the process of science

A few years back, Michael Crichton published State of Fear, which was far less a novel than an inept position paper. Possessed of a tortured and unbelievable plot, wooden characters, and many pages of highly selective scientific data (replete with charts and footnotes) and pseudo-scientific exposition, the book was only worth reading for insight into the minds of climate contrarians (or deniers depending on your preferred terminology). The book had two essential premises: 1) those who support the idea of anthropogenic global warming do so for reasons of personal, professional and organizational economic gain and aggrandizement, and that these people are therefore willing to go to any lengths, including the wholesale murder of entire populations through manufactured environmental catastrophes, to protect their interests and promote acceptance of anthropogenic global warming by the public and politicians; and 2) governments (that is the "state" in the title) require the maintenance of fear in order to exert control in the population, and in the absence of old enemies (communism), government has turned to an environmental bogeyman to exert control.

Let's deal with premise number two first. Governments have used fear as a mechanism of control, especially when bent on limiting civil liberties and political opposition, and expanding the power of office holders. This describes the Bush administration. However, the Bush administration spent seven of its eight years denying global warming, and doing its best to silence scientists in NASA, NOAA, the EPA and CDC and stifle data supportive of the anthropogenic global warming. The Bush administration favorite bogeyman is "Islamic terrorism" not global warming. Which leads us to premise number one. Certainly millions of dollars of research money, from both government and industry is at stake for scientists, their departments and their institutions. But under the Bush administration, large-scale government monies were not flowing to scientists studying climate change, and the industries (coal, electricity generation, oil, etc.) with the most money to spend on climate research are largely those whose stake is in undermining the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.

Why spend so much time talking about a bad novel? Because those two key premises are widely believed by many people. Over and over, in blogs, in on-line discussions, on talk shows, on Fox News, and many other media outlets, the belief is expressed that those who support the idea of anthropogenic global warming are motivated by the exact same things -- greed and power -- that motivate those who oppose the idea.

Americans have become disenchanted with politics (many sociologists would call it alienation). Quite accurately, Americans are aware of the role of money in politics. They know that the pharmaceutical corporations spend millions in lobbying money and campaign contributions and public relations ads to insure that they will continue to make billions and billions in profits on drugs. They know that corporations like Halliburton and its subsidiaries have made millions in profits on no-bid contracts in Iraq while American soldiers and Iraqi civilians die -- sometimes as a direct result of the shoddy work done on those contracts, like the soldiers electrocuted by poor wiring jobs done by a Halliburton subsidiary. Americans also know that things that their government identifies as threats often turn out not to be supported by fact. Many Americans believe that Bush and Cheney knowingly lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whipping-up fear to support a war that had far more to do with shoring up the dollar and protecting access to oil supplies, than it ever had to do with terrorism and military threat. So it is not surprising that many Americans also look at claims about the dangers of global warming with distrust.

They have come to expect people to act politically only out of self-interest in amassing wealth and power, and to expect that fear-mongering will play a major role in promoting that self-interest. The idea that scientists might operate on different, more disinterested principles, requiring rigorous testing, verification and review is beyond the comprehension of most people. This is not to say that scientists are not human and that they care nothing at all for career advancement, salaries, or grants; of course they are and they do.

Individual scientists fake data and lie about their results. However, they are usually caught at it and disgraced, because the scientific endeavor as a whole has built into it many mechanisms for feedback, review, oversight, and correction based on empirical evidence.

Most Americans do not understand that science is a process and a social process at that. Our educational system is at fault in this. The only exposure of most people to science is reading a few dry textbooks that present a list of terms, facts and numbers to be memorized and accepted by fiat. The social process of science in which the results of each individual scientists study are reviewed by many others, and tested repeatedly by others in other settings, has built into it corrections that tend to weed out that which is cannot be replicated and supported.

Science is not infallible. Scientists do sometimes go down the wrong alley, but this is always corrected by other scientists. Climate change science has been around a lot longer than the general public has been aware of it - and contrary to some media claims has been focused on global warming not cooling. Long before it became climate change became a political issue, the scientific process of review pruned away most of the false leads and blind alleys. There is still a great deal of uncertainty on specific mechanisms, specific consequences, and the specific patterns and timetables through which the general trend of anthropogenic global warming will play out.

Politicians and the political process may "squelch dissent," but science uses a process of peer review to sort between that which has the greatest empirical support and that which fails the tests of reviews and replication. This means that some people don't get their papers and their research published. This is not sinister, its how the scientific process works. Sometimes this means that good ideas and groundbreaking research doesn't get published. But if there's validity in it, other people will pick it up and work on it, providing more data, more corraboration, until ultimately it will get recognized.

Ice Watching Redux

Anyone who is interested can observe the day to day measurements of sea ice in the Arctic on the National Snow and Ice Data Center's page Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis.

One week ago (June 4) I posted on this topic at Blue Island Almanack. But things have changed slightly since then. This is today's updated graphic. The gray line at the top is the average extent (1979 to 2000 the period for which we have satellite imaging) of ice for each date, the dotted green line is the actual extent of sea ice on each date in 2007 (the minimum extent recorded so far). The blue line is this year's (2008) current measurements. As you can see, as of yesterday, this year's ice extent has now dropped just below last year (2007). This does not bode well.

Many scientists expect that because a much larger extent of the sea ice is thinner one year ice (because of the previous years minimum extent), that melting will accelerate and drop well below the 2007 minimum.

playing with numbers 2

The UK College of Agriculture source that provided me with monthly average temperatures for Kentucky, also included data on each month's deviation for "normal."

I thought "hey -- let's look for patterns of change over the past decade!" So I collected the deviation data for 2001 to 2008. What I found was that from January 2001 through May 2008, the average deviation from normal temperatures was +1.5 degrees. Looking at each year independently, all but one year had higher than normal deviations (ranging from +.979 to +1.94) and only one year had a lower than normal deviation, and it was only -.18. This strongly suggested that the current decade was substantially warmer than "normal."

Of course it matters what is used as "normal" to make the comparisons. I looked in vain for someplace on the UK College of Agriculture website for their definition of normal. Ultimately I found a link to a NOAA page that defined terms, which said that normal was based on a thirty year average, currently (by NOAA) 1971 to 2000.

But I'm not one to just accept numbers. I decided to go back to the original pages where the data was and see if I could find those places where the actual monthly "normal" temperature was listed, and not just the "deviation from normal." What I discovered was a tremendous lack of consistency in the UK data. In some years the average monthly temperature for January was given as 33.1 degrees F, and in others it was given as 31.3 degrees F. I don't know if they were calculating normal based on a different set of years each time, or whether they were just sloppy in recording the data.

Now I'm looking for better data sets. NOAA has monthly average temperature data sets for each individual reporting stations across the U.S., and one can find very localized data. These data sets vary considerably in their detail, reliability, and the time periods that they cover. The one closest to me only goes back to 1981. So far, however, I haven't found anything to provide average monthly data for slightly larger geographic units.

If anyone out there knows of publicly accessible, reliable, data sets on monthly average temperatures for anything less than the whole U.S. but more than individual reporting stations, I'd like to know about it.

Like I said previously, I actually like doing this sort of thing!

playing with numbers

I teach statistics. I'm a sociologist, but I'm also sort of a math geek -- always have been. That's not what people expect when they think about social scientists.

The other day when I was trying to find something to do to avoid working on fixing all the dates in my on-line class (the most truly boring aspect of teaching on-line), I thought of something I've been meaning to do for years: getting data on electricity use and temperature for my classes to learn about the difference between an association between two variables and a correlation between them.

What I wanted was a spreadsheet with a column for how many kilowatt hours we have used every month for the past few years and a column for the average temperature for our region for each month for the same period. The kilowatt hours used is easy -- the utility company prints the last 12 months of actual kilowatt usage on each bill. So I just had to locate the bills for January in the past several years. Getting the average monthly temperature was a little trickier. But the College of Agriculture at the University of Kentucky has growing season data that provides monthly averages. Some months the information is more detailed and actually breaks down the data by climate zone, but since that was only available half the time (and because I saw little difference between the overall averages for Kentucky and this region) I went with the mean temperature for the state of Kentucky.

I actually took two days to gather the temperature data, since I had to read through separate narrative descriptions for each year and each month to ferret out the relevant data. Once I had all data for the past three years, I created a scatter plot of the points. It didn't look right. There was slight, about r = -.40 linear relationship between the two data sets, where there should have been a strong curvilinear relationship. Then, duh, it hit me. The temperatures were for the correct month, but the electricity usage was off by one month -- one gets the bill for May usage in June not May. So I moved the entire column of figures up by one month, and viola! Here's what the scatter plot looks like:

Exactly as one would expect. Because we don't have whole house air conditioning (only in two rooms, and we only use fans at night) the upturn for warmer months is much less than one would expect in a home with a heat pump.

