Earlier postings:
dialog re/ Thrive
thinking about pre-history…
Paul Craig Roberts: A Culture of Delusion
re/ various topics…
First long-term study of GMO corn
Long-term temperatures:
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Hill Eshbach wrote (re/ dialog re/ Thrive):
Hi Richard,Thanks for posting Foster Gamble’s earlier longer message to you per Jim Fadiman’s adroit intervention. It enriches the conversation a great deal.Keep up the fabulous work!Hill
Thanks Hill, glad you found that useful.
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Andrea Lea wrote (re/ thinking about pre-history):
Thanks for sending this, Richard. Am looking forward to viewing all of it.Cheers,AL
Hi Andrea,
It was a real breakthrough for me to think about the end-of-ice-age scenario. Of course every culture has a story of a great flood! I’ve seen many articles and books that speculate about this and that cause of a great flood in pre-history, but the cause turns out to be obvious – all the melting glaciers.
But that’s only part of the story, re/ end-of-ice-age cataclysms. There is also the question what causes an ice age to end. From the chart above it looks like some kind of huge energy pulse hits the Earth every 100,000 years or so, raising temperatures very rapidly and melting the glaciers. Temperatures descend just as rapidly to another ice age, as soon as the excess energy from the pulse is radiated into space, which takes about 10,000 years. We could expect such an energy pulse to create a heat-cataclysm that might be even more destructive than the flood-cataclysms that follow in its wake.
In the following article we find evidence of just such a destructive energy-pulse, caused by a mega-burst of gamma radiation from the center of our galaxy, and occurring just before the last ice-age ended:
The article suggests that we may experience another such gamma-ray cataclysm on December 21, 2012, based on claims about galactic alignments and such. I doubt that will happen, based on the considerations above. I suspect rather that the famous Mayan date refers to the beginning of the cooling off to the next ice age. It marks not the end of the world, but rather the beginning of another age of glaciated normalcy – following the havoc caused by the most recent gamma pulse.
This makes it doubly difficult for a pre-pulse civilization to leave evidence for a later civilization. Objects must be created that can withstand both the fire and the deluge, and which can communicate to a future unknown society with an unknown language.
rkm
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Gunther Ostermann wrote (re/ A Culture of Delusion):
Hi, I’ve heard about this last night on CBC, Very interesting. Here is another perspective that I thought of, several decades ago, when I found myself in the middle of the road…Possibilianism:Creavolution:
Hi Gunther,
Those are very interesting concepts. I certainly believe in the principle of possibilianism, which basically means to keep your mind open to all possibilities, and keep exploring new sources of evidence, and new hypotheses. The video is intriguing, however I found it ironic that the speaker, the inventor of possibilianism and a neuroscientist, rejects out-of-hand the possibility of psychic phenomenon. That suggests that no one retains rationality when things get too close to home.
Creavolution also makes a lot of sense – an interplay between a guiding consciousness and the evolutionary process. All technologies proceed that way, where each new generation of a technology involves conscious incremental design, plus the accumulated evolutionary wisdom from previous generations of the technology.
rkm
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Peter Koenig wrote (re/ various topics):
rkm wrote (re/ cults):To question cult beliefs is not disagreement; it is heresy, evil. We can see this with today’s biggest cult, the global-warming cult, where questioning dubious assumptions is called ‘denial’, and where the strongest believers have the least understanding of the claims they parrot.
Hundert Percent agree with you. It would even be senseless to argue with the believers, because they are entrenched in the idiocy that looking back one’s own little life span could do harm to the truth, aka the cult. Besides this climate cult – as arrogant as it is, making believe that we miserable human beings could influence nature – is way on in preparing the next bubble – the Carbon Bubble.Looking at geo-history and geology rather than invented ‘science’ would make it clear that we are living within huge cycles of ice ages and warmings and within these are smaller cycles – some 40,000 years ago the Mediterranean sea was some 70 meters higher than it is today – and that humans contribute almost zilch to the climate change – at the most some 0.05% of CO2.peter
Hi Peter,
40,000 years ago we were still solidly in the last Ice Age. Much of Europe was covered in mile-thick glaciers, and sea levels were much lower, due to the water trapped in the glaciers. If the Mediterranean basin had water levels 70 meters higher than today, it must have been fresh water in a glacial lake.
What do you mean by Carbon Bubble?
rkm
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Leonard Rifas wrote (re/ various topics):
rkm> First, thanks to Stephanie McDowall, let me share one of those rare discussions of climate that actually has a scientific basis:Regarding this message of a week ago. I did not mind that the link went to an article in a popular business magazine and was about someone who makes no secret of his lack of climate science credentials (“I have no climate science credentials.”)I wondered, though, why you called this “one of those rare discussions of climate that actually has a scientific basis.” It seems that you like it based on “which side you are on” considerations. In what other sense can discussions of climate on “a scientific basis” be rare? (To ask this again from another direction, are there studies of climate change that you recognize as “scientific” while disagreeing with their conclusions?)I vaguely recall that you posted some time back an original argument against the validity of alarmist global climate change theories and asked for your readers to respond to it. I did not respond (if I recall correctly), but it looked interesting. Have you discussed your ideas with scientists in that field?Regards,Leonard
Hi Leonard,
The fact that someone lacks climate-science credentials does not preclude them from investigating climate in a scientific way. And in fact Rutan proceeded very scientifically, examining the raw climate data, and using that data to evaluate the various claims put forward by the warming alarmists.
It is rare to find an article on climate that is not based on the assumption that Co2 levels have a strong effect on climate. As there is no evidence for such an effect, I consider most articles on climate to have no scientific basis.
The article by Richard Muller was scientific, in the way it verified that temperatures have risen since the 1700s. But I don’t agree with the conclusion, that the rise was due to human activity. That conclusion did not come out of his study, but from the assumption of Co2 causation.
I’m open to discussing the climate record with anyone who is willing to discuss it rationally. I’m not sure, however, which scientific field is the most relevant. I think ‘data analysis’ would be more helpful than the field that calls itself ‘climate science’. ‘Climate science’ these days seems pretty much limited to running computer simulations that have the assumption of Co2 causation, plus other dubious assumptions, built into them.
rkm
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Sue Skidmore wrote (re/ various topics):
Richard–Thanks for sending this. Do you think that the Earth is going to shed the old outer layer and be reborn?~SuePS: Did I send you the info about Chaco Canyon?
Hi Sue,
Not sure what you mean by shedding an outer layer. Are you talking about something geophysical, or something metaphorical? I think the Earth, Gaia, is OK as she is. The problem is that humanity has fallen out of tune with her.
rkm
ps> Chaco Canyon??
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Ed Goertzen wrote (re/ First long-term study of GMO corn):
Hi Richard;The Great Unknown in Gene science, as I understand it, has been the role played by the “Dark Matter’Most recently, it has been discovered that it is the Dark Matter that actually tells the genes to do what they are supposed to do.I’m not a scientist, Check it outRegardsEd G
Hi Ed,
Google reveals:
“Unknown genes” are those for which the encoded function is unknown. These genes are part of what scientists refer to as “biological dark matter.”
I’d say a great deal of ignorance is revealed in the words above. For example, there is an assumption that the encoded function of many genes is known. As if we had a one function per gene system operating. That’s like saying each note in a symphony has an independent function. It’s the subtle combinations and interplays of notes / genes that make up the nature of a symphony / organism. GMO is totally reckless, like a child making random changes to a score by Mozart, except that our food supply if poisoned, not just our audio sensibilities.
rkm
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