by Judith Curry
The aim of education is to make people think, not spare them from discomfort. – Robert Zimmer
Campus craziness
In case you haven’t been following this issue, there have been some disturbing events and trends in the ivory tower. For an overview, see:
- In College and hiding from scary ideas
- Campuses are breaking apart into safe spaces
- Safe spaces on college campuses are creating intolerant students
- Campus free speech crisis deepens
- Campus chaos: Daily shout-downs for a week
Two particular articles motivated this post:
Class struggle: how identity politics divided a campus. At Reed College, a freshman named Hunter Dillman who had been branded a racist after asking the organiser of a Latina student group an innocent question. He was ultimately hounded off campus.
Take Back the Ivory Tower. Alice Dreger, author of Galileo’s Middle Finger, describes her travails as a researcher and public speaker with a non-‘politically correct’ perspective on intersex and transgendered persons. She resigned her faculty position at Northwestern University over censorship issues. Unfortunately the article is behind paywall, you can read the intro here.
My concern is that without viewpoint diversity where everyone is heard, research and scholarship suffers. Further, students cocooning in safe spaces will be ill-prepared for dealing with the moral and political controversies and ambiguities that they will face throughout their lives.
Views from University administrators
A summary is provided by an Inside Higher Ed article: Presidents and Provosts Gather to Consider Free Speech Issues. Some perspectives on these issues from individual University administrators:
Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro stresses the importance of safe spaces [link], which he defined as places on campus where students can find friends and build the confidence to have difficult conversations.
10 miles across town at the University of Chicago, President Robert Zimmer stated [link] “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.” “Concerns about civility and mutual respect,” the committee wrote, “can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.”
If you can’t speak freely, you’ll quickly lose the ability to think clearly. Your ideas will be built on a pile of assumptions you’ve never examined for yourself and may thus be unable to defend from radical challenges. You will be unable to test an original thought for fear that it might be labeled an offensive one. You will succumb to a form of Orwellian double-think without even having the excuse of living in physical terror of doing otherwise.
That is the real crux of Zimmer’s case for free speech: Not that it’s necessary for democracy (strictly speaking, it isn’t), but because it’s our salvation from intellectual mediocrity and social ossification. In a speech in July, he addressed the notion that unfettered free speech could set back the cause of “inclusion” because it risked upsetting members of a community.
“Inclusion into what?” Zimmer wondered. “An inferior and less challenging education? One that fails to prepare students for the challenge of different ideas and the evaluation of their own assumptions? A world in which their feelings take precedence over other matters that need to be confronted?”
Princeton University‘s President on pluralism and the art of disagreement:
This University, like any great university, encourages, and indeed demands, independence of mind. We expect you to develop the ability to articulate your views clearly and cogently, to contend with and learn from competing viewpoints, and to modify your opinions in light of new knowledge and understanding.
This emphasis on independent thinking is at the heart of liberal arts education. It is a profoundly valuable form of education, and it can be exhilarating. It can also at times be uncomfortable or upsetting because it requires careful and respectful engagement with views very different from your own. I have already emphasized that we value pluralism at Princeton; we value it partly because of the vigorous disagreements that it generates. You will meet people here who think differently than you do about politics, history, justice, race, religion, and a host of other sensitive topics. To take full advantage of a Princeton education, you must learn and benefit from these disagreements, and to do that you must cultivate and practice the art of constructive disagreement.
Speaking up is not always easy. As a student on this campus and, indeed, throughout your life—at work, in social settings, and in civic organizations—you will encounter moments when saying what you believe requires you to say something uncomfortable or unpopular. Learning the art of disagreement can help you to choose the moments when it makes sense to speak, and to do so in ways that are effective, constructive, and respectful of the other voices around you. But no matter how good you become at the art of disagreement, you will also need the personal courage to say what you believe—even if it is unpopular.
The UK is tackling this issue also [link].
It will not surprise you to hear that I am staunchly in Robert Zimmer’s corner on this.
Identity politics and the culture of victimhood
At the heart of this debate is identity politics and the culture of victimhood. From an article in Spiked: Fear, Loathing and Victimhood. Excerpts:
Some not limited by circumstance sometimes choose victimhood, adopting fashionable assumptions about their fragility and subordinate status.
There are, after all, substantial advantages to declaring yourself disadvantaged. Victims never have to say they’re sorry. Apologies – and accountability – are for victimisers. Victims are creditors, owed not just compassion but practical relief, like the power to censor whatever they consider offensive speech. The expression of unwelcome images or ideas in the presence of self-identified victims is labelled another form of victimisation, as student demands for trigger warnings and ‘safe spaces’ suggest.
Free inquiry is unnecessary to people convinced they have absolute truth on their side. It’s considered unfair or abusive to people presumed to require the suppression of contrary ideas in order to be ‘free’ to express their own. In this perverse and nonsensical view, freedom lies not in de-regulating speech but in re-regulating it, to protect a growing list of victim groups.
By now, successive generations of students have been taught to regard free speech as the enemy of equality and simple human decency.
Who may qualify as a victim – subordinate or even oppressed and, therefore, entitled to restrict other people’s liberties? On many campuses virtually anyone except a narrow category of white, heterosexual (or cisgender) Christian or Jewish men who aren’t obese, physically or mentally disabled and haven’t been sexually abused can claim membership in a disadvantaged group. In some circles, off campus, the opposite is true: virtually no one except white heterosexual Christians can lay claim to being victimised – by a ‘war’ on Christmas, secularism, gay marriage and the ‘homosexual agenda’, affirmative action’s ‘reverse discrimination’, and immigration, whether involving Mexicans, Muslims or others from whom members of a dwindling white majority aim to ‘take our country back’. Visit a progressive campus immediately before attending a Donald Trump rally or browse a right-wing Christian website and your head will be spun by polarised versions of reality and victimisation.
Identity politics and the victimism it fuels are non-partisan, inter-generational phenomena.
Who’s doing what to whom? That is the question posed by identity politics and our debased legal and political discourse. Framing ideological opponents as either victims or oppressors exacerbates the rigidity of identity groups and invites authoritarianism, right and left. By reflexively declaring yourself a victim, you doubt or diminish your own agency and encourage appeals by demagogues who confirm your angry sense of impotence and promise to take charge – to be strong where you are weak. That is one ominous lesson of the Trump campaign, an exemplary and often overlooked exercise in victimism and identity politics.
Some articles on the ‘oppressors’ as ‘victims’:
- In the safe spaces on campus: no Jews allowed
- Silencing religious students on campus
- Angry white men as victims
And what about ‘climate deniers’ who are ‘victims’ of, among other things, lawsuits by Michael Mann (who feels ‘victimized’ by climate deniers). Ha ha. It never ends. Mann’s recent lecture on academic freedom is not to be missed, it made my irony meter explode.
The pernicious aspects of victimization are many, but of relevance here is that it is stifling freedom of speech and university scholarship. Further, victimization sanctions teach students that an easy way to gain political power is through identification with victimized groups and shouting down your opponents, rather than through accomplishments and arguments.
Freedom of speech
Which leads us to some fundamental reflections on freedom of speech, in context of universities and scholarship.
The Brookings Institution has published results from a survey of college students regarding freedom of speech. Excerpts:
Does the First Amendment protect “hate speech”? 39% Yes, 44% No, 16% Don’t Know.
Do you agree with those shouting down speaker who “is known for making offensive and hurtful statements”? 51% Yes, 49% No.
Do you agree with those who use violence to prevent speech by someone who ”is known for making offensive and hurtful statements”? 19% Yes, 81% No.
An article from Forbes: Students aren’t the only ones who don’t understand free speech. Excerpts:
The author of the Brooking’s study, John Villasenor, speculates that “if college faculty and administrators were asked the questions in this survey, the results would, at least in broad terms, be similar to the student results.”
Sadly, even though we don’t have polling of university faculty on the question, observance of everyday practice would seem to support Villasenor’s speculation. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 33.9% of public universities have policies that severely restrict freedom of speech. Another 52.8% have policies that narrowly restrict speech or policies that could be applied in an unconstitutional way. Only 6% of universities do not seriously threaten free speech.
This implicates another finding of the Brookings study that showed 53% of college students believe that the universities mission is to “create a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech or expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people” rather than expose students to different viewpoints.
This last finding perhaps gets at the root of the problem. Yes, it’s true students don’t understand free speech. But perhaps that is because no one is teaching them.
From: Does Disruption Violate Free Speech?
Contrary to the view of these protesters, individuals do not have a right to prevent others from speaking. It has long been recognized in constitutional law that the “heckler’s veto” — defined as the suppression of speech in order to appease disruptive, hostile, or threatening members of the audience — can be as much a threat to rights of free expression as government censorship.
The idea that private individuals cannot censor what the government is required to protect played a vitally important role during the civil-rights movement, when courts prevented officials in the South from stopping speeches and marches based on the threat of hostile audiences.
A thoughtful scholarly analysis of the free speech issue: The US safe space campus controversy and the paradox of freedom of speech. The paper discusses the moral foundations of freedom of expression.
And finally, an excellent article from the New York Times on how to respond to situations such as white nationalist Richard Spencer who gave a talk at University of Florida.
JC reflections
Universities play a hugely important role in scientific and public debate; this is where ideas are tested and scrutinized. Students learn to make effective arguments, and learn from considering the arguments of those that disagree with them. Its a place where students grow into critically thinking, rational adults, ready to grapple with the moral and political issues they will encounter in adult life.
Well that’s the way it is supposed to work. For the past decade, universities have become increasingly dysfunctional with political correctness and identity politics, to the exclusion of alternative perspectives. In my essay JC in transition, I didn’t see any hope for personally effecting any change, so I resigned my faculty position and went on to other things.
While a faculty member and Department Chair, I went out of my way to interact and support individual students that needed help, were conflicted, etc. Often this related financial issues, family issues, health issues, conflicts with other students or staff members, harassment, concerns about grades and career prospects, death of a faculty member. I also instituted a series of informal panel discussion on topic related to a broad range of student concerns. Universities should have a good support system in place to help individual students that need it.
With regards to any feelings of group victimization, I have to say I have never had time for this. Students will seek out other students who share common interests and concerns, and develop informal support groups. Wasting their energy on group identity issues, in the absence of specific, concrete concerns of their own, is a distraction from dealing with a student’s own challenges and overcoming their own obstacles. It teaches them some really bad habits for dealing with the challenges in adult life..
There is a more pernicious aspect to all this — students (and activist faculty members) are using group victimization as a method to gain political power and to ostracize people with different perspectives.
There are inevitably injustices in any organization; the challenge is to identify them and work together to formulate constructive and equitable solutions. It is not a solution to institutionalize marginalization of anyone with a different perspective. This sends the whole system down a slippery slope of political polarization, demagoguery and intellectual mediocrity.
I applaud the work of heterodoxacademy.org to educate and and work to implement changes at universities to support viewpoint diversity.
In closing, a recent statement by former Vice President Joe Biden:
I taught constitutional law at Widener law school for 22 years. The First Amendment is one of the defining features of who we are in the Bill of Rights. And to shut it down in the name of what is appropriate is simply wrong. It’s wrong.
Australian Academics ganged up to prevent Bjorn Lomborg setting up a branch of Consensus Centre in Australian universities (several attempts, all blocked.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-08/bjorn-lomborg-uwa-consensus-centre-contract-cancelled/6456708
This was indeed an issue of academic freedom. It was a protest at the Federal Government giving money to a University, with a requirement that it put their favored propagandist in charge. There wouldn’t be much academic freedom if politicians could restrict funding like that.
Oh the irony. The Freudian Slip. Bjorn Lomborg, a staunch proponent of CAGW, described by one of his allies as a propagandist.
“If we spend Australia’s $5 billion aid budget just a little better, it would be like spending another $1 billion or possibly $10 billion. But the trick is to see Australia’s $5 billion as a part of the world’s $140 billion in development aid. If we can get that total spent more efficiently, we might have the effect of a 10-fold increase in international development aid. Then we get developing countries to spend their own money in the same more-efficient way, and the total return would be even greater.
“Potentially, we have an incredible way to gain more welfare for the world.”
Bang for the aid buck takes a back seat to virtue signalling on climate change.
“The Freudian Slip.”
The Abbot government did not specify that they put Lomborg in charge because they thought he would be an effective proponent of AGW. His scientific contributions are sparse; he is best known for his book “The Sceptical Environmentalist” and his film “Cool it”.
Lomberg should be best known for the Post 2015 Copenhagen Consensus.
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus
The idea for the center for advanced analysis of development goals was arrived at between the university – who were to stump up their own funds – and Lomberg. The funding was to be topped up by the federal government. The central question would seem rationally to be how to multiply the effectiveness of overseas aid. In this context $4M is a drop in the bucket and would have been money well spent.
The fly in the ointment is that wind and solar don’t get a look in. In the interim – the developing world is much better served with HELE coal and gas generation.
“A recent analysis from the Center for Global Development, for instance, estimates that if $10 billion were invested in renewable energy technology in sub-Saharan Africa, then 30 million would gain access to electricity. If the same amount of money was given to gas-fired generation, it would supply around 90 million – or three times as many people.” https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/our-high-energy-planet
The irony is that both energy innovation and strategies that have the most effective mitigation potential are met with a hidebound and supremely uninformed ideology. The urban doofus hipster vision involves narratives of moribund western economies governed by corrupt corporations collapsing under the weight of internal contradictions – leading to less growth, less material consumption, less CO2 emissions, less habitat destruction and a last late chance to stay within the safe limits of global ecosystems. And this is just in the ‘scholarly’ journals.
It is all such utter nonsense from fringe radicals. Not to be taken as a serious threat to capitalism and democracy. But for God’s sake – arrest or expel them for rioting, trespass, property damage and whatever else is required to extract a cost for their intransigence. They are not children – they are adults and it is more than time that they behaved like adults.
Quote: This was indeed an issue of academic freedom.
Do go on Nick. Tell us how banning Lomborg supported academic freedom. Or maybe explain how banning him was an act of academic freedom.
And to describe somebody else as a propagandist suggests there is a severe shortage of mirrors where you live!
Nick, tell us how banning Lomborg was an act of academic freedom. Alternatively tell us how banning Lomborg supports academic freedom.
Or maybe just find a mirror.
Chill, Nick, the doyen of climate propagandists, CFACT’s Mark Morano has just injected some new blood into the debate by interviewing a philospher of science who died in 1994
We stated, Judy. Thank you for writing. It needs to be said…over and over..and over and over.
Cambridge University issued trigger warnings on a class containing discussion on Shakespeare. Will we go paws up when invaded by aliens?
What a disheartening trend. Poor babies.
Cerescokid kid
I have thought for around 10 years that such bodies as IS-s really don’t need to fight us as the snowflake generation will either just give up at the first sign of trouble or agree sagely that the terrori-ts are entitled to their opinion and just let them in
Combine that with a 48 hour blackout on mobile phones and the snowflakes will have gone to pieces
Tonyb
There are still young men and women in my country and yours Tony who are not snowflakes and are willing to don the uniform and defend what they believe in. They may be a minority, but a powerful one.
Tim
I agree! but the problem is that wars are won as much in the hearts and minds of civilians as they are by the military.
If you can manage to scare or demoralise a significant proportion of the young civilians, cause their social networks to stop working and turn off the power, then I doubt that there is significant widespread will to resist
couple that with the belief that the enemy ‘do have a point’ in true
Politically correct fashion then I do wonder if the military are enough.
Tonyb
Those that don the uniform… are not in these colleges.
The tough guys have gone out and killed yet another straw man.
Years ago when we were interviewing graduate job applicants, it was evident that there was a wide gap between our ideas of value to society and academic ideas. Those applicants longest at Uni, typically with PhDs to show it, were commonly put lower in the queue because as a group, they lacked experience about interacting with others – part of the Ivory Tower concept. I hasten to say that we did employ some really good PhDs, after a filtering exercise.
In concept, the fundamental question then was: Is an extra 5 years or so at Uni a better investment than 5 years in the rough and tumble of the workforce? This was fine to debate with those affected, but times have changed since then. Now, a section of the people seems to expect that unless you have that extra investment in academic time, you should not presume to speak for society. As graduates spend increasingly more years at University, they feel they are owed a living and need not participate in the dirty industrial business of adding new wealth creation to the nation. They seem to feel that staying in government-sponsored work is creating new wealth, be it intellectual or opposition to free enterprise and democracy.
It is sad that academia is moving from a place to learn to a place from which to shout. There is a little of this in the comment here by Nick Stokes. He must know that it was Lomborg who was the observed centre of protest, not the funding issue. There were many academics shouting hate for Lomberg. Geoff.
Protect ALL speech because OTHERs hate it.
The First Amendment particularly preserves unalienable right to free speech for ALL, especially to protect speech against others hate what is said and trying to shut it down.
Uphold free speech for Science
Noble Laureate Richard Feynman set the very high standard for scientific integrity that demands challenging climate models with ALL the data, AND ALL alternative models. See Cargo Cult Science http://bit.ly/2yF4ogz
Today’s effort to impose a climate “consensus” is directly anti science. It imposes Lysenkoism with very destructive and deadly consequences.
This “consensus” censorship repeats the secret “Pigeon League” of academicians seeking to destroy Galileo to save their jobs and reputations despite being wrong on the science versus Galileo.
I have not read the post to the fullest. My apologies Ms Curry. The climate change furore, farrago or what one may call it today, reminds me so much of the ‘ban the bomb’ movement of the late 1950s onwards (yes, I am that ‘old’) and how in the midst of the Cold War there was a major push in Europe to ban the construction of nuclear power stations. I will not go into that. However, where was the base of organising these protests? Universities, where else. I got sucked into it, but quickly grew up. Climate change is following the same old brainwashing process. It is political and money is involved, which means common sense flies out the window.
Education and knowledge are great for your CV, but if you haven’t learned anything, what good is it?
Reblogged this on HiFast News Feed.
Free speech is fine if rational, but if someone wants to come to your campus and talk to your students about delusions they have, that is another issue, and you have to draw a line on the right side of crazy. You don’t just let any maniac come and give a speech.
delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.
Jim D Who gave you the power or right to shut down speech you object to that I want to listen to?
What if “delusions” to you is the sane rational argument to me?
The most popular book in English literature, Pilgrims Progress, was written by John Bunyan when in prison for preaching without a license. It was vital to the Founders of the United States of America to preserve our unalienable right to free speech for ALL.
See Crimnologist Mike Adams
Mike Adams discusses campus free-speech issues in Martin Center speech
“ The Idiots Guide to Censorship
Jim D is fully capable of distinguishing a rational speech from an irrational one, and banning the latter. He would be a good dictator.
If a Rational argument can be made, it is by definition not delusional. Delusion comes in when objective facts are ignored or denied. Moon landing, birth certificate, non-flat earth, etc. You have to draw a line at those types of speech, but they can be entertaining or funny, so there may be exceptions.
Jim – why are you switching to a delusional? But I’ll take the bait. Please remind me what constitutional authority ever saw Mr. Obama’s certificate of birth. The original; courts don’t accept copies.
CG, maybe you can explain the conspiracy theory whereby an American women comfortably living in advanced Hawaii goes to primitive Kenya in the early 60’s just to give birth? Why did she do that according to the theory? I have not heard this part explained and maybe you are more in the know.
You seem have a difficulty with a reading comprehension, bordering on delusional. I’ll try again: Please remind me what constitutional authority ever saw Mr. Obama’s certificate of birth. The original; courts don’t accept copies.
Sigh.
http://my.democrats.org/page/content/president-obama-birth-certificate
Nothing new there. The State of Hawaii released the long-form version of Obama’s birth certificate. An original, a copy, a scan? I am not a lawyer; does that release constitute the State of Hawaii’s official confirmation that Obama was born there? I would accept that. Earlier, I accepted Obama’s statement (in his book) that he was born in Kenya.
George, i was born in honolulu and mailed away for a copy of my birth certificate back in ’94. This was back when they would actually send you the “long form”. (the changeover to the “short form” coming around the year 2000) It was a copy of the original. When obama’s came out in response to trump, it looked just like mine even with the same greenish paper. They imprint (imbed) an official stamp on the back. i think the controversy erupted when they would only give him the short form which he requested in ’07 for the race. The short form is not a copy of the original, but just some info and then the stamp. Whether or not he actually was born in hawaii, all he needed to enter the race was his birth certificate, short or long. Probably the best indicator besides the certificate that he was born in the u.s. is the notice given in the newspaper after he was born naming mother, father and the hospital that he was born in…
Thank you for an informative contribution. Here we see what perpetuates the “birthing nonsense”: On one side we have a categorical statement by Barack Hussein Obama himself “I was born in Kenya”, published in his book, later retracted. We do not have a categorical statement by Hawaiian authorities “Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii”; they tell us only “We have released a long form of a birth certificate”. That is not the same thing. No one knows what happened to that birth certificate over years. What is missing is a categorical statement by a court “We have examined the original birth certificate and found it to be genuine”.
Please understand that I don’t have an opinion about the birth. I have a strong opinion that the matter has been handled with an utmost ineptitude.
I am with little yimmy on this one. Some people belong in insane asylums, not on college campuses. And I bet we could trust little yimmy to properly sort them out for us.
Examples would be fake-moon-landing conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers, and birthers. These people are clearly sick in the mind or just dumb bozos who believe anything. They should not be allowed anywhere near a campus. There’s radio shows that would be happy to have them.
Yes yimster, there have been many balmy fake moon landing speakers, who have tried to peddle their lunacy on college campuses, and the left loon antifa thugs have been compelled to stop them. Somebody has to protect the students from the wrong stuff. Right, yimmy?
You have revealed your core this time, yimmy. Bared your soul, screwed the pooch, monkey climb too high show him tail. Of course, we knew where you were coming from a long time ago.
Universities have a right to determine who is loony and who is not. That’s all I am saying. I gave some examples. The President, Alex Jones, and Monckton have some doozies of conspiracy theories that don’t belong on a campus because they amount to disinformation or misinformation, and often in a harmful way.
Jim, Alex Jones speaking at a University would be a big deal. He’s a political agitator with a huge following and he a pitbull Libertarian. It would be interesting for anybody who wanted to test his/her ideological points of view with a speaker like AJ. Give me AJ, give me stevia in my coffee, let me taste Scottish food and let’s see how much I can deadlift and what movies make me uncomfortably misty. Rachel Maddow is a bit loopy, in my books, but I still crave her voice when the night is too quiet. Ideas need to sometimes be disquieting and visceral, debate wants to be courageous. Let your banner fly Jim. If the vipers on this site are as viperous as you are then so be it. You’re clearly a partisan actor and you are welcome to test your ideas even if some respondents consider you dilusional. And deep down you know you enjoy debate because you find it most delicious.
I think the law says the students can decide and they can also protest. I think universities should have some say because they have to deal with the protests somehow. Some don’t invite controversial people just to keep the peace, and I wouldn’t blame them for that. If those are invited, they should be prepared for an open event that will also include people of opposing opinions in the audience. Free speech works both ways. Don’t be a snowflake and complain if the majority your audience doesn’t like you. So, yes, Alex Jones can go if he wants to face the music. This is probably why he doesn’t, and anyone with good sense would not go to a campus that has a majority against them.
Jim, Alex Jones looooves the music. Loves it. Play music and he’s there.
I have not seen him attempt to talk to campuses. He has all the audience he needs in the protection of his studio.
Jim, are you up to date then on all of AJ’s speaking events? You don’t seem to know your subject very well. Is it your practice to comment on subjects your not well versed in?
Campuses? Really? Where? If he has, doesn’t that defeat your free speech point.
You keep digging, yimmy. Now you have switched from fake moon landings to alleged conspiracy theories . What you are really talking about is stopping folks from saying things you don’t like, such as advocating enforcing our existing immigration laws, and market oriented health care policy, and non-socialist budget and tax policy. Nobody cares about fake moon landing talk, and you know it. You are faking. Very transparent. And pathetic.
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
H. L. Mencken
Jimd
So you would ban your democratically elected president from speaking on campus?
Tonyb
“Universities have a right to determine who is loony and who is not. That’s all I am saying.” And you are wrong. I agree with you that it is inconvenient to have flat-earthers spread their nonsense, but it is only one of many disadvantages of democracy. I am afraid that democracy is a package deal.
Oh oh, Jim showed his real colors – by accident- and quickly tried to put the wool over our eyes and when that did not work he quickly went away.
Very telling, Jim.
“Universities have a right to determine who is loony”?
Wow.
Reflect dude. Reflect.
News flash Jim D.
Most people are capable of distinguishing fake from real. Now college students might be among the few who can’t. I don’t know. I’d give most of them the benefit of doubt.
You would fit in perfectly with the idiots on campus. They want to fight fascism with fascist tactics. Anyone with values different than theirs are routinely shut down, just like a far away time. Next is burning books that we find objectionable. Being an adult means giving as wide a berth as possible for free speech. We should bend over backwards to allow views to be expressed , as repugnant as they may be. Did the Constitution put a test of rationality for speech and ideas? I hope someday there will be case studies about the correlation between the degree of belief in AGW and the willingness to shut down free speech. Based on everything thing I’ve seen it has to be extremely high.
They already are fighting perceived fascism with real fascist tactics
Is fascism objectively delusional? Discuss. How about socialism? Politics isn’t delusional unless it gets objective facts wrong. Too messy to deal with. When it starts to get into bigotry painting whole classes with one brush to define them as inferior or to be hated or feared, that’s where the delusions enter.
Is supporting the enforcement of our current immigration laws delusional, yimmy? People like that are called white supremacists, fascists and worse and they are most unwelcome on most university campuses. Your value here is that you often give us an unguarded peek into the mind of a typical well- trained dogmatic huffpo lefty. Don’t be shy.
Don, I can answer your question honestly. The US has the softest and snuggliests immigration laws on earth. The Us accepts more legals than the next several countries combined. Enforcing the law is not in the least cruel, unless a person perceived law enforcement in general as cruelty…
No, that is not delusional. Cruel, but not delusional.
Fascism is extremely rational. Very wrong for reasons that socialism is wrong, but quite rational. That’s why so many Italians supported it for twenty years and why it was highly popular with the left until Mussolini allied himself with Hitler, who was also popular with the far left.
If its agreed that Universities can ban the delusional will they begin assigning delusional.
“Free speech is fine if rational, but if someone wants to come to your campus and talk to your students about delusions they have, that is another issue, and you have to draw a line on the right side of crazy. You don’t just let any maniac come and give a speech.
delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.”
That’s just crazy Jim D.
“delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.”
I most definately want the idiosyncratic speaking on campuses.
hell, we had a whole department dedicated to delusional thinking.
We called it philosophy. It was funny, being exposed day in and day out to idiosyncratic forms of thinking, both eastern and western, was really great preparation for being able to walk into any industry and see what key thoughts made that “machine” work.
Even in industry we wanted the delusional thinkers. In advanced design the guys who thought differenly than everyone else. Those nuts who thought we could take pilots out of airplanes for example.
In silicon valley the nuts who thought we would all watch video on phones someday.
At the bottom there is no STRUCTURAL difference between a delusion and an innovation.
I don’t want someone else deciding for me what is a delusion and what is an innovation. If there WERE a simple rule for deciding this, you could of course make millions. But there isn’t.
+10
Delusions mostly consist of conspiracy theories and denial of objective facts. Engineers aren’t usually delusional unless they suspend the laws of physics for their ideas. Some scientists are wacky too, and may be booked for entertainment value or performance art.
Jim, “conspiracy theory” is a label. And sometimes these things are mislabeled
It’s a mindset.
Jim tell me; exactly how many theories has Alex Jones proposed, and how many of these “conspiracy theories” were later regarded as fact? Numbers please. Since you are busy labelling. I’m assuming you’ve done your research
He is a typical tinfoil hat type. There is a type of person for whom almost everything is a conspiracy, big government, bugging, collusions. Alex Jones is that type of person. He claims that is just his radio personality speaking, but he speaks to like minds.
