From Jo Nova, just unbelievable. Of course Lewandowsky is involved too:
Skeptics equated to pedophiles — Robyn Williams ABC. Time to protest.
Hat tip to Graham Young editor of Online Opinion. Follow his twitter account.
These comments by Williams are far worse than what Alan Jones said in October that created a national storm.
News just in: This morning on the “science” show Robyn Williams equates skeptics to pedophiles, people pushing asbestos, and drug pushers.
Williams starts the show by framing republicans (and skeptics) as liars: “New Scientist complained about the “gross distortions” and “barefaced lying” politicians come out with…” He’s goes on to make the most blatant, baseless, and outrageous insults by equating skeptics to people who promote pedophilia, asbestos and drugs.
Full story here: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/breaking-skeptics-are-like-paedophiles-drug-robyn-williams-abc-time-to-protest/
One wonders how many alarmists will stand idly by while this goes on. One wonders if the University of Western Australia will have the integrity to censure Stephan Lewandowsky for his ugly remarks and for his outright lies cloaked under the approval of the University ethics department.
They have become the merchants of hate.
http://www.abc.net.au/contact/complain.htm
UPDATE:
Graham Young writes in Paedophilia, climate science and the ABC
In today’s Science Show Robyn Williams smears climate change sceptics by comparing scepticism of the IPCC view that the world faces catastrophic climate change because of CO2 emissions with support for paedophilia, use of asbestos to treat asthma, and use of crack cocaine by teenagers.
Don’t believe me? Then listen to the broadcast.
…
“Punitive psychology” as it is called, was widely used in the Soviet Union to incarcerate dissidents in mental institutions. In modern Australia the walls of the prison are not brick or stone, but walls of censorship, confining the dissident to a limbo where no-one will report what they say for fear of being judged mentally deficient themselves.
Such comments are like comparing someone to Hitler. It diminishes the reality of evil. The social conscience becomes jaded and the reality of evil is lessened until the understanding that pedophilia is evil becomes meaningless.
ian
Wow. Such naked psychological projection, hatred and bitterness. Pity them, for they are in desperate need of help.
“One wonders if the University of Australia will have the integrity to censor ”
That should be University of Western Australia…
Williams stopped learning science when he joined the ABC 40 odd years ago.
He has gone downhill since then, rapidly in the last few years.
He is now just a propaganda journalist.
They are getting more and more desperate as times goes on and as they are being continuously being proven wrong.
Excellent. They will appeal to a very small cadre of like minded extremists but alienate themselves even further from mainstream thinking. If Lewandowsky doesn’t complain about being associated with such nonsense he would have to be a real piece of work.
censor – should be ‘censure’?
REPLY: Yes voice recognition software issue – A
I was directly encountered with the following nonsense at the only other Internet site that I regularly contribute comments at, and I found it very upsetting to me because of the misrepresentation of the debate. This is why I fight.
“This is getting boring.
The debate over whether climate change is happening or not won’t be solved on C9, so discussing it here is pretty pointless.
For the record – other pointless discussions that won’t be solved here include:
* When will atheists realize they’re wrong and accept that Jesus drove a humvee?
* Is the US federal support for the communist agenda of evolution really just national pride by Obama, the Nigerian? And wouldn’t the US debt be lower if he stopped handing out our taxes in billion dollar hand-outs via emails through the Nigerian national bank?
* Why is so little scientific funding given to the study of whether earthquakes are caused by gay people?
* How come nobody’s noticed that all democrats have been hypnotised by communist illuminati-funded aliens who seek to rid us of our right to possess firearms to make their invasion plans easier?
* When will scientists stop using liberally biased things like facts and math to prove things, when it’s so obvious that gut-feelings are way better (I mean, gut feelings must beat math and facts at least 80% of the time I’d say)”
I tried to send a message from that page and it refuses. All fields are filled in but it refuses to send.
Nice problem solver for the ABC…
Agreed that U. Western Australia ought to act, but I think the word you want is “censure” rather than “censor” (both are from the same Latin root, but in English “censure” is about criticism or official reprimand while “censor” is about outright banning or prohibition — universities are not generally supposed to be in the censor-ship business even if they do lapse into it from political correctness):
cen·sure (snshr)
n.
1. An expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism.
2. An official rebuke, as by a legislature of one of its members.
tr.v. cen·sured, cen·sur·ing, cen·sures
1. To criticize severely; blame. See Synonyms at criticize.
2. To express official disapproval of:
Correction, James Allison. Lewandowsky IS a real piece of work.
At risk of repetition I noted at Jo Nova’s:
The thing to gun for here is the use of Prof L. to criticise those that misuse science for ideological reasons to justify their cause. The fact the Prof L. recently did exactly this with his publication on climate blogs (and demonstrated what a lightweight social scientist he is) should be what should be shoved up the science establishment in the ABC.
I’ve heard that you shouldn’t approach cornered animals.
So now what?
Probably the most vile thing I have ever seen.
I find this sort of thing very depressing. I think there is still a great deal to learn about climate change, and that the opinions of individuals matter very little if we fail to understand the processes that might…or might not…be causing changes. Slung mud can harden in the heat or slump in the cold rain…but are we getting better at prediction on that score?
“If Lewandowsky doesn’t complain about being associated with such nonsense he would have to be a real piece of work.’
Described to a tee, you caught his character in one sentence.!!
There must be an immense sense of frustration that nobody wants to buy their monkey woven shag carpet of delusion.
It’s totally disgusting what is going on in Australian academic institutions. All universities and colleges have code of ethics policies ESPECIALLY around verbally abusing/insulting people on “company time” using “company IT assets”. Written complaints appear to have little effect to stop it.
Science has always been at war with Warmism.
I love observing the infantile workings of the Warmist mindset in action. Although they are in the pay of Big Banks, big Energy and Big Government, they accuse us of being secretly funded by shady corporate interests. Likewise, when one of the high priests of their religion ‘Cardinal Mann’ is getting widespread notoriety as the ‘Jerry Sandusky of Climate Change’ because of his vindication by the same committee at Penn State that gave Jerry a clean bill of health…how do they respond? Simple. They try to smear skeptics with their own dirt.
On the subject of Robyn Williams, his Science Show is poorly named. The Magic Hour would be more appropriate!
As an Australian, I sent in my complaint. The ABC will do nothing, they are a BBC mini-me and do not tolerate dissension with the official policy.
A message to Robyn Williams and his acolytes,
from me via one of my favourite musicians:
What’s the ugliest
part of your body?
What’s the ugliest
part of your body?
Some say your nose,
Some say your toes,
But I think it’s your mind,
I think it’s your mind …
(Frank Zappa, We’re Only In It For The Money, 1967)
Complaint also sent to ABC. We have a program here called Media Watch on teh ABC where they pillory media including their very own hosts for poor reporting and nonsense such as this should be nipped in teh bud. – Complaint also forwarded to them too.
This is just another reason to label those who benefit from, and regurgitate the propaganda of, the Global Warming Industry as alarmists.
‘Huns’ might be a better word, as they were also involved in the mindless destruction of the western world’s economies.
This is the same bloke who with a straight face professes to believe a 100 metre rise in sea level rise in the next century is a possibility:
Following Williams pedophile slime, we await with interest the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s response. It’s worthy of note that the ACMA recently chastised Alan Jones of Sydney radio 2GB, requiring him to undertake training on “factual accuracy and significant viewpoints”, to wit:
I hasten to add we won’t be holding our breath!
Not alone i seemingly demonising others – see this lead on the BBC News site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20474120
“UKIP couple have foster children removed from care”
Now, the BBC isn’t my favourite oganisation of all time. And we have a particular problem in England [I think the whole UK] placing foster – or adopted – children.
But this – on the face – seems to be fairly bigoted, too.
What if I said that Labour members shouldn’t be able to foster – or vote – because of the things they actually did to the UK?
Whilst this is clearly very very ugly indeed.
It does underline the absolute paucity of the alarmists argument and the fact that many on the extremist side of Alarmism have lost their moral compass.
In fact you could ask, did they ever have one?
You guys are debating, they’re not.
You’re playing different games. And probably always will.
40 years and you still don’t get that they’re playing for control, regardless of the information?
This has always been about ‘war by other means” for them.
This is not even the worst of it. Just wait.
These are nazi practices. Dehumanization of alleged enemies of their agenda in order to make draconic measures against certain people look logical and inevitable, as if destroying vermin. A frightening development. Never forget the preview of their plans given in the 10:10 video.
The Green Khmer is what I call these extremists. The resemblance with the Red ones is incredible: anti-capitalistic, anti Western society, not accessible to reason, no respect for human life.
That pile of fetid dingos kidneys says more about them than it does about us. If that’s all they have left with which to answer their critics then they really have lost the plot.
Perhaps we should feel sorry for creatures so afflicted with hatred and frustrated ambition they have ceased to function as normal members of human society.
Also, BTW Anthony, it looks like the voice rec is working well *most* of the time, to the point where I forgot about it.
“He’s goes on to make the most blatant, baseless, and outrageous insults by equating skeptics to people who promote pedophilia”
Those are usually leftists – Roman Polanski apologists; European pirate party founders etc.
“, asbestos”
Promoting asbestos? Who does that? I guess asbestos salesmen, right? Are there still any?
” and drugs.”
Again, those are usually leftists (calling for a stop to the War On Drugs and Marijuana legalization).
So that seems to be the most arbitrary smear one can come up with. Anyway, when you get a lot of flak, you’re over the target.
Carry on.
A new Krystalnacht is in the works, and I don’t give a [self-snip] about godwin.
My complaint to ABC
Subject: References to Paedophilia in Science Program Your
Comments: Not only is this the most abhorrent and disgusting slur against any group of people whatever their scientific thoughts are. For this person to try to take advantage of what many children have to suffer in my opinion is the worse sort of propaganda that anyone could have thought of. What sort of people do you actually employ that seem to think that child abuse is a political weapon ? eh ?
So while children suffer at the hands of paedophiles this person is smirking and laughing about something he said knowing full well it would upset people.
So my bottom line is, this person is doing nothing more than using the genuine suffering of children for their own purposes. Shame on them, shame on all those involved.
In the UK we have a massive Paedophile case opening and I hope Robyn makes some jokes about that and has a good laugh about that too.
I will be making this known to international childrens’ charitiy organisations showing exactly what your reporters think about there suffering.
God, I am so angry about this.
u.k.(us) says:
November 23, 2012 at 10:59 pm
“I’ve heard that you shouldn’t approach cornered animals.
So now what?”
Carry on. In Germany, the warmist ftd, Financial Times Deutschland – a kind of wannabe economist, malthusian environmentalist bizarro paper – just called it quits. 350 people will have to find a productive job. Boo-ya!
Every time the word “denier” is used it we are equated to holocaust deniers. Has repetition perhaps dulled the sheer offensiveness of this comparison?
His hardly the first to try and make this link , the Guardains own Monboit has in the past told how people how fly are equated to paedophiles , the fact that shortly after making this claim the fact he went on North American book selling tour , and so racked up the air miles, is just a side issue .
So we have been hear before were deep greens have had no issue with using such silly and insulting claims to deal with those with ‘incorrect ‘ views .
Robyn Williams is the guy who claimed that due to AGW we are facing 100 foot sea level rises over the next century.
He is the ABC’s most senior science reporter.
It is utterly shameful, but hardly surprising.
Well I complained very strongly and asked for a response, so it’s the gulags for me I suppose.
Unfortunately @Johanna, Robyn “You’re all paedos” Williams did NOT agree with Flannery’s claim that 100 foot sea level rises are a possibility.
It was 330 feet (100m).
What a dick. I am certain that most of the warmists must be dicks too if they don’t call Williams on this.
That’s an awful thing to say about anyone, typical smear attacks. It’s almost becoming a hate speech. I believe in free speech, no if’s or buts. I guarantee tho, he wouldn’t get away with saying something like that in my company. Well… Unless it was intended as a bit of funny banter.
They have posted a short bit about it on their site:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/climate3a-who-denies3f/4381756
I’ve left them a comment but doubt it will be posted. Will not be surprised if not a single dissenting comment gets past their censuring censors.
Well they did warn you all you were in for some serious ‘Dirty Weather’, particularly after the climate had changed on them. Extreme or dirty it’s all the same to them now.
I think people who vent this way against contrarians and think of us as deniers of the plain facts, such as Gary Mount above, have been misled by the “global-warming deniers” equivocation that the alarmists use. I.e., that because:
A. The climate has warmed rapidly since 1980
B. Man’s CO2 emissions have risen rapidly since 1980
C. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
D. Sea levels have risen, and ice has melted, since 1980
E. 97% of scientists agree that those emissions have significantly raised the temperature
F. “Science” also projects continued warming as more CO2 is added by our emissions
It is therefore perverse, or denialistic, for us to argue that there’s no real threat from CO2. They’d be right if we did deny the above. But we don’t. What we deny are things like these. We Deny:
1. That there is no other good explanation than more CO2 for most of the temperature increase
2. That the insulating effect of additional CO2 is linearly additive
3. That the climate system incorporates positive feedback mechanisms that will catastrophically amplify the effect of additional CO2
4. That science has a good grasp of the known and unknown unknowns of the climate
5. That most climatologists are well-versed in the intricacies of the “attribution” (WG1) topic and the counter-arguments to the mainstream, IPCC’s reasoning
6. That the practitioners of climatology are objective and trustworthy
7. That the IPCC is objective and trustworthy
8. That the MSM’s environmental reporters are objective and trustworthy
9. That environmental organizations are objective and trustworthy
10. That the ordinary corrective mechanisms of science are in operation
11. That the contrarian case has been given a fair hearing
12. That projected impacts IF global warming occurs are evidence that global warming WILL occur
13. That renewables are, or soon will be, a cost-effective CO2 mitigation method
14. That renewables are “clean”
15. That CO2 is a pollutant, in the ordinary sense of the term
16. That we must move to renewables soon anyway
17. That poor countries will agree to, and abide by, significant limits on their CO2 emissions
18. That unilateral limitation of CO2 emissions by developed countries will have a significant effect on the rise in global temperatures and/or will inspire poor countries to follow in our footsteps.
19. That the public will long endure the cost of the mitigation measures warmists propose
20. That the economies of developed countries can afford the cost of renewables.
I dub this the Contrarians Credo. (We need a word for a negative credo.) I wrote it off the top of my head, so there are surely other equally significant things we deny. I urge Anthony to start a thread wherein WUWTers are invited to add to it, and modify it, to create a complete-enough Contrarians Credo of what we subscribe to. (A dirty two-dozen maybe.) It would make a handy quick-counterpoint we could copy and paste into many an online argument, or use in a slide in a PowerPoint presentation.
Johanna, you are slightly wrong. Williams famously asserted that sea level could rise by 100 metres in this century, just a few times more than 100 feet. The rest of your post is spot on.
Robyn Williams and you wonder why the team are struggling with why people don’t believe their alarmist views when you come up with this rubbish. You sir are a disgrace to ABC and people like you only help the side of the skeptics. Typical with environmentalists or greens, attacking people while having serious science ignorance issues.
A dissenter from established religious dogma is a heretic, not a denier.
That was actually quite frightening, really. Everyone really ought to listen to that.
Four more:
21. That only crank or crooked scientists oppose the consensus. (For a rebuttal, look at the list of notable scientists opposing the consesnsu on Wikipedia.)
22. That contrarians are a catspaw for Big Oil and/or that there is a “well-organized, well-funded denial machine.”
23. That extreme weather is really such and/or that it is primarily due to warmer temperatures
24. That the data climatologists rely on is as reliable as they think
By equating child abuse with scientific skepticism and freedom of expression the comments clearly have the effect of diminishing the seriousness of child abuse and the effect it has on victims. Do Lewandowsky and Williams really think that child abuse is simply something with which to abuse those they disagree with?
