I don’t think John Cook realizes how his latest article affects virtually everything else he’s written.
(Repeated on the SMH too.)
How accurate is a book when even the title describes a group of people who don’t exist? Will Cook stop abusing English?
So he finally admits the banal, that there is no rational explanation for calling skeptical scientists “climate deniers” or “climate change deniers”. Bravo. (No one denies that climate changes, or thinks the Earth has no climate.). But this is terminology he uses everywhere, and it describes a group of people that don’t exist. Has he only just noticed?
We think through our language, and when we use sloppy, inaccurate words, we get sloppy inaccurate results. Abusing our language is what people do when they don’t have a rational argument.
Misleading language is de rigueur for Cook. Even the name of his “SkepticalScience” website is the anti-thesis of accurate English. He’s not skeptical of “official science” in the slightest, and with a gaping hole in his logic (see below), not too scientific either.
Look out for the “fake” tag, too. Since when did a representative of a university call another university academic a fake? Since Cook did. He labels Ian Plimer a “fake” – is Plimer a fake PhD in geology and a fake professor at both the University of Melbourne and the University of Adelaide? He has published 130 “fake” scientific papers (apparently). So what does “fake” mean anymore? It means Cook can’t use English accurately. Who is the fake expert now?
“… (Plimer) hasn’t published a single peer-reviewed paper on climate change.”
Neither has John Cook. So?
Clear speech helps civilization, while misleading speech helps the cheats. And cheat-speak, ultimately, is either incompetent or a deliberate ploy to deceive.
Will Cook start to write accurately?
Will he now correct this deceptive label in his paper “Understanding Climate Change Denial”, or his book “Climate Change Denial”? Will he remove the constant references to it throughout his blog? It all depends on whether he is interested in truth and accuracy, or really aiming for cheap marketing and PR wins. Electronic publications can be changed, and apologies made. But will he?
UWA — Achieving Excellence, or debasing the English language?
Since the term “climate denier” is the wrong term, and doesn’t illuminate anything, why use it? To score a trickster win? Surely Cook, UWA and UQ would not want that?
It is a short-term PR victory, but a loss for science. Casual readers are misled by inaccurate labels. They see Cook’s scientific vocabulary and those university logos, and assume that he has a good reason for calling opponents “deniers”. They don’t realize he slips in and out of accurate terms — weaving science and namecalling — and he may not realize either. Where does the science end, and the PR begin? The end result is a disguised advert for a political campaign, masquerading as a science article.
I and others have been pointing it out for four years, and Cook is now trying to come up with an answer. Skeptics have dragged the debate forward a notch.
But rather than speak in accurate English, he’s trying to justify the namecalling with a new variation of nonsense. Is his “consensus denial” much better? Skeptical scientists don’t deny there is a consensus among official climate scientists either. We deny that it matters more than empirical evidence — which just makes us scientific, and Cook, not so much. Science is skepticism, forever asking for evidence, y’know — nullius in verba, testing assumptions with observations and all, so the scientists who made the biggest contribution were consensus deniers at the time. Not all consensus deniers are revolutionary scientists. But the term is mindless.
In order to rationalize his cognitive dissonance (he thinks he’s being scientific), Cook invents new non-scientific abstractions. He argues that a “consensus” is really a “consensus of evidence“.
What on Earth is a consensus of evidence?
Is Cook twisting words so he might sound legitimate in doing something that isn’t? Let’s poke those terms with a dictionary.
con·sen·sus n. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole [dictionary]
ev·i·dence (in Science): actual observations [Berkley]
So a consensus of evidence literally means the opinions of the observations. It sorta appears rational, but it boils down to a bunch of graphs and tables sitting around the lab having a chat. The graphs and tables argue and debate, then decide what their public position will be and elect a spokesman. O.K.?
It’s like an experiment in Quantum Rhetoric with the Large Hadron Word Collider. Two useful words meet and destroy each other.
Hang on, you think, trying to be fair on Cook, he did explain that he means “many different measurements pointing to a single, consistent conclusion.” But who decides what is “consistent”? Since data tables don’t decide, ultimately it comes back to the opinions of scientists, but Cook explained that that was not what he meant. He said there were two kinds of consensus, a consensus of evidence and a consensus of scientists. Yet they are the same thing. It’s all opinions, and it isn’t evidence.
In any case, the evidence consistently shows us the models are wrong, whether we use satellite measurements of outgoing radiation, or buoys measuring ocean heat content (which is warming but not enough), or weather balloons in the upper troposphere, or ground stations. From every angle the empirical evidence shows the models exaggerate to the point where they “have no skill” at predicting the climate. Not globally, regionally, locally, not in short, medium or long time frames. Maybe the theory embodied by the models is bunk? Just a thought.
Opinions are not evidence — Science without logic is witchcraft
John Cook talks of “logic” but his entire argument is built on a fallacy — Argument from Authority. It’s nice that Cook finally wants to talk about reasoning. But you can’t be a little bit logical. You either are or you aren’t. (A search on SkepticalScience for “logic” turns up an argument for a “consensus” — a fallacy — as the top response.) Science without logic is witchcraft. It may be well intentioned witchcraft, but if you are being bled with leeches, what’s the difference?
Is Cook’s work an example of UQ logic, reasoning and English?
The only thing that will tell us about the climate is data from the natural world. The more Cook quotes “surveys” of humans, the more you know he is scratching for evidence and in political mode.
In any case, the “opinion-meter” doesn’t stack up. All the scientists out there who are nuclear physicists, Nobel Prize winners, experts in tunneling microscopy, spectroscopy, atmospheric chemistry, you name it, their opinion counts for zero in the world of the climate faithful. By ruling out nearly every scientist who has advanced human knowledge in the last 50 years, Cook wants you to believe that only a “climate expert” can spot a dodgy argument in science. The anointed?
Has he noticed this means nearly everyone who’s “opinion counts” is also someone who would find it easier to get grants and junkets if man-made global warming is important, and who have already staked their professional reputations on one theory and one conclusion? An amazing coincidence, no? And before anyone yells “ad hominem”, note, I don’t claim they’re wrong because they have a vested interest. They’re wrong because they don’t have the evidence.
If they had the evidence (instead of just name-calling) wouldn’t most scientists outside their specialty find their evidence convincing, and support them? Instead we know thousands of independent scientists, mostly with no dollars to gain or lose (apart from useless taxes), are risking their professional reputation to put forward their opinions even though the price is that guys like John Cook will call them “fake” experts, imply that they are funded by fossil fuels, or are part of some international campaign to manufacture doubt. Isn’t the simplest explanation of why thousands of scientists are rising up against man-made global warming not due to a wild unsubstantiated conspiracy, but is the most banal idea instead — they sincerely feel concerned that the official science is wrong? Occam’s razor begs.
How do we measure global temperature with Internet surveys?
If the debate about man-made global warming was about adding up scientists on the plus and minus side, how do we add up the numbers? Is one climate scientist worth two retired NASA guys? Cook would say anyone without the “official” title isn’t allowed an opinion (there’s those vested interests again), but ultimately the climate scientists produced models we know fail nearly every test of validity (they don’t even talk about “verifying” them anymore) while the retired NASA guys actually got to the moon.
Who is the “science denier” now?
The NASA guys have a reputation that matters, and since they are retired, have little to gain from speaking out and being called snarky names. Unlike climate scientists, their income and status won’t go down if man-made global warming isn’t a big deal. None of this is any reason to assume that the NASA guys are right, but it’s a reason to listen to their arguments. Cook doesn’t even want you to listen, “Astronauts and engineers are not climate experts.”
Cook’s sloppy reasoning is everywhere
Given that argument from authority is a fallacy, Cook’s writing is practically self-satirizing:
“One way of avoiding consensus is to engage in logical fallacies.”
Like saying, one way of avoiding my favorite fallacy is to engage in other fallacies. Except Cook finds imaginary fallacies, or ones that are not the mainstay of the skeptic group.
He claim skeptics make non-sequiturs, pretending that when skeptics point to past heatwaves and extreme heat what they are saying is “extreme weather events have happened before therefore humans are not having an influence on current extreme weather”. When I wrote Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heatwave I quickly listed Eight reasons the Australian heatwave is not “climate change”. It’s not the “logical equivalent” of saying “people have died from natural causes so no one ever gets murdered now”. The point skeptics are making is much more sophisticated: our records are short, the BOM should not get so excited about the current weather, the models can’t explain the past “extremes”, and by some measures there is no trend in heatwaves in Australia (See the post for more reasons). His so-called “non-sequitur” is a strawman.
Conspiracy theories about conspiracy theories
Cook invents conspiracy theories that serious skeptics don’t make:
Finally, with consensus denial comes the inevitable conspiracy theories. If you disagree with an entire scientific community, you have to believe they’re all conspiring to deceive you.
If he read skeptical sites, instead of just writing about them, he’d know that there is another possibility. A community can be wrong for other reasons like groupthink, or plain old incompetence. (What’s that saying about conspiracy or cock-up?)
Given that their competence at predicting the climate his so dismal, yet so much money is at stake, it would be amazing if other scientists weren’t protesting. Human history is full of stories of ideas that thousands of experts believed that turned out to be wrong. Given that governments have poured in massive one-sided funding, it would be amazing if the human processes of science had managed to stay untouched from that. Instead, as I’ve said so many times, honest scientists are doing their jobs, but in many ways they are paid to find a crisis, and they found one. Virtually no one has been paid to find the opposite. The vacuum sucks. This is a systematic problem, a confluence of interests, not a conspiracy.
Cook claims there are “tens of thousands” of climate scientists who endorse the consensus. But the only side of this debate that can name tens of thousands of scientists are the skeptics.
Will Cook correct his books, his publications and his site?
Cooks misuse of English could have been inadvertent in his passion to solve something he sees as a big problem. And naturally, if he corrects his language he is to be commended. But if he continues to abuse language now that even he admits it is not the right term, then we’ll know how much he cares about being accurate.
. . .
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——————————————————————————————————–
Related Posts:
- Spot the real denier
- The UN defines “climate change” as being man-made: Orwell could not have done it better June 2012
- How arrogant art thy name-callers?
- Lomborg: uses irrational name-calling and denies the evidence
- My reply to Dr Paul Bain — on rational deniers and gullible believers
- The Branch Carbonian Cult: and the difference between “denier” and “cultist”. One may be true.
- Compulsive namecallers: nutter, conspiracy theorist, anti-semitic, denier — trying to censor through denigration
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Cook’s site is a propaganda site.
As many of the commenters on this site have mentioned, whenever they post at his site and make valid, logical arguments rooted in the scientific method their comments are “disappeared” in a way that would make Stalin smile.
CAGW is nothing more than, as Mencken writes, “A hobgoblin”, something meant to scare the populace into seeking the protection of the state The global warming trojan horse is a pretext for a power grab, a fake emergency which will allow the powers that be to strangle our civil rights.
If you doubt me just follow the money!
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Eddy I agree with what you say up to a point but…even though I sometimnes say as you and others do “who gains” I dont think its the best line of argument. Why? Because its the same “argument” the AGW crowd also use against their critics.
Moreover, personally,the “power grab” idea is for me out of bounds because its the same “argument” used by Leftist apologists for unforgiveable crimes of Jihad (eg, 9/11 and the intended second Holocaust) to promote their exorbitant conspiracy theories.
So the Left say an entire global conflict and the US Patriot act are a “power grab” based on a non-existent threat.This is painfully similar to what you are saying. Because I reject their vision…that all the problems of Mankind are down to George Bush and Dick Cheney (that duo even murdered Christ dont you know)…and because I am keenly aware that millions of citizens of hostile communities do in fact want to “get” us…I have to reject the power grab argument as well. DFumb title but the so-called “War on Terror” is addressed towards a very real enemy, not in some faraway land but gathered together in a building just walking distance from where I am sat.
Now, I do believe Eco Fascists are motivated by something deeper than money. But its not power, which implies a state, its the opposite, being the demolition of our political,economic and cultural ESTATEs. Super Ludditism if you will. So in that sense, AGW as part of their Grand Vision serves not a “power grab” but its diametrical opposite: anarchy.
Of course, anarchy, if ever achieved, soon morphs into tyrrany. But thats in the sequel rather than the movie they envisagein “their” script.
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What I believe is that those same Eco Fascists have been co-opted by exactly what Eddy is talking about. To me the trail they leave behind is quite clear, both about money and power. 🙂
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Cook make the fascists look #fashionable. We know good science from the bad even if the government doesnt!!!
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Roy, I can see that is true too, because its never possible to reduce such big movements to one thread alone and those ingredients are trhere. Here in Europe governments use Green policies to validate additional taxes for example. Similarly even the Lefts anti-American interpretation of the WOT does have an element of truth (undoubtedly Blackwater and their like have profited from it). But I would prefer not to rest an entire position on one big leg, whatever it is. Other than the fact that AGW is simply pseudo-science.
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Ace,
I can’t say you’re wrong. But I think Eddy’s (and my) position is the more powerful and useful understanding of them.
10
One analysis about where things are going runs like this.
Society consists of three groups: The Party, the People, and the Ghetto.
The Party consists of the people we all know too well — the pols, the public servants, the academics, the NGO activists — basically anyone who leaches off taxpayer money.
The Ghetto is not as bad as it sounds — it refers to close-knit communities who basically follow their own values and ideals above those of the State (think of the Amish in America).
The rest are the People, who slog away feeding the Party and being despised in return.
The numbers of the Party are growing (many people want to get on the gravy-train) and so are the numbers of the Ghetto (those who are so fed up with the way things are going that they opt out as far as is possible), leaving a diminishing group of People to supply the system.
One further thing to note is that it is only the People who have to obey the law. The Party is above the law; the Ghetto is outside it to a great extent.
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Liked that Rick
00
Interesting way of looking at it.
It reminds me of the drunks soliloquy in Team America, one of the funniest scenes in any movie and also very true, which is why its so funny.
Of course, if instead of ghetto you say “communities” or even “cultures” or “minorities”, then you state it in the very terms that are actually used.
Instead of Party I usually say “elites”.
Whats left are not The People but just, people.
Or the proleteriat maybe.
20
And technology makes up the widening gap, or at least it has done for the time being.
20
Ace,
FWIW, I place money ahead of some form of “more perfect world” as motivation.
The current wave of activism playing now under the extreme climate events label had been on the go for 40 years. Generally, when people age for 40 years a little more wisdom penetrates the skull and idealism lessens. However, around 55-60 many people start to realise that they don’t have a lifetime of fun money left, so some do desperate acts for more $$$.
Keep an eye on how it plays out for a big German bank that was raided by 500 police a few months ago. Have a look at the names on the bank’s Green Advisory Board. Ask yourself if 1 + 1 = 2. Then weave in the failure of the EU carbon market to perform, weave in who make the windmills and the solar panels, add the info from last week that windmill lifetimes might turn out 10% shorter than designed. Keep in mind the desperation creeping into the excuses why green has failed Europe … Why a 2% improvement in solar conversion makes headlines …
Yes, I think money is the main motivator. In time there will be plots uncovered from organised crime sources, there will be intricate plots of blackmail for political favours, the whole silly mess will fall apart.
If we can use similar activist episodes from the past, the end game is in sight when the true, honest scientists go public with their true findings in increasing numbers. Take the finger from the dam wall and soon there is a torrent. These scientists who cross over do not change to make money. They change to expose who is making money – often by dubious methods, from you and from me.
10
If you read the comments following Cook’s article in the SMH you’ll note that most applaud his piece. I think this is fairly telling as although those who post here generally think Cook is a bumptious prat, those posting here are self selecting to be on the sceptical rather than on the prattish side of the CAGW debate. What does surprise me is that very few seem to appreciate that the Cook arguments and indeed those of many other ardent warmists, are based on the interpretation of results from computer modelling. This modelling is not some extra-terrestrial gift from some supreme being but is based on programs devised by humans and with parameters set by humans. This is of course an inherent flaw in the climate change argument. For example why is the effect of clouds programmed as a positive feedback but never as a negative feedback which is dismissed (I’ve no idea why by those that “know” these things) as totally fallacious. Regarding the evidence for CAGW the comment “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” could well be re-written as “Never let real life observations get in the way of a scary scenario based on computer modelling”.
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Ian:
“This modelling is not some extra-terrestrial gift from some supreme being but is based on programs devised by humans …”
It kind of echoes the time in my youth when “computer says so” was indeed held to be the ultimate statement of truth.
Most people who have to wrestle daily with the shitty thought processes of those who design software know right through into our bones that “computer says so” is possibly a red warning light in itself. Incidentally, Roy, I noted your advice on Google Chrome.I do have it and use it sometimes. Maybe I should use it more as you say.
I am taking this towards an irony, please bear with me.
One of the things Warmo-NAZIs tar “us” with is being OLD. Well its probably true, as the young are easily lead. But they imply that we are..not up with the times.
This is where the irony comes in, because prats who seem to think “computer says so” = “it must be believed” express a mind-set that really is OLD, and seem far from up with the times in which there is a great wealth of popular distrust of software and systems using it. Indeed, those toe-yossers who lead the young and gullible Pied Piper like to Green disaster are indeed on the OLD side themselves and their way of thinking about “saving the planet” is…crikey…Soooooo fifty years ago.
Incidentally, UK readers may recognise that “computer says so” is a deliberate reference to “Little Britain”.And Germans (they have a dubbed version, its hilarious to watch Matt Lucas talking in a voice like a character in an old war movie)…I reckon they must LOVE Little Britain as they hate us so much.
10
What the young prats fail to recognise is that the oldies envisioned and invented the computer and all the smart gismos they walk around with.We got to the moon using brains, these smart arses like Cook have no logical thought processes, that was bypassed or propagandised out of them in their education.
Thus one can not just oppose them without feeling pity.
40
Wayne, well said. Your Moon choice is an apt illustration. Anyone can have seen my rantson the asteroid discussion about the pathetic thing that NASA has become. It utterly astonishes me that they have actually had to bring ageing engineers out of retirement to help themon current projects.
Im not an engineer, their work always astounds me and thats true now as ever.I DO respect them. BUT, all the same, something seems to have gone missing over the last thirty plus years.
00
There is little doubt that all that is true and at one level explains why governments like the present Aussie one embrace “climate change”. However observation shows there is more to it than that.
Underlying the whole alarmist wing of “climate science” is something that has nothing to do with science and that is the belief in a finely balanced interrelatedness of every element of the natural world. In that world view humans by the use of technology can catastrophically disturb that fine balance. That essentially is a religious or philosophical world view independent of any known science.
I would suggest that that world view eventually becomes the religion not only of deep ecology movements epitomised by say the Sierra Club but also becomes the rationale for most if not all mainstream alarmists including the climate scientists, John Cook and eventually the politicians who perhaps initially embraced “climate change” for those political reasons you mention.
The scanty bit of science dating back to the late 19C militates against catastrophic human induced global warming. That of course is why the alarmists up until more recent times were essentially told the science does not support alarmism. Conversely it is the reason present day alarmist climate scientists so desperately cling to the unproven and unlikely positive feedback effect. The science tells us that the CO2 effect by itself is benign. That is why the religious element is essential for alarmist believers whether scientists or lay persons.
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Hey Eddy, great post man!!! i found this on another forum http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/14/funding-climate-change-denial-thinktanks-network and owndered if you or Jo Jo or some other knowledgable person could show me where a comparison can be made to government$$$$ spending.
07
Thank you for the oh so sincere compliment.
The article you linked to talks about a measly $120,000,000!
In 2011 over $4,000,000,000,000 was spent on climate research as this article shows See http://dailybail.com/home/4-billion-for-global-warming-research-in-2011-budget.html
And while we are talking money, don’t forget the “big oil” red herring!
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/17/big-oil-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
So, everybody has their price. Most of the skeptics are on a shoestring budget financed by private donors. The CAGW crowd siphons off billions of taxpayer dollars. The skeptics, if they were motivated by money, would jump all over the CAGW gravy train but they don’t. On the other hand, for a slice of the $4,000,000,000 taxpayer funded pie, what wouldn’t a climate scientist do?
Better yet, what would they do? Obviously, they would forego the scientific method, hide their work so that it cannot ever be falsified, avoid like the plague any FOIA request, game the peer review process, persecute those that they see as a threat and in general do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing.
Any more questions? Please, don’t hesitate to ask!
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Eddy, is it $4 billion or $4 trillion you’re talking about? You gave both figures in your post. There’s a slight difference.
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“Follow the money” is not proof of anything. It may alert you to a possible problem but does not prove someone’s science is wrong.
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I agree. It is interesting Eddy brings it up, following the “Quack” money link has 120 mill for PR, not for science. That’s a disgusting amount of waste.
08
Sheri, Following the money demonstrates who is involved. From that you can attempt to determine their motives.
Eddy has already said (as we all have) that the science supporting AGW is failing. People like their slice of gravy. This leaves the money as the incentive to support that which is failing even if they have some doubt.
I’ve said it many times that if AGW was only about science who’d care? It isn’t about science it is about ideology, taxing and getting people to do things they would not normally want to do, politics and power i.e. money.
Nice one:
Maybe, but it is private money. The 4 Billion is public (tax revenue) money. I could care less about private waste of money but you support PUBLIC WASTE of MY money. Damn you.
90
My objection here is that by “determining their motives” you completely miss whether or not the science is sound. AGW is about the science. The rest is politics.
If we say “follow the money”, then how do you counter the same accusation against skeptics? If any skeptic is remotely connected to Big Oil, there’s our motive. Maybe the person just worked at a gas station, but his livelihood depends on oil so he obviously is motivated to not accept AGW because doing so could end his job. What about Heartland? If they take money that is later traced back to oil, then they are tainted. It’s never-ending and solves nothing.
34
Sheri, one can do both, they aren’t mutually exclusive.
I suggest: AGW is about manipulating science through politics.
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People who say that all the money going to Global Warming research is waste are wrong.
The money has not disappeared ; someone has it.
Most likely they did little or no real work for it;
the entire effect is that Governments are taking tax payer funds and BUYING votes with that cash.
That is the process and it is not only inappropriate but would best be described as theft.
It is not about science or Taxpayer value for Money or even “The future of our Planet”.
But the tide is turning specially in Europe; the taxpayer feel that they have been treated as enviro fodder and are in revolt and are waking up:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/the-emerson-v-bolt-argument-on-air-does-emerson-not-know-statistics/#comment-1241741
KK
30
Mark D: Then one can argue that skeptics are about politics and science. Skeptics just hate socialists and don’t understand the science.
22
Sheri,
People are human and just about everybody has their price. When you know that remaining gainfully employed is dependent on going with the flow you either go along to get along or you will be gone; as in unemployed. The warmist scientists have perverted the peer review process, ended careers of this who opposed them and refuse to divulge their work to see if their results can be replicated. So much for the scientific method!
You do remember the climategate emails, don’t you?
Big green accepts money from big oil and then whines when others do. It is called hypocrisy!
Many, not all, climate scientists have a conflict of interest and some are outright activists. What a disgrace!
Again, skeptics run on a shoestring budget. Desmog blog and skepticalscience are propaganda sites
100
When skeptics complain about believers by following the money and then the skeptics do the same with believers, it’s called hypocrisy.
(Like it or not, there are skeptics with budgets–Heartland Institute in the US comes to mind. If you follow the money on believers, believers can just as legitimately follow the money on Heartland. IF money determines motive, then Republicans and conservatives can be called deniers because it hurts their political agenda. Doing something for free doesn’t make it true and right, either. It just means you believe in something very strongly.)
21
Sheri says:
OK hold that line of thinking if you want. But your follow-up paragraph is a bit twisted. I never said money makes the believer and no money makes the skeptic.
I will say that I know Heartland raises money to operate. So does Greenpeace. It is not hypocrisy to follow BOTH and I do! Oil companies donate to many political parties. I assume they might even fund PR campaigns that inspire people to hold them in high esteem and buy their products. So what?
Eddy made the first comment and it’s about the huge imbalance in funding. You’ve spent a lot of typing to make no point at all. I’m pretty sure Jo Nova doesn’t get money from Big Oil. I’m absolutely certain I do not (even though I keep trying). I’m not as sure that Brookes, Tristan, Nice One, Ross James, etc. are unpaid volunteers though, and I’ve seen others come and go over the years that I’m pretty sure were paid.
Again, the science seems to be propped up by the research funding dollars. The politics spirals out of that.
PS your comment @ 1.5.2.1.3 Makes little sense to me. Please elaborate if you had something deep for me to understand.
30
MaxL: The comment 1.5.2.1.3 Your comment: AGW is about manipulating science through politics.
AGW claims skepticism about manipulating science through big corporation money and lobbying.
If we say AGW is funded by the government and is manipulating science, AGW has the right to say skepticism manipulates science for cooperations. Cooperations then lobby for political positions and funds to counter AGW. Both sides are funded by outside forces that could taint their beliefs. It’s not about the science, then, but about who plays politics and raises money most effectively. On both sides. (Which means Eddy’s imbalance is incorrect because skeptics don’t get direct funding in some cases, but benefit greatly from siding with conservative political parties that work toward their agenda. These conservatives have big oil money and are beating the warmists. That’s an equally valid claim. As for why skeptics work for free, they are just indoctrinated puppets. Warmists work for free too.)
So what if oil companies donate to political parties and PR campaigns? That’s the answer warmists give if you point out the money they receive. So what?
If skeptics get to complain about warmists funding, warmists have the same right to level this claim against skeptics. Unless someone is willing to compile a list of contributions and grants and so forth that benefit each side directly or indirectly, it’s just a bunch accusations. It proves nothing.
11
Sheri, (I’m not MaxL) I’m in relative agreement with what you say up to here:
They are all possibilities but not all valid claims. Eddy’s imbalance is supported by the links he provided. Obviously it is much harder to prove that funding has cause a corruption of the science, but if you pay attention and talk to people doing research it is (or was) pretty easy to get funding for any research that had anything to do with the effects of AGW and you’d be laughed at if you want to obtain funding for research that would lend a skeptical view. This is why the funding imbalance is a problem.
The rest of what you said need to be supported by evidence and you haven’t. What evidence I’ve seen is that Big Oil funds many political factions not just Conservatives and certainly not all skeptics. Skeptics are hardly “beating” warmists but some progress is being made by skeptics in the political realm and by forcing the refinement of some of the science. Recall that before skeptics stepped up, we were told that the science is “settled” and climate was “well understood”. Do you feel either of those comments are true?
We may be pounding each other in some form of agreement. I’m not arguing that you are wrong just that you seem to have an unreasonable expectation that we speak only of science and perhaps “proven” science at that. The whole of AGW IS not science. It was moved out of the realm of science years ago by activists. I might suggest that you read many more of Jo’s earlier post threads to gain a better sense of what all has been discussed here.
30
Mark D. No, I do not agree that the science is “settled” and “well understood”. We probably agree on most of the “science” or lack thereof for AGW.
I do read Jo’s posts and have been for some time. If we are going to be angry with the believers for saying skeptics are funded by big oil, then turn around and say they are funded by whatever, then we can’t complain about their tactic When you move into “motivation” you get studies like Lewendosky did. While motives are real and they do count for SELLING an idea, motivations do not determine the accuracy of the data. Can we separate the two? It’s looking not looking good based on discussions here. I fear we will just continue with the name calling and accusations without ever really addressing the issues. I suppose if we can “shout them down” i’s okay–until someone shouts us down. I’m not saying you can’t use this method, just that I don’t see it working well.
Let’s just let it go there. It’s not that important.
11
I see what you mean better now. It occurs to me that you reason and apply logic in a way similar to my wife (not meant to be a sexist or negative comment) we have been married long enough to have had some great arguments. Lets just say that I have my way of reasoning and applying logic and she has her own. There are times when the two methods are not at all compatible 🙂 I don’t ALWAYS claim that my way is more correct either. 🙂 🙂
We can let it go but one more thought. The political aspects need to be fought mostly in the political realm. The science aspect needs to be fought mostly in that world. Invariably they will overlap but the skills required in the “fight” are different between the two. The personality traits of individuals in the two realms are somewhat different (my observation) as well. Lew isn’t wrong to consider the psychology aspect, he’s wrong because (as you say) selling one side of the story. That makes him a propagandist.
Sometimes too, a good shout down is inevitable. Those warmists are just so damn stupid I can’t stand it.
30
Sheri
I agree that we need to remove the labels like; left or Right; Green; Big Oil and so on, these are just confusing the issue which is;
Does any variation of atmospheric CO2 level cause variation in the Atmospheric Temperature.
Happily, when all of the obscuring statements and posturing are removed there is a definitive answer that is undeniable to anyone who has done a University Physics course at a reputable University.
It is this;
Carbon dioxide levels CANNOT have any effect on atmospheric temperatures.
That is the scientific CORE of this issue. I know that even on this blogg, some talk openly about certain increases in CO2 having such and such an effect on future temperatures; it can be a very confusing issue because of the history of deception and misrepresentation.
Regardless, most discussion that occurs now, in places like this, are due to the after shock of finding we have been scammed.
We are curious about how that scam was carried out, by who, and how much money did they rip out of us, how do we clean up the mess, can we ever trust ANYONE ever again? and so on.
Man Made Global Warming has NEVER existed and that fact is a simple Physics 1 level assessment.
Yes, it was cleverly done but the engineering analysis for the problem was never carried out.
The problem was never DECONSTRUCTED to verify the truth of the entire analysis.
It was not poor science it was deception.
KK 🙂
20
Mark D: My husband would agree. He has learned to understand and follow my reasoning, but others may find it difficult. I agree a good shout-down in needed sometimes and that warmists are so stupid one wants to pound one’s head on the keyboard when dealing with them. 🙂
Keith: Agreed. It was and is deception.
21
AGW was never about the science. When assumptions are made without any empirical evidence to back them up it has to be a farce from the beginning.
30
And how exactly did their “motives” melt the arctic ice?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
03
Who knows how it melted, that Arctic ice, in the early 1920s, the late 1950s, and again now?
Why did temps plunge in the 1960s? Why was there so much ice in the 1970s? Why so much Antarctic ice now?
Ask a climate scientist? You’re better off getting your agronomy advice from Lysenko. Besides, the New Man at Year Zero refers to the past, he does not actually look at the past.
70
The silliness of your comment reminds me of a joke.
One day Sheri, Quack and Nice One were at a warmist rally freezing their tails off.
They were trying to figure out what man’s greatest achievement was.
Sheri thought it was the pyramids while Quak thought it was the moon landing.
Nice One said it was the invention of the thermos. When asked by his two fellow warmists why he responded “It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold! But, how do it know?”
So nice one, what was the motive of the thermos? 😉
60
All that talk and you still couldn’t answer.
Nova continually refers to her post about warming not happening, yet can’t explain why the data shows the oceans warming. She thinks it comes from somewhere down below, but isn’t really sure and has no evidence …
You guys faulter when it comes to reality, but are not short on “jokes”, “gish gallops” or “old folk stories”.
17
Nice one: Warming happens via careful selection of temperatures, “corrections”, removal of outliers (the latter two always seem to raise the temperature upward) etc. With enough data and careful selection, in all honesty, one can prove warming, cooling, static temps. Whatever.
The arctic ice melted because it got warm. It does that sometimes–like in the summer. Now it’s refreezing. If it melted more this year, all we can conclude is: It melted more this year. That in no way addresses the cause.
My favorite quote (from a physicist): Just because we can measure it doesn’t mean we can control it.
31
So where’s your ‘warming’ over the last 16 years in the face of increasing CO2, clown? British MetOffice has even extended the stasis a further 5 years.
You bang on about ocean warming below 700 metres. Comrade Josh Willis obliged by arbitrarily “adjusting” out all readings that his warmist comrades found to be at odds with their models. Noone other than a rabid warmist believes that the (lack of) data deeper than 700 metres indicates anything.
Now ‘gish-gallop’ off to the cartoon site!
20
Nicely put there Sheri
KK 🙂
10
Well, you’ve verballed the UK Met Office. Predicted average temps for 2013-17 are higher than for the mega El Niño in 1997/8 – which means more record highs – and you’re still claiming no warming. Since when did you guys trust forecasts anyway?
02
I kind of agree with him 100% although my heads in the sand with a whirlybird hat on and I’m singing “And it’s bubbleh, bubbleh, bubbleh”.
18
Maybe the theory embodied by the models is bunk?
For me that’s the money sentence of the article. ALL their models have failed. Going back decades, ALL their predictions of disaster have failed to happen. Their whole theory had as a foundation a posited causal correlation between CO2 & temperatures. Several years after “deniers” uncovered the IPCC’s faulty reasoning (and OBVIOUSLY faulty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg&info=GGWarmingSwindle_CO2Lag), the IPCC withdrew the claim of evidence of a causal correlation. Yet the theory stands untarnished it seems.
Now they maintain that CO2 is both a cause and effect of temperature change, which would almost certainly lead to a runaway greenhouse effect, which never happened in the past despite CO2 levels as high as 7100ppm. And the idea that temperatures and the climate are unusually high and out of control… was based the hockey stick fabrication. Without the hockey stick, there’s nothing wrong with the climate, and the idea that CO2 is driving the climate is illogical speculation (see video link) that is based on NO evidence.
Yes, the theory is bunk, yet its public and political acceptance is fueled by a leftist media that supports the leftist political agenda. And by a huge amount of $ funneled into a leftist scientific establishment that constantly feeds spectacular falsehoods to that media. And unfortunately I think it’s a forlorn hope to expect the fear mongers to be “reasonable” in civil debate. Of course they never wanted debate. They’ve employed the leftist Alinsky tactics of smear and ridicule from the start, and calling us “deniers” is an example of that.
270
Eric, ABC Radio National’s midday bushies programme yesterday reviewed 1988 predictions of what climate change would mean for WA. There were three predictions, all of which came to pass. More summer rain, less winter rain and the third slips my memory. But even back then, when we saved data on floppy disks and 64kb of RAM was big news, the computer models were pretty good. They’re a lot better now.
01
64kb might have been a big deal in ’81, but by ’86 XTs were shipping with 640kb on the motherboard.
I gotta say, Charney’s initial sensitivity ballpark of 3+-1.5C back in ’79 was pretty sharp.
20
Man! I was still excited about my C64 in ’88.
00
Rightly so I might add. IBM was at least 5 years behind Commodore and Atari when it came to games, and that’s still just about the only thing I care about!
Actually, getting an iPad has made me realise I also care about webpages optimised to my browser, which are in short supply on this thing.
00
Ricardo, if you were around “saving data” back then you must fit into John Brookes Angry Old Men category. Too bad, now I am free to ignore you.
Thanks John B.
00
You’re right dude, I’m so old, I’m too pooped to Pope. I’m handing in the ermine robe and the big heavy sceptre. Wake me up when it’s time for my nap.
10
Dear Jo. Typo. “Leeches” not “leaches”. Wouldn’t have bothered but for your point about accurate English. Dosh done. Go get’em.
—-
Kevin, thanks. Fixed. I do prefer to get it right. 🙂 Jo
40
Hi Jo – you also have a Whole – where you probably mean “hole”. para 5.
—
Ha. Too right!. Ta – Jo
30
Off topic, but it is just a thought; was the Sepulchre a wholly holy hole?
20
It depends on whether you are a climate scientist or not.
10
Or what the meaning of is is… …I tend to forget which…
30
seriously man – lighten up and find something to do with whatever remains of your life!!! jk
05
“Astronauts and engineers are not climate experts.”
Well, it is PAINFULLY obvious that “climate scientists” are not anything even vaguely resembling “climate experts” either.
At least astronauts and engineers understand the scientific method, and they also understand that if you APPLY a faulty theory, the results will often be catastrophic.
Unfortunately, attempting to apply a faulty theory is about the only thing the “climate scientists” seem to be capable of attempting. The results have been, and will be, predictably catastrophic if we continue to let that happen.
Everyone should thank Jo and others like her for attempting to stop the madness.
431
But astronauts and engineers (is that tautological?) know enough to not trust computer models. Models are useful for identifying “stuff” that you don’t know, or ideas that you have got wrong. But they never, ever, constitute proof, in any field of science or engineering, other than climate “science.”
The discovery process (the learning process) comes from recognising that the calculated results differ from the observed reality, and then going back into the models to figure out why. It may be because of a programming error, or it may be because of data accuracy errors, or it may be because the underlying theory is just wrong, and seriously in need of a rethink.
The problem with climate “science”, is that the theory is already fixed at the political level. Which means that the discovery process has been called to a halt. Al Gore acknowledged that fact with the statements, “The debate is over.” “The science is settled.”
So all the modellers have left to play with is the original input data and the code in the models themselves.
We have seen attempts to fiddle with the data by “homogenisation”, and “adjustments”, and just plain “exclusion”, but poking data in at one point, always has an effect of pushing it out at another, so that wasn’t overly successful. There were lots of unintended consequences, as normally happens when you try to change the data to suit the theory. Not even “backcasting” (the process of running the model with a range of “fixed” variable values to identify factors that you may have missed in the design) could cast any light on which input variables were causing the “erroneous” results. Fiddling with the data, is ceasing to be an option.
So the climate “scientists” and their acolytes are in a bit of a bind (as the English say). For political reasons, they are required to uphold a theory that is unsustainable. But they cannot produce any evidence (other than fabricated computer models) to justify their position. But equally, they cannot just walk away from it, whilst protecting what reputations they may still have, in order to get another job. Phil Jones, et al, are actually trapped in a political web. The spiders will suck them dry.
This also applies, to a lesser extent, to John Cook and others who see advocacy as an entry point into politics. Obviously nobody has pointed out that they are considered cannon-fodder, and “useful idiots”, by those already in positions of power. Perhaps they will provided dessert.
190
Does that apply to models that parade down fashion catwalks? General impression is that they are pretty vacuous.
31
🙂 Yes, but I would bet you don’t know them, and we will not mention your, ahem, ideas you naughty boy.
20
Makes you wonder if computer models were so named because they resemble the catwalk ones???? i.e nothing like reality.
30
Grant…I cant vouch for the catwalk ones but about the other ones, man, thats so not the case. Haughty, lofty, but not vacuous. Though they do exist. Asin all …ahem…walks…of life.
10
Rereke its not tautological as long as not all engineers are astronauts.
You must be slipping mate.
Or are you saying it OUGHT be “asttronauts and OTHER engineers”.
However, not all astronauts are ex-pilots (which would mean having to study engineering). Some astronauts are purely biologists, geologists (Harrison Schmidt was I believe…though that “knowledge” isdecades old and I haventchecked… the first civilian astronaut on the Moon and he was a geologist).
In fact, I suspect some astronauts are actually “climate scientists”. Which makes barring astronauts from the debate rather stupid to say the least.
10
…yes, there IS an “and” missing there….although (in keeping with tonights sub-topic, it does depend upon what “is” is).
10
…”tonights”…hmmm,thats mid-day there I guess.
00
Maybe so ace, but the non pilots did a shit load of training to get them up to speed so they would be useful crew members in the real world of staying alive in such an adventure.
00
Very useful Wayne, and all scientists I expect, in real sciences, but not necessarily engineers. which is to say the thrust of the original comment was true (in my opinion) but Rereke’s question; is the statement “astronauts and emgineers” tautologous” can be answered “no”. As I see it. But Im not an expert on language. I bet theres one here somewhere.
00
“Astronauts and engineers are not climate experts.”
Thankfully they are not, but they are experts at interpreting applicable science and then using it to produce something practical and with a positive (usually)impact on mankind and/or the environment. They are also very practiced at identifying and calling out crap which does not comply with the Laws of Physics and other disciplines.
110
I also found this line amusing, especially when he clearly stated “climate scientists actively publishing climate research (79 scientists in total), there was 97 per cent agreement.”
So, by Cook-logic, engineers and astronauts(some of them scientists, and those who aren’t “climate scientists” ie. one of the anointed 79, have no expertise in climate science.
That’s 79 scientists out of how many?
80
The accepted idea is that scientists are the creative ones who discover the laws of nature and how things work and the engineers are those who use those discoveries to make things that do work.
The reality is that there are a few creative scientists of the calibre of Newton, Einstein and that elite cohort who make great discoveries. The rest however are mainly your average shit kickers who fiddle around in laboratories or play around with things like statistics and imagine that they are making great discoveries.
This is true of climate science where all the relevant fundamental climate discoveries were made before the beginning of the 20C by Fourier (1824) and Tyndall (1864).
Climate scientists versus engineers? It should be obvious to most by now that the current crop of climate scientists do not have the mathematical training of the average professional engineer. That is confirmed by the mess climate scientist’s like our own Karoly and Mann make of their statistical analysis.
A suggested rule of thumb is that climate scientists should get competent mathematicians or statisticians to peer review their papers rather than the generally mathematically illiterate incompetents that presently serve as their peer reviewers.
Engineers don’t seem to have that problem as most of the stuff they build works. So failing peer review by statisticians perhaps a few engineer-peer reviewers would be a step up from the incompetent peers used at present.
20
I dont know this for a fact, but there are now an awful lot of astronauts and ex-astronauts (some of whom, sadly, never get into space) and I would bet they include “climate scientists” among their number. Given activities of NASA today, I think its almost certain. I’d like some low-down on this if anyone knows examples.
00
I wonder how many of Cook’s followers are stunned by this admission of his? Soon enough we might hear shouts of “traitor” and maybe a burning at the stake?
61
Nahh.. They’ll pat him on the back for sticking it too all them “Big oil funded, scientifically illiterate, consensus deniers”
41
I think that’s reserved for people like Bjorn Again Lomborg who take money from the Koch brothers to review temperature records and come to the conclusion that, actually, the world is getting hotter and the cause is anthropogenic CO2.
10
Typo – “with a gaping whole in his logic (see below),”
Good on ya Jo – Cook, along with Lambert at Deltoid are egostistical a**eholes.
Glad to see you tear them apart.
42
GOOD NEWS
according to Sir Paul Nurse (in Aus recently)
I’m part of the consensus, ie co2 low sensitivity (say between 1.2 and 1.9C) and James Anaan, says 1.9C more plausible than 4C plus (because of recen papers and oberservable evidence)
Sir Paul Nurse
Sadly though, he no doubt think the majority of sceptics just outright deny, GHGs or that the earth has warmed at all if you read the rest:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/sir-paul-nurse-batting-for-the-team-down-under/
52
All that Nurse guy is doing is a) hedging his guesses and b) the old English thing about a fudging the issue…sitting on the fence, compromise, playing the ends against each other while staying outside of it in the middle.
Its the opinion of someone with no opinion.
20
I’d say that Prof. Nurse has seen the way things are going and is frantically trying to reposition himself. Unfortunately he’s still relying on consensus and argument from authority which is severely hampering his credibility.
91
Yes, he tones it down a bit, doesn’t he? If the consensus for future temp rise is 2-4 degrees, why suggest 1.5-3 as an alternative? 1.5 is 25% under the minimum. 5 degrees is 25% over the maximum. So 1.5 – 5 degrees is a better ballpark for future temp rise. And yes, it’s a pretty big ballpark.
The point is: whether we slug a home run or strike out depends on what we do from here on.
00
Ace, you’ve mangled your metaphors wonderfully. I’ll have to remember your line about “playing both sides while sitting outside in the middle” the next time I need to confuse someone who understands logic. Or English.
10
Seeing anybody of Paul Nurse’s stature pushing the concensus meme, is just so, so depressing.
51
Nurse:
(bold mine)
Yet, in “keeping politics out of it”, he mentions consensus a dozen times in the interview. Does he not recognize that consensus doesn’t actually matter in real science? That the real world (a.k.a “nature”) always has the veto?
What’s the point of “scientists” agreeing if nature disagrees?
80
He’s just being nice to you guys. I’m sure he thinks you are a bunch of whackos.
117
Please don’t dignify the above comment with a thumbs down.
41
I retract my comment above. It would be a sad blog that disallowed or ignored dissenting comments.
And he’s probably not a bad guy… just a bit thick.
10
Are defending him, slamming skeptics or just typing stuff?
04
A moderate is not a person who talks of rises between 1.5 and 3 degrees – which is a heap of uncertainty, by the way. No. A moderate is someone who:
a)…recognises that nobody has ever successfully predicted the state of the physical or human world a century out, and nobody is likely to be the first success after zillions of predictive failures.
b)…does not believe one should attempt to manipulate climate through degrading industry, agriculture while mainstreaming primitive, expensive and ineffective energy sources simply because they are perceived as “alternative”, or “sustainable”.
c)…does not think we can manipulate climate by filtering trillions through the coffers of the scoundrels we neglected to lock up after 2008.
You don’t get to be a moderate by singing Kumbaya, talking smaller numbers (pick 1, pick 3, just make sure its an increase), and by multiple repetitions of “Om” or of “consensus”. It’s no good not SEEMING a screaming loony. You have to not BE a screaming loony.
60
Jo,
In the same vein as commenter #3, some others:
de rigueur not de rigeur.
nullius in verba, not nullis in verba.
non seqitur(s) not non-sequiteur(s) – (in two places)
And I think you mean that the NASA astronauts have little to lose from speaking out since they are retired (not gain)
Great post Jo. A masterclass in logic. Another knock-out blow; but it is cruel hitting these guys so hard when they’re already on the canvas.
—-
Starring proof reading Stephen, Merci! I think I need to enlist you (again). Cheers! — Jo
PS: I did mean “gain” with the Astronauts — but I can see your POV. Though they have their reputations to lose. Which I imagine would matter quite a lot to someone from the Apollo program.
70
“non sequitur” not “non seqitur”
30
Sorry, Stephen and Jo I disagree with you both. If someone is taking a stand, their stand is more convincing if they have “something to lose” or “a lot to lose”. The NASA scientists have a reputation that they could lose. The fact that they have “little to gain” or “a little to lose” both sound wishy washy with respect to the veracity of their stand.
33
Point to Gee Aye. Well said.
20
Thanks but truthfully I never noticed it when I first read your original so I’ll share my point.
13
Will John Cook now follow through, retracting his narrow his definition of “skeptic” in favor of those in the Oxford English Dictionary?
John Cook’s definition is
It is this narrow definition that enables Cook to call those who disagree with him “deniers”. Maybe he will adopt Tamino’s term of “fake skeptic” instead?
71
John Cook by his own definition is a denier.
As he
160
It is simple propagandic inversion. You swap the definitions from two sides of the case, and apply them to the opposing labels. For example, Nazi propaganda presented the Aran “race” as having a longer, and richer, history than the Semites.
40
Aran ?
00
Streetcred…Aran race, …Yeah man…aint you heard of the superiority of the inhabitants of the Scottish outer archipelagoes.
00
They make nice jumpers.
00
Nice jumpers…
Especially if they hear a loud bang.
Or should that be here, a loud bang?
00
Whoops, Should have been Aryan.
Now, “Y” did that happen?
00
John Cook can keep his definition of skeptic. We consider every sort of evidence they can offer, it is just that their evidence is so weak.
They deny 28 million radiosondes show their water vapor feedback is wrong. They pretend heat from CO2 is the sky would warm the deep ocean more than the surface. They say their models work even though they admit they don’t understand clouds and precipitation patterns (clouds cover 60% of the planet, it’s not like it matters right?). They deny that solar magnetic effects are worth including in their models, then they pretend they have considered every forcing.
241
To paraphrase Einstein:
“It doesn’t take 28 million radiosondes to prove me wrong” say climate scientists “but a single tree in Siberia tree is all it takes to prove I’m right”
80
Darn it! One too many trees. Lucky that I’m not a climateostatistician or I’d be accused of overkill.
41
Hi Jo,
Two new papers on clouds you may be interested in
An analysis of the short-term cloud feedback using MODIS data by Zhou, Zelinka, Dessler, and Yang,
and
Impact of dataset choice on calculations of the short-term cloud feedback by Dessler and Loeb.
With regards,
Tristan
01
A few thousand years ago people (naturalists?) went around describing and measuring the heavens and the earth. One by one disciplines evolved, were named, and peeled off from the whole. Measurement or surveying became important and systematized. Geography became a broad field from which many other disciplines came.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabo#The_Geography
About 400 years ago ‘geology’ became a named field with special ideas and evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulisse_Aldrovandi#Arrest_for_heresy
Those accepting these ideas and ways developed the field as we now know it.
Those studying Earth’s “climates” were ‘experts’ in other fields — Wladimir Köppen, for example, produced a classification based on the concept that native vegetation is an expression of climate.
The above is prelude to questioning the status of the discipline of “climate science.” What is the nature of this field and where did it come from? Is a trained chemist or physicist or statistics professional not able to understand the molecules, interactions, and data that constitute the atmosphere and oceans?
Those that want only “climate scientists” to be listened to with regard to how Earth systems work ought not to be listened to themselves. Mr. Cook, especially fits here – his brain seems to be scrambled (like eggs)!
60
They really need to define the qualifications to be a climate scientist. But of course they won’t because once they define those qualifications they will be seen to include physics, chemistry and math, like say, an engineer, an astronomer or other professions with those requirements. And I would think there ought to be a postgraduate specialization requirement as well. Where is that?
Or is it that the real qualifications are gullibility, confusion, dishonesty, self-delusion and others they don’t want made public?
41
Why not geology as well ? The warmista pretend that geology is not science because its’ body of knowledge does not suit them well
40
Certainly! I just didn’t think of it at the time.
00
And lest we forget about it, a geology major is required to take quite a bit of physics, chemistry and math.
10
And the ability to use Excel spread sheets? Oh, hang on… never mind.
10
Above I mention Geology as having 400+ years of development.
http://rlv.zcache.com/geologists_regular_people_only_smarter_sticker-p2171296589270184230ssdl_210.jpg
10
I feel the need to retort with Exhibit A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H1mMpCpIcA
and Exhibit B:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYMFHON8LFw
Couldn’t resist… 😀
30
PS> Being a bucket chemist (minerals engineer) myself I should point out I enjoy the company of rock monkies (miners) and rock lickers (geologists). I strayed and went into economics /shrug
40
BD
Is the second one a mix or the full deal?
KK 🙂
10
Masters in Mineral Economics, so I kept my interest in the mining game.
10
John and Bulldust,
Re, geology and exhibits A and B: It takes all kinds to make a world. That some of them work to break that world is something we can at least get a laugh out of if nothing else. 😉
I started out as a forestry major and geology was one of the required subjects — physical and historical. Those courses have been beneficial knowledge throughout my life so I can appreciate what others apparently want to stomp all over.
Then of course, I strayed a bit too. It’s a big jump from forestry to computer science. But that’s another story.
00
I have heard it said, that any “science” that needs to have the word “science” in its name, is probably not a “science” at all.
70
Very cute…I will use that.
10
Except as the only word. 🙂
00
Social science… check
Political science… check
Computer science… check
And that’s just the first three that popped into my head.
20
Then there is sociology and psychology. They don’t have science in their names… So the rule needs some extra caveats.
10
Nah, the rule was that any field of study which added the word “science” to its title probably isn’t… that doesn’t exclude other fields without “science” in the title from being shonky.
20
Computer Science is the worst oxymoron. As though it was a science devoted to disvovering what computers are. How ridiculous is that. The discipline consists of studying commercial products and how to use them. A variation on “domestic science”.
I had a friend (not any more) who did “computer science” and on the strength of that thought he understood science (he was totally clueless)and used this to assert his AGW clap-trap. I basically got tired of the boss-eyed, arrogant little p#$%^ and told him to frump off…though in a document of about fifteen thousand words trashing his “beliefs”. A few years ago I got an e-mail from him: “Are you still on this e-mail address”. My reply: “Yes, are you still an Environmentalist a\&*^%+l%” or asterisks to that effect.
Sociology I agree is dubious but Psychology (the field of research as opposed to the listening therapeutics) is not so. Really you have to distinguish between psychology as it was (before “the crisis”) and as it is. As it was it most definitely was a science and studying it in the Seventies the philosophy of science and how to stay clear of pseudo-science was ironed into us, with great emphasis on Poppers falsifyability principle. This has stayed in my bones ever since and underpins my anger at the pseudo-science of Environmentalists.
But Psychology now, after Post Modernist revision and discarding the concept of objective reality …importing notions of “qualitative” and cultural relativism… is a pile of …. Well, so much of it is. There is still the ghetto of genuinely scientific cognitive research. But my prediction is that those who work in that field will eventually re-label it “behavioural biology” or something along those lines.
21
Or the ability to construct a Hockey Stick graph.
20
As time has gone by I’ve seen this image in my mind over and over. Science is standing before a bronze statue arguing with it about what it (science) is really about. The statue stands there, deaf to all arguments, no matter how presented or how passionate, while mountains of evidence piled at its feet go unnoticed. Science has been weeping lately.
There might be one advantage if we argued with the statue, however. At least it wouldn’t talk back!
20
Wow this Cook fellow missed the boat completely, I think this is a straw man. He thinks climate skeptics doubt the consensus, I know of almost no climate skeptic who doubts the consensus. We have no doubt that 97% of climatologists believe that humans are responsible for altering the climate. We don’t doubt their consensus, we doubt their conclusion.
And while people like Cook are working on this ‘consensus gap’ thingy, the climate skeptics will continue to vocally doubt the science, not the consensus.
cheers
131
Bingo….
But try getting that through the Activist Cartoonist’s thick skull…
50
Klem…Well put. Exactly true (in my opinion).
But the consensus is a myth besides.
20
Exactly. “Science deniers” is far more accurate.
010
Ooh Ricky you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind say Ricky:
Exactly what science is denied? Stop making false statements Ricky. We have a word for that.
40
Mark.D…noooooo, dont open THAT one up again!
00
Okay, here’s a bit of science. Thumbs up if you are convinced by the following. Thumbs down if not.
Observation 1. Sun irradiates earth with short-wave energy.
Observation 2. Earth re-radiates long-wave energy.
Observation 3. Greenhouse gases retard transmission of long-wave energy, not short-wave energy.
Observation 4. Satellite observations show decreasing emission to space of this long-wave energy, at EXACTLY THE SAME WAVELENGTHS as CO2 absorbs long-wave energy.
Observation 5. Arctic sea ice is melting, so that summertime sunlight is being absorped in exposed ocean rather than reflected off ice.
Observation 6. Greenland and Antarctic ice is melting, increasing the rate of sea level rise. The rate of ice melt is accelerating as atmospheric greenhouse gases increase.
Observation 7. In the Arctic, tipping points have been crossed. Permafrost is thawing, releasing stored methane and carbon dioxide, and warming Siberian continental shelf is causing release of methane from submarine methane clathrates.
Inference 1, drawn from observations 1, 2 and 3. Greenhouse gases thus regulate earth’s temperature. Altering atmospheric greenhouse gas content therefore alters earth’s temperature.
Inference 2, (drawn from inference 1 and observations 4, 5, 6 and 7). Ocean is thermally coupled with atmosphere, and transfers a lot of heat to both Arctic and Antarctic.
Root cause analysis 1. Historic fossil fuel use and cement production data (Oak Ridge National (US) Laboratory Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center) shows sufficient CO2 emission from 1800 to 2007 to raise atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 430 ppm. Dissolution of CO2 in oceans has limited atmospheric CO2 to about 390 ppm, and decreased ocean pH.
And yes KK, that’s a cut and paste from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-04/hutchison-maybe-climate-change-is-closer-than-we-think/4499620
26
Ricki
You’ve convinced me.
I am now fearful for the future of my children.
And of my children’s children
And of my children’s children children’s children.
Tomorrow I am going to hand back both of my BSc degrees and apply for admission to the university of SkS.
I hope they let me in; having been a “Skeptic denier” because I want to be on the side of compassion
for nature, the future of the planet and all that stuff and The Continuing Domination of Mankind by the UNIPCCCCC.
Thinking of the future, now that you have shown me the light, well its tragic.
I’m sure if we can all contribute enough cash to the UN they can make it all go away and save us.
KK
ps.
Those Siberian methane seepages smell like Mammoth farts; best to keep well back.
11
And Ricki
Do you realise that if you put your K with my two Ks we would have KKK. Evil.
Spooky, but then as a Scientist with a degree from the University of ABC (Their University) and a PhD from Sks you probably saw that coming.
Maybe I mentioned that because I sense something Evil.
Like the techniques of Goebbels and Himmler, crowd control and propaganda, all revisited in CAGW propaganda?
11
It’s OK, KK. YOu’re trying to bury my comment with drivel but I’m still wondering if anyone can refute the above observations and inferences.
11
Science is not permitted here Ricky.
02
No one will because even if they did, you wouldn’t accept it so why waste time?
11
Sheri, I’m always willing to consider everything.
00
Wrong;the “consensus” is an illusion and you’ve fallen for it.
20
Cook suddenly realize!
That there may be a tomorrow for him to when he becomes dependent of his former actions when he meet ordinary honest deasent peolpe. Im sure he has to have bodyguards today. But will someone else pay for them when CAGWreligion kollapses?
Lewandowsky and Cook is an Australian shame and the more Aussis who take a clear distance to these guys and thier green fanatic militant green fascism the better.
51
Cook’s recantation of “climate denial” now is so funny, it reminds me of the Austin Powers scene where Austin tries to deny that a certain embarrassing item of… erm… equipment… was ever owned or operated by himself.
Denier? No! That sort of thing `aint my bag, baby!
Business-as-usual will not be okay, because Danger… is his middle name.
20
Cook’s attempt at twisting the english language to suit his cause is nothing short of comical, unlike him Lord Monckton uses these literal comparisons in his presentations to great effect because he is intelligent and has a grasp of points he is trying to convey. I had the pleasure of attending Moncktons address in Ballarat last night where he demonstrated an ability to communicate on many intellectual levels and talking to him afterwards you could see he’s a good bloke, he also gave genuine heart felt praise for Jo and David so that’s a clincher too. If anyone has the oppertunity to see Lord Monckton take it and as a rule I am not easily impressed by people at all.
70
“Cook’s attempt at twisting the english language to suit his cause is nothing short of comical”
and….
Lewendopey’s attempt at twisting statistics to suit his cause is also nothing short of comical, and farcical.
20
This was after Monckton’s star turn at the Rise Up Australia party – designed to prevent immigration – founded by a Sri Lankan born evangelist who claims to have brought people back from the dead with prayers? Hallelujah and pass the kerosene. These witches are too damp to burn.
112
Rise Up Australia are not in any way attempting to prevent immigration, you are quite dishonest in this regard.
They are trying to require immigrants to accept the majority culture in Australia, and basically they are Christian cultural conservatives, opposed to multiculturalism but not opposed in any way with diversity and ethnicity.
They also support economic freedom and personal freedom of conscience… they don’t demand that everyone be Christian, they merely want our Australian culture to maintain its original Christian heritage (including the Enlightenment part of that heritage). They are strongly anti-socialist, and for good reason because of the destruction caused by Marxism, Communism, Fascism (National Socialism) and all the other collectivist ways of thinking that destroy individual liberty.
Monkton is also a cultural conservative, and supports individual economic freedom.
60
Tel. I dont know the Australian scene but the same issues are ablaze everywhere. Literally in the case of France.
But let us suppose some of us think that incomers to “our” culture should be entitled to reject and disregard aspects of “our”culture. Sounds very friendly, libertarian and even handed. But which aspects are these incomers going to be welcome to reject? The rights of women to be individuals and not chattels? The belief that children should not be genitally mutilated? The view that it is not valid to behead someone for their beliefs? ETc, Etc, ETc. I am curious, how can these supposed libertarians endorse the “right” of incomers to disregard aspects of “our” society when all the things of their culture would have to be held in common or else appear on a list such as the one I just offered. What are the “alternatives” on offer?
00
You’re right Ted, Danny Nalliah only wants to limit Muslim immigration. He has what I would call a fundamentalist Christian approach to, well, everything.
My favourite part of the Rise Up Australia website is this bit: “The notion that anthropogenic emissions of the plant-food carbon dioxide have affected, or will affect, the macro-climatic changes that would have occurred anyway as part of nature (e.g. volcanoes, solar variations etc) is a quasi-religious hypothesis unproven by objective scientific facts.” I don’t detect any irony.
In the wake of the Black Saturday bushfires, in which 173 died, Nalliah claimed he had received “prophetic dreams” on 21 October 2008 that these bushfires were a “consequence” of Victoria’s decriminalisation of abortion in 2008.
(Cut and paste from Wikipedia, reported in multiple media.)
Their manifesto is founded on six principals including “our Judeo-Christian heritage, which includes the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the 1215 Magna Carta and the 1688 Bill of Rights”. The Magna Carta recognised serfdom. The 1688 Bill of Rights (actually 1689) applied to “all Englishmen” – not women, and not Australians.
Rise Up’s policies include religious freedom, with the proviso that Christianity influences “the formulation of governmental policies and laws, because these are never conceived in a moral vacuum”. Out with contraception, abortion and divorce.
So Rise Up Australia gets its energy from a theology that dates back several thousand years, and was last updated a century before European colonisation of Australia. Their idea of an Australian is “heterosexual married Christian with kids”. What does that make the rest of us?
11
“What does that make the rest of us?”
A TROLL?
00
If Wilders is wrong, explain this muslim conference……
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/if_wilders_is_wrong_explain_this_conference/
Islam is a death cult and not a religion and is anti australian !!!!!!!
20
Haven’t heard it put this way before, but it’s a great analogy………..
I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back patio and filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.
But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.
Then came the shit. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table…everywhere!
Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.
And other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.
After a while, I couldn’t even sit in my own back garden anymore.
So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone.
I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.
Soon, the back yard was like it used to be …. quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.
Now let’s see….. our government gives out free food,subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.
Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands.
Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English.
Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to ‘press one’ to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than our Flag are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.
Just my opinion, but maybe it’s time for the government to take down the bird feeder.
30
Angry, you bird feeder story is enlightening. you didn’t think to hang it somewhere where the birds couldn’t bug you. BTW, does it strike you as just a little bit racist to describe humans as animals?
02
Richardo K, you cannot even get your insults right. The term “racist” is for denigrating a specific race of humans with respect to another. Comparing humans to animals is by definition not racist because humans include all races and no specific race is singled out.
Epic fail for the troll …
10
Many Muslims today are not happy!
They’re not happy in Gaza .
They’re not happy in Egypt .
They’re not happy in Libya .
They’re not happy in Morocco .
They’re not happy in Iran …
They’re not happy in Iraq .
They’re not happy in Yemen .
They’re not happy in Afghanistan .
They’re not happy in Pakistan .
They’re not happy in Syria .
They’re not happy in Lebanon .
So, where are they happy?
They’re Very happy in Australia …
They’re happy in New Zealand.
They’re happy in the UK .
They’re happy in Canada .
They’re happy in the US .
They’re happy in France .
They’re happy in Germany …
They’re happy in Italy .
They’re happy in Sweden .
They’re happy in Denmark .
They’re happy in Norway .
So, they’re happy in every country that is not Muslim.
And who do they blame?
Not Islam.
Not their leadership.
Not themselves.
NO!!! THEY BLAME THE WESTERN (Christian) COUNTRIES THEY ARE HAPPY IN!
AND THEY WANT TO CHANGE THEM TO BE LIKE THE COUNTRY THEY JUST CAME FROM? WHERE THEY WERE UNHAPPY?
21
Angry … very good observation.
20
Really Angry? You got any sources for any of that? Talked to many Muslims in those countries? I have. I’ve been to most of the countries on your first list and every one on the second list. I remember a conversation with a Somali in Canada, for example. He didn’t like the cold and wanted to go home.
00
People like Angry and Bolt have trouble distinguishing between the words ‘Islam’ and ‘Islamist’.
I have issue with Salafist Jihadis living in this country. Similarly, most Pakistanis have issues with those same people living in their country.
I don’t have issue with any of the hundreds of millions of secular Muslims settling in Australia.
11
where would hundred of millions go?
00
Ricardo… Angry’s comments are as usual factual vacuous but your response is similarly so.
I guess this is what passes as debate.
10
I wonder what UQ thinks of John Cook and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg acting like petulant snake oil salesmen all the time.