So you have nothing. I thought as much
These conspiracy theorists are the delusional types I started with. Full circle.
Jim, you’re talking out of your hind end. You’re speculating. And you’re sticking to it. Psst
I see that people disagree and do want these crazies talking on campuses. We can disagree on that point. That’s my opinion, like it or not.
I don’t like opinions that are hand me downs from MSNBC or CNN or insert partisan media outlet. So no, I don’t like it.
Why do you not think it is my own opinion? Have you never talked to a real life person of more leftward political views than your own? The right are more inclined towards talking points in my opinion. They have almost no diversity of view, nor do they tolerate it.
Jim, it’s obvious you don’t know your subjects. I do know one of them and so I can spot your programing. Both right and left attempt at all times to control the conversation. At all times. Both are constantly selling and messaging. Pundits exist to create cults of personality, which means you have been led, I have been led. Knowing this is your ticket to independent thought. I’m not saying you don’t think independently, however in conversation we reveal our blind spots. And of course I talk to left leaning people every day. Almost everybody I know means left. And the majority make the mistakes you are making, so you’re in good comoany
I don’t know what pundits you assume I listen to, but you would be wrong, because I form my own opinions. Who on the left takes the place of your radio talk-show hosts, Fox News hosts, or the President? There is no one that vocal that I know of. This is just projection because the right does have its pundits and they are well known and all sing from the same page on any subject. The left, not so much. Perhaps they need them for unity, but there is no monolithic view on the left. The left have factions that care about certain issues and not about others.
Again. You need to do more listening and less assuming. Both right and left feature ideological diversity. Pundits all bend events to fit their narrative. Left and right.
You have decided you don’t believe any of the mainstream media, I am assuming, so therefore you have secluded yourself from reality.
Jim, your comments are a dodge. Every single comment a dodge. You began this thread by asserting Universities should exclude dilusional people from speaking. Since then you have concluded the AJ and others are “insane” and “crazy”. It’s been pointed out to you that you are basing your opinions on regurgitated spewings in the media. You defend your position. You don’t know what the hell you are talking about but you have a strong opinion and you are fully capable of making damning judgments. Got it. Is there anything else you want to add? I would love for you to have the last word.
You don’t think Alex Jones spews unfounded mad conspiracy theories? OK. I can’t help you. I’ve seen that stuff and I don’t need people to tell me what to think about him.
Yes Jim, Alex is guilty of spewing conspiracy theories. That was never in question. That’s his show. And?
And universities can decide if they want that “show” on their campuses or if it is inappropriate.
What I think is dilusional is forming an opinion from the stuff pundits say. It’s almost a textbook definition now that I think about it
Pundits like Alex Jones and Richard Spencer have said enough for me to form an opinion on. Maybe you are still dithering about whether they are decent people like the ones on the torch march.
Jim, you know the difference between you and I? I have the decency to actually get to know somebody before I form an opinion; and you are unapologetic in your ignorance.
You have (probably) seen examples of people that you have not physically met that you would not invite to associate with your friends, let alone talk to college students at a university, and you pretend not to have any such exemptions as far as I can tell. Now you have painted yourself into a corner where naming even one possible non-invitee defeats your whole argument.
Jim, maybe you’re right. Maybe I wouldn’t choose to invite Alex Jones for dinner? But I would expect to be taken seriously if I pretended to know something about the man. I would appear to offering a baseless opinion. Or worse, parroting someone else’s opinion. Either take the critique and salvage my opinion of you or not.
Some people have reputations that precede them. Richard Spencer has the Hail Trumo saluting stuff that now defines him whether he likes that or not. Others like Milo and Anne Coulter seem proud to be bigots, hence their issues with protesters even when they are invited somehow.
+1
now jim d you have changed your definition of delusional on us. you changed it from believing something “not generally accepted” to beleiving something objectively false. before we proceed can we at least get you to stop changing your definition. thats a trick tyrants use.
here is a hint. most of what you beleive is false.
jim
you said
‘Why do you not think it is my own opinion? Have you never talked to a real life person of more leftward political views than your own? The right are more inclined towards talking points in my opinion. They have almost no diversity of view, nor do they tolerate it.’
That is nonsense. There are great diversity of views on the left and the right. Your comment suggests you listen to very few people on the right if you believe there is no diversity in their viewpoint.
The trouble is that that sort of attitude is firmly ingrained amongst many of the young who go to University, consort with like minded people and increasingly live in social media bubbles inhabited by people with similar views and who have come to believe that their opinion is the only correct one.
Without having formed a broader concept of the world through interaction with people with differing views, they have come to believe that anyone who disagrees with their ‘correct’ view must be wrong and no doubt wicked, racist, bigoted and xenophobic into the bargain.
In the old days they would have been called narrow minded and University was supposed to broaden their views and expose them to new ideas. This would give them the intellectual capacity to debate and defeat views they disagreed with.
You don’t do that by shouting down speakers or refusing to let them speak in the first place. Germaine Greer, Peter Tatchell and Peter Oborne ‘no platformed’ for goodness sake?
tonyb
tonyb, there is a difference between new ideas and failed old ideas that include crazed conspiracies and bigotry. Why is there so much resistance among people on the right to what should be a reasonable value judgement for a university to make? They have to set standards, not only for their students but also for visitors. However, the law says the students can invite who they choose, but then the speakers are subject to an open audience and should not complain like snowflakes if people protest what they say in no uncertain terms.
jim
you have not replied to what I wrote.
firstly, this idea that the right covers people with the same viewpoint is nonsense. Secondly, the argument is surely about narrow mindedness which breeds intolerance?
We have a large group of people with little experience of the world who have decided they know everything and don’t need to hear other peoples viewpoints and refuse to listen or debate them. University should surely be a time of embracing a variety of ideas and being open minded.
Unfortunately we have reached the stage where some on the left appear to believe that anyone’s else’s point of view that is different to theirs is incorrect. Not only that, but anyone holding these views must be extreme, racist, wicked, deluded, stupid etc etc.
Do you really think such as Germaine Greer, Peter Tatchell, Peter Oborne etc should be no platformed?
Do you not worry that students will go to extreme measures in order to frustrate someone else’s legitimate and legal view point being expressed?
Do you not worry about the narrow mindedness that appears to be taking hold in universities?
tonyb
tonyb, you are thinking these people will not be invited by universities which is a wrong assumption. Not all universities will, but some will. That’s how invitations work. I respect their freedom to choose while you would force people, including the various despicable types, on them whether they like it or not. Does this apply to schools, towns and churches, too? Where do you stop with imposing people on them that they don’t want? Have you thought this through?
jim
‘That’s how invitations work. I respect their freedom to choose while you would force people, including the various despicable types, on them whether they like it or not. ‘
what a completely absurd things to say. I have said no such thing.
Those attending Universities should be eager to explore all legal viewpoints and all those sincerely expressed that might be unpalatable to them
No one should need to ‘force’ people on them. They should want to debate matters with people they disagree with. Young people at University with a very narrow range of life experiences should not be shutting their minds to other viewpoints and preventing others speaking because they disagree with them, or think they might disagree with them, as being narrow minded and intolerant of tolerance they probably have not even bothered to listen to other ideas.
tonyb
.
tonyb
I always look for and then enjoy your comments.
At the risk of provoking attacks from Jim D or Moshpit, my journey from strong support of the consensus in CAGW to climate agnosticism followed the 2007 noble prize to IPCC and various support institutions.
Being open to other viewpoints is key to convincing the public through voluntary discussions. Missing hot spot and then major adjustments to historical temperature measurements to result in a trend below the accuracy of the global measurement technologies impacted my views.
I still don’t like the adjustments although Zeke gave a illuminating discussion of the justifications. But manufacturing a trend through adjusting the observations just seems incorrect. No name calling but a feeling of the consensus being too certain to allow other viewpoints.
But I enjoy all your historical discussions and data.
regards, Scott
Scott
Thanks for that. Open mindedness is essential If you don’t cultivate it when young it will impact on society as debate is closed down on issues you may know nothing about but have a fervently held opinion on. Climate change is a good example..
I am getting all my research together for my ‘winds from the 14th Century article. On the surface they appear to be rather central to temperatures and it appears that whilst there may be ‘prevailing’ winds, there \are many extended periods when they don’t prevail and other weather/climates emerge. I suspect this happened in the LIA
This subject was something that Lamb was very interested in and the now retired Phil Jones has forwarded me a lot of useful information. The Met office however-although interested and helpful-do not keep records in the same format as Lamb so comparing like for like is difficult.
lets see what emerges. (and no, I haven’t forgotten my sea level series) :)
tonyb
tonyb, the scenario we are talking about is a small band of rather uninformed students, let’s call them Naz!s, inviting likeminded speakers to their campus and expecting the university to approve it. This would be forcing the universities to accept some rather unsavory types. A line has to be drawn.
Do Milo Y and Anne Coulter fit neatly into your neat little scenario, yimmy? You are about as bigoted as anyone I have ever run across. Very pathetic.
No surprise to anyone that they get protesters on campuses. What were they thinking?
What evidence are you going to present that Milo and Coulter are bigots, who should not be given the opportunity to speak on college campuses, little yimmy?
But they do get invited and their only complaint has been the protests or fear of protests.
Jim D: Free speech is fine if rational,
Free speech is better than a committee tasked to define who is rational.
Unless, of course, I am that committee. Then I get to prohibit you from addressing my college.
There is a line for delusional and usually it is very clear to figure out. You probably make that separation yourself among the various conspiracy theories you hear. It’s not difficult.
Jim D: You probably make that separation yourself among the various conspiracy theories you hear.
That is why I want to be the only member of the committee.
Jim D: There is a line for delusional and usually it is very clear to figure out.
That’s a very common delusion: most people often mistake different political opinions and different scientific evaluations as delusions. Consider the political alignment accompanying the beliefs about whether adherence to the Paris Accords will or won’t prevent dramatic global warming. Given the power, the progressives would shut down debate because they think that skepticism, unlike belief in the value of those accords, is delusional. So who decides who is delusional: those who think that the sea level may rise 2000 mm in the upcoming century, or those who think that the sea level rise will not exceed 600 mm? Does anybody really want, do you really want, either group given the political power to punish (arrest, imprison, etc) members of the other group?
I think scientific debates are fair to have. There is no sharp line there, just a majority and minority opinion. The minority people seem less certain of their view, and want to cast the whole thing as uncertain and that is a viewpoint they should be free to give.
Just think of all the conceptually delusional works of art, many masterpieces created over humanities recorded history, that would never exist under Jim D’s free speech rules that would govern against the delusional, or anything offensive by his definition.
We are talking about campuses here, not free speech in general, just to be clear. Does Richard Spencer need to make his speech at a campus? He has other options, preferably where he can vet his audience himself, and a vetted audience won’t shout him down.
Jim D, Shield college campuses from artists? If you say so.
ISIS points of view arose from similar centralized fascist teachings under the guise of religion, it’s why Iraq and Syria lost many of their cultural treasures over the last few years. It’s an example of how taught beliefs can’t be contained on any educational campus where future evangelists are groomed. You know this. Your comments aren’t surprising.
Leftists have always believed they need to think for others or otherwise risk the potential consequences of others thinking for themselves and thus eroding the exploitive power that monolithic group think has. National Socialists couldn’t have gained power without first inventing their coercive fascist methodologies that fueled german monolithic group think, tactics used today. It’s how they accrued centralized power over the german population.
You can’t contain power with unbridled free speech.
Where do you get “artists” from. Are bigots practicing some form of art? Should universities allow people to give speeches who don’t even follow the standards they have for their students?
D, Your stated premise was based on a view that individuals should be denied access to college campuses who express “delusional” views, as judged through your lens, meaning those delusions that “mostly consist of conspiracy theories and denial of objective facts.” Now you want to narrow your definition of delusional to your definition of bigotry. Make up your mind.
I pointed out that historically the arts are loaded with a skewering of objective facts, or could be judged interpretively as non factual, delusional. Much of the historic body of artistic works representing all artistic forms wouldn’t exist if run through the gauntlet of Pcism today. We have contemporary examples, that I described, of how fascists manage the destruction of cultural arts. Today da Vinci might have a hard time getting a gig at a university because of his religious beliefs and contributions to weapons of mass destruction, but I highly doubt a rightist would deny him a gig because he’s gay. Bigoted people like you who believe in the gatekeeping of information, the arbiters of allowable ideas to be expressed; represent regressiveness.
I use as example the arts, in all forms, where ideas have historically been channeled through higher education with an open mind. The arts have always embraced everything encompassing the human condition, its exploration offers important considerations, more so than conclusions. The college campus used to be a natural laboratory to explore such. But todays Left will deny anything, art or otherwise, if it doesn’t pass first through the proper political filters, because collectivism by nature requires a standard to govern by, and control of it, it’s only through monolithic group think that power can be leveraged towards centralized control. This is why our current culture is seeing, i.e., book bans, and consensus science. Truth has become less important than political ideals that empower central authority.
Political progressivism is regressive because it’s based on a premise of centralized collective empowerment that pushes a centralized repository of acceptable, suffocating, gray goo thought controls, all to accomplish its goals. The conservative tenet of individualistic freedom is a cancer to collectivists; which is why all the great 20th century tyrants tried to stamp out individualism using various methodologies. But culture is still paying the price of National Socialistic population control tactics and propagandistic inventions which were further refined through Alinksy to represent the cornerstone of the political Lefts population control tactics today. Mussolini’s fascist Italy, despite all the intellectually inbred academic drivel to redefine fascism, was a socialistic experiment, as was National Socialism. The Left continues to leverage the powers of political coercion by channeling methodologies trail-blazed by early 20th century tyrants, the irony is lost by many in the swill of Leftist academics attempts to redefine history, again it’s about control. Creating cultish evangelists is a wonderful tool for those seeking control.
Mop-up, you are taking it very badly that universities should have some control of what kind of idiocy people preach on their campuses. I have consistently said it is up to the universities, left or right wing, what standards they have. It is not my choice and I may disagree when they invite Naz!s for some educational or artistic reason, but they can and evidently do. It is also understandable, and should be supported, if they choose not to invite such people because of their values or desire for peace. Towns can also have some standards on who they let organize rallies within their limits. Same thing. If a religiously conservative local government decides they won’t permit a gay parade, so be it. The federal government shouldn’t force them. You have to think these things through from both sides to see what is a common sense view.
“You have to think these things through from both sides to see what is a common sense view.”
Not genuine as evidenced by your views, but a nice naive sentiment, D.
It’s not a question of taking it badly. While your discussion is about the gatekeeping of speakers, my premise is broader; encapsulating the atmosphere of higher education. The equation as such is broader and more complex than exposure to ideas. What’s equally as important is a receptive, curious audience to broad views that hasn’t been polluted by fascist thought control. Fascism is prevailing on the college campus, and it’s in fact encouraged because so many faculty are fascists. The crux of this matter escapes you.
mope-up, your generalizations about universities betray certain prejudices. Don’t assume their refusals to accept Naz!s and other rabble-rousers is a political statement and makes them fascists. That’s a highly distorted lens you are looking through if you think that. Step back and think what a politically neutral university would prefer to do when confronted with these choices. I say let them choose and don’t force people on them.
D, as an obfuscation artist you’re a representation of the cult evangelist. Nobody here is defending intentionally inciting, but to pick an example, Condoleezza Rice represents a rabble rouser to fascists. And it’s really more about forcing someone out, than outsiders forcing someone in.
Free speech is fine if rational, but if someone wants to come to your campus and talk to your students about delusions they have, that is another issue, and you have to draw a line on the right side of crazy. You don’t just let any maniac come and give a speech.
So Bjorn Lomborg is a delusional maniac. Therefore free speech is not “fine” if coming from him. After all one must maintain one’s standards. Said standards being determined by you.
I, on the other hand, will fight tooth and nail in favor your right to say what you just said, or anything else, for that matter. I like to keep these things simple.
A long road in history to open society, Institutions to protect
individuals’ freedom, political elections, legal and education
systems, free speech.
Somebody or other said that eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty. – Guess we haven’t been vigilant enough. Gramsci
advocated a Marxist long march through the institutions –
mission accomplished. Restraints on free speech, K-12
education low on the literacy and numeracy skills and critical
thinking, nullius in verba, that are the basis of individual
means to investigate and personal autonomy. The emphasis
now, permeating every curriculum area, is on the students’
values-make-over via emotional learning, with focus on
equality, sustainability and gender politics.
In my post, ‘Gullibility and Obedience’ see comments and
links by Robin Eubank, ‘Invisible Serfs Collar,’ essays on
K-12 education in the US Similar transformational’ learning’
is taking place in Oz .
https://beththeserf.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/44th-edition-serf-under_ground-journal/
Did I say Bjorn Lomborg is delusional? The universities can figure that out for themselves. Was he denied a speaking opportunity? I thought it was just he didn’t get a job. He seems to speak a lot as far as I can tell.
At first, when I read ol’ Jim’s bizarre comments, I thought he was just funnin’ us. Maybe indulging in a little self parody for our comedic relief. I think he was serious. Given how many millions of his fellow travelers there are, I’m sure he meant it.
Then I started to wonder how people come to that mindset. Shuttin’ down open dialogue and all that. Why would anyone care if someone went to a campus and started spewing loony toon stuff. After all we all can sort out for ourselves what is ridiculous and what’s not. That’s when it came to me. Not everyone can think independently. Not all of us are endowed with critical thinking skills. Some segments of the population are more susceptible to group think and gullibility. They know they love to be led around by the nose and are perversely addicted to being brainwashed. They think everyone is like them and they fear having speakers on campus with different points of view will threaten the leftist monopoly in academe.
It takes real skill to rid oneself of all critical thinking skills. A tremendous amount of brain power and pressure on the cranium is necessary. The same blood rushing to head effort as in the clean and jerk? No, but close.
There is only a very thin line between group think in climate science and campus censorship and the totalitarianism of NK’s Kim, ISIS and the Taliban. The creeping acquiescence of intolerance to different views is like boiling lobsters, they don’t know they are done……until they are done.
You have to draw a line at delusional (see definition) especially as a university that deals in rational arguments, not irrational ones. A lot of people here have become defensive about the word “delusional” and I don’t know why. Do you want delusional people preaching on a campus?
You are being especially dishonest on this one, yimmy. Speakers aren’t being denied the opportunity to speak on college campuses, because they are delusional. It is because they are to the right of Mao Zedong. Maybe you can cite some evidence that delusional speakers have become a big problem for university administrators.
“You have to draw a line at delusional (see definition) ”
Which one Jim? You keep adjusting it.
You really should quit digging. Consider the old saying “Better to stay quite and be thought simple minded, then to speak and confirm you are simple minded.”
I would consider bigots as delusional, especially those with pet conspiracy theories to peddle, so that is where we could list Richard Spencer, Milo Y., and Anne Coulter. Just my opinion. Universities can judge them on what they have said in the past as to whether they are providing value to any debate.
Jim D: A lot of people here have become defensive about the word “delusional” and I don’t know why.
No matter how carefully you try to define the word “delusional” (cf the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual [DSM-V] of the American Psychiatric Association), a group of people charged with deciding particular cases will pervert the decision-making process to the detriment of opinions and ideas of politics that they disagree with. In the US this has happened with the Sedition act of the John Adams administration long ago, and with the IRS (Lerner and tax exemption) and Justice Dept under Holder and Lynch of more recent memory.
How do you distinguish between Richard Spencer and a radical Muslim coming to your campus to preach hate to likeminded people? Discuss.
Let them talk and everyone decides for him or her self. It’s called free speech in a free country. Do you think you are qualified to decide what should be heard and what should shut down? Keep digging.
So you are fine with the spread of radical Islam (and Nazism) making use of university campuses for recruiting using hate speech against various classes of people. Do you see what corner you painted yourself into? This morning you probably would have been against radical mullahs preaching on campuses but somehow for the Naz!s at the same time. I believe the government is against radical recruiters because they tend to deport such people. You would see that as a poke in the eye for some kind of misguided free speech purism that you have.
I missed seeing this utter foolishness. I would prefer that recruiters for whatever you are yammering about would be foolish enough to conduct their activities in plain sight on campuses, rather than surreptitiously. Do you think that university students are particularly vulnerable to that crap, yimmy? Do you think they would be so incredibly dim that they would sign up at a meeting on campus? Don’t you think the FBI would be in attendance with their recorders? You are not a big thinker, yimmy. Small, very small. Best laugh I have had in a long time. Thank you.
As I said, earlier today you probably would have been outraged if you thought Islamic extremists were allowed to recruit on campuses with their targeted rhetoric, but now you are trying to make a case that it should also be permitted under some kind of free speech rule of your own design. If they are not allowed to do it in mosques, why should they be allowed to on campuses? White supremacists, same thing.
You don’t make sense, yimmy. Everybody can see it, except you. I will help you. Whatever is not allowed in Mosques is also not allowed in other venues. Recruiting people for illegal activities is not free speech. It’s called a crime. We are not talking about speech that is criminal. Try to use your little coconut, for a change. I don’t care if some clown is preaching radical Islam on campuses, as long as it doesn’t cross the line into illegality. Try to let that sink in, while you carpet bomb another thread with your incessant left loon huffpo foolishness. Judith really should consider putting you on a diet. You are gobbling up too much space and eating up the valuable time of too many honest, thoughtful folks. Can’t you exercise a little self-restraint?
People keep asking me things. I respond to be polite. Check what I linked from the ACLU which summarizes legality and free speech issues in the US. They say the students can invite anyone they want and the university can’t stop them. So if the H!tler Appreciation Society wants to invite Richard Spencer they can. It helps with ther program of bringing out their inner Naz!, I guess. I don’t think it is good, but there it is.
I’ll see if I can liberate this from moderation, before Judith elimitates entirely:)
You don’t make sense, yimmy. Everybody can see it, except you. I will help you. Whatever is not allowed in Mosques is also not allowed in other venues. Recruiting people for !llegal activities is not free speech. It’s called a cr!me. We are not talking about speech that is cr!minal. Try to use your little coconut, for a change. I don’t care if some clown is preaching radical Islam on campuses, as long as it doesn’t cross the line into !llegality. Try to let that sink in, while you carpet bomb another thread with your incessant left loon huffpo foolishness. Judith really should consider putting you on a diet. You are gobbling up too much space and eating up the valuable time of too many honest, thoughtful folks. Can’t you exercise a little self-restraint?
I think people like to answer my comments, because I make them think about their assumptions. For example you seem to have some line where you don’t permit speech if it gets too rhetorical, perhaps preaching victimhood, anger and revenge, but when Naz!s march through a town with anti-Jewish slogans. that’s fine by you. Your line is a bit fuzzy. Either you allow the haters in public places or you don’t. There’s no in between where someone monitors what they are saying and pulls the plug if they go too far. Is that how you would police it? Makes you think again, right? I don’t think you have zeroed in on anything practical yet.
You just keep digging, yimmy. I said anything that is not illegal is OK with me. Illegal and rhetorical are not synonymous. You should be able to understand that. Use your little head. Don’t keep throwing bullsh!t examples at me. I don’t have time for that foolishness. I am not going to play that game. You need to take some time off and think about what you are doing. Surely huffpo has somebody better able to make an argument that they could send over here. You are too easy, yimmy.
If it’s illegal to target individuals with threats, but not illegal to target groups with them, is that your line? It looks rather arbitrary to me. Let me know when you find the line that suits you.
I don’t get to determine what is illegal and is not illegal. WTF are you talking about? You are just making crap up. You misrepresent everything I say and when I explain it plainly, you move on to make something else up. You are a dingbat. Nobody will take your crap seriously. You are just fooling yourself.
I linked the ACLU view somewhere below, and legality has a lot of grey areas to it. Better just to let the universities decide who can speak based on their tolerance level for bigotry, I would suggest.
Jim D: I think people like to answer my comments, because I make them think about their assumptions.
I think it is more to do with the fact that you state an untenable opinion and then shift your ground, change your definitions, and otherwise write illogical, self-contradictory, and obfuscatory responses. You avoid direct responses to questions and challenges.
I usually try to avoid being drawn off the subject, but the point of these debates is to explore opinions in the face of questions about it. Usually debates lead to refining what you say, or using better examples, because the first thing is misunderstood in ways that you can’t foresee.
Jim D: because the first thing is misunderstood in ways that you can’t foresee.
Now that you have had lots of experience, would you like to write out your considered opinion?
Which definition of “delusion” are you going with?
Does free speech have to be “rational”, or can it be conjectural instead?
Are you focused purely on academic invited speakers?
Who decides whether some speech or speaker is rational?
Universities can decide what they consider delusional. That is the point. To some it may be bigotry and to others wild conspiracy theories or flat-earther science. Everyone has their own line, so the hosts decide. There may even be some universities where anything goes, but they can’t all be forced to be like that.
sorry, this is nuts
Jim D: Universities can decide what they consider delusional.
I think you are failing to understand the basic problem. “University” decisions are being overruled by gangs of unruly and violent students.
The law seems to permit students to invite who they like even if the university doesn’t want them for what I would consider valid reasons of keeping the peace. This is a problem in my view. Maybe we agree on this. Others here don’t.
Jim D: The law seems to permit students to invite who they like even if the university doesn’t want them for what I would consider valid reasons of keeping the peace.
Right. If I threaten you, you have to stay out of my way. Otherwise you are threatening the peace. /sarc
Some speakers do go to those campuses and want safe spaces for themselves too. A lot of the complaints about safe spaces works both ways. There is no easy solution except not to go where these situations arise, or to just take the protests as a celebration of the free speech that they are. Protests are protected. Riots and harm are not.
Jim D.
I agree. “Delusions” is a good term to use. The way I see it is the Universities cannot give a platform to everyone (and are not obliged to do so). So someone at the University has to judge the merits of which topics they platform.
You would agree. You like yimmy are a leftist who likes free speech to be reserved for leftists. Any thought that strays from left loon dogma is by definition delusional. We get it. Most university administrators are left loons just like you two. Naturally you would agree with them.
Don and others, do you distinguish at all between a Naz! denouncing Jews and a Muslim denouncing Jews? Would you want them both on your campus trying to recruit a following based on your free speech argument? How about various religious extremists, Christian or otherwise, denouncing LGBT people? Have you thought this free speech thing through to allow all forms of hate.
Jim, not all speach is legally protected. And certain speach will tread the line while careful not to cross over. And I think both universities as well as student bodies need to be active in evaluating speakers. However, your definition dilusional needs to be evaluated. As does your definition of hate speach. Diametrical and even violent voices may be intolerant to some but otherwise valuable to constructing real social debate
There is a line, and you don’t want insane people preaching to students. Universities can define delusional, but it may include bigotry in many forms as not fitting with their value system. How can they condemn bigotry on campus and then invite a bigoted speaker? It would make no sense, and this goes for speakers with other forms of moral failure too.
Jim, in a partisan world “bigotry” can be a misused label. Now what?
Certain forms of bigotry are not allowed on campuses. They will know from past statements of the person.
Jim, morality is moving target
That does not mean throw it away.
Correct. But to imagine that I or you have the last word on morality is kinda nutty.
Universities should have a say about what goes on on their campuses. That is all I am saying. It should not be controversial.
Have Muslims denouncing Jews been preventing from speaking on campuses, yimmy? I seem to recall many pro-Palestinian rights advocates denouncing the Israelis, who are mostly Jews. I don’t recall that I have herd of Christins going around denouncing LGBT folks on univ. campuses. Whatever, free speech means free speech. Jokers like you are hopefully never going to get to the speech police.
Jim D –
So your claim is that not supporting LQBTQ etc is delusional?
Fortunately for the swimming rodent, agreeing with Jim D doesn’t impact his credibility.
He shot that all to hell on his own.
tomthegreek, where do you get that from? What are your thoughts on what “supporting” LGBTQ means as opposed to denouncing them. Is it one or the other to you?
