Be warned. Don’t write this off as the usual exaggerated hype from Nature.
Zoology: Here be dragons
- Andrew J. Hamilton, Robert M. May & Edward K. Waters
- Nature 520, 42–43doi:10.1038/520042a Published online
Emerging evidence indicates that dragons can no longer be dismissed as creatures of legend and fantasy, and that anthropogenic effects on the world’s climate may inadvertently be paving the way for the resurgence of these beasts.
Figure 2: The rise and fall and rise again of dragons. The relative frequency of ‘dragons’ in fictional literature (thick red line), as determined as a unigram probability4, with two historical reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature (decadal smoothing) shown in blue5 and purple6. Global temperatures have been measured since 1855 (thick black line5). Temperature anomalies represent deviations from the 1961–90 reference period. The rising incidence of dragons in the literature correlates with rising temperatures, and suggests that these fire-breathing lizards are being sighted more frequently. As a result, the large-scale ‘Third Stir’ is deemed to be imminent.
Ominous signs are there:
Further work has revealed that the early medieval period was a veritable paradise for dragons. This can be attributed to the period’s unusually warm temperatures (Fig. 2) and an abundance of knights, the beasts’ favourite combatant and food. It was also a time when wealth and status were measured in terms of gold and silver — the preferred nesting material for Western dragons.
So dragons forage for knights, and nest in gold and silver. The Nature researchers don’t even mention the rising price of gold and silver nor the volume of trades. Now that’s a hockeystick.
Australia gets the blame again:
Sluggish action on global warming is set to compound the problem, and policies such as the restoration of knighthoods in Australia are likely to exacerbate the predicament yet further by providing a sustained and delicious food supply. It is now only a matter of time before The Third Stir takes place, and this, to borrow a phrase from Godfrey of Exmouth, will be the “bigge one”.
USA Today reports one of the authors is expecting attacks from skeptics:
Some skeptics continue to deride the notion of human-induced climate change, “so we will not at all be
surprised that our finding that this climate phenomenon will see a burgeoning of fire-breathing dragons is
treated with extreme suspicion, if not contempt, scorn and ridicule,” said Andrew Hamilton, a professor of
entomology and an expert in pest management at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
I would say “Not at all”. There’s far more empirical support here than for man-made global warming. ;- )
Oh goody! I like dragons. They may even have a benefit if the warmists are afraid of them. Dare I hope?
100
I hope that was sarcasm. 🙂
50
I think skeptics need not attack this at all. It attacks itself. All we need to do is sit back and watch.
But I can’t help commenting — what a bunch of numbskulls they are to think this can be taken seriously.
Please! This is a new low even for global warming
80
Or was Bilbo Baggins more than just a good fantasy?
Probably not.
—
Check the release date. I just tweeted “finally a Nature article I can support”. Jo
50
Yes, I know it’s a joke.
Jo, bless her kind heart, snipped some stuff to save me embarrassment. But I was just responding in kind. Perhaps it was a little harsh. But doggone it, Nature has done too much to foist off this faux problem on the world by manipulating who got published and other sins, to be allowed pull off a joke about it. They need some jabbing back.
It’s not even a good children’s fantasy and frankly, Dr. Seuss could have done better.
In a time when the UN and many governments around the world are moving to impose harsh measures to solve the non problem of global warming I think a joke about it from one of the prime promoters of global warming just doesn’t set very well.
Sorry Roy, I thought you might have missed my satire of their satire, but I missed your satire of a satire of a satire. Ahem, Restored. Forgive me! – Jo
41
Oh damn, just a joke.
And here I was thinking this might be my last big chance to be a hero.
I do fancy myself as a bit of a dragon slayer.
40
I’m surprised the alarmists have a sense of humour. April 1 can even cause a climate scientist to make a funny.
10
The best April Fools Day joke I’ve ever seen was in a now defunct audiophile magazine called, Audio. For years every April addition had at least one article touting the great accomplishments of Professor I Lirpa. They all read as dead serious.
Of course you only need to read that name backward to understand what it was all about. They had great fun with that for as long as I was a subscriber. There were even letters to the editor about Professor Lirpa.
20
They’ll help to keep us warm in a cooling world….if they last long enough after it cools.
/tongue in cheek.
30
It’s the warming which is supposed to bring them back, after St George took care of the last one in the Medieval Warming.
When it cools, we can expect to see a resurgence of wyverns; they’re more often associated with cold and ice …
00
I ask all to read the Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson. Quite appropriate with Press releases about hydrogen cars. Dragons have {possibly} hydrogen producing metabolism.
20
You just cant make this stuff up….
Jo, I have had such a laugh over the last couple of days from the CAGW mob, who seem to become more and more loopy by the day.
Perhaps under pressure, we are seeing them as they truly are. Perhaps the answer is obvious – eventually under the pressure of sceptics just calmly speaking the scientific truth, they will lash out and be exposed for eveyone to see what they truly are.
Perhaps the long game is one of patience and persistence….
41
I put it down to “ice”.
20
I like dragons too (water dragons). We have them around our house some times but on any sunny day they bask on the rocks beside our road. They have got used to me and know that I have the dogs on leads when I walk past. They even nod their heads when I say hello. The monitor lizards are another thing. 1.5 to 2m long and weighing 5-10 kg they are difficult to keep out of the chicken pen and even more difficult to pick up and move about a 100m to the other side of the property (they are territorial and the move is to disorient them). You should see then climb up the trees. These goannas are like a small version of the Komodo Dragon and have nasty claws which could do damage. I pick them up by the tail. They seem to have got bigger over the years and so have the pythons. A large one ate one of our chickens and not far away it was reported in the paper that one swallowed a dog. It must be all that CO2- it certainly making the trees and the bush grow. The place is starting to look like a jungle.
20
April fools
71
That depends on where you are, in which time zone you happen to be, and whether or not you are reliant upon superstition, instead of science.
I notice that even your comment was a day late, so who is the fool?
42
“so who is the fool?”
Maybe you… “Published online 01 April 2015”
and by the way … I’m in Portugal, it’s 21:20h of April first
61
Portugal is good, a bit behind the times, and somewhat traditional in its attitudes, but a nice place none the less.
I am in New Zealand, and we used to get the day before anybody else had had the chance to muck it up. That all changed when Fiji and Kiribati bent the dateline so they could get fresher produce.
Time is very relative. There is a theory about that …
52
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1212749/images/o-KOMODO-DRAGON-BACTERIA-facebook.jpg
30
Just in time, along comes St George, the Dragon Slayer, along with a few ‘knighted’ friends in this new movie short. ‘Nature’ magazine will be horrified.
20
All in time for St Georges Day in the UK 23rd of April.
R-COO- K+
30
St. George for Merrie Englande 🙂
20
I was born in merry olde England and lived there until I was 13. I remember, while in the Boy Scouts, having to march in a St Georges Day parade.
Bring on the Dragons , I ready to fight with my trusty lance.
‘ang about, there’s a rugby team called the St George Illawarra Dragons here in Oz. Might have to become a fan.
LOL
R-COO- K+
30
This is no surprise as the left have been so SMAUG about everything else that’s unbelievable…..
[You get five demerit points for an unbelievably bad pun] -Fly
120
Actually not bad at all. Some much worse puns have been posted on Jo Nova over the years.
30
What a load of rubbish!
Anybody who was there at the time, will tell you that capturing maidens, and damsels in distress, were the primary motivation for dragons.
And as for eating knights? I don’t think so. Who wants to eat canned food? Yuck!
210
Maybe dragons talons were tungsten….ideal can openers….
20
Hmm, Hamilton, May, and Walters. That sounds remarkably like the nucleus of an all-star rock band …
30
Not Clarkson and co then?!
30
Ah Rereke,
Perhaps Peter Asher and Gordon Waller might be the go here. They did the Knight song.
Tony.
20
This could be your first one line comment eva. Is that all that dragons can drag out of you?
Sir TonyfromOz – I’m a bit disappointed that your comment this time hasn’t educated us about the mathematics of ergs per dragon breath per rescued maiden. Please submit the essential formulas for all our edification.
PS – In genuine appreciation.
40
Gary,
I have had a shorter comment. It consisted of just three capital letters. No one saw it because it was snipped.
However, hunting dragons to save a fair maiden does indeed have a mathematical formula.
Every Knight worth his salt always carried two Mars Bars into battle with the dragon.
He chomped down the first before the battle, and after slaying the dragon, and if the fair maiden was, umm, fairer than he expected, then he immediately chomped down the second of those delicious sweets.
Hence, the mathematical formula is as follows.
C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ → 6CO₂ + 6H₂O + energy
Hope this helps.
Tony.
Post Script. That’s Glucose plus the added oxygen when breathing needed for the exertion, thus giving off added CO2 and water as sweat plus the, umm, energy for the, err, exertion.
20
And with the arrow going the other way we have photosynthesis which gives us glucose and gets rid of that horrible polluting C02.
