Hate Being the One to Break This News...

Artist's conception of how our home will look next weekend.. (Also see The Weekend Weather outlook! 3 great options for fun during unseasonably warm weather!)

An international group of expert scientists specializing in science announced in a press conference today that mucking around with the Higgs Boson has broken it, resulting in siderophile elements becoming much less massive, and lithophile elements much more massive. "Our results should be taken as preliminary, at this point, and will need to be refined over the coming months and years. Nevertheless, we feel confident that by the end of the week, the earth's core will erupt onto the surface, and the crust will sink to take its place," said lead scientist, I.M. Moran. "Now, on the downside, our calculations suggest we will be inundated with something approaching a 340-kilometer deep ocean of molten steel- that's about 210 miles, in English- extinguishing every trace of earth as we know it, not to mention all life on the planet."

"On the plus side, though, the initial migration of the molten core toward the surface will be even more effective at freeing up 'tight' shale oil and gas than current 'frakking' technology. That, combined with what is expected to be an unusually low-demand heating season, means that consumers can look forward to steep drops in energy prices. From a scientific perspective, we eagerly anticipate an opportunity to examine the properties of the core directly for the first time. And from an economic perspective, we expect that the abundance of platinum and other precious metals thought to be concentrated in the core may trigger an economic expansion like none since the late forties and fifties."

Asked how people should be prepared, Moran replied, "Well, the usual, you know. Have plenty of extra water, a gallon per person per day, enough for a week or two. Non-perishable food with minimum preparation requirements- peanut butter, for example. Practice and drill escape routes, have a meeting place planned if you get separated somehow. Nothing really out of the ordinary."

When queried regarding other scientists' skepticism about his results, he scoffed "Ivory tower types! What do they know? I have an associates degree in dental assistance, and it was extremely rigorous. They don't even know what I'm talking about."

In related news, US gun sales have surged to new highs. NRA spokesman Charlegun Hasgun says "Our members are fully armed and eager to take on any ocean of molten metal that dares to threaten them, their loved ones, or property."

Dick Cheney, commenting from an undisclosed location, declined to comment.

(This will an entry for AW #53, so be aware THIS IS NOT TRUE!)

Science by Press Release

I've been spending more and more time on Twitter, with a result of less time here. Partly that's because I've been having a slew of aging computer, connectivity and software problems (Seriously Adobe, your plug-ins couldn't cause more issues?), and partly it's because sharing a quick comment and link on Twitter is just so much faster and easier... especially when aforementioned problems are causing my computer to go into lockdown every 3 to 5 minutes.

The downside is that Twitter, like Facebook, is very much ephemeral. It is next to impossible to find a particular tweet unless it's pretty recent.

I got onto another Twitter rip today, with the theme of "If Science by press release existed in [...]'s day," satirizing the kind of sensationalistic, overly dramatic, factually challenged, and premature types of reports that pass for science journalism these days. So for the sake of a permanent record- for my own satisfaction, at least- here are my tweets (and one from another) on that topic:
If Science by Press Release existed in...

• Newton's Day: "New Discovery May Lead to Space Flight: Report."
• Stone Age: "Control of Fire May Resolve Transportation Problems Says Eminent Witch Doctor."
• Pasteur's Day: "Animicule Theory Could Lead to New treatments for Bad Air."
• Archimedes' Day: "Application of Density to Astronomy Suggests New Class of Exotic Space Objects."
• Becher's day: "Phlogiston Theory Supports Existence of Human Soul, Angels, Demons, Study Says."
• Eratosthenes' day: "Shape, Size of the world: Controversy and Conflict Among the Experts"
• Agricola's day: "New Study to Examine differences between Dwarf and Kobold Mining Techniques."
• Socrates' day: "Announcement: New Element Discovered, Named 'Aether.'"
• Pliny's day: "The Next Supervolcano Eruption and You: Is YOUR Family Safe?"
• Mendel's day: "Peagate 'Proves Inheritance is Hoax:' Scientific Report" (with followup comment from @canislatrans, "Gene Skeptics Scoff at New Wrinkle in Mendelist Theory")
• Hutton's day: "Claim: Earth May Be One Million Years Old. Theologists Express Skepticism, Outrage."
• Mendelev's day: "New Periodic Organization Dismissed: Chemists Prefer Traditional, Alphabetic Order.

