Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Incidence of Solipsism Among Physicists

The incidence of solipsism  among physicists is high.  In Richard Muller it is ginormous.  Writing in the NY Times (as rumor had it.  Rumor was right as they say), Muller does a full reverse Lomborg,  "I used to be an X, but now, I am a Y and proud of it.

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming.
Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. 

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. 
 Muller's doubts were, of course, what a bunny reads everyday at numerous blogs, urban heating, it's the sun, surface stations ain't perfect and so on.  And, of course, Muller and Ralph Robert Rohde [update:  Sincere apologies and thanks to the Weasel for pointing this faux pas out, but the initials are good anyway RR] (who did the heavy lifting) found what everyone else has found, that none of this makes a dime's worth of difference, but, of course, since Muller showed it, it must be right.

This ain't saying that the BEST project was useless, they have developed some interesting methods, and  pushed the surface temperature instrumental record back somewhat.  It wasn't that others were unaware of such records, but the level of trust was, let us say, about where Michael Mann stands in Steve McIntyre's mind.  Eli remembers a talk Drew Shindell gave about 10-15 years ago asking "Who should we trust about 19th century temperatures:  Models or data"  and the answer was, well, who knows.

To give an idea about how the records stand, take a peek at the Eli Rabett Mann Muller curves with MBH98 on the top scaled to MR2012 on the bottom.  FWIW, the proxy's show less uncertainty compared to the BEST surface temperature record


The news, such as it is, is that the Berkeley group has posted its manuscripts
The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five scientific papers now online at BerkeleyEarth.org. That site also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present, with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide, but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with the data and computer programs used.

The language is interesting.  Sure sounds like, well, you need to think about some of this stuff more clearly.  The language at the BEST Blog
The Berkeley Earth team has already started to benefit from feedback from our peers, so these figures are more up-to-date than the figures in our papers submitted for peer review (see below). 
and
Submitted for publication in JGR Atmospheres

Has the hint of them being slam dunked at Science, Nature and GRL, but JGR is an excellent journal.  Eli, being the suspicious type would bet that the referees reports were the equivalent of did you think we fell off the turnip truck? Other people figured this out years ago, your data set is interesting, but just because something is new to you, don't mean it is new to the world.

OTOH, since it ain't Tuesday (the deadline) these papers can be considered by the IPCC under their gray literature rules.  Eli has been known to publish in arXiv.

88 comments:

badger badger badger said...

I like how after all these years of denialists duly informing the scientific community that correlation is not causation, Muller's attribution study appears to be precisely that. What an ass.

Anonymous said...

Did you notice Anthony Watt's sudden announcement Watts Up With That is ceasing publication to work on a "new project". Some curious timing to say the least....

Chris Colose said...

The reaction to Anthony announcement is somewhat reminiscent of the people who sell all their belongings as they place their complete trust in the one or two people who proudly declare that the world will end on some certain date (I'm quite convinced that if Anthony had asked people to do that, half of his readership would happily do so). The end-of-the-world people, like Anthony, always get the answer wrong, and yet people continue to go back to him as an authoritative or even "interesting" source. An entire psychology community could have a field day with the phenomenon. The difference is that Anthony gets stuff wrong everyday, while the end-of-the-world people make much less frequent announcements. The only difference between this and the every day comic fest at WUWT is that this time he asked people to get excited and wait for it. Unsurprisingly, many people are.

While everyone is speculating and chiming in, here's a prediction:

Like virtually everything that Anthony throws on his blog, it will be some sort of alleged "nail in the coffin" for some aspect of the science, whether it be the surface station network quality, attribution of AGW, sensitivity, or whatever. Given what "his work" entails, I suspect it related to the first one.

Then, like everything on his blog, we will see a "rah rah!" fest from the conspiracy theorists, and the implications of whatever it is will be exaggerated beyond belief. There will be lots of "we knew it all along!!" or "how can [insert name] be called a real scientist!!" where [insert name] will be someone like Muller, Mann, etc.

