Bishop Hill Budiansky again
I really must stop linking to this guy - but some of his postings are just irresistible. I picked this quote almost at random from his current posting, which picks up some of the ideas Matt Ridley puts forward in The Rational Optimist and has a damn good curmudgeonly rant in support of them:
Pessimism is of course a proven fund-raising tool; "save the whales!" is always going to bring in more cash than "the whales are being saved!" But much more than that, we have today the amusingly ironic spectacle of tenured professors with salaries, health insurance, lifetime job security, and excellent retirement plans courtesy of TIAA-CREF being showered with worldly rewards (bestselling books, "genius" awards) for telling us that progress is an illusion and the end is near . . . while still preening themselves as daring outsiders courageously taking on the mighty and powerful. The fact that it takes no daring at all to adopt such an intellectual posture these days does not stop any of the practitioners of this business model from invariably announcing themselves to be the bearers of "dangerous" or "heretical" ideas and congratulating themselves for "speaking truth to power."
Reader Comments (28)
The self-projection by cranks is worth taking note of, but is, unfortunately, old news.
Narcissism tends to be self-destructive, as we already know even from the legend.
It does seem to hold an unlikely attraction for the mundane and petit bourgeois though, which of course is the mechanism that provides an audience. Shameless generalisations and lack of evidence tend to be the repeating hallmarks of such tosh.
But as that's exactly what yanks yer chains, enjoy.
But the education value caused by this Global Warming scare has been a significant boost to the global IQ.
Not worth the trillions of dollars I'll admit. But anybody looking through these blogs trying to understand the science, let alone those of us who have become fascinated by the psychology of it all, will have learned a great deal.
I myself continue to read simply because of the human psychology of it. I've learned all about tribalism, religiosity, group think, mass hysteria, media bias, cognitive dissonance, political power mongering, and collage funding bias.
I really hope you don't stop linking to Budiansky. Because if you did, I might have missed this gem of an essay. I now owe you two pints; one for THSI, and one for this.
Dominic
Mis-quoting Mr Budiansky's blog, you can have fun filling in the blanks:-
"You might think that with such a record of slapdash science and wildly incorrect predictions, blank-ologists might be a bit sheepish. But there is simply too much invested in a methodology that gives the "right" answer — while nothing else in blank science (actual field studies, surveys of blank, historical evidence) comes close to doing so."
Paul
O/T but for those wondering why KPMG reviewed not audited TERI's books:
22 Sept: PR Newswire: Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Goldman Sachs Propose Coral Reef Bond at CGI
Australia's Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) was today welcomed as the first Australian not-for-profit into the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). This announcement reinforces the economic and environmental significance of the Great Barrier Reef on a global scale....
GBRF in conjunction with Goldman Sachs Australia and KPMG has developed the new fundraising framework to fund a substantial portfolio of research required to support the GBRF's mission of protecting and preserving Australia's Great Barrier Reef. GBRF will deliver a comprehensive research program focused on enabling coral reefs to successfully adapt to climate change....
"Importantly, the bond also has potential application for a range of environmental issues globally – not just coral reefs," Ms Stewart (Judith Stewart, Chief Executive of GBRF ) said.
Lord Michael Hastings, KPMG's International's Global Head of Citizenship and Diversity, said, "It's been a deep honour for KPMG to work alongside the GBRF in developing the bond and ensuring that it delivers what we all agree is a vital investment...
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/great-barrier-reef-foundation-and-goldman-sachs-propose-coral-reef-bond-at-cgi-103533409.html
when will Union rank and file catch on to the CAGW scam which will cost them dearly, and ditch their "leaders"?
26 Sept: UK Telegraph: Ed Miliband's union links questioned
The Conservatives have questioned Ed Miliband's links with trade unions after the former climate change secretary emerged as victor in the Labour Leadership contest by the narrowest of margins.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/8026138/Ed-Milibands-union-links-questioned.html
Speaking of "speaking truth to power", Andrew Turnbull (author of the foreword to AM's Climategate Inquiries report) has an op ed in today's FT:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74c258e4-c9b8-11df-b3d6-00144feab49a.html
My favourite T Shirt slogan:
: SAVE THE PLANKTON - Nuke the whales!"
Phil said:
"Shameless generalisations and lack of evidence tend to be the repeating hallmarks of such tosh"
You really should have actually read the linked article before making your own "generalisation" based on a "lack of evidence".
Mr Budiansky actually provides many excellent examples to illustrate his point but presumably, in your rush to troll and having only read the bit quoted by the Bish above, you didn't know that.
Actually I am increasingly thinking the Ancients were onto something.
Have one final catastrophe -- but make it at the end of all time ... and be done with it!
What's more creatively link being good now to getting through that dire time .... so that everyone wins by having a better society now.
They were smart fellows --- and they didn't even have Professorships!!!!
Commenter Greg Cavanagh says: "But the education value caused by this Global Warming scare has been a significant boost to the global IQ. [...] I myself continue to read simply because of the human psychology of it. I've learned all about tribalism, religiosity, group think, mass hysteria, media bias, cognitive dissonance, political power mongering, and collage funding bias."
And you have said it for me, too, Greg; a positive justification for all the time expended following this massive fraud.
@Greg Cavanagh "But the education value caused by this Global Warming scare has been a significant boost to the global IQ."
I'm doubtful. My impression is that the widespread belief in the CAGW religion has been accompanied by a significant dumbing down of science teaching in schools.
O/T
Ed Miliband issued a "Climate" manifesto before his election as Opposition Leader. Cameron and Clegg both have spouses with feet firmly in the Eco-business. Well from the telegraph today... re Ed Miliband's long term partner (and mother of his children)...
A former child actress who starred in the television show Dramarama, she went on to Cambridge and the Bar, becoming an environmental lawyer.
Now you know what gets talked about around the breakfast table.
Makes you wonder about Newspaper Editor's as well...
And Bono drives a Maserati Quatreporte.
The motto of the Warmists: "Do as I say, not as I do."
This is the paragraph which impressed me most in the essay by Budiansky:
'What I find almost inexplicable in all of this, however, is how the scientific doomsayers get away over and over again with making predictions that are fabulously, ridiculously — and demonstrably — incorrect, without the slightest repercussions upon their credibility or careers. Predictions of impending doom are published based on absurd methodologies and threadbare evidence of a kind that in the normal course of scientific affairs would be sufficient to ruin careers ten times over, and the authors walk away from them without a scratch.'
It is a failure of scientific.academic standards. Policing them would have been a possible role for such as the Royal Society if it had not sold its soul to the state and become little more than an agent of government as evidenced by its astonishing performance as a pusher of alarmism about CO2.
The related, I think, area of scientific fraud was raised by Doug Keenan at the recent climate meeting organised by the Guardian newspaper, where one commentator noted:
'Keenan was interested in research fraud and the lack of accountability in science as a whole. He accused Jones of committing fraud, even after being given a chance to withdraw the remark. Davies tried to defend Jones but had no details. Keenan showed a more street-savvy business approach than any of the other participants. I’d like to have heard him at greater length.'
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/report-from-climategate-guardian-debate-with-monbiot-mcintyre-pearce-watson-keenan-and-some-uea-guy/
Greg Cavanagh proposes an interesting hypothesis:
'But the education value caused by this Global Warming scare has been a significant boost to the global IQ.'
Let us hope it is true! But I fear that it is implausibly optimistic. Waves of schoolchildren are being subjected to all sorts of frights, phony science, facile reasoning, and speciousness about 'the environment', not least with reference to a hypothesised impact of CO2 that has had nothing but computer models to support it. Computer models preset to give CO2 a big impact, and whose substantial 'predictions/projections/perversions' have failed to be confirmed by observations or even common sense.
I think I could only hope for a modified, more conditional version of the hypothesis, with the addition of a future tense:
'The educational value of the Global Warming Scare will be in its provision of a significant boost to the global IQ, as and when thorough investigations of the Scare are widely disseminated.'
Where 'IQ' is used as shorthand for 'understanding of the tribalism, religiosity, group think, mass hysteria, media bias, cognitive dissonance, political power mongering, and college funding bias', as per Greg's post.
'However, as Eric Hoffer observed "One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation." '
From: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/environmentalism-what-has-it-become
The link is to an article by Michael Fox, which is mainly about Obama's science czar, John Holdren. Some of his work is reviewed here: http://tinyurl.com/26p5422
Happiness. Now that's a rich seam to mine.
