Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Our old friend John Cook thinks climate skeptics have to be psychologically “inoculated”, to help reeducate us into accepting climate science, without triggering a reflexive “denial” response.
The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
As the scientific consensus for climate change has strengthened over the past decade, the arguments against the science of climate change have been on the increase.
…
How to get the right message out
There’s a great deal of research into how to communicate science more effectively and science communication should be evidence-based. But scientists and science communicators cannot afford to ignore the potential of misinformation to undermine good science communication.
One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3YngyVdyrI
The findings of psychology underscore the importance of this new study into the production of misinformation by conservative think-tanks. To paraphrase the authors, the era of science denial is not over. Climate science communicators would be prudent not to start waving a “mission accomplished” banner just yet.
One question John – have you tried looking in the mirror?
Climate models have demonstrated no skill whatsoever at predicting the climate. There has been no improvement in the embarrassingly broad range of climate sensitivity predictions, which strongly suggests models are very incomplete, that scientists are having a hard time reconciling models with reality.
John, what is the source of your overwhelming confidence in your position? Why do you ignore the growing discrepancy between models and observations? Could it be, that you are the one who is clinging desperately to climate fallacies, in the face of a growing body of adverse evidence?
The same problem occurred with the Grand CFC Ozone Depletion Scare of the ’80s, before AGW became popular. The computer modellers were on their own planet and everything was gloom and doom. Nothing fitted observed facts.
That should have been plenty of `inoculation’ for Climate Change because nothing has changed.. The computer models are still modelling an unknown planet. It’s sure not The Third Rock from the Sun.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291833573_ozonePaperResource
[Please add a few words of explanation when posting links. Thanks. -mod]
Good work Mr. Munshi!
The truth is that academia has always indulged in these stupid fads – but the internet changed them in two ways:
1. Academics across the world started acting as one homogeneous group (as opposed to each department seeing itself as mainly part of its own University) – so it was all the easier for subject based group think to take off.
2. The internet provided the means for external people to come together to review, comment and critique the work of academia and so provide an effective opposition to academic group-think.
And the other thing which has changed, is that academia is no longer the sole source of our history through which it used to control our history. Now we on the internet are writing our own history and academia may huff and puff and say “that’s our job”, but now because of the internet they can’t just conveniently rewrite OUR history to hide their political bias, arrogance leading to massive mistakes and appalling attacks on outsiders.
Non-OCD (Obsessive Climate Disorder) people must be suffering from False Consciousness or something. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a compliant media that’s hungry for drama.
+1
Excellent point!!! The liberation from Academia societies. If Cultural Anthropology had not been hijacked by the same Loon Logic as Climate Lies, it would make for a great study!!!
Climate Science, a theory ,,published by, “Psychiatric House”.
I wonder if they need to be strapped into a chair with their eyes propped open like in “A Clockwork Orange”?
That and a little ipecac, presto another good little drone is borne.
The way to know for certain that it is both a scientific and environmental lie is to inform the afflicted that there has been a cut in oil rigs of over 50% in a single year.
This news and similar news with respect to global economic collapse and a similar collapse in steel production and other manufactured items including a collapse in the consumption of oil has not even registered.
If a ‘carbon green’ environmentalist is informed there is no joy that the decline in oil rigs will be reflected in a decrease of CO2 emissions.
If a climate change CO2 adherent or denier is informed a cut in oil rigs also cuts CO2 production, those on both sides of the fence barely register.
I myself personally have not found any evidence that points to the awareness that a cut in oil rigs or even economic collapse cuts CO2 emissions in any paper i have seen other than my mention of this salient fact by me here
It would not matter if i ‘Clockwork Orange” style informed someone. It would not register on both sides of the so called science.
No, no, no, Henry! That is coercive. Cook wants everyone to accept ideologies as fact by clever psychological manipulation so it never occurs to them they are being lied to. It is all for the common good (of the leadership).
If it works, this inoculation thing, I have a slew of ideas I would like to inoculate people with. One is that if the matter concerns physical reality, all suppositions, vain imaginings and arrogant assumptions should be challenged at first light.
As the Pink Floyd song says, “got to keep the loonies on the path”.
Well shucks. There is no money in your solution.
So, if one is properly educated in the sciences and also taught how to use a proper BS-science filter, one is vaccinated against inoculations with the junk science of climate change.
The simple fact that they took “climate change” and redefined it to mean “manmade global warming” for the express purpose of hiding their agenda. Real climate change occurs constantly and is part of our planet. The marvel of Earth is that our climate, with so many real variables, has such a relatively constant climate in the short term and massive swings, glaciat/interglacial and ice ages/hot-houses, in the long term, caused by major climate determinants, which does not include any gases at all.
The theory of inoculation:
First, there was the hep B vaccine propaganda. Mass vaccination of children in school (very disorganized), doubling of MS in France, big flop.
Then, there was the AH1N1 pandemic pig flu (which wasn’t pandemic according to the old definition and wasn’t a pig flu either). Gigantic flop.
No, the French people are skeptical of the flu vaccine and many other vaccines.
Yep, inoculation works, just not as they planned.
Ah, the good old days of plagues, mass deaths, children mostly dying before age ten!
“the good old days of plagues”
Do you have ANY real argument?
I guess not.
Your answer is the typical warmista’s answer, transcribed to vaccines.
Please do not conflate anti vaccine propaganda with climate realism.
It is my opinion that drawing such comparisons is harmful to the credibility of CAGW skeptics
I would hazard a guess that most here do not concur with your disapproval of vaccines, and would rather not bring this or any other strawmen into discussions of climate issues.
Besides, I believe this is an issue our host has requested not be discussed here.
I get the feeling that belief in vaccine is very much like the CAGW. There is a very vocal group, like yourself, that immediately jump on anyone who asks any questions. All questioning on any online glob or board that I’ve ever seen get immediately shouted down. It’s like questions are taboo. Is this not like the Warmists belief in CAGW?
Within the office I work, there are a small number of people, (guessing at 5-10%) who have never been vaccinated, myself included. My point is, no matter what the commonly voiced belief is, there is a quiet community who do not get combative over the subject, but who do not believe the benefits outweigh the risks.
You’re unaware of them because you immediately get defensive… you do not allow questioning.
“I would hazard a guess that most here do not concur with your disapproval of vaccines,”
I would hazard a guess that most here spent exactly zero hours to check the Big Medicine (Big Pharma AND Big Doctors) propaganda for vaccines.
Many vaccines are unproven. Vaccines are NOT required to be tested like normal drug. Did you even knew that?
Vaccines are usually evaluated indirectly, by proxies. The relevance of climate “science” skepticism to vaccines are obvious. Have you researched ANY of this?
Vaccines is a religion of the right like climate is a religion of the left. “Anti-gov” “conservatives” are going to cite a crackpot gov website (the CDC website) like the left is citing NOAA as gospel. But NOAA is corrupt to the right, and CDC is sacrosaint. CDC doesn’t need evidence or logical argument.
Even a 10 years old would the vaccine propaganda for what it is, just like any non-mentally challenged 10 years old can see the climate propaganda for what it is. This is because 10 years old can understand epistemology better than many adults.
Every time someone is a wheelchair after a vaccine, it’s coincidence.
Every time someone dies from a disease while non vaccinated, it’s causation.
When a disease disappears after mass vaccination, it’s causation.
When MS doubles after mass vaccination, it’s coincidence.
10 years old can spot the double standards, brainwashed adults can’t. 10 years old can spot obvious epistemological issues.
Vaccinating babies against a sexually transmitted disease… yep, it makes sense… as much as Cook the numbers cook.
Why all the pro-vax hysteria? Maybe it’s just the terror of death.
Anyway, it’s very disgusting.
Those insults are a powerful argument.
Thanks for informing me…of what an effin’ jerkoff you are.
“Those insults are a powerful argument”
Those insults are a figment of your imagination, just like the evidence showing mandatory vaccines are efficient, “efficacious”, and safe. Or even well studied.
I have looked into this matter to some extent, and find no rational reason at all to think it makes any more sense to assume things labeled ‘vaccine’ are inherently safe and effective, than to assume anything labeled ‘drug’ is inherently safe and effective. Both are magical thinking in the extreme, to me, not scientific thinking at all.
One similarity I see between AGW and Vaccine crowd is that there may be some good science, but they rarely look beyond first order effects and don’t consider feedback or second order effects. The first order effect of varicella vaccine prevents my little ones from the chicken pox. Who’s looking at second order with an increase in shingles in elderly population. Prior to Varicella Vaccine, the entirety of the population had frequent boost to immunity through more continuous exposure to free range chicken pox.
MTrent, you are ignoring the tertiary effect of the Varicella vaccine. Shingles is a reactivation of the virus after a long period of time. If you get vaccinated and never get chickenpox, you won’t get shingles, period. It’s a bubble effect that can be suffered for the long term benefit of all.
Having suffer from shingles not once but twice and what my mother have to suffer through chronic shingles, the varicella vaccine makes a lot of sense. The same for Polio, most are two young today to remember the braces that polio suffer had to put up with if they survived or did not end up in a wheel chair, my mother was touched with it her brother had the braces, he died early because the nerve damage was still there and at old age the remain nerves could not support him.
The difference between vaccine and CAGW is that one has science, the other doesn’t.
You can test vaccines in the laboratory and you can see the results. Anyone can. If you take the flu vaccine you will notice you get less flu. You may still get the flu but you will get less if you have a healthy immune system. We obviously know that the prevalence of certain diseases throughout mankinds history was high and millions upon millions died from diseases that people never get anymore. Coincidence? Sudden spontaneous resistance? No. This is ridiculous. I am willing to accept some vaccines don’t work as well or that there might be side effects but that they don’t work at all is ridiculous.
Climate “science” is a theory without any evidence. The only aspect that is proven science is the fact CO2 does absorb certain radiation. We don’t know what happens to that energy in the system of the Earth. The computer models are provably wrong and literally don’t predict anything for any time period or any region of the earth whether temperature, wind, rain, storms anything. I had a climate modeler tell me that. It’s obvious they don’t because they never never predict anything right. Also, mathematically it is provable that they cannot possibly predict anything. If they did there would be a lot of caterwalling and people hooting about the great success. There is no evidence of success, there is no increased incidence of anything, none of their consequences has turned out real. It’s literally a complete failure as a science. There is nothing there. If I’m wrong somebody tell me the prediction they made that turned out.
A vaccine is a dead segment of a virus that is injected into the body to stimulate the bodies immune system. This is simple stuff. We did it 100 years ago. It’s not a theory. We do it all over the world and the statistics back up that they work at what they do generally. Are some vaccines problematic? Maybe. It’s possible but that wouldn’t be an indictment of all vaccines. Could they cause problems? Possibly but this is an epidemiological question that can be studied with hard data unlike climate science. Give a population a vaccine. See what happens. It’s then a question of balancing the results. In the case of climate science we can’t run an experiment. They keep modifying models and seeing if they predict. They never do so they keep modifying them and hoping the billions and billions we spend will keep coming for them to keep plkaying with their computer models when there is good reason to believe they are nothing more than expensive toys with no possibility of ever being predictive.
“You can test vaccines in the laboratory and you can see the results. Anyone can.”
How?
“If you take the flu vaccine you will notice you get less flu.”
No. There is no proof.
All we know is that the flu vaccines often give you the flu syndrome: an apparent flu without the infection (the flu vaccine doesn’t gives you the flu virus, unlike some other vaccines that work by contaminating you).
Many people don’t tolerate the flu vaccine well.
We don’t know about many people even get flu (influenza, not common flu) every year. There are many influenza-like syndromes.
There is proof CO2 has effect on some IR radiation. There is proof the vaccine for X makes most (maybe between 70 % and 95 %) people X-positive.
It is extremely plausible that some infectious diseases have disappear thanks to vaccines.
It is also obvious that there is extreme brainwashing by society. Take “Law and order” and variants, they try to have a balanced view on most issues (like “hate crimes”, “affirmative action”), but when it comes to vaccines, it’s extreeeeeeme propaganda, with really bizarre plots written by Big Pharma fanboys.
If you think you have hard proof, please cite it.
Oh, I missed that:
“A vaccine is a dead segment of a virus that is injected into the body to stimulate the bodies immune system. This is simple stuff.”
Sir, you know next to nothing about vaccines. This is NOT simple stuff. There is simple stuff in your head!
Some vaccines are LIVE viruses. They give you the disease (safely, in theory), or they don’t work.
Some are inactivated viruses.
Some vaccines just have the surface proteins. They have no genetic material.
Some vaccines are made from live material (with the risk of infectious disease contamination). Some are make from genetic engineering (with another potential risk of contamination).
They are many sorts of vaccines. I am not even an expert on this topic, and won’t teach people about it – but you are an ignoramus. You are dangerous as you can propagate pseudo-science.
You really really should stop talking about stuff you know next to nothing about. (I know next to nothing about vaccines are made, but it isn’t relevant.)
There you go again-being an irrational, unreasonable person while attempting to paint someone else as being irrational and unreasonable! It’s such ironic hypocrisy that I just cannot help myself.
“I am not even an expert on this topic, and won’t teach people about it” – “I know next to nothing about vaccines are made, but it isn’t relevant”
So, you freely admit that you are NOT an expert on this topic, and I’m guessing that your lack of expertise is the reason you “won’t teach people about it” , BUT you feel perfectly justified in declaring that another person, whom I can assume you are ALSO are not an expert on- “is an ignoramus” and is “dangerous” because he/she “can propagate pseudo-science.” Because you are not an “expert” on the person you responded to, all of the rational, reasonable people reading your comments about that person know that you are not to be trusted to “teach people” here “about him/her”. This is also why no one here should feel even slightly compelled to “learn” anything from you about vaccines and “vaxxers” either. Yet you chastised me just last night by saying “You are not here to learn”! Talk about circular reasoning!
Do you KNOW the definition of pseudo-science is? It is “a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.”
simple-touriste, I am going to ASK you to read the following question slowly, and ponder upon it deeply before you respond (if you respond) to me. I have no irrational expectation that you WILL or even SHOULD do that. Here it is:
Is it even remotely possible, that ANY part of your “collection of beliefs/positions” on vaccines is based on things that you have “mistakenly regarded as being based on the scientific method”? Because if any of your beliefs/positions HAVE come from such things, then YOU are dangerous because you ARE propagating the very thing you just claimed someone else COULD propagate.
“Sir, you know next to nothing about vaccines. This is NOT simple stuff. There is simple stuff in your head!”
You either just “pretended to KNOW something” that no random person on the internet (you) could possibly know about him/her (that there is simple stuff in his/her head) or, you just did it because you wanted to be insulting and childish. It doesn’t really matter which one it is, because simply making statements like that are what makes rational, reasonable people doubt/ignore/discredit everything else you said.
td; dr
Remember when I told you I am done with you?
I am done with you. You are a boring troll.
Vaccination got rid of the biggest killer known – smallpox.
In response to Ben of Houston, I would change “you won’t get shingles, period” to “you have a reduced likelihood of contracting shingles.” There is a clearly demonstrated reduction in ovarian cancer for those who have experienced wild strain mumps vs. vaccines due to the expression of MUC1 antigen caused by an inflamed parotid. The immune system, like the climate, is a complex dynamical system with many and varied feedbacks which science is beginning to understand. The master trigger, one-size-fits-all solution can not be the answer unless we fully understand all of the feedbacks and system responses in addition to the immediate costs/benefits. Some benefits may be worth the risk of immediate actions, and some costs may not.
Dims tried it on the poorer African American populations in the South. It did not go well.
John Cook writes:
“The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that? ….”
=====
Roy Spencer’s graph. It can’t be beat!
Actually Cook’s above statement seems to clearly imply that the honest science only supports the rejection of the alarmist position of CAGW. But I don’t think he meant it that way.
Great observation, eyes! #(:))
************************************
To make Cook’s vague language more accurate:
The science
forabout climate change** only feeds the denial… .There IS no “science” pro-AGW.
(** assuming that by “climate change” he means, essentially, AGW)
Janice, please consider to never leave the C off of CAGW. As one of several false ways of achieving the claimed 97% consensus, they left out all references to any harms or benefits from the increase in CO2. (Many scientific organizations likewise do this, yet the skeptical Oregon petition did exactly the opposite, addressing the purported harms as mostly false, and the benefits as factual and observable)
Besides, it irritates alarmists to call it CAGW, yet they have no case for political action without the C.
Hey David! Yes, I second your suggestion. “Never leave the C off of CAGW.” This is an important point. Without the C there is no justification for allowing bureaucrats to run your life.
Also, by leaving off the C, it enables those who wish to obfuscate the real issue by pointing to post LIA warming as somehow confirming the alarmist position.
Actually it should not be CAGW anymore. The Global Warming has been replaced with Climate Change.
It is now Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change.
🙂
I disagree Chris. Alarmists believe the future must be warmer since CO2 is rising. Keep them on the hook for the warming prediction.
Yes Chris, it certainly is CACC. A big steaming pile of it…
Or maybe Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism (CACA)
Globally Allocated Garbage: GAG
I try to remember to write it as caGW.
I don’t know how to make the “c” any smaller.
(PS for Janice, Happy (belated) Birthday!)
AGW, I always read and say that as “Apocalyptic Global Warming” just to yank their chains and it properly frames their “position” as religion not science.
