Reposted from Popular Technology with permission
Skeptical Science: Too Inaccurate for Joe Romm
In March of 2012, the climate alarmist website Skeptical Science had their forums “hacked” and the contents posted online. In these it was revealed that Skeptical Science was found to be even too inaccurate for fellow alarmist Joe Romm of Climate Progress,
“Just got this email from Joe Romm: You must do more post vetting. More errors are creeping into posts and it will start making people like me wary of using them.” – John Cook [Skeptical Science], December 2, 2011
This was met with both admission and denial,
“…I somewhat agree with Romm. There does seem to be a perpensity of us towards producing masss volumes of articles when I feel sometimes we should be spending more time critiquing.” – Robert [Skeptical Science], December 2, 2011
“I am pretty much done reading Romm. His knee-jerk attacks on anything remotely contradictory to his own narrative as “flawed” are irksome in the extreme.” – thingsbreak [Skeptical Science], December 3, 2011
“I don’t care for Romm either, […] For the sake of accuracy, we can afford to wait until the heavy hitters have weighed in, we don’t have to pretend to an authority we don’t have.” – neal [Skeptical Science], December 3, 2011
“Romm is waspish and curt, […] but I have noticed that SkS tends to run into trouble when we do our own analysis.” – Albatross [Skeptical Science], December 3, 2011
“I think our own analysis needs to be vetted externally or by those absolutely qualified on the subject matter prior to being put out there.” – Robert [Skeptical Science], December 3, 2011
“Romm was the one to rubbish the Schmittner study. He got burnt. Tough titties.” – Rob [Skeptical Science], December 3, 2011
“Maybe Romm is getting a touch jealous of SkS’s rising fame.” – Rob Honeycutt [Skeptical Science], December 3, 2011
References:
From the Skeptical Science “leak”: Interesting stuff about generating and marketing “The Consensus Project” (Tom Nelson, March 23, 2012)
Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online (Skeptical Science, March 25, 2011)
Alarmism or Not? Joe Romm and the ‘Crying Wolf’ Dilemma (Watts Up With That?, May 1, 2012)
John Cook whines: “the shoe is now on the other foot and I do not like how its fits”
My response: you [are] in the wrong place if your are looking for sympathy, and your statements lack any credibility here based on your track record as a peddler of propaganda and junk science.
D Böehm, we’ll have to agree to differ on that point. On my last SkS blog-post, an error occurred: I corrected it with date of correction inserted and acknowledgement to the commentator who had found it. I believe that is the best way forward, for is not science a self-correcting process?
Yes, […] means sentences have been removed but the context does not change. I understand you think if you insult someone but then say you something nice about them, that changes the context of the insult – I don’t. I can separate those quotes into two separate ones but the point does not change nor the context.
John tell us how you really think about us,
Poptech,
I can answer both of those, sure!
Firstly,you, I, Anthony and many others on here know tons about context. But to the everyday stranger, to whom I guess you are aiming, lack of context may distort reality. Heaven forbid that is your life-goal, of course!
Secondly, your quote of my Romm-esque post WRT WUWT: this is a bitter debate at times, in which people get snarky with one another (especially in PRIVATE). The fact that I think there is a lot of nonsense posted at times on WUWT is balanced by the fact that Anthony and friends think that there is a lot of nonsense posted at SkS, although of course I would disagree with the latter. The notion that you present this as something ‘new’ and ‘shocking’ is the more astounding. I’ve posted harsher criticism of AW at Climate Progress in the past and you have certainly posted some very harsh criticism of John Cook in the past and of late. It’s politics – simple as that – between diametrically-opposed people. The vast majority of the public have no idea that any of this is going on.
In short: I tend to disagree with what Anthony says about climate change, and he will tend to disagree with what I say. Shock horror! But you still fail to answer why you edited the comments. Answer the question. Why?
John, people can make up your own mind about your intent.
I didn’t edit anything I quoted – no words were changed (I did correct a few spelling mistakes). I understand your embarrassment about having SkS exposed like this but you will have to get over it. You seem confused about what […] means when quoting, I suggest a basic English education.
