Comment on Mark Steyn’s new book on Michael Mann by John Sidles

August 25, 2015, 3:10 am

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Climate Etc readers seeking a science-respecting account of the hopes and tragedies of the Soviet era will find a wonderful source in Francis Spufford’s highly acclaimed account (by pundits of all political persuasions) Red Plenty

Red Plenty, in hindsight

I want people to laugh (among other things) as they read it. But I don’t want them to laugh comfortably, from a position of comfortable superiority, snickering at the deluded inhabitants of the past.

I want, I hope for, the nervous laughter of fellow-feeling. We should laugh like what we are: people whom the observers of 2060 will be able to see are naively going about our business beneath our own monstrous overhang of consequences.

Whatever it is.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “The battle-line between good and evil goes right down the middle of every person’s heart.” Spufford’s Red Plenty shows us (in very great detail) how Solzhenitsyn’s humility-inducing principle applies to even to the best-hearted mathematicians, scientists, and engineers … both past and future.

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Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by Michael Cunningham

August 25, 2015, 3:10 am

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Writing letters to the editor is a good discipline. Succinct, clear, pertinent, a worthwhile point, etc. Perhaps Almassi et al should try to present their work as a letter to the ed, then use that as a basis for removing dross and excess verbiage. Or perhaps they should try to find useful employment. On that note, goodnight.

Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by Brandon S? (@Corpus_no_Logos)

August 25, 2015, 5:36 pm

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Richard Arrett, I used to use FeedDemon, and I still sometimes do when my current one breaks. It doesn’t have any real filtering options though. I once toyed around with the idea of building my own because there were a number of features I wanted, but it was too large a project. I eventually settled on downloading one called RSS Guard. It doesn’t have all the features I’d like, but it does allow for search filtering off the back (with regular expressions, which is nice), and its source code is available so it can be modified. I’ve since added a few features for my own purposes, obviously including a blacklist. The reader still downloads the comments, but if I have the blacklist turned on, comments by the listed users won’t be displayed.

I’ve actually got it setup to where I can block comments by more than just username. I’ve been trying to get it to where I can filter out comments that respond to users who are on the blacklist, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do it, and I keep breaking things when I try. Sometimes I just break things in general because I’m terrible at C++. It’s not really a priority though, so I’m okay with what I’ve got.

Comment on JC’s conscience by Joshua

August 25, 2015, 5:37 pm

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==> “That doesnt mean we ditch integrity. And it doesnt mean her argument is wrong.”

It means that she is wrong when she filters the evidence to selectively locate the problem on one side.

For example, she wouldn’t be wrong if she were to point out that neglecting OHC when speaking before Congress of a “pause in global warming” is inconsistent with the principle of:

” For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–…

Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by Brandon S? (@Corpus_no_Logos)

August 25, 2015, 5:40 pm

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Jim D, I have to suspect you’ve never played hockey if you think all it takes to have a hockey stick is an “upturn after a downward trend.” As someone who has only played floor and street hockey, I can still tell you, if your stick isn’t pretty dang straight, you’ll have a hard time playing.

Comment on JC’s conscience by curryja

August 25, 2015, 5:49 pm

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I prefer grande dame to aunt judy

Comment on JC’s conscience by Mark Silbert

August 25, 2015, 5:52 pm

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Judith,

You are doing a great job. Most of the time you strike a reasonable balance. CE is still one of my first and last daily site accesses.

CE has led me in many interesting directions during the past couple of years. I never heard of Mark Steyn before and I thank you for that connection.

If anything I am moving away from lukewarmerism toward the view that CAGW is a nasty hoax being perpetrated by a bunch of commie pinkos and green eugenicists.

Comment on JC’s conscience by Daniel E Hofford

August 25, 2015, 5:57 pm

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“He is sorely missed in the climate debate.”

Really? I find that utterly confusing. He as much as told his colleagues to lie in the pursuit of the cause. This is missed? I’ve argued with people about that who say he never used the word, ‘lie.’ It’s true, I have never seen him in print say that scientists should pick out the degree of truth and falsehood they were comfortable with by using the word, ‘lie.’ But if that wasn’t the case, what exactly was the ethical dilemma? Between the truth and the truth? Between the truth and falsehood, or distortion or exaggeration or withholding? All activities by other names that reduce to lying. Do we need to consult with Bill Clinton on parsing words? If I’m wrong I’ll send him a thought apology, wherever he is, but please, someone, tell me how I’m wrong by explaining how his ‘ethical dilemma’ doesn’t reduce to positing truth against non-truth.

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Comment on JC’s conscience by PA

August 25, 2015, 5:59 pm

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. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.

Well… 22 PPM = 0.2 W/m2…

Fco2x8 = 3.46 ln (280*8/280) = 7.2 W/m2 ≈ 1.95°C

Gee, if Schneider knew this 44 years ago – where did the mistaken impression that forcing was higher or that it “gasp” could be catastrophic come from?

Schneider was on the right road 44 years ago – why has climate science been driving in the ditch since then?

Comment on JC’s conscience by stevefitzpatrick

August 25, 2015, 6:11 pm

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The difference, Steve, is that Schneider came down on the wrong side of honesty, despite his later protests to the contrary.

Comment on JC’s conscience by beththeserf

August 25, 2015, 6:12 pm

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‘ Courage! What makes a king out of a slave?
Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in
the misty mist or the dusky dusk?
Courage! ‘

Wizard of Oz. H/T The Lion.

Comment on JC’s conscience by curryja

August 25, 2015, 6:16 pm

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If i had my choice between Schneider and the current crop of AGW ‘leaders’, i’ll take schneider hands down.

Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by Horst Graben (@Graben_Horst)

August 25, 2015, 6:19 pm

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Brandon, I wonder if you yourself see the radical changes in your blog persona as honed by Moshe’rs mentoring?

Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by Brandon S? (@Corpus_no_Logos)

August 25, 2015, 6:29 pm

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Horst Graben:

Brandon, I wonder if you yourself see the radical changes in your blog persona as honed by Moshe’rs mentoring?

Given I’m not delusional, no.

Comment on JC’s conscience by Michael Cunningham

August 25, 2015, 6:31 pm

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Kafkaesque.

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Comment on JC’s conscience by thomaswfuller2

August 25, 2015, 6:53 pm

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When I interviewed him shortly before his death, he seemed fairly… I dunno… passive. Maybe accepting is more the right word. He didn’t seem angry at anyone and I gather he was surprised when I reported his comments accurately, given he thought I was a skeptic.

In retrospect I wish I had asked him to talk about people–both those he was working with and those on the other side of the fence.

I have a lot of respect for what he did over the course of his career. I don’t at all like the closing chapter–Anderson, Prall et al 2010 PNAS. But the guy stood up to Carl Sagan on nuclear winter–and won. He had the guts to bull through his earlier statements on global cooling and come down firmly in the warming camp.

Given the quality of discourse on the activist side of the fence these days, I have to say I miss Schneider.

Comment on JC’s conscience by GaryM

August 25, 2015, 6:56 pm

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“The whole integrity/ethics thing, in all its complexity, is something that is of paramount importance to me and I think about it a lot.”

When society abandons the ethical system that evolved over millennia, through hard fought trial and error, because it’s “elites” think themselves too sophisticated for such superstition, is it any wonder the issue of ethics becomes “complex”?

Try this. Employ what used to be called the cardinal virtues to any situation you might find, and see what you get. And yes, there are issues raised by those moral precepts, but they have been the subject of thousands of years of debate and scholarship. There is no need to start from scratch just because we now have the internet.

The statutes and court rules of this country are littered with detailed rules of ethics supposedly guiding the legal community. And I can tell you with confidence that the profession is more corrupt and dishonest than at any time in my life.

Why? Because the rules are not enforced. (Except when it comes to misuse of client funds.) Our elitist society finds integrity, and particularly humility, to be de classe’.

Ask someone today what prudence means, and you will likely get a guess that it’s the name of a Beatles’ song (at least from my generation).

Comment on JC’s conscience by thomaswfuller2

August 25, 2015, 6:57 pm

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Michael and willard, mote, beam, same tired criticisms, yawn, scroll.

Comment on JC’s conscience by thomaswfuller2

August 25, 2015, 6:58 pm

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ATTP, gnat, camel, yawn, scroll.

Comment on JC’s conscience by Willard

August 25, 2015, 7:00 pm

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> It doesnt matter if you first quote somebody else using ‘Aunt Judy”
and then use it yourself.

False choice.