Laughing at those who laugh at science
Chris Mooney had one of his usual good Point of Inquiry shows back in November that I just caught, an interview with Michael Gordin, who wrote The Pseudoscience Wars. Gordin considers the idiot Velikovsky to be one of the originators of modern pseudoscience. Astronomers of the time tried denouncing him, tried ignoring him, and then Carl Sagan even tried engaging and refuting his nonsense one step at a time. None of it worked. Instead, just as science advances one funeral at a time, pseudoscience sometimes gets scrubbed away one funeral at a time. Nobody cares about Velikovsky any more.
It's still unclear how to handle idiotic attacks on science. A latest idiotic attack by people who don't understand science and therefore respond by laughing at it, is an attack stating the study of evolution of duck genitalia is so stupid that it's funny. At the link, Carl Zimmer disposes of the idiots, but I think he's using Carl Sagan's technique of engaging and refuting them on the facts. As Sagan found out, that doesn't really work.
Eli's trick has been to engage, refute, and laugh at the science deniers. I think it's worth a shot but I don't know if it'll work, and I've not quite figured out the right tone to take myself. I've also tried engage, don't refute, just bet them, but that hasn't gone all that far. I can't figure out how to bet people who laugh at the scientific value of biology experiments, so maybe just laughing at those people is the best bet right now. The experiment of figuring out how to handle pseudoscience will have to continue.
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237 comments:
1 – 200 of 237 Newer› Newest»It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/26/1769471/todays-quote-via-jonathan-swift-it-is-useless-to-attempt-to-reason-a-man-out-of-a-thing-he-was-never-reasoned-into/
In my experience, engagement doesn't do much unless you control the rules or at least the deniers don't control the rules. Even then, don't expect to have 'deniers' change their tune. The aim is to get people who aren't 'deniers' thinking better.
Hard core science deniers (eg the 8% dismissives of climate science) are unable to reason using logic, at least not on the topic of their 'denial'. Bob Altemeyer describes them to a T - illogical thinking, compartmentalised brain (holding contradictory views simultaneously), dogmatic (no matter how many facts you show me I will not change my mind) and an irrational belief that they are the majority (based on their ethnocentricity - they rarely venture beyond their own kind / comfort zone).
Here's a very simple example where anonymous takes an illogical leap and seems unaware of the logical fallacy even when questioned, doubling down on it.
There's a distinction between 'aware' deniers (the disinformers like Morano, McIntyre, Curry etc) and the unaware deniers (eg the 8% dismissives).
The disinformers IMO have some capacity for logical thinking but have another agenda that drives their actions (ideology or they are 'just doing their job' - when the latter they have no morals).
The unaware deniers are incapable of exercising logic on whatever the topic is. It won't matter what you say, they aren't capable of processing reason.
John Cooke and Lewandowsky have written about how to tackle denialism. Not quite there yet I think, but it is a good start.
You're looking to Chris Mooney for judgements about science? Seriously?
Are you a Velikosvky fan, David?
Chris Mooney was the interviewer not the interviewee. And the interview was about how pseudo-science can blossom. It was mainly about the Velikosvky phenomenon of the 70s and 80s, and how cult-like pseudoscience can be difficult to counter.
So over at Bart's I would have demonstrated my way of dealing the dealers of doubt were it not for the fact I don't want to contaminate that blog with depleted U nor lots of it. Well, some guys including the Master Rabett did some there :)
I'd say that the likes of Jabba the Watts and his minions that hang around in his palace are beyond reasoning anyway. You don't negotiate with criminals.
Sou:
"Hard core science deniers (eg the 8% dismissives of climate science) are unable to reason using logic, at least not on the topic of their 'denial'."
As is well known, I dismiss the speculative "hypothesis" of catastrophic AGW. In your mind, I "deny climate science."
But do you really want to go further? 'Science deniers'—do you really want to go there, Sou?
Please name any non-climate "science" I deny, Sou. Take as many guesses as you need; it should be the easiest task in the world, since I'm in the bottom 8% of the population for science acceptance in your amusing sociological model! :-)
Brad Keyes, you seem to be denying that CO2 is a GHG. That denies, among others, radiation physics.
Climatology incorporates maybe only non-climate science, it being simply a branch of classical physics. So denial of AGW is already general science denial. That's why all climate revisionists find themselves attacking all of science, so some have actually resorted to consciously doing so.
To counter this, I founded the Pi Sekt. We believe the ratio of circumference and diameter of any circle is a transcendent number. Other faiths are booted out without comment.
/cRR
Thanks Brad - quod erat demonstrandum.
cRR,
"Brad Keyes, you seem to be denying that CO2 is a GHG."
I'm not disputing that for a moment. (What makes you believe I am?) That's been convincingly argued for a century.
What I don't find remotely scientifically plausible is the "discovery" that CO2-mediated warming is not only an interesting object of study but an existential danger.
By the way, the only "climate revisionists" I've ever heard of are the folk who deny the MWP and the LIA. Did you have someone else in mind?
1. Those Latin words don't work the way you think they do, Sou.
They're not an argument. (And this is not Hogwarts.)
You can only say QED after you've constructed an argument.
2. Please name any non-climate "science" I deny, Sou, or illustrate by your failure to do so that CAGW denial does not imply "science denial."
N'berg:
"Watts and his minions that hang around in his palace are beyond reasoning anyway. You don't negotiate with criminals."
Congratulations, you just defamed Anthony Watts.
Did you seriously imagine that no matter what you wrote, some post-climate-war N'berg Trial was going to exonerate you?
LOL! ...
Brad writes "You can only say QED after you've constructed an argument."
Sou replies: I know that Brad. And you don't need to keep proving my point. Once was sufficient.
C'mon Sou, I don't have all weekend.
Name any non-climate "science" I deny, or illustrate by your incapacity to do so that CAGW denial does not imply science denial.
Brad Keyes, so it’s the ‘catastrophic’ adjective you find ‘unscientific’, not the ‘A’, the ‘G’ or the ‘W’.
Ah, but then you are right. Gravity affects everyone the same way, but catastrophe makes many poor or deceased but always some others filthily rich and living happily ever after, yes.
You can pay your food, you have your hot drinking water for bathing, what, you probably enjoy a vacation every year and so you don’t have to think and so you don’t think (that was easy, wasn’t it).
For others, though, things are already catastrophic, or past even that (dead, you know). No “hypothesis” involved, there’s simply reality.
Looks like http://www.plaatjesdump.nl/upload/6eef080e10f9736ffc9fe6bcf20fdd2f.png because of http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ resulting in stuff like this: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/03/437051/syria-climate-change-drought-and-social-unrest/ .
Never a Nobel Peace Prize was so rightly given as the one for Al Gore and IPCC. Think about it.
[credits for some phrases: Jello Biafra – ‘thas was easy, wasn’t it’, and Timothy Leary, ph.D., ‘think about it’]
Brad Keyes,
So by your logic, if you confined your hatred to only one ethnic group, you would not be a bigot?
Science is NOT a Chinese menu where you select one from column A and one from Column B. You don't get to reject one field of science just because you don't like the conclusions.
If you have solid, evidence-backed reasons for rejecting some scientific theory, then fricking publish them. Otherwise, you are simply an anti-science assclown.
What's with that habit of climate revisionists to keep badgering and stalking people for answers they already got but won't see? These people make an impression of kicking other people around all day just for the fun of it.
/cRR
Sou:
"Chris Mooney was the interviewer not the interviewee."
Well, thank Christ for small mercies. :-) As most readers will be aware, Mooney is neither qualified in, nor capable of, the act of distinguishing science from his own olecranon. He's the author of one of the most scientifically-naïve and conceptually-abortive sentences I've ever seen in climate discourse, which is saying a lot (my emphasis):
"It’s funny how [climate skeptics'] high-level intellectual firepower is always used in service of debunking—rather than affirming or improving—mainstream science."
What. The. What.
> You [Brian] 're looking to Chris Mooney for judgements about science?
A quote would be nice.
What's with that habit of climate revisionists to always project their utter ignorance on other people especially scientists?
Brad Keyes, YOU do not know what has Mann et al ticking, but 'fortunately most readers' ARE 'quite aware'.
Btw show me how you are affirming or improving mainstream science, please?
dilbert,
"Brad Keyes,
So by your logic, if you confined your hatred to only one ethnic group, you would not be a bigot?"
No, of course you'd be a bigot. You just wouldn't be a misanthrope.
Geddit?
Oh, and just between us, I don't even hate or reject climate science. But I've learned from tedious experience that this fact cannot be imparted to Sou in any known language. So I'm leaving that aside for the sake of argument.
Fake skeptics (real skeptics, such as scientists, don't question everything from the mainstream and nothing from their own camp) are fond of a couple of techniques. One is to characterize a person they wish to discredit as not credible with force and certainty, as is done with Chris Mooney here. The reason for this is Mooney's considerable success researching science denial, in particularly his thoroughly researched book "The Republican War on Science" which is a who's who of science denial, with plenty of backup. Don't like the result? Attack the author.
Another is to grab some commenter like myself and insist on a bibliography of credible science directly from that commenter, and discredit any responses one by one.
This makes the discussion about, in this case, me. My credibility is then on the chopping block and it's a whole lot easier to attack me than the main body of scientific work for the last two centuries.
My most recent successes have been to find a mildly humorous way to make fun of this microfocus, by pretending it's a game. For example, the query as to why nobody has provided an extended list of publications (which is readily available via any scholarly search and all credible publications and organizations) can be answered with: I'm not answering you because that's what you want me to do, and I'm not playing your game by your rules. "because you want me to, silly". This has been wildly successful, I find.
One must remember that these queries are rhetorical flourishes, not legitimate requests for information. They are intended to provide a platform for further denigration of reality via the person of the target.
Brad Keyes seems to feel this is his blog and he is entitled to any response he demands. This is just wrong. He neither owns RabettRun nor deserves a response, given his agenda-driven efforts to discredit his host and his host's colleagues.
It's called trolling, and despite his assertion that he doesn't have all weekend, he looks like he's prepared to endlessly proliferate, having much more time on his hands than others who have real work to do. His work, self chosen or with hidden support, appears to be to discredit science. It's PR and misdirection.
ccR,
you ask how we are "are affirming or improving mainstream science."
By debunking stuff.
Some friendly advice: you're clearly not a scientist but don't worry, there's no reason you can't get a good, rudimentary picture of how scientists think if you read Karl Popper's and Richard Feynman's books. You'll find they're written in nearly diametrically opposite styles, but once you grasp the thread that runs through both of them you'll know you're on to something.
Ah! So you do not apply your "only one" exception to other areas...only science. Or is Roy Spencer allowed to claim to be scientific despite the fact that he rejects both climate science and evolution?
What is your rule after all?
Of course, it would be different if you had cogent reasons for rejecting climate science that had survived peer review and been accepted by even a tiny fraction of actual experts. Unfortunately, you haven't mentioned any of those, so I'm afraid that anti-science assclown is still the leading hypothesis.
Susan Anderson:
"His work, self chosen or with hidden support, appears to be to discredit science. It's PR and misdirection."
