Wednesday, December 02, 2009
What do the Aztecs and climate scientists have in common?
Only one columnist would dare make the connection.
28 Comments:
By 
Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Dec 03, 12:46:00 AM:
So do people think Ann Coulter actually believes in her stuff about creationism and Noah's Ark, or is she just a cynical huckster? She even threw a gratuitous comment in the link that got cited. Either and idiot or a liar, but either way, she doesn't look good (unless you happen to be a creationist too, in which case you have your own issues).
The Discovery Institute is getting into climate denial. I expect vaccine denial will be next.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 01:58:00 AM:
So there Brian, when cnfronted with the facts if the AGW fraud, you response is evasion, distraction and personal attacks? When the complete corruption of scientific process by the "scientific AGW crowd" is now open there for all to see your response is to try to smear those people who call out this deception as "anti-science" rubes? It is you that is anti-sciene. The whole pack of AGW hucksters has been exposed for what they are. cynical hacks who have manipulated the scientific process for their own profit and political ideology.
You have to get over this notion u have that the Left are the voices of reason and science and that the rest of us are sone sort of superstitious primitives. This notion of yours is a self-serving conceit.
It is also quite the opposite of the reality of things. The left here is guilty of one of the largest scietific frauds if history.
By 
TigerHawk, at
Thu Dec 03, 06:37:00 AM:
So do people think Ann Coulter actually believes in her stuff about creationism and Noah's Ark, or is she just a cynical huckster?
Seriously, Brian, there is no third option? That sounds like the sort of false dichotomy I propose from time to time!
No, Ann is neither a creationist nor a "huckster." She is primarily a humorist, actually, with an ax to grind. That comment, like most of her stuff, is meant to be funny with an edge.
I continue to think that Ann irritates so many people not because of her substance -- there are lots of humorists on the left who say just as edgy stuff -- but because (1) she moves between jokes and serious discourse more frequently than, say, Al Franken, George Carlin or Michael Moore do, such as in the course of a conversation, and (2) because she is virtually unique on the right, there being (sadly) very few witty public personalities on my side of the divide.
By Don Cox, at
Thu Dec 03, 07:11:00 AM:
"when cnfronted with the facts if the AGW fraud"
What fraud? I see nothing at all reported so far from the emails to suggest any fraud at all.
I do see some exasperatioin at the pressures of the campaign mounted by the oil companies to deny global warming, or to deny that man-made gases are the major cause. The evidence for this is very strong.
It is not 100% certain, like the evidence for evolution, but it is strong enough to justify investment in technology to greatly reduce emissions.
If it does turn out that man-made gases are not the cause, then at least this technology will remove the dendence of the US and Europe on energy imports from hostile countries.
By JPMcT, at
Thu Dec 03, 07:12:00 AM:
Moot point. Facts (or, in this case, the LACK of them) mean nothing to the Democrat Congress.
We have a group of ideologues hell-bent on applying economic stress to the free market system until it cracks.
It never was about "Global Warming", it was about political control of a massive economy.
And now...like a socioplathic child, we will not see remorse over the death of a pet theory...we will see them merely shrug their shoulders and move on to the next lie.
I wonder what it will be?
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 07:18:00 AM:
Charmingly, she never even got to the subjects of Michael Mann, hockey sticks, tree rings and mean versus high/low temperature analysis. I sense more columns!
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 08:09:00 AM:
I think the Aztec comparison is pretty clever.
By Don Cox, at
Thu Dec 03, 08:57:00 AM:
"You have to get over this notion u have that the Left are the voices of reason and science "
I don't think there is any correlation between "left" and "right" politics and science vs anti-science.
Perhaps left wingers are more likely to believe in homeopathy, herbal medicines, magic crystals, etc - but then the creationists tend to be right-wing.
I think the relevant axis would be credulity vs scepticism rather than left-right. Scientists normally want to see hard evidence before accepting an idea. If new evidence appears, ideas may have to change.
But, being human, some scientists do cling to outdated theories for too long,
By Don Cox, at
Thu Dec 03, 09:00:00 AM:
"It is not 100% certain, like the evidence for evolution, but it is strong enough to justify investment in technology to greatly reduce emissions."
That sentence isn't clear, I realise. I meant that the evidence for evolution is 100% certain, while the evidence for man-made global warming is 90% certain.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 09:59:00 AM:
Now, that's just inane. After the hundred or more posts here, the stream of MSM articles exposing the wide variety of academic climate chicanery going on all over the globe, the "death of climate science" piece in Reason and Lindzen's masterful piece in the WSJ yesterday, the suspensions and investigations...you have the effrontery (or idiocy) to describe AGW (let alone GW itself) as "90% certain".
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 10:14:00 AM:
More scandal coming?
By Brian, at
Thu Dec 03, 11:07:00 AM:
TH - that's a relevant point, some things that Coulter and especially Limbaugh say are both vile and not meant to be taken seriously (so they can get away with it).
I don't think Coulter's creationism falls into that category. She seems to argue it as if she believes it and wants other people to believe it. Whether she does is another question.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 12:52:00 PM:
Changing the subject now, are we?
