New branch of science coined on WUWT

While we wait for Nick Stokes and David Appell to work up excuses for their embracing the “climate scientists get death threats” fiasco, I thought I’d share this spinoff of this short passage I wrote yesterday:

Likewise, blogger/scientist Nick Stokes, who fancies himself as being cool and methodical, was completely taken in, and like Appell, seems unable to come to terms with his own quik-set epoxy position that seems to be a product of the tribalism he and Appell share.

Inspired, Benjamin D. Hillicoss has coined this new branch of post normal science, with a hat tip to climate science.

Benjamin D. Hillicoss writes:

May 29, 2012 at 7:40 am

epoxology: the science of sticking (permanently) to an untenable position

So many applications, so little time. In this case, I think we can say “the science is set”.

================================================================

UPDATE: Via slashdot, here is something that Appell and Stokes really should be worried about, as should we all:

quoting Nature: “A loose coalition of eco-anarchist groups is increasingly launching violent attacks on scientists. A group calling itself the Olga Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front has claimed responsibility for the non-fatal shooting of a nuclear-engineering executive on 7 May in Genoa. The same group sent a letter bomb to a Swiss pro-nuclear lobby group in 2011; attempted to bomb IBM’s nanotechnology laboratory in Switzerland in 2010; and has ties with a group responsible for at least four bomb attacks on nanotechnology facilities in Mexico. Another branch of the group attacked railway signals in Bristol, UK, last week in an attempt to disrupt employees of nearby defense technology firms (no word on whether anyone noticed the difference between an anarchist attack and a normal Wednesday on the UK’s railways). A report by Swiss intelligence says such loosely affiliated groups are increasingly working together.”

http://www.nature.com/news/anarchists-attack-science-1.10729

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Gail Combs
May 29, 2012 5:01 pm

AnonyMoose says:
May 29, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I don’t see the relationship between the intellectual luddites and the update about technological luddites.
_________________________
It is because Nick Stokes and David Appell are epoxyed to the position that the death threats/harassment was real when Chubb has recanted admitting it was a tempest in a tea pot if that.
The eco-anarchist groups (who support the same beliefs as Nick and David have PROVED beyond a shadow of a doubt they are a heck of a lot more dangerous then what Nick and David were throwing such a hissy fit about.

MikeN
May 29, 2012 5:30 pm

I prefer Orwell’s crimestop. the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

Brian H
May 29, 2012 5:41 pm

Who’s Olga?
Does every anarchist babe get her own Cell?
I foresee discord …

Follow the Money
May 29, 2012 5:45 pm

Epoxology? Tolstoy nailed it long ago:
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

Robert of Ottawa
May 29, 2012 5:47 pm

I prefer the new science of Crimatology.
On another note, the “Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front” cannot, of course, like, you know, formalize anything suh as, like, an argument, you know.
I suggest they rename themselves the “Anarchists Repudiating Socialist Establishments”; ARSE for short

eyesonu
May 29, 2012 5:51 pm

Quik-set epoxy works only when all mixed up.

Robert of Ottawa
May 29, 2012 5:56 pm

Gunga Din says May 29, 2012 at 2:14 pm
When you practice expoxology, you get stuck to a tree’s resin.
====================================
Since the phrase was coined here, will I go down in history as the first person to misspell it?

Indeed, Mr. Din, you will live in internet imfamy in perpetuaty. You are a master mispeller. Yo u should be on Youtube – obviously miss spelling is a friend of yours.

May 29, 2012 6:25 pm

Robert of Ottawa says:
May 29, 2012 at 5:56 pm
Gunga Din says May 29, 2012 at 2:14 pm
When you practice expoxology, you get stuck to a tree’s resin.
====================================
Since the phrase was coined here, will I go down in history as the first person to misspell it?
Indeed, Mr. Din, you will live in internet imfamy in perpetuaty. You are a master mispeller. Yo u should be on Youtube – obviously miss spelling is a friend of yours.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If only my wife’s maiden name was “Spelling” …………. Oh, what a comeback I’d have! 😎

Kaboom
May 29, 2012 6:42 pm

An anarchist federation makes about as much sense as a fascist kibbuz.

