Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Megalodon]

At Cato Institute:
- Gentlemen, how do we best mitigate the effects of climate change?
- I know, I know! Let's abandon the rest of our integrity and make a fake addendum to a real report!

In Patrick Michaels defense, he is a lying sack of ****

 

[spin0]

^ He certainly is.

What surprised me in Frontline's Climate of Doubt was that there actually exists people who listen to lying clowns like Michaels and Monckton etc. I never realized that, because who the hell listens to such bozos and takes their **** seriously? Even after they have been shown to be wrong and lying liars over and over again. THAT was some worrisome news to me.

Unfortunately CapelDodger's pessimism about the improbability of any actual mitigation happening in the near future seems more and more well-founded assesment.

Competitive Enterprise Institute's lying head was asked what if he is wrong and science right about human impact to climate: "then I will have to say I’m sorry". Sorry? Sorry about fabricating **** and lying to us all? Now that's hardly of any help at that point is it? Besides, he's an old guy, it's the young generations who have to pay the toll of mitigating and adapting. Who the **** cares if he's "sorry".

I like more and more the idea that Michael Mann has actually sued some of these liars. It's not gonna be an easy court process, but I trust that eventually truth will prevail. Maybe it will become the Scopes Monkey Trial of this century. We'll see.


Oh btw, an updated version of your original idea appeared in the documentary: Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

The tool who is interviewed in the article, one Dr. Judith Curry from Georga Tech, echoes abject nutcases like Anthony Watts of wattsuphisass fame.

<no amount of laughing dogs will suffice>

No amount of ad hominem ("tool", "nutcase") seems to suffice, either. If you had a good argument, you'd use it.

See y'all in another week. Maybe.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

duplicate. sorry.

 

[aleCcowaN]

No amount of ad hominem ("tool", "nutcase") seems to suffice, either. If you had a good argument, you'd use it.

See y'all in another week. Maybe.

Darn it!! I have to agree with you.

 

[lomiller]

No amount of ad hominem ("tool", "nutcase") seems to suffice, either
.

That Watts is a nutbar is not an ad-hominem it’s an observation.

An ad-hominem has the form:
Anthony Watts is a nutbar therefore his claim is false.

And observation has the form:
Anthony Watts is a nutbar because he repeatedly makes false claims.

If you had a good argument, you'd use it.

An ad-hominem can be actually a legitimate argument in cases of appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is a legitimate argument form if and only if the authority really is an expert on the subject in question and is saying things other experts would agree on. It is perfectly valid to attack the authorities standing as an expert, which is technically a form of ad-hominem but perfectly acceptable in this context because the qualifications as an expert are directly relevant.

IOW when Curry appeals to the authority if non-expert Anthony Watts, pointing out that he is no such thing is absolutely an acceptable refutation.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Tonight on PBS (Tuesday, October 23, 2012, 10 P.M. ET)

FRONTLINE: Climate of Doubt

Must watch on PBS

Climate of Doubt
FRONTLINE investigates how climate skeptics mobilized, built their argument and undermined public acceptance of a global scientific consensus

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/

I have seen it and it reinforces my perception that it's all just an Usian thing or at most and Anglo-Saxon thing. I don't know of other region that have things like those presented in this documentary. I detected some dozen opportunities to misquote sound people there and use it the result as denialism fodder. I'm tempted to do that, but I'm afraid some of "them" may use it for real.

About many characters showed there, I still refuse to identify them, so I will stay ignorant when you speak of curry and other spices. I was only impressed by a chap that resembles Marty Feldman's brother and looks like he is about to die from complications of hyperthyroidism. I don't know what he said but his eyes looked like they were about to pop out!

Jokes apart, a couple of comments in no particular order:

The fact that it is a local development doesn't diminish it. In the documentary there where some Rednecklanders saying their typical things. We have here some chacarera dancers that have also their quirks. I have to stand the consequences of the existence of chacarera dancers and Rednecklanders. Usians only have to stand the latter.

I always come back to my first post here and the role of hate in contemporary societies. To study how hate is trained and promoted is one of the ways to deal with this and many other problems. The documentary shows pretty clearly that the hate training has reached enough voters so politicians have to self-censor in order to survive. That is the most negative development. When they say in the documentary that Al Gore was ideal, they were right because inadvertently his image allowed denialist to build upon existing hate.

The only way I see to solve that is explaining everywhere how hate works, and teaching the peoples that hating Mann for being a climate scientist is exactly the same as hating a Negro or a Jew for being what they are. Mann doing that or this is just a excuse to provide a justification and similar to explaining that Jews killed Jesus. Hate has progressed and it is atomized and heavily personalized, as it befits to postmodern individualistic multi-polar societies. But it's still the same old, same old hate.

If somebody didn't get yet what I've just said, I'm implying that conspiracy theories and boob-gates are not the realm of specially fanatic and brute denialists, while most of them just fail to follow a sound logic while arguing their cause or are just misinformed or under-informed. Those conspiracies and all the paraphernalia surrounding them are a necessary tool to develop and maintain a certain level of hate, so the followers can sustain it and stay immune to reasoning that may help them out of their mistakes. Any reasonable person can understand where he or she was mistaken and change. But people isn't so flexible with their emotions, including hate. That's the "secret".