If I were a student I’d find someplace with their head screwed on better to go to, like JCU f’rinstance. And for me I certainly think twice about throwing work their way, no matter which faculty.
70
Hi Bruce
Agree, and recent items in the local paper have comment from a high ranking spokesperson for Newcastle Uni
attacking Global Warming deniers; can’t, and don’t want to, remember the detail.
It is a disease and it wont go away until It Is De-funded.
KK 🙂
40
Keith – Uni of Ncl has Stewart Franks though. That makes up for a lot. Must irritate our local MP Greg Combet terribly.
61
Bruce, Stewart has moved to Tasmania; a big loss but has achieved a full professorship.
As for a high-ranking Newcastle Uni person attacking ‘deniers’, that wouldn’t surprise me but this from Professor Holmes, the pro vice-chancellor takes an opposite viewpoint, attacking the greens; but note some of the stupid comments.
50
True but I heard that he was moving; as mentioned by Cohers
Not sure whether he has gone yet but judging by the little that I can glean from the local media about the uni it seems to be very Pro Warming.
If he has gone it’s a huge loss for education and common sense in the local area.
KK
20
Yes Stewart has left, gone to UTas, Engineering Dept. He’s going to have fun down there, educating the brainwashed masses to reality 🙂
And as you say, many even in engineering (I don’t know much about other faculaties) seem to sympathise with the warming agenda.
Not all though 😉
41
Bruce.
That photo of Tim The Plant Biologist contemplating his next million is a bit too much this early in the day.
That link needs a warning.
KK
30
The Mynde is an amazing piece of gear and as Roy might say , it’s CPU has been changed in the last 50 years or so.
So let’s (that’s “let us” which curiously sounds a bit like “lettuce”) have a look at two representative
minds from the dim distant past and the over illuminated present.
The much maligned Ian Plimer mind was schooled in the period when logic was an essential component of high
school mathematics, particularly Algebra.
This meant that there were certain “hard edges” to science which were unbendable.
Those of us of a similar age will remember that when that sort of Logic was applied to science, the hard
edge to science required complex issues to be Deconstructed and to be examined step by step to guarantee the final analysis.
The more modern mind, perhaps exemplified by J.Cook and perhaps even more so by a Professor at UWA by the name of Lew… Lew something or other, is not in any way hindered by having suffered the disciplinary agonies of Algebraic or Scientific Logic.
It is free to explore the Universe , and who would deny that to anyone.
And so we have Australian schools where “science” consists of subjects known colloquially by the students as “Science in Space” which is a close cousin of “Maths in Space”: in neither of these two courses is Logic mentioned.
For the uninitiated, these topics with the suffix “in Space” I believe, refer to the somewhat easy and undemanding course work and not entirely to the students , who may or may not be “spaced out”.
And so: the modern scientific mind, which must heed the clarion call of Politicians, who control all scientific thought, for the good of the Earth and Nature, is able to examine highly complex situations and apply the modern approach that is so evident in the J. Cook situation.
When faced with a complex problem requiring Deconstruction, the modern scientific mind can easily just “skip those messy steps” that are obviously not an issue anyhow and go to the conclusion.
Current Australian politics seems to be based on rehashing a wonderful and disciplined past that disappeared decades ago, but pretending that it still exists, and that all of the good things in life can still be had even without Discipline and that refers especially to Federal budgetary Discipline and that wonderful tangible thing Money.
Yes Money is at the Root of Modern Scientific “Logic” as so ably demonstrated by the Global Warming Scam.
Summary
Media happy : Cheque
Scientists Happy : Cheque
Politicians Happy : Cheque
Taxpayers and Voters: Screwed, Check.
KK 🙂
110
Very good, KK!
I tip my sombrero to you.
20
Thanks RW
KK 🙂
10
It appears that our John spends so much time choking his chook he has no time to research or cope with the reality of Natural Climate Change.Put it away John and spend some time outside in our BEAUTIFUL EVER CHANGING WORLD.Self abuse in an air conditioned room just doesn’t compare mate.
91
shirl
What would you know?
I nearly choked on my cup of tea when I read that.
You made a mistake that should be ‘cook’.
KK 🙂
20
I was trying to be a little more polite to the bra-n dead wa-ker than he deserves,cheers
22
And this comment was posted on an article asking Cook to stop name calling.
27
Ah,
I see that you don’t do, or don’t get satire. Shirl’s original comment was very clever.
And who mentioned “Cook”, other than you?
50
Rereke, who obviously have a very different opinion of cleverness than I do. All three comments ahead of mine referenced John Cook. Shirly you can see that?
11
You’re a class act Shirl. Your “tactic” is reminiscent of Islamic fundamentalists insisting that Islam is a religion of peace and then threaten to behead those that disagree. I suggest you look up “irony” in the dictionary.
15
Hi KFC
Nice to see you back after the Christmas break.
Sorry that you feel offended by one of the above comments;
I empathise completely;
It’s just appalling.
But your “tactic” is reminiscent of SkS Warmer Tax Gatherer fundamentalists insisting that Warming is a religion of peace and then threaten to tax the hell out of those that disagree.
I suggest you look up “irony” in the dictionary, and while you are there look up Science.
You may not be aware yet but the voting and tax paying populations of Europe are a little bit annoyed with the price of power and unbelievable have blamed their governments for this.
They seem to feel that the problem is the huge, gigantic, out of proportion subsidies given to reneewavble energy has , well to put it politely, stuffed their economies, and ruined any chance of getting manufacturing and jobs going EVER.
They are hugely annoyed.
A Global Warming catastrophe is coming to an Eco Friendly Government near YOU.
Sorry for the bad news.
pps. Spain has reneged on their Renewable Subsidies and are being sued by all the Big Green Vampires who were going to extract billions out of the public coffers and are now to get nothing.
It’s not a trickle, it’s an avalanche!
CO2 will once again become:
King of the Gases.
KK
Ha Ha
20
I only implied he should spend more time researching than he does pulling his pud, I fail to see a connection with religious fundamentalism of any stripe except probably THE Church of Global Warming,cheers.
30
I made no mention of violence or religious fundamentalism,That you did Shows where your head is at mate.Cheers
30
I have been told the same thing about “getting outside and seeing nature”. It’s a nasty comment and often without evidence (replacing name-calling with possibly false accusations). Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean they lack exposure to nature or the world. It just means they don’t agree with you. That’s it.
30
sloppy sloppy sloppy – that name-calling baboon has the iq of a nutter.
09
Ha ha ha!! That’s funny! Except, I’m not sure you meant it to be?
93
KFC
I gave you a green thumb just to get your hopes up.
Now the bad news: It was a joke.
You know I always either ignore your posts or give them a red T.
btw he was aware.
KK
42
John Cook:
Failed as a scientist
Failed as a cartoonist
Failed as a propagandist
An ever downward slide….
Where to now, you pussillanimous little git !!
(yes, I know it is normally spelt with one “s”)
80
I haven’t seen that word in years. It reminds me of a long ago vice president who called his detractors,”…pusillanimous pussyfooters.” As I remember he subsequently spent a little time in prison for graft and corruption. I thought that a fitting end to the career of one of our more worthless politicians.
40
That was Spiros Anagnostopoulos wasn’t it, Roy?
(OK, Spiro Agnew)
30
You got it!
He was quite the talker, very colorful and all that. But I always thought he was an empty suit.
10
My favorite is “nattering nabobs of negativism” and by the way, describes the typical Warmist nicely.
20
Our president is certainly a nattering nabob all in his own right — the talker in chief.
10
Andy,
I suppose I should say that your play on the double vs. single “s” wasn’t lost on me. But this is a family friendly site so there wasn’t much I could say about it. But “pussyfooters” was readymade for the job at hand.
Your sense of humor is simply fantastic.
00
And in the title , it should be “(un)Skeptical(non)Sense”.
20
Although John Cook has now admits “there is no such thing as climate change denial”, he knows full well that the damage caused by this smear on those who disagree with his dogma will stick around for a long time. Why am I so sure? In “The Debunking Handbook“, John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky say
So when Cook redefines words or Lewandowsky does a biased questionnaire and then completely distorts the findings, they do so in the full knowledge of the impact of what they are doing. Once a group of people have been associated with Nazis or nutters or outright liars, then many will always doubt anything that their victims have to say again.
60
Hi,
Apologies if this is slightly OT. I’m interested in science and in particular, scientific method.
I have some questions regarding the blog post above.
Firstly, when Cook refers to a “consensus of evidence” wouldn’t it be more likely that he is using the phrase in the sense of the second entry on the linked page, i.e. “general or widespread agreement…”. The author suggests above that “…a consensus of evidence and a consensus of scientists…are the same thing. It’s all opinions, and it isn’t evidence.” Doesn’t it follow from this statement that no evidence is valid? If “evidence” is found of feedbacks which mitigate warming then wouldn’t it be invalidated due to it also being “opinion”? Maybe someone could explain this further as I don’t understand this line of reasoning.
Secondly, the author states that “[Cook’s] entire argument is built on a fallacy – Argument from Authority”. Argument from Authority is not always invalid. It relies on two conditions, that the authority is a subject-matter expert and that there is a consensus among experts in the subject matter. The author claims that “Is one climate scientist worth two retired NASA guys? Cook would say anyone without the “official” title isn’t allowed an opinion”. Firstly, I’d be surprised if Mr Cook would deny anyone the right to an opinion. The “NASA guys” referred to aren’t climate scientists. If they have “opinions” then why not subject them to peer review in a climate science journal? It is also mentioned that “it’s a reason to listen to their arguments. Cook doesn’t even want you to listen” and yet the page that is linked to discusses their arguments at length. Also, the author states that “the climate scientists produced models we know fail nearly every test of validity”. The author appears to have moved to a different argument here. I’m assuming the discussion of “evidence” refers to arguments about whether the earth’s average surface temperature is increasing and whether human-produced greenhouse gases are the primary cause. My understanding is that climate modeling does not contribute to this debate as it is concerned with past and future climates. Whether models “fail” or not, how does this affect current and past observations?
Thirdly, (and this is a more general question), it is stated on this blog that those who disagree that human-produced greenhouse gases are causing the surface temperature of the earth to increase require “empirical evidence for the theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the main cause of global warming.” I’m unclear as to what sort of evidence this would be. Isn’t this a “theory” and as such, can empirical evidence ever “prove” it? Doesn’t evidence either agree and support the theory or disprove it?
37
Two points:
1. or disprove it: You cannot prove a negative. Prove to me that you have stopped beating your wife. You can’t. For the same reason skeptics cannot prove that warming is not happening. See point 2.
2. agree and support the theory: Yes evidence can support the theory. But the global warming people like Cook are in this position — I accuse you of beating your wife; so you demand that I show evidence of it but all I can come up with is my opinion that you are. No matter how many people come along and agree with me (consensus), it isn’t evidence. No amount of expertise can turn an opinion into evidence either. No matter how many computer models I build that say you are, I still have no injuries to your wife or testimony from her that will be evidence of the beating. For the same reason, global warming as a theory falls apart because they cannot provide evidence of it. Opinion and computer models are not evidence of wife beating or global warming. Skeptics are simply asking for evidence as you would if accused of wife beating, which is a very reasonable thing under the circumstances.
I hope this helps.
40
Hi Roy,
May I offer two hypothetical scenarios to your first point.
“You cannot prove a negative. Prove to me that you have stopped beating your wife.”
1. I have stopped beating my wife because after I last bashed her she moved to NZ and I have never applied for a passport, I have never left Australia.
2. I stopped hitting her last year, when she died as a result of my continual beatings.
Wouldn’t these be sufficient proof?
The statement, “You cannot prove a negative” is itself a negative, so if I accept it as a true statement then I’m left with – You cannot prove that you cannot prove a negative.
20
Hmm! True confession time it seems… 🙂
Just kidding!
In these scenarios you’re admitting that you have been beating your wife. That transforms the situation of my point one into the situation of point two as far as I can see. And then convicts you as well since instead of demanding to see my cause for the accusation you confess to the crime.
Which I think makes my point, implied double negative notwithstanding.
20
Ok, I was beating my (hypothetical) wife and I admit my crime.
But, have I proven to you that I am no longer beating her?
If so, then I have just proven a negative.
Which was something you said I couldn’t do.
Proving a negative is no harder or no easier than proving a positive.
Can you prove there are no green swans?
Can you prove there are green swans?
Either way, the procedure will be the same —- go and look for any evidence of green swans.
21
MaxL: Not finding evidence for green swans does not mean they do not exist. For example, black-footed ferrets were declared extinct, as in no one can find one so there are no more. Until some rancher’s dog who didn’t know the ferrets were extinct dragged one home. This was proof they do exist. The absence of evidence only proved we did not know where to find the ferrets, not that they no longer existed.
You can’t prove a negative.
20
Max,
No, you haven’t answered the point in number one.
I can look for green swans all I want to but my failure to find them does not prove they don’t exist. You may put it the other way, there are no green swans; then all I have to do is find one green one to falsify your hypothesis and prove you wrong. But failure to find green swans doesn’t prove there are none, only that I don’t know where they are — put an implied “yet” on the end of that since I might find one in the future.
No proof, no cigar as they say. 🙂
This problem is what makes those who don’t understand logic or who want to misuse it for their own purposes so dangerous.
30
Nice definition there Roy.
Very readable.
KK 🙂
10
Sheri & Roy,
I have described two scenarios in which I am physically incapable of beating my wife.
Have I proven to you that I am not beating my wife?
21
You can prove an inductive negative argument if the premise can be proven to be true, as in your second example.
You can prove the conclusion is not true only if the premise is true (so what you are proving is the premise and then the conclusion follows). In the case of “There are no green swans” that cannot be done.
10
Perhaps a better statement would be: You cannot empirically prove a negative.
10
Sheri,
Is that an answer to the question I asked above?
01
MaxL My bad–forgot to address the comment to you. Yes, it is a reply to your question.
00
So am I or am I not, still beating my wife?
01
Who said there are no green swans?
00
Max,
My inability to be at the computer at just the right time has prevented me from continuing the debate in any serious sense. Sheri has done a good job and I think the debate goes to her. But I want to make this comment.
In the case where your wife died, when you present me with her death certificate then I must acknowledge that you have stopped beating her.
In the case where she moved to NZ there are still possible scenarios where you can clandestinely get to NZ to beat her and then back to Oz, hence, no proof there.
10
Roy,
I will take the case where my wife is dead, simply to avoid further unnecessary twists and distortions from you and Sheri.
I have just proved a negative, ie. I am not beating my wife.
For any generalization like, “You can’t prove a negative” I only need one example to disprove that statement.
http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
http://stevencwatts.newsvine.com/_news/2011/03/02/6157654-logical-fallacies-101-argument-from-ignorance
Furthermore, I found your comment:
to be offensive and irrelevant.
01
MaxL: You can call it proving a negative and there are those who would agree. Fact is, you are proving a premise and the conclusion logically follows. If you want to consider proving one thing which then proves another based on logic proving a negative, okay. Some logicians agree. i was referring to direct proof and should have so stated.
Your original assertion that there are no green swans is still not provable, unless you can prove something else that logically leads to green swans. (As in genetically, there is a small chance a mutation could produce a green swan. Then you have proved they are possible, but you still have to find one. )
You can prove virtually anything is possible and you can construct examples of logic that allow to prove one thing by proving another. I agree I should have been clearer on my example, but I did not take into account your possible responses. Next time I will be more careful to properly label which negative arguments cannot be proven, the difference between direct proof and indirect proof, deduction, induction, and include a bunch of examples. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_a_negative (yes, it’s wikipedia but it was good list–you can independently verify each).
About beating your wife–you can prove she has not been beaten, you can prove she is being beaten, you can prove that at this moment it is not you, you can prove you did not do it if you are physically incapable but that would only apply to the present if you were capable before, etc, etc. The actual beating of your wife can be proven to be true if she has marks or had marks in the past and witnesses or photographs not photoshopped. You can prove she is not being beaten now. Again, you are proving the truth or falsity of her being beaten and then using logic to show you did not do it. We can run this to the “we can’t know anything stage” if we go far enough. While it was fun doing this at 2 AM in college, not so much any more. I do want to be clear on what I meant and to understand what you mean, so I’ll keep trying.
I don’t think you don’t know logic. Since the specific type of “can’t prove a negative” was not specified, there were various answers. In the future, I will be clear what my assertions are to the greatest detail I can.
30
Max,
It is not irrelevant; it is the heart of the matter.
If it’s offensive then I must leave that to be your problem because frankly, it is a great big ugly problem in this world. The statement was not made to lay blame but to state the very real situation. Ignorance does indeed make someone potentially very dangerous. It allows the unscrupulous (or also just plain ignorant) to take advantage of the ignorance. Can you argue that I’m wrong?
20
Thank you Sheri.
I made no assertion regarding the existence or otherwise of green swans.
I simply posed the same question in two forms. One of which was a negative.
Whether I had a prior bias to one form of the question or the other is irrelevant. In order to answer the question of the existence of green swans, I must get off my backside and look for evidence under the assumption that they may exist.
If I find no such evidence I must conclude: “There is no evidence to support the conjecture that green swans exist.
You said:
You assumed that I was going to draw that conclusion. Again, I said nothing about the existence or otherwise of green swans.
03
This is beginning to look like a head butting contest so I think we need to stop here.
20
Roy,
You offer no evidence to support your assertion.
By way of explanation you use vague terms like “Ignorance…potentially dangerous…unscrupulous”.
You make an assertion without evidence and then challenge me to contradict your assertion.
If I can’t counter your assertion does that make your assertion correct? If you believe so then consider the argument from ignorance fallacy, which is a fallacy when there is no evidence offered to support the assertion.
02
Hi Roy
Your comment:
“Ignorance does indeed make someone potentially very dangerous. It allows the unscrupulous (or also just plain ignorant) to take advantage of the ignorance”.
Is the end result that we need to be aware of.
Ignorance is dangerous because it allows us to travel on a yellow brick road to no where – until of course, we hit the brick wall, which in the case of CAGW is what is happening now.
The world has been put into absolute chaos because of the CAGW Money Pot.
Sovereign States like Spain have contracted to subsidise Renewable Energy rorts and now they have to Renege on those agreements.
As I said Earlier:
You may not be aware yet but the voting and tax paying populations of Europe are a little bit annoyed with the price of power and unbelievable have blamed their governments for this.
They seem to feel that the problem is the huge, gigantic, out of proportion subsidies given to reneewavble energy has , well to put it politely, stuffed their economies, and ruined any chance of getting manufacturing and jobs going EVER.
They are hugely annoyed.
A Global Warming catastrophe is coming to an Eco Friendly Government near YOU.
Sorry for the bad news.
pps. Spain has reneged on their Renewable Subsidies and are being sued by all the Big Green Vampires who were going to extract billions out of the public coffers and are now to get nothing.
It’s not a trickle, it’s an avalanche!
CO2 will once again become:
King of the Gases.
KK
10
MaxL: You said
Proving a negative is no harder or no easier than proving a positive.
Can you prove there are no green swans?
Can you prove there are green swans?
That would lead one to believe that the idea is to prove there are green swans (the second line) or there are no green swans (first line). Which means you are trying to prove a negative–there are no green swans.. Saying there is no evidence for them is not in line with asking someone to prove a negative.
00
Max,
Must we now debate the meaning of ignorance, unscrupulous and other words with well understood meanings? The whole of this climate change charade is evidence to support my assertion. Read this blog if you don’t believe me.
Or maybe it does depend on what the meaning of is is. But I’m not going there.
As I said, this is the end of it.
10
Sheri,
The word proof can be defined as: “Evidence sufficing or helping to establish a fact.” — The Concise Oxford Dictionary.
It makes no difference whether one sets out to prove there are no green swans or whether one sets out to prove there are green swans, the point is, one must look for evidence that green swans exist and then come to some conclusion.
01
I’m with Roy. I tried to be respectful and answer your questions. You responded with nitpicking and pointless, eternal word defining. Reminds me of Bill Clinton asking for the definition of the word “is”. He looked stupid and incapable of any rational discussion. You look pretty much the same.
Just go write “winner” on your wall, stroke your ego, do a dance–whatever it takes to make you feel you’re the king of hill. I’m finished with your pointless drivel.
00
MaxL: IF the premise is is true, then, no, you are not beating your wife.
00
You are all missing the point.
Science consists of setting up propositions of the form: “the effect of A uponB when all else is equal is C”. From this we get an hypothesis: “When A is applied to B C will occur more often than chance” and a null hypothesis “When A is applied to B C does not occur more often than by chance”.
So, a valid scientific approach to AGW theory would be of the form: “When CO2 rises above so many PPM Event C will occur more often than otherwise”. Then if it does not weconclude the null hypothesis and the “theory” is falsified.
AGW is pseudo-science not because of evidnce this, negative that, wife-beating, empirical passports, uncle Tom Cobbley and the other. AGW theory is pseudo science because it is of the fundamentally un-scientific form: “When CO2 increases to so many PPM event C may occur more often than otherwise BUT if it doesnt, thats because of some other factor we have to add to our theory afterwards”
This is what Popper called “immunisation against falsification”. Imre Lakatosh developed the idea with the observation that a pseudo-scientific theory adds a “protective belt” of sub-tending theories, any of which can be used as an excuse as to the failure of the expected outcome. Its also known as “moving the goal-posts”. Though your Ozzy version of football boggles my brain as it is.
Thats all you need to know. Dont take my word for it. Look em up. Dont take THEIR word for it, think about what they were saying. Its really obvious when you pare away the pseudo-scientific bullshit.
