Friday, January 23, 2015

Freed of any values, Judith Curry slithers and slides and hurtles into deniersville


Addendum: I see there have been quite a few visitors from Judith Curry's blog today. I found out the reason. Judith has posted a link to this article describing it as "And now into the sewer". I agree that Poptech's article outing another blogger is properly describe as sewer-ish behaviour and I'm surprised that Judith would promote it, if she does indeed find that behaviour unseemly. (Perhaps she doesn't, which wouldn't surprise me.) I also find it strange that she thinks that this HotWhopper article, which points out Judith's lies and false innuendos about scientists, and how she implies that President Obama should not apply values, is sewer-ish. Another example of the Judith behaving as the black pot? Is the irony lost on her?

Sou Sunday 25 January 2015 2:13 pm AEDT


Judith Curry cannot help herself any more and she'll find it hard to get anyone respectable to help her. She is now a gung ho denier of the extreme kind.

I first saw it in her years ago. It was as plain as the nose on her face. I wasn't the only one. I'm aware that many scientists denied the signs of Judith Curry's denial for a long time and some probably still do. I think they just cannot accept that one of their own could do such an about face. That a senior academic could turn her back on science and malign her colleagues. Those scientists are in denial.

Remember, we're not talking mere contrarian scientist here. Judith no longer does science. We're not even talking Richard Lindzen-style denialism. He's nothing more than a mildly eccentric emeritus contrarian by comparison. We're talking full blown denial of the wacky and nasty and vitriolic kind. The sort of person who will pick up and repeat any nasty rumour, without regard for facts. Who will malign her colleagues and keep on doing so, on no grounds other than she heard someone else say something.


Here's some of Judith's latest, if you're interested (from here). Her blog is now a parody. It's every bit as bad as WUWT. Judith's nuttery is in italics. (She's totally lost it.)
The problem is that President Obama is listening to scientists that are either playing politics with their expertise, or responding to a political mandate from the administration (probably a combination of both).   Not just administrators in govt labs (e.g. Schmidt, Karl), but think of the scientist networks of John Holdren and John Podesta:  to me the scariest one one is Mann to Romm to Podesta.
That's not any pot calling a kettle black. There's only Judith, the black pot. That's political Judith unable to accept that real scientists do real science and report it. They don't make up stuff, tell lies, make a fool of themselves over simple arithmetic, or tout deniers like Senator Inhofe as being reasonable people. And her personal animosity to Professor Mann? There's got to be a back story somewhere. Did he jilt her? Did he get the job she wanted? Is it just jealousy that his hockey stick beat her hurricane? Who knows. Michael Mann is probably as bewildered by her weird obsession with him as the rest of us.


So what is wrong with President Obama’s statements as cited above?
His statement about humans having exacerbated extreme weather events is not supported by the IPCC
Oh yes it is supported by the IPCC. The latest IPCC report refers to heat waves (killing thousands of people) and intense downpours in particular. Plus droughts that have been exacerbated by the warming.


The Pentagon is confusing climate change with extreme weather (see above)
 I doubt it.


‘Climate change is real’ is almost a tautology; climate has always changed and always will, independently of anything humans do.
Oh my! Is Judith really quoting the well-worn denier meme "climate has always changed"? Sheesh!

His tweet about ‘97%’ is based on an erroneous and discredited paper [link]
Bullshit. The Cook13 paper has never been discredited. It has won awards. Nor have any of the other papers been discredited, the other papers showing that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. Does Judith Curry seriously think that 97% of scientists don't agree that humans are causing global warming? What the heck does she think scientists have found is causing it. Oh, I forgot. She recently decided that it was 220% of something else that was causing global warming. We're all still waiting to learn what the 220% is. Could be Force X or the Notch.


As for ‘Denial from Congress is dangerous’, I doubt that anyone in Congress denies that climate changes.  The issue of ‘dangerous’ is a hypothetical, and relates to values (not science).
There are no deniers in Congress? More bullshit, disguised with a denierism ("climate always changes"). In the same article, Judith gave many column inches to one of the more infamous deniers in the USA - her idol Senator Inhofe.

As for the issue of "denial from Congress is dangerous" being a hypothetical and relating to values not science - yeah. I remember her being very hypothetical last year, when she wanted her city to close all the roads because of the 30% risk of a hypothetical inch of snow. A value judgement if ever there was one.

Did the 173 people who were burnt to death in the Black Saturday fires die happily knowing they were sacrificing themselves to Judith's lack of values? Was the lack of values a comfort to the people they left behind? What about the thousands who died in the heat waves in Russia and western Europe? And did all those who perished or lost their homes and livelihood in Haiyan figure they didn't count because "values"?


The President of the United States of America should not have values?


But the worst part is that Judith is basically saying that the President of the USA should not aspire to values. That he should be valueless. She wasn't quoting a scientist talking about 'denial from Congress' being 'dangerous'.  Judith was quoting one of the most powerful men in the world. One whose day-to-day decisions can determine the fate of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. Sometimes millions of people. If the President of the United States of America is not meant to have values, if he is not meant to let values guide his decisions, then there is no hope for humanity.


Walking back a conspiracy theory


After enough people accused her of being the wacky conspiracy theorist she's become, Judith thought better of it and deleted one of her conspiracy theories, but left the rest. She wrote:
(JC note:  I am deleting the following text ‘the timing of  the NASA/NOAA press release on warmest year was motivated by the timing of the President’s SOTU address’)

Give the lady a medal. One conspiracy theory down, a zillion more to come.


What I don't understand


I see apparently reasonable people still commenting on Judith's blog. That's the part that I don't understand. How can they lend their support to her? I don't get it. [Not nearly as many reasonable people comment there these days, I should add. The comments are predominately from other deniers. Sou 25 Jan.]

63 comments:

  1. Hell hath no fury like a would-be Honest Broker scorned. (Apologies to Tamsin and Richard Betts, but the ideological divide will ultimately be closed by Mother Nature. Judith never stood a chance.)

    "The Black Pot". What a perfect fit for the Hot Topic/Izen Monckton stories!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why is she still talking about the IPCC report? She already proved to the world that she hasn't read it. Any idiot who even skimmed it would have realized that AGW caused more warming than observed.

    As for the rest of your article - spot on. And I, for one, really don't care why she's gone full denier. Greed? Nuts? Jealousy? Stubbornness? Who the F cares. All I know is you never go full retard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WHBO_Qc-Q

    ReplyDelete
  3. Scientists are collegiate by nature and suffer from being too polite (Hey Tamsin and Richard how's that outreach program going?)

    Judith is NOT an exception to the rule because her actions and words prove that she aint no scientist.


    "Hi Judy, how's business? I've just discovered a trick to lower TCR - too complex to go into here - I was wondering if I could ad your name as co-author?
    Kindest regards,
    Nic"

    ReplyDelete
  4. BTW JC Mitt Romney has just publicly acknowledged AGW. He's not only acknowledged it he is making it a major plank of his presidential primary campaign.


    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Outlining his possible rationale for a third presidential bid, Mitt Romney said Wednesday night that political leaders in both parties are failing to address the nation's most pressing problems — climate change, poverty and education reform....

    "Why run for office in the first place?" Romney asked aloud as he addressed a sold-out crowd of about 3,000 at an investment management conference in Utah. "The major challenges that this country faces are not being dealt with by leaders in Washington."

    He continued: "On both sides of the aisle, we just haven't been able to take on and try and make progress on the major issues of our day."

    Dr Curry you are desperate to position yourself on the wrong side of everything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Does that just mean that the fossil fuel industry will be buying the Presidency for another Bush?

      Delete
  5. @-(JC note: I am deleting the following text ‘the timing of the NASA/NOAA press release on warmest year was motivated by the timing of the President’s SOTU address’)

    Actually the last time I looked it said

    "Naive scientist that I am, it didn’t occur to me until last night that a narrative the NASA/NOAA press releaseof ‘warmest year’ was needed to provide the President with a sound bite to motivate his climate agenda. A scientifically sound press release like that issued by Berkeley Earth just wouldn’t fit the bill. (JC note: I am deleting the following text ‘the timing of the NASA/NOAA press release on warmest year was motivated by the timing of the President’s SOTU address’) "

    So the statement about the timing motivated by the President SOTU has not been deleted, (I think by deleting JC means repudiated) it has been clumsily removed from the from the original wording but left in the post.
    By replacing
    'the timing of'
    with
    'a narrative'
    - which creates a grammatical glitch,
    and replaced
    ' on warmest year was motivated by the timing'
    with
    "of 'warmest year' was needed to provide to provide the President with a soundbite to motivate his climate agenda'.

