Massachusetts Interval Data Request: Fill & Download for Free

* The question asks, "Find each state, print the population estimate in the year 2011 of all women aged between 21 and 45 (both inclusive)"* The starting data isn't defined, so let's say a scale model population, perhaps a view or query or randomly generated series of CTEs (see below for that), brings together these minimal (but uniformly and properly qualified) facts about a candidate population: birth_ts timestamp NOT NULL -- If they didn't have a birth_ts, they wouln't be in this set  , death_ts timestamp NULL -- NULL means still alive as of time of query  , gender varchar(1) -- Values ('F', 'M')  , state_of_residence text * The temporal aspect to this question requires definition of two intervals as timestamp ranges (ignoring for the moment an individual's death timestamp):o An individual's eligible age-range interval expressed as a timestamp-range -- beginning inclusively with the timestamp of their 21st birthday, and ending exclusively with the timestamp of their 46th birthday. This defines inclusively /all time/ from the start of their 21st through the end of their 45th year of life, no matter what the timestamp's time granularity.o The defined real time interval of eligibility, as a timestamp range -- from the first timestmp of year 2011 to, exclusively, the first timestamp of year 2012, inclusively subsumes /all/ of year 2011, again without regard to time granularity.* The SQL OVERLAPS operator works as a start-points-inclusive, end-points-exclusive interval-comparison opertor ( for Postgres, search page Date/Time Functions and Operators for OVERLAPS ). It will do the job here as long as the endpoints are expressed as /exclusive/ upper bound timestamps, not inclusive timestamps. The inclusivity requirement of the question will be met using expressions simpler than an attempt to use inclusive upper bounds (where time granularity complicates things).* Including a person's possible death nullifies their eligibility if they didn't live to 21 years of age, else truncates the upper bound of their eligibility if they passed away after their 21st birthday up to their 46th birthday:o For inclusive start-timestamp of eligibility, a CASE expression does the job: case when (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval) < coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp)  then (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval)  else null  end::timestamp as first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise o For eligibility's-end upper-bound-timestamp, the individual must first have had a 21st birthday (NULL otherwise), past which eligibility's upper-bounds-exclusion begins with the earlier of their timestamp of death or 46th birthday: case when (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval) >= coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp) then null  when (birth_ts + '46 years'::interval) >= coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp) then death_ts  else (birth_ts + '46 years'::interval)  end::timestamp as first_ts_ineligible_nullable * Written as a Common Table Expression (aka CTE, aka "WITH" query, see WITH Queries (Common Table Expressions) ), an SQL expression calculating each individual's range of eligibility as [inclusive-start-timestamp, exclusive-end-timestampj) values, and filtering for requested gender, becomes:...  , individual_eligibility_ranges as (  select *  , age(death_ts, birth_ts) as age_at_d  , case when (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval) < coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp)  then (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval)  else null  end::timestamp as first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise  , case when (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval) >= coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp) then null  when (birth_ts + '46 years'::interval) >= coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp) then death_ts  else (birth_ts + '46 years'::interval)  end::timestamp as first_ts_ineligible_nullable  from scale_model_population P  where gender = 'F' ) ... * The crucial temporal eligibility determination query then becomes this (the "temporally_eligible column is included for reference; remark out the WHERE condition then one can observe TRUE, FALSE, NULL as return values from the OVERLAPS operator):...  , temporally_eligible as (  select *  , ( first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise  ,first_ts_ineligible_nullable)  overlaps ( '2011-01-01'::timestamp  ,'2012-01-01'::timestamp  ) as temporally_eligible  from individual_eligibility_ranges  where ( first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise  ,first_ts_ineligible_nullable)  overlaps ( '2011-01-01'::timestamp  ,'2012-01-01'::timestamp  ) ) ... * Below, using CTEs, window functions, generate_series(), populations-by-state from 2010 per List of U.S. states and territories by population to create a scale model population of small size (30,000 rows), here's the whole thing. Since the population is generated randomly, the results will differ with each run, this is intentional! You can remark out any one CTE's name (as is done for the final SELECT at the bottom), then execute from the start down only to the name-remarked-out CTE to view any intermediate CTE's results, a useful debugging technique. No effort was made to optimize this code as there are no indexes, several columns get generated (for illustration or debugging, when executing only down to one particular CTE) but not used, and everything's a sequential pass. You can see that from pgAdminIII's execution plan here:--  -- Create a random scaled-down population --  with random_hypothetical_age_ranges as (  select birth_ts  , birth_ts + ('1 year'::interval * random() * 100) as death_ts  , case when random() <= 0.5 then 'M' else 'F' end::text as gender  from generate_series('1914-01-01',now(),'100000 seconds'::Interval) birth_ts )  , randm_age_ranges_null_death_ts_if_alive_now as (  select birth_ts  , case when death_ts > now() then null else death_ts end as death_ts  , gender  from random_hypothetical_age_ranges )  , state_populations_2010 as ( -- From List of U.S. states and territories by population  select 'California'::text as state_name  , 37253956::int as state_pop_2010  union select 'Texas', 25145561 union select 'New York', 19378102 union select 'Florida', 18801310 union select 'Illinois', 12830632 union select 'Pennsylvania', 12702379 union select 'Ohio', 11536504 union select 'Michigan', 9883640 union select 'Georgia', 9687653 union select 'North Carolina', 9535483 union select 'New Jersey', 8791894 union select 'Virginia', 8001024 union select 'Washington', 6724540 union select 'Massachusetts', 6547629 union select 'Indiana', 6483802 union select 'Arizona', 6392017 union select 'Tennessee', 6346105 union select 'Missouri', 5988927 union select 'Maryland', 5773552 union select 'Wisconsin', 5686986 union select 'Minnesota', 5303925 union select 'Colorado', 5029196 union select 'Alabama', 4779736 union select 'South Carolina', 4625364 union select 'Louisiana', 4533372 union select 'Kentucky', 4339367 union select 'Oregon', 3831074 union select 'Oklahoma', 3751351 union select 'Connecticut', 3574097 union select 'Iowa', 3046355 union select 'Mississippi', 2967297 union select 'Arkansas', 2915918 union select 'Kansas', 2853118 union select 'Utah', 2763885 union select 'Nevada', 2700551 union select 'New Mexico', 2059179 union select 'West Virginia', 1852994 union select 'Nebraska', 1826341 union select 'Idaho', 1567582 union select 'Hawaii', 1360301 union select 'Maine', 1328361 union select 'New Hampshire', 1316470 union select 'Rhode Island', 1052567 union select 'Montana', 989415 union select 'Delaware', 897934 union select 'South Dakota', 814180 union select 'Alaska', 710231 union select 'North Dakota', 672591 union select 'Vermont', 625741 union select 'Wyoming', 563626 union select 'District of Columbia', 601723 )  , national_totals_2010 as (  select sum(state_pop_2010) as ttl_pop  , count(*) as state_count -- 51 including D.C.  from state_populations_2010 )  , cumulative_2010_population_scale_alphabetically_by_state as (  select state_name  , state_pop_2010  , sum(state_pop_2010) over states_alphabetically - state_pop_2010 + 1  as range_start  , sum(state_pop_2010) over states_alphabetically as range_end  from state_populations_2010  window states_alphabetically as (order by state_name) )  , assign_random_membership_in_2010_population as (  select RA.*  , NT.ttl_pop * random() as assign_a_random_2010_person_index -- spot the mistaken simplification here  from randm_age_ranges_null_death_ts_if_alive_now RA  join national_totals_2010 NT  on true )  , scale_model_population as (  select M.birth_ts  , M.death_ts  , M.gender  , PS.state_name  from assign_random_membership_in_2010_population M  join cumulative_2010_population_scale_alphabetically_by_state PS  on M.assign_a_random_2010_person_index between PS.range_start  and PS.range_end )  --  -- Eligibility per model person in the population: --   , individual_eligibility_ranges as (  select *  , age(death_ts, birth_ts) as age_at_d  , case when (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval) < coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp)  then (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval)  else null  end::timestamp as first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise  , case when (birth_ts + '21 years'::interval) >= coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp) then null  when (birth_ts + '46 years'::interval) >= coalesce(death_ts,'9999-12-31 23:59:59'::timestamp) then death_ts  else (birth_ts + '46 years'::interval)  end::timestamp as first_ts_ineligible_nullable  from scale_model_population P  where gender = 'F' )  , temporally_eligible as (  select *  , ( first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise  ,first_ts_ineligible_nullable)  overlaps ( '2011-01-01'::timestamp  ,'2012-01-01'::timestamp  ) as temporally_eligible  from individual_eligibility_ranges  where ( first_ts_eligible_null_otherwise  ,first_ts_ineligible_nullable)  overlaps ( '2011-01-01'::timestamp  ,'2012-01-01'::timestamp  ) )  --  -- Result, GROUPed BY state: --  -- , by_states as (  select state_name  , count(*) as persons_gender_f_age_21_thru_45_throughout_year_2011  from temporally_eligible  group by state_name  order by state_name Edit: Clarity, terminology

It is the politicalization of climate science by the UN IPCC and alarmist scientists and not their ideas that are damaging the scientific community worldwide. It began when the Father of Climate Change Maurice Strong a multimillionaire Canadian socialist and oil man, not a scientist, organized the UN to redress imbalances of wealth globally under the banner of the environment. Cheap fossil fuel energy became the enemy with fear mongering dooms day predictions and new government carbon taxes became the weapon to change the world. The old theory of green house gases GHG warming the climate revived as it had been abandoned at the turn of the century. Although Co2 was only a trace amount of GHG it could be tied to the idea that the industrial revolution is the enemy of the environment an easy sell for a too gullible public.Recent IPCC leaders like Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer have admitted the glaring political bias of their work.The IPCC crusade caused many climate scientist to fudge historical data to support the fear mongering narrative of the politicians like Al Gore. The great civilizing benefits of the industrial revolution was turned on its head by Junior scientist like Michael Mann James Hansen who are guilty of manipulating data to advance public concern for fossil fuels. The most notorious and successful fudge of climate data was the infamous hockey stick graph of Michael Mann erasing the Medieval Warm period and the Little Ice Age to show unprecedented global warming beyond natural variation.Michael Mann A Disgrace to the Profession“ From all corners of the world, the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age clearly shows up in a variety of proxy indicators, proxies more representative of temperature than the inadequate tree rings used by Michael Mann.
What is disquieting about the `Hockey Stick' is not Mann's presentation of it originally. As with any paper, it would sink into oblivion if found to be flawed in any way. Rather it was the reaction of the greenhouse industry to it - the chorus of approval, the complete lack of critical evaluation of the theory, the blind acceptance of evidence which was so flimsy. The industry embraced the theory for one reason and one reason only - it told them exactly what they wanted to hear.
Proponents of the `Hockey Stick' should recall George Orwell's `Nineteen Eighty-Four', a black SF drama in which his fictional totalitarian regime used `memory holes' to re-invent past history [22]. In this age of instant communication, there is no `memory hole' big enough to overturn the historical truth about the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.THE HOCKEY SCHTICKIf you can't explain the 'pause', you can't explain the cause..The rise and fall of the Hockey Stick and Mann-made global warming alarmA first-class summary of the rise and fall of Michael Mann's bogus Hockey Stick graph, and the Mann-made global warming alarm along with it, reblogged from A Skeptical Mind:The rise and fall of the Hockey StickThe rise of the so called Hockey Stick graph is pivotal to the story of the rise of the alarm about man made global warming.The fall of the Hockey Stick graph is pivotal to the rise of scepticism about man made global warming.Here is the story of the rise and fall of the Hockey Stick.The BackgroundA central and critical plank of the alarmist global warming case is that the current phase of warming that started in the late 19th century is unprecedented.Why is this claim so important?Because if a similar or greater warming phase has occurred in the very recent past, before human CO2 emissions had caused CO2 levels to rise, then clearly any such recent warming must have been natural and was not caused by CO2. And if any recent similar warming phase was natural then clearly the current phase of warming could also be a natural phenomena.If the current phase of warming could be natural then those arguing that it was primarily caused by human CO2 emissions would have to prove their hypothesis. And this is something they cannot do.The only “proof” that CO2 is currently forcing up global temperatures is the claim that the current warming is somehow unusual, unique and unnatural. That’s the total argument for CO2 forcing. Something unprecedented is happening to the climate and CO2 is the only candidate for what is causing this unique phenomena.Its certainly true that the well understood physics of CO2 in the atmosphere demonstrates (see “CO2 the basic facts“) that CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas and will have a warming impact. No one disputes that. The issue is what is the scale of impact that this CO2 warming is having on the overall climate system. Is the effect of the CO2 so big that it can drive the temperature of the whole planet up in a way that is big enough to actually alter the climate?This is a much harder question to answer because no one has a model of the total climate system that actually works and which verifiably produces even remotely accurate forecasts about climate trends.So without a working model of the total climate system the only way to “prove” that CO2 is driving climate change is to prove that something truly unique is happening to the climate, that there is unprecedented warming occurring, and and then propose man made CO2 change as the only candidate as the cause of this ‘unprecedented’ warming.The “problem” of the Medieval Warm PeriodUntil the 1990s there were many, many references in scientific and historical literature to a period labelled the Medieval Warm Period(MWP) lasting from about AD 800–1300. It was followed by a much cooler period termed the Little Ice Age. Based on both temperature reconstructions using proxy measures and voluminous historical references it was accepted that the Medieval Warm Period had been a period when global temperatures were a bit hotter than today’s temperatures. Until about the mid-1990s the Medieval Warm Period was for climate researchers an undisputed fact. The existence of the Medieval Warm Period was accepted without question and noted in the first progress report of the IPCC from 1990. On page 202 of that 1990 IPCC report there was the graphic 7c (see below), in which the Medieval Warm Period was portrayed as clearly warmer than the present.By the time of the second IPCC report in 1995 where for the first time CO2 forcing began to be proposed more prominently as a cause of serious alarm, the Medieval Warm Period was sidelined in the text and narrative. An important way that this was done in the report was to alter the diagram of recent climate history by simply shortening the time period it covered so that it now started after the Medieval Warm Period. All that was shown was the long slow recovery from the Little Ice Age to today’s temperatures, i.e. a long period of increasing temperatures. But clearly this was only a short term solution. The way that the Medieval Warm Period dominated the recent climate graph challenged the basic argument for CO2 forcing which was that the late 20th century climate was some how unique. As Jay Overpeck, an IPCC participant said in his email to Professor Deming, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”.In order to prove CO2 forcing the Medieval Warm Period had to be eliminated.The Rise of the Hockey StickBetween the 1995 second IPCC report and the 2001 third IPCC report there was a complete revision in the way that recent climate history was portrayed. The supporters of the theory that CO2 changes were driving temperatures up had succeeded in their goal of eliminating the Medieval Warm Period. This rewriting of climate history and the elimination of the Medieval Warm Period was achieved through the famous Hockey Stick graph.To understand the scale of the revision that had taken place compare the two graphs below.The one on the left is diagram 7c from page 202 of the 1990 IPCC report in which the Medieval Warm Period was portrayed as clearly warmer than the present. On the right is the Hockey Stick graph from the 2001 IPCC report in which the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age have all but disappeared and the recent climate history is dominated by a rapid temperature rise in the last 20th century.The first blow against the accepted understanding of climate history came in 1995 when the English climatologist Keith Briffa (based at the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia) published in the journal Nature a study with sensational results. According to his studies of tree rings in the Siberian Polar-Ural, there had never been a Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century suddenly appeared as the warmest of the last 1000 years. The most recent part of this study is known as the Yamal study, because of the name of the region it was done in, and it has recently been discredited – see here.Briffa’s work boldly proposed that the 20th Century had experienced the warmest climate of the millennium and this claim was now the central battlefield for the scientific argument about CO2 forcing. This of course ignored the Climatic Optimum (see Happy Holocene) between 5000 and 9000 years ago when temperatures were significantly higher than today but most people (and certainly the media and politicians) actually think that 5000 years is a long time ago so there was no need to undermine the Climatic Optimum in order to win wide public support for the CO2 forcing hypothesis. Hottest in the last 1000 years would do.Briffa’s work had an impact and laid the ground work but the real knock out blow that finally succeeded in eliminating the Medieval Warm Period was a paper published in 1998 in Nature by Mann, Bradley and Hughes entitled, “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” (you can download it here). This was the original peer reviewed hockey stick article.Michael Mann of the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, who was the primary author of the paper, had in one scientific coup overturned the whole of climate history. Using tree rings as a basis for assessing past temperature changes back to the year 1,000 AD, supplemented by other proxies from more recent centuries, Mann completely redrew climate history, turning the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age into non-events.In the new Hockey Stick diagram the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age have disappeared, to be replaced by a largely benign and slightly cooling linear trend in climate until 1900 AD after which the Mann’s new graph showed the temperature shooting up in the 20th century in an apparently anomalous and accelerating fashion.In every other science when such a drastic revision of previously accepted knowledge is promulgated, there is considerable debate and initial scepticism, the new theory facing a gauntlet of criticism and intense review. Only if a new idea survives that process does it become broadly accepted by the scientific peer group and the public at large.This never happened with Mann’s `Hockey Stick’. The coup was total, bloodless, and swift as Mann’s paper was greeted with a chorus of uncritical approval from the increasingly politically committed supporters of the CO2 greenhouse theory. Within the space of only 12 months, the new theory had become entrenched as a new orthodoxy. The ultimate consummation of the new theory came with the release of the draft of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC in 2000. Based solely on this new paper from a relatively unknown and young scientist the IPCC could now boldly state:“It is likely that the rate and duration of the warming of the 20th century is larger than any other time during the last 1,000 years. The 1990s are likely to have been the warmest decade of the millennium in the Northern Hemisphere, and 1998 is likely to have been the warmest year.”Overturning its own previous view in the 1995 report, the IPCC presented the `Hockey Stick’ as the new orthodoxy with hardly an apology or explanation for the abrupt U-turn since its 1995 report. The IPCC could show almost no supporting scientific justification because other than Mann’s Hockey Stick paper, and Briffa’s Siberian tree ring study there was little in the way of research confirming their new line.The Hockey Stick graph, the new orthodoxy, was blown up to a wall sized display and used as a back drop for the public launch of the 2001 IPCC report.Within months of the IPCC draft release, the long-awaited draft U.S. `National Assessment’ Overview document featured the `Hockey Stick’ as the first of many climatic graphs and charts in its report, affirming the crucial importance placed in it by the authors and by the active pro CO2 warming campaign at large. This was now not an esoteric theory about the distant past but rather the core foundation upon which the offensive on global warming was being mounted.Soon the Hockey Stick was everywhere and with it went the new simple and catchy campaigning slogans “its hotter now than the last 1000 years!“, “1998 was the hottest year for a 1000 years!”Not long after the 2001 IPCC report the Government of Canada sent the hockey stick to schools across the country, and its famous conclusion about the 1990s being the warmest decade of the millennium was the opening line of a pamphlet sent to every household in Canada to promote the Kyoto Protocol.Al Gore’s Oscar winning and hugely popular film “An Inconvenient Truth” was virtually built around the Hockey Stick (although Gore couldn’t resist tweaking it to make it look even more compelling by changing the way the graph data was displayed along the axis so that the temperature trend line it showed looked even steeper and starker).In the UK the Government announced that the DVD of the “An Inconvenient Truth” would be sent to every school in the country as a teaching aid.The Hockey Stick seemed to be carrying all before it. Dr Mann was promoted, given a central position in the IPCC and became a star of the media.And then it all went horribly wrong.The Fall of the Hockey StickIn the years immediately after the 2001 IPCC report it seemed as if the sudden adoption of the Hockey Stick model of the earth’s recent climate past had created a new orthodoxy which could not be challenged. Even when some scientists quietly worried that the new theory about the past climate had been adopted way too quickly or were unhappy about the way that satellite temperature readings didn’t seem to fit the Hockey Stick model or they noticed that new individual proxy studies still seemed to keep showing that the Medieval Warm Period was hotter than today, they mostly stayed silent. They didn’t want to be branded as ‘deniers‘ after all.Then an unlikely hero emerged in the shape of Stephen McIntyre a retired mineralogist from Toronto. McIntyre is not a scientist or an economist but he does know a lot about statistics, maths and data analysis and he is a curious guy. He didn’t start off as a climate sceptic but was just someone interested in the nuts and bolts of these new and apparently exciting ideas about climate change, and he was curious about how the Hockey Stick graph was made and wanted to see if the raw data looked like hockey sticks too. In the Spring of 2003, Stephen McIntyre requested the raw data set used in the Hockey Stick paper from Mann. After some delay Mann arranged provision of a file which he said was the one used in the original 1998 Hockey Stick paper and McIntyre began to look at how Mann had processed all the data from the numerous different proxy studies cited as his source material and how they had been combined to produce the average that was the basis of the famous Hockey Stick shape.About this time Steve McIntyre linked up with Ross McKitrick a Canadian economist specialising in environmental economics and policy analysis. Together McIntyre and McKitrick began to dig down into the data that Mann had used in his paper and the statistical techniques used to create the single blended average used to make the Hockey Stick. They immediately began to find problems. Some of these problems just seemed the sort of errors that caused by sloppy data handling concerningAbove are two separate temperature reconstructions running from 1400AD, both use tree rings, one is from California and one is from Arizona. Both were were part of the data used by Mann and included in the Hockey Stick average. The top one shows a temperature up tick at the end in the 20th century like the final Hockey Stick, the other shows a relatively flat temperature for the 20th century. Mann’s statistical trick gives the top series, the one with the desired Hockey Stick shape a weighting in the data that is 390 times that of the bottom series just because it has a Hockey Stick bend at the end. This means that whatever data is fed into Mann’s statistical manipulations is almost bound to produce a Hockey Stick shape whether it is actually in the data or not.McIntyre and McKitrick then took their critical analysis a step further. When you apply a statistical manipulation to a set of data it is important to make sure that what you doing is not actually distorting the data so much that you are really just creating something new, spurious and false in the numbers. One way to do this is to take the statistical manipulation in question and apply it to several examples of random numbers (sometimes this is called a Red Noise test). To simplify, you use random numbers as input data, then apply the statistical technique you are testing to the random numbers then if the techniques are sound you should get a set of random numbers coming out the other end of the calculations. There should be no false shape imparted to the random noise by the statistical techniques themselves, if what you get out is random numbers then this would prove that the techniques you were testing were not adding anything artificial to the numbers. This is what McIntyre and McKitrick did using the techniques that Mann had used in the Hockey Stick paper. And the results were staggering.What they found was that 99% of the time you could process random data using Mann’s techniques and it would generate a Hockey Stick shape. This meant that Mann’s claim that the Hockey Stick graph represented an accurate reconstruction of the past climate was in tatters.Here are some examples. Below are eight graphs. Seven were made by processing random numbers using Mann’s techniques. The eighth is the actual Hockey Stick chart from Mann’s paper. See if you can spot which is which.McIntyre and McKitrick submitted a letter to Nature about the serious flaws they had uncovered in the methodology used in the Hockey Stick paper. After a long (8-month) reviewing process Nature notified them that they would not publish it. They concluded it could not be explained in the 500-word limit they were prepared to give McIntyre and McKitrick, and one of the referees said he found the material was quite technical and unlikely to be of interest to the general readers!Instead of publishing anything from McIntyre and McKitrick explaining the serious errors that they had found Nature allowed Mann to make a coy correction in an on-line Supplement (but not in the printed text itself) where he revealed the nonstandard method he had used, and added the unsupported claim that it did not affect the results.Eventually in 2003, McIntyre and McKitrick published an article entitled “Corrections to the Mann et al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series” in the journal Energy and Environment raising concerns about what they had found in Manns Hockey Stick paper. By this point following further work analysing Mann’s paper McIntyre and McKitrick showed that the data mining procedure did not just pull out a random group of proxies, instead it pulled out a single eccentric group of bristlecone pine chronologies published by Graybill and Idso in 1993 called the Sheep Mountain series.The original authors of the bristlecone study have always stressed that these trees are not proper climate proxies, their study was not trying to do a climate reconstruction and that they were surprised that Mann included it in the Hockey Stick data set. McIntyre and McKitrick had discovered that just removing this odd series from Mann’s proxy set and then applying Mann’s own eccentric statistical averaging caused the Hockey Stick shape to disappear. This revolutionary new model of the recent climate past was that fragile and it revealed the Hockey Stick graph as just a carefully worked artificial creation.In the graph below the dotted line is the original Hockey Stick chart as published by Mann and as adopted and promoted by the IPCC. The solid line shows the past temperature reconstruction if the data used by Mann is averaged using the correct statistical analysis techniques rather than Mann’s unconventional ones. As can be seen the familiar Medieval Warm Period re-emerges and the 1990s cease to be the hottest of the millennium, that title is now claimed by the early 1400s.In doing this research McIntyre and McKitrick had legitimately accessed Mann’s public college web site server in order to get a lot of the source material, and whilst doing this they found the data that provoked them to look at the bristlecone series in a folder entitled “Censored”. It seems that Mann had done this very experiment himself and discovered that the climate graph loses its hockey stick shape when the bristlecone series are removed. In so doing he discovered that the hockey stick was not an accurate chart of the recent global climate pattern, it is an artificial creation that hinges on a flawed group of US proxies that are not even valid climate indicators. But Mann did not disclose this fatal weakness of his results, and it only came to light because of McIntyre and McKitrick’’s laborious efforts.You can download McKitrick’ss own account of the whole Hockey Stick saga here and this web page compiled by McIntyre and McKitrick has a list of links and documents relating to the Hockey Stick controversy.Following the publication of McIntyre and McKitrick’s critique of Mann’s work there was an immediate counter attack by some climatologists who had worked closely with Mann in the past. The attack on McIntyre and McKitrick’s critique of Mann’s work really boiled down to saying that of course the Hockey Stick disappeared if you stopped using Mann’s techniques and that you should carry on using Mann’s techniques and then you could get the Hockey Stick back!Eventually a US senate committee of inquiry was set up under the chairmanship of Edward Wegman a highly respected Professor of mathematics and statistics and in 2006 his report was published. You can download it here.The report examined the background to Mann’s Hockey Stick paper, the paper itself, the critique of it by McIntyre and McKitrick and took evidence from all the key players. Interestingly Wegman’s committee commissioned some original research into how the small world of climatology actually worked. The study of the social networking of the paleoclimatology world showed how closed it was and how often a small group of scientists both co-wrote and peer reviewed each others papers. For work that depended so much on making statistical claims about trends it was noted that it was surprising that no statisticians ever seemed to be involved in either the research work itself or its peer review.The key finding in the WEgman Report was that “Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported by the MBH98/99 [the technical name of Mann's original Hockey Stick paper]”The other conclusions of the Wegman Report are also very interesting; It listed the following conclusions:Conclusion 1. The politicization of academic scholarly work leads to confusing public debates. Scholarly papers published in peer reviewed journals are considered the archival record of research. There is usually no requirement to archive supplemental material such as code and data. Consequently, the supplementary material for academic work is often poorly documented and archived and is not sufficiently robust to withstand intense public debate. In the present example there was too much reliance on peer review, which seemed not to be sufficiently independent.Conclusion 2. Sharing of research materials, data, and results is haphazard and often grudgingly done. We were especially struck by Dr. Mann’s insistence that the code he developed was his intellectual property and that he could legally hold it personally without disclosing it to peers. When code and data are not shared and methodology is not fully disclosed, peers do not have the ability to replicate the work and thus independent verification is impossible.Conclusion 3. As statisticians, we were struck by the isolation of communities such as the paleoclimate community that rely heavily on statistical methods, yet do not seem to be interacting with the mainstream statistical community. The public policy implications of this debate are financially staggering and yet apparently no independent statistical expertise was sought or used.Conclusion 4. While the paleoclimate reconstruction has gathered much publicity because it reinforces a policy agenda, it does not provide insight and understanding of the physical mechanisms of climate change except to the extent that tree ring, ice cores and such give physical evidence such as the prevalence of green-house gases. What is needed is deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms of climate change.Generally the response of the IPCC, the supporters of the CO2 hypothesis and the broader coalition of climate campaigners to all this was a cross between a sneer and a yawn, and the Hockey Stick continued to be used widely as a campaigning and propaganda tool.It is still being used today.In 2008 the BBC paid for a large truck to tour central London displaying a giant version of Mann’s Hockey Stick as part of the promotion of its very pro CO2 warming mini series called “Climate Wars”.http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca...New and past climate research from across the Southern Hemisphere including Australia demolishes Mann’s HOCKEY STICK data trick. The IPCC also erased the graph,Here are a selected number of peer reviewed science ABSTRACTS with their full texts below covering the Southern Hemisphere.·ABSTRACT: The Little Ice Age climate of New Zealand reconstructed from Southern Alps cirque glaciers: a synoptic type approach, 2014.·ABSTRACT: Tropical rainfall over the last two millennia: evidence for a low-latitude hydrologic seesaw, 2017.·ABSTRACT: Cold conditions in Antarctica during the Little Ice Age — Implications for abrupt climate change mechanisms 2017·ABSTRACT: Little Ice Age Climate near Beijing, China, Inferred from Historical and Stalagmite Records·ABSTRACT: Evidence for Little Ice Age in Antarctica, 2017.·ABSTRACT: How climate change impacted the collapse of the Ming dynasty Nov. 2014·ABSTRACT: Extreme cold winter events in southern China during AD 1650–2000, 2012.·ABSTRACT:Climate extremes revealed by Chinese historical documents over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in winter 1620Michael Mann is uniformly repudiated by the science community as “a disgrace to the profession” because of his fudged data chart. He is just one of many who besmeeched the reputation of the climate science community. Lawyer Mark Steyn compiled a book of > 100 leading climate scientists who in their own words repudiated the Mann data fudge.Now there are dozens of peer reviewed studies with extensive references confirming the global reach of the Medieval ‘Warming period and the Little Ice Age. Here is one example - CURRENT LONG-TERM NEGATIVE AVERAGE ANNUAL ENERGY BALANCE OF THE EARTH LEADS TO THE NEW LITTLE ICE AGEby Habibullo ABDUSSAMATOVPulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences,Saint Petersburg, RussiaOriginal scientific paper DOI:10.2298/TSCI140902018A The average annual decreasing rate of the total solar irradiance is increasing from the 22nd to the 23rd and 24th cycles, because the Sun since the 1990 is in the phase decline of quasi-bicentennial variation. The portion of the solar energy absorbed by the Earth is decreasing. Decrease in the portion of total solar irradiance absorbed by the Earth since 1990 remains uncompensated by the Earth's radiation into space at the previous high level over a time interval determined by the thermal inertia of the Ocean. A long-term negative deviation of the Earth's average annual energy balance from the equilibrium state is dictating corresponding variations in it's the energy state. As a result, the Earth will have a negative average annual energy balance also in the future. This will lead to the beginning of the decreasing in the Earth's temperature and of the epoch of the Little Ice Age after the maximum phase of the 24th solar cycle approximately since the end of 2014. The influence of the consecutive chain of the secondary feedback effects (the increase in the Bond albedo and the decrease in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to cooling) will lead to an additional reduction of the absorbed solar energy and reduce the greenhouse effect. The start of the total solar irradiance Grand Minimum is anticipated in the solar cycle 27 ± 1 in 2043 ± 11 and the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the 19th Little Ice Age for the past 7,500 years around 2060 ± 11. Key words: energy balance, Grand Minimum, climate, Little Ice Age, feedback effects Introduction The average annual balance of incoming and outgoing energy for the Earth (on the outer layers of the atmosphere) in the equilibrium state determines the stability of the climate. The main reason for long-term deviations from the equilibrium state is the quasi-bicentennial cyclical variation of the total solar irradiance (TSI) and the absorbed of the Earth its portion due to the thermal inertia of the Ocean. Thereby, the climatic system is affected by quasi-bicentennial cyclic external actions connected with corresponding variations of the TSI. The basic features of climate variations are connected, in particular, with fluctuations of the power and velocity of both the atmospheric circulations and oceans currents, including the thermal current of Gulfstream driven by the heat accumulated by oceans water in the tropics. They are determined by common action of bicentennial and eleven-year cyclic variations of TSI. Significant climate variations during the past 7.5 millennia indicate that bicentennial quasi-periodic TSI variationsdefine the corresponding cyclic mechanism of climatic changes from global warming to Little Ice Age and set the timescales of practically all physical processes that occur in the Sun-Earth system [1-3]. The observed long-term decline of TSI since 1990 and upcoming deep cooling will, first of all, essentially affect climate-dependent natural resources and hence the economic brunches closely connected with the state of the climate. The upcoming global cooling will dictate the direction of variations of different natural processes on the Earth's surface and in the atmosphere as well as the change for the worse of conditions for creating material and financial resources of the society. For practical purposes, the most important task is to determine the tendencies of expected climate changes for the next 50-100 years until the middle and the end of the 21th century.A cyclical decrease of the portion TSI absorbed by the Earth remains uncompensated by high level of radiation into space at the previous same level over a time interval 20 ± 8 year that is determined by the thermal inertia of the World Ocean [5]. That is why the debit and credit parts of the average annual energy balance of the Earth as a planet (eq. 2) always deviate from the equilibrium (E 0), which is the basic state of the climatic system. Long-term deviation of the average annual energy balance of the Earth from the equilibrium state (excess of incoming TSI accumulated by the Ocean E > 0 or its deficiency E < 0) dictates a corresponding change of the Earth's energy state and hence the climate. As a result, the Earth will gradually warm up or cool down, respectively, what imply an upcoming climate variation and its amplitude with account forecasted quasi-bicentennial variations of the TSI and the subsequent feedback effects (Bond albedo and greenhouse gases: H2O, which is the most important, and CO2). That is why the Earth's climate will change in a quasi-bicentennial cycle every 200 ± 70 years from theglobal warming to the Little Ice Age. My definition of the Little Ice Age with quasi-bicentennial cycle differs from an often mentioned in the literature long period of global cooling in the 14 to 19 centuries, which have been interrupted by several quasi-bicentennial warming periods. Deep cooling associated with Wolf (~1280-1340), Sporer (~1450-1550), Maunder (~1645-1715), and Dalton (~1790-1830) Grand Minima cannot be regarded as a single Little Ice Age. At the same time, insignificant more long-term variations of the average annual TSI entering the Earth's upper atmosphere due to changes in both the shape of the Earth's orbit, inclination of the Earth's axis relative to its orbital plane, and precession, known as the astronomical Milankovitch cycles [6], together with the subsequent non-linear feedback effects, lead to the Big Glacial Periods (with the period of about 100,000 years). These variations of the TSI cause significant temperature fluctuations from the global warming to the Big Glacial Period, as well as of atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gases. Antarctic ice cores provide clear evidence of a close coupling between variations of the temperature and atmospheric concentration of the CO2 during at least the past 800,000 years induced by Milankovitch cycles. According to the ice core data drilled near Vostok site, Antarctica: the peaks of the CO2 concentration have never preceded the warming, but on the contrary always took place 800 ± 400 years after them, being their consequences [7, 8]. Since according to Henry law, warm liquid absorbs less gas and hence more CO2 remains in the atmosphere. Considerable changes of the content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are always governed by the corresponding temperature fluctuations of the World Ocean. The amount of natural flows of water vapor and CO2 from the Ocean and land to the atmosphere and from the atmosphere to the Ocean and land exceeds many times the anthropogenic discharges of these substances into the atmosphere [9]. The overall content of the CO2 in the Ocean is 50 times higher than in the atmosphere, and even a weak breath of the Ocean can change dramatically the CO2 level in the atmosphere. There is no evidence that CO2 is a major factor in the warming although CO2 has some warming influence but the Sun plays a far greater role in the whole scheme of things. Natural causes play the most important role in climate variations rather than human activity since natural factors are substantially more powerful. [emphasis added].The current trend decreasing TSI suggests starting the new Little Ice Age epoch Herschel was the first to report correlation between a level of solar activity and a climate after his discovery of inverse interrelation between a wheat price and a level of cyclic variations of solar activity [1]. During high levels of solar activity the wheat production increased resulting in a drop of prices. Nobody could explain the nature of this phenomenon. Later was discovered interconnection between clearly determined periods of significant variations of the solar activity during the last millennium and corresponding deep climatic changes in both phase and amplitude [2]. During each of 18 deep Maunder-type minima of solar activity with a quasi-bicentennial cycle found in the preceding 7.5 millennia, deep cooling was observed, while during the periods of high maximum warming [3]. Our studies have shown (fig. 1) that a physical nature of these phenomena is directly connected with corresponding variations of TSI since cyclic variations of the solar activity and TSI are synchronized and inter-correlated in both phase and amplitude [10-13]. The Sun provides the largest TSI at the maximum of solar activity. Thus, significant climate variations during at least the past 800,000 years indicate that quasi-bicentennial and 100,000 years cyclic variations of the TSI entering the Earth's upper atmosphere (taking into account their direct and subsequent non-linear secondary feedback influences) are the main fundamental cause of corresponding alternations of climate variations from global warming to the Little Ice Age and Big Glacial Period. The quasi-bicentennial variations of the TSI set the timescales of practically all physical processes taking place in the Sun-Earth system and are the key to understanding cyclic changes in both the nature and the society. Since 1990 the Sun is in the quasi-bicentennial phase of decline, and we have been observing a decrease in both eleven-year and quasi-bicentennial the components of the TSI and the portion of its energy absorbed by the Earth. The 11-year component of TSI in the current cycle has decreased by more 0.6 W/m2 with respect to cycle 23 (fig. 1). Decrease of the TSI from the 22nd cycle to the 23rd and 24th cycles is increasing: an average annual decrease rate in the 22nd cycle was ~0.007 W/m2 per year, while in the 23rd cycle it already became ~0.02 W/m2 per year. The current increasing rate of an average annual TSI decline is almost 0.1 W/m2 per year and this will continue in the 25th cycle. The average cyclical values of the TSI were also lower by ~0.15 W/m2 in the 23rd cycle than in the 22nd cycle. The value of TSI at the minimum between 23/24 cycles (1365.27 0.02 W/m2 ) was lower by ~0.23 and by ~0.30 W/m2 than at the minima between 22/23 and 21/22 cycles, respectively (fig. 1).What we are seeing now in the solar cycle 24 and the quasi-bicentennial cycle and also at stability of temperature (fig. 2) has been predicted by me in 2003-2007, long before the cycle 24 began [10-13]. These forecasts have been confirmed both by the Sun itself and by stabilization of both the temperature and the Ocean level for the past 17 years which are the result of TSI fall since 1990 and a sign of the upcoming beginning Grand Minimum of TSI. Every time the TSI experienced its quasi-bicentennial peak up to ~0.5% [17] a global warming began with a time delay of 20 ± 8 years defined by the thermal inertia of the Ocean, and each deep quasi-bicentennial descent in the TSI caused a Little Ice Age (together with the subsequent non-linear feedback effects). All eighteen periods of significant climate changes found during the last 7,500 years were entirely caused by corresponding quasi-bicentennial variations of TSI together with the subsequent feedback effects, which always control and totally determine cyclic mechanism of climatic changes from global warming to Little Ice Age. Observed decrease of the TSI portion absorbed by the Earth since 1990 has not been compensated by decrease of its average annual energy emitted into space which practically remains on the same high level during 20 ± 8 years due to thermal inertia of the Ocean. The Earth as a planet will continue to have a negative average annual energy balance in the future cycles25-28 because the Sun is moving to the Grand Minimum. Gradual consumption of the solar energy accumulated by the Ocean during the whole XX century will to begin decrease of global temperature after 20 ± 8 years due to the long-term negative average annual balance of the energy incoming and emitted by the Earth into space. As a result should expect the beginning of a stable temperature decrease and of the epoch of the Little Ice Age after the maximum phase of the solar cycle 24 approximately since the end of 2014. The direct impact of the TSI variations on the climate changes is always additionally (with some time-lag) enhanced due to the secondary feedback effects: non-linear changes in Bond albedo (additional changes of TSI fraction being absorbed) and opposite changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere additional variations of the greenhouse effect influence. The Bond albedo increases up to the highest level during a deep cooling and decreases to the minimum during a warming, while the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere varies inversely since their variations are mostly defined by the temperature of the Ocean. Variations in the parameters of the Earth's surface and atmosphere generate successive non-linear changes in the temperature due to multiple repetitions of such causal cycle of the secondary feedback effects, even if the TSI subsequently remains unchanged over a certain period of time, as in the late 20th century. The subsequent increase of the Bond albedo (in particular, because of increasing surface of snow and ice coverage) and decrease in the content of greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor in the surface air, as well as CO2 and other gases) in the atmosphere due to cooling will lead to an additional reduction of the absorbed portion of solar energy and reduce the influence of the greenhouse effect. These changes will lead to a chain of recurrent drops in the Earth's temperature, which can be comparable to or surpass the influence of the direct effect of the TSI decrease in a bicentennial cycle. The start of the Grand Minimum of TSI is anticipated approximately in cycle 27 ± 1 approximately in 2043 ± 11 and the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the 19th Little Ice Age (of the Maunder Minimum type) in the past 7,500 years approximately in 2060 ± 11, with possible duration of 45-65 years (fig. 3).Even insignificant long-term TSI variations may have serious consequences for the climate of the Earth and other planets of the Solar System. Warming on the Mars [18] and other planets was observed in the 20th century practically simultaneously, that indicated the season of solar summer and alternation of climate conditions throughout the Solar System. By analogy with the seasons on the Earth there is also a similar alternation of climatic conditions in the Solar System, dictated by the quasi-bicentennial cycle variation of the TSI. From this point of view, after the maximum phase of solar cycle 24 (approximately at the end of 2014), after the season of solar summer in our Solar System as a whole we expect beginning of a season solar autumn, and then, approximately in 2060 ± 11, beginning of a season of solar winter of the quasi-bicentennial solar cycle. Sensitivity of climate to the carbon dioxide abundance drops with the increase of water vapor content Water plays an essential role in the greenhouse effect. The volume concentration of the water vapor in the atmosphere in contrast to that of CO2 strongly depends on the height (fig. 4). The water vapor has its maximum concentration in the surface layer. Long-term small rise of TSI leads to increase of a temperature which according to the Clausius-Clapeyron relation results leads to increase of water evaporation rate. This leads to substantial changes in the transfer of thermal flow of long wave radiation of the Earth's surface by the water vapor. As a result, the climate sensitivity to increasing content of carbon dioxide decreases with significant growth of water vapor concentration in the surface layer. Negligible effect of the human-induced carbon dioxide emission on the atmosphere has insignificant consequences. Convection, evaporation and condensation together with the greenhouse effect participates in the transfer of thermal flow the Earth's surface As early as in 1908 Wood made two identical boxes (mini-greenhouses) of the black cardboard: one of them was covered with a glass plate, while another with the plate made of rock salt crystals which are almost transparent in the infrared part of the spectrum [20]. The temperature in both green-houses simultaneously reached ~54.4 C. However, the plate made of rock salt is transparent at long wavelengths and, according to the commonly adopted theory of the greenhouse effect this cover should not produce it at all. Wood is established that in the greenhouse, where the heat is blocked from all sides and there is no air exchange with the atmosphere, the radiative component is negligibly small compared to the convective component. Heat accumulated in the greenhouse only slightly depends on its cover transparency to the infrared radiation. Thus convection, evaporation and condensation together with the greenhouse effect participate in the transfer of thermal flow of long wave radiation of the Earth's surface to the atmosphere. Powerful volcanic eruptions lead only to short-term cooling periods The volcanic eruptions increase the number of solid particles and gases in the lower stratosphere. Their scattering, screening and partial absorption of the incident solar radiation decrease the portion of TSI reaching the surface which can result in short-term climate cooling. However, these changes are not long-term because of the limited lifetime of volcanic particles in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is able to self-cleaning and gradual increase of its transparency up to its previous level over a time span from 6 months to a few years. The role of volcanic eruptions in climate variations cannot be long-term and determinant. Future deep cooling can become one of the major risks in the development of hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic Intense interest in the development of the Arctic is stimulated by UN experts predicted further melting of Arctic ice due to warming. This could open up new areas of the shelf, making them available for deep-water drilling. However due to the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the Little Ice Age in the middle of this century would be almost impossible to exploit offshore fields, pump oil and gas in the tens to hundreds of kilometers from the coast. In the future a fuel and energy complex will not be of easy oil and gas in the Arctic. So that long-term forecasts portend to fuel and energy complex even more complex difficult working conditions and not only in the Arctic. Physical interconnection between the duration and power of the 11-year solar cycle Previously, it has been found that the duration of the 11-year solar cycle (fig. 5) is a possible indicator of climate change, because there is a correlation between the duration of the cycle and the Earth's surface temperature in the Northern Hemisphere [21]. We try toestablish why it could happen. For this purpose, we have constructed a graph showing interconnections between the duration of solar cycle and its power W the average level of the index of solar activity throughout the cycle (fig. 6). Average level of the index of solar activity throughout the cycle is W = SWDt/SDt. Here W sunspot number,t the time interval between successive observations throughout the cycle. Figure 6 is showing physical dependence power of the 11-year cycle solar activity from its duration. It is obvious that such an interconnection exists also between the cycle TSI variation and its duration. Therefore, the previously observed dependence of [21] can be easily explained of established by us existence interconnections between the duration of the 11-year solar cycle and its power. Only the average weighted level of the cycle both solar activity and TSI may allow objectively and quantitatively determine the average level of the relative power of the 11-year cycle, as well as to predict their impact on the processes occurring in the Sun-Earth system. Conclusions Long-term deviation of the average annual energy balance of the Earth from the equilibrium state (excess of incoming TSI accumulated by oceans or its deficiency) practically determines a corresponding change of the energy state of the Earth-atmosphere system and, hence, a forthcoming climate variation and its amplitude. Long-term cyclic variations of the total energy of solar radiation entering the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere are the main fundamental cause of corresponding climate variations. The Sun is controlling and practically totally determining the mechanism of quasi-bicentennial cyclic alternations of climate changes from warming to Little Ice Age and set corresponding time-scales for practically all physical processes taking place in the Sun-Earth system. The current long practically stable levels of World Ocean and of temperature additionally reflects the current state of global warming during past 17 years, which are under the direct control of the quasi-bicentennial decrease of TSI. Approximately in the end of 2014 we begin the descent into 19th Little Ice Age in the past 7,500 years [22, 23]. Early understanding of reality of the upcoming global cooling and physical mechanisms responsible for it directly determines a choice of adequate and reliable measures which will allow the mankind, in particular, population of countries situated far from the equator, to adapt to the future global cooling. Pictures of the frozen Thames and a historical study of the effects of recently deep cooling in the period of Maunder minimum are warning about the serious alarm to the future of energy security humanity. Mankind since the middle of current century will meet with the same very difficult times as well as of change for the worse conditions for creating material and financial resources of the society. The most reasonable way to fight against the coming Little Ice Age is to work out a complex of special steps aimed at support of economic growth and energy-saving production in order to adapt mankind to forthcoming period of deep cooling which will last approximately until the beginning the 22nd century. The mathematical modelingof climate processes without its a fundamental modernization and also without the use of the quasi-bicentennial variations of the TSI will not allow to obtain significantly more reliable results [24]. The most reliable method for accurately predicting the depth and time of the coming Little Ice Age is to study the long-term variations of the effective global parameter: an average annual energy balance in the budget of the Earth-atmosphere system in the income and expenditure of thermal power. References [1] Herschel, W., Observations Tending to Investigate the Nature of the Sun, in order to Find the Causes or Symptoms of its Variable of Light and Heat; with Remarks on the Use that May Possibly Be Drawn from Solar Observations, Phil. Trans. R. Soc., 91 (1801), Apr., pp. 265-318 [2] Eddy, J. A., The Maunder Minimum, Science, 192 (1976), 4245, pp. 1189-1202 [3] Borisenkov, E. P., et al., Climate Oscillations of the Last Millennium (Kolebaniya Klimata za Poslednee Tisyaceletie, in Russian), Gidrometeoizdat, Leningrad, SSSR, 1988 [4] Abdussamatov, H. I., Bicentennial Decrease of the Solar Constant Leads to the Earth's Unbalanced Heat Budget and Deep Climate Cooling, Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies, 28 (2012), 2, pp. 62-68 [5] Abdussamatov, H. I., et al., Modeling of the Earth's Planetary Heat Balance with Electrical Circuit Analogy, J. Electromagn. Anal. Appl., 2 (2010), 3, pp. 133-138 [6] Milankovitch, M., Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem. With Introduction and Biographical Essay by Nikola Pantic (Kanon der Erdbestrahlungen und seine Anwendung auf das Eiszeitenproblem, in German), Alven Global, 1998 [7] Petit, J. R., et al., Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past 420,000 Years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica, Nature, 399 (1999), 6735, pp. 429-436 [8] Pedro, J. B., et al., Tightened Constraints on the Time-Lag between Antarctic Temperature and CO2 During the Last Deglaciation, Clim. Past., 8 (2012), 4, pp. 1213-1221 [9] Nigmatulin, R. I., The Ocean: Climate, Resources, and Natural Disasters, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 80 (2010), 4, pp. 338-349 [10] Abdussamatov, H. I., About the Long-Term Coordinated Variations of the Activity, Radius, Total Irradiance of the Sun and the Earth's Climate, Proceedings, IAU Symposium, Cambridge, UK, 2004, Vol. 223, pp. 541-542 [11] Abdussamatov, H. I., Long-Term Variations of the Integral Radiation Flux and Possible Temperature Changes in the Solar Core, Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies, 21 (2005), 6, pp. 328-332 [12] Abdussamatov, H. I., Decrease of the Solar Radiation Flux and Drastic Fall of the Global Temperature on the Earth in the Middle of the XXI Century, Izv. Krym. Astrofiz. Observ., 103 (2007), 4, pp. 292-298 [13] Abdussamatov, H. I., Optimal Prediction of the Peak of the Next 11-Year Activity Cycle and of the Peaks of Several Succeeding Cycles on the Basis of Long-Term Variations in the Solar Radius or Solar Constant, Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies, 23 (2007), 3, pp. 97-100 [14] Frohlich, C., Solar Constant, 2013, http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant [15] ***, SIDC Solar Influences Data Analysis Center, 2014, Sunspot Number | SILSO [16] ***, HadCRUT3, Global surface temperature [17] Shapiro, A. I., et al., A New Approach to the Long-Term Reconstruction of the Solar Irradiance Leads to Large Historical Solar Forcing, Astron. Astrophys., 529 (2011), A67, pp. 1-8 [18] ***, Odyssey Studies Changing Weather and Climate on Mars. The Changing South Polar Cap of Mars: 1999-2005. MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1151, 13 July 2005. Mars Global Surveyor [19] Abdussamatov, H. I., The Sun Dictates the Climate, Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-4), ppt-presentation, Chicago, USA, 2010, Habibullo Abdussamatov, ICCC4 [20] Wood, R. W., Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse, Philosophical Magazine, 17 (1909), pp. 319-320 [21] Friis-Christensen, E., Lassen, K., Length of the Solar Cycle: an Indicator of Solar Activity Closely Associated with Climate, Science, 254 (1991), 5032, pp. 698-700 [22] Abdussamatov, H. I., 2014 the Beginning of the New Little Ice Age, Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-9) (2014), ppt-presentation, Las Vegas, Nev., USA,Paper submitted: September 2, 2014 Paper revised: November 4, 2014 Paper accepted: December 2, 2014http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/(X(1)A(O911W9Dm0gEkAAAANjcxNWQ2NGEtM2ExNy00MTkwLWI3YTgtYTQ1N2QzMzI1NzgxAg7CGrxyf6_S075rvy0gkboWe-c1))/img/doi/0354-9836/2015/0354-98361500018A.pdfAbdussamatov, 2015 SummaryA long-term negative deviation of the Earth’s average annual energy balance from the equilibrium state is dictating corresponding variations in it’s the energy state. As a result, the Earth will have a negative average annual energy balance also in the future. This will lead to the beginning of the decreasing in the Earth’s temperature and of the epoch of the Little Ice Age after the maximum phase of the 24-th solar cycle approximately since the end of 2014.The influence of the consecutive chain of the secondary feedback effects (the increase in the Bond albedo and the decrease in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to cooling) will lead to an additional reduction of the absorbed solar energy and reduce the greenhouse effect. The start of the TSI’s Grand Minimum is anticipated in the solar cycle 27±1 in 2043±11 and the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the 19th Little Ice Age for the past 7,500 years around 2060±11.Thus, the long term variations of the solar constant (allowing for their direct and secondary impacts, with the latter being due to feedback effects) are the major and essential cause of climate changes because the Earth’s climate variation is a function of longterm imbalance between the solar radiation energy incoming into the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere and Earth’s total energy outgoing back to space.Full peer reviewed paper in pdf published by Thermal ScienceAbdussamatov, H.: Current Long-Term Negative Average Annual ... THERMAL SCIENCE: Year 2015, Vol. 19, Suppl. 2, pp. S279-S288http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/(X(1)A(O911W9Dm0gEkAAAANjcxNWQ2NGEtM2ExNy00MTkwLWI3YTgtYTQ1N2QzMzI1NzgxAg7CGrxyf6_S075rvy0gkboWe-c1))/img/doi/0354-9836/2015/0354-98361500018A.pdf

These are the 15 ways to debunk your creationist friends who say that there is no evidence of evolution.. See the article for further details.15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest."Survival of the fittest" is a conversational way to describe natural selection, but a more technical description speaks of differential rates of survival and reproduction. That is, rather than labeling species as more or less fit, one can describe how many offspring they are likely to leave under given circumstances. Drop a fast-breeding pair of small-beaked finches and a slower-breeding pair of large-beaked finches onto an island full of food seeds. Within a few generations the fast breeders may control more of the food resources. Yet if large beaks more easily crush seeds, the advantage may tip to the slow breeders. In a pioneering study of finches on the Galápagos Islands, Peter R. Grant of Princeton University observed these kinds of population shifts in the wild [see his article "Natural Selection and Darwin's Finches"; Scientific American, October 1991].The key is that adaptive fitness can be defined without reference to survival: large beaks are better adapted for crushing seeds, irrespective of whether that trait has survival value under the circumstances.3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.This blanket dismissal of evolution ignores important distinctions that divide the field into at least two broad areas: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution looks at changes within species over time--changes that may be preludes to speciation, the origin of new species. Macroevolution studies how taxonomic groups above the level of species change. Its evidence draws frequently from the fossil record and DNA comparisons to reconstruct how various organisms may be related.These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in Grant's studies of evolving beak shapes among Gal¿pagos finches). Natural selection and other mechanisms--such as chromosomal changes, symbiosis and hybridization--can drive profound changes in populations over time.The historical nature of macroevolutionary study involves inference from fossils and DNA rather than direct observation. Yet in the historical sciences (which include astronomy, geology and archaeology, as well as evolutionary biology), hypotheses can still be tested by checking whether they accord with physical evidence and whether they lead to verifiable predictions about future discoveries. For instance, evolution implies that between the earliest-known ancestors of humans (roughly five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows. But one should not--and does not--find modern human fossils embedded in strata from the Jurassic period (144 million years ago). Evolutionary biology routinely makes predictions far more refined and precise than this, and researchers test them constantly.Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way. If superintelligent aliens appeared and claimed credit for creating life on earth (or even particular species), the purely evolutionary explanation would be cast in doubt. But no one has yet produced such evidence.It should be noted that the idea of falsifiability as the defining characteristic of science originated with philosopher Karl Popper in the 1930s. More recent elaborations on his thinking have expanded the narrowest interpretation of his principle precisely because it would eliminate too many branches of clearly scientific endeavor.4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.No evidence suggests that evolution is losing adherents. Pick up any issue of a peer-reviewed biological journal, and you will find articles that support and extend evolutionary studies or that embrace evolution as a fundamental concept.Conversely, serious scientific publications disputing evolution are all but nonexistent. In the mid-1990s George W. Gilchrist of the University of Washington surveyed thousands of journals in the primary literature, seeking articles on intelligent design or creation science. Among those hundreds of thousands of scientific reports, he found none. In the past two years, surveys done independently by Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Krauss of Case Western Reserve University have been similarly fruitless.Creationists retort that a closed-minded scientific community rejects their evidence. Yet according to the editors of Nature, Science and other leading journals, few antievolution manuscripts are even submitted. Some antievolution authors have published papers in serious journals. Those papers, however, rarely attack evolution directly or advance creationist arguments; at best, they identify certain evolutionary problems as unsolved and difficult (which no one disputes). In short, creationists are not giving the scientific world good reason to take them seriously.5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution.Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neandertals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more. These disputes are like those found in all other branches of science. Acceptance of evolution as a factual occurrence and a guiding principle is nonetheless universal in biology.Unfortunately, dishonest creationists have shown a willingness to take scientists' comments out of context to exaggerate and distort the disagreements. Anyone acquainted with the works of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University knows that in addition to co-authoring the punctuated-equilibrium model, Gould was one of the most eloquent defenders and articulators of evolution. (Punctuated equilibrium explains patterns in the fossil record by suggesting that most evolutionary changes occur within geologically brief intervals--which may nonetheless amount to hundreds of generations.) Yet creationists delight in dissecting out phrases from Gould's voluminous prose to make him sound as though he had doubted evolution, and they present punctuated equilibrium as though it allows new species to materialize overnight or birds to be born from reptile eggs.When confronted with a quotation from a scientific authority that seems to question evolution, insist on seeing the statement in context. Almost invariably, the attack on evolution will prove illusory.6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, "If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?" New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science's current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance.Chance plays a part in evolution (for example, in the random mutations that can give rise to new traits), but evolution does not depend on chance to create organisms, proteins or other entities. Quite the opposite: natural selection, the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses nonrandom change by preserving "desirable" (adaptive) features and eliminating "undesirable" (nonadaptive) ones. As long as the forces of selection stay constant, natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce sophisticated structures in surprisingly short times.As an analogy, consider the 13-letter sequence "TOBEORNOTTOBE." Those hypothetical million monkeys, each pecking out one phrase a second, could take as long as 78,800 years to find it among the 2613 sequences of that length. But in the 1980s Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a computer program that generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed (in effect, selecting for phrases more like Hamlet's). On average, the program re-created the phrase in just 336 iterations, less than 90 seconds. Even more amazing, it could reconstruct Shakespeare's entire play in just four and a half days.9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa.This argument derives from a misunderstanding of the Second Law. If it were valid, mineral crystals and snowflakes would also be impossible, because they, too, are complex structures that form spontaneously from disordered parts.The Second Law actually states that the total entropy of a closed system (one that no energy or matter leaves or enters) cannot decrease. Entropy is a physical concept often casually described as disorder, but it differs significantly from the conversational use of the word.More important, however, the Second Law permits parts of a system to decrease in entropy as long as other parts experience an offsetting increase. Thus, our planet as a whole can grow more complex because the sun pours heat and light onto it, and the greater entropy associated with the sun's nuclear fusion more than rebalances the scales. Simple organisms can fuel their rise toward complexity by consuming other forms of life and nonliving materials.10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism's DNA)--bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example.Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life.Evolutionary biologists have written extensively about how natural selection could produce new species. For instance, in the model called allopatry, developed by Ernst Mayr of Harvard University, if a population of organisms were isolated from the rest of its species by geographical boundaries, it might be subjected to different selective pressures. Changes would accumulate in the isolated population. If those changes became so significant that the splinter group could not or routinely would not breed with the original stock, then the splinter group would be reproductively isolated and on its way toward becoming a new species.Natural selection is the best studied of the evolutionary mechanisms, but biologists are open to other possibilities as well. Biologists are constantly assessing the potential of unusual genetic mechanisms for causing speciation or for producing complex features in organisms. Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and others have persuasively argued that some cellular organelles, such as the energy-generating mitochondria, evolved through the symbiotic merger of ancient organisms. Thus, science welcomes the possibility of evolution resulting from forces beyond natural selection. Yet those forces must be natural; they cannot be attributed to the actions of mysterious creative intelligences whose existence, in scientific terms, is unproved.12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve.Speciation is probably fairly rare and in many cases might take centuries. Furthermore, recognizing a new species during a formative stage can be difficult, because biologists sometimes disagree about how best to define a species. The most widely used definition, Mayr's Biological Species Concept, recognizes a species as a distinct community of reproductively isolated populations--sets of organisms that normally do not or cannot breed outside their community. In practice, this standard can be difficult to apply to organisms isolated by distance or terrain or to plants (and, of course, fossils do not breed). Biologists therefore usually use organisms' physical and behavioral traits as clues to their species membership.Nevertheless, the scientific literature does contain reports of apparent speciation events in plants, insects and worms. In most of these experiments, researchers subjected organisms to various types of selection--for anatomical differences, mating behaviors, habitat preferences and other traits--and found that they had created populations of organisms that did not breed with outsiders. For example, William R. Rice of the University of New Mexico and George W. Salt of the University of California at Davis demonstrated that if they sorted a group of fruit flies by their preference for certain environments and bred those flies separately over 35 generations, the resulting flies would refuse to breed with those from a very different environment.13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance.Actually, paleontologists know of many detailed examples of fossils intermediate in form between various taxonomic groups. One of the most famous fossils of all time isArchaeopteryx, which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. A flock's worth of other feathered fossil species, some more avian and some less, has also been found. A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus. Whales had four-legged ancestors that walked on land, and creatures known as Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus helped to make that transition [see "The Mammals That Conquered the Seas," by Kate Wong; Scientific American, May]. Fossil seashells trace the evolution of various mollusks through millions of years. Perhaps 20 or more hominids (not all of them our ancestors) fill the gap between Lucy the australopithecine and modern humans.Creationists, though, dismiss these fossil studies. They argue that Archaeopteryx is not a missing link between reptiles and birds--it is just an extinct bird with reptilian features. They want evolutionists to produce a weird, chimeric monster that cannot be classified as belonging to any known group. Even if a creationist does accept a fossil as transitional between two species, he or she may then insist on seeing other fossils intermediate between it and the first two. These frustrating requests can proceed ad infinitum and place an unreasonable burden on the always incomplete fossil record.Nevertheless, evolutionists can cite further supportive evidence from molecular biology. All organisms share most of the same genes, but as evolution predicts, the structures of these genes and their products diverge among species, in keeping with their evolutionary relationships. Geneticists speak of the "molecular clock" that records the passage of time. These molecular data also show how various organisms are transitional within evolution.14. Living things have fantastically intricate features--at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels--that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution.This "argument from design" is the backbone of most recent attacks on evolution, but it is also one of the oldest. In 1802 theologian William Paley wrote that if one finds a pocket watch in a field, the most reasonable conclusion is that someone dropped it, not that natural forces created it there. By analogy, Paley argued, the complex structures of living things must be the handiwork of direct, divine invention. Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species as an answer to Paley: he explained how natural forces of selection, acting on inherited features, could gradually shape the evolution of ornate organic structures.Generations of creationists have tried to counter Darwin by citing the example of the eye as a structure that could not have evolved. The eye's ability to provide vision depends on the perfect arrangement of its parts, these critics say. Natural selection could thus never favor the transitional forms needed during the eye's evolution--what good is half an eye? Anticipating this criticism, Darwin suggested that even "incomplete" eyes might confer benefits (such as helping creatures orient toward light) and thereby survive for further evolutionary refinement. Biology has vindicated Darwin: researchers have identified primitive eyes and light-sensing organs throughout the animal kingdom and have even tracked the evolutionary history of eyes through comparative genetics. (It now appears that in various families of organisms, eyes have evolved independently.)Today's intelligent-design advocates are more sophisticated than their predecessors, but their arguments and goals are not fundamentally different. They criticize evolution by trying to demonstrate that it could not account for life as we know it and then insist that the only tenable alternative is that life was designed by an unidentified intelligence.15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution."Irreducible complexity" is the battle cry of Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University, author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. As a household example of irreducible complexity, Behe chooses the mousetrap--a machine that could not function if any of its pieces were missing and whose pieces have no value except as parts of the whole. What is true of the mousetrap, he says, is even truer of the bacterial flagellum, a whiplike cellular organelle used for propulsion that operates like an outboard motor. The proteins that make up a flagellum are uncannily arranged into motor components, a universal joint and other structures like those that a human engineer might specify. The possibility that this intricate array could have arisen through evolutionary modification is virtually nil, Behe argues, and that bespeaks intelligent design. He makes similar points about the blood's clotting mechanism and other molecular systems.Yet evolutionary biologists have answers to these objections. First, there exist flagellae with forms simpler than the one that Behe cites, so it is not necessary for all those components to be present for a flagellum to work. The sophisticated components of this flagellum all have precedents elsewhere in nature, as described by Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University and others. In fact, the entire flagellum assembly is extremely similar to an organelle that Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague bacterium, uses to inject toxins into cells.The key is that the flagellum's component structures, which Behe suggests have no value apart from their role in propulsion, can serve multiple functions that would have helped favor their evolution. The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. Similarly, the blood-clotting system seems to involve the modification and elaboration of proteins that were originally used in digestion, according to studies by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California at San Diego. So some of the complexity that Behe calls proof of intelligent design is not irreducible at all.Complexity of a different kind--"specified complexity"--is the cornerstone of the intelligent-design arguments of William A. Dembski of Baylor University in his booksThe Design Inference and No Free Lunch. Essentially his argument is that living things are complex in a way that undirected, random processes could never produce. The only logical conclusion, Dembski asserts, in an echo of Paley 200 years ago, is that some superhuman intelligence created and shaped life.Dembski's argument contains several holes. It is wrong to insinuate that the field of explanations consists only of random processes or designing intelligences. Researchers into nonlinear systems and cellular automata at the Santa Fe Institute and elsewhere have demonstrated that simple, undirected processes can yield extraordinarily complex patterns. Some of the complexity seen in organisms may therefore emerge through natural phenomena that we as yet barely understand. But that is far different from saying that the complexity could not have arisen naturally."Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and energy, and it tests those descriptions experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover--their definitions are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the existing framework of physics.In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.