Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy":
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php
Am Donnerstag 03 Dezember 2009 17:04:46 schrieb Carsten Agger:
Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy":
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php
No, You make a fool of yourself. As Heraclitus said: There is nothing permanent except change. You »climate believers« are the deniers of this inconvenient truth.
Am Donnerstag 03 Dezember 2009 17:04:46 schrieb Carsten Agger:
Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy":
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php
No, You make a fool of yourself. As Heraclitus said: There is nothing permanent except change. You »climate believers« are the deniers of this inconvenient truth.
Well, the facts and arguments of the specific discussion can be seen at the link above and on esr's blog (following link in that post).
I rest my case (but still think it's sad).
Max Moritz Sievers wrote:
Am Donnerstag 03 Dezember 2009 17:04:46 schrieb Carsten Agger:
Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy":
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php
No, You make a fool of yourself. As Heraclitus said: There is nothing permanent except change. You »climate believers« are the deniers of this inconvenient truth.
I gave up on climate change as man made when I read about the NASA fakery, and was confirmed in this when I read about the data with-holding from McIntyre.
This leak is the final nail, it makes a mockery of science has the "verifiable religion"; science is as much blind faith as religion ever was, especially when the high priests refuse to give you the data to verify it for yourself.
Climate change is preached like a religion and is mostly used like a religion to control people.
Good riddance, I'm off to light a bonfire.
Cheers to Raymond, Max, and all seekers of truth.
I want to REALLY save the world. http://www.abv.org.uk/node/47
Sam
"Sam Liddicott" sam@liddicott.com writes:
I gave up on climate change as man made when I read about the NASA fakery
Can you provide a source to this, *and* a source to the best attempt to debunk that source? (In other words, can you show how this claim of “NASA fakery” stands up to skeptical argument?)
Ben Finney wrote:
"Sam Liddicott" sam@liddicott.com writes:
I gave up on climate change as man made when I read about the NASA fakery
Can you provide a source to this, *and* a source to the best attempt to debunk that source? (In other words, can you show how this claim of “NASA fakery” stands up to skeptical argument?)
I'm afraid you'll have to do your own research to reach your own conclusions, I don't expect that mine will suit you, nor do I feel the need to weaken my conclusion based on an inability to convince anyone else.
The link I posted (http://www.abv.org.uk/node/47) contains references about the NASA fakery. I gave up in frustration to find any debunking attempt based on anything more than fuzzy feeling, and the debunking of the leaks is just was weak. Maybe you have some good debunking of the NASA fakery that will convince a skeptic?
The position of science is as terminally damaged as politics because science can't prove that the scientists are honest, but at least the ordinary man can scrutinize the politics.
To keep it on topic, IT specialists already lost their respect years ago with every government IT project failure, although they've been lucky with the government taking the blame; scientists (and IT consultants) play the same role as pharoah's court magicians, and they are believed precisely because it is not religion, but science.
Sam
On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 07:51 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote:
The link I posted (http://www.abv.org.uk/node/47) contains references about the NASA fakery. I gave up in frustration to find any debunking attempt based on anything more than fuzzy feeling, and the debunking of the leaks is just was weak. Maybe you have some good debunking of the NASA fakery that will convince a skeptic?
The reference in your link is to this posting:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964
I believe there's a good round-up of this sort of criticism here, although it doesn't address that specific article:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehill...
Seriously, the notion that NASA would be faking its temperature data to achieve (what?) political ends requires a conspiracy of the magnitude of 9/11.
(The physical laws which would dictate that a substantial increase of greenhouse gases like CO2 leads to higher temperatures are really very simple: The Planck radiation law, the Stefan Boltzmann equation and the notion of emissivity as influenced by the presence of greenhouse gases. Global warming basically follows from the discoveries of John Tyndall (1820-1893) and Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927), but I suppose they were in on the conspiracy too?).
best regards,
Carsten
* Carsten Agger wrote, On 04/12/09 08:12:
On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 07:51 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote:
The link I posted (http://www.abv.org.uk/node/47) contains references about the NASA fakery. I gave up in frustration to find any debunking attempt based on anything more than fuzzy feeling, and the debunking of the leaks is just was weak. Maybe you have some good debunking of the NASA fakery that will convince a skeptic?
The reference in your link is to this posting:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964
I believe there's a good round-up of this sort of criticism here, although it doesn't address this specific article:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehill...
Seriously, the notion that NASA would be faking its temperature data to achieve (what?) political ends require a conspiracy of the magnitude of 9/11.
