… the twittery mistakes presumption and the overblown declarative for substance…
Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Rob Ellison
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Lewis Deane
What we have to understand is that this is a ‘paradigm’ shift, something quite profound has happened and is happening. It is neither a ‘conspiracy’ nor a ‘confederacy of dunces’ – – it is a very fundamental shift away from what was, perhaps, expected. Very fundamental. It’s useless to attempt to explain it by anything as superficial as, this is ‘political convenience’ or ‘the West has lost confidence in itself’ or ‘In a democratic society politicians have nothing left but to grab any meaning, rather than no meaning’ – no, this is more profound than that. Nor is the ‘bankruptcy of the West’ compensated by a so called ‘East’ – on the contrary, by ‘mirroring’, and ‘standing’ upon, this ‘West’, it itself has become bankrupt. It is a mutual bankruptcy. There is no ‘other side’ and ‘escape’. It is something that is happening – whether we like it or not – and because ‘it’s happening’ we cannot understand it. Only that which is historical is understandable, is ‘true’. Only now have we become conscious of what is happening and only very tentatively. Fascinating!
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Comment on The 50-50 argument by Tanglewood
Not according to this, which shows the earth currently in energy deficit
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/28/is-earth-in-energy-deficit/
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Comment on The 50-50 argument by Tanglewood
Also, how robust is data for the deep (> 2000′) ocean (which constitutes the bulk of it) ?
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Comment on The 50-50 argument by Montalbano
Yes Dan, don’t you know CAGW truebelievers like little Webster need to deny the sun has any effect on the earth, since this gives them the answer that they desire.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Doug
Maybe because they’re stupid.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by AK
<blockquote>Error does not recognize party affiliation.</blockquote>Perhaps, but this doesn't mean there isn't some sort of correlation between what <b>type</b> of error, and <b>which</b> party/ideology.
For instance, consider the way Creationists want to interfere with the teaching of <i>"evolution"</i>. It's not really the same sort of suppression of science we see from the <i>"Left"</i>, although filling up time supposed to be dedicated to teaching real science with a bunch of unscientific garbage (as in GIGO) is arguably just as much of an attack on science.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Geoff Sherrington
There are many examples where Establishment science has bullied dissent and caused social engineering that came at a high cost.
Some examples have already been given above. Trouble is, you need to be a polymath to cover the bases in disciplines that are distant from your own work. What is more, sometimes you have to become expert in that discipline before you can comment. This is because Establishment methods are persistent in self-justification after the event, seeming sometimes to spend more on beefing up their message than was spent on the original research.
Here are some more examples. The removal of lead from petrol and the now-common demonization of Pb as a poison to all humans is quite suspect. My old friend Allen Christophers wrote this paper may years ago, based on his 40 years of observations as a medico and public health employee.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9069038
His work has not been refuted so far as I know, but there has been enormous expenditure on the bluster of self-justification.
The Montreal Protocol and the ozone hole is another example. As a Chemist, I had serious reservations that the Treaty was not warranted because of uncertainties in the Chemistry. I maintain that position because I have not read a single paper that settles the matter. Bluster, yes, observational science, no.
Another example is the manufactured scare in the USA in the 60s to 80s that man-made chemicals would cause a cancer epidemic. It’s all covered beautifully in by Edith Efron. This is a good example because we now know that the huge Establishment expenditure was largely needless. There has been no epidemic. The case largely rested on an untested scientific assumption, namely, that rodent tests for mutagens/carcinogens could predict for humans. They cannot, we now know. The situation is eerily similar to the climate change story, with its pushing of GHG as dominant. Bullying abounded.
The latter example also informs, because Efron notes that the work was done in the wrong sequence, namely that testing of man-made chemicals proceeded well in advance of testing natural chemicals, as in foodstuffs. She makes a good case to understand the natural mechanisms before getting completely romantic with man-made mechanisms. She is right.
