Fake Experts

Christopher Monckton files a questionable affidavit

denialism — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:59:41 +0000

Christopher Monckton files a questionable affidavit

Via Ed I see that Christopher Monckton, the fake expert in climate change who has been repeatedly told by Parliament to stop calling himself an Member of the House of Lords,, claims he's the inventor of a magical disease cure of HIV, MS, flu and the common cold, and recently a birther, has now submitted an affidavit (read here) pushing his bogus birther stats argument. The only problem? I think one could argue he's now opened his factually-questionable statements to legal scrutiny. From his affidavit:

I am over the age of 18 and am a resident of the United Kingdom. The information herein is based upon my ownpersonal knowledge. If called as a witness, I could testify competently thereto. I have a degree in Classical Architecture from Cambridge University. The course included instruction in mathematics. I am the Director of Monckton Enterprises Ltd., a consultancy corporation which, inter alia, specializes in investigating scientific frauds at government level, on which I advised Margaret Thatcher from 1982-1986 at 10 Downing Street during her time as Prime Minister. I have experience in the use of certain mathematical techniques which allow rigorous
assessment of probabilities including the probability that a document has been forged. I have published papers in the reviewed literature on climate science and economics and am an appointed expert reviewer for the forthcoming
Fifth Assessment Report (2013) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

First of all, just because you had a course or two in mathematics while getting a degree in classical architecture, doesn't make you a mathematician. I took plenty of courses in math while getting my degree in physics, but it doesn't make me a math expert. But that's not the biggest problem with his claims. He has repeatedly asserted he has published papers in the peer reviewed literature and recently he's inflated his resume with the claim he's an appointed expert reviewer for the IPCC. His claims of scientific contributions have been challenged before, and he's defended himself with this response at Watt's up with that:

The editors of Physics and Society asked me to write a paper on climate sensitivity in 2008. The review editor reviewed it in the usual way and it was published in the July 2008 edition, which, like most previous editions, carried a headnote to the effect that Physics and Society published “reviewed articles”. Peer-review takes various forms. From the fact that the paper was invited, written, reviewed and then published, one supposes the journal had followed its own customary procedures. If it hadn’t, don’t blame me. Subsequent editions changed the wording of the headnote to say the journal published “non-peer-reviewed” articles, and the editors got the push. No mention of any of this by the caveman, of course.

What the editors actually wrote was:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."

To claim that this one article, in a newsletter, which the editors have explicitly said was not peer reviewed, constitutes "published papers" (plural) in the "reviewed literature", is simply not correct. Even if you had thought that this had been peer-reviewed before, surely now that the editors have said "no it was not" is no reason to continue to claim that it was. After searching multiple databases including Google Scholar, Thomson Reuters web of knowledge, and Scirus, I can find little more than a book chapter in a crank textbook suggesting Monckton has ever contributed anything to any "literature", and has not contributed to a peer-reviewed journal article. This contradicts his assertion that he has contributed multiple times to the peer reviewed literature. The one time he has defended this assertion, he was contradicted by the editors of the newsletter he claimed had peer-reviewed his piece. It makes me wonder if he understands what peer review is, because it's very clear what it is when you've actually done it. Since there is no evidence he has ever has had his writing subjected to true peer review, it's likely he has no idea what it actually involves, and his statement that it takes "various" forms is clearly based on no personal experience as he has no peer-reviewed articles in the scientific literature.

Peer review is straightforward and doesn't take "various forms". You submit an article to a journal, it is distributed by the editor to other scientists who publish in the relevant field who then submit critiques. These critiques are addressed or rebutted by the author, resubmitted to the reviewers, and then rinse-repeat until everyone is satisfied that the critiques have been adequately addressed. If he was indeed peer-reviewed in this piece, I'm sure he kept the reviewers critiques? Or the editions before and after review? No? Then you weren't peer reviewed. He seems to be confusing "edited" with peer-reviewed, in that some brain-dead editor read his article and still somehow thought it was a wise idea to publish it.

Second, his claim that he's an appointed reviewer for the IPCC? This is contradicted by the IPCC! Here's the IPCC response:

Anyone can register as an expert reviewer on the open online registration systems set up by the working groups. All registrants that provide the information requested and confirm their scientific expertise via a self-declaration of expertise are accepted for participation in the review. They are invited to list publications, but that is not a requirement and the section can be left blank when registering. There is no appointment.

An architecture degree does not make you a mathematician or a statistician, a non-peer reviewed commentary in a physics newsletter does not make you a peer-reviewed scientist, filling out an online form does not appoint you to the IPCC, and you're not an member of the House of Lords if Parliament repeatedly sends you letters telling you to stop calling yourself one.

I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect it might be a legal error to compound these factual mistakes by swearing to them in an affidavit. Filing a false affidavit, after all, is considered perjury.

That any of the denialists in the crankosphere think it's a good idea to associate themselves with this guy is just another example of the Dunning-Kruger effect - the tendency of the incompetent to be unable to recognize incompetence in themselves or others. This guy is the quintessential fake expert, unless you consider him an expert in resume padding.

He gets the chimp!

denialism Thu, 11/15/2012 - 04:59

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Christopher Monckton

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Ken Ham Meets Everything is Terrible

denialism — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:00:23 +0000

Ken Ham Meets Everything is Terrible

Every once in a while Everything is Terrible has a fun denialism-overlap as they show some ad for a terrible piece of quackery, or in this case a great cut of Ken Ham speaking nonsense to a group of very unfortunate children. This is child abuse. Not the creationism bit, but the embarrassingly-shoddy job he does presenting his evidence which seems to consist of poorly-drawn cartoons of men standing next to dinosaurs and an overhead projector.

denialism Thu, 10/18/2012 - 09:00

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Child abuse? hardly. Teaching children that life started as a result of two inanimate objects in space banged together and that evolution is a fact is true child abuse. The teaching of Gody denying is child abuse. There is plenty enough evidence to support the fact that humans and dinosaurs once lived together and that they died out as a result of climate change human hunters.

Yes, we had global climate change long before Al Gore decided to profit from his UN wealth redistribution ponzi scheme we now all know as American Global Warming (AWG).

Climate changes. No one denies that. We do deny that humans can cause it however. Any other teaching is truly abusive.

Bob - maybe you can explain to me - Why do climate change denialists have this thing about Al Gore? I for one had accepted the reality that climate change was on its way while Gore was still an undergraduate student. The science has nothing to do with him.

I would also be grateful if you could explain the physics behind the notion that a 50% increase in an atmospheric gas that absorbs infrared radiation will not result in climate change.

life started as a result of two inanimate objects in space banged together

What on Earth are you blithering about? I suspect you are completely unable to describe the theory of evolution.

'There is plenty enough evidence to support the fact that humans and dinosaurs once lived together "

Well Bobby boy perhaps you would like to present that evidence?? Or perhaps you are just creating a POE ?

Yes Bob. As you said, you 'deny'.

Me, I prefer evidence and reason to ideology. But hey, if you want to believe that humans coexisted with dinosaurs or that the earth is flat, go ahead.

You will be the one that everyone laughs at.

Now - Bob - I'm not entirely sure why you stopped going to school at age 7 or if you've ever been there, but:

Can you tell me, why telling a child that some mysterious imaginary friend in the sky, that doesn't want anything but the best for humanity but still leaves out no possibility to let us kill ourselves or others, just because they don't have the same delusions, is no child abuse, but giving the kid the tools to experience and learn about the world is?

Is it just because it's harder to convince someone to believe in the zombie son of some wrathful, but still benevolent, god, if they know how to do the facts checking? Or do certain people really want to catapult us back into the dark ages?

Now concerning climate change:
Yeah, it started long ago. And, yeah, humanity did survive so far. But humanity has a certain talent called "the use of tools", such as warm clothing to protect against the cold or air conditioning against the heat.
Sadly, man is the only animal that is able to do that, while all other forms of live just have to take it. Now, I don't know, what you like to eat, be it meat (kind of hard if you exterminate all other animals because you ignore a problem you can solve but they can't) or plants (ever heard of the story of the flowers and bees?), but once they can no longer exist on earth, surviving kind of gets difficult even for the, more or less intelligent, animal called Man.

Third, the case of the dinosaurs:
If dinosaurs and humans ever happened to live at the same time and the same place, there should be some proof out there.
Like for example, skeletons of both in the same place, which happened to be buried there at the same time.
I'd even be OK with just a single human bone in a single dinosaur stomach. May even be one of our evolutionary predecessors and does not have to be a member of Homo sapiens sapiens.
And if you accept badly drawn pictures as proof, guess what, I can proof, with an equally bad (if not worse) drawn picture, that whatever deity you can name actually is a bowl of overcooked spaghetti...

I know, my choice of words isn't always the friendliest, but seriously dude... How much did they pay you, so that you just turn off your brain?

"The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

I read your comment, Mr. Glasner. You are guilty of abusing my brain.

Glasner’s comment gives new impetus to the title of Dawkins’ book, “The God DELUSION”.

I also love that Bob purposefully misread my comment. I specifically said the child abuse wasn't in the message, but the presentation. I mean, an overhead projector and crudely-drawn cartoons of a man standing next to a dinosaur? Really? That's what you're going to hold up against geology, physics, biology, and chemistry?

Mark:

I mean, an overhead projector and crudely-drawn cartoons of a man standing next to a dinosaur? Really? That’s what you’re going to hold up against geology, physics, biology, and chemistry?

Heh. Somebody has to stand up to these experts!

I am looking for peer review.

Kindly give me some facts here.

Since you are looking at climate; how accurate is the following?

“If world temperature is driven by carbon dioxide, then, since:
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is almost insignificant compared to the amount in the oceans;
And, since;
Increasing ocean temperature drives carbon dioxide out of solution and out of the oceans and into the atmosphere;
Then, unless year one Chemistry has missed something:
An increase in global temperature will lead to an increase in global carbon dioxide which will lead to an increase in temperature which will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide which will lead to an increase in temperature which will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide …….. . So, do the climate scientists really believe the earth is totally young, in contradiction to everything we learnt in school? After all, the oceans do not appear to have actually boiled …… . ”

If it has any basis in fact, how can the Earth be more than a few thousand years old?

Change of topic, really, similar topic.

Here are some questions I infrequently ask our furry friends, Ken Hamster, Richard (Dawkins) Rabbit, and, occasionally Whiskery John (Mackay). They gnaw about things. I have personally spoken with the two of Australian origin, and would have been more profitably employed, gnawing an adamant. Question: 'According to Genesis, all plants were made on the third day and were in some real sense alive at that time. According to the same authority, flowering and fruiting vegetation were made to grow during the day of Adam’s creation (six), and from the context, were full grown from scratch on that day. According to GENESIS, all complex life (above plant grade)without exception was created on the fifth day. The same authority demands that aspects of complex life were made or formed of earth on the sixth day. Explain, without contradicting the Bible. “
Here is one I frequently sent to Richard (Dawkins) Rabbit, and likeminded bunnies.
“Ahem, Prof. Dawk.. In the beginning, nothing got together with nothing, they made some gaseous extrusions or exuberances or emanations or whatever, these turned into rock, and in time your publications arose. Nothing you publish originated from intelligence? Your research shows there is zip, zero, zilch intelligence behind any of what you say or write?”
These people rely on each other.

Give with the peer review, thinkers!

Dear Mr. Heywood
You won't find many peers here, with the possible exception of Mr. Glasner. Most people here seem able to recall much of their basic education, and to organize their thoughts in a logical manner.

Until you can write a coherent sentence based on facts, you won't find any peers here

All the best,
Alana

Mr Heywood:

I would kindly suggest you review the concept of 'gain' in the context of feedback loops, which I believe will satisfy your inquiry regarding why the positive feedbacks in the Earth climate system do not result in a runaway hothouse.

Thanks. You might like to run a scan over this – result of searching under Feedback Loops. I have some small acquaintance with the geologic record but my geochemistry is limited.
A feedback loop, as I deduce from googling, is a cause-effect scenario which in some circumstances can feed itself. An example is a bank run – actions by a few may lead to panic which feeds the numbers which feeds the run.... but eventually, the numbers must drop off and the run must subside. There can be positive and negative feedback in a loop. From what I read on WIKIPEDIA, (samples below), if the sun is assumed to be a steady supply of heat and the earth is approximated to a normal body capable of absorption and re-emission(‘black body’), then the standard law applicable to such a scenario (Stefan-Boltzmann) theoretically provides for sufficient re-emission to stop a positive feedback loop running to extremes. “Emitted radiation rises with the fourth power of temperature.” That puts a lid on extreme heat. This may explain why we are not like Venus? However, from what I read, (see below), the earth is not a perfect ‘black box’ and the big question as I read it hinges upon the exact mechanisms in place that cause it to vary from a perfect ‘black box’.
My perusal of climate papers suggests there is no unanimity of opinion amongst climate researchers regarding the way to get a fully meaningful mathematical formulation of the earth’s emissive properties. They are unable to practically apply Stefan-Boltzmann without a potential for wide error and this is borne out by varying predictions of future global warming. One paper I have seen predicts, a century from now, two degrees more than do others.
My conclusion, coming from an old-earth creationist perspective, is to ‘trust in God, and keep the powder dry” – do that which is realistic and don’t act as though we are orphans abandoned on a lump of space debris. But I would certainly value any further review of technicalities.
WIKIPEDIA:
Within climate a positive feedback subsystem never acts in isolation, but is always embedded within the overall climate system, which itself is always subject to a very powerful negative feedback, the Stefan–Boltzmann law that emitted radiation rises with the fourth power of temperature. Hence, on earth the gain of the overall system is always less than one, stopping the system from suffering runaway effects. While there may have been periods of time such as the exit from an ice age where the gain was greater than one, this has not lasted long enough for extreme effects such as the evaporation of the oceans as is believed to have happened on Venus
Examples of positive feedback subsystems in climatology include:
A warmer atmosphere will melt ice and this changes the albedo

which further warms the atmosphere.
Methane hydrates can be unstable so that a warming ocean could release more methane, which is also a greenhouse gas.
EXTRACT under Stefan- Boltzmann:
Similarly we can calculate the effective temperature of the Earth TE by equating the energy received from the Sun and the energy radiated by the Earth, under the black-body approximation. The amount of energy, ES, emitted by the Sun is given by:
[complicated formulae]
where TS is the temperature of the Sun, rS the radius of the Sun, and a0 is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This gives an effective temperature of 6°C on the surface of the Earth, assuming that it perfectly absorbs all emission falling on it and has no atmosphere.
The Earth has an albedo of 0.3, meaning that 30% of the solar radiation that hits the planet gets scattered back into space without absorption. The effect of albedo on temperature can be approximated by assuming that the energy absorbed is multiplied by 0.7, but that the planet still radiates as a black body (the latter by definition of effective temperature, which is what we are calculating). This approximation reduces the temperature by a factor of 0.71/4, giving 255 K (−18 °C).
However, long-wave radiation from the surface of the earth is partially absorbed and re-radiated back down by greenhouse gases, namely water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane Since the emissivity with greenhouse effect (weighted more in the longer wavelengths where the Earth radiates) is reduced more than the absorptivity (weighted more in the shorter wavelengths of the Sun's radiation) is reduced, the equilibrium temperature is higher than the simple black-body calculation estimates. As a result, the Earth's actual average surface temperature is about 288 K (15 °C), which is higher than the 255 K effective temperature, and even higher than the 279 K temperature that a black body would have.

Arr, in a few places above, I wrote, black box, when I should have written, black body.

The Privacy Competition Myth

choofnagle — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:44:40 +0000

The Privacy Competition Myth

In his non-book-review of Garret Keizer's new book, Privacy, "Reason" Magazine correspondent includes this ill-informed quip on privacy:

With regard to modern commerce, Mr. Keizer grumps: "We would do well to ask if the capitalist economy and its obsessions with smart marketing and technological innovation cannot become as intrusive as any authoritarian state." Actually, no. If consumers become sufficiently annoyed with mercantile snooping and excessive marketing, they can take their business to competitors who are more respectful of privacy. Not so with the citizens of an intrusive state.

There is almost no market for privacy among merchants. Companies learned long ago that raising privacy as an issue backfires--it causes consumers to worry about it rather than feel safe about an alternative product. Whether online or offline, going to a competitor doesn't increase your privacy, in real or perceived terms. It's simply too easy to hide invasive practices from consumers.

Our work at Berkeley shows the folly of simply going to a different site in order to have more privacy. Here's just one example, in our Web Privacy Census, we did a large-scale survey of popular websites in order to assess mercantile snooping and excessive tracking. Of the most popular 1,000 websites, Google trackers are present on 712 of them. Good luck finding a competitor who is more respectful of your privacy.

choofnagle Thu, 08/16/2012 - 03:44

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" Of the most popular 1,000 websites, Google trackers are present on 712 of them. Good luck finding a competitor who is more respectful of your privacy."

Depends on what you mean by privacy. Google's tracking cookies don't do much to violate privacy as far as I'm concerned - the data isn't linked to me except in my own browser (or my google account if I'm signed in), and their privacy policy is quite clear.

On the other hand, when I give money to a political campaign, my e-mail address is then sent around to every other campaign on the same side and my inbox starts getting flooded - I see that as a far more intrusive violation of my privacy.

The whole rhetoric around internet "tracking" generally strikes me as hyperbolic and uninformed.

Indeed. Here in the EU we now have legislation in force which requires web sites to gain explicit "opt in" for the use of cookies (with some exceptions), which has at least made the matter slightly more visible (for sites and businesses based in the EU). But what's really interesting about it is that I have yet to encounter anybody offering an "opt out" option - the approach has universally been "opt in or GTFO", rather than "opt in or lose these features".

@Kevin, what do you mean by privacy here? The point I'm making is that on the most popular websites on the internet (and most traffic is pretty highly concentrated among the top 500 or so sites) a single company can track you on 2/3 of them. This same company often has your email, documents, etc. If that does not implicate privacy, what does?

@Chris I think what Kevin means is that all trackers are not equal. Beyond the fact that your presence is known on a site, there's other things to consider:

- what data is gathered
- how the data will be used
- will the data be shared
- how long will it be kept for

All of these are factors influence how privacy "friendly" a site is. Just because a site is firing a Google analytics pixel doesn't mean they are sharing your shopping preferences, demographic information or any other information besides the URL that you viewed with third parties.

It's a very likely possibility that sites will compete on privacy practices in the future - see the recent outlook.com positioning that they won't data mine personal emails as an example.

@Marc, I think the recent outlook.com development is good, but it's only good in the sense that Gmail is a terribly bad development. If a new email service is offered that says, "hey, we won't scan your email content," it's not exactly a revolution in consumer privacy.

@chris - I agree on the issue of privacy with regards to most email providers. That's why I created ThreadThat. Now you can communicate in an anonymous, secure, encrypted manner for free. All you need to use the service is an email address for authentication and notifications. All communications are encrypted end-to-end and are stored on TT servers. For maximum privacy, TT users can control the pass phrases used to encrypt their messages and files.

Disinformation about Disinformation: L. Gordon Crovitz's Information Age

choofnagle — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:55:09 +0000

Disinformation about Disinformation: L. Gordon Crovitz's Information Age

When one spouts disinformation about disinformation, does it make it information? No, it's L. Gordon Crovitz's "Information Age," the weekly poorly informed and poorly reasoned blather about information policy in the Wall Street Journal.

Recall that Crovitz recently wrote about the invention of the Internet and online privacy. I wrote about these last two columns, and this week in the Journal Crovitz tries to backpedal, with the standard trope that his "Who Really Invented the Internet?" article was controversial—"It [became] for a time the most read, emailed and commented upon article on the Journal's website, with more than 1,000 comments." It was popular in the same way that reality stars enjoy popularity.

Crovitz tries to explain that he was reacting to President Obama's recent speech about government and business. Crovitz responds that:

• Government alone didn't create the Internet.

• Government didn't help build the Internet in order to create commercial opportunities.

• Companies that succeed on the Internet do not succeed because of government.

Of course, this is not what Crovitz said last week. He said:

If the government didn't invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet's backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks.

But full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox.

Full credit. Not shared credit.

To Crovitz's second point, government builds a lot of things that have secondary uses in the commercial market. The many inventions of NASA, for instance, were first developed to execute space travel, and these technologies find their way into the commercial sector.

To Crovitz's third point, companies do succeed on the Internet because of government. There is plenty of interaction and cooperation between high tech companies and government, and that is why high tech companies are not libertarian. If high tech companies were severed from the government gravy train, innovation would suffer. We'd have fewer drones and other wonderful technologies.

More fundamentally, so many internet entrepreneurs came from America's college and university system, where big government funding helps develop leaders like Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Wozniak and others.

This tech libertarian "I am an island" meme is fully debunked by Paulina Borsook's Cyberselfish. In that book, Borsook lampoons arguments of Crovitz's sort: "The most virulent form of philosophical technolibertarianism is a kind of scary, psychologically brittle, prepolitical autism. It bespeaks a lack of human connection and a discomfort with the core of what many of us consider it means to be human. It's an inability to reconcile the demands of being individual with the demands of participating in society, which coincides beautifully with a preference for, and glorification of, being the solo commander of one's computer in lieu of any other economically viable behavior…"

But back to Crovitz:

Supporters of big government don't want to hear about the private-sector contributions to the Internet…

What is Crovitz's basis for this crazy talk? This is an unhinged straw man argument. Any sensible person recognizes that private-sector contributions are critical to all sorts of ventures.

…but today the Internet is defined by individuals using it for their own purposes—communicating, accessing social media—and critiquing opinion columns. Many innovations are via free, open-source software. Perhaps we can all at least agree that the Internet boom began in the mid-1990s when the government shut down its remaining role, leaving the Internet to the power of the people.

The government never shut down its role in the internet. Has this guy ever heard of the Department of Commerce and ICANN? Or the NSF?

How did this guy get this column and is there no one at the Journal that recognizes it for what it is, or is this a case of crank magnetism?

choofnagle Tue, 07/31/2012 - 21:55

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Louis Gordon Crovitz’s Disinformation Age

choofnagle — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 01:54:01 +0000

Louis Gordon Crovitz’s Disinformation Age

Imagine a newspaper oped with half a dozen fallacies. Such a thing could appear in any newspaper in the US. But now imagine that the author is a Rhodes Scholar and you’re left with the Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz.

For years I’ve followed the bizarre arguments of L. Gordon Crovitz, who has a weekly column on information policy in the Wall Street Journal. It’s part of my daily routine of reading the Journal, which is great for business news but something else for everything else.

Last week, Crovitz wrote a real howler, arguing that the Internet was really created by Xerox, not the government, because among Xerox’s many great inventions was Ethernet. Of course, the Internet is the world’s biggest copying machine, but Xerox itself doesn’t claim to have invented the Internet. A chorus of more well informed people attempted to correct Crovitz, including the author of the book Crovitz relied upon to support his argument, but the damage is already done. The libertarian claque is parroting Crovitz as part of its mission to undermine any of the good deeds done by the government.

Perhaps Crovitz was attempting to cure the largest source of cognitive dissonance for the libertarians: that the libertarians’ favorite invention, the Internet, was funded by the source of all evil, our federal government. This single unfortunate fact may be enough to cure the Manichean mind of the libertarian, and thus it must be attacked.

One column does not completely undermine one’s claim to be an expert in information issues. But Crovitz has a track record of reactionary, inaccurate, and incoherent essays on issues of importance. For example, just the week before, Crovitz made a series of disconnected arguments and inaccurate observations about privacy. Dear reader, let me guide you through the sad times of the Disinformation Age.

The Way the Digital Cookie Crumbles
If regulators and lawyers limit the use of data, advertising online will become less efficient.

Typically, editors write headlines, so we have to give Gordon a pass on this assertion.

For a measure of how technology is changing human expectations, consider the "cookies" on your computers. These invisible text files are how websites track activity, delivering to marketers detailed information about individual behavior and preferences. In exchange for data, we get highly personalized online services.

I’m not sure what an “invisible” text file is. One that is empty? One that your operating system does not allow you to see? In any case, cookies are not invisible to marketers, who are attempting to track our every move online. This fact has been detailed by Crovitz’s own paper in the What They Know series.

Crovitz also engages in a false analogy here, which is more fully developed later. Yes, cookies enable tracking, but what websites choose to do with that data is different based the business model of the site. Some tracking, such as when one shops on Amazon and receives product recommendations, are an example of a personalized service that individuals can choose to enjoy. Most tracking does not deliver personalized services—it attempts to deliver advertising of all sorts. My work shows that when asked, Internet users overwhelmingly reject the value proposition that Crovitz lionizes.

Crovitz goes on to describe an example of differential pricing on the web, where for instance, certain consumers were presented with more expensive products or services because they were Apple users.