"Bono drives a Maserati Quattroporte"
He probably sees that as downsizing. I expect most of his friends drive Hummers...
My take is that CO2 obsession as manifested in AGW/'global claimte disruption' is causing a significant decrease in the IQ's of those who support or promote the obsession.
The unshameable arch-miserabilist Paul Ehrlich is still getting things wrong. He's published several papers this year saying that we're all doomed unless we change our behaviour. He's not at all fussy about the threats he lists in these papers. Anything will do as long as it's scary and has been in the newspapers. So we're told that 'melting of the Himalayan water tower and rising temperatures threaten the food supply of 1.6 billion people whose countries are armed with nuclear weapons' (er, no: the latest study reckons the melting of the Himalayan and Karakoram glaciers might eventually threaten the food security of 60 million people, not 1.6 billion) and that industrial pollutants 'could even be shifting the human sex ratio and reducing sperm counts' (evidence contradictory; if real, it's a very small effect and is confined to populations that eat a lot of fish; not exactly Armageddon material). He also claims that 'Few non-scientists are familiar with the basic idea that environmental damage is a product of population size, per capita consumption, and the sorts of technologies and social and economic systems that supply the consumption.' Utter tosh. Like that barmaid in The Fast Show, he's claiming the blindingly obvious as arcane knowledge to make himself seem like part of an elect.
Another typical sentence: 'The development of an enormous culture gap, in which no individuals of advanced societies possess even a billionth of the non-genetic information possessed by their entire society, has threatened a global collapse of civilisation.' Pretentious piffle. That 'non-genetic' is a sixth-former showing off, a distracting irrelevance inserted simply to make the spectacularly stupid claim seem cleverer and more scientific.
Has Ehrlich lost his marbles or was he always like this? If he's lost his marbles, it would be kinder if journals quietly refused to publish anything more by him. If he was always this ill-informed and hysterical, how did he get such a big reputation?
An excellent article but he seems to lose his nerve towards the end:
"There is no scientific dispute that extinctions are occurring, that they are occurring at a rate above the natural level due to human action ..." Hmmm...
Is he aware that the science may not support him on this point?:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/
"reducing sperm counts"
In his terms, that must be a good thing surely? Negative feedback, if you like...
John Shade; Your probably right, "implausibly optimistic".
I was thinking of those of us who looked into the science for whatever reason (and there seems to be a large number of blogs and readers from all walks of life) who looked into the issue of Global Warming to find out more about it. Doing so opens up a very large and interesting can of worms.
I guess I can be hopeful that when the students from school or collage come out into the real world, that either the science will be put in its place, or that they are capable of digging deeper into the issue to find out what ticks. Either result would be a good one.
It's the ones who believe but don't look who will be confused, regardless of the issue at hand.
Great essay, great comments. Many thanks.
I've used the "What I find inexplicable..." paragraph as my website's Quote-of-the-week.
The world's share of sensible people grows larger :-)
Firstly, I'd like to briefly echo what Donna has written; it's good to see the flame of rational optimism burning bright, on this and other blogs.
Greg and others, re your earlier comments about the fascinations of psychology and the AGW phenomenon, I agree whole-heartedly. The problem being (and this is part and parcel of the phenomenon, surely) that most (?) psychologists are busy analysing, not how and why the entire climate scare has taken hold, in the manner that it has, but how they can help to get us all to comply with the "solutions" proposed by governments and institutions who have taken the worst-case AGW scenarios as gospel. Some examples of this sort of thing here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/23/climate-change-psychology-response-scepticism
Vinny,
One sign that people are waking up to the scale of the scam that has been foisted on us will be if 'Paul Ehrlich' becomes the best answer to the question, "Name a pretentious academic who was never right?"
Alex,
AGW has been to climate science what eugenics was to evolution: an embarrassment to be erased from history by those involved.
I can add another example of collaborating psychologists here: http://www.rnw.nl/english/radioshow/kids-and-climate-change-enlightened-or-frightened#comment-48357
This is a radio programme, and contains input from someone I would describe as coming from the Pollyanna School of Psychology for CO2 Hysteria. I hope to post more about it on my own blog tomorrow.