Conspiracy theorize much, Susan?
;-)
Oh, and as long as I'm imitating a mosquito, bunnies should be aware that a concerted effort is being made to discredit SkepticalScience. The reason for this is similar to the one mentioned for Mooney above. It's too successful.
FWIW, SkS is a crowdsourced effort with significant backup and links to all the science anybody might wish to bring sources into one easy-to-use location so we don't have to dig them up for each of the thousands of times each assertion of wrong information is made.
Brad said: "Conspiracy theorize much, Susan? ;-)"
Right on cue, Susan said: "Oh, and as long as I'm imitating a mosquito, bunnies should be aware that a concerted effort is being made to discredit SkepticalScience."
Ah well, I have every intention of going elsewhere. Rabett is smart and amusing, but Brad Keyes is on a mission and I don't intend to provide more fodder.
I will, however, mention that I was friendly with Richard Feynman at the end of his life, when he spent time at Thinking Machines in Cambridge and worked and played an MIT arts center, so I have immediate knowledge of his politics and opinions. I am certain that he would have made very short work of the deniers who are fond of citing him.
Anybody whose opinions are not set in stone would do well to read or watch anything he's written or presented. There is no hidden message of support for the phony skeptics in his work.
He did, after all, put an O ring in a glass of ice water on national TV to prove that it would break. This was simple and obvious. His work with science denial was like that - straightforward and logical. He did like a good time, but he could not stand intellectual nonsense.
Oh bunnies, I hope you are having fun with the eel! Slippery and evasive much?
Can we not let this discussion be about Brad Keyes?
Now what's with that habit of climate revisionists to badger scientists into reading works like those of Popper and Feynman, which those scientists already know by heart and not only that, they employ that knowledge because it is in a way their job to do so?
What's with all the ad homimens anyway - would that have to do with ignorance or a total lack of interest in the subject? Are you out for some Tarski whipping, Bradley? As in 'snow is white' is true because snow happens to be white? (yeah let's put the goal posts behind the Moon)
Susan, forgive me for being brutally honest, but this strikes me as a tiny bit, well, paranoid:
"[Brad] neither owns RabettRun nor deserves a response, given his agenda-driven efforts to discredit his host and his host's colleagues."
I don't want (and I'm not qualified) to rush to such a judgement, and you may well have some perfectly compelling reason to have jumped to the (false) conclusions you've jumped to. But to help you resile from future errors, perhaps you should ask yourself:
1. What have I [BK] done to discredit Eli Rabett?
2. What makes you think I have any idea who Mr Rabett's colleagues are? (I don't.)
Susan:
"I will, however, mention that I was friendly with Richard Feynman at the end of his life, when he spent time at Thinking Machines in Cambridge and worked and played an MIT arts center, so I have immediate knowledge of his politics and opinions."
Cool!
What, in your opinion, would Feynman have made of scientists who write:
"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"
dilbert:
"Or is Roy Spencer allowed to claim to be scientific despite the fact that he rejects both climate science and evolution?"
I don't know if your characterisation of the "facts" about Roy Spencer is accurate, having never read any of his work myself. I'd be amazed if Spencer rejected both climate science and evolution, given that (as I understand it) he is a climate scientist.
But for the sake of argument, if someone actually did reject that apple and that orange, they would have a hard time convincing me they were scientific. (Mainly because of the apple.)
Brad Keyes,
You talk about "the speculative "hypothesis" of catastrophic AGW".
Would you mind provide a citation and a quote for CAGW?
Me and Bart R asked MiniMax about that and never got anywhere. See for instance:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/24/american-physical-society/#comment-306198
***
But I do agree with you on this: I too hate it when my hypotheses are speculative.
I prefer my hypotheses when they are not.
My favorite hypothesis is that snow is white.
***
Bunnies, please play fair.
Some creatures regenerate.
Brad Keyes,
So far, I've seen nothing from you to justify your rejection of climate science--you seem to imply it is "different" somehow from other scientific endeavors.
You claim to accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. How would we add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and not warm the planet.
So far, everything I see is consistent with the anti-science assclown hypothesis.
Susan - hope you stick around to comment on other stuff!
I generally agree with Anon above - apologies to Brad, but I'm not especially interested in diving into his intellectual portfolio. What I do note is that many people are willing to admit as much mainstream climate science as possible, up until the point that the science virtually requires a policy change that those people don't like. Then, suddenly, they think the science is wrong.
Anyway, Eli just said in his Twitter feed that a low climate sensitivity still results in disaster if you let things go long enough. The soft-core denialist position makes no sense, especially given the low cost of mitigation in the early years.
Willard—
I take your point. I shouldn't have written
speculative "hypothesis"
because it reads as though I think hypotheses ought to be non-speculative, and that the speculative nature of a purported hypothesis betrays it as a non-hypothesis.
That is not what I meant, and I don't blame you for having some fun at the expense of what I wrote.
What I wanted to write—but couldn't, because apparently no strikethrough tag is available here—was the word 'hypothesis' crossed out, followed by the phrase 'speculative conjecture.'
dilbert,
"So far, I've seen nothing from you to justify your rejection of climate science"
What rejection of climate science?
"--you seem to imply it is 'different' somehow from other scientific endeavors."
No, and I think you'll agree with me here: it's a science and we ought to hold it to exactly the same standards as any other.
The problem is that we don't.
"You claim to accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. How would we add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and not warm the planet?"
We wouldn't.
No, and I think you'll agree with me here: it's a science and we ought to hold it to exactly the same standards as any other.
You really don't 'get' science.
There are no standards and there are no rules, except possibly for the journals, and the journal publications do not define science - they just report some of it. In fact, there is no real definition of science, there are just devices that can be fabricated repeatably that do actual work, and the work itself, which reveal insights to you, if it happens to be communicated to you by way of print or any other media, or in the form of product devices, which you can then use to do your own 'science'. It's a cumulative self correcting collective effort with parts that rise and fall according to the whims and funding of the investigators. You should try it sometime, you might like it. You can even incorporate some of its methods into your daily life.
How does AGW *not* represent an existential risk?
Lots of things represent existential risks:
- a major asteroid collision with Earth.
- superbug
- "grey goo"; self-replicating nanomachines
- supercaldera explosion
- supernova of nearby star
- emergence of a powerful, hostile AI
- zombie virus
While each of these represents a very low risk (so far, at least), they still are existential risks, just like AGW - or really, GW/GC in general.
Brad: Most of us aren't overly hung up on the "existential risk" portion of AGW. For the most part, we just think that taking action will be sufficiently cheaper than not doing anything.
I believe the estimates I've seen are ~1% of GDP in costs, ~5% of GDP in benefits.
Brad Keyes: "it's a science and we ought to hold it to exactly the same standards as any other."
So, then you will have no problem stipulating that CO2 sensitivity is between 2 and 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2, then? After all, this is the 90% confidence interval based on the data.
Lots of skeptics love to invoke Feynman, especially at WUWT!
I can only guess what Feynman would have thought of that, but Cargo Cult Science comes immediately to mind.
Before the internet, the crackpots had to actually make a substantial effort (eg, write a book and/or go on the lecture circuit) to widely publicize their nonsense.
It used to take a lot of time and money to be a crackpot. You couldn't just do it as a hobby in your spare time (at least not if you wanted to be "successful")
But no longer. Now all they need is a blog and a few spare hours (though there are still some old school crackpots like Monckton who make the rounds, of course)
~@:>
Brad Keyes,
Thank you for your comment. Now we have CAGW as a "speculative conjecture". I too feel that "conjecture" misses something.
Standing aside the terminological point, I'd like you to provide some evidence that CAGW is a conjecture entertained by scientists.
To that effect, a quote and a cite would be nice.
My own conjecture is that CAGW is a strawman.
I'm not sure it's a speculative conjecture, though.
Many thanks!
willard:
"My own conjecture is that CAGW is a strawman.
I'm not sure it's a speculative conjecture, though."
It seems you agree that that there are speculative and non-speculative conjectures.
willard, does this:
"Standing aside the terminological point"
mean the same thing as "setting aside the terminological point"?
On the first day, Brad Keyes got himself quarantined to his own thread on deltoid, forbidden the right to post anywhere else on the blog.
On the second day, Brad Keyes got himself banned from Skeptical Science.
On the third day, Brad Keyes found Rabbett Run, and I for one am not happy. I suggest people just ignore him.
Anonymous said...
"Lots of skeptics love to invoke Feynman, especially at WUWT!
I can only guess what Feynman would have thought of that, but Cargo Cult Science comes immediately to mind."
Can you guess what Feynman would have thought of hiding the decline? What comes immediately to mind?
Susan, you may have a better idea. I'd love to hear your guess.
kT,
Fixed this for you:
"You really don't 'get' Post Normal science.
"There are no standards and there are no rules, except possibly for the journals..."
Can you guess what Feynman would have thought of hiding the decline?
I'm not exactly sure what science is, but I'm pretty sure guessing what a dead scientist might think about text fragments taken out of context in stolen emails is not it.
Trying to get the gist of Brad Keyes comments I find he does seem to agree with the A, the W and the G in 'CAGW'.
These three belong to (climate-/(geo-)physics-/chemistry-) science.
At the same time he remarks that climate science 'is not held to the standards of any other science'. My understanding is now that Brad Keyes bases this on the 'C' in 'CAGW'.
Like I said earlier: he is right on this. 'Catastrophic' is not a scientific adjective. But I don't think any bona fide climatologist would claim it is.
What strikes me is that Brad Keyes seems to doubt the scienceness of the entire AGW-hypothesis or even of climatology in whole just because of that adjective 'C' (which the scientists themselves rarely if ever use). It is as if he remarks from this position that climatologists like Mann 'deny LIA and RWP' (they do not, but both fluctuations are much smaller than the portion of AGW that is realized today, although they were not in 1980 or even 1990). That is a strange jump that I find reminescent of the phenomenon of obsession.
Some climatologists, to be sure: a really tiny minority of them, take the stand that what is known ought to be researched for its possible consequences and the results of this research ought to be communicated to the public. Michael Mann finds considerable risk in hyperquick climate change (AGW, remember) and he feels obliged to warn public, policy and commerce of these risks. I dare say he adds some more or less 'green' ideology to his actions on this terrain. But I wouldn't surmise he mixes this up with the actual climate science he does and for which he is famous (and rightly so, even Brad Keyes would agree, no?).
It is part of the public and I think this includes Brad Keyes who are mixing up the researcher Mann and the whistleblowing or alarm-sounding green Mann.
Which is why such a tiny minority of climatologists even dare to expose themselves to media and public. Most of them publish their results, go crying in a dark corner for a while after having seen the reception then get on with their research which, after all and nothing else is left, at least has them something to do for a slice of bread and cheese and the occasional bottle of cheap wine.
(note to self: show how the 'C' in 'CAGW' can be scientifically established already - use Syria, corn- and wheat prices, Sandy, MunichRE database of natural disasters)
Brad Keys,
I stand corrected.