Now I have great data for my statistics class to play with -- only trouble no one is enrolled for statistics this fall. Enrollments in all our classes are way down, probably due to issues with the economy. Gas prices are up here as elsewhere, as are food prices, and tuition prices are up, too; but unlike elsewhere in the nation, employment in the coal industry is up. Coal companies are hiring, therefore so are other types of businesses in the region. Young people faced with rising costs and better employment opportunities. They choose work over school, and the wives of working husbands, stay home from school to reduce gas costs. Bad news for community colleges.

ice watching

Anyone who is interested can observe the day to day measurements of sea ice in the Arctic on the National Snow and Ice Data Center's page Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis. This is today's updated graphic. The gray line at the top is the average (1979 to 2000)extent of ice for each date, the dotted green line is the actual extent of sea ice on each date in 2007 (the minimum extent recorded so far), and the blue line is this year's (2008) current measurements. As you can see, this year has, until recently exceeded the 2007 minimum, but fallen below the twenty year average.

Many scientists, however, expect that because a much larger extent of the sea ice is thinner one year ice (because of the previous years minimum extent), that melting will accelerate and drop below even the 2007 minimum.

Blogger punkinsmom on Idle Musings noted today, that the "the temperature of the water in the Oslo Fjord was rapidly rising. It's often still below 10C (50F) in early June, but Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported water temperatures at some Oslo-area beaches of 18C (nearly 70F) on Tuesday morning."

Greater warming in the Arctic and its environs than in temperate and tropical regions has both been measured to date, and projected for the future. The Met Office Hadley Centre, British Antarctic Survey and UK Government have harnessed Google Earth technology to present you with an interactive animation showing how climate change and global temperature rises could affect our world over the next 100 years. (You can download Google Earth for free to run the animation -- it's really worth having!).

The Deniers Step Up the Campaign

Got a fascinating piece of mail at work today, inviting me to sign a petition urging "the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan." The petition card further went on to say that "There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, int he foreseeable future , cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." There's more but I think that's enough for you to get the picture.

The most interesting thing about the petition card, that one is suppose to sign and return if one agrees with the sentiment [which of course I do not], is that it specifically requests the signer to indicated whether they have a B.S., M.S. or Ph.D. degree, and in what field. They are obviously not picky about what field, since the envelop was addressed erroneously to me in the "Communications/Humanities/Fine Arts Division" (I'm in the Social Sciences Division). So they presumably don't care whether their signers are scientists or not.

The thickly stuffed envelop has a cryptic return address of GWPP (which is not explained anywhere in the materials), at a Post Office box in La Jolla, California. In addition to the petition card, the envelop contains a brief note from Frederick Seitz a past president of the National Academy of Sciences. The note appeals to me as a "citizen" who has "the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice." Remember the senders thought I was faculty in Communications/Humanities/Fine Arts! I am also invited to request more petition cards to share with my colleagues.

More interesting than the note, is the copy of The Wall Street Journal article from 2000 by Arthur B. Robinson and Noah E. Robinson, (Chemists at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine), and the 12 page, glossy, three-three color reprint of an article from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 2007 by both Robinsons and a Willie Soon, replete with many, many charts and graphs.

Like many such pieces there is a certain amount of schizophrenia -- the first chart, of the surface temperature of the Sargasso sea going back to 1000 BCE, purports to demonstrate that there really isn't any global warming. The temperature for 2006 is show as being right at the 3000 year average, with many warmer periods (including the "Medieval Climate Optimum" about 1100 CE). This is right next to a chart that shows that there is global warming in the Arctic, but purports to show that the warming follows the pattern of solar activity and not the pattern of hydrocarbon use (primary source of atmospheric carbon dioxide). [The solar activity hypothesis has recently been undermined by research] The rest of the article progressing the same way jumping between "it's not really warming" claims, to "it is warming, but we're not doing it." I saw nothing in this piece that is not satisfactorily dealt with by global warming science -- see the wonderful summary of arguments and counter arguments at: The Gristmill.

For more about this mailing see: "Oregon Institute of Science and Malarkey" at RealClimate Blog.

Good reading at the Influence Machine and Conscious Earth

E. R. Dunhill (the Influence Machine) has been busy making many thought provoking posts this week. Check out in particular his posts about the our finite oil resources, the need for more science funding, and biofuels. And he has provided fodder for discussions on poverty and Iraq. So check it out and get involved in the discussion.

