UPDATE: This morning (Monday) brings sad news that Dr. Schneider has died, due to complications of cancer, apparently a heart attack. I was unaware that he was ill. While I strongly disagree with Dr. Schneider’s viewpoints, I am saddened by his passing, and my best wishes and sympathies go to his family. Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth has the story. The interview in Stanford magazine below may be one of his last, if not the last one. Therefore, out of respect for his family, I have decided to close comments at this time. – Anthony
Professor Stephen Schneider in Stanford Magazine.
The professor says:
We know that there are probably hundreds of tipping points. We don’t know precisely where they are. Therefore you never know which ones you’re crossing when. All you know is that as you add warming, you cross more and more of them.
It’s a target rich quote environment in the interview that he gave, for example, “blogs may cause civil war”:
Here’s the blog problem: We build up a trust [based] on which blogs just say what we like to hear. At least in the old days when we had a Fourth Estate that did get the other side—yes, they framed it in whether it was more or less likely to be true, the better ones did—at least everybody was hearing more than just their own opinion. What scares me about the blogosphere is if you only read your own folks, you have no way to understand where those bad guys are coming from. How are you going to negotiate with them when you’re in the same society? They’re not 100 percent wrong, you know? There’s something you have to learn from them and they have to learn from you. If you never read each other and you never have a civil discourse, then I get scared.
It’s fractionation into preexisting belief without any chance of negotiation and reconciliation. I don’t want to see a civil war, and I worry about that if the blogosphere is carried to a logical extreme.
Or how about this one, dissing the average American citizen as “incompetent to judge”:
We know we have a rough 10 percent chance that [the effect of global warming] is going to be not much; a rough 10 percent chance of ‘Oh, My God’; and everything else in between. Therefore, what you’re talking about as a scientist is risk: what can happen multiplied times the odds of it happening. That’s an expert judgment. The average person is not really competent to make such a judgment.
Yes but professor, the average American citizen is chosen by government to sit on capital murder cases as jurist as part of our constitutionally protected freedoms and civic duty. Such cases involve weighing hundreds of hours of testimony, forensic science, sometimes DNA evidence, and most certainly to decide if the truth is being told or not.
Yet those same citizens are unable to decide for themselves whether climate science is proved beyond a “reasonable doubt”? They can’t decide the magnitude of risk?
Most certainly, in the same proud California sitcom tradition as the ill fated Happy Days episode, professor Steven Schneider of Stanford has “jumped the shark“.
Read the entire interview at Stanford Magazine.
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Sounds like a nasty case of Dunning-Kruger.
The professor says:
We know that there are probably hundreds of tipping points. We don’t know precisely where they are. Therefore you never know which ones you’re crossing when. All you know is that as you add warming, you cross more and more of them.
================================================
Like the tipping point of mass insanity?
Warm or cold….there will always be the insane.
Thanks for reinforcing that, professor Schneider.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I have seen this phrase used a lot in the climate sphere, and I looked it up on wikipedia – it was not really helpful, as it does not seem to match this context. Can you explain what the phrase ‘jumps the shark’ means here? (I am not an American, so it might be a culturally thing – I did watch Happy Days, though.)
As one who has had scientific training, been a NOAA certified weather observer,
and a Professional Pilot (and Flight Instructor) for 28 years, Schieder is so full of himself as an Academic that he looks at us unwashed as ignorant and unteachable. Yet I have far more training and certification than AlGore, Pachauri , on the Warmist side,then Schineder, who says “look at both sides”. Try to make a comment on one of those pro AGW blogs and get cybersmashed-I have. Anthony allows debate, if you are decent, and there is plenty of that here….
“Jumped the Shark” indeed….
Professor Schneider: “That’s an expert judgment. The average person is not really competent to make such a judgment.”
======================================
And the “average person” pays your salary at Stanford….with a mix of money from various sources…including many student loans.
With those biased statements, will be sure to not listen to you as an expert…
…not unlike recently when I “listened” to the orthopedic surgeon who, when I horrifically broke my wrist in half,
*****d up the process by not calling in a hand surgeon.
And that is why an attorney is getting involved.