For the third time: please provide a quote and a citation for what you call the CAGW conjecture, hypothesis, or whatever you fancy to call it.
Many thanks!
w
If you are interested in the 'big picture' that will in the future include water vapor and cloud feedbacks, I suggest you start here.
There have been several interesting papers recently published on this topic, but catastrophe takes many forms, and we only have two immediate examples of the final states - Venus and Mars. There are many intervening catastrophes that lead to these final states.
cRR—
thanks for your 10:55 comment. It's one of those rare moments in the climate debate when someone says something I haven't heard 100 times!
"What strikes me is that Brad Keyes seems to doubt the scienceness of the entire AGW-hypothesis or even of climatology in whole just because of that adjective 'C' (which the scientists themselves rarely if ever use). "
No, I don't dispute the scienceness, or even the truth, of the AGW-hypothesis.
I'm still interested—genuinely, not rhetorically—in knowing why it strikes you that I doubt that. Evidently I'm not getting my position across clearly, and I'd like to know what I'm saying that misleads an obviously intelligent person like you.
I see what you mean about the blurring of the roles or personae of a scientist like Mann. I'm not going to respond until I've spent more time thinking about that.
Sorry for being combative and/or condescending to you earlier, cRR—I formed some wrong ideas about you based on a couple of word choices you made, which make more sense now that you've expanded on your thoughts.
Cheers
BK
kT (now I wish the captcha were 'boltzmann' or 'kagw'), both Mars and Venus differ near a factor kilo re atmospheric pressure.
Willard,
as you know, you're asking the impossible:
"For the third time: please provide a quote and a citation for what you call the CAGW conjecture, hypothesis, or whatever you fancy to call it."
Let me save us both a lot of time and stipulate that the CAGW concept has rarely, if ever, been invoked in scientific literature.
Let's skip to the question of why it hasn't.
Well actually it has unless you don't think ecology and ag is science, but it has not been used in what we call climate science, e.g. IPCC WGI. Plenty of it though in WGII and WGIII.
For me (as a anon-scientist I might add) it's not about the C itself, it's about the risk of C. I'm not claiming C will happen 100% under a business-as-usual scenario. I'm saying that if there's even a 1% chance of C, business-as-usual is not an option.
"Cargo cult science refers to practices that have the semblance of being scientific, but do not in fact follow the scientific method.[1]" -- from Wikipedia
It's pretty clear how that applies to WUWT (it seems to be the very epitome of CCS) but not clear how it applies to the "hide the decline" issue.
If I had to guess, I'd say Feynman would have disapproved of "hide the decline", but not because of an issue with the basic science.
After all, the temperature over the twentieth century actually increased according to the instrumental record and scientists had certainly acknowledged the tree ring "divergence" issue (the "decline") in the literature, and actually put forward possible explanations(that's how science works).
I think Feynman would have disapproved of "hide the decline" not based on the science but on the human relations aspect: he generally did not like it when people played "games" to influence the public.
He himself had been part of such games (during the Manhattan project and later on unwittingly on the freezing O ring 'discovery' (In the latter case, he expressed his displeasure about the game once it became clear to him)
~@:>
Well Bradley/11:30 that was one sobering response if I ever got one, cheers & thanks mate :)
So I looked back in this thread, which was our maiden encounter, and found I must confess there is fault with me.
Because looking at this statement of yours (scroll to your first post, first sentence),
"As is well known, I dismiss the speculative "hypothesis" of catastrophic AGW. In your mind, I "deny climate science." "
it is quite clear from the start what your position is and what you're trying to get across.
But I formed in my mind the notion that you were denying climate science wholesale, and this came about by the bells in my brain ringing from bangs like 'dismiss!', 'speculative!', all the quotes around 'hypothesis' and them bells sounding: 'climate revisionist's pr talk!'.
Me being not the only one suffering from this effect (which is why you're asking). So well the rest of the debate follows by induction, which is nice for reasoning but between people may be called 'combat' :) Sorry for that, I'm afraid you were collateral ;)
I am not going to give you rhetoric advise on this, I trust you can find your way as you understand what is happening in discussions/debates like this. Otoh I must probably begin with self anyway :)
Re splits and mixtures of Mann, I thinks that is researchable. Me, I don't follow his pr at all, I just know he gets arrested at demonstrations once in a while. I'm more like eyeballing crysphere today and weather model output. But I do think the 'C' is real.
/cRR
In that last line of my 12:05 comment 'crysphere' should read Cryosphere. Today.
both Mars and Venus differ near a factor kilo re atmospheric pressure.
Sure the end states do, but I'm more interested in finding out what the initial conditions were and what happened on the way to finality. Or at least until drastic solar end of life effects take over. These are just the example we have at hand, in the future there will be many more extrasolar examples in all stages of composition, geometry and evolution. But already some progress in understanding the evolution of terrestrial planets is being made, which is having a net positive effect on the climate science we have at hand, in that now water vapor and clouds are seen as ultimately being understandable. That always has been a call of the skeptics, the pseudoskeptics and pseudoscience.
kT/12:18, crystal.
(captcha: "2131 SheMore". I kid u not. Some evidence: http://www.plaatjesdump.nl/upload/c1b53eab77767a2c6381791786666b03.jpg )
Brad,
Thank you for your admitting you can't provide any quote nor any citation where the hypothesis or conjecture CAGW would be characterized.
The next question is why you are using expressions "CAGW hypothesis" or "CAGW conjecture" or equivalents if this expression does not refer to any scientifc hypothesis or conjecture.
My own conjecture is that you're using this kind of expression as a strawman to support your righteous hindsight.
I have no idea why you are assuming that CAGW exists, nor why you assume that if CAGW exists, it needs to be a scientific hypothesis or conjecture, except for the sake of expressing over and over again your righteous hindsights.
Now, I hope you realize this kind undermines what needs to be assumed by your "why it hasn't?"
You're mindframing, Brad.
This is kinda uncool.
Reading Brad Keyes comments here and elsewhere, I've realized that he avoids giving his opinions on climate change wherever possible, but enjoys trying to make people jump through hoops. Responding to him is a waste of time and effort.
Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth, phd.
eli's real purpose (I would not call it a trick) is to confuse people.
You do everything you can to draw attention away from the fact that Michael Mann made a fake graph, and then you also deny that there is a concerted effort on the part of the alarminati to never mention running climate averages. If there is not a concerted effort, why is it so difficult to google such a simple question.
Secondly, you defended the bozo clown Lewandowsky, who pasted fake denier blog comments.
Scanning the posts.
"Ooh, look one with lots of comments. Maybe there is an interesting scientific discussion happening".
Nah, just another thread derailed by a few extremist trolls.
Brad Keys,
In case that this is not clear:
> It seems you agree that that there are speculative and non-speculative conjectures.
My "conjecture" was not a real conjecture. It was a figure of speech. As Bart R would say:
> Res ipsa loquitur
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/46485756998
Many thanks for your concerns.
What is the rod and reel record for landing a lumpus spookytooth?
Do they snap at salt water flies , or must one sacrifice an eel to land one ?
Is there a catch limit ?
"Laughing at those who laugh at science"
Well, the comments sure have shown the effectiveness of this strategy on the individuals. But that's not the point I guess. The point is to help other people who might not know about the science to distinguish between science and crap.
My personal view is that most people don't know or care about the science. They only care about technology, and even that, they only care about technology that they are aware of and affects them.
If you buy into that, then arguing about paleoclimate reconstructions is useless at swaying U.S. public policy. We would need to explain how climate change will directly impact people, their children, and their children's children. It's a hard sell because the pace of change is slow.
So I wouldn't get too worked up about the real cranks. Have fun. The propagandists are the ones that we need to focus on.
Brad Keyes --- End Permian:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event
So who is the more pathetic excuse for a human being--Lumpus or Brad?
Discuss.
You should all heed the words of dhogoza. Trying to engage with Brad Keyes is a complete waste of time. There is a good reason why he has been confined to his very own thread on Deltoid.
He's a crank by any definition of the word. Cannot be reasoned with.
Well bunnies, look at it this way, we need stuff to sharpen our teeth on.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space --- Is Lumpus human?
Dhogaza and others have the right of it. And I have to thank Russell for the eel.
BK was a frightful bore on SkS, but I had earlier notice of the issue from Planet3.0 and other locations where SkS is under attack, along with Lewandowsky and of course Mooney. I may falsely believe it's worth asserting some facts and truth about them, but I do it anyway.
Brian, I've been around - sometimes come here to join the bunnies when I'm feeling a little white around the gills, as I enjoy the humorous take on a very serious matter.
Being a dilettante/layperson but knowing a lot around the fringes of real science (and critical thinking), writing and argumentation, I'm stuck with attempting to provide a counterbalance to fake skeptics where I find 'em. Happy to pile on.
Oh, and the pleasure of mixing metaphors: I leave it to you to figure out how a wannabe bunny can be white around the gills ...
"Some creatures regenerate."
For anyone who thinks this hypothesis is plausible when applied to Brad Keyes, consider setting yourself the task of analysing his level of regeneration over the entire "jail thread" that he is confined to at Deltoid.
For anyone who thinks Brad Keyes doesn't have a lot of time at his disposal for this kind of thing, simply check out the length of that thread - both in terms of comment count and time period.
For anyone who actually wants to engage with Brad Keyes (who is bringing up many of the same themes and obsessions at Deltoid) might I suggest there is a perfectly good Deltoid thread for doing just that? (I'd second Richard Simon's comment, but you've skipped past that already, right?)
I am sad to report that sequencing the spookytooth genome suggests it to be an inedible cross between the Tennessee shad, (not to be confused with A. sapidissima) and the common axoltl.
On a more uplifting note , a milestone in bunny biology has been passed, with the semi-credible report of a British rabbit having weighed in for the Easter parade at 3 stone nine pounds, which is many, many, grams and even more carats.
"Oh, and the pleasure of mixing metaphors: I leave it to you to figure out how a wannabe bunny can be white around the gills ..."
Given that children in eden rode on the backs of veggie T Rex, how can bunnies with gills be a problem?
I'm perplexed :)
willard:
"Thank you for your admitting you can't provide any quote nor any citation where the hypothesis or conjecture CAGW would be characterized."
It's not a concession, it's a point I'm making. The ill-defined nature of the idea is a problem for the catastrophists, not for me.
"The next question is why you are using expressions "CAGW hypothesis" or "CAGW conjecture" or equivalents if this expression does not refer to any scientifc hypothesis or conjecture."
I suppose it's generosity, or graciousness, on my part. I could simply call CAGW an ideology or a movement, but I adopt the polite fiction that it's a properly scientific idea.
"I have no idea why you are assuming that CAGW exists,"
I don't think it exists.
"nor why you assume that if CAGW exists, it needs to be a scientific hypothesis or conjecture, except for the sake of expressing over and over again your righteous hindsights."
I've never heard of 'righteous hindsights'—is that an imported idiom? Could you say it another way for clarification, please?
"You're mindframing, Brad."
I'll have to take your word for it. What's mindframing?
"This is kinda uncool."
Really? Cos it sounds cool. I would've guessed you were admiring my use of some new rhetorical/cognitive technology.
Lotharsson:
"For anyone who actually wants to engage with Brad Keyes (who is bringing up many of the same themes and obsessions at Deltoid) might I suggest there is a perfectly good Deltoid thread for doing just that?"
Thanks for the plug.
Unfortunately if you'd like to interact with me live, Deltoid won't let you do that (my answers to your concerns are delayed by up to 24 hours because some crybabies demanded that the moderators scrutinize everything I say). So here or Tara's blog are your best options.
Susan, you seem to be back on conspiracist ideation:
"BK was a frightful bore on SkS, but I had earlier notice of the issue from Planet3.0 and other locations where SkS is under attack, along with Lewandowsky and of course Mooney."
By the way, what's this "Planet3.0," and where am I mentioned thereupon? I hope it was all complimentary ;-) !
"I enjoy the humorous take on a very serious matter."
What very serious matter is being taken on here, and how do you know it's serious?
"Being a dilettante/layperson but knowing a lot around the fringes of real science (and critical thinking), writing and argumentation,"
Out of interest, do you know a lot about how real science works on the inside (as opposed to the surfaces it shares with other thought systems), and how it differs from run-of-the-mill critical thinking?
"I'm stuck with attempting to provide a counterbalance to fake skeptics where I find 'em. Happy to pile on."
Did you pile on to Richard Muller when he admitted that—contrary to the story he'd shopped around about his Damascene moment—he's never been a climate skeptic?
Or do you save your resentment for those who call themselves climate skeptics but are not, in your opinion, truly skeptical in the philosophical sense?
I'd be the first to agree with you that the ambiguity of the word is unfortunate, and that just because someone does not believe a particular idea, it doesn't follow that they're Skeptical.
Lotharsson:
"For anyone who thinks Brad Keyes doesn't have a lot of time at his disposal for this kind of thing, simply check out the length of that thread - both in terms of comment count and time period."
You forget—the bulk of those comments, numerically, are the work of the child crusader Wow.
I'm more about quality.
kT:
"You really don't 'get' science."
Wrong.
"There are no standards and there are no rules, except possibly for the journals, and the journal publications do not define science - they just report some of it."
What the.
"I'm not exactly sure what science is, "
Right.
cRR Kampen,
thanks (again) for your earlier comment again, and (also) for explaining how I may have given the—false—impression of rejecting the "scienceness" of a great spectrum of work.
"At the same time he remarks that climate science 'is not held to the standards of any other science'. My understanding is now that Brad Keyes bases this on the 'C' in 'CAGW'."
Just to clear that up: no, I base it on the fact that climate scientists are allowed to get away with behaviors that would be grounds for seppuku in any other field of science—e.g. hiding declines in graphs, gaming the peer-review system and refusing to disclose their methodology and data to other researchers on the grounds that their "aim is to try and find something wrong with it." Since the scientific method is a code of conduct, the flouting of that code by climate scientists imperils the scientific status of climatology itself.
I've given more thought to your points about the relationship between science and the public but there are some parts that still don't make sense to me.
"Like I said earlier: he is right on this. 'Catastrophic' is not a scientific adjective."
If that's true, then why is this possible:
"(note to self: show how the 'C' in 'CAGW' can be scientifically established already - use Syria, corn- and wheat prices, Sandy, MunichRE database of natural disasters)"
?
I'd be interested to see how you go with that.
In principle there's no reason why catastrophe, disaster, apocalypse and Ragnarok couldn't all be scientific concepts, provided falsifiable "definitions" (or criteria for their truthful occurrence in a sentence).
"Some climatologists, to be sure: a really tiny minority of them, take the stand that what is known ought to be researched for its possible consequences and the results of this research ought to be communicated to the public."
Hmm. Surely all scientists should take that stand—though they themselves don't have to be the people who do the communicating, necessarily.
"Michael Mann finds considerable risk in hyperquick climate change (AGW, remember) and he feels obliged to warn public, policy and commerce of these risks."
This contradicts Gator’s theory of the obstacles facing climate communication:
”We would need to explain how climate change will directly impact people, their children, and their children's children. It's a hard sell because the pace of change is slow.”
Who is right?
”I dare say [Mann] adds some more or less 'green' ideology to his actions on this terrain.”
As a more or less ‘green’ ideologue myself I have no ethical objection to scientists doing this, provided they make it crystal clear, in their outreach activities, what comes from evidence and what comes from ideology. From your own surmises about Mann’s body of claims…
“But I wouldn't surmise he mixes this up with the actual climate science he does and for which he is famous (and rightly so, even Brad Keyes would agree, no?).
“It is part of the public and I think this includes Brad Keyes who are mixing up the researcher Mann and the whistleblowing or alarm-sounding green Mann.”
…I gather that you yourself aren’t 100% sure, when Mann addresses the public, where one ends and the other begins. This tells me Mann is doing something wrong, ethically speaking.
”Most of them publish their results, go crying in a dark corner for a while after having seen the reception then get on with their research which, after all and nothing else is left, at least has them something to do for a slice of bread and cheese and the occasional bottle of cheap wine.”
Climate scientists, at least in the Anglosphere, are very well-paid.
"Well bunnies, look at it this way, we need stuff to sharpen our teeth on." remarks Eli, but are bunnies required to perform beaver exercises like gnawing logs and building dams? Count me out on this one, I'll be looking for a dandelion, meantime dinner cools and will sometime, someplace be served cold.
/cRR
Hilarious.
By pretending it is rational, or even possible to seperate the scientific explanation of a process from a description of its existential impact Brad Keyes is presenting a fake distinction.
When the catalytic process that accelerated ozone loss was discovered in the stratosphere the resulting hole was charaterised as DANGEROUS ozone depletion because that was the best scientific assesment of the existentiel impact of this process.
When the neural impacts of lead compounds were established they were chararterised as the DAMAGING effects lead contamination on child cognative development.
It is ridiculous to insist that when a good scientific understanding of a process is achieved it should not be described in terms that refer to its impact on the world.
I have seen attempts to argue for the BENEFICIAL impacts of AGW. Some are credible, many are contrived.
But the least credible position I have ever seen is one that argues that AGW is an absolutely neutral process with regard to impacts on Human existence. That unlike every other gain in our understanding of the processes that surround us, the issue of AGW must never be charaterised in any way. That any attempt to asses the impact of the undeniable physical processes involved in AGW somehow destrys the scientific legitimacy of the explanation.
Bard Keyes is by analogy arguing that while he accepts the science behind the carcingenic effects of smoking tobbacco, he objects to these actions being called harmful.
But perhaps he just objects to the severity implied by the word 'catastrophic', and does not hold the ridiculous position of demanding suppression of any judgement of the implications of that scientific knowledge.
Perhaps Brad Keyes would favor descriptions like potentially harmful AGW, or 'might not be too good for the grandkids' AGW.
Unless Brad Keyes is a Poe and playing the total clown I doubt that even he would argue that the appropriate adjective would be INCONSEQUENTIAL AGW.
izen
Point taken bigtime, izen.
What I am fussing about is my conviction that scientists should not assume policy roles say like the people in IPCC who have been given the task to not only assess but suggest policies.
I naively stated basically that scientists' principal thing to do is find the facts and present them, and leave public or politics to decide whether the facts are good, bad or inconsequential and what to do about them. From this position I would indeed have to object against scientists' use of the adjective 'harmful' re tobacco smoke. I see this is absurd.
So I will adhere to CAGW and call this an unambiguous scientific phrase. Let me underline that I mean 'catastrophic' with that 'C'.
/cRR (this 'c' means 'cielo', no worries)
Truly hilarious. I think I exonerated even nuclear waste from any consequentiality :)
izen,
You seem to have got my position exactly backwards. It's cRR, not me, who said that "'Catastrophic' is not a scientific adjective."
"It is ridiculous to insist that when a good scientific understanding of a process is achieved it should not be described in terms that refer to its impact on the world."
I have nothing against hypothesising that AGW will be catastrophic.
"But the least credible position I have ever seen is one that argues that AGW is an absolutely neutral process with regard to impacts on Human existence."
I don't argue thus.
I have nothing against hypothesising that AGW will be catastrophic.
"That unlike every other gain in our understanding of the processes that surround us, the issue of AGW must never be charaterised in any way. That any attempt to asses the impact of the undeniable physical processes involved in AGW somehow [destroys] the scientific legitimacy of the explanation."
I make no such claim.
I have nothing against hypothesising that AGW will be catastrophic.
"Bard [sic] Keyes is by analogy arguing that while he accepts the science behind the carcingenic effects of smoking tobbacco, he objects to these actions being called harmful."
No I'm not.
I have nothing against hypothesising that AGW will be catastrophic.
"But perhaps he just objects to the severity implied by the word 'catastrophic', and does not hold the ridiculous position of demanding suppression of any judgement of the implications of that scientific knowledge."
Of course I don't make that ridiculous demand.
I have nothing against hypothesising that AGW will be catastrophic.
"Perhaps Brad Keyes would favor descriptions like potentially harmful AGW, or 'might not be too good for the grandkids' AGW."
I favor any description that passes the test of science, which is "the immersion of hypotheses in the acid of truth."
I have nothing against hypothesising that AGW will be catastrophic.
"Unless Brad Keyes is a Poe and playing the total clown I doubt that even he would argue that the appropriate adjective would be INCONSEQUENTIAL AGW."
You're quite right. I would not argue such a thing.
cRR,
oops—I wrote:
"I gather that you yourself aren’t 100% sure, when Mann addresses the public, where one ends and the other begins. This tells me Mann is doing something wrong, ethically speaking."
But this doesn't follow, because you already explained that "I don't follow his pr at all, I just know he gets arrested at demonstrations once in a while."
Nevertheless, I think you should follow Mann's PR more closely—it's fascinating! Try following him on twitter and/or facebook, you'll learn things! :-)
By the way, one of the few other commenters that seem capable of telling me things I hadn't thought of before is a scientist called Jeff Harvey, who lives in the Netherlands (as do you, I think)—coincidence? Is it something about the allegedly straight-talking/honest Dutch character, or is it more to do with Holland's remote distance from the predictable, Manichaean climate politics of the Anglosphere?
Also, you're probably thinking of James Hansen who gets arrested at demonstrations.
Hmm. I can see why (further) confusion might be arising.
I wrote:
"I suppose it's generosity, or graciousness, on my part. I could simply call CAGW an ideology or a movement, but I adopt the polite fiction that it's a properly scientific idea."
There is nothing inherently unscientific about CAGW as a hypothesis. I've suggested that it happens to be unscientific because it hasn't been given a falsifiable definition—not because it can't be given one.
I'm all for scientists taking CAGW seriously as a hypothesis, which means defining and testing it. What I lament is the fact that they fail to do this, while telling us out of the other side of their mouths that AGW is going to be a catastrophe.
Brad wrote: "I'm all for scientists taking CAGW seriously as a hypothesis, which means defining and testing it. What I lament is the fact that they fail to do this, while telling us out of the other side of their mouths that AGW is going to be a catastrophe."
O.K., so give a verifiable example of a scientist telling us that AGW is going to be a catastrophe, without it this being backed up by a published study. You claim they exist, please provide your evidence.
If you want scientists to take CAGW seriously, you ought to be able to define what it actually is that you want them to take seriously.
Deja Moo all over again!
Brad,
The point your making, i.e. what you can the "ill-defined nature" of CAGW, presumes that defining the C in scientific terms is required.
This has never been done, and I have no reason to believe it never will.
What we have, as a scientific conjecture, is AGW.
What do you think of AGW, Brad?
***
So, as you say yourself:
> You're asking for the impossible.
You're asking for the impossible, Brad.
I'm not sure how asking the impossible can be justified by generosity or graciousness.
The expression "CAGW" is most of times seen in debates.
It is a rhetorical trick, Brad, like the word "catastrophists" you're using.
It frames a false debate by putting beliefs in the straw men of your own making, Brad.
***
Perhaps you're looking for words like "acidification"?
This one has been defined.
***
Thanks again for your concerns,
w
Gavin,
"O.K., so give a verifiable example of a scientist telling us that AGW is going to be a catastrophe, without it this being backed up by a published study. You claim they exist, please provide your evidence."
You obviously don't live in Australia! ;-)
Off the top of my head:
The Australian Climate Commissioner Prof. Will Steffen has asserted that climate change poses the problem of whether or not we're leaving our children a liveable climate. As far as I know, he makes this claim without the support of a single scientific study demonstrating any possibility that the Earth's climate may become uninhabitable, let alone within the next generation.
The Earth scientist Prof. Naomi Oreskes of UCSD has publicly disagreed with the adoption of the term "climate disruption," arguing instead for "climate destruction." As far as I know, she says this without the support of a single scientific study demonstrating any possibility that the Earth's climate will be destroyed.
"If you want scientists to take CAGW seriously, you ought to be able to define what it actually is that you want them to take seriously."
I think you know what I'm getting at, but (yet again) I probably could've been clearer. I want them to treat the hypothesis of CAGW seriously, like adults, like scientists. As an actual hypothesis. I'm not advocating that they take its likelihood seriously, merely that if they're not prepared to immerse it in the acid of truth then they can hardly expect us to lose sleep over it.
willard,
"What we have, as a scientific conjecture, is AGW.
What do you think of AGW, Brad?"
That it's most likely real.
Is this what you're asking? If not, ask again—I'm an open book.
It won't do much good to call out the crackpot deniers in lightly read fora. We need to go after their enablers in the media, with economic pressure and public humiliation. I have a program to do so, if any of you is interested: email me at
mike.greenframe@gmail.com
Thanks, Brad, for your candid answer:
> [AGW]'s most likely real.
I assume that your concerns are related to the consequences of AGW, right?
You so seem to insist on defining the C in CAGW.
***
Since you avow being an open book, could you tell me why you've not commented on the argument in my last comment, Brad?
You know, the one according to which you're burdening your interlocutors with an impossible demand.
Many thanks!
Brad, First, destructive is not at all the same thing as catastrophic, so the Oreskes example is obviously invalid (also "climate destruction" could mean "destruction by the climate", rather than "destruction of the climate"). There is plenty of evidence to suggest that AGW will cause sea levels to rise by several meters over the next century, I'd class that as destructive, it is also arguably catastrophic if you live in a low lying coastal region, such as the Netherlands or Bangladesh.
Also you claimed that scientists were saying that "AGW *IS* going to be a catastrophe." [*EMPHASIS* mine]. Steffen is clearly not doing that, he is only saying it is reasonable to ask if it will be a catastrophe (in the sense of not being "livable" (by which I suspect he means "worth living in" rather than "survivable". So that example is also invalid.
He has also written papers about abrupt climate change, so I don't even think it is true that what he says has no backing from scientific studies, e.g.
Steffen W, Andreae MO, Bolin B, Crutzen PJ, Cox P, Cubasch U, Held H, Nakicenovic N, Scholes R, Talaue-McManus L and Turner II BL (2004) "Abrupt changes: the Achilles heels of the Earth System" Environment, 46(3): 9–20.
Note taking the possibility of AGW seriously is exactly what you want scientists to do, so it is a bit hypocritical to complain when Steffen actually does raise the question!
Your complaint as far as I can see is hyperbole. The effects of non-catastrophic AGW are likely to be sufficiently severe to justify taking action. CAGW is a straw man, designed to deflect attention away from that fact that the "skeptic" position on AGW itself is largely untenable. I wish it wasn't.
Gavin,
"CAGW is a straw man, designed to deflect attention away from that fact that the "skeptic" position on AGW itself is largely untenable."
But I'm not "skeptical" (incredulous, doubtful, etc.) of AGW itself. So your suspicion about my motives is untenable.
Keep guessing.
"The effects of non-catastrophic AGW are likely to be sufficiently severe to justify taking action."
So you believe in SAGW. Fine. As long as you're willing to immerse them in the acid of truth, I respect your beliefs.
willard,
I hope this answers your question.
"So, as you say yourself:
> You're asking for the impossible.
You're asking for the impossible, Brad."
This conflates two different [im]possibilities.
When you asked me to cite scientific literature arguing for CAGW, I said that was impossible, because (as far as I know) the literature contains no such argument. But there's no good reason why it can't.
When I expect scientists to make such an argument in the literature, I'm not demanding something impossible, just something new.
willard:
"I assume that your concerns are related to the consequences of AGW, right?"
Yes. Aren't most people's?
Brad, firstly I note that you were unable to argue against my refutation of your two examples (and failed to openly acknowledge that you could not). Perhaps this should give you pause for thought, and consider that perhaps CAGW is a straw man.
It isn't necessarily your straw man, I'm not greatly interested in the motives of any individual, just the strength of the argument. The fact that you were unable to defend your choice of examples demonstrates that this particular argument is pretty weak.
I have no idea what you mean by "SAGW", and I am not particularly interested at this point. FWIW, I see no reason to depart from the mainstream scientific position on AGW; if you want to know what the mainstream scientific opinion is, then the IPCC WG1 report is not a bad place to start.
For the record here, Bradley's *actual position* on AGW is this:
My climate-change position is that there is no evidence that AGW is going to be hugely net-dangerous unless emissions are reduced, and therefore emissions regulation is ‘stupid’.
You're suffocating me, BabyBraD.
Brad,
You're asking for something that's "new". I don't think so, if you mean that you're the first showing concerns regarding CAGW:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/CAGW
As far as you know, the literature contains no argument regarding CAGW. You also insist:
> I expect scientists to make such an argument in the literature.
I don't know why scientists would have to make an argument about CAGW, when CAGW is a rhetorical trick used by people who express concerns on the Internet.
What they did is to show that there might be consequences to AGW, and that these consequences have to be taken into account to manage risks.
***
In other words, I submit that you're conflating scientific results with conclusions the public may infer from these results.
Asking that the laymen's inferences must follow directly from the scientific results may not be an impossible demand, strictly (i.e. metaphysically) speaking, but is sure does not look realistic.
***
Finally, I notice that you have not told us what would be a scientific argument for CAGW that you would find convincing.
If you don't set up this criteria beforehand, it will be hard for scientists to know how to satisfy your demand.
***
For the sake of openness, I'll tell you where I think we're heading:
> The notion of denial I had in mind looked more like an inferential mishap. A person can look at all the pieces of evidence available, but still could not make up his mind as to the propre inference to make. This describes well the denial of addicted persons, or persons unwilling to adopt a healtier lifestyle for their heart condition, or whatnot. So I would contend that it’s better to say that denial is a case of “seeing, but not connecting dots”.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1014380382
Thanks again for your very interesting concerns,
w
Gavin:
I have no idea what you mean by "SAGW"...
Really?? I suspect most readers would have had no difficulty inferring it from the context...
You: "The effects of non-catastrophic AGW are likely to be sufficiently severe to justify taking action."
Me: "So you believe in SAGW. Fine."
No Bradley, I am *quoting* you.
O.K. Brad, it seems that you are not interested in engaging with any of the substantive issues raised, and I have no interest in playing rhetorical word games, life is too short.
BBD:
No Bradley, I am *quoting* you.
Yes, I know. Everywhere I go. I've tried to be nice, without leading you on, but the hint doesn't seem to be getting through: I think it'd be healthy for us to spend time with other people, Dominic.
You wouldn't be trying to *delegitimise* me with a nasty little bit of gamesmanship would you?
Shame, Bradley!
BBD:
"You wouldn't be trying to *delegitimise* me with a nasty little bit of gamesmanship would you?"
An audacious question indeed from a stalker who's just finished writing:
"For the record here, Bradley's *actual position* on AGW is this:"
as if my position was some sort of secret. It's the Argument from Asterisks! Insinuating that I've been less than honest without saying so, thus bypassing the conventional expectation of evidence! Yawn.
Bradley Keyes,
You said that climate science should be held to the same standards. I would contend that the endorsements of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and every professional organization of relevant scientists argues that standards are just fine in climate science. However...
You apparently missed my question--if we are going to use the same standards for climate science as other sciences, does that mean you are willing to accept 2 degrees C per doubling of CO2 as the lower bound for CO2 sensitivity?
Sigh.
"a stalker" Bradley?
You mean "a commenter". Your dishonesty is getting the better of you again. Must watch that in public.
One has to smile at this:
as if my position was some sort of secret.
It took four thousand comments at Deltoid to get this out of you:
My climate-change position is that there is no evidence that AGW is going to be hugely net-dangerous unless emissions are reduced, and therefore emissions regulation is ‘stupid’.
Given your appalling track record for evasiveness and obfuscation, I thought it best to pass on the fruit of so much labour to the community here.
I thought you strongly endorsed sharing information? Hence all that fuss about Jones and the imaginary corruption of science.
Damn I'm good. No sooner had I written to BabyBraD (my emphasis):
"It's the Argument from Asterisks! Insinuating that I've been less than honest without saying so, thus bypassing the conventional expectation of evidence! Yawn."
than I see he has done precisely and literally that on the other thread as well! You couldn't make this up:
"Bradley, if you continue to infest the intertubes as you are doing, you will soon begin to encounter familiar faces.
I'd learn to deal with that in an adult and *honest* manner if I were you ;-)"
LOL!
I think you are trying to be a bit too clever there Brad.
You seem to think everyone else here is stupid. Unwise, that.
BBD:
"It took four thousand comments at Deltoid to get this out of you:
My climate-change position is that there is no evidence that AGW is going to be hugely net-dangerous unless emissions are reduced, and therefore emissions regulation is ‘stupid’."
Then you must have been doing something seriously wrong, because it took the master interrogators here at Rabett Run all of 9 comments to extract the following confession from me:
"What I don't find remotely scientifically plausible is the "discovery" that CO2-mediated warming is not only an interesting object of study but an existential danger."
LOL... really, Dominic... the idea that I, of all people, am reluctant to divulge my opinion on things would strike any competent judge of personalities as a very good reflection of reality ...about the y-axis. :-) !
"You seem to think everyone else here is stupid."
LOL. Hardly.
