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CONSENSUS LESS CONSENSY
Mark Hoofnagle predicts:
In the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.
But ... but ... the debate is over! And it’s been over for 15 years, according to Al the Colder:
"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."
So said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.
Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.
Click for more, including the world’s least-hit “View Larger Image” tab.
UPDATE. Hoofnagle is unhappy.
UPDATE II. This Hoofnagle guy is really unhappy. And also just the teensiest bit snooty:
I have a degree in physics. It allows me to know that your statement is grossly absurd.
Click for more, including the world’s least-hit “View Larger Image” tab.
Oh, that one made me laugh!
Wasn’t there a movie made back in the 1980’s, where Robert De Niro played the devil? I have a vague recollection of him sitting behind a desk telling someone something like “Did you know that the egg has long been considered by some people to represent the soul”, and then he takes a big bite out of a boiled egg. I didn’t see the movie, so this scene must have been in a film trailer. Anyhow, the picture of Al in the linked story reminds me of that scene; BeALzebub.
...the world’s least-hit “View Larger Image” tab.
Yikes! Scientific consensus is becoming less consensy and the Goracle is looking more Orson Wellsy.
Interesting times we live in . . .
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 06 07 at 11:37 AM • permalinkAl’s looking more like the pre-diet Rush Limbaugh.
Posted by Sonetka's Mom on 2007 06 07 at 12:06 PM • permalinkO/T But really, really important - really.
I was reading the Northern Territory News this morning and came across this:
POLICE scoured the banks of a popular Darwin swimming spot yesterday in the hope of finding clues of how a man died there the night before.
A man, believed to be a long grasser, was found submerged in the shallows of Rapid Creek near the Watergardens in Jingili on Wednesday night.
What is a long grasser?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 12:18 PM • permalinkSo, Hoofnagle extends the hyperbole from denialist to crank!
The high priests must keep the religion pure and ostracise and defame the heratics.
Makes me puke. Sorry, feeling a little cranky :-)
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 12:27 PM • permalinkThis ‘the debate is over, the science is settled’ is the most enraging of the mantras repeated by warmening cultists. There are a couple of trolls at the Andrew Bolt blog who trot it out every time he posts yet more evidence of the fraud. It’s as edifying as watching a three old with hands over their ears screaming ‘can’t hear you, can’t hear you!’
#4 paco,
I thought “hoofnagle” was something you did when selling cattle........
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 07 at 12:47 PM • permalink#7, wimpy, a longrasser (all one word if you know Darwin) is a blackfella who sleeps rough outside the town camps. Hence, “going into the long grass.” The term is special to Darwin, NT, Australia. The longrassers are mainly indigenous from remote traditional settlements who’ve been booted out of their communities for bad behaviour. Once in Darwin or Katherine they prefer to piss up on wine and spirits, have a fight and belt the missus, then spend the night in the lock-up.
The most famous longrasser in Darwin is David Gulpillil, who starred with Paul Hogan in “Crocodile Dundee.” He’s been in and out of jail a hundred times for drunkenness and violent crimes. When he’s sober he’s OK, until he asks for money. Then youleave him because he’s a violent drunk (which explains why he spends so much time in Berrimah prison).
Hope that explains all about longrassers.
Spiny Norman beat me to it. Algore is acting out Citizen Kane before our very eyes. He has his risible movie and slide show instead of a muckraking newspaper. He pines for the snowy days of his youth, when he can take his favorite sled outside (what did he name that thing?). He failed at political office. He has a huge (if well-heated) mansion.
From now on, he should only be photographed in B&W.Global Warming is making more cats!! Is there anything it can’t do?
Posted by tim maguire on 2007 06 07 at 02:31 PM • permalinkRight. That’s it. I’ve been trying to avoid this comparison b/c its unfair to the UFO guys, but that’s exactly what this Climate Change Fear Mongering drek reminds me of. A bunch of self-proclaimed “experts” with dodgy “evidence” telling me how the end of the world is nigh… Only where the UFOers had Mulder, the AGW crowd has Algore. I’m a UFO denialist, and an AGW denialist. And I feel less certain of my position on the former than the latter.
#2 paco
The movie’s called Angel Heart. De Niro is indeed the devil. Calling himself Louis Cypher (get it?), he hires a private detective (Mickey Rourke, giving a modest paco detective impersonation) to investigate a murder case. Lots of voodoo and Lisa Bonet at the end. Haven’t seen it for a while, but from memory, quite well done.
Anyone out there been wondering how the cultists explain that CO2 lag behind temperature? Well, over at Real Climate they give you the answer: first, some UNKNOWN factor drives up temperature. Then 800 years later, CO2 starts rising (probably coming out of the deep oceans). Suddenly, for no reason at all, (other than that CO2 is everyone’s favourite greenhouse forcer), the CO2 takes over as the temperature driver. Brilliant! In other words, their initial UNKNOWN factor, for some UNKNOWN reason, stops becoming the dominant force, or any force at all by the sound of it. I guess it has to drop out, because the CO2 is high. QED. They didn’t mention what cools everything down at the end, but I presume it’s probably some other UNKOWN factor.
Correction: their computer models say that CO2 causes about half the warming of interglacials. Those unknown factors hang in there, apparently. Guess my point is: not much reasoning based on empirical evidence on display. Pure theory, all the way.
Wonder if their computer models can tell me what lotto numbers to pick this weekend? Maybe they can work on that once they stop pulling numbers out of their arses and know how much CO2 really does affect world climate.
"and behold, guess who was in town Wednesday? “
Yipes! I guess that explains the frost warnings in June. You see, a new ice age is proof of global warming. DIdn’t you all see the day after tomorrow?
