Scripps: New Climate Risk Classification Created to Account for Potential ?Existential? Threats

What a wonderful example of leftist logic.

Yet it is mostly young males who take absurd risks.

One thing I like about skiing is that you can do it all day, with breaks for lunch and the occasional beer or rum-and-coke if you like.

1 micromort out of 6 hours of sport isn't bad. Compare that to skydiving, where the death rate per hour of actual activity must be thousands of times higher.

I made a few jumps. You spend most of your time getting ready and a few minutes a day actually doing it. And those dinky little airports seldom even have a bar.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Clear thinking, pragmatism, and the ability to judge causalities and risk, are general skills. That's why good engineers are often good cooks and good parents.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Never liked the idea of alcohol on the slopes. OTOH a nice bottle of white fizz while relaxing in a bath (or, better, outdoor hottub) is entirely pleasurable.

Apparently not per day at airfield. Skydiving is ~8 micromorts/jump.

I did half a dozen static line jumps from 3kft. The sixth was exactly like the second, and I never landed more than ~20yds from the centre of the bullseye. But apparently some people like to continue to hold hands at 10kft, and to tangle their legs in other people's parachutes - which seems very boring to me.

Gliding, OTOH, is infinitely variable. You don't know whether the next flight will be 10s or 10hours, nor what you will encounter up there. Unlike powered flying, it is entirely reasonable to say "I hope you have nice surprises in your next flight"; with powered flight /all/ surprises are nasty.

Agreed, but that doesn't change the point. Competence in one area doesn't imply competence in another.

Even Linus Pauling fell into the trap, and got egg on his face w.r.t. his claims for Vitamin C.

John Larkin wrote on 9/23/2017 10:46 AM:

I can see why JL likes the way Trump thinks. They are so similar, very similar, the most similar.

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Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

Extensive research has proven that I ski better with 1 oz of alcohol in my system. Really. Rum and coke, or an Irish coffee, seems to be the optimum chemistry.

It is fun to soak in a hot outdoor tub, drink in one hand and wife in the other, all cozy as your hair freezes.

It snowed in Truckee on Wednesday, officially still summer, and the nighttime temps have been in the 20's. I'm hoping for a repeat of last year, or 2011, 20 meters of snowfall and skiing well into summer. The snow also fills the reservoirs, which means long hot showers without guilt. Long hot showers are a fundamental tool of electronic design.

Soaring is something I'd like to try some day. Flying small powered planes doesn't appeal to me.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Not a problem here; my water is flat-rate unmetered. But I prefer baths where only my knees and nose are above the water. They are one of the great advances of civilisation.

I've tried it once; it was as boring as driving a car, and far less convenient.

The wasn't Linus Pauling's first, or most famous, pratfall. His helical str ucture for DNA was wrong, and James Watson gloats about the error in "The G olden Helix". He made a similar kind error in calculating electron orbits, much earlier on, and his capacity to be almost - but not completely - right impressed me when I was a lot younger. I think I've posted on it here befo re.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

I've regarded his DNA error to be part of the normal rough-and-tumble of discovery, where there are bound to be multiple missteps.

The vitamin C thing was different, since he was barging contentiously into an area that wasn't his forte, and sustaining his claims over many years in the face of credible opposition.

s

structure for DNA was wrong, and James Watson gloats about the error in "T he Golden Helix". He made a similar kind error in calculating electron orbi ts, much earlier on, and his capacity to be almost - but not completely - r ight impressed me when I was a lot younger. I think I've posted on it here before.

Watson was ruder about it than that.

Creatures that can synthesise Vitamin C synthesise a lot more of it than we do. Pauling's point was that evolution would have fine-tuned that out if it did n't confer some kind of advantage. The fact that we haven't found exactly h ow and when it confers that advantage isn't proof positive that it isn't th ere.

He had already barged around a bit earlier in his career. The fact that he had Nobel Prizes for Chemistry in 1954 and a Peace Prize in 1962 suggests t hat he barged around at a fairly high level.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Pauling went down a wrong path for the double helix (I think he was considering a triple helix inside out relative to the actual case) but he wasn't wedded to it. Watson said as much in his book.

Show me a scientist who never makes an error and I'll show you a scientist that isn't reaching full potential. Mistakes are inherent in the scientific process.

The vitamin C thing was outside of science and that is why it created a stigma for him. He was citing his personal accounts of illnesses without scientific rigor.

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Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

That makes zero sense. Every species is different and some important nutrients to one are poison to another. Why does a high level of vitamin C in an orange mean the human species should take high does, even higher than can be readily obtained by eating oranges?

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Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

:

ous

d

al structure for DNA was wrong, and James Watson gloats about the error in "The Golden Helix". He made a similar kind error in calculating electron or bits, much earlier on, and his capacity to be almost - but not completely - right impressed me when I was a lot younger. I think I've posted on it her e before.

n we do.

didn't confer some kind of advantage. The fact that we haven't found exact ly how and when it confers that advantage isn't proof positive that it isn' t there.

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han

The classic example is the rat, rather than the orange. From a biochemical point of view, humans are just large mice (or rats). There are a few minor differences in the ways in which our biochemistries work - one of which bei ng that we don't synthesise vitamin C and they do, probably because back in our fruit-eating ape stage of evolution we could survive losing the capaci ty.

Evolution isn't goal-directed - we probably should have retained the capaci ty to synthesise vitamin C, but our remote ancestors ate enough oranges bac k then that they didn't all get scurvy and die out.

Similarly, not having enough vitamin C in our bodies today has only been ob served to give us scurvy. Some other - much rarer - stress may only be surv ivable with rat levels of circulating vitamin C.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

s

structure for DNA was wrong, and James Watson gloats about the error in "T he Golden Helix". He made a similar kind error in calculating electron orbi ts, much earlier on, and his capacity to be almost - but not completely - r ight impressed me when I was a lot younger. I think I've posted on it here before.

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fic

But Pauling made a couple of very high level errors that left him a hair's breadth away from being totally right in a least two very different fields. It's a bit odd.

Your grasp of what might constitute scientific rigor isn't impressive.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Saying we are very similar to the rat biochemically is pointless. There are vast differences including nutritional. For example, humans can get all their protein needs from nearly any single vegetable, rats can not. Speculating about vitamin-C differences is pointless.

In fact, this protein difference between humans and rats is the source of the myth that vegetable protein is somehow "inferior" to animal protein. It is a myth that started with research done on rats in the 1950's. Rats in fact do not do well eating a strictly vegetable diet unless it is tailored. This limitation was extrapolated to humans. The myth was later reinforced by a book proposing that we should eat less meat as a way to make our arable land feed more people. To side step the vegetable protein myth the author recommended mixing vegetables to assure an optimum balance of essential amino acids rather than confronting the myth head on. The book sold well and the myth was reinforced. Even today some doctors and *many* ignorant lay people refer to vegetable protein as inferior. I would be happy to provide details if anyone is interested.

Not really relevant to the issue of Dr Pauling thinking his personal experiments with vitamin C were proof of benefits other than conventional nutritional aspects.

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

Not odd, he didn't have information to indicate which way one should go with the structure of DNA. W&C got to the goal because of help on many sides and the X-ray results of Rosalind Franklin shared by Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind Franklin never got the credit she deserved for her work. Pauling had the ability to do all the work himself, but he was the master of proteins and didn't give his full attention to DNA.

And personal attacks are not a useful argument. :-P

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

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ical structure for DNA was wrong, and James Watson gloats about the error i n "The Golden Helix". He made a similar kind error in calculating electron orbits, much earlier on, and his capacity to be almost - but not completely - right impressed me when I was a lot younger. I think I've posted on it h ere before.

han we do.

it didn't confer some kind of advantage. The fact that we haven't found exa ctly how and when it confers that advantage isn't proof positive that it is n't there.

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cal point of view, humans are just large mice (or rats). There are a few mi nor differences in the ways in which our biochemistries work - one of which being that we don't synthesise vitamin C and they do, probably because bac k in our fruit-eating ape stage of evolution we could survive losing the ca pacity.

are

The differences aren't "vast". They exist, but thye aren't dramatic.

gle vegetable, rats can not.

Any idea why? The rat does have a short digestive system, so it might have something to do with intestinal flora.

That's your opinion. Pauling begged to differ, My money is on Pauling.

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A simple link would be sufficient. Sadly, the proposition has nothing to do with why rats might be sythesising more vitamin C than we seem to need.

pacity to synthesise vitamin C, but our remote ancestors ate enough oranges back then that they didn't all get scurvy and die out.

n observed to give us scurvy. Some other - much rarer - stress may only be survivable with rat levels of circulating vitamin C.

His personal experience might have reinforced his professional insights, bu t Pauling wouldn't have been silly enough to think that the results in a si ngle test animal - even if it was him - would constitute any kind of "proof ".

Mathematics has proofs. Physiology merely has convincing experiments.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

:

ous

d

al structure for DNA was wrong, and James Watson gloats about the error in "The Golden Helix". He made a similar kind error in calculating electron or bits, much earlier on, and his capacity to be almost - but not completely - right impressed me when I was a lot younger. I think I've posted on it her e before.

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r's breadth away from being totally right in a least two very different fie lds. It's a bit odd.

ith

Watson's claim was that he had quite enough information to have known that the stucture he proposed wouldn't work.

nd

She died at just the wrong moment. There are no posthumous Nobel Prizes. Mo st commentators do give her a lot of credit.

r of proteins and didn't give his full attention to DNA.

Not the first case when he hadn't applied his full attention.

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You were making a very weak argument. Pauling didn't see the vitamin C issu e as "outside of science" and you are presenting some journalist's point of view when you make that claim, which really isn't impressive.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney