I am grateful to Greenman3610, who regularly posts videos about the science of Global Warming on his YouTube channel. He listens to the arguments made on both sides and balances the evidence. There is still a great deal of public denial that a problem is developing but the overwhelming weight of the evidence suggests that …
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Category:Scepticism
Heading Home…
I am setting off back to Oxford tomorrow so if you are going to email me and expect a response before Monday you may be disappointed. Sorry about this in advance. Well done the England team, for unwittingly helping to market Power Balance Bracelets. £30+ for something that can be made for less then £1 …
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Gloves Gorn…
As I headed out to ski this morning I discovered that my gloves were missing. I searched high and low. They were definitely gone. Nobody had seen them. I could remember taking them off at a bar in the mountains the previous day and I convinced myself that I had left them there. That would have …
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Autumnwatch
This evening I saw some of Autumnwatch on the BBC. This is not my natural territory; too much rescuing foxes and squirrels for my liking. But something seems to have changed. Is there a whiff of real science here? Are they being a little more pragmatic and a little less sentimental? It certainly seems so. I …
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Chinese Proverb.pps…
In the last few days I have twice been sent an email with an attached PowerPoint presentation entitled ChineseProverb.pps which promises to bring good luck; how pleasant you may think. It is kind that people want me to have good luck and are thinking of me. How blessed I am. There is a problem, however. This unsolicited …
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ADE 651…
More about ‘Why Science Is Important’ with a story that is simultaneously very funny and utterly tragic. The picture below is of an ADE651™ explosives and drugs detection device. It is manufactured in Somerset by a company called ATSC Ltd and they have recently sold several (at £35,000 each) to the Iraqi government. The total …
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Thinking For Yourself…
As I think I mentioned in another post, thinking critically about the world around you is a fundamental scientific skill. It does not mean that you need to criticise everything, just that you consider the ‘credibility of evidence’. This means that you ask yourself how believable a story or a scientific claim is. When scientists look …
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Copenhagen…
Sorry, but this is a long and wordy one. Carbon dioxide makes up about 0.038% of dry air. When I left Marlborough in 1987 it was 0.035% of the atmosphere; when my father left the same establishment in 1958 the value was 0.031%. These changes might seem very small but CO2 has a remarkable ability …
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35 Inconvenient Truths…
In October 2007, Lord Monckton of Brenchley published a response to Al Gore’s book and movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. In it Lord Monckton cites 35 errors in the movie. This came on top of a British judge decreeing that the film contained nine errors that needed to be clearly explained if it was to be used as a teaching aid …
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Exponential Growth…
The below describes the effects of exponential growth and is entirely lifted from something I read on the Internet. You may have a copy of the same article in paper form but the links might add to your understanding. The principle is simple. You start with one. Double it and you have two. Double again and …
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