Re: Creationists Don't Like Other Sciences, Either

In article <45b671ac.32055703@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Luminoso <luminoso@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:44:20 -0000, bobg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Robert Grumbine)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <45b5f9ab.1328296@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>Luminoso <luminoso@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 03:03:27 -0500, HiEv <spam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>   Google the phrase "Dust Bowl" - and note that it's pre-SUV.
>>>   Google the phrase "Northwest Passage" and note that one was
>>>   wide open about a century ago ... and then froze-up solid
>>>   once again. 
>>
>>  Oh, right, your misreading of that.  If a scientist says
>>that 'this is the first time in over 100 years', it very
>>likely means that there are only 100 years of data.
>
>   You wish ... people have been probing for a northwest
>   passage since the 1500s. There was a PBS do***entary
>   on just last week about a mission in 185? that ended
>   rather badly. I've heard the British navy has that
>   cannibalism problem almost under control now ... 

  There's rather a difference between attempting to find the NW
passage -- and failing -- and having data on ice cover that
spans the arctic.  But the failures are sufficient demonstration
that there wasn't a clear path sailable in a single season --
the year that that expedition tried.  Doesn't tell us that
it wasn't open in the decade(s) between attempts. 

>   The facts are that around 1900 there was a big melt-back
>   of arctic ice and it was possible to get around the northern
>   shores of Canada and Russia. 

  You say that, but without any scientific source.

>   A few years later things got
>   colder again and the passage closed. Now it's open again
>   and every chicken-little greenie is screaming and moaning
>   like it's never happened before. 
>
>>It does
>>not necessarily mean that the event did happen 101 years ago.
>>Scientists, unlike you, don't like making statements beyond
>>where they have data.
>
>   There's tons of data about the arctic. 

  Really?  What has been the ice concentration off the north of
Ellesmere island, daily, for the last 500 years.  For preference,
also include the ice thickness.  

>   It's been a pet
>   obsession of many nations for centuries. Everyone was
>   always trying to reach the pole or cross the ice or
>   whatever. Admiral Byrd was smart enough to fly there
>   instead of walk. 

  Byrd is rather more recent than 100 years ago.  Doesn't
help your claims about 500 years.

>   Like antarctica, it's one of those
>   'last frontier' areas that spark the imagination and
>   there's centuries of both navigational, biological
>   and geological data. 
>
>   We've got the Goog nowdays, start finding archives.
>
>   Here's a book :
>
>http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mapped-Arctic-Lieutenant/dp/1551927136
>   Data about Italian missions :
>   http://www.polarnet.cnr.it/artico/oldage.html

  Except this isn't data, it's a popular description of some 
trips taken by some Italians, none much more than 100 years ago,
1872 being the oldest.  And none providing coverage of the whole
arctic.  As the page says: "Towards the end of the XIX century the 
arctic regions were visited by occasional Italian travelers, missionaries
and scientists at distant intervals."  That's far from covering 
the whole arctic, annually.  Included is a missionary expedition
in Alaska, and mountaineering on St. Elia, neither of which provides
much data on arctic ice cover.


>   Something from the Polar Research Forum :
>   http://members.tripod.com/90north/firstatnorthpole.htm

  A site about attempts to reach the north pole, rather than
northwest passage.  The trips discussed were themselves less than
100 years ago, and left from Axel Heiberg or northern
Ellesmere Island.  Neither of these start points would suffice
to find a closed or open NW passage as most routings trying
to do that trip go south of those islands.

>   There, that took a whole five seconds ... 
>
>   Before you tell me there's no data, FIND OUT first.

  I just don't find mountain climbing a great way to determine
facts about the arctic ice pack.  Nor do I consider data that's
less than 100 years old to be data that's more than 100 years 
old.

  As to data, though, the World Data Center for Glaciology - A,
also National Snow and Ice Data Center, http://nsidc.org/

is a good place to get data.  The only full Arctic data set
that goes back far, last I looked, is Chapman and Walsh's,
which goes back to 1900 or so.  Chapman provides daily updates
and nice maps of current conditions at 
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
("The cryosphere today")

  For longer term data, you have to live with less coverage.
Last to get more or less routine coverage is the north coast
of North America, exactly the area you need if you wish to 
make statements about the NW passage.


>>>   It's been getting warmer for the past 20,000 years. This
>>>   trend seems likely to continue. We'll see forward spurts,
>>>   and retreats mixed with the slow general trend. Another
>>>   "little ice age" (google it) could start- tomorrow, or not.
>>>   Hell, I remember dire warnings of an impending ice age
>>>   during the 1970s by "credible climatologists". 
>>
>>  So many errors, so little space.  For some sources on
>>the myth about there having been 'credible climatologists'
>>bewailing the 1970s impending ice age, see:
>>  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
>>and the more detailed original:
>>  http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/
>
>   Hey, I remember the 'impending ice age' clearly.
>   There was even hype on the big three national news
>   services. Buffalo buried in snow ! Ice lingering
>   longer each year ! Doom !!! 

  When did 'big three national news services' become,
as you claimed above, 'credible climatologists'?

  My own notion is that the media are media, not scientists
(climatologists or other).  The media can be useful for 
alerts that something interesting is going on in science.
But to find out what, exactly, it's the scientific literature
I turn to, not media.  



  Alt.paranet.skeptic dropped from followups.  Don't know what
it's doing here in the first place.
-- 
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/
Science faqs and amateur
activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too
much 
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than
they 
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New
Sciences