I have other projects to do this weekend, so I’m taking off.
Moderation may be minimal or non-existent at times, so if your comment takes a long time to appear, don’t take it personally. In the meantime, please consider this poll.
I can’t fit the entire question into the poll header, so here it is in full:
If one existed, would you join a professional organization dedicated to offering an alternate to organizations like the American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, etc if this organization offered a peer reviewed journal, reasonable dues, and a healthy dose of climate skepticism rooted in science?
This stems from a conversation I had about three weeks ago, and this weekend seemed like a good time to ask the question.
A thought crosses my mind (OK, OK, quit laughing!) An organization to promote discussion, Great. Legitimate peer review, OK. A journal, cool. For those of you in the biz, a great way to bounce ideas off one another.
For the rest of us who used to take “Nature” or other mags who are not “”in the biz”” how’s about another classification – associate member or some such. Maybe get the journal for dues, see all discussion threads but maybe not able to comment directly on them etc.
At least this way trolls would have to pay something to play rather than just crashing a thread.
The pay to play concept isn’t a bad one, and could enable us all to participate in “real” science, wherever it leads.
Mike
Harriet Harridan says:
May 5, 2012 at 12:12 pm
“Have anybody noticed the new poll of “climate scientists” (actually open to anybody, but…). Interesting comparison with the “97% of Climate Scientists say” line: c 12% of them think the climate will only be <1C hotter by 2050, c25% think it will be between 1-2C hotter…
It seems to me that there appears to be a softening of the alarmism.
http://visionprize.com/results#findings"
Not at all. The IPCC projections for temperature increase range from about 0.7 to 2.2C.
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_TemperatureProjections.htm#ipcc
The variation is due to models and the variations in the level of action taken against GHG emissions, as well as uncertainty in the aerosal output.
As I’m not a professional I didn’t vote, but my general observation on “serious” organizations is that once they achieve a good reputation they then become targets for takeover by committed and cohesive “splinter groups”. That must be a lot easier now, with the internet being such a convenient tool.
From the comments on this thread, it appears to me we should first start a journal dedicated to articles discussing what peer review should be – how it should be carried out – a set of ethical guidelines – openess – openess – openess – …
I have two questions — and I thought this would be a good time to ask.
Proponents of the “dark matter” hypothesis point at the rotation of galaxies, asserting that galaxies would have to contain much more mass than observed, for their rotation to obey the laws of physics as we understand them today. Hence the need for the “dark matter.” Their models do not really correspond well to the observed phenomena but that doesn’t seem to bother those who proclaim the existence of the “dark matter.”
My questions are these:
1) How do they measure the rotation of galaxies? Rotation of the spiral arms (if any) is not an indication of the galaxy’s rotational speed, since these arms are a diffraction pattern that ripples through the galactic swarm of stars, not a structural element that would rotate with the mass. Tracking individual stars’ angular velocity doesn’t help, either, because individual stars rotate around the center of the galaxy with different speeds. So, how exactly the “rotational speed of the galaxy” is measured, before it is used to conclude that galaxies “must be much heavier” than they appear?
2) How do they know that galaxies don’t contain much more “conventional” matter that simply doesn’t radiate in a detectable manner? Every year they discover that they haven’t seen some pretty massive features before — huge dark clouds of interstellar gas invisible unless there is a back-lighting, “brown dwarfs” that outnumber luminous stars, etc. How about black holes? Did we find and count all of them, and their mass, in every galaxy under observation? Is there any way to be sure that we’ve found at least most of existing black holes? How do we estimate the mass of the galactic central black hole? How do we know that it cannot be much more massive than estimated? To be sure that the “dark matter” hypothesis is necessary to explain the observed galactic behavior, one has to be sure that any and all possible objects making up the galactic mass are accounted for. What is the basis for such an assurance?
Speaking of magazines, remember Omni.
There was an article in it about eternal life and it was estimated at about a cost of three billion at the time aging could be beat. Well if the mega rich like Gates would put money into this research maybe we could all be around to see how the long range climate models work out.
Just imagine an eternity with Hansen and company.
You may or may not enjoy my article, I’m still having trouble convincing the indoctrinated, but trying my best. I’m finding they are suffering from deep psychological issues related to “postmodernism”, cognitive dissonance and such. They will not believe A or B, they cannot come to any conclusions at all, they won’t believe me nor even 100% of what the warmists say. Sad really.
10 Theses of Contention on the Power and Efficacy of “Anthropogenic Global Warming” Theory
http://dissidentthinker.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/10-theses-of-contention-on-the-power-and-efficacy-of-anthropogenic-global-warming-theory/
I use such a “rule”; all emails with “new comment” or “new Post” in the subject line are directed to a folder called “Comments”. When I’m ready, I access it, sort by “Subject”, and read those I’m interested in and delete the rest and any I’ve read (the whole point is to give a link to active threads I’m reading, after all). Works OK, and keeps my Inbox from being flooded.
David A. Evans says:
May 5, 2012 at 1:18 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany
Notice anything wrong about the numbers?
Amazing that in your link nothing is mentioned about the collapse of major wind turbine producers in Germany. Can wikipedia be trying to hide something? Surely not!
http://newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/two-more-german-solar-power-companies.html
Disko Troop says:
May 5, 2012 at 2:12 pm
“Are we simply witnessing the “New Fall Of The Roman Empire”, except that now it is the Western Empire.”
Yes, it’s the western empire falling, but the new one is just as ignorant. History ryhmes again.
“Alexander Feht says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:30 pm
I have two questions — and I thought this would be a good time to ask.”
For quite a while I’ve wondered about the basis for unifying General Relativity and Quantum Theory. A big assumption that General Relativity (GR) is based upon is that spacetime is a differentiable manifold so Riemannian curvature is the basis equating geometry with gravity.
If that assumption is not valid, and one could argue that failure to find a unified theory is evidence for such a hypothesis, then other hypotheses like dark matter may also not be valid.
An area I’m dabbling in at present is Fractal Relativity/Cosmology which starts from original studies into the behaviour of continuous, non-differentable functions. It seems to be gaining some traction.
All I can suggest is start from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_cosmology and dive in.
vukcevic says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/05/open-thread-weekend-plus-poll/#comment-977221
Henry@vukcevic
I definitely note some turning point around 1994
when looking at the development of maxima, see here:
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Bceause it seems led by a drop in maxima I am inclined to think that it must have something to do with a drop in TSI.
I hope by “climate scepticism” you don’t mean “is there a climate?”
I would not subscribe to a journal promoting any side, neither “climate scepticism” nor “[anthropogenic] climate change” over the other, but I would consider subscribing to one about “climate-as it really is” rooted in solid, reputable and replicable (all data freely available to anyone who wants to check it) science. Genuine scientific debate is great —like the encounters between Arrhenius and Angstrom—but the fallacies, such as “there’s a consensus,” curl my lip.
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nc says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:03 pm
Speaking of magazines, remember Omni.
[ …snipt … ]
Just imagine an eternity with Hansen and company.
===============================================
Ugh — I am *really* trying to avoid that place! Honest!
Luther Wu says:
May 5, 2012 at 6:59 pm
I’ll take the opportunity of this open thread to ask you to:
Please add your computer’s unused power to the efforts to find cures for Alzheimer’s and many other diseases which result when the proteins in our bodies are malformed, or are said to mis- fold.
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You would be interested in Dr Mary Newport’s experience with coconut oil (non hydrogenated) with her husband who has Alzheimers. His mental capacity improved markedly within hours on the standard tests, and last I heard was doing fine. Based on research that was abandoned because it was not patentable. A search with her name and Alz. and coconut oil will bring up the news stories.
Not a preventative, but restores connections that are lost.
What you are saying suggests that the sceptic view would be the only purpose for such an organisation, If so then the answer is no. If it is to put both sides of the argument and debate it in a scientific and rational way and without trying to ridicule the warmists then yes. But surely WUWT does this very successfully already, even though I think we demeen ourselves when we start calling the AGW proponents by insulting names and publish silly pictures of those we cannot agree with. We should not respond to this peronalising of the argument coming from the other side, it just weakens our argument, and maybe injures our chances of being seen as having a serious point of view with the main media.
What I would like to see is a list created of the names of genuine sceptical scientists and other experts, academics, poilticians and recognised public figures from around the world who follow the sceptic viewpoint, and maybe a second list of ordinary unqualified people like myself who study the arguments and the scientific evidence and apply simple logic to establisn their viewpoint. This is surely what WUWT could organise so that each of us could put our names on the list automatically if it was set up.I believe the list would be massive, and thereby enable us to refute, with hard evidence, the argument that ’97per cent of scientists support the AGW viewpoint. And who knows, it might even influence the attitude of our silly, gullible governments across the world How about it Mr Watts, it could be a very powerful tool?
Perhaps it is a sad fact that a bright young college student, who has been sold on the ideals of what might be called ‘The Green Earth Movement’ may be more likely to choose an environmental science for his life’s work where he can do the most ‘good’ for the planet. This could result in an insidious idealistic corruption of science that would stifle critical thought by peer pressure and shared beliefs.
Alexander Feht says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:30 pm
I have two questions — and I thought this would be a good time to ask.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Your questions are covered by the Electric Universe theory which is based on the lab experiments with plasma conducted by Birkland and developed by Perrat and others. It has correctly predicted a large number of findings especially by probes, that have left the mainstream ‘puzzled’ ‘amazed’ or just plain wrong.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/
I also see a new cold tongue beginning. If the multi-decadal global cooling really begins, ENSO should follow with the (further) decline of the long-term average.
I have no good reason to join such an organization so I voted “no” but that doesn’t mean I think it’s a bad idea for it to exist.
Harriet Harridan says: May 5, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Have anybody noticed the new poll of “climate scientists” (actually open to anybody, but…). Interesting comparison with the “97% of Climate Scientists say” line: c 12% of them think the climate will only be <1C hotter by 2050, c25% think it will be between 1-2C hotter…
It seems to me that there appears to be a softening of the alarmism.
http://visionprize.com/results#findings
Harriet, i would still call this a poll of global warming alarmists. Any warming over 1C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 assumes positive feedbacks in the climate system, which is a warmist propaganda position for which there is no supporting evidence.
P.S. In 2002 I predicted global cooling to commence by 2020-2030, but hope to be wrong.
The big issue for me is preventing the issue of a press statement, à la Muller-BEST, before the work is completed and reviewed and then how to reduce the delay caused by the review process.
I would dearly love to see science and scientist getting back to the rigours of real review.
David Jones says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:44 pm
“Amazing that in your link nothing is mentioned about the collapse of major wind turbine producers in Germany. Can wikipedia be trying to hide something? Surely not!”
David, we have solar cell makers folding but by now no wind turbine maker insolvency. – at least to my knowledge.
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule.
H L Mencken 1880-1956
Hi Anthony hope you are having a good weekend “off”.
My initial reaction on reading your post was to say no, for the following reasons:
a) I am not a US citizen.
b) I would refuse to join any scientific organisation with pre-conceived ideas.
c) I do not have a qualification in Meteorolgy or Climate Science.
I then re-read your post and realised that:
a) The organisations you gave as examples, were just that, examples and members did not necessarily have to be US citizens
b) Scepticism, does not equate to pre-conceived especially if the adjective “healthy” is used to describe it.
c) As far as I an aware, Al Gore doesn’t have a Meteorology or Climate Science qualification either and Hansen and Mann should have theirs revoked.
So I have voted Yes
Robert of Ottawa says, May 5, 2012 at 3:45 pm: I’m not American, so I have no place in this poll. However, if it were about Canadian or UK institutions, I’d certainly say YES.
Didn’t stop me voting and I voted ‘yes’. And I am from the UK.
If such an organisation were to be created it would surely be both internet-based and have an international membership!