No cheating!

August 28, 2013

Found at Coconuts Bangkok (via 22 words)

Designed by the students at Kasetsart University, Bangkok. Now discontinued.

Anti-cheating Hats

No cheating hats at Kasetsart University, Bangkok

Bangkok’s Kasetsart University announced today that it has decided to end the use of its anti-cheating helmets.

A photo of the horse blinder-like device was first posted on Coconuts Bangkok yesterday. Shortly thereafter the post went viral as thousands of netizens commented and shared the photo.

The university said that its agro-industry faculty students had designed the headgear as part of an ethics lesson. Natdanai Rungruangkitkrai, the course lecturer, said he seriously regretted that the issue had received such a strong negative response. He added that he had intended to teach the students about ethics and as part of the lesson he had asked them to think creatively about how to prevent cheating.

The students proposed different sets of exam papers and boxes, but they finally agreed to use A-4 paper blinders. The students said they had seen similar headsets in other countries. About 90 students agreed to the use of the blinkers and to make the hats themselves on the exam day. Asst Prof Tanaboon Sajjaanantakul, the faculty’s dean, said the device was used for a mid-term examination for a textile testing course.

 

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Déjà vu! For Iraq read Syria

August 28, 2013

Déjà vu!

Some kind of military action by the US and its allies – probably missile and drone attacks – is imminent  against Syria and Assad. To what end is uncertain. To destroy stocks of chemical weapons could be an objective but any action would probably only cause more release of the toxins involved. To destroy or help destroy Assad’s regime is possible but unlikely since the alternative would probably be Al Qaida. To assassinate Assad runs the same risk. To kill some of Assad’s military or his supporters just as a “punitive” strike could be an objective but adding to the killing to stop the killing seems a little dubious. To demonstrate a self-righteous “moral” position to the world with the least damaging consequences possible would seem to the main objective. To prevent any future use of chemical weapons by any country could be an objective thought it is difficult to see how many “bad guys” would need to be killed or how much property would need to be destroyed to create a valid deterrent.

For Iraq read Syria. For Bush, Blair, Chirac  (my failing memory) and Howard read Obama, Cameron, Hollande and Rudd. Even though each of the current four leaders is from the opposing party to that of his predecessor. For WMD read “chemical or nerve gas”. Statements by the politicians show that they are absolutely “certain” that Assad was responsible. Evidence is not forthcoming. As it was not for Iraq. And it does not inspire any confidence that to justify the Iraq invasion, “evidence” was made-up by the intelligence services to satisfy their political masters.

That upto some 300 people have been killed seems very likely though there is some doubt as to the number. The main evidence seems to be video footage. That some form of chemical or nerve agent was used seems probable. And traces of such agents are detectable years after the event, though some politicians (Obama and Kerry for example) would like us to believe that the evidence may be destroyed and therefore  time is of the essence just to preserve the evidence. Though it is likely that someone within the Assad regime was probably responsible it is not at all impossible that one of the many “rebel” groups was responsible. Some of the rebel groups – along with Assad’s supporters – have exhibited their barbaric and cannibalistic tendencies.

But I am afraid that military actions will be carried out – again – without any more serious objective than to demonstrate “moral superiority” and to fulfill domestic agendas.  Even though such actions – in themselves – undermine the very moral superiority that is being touted. Some more people – some quite innocent – will of course be killed. They will just be collateral damage and the the sacrifice in a war of moral superiority. That Tony Blair on-board a luxurious yacht somewhere supports immediate strikes against Syria only adds to my feeling that it would be ill-advised. His thirst for blood is apparently not yet satisfied. Obama needs to show that he can actually be decisive – if only for history. Cameron needs a war – any war – before the next General Election and Spain over Gibraltar does not quite fit the bill.  Argentina over the Falklands is better but too far away and already done. Hollande needs to show that he does really exist – as he did in Mali. Rudd would love to be seen at the “big table” and he could see this as a way for grabbing some of Abbot’s supporters for the election in less than 2 weeks.

The chaos in Iraq and the daily loss of life that is occurring there is a direct consequence of the Iraq invasion (and how much worse would it have been under Saddam?). The adventure in Libya to satisfy the European desire for demonstrating their moral superiority will have consequences for many many years to come. Of course the Middle East today (like the Balkans a few years ago) provides proof positive of the barbarism that lies so close to the surface of many human “societies”. And the interventions by moral “police” has always dragged the police down to the level of the criminal societies they are ostensibly trying to put down. The intervention in Kosovo has succeeded after a fashion. But it is hard to come to to the same conclusion for Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya.

To add Syria to the list seems irresponsible.

The only way to address Syria – in my opinion – is to ostracise the entire country. Shun them. Close the borders. isolate them. No weapons – to anybody. No goods, no services to enter the country. Nobody and nothing enters. Only refugees may leave. Send the country to Coventry. Go back in a few months and when the killing stops – help the survivors pick up the pieces. But don’t intervene to add to the killing in the hope of stopping the killing.

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Imagined action from one brain converted to actual action by another brain

August 28, 2013

It is not quite telepathy but it is the stuff of science fiction. It could be the beginnings of mind-to-mind communication or perhaps it could be the beginnings of mind-control. An EEG signal was transmitted from one brain to a particular part of another brain and elicited a response from the body of the second. Admittedly only from that part of that body controlled by that part of the second brain.

Which begs the question as to whether any signal stimulating that part of that second brain would have elicited a similar response? But this is not the time to cavil or to find fault. The possibilities are endless. If I could imagine actions which would then be carried out by – say President Obama – we could all live in a better place!!

A brain-to-brain communication between two rats and also between a human and a rat have been reported from Duke University and from Harvard. Now from the University of Washington comes this report of the “first” brain-to-brain communication (via the internet) between two humans.

From the UoW press release:

Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard.

Brain signals from the “Sender” are recorded. When the computer detects imagined hand movements, a “fire” command is transmitted over the Internet to the TMS machine, which causes an upward movement of the right hand of the “Receiver.” This usually results in the “fire” key being hit. – UoW

Rao, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, has been working on brain-computer interfacing in his lab for more than 10 years and just published a textbook on the subject. In 2011, spurred by the rapid advances in technology, he believed he could demonstrate the concept of human brain-to-brain interfacing. So he partnered with Stocco, a UW research assistant professor in psychology at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.

 On Aug. 12, Rao sat in his lab wearing a cap with electrodes hooked up to an electroencephalography machine, which reads electrical activity in the brain. Stocco was in his lab across campus wearing a purple swim cap marked with the stimulation site for the transcranial magnetic stimulation coil that was placed directly over his left motor cortex, which controls hand movement.

The team had a Skype connection set up so the two labs could coordinate, though neither Rao nor Stocco could see the Skype screens.

Rao looked at a computer screen and played a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand (being careful not to actually move his hand), causing a cursor to hit the “fire” button. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn’t looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon. Stocco compared the feeling of his hand moving involuntarily to that of a nervous tic.

“It was both exciting and eerie to watch an imagined action from my brain get translated into actual action by another brain,” Rao said. “This was basically a one-way flow of information from my brain to his. The next step is having a more equitable two-way conversation directly between the two brains.”

The researchers captured the full demonstration on video recorded in both labs. This video and high-resolution photos also are available on the research website.

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Super heavy element with atomic number 115 (Un un pentium) confirmed

August 27, 2013

Ununpentium is historically known as eka-bismuth. Ununpentium is a temporary IUPAC systematic element name derived from the digits 115.

Eka -bismuth was the name assigned by Dmitri Mendelev to the then unknown element with atomic number 115. Eka-, dvi- and tri- derive from the Sanskrit words for one, two, and three, and Mendelev used these for unknown elements according to whether the predicted element was one, two, or three places down from the known element in his table with similar chemical properties. Eka-bismuth was thus predicted to be one position down from Bismuth with Atomic Number 83 in his table. His predicted Eka-aluminium became Gallium and Eka-silicon became Germanium. His original table was made in 1869 along with his initial predictions.

