Full Disclosure – by Tim Ball and Anthony Watts
In a recent set of Tweets (seen in the image above) Dr. Michael Mann of ‘hockey stick’ infamy, accused Tim Ball and Anthony Watts of supporting the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky. He based his claim on an article about scientific elitism [Ball] wrote that Anthony Watts kindly published on his web site. Mann’s accusation is completely false and indicates he either failed to read the article or if he did, failed to understand its purpose. The objective of the original article and follow up was to show how self-appointed elitists hinder the advance of science. A majority who made written comments about the article understood and agreed with the premise.
The article examined the reaction and behavior of the scientific elite to anyone who produced ideas and information that challenged their views. It used the example of Immanuel Velikovsky as a person who was demonized by the scientific elitists because he hypothesized a different interpretation of planetary motion and interactions involving electromagnetism. Worse, he used historical records including the Bible to establish a database and time sequence of apparently natural events.
Neither Anthony nor I ever said we agreed with Velikovsky’s views on planetary motion. We pointed out that he worked with Einstein, who knew his claims and encouraged him. We also pointed out that some who initially attacked his work, like Professor Hess, later conceded that many of his predictions were confirmed. What Ball condemned was the nastiness and unsubstantiated basis of the attacks by high priests of the prevailing wisdom. The combined effect of the automatic rejection of new ideas with the character assassination of those who present them works to preclude steady advances in science. In other words, skepticism is not allowed, and skeptics are persona non grata. This results in mainstream science effectively claiming the debate is over, and the science is settled.
This is precisely what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which Michael Mann was a member, did. Like Velikovsky, few of their conclusions were correct. More important, people can make judgments about Velikovsky because all of his data and ideas were available. The proper scientific method of presenting and testing a hypothesis was carried out in Velikovsky’s case. Unfortunately, the same was not true of the IPCC anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, in which, as Richard Lindzen said very early in the process, the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.
Again, for the record, neither of us support Velikovsky’s views on planetary motion. Some of them are rightly labeled as ridiculous. However, to claim that we do, simply because the articles used him as an example of how some in science turn spiteful when confronted with ideas they see as threatening, is wrong, and the elitist premise is well illustrated by the ugly behavior of Dr. Mann and others.
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Didn’t Wegener catch a lot of grief for his continental drift theory from “elite”scientists?
I don’t know if Wegener caught personal grief but his proposition was ridiculed because there was no known mechanism for it to occur. However he wasn’t the first to suggest it. Ortellius made a similar suggestion in 1596.
Meanwhile geologists tied themselves in knots with an elaborate geosynclinal theory of mountain building [https://publish.illinois.edu/platetectonics/geosynclinal-theory] and constructing land bridges to solve the problem of widely separated but similar fossil assemblages. Oddly [?] there was no accepted mechanism for this either.
Wegener and the mobilists’ ideas were finally accepted in the late 1960s when information from the JOIDES deep sea drilling program became available. No ocean crust older than 140 million years could be found and magnetic striping either side of the deep oceanic ridges showed that they were spreading axes…..new ocean floor was continually being erupted along the ridges.
Wegener and the mobilists’ ideas were finally accepted in the late 1960s when information from the JOIDES deep sea drilling program became available
Which shows how abruptly and quickly ‘establishment’ science can turn around once the data is good. The turn-around also did not happen because some crank won the argument, but because the ‘elite’ became convinced that the data supported ‘continental drift’. In contrast to Velikovsky and other fools, Wegener had good and valid reasons for his theory. The affair shows the triumph of hard work by experts.
Leif, right on – but .. before good data for a new hypothesis becomes available, should the establishment really mock the new theory because the old theory is supported by data that turns out not to be good?
Wegener presented many geological, paleontological etc… arguments and evidence that were extremely good data but soundly ignored by a certain elite, in fact many geophysicists.
A certain geophysicist Sir Harold Jeffreys, of great reputation, rebuked ONE aspect of Wegener ideas through calculations demonstrating convincingly that continents of SiAl could not drift over the SiMa mantle. The demonstration by the hard science elite put a nail in the Continental Drift coffin, ignoring soundly all other evidence… Until technological advances allowed the collection of new data confirming the other observations by Wegener as pointed out by GregK and celebrated by Svalgaard.
Scientists are, rightfully, very conservative people and demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
Tom, thank you for your well thought out comments. Despite a rational and evidenced presentation by Wegener, the human non scientific side of some “elite” scientists manifested.
A great little book on Wegener by Hallam should help…
Partly topic, but it seems the Australian government has a lot of sceptics in the ranks.
