Anthony Watts’ hypocrisy is off the chart.

Talk about a lack of self-awareness. Anthony crybaby Watts is all up in arms about a comment James Hansen has made about the Canadian government when it comes to climate change. In order to assert that the government was less evolved in its thinking on climate change he referred to them as neanderthals.  Shocking I know. What a terrible, terrible thing to say. This is what Crybaby Watts thinks…

So, Anthony doesn’t like ugly comments about people? Well, he goes on to reproduce a letter from someone called ‘Niall from Canada’ who is calling on Anthony and his sycophants for help in what is clearly a heinous act. Here is what ‘Niall from Canada’ says…

So Hansen referring to the Canadian government as neanderthals is not ok but referring to Hansen as a ‘grotesque charlatan’ is? Am I missing something here? Anyway, a scroll through the comments on this silly piece from Anthony reveals a number of what most sane people would consider ‘ugly comments’. These include Hansen being referred to as a dimwitted lout, certifiable, racist, prehominid, fiend, jerk, useful idiot, corrupt, ugly, insane, crazy, shyster, grumpy old incompetent, unhinged, enemy of humanity, deranged, advocate of mass slaughter, village idiot, and the list goes on. No shortage of ‘ugly comments’ directed at Hansen. This one however, takes the cake. It is just part of a long, deluded rant from some idiot called “Bill from Nevada”…

So where is Crybaby Watts’ concern about ‘ugly comments’? Does it not apply to his sycophants and flying monkeys? Where is his and their self-awareness? Personally, I think it’s all quite sad yet at the same time amusing. Again I am reminded of the terrible singers who turn up at Idol auditions thinking they are the best singers of all time only to be told how awful they truly are and then walk away asking “What would Simon Cowell know anyway?”

 

Tony Abbott's environment

Reblogged from The Australian Independent Media Network:

If Tony Abbott or his political party claim they are 100% committed to the environment then I would suggest that is a big fat lie. Here is an example of Tony Abbott's commitment:

The Opposition leader, Tony Abbott’s pitch to major polluters reached new heights today. Addressing a conference in Brisbane, Mr Abbott said he would out-source the protection of the environment and impacted communities to the States and Territories eager to fast track massive new industrial developments.

Read more… 705 more words

Can’t help themselves.

You don’t need to watch this video just put it on and enjoy the song while reading this post.

I was over at a WTFIWWAW and saw a post mentioning John Cook and Stephen Lewandowsky in the title. Having just read the latest paper from Lewandowsky (LCOM13) and posted a small piece about it here I was curious to see what it was about. I was quite taken with the first line…

Now to be quite honest, while Watts, is obviously trying to be funny, I’m actually not sure if he genuinely doesn’t want to be labelled a conspiracy theorist or if he wears the tag with pride under the delusion that he thinks he’s right? Whatever, it’s irrelevant because a number of his sycophants (many of whom become very indignant at the label as was demonstrated in LCOM13) in responding to the post couldn’t help themselves.The post was about the “Angry Summer” report.

At the time I checked it out there were 50 comments from 45 people. Using the criteria as outlined in LCOM13 I classified the commenters as either a conspiracy theorist or not and guess what? 23 of them are conspiracy theorists. It’s no surprise really. A fair number of the comments were completely irrelevant, a couple deliberately deceptive and one batshit crazy. I think I’ll start with the batshit crazy one first.

jc says…

“Others have noted the title “Angry Summer” in relation to Gaia and as a demonstration of the primitive.

Whilst the first (or continuing) response may be to be amused or bemused, it is overtime to actually look at these sorts of things seriously.

Tim Flannery recently, I think in some manner in reference to this publication or at around the same time, referred to the atmosphere as a “sensitive organ”.

Forget the attempt to fit such beings into categories such as poor/incompetent scientist, or noble cause victims.

These are actually beings that do not qualify as fully human. I mean that in all seriousness. To be homo sapien is not equivalent to being human. Humanity has characteristics distinct from the functioning of an organism.

These do not include the compulsion to reduce by generally unspecified means the world population by a dramatic amount as is actually the desire of a significant part of these beings.

They do not include the abasement of human capacity to a degree required to live in a manner subservient to unknowable physical forces directed by an inconceivable power completely unrelated to human experience.

These being have separated themselves by whatever means from humanity. They intend to impose their will on humanity and effectively destroy it.

They do so for their benefit as they see it.

In the past they would have been described as evil.

Whether that is preferred to primaeval does not matter, it is the same thing.

It is time to stop seeing these beings as misguided or opportunistic in an ordinary way. They are something altogether different. And they are a threat to humanity.”

Right then. It’s a whole good versus evil thing apparently with half-humans being the bad guys. Interesting that he calls himself jc. Coincidence or does he think he might be Jesus? The whole good/evil thing had me wondering.

Next we have the deceptive where one of my favourite morons, Eric Worrall tries to somehow link the refusal of the government to allow the Traveston dam to the Brisbane floods. For anyone unfamiliar with the geography around Brisbane, the dam would have been on the Mary River, not the Brisbane River or any of its tributaries, more than 100km north of Brisbane. Here’s what Eric had to say…

Oh dear. tsk tsk. Of course nobody takes Eric seriously. Anyone seeing his nonsense over at Watching the Deniers where he demonstrates his silly trolling and clown act knows what he is like. I’ll have to dig out the comments he made where he suggested all the polar bears could be placed in Antarctica and all the crocodiles in Australia should be shot. But finally I would like to show my favourite comment from the post. It is my favourite, because not only is it irrelevant, juvenile, and worthless, but it also shows that Anthony Watts has very very low standards for what he finds acceptable on his blog.