    Note in the new version warmest year has become 'warmest year'.
    And gone is any mention that the climate agenda of the President that required a NASA/NOAA soundbite to motivate (?) is part of the SOTU address. a rather significant policy event in the US I gather.

    To be honest, I am surprised that Dr Curry has made even this cack-handed effort to tone-down the conspiracy ideation that often gleams through her comments. My occasional forays into her blog give me the impression that she rarely engages with the posts, and almost always ignores anything critical. I would like to think that as one of those pointing out the conspiridiocy of the original 'un-naive' claim I had some influence on the realisation this was politicking too far. (Hubris!-grin-)

    I might dispute being 'apparently reasonable' -grin- but part of the reason I suspect that a few people continue to present the mainstream view as Dr Curry heads of to a planet with a very different climate, is for the fun of seeing the real science scattered like rocks amidst the sea of nonsense that flows through the comments there.
    And watching the desperate swerves of the ships that sail past.
    But it has been getting worse... I think it was more fun when the first post was allways Emmanuel(?!) proclaiming the TRUTH about a hollow Iron Sun...

    Judith Curry meets Monckton... the mind melts down....-GRIN

    izen

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "So the statement about the timing motivated by the President SOTU has not been deleted, (I think by deleting JC means repudiated) ..."

      At the intellectual level she's displaying, I think you mean "refudiated".

      Delete
  6. I'm aware that many scientists denied the signs of Judith Curry's denial for a long time and some probably still do. I think they just cannot accept that one of their own could do such an about face. That a senior academic could turn her back on science and malign her colleagues. Those scientists are in denial.

    The scientific culture does not allow scientists to talk badly about other scientists in public. I also includes that one should be very generous in who is seen as scientist. A professor, no matter what she or he talks, is a scientist according to these rules.

    There are a few quotes from scientists available, which Curry likes to cite regularly to play the victim, that are not as nice as one would expect. Privately these scientists most likely have much less generous thoughts about her. These scientists pay a reputational price for these quotes, although not as much as when they would have been about someone who just did science.

    That does not mean that Curry does not pay an enormous reputational price for her misbehaviour. You can see that indirectly in who is willing to collaborate with her, but not so much in public statements..

    I understand that this can be confusing to the public. However, if scientists would let the nasty political climate "debate" in the US destroy their culture, the extremists would have won a point and made scientific progress harder. Within science, at work, at conferences, in the scientific literature we should try to minimize the influence of this dirty political war as much as possible, to foster open communication about the evidence for and against well-posed clear scientific questions.

    For a more balanced public perception it is probably good that non-scientists can speak more freely about Curry's behaviour and give their opinions on Curry behaves and her posts. Hopefully still polite, at least an order of magnitude more polite than WUWT & Co.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is also better when non-scientists reply to non-scientists.

      Delete
    2. I probably should have explained that better Victor.

      In no way am I criticising scientists for not commenting on Judith's behaviour. In many contexts it would be quite unprofessional to do so (outside of rebutting her articles or responding to her tweets when she gets personal). (That's what HotWhopper is for :D)

      That comment was more about the (very) few comments I've seen around the traps that appear to excuse or condone what she has said or done along the way, in the vein of "oh but she doesn't really mean it". They are the people I meant when I talked about the scientists in denial.

      There were one or two people who found it very difficult to accept that Judith does "mean it". That it's not a minor lapse. What she "means" is ongoing and getting more evident each year.

      Delete
  7. I just wonder if Dr Curry really wants to be a martyr. She appears to be on a path to self-destruction, it seems a waste of a career.

    Something else caught my eye, Dr Roy Spencer is also desperately trying reframe the debate. He has a blog entry called: "2014 as the Mildest Year: Why You are Being Misled on Global Temperatures"

    Note they he cannot even bring himself to say "warmest" so he substitutes the word "mildest".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Remarkable. Another one to keep a watch out for, along with "lower troposphere surface temperatures".

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. " Note they he cannot even bring himself to say "warmest" so he substitutes the word "mildest". "

      Using that word is itself a bit disingenuous. It's a misuse of the common term used in paleo stuff to describe climates where there is no ice at the poles. wiki's good enough for this.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation#Plate_tectonics_and_ocean_currents

      He's using it in a context where he _knows_ that people will read it in ordinary English as an ordinary meteorological description of a fine and sunny holiday destination.

      Delete
  8. The U.S. Senate has voted 98 to 1, passing an amendment saying climate change is real, not a hoax. Inhofe voted with the majority saying that "Climate is changing, and climate has always changed." Where have we heard that before?