They are calling for a debate about the “settled science” of climate change.
Slowly the cracks are beginning to show.
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/03/09/01/36/malcolm-turnbull-heckled-liberals-vote-climate-change-debate
“Retired Kit P
So, you’ve solved the nuclear waste storage problem!
Fantastic – what is it?”
Well Chip, Yes we have. I am surprised that you do not what it is.
First off it is not much an engineering challenge. When spent fuel is removed it is stored in pools of water and cooled. I have been responsible for the systems. Another perfect record. After a few years, spent fuel can be placed dry storage cask storage and placed on a cement pad. Again a perfect record.
Since spent fuel has about the same radioactivity as dirt, no further action is necessary to protect the public. However, a geological repository at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert is undergoing review by the NRC. Worked on that project too.
There are other solutions other counties are pursuing.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Oscar Wilde
I’d love to have Isaac Newton appear before Barbara Boxer in a Senate subcommittee meeting.
OK, OK, OK. We’ve heard ad nauseam about your laws of motion and theory of gravity. Whatever. But isn’t it fact that you have a unnatural, almost obsessive compulsion to delve into alchemy?
And Biblical exegesis. John Maynard Keynes (not one of my favorite intellectuals, but a smart one) bought Newton’s private papers, and went through the million words Newton had written on the Bible. Though I can’t recall his exact words, they were, to the effect, that Newton had wasted a lot of time and brainpower.
We shouldn’t be quarreling about “who killed whom”…
Haha! Still one of my favorite films! 🙂
No it wasn’t elitists/elites who found V far outside of science for more than 60 years to date; it was just scientists who did it. ‘Elitist/elites’ was just stereotyping name calling by Tim Ball. Tim Ball can and has done fine work at WUWT but not in this instance. That said, Tim Ball stimulated a wonderfully productive and extremely important discussion on the demarcation of what is within science and what isn’t.
That kind of discussion is important especially as we look at the subjectively contrived CAGW / harmful AGW hypothesis. I suggest a call for an essay at WUWT that introduces a dialog on ‘Science versus Mimicking Science’ where the focus isn’t at all on V’s stuff since his stuff is only of historical interest at this point; rather focus an article on the epistemological nature of science versus the irrational nature of mimicking science. Important stuff.
I thank Anthony for his incredible venue that is the best of the open marketplaces of ideas focused on science. : )
John
As long as Michael Mann is relying on false information to make his assertions he has failed not only at science 101 but also at communication 101 as he is demonstrably trolling Tim Ball and Anthony Watts.
Sure Mann’s followers who “believe” his assertions, rather than checking them, won’t know the difference but anyone serious who digs deeper will discover the facts Michael Mann alleges about his science claims and his claims regarding Tim Ball and Anthony Watts do not support his conclusions and thus his allegations demonstrate his logical fallacies.
If Michael Mann knows he is making false allegations that is quite different than if he is merely so confused as to not comprehend the referenced articles by Tim Ball and Anthony Watts on this topic. I’m not sure which is more disturbing, wilful intentional distortion of the facts or utter ignorance that he is utterly mistaken.
I concur with Tim Ball and Anthony Watts that science is being distorted by the “cult of science belief” and that many allegedly leading scientists or science focused people popular in the media use the “cult of science belief” to make unsubstantiated claims in the media. They do so to promote their point of view but what is absent is the message that science is largely about being able to have one’s science claims validated or refuted by others; when any scientist or science focused person fails to allow for invalidation of their claims they fail at science or science education and do the public a massive disservice.
I find it quite disturbing to see this happening on so many science topics in the media. This is not to give credence to claims that are easily disproven of course. The main problem is that people are not trained in the methods of the scientific method so they do not know when scientific information is valid or not, heck it takes trained scientists a lot of effort to make such determinations and even then we often get it wrong which is why science is a collaborative and often adversarial process by design.
The problem is that folks such as Michael Mann seem to take advantage of the “cult of science belief” which has as one of its core beliefs that science is never wrong to make all kinds of claims that might seem reasonable but that the general public can’t prove or disprove due to their lack of science training. People such as Michael Mann seem to thrive upon this lack of science training of the public to make their claims seem reasonable. However when one digs into the claims of these “high priests of the cult of science belief” or the “cult of belief in science” their claims often fall flat on their face. The problem is that to those that “believe in science” based upon the claims of folks like Michael Mann only see “the truth” as given by Michael Mann. This is deeply ironic as “beliefs in science” is anti-scientific. So when one “markets” science via the public “belief in science” one is in fact violating the scientific method and thus demonstrating that one isn’t a scientist.
