Monday 15 June 2015

Cognitive fail at Anthony Watts site

Guest post by Margaret O'Hardman

To be fair, Anthony Watts is a bit of a dingus. So while he was in a snit about a paper he didn't like, he sent an email to one of the authors (and undisclosed others) and found it posted in a comment at Sou's place. Some numbskull has gone into bat for Anthony, though heaven knows why, allowing a window into the denier brain, demonstrating, in a phrase I've borrowed from Jerry Coyne, that they are one neuron short of a synapse.

If you dare go to see what was on Anthony's site, try here (archived, of course).

But the comments do prove one thing.  The denier crowd are scared of Hotwhopper. Exhibit 1 is from our old friend and butt of many a joke, Smokey:

dbstealey says:

MichaelS and RockyRoad,
I’m in agreement with what both of you wrote. Yes, Nick Stokes is a partisan. But it would have been infinitely better if Peterson/Revkin has decided to send Anthony’s letter to Stokes instead. But they didn’t, because they knew the most damaging blog for Anthony was Hotwhopper.
It was deliberate, underhanded, and calculated to cause the most damage. That makes Revking more of a propagandist than a journalist. As for Peterson, he’s very unhappy that the planet isn’t doing what he wants it to, so he’s taking it out on Anthony. Neither Revkin nor Peterson are stand-up guys, IMHO.

Exhibit 2, it's that man again:

dbstealey says:

Simon,
Yes, I’ve read Hotwhopper a couple of times. That’s how I know. Since you asked.
There is zero comparison between WUWT and her slimy blog.
There is NO comparison.
And I get my range of opinions from other alarmist blogs. I don’t need [Sou's] brand of hatred. If you like that sort of thing it says a lot about you, doesn’t it?
[Sou] should be sending Anthony Watts a bouquet of flowers, instead of hating on him every day. Before the ‘hotwhopper’ articles here, her blog was a thinly-trafficked backwater entirely populated by a small handful of malcontents. Now it’s a much bigger backwater populated mostly by malcontents. In my view you’re a loser if you like that sort of 24/7 hatred.

Exhibit 3 (this is getting predictable):

dbstealey says:

Ray Boorman says:
… you may notice that Revkin had NOTHING to do with sending the email to hotwhopper.
I respectfully disagree. Revkin is a journalist, and he knows Peterson pretty well. Is there any doubt in your mind that they got their heads together, and came up with an action plan? Is there any doubt that Revkin understood what Peterson was planning to do with Anthony’s letter? Journalists ask questions. It’s what they do.
I think Revkin wass in on the whole thing from the beginning, and he knew what Peterson was planning. As Pat Frank points out, Peterson transformed Anthony’s private critical opinion into a manufactured public attack. It was deliberate. And of all the blogs to send it to, they decided on Hotwhopper. [Sou] is a real hater, and she’s fixated on Anthony and WUWT. From their perspective they could not have chosen a more damaging venue. And the Peterson/Revkin team did it without notifying Anthony. Is that OK with you?

 The cognitive fail? That being so nasty, slimy, vicious, is what Watts and his egregious acolytes seem to be about.  I rarely waste any time there any longer.  It is poorly written, poorly argued, full of commenters who would have no friends but for the Internet.  Science fail Anthony Watts brought this on himself.  Good for Sou.
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment