Douglas Carswell fails miserably at science

[Peter Henderson]

For all their crowing on about the benefits of "grammar schools". UKIP's only MP, public school educated Douglas Carswell, thinks the sun causes tides, not the moon.

That should tell you something about UKIPPERs and brexit.

Stupid twat:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/ukip-doug ... des-2016-9

[Mountkeen]

[Mountkeen]

[a_haworthroberts]

Sorry, but Carswell - based on the tweets I have seen at the original link - is not 100% wrong (on this subject). Along with the moon, the sun does indeed play a role in our ocean tides (at full/new moon the moon is lined up with Earth and the sun ie opposite/in front of the sun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide
The moon has phases so causes (with the sun) the regular and predictable spring/neap monthly tidal variations (neap when the moon is 'half full').

Or am I missing something here?

How even a national newspaper (well a website anyway) can misconstrue this is beyond me:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bre ... 18156.html
For some reason this article omits the Carswell tweet which included the sentence:
"The moon's gravity does spring/neap tides."

Of course debate by 'tweet' is fraught with difficulty because it is easy to accidentally or deliberately misconstrue your opponent. But surely Carswell wasn't insisting that the moon only affects tides on just two days in each lunar cycle.

And I voted Remain in June - in case anyone who does not know anything about me thinks I'm a secret Ukipper or Brexiteer. I can't stand Farage. (Trump can - and he also admire that World Number One Terrorist - Equal with Baghdadi - Putin.)

[Mountkeen]

Yes indeed the sun does have an effect on the tides but it is far, far smaller than the moon's.

Carswell appears to think that the sun is dominant and that the moon only plays a part in spring/neap tides.

Patently wrong.

[a_haworthroberts]

Yes indeed the sun does have an effect on the tides but it is far, far smaller than the moon's.

Carswell appears to think that the sun is dominant and that the moon only plays a part in spring/neap tides.

Patently wrong.

Thanks; do you have a source for "far, far smaller than the moon's"? I'm aware that Nightingale used the phrase '27m x bigger' but his tweet of course did not/could not due to character limits provide any reputable source backing that up. When I wrote my last comment I was unclear which object's effect on our ocean tides was actually the greater; also the press coverage I mentioned (which did not show all the tweets in full) implied that Carswell was simply arguing with an expert even when the expert was correct because he was 'sticking to his principles'.

Actually, on further checking, I think I can answer my own question (I find Nightingale's tweet a little confusing as I assumed '27m x bigger' was referring to the moon's tidal effect compared to the sun - whereas he was actually referring the the sun's size compared to the moon's):
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/ ... cause.html
"If tidal forces were based solely on comparative masses, the sun should have a tide-generating force that is 27 million times greater than that of the moon. However, the sun is 390 times further from the Earth than is the moon. Thus, its tide-generating force is reduced by 390 cubed, or about 59 million times less than the moon. Because of these conditions, the sun’s tide-generating force is about half that of the moon."

Yes - based on the NOAA - Carswell was wrong. But when he tweeted "surprised head of Science research at a university refutes idea sun's gravity causes tides" he was responding to the overly simplistic comment "you've been misinformed. Tides caused by moon not the Sun ... distance matters." Thus - Nightingale APPEARED to refute the idea that the sun’s gravity causes (or contributes to) tides. He should have been clearer, as clearly the sun does play a role which I assume Nightingale would not deny/be ignorant of.

All in all good topic of discussion for the equinox.

Of course the politician Carswell's whole intent was to suggest that we can trade more with BIG but DISTANT (non-EU) China than with SMALL but CLOSE (EU) Ireland ...

(I will be watching UK BBC Two at 9pm this evening.)

[Mountkeen]

A good summary here:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tide.html

Yes the analogy that Carswell was alluding to was that large but distant market (China) is more important for trade than a small but close market (Ireland).

We import lots from China but export comparatively little there whereas Ireland is a very important export market for the UK. So he was wrong on that front. Then by getting it wrong on the tides he simply dug himself a deeper hole.

The result - lots of very funny tweets and an enterprising soul setting up a parody Twitter account https://twitter.com/CarswellFacts