[…]

When Orbitz used these data to feature higher-priced hotels more prominently in Apple users' search results, privacy lobbyists claimed outrage. But even in the analog era, readers of this newspaper saw advertisements for different products and services than readers of less high-end papers.

Of course the analog and digital eras are completely different. Contextual advertising (the idea that one places ads consistent with the publication, such as ads for golf balls in a golf magazine) is not privacy invasive at all. In fact, in the analog era, the Journal could not tell whether you even read the newspaper at all—only that you were a subscriber or not. In the digital era, newspapers are designed specifically to encourage the user to click more, so that precise interests can be mapped and advertising dollars maximized. A change to a more information-rich medium may justify a change in privacy rules.

These uses of personal data can seem a bit creepy, but the evidence also shows how quickly consumers have gotten used to being tracked. When given the choice, few consumers opt out of cookies. People accept the benefits of more relevant ads and more personalized websites in exchange for letting marketers track their interests.

This single paragraph demonstrates a complete lack of familiarity with the research that has been done in privacy and is descriptively inaccurate. Marketers complain bitterly about consumers deleting cookies, and research has shown that even popular websites have resorted to hidden and nearly-impossible to avoid tracking to address this consumer rejection.

Crovitz’s larger point, that people do not opt out, is backwards as well. Consumers can get used to a lot of things if those things are hidden from them, and they are offered no real choice about the matter. In reality, consumers think that they are protected by strong privacy laws. My research has shown that consumers mistakenly believe that privacy policies impose strong, legally-enforceable limits on the use of data.

…Consumers are loyal to Amazon in part because of its recommendation tools—if you liked that book, you may like this one—which mine user data to determine relevancy...

Here again, Crovitz does not present an important wrinkle in the privacy debate: first party tracking may be a “feature” that consumers desire. Consumers may use Amazon.com specifically for its recommendations. Research shows that most cookies on popular websites are delivered by third parties, typically companies that track individuals for advertising purposes.

Left alone, people would continue to make their own evolving judgments about how much data to share. Instead, regulators issue edicts. The Federal Trade Commission has extracted 20-year consent decrees from Google, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, giving regulators broad review over their privacy and data practices. This would be fine if the purpose were to ensure that companies comply with disclosures about how they use data, but the FTC wants to define privacy standards.

And here, the libertarian paranoia emerges in full--regulators have nothing better to do but issue edicts, which are fully untethered from consumers’ desires. Here again the Manichean nature of the libertarian is exposed—regulation is so evil that it has to be spawned by evil people with evil motives.

In reality, American consumers strongly support some definition of privacy standards. No Congressperson has ever lost office for passing a privacy law. The FTC, under Republican leadership, was in fact the progenitor of the most successful privacy edict of all—the Telemarketing Do-Not-Call Registry. The FTC predicted that only about 60 million numbers would be enrolled. Last I checked, over 200 million numbers were enrolled.

The FTC’s consent decrees all flowed from situations where companies made promises that were false or reneged upon. And in each case, the company agreed to the decree—making it a “consent decree.” If these were real edicts, these companies could have litigated them. They don’t litigate them because in the course of a typical investigation triggered by a misrepresentation, the FTC finds lots of other privacy problems.

One result of FTC meddling is that plaintiff lawyers have open invitations to file nuisance suits on behalf of supposed privacy victims. A federal judge is considering a $20 million settlement offer by Facebook, which has agreed to make its disclosures clearer that when users click "Like" to promote a product on Facebook, their names and photos can be used.

The paranoia continues. Plaintiff lawyers file suits regardless of what the government does or doesn’t do. And these cases often result in cy pres remedies, given to organizations (such as Berkeley Law) that work on privacy and information policy.

If regulators and lawyers push too hard to limit the use of cookie data, advertising online will become less efficient. This in turn will reduce the amount of free, advertising-supported services enjoyed by consumers, such as social media, entertainment and email.

I think this argument hints at a core problem in the cookie debate—a false dilemma between a completely unregulated and fully tracked world, and regulation, any of which would kill the golden goose. Of course, there are middle-way approaches.

Crovitz’s argument assumes that online advertising in its current form is the most efficient, but in fact, more privacy-friendly systems may be more efficient. For instance, the DMA claims that telemarketing is now more efficient, perhaps this is because those who didn’t want to buy can opt out.

Crovitz’s false dilemma also shows that he is committed to a certain business model. There are alternative methods for highly-tailored advertising that could be completely private. But these alternatives require more work, and the industry has settled on a lazy approach that prioritizes tracking everyone (even those who opt out) all the time.

…Each consumer should be able to decide how to make this trade-off between sharing data and getting advertising-supported services.

I wonder if Crovitz really means this, because the FTC is considering “Do-Not-Track,” a method that would allow each individual consumer to decide whether or not to be tracked online. So perhaps the FTC is good after all. The industry currently offers no way to take this decision (even if you opt out, they track you).

The privacy debate shows how naive Silicon Valley firms were to sign 20-year agreements granting Washington regulators broad authority over how they operate. Digital entrepreneurs should be allowed to innovate freely, with consumers also free to choose their individual trade-off between how their data are used and the benefits they get in return. Overregulation is the way the digital cookie crumbles.

In other words, Silicon Valley firms were naïve to agree to consent decrees on the advice of the most sophisticated, well-trained lawyers in the world. If they only had Louis Gordon Crovitz, they would have decided differently, and the market would be free at last.

choofnagle Sun, 07/29/2012 - 21:54

Tags

I agree -- I just saw Crovitz speaking about Iran and claiming that they've been trying to get nuclear weapons" for about 20 years, and where's the conclusive evidence that this has been their goal all along? His WSJ article opens with a comparison to pacification of Nazi Germany before WWII. Such an off comparison has no place in responsible journalism, plus after years of hearing very different situations repeatedly compared to pre- WWII, I'm reminded of the boy who cried wolf.

Iran has more to gain from nuclear energy for their people than nuking Israel, which has had nukes since it secretly developed them nearly 50 years ago as they now accuse Iran of doing. As Iran is flanked by known nuclear nations and US military presence, if they indeed seek nuclear warheads, it is likely for deterrence to counter these encroaching threats.

The Heartland Documents, Doubt is their Product

denialism — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:07:06 +0000

The Heartland Documents, Doubt is their Product

Everyone is writing about desmogblog's leak of internal documents from the Heartland Institute. But to me I think leaked documents are nothing compared to their fully public, out-in-the-open history of being openly contemptuous of science, funding cranks with advanced degrees (though not in climate) to disparage the field, and their hosting of denialpalooza.

James rightly points out that much hay is being made of a single sentence that, could "easily be the result of sloppy editing, or at perhaps a Freudian slip." This is of course is a sentence describing a curriculum developed by the HI that "shows the topic of climate chance is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective in dissuading teachers from teaching science."

But other aspects of the document instead suggest to me that these people are true believers. Even in context this quote sounds horrible, but I don't think it reflects a conscious desire to deceive. After all, they think their beliefs are true. They are so blinded by ideology they are literally incapable of acknowledging facts that run counter to these core beliefs. I think, if anything, this sentence is interesting because it shows that they are picking up tactics from previous denialist campaigns by those that were intentionally deceptive, such as the DI anti-evolution campaign and tobacco company denial of health effects of smokng. They are not interested in actual science but rather are interested in methods of sowing doubt. Similar to the cigarette company strategy of denying the harm of tobacco smoke, "doubt is their product". We already knew these guys were merchants of doubt, some of them are the very same people that deny tobacco smoke is harmful.

I don't think these documents are going to be a game changer. They've largely told us what we already know. HI is funded by oil interests. They pay cranks with degrees good money (11k a month to Idso - sweet!) to lend legitimacy to denialist pseudoscience. Their overriding goal is to undermine any science that conflicts with free market fundamentalism. They are trying to undermine climate science through sowing doubt and confusion in the public rather than pursuing actual scientific inquiry. To those that think HI is great, they think methods like this are just fine. To those of us who have seen how denialists operate, from the tobacco companies to the Discovery Institute, this is just another confirmation of their overarching strategy - to create doubt where there should be none.

denialism Thu, 02/16/2012 - 04:07

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Fake Experts

global warming denialism

climate change

Denialism

global warming

global warming denialism

The strongest line of spin by the denialists in this case is that the Strategy Document - the one with that "dissuade teaching science" in it - is supposedly a forgery, because it is a Word doc and not a PDF.

Yet Desmogblog and other sites are reporting that the internal date/time stamp of the Strategy Document show it was last edited within 2 minutes of the PDFs - whose authenticity has never been denied, and which in any case include signatures. Also, the Strategy Document was last edited by a "jbast," as in, Heatland Institute's Joseph Bast.

Basically, this is what happens when people who don't know how computers work try sockpuppeting, then when caught they repeatedly deny it even in the face of clear technical proof because they don't know that such proof can actually exist and/or how to read it.

TTT, I don't think your comment is technically correct. The "Climate Strategy" document is a scan from paper, not a Word document. As such it doesn't appear to have any authoring metadata except for the model of the scanner (at least not that I could find). The only other scanned document in the set is the Form 990 (which appears to have been scanned on a different device); the others appear to be .pdf files created from Word Perfect.

I think the most interesting thing in the metadata for the .wpd/.pdf files is that they appear to have been created on two different machines. One set was created by "Joseph Bast" and originally stored at the root of the C:\ drive with a file naming convention of "(Date) File Name.wpd", the other was created by "jbast" and originally stored under "P:\JBast\Topic\Year\*.wpd". I would think that one was a home machine and the other was at the office, but there are two files with different paths and author names with creation timestamps less than an hour apart. Maybe Bast has a personal laptop at work? In any case, it seems like a very strange thing to fake, and in my view adds to the plausibility of those documents (which the HI hasn't denied, anyway, so it doesn't really matter).

But I think it's important to be careful about quoting that "Climate Strategy" document for several reasons:

1. Most of the substantive content is repeated in the more reputable documents, so there's not much need to cite it beyond the "gotcha" soundbites.
2. It doesn't have much metadata showing common provenance with the other documents.
3. It is very different from the other documents in format.
4. Dan Rather. If HI somehow managed to prove that document was a fake, many people would look really stupid.

For what it's worth, I think all the documents are probably real - I think the "Climate Strategy" document was probably brought to the board meeting as a hard copy summary, and was scanned afterwards, which would account for all the differences I've noticed - but I still think we should be wary of it until we have more evidence.

The P: sounds like a network drive. Probably the two machines are a laptop for use in meetings, and a desktop for heavy use.

But WordPerfect? Have the Mormons taken control? Or is Microsoft trying to hide their participation in the funding of HI?

Yes, doubt is being manufactured by those who created the "Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy" document. I fully concur.

In Germany there are the same networks of Denialism: they deny climate change, health effects of tobacco, risks of GMOs and more - in order to avoid any regulation of commercial activities. For German speaking readers: evidence in interest conflicts.

re 4: That would be the CEO of HI, right?

It's too early to say what kind of effect these documents will have. It isn't gaining the kind of traction in big media outlets that the "climategate" emails got. But they will get repeated referred to. Sometimes truth just drips out.

The Global Warming Cranks - George Will officially in their ranks

denialism — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:15:52 +0000

The Global Warming Cranks - George Will officially in their ranks

One would think given recent findings that antarctic warming is robust for instance, that the canard of antarctic cooling would go away. Or, that based on the round dismissal of the myth of 1970s global cooling warnings we'd stop hearing about that in the media too. But instead I'm watching TV last night and there's all these unbelievable crank ads sponsored by the anti-regulation ideologues the Americans for Prosperity featuring fake expert John Coleman. His senseless rant against the stimulus and the evils of regulation is accompanied by text on the bottom of the screen declaring "global warming it is the hoax" and "it is the greatest scam in history". It is amazing in this day and age that this shameless conspiracy theory is being broadcast on national television. There is no way that one can on the one hand describe anti-AGW denialism as skepticism, and at the same time be a proponent of such an absurd conspiracy that thousands of scientists around the world, and journals, and editors, and politicians are all in cahoots to falsify data about climate.

But if there is a truism about crankery that I can come up with to explain the persistence of debunked arguments, it is that good ideas may come and go, but we're stuck with the bad ones forever. For instance, we saw this weekend that George will still thinks there were predictions of global cooling in the 1970s. Scibling James decries George Will's inability to read what he cites, but this is nothing new. George's Willful Ignorance on this topic has persisted for years this isn't the first time he's misquoted that exact same article, or the second time either despite being corrected by others. His incompetence at judging sources, and his inability to stop citing false information shows he's simply unwilling or unable to differentiate between legitimate and false information, or even read for comprehension for that matter.

What can be our response to this consistent dishonesty from Will? A repeat of a cherry-pick not once, or twice, but three times despite this being clearly false? I think the only thing you can say about someone like this, a man who can't be turned, is that they're a crank.

denialism Mon, 02/16/2009 - 04:15

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cranks

Fake Experts

global warming denialism

"a man who can't be turned, is ... a crank." O rly?

Alternatively they only turn one way. It's from the original Oxford definition and I never really liked it. My definition is better.

George is just getting old. Thanks for the perspective. Better start preparing for a big garden this spring. California might not come through with the goods this year.

Will's column isn't crankery at all. It's propaganda of the "big lie" variety. A related current example is the "clean coal" campaign. I can't think of a medical analog for this sort of thing, except perhaps the campaign against publicly-funded health care.

The only people who are in denial are the pro warmers. Every day despite you and your kinds best efforts and hundreds of millions of dollars. its falling appart. The No side has no media and very little money and a small but growing number of scientists that have had enough of you and your kind. Science cant be in denial. Please attack the science and lay off the person. Prove the science wrong.
Your blog is a environmental propaganda tool.. rename it.

Now that is a crank.

Maybe you need to read up on that so-called "Antarctic warming." Gavin Schmidt has already been caught in one lie since that study was released, and they still refuse to release the computer codes to the public as to how they reached their conclusions. With so much about transparency in the news these days, you'd think they'd just open the door to inquiring minds.

You must be a RealClimate homer. They've been aggressively deleting comments since that study was released. Makes you wonder what they're afraid of. But I'm sure you knew this.

Uh oh, sounds like a conspiracy.

As usual, there is no capacity to respond to the science, just conspiracy mongering and crankery. Steig EJ, Schneider DP, Rutherford SD, Mann ME, Comiso JC, Shindell DT are all liars, and those Nature reviewers fools, and the data, all faked!

Nonsense. If you have a problem, write to Nature. Not their blog. Get a life.

George Will presents some solid points. For example: "A recent Pew Research Center poll asked which of 20 issues should be the government's top priorities. Climate change ranked 20th."

In other words people have wised up to the bogus "Hockey Stick" chart, and all the other fake science. People know a record cold temp and record snowfall when they see it.

Four basic climate science questions for all the people on this website who believe humans caused global warming.

RE: www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev…

1. How do you explain all the pre-industrial global warmings and global coolings of the past 12,000 years?

2. Does the temperature history show an overall cooling trend since the temperature peaked 8,000 years ago?

3. How can anyone say that the most recent temperature uptick since the Little Ice Age is "unprecedented" when clearly it is small and gradual compared to many of the prevous global warmings?

4. Why was the Eemian interglacial much hotter than today's Holocene Interglacial?

Good Luck.

I ask these questions only to show that nobody really understands the basic science behind our ever-changing climate. The simplistic notion that CO2 controls the climate is laughable

Peace

Could those who deny that global climate change is taking place please clarify things for me.

It has been well established for over 150 years that CO2 is transparent to incoming visible radiation but absorbs some infrared wavelengths that would otherwise leave Earth.

Therefore the presence of atmospheric CO2 raises the average temperature of Earth (known for almost as long) and, in the absence of a negative feedback mechanism, an increase in CO2 is likely to increase global temperatures.

There is no known negative feedback mechanism.

Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing, with the increase coming from human sources (well established for over 40 years).

Global temperatures have indeed been increasing for the past 80 or 90 years.

Where exactly do you take issues with this?

George Will, like all good little conservative pundits, has also taken to parroting Amity Shlaes' revisionism about FDR and the Great Depression. Despite being owned on the air by Paul Krugman, to which Will had no reply (opting instead to stare down at his hands and hope it would all go away), Will then went on to repeat his bullcrap in an opinion column two weeks later.

Will has occasional flashes of coherence, and he's one of the few righty pundits who can successfully convey a sense that he is at least an intellectually consistent, and honest, conservatives. But it's just a really good acting job; he just knows how to play up that 'tweedy intellectual, above political concerns' angle. He's as apt as any of them to bend the truth and simply ignore all contradictory data. He does not argue in good faith.

Good questions Norm!! I too do not buy into the AGM hype. To me, AGW is clearly has become a religion based more on the faith of some climate model, than the real science. I personally have been a software developer modeling complex physics for 25+ years, and all I can say about models is that they are all wrong. Some are more useful than others, but they are all wrong. Something as complex as the climate is probably impossible to model correctly since there are so many things that influence the climate. Then to think you can model something and extrapolate it 100 years into the future is totally absurd. Even a recent survey amongst climate scientist is revealing (http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html) -- only 5% think that climate science is mature, and half think it is "fairly mature". So that means about half think that climate science is less than "fairly mature". It is a trivial exercise to see that the climate models are not only wrong, but probably very wrong. The AGW faithful then like to use tactics similar to religion -- Their Bible are the climate models they reference. They label blasphemers as "denialists" and they want to have ethnic cleansing (strip scientists of title and rank). They have prophets (like Al Gore) preach doom and gloom and how man should repent before it is too late. Hell and damnation are the "tipping point" of certain runway heat. Geeze, they even have a flood story about all the ice melting and raising the seas levels a 100 meters. The parallels to religion are amazing. Let's stop the name calling and get to the hard science of the issue. In the long term, we'll understand more and make better informed decisions. Or, as I like to say, "reality has a persistent voice."

Four basic climate science questions for all the people on this website who believe humans caused global warming.

RE: www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev…

1. How do you explain all the pre-industrial global warmings and global coolings of the past 12,000 years?

2. Does the temperature history show an overall cooling trend since the temperature peaked 8,000 years ago?

3. How can anyone say that the most recent temperature uptick since the Little Ice Age is "unprecedented" when clearly it is small and gradual compared to many of the prevous global warmings?

4. Why was the Eemian interglacial much hotter than today's Holocene Interglacial?

Good Luck.

I ask these questions only to show that nobody really understands the basic science behind our ever-changing climate. The simplistic notion that CO2 controls the climate is laughable

Peace

Sorry - I wasn't spamming Please delete the accidental 12:42 re-post. Last night I got an error message when I tried to post my questions. So this morning I clicked "Post" again...

...and saw it was already there.

Peace

Yes, Norm, you were spamming. All your posts are spam. Even if you don't mean to repeat yourself, you are repeating old conspiratorial fortune-cookies from 20 years ago. Why don't you tell us about evolution defying the laws of thermodynamics while you're at it?

If you people were serious about your commitment to science, then you would be as angry with George Will as we are. Despite being repeatedly debunked on this specific line of argument, he continues to misleadingly quote selectively from the 30 year old paper. This reveals the true nature of global warming denialists: repeat the lie until it is believed as truth. If you weren't one of them, you would be helping us to expose him.

To Richard - That's a fair question. If you look at that link I posted earlier you will see that Earth is always warming or cooling. Climate is never static.

CO2 has always been a vital part of the ecosystem. It is not to be confused with air pollution.

We should all be very concerned about air pollution and toxic waste.

CO2 is only 0.038% of the atmosphere, and only about 5% of that is man made. There really is not much CO2 in the air. 95% of the greenhouse effect is caused by natural water vapor.

CO2 is natural and good: We all produce CO2 every time we exhale. Trees take in CO2 and produce oxygen from it. If we somehow removed all the CO2 from the atmosphere("carbon sequestration") all plants would die the same day, and human extinction would follow.

The simplistic notion that "CO2 causes global warming and controls climate" is equivalent to saying "hot dog sales cause recessions and control the economy". Itâs a gross oversimplification of an extremely complex, and poorly understood topic.

Best wishes to everybody on both sides of this debate.

Peace

To: TTT: Why don't you put your brain in gear and take a stab at those basic climate science questions I posted?

Questions are not "... old conspiratorial fortune-cookies from 20 years ago."

That's just your way of saying you can't answer the questions and you are frustrated. Don't feel bad. I can't answer ost of those basic questions either, and neither can anyone else. I just posted those to show that the basic's of climate science are poorly understood, and we can't be jumping to doomsday conclusions, especially when we are having a record cold winter that proves the climate models wrong.

Peace

PS: Take a look at Nasa's press release titled "Solar wind loses power-hit's 50 year low". It says the solar output is "13% cooler" and its not just a computer model either.

Richard Simons: I do not think any one is challenging that the global climate is changing. It has changed a lot through out history, and will probably continue to change. I think people are challenging that it is man made.

CO2 is a complex gas. It may absorb IR enregy, but it also emits some (see CO2 lasers). While there may be "no known negative feedback mechanism", that doesn't mean there isn't one.

The earth's temperature has risen and fallen throughout time, and so has CO2. CO2 level usually lags temperature by 800 years, so I doubt CO2 causes the temperature to rise and is more likely the result of rising temperature. If there is a problem with this, then please explain why CO2 rose in the past, and then the temperature dropped while CO2 continued to increase?

No one denies that CO2 is rising -- that is easily measured. The issue is that man is causing CO2 to rise and that is causing temperature to rise. That hasn't been shown to be the case. It is easy to see that sun spot activity has increased significantly from 1911 through 1961. While off the peak, it remains at elevated activity since the 1970s. If there is a smoking gun, I'd suspect the sun is causing earth's temperature to rise, much like it is causing Mar's temperature to rise and melts its ice caps.

So, Norm, you just said "CO2 can't be pollution because living organisms produce it"?

Try eating human feces, then get back to me with the results.

Five seconds of thought would have shown you that what you were about to say was utterly ridiculous, and would have prevented you from saying it. Why didn't you invest five seconds in analyzing your own arguments, Norm? Why didn't you save yourself?

Answer: because you don't take this seriously. You treat your own doubt as if it were knowledge. It isn't. You're asking--as you do correctly put it--basic questions, in an arrogant snotty way. That is why I, and hopefully no one else, will take the time to answer you. It would have been QUICKER for me to answer you than to write this, but you don't deserve it. It's first-year chemistry, look it up yourself. You are unserious about this topic, and about the methods of science and the process of learning in and of itself.

Now please, go off and tell an aeronautics engineer that there's no way airplanes can fly, what with them being so big and heavy.

Norm, yes, your leading "questions" have been addressed elsewhere, such as on RealClimate. This blog is not RealClimate; it is not a blog for arguing with denialists; it is for exposing the dishonest tactics of denialists, which you display.

Example 1: Lying with statistics / convenient omission of facts. You conveniently ignore the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels are higher now than they have been for at least 40 million years (380 ppm vs. 280 ppm). This means that the human output has tipped the balance away from the natural 'sinks' (biological carbon fixation and oceanic diffusion). And we can see this by the sudden and dramatic change in the ratio of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere ever since we started to burn fossil fuels. Thus, carbon emissions may be small compared to natural sources, but the CO2 produced from those natural sources are balanced out by the natural sinks, whereas the human source goes straight into the atmosphere. This isn't new or challenging.

Examples 2 and 3: Erecting strawmen and exploiting open questions and debates within science as a "weakness". Yes, there were warmings in the past. Yes, these are subjects of intense study, often by people who still manage to retain the idea that AGW is happening today. And nobody -- let's repeat this, nobody -- is saying that warming can only be caused by CO2. Of course there can be other causes. The issue is whether human interference tracks with the changes we're seeing now.

Hey TTT: where is good reference for all of the denalist's debunking?

As for your ridiculous "eating human feces" quote, feces is great food for plants and bacteria, so it is not consider it pollution. All that circle of life stuff. If human feces is pollution, then if a bear shits in the woods, is the bear polluting? The rest of your post is just ranting an name calling. You can't answer the questions, do deny the science, state it was debunked, and duck the whole thing.

Tony: Arsenic and uranium are all-natural too, so feel free to eat them along with the feces.

Seriously, if you don't get the concept of pollution, don't try to bluff your way through a discussion about its consequences.

Back to the science...

If half of the climate scientists think that climate science is LESS THAN "fairly mature", how much confidence should we put into the climate models and any predictions that those models make about the future?

TTT: what is your background and training? Mine is computer science and physics working on algorithms and models in the defense industry, and weather effects are an important part of my work. I'm not a climate scientist, but I have a pretty good grasp on the physics and modeling techniques.

Well, Tony, one would think that with those credentials, then, you could come up with something better than trying to overwrite a single poll question with your own convenient interpretation -- as in, equating "not a mature science" with "we cannot ever know anything for certain, and it MAYBE IT WAS GHOSTS ALL ALONG WOOOoooOOOO."

