October 2008, yet another phony record

Coby, Matt at "Framing Science" objects to the term "denialist" when referring to Global Warming Skeptics. I object to the word "sceptic/skeptic" because of the responses that you place here. I have even laid out the case on my own blog, at Global Warming and Skeptics.

I am just wondering if there is a better way to refer to them than either denialists or skeptics?

I do find it a sticky issue, which word to use. I guess I try to chose according to context. What was Matt's argument, and alternative? For some of the people and most of the arguments, skeptic is far too forgiving. I personally do not buy into the alledged denialist-holocaust denier connection. I never intend it that way and do not think it is a remotely reasonable assumption.

From reading this post at Framing Science I can't really tell. I think he wants people to listen to the show to learn his alternative term.

Of these synonymns at Thesaurus.com,

agnostic, apostate, atheist, cynic, disbeliever, dissenter, doubter, doubting Thomas*, freethinker, heathen, heretic, infidel, materialist, misanthrope, misbeliever, nihilist, pagan, pessimist, profaner, questioner, rationalist, scoffer, unbeliever

the word that I find most appropriate is "scoffer."

William@Stoat uses 'septic', which I find curiously aposite.

It seems that in today's world, there are too many people willing to undermine other people's credibility by making false claims. It's a breath of fresh air to witness one of these injustices being corrected, or at least somewhat cleared up. Thanks!

The biggest problem with 'skeptic' is that most of those who insist AGW is not real, or not caused by humans offer all sorts of weird alternatives, like 'the data is faked by millions of dishonest scientists all over the world' , 'It was warmer in 1940', 'It's really geothermal', 'It's really cosmic rays', and so on. These alternatives are much more complicated, very tenuous, and rejected by all or nearly available evidence. They require one to be credulous - the opposite of skeptical.

Mike Haubrich:

Of these synonymns at Thesaurus.com,

agnostic, apostate, atheist, cynic, disbeliever, dissenter, doubter, doubting Thomas*, freethinker, heathen, heretic, infidel, materialist, misanthrope, misbeliever, nihilist, pagan, pessimist, profaner, questioner, rationalist, scoffer, unbeliever

OT: Gotta love how they throw 'atheist' and 'misanthrope' into the same category.

Oh, llewelly, I'm kind of used to it.

Given the high degree of credulity needed to be a 'skeptic', and the ability to argue 7 mutually contradictory hypotheses, I think CRANK is now the most accurate term. Skeptic may have been tenable 10-15 years ago, not now.

I use the term "pseudoskeptic" because it seems to capture the essence of the attitudes exhibited by those who refuse to accept the science of climate change.

Such people consider themselves skeptics, in that they aren't convinced by the evidence. But of course of true skeptic is willing to be convinced. For whatever reason -- ideology, stupidity, stubbornness -- these folks are not only unwilling to accept solid science, but are unwilling to subject their own positions to skeptical or critical analysis. They are false skeptics. Hence: Pseudoskeptics.

I first came across the term at Orac's blog, Respectful Insolencebut I have no idea whether he invented it.

Mike Haubrich, FCD
James Hrynyshyn
stewart
outeast
Maria M

Your comments are noted - FYI, as an AGW septic, I would prefer "Pagan", but I'll let you decide.

I can't say I remember Bohr, Heisenberg and Fermi having conversations about how to label their opponents though, I think they just got on with the work. Maybe you could do the same - I've written plenty of words on this site, feel free to point out where I've been ideological, a crank, stupid, unwilling to accept solid science etc.

> if there is a better way to refer to them than either denialists or skeptics?

"Inactivist", as frankbi uses. I got into a radio call-in tangle with Robert C. Balling Jr. night before last, after calling him a denier (he denied it; said he just has a different view of the likely consequences) - which I would have done better to avoid.
(report, q, and plea for assistance on my blog, BTW)

it's a cliche by now, but as usual with the rightwingnuts, the paranoid fantasies they spin about their opponents tells us a lot more about their actics and actions.

Paul, while I can't say that you have been any of those things because, frankly I haven't been paying close enough attention to your ocmmnents, I would bet that Bohr, Heisenberg and Fermi's opponets were not so concerned with making a concentrated political effort in the popular press to attack their character.