Good one Terry. It must have taken you at least 10 minutes to come up with that one…. and you managed to type it with one hand. Well done. You managed to violate at least half a dozen of Anthony’s rules and still get published. Well done again.

 

 

 

Denier Comment of the Day March 15, 2013

I just love the types of comments where people correct other people on their spelling and grammar and have spelling mistakes of their own or like with the next case, a person questions another’s intellect and…..well, you’ll see. This comes from a WTFIWWAW post about the movie Greedy Lying Bastards. Daryl Hannah was the executive producer.

Should I even bother? …..of course I should. Arthur you moron, are you suggesting that when people are born they should name themselves properly? You do realise that babies are really bad at filling in birth registration papers?  Idiot. But let’s get to the crux of this goose’s comment. Presumably he has never seen heard or read anything from or about Daryl Hannah yet feels able to judge her intellectual capacity. Well Arthur, we now know more about you than you about her and we can certainly judge your intellect now. Classic own goal.

 

Media Guide to Scepticism

All of us in the sane world who understand and accept the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change and global warming, and are active in the blogosphere, always come across AGW deniers claiming to be sceptics. Anthony crybaby Watts for example certainly doesn’t like being called a denier because of perceived anti-semitic overtones in the use of that word. Well, they may not like being called deniers but that is what they are.  That said, let’s just pretend for a moment that the word denier is offensive due to anti-semitic overtones. What other words could replace it? How about cynic, contrarian or detractor? All good words, especially cynic, because when deniers reject the science underpinning human-induced climate change, more often than not they are questioning the motivation of the scientists themselves rather than the science itself. This is certainly due to, in the case of Anthony Watts, a complete lack of scientific training and understanding.  His sycophantic flying monkeys are even worse. They just blindly repeat everything Watts says without even thinking to pass a sceptical eye over any of it. That behaviour probably has another word for it requiring a different label for those individuals who practice it. Perhaps something along the lines of “sewer”, because that is a conduit for the type of information Watts and his ilk spew out. If there are any plumbers out there with a catchy word I’d like to hear from you. Whatever these people are, they are not sceptics.

So what exactly is a “sceptic”? Perhaps the following article by DoubtfulNews.com will help.

Media Guide to Skepticism

Purpose: To provide a clear, easy-to-read guide about the “Skeptical” viewpoint as subscribed to by many who might call themselves Skeptics or critical thinkers; to distinguish practical Skepticism from the popular use of the phrase “I’m skeptical,” and from those who claim to be “skeptics” regarding some well-established conclusion (such as climate change).

 

What is skepticism?

Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies tools of science. Skepticism is most often applied to extraordinary claims – those that refute the current consensus view.

The Skeptical process considers evidence obtained by systematic observations and reason.

The conclusion that is reached at the end of this Skeptical process is provisional because additional or better evidence may come along that points towards a more suitable explanation.

Example: Mr. X tells us that a new pill greatly improves his memory. This claim, if true, is important and extraordinary. So, it would be fitting to apply Skepticism to this claim. We would want to see evidence that his memory is improved and that the pill was responsible for that. We consider alternative explanations that could explain why Mr. X would say the new pill improves his memory: he may be mistaken, he might be going through a less-stressful time of life, he wants to feel like he spent his money wisely on the pills, he was paid to promote the pills, etc. Good evidence that his claim has validity would be quality research results (multiple studies) that show many who take the pill displayed a measurable improvement in memory. And, preferably, we would be provided a plausible explanation for how the pill works to improve memory. If the manufacturer of Mr X’s pills do not have well-controlled studies of large groups of people that show that the product actually works, we can’t just accept his word that they work as they say because the alternative explanations are more likely.

The more extraordinary the claim, the stronger the evidence must be to support it. If a claim is made that would require us to revise or overturn well established knowledge, we should be very suspicious and ask for a greater degree of evidence.

Example: Psychics claim that they are able to predict future events. That would not be in accordance with what we have observed about the human mind. It would not correspond to well-tested ideas in biology and physics.  It does not make sense in terms of what we know. So, in order to justify discarding all we already know, the claimant must have a great deal of solid evidence that withstands scrutiny.

These are cases of applying scientific skepticism. Skeptics value contributions of science but also those of logic and math that lead towards the best explanation. Skepticism can be applied to subjects such as history, art and literature, as well, by using critical thinking and respect for the evidence for any claims that are made.

 

What does it mean to be a Skeptic?

You will often hear “I’m a skeptic” or “I’m skeptical” from people who are not sure about or who doubt some concept. That is a common, casual use of the term. Simply calling oneself a “skeptic” is not the same as practicing it. It’s easy to “doubt” things; everyone is “skeptical” about something. Good Skepticism involves understanding why one might or might not doubt the claim.

A Skeptic subscribes to a number of tenets.

Respect for the evidence. The application of reason to evidence is the best method we have to obtain reliable knowledge.

Respect for methods, conclusions and the consensus of science. Science is a particular way of obtaining information that is designed to reduce the chances of coming to an incorrect conclusion. Using a scientific process will minimize errors (but not eliminate them entirely). So, Skeptics are often vigorous advocates of science – in medicine, in schools, and for informing policy decisions. Fake, junk and pseudo-science is called out as a ruse. Logic and math are also components of science that can be valuable in assessing claims.

