Note from a practicing scientist: if your experiment doesn’t meet any of the evaluating criteria that you set out in advance, then the experiment didn’t work. Appropriate statistics exist if one absolutely needs to change standards after the fact, but post hoc tests are even harder to pass than the usual kind. That accounts for the fact that you can shop around to find the one that best fits the data.
Scientifically speaking, happy-talk surge boosters like Kagan rank somewhere between the disappointing undergraduate assistant whom you mostly try to prevent from injuring himself, and a beaker.
Third Eye Open
As a student (literally) of history, I find myself with a gnawing sickness in the pit of my stomach that these same people who have invested their reputations (HA!) on the ‘splurge’ working are the same people who will be ghostwriting the next generations’ history books about our occupation.
I am willing to accept any and all monetary contributions to my education in hopes of cutting those varmits off at the pass.
*Have book-light, will travel
Pb
I think that play needs a little updating, what with No Child Left Behind, and all. What would be the NCLB answer to failed benchmarks? Why, defunding, of course! Ya fails yer test, ya loses yer money. How about a No Soldier Left Behind Act? Or perhaps the Republican Hack Accountability Act of 2007? I can dream…
Zifnab
It’s always fun to read a wingnut view of the Vietnam War. How LBJ was a communist sympathizer. How Nixon’s secret plan was foiled by damn dirty hippies. How Agent Orange could have been more strategically used in combat zones. How the Tet Offensive was a real turning point in the war and we should have won right after that if we hadn’t pulled out.
Expect alot of that bullshit.
BIRDZILLA
Leading scientists are still skeptical of the whole idea of man made global warming although you would think that 90% of these scientists belive its happening
Punchy
Name 3 that aren’t connected to the oil industry. And since you said “leading”, they must have published in a top-tier journal (Science, Nature, Biochemistry, etc.).
I’ll be waiting (all day….month).
By the way Tim, nice pic. I loved Dr. Bunson Honeydew!
Matt t
Another example of what Gore called the assault on reason.
Tim F.
I have to say that if a leading climate scientist published in the journal Biochemistry I would be very impressed.
Paging Wally Broecker!
RSA
Given the invasion of Iraq, it seems clear that these clowns can’t distinguish between association and causation. See also the marvelous reduction of violence during the summer months in Iraq.
Punchy
Yes, but Bird didn’t specify “climate” scientist. I’m quite sure 0% of those deny man-made GW. Therein lies the stunt. The Deniers find some clown with a PhD in Creationolgy from Upstate Jesus College to deny it, then point at his diploma as his “expertise”.
I was thinking Michael Behe when I mentioned Biochemistry, b/c that’s a very common talking head who spews lots of non-science.
Tim F.
heh, I doubt that Behe has published a peer-reviewed research paper in quite some time. When I wrote a review of Darwin’s Black Box in college I conluded that Behe had an exceptionally rare imbalance of ambition versus talent, so he closed the gap by seeking attention through other means.
Case in point, from DBB:
Yeesh. I haven’t seen anything to change my opinion since.
ajay
Note from a practicing scientist: if your experiment doesn’t meet any of the evaluating criteria that you set out in advance, then the experiment didn’t work.
Well, just to nitpick, but that isn’t actually true. If the measuring equipment breaks so you can’t tell whether it’s met the criteria or not, or the apparatus catches fire halfway through and destroys the sample, then the experiment didn’t work.
The surge was an experiment to test the hypothesis “Adding 20,000 troops to Iraq will allow political and military progress.” The troops were added. No significant political and military progress resulted. Hypothesis disproved. But the experiment worked – a negative result is still a result…