"Let's get a few things straight here. Phrases like "will probably" and "clearly wishes" are indicative of slant because they don't tell me anything."
Making a profit is NOT evil. This will probably be news to you even though you clearly wish not to hear it. The fact that they also clearly wish to make a profit will probably be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, in no way does that change the meaning of the quote even though you clearly wish it did.
Your own anti-corporate slant is breathtaking, god forbid anyone make a profit from doing something that just might, in it's own small way, assist in dragging 1/2 the planet out of the stone age.
Just one more bit of triva to cast a skeptical eye over...
The IPCC recently redisigned thier site, it was a dog's breakfast to start with and I thought the redesign made it worse. However I now take that crtisisim back, what they have done is set up a seperate site dedicated to data and analysis here.
"When MacIntyre asked for the code and the raw data, Mann said no. Repeatedly."
This is rubbish, although McIntyre did seem to have trouble tracking the data down for himself, I am glad to see that you didn't.
"It's not science if it's not reproducible, and it's not reproducible if it's not thoroughly documented and completely published."
The journals "Science" and "Nature" are by far the two most respect scientific journals on the planet and any scientist from any field would give thier left testicle to have just one publication in either. They are certainly not going to risk their reputation by publishing anything that cannot be peer-reviewed because of a lack of data or methodology. Again I point to the recent "hockey stick" paper by Mann et. al. in "Science", although I do agree it's a bummer these journals have a dollar cost associated with them.
Add in the subsequent violation of the refereeing rules in a journal actually named Climage Change in order to get supporting papers published, and the smell of a politically motivated con job becomes very strong.
It's worth noting that in Mann's CV he is listed as a reviewer for the journals Science, Nature and Climage Change (plus a fistfull of other respected journals). The reason for this impressive list is simple; Mann is recognised the world over as being at the top of his field.
Now please don't take this to mean that I am using a logical fallacy (ie: arguing from a position of authority) because Mann's work has been independently confirmed many times over. What I am saying is that the politics is such that someone at the top of this particular field might as well have a large bull's eye painted on his forehead when it comes to attacks from political hacks (such as the "based on two trees thing").
"I am an engineer reasonably capable of reading words of more than two syllables. But I don't even have to be capable of understanding any of the science to be suspicious of Mann."
My own father is also a (retired) mechanical engineer who was for many years the Chief Engineer of a large company that made and modified assembly line machines for auto-companies. We had many debates over climate change, his misunderstandings were mainly due to the fact that engineering does not involve a lot in the way of statistical analysis. If it was difficult to convince my own father then I don't really expect my posts to change anyone's mind here on slashdot.
Coincidently RC has a recent article by a guest writer from the American Institute of Physics on this theme.
By all means be suspisiuos, after all that is what a skeptic does. What a skeptic doesn't do however is dismiss scientific arguments on the basis of political conspiracy theories. I put it to you again that your are (unwittingly) letting someone else's politics intefere with your science and that much of what is said on McIntyre's behalf in the blogosphere is not supported by McIntyre himself (ditto with Mann).
If you want to be treated as a genuine skeptic I strongly suggest you drop the ad-homs and test your own assertions.
I put it to you that you are the one who is misguided simply because you have never bothered to read the IPCC reports. Once you have read (or at least skimmed) the IPCC reports themselves (as pointed out in my OP) then perhaps we could have an interesting conversation on the science.
I don't suggest that realclimate are totally free of political bias (nobody is) but in reference to your climate audit link, practice the scientific definition of skepticisim and go and search for arguments against McIntyre on realclimate. I also had a look at the blog you linked to, it's worth noting that Mann's hockey stick has been strengthed by a recent paper in the journal "Science", perhaps that explains the recent uptick in the blogoshere's political hit-pieces on the hockey stick.
Disclaimer: I have a major in statistical analysis and have been interested in climate research for well over 20yrs. Statistically speaking, all politicians are hypocrites.
"You'd better fix the coder's habits by giving them a workstation without a compiler.."
A certain large blue company tried to use their existing mainframe procedures on workstations in the 80's. It went something like this....
Programmer: Code, code, code...give file to programmer's assistant ( those were the days:)
Assistant: Give file to compiler operator.
Compiler operator: Compile, compile...give error file back to assistant.
Assistant: Give error file (and cup of tea) back to programmer.
Programmer: Change colon to semi-colon...give file to programmer's assistant.
Rinse and repeat until code compiles.
"It'll make them less productive in the short run..."
It did, but some programmer's suruptitiously installed compilers onto their machines. Those who did obtained the holy grail of zero compile errors first time, every time. They were worshiped as super-productive by their superiors!