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These Establishment turkeys, whatever their motivation, seem to be contaminated by a refusal to learn from mistakes, those of others before them or their own. They also seem to have tiny views about the costs of their remediation, be they direct costs, like the cost to world energy of making inefficient petrol without lead; or indirect, like the sucking up of too much of the scarce dollar available for research into other problems or topics. Thus, we get landed with windmills and solar, when papers on topics like EROI formalise information that has been common knowledge for decades, that renewables are a bad investment for impossibly low returns in other than minor niche applications.
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OTOH, these negative examples stick out from the much larger population of social engineering that has been successful, like eradication of smallpox. The fact that so many readers here would tend to separate the problem cases from the success cases in much the same way, means that the problem cases can sometimes be identified. Surely it is up to their proponents, the partisans eventually – and not to a – to recognise failure and curtail useless further expenditure, before it is too expensively late.
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Comment on The 50-50 argument by Montalbano
This is hilarious from Webster. From Climategate and its coverups and much else besides, we know for certain that Klimate Klown Klan is an accurate description of the climate Establishment that Webster fawns over, not those who dissent. He does this because it gives him the answer he wants.
It is only Webster’s legendary seething and serial dishonesty and bias that attempts to misatttibute to skeptics, the frauds that the ‘consensus’ is rooted in.
Or should I spell that Konsensus? Webster being an adherent of the Klimate Krook Konsensus.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by dp
It probably isn’t politically correct to suggest it but it seems well past time for these doomcasters to get their asses kicked.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by tonyb
mosomoso
they have a good handle on lots of things. Lots of things. Lots of things beyond your understanding. Really clever things. Its all in the latest IPCC report. Read every word and marvel at its length
tonyb
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by ordvic
Tom Fuller, One very obvious example of that is the tobacco science scam. That was to PREVENT government though. Can you tnink of any others?
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by mosomoso
Their right hand hath not forgot its cunning.
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Comment on Atlantic vs Pacific vs AGW by Montalbano
Gavin asks if anyone wants to know why Judith allegedly isn’t conving anyone.
We already know, Gav. It’s because most are precommitted to alarm and CAGW, since this is where their grant farming is rooted – carefully aligned with the both ideology and financial vested interests of their paymaster. Much like yourself and that deeply dishonest mann friend of yours.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Faustino
Another recent example is the vitriol poured on Nicholas Wade for his book “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History.” Is the scientific criticism valid? Well, there’s nothing in the first 62 pages which suggests to me that it is worthy of attack and abuse; I’ll continue reading.
I’ve seen estimates that human population was negligible 195,000 years ago, surviving only in a small enclave in South Africa; that it fell again to about 10,000 adults 50-100,000 years ago; and to about 20,000 at the end of the last ice age, prior to the development of civilisation. Wade argues (I don’t know if this is correct or not) that there is an assumption that there are no inherent differences between people of different races, that there has been no evolution in the civilised era. Prima facie, I’d say that a species which has grown rapidly from 20,000 to 7.3 billion, has spread throughout the varied environments of our planet and has undergone huge social, cultural and technological change, would have experienced evolutionary change. Wade says that human evolution “has proceeded vigorously within the last 30,000 years, and almost certainly … up to the present day.” He finds that this has been the case, and that under “various local pressures, there developed the major races of humankind, those of Africans, East Asians and Europeans, as well as many smaller groups.”
Wade seems to be looking at this scientifically, he doesn’t seem to be making any point about the merits of any differences he identifies, I’ve seen no hint of racism in what I’ve read. But he has been howled down for suggesting that there is in fact an evolutionary explanation of differences between the major races. Perhaps he’s wrong, perhaps his evidence and arguments can be refuted. But all I have seen in the media, including from scientists in relevant disciplines, is abuse and calls for his work to be, at best, ignored.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Montalbano
Partisans. Indeed.
Government-funded climate science is inherently partisan, since government stands to hugely benefit from a finding of imminent CAGW.
That is why people like Judith are much the minority. And why as time goes by, they will get rooted out entirely, leaving only precommitted believers.