“Free speech is fine if rational…” ??? “Draw the line..” (on free speech, presumably) ??
Universities should not be obliged to give loons a platform.
This comment is so far off the deep-end it’s utterly impossible to respond.
Maybe you don’t see a line where loony begins and worthwhile speaker ends. That is understandable. The universities can judge that much based on previous “performances”.
jimd
Give us some examples of ‘loons’
Then give us some examples of those who you might robustly disagree with but that you consider should have a platform. Thanks
tonyb
Free speech is fine if rational
Humans are not capable of complete rationality.
And Jim, that would preclude you from entries here – you, like probably all of us, exhibit irrationality in denying points which don’t support your agenda.
Better to have openness with interaction where falsehoods and irrationalities can be challenged.
I am all for rational arguments. It is usually easy to see when someone is being irrational. Trump does it quite a lot, for example.
I am all for rational arguments. It is usually easy to see when someone is being irrational. Trump does it quite a lot, for example.
See the recent Nobel prize winner, Richard Thaler.
Everyone is mostly irrational.
In fact, you can’t make a decision without being irrational, because decisions are necessarily based on perceived outcomes which we value as benefits or detriments, which invoke emotion.
And you are just as irrational, so careful with your criteria.
Jim D, Very few speakers should not be allowed on campus. Mainly those who actively promote violence. That is actually against the law. Everything else is fair game. And in general, it should not be the University that decides but each faculty member can invite whom they choose. It is part of academic freedom. What if a faculty member wants to invite a diverse panel and allow a back and forth and have students participate in the discussion and then use their own critical thinking skills to make up their own mind. You seem to think that some ideas are so delusional that they are dangerous, because a bunch of people might be convinced by them. You kind of contradict yourself and show your lack of faith in your fellow human being here. If the ideas are so irrational and delusional and a free exchange of ideas and discussion is allowed, why on earth do you think the ideas are dangerous and many people may be persuaded by them? Makes no sense. If they are irrational or delusional, and people get to see that for themselves, why wouldn’t most people be turned off and reject those ideas? And as many others have pointed out, who gets to decide what ideas are “bad” or “delusional”. The university president? A small committee of administrators?
The law says they are allowed, and so are protests. You either have to have both or neither. I have no problem with universities that go for the second choice in the name of keeping peace even though it is not supported by the law.
Jim – As a non-scientist who reads Judith’s blog and everyone’s comments religiously, I am qualified to enjoy the debate but not qualified to take part in it. I have always admired your stick-to-it-iveness in this crowd, as you advocate steadfastly for the “generally accepted as reality or rational argument” of consensus AGW thinking. Your argument here, of course, is exactly that of the Soviet apparatchiks of yore, who defined those whose views were idiosyncratic and delusional as mentally disordered and confined them in asylums. When your day comes, and the apostates who fill these comment strings are in straightjackets, won’t you feel lonely?
You may not have a limit that you call plain delusional. Is birtherism delusional to you, for example? If not, what qualifies? Ideas of superior races or religions? Specific conspiracy theories? Usually it is easy to detect things that are delusional because they don’t agree with actual facts that have already been used to debunk them.
I am very happy to be able to choose to listen, or not, to anyone and everyone. If they are delusional, offensive or whatever, I will walk away. Some how in all of this it was decided that other people, administrators, deans, student groups or whatever, should exercise that right in my stead. That is what I find most infuriating about this.
In the end, the university decides who to invite. Richard Spencer was invited. He has a really bad reputation for bigotry that preceded him. People will protest the person whatever he says on that day. It’s not a free speech issue. It’s like inviting Bill Cosby. There will be protests, and he is wise enough to not even try.
Protests are fine. Rioting is indefensible
Yes, rioting would be a crime and people would be arrested.
Richard Spencer was not invited by the University. That is your conspiracy theory. He rented a hall on campus and a couple dozen of his dim witted followers showed up. You can’t even get the basic facts straight.
The university ended up paying half a million dollars for security and should have banned it for that alone or got him to contribute.
The university did not invite Spencer to speak. That is your conspiracy theory. You can’t even get the basic facts right. Spencer rented a hall and a couple dozen of his doofus followers showed up.
If universities had not set a precedent of letting lefty goons run wild and destroy s#!t and assault people, the security would not be necessary. Anyway, you wouldn’t object if they had to pay police a gazillion dollars to protect lefties from righties.
If the police have to have such security, there is something wrong with the invitation in the first place, whichever side needs protecting. Free speech can be done elsewhere and not somewhere that incites the locals. It’s not like the speech itself is banned, and I think this is just oversensitive twaddle that the choice of an exact location is part of free speech.
I will tell you what is wrong, little dude. Speakers not approved by the left wing loons have to be protected from left loon thugs, like the antifa mobs. If a dozen sketchy right wing extremists show up, a thousand antifa thugs will show to shut them down and burn and break s#!t to show haw tough they are. Everybody here knows what the problem is, except for a few delusional huffpo left loons. You are wasting your time with all your delusional foolishness.
Right-wing people feel like a persecuted minority when some of these large protest groups show up. Funny that. Ironic in some way.
(jimmie, when your rights are being violated by a violent law breaking mob, you are being persecuted)…
They will find some no-go neighborhoods just like other minorities do. They were not welcome in Charlottesville for sure, and those people made sure they knew not to try that stunt there again.
Nice work, yimmy. You are condoning and even praising the use of violence to deny freedom of speech. Case closed on you, little dude.
Protests by large numbers of people are not necessarily violent, and if they are, people get arrested, and should be, because you can bet the police don’t condone it.
Who gets to decides who’s delusional and must be excluded
from a debate? Should you decide, Jim D? Or Me? Best
let everyone speak and argue it out, present evidence if
we can.
What about a committee? Orwell’s 1984 really puts the
kibosh on the Thought Police thing. And there’s those mock
trials of quite recent history, Stalin ‘s Moscow Show Trials,
Mao’s Great Leap Forward round up of ‘counter revolutionaries.
I think the university can decide that. It’s a case by case basis. What is an acceptable level of hate speech at one university may not be at another. To me, no level of bigotry is acceptable, but you can imagine some religious institutions who really do a lot of hating where it fits right in, and they have that right.
Impartiality rules at the university. Climategate, hmm…
From Phil Jones To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). July 8, 2004.
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
I don’t think giving talks has the same criteria as having publications in science, so that is not a valid comparison. Talks can be less rigid and more speculative.
So Obama tried to sell his book for years with a jacket that claimed he was from Kenya. But it is “delusional” to think he was not born in the US. I’m not a birther, but I don’t think it is delusional.
OK, you didn’t link anything so I searched and it seems you are talking about this (linked below). That says enough for people to form their own opinions of your spin on it, and even Breitbart disavowed this foreign-born thing years ago.
https://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/booklet.asp
Jim D –
It’s your spin that is dishonest. I did not say that this proved Obama was born in Kenya. I specifically said I did not believe that. But others are not “delusional” for looking at this and thinking maybe there is more to the story.
This was fake news that fooled a lot of people including Trump, some for many years even with the early knowledge I linked about that. It was not a mistake, but a very determined form of fooling aimed at Trump’s base who could be counted on not to research facts for themselves because they trust everything Trump says. Simply referring to this 1991 inaccurate sketch of Obama, and some implying it was on his own dustcover, as though he authored it, was incorrect, but we saw it echoed again here despite the debunking. If you echo things, you should also echo the debunking, otherwise it is just spreading fake news again and trying to fool the unwitting.
He is an exasperating little character, tom. Until you get to know him. Then he is just a joke.
You hide from answering about birthers. Painful in some way? Some campuses may invite these people. Some churches and, let’s say, exclusive clubs would for sure.
Nobody is trying to give speeches about birther whatever on college campuses. You are just making a big fool of yourself. Worse than your one note usual foolishness. That ‘s all the time I have for you. You are doing my work for me. Thanks. Keep digging. I’ll send you a case of nice scotch for saving me the trouble.
Whether it is fake moon landings or the Jews being out to get you, it is all conspiracy bunk, and should not be allowed on campus. I don’t distinguish between these.
“You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely,” the anonymous email said, telling organizers they could cancel the Republican group’s registration or else face action from protesters. “This is non-negotiable.”
Leave it to these people to preserve the sanity of the Portland Rose Parade?
OMG! Now he has brought the Jews into it. Pathetic.
That would be Richard Spencer. Please keep up.
You clowns have made Richard Spencer into a celebrity. You are the only fools paying attention to him. Nice work. Turn out your antifa thugs to break windows, burn crap and SHUT HIM DOWN! You are just creating more Republican voters. Digging deeper, deeper, deeper…. We love it.
Oddly he thought he could give a talk to only his own supporters, but the majority of civilized people oppose him, and he got that message loud and clear. Lesson learned. Let’s see if he tries that stunt again.
You all employ the same mob tactics to shut down speech, whenever the speaker is to the right of genocidal dictator Mao Zedong. Keep it up. You will never win another election.
He chose his audience poorly. He should have known 90% of them would be outraged by his views and all the torch marches and Hail Trump saluting stuff that he is associated with. Would they be expected to sit there and listen quietly and ask questions only afterwards? Not a realistic expectation in the first place. Maybe he knows now that his reputation precedes him, and not in a good way, so he could be only reciting poetry and still be shouted down.
You could imagine Harvey Weinstein or OJ Simpson getting similar receptions. It is not to do with free speech, more with their own despicability that precedes them. It’s more about who they are than what they say.
Sure – everyone is dying to hear a ‘liberal’ hypocrite like Harvey Wenstein speak.
I used to think that anyone claiming that Obama’s birth certificate was fake was a pure loony– until I say Monckton’s presentation on it. I haven’t given it much thought since then, but I will tell you that Monckton is no fool.
For those who believe that we should not allow “conspiracy theories” in order to protect society, I have two book suggestions for you: The Devil’s Chessboard and Mary’s Mosaic.
Our Right to Be Offended
Mike Adams writes:
“My concern is that without viewpoint diversity where everyone is heard, research and scholarship suffers.”
That’s not my experience.
“It will not surprise you to hear that I am staunchly in Robert Zimmer’s corner on this.”
It surprises me. “Staunchly” is, to put it mildly, an exaggeration. Judith’s decision making process in deleting comments very much plays into “creating an intellectual ‘safe space'”, for at least some commentators in this blog.
“Does the First Amendment protect “hate speech”? 39% Yes, 44% No, 16% Don’t Know.”
The First Amendment prohibits Congress from creating legislation that would restrict the freedom of speech. To view that as protection is somewhat naive, but I quote this for the purpose of clarity.
Congress is prohibited from using their power to censor speech. In the context of this blog, Judith faces no such restrictions and can censor who and how she sees fit. This is as it should be and is not in question. What is in question is the claims of seemingly defending viewpoints of diversity in the name of free speech. I wonder, will the question stand?
You must be a ferrenner. We know what freedom of speech means.
I do not allow content-free attacks on individuals here. My call.
There is a lot of viewpoint diversity here, much that i disagree with (and some that I learn from)
The climate blogosphere has largely devolved to “safe spaces” protected by censorship. This is their privilege. I want to express my appreciation that this blog is not “safe”.
. In the context of this blog, Judith faces no such restrictions and can censor who and how she sees fit. This is as it should be and is not in question. What is in question is the claims of seemingly defending viewpoints of diversity in the name of free speech
Judith deleting comments she doesn’t like, no matter how capricious is her application of moderation criteria, is not censorship. Equating the two trivializes the important issue of free speech.
She has no obligations w/r/t viewpoint diversity, even to allow for the expression of multiple viewpoints w/r/t her support for viewpoint diversity (which she moderates capricious). You can go to other blogs, or create your own, to express your whatever views you wish.
I think you bring up something. Take a heavily moderated climate blog. That’s the model some campuses are following. I think it’s true that campuses are evolving. I used to ask my son who was away at college at a small rural campus, is anyone protesting anything? The answer was no. Name your villian. Protest outside before they arrive and afterwards. Bring candles and signs. How about some dancers? The villian presents an opportunity for your own speakers.
I looked up the word: “Snowflake” as it pertained to present day identity politics. “.. a person who has an inflated sense of their own uniqueness, has an unwarranted sense of entitlement, or is easily offended and unable to deal with opposing opinions.” (wiki) And so, we can characterize people who, as they have grown up in an entitled atmosphere are…whiners. These snowflakes have been allowed, for political reasons, to reside at the titular head of news stories and acquire newsprint space, that is unwarranted, just because they represent a viewpoint, which is intolerant of some global existential perspective of “fairness”. Inheritantly unfair, this group sets agendas as to what is perceived as correct and true. And, readers, and listeners, and media reporting experts, flock to such exclusionary opinions. Being contrary in viewpoint is dwarfed by the accolades of one’s tribe heaped upon “consensus” advocates. One’s tribe covers so many ills. The journalism tribe houses so many like-minded exclusionary shuffled priorities. Being part of the “in group” is more important than any informative narrative. I guess, that the opinions’s contrary to accustomed comfortable positions have to achieve a higher standard of truthfulness than any position by established viewpoint holders.
Without details other than Oreskes, this general issue is why I have regretfully in writing informed my alma mater x3 that they will never see another nickel from me until she is gone.
You don’t have to be regretful, Rud. Just send them a nickel.
Tell them not a penny of it is to go to Oreskes. That’ll make their heads spin.
Harvard has a stupendous endowment—it doesn’t need any more.
Rud
Your donations aside, is she not entitled to an opinion.
Without a Ying, there is no Yang.
sure she is. But Rud is then entitled to withhold his nickels.
Judy:
I am with you and Zimmer. I also see Oreskes and Mann as the antithesis of what a university should be about.
Nice post, by the way.
George Will gave a speech on this topic a couple years ago with lots of anecdotes:
https://youtu.be/2R2V1BdxMYs
At 57:00 he said “laughter is the most ruinous thing you can direct at these people”.
Charlton Heston gave a similar speech before the Harvard Law School forum nearly 20 years ago.
I found it and it is similar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk2mXhnSxEg
The advent of social media and the internet generally, allows everyone to create their own protective bubble, whereby the only things that make it into their safe electronic space are those things that they know they approve of and already agree with, from friends to news sources.
It is remarkable to think that by the age of 18 smart people going to University already know everything and they don’t therefore-in their view- need to listen to the opinions of those whose views they know they will disagree with.
The attitude sees to be that if a viewpoint does not coincide with my own it must be wrong, probably hateful, racist or sexist, therefore I do not want to listen to it.
It is an attitude that is creating intolerance -which ironically the bubble person claims to be combatting-and carries on into life outside the educational environment into work and then is being perpetuated when their own children go into early education.
How you persuade bubble people that they do not know everything and need to listen to other points of view is beyond my pay grade.
tonyb
Jimd
Whilst there are of course limits that any rational adult person should be able to sort out for themselves, we seem to be moving to an era where instead of being tolerant of (perceived) intolerance. we have become intolerant of tolerance.
tonyb
A nice formulation. Congratulations.
So leftist fascists running universities can decide who can speak? These same intellectual thugs are funded by taxpayers. Seems to me the antidote to the insanity is to simply yank federal grant funding from those institutions who espouse suppression of free speech. Adios My Friends, Berkley and fellow anti-American institutions.
We should not be tolerant of intolerance that is based on bigotry. If an intolerant person goes to a campus that features classes of people that he is bigoted against, expect protests. Bigotry or prejudice itself has no defense.
Intolerance, prejudice and bigotry are not illegal. Rioting to prevent someone from expressing intolerant views is. Do you condone rioting?
Is supporting the enforcement of our existing immigration laws intolerant?
No that is not intolerant. Next question. Look the word up in the dictionary.
OMG! Yimmy is breaking from the huffpo lefty herd. Don’t you know that deportations are breaking up families? And it is racist. Is wearing a MAGA intolerant? Give us a list of types/subjects of speech that are approved. Can we say that we find the LGBTXYZ lifestyles not to our liking? Can we say we don’t like Muslims? I am guessing that smearing Christians is OK, because I see a lot of it from the lefties.
You can say whatever your level of bigotedness permits. That is free speech. Will a university invite you to say just that on their campus? That’s the question.
You still don’t get the basic facts, yimmy. The problem is not with the folks the universities invite to speak. The problem is that the lefty admins, lefty faculty and the lefty students want to stop people from speaking they don’t like. Which includes anybody to the right of Mao Zedong. If the right wing dominated academia and excluded lefties, you would get the point of respecting free speech and academic freedom. Of course, you don’t have to worry about that.
That is all I have for you on this topic. It doesn’t take you very long to bore me half to death with your nauseatingly predictable left loon dogma.
I am sure there’s some right-wing religious universities who would be a bit picky too. Don’t pin it on just the left. It’s called community standards and works locally both left and right.
OMG! Yeah, there are way too many right-wing religious taxpayer funded funded universities and colleges where lefties are not allowed to speak. You are killing me, yimmy. I can’t take any more of this yimmy. Carry on your foolishness without me.
Lefties are too wise to even try to promote their views at religious universities who are very protective of their students anyway. You want a different standard for them? Universities can set their own standards, just like employers do, and some speakers just don’t meet them.
Jim D,
You appear to have a rather low opinion of your fellow average citizens ability to resist violence in response to some idiot speaking.
Looks to me that those resorting to violence are the actually the “paragons” of tolerance and virtue, namely the elitists of the left.
Kindly stop trying to dictate what folks think and say.
Free and open discussions will winnow out the truth and path forward. Applies to the climate as well as things in general.
You underestimate demagogues and the power of the internet to persuade especially young minds in wrongheaded directions. The internet drowns out the truth because anyone can put anything there, and sometimes very persuasively, and that kind of unchecked delusional rhetoric is not something you want to enhance with invited speeches on campuses. Free and open discussion is an idealistic thing that relies on a trusted source for facts. This is where science succeeds and the internet fails, because in science you need traceable facts to make an argument, not made up statistics and anecdotes.
Soon the only honest opinions you get will be from retired people.
Everywhere else conformists are in charge.
The balance sheet for the government-education industry is disappointing because the public is getting very little of what it’s supposed to get in return for its investment in personnel and infrastructure. Instead, the public is getting a whole lot of grief and being forced to pay for it. With global warming, the entire public education system has become a mixture of 419* scammers and self-dealing special interest groups with tax-paying working folks in the crosshairs.
* The scammer may contact you by email, letter, text message or social networking message. They will offer you a large sum of money to help them transfer their personal fortune out of their country. These scams are often known as ‘Nigerian 419’ scams because the first wave of them came from Nigeria.
Government do-gooders already managed to impose a high school education on everybody. Now they are surprised that a modern high-school diploma that everybody displays has a much lower value than a diploma that only 15% of population used to get. Nevertheless, they continue a push for everybody getting a college diploma. University? Is it what used to be known as kindergarten?
There is a shocking video of a progressive UC Riverside student who steals a fellow student’s Make America Great Again and demands the victim to be punished for wearing it. I wonder what makes people angry about America, anthem, or a flag. These symbols used to unite us. Now they divide us.
After sacrificing our quaint notions of right v. wrong on the altar of political correctness, intellectual convenience and moral indifference, society is increasingly guided by average truths.
Thank goodness for people like you, Judith Curry! Unfortunately, you’re spitting into a big wind.
I’m an old guy who’s way past his “use by” date, so I won’t see how this all ends, but from what I see in the vast majority of universities and in the narrow-minded education their students receive and pass on to others, it’s not going to end well for freedom in the U.S.A.
In the social sciences, the always-weak “science” part has has now been nearly eliminated by the rather violent politically correct crowd, which is forever adding new subjects to the verboten list. Even biology has been throttled by the “all humans are the same” crowd. And I’ve seen articles where math and hard science are under attack by the anti-white-European-Jewish-male scientist crowd. Lysenkoism has reared its ugly head in the universities — with academically fatal results for many researchers.
Since the politically correct crowd is resorting to both physical and academic violence to enforce its point of view, it appears things are going to get much worse in the freedom of speech arena before they get better.
Sad.
There is a more pernicious aspect to all this — students (and activist faculty members) are using group victimization as a method to gain political power and to ostracize people with different perspectives.
That’s the first time I remember you openly criticizing rightwing activists and activist climate “skeptics.” Kudos!
The politically correct culture of US university campuses (campi?) is the purest most distilled form of fasc1sm on earth today.
And it’s only getting started, it’s on a roll.
Not good for the future.
Do you really know what fasc1sm is?
Robert O. Paxton – The Anatomy of Fasc1sm
Quote: “Fasc1sm may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
“They’re trying to take away our culture. They’re trying to take away our history, weak, weak people for allowing the removal of statues commemorating the Confederacy.”
See also: NFL, Merry Christmas
jack,
“preoccupation with victimhood”
“uneasy but effective collaboration with elites”
“redemptive violence without ethical restraint”
“goals of internal cleansing” – i.e. safe spaces, no platform
“external expansion” i.e. Paris accord
A more articulate and precise description of the left agenda spearheaded by university campuses, could not be made – thanks!
The freedom of speech debate in North American universities is a bit of a circus (I do not know about other countries). A social media cottage industry has sprung up to provide various audiences daily fodder. Everyone seems to have an agenda.
My opinion is free speech is fine (I support it), but I cannot believe free speech includes people making stuff up.
So, what do we need? A federal bureau for investigating people who make stuff up? Are you from Earth?
You are making that up. Report has been sent to speech police. Expect a loud knocking on your door. We don’t put up with your kind on this here planet.
Judith –
Back to your perspective. I believe you define the central issue: “there is a more pernicious aspect to all this — students (and activist faculty members) are using group victimization as a method to gain political power and to ostracize people with different perspectives.” I doubt that most students or abetting faculty who complain of being made uncomfortable by this or that offensive symbol or visitor are really melting, any more than I believe that Jim D really wrings his hands in worry that some moon-walk denier is going to infiltrate his alma mater and enjoin young students to defame Neil Armstrong. It is a tactic, usually accompanied by loud rapid-fire name-calling, whose purpose is to win political ground without the grace of argument or rigor of debate. It is astonishing to me how many scientists have joined the party.
I use that example because I think it is a line we can all agree on. If someone is saying falsifiable junk, they should not be invited to say it to the students. I think there is a consensus on that much at least.
While you may well find consensus among the climateetc community that the moon-walk denier is full of youknowwhat, i doubt you will find consensus here on your proposition that they should therefore be disallowed from speaking on campus, should a student group, for example, want to hear them. Students have the right not to attend. Students have the right to demonstrate the falsifiability of their junk. Students have the right to protest their falsifiable junk provided they do not thereby abridge the rights of others to speak and hear. Why fear them?
Some kinds of falsifiable junk are more dangerous that others. The moon-deniers and flat-earthers probably are harmless, and would only offer up an interesting study into their psychology. Others are demagogues that make use of fake facts to actually convince people of some agenda that they have. Like when Trump blames the increase in crime in the UK on Islamic terrorism, while the truth is that hate crimes have gone up much more sharply (as in the US). It’s a sly misdirection that some just believe.
You mean the reporting of fake hate crimes, yimmy. The terrorist attacks are very real. And the crime in immigrant enclaves in European nations is very real. Now run off to huffpo for instructions.
You don’t seem to believe that hate crimes have risen more sharply than terrorism in the UK since Brexit and in the US since Trump.
Less hypothetical, my sense from reading your good comments over these many months is that you believe the assertions of many of your climateetc colleagues espouse falsifiable junk, violating, you often say, the basic laws of physics. Would you disallow any of them from speaking on campus? Which ones? If not, why not? What about Roy Spencer? Pielke? Curry? The line is where exactly? And who decides? A like-minded faculty?
No, I would not disallow them from speaking on a campus. There are some that espouse wacky conspiracy theories, like Monckton, who is nevertheless very entertaining despite his being convinced of backroom conniving leading to Paris that he views as part of a world government conspiracy by the lefties. I think the entertainment value is fine, but not if he starts to incite hate on all climate scientists as part of a conspiracy, which I think some of these people attempt to do.
When alleged hate crimes include some silly fool finding a piece of string on campus and calling it a noose, or a banana peel in a tree, or some black guy get’s caught painting swastikas, or some Jewish kid in Israel get’s caught making bomb threats against Jewish institutions, I am not going to rely on alleged hate crimes stats from random huffpo characters, like yourself. And the left loon media never makes a big noise when perps of fake hate crimes are caught. If you think the alleged hate crimes are somehow equivalent to the terrorist attacks, I feel sorry for you, almost.
Hate crimes often involve hurling abuse at random members of minorities, sometimes accompanied by using weapons on them. These are not to be dismissed especially as there is a trend.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/us/fbi-hate-crime-report-muslims/index.html
The number of people affected by these is more than for Islamic terrorism.
Right, the number of people who have had their feelings hurt by alleged hate crimes exceeds the number of people who have been killed and maimed in terrorist attacks. OMG! you are silly.
OK, so you don’t care when synagogues, mosques, temples and churches get attacked? This is more pervasive than terrorism. How many people have died in the US from Islamic terrorism in the past year versus racist or right-wing attacks? These just continue in the background and they add up. You should pay attention.
jimd
you said
‘You don’t seem to believe that hate crimes have risen more sharply than terrorism in the UK since Brexit and in the US since Trump.’
And nor do the police. Don’t forget the case you cited in 2015 of murdered Polish guy turned out to be just a silly assault from too much drink.
You are reading way too much stuff from the Guardian. In the UK hate crime is whatever you say it is (literally) Much recorded hate crime is perpetrated by one religious group against the jews. Its why so many are leaving many countries in Europe for Israel
In many countries such as Sweden the perpetrators are not recorded, as the authorities are not allowed to define the origin of those carrying out such crimes
tonyb
What I said is just what the British politicians said in response to Trump’s rather inaccurate tweet about crime rates in Britain, where he said they rose mostly because of terrorism. They didn’t.
JimD
“Hate crimes”
Expelling a student from University for taking moderate right-of-center views on an issue, is a hate crime.
Agitating for arrest of climate dissenters is a hate crime.
Yes, that would be horrible. Who does that? Was the student harassing people as part of it?
huh. you most definately want people saying crazy stuff to students. its good training for them.
We learn from this past election that some people just are gullible enough to believe them. It’s anti-educational.
jimd
Mosh said
“huh. you most definately want people saying crazy stuff to students. its good training for them.”
to which you replied;
“We learn from this past election that some people just are gullible enough to believe them. It’s anti-educational.”
But Jim, how can people differentiate between nonsense, the unlikely and the truth, unless they are exposed to all view points and can evaluate the information based on their store of knowledge?
tonyb
Viewpoints fine. Right and wrong things, not. If someone invents a statistic to make their argument, how do you as a student know. There has to be trust that the speaker isn’t just inventing stuff.
Jim hasn’t differentiated between science, intellect, education and values. Try as he might he doesn’t understand values are not absolute and the values of the most brilliant, highly educated person have no more validity than the most dull, hs dropout. Choices about heritage, cultural norms and the kind of civilization desired is not up to the elites. There no experts on values.
True, there is no right and wrong with values. Wrongheaded, as with bigotry, but not strictly wrong in the sense of true and false.
Jim
Are you saying the left wing speakers on campus always quote the correct facts whilst right wing speakers make everything up?
Tonyb
I think I did not mention left and right here. Both can invent statistics to their suiting, but you may be assuming by bigotry I mean right-wing, which is mostly a good assumption, but not always.
Jim D doesnt see how the last election proves my point.
yes, trump ws elected by the uneducated. Those who missed out on the training college used to give on separating fact from fiction.
We most definately want our universities to showcase a wide variety of viewpoints even the lunatic viewpoint that Jim D holds. If you believe that people are weak minded and incapble of discovering the truth, then its clear that you cant have people in charge of deciding and filtering what others should hear. If you distrust people to decide for them themselves, then you cant trust yourself to pick the people who would decide what is acceptable or unacceptable listen to.