For an example of a chaotic system who's behaviour can be predicted with great accuracy see the Three Body Problem and investigate how it was used to shoot the Cassini probe through the gaps in Saturn's rings, twice!
PS: I agree the obvious course of action is to reduce CO2 emissions.
"Germans are telling us GW is taking a hiatus, which means most all of our previous models are wrong"
The German paper used the same models but with slightly different assumptions and they arrived at similar conclusions about the long term trend (post - 2015). It's an interseting paper but the Germans themselves would agree it's complete nonsense to say it "means most all of our previous models are wrong".
"I would love it if someone has a link to an article about an accurate computer model of the weather system, but I've never found one."
There is no single accurate model and there never will be. Accuracy is a function of mankinds future actions, the precision of observations and the resolution of the numerical analysis amoung other things. The models themselves are basically Finite Element Analysis models, thus the need for very powerfull number crunchers. They account for forcings and some of the major feedbacks but cannot account for feedbacks we know very little about ( thus the hand-wringing about "tipping points"). It's generally agreed that at best they can only predict large scale climate changes (ie: continental proportions).
The MET office in the UK is a good source of info on models and even has a computer program you can tinker with yourself (I will let you find that yourself). Thier list of climate center sites is also very useful.
The IPCC site has become close to useless since it's last redesign and it is difficult to find stuff on it. However the MET office provides an accesible way to read the reports. The IPCC does not conduct science, it reviews it. The RANGE of conclusions in the report are derived from thousands of simulations from various models and are distilled down to worst, best and most likely senarios.
Yes I know the MET is a single source, it just happens to be a good one and will point you in the right direction. If you are looking for a good climate mythbusting site then you might want to try realclimate.
That's a very good argument about the other choices he could have taken. I hadn't looked at it that way but now that I do choosing Palin seems an even more cynical choice than I had suspecetd.
"All Palin will do in the end is energize Democrats and level headed independents."
That's what I meant by shooting himself in the foot. I also suspect a fair proportion of level headed republicans will have a hard time voting for anyone on polling day and simply stay at home.
The "context" was the suggestion of encryption in the post he was replying to. Encryption is mildly offtopic but his post was certainly not out of context.
As an Aussie watching the circus from a far, I agree. I belive she was picked because she is pro-life, pro-creationist, and anti-gay. She will draw the vote from a certain demographic that votes for the person their church tells them to. The demographic is not huge but they are an important minority because they will enthusiasticly jump on the church bus at polling time.
In other words McCain is throwing a bone to the far-right religious crowd, he doesn't share their values but he has given them a voice that makes it possible for them to vote for him in good faith (pardon the pun).
IMHO he has shot himself in the foot with a bazzoka.
BTW: I found the answer to my original question (no thanks to you), the misinformation seems to have originated from Asher's blog on DailyTech. If you buy into his opinions then I have a very nice bridge you might be interested in.
"Why does a dog always have to be kicked? Why can't it be a cat or a rabbit?"
Everyone knows you swing a cat to measure the dimentions of a room and kick a dog to vent frustration. However never mess with rabbits unless you are one of the Goodies.
The EU book is a collection of half-truths that makes non-sensical claims such as "impact craters are caused by bolts of electricity". If there is ever another book burning fad it should be used to light the bonfire.
You are living in a fantasy land if you think we don't need the pollution controls we already have. If the last 50yrs has taught me anything it's that a high proportion of people will shit on their grandmother's dinner plate if there is enough money to be had. Comparing the dumping of toxic waste to video ratings is so childishly naive and irrelevant that I simply don't know where to start.
"If the environmental movement was focused on encouraging VOLUNTARY action from people, I'd be perfectly fine with it."
Then you are either "perfectly fine with it" or simply ignorant.
BTW: Most of the hippies here in Australia live so deep in the bush that they are commonly refered to as "bush bunnies", but maybe it's different where you live. How many hippies have you actually met and what proportion of them tried to "boss you around"?
"Correct the BBC article" - What the fuck are you are taking about? - The graph in your link shows the same curves for 2007 & 2008 as the graph in the BBC article, not surprising since the BBC's source (NSIDC) and your IJIS source share the same raw data provided by NASA (AMSR-E).
Yes you can be a pedant and say that there is slightly more ice than the same time last year, but that was NOT my point. My point is how on earth does your cherry-picked factoid lead you to claim that "the build up of ice is likely going to continue"? There is no "build up of ice", this years data point is pushing the trend even further into the negative and if you have even a basic grasp of statistics you can use your linked graph to confirm that.
