In comments on Dr. Roy’s Facebook page about him turning comments off on his blog because he’s simply tired of dealing with sockpuppeting troll Douglas J. Cotton, there was this quote that I thought was very, very succinct and appropriate. It also applies to the climate debate in general.
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” :- Alberto Brandolini
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/11485742.Alberto_Brandolini
Spencer replied:
That quote is a great description of what has been happening. Person #1 can put together a meaningless string of technical jargon. Person #2 can say, “that makes no sense at all!” Person #1 then says, “sorry you don’t know enough to understand it.” It just goes downhill from there..
Indeed, and the amount of energy expended by me and others is great. We walk a very fine line here, trying to balance giving a legitimate forum to open and honest people, while ferreting out and limiting people who simply want to disrupt the conversation via sockpuppetry. It is a lot of work. If I didn’t have volunteer moderators for WUWT, I probably would have gone the way of Spencer long ago. Since we routinely process a thousand or more comments a day here, many of which are from sockpuppeters and posers (you know who you are with special attention to K-man) It would certainly give me more time to research and write articles. It’s certainly less effort.
So, I thought it was time to ask the question:
Doug, don’t even try to comment here again.
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How about requiring a subscription to comment or verify more about commenters than that they have valid emails? Maybe require use of real names, unless applicants can plausibly show professional harm from not toeing the Party line.
I agree with Gloateus. There ought to be some way to verify. Like with a nominal yearly fee or some such. That way the payment method is the proxy for the account verification. 🙂
Doug Cotton would just bankrupt himself
Not a bad idea… Visa cards are hard to spoof and reuse of a card is easy to limit.
I’d do it.
The fee could be used to compensate staff/watts and additional moderator(s). Are the current volunteer moderators full time? Would a full time moderator help? Bankrupting Doug Cotton would be a good thing.
Agree. A yearly subscription would be a great idea. AW gets my almost yearly contribution, anyway. What is that saying: Put up or shut up?
Have to disagree as a free site is more likely to be read by those seeking knowledge and/or an alternative view. having to pay even a minimal amount will likely keep many ‘newbies’ away from the best anti-CAGW site available.
@John in Oz: leave the site free to read, but only subscribers can post. That way, the idiots can bankrupt themselves if the subscriber is a buttnugget
The only reason most readers are here is to engage in the discussion to limit that in any way would be destructive to the site. I for one get as much from the discussion as the articles.
With a pay-as-you-go of $5 non-refundable for every comment removed and a locked yearly $1.00 contract requiring payment method stored through non-revertible middle men like pay-pal or amazon?
Great idea. It doesn’t have to be much. The conditions would include that if you are found to be a trollster or impersonating someone else your posting right is terminated no refund.
The trolls would bankrupt themselves.
I think a better solution would be to leave all comments freely available to all, but you only get instant posting of the comments if you are a subscriber or verified or whatever other hurdle you would like.
If you are a free poster your comment goes directly into a moderation queue and only gets posted if approved by a mod.
The point is to break their spirit. If they know their comments are all going to get flushed, they will give up posting pretty quickly.
There is something about the psychology of an Internet troll worth the thrill of seeing their posts published and to think how everyone else is going to react. If it’s invisible and never gets published, the thrill is gone.
I knew everyone would come here to talk about the previous article! Yes!
Preposterous.
How do you check real names?
Why would people be expected to give real names?
Why would anyone really believe that real names help with anything?
By using Paypal, authenticity is automatic. A small payment is all that is needed, less than a dollar, and it only needs to be used once. Paypal uses your bank account as part of the verification process, so generating multiple Paypal accounts is no easy task. Just ask Anthony.
Gloateus Maximus posted: “…Maybe require use of real names…”
So, “Gloateus Maximus” is your real name?
“Newt Love” is my real name. I’m named after my father, Newton Love, Sr. (deceased). “Anthony Watts” is his real name. Both of the Dr. Spencers use their real names. Et cetera.
No, the real name is Gluteus Maximus, but I sort of understand that he modified it.
What is wrong with using real names?
I use my real name as I have nothing to lose career wise. As Climategate showed clearly, if you are a climate skeptic and potentially exposed to the “wrath” of the Consensus, you better use a synonym.
Conservative scientists learn pretty quickly to keep their heads down. Especially young scientists who could have their career derailed if it became known they were skeptical of the orthodoxy.
Look at how some more senior people have been persecuted out of positions because they published the wrong paper.
http://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/stormy-times-climate-research
If someone prefers to be anonymous and is not trolling then why not allow them to do so?
Leonard Lane
The advantage of not using real name obviously is that commenting to a blog in many ways is a verbal way of exchanging ideas, but unlike snap-chat, whatever you have written will follow you for the rest of your life. Personally I put a lot more effort into making my arguments complete, and put a lot of effort into avoiding ambiguities etc etc when I sign with my name, and I likewise put a lot of effort into thinking ways that what I write can be intentionally or un-intentionally construed to mean something different from what I actually try to express. Obviously, ideally this should be done with any kind of postings, but I doubt the realism in this.
My basic rule is that whenever possible I do not post anything under my own name the same day as I write it, and I review it the day after before I post it.
This is obviously very detrimental to participating in a real-time discussion.
Huff Post began requiring a SINGLE Facebook account for its commenters. I quit posting there because I prefer to remain anonymous. I would like to think my contributions, albeit few, are constructive and would not like to be censored for wanting to remain anonymous.
@Chic Bowdrie Setup a community page as a firewall to your actual name, post half a dozen things on your community page that people need to know so it isn’t blank. That is how I do it to protect myself on facebook to get the truth out.
Thanks for the suggestion. Getting the truth out. That’s a tough job at Huff Post.
The fee would be for the right to post, but everyone would have the right to view the site for free. After a provisional period, the fee could be reduced or waived for regular contributors- particularly those who regularly post and provide very useful information or ask very pertinent questions. Maybe those posters could be grandfathered in.
That entails a pretty huge time investment to verify each and every commenter
Even a small fee will greatly drop participation. You see it in video games all the time. The difference between free-to-play and even a $5 charge is something like a 90% drop in participation. One of the greatest things about WUWT is the community, and we would go from being open to extremely closed no matter how small you made it. Plus, if someone’s going through the trouble to set up proxy servers, no minor fee would deter them. Identity could be avoided by something so simple as a Visa gift card, available from Walmart en-masse.
And as for real world names. Who would make the “plausible professional harm” determination? I have one of the most open usernames on the site, and I refuse to go any further. If I used my last name, I’d put myself at risk from the corporate public relations department (Big oil makes a lot on carbon trading, so they actually keep the environmental department very separate from that side of things). However, who can say that my concerns are better or worse than anyone else’s?
I don’t know what the solution is, but those are definitely not the way to go.
Here’s how Wikipedia handles the problem.
They allow edits by both registered and anonymous editors, but anonymous guys get their IP address as their name. Registering an account is free, and they don’t need your social security or bank account info. Registered guys can make up their own names (within the limits of good taste).
If there is disruptive editing on a particular subject by an anonymous editor, the page can be ‘semi-protected,’ that is, edited only by registered editors. That might be the ticket here.
A registered editor can be banned or blocked for bad behavior, as happened to William Connolley. (39 times, as of 1 minute ago)
Wikipedia can spot proxy editing and sock puppets by the IP address, and block those cases.