(The physical laws which would dictate that a substantial increase of greenhouse gases like CO2 leads to higher temperatures are really very simple: The Planck radiation law, the Stefan Boltzmann equation and the notion of emissivity as influenced by the presence of greenhouse gases. Global warming basically follows from the discoveries of John Tyndall (1820-1893) and Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927), but I suppose they were in on the conspiracy too?).
best regards,
I thank you for this; I don't intend to repeat my long time observations on this forum; but I note that I did not propose a conspiracy, you did, and for just long enough to knock it down. The choice is not between AGW and John Tyndal & Stefan Boltzmann, and it is not constructive to present it as such.
Your scientific points are not disputed but their application in the AGW debate is.
However I think this debate is being carried out elsewhere by very interested parties, I merely spoke up with Max to equal the numbers and to defend Raymond so that it may not be said that he is making "a complete and utter fool of himself" on this list without defence.
And to be honest, that "complete and utter fool of himself" is the sort of response I keep finding from the AGW proponents, and the latest leak just shows they were being paid to act like that. I'm really interested in anything credible the AGW fans have to say, but always when they are pushed it comes down to name calling, and I don't expect a discussion on this forum to be more fruitful just because we have a different common philosphy.
best regards,
Sam
On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 08:36 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote:
I thank you for this; I don't intend to repeat my long time observations on this forum; but I note that I did not propose a conspiracy, you did, and for just long enough to knock it down. The choice is not between AGW and John Tyndal & Stefan Boltzmann, and it is not constructive to present it as such.
Your scientific points are not disputed but their application in the AGW debate is.
However I think this debate is being carried out elsewhere by very interested parties, I merely spoke up with Max to equal the numbers and to defend Raymond so that it may not be said that he is making "a complete and utter fool of himself" on this list without defence.
Just for the record, and nothing more: What makes me think Raymond is making a fool of himself is not really related to the question of whether global warming is a real phenomenon and anthropogenic or not.
Raymons takes a graphics file where a researcher has attempted a numerical correction on his empirical data and thinks it's a smoking gun.
As someone who used to work quite a lot with empirical data while doing physics at the univerisity, I can testify that applying numerical corrections to data in order to make sense of them is completely normal. After you made sense of them, you try to figure out why the corrections work (e.g., typically they describe some sort of systematic error).
In the case Raymond analyzes, the correction was commented out, so it didn't make it in the final calculation. That's called "cruft". For me, what Raymond analyzes is an IDL graphics file with cruft and a self-describedly "artificial" ad hoc correction that was later abandoned. That's not evidence of fraud, that's evidence of an empirical scientist at work.
Raymond not knowing or pretending not to know this and yet presenting his "findings" all cocky and with a lot of swagger does not strike me as very intelligent.
So with that stated for the record, I'll agree with Sam that there's plenty of other places to discuss this and in the future I'll promise to stick to free software related things on this list.
br Carsten
Why is it that so many with opinions on climate change have never bothered to read the most recent IPCC report?
Firstly, a *lot* of money goes into climate change research - it's one of THE best funded global inter-disciplinary research programs in existence at the moment with several hunded million dollars invested annually. This research outputs *hundreds* of research papers per year, some into the leading peer research journals. In this context, *one* NASA report is a drop in the ocean - in fact, the *entire* output from NASA is fairly small in proportion to the annual output.
Put simply, even if NASA were inventing all of its output, it wouldn't actually matter much to "scientific consensus".
Secondly, here's a major wakeup call: Nowhere in the (most recent) IPCC report does ***ANYONE*** claim that climate change is definitely man-made. In fact, the most recent report clearly says that HALF of total culmulative radiative forcing is UNEXPLAINED. This doesn't mean it isn't man-made, just that no one actually can prove it one way or another. Chances are a good chunk ISN'T man-made and the report explains how and why.
The IPCC report is a best attempt at a consensus of current scientific position. If a few more people with strong opinions on climate change bothered to not be so ignorant, the world would be a considerably better place. Unfortunately it's too easy to claim there are secret plans to take over the world or strip people of their rights blah blah etc.
In fact, people should worry considerably more what happens when fossil fuel price rises cause food and clean water price rises. Current projections have about 2bn people dying in famine and that will provoke large scale public disorder (i.e. read introduction of curfews and police state powers even in the West). This process is projected to begin by 2012-2013 plus or minus two years.
Cheers, Niall
On 4 Dec 2009 at 9:19, Carsten Agger wrote:
On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 07:51 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote:
The link I posted (http://www.abv.org.uk/node/47) contains references about the NASA fakery. I gave up in frustration to find any debunking attempt based on anything more than fuzzy feeling, and the debunking of the leaks is just was weak. Maybe you have some good debunking of the NASA fakery that will convince a skeptic?
The reference in your link is to this posting:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964
I believe there's a good round-up of this sort of criticism here, although it doesn't address that specific article:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehill...
