Via GMU press release:
We are delighted to announce that John Cook, PhD will be joining our team as a Research Assistant Professor, beginning January 2017.
Initially trained as a physicist, John recently completed his PhD in psychology at the University of Western Australia. His doctoral research focused on the negative influences of misinformation on climate literacy, and how to neutralize those influences.
Despite his newly minted PhD, John has been a towering figure in the field of climate communication for the past decade. In 2007, he created Skeptical Science – a website/app devoted to explaining climate science and rebutting global warming misinformation. Skeptical Science is widely seen by climate scientists and other climate educators as an invaluable educational resource. For his efforts, John has received numerous prestigious awards including a 2012 Eureka Prize for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge (Australian Museum), a 2013 Peter Rawlinson Conservation Award (Australian Conservation Foundation) and a 2016 Friend of the Planet Award (National Center for Science Education).
John has also published five books on climate change and/or science misinformation – including The Debunking Handbook (with Stephen Lewandowsky) that has been downloaded over ½ million times from Skeptical Science – and dozens of scientific articles. His research paper titled Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming (Environmental Research Letters, 2013) – that definitively demonstrated that 97% of climate scientists are convinced that human-caused climate is happening – is the most-ever-downloaded paper from that journal, or any journal published by the Institute of Physics. Not bad for a social scientist!
In 2015, John developed and taught a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) through The University of Queensland titled Denial 101x: Making Sense of Climate Science Denial. This course – which uses an innovative pedagogical technique called misconception-based learning – has attracted over 25,000 students from 167 nations. John is currently teaching the course for a 2nd time to 1,873 students from 114 nations.
Given the innovation and rigor of John’s climate communication research – and his total commitment to helping stabilize the earth’s climate – we are fortunate indeed to be welcoming him to America, and to have him join the 4C team.
Oh boy, looks like Cook will be Cooking up some new crazy campaigns to try to minimize those people who have an opinion different than he does.
Some background on GMU and the RICO20:
George Mason professors call for RICO probe of ‘climate change deniers’
Jagdish Shukla’s #RICO20 blunder may have opened the ‘largest science scandal in US history’
More on the George Mason Centre for Climate Change Communication and its founder Ed Maibach, here:
Propaganda from The Public Purse
http://sppiblog.org/news/propaganda-from-the-public-purse
Beats me how a university with such a strong economics department is also home to this bunch of fanatics…
Beats me completely how any university department could take this grinning galoot seriously at all. That he has written a book with Lewandowsky is hardly a recommendation and that he went over to La Lewny’s old department at UWA to do his PhD does not say much at all.
Not sure about those numbers though…sounds like
in 2015 there were 25000 students from 167 countries, roughly 150 students per country
in 2016 thare are now 1873 students from 114 countries or 16 students per country
Sounds like there won’t be sufficient interest for a 2017 course
Porjections would indicate 1.6 students per counter from around 80 countries for a total student populace of 125 or so next year
Easy. That’s how they make their money.
If being a skeptic was the profitable, easy way to go, that’s what they would be doing instead. Follow the money. Scientists are a venal as anyone and maybe more so if grant money is involved.
Susan Crockford? Paid by Heartland.. Willie Soon? same…
James Delingpole makes a living out of it – is Monckton not paid for his lectures?
Griff it is not who pays for the research that’s important it is whether the science is correct.
Are you this David LeBlanc?
https://www.google.com/#q=Leblanc+Thorium
If so you can count on my support.
Is this an actual real person that this Press Release is describing.
I think that maybe the Pope has just screwed up in making Mother Theresa a Saint.
Clearly this chap is far more deserving of Sainthood than Mother Theresa.
Well I see he has a PhD in Psychology.
I know a Psychologist; two of them in fact; my life long best friend and his wife. They are likely the world’s leading authority (both of them) on the learning processes of retarded children; and how to apply effective remedial teaching processes, to return a good fraction of them to perfectly normal status, to completely avoid K-12 Special Ed needs.
Well they study ” behavior ” That is what Psychologists do.
They do NOT study what people think. As a trained Physicist Dr John Cook should be well aware that there is no known Physical process for downloading and deciphering the content of another person’s brain. Or even a dolphin or a crow’s brain.
People who claim they can do that are called ” Psychiatrists “.
Well Ricky Ricardo called them ” Pee-sick-ee-uh-trists ” with the accent on the “sick”, which is about what they are.
So what the hell is “Dr” John Cook doing outside his field of expertise trying to figure out climate skeptics.
It’s very simple John; the “consensus 97%” claims of what climatists call a physical model of the earth’s climate simply do not either explain or predict or postdict what the experimental observations of earth climate history shows has happened.
So we have another Wizard of Aus who thinks we can just ignore what he is doing behind the curtain.
G
Obviouslt a “Stand-Up Psychologist”
Look at his Ph.D. description… Ph.D. in misinformation..
Yes, he got a Ph.D. in Climate Propaganda…
What he failed to point out was the 97% of climate skeptics are ALSO convinced that human-caused climate is happening. The whole debate is about how much.
Quite why a Physics journal decided it was the right place to carry a paper about psychology is another question entirely.
“His doctoral research focused on the negative influences of misinformation on climate literacy,”
Well, he’s certainly an expert on that, he’s been doing to for over a decade.
May be he should stop dying his hair, it’s making him look pasty.
No
Pis-e-a-see–a-crist.
“So what the hell is “Dr” John Cook doing outside his field of expertise trying to figure out climate skeptics.”
Well you know how he is at fizzicks?
This is the same John Cook of the notorious “97%” paper?
Indeed.
100% the same. Its the only thing about the guy you could take to the bank. The rest is basically a cartoon.
Shouldn’t that be 97% correct. 😉
Excepting that he is not in his photoshopped Reichsführer ss Heinrich Himmler uniform.The man should be Kook- not Cook.He headed up crash course in climate denial ism at UQ.
No in this case its 100% and as GlenM points out that’s 100% kook. On reflection though perhaps he lives in a kookoon which wopuld explain a lot.
If you want someone who knows all about providing scientific misinformation, you would be hard pressed to find a more knowledgeable person for the job.
Heh. They’re doubling down on the CAGW meme. I guess they haven’t figured out that they should stop digging. Should be interesting.
Exactly right. After the Shukla mess, you’d think they’d be a bit less aggressive in recruiting these polarizing figures.
Towering opinion wins in some circles.
To keep the AGW issue alive, particularly in the US, the people of influence need to be moved out of semi-obscure places and into positions where titles give them even greater believably. Consider how Chris Mooney, of Desmogblog minor fame ( http://www.desmogblog.com/chris_mooney) is now “Chris Mooney, Washington Post reporter” ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/chris-mooney ). If legendary Watergate-era WashPo editor Ben Bradlee were alive today to see that designation, one could wager that Mooney would be looking for work tomorrow, and other heads would roll at WashPo for hiring Mooney in the first place.
“If legendary Watergate-era WashPo editor Ben Bradlee were alive today to see that designation, one could wager that Mooney would be looking for work tomorrow, ”
Would have never been hired in the first place and I doubt the current crew would be there at all.
If legendary Watergate-ero WashPo editor Ben Bradlee were to apply at the WashPo today, he would never get hired either.
Is this really the George Mason post for him? Including this lovely line –
” In 2007, he created Skeptical Science – a website/app devoted to explaining climate science and rebutting global warming misinformation. ”
I wasn’t aware that Skeptical Science rebutted global warming misinformation, I thought it generated it.
spot on, friend.
The Skeptical Science site is the Westboro Baptist Church of the climate alarmist world.
didn’t the RICO thing just backfire big time?
anyway i’m glad we know who the actors are and where they are so that when their game is up and the economic harm they have caused has been counted, we will know where to find them so that we can file all those lawsuits.
