From Jo Nova, just unbelievable. Of course Lewandowsky is involved too:
Skeptics equated to pedophiles — Robyn Williams ABC. Time to protest.
Hat tip to Graham Young editor of Online Opinion. Follow his twitter account.
These comments by Williams are far worse than what Alan Jones said in October that created a national storm.
News just in: This morning on the “science” show Robyn Williams equates skeptics to pedophiles, people pushing asbestos, and drug pushers.
Williams starts the show by framing republicans (and skeptics) as liars: “New Scientist complained about the “gross distortions” and “barefaced lying” politicians come out with…” He’s goes on to make the most blatant, baseless, and outrageous insults by equating skeptics to people who promote pedophilia, asbestos and drugs.
Full story here: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/breaking-skeptics-are-like-paedophiles-drug-robyn-williams-abc-time-to-protest/
One wonders how many alarmists will stand idly by while this goes on. One wonders if the University of Western Australia will have the integrity to censure Stephan Lewandowsky for his ugly remarks and for his outright lies cloaked under the approval of the University ethics department.
They have become the merchants of hate.
http://www.abc.net.au/contact/complain.htm
UPDATE:
Graham Young writes in Paedophilia, climate science and the ABC
In today’s Science Show Robyn Williams smears climate change sceptics by comparing scepticism of the IPCC view that the world faces catastrophic climate change because of CO2 emissions with support for paedophilia, use of asbestos to treat asthma, and use of crack cocaine by teenagers.
Don’t believe me? Then listen to the broadcast.
…
“Punitive psychology” as it is called, was widely used in the Soviet Union to incarcerate dissidents in mental institutions. In modern Australia the walls of the prison are not brick or stone, but walls of censorship, confining the dissident to a limbo where no-one will report what they say for fear of being judged mentally deficient themselves.
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Steven Mosher,
There is something wrong with your LONG explanation: because there is no global warming, and there hasn’t been for a long time now.
I don’t know what exactly it is that you’re missing. But based on empirical evidence, it is clear that something is not right in your presumed understanding. If what you say is true, global temperatures should be rising smartly. So your conjecture is wrong. Time to re-think your assumptions, in light of the fact that the planet is obviously not cooperating with your explanation.
Steven Mosher;
Known, tested, validated, physics tells you that doubling c02 will increase forcing by 3.7 watts.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No it does not. The CALCULATED physics suggests that the sum of all downward photons that exist in the atmospheric column that would not have existed without CO2 doubling, subtract all the upward photons that would not have existed without CO2 doubling gives a total amount of photons that IF THEY EXISTED IN ONE PLACE would result in 3.7 w/m2 of downward flux.
As I have explained to you several times already, they do NOT exist all in one place. Nor, as you suggested above by trying to compare to w/m2 increase in insolation, do they add any additional energy to the system as a whole.
You are so far over your head you don’t seem to realize you are drowning!
Hoffer:
“No, I do not. But my comments were addressed to Mosher, who is not a scientist but a journalist with an interest in climate science. I provided three different explanations addressing his misunderstanding of the basic physics. Each one is valid in itz own way.”
I am not a journalist. By education I was a math and physics major, and it wasnt very challenging so i switched to get degrees in Philosophy, English and linguistics. After my fellowship to grad school, I went back to math and physics and worked in advanced design for Northrop. That was cool because of their excellent education programs and having a chance to work on stealth aircraft was very cool. So, basically, the physics you get wrong was what we had to work with every day. Of course then programs like MODTRAN were classified. but never mind. My work there was being in charge of physics code for various sensors, so ESA radar and EO/IR along with some cool AI work. If you ever played falcon 16 video games you would have fought against my AI adversary’s. Hope they kicked your ass. After that I went to work for a company that specialized in high angle of attack aerodynamics. Somewhere around the web you can find my work on controls and displays for aircraft. That was a cool place because of the research in fluid dynamics and flight controls. I tended to work on “AI” controls for aircraft. VP of engineering got boring. I got tired of answering the same stupid question ( how does an philosophy major do what you do?.. ah well, they eventually understand that math and physics was my first love.. who stops learning?)
So, engineering gave way to product development so I went to silicon valley. Today you and your kids are using stuff i helped to pioneer. Again, how does an english/philosophy major do electronics? and chip design.. arrg. Chips are just code ( like VHDL or verolog) and code is just math. So, at one point, I suggested to a group of friends that instead of calling their graphics chip a “graphics chip” that should call it something different. a GPU. made a ton of money off that company for my company. Anyway, the cool thing there was that i dream I had back in the 80s could finally come true; Physics on a graphics chip, something I had done back in the late 80s with old SGI.
