It appears “global warming” is now the most potent force in the universe, according to a scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. An actual scientific paper preprint published in the Cornell University science archive makes the connection to black holes in the title, and includes “climate change” in the abstract.
Sigh. It isn’t even past coffee on Sunday morning and already we have our winner. This one… is weapons grade stupidity. I would not believe that a scientist from a prominent research institute could utter such a statement had I not read it in a prominent science magazine. It’s another “Vinerism” in the making: Children just aren’t going to know what black holes are.
It immediately reminded me of the famous line uttered by Tom Cruise in the movie a A Few Good Men:
“Should we or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid!
But then again, this is The New Scientist. Read on, emphasis mine.
…
Something must have limited the growth of these black holes. Now Takamitsu Tanaka at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, and colleagues have a climate-based explanation.
…
Black holes need cool gas to grow so this would have slowed down the growth of other black holes in smaller protogalaxies, even as the growth of black holes in the most massive protogalaxies continued apace (arxiv.org/abs/1205.6467v1).
“This global warming process could have basically quenched the latecomers,” says Tanaka. “The early ones end up being the monsters and they prevent the overgrowth of the rest.”
Tanaka probably should have said the “galactic warming process”, and maybe he did, and this could is a misquote by the unnamed author of the article at TNS. UPDATE: This line from the abstract tends to suggest it was a deliberate statement from the scientist:
Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change, in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs.
Either way, it shows how global warming on the brain tends to create an environment for such ridiculous comparisons to make it to press.
I decided I should make a screencap of the paper abstract, becuase I have a feeling it will disappear:
Next I suppose we’ll be reading comparisons of the “global warming process” to problems at the atomic interaction level, such as maybe the sun is now producing fewer neutrinos or some such rot. Don’t laugh, it could happen.
Read The New Scientist article here.
Unfortunately, comments are only allowed from subscribers, so if there are any subscribers out there, please leave a comment pointing out this idiotic comparison. Better yet, write a letter to the editor of the magazine.
In the meantime, feel free to use this motivational poster:
Robert, we’re back to the assuming motives fallacy again. As far as I know, Taka claims any particular authority on global warming, so if you can point to any document where he is “touted” as part of the scientific consensus that would be helpful. I doubt you’d fine one, as from what I can tell, he is as bemused by the “activists” as he is by the ones on the other side of the fence.
Since we’re well into “guess what this person is saying based on how he dotted his “i” territory” I think I’ll sign off this thread. Laterz.
* “guess what this person is *thinking* …”
A few of the commenters seemed to feel we ‘deniers’ might have been overzealous in our ridicule of,at least, the wording of this new study, perhaps even to the pint of being ‘unethical.’
Overzealous? Well, why wouldn’t we be?:
1. The deaths of Aspen trees in the West
2. Incredible shrinking sheep
3. Caribbean coral deaths
4. Eskimos forced to leave their village
5. Disappearing lake in Chile
6. Early heat wave in Vietnam
7. Malaria and water-borne diseases in Africa
8. Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean
9. Break in the Arctic Ice Shelf
10. Monsoons in India
11. Birds laying their eggs early
12. 160,000 deaths a year
13. 315,000 deaths a year
14. 300,000 deaths a year
15. Decline in snowpack in the West
16. Deaths of walruses in Alaska
17. Hunger in Nepal
18. The appearance of oxygen-starved dead zones in the oceans
19. Surge in fatal shark attacks
20. Increasing number of typhoid cases in the Philippines
21. Boy Scout tornado deaths
22. Rise in asthma and hayfever
23. Duller fall foliage in 2007
24. Floods in Jakarta
25. Radical ecological shift in the North Sea
26. Snowfall in Baghdad
27. Western tree deaths
28. Diminishing desert resources
29. Pine beetles
30. Swedish beetles
31. Severe acne
32. Global conflict
33. Crash of Air France 447
34. Black Hawk Down incident
35. Amphibians breeding earlier
36. Flesh-eating disease
37. Global cooling
38. Bird strikes on US Airways 1549
39. Beer tastes different
40. Cougar attacks in Alberta
41. Suicide of farmers in Australia
42. Squirrels reproduce earlier
43. Monkeys moving to Great Rift Valley in Kenya
44. Confusion of migrating birds
45. Bigger tuna fish
46. Water shortages in Las Vegas
47. Worldwide hunger
48. Longer days
49. Earth spinning faster
50. Gender balance of crocodiles
51. Skin cancer deaths in UK
52. Increase in kidney stones in India
53. Penguin chicks frozen by global warming
54. Deaths of Minnesota moose
55. Increased threat of HIV/AIDS in developing countries
56. Increase of wasps in Alaska
57. Killer stingrays off British coasts
58. All societal collapses since the beginning of time
59. Bigger spiders
60. Increase in size of giant squid
61. Increase of orchids in UK
62. Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden
63. Cow infertility
64. Conflict in Darfur
65. Bluetongue outbreak in UK cows
66. Worldwide wars
67. Insomnia of children worried about global warming
68. Anxiety problems for people worried about climate change
69. Migration of cockroaches
70. Taller mountains due to melting glaciers
71. Drowning of four polar bears
72. UFO sightings in the UK
73. Hurricane Katrina
74. Greener mountains in Sweden
75. Decreased maple in maple trees
76. Cold wave in India
77. Worse traffic in LA because immigrants moving north
78. Increase in heart attacks and strokes
79. Rise in insurance premiums
80. Invasion of European species of earthworm in UK
81. Cold spells in Australia
82. Increase in crime
83. Boiling oceans
84. Grizzly deaths
85. Dengue fever
86. Lack of monsoons
87. Caterpillars devouring 45 towns in Liberia
88. Acid rain recovery
89. Global wheat shortage; food price hikes
90. Extinction of 13 species in Bangladesh
91. Changes in swan migration patterns in Siberia
92. The early arrival of Turkey’s endangered caretta carettas
93. Radical North Sea shift
94. Heroin addiction
95. Plant species climbing up mountains
96. Deadly fires in Australia
97. Droughts in Australia
98. The demise of California’s agriculture by the end of the century
99. Tsunami in South East Asia
100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe
The real questions are, can these black holes migrate fast enough to avoid extinction? And will this “global warming” force the larger ones to eat the smaller ones?
It’s like when Coke paid rappers $50 to mention the brand in their songs.
….one of the best Anthony Watt-isms I’ve read yet!! Must remember that for the future!!
Carrick says:
June 11, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Bill, some people do deny that climate is changing. Heck some of them deny the existence of photons! Others deny well established physics like radiative physics.
The fact that “some people” do is not a valid argument for tarring all skeptics with that brush, particularly since — as I pointed out — skeptics *affirm* that the climate changes, so the term “climate change denier” is a flat-out lie. Your attempted explanation is a No-Go At This Station — retake Logic 101.
Or well established measurement practices (once you hit this threshold, ironically, you’ve included people on both side of the divide including some people being excoriated on another thread for their flawed statistical methodology).
Excuse me, but you need to get a tighter grip on your argument.
I agree that calling everybody who is skeptical of proposed remediations of potential catastrophic AGW is over broad a “denier” is overly broad and unfair.
Nice attempt at changing the terms of the argument in midstream. However, you’re falsely assuming that it’s all about being skeptical of remediation — we’re skeptical of your unfounded claim that climate change is a catastrophe.
Enough said, IMO, let it lie.
“The debate is over” — you guys keep reinforcing your own stereotype…
Bill, just to be clear CAGW not “my” hypothesis nor do I think it’s valid.. Just because I don’t drink one group’s koolaid doesn’t mean that I accept every precept of CAGW, nor do I think all of the claims of the CAGW alarmists are supported by the main stream science that they are supposedly based on.
Seriously the reason I suggest we wind this down is because this has become a completely fricking boring go-nowhere conversation. That’s my opinion too. You’ve said what you think, same for me. What’s left other than ad nausea repetitions?
As to stereotypes, I’m the one who admits most people don’t fit into one and seems like you’re the one trying to put everybody into one including me.
Ciao.
So after again reading the abstract and the summaries of the study by the New Scientists & phys.org, the points of the paper, it looks like are
(1) black holes heated gas everywhere in the early universe. Several prior papers have already reached this conclusion, it look slike, from the references in the paper… i.e. kind of thing “every cosmologist knows now”. (So Lubos seems to be wrong here.)