Within a few days, no one will care, except for the typical crowd on a handful of blogs, and the understanding of how our atmosphere behaves will not be in the least bit impacted. It will contribute zero to discussions at scientific conferences, etc, and maybe will produce one paper that gets maybe a sentence of attention in the upcoming AR5.

But even I must admit to holding an ounce of curiosity...

carrot eater said...

"but just because something is new to you, don't mean it is new to the world."

Exactly.

and the corollary, the world doesn't have to wait for you in particular. Imagine the pace of scientific progress, if we had to wait for Muller's personal blessing of every last thing.

I guess I'll look at his papers, such as they are, eventually.

Anonymous said...

This bunny has heard that Wattsy is going close down WUWT on the strength of the BEST findings...after all he said he'd stand by them.

atoieno

Anonymous said...

Dr. Evi.. ..errrr.. I mean, Dr. Mann just put this up on his FB page:

Some additional thoughts about Muller and 'BEST':
Muller's announcement last year that the Earth is indeed warming brought him up to date w/ where the scientific community was in the the 1980s. His announcement this week that the warming can only be explained by human influences, brings him up to date with where the science was in the mid 1990s. At this rate, Muller should be caught up to the current state of climate science within a matter of a few years!

John Mashey said...

For history see SSWR, i.e., that (non-peer-reviewed) article got cited in Wegman Report.
I wrote:
‘Muller is a UC Berkeley physicist who apparently accepted MM views and passed them along. He repeated some of this in his 2008 book Physics for Future Presidents, despite results of the intervening years. Most of his AGW discussion otherwise matched mainstream climate science. Muller is certainly an accomplished, eclectic physicist, but these publications offer no evidence that he has followed the hockey stick issues in any real detail, despite being a member of North‘s NRC panel, A.1.1.
McK05 mentioned him as a contact.’

Time to reread Muller's article, especially in light of Due diligence. Muller bought McIntyre's math ...

Anybody think he owes MBH an apology?

dhogaza said...

"Anybody think he owes MBH an apology?"

Of course he doesn't, as a world-class physcist he's, by definition, above apology.

(sigh)

He's only adopting the "lukewarmer" position that global warming is neutral, or even good, for humanity.

His own verification of the most basic science won't trump his political ideology.

pough said...

"Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming."

To his shock and dismay, Muller discovered that none of the previous climate studies had been done by Muller.

willard said...

But that's what Muller says in pubic.

What does say his emails?

We don't know for sure. But here's what we know
Richard Muller in response against Douglas Keenan’s refutation of the whole of climate science:

> What he is saying is that statistical methods are unable to be used to show that there is global warming or cooling or anything else. That is a very strong conclusion, and it reflects, in my mind, his exaggerated pedantry for statistical methods. He can and will criticize every paper published in the past and the future on the same grounds. We might as well give up in our attempts to evaluate global warming until we find a “model” that Keenan will approve — but he offers no help in doing that.

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/11763136868

Richard Muller has no INTEGRITY (tm). His science can't be trusted.

Yup.

Sou said...

Muller is by nature a climate science denier, not a 'skeptic'.

Sure, he analysed the global surface temperature and was forced to do a turnaround. However in his NY Times piece he made misleading and sweeping statements about other aspects of climate and environmental science.

I haven't seen him do any studies on polar bears or the intricacies of feedbacks on regional climates. And he can't help but add the strawman about Himalayan glaciers indicating he is completely unaware that glaciologists have told the world that glaciers won't completely disappear by 2035.

If he wrote about stuff he understood then his pronouncements would carry more weight.

Scientifically his team has added a little deeper knowledge (but in confirmation only). My guess is that Muller is more captive to politics than to science. Otherwise he'd try to at least keep up with the science and he wouldn't be continuing to write disparagingly about areas far outside his expertise (glaciology, ecology, climatology).

Poptech said...

