Today Anthony Watts is celebrating ten years of agnotology and crank conspiracy theories. He hasn't said much about it, probably hoping his dismal readers will heap him with praise (which they have). He did claim credit for heroically helping to "change the world", keeping true to his narcissist personality.He thanked his gallery of rogues who have spent a lot of time trying to dumb down the world. All one hundred and six of them, some as anonymous cowards.
Anthony doesn't know the names of many climate scientists, but he managed to come up with a very small number to show how he's not just a hero, but a persecuted victim - out of the thousands and thousands and thousands he could have chosen (like those listed here). He poured scorn on only 12 people, including world leading scientists, climate hawks, bloggers, and other knowledgeable people. This is to be expected of course, since Anthony Watts wants to rid the world of climate science and claims fraud and fakery when he comes across science, to keep his errant audience happy.
He didn't mention his other miserable failures, like what caused him to start his blog in the first place (searching for something to do after getting turfed from a school board was one reason, as I understand it), or earlier losing his job as a tv weatherman (was he pushed, or did he really quit on a whim?), or his long promised but never appearing "paper" (first announced in 2012) and his secret Open Atmospheric Society, which is in a deep and long drawn-out coma after Anthony got enough people to shell out their hard-earned cash.
Anthony put up a link to a tribute from his holy roller, most(ly) hysterical fan, Janice Moore. It was a 2,436 page pdf file of nuttiness copied and pasted from WUWT. Oh and he didn't waste the opportunity to ask for beer money, either, which just goes to show how successful he must be :(
A Tribute to Anthony Watts and Wattsupwiththat
Here is my tribute to Anthony Watts and WUWT. Okay, it's not mine - but it is a great tribute from Peter Sinclair - greenman3610. Anthony loved it so much that he tried to take it down with a DMCA notice. That was another miserable failure 😋
From the WUWT comments
The comments show that Anthony's been a success - in attracting rather a lot of utter nutter conspiracy theorists and science deniers. These wacky people found each other, thanks to the internet. Having found that they agree that science is a hoax (though they don't agree why), knowledge is bad, ignorance is something to admire, and disinformation should be broadcast - they are now satisfied members of the Scientific Illiterati.
WUWT has helped bolster Eugene WR Gallun's science denial:
November 17, 2016 at 9:18 pm
Anthony —
Right from the beginning I recognized CAGW was a crock of shiit. That was “correct opinion”. I found your site and you offered me “knowledge”. Thankyou. Thankyou.
Eugene WR Gallun
PS — Have a few beers on me.
WUWT persuaded GeeJam that "miniscule" can't make a difference:
November 17, 2016 at 1:30 pm
Enjoy your beer(s) Ant4ony . . . .
Many in the UK would not have discovered your excellent web site had it not been for the Telegraph’s mighty Mr Booker! (and don’t forget ‘Jimbo’ – who could be relied upon everyday to come up with links to ‘evidence’)
. . . . and now, I’m an everyday ‘Lurker’ – you helped me make up my mind five years ago about the almost microscopic amount of man-made CO2 up there in the sky. Thank you Ant4ony.
Roger Pielke Senior - rpielke - is a fan of disinformation and science denial and values WUWT's pseudo-science crackpottery:
November 17, 2016 at 11:54 am
Hi Anthony. Congratulations! You have significantly and positively contributed to climate science. All the best for the next ten years!!! Roger Sr
Peter Morris says that WUWT has given him lots of denier memes and conspiracy theories to pass on to his young daughter. (Some parents have no conscience.):
November 17, 2016 at 11:56 am
Hey congratulations on ten years!
I found this site probably in 2007 or so, as my wife and I were making plans for our first child. I thought, “Well I’ve never seriously looked at this global warming thing. I should probably figure out what’s going on if I’m going to be a dad.”
I knew the one side already – having been exposed to it since the early 90s from various articles I’d read, starting in high school.
So I thought I’d give the other side some air time. I did some looking around online and found Dr. Happer’s congressional testimony. I found it fascinating that he was a) not alarmed and b) not convinced it was a bad thing at all that so much CO2 was going into the air.
Since I was living near Princeton at the time, I figured I’d just call his office and see if he’d want to grab a coffee or something. He was more than happy to oblige and he gave me a great primer on some of the problems with the primary theory of anthropogenic CO2 driven climate change.
Shortly after that I found WUWT, Dr. Spencer’s site, and the work of the Steves. I’ve been watching and reading ever since. It’s been a great learning experience, and the best part is I feel more than capable to answer any questions my daughter (who is now 7) might one day have.
So thanks again, Anthony. Your work and the work of others does not go unappreciated and it most definitely DOES make a real difference.
I don't think Nigel in Santa Barbara is deliberately taking the Mickey, but who can tell!
November 17, 2016 at 11:57 am
Congratulations! A job well done!
WUWT is my go-to daily website for learning some critical thinking.
Roy Denio needs his daily dose of disinformation:
November 17, 2016 at 12:07 pm
Congratulations Anthony, and thanks for the hard work. If I only were able to visit one site on a particular day: it will always be WUWT.
This is the goto site for climate information.
In a backhanded compliment, Luca doesn't think that Anthony's efforts at disinforming the public are recognised.
November 17, 2016 at 12:10 pm
Sincere congratulations for your amazing work. Maybe not any time soon, but future generations will recognise your contribution to honesty and truth!
Larry McGeehan wants to split open some heads to see if there are any brains inside what passes for "great minds" at WUWT:
November 17, 2016 at 12:18 pm
Congratulations Anthony,
You and your volunteers have provided an one of a kind site that brings great minds, lets them open up, and allows the less informed see what is inside!
Thanks
Hans sees himself as a soldier in Anthony Watts' (almost) ten year war against science:
November 17, 2016 at 3:58 pm
As I think of the struggle against the warmists, I am reminded of the struggle of the allied troupes in WWII.
Maybe the comparison not appropriate, but the fight against the warmists is just as difficult.
Do not let up from those who wish to dominate us.
Your battle, like that of the British had little support until the USA became involved in the conflict.
It appears this may be a repeat of history.
Hans
Some people, like Lil Fella from OZ, are hopeful that Donald Trump will be the one to overturn 200 years of science. He probably believes Trump's false promises, as well as the false promises from WUWT that "we (deniers) shall overcome". Sheesh - they've had enough time, but still can't come up with the goods.
November 17, 2016 at 12:36 pm
Well done. Unfortunately all that work goes in defending the truth of Climate. Refuting gross rubbish. It had to be done and you, Anthony, courageously picked up the mantle. Thanks Anthony. We are deeply in you debt. Thanks also to those who have contributed to this site. Thanks to Mr Trump who is a headache for the ‘other side.’ Now the boot will be on the other side! Just can’t wait for 2017, hopefully reality will come.
u.k(us) has a most interesting understanding of the meaning of the word 'sanity'. Perhaps it's relative (in his or her world):
November 17, 2016 at 12:43 pm
As I said many years ago, WUWT is an oasis of sanity.
Thanks for all the hard work Anthony.
Thanks also to all the posters and commenters that keep me coming back.
jorgekafkazar couldn't hack real science from real scientists, and settled for pseudo-science and conspiracy nuttery from WUWT:
November 17, 2016 at 8:53 pm
Congratulations on an important milestone. I came here about November 2 of 2008, following links from Solarcycle24. One link led to “Real” Climate, where the tude quickly drove me away. The other link led here, and I’ve been back almost daily since.
I was wondering where father and son had gone. I hadn't seen them lately at WUWT - and that's probably not surprising since they are that rare breed, denier Labour supporters. M Courtney explains, and has some fun pointing out just one of the idiotic articles at WUWT - by Steve Goddard:
November 17, 2016 at 4:00 pm
As a long time lurker, then briefly active, now lurker again; I applaud the highlight real that Janice has produced.
But everyone must have a few others they remember. What else do you recall?>
For me there was that ‘CO2 will freeze in Antarctica post’. It was the moment when the blog went from small town science gossip to a real science blog. A Milestone.
The idea was wrong – obviously so. And it was not batted around for a laugh. It was knocked down.
That’s science.
And I also liked some of the political discussions before the far-right found the site on mass and refused to debate.
jim steele couldn't get any science blogger to post his denier articles, but was saved by Anthony Watts' conspiracy blog, and is grateful:
November 17, 2016 at 10:56 pm
Congratulations Anthony. You were essential for giving skeptics a voice. And thanks for allowing me to post my essays.
It is the perfect website for what is now being referred to as the "post-truth" world. Or, at least, for those inhabitants who prefer to live in such a place.
ReplyDeleteThe Watts blog must be a real pain in the a.. for you Sou. I could hardly find a single sentence without a degrading adjective. It seems they must be a hard opponent since you choose to comment it this way. And the "a.." is of course instead of "arm" :)
ReplyDeleteI'd guess that's an example of "blind spot" and confirmation bias, OldSeaGull.
DeleteTell us, how many sentences can you find at WUWT that don't have a degrading adjective about science and scientists - like "mess, hateful, condescending, acidic condescending behavior, scare children, unrelenting pig-headedness, dumber than a box of rocks, small-minded thinking, pettiness, statistical murder, Nature tricks, and obfuscation"? (All those were written by Anthony Watts, and taken from one single paragraph in Anthony's 10th anniversary article.)
Then there's hoax, fake, fraud, claim, mendacious - and not to forget: emotionally based lifeform, a clueless female eco-nut.
