Announcing "Confronting Science Contrarians" blogspot

The title of this blog has received many complaints over the years and I've finally taken steps to remedy that by starting a new blogspot that's more explicitly titled and that reflects my own developing perspective.  It's still pretty bare bones but come on down for a visit anyways - let me know somebody is out there.

Confronting Science Contrarians

https://ConfrontingScienceContrarians.blogspot.com

Is CO2Science.org 'criminally negligent'? Why not consider it?

Is misinformation about climate science criminally negligent?  I'm reminded of Professor Lawrence Torcello's question by the dialogue I'm having with some characters at an interesting YouTube video of Professor Stephen Schneider directly communicating with climate science contrarian types.  

In any event, this comments thread keeps getting dragged back to CO2Science.org as though it were some gold standard, rather than the personal gold mine of the Idso clan, selling a deceptive and harmful fiction to a gullible public.  

All the while these commenters ignore the many huge differences between the internal variability driven "Medieval Warm Period" and today's atmosphere with it's vastly enriched (thanks to us) insulation medium which is holding more heat within our planet's global climate system, yes that would include the oceans.  They also insist that there's been no warming in the past 18 years, go figure.  

While researching my response to a comment I came upon "More for the annals of climate misinformation" where Alicia Newton does a good job of describing the dishonest manipulation of data that website is guilty of.  It makes me wonder why this sort of deliberate deception with far reaching political and societal consequences is so casually accepted.  

I've taken the liberty of reposting the text as a public service and hopefully an invitation to consider saying enough of the crafty lies, time to come to terms with the real world.  

I follow Newton's article with long tracts of another educational write up by Höskuldur Búi Jónsson who continues this exploration into the ways in which CO2Science.org artfully reweaves and repackages serious scientific information in a way that totally distorts the actual truth within that information.  This I follow with various bits of biographical information regarding CO2Science.org.

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More for the annals of climate misinformation

19 Aug 2008 | written by Alicia Newton

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2008/08/more_for_the_annals_of_climate_1.html

I’m all for a website that distills climate science papers into something easily understood by the general public, especially if it avoids the hype and hysteria all too often employed by headline news.

Such is the claim of CO2 Science, a weekly newsletter published by the not for profit Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, with issues that include editorials, book and media reviews, and mini-reviews of the recent peer-reviewed literature.

But rather than its promise of “separating reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change”, on the contrary CO2 Science twists the most recent science, ever so subtly, to suggest that there is no link between carbon dioxide levels and climate change.

For a case in point, check out the feature entitled “Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week”. This showcases records of temperature or environmental changes during the Medieval Warm Period (aka the Medieval Climate Anomaly). The conclusion is that if the MWP was warmer than present – still debated – obviously CO2 isn’t driving current warming. There is even a list of 576 scientists who have found evidence for the MWP – the thinly veiled conclusion being that they agree that an increase in CO2 isn’t behind the recent climate change.

Reflecting on lawyerly questions

There's a YouTube video called, "Mocked Meteorologist Gets Last Laugh - Piers Corbyn Wins Again!"  Hideous five year old, one-sided contrived nonsense, republished last year.  I don't have the time or interest to get into that one.  But, I did leave a YouTube comment, which in turn has lead to quite the lengthy dialogue with a lawyer defending the contrarian party-line.  Not that she's claimed to be a lawyer, but I'm calling her lawyer because of the character and substance of her grilling, er questions.  Reminded me of the prosecutor focused on conviction:  "Yes, no, shut up. No details!  I didn't ask you that, shut-up.  And don't you dare question the validity of my questions or you're in contempt."

I mean 60 comments long and eleven hundred words all told.  I've thought about using it for another post, but I have way too many other projects piling up.  My last comment however describes the way I see her tactics.  Since it's a summation of another text book contrarian tactic, I'm using it as the basis for this post.

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Dear Contrarian Lawyer, 

It would be one thing if I thought you were an innocent just learning about this stuff, but obviously that's not the case.  I think you are very aware of your game of lawyerly manipulation of questions - probably got high marks on the collegiate debating squad.  Too bad you don't appreciate that's gamesmanship.  It has nothing to do with honest curiosity and learning about how things function!

Your "acceptable info window" keeps shrinking.  All intended to shield you from important and real down to Earth observations and understanding.

