Any discussion involving science or technology can quickly become "too complicated for the layman.'' Although some subjects are sufficiently specialized as to require unique study for their understanding, most are not. Usually, the apparent complication arises from vocabulary and conceptual abbreviations that are simple but unfamiliar to the uninitiated. The image of scientists with advanced degrees, high foreheads, and furrowed brows thinking great thoughts that are beyond the ability of most mere mortals is a sham. It is, however, necessary to the understanding of science as of most other subjects to be able to think - clearly and independently. It is an unwillingness to think that permits most pseudoscience to flourish. Each day, for example, the front page of 
From this column, we might learn something like "yesterday's report of the consumer price index showed an increase of 0.3% from the previous month. This sign of resurgent inflation has dampened the bond market and also caused a drop in stock prices as traders worry that the Fed will raise interest rates.'' But wait - it is immediately obvious from looking at the graph that this index fluctuates in a range of about 0.5% and that last month's number was
down by 0.2%. By turning the newspaper sideways and sighting down the curve or by drawing a pencil line through the values to create a rough average, one can see that the 0.3% value is well within the normal fluctuations and no noticeable change in the inflation trend has taken place.Why then are these apparently mindless single point analyses published alongside the graphs? As a regular reader of this page, I have turned it sideways and visually averaged such graphs literally thousands of times to escape the errors of these written analyses. Are the writers of the front page of
The Wall Street Journal addicted to misanalysis in which they blame or credit market movements on whatever number is at hand? Perhaps, but is is far more likely that significant numbers of market participants are mindlessly led to make economic decisions on the basis of insignificant fluctuations.Everyone should read the first 100 pages of
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, first published in 1841. There is a 1980 edition published by Bonanza Books in New York. Mackay's accounts of the Mississippi Scheme, the South-Sea Bubble, and the Tulipomania are merely extreme examples of ordinary human behavior. This mindless behavior is even quantitatively predictable. Excellent procedures for market trading have been based upon it. A depressingly large percentage of people are controlled by such emotions as greed and fear to an extent that they are swayed only by "facts'' that conform to their desired view. As Adlai Stevenson observed, "Decisions are made in the viscera and ratified by the mind.'' Even obviously flawed "facts'' are sufficient for these people."A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper'' by J. A. Paulos in the
Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 1996, as quoted in The New American, January 22, 1996, available from 770 Westhill Blvd., Ap-pleton, WI 54914, cites the value of normal oral human physiological temperature, which is 37° Centigrade. Human temperature fluctuates from person to person and as a function of time of day and other factors. Since most values lie between 36.5° C and 37.5° C, the value 37° C - given to only two significant figures - is correctly stated. If the value were given as "37.0° C,'' however, this would be incorrect unless it was accompanied by an analysis of errors stating the experimentally observed variations in the values.Most people know this value as 98.6° Fahrenheit, which contains three significant figures and is actually the exact conversion of 37.0° C.
Therefore, 98.6° F is incorrectly stated. Most people have enough experience with taking temperatures that they realize that 98.6° F is only an average value - until symptoms of disease are present. Then, any deviation above 98.6° F is usually considered significant - because the subject then has a greater personal interest in the higher value..
We also are very familiar with the fact that temperature depends upon the location of the thermometer - oral, rectal, or under arm in the example above. At the local hardware store, we can buy dual thermometers with elements for outside temperature and inside temperature. Virtually all adults have experience with thermometers and with the fact that temperatures fluctuate within normal ranges and vary with the location of the thermometer.
There is, however, a group of people with personal interests in promoting two peculiar popular delusions about temperature - 1. They claim that the current temperature of the earth is the best of all possible temperatures. 2. They claim that carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is causing that perfect temperature to change, so we should reduce this burning.
Since this is supposed to be very scientific, we probably shouldn't mention that these are generally the same people who promoted the idea in the 1970s and 1980s that the world would soon run out of oil and natural gas, so we should reduce burning. Moreover, these are largely people who promote population reduction, world government, and the expenditure of huge sums of tax money on enterprises from which they personally benefit. All three of these interests are served by schemes to forcibly control world output of carbon dioxide.
Central to this issue, of course, are thermometers. We have already had a large increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. What has been the effect on temperature? Figures 1 and 2 show some of the data. Figure 1 is reproduced from "1995 Captures Record as Warmest Year Yet'' by R. Monastersky,
Science News, 149 p 23 (1996). Figure 2 is from World Climate Report 1, No. 1 p4, as cited with other similar figures in Access to Energy 23-3, November 1995.
Figure 1, in various incarnations, has been publicized extensively throughout American newspapers and magazines by the global warming industry. Several things about this figure are, however, rarely mentioned. 1. The temperature rise between about 1910 and 1940 restored global temperatures to their more usual norm from an unusually cold period known as the "Little Ice Age.'' Moreover, this rise
preceded most of the rise in carbon dioxide and therefore could not have been caused by that rise. 2. The period from 1940 to 1980 was one of rapid rise in carbon dioxide, but no temperature increase occurred. 3. The rise between 1980 and the present is probably an artifact of the location of the thermometers - at surface sites throughout the world.Human activity is known to increase temperatures at many surface sites. Also, the rise between 1980 and 1995 is not uniform - temperatures in eastern North America, southern Europe, and northern Africa did not rise. This nonuniformity might be just an artifact of weather variability except for Figure 2, which shows the global temperature average for the Northern Hemisphere up to an altitude of about 4 miles during the same period - as recorded from satellite measurements and plotted as open circles - with
no rise in temperature. The upper line in Figure 2 plotted as closed circles is the predicted temperatures from global climate models - the same models that global warming gurus claim have been verified by Figure 1. Southern Hemisphere satellite values show essentially the same pattern. See Access to Energy 23-3.
The rise in carbon dioxide is expected to cause a rise in temperature. The question is, "how much rise?'' Based on the data so far collected, the answer to that question is apparently "an insignificant rise.''
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Vol. 23, No. 6
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 23, No. 6 Date: February 01, 1996 01:59 PM Title: Peer Review
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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