Most scientists are cautious, and can hedge their bets. Absolute certainty is so rarely achieved. Yet some things are clearly beyond debate: biology is not, by many standards, a "mature" science, but that doesn't mean it could turn out tomorrow that the creationists are correct. The more sensible -- let's say, "mature" -- way to approach a field is on a case-by-case basis.

And hey, that poll you linked actually does that w.r.t. AGW, but you conveniently don't mention that, probably because it's less ambiguous and it's tougher to overwrite with your own biases.

Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe âglobal average temperatures have increasedâ during the past century.

Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that âcurrently available scientific evidenceâ substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.

Scientists still debate the dangers
A slight majority (54%) believe the warming measured over the last 100 years is not âwithin the range of natural temperature fluctuation.â

A slight majority (56%) see at least a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years. (The United Nationsâ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cites this increase as the point beyond which additional warming would produce major environmental disruptions.)

Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous.

Seventy percent see climate change as very difficult to manage over the next 50 to 100 years, compared to only 5% who see it as not very difficult to manage. Another 23% see moderate difficulty in managing these changes.

To your credit, you did post the URL of that poll, but leaving out the stuff that's immediately relevant is pretty crappy.

@ Toni Says .... : I'm only an undergraduate in Physics, so I havn't that much of a training yet. Your point about the models seems to be quite good but ... if the models are soo unreliable, how do you know that the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels is not going to influence climate? I just don't get - if you think that nobody can predict what's going to happen how can you be sure it will be fine?

Tony Says Models Stink, you express your contempt for models, but you don't say what kind of models you reject. Newton's laws are models; do you hold them in contempt? How about the Stefan-Boltzmann Law? If you do accept Stefan-Boltzmann, then why do you reject the basic connection between CO2 and temperature? The fundamental physics is the most compelling argument in favor of the AGW hypothesis. That's why people were predicting AGW long before there was any compelling climatological data available.

Appeal to authority much?

Now if you are going to use any source, expect it to be investigated and *don't cherry-pick* results to suit your own interpretation. The STATS survey does not define what is meant by 'mature' in terms of how 'mature' climate science is, the described methodology doesn't actually explain much about the methodology and we don't actually even see the questions asked in the survey nor how many of the 489 professional scientists(what one of these is, is not defined either, only that they are a member of AMS or AGU) actually responded or if this is the number of respondents itself.

Even then in this flawed and unscientific survey, the overwhelming majority of respondents say average global temperatures have risen due to human activity and over half believe it's outside of the natural range of normal temperature variation.

There's no "back to the science" about it if it isn't science to begin with; there's nothing scientific to be gained from an *opinion poll*. It's self-published article; I couldn't find it listed as peer-reviewed in any online library. So despite avoiding a scientific source to support what is pretty flagrant denialism; it didn't even support your position anyway except when you cherry-picked a single fuzzy item from it.

I didn't quote the whole article because it wasn't relevant to my point -- which is half of the climate scientist do not believe that climate science is 'fairly mature". That truly is OK, and it raises my opinion of them since they are being honest. The rest of the survey is opinion, and difficult to understand how they could have any of it when they themselves acknowledge they they do not fully understand the field. But it is only human nature to have an opinion, but opinions are not fact, nor are they actionable -- even if there is a consensus. Recall that there was an overwhelming consensus of heavy weight physicists against Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but Einstein turned out to be correct (so far). Consensus does not mean correctness.

All of the dire consequences that are being touted are based on the climate models. If everything hangs on the models, then we need to look at them very closely. I've seen a zillion models that predict this that or the other, and most turn out to be BS once they come under close examination.

What we have today is a bunch of people preaching that we have to stop CO2 before we burn ourselves up and/or flood the world. The assumption is that CO2 is causing it, or a large part of the warming. The reality is that CO2 may have nothing to do with it. The climate models say it is the culprit, but I seriously doubt it. That's my opinion, based on extensive modeling experience. It is not fact, just opinion. The climate is so complex, there is no way they can model it or make a prediction into the future about it. Any data from the models is not actionable because they certainly do not factor everything that impacts the climate. I doubt we can even identify the things that impact the climate, much less model them. What is the interaction between the sun's and earth's magnetosphere? Do they have deep earth models of how the magnetic poles are moving? Did you know that the magnetic poles have been moving and accelerating for the last 100 years? What impact does this have on climate? Did you know the magnetic poles flip every 50,000 years. What does this do? Do the climate models have deep sun effects on what pumps the internals of the sun, which then impact the sun spots? I'd bet $100 that the climate models assume a static sun, or at most have a simple sun spot model that oscillates on the 11 year sun spot cycle. The last 300 years of sun spot data shows that the sun changes a lot, and I doubt the climate models are predicting where the sun will be in the future. If they even tried then they would be laughed out of the auditorium.

The whole point is that there are some really hard to understand physics about the interaction between the sun and the earth, and to jump to some conclusion that CO2 is causing warming is truly amazing to me. CO2 is so small and the sun so big, it boggles my mind that anyone suspects it. Even water vapor dominates CO2 a greenhouse gas. What about all the water man has sucked out of the ground and pumped into the air to water crops? Is this factored into the climate models? Even if the sun was static (which it is not), then I'd look at water vapor over CO2 any day.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Modeling is really hard and always has many assumptions. Climate modeling is certainly impossible, and therefore not useful for anything, other than getting grant money from the government.

Sorry but my brain cells are starting to shrivel at an alarming rate now.

You've been asked specifically to say *which* models you object to and your reasons for objecting to them, probably for the purpose of ruling out that you are either a troll or a random anonymous internet moron spouting rhetorical canards for the purpose of getting a reaction like trolls want or just to argue a bankrupt position like a mindless contrarian.

Models are tools that are useful for certain and limited means. Newtonian laws are great for simple problems, but they break down quickly once you become more realistic. I'm around a lot CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models, but we still have wind tunnels, because the models to not match predict what we measure. And this is simple lift and drag calculations of wing profiles, running on hundreds of Linux machines. Sometimes the models are close at making a good prediction, but many times they are not. All kinds of neat and weird little effects pop up that no one ever expected, and just like that the model is wrong again. Extrapolating models are especially vulnerable to errors, because they feedback into themselves. One little wrong assumption can be greatly magnified through successive accumulation of errors.

You still haven't even answered the fecking question: *which* models regarding climate do you object to, or do you object to them all simply because they're models?

There is a segment of society... The "look at me" people. People shunned during there school days for being nerds are now trying to get their revenge by trying to confuse people with idiotic smartness. They want recognition and politicians use them to get money. Down with nerds.

TSMS, you write a number of things that I believe to be incorrect. For example, you write that "Newtonian laws are great for simple problems, but they break down quickly once you become more realistic." Tell that to the astronauts who bet their lives on the ability of Newtonian models to plot their trajectories to and from the moon. Tell that to the scientists who planned the planetary probes that whipped around multiple planets in complex loops that permitted close passes by different moons for close examination. Those models worked magnificently.

But it's not just Newton's Laws that permit astoundingly accurate predictions. An astronomer I know did a very complicated series of computations based on orbital dynamics PLUS some snazzy stuff about comets, and was able to predict that the Leonid meteor shower would produce a storm at a specific time and place on the earth's surface. I was on a NASA research aircraft at precisely that time and place, and I saw something that few humans have ever or will ever see. And it was all based on (horrors!) a computer model!

Or how about the models of solid state physics used to design and build integrated circuits? Those models are immensely complex, and yet here you are this minute reading my text making use of the chips that are made using those supposedly stinking models.

I could go on and on, but there's a deeper issue here: you don't even get the basic physics, the stuff we teach in sophomore year. You wrote "The reality is that CO2 may have nothing to do with it." If you wrote that on a test question on a second year physics course, I'd give you zero points, because you obviously don't get the basics of blackbody radiation. Shame on whomever it was who purported to teach you physics and gave you a passing grade.

You write, "All of the dire consequences that are being touted are based on the climate models" This is incorrect. All you need to do is carry out the basic calculations for heat flow on a brutally simple model of the earth as a blackbody. Even with the simple, stupid physics that a second-year engineering student would use, you'd be able to demonstrate that the earth would experience a rise in temperature on the order of a few degrees. Take it up to upper division level, and you could get a better approximation -- and all of this is without consideration of any feedback effects. Once you get into feedback effects, yes, your results get more complicated. But the basic physics is pretty clear.

Next, you make a huge logical blunder in stating that: "The climate is so complex, there is no way they can model it or make a prediction into the future about it." Oh really? Gee, I predict that next December there will be snow falling in my vicinity. That's a prediction, and I don't need any computers to make it -- and the probability of it being correct is extremely high. You can ALWAYS make predictions about the future. The two critical variables are 1) the probability that your prediction will be correct; and 2) the degree of precision expressed in the prediction. If I predict that the temperature on the southwest corner of First and Main in Columbus, Nebraska at 5:34 PM next August 16th will fall between 20Âº C and 40Âº C, there's an extremely high probability that my prediction will be correct. If I predict that it will be between 28.743689ÂºC and 28.743690ÂºC, then the probability of my being correct will be much lower.

But you make an even more serious logical error when you write: "Any data from the models is not actionable because they certainly do not factor everything that impacts the climate." I challenge you to cite one single case of ANY prediction in all of human history in which the predictor factored in EVERYTHING that impacted the decision. There aren't any. Do you think that George W. Bush knew the eating habits of Saddam Hussein before deciding to invade Iraq? Do you think that you knew every tiny fact about all the issues and both of the candidates before you made your decision as to whom to vote for in the November election? Since you couldn't possibly know all those facts, did you draw the conclusion that it was impossible to take action by voting?

Hey Norm,
Don't bother with TTT. If he had a clue, he'd give you the answers. I don't think TTT is able to give us the hypothesis that AGWers are working with. Furthermore, I doubt he can cite any studies that show a direct correlation between CO2 increases and temperature increases. Whenever I ask the question on one of these forums, all I get is a referral to realclimate.org. Makes me think that the AGWers are only capable of forwarding propaganda rather than engaging in scientific discussions. Afterall, their leader has told everyone that the "debate is over". Zeig Heil and bring on the carbon tax!!!

Furthermore, I doubt he can cite any studies that show a direct correlation between CO2 increases and temperature increases.

Well, you can look at historical temp and CO2 levels and see a correlation. CO2's greenhouse properties were first documented by Arrhenius in the 1890s, then there have been further refinements by Calendar in the 1930s and Plass in the 1950s. Ramanathan and Coatley (1978) gives the canonical contributions of the various greenhouse gases, CO2 included.

Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted to talk about science....hey, where'd ya go?

Chicken Little, there is no direct or immediate correlation between CO2 and temperature increases, because the causal relationship has a long time lag in it. In other words, if you're thinking that emissions of CO2 today must create temperature increases today, you can forget it -- that's not the way it works. We're talking climate, not weather. Thus, the correct way to evaluate the relationship is to look at long-term temperature trends as compared to long term CO2 trends. One other factor that is very important: there's a large positive feedback loop here. Increasing temperatures lead to releases of CO2, so what we have is a vicious circle. Thus, increases in CO2 can both lead AND lag increases in temperature. Again, this means you have to long at long-term trends, not month-by-month data.

Booorris dahling,
If global temps have been decreasing over the past 10 years and CO2 has been increasing, how does that translate to "CO2 causes global warming"? That kind of correlation indicates CO2 causes global cooling. No one doubts that CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect. The argument, if we're allowed to have one, is over how much of an effect it has considering that CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas making up about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Also of curious note, is why CO2 increases lag temperature increases in the big graph AlGore presented in AIT. Could it be that the ocean might have something to do with it?

Chicken Little writes:
"If global temps have been decreasing over the past 10 years and CO2 has been increasing, how does that translate to "CO2 causes global warming"? "

Remember, CL, we're talking climate, not weather. Climate operates over decades, not years. There's no absolute definition in terms of years, but the right way to do this is to take ALL the data -- not just cherry pick it as you are doing -- and make a smoothed graph of it; typical smoothing intervals would be five to ten years. When you look at the data that way, the result is quite clear: the earth's temperature is definitely increasing.

Next, you commit another logical error with this statement:
"The argument, if we're allowed to have one, is over how much of an effect it has considering that CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas making up about 0.03% of the atmosphere. "
Your insinuation is that a teeny-tiny number must have a teeny-tiny effect. I suggest an experiment to test your claim. Please inject yourself with 3cc of a solution of 0.03% venom from Oxyuranus microlepidotus. Then report back to us on just how much effect such a teeny-tiny concentration can have. (You won't -- you'll be dead.)

Lastly, you write " why CO2 increases lag temperature increases in the big graph AlGore presented in AIT. Could it be that the ocean might have something to do with it?"
Not the ocean per se. As I wrote earlier, there are positive feedback effects. For example, permafrost contains large amounts of CO2. If the permafrost melts, that CO2 will be released. Thus, an initial increase in CO2 will cause an increase in temperature, which will cause an even greater release of CO2. This is called a vicious circle. Yes, the CO2 that is released because of the temperature increase lags the temperature increase. That's cause and effect for you.

Air conditioning keeps things cool. I went on holiday in Florida last June and the temperature was absolutely boiling in the car with the air conditioning working as hard as it could. Therefore: the claim that air conditioning can cool something is patently false.

We've just had a record-breaking snowfall in Britain and all the cranks have been at it here "Bah! Global warming is a load of nonsense and this snow PROVES it!"

Snow? In winter? NEVER! Despite not having had snow in most of England for nearly two decades; one freak event lasting a single day, with mildly cold weather for a week keeping ice from melting and suddenly it constitutes *proof* against the theory on climate change.

"If global temps have been decreasing over the past 10 years and CO2 has been increasing, how does that translate to "CO2 causes global warming"?"

Take an elementary statistics course and come back. 1998 was what they call an "outlier", with high temperatures influences primarily by a strong El Nino.

If global temps have been decreasing over the past 10 years and CO2 has been increasing, how does that translate to "CO2 causes global warming"?

Really? I give you the sources you claim don't exist and that mean people won't give you and then you change the subject? Are you really this bad at argumentation?

In any case Erasmussimo has done you the kindness of a free education. A little gratitude would be becoming.

Hey fellows, don't fall in the trap of letting these guys make you do their work for them, it's not like it will satisfy them anyway. I bet you dollars to donuts that no answer to those 4 questions would serve, it's just a way to generate more noise. Their inability to use google and use sources other than right wing crank sites is not your problem.

If we remember, the original discussion is, and always is, look what a bunch of dishonest hacks these people are. So, on topic, can they really believe there is a global conspiracy to falsify data across all the climate researchers in the IPCC, the Science and Nature and other journal editors, and basically anyone else they don't like all at the behest of Al Gore? And, can they really defend a hack pundit who has lied about a scientific paper not once, not twice, but three times over 5 years?

The science is sound in the repositories of the legitimate journals and peer-reviewed literature. All the cranks can do is make a stink out here and in the media because no rules of discourse or standards of evidence apply.

You're right, Mark. I have tried to honestly discuss the issues with AGW deniers over the years, and I have never met a single one who was capable of scientifically honest discussion. Every one twisted facts, abused statistics, misrepresented scientific studies -- the list of abuses is endless. I have gotten better at staying polite with them, but the one certainty is that they eventually turn abusive when you contradict their claims too much.

I would dearly like to meet one, just one honest, fair-minded AGW denier. I'm pretty sure that no such person exists.

Eras,

You were doing so well with your eloquent explanation that I was disappointed to see the bogus venom analogy. Thanks for making the attempt.

MarkH has clarified that the purpose of the discussion was to point out what dishonest hacks the anti-AGWers are. My apologies. I guess I jumped in midstream. As long as you're discussing dishonest hacks, is it fair to bring up Al Gore and Michael Mann? How about James Hansen? As for anti-AGW scientists, are Stephen McIntyre, Roy Spencer and Fred Singer all hacks? One last question. I understand that most AGWers accuse the other side of putting out bogus information on behalf of the oil industry. Are you suggesting that the AGW researchers are all unbiased and motivated only by their desire to bring truth to the world?

(Yes, I know, Mark, it's a waste of time to be logical with these people, but I can't help myself -- I'm a teacher at heart.)

Chicken Little, the venom example was not an analogy, it was an illustration. And I'd like to see your reasoning for declaring it bogus -- other than the fact that you don't like its implication that teensy-weensy numbers can be very significant.

If you have complaints about scientists, present them. Make your case. Just throwing names around doesn't mean anything. And last time I checked, Stephen McIntyre accepts the basic AGW hypothesis, but he challenges some of the methodology of its particulars. Besides, who cares about individuals? Science is about data, not individuals.

You write, "most AGWers accuse the other side of putting out bogus information on behalf of the oil industry." I don't. I object to the deliberate retailing of falsehoods. I concentrate on the falsehoods. Can you do that?

Then you write, "Are you suggesting that the AGW researchers are all unbiased and motivated only by their desire to bring truth to the world?" On this point, I gather that you're not familiar with how science operates. I'll be happy to explain it to you, if you are sincerely interested, but I suspect that this is just a talking point to you and you would not change your mind no matter what information I provided you.

My purpose on this forum isn't really to argue the science. I'm more interested in learning why there hasn't been any serious debate on the subject. Al Gore stifled the debate long ago when he declared the debate was over. The feds helped by funneling money toward research related to global warming. What science-motivated researcher is going to deny man-made global warming if it means more research money. I'm sure you guys are aware that if your research turns up all the answers you're looking for then the money goes away. Sure, the oil guys funded research and of course, the source of the funding invalidates the research. It is only the non-oil funded researchers who are capable of conducting pure and unbiased research.

Eras was pretty good at pointing out that climate isn't simple. There are many more variables to climate than he presented. He didn't even touch on one of the major ones - solar cycles or sunspots. My guess is that AGWers aren't really interested in proving man-made global warming anyway. They don't have to be as they already control the "debate". All I see them doing is promoting a fear campaign designed to scare people into accepting carbon tax legislation and gov't funding of solar energy (not yet cost effective) and lame wind-power (not viable without a secondary source of energy such as natural gas - hence the reason T. Pickens is interested).

I also assume that Eras, MarkH and others are quite confident that there is a consensus on global warming. I'd like to know who and how many climate researchers remain on the AGW side. Several have switched allegiance in recent years. I'll close with comments from Michael Crichton on consensus.

"I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."

Yes. We should waste spend more time and money studying this issue. It's too bad we can't set up a global, possibly Intergovernmental, group or PClimate Change. Then perhaps we could get some real answers. Oh. Wait. We did that.

If you have actual science, the proper venue is in peer-reviewed journals. Otherwise you are just another street prophet, stinking of cheap wine, yelling at passers-by. This forum is for discussion of denialism, and AGW deniers like Chicken Little and "Tony's Got Emotional Issues" certainly fit the description.

Crap. That's what I get for not using preview. It should read:

Intergovernmental, group or Panel to survey the current science involving Climate Change.

And what is it about this issue that brings out the loons? Perhaps they are feeling the heat (pun intended)?

Chicken Little: I'll close with comments from Michael Crichton on consensus.

Before you quote your Crichtoracle--Hollywood celebrity activist and personality cult devotee, the Barbra Streisand of the Right--let me quote him first, from his own autobiography:

http://www.amazon.com/Travels-Michael-Crichton/dp/0060509058/ref=sr_1_1…

"Psychic spoonbending is real! Psychic auras are real and you can see them if properly trained! Demonic possession is real, and can be cured by exorcism, which is also real! I once met a plant that could speak English--and this isn't a metaphor, I mean I really met a real plant that could really speak English! Oh, and the Germ Theory of Disease is all a conspiracy made up by greedy doctors to sell medicines that don't work--they actually don't know WHAT makes you sick."

There, now, you were saying?

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

This is impressive rhetoric from a Hollywood celebrity screenwriter, but it's actually not scientifically accurate at all. What a shock!

Of course science proceeds by consensus. Ask a doctor where in your body your heart is located, and he or she will point at your upper-left chest. Now, maybe you're one of the fraction of a percent of humanity who has the heart on the RIGHT... or maybe you're a really unique little snowflake and your heart is in your elbow or something. But more than likely not! Consensus is that the heart is in the upper-left chest, and you'll just have to deal with that. Ask a thousand nuclear physicists to explain the difference between the firing mechanisms of uranium bombs versus plutonium bombs, and they'll all give you the same description--without even personally examining every single bomb of every variety in the world! Why, it's almost as if science worked by consensus!

You defend Norm and Tony with their blinkered assertion that "anything produced by a lifeform cannot be a pollutant," and you parrot giant TL/DR textwalls from a Hollywood celebrity. So I repeat: You do not take this issue seriously. None of you denialists do.

Ah, the appeal to Crichton. It's been a while since we saw that one. It's just a Galileo gambit, and utter nonsense. Only someone who knows nothing about science thinks there is something too that argument. Do you think there is no consensus on evolution? Or on relativity? Yes, neither is perfect, but there is consensus on many a theory. I'll make sure to relate your feelings on consensus the next time I attend a consensus conference at the NIH.

The debate is over because the points on which you want to debate are over. Instead what we have is a political movement, not a scientific one, to delay needed action on environmental issues. All we have are dishonest attacks, like this one from Will, that do not contribute to the debate. The whole point of denialism is to extend debate where there is none.

Finally, your examples of experts? Fred Singer? The guy tobacco companies hired to deny the link between tobacco and cancer? Or the hockey-stick obsessed McIntyre? Or the Intelligent Design promoting Spencer? Yes, they are hacks who have contributed nothing to climate science. I would not hang my hat on those names.

1. During the late Orduvivian Period CO2 was OVER 4,000 ppm and Earth went into a 10 million year ice age. That says it all as far as CO2 and temperature.

See: www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/images/figure7.gif

2. RealClimate is biased and unreliable. One of their head honchos is a guy named Mann who invented the thoroughly discredited "Hockey Stick" graph. Even Al Gore took the hockey stick out of his one sided movie, and the IPCC dumped it as well. Recently Mann took years of temperature data that proved Antarctica is cooling, and twisted it to show warming. You could call that "Mann Made Warming"

3. All my opinions are backed by hard science, as opposed to conventional wisdom and "consensus/herd mentality". 2009 will go down as the year global warming died.

Well, let's start off with a healthy dose of irony from Chicken Little:

"My purpose on this forum isn't really to argue the science. I'm more interested in learning why there hasn't been any serious debate on the subject."

Perhaps, CL, there hasn't been any serious debate on the subject because you don't want to argue the science? Actually, there HAS been plenty of serious debate on the issue, but I doubt that you have read any of that debate, because it takes place in scientific journals and other places of serious discussion. You might consult the IPPC reports over the years to see what serious scientific debate looks like. And please, don't tell me that you think they're wrong unless you've actually read them.

" The feds helped by funneling money toward research related to global warming."

Oh, yes, that would be the Feds under the Bush Administration, known for their insistence on open scientific debate? ;-)

" I'm sure you guys are aware that if your research turns up all the answers you're looking for then the money goes away."

Actually, you've got it backwards. If you do research that turns up all the answers, then it's lots easier to get more funding, because you're a proven scientist.

"Sure, the oil guys funded research and of course, the source of the funding invalidates the research."

Name one paper submitted by a scientist that was funded by the oil companies that was rejected, and then show why the paper should not have been rejected. You can't, can you? So why are you making claims based on pure fantasy?

"He didn't even touch on one of the major ones - solar cycles or sunspots."

If solar cycles are so important, then surely you can tell us what would be the change in temperature arising from a 1% increase in solar output. The calculation is trivially simple -- you don't even need a calculator. Of course, if you CAN'T do that calculation, then how do you know that solar activity is an important factor?

"My guess is that AGWers aren't really interested in proving man-made global warming anyway."

Guess all you want. When you have a logical case, I'd be happy to address it. But guesses aren't much to consider.

"All I see them doing is promoting a fear campaign designed to scare people into accepting carbon tax legislation and gov't funding of solar energy (not yet cost effective) and lame wind-power"

Have *I* been promoting a fear campaign? Have *I* argued in favor of a carbon tax or govt funding of alternative energy sources? In my long history, have I *ever* argued in favor of such things? And how do you know so much about me, anyway? ;-)

"I also assume that Eras, MarkH and others are quite confident that there is a consensus on global warming."

Assume whatever you want. You're wrong in my case. There is no scientific consensus because consensus, if you look it up, means that everybody agrees. That is not the case. However, there's no question that a majority of climatologists are convinced of the basic AGW hypothesis, even though they all disagree on the fine points.

" I'd like to know who and how many climate researchers remain on the AGW side."

Read the IPCC reports. That'll give you an excellent idea of what is agreed upon. Or read the NAS statements on AGW. That's even more reliable.

