Josh writes:
If you read the comment threads at Climate Audit then you will be familiar with a character called Nick Stokes who argues the impossible and indefensible with great tenacity. Steve’s patience with him is exemplary and this thread, in particular, prompted the cartoon.
Josh
“A Mind is a terrible thing to waste”?
Nick Stokes says:
“March 3, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Sherry, my identity has never been a secret. I have even, on request, pointed Anthony to a site with a photo..”
FYI: ‘File or directory not found’. http://www.cmis.csiro.au/Nick.Stokes/index.htm
Having read enough posts on this site by Nick Stokes, I agree with Willis Eschenbach’s characterization of the man. His is NOT the monologue of the well-meaning fool, but just that of a fool.
Nick likes to be in the kitchen. So he shouldn’t get upset when he gets roasted. Remember the hayday of political cartoons in the New Yorker? Bring those days back. I loved those cartoons. Way to go Josh! And I think Nick will show some class by laughing with us.
Ed, ‘Mr’ Jones says: March 3, 2014 at 7:26 pm
Yes, that site has since been reorganized. But as you saw, Anthony found it.
You go, Nick. We need everyone pushing to get this right. It may seem we are pushing from opposite sides of the stone, but the net effect is the stone edges incrementally up the hill.
geran says: March 3, 2014 at 1:47 pm
As Willis makes such good points, maybe Stokes should be disallowed at sites like this….
I think Nick adds value, regardless of his motivations. He should be allowed to express his opinions here and anywhere else he’d like.
REPLY: I second that, Nick violates no rules, he may be obtuse, even irritating, but he does make people think – Anthony
Nick Stokes says: March 3, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Sherry, my identity has never been a secret. I have even, on request, pointed Anthony to a site with a photo.
Hello Nick, were you the “team leader for Fastflo”?
http://www.csiro.au/communication/mediarel/mr96117.htm
I have been impressed with the data on your website;
http://moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/temperature-trend-viewer.html
and have incorporated some of your animations;
http://moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/sst-regional-movies-as-described-here-i.html
onto the WUWT reference pages. You should keep fighting the fight here at WUWT, as it is often perspectives like yours that help to challenge our understandings, hone our arguments and drive this debate forwards.
Here’s an example of Stokes being caught out by Lucia.
“Nick (writes)
My guess is that Greenpeace weighted this against the cost, which they had hoped to reduce, and withdrew.
Lucia (observes)
It appears you’ve changed your guess and have come around to my view. Previously, you wrote….
Nick (in an earlier comment)
Greenpeace presumably bowed out because they did not like their chances.”
Josh, do a cartoon mate, entitled –
Arguing with Warmists…like nailing jelly to the wall.
“For {Stokes}, truth is immaterial, … the end results of his actions are not humorous or entertaining in the slightest.”
Willis Eschenbach at 12:05pm today
Amen.
(that reminds me… IhavebeenprayingasIsaidIwould, w. — hope all is well)
THAT bore repeating and with emphasis. While, so far, Mr. Stokes should not be banned, those who think that he is a sincere, honest, person are either kidding themselves or do not know the man. Use him as a Devil’s advocate if you like, but always remember this: Stokes is a vile narcissist who by his misinformation makes himself for the mere sake of getting attention an enemy of all that is true and good.
And you know what his response to this comment would be? Glee. The man is SICK.
Take it as a compliment Nick. You seem to be the Eddie the Eagle of the climate world.
A little googling quickly determined that Nick Stokes, BSc MSc PhD, was employed at CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences.
On the blog, “The Air Vent”, he left the following comment:
“You’ll be pleased to know that I have retired from CSIRO quite some time ago, and for more than five years haven’t been accepting funding from anyone.
But I’m very happy to talk about GCM’s and the Navier-Stokes equations. I even did a bit of a riff on the subject here. It’s nearly a year ago, but comments are still open.”
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/life-in-tha-fast-lane/
At times Nick brings something worthwhile but often his puerile argument hinges on how a sentence is parsed or how a word is used rather than the topic at hand. He frequently does that at Climate Audit because I think he knows it gets under Steve’s skin. I call him Humpty Dumpty.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
I would grant him this much: his output across the blogosphere is astonishing.