Unless of course you believe that you are the infallible one who gets to decide. Unless you believe that you are the one who cant be fooled, cant be wrong. Then of course if you are the superior Jim, then you might have a point that you get to decide how to protect stupid people from themselves and others.
I can see how universities may not want extremist demagogues giving speeches on their campuses. It would look like being complicit. You may ask what is too extreme? Can we have bigots, Naz!s, extremist religious people spreading their word (especially hatred in various forms, which may include that of areas of science) to students? If so, can’t student majorities make their opinion felt at those events to which they should be equally invited of course, which some see as drowning out while others see as injecting reason. It’s a tough thing, but if you want that, you have to have the event open too, and then what value does it have as a shouting match? Perhaps a solution is to give the speakers bigger amplifiers. Legally you are allowed to have those types of speakers, but you also equally are allowed to protest and shouldn’t be snowflakes about it by giving the supporters safe spaces or closed doors. Tangled topic for sure.
You are talking abstract BS that you just make up as you go along, yimmy. Everybody knows that the problem is that left loon goons dominate our campuses and conservative speakers are being shouted down and beaten down.
Would it be OK if a BLM speaker was shouted down by thousands of white supremacist goons? Or, if thousands of white supremacists invaded a campus and started throwing bricks and burning sh!t to prevent a gathering of BLM fans. Of course you don’t have to worry about that, because the largest gathering of clowns the white supremacists can manage is a couple of dozen or so. Your arguments are false and ridiculous, yimmy. We can very justifiably say they are delusional. But we are amused, so please go on.
Yes, whether burning things or ramming cars into people, these types of demonstration are wrong. We agree on that much at least. If white supremacists want to march where they are heavily outnumbered they have that choice to make, knowing the consequences. This goes for towns as well as campuses. Perhaps they do this to draw attention and then they can claim victimhood for sympathy. I also say that towns and campuses should have the right to ban things on the basis of protests possibly getting out of hand, and they do that anyway.
This is how the left loons do it. They even eat their own:
Steve Mosher.
Students are not only being told crazy stuff, it is part of their education and social constraint.
They are being battered with the crazy notion that increased CO2 is causing warming. It doesn’t come any crazier than that.
marxists hijacked universities and colleges from the 60s onwards, a remnant of Communist Russia’s subversion of western institutions, that is now self propagating.
Marxism now uses gender sexual proclivity and race in place of economic classes, because they cannot use class warfare after the horrors of the Soviet Union and communism in the first 2\3rd of this the last century where 10s of millions were killed by it, and it continues to kill today
Make no mistake, it is communism, and communist tactic has always been eat something from the inside out and how better than educational institutions.
They did it in France in the 1920s and 30s and this new brand of communism came from French scoundrals and infested America from around the 60s onwards.
In my student days, ALL topics and issues–no matter how “offensive” to some sensibilities–were subject to open, spirited debate. The only scary idea from which we tried to hide was being tested on our comprehension of Wiener’s theory of extrapolation of stationary time series as presented in his notorious “yellow peril.”
The ivory tower itself has drastically yellowed over the past half a century while being tilted toward a cowardly new world.
Pingback: Campus insanity versus freedom of speech — Climate Etc. – NZ Conservative Coalition
Questioning the scientific integrity in the Australian BOM:
Make the Bureau of Meteorology accountable for climate numbers
• MAURICE NEWMAN
• The Australian
• October 23, 2017
“In August and September 2014, The Australian published reports questioning the Bureau of Meteorology’s methodology, reporting claims it was “wilfully ignoring evidence that contradicts its own propaganda”. These reports centred on temperature adjustments and the fact that private meteorologists could not satisfactorily replicate the “homogeni-sation” process.
Concerns for the integrity of Australia’s climate records prompted then prime minister Tony Abbott to call for an audit of the bureau’s practices. This was strongly resisted by then environment minister Greg Hunt, who held that such an inquiry could undermine the public’s faith in the bureau’s work. (The Commonwealth Bank should have tried this defence!) Instead, Hunt established a friendly Technical Advisory Forum to review and advise on the temperature data.
The bureau continues to maintain that the integrity of its records is at its core. However, it’s not so long ago we heard similar claims about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its work, we were assured, was the bible — the gold standard — of ¬climate-change research. All work was peer reviewed.
Our own government, academics and the media slavishly obey its commandments. “The science is settled,” we were informed. Respected scientists who disagreed with the “consensus” were mocked and shunned by their peers. As “denialists” they were starved of research grants.
After almost three decades of warming propaganda, we are starting to see the extraordinary cost of this global “scientific” swindle.
• READ MORE
• Climate numbers don’t add upMAURICE NEWMAN
• Back the wind and we’ll be ruinedIAN PLIMER
Hundreds of billions of dollars of scarce resources are being squandered in an obscene asset misallocation and wealth transfer fraud. Universally, the rich and powerful profit while the poor increasingly suffer the misery of energy poverty.
Progressively, the dishonesty on which the world’s irrational emission reduction targets are based is being exposed. IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri’s repeated assurances that “we don’t settle for anything less than (peer review)” have proved hollow. Contributors and reviewers conveniently ignored this undertaking if citing non peer-reviewed material made their case.
Contributor Dr Murari Lal admits he was “well aware” the statement in the 2007 IPCC report on retreating Himalayan glaciers was not peer-reviewed, but used it to encourage policy-makers to act. We also know Greenpeace and WWF opinion papers form the basis of some IPCC reports. Retiring Greenpeace leader Gert Leipold admitted to “emotionalising issues” to “bring the public around”.
The US government’s Global Historical Climate Network, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Climate Data Centre have all invented warming trends to estimate temperatures over the vast regions of Earth where no measurements are taken. Across the Arctic, one-way adjustments have been made to show warming of up to 1C or more, higher than indicated by the raw data. Whistleblowers from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allege that corrupted data influenced climate models and temperature records. An -official European report confirms that before the Paris conference, a paper had “refined” corrections in temperature records by adjusting them upwards.
Yet we are asked to believe Australian scientists have been immune to the practices that have infected their global peers.
Last month, an article on this page, “Smoking gun demands grilling for BoM” (19/9), elicited an emotional response from the bureau’s recently retired head, Dr Rob Vertessy. He says criticism of the bureau is pushed by “a fever swamp of denial”. He accuses The Australian’s editors of “perpetuating nonsense”. In remarks that could be channelling Dr Pachauri, he says there is “virtually complete consensus on the extent to which the planet has warmed” … “There’s just zero doubt about it” … the planet is on “a very dangerous trajectory”.
However well-meaning the former chief executive may be, his comments suggest motives that go beyond climate science. He demonstrates a well-developed interest in the politics of climate change. He may defend the bureau’s claim that “integrity of our data is at the very core of who we are … ” but, with such embedded passion, it would be extraordinary if there are many open minds there.
Indeed, how can there be any other view when the manager of climate monitoring and prediction, Dr David Jones, claims “climate change here is running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it”? Tony Abbott’s observation of sea levels at Manly beach disagrees, but he adopts the same methodology.
Dismissing sceptics as “rather scientifically incompetent” or “dangerous deniers and amateurs who debilitate the bureau staff” is not acceptable for a $1 million-a- day government bureaucracy. But Dr Jones is on record saying,: “We have a policy of providing any complainer with every single station observation when they question our data (this usually snows them)”. Why would a public servant want to “snow” anyone? Even deniers and amateurs have a right to demand transparency and explicit responses. Yet two top contemporary bureaucrats think otherwise.
Despite the bureau’s protests, there are too many scientifically competent “complainers” to ignore. They point to sloppy and inexplicable adjustments. They observe wide variations between the official trends and what the raw data show. A representative data-set sample indicates that adjustments predominantly increase warming.
Notwithstanding this compelling evidence, the bureau maintains it has “zero impact” on the official record. But where is the counterfactual? Even the Technical Advisory Forum confirms the adjusted data set cannot be replicated independently.
The accuracy of the bureau’s work is critical to all decision-makers. It has consequences for public policy, private investment and economic growth. The operators of the Wivenhoe Dam blame the bureau’s inaccurate forecasts for the 2011 Brisbane floods.
Why then, when government is so quick to investigate the questionable behaviour of private organisations, does it hesitate to expose the bureau to the same independent scrutiny? We have surely passed beyond the point of “trust me” rhetoric and friendly panels. There is too much at risk and Australians deserve better.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/make-the-bureau-of-meteorology-accountable-for-climate-numbers/news-story/cc2f60972ae973abff41de281f1ad8a1
The ACLU view is a bit more liberal than mine, because they say the students can invite who they choose without the university being able to stop them, but they protect the right to protest too.
https://www.aclu.org/other/speech-campus
Jim, thank you, a great link.
ACLU once defended david duke’s right to speak (and won)…
Jim D.
That article was interesting.
It changed my view. Because yes it makes sense students can invite who they please and the university can’t stop them, but it also makes sense that protesting invitations is protected too. Those who complain about having safe spaces also don’t want protests against controversial speakers, which is effectively creating a safe space for supporters of the speaker. They need to be consistent. If you don’t like safe spaces, you have to support the right to protest.
So, students can invite who they please to speak and the university can’t stop them but those students don’t have the right to actually hear the speakers, because protesters have a right to shout the speakers down and/or beat the crap out of them. Nice work, yimmy. Conservative students got their nerve expecting to be protected from left loon mobs. If they had any common sense they wouldn’t be in a left loon university. They should all be at Oral Roberts U., where they belong.
Jim D.
Yes I think that is a point sometime “forgotten” in the media circus. It is groups of students who invite the speakers to the campus, not necessarily the University administration.
The USA certainly has some interesting rules regarding this. I wish I did hear more from other countries’ attitude to free speech, for comparison.
You should move to Venezuela and let us know if their attitude makes more sense to you. You seemed to be mystified as to what “free” means. Do you live in Cuba?
A good way to effectively deal with the uninformed intolerance that pervades academia is to withdraw the gatekeeper/licensing function of universities. For instance, to obtain a law license in most states you must go to a traditional university. That gives the universities power over law students and the practice of law. It also helps the bottom line of universities (and the salaries of professors) by mandating that those who wish to practice law pay the tuition demanded by many politically correct universities.
If instead, students could obtain a law license through non-traditional means or schooling, much of the power and resulting intolerance would be negated. For instance, in the early 1920s, some states permitted aspiring law students to obtain their education by apprenticing with a lawyer. Potential solutions like this would be very helpful. The Left is so intolerant and narrow minded that only money and brute power will negate its efforts to restrict free speech.
JD
From the State Bar of California …
Most people go to law school before becoming an attorney, but it isn’t the only way to get a legal education. Applicants can also study in a law office or with a judge. Here are all the options:
o Three or four years of study at a law school accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA)
o Four years of study at a State Bar-registered, fixed-facility law school
o Four years of study with a minimum of 864 hours of preparation at a registered unaccredited distance-learning or correspondence law school
o Four years of study under the supervision of a state judge or attorney
A combination of these programs
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Requirements/Education
Yes. Let’s deal with this intolerance at universities by having the government take action to shut them down. Brilliant logic.
Who said anything about having the government shut down universities? What jdd said is not about shutting down universities. It’s about allowing competition. Did you see something on another blog that triggered you? You should try to leave your comments on the appropriate blog.
An important point missing in most discussions about free speech is that it is wrong to silence a fool. They provide such a glaring example of how not to act.
The culture of victimhood confuses the issue by acting as if a fool’s comments are a reflection of them rather than a reflection of the person making the comment. This weak minded submission to another’s opinion through the mechanism of being hurt is the problem. Healthy discussions and relationships require clear boundaries. “Poor me” is an inadequate response to bad behavior. We are raising a nation of spineless cowards.
Views among college students regarding the First Amendment: Results from a new survey
https://i.imgur.com/h8evdv0.png
I was surprised that there were similar views on the question irrespective of political affiliation. Then I read the specifics of the questions in the link. Other results based on disruption of the speaker rather than violence split more on ideological bent, which is what I have read elsewhere.
Scary that 19% don’t think reason and logic is enough to combat speech they don’t like. Totalitarianism is alive and well!
The right of free speech at public colleges and universities is at an all-time high. When I was in college a few students who were protesting actions of the government were murdered by the government. The government by and large stood by their actions, and the American public broadly supported the murders.
C’mon, let these alarmists hand-wring in peace, will ya’? Do you really expect them to have evidence to verify an decrease in free speech over time before they self-victimize about our decent into tyranny?
Read the specifics. There is enough evidence to believe the snowflakes on campus haven’t grown up yet. What a tub of ice water in their face when they are confronted with the realities of life. Some though haven’t learned yet, never having to confront it, still being in a bubble. The true evidence is what goes on every week. Curling up in fetal positions when having to take a test they don’t like, or having a room set up to color in coloring books to deal with the stress of a lost election, etc etc etc. Poor things. Not quite as disastrous, though, as having their legs blown off while serving their country.
Wouldn’t the snowflakes be the ones who want to ban protests at speakers? Protesting is protected by the law, just as the right to invite anyone is.
Protesting speakers is not a problem. Getting together a violent mob to shut down speech is a problem. And university admins using the threat of violent protests as an excuse to shut down speech is a problem. Now carry on with your shameless filibuster, little dude.
There is enough evidence to believe the snowflakes on campus haven’t grown up yet.
There have long been pressures that confine the free speech of any variety of people in this country, since its inception. There are also examples today. But what is missing, at least that I’ve seen presented, is some kind of carefully quantified evidence of a loss of free speech over time. You need a longitudinal study to show evidence of a trend. It may be simply that some groups, whose free speech was previously circumscribed by various limiting forces, have gained some measure of ascendancy, perhaps at the expense of other groups who previously had a greater agency. And those groups that have lost some measure of power, are seeing limitations that others long felt, but that they never experienced. Or it could actually be an actual absolute decrease in freedom of speech. But alarmism about what is going on, on campuses, while it may reflect meaningful overreach in some ways, and express legitimate grievances, does not suffice to justify the politically expedient exploitation of cross-sectional data (a list of specific instances) to service rightwingers ideological agenda to portray themselves as some kind of victims.
In the real world, we have the most powerful people in the country trying to dictate whether people can say “happy holidays.” And of course, there are many other examples where rightwingeri try to enforce their own version of political correctness. I’m not sure that restricting certain rightwing attention seekers to shouting their provocations all over the Internet and virtually all other venues outside of a specific set of college campuses, justifies all these claims of victimization. What longitudinal data do you have to prove that freedom of speech, I some absolute sense, is diminishing over time?
Yes, Don, violent protests are illegal. If the audience is free to come and the majority doesn’t like what the speaker is saying, you can expect some jeering, as happens with sports. No one bans that. Campus speeches should be free and open to all students and that way controversial talks get a response that is representative of the campus. If a speaker is afraid of being unpopular to a majority of his audience, perhaps he should not give a speech there. That is a common sense decision. Don’t cry foul if your audience makes it plain they object to your speech. If you don’t want a response, do your speech on video. If you want a positive response, go somewhere where the locals are more favorable to your views or where you can control who is let in.
You have made a very lame and transparently slimy case for conservative speakers staying off college campuses, little huffpo yimmy. It’s just common sense. And you cheerfully endorse left loon mobs shouting down speakers they don’t like. What you are really saying is that conservative speakers who venture to speak on college campuses have no right or reasonable expectation to be heard. They should know better than to make the attempt. Nice work, yimmy. We are going to make you Chief of Speech Police. Your tin badge and plastic whistle are in the mail.
When I was in college, the group NAMBLA – North American Man-Boy Love Association – came to campus. If anyone criticized them, the person doing the criticism would be excoriated. Allen Ginsburg was a big supporter.
Now, a serious academic like Charles Murray gets physically attacked by the student mob for giving a talk and question and answer session.
No, Joshua, you are engaging in sophistry as usual.
Joshua and JimD are tilting at windmills in an attempt to defend their tribe. Let’s not discourage them, it’s just too funny to stop.
Bottom line, they have lost big time since their hero, the former race-baiter in chief, took the helm: 1000 state legislature seats, 9 gubernatorial offices, the House, the Senate, POTUS, and now SCOTUS. The Republicans now control both parts of state legislatures and the governor’s office in 25 states, the Democrats in 4 states. Trump won 2,626 counties and Clinton only 487 – one order of magnitude difference. You can drive from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast and never drive through a Clinton county. There are two thin strips of blue on the coasts and a few blue dots in a few cities but all are drowned in a sea of red. But it only gets worse, because the left continues to abandon the rural areas and pour into already blue cities with no hope of altering the electoral college map. According to the seminal book “The Big Sort”, it is the left moving out and self-concentrating while the right stays home embedded in their social networks. The sad truth of the loving “liberal” (they hijacked the word, they are not liberal) is that they hate anyone outside their tribe, call them “deplorables” who “cling to their guns and religions” (note their opponents do have guns), and can’t stand to live near them or have their children go to school with them. The left lives in apartheid communities protected by zoning laws – to keep the riffraff out – but are willing to let the unwashed masses detail their cars, nanny their kids, service their BMWs, and maintain their landscapes. However, they will never allow them to live near them. It’s like Johannesburg and Soweto. But they win the popular vote! Unfortunately for them, the popular vote is not the game – they play the wrong game and then cry foul when they lose the real one. The only way out is an amendment to the Constitution, but they would have to convince some small states to surrender power to people they know hate them.
Meanwhile, clear thinkers within their tribe – Thomas Frank, Richard Reeves (Hoarding Opportunity), Jonathan Haidt – have tried to encourage them to engage in self-reflection, but to no available. The lack of self-awareness on the left is astounding. Meanwhile, thinkers like Jonathan Haidt declares he is no longer a liberal but a centrist and has created HeterodoxAcademy.org to mitigate the loss of the university culture to the far left cultural idealogues. Now it seems we are in the midst of an “education bubble” – the ROI for lower tier universities looks bad, a life of debt for nothing. Online education bangs on the doors of the ivory towers.
Stanford, UC Berkley, U. of Chicago, the Ivy League, MIT, CalTech, – the elite universities – will prosper. Many second tier schools will go bankrupt and the left will lose one of their big three weapons of mass cultural destruction – Academia, The Media, and the NGO’s.
And what of the media, the other tool of the left? It is on the way out, devolving into a feel-good service catering to their leftist audience, feeding them the delusions they need to get up in the morning (see “Myths we need…” by Yuval Noah Harari, himself a leftist). The old guard ostensibly neutral press has become a big money generator selling fake news that goes down easy for the left. Wapo, NYT, MSNBC, CNN, are all making good money selling fast-food info to the left while the red states are on Twitter and Youtube. No need to pay! Let the left talk to itself! Right leaning professors like Jordan Peterson can reach and make millions on Youtube, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/exclusionary-zoning-is-opportunity-hoarding-by-upper-middle-class/entirely sidestepping both Academia and the Media, two of the three legs holding up the rickety table of the left! Cable cutting is rampant. Hollywood has competition from Netflix and Amazon and …(?)…For the first time a presidential candidate has bypassed the traditional media by using Twitter to reach his constituency directly, cutting the big media out of the action, and defeating the left’s tarnished, lavishly-funded gladiator HRC on a shoe-string budget! No more scoops for the Wapo and NYT! They have been reduced to reacting to the daily POTUS tweet! POTUS pushes their buttons and they jump up and down like silly puppets! He plays them like a fiddle. They are aghast while the Trumpists are delighted! The NYT , Wapo, Huffpo, yada yada scream bloody murder to each other but nobody is listening outside the bubble.
So now two of the three legs of the wobbly left table have been removed, and only the NGO’s remain. It’s time to modify the tax code. Why should the super wealthy evade taxes so they can impose their will on the rest of the nation, or the world? That’s not social justice! That is not egalitarian! Let’s fix that tax code! Then the left will be reduced to praying for levitation!
It’s morning in America! It’s morning in the world!
Be kind to the children (Joshua and JimD)!
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/barack-obama-won-the-white-house-but-democrats-lost-the-country/
https://heterodoxacademy.org/
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/exclusionary-zoning-is-opportunity-hoarding-by-upper-middle-class/
http://listenliberal.com/
https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/dream-hoarders/
http://www.thebigsort.com/book.php
justin, as I say elsewhere, the law says you have to let those people come, so if you want to create safe spaces for them and their minority supporters and closed-door invited speeches, you would violate the other right which is to protest. You can’t have it both ways and have these people on campus given safe spaces to operate in. People here are against safe spaces because of free speech ideas, but don’t see it in this light. You can’t have it both ways on safe spaces. Protests are also free speech. Universities that want to avoid this whole conflict may pre-emptively have ideas about safe spaces, and that is where they are coming from. The safe space is for the speaker too.
Once again, claims are made, no evidence provided, but instead supplemented with hand-wringing and antipathy that doesn’t speak to the point.
I don’t defend college students shouting down speakers, but I try to put it into perspective, and call out cynical and alarmist attempts to exploit such events, when I see them. C’mon snowflakes. Show some evidence for your claims of doom and gloom. How does some rightwing bomb-throwers being shouted down at some colleges show some trend over time, of a loss of free speech?
By means of the Internet, we all have myriad channels to express our views, with very few constraints. Any rightwing provocateur who gets shouted down on a campus, by people who don’t want to hear their deliberate exploitation of offensive themes, can then turn right around and express their views in exponentially more venues than any blacks or women or openly gay person had available for hundreds of years. With the exception, of course, of someone like Milo when he tries to speak at CPAC. Lol.
Cry me a river.
Then show me some evidence.
Do you have specifics about the murders?
4 dead in Ohio.
Heard it in a song, somewhere.
<¿<
Yea, I know. JCH took some liberties with the word as we discussed below. When I read “murdered by the government “ I had visions of someone getting whacked in the back of the head at close range, using a silencer, after a high level official ordered a hit on the guy. Sort of like some former high ranking elected officials might have done. But that is only conjecture and not worthy of further investigation. Or at least that appears to be the attitude as of now.
THE MAY 4 SHOOTINGS AT KENT STATE UNIVERSITY: THE SEARCH FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY
I thought it might be Kent State. It through me off when you said murdered by the government. By the time that happened I was a veteran, and I could relate to the kids in the National Guard and the kids protesting. As I look back, I realize that all those on both sides were young enough to be my grandchildren now. That softens the more harsh instinct to indict any actions by those on either side.
I remember thinking on that day what a tragedy. I still view it as just that, a tragic shooting. Murder implies to some premeditated. I don’t think there is any evidence introduced in court that Nixon, the Governor or the officers at the site had intended to murder anyone. No one was found guilty of murder.
I understand your use of the word because many think of it the same way. But I believe the Scranton Commission had it correct, that the shooing was “unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable.”
A lot of murderers are never prosecuted, so that means nothing. They can indict a ham sandwich, or not.
The suppression of free speech by the government in the 1960s was aggressive when compared with today. In 1969 around 50 students in my high school were punished for wearing a black armband. Those in my category were summarily kicked out of college prep classes. From my zip code, I laugh about it now, but for the rest of my life the government wanted to significantly harm 17-year-old me.
There is a glaring recent example, which is President Trump’s – he is the government and he has the bully pulpit – blatant and onerous attempt to intimidate private business owners with loss of income if they do not fire employees – private citizens – who are exercising their right of free speech by protesting against the government by refusing to stand for the National Anthem.
I thought they were protesting against the nation and the anthem.
JCH, i’ve got this theory that the good lord sent you here to climate, etc. to make jim d seem sane and rational in comparison. (and i’ll be darned if it ain’t working)…
The lefty loons love business killing boycotts and shutting down speech that they don’t like, until their pet ox is gored. Pathetic whiners. Trump rules!
“If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far. … The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.” Susan Sontag
So we have examples of people who are not welcome to contest progressive shibboleths at universities. Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and OJ Simpson? The reality is Richard Spencer, Milo Yiannopoulos and – for God’s sake – Germaine Greer. Each of these has crossed a line of some sort and are persona non grata as a result. Of the three – Spencer is perhaps the least amusing. I can’t really see the point in a ‘white identity’ – likewise with other ‘identities’. Spencer does not – however – incite violence. This is the bottom line in free speech. Anything else is allowable despite self righteous objections from self appointed gatekeepers
of ideological purity.
Even the inane bleatings of saviors of not old white men one of 48 genders at a time is marginally bearable if I can manage to mostly ignore them. Using anonymous threats of street violence to save the world one Republican float in the Portland Rose Parade at a time – pushes the envelope.
Dr. Curry quoted the following statistic “Do you agree with those shouting down speaker who “is known for making offensive and hurtful statements”? 51% Yes, 49% No.”
If this statistic is really true, we are already lost.
And of course we are witnessing it all over the country, and in fact the world.
Anti-Constitutional terrorism is being funded so that professional paid thugs are at virtually EVERY EVENT where conservatives try to speak.
It is simply fascism.
” I think that the West is becoming stupid in front of our eyes. It can’t even deal with itself, can’t describe itself correctly, and its attempts to describe others are even more comic. Western people weren’t always like that. I have researched very carefully when it was that the mental collapse of Western society began. Europe and the West weren’t always as idiotic as they are now. This idiocy grew very gradually in the 70s, and the 1980s were the turning point. When we read scientific literature written in the 70s, liberal, left, and right, we’re immersed in a world of openly honest people. They can be mistaken, say untrue things, but they are all genuinely dedicated to the logos. And then there’s some kind of frontier, when they all started to lie, which in my opinion is connected to a shift of liberals to the left. Suddenly, Western society began to become very stupid; it became narrower and narrower. Formally it continued along the same lines as before, but something had changed. It’s the same thing with rock music. My friends who are specialists tell me that you can listen to a certain band up to 1975, but after that you can’t, and it’s the case with all of them. ”
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/interview-aleksandr-dugin-russian-bete-noire-western-press/ri20963
I have posted this before – perhaps dozens of times. It is a simple comparison of climate paradigms. Non-periodic, strictly periodic and random and chaotic.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/ghil.png
JCH opines that I simply do not understand the hundreds of scientists I have cited over the years. The reality is that climate is seemingly random and chaotic – in the mathematical sense. Rather than admit the possibility – any questioning of the non-periodic model – or more recently the periodic model – amounts to a rejection of consensus science. With all the attendant pejorative characterizations and ideological baggage.
Chaos implies absolute uncertainty and appreciable risk of extreme and abrupt climate change.
Still – they cannot reconcile this with their ideas of skepticism. Science takes on an iconic status – a culturally potent symbol in which they find a personal affirmation. Thus any departure from their idea of consensus science is a sign of moral and intellectual turpitude. Chaotic and random is a threat to the integrity of the personality construct – it just cannot be.
They cannot even suggest practical mitigation strategies. The best that there is an earnest anticipation of the collapse of western civilization, capitalism and democracy. Where government and people are working towards solving the problems of humanity in the 21st century – when alternative energy strategies are mooted in the cause of progress and development – these are also interpreted as signs of moral turpitude.
Other shibboleths of the progressive left are funnier. 48 gender varieties – gay marriage – the evils of Trump – the virtue of big government and big government spending – limits to economic growth – the anthropocene – the existential threat to existence, etc. It just goes on and on.
There are practical and cost effective responses to problems of humanity and the environment in the 21st century – but social justice warriors have less than nothing to contribute. They embrace one failed and brutal regime after another – over the last 100 years at least. There is one guarantee – things can only get worse if we give them any credence at all.
We don’t care if they protest – they have marginalized themselves – it serves only to remind us of the intellectual and moral vacuum at the core of their values. Every riot feeds into the general disquiet – and discredits them even more.
Yesterday I heard someone speak about a new confidence emerging in the middle America that voted for Trump. I see at least the possibility of an economic renewal in America – having avoided the train wreck that was the Democrats and Hilary Clinton.
They are almost all consensus scientists.
Abrupt climate change includes a rapid warming. Latest SL paper… abrupt and large increases in SL.
So they take 100 years times 3.3 mm/yr and you don’t say a word. Because you’re a fake.
Wrong.
Don’t let ’em rattle you ellison. (they’re just jealous because they can’t string a few words together to create a sentence)…
Pushed some buttons I see – quite deliberately.