#22
I’ve heard the latest AGW theory is “dirty snow”. Pollution particles change the refraction index of snow causing it to reflect less sunlight causing it to melt causing a .5 to 1.5 degree warming.Which would be a great theory except that melting snow actually has a cooling effect. That’s why we put ice in drinks. And I don’t recall the black snow at the side of the road melting dramatically faster.
So, basically, they’ve got their cause and effect backwards. More energy came in, and one of the system stabilizing mechanisms is higher melt effect.
I wonder how they feel about Methane now? It is falling. Methane is supposed to provide about half the lift in GHG warming. Smoothed graphs showed it rising, or steady. This only happened because Mt Penatubo(sp?) caused a spike in an otherwise declining gas.
Maybe this is why warming stalled about five years ago.
By the way, I do not doubt that CO2 causes a positive forcing on temperature, just that it is one of many forcings, and not that large of a one, either.
#13 Thanks mareeS. yes, I had heard of Gulpillil the last time I was
updown there. I think it was he who the judge declared could carry a machetti as it was some aboriginal right or tool or something.[/OT]
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 05:04 PM • permalink#14
>Another for the Algore coldering file; Chicago had overnite temps in the 40’s (F) Tuesday night; lo and behold, guess who was in town Wednesday?>Hint: He’s much, much bigger than a breadbox...........
Did he leave? Because today the temperatures jumped up to a beautiful high of around 90F.
We are having some sort of wind storm right now though.
#13, mareeS, I remember David Gulpillil from a 1977 Australian movie called The Last Wave. It was a stinker, totally incomprehensible, but here’s the summary:
A Sydney lawyer has more to worry about than higher-than-average rainfall when he is called upon to defend five Aboriginals in court. Determined to break their silence and discover the truth behind the hidden society he suspects lives in his city, the Lawyer is drawn further, and more intimately, into a prophesy that threatens a new Armageddon, wherein all the continent shall drown.
So, you see, they were trying to sell this guff way back in the 70’s.
#13 mareeS and Wimpy
yes these days you are right.
Up until the 80’s however, the term was applied to white working blokes who came to Darwin during the wet season, having finished their dry season jobs in the bush.
In those days most of the blokes didn’t have the money to go down South for the wet, or blew what cash they had saved during the dry season on a sex tour of South East Asia.
Back in Darwin, broke and waiting for the dry to start so they could start work again on cattle stations, mining exploration or remote construction, they would camp rough in the foreshore areas next to Darwin CBD, usually only equipped with a swag and a gladstone bag. Once one had claimed a “spot in the longrass” it was yours and your swag and bag would be safe until you left.
Aboriginal women who hung around the white men were known as “members of the longrass widows society” and the white men who consorted with them as “gin burglars”.
These days of course blokes who work all dry season in the bush make enought money to fly out for the wet, if indeed they have to leave at all.
Thus the longrass population is now mostly entirely aboriginal and, unfortunately, drunk.
Sleet in Queensland for crissake. Next it will be a snowstorm in Sydney.
Freezing temperatures and westerly winds were expected on the Granite Belt and Darling Downs today and tomorrow.
“Temperatures are already in single figures in the Channel Country and Warrego,” Mr Prasad said.
“We’re looking at 0C around Stanthorpe.”Mr Prasad said scattered showers and storms could turn to sleet.
How are we supposed to take anyone seriously with the name “Hoofnagle”??
Try “Hüfnagle.” It’s ever so more sofistickated and nooanced when it looks yurpeen…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 07 at 08:06 PM • permalinkThe second link leads to a very ugly photo, but a brilliant collection of articles that should be mandatory reading for anyone making statements about global warming. This one has two brilliant lines (on Wegman’s refutation of Michael Mann’s study that purports to show the 1900s as the hottest century and 1998 as the hottest year of the century):
While Wegman’s advice—to use trained statisticians in studies reliant on statistics—may seem too obvious to need stating, the “science is settled” camp resists it. Mann’s hockey-stick graph may be wrong, many experts now acknowledge, but they assert that he nevertheless came to the right conclusion.
Now, where have we heard that before...?
A recursive model with a 50% error per run will exponentially increase the error.
For instance if your model simulation only did one run for each year the chance the simulation was nonsense after 5 years (with perfect initial data which we don’t have) would be around 97%.
Chaotic feedback systems can never be modelled usefully by computer. That’s why they can’t tell you very accurately what the weather will be like next week, let alone 100 years time FFS.
I coined the phrase ‘Doomed Project Syndrome’ to describe the sometimes extraordinary lengths people go to and mental contortions they perform in order to justify continuing with a software project that is doomed to failure and needs to killed asap.
The problem is that people are unable to accept that all that time, effort and energy they put in was a complete waste.
I am certain the climate models are doomed projects and have been for many years, and much of the antics we see are the syndrome at work.
#39 phil_b, you are so right. I have a book somewhere amongst the many, that describes the doomed project syndrome. Indeed, I have worked myself on several.
It’s as if people, once they realize that they haven’t found what they should have after digging the hole this deep, decide that they must dig the hole deeper. After all, they have invested so much in digging this deep hole.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 09:27 PM • permalinkI can’t find a refernce to the book, I think I gave mine away to a new project manager. But there are many links
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 09:37 PM • permalink#34 Pickles, thanks for a great piece of history. I love Darwin, for some irrational reason; been there in the dry and wet. I’ll be there again.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 09:41 PM • permalink#44 One of the most surreal moments of my life (including youthful LSD) was my last visit to Darwin.
To avoid a threatening wet event, I entered a bar around midday. Not many people around but three blokes watching a game of (ice) hockey on the TV over a lunchtime beer.
Not even thinking, as I walk past to get a beer, I ask “what’s the score?”
“Dunno mate. We don’t know what’s going on”
This shocked me. It was so natural to walk into a bar and see some blokes watching a hockey game. Yes I know it was tropical outside but that was the surreality.