Anyway, graphics got boring so I decided to look at 3d audio. The physics were pretty simple ( we had looked at some of this back at northrop) so I started pushing 3D audio. Then there was Mp3, and the first DVD, and the first dual mode webcams, and a bunch of stuff in wireless.
Then cell phones. Now I basically work in programming. Mostly looking at satellite data.
Of course before you use that data you better read and understand the theory behind it. Most data products come with a nice big hefy physics explnation.
oh ya, I wrote a book, but Im not a journalist. I cant even spell.
arrg phone posting sucks
Steven, you write “Known, tested, validated, physics tells you that doubling c02 will increase forcing by 3.7 watts.”
Myhre et al 1998 says “Three radiative transfer models were used”. I have been over this again and again. Nowhere in the literature is there any proof that radiative transfer models are suitable to estimate radiative forcing. Transfer models were developed to do specific engineering type calculations. They were never designed to estimate radiative forcing.
I have to wonder, if your explanation is so simple and straightforward, as to why it has never been written up in the peer reviewed literature. Why dont you write it up, and get it published. Then we could all read why radiative transfer models can, in fact, estimate radiative forcing.
Steven Mosher,
Thanx for the bio. Now, about that non-existent global warming…
Steven Mosher:
You mention putting a reflector on the Moon and measuring the distance to it, and you define “measurement” as a combination of thoughts and observations. That’s a passable definition.
Before the reflector had been installed, our thoughts (you call them theories) predicted that Moon’s orbit would decay inward with time. Now that we have a mirror up there, we know that the orbit is in fact expanding, but we have not yet cancelled our thoughts that told us it should decay.
It is precisely because of the thought component present in all measurements that we should expect them to be continuously adjusted (or otherwise stop making observations).
There are even efforts underway to automate such adjustments: http://wiki.cogkit.org/wiki/Active_Thermochemical_Tables
I think complaints should be lodged directly with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), even though the ABC and SBS are technically exempt from any scruntiny under ACMA (ie. ABC and SBS as Government entities are “self-regulated”). To non-Australians – see how it works here in Australia these days? Do you get the picture….?!
http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=CONTACT_COMPLAINTS_OVIEW#radio
Mosher,
That’s quite the resume. We probably have crossed paths several times in the last 35 years and just didn’t know it.
That said, given your technical background, it is beyond me how you can make claims like comparing a 1 watt increase in insolation to 1 watt of forcing from CO2 increasing. It is also beyond me that you cite as examples things like radar which we can directly measure from point A to point B as being indicative of our knowledge of how LW travels through the atmosphere when we can only measure what happens to it indirectly.
3.7w/m2 claimed for a doubling of CO2, yet 324 w/m2 is claimed for all greenhouse back radiation.
A doubling of CO2 therefore is just 1.1% of the total. If 33c represents the total for greenhouse gases this just represents 0.36c rise per doubling of CO2. This is being generous because most of the warming from greenhouse gases occurs in the first parts with it being logarithmic.
There is obviously some disagreement here compared with the theoretical 1c per doubling CO2.
324 w/m2 claimed for all greenhouse gases doesn’t warm a bucket of water in the shade during one day, so 1.1 percent of this even when atmospheric levels in future are reached is so miniscule, no wonder we can’t measure the difference from zero now.
Should be in my last post if atmospheric levels in future are reached not when.
I only managed to listen to half of the broadcast before I gave up.
Were there any actual scientist?
DaveE.
Steven Mosher says: “Chips are just code ( like VHDL or verolog) and code is just math.”
You are either taking liberties with that statement and generalizing, or your knowledge of ICs and electronics is like your knowledge of CO2 & Physics, lacking.
A bit beyond OTT and seriously in need of an equally robust response.
One thing you need to realise about people like this: they don’t respond to decency, they only respond to threats.
Those with influence need to work out what threats will work and then threaten them with alacrity.
Davidmhoffer, John Whitman and gnomish:
I write to support David in his use of analogies (and not merely because – as he demonstrates in this thread – he is good at it).
At November 25, 2012 at 10:15 am gnomish says to David
I point out that the insults and ad homs. in that quotation say more about gnomish than about DavidAnd I write to address the epistemological issues.
Analogies are illustrations to aid comprehension. As such, they are a part of “explanation”. And only arrogant fools make no attempt to explain in terms a listener can understand.
No scientific statement is ‘true’ because any scientific statement is a description of a model which represents our best understanding of what is ‘true’.
A scientific definition is one type of scientific statement, and – in common with all scientific statements – it can alter with greater understanding; e.g. the definition of ‘combustion’ changed as a result of the work of Lavoisier.
Hence, each scientific statement is an approximation to what is ‘true’: they all lack “completeness”.
Some scientific statements are more accurate approximations than others. For example,
(a) Newton’s model of the behaviour of gravity is adequate for engineers to use it to put a man on the Moon,
but
(b) Einstein’s model of the behaviour of gravity is needed to understand the perturbations of the orbit of Mercury.
The teaching of the behaviour of gravity does not start with Einsteinian relativity: it starts with Newtonian mechanics. And Newtonian mechanics is not rejected because it is less “accurate” and is more of an “illustration” than Einsteinian relativity.
Analogies may or may not be “poetic”, but so what?
If they aid understanding then they are useful tools for aiding comprehension of the listener.
In the specific example of David’s ‘traffic analogy’ it is a clear demonstration of a case where the input and output do not indicate the distribution in a system. And that case is commonly known. So, if it breaks the barrier of someone failing to understand the concept of ‘input&output don’t indicate internal distribution’ then it has served a useful purpose. A person with that conceptual barrier will never manage to understand how the flow of photons through the atmosphere cannot be determined by the input and output of photons.
A desire to help people to learn may be an indication of a generous nature and is certainly not a clear indication of “secret desire to be a demagogue, which detracts from the message – unless that IS the message?” I am surprised that somebody would make such a suggestion while proclaiming his/her understanding of epistemology.
And it is plain wrong to assert;
“just say what you mean using words that have definitions and you’ll avoid the epistemological failures engendered by substituting semiotics for argumentation.”
No, in most cases ‘talking over the heads of people’ leaves them baffled and gives the impression you are a prat.
And the assertion that using an analogy reveals “the secret desire to be worshipped by minions” is untrue and seems to be an example of psychological projection,
Analogies can be useful. But – like all useful things – are capable of being misused. In this thread David has provided clear, appropriate and useful analogies.
Richard
@ur momisugly davidmhoffer,
I have for a long time had a somewhat different traffic analogy you may, or may not like.
I am simply observing energy content of any system as a function of time, i.e. how
long that delivered energy stays within a defined area. In regard to our planet the defined area is broadly the land surface, the oceans, and the atmosphere. How long the solar insolation, entering or leaving a defined area, stays before exiting determines T. and or heat content of the system observed. This leads to a law.
“At its most basic only two things can effect the heat content of any system in a radiative balance. Either a change in the input, or a change in the “residence time” of some aspect of those energies within the system.”
Traffic Analogy…
On a highway if ten cars per hour enter the highway, and the cars are on the road for ten hours before exiting, there will be 100 cars on the road and as long as these factors remain the same the system is in balance. If you change the INPUT to eleven cars per hour, then over a ten hour period the system will increase from 100 cars to 110 cars before a balance is restored and no further increase occurs. The same effect as the increase in INPUT achieves can also be realized by either slowing the cars down 10% or by lengthening the road 10%. In either case you have increased the energy in the system by ten percent by either increasing the residence time, or the input.
I try to understand your debate with Mr Mosher, however I find the affixation on radiation alone as being immensely likely to produce a wrong answer.
The existence of an atmosphere (which of course our earth has) adds a second third and fourth method of cooling the surface; conduction convection, and evaporation. Now the surface has four methods of cooling.
Now less of the specific heat is radiating from the surface, as some of the specific heat is now conducting, convecting, and evaporating, only to eventually radiate to space via GHG. (It is not easy to imagine that a planets earth, ocean and atmospheres sole means of cooling, radiation to space, can easily warm from greater ability to radiate to space) As the entire atmosphere is radiating conducting and convecting at the same time with energy from both the surface and TSI, it appears problematic to determine exactly what one is measuring when one measures radiation.
According to GHG radiation theory, in a non GHG atmosphere, the incoming solar energy and the outgoing LWIR energy mostly bypass the atmosphere and leave it cooler (some 33 degrees) then it would be in an atmosphere containing the earths level of GHGs.
However, once again, this ignores a second third and fourth method of cooling the surface; conduction convection, and evaporation.
It should be easy to see that while a GHG may INCREASE the residence time of radiating energy from the surface, it also would DECREASE the residence time of energy which it revives via conduction, said energy accelerating to said GHG molecule via changes in convection and evaporation.
I ma quite certain the devil is in the details.
****
Steven Mosher says:
November 25, 2012 at 2:46 pm
I am not a journalist. By education I was a math and physics major, and it wasnt very challenging so i switched to get degrees in Philosophy, English and linguistics.
****
Wasn’t challenging? So you switched to English?!? LOL. Good thing Einstein still felt challenged.
I knew quite a few in university that dropped out of math/physics/engineering, and it wasn’t because it wasn’t challenging….
