The Mysterious Mr. Revkin
UPDATE: In the comments
-
Well, he was on their speaker list for 2012 (which reference links to the page in question):
http://breakthrough.turing.com/journal/article/speakers
which may be the explanation. Not to Lucia this, Andy is very close to the Breakthrough Institute which does raise suspicions, as did his UTurn on Years.
With all the goings on, Eli was poking through Dot Earth, you know, today's edition where Andy Revkin is against "Years of Living Dangerously" after he was for "Years of Living Dangerously".
The background to that is the Breakthrough Boys are against it and with someone perhaps to be named later in an interesting way, managed to jackhammer their hate it into the New York Times Op Ed page.
Well, for one reason or another Eli Yahooed -Andy Revkin and Breakthrough Institute -, and what do you think came up
- thebreakthrough.org/people/profile/
andrew-revkin Cached
Andrew Revkin Environmental writer, The Times. Download Hi-Resolution Picture. Andrew C. Revkin is an American, non-fiction, science and environmental writer.
This file is in the part of the Breakthrough Institute web site which gives little bios of the Breakthrough People, folks like Roger Pielke, Jr., Dan Sarewitz, Bruno LaTour, bunnies know the types, but you only find Andy's Page (btw, Eli has a webcite) hanging out there without a link to it.
Now, some, not Eli to be sure, might think that it a bit curious that Andy Revkin flacks for the Breakthrough Guys on a NY Times Blog. Others might ask why he did not disclose in the post that he is or was one of the Breakthrough People, although evidently under deep cover . That there might be a bit of a conflict of interest even if it were printed in a deep footnote on some obscure web page.
Still others are wondering why Andy is truncating comments that have already been posted on the current post with extreme prejudice, you know the ones that call him, Teddy and Mike S out for their acts. Perhaps some of those questions are now answered.
Eli has inquired of the New York Times Public Editor. Perhaps she will reply
Posts
722 comments:
1 – 200 of 722 Newer› Newest»Unbelievably (er completely believable). Nisbet is in with those jokers, which means they are appropriate jokes of a feather. I thought (I might be mistaken) I saw Nisbet jumping into to some defense of Pielke in 538 comments, but of course no disclosure that they are in the same breakthrough bosom.
In the illustrious words of Rick Perry...
"Oops!"
Thank you for your vigilance and tenacity, Eli. I have to believe the Times will take this seriously.
Joe Romm responds to the hippie punchers.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/09/3424593/showtime-years-dangerously-response/
Hot dam' Eli! (Please excuse the familiarity.) THANKS!
However, I don't believe the Times will take it seriously.
Re Nordhaus/Shellenberger Breakthrough OpEd:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/opinion/global-warming-scare-tactics.html
DotEarth has gone rapidly downhill since 2008. As part of the "verified" commentariat I was making noise and busy following ratings, and Mike Roddy, who was the top reader's pick, and knowledgeable about these punters, was deleted this morning, but not before he gleaned somewhere around 300 "votes". One of mine was deleted as well, but it wasn't important.
I was pleased to be able to use the word gobsmacked in an appropriate context over there. (If you're interested, see reader's picks, not far down.)
Revkin will be happy to be involved with such a beautiful humanitarian organisation.
Our Mission
Breakthrough's mission is to accelerate the transition to a future where all the world's inhabitants can enjoy secure, free, and prosperous lives on an ecologically vibrant planet. The Breakthrough Institute is a paradigm-shifting think tank committed to modernizing environmentalism for the 21st century. Our core values are integrity, imagination and audacity.
Including a picture with two poor black children with huge eyes.
Need more popcorn . . .
Great blogging, Eli
Bill W
Would this be a good moment to coin a quote?
"Breakthrough Boys. I hate those guys..."
or perhaps
"It had to be Revkin."
Well, he was on their speaker list for 2012 (which reference links to the page in question):
http://breakthrough.turing.com/journal/article/speakers
Yeah, after a lengthy twitter exchange it looks like Breakthrough has listed everybody who moderated (or whatever) at a conference on their site but in such a way that it appears that those individuals are "people" associated with Break through. Rather clumsy webmastery. They seemed to indicate they were going to fix it but not until after calling everyone a troll and specifically insulting Mike Mann and bringing up McCarthy (Jennie or Charlie, not sure which ... maybe Paul).
Must have slept through this, having been put to sleep by the sneak preview of Lving Dangerously- same old same old Scary Movie.
Awoke , however, in time to attend Revkin's Shorenstein Center for Journalism seminar at the Kennedy School.
Andy never mention the Breakthrough Institute, and concluded by singing Liberated carbon a capella.
The New York Times, like the Washington Post and other major media organizations, values being a Serious, Credible and Balanced insider infinitely more than being an honest and potentially disruptive outsider.
This carries over to its employees and contributors as well. They will never rock the boat in any serious manner. Ever.
Greg Laden, pretty sure that would be Joe McCarthy (in case you were not kidding, which no doubt you were). They're fond of carrying on about persecution, and never met a takedown they couldn't turn on its head. Hence their appropriation of Feynman, Einstein, and Galileo.
Pielke and Breakthrough also succeeded in censoring part of an article I published on Alternet a few years ago, when I dared to criticize them.
Their success in removing my NYT comment tells us more about how corrupt the Times has become, besides agreeing to print Breakthrough Boys bullshit in the first place.
> Integrity, imagination, and audacity.
Integrity, fair enough. Par for the honestly brokering course.
Audacity as mild courage, OK.
But imagination, hmmm. How is that a value?
Perhaps someone should suggest to them "compassionate liberalism".
Tom Wigley is listed as a 2012 'fellow'.
http://thebreakthrough.org/people/profile/tom-wigley
What a typical post. Breathless announcement of major scandal followed by chorus of outrage with periodic amen corner. Sane persons read this and say "what exactly is the issue?"
So now we learn that Wigley is a Sr. Fellow. Go after him Rabett!
Well, well this is a very intriguing find Eli. Extra carrots for you my friend!
This find also explains a hell of a lot! For example, Revkin bending over backwards to defend Pielke, Revkin promoting Pielke. I had always wondered why those two have such a tight schtick going. Honestly, it has been embarrassing watching them fawn over each other in public.
Revkin has a lot to answer for here. His behaviour is quite unethical IMHO, and he is clearly anything but unbiased. The NYT probably won't take it seriously, Corey up thread was probably being sarcastic.
I want to raise awareness for a document, that Gleick has made public. It is the 2012 Heartland climate strategy of the Heartland Institute.
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2012%20Climate%20Strategy.pdf
In the last paragraph it calls for "...cultivating more neutral voices with big audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of the more extreme AGW communicators such as Romm, Trenberth, and Hansen)..."
The Heartland Institute at that time disputed the authenticity of the document and Revkin ridiculed the sentence. But all speaks for the memo to be genuine and maybe the Breakthrough Institute just follows the same strategy...
Jörg:
"I want to raise awareness for a document, that Gleick has made."
Fixed that for ya.
Brad shows up right on cue to remind us of the corollary for Rule 34: if it exists, there is a conspiracy theory about it.
Curious how Brad Keyes materialises at the same time that Darrell "I am not Brad Keyes" is doing a Brad Keyes at Shaping Tomorrow's World.
One is almost inclined to speculate on a possible corporeal connection...
Darrell "I am not Brad Keyes" Harb...
metzomagic:
"Brad shows up right on cue to remind us of the corollary for Rule 34: if it exists, there is a conspiracy theory about it."
Your "joke" is a bit ambiguous. Do you mean the conspiracy between "Darrell" and "Brad" (which of course is being advanced by people other than myself), or the conspiracy between Peter Gleick and...er, himself... to confect a babyish forgery that Megan McArdle described as "like something written in the villain's lair in a Batman comic...by an intern"?
Hey, here's an idea:
Read the fake Strategy Document and get back to us. Tell us whether you—unlike most adults who read it—are still capable of swallowing its pretentions to authenticity.
https://twitter.com/BradPKeyes/status/453582640986079232
Bard Keys: "Darrell Harb is me, obviously—I was kicked off STW & retro-deleted a couple of years ago following some... pleasantness."
Oh, so Brad Keyes is a blatant liar! Well, of course, we already knew that. "Darrell Harb" has been denying he is Brad Keyes over at STW for a couple of days now.
What an ass.
""Darrell Harb" has been denying he is Brad Keyes over at STW for a couple of days now."
He has?
Do you have a quote exemplifying this denial, or are we supposed to uncritically swallow your account? Is dhogaza's word dhogaza's honor? LOL
Strange that I would bother denying it when EVERYONE commenting at STW knows.
Brad Keyes:
Occam's Razor pretty much tells us there was no reason for Peter Gleick to forge anything, as Heartland have proven themselves time and again (vis the Unabomber fiasco) to be quite capable of blowing their own collective foot clear off.
As I recall, the so-called forged strategy memo was the one sent to him anonymously in the post that tipped him off about what Heartland were up to in the first place. Also, the other documents he sourced from Heartland (granted, in a nefarious way, so we don't have to go through all that again) corroborate almost everything that is in the strategy memo.
In the end, it's Bast's word against Gleick's. If you swallow all the Heartland tripe wholesale like you obviously do, then you *need* to have Gleick forge the strategy document to maintain your worldview. Rational people can see, OTOH, that their was no need for Gleick to do such a thing, because he had absolutely nothing to gain by doing so.
It *is* quite possible, however, that the Gleick's anonymous tipster created that document :-)
"In the end, it's Bast's word against Gleick's."
I'm no fan of Bast. I think his attempted justification for that awful billboard bordered on clinically sociopathic.
In the end, it's common sense versus the idea that any grownup, let alone a multimillion dollar lobbying group run by grownups, would write the way that document is written.
Come on bro.
The style is so appalling, Stephen Mosher could tell it was written by Gleick, and said so, before Gleick had even confessed.
Megan McArdle is just as opposed to everything HI stands for as you.
But unlike you, she could see what's obvious to people on both sides: it's a forgery.
"...cultivating more neutral voices..."
Right - those neutral voices really cloud reality with all their smug objectivity.
Better to live in the group think world and the satisfying human evolved subjectivity it includes.
Eunice.
Brad Keyes, "...before Gleick had even confessed."
Citation fricking needed.
Brad Keyes says:
The style is so appalling, Stephen Mosher could tell it was written by Gleick, and said so, before Gleick had even confessed.
And:
But unlike you, she could see what's obvious to people on both sides: it's a forgery.
Brad, you should give up the day job. Seeing as you know more than all the top climate scientists in the world, more than all the cognitive psychologists, and now we also learn that you're an expert in forensically analysing documents, there's a veritable *fortune* to be made out there applying all those talents. What are you waiting for?
You guys really didn't know about Mosher's comment "outing" Gleick before Gleick's had even come forward?
It's (deservedly) famous. As Megan McArdle (NOT A DENIER) writes:
"By late last week, Steven Mosher was in the comments of multiple blogs, including mine, not-so-subtly pointing a finger in the direction of Peter Gleick, head of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California and apparently until very recently, the chair of the American Geophysical Union's Task Force on Scientific Ethics. Here's what Mosher wrote in my comments.
_____________________________
If you want to look for the author of the fake memo, then look for somebody who tweets the word "anti-climate". you'll find it. Look for somebody on the west coast ( the time zone the document was scanned in)
You'll find somebody who doesnt know how to use parenthesis or commas, both in this memo and in other things he has written.
you'll find he mentions himself in the memo
that's all the clues for now. of course its all just speculation. Note, he's not tweeted for a couple days. very rare for him."
Read McArdle's (NOT A DENIER) whole piece:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/peter-gleick-confesses-to-obtaining-heartland-documents-under-false-pretenses/253395/
Sorry, I can see why this (badly-written) sentence of mine may have caused confusion:
"The style is so appalling, Stephen Mosher could tell it was written by Gleick, and said so, before Gleick had even confessed."
I mean "before he had even confessed to anything," not "confessed to forging the Strategy Document." My understanding is that he's neither denied nor admitted that, even though, as I've already mentioned, it's eminently obvious to the grownup community that it's a forgery.
"Seeing as you know more than all the top climate scientists in the world, more than all the cognitive psychologists, and now we also learn that you're an expert in forensically analysing documents,"
Are you suggesting "all the world's top climate scientists" believe the Strategy Document is authentic?
Wow; if so, that's the most pejorative thing anyone has said about the climate science community.
You're way too harsh. They're not rocket scientists, but they're not complete morons either.
""Seeing as you know more than all the top climate scientists in the world, more than all the cognitive psychologists, and now we also learn that you're an expert in forensically analysing documents,""
To my knowledge, only one cognitive psychologist in the world is standing by the authenticity of the Strategy Document, and guess who it is? Why, it's the same idiot who also took Alene Composta's blog at face value. And yes, I WOULD say I'm smarter than Stephan Lewandowsky, who can't tell a flamboyantly satirical blog from the real thing, a childish forgery from the real thing, or his anus from his olecranon. And no, that really doesn't mean much. In fact half of you folks are probably smarter than Lew.
Are you suggesting "all the world's top climate scientists" believe the Strategy Document is authentic?
Whoosh! Sarcasm. Ever heard of it?
And here I am going round in circles with Brad. Enough.
metzomagic,
"Are you suggesting "all the world's top climate scientists" believe the Strategy Document is authentic?"
Whoosh! Sarcasm. Ever heard of it?
Ah, "sarcasm." Yes, I was briefed on that irrational primate behavior before arrival on your planet. Sarcasm (if I recall) entails saying one thing and meaning something diametrically different.
So you're telling me all the top climate scientists do grasp the bogus nature of the purported "Strategy Document."
Good. I should hope so. Because nobody childlike and suggestible enough to believe, honest-to-God, that a multimillion dollar conservative think-tank would even dream of putting this on paper:
"His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science."
....should not be allowed anywhere near our nation's labs. They are dangerous places for infants. They may contain sharps and inflammables.
The discussion about Gleick having forged the memo is mute, since actually everything in the document could be found in the other Heartland documents. So it would be a strange forgery, that doesn't tell anything different to the other documents. It just looks like a cheap excuse from the Heartland Institute. And now we see, that just another sentence in the memo is quite realistic, despite efforts of Revkin to let it look ridiculous. Obviously lobby companies like the Breakthrough Institute (in the same way as stated by the Heartland Institute) see an opportunity to use Revkin for a gentle massage of the public opinion towards doubt about the state of science.
Brad Keyes:
"""Darrell Harb" has been denying he is Brad Keyes over at STW for a couple of days now."
He has?"
Yes. For example, he claims not to know the URL of your blog:
"(For now I'm going to have to pass over your allusion to "Brad's" "blackish site", because I honestly don't know what, or where on the Internet, it is. Do you have a URL?)"
And also:
"If "Keyes" shows up here, then be my guest: accuse us/me/it of being sock puppet/puppets/puppetses. (Sorry, I haven't got my head around the grammar of human cloning yet.) Until then, crying to teacher is a needless embarrassment for you."
Once a liar, always a liar, Keyes.
Keyes, are you even capable of stringing two words together without lying? The piece says the documents were obtained under false pretenses, NOT that any were forgeries.
You do yourself no credit when you lie so blatantly and transparently.
For what it's worth, here's the Ur-Thread:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/tell-me-whats-horrible-about-this/
Those who'd wish to opine authoritatively on this matter should at the very least read it.
Now, let's wonder if TomC anticipated all this.
> everything in the document
> could be found in the other
> Heartland documents. So it
> would be a strange forgery,
> that doesn't tell anything
> different
Who owns a compilaton copyright, these days? I forget how that works when you collect someone else's work all in one place.
"Keyes, are you even capable of stringing two words together without lying?"
Easily. The question is whether you could read them.
Also, my name is not "Keyes." It's "Brad." What's wrong with you? Were you raised by fucking wolves? Hello? Basic manners.
"The piece says the documents were obtained under false pretenses, NOT that any were forgeries."
The trick with reading one of these so-called "article" things is that you have to also read the bit after (that is, underneath) the title. It's called "the story," and often contains information that was omitted from the title, for example due to space limitations etc.
If you keep reading you'll see these words, in which the writer describes the moment at which she decided the document was "very likely" inauthentic, i.e. forged:
"Given other anomalies surrounding the document, it seemed to me very likely that whoever had phished the authenticated board package had been disappointed by the lack of sizeable contributions from Big Oil and the Kochs, and so had written the memo to make sure that the documents told a nice, neat story about corruption and secrecy, rather than a boring, equivocal story about an issue advocacy organization with a spot of budget trouble."
Interesting claim:
> everything in the document
> could be found in the other
> Heartland documents.
Except it couldn't, could it?
For example, the reference to "dissuading teachers from teaching science" could NOT be found anywhere in the authentic Heartland documents, nor would anyone with a mental age over 12 expect it to be.
It only appears in the Gleickogenous "Strategy" document.
It appears there because Gleick doesn't "do" realism. He's more of a comedy writer.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space:
If McArdle's allegation of forgery in that article was too subtle for you, I apologise. I should have linked you to the more sledge-hammerly followup she wrote:
...But Is One A Fake?
wherein you will may find this helpful section:
"Now, caveats out of the way, here's why I think that memo is probably fake:
1. All of the documents are high-quality PDFs generated from original electronic files . . . except for the "Climate Strategy" memo. (Hereinafter, "the memo"). That appears to have been printed out and scanned, though it may also have been faxed.
...
2. Every single verifiable fact that's in the memo is found in another one of the documents, or available in a public source; in fact, many of the sentences are cut and paste jobs from the fundraising document, the binder insert, or the budget.
Substantial overlap is to be expected. But perfect overlap is surprising--there was nothing they wanted to elaborate on about their Climate Strategy that wasn't found in their fundraising or budget documents?
...
It's hard to imagine why someone at Heartland would have written a memo that didn't contain any new information, or even useful new spin. On the other hand, if I were trying to make sure that the memo couldn't be conclusively shown to be a fake, this is exactly the approach I'd take: borrow 100% of the facts, and most of the language, from real documents.
3. The style is different. Most institutions have a sort of house style for things like board packages. That style drives writers nuts, because it's flabby and repetitive, but it's also generally consistent, and professional-sounding. The other documents are all written in the same basic style: formal-ish, overlong, and written at about a tenth grade reading level. A lot of fairly brief paragraphs, a carefully titrated modicum of self-praise. Except for the required legal notices, which are double spaced, they're all using approximately the same formatting.
Then there's the memo, which uses a different format and what seems to be a different font size or weight. It's in run-on paragraphs that read as if they had been exhaled in one long breath. The writing is sloppy in many places, including word choices ("dissuading them from teaching science") that should never have made it past a second set of eyes, and certainly not all the way to the board.
...
5. The worldview is different. In my experience, climate skeptics see themselves as a beleaguered minority fighting for truth and justice against the powerful, and nearly monolithic, forces of the establishment. They are David, to the climate scientists' Goliaths. This is basically what the authenticated documents sound like.
The memo, by contrast, uses more negative language about the efforts it's describing, while trying to sound like they think it's positive. It's like the opposition political manifestos found in novels written by stolid ideologues; they can never quite bear (or lack the imagination) to let the villains have a good argument. Switch the names, and the memo could have been a page ripped out of State of Fear or Atlas Shrugged.
Basically, it reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern."
and on and on and on.
McArdle found 8 separate, substantive reasons not to trust the "Strategy Document", yet you people still appear to be in denial of its obvious fraudulence.
Years later. You still fantasise that HI actually produced it.
Why? Motivated non-reasoning.
You Need To Believe.
Thanks everyone, I'm getting a lot of laughs out of this thread.
Keyes, how's about I refer to you as "assclam," 'Kay, Punkin?
McArdle presents zero evidence that the Gleick forged that article, and even her evidence that it is forged is weak. What is more, the substance of the document is supported by the other documents Gleick obtained. I don't condone the manner Gleick obtained the documents. The documents speak for themselves.
dilbert:
"even her evidence that it is forged is weak"
If you can bring yourself to say, with a straight face, that you believe the "Strategy Document" is authentic, then say it.