John, people can make up their own minds about your intent.
I didn’t edit anything I quoted – no words were changed (I did correct a few spelling mistakes). I understand your embarrassment about having SS exposed like this but you will have to get over it. You seem confused about what […] means when quoting, I suggest a basic English education.
With the appearance of multiple SS members here, it would seem that they are desperately trying to do damage control. Unfortunately this will be futile.
REPLY: The correct abbreviation is SkS not “SS” due to the obvious negative connotations that brings. While these folks may be zealots, they aren’t anything remotely like the “SS”. Please refrain from using that abbreviation further as I’ll simply correct it to read “SkS”. – Anthony
John Mason:
The essential difference between WUWT and SkS is that SkS routinely censors the comments of scientific skeptics. Do not try to deny it; my comments have been deleted, until I no longer attempt to post at SkS.
And SkS. is not alone in its censorship of opposing views. Most climate alarmist blogs do the same thing. They cannot allow ideas that might allow their few readers to stray off their reservation. As a result they become no more than echo chambers; unreality bubbles for their relatively small clique of devotees.
For the same reasons, the alarmist side runs and hides out from public debates held in a neutral venue, and moderated by a mutually acceptable person. Alarmists are terrified of engaging in fair and public debates, because in the past they have invariably lost. When the public is allowed to hear both sides equally, the public makes an informed decision.
The SkS gatekeepers cannot abide that situation. Because the basic fact of the matter is that nothing unprecedented is happening. All parameters, including temperature, tornadoes, droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc., have been routinely exceeded in the pre-industrial past. The fact is that the current climate is very benign. The mendacious catastrophic AGW scare is promoted for a lot of self-serving reasons. But scientific veracity is not one of them.
WUWT is by far the most popular climate site because it allows all points of view consistent with site Policy. Until/unless SkS does the same thing, SkS will be seen for what it truly is: a propaganda mill with an alarmist agenda, and a narrative that must be followed. That is not any more science than Scientology.
Finally, you are wrong about using an ellipsis, which is used everywhere. The alternative is to print every word. That would make readers’ eyes glaze over. Every newspaper uses ellipses. I suspect you have at times, too.
“Answer the question. Why?”
Pipe down. If you’d concentrated more on open and direct interaction with your supposed opponents instead of hiding behind a facade of a comment policy, a secret forum, and a gaggle of like-minded activists, you could have been in a position to make such demands.
Thankyou for your advice, Poptech. I shall enroll on a correction-course without further notice, although in 1979 I did get a Grade A in English Language O Level (JMB). But that was a while ago, as I suppose you might point out. Things may have changed: for instance I struggle with text-speak (though at an almost identical age to Anthony he will have my sympathy if he has the same issue).
However: editing hacked messages with […] is very different from editing e.g. a press-release with a link. I do the latter in my SkS posts and people can check them out in full. Why? Because in the former case, people can go back to one page with maybe a few hundred words on it and read the lot. In your case, I can do a ‘my computer’ and see in that hack-pile what you are omitting, but Joe Public has to go to a lot of work to find the private conversations us SkSers used to have, that are being propagated via your blog, and see therefore your edits.
D Böehm – I am sorry if that is how you feel about SkS. For me, it has been an amazing experience – getting to hear about new discoveries, getting to know and interviewing various scientists working in fields that interest me. It has been a voyage of discovery, meeting new friends and finding out stuff, and adding my earth science experience to the mix.
D Böehm… In relation to deleted comments at SkS. You might not notice it yourself but the proportion of deleted comments at SkS is roughly equal on both sides of the debate. I’ve been the author for a few SkS articles and I’ve had lots of comments deleted. But usually I have a good idea why they get deleted. And the other folks on the “warmist” side who get deleted also generally take it as a moment to reflect on the tone or appropriateness of their comments.
The point to heavy moderation is to keep the discussions focused and rational; to keep them focused on the science. It’s way too easy for conversations to stray way off topic and for people emotions to get the better of them. Anthony has his preferred standards here and I can’t complain about that. It’s his blog to run as he best sees fit. SkS has their preferred standards and apply them as they best see fit.
