Saturday, November 19, 2011

Chris Mooney: "Anthony Watts and Defensive Reasoning"

I came across this article today and believe it's worth sharing.
Tip of the hat to Chris Mooney and DeSmogBlog.com

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Anthony Watts and Defensive Reasoning: Three Episodes
Chris Mooney, November 16, 2011 ~  desmogblog.com

"Over the last year, I’ve had numerous blogospheric encounters with the conservative climate “skeptic” Anthony Watts, the author of WattsUpWithThat.
"In the process, I’ve been particularly struck by how Watts handles inconvenient evidence.
"Twice now, I’ve seen Watts make a mistake, and then seem to rationalize it, rather than simply correct it. 
"I’ve also seen Watts shift the goalposts, refusing to accept inconvenient evidence even after saying he would do so.
"What’s up with that?
"Look: We all make mistakes. And we all adopt beliefs that later turn out to be incorrect. There's nothing wrong with that per se; it's actually quite natural. What really matters is what we do after we’re proven wrong. So let’s see what Watts does:"
~ ~ ~
"Research on Astroturfing. A while back, I introduced the blogosphere to a social science study on online anti-global warming astroturfing. Watts then leapt in, accusing the researchers of having “setup fake websites to gather fake data."
{...}
"Note the underlying point here. Watts launched a baseless attack on the astroturfing study. When his error was pointed out, he tried to blame the study authors, and came up with new criticisms, including protesting that they should have conducted the study in a way that he himself had previously claimed would have been deceptive and misleading, or even unethical."
~ ~ ~ 
"On to episode two:
The BEST Study. I just wrote about this one, and it is quite telling.
A while back, Anthony Watts wrote of the headline-grabbing Berkeley BEST study that “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.”
But when the study came out and he didn’t like its findings, Watts instead engaged in  a phenomenon called goalpost shifting. Look at how he now talks about the BEST work: In a recent post, he referred to the “incomplete and rushed, non quality controlled, error riddled BEST science.”
Are we noting a common theme here?"
~ ~ ~
"On to episode three:
The Republican Brain: My next book will not be out for about 6 months. Nevertheless, much like the Astroturf study, Watts attacked it without reading it. He justified doing so by claiming that someone else had reviewed the book, so he could rely on that review instead: link"
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"Why is all of this significant?

If you can’t admit it when you’re wrong,
 you also can’t know when you’re right.
If you don’t hold your opinions and beliefs tentatively, subject them to scrutiny, and then try to parse out which of them truly hold weight, then you run the risk of rushing headlong into all manner of self-serving biases."
~ ~ ~ 

"And please note: This has nothing to do with whether or not you’re smart.
Smart people (like Watts) are in fact particularly vulnerable to this problem, because they’re extra good at rationalizing their views. Even as they’re super awesome at finding apparent problems with the arguments of those who disagree with them, and arguing back against their opponents, they're often oblivious of their own biases.

But it doesn’t matter how many great arguments you can spin out to defend what you believe, if you can’t also perceive where your beliefs might be untrue.


Without self criticism, all your self-supporting arguments amount to little more than spinning your wheels—while you remain stuck in the mud."



Chris Mooney
As posted at DeSmogBlog
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IRMACS Global Warming Lecture Series 2011

The Dr. Trenberth lecture featured in the previous post came from the IRMACS website.  
They have other valuable lectures available... for those interested in learning rather than debate-games.

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IRMACS ~ the Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences

Established in 2004,  the centre is a unique, interdisciplinary research facility that enables collaborative interaction - intellectually, physically and virtually.
IRMACS removes traditional boundaries between scientific disciplines and creates a stimulating environment for its researchers. It provides a versatile, computationally sophisticated infrastructure for scientists whose primary laboratory tool is the computer.

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IRMACS Global Warming Seminar Series 2011 
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Unauthorized Notes: Dr. Trenberth lecture: "The Role of the Oceans in Climate
"

I'm slowly building up to an examination of Watts' treatment of Dr. Trenberth and the science that he has been producing.  I feel that this project requires a more detailed presentation of exactly what Dr. Trenberth is trying to explain.  

To further that effort I have gone over the following talk and typed up another Unauthorized Notes.  Trenberth is gracious enough to pack his talk with slides and outlines, so most of these notes are simply his slides transcribed.  {curly brackets indicate my own comments}

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Dr. Kevin Trenberth: The Role of the Oceans in Climate

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Watts up with that Radiative Return Effect

During Ben Santer's Question and Answer session Anthony Watts asked the following question.
As it happens over at SkepticForum.com there was a detailed comment that seems to me speaks to Anthony's question but more importantly addresses many of the crazy-making claims/charges surrounding this important topic. 

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1:02:05 - Anthony Watts: Would you describe the Radiative Return Effect of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere as being linear or logarithmic?
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Denial Tango

Dear Anthony Watts,
since every good conversation needs some light moments allow me to share this wonderful little ditty I was just turned on to by a band of old guys called MEN WITH DAY JOBS.
click here

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Watts up with Old PI: Humans adapt nature to our desires, we don't adapt to nature

With the Santer session behind me and today being a snow-day I was catching up on WUWT.  It seems that Dr. Trenberth has been receiving a lot of attention and abuse over there and I hope to do a series of posts dedicated to those threads.  

But, for now a comment smacked me in the face enough to share.  It seems to me to reflect on a main reason for our collective failure to communicate:

Check it out,  "Old PI: ...THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN: TO ADAPT NATURE TO OUR DESIRES, INSTEAD OF ADAPTING TO NATURE..."

Friday, November 4, 2011

Watts, Surface Stations and BEST {SkS}

Anthony Watts made his fame doing studies on surface weather stations, claiming he proved they are unreliable.  Since then surface stations have received much closer scrutiny and it turns out Watts' fears and claims are not born out by the evidence.


Unfortunately, Anthony Watts is not one to admit to nor correct errors so it is left to other sources to fill in the gaps Mr. Watts chooses to ignore.

Fortunately, the good folks over at SkepticalScience have been kind enough to review this question in light of the recent release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, a project that was a sort of last hope for skeptics trying to deny a warming planet.