20
Rereke,
Yeah, but it’s not Brain Salad Surgery.
10
Frantic pre-Paris psychological deflection…out of the climate frying pan into the dragon breathing fire.
40
Oh goody. Another boon from our friendly CO2 molecule. I’ve always wanted a dragon, maybe I’ll have my chance… dibs on a white one please. Has anyone seen any research that says we’ll have wherries as well? I understand that they are one of the staple food sources of dragons, if the research I’ve read is accurate.
50
What does a fire breathing dragon use for fuel? Does it produce even more CO2 and hence increase GW and make for a better climate for even more dragons?
So many questions.
R-COO- K+
Potassium salt of an aliphatic acid.
Born to be a chemist.
20
Ron Cook,
So that’s why you do that. I’ve always wondered.
It is April Fools Day, so I thought, “Maybe he’s just saying that as part of the festivities”.
From the google search results page:
“Aliphatic perfluorinated carboxylic esters have been prepared by two methods; (i) the … chloride or thionyl chloride with a mixture of the potassium salt KOC(C2F5), and perfluoro acid salts of the general formula KO-CO-Rf in a polar solvent.”
Wikipedia has an article on Carboxylic acid.
From the artcle:
“Carboxylic acids occur widely and include the amino acids . . . under some circumstances they can be decarboxylated to yield carbon dioxide.”
Amino acids, the building blocks of life, have that CO2 stuck right there on the side. So every time you sign your name, you put lie to the claims of CO2 being a pollutant. 🙂
Abe
20
I, for one, welcome our new dragon overlords.
50
Dragons are like Hockey Sticks, something to frighten children and the gullible with.
Lots of people believe in Hockey Sticks, so that must mean they believe in dragons too.
That guy Lewandowsky was/is good at that kind of logic. After all, there are real dragons in Game of Thrones, so they must be real, just like climate scientists who don’t manipulate data.
61
Yes the whole CAGW thing sounds more and like pagan peasants sitting in mud huts over a long winter, inventing scary stories to keep kids in line….
Certainly from the Sceptic Knights to the CAGW knights there has been jousting a-plenty….
We seem to have enetered a new eco-fuedalism.
Now all we need is a new Dante….with a new comedy…
51
Will the dragons save the poor drowning puppy dogs, Daddy? You know? The ones in that advert on TV that that showed everything covered in water, and had me crying for ages.
30
In a weird way this is actually progress, the MWP is recognised once more.
70
Ah, but with all those dragons running around breathing fire it had to be warmer.
What they are hoping is that these dragons will get the Global Warming © going again.
© Global Warming is copyright to Algore Financial Services limited.
31
Saw one the other day did I .Seen it with me own two eyes while I was hanging out the washing.
20
HO HO HO happy 1st of April ……
I knew Tony was up to mischief, quick get him to knight Tim, Cook, Lew. and Penny Wong she’ a distressed dam. Bugger the list is endless!!
40
Is not every day April Fool’s Day at Nature these days?
60
With Nature’s track record the last decade, it’s hard to believe every day isn’t April 1. Somehow I’m reminded of what Will Rogers, a long ago American humorist, said: “When Congress passes a law, it’s a joke; and when it cracks a joke, it’s a law.” Nature is the modern incarnation of Will Rogers’ Congress.
50
My OH says that they had the date wrong for Earth Hour. It should have been on April the 1st.
30
Dragons are real!
So there!
30
Lots of dragons in my garden, here is one of the bigger ones.
30
Here is a dragon with horns in our local bush, don’t forget your spear.
30
I can remember it vividly, just as though it was yesterday.
It was the year 1602 and every second article in the Cairo Times was about dragons.
I thought to myself at the time, “Sh*t it’s going to be hot in 2015”.
60
I have found the only way to successfully read alarmism articles is to replace the commonly seen phrase “man-made climate change” with “a lack of unicorns”
All the articles then make sense, like
“Polar bear populations on decline due to a lack of unicorns”
“Anartctica ice melt resulting from a lack of unicorns”
“Record Boston snow caused by a lack of unicorns”
It now seems I had the wrong magical creature in my head.
51
I like it…
10
FTOP:
Be positive!
“Polar bear populations will increase if there are enough unicorns”
“Antarctica and Greenland ice won’t melt if there are enough unicorns”
“Boston snow will reduce if there are enough unicorns”
“Renewable energy will be reliable if there are enough unicorns”.