And write your full, meatspace name next to your affirmation.
I want you to own that belief. Really make it your own.
After all, you worked so hard for it—'d be a shame to go to all that psychological exertion for zero real-world credit, right?
OK Willard -
The Breakthrough Institute is up to no good and Revkin is contaminated. He can never speak positively about anything associated with it, and if he does, Eli will call him out. Now please be consistent and start your attacks on Wigley.
Let us pause for a Two Minute Hate before stenciling ANTI-SCIENCE on the Easter eggs of all who dare question our Authority
http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/documents/cerai-00-11.htm
Defusing Environmental Education: An evaluation of the critique of the environmental education movement
April 25, 2000
Bwadwey, I frankly don't care whether the document is authentic. Anyone who didn't know Heartland were imbeciles before the documents leaked was a fool in any case. I said the evidence cited was weak. It is. It wouldn't fly even in the Roberts Court.
OK, Tom C -
Time to acknowledge that the thread has not turned out the way your post-hoc irony retrodicted.
OK, dilbert's cried uncle (by attempting to sound like someone who was never resisting reality in the first place):
"Bwadwey, I frankly don't care whether the document is authentic."
Well done dilbert.
Who will be the next to surrender to reality?
Remember, the sooner you scurry off the ship, the drier your fur!
> OK, [...]
Didn't your penultimate comment express a commitment to go see if you were somewhere else, Brad?
If you want to stay, we could discuss how the main ideas of that "fraudulent" document could be traced back in other Heartland's documents.
I mean, I thought the main moral of the Gleick story is that one does not simply fake a document of stuff one could read on Heartland's website.
"one does not simply fake a document of stuff one could read on Heartland's website"
No, obviously you don't. Agreed.
You fake a document because you want it to say what Heartland is never going to say in a million years; things like:
"His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science."
If you think anyone in Heartland wrote that, you're not a serious person.
> If you think anyone in Heartland wrote that [His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science], you're not a serious person.
Wanna bet, Brad?
Not only I could prove that, Brad, but I could drown you under quotes.
Hint: read Judy's.
Oh, I missed this rake-step by dhogaza:
Yes. For example, he claims not to know the URL of your blog:
"(For now I'm going to have to pass over your allusion to "Brad's" "blackish site", because I honestly don't know what, or where on the Internet, it is. Do you have a URL?)"
Whose URL do I claim not to know? Seriously, what the God are you talking about? Who-the-hell's "blackish site" do you imagine is the topic of the conversation? (That's not a rhetorical question: I'd like to know.)
Everybody knows my site is WHITE.
Explain yourself.
From last October: "The Heartland Institute recently conducted a mass mailing to K-12 and college teachers promoting its new “Climate Change Reconsidered”..."
And what did HI have to say to these teachers?
You have an important decision to make. Will you tell your students the “science is settled” on global warming, as the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims it is? Or will you explain to them that real science is never settled?
But, but, Brad ... "His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science."
If you think anyone in Heartland wrote that, you're not a serious person."
Ummm ... it would seem that's EXACTLY what they are doing ... so in hindsight the document fits their agenda to a T. Perhaps in that light you might consider what dilbert was saying ... it DOESN'T matter if HI wrote the Gleick memo. Why not? Because we KNOW that's what they're doing independent of the memo.
Willard:
"Hint: read Judy's."
Hmmm. Strange.
What a nebulous exhortation, especially for an obsessive cyber-scrapbook compiler such as you, Willard.
Any particular page of Judy's you'd like me to focus on, or do they all contain an equal amount of evidence of your correctness?
Shall I just start at the home page and work my way back through the mists of time?
Kevin O'Neill:
"it DOESN'T matter if HI wrote the Gleick memo. Why not? Because we KNOW that's what they're doing independent of the memo."
Gleick wrote the Gleick memo. That's why it's called the Gleick memo. Glad we're speaking the same language.
Anyway, you now claim this fraudulent act achieved nothing whatsoever.
So it would seem he's a forger and an idiot.
All right, if you say so.
Has one of those police-camera comp shows called "World's Stupidest Suspects" done a segment on Gleick yet?
> What a nebulous exhortation.
Hints are supposed to make you work, Brad.
Besides, why would I give you anything before you tell me if you wanna bet?
"it DOESN'T matter if HI wrote the Gleick memo"
Except to Gleick, of course. He's been extremely careful to avoid either admitting or denying the act. Which shows he's smart enough to follow his lawyers' advice, at least. Maybe he's not a full-fledged idiot, just subnormal.
> Maybe he's not a full-fledged idiot, just subnormal.
If considering that quotes from the Heartland Institute can't be reasonably attributed to the Heartland Institute is the new normal, some might disagree on that one, Brad.
"Hints are supposed to make you work, Brad."
Make your case or don't. Up to you. But if you think I'm going to do homework you're flattering yourself.
Hey Brad, incoming:
H. Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Schools
Many people lament the absence of educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political. Heartland has tried to make material available to
teachers, but has had only limited success. Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. Moreover, material for classroom use must be carefully written to meet
curriculum guidelines, and the amount of time teachers have for supplemental material is steadily shrinking due to the spread of standardized tests in K-12 education.
Dr. David Wojick has presented Heartland a proposal to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools that appears to have great potential for success. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with
the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. He has a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science and
mathematical logic from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.S. in civil engineering from Carnegie Tech. He has been on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon and the staffs of the U.S. Office
of Naval Research and the Naval Research Lab.
Dr. Wojick has conducted extensive research on environmental and science education for the Department of Energy. In the course of this research, he has identified what subjects and
concepts teachers must teach, and in what order (year by year), in order to harmonize with national test requirements. He has contacts at virtually all the national organizations involved in
producing, certifying, and promoting science curricula.
Dr. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change (“whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy”), climate models (“models
are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial”), and air pollution (“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global
food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions”). Wojick would produce modules for Grades 7-9 on environmental impact (“environmental impact is often difficult to determine. For example there is a major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather”), for Grade 6 on water resources and weather systems, and so on.
We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $5,000 per module, about $25,000 a quarter, starting in the second quarter of 2012, for this work. The Anonymous Donor has pledged the first $100,000
for this project, and we will circulate a proposal to match and then expand upon that investment.
If that's not about trying to teach kids the exact opposite of the reality we are currently facing, I don't know what the fuck is. And that's from one of the docs that Gleick obtained that Heartland owned up to. I especially liked this bit of blatant disinformation:
“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global
food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions”
True to form, you will never admit that your HI cronies have anything but the best of intent for the people of this world. Thanks for doing your bit (as a useful idiot) to sell out humanity. I am quite sure that future generations will sing your praises.
> if you think I'm going to do homework
Chuckle.
> Make your case or don't.
You really want me to make the case that the Heartland Institute touted its K-12 program, Brad?
If this the new normal, then I guess I'd have to reassess the suboptimality of Gleick's action.
I'd rather have you to go first and assert that the Heartland Institute never touted its K-12 program before revising my conception of normalcy.
"You really want me to make the case that the Heartland Institute touted its K-12 program, Brad?"
No. Are you simple? How much clearer could I have made this?
I want you to make the case (if there is a case) that Heartland wrote:
""His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.""
Can you do that? Yes or no, Willard?
"True to form, you will never admit that your HI cronies have anything but the best of intent for the people of this world."
I have cronies? I? Brad Keyes? I have cronies now? Really—you really meant to write that??
Also:
I admit that HI sometimes has something but the best of intent for the people of this world. (Have you even read the stuff I've written about them?)
...which poses a bit of a problem for your delusion that,
"True to form, you will never admit that your HI cronies have anything but the best of intent for the people of this world."
doesn't it?
> I want you to make the case [...] Can you do that?
Sounds too much like an homework, Brad. Besides, I'm not sure which kind of case you're asking for here. Show us an example of the kind of case you have in mind.
Alternatively, you could simply substantiate your claim that anyone who thinks that anyone in Heartland wrote that "His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science" is not a serious person.
I mean, come on, it it's so freaking obvious, why don't you show us why, Brad!
Then we might wonder how this is supposed to be relevant or something.
***
Let's focus on the sentence following the one Brad picked:
> Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science.
Now, let's apply Brad's trick:
Anyone who believes that the credentials David Wojick peddle from site to site mean anything is not a serious person.
Please show me wrong, Brad.
> Really—you really meant to write that??
Perhaps metzo did not mean you really had cronies.
Seems that jumping at the real cronies you may have made you skip most of metzo's comment, btw.
May I ask why, Brad?
> Let's focus on the sentence following [...]
The preceding sentence, that is.
The following sentence would be:
We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.
Anyone who thinks that the Anonymous Donor cares about David Wojick's scientific competence is not a serious person.
Go ahead and show me wrong, Brad.
" > I want you to make the case [...] Can you do that?
Sounds too much like an homework, Brad. "
No, asking someone to prove what they earlier boasted they could prove is not "homework."
You said you could prove it; I knew you couldn't; now everybody knows you can't.
Another wasted day in the climateball colosseum.
At the end of the day, the day ends all by itself, Brad.
Instead of simply stating your case, you're asking bunnies to contradict your proof by assertion.
This is called reversing the burden of proof, Brad. I find that a good way to test who has the burden of proof is to ask for a bet. The test has been conclusive.
You're asking bunnies to do the homework for you, Brad. No wonder Hank chuckled. Not that I am asking anyone to prove me wrong by saying so, mind you.
***
Oh, and a simple refutation of your argument could be that the sentence contained a typo or something.
Enjoy your evening,
w
"Anyone who thinks that the Anonymous Donor cares about David Wojick's scientific competence is not a serious person.
Go ahead and show me wrong, Brad."
Why?
Are you wrong?
- If so, why are you saying something that's false?
- If not, why on earth should I waste time trying to prove a truth false?
> Are you wrong?
You tell me, Brad. I'm just imitating your stupid debating trick.
Nice demonstration that there's no point in trying to prove anything, btw.
Kevin,
You badly misunderstand what we're arguing about. (So does Willard, in a completely different way peculiar to himself—but he's not a native speaker of English so he's got an excuse.)
