Thing is, Anthony seems to have all but given up on his blog. These past few weeks he's handed the WUWT keys to Eric "eugenics" Worrall mainly. But Anthony's been pretty well absent for longer than a few weeks.
I noticed some time ago that Anthony had all but stopped contributing to WUWT, so I thought I'd look at the evidence. Below is a run down of what Anthony Watts has written all by himself since the beginning of February. I don't count copies and pastes of press releases or newspaper articles, or copies and pastes from other denier blogs, but am still erring on the side of leniency.
February to May inclusive - only 21 out of 414 articles are "originals" by Anthony Watts, being generous
Out of 414 WUWT articles since the beginning of February, Anthony has only contributed 21 of his own "original" thoughts. And most of those are a very poor effort - and few have anything to do with weather or climate. Here's his contribution since the beginning of February:
May 2015 - only 3 out of 48 WUWT "articles" so far
- A conspiracy theory about the University of South Australia
- A cobbled together hotch potch about sea ice (archived here)
- A video from the Denier 101 MOOC of Ben Santer, in which Anthony, who regards himself as denier supremo, bemoans the fact that he barely rated a mention (archived here)
April 2015 - only 6 out of 125 articles in April
- A few charts from here and there about hurricane landfalls in the USA (archived here)
- An article, full of invective, that anyone would dare say that climate change means storms are getting fiercer (archived here) - which is likely, as Anthony Watts himself promoted in February this year (Anthony's memory is shot)
- A video promoting CO2 denier, Murry Salby - including this is marginal - Anthony got it from another denier blog (archived here)
- Three articles conspiracy theorising nefarious intent on the part of Twitter, after some nutty denier got his Twitter account suspended after dozens of blocks when he trolled #Ringberg15
March 2015 - 7 out of 126 articles in March, if you could call them "articles"
- A snapshot and video of some clouds, with few words (archived here)
- A few rare words dismissing a scientific paper about chemicals released after the Japan earthquake (archived here)
- Some words and pictures showing Anthony didn't understand Rahmstorf15, about AMOC (archived here)
- A photo and two videos of a solar eclipse, accompanied by 2 1/2 short sentences. (archived here)
- An email from a mate, with a photo of a cloud (marginal inclusion - Anthony didn't actually write more than ten words himself) (archived here)
- An article promoting Tim Ball and some utter nutter conspiracy theorists from Vancouver Island, and their "Freedom Water"
- A few words about snow and a couple of photos of heavy hail on a Californian beach, which so-called "meteorologist" Anthony thought was snow (but wasn't) (archived here)
February 2015 - 5 out of 115 articles
- A housekeeping article about Adobe typekit causing problems for WUWT-ers (archived here)
- An article about some paper Anthony dug up from five years ago, written by 53 people, that he was irate that it didn't declare every single funding source ever received by every one of those 53 people (archived here)
- An article in which Anthony argues that deniers have the right to "smear" scientists for doing science, but normal people aren't allowed to criticise deniers for failing to declare financial interests. (archived here)
- An article about how ATTP briefly lost his cool with Richard Tol (and who could blame him), but not saying how ATTP thought better of his language and promptly deleted it (archived here)
- With an almost complete absence of WUWT articles about the ongoing devastating Californian drought, an article about some rain that briefly fell in California (archived here)
I stopped at that point - but as I started noticing his absence in December, I think January wasn't any better. I wonder if Anthony's tossed in the towel.
The odd thing is that no-one at WUWT seems to have noticed his disappearance. I guess people are right when they say, you can't tell one denier from another - they all look alike.
"I guess people are right when they say, you can't tell one denier from another - they all look alike."
ReplyDeleteMaybe its just that they all feed at the same trough.
Very true, Millicent.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't be bothered pointing out that while Tim Ball was oohing and aahing over plants, or the ones that evolved while the atmosphere had more CO2 at any rate (who cares about the others), no-one raised the point that humans evolved when CO2 was considerably less than it is today.
Tim doesn't care much for humans.
I've known a few people now who have withdrawn from some of their work in writing or interacting with others. My dad, and a couple of others, stopped interacting because they were losing their words, so their sentences kept stuttering to a halt while they tried to find the word they wanted. One other stopped because he was going deaf and it was becoming to hard to continue to interact the way he had.
ReplyDeleteOne friend stopped writing because he could no longer focus on what he wanted to say---he found he would lose the track of the sentence while writing it and would need to reread it to figure out what he was going to say. Another one stopped writing because he no longer had the energy or time to keep up to date, and was finding even papers in his field were above his head. Then there are those whose priorities changed as they aged, and they were more interested in other items than continuing the work needed to be relevant writers.
