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:
Thank you, Bill. This does get tiresome at times.
RTF
The petty, childish, stubbornness being displayed on his page is just astounding. It’s remarkable how vicious people will get in order to avoid admitting that they were wrong.
First Dr. Tanaka was criticized for writing a paper about global warming. Then when it turns out you’d jumped to conclusions and it wasn’t about global warming at all, you accused him of deliberately tricking you into thinking it was about global warming just to make a fool of you, when you could have avoided that pitfall yourself by taking the step of READING THE PAPER before presuming to tell the world what it was about. And the cited proof of Dr. Tanaka’s motives is apparently his condescending attitude towards you, something you mention without the slightest hint of irony…apparently oblivious to how you’d spoken of him and his work WHEN YOU HADN’T EVEN EXAMINED THAT WORK. You call an expert in his field “weapons grade stupid” based on your own premature conclusion about his paper that you never bothered to read, and then you expect him to go out his way to treat YOU with respect, and when you feel slighted by him you insist that’s the proof that you were right all along? You’re lucky he took the time to try to explain it to you at all, since you certainly didn’t deserve an explanation after the way you spoke about him. I’m sure he’s sorry he took the time to give you that explanation, because you’ve made it clear that you refuse to listen to anybody who won’t tell you that you’re right. You’ll never back down and apologize to Dr. Tanaka, you’re just going to keep moving the goalposts so that you’re always right.
The real irony here is that you have become what you are trying to mock. You’re so dogmatic about your “skepticism” of climate change, so rigidly and uncompromisingly dogmatic, that you betray your own cause. You claim you’re not convinced by the science behind claims of man-made climate change, but what happened on this blog suggests that if someone did manage to prove the existence of man-made climate change, you would still refuse to listen.
A few observations.
1) Typing “miniquasar” into Wikipedia redirects to “X-ray binary” where we find that there are a number of different types, none of which is called a”miniquasar”. But we read that in X-ray binaries generally,
“The X-rays are produced by matter falling from one component, called the donor (usually a relatively normal star) to the other component, called the accretor, which is compact: a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole. ”
2) Under the section “Classification”, we read that there is such thing as “microquasars” which are described as “radio-jet X-ray binaries that can house either a neutron star or a black hole.” So again, even with the specific type of X-ray binary known as the microquasar, there is no requirement for a black hole.
3) According to the article, the low-, intermediate-, and high-mass X-ray binaries (which are types that are all distinct from microquasars) can all have a neutron star as their accretor. (This is what I had been taught in both high school and college, but I now have found current support for it in that article.)
4) There are two other types of X-ray binaries listed: X-ray bursters and X-ray pulsars. In the Wiki. article “X-ray burster” is found:
“These astrophysical systems are composed of an accreting compact object, typically a neutron star or occasionally a black hole, and a companion ‘donor’ star”
and in the article for “X-ray pulsar” we find:
“An X-ray pulsar consists of a magnetized neutron star in orbit with a normal stellar companion and are a type of binary star system.”
5) So apparently there is no requirement for any type of X-ray binary to involve a black hole, making catalivedead’s argument about miniquasars even less accurate.
6) Finally, I note that in the Wikipedia article for “Quasar” there is this:
“Quasars may also be ignited or re-ignited from normal galaxies when infused with a fresh source of matter. In fact, it has been theorized that a quasar could form as the Andromeda Galaxy collides with our own Milky Way galaxy in approximately 3–5 billion years.[6][7][8]”
So once again, no black-hole requirement. The two categories, black hole and “miniquasar” may perhaps have overlap, but they also appear to have a degree of independence from each other. Which was my understanding at the time I began commenting about the title of the Tanaka et al. paper.
RTF
@Bill Tuttle, You’re right that quasars are powered by black holes. As a minor side point, it’s not true that the black hole has to be spinning, but it is true that the visible quasar (“QUAsi-StellAr Radio source”) comes from accretion power of material falling onto a black hole. (This power comes from the release of gravitational energy as material falls from far from black hole down to close to the black hole, similar to how a ball speeds up as it falls toward the ground and it converts that kinetic energy into another form when it hits the ground.)
