@newtboy,
"Actually, I'm selling their audience short. When real scientists present the real data dispassionately, I think the average person gets quickly confused and tunes out."

I'd argue bored maybe more often than confused. Although if we want to say that most of the problems society faces have their root causes in human nature, I think we can agree.

"I had read the published summaries of the recent U.N. report saying we had 12 years to be carbon neutral to stay below 1.5degree rise, they were far from clear that this was only a 50% chance of achieving that minimal temperature rise"

Here is where I see healthy skepticism distinguishing itself from covering eyes, ears and yelling not listening.

Our understanding of the global climate system is NOT sufficient to make that kind of high confidence claim about specific future outcomes. As you read past the head line and into the supporting papers you find that is the truth underneath. The final summary line you are citing sits atop multiple layers of assumptions and unspecified uncertainties that culminate in a very ephemeral 50% likelyhood disclaimer. It is stating that if all of the cumulative errors and unknowns all more or less don't matter. then we have models that suggest this liklyhood of an outcome...

This however sits atop the following challenges that scientists from different fields and specialities are focusing on improving.
1.Direct measurements of the global energy imbalance and corroboration with Ocean heat content. Currently, the uncertainties in our direct measurements are greater than the actual energy imbalance caused by the CO2 we've emitted. The CERES team measuring this has this plain as day in all their results.
2.Climate models can't get global energy to balance because the unknown or poorly modeled processes in them have a greater impact on the energy imbalance than human CO2. We literally hand tune the poorly known factors to just balance out the energy correctly, regardless of whether that models the given process better or not because the greater run of the model is worthless without a decent energy imbalance. This sits atop the unknowns regarding the actual measured imbalance to hope to simulate. 100% of the modelling teams that discuss their tuning processes again all agree on this.
3. Meta-analysis like you cited usually sit atop both the above, and attempt to rely on the models to get a given 2100 temperature profile, and then make their predictions off of that.

The theme here, is cumulative error and an underlying assumption of 'all other things being equal' for all the cumulative unknowns and errors. You can NOT just come in from all of that, present the absolute worst possible case scenario you can squeeze into and then declare that as the gold standard scientific results which must dictate policy...

Edit:that's very nearly the definition of cherry picking the results you want.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It is interesting. Kind of a meta analysis that will be more evident through the lens of time, looking back. Hard to know when you're inside any kind of culture bubble.

I'm aware that there are other types of IUD that don't cause this issue (but remember that they all have risks associated with them). Regardless, you shouldn't make all encompassing statements that aren't true. Especially when copper IUDs are still manufactured, sold, and implanted.

In regards to the statement about the right. What I meant was that you shouldn't refer simply to "the right" since they are not a cohesive group with absolutely consistent views (even when looking at Republican candidates they have a diversity of beliefs). Most people have both left and right viewpoints (and average out centrally). Plus I like to see papers. Lots of them. Peer reviewed. Preferably a meta-analysis of multiple peer reviewed papers.

So it would seem that the concept of red-light cameras is debated by special interest groups on both sides, with strong lobbying from red-light camera vendors. The wikipedia summary explains the controversy thus: "Authorities cite public safety as the primary reason that the cameras are installed, while opponents contend their use is more for financial gain. There have been concerns that red light cameras scare drivers (who want to avoid a ticket) into more sudden stops, which may increase the risk of a rear-end collisions."

The same Wikipedia article summarizes the research thus: "A report in 2003 by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) examined studies from the previous 30 years in Australia, the UK, Singapore and the US, and concluded that red light cameras "improve the overall safety of intersections where they are used." While the report states that evidence is not conclusive (partly due to flaws in the studies), the majority of studies show a reduction in angle crashes, a smaller increase in rear-end crashes, with some evidence of a “spillover” effect of reduced red light running to other intersections within a jurisdiction. These findings are similar to a 2005 meta analysis, which compared the results of 10 controlled before-after studies of red light cameras in the US, Australia and Singapore. The analysis stated that the studies showed a reduction in crashes (up to almost 30%) in which there were injuries, however, evidence was less conclusive for a reduction in total collisions. Studies of red light cameras worldwide show a reduction of crashes involving injury by about 25% to 30%, taking into account increases in rear-end crashes, according to testimony from a meeting of the Virginia House of Delegates Militia, Police, and Public Safety Committee in 2003. These findings are supported by a review of more than 45 international studies carried out in 2010, which found that red light cameras reduce red light violation rates, crashes resulting from red light running, and usually reduce right-angle collisions."

There are enough interesting sources there that you can still find confirmation for your particular bias, whatever it is, if you so choose.

The results are still reproducible. It just turns out that sometimes the difference is hard to spot on a single result set. Meta analysis can provide a clearer overall picture.

It's not without its problems (it's ultimately open to interpretation), but overall it does more good than harm. One of the largest groups doing meta analysis is the Cochrane Collaboration. If you want an example of how meta analysis can provide a tangible benefit read about their logo

>> ^dag:

I'm too lazy to read the article, but that quote at least seems to be just deriding previous studies - not disproving its efficacy. I should probably read the article.>> ^Gallowflak:
"A meta analysis found that studies supporting hCG for weight loss were of poor methodological quality and concluded that "there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss or fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1365103/?tool=pmcentrez - citation from the Wikipedia article on the subject.



Probably, Dag. It's a summary of the results and conclusion of the analysis, not its argument.

I know nothing about this subject, FYI. Still. Science!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm too lazy to read the article, but that quote at least seems to be just deriding previous studies - not disproving its efficacy. I should probably read the article.>> ^Gallowflak:

"A meta analysis found that studies supporting hCG for weight loss were of poor methodological quality and concluded that "there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss or fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1365103/?tool=pmcentrez - citation from the Wikipedia article on the subject.

"A meta analysis found that studies supporting hCG for weight loss were of poor methodological quality and concluded that "there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss or fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1365103/?tool=pmcentrez - citation from the Wikipedia article on the subject.

its still misleading to think vaccines cause the autism--
---
A literature review identified 40 studies suitable for meta-analysis. For each exposure, investigators calculated a summary effect estimate by means of a random-effects model.

Collectively, the studies examined more than 60 perinatal and neonatal factors. Meta-analysis showed that 16 of the factors had significant associations with autism:

Abnormal presentation, umbilical-cord complications, fetal distress, birth injury or trauma
Multiple birth, maternal hemorrhage, summer birth, low birth weight
Small for gestational age, congenital malformation, low five-minute Apgar score, feeding difficulties
Meconium aspiration, neonatal anemia, ABO or Rh incompatibility, and hyperbilirubinemia
The magnitude of the risk conferred by any one factor ranged from a relative risk of 1.14 for summer birth (P=0.02) to 7.87 and 7.34 for neonatal anemia and meconium aspiration, respectively (P=0.02, P=0.001). Use of healthy versus abnormal control groups for comparison increased the effect size for all of the factors.

Additionally, the analysis ruled out several factors as possible etiologic culprits:

Anesthesia
Assisted vaginal delivery
Post-term birth
High birth weight
Head circumference

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/Autism/27484

And more to the point, big pharma is only indirectly related. It is akin to yellow mustard sales in relation to spicy mustard sales. If you can't get yellow mustard, then most likely spicy mustard may go up. That is an indirect relationship. Conversely, the illegality of drugs directly affects all those other groups. In addition, in other talks, he mentions big pharma as they do, as you mention, indirectly benefit from the illegality of drugs. His views, if you do more digging than just this video, are more in line with a centrist position as he does advocate high taxation which is a depart from a more libertarian philosophy.


>> ^entr0py:

>> ^Taint:
This guy must be from the right wing since he manages to make a list of who profits from illicit drugs without citing private industry!
Sure, drug dealers, the government, and terrorists, but certainly not an unkind word toward our precious corporate America!
Dow chemicals, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and etc etc. The companies who fill up your commercial breaks with people wandering wistfully through fields with vacant smiles on their faces. Sure you could vaporize some marijuana harmlessly to combat your crippling depression, but then we'd lose the billion dollar industry of selling you laboratory created pills to do the same thing.
Funny thing about a weed is that it takes virtually no skill to grow some of it, and thus makes a difficult product to package and sell. For Judge Gray here to make his comprehensive list without including the people who stand the MOST to lose from removing prohibition is either amazingly narrow or entirely suspect.

I never know what I should make of claims like that. Pharmaceutical companies often cherry pick the studies that show efficacy, and ignore the ones that don't, especially when it comes to anti-depressants. But I would expect pot supporters to do the same. Meta analysis of available studies doesn't seem to show any clear consensus.
It seems like the biggest problem is the lack of double-blind, placebo controlled, studies set up to prescribe marijuana to non-users as a treatment for depression. All I've ever seen are observational studies, and those can only show correlation. It would take proper experiments to begin to demonstrate causality.

>> ^Taint:

This guy must be from the right wing since he manages to make a list of who profits from illicit drugs without citing private industry!
Sure, drug dealers, the government, and terrorists, but certainly not an unkind word toward our precious corporate America!
Dow chemicals, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and etc etc. The companies who fill up your commercial breaks with people wandering wistfully through fields with vacant smiles on their faces. Sure you could vaporize some marijuana harmlessly to combat your crippling depression, but then we'd lose the billion dollar industry of selling you laboratory created pills to do the same thing.
Funny thing about a weed is that it takes virtually no skill to grow some of it, and thus makes a difficult product to package and sell. For Judge Gray here to make his comprehensive list without including the people who stand the MOST to lose from removing prohibition is either amazingly narrow or entirely suspect.


I never know what I should make of claims like that. Pharmaceutical companies often cherry pick the studies that show efficacy, and ignore the ones that don't, especially when it comes to anti-depressants. But I would expect pot supporters to do the same. Meta analysis of available studies doesn't seem to show any clear consensus.

It seems like the biggest problem is the lack of double-blind, placebo controlled, studies set up to prescribe marijuana to non-users as a treatment for depression. All I've ever seen are observational studies, and those can only show correlation. It would take proper experiments to begin to demonstrate causality.

re: gender differences, here are some papers:
How Large Are Cognitive Gender Differences?
Gender Differences in Mathematics Performance: A Meta-Analysis
Gender differences in verbal ability: A meta-analysis.
Cognitive gender differences are disappearing.

... and just for fun:
Heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: Correlates and gender differences
Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?

I know @dag is a fan of that last one.

Agreed on it needs to be legalized at least off of schedule 1 so we can regulate rather than pretend we can make it go away like we do now. Can't even do many types of research now since we can't "distribute" so can't do controlled studies.

On your second point, Snap right back at ya In "MEMORY, ATTENTION, AND COGNITIVE FUNCTION" as you put it there's a small catch involved. Similar to the way the risk of psychotic disorders is badly overstated (almost nothing to a hair over almost nothing) this is overstated and badly as well. The effects are mostly WHILE intoxicated, for casual use that doesn't extend much if at all past that. You wouldn't know that from the scare stories though. I'll offer you some sources for further research if you'd care to follow up on it and a decent source for a bunch more.

"The results of our meta-analytic study failed to reveal a substantial, systematic effect of long-term, regular cannabis consumption on the neurocognitive functioning of users who were not acutely intoxicated. For six of the eight neurocognitive ability areas that were surveyed. the confidence intervals for the average effect sizes across studies overlapped zero in each instance, indicating that the effect size could not be distinguished from zero. The two exceptions were in the domains of learning and forgetting."

Source: Grant, Igor, et al., "Non-Acute (Residual) Neurocognitive Effects Of Cannabis Use: A Meta-Analytic Study," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (Cambridge University Press: July 2003), 9, p. 686.

"In conclusion, our meta-analysis of studies that have attempted to address the question of longer term neurocognitive disturbance in moderate and heavy cannabis users has failed to demonstrate a substantial, systematic, and detrimental effect of cannabis use on neuropsychological performance. It was surprising to find such few and small effects given that most of the potential biases inherent in our analyses actually increased the likelihood of finding a cannabis effect."

Source: Grant, Igor, et al., "Non-Acute (Residual) Neurocognitive Effects Of Cannabis Use: A Meta-Analytic Study," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (Cambridge University Press: July 2003), 9, p. 687.

"Nevertheless, when considering all 15 studies (i.e., those that met both strict and more relaxed criteria) we only noted that regular cannabis users performed worse on memory tests, but that the magnitude of the effect was very small. The small magnitude of effect sizes from observations of chronic users of cannabis suggests that cannabis compounds, if found to have therapeutic value, should have a good margin of safety from a neurocognitive standpoint under the more limited conditions of exposure that would likely obtain in a medical setting."

Source: Grant, Igor, et al., "Non-Acute (Residual) Neurocognitive Effects Of Cannabis Use: A Meta-Analytic Study," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (Cambridge University Press: July 2003), 9, pp. 687-8.

A Johns Hopkins study published in May 1999, examined marijuana's effects on cognition on 1,318 participants over a 15 year period. Researchers reported "no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis." They also found "no male-female differences in cognitive decline in relation to cannabis use." "These results ... seem to provide strong evidence of the absence of a long-term residual effect of cannabis use on cognition," they concluded.

Source: Constantine G. Lyketsos, Elizabeth Garrett, Kung-Yee Liang, and James C. Anthony. (1999). "Cannabis Use and Cognitive Decline in Persons under 65 Years of Age," American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 149, No. 9.

"Current marijuana use had a negative effect on global IQ score only in subjects who smoked 5 or more joints per week. A negative effect was not observed among subjects who had previously been heavy users but were no longer using the substance. We conclude that marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligence. Whether the absence of a residual marijuana effect would also be evident in more specific cognitive domains such as memory and attention remains to be ascertained."

Source: Fried, Peter, Barbara Watkinson, Deborah James, and Robert Gray, "Current and former marijuana use: preliminary findings of a longitudinal study of effects on IQ in young adults," Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 2, 2002, 166(7), p. 887.

# "Although the heavy current users experienced a decrease in IQ score, their scores were still above average at the young adult assessment (mean 105.1). If we had not assessed preteen IQ, these subjects would have appeared to be functioning normally. Only with knowledge of the change in IQ score does the negative impact of current heavy use become apparent."

Source: Fried, Peter, Barbara Watkinson, Deborah James, and Robert Gray, "Current and former marijuana use: preliminary findings of a longitudinal study of effects on IQ in young adults," Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 2, 2002, 166(7), p. 890.

Source for those and more, lots of sourced detail which includes perspective rather than tossing bold claims out without that perspective, can be found at the following. Yes, it includes both the good and the bad and the root site for that page covers medical marijuana and other drugs as well.http://www.drugwarfacts.org/marijuan.htm

The problem in part is that people use pot (and other drugs) sometimes to hide from life or to make themselves feel better about their failures and we try to assume the pot caused the problem rather than the problem caused them to find a way to make themselves feel better, in this case with pot. Association doesn't automatically mean cause and effect. It's not brain food, but it's not all that dangerous in casual use either. Even with heavy use function tends to drift back to the baseline with time, you just have to quit abusing. Better to look for the reasons for abuse than to blame the substance which isn't all that dangerous or toxic in itself.

This time I wasn't so lazy.

There is still a debate in the scientific community regarding low level exposure to mercury and mercury compounds.

Research indicating low level mercury exposure is toxic:

Chronic low-level mercury exposure, BDNF polymorphism, and associations with cognitive and motor function.

Low Level Mercury Exposure Accelerates Lupus in Mice

Low level methylmercury exposure affects neuropsychological function in adults

Research promoting low level mercury exposure as non-toxic:

Neurobehavioral effects of dental amalgam in children: a randomized clinical trial.

Low-level chronic mercury exposure in children and adolescents: Meta-analysis

My point in linking these few references was to show that there still is a debate within the SCIENTIFIC community about the health effects of low level mercury exposure. This video was produced by scientists, who showed their methods to reach their conclusions. To say this falls outside of science is to say that the Science channel shall show NO scientific debate.

This video wasn't produced by some herbalist or holistic practitioner, but by the University of Calgary's medical faculty. I bet they'd be surprised to find that their video doesn't meet the scientific standards of a video web site.

Question for rembar: If one of the researchers who produced this video called you and asked why this doesn't belong in the Science channel, what would you say? That because the majority of scientists currently think that low level mercury exposure is safe, the debate is over? That no further research into the safety of mercury is necessary? If that's the case, are all the researchers currently investigating low level mercury exposure wasting their time?

>> ^jonny:
There is no way to stop/prevent this kind of activity.

I wonder if this is true.

For starters IP histories and vote records could be run through some sort of "idiot test" ( I post a few things, log off, new user logs on from my, or adjacent, IP and upvotes only my vids). Add to that some form of meta analysis run on the logs on the slowest hour of every day to red flag potential puppets.

I don't know if setting up this sort of automated shitlist is worth the time or desirable at all, but it does seem like their might be a way to stop all but the most industrious of puppet masters.