Lastly, your quote from Michael Crichton is doubly wrong. In the first place, Mr. Crichton is no more qualified to speak on the science than Mr. Gore is. They are popularizers, not scientists. If you want to get your science from Reader's Digest or the Sunday comics, fine. But if you want to learn about real science, I would urge you to read what real scientists have to say about it.

Second, Mr. Crichton is utterly, totally wrong about the way science progresses. You should read one of the great classics in the field, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, written by Thomas Kuhn some 50-odd years ago. Mr. Crichton's comments are ignorant balderdash.

Well Eras, I'd disagree. A consensus means a majority of scientists agree on something. It isn't unanimity. Most studies of this indicate almost all climate scientists agree there is anthropogenic warming. IPCC further created a consensus document in the form of their report based on debate on the scientific literature, similar to how the medical community creates consensus documents on medical treatments, or guidelines for diagnosis and staging of a tumor.

I think Will simply has a difficult time changing his mind, particularly given his conservative leanings - he doesn't want more government programs - and the fact that climate change doesn't happen at the same speed as weather.

I sympathize with his complaint about alarmism - after all, that's how Bush got us into Iraq, and it's how Obama justified the stimulus package - but there is, after all, cause for concern about climate change and it's very difficult to see as a problem that markets themselves can be expected to address - as the atmosphere is shared globally and no one has any property rights in it.

However, Will has had better moments, such as last June when he argued FOR a carbon tax - at least as a better option to cap and trade and tech subsidies:

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/06/24/george-wil…

This should not be ignored by the skeptics.

However, this latest editorial is indeed disappointing, because it turns its back on suggesting or considering any of the "no regrets" or pro-free market policies that could easily be agreed as common ground betweem "alarmists" and "skeptics", as I keep noting:

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/01/10/neocons-co…

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/02/08/paul-jostr…

I do not dispute any Laws or models, but only when they are used correctly and will work for their intended purpose. Newton's Laws work great for planetary prediction (actually, my senior project in school), but not for predicting a projectile fired from a magnetic railgun. You need more math and modeling details in order to be remotely accurate. Are Newton's Laws bad -- of course, not, but they are not the correct tool for everything. I have seen over and over where predictions do not turn out as expected in modeling. In other words, the model turns out to be wrong because the real world is different than expected. I've been modeling for 25+ years, and while I express a contempt for modeling, it is my career and it is a useful thing to do. My primary point is "don't bet the farm on it." And the more complex things get, you'd better watch out.

Here's my point exactly:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&Conten…

One of their head honchos is a guy named Mann who invented the thoroughly discredited "Hockey Stick" graph. Even Al Gore took the hockey stick out of his one sided movie, and the IPCC dumped it as well.

IPCC, AR4, Chapter 6, figure 6.10, p. 467. MBH 1999 (the "hockey stick") is the first reconstruction listed. So much for wherever it is you get your info.

MarkH, thanks for this visit to the climate-change cages of the denialism zoo. Did you cross-post this at WUWT or CA just to get a live presentation of the specimens?
I'd just suggest one thing to make this visit more useful. In our local zoo, there's tags about the various habitats and niches of the animals. It might be handy here as well. For example, we have cherry-picking and statistical ignorance ('no warming since 1998'), ad homs ('Al Gore is fat'), gross confusion ('we don't know everything in a model so we don't know anything'), confusion of scientific and public discourse ('there should be a debate' - there was, in the scientific literature), the repetition of comforting lies ('the hockey stick and antarctic warming are a lie'), the confusion of 'auditing' and science (and whatever happened to the surface stations project - you can't just drop things down the memory hole because you don't like the results), and the focus on tiny details rather thn the consilience of all the evidence. Next time, MarkH, could you PLEASE label the cages?

Yes, science is harder than opinions. That's why it's science. Be a scientist and you can have a place at the table, even if you are a reprehensible individual. The process doesn't care. Instead of relying on Marc Morano's press releases (did you know he works for a politician?), you might wonder what the Royal Society, or the National Academy of Sciences, or some other group composed of scientists, with members who have specific expertise in the topic at hand, thinks about the topic. Say, like here: http://dels.nas.edu/climatechange/

Somehow this blog would be a lot more convincing if it were written by people educated in the physical sciences, instead of med students and a lawyer, occupations noted for their extreme gullibility and spectacular failures in spotting the obvious.

Hey Tony, as long as you're appealing to (non-)authority, does (not-actually-Hansen's-supervisor)
Theon maybe have some specific criticisms of the models? I mean, it's obvious you're not going to pony up, sooo...

Oh wait, Theon doesn't have anything specific either, just random grumblings about "darn kids and their models" and all the crowd-pleasing denialist bluster that plays well with Inhofe and the other loonjobs.

I honestly feel sorry for you. It must eat away at your soul to make a living doing things you believe are completely, horridly wrong. But you needn't take it out on everyone else.

Hey Chuckie, you denialists, for your part, could be more convincing if you had any actual science to appeal to instead of flinging your poo in every direction, trying to muddy the waters, discredit various professions, and discredit the practice of science itself.

Stay away from the monkey cages, folks, they've been eating their fiber today.

I'd like to express my appreciation to Norm Smith for presenting an actually scientific argument. His argument deserves a fair and reasoned response.
First, he presents the case of the late Ordovician cooling, during which high atmospheric levels of CO2 were accompanied by low global temperatures. The conclusion he draws is that CO2 does not cause temperature increases.
The error in the reasoning is the assumption that CO2 is the only contributing factor in average global temperatures. As many others have noted, there are many factors that contribute to average global temperatures. If you hold all the other factors constant, then average global temperatures will vary concomitantly with CO2 concentrations. That is the case with modern-day global warming: no other relevant factors have been measured to change significantly, but CO2 and average global temperatures are both rising quickly.

There are a number of hypotheses to explain the late Ordovician cooling. The fact that other elements played a role does not mean that CO2 plays no role. In fact, the basic greenhouse effect of CO2 has been measured in the laboratory and is absolutely undeniable.

Next, however, Norm uses an illogical argument, claiming that the folks at RealClimate are unreliable. Why? Because one of them, Mr. Mann, published some papers that Mr. Smith decries. He misrepresents the history of the hockey stick concept. It is true that there were some errors in Mr. Mann's original paper; when the errors were pointed out, Mr. Mann re-worked the calculations and issued a new paper presenting the corrected results. This is science at its best, yet Mr. Smith seems to think that correction of an error constitutes proof of being wrong in all cases at all times. The fundamental concept colloquially referred to as "the hockey stick" has been demonstrated and supported by immense volumes of data. Global temperatures have shown a dramatic increase in the 20th century, an increase so rapid as to be unattributable to any normal climate mechanism.

Next, Mr. Smith claims "Recently Mann took years of temperature data that proved Antarctica is cooling, and twisted it to show warming." On the contrary, the data does indeed demonstrate warming. If Mr. Smith believes otherwise, he should provide his own analysis of the data.

Lastly, Mr. Smith claims that "All my opinions are backed by hard science" That's an admirable sentiment, but in the absence of actual hard science, the boast seems vainglorious. Please, Mr. Smith, present some scientific analysis. I would be particularly interested in reading your analysis of the Antarctic temperature data.

Mark disagrees with my definition of consensus: " A consensus means a majority of scientists agree on something. It isn't unanimity" I will admit to being substantially wrong while claiming to be technically correct. The OED defines consensus as unanimity. However, quoting the OED is for prescriptivists; I acknowledge that I was being snotty, because the current common definition has expanded the narrow meaning of consensus to mean "a strong majority". And on that matter, I'm in full agreement.

Tony Says Modelers Stink provides a more nuanced explanation of his view that models cannot be trusted; however, his argument boils down to "models are sometimes right and sometimes wrong", which is undeniably true and equally uninformative. And the link that he provides has no information that I could see regarding models. Perhaps it was much further down the page?

We are given a happy dose of irony by Chuck Cardiff, who writes "Somehow this blog would be a lot more convincing if it were written by people educated in the physical sciences, instead of med students and a lawyer" So Mr. Cardiff is a climatologist?

I would suggest that we can all learn more if we spend less time on personal jibes and concentrate on the issues. I certainly don't want to try to dictate the tone here: I'm only offering a suggestion for everybody's consideration.

Your goals are admirable, Erasmussimo, but most of us learned the hard way that you're just wasting breath. Good luck to you nonetheless.

Just to get back on topic (George Will's dishonesty), this blog post addresses another couple of Will's false claims that I don't think were covered by any of the links in Mark H's original post.

They're also relevant because at least one of these claims showed up in this thread, courtesy of the poo-flinger brigade.

"Your goals are admirable, Erasmussimo, but most of us learned the hard way that you're just wasting breath. Good luck to you nonetheless."

Yes, I know. I am reminded of that moment in World War I when ten thousand French soldiers shouted "Vive la France!", leapt out of their trenches, and charged through fire and death across no man's land. The German machine guns chattered, the German artillery fired, and within two minutes the French had been cut down to the last man. From a dugout in the hill overlooking this, a French general lowered his binoculars and exclaimed, "What a heroic effort!" This is a true story, not fiction.

I'm feeling so heroic.

To Erasmussimo:

How do you explain all of the pre-industrial global warmings and global coolings? It looks pretty clear that Earth is always warming or cooling.

www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev…

The problem with Mann's hockey stick is it erased the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. If is got the past wrong why do you trust it to predict the future?

Peace

As expected, Gore's and Obama's brainwashed lemmings believe whatever they are ordered to believe by their "progressive" (communist) masters. They blindly follow the Pied Pipers. And they are ready to attack anyone who contradicts their masters' lies, such as the man-made global warming lies.

More than 650 international scientists dissent over the man-made global warming claims. They are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&Conten…

Additionally, more than 31,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, âThere is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earthâs atmosphere and disruption of the Earthâs climateâ¦â http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html

âProgressiveâ (communist) politicians like Obama seem determined to force us to swallow the man-made global warming scam. We need to defend ourselves from the UN and these politicians, who threaten our future and the future of our children. Based on a lie, they have already wasted millions and plan to increase taxes, limit development, and enslave us.

If not stopped, the global warming scam will enrich the scammers (Gore and Obamaâ Wall Street friends), increase the power of the U.N. and communists like Obama, and multiply poverty and servitude for the rest of us.

As expected, Gore's and Obama's brainwashed lemmings believe whatever they are ordered to believe

... says the chucklehead who can only wave around highly questionable, at least partially debunked lists of "authorities" who supposedly support their position (except many don't).

But please do continue to foam at the mouth about the Commies under your bed. It totally builds your credibility!

Norm Smith raises the fact of previous warmings and coolings to ask why this one is any different. The most salient difference in the current warming is the rate of increase of temperature. Sure, the earth has warmed many times in the past, but those warmings were slow, gradual processes, whereas this warming is much more sudden (in climatological terms) than anything we have evidence for. There have been some even more rapid coolings, arising from sudden injections of particulates into the atmosphere from large volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes -- but those were coolings, not warmings.

Next he raises the Medieval Warming Period. It's interesting that AGW deniers are so fixated on Mann's work, when it is both outdated and only one source among many. If you'd like to see the current work, the best overall summary you can find is the IPCC AR2 report, which you can find at http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html. In particular, I suggest that you consult Chapter Six, Figure 6.10 on page 467, which presents an amalgamated summary of many different studies. The MWP does in fact show up in that data, although you'll be disappointed to see that it really isn't much to speak of. The steepest possible rise you can squeeze from that data (cherry-picking the steepest slope) is about 7ÂºC per 1000 years, whereas the shallowest possible rise for the last 100 years is 9Âº per 1000 years. So even when you interpret the data in the manner most inimical to AGW, it still comes out to be a bigger effect. Moreover, the first derivative of the temperature curve is obviously zero at the end of the MWP increase, while the slope of the curve today is still very positive -- meaning we're just getting started.
Norm then asks "If is got the past wrong why do you trust it to predict the future?"

I don't trust it to predict the future. I prefer to put my money on the best available evidence. Look at Figure 6.10. That's the one to put your money on. And yes, that definitely shows a steep increase.

In contrast to Norm Smith's reasonable objections, Antonio Sosa regales us with tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. This is illuminating, because all AGW denial ultimately depends upon conspiracy theory. The only way one can counter documents such as the IPCC reports is to dismiss all scientists as part of some huge conspiracy. Mr. Sosa is taking no chances: his conspirators are communists, scammers, and the capitalists on Wall Street. This should cover just about everybody. I would suggest that Mr. Sosa keep a sharp eye out for the orbiting mind control lasers -- any minute, we'll zap him with one and he too will become one of our mindless slaves.

Oops, that's the IPCC AR4 report I referred to, not the AR2 report. Sorry for the typo.

To the contrary, I truly like my job a lot. Modeling of complex real-world interactions is quite enjoyable, especially when they are close to what is measured in the real world. I am not taking it out on everyone else. This blog seemed to be a forum for debate about "climate deniers". I consider myself a skeptic, perhaps a denier, but only because of my experience in modeling and seeing other software developers, managers, and companies "sell" what they consider the greatest this-that-or-the-other. Time and time again I have seen what are considered the best models around fail real world tests because the models cannot model some important details. Design trades always must be made for cost and/or performance reasons, and these decisions usually limits the capability of the model. When I hear that we need carbon taxes, and must cut CO2 production, all because the "world is about to end", I take notice. Those are some mighty big claims with far reaching implications on society. Those claims are made based on information directly derived from computer models, and I have an inherent distrust of claims made on the basis of computer models.

I've tried to do a little research into the design and implementation of climate models, but information is hard to find. If any of you have a good pointer to perhaps an algorithm design document, or even source code, I would appreciate it.

The references I currently have include:

Ref1 -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model

Ref2 -- http://cera-www.dkrz.de/IPCC_DDC/IS92a/HadleyCM3/Readme.hadcm3

Ref3 -- http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/ftpsunspotnumber.html

Ref4 -- http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD010015.shtml

Of the information I have found already, here are some specific concerns I have about the climate models:

1) it appears that all climate models assume constant sun with an output of 1367 watts * m-2 [Ref1]. The zero-dimension models assume this, and Ref1 is vague about whether not the higher-dimension models assume constant sun. Ref2 about the HadCM3 model from NCAR explains significant detail about what they model, but they say nothing about a non-constant sun model. Even if someone could dream up a good model for the sun that is not a constant model, I am not sure how they could get the data for the past. How much energy has the sun output versus time? No one knows much about this, other than proxies from climate change (that defines a catch 22 by the way). Actual measured data is very limited in time, perhaps 30-40 years since satellites have been launched, and that amount of time is way too short for any climate assessment. Without hard data, it is impossible to go backwards in time to model the sun. Due to this issue, modelers are probably forced to model the sun as a constant.

Without any doubt, the first order effects on the earth's climate is the sun. It provides all of the energy needed to keep us from being about 1 deg-Kelvin. It is clear that the sun is not constant and has a high degree of variability. Examining sun spot history shows it changes a lot. Even during the 1900's the change in sunspots has increased a significantly [Ref3]. Since the sun is the first order effect in the climate and the models assume constant sun, there is a huge error in model design. If you get the first order effect wrong, then the errors there could easily swamp getting all of the other effects correct (which I doubt).

2) The model developers admit they have poor cloud and water vapor models. Ref4. Water vapor is by far the largest of the green house gases and completely dominates CO2 by a factor of 20. The conversion of water vapor to clouds is very complex and has a huge impact on climate. This suggest to me that this may be a second order effect in the models accuracy, and the climate model developers admit they have poor models in this area. At this point it is not worth even worrying about CO2 effects since it is, at best, a third order effect in any modeling.

Now for a major complaint of mine, and that is testability. All models need to be tested and validated. Unfortunately, there is no way to test any climate models. A good test for a model is to built the thing and measure it against the real world and see how well it predicted events or conditions. If a climate model makes a prediction that it will be X degrees warmer in 100 years, there is no way to test that!! Now we need to rely on the opinions of really smart people. I've been a round a lot of really smart people, and seen many build complex software systems and models, and seen those models fail. And these are the top of their field in particular areas, just like the "scientific consensus."

Given that the models appear to make huge modeling assumptions on the first and second effects of climate modeling, it is clear to me to NOT place too much confidence in the model. I have seen really smart people fail in other modeling areas that are not as complex as the climate, and due to this is seems foolish to place too much confidence in these models. We could wait 100 years for the test to complete, then assess whether or not the model is correct, but the people with an agenda claim we can't wait. "What if the model is correct?", well then it is going to be a bit warmer. Is that bad? Not sure. Could be, and there are some good arguments that it could bad. But there are also some good arguments that it could be good. I guess time will time for sure.

Tony, even without models, we'd be concerned about CO2 because of theory and observations. Plus, you seem to be unaware of many things that models can do--including hindcast GMST out of sample. The uncertainties wrt clouds are already figured into the range of outcomes.

And you seem to be ignorant of the basic physics. Water vapor does not "completely dominate CO2 by a factor of 20." It's more like 5 times. And the work of Santer and others shows that models get the WV feedback response right--see the papers on Mt. Pinatubo. Since WV is the most dominant positive feedback, this is a good indication that the models are on target.

Tony, you raise valid points; I shall endeavor to explain them.

First, regarding solar variability. It is possible to identify two basic kinds of solar variability. The dominant one is the overall system defined by the four equations of stellar structure. These clearly show that solar radiative output should be extremely stable. Here's the basic idea: suppose that the core of the sun were to experience a sudden magical increment in temperature. That would increase the rate of thermonuclear reactions, which would radiative pressure outwards. This in turn would cause the sun to expand slightly, and its radiant output to increase. However, the expansion would cool the interior (simple PVR) so that the temperature would fall and the system would return to its previous state. In other words, the sun is in stable equilibrium. There is slow change because the chemistry of the solar core is slowly changing, but we're several billion years away from that producing significant effects.

Moreover, the density of plasma in the sun is so great that the travel time of a photon from core to surface is very long. I can't remember the number but it's many thousands of years. This means that some forms of energy transfer inside the sun are very slow indeed -- meaning that we won't see big changes in a short period of time.

However, there are surface effects on the sun that do change much more quickly, specifically the solar wind, faculae, and sunspots. Precise measurements indicate a variability of less than 0.1%. Now, a variability this small would produce, at first order, a change in temperature of less than 0.1ÂºC. In other words, solar variability should have very minor effects on climate. Moreover, you are incorrect in stating that changes in solar radiant output are not factored into climate models. Please see IPCC AR4, Chapter 2, page 188 through 193 for a thorough discussion of these considerations.

On the role of water vapor, there is extensive discussion of this in the literature. Yes, there remains considerable disagreement on the details, but modelers have applied a great many variations to their models and presented the range of results. In other words, there is no single model here. There is a number of major models, and each one has been run many different times with different assumptions built into it, and the range of outcomes is then reported. It is this overall range that is presented in the final reports. Again, I suggest that you consult IPCC AR4 on this, in particular, Chapter 8, which is devoted to the subject of climate modeling. I suspect that, with your background, you will enjoy the chapter. But please, read it with an open mind; don't go in determined to find errors. Just apply normal scientific skepticism.

One other thing about water vapor: its effect depends upon its amount. The reason that the polar regions are showing such rapid increases in temperature is that cold air contains much less water vapor than warm air. So we'd expect global warming to show up first in the polar regions, and to have very little effect in the tropics. Which means that, if you want to look for the signal, don't look at average global temperature, look at the polar temperatures -- and the evidence there shows much bigger changes than we have seen worldwide. The signal there is very strong indeed.

Lastly, most modelers rely on retrodiction to test their work, not prediction. And the various retrodiction tests have yielded reasonably good results. There are still plenty of shortfalls, but the results are good enough to conclude that they're not seriously misleading us about the future.

To: Erasmussimo

From: Norm

Thank you for being the one person on this site representing the "humans caused global-warming" side has the intelligence, decency and capability to engaging in a true intellectual debate.

I have made clear that I am on the "natural cycles" side of this issue, and you are clearly o the AGW side. Fair enough.

Even though we disagree I would call you a "Great Debater".

Peace,

Norm Smith

PS: You may be surprised to know that I am the leader of a prominent civic group dedicated to environmental preservation and air-quality in a city of 80,000+ people. Additionally, I am a former Green Party candidate. I honestly have spent hundreds or thousands of hours studying
"global warming" and I personally concluded that "natural cycles" trumps "human produced CO2" as the best explanation. I am currently working on a book titled "From the Eemian to the Holocene - a brief history of the last 125,000 years".

Thanks for the compliment, Norm. And I'm happy to respect your opinion on the matter. Good luck with your book -- especially explaining the Younger Dryas, as that one has generated LOTS of disputes! ;-)

Erasmussimo, I too agree that you make good points, and I enjoy the debate and you added intellectual value to the conversaion. While I may be stubborn on my viewpoint, I do believe that I can drop my position in a second once I am convinced that I'm wrong. I've been wrong plenty of times, so I know I do not have a lock on ground truth. I'd much rather argue with someone who knows something, than end up in some Monty Python skit of name calling. That's fun on BBC, and pointless when you are defending a position.

So for all of you called called Norm and I idiots, or belong in a zoo with name plates, I would like to suggest that you are not a "Great Debater" like Erasmussimo, but you may be "Master Debaters". As Larry the Cable Guy says, "I don't care who you are, now that's funny!!"

Erasmussimo, I need to look into your references and get back to you and the group. I still think it comes down to the sun since it is the 10,000 pound gorilla in the solar system. Oh, the time it takes for a photon to leave the center of the sun is about 250,000 years (reference was a Discovery channel documentary). I could see it has possible. All the solar surface activity, however, is probably the issue. Solar flares rake havoc on electronics, and hence carry a lot of energy. As for the 1367 Watts per m2, is that for visible energy, or all RF specturms?

Tony

I believe that the 1367 W/m**2 figure is the bolometric power density -- the sum of all the energy at all wavelengths. It's measured at the top of the atmosphere, before anything gets filtered out.

You know, there's an interesting possibility to consider here. Our belief in the stability of solar output is based primarily on theoretical considerations. For example, the fact that the sun is the 10,000 lb gorilla in the solar system, as you note, is also one of the theoretical reasons why we expect its output to be stable. Something that big doesn't change temperature quickly. Even the earth, small as it is, can take years to heat up or cool down. Perhaps I should sit down and do the calculation for the sun: what would happen if the sun suddenly stopped producing any energy? How quickly would its temperature fall?

In any event, we also expect the sun's output to be stable because it's a Main Sequence star, and Main Sequence stars are stable. That is, all the variable stars we know are not on the Main Sequence. However, variability has always been measured by photometric means, which are accurate to maybe 1%. Which means that there could be a lot of Main Sequence stars that are variable with amplitudes of less than 1%. Now, if this were the case, it still wouldn't affect the earth much: the Stefan-Boltzmann equation tells us that a 1% change in solar output will produce a 1/4% change in the earth's temperature, which is less than 1ÂºC. Still, it would be interesting to check into it. I doubt if this kind of measurement has been done before, because you need very special equipment to get measurements with that kind of precision.

However, it just so happens that we have just launched the perfect instrument for that task: Kepler. It has an astoundingly precise photometer on board, so that it can detect the slightest changes in brightness due to planetary eclipses of distant stars. It will be measuring 100,000 stars. Every one of those will be examined for variability. They'll be looking for planetary eclipse variability, which has a distinctive graph. But they'll necessarily be detecting (if not noticing) extremely low variabilities in all the other stars. So the question is, do the Kepler scientists intend to look for those extremely low variabilities? My guess is that they are planning to do so, because I know from personal experience that most NASA missions are Trojan horses in that the PR reason for the mission is only a tiny fraction of what they're doing on the mission. Kepler is looking for earth-like planets -- but it's probably looking for a lot more. And the results of the Kepler mission might well give us very good data on low-amplitude variability in Main Sequence stars.

I'd much rather argue with someone who knows something, than end up in some Monty Python skit of name calling.

You're right, a guy who bumbles into a thread with a name like "Tony Says Modelers Stink" all full of "u r all religious lol!!1!" rhetoric totally deserves a more elevated level of discourse. I don't know what I was thinking.

Hey, c'mon, minimalist. Somebody has to take the first step. I treated these people like gentlemen, and they responded like gentlemen. There's a lesson there.

I'm not going to begrudge your methods; I'm glad you're here, polite, and so erudite, but it's not for me. All I could take away from Norm's last post was: after you posted a long, thoughtful and detailed critique that surely took you some time to do, his response was "Hey, nice post, I have no response but I'm never gonna change my mind either so... bye!" Been there, done that.

Tony, despite his initial bluster, evasions, needlessly inflammatory handle, and blatantly misleading use of statistics, actually has finally turned out to hold his own (and even softened the handle!), so I actually do feel a twinge of regret there. But hindsight is 20/20, first impressions are important, and nine times out of ten I find that someone who's going to sling around over-interpreted, cherry-picked data like that isn't going to contribute a whole lot.

