ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 415

As the planet warms, doubters launch a new attack on a famous climate change study

By Chelsea Harvey

A former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist has reopened a contentious debate over the validity of a key agency climate change study, asserting that procedures for archiving its data were not properly followed by its authors.

The claims by John Bates, first published in the Mail on Sunday and later amplified in a blog post he authored, have prompted Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, to criticize NOAA senior officials for “playing fast and loose with the data in order to meet a politically predetermined conclusion.”

But many scientists, although hesitant to pronounce on the specific charges about data archiving, have pointed out that the research has been independently confirmed by another recent study — and that in any case, none of this raises any significant doubt about human-caused climate change. Meanwhile, the researchers behind the original NOAA paper have disagreed strongly with Bates’s charges, as has at least one scientist who worked with the team.

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Arctic 2.0: What Happens after All the Ice Goes?

By Julia Rosen

As the Arctic slipped into the half-darkness of autumn last year, it seemed to enter the Twilight Zone. In the span of a few months, all manner of strange things happened.

The cap of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean started to shrink when it should have been growing. Temperatures at the North Pole soared more than 20 °C above normal at times. And polar bears prowling the shorelines of Hudson Bay had a record number of run-ins with people while waiting for the water to freeze over.

It was a stark illustration of just how quickly climate change is reshaping the far north. And if last autumn was bizarre, it’s the summers that have really got scientists worried. As early as 2030, researchers say, the Arctic Ocean could lose essentially all of its ice during the warmest months of the year—a radical transformation that would upend Arctic ecosystems and disrupt many northern communities.

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Can the Electoral College system be reformed?

by Richard Dawkins

Donald Trump was surely right when he said, in 2012, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy . . . A total sham and a travesty”. And he confirmed his sensible view on November 13th, 2016 (after winning the election by the Electoral College system, but losing the popular vote) “I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”

His argument is illustrated by a revealing map (shown above) on the same website from which I took those quotes. It shows the number of campaign visits to various states during the 2016 campaign.

Trump’s sensible point is reinforced by recollection of the 2000 election when there was a dead-heat in Florida, and the Supreme Court was invited to decide, on what might as well have been the flip of a coin, which candidate should get all 25 of the state’s EC votes and hence the presidency.

Most thinking people agree with Donald Trump that the present Electoral College system needs to go. But it’s widely recognized that it is almost impossible to abolish outright, because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress (or a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of state legislatures), and finally needs to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. Even given widespread goodwill, that’s a dauntingly high hurdle to clear. David Cameron might have done well to emulate it, at least to some degree, in his EU referendum which also, after all, concerned a major constitutional change.

The existing US constitution allows each state to choose its Electoral College delegates in its own way. Maine and Nebraska depart from the “winner take all” principle by allocating their (comparatively few) EC delegates by their own systems which approximate to a pro rata allocation. If all the states simultaneously followed suit it would work. But if only some states did, leaving the rest to persist with “winner take all”, it could be an undemocratic disaster. Imagine if California alone, or Texas alone, joined Nebraska and Maine! What is needed is a formula which doesn’t require all the states to adopt it simultaneously: a “gentle” departure from the status quo, such that things get slightly better (defined as closer to the popular vote) even if only some states adopt it, becoming progressively better as more and more states join in.

There is a formula which does exactly that. A state, any state, could unilaterally decide to allocate all its Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in the country at large. If all the states adopted this formula, the Electoral College would vote unanimously for the winner of the popular vote. If states adopted the system one by one, the EC majority would progressively approach closer and closer to the popular vote. No constitutional amendment would be needed.

Judges Will Soon Decide if Christian Prayers Are Legal at a TX District’s School Board Meetings

By Hemant Mehta

For several years now, the Birdville Independent School District in Texas has been a place where Christianity is routinely promoted and those who challenge Christian supremacy are punished. That battle finally came to a head at a U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday, but before we get to those details, it’s important to remember how we got to that point.

It started in 2013, when Isaiah Smith began exposing all sorts of religious violations at Birdville High School.

For example, after getting bullied for being gay, Isaiah brought a Bible to school to show his classmates why the verses they cited didn’t actually condemn gay people (an argument put forth by author Matthew Vines). In the process, Smith ripped out the pages from Leviticus.

That caused Assistant Principal Glenn Serviente to pull Isaiah from class and warn him that he must not cause a “disruption” by ripping the Bible. (I guess the bullies were not seen as disruptive…?) Isaiah promised not to rip it up any more, but asked for and received permission to continue carrying that Bible with him.

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Russian Academy of Sciences Calls Homeopathy Pseudoscience

By Steven Novella

Despite our many political differences, here is one topic about which the United States and Russia should be able to completely agree – homeopathy is pure pseudoscience. In fact Russia may have just taken the lead on this topic.

The Commission Against Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences just published a memorandum (“№2”, so I assume it is only their second) called: “About pseudoscientific homeopathy.” (It’s in Russian but just hit the Google Translate button.) Like the UK and Australia before them, members of the commission reviewed all the evidence regarding homeopathy and concluded:

The Commission argues that the treatment of ultra-low doses of various substances used in homeopathy has no scientific basis. This conclusion is based on a thorough analysis of publications in scientific journals, clinical study reports, compilation and systematic reviews. The Commission confirms that the principles of homeopathy and theoretical explanation of the mechanisms of its alleged actions contradict the known chemical, physical and biological laws and convincing experimental confirmation of its effectiveness are not available. Homeopathic diagnosis and treatment should be qualified as pseudoscientific.

In other words, homeopathy cannot possibly work, and when studied it does not work. How many scientific organizations around the world have to come to this conclusion before governments wake up and do their job?

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Annabelle Gurwitch – Openly Secular

Writer, actress, Annabelle Gurwitch, from Los Angeles, CA gives her reasons for being openly secular.

Mid-Sized Black Hole Found Hiding in Globular Cluster

By Jesse Emspak

For decades, astronomers have tracked black holes with masses millions of times that of the sun, as well as those with tens of solar masses. But black holes between those two extremes have proved elusive. Now, astronomers studying a globular cluster have found just such a black hole at its center, showing that intermediate-mass black holes could be hiding out in these compact agglomerations of stars.

Lead study author Bülent Kiziltan, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), and his co-authors Holger Baumgardt (of Australia’s University of Queensland) and Abraham Loeb (also of CfA) found a black hole between 1,400 and 3,700 solar masses at the center of 47 Tucanae, a globular cluster in the southern sky some 16,700 light-years from Earth.

Black holes are usually found because they emit massive amounts of X-rays as matter falls in. Midsize black-hole candidates have been found in galaxies; a group from the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center found one in another galaxy in 2015, and there are about a dozen objects in total. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]

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Orangutan squeaks reveal language evolution, says study

By Victoria Gill

Scientists who spent years listening to the communication calls of one of our closest ape relatives say their eavesdropping has shed light on the origin of human language.

Dr Adriano Reis e Lameira from Durham University recorded and analysed almost 5,000 orangutan “kiss squeaks”.

He found that the animals combined these purse-lipped, “consonant-like” calls to convey different messages.

This could be a glimpse of how our ancestors formed the earliest words.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

“Human language is extraordinarily advanced and complex – we can pretty much transmit any information we want into sound,” said Dr Reis e Lameira.

“So we tend to think that maybe words evolved from some rudimentary precursor to transmit more complex messages.

“We were basically using the orangutan vocal behaviour as a time machine – back to a time when our ancestors were using what would become [those precursors] of consonants and vowels.”

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Americans United: We’ll Fight Attempts by Betsy DeVos to Fund Religious Schools with Taxpayer Money

By Hemant Mehta

With the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, one church/state separation group is already talking about how it will oppose her plans to defund our public school system in order to support religious education.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State says it will fight any attempt at a voucher system that would take taxpayer money away from public schools in order to fund religious education:

Americans United vowed to oppose any attempts by DeVos and President Donald Trump’s administration to defund public schools by redirecting taxpayer dollars to private schools that lack accountability and typically perform no better — and sometimes worse — than public schools. AU also is concerned that vouchers will be used at private religious schools that teach religion, such as creationism and anti-LGBTQ curriculum. AU notes that these school don’t provide the same civil rights protections — including those that protect students with disabilities and young women against discrimination — that public schools do.

Voters have shown their lack of confidence in voucher programs by voting them down in ballot referenda across the country, including in DeVos’ home state of Michigan. And the nature of her confirmation — requiring Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote for the first time in our nation’s history for a cabinet appointee — should send a clear signal that she lacks public support.

“We’re disappointed that more senators didn’t listen to their constituents who have protested DeVos’ nomination for weeks,” [Executive Director Rev. Barry W.] Lynn said. “We hope the American people will join us in continuing to loudly voice support for public education and opposition to misguided voucher schemes.”

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Endangered antelope ‘may be wiped out’

By Victoria Gill

The death of more than 2,000 critically endangered Saiga antelope in Mongolia was caused by a disease that could now threaten the entire population.

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) scientists, who work in the affected grassland area of Western Mongolia, say the disease originated in livestock.

It is a virus known as PPR or Peste des Petits Ruminants.

WCS veterinary scientist Dr Enkhtuvshin Shiilegdamba told BBC News that 2,500 Saiga had already died.

The animal carcasses are burned to prevent the spread of the disease.

Researchers described the speed of the disease spread as “alarming”.

“The first case of PPR was confirmed in the Saiga on only 2nd January this year,” Dr Shiilegdamba told BBC News.

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