    Apparently, the hoax that he has talked about is that there are people who think they are so "arrogant" and "powerful" that "they can change climate." But as the new chairman of the Senate’s Environment Committee he gave a little speech. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/22/3614235/seriously-we-are-all-doomed/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They took out the part about human causes before the voted on it.

      Delete
    2. And the follow-up vote on whether or not human emissions are a significant factor fell with 49 "no" votes (60 "yes" votes needed to pass)

      Delete
  9. Before they voted that
    'The climate always changes'
    All but five republicans voted against an amendment saying the change was 'significantly' caused by human actions.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The brilliant Jonathan Chait on why denialism should disqualify anyone from holding office.

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/denialism-should-disqualify-anyone-from-office.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a brilliant article alright, but then just start reading the comments. I've given up on my homeland. It's now inhabited by a bunch of selfish, bible-thumping morons who don't give a rat's arse that we're rendering the place inhabitable for future generations.

      Delete
    2. Duh. uninhabitable. Greed and stupidity, the deadly combination that will bring down civilisation.

      Delete
    3. Hell's teeth. I hit "Show more comments". Twice.

      (Don't ask, I don't know why I did it either.)

      Sometimes you have to admire the thoroughness and the success of the FUD merchants. These people have enough FUD stacked up in their pantries and cellars and garages to carry them through to 3 or more degrees of warming.

      Delete
  11. This blog thread appears to be a one-note samba compared to Curry's Climate Etc, where a wide range of views is presented and linked to - even this post. As someone who has followed the issue since the 1980s - I was briefed by the IPCC's Chief Scientist in 1989 or '90 - I've found Judith's blog of great value.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And where a narrow range of views are sometimes suppressed?

      http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2013/10/the-david-and-judy-show/

      I just checked, and the "Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year" nonsense is still up there:

      https://archive.today/UvOLW#selection-189.134-193.103

      Great value for what purpose?

      Delete
    2. Yes, Michael. That's why I point out Judith's disinformation. It's because some people think her blog must represent science just because she's an academic. They are wrong. She publishes disinformation mixed in with some information and many people (maybe you?) cannot tell the difference.

      Delete
    3. @Michael. "I was briefed by the IPCC's Chief Scientist in 1989 or '90". BFD. What did he tell you?

      If I go to Judy's site, will I see posts by you telling the idiots that they are wrong?

      Delete
    4. @PL - I couldn't spot one from Michael, so here's one from me instead:

      https://archive.today/8wujA#selection-8981.0-9011.58

      Delete
  12. "I see apparently reasonable people still commenting on Judith's blog. That's the part that I don't understand. How can they lend their support to her? I don't get it" - Sou

    Not sure if i count as reasonable, but I comment there for the laughs.

    Unbeatable entertainment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, going through the comments, I can see that a lot of the time the reasonable are taking the mickey. Too easy :)

      Delete
  13. 25 years ago, a policy quarterly, The National Interest, asked me to do a review article on the state of the climate policy debate . The result was an article that surveyed the polemic excess already prevailing , and concluded :
    " at all times and in all polities , science politicized is science betrayed. "

    It is anti-historical to deny that advertising and and PR firms remain part and bipartisan parcel of the Climate Wars as they have since the day before Earth Day.

    So while you can fault Curry for dragging Gavin and Karl into her political equation, she states the fairly obvious about how the political sociology of the environmental sciences are framed when she remarks:

    "The problem is that President Obama is listening to scientists that are either playing politics with their expertise, or responding to a political mandate from the administration (probably a combination of both). Not just administrators in govt labs (e.g. Schmidt, Karl), but think of the scientist networks of John Holdren and John Podesta: to me the scariest one one is Mann to Romm to Podesta."

    If what Hugh Kenner termed 'the rhetoric of motives ' did not exist, neither would what we call the climate wars.


    ReplyDelete
  14. Russel I have often been confused by your musings. I start reading them thinking that I know where you are heading and then you perform a screeching hand brake turn and end up facing the opposite direction.

    Reading you makes me giddy, but not in a good way.



    ReplyDelete
  15. @Russell. Please clarify what part of JC's comment you think is fair. "The problem is that ..." ? Or that scientists who understand the science are offering political advice? Who should the government get their political advice from, on this topic?

    It sounds like a Tamsin "scientists should do science and not be heard" argument.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "the well-worn denier meme "climate has always changed"? Sheesh!"

    The climate has always changed. Please review Vostok ice core other evidence that shows repeated cycles between iuce ages and interglacials.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Bullshit the John Cook 97.1% consensus has been discredited as fraudulent.

    http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/cooking-stove-use-housing-associations-white-males-and-the-97

    ReplyDelete
  18. @Buck: We all know climate changes naturally. The "denier meme" is that, because climate changes naturally, modern climate change can't be assigned to humans. That's certainly easier than reading the science.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Pl:

    there are limits to ellipsis, like quoting whole sentences , and whole wordss-- I did not use the word 'fair' at all, and the word does not figure in the phrase I did use : "fairly obvious.

    "she states the fairly obvious about how the political sociology of the environmental sciences are framed when she remarks..."

    Now be fair: Isn't my meaning fairly obvious ?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Chad you couldn't be more wrong. Jose Duarte is an avowed libertarian crank. He makes a habit of looking for papers relating to climate science and making nonsense claims.

    Every time he finds a paper with findings that don't suit his ideology, he cries fraud and insists the paper be withdrawn. I'm not kidding.

    He really is that weird.

    Jose Duarte didn't find anything wrong with Cook13. Just because he claims it, doesn't make it so. All sorts of weird people make weird claims. (Some people claim that global surface temperatures haven't risen, others that an ice age cometh any day now, others that earth is flat, others that there are lizard men ruling the world, and others that Agenda21 is an evil plot to divest people of their property and wealth.)

    Some people aren't capable of distinguishing wackos from normal people, or crackpot "theories" from reality. That's why they live on denier blogs and only rarely visit the real world, to make dumb protests.

    Judith Curry often promotes crackpots. Her readers demand it.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Ha ha - love Buck's repetition of the good old denier meme.

    I wonder if Buck knows that this time it's us who are causing climate change? Change not seen since before the beginning of human civilisation.

    Heck, the way we're going (and if Judith Curry had her way of no mitigation), we'll be causing climate change not seen since before humans evolved, never mind since civilisation.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thanks for coming Mr.. errr..Size. Leave your details on the piano.
    NEXT PLEASE!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Sou, you know that science works by providing evidence, right? You can't just claim "... Jose Duarte didn't find anything wrong with Cook13. ..." without any evidence. His website at the link gives a number of examples of how Cook et al. didn't actually do what they claimed to have done in their Materials & Methods.

    You can't just wave your hands and go into a hissy fit -- you've got to show why that evidence is either wrong or doesn't back up Duarte's claim. Since you don't seem to want to do that, it's fair for readers to infer that you can't, and thus that your claim that Cook et al 2013 is not scientifically invalid is itself invalid.

    If you're willing to write and promote such poorly-researched claims as that, it's a good bet your other claims are as poorly-researched, and also invalid. My bet is that's what JC was referring to in implying your post was a "sewer".

    ReplyDelete
  24. Mondoman why can't I make that claim? Jose didn't provide any rational evidence and neither did Chuck. You can't just wave your hands and have a hissy fit and claim that I'm unwilling to do provide evidence without any evidence. This entire website is devoted to evidence.

    If you're willing to write and promote such poorly researched "claims" as Jose Duarte, it's a good bet that you are a science denier and your other claims would be equally invalid.

    My bet is that you regard the fake scepticism and slurs personal attacks seen on Climate etc is "good science" and that real climate scientists "don't no nuffin'"

    BTW Here are some of Jose's wrong claims:

    That mitigation papers should be excluded - wrong.

    That psych papers were included when they weren't - they were marked "not climate related" and excluded.

    That the researchers collaborated when rating - they didn't.

    That raters were "biased" - they weren't. You can check the ratings yourself. He seems to be suggesting that they should have used non-humans to categorise the papers!

    That raters "weren't qualified" - they were. Plus the findings are supported by similar studies.

    That the study constitutes "fraud" - utterly ridiculous. The findings were consistent with a separate part of the study where authors themselves rated their own papers. The findings were also consistent with other quite separate studies.

    That there were papers that the Web of Science search didn't spit out. Well, there are undoubtedly climate papers that would have appeared had a different database been queried -but the results would be very unlikely to have been any different.

    Jose's entire article is one long emotional rant, not based in fact. The fact that he waves about words like "fraud" without so much as attempting to do his own analysis shows that he's just a nut job.

    No different to Richard Tol's "they must have got tired"!

    Why haven't fake sceptics done a similar analysis if you're so certain that this study is "wrong"? Let me guess...

    Heck - Cook et al have even provided more than 11,000 papers that if you got together with a bunch of fellow fake sceptics, you could dash off your analysis in a couple of weeks. Too lazy. Too scared. All denier talk no guts.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I think the claim by Duarte that the raters were biased is the biggest laugh I have ever had. It was postulated as a fact by Duarte, and the evidence provided was none. And yet he could have, because *the authors wrote that it could be an explanation for their results!*

    Upon which they showed using the author ratings that if anything, the raters had been conservative in their ratings based on the abstracts.

    One wonders why Duarte ignored that...

    ReplyDelete
  26. What qualifications does Jose have to make his false allegations? He's a libertarian PhD student studying psych (if he's still enrolled), who makes a habit of screeching for withdrawal of papers that he doesn't like and wailing "fraud".

    http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es505183e

    What about the people who did the study?

    They included university academics and laypeople. There were scientists with expertise in climate change, chemistry, meteorology, cognitive psychology, environmental science, and geography. The team included students and professors and retired scientists. The team had expertise across a range of disciplines, both in the physical and social sciences.

    The rating system was highly structured and specific and ensured consistency no matter the individual expertise of people categorising the papers.

    The ratings were double checked and sometimes triple checked. The results showed a high level of consistency.

    The results were confirmed by an independent survey of authors of the papers.

    Could there have been one or two papers rated differently? Maybe. Would it have made any substantial difference to the overall results. Extremely unlikely.

    Remember, there are almost no papers that dispute that humans are causing global warming these days. Deniers like to imagine otherwise - but they can't produce the goods.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Almost forgot:
    "Why haven't fake sceptics done a similar analysis if you're so certain that this study is "wrong"?"

    Reminds me of the Lewandowsky poll they so complained about, which they then 'repeated' on WUWT, but decided not to analyse. One can only wonder why...

    ReplyDelete
  28. Yes. The WUWT survey that A Scott did got given to Steve McIntyre who promptly buried it. Wonder why? (Apart from the fact that the stats were demonstrably beyond his expertise.)

    A Scott reckons it's being prepared for publication - yeah, right! Lewandowsky did his survey and published within weeks. The years roll by and no sign of the buried A Scott survey.

    Do I sense a conspiracy of deniers? :D

    ReplyDelete
  29. Getting back to Judy Curry if we may, she did respond to me this time around and can therefore no longer claim to be unaware of the issue I raised back in the summer of '13.

    Now she's ignoring me, but one of her many merry minions is on the case. My most recent riposte:

    https://archive.today/eyXy3#selection-14691.0-14715.113

    Who is it that is in fact the “way too credulous enforcer of absurd memes” here?

    ReplyDelete


  30. Why is it people like Mondoman demand such high levels of effort to have their allegations refuted but offer absolutely nothing in return? I notice that Sou offered quite a number of points explaining why Duarte's allegations are not substantial. And from Mondoman in return? Zilch, nothing, nada. So typical of deniers.

    Even a brief look at Duarte's article it is clear it is full of strawmen arguments. Here is one:

    Now, let's look at a tiny sample of papers they didn't include:

    followed by a list of classic denier tracts. Cook documented quite clearly how papers were selected and the method was, as is required, as value free as possible. To start whinging about what was not included completely misses the point of the study.

    I guess we will not hear back from Mondoman. He knows that the Duarte tosh is indefensible if you actually have to engage with the details. I guess he is one of these people who believes the ridiculous numbers thrown around by deniers such as only 0.3% of scientists ascribe to AGW.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Jammy, deniers have a well-earned reputation for double standards and inconsistency. As you'll probably have guessed, mondoman didn't attack Judith Curry in the same manner for her throwaway comment of unsubstantiated allegations about Cook13. Neither here nor at Curry's place.

    And mondoman admits that he isn't capable of telling good science from nonsense (with his "it's a good bet your other claims are as poorly-researched, and also invalid").

    Typically fake sceptics are willing to "believe" any dumb allegation made against scientists, that is not substantiated. Typically too they haven't the wit to see the irony in their stance. And typically they haven't the strength of character to do any more than make drive-by attacks.

    He's probably sulking somewhere thinking what a nasty person I am for using his own words against him. Not recognising his own innate nastiness, or that of his heroine, Judith Curry.

