People send me stuff.
Yesterday Skeptical Science owner John Cook announced to the world that he thought Willis’s open letter to the new editor of Science was “creepy” and “sexist”.
As is typical with the Skeptical Science kidz, it’s just projection. How much? You have no idea. But it turns out that when you scratch the surface of the SkS Forum, where the principals and moderators talk amongst themselves (seemingly unaware of others watching) you discover what creepy really is. For a supposed site about “climate science” it sure does look a lot like “high school climate science”.
Get a load of the pictures from the SkS forum website sent to me today. A friend of WUWT writes:
(Note: I’m leaving the author of this email private, lest he become another Photoshop victim. Note that all the links are in the open, there’s no hack or mole action going on here. BTW, each word highlighted below is a separate link to an image. – Anthony)
I found something I thought you might be interested in while looking to see what is publicly viewable on the new SkS forum’s website (www.sksforum.org). Little is, but there happens to be a viewable images directory that has a subdirectory, [http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded]. This directory has some… interesting images.
One [http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/WeAreSkeptics.jpg] has several the heads of several skeptics photoshopped onto people from a movie about the 300 Spartans (300, perhaps?). I assume it was an attempt at humorously painting skeptics as few in number and dogmatic.
But the most interesting ones defy explanation at the moment. There are a number of images where the head of Dana Nuccitelli or John Cook appear to have been photoshopped onto images of [http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/herrscooterboy.jpg]
[http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/herrtankboy2.jpg]
It’s possible these images were taken from somewhere else and uploaded, but that seems unlikely as a couple of them show signs of further photoshopping done to improve them. To see what I mean, compare this image to this one.
Combined with the fact there are a number of similarly photoshopped images done to flatter Nuccitelli, it seems almost certain SkS members have photoshopped images of SkS members as Nazi soldiers. I can’t think of a single sensible reason they would do that.
I don’t think they dream of being Nazis, and I can’t imagine it was particularly fun to make those images. It’s possible they made these with the idea of a false flag operation in mind, but that seems ridiculous. It’s not more absurd than Peter Gleick’s behavior was, but it’s hard to believe anyone would consider doing that (especially on a forum which has been exposed once before).
[NOTE: Brandon Shollenberger decided that he didn’t care that his name was attached to the above, hence this update. – Anthony]
You have to wonder what motivates them to take the time do things like this, especially when they claim that global warming is accelerating, and there is precious little time left before we all roast.
SkS Kidz will be kids I suppose.
I haven’t looked this good since high school:
L-R: Watts, Monckton, Delingpole.
=================================================================
UPDATE: 10:35 PDT About three hours later It seems that somebody at SkS has been embarrassed that they’ve been caught out, and they have comically simply moved the “user_uploaded” folder to one with a seemingly random (Ric Werme says: “Hey, a11g0n3 is leet-speak for allgone. Oh Lord, there be idiots over there.”) name: [http://www.sksforum.org//images/a11g0n3/]
Of course that breaks all the links in the story above.
Only problem is, it’s still open to the public there. All images are still visible: [http://www.sksforum.org//images/a11g0n3/]
Surely they know that the Internet has a permanent memory and all these images still exist elsewhere in folders that people have scraped from the original by now?
Amateur hour cover up tactics. – Anthony
UPDATE2: 11:07AM PDT It seems that they’ve taken down the “leet speak” folder as well, no matter, they still all exist in many places, and I’ll add a gallery shortly. -Anthony
UPDATE3: 11:19AM PDT here is a few of the images referenced above in the story and in comments. I also have a screen cap of the original folder listing at SkS which I’ll upload tonight when I get home.
UPDATE4: 5:31PM PDT, As promised earlier in UPDATE3 here is a PDF capture of the file listing from the original SkS forum snapped at 829AM PDT today.
Index of _images_user_uploaded (PDF)
=============================================================
Related articles
- SkepticalScience goes Godwin-Nazi or something (joannenova.com.au)
- LOL! ‘Mad Haxor Skillz’ Godwinize ‘Skeptical Science’ (wattsupwiththat.com)
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So if you’re one of the brave heroic 300, they must be the corrupt priests in the temple!
FWIW, you’re being accused of “Anthony Watt’s professional-grade creepy hacking of SkS” at Curry’s:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/08/06/irresponsible-advocacy-by-scientists/#comment-360788
So apparently finding ditched pictures on the internet is “professional-grade creepy hacking”. Congrats on being promoted to professional grade hacker.
REPLY: LOL! – Anthony
I went ahead and posted a few comments to the Guardian article along with M Courtney.
