From Michigan State University, and the Department of Junior Lewandowskys, where this angry looking guy obviously thinks global warming manifests itself in every weather event, we have the same old ad hominem argument, except published.
Global warming cynics unmoved by extreme weather
EAST LANSING, Mich. — What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real? Surely, many scientists believe, enough droughts, floods and heat waves will begin to change minds.
But a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar throws cold water on that theory.
Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012, Aaron M. McCright and colleagues report in a paper published online today in the journal Nature Climate Change.
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and this extreme weather was not going to change that,” said McCright, associate professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology.
Winter 2012 was the fourth warmest winter in the United States dating back to at least 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some 80 percent of U.S. citizens reported winter temperatures in their local area were warmer than usual.
The researchers analyzed March 2012 Gallup Poll data of more than 1,000 people and examined how individuals’ responses related to actual temperatures in their home states. Perceptions of warmer winter temperatures seemed to track with observed temperatures.
“Those results are promising because we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them so they can adapt accordingly to the weather,” McCright said.
But when it came to attributing the abnormally warm weather to global warming, respondents largely held fast to their existing beliefs and were not influenced by actual temperatures.
As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.
The abnormally warm winter was just one in an ongoing series of severe weather events – including the 2010 Russian heat wave, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines – that many believed would help start convincing global warming cynics.
“There’s been a lot of talk among climate scientists, politicians and journalists that warmer winters like this would change people’s minds,” McCright said. “That the more people are exposed to climate change, the more they’ll be convinced. This study suggests this is not the case.”
###
McCright’s co-authors are Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.
Nature Climate Change is part of the Nature Publishing Group, which publishes the flagship journal Nature.
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Pretty sure U-M and MSU are NOT the same things. Might wanna check the headline?
It says Michigan State. That is MSU. the other big (bigger) Michigan U is U of M not U-M.
Michigan State Spartans- #11… Michigan Wolverines- nada.
There you go.
This year…but not last year.
There you go.
Last year the Spartans won the Big Ten Championship and went to the Rose Bowl which they also won over Stanford (think it was Stanford). The Wolverines sucked last year too.
It has been a few years since Bo Schemblecher.
SchembECHLer. I would be dangerous if I could spell.
Oooops – mea culpa. I got my MSU and UofM mixed up. I knew it was the guys in Lansing, if that helps.
I play golf with a bunch of MSU grads. They are going to hear about this.
A sociologist who claims to be a climate expert. That’s a new one. Most people wouldn’t consider a sociologist a scientist in the first place.
They aren’t, more like a phrenologist.
So you’re criticizing an ad hominem argument with an ad hominem argument?
It is hardly an ad hominem argument to observe that is some question as to whether a sociologist can be considered a real scientist.
A “Post Normal” scientist perhaps, but hardly in the same class as – say – a physicist.
He started it Ma.
OK, then I will happy to take a closer look at the credentials of those who post blogs here.
Barry:
The argument is not ad hominem.
There is active debate about the “scientific” status of economics, sociology and psychology. Hard sciences (math, physics, chemistry) view these disciplines as lacking intellectual and scientific rigor. Basically the issue amounts to an amusing grab for academic status.
The babblings of Sociologist McCright don’t do much to demonstrate his “scientific” chops.
You appear not to understand what an ad hominem argument is. It is an irrelevant attack on the person (“toward the man”).
To say Professor X beats his wife is irrelevant because, even if true, it not affect the quality of his work (unless he holds himself out as an expert on family relations). To the left, to say that Professor Y routinely discards data that do not support his hypothesis is relevant (although it may also be false) because it means that his published results cannot be trusted).
Sociologists have long had the desire to be regarded as ‘scientists’ while those who are ‘scientists’ have no desire at all to be sociologists, as they tend to value facts and data ,over the type of BS which sociologists place so much value on . Although to be fair climate ‘science’ shares a similar outlook, start with results and create the ‘facts’ you need to support it.
I myself am not sure there is much difference between countering an “ad hominem argument with an ad hominem argument” and countering “a sociological theory with a sociological theory.” Is it not a sociological statement when it is stated, “Most people wouldn’t consider a sociologist a scientist in the first place.” ???