Preference for natural, not supernatural, explanation. Natural laws give us rational boundaries in our quest to determine explanations. Miracles are an example of using a supernatural agent (a god, saint or angel who operates outside of natural laws) as part of the explanation. A Skeptic will look for a natural explanation that does not call for a supernatural, unproven (and possibly unprovable) entity to be included.

Promotion of reason and critical thinking. Many Skeptics are good at identifying mistakes in arguments and reasoning.

Awareness of how we are fooled. People routinely fool themselves and are fooled by others. This is most commonly seen in our over-reliance on our senses and memory – for example, “I know what I saw,” or “I remember it like it was yesterday.” Skeptics are wary of eyewitness testimony because observation is fallible and memory is malleable. Stories of events, even from trustworthy people, make for very poor evidence on their own. Even collectively, anecdotes don’t tell us much about the validity of the claim. Skeptics also understand that people tend to look for, remember and favor the evidence that supports their preferred conclusion.

 

What Skepticism ISN’T

This section contains possibly the most important things to know about Skeptics. There are a many misconceptions about what it means to be a Skeptic. Not everyone who says they are “skeptical” are applying Skepticism.

Skeptic is not the same as “cynic” or “disbeliever”. Good Skeptics do not dismiss claims out-of-hand. The “Skeptic” is often seen as the “debunker”, the “downer”, or the “balloon buster”. It may appear that way for those who are very attached to certain concepts to which Skepticism is being applied, such as existence of ghosts, Bigfoot or UFOs. Skeptics aren’t skeptical of everything, either. In classical Greek Skepticism, the individual did not commit to stating “knowledge”; everything was doubted, there was no certainty. That is not a popular stance today. When we speak of modern Skepticism, we are talking about those who seek the conclusion best supported by current evidence and reason.

Skeptic does not equal “atheist”. Many Skeptics are atheists, but not all. Skepticism is a process of evaluating claims, not a set of conclusions. Skeptics are a diverse group so lack of religious beliefs should not be assumed. Scientific Skepticism is applied only to testable claims (such as “prayer heals”), not to untestable claims such as the existence of God, who is supernatural. “Is there a God?” is a question outside the realm of science. However, philosophical skepticism can be invoked in considering claims about the supernatural.

Skeptic does not mean “denialist” or “truther”. A practicing Skeptic is informed by the scientific consensus. So called “climate skeptics” are not practicing Skepticism when they doubt global warming based on selective belief and by ignoring the results that science has given us to this point. “Denialists” (of climate change, evolution, conventional medicine, etc.) reject science that does not support their view. “Truthers” insist that the real “truth” has not been revealed and instead put forth the explanation that a conspiracy is afoot. These stances do not give fair weight to well-established knowledge we have.

Skepticism is not a religion. Skepticism doesn’t tell you what to think. It tells you how you should think about something to get to the conclusion that has the best possibility of being true. Skepticism may not always be the best approach to decisions at the moment, sometimes decisions based on emotions can feel like the right thing to do. So applying skepticism to everything in life is not always the best policy. There may be other factors to consider.

 

Skepticism is important

Why use Skepticism as a process to evaluate claims? Critically evaluating claims for flaws, mistakes and inaccuracies lessens the potential that you will believe something that isn’t true. Skepticism and critical thinking can be applied in everyday life where an invalid claim might have serious effects on you or people around you – such as in consideration of a medical treatment, a financial investment, a consumer product, or life choices.

Proponents of a claim will frequently say, “You can’t prove it’s not true.” That’s a ridiculous statement. It’s not up to the Skeptic to show that an extraordinary claim isn’t true. It’s up to those making the claim to provide evidence and reasons why it IS true. We must have evidence that a person DID commit a crime, for example, not prove that everyone else in the world did not.

 

What do Skeptics do?

Skeptics have a loose community consisting of publications, web sites and online forums, organizations, and events. Skeptics are all around the world, organized into casual and formal groups and associations. It is a community made up of people with varying backgrounds, ideas, goals, communication styles and skill sets. It also gets very fluid at the edges. You might be a Skeptic and not even know it. Many people don’t self-identify as a “skeptic” but selectively follow the practices of Skepticism in their lives. Some people are disinclined to take on any labels or join a group.

Many Skeptics enjoy the fringe subject areas, they like solving mysteries and appreciate being around people who think as they do or who argue rationally when they don’t agree. Some Skeptics are activists who promote critical thinking and Skepticism in their communities and the public as individuals or as part of local or national organized groups and online.

Some of the topics Skeptics are involved in are science education, alternative medical treatments, the paranormal, dubious consumer products and services, hoaxes and scams, UFOs and aliens, monsters and folklore, superstition, and why people believe strange things.

Those who represent Skepticism in the public sphere are happy to provide a science- and reason-based viewpoint for the media. The backgrounds of the those in the Skeptical community are varied. Many participants in the skeptical community are experts in particular areas like the paranormal, medicine, cryptozoology, history, archaeology, textual analysis, linguistics, psychology, astronomy, physics and magic.

 

Skeptical Resources

Here are the best means to connect to the people and ideas of scientific skepticism.

• Sites
• Podcasts
• Online Resources
• Skeptical People

The directory for all things skeptical online

 

Organizations

The major Skeptic organizations have as their mission a goal to promote scientific skepticism. There are three major national skeptical organizations in the United States.