Climate science is not a hoax. Climate change and global warming are real, happening, and serious. People who spread disinformation that harms humanity and the world degrade themselves. People who celebrate it degrade themselves tenfold. (So do people who support their activities.)
You managed to disambiguate that Old Seagull posting? In this post-truth world it is difficult to understand whether he/she was being sympathetic to you or critical.
DeleteI think it points to a lack of critical thinking skills and an inability to make themselves clear on what they are actually talking about. A sort of internalised projection that they think everyone understands their inner thoughts. I suggest it also points to a lack of empathy as they cannot put themselves in the position of someone actually reading their offering.
It is all a bit post-truth and meaningless.
(Suggest you implement your new comments policy forthwith).
Post-truth and meaningless - I like that, Jammy :)
DeleteThing is, the comment was merely a tone troll, not disinformation.
I just spent a while trying to think up some brilliant successes that Watts has had to try and provide some balance. But all that came to mind were more of his dismal failures, like the time he tried to do a live webcast. Oh dear, the more failures he has, the more brilliant Watts must be according to OldSeagull's weird logic.
Delete"the comment was merely a tone troll"
DeleteNo it didn't manage to reach the dizzy heights of tone trolling. It was a painful attempt to use broken logic to turn criticism into praise. But if criticism proves genius then William Mcgonagall was the greatest poet who ever lived.
I will have to follow this one in case OldSeaGull responds. I suspect not as it looks like a drive-buy, but you never know.
DeleteI rather like what OldSeagulls's logic leads to: yes, Anthony Watts is the William Mcgonagall of climate science.
DeleteThing is, the comment was merely a tone troll, not disinformation.
DeleteWho cares? This is a post truth world. It can be what you want it to be. We are all so free now ...
the pdf is actually a handy denial reference tool
ReplyDeleteHe poured scorn on only 12 people, including world leading scientists, climate hawks, bloggers, and other knowledgeable people.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was mostly pleased by the company with which I was associated.
I have also emailed Roger Pielke Sr to ask how he could possibly suggest that AW has significantly and positively contributed to climate science because it seems self-evidently not true.
I've only just noticed that Sou wasn't thanked, which seems rather odd given all the effort that Sou has put in :-) .
DeleteNor Richard Betts, Bill McKibben, John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Phil Jones, Ed Hawkins, Kevin Trenberth, Victor Venema, Walt Meier, Ben Santer, Tom Karl, Tom Peterson - to list just a few of the people who have either written guest articles for him, supped with him, been the subject of WUWT articles, otherwise been attacked by Anthony, or all of the above. There are lots of other people that he's targeted over the years.
DeleteAnthony is losing steam. He still rarely writes anythihng himself these days, that's not about himself or asking for money. He's been replaced by silly Eric Worrall. (The Trump election might have given his flagging morale a bit of a boost.)
Interesting that he didn't thank Brandon. Hasn't Brandon been a guest essayist at WUWT who wrote an essay from a perspective that Anthony generally aligned with? What could explain (😀) why Brandon would fall into such a unique category: a guest essayist who posted an essay on an issue from a perspective consistent with Anthony's, but who got no love from Anthony? Does anyone else fall into that category?
DeleteA world that has survived a decade of Watts can surely survive four years of Trump.
ReplyDeleteBut heaven help us if they combine forces...
It's interesting who he chose to refer to as Dr and who not. I think that all, apart from Gore, have PhDs and yet the only ones he referred to as Dr were Hansen, Schmidt & Mann.
Delete?? He noted that a number of "skeptics" had PhD.
DeleteSou my father was in occupied Holland where he was killing Germans when he was only twelve. My mother was in a POW camp in Java run by the Japanese Campitai for the duration of the war.
ReplyDeleteIn spite of this they instilled in all of us their eleven children that the only way forward is education and tolerance. Social justice was also very important.
I will never forget or forgive these idiotic war crimes.
Our aim is to not lower ourselves to these irrational idiots. We need to still try to fix our near broken planet. We all only have one planet. Do not kill it!
Here is a very nice vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nnwvoH-4XI
Bert
I really enjoyed the Peter Sinclair vid. When you plot only the 70 U.S. stations that Watts considered to be perfectly sited, it's basically indiscernible from the plot of all 1221 stations. But as I recall, Watts and his team found a statistically disingenuous way (you know, like McIntyre always does) to make it look like the whole U.S. temp increase over the years was down to the UHI effect. Can't remember where I saw that deconstructed.
ReplyDeleteEli tried to point out that he is not invisible, that is his cousin Harvey, but since Watts couldn't see the comment, he didn't post it.
ReplyDeleteOn Pielke Snr saying "Congratulations! You have significantly and positively contributed to climate science." For a supposedly intelligent and informed person (he's a scientist, isn't he?) to say that is unbelievable. The level of delusion and ideological indoctrination must be off the chart.
ReplyDeleteYou could excuse your average, dumb WTFUWT residents, the ones that still believe it's hoax, data's been cooked etc., and whose reasoning and logical abilities are on a par with their pet dog, for heaping that sort of praise on Wattsie... but a scientist?
I suspect it is no more complicated than tribal affinity
Delete@jp
DeleteWhy do you feel it is necessary to be so rude about their pet dogs?
I don't know, maybe I'm too much of an idealist. I
Deleteunderstand that sometimes the lure of money is too great and you get expert for hire, which I've never heard anyone suggest is the case with Pielke Snr; I just find it a bit hard to get my head around how highly educated, intelligent people who are trained in science, i.e. trained to objectively look at the evidence, can just discard their scientific training and their intellectual integrity because they feel compelled to align themselves with the ideology of their politics. This is beyond luke-warmerism, where there might be some disagreement around sensitivity numbers or extent of damages or whatever; this is deep in denier-land stuff.
Pielke Sr. created Watts. The surface station thing grew out of RPs obsession with land use forcing and micro siting. Willard Tony picked up the ball and ran
DeleteGather around my dumb peasant friends...let us celebrate 10 years of disinformation...er, I mean information. Slip of the tongue.
ReplyDeleteThis is quite an achievement. And during these 10 gruelling years where I spent countless hours poring over scientific papers...well, mostly news articles from our friends over at FoxNews...because as you well know, you just can't trust those climate scientists.
And many thanks to Eric Worrall and David Archibald, and of course Lord Bonkton, my hand-picked experts. Not just experts, but ex-spurts. At last year's annual love-in there was a lot of spurting going on, let me tell you, but trehat's another story. Anyway, these are the people who are so expert they teach the experts. I want to thank them all for their contributions; each of their essays on my blog is worth at least ten so-called peer reviewed science papers, because let me tell you, blog science is the new science and our truth is the new truth.
Don't be fooled by the false prophets of climate doom; they'll dazzle you with fancy words like "evidence" and "peer review" and "data" and "logic". We don't need all that; we decide what is true and what is fact. That's right. AND I SAY UNTO THEE, RISETH FROM YOUR SLUMBER, STOPPETH YOUR FORNICATION AND LISTEN TO ME, I'M YOUR CLIMATE MESSIAH!! Sorry, got carried away.
My dear sheep, I'm your shepperd; with millions of readers I'm the lord of the blogs, I'M THE KING! We are the keepers of the truth and scientific integrity. How do we know that? It's simple arithmetic _ we have the highest number of visits on our blog, higher than all the other alarmist blogs combined, which means that we get to say what is fact and what is not fact, and what is true or not true. And just like the victors get to write history, and the highest number of votes gets to run the country, we, at WTFUWT, are the most popular and we therefore get to write the REAL climate science. Want to talk logic? How's that for logic, warmistas?
Brilliant satire. I was tweeting that WUWT has beaten the Fake News headlines by about 10 years now -- only its not Fake News but Fake Science that they practice.
Delete'Fake News' has always had a name: Propaganda.
ReplyDeleteQ: What do you call a postdoc who has produced as much science during a 3 year fellowship as Anthony Watts has in 10 years?
ReplyDeleteA: Unemployed (and unemployable).
Here's a way to highlight the utter worthlessness of Anthony Watts whole franchise.
ReplyDeleteFor all the science/engineering/programming/whatever folks here, think about what you have accomplished professionally in the past 10 years. You can probably point to a lot of stuff you have accomplished -- papers published, software/hardware systems designed/coded/deployed, etc. Lots of good stuff. When I look back at what I've done in the past decade, I can definitely point to a number of real accomplishments (even though I'm just a very ordinary STEM worker-bee).
Now, after tallying up your own accomplishments over the past decade, compare your accomplishments with Anthony Watts'. What accomplishments can Watts boast about? Aside from getting his name on a paper or two where others did all the heavy lifting, *nothing*. In the past decade, he has performed no real work and has not learned a thing.
Does he know more about temperature data analysis than he did 10 years ago? Does he know more about homogenization techniques than he did 10 years ago? Has he computed his own global temperature results in order to validate his claims? The answers to those questions are "no", "hell no", and "you've got to be kidding".
Watts is a complete zero. In a sane world, he'd be unemployable.
Would that the world was actually sane...
DeleteI have just read a recent thread on WUWT - my overwhelming impression is people desperately fighting yesterday's battles
DeleteAccording to Anthony's preferred climate scientist, Dr Roy Spencer, global temperatures in the lower troposphere have risen at a rate of 3.2C per century over the period in which Anthony has been running his global warming denying blog: http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/uah6/from:2006.83/mean:12/plot/uah6/from:2006.83/trend
ReplyDeleteJust an unfortunate coincidence of course.