Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at “Digging in the Clay” Verity Jones has an excellent graphic summarizing the different levels of disagreement. The graphic deserves wider circulation. The types of disagreement range in a spectrum from the strongest, refuting the author’s central point, all the way down to the weakest, name-calling. Here’s the graphic:
The graphic is based on How to Disagree by Paul Graham, which is well worth reading. So let me discuss the pyramid shown above.
The problem with proving I’m wrong is that lots of folks don’t understand how to disagree effectively. So here’s the Quick Guide To Proving Willis Is Wrong.
Sadly, far too many folks make their living on the web down at the bottom of the pyramid, name-calling. Whether the insult is “ass hat” or “racist” or “Zionist” or “terf”, that goes nowhere.
Next up the pyramid is the “ad hominem” argument, like “Willis, you can’t be right, you don’t have credentials” or “you post on a ‘climate denier’ website”. Nonsense. The issue is, are my claims true or not? That doesn’t depend on my education, credentials, or where I publish.
Next up the pyramid is responding to tone. It’s where someone ignores the actual claims and issues and instead responds to how it’s presented. That’s something like “Willis, you shouldn’t be so harsh in your arguments.” So what? That doesn’t disprove anything.
Then we have contradiction. Here, the disagreement finally reaches the goal, the actual issues and claims themselves. However, there’s nothing but contradiction—no evidence, no math, no logic. Just “Nope, Willis, you’re wrong”. Again, that goes nowhere. Meaningless.
Then we have counterargument. We’re getting to the good stuff. This first contradicts what I said and then provides observations, evidence, logic, and/or math to support your argument.
Moving upwards, we have refutation. That’s where you first quote my exact words and follow with “Willis, that interpretation of the facts is wrong, and here are the detailed reasons why.”
You have actively refuted exactly what I said. And at this point, for the first time, you’ve shown I’m wrong.
Finally, many arguments rest on a central point. Show that point is wrong and the edifice crumbles. That looks something like “Willis, your central claim is where you say, and I quote, “Germaniums grow better under moonlight.” That’s wrong, and here’s why.”
The top two levels are the only ways to show that I’m wrong, and I invite you to do so—it’s the quickest path to me learning new things.
One thing I’d like to highlight is that in the linked article the author says (emphasis mine):
DH5. Refutation.
The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation. It’s also the rarest, because it’s the most work. Indeed, the disagreement hierarchy forms a kind of pyramid, in the sense that the higher you go the fewer instances you find.
To refute someone you have to quote them. You have to find a “smoking gun,” a passage in whatever you disagree with that you feel is mistaken, and then explain why it’s mistaken. If you can’t find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.
I bring all of this forward to encourage both myself and others to up our game, to aspire in our comments to the higher levels of the pyramid shown above, and to eschew the lower levels.
Finally, please, don’t bother with the bottom levels of the pyramid, name-calling, ad hominems, and the like. I’ll just point and laugh.
TL;DR version:
TO SHOW THAT WILLIS IS WRONG:
• Quote exactly what I said that you think is wrong, then
• Show with supporting arguments exactly why it’s wrong
Quoting is crucial. I can defend my words. I can’t defend your rephrasing of them.
Regards to everyone,
w.
My Usual Postscript: If you disagree with someone, please quote their exact words so we can all understand just what you are disagreeing with.
Further Reading: Verity Jones’s article is here.
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Sorry Willis, but I find this entire post disagreeable!
/grin
Obviously, Willis is not a trial lawyer. It seems that whenever a trial lawyer asks a witness a question, and does not receive the answer he wanted, the next thing from the lawyer is : “In other words; blah blah blah !”
In OTHER words, lies OTHER meaning.
That is exactly why we choose the words we use. I would tell the lawyer that ” I choose to NOT use OTHER words. ”
So take him at his word. When Willis says to cite HIS words, that you disagree with; DON”T cite other words, that he did NOT use.
g
PS. So called journalists, reporters, NEWS persons, are the same sort of pests, as trial lawyers, and want you to tell them what they want to hear.
Is there some reason Willis why you bring this up at this time. I mean, to me it seems pretty clear all the time, and it is what you always tell us to do in your postscripts, so has something happened that make this more important now?
He perhaps saw it in a recent post over at Judith Curry’s site – someone in the comments put a link to someone else’s site which discussed it. Well, that’s where I saw it just the other day. It could be a coincidence that Willis saw it at the same time it appeared at climate etc….
Then there’s the Argument Clinic 🙂
No, there isn’t!
Oh yes it tiss
You’re not even arguing with him, you’re just gainsaying.
It’s not just saying “No it isn’t”.
I appreciate this. but if the other guy’s career and/or ego is at stake what I write (where on your pyramid) won’t mean jack.
And there’s a whole worldview question (sometimes called “epistemology” or other things). which means our debating points will never be appreciated by the other side.
The warmists aren’t playing chess, where we can make a move and, suddenly, they realize they are lost,. The reason the whole thing is so far gone is because they are wrong at multiple levels. And It is very, very difficult to reach people who are wrong at multiple levels.
More to the point–they don’t care one bit they’re wrong because it wasn’t about the science to begin with. They just needed an excuse as thin as air (pun intended) to justify their thievery. Truth is the victim along with anybody in their path.
Epistemology is theory of knowledge. A worldview need not include any explicit epistemology, but will almost certainly include a lot of other things.
And just what is “knowledge.” ?
george e. smith
That’s a good question. Information theory provides us with mathematical means for defining “knowledge.” It is the quantity that is called the “mutual information.” It is the information that is available to us for the purpose of controlling a system. For the current crop of IPCC models the mutual information is nil.
TobiasN: our debating points will never be appreciated by the other side.
This is all too frequently true. But it doesn’t follow that the effort is valueless. Because the discussion is public, there is a sizeable audience of people who are open to rational discussion. It’s that open minded group that will be influenced for good or ill by the level of our dialogue. WE’s comments are right on target.
Exactly! A public debate is never about convincing the opponent, but rather those in the audience who are open to persuasion. The pyramid represents those arguments (ascending) which are most persuasive to those who are interested in and open to the facts of the argument. Unfortunately, most of the general public will not rise above the lowest 3, or at most 4, levels of argument.
yellow font on white background is horrible. Otherwise, nice graphic.
