Tag Archives: Gullibility

Congrats to all the 2013 Bloggie Finalists and Winners!

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“Congrats to all the 2013 Bloggie Finalists and Winners!” (2013-04-03). Today’s post isn’t taken from Anthony Watts’ blog, but from WordPress.com a week ago. The thirteenth annual “Bloggies”, a click-to-win people’s choice-style contest that Anthony likes to mobilize for have just concluded. You know there’s something deeply wrong with a selection process when Anthony’s nasty, malicious, misleading, personality-obsessed blog is regularly chosen as “Best Science or Technology Weblog”.

“michele w.“, on WordPress’ behalf, posted breathless congratulations to the eleven WordPress-based winners and finalists, four of which are denialist blogs. (Watts Up With That, Australian Climate Madness, Tallbloke’s Talkshop and Climate Audit) This is just the kind of PR fluff that Anthony and company hunt for and naturally they all show up in the comments, except the faux-modest Steve McIntyre, to humbly accept the acclamation.

Curiously my comment, reproduced below, remains “in moderation”. In this case I think Michele simply doesn’t want to have her lack of critical thinking highlighted any further, but it does offer an entertaining echo of Anthony’s own style of handling criticism.

I have to echo Callum’s sentiments. The “science” and “environment” winners listed here are infamous, even malicious, promoters of false information. Their ‘achievement” in the Bloggies says nothing whatsoever about their quality or integrity, just their ability to mobilize uncritical supporters.

Blindly publicizing this rigged competition merely transfers the stench onto WordPress.

I’m all for recognizing achievement, but not when it is this easily gamed. Watts Up With That, Australian Climate Madness, Tallbloke’s Talkshop and Climate Audit are examples of partisan anti-science sites that use these “awards” to simulate the recognition they crave but re unable to earn.

Don’t feed the trolls!

But yeah, WordPress is a great web content system.

Bloggies 2013 Comment

Followup: As the updated graphic above demonstrates, my comment remains “in moderation” while someone else’s newer one has been approved. I visited the “Bloggies” website and saw that the winner and three finalists were all rabid denialist sites:

BEST SCIENCE OR TECHNOLOGY WEBLOG

WINNER

Watts Up With That?

FINALISTS

What are the chances that in the wide world of science and technology these four buddy denialist fringe websites would come out on top? Color me skeptical.

Another partisan denialist, James Delingpole(!), won for “best weblog about politics”, edging past The Global Warming Policy Foundation, the denialist website so widely quoted (not) in daily political conversation…

Rasmussen poll: 69% Say It’s Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research

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“Rasmussen poll: 69% Say It’s Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research” (2011-08-03). Anthony Watts breathlessly reports that 69% of Americans think that climate scientists are liars. Anthony loves science by opinion poll, especially when the pollsters have a reliable Republican inclination. Actually, the trumpeted answer is to this question: “…how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?” Of course, even Rasmussen Reports described their own results falsely so how would an inquiring mind like Anthony do any better than what he was spoon-fed?

Surprisingly, we know this opinion poll result reflects reality! We don’t have to look any further than denialist favorites Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen and Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for the proof that some scientists have selected their data and built their arguments with a particular result in mind…

Here are the oh-so-innocent questions Rasmussen Reports asked, giving us a nice example of “structured” polling:

  1. How closely have you followed recent news stories about global warming?
  2. Which of the following is most likely to occur to the planet Earth … a period of dangerous global warming, a dangerous ice age or something in between? [Falsely suggests that climate change implies immediate harm to the respondent which, surprise, hasn’t happened yet.]
  3. Some people say we must take immediate action to stop global warming. Others say we should wait a few years to see if global warming is real before making major changes. What do you think? [Biased presentation of denialist delaying tactics as a reasonable position, encourages “wait and see” response.]
  4. Do scientists agree on global warming or is there significant disagreement within the scientific community? [Suggests to respondents that there is wide scientific conflict when there isn’t.]
  5. In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data? [Weasel word: “some“. This question suggests that everyone tells little white lies now and then, don’t they? So answer yes.]
  6. Does the media make global warming appear to be worse than it really is, better than it really is or do they present an accurate picture?

Nice try, Anthony. A quick inspection of the morass that passes for insightful comments on Anthony’s blog shows that no-one noticed the “simplification” of the results, so I guess he’s not quite as dumb as his readers.

Shackling national security – and renewable energy

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“Shackling national security – and renewable energy“. Because conservationists didn’t enthusiastically embrace consuming mineral resources as fast as possible, talking about their strategic value now is in Anthony Watts’ view hypocritical.

Just read Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise lobbyist Paul Driessen’s guest post. All you need to do is vote Republican and the problem is solved. No more energy technologies using up rare earth minerals that we need for military purposes, just drill, baby, drill!  America will once again be strong and free!

Oh, and by the way, oil is magically created deep in the Earth now, so don’t worry ’bout dat any more neither. (Boy, do the commenters love that idea!)

Loehle: Vindication

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“Loehle: Vindication“. Craig Loehle uses Anthony Watts’ blog to declare “victory!” over criticisms of his 2008 temperature reconstruction, which claimed to overthrow Mann’s “hockey-stick” reconstruction, in the discredited journal Energy & Environment (A 2000 Year Global Temperature Reconstruction based on Non-Treering Proxy Data).