This begs the question of how to promote accurate claims of science without violating the scientific method in the process of “marketing” to the public? It’s not an easy path for sure.
Thanks to many of the authors at WUWT (and other places) for daring to ask questions of the claims of others as demanded and required by the scientific method.
If Michael Mann were actually a scientist following the scientific method he would get the importance of anyone questioning his alleged scientific claims; since he demonstrably doesn’t follow the scientific method he excludes himself from the set of people who are scientists pursuing hard science.
Better example might be the 2 decade struggle to recognize lab Helicobacter pylori as the root cause of peptic ulcers in the face of “settled science”.
Murray had to infect himself to prove the point. http://www.jyi.org/issue/delayed-gratification-why-it-took-everybody-so-long-to-acknowledge-that-bacteria-cause-ulcers/
Eerie parallel with climate science is the 60 yr campaign against dietary fats promoted by Ancel Keys and Paul Dudley white. The longest, most expensive public health campaign quietly left the building a few weeks ago when the USDA and Health Dept. announced on a Friday that “cholesterol was no longer a nutrient of interest”.
All of the “science” is now admitted to be in fact bogus, motivated cherry picking which garnered political leverage and the opportunistic patronage of “Big Oil”… Big VEGETABLE Oil, that is. http://www.jyi.org/issue/delayed-gratification-why-it-took-everybody-so-long-to-acknowledge-that-bacteria-cause-ulcers/
Exposure of the total breakdown of scientific rigour came mostly from “unqualified” but curious, thinking individuals from other fields. The obesity and diabetic epidemic may well have been a consequence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all
A couple of observations from deep in the country (not city).
Throughout history the priesthood has been mostly evil and corrupt.
Some of you boys are being a bit too prickly.
False piety is not a virtue.
It depends on the interpretation of “Throughout the history”. I grew up in a Communist country, when priests were considered enemies of state. Some of the best people I knew were priests. On the other hand, when a priesthood is a ticket for a comfortable living with very few duties, it attracts the worst people.
and Dr. Mann scores an own goal. Wonderful.
He’s proven himself to be a superb example of the whole point of the article.
Don’t go beating your breast Anthony. It was an interesting and thought provoking point and Mann blowing his tin trumpet all across the Internet in this way has been a wonderful proof of its point.
Some day Mann and Velikovsky will be lumped together in the same category.
One postulated creative ideas to explain some poorly understood observations, the other promotes massive political change despite observations that directly contradict the catastrophe predicted by his hypothesis. Two very different categories in my view.
This would be regrettable, because Velikovksy was an honorable and honest gentleman, whatever one may think of his astrophysical hypotheses.
I agree with sophocles, Anthony. Mann obviously did not read the article (I did in its entirety). Your point that elitist, non-skeptical scientists are worse than old dogs when it comes to new ideas is not only valid, but validated, by Mann’s knee jerk reaction tweets. This tempest in a teapot gets it’s energy from Mike’s hot response to to a premise he imagined… “Watt believes V”. Lysenko would have been a better choice, especially since skeptics, not true AGW believers,, are the ones that know the tragedy of millions of starved peasants from pseudo-science policy decisions in Russia. That said, I believe Mann exposed himself as the climate theologian (not scientist) he really is. No apology needed Mr. Watts.
This all goes to show that no good comes to Mann from delving too deeply into the crazy cat litter tray. Thanks for the introduction to Velikovsky. I discovered Gyromancy yesterday. Brewer’s tells us that it was (is?) ‘A kind of divination performed by walking round in a circle or ring until one fell from dizziness, the direction of the fall being of significance’.
” lsvalgaard
March 8, 2016 at 10:19 pm
Scientists are, rightfully, very conservative people and demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
”
When someone talks of “scientists” as one unit of the best example of humanity, I have to laugh, you have no idea pal what scientists are. I’ll tell you, they are exactly like everyone else.
Scientific work today must be a constant battle between the Neocortex and the lizard brain. Thinking vs. Ego
Plus instant rewards, who cares about posterity now, all about the $$$
That Velikovsky must have been a real loon if even Mann considers him a pseudo scientist.
Does ANYBODY give a flying duck what Mann thinks any more?
..Certainly not the ducks ! Mikey’s rantings are just water off their backs !
“More important, people can make judgments about Velikovsky because all of his data and ideas were available.”
If one looks at Velikovsky, it is important to judge him against his time. For example, we now know things that Newton did not know but we do not judge him against 2016 knowledge. Mr. V. worked at a time when the “consensus” was that there had never been anything but gradualism. Never.