Child abuse is extremely serious as an issue on its own as the 28Gate BBC is finally having to accept after many years of ignoring child abuse carried out by one of it’s most prominent stars, the late J Saville.
I wonder whether such comments are related to feelings of guilt due to the CAGW activist video of exploding children and the recent Climate Reality experiment where a child sets dolls alight. It may also be a hysterical attempt at retaliation due to the Mann law suit concerning comments about Sandusky.
However before using such stupid comparisons against those who have every right in a free society to express their views, Williams and Lewandowsky should look closer to home:
“Western Australia has the highest rate of substantiated cases of child sexual abuse, well ahead of New South Wales which has the second highest rate at 11 per cent,” Ms Ellery said.
“In every other state and territory the rate of substantiated child sexual abuse is less than 10 per cent.
“The number of WA children falling victim to sexual abuse has risen from 253 in 2007-2008 to 298 this year.”
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/wa-has-worst-rate-of-child-abuse-report/story-e6frg13u-1225822209261
He that cannot justify his case without insult loses the argument.
I hope this gets prominence in the Sunday papers and The Australian etc etc ……..the best offence against these guys is to let people know what they are saying ……they are becoming more and more infantile as time goes on …..
I’m listening to that feature on ABC right now. Main point seems to be that ideology controls people’s choice of belief. Since the speaker’s brain is utterly destroyed by his own murderous genocidal ideology, he’s unable to see anything from an objective viewpoint.
But he’s perfectly correct in saying that ideology determines scientific belief. It’s a well-known fact that about 90% of all academics, in all fields, are hard-line blood-fetish Stalinists who love death above all else, and who wish to see the human species destroyed. So it shouldn’t be surprising that this 90% consensus of broad genocidal ideology among academics should be reflected among the “climatology” subspecies of academics, and this ideology shapes their “science”. In climate we have a choice between a theory that requires the death of all humans, versus a theory that sees humans as just another part of nature. These universal killers will of course pick the religious CO2 theory that requires genocide, and “deny” the factual observation of complex natural cycles, which implies that humans are nothing special.
Four more:
25. That outsiders can’t make informed criticisms of consensus climatology
26. That the hockey stick has been validated and Michael Mann exonerated
27. That the Climategate emails are insignificant and that their participants have been exonerated
28. That significant “acidification” of the oceans has or will occur and/or has been or will become harmful
Scarface says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:12 am
Don’t forget rewriting history
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/smoking-gun-that-ushcn-adjustments-are-fraudulent-2/
A CHALLENGE FOR ANTHONY WATTS, AND ALL HIS FANS!!!
===================================================
I’ve been tentatively planning to write a diary about the “Exxon-Mobil dog that DIDN’T bark”, and posting it at the progressive website, firedoglake.com (where I’ve posted extensively, also as metamars, often about climate science; as you can imagine, I’m often accused of working for Exxon Mobil, Koch brothers, etc. As in, just yesterday, by some fact-free smear merchant who attempted to hijack a diary of mine that had nothing to do with climate change.). However, it’s quite clear to me that, with Exxon-Mobil’s budget, they could EASILY fund an educational program – slick TV advertisements and all – educating the public about the climate science at odds with CO2 climate catastrophism. The fact that they do NOT do so, plus knowing about how the plutocratic class generally controls corporations via interlocking boards, plus other lines of reasoning and evidence that I don’t want to get into now, tells me that Exxon-Mobil is just fine with Carbon Taxes and Carbon Trading schemes. In fact, I expect them to get cut in, and profit, somehow, which is not implausible, given the Goldman Sachs angle in carbon taxation schemes. (Interlocking boards, though, implies that explicit quid pro quo is not necessary to act in a conspiratorial manner.)
I’m more of a populist and independent than a progressive. I don’t view our problems mostly about left vs. right, but rather top vs. bottom. I’m quite happy to read smart, so-called “extreme” lefties like Noam Chomsky, as well as smart, so-called “extreme” righties like Srdja Trifkovic at chroniclesmagazine.org.
Hence, I’m quite happy to see Tea Partiers gain political muscle, and wish progressive would get organized to make their desires have real political leverage. In particular, their desires that oppose plutocracy (which tend to be acceptable to populists.)
To that end, I’ve often suggested to progressives that they pamphlet schools (see here, and here, e.g.), which in suburbs – where so many of us live – are just about the only public gathering places there are, where public proselytizing is possible. (Main street has long since been eclipsed by privately owned shopping malls, who tend to suppress political activity, of all stripes.)
Well, I’ve been think about targeting conservatives with a diary or two about THEM pamphleting schools. In particular, on the subject of climate change science.
I HEREBY CHALLENGE WUWT, THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE, THE TEA PARTIES, AND ANY OTHER CONSERVATIVE, LIBERTARIAN, OR SINGLE INTEREST GROUP TO ORGANIZE A NATIONAL PAMPHLETING OF SCHOOLS, SPREADING THE SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE, INSTEAD OF CEDING NOT JUST THE SCHOOLS, BUT THE HOUSEHOLDS IN WHICH THE STUDENTS LIVE, TO THE ONE SIDED CO2 CLIMATE CATASTROPHIST CROWD. (OK, A FAIRER HEARING FOR REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE MAY BE HAD AT FOX NEWS, BUT THAT IS NOT GETTING THE JOB DONE – RIGHT?)
Computers and personal printers are ubiquitous, and most Americans are within either a short walk or short drive to their nearest high school and junior high school. Organizing a national school pamphleting effort basically involves creating a series of downloadable .pdf files, networking with activist and political groups (such as Tea Parties) to act in a coordinated fashion, and somehow divvying up the local schools between the grassroots pamphleters. If you could get Tea Parties to embrace this effort, many of them have already established relationships with neighboring Tea Parties, and have enough structure to them to pull this off.
ANTHONY WATTS:
YOU’VE SHOWN MARVELOUS LEADERSHIP, ON AN OBVIOUSLY LIMITED BUDGET, IN FIGHTING OFF THE CLIMATE CATASTROPHIST WOO. ALTHOUGH I HATE TO THROW EVEN MORE WORK ON YOUR SHOULDERS, THE SIMPLE FACT IS THAT YOU HAVE A PLATFORM THAT CAN REACH MILLIONS, AND MOST OF US DO NOT. SO, PLEASE CONSIDER TAKING A LEAD IN AT LEAST GETTING YOUR CONTACTS AND ALLIES TO BREAK THROUGH THE BOTTLENECK OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
DEAR ANTHONY AND FANS, HERE’S ANOTHER REASON FOR NOT TAKING THIS LYING DOWN: YOU DON’T KNOW HOW BAD THIS IS GOING TO GET. E.G., WILL ANTHONY BE SET UP, BY SOME KIND OF BLACK OP, TO BE ACCUSED OF BEING A PEDOPHILE? I PERSONALLY DON’T PUT SUCH LOW-LIFE TACTICS BEYOND THE SORTS OF PEOPLE THAT WANT TO FURTHER DEGRADE OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND HAND IT OVER TO SOME BEAUREAUCRATS, WITH FABULOUS SUMS OF MONEY SLOSHING AROUND, ALL THE BETTER TO REWARD SOME JACKASS FOR DESTROYING A LEADER FOR TRUTH. (YES I KNOW THIS SOUNDS PARANOID. WELL, TOO BAD. TAKE THIS THEORETICAL ARGUMENT HOWEVER YOU LIKE – THE NEED TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC ON REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE DOESN’T DEPEND ON IT.)
(Note: By “pamphlet schools”, I don’t mean an effort to enter the schools, where you generally have no business. Rather, I mean standing on the public sidewalk next to a school, and giving pamphlets to students and parents as they come by.)
[Reply – Not sure that Anthony will agree with your suggested tactic, much less take you up on it, but thank you for posting ~Mod]
Four more:
29. That our primary motivation is political (e.g., a knee-jerk rejection of governmental intrusion for the common good)
30. That our primary motivation is psychological (e.g., the consequences of warming are too scary to think about)
31. That we’re uninformed
32. That we won’t listen to reason
My disgust can only be expressed by saying [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] [snip] ……..[snip] !
I listened to the broadcast, and was amazed at what I heard. The psychologist researcher advocating “argumentum ad populum” as the way to go.
Four more:
33. That the endorsement of the IPCC’s conclusions by many of the world’s scientific societies is as significant as it appears
34. That the motives of climate change activists are entirely unpolitical (in a broad sense)
35. That climatologists have no vested interest in alarmism
36. That contrarian criticisms of the consensus have been refuted
First they take your guns, then they take your money, then they take your right to dissent. That’s how freedom dies.
A tiger can’t change his stripes, a leopard can’t change his spots, and alarmist can’t change who he is either. It is not about science; it is about control. What bothers me the most is those who want to control us always exclude themselves from the rules they tell us to follow. If you are unwilling to live a certain way, don’t ask me to either.
But of course all the faithful still drive cars, heat their homes, use electricity, fly on jets, etc. They are the worst kind of hypocrites.
“One wonders how many alarmists will stand idly by while this goes on.”
I think I can help here, providing I can ask one question.
How many alarmists are there?
I have read through the comments, and no-one seems to realize what fantastically GOOD news this is. The warmaholics are getting REALLY desperate. On both the political and scientific fronts, everything has been, and still is, going wrong for them. I am sure on this forum I dont need to spell out the details. However, I do notice that this year, as opposed to the previous two, the Met. Office in the UK has not jumped the gun before the Doha meeting of the UNFCCC, in predicting the average global temperature for 2012. Maybe they have learned that these doom and gloom predictions have no basis in science.
I know it has been quoted many times, but I think Ghandi’s words are worthwhile repeating. They are as true today as they were when he spoke them. “First they ignore us; then they laugh at us; then they fight us; then we win”. This latest tirade is surely a sign that we skeptics are well on the road to victory.
u.k.(us) says:
November 23, 2012 at 10:59 pm
“I’ve heard that you shouldn’t approach cornered animals.
So now what?”
For higher order animals, adopt a heroic pose, and recite from Shelly:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
For outraged pond rabbits, rapid moles and rabid voles (or climate lemmings), grab your
hockey stick and swing away Merrill.
The Global Warmists seem to fit this profile to a tee.
http://www.childluresprevention.com/pdf/Profile-of-Molester.pdf
Isn’t McKibben a Sunday School teacher? Doesn’t Al Gore use children in his video propaganda? What about the BBC?
Maybe it’s time for a WUWT anti-defamation page that catalogs, calls out, and refutes all these slanderous statements.
metamars says:
November 24, 2012 at 4:43 am
“I’m more of a populist and independent than a progressive. I don’t view our problems mostly about left vs. right, but rather top vs. bottom. I’m quite happy to read smart, so-called “extreme” lefties like Noam Chomsky, as well as smart, so-called “extreme” righties like Srdja Trifkovic at chroniclesmagazine.org.”
You’re the second guy I hear of who thinks Chomsky is smart.
Nigel S says:
November 23, 2012 at 11:42 pm
And with this, it is obvious Warmism is now at war with science.
And logic.
And decorum.
And it’s their loss. Ahoy!
Scientific weakness exposed
Such comments by Williams and Lewdanowsky et al. clearly show that the evidence is weak for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Instead, it increasingly shows natural variations dominate anthropogenic impacts, and that climate sensitivity is much lower than feared, exposing alarmist models as based on the argument from ignorance. We may even have some global cooling in the next few decades. Consequently, climate alarmists (“greens”) are pushing climate models that do not fit the data, harping on “extreme weather” with little evidence. The situation has become so desperate that climate alarmists are now retreating to rhetorical appeals and descending to ad hominem attacks of climate realists (“skeptics”) who avoid joining in their alarms. See:
Compare the legal advice:
Pound the Facts, Pound the Law, Pound the Table
Golden Book Magazine 1934: Jacob J. Rosenblum on what every lawyer knows.
The Rotarian 1925:
See the Quote Investigator for references and for more recent condensed versions.
The science will show itself in time. After all this isn’t about an ideology that is competing with another ideology. Sometimes I think we forget that there is only one true fact about our subject of interest and it isn’t about for example which economic system is the best or who is more fun, blonds or brunettes. If we are correct, eventually we will be proven correct.
On the other hand, what no one has ever said before, at least I have yet to read it anywhere, is that if we are wrong, and the scientific data clearly shows that the alarmists are right, then it will be very, very easy to reduce emissions, to get people throughout the world to do what is necessary. The world will not heat up as much as some claim, because we would act, and do so enthusiastically.
However, currently all the thousands of hours that I have spent researching just the topic of global warming / climate change alone has informed me that it would actually be a good thing to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, there certainly isn’t any valid reason to be worried, etc.
Well, there they go again. Linking Penn State to Michael Mann.
The truly insane are now running the asylum. My God help us all.
This is a good time to review the recent history of persecution.
This quote from the above article stands out:
Blockquote> Famous artists and scientists played an important role in this campaign of dispossession and party labeling of literature, art, and science.
History is repeating….
Thanks for the correction, guys. For once, it really is worse than I thought!
From what I have read around the blogs recently, the ABC, the BBC and the Canadian BC are peas in a pod when it comes to climate reporting. The worst of it is, they do it with money that is forcibly extracted from us. At least the free enterprise sections of the media pay their own way, and mostly do not pretend to be holier-than-thou.
This is yellow, gutter ‘journalism’ at its worst.
Oscar Bajner says:
November 24, 2012 at 6:20 am
Love the M. Night reference and the message.
The desperation is palpable. They alienate themselves. The general public can sense the hatred.
Filthy but not unexpected. It appears unlikely that Robyn Williams will ever recapture the originality of his “Mork and Mindy” period. Particuarly like the “Green Khemer” tag.
It was bound to come. Pedophiles are universally hated. Any “open-minded, non-judgemental” person will froth at the mouth if you dare say the “P” word. We brand them (mentally ill though they are) with electronic scarlet “P’s”. Since a large number of younger people may not understand the “deniers” term and how evil that makes skeptics due to Hitler and WWII and all that boring history stuff, switching to a term that evokes intense hatred by virtually every person in society makes sense. It’s the ultimate hate tactic from people who outlawed negative speech against those of certain races and sexual orientations (protection). Climate science now trumps most religions for use of fear and guilt to demand people believe. So much for religion lacking facts and being punitive and guilt motivated. Religions are now rank amateurs in the game.
That came from the same side as had the exploding kids video.
Reblogged this on News You May Have Missed and commented:
Climate Ugliness goes nuclear
Roger Knights says:
We Deny:
1. That there is no other good explanation than more CO2 for most of the temperature increase
2. That the insulating effect of additional CO2 is linearly additive
3. That the climate system incorporates positive feedback mechanisms that will catastrophically amplify the effect of additional CO2
4. That science has a good grasp of the known and unknown unknowns of the climate
5. That most climatologists are well-versed in the intricacies of the “attribution” (WG1) topic and the counter-arguments to the mainstream, IPCC’s reasoning
6. That the practitioners of climatology are objective and trustworthy
7. That the IPCC is objective and trustworthy
8. That the MSM’s environmental reporters are objective and trustworthy
9. That environmental organizations are objective and trustworthy
10. That the ordinary corrective mechanisms of science are in operation
11. That the contrarian case has been given a fair hearing
12. That projected impacts IF global warming occurs are evidence that global warming WILL occur
13. That renewables are, or soon will be, a cost-effective CO2 mitigation method
14. That renewables are “clean”
15. That CO2 is a pollutant, in the ordinary sense of the term
16. That we must move to renewables soon anyway
17. That poor countries will agree to, and abide by, significant limits on their CO2 emissions
18. That unilateral limitation of CO2 emissions by developed countries will have a significant effect on the rise in global temperatures and/or will inspire poor countries to follow in our footsteps.
19. That the public will long endure the cost of the mitigation measures warmists propose
20. That the economies of developed countries can afford the cost of renewables.
21. That only crank or crooked scientists oppose the consensus. (For a rebuttal, look at the list of notable scientists opposing the consensus on Wikipedia.)
22. That contrarians are a cat’s-paw for Big Oil and/or that there is a “well-organized, well-funded denial machine.”
23. That extreme weather is really such and/or that it is primarily due to warmer temperatures
24. That the data climatologists rely on is as reliable as they think
25. That outsiders can’t make informed criticisms of consensus climatology
26. That the hockey stick has been validated and Michael Mann exonerated
27. That the Climategate emails are insignificant and that their participants have been exonerated
28. That significant “acidification” of the oceans has or will occur and/or has been or will become harmful
29. That our primary motivation is political (e.g., a knee-jerk rejection of governmental intrusion for the common good)
30. That our primary motivation is psychological (e.g., the consequences of warming are too scary to think about)
31. That we’re uninformed
32. That we won’t listen to reason
33. That the endorsement of the IPCC’s conclusions by many of the world’s scientific societies is as significant as it appears
34. That the motives of climate change activists are entirely apolitical (in a broad sense)
35. That climatologists have no vested interest in alarmism
36. That contrarian criticisms of the consensus have been refuted
Four more?
37. That “when we are” being at the end of an interglacial is irrelevant.
38. That the missing hot spot is irrelevant.
39. That the lack of warming in the last decade+ is irrelevant.
40. That temperature responds linearly to heat flux changes given the Stefan-Boltzmann curve.
DirkH says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:22 am
….. asbestos”
Promoting asbestos? Who does that?
_________________________________
The people who realize that in certain applications asbestos is the better product. Ask any older truck driver who has had to jump out of his truck with a fire extinguisher to put out a brake fire because the new material used in brakes BURNS. Asbestos is a rock it does not burn and it does not melt except at high temperatures, between 1200C and 1500C.
Smoking and asbestos exposure is the deadly combination because smoking wipes out the cilia that move debris from the lungs and it does so permanently. (Very old info from teachers on why not to smoke) link
http://www.asbestosnetwork.com/exposure/ex_smoke.htm
As usual nothing is ever black or white and hysteria should not be used to make important decisions.
He he,
they are in the last stage of a conversation after that they will be marginalized because they are pegging themselves as nasty bigots who can’t hold a simple clean conversation.
I gave up on them long ago because they are like the dirty pigs who continually ask skeptics to join them in their mud hole and squeal in delight they when snared one who foolishly falls for it.
I have stopped debating with warmists now because they have developed the art of the lie and self deception.They simply fail to see the reality that is in front of them and their replies are of the smear,lies and distortions kind topped with some cruel words.
The last time I talked to a CAWG believer he tried hard in his lies to convince me that Temperature FOLLOWS CO2 changes on the 6-12 month scale.I knew then he was willing to ignore the absurdity of his claim because of the impossibility of what he proposed.
Lets face it people we are dealing with propagandists who are nakedly trying to tie up the skeptics wih a barrage of baloney.
Another thought on asbestos. The early studies could not find any deaths among non-smokers. Later studies were all over the place and some showed the smoking – asbestos link did not exist. I really wonder if the non-smokers in the later studies were actually reformed smokers who had given up smoking but whose cilia was missing. Really depends on how “non-smoker” was defined doesn’t it?
“Skeptics equated to pedophiles — Robyn Williams ABC”
This is good news for us skeptics, because it shows the Alarmists are losing their minds over losing the argument over AGW.
Dang. John West and Roger Knights have convinced me I’m a Denier! Well done, Messers West and Knights.
Maybe that’s why Robyn Williams et al are all so ticked off! That’s the normal reaction when fools are exposed.
John West says:
November 24, 2012 at 8:26 am
Roger Knights says:
We Deny:
I would add at the end of your denials ….
“But we believe in natural climate change”
An Aussie desmogger call Monckton a liar doesn’t hold a candle to the pedophile story, but it is another example of climate ugliness going nuclear. For over three weeks this story has topped out in my IPCC Google news search:
“Climate Science Denialist Lord Monckton’s IPCC Appointment That Wasn’t! (see:
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/01/climate-science-denialist-lord-monckton-s-ipcc-appointment-wasn-t)
It’s an old WUWT question but it deserves asking again. Why was this desmogger’s story awarded such high ranking by Google News? For over three weeks! Reader demand surely didn’t keep it on top. The story received only three comments, all on November 4th. Google says freshness, diversity, rich content, and originality are used by ‘non-humans’ to rank its stories (see: http://news.google.com/). Journalism must be beyond my grasp. All I can figure is Google’s non-human news-bots are also programmed to reward creative hatchet jobs by Aussies against Brits.
The ‘desmogger’ did give us an interesting hint about his source …. an ‘IPCC secretariat’, he says. A secretariat is a government office, isn’t it? Not a person. You don’t suppose he meant Pachauri, do you?
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Friends:
Some here seem to think that defiling climate realists is new. It is not. It has been the ‘stock in trade’ of AGW-supporters from the start.
AGW-supporters assume that such defamations work in their favour because they live in a bubble of like-minded idiots who applaud such statements as that made by Robyn Williams; e.g. they fail to see anything wrong with Hansen’s infamous “death trains” assertion, see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/15/hansen-on-death-trains-and-coal-and-co2/
In common with all cultists, the AGW-supporters are amused by any horror against heretics to their faith, so they think it will amuse others; e.g. the infamous 10:10 ‘red button’ video, see
http://www.bing.com/search?q=10%3A10+video&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=10%3A10+video&sc=0-22&sp=-1&sk=
Indeed, AGW-supporters assume that breaching Godwin’s Law works in their favour and use it as a common assertion against climate realists. And they are shocked when it works against them; e.g. as it did in the St Andrews Uni. debate, see
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
Which is worse to be likened to paedophiles or to be likened to Mengele who defiled both children and adults? But those AGW-supporters failed to understand why the comparison was a major reason why they lost the debate.
In my opinion, the smears of climate realists by AGW-supporters are useful because the smears discredit those who do the smearing: people who do not share their faith are appalled at the smears.
Richard
It is ironic that this is being said during the week that thousands of people will be catching flights into another exotic location to discuss the “problem”. Literally, millions of air miles and countless limos, to say nothing of the logistics to support them. I’m not sure, but I doubt that they’ll be eating food that’s grown locally through sustainable agricultural practices. Somehow, they find it necessary to do this every year.
When you question one of the true believers about the hypocrisy of these annual gatherings, the answer is usually something along the lines of “Well, it’s a necessary evil if they are to save the planet”. I’m always amused by that response, especially coming from people who advise me that I should be willing to embrace windmills and solar panels despite their glaring imperfections, but seem to find web conferencing unappealing and kludgy. I can understand their frustration. It’s really hard to get a gourmet meal or good bottle of wine at a web conference.
One would hope that they would look at what surrounds them in Doha and realize that whatever legitimate concerns they may have once had about the climate have been completely overwhelmed by money and influence peddling. Whatever idealistic values may have led them to believe that the world would be better without fossil fuels should leave them feeling very unsettled as they witness the circus in Qatar.
What’s the name for the people who think that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012? That’s what these hysterics need to be called.
Where are the academic psychologists when there is really something to study. Oh yeah and where ares the usual trolls and warmist cheer leaders when there is a thread like this. If the latter want any respect, they should also be jumping all over this terrible stuff. Does Real Climate and Open Mind actually agree with this R. Williams stuff? Comon, man up you guys – you might get a bit of respect.
Gerald Machnee says: November 24, 2012 at 8:12 am
That came from the same side as had the exploding kids video.
Several people attempted to make a small museum of warmist psychosis.
There is a saying in the Netherlands that translates pretty much into the following:
“What you say of others you are yourself.”
This CO2-religion is now forcing UK power stations to burn wood thereby destroying many other industries. I wrote this the the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change:
http://blog.decc.gov.uk/2012/11/22/using-wood-for-bioenergy/#comment-58080
‘My Dear Bernie, as you have a scientific training you should know there can be no CO2-AGW. The ~100 m IR emission/absorption depth of the atmosphere is within 1 K of the Earth’s surface so its thermal IR, near enough black body, switches off IR in those same bands at the surface apart from a few water vapour sidebands.
No IR absorption, no ‘GHG blanket’, no CO2-AGW. This is basic radiation physics. Unfortunately, meteorologists like Trenberth are taught incorrect physics and imagine ‘pyrgeometers’, IR pyrometers, measure a real energy flux, not a temperature signal. So, the models exaggerate warming by ~6.8x.
Please tell the loonies at DECC there can be no CO2 climate change, the Earth is cooling as the sun’s magnetic field heads below 1500 Gauss and cloud cover increases and we should be planning for ice blocking the Northern ports from ~2020. This has been the biggest scientific and commercial fraud in history and DECC is at the heart of it.’
The meltdown will get louder and uglier, the cynics have made their money and pulled away from climate alarmism, leaving the true believers to carry the fall out. True believers do what they do, the more reality intrudes into their beliefs and conflicts with those beliefs, the more rigid the believers become. But I am waiting for the penny to drop, when the followers realize they have been used, screwed and tattooed, which means they will be the easily identified scapegoats as this scam crumbles. Lots of unhappy taxpayers already, looking for those to blame for massive destruction of public wealth and lapse of common reason by our leaders and civic employees.
Ma Nature has a sense of humour, co2 up = Temps down. If you are going to use the hot 1/2 of a cycle to promote a scam, you have to pull it off before the cool 1/2 starts. Times up and games over, hence the panic, fear and projection. If you believe that the means justifies the ends, lying for the cause is Ok, exaggeration normal and integrity is for old fools, well your prediction of other peoples reactions will be based of your values. Meaning terror is loose in the alarmist camp, remember these people have fantasies of prison, education camps, war crimes trails and blowing the heads off children and any one else who questions the divine wisdom of CAGW. Now they seem to fear, because of projection, that society will treat them as they intended to treat the doubters.
And I say they should be very frightened.. ala Arthur Dent. The internet never forgets, so the UN now intends to seize the internet, all private firearms and probably introduce triple-speak as they have already double-speak as their norm. Immunity from prosecution for advising the UN IPCC?
Interesting times ahead,I predict our governments are about to get the hemorrhoidal treatment they are due, there is no room for trust in institutions that have let us down so badly as this hysteria over CAGW/Climate Change.
These bloated organisms have turned on their host, thats us, and are destroying the culture from which they grew,a little govt is necessary , a lot of govt is corruption on steroids. The parasite has killed the economy, sucking so much lifeblood that that nothing moves.
Sarcastic comment of this week, “Your opinion of your govt and its minions, will never be higher than it is today.” Because what underlies the Climate-gate emails is systematic corruption of govt agencies and practices, as I see it our watchdogs have been used to attack us. I am old school if a dog bites me without provocation, thats the last thing it bites. Which brings to mind the media, what a bunch of prancing ninnies, their attempts to deflect blame from themselves will be gems of twisted rationalizing. We were dead for tax purposes? The money was too good? Or but we really cared for nature, so we had to lie to you? It was our religious right to spread the faith? Best response to the media alarmists is to play or sing Tiny Tim , The Ice Caps Are Melting, and rub in the date of manufacture.
I’m inspired by what Roger Knights says above, but think his Contrarian’s Credo should be limited to the science alone and not include comments about the character or behavior of “warmists” or the likely behavior of policy makers. So, my suggestion for the credo is:
I deny:
1. That our global temperature measurements are of sufficient history and extent to show a global rise in temperature from CO2 and other gases emitted by man.
2. That any temperature changes that might have occurred can be confidently be attributed to CO2 or other gases.
3. That the climate system incorporates positive feedback mechanisms that will catastrophically amplify the effect of additional CO2 as the global climate models are constructed to have.
4. That science has a good grasp of the known and unknown unknowns of the climate and that global climate models are of sufficient quality to explain temperatures or rain around the global and that projections of even 10 years from now are sufficiently good for purposes of policy planning.
5. That CO2 is a pollutant, in the ordinary sense of the term.
Some others have added details which, true or not, amount to technical details or minor points that amplify one or more of these points of science or are objectionable as outside of the science.
Robyn Williams has always been an out-of-control entertainer — exaggeration, especially obscene exaggeration, is his schtick, his modus operandi. Attacking him is a misdirection — you should instead ridicule, as a matter of course, those who solicit his input on a serious scientific and political issue. Something along the lines of, “Doesn’t everybody know this fellow is a COMEDIAN, for heaven’s sake?! Just who do they think they are kidding by having him on to make his patented outrageous and inappropriate comments?”
So, they’ve got to the bottom of the barrel as far as comparing skeptics to the most loathsome of all – Nazis, pedophiles… anybody or anything lower they haven’t used? I can’t think of any. But, of course, when that doesn’t work, they will have nowhere else to go but to action. All of their hate-filled propaganda is failing so they will see the need to take action (you have to remember, in their minds, denialists are the most evil and dangerous people in all of history and the truly righteous always standup to fight for the good). Now, we’ve started seeing unorganized bits of action on their part – the Gleick incident with Heartland immediately comes to mind but what we haven’t seen and is certainly on the way, is organized physical attacks and an increase in online attacks. Off hand, I’d say the most obvious target of violent protest would be the Heartland Conference but also, if ELF has taught us anything, violent, destructive attacks on individuals, their homes and their offices are on the way. For those that think the ilk of Williams will be diminished in the public eye by their bottom of the barrel propa-slime, I think you’re wrong. I think they are merely working toward the justification of physical attack – they don’t need the larger public for that, they need only a small, vicious band of disciples.
Making a revolting comparison to both shut down further scrutiny of CAGW (thereby continuing the government reorg of the economy in the name of necessity) while making it socially illegitimate to be a skeptic. Indeed a tactic of desperation.
Those expecting the university to censure do not appreciate the global role accreditation and the Orwellian named Quality Assurance programs have for spreading UNESCO and UNEP priorities globally via education. The model is that a combo of govt officials, Big Business, and Higher Ed institutions are to control the economies of the West using CAGW as the rationale. As I mentioned on a different thread, the idea we are not keeping to our respective silos and wondering why so many false narratives is very frustrating for our international class of parasitic schemers. Instead, we share the falsities and notice the commonalities. Naughty Prospective Serfs!
I used a piece from Friedrich Hayek’s 1944 Road to Serfdom book the other day to describe why both education and the media actually have every reason in the world to deliberately foster ignorance and inaccurate info anytime the government is seeking to make Statism and Dirigisme the preferred model. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/being-grateful-for-what-we-know-and-appreciating-why-it-matters/
The US Common Core has parallels in every country I cover including Europe, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. I have tracked Kohlberg’s pernicious Stages of Moral Development into Hong Kong for goodness sake. In every caes it always tracks back to UN institutions and the World Bank and the OECD. Largely unaccountable bureaucrats with tax free salaries paid for by us deciding how everyone else ought to live and wanting central direction of economies.
What will the excuse be if CAGW falters in the public eye? Desperation clearly brings out desperate rhetoric to preserve the Justification for Control.
RE: Robyn Williams’ comments (which I didn’t listen to, not worth it to download the player for Mac): Doesn’t OZ have “free” healthcare? Does this include treatment for mental/emotional problems?
Skeptics equated to pedophiles?
As usual the carbon cult gets their facts backwards and is projecting their own failings onto everyone else. The facts are in, and it is the climate cult that is hiding and protecting pedophiles in their midst, as was aptly illustrated by the latest BBC scandal.
john says:
November 24, 2012 at 6:29 am
john, your comment cited above is out of line. I am surprised it passed moderation.
I think I would like to commend the ABC for presenting this interview. This is the true beauty of free speech. The ignorant, desperate, scientifically illiterate luminaries behind the CAGW scare can present themselves to the world and show their true colours.
Okay, now add this to the equation.
In some EU countries politicians have been fantasizing about allowing the police to use trojans. Yes, police should be allowed to plant a virus on a suspect’s computer to find out things about them, so they think. Of course, officially this would require a warrant, and an actual suspect. In reality this opens the door for massive abuse. All it would take is someone becoming a suspect for, let’s say pedophilia. Then the police puts a trojan on his computer. And, given how politicians influence the police these days, well… Good night.
I have been around corporate “science” disputes that went massively political. One thing I noticed is that the personal attacks projected by aggressive personalities in the massive wrong, repeatedly reflected their own faults and misdeeds. These were “clever” politically, stupid scientifically, dishonest and even pathological personalities, ruinous to the corporation but personally successful careerwise.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the accuser turned out to be the pedo.
Well, at least we have a choice between “Paedophiles” and “Urine stained alcoholic” badges, as in the earth photo caption from Tom Chivers Daily Telegraph article:
“Round or flat? What do YOU think, Professor of Astronomy? And you, Urine-Stained Alcoholic?”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100189497/the-bbc-isnt-balanced-in-its-reporting-of-climate-change-but-the-facts-arent-balanced-either/
M. Nichopolis says:
November 23, 2012 at 10:02 pm
“Wow. Such naked psychological projection, hatred and bitterness. ”
Oh yes.
On the other way, interesting enough, 2 warmist camps have been prone with paedophile scandals.
Look at the University of Virginia with their bogus investigations, look at the BBC. Speak of projections…
I wonder if there isn’t really a connection here between warmists and paedophiles.
No, I do not mean directly, but indirectly through lack of proper controls, lack of ethics and lack of transparency. Just a thought.
Ok it needs to be said. The comparison to pedophiles is totally unacceptable. But this is not the first time it has been made. Mark Steyn of the National review had this to say.
“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.”
So come on WUWT contributors, either it is or it isn’t acceptable to play this game? I say it’s not ok no matter what side of the fence you sit. And yet many here were happy to accept these statements by Steyn when they were discussed here. I find that just a touch very sad and somewhat hypocritical.
Correction, it was Rand Simberg who actually made the pedophile comparison not Mark Steyn.
Cross-posted at AmbitGambit as comment 19.
“Name-calling in order to suppress debate” is right. It’s a familiar tactic now employed on a different battlefield from where I usually see it: American politics.
Jonah Goldberg, over at the National Review online has the other side of the name-calling coin: The GOP and Racism, Yet Again
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/333902/gop-and-racism-yet-again-jonah-goldberg
“…I don’t think the Republican party is racist now (and, historically, the GOP has a lot less to answer for than the Democratic party does). But that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from slandering Republicans as racist for one reason or another. Right now, many in Washington — particularly the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus — insist that Republican attacks on U.N. ambassador Susan Rice are racist and, yawn, sexist. The basis for this claim is that some Republicans are calling Rice unfit for the soon-to-be-vacated job of secretary of state. More specifically, they’re cross with Rice for what they contend to be her dishonest and incompetent handling of the Benghazi scandal.
“And, because Rice is a black woman, well, bla, bla, bla. Racism! Sexism!
“Never mind that Republicans haven’t had a white secretary of state since Lawrence Eagleburger concluded his term two decades ago. Never mind that Republicans appointed the first black secretary of state ever (Colin Powell) and the first black female secretary of state ever (Condoleezza Rice, arguably the star of the GOP convention in August). Also, never mind that Rice’s handling of Benghazi — and several other matters — can quite defensibly be dubbed incompetent.
“That doesn’t stop Democrats or liberal pundits from crying racism.”
I doubt that the Republicans know how to fight, especially this type of slander fight. Fortunately for us, at the bottom of the CO2-AGW fight is science, and in science, calling the opposition to your pet theory a poopy-head or something has never been allowed as valid a scientific debate tactic.
AmbitGambit, Joanne Nova, and WattsUpWithThat are right. We must draw the line in the sand at these low-blow disgusting accusations and equivocations, and (in the press) beat whomever crosses that line again into a (figurative) bloody pulp.
Some people are making lists of what they deny. Let me add one that I allege. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere supposedly started increasing rapidly due to the burning of fossil fuels around 1970. This additonal CO2 in the atmosphere supposedly causes global temperatures to rise at a greater rate than the rise due to natural causes. The rate of rise of temperatures due to natural causes has been approximately constant at around 0.06 C per decade ever since measured temperatures have been available. This rate of rise of temperatures has not changed since 1970. If global temperatures are going to get to catastrophic levels by the end of this century, then at some point the rate of rise of global temparatures must be at a rate significantly about 0.06 C per decade for a prolonged period.
There is no CO2 signal in the form of a significant rate of rise of temperature in excess of 0.06 C per decade in any temperature/time graph since 1970. Therefore there is a strong indication that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero.
john robertson says, November 24, 2012 at 10:13 am … enjoy!
Chris D. says:
November 24, 2012 at 10:55 am
john says:
November 24, 2012 at 6:29 am
and john responds…
Fact of the matter is that the profile does fit. This does not necessarily imply anything except to say that the similarities (and tactics) used are similar between the two groups. I do believe that persons of reasonable sanity would never utilize such tactics and the educational value of the link I posted has merit. I have 3 grandchildren and will not tolerate them being molested in body or mind.
The Climate Liars get meaner, dirtier and nastier each year. They are at war with anyone who isn’t a member of their cult. Don’t underestimate the evil things these people will do to implement their crazy agenda.
Simon says: “The comparison to pedophiles is totally unacceptable.” “So come on WUWT contributors, either it is or it isn’t acceptable to play this game?”
Simon, can you post links to where you have declared and castigated Global Warming Alarmists on their websites for their totally unacceptable behavior?
As Orwell said: nobody could swallow it except an intellectual.
A few posters upthread are mixing up Robyn Williams, a male science reporter at the ABC, with Robin Williams, an (also male) comedian, or assuming that Robyn is a woman.
Given the nastiness involved in this episode, we need to be very clear as to whom we are talking about.
And Simon, the Steyn issue has already been extensively debated in another thread. Neither Steyn, nor anyone else, accused Mann of being a pedophile or being like a pedophile. Your reading comprehension needs work.
I think we should note that there are more than one Robin Williams. There is the actor who starred in Mrs. Doughtfire and Mork & Mindy. Then Robyn Williams AM is a science journalist and broadcaster resident in Australia.
Chinese proverb: He who throws dirt loses ground.
Hey, I don’t play FOOTBALL, I’ve never played FOOTBALL…(American Style), I rarely get excited about my hometown’s professional children…SO I have NOTHING that connects me to Michael Mann nor Jerry Sandusky. BUT I AM ONE OF THOSE WICKED DENIERS..
And I KNOW what should be done to me!
Simon:
Your posts at November 24, 2012 at 11:24 am and November 24, 2012 at 11:39 am are plain wrong.
Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg did not compare Mann to a paedophile and your quotation is misleading because it is out of context. As you say, Simberg wrote and Steyn quoted
But the context of that sentence is an article reporting that Mann and Sandusky were each cleared of wrong-doing by investigations on behalf of Penn State University which were conducted by the same person.
The article can be read at
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309442/football-and-hockey-mark-steyn
Mann has attempted to claim the same as you and is taking a raft of people to court, see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/23/yay-mike-mann-took-the-bait-intends-to-file-lawsuit-against-steyn-and-nro/
But there is a world of difference between
(a) comparing climate realists to paedophiles
and
(b) comparing the investigations of Mann and Sandusky by Penn State University.
Many (including me) hope Mann will continue his legal case because it will be good to see him exposed in court.
Richard
Put this into context. Despite a blitz of government propaganda the Australian electorate has overwhelming rejected the Gillard government’s energy policy based on the anthropogenic catastrophic global warming theory. We (by we I mean the majority of Australian working class) are just waiting for our next election. The institutionalised catastrophists are really quite isolated at the grass oots and they are becoming more desperate. This will be determined democratically. By the way I am a radical left wing activist and many of my comrades reject the catstrophists theory. Waiting for a call from Lewandowsky.
At Johanna
And Simon, the Steyn issue has already been extensively debated in another thread. Neither Steyn, nor anyone else, accused Mann of being a pedophile or being like a pedophile. Your reading comprehension needs work.
Oh P L E A S E. There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension. Can you explain how your reading comprehension does not get that he is saying Mann’s actions are as bad as those of a sex offender?
“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data”
My point is you can’t have it both ways. Either this game is dirty, or it’s not. Any clear thinking person with reasonable reading comprehension would believe, I think, that it stinks. The fact you somehow justify it only shows your bias.
Oh really.
The head of the IPCC has lied in the past.
Other References
http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/tssts-1.html
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/11/22/pachauris-rhetoric-vs-reality/
Here is another lie.
[my bold]
References:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/about-that-overwhelming-98-number-of-scientists-consensus/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/
Cripwell:
“There is no CO2 signal in the form of a significant rate of rise of temperature in excess of 0.06 C per decade in any temperature/time graph since 1970. Therefore there is a strong indication that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero”
Several misunderstandings.
The climate forcing due to doubling C02 is 3.7Watts.
Climate sensitivity is measured as the change in temperature for a given forcing in watts.
Such that, if the sun increases by 1 watt, and we see temperatures increase by .5C then the sensitivity is .5 sensitivity is the change in C PER WATT.
temperature is the response (C)
Watts are the forcing.
Sensitivity cannot be zero. If it were, the earth would not respond to an increase in solar forcing.
Now, there are various ways we estimate the response in C to a change in watts. But lets just pick .5 as an example. Suppose the climate system has a sensitivity of .5.
What’s that mean in terms of sensitivity to doubling c02. it means this. 3.7 * .5 = 1.85c
If the climate sensitivity is .5, then the sensitivity to doubling c02 will be 1.85C.
The only way the sensitivity to C02 can be zero is if
1. the climate sensitivity is zero
2. the forcing from c02 is zero.
We know that climate sensitivity cannot equal zero. If it was, the earth would not change temperature. Remember climate sensitivity is the change in temperature per change in watts.
If the sun doubled in wattage, we would expect to see a change in temps.
the forcing from c02 is not zero. the phsyics used to radars, and cell phones, and IR missiles, and satillite pictures of the earth, that physics ( tested, calibrated, validated with field tests ) tells us that doubling c02 gives us 3.7watts.
As for the C02 signal in the record. best place to look is in the land record. That record responds to forcing more quickly than the ocean which can bury heat.
When you look at c02 versus time and the land record versus time.
hmm.
well, I wil say this, if somebody showed this curve with solar data ‘explaining’ the temperature, youd all be convinced. but since its c02, you will not see it
http://berkeleyearth.org/images/annual-with-forcing-small.png
I forgot, here is the reference for Pachauri’s lie.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-11-10/india/28069084_1_himalayan-glaciers-climate-change-global-temperatures-rise
metamars says:
November 24, 2012 at 4:43 am
…I’m more of a populist and independent than a progressive. I don’t view our problems mostly about left vs. right, but rather top vs. bottom. I’m quite happy to read smart, so-called “extreme” lefties like Noam Chomsky, as well as smart, so-called “extreme” righties like Srdja Trifkovic at chroniclesmagazine.org….
__________________________________________
You are correct it is the top vs. bottom. To confuse the bottom the “Keft vs Right” puppet show has been set up. Dr. David Evans calls it the Regulating Class (those who profit via government including corporations granted “special laws” vs the tax payer.
You might want to use this cartoon from 1911. It says it all link
Here is a whole tome of lies from Al Gore.
http://algorelied.com/
http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/2009/10/nine-lies-of-al-gore.html
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/11/21/fibbing-about-his-viewership-al-gores-credibility-took-another-beating-this-week/
John Bell says:
November 24, 2012 at 5:41 am
But of course all the faithful still drive cars, heat their homes, use electricity, fly on jets, etc. They are the worst kind of hypocrites.
_________________________________
When you are dealing with them in person, tell the leader to put their money where their mouth is. Tell them: Give me your car keys, your house/apartment key and remove any and all clothing that is not ALL silk, wool cotton and handspun and woven…. If they are not willing to to live by what they are preaching then they are complete hypocrites. They will generally turn a bright shade of red and sputter. Their audience will laugh. Pointing out the feet of clay works wonders. Someone should try it on all these holier than thou ‘Climastrologists’
I wonder if he is still worried.
Maybe this is one of the reasons for the desperation. Their time is running (or has already) out fast. The fat lady is in the make-up room and is ready to come on stage. The emperor is without clothing.
As a resident of NSW, I sent in a complaint to the ABC today. If it is not factually correct, hopefully someone here will correct me. After the basic details of programme, date and time, I said:
“Absolutely revolting and sickening slurs were broadcast on this programme – eg. “What if I told you pedophilia is good for children, or that asbestos is an excellent inhalant for those with asthmatics, or that smoking crack is a normal part and a healthy one of teenage life, to be encouraged? You’d rightly find it outrageous, but there have been similar statements coming out of inexpert mouths, distorting the science.
These distortions of science are far from trivial, our neglect of what may be clear and urgent problems could be catastrophic and now a professor of psychology at UWA has shown what he says is the basis of this unrelenting debauchery of the facts…”
Guest speaker Stephan Lewandowsky continued with more disgusting statements, eg. “They are also rejecting the link between smoking and lung cancer, and between HIV and AIDS”.
Statements like these have no place anywhere, certainly not on ABC, and especially not on a supposed science programme. Scepticism is the life-blood of science. Without it there can be no science. In the case of climate science, the claims made by the IPCC and some other climate scientists have gone beyond the supporting scientific evidence, and the “sceptics” are correctly calling them to account.
If the science is indeed correct, then the way to deal with scepticism is by openness and by proper evidence. Not by hurling wild and offensive insults.
Please sack Robyn Williams right now, and replace him with a civilised person who properly understands the nature of science.“
Steven Mosher:
At November 24, 2012 at 2:42 pm you quote Jim Cripwell saying at November 24, 2012 at 11:55 am:
And you reply:
Your reply is a clear example of the ‘straw man’ fallacy.
Cripwell did not say
“there is a strong indication that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero”.
He said
“there is a strong indication that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero”.
And he is right.
Empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satelite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
These independent determinations each suggests that climate sensitivity is ~0.4deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent
If climate sensitivity is less than 1.0deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, then it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected because natural variability is much, much larger. If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
Climate sensitivity of CO2 is measured to be indistinguishable from zero. Live with it.
Richard
I hope you realise that you hit the nail on the head in one short sentence (or two). These liars have been caught red-handed with their greedy hands in the cookie jar. 15 years of non-warming, less snow, more snow, accelerating sea level rise – AWOL, lack of sufficient evidence of extreme events trending up etc. Time is running out for these scam artists and they know it. That’s why the weather has now become the climate.
Philip Lee says:
November 24, 2012 at 10:26 am
I’m inspired by what Roger Knights says above, but think his Contrarian’s Credo should be limited…
_______________________________
Short is better.
Do not forget the 7 Seconds Rule for Newspaper Ads You have seven seconds to ‘sell’ your idea.
(And yes I am horrible at it.)
Steve Mosher: ‘the phsyics used to radars, and cell phones, and IR missiles, and satillite pictures of the earth, that physics ( tested, calibrated, validated with field tests ) tells us that doubling c02 gives us 3.7watts.’
No it doesn’t. What it does is to assume that the absorption of IR by CO2, of which there is no dispute, would give 3.7 W/m^2 warming if it was directly thermalised. But direct thermalisation is impossible at Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium. Instead the emission of a similar photon from an already thermally-activated molecule ejects the extra energy out of that local volume, ultimately pseudo-diffusing it to heterogeneities, There will be some heat transfer from clouds to the local air but much is lost through the atmospheric window from the grey body thermal spectrum.
All the other phenomena are correctly modelled but because the two-stream approximation is wrong [only net IR can do thermodynamic work], it’s because the errors cancel out.
I’m not one to turn the other cheek, sorry. I fight fire with fire.
Stop these people now before it all gets out of hand. It may not seem so now but just you make the mistake of giving them more power than they already have and they will become even more extreme.