Mike McMillan,
That doesn’t work when someone uses a TOR server.
I disagree with the requiring of a subscription fee for the privilege of posting commentary simply because I do not have a Credit Card of any size shape or form …… and I am too damn old now to be acquiring one just so I can be posing my learned knowledge, experiences and opinions for the benefit of those who have been miseducated in the physical sciences and/or the natural world they exist in.
I don’t think gatekeeping is necessary if people here just don’t engage with, “feed,” the trolls. There is more than enough science posted here on a daily basis for anyone legitimately seeking information to find, analyze, and parse for themselves. There should be no need to argue–the data stands on its own merit.
Took the words out of my mouth. A maggot in my home, found in the cornmeal, I toss the cornmeal not move out of the house.
+1 I will pay a fee to add my (sarcastic/ironic/obnoxious) comments. I Iove this site and I’m willing to pay to make it better (But then, I have also been drinking absinth this evening and hope that I don’t cut off ear!)
In addition to the trolls there are the people peddling their own pseudo-scientific nonsense. And then there are the willfully ignorant and the learning-resistant fools. Many a good post eventually become hijacked by such people. It might be a good idea to close down comments once the density of such aberrations becomes high enough.
As someone who pops in the read and learn from experts, I was unaware of the pervasive troll. After some research, I found many other sites have banned said troll. I have also found many other sites who use his posts as examples of ‘climate denier pseudo science’. There are many examples of paid plants and fake posters to honeypot and skew rabid posts as proof for Political Agenda.
I strongly suspect he is one.
As mentioned by others, a thumbs up/down process would allow his comments to decline on their own accord to the end or sit nested inside. Problem is bots can be used to give yourself many fake up votes.
A handful of selected posters that you favor could also act as moderators…not a keen fan of this since it is abused in leftist blogs and news media…but it works.
How long would Alfred Wegener’s “pseudo-scientific nonsense” have lasted if he had blogged here? It took 50 years for his theories to be accepted.
Who decides what is nonsense or not?
One of the most difficult aspects of science is to remain open to new ideas without wasting too much time on ideas that are dead ends. There are honest dead ends and then there are con men who fabricate evidence for their own benefit (like say, some drug companies). The AGW debate has highlighted how those wanting most to limit debate may also be the con men. I don’t think there is an easy way through this as ideas which stray from the conventional wisdom of the day are usually met with hostility whether they are good ideas or bad. It often takes time to sort these things out. There are many other cases of good scientists hammered by the establishment- Semelweiss, Margulis, http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html.
There is no good way to limit debate and what Anthony is doing already is probably somewhere near the correct balance.
Great thought John in OZ. Once restrictions, fees, and one person deciding that anyone with a different opinion is not only wrong but a fool, then it is the end of open scientific discussion.
Leif
The vast majority of readers and commentators her are layman, it is elitist to imply that their voices don’t count. If this forum turns in to a group of self serving elitist trying to make policy for the masses I for one will never return to read another article. Leif you are extremely knowledgable about the subjects discussed here but you are also very blind to the political underpinnings of the CAGW agenda. You also tend to be very dismissive of even reasonable disagreement with any statement that you make and are the first one to dismiss any view other than you own. This critism is from someone who always takes the time to read every word you write here.
you are also very blind to the political underpinnings of the CAGW agenda
I try to discuss the science [and only the science that I actually know something about]. I’ll leave the politics to others.
Leif;
However the science isn’t the only issue that matters. Since it is clear that there are multiple political agendas at work here. The fact is that while few people’s lives have thus far been effect by AGW many lives have been affected by the agendas that are using AGW as their underpinning. Your devotion to science is commendable but the issue is much larger than just science and those that are devoted to the science are often not experts on the greater issues involved and to limit commentary to a narrow group is to limit the diversity and value of the discussion.
I think one does not need to be an expert in politics to vote or to have a say or to be important. When it comes to that we are all equally qualified.
Have to agree with you Dr. S. Mr. C may have been an outlier but there were my posters that had their own theory of physics and criticized Dr. Spencer for not knowing physics. It was very tedious.
From what I’ve seen, the “learning-resistant fools” are often just those who disagree with you.
Only a fool needs to frequently proclaim in public that he knows more than others. And only a fool thinks that by bullying others he can prove anything to anybody.
I’ve known quite a few prominent scientists: mathematicians, physicists, geneticists, biologists. They were very different people (sometimes very difficult people) but I’ve noticed one common thing about them: the more a real specialist knows his subject, the less dogmatic he becomes about things he knows best. Real knowledge spawns doubt, prompts to think beyond the college textbook.
Also, most respected scientists tend to be polite and patient with those who need explanations. Impatience is a hallmark of a weak mind.
Thank you Alexander, my thoughts exactly.
Only a fool needs to frequently proclaim in public that he knows more than others.
Describes perfectly the many pseudo-scientists and pseudo-moralists who frequently comment here.
“…close down comments….” This is what Dr. Roy has done, except that he has banned commenting completely – an overreaction IMHO.
Andy Revkin has closed commenting on a number of posts. I think he has used this tool appropriately. Sometimes he invites aggressive commenting by a “climate wars” post that seems designed to do this. If it gets out of hand he can close it. To his credit, he has never, to my knowledge anyway, attempted to censor discussion other than overly personal or absurdly repetitious comments, and he’s evenhanded and doesn’t seem to favor warmist commenters over skeptics. I’ve seen many comments coming from all parts of the spectrum that I personally would have been tempted to censor.
And finally, I wish Pielke, Jr. would come back. He backed out of the climate space altogether because of some really crazy personal attacks. I hope he reconsiders.
Way back in say, 1999, many many sites had huge comment sections. Gigantic! The New York Times, for example, allowed us to start a topic and then run it for months on end and I ran a dozen such during that time and then boom.
In 2000, it was ended. By 2003, most big publishing sites online ceased allowing comments except on very rare occasions. Censorship was everywhere. It amuses me to see that the Daily Mail in Britain still allows comments on every article, a real rarity these days.
” emsnews It amuses me to see that the Daily Mail in Britain still allows comments on every article, a real rarity these days.”
& after a few sensible comments, that’s where you find a lot of trolls screaming, snapping and feeding each other; we don’t get or want that here.
. ••• DON’T FEED THE TROLLS •••
If it gets really bad, can you at least have a whitelist commenters who prove to contribute well?
If you want to see how bad it can get, go to Al Jazeera and read one of their threads, they make Doug Cotton’s ravings appear quite reasonable.
In my mining and geology career, the one thing I have learned is when an unqualified person deliberately tries to talk above my level of comprehension on a subject I know well, you can be 100% sure he is talking not only complete BS, but way way above his competence level. In other words, a little knowledge can be very dangerous in the wrong hands, especially if those hands are those of a serial BSer like our friend Doug.
Much of my undertstanding of this field, especially early in my following, came from the comments expanding on the more technical articles. I think cutting off discussion is a bad thing, despite the obvious trolls and sock puppets.
Georges LeMaitre was marginalized for ~40 years after he came up with the Big Bang theory (“primeval atom” was his title of choice) The main offender was no other than Fred Hoyle who was relentless in his abuse of LeMaitre. The self-appointed elites ALWAYS want their critics silenced. Thought control is not science.
The elite is not ‘self-appointed’, but are elite because other scientists consider them so.
lsvalgaard
March 11, 2016 at 11:22 am
Other scientist consider Mann elitist.
“but are elite because other scientists consider them so.”
Other elite scientists, or just ordinary scientists?
Most [ordinary and extraordinary] scientists…
Now, there may be a difference between ‘elite’ and ‘elitist’ [apart from the grammatical one].
Once a person considers himself an elite, he has taken a big, but not positive, step. Elitists seem to suppress others scientifically and politically.
Most all “Original Thinkers” are more often than not ….. marginalized, criticized and/or personally defamed by those persons who are incapable of any original thoughts and/or more importantly, those persons who feel severely threatened by any new ideas or claims that are contrary to their own beliefs and claims.
The aforesaid “nay-sayers” just can’t imagine that some “nobody” could possibly think-up a better “mousetrap” than the one that they have been “betting” their fame and career on.
Dear Dr Svalgaard:
Would you have considered the Aussies who discovered the role that heliobactor pylori play in the development of ulcers in humans as being elite scientists before or after twenty years of recalcitrent
scientists’ resistance?
Elite status is determined by one’s peers. It is normal that some time elapses before a discovery is accepted [which is proper]. Just being a contrarian does not in itself confer elite status to you.
new ideas or claims
Most new ideas or claims are wrong to begin with…
Especially the ones by “Original Thinkers”.
OH my my, …. a “closed mind” is one that has been nurtured (brainwashed) by its chosen mentor(s) to deny, reject and/or discredit any and all new ideas or claims that are presented by individuals that have not been “pre-approved” by aforesaid mentors.
The rejection of new ideas PRIOR TO any attempt to comprehend, understand or determine the potential truth or factuality of said “idea” does not bode well for any further advancement of one’s knowledge or intelligence in/of their chosen science discipline.
And ps, ….. if not for the ideas presented by the “Original Thinkers” ……. then all academic disciplines would have been declared “Settled Science” 2,000 years ago,
And the “western” world would still be trying to survive the hardships of the Dark Ages.
The rejection of new ideas PRIOR TO any attempt to comprehend…
The rejection comes AFTER they have shown to be wanting…
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7915-most-scientific-papers-are-probably-wrong/
Those persons who “can’t see the forest for the trees”, …. also can’t be shown to be wrong …… about something they are mentally incapable of “viewing an optical image of”.
Your conscious mind’s thoughts, thinking and choice-making is subservient to the inherited and/or “sensed” environmental data/info that is stored in the DNA of the brain’s neurons that only your subconscious mind has access to …. depending upon the complexity of the synaptic “links” that interconnect said data/info.
You are what your environment nurtured you to be.
Have a great day.
I agree with Tom. My background is not scientific but I have learned so much not only from the articles and essays but also from the comments that come from many of the learned people that have taken the time to share their knowledge here. I, like many others, come to this site daily… the lively debate is all part of the quality of the site.
Keep up the great work Anthony, you are a large injection of sanity in a screwed up world.
+ 1,000
I second Doug in Calgary.
An occasional fund drive could be done for whatever a few dollars might help. One idea might be to provide moderators with state-of-the-art computing equipment and to cover the highest internet speed their personal service supports.
I have someone carry out some computation stuff for me, occasionally, under contract. Out of my own pocket I will supply a new computer, new keyboard, etc. just to keep that person as comfortably productive as possible.
Oh – if I have to use my true identity, I won’t comment – that would eventually be a professional liability.
I try to behave civilly and respectfully, and I appreciate the opportunity to comment via persona.
+ 1001 🙂
I agree completely. In the early days of this “theory” I accepted that AGW was a correct scientific consensus. As time wore on, I began to doubt the amazing confidence of the reconstruction of past temperatures. Then I found this site, where I have learned so much. Without this site, where do the questioners go, learn and rally?
Support++
+1003
Very much so. +++++
I have learned so much from the comments; I would miss them terribly.
As for anonymity – we have some serious nasty vengeful eco-loons where I live. I would really prefer that they can’t identify me. Yes, I would pay a subscription.
I agree–often reading through the comments is more educational than the article being commented on.
JVC
I also agree with Doug in Calgary. I can use my real name because I am long retired from consulting. If I were still working as a consultant, using my real name and expressing my “beliefs” could make me unemployable in my old working place as many clients have different “beliefs”. I always worked to the “terms of reference”, the engineering “Code of Ethics” and the “Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer” (Iron Ring Ceremony that all Canadian Engineers will be aware of).
I fully understand why many can not use their real names.
As for comments, I often find that even if I don’t fully understand the article, the comments will clarify it. If I find issues with the article, others often explain why the article is “off”. The comments add clarity to the articles. The recent discussion on “V” is a good case in point where many ideas were shared. It showed that the “correctness” of an article or individual is not always the most important thing (to me) because the ideas and discussion can bring enlightenment.
As for trolls, or thread hijackers, I have learned to scan past posts by certain names or issues and discussions that are hijacked with back and forth arguments that go nowhere. They aren’t worth the wear and tear on my computer display and my artificial eyes. Scrolling past them is easy.
Engaging with trolls takes time away from reading and learning.
The poll is interesting. One thing I have come to appreciate is how many older people like me read this site. I do wonder what the profile of the readers is. It might make an interesting study some day.
This is a great site.
So sorry that Dr. Spencer had to put up with abuse at his site.
Thank you to Anthony, the moderators and all the people that post information here. I have learned a great deal here, often as much from the comments as the original posts; and often from the diverse discussions.
Thank you again, all of you.
@Tom Halla : 11:02 am, Tom I totally agree, I have learned a lot from all the discussions on this site and I call what is happening with the sockpuppets in my own language ” the Galileo Effect”. There will always be obnoxious nay-sayers. To shut down discussions would be a dark day. I am with you Anthony all the way.If the consensus finds a better way for weeding out these people I will support that but shutting down the discussion would almost be like giving in to them which to me is exactly what they are trying to do. Hang in there, we are with you! Maybe adding the up/down vote button could be tried again.
Maybe just an up button ? No “thumb wars ” ?
Many times I would like to agree without overly extending the comments.
+97
I strongly agree, Tom. Some initially intuitively opposite-from-what-I-would-expect views cause me to dig deep and much learning comes from it. The gravito-thermal argument featured on this blog comes to mind.
What I find tiresome isn’t the D.C. comments which I can ignore or explore, but the snide comments that add nothing to the scientific discourse. Write or ask something worthwhile if you have it, otherwise butt out.
@Chic – snide remarks can become very tiresome…a – “my comments can always be “snyd-er” than yours mentality.”
I’m a new regular at the site, and I wouldn’t want to add to Anthony’s workload in any way, but I have found the discussion & especially the links helpful. There is no convenient path for a newcomer to grasp the technical details– like anomalies, so the discussion is the next best thing.
Have a registration system for knowledgable commenters only. As with any normal scientific discussion group and many Facebook groups, not everyone is allowed to participate.
Bill, define ‘knowledgeable’. I think WUWT’s great strength is it’s cross-diciplinary, eclectic mix of commenters of all levels spreading their experience and wisdom on these threads. Just because the odd person of restricted thinking can’t get the message doesn’t mean even readers of the meanest intelligence can’t see them as nonsense peddlers and snake-oil salesmen.
Bill – you are correct. Not anywhere in the science realm, but I do understand words, how they are used, people good and bad – most of the good scientists disagree with CAGW and CO2 as the magic molecule. However, these good scientists have a very big failing and that is thinking and acting as though the ‘scientists’ on the dark side think and act like you. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It is a war and if you want to win it won’t be due to how nice you treat the opposition. You will not win with science alone – if you don’t understand that, all is lost.
Most of the people that are skeptics are non-scientists. We are a very large contingent and you need us. Don’t shut us out.
Kokoda, like many others who read these threads, I’m not a ‘scientist’ or researcher, but I do read a lot of history, and can occasionally offer a very limited perspective, or even simply laugh at the blinkered and deluded.
To shut others out of a discussion because they do not have a Ph.D in a specific discipline does not mean that their opinion has no worth. In my early working life, I was fortunate enough to learn in the company of some very competent professional working engineers who had never been to University, but to tell them that they did not know what they were talking about, or shut them out of a discussion, simply because they had no college degree would have been a gross professional insult.
Yes, this is a war of words that should have stayed within the confines of academia until the science and models had been more rigorously tested and verified, but as a public forum, I would argue that WUWT provides a valuable public service, unravelling spaghetti reasoning and failures of logic, bringing the obscure into the light of reason for which Anthony and his team should always be very proud. Even if they do have to deal with the hard of thinking.
Sorry to hear of Dr Spencer’s decision, but he’s just one man and the trolls and fools are legion.
And who decides who is knowlegable and who is not?
I agree- close comments on some articles. But the extra explanations and information often provided by comments is part of what makes WUWT great.
Do at times wish that the petty arguments and “trash talk” of derogatory personal comments about others could be moderated out,
How difficult to manage the requirement that posters be preregistered and approved to be able to comment?
Difficult – you have no idea what it takes to run moderated comments here.
Well, I would be sad if you removed the comment section. On longer articles or ones that I don’t have a real handle on I will go to comments almost immediately. The commenters generally have a way of digesting the information in small chunks and I find that very useful. OTOH I’ve watched Willis go far and above any reasonable attempt to engage in an actual debate to the inevitable futile end. And I’m wanting to yell at Willis like “City Slickers” he’s not getting it, he’s not going to get it, the cows can record by now” It’s a bit like Wikipedia on any controversial subject; there are 10 keyboard pounders to your one. See how long your edit on climate change survives.
Looked it up; twas Twain. “Never argue with stupid people, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”
Cheers and good luck
Is that Twain a rewriting of Confucius ‘A wise man never argues with an idiot as onlookers might not be able to tell the difference.’
Another version: “When you argue with an idiot, two idiots are arguing.”
Or: “I never cross wits with an unarmed opponent.”
Who decides when a debate is over?
Do you like it when someone says the debate is over?
Roy had a choice.
1. Ignore Doug cotton and all those who repeat his nonsense
2. Ban him
3. Try to show he is wrong
4. Mock him– use the “D” word
Does this look familiar?
Roy, myself, and others have done all of those things, and more…yet Doug just keeps on coming, unfazed. He’s a Farce of Nature.
In extreme cases, borrow Skeptical Science’s routine: Just disappear the offending comment and all reactions to it. Not even “snip” should appear.
There will always be Doug Cottons.
Get used to it.
Maybe their comments should be tagged orange as in ‘amber troll warning’
What was the name of the guy who set a magnificent temple on fire just to have his name known? That’s the driving force. Deprive him of the satisfaction.
you should be able to ban ip addresses. you or the article author should be able to ban commenters if you see fit.
most often here they quickly get a dose of reality if they are off the reservation. Like someone else said I too learn a lot from the comments. Willis is particularly good in his responses to commenters.
The thought that prof John Christy, and Dr. Roy Spencer’s work on climate studies might not continue after them, into the indefinite future to the benefit of all, after they brush the cobwebs off their golf clubs, indicates the risks we take when we let politics leach its way into science.
To say that Christy and Spencer have been cool voices of sanity, in a very noisy environment, is to say that their rational approach to what is a contentious subject, is largely what has convinced me personally, that CAGWMMGWCCC, will eventually fade away, as a serious threat to the planetary future.
It seems that their occasional appearances before this or that Congressional Committee, is not unlike tossing a bone out the window to a dog in the street, to stop the barking.
That buffoons like Barbara Boxer even have the authority to participate in such hearings, to me is an insult to dedicated scientists everywhere in whatever field they choose to do their research.
Personally, I’m far too busy trying to make photons go out and illuminate those parts of the world that need illuminating, to have time to get into independent research on all of the rogue photons that seem to be messing with our environmental stability.
So I try to understand what has been learned by others; and I don’t have the time or the money to keep track of the peer reviewed literature.
So sites like WUWT, and Dr. Roy’s blog are the places I go to learn, or sometimes to comment.
G
Oh, how I love generals. Let’s ban Starbucks, Peet’s, and most public wifi places.
curiously someone goes and makes my comment extreme. ..I did not suggest banning all things or even starbucks. there are cases where banning is appropriate george
General, sorry, we have different ideas of an IP address.
So just ignore him.
Or modify the comments section so that he can post… but… here’s the trick… Only he can see his comments.
Steven Mosher that is a positively devilish idea!
And attaching some random replies to his comments could keep him in the dark about what is going on.
I agree with ignoring him. Let anyone who wants to chew on trollish ideas and let the chips fall.
I completely disagree with the people who want to limits comments.
This site is what it is because of the comments and the way they are allowed to run, but run only to a certain point.
Steven Mosher
March 11, 2016 at 4:16 pm
Lucia did something like this some years back. It worked, if I recall correctly…
Apparently you guys missed the part where DC uses a proxy server, which changes his IP address frequently. You’d be uselessly banning IP addresses till the cows came him and he’d still be posting.
I think the difference is whose turf you’re on. I sometimes post at “D” word user sites, but leave when my contribution is no longer welcome. Ultimately, one can host their own site where you have the right to censor/ban all you want.
I’ve kept him at bay with zero tolerance, but also lack of posting recently by me and hence low blog traffic have helped.
I greatly value and have followed perhaps from the beginning Anthony’s posts and many of the commenters. I have learned to skip over some comments and personalities. The overhead of policing the comments surely is immense and clearly distracts from work in progress. If comments were turned off, might periodic updates to important posts be an alternative?
Thank you again for running this site.
Indeed, deep gratitude and much respect to Anthony, and (nearly) all who post here. Barely a day goes by that I don’t learn something new. It is a considerable gift.
I wimped out with “I don’t know.”
Yes (end comments): If you did that I’d have more time to write articles.
No (keep comments): I feel as though wading through all the cruft (including some of mine!) is getting to be more of a waste of time than it used to be, especially back when all the new comments became visible just be reloading the page and continuing scanning the page.
Only on some articles: Ha! Trolls will just make their comment on the next article. This was the only choice I discarded immediately.
I don’t know: Like I said, I wimped out.
I agree that nesting replies (as opposed to just adding them at the bottom) has made keeping up with the comments harder, and also encourages more frivolous chatter and less substance (e.g. my “+1,000”) above. It does make for more conversation, which can be entertaining, but on balance going back to the old linear comments might encourage more thoughtfulness and less chit-chat—and shorter threads? I’d be curious to know what others think.
/Mr Lynn
Different strokes for different folks. With so many comments on this blog, having linear comments would impede discussion IMO.
I personally dislike nested comments, although I can see the appeal. If nesting is to remain, though, and WordPress enabled it, using numbered comments like JoNova’s would make it easier to tease out the inter-comment relationships.
Re Joe Born’s suggestion: Does this WordPress theme support numbered (top level) comments? If so, that might be worth a try. With these mile-long threads it’s hard to remember what was interesting higher up to check for replies, but it would be easy to jot down a number as a mnemonic.
/Mr Lynn
Hmmm. I have to admit to a preference for nested comments – but have a problem here with telling what is, and is not, nested (some WTF? moments when I find myself in a totally different thread).
There is one forum that I frequent that has a (fairly decent) compromise, but I don’t know if WordPress will do it or not (although I am going to investigate it, setting up my own blog Real Soon Now…).
The Baen forums run all of the comments linearly – but at the top of each comment is a line like “[message #1238907 is a reply to message #1238794]” – and the second one is a link to the message it is a reply for. Hit an interesting comment, and you can backtrack through the thread then.
On the poll, I voted to retain comments – although reluctantly, as I am fully aware of the problems. But, like others, I glean a great deal of additional information from the knowledgeable people that comment here.
I voted for free speech.
Even morons should be allowed their space. It’s always possible that I’m a moron and they are not.
But I very much agree that nested comments has encouraged closed minded bigotry and unscientific circular arguments.
Go back to organising comments by time and we can skim over those that we aren’t bothering to engage with. That way we can see if they add something new and re-engage.
But if they are nested then we leave them in their bubble.
I agree. Simple time-order is preferable.
My personal preference is for ‘nested’ comments.
I frequently find that someone poses an interesting question and it’s much quicker to find the answer (if there is one) if it’s directly below, rather than having to scroll down maybe dozens of comments later – AND hope that in the reply the commenter addresses whom he/she is replying to by name.
+1 for nested comments.
“But I very much agree that nested comments has encouraged closed minded bigotry and unscientific circular arguments.”
Sorry, but I just don’t see how that works. Are you saying that people agreeing with each other in comments leads to bigotry and circular arguments? And this is made worse by nested comments? I don’t buy that.
I would also always vote for free speech.
Why not simply ignore troll posts? It would mean far less work for WUWT. Many trolls probably crave attention, and taking notice of them simply feeds and encourages them.
.
I definitely prefer nested comments, as it indicates the structure of the discussion. How on Earth does nested comments encourage bigotry and circular arguments?
Chris
If you go for that, where are all the extra moderators to come from?
Perhaps a training program to police the system.
“…especially back when all the new comments became visible just be reloading the page… ”
How difficult is it to create a feature that would allow notification and highlighting of new comments only?
Some sites like Discus or Facebook have various forms of such a system in place.
Would also be handy to be able to see if someone replies to comments I have made or comment substrings I have added to.
When you are interested in a particular issue, I turn on the “Notify me of New Comments by email” feature. It can fill your email with trash but they can be put together and quickly scanned and deleted.
The nested versus linear argument is a long standing issue but if you see a comment you want to come back to, you can note who made it, come back a day or two later, put it in “Find” in the “Edit Box” and search the article to see all the related comments.
Dr. Curry and Dr. Pielke Jr use social media sites as login managers. Don’t know if that could help but I don’t visit Dr. Curry’s site any more because I don’t use social media. Any decision or method to control the problem will have consequences. But the fact remains, most posts are crap anyway with loads of “me too” fanboy comments and rants from angry old white guys like me, a large dose of unschooled opinions based on bs that gets repeated often enough to have a life of its own, and endless bickerfests between uncompromising egos. The latter being endemic at Dr. Curry’s site.
Something to consider is to disallow auto-published comments and pass through only those that avoid the above problems. At some point it becomes self-regulating because you’ve discouraged the drive-bys and shut down the sock-puppet loophole. That means the volume of posts will drop thus reducing your workload. It will of course be a lot of upfront work.
“endless bickerfests between uncompromising egos. The latter being endemic at Dr. Curry’s site.”
Yes, I stopped reading comments at Judy’s site as they add nothing. I’m very grateful that comments at WUWT have remained useful and for the most part, civil. Nothing makes my day like seeing RGB has commented on something!
yes, RGB is not only an expert, but a good sport. Always a treat to see his comments.
Roy and Anthony
Consider this
https://wordpress.org/plugins/intensedebate/
I don’t use social media to log into Judith’s site. I believe it is wordpress that I used.
It may have changed – I haven’t seen it in quite a while. I have a zero tolerance for SocBlather.
You can still log in with WordPress.
Perhaps registration that would use a google style level of dual authentication would work? Logging in with a unique pin sent via text message, same thing I do with google. People will not get new phone numbers all the time just to troll ;^)
It absolutely sucks that the good Doc had to do this type of thing. There has to be a better way to spray for trolls.
Regards Ed
Many people will NOT give ANY phone number to ANY website.
My point is that using google authentication, as an example, permits you to use google to log into some sites using your google account. You don’t provide anything to the site itself aside from verification of identity using the google account using a dual authenticating process as referenced. The number resides at google and has other benefits for security and recovery of devices as an example. Very few people actually alter their default google settings, but really should. No BS, many could learn much from the google settings options if they looked at them.
ossqss:
Not keen on using google – they keep too much information about their customers.
The comment forum here at WUWT is a pretty important place for sceptics to discuss and socialize. While the quality of the comments is decidedly mixed, there are a lot of experienced, knowledgeable folks posting here, from whose comments one can learn much. People with sometimes surprising but very topical expertise, sailors, engineers, scientists … examples are Leif Svalgaard (posting up-thread), Ferdinand Engelbeen and the Courtney clan. There are many more. It would be a great pity to lose this.
I agree with Fred Harwood. I often glean as much from the comments as from the articles, and enjoy and appreciate civil debate & disagreement. I also have learned to ignore the occasional hijacking of a thread. IMHO, most of the folks commenting here are calm, reasonable people.
For the children you must keep up the good work.
One day, in the not too distant future, these asshats will have to explain to their children/grandchildren how they could have been so cretinous as to have ‘believed’ in the myth of Cagw, so blind as to support and repeat the lies and invention of those who should know better and so gullible as to think there would not be a day of reckoning.
Their offspring will be as understanding of their fantasies as we are – if they are fortunate.
CS from 2xCO2 ≤ 0.1C Mark my words.
CS from 2xCO2 ≤ 0.1C Mark my words.
I won’t pick a number for ∆ºC for 2xCO2, but I agree, it must be very low.
Just ballpark smokey 😉
I would bet the farm I am 1.0C closer than the ‘experts’ .
“CS from 2xCO2 ≤ 0.1C Mark my words.”
I agree and would go even further and suggest it is a negative number.
I’d guess a bit more beneficial than 0.1 . . but the extra CO2 will still prolly be the best part, it seems to me.