If one just hollers that Velikovsky was wrong and so forth, that just shows deep ignorance. Read his books, especially the third one where he gives only evidence of the “stones and bones”. He used the evidence of geology and archaeology to support his ideas. He did not use any “old tales” and “religious books” even though the deeply ignorant say that is all he ever offered.
Besides the above, it is deeply regrettable that we should worry about what some idiot alarmist “scientist” says about the site or its commentators just because Velikovsky was used as an example for the point of a post. I applaud Dr. Ball for the guts to cite the example. Dr. Ball never said Velikovsky was right, only that he was attacked by all of science for offering ideas outside of the “consensus”. I can think of few examples as good as that one. (somewhat biased as I lived though a good portion of the “debate”)
We, or rather the site owner, should not let any of the “team” censor this site.
~ Mark “listen to all sides” Stoval
It is expected that Gavin A. Schmidt & Michael E. Mann are promoting the idea that WUWT shouldn’t critically discuss V’s mimicking of science; it is expected because of their infamous blocking of all critical discussion of their own mimicking of climate science during their biased leadership of Real Climate blog.
John
It was insane for this website to offer up such an easy target as posting on Velikovsky. Mann and his ilk want nothing more than to marginalize skeptics as Velikovskians and you did exactly what they wanted. If you want your articles to be taken seriously, you simply can’t publish stuff like this.
Nor did the profile of Velikovsky properly acknowledge the volume of misinformation in his work. In the area that I looked at (ancient history -Ages in Chaos), his proposed rearrangement of dating systems is totally without merit, is easily contradicted, and rightly sneered at by specialists.
Publication of your Velikovsky article was a black day for WUWT credibility.
As indicated upthread in my comments Steve, lesson learned.
But looks lost on many commenters [and perhaps Dr. Ball himself].
Question to Dr. Ball: did you also learn the lesson?
HAHAHAHA
David, you apparently did not…
Et tu, Brute? Why not throw in a claim of Godwin’s law while you’re at it? Prostrating yourselves at the alter of “he who deems what may be discussed” is actually what these poor excuses for scientists want. Mann is a liar, and anyone truly interested in science knows this. Participation at Real Climate is all you need to know about “their” legitimacy, and a simple analogy that otherwise intelligent people lose in the midst of the trees in the forest does not change this truth. You give them the control they do not have with a post like this. You, Steve, should be ashamed.
Don’t ever let yourself be bullied into acquiescence, Anthony. It makes you look weak. Mann is laughing because of your capitulation, not your post.
“Publication of your V@l@k@vsky article was a black day for WUWT credibility.”
Oh come on. You have never read his third book and don’t know much about his work from your comments (at least not Earth In Upheaval 1955). Plus the article by Dr. Ball was not about V anyway.
Are you so afraid of “Dr.” Mann and his “team” that you are afraid of even mentioning people not acceptable to his side? Should I be afraid of mentioning your name?
In some ways, it’s rather fascinating to compare Velikovsky to Percival Lowell. Velikovsky has been well-discussed, so I won’t rehash those points. Lowell was one of the main popularizers of the theory that Mars had been inhabited, based on his maps of non-natural features on the Martian surface (especially canals). He also mapped non-existent surface features on Venus; the prevailing explanation today is that he was probably seeing reflections of the interior of his own eye due to the eyepiece settings he used. The thing for which he is best known – predicting the existence and location of a “Planet X” beyond Neptune – was a classic case of being (accidentally) right for the wrong reason.
Yet today, Lowell, though not seen as one of the “greats”, is still remembered more-or-less positively, while Velikovsky is widely seen as a nut-case. Fascinating.
So many people on this list are missing the point. Velikovsky was not a scientist, rather he was a historian. As a historian, he found some records, cross-referenced them to other historical records, then tried to make a scientific interpretation of those records. Because those historical records indicate events that modern scientists say is impossible, modern scientists reject those historical records.
History deals with that which is no longer observable, hence science can not deal with it, because science is based on repeatable observations.
As an amateur historian myself (an aside to some linguistic studies), I have found that his re-ordering of ancient Egyptian history makes far better sense and far better fits both other historical records and the archeological record than that presented by the elite historians around Kenneth Kitchen and his disciples. In other words, I have found him to have been a decent historian. While I don’t agree with all that Velikovski claimed, not by a long shot, I at least recognize that he was a historian, and that his modernist explanations may be wrong.
Velikovski was so bitterly hated because his theories contradict the reigning religio-philosophical ideas of his day in both science and history. The same is true of AGW skeptics today.
I notice a few caught it, but it seems as if Mann takes his criticism cues from Sou. Irony much?
Because he’s not smart enough.