WUWT is fairly quiet at the moment so I thought readers may enjoy this explanation of what Anthony Watts' job is not, by Wondering Willis Eschenbach (archived here). It helps explain why Anthony Watts happily posts so much complete and utter rubbish. He's just not capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff.
I don't think Anthony's worst enemy could write such a damning indictment of WUWT.
Are you ready? Let's hear it. The quotes are from Anthony Watts' good friend and staunch ally, Wondering Willis Eschenbach at WUWT. (My bold underline.)
Update: I see that Anthony has put a copyright notice on his blog, which is sensible, and I'm not taking it as aimed here because I'm careful about fair use of intellectual property. Just the same, I've deleted a lot of the text from Wondering Willis' article and just left sufficient to comment on the portions that I found most striking, as fits the "fair use" definition.
Sou 23 November 2014
On the strength of WUWT
From here:
...The strength of WUWT is not that it is always right or that it publishes only the best stuff that’s guaranteed to be valid....
Willis argues that it is a strength to publish a myriad of crap, regardless of whether or not it is "guaranteed to be valid".
On educating scientists
From here:
...When Anthony publishes scientific claims from the edges of the field, generally they are quickly either confirmed or falsified. This is hugely educational for scientists of all kinds, to know how to counter some of the incorrect arguments, as well as giving room for those unusual ideas which tomorrow may be mainstream ideas....For some very odd reason, Willis thinks that proper scientists are not only aware of, but are educated by the sort of nonsense splashed about at WUWT.
On what is not Anthony's job
From here:
...So it is not Anthony’s job to determine whether or not the work of the guest authors will stand the harsh light of public exposure. That’s the job of the peer reviewers, who are you and I and everyone making defensible supported scientific comments. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece, he couldn’t do that job. ...
My emphasis. That has to be the most scathing comment on Anthony Watts by one of his supposed allied that I've ever read. There is more, this time on the value of publishing complete and utter rubbish, again with my emphasis:
It is not Anthony’s job to decide if mine or any other ideas and expositions and claims will withstand that test of time … and indeed, it is often of value for him to publish things that will not stand the test of time, so that we can understand exactly where they are lacking.
On the beauty and value of "public peer review"
From here:
...The beauty and value of WUWT that it is the world’s premier location for public peer review of climate science. On a personal level, the public peer review afforded by WUWT is of immense use to me, because my work either gets falsified or not very quickly … or else, as in this case, there’s an interesting ongoing debate. ...
Footnote
The quotes shown in the above damning indictment on Anthony Watts and WUWT are all verbatim from Anthony's supposed ally, Wondering Willis Eschenbach (with my headings and bold underline for emphasis). With friends like Willis, who needs enemies?