But you will be waiting for Godot if you expect rational and substantive comment from these people.
I think I posted this the other day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmiVhT5cHpw&t=592s&ab_channel=Earth101
Published on Oct 9, 2016
A slowdown or even collapse of the Gulf Stream System as a result of global warming has long been a concern of climate scientists and has fuelled the imagination of Hollywood. Regular direct observations of this giant ocean current system do not go back far enough to tell whether there is any long-term trend. However, in recent years indirect evidence is mounting for a remarkable slowdown over the 20th Century.
Stefan Rahmstorf obtained his PhD in oceanography at Victoria University of Wellington in 1990. After this he worked as a scientist at the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, at the Institute of Marine Science in Kiel and since 1996 at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. His work there focuses on the role of the oceans in climate change.
In 1999 Rahmstorf was awarded the $ 1 million Centennial Fellowship Award of the US-based James S. McDonnell foundation. Since 2000 he teaches Physics of the Oceans as a professor at Potsdam University. Rahmstorf is a member of the Academia Europaea and served from 2004–2013 in the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). He was also one of the lead authors of the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC. In 2007 he became an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales and in 2010 a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
Dr. Rahmstorf has published over 100 scientific papers (30 of which in the leading Nature and Science journals and PNAS) and co-authored four books. Available in English is Our Threatened Oceans (2009, with Katherine Richardson) and The Climate Crisis (2010, with David Archer).
“Is the Gulf Stream System Slowing?” is a part of series of lectures given at the University of Iceland on May 27th 2016 at the conference “The Past, the Future. How Fast, How Far? Threats Facing the Climate System”
The Pacific might easily cool in the next climate shift – due within the decade. And as Stefan Rahmstorf says here – we don’t know how near we are to an AMOC tipping point. Bizarre little smurfs notwithstanding. I might add that direct evidence from the 26 degree north array is showing a slowdown in the 21st century.
Meanwhile – the whole world is focused on building soil health, reclaiming deserts and restoring ecosystems. As well as on innovative energy sources.
What is not considered in the ocean water circulation is the meeting of Southern ocean cold water, wind and global circular motion and the warm currents meeting these ‘cold walls’. I am a retired master mariner and I have experienced the meeting of the Aguilias current as well as the Australian southward current.
What happens is that when these currents meet (they bounce off), they create a huge wave. Rolling along as we did on a ship, the captain called me up on the bridge in the morning to ask me if I could ‘do the same magic’ as I did at previous dinner time. It was breakfast time.
My initial view of the sea-state, knowing that my height-of-eye was 25 metres (for astronomical observations – yes we did not have GPS) I could not see the horizon at the bottom of the swell. I change the course and everyone enjoyed the breakfast and there was time for wash-up. Then we returned to original course and I could go back to sleep.
I have been a met observer and reporter for 30 years on my work at sea. I and my fellow mariners took great pride in submitting our 6 hourly reports.
When you from a scientific point of view consider the El Nino/La Nina effect on the Australian weather, you have to consider, if you do not know the ‘bouncing’ effect of bodies of cold and warm water can do. Thus, the same water will go around the second and even third time around, getting warmer and warmer.
This has got nothing to do with climate change – the concept is a fraud.
Inertial waves – from rotation – in a turbulent, globally coupled ocean and atmosphere flow field is the fundamental mechanism in climate – a trigger and a planetary response. ENSO and the 20 to 30 year Pacific regimes are what we may call quasi standing waves in a spatio/temporal chaotic Earth flow field. These are key concepts and they may seem a different language – but there are no better, simpler terms.
https://judithcurry.com/2011/02/10/spatio-temporal-chaos/
As you say – these inertial waves are fundamental to understanding the behavior of the climate system.
Rahmstorf is part of RC. I read him all the time. Have for years. RC is a vastly better blog. They moderate out stoopuddity. You’ll probably find yourself there repeatedly: in the borehole.
(RealCargoCult)…
JCH, What are they afraid of at RC? Perhaps they are worried about the virus: Stupid Is What Stupid Does. If they really think an opinion or presentation is stupid why not keep it up for all their readers to see? They can then comment at what stupidity is presented and demonstrate a more reasonable view. I guess they are too arrogant and self serving to entertain diverse thought.
Again with JCH’s supremely uninteresting take on things. You see he hasn’t read any of the sources I cite. The difference between him and myself is that I have read Rahmstorf in actual peer reviewed articles and understand the implications of this little video. JCH simply doesn’t have a freakin’ clue other than to wave his hands about and talk irrelevant cr@p.
What I don’t know is if Rahmstorf has any practical mitigation ideas. But then – he has no special skills in policy and society. I do – and I have read widely and canvassed a couple of dozen approaches.
e.g. https://watertechbyrie.com/
JCH most certainly has no skillz at all. I have asked to deafening silence. All we get is that his family made their money in oil and gas. So a libtard scion with unhealthy guilt? He is trying too hard and just doesn’t have the science licks.
I have actually cited Swanson from RC on “Has the climate recently shifted”. Yes it has – in short.
“Doing so (seamless modelling) is vital, as the future evolution of the global mean temperature may hold surprises on both the warm and cold ends of the spectrum due entirely to internal variability that lie well outside the envelope of a steadily increasing global mean temperature.”
Chaos as I said implies a potential for abrupt and extreme climate change – but this is not the delusional consensus of JCH’s warped world view. Freakin’ hilarious as he is wont to say relentlessly.
Explain why Rahmstorf et al throw your comments into the RC Bore Hole?
Because when you try to rain your confused tripe over there and they just as regularly bore hole it. Like the time in 2015 when you told them the hiatus was real and would last at least until the end of decade. Both claims, of course, skewered by reality far before the end of this decade.
Or your pathetic claim in 2015 that UAH/RSS are better than the surface record (bore holed) when the chief scientist for RSS, an example of a honest broker, was saying the exact opposite, and continues to write papers that demonstrate a solid basis for his lack of confidence in the satellites versus the thermometers when it comes to the surface temperature of the earth.
Abrupt climate change at the end of the YD took place over a very short period of time. It was that discovery that rattled Wally. It warmed a great deal and it warmed rapidly. When did I get that? One of the sources you continually abuse.
In the same way that the la nina of ’08 and the el nino of ’10 did not negate the pause, it remains to be seen whether or not the recent el nino will negate the pause…
Keep clutching your beads; get a rug.
The world is far more interesting than JCH imagines. His simplistic memes and eccentric interpretations – not to mention the abusive tirades that he indulges in – are aberrations that can be traced back to the groupthink echo chambers – gatekeepers and acolytes in the quasi-religion of global warming – he gets all his information from. It is very much at the root of problems emerging at universities with intolerance and reflexive denigration of the other. And in the impulse to marginalize and silence.
As for satellite temperature records – they are simply saying the wrong thing. Both in terms of atmospheric temperature and radiant energy flux at TOA. One critical problem with surface records is that they fail to account for changes in the balance of latent and sensible heat due to changing soil moisture. It suggests a source of the more recent divergence of satellite and surface temperature data with the exaggerated 2016 spike they love so much – as well as the 21st century land/ocean divergence problem.
“Surface air temperature alone does not capture the real changes in surface air heat content of the Earth system. Even using the limited definition of the term “global warming,” the moisture content of the surface air must be included. Future assessments should include trends and variability of surface heat content in addition to temperature.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004EO210004/epdf
In addition to the drought artifact spiking surface temperature over the past few years – satellite records have one other major advantage.
“Compared to in situ measurements, the main advantage of satellite data records from polar orbiting satellites is the nearly complete global coverage and homogeneous data quality. The in situ data record is fairly sparse in regions located away from industrialized countries, which are concentrated on the land masses and in the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes. For example, there are very few weather balloons launched in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean, even though this region is where the changes in Sea Surface Temperature due to the El Nino – Southern Oscillation cycle are largest.” http://www.remss.com/research/climate/
While the surface temp record is both incomplete and imprecise – breakpoints in the 20th century can be readily seen. Around 1911, 1944, 1976 and 1998.
They are caused by 20 to 30 year shifts in the state of the Pacific Ocean. Climate will almost certainly shift again – if it is not already – within a decade.
The temperature rise over the mid century cooling and late century cooling is some 0.4 degrees C. Negligible in the scheme of things. The suggestion going forward is that the shifts in eastern Pacific upwelling are the result of shifts in the solar UV modulated polar annular modes. e.g. http://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/3/4/833/htm
“According to this mechanism, the solar signal is initially transferred from the upper stratosphere to the lower stratosphere by modulation of the polar night jet and the stratospheric meridional overturning circulation (or Brewer-Dobson circulation14), through Rossby wave-mean flow interactions. Dynamical coupling processes15 between the stratosphere and the troposphere then transmit the solar signal to the Earth’s surface, projecting onto AO/NAO-like patterns16.” https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9268?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20150916&spJobID=762182214&spMailingID=49556090&spReportId=NzYyMTgyMjE0S0&spUserID=ODkwMTM2NjQyNgS2
At a millennial scale it is suggested that this results in radiatively forced changes in Earth climate.
e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11719
More recent speculation is that multi-decadal shifts in the Pacific state are connected with the ~22 year Hale cycle of solar magnetic reversal. But these are not cycles as such – the data shows Hurst effects which have a dynamical explanation.
e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep09068
All in all – a picture is emerging that shows solar modulation of climate over millennia at least. With a dimming sun – the potential exists for a return to a cooler Pacific over the next few centuries. I wonder as well at the potential for a reversion to La Nina dominated conditions that prevailed before the mid Holocene transition some 5000 years ago.
JCH strategizes with like minded twits at places like ATTP – and then returns here to fulminate against skeptics. He is given a forum – free speech – for views that are more feral science than actual. Wally Broecker got rattled by the Younger Dryas? What could that possibly mean outside of his fevered imagination?
Fascinating as all this actual science is – it has limited applicability to emissions policy. The world is focused on building soil health, reclaiming deserts and restoring ecosystems. In addition to major benefits in flood and drought resilience, food security and biodiversity conservation – the carbon sequestration potential is immense.
e.g. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fes3.96/full
As well as on innovative energy sources.
e.g. https://watertechbyrie.com/2016/06/18/safe-cheap-and-abundant-energy-back-to-the-nuclear-energy-future-2/
Now that I have considerably exceeded the link quota – I will leave JCH with food for thought he is congenitally unable to process due either to innate cognitive limitations or cognitive dissonance – or both.
The temperature rise over the mid century cooling and late century (warming) is some 0.4 degrees C. Negligible in the scheme of things….
“Get a rug”
I know JCH has made an insensitive remark to someone, but I’m just not sure to whom. Well, there are the bald guys, and then the…………
We all need to prop up our insensitive detectors a little. Kellogg’s is the latest transgressor with their Corn Pops box. Can’t be too careful.
Those who have extensive real-world experience in physical oceanography almost invariably dismiss Rahmstorf’s far-fetched projections and conjectures as lacking substantive empirical basis. Carl Wunsch, perhaps the leading expert on oceanic circulation, totally rejects his alarmist view of Gulf Stream shutdown with the basic observation that as long as winds blow and Earth continues to rotate, there will be no shutdown. Posting this piece of academic tripe has nothing to do either with physical reality or the present topic of free speech on campus. It’s patently just another act of tiresome self-promotion.
The rotation only explains the horizontal circulation. Other factors are required for the AMOC, one of which is the ability of that northward current to sink in substantial amounts which is compromised by warming and melting effects. If this doesn’t happen, the surface water gets colder.
Insolation phase and ice dynamics seem relatively important.
Greenland meltwater especially. See Hansen and meltwater pulse episodes that have occurred during deglaciation periods, of which we are just entering a new one.
Whatever thermohaline sinking of strands of the Gulf Stream occurs, it carries warmer, hypersaline water below the surface. If that doesn’t happen, the surface water rermains warmer. The dynamic that self-styled oceanographers get bass ackwards is the dependence of the AMOC upon the density of Gulf Stream waters–not vice versa.
The addition of cold freshwater that sits on top makes that area colder. the only region of the world that has not warmed and possibly cooled in the last century is the North Atlantic off Greenland. It’s temperature is more sustained by meltwater than by the Gulf Stream, and its area may expand as melting accelerates. This is the idea of a meltwater pulse.
It’s an idea that exists largely in the conjectural minds of “climate scientists.” In reality, no matter what the temperature of the water, the wind-driven Gulf Stream continues to flow.
The cold water on top in the North Atlantic doesn’t have the same origin as the Gulf Stream. It is most likely tied to Greenland.
Nowhere do I claim the same origin. Stating the obvious doesn’t alter physical realities or the onus to back up conjectures with empirical evidence. The AMOC transport rates are entire orders of magnitude smaller. There’s not even a modicum of evidence for the shutdown conjecture.
If the Gulf Stream goes under the fresh water it can’t evaporate, cool, sink and the AMOC slows down. I think that is how the mechanism goes. There are coupled ocean models that demonstrate this in response to large meltwater pulses. Whether the AMOC slows down or the cold water area expands, the result is the same for Europe.
The topic is Gulf Stream shutdown! Your “cold pulsewater” argumentation is an irrelevant, uncomprehending nuisance.
Yes, a Gulf Stream shutdown is not the same as an AMOC shutdown, and this is equally important and more often referred to. To only refer to the Gulf Stream surface circulation is not the full story. Of course the surface circulation can’t shut down, but the AMOC can because it relies on sinking.
Being a very sluggish, subsurface circulation, the AMOC exerts virtually no effect upon surface climate downstream. I don’t have time for surreal scenarios that fail to grasp that ice-cold meltwater eventually sinks and/or is warmed by mixing with the overwhelming flow of the persistent Gulf Stream. In typical fashion, “climate science” ignores the manifestly major mechanism, while focusing upon the conjectured incidental.
The point is that the meltwater doesn’t sink and stays as a cold pool in the North Atlantic. This is why it influences Europe.
More uninformed, nuisance commentary. It’s plain that you don’t understand sigma-t density analysis of water masses and are only regurgitating what you’ve read somewhere in the blogosphere. Stop it!
Actually these ideas come from publications including a multi-author one by Hansen with paleoclimate and ocean experts in ACP.
Nice work, yimmy. You just pled guilty to regurgitating. John trapped you. You little critter.
LOL! Temperature is by far the dominant factor in determining water density. Ask Hansen and your “ocean experts” how ice-cold meltwater manages to stay afloat in the above-freezing seas surrounding most of Greenland throughout the year. Your tenacious nonsense doesn’t deserve any further reply.
OK, John, take a look at this excerpt from Hansen’s ACP paper.
“Winter conditions on parts of the North Atlantic Ocean and around the edges of Antarctica normally produce cold, salty water that is dense enough to sink to the deep ocean, thus stirring and tending to homogenize the water column. Injection of fresh meltwater reduces the density of the upper ocean wind-stirred mixed layer, thus reducing the rate at which cold surface water sinks in winter at high latitudes”
Maybe you disagree with this. Say why.
John said your tedious foolishness doesn’t deserve any further reply, yimmy. Don’t keep pushing yourself on folks. It’s unseemly.
I find it ironic to see political conservatives (whether fiscal conservatives or social conservatives) whine about snowflakes, safe spaces, etc., when many of these same conservatives display the traits they whine about.
For example, political conservatives who whine about being called “AGW denialists” and claim that the term stifles debate. Apparently, these conservatives don’t realize that someone calling you a “denialist” does not magically stop your from speaking or prevent you from debating. To leave a debate over a term is the definition of being a snowflake who needs a safe space where they don’t have to hear a word they dislike. Or you can take the case of Roger Pielke Jr. and Roger Pielke Sr. blocking people for pointing out flaws in their logic:
https://twitter.com/AndrewDessler/status/922559315726295040
Another example: social conservatives who feel it’s fine to limit the right of gay people to marry, yet feel shocked that anyone would dare limit the conservative’s right to free speech. Or political conservatives complaining about people’s right to peacefully protest during the US National Anthem, when these protests are less disruptive than the protests done during the 1960s civil rights movement in the US.
I’d feel much more compassion for conservatives on the “safe space / snowflake / free speech” issue, if many of these conservative weren’t such hypocrites on this. I’m all in favor of free speech, and the right of conservatives to what they want on college campuses (within reason; ex: no incitement to violence), even when these conservatives say silly, uninformed things. I’m all in favor of people dealing with the substance of what other’s say, instead of using tone arguments and other tactics to dodge addressing inconvenient truths. It would just be nice to see political conservatives apply these principles consistently in their own behavior, instead of just when it suits their conservative ends.
Somebody get Atomski Sanitarian some more straw. He’s run out. And an aspirin and a binky to calm him down.
Re: Don Monfort: “They welcome debate. They crave debate.”
I’ve seen your posts before, so I know you don’t comment in good faith.
For those people who are genuinely curious, I’d recommend watching Scott Denning’s debate with Roy Spencer posted on Youtube:
“Scott Denning v. Roy Spencer Debate ICCC6”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GHlnjrZLUo&t=2295s
That debunks Monfort’s insinuation that mainstream climate scientists don’t debate. Formal debates like that are not a good way to settle scientific issues. A better venue would be the peer-reviewed literature, where oratory skill matters less, and one has the time to diligently research + fact-check claims. Another good venue is scientific conferences.
Re: “The consensus goon Team led by Gavin Schmidt got their clocks cleaned:”
And the Young Earth creationist Duane Gish sometimes convinced audience members during a debate, and the evolutionary biologists (in your parlance) “got their clocks cleaned”. Does that mean Young Earth creationism is true and evolutionary biology is media-driven hoax? Nope. It means that Gish has good oratory/rhetorical skills, and his audience were more interested in that than in evidence and rational arguments. Parallel point for debates between Schmidt and deceased pseudoskeptics like Crichton.
The non-entity pretends that the ICCC is a public forum. If the media covers it at all, they label it as a gathering of pathetic deniers. The fact is that the 97% consensus goons have declared that the climate debate is over. They are chickens. Chicken Littles.
Re: “Judith is among the 97%.”
“The fact is that the 97% consensus goons have declared that the climate debate is over. They are chickens. Chicken Littles.”
“The consensus goons have virtually the entire media establishment on board with their 97% consensus BS. Why should they fear public debate?”
“I keep mentioning the climate scientists, the 97% consensus goons, who are afraid to debate. Chickens.”
You implied that Judith Curry is:
1) a goon who declared that the climate debate is over,
2) a chicken who is afraid to debate,
3) a Chicken Little,
4) and a person who has the vast majority of the media on her side.
I didn’t even go that far; I simply pointed out that she uses the same flawed, fallacious tactics that AIDS denialists use. If anyone is trying to defame Curry, it’s you. Yet, ironically, you write this about me:
“You picked an obvious crank to frame and defame Judith. […] Vicious little anonymous squirt.”
Let me know when your “vicious[ness]” towards Curry recedes.
;)
The goons are the ones who misrepresent and promote the 97% consensus meme, as if it was meaningful. The goons are those, like your little anonymous non-entity self, who viciously attack and defame Judith for straying off the reservation. You dropped your binky.
Re: “It’s unclear to what you mean by causal attribution claim?”
The claim that humans caused most of the post-1950s global warming.
Re: “The IPCC consensus is from 51% to 99%
False. I don’t know how many times people like Gavin Schmidt need to correct Curry, you, and other Curry followers, before you stop repeating your distortion.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/08/ipcc-attribution-statements-redux-a-response-to-judith-curry/
The IPCC consensus estimate is ~110%, meaning that the non-anthropogenic factors act as a net cooling effect and the the estimate for anthropogenic warming is on par with the estimate for total post-1950s warming. Once again:
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period (Figure SPM.3)”
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf
“extremely likely” means “>=95% chance”, as explained on page 3 of:
“Guidance Note for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties”
To claim a value of 50% is outside the evidence-based range.
so I say, so being at 2% below the lower bound of the consensus is not the same as saying HIV does not cause AIDS.”
Saying that humans did not cause most of the post-1950s global warming, is on par with saying that HIV does not cause AIDS. That’s how strong the evidence is.
Re:“I think the AIDS problem was easier to understand and the data in the United States for instance was better and sufficient for understanding cause. One can interview patients and ask them, Tell me about what you do, and you’ll get enough data.”
So not only do you distort climate science, but now you’re trying to distort medicine, immunology, and virology as well. What you wrote is nonsense. The AIDS problem was not easy; it took years of research by Gallo and others. And no, you don’t establish causation just by “interview[ing] patients”. You instead use conceptual tools like the Bradford Hill criteria and Koch’s postulates. You do tests to see what immunodeficiencies are present in the patient, to see whether your proposed caused could account for those specific deficiencies. You see if you can isolate any pathogens from the patients, and identify the pathogens using various bioassays etc. You investigate the mechanism which the pathogen infects the cells. And so on. Here’s a source dumbing this down:
Alexey Karetnikov’s “Commentary: Questioning the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis: 30 Years of Dissent”
Next time, Ragnaar, don’t misrepresent a field just to score points for your ideologically-motivated position. And definitely don’t do it to someone who knows more about that field than you do.
Re: “We cannot interview the climate.”
Ludicrous response from you, based on you distorting how causation was established in the AIDS case. One can apply many of the same conceptual tools for inferring causation in the climate change case, as in the AIDS case. These tools include Mills’ methods for causal inference, and some of the Bradford Hill criteria. For example, here’s how you could use some of the Bradford Hill criteria or climate change:
The causal case is a cumulative cumulative case of:
1) correlation +
2) well-evidenced mechanism (i.e. plausibility) +
3) primacy, where the proposed cause occurs before the effect +
4) robustness of the correlation under multiple tests/conditions +
5) experimental evidence that adding the cause subsequently results in the effect +
6) exclusion of other likely causes (see point 7 a well) +
7) specificity, where the effect having hallmarks of the cause (ex: the observed tropospheric warming and stratopsheric cooling, is a hallmark of greenhouse-gas-induced warming, not warming from solar forcing)
8) a physical gradient (or a dose-response), where more of the cause produces a larger effect, or more of the cause is more likely to produce the effect
+ ….
= causation.
You just presented a good case why the AIDS science is solid and the climate science ain’t so solid. Don’t you have enough freaking self-respect and good sense to admit that climate science is not settled and that climate scientists like Judith are expressing valid criticisms that are based on the obvious uncertainties? You sound like a Priest arguing religion. What do you hope to accomplish by defaming and demeaning Judith, on Judith’s blog? Wouldn’t you get more traction on any of those consensus goon blogs? oh, I know. You want to annoy the deniers. Pathetic.
“Don’t you have enough freaking self-respect and good sense to admit that climate science is not settled and that climate scientists like Judith are expressing thoughtful criticisms that are based on the obvious uncertainties?”
Edited “valid” to “thoughtful”.
Re: “lol!I recommended thorough “compare and contrast”. Add in some contrasts, such as: even as dissident, Curry continued to contribute to science via publications in peer-reviewed journals, but Duesberg did not.”
This is an example of what I meant when I said you’re uninformed on denialism/denialists and you should do your homework. I already addressed the mistaken claim you just made. Once again:
Duesberg published for quite some time, even after his AIDS denialism became evident. For instance, see the following post-1999 publications from Duesberg:
“Does aneuploidy destabilize karyotypes automatically?”
“Does aneuploidy or mutation start cancer?”
“Explaining the high mutation rates of cancer cells to drug and multidrug resistance by chromosome reassortments that are catalyzed by aneuploidy”
“Aneuploidy vs. gene mutation hypothesis of cancer: recent study claims mutation but is found to support aneuploidy”
So, to reiterate what I said before:
Let me know when you have something sensible to say on the list, and when you’ve learned what tactics denialists use. Until then, you’re not informed enough to know whether the list was “selective”.
I have never heard of DUesberg
But what does Doucheberg have to do with Judith? You are playing the cheap scheister trick of guilt by association, where there is no association. Judith, as far as we know, has no relationship with Doucheberg and probably never heard of the rascal, until some non-entity brought him up on her blog. Stop the clowning.
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period (Figure SPM.3)” Emphasis mine.
Abrupt climate changes work through the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode, the Artic Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and other measures of ocean and atmospheric states. These are measurements of sea surface temperature and atmospheric pressure over more than 100 years which show evidence for abrupt change to new climate conditions that persist for up to a few decades before shifting again. Global rainfall and flood records likewise show evidence for abrupt shifts and regimes that persist for decades. In Australia, less frequent flooding from early last century to the mid 1940’s, more frequent flooding to the late 1970’s and again a low rainfall regime to 1998. Regimes that can be easily seen in ‘breakpoints’ in surface temperature trajectories last century.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
The point is that they have missed their period, gotten a fever and a phantom pregnancy – that I hope is AIDS free – and can’t revise assumptions quickly. There is a whole collective to inform requiring fact finding missions, committees, workshops, interpretive dance grants, t-shirts and bumper stickers, acrobats and press releases. All the Gory details of how they like to roll.
But if we go from the mid 40’s peak to the late century peak – a cooling and a warming regime – then the warming is 0.4 degrees K that might be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But which way will climate shift next?
The clown’s real name is Noctambulant Joycean. He got’s himself one of those blogs that nobody, I mean nobody visits. He is into Power Rangers and Pokemon. I won’t provide a link. I don’t want to encourage anyone to intrude on his privacy.
That was a nice explanation of how science understood that HIV causes AIDS. Now we can take your explanation and compare it to climate science and see the differences. I suggest we start testing walruses. I think we can tell which ones died from CO2. Which ones have the climate change disease. And so forth.
Yes it takes more than interviews. But an interview only approach would have told us more about solving the AIDS problem than all climate science to date has told us about the climate we will get this century.
“Saying that humans did not cause most of the post-1950s global warming, is on par with saying that HIV does not cause AIDS.”
Failure to recite the ‘most’ marketing statement is not denying HIV causes AIDS. It’s consistent with a lower sensitivity value which acknowledges cause. While the IPCC’s sensitivity values are so broad as to be near useless for policy.
CO2 increase 45%
TCR – (1.0 to 3.5) X 45% (90% confidence)
0.45 to 1.58 C
Rise: About 1.0 C
0.55 natural variability on the low end.
Less than half is just inside the Consensus with half the 100 – 90% to spare on the low end.
“Even with a low sensitivity value, increased CO2 would still have caused most of the recent global warming. You would need a very low climate sensitivity estimate [below the range supported by the evidence], in order for humans not to have caused most of the recent global warming.”
“The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C over the period 1880 to 2012” – AR5 (90% for the range of 0.41)
CO2 increase 45%
TCR – (1.0 to 2.5) X 45%
0.45 C to 1.13 C
Rise: About 0.85 C
0.40 natural variability on the low end.
“The transient climate response is likely in the range of 1.0°C to 2.5°C (high confidence) and extremely unlikely greater than 3°C. {Box 12.2}” – AR5
The immediate above: Likely is 66% and high confidence is 80%. See if you can figure out which number they mean? The AR4 table appears first in your search.
So at the top, replace would with could once the uncertainties are taken into account.
The TCR and the GMST since 1880 are poorly constrained.
“The total increase between the average of the 1850–1900 period and the 2003–2012 period is 0.78 [0.72 to 0.85] °C, based on the single longest dataset available.” – AR5
The two, How much did it warm, statements are banner statements with Epaulettes from AR5.
The IPCC’s statements on TCR are inconsistent with their attribution statements. Of the two kinds of statements, one has more qualities of being made up.
Earlier I used AR4 for TCR. Here is AR5:
“The transient climate response is likely in the range of 1.0°C to 2.5°C (high confidence) and extremely unlikely greater than 3°C. {Box 12.2}” – AR5
Re: Ragnaar “The IPCC’s statements on TCR are inconsistent with their attribution statements. Of the two kinds of statements, one has more qualities of being made up.”