And that is, because yellow-white distinction is done purely with short-wave cones, which are rare, among healthy eyes, compared to long and mid wave length cones that distinguish black from yellow.
Never use a single color channel to distinguish as it makes some color blind people really suffer.
Climatists really like to use the rainbow scale, though we see rainbows pretty differently.
Sing ’em differently, too, especially when like The Git you can’t sing in tune. When it comes to listening with my eyes I get completely lost…
In my experience, climatists use less of a rainbow scale and more shades of red.
Climatists like to use many rainbows and unicorns.
There’s also another reason.
The human eye response to EM radiation, which we call “light” and measure in units that are not energy, is highly variable in many ways.
One of the ways that our perception varies, is how sensitive we are to desaturation of a monochromatic wavelength hue.
We are most sensitive in this respect, at the yellow wavelengths around 585 nm. The average human eye can recognize only five distinct levels of desaturation, between the monochromatic yellow at 585 nm, and the “white point.”
Greens and reds give us many more distinct desaturated levels.
So don’t use yellow text / lines in graphs.
My reference is “The Science of Color”, published by the Commission on Colorimetry of the Optical Society of America; one of the founding groups of the American institute of Physics.
It would certainly help if so many threads here, and on many other skeptic sites, didn’t turn into mindless diatribes against “liberals” and “Obama”….from the other side I expect ad-hominem because they have nothing else.
“It would certainly help if so many threads here, and on many other skeptic sites, didn’t turn into mindless diatribes against “liberals” and “Obama”….”
Not all such diatribes are mindless because after all, Obama and the majority of liberals do indeed support the CAGW meme.
Sure. We should say “some people” are trying to use the EPA to shut down coal power by citing CO2 as a pollutant and “some people” signed a hopeless treaty with China. Not Obama.
If those arguments are non-sequitur, then I would agree. However, in the case of CAGW, these arguments are often germane.
In the past, an academic debate was one that meant nothing to anyone except the principles. The greater public could safely ignore the debate and the science behind those muddy issues, because they could. Now we have an academic debate, mired in science that is completely muddy and unproven, using in many cases, highly questionable statistical methods, unproven (or already falsified) models, whose authors are beneficiaries of government funding and employment, who control the brainwashing of elementary school students, who drive the corrupt and useless “publish or parish” doctrines at research universities, whose administrators typically rake 50% off the top of every research grant to pay for their own bloated administrations. The people we’re talking about are an important interest group within the leftist coalitions in Western nations. And that is a fact.
I find it extremely ironic that the people benefiting from unsustainable economics of long-term deficit spending, unfunded promises to the public, runaway welfare state commitments, uncontrolled immigration, hopelessly underfunded public pension systems, who have little appreciation of the risks in artificially driving up the cost of energy, are the same people creating graduate level schools of environmental sustainability.
This post was a reply to Chris Moffat’s post.
Spot-on. quant. suff.
Willis E, are you by any chance in real life a Swede? You sound like a Swede:
* “we” Swedes discuss and discuss to reach an agreement.
btw. “we” is due to the fact that my “bestemor” grandmother on my father’s side was Norwegian. That’s not the same as being a Swede. From bestemor’s side I learnt: You don’t own land. You look after the land to next generation; All men are equal but unique. It’s better to stand up for your own views and opinion than standing up for someone else’s.
After Willis Eschenbach’s savage attack on a poor woman, that in good faith commented on one essay Eschenbach wrote, I have nothing to say about this mans input. I’m not gonna read anything Eschenbach writes before Eschenbach apologizes for that hateful attack.
Ad hominem and name calling with a strawman thrown in for misdirection.
If you don’t read, don’t comment! Especially without substance.
As this post of yours appears to be addressed to all of us readers and not just to Willis Eschenbach whose work you are not going to read without an apology, could you pleases quote exactly what this savage attack was? (And you have said a lot when you say that you have nothing to say).
Willis Eschenbach:
“Janice, you using my father-in-law’s death as an excuse for proselytizing for your religion is disgusting. I have no problem with Christ’s message, but your actions here represent one of the most despicable parts of Christianity” (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/18/my-friend-billy-2/)
That was it. A kind christian woman (Janice) commented on his story as a christian would. I’m an atheist and even I recognize a uncalled for savage attack for what it is. Willis Eschenbach must apologize.
No, Janice was the one out of line by attempting to use his grief as a method of conversion. The words she used were not an attempt to console or help (though in her mind it probably was), but to try to”draw him towards Christ. Sorry, old tactic that I was taught back in my devout childhood. However, it’s not helpful, it’s exploitative.
It’s as cringe-worthy as Shylock’s forced conversion at the end of Merchant of Venice
Having taken the trouble to read the original interchange, I fully agree with Willis’s reaction and words. You, Yngvar are out of order, as was Janice
Yngvar, thanks for your attack. You seem to have missed the salient points.
1. Janice used the occasion of my giving a decidedly non-Christian eulogy for my father-in-law as an excuse to try to convert me to Christianity, and to tell me that my deeply held beliefs have no lasting value. I objected strongly. It is unacceptable to use the time of mourning to attempt to convert someone, whether to Christianity, Islam or any other religion. I told Janice that in no uncertain terms.
2. I then apologized (four times from memory) for the harshness of my reply. The tone of it was clearly over the top, and I admitted it, but then I was grief-stricken and delivering a eulogy, not full of rainbows and light.
But I did not and I do not apologize for the essence of my reply. Her actions were wrong. If someone went to a Christian eulogy and used the occasion to tell the Christian man giving the eulogy that his beliefs in Jesus could not bring him lasting peace or hope, and then said that the Christian man should realize that Islam is the real answer, and then started spouting verses from the Koran to back up their case, you’d consider that person an unpleasant boor, and rightly so. That kind of action is uncalled for and intrusive at a eulogy. It’s not a time for pushing your own brand of religion, no matter how much solace it might bring you personally.
But that’s exactly what Janice said to me. And that is not the act of a “kind christian woman”, as you call her. Kind Christian women don’t try to sell Jesus at a Muslim eulogy. Kind Christian women just offer their sincere condolences and offer their Christian love and support without any attempt to convert the grieving or to quote verses from their holy book to show that Islam is wrong.
