Thursday, August 08, 2002

Peril in disguise The piece on contrails just below reminded me of the people who are convinced that some vapor trails are in fact "chem-trails" caused by military testing of anti-bacteriologic warfare agents over the skies of America.  See this site. Another yahoo surmises in "Chemtrails -- Covert Climate Control?" that the government is surreptitiously engaging in efforts at climate control, but cannot rule out more sinister effects: "Since chemtrails are commonly spread over populated areas where temperature differentials are greatest and solar shading most needed, it is probable that particulate-laden plumes are precipitating airborne viruses, bacteria and fungi down into human lungs and respiratory systems unable to recognise or resist the alien invaders." It will only be a short time before someone connects this with the West Nile Virus.  Back in the 1980s, my grandfather was convinced that "all those goddamned rockets" had changed the weather.  From him to the chem-trails guy is not that long a distance.  5:25:22 PM    comment [] Science, news, and the courts National Public Radio played this morning two successive stories providing good examples of the reason that we have Daubert limitations on scientific evidence in Federal courts and in some states. (In Michigan, Daubert has not been judicially accepted, but the Legislature has adopted many of the same restrictions in MCL 600.2955.)  The first dealt with a hypothesis that the use of sonar by submarines does physiologic damage to whales and other sea mammals, providing a possible explanation for a recent series of beachings.  After featuring a group which (surprise) has gone to court on this issue, the story ended with: a scientist stating that an association has not been proved the reporter then saying (a paraphrase) "doubts such as this may make it more difficult to take legal action to prevent the use of [a new variety of] sonar" by the Navy.   That is precisely the point.  Daubert stands for the proposition that the courts must guard against such conclusions forming a basis for legal action unless and until they can be shown to be grounded in sound science and not just in supposition.  In my humble opinion, that is a healthy improvement in the legal environment.  Impediments to litigation, like gridlock in the government, may have a bad name but they are beneficial overall. The other was a story featuring a man who believes that contrails (vapor trails left by high-flying military aircraft) are affecting the weather, and his study done shortly after September 11 demonstrating (1) there was a remarkable decline in the number of trails for a time and (2) there was a change in the weather during that time.  Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.  He surmises that vapor trails are acting like clouds, blocking sunshine from reaching the ground and keeping warmth and radiation trappped below.  (See the article from Nature magazine.) Now, a vapor trail is a very thin layer perhaps hundreds of feet across, compared to storm clouds which are miles thick and cover several hundreds of thousands of square miles at a time.   In my view, nothing that man can do can come close to match the sheer power of natural forces.  To some  minds, though, a conclusion that "it cannot help" is enough to justify some precipitous governmental action. 7:54:10 AM    comment []

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