But regardless, there’s nothing misleading (to someone who knows what the terms mean) or dishonest about the title or the text. The black holes do self-regulate. As far as I can tell from reading the paper, it happens in the following manner:
(a) mass accretes onto the black hole; (b) the material falling onto the black hole becomes very hot, thereby producing a quasar (or miniquasar if the black hole is still small); (c) this quasar heats the intergalactic medium, thereby slowing the rate of accretion of gas onto the black hole.
Of course, anything can be misleading to people who don’t know what the terms mean, but those people weren’t the intended audience.
The author of the original post and some commenters here seem to be approaching Tanaka’s paper from a “shoot-first (don’t bother asking questions later)” attitude. The original author came across something he didn’t understand, and he assumed it was very (“weapons grade”) stupid. Instead of writing to the author (whose email address is easily found, as it was Carrick managed to find it without difficulty) he decided to ooo and ahh at the stupidity instead of making an honest attempt to see whether the author was actually saying anything stupid.
Don’t you think it’s a good idea to approach life by not assuming complete strangers are idiots but instead by making a good-faith effort to see what they’re saying?
It seems to me that this whole conversation has devolved into searching for a reason to be upset and offended by what Tanaka wrote. I suppose one could have a reasonable debate about whether there’s ever a place for humorous (to experts) titles in the scientific literature. Here’s another example from astrophysics: http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.1874 — no astronomer would ever think the author is actually talking about frogs; instead, s/he would figure out what the term is referring to. Does the “humor” (not really laugh-out-loud humor, granted) or playfulness of the title add to the product or detract? I could imagine reasonable people disagreeing on this matter, and I’m not sure what the right answer is, myself. When you read highly technical material for a living, a moment of linguistic levity can be refreshing, but clearly clarity is important too. But the assumption that the authors are doing this for base motives (to gain fame and fortune) is a pretty ungenerous one, and in this case seems to be to be completely unrealistic. Really, the idea that the NSF would fund the research more because the paper has the words “global warming” in it is pretty absurd. NSF astrophysics grant applications are judged by other astrophysicists, who are exactly the people who are not confused by the language of Tanaka’s title and manuscript.
@richard T. Fowler
Briefly: You’re right that the term microquasar can refer to systems that are powered by compact objects that are not black holes (i.e., neutron stars). But that has nothing to do with Tanaka’s paper — he is clearly talking about miniquasars that are powered by black holes. (Incidentally, if a quasar is “ignited” by the merger of Andromeda with the Milky Way, it will be because of fresh gas accreting onto the black holes at the centers of Andromeda and/or the Milky Way.)
NoonMoon says:
June 13, 2012 at 7:54 am
(Incidentally, if a quasar is “ignited” by the merger of Andromeda with the Milky Way, it will be because of fresh gas accreting onto the black holes at the centers of Andromeda and/or the Milky Way.)
That could turn out to be either the Mother Of All Supernovae or the unverse’s largest red dwarf. Any ideas?
Mr. Fowler:
Enough already. How can you be so stubborn? You were wrong, you know you know you were wrong, and you also know it wasn’t Dr. Tanaka’s fault that you were wrong. If you can’t be adult enough to admit it and apologize, then please just have the decency to stop talking about the issue altogether instead of continuing this charade. Nobody exploited any issues except YOU, Mr. Watts, and Mr. Tuttle. The three of you are so totally obsessed with proving that climate change is a hoax that you are exploiting what you identified as an opportunity to discredit those mean old elitist liberal scientists. Dr. Tanaka’s paper wasn’t political. YOU politicized it because you simply can’t bring yourself to admit that you jumped to a conclusion that was totally wrong.
OK–I’m a nobody in the “global” scheme of things–(published researcher but in social sciences–not applicable here). However I have to defend Anthony for finding this worth noting–as did I. Those of you turning on Anthony and this blog are trying to make too much about an observation regarding a nutty title to a paper. (I read the whole thread and its both funny and provocative)
The abstract could have easily read “the IGM warming” instead of “globally warm the IGM.” and I doubt Anthony or myself would have found this “weapons grade stupid.” Tanaka admitted he was trying to make a play on words– but to what avail? He said it was intended for his peers–but he and his peers know that others will misinterpret it and THAT is what makes it funny to them and quasi-offesive to me.