 

[lenny]

An appeal to authority is a legitimate argument form if and only if the authority really is an expert on the subject in question

Traditionally, "appeal to authority" is a fallacy; it is the name given to an entire class of fallacy. it is never a legitimate argument (as no argument is given!).

the point is not whether or not the expert is an expert. the fallacy holds whenever one uses the opinion of another (even an expert) in place of an actual argument.

while one can put the expert's argument on the table to be criticized, merely stating the expert's opinion simply does not constitute an argument.

 

[r-j]

We are going to need a peer reviewed study that supports that position.

 

[macdoc]

Wonder if this will hammer the message home..

Early Worries That Hurricane Sandy Could Be a ‘Perfect Storm

Hurricane Sandy, which on Thursday was barreling through the Bahamas as a Category 2 storm, may be taking aim at the northeastern United States and could make landfall along the Atlantic coast early next week. If so, forecasters say, the storm could become, to use a technical term from meteorology, a whopper.

“It really could be an extremely significant, historic storm,” said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami, explaining that conditions are similar to those that created the famous “perfect storm” of 1991.

Hurricane prediction is, of course, an iffy business, said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center, who noted that the storm was still days from the East Coast and could weaken drastically or even shift course and race off into the Atlantic.

The chain of events that would make Hurricane Sandy develop into a grave threat to the coast involves a storm system known as a midlatitude trough that is moving across the country from the west. If the systems meet up, as many computer models predict, the storm over land could draw the hurricane in.

“Now you’ve got this giant storm complex with a lot of energy,” Mr. Feltgen said. The combined systems could produce high winds, heavy rains and storm surges that would cause extensive damage.

New York was beginning to prepare for trouble. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told reporters that the city activated its coastal storm plan on Thursday morning and that it had already opened its Office of Emergency Management situation room. He also said that important city agencies had been meeting regularly and that the storm was discussed at Thursday’s senior staff meeting, “just to make sure that everybody knows they should, you know, start getting out the plans, which we’ve worked on very hard.”

Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in a radio interview on Thursday that the agency was discussing contingency plans to move buses to higher ground if necessary. Last year, the authority carried out an unprecedented shutdown of the entire subway system ahead of Tropical Storm Irene.

“I don’t think we’re looking at anything like that for what’s happening next week,” Mr. Lhota said.

Such storm combinations have happened before: one that occurred 21 years ago developed into what is now known as the “perfect storm” off the coast of New England. That disaster was memorialized in a 1997 book and a 2000 movie by the same name.

“Essentially, all of the major models are now showing some form of phasing event similar to the perfect storm occurring sometime next week,” said William A. Komaromi, a graduate student at the University of Miami who posted an essay online on Thursday comparing Hurricane Sandy to the 1991 event.

Mr. Feltgen said that “everybody along the U.S. East Coast needs to be paying attention to this right now,” though he added that “we’re not telling people to rush to the grocery stores.” It is a time, he suggested, for watchful waiting. “Let’s not go overboard with this thing,” he said, “but you should at least start becoming aware of it.”

Mr. McNoldy said, “You want to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.” Even if the storm’s wind power weakens substantially, as Hurricane Irene showed, “rainfall can still be extremely high.” Mr. McNoldy’s posts on Twitter about Hurricane Sandy now bear the label “frankenstorm.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/u...a-perfect-storm.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print

Historic drought and then a millenial storm...oh my - quite a year for the US

 

[r-j]

Sounds just like 1954

 

[lomiller]

Traditionally, "appeal to authority" is a fallacy; it is the name given to an entire class of fallacy. it is never a legitimate argument (as no argument is given!).

the point is not whether or not the expert is an expert. the fallacy holds whenever one uses the opinion of another (even an expert) in place of an actual argument.

while one can put the expert's argument on the table to be criticized, merely stating the expert's opinion simply does not constitute an argument.

Nope. Appeal to legitimate authority is a valid argument form. Appeal to inappropriate authority is a fallacy as is appeal to a biased authority or appeal to an authority who is saying something most legitimate authorities would disagree with.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_verecundiam


While most people are familiar with the fallacious forms, understanding the valid form is just as important because this is what allows us to not have to reinvent the wheel from the ground up in every situation or study every field until we ourselves are expert in it.

 

[metzomagic]

While most people are familiar with the fallacious forms, understanding the valid form is just as important because this is what allows us to not have to reinvent the wheel from the ground up in every situation or study every field until we ourselves are expert in it.

This! Spot on, lomiller.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Wonder if this will hammer the message home..

Historic drought and then a millenial storm...oh my - quite a year for the US

The forecast now says Sandy is expected to arrive to Delaware or Southern New Jersey by Monday night. More than 200 mm of rain is expected for the Atlantic City area. Coastal areas of the Carolinas will experience tropical storms during the weekend (I'm telling this because it might be there regulations that ban talking about it ).