John Mason,
Are we changing the subject now? In fact, you would learn more about science right here than in the cherry-picked SkS echo chamber.
Let me point out that the new SkS narrative is ‘hacked’ or ‘stolen’. So, prove it. Otherwise, you are just making another fact-free assertion.
lurker passing through, laughing says:
September 26, 2012 at 5:40 am
“John Cook,
SkS was dumped by its idiot owner into the public square.
Maroon.”
That’s about it, isn’t it? Cook admitted in private that it was probably his own screwup. But publicly the narrative must be changed to “stolen” and “hacked”.
Nothing was stolen. Cook still has it, doesn’t he? Cook is just mad because he has been outed as admitting that he is frequently wrong about the science. But we already knew that here.
And he is wrong. There is no runaway global warming. No statistically significant warming at all for the past decade and a half. And not a single alarmist prediction has come to pass. Not one.
When you are wrong about every catastrophic AGW prediction, isn’t it time to admit your premise is wrong? If CO2 causes any warming, it is so insignificant that it can be disregarded for all practical purposes. No more public funds should be expended on the failed CO2=CAGW conjecture. CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Falsify that, if you can.
John Mason: Why not just provide your own quote of secret conversations, so that we may all see this serious breach in blog protocol. Don’t leave singing crickets instead.
Personally, I prefer SS to SkS as it better illustrates the propaganda harm being perpetrated by y’all. GK
D Böehm said… “Let me point out that the new SkS narrative is ‘hacked’ or ‘stolen’. So, prove it. Otherwise, you are just making another fact-free assertion.”
Put the shoe on the other foot for just a moment. If Anthony’s site had been hacked and I said to him, “Prove it!” What do you suppose his reaction would be? I think he’d be more than justified in telling me to take a hike.
Not that you would believe me but I can tell you with absolute certainty that this was a hack.
Btw: The SKS was a very efficient assault rifle used by the Russians. The fore-runner of the famous AK47. Perhaps Anthony will add another letter to prevent that connotation. SSDD would work. GK
John Mason:
I write to offer you some sincere and kindly advice.
The points made by Poptech and especially D Böehm are the common experience of all who have visited SkS, so you do your cause no good by pretending their comments indicate “how [they] feel”. Instead, you would benefit from displaying a more contrite attitude and asserting a desire to correct the flaws of SkS which are such common knowledge that SkS has lost credibility with all except the most dedicated AGW-alarmists.
If you doubt my sincerity in providing this post then I ask you to consider how RC went from being the most followed AGW-alarmist site to becoming the irrelevance it now is because it has the same faults as SkS.
Richard
Rob Honeycutt says:
“Not that you would believe me but I can tell you with absolute certainty that this was a hack.”
You have my attention. Please produce your evidence.
D Böehm… I don’t think you read my full comment. Put the shoe on the other foot and tell me what the most appropriate response to “produce your evidence” would be.
I do wish stacyglen would learn to spell and punctuate. Reading a borderline illiterate comment is frustrating and diminishes the content. Not that I would agree, but I can’t even take it seriously.
D Böehm:
At September 26, 2012 at 2:58 pm you write:
Well John Cook wrote on 23 February 2012:
If John Cook said it was probably not a hack then what more evidence could you need that it probably was a hack?
Richard
John Cook says:
September 26, 2012 at 2:15 am
… Publishing illegally obtained private correspondence comes with it’s ethical issues – one can choose to ignore ethics or justify their unethical behaviour with justifications like “the illegally obtained private details were stolen due to lax security”. Of course, the latter justification is hardly grounds for unethical behaviour but even so, it’s based on a falsehood promoted by the hacker in the same comment where he first uploaded the entire user database
Thus speaks a supporter of Peter Glieck.
= = = = = =
John Cook,
So, it was either a member of your venue’s squadron or not that had “access to an admin level user account”. What evidence do you offer that it was not an internal security issue exploited by one or more members of your venue’s squadron?
John
Rob Honeycutt says:
“…tell me what the most appropriate response to ‘produce your evidence’ would be.”
The most appropriate response would be to produce your evidence.