On the subject of cancer causing agents like asbestos need I remind Mr. Williams that the BBC Pension is invested into at least 3 tobacco companies. Not to mention drug companies, auto companies and BIG OIL. Heh, heh. 😉
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mypension/sites/helpadvice/pages/top-100-investments.shtml
It’s interesting to recall the hypocrisy and 20/20 hindsight witch hunting over the use of asbestos in Australia. The main outlet for asbestos rage being the ubiquitous James Hardie who were the main manufacturers of asbestos reinforced cement building products(colloquially known as ‘fibro’), as well as a range of asbestos disc pads and brake linings generally(Ferodo brakes). We all recall with fondness the annual Hardie Ferodo Bathurst race meet where Morris Mini Cooper Ss would mix it with V8 GTHO Ford Falcon and GMH Monaro muscle cars.
Lots of fun while the more serious slow trickle of asbestosis and mesothelioma was entering the consciousness and building up a head of water that would finally break the dam wall of everyone’s consciousness. Such are the ways of epidemiological risk and everyone’s an expert after the event and although a multitude of past consumers had absconded with the cheap private cost of fibro and asbestos brake pads, rather than paying their true social cost, no matter, the current shareholders and employees of James Hardie would pay the price most recently.
Now here’s the rub. JH stopped manufacturing asbestos products completely in 1983 after busying themselves perfecting an alternative cellulose reinforced fibre cement product range. So much the better but the long tailed asbestos diseases would take much longer to come back and haunt them. By the time it really did there’d hardly a be a shareholder or worker left from the bad old days but no matter, if the lawyers and outraged 20/20 hindsight politicians and union leaders couldn’t get at a multitude of those absconded consumers, then the current JH entity would have to do.
Well while the outraged moral majority railed and lawyered and legislated against the whipping boy of epidemiological risk, there was just a small matter of hypocrisy in all their rantings and ravings and parading out of sick asbestos victims. They were all driving their kiddies to kindergartens and schools and depositing the evil dust every time they applied their brakes until a ban on asbestos brake linings at the end of 2003. Yes folks 20 years after JH had seen the light the hypocrites were still putting all the kiddies futures in jeopardy. Why? Because industry hadn’t come up with a suitable replacement for asbestos brake linings til then and you know how it is folks? Can’t have the kids walking to school now can we?
It was a singular misfortune that chrysotile fibers were named “asbestos”. The use of chrysotile in pipes and roofing sheets has been a boon for mankind and the incidents of mesothelioma from chrysotile are vanishingly small.
That said, everybody in the world just hears “asbestos” and panics.
He who slings mud is losing ground.
Arrgh! ‘their’ for ‘there’ in a couple of places because the comments box aint exactly user friendly for proof reading longer comments.
A couple of points re JH. They were right to want to try and protect their largely innocent current shareholders and workers from the moral majority on the warpath but instead of standing up and telling it like it was, they squibbed it and ran away to the Netherlands. Current management deserved to get the sack for that gutlessness, although it was somewhat understandable, given the hysteria.
However this example does pose a serious moral dilemma for those true believers in global warming/climate change/ extreme weather/ dirty weather now. How much more tragic in outcome is your ‘proven’ global catastrophe now and what are you doing about it personally? Throwing your car keys in the bin and recycling your car right now? What should the enlightened uni student do who is working part time at the local servo (gas station) trying to make ends meet through uni now? Tell the boss he can’t do it anymore because he knows now it’s no good for his future? When exactly should an enlightened catastrophist put his money where all the consensus experts mouths are?
Fanatics regularly engage in attribution of motive and projections of guilty actions. This ABC article is a pretty good example, I think.
Simon says: “There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension.”
By over welling consensus of WUWT commenters, you are in Denial. 😉
Perhaps this will help your Skeptical understanding – Pedophiles by definition are not molesters and tortures of data. Whereas, torturing and molesting data is a mann thing. 😉
I do notice the increasingly aggressive and galling comments from alarmists, even from such as Phil Jones. They can be rather nasty.
Those of us with a scientific and rational mind can be assured that this is not language used to debate scientific matters
Lars P. says:
November 24, 2012 at 11:19 am
….I wonder if there isn’t really a connection here between warmists and paedophiles.
No, I do not mean directly, but indirectly through lack of proper controls, lack of ethics and lack of transparency. Just a thought.
_____________________________________
You can add a lack of integrity, arrogance and the believe that humans are nothing but animals (Animal rights activism) at best and the the scourge of the Earth at worst. I think Are Humans the virus species? shows this quite well.
If you hate the human species do you really care about that species offspring?
Steven Mosher writes “tells us that doubling c02 gives us 3.7watts.”
Even if we assume you are correct, which is doubtful, there is no way to convert the 3.7 Wm-2 to a change in global temperatures. The IPCC attempt to do so is based on the highly dubious physics of using no-feedback climate sensitivity, which is an abortion in physics, and has no meaning. I have no objection to people using dubious physics to arrive at some physical quantity, like total climate sensitivity, but only if the final number arrived at has been confirmed by the measurement of the actual data; which for total climate sensitivity has not been done. My attempt is one of the few that has tried to use empirical data to come to a measure of total climate sensitivity. The Hansen paper using paleo records does not seem to be able to prove that the observed rise in temperature was actually caused by rising CO2 levels, and does not use the word “measure”, but the weasel word “infer”.
As to your graph, how many times has it been said that correlation does not mean causation? Where is the proof that the observed rise in CO2 concentration caused the observed rise in land temperatures? But I tried to find exactly what this graph means, and how it was derived. I could not find it. The legend says “Simple fit based on CO2 concentration and volcanic activity”, whatever that means. It does not seem to be a graph of CO2 concentration, and there is no scale associated with the red line. So, precisely what is the red line, and how was it obtained?
And Richard has [answered] for me. I NEVER said the climate sensitivity of CO2 was zero; I said it was indistinguishable from zero. I do wish you would actually read what I wrote
[“no feedback” or “amplified feedback” ? Mod]
Simon says:
November 24, 2012 at 11:24 am
Ok it needs to be said. The comparison to pedophiles is totally unacceptable….
_____________________________
You should be reaming Penn State not Mark Steyn of the National review. It is Penn States’s cover-ups for both men that is the basis for the whole subject.
connolly says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:08 pm
… By the way I am a radical left wing activist and many of my comrades reject the catstrophists theory.
_____________________________________
Glad to see you here. We should not allow this to be manipulated into a Left – Right issue. Dr. David Evans was correct it is the Regulating Class who are manipulating the whole issue so they can rip off the rest of us.
You might tell your friends to come and comment here so there is more balance apparent.
Simon says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:25 pm
…Oh P L E A S E. There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension. Can you explain how your reading comprehension does not get that he is saying Mann’s actions are as bad as those of a sex offender?
____________________________________
AGAIN it is the ACTIONS of Penn State in covering up for both men that is being described. Mann did torture the data and Penn State darn well knew it but Mann, like Jerry Sandusky were raking in the money for the University and therefore these “Golden Boys” were protected no matter what they had done.
If you do not get that from the article you do have a reading comprehension problem… Oh wait, you believe Mann is actually an Honest Scientist ROTFLMAO snicker giggle.
This is very strange coming from the warmist camp. By equating skeptics with pedophiles they risk alienating pedophiles, who are certain to become an important activist group within the leftist coalition.
Perhaps Robyn WIlliams should be reported to the UN for human rights violations?
(I’m really not sure whether I’m being sarcastic or not)
If your degree was a Bachelor of Something, you are qualified to be a journalist.
If your degree was a Masters of Something, you are qualified to work for someone else.
If your degree was a PhD of Something, you have earned the right to know everything about nothing. In math, 0^infinity = 1 [if you weren’t taught that, it is because the arrogance of mathematicians is astounding].
I like CO2 being increased, for the plants. I like the additional heat due to the Sun. Storms will happen. Earthquakes will happen. Are they both due to CO2? If you live less than 30 feet above Sea Level, should I pay for your Flood insurance?
Power, Control in this world is given to the ‘hidden extremely wealthy’. The Catholic Church ruled Earth for 1800 years. Do you still think that they still don’t rule? They are afraid of WWIII. Through the UN via Global Warming [Carbon Taxes, etc], they will do anything to stop another war. They are afraid of nuclear weapons which can destroy them. What money or castle can stop of nuclear bomb?
We are not battling scientific proposals, or CO2, or Climate Change; we are ‘watching’ a massive power struggle to remove national sovereignty, and replace it with a Global Controlling Authority that thinks it can stop WWIII.
So you deniers, why do fight against the ‘hidden powers’. The last time this power struggle happened, it took 200 years before the Church stopped killing scientists. Are we more evolved now? Look to our journalists, they are the well educated intellectuals. What is your view?
For the ‘Global Warmists/Journalists’, your assistance to the ‘hidden powers’ will not be rewarded. You will be controlled like the rest of us.
The reaction to the show is, “Robyn Williams equates skeptics to pedophiles, people pushing asbestos, and drug pushers.”
Not quite, I think, but closer than I like. It started by presenting “pedophilia is good for children,” “asbestos is good to inhale,” and “crack-smoking is a normal part of growing up” as examples of absurd statements that nobody would take seriously. Then, they try to tar with the same brush statements like, “the climate is not changing/humans aren’t doing it and “CAGW is impossible or vanishingly unlikely.” The first three statements would be dangerous if taken seriously, implying that the latter ones would be, too.
It seems like the analogy for the pedophile would be a power plant, since that’s what directly damaging (or, for CAGW, allegedly so). Skeptics would be more like law enforcement, church officials, etc. who refused to believe what was happening and let the harm continue. This does not in any way mitigate the fact that using these analogies was astonishingly poor judgement. I’m hardly surprised that people would take it personally, and being a skeptic is not the only reason to do so.
I actually heard someone say recently that smoking was good for you. He owned a Mediterranean restaurant, and wanted to start operating as a hookah shop as well. This would have been a much better choice if they were trying to give an example of an illogical, harmful statement with which to make their argument.
Everyone has completely missed the point.
What Robyn Williams has said is that pedophilia is an acceptable practice. Given that dissent is a celebrated practice in all societies, Mr Williams has displayed his disgusting moral value.
Personally I think Simon has got a point.
The ABC program said that claiming “pedophilia is ok” is just as wrong as saying “the globe ain’t warming” or some such. They didn’t call anyone a pedophile.
And I’m quite sure this was inserted by Williams and Prof. L into the program precisely because it was the same thing that Mark Steyn at the National Review did in reverse. Both are playing the same game. I commented on this issue over at JoNova’s but before you all jump down my throat as you have Simon’s, I added in a follow up:
“To draw an analogy between a moral proposition (pedophilia is bad) and a scientific proposition (climate sensitivity to CO2 is lower than the IPCC claims) is sophistry design to invoke guilt by association.
“To give a more appropriate scientific analogy we might compare those who are skeptical about the IPCC’s position on climate sensitivity with those that are skeptical about the low reported incidence of child molestation by women. While both are likely to be controversial positions among some sectors of the community they can be seen for what they both are – legitimate matters for scientific inquiry.”
Science often investigates things that make people uncomfortable because the answers might undermine their belief systems.
Hmmm…. Here in America, accusations of being pedophiles and drug pushers are generally reserved for the gays. So, me being gay and a skeptic, does than mean the two cancel each other out, or am I turning that dial to 11 now????
I think inflammatory allegory is a low form of argument and leads to less than satisfactory debate. No matter which side engages in it.
Dear Professor Lewandowsky
lewan@psy.uwa.edu.au
I listened to your interview in the science show regarding denial of man made global warming.
I have a PhD in applied science and I am able to assess whether the climate data shows any change in its pattern after mid-20th century.
The three climate datasets HADCRUT3, HADCRUT4 & GISS show the following pattern:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/compress:12/detrend:0.01/offset:-0.03/plot/gistemp/compress:12/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1884/to:2004/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/detrend:-0.96/offset:-0.71/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/detrend:-0.96/offset:-0.46/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/detrend:-0.96/offset:-0.96/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1884/to:2004/trend/offset:-0.03/detrend:0.01/plot/gistemp/from:1884/to:2004/trend/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:1.5
This data shows a uniform warming of ONLY 0.06 deg C per decade since record begun about 160 years ago in 1850. There is no change in the climate pattern after mid-20th century.
In addition, in its Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC projected for a warming of 0.2 deg C per decade. Here is what the observation shows:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/trend/detrend:0.075/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/detrend:0.075/plot/gistemp/from:1998/trend/detrend:0.12/offset:-0.06/plot/gistemp/from:1998/detrend:0.12/offset:-0.06
The above is the result for the climate pattern since 1998 from five datasets. This result shows no warming since 1998, while IPCC predicted for a warming of 0.2 deg C per decade.
It is not due to our ideology that we deny man made global warming. Instead, it is because the data does not show man made global warming that we deny it.
Note that we don’t deny climate change, as it always changes.
Kind Regards
Girma Orssengo
PhD (Applied Science)
Gail Combs
Gail still seems convinced I has a reading comprehension problem…. me thinks she has a writing one…
“You should be reaming Penn State not Mark Steyn of the National review.”
I ain’t “reaming” anyone. And I thought this was a family show?
Steven Mosher;
Several misunderstandings.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: Most of which appear to be yours. Seriously Mosher, physics is not your strong suit.
Steven Mosher
The climate forcing due to doubling C02 is 3.7Watts.
Climate sensitivity is measured as the change in temperature for a given forcing in watts.
Such that, if the sun increases by 1 watt, and we see temperatures increase by .5C then the sensitivity is .5 sensitivity is the change in C PER WATT.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: No, it s NOT. 1 watt/m2 of additional energy flux from the Sun is an ADDITIONAL watt/m2 that is going into the system as a whole. It is MORE energy than what the system was being exposed to before. It can have no other effect than to raises temps. When we speak of watts/m2 from CO2 increases, we’re talking about a redistribution of energy that is ALREADY in the system. THERE IS NO MORE ENERGY IN THE SYSTEM DUE TO CO2 DOUBLING THERE IS ONLY A CHANGE AS TO WHERE IT IS IN THE SYSTEM AT ANY GIVEN TIME!!!!
The IPCC makes it very clear in AR4 WG1 Ch2 that the concept of CO2 forcing can NOT, repeat *NOT*!!! be used to calculate surface forcing!!!!
Steven Mosher;
Sensitivity cannot be zero. If it were, the earth would not respond to an increase in solar forcing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: Per above, an additional w/m2 from the Sun represents NEW energy input to the system. CO2 absorbing and re-radiating EXISTING w/m2 of LW adds ZERO energy to the system. The two CANNOT be equated in any way shape or form.
Steven Mosher;
Now, there are various ways we estimate the response in C to a change in watts. But lets just pick .5 as an example. Suppose the climate system has a sensitivity of .5.
What’s that mean in terms of sensitivity to doubling c02. it means this. 3.7 * .5 = 1.85c
If the climate sensitivity is .5, then the sensitivity to doubling c02 will be 1.85C.
The only way the sensitivity to C02 can be zero is if
1. the climate sensitivity is zero
2. the forcing from c02 is zero.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: These calculations are meaningless for the reasons already given above.
Steven Mosher
We know that climate sensitivity cannot equal zero. If it was, the earth would not change temperature. Remember climate sensitivity is the change in temperature per change in watts.
If the sun doubled in wattage, we would expect to see a change in temps.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: Per my points above, I repeat again: An increase in wattage from the Sun represents ADDITIONAL energy being put in to the system. CO2 merely absorbs energy that is ALREADY in the system, and re-radiates it such that the DISTRIBUTION of energy in the system changes, there is NO new energy in the system, the two are NOT equivalent.
Steven Mosher;
the phsyics used to radars, and cell phones, and IR missiles, and satillite pictures of the earth, that physics ( tested, calibrated, validated with field tests ) tells us that doubling c02 gives us 3.7watts.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: You keep saying this and I keep pointing out that it is dead WRONG. A cell phone signal works precisely because it passes through the atmosphere relatively uninhibited. Since we know that the signal received matches almost exactly the signal sent, we can codify information in the signal and transfer it between two points. This is NOT what happens with LW and CO2!