The statement I like is, “Those results are promising because we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them so they can adapt accordingly to the weather,”
I’m not all that sure this applies to teenagers. They adapt according to the fashion. My daughter once refused to wear unfashionable boots in a blizzard, and my son once refused to wear a hat when it was very cold because it would mess up his carefully spiked hair.
Come to think of it, political correctness is a sort of fashion. Perhaps some people are basically teenagers who never grew up.
I’d study this phenomenon further, if someone would give me a grant.
He is typical of the 97%
One step above climate scientist, astrologist.
“Climate Science” as a discipline is generally found in the Geography Department at universities that now offer the discipline.
That puts climate science on a par with other quasi-scientific pursuits.
Rocky Road
Climate science, as practiced today, can hardly be called a ‘discipline’.
Alternative descriptions to ‘discipline’ in this instance could be:
i) a ‘Deceit’ – far too many instances for it to be a real science.
ii) ‘Disingenuous’ – far too often the norm, rather than an exception.
iii) ‘Duplicitous’ – that’s what you get with grant addiction, expect nothing else.
iv) ‘Devious ‘ – at the end of the day, it’s all about the money.
Climate Science is very disciplined. Just try to publish something that contradicts the AGW meme. They will discipline you upside your head with a hockey stick.
As a geologist – yeah, we pretty much laugh at the scientific rigour of geographers. Geology has everyhting they know and do inside of it, plus we layer on physics, chemistry, mathmatics, astonomy….
But geography has parts of sociology to.
Do you geologists partake of that discipline?
Most climate scientists aren’t ‘scientists’ if they were they would understand the that the terms; skeptic, data and evidence are not bad words.
Not surprising at all, it just says that the barrier to entry is very low, like politics or stock prognostications money honey business.
right on! Col Mosby, There’s natural science and then there’s un-natural science, political science, social science, environmental science etc. The former is fact based he latter is not!
Thank you for your ignorant comment.
Social scientists probably do more actual science than natural scientists because there is more to discover in iur realm. The problem is that some in our realm don’t actually practice science. But, that’s different than natural sciences, how exactly?
So, your comments are on par with saying the police are all racists because after what happened in Ferguson.
Two labs
Bovine excrement.
Chip Javert, Assuming science involves the use of the scientific method and falsifiable hypotheses then there is no reason why some social scientists may be scientists. It’s not what your qualified in. It’s not what you study.
It’s how you study.
Yes, many social scientists are playing with words and symbols to make social constructs that they then reify. Which I can’t defend. That is an error so old it was condemned in the first commandment.
But it is not fair to say that is all social science is.
Calling BS on a whole field of research is closing your mind to potential insights.
M Courtney
While it’s probably accurate to assume I’m not overly impressed with sociology (thinking about this is not exactly a priority for me), I clearly was responding to the claims in Two Labs’ comment:
(1) “Social scientists probably do more actual science than natural scientists…”
(2) “So, your comments are on par with saying the police are all racists because after what happened in Ferguson.”
Those comments are bovine excrement.
I doubt most sociological observation behave according to hard natural laws (F=MA, and all that), so attempting to use or mimic the scientific method is simply inappropriate – the field should simply adopt a more relevant paradigm.
Chip Javert (or the opposite).
That’s a helpful comment. I had taken your first statement to be that “The problem is that some in our realm don’t actually practice science” was BS because you questioned the “some” and not all.
That was worth a challenge, I thought.
Perhaps Sociology should adopt a probabilistic model.
Maybe if they want to use a physics template they should go for a quantum universe rather than a classical one. Populations can be in a superposition of opinions, after all.
Good comment.
Chip,
By both your own admission, and by the nature of your comments, you obviously have no idea what social scientists actually do, so why bother commenting?
Both of my statements you impolitely disagree with are correct.
Social science often resembles cargo cults really. Sorry, but there it is. The basic problem that I so often see is that they are almost incapable of formulating experiments properly. For most sciences we are trying to eliminate bias from the expermmental data, and trying to generate objective results. For the social sciences the bias is the very thing your are trying to understand and study. Hard to learn much about yourself staring in a mirror. A general lack of scientific rigour is baked in the cake, so to speak. Also proper expermients are exeedingly hard to do or analyze, menaing and awful lot of “arm waving” science gets involved. You know, like global warming.
Two Labs
You state “…both your own admission, and by the nature of your comments, you obviously have no idea what social scientists actually do…”. That is factually incorrect; I plainly said “I’m not overly impressed with sociology “.
Not only do you appear to have science envy, your reading skills are suspect.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I’d bet physicists at CERN do more science in a day than all sociologists in recorded history. For the most part, sociologists do “observations” and statistics, not science.
Sad, that weak stuff like this makes it into Nature Climate Change.
Have you seen anything good in Nature Climate Change?
Michigan State is where the Behavioral Sciences Teachers Education Project–BSTEP–was created in the 60s. In the 70s it moved on to being the home of the Effective Schools Project to push schools away from the academic emphasis where parents’ levels of education and household priorities made a difference on how children tended to do in school. It’s also home to 2 of the most notorious constructivist math programs ever created–Connected Math for middle school and the Core Plus integrated math for high school.
MSU may have some good departments, but it has a long history of trying to change perceptions of reality via the classroom. This sociology prof is just keeping up the tradition.
Is he an NSF PI under a Behavioral Sciences grant by any chance?
One look shows he’s no field man. Models all the way down.
Oh, and can we have a URL to those comments? Thanks.
What a pathetic scientist. Thousands of climate scientists disagree with him, and have solid evidence. This stooge thinks that ad-hominem attacks are good science. He can join the hockey stick idiots and ignore the massive failures of the computer models. Just another left wing kook playing scientist. despicable.
He obviously thinks the world began on his birthday and ignores the thousands of recorded weather catastrophies in the prevailing many hundreds of years. He’s just parroting popular psychobabble and knows the gravy train will end soon, so he’s making a last ditch attempt to line his pockets with fame and fortune, like the rest.
Love Being called a cynic on this… As Ambrose Bierce put it in his “Devils Dictionary”, ‘a cynic is a blackguard who sees things as they are, not as they should be.’
Where does it say “cynic”? Is Anthony making stuff up again?
The abnormally warm winter was just one in an ongoing series of severe weather events – including the 2010 Russian heat wave, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines – that many believed would help start convincing global warming cynics.
************************
reading helps
No. But as dmacleo highlights, you certainly are making things up.
Oh dear…
Now who’s using ad hom argument? Some guy who either can’t read or thinks we can’t.
Reading is fundamental.
Barry, given dmacleo’s quote, I submit this for your review: http://www.sadtrombone.com/
No more than you are prone to do!
You from the OJ jury — if it doesn’t fit you must acquit.?
Well, I didn’t read the original paper (no link to it here), but there was no indication that the researcher(s) actually said that. If only in the press release, it should be taken with a grain of salt because those writers tend to skew things.
Barry
I realize it pains you that the press release contained the word “cynic” even though you accused Anthony of “making it up again”.
Your best response would have been to make simple mea culpa and move on.
PS What other instance of “making it up” are you accusing Anthony of? Please provide an example.
“Is Anthony making stuff up again?”
Barry, when did you stop beating your wife?
Barry,
“…it should be taken with a grain of salt because those writers tend to skew things”
I agree; although it is not only “those writers”, it is those that need to call attention to themselves, it is those that need to prove their grant, it is those that need to obtain future grants, it is those that need to defend their previously skewed data, it is … Mann and the likes of Mann.
My I quote you (repeatedly)?
Looks like Nature Climate Change will publish anything as long as it conforms to the party line.
Giving them the “Sokal” treatment might be an effective way of exposing that “the emperor has not clothes”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Yawn.
A sociologist; ok.
This guy looks too young to make it to retirement before this whole cowpie blows up in his face.
Chucklle.
I was going to say has this guy received any training in the scientific method, and then I saw he’s in the Dept of Sociology at MSU, so of course he hasn’t. Anybody out there in a real science department at MSU that would like to take this little Associate Professor aside and teach him a bit of how science works?
Sure. Would anyone else like to help a poor, pretend climate scientist?