    ReplyDelete
  32. That's not irony in their stance, Sou, it's hypocrisy.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Sou, I see a lot of assertions in your response, but again no evidence. If you're not sure what "evidence" is (hint: "That the researchers collaborated when rating - they didn't." isn't evidence, but rather an assertion. Assertions need to be backed by evidence), let me know and I can help you out.
    Again, looking forward to seeing some evidence from you (but not too hopeful :( ).

    PS - You'd save seemingly two-thirds of the text you write here if you'd leave out the ad-hominems. Think of the feelings of the electrons you're wasting :)

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  34. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Mondoman - I provided ample evidence. There is more in the paper itself. Why not read it? (I know, I know, you can't understand it. Too sciency.)

    There was no opportunity for the raters to collaborate. They downloaded the abstracts independently.

    As for your sooky tone trolling, you would have got a polite response if you'd been courteous yourself, rather than barging in with insults and personal attacks. Don't come crying now. You are being treated much better than you deserve.

    I can tell from your comments and predictable behaviour that no amount of evidence would persuade you that climate science is not some giant hoax to make scientists rich at your expense. You probably think that its a New World Order conspiracy of Jewish bankers from the 17th century or some such thing.

    Just as it is obvious that no matter what evidence was provided or how simply it was presented, you couldn't understand it. Otherwise you'd not have come here in attack mode in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Mondoman, "The researchers collaborated when rating" is also an assertion. Where's your evidence of collaboration?

    Also please learn what an ad hominem is.

    ReplyDelete
  37. From a supplementary paper by Cook et al:

    Discussion of the methodology of categorising abstract text formed part of the training period in the initial stages of the rating period. When presented to raters, abstracts were selected at random from a sample size of 12,464. Hence for all practical purposes, each rating session was independent from other rating sessions.

    While a few example abstracts were discussed for the purposes of rater training and clarification of category parameters, the ratings and raters were otherwise independent. This was discussed in C13; “While criteria for determining ratings were defined prior to the rating period, some clarifications and amendments were required as specific situations
    presented themselves.”

    Independence of the raters was important to identify uncertainties based on interpretation of the rating criteria, but had little bearing on the final conclusion. Indeed, the conclusion is strengthened by the fact that the vast majority of rater disagreements were between no position and endorsement categories; very few
    affected the rejection bin.


    http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/24_errors.pdf?f=24errors

    See also my take on Richard Tol's ridiculous behaviour:

    http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/06/busted-how-ridiculous-richard-tol-makes.html

    And from the paper itself:

    Abstracts were randomly distributed via a web-based system to raters with only the title and abstract visible. All other information such as author names and affiliations, journal and publishing date were hidden. Each abstract was categorized by two independent, anonymized raters. A team of 12 individuals completed 97.4% (23 061) of the ratings; an additional 12 contributed the remaining 2.6% (607). Initially, 27% of category ratings and 33% of endorsement ratings disagreed. Raters were then allowed to compare and justify or update their rating through the web system, while maintaining anonymity. Following this, 11% of category ratings and 16% of endorsement ratings disagreed; these were then resolved by a third party.

    http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

    Not that I think it should matter. Had two people jointly did various abstracts and then another team of two checked them would have made little to no difference to the outcome. As it was, it was just one person doing one categorisation and one other doing the same thing independently - and where there were differences then a third party stepped in.

    Thing is, if any denier wanted to dispute the results they could easily redo the exercise. The data is all there provided by Cook13.

    People like Mondoman wouldn't care to do that. They find it easier to make false allegations from the sidelines. Just as he's too lazy to check the facts for himself - insisting that I do it for him.

    My time from here on will be billed at $350/hour. Let me know where to send the invoice, Mondoman.

    ReplyDelete
  38. @Mondoman

    You are free and easy with your derision but you just look foolish to any reasonable person. Even if it was true that Sou has only offered "assertions" that is more than you have done. You have only made wild assertions of no substance and offered no analysis of the Duarte paper at all, or not even tried to address any of the points raised by anyone. For you it is just an imperative that the Cook paper must be discredited or your whole bubble construct of denial would be in peril.

    What is strange is that the Cook exercise was quite straightforward. It clearly documented what was done and those were the results. There is not a lot to criticise or question. He did what he did and these are the numbers that come out. So why do deniers like you lose all objectivity and just mindlessly attack it?

    If you and your friends really believe that you would get a different result then why don't you do a similar exercise? It would give us a laugh at least.