That is pure nonsense, Muller was never a skeptic,

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/truth-about-richard-muller.html

"I was never a skeptic" - Richard Muller, 2011

"If Al Gore reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion – which he does, but he’s very effective at it – then let him fly any plane he wants." - Richard Muller, 2008

"There is a consensus that global warming is real. …it’s going to get much, much worse." – Richard Muller, 2006

"Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate." – Richard Muller, 2003

J Bowers said...

"That is pure nonsense, Muller was never a skeptic,"

Oops, poor Poptech, clueless as usual...

Global Warming Bombshell 2004...

"A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics."

Anonymous said...

Muller fell for Michael Crichton, who you have to admit, was totally right about Jurassic Park.

Anonymous said...

I think Sou nicely points out the problem with Muller. You would think he would be a bit more humble about his own understanding after he maintained for quite a while that the temperature record may well be wrong and that CO2 may well not be the main driver.

Marco

Poptech said...

J Bowers can't read as usual. I link to that source in the article and it did not change his position on the issue,

"This result should not affect any of our thinking on global warming" - Richard Muller

http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=%22This+result+should+not+affect+any+of+our+thinking+on+global+warming%22#v=onepage&q=%22This%20result%20should%20not%20affect%20any%20of%20our%20thinking%20on%20global%20warming%22&f=false

J Bowers said...

Climategate 'hide the decline' explained by Berkeley professor Richard A. Muller

Poptech can spin it all he/she/they likes. Just another PR hack.

Poptech said...

Bowers name another "skeptic" that supports Al Gore. People can read the quotes for themselves, they are not going anywhere. Muller has never been a skeptic.

J Bowers said...

Andrew, your definition of "skeptic" is so f****d up it beggars belief. Even your cult's newly found quotee, James Lovelock, thinks so.

Poptech said...

Sorry we do not ad hominem ourselves with your words of choice. This latest PR stunt by Muller is going to die by his own words and I have archived them all.

Anonymous said...

such a charitable crew.
you spend hours trying to convince skeptics and haven't a single success to show for it. A man expresses doubt. works to remove his doubt rather than wallowing in it. Announces that you were right. and you signal to everyone in the conversation that convincing people is not your aim. You signal that having people agree with you is not enough. You signal to everyone that there are only two tribes and no immigration rights.

William M. Connolley said...

> Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community,

I like your parsing of this; you're probably correct it means "they were rejected".

But where is the fifth paper?

> But that's what Muller says in pubic.

:-)

Martin Vermeer said...

Convincing people is certainly not our aim... leave that to the preachers and the used-car salesfolk. Our aim is way more modest: to inculcate in those so disposed the not inconsequential skill of recognizing the truth when it bites them in the ass. That's the passport to our tribe. And that's where sustainable convictions come from.

All that Muller's loud replication of decades-old results tells me is that he hasn't learned a thing. If he's any serious: next stop hockey stick.

amoeba said...

Anonymous said...
'....you spend hours trying to convince skeptics and haven't a single success to show for it.....

'You cannot reason a man out of an opinion into which he was not reasoned to begin with'
Attributed to Ben Franklin and Johnathan Swift

William M. Connolley said...

> Ralph Rohde

Robert.

someone or other said...

popcorn at curry's place no doubt.

Will be interesting to see if various suspects try to pull a poptech and kick muller out Team Skeptic, which is after-all a team that is not supposed to exist.

a_ray_in_dilbert_space said...

OK, Muller is an arrogant ass. That is actually an advantage in some cases for a physicist. It's arrogant as hell to think you can understand, for example, superconductivity, the Big
Bang or the entire history of the planet's climate.

Muller does however deserve credit for being a true skeptic. He had doubts. He looked at the evidence in great detail himself and went where it pointed. That, and not whether someone agrees or disagrees with Al Gore, should be the definition of a skeptic.

In contrast, Poptech doesn't even pass a Turing test.

Poptech said...

How can you kick someone out that was never "in"? Can you point me to the skeptic site that Muller ever wrote an article on or even commented? Surely you can find even a single "skeptical" comment from him on a skeptic site somewhere. This could not all be a big pathetic PR ploy.

bill said...