At the same time, I have been repeatedly insulted about it on the web. It is claimed that it has been debunked, is junk, that E&E is not a “real” journal, that I’m a hack, that I “only” used 18 series (though 2 were composites covering China & North America), etc. In the ClimateGate emails, Mann called it “awful” (which I’ll take as a compliment!). Lot’s of fun. In this post I demonstrate perhaps a little vindication.

Feel good to get that off your chest Craig?

Craig Loehle's misleading comparison of his discredited temperature reconstruction to a new one by Ljungqvist.

So was this victory achieved? Apparently through a new paper by Fredrik Ljungqvist called “A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra-tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millenia“, in Geografiska Annaler. And all Loehle has to do is cheat the charts a bit! Don’t align over the calibration period, center “on their respective long-term mean values”, ‘warm’ the new reconstruction a bit to get it closer to yours, use non-comparable baselines, and… victory!

An honest comparison of Loehle's proxy reconstruction. Loehle's is the red high one, Ljungqvist's is the green one in middle with the rest. By Zeke Hausfather

Funny that the Ljungqvist abstract ends with this, uh, inconvenient quote (underline mine):

Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) with regard to the amplitude of the variability as well as the timing of warm and cold periods, except for the period c. ad 300–800, despite significant differences in both data coverage and methodology.

I guess Loehle and Anthony were too lazy to read the whole thing, even though they pasted it into their article. Is this what passes for “vindication” in denialist circles these days?

More follow up on the solar-neutrinos-radioactive decay story – experimental falsification

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“More follow up on the solar-neutrinos-radioactive decay story – experimental falsification“. A surprising report last month by physicists that claimed to have detected a variation in radioactive decay rates, which they attributed to solar neutrinos. The NIST has overturned this finding, concluding that the tiny variations arose from environmental conditions during the original study.

This means that you can never trust scientists. They’re sloppy and biased! Instead, trust the keen skepticism of Anthony Watts, he mumbled about this when the report first came out.

McIntyre and McKitrick to receive award

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“McIntyre and McKitrick to receive award“. What, they’re getting a “Nobel pin” too? Naw, it’s just the partisan right-wing Competitive Enterprise Institute “think tank” giving their foot-soldiers a bit of tin and calling it the “Julian Simon Memorial Award”. Julian Simon was a mediocre, but libertarian, economist…

Denialists are desperate for recognition, even if they have to fake it. Personally, I think M&M’s recognition should be missing a week of recesses for failing to play nicely.

Lessons from the Gulf blowout

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“Lessons from the Gulf blowout“. Anthony Watts posts an article by right-wing pundit Paul Driessen (from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise). What can he teach us about the Deepwater Horizon blowout?

  • The oil company workers were “heroic”.
  • There is “cause for optimism” about the oil spill.
  • “We still need to drill” offshore.

Thanks Paul! Glad that’s cleared up. Lesson learned, back to work everyone!

Spiegel does 8 part series on current state of climate research

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“Spiegel does 8 part series on current state of climate research“. Anthony Watts tells us about this Spiegel Online article series that ” features Steve McIntyre prominently, and [is] well worth the read.”

The series starts with an already out-dated credulous rehash of the Climategate “scandal”. I guess it is a “worth the read” if you want to return to the time when wishful thinking could allow denialists to think that Climategate was merely a baseless political attack and not a completely rejected baseless political attack.

The remaining articles are a weakly argued denialist gruel of innuendo and mischaracterization (“alarmists” and the “levelheaded”) that heavily and uncritically quotes denialist pundits and “researchers”. Entertaining perhaps, but neither accurate nor insightful. Too bad.

Climate Craziness of the Week: Global Warming Activist Freezes to Death in Antarctica

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“Climate Craziness of the Week: Global Warming Activist Freezes to Death in Antarctica“. That last sentence is a dead link. Anthony Watts fell for a lame hoax article on Eco Enquirer about an Antarctic tragedy but has since deleted the post. I have it here so you can wonder at Anthony’s powers of critical thinking.

From the Eco Enquirer, tragic news that I hope is not repeated by other activists.

Famed global warming activist James Schneider and a journalist friend were both found frozen to death on Saturday, about 90 miles from South Pole Station, by the pilot of a ski plane practicing emergency evacuation procedures.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing”, recounted the pilot, Jimmy Dolittle. “There were two snowmobiles with cargo sleds, a tent, and a bright orange rope that had been laid out on the ice, forming the words, ‘HELP-COLD’.”

One friend of Prof. Schneider told ecoEnquirer that he had been planning a trip to an ice sheet to film the devastation brought on by global warming. His wife, Linda, said that she had heard him discussing the trip with his environmental activist friends, but she assumed that he was talking about the Greenland ice sheet, a much smaller ice sheet than Antarctica.

“He kept talking about when they ‘get down to chili’, and I thought they were talking about the order in which they would consume their food supplies”, Mrs. Schneider recounted. “I had no idea they were talking about Chile, the country from which you usually fly or sail in order to reach Antarctica.”

Apparently, while all of Prof. Schneider’s friends were assuming that the July trek would be to Greenland, during Northern Hemisphere summer, his plans were actually to snowmobile to the South Pole – which, in July, is in the dead of winter.

Mr. Dolittle related how some people do not realize that, even if there has been warming in Antarctica, the average temperature at the South Pole in July still runs about 70 degrees F below zero. “Some people think that July is warm everywhere on Earth.”