Photo ALAMY (via The Telegraph)

Photo ALAMY (via The Telegraph)

The first reported synthesis of this heavy element was in 2004 by a team composed of Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, and American scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It exists for less than a second and is highly radioactive. About 25 atoms of “Ununpentium” were synthesised at that time. Now it seems the synthesis of the element has been independently confirmed though it still has to be ratified.

File:Electron shell 115 Ununpentium - no label.svg

Expected electron configuration of “Ununpentium” – Wikipedia

Science2.0: 

An international team at the GSI research facility in Germany have confirmed the existence of a new element with atomic number 115, verifying earlier measurements performed by research groups in Russia. 

By bombarding a thin film of americium with calcium ions, the research team was able to measure photons in connection with the new element’s alpha decay. Certain energies of the photons agreed with the expected energies for X-ray radiation, which is a ‘fingerprint’ of a given element.

The new super-heavy element has yet to be named. A committee comprising members of the international unions of pure and applied physics and chemistry will review the new findings to decide whether to recommend further experiments before the discovery of the new element is acknowledged.

The new super-heavy element has yet to be named. A committee comprising members of the international unions of pure and applied physics and chemistry will review the new findings to decide whether to recommend further experiments before the discovery of the new element is acknowledged.

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Nature: “US behavioural researchers exaggerate findings”

August 27, 2013

The field of behaviour within social psychology has not covered itself with glory in recent times. The cases of Diedrik Stapel and Dirk Smeesters and Marc Hauser are all too recent. But I have the perception that the entire field – globally – has been subject to exaggerations and the actions of narcissists. I had not perceived it as being a particular issue just for the US. But I would not be surprised if the “publish or perish” pressure is stronger in the US than in many other countries.

But a  new study publsished in PNAS has ” found that primary studies whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters. Nonbehavioral studies showed no such “US effect” …”

Fanelli, D. & Ioannidis, J. P. A.,US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research,  Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA  (2013), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1302997110

Nature reports

US behavioural researchers have been handed a dubious distinction — they are more likely than their colleagues in other parts of the world to exaggerate findings, according to a study published today.

The research highlights the importance of unconscious biases that might affect research integrity, says Brian Martinson, a social scientist at the HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who was not involved with the study. “The take-home here is that the ‘bad guy/good guy’ narrative — the idea that we only need to worry about the monsters out there who are making up data — is naive,” Martinson says.



The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by John Ioannidis, a physician at Stanford University in California, and Daniele Fanelli, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. The pair examined 82 meta-analyses in genetics and psychiatry that collectively combined results from 1,174 individual studies. The researchers compared meta-analyses of studies based on non-behavioural parameters, such as physiological measurements, to those based on behavioural parameters, such as progression of dementia or depression.



The researchers then determined how well the strength of an observed result or effect reported in a given study agreed with that of the meta-analysis in which the study was included. They found that, worldwide, behavioural studies were more likely than non-behavioural studies to report ‘extreme effects’ — findings that deviated from the overall effects reported by the meta-analyses.
 And US-based behavioural researchers were more likely than behavioural researchers elsewhere to report extreme effects that deviated in favour of their starting hypotheses.



“We might call this a ‘US effect,’” Fanelli says. “Researchers in the United States tend to report, on average, slightly stronger results than researchers based elsewhere.”

This ‘US effect’ did not occur in non-behavioral research, and studies with both behavioural and non-behavioural components exhibited slightly less of the effect than purely behavioural research. Fanelli and Ioannidis interpret this finding to mean that US researchers are more likely to report strong effects, and that this tendency is more likely to show up in behavioural research, because researchers in these fields have more flexibility to make different methodological choices that produce more diverse results.

The study looked at a larger volume of research than has been examined in previous studies on bias in behavioural research, says Brian Nosek, a psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. ….. 

Abstract

Many biases affect scientific research, causing a waste of resources, posing a threat to human health, and hampering scientific progress. These problems are hypothesized to be worsened by lack of consensus on theories and methods, by selective publication processes, and by career systems too heavily oriented toward productivity, such as those adopted in the United States (US). Here, we extracted 1,174 primary outcomes appearing in 82 meta-analyses published in health-related biological and behavioral research sampled from the Web of Science categories Genetics & Heredity and Psychiatry and measured how individual results deviated from the overall summary effect size within their respective meta-analysis. We found that primary studies whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters. Nonbehavioral studies showed no such “US effect” and were subject mainly to sampling variance and small-study effects, which were stronger for non-US countries. Although this latter finding could be interpreted as a publication bias against non-US authors, the US effect observed in behavioral research is unlikely to be generated by editorial biases. Behavioral studies have lower methodological consensus and higher noise, making US researchers potentially more likely to express an underlying propensity to report strong and significant findings.

Related: Retraction Watch

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Made-up science: “Liking” or “disliking” in general is a personality trait!

August 27, 2013

This comes into the category – not of bad science – but what I would call “made-up science” where something fairly trivial and obvious is made sufficiently complicated to be addressed by “scientific method”.

It is apparently called “dispositional attitude” and it has a 16-item scale to measure an individual’s propensity to generally like or dislike any stimulii! “This surprising and novel discovery expands attitude theory by demonstrating that an attitude is not simply a function of an object’s properties, but it is also a function of the properties of the individual who evaluates the object,”  So a “liker” likes everything and a “hater” hates everything!

“Dispositional Attitude” seems neither surprising nor so very novel. Not so very different from what has been called the “Observer Effect” in physics or the “actor-observer assymetry” in attribution theory. It is unnecessarily trying to complicate what is little more than a cliche. Beauty – or liking or hating – lies in the eye of  the beholder and if your personality wears rose-coloured glasses – surprise, surprise – everything appears red.

Justin Hepler & Dolores Albarracin, “Attitudes without objects: Evidence for a dispositional attitude, its measurement, and its consequences,”, J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013 Jun;104(6):1060-76. doi: 10.1037/a0032282. Epub 2013 Apr 15.

The Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania has come out with this Press Release:

New research has uncovered the reason why some people seem to dislike everything while others seem to like everything. Apparently, it’s all part of our individual personality – a dimension that researchers have coined “dispositional attitude.”
            People with a positive dispositional attitude have a strong tendency to like things, whereas people with a negative dispositional attitude have a strong tendency to dislike things, according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The journal article, “Attitudes without objects: Evidence for a dispositional attitude, its measurement, and its consequences,” was written by Justin Hepler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Dolores Albarracín, Ph.D., the Martin Fishbein Chair of Communication and Professor of Psychology at Penn.
            “The dispositional attitude construct represents a new perspective in which attitudes are not simply a function of the properties of the stimuli under consideration, but are also a function of the properties of the evaluator,” wrote the authors. “[For example], at first glance, it may not seem useful to know someone’s feelings about architecture when assessing their feelings about health care. After all, health care and architecture are independent stimuli with unique sets of properties, so attitudes toward these objects should also be independent.”
            However, they note, there is still one critical factor that an individual’s attitudes will have in common: the individual who formed the attitudes.  “Some people may simply be more prone to focusing on positive features and others on negative features,” Hepler said.  …..  
“This surprising and novel discovery expands attitude theory by demonstrating that an attitude is not simply a function of an object’s properties, but it is also a function of the properties of the individual who evaluates the object,” concluded Hepler and Albarracín. “Overall, the present research provides clear support for the dispositional attitude as a meaningful construct that has important implications for attitude theory and research.”
Abstract:
We hypothesized that individuals may differ in the dispositional tendency to have positive versus negative attitudes, a trait termed the Dispositional Attitude. Across four studies, we developed a 16-item Dispositional Attitude Measure (DAM) and investigated its internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity. DAM scores were (a) positively correlated with positive affect traits, curiosity-related traits, and individual pre-existing attitudes, (b) negatively correlated with negative affect traits, and (c) uncorrelated with theoretically unrelated traits. Dispositional attitudes also significantly predicted the valence of novel attitudes while controlling for theoretically relevant traits (such as
the big-five and optimism). The dispositional attitude construct represents a new perspective in which attitudes are not simply a function of the properties of the stimuli under consideration, but are also a function of the properties of the evaluator. We discuss the intriguing implications of dispositional attitudes for many areas of research, including attitude formation, persuasion, and behavior prediction.

