- No correlation between omega-3 levels and cognitive function. I found strong effects of flaxseed oil (high in omega-3) in experiments, so this finding doesn’t worry me. Maybe the measures of cognitive function in this study depended on too many things they didn’t measure or control.
- Does methanol cause multiple sclerosis? Woodrow Monte makes a good case. “In the 1940s, . . . the National Multiple Sclerosis Society found the incidence of the disease to be virtually equally distributed between the sexes. . . . The real sea change in the incidence of MS in women did not come until after the introduction of a brand new methanol source . . . a can of diet soda sweetened with aspartame has up to four times the amount of methanol as a can of green beans. . . . At the 59th annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Boston on April 26, 2007
- Honey in human evolution. “Upper Paleolithic (8,000 – 40,000 years ago) rock art from all around the world depicts early humans collecting honey. . . . .The Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania list honey as their number one preferred food item.”
- What one climate scientist really thinks about Michael Mann. “MBH98 [Mann et al.] was not an example of someone using a technique with flaws and then as he [Mann] learned better techniques he moved on… He fought like a dog to discredit and argue with those on the other side that his method was not flawed. And in the end he never admitted that the entire method was a mistake. Saying “I was wrong but when done right it gives close to the same answer” is no excuse. He never even said that . . . They used a brand new statistical technique that they made up and that there was no rationalization in the literature for using it. They got results which were against the traditional scientific communities view on the matters and instead of re-evaluating and checking whether the traditional statistics were [still] valid [in this unusual case] (which they weren’t), they went on and produced another one a year later. They then let this HS [hockey stick] be used in every way possible . . . despite knowing the stats behind it weren’t rock solid.” Smart people still fail to grasp the weakness of the evidence. Elon Musk, the engineer, recently blogged, responding to Tesla fires, that Tesla development must happen as fast as possible because if delayed “it will . . . increase the risk of global climate change.”
Thanks to Dave Lull, Stuart King and Joe Nemetz.
I wonder about the estrogens in flaxseed and what their impact on your cognitive measurements might be vs. the omega-3s.
Seth: I agree, I should try another source of omega-3, such as fish oil.
Is Michael Mann the only one whose model says this? One common problem with critical examples like this is that people latch onto them and insist that to discredit the key example somehow refutes all future work based on the same ideas, even as the results are applied to good effect. I’m not familiar with this situation, but the constant discussion about the hockey stick seems counterproductive when newer, presumably stronger work exists.
Seth: I’m not sure what you mean by “this” (“whose model says this”). If you mean “there has been a very sharp warming during the 20th century, much faster than previous warming” the answer is yes, only Mann’s model showed this. To call this “one example” is not quite fair. Mann’s work was given enormous publicity. At the time of the enormous publicity, many climate scientists must have had considerable doubts about it but said — at least to the public — nothing.
Mann’s model also suppressed the Medieval Warm Period (the period of, for example, the Viking settlement of Greenland) which the global warmongers were ecstatic about – otherwise they would have to explain how you can get rapid warming before industrialisation. It was a wonderfully convenient untruth.
Zach, here’s the account you need of the great Hockey Stick fraud/swindle/accidental error, it could ‘ave ‘append to anyone and that’s God’s truth.