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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

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A government study has found that the more educated in science and math an American is the more likely they will be skeptical of the dangers of global warming.

A government study has found that the more educated in science and math an American is, the more likely they will be skeptical of the dangers of global warming.

The results of the survey are especially remarkable as it was plainly not intended to show any such thing: Rather, the researchers and trick-cyclists who carried it out were doing so from the position that the “scientific consensus” (carbon-driven global warming is ongoing and extremely dangerous) is a settled fact, and the priority is now to find some way of getting US voters to believe in the need for urgent, immediate and massive action to reduce CO2 emissions.

Having discovered that educating the public will defeat these activists in their goals, the researchers than suggest, like Paul Krugman, that maybe the U.S. government should stop trying to educate people and focus on fake propaganda instead.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • David K. Williams

    This guy is a disgrace to Princeton, and to academia as a whole.

  • Jim

    Of course, you quote the article and not the study. The study makes no claims about the accuracy of one side of the debate or the other.
    In fact, 22 questions were asked on scientific issues (not climate issues), and the results were as follows:
    Respondents who were relatively less worried about global warming got 57 percent of them right, on average, just barely outscoring those whose who saw global warming as a bigger threat. They got 56 percent of the questions correct.

    Wow. “Relatively less worried…or those who see it as a bigger threat.” You could not even conclude that they are skeptics. Just less worried. And one percentage point. Throw in margin for error, and if you do the study all over the other side might be making the same claim from slightly different results.
    Even the author himself said the more important finding of the study is that people’s cultural views impact their stance on climate change more than science does.

  • wodun

    Correct, the study found that people based their views more on their cultural/political beliefs. This includes the AGW alarmists who are not just following the science as they claim. The study also shows that AGW skeptics are not scientific idiots as so often claimed bybAGW alarmists. Two major points that should pop some holes in the AGW narrative but it wont.

  • Jim

    Right, and the reason is that scientific studies are hard to read and understand by anyone, even those with some education in math and science like those questioned. In fact, just go to the pdf of the study in question and try to understand it! Yikes!

    But I would agree that the whole point of this post and article is that science has value…whether you are a scientist or just have some education in science. So take a look at this from this weeks Charlotte Observer in North Carolina (you may find it amusing or troubling):
    http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/25/3265614/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html

    The gist of it is this: planners in North Carolina are trying to take into account scientific study of potential sea level rise…makes sense when you are building bridges, roads, etc. on the coast that are supposed to last for decades. North Carolina legislature now has a bill under consideration that in essence is codifying HOW the state will measure potential sea level rise. This is the language in the bill:
    “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.”
    In other words, use only historical rates to calculate sea level rise, and only extrapolate linearly from yesterday. To do otherwise would be illegal!
    Now remember, this has nothing to do with why sea levels are rising (AGW or not), only how politicians will limit what science is allowed to tell us. Only extrapolate linearly!
    Just nuts. But the good news is that it has not passed…..yet.
    But have a great weekend, wodun!

  • wodun

    Of course the AGW sea level rise predictions haven’t been accurate so it would be bad policy to accept them without question. Let’s not forget that they predicted the polar ice caps would be gone by now.

    But if I was bossing engineers around, I would tell them to plan for the worst, regardless of the cause, over the lifetime of the project.

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