David;
For a while, Alarmists admitted the first 2-3C would be beneficial. Now, 0.5 is disaster!
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, Columbia University
Advisory Board Co-chaired by Jeffrey D. Sachs. Other Board members are from the oil, gas and mining sectors.
Tony/L. Anthony Hodge from Queen’s University, Canada also on the Board.
http://www.ccsi.columbia.edu/about-us/ccsi-advisory-board
Sachs flits around the world including the Vatican about climate change while at the same time is in bed with fossil fuel and mining interests.
Credibility?
The Rhodes Trust, May 8, 2014, Oxford University
Symposium speakers included:
Dominic Barton, Ecofiscal Commission Canada
Hon Paul Martin, Former PM Canada & INET Expert
Jeffrey Sachs
And others
Symposium underwritten by McCall MacBain Foundation.
Rhodes Trustees include:
Dominic Barton
John MacBain, European Climate Foundation & Chair. Trudeau Foundation, Canada
http://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/news/think-global—confronting-world-challenges-from-climate-change-to-humanitarian-intervention
This is what the whole Lewandowsky initiative was all about. It wasn’t necessarily to discredit the skeptics directly. It was to broadcast the notion that skeptics are skeptical of even the moon landing so we skeptics have to break through the antibodies of skepticism-of-skeptics in the minds of the general public.
In concise-er terms: smear tactics.
Psychologists always seem to complicate simple ideas.
The general public, btw, are now skeptical of the skepticism-of-skeptics.
In concise-er terms: Lewandowsky failed.
That reminds me of the time i saw 2 black snakes and each was swallowing the other by the tail until there were only the 2 heads remaining. Then they both snapped at the same time and there was nothing left!
Hopefully the whole CAGW issue will end the same way. They (the alarmists) will eat themselves and it will all be over.
“The general public, btw, are now skeptical of the skepticism-of-skeptics.”
Sorry, Paul, but I don’t see it.
http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/o1uiyvwyjequnaqzegz7jq.png
All that tells me is that they think the alarmism is overdone.
This is a confusing sentence.
Is it “skeptical of the skepticism expressed towards skeptics”, or “skeptical of the skepticism that is expressed by skeptics”?
From the original context and what I believe are Paul’s feelings on this topic, I think it is the former, but the way the sentence is structured it could easily be construed as meaning the latter.
I would like to see Cook and his beer buddies try to get some “misinformation” posted in here in order to establish tarnish.
Most folks here tear everything and anything to shreds and then put it all back together… which is the basis for real science but not in propaganda churning.
These ” scientists ” truly are delusional !!
These people are just SO convinced that temp is only going one direction. What happens should their entire theory go belly up? – which I still rank at a 50:50 chance. Belief has no influence.
Isn’t it a great feeling to know that what will happen will happen regardless of all the rant and rage?
I think he forgot “subterranean”; PR bingo fails!
Impressive political analysis.
Free markets are “unregulated”. Only the government can provide “regulation”. Customers can’t. Cause they are stupid?
Trust is earned, not offered. And not free.
Where is the “regulation” for research? Who is the customer?
ANY time I hear anyone whining about “conservatives” being some kind of organized, evil, selfish cabal, I know that person is an idiot.
Conservatives are not an organized anything. The left, however, get their marching orders and act in lock step toward achieving their goal of socialism.
I for one am not organized. You should see my desk.
the big “tell”
the conversation…abc linked
One of the biggest “regulatory” bodies, UL, is 100% private.
I call it “regulatory” since they publish regulations that companies must follow if they want to earn the right to put the “UL” logo on their products.
Companies have to pay UL to have their products tested. However companies are willing to do this since consumers are willing to pay more for products that have been UL tested.
UL has every incentive to make sure that their standards are rigorous and that no company is allowed to cheat, because a scandal would diminish the value of the UL brand in the eyes of consumers which would result in companies no longer being willing to pay for UL testing.
UL also has incentive to not make their standards too tough, since their is a limit to how much extra safety consumers are willing to pay for.
Mark knowing something about UL standard all they are is a marketing scheme. Putting lighter fuel in an audio power amplifier lighting it up with an ignition source and trying to ascertain some from that is as bogus as climate science yet that what the UL does. The UL label is as worthless as the green energy label.
Beginning of the end then for sh!t-weasel Cook. About time.
Oh how people are going to laugh when anyone says “97% of scientists ….” in the future
The fault can be laid at the doorstep of the manufacturers of Crest toothpaste. They are the first ones that I remember who used the “97% of all dentists” slogan in their advertising, and so was born the “97% of all…” claim.
Which soap was it that advertised itself as 99.9% pure?
Forgot about that one, Ivory
I thought Crest was ‘9 out of 10 dentists’, so only 90%. I always assumed the question asked was ‘Do you recommend your patience brush with a toothpaste like Crest?’. :p
[Only the very slowest dentists anticipate appreciating all of their Crest patience. .mod]
You are correct. My memory slipped on that one. Too many years of debating the 97% consensus folk, perhaps.
If I recall, Ivory soap was 99 and 44/100% pure. So pure it floats. Then again turds float in a bowl and they’re pure, but I wouldn’t bathe with them.
John, we HAVE BEEN inoculated. We’ve all had our full series of BULLCRAP shots, so we’re perfectly and totally immune to it. I know it’s your hearts desire to “infect” us all with the malicious disease you and your clubhouse friends suffer from, but it’s no use. The moment you open your mouths, or press letter keys with your fingers, powerful antibodies start surging through our veins.
Most of us also have physical reactions to just seeing your names in print. Revulsion, hives, uncontrollable laughter, headaches, and nausea are common, as well as Tourette like outbursts involving words like “idiot” “stupid” “invalid” “hilarious”. As long as you and Lew and Nuttibelly and Mann and Abraham et al keep publishing papers, more and more people will become skeptical, because everything you produce is so incredibly offensive and irrational and arrogant and WRONG, that even low information types can tell.
But, with that said, we encourage you to publish as often as possible. Maybe host another web series like Denial 101. THAT worked wonders for the skeptic side of things! Brilliant move.
And yet theconversation.com has NOT been inoculated by the data cook?
That science community has AIDS?
[??? .mod]
Some people clearly can’t contribute in any useful way to any serious debate, except as subject of psychological studies. Intuitively, a community should develop antibodies against trolls and people who insult or waste other people’s time in general.
I postulate that most people have such belief that the science community has a strong immune system against buffoons.
Yet, part of the academic science community who makes theconversation.com, and people who participate, don’t seem to have strong Cook/Lew antibodies.
mod, simple citates inoculation paper:
‘Science denial has real, societal consequences. Denial of the link between HIV and AIDS led to more than 330,000 premature deaths in South Africa.’
and yet, here we are again.
accidental… no planning – not deliberate
physical reactions, no less? very pavlovian.
woofers!
We have been inoculated, that’s true, but Cook is not after us with his vaccine. He’s after people who might be influenced by things said by the likes of us. This is a vaccine to get people to accept CAGW and reject anything else. Brainwashing is an accurate description.
Was a tongue in cheek response that most of us are “immune” to what he’s carrying. He is just blind to the fact that he’s the diseased one. But he’s invented the “disease”, attributed it to us, and is now trying to protect others from something we never truly had in the first place. Simple-touriste and gnomish were apparently born without an irony gene of any kind apparently.
So long as Cookie boy gets his regular inoculation from Nutticcelli ,he will continue to be as deranged as he is now.
“Maybe host another web series like Denial 101.” Oh boy I just gotta sign up for that! I’m what you might call a wingnuttery connoisseur and that is just catnip to me. 🙂
“One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
Sounds like straw-manning to me.
Listening to John Cook talking about convincing sceptics is like watching a child go up a down escalator: they know the theory – but they just can’t understand why it doesn’t work.
The problem for John Cook is that he somehow believes that we sceptics will one day turn into ardent believers – the truth is that everyone with enough intelligence and experience will eventually learn that it’s best to be sceptical.
Almost everybody is exposed to relentless doom-mongering about the climate. That is the starting position for almost everybody.
But a substantial number of people have moved away from that position. They have already been persuaded of that error. How?
By looking at the evidence, of course.
So Cook is right that you have to include some semblance of reality to reach those who are no longer ignorant.
But he’s wrong to think that a little grain of truth will sweeten the deception.
Sceptics have already seen through the folly.
Skeptics will never become ardent believers, but ardent believers FREQUENTLY become skeptics. I’m one who did–and after a lifetime of being “innoculated” with Green Rhetoric. If it can happen to me, well . . . maybe they better wear their rubbers!
Change “about the climate” to “about what Man is doing” and you’ve expressed what I’ve experienced in my lifetime.
Look at SciFi movies. (With a few aliens thrown in throughout.) In the ’50’s and ’60’s, it was all about nuclear radiation. In the 70’s it was about toxic pollution. In the ’80’s we …. etc. etc.
Even Frankenstein (the book) had to deal with the relatively new thing called “electricity”.
“Even Frankenstein (the book) had to deal with the relatively new thing called “electricity”.”
He was a visionary:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11870070
Hi Eric,
I think it’s fair to say that many of the commentators on this blog, myself included, think the CRU-NOAA-UN-Mann global warming argument is baloney and that there’s collusion among these scientists to get the result they want.
However, I came across an interesting article today on the BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35411684) that has got me thinking. It is an article about a new mathematical study into the probability that a range of topics, including global warming, are a hoax or some kind of conspiracy.
The study itself is at the link: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147905
I’m interested to hear what other people’s take is on it? It’s got me thinking. The author of the study argues that if this global warming stuff was all a conspiracy, we should, mathematically, have already found out by now?
Daniel
Nice try. Here’s a suggestion Daniel – don’t come on here using the name Gates if you want any credibility about anything other than sophistry and other assorted sh!t-weaseling.
“The author of the study argues that if this global warming stuff was all a conspiracy, we should, mathematically, have already found out by now?”
Please show us, along with the mathematics, any direct evidence that CO2 going from 280 ppm to 401 ppm has had any measurable effect on any global climate parameter.
Scientific data does not conspire and has no political affiliation.
+1
Actually I think Daniel was genuine and I was going to post the same link about this study from Dr Grimes from Oxford. The only difference for me was I heard him directly talking about the study on BBC World and the first question asked of him was which conspiracy(s) are you talking about…..no guess as to which one he mentioned first…..Climate Change denial.
Which leads me on to another thing that intrigues me about the scientists involved with Climate Change. I think there is belief from them and perhaps others that they have far superior knowledge and intellect on the subject especially if they come from a leading university. However, for example, my wife went to Cambridge Uni in the UK. Just to get in as a student you have to be smart and to be a professor obviously very smart. However, she had a professor who lectured there and was an expert in reproduction. He had a theory that high temperatures kill sperm so he walked around regularly with an ice pack down his trousers because he believed in it so much. He is/was right that high temps lower sperm counts, but the fact is not enough to be worried about for the average man in tight warm underwear. So from an outsider view looking in, this man who is extremely intelligent is actually barking mad and you wonder how on earth he thought this was ok practice and to encouraged others to follow his lead?
I wonder whether we have a similar situation with climate scientists who are often very intelligent individuals but have become so obsessed about their belief in climate change that they are blind to the real life implications of the science or indeed the science itself?
The BBC is a major conspiracy all of its own these days. When they put out the lunchtime news you check your watch.
Phil: That’s very unreasonable that you’re giving me flack simply for being born with the surname Gates?
You’re CO2 question is quite off the topic of my link as well, I’d be much more interested to hear what your thoughts were on that study?
My thoughts on that “study”? Exactly the sort of illogical BS that I expect to be published if there is in fact a lot of conspiring going on routinely.
The idea that no one in positions of power ever “conspired” is so silly that it must be constantly reinforced with rediculous nonsense and pseudo scientific babble, just to keep everyone from laughing at the idea, it seems to me.
While my other comment’s in moderation Daniel, it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, and they have it ass-backwards. Indeed, after 40 years and a half-doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, if it had any measurable effect on any climate parameter we should to quote you “mathematically, have already found out by now”. We haven’t.
On the conspiracy straw man – it’s not a conspiracy, it’s a collection of fifth- or tenth-rate “scientists”, pompous elitist dumb-ass paid politicians, their dupes and other assorted stupid people (a category that you probably fit in), along with other rent-seekers and naive younger people who have been duped into thinking they’re saving the planet.
The list goes on …..
They think we believe that “movie actor” or “Bill Gates” or “NGO” equates with “scientist.” Sorry, we’re not that dumb, and we know increasingly desperate, shrill propaganda when we see it.
sorry, didn’t see this reply 🙂
Is Planet X a conspiracy? What is the cycle? Estimates of an orbit of 15,000 to 30,000 years. That is a real estimate I could compare to the accuracy of current GCM’s.
Climate Change is real, but I personally don’t think we yet have the skill to predict it. Heck, we are still arguing about how to measure it. Temperature, Humidity, Rainfall. Snow. Wind. Tornadoes. Hurricanes. ENSO. AMO. PDO.
We can’t even look in the rear view mirror and get it right. We use ice, dendrites, tree rings, sediments, fossils, carbon dating and lordy knows what all else with a resolution of ????
What are the causes – sun, solar wind, clouds, Gamma Rays, orbit, axis tilt, wobble, variation in the ecliptic, passing comets, Planet X, magnetic pole changes, GHG’s, volcanism, Vulcanism 😉 – alignment of the planets, Black Holes, the inverse of the universe …
After years of reading, I have one conclusion. We really don’t know. Sort of like plate tectonics only a few years back.
My great grandmother was born in 1867. Buffalo still roamed the prairies though that is the year the big decline started. She lived to see man circling the earth. We have a lot to learn and a lot of dead ends to explore before we figure out what drives the climate. Another 100 years perhaps. I need a time capsule.
There is a thought. Lets put all of our projections in a stainless steel tube and dig it up in a hundred years so our descendants can have a good laugh (or cry) over our level of understanding.
When the truth is uncertain, there is no limit to the BS.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/post-truth-climatism/
we did find out
years ago
” should, mathematically, have already found out by now?”
You are completely ignoring the incredible power of self-interest and stupidity.
Daniel, I’ve never suggested climate alarmism is a conspiracy or collusion, I believe, and have repeatedly stated, there is strong evidence the main proponents of truly believe in what they are promoting. But their belief in what they are doing, doesn’t make them right.
The Greek philosopher Aristarchus made a credible attempt to calculate the size of the Earth, Moon and Sun, sometime around 250BC. It was common knowledge in Ancient Greece that the Earth was a sphere. But belief that the Earth was flat persisted until comparatively modern times. There wasn’t a “conspiracy” to convince people that the Earth was flat – its just that the opinion the Earth is flat was popular, the people who believed the Earth was flat tended to blindly accepted authority, rather than thinking for themselves, and most people didn’t bother to consider generally accessible contrary evidence, such as the fact ships appear to sink as they approach the horizon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sizes_and_Distances_(Aristarchus)
By the way, the standard astronomical text from the 2nd century until Copernicus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest) taught that the world was (a) a sphere and (b) “a mathematical point” by comparison to the distance to the stars. This WAS the authority. Neither political nor religious authorities taught a flat earth.
Fair point, there was more awareness of the sphericity of the Earth than I thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
Daniel, think about this quote from Karl Popper; The logic of scientific discovery; Page 20
======================================================
… “it is always possible to find some way of evading falsification, for example by introducing ad hoc an auxiliary hypothesis, or by changing ad hoc a definition. It is even possible without logical inconsistency to adopt the position of simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever. Admittedly, scientists do not usually proceed in this way, but logically such procedure is possible.”
========================================================
This appears to me to be an exact description of fifty ways to explain the pause. (always said to the tune of fifty ways to leave your lover) followed by “simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever” (The latest NOAA surface record)
The CAGW movement is built upon multiple orthogonal causes, conspiracy just being one element. Yes, politicians do conspire on ways to reach their objective. (Marxists talk clearly about the ends justifying the means. Politicians talk about never letting a good crisis go to waste. UN one world government leaders talk about how even if the theory of CAGW is wrong, it does not matter, the end political result is good, other leading statists talk about reducing the global population by two thirds or more, scientists in the climate-gate emails made clear statements of conspiracy, things they would not admit to in public, destroying government emails, etc) So to conspiracy of some, add noble cause corruption for others to the list. (Most all justify their actions by claiming they are saving the world)
The President of the US said there better not be any climate change deniers in government. Skeptics have been fired for being skeptics. Skeptics have been shunned for being skeptics. (So add peer pressure to the list.)
Government spends hundreds of billions promoting and financing CAGW research and alternative energy projects. Green energy business leaders make large political donations to those government politicians supporting their industry. (So add the corrupting power of money to the list, or do some people think only business men are corrupted by money?)
I am shocked, that anyone is shocked, that humans strive for power and money, or that politicians finding a means to tax they very air you breathe, choose to do so.
1. Political conspiracy for wealth and political power.
2. Nobel-cause corruption.
3. Peer Pressure.
4. Money/power, as both a carrot and a stick.
5. Misinterpretation of the precautionary principle.
Mods, usually my non multiple linked posts go straight through but lately they disappear. If they reappear, please leave this one, and remove the others. Thanks.
