Viewers won’t remember but one thing about this interview: that a UEA scientist called a skeptic an “assh*le” on live television. It reveals just how rattled they are there at UEA/CRU.
NOTE: Updated to the full length version which was put online about 5 hours after this story was first posted – better video quality in addition to the full context of the interview – readers may wish to watch a second time. Thanks to WUWT commenter “adamskirving” – Anthony
Professor Andrew Watson (whose emails are in the Climategate emails) also adds a nice touch when he rolls his eyes, see if you can spot it.
Marc Morano explains:
A professor who is accusing global warming skeptics of engaging in “tabloid-style character assassination” of scientists, called an American climate skeptic “an assh*le” on the December 4, 2009 live broadcast of BBC’s Newsnight program.
“What an assh*le!” declared Professor Watson at the end of the contentious debate with Climate Depot’s executive editor Marc Morano. A clearly agitated Watson had earlier shouted to Morano “will you shut up.”
Video of BBC “Asshole” clip is here. (short) and here (full length – best quality)
Full one-on-one BBC debate segment between Prof. Watson and Climate Depot’s Morano is here in two parts.
The remark was broadcast live on BBC and prompted an on-air apology to viewers from the BBC later in the program for the offensive language.
Watson (Email: a.watson@uea.ac.uk) is a professor at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, which was the source of the disclosed files. Watson’s emails appear in the hacked Climategate files.
During the live debate, Morano challenged Professor Watson for being in “denial” over the importance of Climategate and noted that “you have to feel sorry for Professor Watson.”
“[Watson’s] colleague, [Professor] Mike Hulme at the University of East Anglia is saying this is authoritarian science, he is suggesting the [UN] IPCC should be disbanded based on what Climategate reveals,” Morano said.
“[UK environmentalist] George Monbiot is saying many of his friend in the environmental and the climate fear promoting business — as Professor Watson is part of — are in denial. You have to feel sorry for Professor Watson in many ways here,” Morano explained.
A clearly agitated Watson called Morano his “psychic colleague” and blurted out “Will you shut up just a second!?”
Morano summed up his views on what ClimateGate reveals during the debate. “It exposes the manufactured consensus. Your fellow colleagues are saying this,” Morano said to Watson.
Morano also noted that President “Obama is probably attending [the UN Conference] because they are circling the wagons because of the magnitude of this scandal.” (See: ‘Welcome to the delayers’: Obama’s ‘half-hearted climate efforts’ welcomed by skeptics – Nov.17, 2009)
“You have UN scientists turning on UN scientists. This is the upper echelon of the UN and it has been exposed as the best science that politics and activism can manufacture. Prof. Watson’s whole argument is ‘trust me, take my word for it,’” Morano added.
Professor Phil Jones, Watson’s colleague, has temporally stepped down pending an investigation into the Climategate scandal, which many observers say exposes data manipulation, suppression of peer-review process, blacklisting, data destruction, willful violation of Freedom of Information Act requests. [Editor’s Note: Climate Depot’s Morano, who BBC described as “one of America’s leading climate change skeptics,” is also cited in the released Climategate files. On July 23, 2009, AP reporter Seth Borenstein asked the Climategate scientist about a “a paper in JGR (Journal of Geophysical Research) today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly.” Penn State Professor Michael Mann (who is now under investigation) apparently wrote back to Borenstein: “The aptly named Marc ‘Morano’ has fallen for it!”]
Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia, the University at the center of the Climategate controversy, has come to the defense of his colleagues this week and is claiming that the whole email and data release is much ado about nothing.
But other scientists disagree. One of Watson’s colleagues at the University of East Anglia, Professor Mike Hulme, declared Climategate reveals climate science had become ‘too partisan, too centralized.” Hulme, a climate scientist who was listed as “the 10th most cited author in the world in the field of climate change, does not mince words on the magnitude of the scandal.
Hulme has even suggested that the UN IPCC has run its course. ”
“It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures,” Hulme wrote on November 27, 2009.
“It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the [UN] I.P.C.C. has run its course. “The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production,” Hulme explained.
Just for the record, this professor is no relation. : )
I saw this last night and remarked on it immediately.
Oddly enough it didnt appear on terrestrial TV but it did appear on the freevie/wsatellite box.
What a child! He’s a distinguished scientist? Pompous, arrogant jerk my dear Watson.
Brent in Calgary
They need to start firing these Nazi professors and cut their funding. They’re obviously chauvinists.
What’s that old saying? If you think most of the people you meet are jerks, you’re the jerk.
so realclimate claims that ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2 is the raw data…is it?
why do they say “raw data?”
no, i do not trust realclimate remotely…but wondering if this is the data or not?
To be fair, Morano does come off as an asshole, so at least the Prof came to a legitimate conclusion based on the available evidence. It doesn’t help that he accused skeptics of relying on ad hominem attacks 30 seconds earlier, though…
I have E-mailed this all over this AM I love it.The perps have circled the wagons,trouble is they are aiming to the center of the circle…
Surely after what was in the E-mails Mister Watson should keep quiet about character assasinations. Stones glass houses
Please, let us get the AGW promoters to speak more and more.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zgeQmzV9kk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Hey Anthony
I’ve been having computer troubles lately, so it might be nothing.
I notice that just lately embedded youtube links on climate skeptic websites are disabled with with the “An error occured, please try again later” message.
I recognize this error message, because it was very specific. It only happened to me before during the election with John McCain campaign ads.
When you navigate through to the Youtube page the video plays normally.
Could this be Youtube managements version of the Google autocomplete embargo of “climategate”?
It’s quite clear from reading the CRU e-mails that if anyone in this whole debate deserves the title “assh*le”, it is Michael Mann, Ben Santer, Phil Jones et al and all the assorted apologists like Watson who are now desperately trying to tell us that the e-mails don’t actually mean what they plainly say.
LOL – That was a world-class eye roll !!
.
.
17 minute point.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p3pl7
Storm in a tea cup apparentley
Sadly, I found this a classic Newsnight ‘twofer’.
That is, drive ratings by getting just two extremes from opposing ‘sides’ and let them slug it out to feed off the inevitable heat over light.
So much can be ‘shaped’ by the choice of guest, and I fear I found Mr. Morano very irritating.
But that does not excuse Prof. Watson, who was even worse and would make a great tag team buddy for a bizarre individual SKY dug up from the LSE to ‘debate’ Fraser Nelson of the Spectator.
The only winners here are the media stirrers.
And by maintaing the notion that everything is either ‘we’re doomed’ or ‘throw another polar bear on the BBQ, we’re fine’, the real issues are being neatly distracted away from.
And that is what, precisely, the pols at Copenhagen are making deals upon.
Granted the CRU material has, or should have a huge bearing on how these are informed, but my greater concern at the moment is some latter day McCarthyesque politicians not liking the way the public is still not getting on board with their message, and throwing around some pretty ill-considered rabble-rousing words.
I’ve watched the wave demo in London and admire all it represents in terms of the democratic right to protest, and giving full voice to the principles of free speech. Good natured. Fun.
And while tens of thousands having a day out to London is impressive, I will get concerned if this is turned into some kind of mandate for certain pols and their media supporters to claim those who might not share their ‘vision’ are doing any more or less than expressing different views and need to be ‘dealt with’.
At the very least that is hypocritical. At worst it is but one step to mob-supported, authoritarian rule.
Morano comes across too aggressively for my taste. I found myself sympathising with poor old Watson even though I don’t agree with him. I suspect that in the UK there’ll be sympathy for the unmedia-savvy nerdish scientist who’ll look like the sincere underdog, and Morano will be seen as the overbearing loud American.
This comment of mine applies to this post and the other Climategate posts of the last two weeks.
It looks like I’m going to get the best Christmas present ever this year: a CAGW bus with no wheels (they’ve all fallen off).
P.S. Looks likely that Professor Andrew Watson will be getting a lump of coal (note the irony) in his stocking this year for naughty language on national television. Santa does NOT approve.
Gosh, with this and the revelations in the ClimateGate emails (along with a few other odds-and-ends gleaned by watching “professional scientists” over the last few months), they’re going to have to redo all those “how to talk to a skeptic” talking points.
The new “how to talk to a skeptic”:
“Will you shut -up? Or do I have to corner you in a dark alley and beat the crap out of you with my mailed fist, you a$$hole!”
Oh, and don’t forget the “rolling eyes with tongue hanging out of mouth” tactic.
Et tu? Head of UN IPCC Pachauri Now throwing global warming under the bus?! There is a ‘larger problem’ than climate fears?! – Nov. 23, 2009 – Urges ‘time and space to look at the larger problem of unsustainable development, of which climate change is at best a symptom’
NOW we get to what it’s all about.A PRETEXT to advance Lefty lunatic economic policy.I’m not going to be taxed for Wealth Redistribution! Clean out all these fecking Lefty ‘scientists’ and their BBC fellow conspirators!
Presumably Prof. Watson was speaking with the endorsement of UEA. I wonder if they’re investigation will be peppered with similar phrases?
So much to poke fun at! 🙂
The CRUs distinguished history has been soiled by this whole affair and now UEAs reputation is becoming stained with the “ejecta” from the fan.
The only pleasure I would get from discovering that ultimtely that the alarmists are correct will be the knowledge that, due to its low-lying nature, one of the first casualties of rising sea levels will be UEA. Geology is already attempting to help by tippig the UK in that direction.
Perhaps we as scientists should use the correct terminology – “rectum”. We might even go so far as to incorporate this into UEAs acronym, lest we forget, the humour of this broadcast in the cut and thrust of debate.
University (rectum) of East Anglia. UrEA for sort?
Well, in one corner, I did agree that he needed to shut-up. Basically he brought American Shout-Over television interviews to the UK. No wonder the world laughs at our news interview programs. We do act like a**holes.
This is simply a bad interview.
PS. could we abbreviate CRU data to “CRUd”?
Watson says “… but because of the character assassination and of the temperature of the debate…” then looks down his nose and calls him that at the last second. Was childish.
What a smug dweeb!
I ♥ ClimateGate!
The eye-rolling is so obvious and frankly really arrogant – no wonder the CRU people think they are beyond FOI, any form of scrutiny and are smug enough to be offensive/rude to another guest on national TV.
I can see the UEA press team hiding behind the sofa during that exchange – it won’t be long before it’s all over the MSM websites now they’ve found their cojones.
Professor????
Why hasn’t Anthony been on tv about ClimateGate yet! Maybe he can be called a name too. 😉
Unbelievable: Iand 39;ve gone through raw station data and some pdfand 39;s in the hacked docs, plotted a graph – and there has been no global warming from 1900-present day. Its been a regular flat trend within either side of a 0.5C anomaly.(In fact, the rise from 1880 until 1930 dwarfs the recent rise since the 1970?s until 2000 from when temperatures have declined).
Climatology as its called is not a science. It is an analysis, that can only be dealt with in the same way as economic data, ie climate analysis. The ones who control it now are activists, whether they be professors or their students.
The American lobby of creationists have put themselves behind the climategate *scientologists* and thereand 39;s a march in London this saturady 5thDec. It begins with an ecumenical service at Westminster Central Hall, which involved both the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Archbishop Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
This is now a question of politics, propaganda and religion, as the science has come to the limelight as disproving the Anthropogenic theory. When theories are overturned, politics, propaganda continue the quest. Its a sort of tyranny where those scientists who have been caught out lose their tempers on TV and namecall, whilst *sceptics* focus on the science. The only defence from the defence is to accuse of character assassination, as a red herring, when in fact the sceptics focus on science.
We must get these politicians masquerading as scientists out of the process. They are the real problem and not this AGW. Please any scientist out there involved in the process speak up and get these idiots out. This can’t be allowed to continue.
Didn’t quite get the tongue hanging out.
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/959/rolleyes.png
Thank goodness for Marc. I don’t think he has ever seen a “global warming” debate he wouldn’t fly over an ocean to take part in. I think the alarmists anxiety about his being on the loose and tracking them down has just racheted up a factor!
Obviously the term a…hole is used by scientists as a clever way of describing someone with an alternative viewpoint.
That is perhaps the most significant overall telltale sign. The scientists that believe the case is settled get infuriated when you tell them it isn’t. Not just angry or mad, but blood boiling maniacs. To me, that’s proof enough that the vast majority aren’t rational enough to make a proper decision.
“…it [Science] must be absolutely and totally open and we have to look at the important issues, not the issues of character assassination.”
I couldn’t agree more! And according to Watson, the important issue is whether or not the world has warmed in the last 100 years. I guess if the answer is yes, then their hypothesis *must* be the reason why!
I’m so glad we have these altruistic and honorable fellows shepherding climate science into the new millennium.
Yes, it does show how rattled they’ve become. Lots of things that were ‘unthinkable’ three weeks ago are starting to happen.
If I were a popcorn eater I’d be getting in extra supplies.
But the outcome IS rigged, I believe.
mmmmmmm,
mmmmmmm,
mmmmmmm,
What an asshole.
I listened to Newsnight and I think he may have siad “excited colleague” not “psychic colleague” (I will listene to the programme again). He did appear angry though and “shut up” is perhaps about as strong as it gets, and a*****e is well beyond what passes for criticism here.
Alex
It appears that Mike Hulme, mentioned above, has been thinking a lot recently.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/04/laboratories-limits-leaked-emails-climate
We live in interesting times!
The new Badge Of Honor: being called an As—le by a leading warmist. On that basis, I nominate Anthony as the As—le-in-Chief. Congratulations Anthony.
Having watched the video clip, I am afraid that I have to agree with the warmist professor’s last comment – but very little else.
Marc Murano was indulging in what the general public hate – trying to talk over the other person’s point – which is precisely what the warmists have been doing since the scam started. Not helpful!
Guess what?
Gore cancels Copenhagen lecture
Scientists behaving badly? What about wretched Policians behaving badly, Gordon Brown has compared “Skeptics” to “Flat earthers”, well in that case I’m a Christian “flat earther” and thankfully I’m not alone:-
http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2009/12/04/group-evangelicals-comprised-scientists-economists-theologians-called-mainstream-view-pending-catastrophe-caused-climate-change-hoax-event-thursday-days-key-unsponsored-climate-change-conference-copen/
Entirely symptomatic of the arrogant, dictatorial attitude that prevails at the UEA CRU – you don’t agree with me therefore you must be some sort of a**hole – infantile and pathetic.
Watson said, “The issue is the world has warmed”, or words to that effect.
So what, maybe it has; doesn’t mean it was CO2 does it?
And this is the best UEA can do.
They’ll finally get it when they see next years student roll. With people like Watson thinking this is a storm in a tea cup, what hope is there. Surely if the university had an ounce of common sense they would absolutely forbid any of these people to say anything in print or on TV. They just make matters worse for themselves. So Prof Watson, don’t tell people to shut up even if they irritate or annoy, say nowt, there’s a good chap.
I don’t agree with Watson’s views, and it was wrong to insult Morano, but jeez!! Morano makes me cringe. I spend a lot of time outside the US, and I watch a lot of english-language programming in those countries. The “Crossfire” form of discourse American TV has fostered makes me nauseous. Morano was exceptionally loud, spoke over others when they were just getting started, and had to add little snorts of disbelief even when he was listening. This seems to be the lowest common denominator of American discourse on TV these days – be very rude, and punctuate your thoughts by inappropriate snorts and chortles when someone else is speaking. People rightly hammered Gore for doing that during the presidential debates in 2000. Someone should tell Morano to act like an adult. (just do it a bit more delicately than Watson)
Sounds like the best (or worst) of all possible ad hom attacks – very succinct.
THIS QUOTE FROM HULME: “The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures,” Hulme wrote on November 27, 2009.”
Niiiiiiiice. Way to nail it on the head Professor Hulme.
He has just described a mechanism more “devolved” than “groupthink.”
Its worse than we thought, folks.
Its great that the REAL scientists like Hulme are standing up and calling it like it is!
The others, just like doctors violating the Hippocratic Oath, run the risk of permanently discrediting themselves…as they are obligated to be living and breathing by the Scientific Method.
And that means they are obligated to be living and breathing by the TRUTH…wherever and however and by whatever means the truth is verified.
If there ever was a Hippocratic Oath for scientists (and really, the SM is), then this scandal will separate the wheat from the chaff…
…as it is already doing…
…and as evidenced by *Professor* Watson’s milk-toast, drama-queen countenance and behavior in this interview!!
And Marc Morano WAS a bit of an a**h**** in this interview. (lol)
SO WHAT?? In light of the gravity of this scandal, I would be, too
Chris
Norfolk (not East Anglia) VA, USA
Sorry Morano does come across as just a rambling TV pundit who does his best not to let anyone else get an uninterupted word in edgeways, and exagerates everything anyone else says. Can’t we get some better informed more rational “skeptics” on TV ? Someone who’s relatively objective and not so obviously politically involved. Like McIntyre, Loehle or Svaalgard for example.
So Professor Watson has revealed that he’s just another pompous ass. I wonder if he’s going for Jones’s job?
Something I’m noticing is that this has given the warmists an opportunity to make the point that the planet is warming and we’re going to have catastrophic climate change, but we’re taking our eye off the ball with this climategate issue, and not arguing the science with them.
I saw a similar thing in the Munk debates with Bjorn Lomborg (who is a warmist) ceding the science and focusing on the emotional issues, leaving Lord Lawson to argue the case all on his own. No wonder we lost.
This is decending into side slapping British Farce….
I really don’t think the CRU gets Climategate at all… they feel protected from reality by the state run broadcaster [BBC] and the UK government… they really seem to live in Neverland… and the BBC attack kitten shouting down Marc Morano [at the end] is another priceless example of British broadcasting at its very best… no wonder the BBC website tries to block internet viewers from outside of Lilliput [the country previouly known as the United Kingdom].
The CRU remind me of the infamous British newspaper headline:
Fog in channel, Europe isolated but on a global scale…
I guess this is the climate science “wardrobe malfunction” moment. ;->
He doth protest too much…
UEA is coming across as a nest of vipers.
They should have their accreditation removed.
What an asshole indeed. Not sure who Mr. Morano thinks he’s impressing with that kind of behavior.
Don’t you just hate an academic who thinks he’s so superior to everyone else.
Interesting that Morano is the one who apologizes for simply raising his voice (easy to do in a heated exchange) whereas Watson is the one who unapologetically says to “shut up” and uses base language. I do not believe you can assign insincerity to these professors as a whole, but such exchanges do show that you don’t have to think logically to get in higher academic circles (what is the deal with Watson’s comments on “openness” when this is just what skeptics want?). Furthermore, high position does not assure that you understand the debate (whether it has been warming is not the the same debate as whether man is causing any warming). Surely, wisdom is justified of her children. Thanks for posting the informative clip.
Poor Prof. Watson,
The T.V. news segment doesn’t lend itself to wordy discussion. You have to make your point and move on.
Moreno needs to shut up defending the sceptic point of view. He is a liability.
Dan Weiss, Ed Begly Jr., Andrew Watson; AGW have any more representatives they’d like to put on tv? These first three worked out great!!
Climate scientists… what is the story? What is the hypothesis? Professor Watson says the key issue is has the earth warmed in the last 100 years. That’s a vague generalization. That fact alone does not justify draconian taxes, wealth transfer, and restrictions on personal travel.
NO! The key issue, in terms of the larger context which Professor Watson is invoking, is whether or not CO2 from industry and transportation are the drivers of catastrophic global warming, and how much the proposed remediation issues will reduce the earth’s temperature. We can start with air travel.
It is of vital importance that the integrity, provenance, and accuracy of the temperature records and the software used to process and interpret this data are audited in an impartial way. As a scientist, that should be your number one concern as this is what is owed to society at this time — not special pleading that consensus excuses you from due diligence.
I am more troubled by the apparent advocacy and shallowness of the interviewer than I am of Mr. Watson’s limited vocabulary.
@nofate
Of course he’s cancelling. He’s got to make some time to off load some stocks and shares if it all turns sour!
The Agwers are relying on the temperature records to prove the greenhouse theory and their models correct . Under scrutiny , the records fail to do this without some manipulation . As I said in a comment on another thread , plausible but largely unproven theory eventually becomes conventional wisdom and conventional wisdom eventually becomes dogma . Unfortunately , far too many people – scientists , politicians , the media and the general public – bought into what has become dogma too quickly . Climategate has pulled the rug out from under them . So the last resort for these a-holes is to call anyone who disagrees with them an asshole . Ironic , ain’t it .
P Wilson,
I’d be interested in seeing your plots of the GHCN with the “Urban Heat Island” effect properly subtracted from the recent values, instead of being a depressing effect on the historical values.
Both were as bad as each other but Watson was right on one point – Morano did act like an a**hole. It was a debate he could have won – but he didn’t due to his childish behaviour.
In complete contrast was Ross McKitrick’s conduct on Channel 4 News the other night. That was a debate he could not have won because he was barely allowed to get a word in edgeways but what little he did manage to say was measured and left the listener wanting more. That’s as good as you’ll mange in a 20-second slot.
Someone needs to take Morano to one side . . .
I thought the Brits said arse for a–.
Shouldn’t he have said “arsehole”?
It takes one to know one.
No sir. the issue is not whether there has been any warming in the last 100 years but what caused it.
royfomr said at (08:34:24) :
It appears that Mike Hulme, mentioned above, has been thinking a lot recently.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/04/laboratories-limits-leaked-emails-climate
We live in interesting times!
—————————-
I am fascinated by the TWO (2) Shell adverts accompanying that piece!
Perhaps Professor Andrew Watson is fully qualified to call someone “an assh*le” considering the amount of “S.H.one.T” data they are processing each year and depositing on us mere mortals… now i understand the “fudge factor” 🙂
To be fair, Moreno did come across as an asshole. Deliberately chosen, I suspect: this was on the BBC, after all.
Folks may find this interesting. If you compare the raw CRU temp profiles against the AGW models (which is the right method to assess the models) you discover AGW cannot exist. What CRU has been doing is taking temp profiles that don’t show a hockey stick and adding in hockey stick, which magically matches those models that assume a hockey stick will show up in the Temp data. Climategate just proved AGW as a theory is wrong.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11732
His exasperated request “Will you shut up!”
was none too classy either. Rather juvenile, I’d say.
Marc Morano was probably just having too much fun.
Anyway, is that it?
No other scandals in those e-mails?
Ruddy outrageous. But why did he use an American swearword when we have a British equivalent? This is further evidence for my hypothesis that Brits who swear in American are perfect t@ssers.
None (08:46:14) :
or Svaalgard for example.
might not be the best choice
Chris S (08:52:30) :
Don’t you just hate an academic who thinks he’s so superior to everyone else.
Yes. And both sides need to beware of that ilk.
Speak softly and carry a big stick.Don’t be a gobby yob it’s a big turn off.
Perhaps someone with legal knowledge could tell us…
Of course the avoiding FOI disclosure and the tax evasion look like criminal matters but wouldn’t the falsifying and misrepresentation of the data and other evidence be fraud? After all, much/most of the funding for climate research, including CRU is predicated on AGW being a threat. If the evidence of this “threat” is being knowing exaggerated/falsified then isn’t that fraud? If CRU or GISS or anyone else with political clout had come out and said that “the evidence points towards there being no threat” then much of the funding from hard-pressed governments would disappear overnight and corporate or individual donations would be spent elsewhere.
If governments, or other establishment donors, aren’t prepared to act, could an individual taxpayer or donor sue?
Just a thought.
Just watched the News on BBC1…talk about circling the wagons!
They are STILL pushing the line that the Climategate e-mails don’t alter the veracity of the science. Can you believe it?
Character assassination! They are just getting a very mild dose of their own RC and CRUT medicine – and they don’t like it.
tim heyes (08:59:13) :
@nofate
Of course he’s cancelling
He must be here in America because it snowed in the Deep South—Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and his home State of Tennessee. Michigan has record snow with more record snow in the forecast.
(Oh ya, I just remembered, that’s just weather–Al Gore is bringing us lots of ‘weather’) 🙂
Hello All,
Unfortunately, the MSM likes the verbal-jousting format that we saw on this so-called debate. I would appreciate a moderator who does not allow a Watson-type from fillibustering while not answering the question (Watson was not over-the-top, just annoying).
Morano accepted the rules and played the game–rules that he did not create.
Watson tried to play the all powerful professor who was lecturing to his class of illiterates.
Morano did not allow the fillibuster and the good professor got his feelings hurt!
Remember people, this was not a Harvard Debating Society event.
markm
Yertizz (09:21:41) :
Just watched the News on BBC1…talk about circling the wagons!
They are STILL pushing the line that the Climategate e-mails don’t alter the veracity of the science. Can you believe it?
We need to quickly get used to that because all they’ve got right now— and also they distract people by trying to get them to focus on a claim that the emails were ‘stolen’.
But we don’t know yet that they were stolen. And it is very likely they weren’t.
Malaga View
“…no wonder the BBC website tries to block internet viewers from outside of Lilliput ”
The mainstream TV network sites of most countries block viewers from outside their country – including the US TV Networks – it’s to do with rights.
oh brother.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger unveils dramatic climate change map which shows flooded San Francisco of the future ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1232884/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-unveils-dramatic-climate-change-map-shows-flooded-San-Francisco-future.html
these warm-mongers have really bad timing! LOL
A piece on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s comment that all sceptics are ‘Flat-earthers’ at the Telegragh website:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/
You know a politician is in deep trouble when he resorts to name-calling. This man is totally without credibility…and has been for 12 years!
Watson is clearly a lying a-hole, but, Morano was being a jerk too. I really like many people on this blog much more than Morano. Folks here have something more like a discussion.
Watson was correct that Morano really shouldn’t have been talking over him. It’s completely unecessary when you have such a winning hand. I also hate the American right wing talk-radio style of debate that Morano was using. I’m extremely concerned that this scandal will benefit unworthy right-wingers who happen to be right on one issue and wrong on so many more.
To be fair, the American did behave like an a*hole.
Marc Morano spent most of the ‘debate’ shouting. I think the prof got sick of debating with someone who sounded like a yob.
Wot Annabelle (08:10:05) said
Just saw this on Climate Audit comment
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11732
Pre “Adjusted” CRU Data & IPCC AGW Models Prove AGW Theory Is WRONG!
Must be a cultural thing. I’m an American and I didn’t find Morano particularly annoying (I only watched the short clip above, though). Watson, on the other hand, I had an overwhelming desire to slap stupid. For his manner alone.
I did have to chuckle earlier when I heard someone on Radio 4 call UEA “University of Easy Access” — and I think he was a warmist. Too funny.
photon without a Higgs (09:31:27) :
Agree entirely.
The warmist game now is about distraction.
They can squeal all they like about “stole” or leaked emails and keep harping on about how criminal it is, but i didnt hear the very same people make a sound when MP’s expenses were leaked!
Hypocrisy on a grand scale from them.
Ignore them and keep hammering the salient points.
I remember the story of one journalist (an old-timer) who was waiting to go onto a TV current affairs show. The researcher who he was with, assumed that the journalist would attack his, little-known, fellow interviewee who was apparently being set up as his “opponent”.
“It should be quite a battle”, said the researcher. “Really? I’ve got no idea what she’s going to say,” replied the journalist, “I might agree with her”. The researcher looked horrified.
Time I think for another RESIGNATION. Time to RESIGN Mr Watson. Do it now – before you are forced to resign.
Going on air and calling someone an a*hole is not the way you do damage control after your CRU department has been found guilty or fraud.
Dave B: Yes, Ross McKitrick came over very well on CH4 the other night, in the very brief periods we were allowed to hear from him. Jon Snow was very rude to him, interrupting him and giving far more time to the other (warmist) speaker.
photon without a Higgs….my question: “Can you believe it?” was rhetorical.
Believe me, if anyone knows how the BBC presents an absolutely biased line on climate change, I do. I have been trying for over 3 years to get straight answers from Director General Mark Thompson and BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons.
Thus far all I have received is sophistyr and obfuscation, because they are in total denial about this subject.
I just watched the latest BBC report on climategate and once again there was an un-challenged member of the MET office telling us that there is unequivocal evidence of climate change. Temperatures are rising, sea level is rising, moisture levels are rising and glaciers are retreating!
Isn’t this a case of misdirection?
The atmosphere probably did warm up during the Twentieth Century (though maybe not by as much as is claimed, and the warming has stopped), sea level is rising (which has been the case since the last Ice Age), moisture levels have risen and glaciers are retreating (which is probably part of a longer term process), but that is not the point. Isn’t the issue, whether or not these changes are unprecedented or within the bounds of natural variability?
Isn’t that why the AGW movement has adopted as their champion this monstrous diagram known as the Hockey Stick?
And isn’t it the dubious methodology which has been employed to firstly create this diagram and then to defend it at all cost, that has been exposed in the climategate scandal?
This is what should be debated by the BBC, and if it sounds as though I’m angry it’s because I am..
…but at least I don’t go round calling people a…holes and threatening to beat the c..p out of them!!!!
Talking abour AH’s.
http://www.accuweather.com/news-weather-features.asp?#extremes
Sorry about my garbled post earlier – I should have had some coffee first . Yes , Morano came on a little too strong . However , after having seen countless interviews with warmists who employ the same tactic of shouting over dissenting opinions , this was a case of just desserts . I’m sure that most skeptics have felt completely frustrated in trying to get their points across to the true believers , regardless of how well those points were made .
I agree with you guys on Marc Morano. He really did not help the cause.
I am sure Christopher Monckton would have handled himself in a much more classic, gentlemanly fashion.
Bad, bad interview….all around.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Did you wonder, as I did, what amount of pollution was produced flying Jon Snow and all his cohorts to the Amazon? There seems to be nothing so hypocritical as a ‘warmist’ on a mission to ‘save the world’.
There is a huge amount of pro-AGW nonsense in today’s Daily Telegraph. None so deaf as those that do not wish to hear and none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
What is really upsetting is the ludicrous equation of sceptical views on AGW (or MMCC) with a lack of care about waste and pollution and greed.
