Waking Up Is Hard to Do
Randy Olsen has posted an interview with Mike Mann on his site, the Benshi. Among other things Mann says
RO - Do you think, post-Climategate, there’s a new realization of the seriousness of this issue of attacking scientists, and do you see any new changes happening to address that.This is a point that Eli has been trying to make for years, that people can't hide from the onslaught, nor can they "make friends" with the denialoti, the propaganda organs of the political warfare machine. Frankly as an observer who is not directly connected, but shares roots with many in the atmospheric science community, the level of naivety is astounding. They simply have not recognized that people like Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Michaels, Douglass, Soon, Singer and others are spending most of their time bashing science while making nice at conferences, a reality that is finally beginning to get through (BTW, McIntyre has closed comments, perhaps some came in that stripped his bark, OTOH, Policy Lass has some momentum on this).MM - You’re going to be surprised that I can actually give you one word answers on both — yes and yes. I think there is — perhaps a little late in the game — but better late than never — now there is an awareness that there is a war being fought against the climate science and scientists, and if others don’t step in and assist in that war, their cause could be lost.
RO - What makes you say that you see something new, other than just more talk?
MM - I have to admit, it’s nothing concrete. It’s the sense that I have in talking with colleagues and those in the environmental community who talk with scientists and those in the policy arena who talk with scientists.
RO - But this is the very problem with academics is the tendency to believe in talk rather than action.
MM - Well, yeah. And I think that the talk now needs to be translated to action. Thus far its been all talk, in large part because nobody really believed that the other side would get that nasty and dirty and dishonest, but they have. They’ve crossed that line. And now people are realizing this, and if they don’t step up and assist the scientific community, their own interest in seeing meaningful action to combat climate change could be in jeopardy.
Steve was uninvited to the World Dendro Conference because of his behavior in the Yamal farago, his unethical pursuit of Briffa for not giving him the data when Steve had the data for years, his many accusations of incompetence and mendacity to dendrologists which have been shown to be whole cloth (use this list, or take a look at CB's comments in this CA thread) and his role in whipping up the crowd about the stolen CRU Emails.
Ear tip to the Green Herring for the interview link link.
UPDATE: From the comments (promoted by mt)
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On a somewhat similar note, here are some thoughts about holding sceptics accountable, from a new blogger.
http://climatewtf.blogspot.com/2010/02/accountablity.html
I agree with him. A couple minor errors buried in the IPCC report get blown up like crazy in the media, but the clowns make schoolboy errors in their blogs and columns on a daily basis. Other blogs (like this one) sometimes discuss those errors, but they get a free pass from the media. Yet the clowns have a real impact on politics in the US.
It's time for accountability for Watts, etc. If Watts' blog is influential for Republican lawmakers, then it is part of the policy-making environment. So if it's big news that the IPCC report got the <>
Posts
55 comments:
Climate-change denialists are practically the same as evolution denialists. The latter group would often try to force their views on education requirements. Pro-evolution associations of scientists and concerned lay people actively opposed those efforts. Is there an arena in which similar associations can actively support science and rational thinking in the climate change realm? Few school boards or state legislatures are calling for Intelligent Cooling or Teach the Strengths and Weaknesses of Rising Sea Level, but might there be some focal point where activism might help?
On a somewhat similar note, here are some thoughts about holding sceptics accountable, from a new blogger.
http://climatewtf.blogspot.com/2010/02/accountablity.html
I agree with him. A couple minor errors buried in the IPCC report get blown up like crazy in the media, but the clowns make schoolboy errors in their blogs and columns on a daily basis. Other blogs (like this one) sometimes discuss those errors, but they get a free pass from the media. Yet the clowns have a real impact on politics in the US.
It's time for accountability for Watts, etc. If Watts' blog is influential for Republican lawmakers, then it is part of the policy-making environment. So if it's big news that the IPCC report got the < sea level % in Netherlands wrong, then its big news that Watts has CO2 snow in Antarctica.
Those of you who suspect that Michael Mann has cooking his science to get grant money, ask yourselves these questions:
At Penn State, how much does the a tenured professor who's a member of the National Academy of Sciences make? Do research grants affect his salary? Does he work on commission? If he brought in no grant money, what would his salary be? And how does his salary compare with that of the Penn State football coach?
Does Mann really expect us to forget his own history of attacking and conspiring against "non-consensus" scientists?