00
On a more serious note, now that the rising temperature scare is unraveling, we are seeing a growing number of scare stories about the oceans. Just more of the usual. Here are some excerpts (the bolding is mine).
As an amusing aside, some of the people who are running the scare (and I am not suggesting this is the case with anyone linked to the article quoted above) rely on the primitive instinct we inherited from our caveman ancestors to fear the imaginary beasts lurking in the dark outside our caves. We have such a morbid curiosity for horror stories involving disaster scenarios that we actively seek them out, and Hollywood makes a fortune from feeding them to us. It is probably a survival mechanism: as long as our fear is alive we will huddle in our caves at night and not venture outside and fall prey to a terrifying beast, or, worse …. the boogie man! In fact, our fear of the disasters is so intense that many ancient mariners’ maps feature drawings of dragons in the parts of the world that had yet to be explored. These drawings were usually accompanied by the inscription ‘There be dragons!’
31
I WAS being serious. I’m a pretty old bugger.
10
We can see that.
20
A bit William Tell-ish eh. Officious ‘Guessler’ the scientist puts the latest science bumff on a pole in the market square and all who pass by have to pay allegiance by doffing their hats. Any skeptics are hauled off to recant or lose their freedom.
20
And spaghetti trees are producing less pasta that is also inferior in texture because of global warming. BBC.
I think of one recent paper that needed to be saved for April 1st.
Addendum: at least one recent paper.
40
I remember the spaghetti harvest on the BBC! Great fun but it really dates me.
30
I can’t believe the rubbish published in Nature. They have clearly not run controls and not shown the cause and effect ie they base the increase in abundance of dragons on a warmer (why not higher CO2) climate. I think Ockhams razor provides a simpler hypothesis.
Dragons cause the warming. First their numbers are increasing due to something else like land clearing or mining awakening them from their lairs. Secondly they breathe fire which is both the source of atmospheric heating and the source of the CO2.
90
Gee Aye, you keep making jokes like this and you will loose your Troll status …
71
TS sounds like you are trolling me! BTW, is your definition of a troll someone who does not agree with Jo?
10
Is the number of trolls increasing due to Global Warming? The Swedish and Norwegian universities should study this.
40
RoHa,
The number of Trolls does not seem to increase due to global warming however it does seem to increse due to discussions about the lack of global warming.
50
Trolls are here to refute the negative.
10
Trolls are creatures of habitat. Give them an internet and nothing useful to say and they’ll flourish
20
Trolls are people who make inflammatory statements in an attempt to take a conversation off topic.
I would not call you a troll, by that definition. You seem inept at changing the topic.
Of course, having made that comment, which has nothing to do with the post, I myself have acted like a troll, under provocation from you, which just goes to show how good a troll you are.
40
I really am clever. I must have written my original post knowing that it would prompt someone to raise the topic of trolls so that I could respond and ultimately cause you to go off topic.
10
There is far more evidence to support the revival of dragons than there ever was to support unusual ‘warming’ or the notion that, if it were ‘warming’ that it has any correlation with atmospheric CO2.
51
seeking clarity!
31 March:: Nature: UK election: Nature polls its readers on the science vote
Survey suggests that left-leaning readers are taking more notice of historically minor parties.
Clarified 1 April 2015
Richard Van Noorden
The science vote has never been representative of that of the wider UK population: if the country were made up only of scientists ***like those who answered the survey, a left-leaning party would win easily…
Overall, both the Green Party and the SNP seem to have gained support among scientists…
Labour is also the party that the scientists Nature polled think would give UK research the best chance of thriving…
Readers responded to a survey e-mailed in the week of 17–24 March 2015. Survey work by Dan Penny, Kate Peskett, Richard Van Noorden, Daniel Cressey and Elizabeth Gibney…
***Clarified: This article has been amended to make it clear that the results are suggestive only of Nature’s UK reader opinion, not of all UK scientists…
There are currently no comments.
http://www.nature.com/news/uk-election-nature-polls-its-readers-on-the-science-vote-1.17238
31
Not surprised. Scientists have always been noted for political naivety. (Climate ‘scientists’ just for naivety in general.)
10
top right homepage of The Conversation: “The ABC is integral to diversity of media sources, media content and media exposure” – Brian McNair
1 April: The Conversation: Local content and the ABC
by Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication at Queensland University of Technology
The following is an edited version of a submission to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee with reference to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Local Content) Bill 2014, by Brian McNair and Ben Goldsmith (Ben Goldsmith is Senior Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation). The committee has now ***reported.
For a relatively small cost the ABC provides key cultural services to Australia, in particular:
– politically impartial, well-resourced news and current affairs, at national, regional and local levels…
The ABC is vital to three kinds of media diversity: diversity of media sources; diversity of media content; and diversity of media exposure (the diversity of content or sources that are actually used or consumed by audiences and by individuals).
With no requirement to satisfy shareholders’ profit expectations, or proprietors’ political agendas, the ABC is free to report on local affairs without fear or favour, and to serve the public interest in a much more comprehensive manner than, will, say the local private tabloid. It is the only organisation in Australia capable and legally mandated to do so…
Conclusion:
Notwithstanding the specifics of the ABC Charter and the ABC Act, the ABC does play an important role in the achievement of elements of the Broadcasting Services Act – relating to media diversity, competition and the responsiveness of broadcasters to audience needs, promotion of Australian identity and cultural diversity, and making programs of local significance broadly available…
http://theconversation.com/local-content-and-the-abc-36128
***the report:
PDF 42 pages: March 2015: Senate Committee: Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Local Content) Bill 2014
1.10 …Senator Xenophon went on to state that the concerns arise from the increasing centralisation of the ABC operations in Sydney and Melbourne as many state- and territory-based production, journalism and broadcasting services are relocated. This has led to a reduction in diversity of stories and voices and an increased focus on east-coast metropolitan interests…
1.26 Mark Scott: We have to respect the audience and what the audience is saying to us…
1.46 Submitters Professor McNair and Dr Goldsmith also supported the necessity of local news and current affairs production…
Misleading statements by Mark Scott in relation to ratings figures for state-based
Friday 7.30 programs in 2014
1.49 (Nick Xenophon?) Mr Scott has made two arguably misleading statements at Senate Committee hearings since late last year about the ratings of the state-based 7.30 programs in 2014, which were broadcast every Friday until Mr Scott axed them last December as part of the ABC’s centralisation strategy. I am not suggesting this was deliberate…
http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/Committees/Senate/committee/ec_ctte/ABC_Local_Content_Bill/report.pdf
31
1 April: The Conversation: US submits climate target to UN while Australia looks for excuses
by Alan Pears AM, Sustainable Energy & Climate Researcher at RMIT University
Disclosure Statement, Alan Pears AM has carried out consulting work for many sustainable energy organisations and provides policy advice to a variety of organisations. At present he has no paid roles for such organisations. He is an honorary adviser to the Energy Efficiency Council, Climate Alliance and Alternative Technology Association.
Looking for Excuses
Some other countries, notably the US and the European Union, have already formally submitted their targets, or have provided clear statements of their intent. Global action seems to be accelerating, leaving Australia in the dust…
It reminds me of Australia’s “poor little rich kid” approach taken when negotiating our extremely generous 1997 Kyoto target, while failing to focus on the fundamental goals of global climate policy…
http://theconversation.com/us-submits-climate-target-to-un-while-australia-looks-for-excuses-39625
what i don’t see on The Conversation website as yet! and not in a lot of MSM either:
1 April: UK Telegraph:Andrew Critchlow: Barack Obama gives Shell go-ahead to drill for oil in Alaskan Arctic
Anglo-Dutch oil giant to return to the Chukchi Sea in search for oil despite concerns for the environment
Despite the slump in oil prices to levels around $50 per barrel, operators are prepared to continuing searching for crude in the Arctic. According to estimates by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie, the region, straddling territory belonging to Russia, the US, Norway, Greenland and Canada, may hold as much as 166bn barrels of oil equivalent.
Shell’s plan for the Chukchi may involve using two rigs to reach production of around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, roughly half the UK’s current output of oil from the North Sea. Tapping oil and gas reserves held under the Arctic will be vital to meeting expected global energy demand beyond 2040…
However, the decision by President Barack Obama’s administration to sanction Shell’s plans in Alaska has drawn immediate criticism from environmental lobby groups.
“It’s an indefensible decision,” said Greenpeace Arctic campaigner Ian Duff…
The decision to permit Shell back into Alaska could also trigger a rush by other nations to tap their Arctic resources…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11507488/Barack-Obama-gives-Shell-go-ahead-to-drill-for-oil-in-Alaskan-Arctic.html
Chorus of Outrage as Obama Administration Approves Arctic Drilling for Shell Oil | Common Dreams | Breaking News …
Common Dreams – 7 hours ago
21
I have to agree there is much better empirical support for the reappearance dragons than there is for the dangerous man-made warming hypothesis. For instance just look at the correlation we see between relative dragon frequency (RDF) and US debt as a percentage of GDP.