You write:
""If you think anyone in Heartland wrote that, you're not a serious person."
Ummm ... it would seem that's EXACTLY what they are doing ... "
So what? That's irrelevant. The question is whether or not they wrote a particular sentence. Not whether or not the sentence was true.
Understand the difference?
> The question is whether or not they wrote a particular sentence.
Who gets to decide what's the question, Brad, you?
Also, recall that your intuition rests on the idea that the sentence was the exact one the Heartland Institute meant to write.
Kevin,
to further explain (in case you still don't get it), the question is whether or not it's plausible that HI described their goals, on paper, as "dissuading teachers from teaching science."
My answer is no. It is not plausible.
Megan McArdle explains why it isn't plausible, in detail, for those very few people to whom it isn't self-explanatory.
It's not because HI would never dream of doing anything to undermine science. It's because even if they did do something to undermine science they would never express it like that.
Surely you've noticed that even the most immoral ideologies in history invariably describe themselves as moral, haven't you?
Likewise, HI sees itself, and describes itself, as promoting science. You think they're anti-science—but so fucking what? They think they're pro-science. They would never write a document describing themselves as anti-science.
Is this trivially simple concept sinking in yet, Kevin?
> [T]hey would never express it like that.
Unless they do.
As if the Heartland Institute only wrote stuff it really meant anyway.
"Also, recall that your intuition rests on the idea that the sentence was the exact one the Heartland Institute meant to write."
What did you have in mind, Willard? Are you suggesting we give serious thought to the possibility that a secretarial error might have mutated "persuading teachers to teach" -> "dissuading teachers from teaching"?
Ugh.
Somebody, please shoot me.
I'm bored. Bye.
> Are you suggesting we give serious thought to the possibility that a secretarial error might have mutated "persuading teachers to teach" -> "dissuading teachers from teaching"?
You can do better than that, Brad. Channel your Chuck Norris.
From teaching orthodoxy.
From teaching mainstream science.
From teaching statist science.
From teaching university science.
From teaching discredited science.
Et cetera, ad nauseam.
***
Also note that your assumption that the memo conveyed exactly what it meant to express implies you can only argue for plausibility, Brad. Trying to take into account the possibility of error is tough enough to discredit most epistemologies. If the argument from error bores you, wait until you read any serious philosophy, to borrow your concept.
***
All this to burden bunnies with Gleick's suboptimality, and while ignoring the fact that everything in the memo was already public knowledge.
Anyone who read David Wojick's comments at Judy's know that, Brad. But of course, Gleick's idiocy is way more interesting. Until it gets boring.
Wonder why?
Willard,
Yes, perhaps there's a modifier missing before the noun "science."
Yawn. Changing the topic:
To your knowledge has Gleick ever denied the (widespread) allegation that he forged the Strategy Document?
If not, have you ever wondered why not?
If you ever wondered why not, did you come up with any explanations you find plausible, and if so what are they?
(I'm just asking your opinion qua opinion. You don't have to argue for, justify or defend your answers.)
Willard is a treasure.
How did the Gleick argument get rekindled here?
Revkin is a munchwagon.
Before anyone assumes that is ad hominem, one needs to know the definition of munchwagon. A munchwagon is an Andy Revkin.
Don't get me startled on McArdle.
Yes, Brad, Gleick has denied faking the document.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/-the-origin-of-the-heartl_b_1289669.html
"I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication"
Marco,
I used to think you were scientifically-illiterate but now I wonder if you're just illiterate. As someone who can read and write, I can assure you that these words you copied'n'pasted...
"I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication"
...do NOT constitute, imply or represent or equal a denial of having forged the Strategy Document.
If that's the best you could find, then Gleick has never denied it.
(For what it's worth, on Twitter I've stated to Gleick's face, as it were, that he forged it. More than once. He's never contradicted me.)
Nope, it almost seems like the only people still in denial about the forgery are taking part in this very conversation.
Brad, you might want to read the whole story. As Gleick also notes:
"At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute's apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it."
The document Gleick refers to is that strategy document you continue to claim he has not denied faking.
Do we really have to spell it out for you? If so, it's not me who's the illiterate...
Marco,
all you've discovered with your newfound reading skillz is the banal fact that Gleick initially claimed the document was authentic.
Uh, yes.
That's kind of how forgery works, Marco.
Without initially representing the document as authentic, Gleick wouldn't have done anything deceptive, would he? Anybody's allowed write any piece of ham-fisted fantasy impersonating their arch enemies any time they like and there's nothing wrong with that until they publicly attribute the piece to their enemies, at which point they've entered the new and exciting world of fraud.
(I would've thought this was all too obvious for words, but then, one can never underestimate the mental celerity of True Believalists.)
But things didn't go as Gleick might have hoped, did they Marco?
As soon as people started reading the 9 documents, they started reaching the same unhappy conclusion: one of the documents is an embarrassingly amateur fake.
And that's when people started saying: Dr Gleick, the 9th document is a forgery.
Now what I'm asking, Marco—and please, for the love of God, read the question carefully—is once people started calling the 9th document a forgery, did Gleick ever say no, that accusation is false?
Ever?
Or did he just do what any competent lawyer would command their client to do: tell no further lies from this point onwards?
For example, did he produce carefully legalistic, Jesuitical non-denials like, say:
"I didn't alter any of the documents from Heartland!"
"All the documents I got from Heartland were from Heartland!"
"I didn't forge any of the documents that were from Heartland!"
?
Over to you, Marco.
By the way, Marco, in case it wasn't obvious, this:
"I do not know the source of that original document"
means:
"I'm not saying [any more] that it was written by Heartland."
Also, Marco, we're talking about forging a document. Not tampering with or adulterating a document. Is that clear?
(Just to save us a couple hours of casuistical shadowboxing.)
Keyes can't stick a flounce, either.
"Keyes can't stick a flounce, either."
Even by Internet standards you're a social retard, aren't you?
For the last fucking time, you sociopath: my name is Brad.
> we're talking about forging a document.
Not we, Brad. You. Please own your peddling gig.
You, that is you, Brad, are entertaining us with theories to substantiate the forgery hypothesis.
In a case where Gleick already admitted having lack ethical judgement.
Using an argument that shifted the burden of proof on bunnies.
An argument where we're supposed to imagine that Gleick must have written some sentence because it would have been stupid for the Heartland Institute to write it.
But let's forget people forget to write words the times.
So Gleick is so stupid that it's way more plausible that he wrote that document than anyone else.
A document that does not reveal anything interesting.
In a case where Gleick already admitted having acted in a suboptimal manner.
Now, that's very interesting.
So interesting that it's the only topic that gets your interest, Brad.
Everything else is just so boring.
***
Ever saw the K-12 program of the Heartland Institute, Brad?
Marco,
If I recall correctly, the usual gambit against this:
> I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication.
is that the sentence can read as "I did not forge the documents I received, but I don't say anything about the documents I forged".
Plausible deniability and all that jazz.
Keyes, "Now what I'm asking, Marco—and please, for the love of God, read the question carefully—is once people started calling the 9th document a forgery, did Gleick ever say no, that accusation is false?"
Why would he, Keyes? What makes you think he's under any obligation to dignify paranoid leaps to the forgery conclusion with any response whatsoever?
The Gleick-Heartland kerfuffle was never about you, but by your narcissistic exertions this thread now is. Hey bunnies, let's all make Keyes our new kid 8^D! How many more bushels of words do you think we can make him spew?
There is exactly one degree of separation between Meagan McArdle and The Heartland Institute's largest named donor, William Dunn.
That degree is Peter Suderman, Megan's husband, who edited for the Reason Foundation, which Mr. Dunn was Chairman of the Board at the time (Trustee Emeritus now).
http://web.archive.org/web/20120222013111/http://reason.org/about/faq/
http://reason.com/people/peter-suderman/all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_McArdle
-SM
> How many more bushels of words do you think we can make him spew?
Beware your wishes, Mal Adapted:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2013/02/02/brangelina-thread/
It might be more interesting to take this opportunity to what the Heartland Institute reaches for behind the scene:
Everyone knows we must try something better and different, and fast. The Heartland Institute's Education Issue Suite not only aggregates decades of the latest school reform news and research, but reaches behind the scenes to bring you experts analyzing which of these expanding options actually do expand the options for students and their families. No other think tank or publication instigates and investigates education reform this way. Browse by daily for the best and latest in student-centered education policy.
https://heartland.org/issues/education
Now, if you were the Heartland Institute, would you say that you are reaching behind the scenes?
That page is a forgery!
Denial is an attitude. It is not enough to be in denial of the state of climate science. It also means, to be in denial of any other fact that might disturb the certainty of a fanatic mind. Therefore, it is no surprise, that Brad Keyes used 34 posts to deny one obvious fact. Andrew Revkin is doing a useful service for lobby institutions by spreading doubt about the state of the climate science and giving band width to concern trolls like the Pielkes. This is obviously recognized by the Breaktrough Institute. And the memo of the Heartland Institute states the same. The discussion whether the memo is forged is meaningless since if you really want to believe it with all the strength of a fanatic or a clueless there will be no proof in the world which could convince you otherwise. We simply see, that nothing in the memo stands for itself, it all can be corroborated with other facts. I don't feel any need to convince a denier about something he simply has chosen to never ever believe without regard of plausibility or reality checks.
> I don't feel any need to convince a denier about something he simply has chosen to never ever believe without regard of plausibility or reality checks.
You're right, Jörg: I don't always need to convince someone, but when I do, I try not to call that someone a denier.
The same applies to everyone, including those who write for the Heartland Institute. Speaking of which:
Adherence to sound principles can lead to reforms of higher education that make it more affordable, more productive, more efficient, and more useful to society.
https://heartland.org/policy-documents/ten-principles-higher-education-reform
Everyone likes the sound of sound principles. It can lead to better and more everything. Oh, and deaths and taxes.
Willard:
"Beware your wishes, Mal Adapted:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2013/02/02/brangelina-thread/"
Indeed Willard, Keyes "has form" as they say across the pond. RR is one of the few other venues where he'll be allowed to exercise it, offering a wealth of opportunities for merciless mockery. Here we can abandon all pretense of mutual respect. Mwaahahaha!