Odiyya at Conscious Earth has takes those of us in the U.S. to task (appropriately) in his commentary on a recent Newsweek article.

The fact is that the American people need to confront a very uncomfortable truth about their nation, one that goes far beyond the reality of global warming and touches the core of their culture and society. That is, that while laying claim to the title of the world's leader of democracy and freedom, the United States of America represents the modern world's most sophisticated machine for brainwashing their own populace and ensuring their continued ignorance - to the impacts of their lifestyles, to the loss of their own freedoms, and to the failings of their own democratic state.

Amen.

I am reminded of a line from one of my favorite John Lennon songs "Working Class Hero" addressed to Americans:

You think you're all so classless and free
You're all f--king peasants, as far as I can see.

Perusing the Web

During the school year, I spend hours a day at the computer, responding to e-mails from students, colleagues and organizations, reading and responding to student forum posts in my on-line classes, and grading papers. I also use Google, every day, to find ideas and materials for my courses.

Now I'm on vacation, but I'm still spending hours a day at the computer, because there is just so much to read, see and hear on the Web.

I decided that I needed to get more systematic in reading the news on-line. [Although I still spend a couple of hours a day skimming news on television and cable, the quality of "news" available on the tube has severely deteriorated]. So I created a Google home page, and pulled in lots of news feeds.

And I learned, once again, why it is that I don't keep up with the news on the Internet all the time -- every time I read one news story, I end up following a link to something else, which links to something else, which reminds me of something that I want to Google, which leads to new pages that have links that cry out to be followed. Three hours later, I am still sitting in my nightgown with cold coffee, and have not yet read all the news I wanted to read because I fell down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

On this particular trip down the rabbit hole, I discovered something called City Journal (the city in question being New York of course). What led me there was an article by Sol Stern
"Radical Math at the DOE" -- which refers to the Department of Education (in NY), not the Department of Defense, which had been my first thought.

Stern was decrying a conference which provided opportunities for math instructors (from elementary through high school) to learn ways of incorporating social justice issues in math lessons. Aside from the fact that I heartily approve of inserting lessons on social justice where ever one can, as someone who teaches statistics to unprepared and math phobic students in college, I consider any approach to teaching math in public schools that might actually engage students interest in the subject and make them desire to learn math all to the good.

What I was particularly intrigued about in Stern's article was the following:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has won plaudits from business leaders for his corporate-style reorganization of the school system, and for supporting market-oriented education initiatives such as charter schools and merit pay for teachers. But the mayor’s supporters have been reluctant to acknowledge the downside of this new approach. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor have also taken a laissez-faire stance about what gets taught in the city’s classrooms....It’s ironic that while Bloomberg extols the benefits of the market in education, his schools are becoming rife with radical teachers using the classroom to trash the American system.

First, I thought that "laissez-faire" was the absolute essence of market capitalism. If laissez-faire is appropriate for business, and one wishes education to emulate business, then it would seem appropriate for education. [Note I say "if" one wishes education to emulate business. Be assured that I, as a left wing radical certainly do not wish that, but Stern seems to heartily approve a market approach to education.] Secondly, if in fact one does wish education to emulate the capitalist market, then it would be for the consumers of education to determine the appropriateness and/or desirability of what happens in the classroom. Has it occurred to Stern, that perhaps social justice is what the people want?

Math Counts

Everyone in education these days is talking about preparing students to compete in a global economy where math and science will be more important than ever. Problem is we aren't even preparing them with the math they need for today's service economy.

Monday, I drove 25 miles over into Virginia, to do my shopping at the larger Wal-Mart and larger Food City (we have smaller versions of both in Letcher County, Kentucky). One of the things I particularly like about the new, larger Food City in Wise, VA, is the fresh meat and fish counter.

I asked the woman behind the counter (who looked to be in her 30's), for "three-quarters" of a pound of sea scallops. She put a container on the scales, and lifted a few scallops in. The read out said ".25" pound. She stopped, and asked me "Is that enough?" I thought perhaps I had not articulated well and she'd heard "one-quarter," so I said, "no, I'd like to have three-quarters of a pound."

Still the woman hesitated, and she asked again, "Is that enough?" Again, I repeated myself, and said no, and repeated again what I wanted.

