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Climate Researchers Fight Back
tomduck writes "The Guardian reports that climate researcher Andrew Weaver is suing the National Post newspaper in Canada in a libel action for publishing 'grossly irresponsible falsehoods.' The Post claimed he cherrypicked data to support his climate research, and tried to blame the 'evil fossil fuel' industry for break-ins at his office in 2008 to divert attention from mistakes in the 2007 IPCC report. This comes fast on the heels of another Guardian article describing lessons learned from the exoneration of UEA scientists involved in the so-called Climategate affair. Are climate scientists finally fighting back against their critics, who they were previously more inclined to ignore?"
Correction: The exposed emails clearly showed they wanted to skew the way the data was presented.
So when 'believers' call someone at all skeptical of their beliefs a 'climate change denier' and say they're funded by Big Oil and Big Energy, that's also libel, right? ....right?
Actually, to be perfectly truthful, anthropogenic climate change isn't hardly a theory at all - it is a completely malleable supposition that provides no falsifiable hypothesis whatsoever. In order to be a scientific theory, one must have a hypothesis, and have specific, falsifiable predictions.
In the case of AGW, the "predictions" are legion - cold weather == global warming. warm weather == global warming. And the error bars are so ridiculously huge, they can always say that the observed data is "within the range of our predictions".
If someone really wants to build an AGW hypothesis, give us an example of data that would falsify your hypothesis instead of insisting that AGW is true until it is proven otherwise.
This is politics, not science.
Climate research hasn't been about science in well over a decade.
And how many had McCain? 0 Well, to be fair, they _tried_ to get front page closeups of McCain's face... but he has a tendency to break cameras!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I wouldn't, for instance, have the vaguest idea what to do with the raw data coming out of CERN, would you? Meaningful scrutiny comes from people with the skills to scrutinize.
And there are numerous other people who either do have the skills, or might be motivated to learn to get the skills. Would you also say that because not everyone would understand the latest theory in particle physics, therefore, the research should only be available to "certain people" who have been approved by the physics elite? What's the difference between particle physics and climate research? Could it be that one is more "real science" than the other?
one of the fears of scientists in this case is that you'll get a whole bunch of people who don't really have the skills to interpret the data making wild declarations, or possibly worse, people who do know how to interpret the data overstating or inventing problems with sufficiently clever arguments to fool layman.
Hmm, science through obscurity. Interesting notion of knowledge you have.
This is what has happened in the anti-evolution movement, where a few reasonably skilled anti-evolution types like Michael Behe have in fact used their skills to create bogus arguments that sound scientific.
The anti-evolution people are that way because their ancient book tells them to be that way. It's about religion, not science. Evolution is an absolute fact with a mountain of evidence behind it.
Climate research is not even remotely close to Biology/Evolution as a science. Most (though not all) of climate research is based on computer models, which is very shaky evidence at this stage of our technology. Unfortunately, climatology is somewhere between science and religion right now, because it's highly politicized.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Funny, warming stopped just over a decade ago. They must have been afraid the funding spicket was going to be shut off.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
The shoe industry is involved in climate science? Or are you talking about the oil industry which makes 7-10% profit per year, 5-8% less than what the federal government taxes their product at, plus the additional state taxes upon their product.
Ya gotta love the touch of using 'about', followed by a world temperature quoted to 1/1000 degree F. why we are justified in assuming such preposterous "accuracies" from processes that have half degree error bars? How do they estimate the Earth's temperature in 1938 to within a half of a degree. I would like to see the procedure used to do that, and the measures employed.
And, oh yes, the person at the center of the CRU meltdown, Phil Jones, now admits there has been NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18992&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD There are many reasons to doubt AGW as a legitimate climate change candidate. The shrillness of its proponents not being the least. The FSM is as likely a cause. The sunspot minimum makes a far more beleivable.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
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In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
No, I don't. The Null Hypothesis is that what's happening is natural. In claiming that any and all climate change is man made, you are the one holding the burden of proof, not me!
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This is science. Nobody gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut what you 'believe'.
Here's the thing: We make simpler models of infinitely complicated systems ALL THE TIME.
Who said we didn't? But to say that the physicists who calculated the half-life of uranium was equivalently complex to climatologists modeling Earth's entire ecosystem is just absurd. Provably absurd, since we've known uranium half-life for quite some time, while climate models are still leading edge research.
The standard model is even woefully lacking (Gravity?) and as to provable, you've got to be kidding.
Again, who said that we have perfect knowledge of physics? I said no such thing. I said our level of knowledge of physics is far higher than climatology. And it is. Sorry, but it is laughably ridiculous to compare climatology to almost any field in physics. If you want to compare climatology to, say, economic theory, I'll listen to that argument.
If you think relativity, molecular theory or evolution are 'provably accurate' you're in for a hell of a shock -
Relativity is provably accurate because we can actually make a prediction and then test it. It's provably accurate until it is proven inaccurate. Unlike climate science, which is nearly impossible to prove or disprove in the real world.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I hold a skeptics view to the whole Global Warming thing, they say that this is what the earth will do in 100 years...yet they can't guess what its going to do next week with any certainty.
That's not a skeptics view. That's an idiot-who-doesn't-understand-statistics view.
And yours is nothing more than an insult with absolutely no refutation of his argument. You did nothing but attempt to insult him and made your self look like an ignorant ass in the process. Congratulations.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
You are a fucking moron. How stupid can you get? Are you even able to open doors with your fucked up brain? They are still calling it global warming, you fucking douchebag.
Maybe if you spent more time using your brain and educating yourself, and less time being a fucking moron, you would have gotten it by now. You fucking idiot.
Clever signature text goes here.
Which is more likely: that scientists got together and colluded to invent a crisis thinking it would make tons of money roll in, or that the wealthy are projecting their greed onto the less greedy?
Actually option 'C' is more likely than either of your options - government paid scientists off to justify raising taxes on businesses they didn't like and to curb behavior (such as driving cars) that they don't like.
Ever stop and think about how "global warming" wasn't a crisis until Al Gore (who has about as much science education as Obama has economics education - in other words, none) discovered it and brought it to the attention of the DNC?
Temperatures may or may not be changing (evidence seems to say that they're fairly stable), but there's zero reason to think that human behavior has anything to do with it - THAT part of GW is 100% manufactured for political purposes.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Wow, I am an idiot for recognizing that they are switching to Climate Change yet people who call me an idiot also see that they are calling it climate change. Your side just can't make up their mind. And good job on the attacks, I will be sure to change my stance based on your rhetoric.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
If you live in the deluded world of tea-baggers or evangelical Christians, many facts seem "liberal."
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I'd be perfectly happy to vote for R's (and I have in the past) if they would let the science drive their ideology rather than the reverse.
Sorry, but that translates to "I'd be happy to vote for Republicans if they supported Democrats stance on GW". I despise both parties, but I've seen many more Republicans wanting to actually use science and facts to make policy as opposed to Democrats wanting to make policy based on their personal beliefs and feelings.
As for Al Gore? Since no one's head from him really since he made his fictional movie An Inconvenient Myth, I really couldn't give any exact quotes. However, he made it quite clear that only Democrats could save us from this horrible "disaster".
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson