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NASA: July 2016 Was Earth's Warmest Month On Record (weather.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from The Weather Channel: Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), operated by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), calculated the global average July temperature was nearly one-fifth of a degree Celsius higher than previous July temperature records set in 2015 and in 2009. July was also 0.55 degrees Celsius higher than the July average for 1981-2010. Compared to the July average, the south-central part of the United States including Texas and into northern Mexico were the most anomalously warm for North America. Globally, portions of western Russia and the Southern Ocean were warmest compared to average. In Russia, fires and an anthrax outbreak have been blamed on warmer than average temperatures. Each of the last 12 months has been the warmest on record for their respective months. This is due to a combination of global climate variability and human activity according to C3S. July is typically the warmest month of the year globally because the Northern Hemisphere has more land masses than the Southern Hemisphere. (NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) confirms today.)
Was this before or after adjusting the data?
The procedure is outlined here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html
The warming in the data is almost exclusively due to the adjustments supposedly to account for urban heat islands. However, without those adjustments, the temperatures are pretty flat.
It's bad news when you have to control for various factors in order to obtain an interesting result. It's also very arbitrary because the researcher can pick and choose which factors to account for and how to do so, in order to obtain the desired result.
These kinds of abuses lead to all sorts of nonsense conclusions like claiming vaccines cause autism. If the warming doesn't show up until you adjust for certain factors, you're doctoring the data.
So, I'd really like to know whether this is before or after the adjustments. The adjustments to the data create the mostly fictional warming.
Just how much longer are you going to keep up this pseudo skepticism? Basically you're calling scientists liars, or at best, morons. So let's here your interpretation, and let's hear who you've submitted it to, and how it has been received.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You're wrong because you're constructing statement, and seem to have no interest in the science at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Don't need to be a climate change scientist to figure that one out. - a climate change scientist
Okay I will. Arable production and water will move. Agreeably weather conditions will move. As resources dwindle in an area (water, soil conditions, flooding etc) mas migration, disease, and war will likely occur. Do you want half of Bangladesh camping on your doorstep?
Silence is a state of mime.
Migration, disease and war are already occurring. Temperature is the least of our worries. We should be worrying about other things: lack of stability in lots of the modern world, fresh water, Donald Trump. I'm not worrying about 2 degrees warming.
Historical records for land stations go back centuries. We haven't had publicly known monitoring stations in orbit for more than a few decades.
Actually, orbiting measurements need to allow for the air being warmer. The speed of light partially is affected in the medium of air depending on it's temperature. This also includes other "weather" impacts. So measurements from a period with colder air do not exactly match those from periods with warmer air. Since we talk about full temperature changes in F over the air, this is not very noticeable, but it is measurable.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There has been a long string of record monthly anomalies, but July is the warmest month globally so only it and August have much of a chance to be the hottest month.
It's the other way around. Warming has thawed sites where frozen bodies of animals killed by 20th century anthrax outbreaks, and those carcasses have now caused numerous cases of anthrax in animals and people in Siberia. You just got the relationship backwards. :-)
French - The lingua franca of Europe!
It's not an ad hominem attack to call a pseudoskeptic out. The poster made no indication of understanding how data is analyzed, but basically claimed either incompetence or conspiracy by NOAA scientists.
I'll ask everyone who rejects AGW, where in the hell is all that energy being absorbed by CO2 going? If there's some unknown heat sink dumping the solar radiation being absorbed by CO2 back into space, what exactly is it? After all, thermodynamics still reigns supreme last time I heard, so there's no perpetual magic refrigeration unit in the sky getting rid of excess energy be capture due to higher CO2 concentrations, so where is it?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So it's your view that there is no such thing as an expert, that all claims are equal, and that a person who has studied climatology their entire career has no more knowledge than a burger flipper?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Climatologists have no reason to lie at all. They will still be involved in that research whether it's global warming, global cooling, or nothing at all.
But you tell me, where does all the extra energy absorbed and re-eimitted as IR by CO2 go? If you think the climatologists are lying, does that also lead you to believe that physicists who have known CO2's properties as far as absorbing certain wavelengths of CO2 for over a century are also lying? Just how many people will you stack into your conspiracy to make the theory go away?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Didn't you hear? Donald is going to build a wall and make the ocean pay for it. Problem solved!
"I'll get modded to oblivion but "scientists" aren't any smarter or dumber than the average person. They just managed to find a job that pays out more when the headlines aren't positive."
Hey, a Degree from Burger U, (Is that where you got yours?), isn't quite the same as a BS from Columbia and a Phd. from Berkeley. Richard Muller was a Skeptic coming from a perspective far away of yours; A Genuine Skeptic. He is also an Internationally known Physicist, very good a Data Analysis, and he felt the the Data Analysis here wasn't rigorous enough.
The Kochs, not NASA or Greenpeace, funded his studies on Climate Change, and he came back with three conclusions:
-It's real.
-It's pretty bad.
-Much of it is Anthropogenic.
That's pretty much what the Kochs needed to know, and they have adjusted their long-term planning accordingly. As has Bank Of America and the Department Of Defense, DOE, NASA, the World Bank...
"... In every industry, from burger flipping to advanced software..."
I doubt that you have _any_ credentials in the latter; I even doubt any credible capability in the former. Typical Republican these days, not only doubting that two and two can be added, but denying any possibility, against any and all evidence.
Get modded to oblivion; that is just where you belong, you Know-Nothing.
When was phrenology ever a science?
In fact, how many actual scientific theories (as defined as actually having a methodological approach, founded on a theory, built out of hypotheses and attempting to explain actual evidence) been overthrown? Newtonian mechanics never was, and is still used in the context of being a simplified set of formulas for velocities where relativistic calculations are not necessary. Non Big Bang theories of the universe were thrown out, in particular the steady state theory, but even the steady state theory left its mark on later cosmology via the Cosmological Constant. Some pre-plate tectonic theories of geology were supplanted. The ether certainly had its advocates, but didn't survive the 19th century.
Other than that, all you're really doing is trying to fling out long debunked and never really accepted nonsense like phrenology, acting as if science is somehow this vast array of utterly unreliable nonsense. In essence, you're advocating a position that there is no such thing as reliable knowledge, a sort of epistemological nihilism, and for what? So you don't have to accept that CO2 absorbs UV radiation and emits ER, some of which gets trapped in the lower atmosphere, with the corollary that the more energy you trap in the lower atmosphere, the more heat is going to end up there? And for what, so you don't have to admit that burning fossil fuels causes long term changes to climate?
Does the science so frighten you that you basically have to reject the entire notion of methodological naturalism? And if it's so unreliable, then how is it that you can even use the products of science? I mean, is there any science you would accept, or is this just a magical universe where anything that inconveniences you are challenges your ideological biases is automatically rejected because God/the Invisible Hand of the Market/whatever-you-believe could never allow such physical laws to exist?
At the end of the day, it's hard to see how you're not either fundamentally a fool, and likely a coward as well, willing to accept any story that doesn't challenge your beliefs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your cherry picking an entire study based on the word "adjusted". In other words, you're partaking of the favorite aspect of pseudoscience, out of context quoting, because you either cannot understand the research, or don't want to.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem is ... I've heard it enough times that it must be at least 5 degrees C hotter on average per year than just a few years ago ... which seems ... catastrophic ...
Errr... If May, June, and July are all 0.5 higher than average, that doesn't mean the earth is 1.5 higher. And if 2015 is, say, 0.45 higher and 2016 is 0.55 higher than average, that doesn't mean that we're 1.0 higher than average. Statistics don't work that way.
Since you don't understand numbers and averages, the rest of your rant seems likely to be nonsensical. Which -- surprise! -- it is.
You can educate yourself on statistics, how they can be used to lie, and how to detect that deceit. Then your opinion may matter.
Or you can keep on believing that you are smarter and more informed than all of the people studying climate, and keep on posting misinformed rants. I suspect that you'll pick this last option, but I'm always ready to be proven wrong.
For pseudoscientific advocates all that counts is a response is made. The response doesn't have to be true, it doesn't even have to make sense. But what is necessary is that some sort of criticism, no matter how moronic, false or absurd, exists, so that all the other advocates of pseudoscience can declare "You see, someone made a response, so your theory is wrong!!!!"
Answers In Genesis has done this for years in attacking biology. Some of the objections, like the bizarre moon dust claims, are so incredibly idiotic that it's hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously, and one suspects that the formulators of such claims don't take them seriously. But gullible people who want to hear how their ideology or religion is totally true will lap it up, because it gives them a quick retort. In reality such claims are made to make the advocate of pseudoscience feel better, because I suspect most of them, deep down, know what they believe and what they're saying is utter nonsense.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Christ almighty Slashdot. Would you start revoking the mod points of these bloody people. What will I be permitted to say on this place without getting my karma bashed to pieces? Just mindlessly agree "AGW is a lie and Trump is the bestest ever!"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Please explain the following:
1.) When the weather is hotter than normal, it's evidence of Global Warming (or climate change), but... 2.) When the weather is colder than normal, the AGW apologists immediately remind us that Weather is not Climate.
If indeed the Earth is getting warmer, the press sure aren't doing the AGW advocates any favors with stories like the above.
These stories about extreme weather events only reinforce the perception that it's all a scam for political control. It's not helping.
I'll explain under the assumption that this is an honest request for elucidation (but that this is an AC post is not promising).
The article is not stating that it is "hotter than normal". It is stating that is hotter than ever recorded, indeed hotter than any time in the last 100,000 years. July is typically the hottest month so one expect historic records to be broken in July, and the last time the record was broken was - last July. If we go by seasonal records (hottest January, hottest February, hottest March, etc.) the last time was such a record was broken was - last month. And the last time before that was - the month before, and so on and so on.
When was the last time that it was colder globally than ever before recorded? Based on a relatively recent 1961-1990 average the last time we had a cooler than average month was 31 years ago.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
So tell me, how was this comment overrated? How is it that so many science deniers get mod points, and why is it that they choose to use it to punish those that accept the science? Do you think you win debates by downmodding people?
Fuck this place sucks so fucking bad.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ah, the five stages of climate denial. You are on number 4.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
You haven't made any points to rebut. All you've done is spout a baseless opinion that the adjustments are bad because you think they are, without ever saying how they're bad, or why they should not be made.
When you need to adjust the data in order to reach your conclusion
And where is your evidence for this claim of deliberate data fudging? Where is your evidence that NOAA's adjustments are incorrect, given that the reported land temperature rises correlate with tropospheric temperatures, ocean temperatures, sea level rise, physically-based CO2 models, and indeed independent data from the NASA and HadCRUT sets as well? Are you also going to claim a global conspiracy next?
All measurements need proper calibration. Raw sensor output is meaningless without this, particularly if the sensor's bias is expected to change over time. Your link cites peer-reviewed methodology for the adjustments described, so unless you can explain convincingly why all those scientists are flat-out (and deliberately) wrong, don't expect your nonspecific ramblings to be taken seriously by anyone who counts.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The importance of the adjustment is when you're comparing months that are decades apart; there hasn't been any massive urbanization spurt in the last several years that could account for the July anomaly even in the unadjusted data. So July clearly was hotter than any month in the past several years, and those were very hot years indeed.
So basically you're making a pointless conjecture here. We have no reason to suspect the data weren't adjusted in the usual fashion, but if they weren't it wouldn't change the fact that we're at least probably looking the hottest month ever and nearly certainly looking at one of the hottest. It makes no practical difference.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
My wife is a geophysicist, and I used to read the journals she subscribed to all through the late 80s and 90s -- well before "Global Warming" became a political issue.
It was the tail end of the shift in consensus between global cooling and global warming. By then almost everyone was convinced, but they still argued like cats and dogs over how to interpret the instrumental record. If they were convinced, why fight the data that supported what they believed to be true? Because they wanted the data to be more equivocal. The lack of ambiguity in the data struck in their craw, so they attacked it, over and over and over again. It was kind of like the way baseball purists must have felt when the dead ball era ended. Yeah, we like to see runs scored, but this is just ridiculous.
It amazes me that layman believe that scientists never thought to question how the instrumental record should be interpreted. Do you really thing all those people getting geophysics PhDs from MIT and CalTech are so much more obtuse than you are? Believe me, if you can think of a nit, it got picked. It's probably still getting picked, although the range of impact has likely been reduced to practical insignificance. That's what scientists are paid to do: argue with each other. If they have nothing significant to disagree about, then trivialities will do. I know an astronomer who claims to have seen fist fights break out over whether the moon was full or not -- although I suspect that might have been the boozing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The difference between weather and climate is basically time.
The hottest year on record is just the last data point of an increasing temperature over time http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist...
Granted I would like to see a story of "This is the warmest 10 years" or 20, but that kind of news doesn't trigger the newspapers (well not until the numbers are nice and round when we hit 2020)
And there still might be some merit in pointing out this bit of weather since it's the hottest it's been for the last 100+ years. You don't want to over focus at a single data point but if that data point is an outlier it deserves some attention.
It's turtles all the way down.
The main issue I have is, No matter how much money is siphoned from the Western Economies (up to and including everything along with shutting down the economies) and provided to other nations, the UN or what ever scientific or world body.
First of all, nobody is "siphoning money" from the U.S. and shutting down its economy to give the spoilers to some filthy foreigners. That's something you made up after being overexposed to someone's fearmongering.
What we do for the next 30-40 years is going to determine the Earth's ultimate temperature for at least 10,000 years. History is closely watching what we're doing right now, and it's watching from farther in the future than you might be realizing. Long after WWII is a footnote of history like the Napoleonic or Punic Wars, the apathetic idiocy on this subject being expressed by the fools alive today- the few who saw it coming, had a chance to do something about it, and did nothing about it for bullshit reasons (like who might be "siphoning money")- will be analyzed for literally tens of thousands of years by all of those affected who will regard the few generations of people alive today as the most despicable generations in all of human existence.
I challenge you to find any scientific study that uses raw, unfiltered data. There are nearly always adjustments made to account for known errors in the data. The only issue is whether the adjustments are scientifically justified or not. It takes science to determine that.
The adjustments generally used (which always have to be performed when you mix data from different measurement techniques) are lowering the recorded temperature. You are either woefully ignorant of this field, or are being intellectually dishonest.
Aaah the old "massive global conspiracy involving every single accredited academic institution in the world, which also ignores the massive awards awaiting anyone who could expose it" excuse for ignoring science. You seriously don't seem to understand the amount of awards, prestige and funding awaiting anyone who can overturn these findings. Nobel prizes, you name it. That all is waiting for the first to be able to do so. No one has as it's like asking people to prove cows are jellyfish.
The climategate link which showed absolutely nothing wrong?
I hope you're trying to be funny but if you're not it should be relatively easy for other competent scientists to show they are wrong. Reality is what it is and you can't change it just because you don't like it.
The thinking is this:
1. I don't like climate change
2. It doesn't exist
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I'll explain under the assumption that this is an honest request for elucidation (but that this is an AC post is not promising).
The article is not stating that it is "hotter than normal". It is stating that is hotter than ever recorded, indeed hotter than any time in the last 100,000 years.
Eh?
"Global mean temperatures in July 2016 were the warmest on record not just for July, but for any month dating to the late 1800s, according to separate just-released analyses."
Was this before or after adjusting the data?
