Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Public discussion in a brainwashed society leads nowhere




Yesterday I went to the debate devoted to the Day of Europe at Teatro Lethes (see p. 46 of their Agenda), with Paulo Dentinho and Ricardo Pais Mamede as panelists. Unfortunately, public participation in the debate got limited to the personal friends of the moderator (person different from that announced in the Agenda), therefore I could not contribute. Both panelists were mildly critical of the EU institutions and of the single European currency, getting some applause, though following the national elites in promoting no action at all on either of these issues. The most important opinions expressed may be summed up as "EU has been fundamental in keeping peace in Europe since WWII", "we are better in EU than out", "we may get out of the single currency, by the decision of others" and "any significant changes in European institutions may only be initiated by Germany".
Importantly, both panelists proudly contribute to the mediatic environment that generates the tide of fake news, modeling the public conscience into acceptance of all of the policies promoted by the EU industries. Apparently they have brainwashed themselves as well, condemned to thinking-inside-the-box.
This begs some questions, which I will limit to information and economics, the areas of the professional activity of the panelists. Mr. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, the stalwart of democracy and the country that is providing for the defence of the EU, told us that Reuters has been the main generator of fake news in his respect. This is obviously true, as may be easily verified by consulting the video records of his speeches that Reuters has been deliberately distorting. Has RTP admitted its errors in citing Reuters? Is Mr Dentinho, the director of Information at RTP, planning to do some actual journalism instead of translating Reuters fake news? Will Portuguese public ever receive the news service it is paying for?
The economic ideas of Mr Mamede are quite naive, as he fails to understand the very notion of money. The absurdity of the single currency in the system with many different economies with their specific national tax legislations goes far beyond the fact that economic competitiveness may require different price of money in different economies, gravely affecting the weaker economies that have no say in the matter. Indeed, Lenin wrote already 100 years ago that it is the international capital who will be profiting from the united Europe. Mr Memede, while mentioning Piketty who demonstrated the accumulation of capital predicted by Marx, refuses to recognise that the primary problem of the EU single currency lies in the very nature of capitalism. Thus, the single currency is used by the capital as a profit-making tool, starting from the member states having to borrow money from private banks in order to finance their current activities. Will Mr Mamede ever attempt to think out of his comfortable box?

Sunday, February 23, 2014

IPCC is all about money - as we already knew!



This is what came recently into my email box:

With the compliments of Cambridge University Press.

As you were a Contributing Author or Expert Reviewer of the IPCC AR5 Working Group I volume 'Climate Change 2013: The Scientific Basis', I am delighted to offer you a special discount, should you wish to order copies of the printed volume direct from Cambridge University Press. The volume is available for pre-order now.

Please click on the following website to order copies at the discount rate:
www.cambridge.org/knowledge/academic_discountpromotion/?&code=IPCC13

I have also attached a discount flyer: please feel free to forward this to your colleagues. The 20% discount runs until the end of 2014.

We will also be publishing the Working Group II and III volumes later in 2014, at which time you will also be able to order those.

In addition, if you should have any plans of your own to write or edit books in the future, then I would of course be very interested to hear from you.

Best wishes,
Matt Lloyd 
 
(See attached file: WGI AR5 IPCC volume discount flyer.pdf)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Matt Lloyd
Editor: Earth Sciences
Publishing Director: Science, Technology & Medicine, Americas
Cambridge University Press
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA
mlloyd@cambridge.org
tel +1 212-337-5956
Follow us on Twitter CambUP_earthsci

Thus, those who would like to read the IPCC climate lies on paper, have to pay for it. Obviously, my review (posted below) had been completely ignored by the IPCC fraudsters. While money talks, science has to shut up.

Monday, November 11, 2013

On the quality of research, or - are we doing any science?



On November 1, 2013, I spent half a day at the 5th Portuguese Conference on Polar Sciences, at the Algarve University in Faro. I was doing a social sciences experiment, making observations relevant to two science-related issues:

 

1. Do researchers know what science is?


I asked two of the researchers who were making their reports the following question: Taking into account that any progress of science is only possible if we formulate and question hypotheses, seeking experimental evidence allowing to reject some of these hypotheses, what were the hypotheses you have formulated, and how have your experimental evidence helped to reject some of them?

One of the presenters had no idea whatsoever what I was talking about. The other tried to excuse himself, saying that "we should not be so fundamentalist about this". Well, either we are doing science, or we are doing fact-finding or statistics (rather useless and wasteful, without a hypothesis that would define what to look for) - it is nice to be able to take photos of poorly accessible places, and do it on public money, but this is not what science is. His co-author, however, stated that they were discussing hypotheses in their poster - which I could not confirm; indeed, they were discussing issues related with human perception and theory of knowledge and learning, but I could not find any evidence of them trying to falsify some hypothesis that they have formulated.

One more researcher had a hypothesis formulated in a previous publication by a different group - and then was looking for evidence that conformed to this hypothesis. She went to the same place and collected some different species - which did behave in a similar way in similar conditions. So what? Was she looking for anything new, contradicting to her original hypothesis? Well, she was not. She does not understand what science is.

Still another (senior) researcher did have some hypotheses formulated in his slides, and mentioned it in the beginning of his talk, alerted by my questions to his colleagues. However, he mentioned no attempts to falsify any of these hypotheses - once more, they were searching for conforming evidence - and wasting public funding. In fact, no hypothesis may be definitely and unquestionably proven; those who think otherwise commit a logical error - and there is no sin in science worse than that. If your logic fails, how can you aspire to be a scientist?

There were more presentations, discussing new financing opportunities and collaborations that would lead to more public spending, but not science ...

2. Are scientific conferences discussing science?


Well, this one has not.

Firstly, there was not much of science to discuss - what was presented, apart from nice photos from Arctic or Antarctic, was some research, either without an idea (without a specific working hypothesis), or attempting to confirm an idea (a hypothesis). As already noted, no progress of science is possible in either of the two cases.

Secondly, there were no questions asked about science by the audience - apart from mine. However, I was not given an opportunity to question every presenter - the usual excuse was that they are behind the schedule, and have time for only one question - which was given to someone else. On at least one occasion, the lady who was presiding the session abused of her powers and asked the (only allowed) question herself, instead of giving an opportunity to the audience. The questions asked by other participants were very few, and usually touched either on minor details of the experimental procedures, or on the future plans of the respective research group ...

Obviously, the conference was supported by the taxpayer money, same as the rest of the "research effort".

_

Friday, June 7, 2013

Comment on science fraud submitted - and rejected

 

Pseudoscience Applied in Study of Pseudoscience 


Igor Khmelinskii1, Peter Stallinga2
1: University of The Algarve Faculty of Science and Technology Centro de Investigação em Química do Algarve e-mail: ikhmelin@ualg.pt
2: University of The Algarve Faculty of Science and Technology Center for Electronics Optoelectronics and Telecommunications e-mail: pjotr@ualg.pt

The recent paper by John Cook et al. (2013) analyses the scientific consensus over the anthropogenic global warming. We shall start by noting that the term 'consensus' belongs to politics and not to science. Science has never been done by consensus, it is done by facts. Also, science is not a parliamentary democracy, the scientific truth is not decided by vote; science may occasionally even amount to heresy, as happened, for instance, in the case of Galileo. Therefore, any attempts to divert from facts to anything else, including consensus, make us suspect pseudoscience.

We shall use the working definition of the scientific method as given by Feynman (1965): "... we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if that law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation with nature, with experiment, or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong." It follows from this definition that we are unable to prove any hypothesis by providing conforming evidence; we are only able to reject a hypothesis by providing contradictory evidence. Reformulating, while we have several alternative hypotheses, each of them explaining the existing experimental evidence, we are unable to favor any of them. Effort should be spent on finding proof to reject some of the alternative hypotheses.
Note that all of the pro-AGW climate research is, by this definition, undeniably pseudoscientific and the respective researchers are pseudoscientists, for the simple reason that finding proof for any theory, including the AGW hypothesis, is not science. On the other hand, searching for failure of a theory is science. However, AGW has already been falsified many times, more than the single time required by the scientific method and no more research is needed in this field. Researchers are either not doing science (pro-AGW), or go about reinventing the wheel over and over again (anti-AGW). Indeed, Carter (2010) lists eight independent tests for the AGW hypothesis in his Ref. 228, and Khmelinskii et al. (2010) offer another two. The AGW hypothesis fails any and all of these tests, and must therefore be discarded.

Now, as follows from their conclusions, John Cook et al. (2013) assume that the level of AGW consensus, as derived from published peer-reviewed papers, accurately reflects the opinions of scientists. However, they ignored several (alternative or compatible) hypotheses that may also explain the observed prevalence of pro-AGW views in peer-reviewed literature. The first alternative is the 'verbal diarrhea' hypothesis. Indeed, pseudoscientists, in contradiction with common logics, try to prove the AGW hypothesis by publishing as much confirming data as they can, which causes a proliferation of pro-AGW publications. On the other hand, the scientific approach would require just one paper that falsifies the AGW hypothesis, whereupon the respective scientist could move to another topic of studies. The second alternative is the censorship by biased editors. Indeed, assuming a 1:1 proportion between pro-AGW pseudoscientists and anti-AGW scientists in climate-related research, and the same proportion between scientists (objectively minded) and pseudoscientists (biased) as editors, and also assuming that biased editors reject all of anti-AGW papers where anti-AGW scientists let pass 50% independent of type, we shall immediately obtain a 1:3 proportion between anti-AGW and pro-AGW publications. The third hypothesis is the grant-money corruption. Obviously, researchers need funds for their research, while a publication that demonstrates that the AGW problem does not exist will not look well on their curriculum if they apply for a grant to study climate change. Note that climate-related research and policies are being financed at US$10 billion a year (Carter, 2010, p. 149); this sum alone constitutes a strong temptation to embrace the climate pseudoscience. The fourth hypothesis is the noble-cause corruption (Carter, 2010, Ch. 7). Having ignored the alternative hypotheses, instead of falsifying them by providing contradictory evidence, John Cook et al. (2013) undertook a pseudoscientific statistical study, which does not enable to arrive to any valid conclusions about the real opinions of the scientific community on the AGW problem. As a more important conclusion, no further research that aims to prove or disprove the AGW hypothesis should be financed, as objectively it would be a waste of public funds – this hypothesis has already been falsified.

REFERENCES

[1] J. Cook, D. Nuccitelli, S. A Green, M. Richardson, B. Winkler, R. Painting, R. Way, P. Jacobs, and A. Skuce, "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature", Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 024024 (2013) doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
[2] R. Feynman "The Character of Physical Law", The M.I.T. Press. (1965), p. 156. ISBN 0-262-56003-8.
[3] R. M. Carter, "Climate: The counter consensus", Stacey International Publishers (2010). ISBN 978-1-906768-29-4.
[4] "Climate Change Policies for the XXIst Century: Mechanisms, Predictions and Recommendations", I. Khmelinskii and P. Stallinga, International Journal of Energy and Environment, 4 (2010) pp. 237-244. Online: http://www.naun.org/journals/ energyenvironment/19-660.pdf and http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5845

Reply by the editorial office

Final decision on your article from Environ. Res. Lett. - ERL/476364/COM/310360
...
This is not a scientific comment. Comments on ERL articles must present a robust challenge the science or methods in a published article, as this article clearly does not contain this, we should reject the comment as unsuitable.
...

Thursday, November 29, 2012

My official Expert Review of the 5th IPCC Climate Report


Follows the text of my expert review, as submitted to the IPCC (Reviewer file: 721; submission date: 2012-11-30; Reviewer ID: 1249).
  1. Legal Disclaimer. IPCC and/or any of its representatives/ associates/ affiliates/ divisions/ governing bodies/ subsidiaries will not use my name in the IPCC documents and publications, unless they make the entire text of the dissenting minority opinions expressed in my review available to general public, the text of this Disclaimer included. In no case will they mention me as a person who had endorsed or otherwise approved the presently reviewed Draft, unless fraudulent content is removed in the final version of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
  2. This and the following Paragraphs, up to and including Paragraph 8, refer to the entire Chapter 9. Chapter 9 is the key part of the entire Report, as it is supposed to discuss the climate models, which allegedly provide (the only existing) material evidence that the warming observed in the second half of the 20th century is caused by greenhouse gases generated by humanity, which I will henceforth refer to as the "Anthropogenic Global Warming" (AGW) hypothesis. In fact, apart from models, there is no other way to establish cause-and-effect relation between greenhouse gases (most importantly, carbon dioxide) and climate, as we are unable to perform well-controlled experiments on our climate system. Interpretation of historic climate data does not provide any alternative demonstration of such relation, as any such interpretation is based on the same (wrong, as I shall demonstrate) climate models, and thus amounts to circular reasoning.
  3. The Scientific Method had been defined, for example, by Richard Feynman (Feynman, Richard (1965), The Character of Physical Law, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, ISBN 0-262-56003-8.; p. 156) as follows: "In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong." As a consequence of this definition, a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis, whereas no amount of corroborating evidence may prove or confirm a hypothesis - by stating otherwise one would commit a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent/denying the antecedent" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy). The logical fallacy of this Chapter is in making the (implicit and ever present in the Report) statement that it is the anthropogenically produced carbon dioxide that is causing the global warming, based on the knowledge that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases affect climate to some extent. In other words, they accept the AGW hypothesis as final truth, without even trying to use the Scientific Method and test the hypothesis. By doing that, this key Chapter and the entire Report assume a non-scientific dogmatic approach, as all of the previous Reports uniformly do, which necessarily and inevitably produces non-scientific (and, as I shall demonstrate, fraudulent) conclusions.
  4. In effect, Chapter 9 failed to address two key questions, which must be addressed before one tries using the models for understanding present and future climate: (1) Do the models represent the physics of our terrestrial climate system correctly? (with the emphasis on "correctly") (2) Have the predictions made by these same (or slightly modified) models five, ten or fifteen years ago become true? These should be the questions to ask before one tries making any climate predictions and/or policy recommendations based on the models. I shall address these questions in paragraphs 5, 6, and 7, and 8, respectively.
  5. I will discuss only two of the publications that allow us to reject the AGW hypothesis, although, according to Paragraph 3, a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. The first one is the paper by Lindzen and Choi ("On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data", R. Lindzen, Y.-S. Choi, Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, 2009, pp. L16705. doi:10.1029/2009GL039628.). These authors demonstrate in their Fig. 2 and in the rest of the paper that the IPCC climate models distort the essential physics of the terrestrial climate system. Indeed, all of the climate models produce a reduction in the outgoing infra-red radiation upon an increase in surface temperature on Earth, whereas the experimental results, extracted from satellite data, evidence an increase in the outgoing infra-red radiation, in the same conditions. Therefore, our terrestrial climate system behaves as if it were in a stable state of equilibrium: indeed, its behaviour corresponds to the Le Chatelier's principle (the system always reacts to any change in such a way that the externally imposed change is partially compensated; see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier%27s_principle), whereas the climate models behave like an unstable system, amplifying all and every temperature change. We therefore see that the models that reproduce the conditions and conclusions of the AGW hypothesis do so at the cost of distorting essential physics of the terrestrial climate system. Therefore, the AGW hypothesis is wrong, as it has not been reproduced in models describing the climate physics correctly. Moreover, the AGW hypothesis can not be reproduced in models describing climate physics correctly, as it is impossible to attribute the warming of the 20th century to carbon dioxide based on correct models. The important conclusion that necessarily and inevitably follows from this paper is that the AGW hypothesis is wrong, as it is only viable in the virtual reality of the IPCC climate models, fundamentally different from the physical reality of the terrestrial climate system.
