Thursday, August 22, 2013

Y'all Want To Go Metric?

There's this guy, over at the Scientific American, who's making an argument for moving the US to the metric system.  You know, that whole kilometer thing.  He argues for American english, but wants to move us to the metric system.
I can confidently argue the finer points of how the use of y’all and the plural form all y’all are descriptive and have a place in the American lexicon. I take pleasure in explaining the intricacies of chicken fried foods. 
That's good, at least we can admire the linguistics of the heartland.  Common ground in any argument is nice. However, his argument falls flat when he starts talking about science.
 We are at a disadvantage by not speaking the international language of science at a time when we are struggling with truly global issues like climate change and resource depletion.
Now we're at the heart of the problem.  If you're going to use the terms 'science' and 'glowball warming' in the same sentence, then you've got a problem.  Most of what I've seen of the recent 'global warming' debate is not science.  Science is rigidly controlled measurements over time, and you can't convince me that the measurements that the warming alarmists take are accurate, especially when we have temperature measuring devices being blasted with jet wash a couple of times a day.  That's bound to skew your results a little.  You see, that's the thing about science.  When one measurement can skew the whole data set, then that measurement is bullshit, your whole data set is bullshit.  Bullshit ain't science.  I know bullshit, son, I've been spewing it for decades.

Oh, and that whole resource depletion thing?  I suspect you're talking about 'peak oil' and maybe you haven't noticed yet, but modern science has given us vastly more resources in the last decade,  Just exactly what resources are we talking about, and does it really matter if we measure them in liters or barrels?

1 comment:

David aka True Blue Sam said...

"They" have been pushing the Metric system for at least fifty years that I remember. Business uses it where it makes sense, and sticks to English where that makes sense. Our country was all surveyed using systems based on Feet, Rods, Chains, acres, sections, etc., but academia likes to do research in this country base on Metric land measurements... That never made sense to me. Forestry in this country is all about acres and board feet, but the professor wannabes all measure in hectares and metric tons. Most of the forestry students I see nowadays come from the cities and aren't concerned about production. Most of them don't even carry a pocketknife. We're going all handbasket and H E double toothpicks.