#28 makes several insightful points, however I strongly disagree #2 (warming) is primarily due to man, this is perhaps the most difficult scientific work of the entire subject, we really have no clue the magnitude of impact each of the numerous variables has in contributing to warming and cooling of the planet. Very little in this area is certain. What is certain, is that we have a solution to the problem, it's called nuclear and produces a tiny amount of Co2 per megawatt vs coal, oil, etc. Yet this solution is largely rejected, mostly on grounds of safety. I can only presume the claims of catastrophic, oceans rising, mass casuality bloodbath that we are being promised is known to be a hoax by the snake oil salesman, since in comparison, nuclear is extremely safe to the nightmares painted by our prospective overlords at the UN.

So much for urgency when a huge solution is in our midst. Somewhere Einstein (more respected for bagels, among the left, than helping to pioneer nuclear technology) is rolling in his grave.

The church determined it settled the Earth was flat.

Curious to know when the flat earth was settled science. The classical astronomers knew the earth was round - see Eratosthenes.

If Eratosthenes was worth listening to they'd have called him "Alpha". Haw haw, burn!

You know, conservatives and non-lefties have it hard enough on Primer without fighting amongst themselves. Let's lay down arms, okay?

I'm generally a believer in the Eleventh Commandment myself, but I'm happy to make an exception in 'zop's case. If his smug elitism is the hallmark of being a true Republican or conservative, I wouldn't want to be one.

So after months and months of being told I'm too conservative to the point of being a "winger" and a "nutter," etc., it turns out I'm not really a conservative at all? I'm sure the lefties here will be relieved to hear that. We're all incredibly lucky to have someone of your supreme intelligence here to set us straight.

Maybe while you're here you could tell us that story about how you and your private-school buddies were the smartest kids in history. It's been at least a month since you told that one, and it's always a classic.

It ain't bragging if you can back it up. You'd think someone on a baseball site would remember that.

For me the field that has taken up this position in my life is reconstructive linguistics, specifically Indo-European linguistics. Obviously there's less potential for stunning new discoveries in the field (unless somebody successfully decodes Messapic or Picenian or turns up a bunch of Gaulish-language books that somehow escaped Caesar's bonfires, that is), but it's the same sense of "jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces" that appeals to me about both IE linguistics and evolutionary biology. (And, in an interesting analogy, the history of the early -- as in pre-Punic War -- Roman Republic, for which a "traditional narrative" exists but the underlying truth of which is open to major dispute.) It's all about looking at the information we DO have, deciding what weights and values to accord it, and assembling the data into a picture that best takes account of everything without succumbing to fatal omissions.

To bring the two threads together, the use of linguistics to trace human migration/populations is super ####### cool. It blows my mind that, for example, we have no idea who the Melanesians are and when and how they got to where they are. They're just . . . there. And the DNA analysis hasn't yet answered the question, which is even cooler.

The idea that people thought the Earth was flat during the age of Columbus is a popular myth. As 'zoperino points out, the Greeks had figured out long, long ago that the Earth was round (though, amusingly, they failed to grasp that it revolved around the sun, leading to the delightfully byzantine system Ptolemaic astronomy). And it's not like this knowledge was "lost" to Western Civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire, either -- it was common knowledge to literally every single experienced sailor responsible for non-coastal navigation from the late medieval era onwards that the Earth HAD to be round. Only landlocked peasants thought otherwise.

Not even the Catholic Church really believed the Earth was flat -- at least, not its scientifically accomplished divines, including those surrounding the Popes and the Pope himself: Urban VIII was actually a close friend of Galileo and an admirer of his astronomical theories. No, the Galileo affair had nothing whatsoever to do with arguments about the actual truth or falsehood of his theories (the Scripture, in this case, was used by his persecutors as a cynical bludgeon rather than an appeal to actual scientific truth), and everything to do with the Pope's internecine political battle with Spanish (Dominican) faction within the context of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, where the Spaniards were accusing the Italians of being too 'soft' in their defense of the power and respect of the Church.

The more you know!

It ain't bragging if you can back it up. You'd think someone on a baseball site would remember that.

Uh huh. How'd you end up a lawyer, anyway?

Wait, let me guess: You were too smart for science?

To bring the two threads together, the use of linguistics to trace human migration/populations is super ####### cool. It blows my mind that, for example, we have no idea who the Melanesians are and when and how they got to where they are.

Actually (he said, putting his linguist hat on), this is a deeply suspect practice, and that's a position which the majority of linguists would agree with me on. Genetic studies of the sort which are super-trendy these days are capable of demonstrating one and only one thing: the ethnic/genetic composition of a certain population, as well their potential migratory path.

What they CANNOT do -- and in fact must NEVER be taken to do -- is explain the spread of languages or cultures. The reason for this (which isn't immediately apparent to most people but instantly makes sense the minute it's pointed out) is that languages are not people: they don't always or exclusively spread with an ethnically homogenous group of people. Languages spread for tons of reasons, and mass migration is actually one of the LESS common ones. (More common: cultural or political prestige, as with Latin, or a situation where an insular warrior caste conquers a substrate population, passing its language on but not its genetics, as with Hittite.)

For example, proto-Greeks clearly spread into the Peloponnese from a staging area in the Balkans...but they didn't occupy empty ground. There was a population of pre-Greek Europeans already living there, and the fusion of the two populations gave us the dark Mediterannean coloring of the Greek peoples as well as their language and religion: it's a notable fact that the names of nearly every single Greek divinity, and every major city, are of demonstrably non Indo-European derivation.

Or another, even more obvious example: English is spoken all over the world, including by African-Americans, Indians, Native Americans, Hispanics (and that's another ball of wax right there: Central American populations are probably something like 85-90% Native American genetically, if not more, yet they all speak an Indo-European Romance language), Chinese, etc. That tells you nothing about the ethnic/genetic heritage of those populations. Language and ethnicity are concepts that do overlap, but are IMO better kept at a careful distance from one another during these sorts of analyses.

Right, but the genetic data is, somehow, not fully enlightening, as I understand it, genetic/linguistic/archeological evidence all need to be marshaled to tease out the migration history of peoples, and even combined, many key aspects of the settlement of the earth remain largely uncertain.

You know what else is ####### cool? The new world primates. Rafting? Across the (admittedly much smaller) Atlantic? How small must the founder population have been?

While I'm on the subject of languages and populations, the most endlessly fascinating language/culture/people in all of Europe (aside from the Lithuanians...ask an Indo-European comparative linguist about how amazing Lithuanian is and they'll start babbling enthusiastically) is BASQUE.

Basque is quite literally the ONLY surviving living remnant of the human beings who occupied Western Europe prior to the spread of Indo-European peoples and languages. Every other one was eradicated, and early on at that. (Etruscan, the origins of which -- i.e. whether it's a native European language or was brought by a more recent exogenously invading culture -- are still disputed, seems to be only other one that survived to historical times with any significant amount of written evidence.) It is quite plausible to view the Basques (linguistically at least) as the descendants of the first modern human populations to occupy Europe, the ones that pushed out the Neanderthals.

I'm generally a believer in the Eleventh Commandment myself, but I'm happy to make an exception in 'zop's case. If his smug elitism is the hallmark of being a true Republican or conservative, I wouldn't want to be one.

Reagan's 11th Commandment is bullsh!t beyond all bullsh!t. Reagan was after all the guy who kneecapped Ford in 1976 and smeared Bush and Kemp all over the place in 1979 and 1980.

It does amuse me to see the 11th Commandment in action even when it's not clearly invoked. Wingers studiously avoid criticizing the GOP except to point out when someone is not winger enough, and the modern GOP's party discipline has been pretty remarkable while the Democratic Party spends nearly as much time fighting itself as it Republicans.

Wasn't Indo-European the language/languages of the people from Central Asia who domesticated the horse? And then, after they pushed up against European agricuturalists, both the horses and the languages may have spread further than the people did?

The idea that people thought the Earth was flat during the age of Columbus is a popular myth.

Columbus was a bit of a crackpot. He embraced an unreasonably small estimated value for the circumference of the earth, and then bet his life on it. The true risk that he and anyone who signed on with him was taking was that of dying in some unrecorded fashion (starvation, disintegration of the ships, etc.) in the middle of an ocean, hopelessly far from landfall. If there were no Americas, that's exactly what would have happened - west to Asia was beyond the capabilities of his voyage.

Reagan's 11th Commandment is bullsh!t beyond all bullsh!t. Reagan was after all the guy who kneecapped Ford in 1976 and smeared Bush and Kemp all over the place in 1979 and 1980.

Yes, luckily for the United States, Ronald Reagan didn't believe in unilateral disarmament.

Yes, luckily for the United States, Ronald Reagan didn't believe in unilateral disarmament.

Sure he did. He believed in the unilateral disarmament of others. That's why the 11th Commandment went into effect the moment he became the head of the GOP, and not while he was busy hacking away at his party contemporaries.

Sure he did. He believed in the unilateral disarmament of others. That's why the 11th Commandment went into effect the moment he became the head of the GOP, and not while he was busy hacking away at his party contemporaries.

Incorrect. The Eleventh Commandment dates to the 1960s, and originated with California's GOP chairman.

The Eleventh Commandment dates to the 1960s, and originated with California's GOP chairman.

I didn't say Reagan originated it, just that he didn't bother with it until after he was done bloodying the rest of his Republican contemporaries, including a sitting Republican president in 1976. AFTER Reagan was on top of the mountain, that Commandment became oh so important, but not before.

I don't understand why this is a source of contention. Reagan gleefully went after the Republican establishment in his day, all the way up until he became the Republican establishment. This isn't even criticism of St. Ron, it was just what he did.

I didn't say Reagan originated it, just that he didn't bother with it until after he was done bloodying the rest of his Republican contemporaries, including a sitting Republican president in 1976. AFTER Reagan was on top of the mountain, that Commandment became oh so important, but not before.

Still incorrect. Reagan famously adhered to the 11th Commandment and got beat in primary after primary. It was only after realizing the folly of unilateral disarmament that he started to "bloody" anyone.

Jeter is right. We should use scientific methods and academic consensus to address pressing social issues.

And since the science has changed, do we readdress the abortion issue which was decided on the science of the day in the early 70's? Will science only rule when it is also politically correct?

I have no idea what this means. What does it mean?

As for political correctness, I agree. The way the right tries to shut down 'offensive' speech such as that illuminating economic problems by screaming 'class warfare' like a pack of beaten bitches definitely needs addressing.

Reagan famously adhered to the 11th Commandment and got beat in primary after primary. It was only after realizing the folly of unilateral disarmament that he started to "bloody" anyone.

So Reagan famously adhered to the 11th Commandment, except when he famously didn't. Awesome. High five!

So Reagan famously adhered to the 11th Commandment, except when he famously didn't. Awesome. High five!

The 11th Commandment didn't include a command for people to turn the other cheek. That one came from some other famous guy.

The 11th Commandment didn't include a command for people to turn the other cheek.

1968:

Mr. Nixon, only the eighth man to be renominated by the Republicans after having lost one Presidential election, triumphed over a determined "stop Nixon" drive waged from the left by Governor Rockefeller of New York and from the right by Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

1972:

"...“[President Gerald Ford] has shown neither the vision nor the leadership necessary to halt and reverse the diplomatic and military decline of the United States.”

I guess if you want to say the 11th Commandment doesn't include trying to stab your party's incumbents in the neck, then sure, whatever. I apologize for even suggesting St. Ron might have been politically ambitious or calculating in some way.

Wasn't Indo-European the language/languages of the people from Central Asia who domesticated the horse? And then, after they pushed up against European agricuturalists, both the horses and the languages may have spread further than the people did?

Well, yes and no. The people (as an ethnological group) DEFINITELY spread all the way through Europe. Genetically speaking, their most obvious unique externally visible characteristic was that, unlike practically the entire rest of all humanity, they had non-black eyes (i.e. blue and green, both recessive genes) and non-black hair (red, blonde, brown). Their genetic populations made it en masse all the way from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to China to the East (with the Tocharians, who ancient Chinese paintings represent as red-haired, blue-eyed giants), India to the south (early Indian paintings represent the Punjab/Mahabharata-era Indo-Aryans as red-haired and blue-eyed, something which obviously is no longer associated with modern-day Indians) and Britain and Ireland in the West (where they retained these physical traits in a majority despite the presence of substrate populations with black eyes/black hair, i.e. the modern day "Black Irish/Welsh" -- Catherine Zeta-Jones, basically -- who are this pre-Indo-European population's genetic descendants).

The fact that the Indo-European eye/hair phenotype remained (remains) dominant down to the present day in Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, and Celtic speaking regions suggests that those areas experienced genuine population replacement (i.e. authentic mass migration + conquest + diminution/extermination of the original native population over time). Meanwhile, in Iberia, Italy, Greece, and the Caucasus (Armenian) there was a much greater amount of interbreeding and intermingling, as befits regions that were natural crossroads of civilizations over the millenia due to their proximity to the Mediterranean.

The Indo-Iranians are a special case (note that modern day Iranian and modern day Hindi descended from a single common ancestor, spoken around 3,500 years ago or so). The Indo-Aryans lost their classically Indo-European physical features as they pushed further south into the Indian peninsula and intermingled with the native Dravidian populations; this historical fact both explains why northern Indians (and Pakistanis) are generally lighter skinned than southern Indians, and the origin of their unique caste system exists: it was originally a racial hierarchical code imposed by the conquering Indo-Aryans upon a subject "other" population of dark-skinned Dravidians. As for the Iranian-family speakers, their historical seat (which was vastly larger than current day Iran) smack in the middle of the crossroads between Asia and Europe, where migrating peoples constantly traversed, meant that they absorbed a little bit from pretty much every group that came along.

I guess if you want to say the 11th Commandment doesn't include trying to stab your party's incumbents in the neck, then sure, whatever. I apologize for even suggesting St. Ron might have been politically ambitious or calculating in some way.

In the eternal words of Andy Dufresne, "How can you be so obtuse?"

You talk as if Nixon and Ford did nothing but sing Reagan's praises while Reagan hurled invective back at them, which is nonsense. For about the eighth time, the 11th Commandment was an idealistic "command"/recommendation for the GOP as a whole. It was not understood to be a requirement that Republicans unilaterally disarm in the course of political campaigns or a command for them to turn the other cheek.

Snapper, you're attributing all this to a warmer climate? That seems a real stretch to me.

I'm with snapper on this one. Pre-industrial societies were a lot more sensitive to climate changes than our present one. The highs and lows of European civilization before the 19th century track quite closely with changes in climate.

James Burke talks about this quite a bit in After the Warming. But that show now seems a bit dated, despite being made ten years after Connections which seems as strong as ever!

Here's the episode where he spends a bit of time discussing climate change and the medieval period.

LOL. In my 40-year lifetime, we've gone from worrying about cooling to worrying about warming. That seems like at least one shift too many on a planet that is, as you so helpfully pointed out, billions of years old.

It's almost like... we improved that nascent (in relative scientific terms) field...?

The church determined it settled the Earth was flat.

(a) The church is not "science," so I'm not sure how they can determine what is "settled science."

(b) No it didn't. The church made it's big anti-rational stance about heliocentrism, not about the flatness of the earth. The curvature of the earth has always been fairly obvious to anyone who is paying attention. Heliocentrism, not so much.

The curvature of the earth has always been fairly obvious to anyone who is paying attention. Heliocentrism, not so much.

Which ties in nicely with James Burke, who starts Connections with a Wittgenstein thought exercise of what the sunrise would look like if the sun was revolving around the earth - his answer being, exactly the same.

Speaking of which, apparently Jeter is dating the girl from the DirecTV commercials so as always, he's doing fine.

I hear he can "record" up to five of her at a time.

WHO has a track record of over-stating risks and dangers (flu pandemic) in order to build it's importance and influence.

So what would you rather have, a vaccine without an epidemic or an epidemic without a vaccine?

9/11 was organized by Bush 5.

Wow. I go away for a weekend and I miss three more Bush administrations?

Great material in #107. I was aware of the myth everyone believed in a flat Earth around 1400s, but it wasn't a myth most believed a geocentric solar system, and the church was more active than most in suppressing scientific inquiry. "flat earth" is common shorthand for those that seek to end further scientific study. The global warming crowd that aligns closely with the UN shares some similarities to "flat earthers".

"flat earth" is common shorthand for those that seek to end further scientific study. The global warming crowd that aligns closely with the UN shares some similarities to "flat earthers".

And who in the global warming crowd has told scientists to do no further study? A cite would be great.

I always thought that Bigfoot and aliens had a hand in 9/11.

I always thought that Bigfoot and aliens had a hand in 9/11.

Well, the hijackers were certainly aliens, anybody know their shoe size?

"flat earth" is common shorthand for those that seek to end further scientific study. The global warming crowd that aligns closely with the UN shares some similarities to "flat earthers".

The above couldn't be less true. Scientists, and our scientific system, encourages folks to challenge accepted truths about global warming. I guarantee you that there is no easier way to get your paper into Nature than to establish that anthropogenic global warming does not exist.* There are dozens of papers published every year questioning assumptions about global warming and its effects; just in the past few weeks, Nature Climate published a paper where they finally got a temperature record from the Eemian (the last interglacial) out of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Why is this paper interesting? Because even though the Eemian was warmer than the current interglacial, and may be a good analog for a warmer Earth decades down the road, their record shows much less melting of the Greenland ice sheet than the consensus predictions would have indicated for that amount of warming.

This sort of thing is published all the time. The reason you don't see papers in big journals questioning the major underpinnings of climate science - i.e., that the earth will warm globally as a result of CO2 emissions - is the same reason you don't see papers in major journals questioning the existence of gravity. Global warming - on a macro scale - is obvious. The local effects are not obvious - and, as you'd expect, there's lots of on-going debate and questioning of predictions.

*FN: Perhaps if you cured cancer.