U.S. Politics Thread (2017 going forward)

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by OH&S

As for frivolity's vomit,

TL;DR…

my small vomit response

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My position on climate change is clearly set out in my first post in this thred:

My own view is that climate change is: real; may or may not have been materially exacerbated by human actions; may or may not be catastrophic in the long run; very unlikely to be reversible using current green technology; may or may not be reversible with future green technology; and very likely to be prohibitively costly for developing countries to take any steps to address.

As seen from what I've written, the short answer is that I know climate change is happening, but I don't know whether human actions cause it, and I don't know how costly it will be to solve it. Akuma's response is that anyone who denies or finds uncertainty in climate change is like denying or finding uncertainty in gravity, so the point of my vomit is to show that there is indeed a great deal of ambiguity on the topic, such that a more balanced treatment is needed when it comes to research and policy.

The vomit was not aimed at proving that climate change is a hoax, but to show that there is a lot of questionable data manipulation being carried out behind the scenes in attempting to prove the climate change alarmist position, and in attempting to assert its non-existent consensus among the scientific community.

Because of that, I do not attempt to bring up scientific research papers since I am not an expert in the field, and I probably wouldn't be able to understand the methodology sufficiently. What I can say, however, is that the intellectual dishonesty being shown by climate change alarmists is something that should get most people's antennas up.

By the way, the WSJ article isn't actually hidden by a subscriber wall. There are ways around to get around it after all

TL;DR…

continued...

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The breakdown of the climate scientists who signed the petition is provided on the website itself:

All of the listed signers have formal educations in fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical, astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change controversy.

The Petition Project classifies petition signers on the basis of their formal academic training, as summarized below. Scientists often pursue specialized fields of endeavor that are different from their formal education, but their underlying training can be applied to any scientific field in which they become interested.

The newspaper articles about cooling in the 1970s showed that the media and the public of that time were highly afraid of an incoming ice age, and all of a sudden they're now afraid of global warming. One scientist was an ice age alarmist in the 70s and is now a global warming alarmist. Imagine how disastrous it would have been if governments in the 70s and 80s jumped onto the ice age bandwagon and instituted policies in an attempt to warm the Earth! What would happen if scientific opinion shifts back towards the possibility of an ice age again in 50 years? Simply going forward with policies without having full knowledge of the situation at hand is not the way to go about it.

In short, this is a politics thread. Don't bother trying to argue science here.

For what its worth, I'm more than convinced about the reseach done on climate change.

It's fairly simple to grasp once you start with the base facts that the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle are things that exist and how they have been distorted by human activity. (this is max 10th grade level science).

What's not simple is how this global warming (read as increase in total energy in the planet: not increase in tempaerature) will definitely affect the planet; the actual climate change part. You have to juggle rising temperatures, drought, ecosystem destruction, polar ice melting, sea levels rising, low frequency but powerful hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons and the fact that different parts of the planet will react to the increase in energy vastly differently. And to make things even more confusing, theres actually a strong chance that global warming might trigger an ice age; its so f*cking counter-intuitive at times. But thats because planet Earth is so complex with so many variables.

That's why its important that we move on from the "is there actually climate change" and "whats causing it" debate and go into disaster mitigation mode.

Exactly, this is a politics thread, which is why I'm not arguing about science, but about the politics of science. This is why I didn't focus on the technical aspects of climate change, and looked at issues such as the manipulation of data to push a certain narrative that is heavily backed by funding from interested parties. It is similar to what a common law judge does when assessing a case that turns on highly technical facts - the judge isn't assessing the merits of the case, but instead evaluates the reliability of the expert witnesses in terms of their qualifications, character, and consistency of witness accounts.

The point I'm making is, once again, that a great deal of questionable manipulation is being carried out in order to tip the evidence for one side of the story. This does not invalidate the evidence in favour of climate change, of course, but what it does mean is that a more independent system is required, whereby scientific research and publications are being treated equally, rather than being pre-judged on the basis of how closely they fit a desired narrative.

I studied that same stuff too up to high school, and I agree 100% that the Earth is extremely complex and very difficult to understand. However, I disagree with your view that we should start going into disaster mitigation mode. In my view, before we mitigate any disasters, we first need to find out what sort of disaster we're preparing for, as well as the likelihood of it occurring. This sort of information is very important because otherwise we risk devoting too much resources into preparing for a disaster that won't occur, or even preparing for the wrong disaster.

To be very clear, I'm not saying that we should not make preparations for disasters with low probability of occurrence. The point is about the degree of resources that should be devoted to it instead of being put to other uses that could be more beneficial in terms of saving or improving lives.

It should be embarrassing if China is making more progress towards dealing with this than the US. But that's what you get when your election system is surprisingly crap to begin with leading to 2 crap choices for president.

But then again, down here in Australia with our much better election system, we still have 2 crap choices for Prime Minister. So I guess that's a reality of politics.

China has more environmental problems to deal with than climate change. I'd imagine that the CCP is more concerned about reducing the levels of smog in Shanghai and Beijing before addressing climate change itself.

By my count, that makes four of us in the politics threads (both of us plus Vallen and risingstar).

.
.
.

lazy attempt at trying to bring things back on topic.

I actually think the discussion was already on topic since climate change is as much a political issue nowadays as it is a scientific issue.

[OH&S]

^
I know your position; that's why I didn't bash your position but rather the "evidence" you gave. A lot of your position is actually pretty spot on. We cant stop what's about to happen but at least we can limit the range of possibilities and scenarios as much as possible.

Perhaps vomit was a bit rude but I find quoting walls of text (with parts enlarged) rather obnoxious.

Originally Posted by frivolity

The breakdown of the climate scientists who signed the petition is provided on the website itself:

All of the listed signers have formal educations in fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical, astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change controversy.

The Petition Project classifies petition signers on the basis of their formal academic training, as summarized below. Scientists often pursue specialized fields of endeavor that are different from their formal education, but their underlying training can be applied to any scientific field in which they become interested.

It says that but...

The newspaper articles about cooling in the 1970s showed that the media and the public of that time were highly afraid of an incoming ice age, and all of a sudden they're now afraid of global warming. Imagine how disastrous it would have been if governments in the 70s and 80s jumped onto the ice age bandwagon and instituted policies to warm the Earth! What would happen if scientific opinion shifts back towards the possibility of an ice age again in 50 years? Simply going forward with policies without having full knowledge of the situation at hand is not the way to go about it.

This is the counter-intuitive bit: Global Warming CAN trigger an ice-age.

Exactly, this is a politics thread, which is why I'm not arguing about science, but about the politics of science. This is why I didn't focus on the technical aspects of climate change, and looked at issues such as the manipulation of data to push a certain narrative that is heavily backed by funding from interested parties. It is similar to what a common law judge does when assessing a case that turns on highly technical facts - the judge isn't assessing the merits of the case, but instead evaluates the reliability of the expert witnesses in terms of their qualifications, character, and consistency of witness accounts.

The point I'm making is, once again, that a great deal of questionable manipulation is being carried out in order to tip the evidence for one side of the story. This does not invalidate the evidence in favour of climate change, of course, but what it does mean is that a more independent system is required, whereby scientific research and publications are being treated equally, rather than being pre-judged on the basis of how closely they fit a desired narrative.

I studied that same stuff too up to high school, and I agree 100% that the Earth is extremely complex and very difficult to understand. However, I disagree with your view that we should start going into disaster mitigation mode. In my view, before we mitigate any disasters, we first need to find out what sort of disaster we're preparing for, as well as the likelihood of it occurring. This sort of information is very important because otherwise we risk devoting too much resources into preparing for a disaster that won't occur, or even preparing for the wrong disaster.

To be very clear, I'm not saying that we should not make preparations for disasters with low probability of occurrence. The point is about the degree of resources that should be devoted to it instead of being put to other uses that could be more beneficial in terms of saving or improving lives.

Perfectly reasonable.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by OH&S

^
I know your position; that's why I didn't bash your position but rather the "evidence" you gave. A lot of your position is actually pretty spot on. We cant stop what's about to happen but at least we can limit the range of possibilities and scenarios as much as possible.

Perhaps vomit was a bit rude but I find quoting walls of text (with parts enlarged) rather obnoxious.

I would ordinarily have quoted only the enlarged part without enlarging, but it was clear to me that Akuma didn't actually read the post and simply went back to the stock response that he gives to the proverbial climate-change-denialists. For this reason, I found it appropriate to quote the full response. I'll use underlining next time instead of enlarging.

It says that but...

I can agree with the conclusion that the petition cannot be taken authoritatively.

This is the counter-intuitive bit: Global Warming CAN trigger an ice-age.

Sure, but the switch in narrative does not appear to have been made on that basis. I may be wrong of course, but it seems to me that it simply involved switching bandwagons in order to never let a good crisis go to waste.

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by frivolity

Sure, but the switch in narrative does not appear to have been made on that basis. I may be wrong of course, but it seems to me that it simply involved switching bandwagons in order to never let a good crisis go to waste.

I'm not convinced that there was a switch in narrative considering that there were more papers about warming than cooling at the time.

The media just sucks at reporting science. Like really sucks. They have a habit of falsely balancing scientific arguments rather than just looking at the evidence (this just as true for both sides of the climate debate as it is for vaccination and anti-vaccination "debate"). They are far more concerned about headlines.

[frivolity]

^That I agree with.

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by ChuckE

Should I? I mean since the election there was almost no substrance in the topic at all. You can even summarize the whole thread with "Those who voted for Trump are stupid racists, he will be impeached, USA is world class peace-deliverer, Obama is the best what happened to America"

I didn't get that feeling from this thread, at least not until the 'scientific' discussion of two non-scientists.

Originally Posted by ChuckE

He is opposing Obama's policies from the very beginning - what should you expect there?

It is rather hot topic but I would rather keep more that destroy (look what happened to USSR. USA well-played there and the government was foolish enough to believe. Guess who wanted to demilitarise and now have the biggest army?). I mean nobody in his sane mind would cut their own "defense" force just because somebody asked to live in peace. Russia learnt the lesson during 90s

I thought Obama made America the world-arena joke, no?

Critics often deliberately overlook that Obama has inherited many bad debts from the Bush administration and improved most of them. Overall America was in a significantly better state after Obama than it was after Bush. At least until October 2016.

I'd expect them to continue along the current policies, at least publicly or to simply not say anything. Politics was never a field in which you wield a hammer, smash everything that doesn't pleases you and then expect to build your utopia from the ruins. For either democrats or republicans, changing something in the long-term takes time. Trump wants to revert many of Obama's policies, but if the president elect keeps squabbling with the president then it's a terrible image sent internationally.

[Ithekro]

Speak softly, but carry a big stick, view of politics internationally would seem to work at times.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

I didn't get that feeling from this thread, at least not until the 'scientific' discussion of two non-scientists.

Just to be clear, it was not a discussion of science, but the politics of science (not singling you out, just clarifying because you're the second person to mistake it a scientific discussion).

[Key Board]

Individualists reject man made climate change, because they abhor the thought that people should be accountable for anything

Christians, at least some denominations, reject climate change altogether, because they fear that environmentalism somehow drifts into Paganism

[Eisdrache]

It doesn't really matter whether you want to split hairs about scientific discussion or discussion involving science. Yes they're not the same but that hardly matters in this context. There's a reason why I put 'scientific' in quotes, as this discussion was nothing more than quoting sources without understanding the thought process behind them and then quoting them again in bigger size.

If you really have to use the whole block again, just link to the post instead.

To come back to the topic of climate change, your sources or at least what you quoted of them don't say anything about whether or not climate change is at least partially man made or not, they only argue that it isn't as large as assumed. Climate change is real and will be a problem in the future, all four of us agree on that.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by frivolity

Please actually read posts that you're replying to.

Originally Posted by OH&S

In short, this is a politics thread. Don't bother trying to argue science here.

People have a right to try to politicize facts, but that doesn't make them free from criticism

Originally Posted by OH&S

You know, frivolity and Akuma Kousaka, you both kinda suck at arguing about science

Akuma's image response to frivolity's post was basically akin to someone covering their ears and shouting "I can't hear you". Not helpful. What gets me about that 97% statistic is that I don't how they got this number. I would love it if there was an actual source for this. Specifically for climate scientists.

The overall average temperature rising at an exponential rate due to relatively high CO2 output. Granted in some places it actually gets colder, but that's why the terminology was changed due to propagating extremes on both ends. Summers that break record highs year after after, the conflict in Syria due to the Middle East slowly becoming uninhabitable, more extreme winters, and so on. Some people mention lower temperature anomalies, but that's due to El Niño years consistently causing cold spikes but not enough to change overall trends.

There's a point where scientific evidence overwhelmingly leans in one direction to the point the onus is on the one trying to prove it the other way, and they haven't. There are politics involved in the issue, but they need to be how to address the fact of anthropogenic climate change (Jill Stein's plan actually went further than Bernie Sanders', IIRC), not trying to politicize facts the same way many cigarette deniers now deny ACG. In realizing this, they've moved to goalpost "we don't know," and obfuscation is all they need when the public doesn't know any better. Of course, 97% consensus on ACG among scientists who expressed a position on ACG is a lot better than 47%(now I'm actually being politically smarmy with that Romney number)

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

It doesn't really matter whether you want to split hairs about scientific discussion or discussion involving science. Yes they're not the same but that hardly matters in this context. There's a reason why I put 'scientific' in quotes, as this discussion was nothing more than quoting sources without understanding the thought process behind them and then quoting them again in bigger size.

If you really have to use the whole block again, just link to the post instead.

To come back to the topic of climate change, your sources or at least what you quoted of them don't say anything about whether or not climate change is at least partially man made or not, they only argue that it isn't as large as assumed. Climate change is real and will be a problem in the future, all four of us agree on that.

The point I was making was already set out in this post, which is that a great deal of questionable manipulation is being carried out in order to tip the evidence for one side of the story. This does not invalidate the evidence in favour of climate change, of course, but what it does mean is that a more independent system is required, whereby scientific research and publications are being treated equally, rather than being pre-judged on the basis of how closely they fit a desired narrative.

This is, in fact, the thought process in the sources that I quoted. It was not about validating or invalidating the scientific theory itself, since this is not a science thread. It's about demonstrating that the scientific community is not as clear cut and dry about the issue as the media narrative makes it out to be. As such, the distinction between a discussion about science and the politics of science does in fact matter in this context. The reason why I re-quoted the text in bigger size is because Akuma's response to my second post was already addressed in the post itself.

The sources that I quoted aren't even giving a view on whether climate change is at least partially man-made. That's not the point of those sources. They're giving a view about the scientific community, and pointing out the questionable practices and motivations being carried out. That is the difference between science versus the politics of science.

I agree with the view that climate change is real. Whether or not it is going to be a problem in the future is something that I'll need more evidence about before committing to a position.

Originally Posted by Akuma Kousaka

People have a right to try to politicize facts, but that doesn't make them free from criticism

The overall average temperature rising at an exponential rate due to relatively high CO2 output. Granted in some places it actually gets colder, but that's why the terminology was changed due to propagating extremes on both ends. Summers that break record highs year after after, the conflict in Syria due to the Middle East slowly becoming uninhabitable, more extreme winters, and so on. Some people mention lower temperature anomalies, but that's due to El Niño years consistently causing cold spikes but not enough to change overall trends.

There's a point where scientific evidence overwhelmingly leans in one direction to the point the onus is on the one trying to prove it the other way, and they haven't. There are politics involved in the issue, but they need to be how to address the fact of anthropogenic climate change (Jill Stein's plan actually went further than Bernie Sanders', IIRC), not trying to politicize facts the same way many cigarette deniers now deny ACG. In realizing this, they've moved to goalpost "we don't know," and obfuscation is all they need when the public doesn't know any better. Of course, 97% consensus on ACG among scientists who expressed a position on ACG is a lot better than 47%(now I'm actually being politically smarmy with that Romney number)

As pointed out in my post, Cook's study with the 97.1% was already debunked:

Agnotology is the study of how ignorance arises via circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. Legates et al. (Sci Educ 22:2007–2017, 2013) had questioned the applicability of agnotology to politically-charged debates. In their reply, Bedford and Cook (Sci Educ 22:2019–2030, 2013), seeking to apply agnotology to climate science, asserted that fossil-fuel interests had promoted doubt about a climate consensus. Their definition of climate ‘misinformation’ was contingent upon the post-modernist assumptions that scientific truth is discernible by measuring a consensus among experts, and that a near unanimous consensus exists. However, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1 % consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3 % endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. Agnotology, then, is a two-edged sword since either side in a debate may claim that general ignorance arises from misinformation allegedly circulated by the other. Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain. Therefore, Legates et al. appropriately asserted that partisan presentations of controversies stifle debate and have no place in education.

[Haak]

Well if we're gonna go down the route of slinging scientific articles at each other like monkeys with shit, you mind if I join in on the fun?

