Saturday, December 7, 2013

How deluded is Anthony Watts? Let us count the ways...


Anthony Watts has an article up (archived here, updated here) about how people tend to mostly only read articles they agree with.  I'm not surprised if that is a finding.  What I am surprised about is this, from Anthony:
On the plus side, love it or hate it, WUWT is read almost equally by both sides of the climate debate
If it is, they aren't saying.  Remember this poll that Anthony took last year when he was canvassing responses to the Lewandowsky survey?  If that's any guide and I don't see why it wouldn't be, it shows that almost all his readers (more than 97%!!) are fake sceptics.



You only have to read the comments on WUWT articles to know that by far the majority are from people in various shades of denial - from the 8% Dismissives through to utter nutter conspiracy theorists, with rare comments from people who know what they are talking about.  (Anthony limits comments from science types to about two or maybe three on his blog at a time - more than that he censors them or bans people outright.  He can't have facts clearing the muddy waters of denial.)

(Update: so far not a single comment only one comment from anyone who remotely accepts science (Steven Mosher who sort of accepts it a little bit, and posted an utterly irrelevant link about something else), out of 31 responses.  So much for Anthony's claim of being read by "both sides almost equally"!)

Anthony also thinks that arguably the most widely read climate website, Climate Progress, has fewer comments these days because it doesn't post articles from fake sceptics.  Well I beg to differ.  The main reason Climate Progress has fewer comments than it used to have is because it only accepts comments from people having one of the following accounts: facebook, yahoo, AOL or hotmail, which cuts out a lot of people who might otherwise have commented.  Another reason is probably because it's posting more articles each day.

As for stats - ThinkProgress has 287,154 followers and Climate Progress has 59,217 followers - and those are just the Twitter followers.  I'd expect it has multiples of that in readership if you include people who haven't a Twitter account and/or don't follow them on Twitter.  Anthony has 8,510 Twitter followers - nothing to sneeze at but fewer than Michael Mann and an order of magnitude less than Joe Romm's Climate Progress. WUWT might be popular and visited by a lot of people, but ThinkProgress has a considerably larger readership than Anthony Watts' anti-science blog.

I've also got to say that I've yet to see Anthony Watts take any notice of all the science he says he reads.  Heck, from where I sit he doesn't even read half the articles he posts on his own blog.

Update

Ironically, in the HW comments two people who I take to be WUWT regulars reckon there must be many many more "alarmists" than fake sceptics who read but don't comment at WUWT and are arguing that many many more "alarmists" than fake sceptics would have read but not completed Anthony's poll above.  Like 60 times more! Yet Anthony's poll above was to "prove" that it's deniers who didn't take a survey.  And deniers usually complain they are drowned out by "alarmists".

Fake skeptics are not known for consistency or logic or arithmetic or scale or relativities.


From the WUWT comments


Well, there are only a few comments so far (archived here, updated here).  There is nothing of much interest yet. No-one has confessed to habitually visiting SkepticalScience.com :)  I wonder what more of his readers will say. Anthony gave me an indirect plug in his article.  Will I get a rash of visits from WUWT readers who are hoping to broaden their thinking?  (Fat chance!)

Ed Mr. Jones says:
December 6, 2013 at 9:20 am
Echo Chambers are where critical thinking goes to die.

DayHay says:
December 6, 2013 at 9:29 am
I am part of a consensus, leave me alone.

Tim Walker says:
December 6, 2013 at 9:52 am
Thanks for this introspective post.

This one epitomises WUWT.  Don't leave the safety of deniersville, deride anyone who wants to discuss actual science at WUWT and then complain that "they" won't engage with you. Oh, and write "algore"!   _Jim says:
December 6, 2013 at 10:29 am
Doug Danhoff says December 6, 2013 at 10:12 am I agree in principle, and am discouraged that neither side wishes debate.
Huh?
‘They’ won’t come off their ‘reservations’ or out of their cloistered hallowed ivory towers!!!
What are we to do, stand there with megaphones shouting across the moat?
When was the last time Algore debated anybody?
When we do get ‘one’ here (purported; most come here to troll), they seem to have the mental faculties of a 10 yr old (Sisi?) … I even try to engage the few socialists we have show up in an even-handed non-derogatory manner, JUST to get one under a microscope to see what makes them tick, but, they slink away, choosing not to engage even on a polite level …