Also, from @aboutgeology, If science by press release existed in Darwin's day: "It All Comes Down to Sex: New Study by Fossil Sleuth"

I'll add any others that I come up with, and, with appropriate credit, other folks post. How would your favorite scientist(s) have been misquoted, misrepresented or misinterpreted by today's so-called "journalism?"

Never Forget Who the REAL Enemy Is

Fox News, via all over the place.

Oh'Really?

Apparently, a new meme is circulating through the ol' innertubz, and I have to say, I love it.These and many more are at GeekoSystem.
Followup: more examples and some actual Oh'Really statements here.

"We're pinheads all"

They tell us that
We lost our tails
Evolving up
From little snails
I say it's all
Just wind in sails
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O

We're pinheads now
We are not whole
We're pinheads all
Jocko homo
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O
Are we not pins?
We are Devo!

Monkey men all
In business suits
Teachers and critics
All dance the poot
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O
Are we not pins?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O

I got a rhyme that comes with a riddle
O-HI-O
What's round on the ends and high in the middle?
O-HI-O

God made man
But he used the monkey to do it
Apes in the plan
We're all here to prove it
I can walk like an ape
Talk like an ape
Do what a monkey can do
God made man
But a monkey supplied the glue

Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
We are Devo!

We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
D-E-V-O
We must repeat
O.K. let's go!

Not Telling.

I need to just stop reading press releases. Seriously. They either piss me off or disappoint me. This one does both:

New model for how Nevada gold deposits formed may help in gold exploration

So silly ol' me, I kind of assumed this might tell me something about a new model for Nevada (Carlin-type) gold deposits, and how this might help in exploration for such deposits. HA! Here's the closest it gets:

The team relates formation of the gold deposits to a change in plate tectonics and a major magma event about 40 million years ago. It is the most complete explanation for Carlin-type gold deposits to date.

So after reading what is, to be fair, not a bad summary of what Carlin-type deposits are- though redundant for me- the press release ends with that. Five minutes wasted. Sigh. This is my theory, which is mine, and it is, as follows, mine: Brontosauruses were narrow at the end, much, much thicker in the middle, and then thinner again at the other end.

Thanks, perfesser.

Today in Stupid

Which does Faux News not get: plate tectonics or geography? (Hint: I'm betting on both.) Hullabaloo
This Bunsen Boehner looks suspiciously like that other guy: (image above and awful pun mine)SwansonTea: F*@&ing Bill O’Reilly — How Does He Work?

As long as there is one thing that science can’t explain (or he doesn’t understand), all is well with his world. It’s amazing to me that this argument makes sense to him.

EB Misfit points out that the designers of this logo have the Wright brothers the first to fly a heavier-than-air craft... backwards. Whether this bodes poorly for the competition remains to be seen.

Poor, Delicate Flowers

This Modern World. BTW, those cross-hairs on Palin's map? Turns out they were meant to represent "survey marks." Hoocoodanode? To which @tbogg commented, "Johnny Cash once surveyed a man in Reno just to watch him die." Another fine quote from the same account came down the pipe just a little while ago: "Compromise in DC: conservatives will tone down the rhetoric and liberals will agree to not be so whiny when they get shot"

Step One:

Dehumanize your opponents, but deny you are doing so. Make it look as if you're merely "reflecting" "grass roots" sentiments, rather than sowing them.

Step Two: Accuse your opponents of doing what you're doing (even though they're not) because a) it provides an excuse for what you're doing- you DO have to defend yourself, right?- and b) if they're doing it too, it must be okay. WaPo:

When asked about the Palin target map, Beck said: "I don't know. It's really easy in the context of what happened this morning to look back and say, 'I don't know if this was such a bright idea.' At the same time, there are other politicians from the other side of the political spectrum who have said similar military-style sayings. Do I really believe they are intending harm on people? No."