Unlike cell phone signals and radar, we CANNOT measure what we want to know directly. Oh sure, we can transmit a given amount of LW from point A and detect how much of the signal gets to point B, and from that we can calculate how much LW got absorbed by the system in between. Or can we? We CANNOT!
We don’t know if the LW was absorbed 10% of the way between two points, 40%, 80%, etc. We don’t know if a given photon that got to point B got there in one step, or if it was absorbed and re-radiated once, twice, a hundred, or a thousand time. We don’t even know for certain how much was absorbed! Why? Because we cannot differentiate between a photon from our source, and a photon from an entirely different source travelling at right angles to the path of AB that was absorbed and then re-radiated toward our detector. Since we’re only measuring INDIRECTLY what happens to the absorbed LW, we actually know very little about how it behaves.
Further, the 3.7 w/m2 calculated for CO2 doubling is ARTIFICIAL. If the sun’s radiance increases by 1 w/m2 at TOA, we can measure exactly 1 w/m2 at TOA. There is NO spot in the atmosphere where you can measure the change in w/m2 from CO2 doubling. These w/m2 are “smeared” across the atmospheric column and do NOT behave like they exist at a given altitude (because they don’t)
Steven Mosher;
As for the C02 signal in the record. best place to look is in the land record. That record responds to forcing more quickly than the ocean which can bury heat.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REPLY: The land mass exaggerates heating and cooling and so is a LOUSY place to look for the signal. Land mass has natural variability many times that of the ocean, so it is even HARDER to distinguish CO2 forcing from natural variation on land versus the ocean.
Steven Mosher;
When you look at c02 versus time and the land record versus time.
hmm.
well, I wil say this, if somebody showed this curve with solar data ‘explaining’ the temperature, youd all be convinced. but since its c02, you will not see it
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The oceans are the ultimate arbiter of the planet’s temperature. The mass of the oceans is 1400 times that of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is like a tiny child being dragged by one hand through a busy mall by a large adult named “the ocean”. The child’s temper tantrum may get a lot of attention, but has zippo to do with which direction the child is going in. The atmosphere can vary within limits, and since we live in the atmosphere we notice that, but the point is there ARE limits. The atmosphere can only get so much hotter or cooler than the ocean, period. Where the oceans go, the atmosphere shall follow.
davidmhoffer,
Thanks for that very good explanation. CO2 is more of an insulator; it does not produce energy on its own.
Related to your explanation, here is an interesting chart that shows solar irradiance from around the LIA to current times.
Let me see if I can explain this another way. The temperature of a given object at equilibrium is related to the amount of energy being absorbed by the object. The formula known as the Stefan-Boltzmann Law is:
P = 5.67*10^-8*T^4
P in w/m2
T in degrees K.
So, for an earth exposed to say 390 w/m2, we’d get a T of 288K or 15 C. The confusing part is that the earth has an atmosphere. What we would find is that the surface of the earth would be warmer than that, the atmosphere on average cooler than that, but the average of the system as a whole would be 288K.
Now, let’s suppose CO2 doubles. This changes the amount of energy from the Sun by exactly zero. Not rounded off, zero. So, we put 390 into the formula again and calculate the temperature of the system AS A WHOLE and we get….
288K. Nothing changed. Quadruple CO2. Still 288. A hundred times, still 288. Nothing changed.
Well, probably it did. If we could measure T at millions of points between the surface and the TOA (Top of Atmosphere) we would probably find that some parts of it are warmer than they were before and some parts cooler than they were before. But the average of the system as a whole would still be 288K.
The science we are trying to understand is which altitudes change temperature, in which direction, and by how much. Trying to attribute a temperature change due to increasing CO2 levels to a change in solar radiance is, however, meaningless. One changes the temperature of the system as a whole, the other does NOT.
Awww and I was just getting used to “denier”, sad face ;(
So now climate skeptics are “pedos”?
Well it does show how badly they are losing the technical battle if they have to go this low. I didn’t think they could get lower than equating skeptics of what is supposed to be a scientific theory to holocost deniers but they surprise me again.
Here is an analogy that may help.
Suppose you have a thousand mile long highway. Cars are coming onto the highway at 60 km/h at one end, every 30 seconds. They leave the other end, a thousand miles away, at 60 km/h, every 30 seconds.
Now, suppose there are construction zones along the highway, requiring the cars to reduce speed. Obviously, the distance between the cars would be much reduced in these construction zones. If we were standing right at a construction zone, we could see the speed of the cars and the distance between them, and both would be a lot less than the rest of the highway.
Now, suppose the only observations you have though, are at the beginning and the end of the highway. Speed of cars going in, 60 km/hr. Distance between them, 1/2 km. Speed of cars leaving at other end, 60 km/hr. Distance between them, 1/2 km.
OK, based on the observations from the ends of the highway only:
How many construction zones are there? We don’t know.
How long on average is each construction zone? We don’t know that either.
To what speed does the traffic slow to when they encounter a construction zone? We don’t know!
What is the average distance between cars in the construction zones? Not a clue.
How far are the construction zones from the ends of the highways? Nope, can’t answer that either.
Are there cars leaving the highway between the two points, but being replaced by cars entering the highway in the same numbers? Unless we can identify the specific cars entering and leaving… we don’t know (and unlike cars, photons don’t have serial numbers).
Doubling CO2 is like adding additional construction zones to the highway. It doesn’t change the number of photons coming into the system, nor does it change the number of photons leaving the system. But at the “construction points” there will be higher concentrations of photons. We just don’t know exactly where these construction points are, or how many of them there are. We can probably surmise from the ocean temperature record though that a considerable number of them are leaning on their shovels and not getting much of anything done.
Gail Combs
We have a community radio program here and have advocated that our listeners use WUWT. For those not in Australia the political advocacy of catsrophic global warming theory and carbon taxes has been led by labor party apparachiks that are now desperately defending corrupt practices in the trade union movement and the disgraceful role of our present Prime Minister in establishing a trade union “slush fund”which was pillaged by a lover of hers some years ago. The corruption and craven opportunism of what is essential a service class for finance capital is exposed and workers are turning against the labor party in droves. I particulalry liked the light touch of Lewdenowsky at the end of his diatribe suggesting new investment opportunities in the bracing waters of catstrophic global warming theory.. Our Prime Minister made the same call in regard to carbon derivative trading for financial corporations recently in a particulalry disgraceful speech to Australian bankers. This service class of which Williams and Lewdenowsky are particulalry crass beneficiaries is becoming almostt daily more discredited in the eyes of decent Australian men and women. Gillard will be replaced in the early new year by her parliamentary caucus that is facing political oblivion at the next election. We can only hope that Williams is retired to the generous pastures of the public broadcaster’s pension scheme just as quickly. As for Lewandowsky there is a special place reserved for propagandists that posture as scientistis in the great big dumpster bin of history.
i disagree.
co2 is not an insulator, it is an absorber, a storer and, kinetically, a conductor.
ANY increase in the heat capacity of the working fluid in a heat exchanger WILL improve its efficiency.
this is, nevertheless, insignificant compared to any phase change fluid.
in any volume of atmosphere with 1% h2o gas and 500ppm co2, the water carries @ 50,000 times more heat.
temperature is not a measure of heat, anyway
and phase change, which stores heat or releases heat, requires no temperature change whatsoever.
co2 is fetishism.
sincerely,
klimate kaffir
This are the typical tactics of communists.
Right from Stalinist Moscow Trials rulebook.
Or the other side of the coin National Socialists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blomberg–Fritsch_Affair
Despicable.
HAS says:
November 24, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Personally I think Simon has got a point.
The ABC program said that claiming “pedophilia is ok” is just as wrong as saying “the globe ain’t warming” or some such. They didn’t call anyone a pedophile.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Try telling a priest, a rabbi, and an imam that believing in creationism is like saying that pedophilia is OK. Tell the pope that. Or maybe you’d prefer to tell the ayatollah that. Yeah, go with that one. I’ll even pitch in a few bucks to buy a ticket to Tehran so you can tell him in person.
The insinuation is ugly, ignorant, and as disgusting as it gets. Assessing science fact and drawing conclusions, right or wrong, is nothing like a moral position and implying otherwise suggests one of three options. The person trying to imply a relationship in this fashion could be:
1. Deliberately fanning the flames of prejudice and hatred.
2. Suffering from naturally induced diminished intellectual capacity.
3. Suffering from a determined effort to achieve diminished intellectual capacity.
Mosher keeps repeating his radars, cellphones, satellties and IR crap equating those physics with CO2 radiation physics. Nothing can be further than that as David M Hoffer has clearly shown not once, but many times. Yet, Mosher keeps repeating the same crap here and at Judy’s blog. Just like any AGW fanatic who who exists purely on faith and not science. There’s no difference between him peddling this crap and the dragonslayers peddling their crap about no greenhouse effect. Both are two sides of the same coin, no science.
start with this.
then get the book referenced.. chapter 2.
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld001.htm
Steven Mosher:
At November 25, 2012 at 1:11 am you respond to the several objections to your ‘straw man’ attack on Jim Cripwell by saying, in total
I reply to your response in similar manner to that response.
start with asking your Mum how grown ups behave
then try to understand it
Richard
“co2 is not an insulator, it is an absorber, a storer and, kinetically, a conductor’
Thank you, Gnomish 🙂
Question.
If the Sun delivers “P” energy per unit area, what is the average energy delivered to the hemisphere facing the sun?
ie.. the closest point, with the sun directly overhead, receives “P” energy / unit area, and as one moves away from that point, the energy reduces.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
59 years with no temperature increase with huge rises in CO2. Just a 14 year period with rising temperatures and CO2 out of 73 years, yet some people still believe CO2 is driving climate, madness.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1980/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1940/to:1980/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/to:1980/normalise/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/normalise
Richard Courtney, Mosher often gives the impression that he was brought up in a barn.
The only (slight) consolation is that he is equally ill-mannered and dismissive to just about everybody. It seems to be one of the burdens that great intellects such as his have to bear when dealing with lowly and lesser mortals like just about everyone else.
Four more:
37. That global temperatures must be higher in coming decades if emissions continue to rise, because certain natural cycles seem poised to enter a cooling phase
38. That most predictions by warmists have been correct [a separate list is needed for these—e.g., the tropical tropopheric hotspot]
39. That warmists have dealt adequately or openly with these failures, or have been called to account for them by their media cheerleaders
40. That the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers accurately summarizes its Assesment Reports, or is endorsed in toto by the contributors to those reports, or is endorsed by “the world’s scientists”
Thanks. My #38 above includes your #38 suggestion. I urge others to toss their ideas into the suggestion box—and/or for Anthony to establish a thread devoted to an appeal for such contributions.
To make an effective counter to warmism, I believe the Credo needs to summarize contrarian views on the entire range of warmist conventional wisdom. It needs to be a “broadside” salvo. Perhaps the Credo should be divided into topical groups, with science under its own heading. Possibly there should be subheadings. (At the moment I’m in the “brainstorming” phase of its creation, where I’m just throwing stuff on the table as it comes to me.)
I know what you mean. I’ve come up with a couple of good one-liners that could be used as corporate tag-lines, namely:
For Apple: “Once you bite, you’re bitten”
For IBM: “Big enough to be small”
And I came up with a couple of dozen quick-hits in response to Anthony’s plea for contributions to his “Did you know that . . . . “ series a few weeks back. I think that such bite-sized arguments are wonderful, and I hope Anthony opens a permanent (tabbed) thread where contributions to it can be made, resulting eventually in a 100-item tornado that will unsettle the settled.
But a credo isn’t meant to sell—it’s meant to summarize, like an executive summary. Executive summaries are longer than seven seconds. They have to be. If we can create a credo with under 100 litems, it will run only two pages, which isn’t too long for an executive summary. (It could form a table of contents for a longer document that would argue each of our Credo’s points in detail.)
Possibly the most important items should be boldfaced, to cater to readers with a limited attention span.
It should avoid overstatement and rhetoric (which will look to portions of the audience like “ranting”). It should avoid including contrarian views that are not held by a consensus (!) of contrarians; or if it does it should not fully commit itself to them. Such an extensive summary would indicate, to neutral readers, that we have at least fully considered and addressed the issues. It would encourage them to read further, and to grant us some provisional credibility. That’s a start.
This fragrant person is doing the rationalists a big favour. When people cannot argue rationally it is either that they are unfortunately suffering mental problems or they have no arguments and thus resort to abuse.
So in resorting to abuse Robyn Williams is an abuser and has much more in common with paedophiles who abuse children, people who misuse asbestos are abusing members of the public and drug dealers of course in many cases abuse their customers.
If the cap fits Mr Williams I suggest you wear it.
To the moderator. I wrote “no-feedback” and I meant “no-feedback”. In order to explain I need to be a little long-winded. The IPCC has an extremely complex, hypothetical way of estimating how much global temperatures will rise as a result of adding CO2 to the atmosphere. It is a multi-stage process.
The first step is to estimate the radiative imbalance cause by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. This is termed radiative forcing. The number is impossible to measure, so no-one has the slightest idea what it is. It is generally agreed that the number is positive. Steven Mosher (SM) would have us believe the number is 3.7 Wm-2, and this number is written on tablets of stone.
The next step is to estimate no-feedback climate sensitivity. It is assumed that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere instantaneously doubles, and global temperatures react to the change in radiative forcing. The no-feedback climate sensitivity also cannot be measured, so, again, no-one has any idea what it’s value is. And again, SM would have us believe that the number 1.2C is written on tablets of stone.
The final step is to assess the feedbacks, which allegedly increase the response and amplify the 1. 2 C . Not to be repetitious, once again there are no measured values, and any number obtained is meaningless.
I have no objections to this type of estimation, just so long as before anyone claims that the numbers have any meaning, they are confirmed by actual measurements; actual empirical data. No such data exists, from temperature records of the 20th and 21st centuries. My estimate is one of a very few that has been attempted.
So, yes, I said “no-feedback” and I meant “no-feedback”.
Steven Mosher says:
November 25, 2012 at 1:11 am
start with this.
then get the book referenced.. chapter 2.
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld001.htm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Steven,
Those slides are telling you the same thing I am telling you. CO2 changes the ERL (Effective Radiating Level) in the atmosphere. Which is EXACTLY what I said in my explanation above. CO2 doesn’t change the amount of energy in the system, it changes where it is at any given time.
If you would take some time to understand this issue, then you’d understand why your explanations of sensitivity are completely wrong.
johanna says:
November 25, 2012 at 5:16 am
Agreed. Most often you will also find that brash arrogance is a cover for deep seated insecurity.
davidhoffer,
Those two physics arguments of yours were very lucid. Discussion from such clear statements are fruitful. Your efforts are very much appreciated.
I find analogies that try to teach physics in general unfruitful and therefore find unfruitful your car/ traffic analogy @ :
John
John Whitman;
I find analogies that try to teach physics in general unfruitful and therefore find unfruitful your car/ traffic analogy @ :
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Explaining why something is unfruitful has value. Simply stating that it is unfruitful, is unfruitful.
Your kind remarks regarding my physics explanations much appreciated.
davidhoffer:
analogies are not explanations.
analogies are not definitions.
analogies may be very poetic, but they suffer from inaccuracy (because they are not the entities they are being used to ILLUSTRATE rather DEFINE) and they suffer from incompleteness (because they do not possess all the attributes that the nominal topic does).
analogies are problematic, additionally, because they have attributes that the nominal topic does not – and therefore carry a freight of inapplicable attributes (call them STRAWMEN, if you want poetry instead of properly using language as language)
analogies are poetic and may be indicative of a person who lacks the comprehension to express a point using language.
analogies are simplifications that may reveal that the speaker views himself as the instructor and the listener as simple.
just say what you mean using words that have definitions and you’ll avoid the epistemological failures engendered by substituting semiotics for argumentation.
plus, it will conceal your secret desire to be a demagogue, which detracts from the message – unless that IS the message?
i’ll coin a neologism for this: punditosis, or cryptonarcissism – the secret desire to be worshipped by minions. it can bring down the best of them who lack self awareness.
davidmhoffer says:
November 25, 2012 at 8:59 am
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Explaining why something is unfruitful has value. Simply stating that it is unfruitful, is unfruitful.