It is rather depressing watching mentors age, and then later seeing it happening to your peers. My close friend started losing his words and his memory. He's aware that his dad also experienced the same symptoms as his age. His dad lived 20 more years before dementia finally claimed him. So my friend started to withdraw from his former activities through depression and because he was finding it too difficult to do. Even reading became a chore and he stopped nearly all science and non-fiction reading (he now enjoys fiction, and is actually bouncing back from his depression as he finds new ways he can still enjoy life).
tl;dr version: I suspect age may be playing a role in Anthony's departure. Having watched that happen to so many I know, including my close friend, I truly hope that it isn't because his mental facilities are declining. He may be an insecure D-K pinhead who has suddenly realized just how over his head he is, but I wouldn't wish this type of decline on him.
I don't wish any type of illness or dementia on Watts either, but to be fair, you don't need a functioning brain to do the stuff he does. I mean, I'm willing to bet that the majority of WUWT regulars are old, white guys who are too far gone to even realize how much their brain capacity has been reduced over the years. Ego can trump that kind of thing.
DeleteMaybe he's just busy with his companies, or it's personal stuff (wife was ill a while ago) that he will certainly use to bully everyone into silence, or this venture is simply not bringing in enough via donations, sales of weather gadgets and Heartland blood money. Or maybe he's finishing that bombshell paper and reviving the surface station project website, right?
Who knows?
Who cares?
Nothing he does could ever make up for what he did.
I am an old 65+ 'white' guy who just got a new fridge. The door on the old fridge of 25+ years opened from the left. This new one opens from the right. Unless I concentrate I still try to open the door from the left.
DeleteThe real trick is to recognise the inherent problem and work on it. So I am practising by regularly going to the fridge to get another tinnie. It has been four days now of relentless practice. My neuroplasticity is not as good as it used to be. Far more work needs to be done!
Will report on the results as they come in. Bert
Bert that's noting. I followed Sou's link to fan of mass murderers above. It's from a January 4th 2015 Hotwhopper article. There is a long comment in that post from me and even though it was only 5 months ago I have no memory of writing it. Fridge-smidge!
DeleteBert, make sure you take a taxi to get more supplies, after your fridge is emptied :)
DeleteHmm ... so the more you fail, the more you need practise, the more tinnies you get?
DeleteI think you may need to modify the experiment to provide proper psychological motivation. So, its a glass of water for you each time you try to open the door from the left: you only get the tinnie when you try to open the door correctly first time.
Well, perhaps you could substitute a less favoured brand for the water. else the experiment might be abandoned prematurely.
I have more supplies now Sou and Millicent . To insert them into the fridge needs correct door handling. I started a consensus group to make sure we opened the fridge the correct way. After many meetings we have decided to approach this difficult task by trial and error as we are really idiots. Optimising our value added approach is both difficult and demanding. Bert
DeleteBert, electrify the left side of the fridge.
DeleteYou'll be amazed how quickly your neuroplasticity increases...
I put up my latest unpaid electricity bill on the left side. It was aversion therapy par excellance! Bert
DeleteA musical interlude.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aWDxuhD0FI&list=RD2w1g-idt-8U&index=8
Bert
Isn't it a bit early to be writing him off on the grounds of age-related degeneration? He's only in his mid-50s. Family/own illness? ennui? Crippling gust of revulsion at the denialist fraternity?
ReplyDeleteWriting his speech for the Heartland denier fest? Trying to figure out what to do with the money he got from deniers for his failed OAS? Berating poor Evan Jones for not finding what Anthony wanted him to find in US surface stations?
DeleteLots of possibilities - health, money, boredom, burn-out. He may be preoccupied with something quite unrelated. It's pointless to speculate why he's taken a break. He may re-emerge one of these days. Meanwhile, he's still got lots of deniers willing to fill the void.
Sou there are bigger fish to fry. CE, Heartland, MBTT (Making a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow) Jo...um.. whatever, the entire Republican Party, The right wing of the Liberal Party, UAH, GWPG,
DeleteSou there is no hiatus.
Perhaps Watts has come to realise that the more he writes, the stupider he looks. So its best to leave the citizen science to the other numpties, just so long as he still collects whatever income WUWT provides.
Delete"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remains silent." Ludwig Wittgenstein
Delete"Name calling and labeling does nothing but lower your own level of discourse, when you have no other facts to present, which is why alarmists often resort to name calling and labeling." Anthony Watts
Anthony's busy with the MOOC so cut him some slack will ya?
DeleteIt's his last chance to complete a tertiary course.
(He bought the frame 26 years ago and if all goes well he'll soon have something to shove in it )