UPDATE: Dr. Robert G. Brown of Duke University, the commenter rgbatduke, made a response that was commented on by several here. It is eloquent, insightful and worthy of consideration. See below.
Dr. Paul Bain, the lead and corresponding author of the letter Promoting Pro-Environmental Action In Climate Change Deniers in Nature Climate Change which was first discussed at WUWT here: Nature’s ugly decision: ‘Deniers’ enters the scientific literature and later here: Lord Leach of Fairford weighs in on Nature’s ‘denier’ gaffe has been busy responding to critics. Wattsupwiththat asked permission to reprint the e-mail he was sending. He has asked us, instead, to post the following statement:
Thank you for your email and the courtesy of requesting permission to post my email to one of your commenters who contacted me by email about the paper. My response is on the record already on Judith Curry’s blog, and the responses to that have pointed to some necessary clarifications (e.g., including the term “anthropogenic” where necessary), and areas where further explanation seems useful. So rather than rehash some of the same debates by posting the original email, I think it would be more productive to post the following which includes clarifications/extensions (many of which I also make in Judith Curry’s blog, but spread across different comments)…
Comments about the use of the “denier” label are a fair criticism. We were focused on the main readership of this journal – climate scientists who read Nature journals, most of whom hold the view that anthropogenic climate change is real. It should also be noted that describing skepticism as denial is a term increasingly used in the social science literature on climate change (e.g. in Global Environmental Change, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society), and is used informally by some within the climate science community. So we were using a term that is known, used, and understood in the target audience, but which we thought involved a stronger negative stereotype (e.g. being anti-environmental, contrarian) than skeptic. My thought was this would highlight the contrast with the data, which suggests that you need not believe in AGW to support pro-environmental action, especially when it had certain types of (non-climate) outcomes (demonstrating a non-contrarian position). So in my mind we were ultimately challenging such “denier” stereotypes. But because we were focused on our target audience, it is true that I naively didn’t pay enough attention to the effect the label would have on other audiences, notably skeptics. Although I hope this helps explain our rationale for using the term, I regret the negative effects it has had and I intend to use alternative labels in the future.
Beyond the negative reaction to “denier”, what has been interesting in many skeptics’ responses (in emails and on blogs) is that our research is propaganda designed to change (or “re-educate”) their mind about whether AGW is real, and I’ve received many long emails about the state of climate science and how AGW has been disproven (or the lack of findings to prove it, including Joanne Nova’s email to me which she posted/linked in your blog). Actually, the paper is not about changing anyone’s mind on whether anthropogenic climate change is real. There are also skeptics insisting that the issue is ONLY about the state of the science – whether AGW is real – but on this point I disagree. I am approaching this as a social/societal problem rather than as an “AGW reality” problem. That is, two sizeable groups have different views on a social issue with major policy implications – how do you find a workable solution that at least partly satisfies the most people?
Some climate scientists who endorse AGW seem to have assumed that the way to promote action is to convince skeptics that in fact AGW is occurring, and this has not been effective. Similarly, I don’t think skeptics will convince those who endorse AGW that they are wrong anytime soon. But the social/policy issue remains whether you believe in AGW or not. So if policies are going to be put in place (as many governments are proposing), what kinds of outcomes would make it at least barely acceptable for the most people? For our skeptic samples, actions that promoted warmth and economic/technological development were the outcomes of taking action that mattered to them (even if they thought taking action would have no effect on the climate). So our studies showed that these dimensions mattered for skeptics to support action taken in the name of addressing anthropogenic climate change. The might also be other positive outcomes of taking action we didn’t study where some common ground might be found, such as reducing pollution or reliance on foreign oil. Overall, the findings suggest that if there was closer attention to the social consequences of policies, rather than continuing with seemingly intractable debates on the reality of AGW, then we might get to a point where there could be agreement on some action – some might think the action is pointless with regard to the climate (but many other people think it will), but if it produces some other good outcomes it might be ok. Hence, if governments were able to design policies that plausibly achieved these “non-climate” goals, then this might achieve an acceptable overall outcome that satisfies the most people (although admittedly not everybody will agree).
This is the message of our paper, and I hope readers of your blog will be able to accept my regret about the label and focus on the main message. Some have described this message as naïve, but a real-world example (noted by one of our reviewers) illustrates the general point: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/science/earth/19fossil.html?pagewanted=all
Kind regards
Paul.