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI)

CSI (formerly known as CSICOP) is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization, started in 1976. Their mission is to promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. They publish the Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptical Briefs. They host an annual conference called CSIcon and many local events, workshops and lectures in conjunction with their overarching organization, the Center for Inquiry. Contact: info(at)csisop.org More

James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)

Founded by magician James “The Amazing” Randi in 1996, the foundation is dedicated to promoting “critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.” They organize one of the largest gatherings of international skeptics and critical thinkers, The Amazing Meeting (TAM),  every year and offer the One Million Dollar Challenge for those who claim paranormal abilities. Contact:  +1 213 293-3092   More

The Skeptics Society 

Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Skeptics Society is a nonprofit, scientific and educational organization led by Dr. Michael Shermer. Their mission is to engage leading experts in investigating the paranormal, fringe science, pseudoscience, and extraordinary claims of all kinds, promote critical thinking, and serve as an educational tool for those seeking a sound scientific viewpoint. They sponsor a monthly lecture series at the California Institute of Technology. Contact: skepticssociety(at)skeptic.com More

Publications

• Skeptic Magazine
• Skeptical Inquirer
• Skeptical Briefs
• The Skeptic (U.K.)
• The Skeptic (Aust)

Famous Skeptics

• Harry Houdini (1874 – 1926) Magician, psychic debunker.
• Martin Gardner (1914 – 2010)  Popular math and science writer.
• Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992)  Biochemist, professor, science fiction and science author.
• Paul Kurtz (1925 – 2012)  Philosopher, professor, author, organizational founder.
• James Randi (1928 – )  Magician, investigator, author, organizational founder.
• Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)  Astronomer, astrophysicist, author.
• Richard Dawkins (1941 – )  Evolutionary biologist, professor, author.
• Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002)  Paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, science historian, author.
• Elizabeth Loftus (1944- )  Cognitive psychologist, world-renowned expert on human memory.
• Joe Nickell (1944  - )  Paranormal investigator, author.
• Carol Tavris (1944 – )  Social psychologist, author.
• Eugenie Scott (1945- )  Physical anthropologist, Director of National Center for Science Education.
• Lawrence Krauss (1954- ) Theoretical physicist, cosmologist, professor, author.
• Michael Shermer (1954 – )  Science writer, organizational founder, editor of Skeptic magazine.
• Steven Novella (1964 – )  Clinical neurologist, writer, editor.
• Brian Dunning (1965 – )  Science writer, video and podcast producer.
• Richard Saunders (1965 – )  Science educator, video and podcast producer.
• Richard Wiseman (1966 – )  Psychologist, popular science author, paranormal investigator.
• Christopher French (?- ) Professor, anomalous psychology researcher, editor-in-chief of The Skeptic (U.K.).
• Benjamin Radford (1970- )  Paranormal investigator, author, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer.
• Derren Brown (1971 – )   Illusionist, mentalist, TV personality.
• Tim Minchin (1975- ) Comedian, actor, musician.

References

What is Skepticism? Brian Dunning

What Is Skepticism, Anyway? Michael Shermer, 2013

Why Is There a Skeptical Movement? Daniel Loxton, 2013

Bigfoot Skeptics, New Atheists, Politics and Religion Steven Novella, 2013

The New Skepticism, Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, 1992

Acknowledgements

Eric Weiss from Skepticsonthe.net, David Bloomberg, Kylie Sturgess, Torkel Ødegård, Barbara Drescher, Robert Blaskiewicz, Massimo Pigliucci, Chris French, Adriana Heguy, Daniel Loxton, Eve Siebert, Eddie Scott, Daniel Loxton, Howard Lewis, Iain Martel, Tiffany Taylor, Terry O’Connor, Stephan Naro, Paul Wilkins, Richard Saunders.

 

Permission to reprint is granted as long as the following attribution is given:  By DoubtfulNews.com, 2013

Media Guide to Skepticism by Sharon Hill/Doubtful News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

 

Our idiotic politicians – John Forrest

As this is an election year here in Australia, I believe the time has come to start highlighting a few of our politicians…. the really stupid ones. These are the politicians that leave me scratching my head wondering who the hell voted for them and what the hell they were thinking when they did? Hopefully within the next four weeks or so I will posting the full list of incumbent federal members and their stance on human-induced climate change and global warming. For each I will quote statements (some of them are fantastically stupid) they have made that support my assertion that they are either climate science acceptors or idiots. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some will make you want to throw your computer out the window in a fit of rage, and I can guarantee there will be more than a few facepalm moments. So without further ado let me introduce our first idiot, John Forrest.

Johnno is a long time member of the conservative National Party. “The Nats” as they are affectionately called by many Australians can be considered to be the party for the farmers. Johnno’s Akubra hat is a definite clue. When you see a hat like that on a pollie, you just know he’s from the bush. A bit about his electorate, Mallee. This comes from Johnno’s website

First proclaimed in 1948/49 the Mallee Electorate is 70,694 square kilometres. It is the largest geographical electorate in Victoria with only 11 larger electorates Nation wide.
The region is noted for a variety of industries including tourism, services, manufacturing, dried fruit, citrus, stone fruit, almonds, olives, pistachio and other nuts, bee-keeping and pollination, wheat and other cereals, wool, sheep, vegetables, forestry, wine grapes, table grapes, dairying, beef cattle, meat works and sand mining.
To give an idea of the size of Mallee, the total area of England, Scotland and Wales is 219,000 square kilometres, or equivalent to just 2.8 Mallee electorates.
England at 130,395 sq kms  is 1.67 times the size of Mallee; Scotland 78,772 sq kms is about the same size, and Mallee is 3.75 times bigger than Wales.
The electorate stretches from the South Australian border in the west to Campaspe in the east, from Sunraysia and the Murray River in the North, and the Wimmera, Grampians and Western District in the south.