"They've crossed that line"?!
uff da
-Eric
I found the question of funding quite interesting. There is a pretty large sum of money being collected by various foundations and groups and etc that could be directed at defending scientists from denialists and hitting back. Where IS it all being spent?
1) Anonymous
In general I'd agree with you, but in comparing a professor with the PSU football coach ... well, that *is* Joe Paterno...
2)BCL:
Most of the funding tends to go to communication. Defamation law is complicated, and legal help for it is spread fairly thinly, including a few lawyers who do it pro bono. I've been talking with lawyers and some senior scientists, and nobody seems to know of an entity that is funded and staffed to do this in any serious way. I was actually starting work towards that a month or so ago, but had to temporarily suspend it to work on "Plagiarism? Conspiracies? Felonies?.." and when the next version of that gets finished, I hope to resume chasing the possibility of some kind of anti-organized defamation foundation.
"I've been talking with lawyers and some senior scientists, and nobody seems to know of an entity that is funded and staffed to do this in any serious way. I was actually starting work towards that a month or so ago"
A good model might be the Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund. While now they are more proactive in the past (as they've grown), in early days their mission was to provide pro bono legal services to conservation organizations.
I was on the board of a large Oregon conservation non-profit for 15 years, and all of our lawsuits over violations of ESA, NEPA or NFMA law by the feds were handled by Earth Justice (known earlier as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, though even back then they were separate from the Sierra Club and existing solely to provide such legal aid).
It's a good model. If you see a prominent conservation or environmental lawsuit in the courts in the US, even if Earth Justice isn't the plaintiff themselves, if it's a major case odds are extremely high that you'll find out that they're counsel for the plaintiff.
Does Mann really expect us to forget his own history of attacking and conspiring against "non-consensus" scientists?
"They've crossed that line"?!
uff da
-Eric
Have you even looked at those "non-consensus" papers? They contain blunders that Mann would flunk freshmen for. What you call "attacking and conspiring" is what knowledgeable people would call "upholding professional standards".
The "nonconsensus" papers are for the most part garbage filled with freshman errors.
Regarding college-football coach salaries, the average salary for a Penn State class university was in excess of $1,000,000 as of a couple of years ago. See http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2007-12-04-coaches-pay_N.htm for details.
Lots of non-Paternos are pulling down the kind of coin that even the most elite scientists can only dream about.
Piling on here...
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orl-spt-coach-salary-chart-2009,0,3767955.htmlstory
Jeezuz H Christ! The football coach at Cal State Fresno (a very run-of-the-mill state college in a very mediocre hick-town) pulls down over a million a year!
When football coaches bring big bucks to their universities, they get a cut of the action. Now, wingnuts, compare that with the cases of *scientists* who bring big research bucks to their universities. The very most that the scientists can expect is perhaps a couple of months of paid salary (at their standard payscales) during the summer recess.
It's a little more complicated than that. First, research universities often expect faculty to cover a part of their academic year salary in return for not teaching a full load (MIT for example). Second, when Eli gets a grant to pay his summer salary, the grant has to cover fringe benefits (~25%) and overhead (~50%), which is a multiplier of 1.9. Worse, you often get no extra fringe benefits.
Oh yeah, we don't get loaner cars from dealers. OTOH, when Babe Ruth was asked why he was paid more than Herbert Hoover, the Babe replied that he had had a better year
Denialoti
Love it. :-)
CBC Dispatches ( radio) had a segment this week about the anti Minaret campaign in Switzeralnd. A real pro.
A spokesman for the anti imigrant part spoke about their PR stategy. He was emphatic that they could only win if their ads kept people from thinking. He thought that if voters thought too much they would not support his cause.
I like Real Climate ( and the Intational Carrot Journal) and others, but if this type of non-thought propaganda campaign is necessary how are we going to get the academics to stop telling the truth?
About bloody time. Well, what is this?
Steve McIntyre posted this at CA @10:52 pm on 19 Feb 2009.
"There’s isn’t much to add to this, so I’m cutting off comments."
Why is he being so shy all of a sudden?
Steve, if you are reading his you burnt your bridges long ago....it is your own damn fault! Enjoy the anti-science anti-AGW conferences.
Hey, there's a picture of Mike Mann. He's 'reading' a book.
I heard he's hiding a check for his slush fund, right inside that book between p278 and p279.