For every Sou there's a cRR / willard / David B. Benson.
BBD, as much as I enjoy catching up with you, let's consider others. I rarely agree with Anonymous—he's a bit of an idiot, frankly—but he's right on this:
"Anonymous said...
Can we not let this discussion be about Brad Keyes?
28/3/13 8:11 AM "
Brad,
If it took Deltoid 4000 comments to make you spell out your concerns, you should ask yourself why your concerns have not been spelled out by your own free will.
Deflecting this responsibility onto whom you call your "interrogators" might be suboptimal, here.
***
I also note that you do seem to prefer to tease BBD than discussing Gavin's issues or my last comment.
Auditors ought to wonder why.
***
Thank you very much for your ongoing concerns,
w
PS: I'll be out of the grid in a few hours and will come back Monday.
Careful willard, or Bradley will have to start pretending that you are "a stalker" too!
Dilbert:
"I would contend that the endorsements of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and every professional organization of relevant scientists argues that standards are just fine in climate science."
That's interesting. I wouldn't.
Science begins with the following axiom (to which many believalists are either oblivious or resistant).
Opinion is not a form of evidence.
BBD,
I sincerely believe that Brad would not try that suboptimal trick on me. Not that it would be impossible for him to do so.
Guys, I'm flattered, but I repeat:
Can we not let this discussion be about Brad Keyes?
There's a whole thread devoted to my musings on climate, science and climate science at Deltoid. You're more than welcome there.
Brad,
You now say:
> Opinion is not a form of evidence.
Actually, judgements from authority could count as valid warrants:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/toulmin_model.htm
I'm not sure what form of judgement can be considered evidence, though.
But again, I'm not sure what kind of evidence would convince you, since you are arguing against an **inference**.
I submit that you are already losing ground, Brad.
Thank you anyway from your concerns.
w
Opinion is not a form of evidence.
And:
What I don't find remotely scientifically plausible is the "discovery" that CO2-mediated warming is not only an interesting object of study but an existential danger.
And:
My climate-change position is that there is no evidence that AGW is going to be hugely net-dangerous unless emissions are reduced, and therefore emissions regulation is ‘stupid’.
Those of us on the Deltoid thread will recall that Bradley was extremely evasive when asked to provide evidence supporting his position.
Now Bradley will try to focus on the term "an existential danger" that he planted in the first quote, and off we will go again about "CAGW".
Ho-hum.
Opinion is not a form of evidence.
In the rough and tumble world of no holds barred science it is. And its in a much better form than raw data. You can choose to listen to it, confirm it, refute it or even disregard it, or choose not even to listen to it. Evidence is weirdly hierarchical and recursive that way. And of course, you can choose to do whatever you want with it. The trick is to get other scientists to believe in it and do something with it, or believe it and do something with it yourself.
willard:
"But again, I'm not sure what kind of evidence would convince you, since you are arguing against an **inference**."
Hmm. Could you elaborate on the idea that what's at issue is an inference? (All mentions of the word "inference" on this thread so far are by you, fwiw.)
Am I right in thinking you mean something like: Science can only tell us that AGW is going to kill, say, 2 billion people by 2030; whether this fact is catastrophic is a matter of value judgement or inference.
Because that'd be a misreading of my position. I'm not being tricksy. Far from it—I'd stipulate that "catastrophic" means "killing a whole heap of people" (among other things) and that, if the physical evidence pointed to billions of deaths, then AGW would be "catastrophic" by definition, regardless of our personal values.
The opinions of scientists on scientific methodology actually IS evidence. It is evidence in a court of law, and it is evidence when it comes to acceptable standards in science.
Velikovsky is not science. Climate science is.
And I notice you again ducked the question of whether you accept 2 degrees per doubling as a lower bound on climate sensitivity. I am sure everyone else noticed too. Too much of that could damage your credibility if you had any.
Brad,
Thank you for your question.
If you do accept AGW, chances are that you are raising concerns against its consequences.
The consequences of AGW are **inferred** from the evidence.
It follows that you are raising concerns against what is being inferred from the evidence of AGW.
In other words, you are claiming a non sequitur, Brad: AGW does not lead to CAGW. But this non sequitur is the product of stuffing AGW with C straw.
The point of my last comment was this: to admit that asking for evidence for the consequences of AGW while accepting the evidence for AGW can't be felicitous.
Hoping this helps,
w
Brad,
Another thing, if you allow me.
If you say something like:
> I'm not being tricksy.
and accept Popper's playbook, chances are that this argument will be questioned.
This means that the topic will switch to your behaviour, here and elsewhere.
Since you asked the bunnies not to get personal, I'd stay away from such claims.
Have a good week-end,
w
This thread has gone seriously downhill, and I hope neither Russell nor Dhogaza is here to read my reply. Nonetheless, I have to say:
That is a fishy tail.
(no need to beat a dead horse, but pun intended)
It seems that a certain prolific commenter feels more alive when he is making a fool of himself in public in front of some people who understand what he's talking about a whole lot more than he does.
nasty susan, bad susan
;)
(I do think some censorship would not come amiss in these nether regions.)
Brad is not a scientist, and so he does not understand how science is really practiced. Somehow he thinks Science appears with no human influence or interactions to muddy the purity of knowledge.
Brad, let me know when you personally verify relativity is correct, or verify that charge is quantized, or verify that a magnetic field can split spectral lines in some atoms.
So what if "Catastrophic" is not a "scientific" term? You are asking a policy question, not a science question anyway. Science will tell you AGW is happening. Science will give guidance on what the effects will be. Policy will tell you whether the effects are "catastrophic", merely "severe" or just "ho-hum." Just depends on whether you care how many species go extinct, how many people die, what economic effects you care about etc.
Basically you're spending all your time barking up the wrong tree from what I can see.
”Brad is not a scientist, and so he does not understand how science is really practiced.”
Yes I do.
”Somehow he thinks Science appears with no human influence or interactions to muddy the purity of knowledge.”
No I don’t.
”Brad, let me know when you personally verify relativity is correct, or verify that charge is quantized, or verify that a magnetic field can split spectral lines in some atoms.”
Easy. Read the evidence. It’s in the scientific literature—the physics literature in this case. Let me know if you can’t find it and I might make time to teach you some search strategies.
”So what if "Catastrophic" is not a "scientific" term?”
That’s cRR’s opinion, not mine. Go ask him so what.
”You are asking a policy question, not a science question anyway.”
No I’m not. I’m asking if there is any physical evidence that AGW will be catastrophic—extremely net-dangerous. This is a question for science.
”Science will tell you AGW is happening.”
OK.
”Science will give guidance on what the effects will be.”
Correct.
”Policy will tell you whether the effects are "catastrophic", merely "severe" or just "ho-hum."”
No it won’t. There will never be a policy, regulation, tax or statute capable of saying that a decrease in exposure deaths due to hypothermia is catastrophic, or that a 50% reduction in global biodiversity is ho-hum.
”Just depends on whether you care how many species go extinct, how many people die, what economic effects you care about etc.”
You just said it was a matter of policy. Now you say it’s a matter of personal values. Make up your mind.
QED
BK, it may surprise you that I'm not at all interested in what you have to say after having read a bit too much of it and finding no substance.
However, Planet3.0 led me to check SkS which found you, doing the same as you do here, endlessly spinning anti-knowledge nonsense. That clarified your proclivity for unhelpfulness. Finding others have tried to get to what it is that is infecting you with all this ire, like a poisoned splinter, you are all too familiar. Dealing with the likes of you requires a very light touch if one is not to be caught in your wannabe webs.
BTW, if I sound angry, you've got the message. You are quibbling with skill and obtuseness with the future of not only the rest of the human race but your own family.
Brad, if you understand how science works, then my ass chews gum.
A good example of Brad's debating tactics can be found here. I believe that the term for this kind of crap is gaslighting.
> Thank you for your question.
My pleasure.
> If you do accept AGW, chances are that you are raising concerns against its consequences.
Why do you say “chances are,” as if you were guessing, when I’ve already spelt out my concerns in explicit, almost pornographic detail?
> The consequences of AGW are **inferred** from the evidence.
From the evidence for AGW? Wrong.
From the evidence that AGW has consequences x, y and z? Sure.
> It follows that you are raising concerns against what is being inferred from the evidence of AGW.
What can be inferred from the evidence of AGW is AGW.
As I’ve explained.
> In other words, you are claiming a non sequitur, Brad: AGW does not lead to CAGW.
Bingo.
By golly, I think you may be catching on.
> But this non sequitur is the product of stuffing AGW with C straw.
But there is no C in AGW. The only C is the C in CAGW.
> The point of my last comment was this: to admit that asking for evidence for the consequences of AGW while accepting the evidence for AGW can't be felicitous.
Huh? You wrote your last comment in order to admit that asking for evidence for the consequences of AGW while accepting the evidence for AGW can't be felicitous? Oookay then.
> Hoping this helps,
Not greatly, to be honest. You’ve done better.
> If you say something like:
> > I'm not being tricksy.
> and accept Popper's playbook, chances are that this argument will be questioned.
Firstly, it’s not an argument, it’s an assertion.
Secondly, it’s a falsifiable assertion—e.g. it’s false in the case where I’m being tricksy.
Was I being tricksy? You tell me.
(The answer is no, by the way.)
> This means that the topic will switch to your behaviour, here and elsewhere.
I guess I should have expected that, given that this is climate science we’re discussing, which is well-known for involving copious scientia ad hominem. Of course if this were a normal conversation among normal people the only topic would be whether the argument I was making here and now was or was not tricksy.
> Since you asked the bunnies not to get personal, I'd stay away from such claims.
I asked the bunnies to get over their obsession with me—or if that proves impossible, to adjourn to the appropriate thread at Deltoid—purely out of consideration for other readers, who may have come here hoping for a blog about, well, science. I’m sure our host Eli would appreciate my attempts to keep his thread on track.
> Have a good week-end,
And don’t eat too many chocolate bunnies, bunnies. Stick to caecotrophy.
Dilbert:
The opinions of scientists on scientific methodology actually IS evidence.
Arguably. But try not to conflate science with metascience. Scientists' opinions within science, about nature are evidentially worthless by definition. This is one of the rules that make science special, even unique, among systems of knowledge.
"It is evidence in a court of law,"
Yes, but forensic epistemology ≠ scientific epistemology. Science is special.
"and it is evidence when it comes to acceptable standards in science."
To repeat: metascience ≠ science.
"Velikovsky is not science."
Right. Velikovsky is a person.
Nothing gets past you, does it?
"Climate science is."
Amazing!
"And I notice you again ducked the question of whether you accept 2 degrees per doubling as a lower bound on climate sensitivity. I am sure everyone else noticed too. Too much of that could damage your credibility if you had any."
Actually, one of the secrets to credibility and longevity as a commenter is not to answer questions you don't know the answer to. Over at deltoid I was movingly entreated by the locals to give my amateur opinion on ECS / 2xCO2 and their sedulous and pathetic pleas finally wore me down. I'd rather not repeat that mistake here.
Common rat:
"A good example of Brad's debating tactics can be found here. I believe that the term for this kind of crap is gaslighting."
Gosh, that criticism is a real eye opener for me.
I suppose I've never really credited myself with the rhetorical power to psychologically disuse, disorient and disempower other commenters by causing them to question their own agency and / or sanity. Until now.
What a monster I've been.
Any victims thus traumatised by my "skill and obtuseness" (as Susan Anderson puts it) may find some measure of peace, and even a chance to rebuild their shattered lives, in the classic manual Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair by the gaslighting survivorship advocate Hilde Lindemann Nelson.
From the blurb: "Hilde Lindemann Nelson focuses on the stories of groups of people-including Gypsies, mothers, nurses, and transsexuals-whose identities have been defined by those with the power to speak for them and to constrain the scope of their actions. ... Nelson identifies two kinds of damage inflicted on identities ... To intervene in the production of either kind of damage, Nelson develops the counterstory, a strategy of resistance that allows the identity to be narratively repaired and so restores the person to full membership in the social and moral community."
A reviewer at Google Books calls it "required reading ... for mature people of any gender."
There is life after gaslighting.
Susan Anderson,
you've said one interesting thing on this thread: that you were friends with Richard Feynman. I'm sorry, but you can't just drop a bomb like that and walk away as if nothing happened. We have follow-up questions! Most pressingly: since you knew him, what would Feynman have thought of soi-disant scientists who write the following?
"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"
Inquiring minds want to know.
Willard,
on the other thread you claim to be
"Glad to see how you are coatracking (an auditing idiom, so I guess you know that one) Jones and the Team in the discussion."
Thank you for opening my mind to yet another dastardly rhetorical manoeuvre.
In the last 24 hours I've been introduced to "mindframing," "gaslighting" and "coatracking." Where have you been all my life, Rabett Run?
:-)
In all seriousness though, the paranoid local lexicon almost makes me think I've stumbled into a Scientology lair. Suppressive person! Sniops! Attention all OT4s and above, cleanup in aisle 6!
Dilbert, you boast that
if 1 then
my ass chews gum
end if
Funnily, you remind me of a guy called Lionel A, who only calls people by their first names if he either knows them intimately or admires them. I told him he must be a roaring success at parties, and I'll say the same to you—and in your case I'm not being sarcastic!
Susan:
"BTW, if I sound angry, you've got the message."
You sound recursively furious.
:-)
Now please stop evading the question about Feynmanian versus Jonesian ethics.
Me: ”Brad, let me know when you personally verify relativity is correct, or verify that charge is quantized, or verify that a magnetic field can split spectral lines in some atoms.”
Brad: "Easy. Read the evidence. It’s in the scientific literature—the physics literature in this case. Let me know if you can’t find it and I might make time to teach you some search strategies."
Brad yet again deftly dodges.
So Brad does not believe any science unless he himself searches the literature and evaluates the evidence. I guess this explains why he can write so much crap -- he hasn't "read the evidence" so he has no science to understand to hold him back.
He's still rattling off about the Phil Jones quote. If you look at the email, Phil J. says (in the not most elegant way) -- you can go get all the data publicly. So yes, why would he (Phil J) give Warwick Hughes (a crank) his(Phil's) data (which included the corrections etc. published) when he knew the crank was just going to "audit" it? If the crank really wanted to do science, he could have (as Brad Keyes tells us) just read Phil J. papers and evaluated the evidence. Somehow this is good enough for Brad Keyes to tell us to do, but not good enough for poor Warwick Hughes, who despite claiming to be a scientist, cannot do his own replication study.
So Brad -- give it a rest. Your quote is crap and your continual harping about it just shows how obsessive you are.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Little bitty Bradley,
I don't know what mindframing is, but gaslighting and coatracking are two rhetorical techniques for which you have shown ample talent.
Eli and Brian: can you please send him back to his pen at Deltoid?
Gator:
"If you look at the email, Phil J. says (in the not most elegant way) --you can go get all the data publicly."
If you look at the email, he says no such thing.
But then, our readers will already have concluded this for themselves from your conspicuous failure to quote the supposed statement.
And your conspicuous failure to link to the damn email? What are we supposed to conclude from that?
Quite frankly I don't recall the email, although I do recall this quote being thrown all over the intertubes as some sort of proof of Phil Jones perfidy. So I went and and actually looked at Hughes site to get an idea of who Jones was replying to. He was entirely justified in his reply.
Gator:
"he hasn't "read the evidence" so he has no science to understand to hold him back."
I hope one day you'll stop looking at science as something that holds one back. On the contrary, it's probably the most liberating invention of the human mind.
That's why some of us aren't willing to stand in silence while it's subverted. We love science.
As do many climate alarmists/activists, I'm sure, even if they're not always clear about what science is—which is why the debate gets so heated. When a keystone of modern civilization is at stake, it's pretty unrealistic to expect us to just agree to disagree.
Rattus,
"And your conspicuous failure to link to the damn email? What are we supposed to conclude from that?"
Depends how paranoid a mood you're in.
Here is the full context of the notorious quote:
From: Phil Jones
To: "wshughes@iinet.net.au"
Subject: Re: WMO non respondo
Warwick,
Hans Teunisson will reply. He'll tell you which other people should reply.
Hans is "Hans Teunissen" .
I should warn you that some data we have we are not supposed top pass on to others. We can pass on the gridded data - which we do. Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. There is IPR to consider.
You can get similar data from GHCN at NCDC. Australia isn't restricted there. Several European countries are. Basically because, for example, France doesn't want the French picking up data on France from Asheville. Meteo France wants to supply data to the French on France. Same story in most of the others.
Cheers
Phil
Dear Susan,
"However, Planet3.0 led me to check SkS which found you, doing the same as you do here, endlessly spinning anti-knowledge nonsense."
You'll kindly:
1. quote some examples of "anti-knowledge nonsense" posted by me at SkS
or
2. retract and apologise
or
3. stand revealed before the Unblinking, Unforgetting Eye of the Internet as a see-through liar.
Many thanks in advance,
BK
Escapee from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital
?
David, good one!
"Escapee from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital
?"
LOL
I don't think I've ever heard Deltoid compared to Bedlam before, but if the shoe fits...!
metzomagic:
"Trying to engage with Brad Keyes is a complete waste of time.... He's a crank by any definition of the word. Cannot be reasoned with."
Really? Am I a fanciful turn of speech? Part of an axle or shaft bent out at right angles to allow conversion of reciprocal to circular motion and vice versa? Am I methamphetamine, metzomagic?
Or are you just believalist cannon-fodder?
Better trolls, please.
Python Time -
Colonel (Graham Chapman): "This is an extremely silly thread and I want it stopped immediately".
"This is an extremely silly thread and I want it stopped immediately".
Slow down, Colonel—premature termination would be regrettable. The thread still hasn't provided us with:
* A response from Sou to the dead-easy challenge: name any (non-climate) "science" I "deny"
* A single example of a climate believalist successfully engaging with, refuting and laughing at a "science denier"
* Susan Anderson's answer to the question about Phil Jones' infamous email: WWRFT?
* Either some substantiation, or a retraction, of N'berg's idiotic imputation that Anthony Watts and his readers are "criminals"
* Any rationale from Susan Anderson for her bizarre reference to my supposed "agenda-driven efforts to discredit his host and his host's colleagues." (...what have I said to discredit Eli, Susan?)
* willard's explanation of the word "mindframing," a skill he accuses me of using and describes as "kinda uncool"
* any example of a "fake skeptic" besides Richard Muller
* an answer to the question: is anthropogenic climate change "hyperquick" (cRR) or is "the pace of change [...] slow" (Gator)?
... or a denouement to any of a number of other loose ends.
The answer to "extremely silly" speech is more speech!
Over at deltoid I was movingly entreated by the locals to give my amateur opinion on ECS / 2xCO2 and their sedulous and pathetic pleas finally wore me down. I'd rather not repeat that mistake here.
Ah but Brad, please do! Better still, link to it. There is at least amusement value in amateur bumblings admitted as such, surely no-one will be too harsh on you. Just like no-one will harshly point out how wrong you were and how accurately Gator and Rattus sized you up, after you finally, after most blog readers had left in disgust, could be made to produce the whole email exposing your cherry picking.
Martin Vermeer,
Your poor man's paralipsis is cute:
"no-one will harshly point out how wrong you were and how accurately Gator and Rattus sized you up, after you finally, after most blog readers had left in disgust, could be made to produce the whole email exposing your cherry picking."
It might have worked, too, if anything in Jones' email were somehow capable of redeeming his famous, radically anti-scientific question:
"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."
But nothing comes close.
(Which is why you don't even bother trying to quote from it.)
Nor is there anything that vaguely matches Gator's desperate paraphrase: "If you look at the email, Phil J. says (in the not most elegant way) --you can go get all the data publicly."
(Which is why Gator knows better than to try to quote from it.)
Go ahead though—keep defending the indefensible! :-) We could use a good laugh. This thread is consecrated to the mockery of those who mock science, after all!
:-p
So Brad, what does "we can pass on the gridded data, which we do" mean?
Hoist on your own petard much?
The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this one.
Rattus,
"So Brad, what does "we can pass on the gridded data, which we do" mean?"
It means Phil Jones is in a position to pass on the gridded data, and sometimes does so.
Why do I have to interpret plain English for you? Are you petarded?
BK, the person who looks a fool here is not me. The longer you go on, the more ...
As to Feynman, while I object to the use being made of his honesty and intelligence to promote anti-science nonsense, I can't stop people doing that. I do know that he would make very short work of claims that he would support anti-science.
This is a nice short clip which everyone can enjoy, though reinterpreting Galileo, Einstein, and others to support political denial of science will continue:
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/05/24/the-essence-of-science-feynman-gets-it-in-63-seconds/
"if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong"
The thing that continue to baffle me as that as evidence piles up worldwide, people are willing to imitate a monkey (see no, hear no, speak no ...) and pretend reality is not there.
What a monster I've been.
- Brad Keyes.
The penny drops!
Susan:
"I do know that [RPF] would make very short work of claims that he would support anti-science."
Intriguing. Could you please point me to a single claim by anyone that Feynman would support anti-science?
Or is this just another hallucination of yours, like that time you thought you saw me "endlessly spinning anti-knowledge nonsense" at SkS?
Susan,
that's a great minute of Feynman. I agree with you on the fundamentality of this:
"if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong"
But allow me to remind you of another classic Feynmanism:
"If your prediction is wrong, your hypothesis is wrong."
You do appreciate that this is an ironclad law of science, I hope.
Unless, of course, you're the IPCC—in which case your prediction was just a typo.
;-)
Bradley
Most people can see here a failed attempt to delegitimise 'climate science' by stealing emails and smearing a few individual scientists. The interesting question is who actually arranged all this.
Yes, there are the conspiracy theorists who believe it's all greenies working away behind the scenes to overthrow capitalism or some such bollocks. But they are barking and we ignore them, don't we?
You appear to believe that Jones and Mann etc are proxies for the entirety of physical climatology, and somehow this entirety is rendered suspect 'because J & M'.