I have spent a lot of time the last few weeks investigating this story. I’ve read countless news stories, blog postings and commentaries, scientific debates, all in an effort to understand the issues. Of course, there’s nothing much on TV about it where I live in Canada so this clip is the first I have seen.
IMHO, Marc Moreno is a boor and should shut up. He was rude and obnoxious which contributes nothing to this incredible story. And frankly, it makes me wonder about the credibility of this site that it would post this particular clip as more evidence that the scientists have been behaving badly.
This post and clip does nothing but damage the image of skeptics.
Well, it is obvious that these people feel VERY threatened by anyone who disagrees with them in a public way.
Ask yourself, how much government funding went to “climate science” 20 years ago?
How many people were working in that field. Were the people working in that field household names constant on the front page of the newspapers? Were they jetting around the world attending vital conferences on the setting of economic policy by the various nations of the globe? Were world leaders asking their opinions?
No.
If it turns out to be all made up, they go back into obscurity and have to scratch for money just to get enough disk storage for their data.
Mr. Morano appears to have just graduated from the Paul Begala School of Broadcast Journalism. And his website seems to have the look and feel of The National Enquirer. He is not doing our side any favors by appearing on TV in this manner. Unfortunately, the media will probably want him to appear on the tele in the future since he can be such a devisive and agitating figure. And the public will see him as representative of ‘skeptics’ and ‘deniers.’ Anyway you look at it, he is bad news.
Watson has shown more of the AGWs colors. He has denigrated himself and the University that he represents . Hopefully someone at the University has noticed. He should be removed for his shallow childlike performance.
Some may enjoy following the breadcrumbs here:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
There is a new entry on the site titled Climategate — with an interesting historical twist
I have not seen elsewhere.
Apropos the sites other entries, I cannot address their accuracy, with two exceptions:
I have read extensively about the death of Vince Foster, which was clearly a murder covered up by MSM, and the London Telegraph’s own Ambrose Evans-Pritchard got me started on the strange inconsistencies in the Oklahoma City bombing, which was clearly a government sting operation gone awry. (Timothy McVeigh was an insignificant bit player.)
I find the material there about 9/11 quite compelling, but am unable to do personal research.
The point, I guess, is that the truth about Climategate may never “come out” for the mainstream, uncritical world. It would not be the first time.
Just saw a CNN piece on “climate-gate”.
Overall it was pretty fair in it’s reportage except that it gave the last word to Gavin Schmidt who of course tried to claim it was nothing to be concerned about.
“Ignore that man behind the curtain.”
‘Fudge Factor’: UK Programmer Explains Problems With CRU Climate Data Software,
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GdaGkUIrDk
Prof. Watson needs to be put in a home for deranged scientists. A place something like this.
Was he talking about the asshole in the Ozone layer?
Morono was loud and chirpy. But the point is what he said was true.
All Watson could quote was a dataset which showed the world warming. Well whats new? He cannot point to a data set or proof that the world is on course for runaway warming. His self serving assumption is that warming is man made and dangerous.
But where is the proof? So certain of their ‘proof’ are they that they hide their data from scrutiny.
BTW I believe that in the same Newsnight programme a credible programmer said the leaked code was junk (I paraphrase but that is the effective conclusion).
Some clever person may like to put that video up.
artwest (09:32:21) :
The mainstream TV network sites of most countries block viewers from outside their country – including the US TV Networks – it’s to do with rights.
For their own in-house productions for which they hold the copyright?
Doesn’t seem to stop BBC World Service [to name just one]…
Doesn’t seem to stop the BBC trying to sell their own programs globally…
Possible European restrictions on simultaneous live broadcast on the web…
But sounds like selecting the “data” to fit the required “answer” to me….
American Psychological Association says IF YOU DONT BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE YOU ARE LEGALLY INSANE AND THEY CAN LOCK YOU UP WITHOUT TRIAL FOR MENTAL ILLNESS!!
http://www.apa.org/releases/climate-change.pdf
sgi .. you said “Of course, there’s nothing much on TV about it where I live in Canada so this clip is the first I have seen.”
Your comment is confusing especially since you also wrote, “I have spent a lot of time the last few weeks investigating this story.” Golly, Climategate was indeed slow to get out in Canada (slow in MSM generally), but this surely this cannot be the first you’ve seen. Maybe I misunderstand what you wrote. Seems clear enough.
If this is the first you’ve seen, then you’ve been looking in the wrong places perhaps:
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/rexmurphy/story/2009/12/03/thenational-rexmurphy-091203.html
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/29/11967916-sun.html
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/30/11975486-sun.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/features/the-buy-side/dont-let-climategate-melt-down-your-portfolio/article1389653/
Moreno may have come off as churlish, but the real Embodiment of Evil in the room was Watson. The fraud and fabrications that the Hockey Cru promulgated were designed to widely punish humanity and inflict mass suffering under false pretenses. Just like the Nazis. Neither Moreno nor I wish to be victimized by fascist con artists posing as scientists. Though his demeanor was agitated, his message was worthy.
Not only is the Prime Minister calling climate change skeptics flat earthers but so is his side kick, Ed Milliband, the environment secretary.
I think Professor Watson’s strange eye rolling and head movements are probably due to some form of OCD rather than arrogance. It doesn’t excuse his warmist opinions or his language though.
Actually, I believe Morano’s entire site “comes on too strong” and I rarely look at it. Sometimes he will have a link to something I can’t find anywhere else but the site design is cluttered, it looks like he is trying to be the Drudge Report of anti-AGW news.
He doesn’t seem to be so much about finding truth or discovering why or what, but more about aggregating every single bit of news he can find that is anti-AGW (just as there appear to be sites that promote a pro-AGW position).
It doesn’t take a great scientific mind to aggregate links on a web page and doing so doesn’t make anyone an authority on the subject. I fail to see why he would even be interviewed to begin with.
Watts, McIntyre and others ARE actually doing something to dig into the “why”. And I don’t get so much that this site and others (CA, tAV, Blackboard, etc.) are spring loaded to be anti-AGW as they are anti-“just trust me” when it comes to what is billed as scientific process.
The 7th cavalry is riding to the rescue of AGW in the form of none other than the UN: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8397265.stm
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was “firmly” standing by findings that a rise in the use of greenhouse gases was a factor.”
“Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the scientific evidence was “very clear” and called doubters a “flat Earth group”.
He said: “There is an anti-change group. There is an anti-reform group. There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change.” I wonder if he was talking about himself and Ed. Miliband?
Anthony, I presume Prof Watson is from the University of East Anglia, not the United Arab Emirates.
Morano and Watson have both been criticised, probably fairly, by many posters above. I would like, however, to criticise the “professional” presenter, who should have controlled both, and the unseen director who should have been in the ear of the presenter.
In addition, I think it a bit rich of Watson to accuse sceptics of ad hominen tactics. I thought it was RC that had developed ad hominem attacks into a substitute for any form of debate.
“No sir. the issue is not whether there has been any warming in the last 100 years but what caused it.”
The issue is not warming. The issue is whether there is even an issue. We have warming and cooling and stagnant periods, and until someone figures out what the normal variation of those periods are, and whether any one period is actually digressing from that normal variation, there is no issue.
The ideal solution would be for an international consortium of scientists (much like IEEE), to first figure out the standards for taking measurements, publish the standards, then have people apply those standards to various measurement devices/locations (with some period of time for reassessment), and a central location for collating all of those measurements (raw data). Proxies would have to follow the same rules, of meeting standards, with a central data location for the raw data.
In other words, we could act as if it is real science, with real expectations and standards, rather than a cobbled-together mash.
I believe in climate change, I don’t believe in man-made climate change.
I believe in global warming, I don’t believe in man-made global warming.
I think everyone realizes Morano’s site is a drudge style headline compendium…it’s not trying to be anything else. The bottom line is he gets the message out, gets a ton of hits…people who may or may not be daunted by some of the technical sites
can go there to review any links they’ve missed. How is that bad? If Morano comes across as abrasive now and again so what?….plenty of Alarmist have made themselves look far worse. Watson is the perfect example.
The global warming people are only used to being listened to in a hushed, reverent silence. They have had it all their own way for twenty years, have been cocooned in their own little world created by billions in taxes, and have never faced any sort of rigorous questioning about their methods, or the truthfulness of their alarmist assertions.
Now, their status is under threat, and their beliefs questioned, by a lot of people who have access to skills and knowledge that could be considered as being far in excess of their own. This can lead to a horror of an interview in which what they are saying is flatly contradicted by someone armed with superior information. I am not surprised to see them in such obvious distress.
It ‘s nice to know that whatever is happening with the climate doesn’t depend on all the hot air being generated by both sides. Ultimately, the climate will depend on precise and exact physical and objective laws of physics and chemistry…not the the subjective laws of human political systems that ALL SIDES are guilty of skewing their way for their own petty political gain.
I believe in global cooling, I don’t believe in man-made global cooling.
How can I make this any clearer to people. It’s the way you say it. It’s a psychological mind trick they use to brainwash people.
Try to use these complete sentences and correct them when they use the words climate change and global warming out of context.
TP (08:43:36) :
“I don’t agree with Watson’s views, and it was wrong to insult Morano, but jeez!! Morano makes me cringe. “….
I would like to agree, however it has taken the “conservatives” too long to develop this effective counterpunch attitude and approach to the elitist, sniping, demeaning and rude approach that “liberals” perfected and have been using since the the early 1900’s.
It is unfortunate that this must be the evolution in social intercourse (and it won’t be exclusively) however, it is necessary for the “conservatives” to use in order to prove to those moderates who are persuaded by such characteristics and to inspire activity in some otherwise uninterested “conservatives”.
As far as impressing the rest of the world – it should always be the hope that the facts of the argument would do mostly do that. It seems that their “polite decorum” has gotten them into deeper troubles more often than a US “unrefined” character has.
I prefer to keep the guns loaded, to actually be used when necessary, and to awaken those who would otherwise be lulled into inattention during otherwise historically impacting events. There is too much at stake here for politeness. I have not problem with impressing the world that we are angry about this grand and still possibly successful attack upon our liberties and our dignity as well as upon science.
“Rude” behavior during more petty confrontations is a totally different matter and may be completely unsupportable. Frankly, the smugness (especially unjustified) of UEA’s A. Watson is offensive enough to me to commend Marc for his restraint.
I would be skeptical of the impartiality of any government involvement in digging into AGW research. The current government of the UK has a great deal invested in the current conclusions of places like CRU and I doubt they are keen on finding out that it is wrong.
They have a lot of political incentive to come to a “move along, nothing to see” conclusion.
Sorry to be pedantic but he said ‘what an arseh*le’ not ‘what an assh*le’
He is English after all. I am not sure that arse in the the American lexicon!
Watching all this unfold is like watching the McCarthy trials, but knowing that McCarthy is a communist!!!
shocking!
What percentage of the previous global warming was man-made? We have global cooling now. Can you give me a percentage range that can be proven scientifically and what percentage was from natural causes. To say I feel the previous global warming is man’s fault is not good enough.
Dave B (09:03:04) :
someone needs to take Morano to one side . . .
Would you like Ben Santer to take him to a dark alley and exercise sound AGW scientific principles on him?
Me: “it’s to do with rights.”
Malaga View (10:31:44) :
“For their own in-house productions for which they hold the copyright?
Doesn’t seem to stop BBC World Service [to name just one]…
Doesn’t seem to stop the BBC trying to sell their own programs globally…”
—————————————————
Their own in-house productions, as you say, might be sold abroad and the easy availability of of them free on the net would make those sales less valuable and/or impossible.
The BBC may own the copyright to a particular programme but if it was intended only for short-term domestic viewing then the payments for elements WITHIN the programme – music, outside film, photographs etc, which were NOT BBC copyright will have been bought for less because of that limited use. It would cost more to make such a programme internationally available and for little or no benefit normally. It’s only on such relatively rare occasions as this that people from elsewhere are that interested anyway.
The BBC World Service is produced, and rights cleared, specifically for international listening – the clue is in the name.
I repeat, virtually every mainstream TV station worldwide, commercial or otherwise, will have similar restrictions on international viewings and for the same reasons.
There are enough real conspiracies in the world without making up new, imaginary – easily refuted – ones. It just makes trying to expose the real conspiracies more difficult.
There is 250 million tones of water on Earth for every man, woman, and child on the planet. That would be the volume of roughly 90,711 olympic size simming pools each.
Based on the performance of their stars(?), I’d guess the waiting line of brilliant young minds striving to enter the University of East Anglia is about as long as the line waiting to fly on the Concorde.
Richard Lawson,
Lexicon? After all this I believe we need a Climaxicon. ;o)
I believe in climate change, I don’t believe in man-made climate change.
I believe in global warming, I don’t believe in man-made global warming.
I believe in global cooling, I don’t believe in man-made global cooling.
How can I make this any clearer to people. It’s the way you say it. It’s a psychological mind trick they use to brainwash people.
Try to use these complete sentences and correct them when they use the words climate change and global warming out of context.
What percentage of the previous global warming was man-made? We have global cooling now. Can you give me a percentage range that can be proven scientifically and what percentage was from natural causes? To say I feel the previous global warming is man’s fault is not good enough.
There is 250 million tones of water on Earth for every man, woman, and child on the planet. That would be the volume of roughly 90,711 Olympic size swimming pools each.
To think that puny little you has any even temporary influence on this volume of water, I seriously suggest you have your head examined.
Fairly sure he said ‘ass’.
Just shows the decline in literacy amongst today’s academics.
Completely wrong etymology.
2009 December 5 Plato Says permalink
Christopher Booker wades in again
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6738111/Climategate-reveals-the-most-influential-tree-in-the-world.html
“Coming to light in recent days has been one of the most extraordinary scientific detective stories of our time, bizarrely centred on a single tree in Siberia dubbed “the most influential tree in the world”. On this astonishing tale, it is no exaggeration to say, could hang in considerable part the future shape of our civilisation…”
Human perception is a marvelous thing. Morano is described as behaving “churlishly”, but having just watched the thing through a couple of times I’d be willing to wager that if you actually sat down and put a stopwatch on it, between Watson and the moderator, he was talked over or interrupted about 5 times more than Watson was. After Morano’s question regarding statements from a number alarmist spokesmen about the seriousness of the revelations in the leaked materials, Watson’s compelling rejoinder was that he didn’t agree with them, with little elaboration to justify his lack of agreement. This after declaring that he was unfamiliar with the most damning emails which discussed suppressing FOI info and contrary science. His parting retort seems to be a prime example of that well known psychological phenomenon called projection.
Dave Wendt – Morano barely got to complete a sentence, his manner was over-bearing teenager but he hardly got a look in face-time wise.
Prf Watson came over as a total pillock – superior, sneering [that eye rolling was just so obviously saying ‘you are a cretin’], smug and then wow so rude.
I’ve never seen *anyone* do that on Newsnight – complete no no. Watson was very lucky that Jeremy Paxman wasn’t on shift – he’d have dismembered him.
