OK, Eli is indulging Eli. The Discovery of Currywurst is a shaggy dog novel which describes how Currywurst was first made in a small stand in Hamburg along its meandering ways. A basic principle, perhaps due to Bismark, Eli is too unconcerned to google the provenance, is that one should never peer too closely into how sausage (wurst) and laws are made.Well, Eli, and Tamino and Robert Way, made that mistake, and Judith Curry is indeed making sausage in her risible replies to Tamino and Eli. The reply to Eli was quite short, so Eli replied in turn, here and below. Tamino took more space
Dear Prof. Curry,
Here you say
The theme of my recent Senate testimony was to compare the AR4 and AR5, and to demonstrate a lowering of confidence in elements of the AR5, and the growing issue of natural variability. So I stuck to citing the IPCC reports, not any recent papers or selling my own opinion (for example, in this context I cited the IPCC on the Antarctic sea ice, not the Liu/Curry paper).But Eli recalls you also writing in your testimony
A recent paper seeks to interpret the multi-decadal natural variability component of the Arctic sea ice in context of a ‘stadium wave’. (7) This paper suggests that a transition to recovery of the natural variability component of the sea ice extent has begun in theEurasian Arctic sector, and that the recovery will reach its maximum extent circa 2040.and later in the testimony your summary states
The stadium wave hypothesis (8) predicts that the warming hiatus could extend to the 2030’s. Based upon climate model projections, the probability of the hiatus extending beyond 20 years is vanishing small. If the hiatus does extend beyond 20 years, then a very substantial reconsideration will be needed of the 20th century attribution and the 21st century projections of climate change.and, of course, there is a great deal of much earlier work that reaches the same conclusion as Liu and Curry. Some of which was noted in Liu and Curry and some not so much. Now Liu and Curry
Oh yes, Steve Mosher is pouring sauce over his head at Judy's Currywurst. It is cold outside. Give the lad some warmth.
She is being very strange. Her entire testimony on this regard was to make a rhetorical point divorced from the science. This does not make sense. It is such a useless gotcha. She shifts the argument into a meaningless space. I don't understand it, well I kind of understand it. When she talks about her views being misinterpreted or misrepresented, she never quite gets around to planting her flag anywhere.
ReplyDeleteCAPTCHA
she bunames (which would autocorrect to bunnies)
with all due respect to H.A.:
ReplyDeleteOn the optimum temperature of a Curry, or weather;
Some people like it nice and mild,
something like a Korma,
Others have more ambition
And go for something warmer;
But you should be alarmed, too
If offered proper Vindaloo.
In all events, it pays to hurry
when ultimately dumping Curry
I Thank you...
But Mosher says Tamino is a(an almost) complete incompetent.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that a devastating rebuttal?
Then I read Judith post of Tamino and arctic temps.
I was rather surprised that all the PEER REVIEWED research shoed the arctic in the 30's was as warm or warmer than NOW?
My heart started racing. ALL that time I had spent ridiculing Goddard on the arctic, at it turns out he was RIGHT ALL ALONG.
All these years I have trust you alarmists, and then a true Galileo like curry shows me the TRUTH!
I rushed over to Tamino's page to read his heart felt surrender. I was feeling really sad for him.
but then it turns out, Curry had apparently not been references research that included the 2000's and not the most recent years in the arctic.
but then how was one to guess that anything unusual had been going on in the arctic since 2002? has there been ANY coverage on the condition of the arctic since say 2007? It is hard to imagine that Curry would have known of ANYTHING happening in the arctic after 2002, it is SOOO big and COLD up there, and has not really been an issue among climate alarmists or deniers in the last few years>
I think Curry was perfectly justified, after reading Tamino's response, to just take her marbles and go home. The NERVE of that man to talk to a real lady like that way. REALLY!
I mean how much more scientific can one get than, when presented with real data, to pout and say "Well, we really don't know much of anything about the arctic".
and I must say the other commenters on Tamino's post were VERY rude, expecting her to act like a real scientist and all, and engage with him about real research. Shameful.
Fergus,
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone be alarmed at the prospect of a proper Vindaloo? Lord I miss a good Vindaloo.
Rattus: Why would anyone be alarmed at the prospect of a proper Vindaloo? Lord I miss a good Vindaloo.
ReplyDeleteA lesson from my student days: just don't forget to refrigerate the toilet paper
Rattus,
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't do to have a Curry that was warmer than average, now would it? Some might be alarmed at that prospect...
May Eli post some of these over at Curry's?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we'd all be delighted, Eli... :)
ReplyDelete"A lesson from my student days: just don't forget to refrigerate the toilet paper"
ReplyDeleteAnd if it's a Phal, make sure you dampen the roll before putting it in the fridge.
Actually, I find vindaloos less hot to *eat* than, say, a Chili Tikka Massala. I think it's the shock. The pain levels have to have time to drop down into the "able to record a level" which takes time.
Here's a tip if you make your curries and get it a bit too hot for some: put parboiled potatoes in the curry and cook for another 20 minutes, then take out the potatoes before serving.