Doug Cotton spent a lot of time on Roy’s blog. Therefore he’s looking for places to spend more time. Let’s keep him out of here. Maybe we can send him to William Connelley’s http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/
And therein lies my problem.
I didn’t think of this…Doug’s now homeless. He WILL show up someplace else.
He’s been a pain at Jo’s site too. I just ignore his comments but it is really annoying when he bombs a thread.
I’m afraid I had to post a “don’t know” in the poll as I can see the point of both the “yes” and “no” options. I’ve learned so much from WUWT and Jo and would miss the comments. I’m so sorry that you and Anthony have had the likes of DC to cope with. Your work is so very valuable.
Annie.
Maybe a fake website could be set up, with some Artificial Intelligence posting generated skeptical posts, and generating a host of colorful characters commenting. Ensnare Cotton. This seems to be the best use of AI we might have yet.
I like that idea.
There’s “honey pots” for catching hackers, so I suppose this would be a “Cotton Gin”
Jo Nova has a good idea and it seems to be “self policing” in a way with the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”. I doesn’t stop the trolls but those that contribute to the site soon recognise who they are and vote them down. Just a thought.
That might work, for rational people. Doug, not so much.
Let the users flag the crap. I believe this might relieve some of the mods work load.
We’ll flag ’em and let the mods bag ’em.
The trolls will flag good comments as crap…
All too true. Most apparently good ways of dealing with a problem create other,worse problems. Besides, I like to know what sort of plausible arguments sock puppets and trolls use.
“The trolls will flag good comments as crap…”
Maybe not just the trolls, also the concerned scientists or concerned mothers or concerned whatever.
The most interesting comments on Ars Technica are often “hidden because of low score”, sometimes at extremely negative scores.
That might work, for rational people. Doug, not so much.
Set it so that if the rating gets low enough, the comment with it’s nested replies gets hidden behind the username with an option to expand. Then he gets no casual views and those that respond to him can be hidden from people who don’t care to go there.
Comment rating systems have shown themselves to be a good way to develop an echo chamber. Imo, it’s better to let the readership sort out and refute the trolls and propagandists.
I have warned Jo that Doug will be looking for somewhere else to spread his nonsense.
He did have a real “thing” for Roy, though, so he may not be quite as much of an issue elsewhere.
WUWT is one of the two blogs I read every day (the other is the political Powerline Blog). While the lead posts at WUWT are usually interesting and sometimes insightful (and sometimes over my head), the Comment threads are generally rewarding, and often entertaining. Many times I have copied a comment to either a climate or a general reference folder on my hard drive, because it contained information or an argument I might want to refer back to. Indeed, my only regret is that the Comments threads are now so frequent and so long that I must pick and choose what to read—there just isn’t enough time!
I do think using moderators is the trick, and we are all indebted for their tireless work. I gather Dr. Spencer was attempting to maintain his blog by himself, and clearly in this contentious field of study that is a mistake.
/Mr Lynn
I agree with Mr Lynn. Often the comments are as valuable as the article. I would hate to see the comments go away, but I understand the effort required from the mods to contain the “detritus.”
I too agree with Mr. Lynn and PaulH. Over the years I have archived around 2000 items on climate and environmental issues, mostly from WUWT. The first item was from December 1999.
Kudos to this site, host, moderators and contributors.
Tom Halla March 11, 2016 at 11:02 am
I absolutely agree with TH, and any others who advocate leaving comments open.
Anthony, your readers will assist you in battling the trolls.
SR
Censorship is dangerous. It easily becomes the inverse of my own banishment from Carbonist sites.
I’m not in favour of stopping comments. Perhaps for factual presentation articles (where facts are undisputed, though can’t see many of them in Climate Science!), comments could be disabled, but generally, comments are a necessary requirement for correct discussion and distribution of thoughts about certain subjects.
As mentioned somewhere above, cross disciplinary interaction is one of the best things about discussion. Also many things get solved by a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ – not that this is the reason for WUWT, but it certainly is good to get different takes on certain scientific aspects.
just my twopenneth
I don’t recall anything Doug Cotton may have said. I just did a quick review and I get the impression that he is not a CAGW advocate. Rather the opposite. I think he has an idea that conflicts with Roy Spencer view. Is that the crux of it?
No. DC esposes a crackpot idea (my characterization) easily disproven that also:
A. Allows warmunists to put all skeptics into Obama’s ‘flat earth society’ bag.
B. Regularly highjacks discussion threads, cutting off information exchange and learning.
Look, denying that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse gas’ is true denial of well established physics both theoretically and experimentally. Nobody rational should hold that position. Now feedbacks? Lots of room for rational disagreement. So sensitivity? Lots of room for rational disagreement. Consequences? Lots of room for rational disagreement.
Thank-you. Until today I have not read a word he has written so thanks for the heads-up.
Ristvan
Good to know that you are the arbiter of what is or isn’t rational.
Not that I disagree with your comments but in the words of a great philosopher “the only thing I know for sure is that you don’t know anything for SURE”
“Look, denying that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse gas’ is true denial of well established physics both theoretically and experimentally.”
Oh my lord. The real plant greenhouse works by way of limiting air currents (convection) and not by any radiation restriction. How do you think the open atmosphere does that? Talk about un-scientific. Even Dr. Brown calls that view of the atmospheric effect rubbish, and he is the prototypical lukewarmer.
There are plenty of highly educated men and women who are not in agreement with you and the IPCC over the effect of CO2. You would like to shut off debate one this major issue as much as the alarmist team looks like.
How the atmosphere works its magic is still an open question and it is not going to be solved by a tube full of gas in an air-conditioned physics lab.
“Greenhouse gas” is word play that obfuscates the underlying Illogical premise driving climastrology.
The claim that the surface temperature is 33C higher due to the radiative properties of CO2 and water vapor is tenuous at best. I come to these sites seeking convincing science one way or the other. With a computer science degree, I view the arguments logically (If, Then, Else). All arguments I have viewed seeking to validate that DWLIR “heats” the ocean fail basic logical analysis.
If -> CO2 DWLIR is absorbed in the first few molecules of the ocean
Then-> CO2 cannot increase ocean temperature 33C
Then -> Trenberth’s and Hansen’s model for surface temperature is invalid
Else -> “Greenhouse gases” are not raising surface temperature like a greenhouse
SKS posted a Tangaroa study on “Can CO2 warm the ocean?” That study was absurd. Others argue that mixing allows for the DWLIR to work its magic. The first few molecules of the surface layer is roughly equivalent to a thimble full from an Olympic size pool. You can warm a thimble up to boiling, and pour it in without any noticeable change in the pool’s temperature and the source for DWLIR is not at a boiling temperature. Lastly, the argument is that CO2 “slows cooling” which again would only allow the ocean to reach and maintain the -18C from Trenberth’s model.
If the “greenhouse gas” theory fails for 70% of the earth’s surface, the argument is invalid..
Do rational people deny CO2 is a “greenhouse gas”? If by that you mean radiative gas, then “no”. Do rational people question the “greenhouse gas” theory? Absolutely.
Until a scientist can demonstrate in a -18 freezer that the application of a constant force at 168w/m2 can heat a block of ice to 15C by changing the gas above it from pure Nitrogen to an atmospheric mix with .04% CO2, the “greenhouse gas” theory for surface temperature doesn’t hold, melt, or in any way “warm” water.