We should also be aware that dragons come in many forms, we all know about the fire breathing Gorbull warming dragon but there are actually some quite cuddly ones too. Just look at Puff, he was not only magic but allegedly he was nice to kids as well. Then there was Falcor from The Neverending Story, he was just like a big friendly puppy.
30
It has been pointed out to me that I am remiss for having not drawn attention to the Bendigo Easter festival, which celebrates Victoria’s rich Chinese cultural hermitage dating from the days of the Chinese influx seeking the riches of the “Big Gold Mountain” circa 1855.
Bendigo is home to one of one of the world’s oldest Chinese Imperial Dragons.
40
Bob, the last time I had a Chinese hermitage was in Xian in 2006. It was called Great Wall Red Wine and tasted just like cement. Just saying!
00
Already I can see problems with this hypothesis , knights evolved to combat dragons not feed them . It’s true that dragons do eat knights out of necessity but their preferred diet is villagers and damsels . In fact the decline of dragons correlates with the evolution of the knight’s offensive and defensive capabilities . An early knight compared with a later knight . What finished of both dragon and knight however , was the evolution of a new species known as the arquebusier .
30
It is the fire-breathing dragons that CAUSE global Warming. Obviously they should be taxed.
40
Are you volunteering to be the tax collector? For a short time, at least.
20
What a wonderful April Fool’s joke. Kudos!
20
Game of Thrones – caused by global warming.
20
I fear the hotheaded naked ice borers far more…
20
I’ve been found out at last. I am Aprile Pazzo
20
Jo,
Do you think that Matthew Reilly saw a preprint of this paper and used it in his latest novel “The Great Zoo of China” or was it the other way around?
Basil
10
I’m a bit confused about this article…. Are the Warmists actually arguing that Dragons are real and are using that fact to validate their global warming hypothesis?
Basically they have admitted that their AGW hypothesis is as dumb as believing in Dragons…. Goes to prove that Humour really is the good natured side of truth. 😉
31
Am I reading this wrong, they have the Medieval Warming cooler than now?
Is that part of the Joke,or is it just a part of the narrative?
20
You did notice that the Nature article was published on April 1?
00
LOL, I was thinking this was going to be about Slaying the Sky Dragon…. I git it now…
20
1 April: Slate: Charles Seife: Science’s Big Scandal
Even legitimate publishers are faking peer review.
By Charles Seife
But it’s not just the newcomer predatory publishers that are counterfeiting. The SCIgen scandal shows that even old-fashioned big-budget scientific publishing houses are sometimes faking the process of scholarly peer review.
The SCIgen algorithm is more than a decade old now; written by MIT students, it strings together nonsensical phrases larded with computer science buzzwords, slaps on a graph or two, throws in some phony references … voila! You’ve got a reasonable facsimile of a comp-sci paper. Reasonable, that is, if you know absolutely zilch about computers and have no reading comprehension skills. Take, for example, this introduction to a SCIgen paper:
-The development of congestion control has synthesized checksums, and current trends suggest that the exploration of scatter/gather I/O will soon emerge. The notion that analysts connect with compilers is usually well-received. The notion that biologists collude with 802.11b is usually considered robust. However, simulated annealing alone cannot fulfill the need for the construction of 802.11b. –
It’s not just you; nobody on the planet can figure out what that paragraph means…
And for the better part of a decade, SCIgen-written papers have been appearing in conference proceedings and computer science journals all around the world, exposing bogus peer review wherever it crops up. (It’s not hard to find oodles and oodles of examples if you know what to look for.) So, last year, when Springer and IEEE had to withdraw more than 120 articles written by SCIgen, it was a clear demonstration that fake peer review was a big deal in major mainstream scientific publications, not just predatory ones. (Springer, with more than 2,000 journals in its portfolio, is a juggernaut like Elsevier; IEEE is the leading society for electrical engineers and computer scientists and a major publisher in its own right.)…
We’re entering an era of cargo cult peer review. It now appears that even major scientific publishers are peddling products that have all the trappings of a scholarly journal but are fundamentally hollow at core. As it is, the majority of research published in the scientific literature could be wrong. Try to imagine just how much worse it is going to get as scholarly journals turn themselves into vanity presses.
(Charles Seife is a journalism professor at New York University. His most recent books are Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking and Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception.)
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/04/fake_peer_review_scientific_journals_publish_fraudulent_plagiarized_or_nonsense.single.html
21
There I was spending all my time fretting about Vampires – when it’s been the return of Dragons that’s been the real issue.
