This QOTW is from an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail which focuses on the rise of skeptic blogs including CA and WUWT.
The article contained this nugget from Gavin Schmidt, who never fails to disappoint with his (what McIntyre calls backhanded ) prose:
“He could be a scientific superstar,” Mr. Schmidt says. “He’s a smart person. He could be adding to the sum total of human knowledge, but in effect he adds to the reduction of the sum total of human knowledge.”
You know, sometimes I think Dr. Schmidt’s ego must be so large that the NY Dept of Transportation would have to put out orange traffic cones ahead of him when he travels.
I found this portion of the Globe and Mail article also interesting:
In the wake of the scandal, blogs that question the reality of man-made global warming have surged in public attention, leading new readers to websites such as Wattsupwiththat.com (run by weatherman Anthony Watts) and climatedepot.com (run by conservative activist Marc Morano). The sites’ rising popularity, and the growing influence they appear to wield in shaping public debate, is deeply worrying to the scientific community.
What should be deeply worrying to the scientific community is that they’ve allowed climate science to become noble cause corrupted by monied interests. Some serious retrospection is needed.
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A surprising number of comment pages do not allow one to post if one’s post contains the word Schmidt.
It gets flagged as a rude word, as if one were attempting to post S*h*i*t.
Henry, I find that deeply disturbing, since that is my own surname. (no relation to Gavin, though!!!!) Philistines.
Regarding the aformentioned Gavin Schmidt’s quote: It is just as useful, and possibly even more valuable to reduce the sum total of false knowledge than it is to add to the amount of total knowledge. I base that on the premise that false knowledge is *always* damaging while new knowledge is only occasionally helpful.
Misdirection. It’s not about reducing knowledge. It’s about reducing mistaken knowledge.
I’d like to add to the reduction of the sum total of climatologists.
Gavin Schmidt;
The sites’ rising popularity, and the growing influence they appear to wield in shaping public debate, is deeply worrying to the scientific community>>
He presumes to speak for the entire scientific community?
Sounds like a post mortem speech doesn’t it? Love it, keep ’em coming Gav.
Yep, a truly ironic quote on the contributions to knowledge. It is a measure of the madness.
=========================
I would expect no better from that paper. Don’t know anyone personally who reads it.
I love the idea that Gavin thinks that he represents the integrity of the scientific community.
He’s fast becoming a joke. Maybe he should start thinking about getting a real job.
But, then again, he could not put down that he is a scientist. Are flim-flam and collusion-to-defraud valid job categories?
OT:
Has anyone a URL for the latest Coleman video? I cannot find it at KUSI. At least it was not there 5 minutes ago.
TIA
“What should be deeply worrying to the scientific community is that they’ve allowed climate science to become noble cause corrupted by monied interests. Some serious retrospection is needed”.
This is the most disturbing issue. Not sharing data so that results could be verified (indeed, destroying data rather than complying with an FOIA request). Blacklisting skeptics and trying to run them out of the profession if they did not buy AGW. Colluding to keep skeptics from publishing. Selling the idea that AGW is settled science to their political, media, and academic allies to stampede the republic into misinformed, hugely expensive decisions. These climate scientists were acting as activists, not scientists. Shame on them and shame on those climate scientists who are not calling for a house cleaning in the climate science profession.
Even those climate scientists who agree with AGW must stand up for their profession and tell Hansen, Mann, Jones, etc. that these tactics have shamed the profession of climate science and that profound corrections need to be made immediately. There needs to be a thorough investigation and the perpetrators of this malfeasance, this stain on science, need to be tried for fraud.
[snip OK Oliver, I’ve had just about enough of your attempts to interject your iron sun theory into discussions that have no connection whatsoever. I’ve warned you about this. You are relieved from posting for the remainder of the weekend. – Anthony]
Charles Darwin stated “to kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact”. I wonder if the Gavinator has ever heard that one?
Paraphrasing Schmidt: “Steve, my boy, give in to the dark side, you could rule at my side.”
I believe he and Big Al share some genes.
Sounds like a self description to me…
This quote is referencing the doubleplusgood versions of the words “knowledge” & “science”.
In Newspeak “Knowledge” : Knowledge is information ,true or false,that furthers the cause.
“Science” : Science is computer output ,true or false,that furthers the cause.
The truth WILL set us free thanks to true knowledge and true science and websites like this one.
Thank goodness for the internet. Nothing but propaganda, Oh, I mean “knowledge” & “Science”, on the main stream media machine.
The writer is not “in” the scientific community. “Jeet Heer, a Regina-based cultural journalist, frequently writes about comics.”
The Toronto Mope and Wail online is going paid subscription – this is a great thing as fewer people will read their rot.
The psychosis of Schmidts quote is amazing. On the one hand, he essentially calls McIntyre some kind of great intellect with the potential to be a “scientific superstar”; but then he implies that all this power is used for evil. In a sense he’s saying that thin line that separates scientists and truth seekers from going to “the dark side” is well, extremely thin. He’s doing more damage to real scientists with his quote than he realizes.
Looked at another way, his quote is saying that a loner who asks questions is an undesireable. By calling McIntyre this, he says that requesting data and methods is a path to cause a “reduction of the sum total of human knowledge”.
All this, and I’d wager real money that *what* Gavin says means significantly less to him than the satisfaction he gets just from seeing his name and quotes in mass media. I think people should refer to him as the Paris Hilton of climate science.
“He could be a scientific superstar,” Mr. Schmidt says. “He’s a smart person. He could be adding to the sum total of human knowledge, but in effect he adds to the reduction of the sum total of human knowledge.”
Do you ever notice how liberals, when they go to attack somone they perceive to be a threat, actually wind up describing themselves? Everything a liberal claims…believe the opposite.
Jeff
Where are the green police when we need them? Gavin is an egregious emitter of heated gas.
Here is a piece of that human knowledge which has settled in the brain of our head cheese, B O:
Dallas snow storms and warmth (55F) in Vancouver is a result of the planet warming up as a whole.
“That’s one aspect of the science that everyone should understand.”
H/T Lubos Motl
…the sum total of human knowledge…
Going by all the different books and periodicals that mankind has published, as often found at secondhand shops if they survive that long, and even the internet in general, I think those Augean stables are long overdue for a good reduction anyway.
I believe Gavin gets his witticism via one-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas B. Reed, who (allegedly) said of his political opponents, “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
Personally, I like that little jab. 🙂 (The original, of course.)
Paul
I for one have come to the conclusion that Gavin desires, as do the other alarmists, that skeptics just simply give up.
I mean, look at the rhetoric :
Here is a response I got from Gavin after I posted a comment to a post entitled, ‘Whatevergate’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/whatevergate/
“[Response: The IPCC is the most peer-reviewed document in the world. It is still not perfect. But even you could have reviewed it if you wanted to. Transparency is great, but even if the data was all locked up and the analyses secret (which it is not), the nonsense passing for journalism in the last few weeks would still be nonsense. But if you want transparency (and why not?), start downloading the data, or the code, or the papers (all of which are readily available), and point out where it is exactly that you think we are hiding anything. – gavin]”
What have we learned from this talking point from a leading alarmist.
He states that the I.P.C.C. report is the most peer-reviewed document, but fails to mention that the document contains alarmist material from non peer-reviewed author(s).
Another key point to avoiding the truth is when he says that data analyses is not secretive or locked up. Are you kidding me?
How much of the analytical data, especially the climate models, has been studied for confirmation of authenticity? None, the last i checked.
And lastly, his feigned attempt at implying to be transparent, is but a ruse.
Gavin reminds me of a used car salesman. A term used to flip a potential buyer, to continue to ‘always be closing the deal’, is called ‘bait and switch’. Which is exactly what he and many other alarmists choose when confronted with difficult questions.
So it may be if Gavin can continue to muddy the scientific waters with this tactic,
it may lead to some skeptics to feel frustrated or even defeated, but at some point those waters will become clear and the only one left defeated with be Gavin and those that hold firm to their failed foundation of AGW.
So, I tip my hat to Watts and McIntyre and the rest of the blogging skeptics that continue to research and question the consensus on global warming.
Keep up the good work!
D. Alan