Tuesday
Apr242012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Apr 24, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Quotes ...science writer and academic Ben Goldacre would rather slam his “cock in a door” than engage in a phony debate with climate change deniers.
From here.
Reader Comments (112)
Seriously guys...if you wanted to make a living out of debunking strange claims, would you choose (a) writing a book about obvious quacks who can't put two sentences together or (b) try to find a flaw in the reasoning by Montford, Delingpole, Watts, Monckton and the likes?
Why, Pampered Ben opted for the easy option, the area where he can coast tranquil knowing his 'opponents' can't tell blue sky from pain. Literally. Climate change is also a complex topic where Ben's mates and relatives might be actually wrong, and that's a lot more aggravation again for Lazy Ben.
Warmists in general, and paleo-ideologues such as Goldacre in particular, operate ever from ill will, in bad faith under false pretenses. Absent open-minded debate of objective, rational premises, their hoots and squawks are but teeny-bopper venting. Though Goldacres infest junk-science precincts from here to Blondlot's N-rays, why waste your time?
Mooloo
You are looking at 2 different data sets - hadcrut4 is the newly revised land+sea index. Crutem3 is the previous version of land-only temperatures.
Does that help?
Official 'skeptics' such as Goldacre are really just cheerleaders for establishment science. While there are many issues where establishment science is pretty much correct and its opponents are mainly cranks, it does not follow that this is true for all issues. By attacking cranks on easy issues, it biases people in favour of establishment science on all issues. That's the real purpose of official 'skeptics': to create the impression that there is a neat division between the rational consensus views of establishment science and cranky ideologues on all issues. That's why they spend all their time attacking fringe groups with little to no influence on anything of importance instead of investigating corruption and incompetence within the scientific establishment, something that might actually be useful.
I don't think even he would claim to be an academic (someone who, after years of study, has gained a deep understanding of a subject). He's a medic who has learned some basic principles of practical statistics, which he chooses to ignore when they conflict with what he waqnts to propagandise about - the claimed risks of passive smoking, for example; and now, it seems, climate change. Unfortunately he has become one of the pin-up boys of the chattering classes.
I hope Josh is not inspired by this thread.
I think it's a shame. I like and respect Ben Goldacre to the point of being willing to buy his books.
But, as with Steve Jones, he doesn't get it right all the time. I found some sensible people on his website, but also some very loud and much less sensible ones.
The irony of all this is that I had read Goldacres' book before it became obvious where his sympathies lay, I was particularly taken by his rules for judging what was bad and what was good science. It was the application of this method that first led me to believe that CAGW was bad science!
Is he unable to apply his own rules when appraising climate science?
I want to slam the door pn the totally of his gonads and I would pay good money to do so.
From now on let him be known as "Cokinador".
Apr 24, 2012 at 6:11 PM | John in France
Or penisàporte. Cockistador ?
The Goldacre quote came from an ABC TV documentary which was shown last night, and can now be seen on ABC iView:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/
It's called "I can change your mind about climate" and the Goldacre segment is in the second half - sorry, can't give an exact time reference, but it's somewhere between the last 5 minutes and the first 35 minutes.
Remarkably fact free, which is surprising as Ben could easily have cribbed from his uncle Robyn Williams, warmist extraordinaire, who hosts the ABC's Science Show.
Great. Just shows that natural selection is alive and well.