Come to think of it, has anyone seen His Truculence Neil Craig around lately?
"Everyone likes the sound of sound principles".
Which is why its mundanity effectively camouflages the likelihood that they mean their principles, of the FF industries enabling kind (Hello Arctic, goodbye eco system), which may not be anyone sane's principles.
"You're right, Jörg: I don't always need to convince someone, but when I do, I try not to call that someone a denier."
Willard, compared to you, Jörg stands an infinitely better chance of convincing me of any given proposition.
I like & trust Jörg much more than I like or trust you.
Wanna know why?
He's honest; you're [attempting in your own way to be] nice.
Jörg calls me a denier because he thinks I am a denier. You avoid calling me a denier because you "need to convince me of something."
I understand that your rationale for using more circumspect language is both pragmatically and morally sound: you're trying to be nice, and thereby maximise the transfer of science.
But what you don't seem to grasp, perhaps for culturo/linguistic reasons, is that your impeccably well-intentioned tactics ANNOY THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE.
Your attempts to be polite come across as sleazy to online English-speaking climate-change apathists.
And I hate you for the hours we've wasted arguing at cross purposes because you were trying to prove A while I was trying to prove not-B.
You have to be STRAIGHTFORWARD if you want people to not-hate you, Willard.
The tragic thing is that I'm 90% confident you're not an odious person. You just keep acting odiously. I really wish you could appreciate how your debating style is received. I guarantee it's NOT received the way you intend it to be.
I really wish you could appreciate how your debating style is received. I guarantee it's NOT received the way you intend it to be..
After more projection and assertion than you could pin down with a circusful of tent-pegs apparently you're the one not living in the real world who needs to change.
After all, the Keyster has spoken.
By the way Willard, I know that this:
"And I hate you for the hours we've wasted arguing at cross purposes because you were trying to prove A while I was trying to prove not-B."
could just as easily be my fault as your fault.
HOWEVER when I debate with other people who hold [apparently] similar views to yours, it doesn't happen. We don't waste HOURS unwittingly arguing at cross-purposes. We each know what the other is trying to prove.
Other problems arise, of course; but not the one that arises with you. (To be fair to you, the same thing happens, though not as badly, with "Joshua".)
Therefore the fault is certainly yours.
Butt out chek. This doesn't concern you.
> Butt out chek.
Watch out, chek. Mr. Keyes owns the place.
"I do not know the source of that original document"
means: according to Brad
"I'm not saying [any more] that it was written by Heartland."
Basic logic fail 101. The information was given to Gleick by and anonymous *source* --- if he knew who the source was, it would hardly be anonymous. Geezus - you've spent how much time thinking about this and you missed that? Doesn't say much for your analytical skills.
Do you share a room with rsprung?
> I like & trust Jörg much more than I like or trust you.
Why of course, Brad. How could such ClimateBall (tm) episode be without Jörg's lack of finish? Most of your exploits rely on this.
Speaking of exploits, please comment on this one by the Heartland Institute:
On April 24 while introducing John Lott at our latest Authors Series event, I mentioned to the audience that The Heartland Institute had distributed 100,000 copies of Steve Goreham's book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism. Some of the global warming alarmists who received the book did not appreciate the gift, and told me so in nasty emails.
http://news.heartland.org/editorial/2013/05/03/san-jose-state-professors-would-rather-burn-climate-skeptic-book-read-it
Thank you for the kind words,
w
Butt out chek.
Butt out? Very droll, Keyster.
This doesn't concern you.
Unfortunately your presence is a cause for concern, and to everyone because it presages hundreds of acres of uninformed drivel from you.
I see you're giving your usual hobby-horse 'the scientific consensus-as-popularity-contest a spring break, and are instead throwing all your moronic spin-doctor skills at Peter Gleik (who did us all a Woodward-and-Bernsteinian style favour) in his exposé of the lobbyists plans to subvert the education system.
Personally, Id have only been slightly uncomfortable with his tactics if he'd waterboarded those documents out of Bast, but that's obviously just me.
Q: How can you tell the septics are loosing the battle for hearts and minds?*
A: It's getting easier to get under their skin as they become more desperate and shrill.
(*As opposed to the science and the facts, which they never had a chance to win.)
Forgot to answer Pinko Punko's question:
> How did the Gleick argument get rekindled here?
It started 11/4/14 2:50 AM, with Jörg's "I want to raise awareness for a document, that Gleick has made public."
Brad fixed that sentence. Because Brad is that good. He just knows what Jörg wanted to write.
Then metzomagic opened the ball. Then ray, Dhogaza, Jörg, Hank (!) followed suits.
Here's how the Gleick argument get rekindled here.
I hope bunnies don't doubt Brad when he expresses his affection for Jörg.
It does not take an Horne Fisher to see ClimateBall (tm) exploits such as Brad's.
Willard,
am I supposed to notice someone in this passage doing some act I ought to deplore:
'On April 24 while introducing John Lott at our latest Authors Series event, I mentioned to the audience that The Heartland Institute had distributed 100,000 copies of Steve Goreham's book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism. Some of the global warming alarmists who received the book did not appreciate the gift, and told me so in nasty emails.'
?
(Bear in mind I can't recall who John Lott is; and I'm no fan of Bast since the awful billboard and his even more awful excuses for it, but otherwise haven't followed Bast's adventures in any detail at all.)
Because I don't see it.
You'll have to give me the answer.
chek, although you're both rude and wrong 90% of the time, chivalry forces me to state that you're sometimes witty and that this was surprisingly well-played:
"This doesn't concern you.
...
Unfortunately your presence is a cause for concern, and to everyone because it presages hundreds of acres of uninformed drivel from you."
(A person in my vicinity also thought it was clever.)
How come you don't you always write well?
"How come you don't you always write well?"
LOL
Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?
The Keyster said: "chek, although you're both rude and wrong 90% of the time"
Which confused me, because personal styles aside, I support the IPCC Reports, which I believe to be the best possible science made available to laymen (of which I am one).
Being a layman, I also respect that representative democracy, whilst far from perfect and infected by special interests and their all-too-human clutches on individuals, is the best hope yet for the common man so far devised. A return to fealty and oligarchy is not on the cards, despite what some progress charts may pertain to show.
So, in the interest of Truth (as it is understood) - as represented by the best scientific minds available on the planet, I will defer. I am in no position to argue with contradictory data. Imagine it's one of those Hollywood disaster movies: who's The President - if you're U.S.A.-centric - or the Secretary of the U.N. gonna call when they dial up 'Ghostbusters'? Judith 'washed-up and invariably wrong' Curry and her sidekick Richard 'Marlboro Man' Lindzen, or Michael 'nailed it in one' Mann and his sidekick Gavin Schmidt?
The answer should be obvious.
The Keyster further said: How come you don't you always write well?
What? And there was me thinking that "After more projection and assertion than you could pin down with a circusful of tent-pegs" couldn't be topped.
D'frent strokes fer d'frent folks, I guess.
> Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?
Since Sammy Sosa got traded more than once, perhaps not.
> am I supposed to notice someone in this passage doing some act I ought to deplore [...]
Why would I ask you to deplore anything, Brad? Comment, Brad, comment. Or not. Do as you please.
Just listen to the inner voice of Darrell Harb. What does it tell you? Breathe in, breathe out, go for it.
***
Here's another gem:
“This is a very big victory for the other side,” said Craig Rucker, executive director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a nonprofit that promotes free-market environmental stewardship. “If you start inculcating these ideas into the young, they will view this as a statement of faith, and it becomes very difficult to convince them otherwise—which is why the proponents of climate change are doing it.”
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/22/states-respond-common-core-science-standards
willard,
"Proponents of climate change" lacks felicity, to put it mildly.
Everyone knows climate change is happening; everyone knows nothing anyone does or doesn't do will ever stop or start climate change; so how and why the heck would anyone be "for" it?
Willard:
"Comment, Brad, comment. Or not. Do as you please."
I did comment.
Readers cannot help but notice that you, on the other hand, remained silent.
They will draw one or more conclusions from your silence, no doubt.
The Keyster opined: everyone knows nothing anyone does or doesn't do will ever stop or start climate change
Ah, but we do know that what we are (collectively) doesing is exacerbating climate change by adding our industrial scale contributions to the balance of the CO2 cycle. You should try reading up on the science rather than filling your head with denier-sourced garbage sometime.
chek:
"chek
April 12, 2014
I had a look for Keyes self-incriminating quote (to no avail) and then googled"
Well don't leave us in suspense!
Did googling work? Did you find it?
Even if you didn't, the key thing is not to let this failure, or any future failure, no matter how many times you fail or how hard you were looking, affect in any way your level of confidence in the reality of the thing you're searching for.
It won't always be easy. There'll be days when you want to give up. But you must never, ever stop looking.
Keep your mind's eye on the prize: how good it'll feel when you finally find those words BBD seems to recall me writing, and rub them in my face.
chek:
"Ah, but we do know that what we are (collectively) doesing is exacerbating climate change by adding our industrial scale contributions to the balance of the CO2 cycle."
Yeah, we know. We does know that's what we're doesing.
Your point, if any?
The Keyster, patially quoting as is his common M.O. said: I had a look for Keyes self-incriminating quote (to no avail) and then googled" omitted the more salient part:
"– the boy gets around and in almost every case to rubbish consensus as he understands it.
It’s actually quite sad to see well-meaning, informed people obviously encountering it for the first time, trying to explain that consensus formed from observation and evidence is not the popularity vote Keyes insists it is and must be, every time. He refuses, for obvious reasons, to see the difference relying on tricksy semantics and assertion. Every time.
I sincerely hope it’s not using his real name, as I really can’t see any use for a mini-Dellingpole wannabee who’s already exposed itself as a terminal and stubborn cretin at so many venues".
Then he continued: Your point, if any? (about human additions to the carbon cycle]
My point? Go read a basic fucking textbook, you moron. And if even that's beyond your capability, try the online "Spencer Weart's Disovery of Global Warming" in the side panel on the left.
