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Sunday, September 1, 2013

Planet Earth is losing water, sez WUWT

Sou | 6:34 AM Go to the first of 23 comments. Add a comment

More proof that Anthony Watts can't tell the difference between crackpottery and his elbow.  Even his faithful followers know better than he.

I wonder how long this article by Richard Guy will last?  (Updated archive link here.) Here is a taste:
We will never solve the disappearing water problem until we face the reality that we have been mislead by Iostacy.  We have to face this reality because this reality is now facing us: we are losing water all over the planet while we continue to harp on rising seas levels.
Once we abandon Isostatic Rebound we will see the reality of receding seas. This path will also lead us to other interesting discoveries such as why the seas recede.?  Once we accept that seas are receding that acceptance will automatically eliminate Post Glacial Rebound. There is no time to waste because our survival depends on this acceptance.
I've archived the original here for posterity - with update 1 and update 2 and update 3 with the latest comments. A number of people are asking if Richard Guy is a fake denier, suggesting it's a Poe.

Anthony tries the excuse that:
Note: I’m not convinced that this idea has any merit, as I see more conventional reasons (like silting) for land recovery such as at Rome’s original harbor and in New York, but thought it was worth posting for the discussion that would ensure – Anthony
"Not convinced" but thought it "worth posting"? It reminds me of the diatoms fiasco from last year. Quoting Greg Laden: "Let me be very very clear: This is not a claim to be skeptical about."

Was his "would ensure" a slip or did he mean to include the "r"?

Will his next article be about the likelihood that elephants will evolve into flying elephants using their ears as wings?

Is he just hoping to pick up a few pennies by click throughs to Amazon?

Has he run out of quack authors and has to resort to superquack authors?


PS Poor old Anthony hasn't yet twigged that the article is not "worth discussing".  He's tweeting left, right and centre trying to justify posting it.

What a nutter!

PPS Anthony has decided to stick it out in the face of everyone's guffaws.  He's moved his cautious "not convinced" but "worth posting" comment to the top of the article and has become more definite.  He probably checked here too, because he's replaced "ensure" with "ensue".  Compare his original with his revamp.
NOTE: (I had this at the bottom of the post some people missed it so I moved it up to the top) I’m not convinced that this idea has any merit whatsoever, as I see more conventional reasons (like silting) for land recovery such as at Rome’s original harbor and in New York, but thought it was worth posting for the discussion that would ensue. Even bad science deserves to be discussed/disproven. See also a note below. – Anthony
Note the change from his original uncertain comment. 
Note: I’m not convinced that this idea has any merit, as I see more conventional reasons (like silting) for land recovery such as at Rome’s original harbor and in New York, but thought it was worth posting for the discussion that would ensure – Anthony
Anthony has shifted from a weak "not convinced" but "worth posting" to a bolded "whatsoever".  He doesn't like looking like the fool he is, but is not sure how to best wiggle out of it.  Will it eventually be retired altogether or will he leave up this example of how poor is his scientific acumen?

What a nutter! (Yes, I mean to repeat it.)

23 comments:

  1. The difference with this one, though, is that *all* of the commentators recognise it for junk, immeadiately. Some even say so (though one or two are rather tentative, as if even they can't quite believe what they're reading is really there). This really is a "jumping the shark" article.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've only been reading WUwT for a relatively short time (a few months) and have noticed two things:

      1) Anthony writes very, very few articles himself and when he does he gets into real strife. I don't believe he is capable. WUWT is just a grab bag of copy and pastes of denier websites, WUWT guest authors and the occasional press release of an actual peer reviewed science paper.

      2) Anthony lacks any capacity to judge the merits of an article. He relies almost completely on other websites for his selections. He is an easy mark.

      I have no idea where he dug that one up. He must have stumbled across it somewhere or other. I guess someone sent it to him and he couldn't tell if it was "good" or not. Interesting to see him try to wriggle out it. It's like the Greenland ice sheet is only 650 years old article, and the series on "it's insects".

      Delete
    2. I guess Anthony's ironic comment that even bad science is worth discussing shows he hasn't got a clue really. If he had wanted to humiliate this man, Richard Guy, he couldn't have done it better by saying that his science was even too bad for WUWT but we'll put it up anyway so the untrained idiot commenters can feed on this raw meat.

      And still one or two hint that there might just be something in it but can't say so because they know what the response will be

      Delete
    3. For an encore, The Willard will now jump ... TWO sharks!

      Delete
  2. How about this E&E article by my fellow Dutchman, claiming that Meteosat Infrared measurements show that the global mean temperature is dropping by 1 degree per decade?

    I am curious whether even Anthony Watts will recognize it as junk or will simply post it. For discussion, naturally.

    A Dutch newspaper (post in Dutch) did not recognize it as junk or was being satirical.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Perhaps this link should be better known, especially by those at WUWT http://violentmetaphors.com/2013/08/25/how-to-read-and-understand-a-scientific-paper-2/

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    Replies
    1. What an excellent article. When I get home I'll put a link to it on HotWhopper. (I'm struggling a bit with a tablet at the moment. Great for reading. Not so good for blogging.)

      Delete
    2. I read the link to the pro-vaccination article which she linked to because it is what caused her to write that one. It is really amazing how similar the anti-vaxxer's and the global warming deniers are.

      Delete
    3. They use the same play book - deny the science, look for tiny errors and magnify them, shout loudly on behalf of the handful of real scientists who deny the consensus view, claim there is no evidence for the pro side and then say that believing the pro side is like religion. Tried and tested from the creationists over the last hundred years.

      Delete
  4. Oh my, that E&E article is dreadful. Someone should point Anthony toward it. He doesn't have the disciplinary expertise to understand why it's bad, so it could be interesting to see how it plays out.

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    Replies
    1. Almost willing to translate it :) But not quite.
      For Dutch readers a debate with some hilarious quality: http://klimaatverandering.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/rare-oprisping-aarde-is-sinds-1982-afgekoeld-o-ja/
      Those not feeling up to reading Dutch, forget it, nothing lost.

      Delete
  5. http://archive.is/LkgDl

    NOTE: (I had this at the bottom of the post some people missed it so I moved it up to the top) I’m not convinced that this idea has any merit whatsoever, as I see more conventional reasons (like silting) for land recovery such as at Rome’s original harbor and in New York, but thought it was worth posting for the discussion that would ensue. Even bad science deserves to be discussed/disproven. See also a note below. – Anthony

    One more step towards being deleted.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry for spamming the comments, but this is just such good entertainment. :-)

    I am pretty sure this is tongue-in-cheek, especially as the guy is an engineer.

    Anthony Watts: I thought a lot of people would point out to Mr. Guy just how silly his premise is. Instead what happened is many people never read past the first few paragraphs, completely missed my caveat, and started flaming me for posting ‘bad science”. Well that was the idea. Just like when we call out bad climate science claims, so did this one need to be called out. I moved my original caveat up to the the top, and placed a second new one at the bottom for the reading challenged.
    ...
    Some people asked why I should publish “rubbish science” like this. The reason is the same that I often publish some “rubbish science”from climatology; it deserves ridicule for the ridiculous premise of the idea.


    Nice to ask someone to do a guest post to ridicule him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keep them coming, Victor. It's not spamming.

      His comment about "often publish "rubbish science" from climatology" means he thinks Marcott13 and real science is rubbish (he's said so often enough) but that the rubbish science he puts up from guest authors is not. More proof tat he hasn't got the capability to distinguish the real thing from pseudoscience.

      But the one above deserves a special place in Watts' dearth of science acumen.

      Delete
    2. But Anthony doesn't publish the real science. The only "science from climatology"[sic] that he publishes are those dim attempts at rebuttals of the real science by Easterbrook or Monckton or whoever.

      Perhaps this is an admission he knows that the denialist piffle he trots out is "rubbish science".

      FrankD

      Delete
  7. This is how Watts operates. He puts up anything he comes across that suits his fancy, no matter how ridiculous, but at the same time he tries to maintain plausible deniability.

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  8. "Iostacy". It's about time that someone addressed the influence of Jupiter's moons on the Earth's climate system. The IPCC has too long denied this important factor.

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    Replies
    1. You joke, but I have a feeling that this is one of the cycles included in Nicola Scafetta's models. In fairness, I think even those at WUWT find these models somewhat unconvincing.

      Delete
  9. I like the comment asking if this means he will let the sky dragons come back. haha.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well, why is anyone surprised.
    Consider the WUWT team, clearly an all-star cast.
    Do read the comments.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks Sou for your link to archive.is -- I've been looking for that

    ReplyDelete
  12. Actually Anders Celsius of Uppsala had the same good idea, more precisely that the water was evaporating. It's been a while tho ;-)

    ReplyDelete

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