(2) this heating affected the black holes themselves, or other black holes in other galaxies.
So then the author’s explanation to Carrick makes perfect sense. “Global warming” is an accurate English description, because it’s “heating that’s occuring everywhere” (especially since he wanted to distinguish from local quasar warming, which apparently is also a thing?). And it’s a tongue-in-cheek analogy in sense that black holes are “changing the cosmic climate to their own detriment.”
When New Scientist ran with it, I doubt they had much control over how their work and quotes would be presented. If you read the New Scientist piece, it’s clearly an analogy. But as Tanaka says in his bemused comments, just skimming the headline can induce a “WTF” reaction. MAybe New Scientist should’ve put “global warming” in quotes or something, put in a sentence to doubly clarify its an analogy, for us nonscientists?
It seems like WUWT went with that “WTF” reaction without carefully reading the articles or contacting the authors… a bit unfair, if you ask me.
Not sure I have the sense of humor to respond with a smily face after total strangers call me and my colleagues “weapons grade stupid” on the internet….. so kudos to Tanaka for that.
Now I have a picture in my head of Stephen Colbert criticizing sports announcers on his show for “misleadingly” referring to big players as “bears” to promote the “ursine agenda”. You know, being angry at people for making an analogy to something he’s angry about. … And that’s my analogy to this whole situation! HEY-OH!
leftinbrooklyn says:
June 11, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Overzealous? Well, why wouldn’t we be?:
1. The deaths of Aspen trees in the West
…
100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe
They forgot to list the most ominous result of AGW — the dearth of Nessie sightings!
Bill Tuttle says:
June 11, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Carrick says:
June 11, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Bill, some people do deny that climate is changing. Heck some of them deny the existence of photons! Others deny well established physics like radiative physics.
The fact that “some people” do is not a valid argument for tarring all skeptics with that brush, particularly since — as I pointed out — skeptics *affirm* that the climate changes, so the term “climate change denier” is a flat-out lie. Your attempted explanation is a No-Go At This Station — retake Logic 101.
Not only a flat out lie, but the term “climate change denier” logically applies to AGW activists who think climate never changed/changes, but remained/remains flat until man-made emissions changed/change it, the Hockey Stick is their emblem.
They use the term applicable only to themselves to distract from the fact that they are nincompoops for believing climate never changes and for believing that carbon dioxide can magically heat the earth 33°C.
Rather than sceptics objecting to the Holocaust connection, which is the reason they use the term against us, and getting further distracted by getting sidetracked by their endless ‘no we don’t mean it’ arguments, we could simply remind them that they are the ones in denial of climate change as we have ample proof that ice ages come and go which neither we nor carbon dioxide had anything to do with initiating, and, that only nincompoops could believe that the Hockey Stick trumps the Vostok Graph which shows all these massive global climate changes in and out of ice ages where carbon dioxide levels lag behind dramatic warming by 800 years.
That’s what they’re really distracting us from – showing them up to be akin to flat earthers and unable to conceptualise outside of their “Climate Change Denial Hockey Stick” emblem like those who believed the Sun revolved around the Earth.
As for this paper, I could begin to make sense of it, or rather what they were trying to say, once I’d translated global to universal. As it stands the use of global in the play on words merely obfuscates for me, as I first thought they meant the black hole was being heated by “back-radiation” …. 🙂
I’m clearly not the target audience.
Carrick says:
June 11, 2012 at 11:52 pm
As to stereotypes, I’m the one who admits most people don’t fit into one and seems like you’re the one trying to put everybody into one including me.
Your defensive assertion is at odds with your statement of June 11, 2012 at 11:18 am: “Why? They’re standard terms.” And I didn’t try to put you into a stereotype — you self-assigned by your comments.
catdeadalive says:
June 12, 2012 at 12:14 am
If you read the New Scientist piece, it’s clearly an analogy. But as Tanaka says in his bemused comments, just skimming the headline can induce a “WTF” reaction.
You need to check the definition of “bemused” — Tanaka wasn’t confused by the reaction his use of the terms elicited, he was delighted, because he got the reaction he was hoping to get.