Step Three: Portray your opponents as existential threat to yourself and people like you. "They will come for us and put us into concentration camps." (Image from Balloon Juice) Step Four: Use continuous and escalating language calling for violence. Symbols and metaphors of guns, death, and targets associated with your opponents will plant and nourish the seeds you want growing. (Images from FDL)

Step Five: When a deranged loon inevitably takes your rhetoric literally, and kills and/or wounds your opponent(s), and possibly other bystanders, express shock at events no one could have foreseen, and outrage that some might want to hold you accountable for your actions and rhetoric.

Step Six: Lather, rinse, repeat.

Step Seven: Profit. Krugman:

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

But of course they won't, nor will commercial media, particularly TeeVee news. Because in the end, it's all about Step Seven. Cosmic Variance:

I met Gabby at a reception a year ago. She seemed, on our very brief acquaintance, to be a really wonderful person — energetic, smart, full of optimism about doing good things as a member of Congress. Her husband, Mark Kelly, is an astronaut. If I may step away from the ideal of journalistic objectivity for a moment, this is a stupid fucking tragedy.

Yeah, what Sean said. Unfortunately, I have spent too much of today seething with anger at the stupidity of where we have willfully gone in this country, for the sake of financial and political profit, to fully allow myself to empathize with the loved ones of those who have been killed and wounded in this morning's shooting spree. Giffords is, as of the latest reports, expected to survive, though I've heard nothing about what permanent losses of ability she may suffer. I doubt there is any basis for guessing about that yet. But at least six others are dead, including a Federal Judge and a nine-year-old girl. Four others (again, as of the most recent reports I've read) are still in critical condition, and the number wounded seems to be unsettled- the numbers I've seen range from 12 to 18.

My first facebook status this morning ended with "Thanks, Palin and Tea party: you make us proud." To which a high school classmate responded, " It is a very tragic event. Even more tragic is to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. I do not believe for one second that they endorse democrats being murdered. How stupid to think so. I do not like democratic ideas but I do not want one single democrat to ever be murdered!!!!" I'm certain that very few truly want their opponents literally murdered, though metaphorically, I'm not so confident. But when your rhetoric says "Second amendment solutions" it shouldn't come as a surprise when one or more of your followers takes it literally.

And in the end, I think what infuriates me most is that I suspect I know how this will all play out. Media will attempt to be "Fair" and "Balanced," that is, Palin et al will have the opportunity to defend themselves, and play the innocent victims. Media will point out that tempers are high, as if that excuses everything. The American Public will return to their fevre dream and collective amnesia. This event, and the lessons that could be taken from it, will be forgotten. The dead and wounded, and their families, will be shuffled into the waste heap of history. What angers me is the complacency, the banality, and above all, the predictability of this.

How many remember George Tiller? How long ago was it that he was killed?

My condolences and most hopeful wishes for the friends, families and colleagues of today's victims, and to the wounded. I hope our country has enough vestige of decency to give you the support, respect, and above all, the recollection that is your due.

Why I Spend More Time With The Guardian (UK) Than NYT

Via Wil Wheaton's Tumblr, and I'm not sure if he compiled this graphic, or if he found it elsewhere. The Guardian's homepage is here, and while the homepage of most news sites is not necessarily the best place to start on a regular basis, it's the best place to start exploring. I read a LOT of different news sources, and The Guardian is my favorite by a long shot, even for US news and commentary.

People Don't Watch Fox News Because They're Stupid

They're stupid because they watch Fox News. It's the causal order here that needs to be kept straight. From Steve Benen at Washington Monthly,

Researchers found that Americans who paid more attention to the news were more likely to know about current events. But Americans who relied on Fox News were "significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe":

* most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)

* most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)

* the economy is getting worse (26 points)

* most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)

* the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)

* their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)

* the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)

* when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)

* and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

I read the earlier PIPA report, and found it awfully depressing. Just reading Benen's summary is about all I want to deal with this time around.