And also why outright fra udsters like Mann are not evicted or chastized.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Faustino
On the leaded petrol issue, in the early-80s there were a couple of small areas (other than the immediate vicinity of lead smelters) identified with lead levels causing risks for child development) one, at least, in inner city Sydney. To deal with this, the whole continent had to adopt unleaded petrol. (It would almost certainly have been cheaper to have paid those with children to relocate. I notice that many people near the South Australian and Mt Isa smelters continue to live there long after there children were identified as having dangerous levels of lead in their blood. They’ve made that choice.) Not only this, but long after sensible reductions in lead content were made, governments kept putting more and more restrictions on refineries, each involving high costs to the refiners for no benefit; then complained about the price of petrol. There was a very long period from the mid-80s when the fuel companies return on assets averaged around 2%; they’d have been better putting their money in the bank, and, surprise, surprise, most have now closed (although those regs were not the only factor).
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Rob Ellison
‘The decline of the West, which at first sight may appear, like the corresponding decline of the Classical Culture, a phenomenon limited in time and space, we now perceive to be a philosophical problem. that, when comprehended in all its gravity, includes within itself every great question of Being.
If therefore we are to discover in what form the destiny of the Western Culture will be accomplished, we must first be clear as to what culture is, what its relations are to visible history, to life, to soul, to nature, to intellect, what the forms of its manifestation are and haw far these forms – peoples, tongues and epochs, battles and ideas, states and gods, arts and craft-works, sciences, laws, economic types and world-ideas, great men and great events – may be
accepted and pointed to as symbols.’ Oswald Spengler
The decline of the west has been muttered darkly for a hundred years. It had a nadir of sorts in Eliot’s Wasteland. We are the hollow men – we are the stuffed men – headpiece stuffed with straw – this is the way the world ends – not with a bang but a whimper.
There is a different – and far more optimistic – interpretation possible as the strings of global mythologies come together to diverge again in some new and universally meaningful dance of life. This may not bring us closer to the true face of God – but will serve to inform a truly global civilization.
‘Evidently some mythology of a broader, deeper kind than anything envisioned anywhere in the past is now required: some arcanum arcanorum far more fluid, more sophisticated, than the separate visions of the local traditions, wherein those mythologies themselves will be known to be but the masks of a larger—all their shining pantheons but the flickering modes of a “timeless schema” that is no schema.
But that, precisely, is the great mystery pageant only waiting to be noticed as it lies before us, so to say, in sections, in the halls and museums of the various sciences, yet already living, too, in the works of our greatest men of art. To make it serve the present hour, we have only to assemble—or reassemble—it in its full dimension, scientifically, and then bring it to life as our own, in the way of art: the way of wonder—sympathetic, instructive delight; not judging morally, but participating with our own awakened humanity in the festival of the passing forms.’ Joseph Campbell
I have an idea that it is more Stars Wars than decadent and affected despair. Popular forms rather than arcane or scholastic. Accessible for my favourite animals. Glorious and resplendent. Brave and beautiful. The only thing I haven’t figured out is why we aren’t dancing in the streets with joy in our hearts and love in our lives.
Once – in my own dark days of the soul – I thought poetry dead and the eschatological promise would burst like new and frightening dawn of the consciousness of humanity. But I still know where poetry lives.
With vision and imagination In the nexus between past and future ready to define experience and express it in the instant expanding to embrace eternity and infinity and humanity.
The time of the city resplendent is on us. Shining in the colours of the day – green and gold and blue and grey. In the foreground is a flimsy black chair. Couldn’t sit on such a fragile construct. But the beauty of the dream of such a thing is made.
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Faustino
I’m not inclined to mythology, much better for all if we understand reality, as it is.
As for The Wasteland, I once wrote a 50-word short story entitled Armageddon in which, as doom neared, the heroine ditched her quiche-eating boyfriend and took the local stud to bed. “This is the way the world ends,” she declared, “not with a wimp but with a banger.”
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Comment on Partisanship and silencing science by Rob Ellison
Oddly enough – temperature and salinity are two different things.
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