Seriously, the notion that NASA would be faking its temperature data to achieve (what?) political ends requires a conspiracy of the magnitude of 9/11.
(The physical laws which would dictate that a substantial increase of greenhouse gases like CO2 leads to higher temperatures are really very simple: The Planck radiation law, the Stefan Boltzmann equation and the notion of emissivity as influenced by the presence of greenhouse gases. Global warming basically follows from the discoveries of John Tyndall (1820-1893) and Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927), but I suppose they were in on the conspiracy too?).
best regards,
Carsten
Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Sam Liddicott schrieb:
This leak is the final nail, it makes a mockery of science has the "verifiable religion"; science is as much blind faith as religion ever was, especially when the high priests refuse to give you the data to verify it for yourself.
This is not true. Science is "open source", all conclusions are there to be questioned, reproduced and refuted if they don't conform with known observations. Otherwise it isn't science. This in contrast to "closed source" beliefs, where someone or some book says something and it is believed because the original source is thought to be infallible or nearly so.
This aspect isn't off-topic here, it's just like with software. Some people believe Microsoft, Apple and so on make the best software even though they have no way of verifying this. We however trust the method of free software, which isn't perfect, but we can look into any part of it we please and fix it if we want. Of course not all people are capable of examining code, but some of them could learn to and others could get somebody to do it for them. It's the same with science. If you don't believe something, you can examine the research yourself, or get somebody you trust to do it. And you don't just believe what any person says, be it Newton, Einstein, Richard Stallmann or Eric Raymond. ...
The position of science is as terminally damaged as politics because science can't prove that the scientists are honest, but at least the ordinary man can scrutinize the politics.
Not so. Of course scientists are just people and some of them will lie if it suits them. However the scientific method doesn't tolerate falsehoods in the long run. It's a bit like Wikipedia. At any given moment there may be lots of wrong things, but eventually they get corrected. Things in science are never the whole truth, but useful models in the circumstances. The whole of Newtonian physics is strictly speaking wrong, because it doesn't incluse relativity and quantum effects, but it is correct to use it in everyday life because the latter effects are negigible im most cases. The same applies to philosophy. Although there are different schools of thought, the application of logic eventually results in some pretty universal truths.
Politics isn't "damaged", it just is just a method of categorizing different role models in life, even if pretty much only in one dimension. Some people adopt one model, others another one. Neither is "correct", there is not necessarly a correct answer to any problem. The "ordinary man" can srutinize political debates but no more sucessfully than scientific ones, as the same principles apply: only small parts of the whole picture are widely publicised and taken note of. Chance plays a great role.
Anyway, 90% of scientists are said to agree with the present IPCC conclusions on climate warming and more than that agree on past conclusions which they may have disbelieve at the time. About 90% of computer users are said to use a Windows desktop. There is however a difference: scientific conclusions are based on the scientific method, computer use is mostly based on marketing. The scientific method doesn't require honesty, but it is only consistent in the long run with honesty, just like with free open source software.
And there is one last locigal point: if climate warming is just a lot of hot air (sorry, can't resist :-) ) and turns out to be wrong or exagerated, there is no harm done by the actions required to stave off the worst effects, on the contrary. But if we believe the sceptics like Raymond and continue in the same way as today, a lot of harm is done if *they* are wrong. They are therefore playing a dangerous game with other peoples lives as stakes. Therefore common decency demands that we behave in a manner appropriate to minimising global warming, even if we are ourselves sceptics.
Theo Schmidt
On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 07:51 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote:
The position of science is as terminally damaged as politics because science can't prove that the scientists are honest, but at least the ordinary man can scrutinize the politics.
If you think science is religion, ie a dogma, that may be true.
But for anything to be considered "science" you need to be able to reproduce results. Science is not the "revealed truth", even good science can lead to wrong results at times. The force of science is that through the "scientific method" you can keep questioning any result and come to better explanations that can fit the data. And if you can reproduce results, it will come out soon enough and a new theory will be made. Science is ultimately about prediction. If a theory can correctly predict how a natural phenomenon works, then you have a good theory. That doesn't mean that theory is the ultimate immutable truth, luckily science is *not* religion.
If you do not keep this in mind you can certainly easily get disappointed by science. But that would be only your fault. You had the wrong expectations.
And now please move this thread on climate elsewhere. This list is ab out free software, not free off-topics.
Simo.
Carsten Agger schrieb:
Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy":
I gather he's also a gun enthusiast. Just because someone was once a Linux advocate doesn't make necessarly make this person correct or in agreement in all things. If I give a star for people who use free software or Linux, who cycle, and who actively use solar or wind energy, a lot of my friends have one or two stars, but none have all! ;-)
However one would expect some correlation between environmental views and embracement of free software in spite of the Eric Raymonds of this world. And of course there are people who rebell against everything. They use Linux because 90%+ use something else, they are climate and evolution sceptics because 90%+ scientists aren't, etc.