"Come on, TapeCutter, I've seen your posts, you can do better than that."
Thanks, and point taken. But still I think that the "UN conspiracy" played a part in shaping his post even if it wasn't a consious effort since the quote in your post is the main strawman for that particular conspiracy theory. JordanL is obviously both intelligent and ignorant (on the subject of climate).
"Can you give some examples from the last 100 years?
I have one for ya.:)
The idea that humans could alter the climate via CO2 emmissions was first proposed by Svante Arrhenius in his 1907 book "Das Werden der Welten". It was a follow up from his 1896 work on the greenhouse effect and it's relationship to ice ages. The greenhouse effect itself was first discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824.
There are still plenty of examples on slashdot of people who dismiss the idea of AGW as a crackpot theory, although the number of scientists who still do so has dropped to nearly zero over the last decade or so.
"it doesn't qualify as a strawman, but a pre-emptive answer to an anticipated objection...[snip]...It might also be more accurately labelled science ignorant rather than anti-science"
Pre-emptive yes, ignorant maybe, but it's still a strawman. A quick look at some definitions reveals...
"A discussion technique used to refute an opposing view by misrepresenting it."
"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position."
By accusing climate scientists of pre-determining their results he IS misrepresenting them, he then expands on that misrepresentation as if it were a fact. His slur on the integrity of a large and diverse population of scientists completely ignores both the data and the method, it is therfore anti-science in my view.
"Can anyone clarify to me the conspiracy theory the OP is propagating in that post?"
I completely agree with your point, he doesn't actually spell out a conspiracy but I think you are missing the bigger picture and that is why I replied to your post. I believe the conspiracy theory that he is blowing the dog whistle for is the one where the UN supposedly set up the IPCC to push a political agenda, often refered to as "socialist world domination" (random example: here). I can't tell from the post if he is doing it deliberately or from ignorance, either way the post is an excellent example of pursuasive propoganda and very well written.
Slashdot Mirror
"Let's get a few things straight here. Phrases like "will probably" and "clearly wishes" are indicative of slant because they don't tell me anything."
Making a profit is NOT evil. This will probably be news to you even though you clearly wish not to hear it. The fact that they also clearly wish to make a profit will probably be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, in no way does that change the meaning of the quote even though you clearly wish it did.
Your own anti-corporate slant is breathtaking, god forbid anyone make a profit from doing something that just might, in it's own small way, assist in dragging 1/2 the planet out of the stone age.
Just one more bit of triva to cast a skeptical eye over...
The IPCC recently redisigned thier site, it was a dog's breakfast to start with and I thought the redesign made it worse. However I now take that crtisisim back, what they have done is set up a seperate site dedicated to data and analysis here.
"When MacIntyre asked for the code and the raw data, Mann said no. Repeatedly."
This is rubbish, although McIntyre did seem to have trouble tracking the data down for himself, I am glad to see that you didn't.
"It's not science if it's not reproducible, and it's not reproducible if it's not thoroughly documented and completely published."
The journals "Science" and "Nature" are by far the two most respect scientific journals on the planet and any scientist from any field would give thier left testicle to have just one publication in either. They are certainly not going to risk their reputation by publishing anything that cannot be peer-reviewed because of a lack of data or methodology. Again I point to the recent "hockey stick" paper by Mann et. al. in "Science", although I do agree it's a bummer these journals have a dollar cost associated with them.
Add in the subsequent violation of the refereeing rules in a journal actually named Climage Change in order to get supporting papers published, and the smell of a politically motivated con job becomes very strong.
It's worth noting that in Mann's CV he is listed as a reviewer for the journals Science, Nature and Climage Change (plus a fistfull of other respected journals). The reason for this impressive list is simple; Mann is recognised the world over as being at the top of his field.
Now please don't take this to mean that I am using a logical fallacy (ie: arguing from a position of authority) because Mann's work has been independently confirmed many times over. What I am saying is that the politics is such that someone at the top of this particular field might as well have a large bull's eye painted on his forehead when it comes to attacks from political hacks (such as the "based on two trees thing").
"I am an engineer reasonably capable of reading words of more than two syllables. But I don't even have to be capable of understanding any of the science to be suspicious of Mann."
My own father is also a (retired) mechanical engineer who was for many years the Chief Engineer of a large company that made and modified assembly line machines for auto-companies. We had many debates over climate change, his misunderstandings were mainly due to the fact that engineering does not involve a lot in the way of statistical analysis. If it was difficult to convince my own father then I don't really expect my posts to change anyone's mind here on slashdot.
Coincidently RC has a recent article by a guest writer from the American Institute of Physics on this theme.