As r-j says, nothing new or extraordinary, as it's happening today that the average year encompasses a number of extraordinary climatic events that just used to occur in a 1.5 or 2 years period, so nothing new ... nothing that hasn't happened in 1954 with Hazel, in 1954 with Carol and Edna almost together, in 2004 with Frances, again with Ivan -10th most intense ever- in 2004, again with Jeanne in 2004, and again in 2005: again with Katrina in 2005 -sixth most intense and costlier ever-, and again with Rita in 2005 -fourth most intense ever- and again with Wilma in 2005 -most intense ever-, so .... wait a minute!

 

[aleCcowaN]

This! Spot on, lomiller.

Besides, the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam boils down to "A is true because Mighty Joe said so", and an argumentum ad hominem to "B is false because Dumb Joe said so" (let aside by one moment all variations like circumstantial ad hominem).

That doesn't prevent from criticizing the use of diminishing terms with whom are not here to defend themselves, when no circumstance or reason is provided but a general "Hitler is a bad person". In that case, some moral -and not logical- side is to be considered. Promoting hate, for instance. So I had to agree with Malcolm on that, in spite he started his last period here with a chain of post containing ad-hominem and conspiracy theories. The fact that he decided to ignore selectively the logical, scientific and moral aspects of the subject at hand doesn't make him wrong.

 

[Acleron]

Nope. Appeal to legitimate authority is a valid argument form. Appeal to inappropriate authority is a fallacy as is appeal to a biased authority or appeal to an authority who is saying something most legitimate authorities would disagree with.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_verecundiam


While most people are familiar with the fallacious forms, understanding the valid form is just as important because this is what allows us to not have to reinvent the wheel from the ground up in every situation or study every field until we ourselves are expert in it.

Excellent.

There are even time sequences of fallacious argument.

Most AGW denialists start with argumentum ad struthious.

 

[lenny]

While most people are familiar with the fallacious forms, understanding the valid form is just as important because this is what allows us to not have to reinvent the wheel from the ground up in every situation or study every field until we ourselves are expert in it.

the fallacy is in that quoting an authority is NOT providing an argument. period.

"A is true because Mighty Joe said so" is simply not an argument for A. (would you ever consider the statement in quotes a mathematical proof of A?)

one must always quote the argument of the authority. otherwise there is no argument to discuss. that is sorta the point, no?

i saw links similar to the ones you posted, and i understand your point. i even have some sympathy with the aim in terms of providing evidence: nevertheless in terms of providing an argument appeal to authority is a fallacy. that does not mean you cannot gain rational confidence, etc. merely that you are not providing an argument.

similarly attacking an argument by showing that the person making an argument is a evil, lying, horrible person remains a fallacy even when that person really is an evil, lying, horrible person: you have to show that their argument is flawed, not their being.

not sure how to resolve this one. i guess it will hinge on whether or not we agree on what being "a fallacy" means. any ideas?

 

[lenny]

And it's about time to start sueing those libelous lying anti-science demagogues anyway. Mann is not only defending his name but that of science.

at what cost?

every work-day he is not doing science is a "win" for those who aim to retard the advance of the science. defending the name a science in the courts makes him an actor. delays the revised edition of his book. scares the young wanting to focus on research away from climate research.

a sad day. (that knowing all of the above, he decided it best to act.)

 

[RandFan]

Nope. Appeal to legitimate authority is a valid argument form. Appeal to inappropriate authority is a fallacy as is appeal to a biased authority or appeal to an authority who is saying something most legitimate authorities would disagree with.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_verecundiam

While most people are familiar with the fallacious forms, understanding the valid form is just as important because this is what allows us to not have to reinvent the wheel from the ground up in every situation or study every field until we ourselves are expert in it.

A valid form of argument from authority relies on a two part test.

Argument from authority

The strength of this authoritative argument depends upon two factors: [1][2]

1. The authority is a legitimate expert on the subject.
2. There exists consensus among legitimate experts in the subject matter under discussion.

 

[lenny]

You seem to be missing my point.

i'd really like to understand your point

What we have here are people with little or no physical modeling experience playing with bleeding edge climate model research.

we have specialists in forecast evaluation, evaluating forecasts (make by climate modelling specialists). i would take your point if they were evaluating their own climate simulation models, but they were not.

and publishing it in an off discipline journal

how do you come to classify the International Journal of Forecasting as an "off discipline" in terms of a paper on forecast evaluation/comparison?

that doesn’t have the reviewers or editors to properly asses

an editor is not restricted to selecting reviewers from a tribe that belongs to that journal. in a case like this the editor would undoubtedly send the paper relevant reviewers from the physical simulation camp as well as some from the statistical evaluation camp.

what they have done with the model.

again: what they did was analyze previously "published" forecasts from a met office model, i doubt they ever saw a line of the code from the model itself.

I’m not saying they are right or wrong, but that we can’t put a great deal of stock in it either way due to the way it was published.

i would like to understand why you think this follows.

domain specialists who make forecasts (in weather, medical diagnostics, widget production lines) often value the criticisms of specialists in forecast evaluation. (perhaps more when they are provided in internal reports than in peer reviewed journals, but that is understandable: modellers are human too.)

you seem to be saying that only those who understand the physical system are qualified to evaluate the forecasts of that system. is that what you intend to say? if not, then would you help me understand your point?