Based on how he looks in the picture, can we say his look is consistent with somebody who would do such a thing?
So when Penn State then flips through the book and doesn't find the check, we can of course accuse them of a whitewash. I mean, just look at the guy.
Scientists have to start defending each other when their work realy is sound. For a long time I had thought Michael Mann's work was flawed. So much criticism and virtually no defense.
Just because others reproduced similar results using different methodologies did not mean Mann was correct. I realised the reason for the attacks on Mann were because he came up with an answer that people did not like, but still thought there must have been something in the criticism.
Only in recent times have I realised just how flawed those attacks were. Just how nasty they they were. Michael Mann must have felt awfully alone at times.
It was in fact a significant paper, brilliant. (Although Principal Component Analysis is still way beyond me)
Regards Little Mouse
My comment "About bloody time" @ 2:06 PM was in reference to McIntyre not being accepted to attend the Dendro 2010 conference.
They state that:
"You are right that quite many planned speakers for the Roundtable discussion were not very willing to participate that session".
That session being the one McI was planning on attending. Can you honestly blame them? He is going after their colleagues (Mann and Briffa) like a rabid dog!
The globe and Mail have a good story on McI's antics:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/climategates-guerrilla-warriors-pesky-foes-or-careful-watchdogs/article1474924/
Has anyone perused CA recently. Looks more like a
gossip column. When exactly did McI last try and do some science?
Little Mouse "Only in recent times have I realised just how flawed those attacks were. Just how nasty they they were. Michael Mann must have felt awfully alone at times."
And that is exactly why those in denial and the anti-science crowd hate him. They really do *hate* him.
I wish that SteveM could one just one mile in Mann's shoes and see for himself the negative impact his actions have had on Mann's personal and family life. But SeveM is so self-absorbed, so obsessed that he does not care.
Here is what one of McI's frontmen (Mosher ) had to say about the effect the CRU hack and blog frenzy has had on his mental health.
"Jones caregivers should be reading his mails if he is in such a state of mind."
Mosher's post was dripping with ridicule and sarcasm. Mosher posted this at DeepClimate on February 8, 2010 at 7:42 am
This is what another SteveM acolytes (MacKay) had to say about Jones, again at DeepClimate on February 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm:
"It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong and I am glad he chose life instead of the cowards way out by committing suicide."
McI and his acolytes need to be, finally, held to account.
MapleLeaf
"The globe and Mail have a good story on McI's antic"
It's very good. Did you notice McI's excuse for not publishing? Says he's posted enough good stuff on his blog for at least 10 peer-reviewed papers, but he's got to keep blogging to keep his readers happy, therefore he has no time to publish ...
right ...
Dhogaza. So McI has finally admitted that he is more concerned with his blog than he is in conducting science.
Probably more interesting to read the Soap Opera News rag...
Remarkable bit of blog pollination today.
Little Mouse: A pedantic point, but it's difficult to speak of an analysis as being 'correct' in the first place. There's more than one reasonable way to analyse a dataset. And even if you make some sort of error along the way, the work can still be a major contribution to the field; a stepping stone.
I think MBH98/99 has to be seen as the first attempt at a certain sort of analysis. People forget that nobody had really tried anything like it before (as far as I know). You'd never expect the first shot to be perfect, but this paper had held up pretty darn well.
McIntyre believes that he can attack climate scientists, and then somehow hope to be accepted among them. He's now finding out otherwise.
The World Dendro conference planning has been a big mess. McIntyre had originally been invited as a keynote speaker for one of the plenaries!!! At the same time, many abstracts for oral sessions were rejected, and some arbitrary rules enforced. A few days ago, one of the session coordinators, Brian Luckman wrote an open letter to the head of the conference's organizing committee, posted at the ITRDB forum, questioning these actions. Luckman threatened not to attend unless these issues were resolved.
This was followed by a second letter that elaborated on something Luckman had only briefly mentioned:
"What concerns me even more is the preliminary list of invited speakers. I believe that plenary and keynote talks should challenge and inspire the community. However, in at least one case it appears the organizers are giving the stage to someone who would just as soon destroy our work for their own petty agenda. I sincerely hope that the organizers will reconsider their choices before making the program final."
Two more open letters followed asking for clarification on all this. The conference organizer then responded, stating that additional sessions had been added to accomodate the rejected abstracts, and that the plenary that McIntyre was supposed to speak at, had been cancelled.
In short, they had a looming boycott on their hands.
The disturbing issue here is how in the world McIntyre could been invited to speak at a plenary session in the first place, while at the same time numerous requests for oral presentations were rejected. As if this guy has contributed anything but animosity and ineptitude to the science of dendrochronology.
Come come little mice. The recent Guardian article on Climategate contains comments by Mann's colleagues that are far from flattering. I know you need saints and devils in your faithwarmer religion, and Mann and McIntyre fit your requirements of their respective rolls.
You do realise how silly you all look to those outside your little religion.
JohnS
Carrot-eater..
it's difficult to speak of an analysis as being 'correct' in the first place. There's more than one reasonable way to analyse a dataset.
Are you talking about the MANN's defintion of the mean which he used for his seminal paper with PCA fitting? Haha, yeah, what do they say? There are 'correct' means and there are even more 'correct' ones.
It all depends on what 'is' is, right?
Little Mouse
Although Principal Component Analysis is still way beyond me
You are not the only one in this blog as it would seem!
ROFL
JohnS said
You do realise how silly you all look to those outside your little religion.
They are far from innocent, Vladimir Lenin called them "useful idiots". Without these genuine and unsuspecting ideological cheerleaders (either due to ignorance or their own 'religious' bias) many great business opportunities would never have come to light. Just like without another religion, let's call it Cheney/Blair-ism, aka war on terror, many untold billions would not have been made!
This is a good one, folks!
3 years old but kinda sums things up:
<a fref="http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/02/26/tomo/index1.html>http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/02/26/tomo/index1.html</a>
Kind regards,
Fred the Mouse II Jnr
Apologies - will try that again minus typos:
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/02/26/tomo/index1.html
HowFunny:
And what difference did it make? A question you might address before laughing.
Anyway, the field has progressed from that point, and while the stick has a bit more variability in it now, the basic shape is still there.
This gets tiresome.
Dig up any paper from 1998, and subject it to the same level of scrutiny. It's highly likely that you'd suggest to change something in there - some wording, some math, some discussion. It's called progress in understanding.
Applause to CWTF, whoever you are.
Why did it take so long to find out about this new blog? Thanks Eli.
Comments seem to be off there? (Or is it just Firefox?)
carrot eater said...
Hey, there's a picture of Mike Mann. He's 'reading' a book.
No he is not. He is not looking at the book, the book appears to be open to a picture on both pages, and fairly obvious it is a staged or posed for picture. You certainly are ignorant to the science behind assessing personality traits from observation. Perhaps you should go read up on the science, rather than making yourself look silly.
Keep proceeding the way you have in the past, you certainly have convinced the public with your message, not.
Celery Eater
He is not looking at the book, the book appears to be open to a picture on both pages, and fairly obvious it is a staged or posed for picture.
Furthermore, he is bald and sports a goatee.
Convicted child-killer David Westerfield is also bald and sports a goatee.
Now, I'm not accusing Mann of being a child-killer, but shouldn't people be looking into the possibility that he is?
Starling to: Silly Rabbits
Oh my; the sky must be falling... Here is some more easy reading, for you tricky bucks & Maplesyrup.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall
bye-bye
carroteater
Dig up any paper from 1998, and subject it to the same level of scrutiny. It's highly likely that you'd suggest to change something in there - some wording, some math, some discussion. It's called progress in understanding.
You mean other similar papers with the same minor problems of truncated series of hand-picked proxies, thrown out subsets of temperature data, ``adjusted'' temperature readings, shifted station locations, and circular self-referencing?
It's a classic example of progress in fraudulent data mining not in understanding.
I looked at those too. And was as impressed as after looking at that eye-opening MANN:98 standard-setting exercise in AGW-vested climate research. Did I miss your holy grail, people? Give me a reference to the best paper you can do, enlighten me!
HowFunny = Clssic Dunning-Kruger
Don't feed the D-K trolls.
MapleLeaf
Mann oh Mann... How can you folks keep defending this junk science? I am now actually feeling sorry for you all. At what point will you call it for what it is; a hoax for money & power? Close enough for government work? You tell us what this means please...
"Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper's estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.
Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.
"Retraction is a regular part of the publication process," he said. "Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances."
I for one; am sick of the games. Let us see now: 20 scientist @ 50K = a warm million. Right? Good game. His own words. Wow.