But a lot of the climatologists apparently did neither. Otherwise how can one justify paper upon paper of materials and methods that when stated do not address how the method used impacts the outcome. Look at the latest post by Steve Mc — where Mann and the latest NASA god encourage “scientists” to just change their method description but keep the conclusions the same.
Michigan State and The University of Michigan are two different schools. Please change the headline.
They’re SCHOOLS?!
Good lord.. what the hell are they teaching them these days.. Economics via climate sociology?
“””””…..Winter 2012 was the fourth warmest winter in the United States dating back to at least 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. …..”””””
Whoopee !
Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and other severe global warming “extreme” weather events don’t occur in winter time; they occur in summer time. Also warm winters simply mean it didn’t cool as fast as it should have. It doesn’t cool much in winter anyhow.
Major cooling also takes place during the heat of the day in summertime when sigma T^4 kicks into gear and radiates like crazy.
So why focus on global warming in the winter times, it is hotter summers that might fry us, not hotter winters.
Oh I see this chap is a sociologist; not a physicist.
Just forget I said anything; I wouldn’t expect a sociologist to understand simple physics of thermal radiation..
But I’ll keep him in mind if I ever need any sociological advice.
I would like to see his conclusions on the 2013-2014 winter. Perhaps his view would change? (Nah!)
Or the almost to winter of 2014-2015.
“””””…..As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it……”””””
Ah! there we have it.
People should stop voting Democrat party, and they will see the light..
Well, usually folks feel the heat before they see the light, but in this case they will probably have to skip step one.
Trust me, there are plenty of us Democrats that question the validity of the global warming theory.
Tsk.Angry? Serious perhaps, a bit overweight for his age I think,,, perhaps some snow shoveling will cure both mental and phyical burdens.
“perhaps snow shoveling will cure both mental and physical burdens”. Mike snow shoveling apparently kills a lot of people each “warmer” winter, you would not want him to shovel snow in his physical shape!
Yeah point taken, I grew up in Conn in the 1960-70s We made money shoveling now. It gave all of us kids a work ethic, or the start of one. I forget shoveling snow is something you have to learn to do. Take your time and pace yourself, And not be alone.
in maine most of my life.
I learned to shovel…with an attachment on front of the tractor that tosses it 40+ feet.
In Jan 2009 I went back to Conn for a visit after one of the snows storms I meet with my older brother at our Mom’s house. He handed me a shovel and asked “You still remember how to use one of these don’t you?”
Funny but 2 items that get messed together. Fact is that more people die from heart attacks in winter. They may be shovelling snow when it hits but that doesn’t mean snow shovelling is the underlying cause but could be a trigger. Other mechanisms like lack of Vit D3 in winter from lack of sun. Interesting topic.
What extreme weather is that?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Extreme weather indeed! Who in his right mind calls a milder-than-normal winter “extreme”? My ice-cream cone is starting to melt. Oh no, it’s too extreme to lick! All the ice just melted in my drink. Now it’s too extreme to consume! I don’t think “extreme” means what you think it means, Mr. McCright. Something that is too hot or too cold could be extreme, but lukewarm is not. It may not be someone’s preferred temperature, but it is not extreme. You don’t have to be a climate scientist to know that one mild winter is just a variation in the weather. Have we seen a repeat warm winter since 2012 to indicate that it might be a change in the climate?
The 4th warmest winter? That means the three warmer winters were in the normal range even before GW set in.
This does touch on something I have wondered. The general public does not spend a lot of time researching Global Warming. They take their opinion from authority. Scientist say it is happening, so it must be happening.
But a lot of them take it from the position their personal political party has staked out. The Democrats have come down heavily on the believe it side, while the Republican, or conservatives, have come down on the other side.
The problem is, I feel a lot of those politicians have adopted their beliefs for purely political motives. I don’t think either side really care all that much about the truth. The democrats see it as a means of shoe horning their favorite socialist theories down our throat. Their opposite side seeks to deny them that leverage.
I made up my own mind about it due to the way one side always seems to fudge the figures and relies more heavily on scare tactics than actual real world observations. But I fear most people who agree with me do so for purely ideological reasons.
As such, I find it hard to take support when this politician or academic supports my view, or to have my mind changed when they don’t.
They need to offer more than speculation and opinion to sway me.
What do registered independents do?
I gnash my teeth a lot.
Peter:
Gasp! You’re a skeptic!
There’s skepticism, and then there is cynicism. So what is this chumps evidence, that skepticism leads to cynicism ?
Well I’m neither skeptical nor cynical. I’m quite sure they haven’t got the science right, either experimentally or theoretically, as in modeling.
Why does this editor want me to spell modelling as “mowed- ling”. I was always taught to double the (l) before adding (ing).
Please excuse me, I suppose that should be “ading”, and not adding.. And I’m geting quite tired of it changing my speling without my permision
One “l ” is American. 2 is English, Canadian-et-al
http://grammarist.com/spelling/model/
I am like you, modeling. But I am Canadian
Now I am being corrected. Hah!
I prefer two ‘L’s. Especially in ‘travelling.’ It’s more colourful.
“3” is the new “2”, Alberta Slim. It should be modellling.
“1” or “2” just aren’t alarmmming enough.
My understanding is today’s progressive schools don’t mark down for spellllling and everyone gets a trophy.
I find that one of the few advantages of dual Anglo/American nationality is that I can write modeling or modelling with a clear conscience. And I also get to laugh at “shag” more often.
And another name to the dustbin of history ;>(
“As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.”
————————————–
They were Grubered by Obama and the ACA, too.
Gruber said they were stupid, what’s McCright’s excuse for believing this BS?
They believed Lois Learner accidentally lost the entire department’s emails.
Richard Winsor believed John Beale was a CIA agent.
Looks like Gruber’s right, democrats are stupid.
So, what’s his point?
He obviously got his degree in cherry picking!!!!
Lots of cherry orchards in Michigan…
And there’s that word: “believe.”
People who identify with the agenda and priorities of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP: used to be “Democratic”) “believe” in the preposterous bogosity of anthropogenic global warming – man-made atmospheric CO2 as the cause of significant adverse “climate change” – and American citizens most likely to vote for Republican politicians seem to be looking for something like supporting evidence of this whackjob contention.
Which ain’t yet been brought forward.
The only way for the “Liberal” fascisti to get a more pleasing response on public opinion regarding their idiot noise about “climate change” is to take their questionnaires among the National Socialists’ most reliable voter base.
Poll the graveyards.
You know, this thread is about how pinning an insulting label on people who hold a view that you disagree with is most unpersuasive.
Perhaps you should reread your comment and think about how it would influence a Democrat who is unsure about the state of climate science?
At 1:16 AM on 25 November, the egregious M. Courtney meets my observation that:
…with his usual pointless bilge, whining:
There’s a spectacularly false assumption, eh?
Whatever in hell gives anyone reading here to assume that “a Democrat” (more precisely, a committed “Liberal” fascist of the Gore-besotted obamaphile sort) is ever to be influenced by an appeal to intellectual integrity or even the usages of common decency?
So why treat ’em tenderly? Should one cozen up to a tuberculosis bacillus with terms of endearment and encourage the little pathogen to devour the lungs, to manifest as scrofula, meningitis, and osteomyelitis?
Politically speaking, the subject of this entry is a government-employed sociologist having proclaimed his discovery that “belief” in the anthropogenic global warming contention prevails at high incidence among survey subjects self-identified as supporters of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP, used to be “Democratic”) while a boatload fewer self-identified Republican Party voters got gulled by this hokum.
It ain’t those of us on the anti-fascist side – Republican or otherwise – who have been peddling this preposterous “man-made global warming” bogosity for political power, perquisites, promotion and pay.
Tucci78, whether you think you are anti-fascist or not – You aren’t helping.
Ever heard of “Divide and Conquer”? By assuming that people who disagree with you in some things must be wicked or stupid you are dividing your side in all things.
But thank you for the archaic and egregious compliment
As I recall, several prominent Republicans also thought AGW was a serious issue during the Bush years.
At 11:15 AM on 25 November, more soylent green pointedly observed:
Well, there’s a reason why they’re called “the Stupid Party.”
Not that a Republican career political prostitute can’t or won’t exploit any perceived opportunity to steal hot stoves, and the great man-made global climate change fraud has been a wonderfully “bipartisan” opportunity for peculation by grafters, looters, extortionists, and goons regardless of nominal party affiliation.