Bill Tuttle: “You need to check the definition of ‘bemused’ ”
Oops, I meant “amused”.
catdeadalive says:
June 12, 2012 at 7:35 am
Bill Tuttle: “You need to check the definition of ‘bemused’ ”
Oops, I meant “amused”.
I once heard a briefer use “conjugation” when he meant “conjunction.”
Hilarity ensued.
The following is for all the commenters on this page who, in a disappointing display of lesser critical thinking skills, have still failed to see that it’s the ethics rather than the physics of the authors’ words that is more questionable.
Hopefully the following will help clarify the ethical lapse that is at issue here.
Ross Douthat, writing for New York Times News Service, has a column out which is published in today’s Tampa Bay Times. The title is
Science leading us to doorstep of new eugenics
I quote from this column (bold-face is mine, bracketed text is mine):
The American elite’s pre-World War II commitment to breeding out the “unfit” — defined variously as racial minorities, low-IQ whites, the mentally and physcially handicapped, and the criminally inclined — is a story that defies easy stereotypes about progress and enlightenment. On the one hand, these U.S. eugenicists tended to be [. . .] ivory tower dwellers and privileged have-mores with an obvious incentive to invent spurious theories to justify their own position.
But these same eugenicists were often political and social liberals — advocates of social reform, partisans of science, critics of stasis and reaction. “They weren’t sinister characters [. . .]”, Conniff writes of Fisher and his peers, “but environmentalists, peace activists, fitness buffs, healthy-living enthusiasts, inventors, and family men.” From Teddy Roosevelt to [. . .] Margaret Sanger, fears about “race suicide” and “human weeds” were common among self-conscious progressives, who saw the quest for a better gene pool as of a piece with their broader dream of human advancement.
[. . .]
Having left behind pseudoscientific racial theories, it’s easy for us [not really “us” but rather “today’s progressive scientists” –RTF] to look back and pass judgment on yesterday’s eugenicists. It’s harder to acknowledge what we [actually “they” –RTF] have in common with them.
First, a relentless desire for mastery and control, not only over our own lives but over the very marrow and sinew of generations yet unborn. And second, a belief in [their] own fundamental goodness, no matter to what ends [their] mastery is turned.
In the old days people got ahead by using the terms “new” and “smart” and “green” and were rewarded for it. In the new era it is “global warming” and “climate change” until further notice from trend setters. The publishing mills runs on.
Nope, don’t see how it has to do with ethics. The science appears to be valid (most of what they report is confirming previous studies), and their use of words was found amusing by others in their field.
I think people are angry with the authors for making an analogy to something that makes them angry. The only people that feel misled are people that didn’t bother to read the articles in full.
Since the authors have not misled their peers or deceived funding organizations, what did they do wrong? What did they gain, other than brief attention in the press and blogs like this? Who did they hurt, other than those who mistook their analogy for fact (because they didn’t read carefully)?
Richard T. Fowler says:
June 12, 2012 at 8:59 am
The following is for all the commenters on this page who, in a disappointing display of lesser critical thinking skills, have still failed to see that it’s the ethics rather than the physics of the authors’ words that is more questionable.
Hopefully the following will help clarify the ethical lapse that is at issue here.
We had the eugenics argument here a month ago — you’re ‘way late to the party…
catalivedead says:
June 12, 2012 at 11:21 am
Nope, don’t see how it has to do with ethics. The science appears to be valid (most of what they report is confirming previous studies), and their use of words was found amusing by others in their field.
I think people are angry with the authors for making an analogy to something that makes them angry. The only people that feel misled are people that didn’t bother to read the articles in full.
Since the authors have not misled their peers or deceived funding organizations, what did they do wrong? What did they gain, other than brief attention in the press and blogs like this? Who did they hurt, other than those who mistook their analogy for fact (because they didn’t read carefully)?
What an extraordinary comment. I shouldn’t have to explain any of this to someone who is intelligent enough to understand the paper. But it appears I am being asked to.
The ethical lapse, obviously (at least to me) is in finding that use of words amusing, and also in using a scientific paper to try to promote this decidedy pseudoscientific issue that is outside the authors’ topic of study. [1]
Regarding people being angry, I personally am upset and offended because 1) an analogy is made in a lighthearted manner to a political program (AGW and associated policy prescriptions) that has very similar goals to a eugenic program, and 2) because that analogy is then open to being misused by journalists and commentators to promote the same progam.
“[W]hat did they do wrong?”
They exploited an issue that had nothing to do with their paper’s topic and has a lot to do with a political program to do immense harm to some of the public in order to enrich others. They didn’t have to use those exact words and phrases. Even “global warming” in the title … if they needed a new term, it seems to me “IGM warming” would have been just fine, most especially for the title, and as a bonus it wouldn’t have had the same ethical problem.
Please also notice that the title does not describe the same thing that the abstract does. As I wrote before (but no one seemed to pick up on it), “self-regulating” in that context implies that the MBHes are regulating their own population, whereas the abstract says it’s miniquasars doing the regulating. So it appears that great lengths were gone to to make the connection to AGW more noticeable, even to the point of writing a title that misrepresents the actual subject of the study.
“What did they gain, other than brief attention in the press and blogs like this?”
At the very least, they gained satisfaction at the expense of the present and future victims of the Great Climate Hoax. It doesn’t take a code of ethics to know that one doesn’t dance on people’s graves. That is a no-go, regardless of the “context” of the situation.
So can we agree to disagree about all this, or have you more questions from out of left-field for me?
To Bill Tuttle, that sounds interesting, sorry I missed it. Anyway, I was quoting a new column that appeared in today’s newspaper, and hopefully you can see this is very relevant to this thread. BTW I think you made some very good points on this thread, particularly at June 12, 2012 at 3:55 am — very well stated.
RTF
Footnote
[1] And yes, his use of the term “deniers” as well as his seemingly snotty, condescending Gergis-esque attitude toward all of his critics, while completely ignoring the arguments I and others (including Anthony) had made about ethics, prove to me that he is trying to promote Team climate “science”, and not just be ironic.
Richard T. Fowler says:
“Please also notice that the title does not describe the same thing that the abstract does. As I wrote before (but no one seemed to pick up on it), “self-regulating” in that context implies that the MBHes are regulating their own population, whereas the abstract says it’s miniquasars doing the regulating. So it appears that great lengths were gone to to make the connection to AGW more noticeable, even to the point of writing a title that misrepresents the actual subject of the study.”
No such misrepresentation has taken place.
For making such statements about things being “obvious”, etc., I get the feeling you haven’t even bothered to look up what a quasar is.
From reading the paper, the New Scientist, and phys.org pieces, I learned that “quasars” = “growing supermassive black holes”.
So “miniquasars” = “smaller black holes, some of which are growing into supermassive black holes”.
So the title and the abstract are totally talking about the same thing.
Richard T. Fowler says:
June 12, 2012 at 6:34 pm
To Bill Tuttle, that sounds interesting, sorry I missed it.
It got pretty lively. Generated a lot of heat and smoke, and — unsurprisingly — a good deal of light.
catalivedead says:
June 12, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Richard T. Fowler says: “Please also notice that the title does not describe the same thing that the abstract does. As I wrote before (but no one seemed to pick up on it), “self-regulating” in that context implies that the MBHes are regulating their own population, whereas the abstract says it’s miniquasars doing the regulating. So it appears that great lengths were gone to to make the connection to AGW more noticeable, even to the point of writing a title that misrepresents the actual subject of the study.”
No such misrepresentation has taken place.
For making such statements about things being “obvious”, etc., I get the feeling you haven’t even bothered to look up what a quasar is.
From reading the paper, the New Scientist, and phys.org pieces, I learned that “quasars” = “growing supermassive black holes”.
So “miniquasars” = “smaller black holes, some of which are growing into supermassive black holes”.
So the title and the abstract are totally talking about the same thing.
No, they’re not. A quasar is the collision of the gas accretion formed by a *spinning* black hole. The black hole’s gravity pulls gas toward it, and the hole’s spin orients the gas toward its equatorial plane, which ejects most of it in two jets of magnetized gas oriented 180⁰ apart. That action is what reduces the gas “in the neighborhood.” A spinning black hole powers the quasar – a non-rotating black hole will not produce a quasar, so equating a quasar with a black hole is incorrect. A quasar is not a black hole, a quasar is *powered* by a black hole.
%$#@ur momisugly! Memo to self: Forget the jittery server, close the code before posting…