Your kind remarks regarding my physics explanations much appreciated.
– – – – – – – – –
davidmhoffer,
Thanks for your reply.
Analogy is not an epistemologically valid tool for knowing what is. Do you claim analogy is any kind of scientific argument? I suggest avoiding it if clear understanding of physics is the goal. Do you think scientifically it is fruitful or valid in physics which is tasked with understanding what ultimately is. I find analogy in physics unfruitful.
If analogy is not valid argumentation within the science of physics, then it is also not valid in using it to explain physics to the public. Not fruitful except to mislead the public.
John
gnomish says:
November 25, 2012 at 10:15 am
– – – – – – – –
gnomish,
That was nice. : )
Well, masked man, who are you? I would like to know who is behind the gnomish mask and buy both davidmhoffer and you a brew together. We have a lot of good things to ‘face-to-face’ about while enjoying relaxing libations . . . I think (hope).
John
Thanks, i’d love to take a physics course from a prof who understands the nature of knowledge.
i’ll visit your blog when you get it going…maybe contribute something on semantic analysis and how a speaker reveals much more than he intends.
John Whitman;
Analogy is not an epistemologically valid tool for knowing what is.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I provided an analogy which explains in an easy to understand manner my point to Mosher, which was measuring things at either end of a path doesn’t tell you what happened to those things along the path. I maintain that the analogy serves the purpose.
Gnomish – I provided three different explanations at three different levels of understanding. If you with to take exception to any of them please do so on a case by case basis. Calling me names served no purpose and diminishes your credibility.
davidmhoffer says:
November 25, 2012 at 11:05 am
– – – – – – – – –
davidmhoffer,
Please take my critical comments about ‘analogy’ as my generic approach to analogy in science discussions. It is not specifically centered on your analogy; I actually thought your analogy was well done as analogies go. : )
I always read your posts, every single one; that is the best praise I can have for a blog commenter. I can say that of only a handful of blog commenters.
I would like to have some liquid libations with you someday. And also with that masked man called gnomish. : )
John
John Whitman;
Analogy is not an epistemologically valid tool for knowing what is. Do you claim analogy is any kind of scientific argument?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, I do not. But my comments were addressed to Mosher, who is not a scientist but a journalist with an interest in climate science. I provided three different explanations addressing his misunderstanding of the basic physics. Each one is valid in itz own way.
I make my living explaining extremely technical products to people. It is rarely possible in a one hour meeting to give the precise technical answer to a question unless the person asking the question already understands 95% of the answer. But the question gets asked, and it must be answered as best as one can given the time available and the technical knowledge of the questioner. Sometimes an analogy is useful, and sometimes is makes matters more confusing. You make a judgment call and hope you’ve done the right thing. In this case I hedged my bets and provided three different cuts at it. I’m trying to illustrate an issue, not write a text book.
– – – – – – –
gnomish,
Well, masked man, wrt my WP blog ‘premisedetectionandanalysis’ is still awaiting my first post. I am working on one. Probably it will be published around Christmas.
Viva epistemology! And the other branches of the philosophies that created the enlightenment!
John
Steven Mosher says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:42 pm
“The forcing from C02 is not zero. the physics used to radars, and cell phones, and IR missiles, and satillite pictures of the earth, that physics ( tested, calibrated, validated with field tests ) tells us that doubling c02 gives us 3.7watts.”
You have been misinformed. The “physics … that tells us that doubling CO2 gives us 3.7 watts” is fundamentally based on the environmental lapse rate and its estimated (non-zero) value. If the lapse rate were to go to zero, there would be no greenhouse effect and no forcing from atmospheric CO2 concentration. None of the above technologies that you mentioned have anything to do with the lapse rate.
The heat transfer calculation that computes a 3.7 W/m2 CO2 forcing assumes that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will not significantly decrease the lapse rate. This assumption is an educated guess. There are no controlled experiments that support this assumption and consequently there is no direct evidence for it. In fact there is some circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise.
Earth, Mars and Venus all have CO2 in their atmosphere (the Earth has substantial amounts of water vapor as well) and they all have environmental lapse rates significantly less (~30% less for Venus and Earth, Mars lapse rate has been known to change signs) than their adiabatic lapse rates. This supports the notion that adding greenhouse gases to a planet’s atmosphere will cause the environmental lapse rate to decrease. It would only take about a 3% lapse rate decrease to reduce the surface temperature on Earth by 1°K. Incidentally, a 3% average reduction in lapse rate would probably be undetectable with current instrumentation.
Can somebody explain to me what exactly has been said? how can one “promote pedophilia”? You’re either a pedophile or not; how can the condition be promoted (other than by killing off the non-pedophiles)?
analogy is not explanation.
i explained why.
so did mr Whitman.
put away your tarbaby, dave.
gnomish;
analogy is not explanation.
i explained why.
so did mr Whitman.
put away your tarbaby, dave
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I didn’t say it was, in fact I was specific that it was not. Yet you continue to hurl invective at me. To what purpose I know not.
Cripwell
“. The number is impossible to measure, so no-one has the slightest idea what it is. It is generally agreed that the number is positive. Steven Mosher (SM) would have us believe the number is 3.7 Wm-2, and this number is written on tablets of stone.”
Actually it is measured.
lets do a thought experiment Jim.
What is the radius of the earth?
What does the moon weight?
How far is it to the moon?
What is the temperature of your house?
How do we measure these ‘things’.
Do we get out a tape measure and hold one end on the earth?
Do we put the moon on a scale?
Do we wrap a tape measure around the earth?
Do we measure the kinetic energy of every molecule in your house?
nope. what we do is a combination of theory and observation. A combination of known physics and observation. So, I point a laser the moon. I measure the time it takes for the signal to go there and back. Now I have time. How do I get distance? well, I apply a theory that tells me that the speed of light is constant and bingo, I have an estimate of the distance. Use your imagination and you can see that we rarely make “direct’ measurements of anything we claim to know. We combine observation and theory. Let’s say you are building a plane. Say, F-18, and its flying around quite nicely. Now a smart engineer says ‘what of we double the thrust’, how fast will it fly. What do we do? Do we go out and build a double thrust engine and throw it in the plane to measure things? nope. We do some math. We do some physics. And the result tells us that the plane will only increase in speed by 200kts because of the increased weight.
You are driving in your car. you have 5 gallons of gas. you get 20 miles per gallon. its 200 miles form home. How many gallons at minimum should you put in your car?
Well, whats the point of all this. First, we dont make direct measurements of most things. we combine observation and known physics to make estimates. We dont put the moon on a scale, we estimate its weight using physics. We know the distance to the moon by using physics, not by pulling out a tape measure. And in our everyday life we depend on this kind of “knowing”
Well what about c02? First we know precisely how it interacts with the longwave IR given off by the earth. This is measured. the defense of our country depends upon this physics being true.
the operation of C02 detectors in buildings depends upon our understanding of how IR interacts with c02 being true. Your cell phone designer, your radar designer all have to understand how the gases in the atmosphere interact with all types of molecules. Why do we select X band for certain radars? why do we use millimeter wave for covert communications? how can a radar see rain? how does it detect minerals in the soil? radiative physics.
radiative physics is expressed in a collection of algorithms. Those algorithms ( physics) run on satellites. they are used to “subtract” the effects of atmosphere so that the ground truth can be observed. So, you take a picture at the top of the atmosphere and then if you want to know what the earth looks like at the surface you have to ‘account for” the effects of transmitting through gases. We do this every day. Our modern civilization depends on it.
The best of these algorithms are called Line by line models or LBL. now mind you Jim these models used to be classified, but now they are not. They were classified because we used them to design weapons.
The way you test a LBL model is as follows. You take a source on the ground and you predict using the physics what you will see in space. you can even do the test at various altitudes.
Like with the MASTER program. You have a known emitter on the ground and you predict what you will se in space given the physics of how IR travels through gases.
Since its hard to control the gases between the emitter and the sensor, you also do tests in areas that are known to have very small quantities of certain gases. So, you test in antarctica because of the super dry conditions there.
You can also test looking up. You fly a emitter of IR at altitude and you look UP at it through the atmosphere, testing your physics. Its important that this be right if you want to shoot down planes. One thing you see when you look up is Downwelling IR from the atmosphere itself in addition to the IR emiited by the target. Bascially, we know how IR propagates through the atmosphere. we know how all frequencies propagate. Its the basis of everyday devices working properly.
So you take this physics and you predict. if I decrease water vapor what will I see at the sensor.
Then you test that, in antarctica. The physics works. You want to measure the air temperature at 5km above the earth ( like skeptic spenser does) guess what? you need physics to account for the transmission through c02. You test that. the physics works.
Now ask the question. what does the physics tell us will happen if we double c02?
Do we go out and double c02 and measure? nope. Same way we dont run out and throw a new engine in the plane without first applying known physics. When we apply known physics to this problem the answer is…………3.7Watts.
You might think it is wiser to actually double c02 and measure that. Well we are one our way to doing that but not by design. A smarter engineer will apply known physics to the problem.
Known, tested, validated, physics tells you that doubling c02 will increase forcing by 3.7 watts.
there is no experiment that suggests otherwise. there is no physics used in the construction of working devices that suggest otherwise.
Weren’t Einstein’s thought-experiments analogies?
Steven Mosher,
There is something wrong with your LONG explanation: because there is no global warming, and there hasn’t been for a long time now.
I don’t know what exactly it is that you’re missing. But based on empirical evidence, it is clear that something is not right in your presumed understanding. If what you say is true, global temperatures should be rising smartly. So your conjecture is wrong. Time to re-think your assumptions, in light of the fact that the planet is obviously not cooperating with your explanation.
Steven Mosher;
Known, tested, validated, physics tells you that doubling c02 will increase forcing by 3.7 watts.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No it does not. The CALCULATED physics suggests that the sum of all downward photons that exist in the atmospheric column that would not have existed without CO2 doubling, subtract all the upward photons that would not have existed without CO2 doubling gives a total amount of photons that IF THEY EXISTED IN ONE PLACE would result in 3.7 w/m2 of downward flux.
As I have explained to you several times already, they do NOT exist all in one place. Nor, as you suggested above by trying to compare to w/m2 increase in insolation, do they add any additional energy to the system as a whole.
You are so far over your head you don’t seem to realize you are drowning!
Hoffer:
“No, I do not. But my comments were addressed to Mosher, who is not a scientist but a journalist with an interest in climate science. I provided three different explanations addressing his misunderstanding of the basic physics. Each one is valid in itz own way.”
I am not a journalist. By education I was a math and physics major, and it wasnt very challenging so i switched to get degrees in Philosophy, English and linguistics. After my fellowship to grad school, I went back to math and physics and worked in advanced design for Northrop. That was cool because of their excellent education programs and having a chance to work on stealth aircraft was very cool. So, basically, the physics you get wrong was what we had to work with every day. Of course then programs like MODTRAN were classified. but never mind. My work there was being in charge of physics code for various sensors, so ESA radar and EO/IR along with some cool AI work. If you ever played falcon 16 video games you would have fought against my AI adversary’s. Hope they kicked your ass. After that I went to work for a company that specialized in high angle of attack aerodynamics. Somewhere around the web you can find my work on controls and displays for aircraft. That was a cool place because of the research in fluid dynamics and flight controls. I tended to work on “AI” controls for aircraft. VP of engineering got boring. I got tired of answering the same stupid question ( how does an philosophy major do what you do?.. ah well, they eventually understand that math and physics was my first love.. who stops learning?)
So, engineering gave way to product development so I went to silicon valley. Today you and your kids are using stuff i helped to pioneer. Again, how does an english/philosophy major do electronics? and chip design.. arrg. Chips are just code ( like VHDL or verolog) and code is just math. So, at one point, I suggested to a group of friends that instead of calling their graphics chip a “graphics chip” that should call it something different. a GPU. made a ton of money off that company for my company. Anyway, the cool thing there was that i dream I had back in the 80s could finally come true; Physics on a graphics chip, something I had done back in the late 80s with old SGI.
Anyway, graphics got boring so I decided to look at 3d audio. The physics were pretty simple ( we had looked at some of this back at northrop) so I started pushing 3D audio. Then there was Mp3, and the first DVD, and the first dual mode webcams, and a bunch of stuff in wireless.
Then cell phones. Now I basically work in programming. Mostly looking at satellite data.
Of course before you use that data you better read and understand the theory behind it. Most data products come with a nice big hefy physics explnation.
oh ya, I wrote a book, but Im not a journalist. I cant even spell.
arrg phone posting sucks
Steven, you write “Known, tested, validated, physics tells you that doubling c02 will increase forcing by 3.7 watts.”
Myhre et al 1998 says “Three radiative transfer models were used”. I have been over this again and again. Nowhere in the literature is there any proof that radiative transfer models are suitable to estimate radiative forcing. Transfer models were developed to do specific engineering type calculations. They were never designed to estimate radiative forcing.
I have to wonder, if your explanation is so simple and straightforward, as to why it has never been written up in the peer reviewed literature. Why dont you write it up, and get it published. Then we could all read why radiative transfer models can, in fact, estimate radiative forcing.
Steven Mosher,
Thanx for the bio. Now, about that non-existent global warming…
Steven Mosher:
You mention putting a reflector on the Moon and measuring the distance to it, and you define “measurement” as a combination of thoughts and observations. That’s a passable definition.
Before the reflector had been installed, our thoughts (you call them theories) predicted that Moon’s orbit would decay inward with time. Now that we have a mirror up there, we know that the orbit is in fact expanding, but we have not yet cancelled our thoughts that told us it should decay.
It is precisely because of the thought component present in all measurements that we should expect them to be continuously adjusted (or otherwise stop making observations).
There are even efforts underway to automate such adjustments: http://wiki.cogkit.org/wiki/Active_Thermochemical_Tables
I think complaints should be lodged directly with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), even though the ABC and SBS are technically exempt from any scruntiny under ACMA (ie. ABC and SBS as Government entities are “self-regulated”). To non-Australians – see how it works here in Australia these days? Do you get the picture….?!
http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=CONTACT_COMPLAINTS_OVIEW#radio
Mosher,
That’s quite the resume. We probably have crossed paths several times in the last 35 years and just didn’t know it.
That said, given your technical background, it is beyond me how you can make claims like comparing a 1 watt increase in insolation to 1 watt of forcing from CO2 increasing. It is also beyond me that you cite as examples things like radar which we can directly measure from point A to point B as being indicative of our knowledge of how LW travels through the atmosphere when we can only measure what happens to it indirectly.
3.7w/m2 claimed for a doubling of CO2, yet 324 w/m2 is claimed for all greenhouse back radiation.
A doubling of CO2 therefore is just 1.1% of the total. If 33c represents the total for greenhouse gases this just represents 0.36c rise per doubling of CO2. This is being generous because most of the warming from greenhouse gases occurs in the first parts with it being logarithmic.
There is obviously some disagreement here compared with the theoretical 1c per doubling CO2.
324 w/m2 claimed for all greenhouse gases doesn’t warm a bucket of water in the shade during one day, so 1.1 percent of this even when atmospheric levels in future are reached is so miniscule, no wonder we can’t measure the difference from zero now.
Should be in my last post if atmospheric levels in future are reached not when.
I only managed to listen to half of the broadcast before I gave up.
Were there any actual scientist?
DaveE.
Steven Mosher says: “Chips are just code ( like VHDL or verolog) and code is just math.”
