From “the stupid, it burns” department. Earlier this week, WUWT carried a story about why we should trust climate scientists – because science is able to predict the eclipse years ahead.
Never mind the fact that orbital mechanics is a precise calculation with essentially zero uncertainty, because the motions, masses, and speeds of bodies in the solar system aren’t fraught with the chaos and uncertainty that we see in the weather and climate system. Nooooo, let’s ignore the “uncertainty monster” and pretend that climate prediction is as certain as orbital mechanics.
Along those lines, Neil DeGrasse Tyson beclowned himself today:
Neil of course doesn’t seem to understand that the National Hurricane Center has operational meteorologists, not climate scientists. But when you believe weather is climate, I guess anything goes.
Sheesh. Pretty soon he’s going to outshine Bill Nye in the science stupidity category.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson doesn’t do science anymore. He is a celebrity now and gave up science a long time ago.
A scientist knows what the scientiic principle is, plus it takes long hours and lots of work to be a good scientist.
Not so much to be a celebrity.
You ought to check out his CV. Just a bunch of committee papers, nothing original. The dude is an amateur.
3 years after getting Columbia PhD in astrophysics 1991, became head of Hyden Planetarium 1994 and has done no real science since.
Yeah, but he can almost calculate the air pressure in a football , so who are we to question him?
But he’s got SO many media gigs on his day planner, how can we expect him to work in even a little original research? He’s important and his time is valuable. :]
This is all showbusines. This is all strategy. This is all rhetoric, and poor rhetoric at that.
This is a common strategy of the “progressives:” those who believe they know better than the rest of us, and so should be able to rule over us. Nothing new since Plato’s Republic.
Nye, Tyson, and others have the same formula. The idea is to create the impression that there are scientists, and then there are the rest of us. The scientists are this one unified, homogenous group who access the same facts and come to the same conclusions, by some processes of consensus (that they will NEVER identify). And, the peculiar thing about them is that their processes are infallible, so they are always right, and we should therefore trust them.
A few examples or claims are supposedly sufficient to reassure the rest of us to allow the self-appointed in-group of scientists to keep hold of the reigns of our society. “We get eclipses right. See? Just leave us in charge.”
Go look at Tyson’s videos on youtube or wherever. This is his “line.” The same line as Bill Nye. And, the same line as Jerry Coyne, who says, “There is no need to question ‘us scientists’ on anything we say about evolution (even though we keep figuring out we are wrong, and re-arrange the various family trees every time we find a new fossil), and if you are skeptical of what ‘we’ say, you simply deserve nothing more than scorn.”
They all follow this same model. The sad part is: if you look at that model, there is nothing in there that is orthodox science.
There is no division between “scientists” and the rest of us. I am a scientist with great knowledge and abilities in my areas, Tyson knows his, and Coyne knows his. But we do not all get together and take votes on what we will ordain as truth. The scientific community is a loose concept, it is diffuse, and there is no clear demarcation of when you are or are not one. We don’t all interact or otherwise participate in some democracy-style voting on facts and theories – how we work is quite different, with norms, zeitgeist, factions, cliques, etc. when I speak to student groups, they are VERY surprised to hear that, when I submit a manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal, I often am asked to nominate three or four potential reviewers. They are astounded. But this is normal in some areas. Norms. Not monolith.
And, it is simply the case that ANY layman can question what any of us say at any time, any day. Under some circumstances, such as forming EPA policy, some scientists can come in and explain prevailing beliefs, and the evidence for them (ozone hole, global warming, lead in fuel and paint, phosphates in detergents, etc.) to the laity.
We scientists can either follow the idea that if you cannot explain it to uninformed but intelligent people, then you don’t really know it that well, or we can say that there are some things that are so complicated or elaborate that you simply cannot get it across in a one hour talk in a congressional hearing. Consider that trials may take weeks, and jury deliberation may take weeks. That is just the way it is. But, ultimately, hiding behind “it is too hard for you to understand so don’t try” is not a principle of science.
Either way: saying a layperson must believe you because you are a “scientist” is not science. Period. Claiming “science” is some monolithic group is inaccurate. Period.
And, these guys play it both ways: one, their view is so obvious “everybody” gets it, and two, at the same time, they give the story that things are so advanced that laymen cannot possibly understand it, and therefore should just trust the scientists. “You are not a climate scientist so your views are not valid.” <–and so we get in the game of bickering over who is a climate scientist.
If man-made global warming were so simple, then as many times as someone is skeptical, they could come out and show where a skeptic's thinking or logic is off, and run through how models predict, etc. And, have an answer for questions such as "how can you model global temps with so few temp stations, and such short and interrupted sampling across time?" <–A perfectly fair question. Or, "why have the predictions turned out to be way wrong, thus far?" <–A perfectly fair question.
This "trust us we got the eclipse right" bluff is not science. It is, however, the EXACT strategy of con men and child abusers as they recruit their next mark. The "I got the eclipse right" is the foot-in-the-door. Then, once you accept that, it is the switcheroo to the next thing. "Trust me. Don't I always look out for you? Would I lead you wrong? No. Wasn't I right about the eclipse? Yes. So, trust me. And, you would be foolish or stupid to defy me." I live in the suburbs, and am on the grid, so con men are always trying to con me. I don't want their tree-trimming or window replacement, then they try to make me feel dumb for declining what they pretend to see as an obvious good deal. It boils down to ridicule. Ridicule is not part of how science advances.
Tyson, Nye, and Coyne all do the Ridicule. And, all are anti-God. If you watch a youtube video of an equally well-informed, well-educated Christian defender, you see an emphasis on logic, argument, data, and being very clear about various claims. It is all step by step. AND, you see civility. Examples are Frank Turek or Jason Lisle or Wm. Layne Craig. You may think Turek or Lisle or Craig are wrong, but you can sketch out their arguments very easily. I have watched Tyson, Nye, Coyne, R Dawkins, etc. They do pretty good, but always resort to bluster and this con game "trust us" defense. Dawkins will at least at times say "I don't know."
LD: If you can’t tell the difference between those three twits and Dawkins, then I don’t know why I’m bothering to write this.
I agree Dawkins is a good step above these guys.
Prior to Carl Sagan in the 1970s, the great majority of scientist shunned media attention because their colleagues considered it undignified and suspicious. Go on tv and you were criticized and laughed at behind your back.
In the early years of these United States, it was considered undignified for a political candidate (especially a presidential one) to campaign personally. This attitude persisted for the next 60-70 years, until eventually “stumping” for oneself became not only acceptable in polite company, but expected.
Let’s see, scientist can predict an eclipse but somehow totally screwed up predicting the size of the latest solar cycle (and they were absolutely sure they had the model of the sun right). And the sun is just a ball of hydrogen and helium with a bunch of trace elements.
I hate to spoil Neil’s day, but I’m sitting here a hundred miles away from what might be landfall and the “NOAA climate scientists” have no idea of where it’s going or when it’s going there.
How can you predict chaos!
You can predict that it will be unpredictable!
…beyond that, it’s even money between you and the dart-throwing monkeys.
Did the predictions of the eclipse rely on calculations, or on a consensus vote ?
Quite. And astrophysicists can also successfully predict the next eclipse, while cli-sci alarmists have not yet successfully predicted anything of note. The whole body of human scientific endeavour is being sucked dry of credibility by these leaches, tics, and mites. They are not just draining the vitality of science, they are poisoning the body scientific with nasty infections.
A bunch of repurposed climate models.
Tyson, Nye, Kaku, Suzuki, Gore, Decaprio, these are self appointed climate experts. I doubt any of them ever stayed at a Holiday Inn Express
I note that Mr.Tyson has much to say about the Multiverse.
I believe that many people have reservations about his views on this topic also.
Which multiverse? There are a number of theories, all of which have less supporting evidence than human-caused global climate change.
Saw somewhere that Gavin Schmidt Retweeted this stupidity.
Was anyone else confused when after making a point in his early video work Neil would bite his bottom lip like a sexy scientific super model ;0)
Tyson almost ruined Carl Sagan’s good name, at least in regard to Sagan’s classic COSMOS series. Tyson’s version was abysmal.
Tyson needs to STFU.
Meanwhile, Bill Nye is claiming Disney owes him cash for his good works:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/08/25/bill-nye-sues-disney-claiming-company-underpaid-him-by-9m.html
Real science makes accurate predictions, like an eclipse is going to happen at a precise time and location. Pseudoscience makes predictions of events that do not come true. It is clear that the “science” being defended by hanging on to the skirt tails of real science has some rather inconvenient limitations.
What NHC wasn’t able to predict until yesterday was Harvey’s rapid intensification. Ability of prediction in this field is similar to that of the climate, i.e. little to none.
Actually the models were showing rapid intensification and that is why they predicted Major hurricane. Not to take away anything from this thread, but dems da facts.
NdGT is a brilliant astrophysicist and communicator, but not so hot (ho, ho) on the biochemical processes on Earth that buffer the effects of radiative gases, nor the buffering effects of radiative gases themselves.
I’d hold off on the “brilliant astrophysicist” accolade. If you look at his C.V., you’ll see that he has 13 published papers listed. Four of them don’t list him by name; he’s one of the “et al” after the author. He’s one of 40+ contributors on another paper. Three were published before he received his Master’s degree, and three more before he got his PhD.
I’d say his biggest claim to fame is being Carl Sagan’s protégé, because I’d imagine there’s a lot of unknown astrophysicist PhDs out there with more research output than NdGT.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/21/scientists-who-are-actually-really-stupid-1-neil-degrasse-tyson/
Jo Nova covered this precisely in this interview – I’ll look for the time that she stated the reason in this video in the reply section…
At about minute 9:37:00 she reply’s to this with a basic knowledge of gravity, etc….:
Climate science orbital analogy would be like everyone drove to Oregon to see the total eclipse and the moon barely nicked a corner of the sun.
I challenge Tyson to debate Pielke Sr. on climate change. Is he a real astrophysicist? I thought he’s a lousy comedian. He’s not even funny, probably why Seth Shostak is often in his show. Seth is a real astronomer and funny too
http://www.i-am-bored.com/images/articles/contents/2017/3/20/1262.jpeg
Surely this is proof we should consign climate science to the bin. Orbital mechanics produces answers and predictions that are if not utterly accurate more accurate than we need for most purposes. Climate science has produced predictions like no snow which turned out to mean we were stranded for several hours because we has more snow that usual and no clearing equipment.
We have spent billions on renewable energy compared to the cost of the best sources based on the theory that if we did not we would have uncontrolled GLOBAL WARMING not climate change which was a switch sell after the failure to deliver of the original product. A prediction even after the rebranding that has turned out to be totally wrong in spite of the considerable “adjustment ” of the data to match their predictions.
Repeating my previous comment, for those who understand French, de grasse refers to his head.
repeatin
I, for one, am very sad.
I really held him for higher standards.
Legend has it that two Chinese astrologers, Hsi and Ho, were executed for failing to predict the solar eclipse of October 22, 2134 BCE. What a nice custom – how about the Arctic being ice free in the summer by 2014, the snows on Kilimanjaro melting, snow being a thing of the past …