Missing variable, conspiracy, or rounding error?

Question

13 year old boy makes a fool out of NASA scientists:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080415/sc_afp/spaceastronomygermany_080415214429

I find it hard to believe a missing variable will increase the likelihood of an impact by a factor of exactly 100, which is the official explaination for the discrepency. In my eyes, it seems much more likely the lowball estimate was either: A) An attempt to reduce public panic of an impending impact or B) A rounding error when converting the odds back and forth between a percentage and a fraction.

Given the number of variables affecting the planet's climate, how far do you suppose the scientists' estimates are off on global warming predictions??

Answer 1

A missed decimal point. Pretty sure their was more than one scientist working on impacts for NASA.

The AGW crowd would have us believe that this mistake is easy to make so it isn't a big enough deal for us to point out.

If we are so blase about missing a decimal point on impact calculations, how can we say NASA does a better job on global warming calculations and claim their science is infallible on this one subject only.

Small miscalculations can change computer models by a large amount and they have never produced two models that have shown identical results.

The list of things we absolutely know about our atmosphere is too flimsy to alter our whole way of life for so sit back and relax and we will have sound answers someday until then I would appreciate it if you didn't ruin my standard of living without understanding the impact of the scam.

Answer 2

I'm not sure what you find incredible about a misplaced decimal point.  Perhaps it has never happened to you?  Still, like most deniers you seek to prove that a dead duck proves a living camel.  I see nothing remarkable about this story.  It is an example of how too many people rely too much on computers.  They are a fine thing, but validating data is a part of the environment today, and this is an example.  So is the one discussed yesterday when the guy who originated the computer models for hurricanes came out and said that his models predictions weren't matching real events, and that people using them needed to look for the error.

Deniers like to profess that these examples "disprove" something, but that just exposes their ignorance of science.  Let me give you a couple of examples of what can happen when people act on data witthout validation.  I'll stick with NASA, since you picked it.

A generation ago the USA launched the Hubble Space telescope.  When it was in orbit they discovered that the mirror had been ground incorrectly and the images were fuzzy.  The optics had sat in a warehouse for years due to various delays, and retested hundreds of times.  The problem turned out to be the formula used to calculate the curve of the mirror was incorrect in the first place.  That's why tests to see if the mirror conformed to the formula showed no problem.

Less than a decade ago the USA has a highly touted Mars polar lander on it's way to an historic landing at one of Mar's poles to look for water, life and other things.  To NASA's surprise, after an uneventful trip, instead of a soft landing the probe crashed into Mars at a thousand miles per hour or so.  The problem there turned out to be that because the USA uses two different units systems (Metric and English Imperial) the computer program written to conduct the landing had been written using one, and the altimeters and proximeters, etc, that measured the crafts position during landing gave their output in the other.  Again, hundreds of tests had failed to detect the problem.

It is better to commend this young man than to condemn NASA (although they have always been a disappointment to me).  It's also important to remember that this event is in no way a first.  Many important discoveries have come "out of the mouths of babes".  The process used to smelt aluminum for example, was invented by a 15 year old boy.

OR, you can go with a conspiracy theory.  If you're trying to draw some global conclusion aboput scientists though, that's laughable.

Answer 3

There's a difference between making a fool of someone and pointing out a simple arithmetic error.

But, since you believe that NASA's calculations are so poor, do you also think space flight is a hoax?

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Edit: Ah, so you're making a straw-man argument. No one has ever said that scientists were infallible or their models irrefutable. NASA is an oft quoted source because it is reliable and trustworthy, not because it's always right.

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Edit: Geez man, let me spell it out for you. NASA is reliable because I know they're being honest with me and I know the information they're presenting is some of the best available. I don't trust them because I think they're arbiters of truth.

Answer 4

way off