Wrote a post on falsification a few years ago 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/22/occams-razor-and-climate-change/
Few people thought the earth was flat. It was an notion invented by Washington Irving in his 1830 biography of Christopher Columbus.
I suspect that the vast majority of people never gave the idea any thought. Either way. To them it was something that simply made no difference in their lives, so they didn’t waste any time on it.
If forced to guess, they would look around, and in their local vicinity, it was flat so the natural assumption would be that the earth was flat.
“(Most all justify their actions by claiming they are saving the world)”
Mencken called that “the messianic delusion.”
I don’t believe I’ve ever said or thought that AGW is a *hoax*. I’ve come to believe that it’s *wrong*, but that’s a very different thing.
Take for example the academic theory called the Documentary Hypothesis. This is not merely the belief that the Torah had sources, which is uncontentious, but that a technique exists for recovering the sources, even at the level of splitting a single sentence into two pieces and ascribing each to a different author. These reconstructed authors are then ascribed reconstructed dates, locations, and theological/political interests, and the history of the development of religious thought and the writing of the Torah is reconstructed from that. By now, of course, everyone working in the area knows the results they are supposed to get. There is still no independent control, and the methods have never been validated on documents with known highly interleaved authorship (not that there are many such documents: it requires an editor who regards every letter of his sources as sacred BUT who is willing to chop them up and stitch the pieces together to make something different, a very strange person indeed). This academic theory has been going for over two centuries and is still highly regarded in many circles. Its original basis was the observation that the deity is referred to by two different names. When archaeologists discovered that this was a widespread literary technique in ancient Near Eastern religions, the theory was defended by saying “oh we never really depended on that” and sailed on.
Now the Documentary Hypothesis COULD become part of science overnight if someone turned up an ancient document that had let’s say many J parts of the Torah but few or no E P or D. (Since the DH ascribes much later dates to the Torah than tradition does, the Dead Sea Scrolls must have come as a severe disappointment…) Just as “Climate Change” COULD become part of science overnight if its projections started fitting the real world.
Given the longevity of the DH, I find it the reverse of surprising that CAGW is hanging on. It may well outlive me. For that matter, I expect communism to outlive me.
I agree it doesn’t make much sense to call AGW (or even CAGW) “a hoax”, not even the flawed theory behind it – no matter whether (C)AGW exists or not, purely as a phenomenon that can be studied, confirmed, discarded, whatever. But using it as a convenient means of getting political leverage with goals that are quite different from lowering atmospheric CO2 certainly IS a hoax, and this is the only thing that is quickly becoming dangerous for our economy and our well-being, and is therefore worth worrying about. The fundamental question cannot be “Is CAGW true or not?” but “Is it legitimate that our laws and our way of life are influenced top-down depending on whether it is or not?” and in conjunction with that “Is it legitimate that anybody non-productive to the total income of the country – that would be academics, non-profitable NGOs, clerics, students, as well as anyboy who pays their taxes elsewhere – is allowed to lobby and demonstrate for their point of view in economic matters AT ALL”. The wealth of the country as a whols surely must top the right for free speech – anything aimed at lowering efficiency and destroying industry IMHO is nothing short of treason and should invoke the same legal consequences, no matter if the reason is derangedness (CAGW, nuclear power) or laziness (trade unions, social security parasites). Everybody should be allowed to think, believe, research, write and print whatever they prefer, but the rulers of the country must keep the straight path no matter what the rabble demands, if needed, with help from the military. Since the 1960s (hippies, civil-rights terrorism), the USA have failed dismally in this respect, so did Germany in the 1880 when the Kaiser failed to erase the cancerous growth of a “labor movement” (read socialist terrorist network) that Bismarck had already recognized for what it was, and that decades later was to give the world luminaries like Lenin, Hitler, and today Merkel…..
Chris Z –
As a “social-security parasite”, I’ll take serious exception to your post. In particular, nothing trumps the First Amendment, and we should never ever consider using the military to impose political goals within the US.
Richard A. O’Keefe,
“I don’t believe I’ve ever said or thought that AGW is a *hoax*. I’ve come to believe that it’s *wrong*, but that’s a very different thing.
Take for example the academic theory called the Documentary Hypothesis.”
A rather poor example for demonstrating anything is not a “hoax”, it seems to me . . Because if that Book is Genuine, there absolutely have to be “hoaxes” attacking it, right?
Deliberate disinformation perhaps? The paper gives a range of 3.7 to 26.8 years (even if one accepts the ‘climate change “fraud”‘ misdirection).
From the BBC article …
‘Dr Grimes’s analysis suggests that if these four conspiracies were real, most are very likely to have been revealed as such by now.
Specifically, the Moon landing “hoax” would have been revealed in 3.7 years, the climate change “fraud” in 3.7 to 26.8 years, the vaccine-autism “conspiracy” in 3.2 to 34.8 years, and the cancer “conspiracy” in 3.2 years.’
Vaccine-autism is a conspiracy now? Is it not a controversy in the field of pharmacology? Do vaccine makers “conspire” to promote their potentially toxic drugs? I thought it was the job of the government to suppress criticism of vaccines! (another attack on free speech that doesn’t seem to bother defenders of Willie Soon here.)
What about the statines “conspiracy”?
The communism works “conspiracy”?
The spending more than what you have every single year is austerity “conspiracy”?
The public must ignore that “Moon landing hoax” paper is essentially a hoax itself “conspiracy”?
“I thought it was the job of the government to suppress criticism of vaccines! (another attack on free speech that doesn’t seem to bother defenders of Willie Soon here.)”
Oh woah there boy! Let’s not diverge into the realm of wild logical fallacies ok? Making sweeping generalizations about what the “defenders of Willie Soon” here are, or are not, bothered by, isn’t exactly going to win anyone over to whatever side it is you are on. It makes you seem irrational and illogical, as well as being insulting-whether intentional or not. 🙂
“Let’s not diverge into the realm of wild logical fallacies ok?”
Which fallacies?
Aren’t people supposed to defended free speech and the free flow of ideas?
“It makes you seem irrational and illogical”
Only if you refuse any idea that conflicts with your views.
simple-touriste-
“I thought it was the job of the government to suppress criticism of vaccines! (another attack on free speech that doesn’t seem to bother defenders of Willie Soon here.)”
What EXACTLY did you mean when you said that? Because it basically says that you believe that people here, who might be “defenders of Willie Soon”, don’t seem to be bothered by “another attack on free speech”. What “other attack” are you referring to?
So, when I said -“Let’s not diverge into the realm of wild logical fallacies ok?”
And you asked-“Which fallacies?”
THAT was the fallacy I was referring to- “Making sweeping generalizations about what the “defenders of Willie Soon” here are, or are not, bothered by”. Because as far as I can tell, there’s been no survey taken here asking “Are you a defender of Willie Soon”? followed by “why doesn’t this other attack (still unnamed) on free speech seem to bother you?”
You asked-“Aren’t people supposed to defended free speech and the free flow of ideas?”
People should defend both of those, yes. But that doesn’t mean that all people can or will defend(ed) free speech and the free flow of ideas in exactly the way and timely manner that you expect them to. What any of this has to do with Willie Soon, or people who defend him, is beyond me. But you brought it in here.
Me-“It makes you seem irrational and illogical”
You-“Only if you refuse any idea that conflicts with your views.”
Nope. There you go again, being irrational and illogical. You see, most of the things that conflict with my views ARE irrational and illogical, so when I say that your above argument makes you seem that way, it’s because your argument IS literally irrational and illogical, by definition. Whether or not my views conflict with it is irrelevant to that point.
“What “other attack” are you referring to?”
You haven’t noticed that medical doctors can’t generally promote ideas not backed up by the establishment, like that some vaccines are harmful?
Medical doctors must follow the “consensus” of medical “science”. Those who don’t accept the “science” violate “medical ethics” and will have face sanctions with their board (a fascist concept, BTW). The mere fact that “skeptics” here accept such “consensus” “science” bothers me.
Some doctors even have said on record that they don’t want to say anything that would suggest that vaccines are unsafe. It’s self-censorship. For the “cause” (that they told call a cause, but it’s a cause).
The scientific method is thrown under the bus. I don’t see many reaction here, by people who would define themselves “skeptics” and promoters of the scientific method.
I have assumed that people here would defend Willie Soon at least on the matter of principles (free speech, free flows of ideas, defense against witch trials). I don’t think it’s a controversial assumption or that a survey would be necessary.
I see that many people are silent about vaccines. It bothers me. A lot.
I see people here who refuse to even consider the idea that the best weapon in the fight against infectious diseases isn’t always a vaccine. It’s Orekses-size bigotry. And it’s disgusting. It’s a feature of the “conservatives”.
*hands simple-touriste a brown paper bag to breathe in*
“You haven’t noticed that medical doctors can’t generally promote ideas not backed up by the stablishment, like that some vaccines are harmful?”
Ok…”The Establishment generally denotes a dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation or organization.” SO you’re asking if I have noticed that medical doctors can’t generally promote ideas not backed up by some group of medical authorities?
I don’t hang out with, stalk, or regularly survey medical doctors concerning what they can and cannot promote, so let’s just assume for the sake of argument that it has entirely escaped my “notice”. Where would I go to find convincing evidence that a large segment of the medical profession is being silenced by a board of medical “authorities” who threaten to accuse them of violating “medical ethics” and with sanctions if they do not promote the ideas of those medical “authorities”?
You don’t expect me to just take your word for that do you?
“Some doctors even have said on record that they don’t want to say anything that would suggest that vaccines are unsafe. It’s self-censorship. For the “cause” (that they told call a cause, but it’s a cause).”
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Where are these on record statements that prove self-censorship is occurring?
“The scientific method is thrown under the bus. I don’t see many reaction here, by people who would define themselves “skeptics” and promoters of the scientific method.”
Well, let’s look at some logical possibilities for WHY you aren’t seeing what you THINK you should be seeing- 1)maybe, just maybe, because this is a CLIMATE science based blog that posts stuff that Anthony Watts finds interesting, everyone here isn’t as “on top of” this “medical doctor” issue as you are. 2) maybe people here are on top of it, but haven’t come to the same conclusion about it that you have (maybe they need more evidence to get there) 3) maybe your expectations of other people who define themselves as skeptics and promoters of the scientific method are unrealistic, completely subjective, etc (in other words-illogical and irrational)
“I have assumed that people here would defend Willie Soon at least on the matter of principles (free speech, free flows of ideas, defense against witch trials). I don’t think it’s a controversial assumption or that a survey would be necessary.”
Ah…see that word there….”assumed”…yeah. That’s a word that usually indicates a cognitive bias is in play. Most people here have defended Willie Soon in certain situations and for specific reasons when they feel that certain principles have been violated. But just because YOU feel that something horrible and obvious is happening in the medical doctor realm, doesn’t automatically mean that everyone else knows about it in the first place, and would agree with you in the second place if they DID know about it.
“Selective perception bias-The tendency for expectations to affect perception.”
“Stereotyping bias-Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.”
“I see that many people are silent about vaccines. It bothers me. A lot.”
Well, I can see and accept that it bothers you. But your assumptions about why “many people” are silent about it bother me. A lot.
“I see people here who refuse to even consider the idea that the best weapon in the fight against infectious diseases isn’t always a vaccine. It’s Orekses-size bigotry. And it’s disgusting. It’s a feature of the “conservatives”.”
Well thank you for your opinion. Since you clearly don’t think highly of “conservatives”, I can assume you are something else….a liberal perhaps? It would be so easy for me to say something like “I see here a person who refuses to even consider the idea that his/her own thinking might be flawed or incorrect with regards to every other person who has ever posted on WUWT. It’s Oreskes-sized bigotry. And it’s disgusting. It’s a feature of “(insert your ideological leaning here)”. But I can’t. Because doing so would be illogical and irrational and just plain old idiotically bigoted.
So, I’ll salute your right to free speech, no matter how dumb or rabid that speech might be. But as far as you being an example of someone who values the scientific method…not even close.
“Where would I go to find convincing evidence that a large segment of the medical profession”
are capable of seeing what is obvious to a child?
Just reading the case made for vaccines by vaxxers should be enough to see that their no case of many vaccines. Reading arguments of vaxxer is like reading crazy-talk. They are irrational.
The medical profession doesn’t petition about what is patently obvious (you don’t vaccinate babies against STD), so they must be corrupt, or crazy, or both. There is no wiggle-room.
The ethic boards won’t allow “useless” studies (like testing established dogmas), so the scientific method is out of the window. “Ethics” means that replication is forbidden. This is by definition. This is obvious. So anyone who keeps silent is complicit.
“maybe people here are on top of it, but haven’t come to the same conclusion about it that you have (maybe they need more evidence to get there)”
Yes, people are on top of it and refuse to see the obvious.
Aphan,
Have you looked into these matters in any real depth?
If not, what the hell are you doing?
JohnKnight-
“Have you looked into these matters in any real depth?”
Exposing the flawed logic in arguments doesn’t require any depth on the topic at hand. At all. It just requires an understanding of what is logical/reasonable and what is not.
“If not, what the hell are you doing?”
Exercising free speech, and pointing out irrational behavior. Do you have a problem with that?
Aphan, your answers are very irrational.
When people pose a conservative, go ballistic when Obama try to make sure children get decent food at school so that they don’t fell hungry after, but accept that the gov has the right to impose untested treatments on healthy people, you have to wonder what kind of conservatism it is.
Also, there NOTHING ideological in my messages. I only promote healthy skepticism and the scientific method.
You have a blind point when it comes to EBV (evidence based medicine). Anyone who interact with vaxxers must come to the conclusion that
– they are crazy persons
– their “EBV” is evidence-free
“Aphan, your answers are very irrational.”
Wow. That statement is hilarious! My answers are EXTREMELY rational.
“When people pose a conservative, go ballistic when Obama try to make sure children get decent food at school so that they don’t fell hungry after, but accept that the gov has the right to impose untested treatments on healthy people, you have to wonder what kind of conservatism it is.”
“Pose a conservative” “Obama try” “fell hungry” I’m not even sure what kind of language that is.
But YOU don’t get to tell me what conservatives or anyone else thinks, believes, feels, etc. It’s not allowed because it is IRRATIONAL to assume that you could possibly KNOW. I can keep listing the cognitive biases and logical fallacies you are engaging in here all day and into the weekend if you’d like.
“Also, there NOTHING ideological in my messages. I only promote healthy skepticism and the scientific method.”
You do? Since WHEN has reaching conclusions without ANY evidence to support them been part of the scientific method? Except for pseudo science? Everything you’ve said to me today has been nothing but pure opinion, projection, and logically flawed.
“You have a blind point when it comes to EBV (evidence based medicine). Anyone who interact with vaxxers”
First, I’ve never even heard that “slang” term before in my life until today, and second, apparently I haven’t ever interacted with any because I’ve never spoken to a crazy person about vaccines until TODAY. And not only are you crazy, but your assumptions and insinuations about “everyone else” are EVIDENCE FREE.
“My answers are EXTREMELY rational.”
Keep thinking that.
“Since WHEN has reaching conclusions without ANY evidence to support them been part of the scientific method?”
The evidence is there for all to see. You just have a blind spot.
I am done with you.
“The evidence is there for all to see. You just have a blind spot.”
Oh. The. Irony.
Yes indeed, there is irony and it’s on you.
Now your trolling is getting boring.
You were done with me. Remember? And now that you’ve brought up the word troll, seems like the mods noticed your odd behavior earlier today….
“You were done with me.”
I am. You can’t even see the contradictions in your messages. You must be thinking that credible and rational people must be calm and never angry.
The terrifying aspect of this is that you could legally be in a jury.
“seems like the mods noticed your odd behavior earlier today….”
???
“You must be thinking…” Really? I MUST BE? Do you not see how stupid you sound? Of course credible and rational people get angry. But their anger doesn’t suddenly make all of their positions completely irrational or un-credible. Your “anger” here, if you described your reasoning accurately, is based on assumptions, insinuations about other people, and the fact that other people are NOT reacting in the exact manner you think they would be if they were as “rational and reasonable” as you are!!
You’d better hope on your life that if you are ever in front of a jury, that I AM on it. Because I won’t let my irrational, and illogical anger about what ever crime you are accused of committing keep me from being logical and meticulous in examining the evidence before I let the rest of the jury convict you!
People like YOU acting like they are judge and jury about everyone else is not only terrifying, but the more you pretend NOT to be that way, the more hilarious it also becomes at the same time.
I am happy you have this forum to vent your superiority feelings.
@mods: do we have to endure this?
“I am happy you have this forum to vent your superiority feelings.”
What’s wrong? Venting your feelings of superiority against “vaxxers” is fine but opposing your illogical venting is not? You can’t even say you’re done with me and support that conclusion.
You failed to address any of my arguments, so we are done. You are not here to learn.
I addressed all of them. They are logically flawed. You can learn from that or not. If you don’t want me to do that, try using the scientific method to reach solid conclusions in the future.
Aphan,
“Exposing the flawed logic in arguments doesn’t require any depth on the topic at hand. At all.”
The flaw being? Not having blind faith in . . big pharma? Big Government? The mass media? What?
Forget it. Im too tired to care at this point. If you cant see it, I’m not playing tour guide.