MapleLeaf
HowFunny = Clssic Dunning-Kruger
Haha, LOL, you should give this creed a credit. They are great at coming up with deregotory epithets, like climate change denier, sceptic, flat-earther, D-K (whatever it is).
You dont need to spend time reading the Climategate emails, all you find here, can be found in the emails of their prophets. As Feyerabend was saying "everything goes", including ad-hominem, fraud, and bullying.
Anonymous @5:13PM.
Are you really this much of a moron? Is it possible that you really don't understand that the paper being retracted supported the low-ball IPCC sea level rise estimates, over the higher estimates of Rahmstorf? Here's another clue: Rahmstorf and Vermeer are the scientists credited in the article for forcing the retraction. I seriously question your capacity to learn, but just on the off chance, try:
this realclimate article.
Please get some sort of clue before you come in here and waste our time.
"At what point will you call it for what it is; a hoax for money & power?"
Oh I don't know, when there's a shred of evidence for it, maybe?
How Funny,
Since you seem to claim expertise on PCA (though certainly not history, as Lenin cannot be found to have ever written or uttered the phrase "useful idiots"), can you answer this question for me:
Given a collection of time series that are diminishing in both instrumental accuracy and spacial homogeneity; is it preferable to run a PCA centered on the entire data set, or to do a short segmented PCA dividing the best and most complete data into calibration and verification data sets in order to better approximate the expectation of error, and for the sake of thoroughness continue the process (weighted for their limited spacial homogeneity) for earlier segments?
Inquiring minds want to know.
OK Mr. Jim, Please help us the unwashed, once again... Tell us what science has as its definition of, "a shred"? At what point will enough, be enough for science? Is this to be more, or less than a trace?
HT toe Derecho64 at DC:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm
Quite the eye opener. The abuse discussed in the above article is probably the kind of stuff that "HowFunny" and his/her friends send to Mann et al.
Kudos to Clive Hamilton.
MapleLeaf
Anonyidiot said:
"Now, I'm not accusing Mann of being a child-killer, but shouldn't people be looking into the possibility that he is?"
Easy, NO!!!
Celery Eater
luminous
Given a collection of time series that are diminishing in both instrumental accuracy and spacial homogeneity; is it preferable to run a PCA centered on the entire data set, or to do a short segmented PCA dividing the best and most complete data into calibration and verification data sets in order to better approximate the expectation of error, and for the sake of thoroughness continue the process (weighted for their limited spacial homogeneity) for earlier segments?
Me claiming expertise in year 2 college algebra? Never, where did you get that?
Re: your question. Given a few series which correlate to the intended output of the hockey stick, and given a crafted mean which ‘enhances’ their variability vs. the rest of data, the only question which remains is how to find justification for this. But that’s why there’s always gonna be jobs for statisticians, don’t we agree on this? There’s always some “solid” theoretical basis for manual data fitting especially if you can enhance or discard available series at ease. Or did I get it wrong? I’d better ask an expert in PCA :)) As I said there are even more correct means out there, you just need to find them.
Remind me, “the anthropogenic global freezing” statisticians of the 70s, didn’t they also have some concept of the better approximation of expectation which gave them a blank card to weight their data as they wished? Imagine a number of hurt egos who probably still think science was sold off to politics! Welcome to the club! LOL.
But brave, really brave of you to defend Mann. I thought we moved on from there.
Well actually those "global freezing statisticians" worked for the gutter press. Peterson, et al., laid that one to rest and you can read more about it at Skeptical Science. Get the ap for your iphone and you might learn something. Say Eli sent you and you might get a discount.
Anonyidiot said:
"Now, I'm not accusing Mann of being a child-killer, but shouldn't people be looking into the possibility that he is?"
Easy, NO!!!
Celery Eater
As the author of the post that provoked the above response, I can say that Celery Eater is a victim of Poe's Law.
But that's no slam on Celery Eater. It is simply an illustration of the power of Poe's Law when applied to global-warming denial. When it comes to global-warming denial ayesian inference techniques have exactly a 50/50 chance of distinguishing a parody from the genuine article. Celery Eater did nothing more here than flip a coin that came up as "tails" when he/she was expecting "heads".
Anonyidiot nice assumption where is your factual evidence that I am a denier? You may want to ask people their position before you assume, but I know how much weak minded people like love labels and love to use them.
This is fun all of you work the same way, if someone offers anything counter to your beliefs you scream "Denier! Denier!". When anyone points out observed behavior you scream "Liar! Liar!".
