Category: Plimer
Some people have wondered what happened to Ian Plimer. Before his current anti-science book, didn't he take it to the creationists in Telling Lies for God? Trouble is, Plimer's methods have not changed -- Telling Lies for God has the same cavalier approach to evidence as Heaven and Earth. Jeffrey Shallit reviewed it and concluded:
Unfortunately, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, what is good about Plimer's book is not original, and what is original is not good. ... We cannot successfully fight the pseudoscience of creationism by adopting gutter tactics. After all, the creationists have much of the public on their side: polls show strong support for "equal time", where creationist "theory" and evolution are taught side-by-side. Joe and Mary Average are not going to be convinced of the truth of evolution by rude, squabbling scientists. If science and its conclusions are to remain credible in the eyes of the public, scientists must behave with decorum, be very careful about acknowledging the work of others, avoid ad hominem attacks, and be quick to admit error when proved wrong. Ian Plimer, regrettably, does not seem to understand this.
Jim Lippard shows how the part of Telling Lies for God that is about Lippard is a "dishonest hatchet job".
Lippard comments on Heaven and Earth:
Some Christians who found Plimer to be worthless as a source on creationism as a result of my critique have nonetheless found him to be a worthwhile source on anthropogenic climate change, such as Bill Muehlenberg and some of the commenters at his CultureWatch blog. This strikes me as an inconsistent position--Plimer has demonstrated unreliability in both debates, and shouldn't be relied upon as a source for either. That doesn't mean to ignore what he says, or that everything he says is wrong--it's just that everything he says needs to be thoroughly checked for accuracy. If it checks out, then it's better to cite the original source, not Plimer.
Posted by Tim Lambert at 11:03 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Plimer
Ian Plimer is well aware that numerous serious errors of fact and interpretation have been exposed in his book but has yet to mount any kind of substantive response -- all he has done is call his critics names. As a result James Delingpole leaves himself wide open when he writes an excessively credulous review of Heaven and Earth:
My tribe doesn't believe in global warming! ... Plimer has a sciency-looking book saying it's all a big hoax! ... the Australian government will collapse ... Al Gore is fat!
OK, that was a paraphrase. Except for the bit about the Australian government collapsing.
George Monbiot takes advantage of the obvious opening.
Read on »
Posted by Tim Lambert at 12:27 PM • 66 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Iraq
With US combat troops withdrawing from Iraq's cities it is time to compare the 4639 coalition casualties with the predictions made by warbloggers before the war:
John Hawkins: "Probably 300 or less"
Charles Johnson:"Very few"
Henry Hanks: "Less than 200"
Laurence Simon: "A Few hundred"
Rachael Lucas: "Less than three thousand"
Scott Ott: "Dozens"
Glenn Reynolds: "Fewer than 100"
Tim Blair: "Below 50"
Ken Layne: "a few hundred"
Steven Den Beste: "50-150"
And there were roughly a million excess Iraqi deaths.
Posted by Tim Lambert at 1:06 PM • 84 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Global Warming
Chris Mooney refutes claims that a skeptical report was suppressed by the EPA. (See also Deep Climate's analysis of the origin of the report.
Another story about skeptics being suppressed has been concocted by Christopher Booker:
Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week's meeting of the [Polar Bear Study Group], but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor's, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: "it was the position you've taken on global warming that brought opposition".
Dr Taylor was told that his views running "counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful". His signing of the Manhattan Declaration -- a statement by 500 scientists that the causes of climate change are not CO2 but natural, such as changes in the radiation of the sun and ocean currents -- was "inconsistent with the position taken by the PBSG".
It is hard to imagine more unreliable sourcing than a Christopher "white asbestos is harmless" Booker second-hand report of an email, but I thought I should check the story to be on the safe side, so I asked Derocher about Booker's article:
Read on »
Posted by Tim Lambert at 1:36 PM • 42 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Global Warming
You might have learnt in stats class how to use linear regression to estimate trends. Well I'm sorry but you going to have to forget it all and the boring statistics books are going to have to be rewritten because that stuff is obsolete due to revolutionary breakthrough by Roger Pielke Sr. If you use the boring-and-now-obsolete linear regression stuff on the University of Colorado at Boulder sea level data you discover that the trend is positive and highly statistically significant, even if you just consider the data since 2006.
But using his revolutionary new technique Roger Pielke Sr discovers that sea levels are not rising and in fact: "Sea level has actually flattened since 2006."
Look at the proof and marvel:
Read on »
Posted by Tim Lambert at 5:19 PM • 105 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Thread
Time for another open thread.
Posted by Tim Lambert at 3:40 PM • 130 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Global Warming • Kininmonth • bobcarter
Senator Fielding has rejected the science and now claims:
Over the last 15 years, global temperatures haven't been going up and, therefore, there hasn't been in the last 15 years a period of global warming,
Clearly there was never any chance of convincing someone who can look at a graph like this one and not see any increase in temperature since the mid 90s:
Read on »
Posted by Tim Lambert at 1:49 PM • 91 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