I recommend people investigate vaccine efficacy/safety, economics, testing and so on, for themselves. After having done so (not before, I was pretty well inoculated against doubting the magic of the V word too ; ) now I have no choice but to warn against blind faith in vaccines. The realm has been corrupted as climate science has been, I am very sure.
“I recommend people investigate vaccine efficacy/safety, economicomprehendng and so on, for themselves.”
I totally and completely AGREE with that. Every aspect of life involves risks, even the process of giving birth. Blind faith in anyone or anything is a foolish way to live one’s life and even moreso when your choices affect the life of another, completely dependent person.
Any concept that can be corrupted by humans, will be. Science, religion, politics, society, business, and on and on. A true skeptic questions everything and everyone. Being a skeptic is not defined as “someone who is always against the consensus” or “always on the side of the minority”. It doesn’t mean that because I’m on your side when it comes to the AGW debate, that I automatically will be on your side in any other debate. I am JUST as unwilling to have “blind faith” in you and Simple-tourists’s position on vaccines as I am the medical community’s.
If you cannot understand and accept that, then you don’t really comprehend what honest, true skepticism is in the first place.
Aphan,
It seems to me you didn’t understand what simple-tourist originally wrote in this thread, which is understandable, but rather than ask for clarification you began making assumptions about it, and insulting the person. Honest, that’s what it looks like to me. Reread and perhaps you’ll see it too this time . .
Consider. please.
“What EXACTLY did you mean when you said that? Because it basically says that you believe that people here, who might be “defenders of Willie Soon”, don’t seem to be bothered by “another attack on free speech”. ”
That’s how I read it too; *it basically says that you believe that people here, who might be “defenders of Willie Soon”, don’t seem to be bothered by “another attack on free speech”* . . That’s not a logical fallacy, and if that’s how things seem to the person, it’s not a sweeping generality, it’s just the truth . . . Right?
JK said-“That’s how I read it too; *it basically says that you believe that people here, who might be “defenders of Willie Soon”, don’t seem to be bothered by “another attack on free speech”* . . That’s not a logical fallacy, and if that’s how things seem to the person, it’s not a sweeping generality, it’s just the truth . . . Right?”
I truly want very badly for you to just tell me you are kidding. To tell me you truly do not need some lessons in what is logical and what is not. That you grasp and accept the concept that how something “appears to be” or “seems to be” to an individual has absolutely NO bearing on whether or not that thing is TRUE or TRUTHFUL.
Now, whether you and s-t are aware of it or not, or simply pretending not to know I cannot determine. But there are actual RULES and parameters outlined by experts in logic and reason that demonstrate and identify when someone is speaking from a place of logic and reason, and when they are not. No matter which reason it might be, by choice (to ignore those rules) or by lack of awareness (that those rules exist) I merely point out where things aren’t logical or reasonable. How you take that, or what you do with that, is up to you. Not me.
“That you grasp and accept the concept that how something “appears to be” or “seems to be” to an individual has absolutely NO bearing on whether or not that thing is TRUE or TRUTHFUL. ”
Why not? If you seem like a nice person to me, and I say you seem like a nice person to me, why is that not a truthful statement by definition? I spoke of what something seemed like to me, and it did seem like that to me . .
I said- (please tell me )“That you grasp and accept the concept that how something “appears to be” or “seems to be” to an individual has absolutely NO bearing on whether or not that thing is TRUE or TRUTHFUL. ”
Why not? If you seem like a nice person to me, and I say you seem like a nice person to me, why is that not a truthful statement by definition? I spoke of what something seemed like to me, and it did seem like that to me . .
Saying that someone “seems like” a nice person is very different than declaring that someone IS a nice person…as if you have proof that how things seem to be, actually ARE that way. Using words like “seems” and “appears” are word clues that indicate you are sharing your opinion of how things appear. NOT using words like that are word clues that indicate that you are NOT stating an opinion or personal belief, but are making statements as if they are FACTS.
Simple-tourist did not do what you just did. She/he did not say that everyone here “appeared to be” or “seemed to be” liars or hypocrites or whatever. He/she declared her anger against everyone here as if they WERE what he/she declared them to be, and that is both offensive, and illogical if he/she does not have strong evidence to support those conclusions about everyone here. Which she/he could not possibly have in his/her possession because even if such evidence on everyone here DID exist, it would take her/him a lifetime to collect it, examine it, and make a definitive declaration on it.
I hope this makes sense. There is actually a “science” of sorts behind logic and reason (solid cognitive skills). There are literally word formulas that make someone’s personal conclusions less valid, more valid, or invalid depending upon what they build those conclusions ON. Strong, solid premises, or weak, flawed premises become easily recognizable once you’re familiar with the “language” of logic and cognitive biases are obvious if you are familiar with the language of reason.
Pointing out someone’s flawed logic or reasoning isn’t the equivalent of saying that they are bad people or mentally handicapped etc. All logic and reason does is identify WEAK/STRONG premises and WEAK/STRONG cognitive skills, neither one assumes or insinuates ANYTHING about the person using those premises or skills at all. And anyone who pretends or declares that they DO, is obviously not being reasonable or logical.
“She/he did not say that everyone here “appeared to be” or “seemed to be” liars or hypocrites or whatever.”
You are just making up sh*t.
Your trolling is boring.
Aphan,
I tire of your endless self adulation, sir.
“I tire of your endless self adulation, sir.”
First, I am not a “sir”, and second, what self adulation? Be specific and reference exactly what I’ve said that you feel qualifies as “self adulation”.
https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Unwarranted_Self-Importance
You missed Climategate then?
It was in all the papers . . .
Daniel Gates: A glance at the article got me thinking, too-I thought, “What the hell are you thinking?” The CAGW theory has been exposed as false (the expression I prefer is “not even wrong”) for years now. Maybe you and this author missed it, but it’s all over the archives and comments of this site. Those of us baffled by the response of the CAGW cult are left to wonder if this group-think is a result of a conspiracy, or madness, or something in the water, or an increase in atmospheric CO2. Based on observations and repeated results (pretty sciency, huh?), I submit it is a conspiracy of the cult because they act like progressives, and progressives will always (always) accuse their perceived opponents of doing precisely what the progs are doing. In any event, by the 3d or 4th sentence, you can see the author is applying hard science (physics and math), which he understands, to human behavior (conspiracy no less, a complex and often-irrational behavior). If math could explain conspiracy, Einstein would have been Freud. But don’t be discouraged, keep thinking!
pbweather people can be very intelligent in one are and will miss the bus that run them over figuratively and literally because they suffer from tunnel vision they do not have brains that can see the big picture instead they have a narrow view of the world. Yes there are great mathematicians in fact the maybe the greatest of the twenty century staved to death because he was a vegetarian trying to live in England in the 1930, his math compression is even unmatched today but he was blind to the fact humans were not meant to be on vegetarians. His religion blinded him to that fact. A log of the CAGW proponents do not have a religion to fall back on so CAGW is what they have. I also maintain the as a lot “climate Scientist” are not very bright if they were they would understand the very fine thread their claims are hung on.
[‘… in one area “? .mod]
Yes mod, I had to teach myself to read, I a hoard proof reader, I like to put my thoughts into words, not what may or may not be written or what I typed.
“Yes mod, I had to teach myself to read, I a hoard proof reader, I like to put my thoughts into words, not what may or may not be written or what I typed.”
Thanks for clearing that up.
*scratches head and walks away still confused*
“I’m interested to hear what other people’s take is on it? It’s got me thinking. The author of the study argues that if this global warming stuff was all a conspiracy, we should, mathematically, have already found out by now?”
I think that a majority of commenters here may reach a similar conclusion to the one I have reached regarding this comment of yours: Regardless of whether you are the guy who wants to use maths to discover the “truth” of CAGW and the alarmists who promote it, this blog, others like it, prior knowledge, and a close investigation of the facts informs us of what the truth is directly. I for one already know that what is occurring meets every dictionary definition of what a “hoax” is, and that there is clear and documented collusion, and strong evidence of still more of it.
So I, to speak for myself, will not waste my time clicking a link or reading how this person reached the conclusion, that math can tell us about the veracity of a scientific matter more better than actual study and evaluation of the scientific and other evidence directly.
@Daniel
Since I was young, I have been told by the media that men have a lot more romantic partners than women.
When will someone blow the whistle on this one?
This is similar to the fine art practiced by many/most politicians of repeating a big lie often enough until doubters begin to believe.
I once worked for a most amazing man who was able to talk himself into believing his own lies.
Did you get to visit the White House often? 😛
Yes, there is a similarity to some degree with what you suggest. The guy I worked for was truly unusual though with his ability. I have never met anyone quite like him.
the skeptics have been duped into debating temperature instead of the real issue in agw which is the relationship between fossil fuel emissions and temperature. the warmists have a lot of wiggle room in the former but none in the latter because there is no correlation between the rate of fossil fuel emissions and the rate of warming or the rate of change in atmospheric co2. please watch this video and then go to the links in the “description” of the video.
https://youtu.be/vUvLoE5v0yQ
Jamal – what you are doing by integration is changing “scientific noise” (the type taught in science degrees) into 1/f^n type noise (the type taught in good electronics and signal processing degrees).
So, your comments apply not just to integration, but any function that changes the frequency response to enhance long-period noise and also any natural system (like climate) where long term noise dominates (and don’t find the noddy statistics taught in relation to “scientific noise”).
“As the scientific consensus for climate change has strengthened over the past decade” – I though that it was at 97% from before then. There can’t be more than half a dozen of us left by now.
Patrick: Yes, it was 97%, and it’s now 97.1%, +/- 1. Hottest consensus ever!
1. has the scientific consensus strengthened (ie, more scientists agree) OR
2. the BELIEF that there is a consensus has strengthened by non-scientists OR
3. the USE of the belief that there is a consensus has strengthened to achieve other aims
How strong does it have to be in order to be a consensus? Are they saying that a decade ago the “consensus” that they declared existed was a weak consensus, but they just made it SOUND like a strong one? Wasn’t it like 20 years ago that it was declared “settled science”? Wouldn’t that by definition mean that there was a “strong consensus” then? How does he KNOW it has strengthened? Did he and his gang produce another “analysis” of abstracts published between 2005 and 2015 and divine/imagine/conjure/fabricate a 98% consensus from those?
He keeps using this word. I do not think it means what he likes to lie and pretend that it means….
I love that these studies are coming out at such a high rate. In an old psych experiment, a bird was trained to press a bar by rewarding it with a bit of birdseed after a random number of bar presses. The bird naturally learned to press the bar a few times when it wanted to eat. When the experimenters decided to extinguish the behavior, they stopped supplying birdseed in response to the bird pressing the bar. What happened when the birdseed stopped coming? The bird began to press the bar at an increased rate, more and more frantically, pumping out paper after pointless paper all to no avail as people who are most likely to take away their birdseed altogether rise higher in the polls.
Nothing more entertaining that watching frantic birds pounding pointlessly on the bar. So keep those papers coming, they will all be remembered in future history books, although perhaps not for the reasons you think.
They don’t understand that the birds appear demented to sane birds.
“Angry Birds!” Great metaphor–ROFLMAO!
Cargo science birds.
If you are a realist…Cook is entertaining.
So closed minded.
If you’re a realist, he’s not entertaining.
Sks is entertaining, well was rather before I was riduled for saying interglacial periods are warmer than glaical perids. They can all live in their virtual worlds. Site is largly filled with fools. Cook is certainly NOT entertaining. Laughable, but not entertaining.
I strongly suspect the equatorial regions were quite warm during Ice Ages due to the heat being concentrated there while both poles were very cold. Canada fared worse than Siberia during the Ice Ages, a point that is ignored by ‘scientists’ who believe in global warming to infinity.
emsnews-“I strongly suspect the equatorial regions were quite warm during Ice Ages due to the heat being concentrated there while both poles were very cold. Canada fared worse than Siberia during the Ice Ages, a point that is ignored by ‘scientists’ who believe in global warming to infinity.”
Um…ok. What “heat” do you believe was being “concentrated” there? Please explain.
I believe myself to be a realist.
He angers me, and makes me sick, by turns.
Classic John Cook babble.
It does seem clear that he is intent on following the fraudulent pseudo science of Lewseranddopesky.
Funded by University of Queensland. Must be nice having a University throw away their honor and credibility while giving one cash too.
Cook refers to his online climate denial course too, as if he is reaching ‘massive’ numbers of student…
Misdirection, falsehood, misdirection, false claims and illogical phrases… Classic Cook.
There is a liberal denial complex where the person who suffers from it cannot accept that you reject his explanation and that if he could just explain it better you would accept it.
Thinking about “liberal denial complex” this quote from Karl Popper; The logic of scientific discovery; Page 20
======================================================
… “it is always possible to find some way of evading falsification, for example by introducing ad hoc an auxiliary hypothesis, or by changing ad hoc a definition. It is even possible without logical inconsistency to adopt the position of simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever. Admittedly, scientists do not usually proceed in this way, but logically such procedure is possible.”
========================================================
appears to me to be an exact description of fifty ways to explain away the pause. (always said to the tune of fifty ways to leave your lover) followed by “simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever”
The CAGW movement is built upon of multiple orthogonal causes, conspiracy just being one element. Yes, politicians do conspire on ways to reach their objective. (Marxists talk clearly about the ends justifying the means. Politicians talk about never letting a good crisis go to waste. UN one world government leaders talk about how even if the theory of CAGW is wrong, it does not matter, the end political result is good, other leading statists talk about reducing the global population by two thirds or more) So to conspiracy of some, add noble cause corruption for others to the list.
The President of the US said there better not be any climate change deniers in government. Skeptics have been fired for being skeptics. Skeptics have been shunned for being skeptics. (So add peer pressure to the list.)
Government spends hundreds of billions promoting and financing CAGW research and alternative energy projects. (So add the corrupting power of money to the list, or do some people think only business men are corrupted by money?)
I am shocked, that anyone is shocked that political animals strive for power and money, or that politicians finding a means to tax they very air you breath, choose to do so.
1. Political conspiracy for wealth and political power.
2. Nobel cause corruption.
3. Peer Pressure.
4. Money, as both a carrot and a stick.
5. Misinterpretation of the precautionary principle.
These primary factors work both independently and symbiotically. ( The politician justifies his lust for power over others and wealth by claiming superior wisdom of how society should operate as a form of noble cause corruption to justify his lust) Thus one and two work together. The scientist, seeing his monetary and professional future laid waste if he publically supports CAGW skepticism, finds an excuse in his mind with the precautionary principle, feels the peer pressure of his social group, and the POTUS, and this allows noble cause corruption a foot hold as well. (Thus 2,3,4,and 5 all work on the government scientist)
Hey buckwheaton! “if he could just explain it better you would accept it.”
Usually, the attempt to explain it better devolves into just explaining it louder and with added insults.
Or speaking more s l o w l y, like when someone does not know the language.
But usually what you said Jason.
Jim Jones Cook prescribes kool aid inoculation. Brain death precedes blind faith. Science is the only antidote. Likely too late for Jim Jones Cook and the multitude of drones. Still, there is some hope they may die only figuratively from disappointment, and live on to learn. Dikran Marsupial seems to have done that…
In between Cookie’s “innoculation” and Facebook’s “Counter Speech” we should be so thoroughly cured that we can sit watching An Inconvenient Truth on a loop – with such zombified expressions that Nurse Ratchett is happy to cancel our lobotomies.
Anyone who has been so “climate brain-washed” as to believe that back radiation helps the Sun to raise the surface temperature above the -40°C mean temperature that 168W/m^2 of solar radiation could achieve at most in a perfect black body (which is not what the surface is anyway) and then also promulgates their false belief, needs to pause and ask himself what it is that he hopes to achieve. It’s all wrong, and it is dishonest to promote it, especially when you don’t understand the physics involved, and thus perhaps don’t understand why it’s wrong, and is indeed in an altogether irrelevant paradigm pertaining to radiation rather than non-radiative processes.
Is that you, Doug?
I’m a world expert in thermodynamics.
Anyone who lays claim to being a “world expert” on a blog, probably isn’t. People who know that “x” is the mark of an illiterate, and that a spurt is a drip under pressure, would not call themselves one.
Of course it’s Doug! But he’s correct and that’s all that matters!
Atmospheric Physicist: “I’m a world expert in thermodynamics.”
Really? Then why not write under your own name? Why should someone as lofty as yourself wave such a banner yet hide their own name? What are you ashamed of?
He used to, but was banned from the site, I believe for promoting his book.
Btw. I’m not being sarcastic when I said he’s right. He is and not because of his “expert” status either. It’s all evidence, established and tested theory and good ole fashioned logic and reasoning.
“I’m a world expert in thermodynamics”
That wasn’t a NO.
The conventional way the greenhouse theory is described is total BS and I must admit I am rather annoyed with blogs like this one for failing to explain the greenhouse effect in a way that doesn’t contravene science and common sense.
Here’s a quick a dirty article (hopefully) explaining a more scientifically accurate model of the effect of CO2 gas on warming:
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2015/11/11/the-advanced-greenhouse-theory-implies-100m-rise-in-effective-top-of-atmosphere/
And here’s a more detailed look at the various issues including the way CO2 also causes cooling:
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2014/11/24/a-scientists-guide-to-greenhouse-warming/
Physics is all well and good, but many physicists comment here and on othr blogs and they do not seem to be in very close agreement with each other.
