.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Judith Curry's conscience

Sou | 10:48 PM Go to the first of 37 comments. Add a comment
There is not a lot that is more irritating in life than some holier than thou person telling everyone how much holier they are than thou -  most especially when that person is anything but holy. When I think about it, the people who I know who really are holier than most of us mere mortals, don't boast about it. It probably never enters their head to make a "goodliness" or "godliness" comparison. Their essential humility is one reason people choose good people as role models.

What you'll find particularly yucky (the best word I can think of at the moment), is Judith Curry setting herself up as the "conscience of the profession". You think I'm joking? Nope - I'm not.

Destroying or building trust?


For the past couple of days Judith has been doing some soul-searching or navel gazing. She's not found her soul or her navel yet, as far as I can tell. Yesterday she wrote a long series of copy and pastes from an article about epistemic trust and climate science (archived here). After it she wrote:
While the author comes across as supporting the consensus, the paper presents some insightful perspective on the ‘consensus enforcement’ by the establishment and  why a substantial portion of the public is not buying the expert consensus on climate change. It boils down to a lack of trust, and concerns about deceit, conspiracy and groupthink.

At the end she asked her readers:
On this five year anniversary of Climate Etc., has, or how has, Climate Etc. helped to rebuild trust about climate science?

Think about what she wrote. It doesn't take a genius to determine the purpose of Judith's blog, whether she admits it to herself or anyone else. Anyone who's spent a few minutes there soon wakes up to the fact that what she is about is fomenting distrust not building trust. Judith isn't the least bit interested in building trust in climate science. Quite the reverse. The two comments I've pasted above illustrate this.
  • Her first sentence: "While the author comes across as supporting the consensus..." - implying that supporting mainstream science is undesirable. (Mainstream science isn't to be trusted, in Judith's world.)
  • Her follow-up question is also loaded with innuendo. Rebuild trust about climate science? When did it break? Who broke it and why? And what does Judith think she's done to break or build trust? 

Remember, Judith Curry's readership is probably approaching 97% climate science deniers, going by the comments. Deniers reject climate science (by definition). They distrust it, usually for no reason other than that they don't want to "believe" it.  Some think it clashes with their political or religious ideology. It doesn't fit their personal view of the world. They cannot adjust their thinking to accommodate the fact that we are causing global warming. And they are too intellectually lazy to figure it out.


Judith Curry has done her utmost to fan a distrust of science and it shows in her readership. She appeals to the denialati, but few others can see any value in reading the doubt and disinformation she promotes. Deniers flock to Judith's blog because she says what they want to hear, not because she has anything valuable to say. (A lot of what she writes is pure waffle, which I suspect she regards as deep and meaningful philosophy. It isn't.) Judith has lost any trust she might have had from people who matter professionally, from her peers, those who read blogs or who have heard of her. She trades on that, to keep the number of deniers flocking to her. (If the real experts think she's wrong then we have permission to like what she stands for - dissing science.)


How Judith Curry sees herself as the conscience of her profession!


So yesterday Judith wrote about trust and wanted pats on the back for her attempts to destroy trust in climate science. Today she's gone one further. (Some might see this latest as a sign of megalomania or narcissism.)  She has an article with the title "JC's Conscience". It's a strange title for a blog post, assuming by JC, she is referring to herself. Is she showing a God complex?. The thought would pass through your head if you're familiar with Christianity. You'd wonder more on reading the next line, which is a quotation: "Quotations that serve as a conscience of a profession. – Tom Nelson", followed by a lot of Judith Curry quotations, Judith quoting Judith as the conscience of a profession, put together by one of her denier admirers. A person called Robert Bradley.

Robert has a blog on which he writes such things as an article with the title: "The Brave Judith Curry (Part II)" - which is what got Judith preening. In that article, in case you doubt he's a science denier, he has written:
  • the trumped consensus of physical climate science
  • The visceral reaction to her abandonment of the climate ‘consensus’ some years ago has inspired Professor Curry to study the sociology of knowledge to understand the why-behind-the-why of climate alarmism
  • climatologist Michael Mann’s grand deceit as an example of how ideological motivations and emotivism can skew a physical science in spite of the scientific method. I have analogized Mann-like practices to the behaviors exposed at Enron (working from the story to the numbers rather than vice-versa, bullying, consensus, falsity, and failure) in what I call the Enronization of climate science.