But we've been through all this previously at Deltoid, and yet you stubbornly persist in believing that you can wing it on your mightily self-underestimated ignorance. But you can't and you don't. And because you learn nothing, you become dull and repetitious, which is why 'The Keyster' clown tag (with apologies to Abbot and Costello)fits you so well.
> Readers cannot help but notice that you, on the other hand, remained silent.
I like it when you speak for the readers, Brad. It's even better than the "we" before. No, not really, that "we" was quite lame.
You still have to own that one, by the way.
***
Sometimes, showing is enough. But you can comment alright, Brad. Your concerns are always appreciated.
So here's the deal, Brad. I provide the links, you provide the colourful commentary. Here's another gem (notice the word "gem", though):
If passed, a Kansas bill would have teachers provide students an objective view of climate change and other scientific controversies, covering the evidence for both sides of the scientific debates.
http://heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/28/kansas-considers-bill-require-objective-climate-change-education
Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who Is the More Balanced of Them All?
***
You know, Brad, I found tbis gem with this search:
http://policybot.enginez.com/results.engz?uq=K-12+climate&x=0&y=0
As you can see, there are more than 900 hits for that search.
I hope readers will appreciate your colourful commentaries.
chek, having recovered from his annual lapse into something resembling intelligence, is back to his trademark hebetude:
"Then he continued: Your point, if any? (about human additions to the carbon cycle]
My point?"
Yes, you anencephalic jar-baby, your point. That's what I'm asking you. Whst was your point? That's the question. Sprichst du Englisch?
"Go read a basic fucking textbook, you moron."
Oh, is THAT what you've been trying to get across all this time, by means of your last 4 hours of unrelated outbursts?
Or are you suggesting that if I were to read one, it might tell me the answer to the eternal human question:
"what is that walking teratoma chek attempting to tell the world with its spastic gesticulations, plaintive grunts and random keystrokes?"
Because I hate to break it to you but:
Done. Read it. Not just one textbook either. I've read plural of them over the years. And while they certainly got me closer to a diagnosis of your "point" than any of the gibberish you've emitted online, your point (assuming it exists) still eludes mine and every other terrestrial intellect.
"And if even that's beyond your capability,"
No, I can't say it was particularly hard.
It's just that nobody seems to know your point.
I'm beginning to think even you've forgotten it.
Keyes has just given us proof of the Dopeler Effect.
Dopeler effect (n.). The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Ian:
1. My name is "Brad," not Keyes, you rude douchecanoe.
2. Your comment amusingly betrays, before the unblinking and unforgetting eye of the international web, your own Medieval-serf-grade scientific illiteracy.
The Dopeler effect:
- cannot be given PROOF of, because science doesn't work that way—observation can only DISPROVE or, on the other hand, CONFIRM a law of nature; it can never PROVE it
- is confirmed [not proven!!!] by chek's comments, not mine
- refers to the tendency of stupid ideas to seem even stupider when they take hours to come at you
With apologies to chek, "I hope [Ian Forrester] is not his real name, because he now has zero employability prospects in any industry requiring technical competence."
Willard:
"So here's the deal, Brad. I provide the links, you provide the colourful commentary."
I think it's a good deal. Much better for readers, in particular.
" Here's another gem (notice the word "gem", though):
...
If passed, a Kansas bill would have teachers provide students an objective view of climate change and other scientific controversies, covering the evidence for both sides of the scientific debates.
http://heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/28/kansas-considers-bill-require-objective-climate-change-education"
All right, if I had to guess what you were trying to get at—and I do—I'd guess that you're putting it to me that the Heartland Institute is trying to vitiate, nerf or undermine the teaching of good, non-crank climate science in America, or something along those lines.
Right ballpark?
My initial reaction was: yawn. What kind of confused mind would even consider this worth debating?
But as you know, a key piece of personal legislation of mine (as suggested by my moral FAQ page) requires me to bend over backwards to understand why people have the mistaken ideas they have, rather than simply dismiss them as clueless.
So after a few hours of active empathy exercises, I think I "get" your POV.
You're a humanities graduate, so you (quite reasonably, in the situation) assume that a conservative think-tank's [arguable] attempts to undermine climate-science education in America is a bigger story than a climate-dangerist scientist/ethics lecturer's [provable] attempt to pass off a forged document as something authentically written by some group he doesn't like.
I could continue to chuckle at this, but (since I'm nice to a fault) I won't.
It's not your fault; you're a humanities graduate. (See Snow.)
As someone who studied science, let me let you in on a secret.
You're barking up the wrong tree. The topic you keep trying to steer us back to is of trivial salience, at best, in a science-related debate.
You're making a false assumption of symmetry (albeit one pandemic in the humanities-graduate population).
Scientific controversies aren't resolved the way you seem to think they are.
Discrediting the proponents of a hypothesis (people like Peter Gleick) is valuable.
Discrediting the opponents of a hypothesis (people like HI) is not worth squat. If and when you manage to do it, you'll score all of zero points.
That may seem incredible to a humanities graduate, but there are good reasons for the way the system works and in any case, it's futile for you to dispute the rules.
That's just how Scienceball is played.
Would you like me to clear up some of your other confusions between Climateball and Scienceball, Willard?
Just ask nicely, and I will.
At least with Brad peddling his spurious nonsesnse, parading his lack of knowledge and thinking skills of a child, here, he isn't off polluting some other part of the internet where someone more impressionable and less well informed than us might see his bletherings and take them seriously.
"Watch out, chek. Mr. Keyes owns the place."
Mr. Keyes had similar delusions of ownership (not to mention others) on the Brangelina thread at Deltoid.
"Scientific controversies aren't resolved the way you seem to think they are.
Discrediting the proponents of a hypothesis (people like Peter Gleick) is valuable."
Some may say, not Lotharsson to be sure, that Mr. Keyes appears to be lining up behind the idea that science is about the credibility of proponents rather than evidence and logic, which rather appears to put Mr. Keyes at odds with one certain Mr. Keyes and an awful lot of scientists.
But Lotharsson wouldn't dream of saying that because https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bOy3RNyWME
Or if you prefer the link that Lotharsson forgot to insert, because this.
Lotharsson, thanks. You make an excellent point which is not made often enough (even by me):
It is NOT true "that science is about the credibility of proponents rather than evidence and logic."
Except, of course, when "the credibility of proponents" *IS* the "evidence," or an active constituent thereof.
For example in the climate-science debate.
As every schoolchild knows, scientific opinion (the "consensus") is meaningless and beneath contempt to scientists in most fields, but in some fields (such as climate science) it has evidentiary force... provided the scientists in question aren't phishers, forgers and framers.
Willard,
On second and subsequent thoughts I got a bit carried away earlier in my critique of your unique debating behavior.
(The frustration of being bemired in hour-long pseudo-disagreements got the better of me; that's not a good excuse though, and I owe you an apology.)
Had I been more objective I'd have acknowledged that you do a number of things precisely right, and that your efforts to be "nice" to your interlocutor sometimes succeed!
One thing you (and Lotharsson) get right is the use of given names.
Calling me Brad is an example of good politeness...
...whereas going out of your way to avoid calling me a "denier," despite thinking I was one, would be an example of disingenuous, sleazy politeness.
The former is smart. It makes you a more effective advocate for your position. The latter would be dumb. It would disincline me and every other "denier" in the denialist flat-earthosphere to believe a word you said.
Hope this clears the air, a tiny bit.
"Except, of course, when "the credibility of proponents" *IS* the "evidence," or an active constituent thereof."
For example in the climate-science debate.
I'm not going to point out the errors in your idée fixe about scientific consensus yet again, Brad.
(Interested parties can go read the Brangelina thread to see just how many times and in how many ways by how many different people this claim was deconstructed and rebutted, and still Brad persists with it.
Really interested readers might try to figure out if Brad has written anything here that has not been strongly rebutted on that thread.)
One of the more comical traits of (many) climate believalists is their conviction that they somehow know better than the actual experts.
The idiot Craig Thomas, for example, unaccountably fancies himself as the kind of guy who knows more about English words than the entire lexicography profession. The Dunning-Kruger is strong with this one:
"craig thomas
April 11, 2014
Keyes is an idiot:
He says, “consensus is an opinion”.
He works so very hard at not getting it."
Dictionary.com is an idiot.
It thinks consensus is an opinion.
It works so very hard at not getting it:
"consensus
con·sen·sus
[kuhn-sen-suhs] Show IPA
noun, plural con·sen·sus·es.
1.
majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2.
general agreement or concord; harmony."
The fact that a three-syllable word is enough to send Craig's brain into a pharmacologically-irreversible status negatorius w.r.t. English semantics only makes it even more extraordinary, I think, that he managed to figure out the true workings of the Earth's atmosphere before I did.
In light of Brad's attempts to reinsert his banned self into the open threads at Deltoid by proxy, I really must encourage the dedicated readers to first peruse the Brangelina thread at Deltoid. There you will find Brad's latest comment made and deconstructed - several times, IIRC. (Truly, that thread is an epic monument to his ... unique ... abilities, and he can hardly object to me pointing people to it given his obvious sense of pride and ownership of it.)
I further predict that my advice will apply equally well to almost all of Brad's future comments, so in the absence of any further comment from me take that as a given.
Keyes once again shows his ignorance in the use of the English language.
Proof (n.)
1. evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
2. anything serving as such evidence
Hopefully, as Keyes moves from elementary classes to the more advanced junior high level he may actually learn something.
Dear Brad,
I will point at this:
> What kind of confused mind would even consider this worth debating?
Letting bunnies decide for themselves if this is a debate or if you're here to debate, I will point at the sentence that follows:
> [Brad's personal legislation] requires me to bend over backwards to understand why people have the mistaken ideas they have, rather than simply dismiss them as clueless.
That is all for now. But if you want to press the point, I'm sure I can find back what you say about the use of such epithets. Sometimes you talk about efficiency, sometimes about sociopathy.
***
As far as story size is concerned, that Gleick already admitted acting in a suboptimal manner sounds like the best you can get out of this. As hard as you may try to enlarge your advertizement, all it shows is that you have a strange notion of what is a debate, Brad. Peddling half-baked theories about the origin of a document conspires to transform an internet discussion into a police investigation.