Could I have told her that she was way, way over the line in a more pleasant fashion? Sure, in a perfect world. Here in this imperfect world, I was upset and I lashed out … and then I sincerely (and repeatedly) apologized to her for the unpleasantness of my answer …
But no, Yngvar, I will not apologize to for calling her on her pushy, intrusive, inappropriate attempt to sell me Jesus while I was grieving for Billy. Wrong place, wrong time, and wrong manner.
Finally, let me add that Janice never objected to my comment. Not once. In fact, she stopped commenting on the thread completely. All of the outrage was then manufactured by folks such as yourself, who seem to take pride in being outraged on the behalf of others. For all that either you or I know, Janice felt that I was correct about her actions and has kindly accepted my apologies for my tone, leaving you alone to whine on and on about what a baaaad man you think I am … we just don’t know.
Your outrage is doing you a disservice, Yngvar. I’m not the man you think I am.
My best regards to you, along with my hope that you save your outrage for real offenses. Insisting that someone owes you an apology may make sense. But insisting that Person A owes person B an apology? I’m sorry, but in these kinds of cases I greatly prefer to deal solely with the principals.
Let me repeat what I said to Janice at the time. If she wants to make her case that my apologies were inadequate, or that her actions were appropriate, I’m more than happy to have that discussion with her.
But discussing it with you? Sorry, Yngvar, but until she appoints you her official spokesdude, I’m not interested in whatever you might be imagining about how Janice feels.
w.
I’ve said this to Janice in my own exchanges with her; religion is (or should be) a personal thing. As a devout atheist myself, I don’t take kindly to being told stuff that I think is pure crap (because it has no basis in evidence), and would much rather the religious person keep it to themselves, i.e. personal. I don’t want to hear it because it’s meaningless, puerile drivel. I place belief in a god, Jesus, on a par with Father Christmas. If YOU need to believe in something then that’s all fine with me. I don’t go ’round door-to-door trying to get people to become an atheist. If you want to believe something, then believe it…but keep it to yourself. I have just lost my father-in-law (a month ago), who was like a dad to me. Woe betide anyone who speaks any religious nonsense to my wife at the moment! We’re both feeling our lives are empty – given that a man who never did anyone any harm, was generous, and caring, is gone, and we’ll never get to see him again.
Notes that Willis doesn’t use quoted words.
Probably attacking strawman.
He is definitely misrepresenting the incident with
Janice
Willis:
“1. Janice used the occasion of my giving a decidedly non-Christian eulogy for my father-in-law as an excuse to try to convert me to Christianity, …”
Had I not seen the link to a comment thread I would have assumed that an ‘occasion’ was a wake for the deceased and not, as it turns out, in the open comments section to a public posting on a public website that doesn’t focus on grief management rituals. The context seems rather important as the general notion behind a public posting with public comments open is to permit discussion of the post in question.
“… and to tell me that my deeply held beliefs have no lasting value.”
I’m not sure what the point of this clause might be. Is the objection here that there was chutzpah involved in acknowledging that our personal set of beliefs last only as long as our person does? Or is the objection here that there was chutzpah involved in mentioning what seems to be a rather painfully obvious observation in the public comments to a public posting on a climate site?
“The tone of it was clearly over the top, and I admitted it, but then I was grief-stricken and delivering a eulogy, not full of rainbows and light.”
This seems a bit off to me. The ‘consensus’ of proper human behaviour in the West is that an apology is ‘I was wrong’ and that a rationalization, excuse, or pretense at an apology is ‘I was wrong, but.’ And indeed, if you were grief stricken to a degree that you were incapable of having a conversation about it, then the appropriate answer was not to invite public comment by making a public posting on a climate site.
” Her actions were wrong. If someone went to a Christian eulogy … [rationalization skipped] you’d consider that person an unpleasant boor, and rightly so. That kind of action is uncalled for and intrusive at a eulogy. It’s not a time for pushing your own brand of religion, no matter how much solace it might bring you personally.”
There’s several claims here and several problems. First, you imply that Janice was a gate crasher at a mortuary service. But so far as I understand the only death managed on this site is the ostensible death of climate alarmism. And while someone may be ‘boorish’ that does not imply that they were ‘wrong.’ It *does* imply that they violated the ‘consensus of social functioning.’ And, indeed, if Janice had simply bust into a room at a funeral parlor and started causing a ruckus then I think we could all agree on the wrongness of it. But then, this was a public post with public comments about climate. And there’s certainly no need to state that it must *always* be *solely* about climate. But certainly the culture on this site is to encourage and endorse strong argumentation on subjects regardless of what the ‘consensus’ might think about it.
“Kind Christian women don’t try to sell Jesus at a Muslim eulogy. Kind Christian women just offer their sincere condolences and offer their Christian love and support without any attempt to convert the grieving or to quote verses from their holy book to show that Islam is wrong.”
This argument only works on the idea that this was a Muslim funerary service in an appropriate mortuary facility. Given that this is not the case, the rest certainly does not and can not follow from the premise. And this is quite aside your naked and unbacked assertions about what a ‘kind christian woman’ would or would not do. From what I understand of your philosophical standpoint you are not a Christian, so you’ll forgive me for requiring some actual argument on your part before I blindly believe your statements about what ‘kind Christian’ anythings may or may not do.
“Here in this imperfect world, I was upset and I lashed out … and then I sincerely (and repeatedly) apologized to her for the unpleasantness of my answer …”
Two considerations here. The first, as already noted, an apology coupled with a ‘but then’ is never sincere. The second is that if you acknowledge that this is an imperfect world then it is somewhat entertaining that you do not acknowledge Janice as a mere imperfect part of this imperfect world. Which, if such were the case, would rather excuse her actions in the same manner that you are asking excuses for yours. — “Sorry, but…”
“All of the outrage was then manufactured by folks such as yourself, who seem to take pride in being outraged on the behalf of others.”
You make these statements as if having an outrage based on what you witness is somehow beyond the pale. But your entire argumentation relies on the idea that ‘other people’ would be outraged beyond the pale at the behaviors of Janice. But if we accept that then you are *also claiming by necessity* that other people’s outrage at your, let’s call it ‘boorish,’ behaviour in response to a public commenter on a public post in a community that encourages strong argumentation is entirely justified.