They should have used his dressed up photo – http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/03/truth-about-skeptical-science.html
That photo, along with the PhD in Propaganda Dissemination, says it all.
There’s some good info from PopTech there – namely the admission from Cook on the SkS site that says ” I’m not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist and web programmer by trade.”
Wow. It’s a pity there isn’t a Nobel prize for comedy – the writer of the above blurb would be a shoo-in.
Blurbs like that are usually written by the person being hired – much like your CV.
But I did like this line:
because the following words were missing: but failed to qualify…
Right on Harry .
Anybody watch any of the “Denial 101x: Making Sense of Climate Science Denial”? It is a fascinating look at how they view us climate skeptics. It seems to me that the psychology runs like this: the CAGW faithful do not reduce their own C02 emissions because in their minds the final 3% of the people are not on board and therefore they cannot start walking the walk with only a measly 97% so they have to lash out at the 3% until the 3% get religion. It is hilarious how they fume at us skeptics as if we are stopping them from turning off the lights, stop flying, stop driving, stop heating their homes, etc.
Anybody watch any of the Denial 101x: … ”
A few brave souls actually signed up for it :-O
Do a search at Jo Nova’s site or copy/paste (maybe just click on)
http://joannenova.com.au/?s=Denial+101
At [b]one time[/b] not so long ago, 97% (maybe closer to 100%) of all [i]certified, licensed doctors[/i] believed that [b]ulcers[/b] were caused by stress, reactions to complex or spicy food, drinking, aspirin and allergies. That was until 1980 or so. Then it was found that [b]well over 95%[/b] of all stomach and duodenum ulcers are festering sores colonized by especially tough helipbactor pylorii.
Thus, with some balking and shouting, the treatment revolutionized.
This may sound as a [i]“skeptic’s argument”[/i], but it is not. It is fact.
97% of scientists CAN be wrong.
Dead wrong.
At [b]another time[/b] not so long ago, 97% (or higher) of the geology professors, PhDs, practitioners believed that the Earth’s continents were static. That they ‘are what they are’. Oh, many (thousands!) had noted the curious hand-in-glove matching of West Africa to East South America, as if they once were glued together. And so on. No real theory dominated, with there being various (vacuous) ideas of an ‘expanding earth’ and so on. Then it was found that the [u]rocks themselves[/u] on the matching coasts were actually duplicates. As were the occasional fossils. And it was found that subduction was real around the ‘ring of fire’. And that sonograms of the mid-oceans showed a big long stripe down the middle of the Atlantic. And so on… 97% now believe in tectonics. Or higher.
My how times change.
Yet [b]another time[/b] in the late 19th century (1800s for the calendar nomenclature challenged), the speed of light was known, but light itself was reckoned [b]by 97+% of scientists[/b] to require an [i]“aether”[/i], an invisible, non-viscous ‘fluid’ or ‘matter’ in which light might flow and propagate. Michelson and his rotating mirrors, reflectors on hills and pretty-good geometers (surveyors) of the distances showed that … no, there was no aether. None.
The [b]Hip Einie[/b] (Einstein) pondered thus, and realized that there was a strong relationship between time and the invariant speed of light. Thus [i]Special Relativity[/i] was born.
Aether died.
Relativity was born.
The Hip Einie was right.
97%?
Let’s see… then there was [i]phlogostin[/i] – the supposed heat-of-reaction ‘stuff’ contained in some materials.
And the theory that ‘purple glass’ (after a hundred years of outdoor exposure) was caused by picking up contaminants.
And the proposition that materials of [u]different density[/u] ought to fall at different rates.
Leaning tower of Pisa… and all that.
There have been [b]many spectacularly long periods[/b] where 97% of The Establishment have been convinced, and have mandated pogroms to sniff out the Infidels, to uphold some idea or another that was just plumb wrong. People have died from harboring such ‘wrong-headed’ [b]dis-[/b]beliefs in doctrine.