David says:
November 26, 2012 at 5:40 am
@ur momisugly davidmhoffer
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
David,
The analogy as presented is useful for demonstrating that measuring LW between two points tells us far less about what happened in between than one might think. Expanding the analogy to describe the climate system as a whole is probably a good example of the limits of usefulness that an analogy can be put to.
For your discussion above, yes all those things are true, but at day’s end, the energy coming into the system is 100% solar radiance and the energy leaving the system is 100% earth radiance. (There are energy sources like tidal, molten core, radioactive decay, but they are rounding errors by comparison). My point being that all the processes you allude to change where energy is in the system at any given point in time and what direction it is going, but there’s only one way in and one way out and that is radiance. All the rest is what happens in between.
Usefulness of an Analogy
A customer recently asked me how much the storage array we were implementing was than the one being replaced. I asked, faster at what? Performance he said. OK, I said, what aspect of performance? Throughput? Bandwidth? Data protection features such as point in time copies of data? What?
The customer thought about it and then said…How much faster will my applications run with this new storage array?
I don’t know I said. Are your applications cpu bound? memory bound? I/O bound? Are they latency sensitive? Are they subject to latency considerations at the end user to server layer, the server to network layer, the network to storage array layer or the storage array to disk layer? And what about throughput and bandwidth at those layers? Do you have good statistical baselines of each of these parameters that we can use as a starting point for analysis?
At which point the customer said something to the effect of….but I thought this array was faster than the old one….
To which I responded: It is. It is like trading your 9 passenger van for a Ferrari and asking if you are going to get to work faster. Not knowing what roads you’ll be driving on, what the speed limit of them is, the state of law enforcement along your route, or the amount of traffic that you’ll encounter, all I can say is…. probably. And, if it turns out that you have to still give 8 other people a ride to work each day…. probably not.
Technically accurate? Not even close. Useful to illustrate the complexity of providing a simple answer? Yes.
d,hoffer said:
“my comments were addressed to Mosher, who is not a scientist but a journalist with an interest in climate science. I provided three different explanations addressing his misunderstanding of the basic physics”
—————————————————————————————
we may accept the assertion that d.hoffer intended to educate mr. mosher. the implication is that mr. mosher is ignorant and that mr hoffer is the illuminated guru who can cure mr mosher’s deficiency by incantation.
if mr. mosher did not become ‘educated’ as a result of d.hoffer’s spells, then what substantiates the claim that these analogies were useful?
however, supporting my observations, gentlement, is the mannian spin of the offended guru.
d.hoffer – do get a dictionary and look up the word ‘invective’. or will we next hear of well funded conspiracies and death threats?
preach as thou wilt – feel free to shriek ‘calumny!’ when insecurity drives you to it.
and so we have returned to the actual topic of this article.
when i was young, i did eagerly frequent
saint and scientist- and hear great argument!
but when at last my youth was spent,
i came out by the same door wherein i went.
O.K.
my best regards, gentlemen.
the topic, the website, the world is all about you.
– – – – – – –
Roger Knights
It appeared to me when studying physics at university (40+ yrs ago) that Einstein’s central thought-experiments where about the physical phenomena that he was discussing / presenting. That does not appear to me the same as if one tries to show scientific aspects of a physical phenomenon by rhetorical reference to some other cirmcumstances that are known by the presenter to be completely unconnected to the original subject physical pheonomenon.
My memory could be mistaken on Einstein’s central thought-experiments, but a simple Google search seems to support my memory.
John
gnomish;
Your towering intellect is on display for all to see.
– – – – – – – – – –
Richardscourtney,
Appreciate your reply.
Analogy is a rhetorical device. It does not provide an objective basis for knowledge of the identities, properties and behaviors of a physical phenomenon; i.e., physical science.
I see no basis for inconsistency between the reasoning within the physical scientific community and the reasoning of its communication elsewhere; therefore I find no support for recommending the use of analogy in the scientific discussion on climate.
John
if rhetorical devices are not tools of cognition, what purpose do they serve?
counterfeit cognitivel currency debauches the intellectual economy, no?
shall call that ‘generosity’?
Would you object to the commonly used analogy of a bowling ball on a rubber sheet to elucidate how mass bends space-time? (Regardless of whether it was Einstein’s or someone else’s analogy.)
gnomish says:
November 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm
– – – – – – –
gnomish,
Hmmmm . . . . let me try these . . . . all very classical views . . . .
Logic => irreducible fundamental schematics for objective reasoning to reach greater scientific knowledge / higher degrees of scientific certainty
Rhetoric => devices / strategies for debate to sway the public towards ones views
Dialectic => originally intended as a philosophical tool to reduce knowledge to absolute premises / irreducible fundamentals but I think it is now not distinguishable from logic) => {not relevant for this thread, though interesting in its own right}
John