20
The AGW debate is a classic mass of sub-tending sub-theories. A forest of timber concealing the rotten wood in the yard.
Then you have to distinguish between science as definitionof a particular process of enquiry and science as a job-description. Climate Scientists arecalled that because its what it says on their job description. The process they engage in, gathering data and discussing it is not in itself a scientific one.
For example, when you buy a car you hopfully research all the dataonpossible purchases and cosider the best choice. Thats rational,but it is not ascientific act in itself. Its just gathering data and analysing it. Its discursive evaluation. Which isnt science, nomatter how useful it may be.
Theres also one very fundamental given in all science: “correlation does not equal causation”. Itcan be co-causal or a coincidence.
NAME DROP WARNING: As the late Richard Gregory said to me: “Sunrise always precedes sunset but sunrise does not cause sunset”.
Yes they are related, but not causally. The cause is something else, common to both.
10
But we all know sunset always precedes sunrise. So you either have it backward or I caught you using circular reasoning? That chicken and egg problem again. 😉
Don’t answer that, I’m just a little out of my mind this morning. But I’ll find it somewhere and get it squared away for the day shortly… …need more coffee. 😛
00
Hi,
I have some questions regarding the blog post above.
dryliberal, Cook says we know CAGW is real because experts say so. (That’s argument from authority). A scientist would not argue that. A survey of “experts” is not evidence about the climate, it is evidence about the experts. A scientist would say we know CAGW is real because of…. measurements made by X Y or Z instrument. Observations about the planet are reported by satellites, weather-balloons, ice cores, pollen, sediments, corals, stalagmites… If the positive feedbacks were as high as the models predict then instruments like satellites and weather balloons would have found increases in temperature and humidity at 8 -10 km high. They didn’t.
Argument from Authority is always a fallacy. The authorities may be right, but if they are, they could point to measurements and observations to support them, not just surveys of their opinions.
Remember that they will claim (as Cook does) that they do have measurements. It is only through discussing the observations that we can see who has the best argument and reasoning. When measurements support “warming” the problem is that it’s never enough to match the models predictions. Skeptics look at “how much” and the numbers don’t add up. Warmer-scientists tend to argue any warming or any numbers in the right direction mean they are right. It’s innumerate. I argue the models overestimate warming by a factor of 6 or 7. It’s a quantitative argument. They give qualitative answers.
See http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/
No Cook doesn’t discuss our arguments in the article above. He ignores most of what we say and posits that we are making other arguments. You can tell Cook doesn’t want anyone to hear skeptical views everytime he writes “Denier” or “fake” and the fossil-fuel-funded slur (which is largely baseless and ignores the vested interests on his side). He insists that only the anointed officials can really “know”. He attacks scientists who have made great contributions to human progress with petty names.
As for peer review, skeptics refer to 1100 peer reviewed papers. Many leading skeptics do publish in peer reviewed journals. Peer review is itself a human process, and two anonymous unpaid reviewers don’t make for a serious audit. Like any human process it can be corrupted. Claiming that skeptics can’t criticize the theory without themselves leaping through peer review is a false gatekeeper.(It’s another way to dismiss someone without responding to their arguments). They don’t ask Al Gore to stop speaking his mind because he hasn’t published… alarmists also don’t critize their own scientists for logical fallacies, for trying to hide emails, dodge FOI’s, for using “tricks to hide declines” or for drawing the wrong conclusions.
Models are all they have. See “attribution” Chapter 8 and 9 of the IPCC AR4 report. Even alarmists acknowledge that CO2 causes only 1.2C of theoretical warming, it’s the feedbacks which make this larger (or smaller if they are negative).
The evidence from almost every angle and method disproves the models.
241
The only thing worse than argument from authority is argument from ignorance.
025
roflmao… that is JB talking !!!!
prime example of the latter. !!
140
JB, I bet you were born sucking your toes 😉
110
…and you are certainly ignorant of our arguments.
50
So John, why do you comment? Are you teaching by example?
70
I’m sure you know that to be true. So let’s rack up another winner for John Brookes.
50
You’d know, jb.
40
Phlogiston had a long run John about the same life span as this AGW stuff
30
…. As in… “we don’t what else could be causing the warming, so it must be CO2” ?
Argument from ignorance is the fundamental assertion of the models.
30
My own take is that one should start with scientists who have a solid discipline and are constantly exposed to reality and results.
A climate scientist does not have a solid discipline and is not exposed to reality and results. We should listen to him or her LESS than to a working geologist or engineer.
When climate change actually occurs (eg the radical shift after 2006 to oceanic winds etc in eastern Oz) aphids notice, flies notice and even I notice. People unlikely to notice are, amazingly enough, those very climate scientists who spend their days theorising on climate change. That is because they have a script, rather than a license for curiosity. Sad, is it not?
Finally, anybody ambitious enough to “model” something so fantastically complex, fluid and largely unknown as climate should be referred to by his or her proper title, which is either “God” or “the patient”.
60
Great Robert
I’ve been saying for a very long time now:
It can’t be Modeled.
What are presented are “Simulations” which do not and cannot correctly be called models.
KK
10
“No amount of experimentation (or observations) can ever prove me right; a single experiment (or observation) can prove me wrong.” Albert Einstein.
Computer models were used to make various climatic predictions. Real world observations, used to verity those predictions, showed that the predictions were false, sometimes by a significant margin. The models continue to be incorrect, compared to real world observations. Therefore, we can conclude that the models do not have any predictive ability.
Since the models are the sole source of “evidence” for the theory of Anthropogenic Climate Change, and since they have been debunked, the current position of the Climate Science community is falsified.
80
Even if some warming has taken place that tells us nothing about the cause. Just because two variable correlate does not mean that one is the cause of the other or vice versa. The computer climate models ASSUME that CO2 is the cause of warming. That is not good science. It’s like putting the cart before the horse.
40
Dry, I wish you the best of luck in getting answers to your sensible questions. As far as I can see, no amount of evidence will convince the denizens of this site that releasing a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere could possibly cause climate disruption which would have serious consequences for life on this planet. “CO2 is plant food and coal is essential to human civilization” is what I’ve been given, along with distortions of the data and “oh but we had storms before” “we don’t know what’s causing the warming” “there is no warming” “it’s the sun, stupid” “don’t you know the UN is behind it” and my personal favourite “you’re WRONG!!!!!!!!!! you moron!!!!!!!!!” Stick around and ask some more pointed questions and you’ll see what I mean. Follow the links and watch them contradict the interpretation given on this blog. Go back to the data next time someone tells you the world hasn’t warmed since pick-a-date.
JoNo, I’d be interested in those 1100 peer-reviewed papers. Is there somewhere I can find them? Titles, abstracts would be fine.
017
Ooh Ricky you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind say Ricky:
Ricky, do you have someone to hold your hand when you walk to the library? Do a search on your own. You’ve proven you have the groupthink bug and aren’t really here to learn anything, you’re a Troll. You are the denier, denier of anything outside of the Warmist lexicon.
50
Ricardo,
Instead of all the bloviating, why not just show us the evidence that CO2 is causing warming? Show us your evidence that CO2 is causing any problem at all. But no matter who I hand this straight forward challenge to, there is never an answer. Never! And I’ll look for yours but it won’t come either.
That pattern tells me something. It should tell you the same thing but apparently you have a blind spot right where it hurts you the most.
50
Roy, read my comment at 13.3.1.2.
02
Ricardo,
OK, I reread 13.3.1.2. All I see is evidence that things have been changing. You have not shown that CO2 in the atmosphere is necessarily — or even possibly — the reason for recent temperature changes. And more than that your theory falls apart the minute we see that for 16 years there has not been the predicted warming trend.
Keep in mind that there is no good evidence that atmospheric CO2 actually behaves as predicted. Then keep in mind that even if it does behave as you suspect, actual observed temperature rise is nothing near what has been predicted. So altogether it appears that other factors are really driving the changes you point out.
Correlation does not even imply causation, much less prove it. And that is about the best argument you have, one based on the logical fallacy that if A happens when B happens then A and B are necessarily connected in some way. They are not necessarily connected in any way. You must show the connection and so far no one can do that.
I can recommend The Skeptic’s Handbook, volume 1, found on this site as a good place to start. And please don’t come back and say it tries to prove anything. It doesn’t. It simply explores what we do and do not know about CO2. Don’t bog down in the casual presentation either. Look at what Joanne is saying.
40
Roy, I’ve looked at the Skeptic’s Handbook, which says there’s been no warming since 2001. Well, it was published in 2009, before 2010 turned out to be so durned warm. I suggest the next volume read: “There has been no warming since …… (please check with NASA to find out the last time we had temperatures as high as they are this year).”
11
Ricardo,
You, of course, miss the only point of The Skeptic’s Handbook, my point and the only point, which is that there has never been a credible connection made between CO2 and changing temperatures.
If you want to convince me that you’re either incapable of a little basic critical analysis or dishonest, then you’re well on your way.
If you want to play games with this stuff then leave me out. If you’re serious then deal with the pivotal issue — no credible link between CO2 and any temperature, climate or weather change you can point to.
00
Roy, is this the sort of link between CO2 and temperature you’re talking about?
00
Nice link Ricardo.
“They found a good correlation between CO2 and temperature … CO2 lagging temperature by around 800 years.”
Chicken or the egg?
00
Ricardo,
Al Gore already tried that one. Sorry! Think cause, not correlation.
Logical error, error, error,… …error!
00
So now you are pointing to a single year as proof of extraordinary warming?? I think that any real scientist would refer to this as “noise”.
Please show the World your credible, scientific link between CO2 and global warming. I am not asking for manipulated statistics (which is all that warmists have), but rather hard, scientific evidence with a clear explanation of the method which shows the link.
00
‘Slider, I did. Comment 13.3.1.2.
YOu’re right about ‘noise’ though. That’s why decadal temperature trends are more useful, and every one of those shows a clear warming trend.
01
Happy reading Richardo
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
20
Thanks Ross, I’ve bookmarked the link and I’ll plow through those papers.
02
Oh, the wild and wonderful world of Andrew (poptech). Enjoy the confusing ride.
14
Okay, I’ve started on your 1100 articles. This one from 1992 is kind of puzzling:
“A number of scientific groups have concluded that the greenhouse effect caused by the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other bases has produced much or all of the rise in global temperatures. They predict that there will be an increase in greenhouse gases equivalent to a doubling of carbon dioxide by the middle of the 21st century, and that this will cause the temperature of the earth to rise by as much as 5C. According to these scientists, a temperature rise of this magnitude would cause major disruptions in the earth’s ecosystem, including severe summer drought in the midwestern US and other agricultural regions. The worst-case scenarios predict a major rise in sea level as a result of the greenhouse warming, inundating areas of New York, Miami and other coastal cities as well as low-lying river deltas and islands. The lives of hundreds of millions of people would be disrupted. The available data on climate change, however, do not support these predictions.”
Well, let’s tell everyone who went through Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, or suffered through last year’s Dust Bowl drought that it just didn’t happen. If you really want to know how reality stacked up with the forecasts, 20 years on, you could read this.
01
Ricardo, you misunderstand, that list was never supposed to be examined by anyone. The important thing is that it’s a list of 1100 things that might be papers that might say something that doesn’t agree with the consensus. Don’t you see what a big number that is? 1100!
It’s nearly as big as 31000! You know, those 31000 people, some of which might be geniuses who don’t agree with climate change. It’s not important that they’re randoms with food science and electrical engineering degrees. They MIGHT have relevant climate science knowledge!
01
Tristan, thanks for edumacating me. I was foolish. I’ll go back to my solar-powered cave to caress my mungbeans. But, before I go, I’ll quote an Aussie character who wound up in New York:
“That’s not a big number! This is a big number.”
11
Haha.
01
Ross, here’s a more up to date analysis of the science of climate change. The good news is, it’s not 97% of scientists who agree.
01
Another of your 1100 papers (from 1991) says: “The predictions are contradicted by the climate record in nearly every important respect. Contrary to the models:
1. the Northern Hemisphere has not warmed more than the Southern Hemisphere”
Really?
2. high latitudes have not warmed more than low latitudes, and
Really?
3. the U.S. has not shown the predicted warming trend, although this is the largest area in the world for which well-distributed, reliable records are available.
Gee, now I’m convinced.
01
Dryliberal…consensus of any kind does not indicate validity. I cite again the case of Semmelweis, who alone triedto contradicttheconsensus that bacteria were harmless, was persecuted and ultimately incarcerated in a looney-bin where, irony of ironies, he died of septicaemia which he had earlier proven by controlled large scale experiments to be caused by bacteria. Only after his death did the consensus that bacteria are harmless finally collapse.
As for scientific method, I do not speak forany othercommenter here nor they for me. Strictly speaking, science and empiricism are not the same thing. The defining characteristic of a valid scientific theory is that it can predict what will occurif it is correct (thehypothesis) and what will occur if it is not correct (the null hypothesis). It then standsor falls according to its predictions. The predictions made by AGW proponents have been found inaccurate in asfaras thery were ever specific. For the most part they “predict” both of every pair of alternatives and this is whatqualifies the charge that it is pseudo-science. Like claims of the supernatural, itcan never be falsified. If it cannot be falsified then it is not science.
30
dryliberal,
Your statements are too woolly and naive.
Look up about the Lewandowsky paper of last year. It was aimed at calling skeptics nutters, based on a biased survey and corrupt use of statistics. Look at “SkepticalScience” website. It says it has all the answers, but positively discourages people from contrasting their views with others. The “escalator” graph, like Lewandowsky survey, deliberately misrepresents the views of Skeptics. The “Debunking Handbook” (By Lewandowsky and Cook) sees climate questions from a black and right the point of view. Allow for one iota of data ambiguity or error and the whole argument becomes a pernicious attempt the silence critics.
You should read up some more about the “scientific method”. At how philosophers of science have dealt with the issues of verification. But Cook’s (and others) calling people “deniers” stops people publicly questioning. Where this has happened in the past, people have been persecuted for questioning the “consensus”. Like with Cook, in the C20th century the claims of knowing the “ultimate truth” were accompanied by claims that detractors’ motives were due to their being in the pay of some evil capitalist conspiracy.
30
Try this test. Have someone who’s name (screen name) is not recognizable to John Cook post a comment and a link to a “non-science” website (that is what he used when snipping references he did not like in the past–I haven’t tried it recently) and see what happens. Make sure you take a screen shot of the comment in case it just “disappears”. Then get back to us.
00
Cook calls it a ‘consensus of evidence’.
A better name might be a ‘confluence of ignorance’.
The ABC is fine example:
There is NO evidence that anyone can REVERSE climate change associated with global warming from burning fossil fuels.
Aside from the fact there is NO evidence burning fossil fuels causes any climate change.
None.
.
The ABC: Reversing into tomorrow
60
NB: A more suitable word might be ‘convergence’.
A “convergence of ignorance.”
20
How about ” a confederacy of everydunce ” ? 🙂
10
…deriving of course from Johnathon Swift’s observation that “”When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him”.
How’s that for a conspiracy Mr Cook ?
10
Sir Humphrey again. “There’s no problem; but even if there was we couldn’t do anything about it.”
Smokers who are diagnosed with lung cancer can dramatically improve their survival rate (defined as still being alive five years after diagnosis) if they quit smoking immediately or shortly after diagnosis. Some quit; some don’t. Some, I’m sure, remain convinced until their dying puff that tobacco played no part in their cancer.
011
I can agree with the cancer scenario for the sake of argument. But now you need to show me that I have cancer. You have not done so nor has anyone on you side of the fence ever done so. Therein lays your problem.
50
Roy…this Ricardo, he’s a classic troll, trotting out straw man pseudo-arguments. I noticed earlier that people were ignoring him. I chose to join the army of silence. In England we call it “sent to Coventry” (fecfh knows why).
I recommend it.
30
Incidentally, all smokers do die, and all non-smokers do die. And Ricardo WILL die. He just doesn’t pay that fact more than lip-service yet. Dont smoke and I’ll live forever.
I chose to start smoking in my forties. If I get cancer…fexz much do I give a shit.
We are talking both literally AND figuritively here.
30
…except cancer of the penis, thats one I don’t fancy.
Literally…but figuritively also, what would that mean: life without assets, the kind of existence Environmentalists want for us. Orwells vision of a boot forever treading in the face of Humanity. Sack-cloth and self-sacrifice inthe name of an ideal.
As I say, cancer of the penis. And only a penis would promote such an “ideal”.
20
No criticism intended but many here will tell you differently, that it’s a good idea to answer this stuff with a good argument because it shows other readers the difference between the lousy position and the sound one. But eventually of course, you are right.
And sometimes it’s just plain fun (Maxine comes to mind).
20
Roy I think these are equal and competing approaches. I think it depends on the mood Im in and how otherwise busy I am as to which way I go. But I have learned how a proper Troll can waste everyones time with circular, repeating and insincere verbiage. The only problem is that one approach cancels out the other. If you answer once you have to answer always and yet the Troll never pays any attention to it as they dont care anyway. They post a little one liner and go off to listen to Radio Head for a couple of hours before skimming over a considered response and picking out one word to post another one-liner.
But there is a compromise. You can talk ABOUT them rather than TO them…as I did above.
In the case of Saint Brookes and Matb its different, they sometimes say such dumb things one cannot resist a reply.
20
To a degree, I agree however blogs don’t become popular when no one replies. It takes a little controversy to keep readers attention.
Also, raising ones blood pressure is healthy in moderation. 🙂
00
Ace, Mark,
It always boils down to a bit of internal debate about whether I should try to answer someone. In the end it’s a judgment call you make from your own experience and frankly, level of confidence.
I can think of better ways to raise my blood pressure, however. And this ain’t one of them!
00
What’s the bet that Ricardo is one of those prick moderators over at SkS…..
00
Ace, there used to be a monastery in Coventry where all the naughty monks were sent to live under a vow of silence. And no, I’m not a moderator on any site. I prefer to think of myself as moderately moderate.
02
Ricardo,
Good for you that you keep a sense of humor! 🙂
Sorry that I didn’t see that comment until now. Sometimes skipping through to find your own name in case someone replied isn’t such a good idea.
20
Not a problem Roy. If I ever lose my sense of humour, I usually find it down the back of the sofa. Now I’m off: trees to hug, knuckles to shave, a hockey-stick to sharpen. It’s not easy being a warmista troll. Full-time hobby, you know?
10
Believing stupid, clueless warmists could drown your town.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/believing_warmists_could_drown_your_town/#commentsmore
20
This discussion about CO2 induced Global Catastrophe is about to come to an end;
even Europe can’t hold out any longer as this morning’s news shows:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/the-emerson-v-bolt-argument-on-air-does-emerson-not-know-statistics/
Take away the money and there IS NO SCIENCE.
KK 🙂
20
The intended link is not working
10
The intended link
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/the-emerson-v-bolt-argument-on-air-does-emerson-not-know-statistics/#comment-1241741
00
The link is working fine,by the way.
The warmers are most unlikely to ever admit they were ever wrong or duplicitous because of the enormous quantity of litigation that would have to result.Insurance companies to start with.
20
Why does everyone want to give John Cook at Skeptical Science so much consideration?
He is best ignored; there is nothing to be admired or debated, he is a third rate, deceitful, unreliable individual.
If you are a fan of bad science, then go to his blog, otherwise ignore him.
70
“he is a third rate, deceitful, unreliable individual”
Gotta disagree with you there Peter- IMHO he’s a first rate, deceitful, unreliable individual.
80
Top of his class then instead of at the bottom. Good point! 🙂
00
“but if you are being bled with leeches” isn’t this a poor (analogy?) to use, as it, similar to using maggots on wounds, actually works and is not really witchcraft.
04
It accidentally helped some people while killing others. That’s not science. It’s witchcraft.
70
It didn’t help anyone – it’s simply that some people didn’t manage to die from either their original illness or the acute loss of blood, to say nothing of possible viral infections from the leeches’ gut
20
Actually they did finally find a medical use for leeches, in microsurgery. The leeches are raised specifically for such purpose.
20
Haemochromatosis – People with high iron levels (more often, men) would probably benefit from the odd leech.
40
How ironic that bleeding people, once thought to be beneficial but then so thoroughly discredited as medical science matured, is now the only treatment option for a very serious disorder.
Jo, I’m glad you posted that link because I learned something from it.
30
How odd the leeches need to be?
20
Are you sure you want to know? 😉
10
Rereke that is not what Jo meant and the misunderstanding is an easy mistake for amateur leechologists to make, let me explain. 😉
You see, too many leeches feeding on the same host can overwhelm the host, which is not good for any leeches, so they have evolved to instinctively perform some degree of demand management. Each leech is inhibited from feeding if it senses a neighbour leech is feeding. [1] But of course leeches cannot see very far, navigating mainly by smell, and cannot see any further than the width of a leech. (stop me if you can see where this is going.) Now of course one leech by itself is fine, and that is how they usually get around.
But in a clinical application the leeches are placed one at a time in a linear array along the patient.[2]
This means the first leech can begin feeding immediately.
The second leech placed next to the first senses its neighbour is feeding, so it is inhibited from feeding.
The third leech senses a neighbour which is not feeding, so it can start sucking blood no problem.
This pattern continues along the line alternating between feeders and non-feeders. (drum roll)
So this effectively means that only every other leech is delivering any remedial value to the patient.
Thus we have the full explanation for Jo’s statement that the patients may “benefit from the odd leech.”
This theory is fully supported by the referenced literature.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[1] McRae,A., “Leech Ideation and Consequent Digestive Inhibition”, Jonovian Journal of Leechology, 29.1.1.2.4, 2013.
[2] Photograph of a line of leeches with alternating passive and active parasitic modes.
50
A McRae, You need more up thumbs for that one! especially the photo. Funny
20
No more comment needed but I can’t give you more than one thumb up. So here are a bunch more!
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
10
Andrew,
The photo appears to show a line of European leeches?
KK
00
ha, ok, Google is my friend. Thinking of something else!
10
I agree that skeptical scientists or anyone else who questions climate science in a genuinely skeptical manner cannot be called a denier. I was a skeptic but not a denier when I thought the evidence insufficient to establish anthropogenic global warming. I remain a skeptic and am not a denier now that I think there is sufficient evidence for AGW.
Many people who call themselves “skeptics” are nothing of the sort. They are absolutely committed to a rejection of climate science which supports the existance of anthropogenic global warming.. They show no skepticism regarding their own beliefs and are utterly intolerant of others presenting scintific data and argument in support of AGW and substitute personal abuse for scientific argument.
The show all the characteristics of the psychological state of denial.
They are deniers.
028
Alright Philip.
Show me ONE piece of real evidence that CO2 causes any warming in an open atmosphere.
150
Can’t do Kinky, but here’s some evidence that CO2 cools a little, though nowhere near as much as water vapour cools.
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
90
Hi Doug,
I’m not kinky… 🙂
Extra CO2 actually lowers the specific heat of the atmosphere by a tiny tiny amount. Therefore convection/cooling speeds up by a tiny tiny amount.
It maybe also speeds up the transfer of heat by radiation.. upwards, ie cooling !!
And yep, its that phase change of H2O that does the most cooling.
90
You aren’t kinky.
00
You’re not kinky? How boring …
00
And Doug, you should know that it is a ABSOLUTE NO-NO to use Wikipedia refernces in any scientific paper…
Find the original.. follow the references and make sure they say what Wiki does, then use those references..
90
AndyG55 – you suggest not using Wikipedia references – OK – but plenty of others say the same thing, such as another statement which reads: Processes in which the entropy of an isolated system would decrease do not occur, or, in every process taking place in an isolated system, the entropy of the system either increases or remains constant. from the textbook An Introduction to Thermodynamics, the Kinetic Theory of Gases, and Statistical Mechanics (2nd edition), by Francis Weston Sears, Addison-Wesley, 1950, 1953, page 111
The arguments for or against a greenhouse effect must entail the physics of heat transfer, and this is an advanced topic rarely understood correctly even by many physicists, let alone climatologists. That is why I have tackled this in my papers and perhaps made some breakthrough revelations regarding sub-surface temperatures in the process. If you make the effort to understand the physics which I have explained in the new 21 page paper, you will find a new paradigm shift in understanding climate change – well worth the effort – you too Jo.
00
Philip,
I echo Andy and others. What convinces you that there is AGW?
It’s an honest question with no hidden agenda. I actually want to know. And so far the only thing we don’t have is your answer. I hope you’ll reply.
Roy
80
Sorry to hear that Phillip.
Hope things get better.
KK
60
The problem with CAGW believers is that, after some numbers (any will do) are crunched in a sciency sounding manner, and a few acronyms are cast about, they simply revert to doing what those Jehovah’s Witnesses do on your front deck on a weekend they catch you at home. They ask you to agree that “there’s all this stuff happening more and more these days”. And because “all this stuff” is much fresher in the mind than “all that stuff” which used to happen, we’re supposed to nod and agree.
Science? Nah. Just some more JWs on your front deck, trying to push fear buttons.
130
Of course they are deniers. That they don’t like being called deniers does not stop them being deniers.
Its only in blogs like these that you find people arguing that they are not deniers. Everyone else just accepts that they are deniers and moves on.
Are climate scientists sure of their position? On some things, yes. But on others (as the comment about Paul Nurse mentioned), they differ. But there is substantial agreement by most people who have actually bothered to become acquainted with the body of knowledge that is “climate science”.
But “skeptics” believe Murray Salby and Ian Plimer, or at least they did until these illuminati became laughing stocks for their silly ideas. Anyone who would bother taking these guys seriously is just not skeptical at all. No, if you take Salby, Plimer et al seriously, you are just hunting for evidence to reinforce your preferred point of view.
235
John, I think we can say that there is something close to a formula for degrees of certainty. The science is settled for promotional purposes and unsettled for funding purposes.
Tippy-toeing that fine line is what makes climate alarmism far more an art than a science. (Climate modelling, for example, is as scientific as a cow in a field, but who can deny its shaping spirit?)
Alas, the internet is full of redneck tea-partying skeptics who mistreat great artists. It’s Van Gogh’s ear all over again!
90
Well John,
I am a consistent denier. I deny everything, including the fact that I am a denier … no, wait …
60
…and I’m just pretending to be a fake denier 🙂
At least John has stayed behind to help us, instead of “moving on”.
20
I just love that term, “the body of knowledge.” It sounds so sage. So full of wisdom. So enlightened. But where is this body of knowledge, of which you speak?
Is it in he peer reviewed literature where the peers are the people who have a cosy relationship that ensures that they all approve each others papers, for nobody without the title of “Climate Scientist” (all glory be on the name) can be considered as a true peer of the author or authors. For verily, was it not written by the great Phil Jones (all honour be placed upon him), that it shall come to pass that the Peer review process shall be redefined as necessary, to keep the holy consensus.
Tautological statement. How can a true sceptic believe anything? Scepticism is the antithesis of belief. Sceptics may accept a proposition (for now), but that acceptance is always provisional on the basis that the proposition has not yet been disproved. There is a considerable body of empirical evidence that falsifies the hypothesis of Anthropogenic Climate Change, ergo it does not exist, and therefore there is no longer anything to be sceptical about, in respect of climate (all glory to the creator).
90
Rereke, you presumably in your life have come to understand some area pretty well. You know a lot about it that the average bloke in the street doesn’t. Say you are a builder. You know a lot of stuff. You know when someone is bullshitting you. Because you know a lot. Maybe you don’t know exactly what they are talking about, but you can bring in other related knowledge to evaluate what they are saying. A good builder has a vast collection of information in their head, organised in such a way that it is easy to retrieve, and easy to add to. Its a “body of knowledge”.
I’m not a climate scientist. But if I was, I’d understand exactly what the moist adiabatic lapse rate was, and why it mattered. I’d understand heat transfer in the atmosphere, and the radiative properties of gases. I’d know exactly how the various climate models treated the components of the land/ocean/atmosphere system. I’d know what features hadn’t been incorporated yet, and I’d have an idea of their order of magnitude. And there are plenty of things I don’t even know that I don’t know. But if I was a climate scientist, I’d know them.
I find it fascinating that lots of older men start to doubt the competence of others. There are many who are convinced that they could do a better job than Wayne Swan. What is this strange disease that leads people to doubt the expertise, or even just the competences of others?
117
Trot out the Argument from authority one more time John?
Follow it up with age discrimination.
Very progressive of you.
110
There were branches of science in past eras which had their lecturers and experts long before the science was adequate to needs. That’s clearly where “climate science” stands now. When you had an authority telling you they were in the know with the latest they may have been right. It’s just that the latest was not good enough. Best available knowledge is useless when it is not adequate knowledge. Want some pre-Lister surgery?
But I appreciate your bluntness and prefer it to the schtick of coming on to the site with: “I’m really a bit of a skeptic myself, and I just wanted to ask some questions, because I’m very curious and wonder if anyone could help me with some answers.”
No, John, I can’t agree with you, but at least you’re not running stunts. Sick of these stunts. GetUp and McTernan. My God.
By the way, me doing a better job than Wayne Swan is neither here nor there, as I’m not aspiring to be Treasurer. He sucks something shocking, that’s all.
110
Not every climate scientist has expertise in climate. Some such as Gavin Schmidt only need a degree in applied mathematics to be employed in the field. You have to wonder why any models constructed by NASA GISS are such predictive failures.
30
Rereke,
It’s that “corpus delicti” that everyone thinks is a real body. I think it’s kept hidden under someone’s bed. They must shuffle it around in the middle of the night to keep us confused about where it is.
30
I deny that you are ignorant. Now, according to your definition….
20
Salby and Plimer are only ridiculed by the true believers.. because its all the true belivers have. They have no REAL arguements.
Salby and Plimer present ideas based on sound scientific data which they have readily available. The very opposite of the consensus climate scientist.
The whole of so-called anthropogenic climate science is built on data manipulation and shoddy, unvalidated models which have a total lack of any scientific reality or credibility.
61
Salby presented an idea that the recent increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere was due to natural causes. I think he said that a paper would be forthcoming, but of course we haven’t seen it. Everyone on the “skeptical” side has stopped talking about Salby. You don’t see “skeptics” saying that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is nothing to do with the tonnes of the stuff we emit every second. They don’t say it because it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Like so many “skeptical” ideas, it has a brief period in the sun, and then is put back in the cupboard, ready to trot out again if an opportune moment arises.
But you must live in backwards world.
117
The world is going backwards thanks to devotees such as yourself.[Brooks].
50
No John, Salby’s evidence backed hypothesis has not disappeared but still attracts attention.
Here’s Judith Curry, a climate scientist’s response after listening to the Murry Salby podcast delivered at the Sydney Institute:
“JC comments: If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science. Salby and I were both at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the 1990′s, but I don’t know him well personally. He is the author of a popular introductory graduate text Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics. He is an excellent lecturer and teacher, which comes across in his podcast. He has the reputation of a thorough and careful researcher. While all this is frustratingly preliminary without publication, slides, etc., it is sufficiently important that we should start talking about these issues.”
http://sppiblog.org/news/carbon-cycle-questions#more-6094
Or from another skeptic site published a few months ago:
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Climate scientist Dr. Murry Salby explains why man-made CO2 does not control climate
In a highly recommended lecture, Dr. Murry Salby, professor and Climate Chair at Macquarie University, Australia, debunks the popular myth that man-made CO2 controls global temperature. Dr. Murry proves from observations the opposite is true: natural changes in global temperature instead control CO2 levels and that man-made emissions do not control either atmospheric CO2 or the climate. Dr. Salby also debunks the notion that changes in greenhouse gases control ocean temperatures, showing that the huge heat capacity of the ocean means that a tiny ocean cooling of < 0.0005C could cause all atmospheric warming of < 1C observed since pre-industrial times. Dr. Salby shows why nature, not man, is the cause of the increase in CO2 by demonstrating that only the integral of temperature changes explains the changes in atmospheric CO2, not a slow steady rise in man-made emissions.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/climate-scientist-dr-murry-salby.html
Then there is this summary on Jennifer Marohasy's blog:
The following summary is courtesy of Luke Walker:
“Carbon dioxide is emitted by human activities as well as a host of natural processes. The satellite record, in concert with instrumental observations, is now long enough to have collected a population of climate perturbations, wherein the Earth-atmosphere system was disturbed from equilibrium. Introduced naturally, those perturbations reveal that net global emission of CO2 (combined from all sources, human and natural) is controlled by properties of the general circulation. That is properties internal to the climate system that regulate emission from natural sources. The strong dependence on internal properties indicates that emission of CO2 from natural sources, which accounts for 96 per cent of its overall emission, plays a major role in observed changes of CO2. Independent of human emission, this contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is only marginally predictable and not controllable.
Professor Murry Salby holds the Climate Chair at Macquarie University and has had a lengthy career as a world-recognised researcher and academic in the field of Atmospheric Physics. He has held positions at leading research institutions, including the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, Princeton University, and the University of Colorado, with invited professorships at universities in Europe and Asia. At Macquarie University, Professor Salby uses satellite data and supercomputing to explore issues surrounding changes of global climate and climate variability over Australia. Professor Salby is the author of Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics, and Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate due out in 2011.
Professor Salby’s latest research makes a timely and highly-relevant contribution to the current discourse on climate.”
So you see John the promised paper when it appears is icing on the cake for those who are interested in a more rational, evidence based hypothesis, concerning our CO2 emissions, than the futile guesses the alarmist brigade have so far offered. Thanks for reminding us of this interesting contribution to climate science.
81
Plimer, unfortunately, isn’t a good spokesman for the cause. He has no debating skills so he’s just inviting attack when he appears publicly. It’s hard to use him as support for the skeptical position because of this.
It’s a classical case of shooting the messenger for the messenger’s shortcomings while ignoring the strength of the message.
One of the most powerful arguers for the Republican cause, Senator Marco Rubio, had a clumsy moment during his rebuttal to Obama’s state of the union address when he reached for a bottle of water. He’s been nothing but attacked and ridiculed for that while the strength of his message goes ignored. I think in the end he’ll come out of it all the stronger if he doesn’t let himself get bogged down in it.
Rubio is a guy who will learn how to do it better. But Plimer doesn’t seem to improve. It’s too bad he’s not what he should be. But he isn’t and we should concentrate on putting our best face to the world.
60
“you are just hunting for evidence to reinforce your preferred point of view.”
The CAGW bletheren have been hunting for evidence for 20-30 years..
And the STILL don’t have any !!!
110
THEY still don’t have any !!
40
And still don’t have any!
20
Truth be told, jb, is that you and your mates are the true DENIERS … of the Scientific Method, DENIERS … of the physical measurements, DENIERS … of the Truth.
Here’s some warmista logic for you, Hilter was a socialist (fact), therefore Nazism is socialism, jb is a socialist (your own admission), therefore jb is a Nazi. See simple deduction a la warmista.
91
The only reason Jo doesn’t like the term ‘denier’ is because it’s so effective.
Someone who denies what the climate scientists are telling them is a denier of climate science.
Without access to unadulterated objectivity (any gods in the house?), the state of any science can only ever be assessed as a function of the opinions of the experts within the field.
Plimer, Jo & David, His Lordship, Watts, Inhofe, Alan Jones etcetera are all laypeople in the realm of climate science. As much as they may claim and wish otherwise, they simply don’t have the requisite expertise to critically evaluate the majority of climate science papers. Hence, whether they deny the messages contained therein should be immaterial.
Plimer is a fake because he pretends to be something he is not. ie An authority on climate science. Cook is not a fake because he doesn’t pretend to be an authority on climate science. He has the good fortune of being able to refer to the actual authorities on climate science. All he has to do is successfully parrot the scientists!
424
I wish I’d written that. Beautifully put.
317
Gracias 🙂
29
Isn’t it the behaviour of parrots like Cooke that discredit the work of Climate Scientists and rob them of their credibility ?
20
(The tl;dr is that arguments from authority are not intrinsically representative of fallacious reasoning)
The argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) can take several forms. As a statistical syllogism, the argument has the following basic structure:
Most of what authority A has to say on subject matter S is correct.
A says P about subject matter S.
Therefore, P is correct.
The strength of this authoritative argument depends upon two factors:
The authority is a legitimate expert on the subject.
There exists consensus among legitimate experts in the subject matter under discussion.
The two factors — legitimate expertise and expert consensus — can be incorporated to the structure of the statistical syllogism, in which case, the argument from authority can be structured thus:
X holds that A is true.
X is a legitimate expert on the subject matter.
The consensus of subject-matter experts agrees with X.
Therefore, there exists a presumption that A is true.
Hopefully this allows the patient reader to distinguish between an IPCC report and a petition project 🙂
115
Is uncertainty really so poorly understood by authorities on climate science, or is it just their fawning minions that don’t get it ? Advocates otoh don’t tend to acknowledge uncertainty.
60
Tristan, quit plagiarizing Wikipedia! Next time, use quotation mark and a citation you pedantic pseud!
Your comment illustrates your feelings of inadequacy.
41
Tristan,
How’s that ONE brain cell going ??
Don’t strain it to much as it’s the ONLY one you have !
21
Tristan and mate John, The only reason you are here is because Jo is so effective.
Continue on your path of destruction, there will always be some sane and rational people to keep you safe.
Take your precautionary principle, your irrational fear of carbon, your willingness to accept without question a theory with no empirical evidence to back it, to follow the high priests of Green with dreams of saving a world that doesn’t need your help……and stuff them.
Skeptics are effective, we woke you from your irrational dreams. You and Ricky and Phil and Quack you just can’t take it can you. He he he he.
160
WOW! JUST PLAIN WOW!
Tristan,
If my teenage son had said something like that I would understand it. But from an adult… …you are an adult, aren’t you? Aren’t you?
Aren’t you ashamed of having said, “All he has to do is successfully parrot the scientists!” in reference to John Cook?
If there are any in the house pretending to be gods it’s you, Tristan, you and your friends.
90
“you are an adult, aren’t you?”
I don’t think Tristan is actually an adult..Pre-pubescent would be my guess
Either that or he is a far-left greenie, which is much the same mentality.
60
It is effective — effective bullying.
But it isn’t science, and it isn’t English.
That’s why I insist commenters need to speak accurately. The kind of people who resort to lies through abuse of the English language obviously have no evidence, and thus not much ability to think.
If someone can’t name evidence we deny but calls us deniers anyway, seems the poor sods are defending their blind religion, hoping to impress their mindless friends and the other sheep higher-up-the-pecking-order with their me-too name-calling.
It’s a game five year olds play at kindy.
Found that evidence yet Tristan.?
141
Joanne.
Someone who denies what the [vast majority of] climate scientists are telling them is a denier of climate science.
True or False?
As for what you deny:
You deny that the expert assessment of the temperature records is valid.
You deny that the expert assessment of the ice extent or glacial retreat is valid.
You deny that the expert assessment of clmate sensitivity is valid.
You deny that the expert assessment of mitigation:adaptation costs is valid.
That adds up to a fairly strong denial of the state of climate science. Shortened, it makes you a climate science denier. ‘Climate change denier’ is a bit idiomatic. Idiomatic in that most people know what it means and know that it isn’t precisely literal.
In each case, you choose to take the interpretation of non-experts, or (in a couple cases) experts who have failed to show why their opinions are credible.
In each case, you have seemingly exercised limited personal effort to critically analyse the respective positions.
I’ve never seen a real exposition of the differences between temperature records on this site, despite your repeated claims of stalled warming. I’ve never seen any temperature related commentary on this site that leads me to believe you understand the temperature records or how they’re explored.
This doesn’t surprise me. You’re not a statistician, much less a statistician who works in the field of climate science. I don’t expect you to know the difference between GISS and HadCRUT, UAH and STAR. I don’t expect you to know about the process of kriging, the details of temperature data quality control or how one might attempt to find the best explanatory variables for the temperature record.
You don’t attempt to be an expert. You’ve glued all pages of the book together but one, because all the other pages will really rock your boat and you know it. This sort of myopia doesn’t lend itself to investigative journalism, which is why, despite your talent for language, your posts rarely constitute more than sloganeering.
012
Cut the shit Tristan.
You know full well you use the term “denier” because it pisses skeptics off.
You also know that the term is used to make comparisons to holocaust deniers, in order to denigrate skeptics.
You can justify it any way you like, but that’s how it is.
I suppose you feel tougher by using the term?
80
Dear Heywood
I don’t tend to use the term ‘denier’ at all. I use ‘contrarian’ or put skeptic in quotation marks.
Personally, I’d like a term that alluded to the anti-vacs, tobacco advocates, HIV->AIDS deniers and creationists. I think that’d be more appropriate. 🙂
07
Doh Tristan:
False. I agree that 97% of official “Climate scientists” tell us the world will warm by 3.3C plus or minus a lot.
Righto, and you still can’t name any observations that prove your case (and which I deny). How many years have you been denying you have a religious belief?
Do you deny that the scientific method demands predictions match observations?
Looks like you are a scientific method denier.
And idiotic is someone who pushes this pathetic cop-out for bullying and petty name-calling. Your assertion that most people realize that “denier” is not literal is, as usual, founded upon nothing but a convenient excuse you made up on the spot.
Those who call others “science deniers” are the real deniers.
110
You dont deny that the numbers which people use to form decisions exist, you deny their interpretations are correct. No one can ever ‘show you the evidence’ because you’ll simply say it isn’t evidence! Greenland could melt and you’d still be telling us
climate scientists have it all wrong.
There have been many predictions from credible authorities, some have overshot (SATs), some have undershot (SLR, summer sea ice extent), as you’d expect. Not coincidentally, there is a relationship between those predictions.
There have also been some predictions from some not so credible “experts”. It’s been a while since you mentioned John McLean, Jo. 😉
112
Tristan,
On the contrary, it doesn’t matter how much evidence I show you, nothing I say will change your mind.
You say nothing will change mine, but I believed in man-made global warming for 17 years, then did exactly that. There goes that theory eh?
You’re in denial Tristan.
Cue another logical fallacy coming our way….
120
Beware! Tristan the righteous has spoken. Bow thee down before him or forever be banished to the netherworld of scientific gobbledygook where confusion reigns forever, thy mind confounded endlessly by thy denial of science.
Oh! Wait a minute here. That’s what Tristan is selling. I almost got caught up in it. Shame on you, Roy! Shame on you! 🙁
Tristan, are you related to Obama? You both have that gift of a silver tongue — very seductive. No? Too bad! You two could accomplish a whole lot if you’d team up. You might even conquer the world.
I cringe and shudder when I see so much talent with words being wasted on bullshit.
30
“Denier” is just plain wrong. The correct term is “Infidel”
40
“He (John Cook) has the good fortune of being able to refer to the actual authorities on climate science. All he has to do is successfully parrot the scientists!”