So Robert, who can't see that it's most likely his ideology that's warped his view of climate science, and that ideology has nought to do with the fact that global warming is caused by rising greenhouse gases. Nature cares not a whit for ideology.

Judith is delighted and thanks Robert for his compilation. She liked it so much that she copied his quotations of Judith Curry onto her own blog. She quoted Robert quoting Judith Curry in an article about how she lectured some poor unwitting students on ethics. She wrote, in her usual pseudo-philosophical style:
As a researcher, what kinds of responsibilities do you have to
  • your conscience (micro)
  • your colleagues (micro)
  • institutions (micro/macro)
  • the public (macro)
  • the environment (macro)

Unethical Judith Curry alleges malfeasance despite no evidence


Getting back to Judith's previous article, in which she asked her readers "has, or how has, Climate Etc. helped to rebuild trust about climate science?" - let's examine the quotations that Judith liked so much, and see how much she has endeavoured to (re)build trust in climate science. And more than that, let's put them in the context of ethics. How abandonment of ethics leads a person to write stuff like the quotes Judith copied. To be fair to Judith, for each quote I went back to the original, to see just what evidence Judith had provided to support the allegations she made against her colleagues. Judith's quotations of herself are in plain type, my comments are in italics, the links go to the original quote:
In practice, too many scientists, and worse yet professional societies, are conducting their advocacy for emissions reductions in a manner that is not responsible in context of the norms of science. Evidence: None offered
As a result of this lack of a code of behavior for university scientists, there continues to be what I regard as extremely irresponsible public behavior by some climate scientists, and there are absolutely no professional repercussions.  Evidence: None offered
The issue is NOT that scientists have values, or even express them. Rather the problem is engaging in adversarial science in support of these values, whereby their public communications focus on repetition, inflated claims, and disproportionate emphases. Evidence: None offered for "inflated claims or disproportionate emphasis"
Hucksterism is a great word to describe what goes on in the communication of climate science in service of policy advocacy. The complicity of many climate scientists and professional societies in this hucksterism is a cause of great concern. EvidenceNone offered
My main concern re the IPCC consensus seeking and the consensus entrepreneurs is that this is extremely ill-suited to a complex, highly uncertain area of science, and that it acts to bias the science. Scientists defending the consensus end up conducting acts that undermine the consensus through loss of trust in the scientists. Evidence: None offered. This was in a very mixed up article protesting the IPCC, which demonstrated that Judith has either not read or not understood the IPCC reports. One is just as likely as the other. (I don't hold Judith's intellect in high regard, based on reading her blog articles.)
The tragic case in point for climate science is Mann versus McIntyre, as revealed by Andrew Montford and the Climategate emails. ‘Circling the wagons’, even. I’ve written previously of how we managed to quickly get back on track on the hurricane and global warming wars, whereas Mann continues to fight the hockey wars not just by hucksterism but by attacking his opponents. This kind of behavior does not help keep the dangerous human caused climate change narrative alive, and at some point simply becomes pathological. Evidence: None offered. Evidence: Other than calling on the woeful denialism of Andrew Montford and bad "science" of Steven McIntyre - none offered. This comment is particularly ironic since Judith Curry has made a minor career out of attacking Professor Mann. She attacks the integrity of all her colleagues, but she has been singling out Michael Mann in particular for at least the past five years. It seems very personal on her part. 
I have written many posts about Michal (sic) Mann – apart from my own concerns about the hockey stick (Hiding the Decline), I am greatly concerned about Mann’s bullying behavior inserting itself into the scientific process (collaboration, peer review, public communication). My concerns go beyond the general strategies of adversarial science. to what I regard as unethical behavior. EvidenceMore irony. It's Michael Mann who has been attacked. He has not been cowed and stands up for himself and for science. Judith is one of his perennial attackers. She offers not a jot of evidence of any unethical behaviour on the part of Professor Mann, but oodles of evidence of her own lack of ethics.

There's a lot more of the same - smearing of colleagues without cause. Judith is not a nice person. One to avoid. By the way, in that last comment, Judith can't even get her science right. The original "hockey stick" paper (by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in 1998) has nothing to do with "hiding the decline". That's from an email by Phil Jones about a WMO graphic, and relates to work that was done on the other side of the Atlantic, by Keith Briffa and colleagues. It's about the well-known divergence problem in a small number of trees post 1960, whereby the tree rings didn't reflect the change in surface temperature. You might think it's well-known to everyone but Judith Curry perhaps. You'd be wrong. She does know about it and has written about it. Which helps show why I don't hold Judith's intellect in high regard. Put that together with Judith not understanding that 50% = half and you may question it too.


Judith Curry on wicked uncertainty


If you've ever come across Judith's blog, you'll have noticed two things:
  1. Judith makes a big deal about uncertainty, often alleging that science (in general or specifically) is more uncertain than is stated (by whom she rarely says, sometimes the IPCC; by how much she has never said as far as I've seen)
  2. She doesn't understand uncertainty as used in science, and almost never quantifies it.
Judith waves about "uncertainty" as if it's the holy grail. She once read the definition of "wicked problem" and ever since she's also waved about "wicked". 

Almost all scientific papers and reports quantify probability or uncertainty as applied to the results reported - so Judith is wrong on that score, not just because she waffles without quantifying anything herself.  For example, in this article she does a lot of hand-waving about how she thinks the IPCC overstates certainty, providing absolutely no evidence to support her claim.

In regard to her "wicked" problem, addressing global warming does involve complexities - particularly getting buy-in from everyone. In that same article, Judith alleges that policy makers view climate change as a tame, not a wicked problem - with no evidence to support that. In my view, although there are a lot of complexities and players, much of what's needed to reduce emissions is relatively straightforward and can be addressed using policy instruments that have been tried and tested before (R&D incentives, taxation disincentives etc). One major goal is to advance the shift to renewable energy and cut emissions of greenhouse gases. The other is to build resilience, to adapt to climate change (improved fire management technologies, water security, flood mitigation etc.)  Another is to work out how to deal with mass migration, health problems etc, at a time when there will also probably be more civil unrest (from food and water shortages and other pressures).

The main barriers to progress come from people who think like Judith, except for the fact that unlike Judith, they are in positions of power. Actually, the people in power who oppose attempts to protect us from the worst impacts of climate change are likely to be a lot more clear-headed than Judith. They know what they want and why. The average science denier is, in the main, very muddled in their thinking. Many have double standards, and are variously unethical, immoral and/or otherwise unable to understand science (and have a deep distrust of their fellow humans).


"The whole integrity/ethics thing"


Close to the end of her latest article, Judith wrote this:
The whole integrity/ethics thing, in all its complexity, is something that is of paramount importance to me and I think about it a lot.  There are no easy answers, and there are genuine micro/macro conflicts out there. Whether my own choices are ‘good’ or not is in the eye of the beholder.  Some others are clearly making other choices.
If Judith stuck to facts and evidence instead of making up stuff, I doubt she'd find "the whole integrity/ethics thing" nearly as confusing. Some people probably have to make a conscious decision to be honest. (I find that strange. I'd have expected that most people are instinctively honest, and the conscious decision only comes into play when they are toying with the notion of being dishonest.) On the other hand, if she did stick to facts and evidence, Judith would no longer be able to play the martyr/denier. Denier journalists would probably stop running to her for quotes, and denier Republicans would no longer invite her to present at committee hearings.

For all Judith's feigned concern about ethics, she is inclined to disregard them. Most professional societies consider that making wild unsubstantiated allegations about one's professional colleagues is unethical. Some codify this. For example, the accountants' code of conduct requires:
In marketing and promoting themselves and their work, Members shall not bring the profession into disrepute. Members shall be honest and truthful and not:
(a) Make exaggerated claims for the services they are able to offer, the qualifications they possess, or experience they have gained; or
(b) Make disparaging references or unsubstantiated comparisons to the work of others
(From the APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, 2010)

If climate scientists had a code of ethics, perhaps those making disparaging and unsubstantiated allegations against their fellow scientists would be held to account in a more formal manner.


From the comments to Judith Curry


There were more than 400 comments on Judith's "trust" article, from maybe a few dozen people. And 150 on her "ain't I wonderful and ain't climate scientists dreadful" article so far. I didn't read more than a quarter, but enough to notice that there were very few people who admitted to having trust, and only one that I saw commented on Judith's contribution to their ideas. If she is looking for pats on the head, she will get them, but not for the reasons that any normal self-respecting person would hope for. I haven't the stomach for repeating any of the comments. You can read them here and here if you've the patience.


Further reading


Rittel, Horst WJ, and Melvin M. Webber. "Dilemmas in a general theory of planning." Policy sciences 4, no. 2 (1973): 155-169. - article here and pdf here

Briffa, K. R., F. H. Schweingruber, P. D. Jones, T. J. Osborn, S. G. Shiyatov, and E. A. Vaganov. "Reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature at high northern latitudes." Nature 391, no. 6668 (1998): 678-682. doi:10.1038/35596 (subs req'd)

APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants ISSUED: December 2010

37 comments:

  1. Vladimir Putin has a few jobs she can do once Aunty Judith has finished building trust in climate change denial.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Millicent, I read somewhere that Judith doesn't like to be called Aunty Judy. Or is it Aunt Judy? A member of her mutual admiration club, Mark Steyn, told her it was misogynistic, and she decided it was pornographic I think.

      I've never used it or known where it came from. I figured it was in the vein of the nickname given to the BBC and our own ABC. But who knows? If Judith wants to see what real misogyny/porn is, she can walk a few yards in my shoes :(

      She might prefer Saint Judy, self-canonised conscience of her profession :)

      Delete
    2. Her BFF Rick Santelli can give her a job building trust in the financial industry and their adoption of Cyprus style bail-in. After all, if you're not from her neighborhood and a Wall Street robber baron or the father of the Tea Party mo, you're just a stupid, stupid loser. (parts 2-3 sometimes the Crammer can't even reply to John Stewart)

      Delete
    3. A quick google search turns up an, uh, unsavory site called "Aunt Judy's", which specializes in so-called "mature" women.

      I can't say I'm intimately familar with Mark Steyn's collected works, but I would imagine that there's quite a bit of misogyny to be found therein if one looks for it. But then you'd have to actually read it, and I just ate.

      Delete
    4. Perhaps Aunty Jack then? "a unique comic creation"

      Delete
    5. I chuckle just to see the name Aunty Jack. What a great show that was. A breath of fresh air. I didn't know it was originally thought to replace the Argonauts - hard to believe :)

      Delete
    6. Indeed, Mark Steyn took glee in pointing out that "Aunt Judy" is a term that has now been applied older actresses in pornography, and suggested that was what was on the minds of those climate scientists and commenters who used the term with respect to Judith Curry.

      My own recollection of the term is a dated one going back to Aunt Judy's Magazine, a Victorian children's publication remembered (if at all) for its often lecturing and annoyingly self-righteous tone.

      I will humbly defer to Steyn's more in-depth knowledge of pornography.

      Delete
    7. I've learnt a lot of unsavoury things I'd never come across before, through reading stuff from deniers. Things I'd prefer not to have learnt, and managed very well without for several decades. Not just new words not fit for polite company, or their dank conspiracy theories. There are some strange people in cyberspace, who aren't ashamed of much of anything.

      Delete
    8. If it offends Aunt Judy then I'm all for it. It seems to me that calling climate scientists frauds would be a far worse offense.

      Delete
    9. IIRC, I objected to "Aunt Judy" at tamino's, where he had a patronizing nickname for her but not for any of the men whose denial he was tearing to shreds. He seemed rather receptive to this little observation.

      I might have taken that hobby horse here too, I've forgotten. Ancient history -- it would have been last year or so.

      Delete
    10. And I wouldn't notice it here these days next to all the other disparaging nicknames for disparagable people (like Wondering Willis and Eric "Eugenics" Worrall).

      Delete
    11. The name 'Aunty' and 'Uncle' (separate to the original relationship meaning) goes back at least to the early days of TV and Radio when it was often the name given to the person who read stories to children. Then later 'Aunty' was often given to the women who dispensed advice in magazines, subsequently becoming known as 'agony aunts'.