For those interested in getting up to speed, the HTML page for the article is here and the .pdf version with the cited works page, can be downloaded from the options box to the right of the article. The discussion at Judith Curry’s blog is here and Dr. Bain is commenting under the screen name “Paul”. He is more likely to respond to comments there than here.
UPDATE:
Dr. Robert G. Brown of Duke University, the commenter rgbatduke, made a response that was commented on by several here. It is eloquent, insightful and worthy of consideration. Dr Bain and Dr. Brown are approaching this from different perspectives.
It is pointless to point this out as I doubt Paul will read it (but I’ll do it anyway).
The tragic thing about the thoughtless use of a stereotype is that it reveals that you really think of people in terms of its projected meaning. In particular, even in your response you seem to equate the term “skeptic” with “denier of AGW”.
This is silly. On WUWT most of the skeptics do not “deny” AGW, certainly not the scientists or professional weather people (I myself am a physicist) and honestly, most of the non-scientist skeptics have learned better than that. What they challenge is the catastrophic label and the alleged magnitude of the projected warming on a doubling of CO_2. They challenge this on rather solid empirical grounds and with physical arguments and data analysis that is every bit as scientifically valid as that used to support larger estimates, often obtaining numbers that are in better agreement with observation. For this honest doubt and skepticism that the highly complex global climate models are correct you have the temerity to socially stigmatize them in a scientific journal with a catch-all term that implies that they are as morally reprehensible as those that “deny” that the Nazi Holocaust of genocide against the Jews?
For shame.
Seriously, for shame. You should openly apologize for the use of the term, in Nature, and explain why it was wrong. But you won’t, will you… although I will try to explain why you should.
By your use of this term, you directly imply that I am a “denier”, as I am highly skeptical of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (not just “anthropogenic global warming”, which is plausible if not measurable, although there are honest grounds to doubt even this associated with the details of the Carbon Cycle that remain unresolved by model or experiment). Since I am a theoretical physicist, I find this enormously offensive. I might as well label you an idiot for using it, when you’ve never met me, have no idea of my competence or the strength of my arguments for or against any aspect of climate dynamics (because on this list I argue both points of view as the science demands and am just as vigorous in smacking down bullshit physics used to challenge some aspect of CAGW as I am to question the physics or statistical analysis or modelling used to “prove” it). But honestly, you probably aren’t an idiot (are you?) and no useful purpose is served by ad hominem or emotionally loaded human descriptors in a rational discussion of an objective scientific question, is there.
Please understand that by creating a catch-all label like this, you quite literally are moving the entire discussion outside of the realm of science, where evidence and arguments are considered and weighed independent of the humans that advance them, where our desire to see one or another result proven are (or should be) irrelevant, where people weigh the difficulty of the problem being addressed as an important contributor (in a Bayesian sense) to how much we should believe any answer proposed — so far, into the realm where people do not think at all! They simply use a dismissive label such as “denier” and hence avoid any direct confrontation with the issues being challenged.
The issue of difficulty is key. Let me tell you in a few short words why I am a skeptic. First of all, if one examines the complete geological record of global temperature variation on planet Earth (as best as we can reconstruct it) not just over the last 200 years but over the last 25 million years, over the last billion years — one learns that there is absolutely nothing remarkable about today’s temperatures! Seriously. Not one human being on the planet would look at that complete record — or even the complete record of temperatures during the Holocene, or the Pliestocene — and stab down their finger at the present and go “Oh no!”. Quite the contrary. It isn’t the warmest. It isn’t close to the warmest. It isn’t the warmest in the last 2 or 3 thousand years. It isn’t warming the fastest. It isn’t doing anything that can be resolved from the natural statistical variation of the data. Indeed, now that Mann’s utterly fallacious hockey stick reconstruction has been re-reconstructed with the LIA and MWP restored, it isn’t even remarkable in the last thousand years!
Furthermore, examination of this record over the last 5 million years reveals a sobering fact. We are in an ice age, where the Earth spends 80 to 90% of its geological time in the grip of vast ice sheets that cover the polar latitudes well down into what is currently the temperate zone. We are at the (probable) end of the Holocene, the interglacial in which humans emerged all the way from tribal hunter-gatherers to modern civilization. The Earth’s climate is manifestly, empirically bistable, with a warm phase and cold phase, and the cold phase is both more likely and more stable. As a physicist who has extensively studied bistable open systems, this empirical result clearly visible in the data has profound implications. The fact that the LIA was the coldest point in the entire Holocene (which has been systematically cooling from the Holocene Optimum on) is also worrisome. Decades are irrelevant on the scale of these changes. Centuries are barely relevant. We are nowhere near the warmest, but the coldest century in the last 10,000 years ended a mere 300 years ago, and corresponded almost perfectly with the Maunder minimum in solar activity.
There is absolutely no evidence in this historical record of a third stable warm phase that might be associated with a “tipping point” and hence “catastrophe” (in the specific mathematical sense of catastrophe, a first order phase transition to a new stable phase). It has been far warmer in the past without tipping into this phase. If anything, we are geologically approaching the point where the Earth is likely to tip the other way, into the phase that we know is there — the cold phase. A cold phase transition, which the historical record indicates can occur quite rapidly with large secular temperature changes on a decadal time scale, would truly be a catastrophe. Even if “catastrophic” AGW is correct and we do warm another 3 C over the next century, if it stabilized the Earth in warm phase and prevented or delayed the Earth’s transition into cold phase it would be worth it because the cold phase transition would kill billions of people, quite rapidly, as crops failed throughout the temperate breadbasket of the world.
Now let us try to analyze the modern era bearing in mind the evidence of an utterly unremarkable present. To begin with, we need a model that predicts the swings of glaciation and interglacials. Lacking this, we cannot predict the temperature that we should have outside for any given baseline concentration of CO_2, nor can we resolve variations in this baseline due to things other than CO_2 from that due to CO_2. We don’t have any such thing. We don’t have anything close to this. We cannot predict, or explain after the fact, the huge (by comparison with the present) secular variations in temperature observed over the last 20,000 years, let alone the last 5 million or 25 million or billion. We do not understand the forces that set the baseline “thermostat” for the Earth before any modulation due to anthropogenic CO_2, and hence we have no idea if those forces are naturally warming or cooling the Earth as a trend that has to be accounted for before assigning the “anthropogenic” component of any warming.
This is a hard problem. Not settled science, not well understood, not understood. There are theories and models (and as a theorist, I just love to tell stories) but there aren’t any particularly successful theories or models and there is a lot of competition between the stories (none of which agree with or predict the empirical data particularly well, at best agreeing with some gross features but not others). One part of the difficulty is that the Earth is a highly multivariate and chaotic driven/open system with complex nonlinear coupling between all of its many drivers, and with anything but a regular surface. If one tried to actually write “the” partial differential equation for the global climate system, it would be a set of coupled Navier-Stokes equations with unbelievably nasty nonlinear coupling terms — if one can actually include the physics of the water and carbon cycles in the N-S equations at all. It is, quite literally, the most difficult problem in mathematical physics we have ever attempted to solve or understand! Global Climate Models are children’s toys in comparison to the actual underlying complexity, especially when (as noted) the major drivers setting the baseline behavior are not well understood or quantitatively available.
The truth of this is revealed in the lack of skill in the GCMs. They utterly failed to predict the last 13 or 14 years of flat to descending global temperatures, for example, although naturally one can go back and tweak parameters and make them fit it now, after the fact. And every year that passes without significant warming should be rigorously lowering the climate sensitivity and projected AGW, making the probability of the “C” increasinginly remote.
These are all (in my opinion) good reasons to be skeptical of the often egregious claims of CAGW. Another reason is the exact opposite of the reason you used “denier” in your article. The actual scientific question has long since been co-opted by the social and political one. The real reason you used the term is revealed even in your response — we all “should” be doing this and that whether or not there is a real risk of “catastrophe”. In particular, we “should” be using less fossil fuel, working to preserve the environment, and so on.
The problem with this “end justifies the means” argument — where the means involved is the abhorrent use of a pejorative descriptor to devalue the arguers of alternative points of view rather than their arguments at the political and social level — is that it is as close to absolute evil in social and public discourse as it is possible to get. I strongly suggest that you read Feynman’s rather famous “Cargo Cult” talk:
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
In particular, I quote:
For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a
friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology
and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the
applications of this work were. “Well,” I said, “there aren’t any.”
He said, “Yes, but then we won’t get support for more research of
this kind.” I think that’s kind of dishonest. If you’re
representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to
the layman what you’re doing–and if they don’t want to support you
under those circumstances, then that’s their decision.
One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind
to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should
always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only
publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look
good. We must publish both kinds of results.
I say that’s also important in giving certain types of government
advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether
drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it
would be better in some other state. If you don’t publish such a
result, it seems to me you’re not giving scientific advice. You’re
being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the
government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument
in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don’t publish
it at all. That’s not giving scientific advice.
Time for a bit of soul-searching, Dr. Bain. Have you come even close to living up to the standards laid out by Richard Feynman? Is this sort of honesty apparent anywhere in the global climate debate? Did the “Hockey Team” embrace this sort of honesty in the infamous Climategate emails? Do the IPCC reports ever seem to present the counter arguments, or do they carefully avoid showing pictures of the 20,000 year thermal record, preferring instead Mann’s hockey stick because it increases the alarmism (and hence political impact of the report)? Does the term “denier” have any place in any scientific paper ever published given Feynman’s rather simple criterion for scientific honesty?
And finally, how dare you presume to make choices for me, for my relatives, for my friends, for all of the people of the world, but concealing information from them so that they make a choice to allocate resources the way you think they should be allocated, just like the dishonest astronomer of his example. Yes, the price of honesty might be that people don’t choose to support your work. Tough. It is their money, and their choice!
Sadly, it is all too likely that this is precisely what is at stake in climate research. If there is no threat of catastrophe — and as I said, prior to the hockey stick nobody had the slightest bit of luck convincing anyone that the sky was falling because global climate today is geologically unremarkable in every single way except that we happen to be living in it instead of analyzing it in a geological record — then there is little incentive to fund the enormous amount of work being done on climate science. There is even less incentive to spend trillions of dollars of other people’s money (and some of our own) to ameliorate a “threat” that might well be pure moonshine, quite possibly ignoring an even greater threat of movement in the exact opposite direction to the one the IPCC anticipates.
Why am I a skeptic? Because I recognize the true degree of our ignorance in addressing this supremely difficult problem, while at the same time as a mere citizen I weigh civilization and its benefits against draconian energy austerity on the basis of no actual evidence that global climate is in any way behaving unusually on a geological time scale.
For shame.
rgb
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I think that this approach of “social scientists” – giving us offensive names, giving out offensive versions of what we believe, etc, without checking with us first, and agreeing the language and the statements – is a new form of racism.
Climate Science Racism.
“On WUWT most of the skeptics do not “deny” AGW, certainly not the scientists or professional weather people (I myself am a physicist) and honestly, most of the non-scientist skeptics have learned better than that. ”
Thanks for saying most and not all, you don’t know about all “scientists and pro-weather people” so stop pretending.
I certainly can say you don’t have anything more than a bad hacked theory to say that AGW exists at all.
There is no evidence to support it. There is no way to measure it with any reliability.
No one knows if there are more clouds or less and by which magnitude.
And this is just an example of many of what you don’t know.
Abd there is also the unknows unknows.
We will be satisfied when the people who confessed they believed magical treemomiturs
analyzed using magical hockey stick math
explain it well enough we don’t feel moved to indict on charges of funding fraud and using terror to sway political decision making in the various nations where ‘obeying the magic treemomiturs’ took the place of “funding fraud” in dictionaries.
Reblogged this on contrary2belief and commented:
The response to the “denier” tag by Dr. Robert G. Brown of Duke University must be read.
Reading through rgbatduke post, one of the points he mentioned is catastrophic global cooling would kill billions. And guess what. THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. We read recently from NASA fear monger Hanson that C02 is causing the heat equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs per day. So how could humans produce that kind of energy to stop CGC (Catastrophic Global Cooling). Maybe we could produce huge amounts of methane, and throw it up in the air. How. We would be screwed.
Meanwhile, let’s say CGW, anthropogenic or not, were occurring. It would be possible to throw up Sulfur compounds to slow it, turn it back, since these effects, their lifetime in the atmosphere, etc., are pretty well understood. If CGW were on account of human produced C02, as opposed to all the other warming events in the past, then the sulfur approach could buy all kinds of time to move to other energy sources.
Dr. Paul Bain
In other words, you view Nature’s readership as an ‘in crowd’ of ideologues, and it is appropriate to label those who do not agree with this community of ideologues as “deniers”. Is that what climate science has come down to – Pejorative labelling of those who do not accept your beliefs?
That is evidence that ‘climate science’ is not a real science? It has been taken over by social scientists and propagandists. It is more like an ideology or religion (funded by the state) than a science.
This statement clearly displays the authors lack of objectivity and bias.
You are using sceptic as a pejorative label too, but ‘skeptics’ are not as bad (from your perspective) as ‘deniers’.
What your explanation does is reveal the ideological bias and lack of objectivity that has become ubiquitous amongst social scientists.
Nonsense. Your ideological bias and belief is displayed in most of your statements. It is clear your research cannot be objective because of your obvious bias.
Clearly, you should have been objective and unbiased and found out from the groups what their issues are. There are some excellent answers from conservatives on this thread http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/06/05/conservatives-who-think-seriously-about-the-planet/comment-page-4/#comment-111418
This statement demonstrates you are naive beyond belief. Many accept there is some AGW (not sure of the amount), but not convinced AGW is catastrophic or dangerous. Some are concerned about the policy prescriptions advocated by the AGW activists. For most of the climate scientists and AGW activists, policy, economics, engineering and energy matters are completely outside their area of understanding, yet they want to prescribe ideologically based policies (e.g. prescribing targets and subsidies for so called ‘renewable energy’ and carbon taxes and ETS). Even IPCC recently released a major policy prescription paper advocating renewable energy – it was discredited almost as soon as it was released.
You make the point perfectly. AGW all about belief. Just like religion.
It seems you didn’t try very hard to understand skeptic’s concerns. This is another statement that shows your bias. Why didn’t you mention ‘economically rational’ and ‘no regrets’ policies instead of all your ‘warm and cuddly’ policy prescriptions. In almost everything you write, your own Left ideological beliefs are revealed. How could you expect to do objective research given your Left/socialist/progressive bias.
So why didn’t you try to find out, instead of name calling those who do not accept your ideology and your beliefs?
Anthony Watts,
I loved your response. Excellent. I’ll reinforce this bit:
I think that the Commentary by Dr. Robert Brown should be published in Nature Climate Change journal. It makes an exhilarating read. Let the academics see it and ponder and learn. The consequences of us making progress out of the splitting into ‘deniers’ and ‘believers, or proponents’, will be better care for the planet and its peoples, not worse.
Right now the Rio Summit is engaging in more dangerous policy decision-making about only promoting renewable energy, identified as clean and green, when in reality if we allow industrial scale renewables to smother our world, instead of using clean new nuclear, we WILL be harming the planet! Directly as a result of claims from climate science which to date has focused only on the effects of GHG’s! We MUST broaden our horizons of thought and this piece of writing from Robert Brown is an outstanding contribution. Please dare to put it into the Nature Climate journal for the sake of everyone’s integrity.
Ed Barbar says: @ur momisugly June 21, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Reading through rgbatduke post, one of the points he mentioned is catastrophic global cooling would kill billions. And guess what. THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT….
_____________________________
And that is the critical issue. As the geologists will tell you it is not a matter of IF but of WHEN and we are at the tail end of the Holocene with the temperatures gradually trending down. GRAPH: last 10,000 yrs – Greenland Ice Core
If Dr. Paul Bain wants to talk about the “precautionary principle” then we as a civilization should be preparing for cold not warm, although I sometimes think the elite are doing just that by making sure that most of the Great Unwashed have no hope of surviving by depriving them of technology, energy and transportation.
The end of the Holocene is discussed in The End Holocene, or How to Make Out Like a ‘Madoff’ Climate Change Insurer
That is one opinion. here is another.
So what was happening in the solar cycles before the nose dive during cycle 24?
paper: http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/Sola2-PRL_published.pdf
Simple fact
RGB post, is the post of the year
Will be history.
Lucy Skywalker says:
June 21, 2012 at 5:19 pm
I think that this approach of “social scientists” – giving us offensive names, giving out offensive versions of what we believe, etc, without checking with us first, and agreeing the language and the statements – is a new form of racism.
Climate Science Racism.
====
I’m rather taken with Climate Science Voodoo – as Greg House points out they have dug up a corpse and re-animated it: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/20/lord-leach-of-fairford-weighs-in-on-natures-denier-gaffe/#comment-1015045
======================
rgbatduke says:
June 21, 2012 at 8:17 am
It is pointless to point this out as I doubt Paul will read it (but I’ll do it anyway).
The tragic thing about the thoughtless use of a stereotype is that it reveals that you really think of people in terms of its projected meaning. In particular, even in your response you seem to equate the term “skeptic” with “denier of AGW”.
This is silly. On WUWT most of the skeptics do not “deny” AGW, certainly not the scientists or professional weather people (I myself am a physicist) and honestly, most of the non-scientist skeptics have learned better than that. What they challenge is the catastrophic label and the alleged magnitude of the projected warming on a doubling of CO_2. They challenge this on rather solid empirical grounds and with physical arguments and data analysis that is every bit as scientifically valid as that used to support larger estimates, often obtaining numbers that are in better agreement with observation. For this honest doubt and skepticism that the highly complex global climate models are correct you have the temerity to socially stigmatize them in a scientific journal with a catch-all term that implies that they are as morally reprehensible as those that “deny” that the Nazi Holocaust of genocide against the Jews?
Unless of course, that’s exactly what he meant, that “you seem to equate the term “skeptic” with “denier of AGW”.
That’s exactly what Singer said. He called us deniers. He wasn’t at all bashful about it, setting himself and other warmists like you up as the “true skeptics”. Monckton too thinks us deniers for saying the physics of AGW is junk. While himself making a big show of heroic martyrdom about being called deniers by the CAGW crowd.
Maybe the truth here is that those like Paul Bain don’t actually give a toss what you non-CAGW warmists think, you’re just deviants from the true faith of the believers merely arguing about the nuances of your doctrines, about how many carbon dioxide molecules there could be dancing on a pin head, and, they don’t give a damn about the doctrines anyway.
It’s only the likes of Singer and Monckton and you generic AGW’s here who get offended at the word denier by assuming it is directed at you – so you spend inordinate amounts of time showing that you’re not denying AGW but CAGW in your on going effort to make yourselves relevant here. You’re not. The denier label isn’t up for grabs by those who want to go through the supposed angst of being victim, get yourselves something else to occupy your time, or – take up arms, verbal science argument, on behalf of those who are really being called deniers here. Those who deny AGW.
Those who deny that AGW exists. Those who deny the Greenhouse Effect exists.
And while you’re at it, provide the science for your AGW claim:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/18/natures-ugly-decision-deniers-enters-the-scientific-literature/#comment-1014966
Myrrh says:
June 21, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Greg House says:
June 20, 2012 at 8:17 am
Myrrh says:
June 20, 2012 at 4:43 am
the second statement, “Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m2) would result in 1 °C global warming”, where has this been shown? I’ve never seen any experimental or logical reasons for the second statement…
====================================================
The 3.7 W/m2 looks like a dirty little secret of the AGW people to me. Interestingly, even moderate/skeptical warmists are not willing to question that number, from my experience. Some of them simply refer to the IPCC as a source, just like that!
Not only don’t they question it, but when asked to produce something even a bit logical and empirical to back up this claim and other memes reguritated without due consideration – they get uppity.
==========
Do have a try, without getting uppity..
I find Dr Bain’s explanations and amplifications of his letter more worrying than the letter itself in a way. Less because of his own POV but because of what he points up – and doesn’t critique – about the way AGW theory is currently being processed. I’ve said more on my blog, for what it’s worth.
My response to the ‘letter’ is here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/response-to-paul-bain/
Some folks have liked it, per the responses in another thread.
I do find the note from RGB rather remarkable in the depth, clarity, and effectiveness. Bravo.
I really do not see why anybody is worried about the denier label. The whole veiled reference to holocuast denial is a typical left wing false association tactic. I rather like the distinction of denier because when history shows me to be right, it can easily be pointed out that I was in the denier camp. And think about it, none of the alarmists ever ask us what we are denying in the first place.
I think the people who believe in CAGW are idiots, the joke is on them if you ask me.
“N*****” was once a perfectly acceptable label for people of a certain skin tone. By this man’s logic, no one should have any problem at all if that label were to see further use.
[Moderator’s Note: Even in this context that word is very offensive. The point is valid, but the word is not. -REP]
rgbatduke
That is a truly wonderful reply, Dr. Robert G. Brown of Duke University! My post pales even in the shadow of your post.
Would you mnd if I kept a copy of your reply? Not to publish, but to occasionally forward to CAGW delusional friends when they get hung up on anyone questioning consensual science. I will keep full attribution to you and Anthony’s WUWT.
I found Dr Bain’s email very unnerving as it confirms my suspicion that the science behind CAGW has been thoroughly perverted by social activism. As pointed out by Dr Brown’s reasoned response, the enthusiastic corruption of the scientific method in the name of advancing an particular political agenda, means we the people now have no where to turn to for unbiased, trusted scientific reporting. Clearly Nature has become a political vehicle if Dr Bain can assert that the use of the ‘D’ word is completely fine when you take its readership into consideration. Science is not a popularity contest and as such, ‘consensus’ should be irrelevant. It only takes one scientist to prove the earth is not flat….
Would you mnd if I kept a copy of your reply? Not to publish, but to occasionally forward to CAGW delusional friends when they get hung up on anyone questioning consensual science. I will keep full attribution to you and Anthony’s WUWT.
Sure. If I post in a public blog it is hardly a secret, right?
rgb
Thank you Dr. Robert G. Brown
That was an excellent read.
I am concerned about the Environmental Intelligencia that does not seem to care about the tens of thousands of taxpaying citizens that will be ruined by imposing SLR Land Use Planning.
Certainly there are situations where it is prudent to base decisions on the preponderance of the evidence ,,, but shouldn’t the evidence be verifiable, not Consensus Science ?
In North Carolina, the CRC’s Science Panel scientists , will not answer questions, and will not participate on an Open Public Forum to explain their beliefs, yet they insist that their Recommended Policy be implemented?
Very discouraging.
Bill Price Pine Knoll Shores
The update of the article with Dr. Brown’s comment does not correctly italicize the entire quote of Feynman – all three paragraphs should be italicized, to avoid confusing the easily confused such as myself 😉
No, Dear Dr. Bain, it is Not acceptable in any sphere to correlate or interchange the terms or concepts of skepticism with [sic]denial; scientific, social “societal,” or other otherwise.
That Nature magazine has allowed this to be published in the first place is preposterous, and shameful, and reeks of the type of bias that our adversaries attribute to us. If hypocrisy and semantic games are all that is left within the CAGW camp, they are utterly, completely, and totally- bankrupt.
It WAS all about the Science, naturally, until the ‘science’ was proven to be doctored and tampered with, then it was all about the children and the polar bears, or whatever the flip, until that tin horn ceased to have any effect, and now (gasp) – it’s all about the Vocabulary?
Thank You, Dr. Bain, for answering the “timeless question” asked of all men who oppose good sense with bad rhetoric; you have No shame, Sir, and that… is the least of your tragedies.
Good Day
No, my Dear Dr. Bain, it is Not acceptable in any sphere to correlate or interchange the terms or concepts of skepticism with [sic]denial; scientific, social “societal,” or otherwise.
That Nature magazine has allowed this to be published in the first place is preposterous, and shameful, and reeks of the type of bias that our adversaries attribute to us. If hypocrisy and semantic games are all that is left within the CAGW camp, they are utterly, completely, and totally- bankrupt.
It WAS all about the Science, naturally, until the ‘science’ was proven to be doctored and tampered with, then it was all about the children and the polar bears, or whatever the flip, until that tin horn ceased to have any effect, and now (gasp) – it’s all about the Vocabulary?
Thank You, Dr. Bain, for answering the “timeless question” asked of all men who oppose good sense with bad rhetoric; you have No shame, Sir, and that… is the least of your tragedies.
Good Day
Thank you Dr. Brown! And many thanks to Anthony!
Requesting permission to keep and share a beautiful piece of prose, that firmly delivers a direct message without hurt to all involved has nothing whatsoever to do about where you shared that message (i.e. a public very popular blog). Requesting permission is proper courtesy. I thank you for your candor and generosity.
In a world where consensual science firmly believes that sparing the rod (punishment! often severe in the climsci world) spoils the child; you, Dr. Brown, have brilliantly demonstrated in practical terms that no rod is necessary where courtesy, consideration and honesty are in abundance.
Here’s a fine response to a “credentials troll” over at The Telegraph:
All excellent points, and I might even put some more strongly.
But I am appalled at point #2. The bolded word is one of the worst abuses of the much-tortured apostrophe I’ve ever seen. Repent!
>>8-(