I could care less about your “expert judgement.”
[snip]
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“probably hundreds of tipping points”.
What makes me sad, is that I think he honestly believes that argument. The hubris of modern science leaves me shaking my head. They are beguiled by how far they have come in the last 50 years and seem to have no conception of what a smallish fraction that is of the total of what there is to know.
How does an already discredited man get so much air time?
Who cares what this idiot of an alarmist has to say?
Yup: DEFINITELY jumped the shark:
Open-and-shut case.
a logical extreme
Would that be better than his illogical extremes?
Stephen Schneider, a man familiar with extremes
Well, he did say: “Scientists also create some of their own trouble because we’re a very snooty, elitist bunch,…”
His point about the blogsphere leading people to only read the side they already agree with is interesting. Let’s do an informal test. How many regular WUWT readers also regularly read pro-AGW blogs like Climate Progress or RealClimate?
REPLY: Well at least one; me. But I no longer bother to comment at either since they censor my comments. For example once at RC they asked for ways to improve the blog. I responded (using my name) with a simple straightforward suggestion that was factual, and science based. Snip, gone. A few minutes later, from the same IP address, from my wife’s email acccount, another factual suggestion was offered. Sailed right through. The difference was my name was not attached. Got screen caps of that one, it’s a gem.
Of course Gavin and Joe are always welcome to comment here. Gavin commented a few times in the past. Joe never AFAIK. – Anthony
We know that there are probably hundreds of tipping points.
It seems he has lived past a tipping point for several years. The acorn plonked on the head still has him running.
Sadly I’ve come to the conclusion that 90% of academics are not worth feeding. Would anyone notice if we stopped their funding?
Reading that elitist buffoonery of Professor Schneider reminds me of why I declined to join the ranks of Mensa — there’s more to being smart than just being smart. So, which “experts” should I listen to?
Al “Sex poodle” Gore?
Steven “the earth will become like Venus” Hawking?
Michael “the trick” Mann?
It doesn’t take a genius to smell what’s being shoveled.
I can’t believe I read that entire article. This is a Stanford Professor you say? Isn’t Stanford supposed to be one of your better colleges of tertiary education? I must be confused…
REPLY: No, you have it right. – Anthony
Can you believe that guy?
We’re smart enough to earn the money that he lives off and to elect his bosses, and to sit in judgment on him when he’s tried for fraud, but we’re not smart enough to make the same judgment outside a court.
[snip]
I’ll have a lash at explaining “jumping the shark”:
It means you’ve gone so far past the point of relevancy, and reality, that you call everything that you’ve done or said previously into question. “Jumping the shark” is an action you take, or a statement you make, that causes the rest of the world to suddenly and negatively reassess your entire life’s work. It is a self-caused disaster of literary proportions, along the lines of Icarus flying too close to the sun.
As it applies to “Happy Days”: how can you re-watch the first episodes knowing how it ends up with Fonzie jumping the shark? The series was canceled shortly after that episode. My guess is that “Happy Days” hasn’t done well in re-run syndication either; what was once a pleasant show that was viewed as a serious, though comical, portrayal of Americana has become a joke. “Mr. Ed” ( a show about a talking horse made in the 1960’s) gets more respect than “Happy Days”.
An example of Jumping the Shark in the context of this blog would be Al Gore’s predictions that the Arctic had a 75% chance of being ice free by the summer of 2014. One thing the AGW crowd has learned is NOT to make predictions about 1 to 5 year time periods. Too easy to disprove.
The professor says:
We know that there are probably hundreds of tipping points. We don’t know PRECISELY where they are. Therefore you never know which ones you’re crossing when. All you know is that as you add warming, you cross more and more of them.
Huuh? I have heard some ridiculous statements from the AGW industry over the years but this one takes a prize and a rosette.
The statement crosses over into cult belief justification, What are these tipping points and where are they? Its like saying I know angels exist but I have never seen one but they must be all over the place and I might be standing next to one right now.