I would bet their opponents were not so enamored of belching carbon.

Scoffer works for me; it's what I use when someone refers to me as a skeptic.

The bandwagon approach to AGW has its limitations, and there is more and more good physics being done that points away from CO2 as the major cause of climate change.

For me, the smoking gun was "Celestial Drivers of the Phanerozioc Climate", Shaviv & Veizer (2003). When independent geochemistry (ocean temperature) and astrophysics (radiocarbon levels and galactic position) are found to be correlated, there is a there there. The most recent paper I've found to be useful to catalog the current cosmic ray/climate connection science is by Jasper Kirkby, the British physicist in charge of the CERN CLOUD experiment. "Cosmic Rays and Climate" from the journal Surveys in Geophyics, http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.1938v1.pdf

You might not know that Kirkby had CLOUD funding at CERN a decade ago but IPCC partisans killed his funding after he let fly with his opinion that cosmic rays (or more to the point, lack of cosmic rays) could be the cause of all of the 20th century warming. More bad politics killing good science.

G,

"You might not know that Kirkby had CLOUD funding at CERN a decade ago but IPCC partisans killed his funding after he let fly with his opinion that cosmic rays (or more to the point, lack of cosmic rays) could be the cause of all of the 20th century warming. "

Do you have some reference for that?

Here's an article that said it well, from the google cache, sorry for the clumsy url:

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:hCH0ztlCE2oJ:www.nationalpost.com/…

Clouded research
LAWRENCE SOLOMON, Financial Post Published: Friday, February 23, 2007

With the success of Svensmark's low budget version, SKY, funding for the full up CLOUD experiment was finally found. Let's be clear; it isn't to prove there is a cosmic ray connection, that's established. CLOUD is to better characterize the mechanisms.

Hansen undermined his own credibility when he stated that climate change liars should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5798

Something that would be uttered by someone in a religious war rather than by a rational scientist-

Not to pollute a website seemingly dedicated to stamping out skeptics and scoffers, but the Kirkby "Cosmic Rays and Climate" paper has a very lengthy list of references that are worth investigating, if what you are interested in is evaluating the science.

Perhaps someone here can help me with the status on the hunt for a real CO2 runaway positive feedback warming event. I've heard some claim that the Permian-Triassic event/extinction (~251 million years ago) was thought to be a candidate, but that's coincident with a cosmic ray minimum of the past 550 million years and probably belongs to the cosmics side of the fence.

Sorry for the earlier link to the Sullivan article on Kirkby; the google crawler needs an update. It is available directly at:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-…

Alan, look for an answer to your comment in a new post on Monday morning.

G, you should review some of the GCR discussion (and cited references) on Real Climate. They do some very indepth and technical discussion of that hypothesis and the alledged correlations.

As for "a real CO2 runaway positive feedback warming event", I suggest the PETM event if you don't like the Great Dying. FWIW though, we are at an unprecedented time in geological history so don't assume that no precendent would tells us that much!

Thanks for the links and the comments.

Real Climate is a poor source for scientific debate. Biased towards the current modelers (since they are primarily *from* the modeling side), they understand the issues as understood by climate modelers, but are reactionary when it comes to the advances in physics since the early '90's.

The basic RC argument is much like the arguments from Creationists against Evolution. Pick a link in the chain, point out something about it that is not yet proven, or some incorrect claim about what is proven, and proclaim none of it is. Superficial analysis, and the correlations are far more than alleged. It has been known for years that radiocarbon levels seemed correlated with temperatures in the fossil record. Shaviv and Veizer just put meat on those bones, and they came to their basic conclusions independently.

Shaviv (a physics prof) has a website in English targeted at general undergraduate audiences. Here's one good page
http://sciencebits.com/ice-ages

To the points of RealClimate who have made stabs at Shaviv's research, he has
http://sciencebits.com/RealClimateSlurs

Indeed, Real Climate is an extremely disappointing site. I've seen poor saps come there trying to legitimately understand the science behind AGW and they are treated rudely and shouted down the deities on the site. I tried to post a comment, just to say "lay off the guy", and it was never posted. I was very disappointed, especially after I saw they continued to pile on the poor guy until he said "This is my last post". I haven't visited the site yet. Personally, I'm just trying to get information on this complex subject and am looking for a truly neutral site, not some place where high IQ scientists reveal why most people don't take them seriously.