I wouldn’t say “unethical” but I would say silly. So it gave his peers a laugh or two at our seeming expense, who cares? Let us laugh back at them. However, why do you say Anthony was “wrong?” He ovbiously knew the scientist wasn’t writing about CO2 issues on earth and wondered why he was using those terms when he noted, “Either way, it shows how global warming on the brain tends to create an environment for such ridiculous comparisons to make it to press.”
Thank you Anthony for drawing attention to this rediculous comparison. Your observation did give me a chuckle and Tenaka’s responses only convinces me that the warmists have no respect for honest scientific discourse.
@Day By Day
I have no idea what Dr. Tanaka had in mind when writing the paper, and neither do you. But why assume nefarious intentions? (“and his peers know that others will misinterpret it and THAT is what makes it funny to them”) Why assume that he was laughing at you or anyone else?
Here’s my assumption:
He had no idea that any non-astronomers would even notice, much less pay attention to the paper and its title. And if he considered that anyone would notice and pay attention, it didn’t occur to him that anyone would misunderstand. Notice his words: “The controversy is unfortunate, but also slightly amusing.” Don’t jump on the “amusing” bit — clearly, he’s saying that it’s unfortunate that anyone misunderstood what he was saying, but it’s kind of amusing in retrospect that people who haven’t looked at the paper at all think he’s talking about the effect of CO2 on black holes.
Again, I don’t know that my assumption is right and you don’t know that yours is, since neither of us lives inside Dr. Tanaka’s head. But I think it’s better to assume people have good intentions unless they absolutely force you to draw a different conclusion.
Certainly, when I write research articles, I don’t think at all about how nonexperts might misunderstand and get upset about my language. I assume (generally a VERY safe assumption) that hardly any nonexperts ever read my work. I don’t sit around emitting mordant chuckles at how the masses might be confused by my plays on words.
I doubt you want my advice, but my advice would be to reserve taking offense (or quasi-offense) for situations that are truly worth it. I really don’t think anyone who wrote the paper was trying to mock anyone else. (As for the commenters here, well, that’s another story … many of them are CLEARLY trying to mock Dr. Tanaka, and to the extent that intentionally mocking someone is worthy of offense, Dr. Tanaka would have far more grounds for being offended than anyone here would.)
I haven’t seen any credible evidence that I am wrong, and I don’t believe I am. So DB is wrong when writing the things that DB says I “know”. Enough said. Oh yeah: I didn’t “jump” to any conclusions. Only in some people’s overactive imagination, perhaps. And there’s no “charade” on my part, and no reason to think there is. I have called it as I’ve seen it. More offensive words being tossed for no rational reason.
Thank you, Anthony, for bringing this to our attention and drawing Dr. Tanaka out to make his awful comment, so that (among other things) I knew that my instinct was correct and also knew not to bother with reading the paper.
Richard
DB says:
June 13, 2012 at 8:41 am
Mr. Fowler…Nobody exploited any issues except YOU, Mr. Watts, and Mr. Tuttle. The three of you are so totally obsessed with proving that climate change is a hoax that you are exploiting what you identified as an opportunity to discredit those mean old elitist liberal scientists. Dr. Tanaka’s paper wasn’t political.
So, you either missed Dr. Tanaka’s e-mail in which he *said* he used the politically-charged term “global warming” in an astrophysical paper in order to get a rise out of “climate-change deniers” or you’re ignoring his admission in order to slam us knuckle-dragging skeptics for pointing out that he used politically-charged terminology in an astrophysical paper.
YOU politicized it because you simply can’t bring yourself to admit that you jumped to a conclusion that was totally wrong.
Tanaka politicized it, we pointed it out. You just don’t happen to like that we did.
Tough.
@NoonMoon. please read Tuttle’s June 13, 2012 at 8:48 pm response to DB–he says what I would, only better. I agree that neither of us know what “Dr. Tanaka had in mind when writing the paper.” I was referring to the title and what he told us about why he used those terms.
And you are right, I don’t *want* your advice, but I’m going to take it in this case. “but my advice would be to reserve taking offense (or quasi-offense) for situations that are truly worth it” because on this you are also right.
@Bill Tuttle:
You wrote, “So, you either missed Dr. Tanaka’s e-mail in which he *said* he used the politically-charged term “global warming” in an astrophysical paper in order to get a rise out of “climate-change deniers””
Dr. Tanaka said no such thing. Putting asterisks around “said” still doesn’t make it true.
Here are his actual words:
“I concede that a total layperson hearing the words “black-hole-made global warming” could get the wrong impression. (In fact, I’ve joked about possible responses from climate change deniers and activists alike….)”
That doesn’t mean that he used that language in order to get a rise out of anyone. It simply means that it struck him as amusing that someone might think he’s talking about terrestrial CO2 affecting black hole growth (e.g., Eric Worrall’s snark above: “All hail CO2 – if our planet’s CO2 can control one of the most powerful forces in the Universe, I know where my prayers are going!”).
I keep asking: why assume that he was doing something mean or evil or sneaky? Life is more pleasant if you assume people have good intentions until proven otherwise. Nothing Dr. Tanaka has written has proven that he had any desire to trick, upset, or get a rise out of anyone.
A person does not always have to write their intention for others to know what it is. What they think is funny or “cute”, what they find relevant or irrelevant, or even what they find to be true or false, can sometimes prove volumes about their intent.
What is unclear to one person can be proven to another. Witness AGW theory, for example. There is much that is proven or disproven to some, but getting others to comprehend (or to admit their comprehension) is entirely another matter. Sometimes people just have to agree to disagree, and move on to other issues.
RTF
NoonMoon says:
June 13, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Dr. Tanaka said no such thing. Putting asterisks around “said” still doesn’t make it true.
If he joked about it, he realized the reaction he’d produce.
Here are his actual words:
“I concede that a total layperson hearing the words “black-hole-made global warming” could get the wrong impression. (In fact, I’ve joked about possible responses from climate change deniers and activists alike….)”
Bingo.
That doesn’t mean that he used that language in order to get a rise out of anyone. It simply means that it struck him as amusing that someone might think he’s talking about terrestrial CO2 affecting black hole growth…
Then why did he use non-cosmological terminology in cosmological paper? “Global” is borderline incorrect usage in that “globe” commonly refers to a solid — “globular” is the cosmological term for a defined area of space.
I keep asking: why assume that he was doing something mean or evil or sneaky?
I didn’t say he was doing something mean or evil — I said he politicized his paper unnecessarily.
Life is more pleasant if you assume people have good intentions until proven otherwise.
Life can be *shorter* if you assume good intentions on someone’s part without justification. Always assume neutrality until you’ve observed for a while.
Nothing Dr. Tanaka has written has proven that he had any desire to trick, upset, or get a rise out of anyone.
Then why did he say “I concede that a total layperson hearing the words ‘black-hole-made global warming’ could get the wrong impression” ? A paper purporting to be a proper scientific report should be worded such that *no one* can misunderstand it.
(If you want further response or explanation from me, please email me.)
Enough.
It is amazing that so many people are sure of what my and my coauthors’ intents were. First people assumed I had less than perfect command of the English language, and now people are assuming what was in my and my coauthors’ heads.
Allow me to save you the trouble of speculation. Am I being honest in what I say below? I can only hope you take me at my word, because that is all I can offer.
All of this really is rather unfortunate. My email address is right on the abstract. If you had asked me nicely what I meant to say, as Carrick has, I would have been happy to clarify my position and save you the trouble of speculating and assuming things about me. I would still be happy, if any of you are ever in Munich, to explain the astrophysics of my work to you over a beer and a good laugh. I have many friends who have polar political views from mine; this does not prevent us from enjoying a baseball game or talking about the Universe. Again, my contact information is not hard to find.
Let me address several things:
(1) Our intent behind the use of the term “global warming”.
Again:
– In that we are describing a *global feedback process* (this is an astrophysical term, distinct from “local feedback”, that means the feedback acts on very large distance scales) that *warms the intergalactic medium*, this is correct English.
– It is also analogous to how purported AGW is supposed to work. The black holes change the “cosmic climate” (the temperature of intergalactic gas) and they live with the consequences (lower accretion rates). We think (and have been told by our peers!) that this is a useful analogy that conveniently conveys the physical process to other astrophysicists whose specialty might not be the early Universe or quasars.
If you find the analogy distasteful or offensive, then we can agree to disagree.
However, my coauthors and I did not mean to offend or anger anyone. To suggest that I *wanted* people to shout about our work on the internet is ridiculous. In general, I do not want to make people angry or play jokes on them. (I try to be a nice person.) I do not enjoy being called “weapons grade stupid” on a blog, “unethical” in its comments, or an “idiot” on Twitter. As I referred to earlier, the reaction from dozens of our astrophysicist colleagues (mostly senior scientists, several at the director level) has been overwhelmingly positive. Precisely zero colleagues found our choice of words misleading or confusing. (There was actually some discussion on other technical wording issues, but not on our use of “global warming”.)
We joked that a super-green activist organization or a conservative member of Congress or might contact us to explain the effect of CO2 on black holes. We *joked* because we didn’t think such a misunderstanding would actually happen.
This brings me to Bill Tuttle’s last comment:
— ‘Then why did he say “I concede that a total layperson hearing the words ‘black-hole-made global warming’ could get the wrong impression” ?’
==> Because taking any words, especially scientific jargon, out of context is misleading.
— ‘A paper purporting to be a proper scientific report should be worded such that *no one* can misunderstand it.’
==> I would respond that anyone reading the paper in full would not confuse our astrophysical study as anything more than an analogy to AGW. Just reading the title and assuming you know what is in the paper is silly (see “Propeller and Frog” example by NoonMoon above).
As NoonMoon has noted above, it’s easy to misunderstand when you don’t know the terminology. Richard T. Fowler suggested that we went through great lengths to connect black holes and miniquasars to make the global warming analogy. This is not correct, as the growth of black holes and miniquasars are inseparable in this context. Richard incorrectly speculated we made a sketchy stretch of logic, at least in part because he did not understand the terminology.
The suggestion that I have acted to promote the AGW paradigm for “Team climate science”, or that I would somehow benefit from using this terminology, is also incorrect. My personal views on AGW should be irrelevant … but if you’re curious, I’m an agnostic — I will buy the current scientific consensus, until I see overwhelming arguments against it. (But I’m not an expert, nor do I have a strong emotional attachment to this topic, so forgive me for not wanting to debate AGW any more than I wish to debate proper macroeconomic policy for the EuroZone.) We make no statements endorsing or refuting AGW. We merely compare the process by which BHs can change the cosmic climate and in so doing affect themselves to the way AGW is said to work.
That I am not an expertise in climate science does not disqualify me from making a broad analogy. The term “survival of the fittest” appear in the title of at least one astrophysics paper, for example, but I doubt the authors are experts in evolutionary biology. There are numerous other examples: “weather forecast of the galactic center” (referring to predicting the astronomical appearance of gas falling in the supermassive black hole there); “Let there be light” (usually referring to the formation of the first stars). If I compare an astrophysical process to Bigfoot or talk about black holes regulating their own population, that does not mean I believe in Bigfoot and population control or are endorsing them. Assigning guilt or belief in this way is unfair; again, why didn’t you just email me instead of writing “I think this guy meant these things because he used these words”?
(2) As for my supposedly “condescending” attitude.
I was not aware that the term “climate change denier” is a pejorative. If you prefer to be called skeptics, or whatever other term, then I will call you that. I did not mean it as an insult, and did not realize it is an offensive term to some. Sorry!
(3) Speaking of condescending attitudes….
I do believe that the author of this blog, and the commenters, have been unfair to me. If you find the analogy distasteful, fine. But please do not insult my intelligence on a public forum, when I have done nothing of the kind to you. This is hurtful because you are also insulting my coauthors and all of our colleagues who read and approved of our work — and I respect them all tremendously. There is a difference between disagreement and calling someone stupid (again, I have many friends whose intellects I respect but with whose politics I disagree).
Lastly, I would like the “motivational poster” to be removed or modified. I found it a little funny, because I never imagined someone would ever put my name on one of these things.
BUT: It attributes directly to me, and to the New Scientist, words that I have NEVER uttered and have not appeared in that publication. It is a FABRICATED quotation, published in a public forum, presented in a context that is ridiculing my intelligence and work, and therefore damaging to my reputation.
Again, if you think our analogy to AGW is ridiculous, that’s fine. Then at least use an accurate quote in the poster. (If you choose to use the New Scientist one in which I refer to the “global warming process”, please put quotes around “global warming” for context.)
And please, tone it down a little. After some of the people here (collectively) have accused me and my colleagues of being stupid, unethical, intentionally politicizing, condescending, promoting the AGW paradigm, etc. … after this, I’ve explained what I meant, and I’ve offered to answer your questions over email or in person over a drink. And I’ve tried to do it nicely. (I hope there are no pejoratives I didn’t know about in this comment!) I would appreciate it very much if you would extend the same courtesy to me and my colleagues.
Best regards,
Taka
@Bill,
I get the feeling you’re pretty entrenched in your view that Dr. Tanaka did something bad, so perhaps more discussion will not be terribly productive, but just a few quick responses:
Then why did he use non-cosmological terminology in cosmological paper? “Global” is borderline incorrect usage in that “globe” commonly refers to a solid — “globular” is the cosmological term for a defined area of space.
It’s simply not true that “globular” is better term for what he was referring to. “Global” is used frequently in astrophysics to mean large-scale or “universal” (which also means large-scale and not necessarily Universe-scale). Witness a few papers that use global exactly this way (you won’t find any that use “globular” this way — a “globular cluster” is a cluster that’s shaped like a sphere, but Dr. Tanaka was using “global” to mean “large-scale,” not to mean spherical):
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012MNRAS.423..389H (“Global variation of the dust-to-gas ratio in evolving protoplanetary discs”)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012JCAP…06..003A (“Constraints on the global topology and size of the universe from the cosmic microwave background”)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21015.x (“The AGN content in luminous infrared galaxies at z˜ 2 from a global SED analysis including Herschel data”)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012arXiv1205.5619G (“Turbulence properties and global regularity of a modified Navier-Stokes equation”)
Life can be *shorter* if you assume good intentions on someone’s part without justification. Always assume neutrality until you’ve observed for a while.
Oh, pshaw. No one’s going to die sooner from assuming that Dr. Tanaka had good intentions until proven otherwise.
Then why did he say “I concede that a total layperson hearing the words ‘black-hole-made global warming’ could get the wrong impression” ?
Because, umm, he concedes that a total layperson could get the wrong impression. Look at your logic again. That is no evidence that he was trying to trick, upset, or get a rise out of anyone.
A paper purporting to be a proper scientific report should be worded such that *no one* can misunderstand it.
Well, that’s clearly an unrealistic goal. *Someone* can always misunderstand *anything*.
As I said above, I suppose there could be a reasonable debate on the issue of whether colorful language is okay in scientific writing. But for what it’s worth, the scientific community does not seem to agree with your assertion, however. Here are a few examples of papers that have colorful titles that could be misunderstood by someone reading only the title:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ApJ…722L.178P (“The Propeller and the Frog”)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007MNRAS.375.1364L (“Inside the whale: the structure and dynamics of the isolated Cetus dwarf spheroidal”)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011ApJ…728L..30G (“What Happened to the Other Mohicans? The Case for a Primordial Origin to the Planet-Metallicity Connection”)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AAS…210.0809B (“Moving from Cities to Suburbs? Exploring Environments of UV Luminous Galaxies Using Cosmos”)
I don’t know any astronomers who would say that these authors are doing something scientifically improper by using colorful titles. You could make that argument, but it’s far from a main-stream argument.
By the way, it looks like a lot of the links in my post above are broken. If you want to see the pages I tried to link to, Include the text of the form “…210.0809B” that follows the link as part of the url, and copy and paste into the url bar of a browser.
I can see the arguments are becoming circular, so if I get to Munich on my next leave, I’ll take Dr. Tanaka up on his offer. NoonMoon, if you can join us, I’m buying the first round.
@Carrick, @NoonMoon, @DB, @catalivedead/@catdeadalive, @”A fan of *MORE* discourse” and others who have argued in my and my colleagues’ favor:
Thank you for giving me and my coauthors the benefit of the doubt and helping to explain some of the astrophysical jargon.
Again, to anyone that wants more clarification or explanation: Please email me. If you have questions about my intentions or our scientific study, I am happy to respond as time allows. I don’t bite, I don’t think I’m condescending, and I enjoy intellectual discourse as long as it is civil and open-minded.
(Note: I wrote my most recent post before Dr. Tanaka’s appeared. Please pay attention to his, as it’s far more relevant than my speculations and inferences.)
Taka,
I appreciate you addressing my arguments seriously and politely, which is more than I can say for quite a few others in similar circumstances.
I do start to get the sense from your words that you actually may not have understood the effect and meaning (to us) of the term “climate change denier”. If so, I accept your apology.
I am sorry that you took offense at some of my words. All I can think to say is that you should treat this as an object lesson to yourself, by considering that your words may have made me and others feel the same way or worse. I still cannot really tell if it seems relevant to you how a non-astrophysicist feels about the tone and suggestions of your words in a scientific paper. If it does seem relevant to you, then that is much appreciated, and perhaps some good can have come out of all this.
For my part, the term “skeptic” is good enough for this context. I appreciate the offer of a change of terminology. But please, can we avoid “climate change skeptic”, as I have yet to encounter anyone who is skeptical of the existence of climate change.
I didn’t try to e-mail you because of the very negative experiences, in doing so, of some AGW skeptics, particularly Steve McIntyre, in corresponding with some AGW “agnostics” or other non-AGW-skeptics. And also because some of your statements which I have commented about were very hurtful and it seemed quite impossible that there was not deliberate intent present. With your latest comment here, I accept that there is certainly now room for doubt about your intent in that regard. If my lack of e-mail correspondence has produced any effects that have been hurtful to you, I am sorry that you have felt this way, but please consider that what is happening to average people as a result of the politics that you are “agnostic” about is extremely, extremely hurtful to me and to many others, including many who are and have been close to me. Given this fact, and with great regret, I am doubtful that there is anything accurate and relevant I could have written that would not have given you this kind of reaction. In any event, while you may not see it as any big thing for AGW skeptics to contact you, I personally am sufficiently concerned, in this day and age, for the security of my loved ones that I go out of my way to avoid corresponding with those who have expressed disagreement with me on political issues.
I humbly suggest that you look into climate-related issues a little more, and try to suspend judgment as much as possible unless and until you can see the matter through the eyes of someone who has truly been damaged by the policies and the “research” that you are “agnostic” about. There has indeed been overwhelming evidence and, on some mattesr, proof amassed against the mainstream views. And it is very relevant to all of us. So please, if nothing else, I beg you to take an emotional interest in it. Lives are most definitely at stake, and have been at stake.
Regarding your list of other types of analogies and your statement, “Assigning guilt or belief in this way is unfair”, I respectfully suggest to you that this is different, because this involves a global effort by many thousands to do serious harm to many millions using just such tactics as have been associated (whether rightly or wrongly) with you and your colleagues. So I humbly and respectfully suggest that some leeway is in order on this particular issue.
If there is anything that you feel needs to be addressed by me that I have failed to address, I invite you to again call it to my attention, and I will try to address it to your satisfaction. Thank you again for your reply.
Richard T. Fowlr
Looks to me like Tanaka-san is having a bit of fun playing Buzzword/Bulldust Bingo. Pretty lame in-crowd guffawing, but not on the same level as 10:10:10
Dear Mr. Tanaka–thank you for this answer. I very much appreciate it and retract the “weapons grade stupid”–as i see how you took that to impugn your intelligence or your paper–not so. I was actually referring to the perceived crassness and what appeared to be the “joke” in the title on Climate Realists. When I put in my 2 cents worth, I had already read your initial response and it sounded like you intended it to be misleading and thought the analogy funny to be misleading. What Mr Fowler replied with reflects my beliefs to a tee.( Richard T. Fowler:
June 14, 2012 at 6:01 am)
How I mistook what you intended–you also mistook my comment–I certainly respect your profession and personally know how much work and dedication go into these papers. Most “stupid” people don’t publish papers. So forgive me for my misunderstanding and any hurtful comments I made. You have demonstrated integrity here, gained my respect, and show an openness for honest dialog so needed in the scientific community. (at least once it has become politicized)
Thank you for joining us.