And the potatoes, taking up the heat and leaving a little ameliorating starch behind, can be lightly fried to produce some lovely bombay potato.
Chicken Tikka is now the most popular dish over here in the UK, personally I prefer a Chicken Tarka, which is a little hotter.
ReplyDeleteAnon-101a here:
ReplyDeleteI fink you meant a littl 'otter there, mate!
Madras all the way + sag aloo.
ReplyDeleteForgive me for trying to ask a serious question amongst the levity, I see Mosher cites Polyakov 2003 as support, yet says "we dont include data from this paper. The problem is there isnt a live archive that we can easily pull from. We basically work from open data."
ReplyDeleteThat would be
Polyakov, Igor V., Roman V. Bekryaev, Genrikh V. Alekseev, Uma S. Bhatt, Roger L. Colony, Mark A. Johnson, Alexander P. Maskshtas, David Walsh, 2003: Variability and Trends of Air Temperature and Pressure in the Maritime Arctic, 1875–2000. J. Climate, 16, 2067–2077.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<2067:VATOAT>2.0.CO;2
which has, indeed, a very long DATA section, and it's clear they took material from a lot of sources, kept what they thought good, and did their analysis on the parts of the data they selected.
Mosher's "we" means BEST, I take it? So Polyakov's data is not good enough for BEST?
I see Polyakov thanks Asafoku and Mann for help. Hmmm.
Hank - I didn't understand Mosher's screed. Tamino's whole point was that JC didn't use recent data (2000s). He also made note of JC's phrasing in her response (latitudes higher than 70N).
ReplyDeleteSo the set of graphs that included the BEST graph (CRUTEM4, HadCRUT4, NASA GISS, the BEST, and Cowtan & Way v2) were there to show RECENT data and data particularly for the latitudes higher than 70N.
What Mosher was going on about I still don't know. Yes, JC referenced Polyakov 2003 - but that obviously didn't include the most recent data. The only statement Tamino made about Polyakov 2003 was, "No data after 2000."
Tamino showed 5 different reconstructions and his point was that ALL of them showed warmer recent temperatures than could be found in the 30s and 40s using a definition of the arctic (to match JC) of 70N to 90N.
I think Mosher must have been off his meds when he wrote his screed, but he's not dissing Polyakov - just lamenting that the data wasn't easily accessible.
> when he wrote his screed
ReplyDeleteWell, I understand flaming as an art form used by programmers
("if I abuse you enough you'll figure out what you did wrong so I'm doing you a favor to reply at all").
But applying that most charitable light to what he wrote about Tamino, I'm with you, I can't see his point.
That's the problem I find with Usenet-type flaming, as opposed to hard argument done by scientists at their meetings.
The scientists pound on the facts, and improve them. That's useful.
Flamers pound on people, and claim that improves them.
It makes me wonder whether the argumentative style has anything to do with why JC left BEST; it's become clear there are big disagreements about, well, it's hard to tell about what exactly.
My perspective is -- how will this look to the great-grandchildren, in hindsight? Were these people, in their own limited ways, trying their best to help, or just scoring points.
PS, apropos flaming as an art form -- there are examples out there of doing it right. E.g.:
ReplyDelete"... Then Ellison himself left some notes. They were bombastic, and far more articulate than the comments from the fans. One read, in part, “Goodbye Bradbury. Goodbye Lieber. Goodbye Aeschylus. Goodbye Pliny the Elder…” and continued at length. By the time he got describing me as a “manque, a poetaster, a no-price for whom the internet is a last chance slave market where, for free, he can bleat to his shrunken little heart's delight” my wife Olivia, who had been reading along over my shoulder, said to me, “Wow, I see what you mean. He really is a great writer! No wonder you like him so much.” -- Nick Mamatas on the importance of Harlan Ellison and why he still likes him.
(hat tip to Metafilter for that)
That's how to do it right.
Hank:"PS, apropos flaming as an art form -- there are examples out there of doing it right..."
ReplyDeleteI was a frequent visitor to the old Science Fiction Round Table on GEnie (SFRT). The Dueling Modems section was pretty much continuous flamewars - with predominantly professional writers (surprisingly few fans like myself found there way there).
I still dig through the old archives every now and then to relive some of the memorable battles :)
My perspective is -- how will this look to the great-grandchildren, in hindsight? Were these people, in their own limited ways, trying their best to help, or just scoring points.
ReplyDeleteOh ... right. How often do you read your great grandfather's journal flames? Get over it.
So you never pondered whether your ancestors picked the right side in a controversy, did the right thing, or made things worse? You think the past is perfect because it leads to you, regardless of collateral damage on the way?