In other words, it s a big electorate in the bush. Now, don’t let Johnno’s laid back country looks and hat fool you. He is a bona fide scientist, fully equipped to make informed decisions about climate science. I kid you not. He says so himself.

“There are several positions about climate change. One is that the climate of this fragile planet has always been changing, and there is plenty of evidence of that. In some instances this climate change has been quite dramatic, even cataclysmic. The second position is that the current phase of change is caused by human activity and therefore we can have an impact on it if we change our ways, particularly our prolific consumption of energy. I believe that a realistic position is somewhere between these two propositions. Then there is debate in the scientific community about what is causing these changes. This is where the debate gets much more controversial. Every day my office is bombarded with positions from both points of view about carbon…  Thankfully, I have a masters degree in science…”

Well there you go. A masters in science. Hang on……what kind of science? Well, according to his website he has a Master of Science and his undergrad degree is a Bachelor of Engineering. Apparently he also has a Diploma of Civil Engineering, and published some “professional papers”. What is it with deniers and their failure to recognise expertise (or lack thereof)? So Johnno, the country pollie with the engineering degree, considers himself suitably qualified to dissect climate science. Hang on, I’ll be right back. The plumber has just arrived to rewire my house!  Well, maybe we should have a look at just how scientific Johnno is. I stumbled onto the following hilarious exchange between Johnno and someone called Peter, at the Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc forum. Peter had emailed all of our Liberal and National Party politicians asking them to consider climate change, and in his words “the reversal of hundreds of millions of years of carbon sequestration carried out by the decay of plant life and our reversal of this process which can not continue.” he received the following reply from Johnno.

Dear Peter

Do you know what the specific gravity of CO2 is?
Look it up in an old school physics book.
It’s heavier than air.
Get some dry ice which is actually frozen CO2.
Tell me what the vapour does when it thaws.
It drops to the floor.
If this is the case, can you tell me how it gets up several kms to become a greenhouse gas?
We have been duped.
Thankfully, more and more Australians are waking up to it.
Climate change is real but we are being led up the garden path as to the causes.
I will remain resolutely opposed to this Bill which crucifies our economy for no global gain.
Malcolm forgot his basic grade 6 primary school physics and should never have taken us to these embarrassing circumstances.
I’m with the Nationals and will have no say in what happens from here in respect to leadership for the Libs. I am praying for the greatest of wisdom to fall on my Liberal friends including Malcolm.
I hope they read your Email

John Forrest MP
BE(Civil), MSc, FIEAust, MASCE
Federal Member for Mallee
John Forrest, MP
Federal Member for Mallee

How fantastic is that? Rather than pull this apart myself. Let’s just see how Peter responded.

Thank you for your prompt reply Mr. Forrest.
When you use the term “air” what gasses which comprise air are you talking about?
Because air comprises 3 major gasses.
Nitrogen (N2) forms the bulk of our atmosphere it has a specific gravity of 0.9723.
Next comes oxygen (O2) which has a SG of 1.1044.
Lastly comes CO2. This has a SG of 1.5189.
As you will notice nitrogen is the lightest gas followed by oxygen and then carbon dioxide.
Are you suggesting that our atmosphere is layered? Each layer containing only one gas?
So we, at sea level have to breath CO2, unless we can place ourselves at an altitude where we can breath pure oxygen?
And above these layers lies the bulk of our air made from nitrogen?
No, sir, the continual air movements make our “air” more-or-less a homogeneous mixture of all three of these gasses along with other, rarer, ones.

Now this is where it gets really (insert any emotion here). Johnno replied with the following.

You forget that CO2 is utilised by all vegetation to extract the carbon and release the oxygen.
Part of the designers plan I happen to think
What I am expressing is my serious reservations that CO2 is the great villain being made out
Methane and the other nitrous oxides and nasties yes but not CO2
The modelling upon which this whole premise is based is progressively being discredited.
What’s the hell bent rush all about?
Because of my engineering and scientific background, I am a stickler for proper process. Let’s wait to see what occurs at Copenhagen and a full enquiry in to recent world wide questioning of the science.
We have time. The rest is haste for blatant political purposes to create an illusion about who is more climate change conscious.
Of course the atmosphere (air) is amorphous. Wind and sheer are great mixers but not greater than the law of gravity

John
John Forrest, MP
Federal Member for Mallee

So there you go… I think I can paraphrase this quite nicely. Let me know if I’m on the right track here. Johnno is effectively saying, “Because I am scientist, I know this is true. God made plants low to the ground. Because he designed them to consume CO2 and because he invented gravity he had to make CO2 heavier than other gases so that gravity would pull it to the ground where the plants are. People and animals don’t die from the CO2 because the plants consume it. The air is mixed , but it isn’t.” It actually makes perfect sense… if you’re a child or a moron.

Now, I could go all sciency here and get into fluid dynamics and atmospheric physics and relativity and various other disciplines but I think, given the Inhofesque comment about the “designer” I think I’ll just run with a picture that sums it up.

A special thread just for cO2Pirate

UPDATE: It seems CO2Pirate has decided that he doesn’t wish to demonstrate his “science” here. You know, you try and let them have a voice……… Never let it be said I didn’t try.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was cruising YouTube, as I like to do sometimes, and I stumbled on a person going by the name of cO2Pirate. I have cordially invited him over here to show us what real science is. To give you a little bit of an idea of the quality of argument we can expect from cO2Pirate, here are a few screenshots of some of his/her work.