If this is so, then your behaviour is in the wrong here. No “Sorry, but” — simply an unforced error. But if your behaviour is not in the wrong, the Janice’s cannot be either, and so your accusations are an unforced error. I see no other way out of this snarl that doesn’t have you on the wrong side of your own argumentation; but you’re free to disabuse me of any oversights on my part.
“Let me repeat what I said to Janice at the time. If she wants to make her case that my apologies were inadequate, or that her actions were appropriate, I’m more than happy to have that discussion with her.”
Should we assume that this will be a public discussion with public comments on a public site about climate change? For certainly if discussion about this subject were ever inappropriate to begin with then so to was your original posting. But if it is not inappropriate here then your stated grievances about the conversations that arose are inappropriate themselves.
Best wishes to you and yours.
Willis Eschenbach
April 5, 2015 at 11:05 pm .
Hello Willis.
Maybe this is not proper but just for the sake of saying it.
I think the problem with what Janice said or tried to in that particular point is that she is a kind person, as far as I can tell.
I could be wrong, YES, but from what I have seen here Janice is a kind person.
Some times even a kind person may end up to say the right and the proper thing but in a wrong and unaccepted manner. That is life Willis, no one is perfect.
I went to read your great post then and the Janice’s comment.
I don’t think she was trying to preach or convert any one to her belief or faith.
Maybe she overstepped in her approach but I think all intention was for the good and kind.
In the end she resonated very well with you, due probably to her belief, that love rules above all, for us humans, even rules faith and what we individually believe on, what ever that is according to our belief and faith.
That was what actually I think you too were trying a say……
I have read a good deal of your work here but that particular post of yours is one that is lead by feeling mostly than rationale….
It was lead, as far as I can tell, out of your love for the most dear people or persons in your life, and believe me, it was very touchy to me, honestly.
Please do not be so harsh to Janice, as far as I can tell she tried at that time her best, but no any one of us is perfect, and I am confident that she has learned a lot from it, but I think you have to relax your judgement on her, if I am not wrong that is, especially after so much time has elapsed.
Trust me I do not mean to upset you.
I am sorry if I may have overstepped too.
cheers
Name calling.
Yngvar, you are an asshat, IMHO.
But what do I know, since you already obviously read what he wrote (at least some, if not all).
(BTW mods, just what exactly is different between and “asshat” and an “asshole”? Inquiring minds want to know. Is one more likely to get one’s post into moderation?)
[An asshat is the hole covering an empty head. And verse visa. .mod]
Didn’t read it. Name was mentioned in the headline. 🙂 But agree; this ‘asshat’ or ‘asshole’, whatever is agreed upon ; when will he apologize?
Damn, I forgot this;
“Me, I’d prefer it if you didn’t post again on this thread. However, people’s preferences obviously matter little to you, otherwise you wouldn’t try this kind of unpleasant witnessing. This can’t be the first time you’ve had your face slapped for exactly this behavior. And yet here you are again …
I hope that’s clear enough. If not, I’m happy to tell you how I really feel.”
Willis? This will not stand.
Well…
Well he’s been at the bottom of the pyramid on a few occasions but to give him his due he admits it also applies to him. So he gets an ‘early mark’ as we used to call it in the school room.
@Yngvar
Could you please explain what exactly is “hateful” and what exactly Eschenbach needs to apologize for?
Also, could you please explain exactly why you don’t need to apologize to Eschenbach for qualifying his words as a “savage attack” and a “hateful attack”?
I’m trying to understand where you are coming from here.
From here it looks like a clear case of a concern troll/drama queen attempting to hijack a thread by using an ad hominem attack against the author. Please let’s remain on topic and not keep feeding it.
I am rather new here, do not know any of you folks very well if at all, and am neither an atheist nor a devout Christian, although I was raised to be one by a father who was, for a time, a Trappist monk. This whole conversation is news to me, so perhaps my view can be seen to be objective.
Janice was out of line, the author had every right to say what he said, he committed no savage attack, at least not that has been revealed here, and Yngvar has no right to troll a comment section demand a redress of past wrongs* that have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
*And no past wrongs were demonstrated to have occurred to any convincing degree.
Settled.
Can we move on?
I read her polemic. She was lecturing him at length on how to deal with his loss by using her religion. Insensitive proselytising at best.
He was not the only one in the comments to tell her she was out of order.
Yes she responded using her faith but I would not have gone so far as to say it was “in good faith”.
As an atheist I get pissed off by people telling me that god is smiling on me when things I have worked for go well or that they are going to pray for me when things get tough.
Good old straw man political correctness?
The lower three win political elections in the Late Holocene.
Yngvar
Just wondering if your reaction is such because Janice is a woman and ‘nice’.
The Strawman Argument deserves its own layer between Contradiction and CounterArgument.
The Strawman is not an honest CounterArgument for it purposely misstates the primary one and then refutes that pale imitation with reasoning and evidence. But it is slight of hand, misdirection. It is a perfectly valid and truthful argument against a replacement target.
The Strawman is not a Contradiction because it does use evidence, facts, and truthfulness.
Stephen Rasey April 5, 2015 at 8:24 pm
The Strawman Argument deserves its own layer between Contradiction and CounterArgument.
Not sure where exactly it goes, but yes, it is a layer that has been left out.
The other thing missing from this model is any measure of background knowledge. You can have all the facts on your side, if the technical discussion is over the head of the person you are debating with, they do not matter. This in my mind is the real issue in the climate debate. To explain to many people why their suppositions are wrong, I first have to explain their side of the argument to them. Ten seconds into the physics, they “tune out”. All that is available at that point is appeal to authority and other tactics of the bottom end of the pyramid.
Indeed! See DR. DEV BAHADUR DONGOL elsewhere on hydro-power and the lack of understanding of head loss through devices. (in pipelines, not guillotines.)
Responding to tone
Ditch the preposition altogether.
Good point! A preposition is something you should NEVER end a sentence with. Of course, this is right on topic, too.
funny…
Seriously, I would think that in a “real science” discussion involving disagreement, the participants would begin at the “Refutation” level.