Hi miles,

If you want to give yourself a basic education on the science then you can do no better than reading the IPCC reports. I also recommend Spencer Weart's History of Global warming (google should get you there asap).

As for Real Climate, as with all blogs, don't judge them by the comment threads, which though i haven't followed for quite some time, never used to strike me as you describe it. Just read and learn from the posts.

"Coby, Matt at "Framing Science" objects to the term "denialist" when referring to Global Warming Skeptics. I object to the word "sceptic/skeptic" because of the responses that you place here. I have even laid out the case on my own blog, at Global Warming and Skeptics.

I am just wondering if there is a better way to refer to them than either denialists or skeptics?"

Wow, you guys act like those kids in highschool trying too hard to be cool. Pathetic way of being able to vent your frustrations over recent developments by diverting discussion to what seriously is the MOST TRIVIAL BULLCRIP you could ever come up with. Denialist or Skeptic. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So transparent. SO very transparent.

"They require one to be credulous - the opposite of skeptical."

OMG I just HAD to comment again after I read this. LOL Talk about trying to sound intelligent when you really aren't. "the opposite of skeptical" ORLY? LUL sEriously hilarious. I love this site because I get a really great laugh everytime I browse. I thought emo kids were pathetic!

P.s. credulous means a person is willing to believe anything they hear LOL Just like you. It's not a good thing. You might wanna double check on google or something next time before you make big booboo

dave, what are you, 12?

Seriously, you sound it.

Being a skeptic is healthy, rational way to approach life. That's why I've never considered it a good way to describe those who deny AGW theory based on little more than their right wing political ideology. And that is what we are really talking about here... a political agenda.

"GW Denier" is a bit condescending, but an accurate description of those among us who dedicate countless hours to try and delay a national response to an environmental problem.

Deniers used the same tactics to attack governmental responses to other environmental and public health issues. Anyone remember leaded gas, acid rain, asbestos abatement, second hand tobacco smoke? I could go on, but you get the picture. In the end they will lose, as they always lose. But in the mean time we will see the occasional outburst of frustration with lots of LOLs and OMGs.

That said, what is "LUL"? I tried to look it up on the google, but I don't think any of these fit the discussion:

AcronymDefinition
LULLondon Underground Limited (UK)
LULLeft Upper Lobe (lung)
LULLove You Lots
LULLambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Inc
LULLimited Usage License
LULLocal Unicast Label

Dave,

Credulous is EXACTLY what you are. If you have bought into the AGW denial pseudoscience that has been bandied about by the political crowd (NB you won't find climatologists on that list) then it doesn't say much about your ability to accurately assess merit in information. There is a reason these things are decided by peer review and that is to rule out ill-informed OPINION, which is all you spout. A suppose you think evolution's "just a theory" too, you twit.

Released within a month of your last post, Goodknight:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217075138.htm

The CLOUD research itself shows that cosmic rays are not an important factor. I wish it were otherwise as much as anyone else, but it looks like anthropogenic climate change is bullet-proof.

Looks like Hansen/GISS is up to their old tricks;

Here are the June global temperature anomaly comparisons:

GISS .63C

RSS .075

UAH .001

GISS is way above the other two, but it does not end there apparently 2007 has now replaced 1998 as the second hottest year on record this was achieved not by rigorous scientific study and evaluation but by sleight of hand an the part of GISS.

This has been achieved by lowering the 1998 J-D average temperature anomaly to 0.56 , and raising the 2007 J-D average temperature anomaly to 0.57. Last month they were viceversa.

This of course would give the impression that global temps are ever increasing keeping Hansen et al in a job. One day people like Hansen will be called to account for their actions, i hope i live long enough to see that day.

Crakar -

...this was achieved not by rigorous scientific study and evaluation but by sleight of hand an the part of GISS.

Offer proof that it was intentional misdirection, or kindly refrain from libel.

crakar, looking at the tabular data here http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt I see 2007 and 1998 equal. Regardless, statistically speaking .56 and .57 are indistinguishable.