9 comments:

  1. Well, that's certainly an interesting bit of accounting. for the sake of avoiding any 'Conspiracy Ideation' I won't do more than point out that not all of the CAGW faithful may have voted in the survey that proved Lew's paper was bull.
    Instead, let's look at the numbers. Only 22 voters claimed to be True Believers. Are we supposed to believe that's all the Faithful that reads WUWT? I've read posts there by more Warmists then that. Heck, WUWT's own solar expert is himself a warmist ( and seems to enjoy shooting down any sceptical solar forcing theory). Or what about all the darlings of the climate world? The High Priests like Mann? The Glieck's? The Rom's? The Lew's and the Cook's? We know they read WUWT regularly just from how often they blog or bleet or twitter about what is said there. Are THEY all counted in that survey?
    What about YOU, Sou? You apperantly read WUWT every day. You probably read it more then I do. Are you part of the 22? How many Sou's do think might be out there by now, reading WUWT every day, every POST? And clearly hating every minute of it.
    I don't know how many might be out there, but off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen that blog about their misery regularly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm. So you've read posts by a whole 22 people who accept climate science. Plus what, you reckon four or five other people might read it occasionally? And how many years have you been a WUWT regular? You reckon you agree with Anthony that must mean there are as big a percentage of "alarmists" at WUWT as deniers?

      You'd never have read 22 different "alarmists" post comments on the same day, that's for sure. The max allowed on any one day is about three.

      No-one ever accused deniers of having an appreciation of scale or relativity or being able to do simple arithmetic. No-one ever accused deniers of not being deluded either.

      Delete
  2. Well if you were to count time spent on WUWT by members of both sides of the debate, the alarmists are sure to come out on top, especially considering how much time you alone spend there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aha! So there is only me plus maybe a fraction of one fake sceptic who reads WUWT? He or she must be a very good sock puppet able to adopt a zillion different personas. Worth their weight in gold (not fiat money printed by the guvmint)!

    Anthony Watts would be offended to think he is regarded so lowly by his two sole fans (who if their arithmetic is right, rarely go to WUWT) :(

    (No-one I've asked in real life has heard of WUWT or Anthony Watts.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Seriously, Google 'Watts up' and Wotts up'. You're hardly the only warmist who makes silly blog posts every time Watts does. Then actually read what I wrote and drop the Strawmen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're hardly the only warmist who makes silly blog posts every time Watts does.

      I think what you meant was You're hardly the only warmist who makes blog posts every time Watts makes a silly blog post.

      Wotts kept up with the Anthony's silly blog posts fairly well. Others do so less often.

      BTW, you don't understand what a strawman is.

      I re-read your comment up the top. You are arguing that people who accept science might be reading WUWT in the drones but never comment there or take part in any way. There is no way of knowing that, but if it's the case, you've got to ask why that would be. Is it:

      a) They don't read WUWT and many have never heard of it. Why would they want to read anti-science tripe?

      b) They do visit all the time, but Anthony's banned the lot of them from commenting and answering polls.

      c) They do read it all the time, and they are remarkably restrained. Which is not how climate hawks are portrayed by the denialati. One of the constant refrains from fake sceptics is how their plaintive voices are drowned out by those who promote science over anti-science.

      Delete
    2. Be honest Sou and confess your sin....


      Evil believers in reality stealthily sabotaged wee willard's poll by each voting #eleventy times

      CONSPIRACY11!!!

      Delete
  5. The winged monkeys ain't getting any brighter!...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Since willard et trolls dwell in their own personal wingnut alternate reality it is no surprise that there is 97% concensus in that one too.
    #wutz #DMIgate #snipgate

    ReplyDelete

Instead of commenting as "Anonymous", please comment using "Name/URL" and your name, initials or pseudonym or whatever. You can leave the "URL" box blank. This isn't mandatory. You can also sign in using your Google ID, Wordpress ID etc as indicated. NOTE: Some Wordpress users are having trouble signing in. If that's you, try signing in using Name/URL. Details here.

Click here to read the HotWhopper comment policy.