You are playing a debate game - intend on winning the moment and nothing else.  Your approach offers no chance for learning - and in fact, I fear learning is your enemy.

Considering the faith-based mind. What is science's sin?

I would suggest an argument could be made that at the core of much of the emotionality of Republican resistance to scientific understanding, and climate science in particular, is their submersion in the ego-centric Bible and the accompanying presumption that they are gifted enough to know ultimate truth.  

Don't get me wrong, it's not just the Bible, it's the entire Abrahamic Family of self-obsessive "holy" books.  That faith system may have worked great for humanity when it existed on an infinitely large planet, with scattered warring tribes running around - but, lordie, lordie is it a disaster in today's over crowded planet of diminishing resources, rising populations, anger and rapidly transitioning weather systems.

In younger decades I spent a lot of time wrestling with and thinking about god, evolution, my/our place in creation (that is, our wonderful planet and beyond) and such lofty musings.  That period culminated in three essays that I still feel good having written.  I want to share two (the third is ripe for a serious rewrite) before getting into trying to explain this Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine I keep going on about. 

This is important because good communication demands understanding your audience and tailoring your message to what they are capable of comprehending.  Thus we need to spend more time considering, and hopefully starting to understand, the mind of the faith-based reality denying beholder.

  

Here's some food for thought, no doubt with gaps and in need of improvement, have at it, make it yours.  I sure don't have any answers, I'm just wrestling with the problem and sharing my experiences.

Note: As for gaps in my essay I want to acknowledge two worthy comments.  In one Victor, in Germany, argues that this brand of self-induced Christian-blindness is unique to Americans and that internationally Christians are far more accepting of scientific observations and facts.  

The second one, from Kevin, exposes an important omission in my essay, he makes an argument that Fear more than religion itself is at the root of today's mass disconnect from our planet's physical reality.  I agree with him, but on the other hand, people have always framed their religions around their own expectations rather than some holy constant - their religions act as a justification and shield for their own innate attitudes. Still, Kevin is correct in shining the spotlight on our Fear of not being in control, Fear of losing what we have, Fear of our threatening unknown future.

Kevin writes: I think a better explanation than religion is laid out in Robert Altemeyer's The Authoritarians. Their brand of religion is more a symptom of their personality traits than a driving force. ...

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What is Science's Sin?

August 2008

Recently, I discussed Creationism with a bright young student.  She challenged me with remarks about the Earth's "true" short age; Grand Canyon being evidence of Noah's Flood; even claimed evidence that coal can be produced in a matter of months.  She went on to explain God's plan included an imminent Armageddon - that is, destroying his own Creation.  When I countered with facts and observations debunking these notions she became defensive, saying that attacking someone's faith was a horrible thing to do.

It made me wonder:  Why do so many feel compelled to embrace willful ignorance? By this I mean willful ignoring masses of real, verifiable and available evidence simply because it conflicts with one's own preconceptions and challenges one's fears.

Considering the heart of faith-based science deniers

I would suggest an argument could be made that at the core of much of the emotionality of Republican resistance to scientific understanding, and climate science in particular, is their submersion in the ego-centric Bible and the accompanying presumption that they are gifted enough to know ultimate truth.  

Don't get me wrong, it's not just the Bible, it's the entire Abrahamic family of self-obsessive "holy" books.  That faith system may have worked great for humanity on an infinitely large planet, when it was warring tribes running around - but, lordie, lordie is it a disaster in today's over crowded planet of diminishing resources, rising populations, anger and rapidly transitioning weather systems.

In younger decades I spent a lot of time wrestling with and thinking about god, evolution, my/our place in creation (that is, our wonderful planet and beyond)  and such lofty musings.  That period culminated in three essays that I still feel good having written.  I want to share two before getting into trying to explain this Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine I keep going on about. 

This is important because good communication demands understanding your audience and tailoring your message to what they are capable of comprehending.  Thus we need to spend more time considering, and hopefully starting to understand, the mind of the faith-based reality denying beholder.  Here's some food for thought, no doubt it could use improvement, have at it, make it yours.        

{edited 1/4/15 PM}

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God flowing into the Word

I've been told I don't understand the reality of the Bible.  It's been explained God acted infallibly through his human agents.  At every stage along the Bible's evolution God was there flowing into the pages to make it perfect.

The last time I listened to this opinion an image came to my mind:  There was a patient in an operating room, undergoing brain surgery.  The world's foremost surgeon was there, a doctor of vast knowledge and skill.  But, instead of performing the operation, the expert stands over a child giving step by step concise and complete directions, while the child performed the actual task.  What are the chances of the child getting it right?  Can it be any different when God communicates with myopic self-centered children?

Part 8 - sock-puppet calls it like he sees it, Dave sticks to the science.

Never say never folks.  They went another round and it's a text book example of the two different debate styles in action.  I think "debate incompatibility" could also describe what went down.  This time I kept my comments and additions to a minimum since there's not much to add.  Though there is a lot to think about.

Please consider that AL is absolutely certain of what he knows.  He is sincere to the bone, so much so that all attempts to confront what he knows to be the 'truth' is seen as a hostile act.   If entire communities of independent experts spread over the globe and generations develop an understanding that's contrary to his core Truth, he can't help but blame it on some hostile conspiracy.  It makes no sense to him that his understanding could be wrong.

On the other side, we have people for whom the pursuit of better understanding and new discoveries is the goal.  Self-skepticism and a willingness to subject one's own convictions to the toughest tests and then allowing the evidence to direct what one trusts or rejects is the order of the day.  

If one's pet theory, or one's understanding, turns out to be wrong, one learns from those mistakes and moves forward, hurt feelings be damned.  

Unfortunately your climate science uni-directional skeptics aren't built like that. 

They don't have the imagination nor desire to look beyond their own limited socio-economic/political perceptions, they don't care about the world out there, only the one in their heads.  Crack that nut and you'll deserve a Nobel Prize.

What makes this round so fascinating is that Dave managed to never sink to AL's level.
Instead he took the time to review and comment on the 30 peer-reviewed papers AL cut and pasted and tossed at Dave as though they were self-evident proof that the MWP was no different than today's warming.  And the ending is classic.  

I don't know who Dave is, but I like his style and depth of understanding, it would be very cool if others (of like capability and disposition) might be inspired by his example of standing up the peddlers of scientific nonsense.

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AL to Dave Smith Jesus, you're a big joke.

You don't even realize the stupidity to reference IPCC's political nonsense, when it's the validity of that very thing we are discussing?

It's exactly like in a discussion about gods existence with a religious nut, and the idiot starts referring to the bible to prove it's real and that god exists. 

But thank you for pointing out exactly what I said in my previous post: You totally indoctrinated and don't have a clue about the science outside of what the IPCC feed you. 

part 6 - sock-puppet to Dave: "Absolutely nothing unusual about temp rise in over 120 years"

That debate between AL and Dave kept on going, though it might be winding down now. I skipped some earlier posts by Dave to focus on his most recent remarks, then decided I'd better start with AL's typical contrarian assault, then I'll follow up with Dave's response in my next post.

A reminder - this comes from the comments thread begun by MarathonS Feb 22, 2014 on the dubious YouTube video The PseudoScience of CO2 Based Climate where yet another coddled "old white guy" who knows nothing of climate science, feeds his audience what they want to hear.

Note - Dave and AL's words are unchanged, though I have corrected some minor typos - I figured AL knows it all already, so I didn't touch his words.  I also made formatting changes including some highlights and of course I've also interjected a few comments and more links to educational sources.

It's difficult keeping the participants in this virtual dialogue separate, please bear with me - Dave's words are in Arial font, AL's comments are in purple, my additions are light green highlighted.

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AL - 12/10/2015 -11:53 AM to Dave Smith 

So to answer it - there isn't one (optimal CO2 level). 

Of course there is. Every ecosystem has an optimal level for that particular ecosystem, just because you don’t know what that level is doesn’t mean there isn’t one. But since you now have admitted that you don’t know what that level is, why are you then promoting a certain level of CO2 when you lack that knowledge?

You quoted me a paper that stated that they are unprecented - Ljungqvist, F. C., et al. "Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries." Climate of the Past 8.1 (2012): 227-249. How can you use references the state one thing and then claim as fact the opposite?

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Hmmm, tough to figure out what AL is talking about.  