What this says about the “climate science” arena, where all too often the Alarmist/Warmist folks prefer to start at the bottom level quite often, is perhaps the point of the OP.
Also, the skeptics folks prefer to start at the bottom level quite often.
“I’m trying, Ringo. I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.”
There’s a level missing – censorship. Not onlt not bothering to ‘attack’ someone, but making it as if they never existed in the first place.
That’s not the only thing missing. Has anyone noticed a central point recently? Where is there a falsifiable hypothesis/theory of anthropogenic global warming, or anthropogenic climate change, as it stands in April, 2015?
Perhaps when Brandon’s done mentally masturbating on the other six threads, he can let us know.
Joking aside, is there one ? … does the AGU have one, or the other posters on here who, despite the fact that they should know better, still proclaim with convoluted fancy language that it’s simple physics?
philincalifornia,
Is it really six threads? Yeesh, I think you’re correct.
Well let’s see, AGW is pretty much where it has been since 1896 in terms of falsifiability. The details have been fleshed out quite a bit. If you’ll pardon the pun, ECS is a hot topic this week …
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/ecs-2k-again/
… as it pretty much always has been since FAR went to press. So from my POV, it’s mostly about getting the fine details less wrong. From your perspective I imagine it looks like something akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Brandon:
From your perspective I imagine it looks like something akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic
When you can show (as you couldn’t in our previous discussion) hard scientific evidence for any global climate parameter being caused by CO2 going from 280ppm to 400ppm CO2, you still won’t have standing to use Titanic analogies.
From my perspective, it looks like people who can’t get productive jobs digging ditches and filling them in, with the filling in part beginning to get underway.
…. and your failure to present “a falsifiable hypothesis/theory of anthropogenic global warming, or anthropogenic climate change, as it stands in April, 2015”, is noted.
…. that would be “any change in” any global climate parameter
philincalifornia,
You didn’t ask for evidence, you asked for a falsifiable hypothesis/theory. Arrhenius (1896) was my answer.
Fair enough. Is that your final answer?
Hmm, ok. How do you define falsifiability in this context? How is it specifically that Arrhenius (1896) does not meet that definition?
The size of that list is quite dependent on which observational data series you consider valid. Penny for your thoughts.
Please cut and paste Arrhenius’ falsifiable hypothesis/theory (from Arrhenius 1896) that states what effect atmospheric CO2 going from 280 ppm to 400 ppm will have any effect on any global climate parameter.
Yes, I know this is an impossible task, so why don’t you state your own updated 2015 version, and please feel free to cut and paste anyone else’s, and that would be any climate scientist’s or, indeed, any other human being on the planet’s version, or succinctly distill something down as you see fit …..
It’s like touching the third rail innit ? Sizzle sizzle ouch ouch.
You could always run away, while dropping some pathetic attempted deflecting comment too ……
…. as if.
philincalifornia:
There is no falsifiable hypothesis/theory. In his response to you, Brandon Gates fails to cite one though implying that he is doing the opposite..
philincalifornia,
I have two pending questions you have failed to answer:
1) How do you define falsifiability in this context?
2) How is it specifically that Arrhenius (1896) does not meet that definition?
Brandon:
Which statement in Arrhenius (1896) do you have in mind?
Terry Oldberg,
I have asked philincalifornia to define terms. He has not.
Brandon Gates
It might be fruitful for you to read my response to philincalifornia and react to this response.
Terry Oldberg April 6, 2015 at 9:39 pm
…. and also that the Pyramid has no facility for dealing with “weaseling out of the argument while simultaneously trying to pretend it’s the other’s fault”.
Maybe this post’s a bit too old, but on other threads there’s sometimes the additional person to join in (might be Brandon’s Mom) to announce that Brandon is winning the argument because he’s way cleverer than the opponent.
Maybe a 3D pyramid could handle it?
My last two interactions with Brandon have actually been quite an eye-opener for me. A priori, I would have honestly thought that given the wealth of AGW, ACC and CAGW comments in the blogosphere, together with the peer-reviewed literature and statements from Scientific Societies, it would be possible to either cut-and-paste, or cobble together a real falsifiable hypothesis or theory of where the hypothesis or theory stands in 2015.
There is a methodological error in global warming climatology that accounts for Brandon’s inability to cite a falsifiable hypothesis. This is that the events underlying the models do not exist. It follows that when a claim is made by one of these models it does not have a truth-value. That it does not have a truth-value makes this claim non-falsifiable. For brevity I’ve left out some steps in a proof of this conclusion. If you’d like, I’ll supply the missing steps.
philincalifornia,
Is that what kids these days are calling “bait and switch”?
Arrhenius (1896) was my original answer to your original question. It meets my definition of falsifiability because it makes testable claims. His central thesis — here’s your copypasta — was:
If the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.
This is still in conceptual use today by what the IPCC calls “simplified expressions”:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/c/2/a/c2a0e92291f118a8258a19b8fa58bb07.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/2/c/f/2cfca9ed59cb49f7b68570481ee87f53.png
The argument in literature is about the value of the coefficients, which I alluded to in my original reply to you by referring to ATTP’s blog post about ECS: https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/ecs-2k-again/
I would be happy to discuss the range of those estimates with you, but first there’s the small matter that you continue to insist that I’ve not yet provided you with a falsifiable hypothesis/theory of AGW. So I have challenged you for your definitions of those terms, and asked you to explain how Arrhenius (1896) does not satisfy your requirements. In dismally predictable fashion, your response is to pretend I am the one who has moved the goalposts in this discussion. As an added bonus, you’ve tossed into that mix some spicy speculations about me soliciting Mom’s help to astroturf for me. So charming.
As is often the case here on WTFUWT, I’m reminded of George Carlin’s take on an old Samuel Clemens aphorism: Never argue with stupid people, they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
So congrats my dear Phil. Not only did you beat me to the bottom — having started there with your master baiting technique — I have now brought the fight to your level knowing full well that it’s to your advantage to do so and that I’m very likely to get clobbered. You’re a Winner!
Exactly. Speaking of being exuberantly pleased with oneself, the other script you’re running is called JAQing off, where JAQ stands for “just asking questions”: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions
“Just asking questions” takes over [from the Socratic method] when the answers are already well known, where the question embodies a point refuted a thousand times, or where the questioner exhibits willful ignorance.
JAQ-offs are ridiculously easy to spot …
… because they’re fond of saying things like, “Runnin’ away aye? Come back ‘ere you yellow bastard and take what’s comin’ to you. I’ll bite your legs off!”
Such buffoons can be a lot of fun, all it takes is a certain amount of not giving a shit. There again, I expect I you have me at a disadvantage. I will say this though, you’re an awfully good tutor in that particular art. Ta.
Terry Oldberg,
Phil’s a big boy and doesn’t require an apologist.
I already know where you stand as we’ve discussed it several times before, without satisfactory resolution to definition of terms. My view of it is that, not unlike Phil, you stand on definitions and won’t budge from them even when I have pointed out where I think they fail. Which I find tedious and non-productive. So thanks, but no thanks.
It would be appropriate to read your non-response as a capitulation on the falsifiability issue.
Unless one is disposed to conclude your argument is sophistry.
I’m going with capitulation too, maybe even evisceration given his Black Knight projection, but he can always carry it on further as Willis has added some comments starting here:
Willis Eschenbach April 7, 2015 at 5:46 pm
Tanya – If you are still around, I agree. And I’ve added two myself, though someone might think they are much the same – mischaracterization of the opposition and Straw Man arguments. The former is done a lot in politics. The latter in all sorts of debates.
In my comment I failed to quote Tanya and what I agreed with. Tanya had said:
“There’s a level missing – censorship. Not only not bothering to ‘attack’ someone, but making it as if they never existed in the first place.”
From the article:
To refute someone you probably have to quote them. You have to find a “smoking gun,” a passage in whatever you disagree with that you feel is mistaken, and then explain why it’s mistaken.
I almost always quote the words that I disagree with. Usually by writing something like, XYZ says: [ … ] (their comment cut and pasted, in italics).
Quoting them verbatim avoids lots of confusion. Something I learned from Willis a long time ago.
[And that practice is STRONGLY recommended by the site moderating team. For improved accuracy, and to “tie together” replies from comments often many hours or days old, further separated by other answers in the thread. .mod]
Quoting verbatim may avoid confusion, but it also avoids addressing what is assumed or intentionally unsaid. The insistence of some contributors on being directly quoted allows avoidance of debate or discussion of assumptions a contributor is making, but not stating.
A case in point would be recent discussion over several threads of Viscount Monckton’s “simple” climate model. The attempt to corral or ring-fence the debate to discussion of the applicability of the Bode equation in feedback modelling only, was used to suppress “OT” comment on the underlying assumption that the radiative gases in our atmosphere had a net positive warming effect.
Essentially this reduced discussion to a pointless theoretical exercise debating the applicability of the Bode equation to modelling that has absolutely no relation to actual atmospheric physics. How many theoretical angels can dance on the head of a theoretical pin in a theoretical alternate universe?
Cleaning the elephant dung from the carpet without acknowledging how it got there is not going to solve anything.
Hi Konrad,
You can do both. I’m certainly not saying my way or the highway. Quoting verbatim, then responding to it avoids unnecessary confusion, that’s all.
I was agreeing with the Refutation part of the pyramid. I think your comment applies to other parts.
dbstealey,
I do understand the “avoidance of confusion” issue both you and the moderators have raised.
However, being an empiricist, I too am solidly on the Refutation end of the argument.
I’m not being belligerent here, as I do value your comments, but on many occasions you have stated that you believe CO2 will cause some warming. I am one of the happy few who ask “Why?”. (Happy because the Internet holds a permanent record of who was who on St. Crispin’s day).
I believe it is not enough for sceptics to be “less wrong” than alarmists. I believe we have to be right.
This AGW inanity has been the greatest assault on science, reason, freedom and democracy in human history. Sceptics self censoring and ring-fencing debate to the “acceptable” lukewarmer positions simply allows the perpetrators to flee, recoup and attack again. This is the inevitable price of being “less wrong” rather than right.
I do not ask that you respond on thread, but I do ask that you question why you think adding radiative gases to our radiatively cooled atmosphere reduces it’s ability to cool the surface of our planet.
I would suggest that “warming but less than we thought” is not a winning argument, but “AGW due to CO2 is a physical impossibility” is. In terms of what as at stake, not just now but in the future, there is nothing to be gained from the lukewarmer position. That’s why I say it is not acceptable to just debate lukewarmers on their chosen ground of battle through direct quotation. They must be taken to task over what they intentionally avoided saying.
Konrad,
I suppose the best answer I can give you is that Prof Richard Lindzen, Anthony Watts, and many others who know more about the subject than I do are convinced that CO2 adds a little warming. Not much; I tend to agree with Lindzen that it’s in the neighborhood of ≈half a degree per doubling. Radiative physics also predicts a small amount of warming on a diminishing log basis.
That said, you could be right. The reason I say that is because we don’t really know. With the rise in CO2, there should be at least a very tiny bit of warming. But there isn’t. And if cooling begins, that will support your argument. Real world evidence trumps all speculation.
Konrad:
“Quoting verbatim may avoid confusion, but it also avoids addressing what is assumed or intentionally unsaid. The insistence of some contributors on being directly quoted allows avoidance of debate or discussion of assumptions a contributor is making, but not stating.”
Your unstated assumption, that I will address here, is that unstated assumptions are not also part of the *understanding* of the verbatim text. Now it is certainly true that any individual can refuse to address anything at all, at any point in time. But this is easily dealt with, which I will use your case study for:
“…was used to suppress “OT” comment on the underlying assumption that the radiative gases in our atmosphere had a net positive warming effect.”
For any such given discussion there are two approaches. The first is to explicitly denote and call into question the background assumption that there would be a ‘net positive warming effect.’ If this has been addressed appropriately in other works then the person making fact claims on the back of this assumption must assuredly have the ability to answer the issue. By making fact claims they have placed themselves in the role of a teacher and the onus is on them.
