Sunday
Sep182011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Self-immolation
Sep 18, 2011 Climate: other Next time somebody mentions Skeptical Science as a reliable source of information on climate science, they should probably be asked about the antics that Shub Niggurath describes today.
It's pretty horrible stuff.
Reader Comments (65)
Skeptical science is not reliable and never has been. Always best to point this out to anyone daft enough to cite them, and to ask for a peer reviewed reference instead ;-. As usual, Pielke Sr has simply been standing up for decent scientific standards, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the science.
It is simply because of the absence of any strong science that the debate descends to playground bullying.
It is a fantasy to think we can take the biggest, most complex (and chaotic) system there is -- earth's climate -- and believe we can reduce that to a single trace gas that acts as a direct thermostat (as 350.org state).
This is not about science. It's about ideology -- specifically, whether you think that humankind, in all its guises, is deserving of being allowed to develop, or not.
Greg Laden's blog - one of thje "sciencebogs" which does not practice blanket censorship of scepticism
"I don't like censorship but I do not know what you refer to here.
You do understand, I hope, that if I delete a comment you write here, that is not censorship."
Greg had deleted my 7 questions of which inability to answer is compatible only with warmism being both wrong and fraudulent and to which no alarmist anywhere has been able to provide a factual answer.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/09/cloud_gate_link_cloud.php
There seem to be very few if any alarmist promoters worldwide who do not feel the need to rely on censorship.
Whatever you do, please don't post a picture of John Cook.
But if you want a fright here it is (I did warn you)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Eureka_Prize_Winner_2011.html
Then again the comments at Shub blog are pretty stupid, and help nobody.
Hopefully, they will not distract from, the story of where Pielkesnr is trying to discuss things serioulsly and the response he recieves from Skeptical Science
'skepticalscience' has done other things just as bad as this before. I will gather details and pass on to you or shub in a day or 2.
Apparently, John Cook and others at Skeptical Science have made up their minds to give the blogosphere a demonstration of "Pielke, Sr., derangement syndrome." No doubt they will give us a lesson in the many ways that a committee can misunderstand scientific method and the nature of debate about standards in science.
Astonishing. Shub pretends he is taking the moral high ground by calling his opponents 'the SS website'
The SS’s existence, and the collaborators, had depended upon being seen and heard as the smartest people in the room, now it’s about being feared. It’s was not about being smart with science they were never smart with the science. It was about being smart with the politics, but they weren’t smart with the politics either. The grossly exaggerated doomsday scenarios foretelling unprecedented human catastrophe by enviroprophets living in multi million dollar seaside estates was a huge, arrogant overreach. Now they have lost the political argument and they are furious, angry, petulant…no more environmental justice, no new global enviro government, no wealth transfers and most importantly, no more power. It’s all gone… and gone forever. Not only have they destroyed their own environmental movement they may well bring down the entire progressive socialist movement with them.
but Hengist, a comment on the post clearly demonstrates that sceptical science has been abbreviated to SS in the past. What is the basis for your objection?
Hengist - at last, a moral hill you can climb up on. Must feel wonderful.
But ... when you call us "deniers" and not sceptics I am sure that you never meant to associate us with holocaust denying Nazis did you ? Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. And don't claim that you never used this term as I have already found a blog posting of yours with the term in it.
In any case John Cook is a fraud. He is no more a skeptic than you are. It should be called septic science.
All
No more discussion of Nazis please.
What is the problem, with skeptical science ['whatever']?
It depends on what you expect, on this site BH, most expect better, I [personally] like Morano's and Goddard's bite. But on the whole, realists seem to be [by far] to be the more discerning and open-minded side.
Anthony Watts, the Bish, do still give a certain credence to AGW, fair enough - that type of equitable fairness is admirable, Romm and Connolley et al could learn a little from people, such as these fellows, did I say learn? - How can people who know it all [Romm] learn anything but then pride comes before a fall.
For those who regularly visit Skeptical 'science' - if you are a convert to alarmism [brainwashed usually - often not YOUR fault - blame government education agitprop], then you are in good company.
Because, in terms of academic erudition, in terms of, credibility and in discriminating forensic investigation, in terms, of empirically tested accurate climatological science, Skeptical 'science' is right up there with, the National Enquirer.
This must have happened before 000's of yrs ago. An upstanding man walks into a dark cave with some flint and ironstone, attempts to illuminate the place, the knuckle dragging cave dwellers response is all too predictable.
Evolution will catch up to them eventually.
What exactly is Bishop Hill referring to in his assertion that Shub's post refutes "Skeptical Science as a reliable source of information on climate science" ?
"dana1981" sure seems to know how to win friends and influence people:-
"Why Dana 1981 Hasn’t Proved Climate Disruption"
"Clearly, such people shouldn't be admitted as college students because they're incapable of rational thinking. The presence of people like him dramatically cripples the intellectual atmospheres at the world's universities. Below, we will demonstrate this point in quite some detail.
In his text for Skeptical Science and Climate Progress, he crisply demonstrates why the believers in a climate threat are analogous to the Islamic fundamentalists:"
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-dana1981-hasnt-proved-climate.html#
Also at:-
http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/22/why-dana-1981-hasnt-proved-climate-disruption/
"My advice to you dana is: I wouldn’t mess with Lubos, as he would certainly do physics circles and orbits around you. Dana, you’ve only proved one thing, and you may realize what that is when you get older."
I believe that Dana 1981 (nee Dana Nuccitelli) is someone who has flown the Atlantic.
As George Monbiot pointed out over 12 years ago, "Global warming means that flying across the Atlantic is now as unacceptable as child abuse"
Mac Sep 18, 2011 at 9:43 PM
At times Monbiot is an unacceptable child, but there are times when he sees through the man made fog of obfuscation, this leaves George a troubled soul.
Looks like Dana Nuccitelli is not averse to a bit of plagiarism (see bottom of link below where he admits to copying 64% of someone else's article).
http://gas2.org/2008/09/08/nanotechnology-increases-lithium-ion-battery-storage-capacity-10-times-over/
Hengist
you only need to have a scintilla of scepticism to realise the partiality of SKeptical Science. It is just so much garbage - most of the "questions" are not questions that sceptics ask. They are questions that the SKeptics think they can answer. But they tend to do this in a shifty way that does not answer the odd question that they have posed. And there is an unhealthy air of smacking the head of anyone who dares ask questions in the first place. if you ask questions, you are a moron...we are SKeptical scientists and we know the truth, so please do not question us.
You, Hengist, obviously love the site because you would never presume to ask them questions. They know all the answers, don't they. You would never dare to ask them a question because they are right.
The fact that Dana Nuccitelli is one of SS's featured contributors should be enough to let anyone know that nothing of value is likely to be said their (at least by the authorized contributors). Ol' Dana has impressive form on demonstrating an absolute imperviousness to rational argument, defending his displays of abject irrationality, when pointed out to him by the most pathetic appeals to authority, spiced with ranting ad homs. One of the finest examples of the AGW true believer ever to have been spotted in the wild. I and several others crossed swords with him over at Amazion.com over reviews of the HSI. I can honestly say I have never seen such effort put into critcising a book by someone who had obviously never icked it up (we finally got him to admit that after he'd tried faking it, and from memory, actually writing a review on it). After he finally admitted he had no first hand knowledge of the HSI, he then made some twisted argument about how that actually made him better qualified to review it, or some such guff. Do not try to engage this person in rational debate, for that way lies madness. It is well to leave him in his padded cell over at SS.
The fact that Cook has "dana 1981" on his pitch is very informative and extremely encouraging.
.
@Neil Craig
You should read Greg Laden's Comment policy for a true insight into his warped mindset of censorship.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/about.php
Pity the people who live in the wrong place.
@Anthony Watts
What an unpleasant individual mr laden seems.
Anthony - what's up with WUWT. Site seems to be down.
What is needed is a blog where both sides can debate/discuss/talk together that is free from moderation or censorship.
Sadly those who believe in Mann Made Global Warming (tm) will never contribute to sites like wuwt or bishop hill and we already know real climate and skeptical science won't allow open debate to occur on their patch.
So, is there an alternative? Some place where both sides can post their ideas or is climate science too toxic to be debated in an adult like fashion?
Mailman
Mailman
You do BH a disservice. Thanks to his commendably open commenting policy, both sides of the debate do get aired here.
As an aside, adult debate is best conducted without snark, eg 'Mann Made Global Warming (tm)'.
BBD - there are many scientists who disassociate themselves (or will no longer seek to defend) the hockey stick representation of global warming as presented by Mann.
Yet they still defend AGW.
Some defend CAGW.
And there are many who are still proud of Mann's depiction.
So I think all three descriptions are distinct, well-understood and deserve to be criticised (or defended) separately.
Just my 2p and I don't intend to debate further on this issue.
Mailman I believe most (poss all) sceptical sites are free of censorship on factual issues.
Regretably, as "scienceblogs" shows alarmists are prone to answer factual questions with insults and obscenities and I think that, with regret, a moderator can serve a useful purpose in preventing that.
Unfortunately the role of moderator played by Mr Laden and other "catastrophic watming" sites tend to be to censor facts and retain onsults and obscenities which gives moderators a baid name.
Both sides...hmmm... We have the equivalent of...
- an undergraduate who pickets you with slogans and throws the
occasional bag of flour
- the obstreperous Scot in the pub who, because you do not know the
touring party for the1946 Ashes, automatically disqualifies you of
having a valid opinion of modern test cricket.
- a happy clappy born again Christian with his Megaphone on full
volume standing outside Marks and Spencer on a Saturday regaling
people with how he was 100% certain he was right and is still 100%
certain is right now even though previously he must have been a 100%
wrong. And of course no one is listening even if they cannot fail to
pay attention.
Just because BH tolerates does not mean it is a Rainbow debate... such Rainbow sites are just a utopia....
The problem with "scienceblogs" is that 99.999% of the bloggers are there to defend and promote Established Science...yes, it's another Protection Squadron and they'll never budge against the anti-science tide.
Now, unfortunately as the whole world is a collection of nails for a hammer, for a scienceblogs blogger the whole world is made of Bishop Wilberforce clones.
Hence they end up almost invariably suffocating any hint of a debate, in an extravaganza of paranoia, forever feeling surrounded by a collection of creationists and deniers, and incapable of admitting having ever been wrong.
ATTENTION Andrew-
A post up at Tallbloke's Talkshop is intriguing.
He relates data on albedo, relating to clouds. While conjectures vary, I find the Delta-T (satellite) to Delta-Albedo(cc=cloud cover proxy for TOA) angle to be the most compelling.
As noted there, this is a topic mostly left alone by the IPCC, and therefore may be of interest here, too: "This is a contentious area, the IPCC barely discusses the change, let alone the cause of the change."
^^^
Yes. I've spent some time at one of the ScienceBlogs sites, and they treat any hint of dissent like it was an Ebola-class virus, to be surrounded and bombarded to death.
It is a notable facet of the CAGW supporters that they can allow no criticism of their position whatever, in the style of Pol Pot's Cambodia.
It is a typically brittle cultist position, which will self-destruct in a messy way.
@Diogenes
I hope you aren't pretending that you've answered my question. Heres a link to a question I asked at Skeptical Science (which incidentally was inspired by what Id read on BH). They made an honest effort to answer it without a single ad-hom, which is more than I can say for Bishop Hill. Here's a link to a more recent question. So your assertion that I wouldnt ask a question of Skeptical Science is false. Perhaps you would care to eat your words.
Back to my original question which remains unanswered
What exactly is Bishop Hill referring to in his assertion that Shub's post refutes "Skeptical Science as a reliable source of information on climate science" ?
John Cook has a response.
Mailman you miss the Warmists point, that there is nothing to discuss, the science being settled. Which of course works very neatly, because when someone wants to publish a paper critical of the orthodoxy, they have to go to E&E, or Remote Sensing or somewhere similar, which Warmists can perjoratively describe as 'not a climate journal' (and so by implication papers published in such outlets are not 'proper' climate papers and can be ignored) without of course letting on that they have a stranglehold on the 'real' climate journals, and the likelihood of a paper criticising some aspect, let alone the very concept, of global warming, is as likely as a staunch defence of Luther appearing in the Catholic Herald. So if there's nothing to discuss, not only will they belittle/ignore any contrarian paper, they certainly won't turn up here to have themselves challenged by people who actually may not be climate scientists (who are by definition supporters of the orthodoxy). "Since we're right, what's the point of dialogue?" might adequately sum up their position.
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BH,
Both Shub and you are erringly too generous toward SS (Skeptical Science). I do not think SS can be given the benefit of the presumption of being scientific in any sense, therefore there is nothing needed to scientifically refute them. SS is strictly an unprofessional mass marketing and low level propaganda tool useful only on already ideologically commented CAGW cult followers.
Please consider the best straegy in dealing with SS is to talk about SS’s nature as ideological marketing/propaganda instead of with them about their false skepticism. I suggest talking about their nature in third person; as a psycho-epistemologist discusses in third person the phenomena of conceptual dis-integration in pseudo-science. : )
John
Correction to my comment at Sep 19, 2011 at 5:34 PM:
" [ . . . ] useful only on already ideologically
commentedcommitted CAGW cult followers."John
JW, as often, the slip is apt, too.
========
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Kim,
I sometimes feel I am just "slip slidin away, slip slidin away, you know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip slidin' away"
[apologies to Paul Simon]
John
There is something quite unpleasant in the response posted at Sceptical Science.
This should be taken in the context of Dr John Cook's definition of "skeptics" as
So a skeptic is someone who reads everything and slavishly accepts it. Dictionaries say that a sceptic is someone who doubts and questions, with no clauses about how much evidence they should consider, or whether they are even are on a quest for truth.
Redefining a word and targeting those that question or disagree I would suggest has the same objective - to marginalise and silence any opposition and thus shut down debate.
Anyone who thinks SS is equally sceptical about all sides of the climate debate should read Lubos Motls post debunking SS talking points:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-cook-skeptical-science.html
Pethefin,
Yes! Lubos Motl’s intellect cuts like a hot knife through the warm butter of Cook's mythical science.
[ thanks again Lubos ]
John
ManicBeancounter
There's a real blurring together of definitions here, which is fuelling confusion.
Philosophical scepticism is all about the argument that there is no certainty, no absolute claim to knowledge of 'truth'.
Scientific scepticism is about questioning beliefs (especially scientific ones) through logical investigation.
This is the opposite of 'reading everything and slavishly accepting it'. Rather, all information that is the product of logical investigation, and which has not been invalidated by further logical investigation, is used to answer the question as accurately as possible within the limits of human knowledge.
To doubt and question, with no clauses about how much evidence should be considered, or whether one is even on a quest for truth, is ignorance without bliss.
BBD,
I disagree.
The epistemological position of the general skeptical conception within the whole of the history of western philosophy is not your “is no certainty, no absolute claim to knowledge of 'truth'.”
Skepticism as an approach to any given philosophical system is the same meaning as skepticism as an approach to any given scientific knowledge.
There are, on the other hand, specific ancient Greek philosophers called ‘The Skeptics’ who generally maintained there is no knowledge in an objective sense, that there is only ‘faith’ and believing instead. That is not the broader meaning of skepticism in philosophy/epistemology.
John
@ManicBeanCounter
John Cook is not a PhD. He has a degree in physics. That is all. And it shows.
Just see how Lubos ripped him a new one in the link above.
How to rip apart SS in three steps:
1. Read the use SS makes of a scientific paper
2. Read the original paper
3. List all the original paper's points that have been distorted by SS in a pro-CAGW way (WARNING : It might take a loooooong time)
Unfortunately a lot of envirojournalists have no way of acting on points 2 and 3. They read SS, fall for the faux-scholarly style, and use SS to fake their climatological credentials.
BTW...Skepticism of course is that frame of mind that makes you call the store's security guards when the person at the cashier refuses to give back any rest, claiming it's been taken away by invisible fairies.
There is a great quote over at WUWT, one that will no doubt get copied and pasted many times. So that is just what I will do.
Dr Nigel Fox, head of Earth Observation and Climate at NPL, says: “Nowhere are we measuring with uncertainties anywhere close to what we need to understand climate change and allow us to constrain and test the models. Our current best measurement capabilities would require >30 yrs before we have any possibility of identifying which model matches observations and is most likely to be correct in its forecast of consequential potentially devastating impacts. The uncertainties needed to reduce this are more challenging than anything else we have to deal with in any other industrial application, by close to an order of magnitude. It is the duty of the science community to reduce this unacceptably large uncertainty by finding and delivering the necessary information, with the highest possible confidence, in the shortest possible time.”
Maurizio
Why didn't the authors of the misrepresented papers complain? Or perhaps they did?