...or you could be in hole and digging further in all the time.

Truly, it's not been a great day to be a Denier. Again.

Get used to it.

Anonymous said...

you spend hours trying to convince skeptics and haven't a single success to show for it.

Most of us gave up trying to convince deniers a long time ago. Deniers are mostly right-wing poltiicos who reject gloal warming because of the implications for the role of the state. At this stage, the vast majority of them are impervious to rational argument.

True sceptics accept the provisional nature of all knowledge, so work with it, recognising it may change. Deniers are just nay-sayers.

Muller is exceptional, but aroused suspicion when he aped many denialist tropes, as he still does, even in his op-ed.

Poptech said...

So you still cannot find a single article or comment from Muller on a skeptic site? How can this be? I didn't ask for an opinion from the cartoonist's site.

Former Skeptic said...

Define "skeptic", Poptech.

mike roddy said...

This infighting is not productive. Muller's work could make a big difference, and his nonsense about glaciers and hurricanes is not relevant to the big picture.

People should run with this report, demand action, and refrain from criticizing a physicist. They are all crazy anyway.

J Bowers said...

JunkScience, July 29, 2012:
'Sigh… Richard Muller: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic'

Anonymous said...

"FWIW, the proxy's show less uncertainty compared to the BEST surface temperature record "

Eli. ahem. I think that Osborne recognized the same thing about MBH98 relative to CRU. found such a claim unreliable and asked for Mann's residuals.

Mosh

Anonymous said...

Sigh .... Richard Muller explains "Climategate" ...

Repeats almost every denier trope know to man....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk

Toby

Anonymous said...


Anonymous Poptech said...

That is pure nonsense, Muller was never a skeptic,


The big problem that poptech has with Muller is that Muller is way too competent to be a poptech-style "skeptic".

In fact, a college undergraduate who is able to code up a straightforward gridding/averaging program would be too competent to qualify as a poptech-style “skeptic”.

The bottom line is, it isn’t all that hard for someone with decent computer programming skills to verify that all the skeptics’ favorite claims about the global temperature record are completely wrong.

Proving that UHI is insignficant — straightforward programming/data-crunching project.

Proving that you don’t need “homogenized” data to confirm the NASA global temperature results results (you can do it with raw data) — straightforward programming/data-crunching project.

Proving that Watts’ “dropped stations” claim is bogus — straightforward programming/data-crunching project.

All of the above can be done in a matter of days by a competent programmer/analyst.

Now the question is, why, in all the years that poptech and his fellow travellers have been going on and on about supposed problems with the temperature data, didn’t they ever roll up their sleeves and do the few days of coding/data-crunching work needed to test their claims?

I suspect that it has something to do with political ideology trumping competence.

--caerbannog the anonybunny

Anonymous said...

"That is pure nonsense, Muller was never a skeptic"

Eh? Really?!

Why don't you listen to Muller himself? From one of Peter Sinclair's posts, the first clip provides (at around 10:00 minutes in) a collection of video bites where Muller expresses his 'scepticism'.

I see that Popped-tic hasn't become any more balanced since I encountered him at Greenfyre's...


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

Poptech said...

Nice strawman argument, I am specifically addressing his fabricated conversion to the same position he always held and have not commented on his work.

I don't believe Muller is competent at all as he is pretending to have amnesia about his position on AGW.

Still waiting for that article or comment he made on a skeptic site.

Poptech said...

Surely you guys are not afraid to comment with even a fake name?

So far we have two pro-AGW cartoonists trying to make Muller into a skeptic but not a single article or even a comment from a skeptic site. You guys can't be this bad at doing research.

Anonymous said...

Heh, pipped by Toby.

Muller must be wincing at the fact that the Interweb mercilessly remembers all of the rash and indefensible nonsense he spouted prior to BEST deriving the same results as those whom he disparaged so vocally and publicly.

I wonder if Muller still has "a list of people whose papers [he] won't read anymore"?