You are either taking liberties with that statement and generalizing, or your knowledge of ICs and electronics is like your knowledge of CO2 & Physics, lacking.
A bit beyond OTT and seriously in need of an equally robust response.
One thing you need to realise about people like this: they don’t respond to decency, they only respond to threats.
Those with influence need to work out what threats will work and then threaten them with alacrity.
Davidmhoffer, John Whitman and gnomish:
I write to support David in his use of analogies (and not merely because – as he demonstrates in this thread – he is good at it).
At November 25, 2012 at 10:15 am gnomish says to David
I point out that the insults and ad homs. in that quotation say more about gnomish than about DavidAnd I write to address the epistemological issues.
Analogies are illustrations to aid comprehension. As such, they are a part of “explanation”. And only arrogant fools make no attempt to explain in terms a listener can understand.
No scientific statement is ‘true’ because any scientific statement is a description of a model which represents our best understanding of what is ‘true’.
A scientific definition is one type of scientific statement, and – in common with all scientific statements – it can alter with greater understanding; e.g. the definition of ‘combustion’ changed as a result of the work of Lavoisier.
Hence, each scientific statement is an approximation to what is ‘true’: they all lack “completeness”.
Some scientific statements are more accurate approximations than others. For example,
(a) Newton’s model of the behaviour of gravity is adequate for engineers to use it to put a man on the Moon,
but
(b) Einstein’s model of the behaviour of gravity is needed to understand the perturbations of the orbit of Mercury.
The teaching of the behaviour of gravity does not start with Einsteinian relativity: it starts with Newtonian mechanics. And Newtonian mechanics is not rejected because it is less “accurate” and is more of an “illustration” than Einsteinian relativity.
Analogies may or may not be “poetic”, but so what?
If they aid understanding then they are useful tools for aiding comprehension of the listener.
In the specific example of David’s ‘traffic analogy’ it is a clear demonstration of a case where the input and output do not indicate the distribution in a system. And that case is commonly known. So, if it breaks the barrier of someone failing to understand the concept of ‘input&output don’t indicate internal distribution’ then it has served a useful purpose. A person with that conceptual barrier will never manage to understand how the flow of photons through the atmosphere cannot be determined by the input and output of photons.
A desire to help people to learn may be an indication of a generous nature and is certainly not a clear indication of “secret desire to be a demagogue, which detracts from the message – unless that IS the message?” I am surprised that somebody would make such a suggestion while proclaiming his/her understanding of epistemology.
And it is plain wrong to assert;
“just say what you mean using words that have definitions and you’ll avoid the epistemological failures engendered by substituting semiotics for argumentation.”
No, in most cases ‘talking over the heads of people’ leaves them baffled and gives the impression you are a prat.
And the assertion that using an analogy reveals “the secret desire to be worshipped by minions” is untrue and seems to be an example of psychological projection,
Analogies can be useful. But – like all useful things – are capable of being misused. In this thread David has provided clear, appropriate and useful analogies.
Richard
@ davidmhoffer,
I have for a long time had a somewhat different traffic analogy you may, or may not like.
I am simply observing energy content of any system as a function of time, i.e. how
long that delivered energy stays within a defined area. In regard to our planet the defined area is broadly the land surface, the oceans, and the atmosphere. How long the solar insolation, entering or leaving a defined area, stays before exiting determines T. and or heat content of the system observed. This leads to a law.
“At its most basic only two things can effect the heat content of any system in a radiative balance. Either a change in the input, or a change in the “residence time” of some aspect of those energies within the system.”
Traffic Analogy…
On a highway if ten cars per hour enter the highway, and the cars are on the road for ten hours before exiting, there will be 100 cars on the road and as long as these factors remain the same the system is in balance. If you change the INPUT to eleven cars per hour, then over a ten hour period the system will increase from 100 cars to 110 cars before a balance is restored and no further increase occurs. The same effect as the increase in INPUT achieves can also be realized by either slowing the cars down 10% or by lengthening the road 10%. In either case you have increased the energy in the system by ten percent by either increasing the residence time, or the input.
I try to understand your debate with Mr Mosher, however I find the affixation on radiation alone as being immensely likely to produce a wrong answer.
The existence of an atmosphere (which of course our earth has) adds a second third and fourth method of cooling the surface; conduction convection, and evaporation. Now the surface has four methods of cooling.
Now less of the specific heat is radiating from the surface, as some of the specific heat is now conducting, convecting, and evaporating, only to eventually radiate to space via GHG. (It is not easy to imagine that a planets earth, ocean and atmospheres sole means of cooling, radiation to space, can easily warm from greater ability to radiate to space) As the entire atmosphere is radiating conducting and convecting at the same time with energy from both the surface and TSI, it appears problematic to determine exactly what one is measuring when one measures radiation.
According to GHG radiation theory, in a non GHG atmosphere, the incoming solar energy and the outgoing LWIR energy mostly bypass the atmosphere and leave it cooler (some 33 degrees) then it would be in an atmosphere containing the earths level of GHGs.
However, once again, this ignores a second third and fourth method of cooling the surface; conduction convection, and evaporation.
It should be easy to see that while a GHG may INCREASE the residence time of radiating energy from the surface, it also would DECREASE the residence time of energy which it revives via conduction, said energy accelerating to said GHG molecule via changes in convection and evaporation.
I ma quite certain the devil is in the details.
****
Steven Mosher says:
November 25, 2012 at 2:46 pm
I am not a journalist. By education I was a math and physics major, and it wasnt very challenging so i switched to get degrees in Philosophy, English and linguistics.
****
Wasn’t challenging? So you switched to English?!? LOL. Good thing Einstein still felt challenged.
I knew quite a few in university that dropped out of math/physics/engineering, and it wasn’t because it wasn’t challenging….
David says:
November 26, 2012 at 5:40 am
@ davidmhoffer
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
David,
The analogy as presented is useful for demonstrating that measuring LW between two points tells us far less about what happened in between than one might think. Expanding the analogy to describe the climate system as a whole is probably a good example of the limits of usefulness that an analogy can be put to.
For your discussion above, yes all those things are true, but at day’s end, the energy coming into the system is 100% solar radiance and the energy leaving the system is 100% earth radiance. (There are energy sources like tidal, molten core, radioactive decay, but they are rounding errors by comparison). My point being that all the processes you allude to change where energy is in the system at any given point in time and what direction it is going, but there’s only one way in and one way out and that is radiance. All the rest is what happens in between.
Usefulness of an Analogy
A customer recently asked me how much the storage array we were implementing was than the one being replaced. I asked, faster at what? Performance he said. OK, I said, what aspect of performance? Throughput? Bandwidth? Data protection features such as point in time copies of data? What?
The customer thought about it and then said…How much faster will my applications run with this new storage array?
I don’t know I said. Are your applications cpu bound? memory bound? I/O bound? Are they latency sensitive? Are they subject to latency considerations at the end user to server layer, the server to network layer, the network to storage array layer or the storage array to disk layer? And what about throughput and bandwidth at those layers? Do you have good statistical baselines of each of these parameters that we can use as a starting point for analysis?
At which point the customer said something to the effect of….but I thought this array was faster than the old one….
To which I responded: It is. It is like trading your 9 passenger van for a Ferrari and asking if you are going to get to work faster. Not knowing what roads you’ll be driving on, what the speed limit of them is, the state of law enforcement along your route, or the amount of traffic that you’ll encounter, all I can say is…. probably. And, if it turns out that you have to still give 8 other people a ride to work each day…. probably not.
Technically accurate? Not even close. Useful to illustrate the complexity of providing a simple answer? Yes.
d,hoffer said:
“my comments were addressed to Mosher, who is not a scientist but a journalist with an interest in climate science. I provided three different explanations addressing his misunderstanding of the basic physics”
—————————————————————————————
we may accept the assertion that d.hoffer intended to educate mr. mosher. the implication is that mr. mosher is ignorant and that mr hoffer is the illuminated guru who can cure mr mosher’s deficiency by incantation.
if mr. mosher did not become ‘educated’ as a result of d.hoffer’s spells, then what substantiates the claim that these analogies were useful?
however, supporting my observations, gentlement, is the mannian spin of the offended guru.
d.hoffer – do get a dictionary and look up the word ‘invective’. or will we next hear of well funded conspiracies and death threats?
preach as thou wilt – feel free to shriek ‘calumny!’ when insecurity drives you to it.
and so we have returned to the actual topic of this article.
when i was young, i did eagerly frequent
saint and scientist- and hear great argument!
but when at last my youth was spent,
i came out by the same door wherein i went.
O.K.
my best regards, gentlemen.
the topic, the website, the world is all about you.
– – – – – – –
Roger Knights
It appeared to me when studying physics at university (40+ yrs ago) that Einstein’s central thought-experiments where about the physical phenomena that he was discussing / presenting. That does not appear to me the same as if one tries to show scientific aspects of a physical phenomenon by rhetorical reference to some other cirmcumstances that are known by the presenter to be completely unconnected to the original subject physical pheonomenon.
My memory could be mistaken on Einstein’s central thought-experiments, but a simple Google search seems to support my memory.
John
gnomish;
Your towering intellect is on display for all to see.
– – – – – – – – – –
Richardscourtney,
Appreciate your reply.
Analogy is a rhetorical device. It does not provide an objective basis for knowledge of the identities, properties and behaviors of a physical phenomenon; i.e., physical science.
I see no basis for inconsistency between the reasoning within the physical scientific community and the reasoning of its communication elsewhere; therefore I find no support for recommending the use of analogy in the scientific discussion on climate.
John
if rhetorical devices are not tools of cognition, what purpose do they serve?
counterfeit cognitivel currency debauches the intellectual economy, no?
shall call that ‘generosity’?
Would you object to the commonly used analogy of a bowling ball on a rubber sheet to elucidate how mass bends space-time? (Regardless of whether it was Einstein’s or someone else’s analogy.)
gnomish says:
November 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm
– – – – – – –
gnomish,
Hmmmm . . . . let me try these . . . . all very classical views . . . .
Logic => irreducible fundamental schematics for objective reasoning to reach greater scientific knowledge / higher degrees of scientific certainty
Rhetoric => devices / strategies for debate to sway the public towards ones views
Dialectic => originally intended as a philosophical tool to reduce knowledge to absolute premises / irreducible fundamentals but I think it is now not distinguishable from logic) => {not relevant for this thread, though interesting in its own right}
John
lolz –
when you start filling your blog with content, plz consider the possibiliity of contriving that it should end up as a book.
there might be a market for lessons on how to think. if not now, then someday when the alternative is too costly.
Roger Knights – “Would you object to the commonly used analogy of a bowling ball on a rubber sheet to elucidate how mass bends space-time?“.
Well, yes I would (a bit), because of its circularity. It’s supposed to be an analogy for gravity, but in the analogy what bends the rubber sheet is gravity (used analogously for mass) and it only works as an analogy if we assume the sheet is already in a gravitational field (nothing would move on the sheet without gravity). So separating the analogy from what it represents is a bit tricky.
= = = = = =
Roger Knights,
Great, the dialog continues . . . . : )
Several points:
Fiirst – I do not object to davidmhoffer using analogy (or anyone else for that matter). I am pointing out my case that I think it weakens his scientific discussion to use analogy. I respect him and owe him my ideas to improve his dialog.
Second – The bowling ball and rubber sheet example you mention is not one of Einstein’s thought-experiments. It is a homey ‘cartoon’ (if you will) or crudely inapproriate (in my view) analogy about his general theory’s results.
Third – The bowling ball example is a misrepresentative cartoon at best, especially when you can simply Google search for Einstein’s space time curvature wrt his GTR. You get some more accurate graphics of actual mathematical space time curves superimposed on actual graphics of astronomical bodies that are beyond comparison to the fiction that is the a non-scientifically naïve and misleading bowling ball and rubber sheet. There are some great video representations too. N’est ce pas? Bowling balls? Rubber sheets? Nah.
John
What’s your opinion of analogizing earth’s atmosphere to a greenhouse?
The ABC is only trying to distract from their own culpability.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-01/muirhead-sentenced-today/4288758/?site=hobart
Then there’s their regular use of Jimmy Saville of the BBC, and the BBC’s recent attempt to falsely accuse Lord McAlpine of paedophilia. That was born of their own guilt and the pathological need of Left/Liberal types to justify their own failings by creating lies about even worse failings on the part of those they hate.
Re several posts:
“Analogy is a poor way to reason. The only trouble is, it is all we have.” I can’t remember who wrote or said that, but it is true.
A computer model is an analogy. A mathematical model is an analogy. A scientific formula is an analogy. All of mathematical science is analogies. All thought and communication about “reality” is at best similes (analogies). We model semiconductors using fractionally charged “holes”, because it is more convenient. We speak of “heat flow” in solids and use formulas consistent with fluids long after caloric has been abandoned. Nothing actually flows. Light waves aren’t; there’s nothing to wave. It is more a periodic transform between states, that can sometimes be conveniently modeled in some respects as a wave.
Anyone familiar with the history of science will know of the many, frequently over simplified, analogies used to suggest results. Very frequently it is much easier to derive a formula or calculate something if one has a good idea of what it should be by analogy. That is especially true in actually doing new science, not just following a cook book (another analogy). The same is true in preliminary checking of experiments, observations, and calculations. And, we’re back to Immanuel Kant’s “ding und sich”, and other philosophers almost ad infinitum and ad nauseum. Please no comments about “almost ad infinitum”.
What this thread is about is skeptics being considered delusional and to be considered dangerous lunatics as are pedophiles, promoters of asbestos as healthful to asthmatics, and smoking crack as normal and healthy for teenagers, by Robyn Williams and Stephan Lewandowsky on ABC (Australia) National Radio, “The Science Show”. We are talking about ABC’s acceptance of this defamation as unobjectionable. We are also talking about the seemingly general acceptance of ideas like this by climate catastrophists, the mainstream media, and governments.
Please note there were no qualifiers involved. (I read and listened to the entire thing.) Skeptics of anthropogenic climate catastrophe were directly compared to that degree of absence of connection with reality. This and the connection of anthropogenic climate catastrophe skepticism with Republicans (U. S.), and the extreme right were IMO the main import of the piece; not “similar to”, “something like”, “at an extreme could be considered”, “except”; but actually are delusional and dangerous lunatics.
Please note “Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data . . .” [emphasis added] The only thing Mann was accused of was molesting and torturing data. The full statement was about the protection granted him being like that granted Sandusky, as has been stated repeatedly here.
In neither case did anyone write or say Mann or climate catastrophism skeptics were pedophiles, nor was this implied. Anyone who claimed otherwise about Mann should retract and apologize. A cursory reading or hearing of either could give a different impression, especially to someone of extreme emotional views on either side, but not by anyone intelligent and intellectually honest enough to actually pay attention to what was said and written. Anthropogenic climate catastrophe skeptics were directly stated to be delusional and directly compared to offensive and dangerous forms of this.
I deplore the extreme language and ad hominem arguments sometimes used by skeptics on this blog and others. I deplore the extreme language and ad hominem arguments sometimes used by climate catastrophists, and their applying epithets such as “den**rs”
Unless and until anthropogenic climate change advocates decry this type of offensive defamation, they are revealed as intellectually dishonest and ethically and morally accessories to it. Aren’t academics and intellectuals supposed to support minority rights and freedom of speech? Aren’t scientists supposed to support free and open inquiry? In both cases that is what they say. Isn’t the IPCC required by its charter to present a minority report? In each case, what do they do?
I do not take such language as used on ABC personally nor very seriously. However, the analogy pointed out by several here to previous suppressions of free speech and minorities must be given full consideration. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” So, if there is somewhere you don’t want to go, don’t take the first step; if you already have, turn around. The climate catastrophists have long since taken far more than that first step, and do not seem to show any reluctance to take more and more to suppress dissent, free and open inquiry, and evidence contrary to their views.
I think we are beginning to understand how Galileo felt when opposed by the Catholics..