Jeff Alberts
May 29, 2012 6:55 pm

[SNIP: Color or colour, Jeff, it is still too far off. Sorry. -REP]

May 29, 2012 7:00 pm

I’m betting all these anarchist groups have a strictly hierarchical structure. Can I put a dollar down at Ladbrokes, and what are the odds?
gt

Jeff Alberts
May 29, 2012 7:00 pm

Hey REP, how about just leaving off the actual acronym and let folks work it out for themselves? It’s such a great line!

May 29, 2012 7:10 pm

Owen in GA says:
May 29, 2012 at 3:28 pm
“Gallipoli: ……
Sorry mods for taking this way off topic.”
Owen…we are debating the term:
Epoxology: the science of sticking (permanently) to an untenable position.
I don’t think Anthony minds, I doubt Sir Winston would mind…

Richard T. Fowler
May 29, 2012 7:50 pm

So now when the Team comes up with one of their ludicrous projections, we can ask them:
“Do your source data consist of unadjusted field measurements, or are they just epoxymations?
Come to think of it, that might be a question that even Michael Mann cannot slip out of.
Perhaps we should ask it, the next time we make contact with him.
Careful, though. He might come unglued when he hears the question. Or, he might try to enjoin the question by inventing rules that questioners must adhere to.
RTF

Myrrh
May 29, 2012 8:01 pm

Oh dear, two carbon atoms to one of oxygen, add apoplexy to epoxology for warmists.

Richard T. Fowler
May 29, 2012 8:03 pm

Graduate student to “Professor” Mann:
Doctor Mann, how are we going to get out of the latest bind that we have gotten ourselves in?
Mann’s reply:
Schtick with me, and you’ll see.
RTF

Sleepalot
May 29, 2012 8:17 pm

[SNIP: Just a bit too far. -REP]

Richard T. Fowler
May 29, 2012 8:47 pm

I’d also note that the advent of this new field of knowledge, epoxology, potentially brings a whole new meaning to the term “composite dendro reconstruction”.
So now, when they say something like, “This new reconstruction is so much better than the old one because this one is a composite reconstruction”, but they won’t give us the data for the new work …. I’ll have to wonder in what sense the term “composite” was really intended — the statistical sense, or the epoxological one!
RTF

Alex Heyworth
May 29, 2012 8:48 pm

I suppose Scott Mandia might see himself as Super Glue.

May 29, 2012 9:17 pm

Alex Heyworth says:
May 29, 2012 at 8:48 pm
I suppose Scott Mandia might see himself as Super Glue.

Fair enough — the rest of us see him as Crazy Glue…

May 29, 2012 9:25 pm

Richard T. Fowler says:
He might come unglued when he hears the question. Or, he might try to enjoin the question by inventing rules that questioners must adhere to.

Owwwwwww…

Richard T. Fowler
May 29, 2012 9:41 pm

Hey, you saw Owen in Ga.; epoxology can hurt. Anyway, I’m just saying these folks are gonna try to stick it to us any way they can, you know, like the spitballs they throw at Steve M., they’re gonna try to gum up the works and all, with schticky situations, and we gotta be ready for ’em. We can’t just sit on our glueteus or whatever, we gotta get out there and mix it up a little…. I’m sure you’d agree…. 😉
RTF

Mac the Knife
May 29, 2012 9:55 pm

Yamal: One Ring to Rule Y’All…..
Hockey Schticks and Cherry Picks?!
ClimateGate (Oh No!) begats ClimategGate 2.0!
Hide The Decline andassume a positive H2O feedback sign???
Now, ‘Epoxology’ reprises tree ring phrenology!!!!
Whew – I’m Exhaustipated! I’m just toooo tired to give a crap, anymore….

Geoff Sherrington
May 29, 2012 10:24 pm

My mistake, Nick. I read it as Eproxy. Cheers, Geoff.

E.M.Smith
Editor
May 29, 2012 10:25 pm

Hmmmm…..
And perhaps doggedly asserting that something is a truth due to a “Green Agenda”, even in the face of fact to the contrary, could be:
Epoxicology….
Think: Asserting windmills are “Green” while sweeping up thousands of dead birds and bats…