What the surveys in question had established, mind, is that subjects self-identified as Republicans (as opposed to the National Socialists, not to mention participants adherent to neither wing of the permanently incumbent Boot-On-Your-Neck Party) are less inclined to admit belief in the proposition that a trace increase in a trace atmospheric gas component due to the purposeful combustion of petrochemical fuels had – or ever could have – an adverse impact of any significance upon the global climate.
There is something that I find odd about some of the posters here at WUWT. It’s this left vs right, socialist vs capitalist dichotomy that pops up now and again, and given the nature of this blog that makes no sense.
I mean, the vast majority of posters in here have outright rejected the generally accepted CAGW “theory” (and rightly so), often in the face of all the world’s experts and leading opinionators, equally often despite heavy resistance from every angle. That is scepticism at its finest, and I must say that many of the arguments I see are very interesting and helpful to me (who for now stay out of it because I don’t feel ready to argue convincingly myself). Logical argumentation and healthy scepticism is abundant in here. Then, out of the blue, comes a “communist conspiracy for world domination” mixed into a post or ten and drags the whole site down to common idiocy. I don’t get it!? How can so sceptical, analytical and knowledgeable people fall for that kind of moronic 50s cold war propaganda? There’s a strong cognitive dissonanse in rejecting CAGW and then in the same post unquestioningly support a virtually non-existent political distinction designed to cull the masses, followed by an unquestioning support of an entirely fictional economical ideal over another.
What on earth is the difference between a small group of individual, capitalist rich people owning everything in the world, and a small group of communist party members owning everything in the world? The result is the same for all the others! It is delusional to think that capitalism is any better than socialism; any concentration of power will lead to abuse, and it matters very little under what banner they conspire to gain control.
At 3:01 PM on 25 November, we have BiggusD blowing chunks with regard to the subject of capitalism, writing:
Here’s the common idiot’s failure to appreciate the fact that the term “capitalism” had been devised in the 19th Century as a pejorative descriptor for the premise that the best way to organize a division-of-labor society is the voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services – value for value – in a market free of aggressive force.
What BiggusD is bitching about isn’t capitalism at all, but rather what might more properly be termed mercantilism, a system of “legal plunder” perpetrated by politically favored private actors in an economy where consumers’ and producers’ freedom of choice is violated by the coercive interventions of government, the police power in civil society.
BiggusD succumbs to the fallacy of the false dilemma by implying that there is no choice other than one between mercantilism (which he idiotically calls “capitalist”) and socialism.
The topic at hand – a sociology professor on the payroll of the government of Michigan reporting correlation between survey participants’ self-identification with the two major factions in America’s Boot-On-Your-Neck Party permanent institutional incumbency and their relative tendency to “believe” in the anthropogenic global warming fraud – has nothing to do with the scientific basis of the AGW contention and everything to do with apparent correlation between personal politics and the willingness to get suckered by this preposterous “Cargo Cult Science” crap.
Study subjects self-identified as Republicans (adherents of “the Stupid Party”) tend predominantly to reject it. Survey participants admitting to advocacy for the National Socialists (“the Evil Party”) preponderantly “believe” it.
According to BiggusD:
Not goddam hardly.
The “vast majority of posters here” are acutely and without fail aware that there has never, ever, been a scientific case made for the AGW contention. Never. Not once. No friggin’ way. Indeed, when not peddling outright lies, the “Climate Consensus” quacks have been pushing suppressio veri, suggestio falsi, and scientific method – the process of skeptical error-checking – has been their deadliest enemy.
The advocacy of this catastrophist crap has been POLITICAL in its entirety, for purposes both mercantilist (see the hideous meatgrinder of the government-subsidized and privileged “renewables” industry, f’rinstance) and socialist (the desires of the political left to get its collective thumbs around the figurative throat of the productive sector of civil society).
With it understood that the ‘viro Watermelon is “Green on the outside but Red to the core!” and has no ultimate purpose in advancing the AGW fraud except to jam his socialist politics down the throats of innocent people, just what kind of flaming idiot makes BiggusD‘s kind of noise about how awful-nasty-icky it is to acknowledge this?
Tucci78, Capitalism has never existed the way you describe it – it was just a rather silly idea dreamt up by the same kind of idiots that thought that communism was brilliant. You also failed to read what I wrote, but managed to erroneously colour it red, just like you do everything else. I really thought this kind of nonsense died with the fall of the Soviet Union, but apparently its ugly head still pops up now and again.
Everything you write just proves me right. On one hand you manage to grasp and argue well for the fallacy of the CAGW belief-system (I assume – there’s none of that in this thread), but on the other you fail to realize that you have been fed bogus political and economical belief-systems your entire life by the same guys that shamelessly lie to us all about the climate. Apparently, you cannot fathom that their self-interest trumps all but have to drape it all in delusions of a communist conspiracy to make sense of it all.
So I’ll tell you again; your leaders are lying to you. About everything.
At 10:23 PM on 25 November, BiggusD continues to prove that he’s bereft of the capacity to distinguish between abstractions and concrete entities (as well as being pretty well totally gulled when it comes to lucid reasoning about political economics), writing:
In precisely the same way, it can be said that the scientific method “has never existed” as the concrete instantiation of a theoretically effective and therefore desirable approach to the examination and explanation of phenomena in the physical universe.
You reading this, BiggusD?
The concept of the free market – pejoratively labeled “capitalism” as a way for socialists like Marx and Engels and their successors to denigrate what is nothing more than the preservation of the individual human being’s right to alienable property in society – had been so practicably effective in advancing the material condition of participants in the market economy that those of a dirigiste inclination could not inveigh against “the free market” without looking goddam idiotic. So they fastened upon the term “capitalism” to sucker the botched and the gullible (check out the nearest mirror, BiggusD) as a demonization of the notion that people should be free to truck and barter without coercion, thereby maximizing the practical as well as the theoretical benefits of a division-of-labor society.
If the term “Capitalism” can be made to serve any intellectually honest purpose, it is as an ABSTRACT CONCEPT, which doesn’t have to have “existed” in physical form – as a CONCRETE ENTITY.
Now, how hard – and with which blunt instrument – do you have to be hit over the head for you to appreciate this aspect of reality? ‘Cause it sure as hell doesn’t seem as if you’re amenable to reasoned persuasion.
BiggusD says:
It is delusional to think that capitalism is any better than socialism;
Then I am delusional. There is a huge difference.
For one, capitalism doesn’t lead to dictatorship; socialism does. It’s called communism, which requires dictatorship to stay in business. You also say:
Capitalism has never existed the way you describe it – it was just a rather silly idea dreamt up by the same kind of idiots that thought that communism was brilliant.
Capitalism is an excellent goal. Socialism/communism is not. I agree we have never had pure capitalism. But we have never had pure communism, either. Or pure socialism [communism lite].
The difference is freedom. Liberty. Capitalism only works with freedom, but the others require coercion. Force. Really: armed force. It’s like this:
1. Government is force
2. Good ideas do not have to be forced on others
3. Bad ideas should not be forced on others
4. Liberty is necessary for the difference between good ideas and bad ideas to be revealed
You could pay $100,000 for an Econ education and never learn the above.
ur welcome.☺
Again, both of you repliers above fail to see the point; there is just as much tyranny in a monopoly caused by aggressive financial tactics in the free market, as in a state-controlled tyranny. You are still uncritically accepting the idea of the free market and “liberty” as something that is automatically achieved and maintained once enough free will is added to the equation. Which is why the only nation that still generally believes in that myth, the USA, is the nation with the highest degree of excessive population control measures in the Western world.
Again, it doesn’t matter whether the guy who wields the whip is a corporate CEO or a self-professed saviour of the people. Power will always be concentrated, and those concentrating it will always be corrupt.
They call it “liberty” and you’re enslaved with debt and get to vote for the new leader of the Public Relations department of Your Nation Ltd, which is of course run the same way regardless. They also call it “community” and you’re enslaved to do the bidding of the Party for the “good of the people”. In both cases, all three of us lose and our “leaders” grin all the way to the bank.