It is only if they cannot produce this background work, or refuse, that we may *properly* note that the entire discussion is based on false premises and so has no legitimacy as rational though. However, it is *perfectly proper* for them to restate their background assumption as a hypothetical only, and then proceed from there. It is still on their head that they didn’t make the hypothetical explicit, but this is easily rectified. And so long as the conclusions are likewise constrained as being dependent on the success of the background hypotheticals then there are no issues.
But if (hypothetical statement here) they cannot produce the background facts, will not produce the background facts, and neither produce their argument as a hypothetical (see this sentence) that we can then state that they have left the boundary of sanity for the warm fuzzies of illogical statements of dogma.
Hope this helps.
Konrad asks “How many theoretical angels can dance on the head of a theoretical pin in a theoretical alternate universe?”
One. If another one comes along they will fight over who gets the privilege of standing on a pin.
2 days late in this conversation, so this may not contribute much to the give and take…
Konrad: “I would suggest that “warming but less than we thought” is not a winning argument, but “AGW due to CO2 is a physical impossibility” is.”
Not sure I’d make that argument myself. I’d go for “Catastrophic AGW due to CO2 is a physical impossibility” is. Without the “catastrophe to come“, they’ve got NOTHING. It is truly unbelievable how many people on the street really accept that the world for their grandkids is going to be an oven and approaching unlivable. THAT is what they are selling, not just any old garden variety AGW.
dbstealy: “Not much; I tend to agree with Lindzen that it’s in the neighborhood of ≈half a degree per doubling. Radiative physics also predicts a small amount of warming on a diminishing log basis.
That said, you could be right. The reason I say that is because we don’t really know. With the rise in CO2, there should be at least a very tiny bit of warming. But there isn’t.”
I have to come in with that silly old thing called the Little Ice Age and what happens at the end of cool or cold periods: The climate warms. I am a pretty big fan of Lindzen, and am glad he is on our side. He is a great voice of calm on a hillside full of banshees, screaming across the vale. But the TREND since the early 1800s is clearly a slight upward trend. And upon that tilted slope are 30-year ups and 30-years of slightly down or flat periods. There have been 3 full cycles like that, and we re in the fourth. That 60-year full cycle keeps on happening. Ask Judy Curry about that cycling. Without us coming out of the LIA, does the cycle still exist but on a flat trend? Is “The Pause” simply the current 30-year down-slope?
At some point the warming coming out of the LIA will end, and then what? In the Holocene we’ve come out of several nosedives in the record shown in the Greenland ice cores – severe 13°C or 14°C drops and just about the same near-immediate rises, ones much more severe than what we have today. Since the end of the Younger Dryas, we’ve had a REMARKABLY stable climate, with the very best chance for humans and other life forms to “live long and proper”. Since we don’t have a CLUE about what those severe downs and ups were from, do we have any idea what our future holds? Can we use the history of the Holocene and ignore the rest of the Pleistocene?
Dec 2013 Don Aitkin used that same graphic in a post explaining how Eco-bullies continually strive to drive away critics from internet debates, his example being how Alarmists try to take over the debate site called The Conversation (which is ultimately funded by UK and Australian governments)
http://donaitkin.com/how-not-to-argue/
March 2015 : his blog told how they had succeeded in driving him away.
http://donaitkin.com/what-sort-of-conversation-do-you-get-on-the-conversation/
I am pleased to see recognition of the fact that “refute” means “prove wrong”. All too often I hear people – usually politicians – say “I refute that” when all they do is deny. (Of course, for a politician the fact that he has said it is sufficient proof.)
This dog might be too old for new tricks.
If those spankings it took at a young age didn’t take…..I doubt it will change now.
Which is not to say the point was entirely missed.
As someone who has recently entered the fray disagreeing along the “tone” level, I find this verry interesting. And I agree. What I might add, thought is that these categories are not necessarily in a vertical level of value at any giventime, and they are not isolated. Legitimate points can be made in combination as well as in singularity, and one point may be most signficant at one moment while some other point is most significant at another.
Skepticism requires disagreement. Someone has to disagree and be allowed to disagree otherwise we are talking about a consensus. Any positioning that attempts to stop the disagreement through bullying or condescension or other intellectual or “clever” means, is a strike against skepticism in general. “Tone”, in this regard, is a non-legitimate argument, especially when it is used in a poor-victim sense, i.e. I have been attacked unfairly, so I shall not take additional push-back well.
Using the term “denialism” is a way to introduce extreme, negative tone to the conversation. Attack defense uses negative tone – even if in the background good technical arguments are being used. As social creatures we recognize these negative cues: we are supposed to sit down and be quiet because our “betters” have spoken. Again, this goes against the basis of skepticism.
Regardless of provocation, the leaders are supposed to accept disagreement. Emotionalism may be our primitive, knee-jerk response, but the higher level participants are supposed to – yes, value judgement here, as thousands of years of philosphers would attest – “rise above”.
Tone is important. It facillitates or suppresses discussion, especially when there is a dispute. Wars start and continue based on tone.
Pulpit and preachers exist because the laymen need to be reminded of things. The importance of tone might be one of those things. I don’t say this because I am think I am “smarter”, but because I have seen the effect of tone over many years of personal and private market life. It counts.
Well, argument on tone does have some valid use, mostly as an ad-hominem rebuke.
When you state your position and are then accused of being a conspiracy theorist, paid off, or insane, you really don’t have any position to work with. I have in the past said outright “if you cannot debate politely then I shall not continue this discussion” and then left. It’s not optimum, but it’s better than beating your head on a brick wall.
Having successfully and convincingly accomplished refuting the central point at the top of the pyramid without acknowledgement of such from the opponent can quickly lead to the type of argument described near or at the base.
Alinsky’s Rules for radicals #5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
[And that practice is STRONGLY recommended by the site moderating team. For improved accuracy, and to “tie together” replies from comments often many hours or days old, further separated by other answers in the thread. .mod]
Which is what people did a lot better job of before that silly “reply” button got introduced. Just sayin’.
David…..what to do?
Without the reply button you would never read THIS but with it following the threads feel like we’re lost in a universe of infinite universes.
I must admit that I believe I’m slowly leaning back towards the old single thread calling out timestamps and quotations. (At least that way I know I’ve actually finished a thread.)
+1
Yes, the “reply” button was appealing in theory, but I find that I dislike it in practice. At least for me it makes it more likely I’ll miss something I didn’t intend to.