IMO, one does not even need pgsics to falsify CAGW. All one needs is a careful look at Earth history, and/or recent temperature data.
Baaaaaa! Even if AGW is 200% correct, mankind [ who unfailingly visits atrocities on one another] will find a way to sell and burn and burn and burn every gram of fossil fuel on our lonly planet. AGW believers better buy mitigation futures if history is to be believed.
A long long time ago that’s exactly what I thought as I worked out what was supposedly needed against what was likely to be done. So, I then tried working out exactly how much CO2 would be produced if everything was burnt and what impact that would have. I then came across the “peak oil” calculations – which as oil is so critical to the economy – without which we wouldn’t have the infrastructure to burn coal – I realised that peak oil largely meant peak CO2 production.
Anyway – after throwing the calculations together I found that (by the predictions of the time) we were very likely to see peak oil long before global warming was a problem and therefore the issue we ought to be concentrating on was peak oil.
That was what the logic (and info at the time) dictated – but somehow that wasn’t the message the Greens wanted to hear and I started being attacked for being “off message”. From which I learnt two things:
1. Belief in global warning is not based on any facts – facts are cherry picked and only cited if they agree.
2. Never trust any predictions of peak oil/fossil-fuel.
Well said, the CAGW claim to me became bogus when Mann tried to rewrite history and CAGW crowd climbed on his band wagon, I was taught a lone time ago to not trust people that rewrite history. The Soviets and liberals are so good at that, come to thing about both are on the left?
The reference provided for the Cook article itself provides a reference for the actual ‘study’ (paywalled), but the abstract states data gleaned from 19 organizations (the think-tanks). I wonder what was used for a determination of a conservative think-tank – could be any study not funded directly/indirectly by our wonderful government..
In the beginning was a list; and the list was deemed good.
It’s like reading about how the Nazis worked to convince their populous that they were superior because of their environment and that the Jews were holding them back from greatness. Really sick stuff, here, John.
Two Labs:
Not only the Jews but also socialists and communists, and they rounded-up all of them and exterminated them. The American right still work to convince their populous that the “socialists” are holding them back from greatness; e.g. in this thread. As you say, really sick stuff.
Richard
The widest two way street in the world?
Menicholas:
it is not a “two way street”, but if it were then so what? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Richard
What make it all really funny is that socialism and communism have be tried repeated by now by many countries….
And it keeps holding them back from greatness. ^¿^
Richard the Nazis were socialist, more preciously they were progressives with a whole lot of nationalism thrown in, they did not call then the Nation Socialist for nothing, they was nothing right wing about the Nazis unless you are will to believe the lefts rewrite of history. Someone the right believes government is servant to the individual not that the individual is servant to the government as the left believes. If someone on the right think otherwise they are not on the right. God it is ubeleivable how the left has been able to hide it and lie about it and that from suppossable smart people beleive the BS about the Nazie were on the right all these years
schitzree and Mark luhman:
Your propaganda is too silly for it it fool anybody except other members of the far right.
I wrote
schitzree, you have replied
Ah, the old ‘guilt by claimed association’ ploy! Communism has always failed and probably always will fail, but there are many successful forms of socialism in Europe especially in Scandinavia.
But the American right constantly pretends its failures are because of socialism.
Mark luhman, you take pretending to a new level when you write
That is outrageous nonsense!
The Naz1s were fascists. That is as far to the right as it is possible to be!
As the Oxford English Dictionary defines fascism
and says
You can pretend the Naz1s were not right wing but don’t expect anybody other than neo-Naz1s to not shake their heads in disbelief at your nonsense.
Richard
Richard-
Here we go again. The topic in which you act JUST like the CAGW people-cemented into your belief that you are correct and utterly in contempt of all the evidence put before you over and over again that you are WRONG. Its a cognitive disorder Richard.
“As the Oxford English Dictionary defines fascism-
An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.”
“The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922–43); the regimes of the Naz1s in Germany and Franco in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.”
Richard, Mussolini’s “right wing” in Italy is the LEFT in America. Europe’s “right and left” has ALWAYS been the exact opposite in the United States!! Why is it that you simply cannot get the historical FACTS through your head? How is it that you do not know, that when the US was created and the country rebelled against the Motherland, they changed EVERYTHING here into the opposite of the oppressive governments from which they had fled? They formed a REPUBLIC, the most directly opposite form of government from a dictatorship/king there is. And our “left” was formed out of the rich, formally educated, and “higher class” people who wanted government to control everything (Democrats) and our “right” was formed out of commoners, hardworking, independent, free minded individualists who wanted the least amount of government possible (Republicans). Your own heritage/understanding seems to have brainwashed you into believing that the US maintained the exact same political party system/right-left wings that existed then, and still exist today, in Britain. You are completely and utterly and foolishly wrong about that Richard. Again.
In America the “right wing” has ALWAYS opposed both Communists and Socialists (a known FACT) and Mussolini was a Socialist before he became disillusioned with it and Marxism after that. He abandoned Marxism in favor of Nietzsche’s übermensch concept and became the father of Fascism. Hitler ALSO favored Nietzsche and used his writings to establish his own doctrine of superior/supermen/race. (Also known facts)
Now I personally don’t care at all what flavor of “socialism” it is that you embrace, or how different it is from any other form of socialism, or how justly and perfectly you think that socialism can transform a country. Good for you! Your beliefs are your own and you are entitled to them. But you are NOT entitled to your own US Historical Facts. You are not entitled to declare that you, as a NON US Citizen know more about US politics and platforms and “wings” than actual citizens do. It makes you as arrogant as you are incorrect on this issue. Your constant yammering that “right wing” Americans have changed the history because they are ashamed of their earlier non-existent socialist/communist leanings only makes you look like a deranged conspiracy theorist. Do you actually think if our left wing Democrats, the people that ABHOR almost every single thing about the conservative right-wing Republicans, would ALLOW the “right wing/Republicans” to foist some horrible, terrible, embarrassing right wing historical trait off on them? NO WAY.
In the US today, the Left has become so brazen and proud of it’s socialist/communist roots (that it had to hide for decades after World War 1) that there is even a Democratic candidate that openly declares his SOCIALISM-Bernie Sanders-running for President!
Having sat in on many conversations between many intelligent people regarding whether the Nazis were Leftist or on the Right, the only thing that was ever settled, or that could be generally agreed, is that everyone with a strong opinion on this topic had the opinion that the Nazis were on the other side of the political spectrum from themselves. To a man (and women).
Before anyone jumps down my throat…I do not really care myself, so you might save your breath.
Just sayin’.
menicholas-
It doesn’t really matter to me either. But Richard is completely and historically wrong about the political parties in the US being the same as those in Europe. He refuses to believe that the right wing in the US is in line with the left wing in Europe, and that the left wing in the US is in line with the right wing in Europe, which has been demonstrated to him over and over and over again. Thus, because “Hitler” and the Nazi’s AND the Marxists and the Communists were all “right wing” organizations in Europe, he thinks all right wing Americans are in denial or lying when we state with factual evidence to back it up, that those things are LEFT here in the States.
Hitler was an abomination to everyone, I hope. No matter what party HE claimed to belong to, there is no party that should have wanted him then, and no party that wants to claim him today. And rightly so. BUT his socialist/communist/marxist theories-and those of Mussolini and Alinsky and Lenin and Marx and Bernays -even the ones people swear are good and wonderful ideas-have always been embraced by the left here in the US. NEVER the right. The right wing is not in denial about that, Richard is.
Mussolini was a socialist.
The idea that the states must control the corporations is an idea of the left, period.
“He refuses to believe that the right wing in the US is in line with the left wing in Europe, and that the left wing in the US is in line with the right wing in Europe, which has been demonstrated to him over and over and over again.”
Absolute BS
Aphan:
It is NOT “cognitive disorder” to state the true meaning of a word and to cite the OED as evidence of the true meaning.
Naz1s were and are fascists which is as far to the right as it is possible to be.
Only neo-Naz1s try to pretend Naz1s were socialists and everybody else gasps in awe at such nonsense.
Richard
“It is NOT “cognitive disorder” to state the true meaning of a word and to cite the OED as evidence of the true meaning.”
“Only neo-Naz1s try to pretend Naz1s were socialists and everybody else gasps in awe at such nonsense.”
Richard, what was the official and SELF CHOSEN name of the Nazi Party? Come on Richard, say it with me-
The National SOCIALIST German Workers Party
What exactly do YOU call it Richard when someone is presented with an undeniable FACT, one that is universally accepted and well known (such as the official and self designated name of the Nazi party) and yet DENIES that fact repeatedly and energetically? Sane? Reasonable? Informed? Do socialists define those three words differently than everyone else? Because if they don’t, then even a socialist would have to admit that someone DENYING that Nazi’s called themselves socialists might be indicative of a mental cognitive disorder!!!
That you keep attempting to do so, makes “everybody else gasps in awe at such nonsense.”
But let’s talk about fascism for a moment, because I believe that fascism is ALSO a mental disorder that can afflict EITHER side of the political aisle. Merriam-Webster defines it as- ” a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”.
Now, if we want to be logical, we could examine ALL of the positions listed in the definition of “fascism” and see that some of the characteristics listed could be applied to people in every position across the political spectrum, but no one position in any “free” society today embraces ALL of them. America was established as a country that not only loathed and refused an autocratic government, but was designed to be the antithesis of one as much as possible. America, in it’s purest form, welcomes all races, and exalts FREEDOM rather than nation. It abhors dictators, and demands as much freedom as possible in both it’s economy and it’s society. It fights against suppression in all of it’s forms, and even welcomes people who oppose it’s standards and might at some point try to forcibly suppress IT.
And that is why the vast majority of Americans today STILL resist ANY form of “ist” from taking control of this country. Socialist, communist, nationalist, collectivist-ALL of them. The “great experiment” that is America has taught the world that there is simply no rational, reasonable way to get ALL people on every side to willingly agree to support any program that would result in a LOSS of freedoms or rights they believe they are entitled to. And as much as capitalism gets blamed for so many things, it is also the reason that “America” has accomplished so many things that other countries have not, of all ways in which a government can “oppress” its people, it is the form that allows the most freedom with the least amount of forced suppression.
Now, I really don’t care what you or anyone says or believes about someone else. You are entitled to think and believe anything you wish to. But I do find it to be beyond logical/reasonable and almost descending into madness to PRESUME to know what anyone else things or believes based simply upon some arbitrary LABEL or title like “socialist” or “conservative” or “liberal”. It is the height of bigotry to even pretend that it is POSSIBLE for any individual to be utterly and completely defined by one WORD or TERM or TITLE, let alone a whole “group” of people.
Richard, if your understanding of people and who and what they think and are is so limited and so narrow that you actually believe that one word labels, or short phrases can accurately, or even reasonably, tell you enough about them to form wholesale judgements about them, then I pity you for THAT more than anything else that might afflict you.
Aphan:
Promote neo-naz1 propaganda if you want but it doesn’t fool rational people.
Naz1s and other fascists were and are right wing; extremely right wing, And only the far-right try to pretend otherwise.
Richard
So, you DENY that the Nazi’s were called The National Socialist German Workers Party?
richardscourtney,
I don’t grasp the idea that Nazi Germany was not socialist because they oppressed others calling themselves socialists . . It’s like you’re thinking that if one gang fights another, then one or the other must not be a gang of criminals . . Not logically sound reasoning to me.
TMK-
Now let me ask Aphan what was the official and SELF CHOSEN name of North Korea?( Hint: The Peoples DEMOCRATIC Republic of Korea)
Yes. I know. THEY can call themselves whatever they wish to cant they? Of course they can. But here’s the rub-on their website they say this-
“The DPRK is the Juche-oriented socialist state which embodies the idea and leadership of Comrade Kim II Sung, the founder of the Republic and the father of socialist Korea.”
So again, we’re dealing with people who identify themselves as SOCIALISTS. So in order to be consistent there, Richard needs to insist over and over and over again to everyone here that North Korea’s political position would be considered to be “right wing in the US to anyone who is sane or intelligent” while continuing to ignore the historical FACT (as demonstrated to him repeatedly) that in America, socialism originated on the LEFT side of the political spectrum and has STAYED on the LEFT side of the political spectrum.
Richard, who is NOT an American citizen, likes to pretend that there has been some kind of vast conspiracy perpetrated by the “right wing” in the US to deflect the designations of “socialist” and “communist” to the LEFT. Richard, DENIES the fact that the European Right and Left are the OPPOSITE here in the states, and no matter how many official US documents I link him to, he stomps his feet and pretends that HE knows American history better than all the freaking Americans do!
Now I really don’t care what Richard thinks. Or what he believes. He has ZERO empirical evidence to back up his claims, and I have provided pages of links of empirical evidence that proves he’s wrong. No matter which side of the political spectrum one is on, everyone agrees that flawed logic, name calling and projections of conspiratorial notions indicate that one is mentally challenged on some level.
JohnKnight:
The naz1s were fascists. They were not socialists. They tried to exterminate socialists.
Fascism is at the extreme right and socialism is on the left of the political spectrum.
These facts are reality whatever you “don’t grasp”.
Richard
“Fascism is at the extreme right and socialism is on the left of the political spectrum.”
THANK YOU…now we’re getting somewhere. You finally admit that socialism is on the left of the political spectrum! Now, since socialism has always been on the left of the political spectrum in the US, why on earth would the “extreme right” have ANY NEED to “conspire” to put H1tler, who was a self proclaimed socialist, on the left when socialists have ALWAYS been on the left??????
“Fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational. A number of historians regard fascism either as a revolutionary centrist doctrine, as a doctrine that mixes philosophies of the left and the right, or as both those things. Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon left-wing and right-wing political views.” wiki under Fascism
“The naz1s were fascists. They were not socialists.”
Why were they not both, to your mind? As in, a form of socialism that was fascistic? Perhaps you could tell us what to you constitutes socialism, so that we could figure out what about fascism renders it not a form of socialism?
(First let me guess; It’s when the Government does only things you want them to do, to whomever you want them to do it? ; )
JohnKnight:
You ask me:
My “mind” is not relevant. They cannot be “both” because they are different and incompatible. Similarly, a frog cannot be an elephant.
And you also ask me:
By socialism I mean the political philosophy which Karl Marx summarised as being, “From each according to ability and to each according to need”.
I explained that on WUWT here.
I repeat that none of this has anything to do with the above essay which neo-naz1s are using as an excuse to pretend that their vile right-wing beliefs are really socialism.
Richard
Aphan:
Your gibberish has been refuted by others in the thread. Please stop directing it at me.
Richard
Richard,
You wrote these words;
““… but there are many successful forms of socialism in Europe especially in Scandinavia.”
None of the Scandinavian countries fit the definition in the Webster’s dictionary. This presents a rather obvious problem I feel, in believing you even know what socialism means . . assuming for the moment you are not essentially what gnomish is warning about tin this thread . .
JohnKnight:
I took the trouble to provide you with this link which explains the origens, history and practices of socialism and includes examples of the socialist UK Labour Party of which I am a Member.
Clearly, you have not read it and you write this offensive bollocks
OK. That demonstrates you are merely another offensive troll like gnomish and Aphan whose clear and only purpose is to pretend the ludicrous falsehood that naz1s were not right-wing and fascist but were left-wing and socialist.
I will ignore any more of your neo-naz1 propaganda, falsehoods and abuse.
Richard
Richard,
I read your link to the discussion you had here on WUWT in 2013. I also read your link to the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I understand YOUR beliefs now, much more than I did prior to reading both. But just like you stubbornly ignored ALL of the wise and logical points of view brought up to you then by others here, you are still stubbornly resisting them today. We are JUST as entitled to our understanding and viewpoints as YOU are. And I expect someone like you, who claims to wish for a society in which all are equally considered and equally respected, to actually TREAT other people in that manner!
Bold below mine-
http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/
“In 1834, farm workers in west Dorset formed a trade union. Unions were lawful and growing fast but six leaders of the union were arrested and sentenced to seven years’ transportation for taking an oath of secrecy. A massive protest swept across the country. Thousands of people marched through London and many more organised petitions and protest meetings to demand their freedom.”
They formed a trade union, Richard. NOT a government. Not a political party. There was already a government in England at the time. They formed a trade union.
“The protest campaign proved successful and the Tolpuddle Martyrs returned home in triumph.The Tolpuddle story is about how ordinary working people combined together to defend their families. The idea of solidarity as a basic human right is now an international demand.”
Co-operative living Richard. Communal living. Trade unions. All well and good.
wiki-socialism
“The modern definition and usage of “socialism” settled by the 1860s, becoming the predominant term among the group of words “co-operative”, “mutualist” and “associationist”, which had previously been used as synonyms. The term “communism” also fell out of use during this period, despite earlier distinctions between socialism and communism from the 1840s.[46] An early distinction between “socialism” and “communism” was that the former aimed to only socialise production while the latter aimed to socialise both production and consumption (in the form of free access to final goods).[47] However, by 1888 Marxists employed the term “socialism” in place of “communism”, which had come to be considered an old-fashion synonym for “socialism”. It wasn’t until 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution that “socialism” came to refer to a distinct stage between capitalism and communism, introduced by Vladimir Lenin as a means to defend the Bolshevik seizure of power against traditional Marxist criticisms that Russia’s productive forces were not sufficiently developed for socialist revolution.[48] A distinction between “communist” and “socialist” as descriptors of political ideologies arose in 1918 after the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party renamed itself to the All-Russian Communist Party, where “Communist” came to specifically mean socialists who supported the politics and theories of Leninism, Bolshevism and later Marxism-Leninism;[49] although Communist parties continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism.[50]”
H1tler took control of the unions. He molded and pushed them into exactly what HE wanted them to be in his new government. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/trade-unions-and-nazi-germany/
He called them the “Labour Party”, and promised them all of their former benefits but only through his new government. Unions, labor party, etc, ALL came to be associated with the Naz1s Richard, and he even named his new political party after them!! How could they refuse? And THAT is how at least 3 generations of Americans now, became familiar with the term “socialism”.
Again, by 1888, Marxists were employing the term “socialism” in place of the word “communism”. And the distinction BETWEEN communist and socialist as descriptors arose in 1918 (in Europe Richard, not in the US). By that point, co-operative, mutualist, and “associationist” (along with “Friendly Society” and “Benefit Society”) were NO LONGER associated with the word socialism. AT ALL.
And after the rise of Naz1 Germany, citizens in the US automatically began to associate “unions, labor parties, AND socialism with the Naz1 Party. How could they NOT? It certainly wasn’t because of any US propaganda-the damage had already been done by Lenin, Marx and then H1tler himself! (You should really be very forgiving because we took THEIR WORD for what they actually believed and wanted-you weren’t around to defy them or make them “take it back!”)
Now, you can cling to the “old definition” or terminology of “socialism” as you define it, if you want to. And good for you! You can claim that God Himself organized socialism and demanded that it was the most wonderful, Utopian, amazing form of living on the planet. But, YOU do not get to define TODAY’s socialism, or the way other people view that word AT ALL. You can kick and scream and call people like me trolls and all kinds of childish and ugly names, but I’m trying to tell you, just like endless numbers of people here have for at least 3 years, that the word “socialism” has not been synonymous with ANYTHING even remotely close to what the Tolpuddle Martyrs lived for more than 100 years! People here in the United States haven’t even HEARD of the Tolpuddle Martys Richard. They aren’t in OUR history books. They have nothing to do with US History. And how THEY and YOU and anyone else defines socialism, is NOT how WE in the US define it. And I’m truly sorry about that, because it seems to render you completely bug nuts.
But it’s irrational and bug nuts to blame the United States for coming to a conclusion based upon our experience with large, killing, violent groups of people who CO OPTED the word socialism before you and I were even born! In fact, you might want to adopt a LESS political term to describe the type of person you are, or the philosophy you espouse.Like “communal living person”, or “cooperative society man”. Because right here and now, in the United States, just like things have been for at least 100 years unionists are on the LEFT. Unions are groomed by the left and embraced by the left and tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat in the US, the left.
Oh, and it’s also completely irrational and mentally unstable to declare that I “must be” on the extreme right fringe myself simply because I try to point out the FACTS to you. I might be mentally unstable for continuing to TRY, for hoping that by some miraculous reason that you might just for a moment be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and realize that how YOU think things are, just might not BE the way they actually are for or to anyone else. And that you would finally stop making disgusting, stupid, and completely illogical determinations about people you do not even know-just because it’s completely out of line with the way you DESCRIBE your chosen philosophy and makes you a hypocrite-and not because it makes everyone here think you’re completely insane on this topic. sigh. I won’t hold my breath.
black hoodie (red hoodie)
red hoodie (black hoodie)
They said, “We want your money- everybody down!”
richardcourtney,
(“I took the trouble to provide you with this link which explains the origins, history and practices of socialism …”
I asked about the lack of Scandinavian countries that (as far as I can tell) match the Webster’s definition, and am (naturally it seems to me) not all that grateful for your failure to address what I asked about, sir. . . I realize you might think I should be grateful that you gave me what you decided I need, instead of what I wanted, but this is not a particularly generous thing to my way of thinking . . it’s actually kinda scary, when I contemplate a Government full of people demanding (under threat of imprisonment or worse) that I treat them as little gods, who get to define terms however they feel like, as you seem to me to he demanding I do with you . . )
“My “mind” is not relevant. They cannot be “both” because they are different and incompatible.”
Sir, there is obviously a dispute here, about what ‘socialism’ means, so I cannot just accept whatever one person says it means (you), and ignore all others, including the dictionary and myself, and treat that as the ultimate truth of the matter. Please be reasonable . .
“By socialism I mean the political philosophy which Karl Marx summarised as being, “From each according to ability and to each according to need”.”
So, if the Nazi’s felt that the best way to achieve the goal of “From each according to ability and to each according to need”, was fascism, why would that not be a form of socialism according to your “definition”?
And if a Pharaoh, or American slave plantation owner took up that approach, which seems reasonable to me to think they actually did take in essence; “From each according to ability and to each according to need”, then that would also be socialism, by virtue of the goal you are calling definitive of socialism, would it not?.
Your “definition” lacks any constraints on whomever is in power simply imposing their own sense of how best to archive the goal. You’ve got *according to ability*, and *according to need*, but you don’t seem to realize there is an *according to someone with the power to make it stick* aspect that must come into play, in any real world attempt to attain the goal . .
RIchard,
According to the Webster;
~ Full Definition of socialism
1
: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private propertyb : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3
: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done ~
~ If that is what you mean; No private property, Government owned means of production? What countries were you referring to here; “but there are many successful forms of socialism in Europe especially in Scandinavia.”
~ If that is not what you mean, what do you mean by socialism?
see my answer to you a few posts above here.
he wants you to accept that his need is a blank check on your stuff
then it won’t come to the part where the goons with guns come because you disagree
it’s the mechanics of socialism he wants to remain hidden
gnomish:
Please stop spouting neo-naz1 propaganda and return to your cell where the padding on the walls will prevent you hurting yourself.
Richard
gulags – socialist economics final act after their incompetence and avarice have just not yielded to seizure of more power and theft of more property and negation of all rights – even to your body and your thoughts.
for the fatherland.. er.. the motherland.. er.. for the unborn.. whatever- just give up whatever you got.
open your heart to the joys of the giver or i’ll have to put you in chains, you selfish blighter.
Perhaps John Cook could make a contribution to this blog and clearly set out for all us skeptics exactly what the scientific consensus really is – shouldn’t take him more than a page to lay it out.
The reality is that the AGW conjecture is full of holes. Models have been produced that show that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans.. Despite all the cliams, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is no such evidence in the paleoclimate record. There is evidence that warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere but there is no evidence that this additional CO2 causes any more warming. If additional greenhouse gases caused additional warming then the primary culprit would have to be H2O which depends upon the warming of just the surfaces of bodies of water and not their volume but such is not part of the AGW conjecture. In other words CO2 increases in the atmosphere as huge volumes of water increase in temperature but more H2O enters the atmopshere as just the surface of bodies of water warm. We live in a water world where the majoriety of the Earth’s surface is some form of water.
The AGW theory is that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes an increase in its radiant thermal insulation properties causing restrictions in heat flow which in turn cause warming at the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere. In itself the effect is small because we are talking about small changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere and CO2 comprises only about .04% of dry atmosphere if it were only dry but that is not the case. Actually H2O, which averages around 2%, is the primary greenhouse gas. The AGW conjecture is that the warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which further increases the radiant thermal insulation properties of the atmosphere and by so doing so amplifies the effect of CO2 on climate. At first this sounds very plausible. This is where the AGW conjecture ends but that is not all what must happen if CO2 actually causes any warming at all.
Besides being a greenhouse gas, H2O is also a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere transferring heat energy from the Earth;s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. More heat energy is moved by H2O via phase change then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. More H2O means that more heat energy gets moved which provides a negative feedback to any CO2 based warming that might occur. Then there is the issue of clouds. More H2O means more clouds. Clouds not only reflect incoming solar radiation but they radiate to space much more efficiently then the clear atmosphere they replace. Clouds provide another negative feedback. Then there is the issue of the upper atmosphere which cools rather than warms. The cooling reduces the amount of H2O up there which decreases any greenhouse gas effects that CO2 might have up there. In total, H2O provides negative feedback’s which must be the case because negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve. We are here. The wet lapse rate being smaller then the dry lapse rate is further evidence of H2O’s cooling effects.
The entire so called, “greenhouse” effect that the AGW conjecture is based upon is at best very questionable. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the heat trapping effects of greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass reduces cooling by convection. This is a convective greenhouse effect. So too on Earth..The surface of the Earth is 33 degrees C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere because gravity limits cooling by convection. This convective greenhouse effect is observed on all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres and it has nothing to do with the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases. the convective greenhouse effect is calculated from first principals and it accounts for all 33 degrees C. There is no room for an additional radiant greenhouse effect. Our sister planet Venus with an atmosphere that is more than 90 times more massive then Earth’s and which is more than 96% CO2 shows no evidence of an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The high temperatures on the surface of Venus can all be explained by the planet’s proximity to the sun and its very dense atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect of the AGW conjecture has never been observed. If CO2 did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused an increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. Considering how the natural lapse rate has changed as a function of an increase in CO2, the climate sensitivity of CO2 must equal 0.0.
This is all a matter of science
“If CO2 did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused an increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened.”
Is it “decrease”? My understanding of AGW CO2 GHG theory is that is predicts to warm the LTL faster than the surface as pCO2 increases. Which of course is not observed in any measurement data set.
Is that wrong?
The lapse rate traces the insulating characteristics of the atmosphere. The greater the lapse rate, the more insulation takes place. So if adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes an increase in the insulating effects then the lapse rate should increase but the opposite is true. Because of CO2’s effect on the heat capacity of the atmosphere, adding more of it to the atmosphere can only decrease the lapse rate which causes more heat energy to move upward in the atmosphere.
If you think that climate science is unsettled, you haven’t looked at psychology yet.
I thought climate science was a branch of psychology 🙂
This Pope added it to dept. of Theology, or maybe Metaphysics.
I’ve analyzed NCDC’s surface data myself, there is no evidence of a loss of nightly cooling since 1940.
So now he’s suggesting they put a few clothes on the emperor, and then perhaps a few more, and before you know it, the emperor will be fully clothed, and anyone suggesting the emperor ever had no clothes will have been wrong all along.
It looks like they are seeing some writing on their wall at last, and as long as they can climb down without allowing any debate they will still claim a win.
We’ve certainly been innoculated. We have been innoculated by CAGW rubbish. We can see the real science and like the look of it. Honest science supports rejection of the Alarmist position of CAGW Climatism.
from the heavily censored comments following the article in TheCon…
=============
John Cook
Climate Communication Research Fellow, Global Change Institute, The University of Queensland
“There’s a great deal of psychological research indicating that
communicating the 97% consensus
is one of the most effective ways of communicating the realities of climate change
because people use expert opinion as a heuristic or mental shortcut to guide their opinion about complicated scientific issues (plus it’s very simple and easy to communicate).”
=============
Does any other branch of science employ psychological operations to change public opinion?
Khwarizmi,
A more pertinent 1st question:
Does any other branch of science have a political stake in reorganizing and redistributing so much economic wealth?
“Does any other branch of science have a political stake in reorganizing and redistributing so much economic wealth?”
Pharmaceutical science, perhaps? Dedicated to redistributing wealth to the companies, and also full of very dubious studies?
BINGO! That’s the first thing that occurred to me as I read this.
Khwarizmi-“from the heavily censored comments following the article in TheCon…
“There’s a great deal of psychological research indicating that communicating the 97% consensus
is one of the most effective ways of communicating the realities of climate change because people use expert opinion as a heuristic or mental shortcut to guide their opinion about complicated scientific issues (plus it’s very simple and easy to communicate).”
*”Does any other branch of science employ psychological operations to change public opinion?”
And right there folks, we can SEE, plainly, just how warped,biased, and irrational John Cook’s thinking is. (A condition that affects MANY social scientists and thus fosters nothing but scorn for the field and IN the field, which John and Co are oblivious to)
People DO use expert opinion as a heuristic or mental shortcut to guide their opinions about complicated issues John, but the problem here is that NO ONE views you, or any of the Cook et al gang as EXPERTS in ANYTHING. Not climate. Not communications. Not determining whether or not a “consensus” even exists. Not cartooning. Not creating widgets or slogans or sticky things. You and your pals are AMATEURS on your very best days!
Why do we view you so poorly? Because your work is FILLED with evidence that suggests that you and the “et als” suffer from impaired cognition! And not just a little, a LOT.
“Projection bias -The tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts and values” [hint-John,…was that “research indicating that communicating the 97% consensus is one of the most effective ways of communicating the realities of climate change” done by researchers engaging in the projection bias, as well as others listed below? If so…what does it indicate ABOUT that research?]
“Group attribution error- The biased belief that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole or the tendency to assume that group decision outcomes reflect the preferences of group members, even when information is available that clearly suggests otherwise.”
“Stereotyping- Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.”
But John Cook (and other ironically so called “climate communication experts”) demonstrates so many obvious even to idiots cognitive biases in all of his work, that it’s really, psychologically stunning:
Bias blind spot -The tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself
“Empathy gap– The tendency to underestimate the influence or strength of feelings, in either oneself or others.” [hint-calling people horrible names tends to offend not only those people, but OTHER people who might have previously viewed you as a credible “expert”. ]
“Irrational escalation-The phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong. Also known as the sunk cost fallacy.” [hint-prior investments like declaring a 97% Consensus to exist when it does not, making up Hiroshima Bomb widgets, hosting online classes in which one portrays oneself as an “expert in denial”, and going from washed up cartoonist to publishing “scientist” make it really hard to NOT irrationally escalate things when more and more evidence suggesting that you were probably wrong keeps surfacing]
“Observer-expectancy effect– When a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it” [hint-everything John Cook et al has ever published ]
“False consensus effect– The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them” [hint-overestimating that degree to almost 100% (97%) puts Cook and Friends in a category all their own]
“Illusion of asymmetric insight-People perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them” [hint-if you have secret online plotting discussions about the conclusions you KNOW your future (but yet unconducted) research will arrive at, AND leave those discussions unsecured, then your peers find out a WHOLE LOT more about you, than you know about your peers]
“Naïve realism– The belief that we see reality as it really is – objectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who don’t are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.” [hint-print, post on bathroom mirror, read aloud often, daily, until one of two things happens-1) you die or 2) you achieve a moment of absolute clarity and horrific realization that you, and your other climate communication buddies, have spent their entire careers proving to the world how cognitively impaired YOU are. After that, maybe you can reflect on how effectively and efficiently your professional contributions undermined the very theory you thought you were helping to advance. But we all know that is an irrational expectation as this point]
Oh, and I is just one of them uneducated, simple folks. I done learned all this stuff in less than 6 years and without spending a dime on tuition. I just relied on the expert opinions of people who study cognitive impairments to help guide my opinion on this really-not-all-that-difficult scientific issue.
This is why Cruz should introduce a bill to fund an honest survey, which would reveal an 80% or so consensus, as did von Storch’s and George Mason’s. Or why someone else should fund such a survey. It would likely need the cooperation of relevant scientific societies.
Just remember:
The winner gets to (re)write the history books. The CAGW believers are aiming to control history to control the future.
George Orwell said something like that in his 1984 novel.
The future is known, its the past which keeps changing 🙂
That’s golden! Wish I’d have coined it, but cheers to you and the lovely beverage of your choice!
joelbryan,
Yes, except the winners don’t stay permanently as winners; history shows that and it is expressed in this poem:
John
When some warmunist on a “science” blog brings up the 97% consensus or uses Skepticalscience as a rebuttal source, I have bookmarked links ready to post as necessary. In the case of the consensus, I point out that it is based on a survey with rigged questions like telephone surveys used to pre-skew results, and documented here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/#5494013f5909
Next I point out that, as stated in the first link, the fraud Mr. Cook runs a web site called “Skepticalscience” which is anything but. He also appears to be a neo-Nazi:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/03/truth-about-skeptical-science.html
And then- Although Mr. Cook seems to have stopped wearing uniforms (or at least being photographed in them) there is a fairly extensive record of his “career” located here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=john+cook
And that’s all it usually takes. People seem to have an aversion to finding themselves in agreement with Nazis, and really, I never realized how much fun schadenfreude could be. If anyone has more useful and informative links please post.
After posting I waited to confirm there had been no problem- things were moving very slowly with posts appearing hours after the times listed for them. While I waited I read some of the other entries on Mr Cook including the comments about the uniform pic here http://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/john-cook/ I will adjust my comments on other threads accordingly.
Cook was probably tempted into playing dress-up by 1) the initials of his site and 2) a desire to communicate a visual pun: that he is a storm trooper for climatism. Certain insignia on the uniform seemed to me to be sending greenie messages.
Jeff Hayes: ‘In the case of the consensus, I point out that it is based on a survey with rigged questions like telephone surveys used to pre-skew results…’
A scientific consensus is a general agreement about a field of study and is based on several elements: the convergence of the scientific evidence, agreed standards of evidence, and a diversity of researchers.
Surveys, literature searches and the like are ways of measuring the state of a consensus, but they are not how a consensus is formed. A scientific consensus is formed as a collective judgement over time as a range of evidence begins to support a particular position.
Consensus plays an important part in science by providing a paradigm or framework in which to interpret the results of research. Consensus also shows not just where the evidence is strong, but also where it is weak or uncertain. This enables research to be directed at those areas.
This is one reason why science is considered to be ‘self-correcting’. Investigating areas of uncertainty may lead to new ways of looking at a problem and even, in time, a new paradigm.
“Inoculating minds”, Cook’s sinister phrase sounds like he’s getting into Ron L Hubbard-style territory — or worse.
He’s as mad as his mentor.
I don’t know if Americans are familiar with the word ‘turd’?
Somehow it keeps popping into my mind every time I see a reference to John Cook.
I’ve been suffering from that a lot lately. The term “climate scientist” and “consensus” triggers that a lot. Must be all that stuff they keep going on about. A load of something definitely rural. I guess that’s a form of inoculation. I can smell it a mile away now.
We could give him the nickname “Mr. Floatie”.
To get the right message out it’s usually a good idea to:
1. Present the data sources about the issue in question.
2. Explain what theory suggests should happen if certain premises are true.
3. Either eliminate certain theories due to data not being consistent with them or assert that the data does not allow conclusions to be drawn about this theory on this occasion.
4. Discuss whether improvements in experimental design, instrumentation etc would be able to allow the theory to be refuted in future.
5. State that, if that were not possible, then the theory is meaningless in scientific terms currently unless alternative experiments allowing it to be refuted are carried out.
The problem with that of course is that it requires people to grapple with primary data, scientific facts and the scientific method.
How many humans want brutal honesty all the time?
Even that isn’t enough.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/evidence-against-warming-from-carbon-dioxide/
rtj1211 January 26, 2016 at 11:56 pm
+1
Recently I had a discussion with two friends. As they are mainly informed by the popular press, the discussion inevitably did turn into a confrontation, even while I was trying to be as open and careful as I could manage. We agreed to stop the discussion before it would start poisoning the friendship.
For now my feelings tell me they are convinced I am brainwashed and tricked into being skeptical and I guess form my part I feel they are pretty brainwashed themselves.
If any discussion in the future would start again though, my approach would be different. No head-on talk about climate itself any more, but first and foremost “going back to basics” with questions like:
“How can you test if information on websites can be trusted?”
“What different kind of info is out there and what different kind of testing would you need for them?”
“How does science work, what different approaches are there in science, and for predictive science what testing needs to be done?”
The big challenge for scientist would be to engage on this area with non-scientists. Not to try to educate them in science, but to give tools for clear thinking also in other areas. The big caveat would be to think you just have to approach with logic and you can brush aside political and religious thinking. This is what a lot of the original skeptical and fact-checking sites erroneously did do, only to expose their own hidden beliefs and political bias. My approach would be to get these different ways of thinking and reasoning out in the open and differentiate between them and draw the boundaries between them. Not because political or religious thinking would be something bad, but to safeguard purity in the scientific approach and prevent spilling over from other areas.
For now I won’t start the subject with them again soon. I handed them some material to think over already and will wait if something will come out of that. How far they will go on this is up to them, because in the end only their own effort will bear some fruit, not me trying to convince them.
Indeed, it may very well be, they are not after good and trustworthy info – maybe they just want to be entertained by the main stream media. Because “brutal honesty” is not easy.
Just give them links to the best threads on Climate Etc. and here–maybe that would work. Or ask them to read the free samples of skeptical e-books like The D*niers, The Delinquent Teenager, etc.
Why don’t they try the homeopathic approach?
As someone said to Joe McCarthy(who was actually correct) “Have you no shame?”.
“One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
The Homeopathy of climate “science” , Says it all really, another pseudoscience,
I wish I’d thought of that when I wrote the title of this post 🙂
What does “exposing people to a weak form of science denial” actually mean? I’m sorry to say that it sounds a lot like “lie” to me. When you inoculate people to protect against a disease, you give them something that has been killed or weakened so that it LOOKS like the real thing but can’t actually give them the disease. I watched as much of the video as I could stand (why is this guy so creepy?) and it really does sound as though he does really mean giving people faked or crippled or misrepresented scepticism that won’t persuade them, so that when they meet the real thing they’ll believe they already know it’s wrong and turn away. And if that’s not lying, what is?
That is an interesting thought. Recently, I have found myself correcting comments made by a supposed sceptical person that were well off base from reality. Some of those comments are likely made by those with almost no comprehension or little comprehension of the subject of climate influences, but some of them made me wonder if there was an ulterior motive such as what this post pertains to. I say that as they seemed to be a bit too far out there to be real. I will pay closer attention to that thought.
It is called ‘brain washing’.
It’s homeopathy over psychobabble over sociobabble over failed models based on invalid reductionism: pseudo-science over pseudo-science over pseudo-science over pseudo-science.
It’s the pseudo-science lasagna.
Hard to swallow. Mega-junk food.
If ‘Big Oil’ is paying the ‘denialists, it would be interesting to know who is paying John Cook.
The problem for people like John Cook is that they are clueless – not just about the climate but also as to why those from outside academia are far more capable of understanding both science of climate and the stupidity of those involved pushing the global warming religion.
Anyone can think like an academic like John Cook – you just have build a wall around your subject – keeping out all comment sense and experience and wider knowledge.
oops – where’s the edit?
“Anyone can think like an academic like John Cook”
No. A PhD candidate (NOT at his supposed Climate Research Institute) cannot afford world-wide travel to promote a political agenda. He is funded by someone or some organisation. Discover who, and you have the answer.
“Follow the money”
I’ve never found a single person pushing the global warming religion who isn’t in some way a parasite on the public purse. There’s also a strong correlation between belief and democratic viewpoints, which strongly suggests that the whole damn stupid fad is a facet of their personal beliefs and not anything at all to do with evidence.
There’s also a Lewandowsky study (of all people) showing that alarmists are less influenced by data than what they are told the data shows. Whereas sceptics stubbornly stick to the same interpretation with the same data irrespective of what idiots like John Cook tell us it should mean.
So, even if I knew nothing else about climate, based on that evidence alone, I would be pretty certain sceptics are right and those like John Cook are wrong. But when you add in the climate data it is almost certain (or as certain as we sceptics get) that we are right.
You are mostly right Scottish Sceptic, but most sceptics are still “Lukes” who still believe in the concept that back radiation from the cold atmosphere raises the surface temperature at least to some extent each morning. It doesn’t and I say that based on correct thermodynamics which I have been first in the world to explain and support with empirical evidence. Whether or not readers choose to learn from my writings, they should know that I have carried out extensive study and research (easily equivalent to a PhD in physics with thermodynamics as my specialty) and perhaps they may compare such with their own knowledge of entropy maximization and thermodynamics.
Blind faith can be practiced by anyone including atheists. Blind faith occurs when someone puts their faith into something without any evidence. This is religion to the alarmist.
“I’ve never found a single person pushing the global warming religion who isn’t in some way a parasite on the public purse.”
Bingo!
“Based on the evidence?” Whatever ELSE should we be basing reality on? Anybody who paid attention in second grade knows that climate changes, that glaciations come and go with everything in between. But the logic level of that same second-grader can EASILY show that the evidence thus far for CAGW is nil. I don’t give a rat’s what their computer-games purport to show.
So I’m to be taken to a ‘re-education’ camp? Are there going to be ‘confessional sessions’ as well?
Whenever I put up Dr. Spencer’s graph showing how badly the models have failed the warmists always start ranting about how he’s dishonestly fiddled the graph, etc. As a result I’ve taken up pairing his graph with this one from the IPCC’s AR5:
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ed/bloguploads/AR5_11_25.png
Source: IPCC AR5 report, chapter 11, ‘Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability’, page 1011, figure 11.25.
They continue ranting of course, in fact they seem to have a tendency to start frothing when shown the IPCC graph supporting Dr. Spencer’s fine work. 🙂
Hold on to you hat, they have a new chart to put up:
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2016-panela.png
Fresh out of the oven yesterday I am told.
What’s come out of the oven is “fudge” from the “Karlized” NOAA data set.
“As the scientific consensus for climate change has strengthened over the past decade” <- every time he tell fibs like that one another flower dies….
This sounds like an old KGB tactic. In the old USSR, dissident’s, who for somehow unable to see the benefits of the Marxist Utopia, were classified as being mentally ill and were placed in psychiatric wards where they were forcibly drugged.
Can someone explain to me how if infra red radiation does not warm the oceans during the day, how it is able to warm the oceans at night?
The Conversation only allows comments from people who support whatever the article says. No contrary views are allowed because they say it isn’t ‘helpful’. I have tried to post very polite criticisms of articles there on several occasions but have always found them to be quickly deleted by a moderator.
I no longer read anything there and never will again as it just makes me angry.
I agree. I won’t give them my time nor add to their number count.
Ditto Re: conversation. On holiday in gold coast and the site was recommended as being top notch academic sourced. Liitle did I know it was simply an appeal from authority. I never even got to the point of making a comment. Just reading Cooks article was sufficient to turn me off. So glad to read a direct rebuff here.
You’d better hope you’re right John Cook and Gavin Schmidt because whatever it is you’re spending to keep doubling down like this, is going to run out one day.
“I’ve never found a single person pushing the global warming religion who isn’t in some way a parasite on the public purse.”
Sorry, cannot agree.
Have one green wife and 3 green sons, all intelligent people with a wish to improve the world. Many of my friends are intelligent people but suffer from the same disease.
People need someone or something to blame for life’s problems.
On the Cook agenda there are two obvious problems.
He quotes 3 other studies at different times all showing 97%
4 studies of a nebulous consensus all coming up with exactly the same figure?
Like winning Tattslotto with the same set of numbers 4 times in a row.
Absolutely unbelievable.
He then doubles down by saying they had several different definitions of a consensus but the results all kept coming out the same way at 97%.
Any sane person would understand if you change the definition you should get different outcomes, even if only by a few percent.
When you do not you should know you are being conned.
97% is the same percentage as any communist or dictatorial election result.
Near total support with 3% chucked in to make the result “believable”.
Comments at the conversation closed overnight. I will try to put this comment , middle bit , up there tomorrow.
Anthony
“97% is the same percentage as any communist or dictatorial election result.
Near total support with 3% chucked in to make the result “believable”.”
An article along these lines would be fantastic to use against Cook forever.
this says it all.
A cowboy-hat-wearing Mormon rancher who died during the arrests of his fellow Oregon occupiers on Tuesday night had vowed weeks ago never to be taken alive by authorities.
Image: LaVoy Finicum
Robert LaVoy Finicum at daughter Challice Finch’s wedding. Finicum Family
LaVoy Finicum, one of the protesters’ de facto spokesmen, died after shots were fired when police stopped the group on Highway 395 as they headed to a public meeting. Five of his cohorts were arrested at the scene, officials said.
Oregon State Police said an investigation was being carried out into what it described as a “officer-involved shooting,” following protocols used “when deadly physical force is used.” The FBI and state police said they had conducted “enforcement action” along the highway at around 4:25 p.m. local time (7:25 p.m. ET).
Authorities would not confirm Finicum’s death but his daughter Challice Finch told NBC News that she had been notified by another protester.
Finicum was a Mormon rancher from Arizona who had 11 children, 19 grandchildren and a wife of 23 years.
During the occupation, the 54-year-old broke away from the rest of the group and set up a one-man camp on a chair outside the building, hunkered down under a sleeping bag, a tarpaulin, and clutching his rifle in the bitter January air.
Finicum vowed three weeks ago that he would rather die than be taken into custody.
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FROM JAN. 6: There Are Things More Important Than Your Life: LaVoy Finicum 0:56
Go away.
The same number popping up in that kind of way was what tipped people off that Cyril Burt’s work was fake.
(Whoops, unclear. Not 97%. Having a number that was exactly the same in several studies.)
The issue I’ve run into with the AGW crowd is that they steadfastly refuse to look at any data that is contrary to their belief system. John Cook appears to be a blazing example of this.
I’m just wondering how long this failed CAGW hypothesis can last under the rules of the Scientific Method..
The disparity between CAGW projections vs. reality already exceed 2+ standard deviations for 20+ years, which is sufficient disparity and duration to discomfirm the CAGW hypothesis.
The CAGW alarmists are well aware of this reality, which explains why they rushed to adopt KARL2015 adjustments to avoid CAGW being tossed in the wood chipper…
The indefensible KARL2015 adjustments were so obviously contrived, Congess subpoenaed NOAA for all internal KARL2015 e-mails, which NOAA has so far refused to do, claiming it’s “propriety” information…. Jeez… Add contempt of Congess to their crimes…
How much longer will we have to put up with this CAGW charade???
How much longer? That’s a good question.
How much longer until they admit their math was off on the peak oil alarm? That the hole in the ozone layer is a natural phenomenon that was there all along? That the population bomb was a dud?
When has a green or a socialist EVER admitted they were wrong? And what makes you think they’re likely to start now, with their greatest failure ever?
As suggested by the title, inoculation and brainwashing are similar. Brainwashing however seeks to get people to adopt different ideas while inoculation is concerned with protecting existing ideas. The goal or process of of attitude and belief inoculations concerns strengthening existing attitudes and beliefs and building resistance to future counterarguments.
If you think it’s supporting proper thinking you call it inoculation, if you disapprove of application it is better labelled as “mind control”. In practice inoculation can provide protection from brainwashing or of a person’s being captured by propaganda or it can serve as mind control and suppress worthwhile inquiry and inhibit rational consideration.
Ideally the scientific process provides for the washing out bad ideas, as through observation,testing and experiementation the better ideas gain support while the lesser ideas are marginalized. Using psychological processes that work (outside of the truth or falsity of the underlying beliefs) seems like a dangerous course and antithetical to a scientific approach. Don’t we want to give counterarguments any attention they may be deserving of. But I can see the logic of someone who has the TRUTH and believes others have to be manipulated to understand and support it.
It remains amazing to me that all the climate models are collectively wrong to the upside, they must all be intentionally doing the same thing wrong and refusing to fix it. You’d think one modeller would eventually notice they are always high, so a curious modeler would find what’s wrong and fix it but nope that’s not being done here. One can only conclude the modelers don’t want to find the correct answer, they want to provide answer the alarmists want to hear.
When a group of people play the “guess the number of marbles in a jar” game, each individual guesser usually doesn’t have a clue, but somehow the average of their bad guesses turns out to be near the correct number. It doesn’the work this way in climate modeling. I wonder how the “guess the number of marbles” game would work if the participants were told the person who guesses the lowest amount will get punished.
Absolutely right. If they dialed the co2 sensitivity down to what it actually is then you’d have no global warming and show’s over folks. It’s actually very funny to watch them hauling their dreadful and shameful dead albatross around for all eternity. Not a job I would ever do.
‘But scientists and science communicators cannot afford to ignore the potential of misinformation to undermine good science communication.’
Can’t afford? What does that mean? What’s at risk? Their life? Their income?
Freedom of speech is tolerance of the wrong.
Who are these “science communicators,” and where did they come from? We didn’t used to have them. Life was better then.
“As the scientific consensus for climate change has strengthened over the past decade”
Hmmm. I am not sure what “scientific consensus for climate change” means. I am very doubtful that any such “consensus” has strengthened among scientist or engineers over the past 10 years. Perhaps Cook meant political consensus instead.
I suppose this is but the first of many inoculations to come. But look out for a flood of intentionally wacko comments in the blogosphere intended to make skeptics appear to be racists, misogynists, and any other ignorant or nasty kind of “ist”. Just another Alinsky tactic:
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
RULE 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
When one side of a scientific debate relies on shrinks and pseudo scientists to make their point, then they have lost the debate.
I am perplexed:
why do you insist on posting graphics which include the “mean” of the various models’ outputs…the multi model mean is a meaningless, inevitably misleading concept, one divorced from any professionally accepted statistical analysis.
See RGB@Duke’s numerous posts on this subject.
Since large scale conspiracy theories are shown to be unstable by probability modeling, then it’s time to move on to how they persist in policy and belief systems against the fact checking of such truth detectors as satellite data. See for background
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160126162330.htm
Resourceguy,
“Since large scale conspiracy theories are shown to be unstable by probability modeling…”
Shown by some physicists that got a paper published? What happened to your skepticism, sir? Probability modeling? Human society probability modeling? And you go for that as if some sort of scientific evidence? Amazing . .
Do I need to mention all the communist French scientists who were pro-Soviet Union?
Being communist is one thing – let’s say it’s ideological, or ideals-logical as the French ministry of ecoloonacies, Ségolène Royal (also mother of François Hollande’s children), describes the root of this word (“idéologique”/”idéaux-logique” – yes, she isn’t very bright or even very good in French).
Being a supporter of Soviet Union is another thing entirely. Soviet Union after the war (the war during which the communist union, the CGT (confédération générale du travail) helped the Reich by sabotage in the French military plants), was forcing official “science” on biology.
Few scientists threw away their membership card of the PCF (parti communiste français) and too late.
People now claim that no one could know about Soviet Union. But people knew already in the 30ties, they were just not heard.
The secrets of Soviet Union were well kept by being public domain but too ugly.