Bottom line is, the assertion that it is a “socialist conspiracy” to rule the world is nonsensical. The ones who want to rule the world and are willing to do what it takes to execute those plans, are also willing to lie to the public about it, and that lie include controlling the masses with comfortable ideas like “nationalism”, “environmentalism”, “free market”, “socialism”, “war on terror” and “global warming”.
I am just surprised how these silly tactics still manage to dupe self-professed “sceptics”.
They could do that whilst collecting ballots.
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and this extreme weather was not going to change that,” said McCright, associate professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology.
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No shzt Sherlock. Weather isn’t climate as we have been repeatedly told by climate scientists.
The problem for most people is that they haven’t been alive long enough to know what extreme weather is really like. The longer they live, the more likely they are to experience extreme weather, so to the naive it will appear that the climate is changing.
But it isn’t. What is changing is the length of your sample.
We see this all over the natural world. The longer you keep looking, the more likely you are to see new records set. Does this mean the natural world is changing? Only in fairly-tale land.
“The longer you keep looking, the more likely you are to see new records set.” +1 And when it happens does that mean there’s a trend? Why doesn’t it work that way with coldest temperatures recorded?
it works for all types of records. in this case the author is arguing that warmer winters are more extreme than colder winters, which is about as illogical as one can get. as such, he is well placed for a career in sociology.
“Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012”
Well then, perhaps the extreme cold that they are experiencing now will convince the rest of them that Global Warming is real.
Stupid U.S, citizens don’t believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012. Naturally they will believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally low temperatures during the winter of 2013. Keep researching, Aaron! Don’t give up!
Tez this Ahem, paper lists only Dems and Repubs..What about Independents? or other Parties? Also what of employment? Government or private sector?
I would think just the converse. That the lack of warming and tornadoes and hurricanes would convince alarmists to relax but this article shows that is clearly not the case.
Jackasses.
What extreme weather link?
Well, there ain’t one. There is no known physical mechanism that could serve as a basis for the hypothesis that CO2 causes both hot and cold extremes in weather. An equally valid (and similarly unfalsifiable) hypothesis would be “Rain god, him plenty-plenty angry.” This is on top of the fact that climate is a long term trend, weather a short term phenomenon. Warmism is intellectually bankrupt if it has to rely on such pseudoscientific drivel.
Perhaps that should be the “God Cotwo, him plenty angry” they might “believe” that.
Indeed. What link? Whoever is in the know, please feel free to elaborate at length on the issue.
I would think entering and leaving the little ice age with its changes in temperature, sea level, glaciers and precipitation would set a standard for what we would consider calling any shifts climate change.
imo…
Any less change in the environment would be weather.
the article says:
– But when it came to attributing the abnormally warm weather to global warming, respondents largely held fast to their existing beliefs and were not influenced by actual temperatures. –
Columbia University’s Center for Decision Sciences(?) posits the opposite, according to Cass Sunstein!
24 Nov: Bloomberg: Cass R. Sunstein: What Global Warming? Pass Me a Blanket
“Global warming strikes America! Brrrr!” So tweeted Missouri Representative Vicky Hartzler last week, as much of the U.S. experienced extreme cold. (In Buffalo, it was a full Snowpocalypse.) Do frigid temperatures give you doubts about global warming?
You wouldn’t be alone. When people think the day’s weather is exceptionally cold, research shows, they’re less likely to be concerned about global warming. And when the day seems unusually hot, concern jumps.
Notably, this effect can be found among Republicans and Democrats, men and women, young and old…
To study this phenomenon, Eric Johnson, Ye Li and Lisa Zaval of Columbia University’s Center for Decision Sciences, asked almost 600 Americans two questions…
And even when the researchers went out of their way to inform respondents that minor fluctuations in weather are to be expected during climate change, the day’s temperature affected their answers.
A follow-up study found that, on exceptionally warm days, people were also far more likely to donate money to a charity concerned about global warming, and they were likely to donate more money as well — 500 percent more than on cold days…
What’s going on here? The best explanation probably involves “attribute substitution,” a pervasive phenomenon described by Daniel Kahneman, a behavioral scientist who won the Nobel Prize in economics…
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-24/what-global-warming-pass-me-a-blanket