Followed a pleasant hour explaining (ice) hockey to some Aussies, with beers.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 07 at 09:48 PM • permalink#44 Wimpy Canadian
Yep there’s nothing irrational about loving Darwin, wet or dry. Very few people who have ever lived there wouldn’t go back.
Wet season is best as the storms are spectacular and once it starts raining it cools down a lot. The “buildup” from Oct to Dec or so is universally shithouse, with the combination of Mangoes, Rum, beers, ganga and relentless humidity causing all manner of madness and violence, but that’s the tropics.
Lunchtime strippers in the front bar of every pub used to be the go, but now that has been all but destroyed with the Parap Hotel holding out.
Was in the Top End Hotel in Cavanagh St one lunchtime when a comely lass appeared on the stage to do a show. Unfortunately for her, the cricket was on and Alan Border was walking out to bat. The entire bar turned to watch the TV. She began screaming at the crowd to pay attention to her. One bloke turned and used words to the effect that we see 3 strips a day in every pub in Darwin, but it was a special event to watch AB bat.
No doubt the lads in the pub were waiting for a show to start. I am sure they were grateful for the ice hockey tips. Most Aussies like sport, especially those played while armed, even with a stick.
Yes and there was a “consensus” that the solarsystem rotated around the earth, even working models. But research continued until…
Higgledy piggeldy,
Nic’las Copernicus
rose from his balcony
spoke to the throng:
“Leave off your Ptolomy
Rise up and follow me
Heliocentrically
Ptolomy’s wrong!”(not mine but can’t remember the true author)
I think they have been watching too much of this
Just wait for Gaia to send in the black flowers to melt the ice caps and wash away the stain of humanity!
Why havent I seen any of the greenie gurus state catagGOREicly what the population target for humanity should be?
Its inherent in their policies that many will die or never reach first world standard of life. Why the big blank spot on naming numbers?Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 06 07 at 11:25 PM • permalinkHoofnagle is unhappy.
Hoofnagle is whining at the update link that we’re making fun of his name, and he can’t come here and comment because registration is closed. Something about this place being a “circle jerk”.
Boo hoo, Mark. Grow a pair, would you? Or maybe e-mail Tim directly with your response, maybe requesting a registration. Not that this is an original idea, mind you, but I thought I would suggest it.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 06 08 at 01:52 AM • permalink#48 I know that one, kiwinews.
Gotta love the old double dactyls.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 08 at 01:54 AM • permalink’One possible solution to stem the tide of cats is to make sure pets are spayed or neutered.’
Or stop feeding them.
Do these morons understand that if you start out with a breeding pair of cats, you end up with more than two cats?
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 06 08 at 03:10 AM • permalinkAPG enthusiasts often link to the Real Climate site as their infallible source of counter arguments to the quibbles of pesky denialist cranks - it has answers to everything and does so with great certitude.
The link provided by Dminor (21) is extraordinary.
That “a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists” to state (in relation to the 800 year lag in CO2) that “some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm” is farcical.Wonder if their computer models can tell me what lotto numbers to pick this weekend?
No, but a computer could at least tell you last week’s lotto numbers. The climate models fail at even that.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out the entire temperature increase since the 1970s is due to high-powered computers crunching climate models.
BTW, what exactly does Hoofnagle mean by:
In the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.
...considering he went on and on in his post about what an awful misguided crank Alexander Cockburn is? Cockburn not part of the Left anymore?
Here’s a hint, Mr. Hoofnagle: Clear writing, it’s not just for the cool kids anymore.
#53. Will gerbil worming get rid of cats like this?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 08 at 05:43 AM • permalinkI have a diploma in cinemagraphic makeup, and it’s of no use at all in the climate change debate.
Doesn’t stop me from having an opinion and telling everyone, though.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 08 at 06:56 AM • permalinkSpeaking as an Australian Tim Blair is an embarrassment.
His blog is an example of the sort of group-think process that is indicative of cranks. He seems to encourage the stupid chatter that goes on there.
No group-think over there either, nope, none whatsoever.
BTW - I also have a degree in Physics, and Chemistry as well which allows me to know that AGW is being driven by money (you know, the carbon credit business) as well as the “end-of-the-earthers” I picture them wandering the streets with a sandwich board that reads "Repent, the end is near"
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 07:43 AM • permalinkNilknarf:
Cinemagraphic makeup sounds cool, as my kids would say. They reckon I’m gay, but I’m not too sure what that means in their vernacular. Now cinemagraphic makeup could be a film by Moore or Gore, or something to do with Helena Rubinstein and Max Factor.
Max is a lucky fellow!
Tell me more ...
Hoofnagle. It does sound like a verb.
To hoofnaggle: To insist that the science of global warming is solid, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it does not have a physics degree.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 08 at 08:06 AM • permalinkjust posted this chez Hoofnagle…
Hey, Hoofnagles! Another Blairite here. Interested in your comment about the National Academy of Sciences. Strangely they don’t seem quite as gung-ho and with-the-program as you! From their report ‘Climate and Science’ (available on their website):
‘Measurements show that temperatures at the Earth’s surface
rose by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (about 0.6
degrees Celsius) during the 20th century. This warming
has intensified in the past 20 years. Greenhouse
gases are accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere. The
current scientific consensus is that this is causing surface
air temperatures to rise, although how much of
experienced rise is from human activities is unknown.
Using physical principles, mathematical models predict
the warming will probably continue even if greenhouse
gas emissions remain unchanged.
Uncertainties remain because of natural variability
inherent in the climate over long periods of time.Wow! That’s convincing! No room for debate there! Or this, from ‘Understanding Climate Change Feedbacks’:
This report highlights broad guidance on the key avenues of research that need to be pursued to better understand climate feedbacks and is intended to call attention to those areas where additional focus might be productive in the near term. The key finding of this report is that an enhanced research effort is needed to better observe, understand, and model key climate feedback processes.
Omigod! George Monbiot! You were right! Buy me a second hand Renault! Buy me a frisbee! We’re all gonna diiiiiie!
Actually, what I gleaned from my perusal of the National Academies site is that the careful and (dare I say it) skeptical tenor of their reports is much closer to Chrichton and Lindzen than to you.
Cheers
#66 Rob, I upset actors when talk turns to politics. Luckily I only work on a couple of small jobs a year with mates, so they know what I’m like.
It can get entertaining at times.
And Stevo, if your kids are calling you gay, it’s like calling you a drongo or a dag.
I was going to make some comment about preferring to work on horror films, but even I couldn’t bring myself to work on a Moore Gore flick.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 08 at 08:24 AM • permalinkI have a degree in physics. It allows me to know that your statement is grossly absurd.
This reminds of a syndicated comedy show from my days in DC (God, 20 years ago????) called “Dr. Science”. Every show would start off with their theme song, at the end of which Dr. Science would proclaim, “I have a Master’s Degree!”.
To which his laboratory assistant would add, “In Science!!”
At least Dr. Science was hilarious. Wonder if you can find him on DVD?
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2007 06 08 at 08:43 AM • permalinkNo group-think over there either, nope, none whatsoever.
You couldn’t mean this, Old Tanker?
Profile
Mark Hoofnagle is a MD/PhD Candidate in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge.
Chris Hoofnagle is an attorney with experience in consumer protection advocacy in Washington and Sacramento. His interest in denialism concerns the use of rhetorical tactics by various industries in dumbing down policy debates. He is the author of The Denialists’ Deck of Cards.
Looks like group-think to me, eh?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 06 08 at 09:31 AM • permalinkI have a truck driving license. It allows me to tell people who think they can control climate, “Go get fucked you moron.”
Posted by dean martin on 2007 06 08 at 09:35 AM • permalink#70 JonathanH - I posted just after you
"Your Category is “Cranks”. Your first paragraph refers to “denialism”. And you claim to be a scientist - or on the verge (MD/PhD Candidate). Mind you I have known quite a few people who have continuing claims to be PhD candidates without ever getting within cooee of ever achieving the end result. I had a couple myself years ago.
I hope you achieve your doctorate, but if you do, you will never amount to anything scientifically if you view anyone with opposing views as “cranks” and “deniers”. Please retain some healthy scepticism of ideas both within your field and external.
I am not a climate scientist (although I do have a PhD in Theoretical Physics), but I have read enough to believe that the debate is not over and a lot of the arguments on both sides really don’t prove anything at all. And in the end, what we are talking about here is basing our future on nothing more than the predictions of models - mathematical models based largely on second order mixed integral-differential equations of conservation and continuity that Boltzmann and Gauss would still be comfortable with. But I suppose the beauty of climate science (as opposed to meteorology) is that you can make earnest predictions today that not even your grand-children will be alive to verify. Look up Freeman Dyson for his thoughts on these models."
No response to either of us as yet
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 06 08 at 09:39 AM • permalink#71 JonathanH
by the way I have a law degree. That means I am always right.
No, that means no one will tell you you’re wrong ‘cuz they don’t want to go to court!! ;P
#79 The_Real_JeffS
Mark Hoofnagle is a MD/PhD Candidate in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia.
Chris Hoofnagle is an attorney with experience in consumer protection advocacy in Washington and Sacramento.
That explains a lot, a Ralph Nader of the environment wannabe.....
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 09:44 AM • permalinkThat explains a lot, a couple of Ralph Nader of the environment wannabes.....
left that out......
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 09:54 AM • permalinkMark H has come back to my post (#82) with this -
"As I’ve explained repeatedly to the new folks, cranks and denialists are simply people that disagree with me."
It says it all really doesn’t it. I’m a really smart fucking bloke with a piss farting ordinary degree in Physics and if you disagree with me you’re a crank and denialist. Thank Christ I never has this dimwit as a student.
As to the Update 2 above, I posted the following -
MarkH - “I have a degree in physics. It allows me to know that your statement is grossly absurd. Quantum effects have nothing to do with AGW, unless Planck’s constant has recently increased by several million-fold in magnitude. Nice try.”
Convection can certainly be handled in a macroscopic manner, but absorption and scattering of radiation? These underpin climate models and if they don’t have anything to do with Quantum Mechanics then I’m L Ron Hubbard.
You appear to be a stove-piped “physicist”. Broaden your horizons"
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 06 08 at 10:15 AM • permalink#87 WS, I’ve just finished reading through his What is Denialism page from the About Denialism link and after re-reading his comments it looks like he’s using the exact same tactics he associates with cranks. It’s been my experience, time and time again, that when someone introduces himself with his IQ and credentials, he’s usually an angry, socially insecure malcontent. Mark is proving to be no exception.
There’s something particularly intriguing about calling us “cranks”, when the hyper-earnest, self-importantly humourless people in this debate are clearly on his side (with Hoofy himself being exhibit #1).
Incidentally, when I ponder various other contentious issues in which one side is commonly thought of as fervent believers (UFOs, crop circles, cold fusion, etc.), the hyper-earnest, self-importantly humourless people are invariably found on the crackpot side, not the realists’ side (where humour abounds and people are generally able to take criticism without throwing temper tantrums at every opportunity).
In essense, the Warmers appear to believe they’re going to be the first-ever group of humourless apparatchiks to be right about such an issue. I bet the crop circle guys believe the same thing about themselves.
#89 PW
I like the analogy, It’s warm out....must be gerbil warmongering.
I see crop circles, must be “other worldly”
That sums up AGW nicely.
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 10:37 AM • permalinkOh, and thank goodness for the internet...I’m fully prepared to throw these people’s words back at every single one of them once the “CO2 means the end is nigh” sham is finally exposed. Don’t let them get away with it, not even (rather, especially not!) the ones who have deluded themselves about their “good intentions”.
#89
That’s not funny. How dare you compare my humanity saving perpetual motion machine to this group of wannabees who’ve been educated beyond their intelligence. Just because all of you
prolesnon-scientists can’t recognize Truth when yourbettersscientists tell you, doesn’t mean I should have to EARN my living like some bondsman. Look at my hands. These aremoneyscience hands, not work hands.
</sarc>In all serious, Mr. H should know that as a programmer who has written numerous workflow and productivity reporting applications, I have made a career of making models fit a preconceived unrealistic expectation. And since AGW is based on MODELS that don’t fit your DATA, I feel fully qualified to discourse on why its bullshit on stilts.
I used to get mouthbreathers telling me why my program was broken once a week because there was “no way” their productivity could be worse than they thought once we actually started measuring it. Models are like assholes, everyone’s got one and each person thinks his don’t stink as bad as the other guy’s. That’s why data is the touchstone, and climiate modelers have thus far produced only fool’s gold.
I’ve yet to see a metric that was evidential (not modelled, but observed) that pointed to catastrophy for humanity, or bio-diversity below points of previous mass shifts, or any of the other chicken little talking points.
Bullshit on stilts.
My Dad was a Mechanical Engineer and had a saying.......
"If you don’t like the results, manipulate the data"
Sooooo, what would you LIKE my climate models to say??
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 11:10 AM • permalinkTexas Bob: It’s been my experience, time and time again, that when someone introduces himself with his IQ and credentials, he’s usually an angry, socially insecure malcontent. Mark is proving to be no exception.
PW: In essense, the Warmers appear to believe they’re going to be the first-ever group of humourless apparatchiks to be right about such an issue. I bet the crop circle guys believe the same thing about themselves.
Hoofnagle and company are egocentric, which is another aspect of narcissistic behavior. This fits nicely with the leftoid behavior model (an empirically derived model, BTW, and not computer based), and demonstrates that Hoofnagle is a model leftie: smug, arrogant but insecure, and promoting himself through some “progressive” cause (in this case, global goreming).
The interesting question is, do angry, socially insecure malcontents become lefties, or do lefties eventually turn into angry, socially insecure malcontents?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 06 08 at 11:53 AM • permalinkI have a Master of Humanities, which means that I’ve spent way more than my fair share of time among the gullible, maleable, hothouse plants that most lefties are. Fortunately, my critical thinking skills were well-developed before I stepped into that milieu, which isn’t true of a lot of them, including, apparently, the Misters Hoofnagle.
And I must say, you Blairite cranks are awesome!
#76-
That’s it, nilknarF!! However, I poked around and saw no DVD’s for sale. I guess I’ll just have to use the old mental VCR.
However, seeing the site DID remind me of one of Dr. Science’s (VERY RELEVANT) lines:
“I know more than you do!”
Sounds just like this goron, no?
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2007 06 08 at 12:56 PM • permalinkAnd after thinking about it some more…
angry, socially insecure malcontents
I think the “socially insecure” part doesn’t play much of a role...plenty of righties could be described the same way, in my opinion. If I had to guess, the link might be running like this:
People pre-disposed to being malcontents are more likely to become lefties (that whole wide-eyed “wanna change the world” thing), and they subsequently become angry when their leftism collides with the real world.
So, malcontents -> malcontent lefties -> angry, malcontent lefties.
That black and white photo of Al Gore.
It makes me think of L. Ron Hubbard.
Can’t think why.
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2007 06 08 at 02:14 PM • permalinkThe interesting question is, do angry, socially insecure malcontents become lefties, or do lefties eventually turn into angry, socially insecure malcontents?
TRJS, short answer, “Yes.”
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 06 08 at 02:15 PM • permalinkSeems like a chicken and egg problem regarding which came first, leftists or socially insecure malcontents. Can this be resolved through the application of Unintelligent Design or are they merely Darwin Award candidates?
Posted by charles austin on 2007 06 08 at 02:31 PM • permalink#104 paco
I am
physicistacademic, here me whine!Let’s not give practitioners (Whale Spinor) a bad name.......
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 03:11 PM • permalinkSo, malcontents -> malcontent lefties -> angry, malcontent lefties.
True enough, PW, being socially insecure is not solely a leftie trait (although it sometimes seems like it). Your sequencing of the “naive person meets real world” explains that nicely.
TRJS, short answer, “Yes.”
BUAWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 06 08 at 04:08 PM • permalink#106: Quite right, OT, quite right. I hadn’t seen Whale Spinor’s comment, and I don’t want to tar him with the same, er, particle accelerator or whatever it is those brainy coves deal in. In fact, now that I’ve read Whale Spinor’s comment, I believe it’s only right that we address him as Dr.Spinor.
I am in awe of people who possess minds that are capable of grasping the mathematical concepts that underlie an understanding of physics. I think as far as I ever got in math was part way through a course on deferential calculus - and yes, that’s what I meant to write:
Professor: Mr. Paco, would you like to solve this equation on the board?
Me: No, no. After you, sir.
109 paco,
I was a physics teacher once upon a time. In college, my Quantum Mechanics professor once said…
"If any of this makes sense to you, you don’t get it"
Made me feel better ‘cuz it sure as hell didn’t make sense. Ask Dr. Spinor what a pi meson is......
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 04:28 PM • permalinkwell I’m done over there.
After a while, one of them just resorted to giving my posts scores out of 5, rather than actually engaging me.
Interesting, as noted earlier, that they use really dodgy rhetorical devices themselves (including the ones they attribute to deniers).
They just can’t get their head around the idea that a sizeable proportion of the scientific community isn’t on board.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 08 at 04:37 PM • permalink#110: pi meson? Is that kind of like lemon meringue? Let me google it.
Oh, HO!. Now I’m one up!
“Pions have zero spin and are composed of first-generation quarks. In the quark model, an up and an anti-down quark compose a π+, while a down and an anti-up quark compose the π−, its antiparticle.”
Well, yes, of course. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?
#113 Old Tanker: you know, I wonder if Wikipedia isn’t just pulling my leg. My index finger is tired from clicking on a succession of links, trying to figure it all out:
“Pions are the lightest mesons”
*Click*
“a meson is a strongly interacting boson”
*Click*
“bosons are particles having integer spin”
*Click*
“spin is the angular momentum intrinsic to a body, as opposed to orbital angular momentum”
This was the point at which I just went back to admire the picture of Tim’s refrigerator.
from the Troothnagle site:
"Q: Just what science is being denied by AGW denialists?
A: You name it they deny it. It’s like 9/11 truth. Some admit planes hit the buildings, some don’t. Some think it was an inside job, some think it was explosives."
I find it impossible to comment on this....
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 06 08 at 05:12 PM • permalinkpaco,
see, I knew you’d “get it”
Don’t forget the charmed quarks......
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 05:17 PM • permalinkEinstein never accepted quantum mechanics.
All those probability clouds, and uncertainty principles.
“God doen’t play at dice,” he said.
He argued against it tirelessly, despite the rest of the physics community adopting it, and despite it becoming the consensus position.
Einstein was a quantum mechanics denialist.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 08 at 05:18 PM • permalink115 Harry,
See my comment 110 above and substitute quantum mechanics for 9/11 truth......
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 05:19 PM • permalink"The charm quark is a second-generation quark with a charge of +(2/3)e”. *Click*"The elementary charge (symbol e or sometimes q) is the electric charge carried by a single proton. It has a value of 1.602 176 487 × 10-19 C” *Click* “The coulomb (symbol: C) is the SI unit of electric charge”.
Okeydoke, I think I’ll just call it a day.
Oh dear, the real world isnt playing along again.
Australian alps already covered in thick snow
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 06 08 at 06:40 PM • permalink#95 Here’s a bit of data for your question: I’m an angry, socially insecure malcontent, but the further right I’ve gone, the less angry.
Posted by dean martin on 2007 06 08 at 07:08 PM • permalinkThe only Quark I could ever get my head around is Adam. Ran way too short, and whenever I see Richard Benjamin on the credits my thoughts run to this and Westworld.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 08 at 07:47 PM • permalink#82 Whale Spinor
always a pleasure reading people who actually know what they’re talking about, as opposed to those, such as myself, who are merely professionally primed to make arguments!
#83 Old Tanker the only reason lawyers are always right is that even when they’re wrong they’re right, if you know what I mean…
#109 Paco, that’s terrific. I will steal that. As I will El Cid’s wonderful joke.
Can’t steal detective paco, unfortunately. Wronwright would always get him back.
#84 Dminor that’s quite a colourful turn of phrase you have there. More evidence of your nurturing bedside manner. My eldest has his sights set on being a doctor (just got accepted for a yr 11 Rural Students Medical Career Week jaunt down in Sydney)so I shall refer him to you for the finer points. ‘Mirror-licking sanctimonious prig’ and all that. You must use that at least once a day.
#122 Pogria: At last! Something I understand.
I think I was ruined for science when I was a child. I recall an old Amos and Andy television episode in which Kingfish is explaining the atom to Andy: “Well, ya see, deah, Andy, the atom is made up of protons, notrons, fig newtons and morons.” Never could get it right, after that. And statistics? Fuhgeddabout it! All those problems involving drawers full of white socks and red socks. I mean, I never wore a pair of red socks in my life, so the odds of pulling one out of my drawer were always zero. Red socks, indeed! Perfectly ridiculous. It’s not like I’m a fireman, you know . . .
Mark Hoofnagle’s anger results from his failure to convert non-believers. He’s so used to preaching to the choir that he doesn’t know how to deal with the heathen. Worst of all is when they laugh at him. Is there anything more hurtful to the earnest young genius that a refusal to recognise it?
Oh sure, he’s defined “deniers” and can classify them left, right and centre. But he doesn’t know what to do with them after that. His profile of Julia Stephenson is a perfect example (here). Okay, she’s a crank. So what? Mr Hoofnagle knows he’s right - in the way that only PhD candidates seem to - but it gnaws away at him that Stephenson is getting airtime. Why isn’t the press beating a door to soon-to-be-Dr Hoofnagle? After all, he’s smarter. He’s got the solution. And he’s right.
It’s like being the only guy in the world who can see the invisbile alien reporting that earth is about to be destroyed.
In his twenties, this is all a bit of a lark. But by the time he’s in his mid-forties or early fifties, and he’s not a full professor and he sees others getting labs, grants, adulation at science circle jerks (aka conferences), he’ll be more bitter, more frustrated, and railing even more about idiots. One day he may realise what’s happening. It’s doubtful. But he may. And he may lighten up. I truly hope it happens before he has a breakdown, stroke or heart attack. Being right isn’t much use when the doctor cuts open your chest to restart your heart.
I wish Mark all the best in his career. He’s been good for a laugh, but at the end of the day he’s just another guy who thinks he should be running the show. We fought that war already, and the idea that underpinned it collapsed nearly 20 years ago.
PATIENT
I’m so sorry to bother you, doctor. I’ve got these shimmers again.
DMINOR
Ah yes, the shimmers. The good old shimmers. Ever-reliable, aren’t they, Mrs Hoofnagle? Like death and taxes. Still drinking one and a half barrels of sherry a day, are we?
PATIENT
The sherry doesn’t cause the shimmers, doctor. The sherry’s the only thing that takes them away.
DMINOR
Well now Mrs Hoofnagle. As I have explained to you previously, in moments during which your flickering consciousness is not completely destroyed by alcohol, your contention raises complex issues of cause and effect which are far beyond the capacities of ordinary brain-dead dribble-witted mirror-licking sanctimonious nanogenarians such as yourself to understand. You see, ice-core samples taken very recently from behind your left ear suggest that over the course of the last thirty thousand years, the shimmers have followed your intake of sherry, rather than preceded it. Mathematical models based on physical principles further establish that if you get so pissed you cannot get up off the kitchen floor, you will, as a matter of course, subsequently acquire a rather severe headache, whereas the cure for such headache is not necessarily getting so pissed that you cannot get up off the kitchen floor. Of course, there are a few marginalised recidivist cranks known in medical circles as ‘sherry denialists’ who insist that the increased rate of shimmer particles in the echoing brains of degenerate old hags such as yourself has nothing whatsoever to do with alcohol intake, but rather is symbiotically linked to the incidence of underground coal-fires in China. Vaclav Havel, the president of Czechoslovakia, has stated categorically that --
PATIENT
Can I have my prescription now doctor?
DMINOR
Oh for fuck’s sake. Here you are, you flea-bitten old witch. Have ten. Dissolve them in a barrel of sherry, get in, and drink it.
PATIENT
Will that cure my shimmers?
DMINOR
I should bloody well hope so.
#124 Nilknarf
okay, how’d you know my name is Adam??
#128 JonathanH
I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it may incriminate....someone......
#120 Rob Read
Wasn’t Einstein into the curvilinear space thing as a means to explain gravity?? All of my physics books are at work.
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 06 08 at 10:41 PM • permalink#129 Hahahahahaha. Maaaate!
I will confess that I always loved Acropolis Now.
#138. I’m good with names :)
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 08 at 11:26 PM • permalinkO/T Loonypig has a new article out. My favourite line.
Perhaps I never believed in this all-seeing, all-knowing God of disapproval, otherwise I would have stopped my wanking.See there is some truth in his writings after all. The bloke has been a non stop wanker for ages!
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 06 09 at 12:06 AM • permalinkHanyu, #132 is inspired. I do believe that you have nailed Hoofnagle.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 06 09 at 12:20 AM • permalink#136 #143
Hear! Hear!
Yet another quality contribution.Anecdotally, from Sci-Tech BBS of yore, arguments inevitably become a form of hierarchical ‘pissing contest’ and may devolve into put-downs and insults [as Tim has alluded to about Gamer Blogs, FFS ... how sad].
As much as Professional [insert here] like to think that they are above such behaviour, their human fragility usually shows through.#93 brett_l:
Put very nicely, “ ... this group of wannabees who’ve been educated beyond their intelligence.” Having a good education is great, but using that to be an authority to speak outside of your field as an expert is dishonest.
Paco ... aren’t quarks a bit like smurfs, I’m yet to see one, and they’re little? However quarks can come in colors red, green, and blue, whereas smurfs are blue.
I do know a bit about physics, but won’t boast about it. Quarks are believed to be made up of preons, but there is no firm evidence that is the case. A bit like global warming.
Stevo
#129 & 130 Combine fuhgettaboutit with Tim’s column and what do you get? This!
Posted by dean martin on 2007 06 09 at 07:25 AM • permalink#132 Good call Hanyu. “The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked.” Thomas More
Posted by dean martin on 2007 06 09 at 07:32 AM • permalinkGaia punishes Australia for voting for Howard.
We must appease the
volcanoclimate god.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 09 at 07:58 AM • permalinkI’ll say this much for Hoofnagle:
he’s got an entirely open policy on commenting. I’m not criticising Tim here in closing the gates- there were good reasons to do so.
However in this respect he is way above realclimate - where they actually edit your posts for God’s sake (to make them more extreme and mockable), then criticise and laugh at the post that you didn’t make.
I also respect the general mission of his blog. There’s plenty of crackpot denialism out there, from 9/11 to immunization to the moon landings,... his mission is to take em all on.
I think he should focus less on CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) and I told him so. His energies are better spent elsewhere. Like saving un-immunized children from dying, for example.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 09 at 12:10 PM • permalinkI think he should focus less on CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) and I told him so. His energies are better spent elsewhere. Like saving un-immunized children from dying, for example.
But that’s not where the action is. Bravely taking on “climate change deniers” is what currently gets you the adoration of all the other blinkered fools in academia who lost their ideological home in 1989; the other stuff you mention, not so much.
This Hoofnagle guy may be well-meaning, but like most lefties he’s got a honkin’ huge blind spot when it comes to his own behaviour, as several others have said above. Far from pointing out the intellectual sleights of hand in supposed “crackpot” arguments, much of his blog is actually an inadvertant demonstration of many of those sleights. And an far as I’m concerned, an incompetently-done debunking is worse than no debunking.
It’s nice to see that Hoofnagle (who is a grad student who should be working for his stipend and not blogging) is bravely avoiding examination of what exactly is Greenhouse Warming and why there is so little evidence of it.
Even more bravely, he compares people who don’t believe in Greenhouse Warming to “9/11 truthers”, “creationists” and other crackpots. What he doesn’t do (and this appears to be a failing of a lot of blogs on “scienceblogs” is actually go through the science.
Maybe he has no time. After all there’s a massive gravytrain of Greenhouse funding just waiting for his thesis to be accepted.
Yes, daddy dave, he’d be better off hunting real dragons (and some posters here might want to examine their consciences about their ozone hole skepticism; just because it carries a green tinge doesn’t mean it HAS to be wrong).
But that would require him to go back to hard science. I don’t care how many physics degrees the guy has, he has abandoned hard science for soft. ‘Denialism’ is just heresy-hunting, but evidently he is pursuing a dissertation proving some sort of new social behavior.
I don’t have any physics degrees, either, but I know a little history, and I’m gonna be very, very surprised if a grad student in Charlottesville has discovered a previously unknown form of human social behavior.
Better he should review his notebooks and see if his data match something already known. I’ve nominated my candidate: the Holy Inquisition.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 06 09 at 04:19 PM • permalinkPaco --
“Corpernicus has those Renaissance ladies
Crazy about his telescope!
And Galileo had a name that raised his
reputation higher than he’d hoped!
Did none of the astronomers discover,
While they were staring out into the dark,
That what a lady looks for in her lover,
Is charm, strangeness and quark!”-- Quark, Strangeness and Charm, Hawkwind
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 09 at 09:24 PM • permalinkHarry—the Inquisition or Savonarola?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 09 at 09:25 PM • permalinkPaco—well, check what noise you make while you’re parddling in the lark…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 09 at 11:20 PM • permalink#155 ‘Denialism’ is just heresy-hunting, but evidently he is pursuing a dissertation proving some sort of new social behavior.
Harry, the thing that strikes me about that blog is that they hold their opponents to much higher standards than themselves. They’re allowed to use sarcasm, not address the points (because they’re “too stupid”, “not worth addressing"), resort to personal insult, but they put any post disagreeing with them under the microscope. Any deviation from formal logical reasoning is pounced upon as a “new denialist strategy”.
Since he’s probably going to use my posts as “data”, I should stop posting there perhaps. The arrogance of that would be breathtaking, but I’m suspicious.
I also noted that the theme is more political than scientific. He’s against No Child Left Behind for example. You can’t find a more science-driven approach to education than NCLB.
His teacher friends hate it, he says. I bet they do. And I bet they don’t have the balls to tell him that they hate it because it means doing more math lessons in class.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 10 at 12:52 AM • permalinkHarry, like you, I got sucked into debate there. It poses as a science blog, so I took it in that spirit. But I had a look around just now, and in fact, it’s a hard-core leftist blog.
If you keep going back, keep in mind that these people do not want to be convinced.
They have a political agenda, and they seem to be in the pocket of realclimate (which is a politically funded site).
On the other hand, debate so far has been pretty civil, and you can actually get a reasonable argument out of them sometimes.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 10 at 01:36 AM • permalink"As far as the national academy, I was referring to their certification of the Mann paper, which has been routinely attacked as “debunked” because of a report put together under the auspices of a famous American crank Senator - Inhofe. Read about the Hockey Stick, or see what the national academies said about Mann in 2006. Hockey stick isn’t debunked. That’s a myth.
Yep, a Hockey Stick promoter. When it comes down to it, this whole blog is really about defending the Hockey Stick from the entirely true charges that it is a) a fake b) scientifically meaningless and c) a disgrace.
The NRC report that you linked to, bent over backwards to avoid throwing out the Hockey Stick, but along the way they confirmed:
1. That the methodology (PCA) was flawed and should not be used
2. That the statistical significance was near zero
3. That other statistical metrics should be used to confirm or not the significance of the reconstructionWhile Mann got away with not having his precious Hockey Stick thrown out, every single criticism made by Steve McIntyre about the HS was upheld
Worse was to come for Mann with the Wegman Report by three top-ranked statisticians (oh and I’m willing to bet that you’re not going to go for the Wegman Report because you’re a coward). In that report, Wegman et al showed that the Hockey Stick had massive data quality issues, massive defects in the model used, used PCA inconsistently and confirmed the massive failure of the HS in statistical significance. Wegman went further in his Congressional testimony calling the HS simply “bad science” and stating that Steve McIntyre’s analysis “valid and compelling".
All of this, bear in mind from a person who was not a Republican and who voted for Al Gore in 2000, and had refused any payment from the Committee who commissioned the Report.
The myth is that the HS has not been debunked. The plain facts are that with data quality being so poor, non existent statistical significance, an extremely dubious methodology, the HS is meaningless.
You’re just in deep denial of science, of mathematics and of history. Your tactics are straight smear and innuendo, straight out of the agitprop cookbook. I expect more comparisons to “9/11 truthers”, “creationists” and other crackpots to follow because the one thing you can’t manage is proper scientific analysis especially of a powerful totem of catastrophic climate change that you are unwilling to even analyze properly.
Yeah, Richard, could be Savonarola, too.
Though when it doesn’t warm up, I don’t suppose we’ll get to burn Hoofnagle at the stake.
Skepticism is a funny thing. You really can predict how much a person will be skeptical about X by what he tells you about his left/right views.
Which is why I mentioned ozone (real science) along with warming (junk science).
As we used to say in east Tennessee, even a blind sow finds an acorn once in a while.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 06 10 at 02:22 PM • permalinkABC radio’s PM program tonight spent quite a bit of time filling otherwise dead air with the thesis that, actually, the Right lacks the incredible sense of humour of the Left.
It was ... hilarious. Like the dead parrot sketch, with Colvin as the straight man and the interviewed “talent” making the case for why the Left was in fact still living, albeit pining for the multicultural fjords.
If the Left does have a sense of humour, surely it will be in stitches, as I was, by the snooty horror in the virtual faces of the hornswoggling, boondoggling hoofnaglians, at the Blairite hoons making fun of ... his name.
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How are we supposed to take anyone seriously with the name “Hoofnagle”??