Finally, in an embarrassed and apologetic tone, the woman said, "I'm sorry, I don't know how much that is." So I told her that three-quarters of a pound, was ".75" pound on her scale.

She was clueless on how to translate fractions into decimals, even the simplest and most commonly used decimals that are an absolutely essential part of her job of weighing out meats and fish for customers.

Translating fractions to decimals was something that I learned in the sixth grade, in 1962, in a working class neighborhood public school in California. A school, that moreover, was viewed as inferior to other, middle class and upper middle class neighborhood schools by the junior and senior high schools in the city. Students from my working class elementary school were routinely denied access to accelerated and advanced courses in junior and senior high schools, because we were deemed "under prepared." Yet, clearly, my elementary education prepared me better for the work world, than that of the Food City employee.

We appear to be missing the boat at a most basic level of preparation in math in elementary schools. Something needs to be done!

Improving math and science education

I am not, in principle, opposed to the idea of paying slightly higher salaries to teachers in subject areas, such as math and science, where the public schools must compete with industry and research institutions for the most talented individuals. But the Kentucky Educational Association was right to oppose the specific bills (Senate bills 1 and 2) this year, which would reward a very small number of math and science teachers.

The Senate bills focused on the wrong end of the educational process. In Kentucky, as else where in the nation, the battle to instill interest and ability in math and science in students is lost in the early years in elementary school, not in high school.

The problem is that our early elementary classrooms are filled with teachers who "love children" but hate math and science. I've been a college teacher for twenty-five years, and I see it over and over again. A person, most often but not always a woman, who does not like math and science and does poorly in those subjects, but who "loves children" (I heard that phrase over and over again when I sat of the teacher admissions committee of a 4 year college in a neighboring state) decides that elementary education is the best career path to take. [Those who hate math and science but "want to help people" usually go into social work].

College students who enjoy math and science and do well in it, have a wide range of interesting careers to choose from, and if they consider teaching at all, they most often focus on high school, or at the very least middle school.

This has not always been the case in the United States. Before the early seventies, gender discrimination meant that most college educated women went into one of three fields -- education, nursing, or office work. I look at the women in my own family. My mother was a teacher, three of my father's sisters were nurses (as were two of their daughters) and one of my father's sisters was a secretary.

In the 1950's when I was in elementary school, bright talented women who liked math and science, had few options other than education and nursing. Consequently, elementary education generally attracted the best and the brightest women, who brought their love of learning, and their interest in math and science with them into the lives of children. The women's movement changed all that.

This most certainly does not make the women's movement a bad thing. The problem is not that the women's movement created more opportunities for women, drawing them out of the classroom and into a wider world of occupations. The problem is that society did not recognize and adjust to this change.

In order to continue to have the same bright minds attracted to elementary education, we needed to increase pay, and increase professional responsibility, and provide greater autonomy for talented teachers. Instead, beginning in the 1970's we did just the opposite. We allowed the pay of teachers relative to other occupations requiring a college education to deteriorate, and we burdened teachers with increasing loads of paperwork, and hampered creativity.

Although it by no means addresses the full scope of the problem, the KEA's proposal for "in-depth summer institute for math and science teachers in grades 4 through 8" at least is focused on the correct end of the educational process -- elementary and/or middle school.

Down the other -- scientific ignorance part 2

As I said in a previous posting, scientific ignorance is endemic these days. Moreover it annoys me even more than usual when it comes from some one who identifies themselves with the scientific world.

A month ago, on Earth Day, I had the privilege of being part of a wonderful conference -- the "Campus-Community Partnership for Sustainability Conference." It was held at Berea College, in Berea Kentucky April 21-23. The conference successfully brought together scientists, activists, farmers, architects, planners and other who are deeply concerned about how we can make a transition to a post-Peak Oil world. The term "Peak Oil" was coined by geologist M. King Hubbert more than 50 years ago: "The term Peak Oil refers the maximum rate of the production of oil in any area under consideration, recognizing that it is a finite natural resource, subject to depletion." Hubbert successful predicted that U.S. Oil production would reach its peak (maximum rate of production) in the 1970's. Others have used his methods to make predictions for world wide oil production which vary from 2015 to 2035. The conference which focuses on sustainability (and not the oxymoronic "sustainable development" deplored by many environmentalists) will be repeated again next year, at Eastern Kentucky University.

My comments here in should not be taken in any way as a criticism of the conference itself.

