Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Dear Bora;
I know, I know, like many people I didn’t think it was possible for Scientific American magazine to sink any lower. I loved Scientific American as a kid, the “Amateur Scientist” column was a godsend on the ranch. But then, slowly your magazine morphed, first into less-science, then non-science, then non-sense, and then finally anti-science. I (like many people) quit reading the magazine years ago. Your hatchet job on Bjorn Lomborg, for example, was disgraceful. For me these days Scientific American is known by its shortened name, ScAm.
But now, it’s even worse. You, Bora Zivkovic, write a blog titled A Blog Around The Clock: Rhythms of Life in Meatspace and Cyberland. And who are you when you are at home? Your mini-bio on ScAm says:
Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web.
There’s more there, you’re not just a blogger, you’re the Blog Editor, and you teach introductory biology, not the advanced kind, at Wesleyan College. Got it.
And on the 28th of January, you took all of us low-lifes to task on your blog. You say some commenters are a problem, and your solution to the problem of inconsiderate people asking scientific questions on a ScAm blog is quite simple:
Automatic Computer-model-based Censorship.
I can only bow my head in awe. I mean, what better way is there to keep you from answering people from WUWT and other sites who might want answers to actual scientific questions, than not allowing them to speak at all? Let me give other readers a glimpse into the future of scientific discussion, your brilliant plan for hands-off blog censorship … here it is, and as you explained, it involves computer models (emphasis mine)
If I write about a wonderful weekend mountain trek, and note I saw some flowers blooming earlier than they used to bloom years ago, then a comment denying climate change is trolling. I am a biologist, so I don’t write specifically about climate science as I do not feel I am expert enough for that. So, I am gradually teaching my spam filter to automatically send to spam any and every comment that contains the words “warmist”, “alarmist”, “Al Gore” or a link to Watts. A comment that contains any of those is, by definition, not posted in good faith. By definition, it does not provide additional information relevant to the post. By definition, it is off-topic. By definition, it contains erroneous information. By definition, it is ideologically motivated, thus not scientific. By definition, it is polarizing to the silent audience. It will go to spam as fast I can make it happen.
See, Bora, the beauty of your plan is, you don’t even have to think about censorship once you do that. The computer does the hard work for you, rooting out and destroying evil thoughtcrimes coming from … from … well, from anyone associated with Watts Up With That, or with Steven McIntyre’s blog Climate Audit, or anyone that you might disagree with, or who is concerned about “alarmists”, you just put them on the list and Presto!
No more inconvenient questions!
The beauty part is, censorship in that manner isn’t personal or based on prejudices, it’s gotta be 100% scientific—because hey, it’s based on a computer model, and the modelers constantly assure us that model-based science is the real deal. For example, a noted advocate of computer models and transparency in science posted this insightful comment in support of your fascinating proposal for secret hidden computer-model-based censorship of unwelcome views …
Astroturf pay-4-trolling outfits? I gotta say, Mann has lost the plot entirely. He’s sounding like one of those goofy ads on the insides of matchbook covers, “DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY—Make Money With Your Computer At Home While You’re Trolling!!! Call 1-800-ASTROTURF now!”
I swear, there’s no way to parody this stuff, Bora. You and Mike, you’ve truly outdone yourselves, your idea of computer-model-based censorship is worthy of the modern ScAm you work for.
The sight of a so called “scientific” magazine advocating for hidden censorship based on where someone might comment or their saying the word “alarmist” or where they might find some particular fact, well, that is an abomination, Bora. It makes me fear for the students at Wesleyan College. Do you turn people away from your classes as well for disagreeing with your revealed wisdom, or because they may have read my biology piece about extinctions on WUWT?
Unlike your pathologically computer-censored blog, here at WUWT we just ignore the jerks, or I metaphorically beat them severely about the head and shoulders for bad behavior … but we don’t censor them for reading or citing your or any other web site, ever.
So how about you have the stones to do the same, my friend, and you stop hiding behind your pathological computer models from folks who read or cite this web site?
Finally, Bora, you are (of course) free to comment below on my open letter and defend your position. Unlike your site, where I could invisibly be made a non-person and my ideas prevented from ever seeing the light, here at WUWT we actually DO preach and practice science of the old-fashioned, transparent kind, where even the advocates of hidden, under-the-table censorship like yourself and Michael Mann are free to comment. And if we do snip someone’s particular comment for being a jerkwagon, we note that fact, we don’t just sweep them under the rug like you do.
I won’t be surprised if you don’t show up to defend the indefensible, however. I’d be a fool to expect that kind of honesty and forthrightness from a man who secretly destroys unwanted questions from his scientific opponents …
But I invite you to surprise me, my friend, I’m always overjoyed to see a man moving to become an actual scientist, one who listens to and answers inconvenient questions from his scientific opponents … heck, who knows, you might just learn something.
Of course, I am aware that no one will be able to cite this open letter on your blog, you’ve erased that possibility already … gosh, that’s science at its finest, Bora.
How do you justify this to yourself?