Interesting observation from Bishophill about the stance of the Royal Society compared with the American Physical Society
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/5/more-cracks-in-the-facade.html
In the clip provided with the article Morano comes across as brash and disruptive, and it looks like he’s trying to bully Watson. In short it makes Morano look like an arsehole. However, if you watch the full interview a very different picture emerges. The interviewer shows bias in letting Watson ramble on, and repeatedly cuts across Morano. The poor guy is just trying to get a word in edgeways.
The quickest and fastest way to make someone truly angry is to be right. This is especially true when a person has a long-standing belief.
This is more like how they think LOL
[I agree, but your comment doesn’t contribute to the discussion. ~ ctm]
prime minister Gordon Brown has publicly categorised all climate sceptics as “flat earthers”!
Bob Dylan song adopted by Copenhagen climate summit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8396803.stm
I am a psychologist by education. I study the interchange and admit I do not like Morano’s stuyle. I will at the same time defend his style. He was interrupting too much and a little too raised in the voice. This actually worked to “Push Watsons buttons” and it gets a name calling reaction. Watson is defensive and pushing the buttons will make the Mannipulators erupt.
Watson is both in denial and in a corner. cornered people often lash out and act irrationally. While Watson accuses of character assination, Prof Watson actually can’t address how the e-mails are a confession of bad and pathetic character.
About the only Watson has going for him is Moral and intelllectual superiority./ That is exactly what has crumbled.
Cheaters and crooks have moral inferiority. They will have to rebuild trust and character.
Is everyone sure the final line wasn’t made just to get everyone excited about the final line?
The moderators, or whatever they call themselves, of these “debates” should be squeezed out of the picture. Most media/news debates are either scripted or nearly worthless. The opposition might just be controlled (fake) opposition no matter how infuriated one pretends to be. Constant interruption by aggressive hosts annoys me. If Morano is genuine but his delivery is aggrevating then he should be replaced by a calmer scientist rather than allow him to actually weaken the case of those skeptical.
Thankyou adamskirving for posting the link to the full clip.
What’s really interesting in the discussion(?!) is the way that Prof. Watson is trying to distance himself from the importance of “the diagram”, which he states that they “tweeked” by “plotting temperature data from thermometers with tree ring data”.
Isn’t this the same diagram that once stood twenty feet tall behind Al Gore.
Mark (08:14:54)
This comment has it right. And the following, that said it’s a bad interview. Silly of you, Anthony, to feature this sort of “jugular journalism” as having more than “entertainment” value. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and you were on TV with a Morano clone, but you were on opposite sides – is that how you’d want to discuss the issue?
Childish…
REPLY: Check the updated video in the full context – Anthony
I believe climate changes all the time,
I believe that humans are quite capable of changing climate but this is mostly local changes. I believe we ARE capable of changing climate on a global scale through such things air pollution.
I don’t believe CO2 is causing a problem. I believe they have intentionally connected to a gas that is a direct result of energy production.
It is quite shrewd, actually, and it goes like this: You demand a reduction in CO2 production while denying any increase in nuclear energy generation. This forces generation to a narrow choice of technologies. Once you have energy generation “gated” to this narrow choice, you invest millions in them. You have through regulation created a “sure thing”. Then you sit back and reap billions in profits as government and industry is forced to pour trillions of dollars into those technologies.
Quite sickening, actually.
An apposite quotation from Thomas Love Peacock:
MR PANSCOPE.
I beg leave to observe, sir, that my language was perfectly perspicuous, and etymologically correct; and, I conceive, I have demonstrated what I shall now take the liberty to say in plain terms, that all your opinions are extremely absurd.
MR ESCOT.
I should be sorry, sir, to advance any opinion that you would not think absurd.
MR PANSCOPE.
Death and fury, sir—
MR ESCOT.
Say no more, sir. That apology is quite sufficient.
MR PANSCOPE.
Apology, sir?
MR ESCOT.
Even so, sir. You have lost your temper, which I consider.equivalent to a confession that you have the worst of the argument.
MR PANSCOPE.
Lightning and devils, sir—
(Headlong Hall, ch. 6)
Anthony
In the first sentence you refer to a “UAE Scientist”. I think this should be “UEA Scientist” as Prof Watson does not appear as if he is from the United Arab Emirates!!
Repy: Fixed. Thanks. ~ ctm
Don’t judge a guy on one single interview please!
I have heard and watched other interviews with Morano that were ok.
The biggest optics problem right now is tolerance of the “whether or not” distortion.
Al Gore may make a secret guest appearance in Copenhagen with President Obama on December 18th, sources say. We Are Change in on the alert.
Democrats behaving badly
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/the_democrats_idea_of_free_and.html
adamskirving BINGO for pointing out how the moderator continuesly interrupts Morano, allowing him about 1/2 the time of Watson. Her bias was clear.
Off topic but not point point burying it several days back.
Regarding PROVE IT! at the London Science Museum I noted the 6058 votes cast in favour in the exhibit and happened to wonder how that compared with visitor numbers.
The Science Museum gets about 2.6M visitors per year. Thus in 5 weeks that PROVE IT was running, it received around 250,000 visitors.
Thus the fraction of Science Museum visitors who responded to PROVE IT! in the museum was about 2.4%.
I think with a 97.6% avoidance rate, one might reasonably start to suspect an inherent bias amongst those that chose to browse that exhibit!
This is better news from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8395514.stm
Marc Morano is used to the more vocal ‘cut & thrust interviews’ you see on US tv all the time, so he was always going to make sure he got his point of view across. The sad professor was out of his depth from word one… but I’d just love to be a fly on the wall when he next tries to give a lecture to a bunch of tittering twenty somethings. What an ASSH*LE! His words, not mine.
lichanos (13:29:16) :
Mark (08:14:54)
This comment has it right.
This is all you fellows have: grasping at straws.
Do you think that the average person watching the interview would agree with you?
Do you find anything wrong with Andrew Watson?
Would you like to focus on the science instead of the people involved here?
lichanos (13:29:16) :
Mark (08:14:54)
I see desperation in both of you.
It’s odd to me that seeing how politicians debate in the UK what is seen in this video is, in comparison, tame. I don’t think the average folk in the UK had a problem here like you lichanos, and Mark, do. Nothing is shocking here. The world keeps turning.
What I saw in this video was more a revelation of the elitist global warming scientists attitude. And the more that is revealed to the world the better.
Mark Moreno is a poor spokesman. In this interview he has the rhetorical high ground. The evidence in the emails and in the code is sufficiently damning that all he has to do is to clearly and calmly summarize them. They speak for themselves, and bombast and shouting are distracting and undermine his credibility. This is really quite a shame, as he was in a position to present good information to a large audience, and blew it, really.
The new steady state of the Climate Science environment.
Debate time tracked….
48 / 15 / 31 /26 / moderator interrups with supportive defense comment of her own 2 /35 /22 / 2 ( “what an ass hole”) total for Watson 159 sec
35 interrupted 21 cut to watson 3 /25 and again commentator interrupted Total for Morano is 67 sec.
The number of climategate google hits has dropped by over a million in one day. Anyone know the mechanics of this?
Bob Dylan song adopted by Copenhagen climate summit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8396803.stm
That should be “What’s a Sweetheart Like You Doing in a Dump Like This.”
Got to be an important person to be in here honey
Got to have done some evil deed
Got to have your own helm when you come in the door
Got to play your harp until your lips bleed
What’s a sweetheart like you doin in a dump like this?
Only one in two voters accepts man-made climate change, according to new poll
Telegraph article at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/6737353/Only-one-in-two-voters-accepts-man-made-climate-change-according-to-new-poll.html
Today the largest Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has written a guide “Climate for beginners 20 things you should know about before the climate summit in Copenhagen.”
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.aftenposten.no/klima/article3406910.ece
Enjoy. Here you find all the standard arguments; the science is settled we make no room for doubt. Oh wait, they mention that the lack of warming the last 10 years, but they do not regard that as a failure of the climate models – minor oscillations are expected… If the models fail, how do we know that our climate knowledge is accurate? Let us check with the latest 5, 10, 20 and 30 years linear annual global surface temperature trend, according to satellite-based temperature estimates (UAH MSU and RSS MSU) as provided by the Norwegian Ole Humlum,
http://climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#TrendDiagram%20UAH%20RSS
I wonder if the models are adjusted if the current cooling trend continues.
Seeing the full video makes All the difference. Marc did okay.
The Skeptics, though, have to start holding their feet to the fire on this “it doesn’t disprove the *Science* meme.”
What “Science” is there to “disprove?” All we have is some hypothesis, backed up by falsified data. There “Is No” Science.
I have been following this stunning chain of events and really can’t believe all this is actually happening. All I’d like to write down right now is that I am greatly indebted to WUWT and Anthony’s determination and priceless contribution not only to science but also to the common folk’s understanding of all this mess. It’s difficult to put into words how amazed I am at WUWT’s firepower. Best anti-AGW machine gun(ner) one can possibly stumble upon on the net. Keep up the good fight!
Having read the comments before I watched the video I was prepared to feel a bit uncomfortable with what some here perceived to be the bullying attitude of Morano toward Professor Watson.
Heck. I think Morano was good-natured, direct and patient with the interruptions and accusations of character assassinations that Watson spewed at him.
I didn’t have my stop watch handy, but I think Watson got more air time, too.
The smarter institutions will act to “take out the garbage” and start over.
And then look at what the data says AFTER it’s been restocked.
Like the Fonz used to say: “it only takes 10 seconds to wipe out 20 years of cool”.
Likewise, you cannot have leading scientific institutions and centers of higher learning going around with scandalous grafitti sprayed on their good name.
The longer version puts it all into context.
Morano did nothing wrong, he was constantly being cut off while trying to talk, and is everyone forgetting the satellite lag???
On the contrary, I think Watson looks like a total piece of crap. As I’ve always said, PLEASE LET THEM TALK… they dig a deeper hole every time. Arrogance is something most people despise in anyone.
And yes, I’m in awe of the irony of accusing someone of character assassination, then calling them an as$hole on live TV. It’s brilliant!
Someone ought tally up how much time Marc Morano was allowed to speak, as opposed to how much time Professor Watson spoke. It seemed to me that even the interviewer had more speaking-time than Marc Morano.
2 minutes and 38 seconds of the 6 minute 29 second interview have passed before Mr. Morano gets a word in edgewise.
Given the focus on Professor Watson, I hardly blame Mr. Morano for butting in, and making various back-ground noises such as chuckles and sighs.
The surprising thing is that Marc doesn’t tell the BBC to shut up, and rather it is the good professor, (who has had an unfair amount of the speaking time,) who tells Marc to shut up.
I suppose it is because the good professor is not used to giving skeptics any time to speak whatsoever.
Poor, pathetic Watson. His AGW/CC religion is circling the drain, and he’s in complete denial about it. Morano mopped the floor with him, and it was delicious to watch. The only thing Watson could come up with was “it’s warming”. Duh, we knew that. He and his ilk are in bunker mode now, with mortar and rifle fire all around, and compadres deserting left and right. They deserve anything and everything coming to them.
Marc comes off MUCH better in full context; following Kum Dollison’s lead posted at (14:43:29), I would have to say The Warmers, though, do have to start holding their feet to the fire on this and “actually prove the *Science* this time” instead of manufacturing the data (like the last time) …
Thanks ‘Kum’.
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.
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You know what? They (The CRU et al) don’t think anyone will notice the code that was also leaked. All that is mentioned lately (besides skeptic sites) are the emails and “documents”. Where are the easily read summary’s of the far more damaging aspect of this whole thing? They claim the science is still sound: Not if it’s based on that code it aint! I wish I were more capable, but this is where some splainin’ would be good.
Slightly OT but relating to men behaving badly… I see Gavin @ RC is still “moderating” posts. On the following thread on “unsettled science”:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/
I posted (and now I wish I had copied it here as in past moderated posts) a question to him. I basically noted that there was a new openness in the moderation at the site and wondered why this was suddenly the case after the ClimateGate incident.
Needless to say he moderated that one into the bit bucket too LOL. They completely refuse to recognise their past bad behaviour, and as if the current “openness” makes up for it. RC is still “moderated”.
NOTE: Nothing I said in the post was rude, just merely pointing out the fact that I knew from personal experience that 3 polite questions I posted had been previously moderated to the “bit bucket.”
I’m going to defend Morano and lay into the BBC. When I tried your clip Anthony I still got the short version though it said it was the long one. When I saw the true long one at U-tube I saw that miserable screeching kitten producer completely short-changed Morano time-wise while giving Watson all the time he wanted, proportions about 3:1. I think in the circs Morano was very good-humoured about it. And given the chance, he would have shown he knew the science that matters a lot better than Watson. When he tried to explain he got interrupted.
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GOOD; The world-class eye-roll by Prof. Watson is still in there too at 5:46 …
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im a skeptic but i do think morano was not acting with the utmost class himself on this interview. there are many battles to come and dont think that these emails will be the be all and end all. skeptics may be feeling good now but lets not get carried away. act with class and you will lead more people away from the alarmists.
Mike A. (14:43:52) :
All I’d like to write down right now is that I am greatly indebted to WUWT and Anthony’s determination and priceless contribution…..Best anti-AGW machine gun(ner) one can possibly stumble upon on the net.
I agree.
I wish there was advertising for WUWT. I am certain there are many people who would like to know there is a web site like this.
As I listened to Andrew Watson go on and on about character assassination, I wondered what he would defend this email from one of the CRU team?
Hi Phil
I am sure you know that this is not about the science. It is an attack to
undermine the science in some way. In that regard I don’t think you can
ignore it all, as Mike suggests as one option, but the response should try
to somehow label these guys and lazy and incompetent and unable to do the
huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database. Indeed
technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything
was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their
motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with
nothng better to do seems like a good thing to do.
How about “I tried to get some data from McIntyre from his 1990 paper, but
I was unable because he doesn’t have such a paper because he has not done
any constructive work!”
There is no basis for retracting a paper given in Keenan’s message. One
may have to offer a correction that a particular sentence was not correct
if it claimed something that indeed was not so. But some old instrumental
data are like paleo data, and can only be used with caution as the
metadata do not exist. It doesn’t mean they are worthless and can not be
used. Offering to make a correction to a few words in a paper in a
trivial manner will undermine his case.
Kevin
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=790&filename=1177158252.txt
Ron de Haan (14:21:15) : This is better news from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8395514.stm
I’ve programmed FORTRAN for 15 years, and I do not agree that the CRU FORTRAN code is poor software engineering – sometimes the smartest people writes the worst code, less smart developers need easy and structured code with high readability to understand what they are doing…
I think it is vital that all of the CRU code is compiled and executed using the data files also present in the dump. How are these programs supposed to work? Sure, some reverse engineering is required…
I watched the whole 6+ minutes. While this Professor Watson is an insufferable ass, Marc Marano does not acquit himself well at all. He does not respond to the science points raised by Watson, and allows himself to be steered off topic by the idiot moderator. This is the second ‘debate’ I’ve seen him (the other was on Fox), and in both instances he comes across as brash and amateurish.
We need spokesmen who speak with more authority. How about John Christy? Or Will Happer? Or Anthony Watts? Anthony of course has the most experience on TV, which would stand him in good stead.
/Mr Lynn
What I find deeply irritating is the way Watson complains about people getting “personal”.
The AGW’s have been personal about rational scientists from day one.
OK, a bit of Saturday night fun. The UN have chosen Dylan’s ‘Hard rain gonna fall’ as the meme theme. The BBC invites us to suggest a theme song for Copenhagen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8396803.stm
Title, artist and a sample of the lyrics please.
I’m going with Sitting on the dock of the Bay by Otis Redding
So I’m just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time
Look like nothing’s gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same, yes
Was Morano ever faintly impolite? Perhaps.
As others have pointed out, though, Watson got in A LOT more talking time in (by my reckoning about two minutes for every one of Morano’s). Those accusing Morano of “boorish” Americanness would do well to watch the full clip and focus on the quietly haughty and petulant performance by Watson (except, of course, when he completely lost his composure.)
Before you think to ill of Morano in particular, and Americans in general, please listen to the last 10 seconds of the video a few times. When Watson calls him an “—hole,” Morano laughs with true joy, (a) because he knows that this is a disaster for his adversary and (b) because he knows what has just happened was FUNNY.
“KeithGuy (08:28:37) :
Obviously the term a…hole is used by scientists as a clever way of describing someone with an alternative viewpoint.”
Keith, I agree…this is similar to the use of the word “trick”. It doesn’t really MEAN a$$hole…
JimB
on seeing the whole thing I think Morano was not as bad as the original shorter clip suggested
Invariant (15:20:31) :
This focus by the BBC on the computer programmer comments could be their way to get attention and blame off of the scientists and on to the programmer.
One way Marc Morano was able to get several points in was to begin a sentence, (at the four minute mark,) with “Professor Watson, what do think of…”
Clever technique. Of course the good Professor becomes quiet, because he believes he is going to have a chance to indulge in some splendid pontificating. However Marc’s question goes on and on, naming scientist after scientist within the UN who were not known to be skeptics, but who have become skeptical.
In this manner Marc Morano gets to talk a whole twenty seconds without being interrupted. However, after twenty seconds both the professor and interviewer seem to catch on to Marc’s clever ploy. Marc gets a final point in, and it is then, at the four minute thirty second mark, that the good professor asks, “Will you stop shouting!?”
Terribly sorry, old chap.
I spent a year at an Scottish boarding school when in my teens, and rather than being excessively polite, my schoolmates good-heartedly baited and tormented me on a regular basis for being a boorish American, however I learned to tease and torment back. At that time (1970-1971) both the English and Scottish struck me as being mentally tough, able to fiercely debate, and very difficult to upset.
What in the world has happened over there? Since when have you good fellows become so delicate and easily offended?
Perhaps there are two sides to the British. Hitler met one side in 1938, but then met a totally different side in 1939.
correct that M Kearney did a biased (timewise) interview and also interrupted Morano more than (t) Watson. No surprise.
BBC has an AGW agenda. Noted by former employee Peter Sissons, see:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199104/Peter-Sissons-BBC-standards-falling–bosses-scared-it.html
We in the UK should organise a mass withholding of BBC license fees (in the UK if you have a tv, you have to pay £120 a year to the BBC/ Gov’t
For those trolls who have a problem with Moranos chuckles and sighs while Watson was talking; do you remember Al Gore debating George Bush?
re:PSissons, also see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/07/bbc_stifles_climate_change_deb.html
As a Brit, and hence more attuned to the accent, Prof. Watson does use the American “ass-” rather than the British “arse-“. I’m led to suspect that he’s spent a lot of time on the other side of the pond.
Do give them plenty of time to talk, but don’t let their claims go unchallenged.
These damn co2mmunists are nothing but a bunch of climate-whores who are willing to prostitute their integrity for the sake of increased funding dollars and career advancement. Their actions and behaviors are just disgusting.
I think that Morano argued poorly. He let Watson get away with the standard, the planet is warming mantra. The subject is anthropogenic warming, more precisely CO2 as the driving factor. Copenhagen is about CO2 and taxation, not about whether the planet has been warming for the last 10k years.
That kind of language on camera coming from a ‘scientist’ in an interview is very unprofessional. He lost it and whatever argument he was making.
” Invariant (15:20:31) :
I’ve programmed FORTRAN for 15 years, and I do not agree that the CRU FORTRAN code is poor software engineering – sometimes the smartest people writes the worst code, less smart developers need easy and structured code with high readability to understand what they are doing…”
Sorry pal, but that’s rubbish. From 20+ years experience (though not in FORTRAN but another 3GL), I’d suggest it’s the other way round. Remember maintainability…
photon without a Higgs (15:44:33) : This focus by the BBC on the computer programmer comments could be their way to get attention and blame off of the scientists and on to the programmer.
Yes. And most scientists writes codes themselves too. Let’s forget about the quality of the code and instead determine exactly what it is doing. The CRU code is as important as the Davinci Code, I agree with INGSOC (14:58:37) that we should from now on focus mostly on the code, both scientifically, technically and rhetorically!
Caleb (15:45:33) :
At that time (1970-1971) both the English and Scottish struck me as being mentally tough, able to fiercely debate, and very difficult to upset.
What in the world has happened over there? Since when have you good fellows become so delicate and easily offended?
Perhaps there are two sides to the British. Hitler met one side in 1938, but then met a totally different side in 1939.
Feminisationfeminism and politicalcollectivenesscorrectness have taken their toll. Wimpy boy bands haven’t helped either. There are still a few of us who can hold our own against outspoken Americans though. 😉I think Morano was brash but fair. He should got a shot in at the end though when Watson floundered around the rise in temp being the main issue.
Invariant (15:20:31) :
Ron de Haan (14:21:15) : This is better news from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8395514.stm
I’ve programmed FORTRAN for 15 years, and I do not agree that the CRU FORTRAN code is poor software engineering – sometimes the smartest people writes the worst code, less smart developers need easy and structured code with high readability to understand what they are doing…
—
I disagree with you that ” less smart developers need easy and structured code with high readability to understand what they are doing” because I have worked on some pretty advanced code and all coding requires a minimum of documentation, the more the better not just for others but for the orginal programmer. As a developer of enterprise applications for vertical markets that integrate or convert a large number of legacy applications and huge amounts (billions of rows) of data myself I can say that improperly structured and designed code is not an option as a professional developer. I have gone back over earlier coding work when I believed as you do ( my first couple of years ) and cursed myself for my lack of documentation.
I explain it to my staff this way if I only wrote a blog that contained the verbs and nouns you might be able to follow along but never really know if you understand what the intent, the reasoning and the conclusion was. You would not have the information necessary to know if the blog was wrong or your assumptions were wrong.
They need to fire the whole bunch, wherever they happen to be. The funding agencies should immediately request full refunds, with interest. Anyone suspected of violating any laws should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and if found guilty punished appropriately. They should shutter the CRU and use the facilities for something else. I know what! “The Gore-Hansen-Jones-Mann-Briffa Alchemy, Astrology and Fortune Telling Institute.” That would be more respectable than what they have now.
Professor Watson reminds me of all the Smug people in this Southpark Episode who love the smell of their own farts.
I realize this is low-brow, but you need to see this episode to see how similar they come across.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103216/
I’ll amend that. After watching the full version, Morano did try to get a response in. He said “Warming? Is that the issue?” while the presenter talked over. The full version had Watson smugly declaring “What an asshole” on camera too, whereas on the earlier version it was just audio.
I detect a battle going on inside the Beeb. Some techy has sneaked a fuller version online after an earlier exec editing decision.
@ Harold Ambler (15:35:47) :
Loved your insight about Morano’s laughing at Prof. Watson’s nahnee, nahnee name-calling. His occupying the moral high ground made that spontaneous joyful laugh quite appealing.
Anthony: I have been following your blog closely for over a year now. I truly appreciate your efforts, and results, as well as those of the others who post here. I am a PhD statistician of more than forty years experience. I have never been convinced by interpretations based on extensive modeling and data manipulation. My few personal encounters with AGW advocates have not been fruitful. I would like to offer a quotation which I have used throughout my academic career. It goes “The aim of all education is to put and to answer the following two questions: 1) What do you mean? and 2) How do you know?” I would love to put these questions to the UEA group on many levels. I apologize for not knowing the author of this quotation. If you or anyone else knows, please let me know.
Obama behaving badly, making promises he can’t keep!
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/12/inhofe-dishonest-for-obama-to-promise.html
Climategate: Willful Ignorance
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/12/climategate-willful-ignorance.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8395514.stm
I have programmed in fortran. I agree their work is slooppy and patched together. I also see they shoulb be ashamed to have it viewed.
We need the raw uncooked data and write new software from the beginning.
Bob Duncan (16:34:29) :
I would like to offer a quotation which I have used throughout my academic career. It goes “The aim of all education is to put and to answer the following two questions: 1) What do you mean? and 2) How do you know?” I would love to put these questions to the UEA group on many levels. I apologize for not knowing the author of this quotation. If you or anyone else knows, please let me know.
According to Google by tomorrow morning, the questions are in a quote from you. And damn good questions they are.
I’d add two more:
3) Why is this what you are focusing on?
4) Do you think everyone else should be concerned about it too?
I refuse to throw anyone on my side under the bus. Watson got 3 times the coverage, typical of the BBC and Mark didn’t do anything to be critized for. He wouldn’t have gotten the time he had if he just sat there.
If you want a study of the science, you can turn to Climate Audit, WUWT and Icecap will give you a broader view with come politics included, if you want an in your face recap, Junkscience and Climatedepot are your spots. They all have their place and after years of being impuned and besmerched, it is about time we stood up and let these “scientists” know that someone is going to challenge them.
As for the BBC, if you watch any natural program they have produced and broadcast on Discovery, NatGeo, Science Channel and the History Channel over the last 10 years, they all, without fail, have the obligitory reference to the “world heating up due to man-made global warming. They have a financial interest as large as anyone. Having to scare you with astroids and ghost isn’t nearly as easy, and if it is proven completely wrong, they will look stupid at each rerun.
My first impression of that interview is that Dr Watson got a lot more airplay than Morano, which may explain why he was chomping at the bit to blurt out his piece. So I took the time to analyse the start and finish time of each speaker and the following real data fell out:
Intro/Interviewr: 99 seconds
Dr Watson: 192 seconds
Morano: 96 seconds
So even teh interviewer/intro had more time than Morano, and Watson had double the exposure of Morano… yep that’s balance for ya. Also notable was how the interviewer interrupted Morano a couple of times despite his minor air time.
Raw Data for verification purposes:
Start Fin Int Wat Mor
0 39 39
39 87 48
87 92 5
92 108 16
108 118 10
118 152 34
152 158 6
158 194 36
194 197 3
197 227 30
227 236 9
236 270 34
270 306 36
306 312 6
312 320 8
320 328 8
328 346 18
346 350 4
350 375 25
375 384 9
384 387 3
TOTALS 99 192 96
Meh spacing removed stuffed up data dump in previous post.
For those into body language:
– Excessive blinking
–> showing romantic interest (if their pupil is dilated)
–> sign of stress
–> could be lying
I doubt Watson has a romantic interest in Morano, so the next two look pretty reasonable.
http://www.bodylanguagesignals.com/Eyes.html
Hey, my vidcap is up and running!
I would have posted the whole pre-amble as well, but Google does not like material more than 10 minutes long. I have the rest and will post separately if people are interested.
Watching this live, I got really annoyed at the continual interruptions as Morano tried to make his points, both by Watson and by the interviewer. Morano might not have delivered the best message possible, but who would if you get interrupted inside 10 seconds every time? This is typical of BBC bias on this topic – go easy on the AGW alarmist but talk over the skeptic. I thought Morano kept his cool remarkably well in the circumstances and at least he did not come across as a patronising pillock like Watson.
It is time for someone like Paxman, or Andrew Neil, to host a proper debate, with the right speakers from the skeptics side, those that actually understand the science, and can cut through the continual crap spouted by the alarmists.
And yes, I did laugh out loud, at the end. He said what? I had to t
Table entries in order:
Start time (secs)
Finish time (secs)
Seconds air time (secs)
Person (Int=Interviewer, Wat=Watson, Mor=Morano)
0 39 39 Int
39 87 48 Wat
87 92 5 Int
92 108 16 Wat
108 118 10 Int
118 152 34 Wat
152 158 6 Int
158 194 36 Mor
194 197 3 Int
197 227 30 Wat
227 236 9 Int
236 270 34 Mor
270 306 36 Wat
306 312 6 Int
312 320 8 Mor
320 328 8 Int
328 346 18 Mor
346 350 4 Int
350 375 25 Wat
375 384 9 Int
384 387 3 Wat
Morano was better.
Bulldust (17:08:06) :
My first impression of that interview is that Dr Watson got a lot more airplay than Morano, which may explain why he was chomping at the bit to blurt out his piece. So I took the time to analyse the start and finish time of each speaker and the following real data fell out:
Intro/Interviewr: 99 seconds
Dr Watson: 192 seconds
Morano: 96 seconds
Yeah, but Watson talked at half Morano’s speed. You gotta take account of special needs.
EPA Again:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/12/agw-clergy-at-epa-about-to-issue.html
Richard M (17:09:36) :
For those into body language:
– Excessive blinking
I feel a bit sorry for Watson (but not much). Obviously not as used to the media cut’n’thrust as Morano.
Lord Stern behaving badly.
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/12/stern-unhinged.html
Scientists behaving badly, not according to Holdren!
Holdren says Mann’s methods are…unconventional!
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/12/holdren-manns-methods-unconventional.html
This interview was a set up plain and simple. The BBC interviewer allowed Dr. Watson to talk endlessly and cut Morano off constantly, and BTW he was a bit of a-hole, but I would be too if I was him in that type of interview.
And trust me there’s a reason why they chose him because he’s from the politcal arena, and this gives the BBC the opportunity to make skeptics come off as aggresive and ignorant.
If they wanted a real interview, they would have put someone like McIntyre, McKitrick, Spenser or Lindzen on, scientist vs scientist.
Either of then would have made short work of Watson and made things even worse the AGW movement.
I’m no expert but if Watson is so disgusted over the character assassinations, then maybe… just maybe?…. they shouldn’t do things which assassinate their characters, such as lie then deny the significance of those lies?
Gosh, I wouldn’t know because I’m just a stupid, loud American. And speaking of which…
Seems to me that Mr.Morano has to resort to shouting because SHE keeps interupting and yelling over HIM whenever he makes a valid point. From there, Watson gets what he wants and desperately needs. Maybe Morano could have handled it better, but one must not overlook how the rigging of this discussion was revealed shortly after it began. He really had no other choice BUT to start shouting because as is so typical of the liberal media, Obama’s attendance is construed as “acceptance of the science” and thus a dismissal of the ClimateGate scandal. They may as well have switched the argument to that of the the earth being flat, the sun missing, the moon cheese, and that pi is exactly three. Right in the heat of things, they changed the meaning of everything in a very big way, which caused Morano to start shouting. From there, Watson took control in the portrayal of skeptical resitance as the domain of loud-mouthed Americans who love to assassinate character more than pay attention to the science at hand.