As you can see, cO2Pirate relies pretty much entirely on WTFIWWAW for his information, so his “science” will be a bit thin. I’m guessing there will be plenty of propaganda statements and misrepresentations of actual science but you never know, cO2Pirate may just have the “science” which overturns the work of tens of thousands of experts around the world. We’ll see. I’m guessing cO2Pirate, probably won’t show, in which case the screenshots here will be used in my next denier comment of the day. By the way on the Worrall Scale he is a 6.

So cO2Pirate, the first claim I would like to discuss with you, since it is top of the list here, is that of CO2 and crop yield and growth. You claim that more CO2 will increase both growth and yield. Could you please provide a peer-reviewed reference for this claim?

Denier comment of the day August 31, 2012

If ever I want a quick easy find for a denier comment of the day, I can go to Geoffrey Brown, official blogger for the Climate Sceptics Party. Today, the ever shortsighted Geoffrey is taking a swipe at chemistry nomenclature. Yes, you read that right,but in case you think you were mistaken I’ll type it again. Geoffrey Brown is taking a swipe at chemistry nomenclature. The comment I’m about to show you is so stupid, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Apparently, if you take Geoffrey’s idea, when you breathe in, your body will  extract the oxygen (O2) in the air (all good so far) but when you breathe out you will breathe out oxygen (O2C). I know, I know. Rather than explain it, here is Geoffrey’s comment…..first, sit on your hands. Ok, here it is.

No, read it again….slowly. Ok I’ll give you some context. Geoffrey’s complaint is the naming of the carbon tax and he goes on to say,

“The reason for the use of the word “carbon” is to somehow suggest something, dirty, grimy.”

Yes, you’re absolutely right Geoffrey, let’s name it for what it is and we’ll name the “junior partner” second. Let’s call it a Dioxygen carbide tax. Yes yes, that sounds much better. Of course the Dioxygen carbide isn’t the only greenhouse gas being taxed, there is also methane and nitrous oxide and a few others, so in a funny way I do actually agree that the carbon tax is incorrectly named. I honestly think it should be called the “Fossil fuel industry pollution tax“. No chance of being misled there. But back to Geoffrey’s logic (It’s ok readers, I’m scared too) and this “junior partner” bullshit. Most people learn in about year 8 at school (that might explain it) that there is a convention for chemical nomenclature. It’s not difficult. For the sake of keeping it even simpler I won’t mention the conventions when there is a charge involved. For binary metal/non-metal compounds, the metal goes first and the non-metal has ‘ide’ added e.g Chlorine + sodium becomes Sodium Chloride (NaCl). In the case of binary non-metal/non-metal compounds, whichever element is the furthest left on the periodic table goes first and the second has ‘ide’ added. e.g. Sulfur + Hydrogen becomes Hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The thing is, Geoffrey, we have these conventions for a reason. It’s so everyone (except you perhaps) can understand them. If you are basing this “junior partner” nonsense on the element with the least numbers of atoms, I’d like to know what you would call maitotoxin which is C164H256Na2O68S2? Sodium or sulfur? There’s two of each. Perhaps Sodium as it has the lighter molecular weight?

So there you have it, a beauty from Geoffrey. Anyway, I’m not sure I want to visit Geoffrey’s blog too often. Every time I do, I get a tune stuck in my head. 

Anthony Watts – a chip off the old block

In this case, the old block is his cash cow, the Heartland Institute. Remember this?

 

Well, it seems Anthony has crawled right down into the gutter with his paymasters with this:

 

Anthony Watts is accusing AGW proponents of being disappointed that people may soon be spared from dying of Malaria. The Heartland unabomber billboard was roundly condemned by most people including some of the more sensible people from the denial side, including a number of Heartland’s sponsors. I can only hope that people will start to realise how slimy Anthony Watts really is with this outrageous assertion. Not to mention hypocritical. You can’t use the word denier at WUWT, but you can assert that your opponents are disappointed that people won’t die. You’re a real class act Anthony Watts.

They don’t like being called deniers but….

they are. Anybody who has tried to engage deniers has been told that being called a “denier” is offensive because of the holocaust denial word association that can go with it. Anthony Watts even specifies in his blog rules that the word “denier” is off limits. Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less how these idiots feel about it.  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a fucking duck. If you look like a denier and your logic and mentality stinks like a denier, you’re a fucking denier.

The following paper highlights the tactics used by deniers to distort the truth to suit their ideology or whatever it is that drives them. The parallels between climate change denial, HIV/AIDS denial, smoking/cancer denial, evolution denial, fluoridation denial, anti-vaccination and conspiracy theories are highlighted.

If you tack this information on to Mike’s Six Aspects of Denial at Watching the Deniers you get a complete picture of what these idiots are like. I’ve reproduced the paper in full below. The most important part is the last section that discusses the best way to fight the lies, the vested interests and the idiocy that is DENIAL. Please distribute and/or reblog this.

 

European Journal of Public Health, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2–4

Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?

Black is white and white is black

HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media.

The consequences of policies based on views such as these can be fatal. Thabo Mbeki’s denial that that HIV caused AIDS prevented thousands of HIV positive mothers in South Africa receiving anti-retrovirals so that they, unnecessarily, transmitted the disease to their children.(1) His health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, famously rejected evidence of the efficacy of these drugs, instead advocating treatment with garlic, beetroot and African potato. It was ironic that their departure from office coincided with the award of the Nobel Prize to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre´-Sinoussi for their discovery that HIV is indeed the case of
AIDS. The rejection of scientific evidence is also apparent in the popularity of creationism, with an estimated 45% of Americans in 2004 believing that God created man in his present form within the past 10 000 years.(2) While successive judgements of the US Supreme Court have rejected the teaching of creationism as science, many American schools are cautious about discussing evolution. In the United Kingdom, some faithbased schools teach evolution and creationism as equally valid ‘faith positions’. It remains unclear how they explain the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

Elsewhere, the hand of powerful corporate interests can be seen. It took many decades for the conclusions of authoritative reports by the US Surgeon General(3) and the British Royal College of Physicians(4) on the harmful effects of smoking to be accepted, while even now, despite clear evidence of rapid reductions in myocardial infarctions where bans have been implemented, there are some who deny that second-hand smoke is dangerous. In large part this was due to the efforts of the tobacco industry to deflect attention to other putative causes of smoking-related diseases, from stress to keeping pet birds. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have suffered similar attacks from commentators with links to major oil companies.

All of these examples have one feature in common. There is an overwhelming consensus on the  evidence among scientists yet there are also vocal commentators who reject this consensus, convincing many of the public, and often the media too, that the consensus is not based on ‘sound science’ or denying that there is a consensus by exhibiting individual dissenting voices as the ultimate authorities on the topic in question. Their goal is to convince that there are sufficient grounds to reject the case for taking action to tackle threats to health. This phenomenon has led some to draw a historical parallel with the holocaust, another area where the evidence is overwhelming but where a few commentators have continued to sow doubt. All are seen as part of a larger phenomenon of  denialism.

Defining and recognizing denialism

The Hoofnagle brothers, a lawyer and a physiologist from the United States, who have done much to develop the concept of denialism, have defined it as the employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none,(5) an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists.(6) In this viewpoint, we argue that public health scientists should be aware of the features of denialism and be able to recognize and confront it.

Denialism is a process that employs some or all of five characteristic elements in a concerted way. The first is the identification of conspiracies. When the overwhelming body of scientific opinion believes that something is true, it is argued that this is not because those scientists have independently studied the evidence and reached the same conclusion. It is because they have engaged in a complex and secretive conspiracy. The peer review process is seen as a tool by which the conspirators suppress dissent, rather than as a means of weeding out papers and grant applications unsupported by evidence or lacking logical thought. The view of General Jack D Ripper that fluoridation was a Soviet plot to poison American drinking water in Dr Strangelove, Kubrick’s black comedy about the Cold War is no less bizarre than those expressed in many of the websites that oppose this measure.

In some cases, denialism exploits genuine concerns, such as the rejection of evidence on the nature of AIDS by African-Americans who perceive them as a manifestation of racist agendas.(7) While conspiracy theories cannot simply be dismissed because conspiracies do occur,(8) it beggars belief that they can encompass entire scientific communities.

There is also a variant of conspiracy theory, inversionism, in which some of one’s own characteristics and motivations are attributed to others. For example, tobacco companies describe academic research into the health effects of smoking as the product of an ‘anti-smoking industry’, described as ‘a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel, combined with some public monopolies’ whose aim is to ‘manufacture alleged evidence, suggestive inferences linking smoking to various diseases and publicity and dissemination and advertising of these so-called findings to the widest possible public’.(9)

The second is the use of fake experts. These are individuals who purport to be experts in a particular area but whose views are entirely inconsistent with established knowledge. They have been used extensively by the tobacco industry since 1974, when a senior executive with R J Reynolds devised a system to score scientists working on tobacco in relation to the extent to which they were supportive of the industry’s position. The industry embraced this concept enthusiastically in the 1980s when a senior executive from Philip Morris developed a strategy to recruit such scientists (referring to them as ‘Whitecoats’) to help counteract the growing evidence on the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. This activity was largely undertaken through front organizations whose links with the tobacco industry were concealed, but under the direction of law firms acting on behalf of the tobacco industry.(10) In some countries, such as Germany, the industry created complex and influential networks, allowing it to delay the implementation of tobacco control policies for many years.(11) In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute developed a Global Climate Science Communications Plan, involving the recruitment of ‘scientists who share the industry’s views of climate science [who can] help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases’.(12) However, this is not limited to the private sector; the administration of President George W Bush was characterized by the promotion of those whose views were based on their religious beliefs or corporate affiliations, (13) such as the advisor on reproductive health to the Food and Drug Administration who saw prayer and bible reading as the answer to premenstrual syndrome.(14) A related phenomenon is the marginalization of real experts, in some cases through an alliance between industry and government, as when ExxonMobil successfully opposed the reappointment by the US government of the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.(15),(16) These events led a group of prominent American scientists to state that ‘stacking these public committees out of fear that they may offer advice that conflicts with administration policies devalues the entire federal advisory committee structure’.(17)

The use of fake experts is often complemented by denigration of established experts and researchers, with accusations and innuendo that seek to discredit their work and cast doubt on their motivations. Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and who has made a great contribution to exposing tobacco industry tactics, is a frequent target for tobacco denialists. He is described on the Forces website as ‘infamous for being the boldest of liars in ‘‘tobacco control’’ that most ethically challenged gang of con artists’, adding that ‘he cynically implies his research into smoking is science, banking on the sad fact that politicians, let alone the media, have no idea that epidemiology is not real science and that his studies define the term junk science’.(18)

The third characteristic is selectivity, drawing on isolated papers that challenge the dominant consensus or highlighting the flaws in the weakest papers among those that support it as a means of discrediting the entire field. An example of the former is the much cited Lancet paper describing intestinal abnormalities in 12 children with autism, which merely suggested a possible link with immunization against measles, mumps and rubella.(19) This has been used extensively by campaigners against immunization, even though 10 of the paper’s 13 authors subsequently retracted the suggestion of an association. (20) Fortunately, the work of the Cochrane Collaboration in promoting systematic reviews has made selective citation easier to detect.