ReplyDeleteHey, you're probably in the majority.
http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/gallery/scifi/scifi08_maybe-we-should-just-quit.gif
I'm pretty sure I can't change the past, Hank, I yam what I yam. Just think of the shit Australopithecines had to go through to produce you.r
ReplyDeleteWhatever their sins were, I forgive them. Our problem is that we see things that we are doing, real things not usenet flame wars, that we are smart enough to predict what the consequences of those things are. In real time, right now. Yeah, Hitler was a bad ass, but my great great grandfather whom I know a fair bit about, not so much. I can only trace my geneology back to Old Man Ihlgenfritz of Bavaria in 1550, but I'm absolutely sure I'm the pinnacle of evolution that goes back billions of years, even well before the advent of molecular biology and biochemistry. That's good enough for me and I know I'm not going to be around much longer and so I'm rather more concerned with the choices I make from a societal perspective, since human society is the dominant force here. I'm not too interested in the small details of events long past that I absolutely can't change. I'm more interested in, you know, the big picture which will cease to exist for me when I'm gone but for which you will still be stuck with for a while.
> I can't change the past
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine possible futures that diverge based on choices made now?
One such choice: finding ways to work with disagreeable people you disagree with, or enjoying a recreational flame war.
As a scientist interviewed on NPR's "Science Friday" said today, the thing about doing science is we often won't know what difference we make, if any.
I got taught that early on when doing restoration on forest fire sites -- the reward for trying things to repair the hillside isn't being proven right, because that won't happen.
The reward is doing a decent baseline on which some stranger fifty or a hundred years from now can base a comparison.
(Or, for other people who later visited the site, the reward was doing donuts in their 4wd offroad toys tearing up our restoration work. So it goes)
You realize I am highly critical of Ira Flato and Science Friday, no?
ReplyDeleteI had a long response about flame wars and libel, but I lost it on the comment box submit bug. So better that I just leave it at that, ok?
I have standards, and that applies to everybody, scientists included.
We marvel at the pseudoskeptics and young earth creationsists for their oblivious, reality-denying, science-denying, factually-challenged view of the world, but the first gulf war made me realize that many, many people have similar blindspots - just different subjects.
ReplyDeleteIt's 1990, on GEnie, the SFRT, surrounded by dozens if not hundreds of SF&F authors - many of whom I read and respected. Generally a fairly liberal, open-minded crowd. Except when it came to America at war.
I could come up with a list of a hundred reasons why, but it wouldn't change the fact these otherwise fairly bright, intelligent people lapped up whatever propaganda the military, the administration, and cable news networks served up during the first gulf war.
I figured everyone had read Ape & Essence and 1984. I assumed many had read The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam,
About Face by Colonel David Hackworth and A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. Yet these people were as rabidly pro-war as any VFW or American Legion hall you might visit. Myself and one self-avowed Marxist (author Steven Brust) were the only ones against this red, white and blue tide.
I have found myself in the minority many times in my life. That has never bothered or even really surprised me. What bothered me at the time was that ideology simply made people drop reason, drop logic, and deny their own senses. The Patriot missile videos proved that without a doubt. As the Army's after-action assessment report on the effectiveness of the Patriot stated stated:
"During the war, Patriot appeared to be highly successful against these attacks. Global media reporting, including live camera coverage throughout Desert Storm, portrayed Patriot's performance against Iraqi missiles as a technological marvel. In daily briefings, U.S. and Saudi military officials validated what everyone seemed to be seeing on television. When the war was nearly over, President Bush extolled Patriot's near-perfect effectiveness in a nationally televised speech to employees of the Raytheon Missile Plant."
Yet, on many (if not most) of the videos you could see the incoming SCUD warhead separate, then the Patriot hit the fuselage of the SCUD. But that's not what the denizens of the SFRT saw (or most other Americans).
Nor have many of them (to this day) probably read that same after-action assessment report. The report concludes:
" In conclusion, the Army does not appear to have sufficient data to assign high confidence to its claims of Patriot effectiveness against Iraq in Desert Storm. It is not clear what data the Army primarily relied on when Secretary Cheney received his briefings on Patriot effectiveness. It is clear that since then additional data and analysis has been generated. Apparently, further data is being collected even now. It is possible that the Army's claim of effectiveness may yet be shown to be correct with a high degree of confidence, but that is not now the case."
It was doubly ironic to be called anti-military, told that I hated the troops, etc., etc from people I knew had mostly never served in the military. Unbeknownst to them, I *had* served in the US Army (from 1983 to 1987). At the time I still had many friends and former co-workers serving.
What it told me was to be constantly vigilant of my own beliefs. As Brad Delong says, you occasionally have to 'mark your beliefs to market'.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteWe are first and foremost social animals--some of us more than others. It is generally conservatives that value social cohesion the highest. Most of the time, this is a social good. It is only when the herd is wrong, that questioning the values of the herd is essential.
Humans are not rational animals, but rather rationalizing animals. And when we are rationalizing, our intelligence is working against our understanding the truth. So the most intelligent among us often become the most ingeniously stupid. That is precisely why science is so important. It always throws into question what we believe, saying, "OK, but where's the evidence.
TLE: "I had a long response about flame wars and libel, but I lost it on the comment box submit bug."
ReplyDeleteMeta-comment: when that's happened to me, I've been able to get most of my lost comment back from the browser cache. For Linux users, Jason Thibeault wrote my "trick" (cue CRU-hack deniers) up as a bash script:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/04/19/three-things-in-decreasing-ord/#comment-28678
YMMV (archaic Usenet reference), but it worked for me.