Thus I propose…
That for anything as [u]unpredictable[/u], as [u]chaotic[/u] and [u]capricious[/u] as [i]“the weather”[/i] (and axiomatically, [i]“the climate”[/i]), that any time some bunch of scientists … say 97% of ’em … claim they can predict the deep future, stand clear and let the fleas fester amongst themselves. Maybe [b]our[/b] ‘infidel’s’ arguments of dissatisfaction with claiming climate-change is a human-mediated event isn’t quite right. But their unshakeable belief is suspect too.
Now, back to regular programming.
[b]Goat[/b]Guy
…Oops !!!! There. I said it for you….your welcome…LOL
Helicobacter pylori
Try to find your keys instead of [ and ] when it comes to html.
”
‘less than’ and ‘greater than’ (sheesh)
While I’d agree that the percent of educated people who once believed in stress as the cause of ulcers, static continents, etc. was high, I suspect it wasn’t as high as it’s purported for human-caused climate change because 1) the climate change propaganda machine has been furiously shouting down any opposition for many years now. As a movement, climate change advocates enjoy a protected status where any dissenters find themselves regularly scorned in many outlets, and even place their careers in jeopardy. 2) I doubt that 97% number is at all accurate. I’ve seen other surveys of academics put out different (and lower) numbers. Cook’s 97% figure was used, not because that’s what an objective review of literature revealed, but because it conveniently reinforced the same number Gore pulled out of his ass years earlier.
Goat Guy,
Instead of this bracket [ use this one
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I guess you wish you hadn´t rounded it all off with:
“Now, back to regular programming.”
🙂 🙂 🙂
Please see the WUWT “Test” page, link on the top nav bar, before you try to post more HTML in a comment. https://wattsupwiththat.com/test/
Funny how “climate change” has to be “communicated”.
RIGHT ON BRUCE! It is all marketing, the little people need to be TOLD that it is happening, so they can start “feeling” it, or rather believing it. It is fun to listen to the believers preach what was long ago debunked.
NASA to Collaborate with Artist to Document Climate Change
http://artforum.com/news/id=63518
http://artforum.com/uploads/upload.001/id30750/article0.jpg
You are feeling warmmmmmm
Interestingly that link states that a chunk of ice the size of Calif was gloing to break off Greenland
Greenalnd is 836,109 Sq Mi
California is 163,696 sq mi
Greenland is about to Calve a berg that is almost 1/5th its size????
Yeah RIIIIGHT
Cream rises to the top, while curds languish in a stew of rancid pretension.
More Climate Imperialism cancer spreading….and of course in a very lucrative fashion for the profits of doom….
This appointment certainly speaks to the poor quality and self dealing of GMU shown previously. The 97% paper was an unmitigated disaster exposed by Richard Tol and others.
Quite right ristvan: As Cook’s puff piece says:
The solution to Cook’s problem is simple. Just keep the public from finding out any facts. Once the argument becomes one about facts, the alarmist side is sunk.
Politically, these goofballs are as incompatible with George Mason’s principles (the REAL George Mason)
as one can get. Any half competent analysis of Cook’s most infamous study (the opinion of “scientists” about global warming) would brand this psych major (no math required, no brains required) as an
incompetent experimenter/statistician/scientist of the first magnitude.
So, just another nut for the collection.
One needn’t be a scientist to realize the utter stupidity of Cook’s study of the “opinion of scientists” about global warming theory. He sent a handful of sophomores to read studies of climate over the past decades and asked them to determine , on the basis of their readings, to estimate what the opinion of the authors of those studies might be , as regards to global warming. Aside from the fact that the estimated opinions were
old and obsolete (or died with their owner), anyone with half a brain would have sent questionaires to the
current crop of climate scientists and solicitated their current opinions, undistorted by the estimates of a bunch of college sophomores. John Cook, Fool would-be scientist.