Just The Facts says: March 3, 2014 at 9:11 pm
“Hello Nick, were you the “team leader for Fastflo”?”
Yes, that’s me. Thanks for the kind remarks.
March 3, 2014 at 12:05 pm | Willis Eschenbach says:
Willis this is a typical trait of the socialist Left in Australia … even with a tsunami of evidence confronting their ‘misbelief’, they refuse to admit wrong. Our ex-PM, ju-LIAR Gillard still maintains that she “did nothing wrong” despite the mountain of evidence suggesting that she clearly and knowingly did do something very wrong … a reason why she was dismissed from her lawyer position and will never practice law again.
@ur momisugly W Eschenbach
…Nick is doing his best to push policies that he knows hurt, impoverish, and even kill the poor. …… He’s doing his best to cast honest men as liars, and liars as honest men. For him, truth is immaterial, as long as he doesn’t have to admit that he is wrong. This is not innocent behavior. It’s not funny or cutesy. It is damaging and destructive.
I’m not claiming that Nick Stokes is attractive. I’m saying that our systems for unearthing scientific truth depend on adversarial investigation. For that to work, you need a competent adversary. Too many scientific supporters of AGW simply refuse to connect with the science and deal with inconvenient data by other means – smearing their opponent or censoring them, for instance. We NEED people like Nick Stokes in order to credibly disprove the AGW hypothesis.
Whether Nick Stokes’ proposals will damage humanity or not is irrelevant to this point. If he is really arguing a position he doesn’t believe, then he is an immoral person who does not deserve respect. He may believe that what he says is balanced, of course. But either way, Science, and Nature, do not care about such issues….
Nick should definitely be allowed to stay. He is the skeptics best friend and only servees to further their cause LOL (like many warmist, Nuticelli SKS are other examples even Flannery etc replies are the best proof that AGW is total BS)
***
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 3, 2014 at 12:05 pm
For me, he’s playing games with his damn word fiddle while Rome burns.
***
Yes. That, and his skills are woefully misapplied.
Yes … and none finer I would say. Anywhere else (excepting perhaps FreeRepublic) one would get banned immediately (as on DU, where just asking a few pointed Q’s resulted in an immediate banning) or immediately set upon by the hive-minded … even though we may ‘rib’ mercilessly those with the really ‘nutty’ ideas …
.
Observation #1
Nick Stokes is an asset to an open and free dialog. One does not need to agree with one word he ever said in order to say that.
– – – – – –
Observation #2
Janice,
I will always value his commenting when compared to that kind of comment of yours.
John
I think Stokes realizes he was wrong in the Feb 27 thread at Climate Audit, but simply can’t bring himself to admit it. Trying to cover a mistake makes one look increasingly foolish, but fools often miscalculate the effect.
Well, on second thought, even the most repulsive felon has the right to legal representation.
Nick has skill at arguing black is white and up is down.
he does engage the brain, as I attempt to follow his comments, only to annoy me when I realize he has done it again.
Great math skills? Apparently, logical argument? Ummm.
I first ‘crossed swords’ with Nick Stokes nearly 5 years ago at Jennifer’s blog. At the time, he appeared to have no understanding of the Chem 101 concept: solubility.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2009/05/relative-humidity-has-been-falling/?cp=1
Nick’s comment is at the bottom of the barrel — I mean bottom of the page. In retrospect, it was not very sporting of me to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
BTW, the Josh cartoon is spot-on!
Just The Facts says:
March 3, 2014 at 8:49 pm
geran says: March 3, 2014 at 1:47 pm
As Willis makes such good points, maybe Stokes should be disallowed at sites like this….
I think Nick adds value, regardless of his motivations. He should be allowed to express his opinions here and anywhere else he’d like.
REPLY: I second that, Nick violates no rules, he may be obtuse, even irritating, but he does make people think – Anthony
A secondary point is that most Climate Realist blogs have freedom of speech. For example, you can disagree with a blog post here as long as you’re civil about it.
Warmist blogs, like realclimate, are a different ball of wax. If you express a Politically Incorrect opinion — even a politely expressed, well reasoned opinion, backed up by evidence — your comment will be deleted. What are they so afraid of? The truth?