If you looked at the page you linked, you'd see that the heat-island effect you reference is 0.1F (0.056 C). The article says that this July was 0.55 degrees Celsius higher than the July average for 1981-2010, so that's ten times more than the entire heat-island correction between 1900 to 2000. And it was is one-fifth of a degree Celsius higher than previous July temperature records-- which still five times larger than the entire heat island change between 1900 and 2000.
Note that all data is always "adjusted" (in your term)-- this is how data analysis is done. It is how science is done. The question is whether the data is analyzed in a way that is transparent. The fact that you can point to the discussion of exactly how the data is analyzed is a strong point in favor of the data analysis. Here's a clue: you should be worried when the scientists don't explain how the data is analyzed.
This is, of course, a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" argument by the deniers-- if the temperature wasn't corrected for these errors, the deniers were shouting how the measured temperatures aren't reliable because they needed to be corrected for all these effects.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Just how much longer are you going to keep up this pseudo skepticism? Basically you're calling scientists liars, or at best, morons. So let's here your interpretation, and let's hear who you've submitted it to, and how it has been received.
Take pity on them.
This is what we get when people get their science education from politicians.
Take pity on them. It is summer, hotter than blue blazes, and they can't look out the window, see s few snowflakes, and yell - "So much for global warming!"
Take pity on them.
This is the summertime lull, where they have to pretend that they understand statistics, and lo and behold, a guy or gal who thinks that if you flip a coin 25 times and it comes up heads, its a dead lock the next 25 will be tails.
Take pity on them.
For they believe there is no greenhouse effect - without we wouldn't exist, either that or grudginly admit there is one, but it automagically fails at a convenient place.
Take pity on them
For they think that calling Michael Mann an asshole, it invalidates an entire field of work.
Take pity on them
For they can endlessly cite old data, and cherry pick anomalous data, yet cannot find newer data that clears the anomaly and brings the data into agreement.
Take pity on them
For they are reduced to the search for smaller and smaller gaps, and are left only with their faith.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> I challenge you to find any scientific study that uses raw, unfiltered data.
Im a mycologist and when doing spore measurements we measure the length and width or many spores. Then average the length and average the width. Providing largest measurements, smallest measurements, and average. We don't "adjust" our actual measurements to make sure the spore size meets the expected size.
Possibly you should, since other mycologists do make corrections. Here are some corrections factors noted by Smith et al: "Sources of Variability in the Measurement of Fungal Spore Yields": http://aem.asm.org/content/54/...
see also Chapels: "Spore size revisited: Analysis of spore populations using an automated particle sizer" http://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Sydo...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
First time I heard that adjusting data to fit sought for conclusions is science.
You just asserted, without evidence, that the data was adjusted "to fit sought-for conclusions."
Again, it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" argument by the deniers. If the data isn't adjusted to correct for known instrument drift, the deniers shout "the data needs to be corrected," and if it is, the deniers shout "the data was adjusted." All data is analyzed. If you don't understand that, about all I can say is that you've never done real experimental science. If you don't correct for errors, the data is wrong. The question is: was the data analysis right? not: was the data analyzed?
In fact it is only people who really 'suck at science', who would do anything of the sort. Questioning such practices is opposite of "arrogance"; It is a sign humbleness to look afresh at unvarnished evidence that universe throw at us to arrive at conclusions through scientific method.
Questioning is good. Asserting that the data was analyzed to fit a "preconceived conclusions" however, is not questioning-- you've already come to your conclusion without even looking at the data analysis. Is the data analysis wrong? You haven't shown any analysis supporting that conclusion.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Most scientific skeptics don't disagree that the energy is being absorbed by CO2, they more generally think that it's overstated or not a problem. There are three main 'unorthodox' groups on AGW:
So you gotta tell us - where is that 800 Terawatts of radiative forcing going? Or do you find that a trivial number with no need to go any further? Or do you dispute the number?
2) Those who agree with the standard science line, but disagree on economics principals. Thus Bjorn Lomborg claims that economically speaking, it's better spend our resources on growing our economy, and helping poor people now, rather than trying to stop AGW.