While this may appeal to those who see black helicopters everywhere, it only makes me yawn.
***
For me, the most constructive thing to do, while you try to peddle your enlarged ad, is to show that everything that is the Heartland memo is public knowledge. So far, we saw examples showing that the Heartland Institute invested in the K-12 programs almost since its inception. We could even claim that it is designed to teach the controversy, which is after all how it operated in its dealings with the tobacco industry.
The Heartland Institute is smoke and mirrors all the way down.
***
Now, which part of the strategy outlined in the Heartland memo would you like to investigate, Brad?
Willard,
You're right to pull me up on the epithet "clueless."
In my defense that sentence was jocular and flippant from beginning to end—however, it was reckless of me to assume readers (including you) would sense that.
So I'll try to be more careful, when debating clueful people, to use language that can't be [mis]read as an insult to their clue levels.
Thanks for the feedback.
(See what we can accomplish when we're straightforward, Willard?)
"For me, the most constructive thing to do, while you try to peddle your enlarged ad, is to show that everything that is the Heartland memo is public knowledge"
I agree (that is, I think as you do) that every hard-and-fast, unopinionated, "objective" fact & figure in the supposed "Strategy Document" is corroborated by real documents... except, interestingly, for a couple of numbers (donation amounts) which are stated wrongly therein! (This is one of the less conclusive points in McArdle's 8 points of suspicion.)
In fact they are all (barring the mistaken ones) corroborated somewhere in the 8 real documents Gleick happened to have stolen, and this in itself is yet another eyebrow-raiser: why is there absolutely zero new factual information in the 9th document?
Of course, in saying "hard-and-fast facts" I am excluding the less objective propositions like the cartoonish, Batman-villain ambition to "dissuade teachers from teaching science."
The only explicit mention of such an aim is the fake one.
That's why, when the 9 documents were pseudo-"leaked," it was the factitious one that got disproportionate airplay in media criticism of HI. (Everyone with a reading age above 12 who attacked HI by quoting the fake document is morally culpable because they couldn't possibly have thought in good conscience that it was a real HI document. Nobody is that retarded, though plenty of people are smart enough to pretend to be stupid when convenient.)
The pseudo-document was, in fact, the only one of real interest. The others—the authentic, non-forged documents Gleick had stolen—are banal, as far as I can see. (Do you see anything incriminating in them?)
"The Heartland Institute is smoke and mirrors all the way down."
That could well be true, and I'm not American so I'll probably never know or care.
HOWEVER, by being caught using an absurdly-badly forged document to argue that HI is nefarious, Gleick has made it ten times harder for people like you to convince the general public that HI is nefarious.
In fact the public is more inclined to think your "side" is nefarious, since:
— one of you was so desperate to come up with evidence against your enemies that he used fake evidence
— the fake was detected as fake within minutes, so the general public knows the above happened
- NOBODY on your side has the courage, integrity, humility or dignity to ADMIT what everyone knows!
- you perseverate in insulting the general public's IQ by pretending you don't know the document is a babyish forgery
- since you can't ADMIT it, a fortiori you've never been able to CONDEMN it
- several on "your side" refuse even to acknowledge what you've acknowledged, Willard: that the theft [etc.] was "suboptimal"
- the mentally ill faction on "your side" (Lewandowsky, Grist contributors, etc) go so far as to PRAISE Gleick's actions
- exactly one person—Megan McArdle—is known to have condemned THEM for PRAISING Gleick
Are you beginning to get why a rational, moral member of the public might not trust your side after this episode?
"Now, which part of the strategy outlined in the Heartland memo would you like to investigate, Brad?"
I wouldn't. It doesn't affect or interest me. (Unless I'm overlooking something?)
Anybody who disbelieves in dangerous AGW on the basis of something HI tells them plainly doesn't know how to reason about science and has come to an INVALID conclusion.
That is NOT the way a scientific person would establish that dangerous AGW is not to be taken seriously.
Summing up, Willard:
your arguments against HI are pointless. The very most you can possibly achieve thereby is to prove to me that HI is a hive of scum and villainy, as it may well be for all I know, at which I'll shrug and say, "fine...so what?"
Firstly, it WON'T follow that the Strategy Document could possibly be authentic. It couldn't. The evidence establishing its fakeness beyond a shadow of a doubt is NOT contingent upon Heartland being virtuous!
(Do you understand this point???)
Secondly, it WON'T make "The Science" one iota stronger.
The laughable, intelligence-insulting debility of "The Science" is apparent to any scientifically-trained person upon examining "The Science" and only "The Science", NOT by listening to what some conservative after-dinner speaker SAYS ABOUT IT.
(Do you understand this point???)
Compare and contrast:
> Anybody who disbelieves in dangerous AGW on the basis of something HI tells them plainly doesn't know how to reason about science and has come to an INVALID conclusion.
with
> Anybody who disbelieves in dangerous AGW on the basis of someone doing something suboptimal with the Heartland Institute's (the content of which is public to boot) tells them plainly doesn't know how to reason about science and has come to an INVALID conclusion.
I do not always stuff men with straw, but when I do, I also make them eat red herrings.
***
Not that this matters much, Brad, but since you insist, a consensus is something that can be ascribe to how people express an opinion, It is not an opinion per se:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making
And speaking of opinion, if knowledge can be characterized as justified true belief, we must admit that knowledge is also mere opinion.
In other words, I suspect you might be dichotomizing truth and opinion. This trick is as old as Parmenides.
I can pay due diligence to your "yes, but what science is" card, but really if you please, but I'd rather continue showing that Heartland Institute's strategy memo contains public stuff one can find by reading its website.
The Heartland Institute is not alone in going smoke and mirrors all the way down, Brad.
> The very most you can possibly achieve thereby is to prove to me that HI is a hive of scum and villainy
I don't care about about proving you anything, Brad. Besides, why do you talk about proofs, do I look like a logician to you?
All I do is to provide evidence that the content of the strategy memo is public knowledge, Brad. That's the best I can achieve for the main claim I made regarding the Gleick incident.
If you accept this, Brad, you'll have to agree that the strategy memo does not reveal anything, and that your attack on Gleick's character is of little relevance to those interested either by the Heartland Institute strategizing or the science of climate change, its impact, or whatever.
***
On a more general note, I never quite understood why ClimateBallers would believe that monkey style Gish gallops would work on the Internet. We're not in a high-school debate, Brad. I have all time in the world to wait for your smoke screens to fall on the ground.
willard:
This generalisation (though you're not making it yourself)...
"Anybody who disbelieves in dangerous AGW on the basis of someone doing something suboptimal with the Heartland Institute's (the content of which is public to boot) tells them plainly doesn't know how to reason about science and has come to an INVALID conclusion."
...is true.
(But FWIW it describes the vast majority of people on both sides: they don't know how to reason about science and they've come to an invalid conclusion.)
Admit the HI Strategy Doc is fake and that Gleick is a charlatan for passing it off as coming from HI, and we can move on.
Spend another week refusing and avoiding and prevaricating, and I can't see how to avoid concluding you're both dishonest AND indifferent to the dishonesty of others when it "helps" the cause of climate action.
"I'd rather continue showing that Heartland Institute's strategy memo contains public stuff one can find by reading its website."
Why? OBVIOUSLY, TRIVIALLY that's true.
Yes, the [fake] "Heartland Institute" strategy memo contains stuff one can find by reading its website.
Duh.
Why would you "rather continue showing" something everybody knows?
What do you believe you're accomplishing?
"your attack on Gleick's character is of little relevance to those interested either by the Heartland Institute strategizing or the science of climate change, its impact, or whatever."
I KNOW THIS, FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
My attack on Gleick's mendacity and the hypocrisy of every believalist in the world (bar Megan McArdle) for refusing to condemn Gleick's mendacity is relevant to whether anyone with common sense would trust a word you, or any other believalist, says about anything. (Bar Megan McArdle.)
If you stand by forgery and fraud, then only fools will be open to any of your arguments.
Willard,
"And speaking of opinion, if knowledge can be characterized as justified true belief, we must admit that knowledge is also mere opinion."
What do you mean "mere"?
Knowledge is justified, true opinion, yes.
Justified by what?
Well, if we're talking about scientific knowledge, that can only be justified by one thing: EVIDENCE.
The shuddering noise in the background is the implosion as Brad undergoes the phase transition from clueless to disingenuous
The shuddering noise in the background is the implosion as Brad undergoes the phase transition from clueless to disingenuous
Happened long ago. The pertinent question is... how many Hiroshima bombs worth of energy did that particular state transition cost us? And was the resultant effect detectable in the climate related denialosphere? Deltoid is still reeling from the aftershocks, methinks... though the fallout was mostly confined to a single thread.
Refusal to accede to demands on something that is in question or arguable doesn't seem to mean that all other relevant facts on actual issues and not side issues (e.g. Gleick) somehow means that Megan McCardle is the only person on Earth designated to discuss global warming.
OK.
> Admit the HI Strategy Doc is fake and that Gleick is a charlatan for passing it off as coming from HI, and we can move on.
What I claim on this matter is that one does not simply try to out public information from Mordor itself. This does not commit me in taking position on everything you fancy, Brad. Jörg says tomato; you say tom_a_to. See if I care.
What I care about is to say that whatever you or Jörg may think of Gleick is utterly irrelevant to the fact that what Gleick revealed was public information about the Heartland Institute.
Speaking of such information, here's Heartland Institute's 900 for 2012:
http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/2012-Form-IRS-990.pdf
It's on their website:
http://heartland.org/funding
***
So as the Auditor sometimes suggests, "turn it over the the lawyers":
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/692140904
As far as I'm concerned, you can stick to this point until hell freezes over, Brad. While you keep stick to that point, I'll pay due diligence to the monkey wrenches you've now decided to hurl.
Thank you nevertheless for your concerns,
w
Willard:
"What I care about is to say that whatever you or Jörg may think of Gleick is utterly irrelevant to the fact that what Gleick revealed was public information about the Heartland Institute."
Leaving aside the forgery issue, what you're saying here suggests that the theft of the documents achieved nothing...in that it revealed no new information to the world...is that your position Willard?
> What do you believe you're accomplishing?
Is that a rhetorical question, Brad? I already told you: to substantiate my claim that Gleick acted so suboptimally as to try to force an open door. This shows your actual inquisition against Gleick is utterly irrelevant.
Thank you to say that all this is quite trivial to establish, by the way.
***
While we're at it, I could add that your actual exploit has been tempted before, many, many times:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/beingtested
You are peddling the good green line test on the bunnies, Brad.
You think this goes noticed?
Once it was Jones, now it's Gleick.
These kinds of audits never end.
***
> If you stand by forgery and fraud, then only fools will be open to any of your arguments.
Why on hell would I stand by anything like that, Brad, because I don't acquiesce to your demands?
I already told you: what Gleick did was quite suboptimal. He told this himself.
Now, may you please take your green line tests somewhere else, pretty please with some sugar on it?
***
Here's a random report supported by the Koch Foundation:
http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/3115.pdf
There are more than 70 hits on the Heartland Institute's website for "Charles Koch Foundation".
Just goes to show that the phrase "useful idiot" wasn't rendered extinct by the ending of the Cold War.
> Well, if we're talking about scientific knowledge, that can only be justified by one thing: EVIDENCE.
And how is evidence justified, Brad: is this evidence all the way down? Also note that the concept of evidence is past-oriented. How does evidence justify law-like statements, which are either timeless or future-oriented?
The path of the Popperian clown is full of sorrow, Brad.
***
What matters anyway is the fact that a consensus is not an opinion, but an agreement about an opinion, Brad. This agreement can be implicit (think "social contract") or explicit (think the Rio Convention). The same applies to what can be called a scientific consensus.
It's not that complicated.
Brad
Leaving aside the forgery issue, what you're saying here suggests that the theft of the documents achieved nothing...in that it revealed no new information to the world...is that your position Willard?
We could consider it a consilience of evidence. Just for fun.
> what you're saying here suggests that the theft of the documents achieved nothing...in that it revealed no new information to the world.
That's not exactly what I meant to say, but it's close enough. I am not saying that everything you can read there is public knowledge: the double accounting of the 288k, for instance, may not have been known before. But we already knew about the K-12 program, the pushing from the Koch Foundation, the NIPCC, Climate Change Reconsidered, the usual talking heads (Idso, Carter, Singer), the Forbes blob.
And I'm sure Tony would have declared his funding soon enough. We don't need to be a genius that the Heartland Institute had some interest in Tony's "station to station" project. There are more than two thousand hits for "watts" in the heartland.org's website.
If we accept that the biggest news was the K-12 program, then it's quite easy to prove that there was no real news there.
***
Something like my argument has already been acknowledged in the Ur-Thread I linked in my first comment, by the way.
The only way out of this for auditors is to claim that it was necessary to have some packaging, hence a memo.
Leaving aside the forgery issue, what you're saying here suggests that the theft of the documents achieved nothing...in that it revealed no new information to the world
Come now Keyster (I've snipped the clumsy and leading question at the end) don't play quite so dumb.
What Gleik's intervention achieved was bringing to wider public knowledge what's on the 'special interest' lobby group's to-do list. Things that they'd prefer not to be public knowledge even when already in the public domain.
Willard,
There are other ways "out of this."
E.g.: Heartland has never admitted trying to dissuade teachers from teaching science, hence a memo.
Come on, Brad. It doesn't even make sense for Gleick to have written that. Think.
"Think."
No. You know my policy on homework.
;-)
chek:
"What The Keyster doesn’t mention"
Because I didn't know.
" is that Ms. McArdle is actually Mrs.Peter Suderman, and her husband works for one of Heartless’ largest named donors, William Dunn."
I knew it! I knew there had to be some ulterior motive, some corrupt explanation, for a believalist like her to write with such moral clarity and integrity.
It always bothered me, that anomaly. And it was such a pain in the ass constanly having to say "nobody on your side *BUT MEGAN McARDLE* is honest enough to yadda yadda yadda."
Now I know she's no more "honest" than the next alarmist. She's just a whore like all the rest. Different client, that's all.
Thank you, chek.
The Keyster:Because I didn't know.
Oh dearie me Brad, what you don't know would give the NSA data storage problems.
So when you were "science communicating" to us that: "Megan McArdle is just as opposed to everything HI stands for as you",
you were just spouting - for effect - your customary lo-grade, uninformed, know-nothing, plucked out of your ass 'opinion'.
I'm beginning to see how this self-appointed "science communicator" game works now.
So, what's up with the mysterious Mr. Revkin?
Let me see if this works
First, please grow up. Stop fighting about amounts like $50k, $100k etc. It is embarrassing and makes all look stupid. People can spend money supporting their pet causes. It is not a crime. *The money exists in balance; it cancels each other out*
'special interest group' blah blah - what a load of 1980s nonsense. I am so glad Heartland stokes the fires of outreach envy.
Second, if the McArdle comment above has any substance to it, there are far bigger problems than chasing Brad around.
Shub
So why the concealment? The secrecy?
Why won't the GWPF disclose even its seed donor? Why the Heartland Anonymous Donor? Why does Donors Trust even exist?
Why all the secrecy?
Shub
But why the secrecy? Anonymous Donors, the GWPF, Donors Trust...
Why such effortful concealment of where the money is coming from?
.But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
'Special' interests working against the common interest, although shub would have us believe that is too 'old fashioned', when the truth is it never went out of fashion.
> there are far bigger problems than chasing Brad around.
Yes, Gleick is way more important than the K-12 program for a country of 313 million individuals whose central bank officer can bring up the emerging countries down to their knees with words more obscure than mine:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/01/31/268350791/episode-514-how-bernanke-set-off-tomato-protests-in-brazil
***
And Brad is being chased. Of course, of course.
I thereby promise that when Brad will go elsewhere to peddle other green line tests I won't chase him around, Shub.
But if Brad answer my comments, I will respond to them.
And BBD, I realise your questions weren't aimed at me, but I suspect I've answered more plainly than shub or any of his climate liar allies could ever bring themselves to do.
"The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We
also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried
email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station
temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information
Act !
X-Sender: f023@pop.uea.ac.uk
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.0.6
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:40:05 +0000
To: p.jones@uea.ac.uk
From: Keith Briffa
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO
DISCLOSE SECRET DATA"
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
'Mr. McIntyre thinks there are more errors but says his audit is limited because he still doesn't know the exact computer code Dr. Mann used to generate the graph. Dr. Mann refuses to release it. "Giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people are engaged in," he says.'
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
OMG! as the young would say.
The Keyster is re-animating Clitmangate!
Because Brad, scientists get their own data. All spareTyres had to do was exactly the same as Jones - go to the national agencies and request it.
Nobody actually trains you self-appointed "science communicators", do they?
You (all-too obviously) just make it up as you go along
"Mike,
This is for YOUR EYES ONLY. Delete after reading—please! I’m trying to redress the balance. One reply from Christian Pfister said you should make all available!!"
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"PLEASE DELETE—just for you, not even for Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"At that time, I hid behind the fact that some of the data had been received from individuals and not directly from Met(eorological) Services through the Global Tele-communications Service (GTS) or through the Global Climate Observing System."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"I wouldn’t worry about the computer programs. If the Freedom Of Information Act does ever get used by anyone, there is also Intellectual Property Rights to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"My concern was if Sarah is/was still employed by the University of East Anglia. I guess she could claim that she had only written one tenth of the programs, and therefore only release every tenth line of the programs."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"Jones isn’t as polished. He seemed very nervous.
He was all over the place on his answers regarding the question of if data was withheld and why, but he did end up admitting that he had withheld some scientific data about global temperatures.
Why would he not want to release it? Well, for one thing, even though he said it would be a good idea, it was “not standard practice.” Following up, Labour MP Graham Stringer asked him: “If that’s not standard practice, how can science progress?”"
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"He also said, “because all he [a skeptic] wants to do is find something wrong with it.”
To which Mr. Stringer again challenged Jones: “But scientists make a name by proving and disproving things, don’t they? The statement seems to be anti-scientific. It is an absolutely clear denial of the man’s attempt to get at what you were doing. He wanted your information and you refused to give it to him? Why?”"
Why it always is.
"Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? [Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mann says he did not delete this.]
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene [Dr. Eugene Wahl of the U.S. National Climatic Data Center] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research] to do likewise. "
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
The answers to The Keyster's questions are all in the investigations and their conclusions.
Why The Keyster brings up his rhetorical questions here for the more informed, is a question only he cam answer. Although we've already had it spelled out just how easily manipulated by innuendo our self-appointed "science communicator" can be.
"Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"...to hide the..."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"I know I probably don't need to mention this, but just to insure absolutely clarify on
this, I'm providing these for your own personal use, since you're a trusted colleague. So
please don't pass this along to others without checking w/ me first. This is the sort of
"dirty laundry" one doesn't want to fall into the hands of those who might potentially try
to distort things..."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
.. and so begins The Keyster's last resort, thread bombing.
I rather think a newer thread to investigate Revkin, specifically excluding The Keyster will be required.
"In this data set'
this "decline" has been artificially removed in an ad-hoc way, and'
this means that data after 1960 no longer represent tree-ring
density variations, but have been modified to look more like the
observed temperatures.'"
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"this often means coming up with scary scenarios while making little mention of any doubts we may have"
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"After reading Steven McIntyre’s discussion of our paper on climateaudit.com (and reading about my failure to provide McIntyre with the data he requested), an official at Department Of Energy headquarters has written to Cherry Murray at LLNL, claiming that my behaviour is bringing LLNL’s good name into disrepute."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
"I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process."
But why the secrecy?
Why it always is.
Hey, Brad.
Hate to break it to you; Climategate is over. You lost.
Are you planning on adding a Birther component to the repertoire, incidentally?
Speaking of Climategate, how about the Miracle Worker?
Seems that character does not attract much moral opprobrium or legal quandaries.
Lots of theories about that.
Eli's favorite:
> [I] already had a version of the data from the Russians, one that I’d had since 2004.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/6078252343
Why the secrecy?
Remember Yamal.
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