      Summing that up I would say Aunt/Uncle can be a term of endearment, or a relatively gentle insult, for a type of slightly-bossy person who is in a position of authority.

      If I called you 'Aunty Sou', you can definitely take that from me as a term of endearment.:-)

      Delete
    12. One of the odd effects of climate change denial is that their understanding of English becomes strangely different from that of the common herd. For instance, if we take the words "Holocaust denier", which of the two words links to the Holocaust? Is it the word 'denier'? Or is it the word 'Holocaust'. Not a difficult choice one might have thought, but many a climate change denier gets it wrong.

      So to a climate change denier the word 'Aunty' may have all manner of meanings not known to the rest of us mere mortals.

      Delete
  2. If Mann v. Steyn goes to trial and Mann's team calls up Curry as a "hostile witness", I'll spring for the popcorn. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very good deconstruction of the post-science Judith Curry, Sou. I think this single paragraph in particular sums up her/the typical denier's whole schtick rather neatly:

    Remember, Judith Curry's readership is probably approaching 97% climate science deniers, going by the comments. Deniers reject climate science (by definition). They distrust it, usually for no reason other than that they don't want to "believe" it. Some think it clashes with their political or religious ideology. It doesn't fit their personal view of the world. They cannot adjust their thinking to accommodate the fact that we are causing global warming. And they are too intellectually lazy to figure it out.

    She is, AFAIK, trying to run a business on forecasting how the changes to our climate will (or in her estimation - won't!) impact the economy, so I see a rather large conflict of interest there - going against what the science/physics is obviously telling us - that motivates her denial.

    I remember that the real break with her fellow scientists began quite a while back when she uncritically embraced Montford's risible book. Gavin Schmidt didn't know what to make of it at all. And neither did the rest of us who understand the science.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, let's see how the principle of a whole-hearted and unwavering embracing of uncertainty guided Dr. Curry following Gavin Schmidt's point by point rebuttal of Montford's effort. Naturally Dr. C. framed the question thus:
      1. Montford has made a series of implicit and explicit accusations against Mann, Jones and a number of other scientists.
      2. Schmidt has rebutted most of Montford's claims, with frequent use of references from peer-reviewed journals.

      So Judith, true to her role as championing an honest approach to uncertainty goes about assessing the uncertainties in each statement made by montford and by Schmidt , doubtless identifying the epistemic and ontic components. She delves into the references they cite, etc. etc.

      At the end of this process she comes up with a quantified uncertainty for each of Montford's claims, say: "10% probability that, pre-1998, there was a consensus among climate scientists that there was a Medieval Warm Period, at least as warm as the present, covering the whole globe".

      Well, no actually, she said, without providing an uncertainty analysis, that Montford was now "more convincing" (in the language of uncertainty this presumably means a higher probability can be attached to them) because Schmidt's rebuttal contained "logical flaws", none of which were actually identified by Curry.
      If Curry were really to embrace the application of rigorous uncertainty analysis she certainly wouldn’t have time to maintain her blog.


      Delete
    2. @ Bill H: Clearly, if Gavin Schmidt had to rely on the peer-reviewed scientific literature as a crutch his arguments couldn't have been that good.

      I enjoy watching this now and then: The Hamster Wheel: Lord Monckton

      Delete
    3. I remember reading Curry's comments on Real Climate in response to Tamino's deconstruction (aka destruction) of Montford's claims. I was rather shocked at the time, but have learned that it was her SOP -attack, smear, provide no evidence, misrepresent, show she hasn't even really read the material, then run away and tell anyone who would listen about those meanie bullying scientists.

      It started on this thread here:

      Judith Curry says: 23 Jul 2010 at 6:20 AM JC’s grade for the review: C- pros: well written, persuasive cons: numerous factual errors and misrepresentations, failure to address many of the main points of the book If anyone is seriously interested in a discussion on this book, I can see that RC isn’t the place, people elsewhere are already describing their posts not making it through moderation.

      [Response: Grading on the Curry Curve perhaps? Judith, the fact is that endless repetitions of allegations of corruption do not make them true. Really, do you think that collaborators having a ‘purpose’ is some terrible indictment of their research? Tamino has demonstrated clearly that Montford’s book is full of errors and insinuations that have no basis in fact. And now you come along and tell us that, no those weren’t the important bits at all, it’s the other stuff. Which you still haven’t actually described. You might find it amusing to play hunt the thimble, but excuse me if I find it a little tiresome. Please make your actual point. – gavin] - See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/comment-page-2/#comments

      Gavin takes apart her evidence-free attack and smear piece by piece using in comment number #168 . Well worth reading but too long to post here. It ends with Gavin writing:

      ["Judith, I implore you to do some work for yourself instead of just repeating things you read in blogs. (Hint, not everything on the Internet is reliable). ]

      then comes her response to Gavin's long post refuting all her points:

      185 Judith Curry says: 24 Jul 2010 at 2:36 PM Gavin, the post I made in #167 was a summary of Montford’s book as closely as I can remember it, sort of a review. I did not particularly bring in my personal opinions into this, other than the framing of montford’s points. So asking me to retract a point made in a book in a review of that book is, well, pointless. your attempt to rebut my points are full of logical fallacies and arguing at points i didn’t make. As a result, Montford’s theses look even more convincing. Once you’e in a hole, you can try to climb out or keep digging. Well keep digging, Gavin. My final words: read the book.

      [Response: Thanks for passing by. In future I will simply assume you are a conduit for untrue statements rather than their originator. And if we are offering advice, might I suggest that you actually engage your critical faculties before demanding that others waste their time rebutting nonsense. I, for one, have much better things to do. – gavin] - See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/comment-page-4/#comments

      The following commenters by RC posters are well worth reading too.

      http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/comment-page-4/#comments

      Delete
    4. Judith did almost exactly the same thing some months earlier (in April that year), supported by Keith Kloor on his blog. Spouting denier drivel, trashing her colleagues, then when caught out protested that she was innocent/ignorant. Adopting denier mis-interpretations of snippets of stolen emails as her own, citing Wegman etc.

      That was just after she "came out" as a denier. I had the advantage of never having heard of her before. So I recognised what she was doing fairly quickly. Her lies and concern trolling were the same as that of every other denier I'd come across over the years. Other people recognised her behaviour for what it was at the time, too - those who'd been blogging climate for a while. Judith's behaviour was right in line with the classic denier stereotype. There could be no mistake.

      It might have been harder for people who knew her or knew of her. I'd say that Gavin spotted it early. He is just very polite and conscious of what lurkers will read into comments. He's a savvy communicator.

      Then not long after her realclimate performance, she was crowned denier queen at Lisbon, with a T-shirt from Tallbloke.

      Judith hasn't changed direction in the past five years. She's just sunk deeper and doesn't bother pretending to be a scientist any more. Or not often at any rate.

      Delete
    5. You could say that Judith Curry's BEST years are behind her.

      PS I have linked to an American Thinker thingy in the Singer thread.

      Delete
    6. A T-shirt from Tallbloke? I hadn't been aware of that episode.

      Tallbloke is a special-relativity "skeptic", which to anyone who knows physics well, is a 100% reliable indicator that he is a crackpot.

      Not all crackpots are special-rel skeptics, but every single special-rel skeptic is a crackpot.

      Delete
    7. Not just special relativity, but he believes in the existence of the aether, as waves require a medium to propagate ...

      Delete
    8. Well, so much for quantum field theory, I guess.

      Delete
    9. See the video of the t-shirt presentation here.

      When I saw this I concluded that she had long since let science and fact slide in favor of adulation from deniers.

      Delete
    10. Of course, being on Fred Singers contact list when requesting help to stop the "Merchants of Doubt" documentary, along with Steve Goddard, Dreissen, Delingpole, Milloy, Morano, Nova, Willie Soon, and others is also a bad sign.

      Delete
    11. Sou:
      "Judith did almost exactly the same thing some months earlier (in April that year), supported by Keith Kloor on his blog."

      I have just been following up on that and 'comment 51' appears to have vanished from that Kloor piece.

      Wayback cannot help either.

      This is the second time in the last week that I have had occasion to re-visit that Real Climate 'The Montford Delusion' article. It is often good to remind ourselves of how long Judy has been treading the path she is now on. BTW 'Aunt Judy's' also brought to mind a magazine which my grandparents still had a few issues of back in the 1950s, I had never heard about 'the other one' 'till these article comments.

      Delete
  4. This quote: The issue is NOT that scientists have values, or even express them. Rather the problem is engaging in adversarial science in support of these values, whereby their public communications focus on repetition, inflated claims, and disproportionate emphases.

    I assume Judith Curry doesn't own a mirror? Projection much?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good point about repetition. JC seems to think that simply repeating over and over again phrases like "Mike's Nature Trick", "Hide the Decline", "Mannian" and "implicated in Climategate" suffice to justify her claims.

      Delete
  5. Judith has a massive conscience
    she hides it under the stair
    Its has a way bigger screen than the old one
    and she's got 1.3 terabytes spare.



    ReplyDelete
  6. In this post, Curry continues her crusade against politicised science by allying herself with an energy analyst who has been a founder member of political thinktanks(!).

    More generally, Curry’s ethics and science are best illustrated in her own words.

    Ethics:
    In the climate wars, those that use pejorative names for people that they disagree with are the equivalents of racists and anti-semites, and deserve opprobrium and disrespect.
    http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/11/charlie-challenging-free-speech/

    Mann continues to fight the hockey wars not just by hucksterism but by attacking his opponents.
    http://judithcurry.com/2015/08/12/the-adversarial-method-versus-feynman-integrity-2/

    Science:
    I think it unlikely that 100% of the increase in atm CO2 is caused by humans. It is not unreasonable to start from a point of 50-50 (Fred’s conclusion) and see if you can falsify natural variability as large as 50%. It may not be 50%, but I don’t think it is 0%
    http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/

    Her comments on the CO2 rise in the latter post are breathtaking. Highly recommended for anyone who want an insight into her approach to science in the climate debate. Likewise her comments on the Charlie Hebdo for her ethical stance.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Curry is oblivious to everything. I fanned the flames a while back when she claimed that water droplet and ice condensation was governed by Bose-Einstein statistics, and I challenged her. To those of us that have taken advanced physics courses and actually used these principles, this was an absolute howler, and set herself up as one of the biggest scientific charlatans of all time .

    Once she admits that she knows what she does not know, she may be pardoned.

    Lindzen and her are examples of what Lindzen is talking about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bose-Einstein statistics?

      Yowza!

      Delete
    2. That's what I thought, too. But of course to question Curry in her lair will unleash the denizens who will go to extremes to defend her.

      Delete
    3. Well, since most, though, importantly, not all water molecules have integral nuclear spin I guess she's sort of right. That said, to suggest using quantum statistics to analyse a macro-process like condensation of water drops is absurdly pretentious (like that stuff she came out with about epistemic versus ontic uncertainty).

      Delete
    4. "importantly, not all water molecules have integral nuclear spin I guess she's sort of right"

      That's what some of the denizens got me on, and then they started to pile on and turn the tables on me. Because all that matters is scoring points, of course. Yet the overall premise is patently absurd as you say.


      BTW, are you related to the Douglas Hartree of the famous Hartree-Fock method of quantum mechanics ?



      Delete
  8. AH, the Lisbon meeting, 2011. Not only was I there, I even make a cameo appearance in the video. I'm the one at the far end of the table, a mere three places down from Saint Judith of the Immaculate Conscience. The pic on the t-shirt is particularly telling: Curry inside a dustbin (that's trash-can in US English) labelled "climate science". By approving of that she was already endorsing the view that most climate science is crap (which is very much Tallbloke's opinion as well).

    ReplyDelete
  9. AH, the Lisbon meeting, 2011. Not only was I there, I even make a cameo appearance in the video. I'm the one at the far end of the table, a mere three places down from Saint Judith of the Immaculate Conscience. The pic on the t-shirt is particularly telling: Curry inside a dustbin (that's trash-can in US English) labelled "climate science". By approving of that she was already endorsing the view that most climate science is crap (which is very much Tallbloke's opinion as well).

    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.