Has noble cause corruption really affected your moral compass to that extent, that you not only invisibly censor people whose scientific views differ from your own, but you actually attempt, not just a pathetic justification of that underhanded action, but an even more pathetic and anti-scientific celebration and and advocacy of such hidden censorship? These questions and more, I invite your answers.
My regards to you, Bora … and I’m totally serious about your sneaky, invisible trashing of people’s comments based on where people post and what they might cite—your kind of cowardly hidden censorship is absolutely antithetical to science, as is conclusively proven by Michael Mann’s approval of your plan.
w.
Zimcorp…decoy blather…WRONG. Evidence:
First up, if the counter-measures to SDI were so cheap-n-easy why the hell did the USSR bankrupt itself with projects like the ones I cited…not hypothetical projects, but hardware built and flown at immense expense as an attempt to ounter SDI and maintain an offensive capability.
Secondly…Chevaline. No you aint heard of it and you’ll have to Google it. But I’ll tell you. The UK strategic deterrent is posited upon the ability to obliterate Moscow. When the Moscow ABM shield (SDI in other words) became operational the UK lost this capability. The result was they had to invest heavily in the development of maneuvreable RVs, priject Chevaline. They could afford this but once. They could not have afforded to keep pace were such changes of circumstance repeatedly forced on them.
The mantra that missile defence doesnt work is an article of faith of the left. But ABM systems have proven themselves effective for decades.
Returning to the original point, SDI worked because it, not by itself but as part of a along with a raft of programmes, bankrupted the USSR and brought about its collapse.
Ben Wilson…sorry to mis-read you, thats the danger with irony online (as opposed to face to face) . However, perhaps it was a useful opportunity to unfold on the topic.
From O Olson on March 7, 2013 at 1:22 pm:
Incorrect. As revealed by the roots of the word, it is the rejecting of the existence of God, aka “a higher power”. As the evidence does not exist to conclusively reject the possibility of such, this cannot be a scientific position, therefore the affirming of the non-existence of said deity is a belief by definition.
A lack of belief is technically known as agnosticism, where one neither confirms or denies said existence. As the evidence is lacking for proof either way, this is the proper viewpoint for scientific endeavors.
In a time of great scarcity, when you have just enough food to feed your family that day and the next, a stranger approaches and asks if you have some food to spare, just enough so that their family may have something to eat today as well. Do you:
A. Truthfully tell them yes and get it for them,
B. Truthfully tell them yes but they can’t have it (and you’re sorry about their family starving),
C. Say you’re sorry, but you barely have enough for your own family for today, and wish them luck.
Humanity didn’t get this far as a species by being inherently honest. We are predators, hunters, who have advanced by becoming more cleverer deceivers.
How many people do you know who are perfectly honest with their taxes because of noble qualities that naturally spring forth from themselves? The desire to avoid prosecution and punishment is not a noble quality BTW.
When left to our own instincts and natural impulses, we humans will lie, cheat, steal, and kill. We do whatever we can to enhance our own survival, and spread our genetic material. In case you haven’t noticed, humans are not monogamous by nature.
Those qualities you admire still come from the same place they always have, the fear of punishment (pain), whether we believe a holy person telling us of punishment to come, the more immediate punishments of government/community for violating laws/customs… Or your momma punishing you for fibbing to her face.
Being open and honest cannot possibly spring from within, because it is anti-survival, thus nature wouldn’t allow it.
Me too. So let’s stick to the science, and admit what humans really are, as evolution has naturally brought about, and stop trying to pretty us up into something you find more comforting. Which you are mainly doing because then your fellow humans appear to be less of a threat to you, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.
And following the dictates of nature, being as we are omnivorous predators, the correct answer following our inherent instincts was:
D. Kill the stranger, strip the corpse of anything usable, then work the meat into your food stores (the usual concerns about possible preservation of perishable stuff, eating fresh when possible, etc). Should keep your family surviving another three or maybe four days, at least.
I dumped them when they had an article in the back that was toting Marx as a great economist. I still receive it although I am not paying for it. I wish they’d just stop sending it.
O Olson:
Since you want to continue to inject religion into this discussion, while I’m avoiding proselytism, you are wrong on definitions: atheism is not a lack of belief, rather it is a positive statement of belief that there’s no deity or deities. A lack of belief is agnosticism where the person truly just doesn’t know.
Concerning honesty, let me give you a true story: a KGB defector told how he was recruited; he was arrested on a trumped up charge, then in prison forced to sign a false statement of guilt. The KGB desperately wanted one fellow prisoner to sign a false statement, but that man refused to lie. Finally the torture was so bad that the man died. The defector and his fellow prisoners had all broken and they mourned the death of a man better than they. You claim your friends are honest? What is their breaking point? At what point can they be bought? How many of your friends are honest because they’ve never faced an existential challenge where honesty would cost and cost big?
This is what we’re facing in the warmist camp—many of the warmists livelihoods depend on continuing the fiction of anthropogenic global warming. Even when they admit among themselves that the story is falling apart, they present a brave face to the world, because to admit that they are wrong would mean the loss of their jobs, the loss of the honors and access to power that their fiction presently gives them, the loss of their friends or actually worse that their then former friends would turn on them, big costs. “He who is trustworthy in the smallest things is trustworthy in much, and he who is unjust in the smallest things is unjust in much” Luke 16:10. The warmist lies started out small, but now they’ve snowballed so that the cost of coming clean is high, maybe too high? Given the present political climate, they can continue to get grants, but only if they continue their lies.
What science needs is honesty even where honesty will cost and cost big, and we’re not getting that honesty. Given the rate of scientific fraud where it’s evident that many people aren’t even trying to be honest, and that rate is going up, bodes ill for the future of science. It’s said that everyone has his price; what we need are people who can’t be bought, no matter what the price. Where does that sort of honesty come from? And don’t come up with a glib, quick answer.
It’s not only science that needs this sort of honesty, I’m finding other fields need it too.
This is dealing with only one of the factors needed for science, what about the other twelve listed in that article?
Humanity got exactly here by being what we inherently are. But enough of silly semantic games. Night all.
Sorry I’m late to this party, er, funeral. To all those former and about-to-become former subscribers to Sci-Am, I have a suggestion: keep a copy of the issue that boils your blood the hardest, for posterity. Imagine having something as quaint as an actual printed magazine from the early part of the century when eco-alarmism was at its height. In time, it will be as novel as a bottle of radium water! Personally, I’ve saved a Nat Geo (June 2007) with the cover article on The BIG THAW [Ice on the Run, Seas on the Rise] and a Sci-Am (December 2007) promoting the article on Carbon Markets [Making Them Work to Save the Climate], but my favorite is the Delta ‘Sky’ (in-flight) magazine with the cover graphic of a shining, curly-Q CFL bulb in front of the Earth, with the text “If every American household turns off the lights during Earth Hour on March 29, it will prevent more than 16,500 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.” followed by the inevitable “… it’s so easy… what else can we do?” (with ‘easy’ and ‘else’ in italics, of course). This stuff is comic gold! So turn that frown upside-down and invest in your future: consider what it would mean to your grandkids to be able to actually touch such amazing artifacts while becoming the envy of all their friends (who will only be able to read about it in poorly written Wikipedia articles)…
trafamadore: apparently a Kurt Vonnegut fan; but isn’t it ‘Tralfamadore’? If you can’t get your name right, …
R. Ortiz says:
March 7, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Just my 2 cents regarding atheism: I want to see some proof that there’s no deity or deities. That’s all.
Can’t? Hmmmm…..
Hello Michael Dunn: Thanks for your note, I will check out your patent. SDI in the 80s was supposed to work based on midcourse interception and that was what the Bethe and Garwin paper was criticizing. In addition the authors were not criticizing “their” solutions, they were pointing out the solutions announced in official government reports.
By the way it’s true that chemists are not all good cooks, but even cooks have to conform to the basic laws of chemical kinetics and thermodynamics 🙂 A lot of the criticism of midcourse interception was based on pointing out the basic physics fact that in the vacuum of space a lightweight balloon, a dummy warhead and a real warhead will all follow the exact same trajectory. Any method that relies on surface identification (like IR detection) will thus be unable to distinguish between them, especially when the decoys outnumber the warhead by thousands. I have not found a good solution to this fundamental problem and would be interested if you could point me to one.
Hello Wamron: The countermeasures involved things like aluminum chaff and simple balloons. Look up the price of these things; the question was one of cost/benefit analysis and the problem was that even if SDI were 99% effective, a few dozen warheads getting through would have killed tens of millions. Plus, could you point me to evidence indicating that whatever SDI research the Soviets attempted was a significant part of Soviet bankruptcy? The mere fact that the Soviets engaged in SDI research does not mean it was responsible for bankrupting them.
In addition, even if we accept the belief that SDI might have worked as part of a package to bankrupt the Soviets, it still doesn’t mean it was technically feasible; those are two very different issues. For instance I can drive a gullible person crazy by convincing him that monsters are going to crawl out of his bed every night, but that doesn’t mean monsters actually exist, does it?
Lastly, the Chevaline system was indeed based on countermeasures and decoys; I didn’t see a document indicating that the UK ever “lost this capability”. In fact with so many decoys (roughly 500 per warhead) and limitations on the USSR to house no more than 100 interceptors in its ABM system all evidence points to the potential success of the system.
Willis: I hope your missive was emailed and snail mailed to him, as his email filter may have recognized your name.
Mario Lento says:
March 11, 2013 at 10:32 pm
WUWT busts right through those restraining orders and lands in a guy’s inbox regardless. I predicted above that he would read it. He answered it the next day …
w.
@Willis: WUWT busts right through those restraining orders and lands in a guy’s inbox regardless. I predicted above that he would read it. He answered it the next day …
GREAT GREAT!! I can’t wait to hear his response and your interpretation of it. Also, I’m honored to have you respond to one of my posts. Thank you.