This is *as daft* as fantasies of conspiracy between greenie-leftie scientists to over-state the risks of AGW for political-ideological motives. Which we ignore, don't we?
Brad, this part is easy:
"* an answer to the question: is anthropogenic climate change "hyperquick" (cRR) or is "the pace of change [...] slow" (Gator)?"
Current rate of change in earth's temperature is superquick by geological terms, slow by human terms. I thought that was obvious but I guess I overestimated your ability to read and reason.
Hyperquick would be if we hit one of the theorized "tipping points".
OK Brad, since I answered one of your loose ends, answer one of mine. Do you really not believe any science unless you personally go to the journals and evaluate the evidence yourself? Simple question Brad. I'm guessing you have NEVER done this.
Gator:
"OK Brad, since I answered one of your loose ends, answer one of mine."
Thanks. Yes, gladly.
"Do you really not believe any science unless you personally go to the journals and evaluate the evidence yourself?"
Bzzz. That's incorrect. (And I've told you this in somewhat harsher terms on the other thread—because you didn't bother to check with me first, as you're doing on this thread. Which is the right thing to do.)
May I ask, Gator, which comment[s] of mine led you to this impression? Perhaps I can reword it/them more clearly.
Anyway, now that I've answered one of yours, it's your turn. :-)
"Current rate of change in earth's temperature is superquick by geological terms, slow by human terms."
Agreed. It's slow by human terms. (Much like continental drift.)
But this raises the obvious question: as a human , why do you care about climate change?
Brad Keyes: Having reviewed the situation, I have come to the conclusion that it is not the thread that is at fault but that you are in fact an extremely silly person. It's not in the slightest bit funny. Now I'm the first person to enjoy a good laugh, well, apart from my wife and, erm, some of her friends. But this is just silly. Now, let's have a jolly good clean sketch, chop-chop.
Agreed. It's slow by human terms. (Much like continental drift.)
But this raises the obvious question: as a human , why do you care about climate change?
This is a false analogy. 2C or more increase in global *average* temperature by the end of the century is lightning-fast in climatological terms and in no way comparable with the rate or consequences of continental drift over the same period.
It's also a massive excursion from the Holocene range.
Abrupt, significant global climate change will have substantial effects. Whether you characterise them as catastrophic will depend on your personal experience of them. Or more probably, your grandchildren's, if any. They are people and presumably a good reason to care about climate change.
Me: "Do you really not believe any science unless you personally go to the journals and evaluate the evidence yourself?"
Brad: "Bzzz. That's incorrect."
Obvious follow-up. Then where do you get your beliefs?
Re slow vs fast.
Continental drift is not slow by human terms, it is zero. Compared to continental drift, climate change is a rocket passing a turtle.
Why would I, a human, care about "slow" climate change? Because it will mess up the environment, economy and infrastructure over the lifetime of me, my children and other descendents should they ever come to be. Because I care about others besides myself. Why would a human care about anything outside of themselves?
Brad has apparently made two decisions. One, his filtered opinion is that climate change will not have drastic effects. He could of course go read the journal articles to understand what current effects are seen and expected, but we see above he doesn't feel he needs to do that. So whatever effects he feels science is telling him might happen, he has made the policy decision that humans should not care about the possible effects.
Having ideas about policy is of course his right. It would be nice if he could recognize this is in fact what he is doing, instead of trying to stick his head in the sand about the science. In his frantic attempt to side-step the science, he is forced to smear climate scientists and misrepresent what the current state of science actually is.
Keyes irritating the dead:
'But allow me to remind you of another classic Feynmanism:
"If your prediction is wrong, your hypothesis is wrong."'
There is another possibility: "If your prediction is wrong, your hypothesis has been incompletely tested"
Much like Alfred Wegener and continental drift.
Writing which highlights the bait and switch in a statement of yours @ 30/3/13 8:51 AM by equating the rapid rate of current warming with said continental drift which later being a now defunct hypothesis itself. But did you know that?
Sorry for feeding the troll folks but sometimes he chokes on his own verbiage.
Feynmann: "If your prediction is wrong, your hypothesis is wrong."
True. Now, what if your measurement and your theory are both products of a signal and random noise. You can only state the degree to which they diverge and the probability thereof--presuming a probabilistic model of the noise. Feynmann certainly understood this. Brad doesn't.
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/head-in-sand-500.gif
A says,
"... equating the rapid rate of current warming with said continental drift which later being a now defunct hypothesis itself. But did you know that?"
No, I didn't remember (though I learned it long ago, in high school) that we weren't strictly supposed to call the movement of the supermarine parts of the tectonic plates "continental drift."
Thanks for the reminder, A. Fortunately however, no bunnies were confused in the spinning of this thread. Everyone else seems to "know" what I meant by the analogy.
Dilbert is enlightened by a ray of scientific (if not orthographic) literacy:
'Feynmann (sic): "If your prediction is wrong, your hypothesis is wrong."
True.'
So far so good! (Admittedly I have no idea why you ask us to imagine "your measurement and your theory are both products of a signal and random noise," and I suspect I'm not alone.)
So the next problem for you is: why didn't the IPCC admit its hypothesis was wrong when the "voodoo science" of Himalayan glaciology was brought to its attention?
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf
Gator:
"Why would I, a human, care about "slow" climate change? Because it will mess up the environment, economy and infrastructure over the lifetime of me, my children and other descendents (sic) should they ever come to be."
And yet, strangely, you say "It's a hard sell because the pace of change is slow."
Why would something that messes up the world be a hard sell? Unless, of course, people are just not as smart as you, Professor A. Gator. Perhaps you've assumed you're going to be acutely aware of what's messing up the world while those around you lack the necessary comprehension to care.
I submit that you haven't thought this through very well.
Brad Keyes has requested my opinion as to what Dick Feynman would have made of a particular item. Not being a medium, I can't say. I can, however, assure him that he was not a fan of the secondhand and second rate. I've tried to say this before. He had a rather short way with foolishness. I think he would have seen right through the transparent narrowing of the subject matter to prevent a proper answer about the whole.
It seems fake skeptics are much better than his friends at channeling his intentions.
However, since this is the one thing that pulled you out of your shell, if you are still reading, I would ask why you are adamantly prejudiced against studying mainstream science and determined to limit your understanding to manipulated interpretations that reed of the secondhand and second-rate mentioned above? You are not alone, and those of us who follow science are puzzled at the obstinate blindness of this approach.
BBD:
"You appear to believe that Jones and Mann etc are proxies for the entirety of physical climatology,"
However—as I think I mentioned to you at Deltoid—I don't think they're "proxies" for anything other than what you can get away with in science if you do climate science. I haven't suggested—because I don't think for a second—that the median, modal or mean climate scientist actually has attempted, let alone gotten away with, anything as brazen as J & M.
There are plenty of examples, across all the sciences, of scientists who tweaked. Both Watson and Mendel come immediately to mind.
A power of science is that it drags us, slowly, kicking and screaming, towards the truth about how this universe actually works. Some move along more rapidly than others; "science proceeds one funeral at a time".
Susan,
"I would ask why you are adamantly prejudiced against studying mainstream science"
Then you would ask a falsely-premised nonsense question.
Firstly, I have no such prejudice.
Secondly, "mainstream science" is a favorite phrase of those who, like yourself, "follow science" without ever having understood it. (This is not a slur on your intelligence but a simple corollary of the fact that you cannot guess how science works—someone has to teach you, which they haven't.)
Science has only one (1) stream.
You'd know this had you ever practiced it.
Its rheometric unity (so to speak) is an intimate function of its methodological unity.
"and determined to limit your understanding to manipulated interpretations that reed of the secondhand and second-rate mentioned above?"
"Reed"? An allusion to ecological hydrology, or a lyrical melange of "reek" and "read"?
How can I stay angry at such a poetess?
Nevertheless, I'll remind you of your outstanding debts.
You wrote:
"I do know that [RPF] would make very short work of claims that he would support anti-science."
I wrote:
Intriguing. Could you please point me to a single claim by anyone that Feynman would support anti-science?
Or is this just another hallucination of yours, like the time you were convinced I was "endlessly spinning anti-knowledge nonsense" at SkS?
No more evasions, please.
I meant Millikan
http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/9
not Watson.
Hank:
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf
Go on.
Susan,
how could I forget? You've also yet to tell us who you mean by "fake skeptics."
I can only think of two examples, both of them believalists.
1. Richard Muller, who famously shopped around the story that he'd become a climate alarmist on the road to Damascus. He flew around the world giving interviews with such dutiful headlines as "Conversion of a Climate Change Skeptic" (to quote our left organ down under).
Having achieved his goal—or his publisher's goal, perhaps—Muller finally came clean: "I've never been a climate skeptic."
2. Stephan Lewandowsky, the climate psychologist and conspiracy theorist who once tried to lecture Australians on how science works and embarrassed himself in the process: "Science is inherently sceptical, and peer review is the instrument by which scientific scepticism is pursued," he gibbered.
Not being a scientist yourself, you may or may not perceive the absurdity of that sentence, so let me spell it out: the "instrument by which scientific scepticism is pursued" is something called the scientific method. Peer review was not even part—much less all!—of the scientific process before WW2. According to Lew's ignorant "logic," Albert Einstein was neither a skeptic nor a scientist.
It's a singular humiliation for Lewandowsky, self-appointed malleus negatorium, to publicly try and fail to pass himself of as understanding (let alone supporting) scientific skepticism.
Brad Keyes --- You could just read it and form your own conclusion...
"Right. Velikovsky is a person."
Nope. He's a corpse, or ashes.
"Do you really not believe any science unless you personally go to the journals and evaluate the evidence yourself?"
Brad: "Bzzz. That's incorrect."
It's a question, not an incorrect statement. The correct answer is "yes", "no", or "if it agrees with my philosophy and beliefs, I cherrypick that science to believe in; if it challenges my belief that fossil fuels are essential to modern society('When a keystone of modern civilization is at stake'), I reject it."
"as a human , why do you care about climate change?"
Because I'm not a selfish, arrogant, pompous egomaniac,
Brian,
You misinterpreted me (quite innocently, I'm sure!) when I suggested 'a keystone of modern civilization is at stake.' I was talking about the scientific method, not fossil fuels. Note the immediately preceding paragraph (emphasis in original):
"That's why some of us aren't willing to stand in silence while it's subverted. We love science."
David:
"Brad Keyes --- You could just read [the IPCC press release] and form your own conclusion..."
I did. My conclusion—implicit in my two-word response—was that unless I missed something, the press release does nothing at all to remedy the appearance that the IPCC is egregiously unscientific and a travesty of everything Feynman taught his undergrads.
Brad Keyes --- IPCC regrets that certain procedures were not fully followed. IPCC doesn't do any research, just reports. So it certainly is, in that regard, egregiously unscientific. But the reports are very well done, although prefection is not possible.
Dick Feynman only taught undergraduates (at least freshmen) the once. His lecture notes are available for your perusal but I doubt you'll find anything directly about the scientific method or honesty; both are simply assumed at CalTech, my alma mater.
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