[TheForge] tornadoes, flood, earthquakes Oh-No OT: )

Fri Nov 16 17:31:10 EST 2012

All you sensible and tasteful folk please delete this now, it's not worth 
your time to read.

Not to get too argumentative and lord forbid decend into semantics but Fact 
has a root word, "Manufacture", meanig facts are made things. made by human 
beings, not inherently "Truths." True or false facts are a fact<grin> of 
life.

I'm not attacking Science, scientists nor institutions, my rant is more 
directed at folk who manipulate public opinion for gain. I may not have 
degreees but I do indeed read, constantly and my favorites are science texts 
along with science fiction, preferably hard sci fi.

Frankly a person does NOT need to know everyting there is to know about a 
subject to get a perfectly good working handle on it. The very thought you 
can learn everything from books is a sad but all too common dillusion. So 
where does that stand with my comments about Freon, oxy and carbon. No, I 
haven't read chemistry texts to develop my opinions, I did really poorly in 
chemistry but develop my opinion from context and observed results.

A couple decades ago the Ice rink in an Anchorage mall sprung a leak, killed 
several people as I recall three were on the ice and the rest tried to dash 
in and rescue them. Even holding their breath it overcame them in seconds of 
exposure. Huge scare, could've been a big tragedy if they hadn't gotten the 
mall evacuated quickly and the zomboni door hadn't been remote controlled. 
Heck, they evacuated the parking lots and residences for blocks till it 
dissipated.

There was lots of talk about freon in fact made up a large part of our next 
1st. aide class. turns out freon and halon are pretty closely related if not 
chemically in effect. Both bond easily to iron and can suffocate you very 
quickly, that's why you only see halon fire extinguishers and suppression 
systems in places where humans don't go. But wait, bonds with the iron in 
our blood, how's that put out a fire? halon and freon tend to bond easily 
and stays stuck to most anything oxy does. Yeah, carbon is on it's good to 
bond with list. Carbon bonds with almost more things than any other element 
doesn't it Bruce?

We learned a lot of real world things about the entire freon family after 
the ice rink tragedy. No, I can't describe it chemically and am not going to 
spend the time to earn a degree n chemistry just to earn the right to 
disagree with you Bruce.

Hole in the ozone? Been there, always will. did it extend far above the ant 
arctic and artic circles? Sure did but why, could it have been a solar max 
affect? Oh how was it measured? As I recall it was measured by how much UV 
was reaching the ground, Remenber the graphs shown by the talking heads on 
TV? The ones with the jagged spiky lines showing the "current" UV levels as 
opposed to the smooth almost straight line of the "normal" UV levels?

That was a perfect example of facts, one manufactured one a measurement, one 
representing a sort of valid bit of info the other a contrived averaging of 
real levels. The writers, producers and talkng heads aren't scientists and 
manuFACTured the data THEY needed to get good ratings or make the backers 
happy.

What IS science Bruce? Must it as current opinion avows be repeatable? If 
so, can astronomy be a science? How in the world can you reproduce the xray 
flash of a quasar unless it's always pointed at you. How about a nova or 
super nova? OR is science the observation of events, careful documentation 
of such, experimentation of said and the dilligent effort to prove 
hypothesis wrong?

I fess up, I'm no scientist, I'm a cynical observer with common sense. I 
don't believe much of anything until I can't disprove it, been that way all 
my life. How about you Bruce, are you a scientist or a commercial chemist? 
Do you do research? Are you published? Tenured researcher? Don't get me 
wrong, in either case I believe you do honest work and in that catagory have 
my respect. Nothing wrong with being a commercial chemist so long as you're 
not making nerve toxins for terrorists or similar.

However, we've had an episode or two in the past, the one that sticks most 
was one where I simply reported an observed fact. I diluted some Naval Jelly 
and soaked some hopelessly rusted tools over night and discovered the rust 
had been restored to clean steel. I realize I mispoke when I said it 
"reduced" it to steel when something else happened chemically. MAYBE. Not 
only did you find fault, you accused me of trying to sell snake oil. I 
suggested you give it a try and you returned with your "BOOK LEARNING" and 
actually felt you had to explain what book learning meant and how it meant 
you didn't have to try anything to know.

So, would a true SCIENTIST have given it a try? If not the disproof wouldn't 
be vailid, peer review DEMANDS valid disproof. Simply trying to stand on 
one's "book learning" would get you laughed out of any serious consideration 
and probably put to walking the halls or assigned an office in a closet till 
gone. On the other hand a commercial chemist who oversaw processes and maybe 
evaluated new formulae's results for a company could in deed stand on their 
book learning, original thinking would in all probability be discouraged at 
most levels outside the research lab.

Also, what kind of scientist disregards opposing information? You love to 
cite anyone who listens to Fox news as what simple minded? What the real 
thinking person considers a person who only looks for and at what they 
already believe as a sucker. Nothing has one side, NOTHING. Doesn't mean 
there is no black and white there ares simply different sides. So tell me 
Bruce how much consideration do YOU give a person who disregards and frankly 
badmouths differeing opinions?

For myself,  I've given you more consideration in this post than I have in 
years, decades.

With that I'm done and I apologize sincerely to all here and make no excuses 
for engaging in the decent into personal crap. Thank you Dave for putting up 
with me all these years I promise not to do this again, I'll steel my 
resolve. (metal content?)

Jer
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce ." <freemab222 at gmail.com>
To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 3:45 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] tornadoes, flood, earthquakes Oh-No ( was Re: Is 
anyone on-line ? OT: )

> Well, the thread is marked OT, so OT it is.
>
> I won't rant.  I WILL point out that scientists are human too and have
> opinions just like the rest of us.  The main difference is that their
> opinions are generally based upon considered FACTS, not just what gets
> broadcast by Fox News.
>
> FACT:  Ozone (O3) is fairly stable in the upper atmosphere, unless
> something (like freons) is there to "scavenge" it.  This means that
> even if it is formed mostly in summer (and I haven't looked into that
> assertion), it tends to remain all year.
> FACT:  At it's maximum, the ozone hole extended at least to Rio De
> Janiero, Brazil. That's hardly "just" the antarctic.
> FACT:  Since the ban on freon-like gases, the ozone hole has decreased
> substantially.
>
> (BTW, "fact" means something that is true.  "True fact" is redundant,
> and stupidly implies that there is another sort of "fact" than a true
> one.)
>
> Now a scientist knows the difference between correlation and causation
> --- something Fox News does not -- but Occam's Razor says that the
> simplest explanation is correct.
>
> If we could just educate Americans as to what science is -- and that
> it is NOT a religion with scientists as its priests -- the country
> would be a great deal better off.  There should, indeed must, be
> scientific controversy, but it should be argued out by those educated
> to understand the facts involved -- not by anchors on the media.
>
> If YOU want to participate in these arguments, get an education in the
> relevant sciences, then read all you can about the subject -- NOT
> limiting yourself to biased reports or ONLY those studies that support
> your preconceived notions.  The conclusions of science are not
> affected by the opinions of the man on the street.
>
> Now a couple misconceptions:  CO2 DOES absorb greatly in the IR, but
> it does not absorb uniformly across the IR.  It's not "black" in the
> IR, but deeply "colored".  Hence, if you're using a device that uses a
> different wavelength of IR than where CO2 absorbs, it's not going to
> be affected by CO2.  Many people probably don't realize that MOST
> gases absorb in the IR.  O2 absorbs so much that it has to be excluded
> from IR spectrophotometers.  Water also must be excluded, but for
> other reasons as that.  However, oxygen is essentially constant in the
> atmosphere, and water is so highly variable (mostly not much there,
> but there gangbusters when it is there) that it factors very little as
> a "greenhouse gas".  By contrast, CO2 is a steadily rising fraction,
> according to many studies.
>
> I'm not sure why Frosty thinks freon bonds to carbon.  Halogens do,
> but not freon.  OTOH, ozone is fairly reactive -- it is used to break
> double bonds in carbon chains, and those bonds are fairly stable.  It
> is no surprise that ozone would react with freon.
>
> I don't like the term "global warming".  The correct term would be
> "global heating".  There's a difference.  You can heat some things
> without changing their temperature.  Ice is a good example.  You heat
> it and heat it and it melts and melts, but its temperature doesn't
> change above 32F.  When all the ice on the planet has melted, THEN
> we'll get global warming.  Perish the thought.
>
> Now, if you want to get on your high horse about Science as an
> Institution -- better start bitching about scientific publications.
> Look into the cost of subscribing to ONE scientific journal.  It will
> be at LEAST $150 per year, and probably a LOT more than that.  The
> content is available on-line, for the most part, but not to YOU!  From
> a practical standpoint, the only ways you can access the scientific
> literature is (1) to be bloody rich and to pay for access, (2) to get
> access through a university (which gets special, lower rates), or (3)
> to get access through a corporation -- that is bloody rich and pays
> for access.  You and I effectively do NOT have access to the
> scientific literature.  Oh, you can show up at Rutgers or another
> state university and possibly use their collection, but don't expect
> to check anything out or be able to view from home.  If there's a
> conspiracy in Science (the institution), this is it.  The publishers
> want to make their money and do it by controlling the information that
> scientists PAID THEM to publish.
>
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 12:44 AM, Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer
> <artgawk at thegrid.net> wrote:
>> Thanks for doing this thankless duty Dave!
>> ( was that an oxymoron?)
>> We'd run amuck without you.
>>
>> On Nov 15, 2012, at 9:39 PM, Dave Mudge wrote:
>>
>> I'm not angry, Just don't want any politics or religion
>> on an ART / METAL / NORMAL B.S. e-mail list.
>> Admittedly, Frosty's rant was a little off topic but he
>> has been here a long time and has provided more
>> good energy to the list than most.
>> Besides that, opinions are like noses, everybody has one.
>>
>> your ever watchful list mom,
>> dave m
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer
>> <artgawk at thegrid.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Oh Jerry;
>>> Who is going to believe someone from Alaska
>>> dismissing the concept of global warming?
>>> Grin!!
>>> That's all i dare say under the Listmom's glower.
>>>
>>>
>> (SNIP!)
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Bruce
> NJ
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