John Cook has an undergraduate degree in astronomy so he obviously, by his own standard, has no way of judging whether his one sided promotion of the alarmist climate scientist’s papers are valid in terms of the basic science and observations. Though he is being consistent in acknowledging his ignorance of climate science, that consistency leads him to a naïve reliance on the peer reviewers who are also alarmist climate scientists.
That’s the sort of distorted John Cook logic that makes him irrelevant to most ACC skeptics for whom he is nothing more than a propagandist in an incredible cause.
30
Someone who denies what “some” climate scientists-activists are telling them when the empirical data contradicts said scientists “message” is not a science denier. These propagandists are basing their opinions or computer models that have proven to have failed in their predictive ability.
A scientist with ethics would focus on why their predictions failed, not ignore it. Such as the predicted rate of warming that was far below IPCC low-end estimates. Yet only a month ago, we had scientists stating that not only that the predictions of warming were accurate, warming was accelerating and worse than predicted!?
30
Such as rate of warming
00
Like it or not, Plimer backs up a lot of his statements in his book ‘Heaven and Earth’ with references to published work, but unfortunately not always.
Material I have checked because it falls within my area of career expertise is correct – for example, he refers to Professor Paul Reiter’s publications which set the record straight regarding malaria.
It’s an interesting book, and relevant to the issues – unlike John Cook’s incredibly tedious ‘Climate Change Denial’. It would appear that Mr. Cook has now become a psychologist as well as a climate expert.
10
JB: “Of course you are deniers”
JN: Of course you would say that. You like to believe you think for yourself, and yet you can’t provide any evidence to support your faith. The cognitive dissonance would kill you.
How will you cope when you find out you’ve been blindly following the herd, following leaders so smart they can’t plot a linear trend in Excel.
121
Dear John, You really nailed your colours to the mast with that outburst. If any one on here is a denier it is your total denial of truth. It would seem to me that both you and this Tristan person have totally denied history. Contrary to your beliefs science and history goes back further than the 1970 ies. I do wish for both your peace of minds that you would do some objective research, the truth will set you free.
20
Phil, we’ve reached the point where we’re dealing with deniers in denial.
319
That’s rich;
coming from someone who gets paid by the number of lines they can get posted here!
I’d say with 95% certainty that you and Dr Phil are getting about 42 cents per line; that’s AUD.
Considering that most of what get layed down is cut and paste from SkS , it isn’t worth even that.
The laba Pati must be feeling very desperate to have to do this but hell; it’s the money; if they lose they have to hand back the keys to the treasury and face an AUDIT.
Then we will find out where the money went.
Shades of NSW.
KK
60
Ok, KK, you made me chuckle. I don’t recall linking to a Skeptical Science page, I tend to read other sites. Like NASA’s original temperature data which indicate a rise in temperatures over your favourite period which is double what Monckton represents. No-one’s been able to explain how Monckton got those numbers so wrong. Then again, his tertiary education was a BA in Classics and a diploma in journalism. Some scientist. If I was getting paid to be on this site, why do you think I post at weekends and evenings? If I was getting paid by the line, I’d be here 50 hours a week and I’d research and respond to every one of the weird and wonderful comments from the misguided and poorly informed posters on this site.
04
“Phil, we’ve reached the point where we’re dealing with deniers in denial.”
Another way of looking at it is that you and Phil aren’t persuasive expositors of the alarmist variety of climate science. Come to think of it you are about as competent at winning disciples as John Cook is. In other words your number for disciples gained it seems is zilch. Stiff shit lads
40
Well lleW,
I didn’t realise I needed to be persuasive. I thought we were talking science. If you don’t accept that the 1980s forecasts are proving to be accurate, I’m not sure how you can be convinced that the 21st century version is accurate.
Quite pleased with that palindrome.
01
So immediately we come down to definitions of a word.
My definition of “skeptic” is a person who remains to be convinced. It is the antonym of “believer”. To be a “skeptic” is to be open minded about something. To not be skeptical, is to be persuaded to the point of rejecting all contrary views. So the antonym of “skepticism” would be “dogmatism,” a word that is usually applied to religions that have an enforced creed, which seems appropriate in the current debate.
This is a fine example of a circular argument that conflates two concepts. We have the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), which is one concept. And we have the practice of Climate Science, which is another concept. The former is yet to be demonstrated by empirical means, or by consistent observations over any meaningful timeframe, and is only evident in the outputs from Computer Models. These Computer Models are man-made artifacts produced in the practice of Climate Science. The two concepts are therefore exclusively mutually supportive. One cannot exist without the other, and neither have any tangible connection with the natural World, other than serendipity.
This is also an interesting comment. Since, through a process of projection, you assume that skeptics have beliefs regarding a scientific argument. Skeptics do not. To be skeptical is to not believe anything without demonstrable and repeatable proof. It is those who rely on man-made computer models as “proof” who have a belief system.
Skeptics are not intolerant of others presenting scientific data. What they are skeptical about is others presenting data that has been manipulated in various ways, such as being adjusted, homogenised, rationalised, smoothed, and other techniques designed to obfuscate the real data, such as data series being “lost”. It is interesting, is it not, that climate science is the only discipline in the non-commercial arena to refuse to release the raw data, the details of any subsequent adjustments to that data, and the definitions of file layouts for the data. Is it any wonder that people become skeptical about the veracity of the data upon which everything else depends?
. In general abuse is swapped for abuse, as reasoned argument is exchanged for reasoned argument. Calling somebody “a denier” is abusive. Nobody who frequents this blog denies that the weather changes, nobody denies that global temperatures are increasing. In fact, I would be interested in knowing what exactly it is, that you think deniers, deny?
70
“Skeptical scientist” used to be a tautology. Now “skeptical climate scientist” is an oxymoron.
Anyway “Denier is just plain wrong. The correct term is “Infidel”
00
Dr Phil says;
“show all the characteristics of the psychological state of denial”
Now Phil are you a Biochemist, a psychologist, or Psychiatrist.
KK
00
I thought the following article in The Australian might raise some alarms:
How long before one of the research precincts is designated for renewables and climate research? Like we don’t have enough already…
90
This is just a test, i have nothing to say in regards to one J Cock
50
If you ever visit Canberra make sure you visit the suburb of Cook. Surrounding the suburb are suburb signs, as is the way with Canberra, and each has “COOK” written on them in large black letters with white background.
It only takes a small amount of white packing tape.
80
Ha ha ha
20
Don’t laugh it is a regular event and it traumatises the residents.
20
Will be in Canberra for Easter at the Folk Festival, will check it out.
Maybe
KK 🙂
10
As does the folk festival! Or maybe I am confusing it with summernats.
00
Not to be confused with the famous British mariner Captain J Coq
10
According to a quote at ABC Science, exporting coqal is akin to profitting from slavery or illegal drugs:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/02/19/3692891.htm
I couldn’t force myself to read through the whole OP drivel which is rife with links to all the usual suspects like the Australia Institute (Dennis’ laughable paper … yes, the guy that got logically eviscerated by Monckton some time back). Despite being an advocacy piece this is blogged under “ABC Science” … see, I am vaguely on topic. My response, in case it doesn’t get up:
70
Ah a quick Google out of curousity and this turns up:
http://fionaarmstrong.com.au/
From the home page:
She says advocacy twice… I guess she likes advocacy (reminiscent of Blazing Saddles).
120
Advocacys clearly what she does. The other words are just dressing up the advocacy. She seems remarkably frank about it though. Does she realise the relative merits of advocacy vs. objectivity I wonder.
10
I see Cook really thinks he presents the science .
“John says, ultimately, there will always be people like his father-in-law that will not believe the science, no matter what evidence you put to them. “What I’ve learnt is that people’s views which are not based on evidence and facts can’t be swayed by evidence and facts.”
John, we are still waiting for you to present the evidence of AGW.
John, time to listen to your Father-in-Law – he’s right you’re wrong.
111
Go look at Skeptical Science. They present actual published papers there all the time.
127
Yeah, Lew papers John.
100
and what are Lew papers usefor ? UWA .
30
Yeh JB. I prefer my published papers be observation, evidence and honesty based – NOT using the Lewandowski method.
130
And???……… ………???
50
I read published papers every day. I don’t belong to a university so I have to pay for these personally. With my excellent epidemiological, econometric, engineering, quantitative skills I still read no empirical scientific evidence proving that human CO2 emissions are responsible for runaway catarsophic global warming. Care to provide the name of the paper, author, date etc John so I may read for myself? Cook is no expert on this subject and neither are you. Go back to your useless blog and your administrative duties as a physics (sic) ummmm, arrrr, not really sure what you do for your taxpayer funds. Maybe you can explain your own expertise??
20
The burden of proof is always on the accuser. So far as we’ve plainly seen, the observed evidence presented for
inadvertent climate modification,global warming,global change,climate disruption,climate change, catastrophic anthropogenically generated climate change is severely lacking.151
Only if you want to put someone in jail.
220
Don’t worry. The evidence for that is amassing. The criminal underworld </a
may be a soft touch and a convenient scapegoat when it comes to diverting blame for the waste of billions, but they are just testing opportunities created by a bureaucratically rigged market , where the real culprits seek to put themselves beyond the law.
90
Rubbish JB. How about publishing a paper that PROVES your assertions? Oh, wait.. I forgot how your kind works..
60
Why do you think that could be?
Accusing CO2 of causing catastrophic global warming because ice cores show increased CO2 associated with warmer times is the same as accusing the fire brigade of starting fires because they are often seen when there’s a fire.
Indeed, the fire brigades can be accused of all sort of heinous crimes as they travel about “going equipped”; with axes, ladders, cutting tools, etc to break into anything at a whim; which is just like the CO2 molecule being able to absorb and emit narrow bands of radiation better than the majority diatomic molecules of the air that aren’t so “equipped”.
Why John, as a graduate with a degree in a hard science, do you refuse to apply the hard science to the be critical of the ideas that you hold? Have you ever analysed systematically, the nature of how data have been collected? Have you considered, using first principles, how energy flows into, through and out of our climate system? How it is “stored” during diurnal, seasonal and longer cycles?
Have you ever stood outside in the sun when a cloud passes overhead and tried to make sense of all that you observe based on those first principles?
110
“Only if you want to put someone in jail”.
JB, I assume you are referring to Roxons proposed laws reversing the onus of proof?
So, your rants are offensive to me and so you are happy to prove that you didn’t offend me?
So the burden of proof is now on you the defendant.
Ahh, progressivism. It’s like a disease. The more it progresses, the worse it gets.
30
JB. The burden of proof rests with those who propose to massively disprupt the global economy and social structure, and maintain human misery for the long-term in underdeveloped countries.
Even if you fall back on the precautionary principle, you will still need to demonstrate that the worst-case event has some reasonably probable chance of happening, AND that the precautionary actions proposed are not themselves going to cause irreversible damaging change in other ways.
Perhaps JB you need to start thinking in terms of equating the value outcomes of making either Type I or Type II statistical errors. (False alarm vs false sense of security). You will then understand that the only reasonable, prudent course of action in relation to CAGW is to adapt first and if necessary mitigate later. We have at least a human generation of time in which to safely make further observations about the effects of CO2 on climate, and in that future time (if we dont get silly and vote in the likes of Julia again) our improved economic condition will mean we are better able to act. We’ll have more and better resources and skills available to deal with whatever’s happening.
20
Oh it looks like the $70 billion “carbon market” in the EU is struggling:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/eu-poised-to-set-fate-of-carbon-market-20130219-2eotk.html
In true EU fashion the komissars will jump in and artificially pump up the price in what should be a free market. I hope we get linked to this market ASAP as the permits were trading at “2.81 euros a metric ton last month.”
I think to describe this as a farce would be too kind…
70
What a well written piece!
21
NASA state on their website that mankind have not yet developed the technology to accurately measure CO2 quantities in the atmosphere. The Mauna Los Observatory in Hawaii have been recording CO2 reading since 1958 at 318 ppm to 2013 at 395 ppm. This gives an average yearly increase in CO2 of 1.4ppm,and would take 227 years to double the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Dr David Evans a mathematician and engineer with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University, and a expert in climate system feedbacks says a doubling of CO2 would lead to 1,1C increase in temperature. This would mean it would take 206 years for the World to warm 1.1C.The measured warming rate,1952-2012 was 1.2C/century. This proves increasing CO2 is slowing down Global warming.
70
Well one might venture it just suggests some other factors are having a bigger influence. Alarmists are conditioned to blame it all or mostly on feedbacks ( which your above might suggest to be x2) except like now, when warming has stalled for 16 years.
It’s the apparent steadiness of CO2 rise , vs. temp. trends changing regularly, that tends to give the lie to CO2 being the main culprit, for thinking observers anyway. (but I realise you just forgot the sarc tag 😉
50
Him Peter.
Every time I hear someone say
“for a doubling of CO2 there will be an increased temperature anomaly of 2 degrees”,
or whatever, I feel very uncomfortable.
My own view is that perhaps David and others who make these assessments do so conditionally, conditional on some CO2 heat trapping mechanism being true and applicable, but which they are not too sure of.
I have no doubt that CO2 is selectively able to trap more ground origin radiation than many other gases in the Earth’s Atmosphere.
What I also know from basic physics is that these energized CO2 molecules will instantaneously transfer energy to nearby gas molecules until equilibrium, at least locally, is reached.
At this stage we are dealing with air, rather than CO2, and air behaves in very predictable ways which do not include CO2 acting as an accelerant for atmospheric water vapour and so on as per the CAGW mantra.
If any more theoretical basis for removing CO2 from contention is needed it must be borne in mind that any
additional capacity of CO2 to “heat the air” is limited by the asymptotic relationship which is in effect a
law of diminishing returns.
More CO2 can do little more than it is doing because the absorption spectra in which CO2 operates are nearly FULLY absorbed by existing CO2.
In plain English this means that there is no Ground Origin IR left to absorb since it has all been taken up by existing levels of CO2.
Additional CO2 can’t absorb more IR because there is non there.
There are other factors like water vapour competing with CO2 in some spectral bands but there is no need to look at this.
The Law of Diminishing Returns applies here fully and undiminished and it must be remembered that this so called CO2 Mechanism is but one of many influences on the mass, heat and momentum transfer in the Earths atmosphere and it is piddling and irrelevant.
If ever there was a molehill that was turned into a mountain it was CO2.
I say “was” because the refutation of the importance of CO2 in global warming is so basic that it is inarguable and that is why so many new variations of the story keep cropping up to keep the scam alive for just one more day.
Another day, another Million AUD$ or Euro or USD$ who cares just give em the money.
KK 🙂
10
*sigh*
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/02/if-global-warming-is-real-how-come-its-always-raining/
Tweak the models, make some new “observations” and LOOK! Rain is caused by global warming!
10
Apparently another Convoy of Incontinence is meeting in Canberra, motivated by those well known climate scientists, Alan Jones and Ray Hadley. Who is up for it?
223
Its that sort of attitude to people trying to make their point that has got the ALP is soooooo much trouble ! The petulant arrogance etc.
I would say the McTernan influence, but people like Sleavy, Liar, Goose, Tiny dancer etc have had that ignorant arrogance all their life.. Just like you.
80
Maxines not that bad, really. She just parrot’s the bile she picks up elsewhere , from the company she keeps, without really understanding it , without thinking for herself – like most of their followers do.
70
Tell me about it! I recently had one tell me that the MET CRU’s own charts had been debunked! She didn’t even know what she was looking at!
40
Maxine is actually Max.
There was a blurred photo provided on one occasion.
KK
50
Hey, a blurred photograph of a bearded man, Could still be of a bearded woman.
60
Otter, that would be Marxine I suppose.
30
Sooo.. This person’s THAT confused huh? Figures, for a trolling Greenie. Sitting round in drum circles endlessly singing kumbayah will do that.
80
Oh Maxine, if you were serious, you’d have given us a link or a reference, surely.
But thanks for trying.
It appears to be a protest at Government corruption. Doesn’t mention the Carbon Tax ( notwithstanding that that’s what earned Julia her now eponymous moniker). No that was mere deceiving the masses, sleight of hand , playing of the political system. Nothing illegal in that. This is about something else though. Rotten to the Core Eh! – and it’s not about apples.
80
44:56 Nielson.
Oh Dear.
Come September, poor Maxine will have to withdraw back to the bile that is the blog of little consequence, also known as Political Animal.
A whole 46 members… Wow. You will soon have more members of your blog than the ALP will have federally.
100
Unfortunately the government leadership will be unable to confront the Convoy. They are engaged in a lengthy re-enactment of the 1953 Kremlin cabinet tussles. Everybody wants to play Krushchev, but someone has to be Beria and just get the job done!
I dunno. These posh middle class leftoids!
80
Hmmm….. but look at the ultimate fate of Lavrenti Beria.
10
I thought the convoy of incontinence was the ALP caucus as they think about what the people of australia are going to do to them at the next election
40
I wish they wouldn’t. Things are going well enough without that sort of distraction.
20
You wanna get pwnd again, sunshine ? You’re too weak to argue around here.
20
I can think of an alternative book.
title “Climate change cultist”
front cover “a bird with its head up its arse”
51
Yes, that’s something I cannt help thinking of whenever I hear that Corporate jargon:- ‘Lets have a heads up”, to which I usually cann’t resist asking where, and they think I’m talking about the choice of room.
40
The room with a view, obviously.
40
STOP PRESS!
A
consensus of evidenceconvergence of ignorance has been found!☃ ☃ ☃ ☃ ☃
“Ten climate scientists (count ’em) say the idea of less snow and more blizzards makes sense: A warmer world is likely to decrease the overall amount of snow falling each year and shrink snow season.
How can that be? It’s been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction.”
☃ ☃ ☃ ☃ ☃
And you thought the science was settled.
Seeing as they were wrong, new findings have found they are now right.
More so, “it’s worse than what we thought!”
“Strong snowstorms thrive on the ragged edge of temperature,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Do tell…
110
Reading beyond the headline, the USA Today story continues:
But the answer lies in atmospheric physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. Projections are that that’s likely to continue with man-made global warming.
– The United States has been walloped by twice as many of the most extreme snowstorms in the past 50 years than in the previous 60 years, according to an upcoming study on extreme weather by leading federal and university climate scientists. This also fits with a dramatic upward trend in extreme winter precipitation — both rain and snow — in the Northeastern U.S. charted by the National Climatic Data Center.
— Yet the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University says that spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has shrunk on average by 1 million square miles in the last 45 years.
— And an upcoming study in the Journal of Climate says computer models predict annual global snowfall to shrink by more than a foot in the next 50 years. The study’s author said most people live in parts of the United States that are likely to see annual snowfall drop between 30 and 70 percent by the end of the century.
“Shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch,” Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said. “That’s the new world we live in.”
01
An upcoming study will reveal that there is also a possibility of longer snow seasons and greater snow cover, with fewer extremes. This eerily calm and disturbingly static climate regime will result from…you know…the same warming stuff that’s causing all the other bad stuff.
The possibility of greater Arctic ice cover in the coming decades has been linked to that same warming stuff that might cause reduced ice cover. NASA experts not currently chained to Daryl Hannah are concerned that a similar ice build-up is occurring right now in the Antarctic!
Though not specifically mentioned in the study, Golden Roughs and Mint Patties are expected to get even smaller, and there will be even greater misogyny within Australian sport – especially around Western Sydney.
00
It is also mentioned that “Cook doesn’t even want you to listen” and yet the page that is linked to discusses their arguments at length.
In response to Jo’s comments at #24.2:
I may have misunderstood you here, but why should Cook be interested in your arguments when the discussion is about the views of the former NASA employees?
According to the article you link to “None of those former NASA employees have conducted any climate science research”. If that’s correct, then how can their observations be discussed. Isn’t their “NASA” pedigree being used as a type of argument from authority here?
216
Dammit Dry, don’t use their own arguments against them!
417
Assert that you know what you are talking about. Maybe point out your academic qualifications. Then demand to be taken seriously. Argument by authority.
Make totally unsubstantiated absolute rubbish claim – blog science.
223
Academic qualifications don’t seem to matter as you never seem to exercise the scientific faculties that you should have acquired to gain your degree.
Besides, we recognize that resorting to the flying of one’s qualifications in an argument is a classical fallacy (appeal to authority – by proxy). One which you illustrate repeatedly and without shame.
140
jb, do you have any academic qualifications, I mean real qualifications ? Are you published ? Na, thought not … you just parrot the drivel that you hear in the tearoom.
30
Obviously this “john brookes” character believes that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end……….
21
And Angry believes insulting comments are a substitute for intelligent debate.
01
DryLiberal: If you have to conduct actual research to understand climate change, then does it follow you have to continue to do research and write articles to be an MD (and no one should go to you if you do not), to be a PhD psychologist, to be a university professor (and why are we granting tenure? They could stop publishing and then be unqualified. Drop tenure.). Shouldn’t all politicians have PHDs, being conducting approved sturdies and be writing in professional journals lest we be listening to idiots, which at the moment does seem to be the case. Defining as science expert as a research who publishes in peer-reviewed journals is problematic. If they stop publishing, then they become drooling fools and we no longer listen to them? And why publish the journal articles and allow the public access? No one not in research should be allowed to read them, even if they have equivalent degrees because you just made doing the research, not reading it, mandatory.
Publishing articles does not make you an authority, just a popular guy or a really good con artist.
10
dryliberal – Cooks article was about anyone who disagrees with him on man-made global warming. The NASA guys were a paragraph. “The” discussion was not about NASA. But as far as NASA experts go, readers of Cooks article were effectively told not to bother listening to them, they were “fake” old people who possessed “no actual climate expertise”, and after all, Cook knows, because he runs a blog. The old guys just put man on the moon. (Or themselves, pace Schmitt and Aldrin).
As for Cook “discussing” the NASA guys points, Cook repeats the anti-science litany that the science is settled. He claims world temperature trends are very well known for the last 100 years, even though the “trends” are still changing 30 years after they were measured. He keeps repeating the convoluted line that the IPCC was right in 1990 because if you allow for all their mistakes, they were spot on. Anyone who reads their exact predictions in real quotes can see they were definitively wrong. I could go on…
Cook doesn’t discuss the main arguments of skeptics (not in the article last week), he attacks strawmen, saying skeptics “inevitably” believe a conspiracy, and that skeptics use non-sequiter’s. (See my post)
Finally, Cook probably isn’t interested in my arguments, he seems to have trouble knocking them down.
231
I’m not sure why you think everyone who worked in NASA is a climate science expert. Maybe you know of papers they published in the field that I dont.
The team at SkS don’t have any trouble knocking down your arguments.
110
It does not take a climate scientist to realize that the arguments presented in support of CAGW are not science at all, but rather shamelessly manipulated statistical modelling. This is not science at all. The point re. NASA scientists (and others) is that they have the experience and nous to quickly recognise the unscientific methods used in support of CAGW.
111
Which is why Cook didn’t bother to reply to my dissection of his un-skeptical guide right?
130
I can’t speak for Cook, except to say that his role at SkS is pretty small these days.
It’s a bit presumptuous to contend that his lack of response is representative of anything in particular on his part. SkS already has pretty exhaustive responses to the arguments you use. If you have any further confusion, you can post on the relevant threads.
111
Funny, Cook was into Simon at ACM within minutes of a post going up about him a week or so ago, but not a single comment here…..
Maybe his lack of response here is representative of something in particular
50
I would…..but they’ll get edited or deleted.
10
Really? I suspect that’s me too then, because I reckon climate sensitivity is ~2C, whereas he probably goes with the IPCC midrange or 3C. So John Cook’s article was about me. So I better read it to find out some more about myself…
04
I reckon climate sensitivity to CO2 is 0 degrees. Can you present any evidence to prove me wrong?
20
Study falsifies IPCC: Climate has low sensitivity to CO2
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/missing-news-study-falsifies-ipcc.html
C3: NASA Peer-Reviewed Study Finds Low Sensitivity To CO2 Doubling: The UN’s IPCC Global Warming Science Is Imploding
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/12/nasa-peer-reviewed-study-finds-low-sensitivity-to-co2-doubling-the-uns-ipcc-global-warming-science-i.html
41
There is an effort underway in the US Senate to impose a carbon tax.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/polls/index.cfm
Go to the above link to let Sen. Bernie Sanders know how you feel about his proposed carbon tax.
30
The vote count does not look encouraging. 🙁
20
With the price of gasoline nearing $4 a gallon all we need is another tax.
10
I don’t think it will pass. But Obama is doing it anyway using the EPA to make regulations. That’s being challenged in court but who knows how it will turn out?
I think we should get ready for an unwelcome roller coaster ride.
00
With the price of gasoline at $4 a gallon, maybe you need a more efficient car, or a bicycle.
02
We need a more sensible government. I’m willing to pay what a real open, competitive market will set as the price. I am not willing to pay for manmade shortages that simply intend to force my behavior in a certain direction depending on how the political wind is blowing at the time.
A more efficient car (up to a point): yes. A bicycle: no.
20
Roy, I’d love an open efficient market without half a trillion dollars a years in subsidies to fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. You’d be paying more than $4 a gallon then. Are you aware that several states in Australia have 2km exclusion zones for wind turbines from any house, while in Anglesea a coal power plant is operating within coughing distance of a school? Any idea how many people die every year globally as a result of digging, shipping and burning coal? Scientific American published a table back in December 2011, I reckon it was. I’ll see if I’ve still got the original article, but from memory it was 34,000 deaths a year.
01
Then Ricardo K, you know exactly what to do, don’t you.
Don’t just talk about.
Lobby to shut them down.
Go ahead. See where that gets you.
Tony.
10
Ricardo,
Nice map! But the U.S. conveniently gives me, “Invalid data.” If there’s anything else to the energy subsidy database I can’t find it.
As for, “…how many people die every year globally as a result of digging, shipping and burning coal?” No, I have no idea at all. And I don’t think anyone else has either. I’m that cynical because every time I’ve dug into the source of such numbers it turns out to be one assumption piled on top of another. For mining there is decent history to go on. But there are also improved protection measures (at least) in the U.S. that have made a big reduction in exposure for coal miners. For the rest of it I must believe that numbers are being manipulated to mislead the public.
The actual price of a gallon of gas must always reflect the real cost of getting it into your tank, including the impact of supply and demand. Otherwise the gas won’t be there. And when you have, as we have, a government with a clear policy of forcing us out of fossil fuels into something that arguably is not going to do the necessary job, then I have no choice but to believe I’m not paying the free market price. Supply is restricted so the price goes up. Our energy crisis is demonstrably manmade so there is no free market.
As for 34,000 deaths a year: have you ever thought about the number of deaths that are likely when a city the size of Los Angeles finds it impossible to ship in food fast enough to feed everyone? Any sound analysis of renewable vs. fossil fuels leads straight to the conclusion of trouble of a kind unprecedented in modern history.
Unless you’re really in agreement with those who want to see civilization torn apart and humans drastically reduced in numbers then you need a different viewpoint.
Sorry if you don’t like any of that but I’ve been around a long time.
And by the way — I’ve lived where coal was the primary fuel for heating so I know what coal smoke is about. I even trained as “fireman” for the coal furnaces in the barracks where I was stationed. It was a much better job than constant KP while waiting in a holding company for my next assignment (a month of KP every other day or do something a little better — no-brainer). I’ll be quite happy to see cleaner technology, only not at the expense of simply exchanging one way of suffering for another one that looks like it will be worse than what it replaces. I don’t believe my exposure hurt me at all.
00
That oBUMMER is even worse than the gillard WITCH ……..
02
This is the article that was linked to . It is subtitled “Answering the NASA Retirees’ Questions”. Its content specifically addresses seven of their questions. I can’t see how this article refers to “anyone who disagrees with him”.
07
Hi Driberal
Who cares?
KK
40
Dryliberal: When I say “the” article I mean The Conversation and SMH repeat that this post is about. You know, the ones in the top two lines. Tricky eh?
120
Not “tricky” but unclear. When you said “the article above” it was directly under some quoted questions about the “NASA article” and there was another link above that (referring to “man-made global warming disproved”). I respectfully suggest that when numerous articles are present, rather than referring to “the article above”, you refer (or link to) the article that you mean. Otherwise it’s not clear.
06
The author of the original post appears to care because they have responded to my questions regarding this claim twice.
08
Appearing to care and actually caring are two completely different things.
Luckily Jo is willing to respond and make half an effort to engage those who at least attempt to debate.
Try getting the same treatment at SkS if the roles were reversed.
60
UK Energy Regulator again softens up consumers as Britain faces inevitable rising energy prices and loss of capacity as ‘ageing’ coal plants are shut in April to avoid a new EU imposed tax.
OfGem warns of higher energy prices in supply roller coaster
10
Brown-outs on the way.
More deaths among my neighbours next winter, possibly myself even.
Thanks Ecos.
30
This situation is entirely of our own making, from pandering to the Green wet dream. Taxing Coal powered generation out of existence until we have useless windmills everywhere. The solution is so obvious yet everyone seems so blind to just stopping pursuing the pointless persecution of coal generation in pursuit of a green fantasy.
When are this dozey Govt. going to wake up or have they already got too much invested in pursuing the myth ?
20
nice!
19 Feb: Bloomberg: U.K. Power Regulator Warns Bills Will Rise as Plants Shut
By Alex Morales & Rachel Morison
U.K. household energy bills are set to rise, with the share of generating capacity from gas doubling as aging oil and coal-fired stations close, the regulator said…
“Things are going to be very tight in three years’ time,” (Ofgem Chief Executive Officer Alistair)Buchanan said today on a conference call. “People have been asking me, ‘Well, where’s the new nuclear, where’s the new clean coal, where’s the new carbon capture?’ It’s not there, and it won’t be there this side of 2020,” he said…
“The government has destroyed the free market for new build capacity and there won’t be any new plants until there is a decision on the capacity mechanism,” he (Lakis Athanasiou, an independent equity analyst) said. “If there’s a cold winter in continental Europe and low nuclear availability, there could be shortages as early as next winter.”…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/u-k-power-regulator-warns-bills-will-rise-as-plants-shut.html
30
love that free market:
19 Feb: Bloomberg: Ewa Krukowska: Carbon Market’s Fate in Europe Hangs on EU Vote to Fix Surplus
The European Parliament’s environment committee is considering an amendment to EU emissions trading law that will enable sales of some carbon allowances to be delayed until the end of the decade, a process known as backloading. The panel’s non-binding opinion, due after 9 a.m. in Brussels, will serve as a recommendation for the whole parliament in a later vote.
At stake is the EU’s 54 billion euro ($72 billion) cap-and- trade system, which imposes emission limits on about 12,000 companies from EON SE, Germany’s largest utility, to steelmaker ArcelorMittal. The aim of backloading is to help support the price of carbon permits, which slumped to 2.81 euros a metric ton last month from more than 10 euros a year ago as Europe’s sputtering economy damped demand.
“If it’s ‘no’ for backloading, then the proposal could be politically dead,” Matthew Cowie, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London, said by e-mail. “If it passes with a clear majority, it could bode well for further legislative stages and prices may briefly rise to above 6 euros a ton.”…
The supply glut may exceed 1.5 billion tons by the end of 2013, Jos Debelke, the commission’s director general for climate, said Feb. 6. The surplus may swell to about 2 billion tons by 2020, he said…
The commission’s proposal won’t solve the oversupply problem because it reintroduces the permits at a later date, said Georg Zachmann, a researcher at Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank.
“It will be no tragedy if backloading doesn’t happen,” Zachmann said in a Feb. 15 phone interview. “The proposal would mean political intervention in the market and could destroy long-term credibility of the system.” …
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/carbon-market-s-fate-in-europe-hangs-on-eu-vote-to-fix-surplus.html
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What don’t I deny?
I don’t deny that there has been no warming for something like 16 years+
I don’t deny that climate models are non-validated guesses with many CO2 assumptions built in that cause them to be perpetually wrong. They don’t do clouds well either.
I don’t deny that that there has been zero increase in any forms of extreme weather, in fact most trend downwards.
I don’t deny that that the satellite record shows minor natural warming from 1979 to 1997, then a step change at the El Nino in 1998, then is basically level.
I don’t deny that the pre satellite record is soooo corrupted by Hansenite GISS adjustments that flow through basically every western climate record.
I don’t deny that UHI affects all land climate records and may add a significant amount to daily maximum and minimum temperatures.
I don’t deny that the Medieval warm period and Roman warm period were probably much warmer than the current mild conditions
I don’t deny that the general trend throughout the Holocene is to cooler climates
I don’t deny that that the pressure gradient in the atmosphere acts to COOL the Earth’s surface, not to warm it.
I don’t deny that their is not one iota of proof that CO2 causes any warming in an open atmosphere.
I don’t deny that there is no causal correlation from CO2 to atmospheric temperature
I don’t deny that Venus/Earth comparisons show absolutely no CO2 warming effect despite the CO2 levels being at opposite ends of atmospheric concentration.
I don’t deny that CO2 is highly beneficial to the biosphere and that we are current not much above plant starvation levels.
I don’t deny that coal is trapped carbon that used to be in the atmosphere when the Earth’s flora truly flourished.
I don’t deny that I will find great hilarity in watching the moronic antics of the CO2 haters/CAGW sympathisers as the satellite temperatures start to decline over the next several years
—————————
I’m sure that I could add quite a few more..
I am not a denier, I accept the facts
Do you ???
160
Hi AndyG55, you may now be able to add the following.
I don’t deny that the ALP/Greens Carbon Tax is so poorly designed that it generates billion dollar windfall profits for brown coal fired power stations operating in Victoria – paid for by Australian tax payers.
Very much in contradiction to their stated aims – with such skill at producing contrary results – I just hope that the ALP/Greens try really, really hard to win the September election – with their track form for effectiveness – they will wipe themselves out.
50
I haven’t read it.. so can’t comment.
It is meant to be a scientific paper?
If so then you should not ever use Wikipedia and blog as references, they are meaningless.
You should know that, surely.
Fix up the references. Then re-submit.
eg , the Tallbloke blog reference.. why not refer to the original paper??
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But Jo disagrees with you on this one.
09
And ?
Again a totally fatuous, meaningless, idiotic comment..
FFS GROW UP !
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Statistically irrelevant John? A statement of fact but scientifically irrelevant…..
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I’ll give you an invalid counter argument, “Its a load of rubbish, and almost everyone agrees with me on this”.
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John, Well done! That’s the most invalid counter argument I’ve ever come across.
Thumbs up!
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Expecting a logical argument from “john brookes” is like expecting an amoeba to think…
22
Talking about your resume again?
10
Hi Doug
I remember having some discussions or making comments on some of your posts quite some time ago.
At that time I expressed concern about some aspects of what you were doing.
Again I can’t recall what they were.
Without reading your paper but looking at the topic list it seems that a lot of work has been done in assessing the “other” sources of “heat” besides the CO2 Effect. This is something that the IPCC and cronies studiously avoided so that’s good.
The main thing is to work out whether CO2 in the atmosphere is likely to cause Global Warming if increased.
Enough physics people have clearly stated that the composition of the atmosphere is effectively irrelevant and no doubt you say this too.
So the main issue ; that CO2 variations can have no effect on atmospheric temperatures is just basic physics once the cover of all the clap trap used by warmers is identified and discarded.
There needs to be no more said than that.
However since you have apparently gone into the residual heat in the Earth that is good from the point of being able to put it aside in the assessments. It is a constant and for the CO2 vs Temp Anomaly it can be ignored.
What can’t be ignored, until the effect is quantified, is Vulcanism.
Just how much energy is pumped each year from this source is extremely variable but on average needs to be quantified.
Whatever.
It seems that CO2 can’t do the CAGW thing and the Sun is pretty much the only variable with Solar Output and Orbital Variations giving the largest Climatic variations.
KK
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“It seems that CO2 can’t do the CAGW thing and the Sun is pretty much the only variable with Solar Output and Orbital Variations giving the largest Climatic variations.”
I’d say that is pretty much in the ball park. But the science is FAR from settled.! 😉
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Andy
But do you deny that the big dollars are spent (and made) in Pro-AGW “research”?
And do you deny that this “research” has been largely, if not entirely, self-serving?
Do you deny that there is nothing as conservative or gutless as a “radical” or “progressive” ABC journalist? (Pardon the tautology.)
A nice summary – thanks.
Cheers,
Speedy
40
Doug, your theories and those of your fellow-travelling Slayers have about as much credibility as this guy (below). When you show you understand Second Law of Thermodynamics (see recent threads on Jo’s blog), I might try again to read one of your papers.
http://nujournal.net/core.pdf “Abstract: The heat generated inside our planet is predominantly of radionic (nuclear) origin. Hence, Earth in its entirety can be considered a slow nuclear reactor with its solid ”inner core” providing a major contribution to the total energy output. Since radionic heat is generated in the entire volume and cooling can only occur at the surface, the highest temperature inside Earth occurs at the center of the inner core. Overheating the center of the inner core reactor due to the so-called greenhouse effect on the surface of Earth may cause a meltdown condition, an enrichment of nuclear fuel and a gigantic atomic explosion.”
10
Doug
I think we may have discussed this mode of presentation before.
There is no point in quoting the names of various scientific laws and rules when you can’t explain what’s happening in simple English.
It makes people think you don’t have a real case.
Not only am I not going to look at Section 4 but I wont be looking at any of the ’21 pages” because of the problem above.
I have a rule that if you can’t summarise it, it probably isn’t there.
??
KK
(Doug Cottons comments are now in pending bin because he is hijacking the thread for his own benefit) CTS
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hoorah. This blog has joined the conversation. Doug is not the only one to lob on here to promote his own theories no matter what the context.
Oh and Sheri is right so let’s all go home for a drink.
02
Don’t you know that conditions today are “severe fire weather” and building straw men in order to set them alight will get you into deep strife.
00
This was supposed to pop up under #60
00
I heard today from afar that Gillard and the Greens have parted ideological company. Can you lot explain, because I thought she broke an election promise just to accommodate them. Have I heard wrong?
20
CeeTee,
They are one and the same – the ALP have always negotiated and allied themselves with the communists. Some things never change.
It is the illusion of choice which targets the profoundly ignorant oxygen thieves who lurk amongst us in society.
30
Are you saying this is some sort of political ruse, a pre-election separation with your political system in mind? It’s the only explanation I can think of. Your prime minister is like a rollercoaster without a fairground to call home. She’s all over the place… or maybe not?!
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CeeTee,
When dealing with Greens/communists, the illusion of choice is just that. An Illusion.
10
It’s just a pantomine for the gullible public.
Behind the scenes alp (Australian LIARS Party) & the greens (COMMUNISTS) are still one.
Don’t be fooled by gillard’s BULLSHIT !
11
This claim that only the opinion of CLIMATE SCIENTISTS can matter because only they are skilled in the required areas of knowledge — is laughable.
Here is the truth.
If the skill level of a builder was the skill level of a climate scientist — all that the builder built would collapse.
If the skill level of a bus driver was the skill level of a climate scientist — buses would be running off the road all the time.
If the skill level of a farmer was the skill level of a climate scientist — there would be no food in our supermarkets.
I am predicting that in a few years the title CLIMATE SCIENTIST will pass into common usage as a derogatory term designating someone as a loon.
Eugene WR Gallun
90
If a bus driver had the level of skill of a climate “skeptic”, they wouldn’t recognise a bus if it hit them.
19
Oh John – you are such a dill……
40
Don’t be so blasted polite! He’s not worth it.
30
Why don’t you go somewhere else to get the attention you need?
30
J
He’s attracted to the intelligent conversation here that’s not available at warmer sites like SkS.
Addicted!
🙂 KK
30
By Cook’s reasoning, that you should only listen to scientists who are published experts in a field, we should have listened to the Eugenics catastrophists in the 1930s http://ia700402.us.archive.org/2/items/decadeofprogress00inte/decadeofprogress00inte.pdf , and ignored the handful of scientists who claimed their science was flawed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_Hogben#Attack_on_eugenics , simply because they were not regularly published Eugenicists.
The early 20th century Eugenics hysteria does not prove that climate alarmism is a form of irrational hysteria, but it does demonstrate that large scale irrationality is possible, even in the halls of academia. The only way to counter irrational group think and hysteria is to listen to the occasional outsider.
100
Here’s an equally important site for those of us who suffer from low blood pressure:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/
Very therapeutic.
We must strive to remember that just as balance weights come in solid lumps, so does human opinion!
11
There is no shortage of ways to rationalize something.
20
If you wonder why we question defining authorities as peer-reviewed authors:
Flatulence on airplanes: just let it go
Hans C Pommergaard, Jakob Burcharth, Anders Fischer, William E G Thomas, Jacob Rosenberg
http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal (Journal of the New Zealand Medical Association)
10
Sheri,
The paper is pay-per-view and perhaps that’s a good thing because it stopped me from wasting time on it. Unfortunately this guy appears to be serious.
I wonder how much he’s actually flown because I’ve flown quite a bit over the years and never noticed it to be a problem. In fact, I never noticed it at all.
Next I suppose he’ll tackle the much dreaded fart in church, another social “error” (that I’ve never noticed either).
Someone is really hard up for a research subject! It is absolutely true; you can’t make this stuff up.
30
Yes, it pay-per-view but the abstract is scary enough. 🙂
30
Sheri,
It occurs to me that I should apply for a grant to do some really off-the-wall research just to see how silly I can get and still be taken seriously enough to get funded — something really, really useful like the social habits of ones and zeros inside a computer, how they adapt to stresses like power failures, frantic typing and so on.
Whaddayathink?
00
I like the idea! Since you are dealing with “social habits”, the grant should be a slam dunk! If you need any help with the research….. 🙂
00
Deal! You’ll be the first one I call. 🙂
00
Jo, I admire your perseverance and focus. You keep telling things that makes sense, putting the finger there where it hurts.
It is great to have you in the skeptics camp! Your opinion is rooted in good sense, sane judgement, answering with logic the bullying, name calling and insults.
20
wow. you don’t like john cook much lol. what about some science to counter his arguments. personal attacks are really fun to read, but at the end of the day; what does the evidence say? his site seems to welcome feedback and new scientific ideas; why not engage with him that way in a mature manner? just a thought.
(Wow,do you read what you write?) CTS
01
James, James, James. Please take the time to educate yourself, its a very simple process:
Simply go to the S(k)S website pretending to be a skeptic, then try to engage them in the way that you suggest.
Please come back and tell us all what happened.
10
Don’t count on that. The rule about “peer-reviewed” stops people. I have seen website names deleted and replaced with “non-science website” to avoid any disagreement.
00
I don’t think its just their rule about peer reviewed. Its more the rule “agree with us or else”.
00
Could be, though the “peer-reviewed” removes most disagreement. Of course, SkS never said they were unbiased or cared. Just that they are following the “consensus”.
00
You folks have way to much time on your hands!
00