  6. The second publication I will discuss is the one by Khmelinskii and Stallinga (“Climate Change in the XXIst Century: Mechanisms and Predictions”, I. Khmelinskii and P. Stallinga, in Proceedings of the 6th IASME / WSEAS International Conference on ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT (EE '11), Cambridge, UK, February 20-25, 2011, eds. Z. Bojkovic et al., RECENT RESEARCHES in ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT, WSEAS Press, 2011, ISSN: 1792-8230; ISBN: 978-960-474-274-5, pp. 26-31. Available: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2011/Cambridge/EE/EE-02.pdf). These authors in their Fig. 1 and in the text of the paper analyze the recent history of the global average Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and compare it to the recent history of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, in an attempt to find the signature of the AGW in the SST data. In fact, they could find no such signature, due to the fact that human carbon dioxide emissions started growing exponentially in the second half of the 20th century, whereas SST had two (virtually identical) growth periods, one of which in the first half of the 20th century, when little or no excess carbon dioxide had been liberated into the atmosphere by humanity. These authors therefore conclude that the AGW hypothesis has to be rejected, based on the recent SST history. Note that SST is a better indicator of the climate evolution than the global average temperature, being unaffected by interfering factors such as the Urban Heat Island effect. The latter distorts climate data gathered on the continents, with additional uncertainty introduced by the corrections made to compensate for it.
  7. In Paragraphs 5 and 6 I discussed two papers, each of the two providing sufficient grounds to reject the AGW hypothesis. I shall not discuss any further evidence against the AGW hypothesis, considering it rejected, according to Feynman's definition presented in Paragraph 3. Additionally, I conclude that the IPCC climate models are wrong, as they obviously distort the essential climate physics, and therefore any and all of their results and conclusions should be expressly and unconditionally rejected and disregarded in their entirety.
  8. It is well known that there has been no global warming for the last 15 years, contrary to the IPCC predictions produced by IPCC climate models for the same period of time. Moreover, we have reasons to believe (see, for example, H. Abdussamatov, 2008, The Sun defines the Climate, http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/abduss_nkj_2009.pdf) that instead of the "global warming" we are in for a new Little Ice Age, already in progress, which will be similar to the Maunder minimum of solar activity as regards temperatures and other climate-related consequences. Therefore, the IPCC models have not (because they distort climate physics) and will not (for the same reason, and also because they neglect solar change) predict future climate, and thus should be rejected and disregarded, as I have obtained negative answers for the two key questions of Paragraph 4.
  9. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 2. Chapter 2 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Atmosphere and Surface". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  10. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 3. Chapter 3 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Ocean". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  11. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 4. Chapter 4 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Cryosphere". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  12. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 5. Chapter 5 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Paleoclimate Archives". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in our my 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  13. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 6. Chapter 6 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  14. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 7. Chapter 7 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Clouds and Aerosols". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  15. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 8. Chapter 8 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is frequently done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  16. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 10. Chapter 10 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, the data interpretation in the publications is exclusively done based on the same climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitutes a fraud.
  17. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 11. Chapter 11 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability". These projections and predictions are based exclusively on the same IPCC climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitute a fraud.
  18. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 12. Chapter 12 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility". The projections, predictions and scenarios discussed here are based exclusively on the same IPCC climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitute a fraud.
  19. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 13. Chapter 13 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Sea Level Change". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, data interpretation and projections, predictions and scenarios are based exclusively on the same IPCC climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitute a fraud.
  20. This paragraph refers to the entire Chapter 14. Chapter 14 reviews some of the published information on the topic "Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change". However, the motivation for the reviewed research effort and the logic behind it is more often fraudulent than not, as the respective research frequently follows the pseudo-scientific reasoning that "more corroborating evidence produces a stronger case for the AGW hypothesis". In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, as shown in my Paragraph 3. Indeed, no amount of corroborating evidence can prove a hypothesis, while a single piece of contradictory evidence is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. In effect, the only (dubiously) useful result of this research effort is the "general progress of science", resulting from wasteful usage of public money on climate studies, where no real problem requiring study may be found. Even the PhD degrees earned as a result of such research are of dubious (in the very least) value, as we are producing more pseudo-scientists certified as scientists, in addition to the already existing pseudo-scientists. Research based on the AGW hypothesis, known to be wrong, may provide no valid scientific results, as its conclusions are already known before the research even began - these conclusions being "AGW is happening, and we are to blame for it". Additionally, data interpretation and projections, predictions and scenarios are based exclusively on the same IPCC climate models, which are demonstrably wrong (as shown in my Paragraphs 2 to 8), and therefore constitute a fraud.
  21. This paragraph refers to the entire "Summary for the policy makers". As detailed above, the Report is built from fraudulent pseudo-scientific constructs based on the AGW dogma, containing no science. Therefore, any conclusions and recommendations presented in this chapter have no scientific backing, and should be expressly ignored. The corrected Summary for policy makers should thus read "There is nothing wrong with our climate. We have no climate problem, and need no solutions for this climate problem. All of the currently implemented solutions to the alleged climate problem should be revoked, effective immediately. We are sorry for defrauding the general public in the previous Reports we have produced so far."
  22. This paragraph refers to the entire Report. As amply demonstrated above, the current draft Report is a fraudulent pseudo-scientific construct based on the AGW dogma, adopted uncritically and never questioned. Its climate projections and predictions have no scientific backing and can't be used as a justification for any type of public policies. Similarly, all of the public policies implemented as the result of previous Reports have no scientific backing and should be immediately and entirely revoked and discontinued.
  23. This paragraph refers to the entire Report. The body of the research that the Report pseudo-scientifically presents as "proof" of the AGW hypothesis is constituted by the primary and direct fraud of the IPCC climate models and general research approach, and by the secondary and indirect fraud of the most of the remaining research that uses these models in the interpretation of climate data, for climate predictions, and in discussing development scenarios for the humanity and for the natural systems. The only research that may be valid as regards to facts (but never as regards their interpretation, because the interpretation is based on fundamentally wrong models) is the research studying current consequences of the climate change. However, this research is non-scientific in its motivation, aiming to provide "proof" for the AGW hypothesis by presenting corroborating evidence (which is a logically impossible task - see Paragraph 3), and largely irrelevant. That because no action humanity might feasibly take could revert the natural phenomena that we are not the cause of in the first place. The Report and the body of research it reviews are therefore a waste of public funds and a scientific fraud.
  24. This paragraph refers to the entire report, containing final notes for the reader who is not well-versed in the philosophy of science, and should be read in conjunction with all of the previous paragraphs of my Review. Note that I did not need to read the entire draft Report, nor enter into details of each Chapter, in order to understand whether or not the Report is scientifically valid. This is because I am able to produce the judgement of the fraudulent character of this and other previous Climate Reports based on their failure to implement the Scientific Method and question the AGW hypothesis. The AGW hypothesis is commonly implemented in the form of one or more climate models that are being used to interpret current and past experimental results and make predictions about future climate. In order to attribute the recent global warming to greenhouse gas emissions, and thus to human activities, these models have been specifically tuned, by introducing positive climate feedbacks. The draft Report discusses climate models in its Chapter 9, therefore Chapter 9 would be the logical place to implement the Scientific Method and question the validity of the climate models and thus the validity of the AGW hypothesis. Reading through Chapter 9 and its list of references, I find that no such questioning had been done, and no papers that question the validity of climate models have been discussed. By failing to implement the Scientific Method, the authors of Chapter 9 have confirmed their status of pseudo-scientists, having transformed their Chapter into an exercise in dogmatic propaganda. Its fraudulent character is evident from the ease with which these authors could have rejected the AGW hypothesis, same as I had in the present Review. Thus, based on the fraudulent science of Chapter 9, the entire Climate Report looses any connection to the objective reality, becoming a pseudo-scientific construct based on the AGW dogma. Indeed, there may be no Science if one chooses to ignore the Scientific Method, as the Report authors do. Without the Scientific Method, they are limited to the pseudo-scientific and logically faulty search of evidence that "confirms" their AGW hypothesis, stalling the scientific progress and insulting the general public in their expectations of obtaining scientifically valid climate predictions, instead of the climate fraud that over the years of its existence has been, and now once more is being, produced by the IPCC.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

A despendiosa Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia



A Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) distribui anualmente (veja p. 50 do documento referenciado) cerca de 500 milhões de euros de financiamento. Entretanto,  emprega cerca de 300 trabalhadores e estagiários. Contas feitas, são 1,7 milhões de euros por trabalhador.

Entretanto, o projecto INTAS, que foi gerido por apenas 6 pessoas, tinha distribuído, na média, 20 milhões de euros anualmente, entre 1993 e 2003. Assim, geriu 3,3 milhões de euros por trabalhador.

Desta forma, a FCT tem que despedir metade de pessoal empregado, para entrar nos padrões de boas práticas internacionais.

Anteriormente, vimos que a TAP emprega o dobro da média europeia, por cada avião que voa.

Conclusão do fundo: o aparelho central do Estado Português pode ser reduzido a 50% do existente, sem minimamente comprometer o seu funcionamento.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Ocean acidification - is it a problem?



Let us look at hard facts.

One hard fact is that in the past Earth had much higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which had not reduced biodiversity - on the contrary, biodiversity had increased - namely, hard corals came into existence in one of such periods, and soft corals in another.

Another hard fact is that for significant "acidification" to take place in nature, the dissolved acidic
CO2 in the oceans should increase, without being compensated by the basicity of the dissolved calcium (and magnesium) ions. In practice, this can never happen for a very simple reason - the CO2 concentrations are not growing quickly enough for that.

Indeed, assuming that we continue burning as much fossil fuels as we want, then we expect the atmospheric
CO2 concentrations to double by 2100, with a characteristic time of about 150 years. On the other hand, the characteristic mixing time of the upper ocean is about 20 years, while the characteristic pH equilibration time of the shallow-water biologically productive zones inhabited by calcifying biota is about 10 years. The latter time was estimated based on the annual volume of the river runoff and the amount of seawater existing in the coastal shallow-water zones. These numbers tell us that calcium (+magnesium) will be perfectly capable of accompanying the increasing concentrations of carbonate ions, maintaining the pH of the seawater fairly constant. In fact, it will never change by much more than it has already changed during the last century (0.1 pH), as the entire process has already achieved steady rates in some 70 years since it had started (70 years is much more than 20 years, mathematically speaking, therefore the non-steady initial kinetic phase has already finished).

There is an additional factor that helps to equilibrate carbonate with calcium (+magnesium), namely the chemical equilibrium. We know that the solubility of acidic carbon dioxide in pure water is lower than its solubility in water containing basic calcium (and magnesium) ions, therefore additional CO2 will actually dissolve in seawater after it acquires additional amounts of basicity, brought in by the river runoff from the continents, and not before. This factor further reduces the possible pH changes of the seawater.

As regards calcifying biota, it will certainly benefit from the increased dissolved carbonate and dissolved calcium (+magnesium), in the same way as plants benefit from increased atmospheric
CO2. More CO2 implies higher agricultural yields and higher seafood yields, all in benefit of humanity.

In two words: ocean acidification is a scam, same as the anthropogenic global warming. This hoax, however, is providing for thousands of careers of pseudo-scientists who make their living of studying nonexistent problems, using our tax money to defraud us and earn grants and distinctions. 


Ocean acidification is a moral and a criminal problem, rather than an environmental problem. Environmentally, it is not a problem, and will never become a problem.