Plus I don't particularly care if I'm thought of as polite or rude, because some denialists tend to use 'politeness' as a weapon regardless of what you do. See, for example, Sal Cordova, ID proponent and cottage cheese-dripping pussy. He's full of the most slimy, but politely-intoned, insinuations about anyone on the Darwinian side, but expose his constant, blatant dishonesty in anything less than the most grovelling tones, and he'll screech about how horribly rude we're being. Fuck that.

I have this evil impulse to write a really nasty, insulting rude response, just for the irony of it, but for once I'll throttle my black sense of humor. ;-)

IMHO you're being much too generous regarding Tony. His 6:23 PM post made it crystal clear that he drew his conclusions about climate models without first learning anything about them.

I've found that the sole difference between polite versus impolite conversation with denialists is that the former can eat up a lot more time. Lately I've decided that the best approach is to make them read a paper if they want to continue the discussion. It makes them look bad if they refuse, and the chance of them at least coming away with slightly enhanced cognitive dissonance (the first step toward the needed epiphany) is enhanced. At present, I like this article about the key role of the Southern Ocean (and see these related fresh results) and Hansen et al's "Target CO2" paper.

I regret that I picked a name initially called "Tony Thinks Modelers Stink". That was a little inflammatory, and that is why I changed to the current one. The current one is truer to my nature. Recall, I am a software developer building complex software systems and models, which makes me a modeler. And to be fair, some of my past models have stunk.

The basis for my initial position was a general distrust of any claims made from models and computer systems. I've seen a lot of claims, and the bigs ones are usually oversold and have never delivered. Climate modeling is making some big claims and warrant a full investigation. I think the religion label fits some people in the climate hype, but certainly not all. I think several people here have done an excellent job of challenging my rhetoric. That forced me to dig a little deeper into understanding the models, or at least more of what goes into them, and defending what I distrust about the models. I've done some initial research and will continue to dig into it. I think I've clearly defined what I think are key issues in climate modeling -- getting the 1st and 2nd order effects correct (sun and WV), and then testing it very thoroughly. If there is one thing you can't do too much of, then that is test software. All three of these are very very hard to do for the climate, but that doesn't means you guys shouldn't keep hammering a way it.

Double check your sun and WV models. Those are my targets and I'm gunning for them. Hey, speaking of which, where can I get source or design documents for the major models? I want ones written for software people, not Al Gore or Joe Q Public.

Tony, check IPCC's homepage. IIRC, there was a bunch of code there once when I was hunting up some other data. I could be wrong, but that would be the first place to look.

Both the CCSM (NCAR) and GISS Model E codes are public. Googling should locate them easily.

Per Jim Hansen, the evidence is paleoclimate, modern observations and models, in that order. I suggest starting with the Discovery of Global Warming and the IPCC AR4 WG1 report for context, then this nearly-complete textbook for modeling principles. After that, it will be possible to begin developing an independent understanding of the models.

Seeing the debate going on here, I'd like to submit this blog entry for peer review:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/icecap-a-group-of-fake-climate-…

{{{{Posted by Dale Husband on February 15, 2009

http://www.icecap.us/

This is a group of global warming denialists who happen to be meteorologists, but are obviously clueless when it comes to chemistry. First, please review my earlier blog entry:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/those-terrible-twins-of-climate…

Now, what do these âexpertsâ say about the matter? They list this on bold as a âmythâ, not a fact, and attempt to refute it:

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/faqs-and-myths#5

{{CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas.

Not even close. Most of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is about 100 times as abundant in the atmosphere as CO2 and thus has a much larger effect.}}

Oh, really?

Suppose you have a planet with an atmosphere composed exactly like Earthâs, with water oceans and a yellow dwarf sun as well. Thus, its atmosphere would indeed have both CO2 and H2O, complete with clouds and typical weather patterns.

Suddenly, all the CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect it provides, the temperature drops quickly. The relative humidity skyrockets. In some areas, it exceeds 100%, and when that happens, clouds form, increasing the planetâs cloud cover. The clouds block and reflect the sunlight, further cooling the air below them as well as the surface. Precipitation results and the atmosphere loses most of its H2O as well. So the atmosphere becomes colder and drier, until finally the planet is locked in an ice age, which it can never recover from unless CO2 is added. Even the oceans will be frozen up.

Now, we add the CO2 back. With CO2 trapping heat once more, ice begins to melt. Then water begins to evaporate. As water evaporates, the H2O kicks in with its own greenhouse effect, resulting in more ice melting. Eventually, the oceans are restored, and the atmosphere returns to what it was.

H2O alone on Earth cannot keep the planet warm enough to sustain life, because at certain temperatures and concentrations in the atmosphere it forms clouds which act as cooling agents, and on land below a certain temperature it forms ice, which also reflects light. CO2 must be the trigger for the greenhouse effect of both substances to operate properly on Earth. Quite simply, those ICECAP âexpertsâ are either lying or just idiots!}}}}

Norm Smith says: "I honestly have spent hundreds or thousands of hours studying
"global warming" and I personally concluded that "natural cycles" trumps "human produced CO2" as the best explanation."

I wonder what his sources of information were. Was ICECAP one of them?

George Monbiot on his blog at the Guardian has also done a demolition job on Will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/18/climate…

(1) Correlation does not equate to causation

(2) Recent ice estimates and the related George Will counter-attack have just been re-corrected by the NSIDC:

"The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February."

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

The big question for the green lobby is not man made climate change yes or no. The big questions are economic and political ones which should be informed by, but not subservient to, science. If burning fossil fuels causes climate change then we have two options.

A) Leave fossil fuels in the ground.
B) Burn them. Deal with the consequences.

The problem with A is how we get to it. How will the Saudis et al be compensated. Since energy usage has and can expand exponentially fossil fuels will likely always have marginal price to someone, hence the market in fossil fuels must be abolished on a worldwide scale. With new reserves being frantically searched for colour me sceptical in terms of any mechanism that can achieve this.

The fossil fuels in the ground are worth trillions, more than the cost of the Iraq war several times over. A trillion forgone is a trillion spent. Given A, what do I get for my trillions? Where is the cost benefit analysis? That is the job of an accountant, not a doctor of science.

Yes, Peep, those are the *only* two alternatives. There couldn't *possibly* be anything else in the world to do. Wow. You sure have made me think.

/sarcasm

1. Use oil (a fossil fuel) to make plastics and other petrochemicals.

2. Use other means of generating electrical energy (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal)

3. Find something better to burn to power our transportation.

4. Find a better form of transportation that does not require burning anything.

And all this just off the top of my head. Too fast for you?

As an amateur scientist down here in Texas, I have my undertaken my own global warming study. Every time I see a dead armadillo on the road I look to see whether he's facing north or south.

I love all the people who keep talking about the snowy cold winter we're having, who are somehow unaware of the hot dry summer we're having at the same time on the same planet. Australia's right here on the internets, denialists, and it's burning up. Have a look.

Of course a single season means nothing one way or another. But their selectivity speaks eloquently of their respect for science.

Mr. Will has come back fighting, publishing a column that pours derision upon his critics and staunchly defends his earlier column. Once again, it's a pile of lies. He claims that his critics only challenged one of his factual statements -- I have seen line-by-line refutations of his column. He presents a convoluted justification for his statements regarding Antarctic ice -- but it's unclear from his writing as to whether he claims that his statements are justified by the original source or by a political website from which he obtained the data. All in all, it's a snow-job, a smokescreen, a flock of lies with a bodyguard of sarcasm. I once respected Mr. Will as the voice of the intelligent right, but after this sordid performance, I am beginning to wonder whether there exists an intelligent right.

Some of them are intelligent, they just use their talents for evil. Read a Krauthammer column sometime; the things veritably ooze with contempt and condescension toward his audience. They know they're full of it, and don't care.

Will is famous in journalistic circles for throwing epic temper tantrums whenever he's caught in an error (lie) and the possibility of a correction/retraction is brought up, however gingerly. Given the slimy behavior of Hiatt and the ombudsman, it gives me some small comfort to imagine the magnitude-10 shitstorm they were probably subjected to.

I stumbled upon this blog and find it both interesting and entertaining. I've also learned that on the subject of global warming, a denialist more often than not is not someone who distorts or dismisses emerging or established science, but is someone who denies the real and perceived truths the blog hosts consider self evident.

There is science on both sides of the debate, both good and bad, and this denialist site is necessitated by the fact that the "good" science which is counter to what mainstream global warmists consider as fact, is growing.

A "regression analysis" of the "good science" which does not support catastrophic warming shows an upward trend in recent years - which is great - it will help mankind arrive at the right decisions - and balance the alarmist view on one side and the "denialist" view on the other side.

Science? Growing "good science" which does not support catastrophic warming? Right. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

Any evidence of this "good science"? SDGIMIAB? Where is this groundbreaking work being done? UMYASS? Come on, you've got to have more than unsupported assertions. Where is this great work published? Washington Post?

Please.

Got it. You mean the bell on the "left". We've experienced periods of global warming as recently as medieval times and then the more recent contrasting little ice age, for which increases or decreases in man-made CO2 were not precipitating causes.

This is not to say prudent control of man-made emissions is not a noble objective. However, there is a risk that we may experience global cooling in the near future. Global warming may be the higher risk, but the claim of certainty on either side of the debate is simply arrogance.

My observation, was anecdotally proven by your response - condescending and dismissive. What is the term for an anti-denialist who resorts to denialist tactics? Standard liberal tactics - stick a label on a perspective different than one's own - and then repeat it over again and again.

Anyway, since we are both reasonable people looking out for the common good, at least we can both celebrate the Antarctic's recent contribution to mitigating sea levels.

Peace.

Ah, yes. The oft-repeated myth of the Medevial Warm Period, and the "Little Ice Age", both of which predate industrial society.

Climate science is very robust, and the effect of greenhouse gasses is very well understood. As I pointed out, there is no science that counters AGW.

Denialism is more than just "that guy disagrees with me". Read the links at the top of this page. There are certain tactics involved in denial... (hint: asking for the evidence is not one of them, but repeating often debunked lies *is*)

Thanks for reaffirming what it takes to be an anti-denialist - condescension, rhetorical overstatement, and assigning dismissive tags like "lie". Perhaps there is more civil anti denialist rhetorical devices.

Indeed there is a period described as MWP and LIA, including references in IPCC and Mann's publications. Of course it has been determined that the changes are not as pronounced as anti global warmists had purported them to be. But MWP and LIA anomolies do exist - and using the popular monikers for these periods does not make my comment denialist.

Point remains the, climate science is not fully mature, and while the risk of global warming may outweigh (materially) the risk of global cooling over the next century, only a denialist would hold that only one risk is certain.

I'm simply hopeful reason will prevail, and those who dismiss my prior innocuous post with name calling are not part of the analysis process.

OH! I recognize this one! The "artificial reasonableness" ploy. "I'm sure there's some middle ground..." Nope. Still wrong.

There is no, I repeat, no science that contradicts AGW. Period. Show me citations if you have any. Global cooling was one discussed possibility in the '70s, and even then the authors stated that the question was whether aerosol cooling would overcome the greenhouse effect or not. Well, thirty years later, we have discovered that it would not.

The MWP and the LIA are irrelevant, wrong, and have been wildly misrepresented in this debate. We've heard this song before, and it still grates on the ear. Merely mentioning them makes you either a denialist trying to muddy the water, or a well-meaning Joe who misunderstands the science. I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Again, show me the science, or accept that there is none.

MOC, I'm happy to explain the science to you without being condescending. I appreciate that, in your effort to be fair-minded, you split the difference between the two camps. But I would suggest that, since this is objective science rather than subjective opinion, it is more appropriate to go with the science than to split the difference. And the science really is quite clear. Let me address some of the points you raise:

1. "there is a risk that we may experience global cooling in the near future." No, there is no such risk. The simplest extrapolation of long-term temperature trends shows a sharp rise in temperatures over the next century. Add to that the undeniable facts that a) CO2 emissions are rising and b) CO2 is certain to produce a greenhouse effect, and you get even stronger confirmation of the basic hypothesis that global temperatures will be rising for the foreseeable future.

2. "We've experienced periods of global warming as recently as medieval times and then the more recent contrasting little ice age, for which increases or decreases in man-made CO2 were not precipitating causes."

The fact that human CO2 emissions did not cause previous increases in global temperature has absolutely no bearing on whether they will now. The fact that phenomenon A has been shown to occur without being triggered by cause B does not in any logical way suggest that cause B cannot trigger phenomenon A. The fact that nobody has ever been murdered by whacking them over the head with a laptop computer does not imply that laptop computers could never be used as murder weapons. Human release of CO2 is a new phenomenon; there has been only one trial of its effects and that trial shows strong warming.

3. "climate science is not fully mature". True. And nuclear physics was nowhere near mature in 1945. Tell that to the people in Hiroshima. Science doesn't have to be fully mature to be useful.

4. "I'm simply hopeful reason will prevail" Good. I hope that you will learn more about the science of AGW. An excellent starting point is a brochure by the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious scientific organization in the world (and one with a perfect track record on its policy statements), which you can obtain at

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/climate_change_2008_final.pdf

Thank you.

Two follow ups.

I mean risk in the purest sense of the term. Couple that with the fact that climate science is not fully mature, there is a risk (remote; possible; probable; almost certain) that either cooling (remote to possible) or warming (probable to almost certain) will occur. Einstein contributed to the science that led to Hiroshima, but he also went to his deathbed grappling with quantum mechanics.

Second, I believe 5 years from now the science will be mature enough that one can say with near certainty, that CO2, is a leading indicator, compared to certain scientists that hold it may be a lagging indicator; that what we observe may have othercontributing factors in addition to CO@, etc. I understand logic. Building on your point 2, the existence of A does not prove B. Great work has been done establishing a correlation between manmade CO2 and GW, but more work is needed on disproving other contributing factors.

Very smart well respected (at the time) people did not model the systemic credit collapse we are experiencing. A small minority did. Anti GW scientists are the minority. I'll be prudent re: my global footprint,but I prefer not to give either side short shrift at this point.

Thanks for the link - could you also provide a link to one of the more objective, non-politicized, studies that summarize the scientific case against GW. At least one of those 650 dissentors must have been a respected scientist with an opinion based on objective research.

Thanks much.

The chance of a general cooling in this century is, I would say, remote; a quick look at the temperature history of the last few hundred years shows that pretty clearly.

On leading and lagging, CO2 is actually both. There's no question that CO2 leads temperature in the sense that increases in CO2 will cause an increase in temperature. This basic cause-effect relationship has never been in question -- it's basic physics, established in the lab for more than a century. The unknowns arise from the various feedback mechanisms, which are both positive and negative, so the magnitude of the effect is in doubt. However, we do know that one of the feedback mechanisms is a release of CO2 into the atmosphere. There's a lot of subsoil CO2 frozen in polar regions, and we've got data showing that, as polar temperatures rise, more of that CO2 is released into the atmosphere. So the causality is as follows:

leading CO2 --> higher temperatures --> release of lagging subsoil CO2

Hence, you can have CO2 both leading and lagging temperature increases.

could you also provide a link to one of the more objective, non-politicized, studies that summarize the scientific case against GW. At least one of those 650 dissentors must have been a respected scientist with an opinion based on objective research.

Umm, I think that the "650 scientists" to which you refer comes from a list prepared by one of Senator Inhofe's staff members. It's a hoax; he grabbed quotes out of context and put on his list anybody who has ever said anything contrary to any aspect of climate change science. There's lots of raging debate over the details, but that doesn't make the debaters opposed to the basic hypothesis. Many of the people on that list, when they discovered their names on it, demanded that they be removed -- a demand that was ignored.

There are some opponents who strike me as respectable even if I find some of their claims objectionable. I would list three:

1. Steve McIntyre at http://www.climateaudit.org/
He started off as a really good "loyal opposition", poking and prodding at every study, pointing out errors. Most of his points were minor, but a few were major. He continues to provide a steady source of scientifically respectable information. However, I fear that his extended disagreements with other scientists have poisoned his attitude; he seems more strident these days and less cool-headed.

2. Richard Lintzen. He's definitely a top-notch scientist, and he's definitely contrarian, but it's a little difficult to figure out exactly where he stands.

3. There's a fellow at the University of Colorado who has done some good contrarian work. Sadly, my memory is not up to the task of recalling his name.

I know you requested contrarian stuff, but I'd like to add www.realclimate.org, which is definitely a pro-AGW site. The trick is, these guys are real climatologists and they talk about the real scientific issues. They frequently refer to scientists with whom they disagree, so they might be a source of information on both sides for you.

Thank you. Went to the Steve Mcintyre site and found this recent post linked below as it is consistent with the focus and tone of our recent posts.

Unfortunately, I am left to conclude that perhaps the science may not be as mature as it could be in 5 years. I am not in a postion to weigh in on the credibility of the post. However, if it is any way indicative of what can occur in the scientific community among assumed respected scientists with objective scientific research, it does not bode well.

It appears we have both politically motivated general less informed "Denialist" non-scientists framing the discussion - and as the link indirectly asserts, politically correct "Obstructionists" actually embedded within the scientific community.

Sad.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5416#more-5416

Yes, that is a sad tale and it reflects poorly on the reviewer as well as the editor of that journal. However, please note several additional considerations: first, this paper was reviewed by a single reviewer. That takes place only with small journals. Most reputable journals have three reviewers precisely because the editor wants to insure that one cranky reviewer doesn't ruin the reception for a good paper. Second, the paper was later published by another journal. That is one of the strengths of the modern scientific process: you can always try another journal, and if you got an unfair break from one journal, the mistake will be corrected in another journal. Third, the authors themselves acknowledge the iffiness of their results. The radiosonde data really is less reliable than the satellite data, and it really is reasonable to reject one dataset when it contradicts another dataset that is known to be more reliable.

I can certainly understand why so many scientists would be gunshy about publishing questionable material that directly contradicts so much other work. The scientific literature has been plundered by skeptics who ruthlessly quote-mine for anything that they can twist around to make their case. The perfect example of this is the Inhofe list of 650 scientists, in which scientists who merely disagreed with some technical aspect of the AGW hypothesis were declared to be "opponents" of AGW hypothesis. It's absolutely true that science should keep politics out of its considerations -- but the problem is that politics has brutally invaded the science and twisted it beyond all recognition. The moral of this story is that everybody -- politicians, citizens, amateurs, TV weathermen -- EVERYBODY should keep their damn noses out of the science and let the scientists just do their jobs. And then the scientists should not permit any political considerations to affect their work.

The paper to which you refer that reported that the Antarctic is warming was quickly and decisively debunked for the adulterated data that was used fallaciously by its authors. One bad paper does not trump real science and its records. In this paper, published by the same group that created the debunked and false Hockeystick graph, they took data from poorly maintained monitoring sites in the Antarctic margins, cobbled it together to produce a warming trend, and then used computer models to extrapolate the crappy data to the whole interior of the continent, pretending that we really do not know what is going on in there - ingenuously ignoring all satellites. NASA and all other monitoring systems all agree that the Antarctic has been cooling for 50 years. That is one really big weak spot in the global warming advocacy. This paper from Mann's group is an attempt to pretend that Antarctica is warming and muddy the real facts.

You need to realize that the scientists associated with the IPCC DO HAVE AN AGENDA which is nonscientific as the goal of the upper levels is to create a crisis which will lead to a carbon economy and eventually a one-world government. This was the plan of Maurice Strong, the man who created the IPCC. There is indeed a plan and, as politicians in charge of it, they do not care that their conclusions regarding the science have no relation to the science. They have to find a human footprint regardless of whether the scientists can find one or not. They would be failing in their mission, if they did not push the warming scam.

Good scientists have to live with the facts and the fact that the Antarctic is cooling and growing, and Greenland is, too, is just too bad, if it does not fit the warmist agenda.

We have been cooling for 10 years and with the PDO flipping to its cooling phase for the next 30 years as of 2007, as NASA and NOAA report and, with solar cycle 24 being eerily quiet, we have a very chilly 30 years ahead. Yell as loud as they can, it is not warming, CO2 cannot and never will drive the climate, and carbon cap and trade is a huge global scam being perpetrated on the public, in a huge betrayal of the public trust. Remember that carbon cap and trade will raise the price of everything we do or make. It is a hidden tax, critically designed to cripple Western industry and Western economy. Teamed with the environmentalist, the result is a misanthropic plan to make it too expensive to maintain our standard of living and even our birthrate. Basically, they believe that there is 67% too many people today and the plan is to bring that down to 2 billion.

What these clowns, as a form of antitechnology Luddite, do not realize is that technology and progress will allow us to do things much more efficiently and with better health throughout the globe while giving nature more room to be. They have things perfectly backwards.

Remember, these people have the same thinking as those who worked to ban DDT. There was no real science against it, it was a lie that it was harming eagles (they actually increased 25% while DDT was being used), and it was given credit for saving 500,000,000 lives over 20 years by stopping malaria in its tracks. The environmentalist saw this as a crime as described by one of their leaders. They liked malaria as: "Better dead than procreating wildly." It was natural population control in their eyes.

Ruckelhaus of the EPA banned DDT as a completely political decision with no reasonable rationale (he refused to explain anything) for the decision and with the stated goal of also giving the environmentalist movement a huge boost in power, by successfully banning DDT. Thus, in the last 30 years, the environmentalist movement has effectively killed about 750,000,000 people by banning DDT under false pretenses - more dead than all wars of all kinds in the history of the world.

I am not a skeptic. I am a scientist. I am not a denialist. I support the facts and the real science. It is the warmists who are in denial of the fact that their science cannot and will not win as it is junk science and reality will eventually prove them false - it looks like sooner than later, if we are lucky.

The amazing alacrity with which warmists attack the motives of skeptics belies the fact that the warmists have motives that they do not want to verbalize. With a 5 billion dollar budget, they have much more at stake than the few scientists, and it is only a few, who receive money from oil interests. In fact, good science is immune to its source and stands regardless of the background of the source. The junk science behind the case implicating CO2 as a greenhouse gas has no integrity scientifically, but sounds good to the scientifically ignorant. The denigrating and personal attacks on skeptics is the hallmark of a loser - if you cannot win against the science, attack the speaker.

It might also be useful to point out that, back in the DDT era, Science's chief editor declared that they would publish no articles which were not antagonistic to DTT. Now that's scientific integrity at its worst! This is exactly how Science, Nature, and the Proc Nat Acad Sci are behaving today regarding global warming.

One paper was rejected by Science with one line. The editor stated that: "How could 30 years of climate research be wrong?" Well, guys, when you think you have a warming mechanism and warming is the current trend, it is easy to convince yourself that you are, maybe, right. But, when cooling kicks in, ignoring natural factors becomes virtually impossible, and the computer models completely fail to predict the past, present, or future, maybe they are really, really wrong, despite the years and the huge wealth that were spent. I demand a refund!

too crazy; didn't read

(Okay, fine, I peeked at the "one world government" part, lol)

Wow. I started to list the logical fallacies, debunked talking points, and outright lies in those two comments... and ran out of paper.

Total facepalm, with a double headdesk cluster.

One world government. DDT. The crazy is strong with this one.

Global warming will continue to go up and up. Eventually, the whole planet will be like when boiling clay in a pot. There is hope for those that want to overcome. A free gift for humanity is available. No group to join, no money required. Any human being, regardless of color, religion, political or religious position has the potential within. Please ask for a free book at: www.hercolubus.tv. It has the practices to prepare yourself for what is coming. No one can do the job for you. You and you alone can prepare for what is already happening: Floods, Earthquakes, Global Warming, Pandemics, World Wars etc.,

Save your time, re: hercolubus

Blah, blah, blah mystery planet. Blah, blah, blah destruction of Atlantis. Blah, blah, blah astral projection.

Typical insanity. Nothing to get excited about.

In view of recent events (the CRU emails and computer code) you might want to post a apology to the "deniers". That is of course, if you have any integrity.

We will apologize to the deniers. When they are right. In this case, when Hell freezes over. (Or at least the polar icecaps)

I think you may want to look again at those stolen emails... they don't say what you so desperately want them to say.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm 52, and I was a high school student in the 1970s. I remember hearing that there was a coming global cooling.

Mathew Nisbet, Beneath Contempt

denialism — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 08:24:26 +0000

Mathew Nisbet, Beneath Contempt

Well, Nisbet has replied to Mike, Orac and me (not to mention PAL). However his reply leaves something wanting, like, intellectual honesty.

Nowhere in any of these reasoned replies is there "name-calling". What we are arguing is for the preservation of accurate labeling of arguments that fail to meet standards of honesty. There are arguments that are crap, and arguments that are useful and indicate the author is interested in exchange of ideas, fostering discussion, the truth etc. We believe it is useful not to just label these arguments but to teach people how to distinguish between legitimate debate and illegitimate debate.