Does anyone have a link to a good article about how the AGW “Team” or other “climate scientists” have repeatedly increased the interval of no warming or declining temps “necessary” to be “significant?” I’d like to post something that way also (and have it for future reference), but wound up just using recollection… I’m sure I’ve seen something that way even here on WUWT, but I’m not finding it so far – thanks in advance for links or help on this one.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then it pretty much stays at laughing when you photoshop yourselves into Nazi uniforms, to be honest.
)
(Read with reference to this image:
patrioticduo says:
August 6, 2013 at 2:19 pm
I can’t wait to hear what their explanation is for all these creative art shenanigans. Will we see the return of the limited hang-out yet again? Whatever they say, I bet it will include blaming “deniers” in some form.
————————————————————————————————————
It would be reasonable that it could be a skeptic having some fun with the SKS files since they are for “user_upload”. However, that also might ruin most of the fun here, so let’s not think about that. It would also indicate that they don’t review these files for content often enough.
Rational Db8:
At August 6, 2013 at 3:20 pm you ask
Go to the ‘Search’ facility on the WUWT Home Page.
Enter: temperature adjustments
Select the article(s) you want from the resulting list of links.
I hope that helps.
Richard
SasjaL says: August 6, 2013 at 10:13 am
“Sorry to say, but Cook’s avatar looks quite creepy …”
…
He’s even more of a creep in real life !
Rational Db8 says:
August 6, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Maybe not an exhaustive list of changing periods of warming “pause” periods for significance, but a start:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2013/03/the-science-is-settled-no-warming
To which list included in the above link must be added this capper:
“The UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last ‘30 to 40 years at least’ to break the long-term global warming trend.” – The Australian, Feb 22 2013
Since the globe has been warming since about 1700, most of the time without benefit of rising CO2, & is now cooling despite still higher GHG concentrations, maybe he’s right about the “long-term”, but certainly not compared to the warming of c. 1977-96, which resembled that of the 1920s to 40s.
Regarding SKS and the Grauniad (I’m sorry that’s the Guardian for non-UK readers):
Just before the Copenhagen summit, the Eco column produced an article saying that “there might have been a short pause in temperature but in the next 5 years it was going to rise faster than ever unless …. ”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jul/27/world-warming-faster-study?INTCMP=SRCH&commentpage=1
and a 9 metre sea level rise ….
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/16/ipcc-sea-level-rise-temperatures?INTCMP=SRCH
The interesting thing is that the gang of true believing commenters are still here today, commenting with all the outrage and moral certitude that they can muster on the 97% thread.
Is there such a thing as learning from experience or does this simply show that the lunatic fringe remains the lunatic finge? Should we care?
The only problem is that the Guardian is main source for the BBC.
“I’m sorry that’s the Guardian for non-UK readers”
grauniad.co.uk works.
@ur momisugly richardscourtney says: August 6, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Thanks for the reply Richard. I’m not really looking for data problems/temperature adjustments, but the claims by AGW promoting scientists that X number of years must go by without warming before AGW itself is discredited… I think the first claim of that nature was either 10 or 12 years pause or decline necessary, then they upped it to 15, then to 17, and now higher… So I was hoping to find an article documenting those wildly different claims and when they occurred, showing how the AGW “climate scientists” keep moving the goalposts as soon as the actual temperature measurements come close to passing their earlier time period of significance type claims.
@ur momisugly milodonharlani says: August 6, 2013 at 3:52 pm
Thank you! That one comes pretty close. I think there was an even earlier, shorter time frame originally claimed, but your article is right along the lines I’m looking for. I’ll go post it to the Guardian.
If anyone else runs across more this way, please still post your link & thanks in advance!
I keep coming back to the idea some of these pictures were meant to end up somewhere where they would have mislead speculatiors as to their authorship.
BFL says:
August 6, 2013 at 3:34 pm
“It would be reasonable that it could be a skeptic having some fun with the SKS files since they are for “user_upload”. ”
Everyone here knows Sks for years now. Many of us have communicated with Diana, Rob or Herr Cook. Don’t you think we would know if there were a possibility to upload files?
And BFL; you probably don’t know; but as a webmaster you upload your files wither with an ftp or with a web frontend. Both of them are always protected with username and password. You want to avoid that a guy you don’t know, say your friendly government, plants some kiddiepr0n on your web server to have an excuse to shut you down and throw you in a cage like they just did with that TOR guy. You will share the password only with people you trust.
So now you know.
how deep can Cook sink!
Rational Db8 says:
August 6, 2013 at 3:20 pm
“Does anyone have a link to a good article about how the AGW “Team” or other “climate scientists” have repeatedly increased the interval of no warming or declining temps “necessary” to be “significant?” ”
Hansen era
Hansen cools down the 19th century MAY 2012 blink comparator
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/more-data-corruption-from-giss/#comment-90722
Post hansen era
GISS unter Gavin post Hansen, the fraud continues
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/really-giss-dishonesty-continues-in-post-hansen-era/
Even if the Sks photos turn out to be some bizarre self planted lewandowsky inspired ‘research’ to stir the pot. 2 things. Delingpole,Watts and Monckton get a fantastically funny framed photo of themselves as the spartans. Xmas cards, calendars and the Josh version shoukd be funny.And if a bit of psychology research, ( as was mentioned as a possibilty – false flag- in the main wuwt article above) everyone only wanted to believe it, because the SkS guys come across as that juvenile in the first place!!! Definitely juvenile not sinister, in my mind
Or some hacker planted them to make them look like juvenile kids. A hacker would had to have permission to make directories and move files. Or msybe an insider. Who knows or cares, lets wsit and see what happens next
Has anybody asked John Cook what is going on yet?
or they are what one or 2 of the SKS crowd do for fun..Popcorn tommorrow
Who knows. I have no idea what is going on, but domebody took some effort withthe photos. Ie the cap badges.
Imagine if it were some ill conceived psychology research, who on earth would allow their own image to be manipulated to show themsekves as John and Dana are depicted. So by that logic it can’t be research. Either a hacker, or someone there is crazy enough to make those photos of John and Dana?
But I have no idea what is going on, , just guesses (look up Johann Hari, for bizarre behaviour on the internet, that you could not make up, as an example)
Whatever the explanation is it is surely going to be interesting.
Just when things were getting boring.
Bad reply, Watts.
First of all, the McNutt thingy was a bit of a fckup. Not sexist but weird on some levels. Second, it is foolish to answer Cook’s delusion with a back slap. Many of us are here precisely because we don’t fall for misdirection. You had to do nothing more than post Cook’s tweet if you wanted to expose his intellectual deficits. Instead, you committed folly.
Note how the warmistas conflate one cause with another. Somehow, to argue about climate science with a female scientist makes you SEXIST! Proof that the warmistas are driven by a political agenda, rather than science.
The most interesting question to me is why the Skeptical[-less] Science site’s leader (Cook) and the insider clique projected themselves and their critics (the skeptics) the way they did in the images contained originally in their site’s subdirectory ‘user_uploaded’?
Consider this scenario as an explanation. They were just having what they considered phantasy fun in making and using the images. In history there have been groups whose phantasy images were subsequently implemented in horrific ways. It is in my view that it is too early to conclude the leader (John Cook) and his insider clique at the Skeptical[-less] Science site will follow a path toward advocating the implementation of their ‘fun’ phantasy images. However, it is rather reasonable to keep a keen public awareness on any further signs of developments in their weird fun phantasies.
SEPARATE SUBJECT => As to the question of whether it is worthwhile going to Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site to debate. I recommend it is infinitely more effective to create independent venue dialogs that they (the denizens of Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site) cannot avoid participating in. : ). Then the playing field could be monitored much more objectively than @ur momisugly Cook’s radically censored and manipulated blog.
John
DirkH says:
August 6, 2013 at 4:42 pm
And BFL; you probably don’t know; but as a webmaster you upload your files wither with an ftp or with a web frontend. Both of them are always protected with username and password. You want to avoid that a guy you don’t know, say your friendly government, plants some kiddiepr0n on your web server to have an excuse to shut you down and throw you in a cage like they just did with that TOR guy. You will share the password only with people you trust.
So now you know.
———————————————————————————————————-
Sure enough, but it wouldn’t make sense, would it, that Cook and trusted company would allow that content in an SKS file on purpose. So perhaps an inside ringer or a hacker but still (probably) a skeptic (maybe even converted by Watts). For a good conspiracy: the Climate Gate leaker. Of course it’s always more fun to assume that Cook and Co. and/or friends are really that Batsh*t crazy.
Yes, please. Thank you.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Just a little bit? Just a little bit?
{apologies to Aretha Franklin}
I premise that Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site will not come to be respected by the currently growing legion of independents in science and in the general public who have significant critical arguments and work against the main positions held by Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site.
Forget respect. What can happen, in my view, is what happened to the RC site. That is, Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site continues to become increasingly an irrelevant backwater compared to the vigorous / open / independent dialog on climate science.
Anthony – thanks for your wonderful open, independent and vigorously supported venue.
John
I looked at SkS, once, a couple of years ago.
A commenter suggested that J Curry was still angry that The Mann stood her up, some time in the past. Talk about CREEPY.
Dana is pictured posing with Jo Grant (Katy Manning) who caused a bit of a stir by posing nude and in some instances Daleks were involved.
Sexist? Creepy? Irony?
(I won’t link to the pics but I’m sure serious researchers can find them 😉 )