After exhaustive reading on both sides, the logical conclusion is the daytime sun heats the surface but more importantly the ocean well above 15C in the tropics, the ocean distributes this heat via currents and evaporation, the atmosphere cools the land and the ocean by convection and some radiative absorption, and eventually radiates the incoming energy out to space.
If our atmosphere had 0% CO2, based on the properties of the real magic molecule (H2O), our temperatures would not be noticeably different, but most likely warmer due to less radiative capability in the upper atmosphere.
Dr. Roy Clark’s null hypothesis for CO2 is the most compelling argument I have read.
Thus, your comment concerning “denying CO2 is a greenhouse gas is true denial” allows a passive acceptance of Trenberth/Hansen’s 33C argument, which is far from proven or absolute.
Bob Boder:
in this case, I think Rud is correct.
Look, Newtonian physics as an acceptable approximation of reality at the scale that we live…its simply true.
some things are just true, and Rud’s comment is one of them.
No no no! The crux of the issue is NOT that he has an idea that disagrees with Dr Spencer’s!
Dr Spencer is like most of us sceptics. Novel and disagreeing ideas interest and intrigue him and us.
The problems with Mr Cotton are manifold.
You cannot assess the detriment of his contribution on the basis of what comments are published, because you’re omitting the vast amount that aren’t.
First, the unremitting flood of commentary that resembles an over-spammed inbox. No sign of any ability to be pertinent, concise, or able to stick to a point.
Secondly, he has an inability to discuss an issue. He’ll ask multiple questions but not answer any, unless he can wilfully misinterpret them. He ignores everything you say, statement, opinion, evidence, question or link unless he can misinterpret it into an excuse to continue one of his rants.
Thirdly, he turns any intellectual argument into an unintellectual quarrel. He does not abide by the standards of honest intellectual debate. Specifically he attacks personalities, and his perception of motives and character. His discussion style is antagonistic
Fourthly, he is an arrant sophist. He uses multiple techniques of sophistry to derail discussion unproductively.
Fifth, he is grammatically and logically ambiguous. Trying to discuss anything with him is a burden, because you have to conduct both sides of the conversation. If you meant a) then the answer is x, if instead you’re trying to say b) then the answer is y) and if c) then the answer is z). Just what did you mean, and could you be clearer in future? He sees no benefit in responding as to what he meant, nor to what your answer(s) were, nor to your questions; instead he’s off on a tangent to another illogical rant.
Sixth, he’s too ignorant to know the vast areas in which he’s factually wrong.
That’s not the problem; many of us laymen are. But when told he’s wrong, with reason and evidence, he’s too stubborn to learn. He cannot refute anything said, so he ignores it and repeat errors that have often been refuted before.
Seventh, his own theories, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, are not supported by logic, reason and evidence. He seems to have no grasp of these concepts.
Eight, his discussion style is discourteous. He seems to have no perception of the other person as a person. No grasp of courtesy, of give and take, of understanding where they’re coming from.
So no, the problem is NOT that he has an idea that disagrees with Dr Spencer’s ideas.
So, in other words, his comments are SPAM !
Leo,
It is hard for me to ask what is the root of the problem so that I can understand, and equally if not more difficult for you to explain the issue without resorting to attacks on Cotton’s humanity. I think you succeeded and now I get the problem. Thanks Leo.
It is important that you laid the issues out in a list and not resort to ad homs. You did. I did not sense cruelty in your assessment. I have never visited Roy Spencer’s site nor read any of his posts or associated comments. I get the reader’s digest versions here at WUWT.
Doug J Coffin may have a serious medical problem judging by his behavior. I am not trying to be funny. Nor am I a psychiatrist. He seems obsessed.
Anyone have a link to an example of this guy?
I find myself fascinated like passing by an awful car wreck.
So, in other words, ignore Cotton. He adds nothing. Mods should just delete anything he posts and make an entry on his post position for all to see: Just state “Cotton was here.” We would then know he posted but his rantings would be deleted. This would be understood by everyone.
This site is a very good educational source for novices like me. As was stated up post by someone, I understand some science, I’ve learned from the many articles posted over the last few years and many a time when an article is over my head, it’s nice to have some comments that may clarify some of the information in lay-mans terms, thus giving me a better gist on some of the sciency stuff.
Don’t ban comments because of this idiot.
And, thanks to Anthony, this site and all the mods. A person like me really does not understand what goes into running a top quality site.
Thankyou!
Sounds like a wel-trained Clintonista. Masters of deflection clad in Teflon.
This guy sounds a lot like “CB,” another infamous climate troll. Some of these people are simply deranged … especially on the subject of climate.
I agree with PeterK and many others. I learn a lot from the comments. I also want to express my gratitude to Mr Watts and the moderators for their extraordinary work in creating/maintaining this website.
teapartygeezer,
Would you mind specifying who you are calling deranged?
Chic Bowdrie March 12 @5:11am
“Would you mind specifying who you are calling deranged?”
Sorry! Thought that was obvious. I was referring to Doug Cotton, the subject of this post, and the reason for Dr Spencer closing his comments.
It sounds like more voices and quantitative confirmations are coming out at an increasing rate recognizing that the balance between gravitational potential energy and thermal kinetic energy is the “solution” to filling the gap left by the Divergence Theorem between planetary surface temperatures and the temperatures which can be explained by the energy they absorb from the Sun .
The GHG believers have yet to present any quantitative equations explaining that gap .
As always happens, the comments are becoming more and more Off Topic and beginning to peddle the commenter’s own pet ideas. Keeping people On Topic should be a clear task for the [admittedly overburdened] moderators.
James: “It’s very, very simple.”
It’s also very, very wrong, as been completely understood since the 19th Century, when James Clerk Maxwell laid the idea to rest with a trivial amount of thermodynamic reasoning. In his book “Theory of Heat”, published in London in 1877, he writes (p. 320):
“The second result of our theory relates to the thermal equilibrium of a vertical column. We find that if a vertical column of a gas were left to itself, till by the conduction of heat it had attained a condition of thermal equilibrium, the temperature would be the same throughout, or, in other words, gravity produces no effect in making the bottom of the column hotter or colder than the top.
This result is important in the theory of thermodynamics, for it proves that gravity has no influence in altering the conditions of thermal equilibrium in any substance, whether gaseous or not. For if two vertical columns of different substances stand on the same perfectly conducting horizontal plate, the temperature of the bottom of each column will be the same; and if each column is in thermal equilibrium of itself, the temperatures at all equal heights must be the same. In fact, if the temperatures of the tops of the two columns were different, we might drive an engine with this difference of temperature, and the refuse heat would pass down the colder column, through the conducting plate, and up the warmer column; and this would go on till all the heat was converted into work, contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. But we know that if one of the columns is gaseous, its temperature is uniform. Hence that of the other must be uniform, whatever its material.”
Richard Feynman, in his canonical Lectures on Physics (#40), which he developed for Cal Tech 50 years ago, and still are considered the best there is, similarly dispatches this idea in a single paragraph:
“Let us begin with an example: the distribution of the molecules in an atmosphere like our own, but without the winds and other kinds of disturbance. Suppose that we have a column of gas extending to a great height, and at thermal equilibrium—unlike our atmosphere, which as we know gets colder as we go up. We could remark that if the temperature differed at different heights, we could demonstrate lack of equilibrium by connecting a rod to some balls at the bottom (Fig. 40–1), where they would pick up 1/2kT from the molecules there and would shake, via the rod, the balls at the top and those would shake the molecules at the top. So, ultimately, of course, the temperature becomes the same at all heights in a gravitational field.”
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_40.html
Robert G Brown has used the same example as Feynman here are WUWT to make this point.
This discussion got :”off topic” because Spencer’s original post on which comments were blocked stated
So independently of what ever this Doug Cotton says , This appears to be a censoring of any discussion which questions the entire paradigm that planetary atmospheres are hotter at their bottoms than their tops ( where their temperatures necessarily converge on the gray body temperature in their orbits ) due to some electromagnetic , ie : spectral , ie : green house gas , phenomenon .
The problem that no equations quantitatively explaining this effect have ever been presented . Nor any experiment .
On the other hand , quantitative explanations based on the molecular weight and gravitational force have been presented which appear to explain the temperature profiles of planetary atmospheres with compelling accuracy .
I’m glad to learn that Feynman’s lectures are online . My copies are out in a barn somewhere and its been decades since I read that chapter on “The Exponential Atmosphere” . I hadn’t remembered it talking about temperature at all .
It’s interesting that HockeySchtick cites exactly the same chapter as confirmation of the gravitational effect , http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/feynman-explains-how-gravitational.html , and also cites Maxwell .
I have to “steal” any time on these things so I won’t get to implementing and playing with and thereby groking these purported relationships until I can do it in a pedagogically useful manner in my 4th.CoSy . But first I need to get 4th.CoSy out the door and into more heads .
In any case , all of this would be moot if those who claim some sequence of optical filters can trap energy in excess to that input would present the equations quantifying the effect in an experimentally testable form .
Ed Bo,
Did Maxwell follow up that trivial amount of thermo reasoning with an experiment? Apparently the controversy remains:
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/the-loschmidt-gravito-thermal-effect-old-controversy-new-relevance/
If Feynman actually had carried out his thought experiment he may have found that a temperature gradient would develop in the rod as well, thus maintaining the temperature gradient.
Bob, Chic:
There are commercially available “ultracentrifuges” spinning at rates that produce g-forces a million times that of earth’s gravity. These spin in a vacuum to prevent air friction heating, so the samples are almost perfectly thermodynamically isolated.
By the reckoning of many people here, these would produce a thermal gradient in the sample of 10K per millimeter. But these are never seen. The more expensive high-speed vacuum models are marketed as permitting no temperature changes in what are often temperature-sensitive samples.
I was just looking through the manual for one of these. The beginning was filled with all sorts of safety warnings, but not a single warning about possibly producing extreme temperatures.
So the isothermal idea has gone way beyond experiment — it’s everyday commercial activity.
That’s a very interesting observation about ultra centrifuges and clearly they could be used to conduct definitive experiments .
First , they could be used to confirm the gravitational blueshift although I think that maybe detectable even between satellites and the surface , given the incredible precision of some of today’s measurements .
Certainly there must be compressive heating as the centrifuge spins up . But it’s not clear to me whether a stable temperature gradient would be expected unless there were heating from the “top” of the sample . It’s one of those situations I’d not want to make predictions about until I had implemented and “played with” the computations . ( To me a good example of something I at least can’t “intuit” is that there is an optimal thickness of insulation around a pipe beyond which the increased surface area actually produces poorer insulation . )
As I pointed out in a post just a bit ago , those who contend that gravity is not an necessary parameter need to explain why radiation itself gets “hotter” as it descends in a gravitational field but matter doesn’t .
I think it is also more than incumbent on them , particularly because the gravitational equations are presented and work , to present the comparably quantitative , testable equations for GHG “trapping” .
Yet , in years of seeking , I have yet to have anybody even point me to a link to what should be no more than a simple equation . And certainly an experimental demonstration should be easier to set up than building an experiment in an ultra-centrifuge .
Your point , tho , is very well taken . Both these hypotheses can be experimentally tested at trivial expense compared to detecting gravitational waves of the Higgs boson .
The problem is there appear to be no testable equations for the GHG hypothesis .
“There are commercially available “ultracentrifuges” spinning at rates that produce g-forces a million times that of earth’s gravity. These spin in a vacuum to prevent air friction heating, so the samples are almost perfectly thermodynamically isolated.”
So for some reason, the tube isn’t heat conducting?
There’s no way the walls of a glass test tube would have the conductivity to substantially counteract the supposed gravitational gradient. Besides, most advocates of the gravitational gradient, when shown Feynman’s disproof, claim that solids must have the same gravitational gradient.
Ed Bo:
You make a good argument. But so does simple-touriste referring to conduction in the tubes.
I really like seeing the references to experiment and proposed experiment .
If only those who consider the GHG explanation settled science would show their equations and experimental demonstration then it would be . And this discussion would have been over before it started .
I think it wrong , tho , to believe you can extract power from the steady state temperature gradient , if observed , in excess to any input . Just like because you can’t extract energy from the blue shift of radiant energy in a gravitational field because it only and exactly compensates for the gravitational energy it balances .
Clive Best’s proposed experiment reminds me of the Hilsch vortex tube which uses a centrifugal flow to separate a stream of gas into a cold flow at the center from a hot flow at the periphery . I was so fascinated by idea I read about , I believe in Scientific American , when I was in high school > half a century ago that I really wanted to make one . However that separation does not come for free and I think the physics has been thoroughly , ie : quantitatively , analyzed .
Bob,
I did check your blog and confess I don’t understand the blue shift and how you calculate the surface temperature, etc. I do agree the standard AGW equations are lacking. I think the faithful would argue that all the proper physics are in the climate models. I say the equations are either not all in there or not all correct and probably some of both. Would you agree?
Regarding extracting power from a temperature gradient, I doubt it will ever be cost effective. However, it doesn’t violate the 2nd Law. IOW, it isn’t a perpetual motion machine, because the energy extracted comes from the outside heat sink. What amount of power can you get out of 10 K/km? That’s the problem with renewables, the energy is free but you pay an arm and a leg to harness it.
Having been a mod myself for some years I know all too well the amount of work and sometimes extremely difficult decisions that goes into maintaining a good comment section. It has got to be one of the most under-appreciated jobs in the world.
That said, I love the comments here just as much as the articles—sometimes even more. Aside from the highly enjoyable wit and dry humor, comments on this site have done more to educate me on climate than all other sources put together. And I don’t mean just taking their word, though comments do often clarify points I don’t quite understand in the main article; links to further sources, formulas I’d never figure out on my own, even learning certain terms so I can then perform my own research—it has been a wealth of knowledge, and I probably should have expressed my gratitude long ago. Thank you everyone who puts out both articles and quality comments! There are a lot of us quiet people out here who read them daily, learn, and pass on the knowledge.
spinifers said:
…comments on this site have done more to educate me on climate than all other sources put together.
I agree. The comments are as educational as the articles. They fill in the blanks.
yes
+1
Very well put.
Yes.
BTW: someone mentioned Visa (or whatever) subscriptions. I’d go for that! I make a habit of hitting the tip jar here a few times a year anyway.