Perfect!

For Zappadan Day thirteen, I was privileged to be in the target area for this commercial, shown by PGE to get consumers to find ways to cut their electricity use... I'm thinking 1986.

I Hope This Is Made Available Online

Douglas Adams fans, prepare and celebrate: BBC 4 is doing a television adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I will see it sooner or later. Oh, yes. I will. I'd rather sooner.

I've Been Thinking About This All Day

It was so deeply moving. All those lemmings, just jumping off the cliff after each other. Sorry, just writing this brings tears to my eyes.

see more Political Pictures

"A Bit Unconventional, Out of The Box"

 

Sarah Palin said she would 'take on the establishment on both sides of the aisle'. Photograph: Aaron M Sprecher/EPA 

That would be Sarah Palin... I'm tempted to say "out of her mind," but like dubya, I think that misunderestimates her canniness with respect to the things in which she's interested. Obviously, the English language is not one of those things: "I just think that anyone is foolish to prematurely close any door that perhaps will be open for them." I think it would indeed be foolish to try to close a door that might (or might not) be open in the future, however, I doubt she has any real interest in running for the presidency, let alone- again noting dubya- carrying out the duties of that office.

I read recently that with his much-publicized plummet in favorability ratings, Obama stands at a miniscule 48%.  Palin's grass-roots popularity is an astronomically high 22%.  She's a shoe-in.

Snark aside, what is Palin interested in?  She's an egotistical narcissist: She wants attention. She wants the media spotlight and cash that go with attention.  I predict she will announce a run for the nomination, though she will make a lot of fuss about how the Republican good ol' boys club is sidelining her- which they will.  She will raise a lot of money and get a lot of air time- that's what she's interested in. Then, when it crumbles around her, as it inevitably will- she's not interested in doing the work to run a real campaign- she'll bow out and blame the "liberal, lamestream media."  Then go back to her job at faux news.  As an aside, if you were a candidate on the R side of the last presidential nomination, not currently holding office, and not named Mitt Romney, you are currently employed by faux news.  True story.

At any rate, let's let Sarah get the almost last word: "A nuclear weapon in that country's [Iran's] hands is not just Israel's problem or America's problem – it is the world's problem. It could lead to Armageddon. It could lead to World War III that could decimate so much of this planet."  This could be rephrased to point out that this country in SP's hands could well be much, much worse than simply reducing so much of this planet by a tenth.

How Many Species of T. Rex?

As journalistic offenses against science go, this is pretty minor, I guess, but it still grates:

It's been a big year for a big dinosaur: Tyrannosaurs rex. Scientists have identified six new species of the animal, recently discovered T. rex feathers and maybe even the remains of some soft tissue.

Yes, you read that right: there are six new species of T. rex. Unsurprisingly, the scientists interviewed get it right without really thinking about how terribly confusing the binomial Genus-species nomenclature is to the average illiterate journalist.

"You know, we've really doubled the tyrannosaur diversity in the last 10 years," says Norell, who is among the world's leading fossil hunters. "And [we've] found ones that aren't just giant ones like Tyrannosaurus rex but smaller ones like raptorex, feathered ones like dilong. So it's really been this really big sort of renaissance, and tyrannosaurs are probably studied more than any other dinosaur that's ever been found."

Dispensing with snark, here's a quick overview: living things are grouped with similar living things in ever finer, more specific classifications ranging from Kingdom (most general) to species (most specific). The standard mnemonic is "Kings play chess on family grave stones." A student of mine came up with another that I quite like, and might be more likely to stick in the minds of younger learners: "Kids puke chunks on fat Grandma's skirt." Either way, the initial letters stand for kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species, and there can be different levels, (sub- or super-) of those. So Tyrannosaurus rex (by convention, the genus name is capitalized, the species name is not) is the genus and species of a particular type of dinosaur. It's "full name," or more accurately, classification, would be

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
(unranked):	Coelurosauria
Superfamily:	†Tyrannosauroidea
Family:	†Tyrannosauridae
Subfamily:	†Tyrannosaurinae
Genus:	†Tyrannosaurus Osborn, 1905

according to Wikipedia.