How very rigged this “discussion” was. It was nothing more than an attempt to do what Watson himself says people shouldn’t be doing, which is character assassination over the matter at hand. Not only that, by the very fact that he so willingly and easily used character assassination himself, he has made it clear that only the warmists should have and use this weapon in the debate, whereas his opponents should not have that power. He just wants people to not scream as the warming religion comes to murder them. i.e. He’s a cowardly little miscreant, like so many of the warmists have shown themselves to be time and again!
This is one of those fluff articles Anthony. All it is displaying is a media savvy politician and a scientist easily getting his buttons pushed.
A bit dramatic but that is all.
regards
Sam
December 4, 2009
Say what?
“”I personally wish it were just ‘scare-mongering’, that this is all exaggerated,” [German AGW climate scientist Hans Joachim] Schellnhuber said when asked about the skeptics. He said scientists face intensive peer scrutiny that ensures high standards of quality, integrity and accuracy.
“What special interests are supposedly being represented? Our findings have nothing to do with special interests. The system is constructed to ensure the greatest credibility.”” “Top Climate Change Expert Hopes Science Got It Wrong”
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/12/say-what_04.html
SamG,
Which is the politician and which is the scientist?
If you look at this summary of Watson vs. Morano, you see that Morano left a lot on the table whilst using the standard fallacy of implied middle premise. My conclusion is that Watson was only unconvincing to us, and, Morano didn’t put too much of a dent in him as concerns the general public.
Here is a list points made by (W)atson & (M)orano:
W:
1) Argues that skeptic position on temperature reconstruction using a dirty trick is taken out of context [doesn’t argue that it’s wrong]
2) Admits the trick but downplays importance [only one line of text in an obscure report, but doesn’t mention the central importance to the politics of AGW & falsification of data scandal.]
3) Admits the trick is to cherry pick data [which is only a part of the trick] then uses proof by authority (lots of papers) to further divert interest.
4) Doesn’t know about deletion of e-mail & FOI requests
— Twists question into one asking for further info rather than one asking for opinion
— False reason given for not knowing about it (doesn’t work at climate unit; this didn’t stop Moonbiot or others)
— If the leaked e-mails are real, they are evidence of an offense independent of further information or even one’s opinion. The interviewer was looking for an acknowledgment, not further info as Watson pretends.
5) No raw data has been lost. [ I believe that contradicts a CRU statement somewhere, false though it may be.]
6) Colleagues have not manipulated data
— Seems to have forgotten that he doesn’t work at the climate unit
— Bald-faced lie. Analysis is data manipulation by definition. He is playing with words.
— In the next sentence he admits manipulation of data as part of the “trick”
M:
1) Watson is denying that climategate affects case for AGW [ Well, DUH!] followed by unprovoked ad hominem]
2) Watson admitting not aware of all specific issues [Fallacy of implied middle – nobody said he was. Ad hominem]
3) Make Hulme @ UEA is attacking IPCC based on climategate [Non-sequitor]
4) George Moonbiot is attacking Watson & we must feel sorry for Watson [Non-sequitor & Ad hominem]
W:
7) Denies being in denial followed by ad hominem against Morano.
8) Claims that skeptics (by definition those who are currently attacking the AGW science) can’t attack the science & use ad hominem exclusively [a good characterization of Morano].
M:
5) Leaked e-mails exposes manufactured consensus [Finally, a charge… which is immediately dropped.]
6) Asks for Watson’s opinion on Hulme’s & others’ attack on the IPCC & Jones.
7) Asserts that skeptics are colleagues [ a weak position & not true in all cases]
W:
9) Accuses Morano of shouting
M:
8) Snide comment
W:
10) Doesn’t agree with attacks [no surprise here]
M:
9) Interrupts Watson and is told to shut up.
W:
11) Makes general science platitudes
12) Argues against character assassination
M:
10) Copenhagen wasn’t going to succeed anyway [Absolutely no context for this statement.]
11) Obama is only attending Copenhagen to cover up scandal [Great, a conspiracy theory, which may be true because Obama is a great politician, but, why make it when there’s no way to defend it when made without qualification.]
12) Points out dissension among U.N. scientists [Implies further third party ad hominem attacks]
13) Accuses U.N. Science of fraud to meet political demands. [WHAT!?! There’s no way climategate has gotten that far yet. Which political forces ordered it? Where’s your proof? There’s nothing in the leaked e-mails.]
14) Further ad hominem on Watson
W:
13) Climategate is setback due to character assassination
14) Deliberately confuses recent warming trend with AGW [false argument]
That’s my take, anyway.
We have the biggest scandal ever, exposing the global warming fraud and people are complaining that Morano was too aggressive? [snip]? Are you kidding me? Has WUWT attracted a bunch of go along, get along wusses? I have a feeling these are former believers who don’t want anyone’s “feelings” hurt, oh too bad! I’ve been doing this too long and have been involved in too many debates where I have been viciously personally attacked for questioning the so-called “science”. If you think for a minute skeptics like Morano are going to go easy then you need to get a clue.
Marc Morano is the example of how people need to be on this issue. You have scientists like Watson in utter denial of what is going on trying to spread propaganda and Morano would have none of it. THANK YOU MARC!!!
BTW it is Morano NOT Moreno
I like McIntyre, great guy, brilliant analyst but he is NOT a spokesperson.
Morano knows what to say and how to say it, he hammered Watson forcing him to take a stance against his colleagues, which was brilliant. But Morano could barely speak and was forced to interject simply to not let the propagandist (Watson) get away with lies. You either fight or give up, Morano is choosing to fight and so am I.
Dave in Canada (17:48:09) : “And trust me there’s a reason why they chose him because he’s from the politcal arena, and this gives the BBC the opportunity to make skeptics come off as aggresive and ignorant. If they wanted a real interview, they would have put someone like McIntyre, McKitrick, Spenser or Lindzen on, scientist vs scientist.”
Nah, I wouldn’t say he’s ignorant. Rather, I think he got his facts a bit mixed up. For example, Obama hasn’t cancelled his appearance at Copenhagen (that I know of. I heard that he’s announced that his Most Almighty Appearance will be delayed, though). It was Al Gore who cancelled his Big Event, which many presume is because of the whole scandal. Maybe that is what he was trying to refer to. How I see it, that is where he went wrong and where the raptors circled and struck hard.
Other than that, though, he got it pretty much spot on in saying that these “scientists” have condemned themselves as liars and manipulators, by their own words in their own emails. However, yes, I agree… put McIntyre, McKitrick, Spenser on there! But how very strange that Watson says he doesn’t want this to become political and about character assassination, yet he participated and surely knew ahead of time who his opponent would be. Hmmm… maybe it didn’t go so badly afterall. Exposure is exposure is exposure… They just keep digging the grave of their credibility deeper and deeper. So all in all, I’d say things went better than they did worse.
I think the American was the decent guy. He said Sorry.
The British Professor was immature. I’m sure he’s not debated very frequently. Whoever tosses ideas back and forth would not get so flustered.
Who’s doing character assasination? If your emails read badly, you are assasinating your own character.
So, you guys…
I am having a good ol´ laugh now..
I truly enjoy seeing these manipulative bastards with their pants down.
But that does not change the fact that mr Morano came across as an a-hole
That final remark was totally justified.
Arsehole indeed.
Benjamin (18:27:12) :
I didn’t want to infer that he’s ignorant of the situation, he has a firm grasp of it, rather that he came off as rude, which was the purpose, because as the interviewer said, he’s a “leading” skeptic, poor choice of words.
The interview is part of “white washing” by the media.
I really want to know if he was speaking for and on behalf of UEA.
1) If he was, then it implies that the UEA were backing Phil Jones conduct regarding everything in the emails except the FOI stuff. (As well as calling Morano an a**hole). So no prizes for guessing how well the independent investigation will go with the university backing Jones’s conduct and integrity.
2) If he wasn’t, why wouldn’t he back Jones on the FOI stuff since he’s so sure of his scientific integrity? Seems to me that the UEA lawyers gagged any comment about FOI in case their legal position was undermined by Prof Watsons comments. In which case UEA we’re presumably allowing him to speak for them on the other matters so we’re back to 1) again…
from Ron de Haan’s (18:02:46) posted link : “People go into science because they’re interested in finding the truth. It’s total nonsense (to accuse scientists of scare-mongering). Those people will never believe us.”
To which I say… “They say that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Oh yeah?! Well sometimes it’s a BIG BROWN [male member]!” — George Carlin
🙂
Dave in Canada (18:36:13) : Benjamin (18:27:12) :
Ah, you’re right Dave… I read you totally wrong. Sorry about that!
i think everyone is not getting what the BBC is doing in bringing up the comments of the programmer
it will be easier to blame the programmer and then say the science is still good, man is causing climate change
they are creating their own future headlines
it look to me they want to make the programmer the scapegoat
Poptech: I am with you.
AJStrata (09:06:07) :
Folks may find this interesting. If you compare the raw CRU temp profiles against the AGW models (which is the right method to assess the models) you discover AGW cannot exist. What CRU has been doing is taking temp profiles that don’t show a hockey stick and adding in hockey stick, which magically matches those models that assume a hockey stick will show up in the Temp data. Climategate just proved AGW as a theory is wrong.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11732
I sure do – find it “interesting”. Confirm data if possible, then let it loose to WUWT/the public?
Dave in Canada, you said what I tried to say. The science is really immaterial as the general public does not have the background to judge it. Instead they will judge the demeanor of the debaters as they have been mislead as to the facts. The media is manipulating this. Watch it disappear unless there are enough of us who have been doing independent investigation or if honest brokers are not given the opportunity to educate the propagandized masses.
Benjamin (18:27:12) :
Morano did not get his facts mixed up, he never said Obama was not going rather that “Copenhagen was going to be a wake anyway, President Obama had said the U.S. wasn’t going to do anything..” as in Copenhagen was going to be a meeting resembling the death of Global Warming as we know it and the U.S. is not going to make any real commitments to reducing CO2 not that Obama is not going. The shows host and yourself misconstrued what he said.
Peter Hearnden (09:40:35) :
wait a minute.
How many times was Morano interrupted by the rude interviewer as opposed to Watson? How many times did Morano tell Watson to shut up? How many times did Morano tell Watson to stop shouting, talking? Who’s doing the character assassinations?
Watson is typical of the closed minded unqestioning sausage factory known as the university system in England. And before you pull me upon that, i’ve been through it. I can only re-iterate the words of England’s leading highbrow during the50’s. Aldous Huxley wrote that in England a boy goes to a good school to receive half an education, then onto uiversity to have it taken out of him.
That aside, Morano was asking Watson to review his position. What did he get? ridicule and totalitarian gall
Incidentally this overwhelm is the only strategy that AGW proponents can use. At least those asking questions about it are using scientific empiricism to emphasise its errors. The response it no explanations, no descriptions – nothing but overpowering browbeating . The chief explanation is because there is no scientific basis behind it so they have to use the methods employed by inquisitions.
I didn’t hear Mr. Morano say anything that would justify a public insult on the part of the old punk pretending to be a scientist. In fact, he almost wasn’t given any opportunity to speak.
It seems that some British comments here express a sympathy for the British accent more than for any understanding of what actually has been said.
Get over your national complex of inferiority, gentlemen.
Morano needs to understand BBC interview techniques and British conditioning to Authority….
As an American he thinks that it is ok to simply respond to what someone is saying…. Which it is, but not in BBC world.
Anyway Morano did ok in my view….. The British Prof’ completely lost it… Quite shocking really if you are English. The man was foam flecked and raving…. To an English man’s eye, anyway;-)
Hi all… some updates from Australia… yesterday, the Greens got beaten (and beaten badly in my opinion) in two byelections that they said were a referendum on Climate Change and the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”… that’s our Emissions Trading Scheme or Cap&Trade if you like.
I’m now finding that over the past week or so, people are not as scared to ask questions about Climate Change and they are starting to get it…. “How can it get colder if carbon dioxide is going to make things hotter?” was one question I was asked….
And I’m with Poptech as well….
Don’t let them off the hook!!!
Fight!… It works… It’s the only thing that ever has.
If nothing else, this thread has certainly been an interesting experiment in the psychology of eye witness testimony. What it has very effectively demonstrated is the persistent truth of the old saw that says “the eye sees what the mind wants it to see.”
Poptech (18:19:57) :
While you will find most people agree that the fraud, if such it turns out to be, must be aggressively pursued, this is not the site for it. This site is more about exposing the truth than the pursuit/prosecution of fraudsters. That is best left to the motivated agenda drivers and politicians.
As things have reached a bit of crescendo since ClimateGate the number of excitable posts here has increased dramatically, which is, of course, totally understandable… this site operates best when the discussion stays at or below the cynical sarcastic quip level of discourse.
At this stage far too many people are ignorant of the state of play… in Australia people quote 70-80% of the population surveyed has no idea what an ETS is or how it operates, despite the fact that we almost had one legislated last week… appalling state of affairs.
I have half a mind to grab some big pieces of chalk and scribble “What is ClimateGate?” on the pavement around the city centre. Once curiosity is piqued people will Google it and start to learn… some people at least. It needs to go mainstream viral.
I, like the next person, do not particularly like the label ClimateGate*, but it is useful in that it is instantly recognisable, catchy and easy to type into Google (despite the lack of autosuggest).
* Despite being accredited as the coiner… ironic eh?
After some fair amount of searching, this from Feynman is the closet thing that came up (and it’s not quite close either):
Ref.
did he say right in the end ‘what an ass hole?’
Poptech tells it like it is. They will steam roll us if they can, as that is their only recourse. Have been watching that happen for 30 years. It is time to speak up.
Bulldust wrote, This site is more about exposing the truth than the pursuit/prosecution of fraudsters. That is best left to the motivated agenda drivers and politicians.
Oh! So now you control Watts Up With That? Has Anthony retired?
Bulldust (20:02:03) :I have half a mind to grab some big pieces of chalk and scribble “What is ClimateGate?” on the pavement around the city centre.
That would be fantastic. How do we organize a media bypass campaign?
AND Poptech (18:19:57) :
Watson isn’t in denial. I think he knows what’s going on and is involved. He was erratic. Here we have one of the most pretentious, condescending professors I’ve seen in a while and Morano didn’t take advantage. The reason I posted the arguments they made is to show that Morano didn’t put the knife into his victim. He was aggressive as you mention but didn’t score a kill. I’m telling you that Watson just motivated his AGW following with his performance. His persecuted visionary routine is going to sell among greens that believe they are persecuted visionaries.
The world has just suffered through a dot.com bust, a real estate bust, a banking bust…. all the while the major media and experts said it couldn’t happen. The AGW bust is coming soon. That’s the message I would give… that the public has been lied-to and betrayed once again. Climategate is the early sign of the collapse to come. My way is much simpler than Morano’s and will cause doubt among the AGW camp. Is that agressive enough for you, or, would you prefer a brawl on-air? 🙂
Bulldust (20:02:03)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this being posted on this site. The topic, climategate is being discussed between one skeptic and a university scientist. Where the university scientist tells the skeptic, to shut-up, rolls his eyes like a child and calls him an a-hole. This is exposing the truth of the behavior of these scientists as Anthony titled it appropriately, “Scientists behaving badly”.
Certain things need to be said for what they are. The code released is FRAUDULENT not some university exercise in the creation of new definitions for commonly used English language words. Just like MIchael Mann’s hockey stick code was fraudulent ect…
The kids glove treatment of FRAUD is not going to cut it.
For some reason certain scientists think that if they can BS enough they can get themselves out of lies. Just like the emails show, Michael Mann believed getting scientists to sign a letter in support of his paper can replace the scientific method. If skeptics tried to pull this they would be called out as using a “denier” tactic, yet certain IPCC scientists have been getting away with it!
The truth is what this has always been about.
We are not playing tiddly-winks. The global warming fraudsters want to indoctrinate and enslave our children. There is no greater cause than fighting the lies and fraud of global warming and the government control that will follow the government’s solution. Our parents and grandparents fought WWI and WW2 to deny the great schemers from enslaving the population. The schemers have not vanished, they have reinvented themselves but now come wrapped in a green sheet.
I think the BBC chose Morano with great care. Well aware that he would create a great contrast to Watson in both style and demeaner. The host then clearly went out of her way to allow Mr Watson all the time he needed to express himself while cutting off Mr Morano just before he could make any point. Thereby giving the impression that Morano was trying to talk over the host when he was actually just finishing a sentence in progress.
It’s pretty obvious that the intent of the BBC was to present Mr Morano as a stereo-typically boorish, rude, dumb American. Unfortunately, they rather surprisingly presented a boorish, rude, dumb Brit, as well. (Actually 2!)
JDN (20:38:45) :
I agree Morano did not score a “kill” but that was because he was not allowed, like the good professor, to go off on a long BS diatribe. He was constantly interrupted, not allowed to finish his points or respond to the professor’s BS claims. Give Morano more time and he will easily finish the job. He did it to Joe Romm in their debate and embarrassed Romm, making him look like he has never had a serious debate on the issue,
Marc Morano vs. Joe Romm
I cannot believe the crap I am reading about this from left-wing rags like Newsweek, it is utterly unbelievable.
I believe all methods and tactics need to be used to get the message out and no one should be afraid of calling BS to BS.
The public at large is stupid to the issue, because they all “care” about the planet and their “children” as if the rest of us do not. We are “evil” they are “saviors”. They believe that fighting pollution is a good thing, when this has NOTHING to do with pollution, CO2 is NOT pollution! They “feel” that renewable energy is “good” and do not understand it is not economically viable nor that it, cap and trade or an ETS will make their energy costs skyrocket. They flat out are economically illiterate and have been brainwashed their whole lives that capitalism and the western way of life is “bad” and now are “guilty” of living longer healthier lives than the third world. We are dealing with mass insanity.
Everyone who “believes” in global warming as a doomsday scenario subscribes to a fallacy. They key is asking someone why they believe it. You will be very surprised about what you find out.
Poptech (19:27:55) : Benjamin (18:27:12) :
No, I’m not misconstruing anything. Read my first post and then my response to Canadian Dave. Was yet another honest mistake, where I momentarily was mixed as to who said what. Apparently not having good day in the ol’ mental department, so I’ll call it quits with the posting today.
Dear Professor Watson,
Only a fool believes that the real issue is whether or not the world’s climate has warmed in the last 100 years. Everyone and their mother knows that it has. The issues are whether or not the warming is abnormal, unnatural, or a threat to the world.
You are a liar, a base, intentional liar. Most men of character would rather be thought an arsehole than a liar any day. Like many people, you need to learn the difference between mannerisms and manners. Your mannerisms are quite smooth and soothing. Your manners are atrocious. Again, you are a liar.
Professor Watson states that using tree rings to reconstruct the temperature anomalies over the past 1000 years “works well until about 1960, then it goes wrong”.
How can he claim that?
The period of reliable instrumental measurement overlap with the tree-ring proxy data before 1960, is only about 60 years and in any case, both series represent anomalies (not actual temperature) — surely they can’t be overlaid to represent a continuous series.
As a layman, I have never understood how the different proxy series making up the ‘spaghetti’ graph (using much of the same data, I believe), can be overlaid to represent anything meaningful — it is amusing how they miraculously coalesce around 1880, when the instrumental data was becoming available.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Can the fraud be that transparent?
I see your point Smokey, the positions could be reversed but my point still stands, it’s a hissy fit and it’s just drama, not ‘hard evidence’. I think the ’cause’ becomes skewed when topics of any skeptical nature become meritorious. Then it becomes about the attack.
When people start to lose an argument, verbally at least, they usually resort to verbal abuse.
Good one Watson, one more nail in the AGW coffin.
“The data goes wrong at about 1960 for reasons we don’t have to go into”
You can now see what those reasons are:
Briffa et al. (1998b) discuss various causes for this decline in tree growth parameters, and Vaganov et al. (1999) suggest a role for increasing winter snowfall. We have considered the latter mechanism in the earlier section on chronology climate signals, but it appears likely to be limited to a small part of northern Siberia. In the absence of a substantiated explanation for the decline, we make the assumption that it is likely to be a response to some kind of recent anthropogenic forcing. On the basis of this assumption, the pre-twentieth century part of the reconstructions can be considered to be free from similar events and thus accurately represent past temperature variability.
Watson’s answer to the “hide the decline” question was completely obfuscatory. Admittedly many who haven’t followed the science closely incorrectly assumed that “hide the decline” meant they were attempting to conceal an actual decline in global temperatures. In reality the reason the decline needed to be hidden was that it revealed that their reconstruction suffered from a severe case of the “divergence problem” which occurs when the algorithm established to match ring width to the temp record of the calibration period fails to match the instrumental record temps when extended forward. Though Watson is correct about many attempts being made to justify the divergence, in reality it is prima facie proof that the proxy is worthless. If the proxy can’t match the record going forward, you have to be either a fool or a fraud to claim that it can provide an accurate record going backward. This is the real reason they had to “hide the decline”, because it proved their work was worthless.
Political commentators and other amateurs may be forgiven for misinterpreting this, but Watson is supposedly a scientist and must obviously be aware of what the truth was. Given the performance of the moderator and Watson, Morano was the only one in the piece who wasn’t acting like an anal orifice.
Well this is a little off this topic but its funny as hell. Remember how the Railroad Engineer in charge of the IPCC originally blew off what was happening in Climategate, then all of a sudden he does a 180 spin and says they ain’t going to sweep it under the rug? Well this might be the reason why: He just found out what Phil thought of him taking over the IPCC and his attempt to stop it:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=270&filename=1019513684.txt
Alimentary my dear Watson.
Or to quote Tom Lehrer; ‘Life is like a sewer, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it’.
Maybe the Mercury Monkeys should be replaced by baboons?
I don’t know what program most of you were watching but as Morano started the interview the female interviewer cut him off several times. It became quite clear very early that he would not be give fair time to respond or comment so I don’t blame him one bit for talking over them. It was either that or be cudgeled by the lopsidedness of the interview. Watson’s behavior was inexcusable. This man is supposed to be a learned professor. He came off as a childish (to use a slightly cleaner version of his own word) ahole.
Watson’s eyeroll is the same as when Dee Dee Ramone was asked about his hooking for heroin days: “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Bulldust
Unless your accredation comes under your real name I can find no one who directly credits anyone with coining the name. Intersetingly enough, Wiki refuses to call it that. They list it under – don’t laugh now – Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident.
So here is a man (Watson) who accuses sceptics of engaging in character assassination
who ends up with what is in effect a character assassination.
Incidentally, I am convinced he said ass not arse – the man can’t even insult people properly in his native language.
And in agreement with an earlier poster, in the whole interview, Morano got less than 20% of the time, and the presenter, Martha Kearney, cut him off at least twice before he could complete his points. What an arsehole.
Climate Heretic (16:18:03): I disagree with you.
woodentop (16:01:48): Sorry pal, but that’s rubbish.
The need for source code readability, maintainability and quality certainly depend on the context in software engineering. I addition this is not the main point here, let us assume that the source code is poor quality as you suggest, does that help us in any way? NO! I think we need a much more PRAGMATIC point of view here, KILL YOUR DARLINGS (in software), we need to COMPILE the code, EXECUTE the code to determine WHAT it is doing!
i hav read alot of responses and i really like kate 11:18:11. at first i was somewhat critical of morano but now i hav a more balanced reaction. thanks kate!
April E. Coggins (20:36:38) :
Nope … just saying that if we stoop to Watson’s level we will lose. We are starting this race with a major handicap after all. AGW has been rammed down the throat of the populace for some time now and needs to be countered with balanced arguments. The more we get excited and rave about the ludicrous statements made by the AGW mob… the more they can point & laugh, and we lose cred with the ignorant* majority. Every time the Glenn Beck’s of the world rave about the AGW debate I get the feeling it is two steps forward and three steps back.
In Australia I want to see people educated on the meaning of the ETS:
1) To their hip pockets;
2) To energy-intensive industry (and hence jobs);
3) To the huge bureaucracy that will be required to manage it;
4) etc…
Once people understand point 1, if nothing else, the support for an ETS will evaporate quickly. This is the way to win the debate against the legislation. So far the media and government have avoided, at all costs, to explain any detail whatsoever.
I certainly don’t control this site LOL… I just saw how it used to be prior to the ClimateGate incident and how it has become more excitable since. We have lost one valuable contributor already due to overly enthusiastic debate aimed at him. IMHO it would serve the purpose of this site far better to be moderate in our debates with a dollop of sarcasm for light relief. But that is just my opinion.
I did FORTRAN professionally for 20 years before moving to C++. What I have seen of the CRU FORTRAN code is not holding up to any standard whatsoever, it appears “thrown together” without any consideration of maintainability.
It really does not matter whether the people writing this code were “smart” or not. What matters is that the result is of very poor quality.
Reply to Joe Romm’s following slur:
[JR: The flaw in you “logic” is that the the people who rejected the science before are the ones rejecting it now. Nothing could ever change their/your views, so the repetition of the basic scientific process would serve no purpose. The data has been available for a long, long time. It is of no interest to 99.9% of disninformers, since there views are not fact-based.]
Wow. Joseph M asks for the basic tenets of the scientific method to be followed, objectivity, replicability, dispassionate appraisal, and he gets this in return.
If the data has been available for a long, long time, why does Mann in one of the emails ask the recipient not to pass his intermediate results to anyone else “in case they fall into the wrong hands”?
These intermediate results were exactly what published scientists and statisticians had been specifically requesting for years.
Your slur on those wishing to critically examine the claims of these secretive scientists as not being interested in facts does you no credit Mr Romm. It is you who is trying to downplay the significance of the facts about these scientists revealed in their *at long last* publicly available emails, code and documents.
I saw this last night and remarked on it immediately
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (02:57:28) : It really does not matter whether the people writing this code were “smart” or not. What matters is that the result is of very poor quality.
No. That’s complete nonsense! We need to COMPILE the code, EXECUTE the code, REVERSE ENGINEER how it is supposed to work together with the RAW data files in the dump in order to CONCLUDE exactly what it is doing.
Complaining that the source code is poor quality does not help us in any possible way, that’s certainly a dead end a RED HERRING that draws attention away from the central issue which is whether they have ADAPTED the code to the AGW hypothesis. Imagine that we manage to find accurate digital proof that the code reveals CONVENIENT ADJUSTMENTS – that would really be something.
artwest (11:38:42) :
I repeat, virtually every mainstream TV station worldwide, commercial or otherwise, will have similar restrictions on international viewings and for the same reasons.
Yes there are copyright and broadcasting regulations….
But I still think that where there is a will there is a way…
For example: http://wwitv.com/portal.htm lists [so they say] 3000+ TV channels that either broadcast live on they web or provide video on demand.
Professor Watson makes much of ad hominen attacks by sceptics, however I note from the emails and elsewhere that the global warming fraternity are not averse to handing it out, especially to Stephen McIntyre, never mind the tasteless remark regarding the late John Daly. The whole business is shameful, which is decidely disappointing as this is an issue of considerable importance. In a way it is indicative of modern Britain, a nation whose talents are mostly tempted to cheat and lie to further whatever ends serve their own interests. As an Englishman I feel ashamed.
Marc Morano had better be careful – Prof. Watson may challenge him to a duel with his weapon of choice probably being a handbag!
Is he for real! His co-workers have been caught dead to rights, with their own words condemning them at every turn. Even if he feels that their words have been taken out of context, perhaps he could explain the computer codes.
When the UN appoints a scientist to head its enquiry I may give it more credence, when organisations and governments only appoint economists to head these things, then the fact is that money is the real concern.
In Australia people are about to be educated alright, because the new leader of the Opposition is going to make the Government explain it’s legislation in plain words, and give real costings instead of the “pie in the sky” waffle we have been given so far.
We have a Prime Minister who apparently speaks Chinese fluently, but can’t string together a coherent sentence when asked to answer a straight question on any subject. In 2 by-elections this weekend to replace retiring politicians in the Federal Parliament, all the pundits in the MSM predicted a swing to the Greens because the Opposition blocked Carbon Emission Trading in the Senate (Ironically aided by the Greens, who thought it didn’t go far enough). The result! – A ringing endorsement for the Opposition.
The Prime Minister wanted Australia to lead the way for the world on climate change – he may get his wish, but not the one he hoped!
May we live in interesting times!
Henry chance (12:57:22) :
About the only Watson has going for him is Moral and intelllectual superiority./ That is exactly what has crumbled.
Agreed.
By calling him an “assh*le” we was trying to put Moreno down for his intellectual inferiority and his moral inferiority for being American…
I absolutely agree that the interviewer let the alarmist rattle on but kept cutting off the sceptic. Appalling, but not unexpected.
In a sense, watson is somewhat right. Whether there was even warming going on is one of the questions that still must be answered.
I’ve reached the point where i WANT TO SEE INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION OF THIS 20TH CENTURY WARMING TREND because until the scientific method of independent duplication of results has at least occurred, I don’t trust what these TEAM clowns have put out to date. Based on what I’ve seen out of them so far, I don’t think we know if T has actually risen or fallen by half a degree C. However, this seems to make me an agnos-T-ic rather than a T-ru believer or an a-T-istic denier ty*e.
Actually, I don’t particulary care what went on T-wise during the 20th century because it was natural variation as co2 ghg contribution would have been insignificant in the real world although I’m rooting for a decine once Antony’s (and other’s) audits get finished just because of my dislike for these team climate scientologists and dendro phrenologists who have distracted me from other interests and have attempted to negatively impact my life – along with 6 billion others.
Sadly, any enlightenment on this debate is not furthered by this kind of superficial interview technique. The interviewer didn’t follow up on any of the responses in a useful way but just moved on to the next headline accusation. The journalism is like something out of a primary school debating class.
The interviewer did not give Morano a chance to answer the points made to him. The first interruption came on his first reply, and so it continued.
Watson looked increasingly agitated – even though he was being given much more freedom to make his points. And he was allowed to sweep the divergence issue under the carpet with a comment along the lines of “it’s all a bit complicated”.
If that interview has been a game of footbal (soccer for you yanks) we would have concluded that the referee’s interventions had spoiled the game.
It all reminded me of the spoof political debate on the comedy show “Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge”. All of the main failings of the Newsnight interview (plus more) are in this video clip. Watch it and enjoy:
Truth and rationality are inextricably entwined. At its core, the AGW/CC Belief system is a festering, stinking cesspool of fraud, deceit, and lies. Those like Watson who buy into it are also buying into a thought system which is essentially irrational. This is one reason why they make such poor debaters and why, when cornered they retreat to their reptilian brain. They are handicapped going in, which is why the cry was “The Debate Is Over”, why so many of them refuse to debate to begin with, and why, when they do, they get their arses kicked.
SamG (18:01:29) : This is one of those fluff articles Anthony. All it is displaying is a media savvy politician and a scientist easily getting his buttons pushed. A bit dramatic but that is all.
Shows you are not paying attention – the first requisite of good science! 🙂
Hidden in the “fluff” are many very important points that are being sifted and collated and recorded for future use by a lot of readers. Sure, it’s horses for courses. But take just one example: Bulldust showed that the exact airspace used by the interviewer Kenney, Prof Watson and Marc Morano was divided almost exactly in the ratio 2: 1: 1. This is evidence of ongoing BBC bias.
REPLY: Check the updated video in the full context – Anthony
Thanks for posting the extendend segment, Anthony. At the end, things degenerate, as they do on TV, but a much more valuable presentation of views before that. I consider myself more or less standing corrected.
Funny how several here construe my comments as support for the AGW people. Is there no concern for standards of debate or discussion among these commenters?
Mark Morano did not deseve to be called an “ass hole” based on that interview. He was at a huge disadvantage not being in the studio and Professor Watson had about 3x the air time to talk and make his point. Add that to the fact that Morano was quieter on microphone than Watson (deliberate, by the BBC I’m sure) he was merely trying to be heard while the professor mumbled and was clearly struggling.
Ass hole, no, enthusiastic, yes!
Across the pond (and perhaps also on this side to a lesser extent), it’s important to realise just what a trivial organisation the “prestigious” University of East Anglia is. It’s simply a minor educational establishment overly expanded in the recent ridiculous concept (promoted by both political parties) that 50% of the country’s youth should have a University degree. So what do you do? You create Universities out of (almost) nothing and staff them with eminent Professors who come out of (almost) nothing. Don’t be surprised at what you get.
I suspect the BBC told Watson before the interview that he would be featured and his counterpart cut short. It was all planned. However, they did not realize that Morano would make his points so quickly. The BBC announcer tried to cut him off but was not quick enough. In fact, it made it obvious they were biased. I think Watson got more and more frustrated because it was not going the way he thought it would.
lichanos (05:25:48) :
Who sets the standards? My only concern is allowing people to finish what they are saying and respond to whatever they feel is necessary.
Al Gore now has his very own version of “Downfall”
[we don’t run the Hitler parody video here – think “deniers” – A]
Morano might have been a bit loud but that’s down to the studio audio and not necessarily him.
I saw a lot of time given to Watson but before Morano got into his stride he was interrupted.
Listening to the soundtrack I heard just as many noises off from Watson as from Morano.
The interviewer clearly gave more time to Watson and helped to truncate Morano’s points.
Generally I feel bad about this and feel that Morano’s new world enthusiasm was impolitely dealt with by a very pompous and in this case rather offensive and arrogant attitude from both Watson and the presenter.
The key thing is that all the character assassination and name calling came from the warmist side and I am afraid that is how it always has been.
Apologies to Mr. Morano from one Englishman.
Klute (08:13:04) :
“Et tu? Head of UN IPCC Pachauri Now throwing global warming under the bus?! There is a ‘larger problem’ than climate fears?! – Nov. 23, 2009 – Urges ‘time and space to look at the larger problem of unsustainable development, of which climate change is at best a symptom’
NOW we get to what it’s all about.A PRETEXT to advance Lefty lunatic economic policy.I’m not going to be taxed for Wealth Redistribution! Clean out all these fecking Lefty ’scientists’ and their BBC fellow conspirators!”
This is an “OPEN DOOR” Klute,
Read UN Chapter 21.
CO2 mitigation only plays the role of accelerator for Chapter 21 implementation.
The problem with Chapter 21 is that most countries already have signed it.
That’s why Lord Mockton wants the UN to go up in smoke and the cheats behind bars.
Well Dr. Christy from UAH has given a indepth interview.
“”In general, you see this attempt to hide information, particularly about the climate of the last 50 years. Some measurements showing no warming were deliberately hidden,” Christy said from his office at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he is director of UAH’s Earth System Science Center.”
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2009/12/state_climatologist_john_chris.html
That type of statement from Christy sure looks like he thinks the dirt is going to stick to Jones and et al.
Here is another Climate Scientist making a Anti Alarmist Stand and taking a swipe at wikpedia too.
“I published my first climate-related paper in 1974 (Chylek and Coakley, Aerosol and Climate, Science 183, 75-77). I was privileged to supervise Ph. D. theses of some exceptional scientists – people like J. Kiehl, V.Ramaswamy and J. Li among others. I have published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and I am a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Optical Society of America, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Within the last few years I was also honored to be included in Wikipedia’s blacklist of “climate skeptics”.
http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/218-petr-chylek-open-letter-to-the-climate-research-community.html
lichanos (05:25:48) :
It seems like you should understand why.
In regards to:
boballab (08:27:47)
I just did a quick look up of what he has been working on at Los Alamos and not aas just a grunt but as a “team leader”
“ISR-2 develops and applies remote sensing instrumentation, analysis, modeling, and machine learning to problems of national security and related sciences. ISR-2 applications include nonproliferation, detection of nuclear explosions, lightning science, climatology, broad-area mapping of land use, and environmental monitoring. We pursue new ideas in fundamental science and advanced technologies related to our mission and collaborate with a broad range of government, academic, and commercial programs.”
This guy isn’t a lightweight in the world of Science that is for sure or he wouldn’t be were he is working on classified research.
http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/isr/isr2/
tj (19:27:26) :
The science is really immaterial as the general public does not have the background to judge it. Instead they will judge the demeanor of the debaters
I agree with you. Scientists have said breathing and drinking water both cause cancer–that’s nuts, everyone knows it. The average person doesn’t heed much of science because of things like that.
But the personality of the people who push manmade global warming is something people can understand. Dan Weiss, Ed Begly Jr., Andrew Watson, they have given a bad image to global warming. Ben Santer saying he wants to beat up another scientist is giving global warming a bad image.
I wish to see more of this ilk on tv. They are doing the work of exposing what manmade global warming really is.
I ♥ ClimateGate.
P Wilson (19:30:12) :
How many times was Morano interrupted by the rude interviewer as opposed to Watson? How many times did Morano tell Watson to shut up? How many times did Morano tell Watson to stop shouting, talking? Who’s doing the character assassinations?
The bias of the BBC could be seen in the debate. I think they live in a bubble and don’t even know how obvious their bias is.
If this wave of ClimateGate continues soon global warming will just become a caricature of itself.
Dave Wendt (20:01:01) :
…psychology of eye witness testimony….“the eye sees what the mind wants it to see.”
I see ClimateGate showing the true colors of global warming and taking down AGW. I think that is really happening.
JDN (20:38:45) :
Is that agressive enough for you, or, would you prefer a brawl on-air? 🙂
Ben Santer may accommodate that.
Patrick Davis (23:39:41) :
When people start to lose an argument, verbally at least, they usually resort to verbal abuse.
————————–
Insecure feelings cause rash words too.
joshua corning (23:39:50) :
you think people are paying much attention to Briffa these days?
Senator Inhofe was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news today.
He came across very well, quite calm and well-mannered.
Though he wasn’t ‘up against’ anyone except the BBC interviewer.
He was saying that anything Obama might agree to in Cpnhgn wouldnt get thru congress.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (02:57:28) :
It really does not matter whether the people writing this code were “smart” or not. What matters is that the result is of very poor quality.
The code produced the results they wanted. Predetermined results in, predetermined results out.
Steve McIntyre received a nice mention and quote in this Climategate article. This is the second Sunday in a row where this reporter wrote an even to skeptical piece. This was the lead commentary on the front page of a regional newspaper between NYC and Philly. It is getting more and more mainstream press.
http://www.mcall.com/news/all-climateqt1.7106493dec06,0,6171722.story
Also, here is an Op-Ed from the same paper. This issue is getting warmer even if it’s getting colder outside.
http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/letters/all-kleinschmidt1127.7100655dec06,0,6517985.story
These e-mails are just shocking…
From: “Kevin Trenberth”
To: mann@psu.edu
Subject: Re: FYI
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 08:24:12 -0600 (MDT)
Reply-to: trenbert@ucar.edu
Cc: “Phil Jones” , “Ben Santer”
“Hi Phil
I am sure you know that this is not about the science. It is an attack to
undermine the science in some way. In that regard I don’t think you can
ignore it all, as Mike suggests as one option, but the response should try
to somehow label these guys and lazy and incompetent and unable to do the
huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database. Indeed
technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything
was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their
motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with
nothng better to do seems like a good thing to do.”
Now who is actually too lazy and incompetent and unable to do th huge amount of work it takes to construct such a large database?
Clive, I am sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant that this is the first TV clip I’ve seen of a debate between a climate scientist and a skeptic. I know there’s been print coverage in Canada but very little on TV. I don’t watch the CBC but I did see the Rex Murphy clip…on the net.
In defense of my fellow Americans, the public does have a some background in science but they have been purposefully misinformed by the media and purposefully mislead by those they believed they could trust. (In many areas, not just this one.) It isn’t that most could not follow the basic science if they were working with honest information, rather it is that they have been inundated this past decade with super-sized propaganda.
Any warming can be traced to the urban heat island effect. Cities have been getting warmer but rural sites have not. At GISS check rural sites that are over 100 km from urban sites (and with continuous readings back before 1920) and you will be hard pressed to find sites that show any warming. Look up on YouTube “Global Warming Urban Heat Effect” to see a little video that says a lot.
So Simple A Sixth Grader Can Understand It!
Complaining of Character Assassination, then looking smug and saying “what an asshole” 30 seconds later? HAHA. Regardless of anything else going on within the debate, that was a poignant moment 😉
“It exposes the manufactured consensus!”
Made me want to put some war paint on. He did well.
I have long suspected, at least in the field of climatology, that “peer review” was synonymous with “peer pressure”. The display of neener neener potty language by the warmist only reaffirms my original opinion.
photon without a Higgs (08:55:18) :
Dan Weiss, Ed Begly Jr., Andrew Watson; AGW have any more representatives they’d like to put on tv? These first three worked out great!!
They’re getting to the fat of their batting order–Al Gore is on deck.
OT, but I need help here. I’m a layman trying desperately to understand as much as I can. The impact of all the AGWers slinging of ‘hash’ is that I really am beginning to get lost.
Global warming IS still on hiatus, isn’t it?
Man’s influence on temps is still unproven?
Are we losing ice on a global scale or not?
I’m sorry to sound so stupid, but I’m beginning to lose my footing! I thought I knew what was going on, but this whole Climategate thing has brought out a bunch who would like to blur the lines to lessen the impact.
Is there a place I can look for a sort of state-of-the-world summary? w/o AGWers influence?
Thanks!
Have you noticed how the tv anchor never let Morano finish his lines of thought?
She kept on interrupting him in mid-sentence every time he was making a point.
Too much money is at stake here. People dont want to lose their jobs, and I feel like people who still have an ounce of integrity and uphold moral values are very few. Its sad. Johnson accuses the skeptics of “character assassination”, yet he freely calls Monroe an asshole after telling him to shut up.
I’m starting to wonder if this whole scandal was cooked on purpose to wag the dog.
“You see the tail moving, you assume the dog is wagging it, and enjoying it, but maybe the tail is wagging the dog, and the dog is enjoying the attention! “. Some people are definitely benefiting from all the attention because there is no such thing as bad publicity. Look how the stars of hoolywood keep on getting in trouble and live on scandal after scandal to get attention drawn upon them.
Its sickens me and I feel like vomiting.
To be fair, he was an asshole.
Mr. Asshole behaved much worse than Mr. Scientist.
http://www.stevefielding.com.au/ets_petition/
folks.
Steve is an Australian Senator who has publicly doubted Gores business model. He is asking for names on a petition which you can E-sign through the above link. Most importantly he is asking for a Royal Commission.
please sign.
regards
Fred (21:44:35) :
To be fair, he was an asshole.
Mr. Asshole behaved much worse than Mr. Scientist.
You appear to have identified an additional anal orifice who didn’t even appear on the program.
Shows you are not paying attention – the first requisite of good science! 🙂
Hidden in the “fluff” are many very important points that are being sifted and collated and recorded for future use by a lot of readers. Sure, it’s horses for courses. But take just one example: Bulldust showed that the exact airspace used by the interviewer Kenney, Prof Watson and Marc Morano was divided almost exactly in the ratio 2: 1: 1. This is evidence of ongoing BBC bias.
Lucy,
It is a given that the BBC are leftists, as are the ABC in Australia. But irrespective of AGW, are the media not already biased about everything? Of course they are.
To be honest, I found Morano irritating, as well as Watson.
I hope we can win this thing because the AGW movement is pure evil but for the conservatives, this is a policy; a way to win votes. Already, the skeptics are becoming associated with the republican party, conservative journalism and Liberals in Australia. This I don’t like because as I constantly reiterate, it reinforces partisan politics, not middle ground. But as Anthony says, beggars can’t be choosers! 😉
Climategate: Know Your Boreholes From Your A**holes, Dr. Watson; Peer-Reviewed Studies You Should Have Read
http://www.c3headlines.com/2009/12/climategate-know-your-boreholes-from-your-aholes-dr-watson-peerreviewed-studies-you-should-have-read.html
What we need is a well-versed, scientifically competent spokesperson, able to articulate without rising to the bait. It would be so good to see a proper debate chaired by Paxman or Neil, with none of the soundbite responses used by the Alarmists being allowed – no mantra, just facts.
So, we can leave the BBC out of any such arrangement, and sadly Channel 4, even though they did everyone a service by broadcasting the Great Global Warming Swindle. They appear to have bought into Copenhagen almost as desperately as the BBC.
If Watson thought the other fellow was making ad hominem remarks, he should have ignored them and responded to the real critique, The fact is that he whined about being attacked and addressed NONE of the criticisms. OK, his point that sometimes figures are “tweaked” for articles so that the message of the data is clearer to see is a valid one. But this debate is not about “tweaking one line of data,” but invalidating the whole basis for their conclusions. He refused to respond to the real debate here. I think he was unprepared for the exchange. He should have had some real rebuttal to what he could have anticipated the other guy would bring up.
IMHO, Morano was playing by the rules, forcefully stating his points. Certainly, I think he deserves to be able to finish his sentence without being shouted down.
How I wish Michael Crichton had lived to see this. He would have been overjoyed!!