My role, as a sociologist interested in environmental sociology and community, was minimal. I volunteered to moderate a few sessions and some discussion. The topics I choose to moderate where those that about which I had little knowledge with the hope of learning something (which I did). The afternoon session, which will be the focus of this posting, was entitled "Ecological landscapes and 'going native'" by Portia Brown. Ms. Brown is a self educated "native plant consultant, educator and advocate" (as she describes herself in her first prize winning entry in the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro governments 2005 Low Maintenance Landscape Design contest http://www.apcd.org/lawncare/design_contest/2005/brown_Portia/. Portia is an engaging speaker, and she had a valuable thesis, that "by embracing the richness of our regional plant communities in our manage landscapes we can reduce fragmentation and build much needed connections between and within the human and natural communities."

But there was something in her presentation that nagged at me, and which illustrates the same kind of scientific ignorance I deplored (in previous post) in novelist Michael Crichton.

Portia began her presentation by asking those in attendance what a "native" plant was. One member of the audience offered the following definition (with out any facetiousness), saying that a "native plant is one that was here before European settlers came to the Americas." Portia suggested that such a definition was not general enough (too specific to North America) and offered instead this definition: " a native plant is one that evolved naturally (without human intervention) and persists naturally in the wild of a particular region."

As I listened to her talk, and thought about it over the intervening weeks, I realized that the audience member's definition far more accurately portrayed the way in which Brown (and many others) actually use the term "native plants" than her own, more "scientific" sounding definition.

The fact of the matter is, that we have no way of knowing whether or not the various grasses and wildflowers, shrubs and trees, that Portia used as examples of native species evolved in situ without human intervention or not. Human beings occupied north American since some 20,000 to 15,000 years ago. Evidence only beginning to be understood thorough today suggests that the populations of humans in the new world in 1400 just prior to the arrival of Europeans were many times greater than previously believed. North America was in all likelihood a fairly densely populated landmass, that was decimated by diseases of European origin before the settling of Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. Horticulture was practiced though out north America and Agriculture was practiced in various locations.

This definition of "native" is used (although rarely recognized) through out the world. "Native" plants are those that were in existence when Europeans first arrive in Africa, in Asia, and else where in the world. Part of the definitional process is a subtle form of racism. An assumption that no humans other than Europeans had the knowledge and technical capacity to alter the natural world. The less sinister explanation is that we simply have no knowledge of the horticultural practices of humans in regions prior to the occupation by Europeans because most such "indigenous" people had oral rather than written cultures, and the knowledge of those cultures was lost.

Thus Portia Brown considered elderberry with its white fluffy flowers to be "native" and Queen Anne's Lace with similar flowers as not native. But do we know, for a fact, that humans had no role in the propogation and dispersal of elderberry? We do not.

Moreover, Brown's definition which excluded "human intervention" is scientifically specious on another ground. Distinguishing between the role of humans in propogating and dispersing seed and plants across the landscape from the role of other species, seems artificial and arbitrary. Wild roses existed in the Americas before Europeans arrived. Rosa acicularis or prickly rose, is clearly a part of the same biological family as European cultivated roses (and as blackberries and rasberries). According to http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/shrubs/rosaaci.html "Native Americans made medicinal tea from wild roses which was used as a remedy for diarrhea and stomach maladies. They sometimes smoked the inner bark. The Crow used a solution made by boiling rose roots in a compress to reduce swelling. The same solution was drunk for mouth bleeding and gargled as a remedy for tonsillitis and sore throats; vapor from this solution was inhaled for nose bleeding." How did this plant that shares biological ancestors with European plants end up in north American (or vice versa). In all likelihood because of the transport of plant seeds or other germinating matter by animals such as birds.

Plant species arise in one place and seeds, spores, cones, or other means of germination are transported by animals (and the wind) to new places. Birds are frequent distributors of genetic matter. But mammals and other species may help with the disrtribution of edible plants through their feces. From a scientific point of view the difference between the role of human and of other animals is merely a matter of degree, and perhaps intentionality (although not always).

This unscientific distinction between the role of humans animals and the role of other animals in the dispersal of plant species through the world, is frequently accompanied by an equally unscientific view of the landscape as something that is fixed and unchanging that we, humans need to lock into place and protect from any disruptive influences. This mind set worries extensively about the invasion of foreign species that "aggresively" crowd out "native" species. One example in this region is the mimosa tree or silk tree with its long lived prink tasseled flowers. Mimosa is fast growing, and spreads easily. In the past two decades of warmer weather, mimos have spread at the edges of Kentucky forests, generally along roadsides, often claiming the same general niche that dogwood and redbud occupy. In cooler wetter years they die back, and resurge again in warmer drier springs and summers. These trees which originated in central Eurasia, and came to the U.S. as popular ornamental trees. This has earned the mimosa a spot on lists of dangerous and banned foreign species.