(Smacks forehead with palm…)
10
Nat Geo joins the long list of MSM reporting the following, which is not backed up by Weather Underground’s own online data.
a week after the event, it doesn’t occur to the MSM to contact the WMO for comment? how long does it take to certify?
31 March: National Geographic: Brian Clark Howard: Antarctica May Have Hit Highest Temperature on Record
The temperature has yet to be certified as an official record for the continent by the World Meteorological Organization…
The Weather Underground called last week’s temperatures a “remarkable heat wave”…
meanwhile, how’s this for weather:
1 April: Boston Globe: April Is Here, But Spring Weather Remains Elusive
by David Epstein
April is here! The long cold month of March is behind us and it’s onto the 4th month. This is when average temperatures rise towards and even into the 60s and the landscape finally takes on a more spring-like look. It’s going to take a bit more time, but bare ground will surely happen this month.
This was a brutal winter. I don’t use superlatives too much, but unless you are old enough to remember 1904, than the past three months have been the coldest and in most cases snowiest, you have ever experienced. The past 12 weeks have forced us to further hone the term “hardy New Englander”
It looks like Providence, Worcester and Portland will all end up with the coldest January through March period on record and even though by some measures that time period isn’t entirely winter, it might as well be…
But April has arrived and by most measures winter is over. That said, I think the next 10-14 days is going to be tough on you if you want warm spring weather. The jet stream will remain active and although the warm air might get close, the opportunity for cold rain and wet snow will continue…
(David Epstein has been a professional meteorologist and horticulturalist for three decades. David spent 16 years at WCVB in Boston and currently is a meteorology professor at Framingham State University and teaches a January Program at Colby College.)
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/weather_wisdom/2015/04/april_is_here_but_spring_weath.html
1 April: Post-Standard, Syracuse: Glenn Coin: CNY says goodbye to one of the coldest months of March on record
March 2014 was the fifth-coldest March on record. March 2015 has become the eighth-coldest, with an average temperature of 26.8 degrees. That’s 7.2 degrees below a typical March.
That comes after February marked the coldest month in the history of the weather records, which date back to 1902. The average temperature in February 2015 was 9 degrees, nearly 17 degrees below normal.
April could be cooler than normal, too. Of the 10 coldest months of March on record, eight of them were followed by Aprils that were cooler than normal…
http://www.syracuse.com/weather/index.ssf/2015/04/cold_march_syracuse_weather_2015.html
31 March: WPRI-TV: This Month was One of the Coldest Marches on Record
by meteorologist T.J. Del Santo:
After looking deeper into the data, I found that the past two months were the coldest February-March in recorded history in Providence (Rhode Island)!
One step farther, the period January through March was the coldest on record for Providence! The average temperature was 25.8° from January 1 through March 31. Amazing…
As far as snow goes, March 2015 was the 9th snowiest March on record with 16.3″ of snow.
http://wpri.com/blog/2015/03/31/one-of-the-coldest-marches-on-record/
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Everything will be fine, do not panic or fret!
The coalition government is going to maintain the mental health funding, be calm now!!
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***because it’s election time in the UK, The CAGW-infested-invested hypocrites at The Guardian call out a Tory CAGW hypocrite!! funny how only the CAGW sceptics have called them out until now:
2 April: Guardian: Severin Carrell: Energy minister under fire for hiring jet to fly back from climate change deal
Matthew Hancock criticised for chartering a plane from Aberdeen to London after talks with Mexico president on environment protection
Climate campaigners have rounded on the energy minister, Matthew Hancock, for hiring a private jet to fly himself back to London after signing a deal with the Mexican president in Aberdeen to help combat climate change.
The Guardian has established that Hancock, the Tory MP for West Suffolk, chartered an aircraft after meeting Enrique Peña Nieto in Aberdeen on 5 March during the president’s official visit to the UK…
Whitehall sources said that Hancock persuaded two Foreign Office diplomats to share the 100-minute flight back to London to help cover the costs, even though there were 16 scheduled services from Aberdeen to four London airports that day.
Ollie Haynes, an energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “A minister in any government department should know better than to use taxpayers’ money to charter a private jet when a scheduled flight is available.
“But in this case, the minister is from the climate change department and has used a private jet to fly back from doing an oil deal. You couldn’t make it up.”
Alison Johnstone, a Scottish Green party MSP, said it was perverse for an energy minister to hire their own jet after signing such a deal.
“It shows flagrant disregard for the public purse,” she said. “It’s also deeply ironic that a minister from the department with responsibilities for climate change uses one of the most polluting forms of transport to attend a meeting aimed at encouraging the extraction of fossil fuels.”…
***Hancock, who holds a dual ministerial role at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and is fighting to retain his seat at the election, was one of 100 Tory MPs who signed an open letter opposing continuing subsides for onshore wind farms in England…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/02/energy-minister-under-fire-for-hiring-jet-to-fly-back-from-climate-change-deal
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Paris prepares for COP21
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In northern China the dragons slumbered during the LIA and humans became unruly.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b8d0f76684970c-pi
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Nature may have this the wrong way round – and not for the first time. The clear inference of this paper is that dragon awakening is the result of rising temperatures from AGW, and they cite the absence of dragons from much of the world as a consequence of the little ice age.
However, we all know that correlation is not causation. I recall once reading a copy of Joust and Hound from the fourteenth century, which recounted an early experiment in carbon capture and storage from that period. Apparently, a bold party of Templars actually captured a family of dragons in Norfolk, near what is now the site of the University of East Anglia, and muzzled them so that they could not eat human prey. Unfortunately, this also prevented them from breathing fire, thus reducing the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The experiment was so successful that it was rolled out across christendom, under a program which was heavily subsidised by the Kings and Princes of all the states of the Medieval United Nations (despite the resulting great impoverishment of tithe-payers and scutage-payers), and supported by the church, World Dragonlife fund, the Greensleeves party, Fiends of the Earth, and most of the tablet-writers, the resulting reduction of atmospheric CO2 reached a tipping-point which initiated the little ice age, sent dragons into a form of hibernation, and put back progress of nations for 100 years.. This therefore, also casts a great deal of doubt upon the theory that AGW is causing the reawakening. Work by sceptics, who pointed out that dragons had largely disappeared BEFORE the onset of the LIA, has been much overlooked and derided (some say, evidence was actually surpressed by those studying flame-grilled tree ring proxies). It is clear that recent sightings of awakened dragons have little to do with man-made warming, and that this is just part of the perfectly normal natural cycle we call the Harry Potter cycle, other examples of which are the Hobbit cycle and the Terry Pratchett cycle
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Well done!
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Legend has it that when King Arthur accidentally bent the end of his sword ‘Excalibur’ when extracting it from a large dense boulder called ‘the Devil’s arse’ popularly thought to be the present site of St Michael on the Mannt.
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Aaah! At last, a return to ye goode olde dayes.
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Aaah! At last a return to ye goode olde dayes. Mighte One also expect more unicorns?
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I’m not sure why the association with dragons. After all they did exist but were actually the last of the dinosaur kind to be seen by man. The Chinese calendar has animals that do exist today, except the dragon, simply because it died off. There’s plenty of other archeological evidence (carvings, sculptures, pictures, etc) to show dinosaurs in one form or another existed along side man in ancient times. Whether dragons actually were fire breathing or not is another issue. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn’t and it was added by men for “colour”. As for AGW alarmist talk, it’s all bunkum.
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It’s true that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were assisted by dinosaurs, but no one has yet observed one breathing fire. Perhaps the idea comes from large hot blooded wild animals panting and producing condensed water vapour on their breath in the cold Chinese climate.
A conclusion could be that there was fire within and smoke was blowing out from the fire.
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Doesn’t surprise me to see the Australian Robert May as one of the authors. A more self-serving, narcissistic man you would be hard-pushed to find. Successful though. No question. But as far as I can see, his modus operandi was riding the coat-tails of very clever scientists. Such a convincing purveyor of other people’s ideas he was/ is. When listening to him give a lecture (eg. on chaos theory) you could be forgiven for leaving the auditorium believing they originated with him alone. Doesn’t surprise me in the least he talked his way to a ¨Lordship¨ under the Tony Blair regime. Imagine being in a room with Tony and Robert to witness a session of mutual ego-preening. D. Attenborough would have stroked-out. So neither does it surprise me that the rot in confidence in the Royal Society as a venerable and objective scientific body began during his tenure as President.
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Satire? Except for the fact that the editors at Nature actually BELIEVE this crap.
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Where do I sign up to be a dragonrider? Where’s my Bronze?
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This article is dated April 2nd as it shows up on my computer in the USA. I thought it becomes April 1st in Australia when it’s still March 31st almost everywhere else. Just shows how I don’t understand timezones.
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A simple check of the actual publication date shows that you are Correct, Rod. Looks like the staff at Nature really are as dumb as well all thought.
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