plaintiff, and thus that aspect of the contract is void.

Climatologists Left Out at Global Warming Conference

I want to be clear. I was very pleased with the Skeptic Society Annual Convention, and its balanced view of global warming. My hat is off to Mike Shermer, founder and director, for his choice of speakers. But who was really missing? Experts in the weather.

Fox News in its special offered that climatologists and meteorologists were one group that seem very skeptical of the claims that continued warming is the most likely scenario for our planet. Here is an excellent commentary that quotes two top experts, Bill Gray who calls the scaremongering a hoax, and Roger Pielke Sr. who claims there isn't enough intellectual diversity in the debate.

The Fox story suggested that the folks most likely to know about forecasting weather recognize that the system has so many variables, that to zero in on one variable, CO2 concentrations, is not likely to yield good predictions of future weather. The impact of the Sun and clouds alone is so little understood that long term prediction over years or decades is fraught with unknowables.

Global Warming Conference - Skeptics Not Skeptical

Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame was one of the speakers in this weekend's Global Warming Conference. He began his talk by calling on Skeptics (the conference was part of the annual meeting of the Skeptics Society) to be more skeptical. And that would certainly be part of what I took away from the weekend.

I applaud Michael Shermer, founder and chairman of the Skeptics Society, for his excellent choices in speakers. Not only were they talented and esteemed in their profession, but they offered a broad range of opinion. However, one could sense a circling of the wagons among the "academy" as one after another, the skeptics are "flipping" to the hysteric global warming position.

For anyone who is interested in the global warming issue, the intersection of faith and science, or the isolation of the academic elites, come back often over the next few days. There is so much to report on the happenings of this conference that I am certain I could fill a book.

Here is a teaser: Everyone agrees that the earth has warmed 1 degree F over the past 100 years or so. A solid majority of the speakers at this conference and the community of scientists that study this area, agree that the warming will continue into the next century. Most folks agree that man may be contributing to the warming. But the debate revolves around the percent of man's contribution, the future of that contribution and its effects. And, within my limited scope of understanding, it all seems to come down to one greenhouse gas, CO2. More later.

Partying With Scientists

As heretofore mentioned, my son Brian (17) and I are attending a Global Warming Conference. The promise of this conference, put on by the Skeptics Society, is a presentation of both sides of the issue. To that end they have assembled a very impressive list of scientists and pundits which we will be hearing from today. We will report, probably ad nauseum, on our take of things.

Last night we were entertained by the producer and one of the stars of Mythbusters, the very popular Discovery Channel program that sets out to scientifically prove or disprove popular urban legends. For instance, they tackled the question of whether a bullet fired from inside a plane through the skin of a fully pressurized airliner would blow a giant hole in the plane, with passengers and anything else not tied down sucked out into space. Nope. This was a highly entertaining and funny hour.

Of great interest to both Brian and me was the confirmation of the stereotype of scientists as God mocking liberals. Roy Zimmerman, a very talented comedian, singer, satirist, provide a second hour of entertainment last night. We laughed in spite of ourselves as he parodied every conservative and religious leader he could think of. But the parodies, while funny, belittled and attempted to marginalize those who didn't think like Roy. To a certain extent, this is what one expects from satire, but it was pretty over-the-top. Brian was pretty sure this guy would be "Left Behind."

On the other hand, we ate our meal with an Astronomer who shared many of our views. We didn't talk religion (he was from Iran, and might well have been Muslim.) However, he clearly agreed with me that the global warming scaremongers are way out ahead of themselves, and that the sun is probably doing the lion's share of any warming that is taking place. He talked about the planets self-healing mechanisms, and thought mankind should be looking towards adaptation, not attempting to slow or stop the climatic changes.

He found that his opinions put him in a tiny minority. The fact that he is politically just to the right of center meant that his peers saw him as quite the odd duck. I may report more about this fellow later. He had very interesting things to say.

If They Built It . . . Will They Come, uh, Anyway

The question: Can we stop illegal crossings by Mexican immigrants?

I admit to being a skeptic, a contrarian, and even a curmudgeon. So I love it when conventional wisdom is turned on its head. I even love it when new wisdom turns out to be dead wrong, and old wive's tales proven accurate.

When it comes to building a wall between the US and Mexico, I've been leading the pack in favor. I have repeatedly backed Bush on his comprehensive approach, but agree with the need for a strong border defense.

Add to my personal view the fact that I started my professional career selling security hardware, and actually becoming a nationally recognized expert in small security devices (padlocks), and bicycle security. The stated goal was called the "good neighbor policy" ... secure your property better than your neighbors, and the thief will steal the neighbor's stuff first.

In other words, I believe in the ability of security devices to create a deterent to even sophisticated thieves. Thus, I would believe that walls, fences, barriers, drones, sonic devices, lasers, heat sensors, and other such approaches should be able to significantly deter folks from trying to cross our Southern border.

Now comes an editorial in Sunday's LA Times that gives me cause to question. Here it is, in its entirety:

You can't wall off immigrants
Fortified borders won't withstand the forces of supply and demand.
By Wayne A. Cornelius, WAYNE A. CORNELIUS is director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego and coauthor of "Impacts of U.S. Immigration Control Policies on Mexican Migration: The View from Sendi
May 28, 2006

BOTH THE SENATE and House versions of an immigration bill to keep unauthorized migrants out of the United States rely on the construction of hundreds of miles of new physical barriers, high-tech gadgetry and more manpower along the Southwestern border. But from Western Europe to the Far East, the evidence shows that anything short of complete militarization of borders will not deter illegal entry by determined, economically motivated migrants. Partial militarization only rechannels illegal migration, it doesn't reduce it overall. If the probability of apprehension isn't uniformly high, migrants will continue to cross in areas where risk of detection remains relatively low.

The latest case is Spain. Since the mid-1980s, the country has become a major destination and transit country for Third World migrants, especially from Africa and Latin America. But illegal immigration only became a crisis last fall, when waves of sub-Saharan Africans began jumping the fences that separate Ceuta and Melilla, Spain's small territorial enclaves on the North African coast, from Morocco.

In response, the Spanish government doubled the height of the fences and installed high-tech monitoring equipment to create the world's most elaborate electronic border-surveillance system. It also diplomatically pressured the Moroccan government to mobilize its police forces to stop migrants from using the country as an exit point.

The assaults on the border fortifications in Ceuta and Melilla followed Spain's installation of advanced radar-detection equipment and stepped-up maritime patrols in the Strait of Gibraltar. African migrants were crossing the nine-mile strait in small, grossly overloaded rubber rafts that often capsized in the rough waters, drowning their passengers. Spanish officials boasted that the new technology and added patrols made the country's southern borders "watertight."

But almost immediately, prospective migrants and the smugglers who assist them shifted their efforts toward the Atlantic. Spain's Canary Islands became their new destination. This was a much longer and more dangerous passage — a voyage of 100 miles from the Moroccan coast in often heavy seas. When the Moroccan government moved to shut down this route, migrant departure points shifted south to Mauritania, a journey of 600 miles to the Canary Islands. After another flurry of Spanish diplomatic activity, Mauritanian authorities began cracking down, which pushed embarkations farther south, to Senegal, a 900-mile voyage.

Despite the perilous, eight- to 10-day ocean crossing in flimsy wooden boats, sub-Saharan migrants continue to sail for the Canary Islands in record numbers. About 8,000 migrants have been apprehended so far this year, nearly double the total in 2005. Humanitarian organizations estimate 2,000 more have perished at sea.

In the face of the African exodus, the Spanish government continues to focus on intercepting migrants before they arrive or making their journey as difficult as possible. Spain does not have a guest worker program big enough to allow for an orderly, legal flow of African workers into its economy. Although the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last year legalized about 600,000 migrants who had been working in the country without authorization, there has been no systematic crackdown on employers who hire illegals, thus assuring that this workforce will grow again.

Spain is losing the battle for immigration control for two reasons. First, the real-income gap between Spain and sub-Saharan Africa is huge and growing, not so much because the migrant-sending countries are economically stagnant but because Spain's economy continues to outperform all other European Union countries. Unemployment has dropped dramatically since 1996, and native-born Spaniards overwhelmingly spurn the jobs done by foreign workers. Second, Spain is aging so rapidly that by 2030 its population will be the second oldest in the world, after Japan's, and replacement workers are urgently needed.

Spain's experience should be a cautionary tale for immigration reformers in the United States. Hardly anyone questions the efficacy of pouring ever more resources into border enforcement, which we have been doing since 1993, even as the population of illegal immigrants has nearly tripled.

The problem with fortifying borders is that it doesn't reduce the forces of supply and demand that drive illegal immigration. The Senate last week approved 370 miles of new double- and triple-layered fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers. In December, the House voted for 700 miles of new fortifications. If built, these new layers of protection will have no discernible effect on reducing the flow of illegal migrants from Mexico.

But these enhancements will enable smugglers to charge more for their services; divert crossings to more remote and dangerous areas, increasing migrant fatalities; induce more migrants and their family members to settle permanently here; and cause more crossings through legal ports of entry using false or borrowed documents.

The outcome might be different if we were prepared to accept the huge economic and diplomatic costs of militarizing 100% of our land borders with Mexico and Canada, as well as the Pacific and Gulf coasts, and the long-term expense of monitoring the fortifications. But polls say most Americans are leery of this approach. Even as part of a "comprehensive" immigration reform package, anything less than a full-blown Fortress America makes no sense, except as a symbolic reward to xenophobes.