So I learnt lesson number 1: the stunning gullibility of the media. Put an “ology” after your pseudoscience and you can get journalists to be your propagandists.
You’re going to love it, and you’re going to send it to your friends. h/t
So I learnt lesson number 1: the stunning gullibility of the media. Put an “ology” after your pseudoscience and you can get journalists to be your propagandists.
You’re going to love it, and you’re going to send it to your friends. h/t
Excellent lecture and well worth reading. I think I’ll steal some of his analogies, especially the comparison of CAGW to:
“we may be putting a tourniquet round our necks to stop a nosebleed”
Should be required reading in every school in the country. On the bright side, it looks like employment prospects for dart throwing chimpanzee’s look very promising now.
It seems that Gaia’s getting quite annoyed with the CAGW crap and I’m curious what weather surprises she’s got planned for Durban – perhaps a blizzard that will be blamed on the earth warming? The next time some CAGW spokesmoonbat blames record cold on CAGW, they should be forced to spend 2 hours outside on a beach blanket dressed only in a bathing suit; after all the world is getting warmer in their view.
Where I do disagree with him is in the area of paranormal phenomena which I think are real but the field has been infested with innumerable cranks who know nothing about the scientific method. Since reading Nasim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness I’m a lot more aware of confirmation bias and the human tendency to find patterns everywhere. Even with this taken into account a number of precognition experiments based on guessing random numbers generated through the decay of radioactive isotopes have yielded statistical significance values of less than 1 in a billion that the results are a chance occurrence. It’s just that that’s not good enough to convince the skeptics who have the opinion that we have a perfect theoretical explanation of how the universe functions and sensory information of this type isn’t part of their model of the universe. There’s those darn models again which we can’t get away from as our brain processes all sensory information according to what it thinks is the best model of reality to produce our perceived virtual reality which we confuse with the real thing.
As a scientist (biochemistry), I thank you for that link. My job involves troubleshooting process issues. More often than not, I am battling years of pseudoscience and confirmation bias, trying to undo a mistaken approach. The speech was a great reminder that we are all susceptible to pseudoscience and should do our best to be on guard!
Climate Scientology.
Be a Believer!
O/T … my browser, Safari, often fails when I visit here, as I’m reading the blog post or the webpage linked to. It happened again just a few minutes ago. The browser failure doesn’t happen elsewhere, at other blogs. Could the problem be here rather than my browser/computer?
I’m writing this on Firefox.
Yup, another dandy.
I sent the link off to The Honourable Peter Kent quoting this excerpt in my letter:
“The problem is that you can accept all the basic tenets of greenhouse physics and still conclude that the threat of a dangerously large warming is so improbable as to be negligible, while the threat of real harm from climate-mitigation policies is already so high as to be worrying, that the cure is proving far worse than the disease is ever likely to be. Or as I put it once, we may be putting a tourniquet round our necks to stop a nosebleed.
I also think the climate debate is a massive distraction from much more urgent environmental problems like invasive species and overfishing.”
oh really.
explain this:
http://www.ufo-reports.com/images/CropCircle3.jpg
and these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl2y_5ewXrA
how can they ALL be fake? thousands of them all over the globe for decades with increasing complexity and internal ‘3D’ geometry.
how ??? who is doing them? the same pub crawlers with the plank and rope?
Yes, thank you Matt Ridley.
“So what’s the problem? The problem is that you can accept all the basic tenets of greenhouse physics and still conclude that the threat of a dangerously large warming is so improbable as to be negligible, while the threat of real harm from climate-mitigation policies is already so high as to be worrying, that the cure is proving far worse than the disease is ever likely to be. Or as I put it once, we may be putting a tourniquet round our necks to stop a nosebleed.”
Climate changes, it always has. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will make it warmer, but it’s doubtful if all the recent warming is the result of only that extra CO2 – the change in slope of global temperature change since 1998 while CO2 levels have continued to climb tells us that.
Furthermore, a couple of degrees of warming would not be dangerous or harmful to the world, on the contrary it will benefit humans and the natural world together.
“We are below even the zero-emission path expected by the IPCC in 1990*.”
And yet we must blow up our economies.
That people still believe AGW tripe is astounding.
how can they ALL be fake? thousands of them all over the globe for decades with increasing complexity and internal ‘3D’ geometry.
how ??? who is doing them? the same pub crawlers with the plank and rope?
Posted by: boo!!! at November 2, 2011 9:24 AM
Sounds like you have a couple of questions that will keep you busy for a while.
Apply for a government research grant (hint: link your study to climate change) and report back to us in a decade or so.
Unfortunately, a whole lot of true believers in the new religion are going to ask, “Where’s my tourniquet?” As for paranormal activity? Quite frankly, many human beings make common errors and many will lie their faces off for a little attention. Oh and sometimes, as in global warming “science”, money is involved.
THAT !!! is going out to ALL !! of my contacts.
It sums up my whole life. I want it on my headstone.
While I agree with the gist of the argument that science is never settled I cannot agree that there is any such thing as a warming trend.
Anytime I see anyone review actual historical data from non-urban weather stations or do it myself, the 1930s and 1990s were warm while the 1950s were cold. Temperature over the last 15 years is in no way at an elevated level.
All of the stored carbon in oil, gas, coal or other organics came from atmospheric carbon dioxide removed by plants or animals. By all accounts the earth was very hospitable with carbon dioxide levels 25 times the current levels.
The lesson number 5 has in interesting observation on the “experts”:
“Philip Tetlock did the definitive experiment. He gathered a sample of 284 experts – political scientists, economists and journalists – and harvested 27,450 different specific judgments from them about the future then waited to see if they came true. The results were terrible. The experts were no better than “a dart-throwing chimpanzee”.
Jamie MacMaster at November 2, 2011 9:08 AM
This is very commendable.
The way the politicians operate though, is to go with the prevailing winds.
What they need is a severe headshake so as to snap out of autopilot.
Good read. Thanks for sharing.
Kate, great link. Thanks for posting.
There are some many good examples of this. The scare over eating eggs is just another of many. As well as all the garbage that passes for science in educational circles is another.
As long as there is a future, people without a strong belief system in something that transcends human nature will fear it.
This is why we see so many inner Chicken Littles coming out … and why they’re so often wrong.
The way the politicians operate though, is to go with the prevailing winds.
What they need is a severe headshake so as to snap out of autopilot.
Posted by: Lev at November 2, 2011 11:37 AM
And other than summary execution, letters are the best kind of headshake. If enough voters wrote to their politicians and said: “do (don’t do)this, or I will not vote for you – and I’ll do my damndest to see that my family and friends don’t either”, and then carried out on their promise,it wouldn’t be long before we had better government.
But far too many Canadians are too (pick answer)(a) lazy, (b) comfortable, (c) stupid, (d)cowardly, (e) all of the above, to do that.
Agreed.
While it is a great speech, it has been noted that most warmists simply hold their hands over their ears and sing loudly off key variations of
LA LA LA , LA LALALA I CANT HEAR YOU!
Shouldn’t you guys be freaking out on this guy? He is, after all, a heretic in your view for say:
“I fully accept that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the climate has been warming and that man is very likely to be at least partly responsible.”
Most of you simply refuse to accept that the planet is warming, let alone that humans are playing a part.
So why the excitement?
At most, this guy is saying the alarmists are making too big a deal out of this.
I would argue that they’re not, simply because even with people freaking out, it’s going to take decades for us to get our CO2 production to level out, let alone drop to zero.
Despite what you think about us lefties, not everybody expects the planet to run on love. We recognize that we have ever growing energy needs, and all we’re saying is that the market is incapable of dealing with this problem, since it won’t be motivated until the problem becomes a crisis, which most scientists argue will be too late.
Now is the time to be pushing car companies to build more fuel efficient cars. And to encourage research into radical new technologies such as thorium reactors, which will take decades to realize as commercially viable.
John,
While I cannot speak for everyone else, I do not think he is a heretic for that statement, as I agree with that statement. My arguments have always been as follows:
1. The change being experienced now is not unprecedented.
2. Correlation does not equal causation. You cannot determine the amount of warming caused by humans simply through confirmation of correlation with your models. The models thus far have been terrible predictors of future temperature. It takes more than models for me to believe in the severity estimates provided by the “scientific consensus.”
3. Given the temperature has been greater in the past than it is now, an argument for positive feedback to warming, rather than negative feedback, seems unlikely. If there was a positive feedback loop, then when the planet warmed considerably in the past it would likely have kept warming. It seems like negative feedback, reducing the magnitude of the change relative to the simple expectations based on the math excluding feedback, is more likely.
“until the problem becomes a crisis, which most scientists argue will be too late.”
Thank you for that absolutely farcical summation. I first learned about this nonsensical hoax in 1988 – I had no reason to doubt it then.
However, since then I have heard it’s “too late” almost every week, from every pompous warmist in the world. The “crisis” is now, or five years away, or maybe ten.
Oh, and the science is always settled, and the lack of warming doesn’t mean anything. My favorite – the hiatus was caused by heat hiding at the bottom of the ocean, just out of measuring range. Or was it the Chinese and the cloudy skies they created that blocked the sun?
And on it went, from global warming to climate change to climate disruption, and not one of you seems to even hesitate in the face of these facts.
Twenty three friggin’ years, Johnny boy, twenty friggin’ years.
I can’t believe you take this seriously.
whit seven, don’t forget the looming ice age before that. They are looking for any excuse to enslave us and some of us again.
John, virtually all of us accept that climate changes all the time. Virtually all of us have long known that the earth is gradually warming up from the deep chill of the Maunder Minimum. What none of us accept is that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the principal driver of the apparent rise in temperature.
What most of us understand is that, given its atmospheric saturation effect, the impact of increased CO2 emissions has an utterly trivial effect on climate compared with purely natural forces and climate drivers.
No, we’re not saying “the alarmists are making too big a deal out of this”. We’re saying that the alarmists are a bunch of totalitarians who want to use the climate change hobbyhorse to drive home their own collectivist, dictatorial agenda.
From my point of view Evolution is a Pseudo-Science.
How can you repeat it? Watch its mechanisms?Has there ever been a so called Methodology so full of BS, False data & fakes with frauds? From Piltodown man to Lucy to Indonesia man, from a jaw bone & rib miles apart.I won’t even start about the so called reptile birds in limestone that was a family Business producing them for millions. Not including all the so called “extinct” animals found. Where are all those organs that where anthropic by evolution discarding them. Turns out they all work. At one time they considered your thyroid an evolutionary left over, plus many other. all the other Animals. I will give thenm this though. They6 employ great artists . Every two weeks we see a new Monkey man turn into just an ape. Or revealed as a complete plant.Besides when it comes to the idea the whole universe appeared out of nothing spontaneously. I think Occums razer will cut them to pieces. No transitional fossils. No one was there. Where is evolution today. Just some of the questions.
Bishop Hill Blog is great …. everyone should take the trouble to read it every once in a while.
BTW … how about Leftology … the pseudoscience of human experience …. always wrong.
BBTW … RevDream …. you can create evolution in bacterial culture by forcing changes in the environment.
Life is life and the same rules apply to you.
“I fully accept that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the climate has been warming and that man is very likely to be at least partly responsible.”
SACRILEGE!!!! Kate, what are you doing in bed with this HERETIC????
OMMAG
Adaptation does not create new species. Bodes Law precludes that. If any species breeds to far from the norm, it becomes sterile. Time is no magic formula.
Millions of generations of fruit flies radiated & their still fruit flies. Mutations have all Been harmful & none repeatable.Bacteria can change like individuals, but it remains bacteria. Just as people can adapt to different diets, climates & geography but remain people. There are no mules in the human race. Evolution has become a Religion based on the premise Matter is all. Matter that just appeared with no cause.
You can’t quantify it or repeat it. By the way explain marsupial parallel species. Better yet the Platypus?
By the way Its become a matter of Faith. How Ironic.
As for those who believe in it & call themselves Christians , go a head. At least you believe in a first cause.
Proving my point …. and securing a place for socialism………
[quote]It is bad enough that the emails unambiguously showed scientists plotting to cherry-pick data, subvert peer review, bully editors and evade freedom of information requests. What’s worse, to a science groupie like me, is that so much of the rest of the scientific community seemed OK with that. They essentially shrugged their shoulders and said, yeh, big deal, boys will be boys.[/quote]
I don’t think serious Science exists in today’s generation; certainly this worthless science will damage future scientific endeavors.
If Science Journalists don’t leave the Science to Scientists we will get nothing but nonsense. It’s the Scoundrel factor that plays with publishers
Why fund Science??? We have enough crap already
An interesting article by a well-known science populizer. He talks about confirmation bias, [citing our own Dan Gardner] then, in his romp through climate science, he embodies it. His effort is full of elementary mistakes.
He accepts much of of climate science, the big exception being sensitivity [citing “British mathematician named Nic Lewis] but thinks it doesn’t matter much.
He is, however, alarmist about any attempt to do something about AGW.
He styles himself the Rational Optimist, but his contribution to the problems at Northern Rock sound more like Irrational Exuberance [or dangerous complacency.]
The comments are touching in the evident relief that someone from the british elite validates their biases, which are not getting much confirmaion these days.
Nic Lewis made much of his finding a mischaracterization of the type of statistic used in a study in a summary table.
The IPCC duly made a correction.
Ridley is still trying to get people to talk about it, exaggerating the significance of the change.
And even more absurly, reviewing Raz’s book & celebrating the number of Amazon reviews.
Rev Dream @11:33pm yesterday … we had a clash at that time … so don’t think my comment immediately following your lecture is directed at you.
I understand what you are saying and I say that you are wrong. You use several false claims about the genetics research and the results you point to are only a part of the picture.
Why any Christian finds it necessary to use such crutched … and make no mistake about … the adoption of such beliefs as creationism … which is neither science or religion is an unnecessary distraction from the two separate issues.
The only possible reason for anyone feeling such a need is that:
a) They are intimidated by the apparent contradiction to their fundamental belief systems that pure science poses.
b) They are uncomfortable with having a primary belief system and insecure in their own faith.
I’ll leave it at that.
Don’t use big words you don’t know the meaning of. You’re a farmer not Rhodes Scholar.
“Why any Christian finds it necessary to use such crutched … and make no mistake about … the adoption of such beliefs as creationism … which is neither science or religion is an unnecessary distraction from the two separate issues. ”
Probably for the same reason why far-right conservatives feel the need to deny AGW – it’s an issue which they see as challenging their world-view, regardless of what the actual situation is.
“The only possible reason for anyone feeling such a need is that:
a) They are intimidated by the apparent contradiction to their fundamental belief systems that pure science poses.
b) They are uncomfortable with having a primary belief system and insecure in their own faith.”
Yes, exactly. Any time you feel secure enough in your political faith to have a look at the science behind AGW, let me know!