And yet you all are scratching your heads as to why the public does not believe you. Oh thats right its the skeptic's blogs fault that less than 1% of the population even know exist. Or its the press's fault, because they are owned by evil oil companies that just want to rape the planet. lol unstable and weak.
Celery Eater
So much ranting, so little substance.
What kind of despicable person eats celery, anyway?
carrot eater said...
So much ranting, so little substance.
What kind of despicable person eats celery, anyway.
How is your public relation going? Last I checked fewer people believe you than last year and the year before that. Don't look now I see a trend. Such a pity, because with most of it I believe you.
What kinda arrogant ass eats carrots?
Celery Eater
Eli,
You forgot this gem part of an answer where Prof. Mann takes a pure politcal stance on "skeptics". Another label maker, this man is beyond contempt.
The debate over the reality of climate change was still alive and well. And now there is such a poisonous atmosphere being created by the climate skeptics — similar in many ways to that poisonous atmosphere we saw last summer in those healthcare town hall meetings — irrational sort of conspiracy-driven lunatics, frankly, entering into the fray — where the discourse has been so skewed to the point where those extreme voices are a substantial component in the debate.
His dismissive attitude about the townhall meetings last year goes directly to the points I have been making (on deaf ears). Sweeping, general statements, that disparage a large group of people in one fell swoop are a tactic of the weak minded or those who are driven by politacl and not logical forces. Is this the Mann you know?
Celery Eater
His dismissive attitude about what the overwhelming number of climate scientists and learned institutions have had to say in recent years goes directly to the points we have been making (on deaf ears). Sweeping, general statements, that disparage a large group of people in one fell swoop are a tactic of the weak minded or those who are driven by politacl [sic] and not logical forces. Is this the Celery Eater you know?
Cymraeg llygoden
Cymraeg llygoden
Try reading my post again and this time extend your arms over your head to catch the point I was making. I really do not have time to explain such simple concepts to those that put forth little effort.
Celery Eater
Celery probably thinks that Tea Parties are a great idea and that "social" medicine is evil. Just who was arranging those Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings?
MapleLeaf
Just who was arranging those Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings?
Mann's comment was not against the organizers, but those in attendance.
Tea Parties were a great idea. American citizens going out to have their voices heard. Did you go to one? I did and my daughter went to a different one and neither of us saw the crazy lunatic people Mann said attended these events.
Socialized Medicine is not evil, just unconstitutional if done at the Federal Government Level. I have no problem with states having a "public option" nor do I oppose any effort to ammend the Constitution.
Also, I see you like to label people, put them in a box and be dismissive as well. You will never learn. How are those latest polls going for ya to change policy in the USA, because of climate change? Good job you have done and you seem perfectly fine continuing on the same path. Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, amazing.
Your simple arguements on public relations, communications, and even US politics bore me.
Celery Eater
Dearest Uncle Eli,
if you should ever find yourself in need of an absurdly funny denialist site to bash, then maybe you would find it entertaining to have a look on this page run by two truly breathtakingly ignorant buffoons?
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/decline-ldquohide-the-declinerdquo-explained-150.php
You may recall that you once quoted me for taking your name in vain when I dealt with a guy claiming how the ideal gas law proved Arrhenius 1896 work wrong? Well, this guy is named Frank Lansner and has now created the above page. He has elaborated on his claims on our Danish klimadebat.dk-site - he is seriously claiming that the drop in temperatures from 1940-70 (they insist on 1940-1978) is being hidden from the official graphs, that Jones´ wording "hide the decline" is referring to this "hiding", that the divergence problem begins in 1940 when tree proxies showed a decline in temperature together with the temperature and that tree proxies are evidence that the warming since 1940 is an artefact of UHI. Apparently, they think that tree proxies are more reliable than measurements from 1940 and onwards - even though they, of course, claim taht they are unreliable for paleo reconstructions.
This is honestly the silliest denier stuff I have even seen. These two fellows appear to be a perfect example of putting together two types of deniers as you wrote:
"Especially problematical are those who want science to validate preconceived political notions, and those willing to believe they are Einstein and the professionals are fools. Put these two types together and you get a witches brew of ignorance and attitude.
Maybe this could be a sequel to your phenomenal "amateur night" post which I have often quoted? ;-)
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/10/amateur-night.html
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