Another is a paper published by the British Medical Journal in 2003,(21) later shown to suffer from major flaws, including a failure to report competing interests,(22) that concluded that exposure to tobacco smoke does not increase the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. This paper has been cited extensively by those who deny that passive smoking has any health effects, with the company Japan Tobacco International still quoting it as justification for rejecting ‘the claim that ETS is a cause of lung cancer, heart disease and chronic pulmonary diseases in non-smokers’ as late as the end of 2008.(23)

Denialists are usually not deterred by the extreme isolation of their theories, but rather see it as the indication of their intellectual courage against the dominant orthodoxy and the accompanying political correctness, often comparing themselves to Galileo.

The fourth is the creation of impossible expectations of what research can deliver. For example, those denying the reality of climate change point to the absence of accurate temperature records from before the invention of the thermometer. Others use the intrinsic uncertainty of mathematical models to reject them entirely as a means of understanding a phenomenon. In the early 1990s, Philip Morris tried to promote a new standard, entitled Good Epidemiological Practice (GEP) for the conduct of epidemiological studies. Under the GEP guidelines, odds ratios of 2 or less would not be considered strong enough evidence of causation, invalidating in one sweep a large body of research on the health effects of many exposures.(24) Although Philip Morris eventually scaled back its GEP programme, as no epidemiological body would agree to such a standard, British American Tobacco still uses this criterion to refute the risk associated with passive smoking.(25)

The fifth is the use of misrepresentation and logical fallacies. For example, pro-smoking groups have often used the fact that Hitler supported some antismoking campaigns to represent those advocating tobacco control as Nazis (even coining the term nico-nazis),(26) even though other senior Nazis were smokers, blocking attempts to disseminate anti-smoking propaganda and ensuring that troops has sufficient supplies of cigarettes.(27) Logical fallacies include the use of red herrings, or deliberate attempts to change the argument and straw men, where the opposing argument is misrepresented to make it easier to refute. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined in 1992 that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is carcinogenic, a finding  confirmed by many other authoritative national and international public health institutions. The EPA assessment was described by two commentators as an ‘attempt to institutionalize a particular irrational view of the world as the only legitimate perspective, and to replace rationality with dogma as the legitimate basis of public policy’, which they labelled as nothing less than a ‘threat to the very core of democratic values and democratic public policy’.(28) Other fallacies used by denialists are false analogy, exemplified by the argument against evolution that, as the universe and a watch are both extremely complex, the universe must have been created by the equivalent of a watchmaker and the excluded middle fallacy (either passive smoking causes a wide range of specified diseases or causes none at all, so doubt about an association with one disease, such as breast cancer, is regarded as sufficient to reject an association with any disease).

Responding to denialism

Denialists are driven by a range of motivations. For some it is greed, lured by the corporate largesse of the oil and tobacco industries. For others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Finally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status conferred on the maverick by the media.

Whatever the motivation, it is important to recognize denialism when confronted with it. The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. 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. An understanding of the five tactics listed above provides a useful framework for doing so.

References

1 Bateman C. Paying the price for AIDS denialism. S Afr Med J 2007;97:912–14.
2 Newport F. Third of Americans say evidence has supported Darwin’s evolution theory. Available at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/
14107/Third-Americans-Say-Evidence-Has-Supported-Darwins-Evolution-Theory.aspx (Accessed on 29 November 2008).
3 US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Smoking and Health. Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. Atlanta: Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, 1964.
4 Royal College of Physicians. Smoking and Health. Summary and Report of the Royal College of Physicians of London on Smoking in Relation to Cancer of the Lung and other Diseases. London: Royal College of Physicians, 1962.
5 Hoofnagle M, Hoofnagle C. What is denialism. Available at: http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php (Accessed on 29 November 2008).
6 Wikipedia. Denialism. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism (Accessed on 30 December 2008).
7 Bogart LM, Thorburn S. Relationship of African Americans’ sociodemographic characteristics to belief in conspiracies about HIV/AIDS and birth control. J Natl Med Assoc 2006;98:1144–50.
8 Pigden CR. Conspiracy theories and the conventional wisdom. Episteme 2007;4:219–32.
9 Apt CC. The anti-smoking industry, Philip Morris internal report dated September 1983; Bates No. 2025042325/2332. Available at: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vob81f00 (Accessed on 29 November 2008).
10 Diethelm PA, Rielle J-C, McKee M. The whole truth and nothing but the truth? The research that Philip Morris did not want you to see. Lancet 2005;366:86–92.
11 Gru¨ning T, Gilmore A, McKee M. Tobacco industry influence on science and scientists in Germany. Am J Public Health 2006;96:20–32.
12 Greenpeace. Denial and deception: a chronicle of ExxonMobil’s efforts to corrupt the debate on global warming. Available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/leaked-api-comms-plan-1998 (Accessed on 29 November 2008).
13 McKee M, Novotny TE. Political interference in American science. Eur J Publ Health 2003;13:289–91.
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15 Lawler A. Climate change: battle over IPCC chair renews debate on U.S. climate policy. Science 2002;296:232–3.
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Pascal Diethelm1, Martin McKee2  1OxyGene`ve, Geneva, Switzerland 2London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Correspondence: Martin McKee,
e-mail: martin.mckee@lshtm.ac.uk
doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckn139