One of my hobbies is to run and walk long distances. I am also interested in human performance and so I've studied my slow down as I've aged from 36 to 52 years old.
I did a regression analysis on one particular race and used it as an example for a mathematics class....but my analysis got me to thinking....
What if I analyzed my data the way that climate change deniers do?
More below the fold:...
Consider this graph of my time to finish the Wildlife Prairie Park 4 mile XC race (note: two years, the distance was 5K so I used the conversion on those years):
Ok, so what do you see here?
Clearly, this is an upward trend right? My first three years I ran 30, 29 and 28 minutes, and now 10 years (plus) hence I ran a 39 and a 37 minute race. Clearly, most people slow down when they age from 40 to 50+ years right?
But...I didn't get slower EVERY year....in fact, if you nit pick, you can say:
well, there are 10 data points and 5 times, we see a speeding up (thrice) or no change (twice) from one year to another!
So have the time you are speeding up, half the time, slowing down, so it is all a wash! The science is unsettled!!!
This is EXACTLY the kind of BS that climate change deniers pull.