By all means be suspisiuos, after all that is what a skeptic does. What a skeptic doesn't do however is dismiss scientific arguments on the basis of political conspiracy theories. I put it to you again that your are (unwittingly) letting someone else's politics intefere with your science and that much of what is said on McIntyre's behalf in the blogosphere is not supported by McIntyre himself (ditto with Mann).
Yes it's an abbreviation, therefore it should also be followed by a period. /grammar nazi
If you want to be treated as a genuine skeptic I strongly suggest you drop the ad-homs and test your own assertions.
I put it to you that you are the one who is misguided simply because you have never bothered to read the IPCC reports. Once you have read (or at least skimmed) the IPCC reports themselves (as pointed out in my OP) then perhaps we could have an interesting conversation on the science.
I don't suggest that realclimate are totally free of political bias (nobody is) but in reference to your climate audit link, practice the scientific definition of skepticisim and go and search for arguments against McIntyre on realclimate. I also had a look at the blog you linked to, it's worth noting that Mann's hockey stick has been strengthed by a recent paper in the journal "Science", perhaps that explains the recent uptick in the blogoshere's political hit-pieces on the hockey stick.
Disclaimer: I have a major in statistical analysis and have been interested in climate research for well over 20yrs. Statistically speaking, all politicians are hypocrites.
Keep up the good work, an ounce of prevention is far less scary than a pound of cure!
"You'd better fix the coder's habits by giving them a workstation without a compiler.."
:)
A certain large blue company tried to use their existing mainframe procedures on workstations in the 80's. It went something like this....
Programmer: Code, code, code...give file to programmer's assistant ( those were the days
Assistant: Give file to compiler operator.
Compiler operator: Compile, compile...give error file back to assistant.
Assistant: Give error file (and cup of tea) back to programmer.
Programmer: Change colon to semi-colon...give file to programmer's assistant.
Rinse and repeat until code compiles.
"It'll make them less productive in the short run..."
It did, but some programmer's suruptitiously installed compilers onto their machines. Those who did obtained the holy grail of zero compile errors first time, every time. They were worshiped as super-productive by their superiors!
For an example of a chaotic system who's behaviour can be predicted with great accuracy see the Three Body Problem and investigate how it was used to shoot the Cassini probe through the gaps in Saturn's rings, twice!
PS: I agree the obvious course of action is to reduce CO2 emissions.
"Germans are telling us GW is taking a hiatus, which means most all of our previous models are wrong"
The German paper used the same models but with slightly different assumptions and they arrived at similar conclusions about the long term trend (post - 2015). It's an interseting paper but the Germans themselves would agree it's complete nonsense to say it "means most all of our previous models are wrong".
"I would love it if someone has a link to an article about an accurate computer model of the weather system, but I've never found one."
There is no single accurate model and there never will be. Accuracy is a function of mankinds future actions, the precision of observations and the resolution of the numerical analysis amoung other things. The models themselves are basically Finite Element Analysis models, thus the need for very powerfull number crunchers. They account for forcings and some of the major feedbacks but cannot account for feedbacks we know very little about ( thus the hand-wringing about "tipping points"). It's generally agreed that at best they can only predict large scale climate changes (ie: continental proportions).
The MET office in the UK is a good source of info on models and even has a computer program you can tinker with yourself (I will let you find that yourself). Thier list of climate center sites is also very useful.
The IPCC site has become close to useless since it's last redesign and it is difficult to find stuff on it. However the MET office provides an accesible way to read the reports. The IPCC does not conduct science, it reviews it. The RANGE of conclusions in the report are derived from thousands of simulations from various models and are distilled down to worst, best and most likely senarios.
Yes I know the MET is a single source, it just happens to be a good one and will point you in the right direction. If you are looking for a good climate mythbusting site then you might want to try realclimate.
"[TFA] makes me cringe."
Ditto!
"You have a lot to learn about people."
I learnt a long time ago that your opinions match your username, good day to you.
That's a very good argument about the other choices he could have taken. I hadn't looked at it that way but now that I do choosing Palin seems an even more cynical choice than I had suspecetd.
"All Palin will do in the end is energize Democrats and level headed independents."
That's what I meant by shooting himself in the foot. I also suspect a fair proportion of level headed republicans will have a hard time voting for anyone on polling day and simply stay at home.
"Ahem...that would be Google Ninjas(TM)....but they're still in beta"
Ahem...that would be Google Grasshoppers(TM).
"Not in this context..."
The "context" was the suggestion of encryption in the post he was replying to. Encryption is mildly offtopic but his post was certainly not out of context.
"I live in the Seattle, WA area. "Hippies that try to boss me around" describes something like 85% of the population here."
Sorry, I didn't realise that I was talking to someone who thinks Atilla the Hun was a hippie.
"She's very much her own person
As an Aussie watching the circus from a far, I agree. I belive she was picked because she is pro-life, pro-creationist, and anti-gay. She will draw the vote from a certain demographic that votes for the person their church tells them to. The demographic is not huge but they are an important minority because they will enthusiasticly jump on the church bus at polling time.
In other words McCain is throwing a bone to the far-right religious crowd, he doesn't share their values but he has given them a voice that makes it possible for them to vote for him in good faith (pardon the pun).
IMHO he has shot himself in the foot with a bazzoka.
BTW: I found the answer to my original question (no thanks to you), the misinformation seems to have originated from Asher's blog on DailyTech. If you buy into his opinions then I have a very nice bridge you might be interested in.
"Why does a dog always have to be kicked? Why can't it be a cat or a rabbit?"
Everyone knows you swing a cat to measure the dimentions of a room and kick a dog to vent frustration. However never mess with rabbits unless you are one of the Goodies.
Either you are trolling me or you don't understand basic statistics.
The EU book is a collection of half-truths that makes non-sensical claims such as "impact craters are caused by bolts of electricity". If there is ever another book burning fad it should be used to light the bonfire.
You are living in a fantasy land if you think we don't need the pollution controls we already have. If the last 50yrs has taught me anything it's that a high proportion of people will shit on their grandmother's dinner plate if there is enough money to be had. Comparing the dumping of toxic waste to video ratings is so childishly naive and irrelevant that I simply don't know where to start.
"If the environmental movement was focused on encouraging VOLUNTARY action from people, I'd be perfectly fine with it."
Then you are either "perfectly fine with it" or simply ignorant.
BTW: Most of the hippies here in Australia live so deep in the bush that they are commonly refered to as "bush bunnies", but maybe it's different where you live. How many hippies have you actually met and what proportion of them tried to "boss you around"?
"Correct the BBC article" - What the fuck are you are taking about? - The graph in your link shows the same curves for 2007 & 2008 as the graph in the BBC article, not surprising since the BBC's source (NSIDC) and your IJIS source share the same raw data provided by NASA (AMSR-E).
Yes you can be a pedant and say that there is slightly more ice than the same time last year, but that was NOT my point. My point is how on earth does your cherry-picked factoid lead you to claim that "the build up of ice is likely going to continue"? There is no "build up of ice", this years data point is pushing the trend even further into the negative and if you have even a basic grasp of statistics you can use your linked graph to confirm that.
Inthhenthhive clod!
"Come on, TapeCutter, I've seen your posts, you can do better than that."
Thanks, and point taken. But still I think that the "UN conspiracy" played a part in shaping his post even if it wasn't a consious effort since the quote in your post is the main strawman for that particular conspiracy theory. JordanL is obviously both intelligent and ignorant (on the subject of climate).
"Can you give some examples from the last 100 years?
:)
I have one for ya.
The idea that humans could alter the climate via CO2 emmissions was first proposed by Svante Arrhenius in his 1907 book "Das Werden der Welten". It was a follow up from his 1896 work on the greenhouse effect and it's relationship to ice ages. The greenhouse effect itself was first discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824.
There are still plenty of examples on slashdot of people who dismiss the idea of AGW as a crackpot theory, although the number of scientists who still do so has dropped to nearly zero over the last decade or so.
"it doesn't qualify as a strawman, but a pre-emptive answer to an anticipated objection...[snip]...It might also be more accurately labelled science ignorant rather than anti-science"
Pre-emptive yes, ignorant maybe, but it's still a strawman. A quick look at some definitions reveals...
"A discussion technique used to refute an opposing view by misrepresenting it."
"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position."
By accusing climate scientists of pre-determining their results he IS misrepresenting them, he then expands on that misrepresentation as if it were a fact. His slur on the integrity of a large and diverse population of scientists completely ignores both the data and the method, it is therfore anti-science in my view.
"Can anyone clarify to me the conspiracy theory the OP is propagating in that post?"
I completely agree with your point, he doesn't actually spell out a conspiracy but I think you are missing the bigger picture and that is why I replied to your post. I believe the conspiracy theory that he is blowing the dog whistle for is the one where the UN supposedly set up the IPCC to push a political agenda, often refered to as "socialist world domination" (random example: here). I can't tell from the post if he is doing it deliberately or from ignorance, either way the post is an excellent example of pursuasive propoganda and very well written.