But let us consider this more carefully, 20,000 years ago when the last ice age was winding down, the forests of Kentucky were largely arboreal nondeciduous forests. At some point the oaks and maples, sycamores and dogwood that we love so much were "foreign" invaders themselves. What makes that transition "good" and current transitions in forest species "bad"? What ever it is, it is NOT science.

Up one side -- scientific ignorance part 1

Ignorance of science, of the actual realities of the scientific method and scientific logic, and even of the factual knowledge generated by the scientific method, is endemic these days. I have come to expect that from my science phobic, religiously conservative students who fear learning any real science will damn them to an afterlife in hell fire. But what really gets me is when it shows up in people who actually claim the mantel of science.

Take Michael Crichton, graduate of Harvard Medical School, but best known as author of such blockbusters as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, and more recently State of Fear. The primary thesis of State of Fear (which reads more like a master's thesis than a compelling thriller) is that international discussion of global warming has far outstripped scientific knowledge and is primarily driven by political ambitions rather than by actual knowledge. One would be hard pressed to call it an "anti-environmentalist" tract since the overriding message of the book is that a lot more money should go into environmental research -- a conclusion with which it is hard to find fault.

What struck me about State of Fear however, is the lack of understanding of scientific reasoning demonstrated by Crichton. Although there were a number o f examples, one in particular has stayed with me for two years. This is the first novel I've ever read that has charts and diagrams in it with footnotes, and it is Crichton's interpretation of two of these charts that is problematic. One chart shows the steadily increasing (from the 1950's to the present) measurement of concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. [One of several sites where a cumulative graphic representation of CO2 concentrations similar to that used by Crichton can be found is http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm]. The other show the more variable, but over all increase in world wide average temperature from 1880 to the present [if you've never seen this iconic graph check out the copy of it on the EPA's Global Warming (oops, sorry "climate change") page http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climate.html]. The graph of atmospheric CO2 concentrations shows a stead, uninterrupted, increase in concentration of the gas in the atmosphere over the past 60 years; the graph of average global temperatures, while showing an overall trend over the past 125 years of increasing temperature, shows significant year to year variations, and even a short period, centering around the 1960's during which the trend of global average temperatures went down slightly (before returning to an overall upward trend in the 1970's. Now here is Crichton's stunning piece of nonscientific logic from State of Fear: Because the two trends are not identical, year for year, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere can not possibly be a "cause" of the climatic temperature. Scientists, are you listening here -- unless you can show an exact, constant, never varying correlation, between your x variable and your y variable, you can never claim that x could be a cause of y. Unfortunately, this specious argument will sit quite well with the vast majority of scientifically illiterate Americans.

There is however, a simple, common sense way to demonstrate the flaw in Crichton's argument.
Ever since reading it two years ago, I have imagined having a conversation with Crichton, in front of an audience of undergraduate students, that would reveal to those students the scientific and logic flaws of Crichton's arguments. Since I am a lowly, unknown, community college faculty member in rural Kentucky, my chance to go head to head with Crichton are pretty slim. So I have decided to satisfy my urge by imagining how such a conversation might go.

Greer-Pitt: Dr. Crichton, as I understand your point, you contend that increasing CO2 concentrations could not be a cause of increases in global average temperatures, because, while CO2 concentrations have increased steadily, during the same time average global temperatures have risen, but not steadily, and global temperatures have even shown short periods of cooling before returning to an overall pattern of rise.

Crichton (in my imagination): Yes, Dr. Greer-Pitt, this is true. I point out in State of Fear, that for CO2 concentrations to have been the cause of the rise in temperature, that these concentrations also would have had to decline during those years of temperature decline.

Greer-Pitt: Dr. Crichton, like everyone else who lives in the northern Hemisphere, I'm sure that you have noticed, year after year, that the average temperatures in January are cooler than the average temperatures in June?

Crichton: Well, in California, we do some times have a warm sunny day in January, and a cool, foggy day in June.

Greer-Pitt: Indeed. But I'm talking about average temperatures. Would you not say that on the whole the average of temperatures (both highs and lows) in January are generally lower than the average of temperatures in June?

Crichton: Certainly. It is the difference between winter and summer.

Greer-Pitt: I'm so glad you brought up the issue of seasons, of winter and summer. What would you say is the primary cause of the passage of the season, the primary cause of cooler temperatures in winter (January) and warmer temperatures in summer (June).

Crichton: As almost any American school child can tell you, seasonal change is caused by the tilt of the earth's axis. As the earth revolves around the sun, the north pole (since we live in the northern hemisphere) alternatively points towards the sun (during the summer) and away from the sun (during winter). This tilt in the axis affects the amount of time that sunlight shines on the northern hemisphere, and how directly that sunlight falls. We notice this in the changing length of days. Winter days are shorter (less sunlight) and summer days are longer (more sunlight).

Greer-Pitt: So you would say that the tilt of the earth's axis and the amount of sunlight falling on the surface (both in terms of the hours of the day and how directly the suns rays fall) are the root cause of the temperature differences that we in the northern hemisphere see between winter and summer?

Crichton: Certainly. But you know that weather and the actual temperature of any day, vary considerably due to a variety of factors such as the winds, cloud cover, and moisture content.

Greer-Pitt: Excellent point. In fact, as we trace the change in temperature from January to June, we don't always see a smooth upward rise in temperature do we?

Crichton: Certainly not. It is not at all unusual for a week or two in May to be cooler on average than the month of April.

Greer-Pitt: We in Kentucky call that common cold snap in May "Blackberry winter" because it seems that often we get a cold snap that coincides with the blooming of the blackberry vines.

Crichton: Weather is a very complex phenomenon, with many factors contributing to daily temperatures.

Greer-Pitt: Yet, you would still say that there is an overall rise in temperature from January to June?

Crichton: Certainly.

Greer-Pitt: And you would also say that this overall rise in temperature is caused by the tilt in the earth's axis and the amount of sunlight hitting the northern hemisphere?

Crichton: Yes.

Greer-Pitt: Would you say that the length of day (length of sunlight hours) and amount of sunlight increases in a regular, continuous manner from January to June 21 or 22 (the first day of summer)? There are no periods of fluctuation in which the earths axis changes its direction or that the day light hours decrease even slightly during that period?

Crichton: Well, cloud cover may limit our ability to see the sun on some days. But no the earths axis doesn't change direction.

Greer-Pitt: And the cloud cover doesn't change the overall increase in sunlight time and strength does it?

Crichton: No.

Greer-Pitt: So to summarize, you would say that the primary cause of the passage of the seasons, and the average increase in temperature from January to June in the Northern Hemisphere is the tilt of the earth's axis and its impact on the length of days and amount of sunlight hitting the northern Hemisphere.

Crichton: Yes.

Greer-Pitt: And you would say that this was so, even though the phenomenon of the axis tilt and amount of sunlight change in a consistent way, while the actual average temperatures of the weeks from January to June although on a general upward trend fluctuated considerably producing periods (from days to weeks ) in May and June that are cooler than February or March or April? You are saying that it is possible for there to be a cause that is constant and steady in its progress, while the consequence is less constant and more variable?

Crichton: Yes. Because observed weather, even if it has long term regularities like seasons (winter and summer), is a complex phenomenon, and the weather on any given day is the result of both the long term seasonal trend and factors such as wind, clouds, and moisture.

Greer-Pitt: And you would not argue that for axis tilt and amount of daylight to be considered the primary causes of seasonal change, they would have to vary exactly has the daily temperature varied? You would not discount axis tilt and day light hours as an overall cause of June being warmer than January just because the axis didn't wobble or the day light decline during "Blackberry winter"?

Crichton: Certainly not.

Greer-Pitt: Exactly. There is no requirement in science that there be a one to one correspondence between a causal factor and its consequence. As complex as weather is, climate is even more complex. But within that complexity we can identify basic causal factors. Increasing CO2 concentrations can be the cause of an overall increase in global average temperatures, even though it continued to rise during short periods of temperature decline. Just as we can say increased hours of sunshine are the cause of overall increase in seasonal temperatures, even though the hours of sunlight continue to rise during short periods of temperature decline (such as Blackberry Winter). While there may be other types of evidence that cause us to question the role of CO2 in global warming, one argument we can rule out is the lack of an exact one to one correspondence between the steady rise of CO2 and the more erratic, but still overall rise in global temperature.