Sunday 23 June 2013

Deniers denying they're getting it wrong

 
Since the howling wolves of the assembled sock puppets at WattsUpWithThat quickly try to tear to pieces anyone who attempts to inject reason, logic or real evidence (as opposed to endless links to phoney stuff on WUWT), I thought I'd go down one thread of comments and pick out those that are easily shown to be wrong (and which thirty seconds of checking would have saved the shame of correction from me):

We begin with this thread:

Members quitting the American Meteorological Society over stance on climate

My embolded bit is the first bit.  The problem here is another creationist canard.  Sternberg did not get fired, he was working his notice at a small journal that normally published systematics papers (ie classification of organisms).  It is probable that Sternberg did not send the disputed paper out for review and did the process by himself.  He had a conflict of interests beforehand and the paper, by Stephen Meyer, is not one that normal scientific review processes would have permitted.  Sternberg's two PhDs (one in moleculr evolution that was slightly relevant, one in systems science that would have been less so) should have flagged the paper up as, at best, controversial.  Interestingly, again we are down with creationist/intelligent design tropes.

This is too easy and I am hardly down the list at all.

milodonharlani says:
Sorry if biology is off topic, although scientific censorship surely is. Here’s Sternberg’s bio & statement of faith or credo, which is what it is. Scientists are allowed to hold religious or spiritual beliefs.
http://www.richardsternberg.com/biography.php
It appears that while he was fired for allowing an ID article to be published, he may not advocate biological ID (which is unscientific), but universal ID, which is a less contentious position, shared to some degree by a number of respectable astrophysicists & cosmologists.

But Sternberg has associated himself with the biological ID proponents the Discovery Institute and has lectured on such matters.  He can believe what he wants but when he is being a scientist he needs to act like a scientist and not be clouded by his religious views.

More
u.k.(us) says:
Gunga Din says:
June 21, 2013 at 7:31 pm
I’m about to display my ignorance again, but, what is an “NGO”?
(My “A Skeptic’s Marching Orders” must still be in the mail.)
===============================
We are all ignorant, seeking answers, it brought us here.
NGO ?
Here is one definition:
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is any non-profit, voluntary citizens’ group which is organized on a local, national or international level. Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political particpation through provision of information. Some are organized around specific issues, such as human rights, environment or health. They provide analysis and expertise, serve as early warning mechanisms and help monitor and implement international agreements. Their relationship with offices and agencies of the United Nations system differs depending on their goals, their venue and the mandate of a particular institution.
————————————
The “marching orders” have not yet achieved a consensus, sadly.
Give it another 5 years :)
Oh, the irony.  The description, of course, is applicable to the Heartland Institute but that is untuchable at WUWT, even though it took money from tobacco companies for years.

And now from Smokey:
dbstealey says:
Gunga Din asks: what is an “NGO”?
It’s a QUANGO*.
Does that clear it up?☺
[*Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization; Brit for NGO.]
A QUANGO is not an NGO.  A QUANGO is paid mostly or in whole by the government, like the Health Protection Agency.  An NGO would be clearly independent.  Not difficult, Smokey, now is it?


More
DirkH says:
Sherry says:
June 22, 2013 at 9:20 am
“First off even if this was true; which is probably isn’t because we have no names of the said people or statements from them, there are 14000 professionals in the AMS!!! The guy running this page doesn’t even have a climate degree! Look at his about section. You people are gullible as hell.”
James Hansen has no climate degree. Neither has Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. The gullible is you because you believe that climate scientist’s computer programs are capable of predicting the future of the climate. They failed already. For the last 17 years there has been no warming yet the models predicted warming over this time. It’s a failure. The scientists, if we want to call them that, now need to shut up and come up with better models. When they return with such, we need to validate the models at least for a decade before we can place any trust in the new models. This should have been done in the first place. It is how science works. Climate scientists want us to trust them without ever having gotten anything right. This trust is misplaced.
And to be honest I’d fire all of them and make them an Enron style process.

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, was a physicist by training.  The point here is, so what.  The lack of any scientific training is the worrying point and I can't find evidence that Anthony Watts or Lord Monckton or Willis Eschenbach has (sorry, psychology degrees won't count on this one).

 Well, that was easy.  I know I've taken the non-climate change comments and shown them to be rubbish (most of the comments in this thread were ad hominem attacks on a person who pointed out that which shall not be mentioned - that Watts and company are wrong (punishment, exile).  For a site that likes to call itself scientific and open, it sure is unscientific and closed to criticism.

update

The first comment in the thread quoted John Mellencamp's song "Crumblin' Down".  I wondered what his views are on climate change.  Well, these appear to be the views of Farm Aid, the charity that Mellencamp is very closely associated with: http://www.farmaid.org/site/c.qlI5IhNVJsE/b.2739785/apps/s/content.asp?ct=11746719
 If we can read anything into it, I guess we can say that John Mellencamp isn't the likeliest supporter of Watts' antiscience site.

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