    Oh, and here is a hint. (As you are so fond of offering yourself). Do not use the Poptech database of papers. It would open you up to even more ridicule.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I find it very telling that no denier, absolutely none that I can find, has been willing to provide some evidence for their claims regarding Cook et al 2013 by actually doing some research on the subject themselves.

    The Cook et al abstracts were reasonably sampled from the literature as a whole, are available on the web, and anyone can examine and rank that sample to see if their results differ. By my estimation you could classify several hundred abstracts over the course of a Saturday, enough for statistical significance, and see whether the denialist claims of lower consensus are supported.

    Has Mondoman, or anyone else, done this? No. I suspect it's because they know they would only confirm the consensus results, that their assertions are unsupported nonsense.

    ReplyDelete
  40. @KR

    "Anyone can examine and rank that sample ..."

    Moreover it has been made even easier with a webpage customised so any fool can do it:

    Rate the papers yourself Mondoman

    ReplyDelete
  41. Sou: "Thing is, if any denier wanted to dispute the results they could easily redo the exercise. The data is all there provided by Cook13."

    Quite. Cook et al had no difficulty predicting the AGW denier tactics and forestalled them. Nobody could predict Tol's behaviour, or the tactic of "proving" statistically that things must exist even though no examples can actually be found.

    As for the argument that the reviewers might have got tired and demanding timestamps and rater ID's to prove it, who the hell saw that coming?

    ReplyDelete
  42. KR : "I find it very telling that no denier, absolutely none that I can find, has been willing to provide some evidence for their claims regarding Cook et al 2013 by actually doing some research on the subject themselves."

    If you really, really don't want Schroedinger's cat to be dead, just don't look in the box.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Reporting back after my brief excursion to Climate Etc. I did manage to have a little chat with Judy. Here is what she had to say:

    What problem, exactly? I read your post. I stand by what I have written at Climate Etc. on the subject of Arctic sea ice. David Rose’s headline had an error because he used erroneous information that was posted on the NSIDC web site. The NSIDC website fixed the error, David Rose acknowledged the error in print, and I noted all this on my blog post.

    After that she studiously ignored me. One of her many merry minions tried to convince me that 1.38 million square kilometers is much the same as one million square miles, but failed miserably.

    I am forced to conclude that Judy et. al. reside in some sort of alternative universe where the laws of physics are very different to our own. Here is the irrefutable evidence:

    https://archive.today/23x4v#selection-189.0-203.92

    ReplyDelete
  44. It was apparent in 2010 that Judith Curry had lost all reason when she defended Montford's book at RealClimate http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/
    (just search for her comments from #74 on). In fact, the things she said then made her look like nothing more than a common-or-garden denialist lacking even the most basic critical faculties. Some even asked if she was being impersonated as these comments couldn't have been written by a science PhD, could they? Shortly after that she set up Climate Etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From comment #195. :)

      "What a wimpy, pathetic backdown. Sorry to be so blunt, Judith, but when you make a claim that Tamino’s review has “numerous factual errors and misrepresentations” it behooves you to actually list the errors and defend your point of view. Don’t just make vague allegations and run away when challenged. Unless you return and clarify your accusations, your credibility in the debate has now reached zero."

      Delete
    2. It gets better (or worse). At 401 we get:-

      Judith Curry says:
      28 Jul 2010 at 6:37 AM
      I would like to suggest that denizens of RC and CP read Peter Gleick’s testimony on scientific integrity. http://www.pacinst.org/publications/testimony/Gleick_Senate_Commerce_2-7-07.pdf

      He voices concerns about the following threats to scientific integrity (see especially the last page): appealing to emotions; making personal (ad hominem) attacks; deliberately mischaracterizing an inconvenient argument; inappropriate generalization; misuse of facts and uncertainties; false appeal to authority; hidden value judgments; selectively leaving out inconvenient measurement results.

      These tactics are common for merchants of doubt. The tactics are relatively uncommon for the watchdog auditors. I suggest that you evaluate your posts and comments by these standards.

      [Response: Wow. I think the term chutzpah is appropriate here. You could use your time to actually point out all these errors and misrepresentations you claim we’ve made, but instead you simply insunuate that we have no integrity (I think there is a name for that kind of argument….). When you ready to talk about something substantive, we’ll be more than happy to engage, but this kind of pot-shot is no way to encourage a dialogue. – gavin]

      Delete

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