Here's a couple lines from the abstract:

"... The positive Northern Hemisphere temperature change from the 19th to the 20th century is clearly the largest between any two consecutive centuries in the past 12 centuries. These results remain robust even after removing a significant number of proxies in various tests of robustness showing that the choice of proxies has no particular influence on the overall conclusions of this study."

http://www.clim-past.net/8/227/2012/cp-8-227-2012.html

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What part of the climate has always been changing have you missed? Is it so impossible for you to grasp that there has always been changes in climate, and it always will. Since much larger changes has occurred in the past several times, even in the recent past, there is absolutely nothing unusual about a 0,5 - 1 C° temperature rise in over 120 years. Nor are the drop in temperature from for example MWP to LIA. Are you really that uninformed so you believe the climate you happened to have experienced in your lifetime is some kind of norm for our planet?

NPR and Brumfiel don't "appreciate" climate engine

I don't have any time to do anything with this, but I was confronted with another inane news story, this time at NPR.  "Why Hurricane Patricia Can't Be Blamed On Climate Change"  Geoff Brumfiel October 23, 2015 4:45 PM ET

But I do want to share my comments over there - because frankly I hope they make sense to a few people out there.  And if they do, you are welcome to any of this, it's all about us nudging each other into better understanding the world around us and dealing with the fools surrounding us.

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I find it absolutely amazing the contortions supposedly educated minds go through to deny the impacts of global warming.  You do such a nice mishmash in this write-up it's tough to figure out which name to blame.  Perhaps all of them, but the quote that's the hair raiser is:

"The warm water that fueled Patricia is available in abundance this year. The Eastern Pacific has been very warm, thanks to an ocean phenomenon known as El Niño. This year's El Niño is likely to be one of the strongest ever recorded, says Mike Halpert of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

Why totally ignore that it's global warming that is the reason behind this extremely El Nino?

No storm today is not connected to global warming!  And the intense storms are only a harbringer of what's to come while all we over smart human's keep coming up with complex ways to confuse and fool ourselves.  Contemptible.

Oh that article: "

"Concerning Our Failure to Appreciate the Weather"

http://thehumanist.com/magazine/november-december-2015/up-front/concerning-our-failure-to-appreciate-the-weather

Considering the two species of debate.

          This was inspired by another comment over at Emily Blegvad's global warming documentary "The Science Behind Global Warming" a very nice effort by a high school student to explain our understanding of manmade global warming. 

Unfortunately the YouTube comments thread has been haunted by a few nasty characters who aren't at all interested in the video, or climate science, they just want to throw insults at us the "brainwashed", "=ucking gullible", and such lovely stuff.  As you can image, it's been a lively and weird comments thread and all sadly distracting from what Emily's documentary was all about.  

But, it does offer learning opportunities, here's a comment that makes for a perfect introduction into describing the anatomy of the two types of public debate.

  Emily, the ingredients to a good debate includes not joining in with herd mentality and siding with bullies that see it ok to attack people personally, that is actually "hate mongering", or are you still in kindergarten?  

And you never thought it was worth defending yourself from my original comments...which are now gone.*  

You see, in this world if you buy into things like this you have to be prepared to defend what you are promoting and not put your fingers in your ears and sing lalalalalala, you belong more to a cult than anything else sweetheart

As it happens I've given 'debate' lots of thought so let me share what I've learned.  (* Incidentally, I don't think anything was deleted.)

A debate is supposed to be about the information each side presents, it's examination and rebuttal - it has nothing to do herds or anything like that.  Also very important to understand is that there are two distinct kinds of debate.  

There's the Political/Lawyerly Debate where winning is everything.  Truth and understanding play second fiddle to winning.  In fact, quite often understanding is the enemy and much effort goes into confusing issues, rather than clarifying.

Then there's the Scientific/Learning Debate where each side argues their understanding using the evidence they have amassed.  You listen to your opponent,  you weigh their evidence according to your own understanding - then the 'other side' has their go at it.  There is an expectation to honestly relay ones evidence and yes, egos and good rhetoric play their part, but in the end it's all about the evidence and understanding the question as well as possible that matters.  

What that means is that if I am shown to be mistaken by the strength of the evidence, I accept it, bruised ego and all.  Because, learning from my mistakes give depth to my understanding of why things are as they are.    

The scientific community is all about a learning experience and always striving for better understanding our reality.  That's where the victory is.

It's not about ruthless defense of ego and ideology, it's about learning!

and now the ugly side of the AGW dialogue.