” … sent a handful of sophomores to read studies … ”
I think it was just abstracts of studies. Or was it low-grade word-search of abstracts? Then there were issues like did the “readers” collaborate with each other, the numerous study authors who tried to advise that the classifications were incorrect, etc. Then the huge a$$ covering exercise that followed. You have to have a strong stomach or be a masochist to follow it.
They actually refer to the “rigour” of this guy’s research! This is the man who faked a survey and then lied about it. Absolutely laughable.
“I’m not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist” – John Cook, Skeptical Science
Need anyone say anything more?
Thanks, I needed that.
Well we have no quarrel with a man who sells his stuff for less.
He; of all people should know exactly what it is worth !
G
“Need anyone say anything more?”
Well he did have more to say on the subject-
‘But beneath the politics is a more elemental instinct – an aversion to alarmism. We’ve been burnt before. The media predicted an ice age in the 70’s which never eventuated. Y2K was going to destroy society – it was barely a hiccup. And I won’t deny there are alarmists in the global warming camp. Urgent cries that the ice sheets are on the verge of sliding into the sea. Hysteric predictions that Manhattan will soon be underwater. Or emotional pleas to save those cute little polar bears. Sadly, alarmists seem to be the loudest voices in the global warming debate. But that doesn’t change the science underneath’
Nope. If their dire predictions based on their computer models are a load of alarmist hooey, then naturally you need to concentrate on any skeptical types psychologically.
“his total commitment to helping stabilize the earth’s climate”
Seriously?? I mean, seriously ????
…Well, personally,….. I do believe he should be “committed” … at least until his mind is a little more “stabilized”….we would all sleep better at night !
So far his “commitment” is limited to whining that other people aren’t doing enough, and not paying him enough while not doing it.
Guys like this make what Moses (Red Sea) and Jesus (Sea of Galilee) did look like chump change. But then again, maybe he’s just an ordinary guy who wants to Make Climate Great Again™.
“Guys like this make what Moses (Red Sea) and Jesus (Sea of Galilee) did look like chump change.”
Which they probably never really did anyway.
I’m not sure whether he is the “blowhard” section or the “s*ckh*le” section.
“His doctoral research focused on the negative influences of misinformation on climate literacy, and how to neutralize those influences.”
We should therefore expect JCs body of work to consume itself?
A self referencing Treatise.
Microsoft Excel will kick that out as a programming error.
g
He should be on the terrorist watch list.
“…definitively demonstrated that 97% of climate scientists are convinced that human-caused climate is happening”
That paper was “definitive”? Really? That’s like taking one poll in the middle of 2016 and saying you definitively know who is going to win the U.S. presidential election. People change their minds as new data come in. And in this case they lumped in everyone who even hinted that climate change was happening regardless of whether they said it was “human-caused” or not. Then they threw out the majority of responses that they didn’t like. If they used the same method to judge the effectiveness of a new drug, they would go broke from all the lawsuits. Their method didn’t even resemble the scientific method. No wonder George Mason University wants this trained propagandist to join their team. They appear to be all in when it comes to spreading propaganda.
Went from being a physicist to joining one of the darkest fields in science, psychology…
“His doctoral research focused on the negative influences of misinformation on climate literacy, and how to neutralize those influences.”
So basically he’ll be employing the same tactics used by some of the most evil people in history (which helped shaped modern advertising) to combat ‘skeptics’?
Clearly these people know no shame:
“Shame was an emotion he had abandoned years earlier. Addicts know no shame. You disgrace yourself so many times you become immune to it.”
-John Grisham
http://www.azquotes.com/author/5945-John_Grisham
You’re Dog gone right on.
Here is a guy whom basically wrote a paper that has been proven to be fraudulent yet has basically beaten the system with his paper which is still quoted regularly in many circles including thrown regularly in our face here at WUWT. Now why would a university that is enmeshed in a fraudulent controversy involving climate change want with a expert at physiologically beating the fraudulent tag.?
Maybe the university knew more about Shukla’s double dipping than they claim? Red flags and sirens are going off, I’m skeptical.