But if you'd rather take the side of scientists consistently funded by the fossil fuel industry then that's your choice I guess.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Haak

Well if we're gonna go down the route of slinging scientific articles at each other, you mind if I join in on the fun?

But if you'd rather take the side of scientists consistently funded by the fossil fuel industry then that's your choice I guess.

I actually think the woman talking about El Niño in the vid I linked to is the cause of global warming; look at how hawt she is

[MeoTwister5]

Anyone remember that Archer episode where Lana's father gave up his ground breaking clean energy research after that government money offer?

Yep. Exactly like this. Scientific ethics is dead.

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by frivolity

As pointed out in my post, Cook's study with the 97.1% was already debunked:

Agnotology is the study of how ignorance arises via circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. Legates et al. (Sci Educ 22:2007–2017, 2013) had questioned the applicability of agnotology to politically-charged debates. In their reply, Bedford and Cook (Sci Educ 22:2019–2030, 2013), seeking to apply agnotology to climate science, asserted that fossil-fuel interests had promoted doubt about a climate consensus. Their definition of climate ‘misinformation’ was contingent upon the post-modernist assumptions that scientific truth is discernible by measuring a consensus among experts, and that a near unanimous consensus exists. However, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1 % consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3 % endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. Agnotology, then, is a two-edged sword since either side in a debate may claim that general ignorance arises from misinformation allegedly circulated by the other. Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain. Therefore, Legates et al. appropriately asserted that partisan presentations of controversies stifle debate and have no place in education.

Well, at least we're starting to quote scientific papers. Problem is that an abstract is next to useless without the details of the actual research paper. Its hidden behind a 40 Euro paywall, so how am I supposed to critique it?

All I could do is google the lead author's name and everything started to unravel just from the guy's wikipedia entry.

Legates is a signatory of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation's "An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming".[10]
The declaration states:
"We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception."

Legates was a co-author of a 2015 study ... a team made up of Legates with Dr. Willie Soon, Dr. William M. Briggs, and Lord Christopher Monckton ..

According to the News Journal, "the Union of Concerned Scientists published a study listing Legates among several scientists it described as 'familiar spokespeople from ExxonMobil-funded organizations' that have regularly taken stands or sponsored reports questioning the science behind climate change warnings."Legates is a senior scientist of the Marshall Institute, a research fellow with the Independent Institute, and an adjunct scholar of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, all of which have received funding from ExxonMobil."

I'm sorry but this author is without a doubt bought by the fossil-fuel industry. He is of the school of thought that humans can do no wrong to the Earth and the Earth's climate as it is made by God and human's just can't do something like that to God's creation. He teams up with other well known discredited scientists like Dr. Willie Soon and the walking ilk Christopher Monckton.

Nothing about him seems credible and I'm convinced that this paper is just a hit piece against Cook's paper with the 97% statistic.

Besides, as Haak posted, Cook released a new paper in 2016 saying much of the same thing, except I can actually read it.

But these sources also go into detail about Cook's 2016 paper:

• The 97% consensus on global warming
• Lead Author explaining his research paper:
  
  YouTube

  https://youtu.be/pEb49cZYnsE

  Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

So ultimately, that 97% statistic is robust and refers to the climate scientists. Hardly debunked.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Haak

Well if we're gonna go down the route of slinging scientific articles at each other like monkeys with shit, you mind if I join in on the fun?

But if you'd rather take the side of scientists consistently funded by the fossil fuel industry then that's your choice I guess.

yeah man, cant let Saudi lose their oil dollars and prevent them from buying out more western officials.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by OH&S

Well, at least we're starting to quote scientific papers. Problem is that an abstract is next to useless without the details of the actual research paper. Its hidden behind a 40 Euro paywall, so how am I supposed to critique it?

All I could do is google the lead author's name and everything started to unravel just from the guy's wikipedia entry.

Ironically, Cook's paper is a study of the abstracts of papers, so if you consider that an abstract is next to useless without details of the actual paper, then it follows that Cook's study is also next to useless.

Similar to the WSJ article I linked earlier, there are ways around the paywall if you genuinely want to read it. I'm not going to do your work for you, but I for one was able to locate the full paper within three minutes.

I'm sorry but this author is without a doubt bought by the fossil-fuel industry. He is of the school of thought that humans can do no wrong to the Earth and the Earth's climate as it is made by God and human's just can't do something like that to God's creation. He teams up with other well known discredited scientists like Dr. Willie Soon and the walking ilk Christopher Monckton.

Nothing about him seems credible and I'm convinced that this paper is just a hit piece against Cook's paper with the 97% statistic.

I did a search on John Cook too, and found that he isn't a climate expert either, neither does he even hold a PhD. Of course, this does not invalidate his work, but it puts into question the methodology that his paper used in terms of classifying climate scientists according to their so-called levels of expertise.

Besides, as Haak posted, Cook released a new paper in 2016 saying much of the same thing, except I can actually read it.

But these sources also go into detail about Cook's 2016 paper:

• The 97% consensus on global warming
• Lead Author explaining his research paper:
  
  YouTube

  https://youtu.be/pEb49cZYnsE

  Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

So ultimately, that 97% statistic is robust and refers to the climate scientists. Hardly debunked.

Reading the description of the methodology, it appears that what Cook's study did was to get volunteers to read the abstracts of papers and then rate them. Given your position that an abstract is next to useless without the details of the actual paper, do you still consider this study to be credible?

One skepticism that lingers for me is Cook's (2016) definition of expert scientific opinion, which he defines as "scientists publishing peer-reviewed research on climate change". He argues that scientists with more papers published on climate change are more likely to endorse the view that humans caused global warming.

The problem with such a delineation is that it tends to bias the analysis. This is because scientists whose work goes against the climate change narrative will find it much more difficult to get their work accepted, much like how a Keynesian would find it hard to be accepted to UChicago, or a classical economist to Harvard. I note the comparison of the number of papers in the study versus the number of authors who responded to the self-ratings in Cook (2013). Specifically, Cook calculates that 36.9% of all papers in the sample endorsed AGW, while 62.5% held no position or were undecided. However, when it comes to self-ratings, 62.7% of respondents stated that their papers endorsed AGW, while 35.5% had no position or were undecided. This suggests that there is some level of non-response bias in his findings - those who are passionate climate change are more likely to respond to climate change surveys, while those who are undecided or hold no position prefer not to respond.

This goes back to the point I made in my previous post, that what is needed with climate change is a more independent system, whereby scientific research and publications are being treated equally, rather than being pre-judged on the basis of how closely they fit a desired narrative.

I note as well that Tor (the one that Cook (2016) is responding to) was acknowledged for helping to provide a comment, which means that he is definitely aware of this new paper. I await Tor's response to it.

Originally Posted by Haak

Well if we're gonna go down the route of slinging scientific articles at each other like monkeys with shit, you mind if I join in on the fun?

But if you'd rather take the side of scientists consistently funded by the fossil fuel industry then that's your choice I guess.

As if the multi-billion dollar green energy industry doesn't fund its own scientists, and in fact does it through direct full-time employment instead of an ad-hoc basis.

But please, feel free to join in on the fun. OH&S wanted scientific papers to be quoted in my responses, so I obliged. If that's not your preference, then what sort of sources do you prefer?

[Haak]

Originally Posted by frivolity

Ironically, Cook's paper is a study of the abstracts of papers, so if you consider that an abstract is next to useless without details of the actual paper, then it follows that Cook's study is also next to useless

...

Reading the description of the methodology, it appears that what Cook's study did was to get volunteers to read the abstracts of papers and then rate them. Given your position that an abstract is next to useless without the details of the actual paper, do you still consider this study to be credible?

OH&S said the abstract were useless in determining whether the study is right or wrong. Cook's study uses abstracts to determine consensus.

I did a search on John Cook too, and found that he isn't a climate expert either, neither does he even hold a PhD. Of course, this does not invalidate his work, but it puts into question the methodology that his paper used in terms of classifying climate scientists according to their so-called levels of expertise.

Take a look at the other authors.

As if the multi-billion dollar green energy industry doesn't fund its own scientists, and in fact does it through direct full-time employment instead of an ad-hoc basis.

David Legates - Koch, connections to Exxonmobile and Chevron
Willie Soon - Koch Foundation
Christopher Mockton - Hahahahahaha

John Cook - ????????

But please, feel free to join in on the fun. OH&S wanted scientific papers to be quoted in my responses, so I obliged. If that's not your preference, then what sort of sources do you prefer?

Why would that not be my preference? I'm already having so much fun

[Key Board]

House GOP guts ethics panel

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/politi...tee-amendment/


what the fuck. This is cartoon villainy tier. No, This is what fascism looks like.