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  1. Belfrey

    Explained: Flat Earth Theory: Why don’t our clocks have to change by 12 hours in 6 months?

    We actually don't need to adjust our clocks at all. Solar noon is still solar noon. Daylight savings time doesn't correct the time to match solar noon, it offsets our time by an hour for reasons having nothing to do with "correction." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time
  2. Belfrey

    Occasions where you don't engage a misconception CT?

    I occasionally run into believers of chemtrails and other CTs when I'm doing consultations for work, and as I rule I give them the "smile and nod" treatment. It's not worth going into in a short bit of time, and it would probably just antagonize them. When it comes to family, friends, and...
  3. Belfrey

    Sandy Hook: Professor James. F Tracy, justification of criticism

    I looked it up when this whole thing first came up, and FAU has similar language in their policies. In my opinion, Tracy's actions fall well outside of the limits of protection under tenure and academic freedom.
  4. Belfrey

    Sandy Hook: Professor James. F Tracy, justification of criticism

    It's not quite a freedom-of-speech issue, because he's being disciplined by his employer, not the government. IMO, the more pertinent issue is academic freedom, and preserving the tenure system. But there have always been limits to that, and I don't think that most people in Tracy's field would...
  5. Belfrey

    Dane Wigington - Inaccuracies and Omissions

    Absolutely, and when I worked as a biologist in southern California, we were very aware of how El Niño/La Niña affected the rainfall for the year. I'm just thinking that the years of severe drought (and wildfire in some areas) will have reduced the soil-stabilizing vegetation cover, and it's...
  6. Belfrey

    Dane Wigington - Inaccuracies and Omissions

    If it brings floods and mudslides - which is certainly possible - then he will probably point to that.
  7. Belfrey

    Is Belief in "Chemtrails" Growing?

    There was that 2013 poll (discussed here before, I think) on conspiracy theories, which put the estimate at 5% over all (although a disturbing 17% among the younger adults). (Included in this compilation of poll results.)
  8. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    And of course, he's still ignoring one of the main problems with his whole premise: that you get a very similar degree of "match" if you compare the results to the average prevalence of those elements in the crust of the Earth, meaning that he could easily be detecting simple dirt and dust:
  9. Belfrey

    Debunked: Brooks Agnew

    That does not really explain why Agnew's companies took images of vehicles from other manufacturers, edited out their identifying marks, and claimed them as their own upcoming products.
  10. Belfrey

    Conspiracy Watch: Umpqua Community College Shooting, Roseburg Oregon

    Have you checked this claim? Found where CNN presented the image on the right?
  11. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    Wow. For the benefit of any lurkers (including possibly Dr. Herndon), here is a thread where we collected a bunch of references showing aluminum content in precipitation, ranging from the 1960s to the modern day...
  12. Belfrey

    Debunked: Claim that injury makeup shows Alison Parker and Adam Ward as "crisis actors."

    Following the on-air shooting of news reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, their station and other news outlets posted many pictures of the two of them as they were in life. One of those pictures was this one, which reportedly had been posted on Facebook, and which the Daily Mail...
  13. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    This is a standard practice when sampling for total Al in surface waters, because otherwise there is often an issue with aluminum compounds adsorbing or precipitating on the wall of the container. However, it is generally not done when the goal is to determine the amount of dissolved aluminum...
  14. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    I agree - when biologists talk about "mobile" or "available" aluminum, it generally refers to aluminum that is in a soluble form that will move with water and can be absorbed by plants and other living things. The solubility of both plant micronutrients and other molecules & elements in the...
  15. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    Yeah, I this is the real difficulty - explaining the problems in a way that is clear and accessible to anyone. I've passed at least a half-dozen statistics courses, and I still have to go back and look things up regularly when I put it into use. When discussing this with non-scientists, you...
  16. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    Just to clarify, it's used to compare the means and variances of samples from two populations/treatments, or in some cases, to compare those values from one sample set to a value that represents the null hypothesis. You can't do a T-test or F-test to compare two individual numbers; these are...
  17. Belfrey

    How to prove chemtrails are just contrails?

    And of course, the conspiracy theorist social culture is strongly self-reinforcing and self-policing in this regard, with frequent admonishments not to question the beliefs of the group (which is considered "trolling"), and the constant threat of being declared a "shill" if you do so.
  18. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    It looks to me like he took the mean value for each element across all 23 sites, and then divided mean Ba and Sr by mean Al to get his ratios. But that's the ratio of the means, not the mean of the ratios. There is a difference, and unless I've miscalculated in the spreadsheet I posted, it...
  19. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    Here are the Al, Ba, and Sr leachate numbers for the 23 sites reported in Moreno et al (2005). I converted units between micrograms and nanograms as appropriate, and calculated the ratios: If I plot those (now double-checked) Sr:Ba numbers against the values from Herndon's chart, I get this...
  20. Belfrey

    Debunked: J. Marvin Herndon's "Geoengineering" Articles in Current Science (India) and IJERPH

    I'd like to retract my analysis on post 44. I was just going back through the Moreno leachate data, and I discovered that I'd made a column-sort error in Excel that threw the ratios off. Herndon's figures are still wrong, but not by as many orders of magnitude as I thought. Apologies, all...
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