Theo Schmidt
Hi,
On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 10:10:54PM +0100, Theo Schmidt wrote:
Carsten Agger schrieb:
Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
I'm not too sure. 1. The analogy is false: Cathedrals were built very much like he describes bazaars. 2. Development models are orthogonal to the question of whether a software is free or not.
In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy":
That's why "Everybody loves Eric Raymond" [1].
Best wishes Michael
[1] http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/eler-highlights-2005
2009/12/9 Michael Kesper mkesper@schokokeks.org:
- Development models are orthogonal to the question of whether a software is
free or not.
Indeed. Note that the "cathedral" examples in the book are not proprietary software, but emacs and gcc.
- d.
* David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com [2009-12-09 16:26:29 +0000]:
Indeed. Note that the "cathedral" examples in the book are not proprietary software, but emacs and gcc.
This is also documented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
Best wishes, Matthias
2009/12/9 Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org:
- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com [2009-12-09 16:26:29 +0000]:
Indeed. Note that the "cathedral" examples in the book are not proprietary software, but emacs and gcc.
This is also documented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
Yes, I put it there ;-)
- d.
* David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com [2009-12-09 17:57:27 +0000]:
Indeed. Note that the "cathedral" examples in the book are not proprietary software, but emacs and gcc.
This is also documented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
Yes, I put it there ;-)
Ah, very good. Thanks for that. I already pointed people to the article.
Thanks, Matthias
Michael Kesper mkesper@schokokeks.org writes:
Hi,
On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 10:10:54PM +0100, Theo Schmidt wrote:
Carsten Agger schrieb:
Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
I'm not too sure.
- The analogy is false: Cathedrals were built very much like he
describes bazaars.
That's irrelevant to the analogy, since it doesn't compare the building *of* cathedrals versus the building *of* bazaars. Instead, it compares the social activities that *go on within* already-built cathedrals versus bazaars, and the resulting *output* of those societies.
- Development models are orthogonal to the question of whether a
software is free or not.
(The term you want is not “a software”, since the English-language “software” is uncountable like “hardware” or “sand”. Better to use the (copyright-inspired) term “a work”.)
I agree, and that seems to be close to the core of the difference between “open source” versus “free software”: Raymond emphasises the utility of the process as more important than the freedom of the result. I prefer to talk about free software, as I suspect do you.
Note, though, that Carsten's comment still holds: there are many aspects of the essay that are appreciably good.
It's a valuable story and a good analogy for development processes. It shows that free software is *better* at encouraging bazaar-style development, but it doesn't *guarantee* it — as pointed out by its examples of cathedral-style development of free software.
Hi,
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 08:41:53AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
Michael Kesper mkesper@schokokeks.org writes:
I'm not too sure.
- The analogy is false: Cathedrals were built very much like he
describes bazaars.
That's irrelevant to the analogy, since it doesn't compare the building *of* cathedrals versus the building *of* bazaars. Instead, it compares the social activities that *go on within* already-built cathedrals versus bazaars, and the resulting *output* of those societies.
Ah, ok, good point.
- Development models are orthogonal to the question of whether a
software is free or not.
(The term you want is not “a software”, since the English-language “software” is uncountable like “hardware” or “sand”. Better to use the (copyright-inspired) term “a work”.)
Thanks. Besides, does one call that "germanism" like we say "Anglizismus" in german? ;)
I agree, and that seems to be close to the core of the difference between “open source” versus “free software”: Raymond emphasises the utility of the process as more important than the freedom of the result. I prefer to talk about free software, as I suspect do you.
Definitely. :)
Note, though, that Carsten's comment still holds: there are many aspects of the essay that are appreciably good.
It's a valuable story and a good analogy for development processes. It shows that free software is *better* at encouraging bazaar-style development, but it doesn't *guarantee* it — as pointed out by its examples of cathedral-style development of free software.
Point taken.
Best wishes Michael
On Thu, 2009-12-10 at 13:27 +0100, Michael Kesper wrote:
It's a valuable story and a good analogy for development processes. It shows that free software is *better* at encouraging bazaar-style development, but it doesn't *guarantee* it — as pointed out by its examples of cathedral-style development of free software.
Point taken.
Another thing is, of course, that the bazaar model is not *always* better. It did give the tremendous success of the early Linux kernel and many more free software projects since, but for some things there's still a lot to be said for having a team of programmers sitting in the same building (e.g., like the Emacs project and a lot of proprietary software).