Please give references for your copied talking points.

Please give references for your copied talking points.

Here's a post by someone named "Nylo", at Lucia's, copied by Watts at WUWT:

Regarding updates in past temperatures, this is not the most important change. Very noticeable is the fact that now 2007 is the second hottest year, having replaced 1998 in the statistics. This has been achieved by lowering the 1998 J-D average temperature anomaly to 0.56 , and raising the 2007 J-D average temperature anomaly to 0.57. Last month they were viceversa.

Crakar, if you're going to cut-and-paste, can you at least take the time to correct things like "viceversa" (which should be "vice versa")?

Try to do *something* useful, at least.

Blanket post to all see Richards post #69, he gives a good response no need to double up.

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/07/open_thread_on_plimer.php…

Special mention to Coby, your link (dated 2008)proves my point it provides the average and 5 year mean averages;

From your link 1998 .57 .38
2007 .57 *

So from your link we can see that 1998 which was once the hottest is now equal with 2007.

However from the link below updated June 2009 we can see that 2007 is now hotter than 1998 here is an excerpt.

1998 56, 57 figures for J-D, D-N
2007 57, 59
In fact 1998 not only is not the hottest year anymore it has somehow now tied with 2002, once again from the same source.

2002 56, 57

So how could this be? How could 1998 suddenly get cooler 11 years later? Adam could you please explain how these figures can be manipulated post facto? Or is it simply misdirection on the part of GISS?

You are right Coby they are statistically indistinguishable now, the question is were they before they were changed?

dhogaza, you obviously feel left out, i will try and correct minor grammatical errors when i cut and paste in future just for you OK.

Forgot the link

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

crakar,

Copy/paste without attribution will get you deleted, scolded and eventually unwelcome here. This is another dead giveaway of the pure denialist. You are not discussing you are attempting to score points, and rather lazily at that.

If you were a skeptic in any meaningful sense, you would know if this borrowed claim were true or not, and you would have a primary source hady to share.

I have the primary source listed in post #37, granted i forgot to insert it in post #36 which may have lead to your confusion.

I do not accept what you say in #38, indeed i am hoping for a discussion as always i do not get one.

So lets look at the facts, you supplied a GISS txt file from 2008 and i supplied a GISS txt file from 2009. The data for the year 1998 has been altered.

Adam and dhogaza respond with off topic posts. Adam calls me a liar and dhogaza corrects my grammer and yet you say nothing?

So my questions (as always) remain unanswered, but i will ask just one more time, how can GISS change the temp of a year, 11 years after the fact. Also how can GISS have June anomoly at 0.63 a whole 0.55 above RSS and .629 above UAH? Surely GISS must be in error.

dhogaza corrects my grammer and yet you say nothing?

I would guess that Coby understood my point - if you're going to cut and paste without attribution, at least *try* to mask it by correcting totally stupid language errors.

We know you can't correct the totally stupid *science* errors, but can't you at least try to make it harder for us to use google to show you're plagiarizing by correcting language/spelling errors?

If you'd prefer to be caught out as a cut-and-paste mindless denialist, well, then, please ignore my advice.

You see this is a classic dhogaza post, let me walk you through it.

Post #31 broaches the subject of changes in data

Post #32 Adam claims i am a liar, which would infer that he had evidence at hand to make such a claim, obviously he did not as the link i provided supports my post #31

Post#33 Coby responds to my post and asks for a reference (valid response)

Post#34/35 dhogaza asks for a reference (valid response)and corrects a spelling mistake in an attempt to highlight my "cut and paste" (as if i am the first person here who has done that).

Post#36/37 i supply a reference, i suspect Coby posted #38 without seeing #37, #39 is my response.

So it is fair to say that there was a little bit of confusion, primarily because i did not include a reference at the start, i accept responsability for causing this confusion.

Now the important one, post #40, rather than dhogaza focussing on the question of data being changed post facto as both Coby's and my text files show has happened, dhogaza continues persuing the trivial matter of grammatical correction.

Is this because he is attempting to redirect the debate in an effort to avoid the GISS data changes? Or is it simply that he likes to argue with people he has and will never meet? I think i know the answer to that question.

Let's move this digression over here:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/07/giss_record_changes.php