Tom Nelson spots this droll duo:
The Policy Lass is sick of arguing with stupid people. Anyone who has been to WUWT and the comment threads there will empathise. It is all a hopeless morass of nonsense; it cannot be fixed, only risen above. And indeed (as I’ve tried to tell them) the science just goes on without them. But I’ll still visit occaisionally in case there is anyone there who wants to listen.
Arguing With Stupid People | The Policy Lass
Research shows that stupid people — people who truly are ignorant — tend to think they know far more than they do. They are also more likely to think informed people know less than they do. It’s the D-K effect and it’s rampant at both CA and WUWT and Climate Etc. If you’ve ever haunted those sites, you know what I’m talking about.
I’m always tempted to go to there and look for ‘teh stupid’ so I can mock it, but as the Twain quote says, they just bring you down to their level. Admittedly, there is a certain pleasure in mocking teh stupid, but life is short and its unnaturally warm outside. Time’s a wasting.
I get such a kick out this, especially since Connolley has shown that he’d rather just dismiss everyone with a wave of the condescending hand. At least he doesn’t call for our houses to be burned, though I’ll bet he secretly likes the idea.
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“…the science just goes on “. In their case it’s “teh science just goes on”
Connolley is deliberate in his advancement of AGW propaganda. He has read enough about both the science and the politics to understand that his position is entirely political….. He has been editing Wiki pages for years on the subject, so he can’t plead ignorance….
If Connolley was in anyway scientific, he would understand the uncertainties and would be conversant about those uncertainties….. But he isn’t. That makes him a deliberate propagandist.
The D-K effect is, indeed, rampant here and on most sceptic sites. It can hardly not be, because as soon as you have any number of people you will find some who know less than they should.
But of course that also applies to AGW sites too. I wonder if Mr Connolly is honestly so stupid he thinks everyone who agrees with him is clever than average!
The cure for the D-K effect is to let people who do know what they are talking about counter any false arguments. And that is where the sceptic sites win hands down. They allow debate and request proof (real proof, not proof from authority). Meanwhile our little stoat does everything he can to shut down debate, thereby ensuring any false statements which toe the correct line remain unchallenged.
Another corollary of the D-K effect is that everyone suffers from it at some time. Connolly appears to assume that he could not possibly suffer from it. Which means that he is blind to his weaknesses. The first sign of the D-K effect is people being blind to their weaknesses.
People are always going to be wrong. Everyone is wrong sometimes. Even in fields in which they are expert. Thinking your side has all the answers is pretty much evidence that they don’t.
davidmhoffer says:
April 20, 2012 at 9:49 pm
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Exactly, although he will ignore five peer reviewed links that directly counter his postion, pick one little area of legitamate contension, and focus on that area in the most demaeaning critical infantile manner possible, and then, if defeated in that arena, attempt to move the conversation off topic with a pedantic message supported in a very limited fashion by a barely cogent link, and then he will declare victory as he walks away.
davidmhoffer says:
April 20, 2012 at 9:49 pm
I’ve run across Mr Connolley on several blogs and must admit that I’ve never won an argument with him. When I point out facts contrary to his assertion, he goes away. When I point out flaws in the logic of his argument, he goes away. When I ask for evidence that supports his conjectures, he goes away.
At least he’s consistent…
A quote from Einstein that the warmists might contemplate to help open their minds
“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.”
Policy Lass in a comment on her post (Policy Lass April 14, 2012 at 3:43 pm):
“I think that people who happen by those websites [WUWT, Climate Audit, etc.] will only stay if they are inclined to reject the science. Those who see the sites for what they are leave pretty quickly. The ones who stay are the ones who get their pre-existing biases confirmed by what McIntyre, Watts and Curry write.
It’s true that you can put a reasoned argument out there for those who might be open to it, but as Peter Watts wrote in the excerpt I quoted in my previous post, people are adept at denying the facts when they contradict their current opinions.” My emphasis.
She’s a perfect example of the D-K Effect.
REPLY – So Judith Curry has been officially declared apostate, then. It was just a matter of time. ~ Evan
William Connolley tried to defend Mann from the attacks of using Tiljander proxies upside-down. After awhile, he realized Mann used the proxies upside-down, and lost interest in the subject.
Research clearly shows that liberals are much worse than all others at comprehending or predicting others’ ideas and positions, because they’re so SURE they know-it-all already. Conservatives, on the other hand, can accurately characterize and predict the positions and attitudes of liberals.
Policy Lass is a perfect illustration of the way self-righteous certainty works. Or doesn’t.
J.Hansford says:
April 20, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Connolley is deliberate in his advancement of AGW propaganda. He has read enough about both the science and the politics to understand that his position is entirely political….. He has been editing Wiki pages for years on the subject, so he can’t plead ignorance….
If Connolley was in anyway scientific, he would understand the uncertainties and would be conversant about those uncertainties….. But he isn’t. That makes him a deliberate propagandist.
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Agreed.
Connolley’s disengagement will not fool anyone, although it may lend some vapid reinforcement to those of similar misanthropic bent.
Any objective observer, no matter how thoroughly convinced of the truth of AGW, would have to cringe at the social media behavior of warmists versus deniers (to evenly use the epithets assigned to each side). Deniers, as crazy and silly as some may be, (say, believing in intelligent design), have been trying to have a real conversation about real issues for a long, long time. They’re interested in getting to the bottom of things, be it data, or the elusive falsifiable hypothesis statement of AGW. Opinions, even contrary ones, are openly allowed and addressed.
Warmists, on the other hand, as rational and atheistic as any may be, have been trying to shut down any conversation about the real issues for a long, long time. Without realizing it, they’ve built up an edifice of belief and orthodoxy as arbitrary and capricious as any monotheistic religion. We see this in their behavior both on comment boards opposed to their views, and their transparently defensive censorship when others comment on their turf.
As a rational, freethinking atheist since 1st grade, I’m sad to say I have more polite arguments and debates with my fundamentalist christian friends over evolution and gay marriage, than I do with my liberal socialist hippie friends over global warming, or Keynesian economics. As dogmatic as any evangelical friend of mine has ever been, they’ve never been the MSM caricature of sign-waving-abortion-doctor-killing-yahoos. And as seemingly rational and composed many of my liberal pals have ever been, they’ve gone completely nuts when challenged on the premises of their opinions.
tl;dr – WUWT: come for the articles, stay for the comments. For all the hurly burly, this place has been open, honest, and remarkably tolerant of trolls 🙂
gnomish says:
April 20, 2012 at 10:34 pm
just like that story of masturbation making hair grow on your palms – the dunning-kreuger gambit is designed for a purpose.
nobody expected you to believe your palms would grow hairy – at least not for more than a second – what they wanted to do was see if you LOOKED, policy lass.
You mean it doesn’t????
Sigh. All those wasted years …
(Sorry, couldn’t resist it)
Stupid people mock because they can’t argue their case. They call others stupid trying to cover up their own ignorance!. I have had tutors mock me because they didn’t know the answers to my questions or didn’t understand what I was asking.
This is interesting because I ended up at wuwt and CA precisely because they are so good at presenting facts and answering questions. I started at Gavin’s place, asked an innocent question that I had no idea was “proscribed” and was censored. Not a good start.
I’ve often wondered if the guy is real.
None of his arguments had substance and often made no sense. Perhaps he is is a bot?
krischel Good summary of their thinking as I have seen you can actually watch there mind shift into lock down when they find out you are not of the cult ! another tell is the way they treat those of the cult that may show signs of weakness in the face of their Satan , makes lord of the flys look like a picnic!
Old tactic; like Mooney’s accusations that republicans have no brains, defective brains, etc., or Krai Norgaard who says skeptics are mentally ill.
The pattern is that the warmists attack us personally now instead of bringing forth their argument, well basically their only argument ever was computer simulations and they don’t need a skeptic to fall apart, they do that by themselves.
So this is just one more sign of desperation and circling the wagons. The next of them who comes over here should explain why every adjustment to sea ice, sea level or temperature goes into the warm direction. I still need a scientific explanation for that. It’s an unexplicable phenomenon. New physics?
Poor Policy Lass. Somebody give her a link to Lord Monckton’s latest. If she can dismiss that demonstration of logical fallacies as “teh stupid” then … then she’s earned her name and will doubtless soon receive her callup to “the cause” she so uncritically supports.
On her About page, she states she is unable to evaluate the science (of climate) and relies on the ‘consensus’, which we know to be a bogus fabrication.
So she doesn’t understand the science herself and apparently makes no effort to, but attacks other people who try and understand the science as ‘stupid’.
In part the problem that people like this woman have is they are unable to separate science as a process from science as a product.
The process of science is exploring uncertainty. But the product of science is removal of uncertainty, at least most of the time.
Policy Lass? Why should anyone be concerned about the opinion of someone calling herself Policy Lass?
Exactly, I like your post.
I may add that the biggest advantage of the sceptical position in science is that you only need to demonstrate one flaw of a theory to refute it, or at least that was the case in Michelson and Morley times. One thing wrong and the whole theory needs to be rewritten, It happened to Newton and it will happen to Einstein.
That does not seem to happen to CAGW. No tropospheric hotspot, no global glacier receeding, no accelerated sea level rise, no polar caps shrinking, no unadjusted rural temperature rise and still some people think that CAGW is a valid theory.
One proof is enough to refute a scientific theory, Still some people like Connolley are looking for a smoking gun that proves CAGW right and censors the proofs that refute it.
Connolley is one of the persons who actually destroys Wikipedia. He and the CAGW fanatics who do not let factual information to enter & remain in Wikipedia are one of the most visible example to the limitations of Wikipedia and why it does not make it to be a reliable source, not until it manages to control its bullies.
This is why I ceased my support to Wikipedia. For me it was not an easy decision as I liked the Wikipedia idea itself.
Anthony, I was just yesterday thinking that a Conolley post was needed here. Reason? He kept saying that he had been Lied about.
I really think an addendum needs to be made to this article, detailing just what he did in Wikipedia, and why he is no longer there.
Note to willie~ then you can write a wiki article about this! Oh…. wait….
Steve C says:
April 21, 2012 at 1:37 am
Poor Policy Lass. Somebody give her a link to Lord Monckton’s latest. If she can dismiss that demonstration of logical fallacies as “teh stupid” then … then she’s earned her name…
As in, “There’s no good reason for it — it’s just our policy.”