Good science reconfirms its results

Another group of climate-change skeptics has done even more extensive analyses and re-analyses of temperature measurement data and come to the same conclusion: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/climate-skeptics-perform-independent-analysis-finally-convinced-earth-is-getting-warmer.ars

"Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK," said Richard Muller. "This confirms that these studies were done carefully and the potential biases identified by climate change skeptics did not seriously affect their conclusions."

As I've said before, the majority of people who doubt that man-made global warming is happening are like the people who still think cigarettes don't cause cancer. But it's good to see earlier results re-confirmed. The group appears to have been testing two of the more rational skeptical challenges - urbanization as a bias in temperature records, and confusion with short-term reversals and local trends. Both factors were shown not to be significant in the overall picture.

A disadvantage to being me

My friends often tease me about being a literalist. It is not, so far as I can tell, a voluntary activity. It's just the way my brain works.

For example, in World of Warcraft there's a monster I call Tautology Demon because part of his dialog is to yell "All mortals will perish!"

Well... duh.

And today my workplace sends out its annual EEO policy, which starts with:
"$EMPLOYER are committed to maintaining a work environment free of discrimination and illegal harassment."
and it's just impossible not to respond with the question "Wait, you mean there's legal harassment?"

I can, with conscious effort, stop myself from externally expressing these sorts of things. But I promise you all I do not expend any additional effort trying to think this stuff up; it's just the way I see the world.