As usual, you don’t address what was written, and you misrepresent the relevant context. For example, you discuss warming from 1880 – 2012, when the relevant attribution statement is for post-1950:
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period (Figure SPM.3)”
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf
You also ignore my second point on the other lines of evidence supporting the attribution statement. You do that, so you can pretend the attribution statement is “made up.”
And finally, you don’t know how to relate TCR to an observed temperature change. Even Monckton et al. didn’t screw up as badly as you did, in the source I cited from them. I suggest you go read the following papers to see how to actually relate climate sensitivity to temperature change, and to see what the actual change in CO2 levels + temperature was:
“Estimating changes in global temperature since the pre-industrial period”
“The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes” (especially pages 735 to 736)
Re: “CO2 increase 45%
TCR – (1.0 to 2.5) X 45%
0.45 C to 1.13 C
Rise: About 0.85 C
0.40 natural variability on the low end.”
Oh, I forget to mention in a third point: your claim depends on CO2 being the only anthropogenic contribution to warming. That’s an OK simplifying assumption to make in many cases, since CO2 is the predominant anthropogenic forcing. However, it’s not OK in this case, when you’re trying to claim that a statement about climate sensitivity in response to CO2, contradicts another claim about the anthropogenic contribution.
So feel free to include the anthropogenic contribution via methane release, CFCs, aerosols (both black carbon and sulfate), land use, etc. Here are some sources to get you started:
“Non-CO2 greenhouse gases and climate change”
“Global warming potentials and radiative efficiencies of halocarbons and related compounds: A comprehensive review”
“Ocean mediation of tropospheric response to reflecting and absorbing aerosols”
“As a result, methane emissions currently contribute more than one-third of today’s anthropogenic warming.”
https://www.globalmethane.org/documents/analysis_fs_en.pdf
“…when the relevant attribution statement is for post-1950…”
It hardly mattered:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1951/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:1951/to:2013/trend
“While ECS is the equilibrium global mean temperature change that eventually results from atmospheric CO2 doubling, the smaller TCR refers to the global mean temperature change that is realised at the time of CO2 doubling under an idealised scenario in which CO2 concentrations increase by 1% yr–1 (Cubasch et al., 2001; see also Section 8.6.2.1). The TCR is therefore indicative of the temperature trend associated with external forcing, and can be constrained by an observable quantity, the observed warming trend that is attributable to greenhouse gas forcing. Since external forcing is likely to continue to increase through the coming century, TCR may be more relevant to determining near-term climate change than ECS.”
In their job, their job of providing a summary for policy makers, they say that the TCR is the observed warming attributed to greenhouse gas forcing. It is all of the warming only in the case of 100% attribution. Attribution itself is from 51% to 99% of the observed warming since 1951. Or it is the Schmidt attribution centered around about 110%. So attribution worked its way into the TCR to make it, drum roll please, less useful for policy. Its probability distribution transfers to the TCR. Attribution’s expert assessment now makes the TCR also dependent on expert assessment. Just when we thought we had some actionable numbers.
Calling someone a “denialist” or “denier” is intended to shut down debate, not foster it. The whole point of the slur is to promote the fiction that Judith Curry etc have nothing to add to the discussion.
That’s why they complain about it.
Calling someone a “denialist” or “denier” is intended to shut down debate, not foster it.
If only those poopyheads (the “alarmists”) would stop calling us names, we would feel so much better.
Re: “Calling someone a “denialist” or “denier” is intended to shut down debate, not foster it.”
False. Calling someone a “denialist” does not shut down debate. For example, if you called me a “denialist”, then that would not stop me from responding to you. What would “shut down debate” would be if I deleted your comments, or taped your mouth shut, or threw you in prison so you couldn’t interact with people, or…
The term “denialist” only stops debate, when some whiny snowflake decides they’re offended by the term, and so they need to find a safe place where they don’t hear the term. It’s akin to saying that terms like “handicapped” shut down debate, just because some people are offended by those terms. It makes no sense.
By the way, you’re wrong about the terms “denialist” and “denier”. The point of the terms is the same point as many other nouns: to distinguish one thing from another. People do the same thing when they use terms like “mammal” and “fish” to distinguish one type of organism from another. Scientists, philosophers, historians, etc. used terms like “denialist”/”denier” to distinguish a certain type of person who engages in a certain sort of behavior:
“It is, however, important not to confuse denialism with genuine scepticism, which is essential for scientific progress. Sceptics are willing to change their minds when confronted with new evidence; deniers are not.”
http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c6950.full
If you think that’s just about “shut[ting] down debate”, then you’re committed to false conclusions, such as:
– virologists, immunologists, doctors, etc. shut down debate on HIV/AIDS, because they used the term “AIDS denialist”
– biologists shut down debate on the age of the Earth and human evolution, because they called Young Earth creationists “science denialists”
Of course, those conclusions are false, because those debates were not shut down; the debates happened and they were settled by scientific evidence. It’s just that the denialists refused to change their position in the face of strong evidence. Same things happening here for AGW.
Re: “The whole point of the slur is to promote the fiction that Judith Curry etc have nothing to add to the discussion. That’s why they complain about it.”
Nope. As I explained above, the point of the term is to point out how recalcitrant someone’s position is in the face of strong evidence. This is important because it’s often dangerous for the public to confuse denialists with genuine skeptics who change their mind in response to evidence. The classic example of this was when ~300,000 people (or ~100,000, for a lower, less accurate estimate) died, because the South African took AIDS denialism to be an evidence-based position. To avoid such confusion, much of the scientific+medical community calls folks like Peter Duesberg “AIDS denialists”. For more on this, see:
“How the growth of denialism undermines public health”
“Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?”
“AIDS denialism and public health practice”
“Still Crazy After All These Years: The Challenge of AIDS Denialism for Science”
“Manufactured Scientific Controversy: Science, Rhetoric, and Public Debate”
Alexey Karetnikov’s “Commentary: Questioning the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis: 30 Years of Dissent”
“HIV Denial in the Internet Era”
That’s basically what’s happening to Curry, Spencer, Christy, Lindzen, etc. now: much of the scientific community is fed up with how recalcitrant Curry, etc. are in the face of evidence, so they’ve decided to point out that these people are denialists. That’s akin to how much of virology community got fed up with Duesberg, and much on the immunology community got fed up with Andrew Wakefield. It’s important to call out denialists for what they are, regardless of the scientific field in question:
“Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are.”
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/19/1/2/463780/Denialism-what-is-it-and-how-should-scientists
I am with Atomski Sanitorium on this one, jeff. When the consensus goons holler that the debate is over, they are just kidding. They welcome debate.
They crave debate. They are just waiting for the right time. They been really scared since they got embarrassed in this one, ten year ago:
http://www.npr.org/2007/03/22/9082151/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis
The consensus goon Team led by Gavin Schmidt got their clocks cleaned:
“In this debate, the proposition was: “Global Warming Is Not a Crisis.” In a vote before the debate, about 30 percent of the audience agreed with the motion, while 57 percent were against and 13 percent undecided. The debate seemed to affect a number of people: Afterward, about 46 percent agreed with the motion, roughly 42 percent were opposed and about 12 percent were undecided.”
The eminent climate sigh-en-tist RC Schmidty said it wasn’t fair, because Michael Crichton was too tall. The tall and talented Mr. Crichton has passed away, but his ghost still haunts the 97% consensus goons. They are still scared of debating the little ole 3%. If they really had their doo doo together, they would welcome every opportunity to make their case. They’re chickens. They let little non-entities on denier climate blogs do their debating for them. Pathetic. Chickens cannot save the world, if it needs saving. Were are deniers and we are deplorable! Trump rules the climate! Consensus goons whine. THE END
*I wish I knew how to make the letters bold and black, like atomski-womski.
Public debates are good for people who want to make stuff up. Crichton was good at making stuff up. That does not work for science because you can’t fact-check in real time. Science is a slow and ongoing debate, and that is where you can come to some really solid conclusions, even settled areas.
Gavin Schmidt had plenty of time to speak in that debate, yimmy. The consensus goons have virtually the entire media establishment on board with their 97% consensus BS. Why should they fear public debate? But they haven’t just declared that the public debate is over, they have declared that the scientific debate is over. They are chickens. So, now it’s only non-entity climate dogma drones who doggedly defend the gospel on denier blogs. We are amused.
It’s like having a public debate on quantum mechanics. At what level of complexity does it become a worthless exercise for the public to debate and adjudicate on science?
The survival of the planet is allegedly at stake and that’s your answer, yimmy. It’s too hard for all those genius scientists to explain to the public. The deniers are too hard to handle. OMG! It’s so hard to convince people they are going to burn up we must close the debate and leave it to non-entities incessantly yammering on obscure denier blogs to keep the dogma alive.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/test/
Don da Mon (as in “you da mon”), here’s a link to watts’ test page where all things word press are explained. Bold, italicize, links, etc. It’s a nice thing to have handy for whatever your wp needs…
Thanks, fonz. I was just kidding. Plain text is fine for my purposes. No bells and whistles necessary.
If the survival of the planet is at stake, don’t leave it to amateurs to sort it out in public debates. What kind of argument is that? Yes, they can have debates, but the scientists aren’t going to see them as asking the real questions that remain, and won’t be interested. The real questions relate not to how much warming, but how much effect of that warming. When the public start debating that part, it might be more interesting. Is 3-4 C within a hundred years harmful or not? Discuss. That would be a relevant debate for the public to hear. Defenders of such warming being harmless have not made that case yet, or maybe there aren’t any, so they would not welcome talking about it in public.
You know I didn’t say that the public debate should be among amateurs, yimmy. I will say it again, as plainly as I said it before. The 97% consensus goon climate scientists are afraid to debate. Now, how are those chickens going to save the planet from the deniers? OK, go on and pretend that I said something else. Talk about amateurs. Call them novices this time. Next time you can call them laymen and laywomen, or whatever. Just stop being so freaking obvious and boring. See if Atmonoski has gotten his straw supplies replenished. He should be willing to loan some to another non-entity dogged defender of the dogma.
OK, so when you refer to Crichton, you don’t refer to him as an amateur? It looked like you wanted more the the Crichton type debates. Make it more clear if you don’t.
The D stands for disingenuous. Gavin Schmidt is a scientist. I keep mentioning the climate scientists, the 97% consensus goons, who are afraid to debate. Chickens. I never said the climate scientists should send out an amateur to debate. You continually just make crap up. If it isn’t deliberate, then you are delusional and we don’t want to hear any more of your delusional crap. Stop the foolishness. You are not helping the cause. You are just a pathetic foil.
Don, it is not just amateurs but non-specialists. You’ve got Spencer talking about OHC and Lindzen about the global temperature record against people who actually do that work. Similar things happen with effects of sea level, or on agriculture and health. On one side you have the no-no’s and on the other are people who actually studied this. Very lopsided and not a true debate at the forefront of the science.
Very boring, yimmy. And pathetic.
You want debates – it should be experts working in the field talking to other experts working in the field. This already happens at scientific conferences, but that would be mostly boring for the public. If they are really interested they can go to conferences that happen all the time world over or better still read the journal papers. This is not a hidden process.
Debates. We don’t need no stinking debates. I am just pointing out the fact that the climate consensus goons are chicken. Anyway, we won. Trump rules! Paris got flushed. Your hairbrained mitigation schemes are circling the drain. Green is going bankrupt, just like the Soviet Union.
OK, carry on with your senseless foolishness. I told you way back in Spring of ’16, that POTUS Trump would render all of your incessant yammering moot. POTUS has done rendered. You have a right to feel tragically disappointed, yimmy. I am sure there is somebody here who feels sorry for you.
As of recently Trump and Assad are the only leaders outside of the Paris agreement, and Trump not even yet officially. Trump shows every day how not to lead the world. Bring back Barack.
Jim
It is because you had Obama that you now have trump.
Obama was a divisive and often weak leader and obviously did not consider the whole nation or else large parts of it would not have been forgotten and voted for a complete change of direction.
It didn’t help that you had such a poor Democrat candidate with a sense of entitlement that opposed trump.
Tonyb
Obama was underappreciated. No scandals, extracted troops from useless wars and drew large cheering crowds on international visits. Good for the American image and the fact of his victory supported its reputation for diversity. Obama came in with majority votes and enough Congressional votes to enact things without filibusters for two years. Trump, not so much. Can’t go anywhere to speak to the general public. Had a carefully controlled audience in Poland, for example. Any trip to England will be isolated from where demonstrators can be seen or can see him. A public speech would not be pretty and they know that. Divisive as he possibly can be, even within his own party in Congress. Moron on international politics, the environment, healthcare and the economy, etc. Not yet clear that he knows anything in any detail. Only does a lot of cheerleading around disaster zones, tossing paper towels to help Puerto Rico for example was priceless. Success for most of us would be for him not to start a nuclear war. We have to set a low bar.
Some little anonymous internet non-entity has a bad case of Trumpitis. Seven more years! Trump rules! The debate is over! We won!
Jim D: No scandals,
Investigations stifled.
Atomsk: To avoid such confusion, much of the scientific+medical community calls folks like Peter Duesberg “AIDS denialists”.
I think a thorough “compare and contrast” of Judith Curry and Peter Duesberg is an “interesting” contribution to the debate. Dr Curry accepts almost all of the consensus, and continued to contribute to the peer-reviewed literature after being called a “serial disinformer.” Her principle objections have been directed toward excessive confidence in the accuracy of “attribution” of effects to CO2; and claims of accuracy in estimates of important quantities such as climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling. Her work (joint with others) on CO2 sensitivity and the “stadium wave” and cloud formation dynamics and kinetics are well within what Kuhn called “normal science”.
the main problem here is that some supporters of the “consensus” (i.e. contributors to IPCC AR4) have made claims that go beyond what can be supported by the bulk of the research. Exaggerations of otherwise substantial knowledge are not uncommon in scientific research, and critics of the exaggerations are not “deniers”.
Duesberg could be viewed as an informed critic of the HIV hypothesis of AIDS up until perhaps 1990, but he maintained his position for decades as the evidence supporting the HIV hypothesis accumulated; including the evidence that preventing HIV replication prevented progression to AIDS, and the excellent PK/PD mathematical modeling.
Re: “I think a thorough “compare and contrast” of Judith Curry and Peter Duesberg is an “interesting” contribution to the debate.”
I already gave one, by listing 7 different ways in which Curry uses the same flawed tactics as AIDS denialists (6 points in one post, and then a separate post on the 7th point of manufacturing false doubt).
Re: “Dr Curry accepts almost all of the consensus, and continued to contribute to the peer-reviewed literature after being called a “serial disinformer.””
Not a relevant contrast with Duesberg. For example, you could render Duesberg’s position is such a way that he accepted “almost all of the consensus”, since he accepted that HIV exists, that people in sub-Saharan African and the US were dying of some condition, that immunodeficiency were evident in many of the patients, that many of the patients suffered from opportunistic infections, etc. Conversely, you could render Curry’s position such that she does not accept consensus points, such as that climate change is a serious problem and that humans (primarily via anthropogenic greenhouse gases) caused most of the post-1950s of 1970s global warming.
Also, Duesberg published for quite some time, even after his AIDS denialism became evident. For instance, see the following post-1999 publications from Duesberg:
“Does aneuploidy destabilize karyotypes automatically?”
“Does aneuploidy or mutation start cancer?”
“Explaining the high mutation rates of cancer cells to drug and multidrug resistance by chromosome reassortments that are catalyzed by aneuploidy”
“Aneuploidy vs. gene mutation hypothesis of cancer: recent study claims mutation but is found to support aneuploidy”
Re: “Her principle objections have been directed toward excessive confidence in the accuracy of “attribution” of effects to CO2”
And Duesberg objected to attributing AIDS to HIV. So both Duesberg and Curry object to a causal attribution claim that is central to the pertinent evidence-based scientific consensus. That ties in with the 7th similarity I mentioned before, regarding manufacturing false doubt:
“This article examines three cases that have been identified by scholars as “manufactured” scientific controversies, in which rhetors seek to promote or delay public policy by announcing that there is an ongoing scientific debate about a matter for which there is actually an overwhelming scientific consensus. The comparative study of argumentative dynamics in the cases of AIDS dissent, global warming skepticism, and intelligent design reveals the deployment of rhetorical traps that take advantage of balancing norms and appeals to democratic values.”
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/440840
Re: “the main problem here is that some supporters of the “consensus” (i.e. contributors to IPCC AR4) have made claims that go beyond what can be supported by the bulk of the research.”
Curry sometimes often accuses the IPCC of ideologically-motivated alarmism. Her objection fails, since then IPCC tends to under-estimate the impacts of climate change, which runs contrary to the charge of alarmism:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-ipcc-underestimated-climate-change/
“Climate Change Skepticism and Denial: An Introduction
[…]
A constant refrain coming from the denial campaign is that climate scientists are “alarmists” who exaggerate the degree and threat of global warming to enhance their status, funding, and influence with policy makers. The contribution by William Freudenburg and Violetta Muselli provides an insightful empirical test of this charge and finds it to lack support.”
And this is some of the relevant supporting research on this point:
“Reexamining Climate Change Debates: Scientific Disagreement or Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs)?”
“Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?”
“Global warming estimates, media expectations, and the asymmetry of scientific challenge”
Furthermore, the IPCC’s tone tends to be more tentative and less “alarmist”, with sufficient attention paid to uncertainty:
“The language of denial: Text analysis reveals differences in language use between climate change proponents and skeptics”
“Comment on “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” by J. A. Curry and P. J. Webster”
“Guidance note for lead authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on consistent treatment of uncertainties”
Re: “Exaggerations of otherwise substantial knowledge are not uncommon in scientific research, and critics of the exaggerations are not “deniers”.”
That’s not all Curry did. For example, as I pointed in my 5th to 6th points, she engaged in tactics that paralleled the following tactics from AIDS denialists:
5) portrayed scientific consensus as religion, and treat scientists as the priests of this religion (especially scientists at large bodies, like the NIH or CDC)
6) claimed that large numbers of scientists are misrepresenting science and supporting the consensus position in order to keep their jobs, funding, etc.
She modified 5, by replacing “NIH or CDC” with “IPCC” (among other scientific organizations).
Re: “Duesberg could be viewed as an informed critic of the HIV hypothesis of AIDS up until perhaps 1990, but he maintained his position for decades as the evidence supporting the HIV hypothesis accumulated”
And Curry maintains her position, even as the evidence in support of causal attribution grew stronger and stronger post-1998. To put it another way: Duesberg’s position in 2009 is about as out-of-date as Curry’s position in 2017.
Regarding scandals, Trump has already lost several high-level people amidst them, not counting the people who dropped out at various points during his campaign which should have been a red flag, and I doubt it has ended, given the ongoing investigations. This is unprecedented and mostly self-inflicted within this administration. The Dems just stand by and watch this all going on.
The Dims just stand by and lose, yimmy. Seven more years! Trump rules!
This other anonymous non-entity and vicious little twerp trying to convince somebody that Curry=Doucheberg makes you look halfway respectable, yimmy. You should encourage him to stick around.
Don, actually Atomsk has handed you your a$$, and others should take time to read those postings.
JimD
No, actually after the most recent revelations about the Uranium One Deal and the Dossier scandal, Democrats are wondering if they will have visiting privileges to see Hillary once she’s in the clink.
How did the vicious little twerp do that, yimmy? Can you tell us why that smear artist is correct in equating Judith with an AIDS denier? Do you really believe that crap? While you are at it, tell us how climate science is as slam dunk settled as AIDS science. Tell us how they do double blind experiments to confirm climate science theories. Tell us how climate scientists know their sh!t on a microscopic level. You are a scoundrel, yimmy. Judith has been protecting you all these years and you let this clown along and defame her. Pathetic.
Atomsk: I already gave one, by listing 7 different ways in which Curry uses the same flawed tactics as AIDS denialists (6 points in one post, and then a separate post on the 7th point of manufacturing false doubt).
No, you gave selective a “compare” and “analogize”, without any contrast.
Well, yeah. The vicious little non-entity already left a list of 7 different bogus assertions. What do you expect him to do now? Provide a longer list of bogus assertions? Can’t you just accept his conclusion that his bullsh!t analogy and his bulls!t assertions prove that Judith=Doucheberg? Do we really need to see any more of the little twerp’s defamatory bullsh!t?
“And Duesberg objected to attributing AIDS to HIV. So both Duesberg and Curry object to a causal attribution claim that is central to the pertinent evidence-based scientific consensus.”
You’re running close to the edge here. Curry has said CO2 warms and it’s a question of how much it does. Lewis and Curry recently came up with values of something like 1.33 for TCR and 1.64 for ECS. I think that establishes cause. It’s unclear to what you mean by causal attribution claim? I don’t think she rejects a causal attribution but what the attribution amount is. Elsewhere on this post I suggested on attribution she seems to be at a middle value of 50% based on her 50 50 post. The IPCC consensus is from 51% to 99%, so I say, so being at 2% below the lower bound of the consensus is not the same as saying HIV does not cause AIDS.
I think the AIDS problem was easier to understand and the data in the United States for instance was better and sufficient for understanding cause. One can interview patients and ask them, Tell me about what you do, and you’ll get enough data. We cannot interview the climate. It would be nice to talk to a hurricane. We’ve had many more AIDS patients then hurricanes. AIDs came from somewhere. It emerged. The climate while evolving with regime changes, generally did not emerge as some radically, in trouble thing. We are still waiting for something to emerge. Dead penguins, dead walruses. Dead coral, dead birds, dead crops. We have a few of those. And then we have respected scientists saying, well it was 7% worse. So we have some emergence. But compare that to AIDS. I consider that more binary. This got you.
Atomsk’s points 5 and 6 relate to trying to discredit the entire field of climate science. This is a tactic used by those who want to separate themselves from the consensus without a good scientific argument for doing it. If there was a credible scientific argument it would be presented that way.
Your little anonymous non-entity troll friend’s 7 points are nothing but defamatory accusations, yimmy. If you believe that Judith is the terrible character that your clown buddy describes, why have you been hanging around here for years taking advantage of Judith’s kind hospitality that has allowed you to freely carpet bomb every thread with your incessant consensus dogma propaganda? Little ingrate.
Re: “No, you gave selective a “compare” and “analogize”, without any contrast.”
Let me know when you have something sensible to say on the list, and when you’ve learned what tactics denialists use. Until then, you’re not informed enough to know whether the list was “selective”.
Atomsk: Until then, you’re not informed enough to know whether the list was “selective”.
lol!
I recommended thorough “compare and contrast”.
Add in some contrasts, such as: even as dissident, Curry continued to contribute to science via publications in peer-reviewed journals, but Duesberg did not. Duesburg denied the basic mechanism of HIV-induced AIDS, but Curry has not denied the basic mechanisms of CO2-induce global warming (only the quantification and “completeness”.)
Your list is just a bunch of bullsh!t defamatory accusations wrapped up in a bulls!t analogy. Judith is not Doucheberg and climate science is not medical science. Different players, different ballgames.
You are just another silly clown, who chooses to believe the CAGW climate science is settled gospel and the debate is over. Closed minded gutless anonymous non-entity. Are we supposed to believe you are a medical scientist? Your tactics are those of a cheap scheister lawyer. Very cheap.
I wonder if AtomicMan will spend November 8 “Screaming Helplessly at the Sky”? If he does, he will be joining millions of others who have been all consumed by last years election. Grieving takes many forms. It’s manifested at times by irrational outbursts on blogs.
Atomsk – could you provide specific evidence of what she has said or done that should convince us that Dr Curry is a scientist of the order of Duesberg, is recalcitrant in the face of evidence, and employs tactics that are sinister and need to be exposed, ad hominem, to the public rather than debate her on the substance?
Astrompski will probably give you the quote of Mann defaming Judith with that serial disinformer BS.
Re: “Atomsk – could you provide specific evidence of what she has said or done that should convince us that Dr Curry is a scientist of the order of Duesberg, is recalcitrant in the face of evidence, and employs tactics that are sinister and need to be exposed, ad hominem, to the public rather than debate her on the substance?”
People can point out someone is a denialist, and debunk the substance of what the denialist said. That’s what happened with Duesberg. People have addressed the substance of what Curry has said, in both the blogosphere and sources such as:
“Comment on “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” by J. A. Curry and P. J. Webster”
“In defense of the traditional null hypothesis: remarks on the Trenberth and Curry WIREs opinion articles”
And that doesn’t even touch on the numerous papers critiquing the energy-budget-model-based approach (for estimating climate sensitivity) used by Curry and Nic Lewis.
Anyway, Duesberg and/or other AIDS denialists did at least 6 problematic things. He:
1) refused to accept a well-evidenced scientific consensus despite having little-to-no evidence to support his position,
2) made clear mistakes in science that he refused to correct, even when other better-informed scientists pointed out those mistakes,
3) went outside the scientific community, once his ideas were debunked within the scientific community; for example, he told the (South African) government his debunked claims,
4) stopped publishing peer-reviewed scientific research once his colleagues took him less seriously; instead, he had to revert to non-peer-reviewed sources, to make it harder for credible experts to make him address evidence against his position.
5) portrayed scientific consensus as religion, and treat scientists as the priests of this religion (especially scientists at large bodies, like the NIH or CDC)
6) claimed that large numbers of scientists are misrepresenting science and supporting the consensus position in order to keep their jobs, funding, etc.
Parallel points also apply to Curry, with points 3 applying to Curry’s claims to local governments and the federal government in the US. Point 5 applies to her claims regarding the IPCC.
Let’s take points 5 and 6 as examples. Points 5 and 5 covered here for Dueberg and other AIDS denialists here:
“Conspiracy Theories and Selective Distrust of Scientific Authority
[…]
Portraying Science as Faith and Consensus as Dogma”
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256
Curry has done the same thing for scientists at the IPCC. She did 5 and 6 in the following blogpost (especially the “The advantages of dogma” section):
https://judithcurry.com/2010/11/03/reversing-the-direction-of-the-positive-feedback-loop/
She does 5 again here:
“Scientists can shift their attention from religious adherence to consensus science […]”
https://judithcurry.com/2013/06/27/have-u-s-republicans-shifted-strategy-on-climate-change/
5 once more from Curry:
“Sounds like the IPCC/UNFCCC ideology again; actually the changing minds part qualifies them for consideration as an ideologue.”
https://judithcurry.com/2010/11/08/why-engage-with-skeptics/
Curry insinuated 6 in the cartoon she posted at the end of:
https://judithcurry.com/2014/08/28/atlantic-vs-pacific-vs-agw/
I’ll put it bluntly: if Curry had done this sort of stuff in my field of immunology, she’d be rightfully treated the same way immunologists and virologists treat Duesberg. That’s why I have no sympathy when I hear people like Curry, Spencer, Christy, etc. complain about how the mainstream climate science community treats them: Curry, Christy, etc. cannot use tactics like 1 through 6, and expect their peers not to call them out on it.
So many lies and so little time. You picked an obvious crank to frame and defame Judith.
You are really pathetic. Judith is among the 97%. You don’t know doo doo from Shinola. Vicious little anonymous squirt.
Re: “You don’t know doo doo from Shinola. Vicious little anonymous squirt.”
Converse like a mature adult, not like a petulant grade-school student with a limited vocabulary.
Re: “You are really pathetic. Judith is among the 97%.”
No, she isn’t. I don’t know if she’s part of the 95% consensus that climate change is a serious problem:
Pew Research Center (2015):
“Earth Scientists Views on Climate Change”
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/23/elaborating-on-the-views-of-aaas-scientists-issue-by-issue/
But last I checked, she doesn’t accept that:
X: Humans (primarily via anthropogenic greenhouse emissions) caused most of the post-1950s or post-1970s warming.
The consensus on X is covered in table 1 of:
“Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming”
The relevant papers include:
1) Oreskes (2004)
2) Anderegg et al. (2010)
3) Bray (2010)
4) Verheggen et al. (2014)
5) Pew Research Center (2015)
Curry’s “50-50” argument is meant to avoid accepting the evidence-based consensus on X (a consensus accepted by the IPCC) via manufacturing doubt. See:
“Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster”
“Comment on “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” by J. A. Curry and P. J. Webster”
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period (Figure SPM.3)”
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf
“extremely likely” means “>=95% chance”, as explained on page 3 of:
“Guidance Note for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties”
Curry’s manufacture of false doubt (on the consensus on X) further supports my previous comparison to AIDS denialism. For example, see:
“This article examines three cases that have been identified by scholars as “manufactured” scientific controversies, in which rhetors seek to promote or delay public policy by announcing that there is an ongoing scientific debate about a matter for which there is actually an overwhelming scientific consensus. The comparative study of argumentative dynamics in the cases of AIDS dissent, global warming skepticism, and intelligent design reveals the deployment of rhetorical traps that take advantage of balancing norms and appeals to democratic values.”
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/440840
In all fairness, the arguments of Stephen C Meyers, Michael Behe, Douglas Axe and others pretty much slay the strange theory of evolution with simple probabilistic arguments.
‘Natural Selection’ was simply Darwin’s substitute for God, a mystical, statistically denying force that creates order from chaos, and which creates something from nothing.
Politically, Evolution was simply a ruse to justify a new form of virulent atheism, which dissolved all responsibility from the English aristocracy, who could now justify their brutal rule as ‘survival of the fittest’.
So that leaves AIDS, Global Warming, and Evolution as all pet ideologies of the ruling class. Hence there is no surprise someone like Leah Ceccarelli would come along and get funding to write against these arguments, with a Politburo sort of argument that all who deny the ‘science’ are in fact crazy. Typical tried and true communist style manipulation.
What we are seeing is the unravelling of the scientific paradigm that grew out of the Enlightenment and which came its ultimate imperialistic, materialistic fruition as the English Ideology. That paradigm has always been a simple justification for the rule of might, and science is simply a tool that forwards this ideology.
Science is, in fact, nothing more than the art of solving under constrained problems with theories that justify the ruling class and their ideology.
Which is different, fundamentally, from Engineering, which is the art of making things function, and therefore is constrained to a higher level of reason and feasibility.
WTF has AIDS got to do with this? There you go again, with your simplistic analogies. Do you really think you can convict Judith with that crap? Pathetic. Vicious little anonymous squirt.
This character is like a mean drunk version of our willito. Googles a lot of crap from here and there, puts it up in bold or italics and thinks he has made a case. Pathetic little lightweight pseudo-intellectual anonymous non-entity. Surprised he hasn’t dug up something on AIDS, from Socrates. Willito loves to quote Socrates, no matter how irrelevant to the topic under discussion. Pathetic.
“X: Humans (primarily via anthropogenic greenhouse emissions) caused most of the post-1950s or post-1970s warming.”
“Curry’s “50-50” argument is meant to avoid accepting the evidence-based consensus on X (a consensus accepted by the IPCC) via manufacturing doubt.”
Avoid accepting the evidence-based consensus. Perhaps to reach the current conclusion that rather than 75% or 100% the answer is 50% of the warming. Say we define most as 51% to 99%. 50% just misses the consensus, to be about 2% lower than the lower bound is just about accepting the consensus.
I do not see the connection between manufacturing doubt and avoiding accepting a consensus. Manufacturing doubt doubt is not required to reach a conclusion. That is your ‘via’ above. The more likely process is to form a conclusion, then to communicate it.
“The IPCC’s attribution statement does not seem logically consistent with the uncertainty in climate sensitivity.” – the 50 50 post
Above she reference Lewis. The IPCC with ECS has a broad range with 66% confidence. With attribution the relative range narrows and confidence is 95%.
1.5 – 4.5 66%
0.5 – 1.0 95%
1.5 – 4.5 66% = 1.5
0.5– 1.0 95% = 1.05
Their relative ranges and certainty:
3 X 1.5
1 X 1.05
Their relative quality of being constrained:
ECS 4.5
Attribution 1.05
Both are the consensus. The first is a what happens statement. The second is a given what happens, here is what we caused statement.
TCR instead:
“Choosing lower and upper limits that encompass the range of these results and deflating significance levels in order to account for structural uncertainty in the estimate leads to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that TCR is less than 1°C and very unlikely that TCR is greater than 3.5°C.” – Seems the best they have
1.0 – 3.5 90%
0.5 – 1.0 95%
1.0 – 3.5 90% = 1.1
0.5– 1.0 95% = 1.05
Their relative ranges and certainty:
3.5 X 1.1
1 X 1.05
Their relative quality of being constrained:
TCR 3.85
Attribution 1.05
Not much better but perhaps more on point.
The evidence based consensus remains hardly useful for policy. Manufacturing doubt is not required. What will our return per dollar spent be? From 1.0 to 3.5X with 90% confidence. So my long term rate of return will be annually from 2 to 7%. Yes. You’re fired.
WIRE:
“In a second paper Dr Judith Curry, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, questions this position, but argues that the discussion on the null hypothesis serves to highlight fuzziness surrounding the many hypotheses related to dangerous climate change.”
“”Regarding attribution studies, rather than trying to reject either hypothesis regardless of which is the null, there should be a debate over the significance of anthropogenic warming relative to forced and unforced natural climate variability,” said Curry.”
Underlying article cited by 14.
“Comment on “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” by J. A. Curry and P. J. Webster” Cited by 8.
Nary a Sky Dragon in the comment paper. Some misunderstandings.
One of their 4 objections:
“The high likelihood of the imprecise “most” seems rather meaningless”: We disagree.
Well I agree with Webster. What does it mean? We got to the coveted most milestone. Mile 13 of a marathon. The end of the beginning. We are the majority. We win. 2nd place is for losers. If you aint first, you are last. The handbag fight over attribution proves something.
It was a political thing. A science approved sound bite. If the ‘most’ was about attribution, we still have a banner statement from the IPCC with very little value.
We caused more than half, therefore another 50,000 wind turbines.
How much will that cost?
We caused more than half.
How are we going to back them up?
We caused more than half.
The people really elected you?
“And that doesn’t even touch on the numerous papers critiquing the energy-budget-model-based approach (for estimating climate sensitivity) used by Curry and Nic Lewis.”
How about showing us 2 of them. Real Climate has neutral post on it. Seem accepting to me. Thumbs up to Schmidt.
“This article examines three cases that have been identified by scholars as “manufactured” scientific controversies, in which rhetors seek to promote or delay public policy by announcing that there is an ongoing scientific debate about a matter for which there is actually an overwhelming scientific consensus. The comparative study of argumentative dynamics in the cases of AIDS dissent, global warming skepticism, and intelligent design reveals the deployment of rhetorical traps that take advantage of balancing norms and appeals to democratic values. It also reveals the ineffectual counterarguments marshalled by defenders of mainstream science. By exploring the inventional possibilities available to those who would respond to manufactured scientific controversies, this article equips readers and their students to confute deceptive arguments about science and engage in a more productive public debate. In so doing, this article initiates an Isocratean orientation to the rhetoric of science as a field of study.”
Isocrates was praised by Cicero and Quintilian as “the master of all rhetoricians,” favored over Plato and Aristotle.
Scientists don’t speak good. Is it all that different than advice from SkS?
I think it’s good to ask the question, Why are we losing? But it’s not useful to ask, What’s wrong with the people we are losing to?
What is an inventional possibility?
A new, useful process, machine, improvement, etc., that did not exist previously and that is recognized as the product of some unique intuition or genius, as distinguished from ordinary mechanical skill or craftsmanship.
In a flow chart, please write, Insert Miracle Here.
We need better rhetorical skills. It’s a marketing failure. But is she asking us what we need or telling us what we need to save ourselves from global warming? Some of us don’t want to be saved. We don’t care for arguments that it’s in our best interest. We dance to our own drummer. No we don’t want to hear, What’s wrong with skeptics. We are the United States. Everyone hates us. We’re used to it.
The 51% argument ignores that the center of the distribution is at 100% according to the IPCC, so 51% is also at the tail and hardly more likely than 50%. Note that with the full IPCC statement, the center has to be at least 100% with a positive imbalance, as Lewis and Curry use for example. The 50-50 argument contradicts the imbalance assumption in Lewis and Curry.
Re: “I do not see the connection between manufacturing doubt and avoiding accepting a consensus.”
Easy: one manufactures false about the consensus claim. Then one states that the consensus claim is too doubtful to be accepted. That allows one to avoid accepting the consensus claim.
Re: ““The IPCC’s attribution statement does not seem logically consistent with the uncertainty in climate sensitivity.” – the 50 50 post. Above she reference Lewis. The IPCC with ECS has a broad range with 66% confidence. With attribution the relative range narrows and confidence is 95%.”
I’ve explained this to you so many times in the comments sections of potholer54’s videos, Ragnaar Minnesota. Please stop pretending otherwise. Once again:
1) Even with a low sensitivity value, increased CO2 would still have caused most of the recent global warming. You would need a very low climate sensitivity estimate [below the range supported by the evidence], in order for humans not to have caused most of the recent global warming. Basically, you’d need an ECS of less than ~1.1K. For example, Monckton et al.’s garbage paper still ended up with humans causing most of the warming, despite their low climate sensitivity value (DOI: 10.1007/s11434-014-0699-2, page 130).
2) In addition to estimates of climate sensitivity, there are other lines of evidence showing that anthropogenic activity (predominately increased CO2) caused most of the recent global warming; this provides further credence for the >=95% certainty on the attribution point. Theses lines of evidence include:
– Post-1950s stratospheric cooling
– Post-1950s mesospheric cooling
– Post-1950s thermospheric cooling
– Horizontal/regional distribution of warming and the temporal pattern of warming [DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00191.1, pages 1683 and 1684]
– Exclusion of other likely causal factors, such as the Sun [ex: solar-induced warming causes cooling the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere, yet scientists observed cooling in these layers].
Re: “The evidence based consensus remains hardly useful for policy. “
Bare assertion on your part. All of the following claims are part of the evidence-based consensus:
A1) There has been global warming since the mid-20th century.
A2) Humans (largely via anthropogenic greenhouse gases) caused most of this recent warming.
A3) Most of the recent (or near future) climate change is (or will be) caused by humans.
A4) Climate change is a serious problem and/or a danger to humanity.
The following papers document the consensus on A1, A2, and A3:
“Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming”
“Does it matter if the consensus on anthropogenic global warming is 97% or 99.99%?”
For more the consensus on A3 and A4, see:
“Earth Scientists Views on Climate Change”
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/23/elaborating-on-the-views-of-aaas-scientists-issue-by-issue/
Figures 88 (v043) and 2 (v007) of: “The Bray and von Storch 5th International Survey of Climate Scientists 2015/2016”
https://www.hzg.de/imperia/md/content/hzg/zentrale_einrichtungen/bibliothek/berichte/hzg_reports_2016/hzg_report_2016_2.pdf
Page 49 of: “Models, manifestation and attribution of climate change”
Saying that the A1-A4 consensus is not useful for policy is as ignorant and implausible as saying the following claims are not useful for tobacco/cigarette policy:
B1) There have been cancer cases over the past century.
B2) Smoking caused cancer.
B3) At least tens of thousands of recent (or near future) cancer cases were (or will be) caused by smoking.
B4) Cancer is a serious problem and/or a danger to humanity.
Knowing the causes of a phenomena is relevant for making policy on that phenomena, Ragnaar. You once tried to dodge that point by telling me that Judith Curry said this:
“I don’t quite understand why it is important to attribute these extreme events other than to hysterically advocate reducing fossil fuels. In terms of trying to figure out how to manage extreme events and reduce our vulnerability, what’s causing it is almost a secondary concern. We’re not preparing for the events we have now, or the events we’ve seen in the twentieth Century, let alone for the events that we might see in the latter part of the 21st century.”
I used the cancer example to illustrate the flaw in what she said:
You can both mitigate cancer by reducing the causes of cancer (ex: reduce smoking) and adapt to cancer (ex: by increasing public funding for cancer treatment). Of course, mitigation depends on attribution, since figuring out what’s causing cancer helps in mitigating it. Only an ideologically-motivated contrarian would claim that attributing cancer to specific causes is done just to “hysterically advocate reducing smoking, more anti-tobacco regulations, or a larger cigarette tax”.
And the same points apply to extreme weather events and warming: you can help mitigate the events and the warming by identifying their contributing causes, and you can also adapt to the event. Once again, mitigation depends on attribution. Only an ideologically-motivated contrarian would claim that attributing extreme weather events and warming to specific causes is done just to “hysterically advocate reducing fossil fuels”.
Re: “The evidence based consensus remains hardly useful for policy. Manufacturing doubt is not required.”
Classic case of manufacturing false doubt to avoid policies you don’t like. I’m not surprised to see you resort to this
Go to the uncertainty tab on this blog and read all the papers.
Jim D:
Assume the IPCC’s attribution centers around 110% and Curry’s around 50%. Can we then say that half of her distribution overlaps the IPCC’s?
Re: “”The high likelihood of the imprecise “most” seems rather meaningless”: We disagree. Well I agree with Webster. What does it mean?”
Don’t feign ignorance. If a Republican said:
“Donald Trump won most of the electoral votes in the 2016 election”
then we’d know what that Republican means by “most”: they mean “a majority (>50%)”.
If a Democrat pulled the tactic you’re using and said:
“What does it mean to say “most” here?”
then that Democrat would be rightfully laughed at, because they are clearly feigning ignorance about what English words mean.
This point was made in the very next sentence that you chose to leave out of your quote-mine of the paper
“We disagree. The likelihood describes the assessed probability that “most” (i.e., more than 50%), of the warming is due to the increase in greenhouse gases.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00191.1
So, Ragnaar, please stop acting as if you don’t know what English words like “most” mean. It did not work when Curry and Webster tried it; it will not work for you.
Re: “The evidence based consensus remains hardly useful for policy. “
I already explained to you how attribution can be useful for mitigation and policy. If you think otherwise, then congratulations on taking the implausible position that “smoking has caused tens of thousands of cancer” is not a useful point in making public health policy.
Re: “How about showing us 2 of them”
“Reconciled climate response estimates from climate models and the energy budget of Earth”
“Implications for climate sensitivity from the response to individual forcings”
“Disentangling greenhouse warming and aerosol cooling to reveal Earth’s climate sensitivity”
“Inhomogeneous forcing and transient climate sensitivity”
“Beyond Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
[…]
Recently it has also been recognized that results that compare model surface air temperature with observed sea surface temperature over ocean — together with biases due to uncaptured warming in some regions — may underestimate equilibrium and transient warming. Often labelled as ‘observational’, these methods do rely on models: both to provide forcing estimates, such as aerosol forcing, and to link forcing to climate response through energy balance models. Hence, observational estimates are complementary to methods using comprehensive models, but have their own uncertainties.”
Re: “I think it’s good to ask the question, Why are we losing?”
Scientists aren’t losing. They just often have trouble convincing political conservatives, for the same reason evolutionary biologists often have trouble convincing political conservatives to accept that humans evolved from non-human animals: scientists are dealing with people engaged in ideologically-motivated denialism. And that sort of denialism is immune to persuasion via evidence.
I tried to explain it. CO2 causes X with Y amount of certainty. Attribution is about what we caused with our CO2 with Z amount of certainty. I do not see the reason for tightening certainty when moving from sensitivity to results. From cause to results.
Above I said this:
Their relative quality of being constrained:
TCR 3.85
Attribution 1.05
TCR is what happens.
Attribution is what we did, given what happens.
When we agree on what happens and bound it, we cannot not then use what happens and constrain it 3 or 4 times better. The original constraints must be carried with the TCR to attribution. If we don’t do that, it’s bad logic and math. We measure something to a certain level of confidence. We cannot then conjure up additional confidence reducing uncertainty by 3 or 4 times.
I do not care if both statements are argued to not conflict in this recent case. I care about what may be conjuring certainty.
“A new paper by Otto et al in Nature Geoscience has made an updated estimate of the transient climate response (TCR) implied by the climate change we have observed from 1970 to 2009. It finds the TCR to lie in the range 0.7–2.5 °C, with a best estimate of 1.4 °C. This is somewhat lower than an estimate based on temperatures just from the 1990s which had a range of 0.9–3.1 °C, with a best estimate of 1.6 °C.”
“What happens if we run PAGE09 with the updated estimate of TCR from Otto et al? The mean value of the SCCO2 goes down from about $100 to about $80 per tonne of CO2.”
We round the first quote to -0.2 C. That causes a $20 decrease. A 1.0 change in a 2.5 C 90% confidence range can drive the SCCO2 to zero or double it to $200 unless the whole thing is not close enough to linear. I am using my up thread quote about the TCR quoted from the IPCC.
What is it about attribution can be used to load into the PAGE09? Perhaps we can load the 110% number into the PAGE09 and just skip sensitivity. We could use the much higher certainty of attribution and constrain the results better. Or we could admit attribution has even less policy value than the TCR.
Is there one example of using the IPCC’s GMST warming attribution for policy, similar to using the TCR as it was used in the quote? These are scientists, not cheerleaders at mile 13 of a marathon. Give us something economists can use.
The doubt is here:
“Choosing lower and upper limits that encompass the range of these results and deflating significance levels in order to account for structural uncertainty in the estimate leads to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that TCR is less than 1°C and very unlikely that TCR is greater than 3.5°C.” (90% confidence)
Exactly as described by the IPCC. It stands on its own.
This little non-entity has a berry low opinion of non-believers in CAGW. Climate skeptics are just manufacturing doubt, because they don’ like the mitigation policies. They really believe that the World is going to burn up, but they don’t want to take the necessary steps to avoid it. No wonder he is so mad at Judith. Pathetic.
“That’s what happened with Duesberg. People have addressed the substance of what Curry has said…”
“And that doesn’t even touch on the numerous papers critiquing the energy-budget-model-based approach (for estimating climate sensitivity) used by Curry and Nic Lewis.”
Were the Otto or Lewis and Curry papers given a TKO?
We read this:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/10/climate-response-estimates-from-lewis-curry/
I don’t see Duesberg.
That’s right. Scientists aren’t losing. They’re writing papers about why they are. They are asking what’s wrong with people who don’t listen to us? And you are quoting their work.
Really? Pretty sure I asked if they were referring to attribution.
“We disagree. The likelihood describes the assessed probability that “most” (i.e., more than 50%), of the warming is due to the increase in greenhouse gases.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00191.1
Let’s have some scientific, Most facts.
Most scientists agree.
It’s a marketing term.
The IPCC’s attribution is paraphrased as extremely likely most and most likely all, while Judith effectively denies these two statements as being likely true while pretending to be within them. Watch the pea.
sorry, this is nuts
Read their statement, extremely likely most, and the other part is that the central estimate is that the warming from CO2 equals the total warming of the period. The peak of the distribution is at 100% (see Gavin), i.e. most likely all.
What you spout there is pretty much incomprehensible, yimmy, except the last part where you accuse Judith of being deliberately deceitful. I really am mystified as to why she puts up your foolishness and insults. Little critter.
““I don’t quite understand why it is important to attribute these extreme events other than to hysterically advocate reducing fossil fuels. In terms of trying to figure out how to manage extreme events and reduce our vulnerability, what’s causing it is almost a secondary concern. We’re not preparing for the events we have now, or the events we’ve seen in the twentieth Century, let alone for the events that we might see in the latter part of the 21st century.””
“I used the cancer example to illustrate the flaw in what she said:”
“You can both mitigate cancer by reducing the causes of cancer (ex: reduce smoking) and adapt to cancer (ex: by increasing public funding for cancer treatment).”
Mitigation that the United States can do is about 1/6 of the problem. If we reduce net emissions by half, we’ve improved our position by 1/12 which is not like not smoking.
We have baseline knowledge of extreme weather for the last 5 decades. We can use that and fix things, make them better. Repair and improve watersheds and coastlines. And don’t forget the farmers. Give them some money to restore carbon soil. How much do you want the rednecks from the red states? Beefalo on restored native prairies. Think about it.
Don, maybe you can explain how Lewis and Curry assume 100% attribution, while elsewhere Judith says it is not possible. Not sure it is deceit, but something is not quite right there.
Jim D:
I assume you mean the IPCC said two things about attribution. I’ll agree they did. And the two statements agree enough with each other.
Place values 1 through 9 on their statements about:
1) Attribution
2) TCR
3) ECS
9 is the highest value.
No two above can have the same value.
The highest valued one will be used for policy.
Their second statement enhances the first. With 100% attribution the effective sensitivity becomes over 2 C per doubling, and with equilibrium being higher it makes sense to use 2-3 C for policy, and they do. So now we get 450 ppm for the 2 C limit, and 4 C for a 700 ppm by 2100 scenario.
The little fella backs off on calling Judith a dishonest scientist trying to hide CAGW peas. He now, just minutes later, says he’s not sure. If you are not sure, you little critter, you should not make the accusation. You should eliminated from this blog for crap like that.
You are obviously delusional to accuse a reputable climate scientist of hiding the alleged reality of CAGW, like she wants everybody to burn up. Why would you entertain such a thought? And if you believe it, why have you been hanging around here for years trying to filibuster every thread? Do you think you are exposing Judith, or punishing her duplicity? Or are you trying to talk her and her denizens to death? Probably all of the above.
Don, I told you that Lewis and Curry have 100% attribution which is not consistent with what Curry says on radio shows, blogs, etc. You can take that information any way you like, but now at least you are aware of the discrepancy, and you can ask Judith about it, not me.
The argument is that even if you assume 100% attribution, here is the CO2 sensitivity (smaller than what the climate models produce).
The 100% attribution comes from the energy balance and especially the positive imbalance shown also by Lewis and Curry. It’s not an assumption but an unquestioned fact in that paper.
Re: Ragnaar: “CO2 causes X with Y amount of certainty. Attribution is about what we caused with our CO2 with Z amount of certainty. I do not see the reason for tightening certainty when moving from sensitivity to results.”
You’re still pretending this wasn’t explained to you, just as you’ve done in the comments section for potholer54’s videos for months. How telling. Once again:
1) Even with a low sensitivity value, increased CO2 would still have caused most of the recent global warming. You would need a very low climate sensitivity estimate [below the range supported by the evidence], in order for humans not to have caused most of the recent global warming. Basically, you’d need an ECS of less than ~1.1K. For example, Monckton et al.’s garbage paper still ended up with humans causing most of the warming, despite their low climate sensitivity value (DOI: 10.1007/s11434-014-0699-2, page 130).
2) In addition to estimates of climate sensitivity, there are other lines of evidence showing that anthropogenic activity (predominately increased CO2) caused most of the recent global warming; this provides further credence for the >=95% certainty on the attribution point. Theses lines of evidence include:
– Post-1950s stratospheric cooling
– Post-1950s mesospheric cooling
– Post-1950s thermospheric cooling
– Horizontal/regional distribution of warming and the temporal pattern of warming [DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00191.1, pages 1683 and 1684]
– Exclusion of other likely causal factors, such as the Sun [ex: solar-induced warming causes cooling the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere, yet scientists observed cooling in these layers].
I’m not going to respond to the rest of your points until you address what I wrote above; I’ve explained this to you for months, yet you keep pretending otherwise. I’ve familiar with how denialists like you operate: you’ll jump from point-to-point, ignoring rebuttals of what you previously said, and instead repeat your debunking points as if they haven’t been addressed. I’m not going to play that game with you. So I suggest you address what I wrote above, instead of continuing to pretend it was not explained to you.
“[…] the reader is struck by the number of times the same individuals post the same commentary for multiple articles over many weeks, sometimes even months. Even though the foundation of their points (or the “authorities” to whom they referred) was seemingly effectively critiqued by other posters, those same “authorities” and arguments were returned to again and again. […] the persistent deniers were not motivated by a desire to learn more about global warming (and possibly reframe their perspective), but were posting with the intent of persuading the unknowledgeable and casual reader that the associated article, and hence global warming, was not to be taken seriously.”
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ842771.pdf
Re: “solar-induced warming causes cooling the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere”
Mistake on my part. This should read:
“solar-induced warming causes warming the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere”
JimD
Can you provide the passage in Lewis and Curry citing the 100% attribution? I don’t see it. Or if you have concluded that from some logic and your own calculations, please provide that.
little yimmy dee, shameless anonymous non-entity: “Watch the pea.”
Dr. Judith Curry: “sorry, this is nuts”
cerescokid, they take a positive imbalance as their best estimate. A positive imbalance implies that the forcing exceeds the warming which implies all the warming and more in the pipeline comes from the forcing, which itself is almost entirely anthropogenic also according to their own best estimates. Skeptics don’t think this through, and I find it very frustrating to have said this so many times here for several years now, and the penny not dropping at all for even one of them. Surely it is not that hard to understand.
sorry, this is nuts
What Don said……and what Judith said. There are times when brevity is eloquence.
“AOS models are members of the broader class of deterministic chaotic dynamical systems, which provides several expectations about their properties (Fig. 1). In the context of weather prediction, the generic property of sensitive dependence is well understood (4, 5). For a particular model, small differences in initial state (indistinguishable within the sampling uncertainty for atmospheric measurements) amplify with time at an exponential rate until saturating at a magnitude comparable to the range of intrinsic variability.” http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
Exponentially divergent error propagation in models is a fact known since the very beginning of weather and climate modelling. It is routinely glossed over by climate fanatics. Make no mistake – Dessler is a fanatic. He is wrong on warming in the pipeline – there is no actual data showing this – or indeed the mooted radiative imbalance at TOA. There are only simplistic calculations that neglect relatively important energy terms and the huge annual variability in ocean heat. It is much more likely that oceans don’t cool as much with a CO2 rich atmosphere – rather than warm slowly.
What evidence there is suggests that Pielke was correct in saying that ocean heat tracks variability in TOA radiant flux – something that was dominated by shortwave radiative forcing in the late 20th century warming.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/wong2006figure7.gif
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI3838.1
As far as I am concerned – it is entirely appropriate to block serial bores in a private e-space. Everyone does it – except for Judith Curry. Science o’ Doom does a better job of weeding out serial pests – and the relentless aspersions of team fanatic. I don’t visit any of them any more. Except for this one – and I regularly disagree with almost everyone. In the public spaces of universities – students are free to welcome anyone they like – but the question revolves the right of others to disrupt. Students are free to either civilly or uncivilly protest – but if uncivilly there must be consequences. Freedom of association is an ancient principle of personal freedoms. Freedom fighting – as someone keeps putting mockingly in quotes – is a proud classic-liberal tradition that will be defended to the barricades if necessary. You have been warned – as antifa said at the Portland Rose Parade.
Same sex marriage is quite another topic. I identify as the at least 59% screaming queen gender identity but there are competing classic liberal principles here. Equality before the law and freedom of religion. Both of which are guaranteed under the US constitution. The only reasonable approach to this Gordian knot is for government to bow out of laws on marriage entirely – this is a battle that is only just beginning and will simmer on for decades until it is won. The alternative from the progressive left is ever increasing legislative restriction on personal freedoms through imposition of codes of behavior that go well beyond God and reason.
Multiple genders is an absurdity that will implode under the weight of inconsistencies. Germaine Greer for instance had the temerity to call ‘transgenders’ fake women – which prompted an outcry that she simply laughed at. I’d go further and suggest that what sort of genitals you have – and the combinations they are put to – don’t matter. Gender differences are more socially mediated than innate. I don’t care what people do. The artificial multiple genders construct – however – leads to child abuse in the use of powerful drugs in pre-pubescent children. Most of these so-called transgender children move on – most being gay. The kinder response seems to be therapy to overcome gender dysmorphia – and to cope with societal expectations.
Not mentioning the smoking lobby seems an oversight that I invite him to now redress.
Re: “He is wrong on warming in the pipeline – there is no actual data showing this”
Sure… And the ocean immediately warms in response to increased CO2, because thermal inertia is not a thing. That makes perfect sense.
[/sarcasm].
Re: “What evidence there is suggests that Pielke was correct in saying that ocean heat tracks variability in TOA radiant flux – something that was dominated by shortwave radiative forcing in the late 20th century warming.”
Any evidence that increasing shortwave radiative forcing explains long-term, post-1970s ocean warming and increases in OHC? And I’m well aware that Earth releases more long wave radiation as it warms. Anyway, it’s whiny of Pielke Sr. to block Dessler simply because Dessler made a scientific objection to what Pielke Sr. said. You can’t justify that by calling Dessler a “fanatic”, because there was nothing fanatical about Dessler’s response.
Re: “Same sex marriage is quite another topic. I identify as the at least 59% screaming queen gender identity but there are competing classic liberal principles here. Equality before the law and freedom of religion”
This isn’t about freedom of religion, and numerous Christian like me admit that. Gay people marrying does not infringe on my religious freedom, anymore than miscegenation infringed on the freedom of Southern, white, social conservatives during the 1960s. Religious freedom does not mean you get to use the law to limit people’s freedoms, based on your religious ideology. Furthermore, there are plenty of immoral, un-Biblical things that should be legal, such as blasphemy, insulting one’s parents, most cases of no-fault divorce, fornication, adultery, coveting, etc. So even if same-sex behavior and same-sex marriage were un-Biblical and immoral, that would not provide sufficient grounds for making them illegal. Opposition to same-sex marriage legalization, is one of the most poorly thought-out political positions I’ve ever seen.
Re: “The artificial multiple genders construct – however – leads to child abuse in the use of powerful drugs in pre-pubescent children. Most of these so-called transgender children move on – most being gay.”
Last I checked, there are multiple (more than 1) genders in US society. But support by “multiple” you meant “more than 2”. If so, then your response fails, since treatment for gender dysphoria can happen in a society where there are only 2 genders. Also, you should cite some evidence for your claims on gender dysphoria, not just say whatever’s convenient for your personal, ideological biases.
Thermal inertia content bounces s a thing – but ocean heat bounces around a lot on an annual basis swamping it…
I don’t believe it infringes on my religion… but I can’t speak for them all… that’s rather the point?
yawn… https://apath.org/63-genders/
… thermal inertia is a thing…
Start posting your serial tripe at SoD and 1,2,3: gone.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Marriage for many people and cultures is a core religious institution. I’m familiar and sympathetic to the argument that gays should be allowed to marry because they should have to suffer like the rest of us. But the argument is that government vacate the field – churches may do whatever they determine is consistent with beliefs.
As for the ideology of multiple (many) genders –
ABSTRACT: Gender dysphoria (GD) of childhood describes a psychological condition in which children experience a marked incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with their biological sex. When this occurs in the pre-pubertal child, GD resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. Currently there is a vigorous, albeit suppressed, debate among physicians, therapists, and academics regarding what is fast becoming the new treatment standard for GD in children. This new paradigm is rooted in the assumption that GD is innate, and involves pubertal suppression with gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists followed by the use of cross-sex hormones—a combination that results in the sterility of minors. A review of the current literature suggests that this protocol is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, lacks an evidence base, and violates the long-standing ethical principle of “First do no harm.”
https://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements/gender-dysphoria-in-children
But then – there is no debate on childhood gender dysphoria in the eyes of progressive, collective memeherders.
Re: “Marriage for many people and cultures is a core religious institution.”
So what? That doesn’t mean people get to use their religion as justification for infringing on other’s people rights. And I say that as a Christian. For example, for many people and cultures, blasphemy, heresy, witchcraft, no-fault divorce, adultery, insulting one’s parents, etc. are affronts to their core religious institutions. Yet all those practices can (and should) be illegal. If you think otherwise, then you’re against the first amendment’s protection of free speech and free exercise of religion (ex: heresy, blasphemy, and Wiccan witchcraft). And that would be ironic, given your quotation of the first amendment.
Re: “As for the ideology of multiple (many) genders –”
Why are you quoting the American College of Pediatricians like they’re a credible source? Do you not know any better, or did you think I’m uninformed/credulous enough to fall for what you’re doing? The American College of Pediatricians is not a reputable organization; it’s a socially conservative, advocacy group. I suggest you read some reputable sources on the subject of gender dysphoria, such as:
“Report of the APA Task Force on Treatment of Gender Identity Disorder” (particularly pages 4 – 6)
“Gender reassignment surgery: an overview”
“Good practice guidelines for the assessment and treatment of adults with gender dysphoria”
Adults may of course do whatever they friggin’ like as far as I am concerned. Including marrying in an agreeable church – sans state involvement. I am like a card carrying, drooling, small government, right wing zealot who is opposed to guvmint marrying anyone – even gays.
Treatment of GD in children is an ethical decision. Most GD children adjust to their biological sex by late pubescence – most gay apparently. For them it is first do no harm.
OMG! The little vicious non-entity says we should be informed by a “reputable” source that says gender dysphoria is a disorder. The little rascal must be a closet conservative. Pathetic.
Re: “I am like a card carrying, drooling, small government, right wing zealot”
I knew that already. Political conservatives (usually fiscal conservatives / libertarians, often social conservatives) are more likely to misrepresent the facts on climate science and more likely hold denialist views on this topic Parallel points apply for conservatives being more likely to be denialists on human evolution.
So, for instance, if someone tells me that “evolution is a lie; humans did not evolve from non-human animals,” then I’m pretty sure thar person is religious and a political conservative. And if someone tells me that “there’s a bunch of alarmism of climate change; it’s just a bunch of government scientists lying about humans causing warming”, then I’m pretty sure that person is a political conservative.
Re: “Treatment of GD in children is an ethical decision. Most GD children adjust to their biological sex by late pubescence – most gay apparently. For them it is first do no harm.”
To repeat what I cited to you before:
“How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis
[…]
The belief that Homo sapiens is absolutely dimorphic with the respect to sex chromosome composition, gonadal structure, hormone levels, and the structure of the internal genital duct systems and external genitalia, derives from the platonic ideal that for each sex there is a single, universally correct developmental pathway and outcome. We surveyed the medical literature from 1955 to the present for studies of the frequency of deviation from the ideal male or female. We conclude that this frequency may be as high as 2% of live births. The frequency of individuals receiving “corrective” genital surgery, however, probably runs between 1 and 2 per 1,000 live births (0.1–0.2%).”
So gender dysphoria is treated by surgery at a much lower rate than would be expected, given the proportion of people who deviate from standard categories for biological sexes. The following source will dumb some of this down to a laymen’s level:
c0nc0rdance’s: “Transgender as therapy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re8d7SZ3Ys0
And I’m still waiting for your to support your claims on gender dysphoria, with evidence from credible sources.
[No, the American College of Pediatricians is not credible].
There is a comment here that didn’t make it past moderation – which given the tone of it seems capricious nonsense.
Treatment of GD – a psychological condition in children that most resolve by late pubescence – is an ethical decision for the wider society – not merely ‘reputable sources’ as defined by the progressive collective. I have said that. Treatment harms children – and for most GD children drug treatments are unnecessary. GD is not a congenital physical condition – which may indeed benefit from surgical intervention.
Collective shibboleths proliferate around GD, gay marriage, climate science, vaccination, limits to growth, GMO’s and the lizard people of Sirius. Classic groupthink – including self censorship, justifying suppression of alternate views and denigration of the other. Applying as much here as in universities.
We are well past the stage where we are allowed an opinion that diverges from the simple ideas of meme herders. We are evil, dumb and quite likely to offend polite and politically correct society. But you are quite welcome to continue to stop the US Republican party one antifa threat to the Portland Rose Parade at a time. How’s that working for you?
http://www.dailywire.com/news/22450/conservative-professor-banned-university-speaking-james-barrett?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=restlesspatriot
Conservative Professor Banned By University From Speaking. Here’s His Terrific Rebuttal.
After being “disinvited” from speaking at the University of Montana because of his conservative views, UNC-Wilmington Criminology Professor Mike Adams penned an open letter to the UM president that not only defends his own track record but also succinctly highlights several key conservative stances in the face of the increasingly fascistic campus left.
Adams, who writes columns for Town Hall, where he published his open letter, is one of the very limited number of professors who actually holds mainstream conservative views and who has the guts to openly voice and promote those views. For that, he has been the target of much antipathy among his peers and the administration, but he’s also become somewhat of a celebrity among conservatives who appreciate his willingness to push back against the overwhelmingly left-wing forces in academia.
As Adams explains in his letter, after being invited earlier in the summer to speak at UM’s journalism lecture series, which he notes is funded by an outside source, he was “banned from speaking” on the campus. The decision was made by the Dean of Journalism Larry Abramson, who took the position after a career with NPR. Abramson sent a letter to the funder of the event explaining why Adams was barred:
If you jump in at 3:30 on the link at the bottom, you can hear (Dr. Adams) talking about his opposition to tolerance of transgender accommodations. He appears to be siding with Christians in the “culture war.” In this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oX9ya3EW04 he talks about his efforts to make sure that abortion providers give time to Christian speakers, in the interest of freedom of speech. He also talks about the prevalence of “cultural Marxism,” and exclusively speaks on right wing sites. In this one, https://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2017/04/07/why-im-banning-illegal-aliens-from-my-classes-n2310029 he talks about why he will no longer allow “illegal aliens” into his classes. I think we can find a speaker who will talk about free speech issues, without running the risk of offending students. We can still have a conversation with him if you want, but he is pretty extreme in his views.
In response, Adams provides a list of eight problems with the dean’s claims, including what constitutes “extreme” views on transgenderism, the “unbridled religious bigotry” of Abramson’s perspective on Christianity, academia’s attempts to use public funds for abortions, the relevance of cultural Marxism, and the absurd fear of offending students. Here’s all eight:
Transgender litmus test. In the speech to which the Dean links, I express my support for the controversial HB2 bill. At the time I expressed that view the majority of the people who live in my state agreed with me. Thus, it is not an extreme view. It is a mainstream view, which the Dean rejects. It is hardly a view that would warrant my exclusion from a campus in Montana where the majority of the people surely agree with me on this issue.
Siding with Christians. This is simply unbridled religious bigotry. For the Dean to suggest that speakers must not side with Christians on cultural issues lest they be banned from campus raises serious questions concerning his competence. Is he suggesting that only those who side against Christians are welcomed?
Abortion providers. In my speech, I talk about campus Women’s Resource Centers using mandatory student fees to fund speeches in favor of abortion but not those in opposition to abortion. That violates Supreme Court precedent. Somehow, the Dean confuses these centers with abortion providers. Obviously, we don’t perform abortions here on campus in our Women’s Centers.
Cultural Marxism. The Dean mocks the concept of cultural Marxism by putting it in scare quotes. If he believes it is not a legitimate concept then he needs to explain why it is not. I explain the concept in my speech and provide examples. He should rebut my argument rather than simply using it as a justification for banning me.
Right wing sites. The Dean claims that I “speak” exclusively on right wing sites. That is false. I have been on MSNBC, Air America, and numerous other left wing stations and sites. I have also appeared on NPR where Abramson worked for nearly thirty years. Most importantly, I have spoken at 93 different universities, the overwhelming majority of which have been dominated by left-wing academics such as Dean Abramson. In short, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and demonstrated the kind of intellectual courage the Dean lacks.
Banning illegal aliens. In the satirical column, to which the Dean links, I criticize a professor who holds open border views and yet insists that juniors be prevented from “jumping in line” to sign up for senior classes. We know it is satire because I am not actually in possession of the immigration status information of students who seek enrollment in my classes. Everyone seems to understand my journalistic satire except for your Dean of Journalism.
Demanding open borders. What if I actually was trying to ban illegal aliens from my classes? Is it the business of the Dean to demand that people turn a blind eye to illegal immigration lest they be banned from campus? The hint that this is yet another litmus test comes with his use of scare quotes around the phrase.
Not offending students. Finally, the Dean of Journalism states that he cannot allow for the mere risk that his students will be offended. Thus, the Dean is engaging in prior restraint of all speech that could potentially offend someone. Let that sink in as you continue to ponder this man’s competence to serve as Dean of Anything much less the Dean of Journalism.
Citing a quote from Abramson about supposedly defending “tolerance” in his school, Adams smacks him for the inherent illogic of his argument. “Try to make sense of the logic of this Dean telling me I am not going to be tolerated or welcomed at the J-school because I am not as tolerant and welcoming as they are at the J-school,” he writes.
Adams concludes by offering a suggestion to the president about a possible replacement for Abramson. “If you were smart, you would lift the ban on me speaking at UM,” he writes. “Then, you could hire me as your new Dean of Journalism.”
The University never invited him. They told the benefactor, who is not the government, that they would not co-sponser him.
Nonetheless they had to prevent or ban him from coming and used the justifications so pronounced. They purposely prevented him from coming. Being originally from there I know that Missoula is a fairly liberal town and college compared to the rest of the state so people in and around the University would not be heartbroken not to see him there and probably in agreement with the NPR guy. To me, even though I’m not aligned with his ideas, this intolerance demonstrates the weakness, not the power, of the intellectual left. With this, as well as my comment above about boreholes, I ask you again what are they afraid of and why such cowardliness?
A university is not obligated to invite a speaker.
It’s an odd situation, but she does not speak for the university. She’s a citizen; he’s an administrator who holds the sole authority to invite speakers for that particular event. He never invited the man, so the man cannot be disinvited. He simply was not invited by the university. The lady who provides the money invited the guy.
He gets to use his reasons for selecting the person he wants to select. He has that authority.
Yes he’s not obligated to invite him but they have her sponsorship and haven’t refused previously:
The Journalism School is not excited about my inviting Dr. Adams to campus and they have strongly encouraged me to select another speaker, but I have already contracted to have Dr. Adams here and the previous nine years there have never been objections to my selection for a lecture so I find it a bit unusual now that this different voice is not welcome,” Cole said.
Read More: UM J-School Allegedly Denies Speaker for Political Reasons | http://newstalkkgvo.com/um-j-school-accused-of-denying-conservative-speaker-for-political-and-religious-reasons/?trackback=tsmclip
If he denied say based on, say the fact the guy is not a journalist, I could see rebuking his sponsor but why rebuff based on politics?
I think we can find a speaker who will talk about free speech issues, without running the risk of offending students. We can still have a conversation with him if you want, but he is pretty extreme in his views.
Read More: UM J-School Allegedly Denies Speaker for Political Reasons | http://newstalkkgvo.com/um-j-school-accused-of-denying-conservative-speaker-for-political-and-religious-reasons/?trackback=tsmclip
but benefactor Maria Cole says that the speaker she invited for the tenth anniversary Jeff Cole lecture has been denied a place to speak.
The point I’m trying to make with you is that why stifle any debate on political grounds? or why refuse to debate denialists and delete their comments based on what intellectual cowardliness? It seems to be their tactic and has been for some time. It does not seem to be working though.
“they would not co-sponser him”. What is your source of that information?
J’accuse,’ the open letter from Emile Zola to the President of
the French Republic in defense of Alfred Dreyfus, convicted
of treason. One against the consensus view, fortunate that
L’Aurore’ newspaper printed it. Do today’s students, educated
in gender diversity politics but not in history have any notion
of the importance of free speech?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/J_accuse.jpg
Beth
The book, ‘An officer and a Spy’ by Robert Harris is a masterful hillier about the Dreyfus affair, well worth a read
Tonyb
I’ll read it in the Xmas break, thx Tony.
I bet most of these high school students won’t be welcome on most college campuses:
https://www.chonday.com/5595/anthofius3/
No knees taken. I think I will make watching this part of my morning routine.
Don,
Thanks for the reference!
I have had discussions with science o’ doom before. Nice guy – despite his aversion to climate poetry. But challenge – and you know who you are – accepted.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/challenge-accepted.jpg
Eyes on the Pacific?
A near real time supercomputer visualization of total precipitable water in the atmosphere over the Pacific says something about winds and currents – and warmth and moisture – in coupled ocean and atmospheric dynamics.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/ens-26-10-2017.jpg
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-160.60,1.33,226
Warmth and fading cyclonic conditions in the north western Pacific. Cold and stormy air pushing out from polar regions. Cool and dry in the eastern Pacific in an emerging La Niña. Will the PDO index follow suit?
Visit the site – and become mesmerized by quasi standing waves in Earth’s spatiotemporal chaotic flow field.
I have had discussions with science o’ doom before. Nice guy – despite his aversion to climate poetry. But challenge – and you know who you are – accepted.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/challenge-accepted.jpg
https://scienceofdoom.com/2017/09/24/impacts-xiv-tropical-cyclones-and-climate-change-1/
Eyes on the Pacific?
A near real time supercomputer visualization of total precipitable water in the atmosphere over the Pacific says something about winds and currents – and warmth and moisture – in coupled ocean and atmospheric dynamics.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/ens-26-10-2017.jpg
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-160.60,1.33,226
Warmth and fading cyclonic conditions in the north western Pacific. Cold and stormy air pushing out from polar regions. Cool and dry in the eastern Pacific in an emerging La Niña. Will the PDO index follow suit?
Visit the site – and become mesmerized by quasi standing waves in Earth’s spatiotemporal chaotic flow field.
… whoops…
Your usual nasty vulgar politicized tripe parading as science? A few comments. LMAO.
The ideas are the core of what I have been thinking about – inter alia – since 2009 when it finally clicked for me. Think of weather and climate as a 4 dimensional, globally coupled, turbulent flow field. Chaos ensues – just as in Tomas’ mountain river.
https://judithcurry.com/2011/02/10/spatio-temporal-chaos/
Before that and for decades it was the Pacific Ocean source of 20 to 30 year regimes of drought and flood in north-eastern Australia. It seems only the beginning of Pacific variability and it’s influence on temperature and hydrology.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vance2012-antartica-law-dome-ice-core-salt-content.jpg
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1
A cooling sun may indeed bias the Pacific to cooler (La Nina like) conditions – and more rain in Australia – over the next few centuries.
BTW – I ‘identify’ as a very old fashioned natural philosopher. But as everything old is new again – it embraces a science that is less certain but more ‘fruitful’.
e.g. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016WR020078/full
Robert – do you know by a chance how they measure a “total precipitable water” and what it means? I can imagine a total water vapor, a total liquid water, and a total solid water. I don’t know how to measure the last two, or even how to measure the first one in the presence of the last two. Links will be highly appreciated.
Sorry – I followed the terminology of the site. I’d guess it’s closer to water vapor – as implied in precipitate.
The nasty politicized tripe all comes from JCH.
‘Further, students cocooning in safe spaces will be ill-prepared for dealing with the moral and political controversies and ambiguities that they will face throughout their lives’
Or, as we non academics put it – growing up.
Curry insinuated 6 in the cartoon she posted at the end of:
https://judithcurry.com/2014/08/28/atlantic-vs-pacific-vs-agw/
What with Atomski carpet bombing the threads. With li’l Jimmy chiming in. I had the thought of glib lies and devious distortions – but what really did she say?
Energy budget estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate
response (TCR) are derived using the comprehensive 1750–2011 time series and the uncertainty ranges
for forcing components provided in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Working Group I Report, along with its
estimates of heat accumulation in the climate system. The resulting estimates are less dependent on
global climate models and allow more realistically for forcing uncertainties than similar estimates based
on forcings diagnosed from simulations by such models. Base and final periods are selected that have
well matched volcanic activity and influence from internal variability. Using 1859–1882 for the base
period and 1995–2011 for the final period, thus avoiding major volcanic activity, median estimates are
derived for ECS of 1.64 K and for TCR of 1.33 K. ECS 17–83% and 5–95% uncertainty ranges are
1.25–2.45 K and 1.05–4.05 K; the corresponding TCR ranges are 1.05–1.80 K and 0.90–2.50 K. Results
using alternative well-matched base and final periods provide similar best estimates but give wider
uncertainty ranges, principally reflecting smaller changes in average forcing. Uncertainty in aerosol
forcing is the dominant contribution to the ECS and TCR uncertainty ranges.
Using AR5 forcings to derive an observationally constrained sensitivity – with still large measurement uncertainties. The article says little about attribution -except that early 20th century warming was anomalous.
But to try to tie it back to the topic – which is not climate science – something that these simple meme herders get spectacularly and hilariously wrong – it is the impulse to death by a 1000 inanities should you – like Judith Curry has – transgress progressive collective memes. And we know where that road leads.
Re: “Curry insinuated 6 in the cartoon she posted at the end of:
https://judithcurry.com/2014/08/28/atlantic-vs-pacific-vs-agw/“
In your quote-mine, you left out what point 6 was. It was:
“6) claimed that large numbers of scientists are misrepresenting science and supporting the consensus position in order to keep their jobs, funding, etc.”
And you also left out the fact that point 6 is a paranoid, flawed tactic used by denialists, such as AIDS denialists.
“Conspiracy Theories and Selective Distrust of Scientific Authority
[…]
Deniers argue that because scientists receive grant money, fame, and prestige as a result of their research, it is in their best interest to maintain the status quo [15]. This type of thinking is convenient for deniers as it allows them to choose which authorities to believe and which ones to dismiss as part of a grand conspiracy. In addition to being selective, their logic is also internally inconsistent.”
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256
That’s relevant, since I was asked to explain how Curry was similar to AIDS denialists like Peter Duesberg:
“Atomsk – could you provide specific evidence of what she has said or done that should convince us that Dr Curry is a scientist of the order of Duesberg, is recalcitrant in the face of evidence, and employs tactics that are sinister and need to be exposed, ad hominem, to the public rather than debate her on the substance?”
Anyone can go to the link I posted, and see that Curry did use a cartoon to insinuate point 6 at the end of her post:
https://judithcurry.com/2014/08/28/atlantic-vs-pacific-vs-agw/
You also left out the other example of Curry using point 6:
“She did 5 and 6 in the following blogpost (especially the “The advantages of dogma” section):”
https://judithcurry.com/2010/11/03/reversing-the-direction-of-the-positive-feedback-loop/
So it’s clear why you left point 6 out of your quote-mine: including it would expose people to what you’re evading. Let me know when you can actually address point 6, and the cartoon.
Re: “What with Atomski carpet bombing the threads”
I comment on here less than you do, and on less threads than you do. But if you need to pretend otherwise in order to find some reason to whine, then go ahead. I don’t expect much more than that from you.
Atomski has entered the twilight zone. I am not clear what any of it means – or how it relates to the post. Frankly I have given up even trying and scroll over vast stretches of the text equivalent of pedestrian crossings.
But classic liberalism – the Scottish enlightenment and the Austrian school of economics – is my special subject – and free speech in universities of keen interest. The topic of the post after all is the petty tyranny of the progressive collective.
You can see from this that they have said that by the choosing periods they have, they use all the known forcing and best estimate of the imbalance to explain all of the temperature rise to get their numbers. That is, in other words, a 100% attribution to the known forcing which is ~99% anthropogenic.
You mean the forcing estimated in broad limits? Using the AR5 numbers was the point – believing them not so much.
They didn’t say that. In fact, I think they even fine-tuned the aerosols more to their liking, which they wouldn’t do if they didn’t believe the rest anyway. This gives the impression that the forcing is their own best estimate.
People will note that you did not respond to what I said. Thanks for playing.
What we have is a claim that Curry agrees with IPCC attribution on one hand and not on the other – therefore she is deceitful. She is indulging in a shell game according to li’l Jimmy. Jimmy plays the denier card and explicitly accuses everyone who disagrees of duplicity. There is contempt at the root of these interactions that will never be resolved.
This is nuts.
Lewis and Curry make forcing and imbalance estimates that look very much like the IPCC’s. Draw your own conclusions about attribution from the way they use that to get the sensitivity, but, I’ll help you, the answer is 100%. Nuts indeed.
No, it was an admission that 100% was used, as I said all along.
Jim D | October 26, 2017 at 7:12 pm |
The IPCC’s attribution is paraphrased as extremely likely most and most likely all, while Judith effectively denies these two statements as being likely true while pretending to be within them. Watch the pea.
curryja | October 27, 2017 at 9:52 am |
sorry, this is nuts
“curryja | October 27, 2017 at 9:50 am |
The argument is that even if you assume 100% attribution, here is the CO2 sensitivity (smaller than what the climate models produce).”
How do you live with yourself?
“curryja | October 27, 2017 at 9:50 am |
The argument is that even if you assume 100% attribution, here is the CO2 sensitivity (smaller than what the climate models produce).”
Seriously????
and this was my response to that
“The 100% attribution comes from the energy balance and especially the positive imbalance shown also by Lewis and Curry. It’s not an assumption but an unquestioned fact in that paper.”
If they want to question the energy balance methodology that they used themselves here and others like Otto et al. use, and positive imbalance numbers, that would be a whole different paper and much more controversial. Note that they don’t even hint at questioning these things. The questions that have been asked bout that methodology (e.g. Armour) say that it is too conservative, if anything.
but what about Paris
flushed down the toilet
follow the pee
When virtue is defined in terms of being a member of an oppressed group, one must by definition have an oppressor. It is not sufficient to admit that some people are poor due to historical disadvantages–the oppression must be current and active and dangerous. The more your scream about oppression the greater your creds as a victim. It is the opposite of the type of virtue derived from abstention from doing harm and from actively doing good. This type of faux virtue does not require any lifestyle change or that one get off one’s couch, but rather one merely screeches about oppression. A pretty easy gig. It encourages paranoia as people take a banana peel in a tree as a reason to shut down a retreat or a shoelace hung on a door as a noose (real stories).
Susan Sontag identified the entire white race as the planet killing culture – but perhaps just old, white, straight men. I can add that I have given up on all of the above.
Yet these things in the classic liberal tradition – like free speech – that a progressive collectivist complains about are core American values. Democracy, God given individual freedoms and the rule of law. From the Scottish enlightenment and hopefully tinged by the Austrian school of economics. Classic liberalism is not just another ism – it is the key to stable and resilient markets, robust democracies and free and happy people in vibrant landscapes.
e.g. https://watertechbyrie.com/2016/03/11/all-bubbles-burst-laws-of-economics-for-the-new-millennium/
Lest we forget:
Jim D | October 26, 2017 at 7:12 pm |
The IPCC’s attribution is paraphrased as extremely likely most and most likely all, while Judith effectively denies these two statements as being likely true while pretending to be within them. Watch the pea.
curryja | October 27, 2017 at 9:52 am |
sorry, this is nuts
This is the pea and the nuts thread. We got two anonymous little vicious nuts carpet bombing the discussion with accusations that Dr. Judith Curry is trying to hide the pea. They say Dr. Curry=Doucheberg the infamous goofey AIDS denier. In other words, the anonymous little vicious nuts are calling a respectable and accomplished climate scientist a serial dis-informer. That is libel per se. It’s like accusing a lawyer of deliberately throwing cases, a CPA of cooking the books, a doctor of purposely cutting off the wrong leg. Libel per se. Look it up. That’s what we have here. Pathetic little anonymous characters.
Unlike our host, who is on the Heartland mailing list, Don has evidently fallen behind in his reading.
When’s the last time you saw Paris?
Quelle arrondissement ?
You didn’t understand the question. You are dismissed.
Any of them Russell. And Paris Hilton doesn’t count
tonyb
Last time, I landed at de Gaulle – I’ve never been near Le Bourget.
Little non-entity Bill Nye the pretend “Science Guy” was interviewed recently by left loon mag Salon:
Salon: How are your desperate climate change education efforts going, Bill?
Nye: I am a failure.
Salon: That’s what we were thinking. Why have you failed?
Nye: It’s the evil fossil fuel industry and Judith Curry’s uncertainty monster. Too freaking much firepower for me. And the rest of you left loons are not getting it done either.
Judith Curry was asked to respond:
Dr. Curry: sorry, this is nuts
THE END
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It’s a sign that they are losing – and if Milo has to bring an army to Berkeley so be it.
The elements of climate science are almost trivial radiative flux changes and the random and chaotic. We already had extreme and abrupt weather and climate. But good luck speaking truth to consensus on that.
(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:
(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and
(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.”
s18C of Australia’s racial discrimination act
Yeah well – I’m offended by antifa.