I do not find the scientific prowess of the people who brought us the economic meltdown in th early years of this century very comforting. Regardless, not many economic systems are ever designed to help poor people, so that's a real non-starter.
They consider AGW to be worth watching, but not worth worrying about yet.
After all, falling off a cliff can be pretty pleasant at first. No point worrying until you hit the sudden stop.
Some AGW predictions get wild, such as that the oceans will boil and it will be the end of civilization.
Which of course is preposterous. But all that proves is that there are kooks on both sides. That claim is right up there with denialists claiming that in the 1970's that scientists believed we were entering a new ice age, based on an article in Time Magazine.
But I'm not around to try to claim that AGW doesn't exist because of an article in time magazine that was laughable and merely trying to do a populist extrapolation of a cold and snowy winter to the future.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
How do you "fix" time dependant measurements made in the past? All you can do is work with the data you have.
People like you make accusations of political bias all the time but never provide any scientific evidence for why the adjustments are wrong. Seems like a clear case of projection to me.
Yeah, and if there's one thing that everyone who is skeptical about climate change has in common, it's that they all love science and the scientific method. They are the virtual embodiment of Aristotle, every one of them.
Anything less is religion.
Thanks for the lecture, Archangel Michael.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
And that NEVER includes the bias of those making the adjustments, right?
The adjustments are done automatically by software. You can download the GISS sources here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist... You're kindly invited to point out the bias, or withdraw your accusation.
That's a perfect illustration of the problem with the entire debate on this issue.
"I thought" that X was true. Therefore, I'm telling you the conclusion that you should believe.
No one gives a shit what you think. Instead of throwing out some random figure, would it really kill you do to a single piece of research?
Here is one survey, which found that 70% of Americans believe the climate is changing, 41% think it is a very serious problem, 19% say somewhat serious, 9% say not too serious, 22% believe that climate is not changing at all, and 8% don't know. 63% of Democrats and 42% of independents see it as a very serious issue, while 18% of Republicans do. 43% of Republicans think climate change is not happening at all, while 17% of independents and 10% of Democrats feel the same. Of those who believe that it's happening, 34% think it is a combination of natural and man-made factors, 27% think it is mostly human activity, and 8% think it is mostly natural.
If you click on the article in the comment you replied to, there is even more data there. The study there is 2 years older than the one I cited, and it specifically shows (really, without you having to "think" about any 97% number at all) that 87% of AAAS members believe that climate change is mostly due to human activity, 88% of working PhDs believe that, 90% of active research scientists, and 50% of US adults (which is exactly what the person you responded to said).
All of this data, all over the place, and you're still going to say "I thought it was 97%. Sounds like OP is correct." based solely on your own preconceived beliefs, without even attempting to find any data to back up your thoughts. Again, a perfect example of the problems with this whole debate.
You want another great illustration about how well-informed members of the general public, such as yourself, are?
"Humans have evolved over time"
All AAAS members surveyed: 98%
Working PhD scientists: 99%
Active Research scientists: 99%
US Adults: 65%
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Good troll. I didn't get through the entire set of replies, but so far nobody has zoomed in into the fact that temperature is adjusted downward to correct for urban heat islands. Bravo!
Which is rather like saying "blood pressure exists and changes every 24 hours". No matter how many times you say that, it won't make a blood pressure of 140 over 90 healthy.
I don't imagine you care one iota, or will even listen, but oddly enough, climatologists can determine what is a normal statistical fluctuation and what points stand out against the normal background, and can identify trends.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
AGW skeptics aren't being censored. Idiots who screw up the facts and think that minor discrepancies that are likely already reconciled disprove the whole science do get downmodded.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
One causes higher storm surges in the world's most valuable real-estate upon which the financial capitals of the world are built and are an absolute necessity for our civilisation to continue, and the other pisses off cartographers. Trying to equate the two shows either a complete lack of understanding of the subject, or an intellectual dishonesty worthy of nothing but scorn. Pick one.