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Farmers’ Almanac caldron “toils and troubles” and predicts a bitterly cold winter

August 26, 2013

How exactly the Farmers’ Almanac makes its predictions is a closely guarded secret. But they tend to be right around 80% of the time.

Based on planetary positions, sunspots and lunar cycles, the almanac’s secret formula is largely unchanged since founder David Young published the first almanac in 1818.

For all we know the Farmers’ Almanac caldron may also contain some or all of the ingredients used by Macbeth’s favourite soothsayers. Certainly the climate caldrons (models) being used by the soothsayers of the IPCC could do with some new ingredients since what they use (eye of Mann and toe of Hansen) don’t seem to work.

IPCC Caldron

Poison’d entrails, venomous toad, Fillet of a fenny snake,

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, 
    Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, 
    Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,….. 

Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; 
    Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf 
    Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark; 
    Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark; 
    Liver of blaspheming Jew; 
    Gall of goat, and slips of yew ……

…. Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips; 
    Finger of birth-strangled babe ….

and not forgetting a tiger’s chaudron and the whole thing cooled with baboon’s blood!

The FA forecast for the coming winter for the US has just been published under the name of Caleb Weatherbee:

Caleb Weatherbee is the official forecaster for the Farmers’ Almanac. His name is actually a pseudonym that has been passed down through generations of Almanac prognosticators and has been used to conceal the true identity of the men and women behind our predictions.

FA Forecast 2013 winter

So, what’s in store for this winter? The “Days of Shivery” are back! 
For 2013–2014, we are forecasting a winter that will experience below average temperatures for about two-thirds of the nation. A large area of below-normal temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to the Appalachians, north and east through New England. Coldest temperatures will be over the Northern Plains on east into the Great Lakes. Only for the Far West and the Southeast will there be a semblance of winter temperatures averaging close to normal, but only a few areas will enjoy many days where temperatures will average above normal.

Precipitation-wise, the Southern Plains, Midwest, and Southeast will see above-normal conditions, while the rest of the country will average near normal. With a combination of below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation the stage will be set for the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Central and Northern New England to receive lots of snow. Farther south, where the thermometer will be vacillating above or below the freezing mark, Southern New England, Southeast New York, New Jersey, and down through the Mid-Atlantic region will be seeing either copious rains and/or snows.

And yet, the Pacific Northwest (or is it “northwet?”) where indeed wet weather is almost a given during the winter months, the overall winter season could average out drier than normal.

Significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. Over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, we are “red-flagging” the first ten days of February for possible heavy winter weather. More importantly, on February 2, Super Bowl XLVIII will be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey’s Meadowlands—the very first time a Super Bowl will be played outdoors in a typically cold weather environment. We are forecasting stormy weather for this, the biggest of sporting venues. But even if we are off by a day or two with the timing of copious wind, rain, and snow, we wish to stress that this particular part of the winter season will be particularly volatile and especially turbulent.

And mid-March could bring a wave of storminess stretching almost from coast to coast, bringing a wide variety of precipitation types as well as strong and gusty winds.

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Late spring, early autumn this year?

August 26, 2013

This morning it feels like Autumn is here. Frost has not quite reached us but it is not very far away. The mist is rising thickly as the sun rises. And the deer are in the garden cleaning up all the fallen apples:

From my window 26th August 2013

From my kitchen window 26th August 2013

This year spring came about 3 weeks late.

SMHI defines spring in Sweden as the first day – after 15th February – of 7 continuous days with temperatures between 0 and 10 °C. The “normal” onset of Spring is as below:

  • Malmö: 22nd February
  • Stockholm: 16th March
  • Östersund: 11th April
  • Kiruna: 1st May

Admittedly I am at a latitude of 58.7057° N.  Spring should have come around 12th March and we are going to be around 3 weeks late (at least).

In calendar terms, spring should last from March till May  and summer from June till August. But the onset of Autumn is defined by SMHI – in meteorological terms – as the first day of the first occurrence of 5 consecutive days with an average temperature of less than 10°C.  Normally this should be around 25th September. But it looks like that it might also be around 3 weeks early.

So while it has not been a bad summer it seems summer may be about 5-6 weeks shorter than “normal” this year.

Many consecutive years of long winters and short summers will probably be the precursors of the coming of the next ice age. And these days I find it more relevant to look for signs that the next ice age (either a little ice age or even the end of the inter-glacial) is coming. It is no longer relevant or worthwhile to be looking for signs of man-made global warming!

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O Fontana! Is Rudd losing his election on rudeness?

August 24, 2013

Two weeks to go to the Australian election and maybe the campaign is now beginning to show some signs of life. But things are not looking very good for Kevin Rudd.

The campaign has been fairly lacklustre so far but some small events may be having an unexpectedly large impact on the electorate. Whereas Abbott’s slip-ups almost seem to be expected and are discounted, Rudd’s small missteps are instead tapping into perceptions of his long history on the political stage. A Rude Rudd meme is growing. Voters don’t usually choose their candidates just for being polite but it is possible that they may refuse to vote for someone considered rude.

Lily Fontana’s short-lived outburst on Facebook about Kevin Rudd’s relative rudeness before last weeks TV debate has brought all his many previous episodes of rudeness back to the forefront. Strangely Abbott’s “shut up” about Rudd is seen as being somewhat justified. His “suppository” instead of “repository” generated a few smutty jokes but does not seem to have caused much negative impact. Perhaps because expectations of Abott are sufficiently low. Perceptions relative to expectations give reality. Another make-up artist, Abigail Johnston, also described a similar episode with Rudd. She too took down (or was forced to take down) her Facebook post.

News.com: Make up artist Abigael Johnston backed up her friend Ms Fontana, saying Mr Rudd had previously been rude to her. “I second this Lily. I have had a very similar experience!” Ms Johnston said. Posting on Facebook Ms Johnston said: “Must run in the family as Mr Howard and Mr Costello were gentlemen with a capital G. Mr Abbott is following in their footsteps. The other, I could not even face book how he treated the crew. Just abhorrent!” When contacted this morning Ms Johnston said the incident she referred to had occurred before Mr Rudd was Prime Minister.

The electorate is beginning to remember that Rudd’s smile is just a little too smarmy and that he may not be such a nice bloke after all. His past reputation for bullying and rudeness is suddenly of great interest.

The Australian: A RETIRED air vice-marshal has accused Kevin Rudd of “bully standover tactics” and a make-up artist has declared he was rude as she prepared him for the people’s forum debate, reviving questions about the Prime Minister’s character that emerged in his first stint in the role. ….. The revelations blunted Labor’s attacks on Tony Abbott’s character, after the Opposition Leader snapped during the forum debate, asking of Rudd “does this guy ever shut up?” ….. echoed claims that Mr Rudd had been rude to air force staff during his first term as prime minister. In the lead up to his failed February 2012 leadership challenge against Julia Gillard, an expletive-laden video was leaked of him losing his cool as he prepared a Chinese-language video.

Herald Sun: In 2009 he famously had to apologise to an RAAF air hostess after it was revealed he reduced her to tears when the meal he requested was unavailable on a flight from Port Moresby to Canberra. .. In the same year it was reported Mr Rudd threw a “wobbly” when Diggers were unable to locate a hairdryer for a photo opportunity in Afghanistan. .. Again in 2009 Mr Rudd reportedly launched an expletive-ridden tirade at Labor’s factional bosses, including three female MPs. ….. In 2010 following the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit Mr Rudd told journalists: “Those Chinese f-ers, they are trying to ratf- us”. … Then in 2012 an expletive-ridden video was released. In the video, uploaded to YouTube under the heading “Kevin Rudd is a happy little vegemite” the PM slams the table and swears repeatedly in outtakes. “You can tell these d-heads in the embassy to just give me simple sentences. I’ve said this before,” Mr Rudd says. “Tell that bloody interpreter. This f-ing language just complicates it so much, you know. How can anyone do this.”

Furthermore his “despatch” of Julia Gillard has confirmed a perception of  his deviousness. What was once seen as “political skill” has flipped over to being seen as “underhanded” and Machiavellian. Of course the Australian Labour Party’s internal workings could be used as a script for The Borgias. (While Jeremy Irons is known to donate generously to Labour in the UK, I have not heard that he has shown much interest in the Australian election).

And now the latest polls show not only the Coalition increasing its lead but also that Rudd may have difficulty in defending his own seat:

The Age: Kevin Rudd faces a fight to avoid becoming the third prime minister in the nation’s history to lose his own seat. A second poll in a week has shown Mr Rudd narrowly trailing his Liberal National Party opponent, Bill Glasson, in Griffith, prompting the Prime Minister to declare he was campaigning as hard as he could.

Long-serving prime minister John Howard lost his Sydney seat of Bennelong to Labor’s Maxine McKew as part of the Ruddslide in 2007, the first time an Australian PM had lost his own electorate since Stanley Bruce in 1929.

Bloomberg: Australia’s opposition Liberal-National coalition widened its lead over the Labor government in an opinion poll, signaling leader Tony Abbott may replace Kevin Rudd as prime minister after the Sept. 7 election. Support for the coalition rose to 53 percent on a two-party preferred basis this week from 52 percent two weeks earlier, while those voters backing the ruling Labor party fell one point to 47 percent, according to a Herald-Nielsen poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper today. Support for Rudd as preferred prime minister fell to 48 percent from 50 percent while 45 percent of those surveyed backed Abbott, up from 42 percent.

My forecast from far, far away (13,600km on a great circle route to Perth) would be for an Abbott win with about a 10 seat margin. It seems unlikely now that any “big” issue (economy, carbon tax, immigration …) is going to get further traction or to be decisive. But two weeks is a long time in politics. It is certainly long enough for either to snatch defeat.

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Integrated Assessment Climate models tell us “very little”

August 24, 2013

Mathematical models are used – and used successfully – everyday in Engineering, Science, Medicine and Business. Their usefulness is determined – and some are extremely useful – by knowing their limitations and acknowledging that they only represent an approximation of real complex systems.  Actual measurements always override the model results and whenever reality does not agree with model predictions it is usually mandatory to adjust the model. Where the adjustments can only be made by using “fudge factors” it is usually necessary to revisit the simplifying assumptions used to formulate the model in the first place.

But this is not how Climate Modelling Works. Reality or actual measurements are not allowed to disturb the model or its results for the far future. Fudge factors galore are introduced to patch over the differences when they appear. The adjustments to the model are just sufficient to cover the observed difference to reality but such that the long-term “result” is maintained.

The assumption that carbon dioxide has a significant role to play in global warming is itself hypothetical. Climate models start with that as an assumption. They don’t address whether there is a link between the two. Some level of warming is assumed to be the consequence of a doubling the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. For the last 17 years global temperature has stood still while carbon dioxide concentration has increased dramatically. There is actually more evidence to hypothesise that there is no link (or a very weak link) between carbon dioxide and global warming than that there is. Nevertheless all climate models start with the built-in assumption that the link exists. And then use the results of the model as proof that the link exists! They are not just cyclical arguments – they are incestuous – or do I mean cannibalistic.

It is bad enough that economic models, developed to count the cost of carbon dioxide are first based on some hypothetical magnitude of the link between carbon dioxide emission and global warming as their starting point. But it gets worse. These “integrated assessment” models then themselves are strewn with new assumptions and further cyclical logic as to how the costs ensue.

A new paper by Prof. Robert Pindyck for the National Bureau of Economic Research takes a less than admiring look at the Integrated Assessment Climate models and their uselessness.

Robert S. Pindyck, Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us?, NBER Working Paper No. 19244
Issued in July 2013

(A pdf of the full paper is here: Climate-Change-Policy-What-Do-the-Models-Tell-Us)

Abstract: Very little. A plethora of integrated assessment models (IAMs) have been constructed and used to estimate the social cost of carbon (SCC) and evaluate alternative abatement policies. These models have crucial flaws that make them close to useless as tools for policy analysis: certain inputs (e.g. the discount rate) are arbitrary, but have huge effects on the SCC estimates the models produce; the models’ descriptions of the impact of climate change are completely ad hoc, with no theoretical or empirical foundation; and the models can tell us nothing about the most important driver of the SCC, the possibility of a catastrophic climate outcome. IAM-based analyses of climate policy create a perception of knowledge and precision, but that perception is illusory and misleading.

Even though his assumptions about “climate sensitivity” are somewhat optimistic, he is more concerned with the assumptions made to try and develop the “damage” function to enable the cost to be estimated:

When assessing climate sensitivity, we at least have scientific results to rely on, and can argue coherently about the probability distribution that is most consistent with those results. When it comes to the damage function, however, we know almost nothing, so developers of IAMs [Integrated Assessment Models] can do little more than make up functional forms and corresponding parameter values. And that is pretty much what they have done. …..  

But remember that neither of these loss functions is based on any economic (or other) theory. Nor are the loss functions that appear in other IAMs. They are just arbitrary functions, made up to describe how GDP goes down when T goes up.

…. Theory can’t help us, Nor is data available that could be used to estimate or even roughly calibrate the parameters. As a result, the choice of values for these parameters is essentially guesswork. The usual approach is to select values such that L(T ) for T in the range of 2◦C to 4◦C is consistent with common wisdom regarding the damages that are likely to occur for small to moderate increases in temperature.

…… For example, Nordhaus (2008) points out (page 51) that the 2007 IPCC report states that “global mean losses could be 1–5% GDP for 4◦C of warming.” But where did the IPCC get those numbers? From its own survey of several IAMs. Yes, it’s a bit circular. 

The bottom line here is that the damage functions used in most IAMs are completely made up, with no theoretical or empirical foundation. That might not matter much if we are looking at temperature increases of 2 or 3◦C, because there is a rough consensus (perhaps completely wrong) that damages will be small at those levels of warming. The problem is that these damage functions tell us nothing about what to expect if temperature increases are larger, e.g., 5◦C or more.19 Putting T = 5 or T = 7 into eqn. (3) or (4) is a completely meaningless exercise. And yet that is exactly what is being done when IAMs are used to analyze climate policy.

And he concludes:

I have argued that IAMs are of little or no value for evaluating alternative climate change policies and estimating the SCC. On the contrary, an IAM-based analysis suggests a level of knowledge and precision that is nonexistent, and allows the modeler to obtain almost any desired result because key inputs can be chosen arbitrarily. 

As I have explained, the physical mechanisms that determine climate sensitivity involve crucial feedback loops, and the parameter values that determine the strength of those feedback loops are largely unknown. When it comes to the impact of climate change, we know even less. IAM damage functions are completely made up, with no theoretical or empirical foundation. They simply reflect common beliefs (which might be wrong) regarding the impact of 2◦C or 3◦C of warming, and can tell us nothing about what might happen if the temperature increases by 5◦C or more. And yet those damage functions are taken seriously when IAMs are used to analyze climate policy. Finally, IAMs tell us nothing about the likelihood and nature of catastrophic outcomes, but it is just such outcomes that matter most for climate change policy. Probably the best we can do at this point is come up with plausible estimates for probabilities and possible impacts of catastrophic outcomes. Doing otherwise is to delude ourselves.

….

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Mathematics | Comments Off on Integrated Assessment Climate models tell us “very little”

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