I am beginning to understand that Matt Nisbet is unable to engage us on such a level because I fear he is simply incompetent to do so or incompetent to recognize our attempts to engage him in meaningful debate. There is no attempt at honestly addressing our points, at persuasion, or any semblance of a discussion I could respect and participate in. Just a straw man, and a pathetic one at that. And when one attempts to address his arguments on his own site, he doesn't publish critical comments (or no more than one in three).

I'm done. Whether there is anything to "framing science" or if it's just a con that lets Matt Nisbet publish opinion pieces as "research" I don't care anymore. He's not an opponent worth debating.

Happy Thanksgiving.

denialism Thu, 11/27/2008 - 03:24

Tags

Fake Experts

Wasting your time

Clue that he's incompetent: he's in comm arts.

I actually have called him names, and I never got a reply.

My comment there - and I was really fast last night - is still stuck in moderation. Perhaps because I called him names....

Actually, I posted a comment that pointed out once again he was making a straw man argument, that I used to support him, but that he lost me through his behavior. I also called him out on his hypocrisy. Let's see if he'll let my comment through.

The Communications Expertsâ¢ on The Other Sideâ¢ (i.e. the deniers of stuff) are slightly more interesting to read, actually.

A while back (if anyone still remembers it) I wrote about a speech by the "International Climate Science Coalition". A few days ago I also looked at a piece from the "Frontier Centre for Public Policy".

At least after reading them I can get to know our 'enemies' better. Reading Nisbet just makes me more stupid.

When this whole thing began two Aprils ago, I was bemused and a little confused. Advice like "get on somebody's emotional good side when you're bringing bad news" is not exactly shocking. When people who said they supported "framing" explained what they thought "framing" was about, what they said sounded largely like Carl Sagan's advice in The Demon-Haunted World: understand the human frailties which lead to belief in woo.

"OK," thought I, "what else? What makes 'framing' so remarkable and innovative?"

Some of us suspected that the original contribution which "framism" brought to the table would be the preference of ideology over data, intolerance of any diversity of viewpoints, and sleaze.

Think if I whine loudly enough he'll let me call myself an expert?

I'll say please and everything.

I wrote a reply from the perspective of an undergraduate student...and I've got to say, if I had instructors like him I'd have no problem getting a 4 point GPA while drinking every night.

Katherine -

Why the slam on communications? Not everyone who studies communications is like Matt Nisbet. Indeed, there are some very able communication experts out there. On the flip side, the majority of people are piss poor communicators.

I recently (finally) got enrolled as a college student and will start this winter semester, studying psychology. About five, maybe ten percent of clinical psychology is actually about the human mind. The rest is all about communication.

I can honestly say that while I have always been a fairly effective communicator, things have vastly improved since I made a study of it (while I have lacked a formal education, I have always been one for self-education). Just because there are a few assholes out there, who in spite of (and sometimes because of) having studied it in school, turn out to be very ineffectual communicators, doesn't mean that as a course of study it has no value. Most of the time, when you see communications "experts" who are obviously anything but, it is not because of their education, but a result of their personal bias and cognitive dissonance.

In Matt's case, I would argue that because he is turned off by strong language, he is ineffective as a communicator. And it's not just the distaste for strong language. He seems to have a pathological need to avoid confrontation - not exactly a rare trait these days, but one that interferes with the ability to effectively communicate. People like him (and when I was younger, me) cannot handle confrontation and end up in a position where they can't even deal with it's occasional necessity in interpersonal interactions with loved ones.

The unfortunate result of this very common tendency, is that things that should be said and could be said without malice, end up bottled up, until there is an explosion and it all comes out with a great deal of malice. The problem is, that people with this tendency, rarely recognize that they have it. It's especially sad when they (like Matt) should damn well know better. I can almost guarantee that Matt is aware of this problem, from an academic standpoint, but fails to recognize that it clouds his judgment in a big way.

I would argue that this makes Matt a denialist of the second type described in his PRI interview.

Because I'm fascinated by the fact that two people can draw completely different conclusions from the same facts and issues, I used to use the word "framing", but referring to perception rather than expression. Nisbett ruined the word and now it smells bad.

Maybe the difference between Sagan and Nisbett is the difference between understanding human frailties, and using them to manipulate people.

Nisbet is framing scientists as the bad guys, ignoring the blatant name-calling by the denialists, with terms like "true believers" or "brainwashed." These insults, and especially the idea that there's a conspiracy to defraud the public over AGW (climate scientists creating alarm solely to get more grant money), seem to have a lot of traction with the common man, who (in my experience) enjoys rooting for the underdog who seems to be fighting against an unreasonable and evil authority.

He thinks that eliminating the term "denier" will somehow be important in turning opinions away from those sorts of mythic figures, never pointing out that their name-calling is at least as frequent and as evil, and more importantly effectively communicated?

If all he wants to do is claim the "moral high ground" in the alleged "debate" (by not name-calling while the denialists continue to), he should have just said so.

I just read his latest reply to your (and Orac's) original piece, and he seems to be saying, I answered your points / read my book. He even ends a comment in reply to Orac with "Time to move on!". Pretty lame. Plus, if this is true:

And when one attempts to address his arguments on his own site, he doesn't publish critical comments (or no more than one in three).

... then I tend to agree with Mark - he's not worth debating.

I haven't followed this as closely as I perhaps should have (in particular, I've only wasted time reading Nisbet's stuff once or twice), but my impression had been that Nisbet's point and message were transparently about Nisbet, not about communicating science, for quite some time now.

The sad thing is he points people to his own opinions instead of the research.

There _is_ some good scientific work done on what convinces people, and what simply reinforces opinion and makes it harder for people to tell good from bad information.

This summed the recent work up nicely:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR20070…

Lesson there -- repeating falsehoods even to rebut them makes them easier to remember. What we hear often, we find more credible at a deep level, and it's easy to forget that it started from an unreliable source.

This is just like pattern recognition -- we see more tigers than there are in the shrubbery, because the fitness cost of missing just one tiger can be total (no grandchildren). It's built in.

Instead, point to good information, and rephrase.

It's good research. And I do find that cautionary.

I thought the PRI program quite good:
http://www.theworld.org/audio/1121088.mp3

If Nisbet were pointing to the scientific research instead of to his own opinion pieces .... but that's the problem.

Just because he's wrong, though, doesn't mean we too should be ignoring good scientific work that tells us our impulsive responses to nitwittery are not the most useful approach.

We have to give up some simple, quick, impulsive answers if we're going to believe the research about what people hear and remember -- think twice and craft a response that

-- doesn't repeat the bogosity
-- does point to good information (for the NEXT reader)
-- doesn't give victim trolls what they desire (again, for the readers who come along later)

From the scienceblogs homepage;

Mathew Nisbet, Beneath Contempt
denialism blog

Well, Nisbet has replied to Mike, Orac and I (not to mention PAL). However his reply leaves something...

Fox News is Hiring
Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Found this ad on Craigslist: Wanted: Single white network seeks spineless, simpering "liberal" to sit on the set...

Can it be a coincidence?...

Consider this an open thread to publish the comments Nisbet refuses to let through.

You know what this reminds me of? During the recent Prop 8 debate in California, many supporters complained that they were being called bigots for exercising their support. They didn't try to argue that the accusation was unfair, they just complained about it. So, we have to ask the questions:

What's wrong with calling a bigot a bigot?

What's wrong with calling a denier a denier?

If a murderer complained about being called a murderer, would you give this any thought, or would you just laugh him off? Why should we make an exception for lesser offenses?

Well, Matt has let my critical comments through, so I can't complain too much. But I never really get what Matt has concluded should be done, only what shouldn't be done, unless he refers to a book he is writing or a talk he will be giving somewhere. Whether it has to do with atheists talking about science, or using terms like "deniers" he seems to be mostly about telling people to shut up and let him do the talking.

He's a professional at it, you know.

OK, so blake stacey has called him names (but not really). Yet, blake stacey was not mentioned in Nisbet's response.

So what we have here is Nisbet is willing to distort the positions of fellow bloggers by mischaracterizing the behavior of commenters as the behavior of the bloggers in their own posts, who did not call names in the comments. That's more than intellectual dishonesty. That's just lying. That's low. Fuck you running, Nisbet.

Hey, what the heck? I signed into typepad, yet above I'm "anonymous." And my sign-in didn't stick afterwards. But it links to my blog...

something is funky with type pad since they changed to their new system the other day.

Figures.

So anyhow, is Nisbet's comment moderation a new thing as of today, or has he been doing it for a while?

Mark, if you don't mind, I'd like to plug my own blog with the following response I wrote about Nisbet:

http://smalltimetv.blogspot.com/2008/11/where-matt-nisbet-fails.html

I posted a response, and said "shit" somewhere (like, "holy shit, if you can't recognize that strawman, then you need to take a logic class.") so I doubt it will get through. Seriously though, how is his strawman not completely obvious to him? Orac responded perfectly, and was met with yet another stupid response.

Ugh.

-Consider this an open thread to publish the comments Nisbet refuses to let through.-

But now i've forgotten what i wrote...and it was really witty too...damn.

Matt honey, can you post my comment here for me please...it was the one about spade-like objects and pedophiles.

I find it funny, actually, that Matt is doing a major denialist tactic. Suppressing dissent about what he has written. No wonder he got his knickers in a twist about calling people deniers.

So anyhow, is Nisbet's comment moderation a new thing as of today, or has he been doing it for a while?

Since the get-go. Which, coincidentally, is about when I began wondering what the arrogant appeaser was doing here.

he seems to be mostly about telling people to shut up and let him do the talking.

More like telling people to shut up, buy his book and come to his talks.

If calling people names is such an ineffective strategy and "turns off the broad middle", how come it seems to be working so well for the denialists? That's about all the strategy they've got. If anything, the whole AGW business shows that name-calling is a far more effective strategy than careful, factual debate.

Aerik - he's been doing it for a good long while now.

Nisbet is all about communication, where communication is defined as everyone sitting down, shutting up and focusing admiration towards him whilst going to his lectures and buying his books.

Sort of similar to how Answers in Genesis is all about scientific endeavour. :p

Matt Nisbet is a poopy-head. Like Joe the Plumber, he needs to realize that his 15 minutes are well over.

Aerik:

Hey, what the heck? I signed into typepad, yet above I'm "anonymous." And my sign-in didn't stick afterwards. But it links to my blog...

TypeKey has always been funky in these parts; I recall suffering similar malfunctions a couple years ago.

I came across Nisbet's (or KneesBite as I refer to him) little whine-- it exceeded his usual sophistry. I was tempted to comment directly, but realize that as you point out, he has no interest in legitimate debate on the issue.

And that, Mr. KneesBite, is "name calling!"

At first I thought you were being harsh,

then I read the exchanges, listened to the radio bit, and tried to comment, quite politely, on his blog.

Over twenty-four hours later, my comment still has not appeared.

In fact the latest comment is from about 5:30pm on the 26th and, not coincidently, takes his side.

Officially, it's due to "spam", but PZ, for example, seems to get by just fine with close to zero moderation; no vacuum or viagara salesmen in sight.

Top-down proclamations, lack of consultation with working scientists, no apparent methodology at all, and severe moderation of comments:

Science Communication, you're doing it wrong.

Moderating comments is one of those red flags, a signpost that reads; "this author not to be taken seriously".

My latest comment still hasn't made it out of moderation there. It's like carrying on a radio conversation with someone out in the Kuiper belt.

Weird. An internecine war without my name being waved about? It's kind of gratifying.

As for spam: I do have lots of filter entries to keep them out. It isn't bad; spammers can tell when a site is actively policed, and invest less effort in hammering them. I get about half a dozen spam messages a day, almost all of them are automatically caught by the filters, and maybe one a day leaks through and needs my personal attention.

On-topic comment: I have no idea what Nisbet's game is, but he seems incredibly tin-eared and delicate, at the same time. Denialist is an effective and useful term that accurately categorizes a mind-set, and it should be used more.

Hey PZ,

I liked that picture of you posted by Nisbet as the "face of atheism".

You look kinda like a fat troll, scaring billy goats off the bridge!

But I never really get what Matt has concluded should be done, only what shouldn't be done, unless he refers to a book he is writing or a talk he will be giving somewhere. Whether it has to do with atheists talking about science, or using terms like "deniers" he seems to be mostly about telling people to shut up and let him do the talking.

So far as I can tell, what he thinks should be done begins and ends with "shut up and pay attention to ME!"

I posted a comment on nisbet's blog ages ago that never made it through. Its probably the only harsh comment (which is not to say it was rude, undeserved, offensive or inaccurate) I've ever left on a blog but, hey, he deserved it.

Matt Nisbett: Concern troll.

Or "The Joe Lieberman of Science."

"It's all explained in my book" is a fairly common theme of math-and-physics cranks.

Nisbet, the tyrannical and clueless polite-nik is still around? Ugh.

I may just have an undergraduate degree in Communications (a very interesting field, despite Nisbet single handedly discrediting it), but I can see clearly that Nisbet is missing the boat entirely in his 'understanding' of Communications.

A year or so ago, I visited his blog and was repelled by his inanity, ignorance, and arrogance. What a supreme dipshit--he was even unable to respond adequately to polite comments. Yes, his crap is crap and is worth no consideration at all. He is a fraud.

What's with this idiot? Does he think we should call denialists something else, like, say, "marshmallows"? I mean seriously, does he think we need to ENGAGE the denialists??? Or that the public cares if we're "mean" to them?

Well, I'd sure like to get a gig like he's got. Seems like he gets a lot of attention for non-production.

I don't even bother trying to comment at Nisbet's site anymore.

I like how he says that you "overlook that the key audience in these rhetorical fist-a -cuffs is not the small group of so-called 'denialists' but rather the wider spectator public," when that's pretty much the very criticism you levied at him.

Also, it's spelled "fisticuffs," darn it. But pointing that out would be petty.

I like how he says that you "overlook that the key audience in these rhetorical fist-a -cuffs is not the small group of so-called 'denialists' but rather the wider spectator public," when that's pretty much the very criticism you levied at him.

So how exactly does he figure that being deferential to the denialists and treating their intellectually and morally bankrupt impostures like legitimate debate is going to help us win that audience over?

Perhaps once he's done here he can go on to support a motion in the United Nations granting Al Qaeda a representative seat.

PZ Myers: "Weird. An internecine war without my name being waved about? It's kind of gratifying."

Your name was taken in vain a few times in the comments Orac's thread on Nisbet. :p

But seriously ...

PZ Myers: "I have no idea what Nisbet's game is"

I think a big part of it is that Nisbet is simply stuck in "counterintuitive mode," where, as (of all people) Chris Mooney pointed out, "journalists, who are trying to find something novel or clever or surprising to say, try to turn conventional wisdom on its head, or to attack their own presumed allies." (See the link behind my name.)

Blake:

Oddly enough, I did notice that. Although I got the impression the "book" in question was a free download, it still had that "I'm too busy to defend my idiocy. Go bore yourself to death and inflate my hit count" feel to it.

I like how calling denialist a denialist isn't considered fair in Nisbet's playbook but posting an unflattering photo of your opponent is. Also, censoring their comments on your blog seems to be okay as well.

IN THE FIRST SENTENCE IT SHOULD READ: ....HAS REPLIED TO MIKE, ORAC
AND ME [NOT I]. IT'S 5TH GRADE GRAMMAR.

WELL, IF YOUR GONNA BE PICKY ABOUT GRAMMAR, MAYBE YOU SHOULD CONSIDER USING CORRECT CAPITALIZATION (AND PARENTHESES RATHER THAN BRACKETS).

TAKE IT EASY ON DAN, PALMD. HE MAY BE RESTRICTED TO DIALING IN FROM A DEC120 TERMINAL THROUGH A 1200 BAUD MODEM.

HE MAY BE RESTRICTED TO DIALING IN FROM A DEC120 TERMINAL THROUGH A 1200 BAUD MODEM

Ouch. Been there, done that, got the carpal tunnel and ADHD to prove it! <grin>

IN THE FIRST SENTENCE IT SHOULD READ: ....HAS REPLIED TO MIKE, ORAC
AND ME [NOT I]. IT'S 5TH GRADE GRAMMAR.

As opposed to 2nd grade keyboard operation?

As Blake says, I think Nisbet is simply working his way through the more popular scienceblogs. I have long concluded that his main shtick is envy combined with 'look at me, I'm better and more important than them over there'. Not exactly the best advocate for framing.

The next step of his blog censorship is to copy the practise of many creationist and denialist sites. I.e. allow unflattering comments through, but to first 'edit' them to make them appear supportive. When he does that, we will know for sure that he has jumped the shark, assuming there was any doubt in the first place.

Nisbet's use of the "I don't have time to respond to your arguments" retort is right out of the troll playbook. If he doesn't have time to engage commenters, then what is he doing here?

Nisbet does not hesitate to refer to his detractors as "screechy monkeys" while blocking all their comments. Likewise he was quick to label the dirty, uncivil "far-left bloggers" who did such nasty things to poor poor Joe Lieberman.

Does he even have a science background? Has he ever performed any communications other than giving lectures on it to silent, respectful, non-confrontational audiences who specifically sought him out to lecture at them? My impression of ScienceBlogs is that nearly everybody has a background in education or at least public report presentations. Nobody needed this self-appointed ombudsman and diction coach, and I for one find his "theories" to be insultingly redundant. I call deniers "deniers," of course I don't call MY STUDENTS "deniers." His advice is about as pertinent as the Monty Python Theory of the Brontosaurus (being that it was long and skinny at the front end, then much fatter in the middle, then long and skinny again at the rear).

For someone who spends so much time saying that nobody should upset anyone, Nisbet has annoyed a large number of people.

IN REPLY TO PALMD, WHEN DID POINTING OUT INCORRECT GRAMMAR BECOME
PICKY? ADDITIONALLY, THERE IS NO INCORRECT CAPITALIZATION; IT'S ALL CAPS AND IT APPARENTLY GOT YOUR ATTENTION.

AS FOR USING BRACKETS INSTEAD OF PARENTHESES, SQUARE BRACKETS ENCLOSE
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS THAT WERE NOT IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO LOOK IT UP. I HOPE THIS ISN'T TOO PICKY, PALMD, BUT IN YOUR POST, IT SHOULD BE YOU'RE, NOT YOUR. I'M SORRY.

AS FOR AZKYROTH, IF I CAN'T USE ALL CAPS, THEN YOU CAN'T USE SENTENCE FRAGMENTS, WHICH MIGHT BE TAUGHT IN YOUR 2ND GRADE COMPUTER CLASS.

DAN MCPEEK -

YOUR BEING PEDANTIC ASSHOLE WITH NOTHING SUBSTANTIVE TO OFFER CONVERSATION WE'RE ALL HAVING HERE. AND YOU APPARENTLY NEED CAPSLOCK TO DO IT RIGHT. IT'S KINDERGARTEN LEVEL SOCIALIZATION.

DUWAYNE-

IT'S TRUE I HAVE NOTHING SUBSTANTIVE TO OFFER THE CONVERSATION.

YOU SAY YOU LACK A FORMAL EDUCATION. I GUESS SO. YOUR FIRST SENTENCE IS CONFIRMATION.

AS FAR AS ME BEING A PEDANT (A PRETENDER TO SUPERIOR KNOWLEDGE), IT'S ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR...ASSHOLE. YOU'RE RIGHT, USING THE WORD ASSHOLE, THAT DOES FEEL GOOD.

Dan McPeek,

You appear unaware of the internet convention that using all caps is the equivalent of shouting.

DAN MCPEEK -

Oh dear, in mocking you, I gave you the impression that I am somehow lacking grammatical ability. Sorry, but if reading my previous comments didn't disabuse you of that, you truly are a moron.

But my point about your social skills stands firm. If my six year old son decided to invade any conversation with pedantic bullshit like that which you are spewing here, he would get a time out for being an asshole. Nothing substantive to add, you come in and like a complete idiot use all caps and criticize a minor grammatical error and in so doing also make a slight on the writers intelligence.

And by the way, the sentence as written is not grammatically incorrect. In modern Engish, both Mark's version and your own, are generally considered acceptable. Whether you like it or not, both forms are used by professional writers and both forms are taught in elementary schools as being acceptable, not to mention college English classes.

Now I happen to find this topic very interesting as well as rather important. So if you have nothing more to contribute, than showing what a pedantic asshole you are - mistaken pedantic asshole to boot, I for one would love to see you go have a time out and let the adults continue with their adult conversation.

Unless of course, you want me to spank you again.

DUWANE- OH DEAR, DUWANE, YOU IGNORAMUS. YOU DIDN'T SPANK ANYBODY. AND YOUR SELF EDUCATION NEEDS SOME FINE TUNING. YOU'RE NOT GETTING YOUR GRAMMAR INFO FROM A COLLEGE CLASS; IT MUST BE COMING FROM YOUR KID. THE SENTENCE AS WRITTEN IS GRAMATICALLY INCORRECT, GENERALLY OR OTHERWISE. AND, YES, ITS USE IS UNINTELLIGENT. AND WHAT'S YOUR ANAL OBSESSION WITH CAPS? IF I'M SHOUTING, I'M SHOUTING. GET OVER IT. AND ARE YOU LACKING GRAMATICAL ABILITY? YES, RETARD, YOU ARE! SO PLACE A COMMA AFTER IDIOT, YOU IDIOT, AND WRITER'S IS POSSESSIVE, YOU MORON, AND THAT IS A SLIGHT ON YOUR INTELLIGENCE YOU PRETENTIOUS DICK. NOW, GO SPANK SOMETHING ELSE. AND SINCE YOU LOVE THE WORD PEDANTIC, GO LOOK IT IT UP BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE. NOW, LIGHTEN UP AND GO HAVE A BEER.

I honestly don't understand why Nisbet is still on Sb.

For someone who spends so much time saying that nobody should upset anyone, Nisbet has annoyed a large number of people.

Michael, that's a really good point. What the heck is he doing? Didn't anyone ever tell him "show, don't tell"?

Dan - Personally I read all-caps writing as a sort of blank-verse lolspeak, not shouting. Either way it's annoying. Do you have anything to say that isn't criticizing other posters' grammar? No? Then what's the fucking point?

Yeah, it's "you're". I hereby declare Dan a good punctuator. Really. Why he needs to shout about it when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand is beyond me, but never mind. *shrug*

I've been missing in action from the scienceblogosphere for a while. So ... I come back to have a look around, only to find this wrangle with Nisbet still going on, albeit metamorphosed somewhat. I guess it's hard to ignore him when he keeps dissing people unnecessarily and counterproductively - but it'd be good to try. You won't convert him or his small number of admirers, and I doubt that the effect of what Nisbet is doing is that great; in fact, I doubt that many people in the larger world really care. I mean, I do find the whole thing vaguely amusing (and at the same time slightly unsettling), but even I don't care all that much.

Jeeze, I hope I didn't make any punctuation errors in the above.

Have you no sense of irony, sir? At long last, have you no sense of irony? "Your" and "gonna" were thrown in for IRONY!!!111!!

Below is the post I attempted at Matt's blog. Never did show up. I'm sure you're all surprised, laced with namecalling and profanity as it is. (not)

Post attempted (9:42 est 27 Nov) at Matt's blog (original thread)
Jeremy, maybe you, if not Matt, will answer: What is Matt's framing except a matter of providing a set of neat little boxes to put things in? He argues for the necessity of a simplified structure, a 'framework', rather than the fully detailed one he complains of scientists mistakenly trying to provide.

If you and Matt and others dislike 'denialist' as a frame for those who are actively denying the science in an area, fine. But in telling others not to use it, but that we should still be 'framing', tell us what term you want to be used instead. Because there really are people who are actively denying the science, senators whose climate 'experts' run to science fiction author MDs, micrometeorologists who've never published on anything larger than a few square meters of forest, and the like. You don't like 'denialist', fine. What term do you want instead?

Note that while you and Matt advocate studiously avoiding an appropriate label, the denialists are actively trying to apply a different one to themselves for public consumption -- labels like 'honest', 'scientist'. If framing works at all, letting their self-framing go unchallenged is a suicidal tactic. What is your counter?

In reading the preceding (oops, I buried a helpful part of framing), it's true that I have, for my own reasons, advised commentators on my blog not to use labels like this or others. And that one of my articles (August) is titled 'Labelling instead of thinking'.

Quoth Russell Blackford:

I've been missing in action from the scienceblogosphere for a while. So ... I come back to have a look around, only to find this wrangle with Nisbet still going on, albeit metamorphosed somewhat.

I LONG AGO GAVE UP THINKING THAT ANYWUN WOUDL AKSHULY LIEK 2 TOK ABOUT TEH HYPOTHESEES OF COGNITIV SCIUNHS IMPLISIT IN NISBET'S HARANGUES. NOW, ON TEH INFREKWENT OCASHUNS I AKSHULY CARE, I JUST CALL HIM SILLY NAMES INSTED. OFTUN IN BLANK VURSE.

Dan... seven-sixteenths of an inch is all you have to move your left pinky finger to avoid looking like a moron. Full documentation at the link.

I fixed the bad grammar. Apologies. Crap! Sentence fragment! And another! And another!

You know, out of sheer morbid curiosity, I clicked a bunch of the links he refers to that supposedly explain his position better, and searched on "denialist" in those that were searchable. The results pretty much confirmed Mike the Mad's point that the only people who have a stick up their arses about the word, are the denialists themselves. Does Mr Nisbet even read the stuff to which he links?

In the original NPR clip he posted, his colleague Dr Sandman gives various reasons why people might deny a reality; and I can see holding hands and singing "I'd like to teach the world to sing" would work in the case where someone was using a faulty heuristic/worldview, where there was a chance they could actually be persuaded by presenting the facts in a way that would fit their worldview. But in the other cases his learned colleague describes--lying through one's teeth, being too panicked by consequences to think straight--that ain't gonna work. So.

One thing I learned in my wonderful mandatory liberal arts communication courses: Know your audience. Presumably a normal communication expert would think, aha, these are scientists, I can simply cite a bunch of social science/group psych papers demonstrating that Method XYZ is the most successful way to overcome propaganda and disinformation, and I shall have won their minds, right? So why does Mr Nisbet not have this thought? I dug up a bunch of student comments on his teaching skills (I luv teh intarwebs), and they indicate that his lectures at AU are the same type of communication: blind assertions to be memorized without comment or interaction. Apparently he figures that blogging is just like droning at your bored undergrads using teh intartubes.

First, I don't think the terms "denier" and "denialist" are nearly as inflammatory as people seem to think they are.

"Denier" is just a straightforward description. However, we don't call everyone who denies anything a denier. We only bother to label them when it seems like there's something noteworthy, or problematic about their denial.

"Denialist" implies bad faith and ulterior motives. The denizens of Exxon-funded think tanks against global warming are denialists. They are sophists in the classic sense of the word: People who make cleverly specious arguments for money.

My neighbor who wonders whether the world is really warming up is not a denialist. He's just an intelligent layperson who isn't that well informed on the issue.

Sometimes, you need to call out bad faith when you see it. We can't just pretend that oil company think tanks are legitimate and disinterested players in this battle of ideas.

A lot of people are receptive to the argument that industry is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. We've seen this phenomenon countless times before.

Calling real denialism when you see it won't alienate the intelligent middle ground. Denialism provides an easily understood explanation for why this controversy won't die, despite an overwhelming scientific consensus.

The denialists have narratives to explain their permanent ultra-minority status: Hidebound academia punishing mavericks. Our counter-narrative is that their ideas don't catch on with real experts because they're trash, but they don't die out because people with vested interests are subsidizing them.

LULZ TO THE MAX:

SO boring. He repeated the same concepts and stories over and over and over again. And when he'd ask a question that nobody was interested in answering, he'd just stand there until somebody finally broke the awkward silence.

Teh awsum.

Dear Dan McPeek: FUCK OFF

You can come back when you are ready to stop shouting.

The trouble is that, although I wish I could join in the general pile-on on Nisbet, who, Zeus knows, has often done much to deserve it ... well, y'know, I think there's a grain of truth there this time. Some of us do - perhaps because of our particular backgrounds, or whatever - find it hard to hear or see the word "denialist" and its cognates without it having a suggestion of Holocaust denial specifically, of David Irving more specifically, and of a tinge of something rather Nazi-like. The fact that it does have that connotation for some (many?) people is a reason to think twice before using it, and not a reason to grab it with both hands in order to exploit the emotional associations, which I suspect sometimes happens. I'm NOT suggesting it happens around here; nor am I, ahem, denying that this sort of terminology might be readily applicable to people who are just as cranky as Holocaust denialists, and maybe more socially dangerous, if less offensive or malevolent; but I'd be dishonest if I kept silent about this concern, or if I said that the sort of point Nisbet is making on this particular occasion has no resonance for me at all.

I'd rather just call these people "irrationalists" - which is, in fact, what I usually call people who are being irrational. "Wingnut", "crackpot", and so on are also good, as is "deluded", but I guess "irrationalist" is not very catchy, and there's also the problem with some of these that's already been mentioned: people who are irrational/nutty/cracked on some topic can (sometimes) be fairly rational on others.

I'd be dishonest if I kept silent about this concern

Thank you. Your concern has been noted, and rejected.

Well, thanks for your thoughtful reply. Pity you had to plagiarise it from a creationist video that attempts to satirise Richard Dawkins.

Concern trolls are useless. We have noted your concern. We reject it. What part of that is hard for you to understand. You offer nothing of substance to the conversation other than mealy-mouthed platitudes. This is the same problem we have with Nisbet. What on earth made you think that you would get any better treatment on a blog post titled "Mathew Nisbet, Beneath Contempt"? Seriously. We have heard your "concerns" before. Thank you for playing.

Russel -

The problem with that, is that most people don't have any preconceived notion of denialism. Unless they have specifically dealt with holocaust denial, they aren't going to make any connections the holocaust when they hear the term denialism. And honestly, the general public is, at best, vaguely aware that there are those who deny the holocaust ever happened. It's just not that common of a topic.

Unfortunately, there are a great many people who are aware of vaccine denialists, because there are a great number of prominent people who fall into that category. Sure, calling them cranks and irrational helps, but calling them denialists makes clear that there is a lot more to the story than they are letting out. It makes me think; "What exactly are they denying?" Rather than settling for them being mere cranks, which may make me think twice about what they are saying, but doesn't put an onus on me to actually investigate the claims, certainly not the way accusing them of denial does.

In the end, even if the individual is discredited, the idea remains and unless the idea is displaced by evidence based ideas, it can continue to fester long after the discredited crank is forgotten.

The fact that it does have that connotation for some (many?) people is a reason to think twice before using it, and not a reason to grab it with both hands in order to exploit the emotional associations, which I suspect sometimes happens.

I think the salient issue here is that it's difficult to judge how other people will react to terminology (or to anything else, really) based solely on one's personal experiences. It's the danger of anecdotal evidence. Myself, I learned that Holocaust denial existed at about the same time that I learned the history and extent of creationism, back when I was a teenager. The techniques employed by the two seemed so parallel that the term "evolution deniers" just seemed natural, and I didn't have a pre-existing history of seeing and using the label "Holocaust denier" to heap extra connotations on the word "denial". Consequently, while I can appreciate that somebody else, somebody who dealt with Holocaust denial first, might have issues with the jargon, it doesn't have that emotional impact for me.

I must confess I don't really know what the public level of awareness about Holocaust denial is. I suspect that many people, if confronted with a Holocaust denier, would react with astonishment: "What are you, some kind of neo-Nazi? Where do you think all those Jews went, for Christ's sake?" Maybe I'm being foolishly optimistic, but as far as cranky beliefs go, I really do expect this one to be fringe. Certainly, it's less respectable in polite society than, say, climate change denialism.

The irony, then, would be that denialism might be an uncomfortable term for the public intellectuals of the world, as they've been reading about David Irving for years, while it could be just the word we need for explaining the phenomenon to the moderately interested outsider, whose name-recognition of Irving might not even rise to "Oh, that guy" status. I call this ironic, of course, because dealing with the hoi polloi is Nisbet's self-proclaimed speciality.

I certainly don't think of the term "denialist" as having some special connotation of connection to the Nazis, though I openly question whether there's a meaningful moral difference between those who pretend Nazi atrocities never happened and those who pre-emptively pretend that the horrors of resurgent vaccine-preventable diseases, biological (and thus medical) science frozen in its tracks, and massive environmental damage never will have happened.

Just to be clear, he's making it *our* fault that *they* sound and act like neo-Nazis? Sorry ... perhaps I framed that in a poor manner, how about "argue the same way as neo-Nazis." I would think that's their problem, not ours.

Also, as I pointed out in my still-awaiting-moderation comment on his blog, what kind of expert in communication stifles opposing viewpoints? I wonder what sort of obfuscation and bullshit -- I mean, framing -- he would do to make that censorship look like our fault, as well. What a clown this guy turned out to be.

Lindzen alleges conspiracies, cherry-picks data (see TGGWS), misrepresents the state of the scientific consensus etc. He meets criteria for fake expertise. The conspiracy-mongering alone should be enough. Further, we have evidence of crank magnetism with his denial of the health risks of smoking. He has relevant credentials but this is besides the point. There are plenty of MDs who promote quackery. There are PhDs who believe in all sorts of bizarre crankery including HIV/AIDS denial. You may as well argue that Peter Duesberg is a real expert because he is indeed highly trained and published in biological science, a member of NAS etc. It's not the letters after their name it's their actions.

Fighting over funding sources is not a useful endeavor. It's very difficult to establish a quid pro quo since almost everyone has to get paid by someone with an ostensible interest in one side of an argument. And it's not like industry doesn't put out excellent research. Such things may be suspicious, but rarely proof of crankery or denialism (barring internal tobacco company documents of course - Fumento and Milloy look out). The denialism comes from conspiracy theories and selectivity.

Fake expert.

thanks for blog

Open letter to Jenny McCarthy

sb admin — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:33:53 +0000

Open letter to Jenny McCarthy

Dear Jenny,

Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. Oh, Jenny. Look, I realize I might have been somewhat less than kind in the past, but I'm hoping you haven't written me off. I've been told you catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar, so please take this letter in the spirit it was intended---corrective, constructive, and condescending.

I have it on good authority that you are planning on leading a "March on Washington" tomorrow. That's a really interesting idea. Many groups have marched on Washington---the Bonus Army, Dr. Martin Luther King, anti-abortion groups, pro-choice groups, a Million Black Men---all to help bring attention to their causes. It is only natural (or should I say "green") that you would wish to do the same. Other groups that have made the march have had pretty clear goals, whether they be veterans' benefits, racial equality, or other political causes. I was wondering precisely what your goal is?

According to the website, the goal is "to give everyone who loves a child with Autism (sic) a day for their voices to be heard." That being sufficiently vague, the website also states that you wish to:

...[d]emand [that] Congress take action to Green Our Vaccine Supply (sic) while reassessing our current vaccine schedule. Ask Congress to reenact legislation that would eliminate mercury and other toxins from our children's vaccines, study the instance of Autism (sic) and other neurological disorders in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, and to extend the statute of limitations to allow all children affected by vaccine induced Autism (sic) to file in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP).

I can understand racial equality and other socio-political causes, but I'm a little confused about your goals. The whole "giving a voice" thing seems rather devoid of actual content, so lets move on to your other statement.

[d]emand [that] Congress take action to Green Our Vaccine Supply (sic) while reassessing our current vaccine schedule.

First, I'm not sure what Congress has to do with this. Leaving that aside, what does it mean to "green our vaccine supply"? Do you wish them to be more verdant, like the Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day? I suspect not. Perhaps you could clarify?

Ask Congress to reenact legislation that would eliminate mercury and other toxins from our children's vaccines...

I'm sorry, Jenny, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You already made us stop using mercury compounds, despite the overwhelming evidence of safety, and yet autism rates haven't dropped. What "toxins" do you mean? I'm sure you couldn't mean that list of "chemicals" in some of your literature---since everything is "chemicals", I'm not sure which ones are "greener" (except copper---that can get pretty green, but it's not in vaccines---yet). You mention "anti-freeze", and yet there isn't any in vaccines. Some have a compound with a similar name (polyethylene glycol vs. ethylene glycol---that "poly" makes a big difference, but it's kind of "science-y" so I'll leave it out for now). You mention "formaldehyde", which is used to inactivate the viruses in some vaccines, but it's present is such small amounts, that common environmental exposures are much more significant. In some flight of fancy, you also mentioned "aborted human fetus cells". That's truly bizarre. A cell culture line has existed for over 40 years whose ancestor cells came from human fetal tissue. To call these culture "human fetal tissue" is, well, wrong.

Oh, wait, here's one of my favorites: "chick embryos". Jenny, that's a synonym (that means "means the same as") "egg". Eggs (yes, the same kind we eat) are used to make flu vaccines. It's too bad, because people who are allergic to eggs will have to wait until we find a new way to make the vaccine in order to benefit from the shot.

I hope you have good weather, and at least check out some of the museums. Even better, you might want to drive a short way out of town and visit the NIH. They do science there. That means the test hypotheses, keeping the good ones and discarding the bad.

Jenny, you've been fed a disproved hypothesis (that means "you're wrong"). It's time for you to give up your degree from Google University and go back to being a mom and actress. You're probably good at at least one of those.

sb admin Tue, 06/03/2008 - 08:33

Tags

Anti-Vax Denialism

Fake Experts

jenny mccarthy

First, "Indigo". Now, "Green"? Jenny, make up your mind!

Tell us more, Jenny, about how you "cure" your son's autism with diet.

Hmm, maybe he actually had Celiac disease. Maybe, he doesn't have autism in the first place.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The instance of autism? Methinks she's confused with its not-so-homonymous 'incidence'.

The anti-vacc crowd, I imagine, don't understand just how horiffic plagues of childhood disease are - far, far worse that thier most fevered supposings of what vaccines do.

When ther's enough unvaccinated kids to for a population that measles or whooping cough can sweep through, what will we do? Say "I told you so"?

Of course, these anti-vaccers will find a way to do what irrational people always do: blame someone else for their own stupid, stupid decisions.

Yes, the "instance" of "Autism"...I really meant to include that, because of it's searing stupidity.

These folks want to be taken seriously on scientific issues, and yet they can't get basic terms correct, and they capitalize like Germans.

I am personally aggravated that she claims her son's seizures are related to vaccines, yet fails to understand that seizures are also related to the diseases!

My son's seizures started when he was 48 hours old (Jenny, that is two days). He is too old to get the birth HepB vaccine. His first real needle was an IV of antibiotics at the hospital in case the seizures had a bacterial cause (started before the cultures were done, those take time).

Fortunately the seizures stopped with the first dose of phenobarbital. He has had one other seizure after he was weaned from the anticonvulsant: it was during an illness! (which may or may not be a rotavirus, something there is now a vaccine for).

Why do people now think seizures only occur because of vaccines? Don't they know there are other reasons, even though many of these reasons are never discovered (seizures of unknown etiology).

Or does Miss Jenny not want to take responsibility for her history of smoking cigarettes and other toxins she might have ingested.

I think you guys are the only ones actually listening to Jenny. The rest of us are just staring at her breasts and nodding occasionally.

You may think you are cool trying to dis Jenny, the mom of a boy who clearly had seizures right after her son had a vaccination but the science that proves that vaccines injure humans is already on the package inserts found with each vaccine, in the files at the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and on the website at www.nvic.org, the National Vaccine Information Center, run by Barbara Loe Fisher, a parent of a vaccine injured son who is respected enough by the vaccine machine to be a consumer member on their panel. If the Vaccine Safety Study raw data had actually been made public and not pretend made public and covered up, it would prove that thimerosal causes autism. If Generation Rescue's phone survey of vaccinated versus unvaccinated would be expanded into a full blown study, it would be very clear that vaccines may cause autism. Why is it so difficult for the vast majority of the public to realize that vaccines are just another medical product that could potentially be injurious? You don't think Vioxx should have been recalled? You non believers should be more wary of being injured by your flu shots or Gardasil vaccines as you blindly accept doctors' recommendations for medical treatment (that provides the doctor with profit) without adequately researching the risk benefit ratio of the possible side effects of that decision. We must all come together as a nation to demand more oversight and accountability for all medical products including vaccines to achieve the best level of public health.

If Generation Rescue's phone survey of vaccinated versus unvaccinated would be expanded into a full blown study, it would be very clear that vaccines may cause autism.

No, it wouldn't. Expanding the size of a badly designed, badly executed survey would not produce better evidence. It would just produce a bigger, more expensive, badly designed, badly executed phone survey.

Fear clouds judgment. Human suffering stimulates srong emotional responses that shut down rational thinking. PALMD, I understand and agree with every point you are making, but still find your chosen tone of "corrective, constructive, and condescending" rhetoric to be more likely to arouse a strong emotional response (which we know clouds judgment) rather than a thoughtful, rational re-consideration of the matter in hand. It is important not to take a leaf out of the irrationalist book, and allow ad-hominem attacks to creep into a rational discussion. An idea can be right or wrong. The person holding the idea is just a person, doing the best they can with what they've got. And if the person has suffered, they are likely to perceive an attack on them as a denial of their suffering, not as a pointer towards the discovery of sounder, more evidence-based ideas. PS. I haven't a clue who Jenny McCarthy is.

"but the science that proves that vaccines injure humans is already on the package inserts found with each vaccine,"

No one has ever claimed that vaccines are never harmful. Google "risk benefit analysis".

"If the Vaccine Safety Study raw data had actually been made public and not pretend made public and covered up". [citation needed]

I don't know what they're hoping to accomplish. They claim incompetence and cover-ups orchestrated by the government, yet they're descending on Washington. They claim big science is putting poison in vaccines, yet their purpose for this march is to get congress to do more science to research later vaccine schedules and explore causes of Autism. Who in the world do they think will be doing these studies they want more of? Is it just me or are they lobbying for work that has either already been done or that they won't believe once it's done anyway.

Heidi Rogers bleated: "Jenny, the mom of a boy who clearly had seizures"

And the rest of us whose children had seizures NOT after vaccines (but due to real illneses) should just shut-up and accept what Jenny says?

Thimerosal (mercury) is still used. When it was "removed" that was a recommendation not a mandate/law. And the term removal means that thimerosal can be used in the production process but it has to be "filtered out". How do you filter out a compound that is half it weight in mercuy? HOW? That is why they are going for the term Elimentated. Aluminum the one that is used-cannot be broken down or absorbed by the body. Yes they are toxic. The only test done on Thimerosal (still used ) was in 1929 and it killed every one of the test subjects. The world's leading manufacter of vaccines is China. Think about that one.
My child had blood in her diaper after 6 hours from her vaccination shots. Yes she had seizures. Her intestines bled. Autism is just part of what my daughter has. Google Mother of A vaccine injured child. I answer questions . Parent to Parent Educate before you vaccinate.
My child had been normal that morning. We are pursing a case in Vaccine Injury Court.

"They do science there." PalMD

Science hard. Make head hurt.

Denialists and woo believers always remind me of a favorite movie scene. When you carefully and completely point out the illogic in their thinking, they stare off into space for a moment, and then reply with, "These go to 11".

OK, let me get this straight: Scientists warn us about the dangers of egg-alergy reactions to flue vaccines. Scientists have a conspiracy to keep the vaccine-autism correlation a secret. Why would they be so forward about one issue, while covering another in secrecy? Does no one see the issue here? The arguement against vaccines just doesn't make sense.

dear anti vacc weirdos:
the fat tourists in fanny packs and fbi t-shirts are bad enough, but please don't come to dc. we have enough problems. plus, it's summer (enjoy our accustomed 99% humidity) and any lawmaker with any clout is gearing up to leave town so they will not be here to pay attention to you. you're just wasting your time and making morning commute worse by standing around stupidly trying to figure out the metro system.
oh and you're totally wrong on all that science stuff.
sincerely,
person who actually has to live and work here.

Ok, so Jenny you have a child with Autism, I have a nephew. I have no scientific proof, but I think it was because he was born with an R in the month? I think your intentions my be good, but in the process you are degrading all the folks out there who actually do "science". I know its a big word but we are all grown ups now. Now, I am interested in how they will "green" these medications? Hmm, perhaps . . . Food coloring?

I am all for finding a cure, but this hunt and peck method of yours will solve nothing. Once you do a real sceintific study let me/us know, because for now you are like those people out there who, when a mirror is placed in front of them, don't like what they see, so they blame the mirror.

Since the possibility of my child getting these various diseases is far more important than your junk science, I will continue to get them vaccinated.

Does it ever occur to these anti-vaccine activists that we (and our children) are exposed to far more environmental toxins (toys, cars, air pollution, lead paint, fabrics, carpets, household chemicals) than could possible be in that vaccine? And not all of these chemicals have been fully tested.

Sorry. Don't want to sound like a foamer. It does seem, though, that autism diagnoses are up. Part of this may be due to expanded diagnoses (my son was diagnosed with Tourettes and Aspergers Syndrome (he has grown out of 95% of the symptoms, but his brain still views the world oddly)), but I can't help wondering about the chemical stew in which we live.

Dear Khefera,
That sounds awful, you have my sympathies. I only had to wade through the usual crazies with a normal distribution of anti vacc weirdos this morning. I suggest headphones with some nice music to help you deal with the commuting difficulties. Best of luck.

@Schmeer
i felt better once that massive thunderstorm/tornado system rolled in. anti vaccers cause bad weather but NIH keeps burying all of the evidence to show a causal link.

www.tinyurl.com/yjyrtn

Billy - there's probably something to it. I intensely dislike all the talk about "toxins" being the cause of everything (with the conclusion that we all need to "detox" by eating nothing but fruit for a week and having coffee enemas...). But yeah, a lot of the stuff that surrounds us can't be good for us. Car exhaust fumes are probably a major one, in spite of all the advances in engine technology - in Europe, every idiot is buying diesels, which still have a huge problem with particulate emissions. Processed food is bad, not because of toxins but because it's just crap. I don't know enough about anything else - are food additives a serious issue? Not sure.

But let me point out one thing: Don't let the anti-vaxers hear this! Once they realise how much mercury and general (and ill-defined) "toxins" we're surrounded by, the chelation therapy they put their kids through will NEVER end... enough of them have already noticed this with amalgam dental fillings and are spending ridiculous amounts of money having them replaced. (My parents did that - my mother is one of the more severe cases of the woo I know personally, though nowhere near as bad as some of our esteemed guest commenters here. I mean, she's a trained homeopath, yet she actually accepts that mainstream medicine can do good, and when I had a severe cold the other week, she told me to go see a DOCTOR!)

Erm. I'm rambling. My knee hurts for no apparent reason - probably toxins, eh.

khefera,

Maybe you haven't noticed or gotten out of DC recently but, traffic didn't get any worse than another day on the beltway. A million men, or less, makes no difference.

PS My commute today was better then most days.

The majority of food additives are scientific names for stuff they found in some other kind of food/plant. Seriously, we don't *generally* dump random stuff into foods. I have a damn good laugh every time someone buys a loaf of 'no preservatives' bread that, here at least, won't last 2 days without mold on it, knowing that half the preservatives used "in" the other breads where found in some plant or other, and where used because a) you could eat that other plant safely already, and b) that plant was resistant to mold, due to that chemical.

Its seriously idiotic. Other toxins... Yeah, probably an issue, if we bothered to look at it. But people can't grasp one basic principle, with the exception of a few toxins that the body has real huge problems getting rid of, and are, due to this, just about 100% illegal to use "any place", save in very controlled circumstances, most are toxic "only" at specific levels of dosage. Why? Because most of them are not that uncommon in human history. Sure, we have some novel ones now, but the question is then, "what do they break down to, or do they?", not, "Are they novel?". And the key issue is still, "When do they become toxic, and not just an irritant, or neutral?" Anti-vax people, anti-toxin people, none of them do science, most of their "evidence" is the same quality as you get from someone making up a poll that asks, "Do you even cover your head?", then concluding that is 90% of the people answered yes, that means 90% of the world was Jewish, or some nonsense. Its only an "accurate" correlation if you can prove that all those people also ran out and bought Torah's, only eat kosher, and started wearing Jewish stars, instead of crosses. Otherwise, its total BS.

Same with vaccines and autism. You have to prove more than a correlation, especially if 90 fracking percent of the country get vaccines. They might as well ask them, "Does your child drink water?", for all any correlation means jack, until/unless they can show that 90% get vaccinated *and* 85% get autism, or some such. And, just to be clear, the very nature of this numbers issues means that the odds of them finding someone whose kid has it, and has "never" been vaccinated is about as close to 0% as possible. Again, without secondary evidence, all of which has proven the opposite, you might as well ask if the kids drank water, breathed air or used a toilet.

For "Prevent Defense", I clicked on your tinuURL... and it evokes Scopie's Law:

Analogous to Godwin's Law and Poe's Law is Scopie's Law: "In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately."

Now I see why you used tinyURL. Why would you want us to realize that you used John "satanic black lines burned my bum" Scudamore's whale.to site for information?

Autism isn't a disease - it never was. Autism is a group of symptoms in a guidebook for mental health practitioners - most of whom have never seen the inside of a medical school.

Children and people WITH autistic symptoms have health problems. Most of them were not born with the health problems that bring on the symptoms. Most of them developed the health problems after they were vaccinated.

This is not the first time vaccines have caused more problems than they solve. The first smallpox vaccines killed more people than they saved. That's why Britain doesn't have a mandatory vaccine policy. It was intentionally written into policy there that people had a choice for that reason.

The DPT shot is another notorious example. The vaccine manufacturers almost went out of business entirely when the media - then friendly to the public and not pawns of advertisers - revealed the facts behind the DPT causing death and seizures.

Whether you believe the symptoms of autism are provoked by vaccines or not, only a damn fool lines up and willingly accepts dosing with contaminated vaccines, aborted fetal tissue, chemicals that are toxic when ingested, metals that cause poisoning when used in occupational settings, controlled substances, petroleum products, wood preservatives and more.

If the ingredients in the vaccines require hazmat suits for the handlers, what particular type of mental illness does it take to conclude injecting the materials into children, beginning on day 1 of life, is going to save them from anything?

In order for a vaccine to work, it has to provide immunity - not turn the immune system into a self-digesting demon.

So...grab another Twinkie - down another Blue Gatorade - line up at the closest fast food joint and enjoy your healthy, vaccinated lifestyle. When Alzheimers hits in your 40s, you won't care if Jennie and the others are right or wrong...cause your life will be over.

It took 40 years to get the Pertussis danger out of the DPT. Considering the parents of some of these kids had friends and family damaged from that fiasco, don't expect them to quit making the autism association just because fools like you think you know better.

Enjoy your vaccines - and the diabetes, arthritis, Guillane-Barr, seizures, cancer, strokes, Alzheimetrs, allergies and asthma that with them. 51% of you are already on chronic medication now, just 49% to go before the industry owns you completely.

Just think - you won't ever have chicken pox, and all it cost you was the rest of your life.

Um, you haven't read the actual words I've written, have you?

GrammaKnows: "Most of them developed the health problems after they were vaccinated."

And your evidence of this is where?

I mean, lots of kids have health problems. My kid's health problems started BEFORE he got a vaccine. Look up thread, I describe the seizures. How on this big blue earth did vaccines cause seizures in a two day old infant? (and while you are at it, tell me how they cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with obstruction).

By the way, PalMD, do not expect a coherent answer from "GrammaKnows" (if she is really a "Gramma" she would remember the early 1960s rubella epidemic, and why the March of Dimes came into existence). These people do not actually read the words that might contradict their beliefs (which is why anti-vax forums are so heavily moderated). I did ask someone on another blog on how the MMR was dangerous. He responded that the MMR causes SIDS. Uh huh... well since SIDS is defined as a death of a child under the age of one year, and the MMR is not given to a child until they are over a year old, I just figured the guy did not have a clue.

you know, I should know better than to discuss these issues with non believers. It is okay. You can act all superior because you are so smart that you know everything and have all the answers. You can assume that we have not studied anything that we have not seen anything. That no one bothered to obtain any documentation via Freedom of Information Act and read all the emails by Thomas Verstraeten, the Primary Investigator of the pretend Vaccine safety study, you know those kind of emails that say things like "no matter how hard we try to change it, we can't make the result go away, there is a statistically significant relationship between thimerosal and autism". You know, then he quits the CDC and moves to Belgium to go work for a pharmaceutical company, you're right, I'm just being paranoid that there could have been a mistake made that poisoned my son with his vaccines. I guess the fact that chelation therapy had him dumping mercury, lead and aluminum, that must have just been a coincedence. If there was a study that looked at autistic and non autistic kids after chelation therapy, then we would know if every kid is chock full of metals, but the NIH couldn't get permission to do it, so I'll never know. OH, and that Simpsonwood meeting, where they all sat around and discussed how to hide the problem, that would just be my imagination, I guess? Hmm, so what is your explanation for the former head of the NIH seeking the media to cover her statement that she was told not to do research on vaccines and autism and OOPS, she thinks that was a mistake now, she recommends that the NIH fund this type of research and not just epidemiological studies. How do we explain that? Just a fluke? No, its the monkey study my friends. The soon to be published independent study where those well accepted Macaque monkeys were given the same vaccines as those given to human infants and, they got very, very sick. One died. Please. Stop lashing out at us. Stop. This is not some drunken, crazy person crusade. We are like the Linda Hamilton character in the Terminator movies. We see the future and we want to stop it. For your and your descendants benefit. Safety first.

Heidi Roger stated "I should know better than to discuss these issues with non believers."

Well, that's it in a nutshell.

Heidi Roger,

The big problem with your comment is that Science doesn't need "Belief", it relies on "Proof", if you have to have faith and belief, it's not science.

Kagehi: Thanks. Good explanation.

I do laugh at people avoiding all preservatives. Preservatives aren't really something I'm worried about. Hell, I use nitrates when I make my homemade sausage (and they are right, you really don't want to see what goes on in sausage making). I also laugh at the adverts on TV which tout "only natural ingredients." Isn't strychnine natural? Arsenic? Lead? Some of the most potent poisons/medicines are completely natural, yet the adverts imply that if it is natural, its good for you.

I'm not that concerned with food colourings, preservatives, and other food additives. My concern is less with the odd chemicals in the water supply (which can, no doubt, be a problem), but with items not meant to be ingested: the smell of a new carpet, the odour or a new car, the heavy doses of antibiotics and synthetic hormones.

I think the whole vaccine - autism thing is pure bunk (and remember, my son was diagnosed with a form of autism). But I can't shake the feeling that I and my family are participating in a huge, uncontrolled experiment involving long-term exposure to low levels of toxins and irritants.

To any anti-vaccination people reading this, please forget what I wrote. These are just some unrelated questions and thoughts. These are not the 'droids you're looking for.

I guess the fact that chelation therapy had him dumping mercury, lead and aluminum, that must have just been a coincedence.

Not at all. If I were to chelate you or myself, we'd both dump heavy metals into the urine too. That's why provoked urine testing for heavy metals is utterly bogus. The questions are whether heavy metal toxicity causes autism and whether chelation reverses autism. A large preponderance of scientific evidence tells us that the answers to both questions are "no."

That no one bothered to obtain any documentation via Freedom of Information Act and read all the emails by Thomas Verstraeten, the Primary Investigator of the pretend Vaccine safety study, you know those kind of emails that say things like "no matter how hard we try to change it, we can't make the result go away, there is a statistically significant relationship between thimerosal and autism".

Interesting that you remember it that way, because I've seen the emails, and nothing of the sort was said.

You know, then he quits the CDC and moves to Belgium to go work for a pharmaceutical company, you're right, I'm just being paranoid that there could have been a mistake made that poisoned my son with his vaccines.

So people are not supposed to switch jobs?

I guess the fact that chelation therapy had him dumping mercury, lead and aluminum, that must have just been a coincedence.

It's not coincidence. It's expected. Anyone who is chelated will dump mercury, lead and aluminum.

OH, and that Simpsonwood meeting, where they all sat around and discussed how to hide the problem, that would just be my imagination, I guess?

Ho-hum!

Hmm, so what is your explanation for the former head of the NIH seeking the media to cover her statement that she was told not to do research on vaccines and autism

Citation, please.

No, its the monkey study my friends. The soon to be published independent study where those well accepted Macaque monkeys were given the same vaccines as those given to human infants and, they got very, very sick.

You mean the study that had 13 monkeys in the exposed group and 3 in the unexposed group? The same study which included Andrew Wakefield as one of the authors, and whose primary author, Laura Hewitson, is the mother of an autistic child and a petitioner in the Autism Omnibus Proceedings? Are you saying that, considering the results of this study, most children who are vaccinated get very very sick?

Seriously Heidi, try to keep up with the debate.

Man, I'd never stop slapping her.

"That's why Britain doesn't have a mandatory vaccine policy."

If you are an adult, no medical treatment is mandatory in Britain. If you are a child then the doctors can over-rule parents if they can demonstrate that it's in the child's best interests. There have been 2 cases of the health service taking legal action where mothers have refused the MMR vaccine.

Smallpox has nothing to do with it, Grammaknows - you are wrong about this and you are also wrong about smallpox - the vaccination did have a high mortality rate in the early trials (and we're talking 200 years+ ago!!!) but nothing compared to the mortality rate from smallpox.

I am a long-time UK lurker - I don't work in health or science but I love this blog and the work it does to promote rational thinking.

Welcome, Miss Grace! I hope we see more of you!

Heidi Roger

Re: OH, and that Simpsonwood meeting, where they all sat around and discussed how to hide the problem, that would just be my imagination, I guess?

Er, yes it would. Or more precisely, Robert Kennedy's imagination fueled by willful ignorance.

Re: No, its the monkey study my friends. The soon to be published independent study where those well accepted Macaque monkeys were given the same vaccines as those given to human infants and, they got very, very sick. One died.

That's the one - the study with no meaningful control group (just three controls out of 16 monkeys).

Ugh...
Look, there are just so many things wrong with anti-vaxxers, the stupid makes my head hurt.

1 - Mercury has been used on a huge scale in baby eyedrops and laxatives back in the 80's. No increase of autism has ever been found in people born during those days, surely, if mercury caused autism, it would be obvious? I'm not saying ingesting or injection mercury is a good thing, but it's certainly not the inhumane horror you're making it out to be.

2 - Just because a child gets seizures after vaccination doesn't mean it had seizures BECAUSE OF vaccination. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, you should look it up. Over here, 6 week old babies are vaccinated. All that's required is that the child not show symptoms for a month and a half before the anti-vaxxers can claim "Vaccination 'caused' the problem".

3 - Even if there were a remote chance of autism (which hasn't been shown), that's still no reason not to vaccinate your child. I guess you're lucky enough never to have seen te effects of Polio, Pertussis, Diphtheria, Tetanus and a score of other diseases. Seriously, look them up on wikipedia, beware that the pictures aren't suited for the weak of heart/stomach. My point is that the remote chance of autism (if real) is totally worth it, compared to every other horrible disease you're preventing.

4 - It's obvious 95% of anti-vaccination people have no clue of how biology and chemistry work, so i'll keep it simple. There is no way mercury, the effects of which have been observed quite well (ever hear of mad hatters or goldminers madness?) can cause autism. The human brain just doesn't work that way.

5 - Chelation. Seriously? You're putting your children through chelation for no reason at all? You deserve repeated punches to the face for that, and your doctor as well. I've had to endure it once, and hope never to do that again.

Sadly, most of the above is done with no real dedication to the pleuthora of science.

Fact, Lancaster, PA there is a community of over 30,000+ unvaccinated (except for 2 that came to the Amish as adoptees through marriage and were vaccinated) and there is NO autism. Senior writer Dan Olmsted reported this and wanted Julie Gerberding of the CDC to investigate because she claimed there were not enough unvaccinated children to conduct a study...something she still claims, because she doesn't want to.

Fact, ethylmercury is far different than methylmercury (environmental one in fish etc.) and the latter is ingested. Ethylmercury and methylmercury, if injected, are both
rapidly distributed to the brain, kidneys and liver.
The difference between the two is the strength of the
Hg-C bond. The methylmercury bond is much stronger.
This means that the ethylmercury converts much quicker
to inorganic Hg which remains trapped in the brain and
other organs. This also explains why it rapidly
disappears. The methylmercury is more stable and gets
recycled, thus the longer half-life in the blood. We
know from Charleston's work that methyl mercury is
still converting to inorganic mercury 18 months after
exposure. Ethylmercury is all converted in days.

Nice that we ask folks if they have allergies to Eggs and Feathers...but not Mercury or Lead (right, lead is bad...Mercury is a mirror of Lead). Alzheimer's is up 300% in the last 20 years....humnn coincidence with Autism and ADD, ADHD, 1 in 6 with developmental. I could give you the studies, but your blog is pimping other gooblygook.

Frankly, I have read enough and know that 85-90% of Big Pharma money is spent on doctors and your symposiums..that said, conflicts of interest run amuck in the medical profession.

Susanne Arena wrote " Senior writer Dan Olmsted reported this ...."

And he never even visited the Clinic for Special Children. The Amish do vaccinate, and many of their children do have some very serious genetic disorders. They are not a population that can be compared with the general population:
http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=29

There is a reason that Olmsted is no longer employed by UPI.

The Amish:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/354/13/1370
"We report a homozygous mutation of CNTNAP2 in Old Order Amish children with cortical dysplasia, focal epilepsy, relative macrocephaly, and diminished deep-tendon reflexes. Intractable focal seizures began in early childhood, after which language regression, hyperactivity, impulsive and aggressive behavior, and mental retardation developed in all children."

Research done here:
http://www.clinicforspecialchildren.org/Welcome.html

Vaccines should be as safe as possible, but I'd rather have my four children with Asperger's grow up to be productive citizens instead of dying from a preventable disease.

There is a story in the Whittier Daily News about a student with autism who recently graduated from his local high school. It's an uplifting story about someone who has overcome difficulties associated with this condition.

http://40-year-oldblog.blogspot.com/

Anti-vaccine-activists claim to protect heir children from the harms of vaccines, but at the same time have no problem with the fact that my children are exposed to those children's measels, rubella, chickenpox, etc. If that logic was sound, then it would also be okay to drive 40mph on the freeway, because it's safer than going 70. Who cares that it endangers everyone else??

In Africa, children are dying from diseases long eradicated in the U.S. Do anti-vaccineists really want to go back to those days? Of course not, they are happy exploiting the majority, while calling it their duty to oppose vaccines to "protect" their kids.

It is ethically unjust to benefit from the same thing that one critizes as unjust. I believe an anti-vaccine argument when all those loony moms have immigrated to Needle Bad Island, where after two generations everyone has been killed by viral and bacterial diseases.

Anti-vaccine arguments are weak, unsound and irrelevant. This campaign is just another example of what a free society has to tolerate in order to remain free.

Jenny McCarthy is an idiot---and I don't mean that in a nice way

sb admin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:31:43 +0000

Jenny McCarthy is an idiot---and I don't mean that in a nice way

I have a certain amount of sympathy for any parent dealing with a sick kid. I also don't think people should "suffer in silence". If, for instance, your child is injured in an auto accident caused by a drunk driver, speaking out publicly is a public service.

If, however, you are a fuckwit with no relevant education, and are famous only for being famous, leave the bully pulpit to others. Case in point, Jenny McCarthy. Many of us have been following McCarthy's descent into woo-filled madness as she has dealt with her son's growth and development. As a brief primer: Son diagnosed as autistic, McCarthy buys into anti-vaccination movement, re-invents word "indigo", subjects child to bizarre dietary regimen, proclaims him cured, doesn't shut up about it.

OK, now that you're caught up, the "not shutting up" continues, and this time CNN is giving her all the bandwidth she needs to show off her stupidity.

I'm not a journalist, and as such, I don't really have an obligation to, you know, the truth. Still, I'm a physician, and I have a reputation (of sorts) to maintain, so I do my best. I would think that CNN would have journalistic standards somewhat higher than your humble blogger.

Not so much.

McCarthy seems upset that the rest of the world isn't knocking down her door to spread the word of her son's "cure".

We believe what helped Evan recover was starting a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines...

Lot's of kids believe in Santa with the same level of evidence, but that doesn't make him real. Where is the evidence?

Evan is now 5 years old and what might surprise a lot of you is that we've never been contacted by a single member of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, or any other health authority to evaluate and understand how Evan recovered from autism. When Evan meets doctors and neurologists, to this day they tell us he was misdiagnosed -- that he never had autism to begin with. It's as if they are wired to believe that children can't recover from autism.
So where's the cavalry? Where are all the doctors beating down our door to take a closer look at Evan?

Grandiosity aside, none of the named agencies is tasked with investigating every nut-job celebrity's claim of miracles. Neither are individual doctors. If the feds had to jump every time some wacko claimed they had a miracle cure, we'd have to establish some sort of agency to investigate the medical paranormal, and that would be silly.

What? We have one? You mean the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine? Oh.

Well, Jenny, I guess the big conspiracy keeping you from getting the word out is breaking down. I mean, you're writing on CNN.com, you've been on Larry King, what more do you want? To be taken seriously by scientists? Well, then, you'll have to step away from the Kool Aid and pick up a book. Oops...she'd rather read websites run by quacks and cranks, and regurgitate their pap like a blonde automaton. For example:

We believe autism is an environmental illness. Vaccines are not the only environmental trigger, but we do think they play a major role. If we are going to solve this problem and finally start to reverse the rate of autism, we need to consider changing the vaccine schedule, reducing the number of shots given and removing certain ingredients that could be toxic to some children.

I don't know who this nebulous "we" is, but it certainly isn't any respected authority on child development, autism, or vaccination.

You know who I like? Sanjay Gupta. Sure, sometimes he gets things wrong, but he seems to have a little bit of integrity, and he's certainly not stupid. Most of the time he seems to have read and understood the relevant literature. Well, he is a doctor, and his degree isn't from Google U. Jenny, you're out of your league and being played by a bunch of psychopaths. Step away from the camera. Go live and be well with your son.

sb admin Fri, 04/04/2008 - 12:31

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Fake Experts

jenny mccarthy

I've blogged extensively about McCarthy's idiocy. I just couldn't stand the concentrated stupid that was her CNN/Larry King Live appearance. However, you may be enjoy these two posts:

Post-holiday "The stupid, it burns," part 1: Jenny McCarthy
Cries the antivaccinationist: Why are we injecting TOXINS into our babies?

Empirical evidence and rationality vs. the former playmate. In American culture, it seems that a naked women carries a lot more weight than science. Infuriating, isn't it?

Yes, it's nice to get not-so-mainstream diseases in the public eye, but this CNN autism blitz was entirely sickening.

Is it "sweeps" time or something? Talk about "All Woo, All the Time."

Fuckwits.

It's not really sweeps time. But it is apparently autism awareness month, which was unfortunately started by idiots like jenny.

Maybe it is because it because I am old and all, but I wish you could dispense with the f***bomb.

Otherwise, I agree with you 1000%. That's not a typo.

Can we please leave the "what causes autism" story to people who know how to tease out the answers, and get on with "what can we do to help kiddos with autism live the fullest life they are capable of?"

If no one ever gave her airtime, you never would have heard a peep about her blather, and by now you might have forgotten her name.

The media actively encourage this happy horseshit. They are the culprits here. Journalism of the classic kind ended when Ed Murrow retired, and it hasn't been seen since, not in this country.

So basically, her son has celiac and a casein allergy and eliminating those two things made him better. So he was misdiagnosed, more than likely by McCarthy and not her pediatricians. No miracle cure. On the bright side at least he now has a diet that will allow him to thrive.

PalMD,

Let me say first of all that I am not part of the mercury/autism crowd, but this post of yours really bothered me.

You claim to have sympathy for parents of autistic children, but I don't see it in your post. I have no doubt that Jenny McCarthy is not as brilliant as you are, but calling her an "idiot" and a "fuckwit" isn't really a scientific rebuttal.

Maybe if the scientific establishment spent more time finding the cause(s) of autism and less time attacking concerned parents then we could put this issue to rest once and for all.

There's a big difference between tobacco companies denying that ciggies cause cancer and concerned parents speaking out about autism. They may be wrong, but they are genuinely concerned for the welfare of their children.

The so-called "scientific establishment" is working hard on autism. Idiots like McCarthy distract hard working clinicians and scientists from their work. The sow distrust, they suck up money, and they sue those who don't agree with them (see related story).

She is not just some harmless mom...she is the new mouthpiece for the movement that is keeping people distracted from the real problem and real solutions.

Jenny McCarthy gets on my nerves, too. (The whole "indigo" thing is absolutely ridiculous.)
I think the most annoying and offensive part of Jenny McCarthy views, is the parts she leaves OUT.
She can talk until she's blue in the face about how she changed her son's diet, eliminated metals from his body (chelation is so safe, right???) spent a fortune on vitamins and special treatments, all to get him to mythical "cure" that seems to elude the rest of us.
She never puts much emphasis on the, presumpably, hours and hours of one-on-one speech and language therapy, floor time, etc. that he is, undoubtably getting. This is the only thing that anyone has been able to show actually has any effect on autism. She never talks about how much it costs.
This is something she can, easily, provide, because she is wealthy and famous; something the average parent of a child with autism, can't afford. Schools don't have the resources for 40 hours of speech and floor therapy, and private insurance isn't required to pay for it. Normal families like ours (we have a 5-year-old autistic daughter) just have take what we can get from our public school -- and it isn't much.
I would have a LOT more respect for Jenny McCarthy, is she would spend more of her time using her celebrity to address the more pressing issue of how most children, will never reach their full potential, because they will never get the therapy they need to get there.
Jenny McCarthy isn't interested in being an advocate for the thousands and thousands of families struggling with these issues in the real world.
She's staying as far away from us as she can.
Lindsay-

You claim to have sympathy for parents of autistic children, but I don't see it in your post. I have no doubt that Jenny McCarthy is not as brilliant as you are, but calling her an "idiot" and a "fuckwit" isn't really a scientific rebuttal.

Then look at my posts on Jenny McCarthy's idiocy, which point out what a twit she is and include science.

The bottom line is that PalMD was too easy on McCarthy, who is arrogant enough to think that her "University of Google" knowledge qualifies her to pontificate on the cause of autism.

But it's not just this "fuckwit with no relevant education, that's famous only for being famous", who is spouting such uninformed drivel from the bully pulpit, there are others out there who make the same allegations.

Are you equally condemning of this public figure:

(From ABC's Political Punch Blog
ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper)

John McCain Enters the Autism Wars

February 29, 2008 7:11 PM

At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that "theres strong evidence" that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. -- a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.

McCain was responding to a question from the mother of a boy with autism, who asked about a recent story that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program had issued a judgment in favor of an unnamed child whose family claimed regressive encephalopathy and symptoms of autism were caused by thimerosal.

"Weve been waiting for years for kind of a responsible answer to this question, and are hoping that you can help us out there," the woman said.

McCain said, per ABC News' Bret Hovell, that "Its indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is whats causing it. And we go back and forth and theres strong evidence that indicates that its got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

McCain said theres "divided scientific opinion" on the matter, with "many on the other side that are credible scientists that are saying thats not the cause of it."

What say ye of these idiotic fuckwitticisms?

Michael, if you'd like to learn more about autism research now being done here is a good site- www.translatingautism.com. The owner is a research scientist who reports on a wide variety of autism research and breaks it down for those who don't have the training to understand it on their own. He posts several times a week and answers questions about the studies he reports on.

Wait, I have celiac disease, and I'm not autistic. I'm a bit...socially unaware, but eliminating wheat from my diet has done nothing for my personality. Maybe I should eliminate dairy from my diet and see if I'm gregarious all of a sudden. Somehow, I don't think that's going to do it....

All research requires a "before" with which to compare the "after". What does she want, researchers who also have the ability to travel through time and monitor her son's progress?

It's patently obvious McCarthy is not versed in the science of autism. Her son was diagnosed at age 2. It is well known that age-2 diagnoses are not as stable as later diagnoses of ASD. One recent study found that 19% of children diagnosed at age 2 lost their label by age 7. That's why there's no need to see her son. This is not that uncommon.

Also, it's not at all clear that Evan is no longer autistic and no one seems to have any idea to what extent he was autistic in the past. All we know is that she claimed he was a crystal child.

I have a child who was diagnosed with Asperger's (High Functioning Autism) when he was young. He did not ever babble as a baby, he did not walk until he was almost 2, he would jump, flap his hands, have facial ticks, and rarely make eye contact. When he went to school he would walk the parameter of the playground at recess with his head down. After his developmental pediatrician (yes a real certified Western Medicine doctor) diagnosed him at age 9, she suggested we try dietary intervention before using drugs, we gave it a go. He is now 16 in all mainstream classes, with a 4.0 GPA, was released from his IEP (individualized education plan) last year and is currently planning to attend Prom with his friends. I don't care what anyone claims, I only know what helped my son.

PALMD,
How sad you hateful people are... my son changed within 48 hours of removing gluten from his diet. It was the most incredible thing I have ever witnessed. He has not been diagnosed or labeled with anything simply because I did not want him to be labeled so in regards to Autism I am not sure.

And for PALMD, a supposedly educated man to use words that that in my opinion show his level of maturity is just disdainful. Grow up!

We have seen many well know physicians around the country and what surprised me the most is how little they focus on nutrition and how much they focus on drugs. Bottom line to riducle someon because of their past is both shallow and ignorant... I am assuming if we judged you are your past you would be ready for sainthood, especially with that lovely vocabulary of yours.

The verbal attacks on this woman just show how far the human race has to advance before we will truly no what humanity means.

so very sad...

I was unaware that Jenny McCarthy's son was "cured." In every photo I see of him, he looks like a child with PDD.

I just used Jenny's search engine of choice and saw some newer photos. Evan certainly looks more typical in these. I believe it was the ABS that helped him, but she would prefer to believe in a conspiracy theory instead.