WUWT is fairly quiet at the moment so I thought readers may enjoy this explanation of what Anthony Watts' job is not, by Wondering Willis Eschenbach (archived here). It helps explain why Anthony Watts happily posts so much complete and utter rubbish. He's just not capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff.
I don't think Anthony's worst enemy could write such a damning indictment of WUWT.
Are you ready? Let's hear it. The quotes are from Anthony Watts' good friend and staunch ally, Wondering Willis Eschenbach at WUWT. (My bold underline.)
Update: I see that Anthony has put a copyright notice on his blog, which is sensible, and I'm not taking it as aimed here because I'm careful about fair use of intellectual property. Just the same, I've deleted a lot of the text from Wondering Willis' article and just left sufficient to comment on the portions that I found most striking, as fits the "fair use" definition.
Sou 23 November 2014
On the strength of WUWT
From here:
...The strength of WUWT is not that it is always right or that it publishes only the best stuff that’s guaranteed to be valid....
Willis argues that it is a strength to publish a myriad of crap, regardless of whether or not it is "guaranteed to be valid".
On educating scientists
From here:
...When Anthony publishes scientific claims from the edges of the field, generally they are quickly either confirmed or falsified. This is hugely educational for scientists of all kinds, to know how to counter some of the incorrect arguments, as well as giving room for those unusual ideas which tomorrow may be mainstream ideas....For some very odd reason, Willis thinks that proper scientists are not only aware of, but are educated by the sort of nonsense splashed about at WUWT.
On what is not Anthony's job
From here:
...So it is not Anthony’s job to determine whether or not the work of the guest authors will stand the harsh light of public exposure. That’s the job of the peer reviewers, who are you and I and everyone making defensible supported scientific comments. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece, he couldn’t do that job. ...
My emphasis. That has to be the most scathing comment on Anthony Watts by one of his supposed allied that I've ever read. There is more, this time on the value of publishing complete and utter rubbish, again with my emphasis:
It is not Anthony’s job to decide if mine or any other ideas and expositions and claims will withstand that test of time … and indeed, it is often of value for him to publish things that will not stand the test of time, so that we can understand exactly where they are lacking.
On the beauty and value of "public peer review"
From here:
...The beauty and value of WUWT that it is the world’s premier location for public peer review of climate science. On a personal level, the public peer review afforded by WUWT is of immense use to me, because my work either gets falsified or not very quickly … or else, as in this case, there’s an interesting ongoing debate. ...
Footnote
The quotes shown in the above damning indictment on Anthony Watts and WUWT are all verbatim from Anthony's supposed ally, Wondering Willis Eschenbach (with my headings and bold underline for emphasis). With friends like Willis, who needs enemies?
Beyond satire. So basically Watts's job is to fill his site with click bait and not worry if any of it is any good. Alan Sokal might be writing half of this stuff (he might even be writing Monckton's word salad drivel). And now. We know that Eschenbach doesn't understand the word "peer".
ReplyDelete"Peer" is just one item in the very long (& growing) list of things that Willis doesn't understand.
DeleteWell if I ever have a complete pile of shite that - for some bizarre reason - I would want to publish I shall send it to WUWT. But should I ever decide that reading piles of shite is the way I want to spend my time, I will still not become a reader of WUWT because their accusations of fraud and other viciousness would still deter me.
ReplyDeleteBut why does WUWT concentrate on piles of shite that protect short term fossil fuel industry profits?
Is it possible that Willis was taking a potshot at Anthony Watts for not standing up for him against Christopher Monckton in the Force X fiasco? Getting his own back by accusing Anthony of being clueless?
ReplyDeleteFor example, he wrote that even if Anthony had a year to examine at each article he posted he wouldn't be able tell whether it was any good or not.
Doubt it; I think this is just the anti-expert thinking that's prevalent in some libertarian circles.
DeletePerhaps we also need a premier forum for public peer review of neurosurgery where there brain surgeons can have their ideas subjected to the full force of our expert scrutiny. ;o)
ReplyDeleteThe word "peer" in peer review means that the review was undertaken by reviewers of equal standing in the research field to those who wrote the paper. It does not mean that the reviewers peer at the paper.
So you admit you have no idea what the scientific process is?
ReplyDeletePathetic.
Ha ha - Dikran - I think we've snagged someone who doesn't know what the "peer" in "peer review" means. P'raps corrector thinks that the peer review process means getting Christopher Monckton to put his imprimatur on a blog post at WUWT :)
Delete
DeleteI am not sure what you have snagged. It is a bizarre comment.
Whatever it is I would throw it back.
I thought about it, Jammy, but it volunteered.
DeleteI took too much credit saying I was the one who snagged it. This one jumped onto the hook of its own accord. It doesn't seem to mind being a fish out of water :D
A lesson in how to quote somebody out of context, well done Sou.
ReplyDeleteYou have removed parts of the quotes, bent the meaning to the exact opposite of what was written and used the intellectual property argument to explain why you couldn't publish the whole thing.
Masterful.
Typical denier troll, no specifics, all false allegations and unsubstantiated waffle.
DeleteThere was absolutely nothing "bent" in what I wrote, Anonymous. The link to the full article is provided. I dare you to copy from the article whatever you think has been "bent" and put your own personal interpretation on it.
Go for it! Then we can argue about who is "bent".
Willis was very clear and quite scathing in his comments about WUWT and Anthony Watts himself. Plus his own ideas about "peer review" are ludicrous. I'd best put some of them back in the article when I get a minute, because the comments above relate.
"There’s no way that one man’s wisdom can substitute for that of the crowd in the free marketplace of scientific ideas. Bear in mind that even with peer review, something like two-thirds of peer-reviewed science is falsified within a year, and Anthony is making judgements, publish or don’t publish, on dozens of papers every week."
DeleteAnd BTW, you are a worthless human being.
corrector: After 8 months of ruminating, that's the best reply you can come up with?
DeleteTalk about pathetic.....
I expect corrector thinks that the peers at WUWT have managed to falsify 2/3's of published science. I doubt they've seen one squillionth of the peer-reviewed science let alone falsified any of it.
DeleteCorrector probably gets very confused by (with?) the potty peer, and who could blame him or her :(
DeleteHim or her? I think Corrector is actually the Philae lander that has just woken up after 7 months of no power. It cannot be a coincidence!
http://phys.org/news/2015-06-earth-comet-probe-philae.html
"I expect corrector thinks that the peers at WUWT have managed to falsify 2/3's of published science."
DeletePoor "Sou", you are the definition of pathetic. You don't even know thta most published "findings" are false?
No, actually, these denial blogs are the definition of pathetic. How visitors do you get?
Were you dropped on your head when small corrector? It would explain your utterances. Bert
DeleteBert, you are too stupid to use the Internet. You should work in a mine or something.
DeleteI did work in a mine it was called CSIRO for thirty years. We did science. I was the best of the best in my field. Not my opinion but my bosses opinion who said to whole board of CSIRO who happened to be visiting our laboratory. He introduced me as Bert who just happens to be Australia's expert in optics and x-ray optics.
DeleteOne of these directors quietly said to me as an aside 'gee Bert I did not think that you were that good.' I was embarrassed as I thought I was the world expert! Bert
It is indeed Eschenbach's peers who populate the comments section of WUWT.
ReplyDeleteMonckton's peers of the realm reviewed him and the horse he road in on, found them both lacking (though possibly suited for each other).
ReplyDeleteSee, they really don't believe in peer review of anything, even under any skewed definition of "peer."
What they care about is the right to throw rocks.