The utterly foolish anti scientific nature of filling in huge gaps in actual knowledge by inventing unkown and unproven causes/effects reminds me clearly of the phlogiston saga.
In reality there are no tipping points, it is a fiction with which to scare stupid and gullible people into being frightened, repent ye sinners or hell fires will consume thee/change your ways or damnation shall devour you via unseen devils.
I am sorry to say this but Steven Schneider is no scientist, he is a fully fledged and highly qualified cult member of a dangerous anti scientific quasi religious neo political anti democratic cult.
His ideological hatred of ordinary people mirrors that of the new political class, ordinary people should obey the new rulers because we “average people are not competent to make judgements about the supposed risks of AGW”. The rise of the self appointed expert who would deny the lower orders the right to judge the issues for themselves, they do however have the ‘right’ to finance and pay for and obey these self appointed high priests it seems.
In setting himself up as a superior better able to judge and decide for the little people he seems unable to grasp the irony of a scientist acting like a dark ages catholic priest.
Will people like him ban the supposedly unqualified lower orders from reading science literature?
If our future is to be decided by this kind of person then we are about to enter the land of sorrows.
Hi David Gould at July 18, 2010 at 9:33 pm. Here’s my take on Jumping the shark: to push something to the point of total absurdity. Yes, Fonzie was a way cool, beloved and talented guy, but the Happy Days show had been heading in the wrong direction in viewership that the writers, out of desperation, had Fonzie do a really absurd action: waterski and jump a shark. This to get more viewership. It did not work and was seen for the foolishness that it was.
The desperate failure of the global warming alarmists to convince the world of the validity of its disaster scenarios has led them to the point of mouthing absurdities — such as with Professor Schneider. The above quotes are presented with a straight face but are clearly evident of emotional and not scientific reasoning. He has jumped the shark into absurdity. I hope this helps.
Mike I have posed polite questions at RC before and suffered the same fate as Anthony… these days I just go to RC occasionally to skim through looking for the green text to see how ridiculous some of the “expert” comments are.
RC does let skeptic comments through, but only if they are the type that can be readily rebutted. They do not allow embarrassing questions through, like the ones I had about the number of trees in Briffa’s infamous paper. But despite RC’s ridiculous one-sidedness, Schneider here makes them look balanced by comparison.
There are indeed hundreds of tipping points in any big city.
Stop in, lay your money down, and toss back a few shots of your favorite elixir.
You’ll need a designated driver, however.
Hmm….that’s what is missing in the GCMs.
Schneider was probably just being rational, after all, most Americans aren’t competent to build a house, fix a car or fill a tooth, it could only the most irrational (actually lunatic) who could claim they’re all climate experts.
REPLY: Yes, but most Americans can easily judge the quality of the work done in building a house, fixing a car, or filling a tooth. And that’s what is going on with climate science today. The quality of work in climate science isn’t meeting the specifications. Otherwise, why would only 1 in 10 climate monitoring stations in the USA meet published specs? Why are we measuring the majority of worldwide surface data at airports, when airports have a safety mission that does not include climate monitoring? Why are we using tree ring proxies, that according to Liebigs law, respond to multiple things, not just temperature, for part of the hockey stick, throwing out post 1960 data (because it didn’t agree with the rest of the trend) and substitute instrumental data from those bad stations?
Sloppiness simply doesn’t sell, no matter whether it is housing, cars, dentistry, and yes, sloppy science presented as proof of needed policy change. At some point people get fed up with sloppy work and reject it. That is what is happening to climate science today. – Anthony
To me, “jumping the shark” means you have become a caricature of yourself. The form of something previously worthwhile remains, but the substance is dead. You can’t “jump the shark” if there had never been something to treasure that is now lost.
The 10% of Academics who are worth feeding would probably notice.
I see I have been post-snipped. [lol] Sorry about that. I didn’t think it was that bad.
Alright….I confess…my white shark temper gets the best of me.
Nothing like an arrogant professor [who draws his salary from students who will spend half their life paying it back, as well as the CAGW multi-billion dollar industry] from one of the finest universities in the world…to get your hackles up.
What he says is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Grrrrr.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA