Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
After years of getting up at 4 AM to go commercial fishing, these days I generally have as little to do with dawn as possible. But last Sunday, I found myself in the Palm Springs airport at 5 AM, boarding a plane to Chicago to go speak at the ICCC7. The Conference is put on by the Heartland Institute, which has had real trouble getting any publicity this year. So I figured I’d go give them a hand …
My connecting flight out of Denver was delayed so I didn’t get to Chicago until the afternoon, and I figured I’d just roll into town. As the world always turns out, things were not quite that simple … because the Conference was being held at the Chicago Hilton Hotel, which was also hosting the NATO Conference and the inevitable associated protests.
Since the main staging ground for the protestors was in the park across the street from the Hilton, the police had barricades up all around there, many of the roads were closed entirely, and my bus couldn’t even drive up to the front door. It dropped us two blocks away, and I had to schlepp my luggage to the hotel. Nor did the fun stop there. Because there were a variety of heads of state staying in the Hilton, there were Secret Service people from a dozen nations all over the hotel. It was like being in some alternate reality where every second person is a policeman … quite strange.
But that was just the surrounding storm. The Conference was another matter, I enjoyed it greatly. Judith Curry has a very catty post up at her blog attacking both Heartland and the Conference, I don’t know why.
Let me start by saying that I have many disagreements with the Heartland folks, and that I went and spoke anyway. Let me see if I can explain why.
For the majority of my life, I’ve been a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. This puts me at odds with both political parties. It also puts me in a very different group than most of the Heartland folks. But that’s all just the personalities. Judith Curry said “I’ve looked at the program, nothing in particular caught my interest, I’ve seen previous presentations from most of the scientific participants.” However, for me, the value in conferences is rarely in the presentations or in the personalities or the political positions—it is in meeting, discussing, and interacting with the participants in the times between the presentations.
So for example I got to spend a delightful hour wandering over to the shore of Lake Michigan with Lucia Liljegren of The Blackboard, who turns out to be as charming, witty and lovely as she is intelligent. I got to meet one of the Moderators of WUWT that I had never met. I got to spend some time with Dr. Willie Soon, whose exuberance and passion seems never-ending, and who gave me some new information of volcanoes and mercury. I got to reconnect with Dr. Craig Loehle, my co-author on our recent paper, who I rarely get to see in the flesh. I got to talk with Anthony Watts, who I usually see only once or twice in a year. Those are the kinds of interactions that are of great value to me.
I also found a number of the presentations to be quite interesting. US Representative Jim Sensenbrenner discussed some of the political intricacies surrounding the attempt to bring reason to the US Government’s role in the climate issues. Václav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, gave a fascinating talk about how he sees the underlying issues in the climate debates. And a number of the scientific presentations were interesting. Yes, as Judith said, I’ve read and heard much of the science before … but it was a chance to directly ask questions of the scientists, which is always a treat.
Finally, it was a chance to talk to some of the Heartland folks. As I said, I have many differences with them. I felt, for example, that their billboard showing the Unabomber was simultaneously true, meaningless, repulsive, and a very self-destructive, unpleasant, and foolish venture into guilt by association. I have said many times that it doesn’t matter whether a statement is made by the head of Greenpeace or written on a bathroom wall. What is important, the only thing that is important, is whether or not it is true. And it matters just as little who believes it as it matters who said it. I can understand their frustration at being the unending target of attacks that are just as vicious and ugly, but “tu quoque” (which is basically Latin for “but Mommy, he did it first”) works no better for adults then it does for children.
But Heartland is no different from any of the other organizations involved in climate change, from Greenpeace to WWF … except that its budget is much smaller, and as far as I know, it doesn’t harass the Greenpeace funders the way that Greenpeace harasses those who fund Heartland. Greenpeace is famous for their unpleasant and intimidating “we know where you live” attitude.
But all of these organizations try to push their own beliefs and ideas, so I don’t understand the opposition to Heartland for doing just that. If you want to get upset about the ethics, people should be as upset about harassment of funders as they are about billboards.
I was also surprised by Judith’s claim that Heartland is “losing the battle”, citing in support articles by the well-known fraud Susanne Goldenberg of the “neutral” media outlet, The Guardian … Judith, for many of us, citing Suzanne Goldenberg marks you as someone who isn’t paying attention. She’s the one who recently flat-out lied about Gleick’s actions, you believe her at your own peril and you cite her at no small cost to your reputation for due diligence regarding the honesty of your sources.
My strong sense from talking to Joe and Diane Bast and some of the Heartland staff is that although there have been some losses from the attacks on the funders whose names were revealed by the mail fraud perpetrated by Peter Gleick, as well as from the billboard fiasco, the Heartland folks are most definitely alive, doing well, and still kicking. Sure, they lost some funders, but they have gained others. And as usual, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, and I don’t detect any slackening in their fighting spirit. My conclusion is, Suzanne Goldenberg’s rumors of Heartland’s death are greatly exaggerated, which is just more of Suzanne’s usual misdirection, falsehoods, and fallacies.
But that doesn’t mean that I agree with a number of the Heartland political positions or those of their followers. For example I sat next to a lovely woman one dinner who was a firm believer in Intelligent Design. She made an argument for intelligent design which was that when we see a watch, we don’t assume that it was a random creation. Instead, we assume that there is a watchmaker.
I’d heard that argument before, but never given it much thought. So I considered it for a few moments, and I replied that if we were to accept that argument, that the job wasn’t done. She asked, what did I mean that the job wasn’t done?
I said that if a complex watch implies a more complex human maker of the watch, and by implication if a complex human watchmaker implies an even more complex maker of the human watchmaker … then by exactly the same logic, the complex watchmaker-maker she called “God” implies an even more complex maker of the watchmaker-maker … and on ad infinitum. In other words, if we are to assume that a complex watch necessarily implies a more complex and intelligent watchmaker, then a complex God must imply an even more complex and intelligent God-maker, and so on …
Clearly she had never considered that her argument contained the seeds of its own destruction … but to my surprise she was honest enough to say so, and to say that she had no counter-argument. I admired her for that. But it was a clear example of the generally large distance between myself and a number of folks at the Conference. For example, I think that human beings require regulations, or else people will piss in the drinking water. To me it’s a no-brainer, we’ve proved that many, many times in a host of realms. But a lot if not most of the participants seemed to see any and all regulations as tools of the devil incarnate … not me.
As I said above, however, that wasn’t the point, that’s not the science, that’s just the personalities and the political and religious beliefs. For me, the science, and the opportunities to discuss the science with the scientists, transcends all of that. Politics makes strange bedfellows, and I can live with that.
My conclusions from the Conference were that overturning the current climate science paradigms and the AGW supporters’ activism and malfeasance is going to be a long, slow slog. People like Suzanne Goldenberg want to prematurely claim either victory for their side, or the defeat of their opponents’ side … me, I think this will take years to settle. And more importantly, as far as I can see, neither Heartland nor I have any intention of giving up that fight.
And that for me was the main lesson from the Conference.
w.
PS—On the last day, I walked around the block for some exercise. Upon returning to the Hilton, I noticed a man holding a sign that from a distance read “THE WORLD IS FLAT”. As I came closer, I noted that there was small print, and his whole sign said “The Heartland Institute says THE WORLD IS FLAT”. I stopped and said to him I’d never seen such a statement from Heartland … he said well, no, but “a number” of the Board of Directors think the world is flat. How do you know that, I asked? They’re that kind of people, he said. Ahh, I thought, another follower of Suzanne Goldenberg.
He asked, wasn’t I was ashamed be associated with an organization that gets its money from “giant corporations”? I said that Greenpeace and WWF historically have gotten big donations from the giant oil companies, wasn’t he ashamed to be associated with them?
He said that it was OK for them to take oil money from giant oil corporations, because Greenpeace and WWF do good work … I sighed, and went back into the hotel to listen to something logical and understandable …
HR says:
May 25, 2012 at 9:01 pm
I had the same reaction, HR, but dang, that is about ten times better than I could have expressed it.
+10
w.
I said that if a complex watch implies a more complex human maker of the watch, and by implication if a complex human watchmaker implies an even more complex maker of the human watchmaker … then by exactly the same logic, the complex watchmaker-maker she called “God” implies an even more complex maker of the watchmaker-maker … and on ad infinitum. In other words, if we are to assume that a complex watch necessarily implies a more complex and intelligent watchmaker, then a complex God must imply an even more complex and intelligent God-maker, and so on …
I’m afraid not, if we are talking about God, as defined, this sounds logical, but it is not, because of the definition given of this God, and the necessity of that God being that way if that God is The creator and is thus God.
First, the definition of God is an infinitely complex being. There can be no more complex than infinitely complex, thus, your idea of needing an even more complex creator of God is a logical non starter, since by definition, there can be no such being. Since the starting premise is impossible, the entire argument stops before it begins.
Second, by definition God is self created and self existent. As such, the being who created this God is God hisself, and since God is infinitely complex, you could sorta say that God was created by a being of the correct complexity to create God. Thus, your argument does not prove that God cannot exist, but that God can, by definition.
Third, you are assuming that there is a time before God was created, then God is created and exists after that time. However, by definition, God is an extra dimensional being, existing outside of this time/space continuum. This is also shown by prophecy, where this being shows that it is outside time by stating that such and such will happen after the prophecy, and then it happens, thus showing that the prophesier, God, is outside of time since that God can see what will happen (in our time/space continuum) “before” it happens. It is “before” and “after” here, but not there. Thus, it is impossible for there to be a time “before” God was created, since God lives outside of time, in a “place” where there is no time. Also, by definition, for God to be a creator, God must be the creator of this time/space continuum, otherwise, it ain’t God, The creator. Thus, there was a “time” before time, before this time/space continuum, and thus there must be something outside of time. Scientifically, speaking, there was a beginning, “The Big Bang”, so we know scientifically both of time, and of a timeless state before that (time being bound up with matter and energy after all, ask Einstein, oh, and satellite clocks).
Thus, if you are talking to that gal about God, and using this argument to show that that God cannot exist, and that argument is about God, the definition of God invalidated your argument in not one, not two, but three different ways (probably more, but we will stop at three). The only way you can make this argument is if you are NOT talking about God, in which case, the argument is relevant, since you are talking about someone or something that is different than what you claim the argument is all about.
You need a new argument.
Hey, you brought it up…
Oh, and I’m not going to get itno a back and forth argument about whether there is ir is not a God, that is outside of the scope of this forum, and would go on endlessly anyway, and would just get this thread shut down. So just don’t.
Besides, what I am talking about here is only about whether this argument Willis made is valid, it isn’t. That merely shows that, using this argment, there is the possibility that there is a God.
James Sexton says (May 25, 2012 at 6:32 pm): “God, as typically, thought is without form. God is described as always being, omnipotent, and omnipresent. God doesn’t have a beginning or end, he is the beginning and end, in both time and space.”
Hmm. So “God” is nearly as powerful as carbon dioxide…
orson2 says:
“…Mathematical probability turns out to be a friend of Enlightenment. For instance, while the inductive argument “there are no two snowflakes alike” certainly was proved some fifty years ago by examination and comparison of snowflakes, later scientists took apart the total number of crystals what make up a snowflake, and calculating all that fall in a year, it turns out that there simply have to be reproductions of identical snowflakes.”…
Sorry, but identical means a one-to-one correspondence in spatial position/arrangement for every H2O molecule between two snowflakes. At a large enough size, (say visible to the naked eye) the combination of H2O molecules assuming position in hexagonal crystal lattice sites quickly outstrips the no. of snowflakes that have fallen everywhere in the current extent of the known universe since the big bang. Of course at small enough sizes (order of tens of molecules) they are simple and identical (excluding any nucleus to which they may adhere).
Willis, I highly appreciate your posts.
I am a mathematical physicist working on symmetry and quantum field theory at Penn State. Two and a half years ago I looked at the raw climate data, and saw nothing unusual whatsoever. Since then I post about the scam, mostly at Dot Earth in the NYT.
*
I have a question about your view of how AGW will fail. At the beginning I also thought that it would fail as science. These days, I think more and more that the cuts in funding will bring the whole thing down.
With 100 investigations on the non energetic green energy loans reported today by WaPo via Politico, it looks likely that even next year the quite obscene sums of money lavished upon climate scientists will stop.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-bain-obamas-public-equity-record-is-the-real-scandal/2012/05/24/
The flood of papers taking down each and every aspect of the pseudoscience has started. It looks to me almost like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the Stasi archives twenty-three years ago.
*
I used to think that once the satellite temps graphs was shown on the front page of say the NYT or WaPo (which of course didn’t happen) AGW would evaporate. I was surprised that politicians attacked AGW primarily as a jobs killer.
These days I tend to think that they were right and I was wrong. People at large have a hard time reading climate type graphs. The jobs campaign, with a superbly made “If I wanted America to Fail” video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc seems to work.
Don’t you envision the possibility of a kind of snowball effect when funding is cut and when solid young researchers (of which we have quite a few) feel that they can research and publish freely and they do it? All punctured by a continuous string of messy bankruptcies of the “renewable” energy sector.
After all I think that we all tended more than once to view “climate science” as if some second hand scientists decided spontaneously to worry about warming and put up a wrong theory. While in fact it was all lavishly financed and aimed at propping a takeover of the energy sector.
For instance the latest fiery NYT OpEd of Jim Hansen was “crafted,” as Andy Revkin mentioned, by a venture capital investor, Dan Miller.
Don’t you think that Deep Throat had a point with “Follow the money?”
That money put it up and money will bring it down?
Regards
Adrian
Intelligent design, it may be a question of who’s intelligence. The new field of epigenetics is worth a quick perusal. Lamarkism may not be such a dirty word.
Certainly a controlled study has shown that muscle development comparable to that obtained by sustained exercise over a period can be reproduced by directed intention alone over the same period.
HR says:
May 25, 2012 at 9:01 pm
James Sexton.
I thought Willis’ watchmaker rebut in the manner of ‘turtles all the way down’ was pretty good. I’m less impressed with you simply erecting a sign saying “No turtles beyond this point”.
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Like I said, its talking to people that have no comprehension of what they’re talking about….. so I’ll try it this way. Sure, turtles all the way down….. except in a description of God, he’s not a turtle.
It is the illogical argument that watchmakers must have a maker. Why? No one proposed that except the agnostics and atheists. Watches….. or things of systems and designs have makers. This isn’t a statement towards the makers of such things. It only happens that watch makers have systems and design, but it isn’t necessary to the the argument, nor was it proposed, by Willis’ account. Again, it was an invention of Willis’. You accept this irrational argument because you can’t conceive nor comprehend other people’s view of God.
This is a classic strawman argument. Willis refutes the watchmaker analogy because he assigns traits to the “intelligent designer” which no one other than Willis assigned. So, high five and turtle down with the self-congratulatory victory over the arguments no one made other than atheists.
So, I’ll ask again, is there a design or a system you can see in a timeless, dimensionless entity? If yes, please explain. If no….. then the watch maker analogy is proper.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 25, 2012 at 3:35 pm
“Thanks, Saren. I am generally chary of ascribing motive to people, especially if they are defending honest science.”
Wow I just threw out a comment and got a great reply from someone I’ve enjoyed reading for years. Gotta love this blog.
I think the issue here is that there is a difference between what Heartland does and what it is. So while the ICCC7 might be a great example of “defending honest science” the billboards were a reflection of an ideological agenda.
We all have our ideological slants. I have more than I’d sometimes like to admit – anarchist, libertarian, mutualist, nihilist, capitalist, egoist, socialist… I see not just the corruption of climate science but the… misplaced feelings of injustice, egomania, depression, displacement – whatever it is that make people so fearful/advocative of impending doom caused by our own actions. My perception, guided by my belief system is that of power hungry people using global warming as an issue to acquire power and money. I desperately want the science to show a low CO2 sensitivity.
In order to separate what we see and what we want to see, we have to be honest about our selves and our desires. It’s only by facing them and admitting to them we can even pretend to have clarity. Let’s appreciate good contributions to science whether from Heatland or Hansen but not be afraid to criticize them for their own ideological silliness.
On a different topic, I don’t think Curry is so much attacking Heartland as much as appraising the situation it’s in. She says, or quotes (I’m never entirely sure on her site) “They are not built to be at the hump of the climate denial movement”. This is the key point. Whatever Heartland is or isn’t, whatever it does or doesn’t do – it shouldn’t affect real, truth-seeking climate science. The “winners” and “losers” will only be determined by science not billboards or conferences.
Willis,
Forgot to mention the “catty” remark. I thought it sounded a bit sexist but can see it isn’t.
Willis’ watchmaker rebuttal contains: (i) a logical error, (ii) an epistemological error, and (iii) if consistently applied, an absurd self-refuting outcome.
(i) Willis argues that if A was designed by B, then B must have been designed. This is not a valid logical argument. It is possible that B was designed, but that can only be ascertained by examining the characteristics of B (or by knowing the causal history of B). It does not follow as a matter of logic. Therefore, the very premise of Willis’ ad infinitum regress fails.
(ii) Willis’ argument implies that if Question A (Was A designed?) is answered in the affirmative, and if that answer then invites subsequent inquiries, such as Question B (Was B designed?), then the mere existence of the subsequent question eviscerates the answer to Question A. This is a logical fallacy as well, but can be seen as more of an epistemological error. The fact that an answer to one question invites inquiry into further details or additional causal events in a chain in no way invalidates the answer to the initial question. Further, it is easily understood by anyone who takes time to think through the ‘infinite regress’ idea that all systems of knowledge ultimately end up at a question of First Cause. This is true whether one thinks “In the beginning was the Word,” or “In the beginning were the particles,” or something in between. The infinite regress idea is well understood by philosophers of science as being equally applicable to all knowledge systems and is not a valid reason to reject an inference to design.
(iii) Willis’ argument, if consistently applied, leads to the absurd conclusion that nothing was designed. Not cars, not computers, not the space shuttle, nothing. After all, if a computer was designed by person B, then under Willis’ argument, perforce person B must also have been designed by something else, call it C, which in turn must have been designed, and we end up with our infinite regress, which, Willis tells us, means the very first inquiry (Was the computer designed?) is invalid. This is of course an absurd outcome and helps shine the light brightly on one of the problems with the argument. Willis’ argument collapses of its own weight and “contains the seeds of its own destruction,” in contrast to his dinner companion’s argument, which, although perhaps not fully fleshed out nor adequately defended by her at the time, is a perfectly legitimate line of inductive reasoning.
——
Bottom line, the facile “who designed the designer” retort that has been popular for some time on various Internet blogs, is not a valid objection to design and is not taken seriously by careful philosophers of science. It unfortunately got new legs when Dawkins used it as part of his argument in his recent book, which earned him disrespect from philosophers of all stripes, opponents and proponents of design alike. Hopefully Willis’ dinner companion will take time to look at the issues herself and not be discouraged that she wasn’t able to come up with a quick response on the spot.
My personal belief (not a scientific study) is that the rate of change of acceptance of the science is limited by the placement of the main funds of those who have invested in future outcomes.
If you are a large pension fund and you have invested heavily in the catastrophic side of the outcome, then you are likey to try to influence those around you, to think similarly.
If you are an insurer who can raise premiums on the outlook for sea level rise, you will try to give air to that outcome.
If you are a person who has personally invested much money in windmills, then you want to be surrounded by others telling you that you were right.
If you are a media outlet and you percieve that most of your readers follow a certain line in their scientific ?belief? then you will write articles that pander to them.
The reason why Heartland is underfunded wrt other institutes is because those with fun money to play this game are still surrounded by examples like those above.
Make no mistake, this assault on science was carefully planned some decades ago. People were groomed to the right thinking, they were placed in the right places, they set up structures to convert teachers then youngsters. They infiltrated politics in many countries, especially Germany.
There were, in my opinion, some Mr bigs behind this, but it’s boring to speculate who they were – they are very wealthy now and quite old and uninteresting, as one would expect for the people at the top of a large, successful Ponzi scheme as it reached the end of its life. They can try to be at peace with their consciences in their retirement, as it daily becomes apparent that they acted the same as common conmen, but on a grander scale.
What the heck, I could have been one of them but I was too principled to end up other than poor.
“AndrewmHarding says
I think that those of us who instinctively think that AGW is a load of c**p need to disprove said AGW by questioning the data and the motives of the scientists producing that data.
————
Well you are being slippery claiming you are “questioning” motives.
The blatant fact is that many of you deliberately lie about scientists motives. You certainly don’t now climate scientists personally, you have not asked what their motivations are and yet there’s constant story telling about what climate scientists are.
None of you can read minds do these claims about scientists motivations are all made up.
All of these claims are intended to discredit climate scientists so their views will be ignored.”
Lazy teenager, I stand by what I said. Science is not about making the facts fit your hypothesis, it is about your hypothesis fitting in with the facts.
Common sense tells me that if someone proves that mankind has increased CO2 in the atmosphere by 30% and that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and draws comparison with the planet Venus, then I will believe in AGW. Subsequently I find out that in the past, CO2 concentrations were three times higher than they are today, that the total increment over the last century as a volume of the atmosphere is only 0.0001% and that the atmosphere of Venus has the same density as the sea five miles deep, I then begin to wonder what rubbish I am being fed and why.
Once you add in claims that sea levels will rise by a metre, that southern Europe will be a dust bowl, with millions of climate refugees heading north by 2010, then any rational person is going to think there is something not right here! The only possible answer is money, the scientists get grants to continue their research, the governments get to tax us on flights, fuel and energy based upon what they are told by scientists. I do not need to know someone personally to know they are lying, which is why I am not a victim of Conmen!
As for being slippery, it is not I that is making millions from AGW, carbon credits, renewables and the rest of the b******s we are being told.
I always thought that it was a teenagers God given duty to question authority. If you were to exercise this duty you might reach the same conclusions as the majority of people on this blog!
Adrian O says: May 25, 2012 at 9:52 pm
I am a mathematical physicist working on symmetry and quantum field theory at Penn State… These days, I think more and more that the cuts in funding will bring the whole thing down… The flood of papers taking down each and every aspect of the pseudoscience has started. It looks to me almost like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the Stasi archives twenty-three years ago.
I agree. I too think CAGW will suddenly be washed out by a spring tide… prepared for by a “winter of discontent” 🙂
I had been following the work of the Churches behind the Iron Curtain, and to me it was clear which way the wind was blowing. One can also look at the history of the three failed attempts to regain freedom, first Hungary 1956, then Czechoslovakia 1968, then Poland’s Solidarity from 1980… to me it was clear that the “sickness” of Russian Communism was steadily burning itself out from within.
Willis, thank you for this piece, it was indeed like being at the conference and you provided just the article I wanted and hoped to see. And the quality of “between presentations” comments here has been great too. People I agree with, people I disagree with, and the pleasure of the resultant good conversation.
I would have attended Heartland myself if I could…
… but in the end, was (willingly) seduced instead to attend the 2012 seminar of Dr Roderich Graeff on his 14 “retirement” years of experimental and theoretical work challenging the currently-accepted formulation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Will write it up asap and I hope Willis you can have a look when it appears as I’d appreciate your reactions. It will however have to appear, initially at least, on Tallbloke’s blog, unless Anthony can accept it directly… but I really hope Anthony will pick it up and republish. The work is stunning and replicable “at home” and important for Climate Science so I plan to replicate it here – unless some university beats me to it – which would be very nice, because after all this is where it should belong, and they would find replication much easier.
I’m writing this while putting-0ff getting dressed for my daughter’s wedding, so you can see I’m really interested, even excited. Ha, must go now!
As much as I enjoy making corrections to error (cf, “climatereflections” et al), I will refrain because we are going off-topic. Perhaps anyone else would like to intelligently reflect further about the course of error in climate science (as some have)? – what path for science’ redemption?
My turtle is an is an extra dimensional being, existing outside of this time/space continuum. By definition he is untestable by any mortal means and he created God. But there can’t be any more turtles beyond my turtle because by definition, my turtle is the one and only Ultragod turtle and nothing exists to create my turtle because He created himself and God (but then lost interest and took up Go). I believe in my turtle and there is nothing anybody can say that will convince me otherwise. I also believe in Hobbiton but can’t prove it exists because the hobbits have put up a psychic shield that prevents us from finding them. Middle Earth is somewhere in the Pacific near New Zealand but our brains are being tricked to fill in the spot where Middle Earth exists with water, the same way our brains fill in the blank spots between frames in a movie. I think the Turtle taught the Hobbits that trick. Isn’t making up non-falsifiable realities fun? Sort of like climate science. Every time somebody comes up with a logical objection, we just make up a reason why it can’t be tested. I remember playing this game as a kid. It can go on for a really long time.
I enjoyed your story Willis. The motivation of the Heartland Institute is only vaguely interesting to me. What is really important is that they are fostering discussion while the warmistas do not engage. Science learned quite some time ago that debating a cognitavely dissonant and better theory simple hastens its acceptance. The best way to deal with unpleasantness is to ignore it, refuse to talk about it or if cornered into discussing it, then resort to ridicule. Hence we still have people blindly accepting the savanna theory of human evolution decades after it was shown to be seriously flawed. Humans have an infinite capacity to believe the incredible.
Unfortunately, our opponents don’t care if a statement is true or not. What they care about is if a statement is believed, and by how many. Instead of analyzing their obvious lies until our faces are blue, we should fight them as hard as they oppress us. Being nice to robbers isn’t an effective strategy.
Talking about the effectiveness of turning the other cheek, there was that little question that a man I don’t always agree with used to ask about 2 thousand years ago: “What is Truth?”
To those of our friends who are still pushing the Intelligent Design nonsense:
No, in a galaxy far, far away there grows a Gigantic Porcelain Mushroom, navy blue with glittering golden polka dots. This mushroom, not any other god or being or force, postulated our infinite and timeless Universe. If you don’t want to argue with this point of view, you must see, how ridiculous is your own point of view, which is, incidentally, exactly the same. Smoke and mirrors…
“Finally, it was a chance to talk to some of the Heartland folks. As I said, I have many differences with them. I felt, for example, that their billboard showing the Unabomber was simultaneously true, meaningless, repulsive, and a very self-destructive, unpleasant, and foolish venture into guilt by association. I have said many times that it doesn’t matter whether a statement is made by the head of Greenpeace or written on a bathroom wall. What is important, the only thing that is important, is whether or not it is true. And it matters just as little who believes it as it matters who said it. I can understand their frustration at being the unending target of attacks that are just as vicious and ugly, but “tu quoque” (which is basically Latin for “but Mommy, he did it first”) works no better for adults then it does for children.”
As Heartland explained it, it was to give them a taste of their own medicine – it worked. The outrage from them was, I have to admit, a delight to watch.. The warmistas propaganda associating skeptics of the global warming science with all manner of despotic evil doers and their acts has lost its bite.
The truth is that it is those who created the AGWScienceFiction fisics who are the evil despots and their propaganda campaign was simply to deflect the truth of this from themselves, and they’ve now lost that momentum.
But you’re right, the only thing that matters is what is true – so instead of ambiguous association with despots/insane, let the next campaign be of those here and now who are the actual despots/insane evilly using the fake fisics to subject the general public to their psycho/sociopathic fantasies in order to destroy our liberty and damage our quality of life. Name the enemy and their stated beliefs and their methods to gain control and quash opposition, truthfully, let the Battle of the Billboards continue..
biff33 says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:10 pm
“But the water supply should be private property. We don’t need the government to provide water, but to enforce property rights.”
So your neighbour can dam the river flowing through your property and starve your fields of irrigation? And so on up stream.
Lucy Skywalker says:
May 26, 2012 at 1:01 am
… but in the end, was (willingly) seduced instead to attend the 2012 seminar of Dr Roderich Graeff on his 14 “retirement” years of experimental and theoretical work challenging the currently-accepted formulation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In my view the law is correctly formulated, but incorrectly interpreted by some when specifying experiments which can test it. For a column of gas or liquid to be free from from the influence of external forces, it would have to be removed from any gravitational field present around and through it.
Will write it up asap and I hope Willis you can have a look when it appears as I’d appreciate your reactions. It will however have to appear, initially at least, on Tallbloke’s blog, unless Anthony can accept it directly… but I really hope Anthony will pick it up and republish. The work is stunning and replicable “at home” and important for Climate Science
Seconded, the issue deserves wider exposure and discussion than can be obtained through the Talkshop alone.
Actually with God it’s turtles all the way UP!
I have always wondered why it takes over 30,000 genes to make a grain of rice. Intelligent design, perhaps. Economy of design, not so much.
alone over the same period.
James Sexton says:
May 25, 2012 at 10:03 pm
HR says:
May 25, 2012 at 9:01 pm
James Sexton.
I thought Willis’ watchmaker rebut in the manner of ‘turtles all the way down’ was pretty good. I’m less impressed with you simply erecting a sign saying “No turtles beyond this point”.
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Like I said, its talking to people that have no comprehension of what they’re talking about….. so I’ll try it this way. Sure, turtles all the way down….. except in a description of God, he’s not a turtle.
It is the illogical argument that watchmakers must have a maker. Why? No one proposed that except the agnostics and atheists. Watches….. or things of systems and designs have makers. This isn’t a statement towards the makers of such things. It only happens that watch makers have systems and design, but it isn’t necessary to the the argument, nor was it proposed, by Willis’ account. Again, it was an invention of Willis’. You accept this irrational argument because you can’t conceive nor comprehend other people’s view of God.
This is a classic strawman argument. Willis refutes the watchmaker analogy because he assigns traits to the “intelligent designer” which no one other than Willis assigned. So, high five and turtle down with the self-congratulatory victory over the arguments no one made other than atheists.
So, I’ll ask again, is there a design or a system you can see in a timeless, dimensionless entity? If yes, please explain. If no….. then the watch maker analogy is proper.
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This is an argument mainly only those from or coming out of the Western Christianity could have, which sees a separation between the creator and the created…, which sees man the inferior without will and worse, damned, from some interpretations of Genesis II, and so the only sensible reaction is stop believing in such a God and become Athesist.. However.
Somehow y’all seem to skip Genesis I and never think about what “created in image and likeness” means. How omniscient, omnipotent etc. is God if God is Us?
Non-Augustinian Christianity has a different take, that the difference between God and Man (Male and Female both) is not of kind, but of the difference between uncreated and created. I would have thought that would resonate with the scientists here, as in ‘matter is neither created nor destroyed’, instead of these ID v Atheist belief systems non-arguments which come from a particular interpretation, paradigm, and so cannot be taken as having universal applicability.
Willis very insightful as usual. You have always been a favorite poster of mine and while I might not agree with all you say I always know you have put a great deal of thought into it. There are several things I would wish to discuss with you per your discussion with the woman on intelligent design please email me as I feel that this is not the place to discuss those things. I might at least provide you with some entertaining thoughts.
The only observation I can make about the job not done infinite comoplexity argument is that like the Big Bang theory theory is ano explained starting point. In the intelligent creator paradigm that is God.
Willis,
Thank you for the write up.
On the subject of “turtles”: Reality is independent of what we think about it – it exists independently. The Universe contains all of that which exists, everything, every hadron, every electron, etc. This means that if a Deity exists, it is contained within the Universe. It might be part of or the whole of the Universe, but it is contained within. If it is the whole of the universe, then the Deity and the universe are inseparable and the Universe is the Deity. If it is not, then there is a separable part of the Universe which does not contain the Deity. There may be a way of determining if some part of the Universe does not contain the Deity, but that would require the ability to identify the Deity as distinct from the other part. This would require full knowledge of the state of the Universe.
Corollary: If the Deity has existed forever, then so has the Universe.
Forget turtles all the way down, or Deities, all the way up.
Elegant response to the woman, in my opinion.
Good report, Willis! Nice to see enough site-specific, observational detail woven in to get the “feel” of actually being there. Your talent with the pen always impresses. As to Judith’s Curry’s peculiar lapse, I think maybe her strategy for staying “in the middle of the road” has always been to veer away from anything that seems radical or acutely controversial. In a knee-jerk response to the Heartland missteps, poor Judith drove right off into the tall grass.