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 01:14:00 PM:
Don Cox
What fraud? I see nothing at all reported so far from the emails to suggest any fraud at all. I do see some exasperatioin at the pressures of the campaign mounted by the oil companies to deny global warming, or to deny that man-made gases are the major cause. The evidence for this is very strong.
Suggestions to delete data, deny information that should be delivered according to FOI Act, stigmatize journals that publish research that does not agree, pressure to not publish research that does not agree: what about fraud and misconduct do you not understand?
"It is not 100% certain, like the evidence for evolution, but it is strong enough to justify investment in technology to greatly reduce emissions…. I meant that the evidence for evolution is 100% certain, while the evidence for man-made global warming is 90% certain.
When the raw data is lost, so that the numbers being used are not reproducible, that reduces certainty a great deal. When the original data has been fudged beyond all recognition, when it has been shown that the data has been fudged to give greater credence to AGW, that casts considerable coubt on the research that purports to prove AGW. When you realize that the CRU has been one of the primary data sources for AGW research, and the data has been demonstrated to be corruputed, that throws into doubt any research that used CRU data.
When “peer-reviewed,” the basis for the alleged “scientific consensus” behind AGW, has been shown to be a stacked deck, as the e-mails show, that collapses the “scientific consensus” deck of cards. “Everybody says it” is not a credible argument when those who do not say it are excluded from the conversation.
If you wish to donate money to your AGW church, feel free to do so. Per the First Amendment, I should not be required to do so in the form of crippling taxes.
By Kurt, at
Thu Dec 03, 01:28:00 PM:
I see that Don Cox has tried to revive the argument of discrediting AGW skeptics by tying them to the big, bad oil companies. He writes:
I do see some exasperatioin at the pressures of the campaign mounted by the oil companies to deny global warming, or to deny that man-made gases are the major cause. The evidence for this is very strong.
Like his questionable assertion that "the evidence is very strong," his assertion about the oil companies doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Why? Well, the first response is that such an argument rests on the fallacious claim that all skeptics of AGW are being paid by or motivated by the work of the oil companies. But the larger weakness with the argument is that all of the big money in this debate is spent on behalf of the AGW racket, and this scam has been configured in such a way since the 1990s when governments started throwing more and more money at research in this area. A lot of the evidence for such a claim can be found in this excellent article that appeared in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. As others have written in the WSJ and elsewhere over the past several years, the Global Warmists control the funding for all research in this area, and as Climategate makes clear, they also control what gets published and where, and their much-vaunted "peer review" only seems to amount to so much back-scratching among a faction people who all buy into the same theory. So who's the group mounting the larger propaganda campaign? It sure doesn't look like the oil companies.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 02:47:00 PM:
Climate Science is a backwater where the eyes of the locals are just a little too close together ... cue Deliverance. Folks, this isn't particle physics -- don't be beguiled by the PhDs. Climate Science is just "jumped up" high school earth science, once you get past the jargon and the smoke and mirorrs.
Michael Mann wants you to believe that he can use proxies to tell you what the average annual global temperature was or any year since 1,000 AD. He can't -- not with "precision" -- certainly not enough to drive computer simulations. Michael Mann is a serial data molester. See my rants below.
"Brian" is a troll here with an agenda. His last reply below is that there's "no divergence in non-tree proxies." I bet he's right, as I'm told elsewhere that Michael Mann now has a new non-tree ring data set that perfectly matches his old "diverged" tree-ring data set. I wonder where this new data set came from? As Jon Stewart would say ... "New and improved ... with Lemon!"
To me, Brian is a proxy for the AGW crowd, but I can't tell which sub-species ... deluded tree hugger? ... Stone Age Luddite?
Climate Science is an immature science that had promise. Michael Mann and others have ruined it. Even the data they've collected is suspect, as it's been compromised in so many ways. They've set their field back a generation.
For me the politics have always been even worse. It's the ultimate tell that the likes of Al Gore and Carol Browner stand to get rich off this, and that House-passed Energy bill will actually increase emissions.
By Don Cox, at
Thu Dec 03, 02:52:00 PM:
The Wall Street Journal is a financial newspaper, not a scientific journal. It is no more a reliable source of information than is Al Gore.
You would get more reliable information from Nature, Scientific American, or New Scientist.
or, for easy access, the BBC news site has a number of links here.
The most important measurements, I think, are those from Hawaii showing the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and the ice core data showing long term trends.
In most cases, people are trying to detect small changes from very noisy data. But the results that come in from different sources are consistent.
Personally, I would rather have global warming than a new ice age. But then, I live in England, well above current sea level. If I lived in Africa or on a low-lying island, I would be more worried.
By Kurt, at
Thu Dec 03, 04:06:00 PM:
Here we go again, one of the standard techniques: when you can't respond to the argument, attack the source.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 04:10:00 PM:
Don Cox:
The Wall Street Journal is a financial newspaper, not a scientific journal. It is no more a reliable source of information than is Al Gore.
Show us that the WSJ article is not credible by fisking it. Otherwise, you are simply emitting warm carbon dioxide.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Dec 03, 05:03:00 PM:
Anon - thanks for speculating, but in your categories I'd probably be "deluded tree hugger," because I think technology has a vital role to play, especially in renewable power and carbon sequestration.
Now can I ask, are you a creationist? If not, what do you think of Coulter et al., who are?
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 05:33:00 PM:
What are you raving about, Brian? What is all this talk of "Creationists" and "vaccine denialism" and whatever. Take your meds.
Anyway, back on topic (the AGW foolishness), here is another suggestion of creative number manipulation in support of global warming religion. You'll like this one Brian, since the High Priest practicing in this particular instance apparently is from the Bay area. You may even know him from the local church meetings.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 06:02:00 PM:
So far, by the way, the best zinger on this particular thread is "Michael Mann is a serial data molester."
The humor quotient is good and, like all good zingers, it has truth helping it along.
I very much hope climate studies is not a dead science, and I disagree that the field is dead. Like any primitive and complex field it has a very long way to go before it finds broad utility, and there is certainly no doubt that the prostitution of the field by politicians and by those out for glory and personal gain has certainly caused enormous damage. Don Cox might even rate the chances of that having happened as "100% certain". Heh.
Since there are still lunatics out there (and here too) protesting the loss of their religion, I'm sure the effects of the Goreist tendency to hysterical Chicken Little squawking won't go away very soon, and that'll hamper the recovery of the field. But I think it still has a great future. Laymen are always going to be interested in it, that's for sure, and governments will still keep awarding grants (since once they get into any particular habit they can't change).
By Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Dec 03, 06:55:00 PM:
It's Coulter who raised the creationism issue, along with her climate denialism.
The link to Nierenberg critiquing Rahmstorf is what it is: previous critiques have been published in peer review, so if N thinks he's got something, he should try the same.
And no, Rahmstorf isn't from and doesn't live in the Bay Area. Potsdam is pretty far away, actually.
By , at
Thu Dec 03, 07:32:00 PM:
Brian:
It's Coulter who raised the creationism issue, along with her climate denialism
How can she raise the issue of creationism when there is no finding of the word "creationism" nor of "creation" in her essay?
She does state "biblical data on the great flood and Noah's ark have held up remarkably well," which is hardly a statement on creationism. She wrote it in the context of access to records/data and veracity of same: which is definitely an issue with the CRU.
Brian's bringing up creationism reminds me of MoDowdy talking about the Senator from South Carolina implicitly saying "boy." But which he never actually said.
Libs just gotta make points whether the record is justified or not. One reason I am a Post Liberal.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Dec 03, 08:33:00 PM:
"Either and idiot or a liar"
Shoot the messenger because you don't like the message. How typical.
"It's Coulter who raised the creationism issue"
No, she didn't. Not only did she not ever use the word (which Boludo already pointed out) but the one line that you're desperately trying to build up and pick apart was part of a snarky contrast between supposedly irrational and deluded religious Christians who don't hide their source 'data' and supposedly rational and honest scientists who do.
And that's the point.
I don't give a shit about Coulter's beliefs, and you shouldn't either. They're completely irrelevant to the topic at hand; the conspiracy of deceit behind this AGW 'data.'
"along with her climate denialism."
I think that phrase will be reversing its meaning soon. Because after all, who is in denial here?
By Georg Felis, at
Thu Dec 03, 11:05:00 PM:
The difference between Aztecs and Climate Scientists: Aztecs used to bend their enemies over stone altars and rip their still-beating hearts out using obsidian knives and sacrifice them to the sun gods in order to keep the weather good, while Climate Scientists only wish they could do that.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 06:53:00 PM:
Anybody remember Christmas Eve 1968 and the Apollo 8 broadcast to Earth? The Astronauts' message was a reading from the book of Genesis about how God created the universe. And then they wished EVERYONE on the good Earth a Merry CHRISTMAS. I think there are some readers here at TH Blog whose heads would have exploded had they heard that. How times have changed.
By , at
Sat Dec 05, 02:08:00 PM:
Brian gave himself up in a post below where he said he knows more "enviros" than we do, works in the field, and sees a commercial opportunity. He thinks "technology has a vital role to play, especially in renewable power and carbon sequestration." So he's not a deluded tree hugger, nor a Stone Age Luddite -- he's an opportunist -- like Al Gore, Carol Browner, and Van Jones. They should all be doing Shamwow commercials on late night TV.
Part of the political problem is that Brian's crowd take the most promising technologies -- like thorium nuclear reactors -- off the table. Instead he'd have us use 12th century technology -- windmills.
To Don Cox: "In most cases, people are trying to detect small changes from very noisy data. But the results that come in from different sources are consistent."
If the data looks consistent, it's because it's been scrubbed. If yout don't believe me, go here for an example:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/12/example-of-climate-work-that-needs-to-be-checked-and-replicated.html
You're also supporitng my larger point, we're stretching the accuracy of the data. I'm stealling from another commenter: "They are trying to measure with a micrometer, mark with a dull pencil, and cut with a chain saw. "
To Brian -- I'm pretty far from a creationist. While it's hard to pigeonhole the little religious belief I have, I'm probably closest to a Celtic Druid. "Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?"
