Henry Farrell, prompted by Clive Crook's claim that climate scientists' understanding of climate science is "hardly any better" than that of non-experts, tells the story of Crook's graceless withdrawal of his accusations of fraud against climate scientists:
Hence, Crook's imputation that the "trick" was surely employed toward dishonest ends, was not only potentially libelous, but a clear demonstration that he simply didn't know what he's talking about. He had no expertise on the topic, and under his own rules, should have shut up about it. If he had, it would have spared him some considerable embarrassment.
Summing up, I can certainly understand why Crook has an animus against climate scientists. I can even understand why, in some intellectually confused fashion, he links discussions of climate science to the question of what happens when people pronounce confidently on topics where they have no legitimate expertise, and suffer the painful consequences. But his memory seems to be malfunctioning. It wasn't the climate scientists who got their arses handed back to them on a plate. It was Clive Crook. I trust he'll be grateful for the reminder.
The depressing thing is that Crook is not the worst editor at The Atlantic.
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My subscription to the Atlantic went unrenewed last year.
I canceled my subscription to the Atlantic specifically stating it was due to Clive Crook and would not renew until he was fired.
I have to entice everyone to read the comment section of the Crooked Timber thread. Even to a layman, it makes entertaining reading.
My subscription to the Atlantic went unrenewed last year.
I'd like to say that I stopped buying the Atlantic over one of their outrages (publishing McArdle and Crook come to mind), but for me, the discontinuation of the cryptic crossword was the final straw.
Oh dear. This is like telling fluviogeomorphologists they learned everything they know from newspaper articles about fluviogeomorphology.
Good grief, or perhaps in acknowledgement of our host's nationality, 'strewth! Are you lot still here playing on your own? I told you yonks ago, it's all over, no one's listening, time to find another panic to frit the folks.
Anyway, I read Farrell's piece and I would hardly describe Crook's clarifications as a "withdrawal", graceless or otherwise. The meanings of the words "trick" (not 'knack'!) and "hide" for which there is no alternative which does not sound worse, are perfectly clear to me. The Penn State 'enquiries' were as rigorous as the Westminster ones - 'nuff said! Finally, there was no apology from Crook and no writ has been issued.
The depressing things is that this is not the worst global climate warming/cooling/change (delete as required by necessity) site in the world.
We thought of you as amusingly clueless then; we think of you as amusingly clueless now. The fact that you sweep in again, saying clueless things, sounding as though you were under the impression you might have been taken seriously is simply another sign that we were right about you.
*shrug*
"sweep in again"
I resent that, Pough! I knocked first, asked if I could come in and wiped my feet on the doormat as I did so.
Sorry if my little notelet upset you but our host here has a tendency to read into things rather more than is there so I felt obliged to give him a little tug back to earth. By the way, Pough, as I haven't been here for a while, give me a tip, is it climate warming, or cooling, or change these days? Only they do tend to keep changing and I know how fearfully important these slogans are to all you concerned and caring people and I wouldn't want to put my foot in it!
Re #6 and #8 - Groan, another witless troll. Why are you people so stunningly, stupifyingly, illogically dull? Can't you at least come up with something new or interesting, rather than your stupid, uninformed, childish provocation? Please just grow up.
Ah, David Duff,
Nice to see you chuntering away.
I think you have missed one of Tim's points which is that the denier mouth pieces love to jump on little things that reasonable people say and twist them as part of directing the thinking of the denialiti and then fail to fess up when one of their numerous trip ups is pointed out to them. Your post @ 6 shows how successful the meme shapers are with getting denialiti to faithfully keep to the meme.
But apart from that Dave seeing you don't think much of Farrell calling Crook out I'm interested in where you would place this wrt to the inquiry into the Wegmen report...... just below i.e. Crook could be in trouble..... or, won't wreck Crook's career....... or, nothing when compared with the implications of the having an academic inquiry into the most public bits of your work?
GWB, you really must do something about these temper tantrums, they're fearfully ageing, you know!
Jeremy, nice to 'see' you again, too. I'm all in favour of a bit of neologism but I do think, and I hope you won't take offence, that "denialiti" is stretching it a bit - it took me several goes to decide how to pronounce it before I managed to get round to guessing what it meant! Also, I notice you are rather fond of 'Bishop' Dawkins little verbal invention - 'meme'. Of course,there was nothing wrong with the old word 'idea', but then the old 'Bish' is fond of little, and not so little, inventions, I'm told.
I'm afraid your final paragraph is a tad too complicated for a simple fellow like me but feel free to have another go and I'll see if I can understand it any better. Oh, and it's 'David', not "Dave" - simply too, too Australian!
OOOOO David Duff
you must have got another cheque from the Koch Brothers.
Why dont you go back to your wallow.
Oooh, Harvey, the things you learn on this internet 'wotsit'. Until now I had never heard of the Koch brothers but having googled them I would just like to say, in case they're reading this, 'Hi there, Charles and David, just love your 'can do' style 'over there', and if you're looking for someone to beat up on these pesky little Green War people, I'm your man! Cheques will do but cash, in the usual plain brown envelopes, is even better, it says so much about you.'
Thanks for the intro, Harvey, and in return here's a tip - "wallow" is a verb not a noun, unless of course, you're Australian in which case none of the usual rules of English apply!
Some things never change it seems...
Shorter David Duff:
Oh, and David - wallow can be used as a noun. This is easy to check. Once again, you rush to pontificate at length from a position of minimal knowledge.
Trolls fed = time wasted
Dave boy,
How u going with that last paragraph?
But, perhaps I should check if you understand the first one.
(sorry to feed the troll from sarf London...)
Well bless my soul, 'wallow' is a noun! My apologies to Harvey and when I have finished writing my hundred lines I shall hurl myself from the top of my OED which is so enormous I hardly ever use it and thus make silly mistakes. And whilst I am in full mea culpa mode, I promise never to be rude about Aussies again, er, well, until they thrash us in the Ashes tests in which case all bets are off.
Anyway, people, it's Monday, the beginning of another week, so is it 'warming', 'cooling', 'change' or 'stasis'? Just so I know!
Obviously this week the global climate will cool once and for all proving global warming to be a fra*d. I know this because bloggers have been writing for years that the "rotten edifice is about to come tumbling down".
I predict this will happen at 11am local time tomorrow.
Daveeee.....Matey,
You gonna answer the questions or stick to fooling around on the upper level of the 159 bus to Streatham calling out to the girls who get off at Brixton.
John, hmmmm, you have raised a very useful point @ 19. However small question; 11am BST or GMT or wouldn't it be useful to a denier to be able to change the time zone when the edifice doesn't tumble inevitably ending up changing continuously so doing endless circles?
David Duff, it's Monday, the beginning of another week, so which denialosphere meme are you going for this week? Al Gore, climategate, no such thing as a global average temperature, warming stopped in 1997, antarctic ice is expanding, or some other nonsense? Just so we know!
Dang, killfile's quit working again.
>John, hmmmm, you have raised a very useful point @ 19. However small question; 11am BST or GMT or wouldn't it be useful to a denier to be able to change the time zone when the edifice doesn't tumble inevitably ending up changing continuously so doing endless circles?
Mine was funnier.
John,
OK.
It is certainly instructive to see one after another of the Warmist rags struggling to re-invent themselves as impartial science-based observers of the climate change scene, after years of overt alarmism.
When even New Scientist and SciAm start renegotiating their positions, it's clear that they see no future in trying to glue Humpty AGW Dumpty together again.
You mean alarmism like "green eco facists are trying to take over the world!"?
No? How about alarmism like "if we cut back on fuel use, you will send us back to the stone ages!!"?
No? How about "this is all to do with wealth redistribution from us rich people to the poor third world"?
No? Then how about "this is all to do with wealth redistribution from the poor people of the world to the rich first world"?
Then again, projection is the sine qua non of denialism.
Ricki babes,
*It is certainly instructive to see one after another of the Warmist rags struggling to re-invent themselves as impartial science-based observers of the climate change scene, after years of overt alarmism.*
In reasoned english, just what does the above mean or was writing it just an excuse to give yourself a warm glow animated with ideological anger as you hit the return button on your computer to post it.
I....I..... just can't understand why deniers....are.....deniers. Just read the science without bringing presumpositions to it.
He is baying at the moon, that's all. The science per se has almost nothing to do with why deniers like Bradford behave as they do. Making a few substitutions in his post shows what a generic screed it is:
It is certainly instructive to see one after another of the Evolutionist rags struggling to re-invent themselves as impartial science-based observers of the creation scene, after years of overt atheism.
When even New Scientist and SciAm start renegotiating their positions, it's clear that they see no future in trying to glue Humpty Darwinist Dumpty together again.
It is one of the commonest themes in denier rants: "The (AGW) (evolution) (vaccination) (HIV/AIDS) edifice is crumbling!"
Plug in whichever denialist cause you wish; it will sound the same and be just as devoid of any useful content. As vacuous as it is, one sees it constantly from deniers of all stripes. Evidently they need the self-reassurance that it's all a big hoax, and soon all those naughty scientists will be crushed by their falling house of cards.
[The New Scientist Debates Denialism](http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2010/05/the_new_scientist_debates_den…)
"Just read the science without bringing *presumpositions* to it."
That's my favourite bit of mangling since George Bush Jnr warned us to not "misunderestimate" him.
Whoops!
My mangled spelling.
It should've been; presuppositions.
As the concise OED puts it * n. presupposing; thing assumed beforehand as basis of argument etc*.
I think presumposition sounded better.
Rick likes pulling himself.
I wonder what his (and others) excuse will be when 2010 is announced as the warmest year on record.
Easy - on January 1, they'll say "no warming since 2010!!"