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

Anonymous said...

Is it just me, or is Popped-tic really not actually getting what everyone else can plainly see?

The cognitive scotoma is strong in this one...


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

Anonymous said...

izen @- Poptech said...
"So you still cannot find a single article or comment from Muller on a skeptic site?"

I suspect this could be a 'true scotsman' test,, but it clear that Dr Muller was at one time considerably more of a skeptic that Lindzen for instance.

If the test of memebership of the skeptical community is direct publishing/posting on a validated list of agreed skeptic sites then I doubt Dr Muller qualifies.
on the other hand he has been widely quoted by skeptic sites. His 2004 MIT article with the phrase - "A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics." is everywhere from SEPP to junkscience.

So either he was a skeptic, or skeptic sites have in the past been very keen to quote any statement, even if by someone who rejects the skeptic position, if it could be construed as an attack on AGW theory.

Given Dr Muller's heresy in the eyes of skeptics, how long before they demand his emails ?
izen

Anonymous said...

> This infighting is not productive.

Well it's partly just for fun and partly for getting more perspective on Muller.

> Muller's work could make a big difference,....

Socio-politically, which is where the problem is. Muller's op-ed ends with:

"What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years.

Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done."


He mentioned coal! And right on the heels of this:http://planet3.org/2012/07/27/bill-mckibbens-call-for-a-carbon-divestment-movement/

"Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 percent of [unburned carbon] underground, you’d be writing off $20 trillion in assets."

which is what the fight is about. Some get rich while the rest get scorched, or not.

Pete Dunkelberg

Former Skeptic said...

Avoiding the question, are we now?

Define "skeptic", poptech.

I want to know if you've shifted the goalposts since your last definition clearly applies to Muller's prior behavior.

exusian said...

Former Skeptic said...
"Define "skeptic", Poptech."

Exactly, FS. Poptech clings to the fiction that science denial sites are actually "skeptical", rather then mere rally points for the barking of disgruntled loons.

These are not good times for science denial, and as a result the shrillness and decibel level of the denialsphere is approaching that of the end of a runway.

You're a looser, Poptech, sweetie. Always have been. Suck it up.

chek said...

I guess what poptart means by 'skeptic site' type, are those such as Nova's, Watts', McIntyre's, Montford's that are poptart's yardstick. That is to say, those squarely aimed at the drivellingly insane punting incompetent conspiracy tripe .

poptech said...

izen, you apparently cannot read any better than your buddies. I already answered this,

I link to that source in the article and it did not change his position on the issue,

"This result should not affect any of our thinking on global warming" - Richard Muller

http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=%22This+result+should+not+affect+any+of+our+thinking+on+global+warming%22#v=onepage&q=%22This%20result%20should%20not%20affect%20any%20of%20our%20thinking%20on%20global%20warming%22&f=false

Poptech said...

Poor boys, you can't find a single article or comment from such a "legendary skeptic" on any skeptic. It must hurt to fail this bad.

amoeba said...

Poptech=Big Yawn!

exusian said...

amoeba, poor poptech is just struggling to remain relevant in the face of reality as the sand of "skepticism" washes out from beneath his feet by employing the "look over here at the shiny trinket" tactic.

Poptech said...

Poor exusian joins his buddies in failure. Waiting on that Muller comment or article from a skeptic site,

*crickets*

How does it feel to fail in unison?

Anonymous said...

How does it feel to fail in unison?

Eh? What are you wittering about now? It feels great to watch collective denialism scramble to stay on an even keel, while you struggle a whole day to score an insignificant point. :)

So sue Muller for calling himself a "sceptic".

Meh.

chek said...

In order to stay afloat, poptart now has to disavow the signatories of the APS petition as non-sceptics, as they've never submitted any articles on a 'skeptic' site.

By 'skeptic site', poptart of course means 'conspiracy site', where the real, hidden science is pursued by such stringent means as fabricating stories built upon partial conversations culled from stolen emails.

Is it just me, or does poptart actually become more stupid with every occasion he's mobilised?

Rattus Norvegicus said...

And Tony's presser is out. In it he breathlessly announces that he found a pony and that using only the well sited stations yeilds, wait for it, exactly the same results as everyone else found!

BFD.

dhogaza said...

RT - his major claim is that:

"These factors, combined with station siting issues, have led to a spurious doubling of U.S. mean temperature trends in the 30 year data period covered by the study from 1979 – 2008."

I imagine "spurious" means "incorrect" and that the doubling is of his *real* trend which is 1/2 the trend everyone else gets ...

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

Tony's latest will supply the future indignation his fundraising needs - watch his fanbois complain when the IPCC cites BEST instead.

Otherwise ye <a href='http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1951&dat=19690110&id=NABKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LB4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=729,1849285">same olde same old </a>

Anonymous said...

Muller on a list of climate "misinformers":

http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptics.php

exusian said...

poptech wrote...
"Waiting on that Muller comment or article from a skeptic site"

Shorter Poptech: "look, a squirrel!"

Show us a true "skeptic" site, pop. Not a fake skeptic site, sweetie, a site with actual reasoned skepticism supported by multiple lines of non-cherry-picked and non-mutually-contradictory evidence.

Poptech said...

...still no article or comments from Muller on any skeptic site. Looks like a complete fail.

Hey chek, let me know when you can find a petition Muller singed as well.

Anonymous+10 - Yes, please read the comments before posting the same thing over and over. One of your buddies above noted that the cartoonist lists muller as a skeptic. The cartoonist is not a skeptic. Try again.

Poptech said...

Come on exusian you cannot be this much of a failure, no need to create a new strawman to attack. You will just have to live with it.

Could it be "legendary" skeptic Muller is not much of a skeptic after all? *gasp*

Anonymous said...

Poptech, people aren't responding because you're either a boring troll or a complete moron.

Danger Mouse

Anonymous said...

Better yet, let's see poptech take a crack at analyzing the temperature data himself. Let's see if he can produce some analysis results that support the UHI, homogenization, "dropped stations", etc. claims the he and his fellow "skeptics" have been making for years.

Oh, wait -- that would be like me expecting my cat to read the ingredients list on the back of the cat-food bag.

Poptech said...

Thanks Danger Mouse, I though it was because they completely failed at a simple task and were so embarrassed by this failure they rolled up in a ball and started crying.

Anonymous said...

"Poptech, people aren't responding because you're either a boring troll or a complete moron."

Correlation does not prove causation, but neither are they mutually exclusive.

Taylor B

exusian said...

Go chase your own tail, pop, people here are too intelligent to let your dog wistle trick them into doing so.

Of course that's a pretty low bar, but then that's as high a bar as you can muster.

Once a looser always a looser.

ligne said...

izen said: "So either he was a skeptic, or skeptic sites have in the past been very keen to quote any statement, even if by someone who rejects the skeptic position, if it could be construed as an attack on AGW theory."

that wouldn't be the first time:

i remember a year or two back there was some moron blogger who was compiling a great big long list of papers that supposedly backed up any of the myriad "sceptic" positions. many of these were mainstream middle-of-the-IPCC jobs, but were included regardless of their actual conclusions or whether the authors agreed with the (somewhat fanciful) interpretation required to shoehorn them in. the selection criteria seemed to mostly revolve around said blogger's wild quote-mining and monumental craz——

oh hi, poptech! good to see you again :-)

Anonymous said...

Taylor B:
"Correlation does not prove causation, but neither are they mutually exclusive."

By a miracle, that almost brings us back on topic about Muller's article in the NYT.

Danger Mouse

Poptech said...

ligne, I remember all those lies and strawman arguments made by those hacks who got so easily refuted. That was funny stuff watching them fail to make valid arguments over and over. Despite all that nonsense I heard the list is even bigger and more robust than before - imagine that.

How is the failure going boys? Muller still a legendary skeptic? Oh, so much fail it hurts, make it stop.

Anonymous said...