When you discuss with French academics, try to bring that up. You will feel the antibodies.
phew!
– this guy just keeps on + on eh?
I normally avoid insults and prefer to make a point via independently verifiable evidence – but I’m happy to make an exception for the odious smirking Mr. Cook. It is part of his MO to be provocative but in terms of the pyschological projection of truly putrid made up drivel – he’s world class.
That the twerp is funded by Aussie taxes must be a sounce of enduring pride for both the taxpayers and the downunder academic community
The Cook article at “The Conversation” comes a day after another one ranting about “deniers” by Lewandowsky,
https://theconversation.com/we-just-had-the-hottest-year-on-record-where-does-that-leave-climate-denial-53576
where I just posted this comment, which I expect will soon be deleted:
“It’s a nice illustration of the dishonesty of the so-called Conversation, and its claim to be free of bias, that rather than provide an alternative view, this article is followed up by another one featuring a virtually identical picture by Lewandowsky’s fellow climate activist John Cook.”
Talking about balance:
https://theconversation.com/pour-creer-des-emplois-que-peut-le-politique-quand-seul-le-patronat-decide-53472
If you don’t read French, it’s a Marxist lamentation about the power of employers and neoliberal politics, whatever that is…
HAHAHA
from wiki
The Iraqi presidential election of 1995 took place on October 15 of that year. It was the first direct presidential election under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who had seized power through the Revolutionary Command Council in 1979. Taking the form of a referendum with no other candidates, the election involved giving voters paper ballots that said: “Do you approve of President Saddam Hussein being the President of the Republic?”[1][2] They then used pens to mark “yes” or “no”.[2] The next day, Izzat Ibrahim, Hussein’s deputy in the ruling Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), announced the incumbent had won 99.96% of some 8.4 million valid votes cast. Officially, 3,052 people voted against him (45 of them in Baghdad),[3][4] and turnout was 99.47%.[5] The international community reacted with widespread incredulity to these figures.[6]
guess he didn’t know about the 97% meme but still funny, and about the same looks to me
John Cook writes:
“The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that? ….”
======================
Yeah John, ain’t it a bitch that the science doesn’t support your CAGW propaganda and that the more people are exposed to the science the more skeptical of CAGW they become
“John Cook writes:
“The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that? ….””
Let me fix that –
“The science for climate change only feeds the denial that anthropogenic global warming will cause catastrophic climate changes: how do you beat that? ….”
You don’t, nor should you try to.
You accept that your belief doesn’t match the science.
Can you say, “reality check”?
Authority figures, foretelling
Hot doom (and our “myths” dispelling),
Cast great dispersions
On skeptical versions
(Which keep carbon credits from selling)!
Now, shriller and louder they’re yelling,
To drown out the doubters’ rebelling!
New taxes are “just”
When you’ve gained public trust,
So “the questioners” (quickly) they’re quelling.
I’ve arrived at this realization;
Our industrial civilization
Can only be sin
If the ‘green’ Marxists win-
On their platform of demonization!
Psychologists go to college to try to understand their own problems. When they finish they think they know themselves, and they assume everybody else thinks like they do. He simply cannot understand those of us trained in critical thinking.
This clown thinks we will swallow the ‘climate change’ cow flop if they sugar-coat it and call it a cinnamon roll.
Thanks for confirming what I’ve suspected for years. Soft science = soft thinking.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/reviews4.html
Thanks for the link, Hortense. Depressing to see that it was written a decade and a half ago. Things have only gotten worse since then for America’s public schools.
I forced myself to watch his insidious ‘Inoculation’ video. I don’t think he’s aiming this ‘psychological’ technique at heretical scientists, or even rational laypeople who don’t accept the Gospel of Climate Change. I think he’s aiming at children, maybe the children of skeptics, maybe even college students.
There is no surer sign that we’re dealing, not with science, but with a religious cult, and one that is looking to consolidate its hold on the governing elites by inoculating the young. This fellow, and the movement he represents, are more dangerous that we might guess from viewing his laughable, oleaginous smirk.
/Mr Lynn
Cook must not get around much. If one visits general population news sites and looks at articles on AGW they will see all kinds of “weak” skeptic views (and weak alarmist views). Both are much more prevalent than strong views. So, how is he going to change something that is already orders of magnitude larger than anything he could create?
The guy reality isn’t very smart.
Previously John Cook had a 2013 paper** retracted in 2014 that conspired about climate skeptics being kooks who conspire, and now we see John Cook conspired again recently that climate skeptics conspire {The Conversation, ‘The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?’ January 26, 2016 2.18pm EST}. In that article John Cook wrote,
John Cook has a long term repeatedly expressed fixation with theories about there being conspiring skeptics. That makes John Cook a person who sees conspiring in people he intellectually opposes. John Cook is person who looks at the world through conspiracy colored glasses. John Cook need not look in the mirror to see that, he needs to just realize that he has become the mirror.
** Cook was co-author of retracted paper ‘Recursive fury: conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation’ by Lewandowsky, Cook, Oberauer, and Marriott, published by journal Frontiers on 18 March 2013.
John
Yep. Antibodies surging.
Goes along with US government school system focus on students coming to consensus. It’s all One.
L. E. Joiner: Extremely dangerous; UN already is acting on this. US schools too.
rtj1211 January 26, 2016 at 11:56 pm
+1
Recently I had a discussion with two friends. As they are mainly informed by the popular press, the discussion inevitably did turn into a confrontation, even while I was trying to be as open and careful as I could manage. We agreed to stop the discussion before it would start poisoning the friendship.
For now my feelings tell me they are convinced I am brainwashed and tricked into being skeptical and I guess form my part I feel they are pretty brainwashed themselves.
If any discussion in the future would start again though, my approach would be different. No head-on talk about climate itself any more, but first and foremost “going back to basics” with questions like:
“How can you test if information on websites can be trusted?”
“What different kind of info is out there and what different kind of testing would you need for them?”
“How does science work, what different approaches are there in science, and for predictive science what checking needs to be done?”
The big challenge for scientist would be to engage on this area with non-scientists. Not to try to educate them in science, but to give tools for clear thinking also in other areas. The big caveat would be to think you just have to approach with logic and you can brush aside political and religious thinking. This is what a lot of the original skeptical and fact-checking sites erroneously did do, only to expose their own hidden beliefs and political bias. My approach would be to get these different ways of thinking and reasoning out in the open and differentiate between them and draw the boundaries between them. Not because political or religious thinking would be something bad, but to safeguard purity in the scientific approach and prevent spilling over from other areas.
For now I won’t start the subject with them. I handed them some material to think over already and will wait if something will come out of that. How far they will go on this is up to them, because in the end only their own effort will bear some fruit, not me trying to convince them.
Indeed, it may very well be, they are not after good and trustworthy info – maybe they just want to be entertained by the main stream media. Because “brutal honesty” is not easy.
““One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
Oops , they already did this. Aren’t Mann, Jones, Trenberth, etc. the poster boys for “science denial” ?
The Climategate emails already did a good job -but not in Cook’s favor, unfortunately.
Which leads me to another point. Cook, et al are much too vociferous in their “denial -propaganda” campaigns, indicating psychological projection toward true skeptics in order to deal with their own cognitive dissonance. In other words they don’t believe the “science” themselves on some level of their psyche but are incapable of resolving their own repression of this awareness and must project it outward onto others, in order to squelch it at any cost.
“Psychology 101”
Bingo, much of their behavior is clearly a psychological projection. Real psychologists are missing an opportunity to study this as it happening.
John Cook, neo-Nazi:
Does he really want to re-introduce reeducation camps? Concentration camps?
Photo is shopped.
cephus0 on January 27, 2016 at 11:03 am
– – – — –
cephus0,
Indeed the photo of John Cook all dressed up like that was photo-shopped. It was photo-shopped by some of Cook’s inner circle of SkS supporters and contributors. Maybe John Cook was aware they did it and he did not stop them.
Apparently they thought it was funny. They have a sense of humor that is, well …. uhm . . . . noir/kinky . . .
John
Really? Might it qualify as an editorial cartoon?
Awe, comments are closed on Mr Cook’s cute little videos. I guess laymen shouldn’t be expected to be open to criticism, just scientists.
joelobryan wrote “My understanding of AGW CO2 GHG theory is that is predicts to warm the LTL faster than the surface as pCO2 increases. Which of course is not observed in any measurement data set.”
Every time I take my eye off the ball for a nanosecond or so I find that some wunderkind modeler has written a brand new model which turns data sets contrary to the party line on their heads. For some time I was under the impression that the LT data from satellites and radiosondes showed no ‘hot spot’ contrary to the predictions of the agw hypothesis. Now people tell me that there is indeed such confirmatory data and the hot spot is right where it was predicted to be and at exactly the right temperature to confirm the hypothesis. Could someone here confirm or otherwise what the position is wrt LT hot spots. TIA
I haven’t seen that announced around here. Quite the contrary, it has been debunked.
Thanks Ernest and I’ll dig around some more …
There was a paper a few years ago that claimed to have found the missing hot spot using balloon data. It didn’t however use the actual temperatures measured with those balloons (which don’t show the hot spot) but instead modeled the hot spot using adjusted temperature proxies based on wind speed.
Imagine if you wanted to know how fast a car was going and you made up a model based on the engine temperature gauge. Now imagine that your temp gauge model gives you a figure 15 mph lower then your speedometer but you use the model instead because it fits better with your opinion. Finally imagine trying to argue with the cop who pulled you over for speeding that his radar gun, which showed a speed very close to your speedometer, is wrong because your temp gauge model better matches your assumptions.
That’s what that paper was like. And no, most climate skeptics didn’t fall for it. But an amazing number of the Climate Faithful sure did.
Thanks for that and a small wager on there being yet another model at the bottom of it wouldn’t have been unreasonable. I use FE modeling extensively in my own work but these jokers have turned the whole concept of modeling into an art form for propagating lies. Too disgusting for words really.
“Our old friend John Cook thinks climate sceptics have to be psychologically “inoculated”, to help re-educate us into accepting climate science, without triggering a reflexive “denial” response.”
Cue a Doctor Who Dalek voice:
“YOU. WILL. BELIEVE!”
Problem: The lies aren’t working.
Solution: Tell smaller lies, and work your way up.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
+10
John Cook is way too late with epistemological inoculation recommendations.
I have long been inoculated epistemologically in the area of science by Feynman, Roger Bacon** and Einstein in order of lessening inoculation potency. They inoculated me against your pre-science epistemology. Pre-science epistemology is the necessary and sufficient basis of pseudo-science.
So, I am a fundamental skeptic of the hypothesis of the existence of independent objectively corroborated and unambiguously significant global warming from burning fossil fuels. (see Note below)
Sayonara.
** 13th century Roger Bacon heavily influenced by Aristotle & Alhazen
Note: I leave aside for another discussion, but just for the moment, the irrational accompanying hypothesis that global warming, per se, on the whole causes net harm.
John
Well said! Worth copying and posting on the wall. Thanks. /Mr Lynn
L. E. Joiner on January 27, 2016 at 2:08 pm
– – – – – –
L.E.Joiner,
You are kind to say that. I try, but always could use a good editor prior to posting. Don’t a lot of us?
John
John— Didn’t notice any problems with your post. I really like your point that some of us have been “inoculated epistemologically” with the Scientific Method, which will naturally make us skeptics of any empirical claim, and immune to the blandishments of dogma—of any kind. That is exactly the counter to the propaganda techniques that this Cook person wants to inflict upon our youth.
And of course, that’s the solution: if we teach the principles of scientific inquiry, the young will be immune to the purveyors of pseudo-science and the ideology of True Believers.
The only caveat is that scientific inoculation seems to have failed the current generation, too many of whom zealously and uncritically accept the claims of the CAGW Climatists. We need to ask how they have come to be so uncritical—peer pressure? job pressure? It is a mystery.
/Mr Lynn
If the consensus is growing, why do these people feel the need to do all kinds of things to skeptics? The truth is they have thrown so much crap at the public that if the wanna be puppet masters could make skeptics see the light we would simply add them to the list of scientists and politicians we distrust immensely.
If the U.S. public were allowed to see how winter is progressing in the Northern Hemisphere, perhaps it might become outraged at the governments CAGW claim that it is getting hotter.
Wait! Isn’t this “inoculation” business just another marketing ploy?
Dear Mr Cook,
My skepticism has nothing to do with you and your peers “message.” I am skeptical because evidence shows there have been many past natural warming periods identical to the current one. Logic demands I wonder if the current warming is natural too. Given that there is no increasing weather disasters, I’m not even sure if some amount of warming is bad in the first place. The best global temp data from satellites shows very little warming while ever increasing emission occur. At the very least, direct observation by satellites is telling us the climate is not very sensitive to CO2. Given the quality of the data, this observation, is hardly even controversial to those being honest with the facts.
If you want to convince skeptics, address these issues rather than trying to con us.
Dave in Canmore
Not so sure satellites are a direct measurement of temperature, but I get your point. They cover more area and match balloon data.
Thermometers don’t provide direct measurement of liquid or gaz temp either. They provide a measurement of their own temp, which is assumed to be the same as the one of the fluid, cause equilibrium cause slow change, few measurement.
It is a good indirect measurement of the fluid.
It is a proxy for the region of air around the station.
“One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
Whazzat? I went to the original article, and it still doesn’t make any sense. The thinking is hopelessly muddled. It just looks to me like an application of Goebbels’ old adage that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.
Maybe that article gives us a peek inside the thought processes of people who believe in AGW, i.e. the people who believe in it have no ability for rational thought.
My interpretation is if they present people with a deliberately broken (“weak”) version of skeptic arguments, they can train them to instinctively reject the real argument, without considering it in detail.
+100
Thanks for the article!
Eric,
“My interpretation is if they present people with a deliberately broken (“weak”) version of skeptic arguments, they can train them to instinctively reject the real argument, without considering it in detail.”
I suspect it goes beyond that particular tactic, to include just about any form denying the infallibility of establishment science. (as in Siants, which is to say anything at all that the mass media presents as “the science”). Note the phrasing please;
“One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
It’s “Siants” denial he is trying to help contain, essentially, I believe, as there is a danger the powers that be are aware of, involving people losing blind faith in whatever the mass media presents as “the science”. I am quite sure that a good deal of what has become generally accepted as scientific fact, is actually just the take on scientific evidence that the “powers that be” want us to believe is “settled science”.
That’s why it’s not made clear in the full article, I suspect. It’s not what he (they) want you (us) to think about carefully . . As in; What else has been presented to me by the PTB as “settled science”: which might actually be nothing of the kind?
“One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
Here’s another problem with that whole idea. He THINKS skeptics are “infected” with “science denial”. But we aren’t. We LOVE science. Embrace science. Trust actual science. It’s the crap HE and other “experts” keep trying to sell us as if it were science, that we refuse to accept.
HE and his co-monkeys have declared that we have a disease we do not have in the first place, and now want to “innoculate” others against getting that imaginary disease! It’s literally as stupid as claiming that only people with purple polka dot disease would ignore him and everything that he and his “cohorts” are saying! And, because it seems like more and more people are catching purple polka dot disease, he’s come up with a method to “prevent” other people from getting it, by giving them a small exposure to it.
It is absolutely and utterly staggering that someone who claims to be a scientist, AND a psychologist can be that bat crap crazy and get published by actual academic journals. We are living in the Emerald City.
I think we need more NHS treatment for people who suffer from climate anxiety syndrome. This is a psychological phenomenon has become more widespread in recent years, and now there are large numbers of people who are convinced that the world will soon come to an end and that humans are the cause. In extreme cases they demand that people who don’t share their delusions should be jailed, branded with tattoos, or even shot as traitors. This syndrome takes no account of class or background, but afflicts people from office clerks and teachers right up to top politicians and academics. The one thing they have in common is a sense of impending doom which you can not dispel however much you reason with them. This feature also applies to paranoics, so it is obviously a closely related syndrome. Maybe the same treatments would help these poor lost souls.
But of course the CAGW/CACC fanatics won’t want to treat the poor victims of climate fear. That’s what they’re trying to create: anxiety, fear, despair—and hatred of the heretics who don’t believe as they do.
/Mr Lynn
Re-education camps here we come.
Watch the whole series of the UQx DENIAL 101 videos on youtube and replace ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Climate Change Deniers’ with Flat Earth and Flat Earth Deniers, then they’re even more fun to watch.
“[W]e can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.”
It sound like Mr. Cook wants the Warmists to promulgate a skeptic straw man which they can knock down and claim victory over for the benefit of people at the margins. Uncharitably describing one’s opponents’ position and refusing to engage with their strongest arguments is not the most honest way to go about a debate, nor does it indicate much confidence in one’s own position. It is, however, an apt description of what goes on at Skeptical Science.
well, and that is the fallacy of the cook book, saying
‘A typical response of scientists to science denial is to teach more science.’
when it’s
‘A typical response of green believers to reality is to ever more makebelieve.’
ghastly read, anyway.
Should repair my mistake with postmodern
well, and that is the fallacy of the cook book, saying
‘A typical response of scientists to science denial is to teach more science.’
when it’s
‘A typical response of green believers to reality is coccuning in ever more makebelieve.’
mod, Inoculation Theory,
a wasp’s nest !
Tough Standing !
Cheers – Hans