{updated with comments June 18 evening.}

Here we have Lee Stamper, he's been commenting at YouTube on a video I featured over here on May 4th, he doesn't pretend to be interested in understanding climate science. He's just pissed off and likes verbally attacking "alarmists".   

Since there's no substance to discuss, the only reason I'm devoting a blog post to him is because his verbal abuse has just crossed over the line into the threat territory. Thus, I'll document it over here.

Lee Stamper you are welcome to comment over here, please explain why are you so over the top upset with me?

The Science Behind Global Warming (Documentary)

by Emily Blegvad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-sy6rPJBj4 

Lee Stamper  3:30 PM | June 17, 2015  -  Writes: 

+citizenschallengeYT    now since you think you know everything about me I can see you have never been in the military bozo..if you know everything about me tell me how many Viet Cong I have notches on my knife for ? better look over your sholder you may piss the wrong person off next time

Odin2 lets debate Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao "Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements"

At EarthSky.org I read a good article yesterday explaining the reasons why the so called "Global warming hiatus never happened."

Going though the comments section one "odin2" made numerous posts.  Superficially many sounded sciencie and "proper" for example at one point scolding another commenter:  

"Your post is not responsive to the peer reviewed article that I cited or my post. There is a vast difference between making adjustments and corrections and manipulation fabrication of data. But, if you define the climate models as "reality' then manipulating the observed data to fit the observations is OK in the minds of Believers. Isn't it?"

But, look at the wording of that.  Who's being the "believer" of what?  No intelligent person has ever claimed that climate models are "reality" - they are tools to help teach us about our climate.  Also in real life, adjustments and corrections are justified and documented in the literature.

But OK, I'm a sucker for chasing such tossed bones and couldn't resist looking up the article in question.  Turned out to be by a couple economics professors; and it's printed in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics; and it turns out to start with a gish gallop of Republican/libertarian soundbites attacking Al Gore's AIT that liberally misrepresents AIT in the bargain.  

Then it goes on to model a hypothetical asymmetric information game: "Moreover, we introduce a new player in the game..." - "There are N+2 risk-neutral players in the game: N ex ante identical countries, a message sender, and an IEA(International Environmental Agreement). Each country faces a binary decision: whether or not to make one unit of abatement." 

  

It turned out to be a "What if?" exercise, nothing more.¹

The article had nothing to do with climate science, let alone fluctuations in the surface temperature record.

After getting my belly full of odin2's game, I decided to write him a note.  Now I'm posting a reworked version over here as an invitation to him (or any like minded) for a constructive debate.  

CAGW. Ask a simple question, get a revealing answer. Dodging the issue.

{edited 11:15 pm}

citizenschallenge asks, "Just what does it take to qualify as a 'catastrophe'?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It seems to me that an intelligent, rational, constructive dialogue requires understanding what each other mean; and that each side takes the time to explain what they mean when using certain terms.  

For instance, CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) has become a term of derision among the climate science denying crowd, yet it's never defined.  

Their attitude baffles me.  These people profess that they don't deny the science behind how greenhouse gases make our planet habitable, implying they recognize that increasing our planet's greenhouse gas insulation will warm the planet.  Yet in the next sentence, you'll hear them ridicule the notion that a warming world will inflict increasing levels of catastrophe upon our society.

Makes me wonder just what do they mean with "catastrophe" anyways  -  what level of destruction are we talking about?

I mean, haven't these free marketeers learned the fundamentals of compounding interest?  Or do they conveniently suspend those mathematical realities when it comes to thinking about the geophysics of our planet... you know, that stuff that provides our life support system?

That's why I ask that opening question now and then, usually to silence, but this afternoon I got a bite.  

It turned out to be such a good example of a typical Republican/libertarian PR machine response that it deserves to be added to this collection.

Though I still can't enunciate exactly how this ties into "Seepage" there is a connection that I'm sure sharper minds can puzzle out once they decide to think about it.  What I can do is offer some observations on how these denialista's weave their intimidation while destroying constructive dialogue.

joseph p. 1:32 PM - 6/8/15 
Short version of an Answer: When the alleged cure to a still only alleged disease, is already known to be much worse than the alleged disease, and applying the "cure" just keeps on creating more of its own very real disease catastrophes. And then you yourself +citizenschallengeYT can even vie to become the "King of Catastrophes"!