Muller's paper is up:

http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/results-paper-july-8.pdf

J Bowers said...

"I though it was because they completely failed at a simple task"

No, it's because you're a boring troll with the craziest qualifying test for scepticism. Steven Milloy let you down and proved you wrong, and you'll be telling us Dr Bas van Geel ain't no sceptic because he hasn't published on a blog. Weird.

Anonymous said...

"Thanks, Danger Mouse, I though [sic]..."

Poptart has already admitted his mistake, so I'd suggest we just move on and DNFTT.

Taylor B

a_ray_in_dilbert_space said...

I really hope Poptart is a bot. I'd hate to think an actual human could be that stupid.

dhogaza said...

In a lame attempt to get back on topic ... Steven Mosher Zeke Hausfather have a great piece up on the latest BEST output over at Curry's.

They were both part of the team, they say, apparently Mosher did a bunch of R work. Zeke's a smart guy.

So I guess Mosher's officially out of the "lukewarmer" category, unless "IPCC sensitivity is probably about right after all" makes one a lukewarmer ...

He's still an asshole ...

Rattus Norvegicus said...

Re: The new Muller paper...

So it looks like the 4 papers were rejected, but with an invitation to rewrite and resubmit. No surprise...

a_ray...

Yes a human can be that stupid. Mitt Romney appears to be an example (although there is some suspicion that he is an android, it may explain a lot).

bill said...

Thanks must go to poptech for his/her continual demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of Denial.

There's an old Australian expression 'dead, but won't lie down.' Referring to purblind, idiot persistence when clearly already defeated. That's you, that is.

Mike Roddy, on the other hand, has this exactly right. As does Joe Romm, as usual.

Who cares if Muller's arrogant, persistently uninformed, or we knew it all already? The much-heralded, Koch-funded would-be 'definitive' and Denialist-friendly temperature series has blown up in their faces!

Please desist from trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here, people! This means beating up the opposition, not your allies...

Anonymous said...

It is probably worth noting that Popped-tic's first comment about Muller, on 28/7/12 10:42 PM had nothing to do with Muller's posting on sceptic sites:

"That is pure nonsense, Muller was never a skeptic..."

that's all, followed by a link to a discussion which isn't predicated on Muller posting his official sceptic status on official sceptic sites.

After a few aimless comments he repeats his basic premise on 28/7/12 11:40 PM:

"Muller has never been a skeptic."

again without reference to the arbitrary necessity that Muller should have posted on sceptic sites.

It wasn't until 29/7/12 5:58 AM that Popped-tic moved the goal-posts:

"How can you kick someone out that was never "in"? Can you point me to the skeptic site that Muller ever wrote an article on or even commented? Surely you can find even a single "skeptical" comment from him on a skeptic site somewhere. This could not all be a big pathetic PR ploy."

PT is not only a goal-post shifter, but a liar as well. His initial argument had nothing to do with whether Muller had posted on sceptic sites; just whether Muller was a sceptic.

And Muller was most certainly a 'sceptic', even if it was less sceptic and more denier.

Popped-tic is simply trying to pretend that his inital stance didn't fall like a house of cards, by shuffling the pea as furiously as he is able.

Silly Popped-tic.


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

dhogaza said...

"So it looks like the 4 papers were rejected, but with an invitation to rewrite and resubmit. No surprise..."

But, apparently, not regarding metholodgy or results.

Perhaps the reviewers insisted on them down playing the "revotionarhy result" that simply confirmed what we already know?

Anonymous said...

Well Color me stoopid, that is why they call me "Hey Stoopid".

So, Anthony Watts grand announcement, is to literally spruce up the pitiful Matthew Menne, carpet bombed remains of "Watts Urban Myth 1.0", 2010 and repackage it as, the even sadder bigger loser "Watts Urban Myth 2.0", 2012.

With Anthony Watts, garbage in, always equals gish gallop horse hockey out.

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, has published an interesting new joint research paper on the subject of why denialati cannot and will not, move pass there own level of head in the sand cognitive dissonance "Peter Principle" incompetence on the subject of science. "MOTIVATED REJECTION OF SCIENCE"

Pdf Link: http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf

Since Anthony Watts "Watts Urban Myth 2.0", horse of no legs died at the starting gate in 1859. That particular dead horse, ain't going to run very far away, from the next scheduled carpet bombing run, one could say.

As for mononeuron popfool, before you even consider any future "Peter Principle" denialati arguments of complete incompetence. Skeptical Science, has an excellent complete list of debunked ones here : http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Abraham Lincoln would say; "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.".

Such is life. ;)

Anonymous said...

Apparently poptech missed a major point of Eli's post. If Muller wanted to post something on a real skeptic site, he would have to create one himself.

Steven Sullivan said...

So, which one of these four stooges is 'poptech'?

Editor:
Andrew (Computer Analyst)

Contributing Authors
Doug (Computer Engineer)
Karl (Computer Scientist)
Mike (Electrical Engineer)


And to repeat caenarbannog's pithy question up there:


"Now the question is, why, in all
the years that poptech and his
fellow travellers have been going
on and on about supposed problems
with the temperature data, didn’t
they ever roll up their sleeves and
do the few days of coding/data-
crunching work needed to test their
claims?"

Hank Roberts said...

> Tuesday (the deadline)

Wham!

Anonymous said...

I cannot think about Muller without being reminded that he was perhaps the last to collaborate with the late Gordon MacDonald, and with that a whole and somewhat odd past is recalled.

A time when people realy believed one could change the world, its environment, its weather, its climate.

A time when we took things desperately seriously and often to extremes.

When well improvement (frakking) was done with high explosives and if a few hundred pounds of high explosives was good, perhaps a few hundred tons equivalent would be better even if the fuel was a little radioactive, but that was nothing to do with MacDonald.

MacDonald gave us many other things including a JASON climate report, which gives special thanks for the assistance of Freeman Dyson, a man much concerned about the effects of CO2.

This preceeded the Charney Report but may have been published, or made public later. That was perhaps the end of the time when thinking that CO2 was likely to warm the planet was in anyway radical thinking.

He gave us "How to wreck the Environment", how to meddle with the weather and how to make Russians depressed using the electromagnetic field, both of which proved to be unnecessary.

The likes of he, Dyson, Munk, Revelle, etc., were I suppose amongst those that helped us to think that CO2 would warm the planet. A belief that survived when there was little or any evidence of warming, as was the case 40 and more years ago.

As evidence has mounted, belief that anything could be done about it has waned. The solution was a bit more complicated than living in geodesic houses and eating lots of starch, doing very little work and paying no taxes.

I never knew any of these people, never read their work but somehow we did appreciate that there were hard issues facing us about which we did so little except at the margins. Of the thinking that was done half went out of fashion and half prospered in the great libertarian divide and we let that happen. Such is freedom.

Alex

Poptech said...

J Bowers, Steve Milloy let me down? What are you talking about? Please try to remain coherent.

Poptech said...

Anon... (I mean Bernard) learn how to fill you name in properly using Blogger's comment system. I will be happy to give you an education on how it works as you seem to need it.

My point about him never posting on ANY skeptic site was just further evidence he was never a skeptic. He is only ever referred to in relation to his support of M&M in demolishing Mann but that did not change his position on climate change.

His quotes from the Huffington Post are irrefutable proof he never considered himself a "skeptic" as in an AGW skeptic yet this is exactly what he misleadingly implies in his NYT op-ed and has been falsely repeated by the media.

Sorry if I ruined this story line for you guys of, "a converted skeptic".

Anonymous said...

Poptech = Nigel.

Taylor B

Anonymous said...

Just curious...

I've posted a few times at McIntyre's and I'm sure that the first two went straight through. Now I'm in moderation - have I been promoted, or did I just miss the fact that all posts are moderated?


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

EliRabett said...

Not quite sure. Mostly Eli's go through, but there may be majic words.