Nope. This is not the way normal dialogue works. This is the way an obsessive compulsive tries to manage everyone in the universe into conforming to his delusional wacky POV.
WTF??? I mean really.
Strawman combined with ridicule, name calling.
utter bewilderment….This is like a bad David Lynch script.
Dialog frequently does not work, precisely for these very reasons. If your interlocutor makes assumptions about what you (a hypothetical “you”, not you) mean, because perhaps your phrasing might have been superior with a little less Bushmills on board, and argues against what he understands you to have said, rather than what you meant, there will be problems. If you presume that the words you utter have a crystalline clarity of meaning, and that your audience could not possibly misunderstand, problems multiply. The results are not pretty.
Paul Westhaver, how does “normal dialogue” work?
Ok…you got me.
This is missing the one from the grammarian without self control e.g. that reads, “asshat is one word” and its cousin that finds a correctible nonfatal error and then evermore states in responses to that writer that the writer has no credibility because of that since corrected error.
Willis, I think Graham’s pyramid is worth bringing out every little while, and did so myself a year or two ago, at
http://donaitkin.com/how-not-to-argue/
There is another type of argument.
It is refuting the proposition not by finding mistakes in the proposal, but by outflanking the proposal and address flawed hidden assumptions. This is an argument that applies to proofs via different coordinate systems or tensor analysis. No one must dissect a proposed perpetual motion machine — argument from the foundation of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics should be sufficient.
Berkley Earth’s scalpel is refuted in my mind because I object to the harm done to low frequency signal as viewed in the Fourier Domain. I don’t need to know the ins and outs of their regional homogenization on thousands of 2-10 year segments. The low frequency climate signals have been obliterated by slicing records and no massaging of the high frequency weather noise will restore it.
There was a book called The Black Hole War, which was a tussle between Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind. This was one of those arguments approaching a problem from different modelling concepts. Susskind was using traditional Quantum Mechanics, Hawking wrecking everything with an unsettling conclusion about the entropy of black holes. There resolution required finding hidden assumptions in both models.
I don’t know an accepted name for it. For the time being I’ll call it “CounterPoint or CounterView”. It should fall at the level of Refutation, but it is close to CounterArgument.
There is no change.
That reminds me, there is the Steven Mosher Argument,
so far under that pyramid if falls off the page.
The Drive-By, Non-sequitur, “What ARE you talking about?”
the MSM is not into refuting even the most outlandish of CAGW ***claims:
6 April: Yomiuri Shimbun Japan: Ryuichi Otsuka: Global warming more dangerous than N-plants
During a recent visit to Japan, Sachs (Jeffrey Sachs, U.S. economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University) spoke to The Yomiuri Shimbun about what it would take to achieve sustainable development. The following are excerpts from the interview:
Q: The SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) list many challenges. What are the most serious challenges?
A: ***The most basic challenge is that our economic system is not compatible with our environmental safety. The climate is being changed by our energy system. Scientists say ***we are reaching planetary boundaries…
Q: It’s difficult to feel threats of climate change.
A:***It requires lots of scientific knowledge to understand a full detail. ***But I do feel that people are intuitively grasping that the climate is changing. I would emphasize that the risks are not only about the future. ***Last year was the warmest ever recorded, and ***all over the world there were huge typhoons…
Q: Some people are afraid that the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) will not be transparent enough or will not meet international standards.
A: Outside worries and commentaries had an effect in China ensuring that this institution will be high-quality. I met with the leadership of AIIB in Beijing and they reiterated to me their commitment that the bank itself will follow very high international principles, ***it would follow sustainable development concept and clean technology. So I was very encouraged by what I heard…
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002059677
Nov 2014: Reuters: For India, China-backed lender may be answer to coal investment
By Manoj Kumar and Tony Munroe
A senior Indian official told Reuters the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), sponsored by China, is expected to allow funding of coal-fired power plants that the World Bank has almost totally blocked.
“When you have 1.3 billion people starved of electricity access and the rest of the world has created a carbon space, at this point denying funding is denying access to cheap energy,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
India sits on the world’s fifth-largest reserves of coal, and the commodity generates three-fifths of India’s power supply. But the demand for electricity far outstrips supply, and according to data compiled by the World Resources Institute in 2012, proposals have been made to set up 455 new coal-fired plants in the country…
Since 2013, the World Bank’s energy strategy limits the financing of coal-fired power plants to “rare circumstances”, making it part of a push by U.S. President Barack Obama to fight climate change…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-india-aiib-insight-idUSKBN0IP2S020141106
Wikipedia: 2014 Pacific Typhoon Season
The season began with the formation of Tropical Storm Lingling on January 10, 2014; and ended after Tropical Storm Jangmi which dissipated on January 1, 2015. The season was not as active and costly as the previous typhoon season.
Re: “Scientists say…we are reaching planetary boundaries.”
And on and on we hear the same thesis reinvented under differing guises.
Who could ever have imagined in the days of Malthus, that here we would all be nearly two centuries later living prosperous and fruitful lives (by comparison with 1815) and surrounded by great technological wonders.
When I was young the intellectuals of the day were obsessed with the club of Rome and limits to growth.
Some wise people referred them back to the failure of the predictions of Malthus.
And, we had the peak oil predictions, the scare of the 1970’s and Hubbert’s, now broken, curve.
And on and on we go, one failed prediction follows another.
Constantly failing to understand that we cannot imagine the situation in which future people will find themselves. And certainly not prepare for a world 100 years hence.
If we prepare now for 2100, then the people of the future will not thank us for it.
Because our current vision of the problems that they face will inevitably look short-sighted and bizarre. Even a decade seems to be able to throw up massive surprises.
Just as, the people of 1915 had no way of preparing us for the problems that we face today.
For example, the people of 1915 would never have imagined that a group of people called environmentalists would be obstructed the advance of technological progress and access to affordable low-carbon energy.
Nobody could have imagined that environmental pressure groups and academics would have, over several decades, obstructed the expansion of large scale hydro-electrical power generation.
Leaving many of the world’s poor dependent on coal and gas generation and locally sourced wood.
Not only is the future unpredictable, but it takes years of work, just to figure out what is really going on, right now!!!