So how many "species" of T. rex are there? One. By definition. Though the NPR article doesn't explicitly say how many species of Tyrannsaurs there are, combining the two quotes, "six new species," and "doubled the diversity," suggests that the count is somewhere around a dozen- though the Wikipedia link lists T. rex as the only species. In this case, I'm inclined to take the word of the researchers interviewed over the wiki piece.

It's actually a decent and interesting article, but it irritates me when basic, simple, and elementary science is screwed up. It casts a dubious pall over the whole thing.

Goo Goo Ga Joob Redux

Honestly, I'd rather just drop this and not give this walrus the bukkit attention he wants. However, I don't think this story is completely dead yet- apparently the Park51 leader Feisal Abdul Rauf has not in fact agreed to a meeting to discuss the possible re-siting of the ground zero mosque lower Manhattan Cultural Center, and the Terry Jones is a certifiable looney. "I'm Invincible!" "You're a looney." (Note: neither Terry Jones nor Terry Jones appears in the following clip.)

The fact is, anyone who is this obnoxious in the name of whatever they worship clearly needs to have their flywheel taken in for balancing. No need to make a fuss over it, just a little routine maintenance. However, this Jones character appears to be in need of a complete engine rebuild, according to his daughter in an interview with Spiegel Online.(Thanks to Josh for pointing me in the direction of the diagram above, from HuffPo) The idea of "split personalities," as thought of in popular culture, doesn't actually have much support from psychological research, and the diagram above doesn't do justice to the hatred and spite displayed by (the non-Python) Terry Jones. Walruses, on the other hand, are pretty mellow and intelligent beasts. When I posted a piece titled "Goo Goo Ga Joob" last Saturday, I had no idea I'd want to reuse that title in less than a week. But such are the costs of necessary mockery.

GUTOP

Not a surgical procedure for weight loss, but "Grand Unified Theory of Palinisms." Jacob Weisberg, who you may remember as the archivist who collected eight-plus years of Bushisms, is still at it, but with a new collection. Following is an excerpt from his book Palinisms: The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Sarah Palin, due out in a couple of days, and previewed at Slate:

But the best Palinisms of all result when the huntress encounters something she wasn't hunting for—that is, when Sarah Palin comes into contact with most anything to do with domestic, foreign, or economic policy. It is this situation that generates those priceless let me tap-dance and, also, sing for you a little song while you think of a different question moments. One such was the juncture in her mind-boggling 2008 interview when Katie Couric asked Palin to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with, other than Roe v. Wade. Surrounded by hostile forces, out of cartridges for her Remington, she bravely held her ground and kept pulling the trigger, to no effect:

Palin: Well, let's see. There's—of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others. But, um.

Couric: Can you think of any?

Palin: Well, I would think of any again that could best be dealt with on a more local level maybe I would take issue with. But, um, you know as a mayor and then as a governor and even as a vice president, if I am so privileged to serve, I would be in a position of changing those things, but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.

Weisberg's Bushisms were (and are-Shrub's limited public appearances mean fewer misunderstatementisms, but Weisberg has kept the site up to date) often side-splitting, and I much appreciate his work in putting together the definitive collection. Likewise, while the Palinisms project seems a little limited at this point, I expect it will be expanded after the book makes its initial run.

However, I think that simply listing all these strange quotes (and they are strange) for the LOLs misses the point. First, it gets old pretty quick. Second, it overlooks, even obscures, the strange phenomenon of Palin: here is a person who apparently cannot tack together an intelligible sentence in the English language without a prompt, and even then it's iffy. Yet people are paying her hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, for her writing and speeches. What does that say about the media, and what does it say about us? That is the book I'd like to read.

For me, the definitive compilation of Bushisms, and what it says about our culture, is Mark Crispin Miller's The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on A National Disorder. Oh sure, there's lots of yucks in the book, some tear-inducing. But it's placing them in context, and showing how and why Bush was a perfect match for modern TV, while Gore was a poor fit indeed, that makes it such a compelling read. For people who weren't paying attention pre-9/11, I still highly recommend it (here's a good review, and here's the Amazon Page), and though I haven't read any reviews of Weisberg's book yet, I hope he has tried to do a little of this needed contextualization of Palin's malapropisms. Yeah, such stuff is funny to a point, but it won't be if Caribou Barbie decides to run for POTUS and we let the media play us for suckers yet again.

Warning Labels

Can't imagine I'd need this one too often...
...nor this one. A very fun article at Tom Scott: Making Stuff Happen provides PDF formats for printing both UK and US warning stickers to denote bad journalism. Sadly, since I do almost all of my reading online these days, they'd merely clutter up my screen. In fact, given that I'd go through several sheets per day, they'd completely obscure my screen within an hour or so. On the other hand, that would prevent me from being exposed to further bad journalism.

Slo-Mo PNW Earthquake

I've been reading about these critters for some years, and I find them confusing.

So-called "tremor-and-slip" events have occurred about every 15 months since they were first detected in 2002. The latest was found early Sunday north of Olympia and west of Tacoma, and is expected to travel north under the peninsula toward Vancouver Island. UW scientists say it can't be felt at the surface, but over the course of several weeks can release as much energy as a magnitude 6 earthquake.

I doubt I'm alone in that. The amount of seismic energy released is surprising to me: I would have guessed it was in the range of four to five, much smaller by a factor of 30 to 1000.

Comments like this, "Vidale said better understanding the changing slow-slip patterns may provide clues in advance of the next Cascadia mega-quake," should always be regarded carefully. Yes, it may, but on the other hand, it may not. In either case, without supporting information, theoretical framework and evidence, the alert reader should assume there's no reason to believe that X is likely to lead to Y. It's simply a possibility.

One other thing I should point out: The energy released in this quake is tiny compared to the amount anticipated in a major Cascadia subduction quake, typically discussed as a magnitude 9 (+/-). The difference between the former and the latter is a factor of 32,000, so this event is not dissipating any significant fraction of the region's latent seismic energy.

Interesting article overall; I'm left curious as to the apparent periodicity of these events, and why they're apparently restricted to the northern end of the subduction zone.

Talking to Journalists

I have read so many stories of the pitfalls of talking to journalists that I'm glad I'm not really in a position to do so. A few years back, there was a guy working for a small paper in Newport who had, in several stories, really misunderstood coast range geology. I offered to take him on a day trip up Marys Peak, where you can see the best possible transect of the rock sequence, from sea-floor basalts through a couple of sedimentary units, and a gabbroic sill. He got the geo more or less right, but described me as a professor in geology, even though he knew perfectly well I worked for science education, and I had taken pains to explain the difference between a professor and an instructor.

Sigh.

You'd think "professional" writers would understand that words have meanings, and they matter. Numerous examples of this come up in the science blogs I read, and the sheer incompetence of people who get paid for writing has long ceased to surprise me. Yet another issue with science journalism was described in Swans on Tea earlier:

What is so hard about these caveats and disclaimers scientists take for granted, and come up over and over again, when discussing science results? Is the collective journalistic memory so short that scientists (or their lawyers) have to start reading a statement before they ever make a comment?

Please understand that the following result is preliminary and should not be taken as the final word. For anyone unfamiliar with the field, an effort must be made on the reader’s part to see where this fits in with the prevailing models of the day. There is a chance that it could be wrong or have only limited applicability to broader problems being investigated by other research teams. Further investigation may confirm our findings, or show that our results were anomalous or contained errors.

Scientists already know this. Journalist should know this.

I think this is a fine idea. This statement should be printed up on cards, and when talking to journalists, hand them a copy along with your business card.