“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
– Albert Einstein
The current belief of liberals is slightly different
Anything the government says must be blindly accepted
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
Recent Comments
Yes, the people who accept everything the Government tells them and blindly parrot the fraudulent information presented to them by alarmists are a menace to us all.
Posts like this make it clear your denialism is rooted in ideology, not science. Increasingly, that seems to be the case for nearly all “skeptics” out there.
Einstein was such a mediocre scientist after all
Einstein was a socialist. If he were alive today he would be wildly attacked for it.
“Why Socialism,” Albert Einstein, Monthly Review, May 1949
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism
Socialists of his time were skeptical of government. Now they are the government.
That’s a nice, neat, tidy answer that avoids all nuance and complexity. Just what I expect here.
Many people who see a role for government in solving society’s problems also see the danger in excessive government power. In fact, it seems to me that the left sees this far better than the right. While (so-called) conservatives are worried the government might kick down your door in the middle of the night and make you use cleaner energy technologies, many are worried about the government excesses already here: extraordinary rendition, torture, denial of habeus corpus, unauthorized wars and targeted killings, cyberwarfare, vast political corruption by corporate interests, huge data centers being erected in Utah that will record every scrap of digital information that flows across the country and the world. Yet many (so-called) conservatives never seem to have time to protest these, which makes me thing they’re not really conservative so much as a kind of fashionable posse. So it’s difficult to take them very seriously.
I have to agree with David on this one.
I will say that this is changing though. I see a growing number of Republicans that are anti war. You can tell by how Ron Paul’s popularity is increasing.
David, are you willfully ignorant of the conservative movement sweeping the big govt Repubs out of office or are you simply passing on misinformation?
David, it’s one thing to scientifically argue that CO2 can control the climate, but where is the scientific evidence that politicians can control the climate? All too often claims of global warming are coupled with remedies that posit some sort of global government coupled into the climate system through some sort of feedback loop that is merely assumed and never demonstrated.
Government’s experience with green energy, for example, shows it to be a dismal failure.
Ideologically science must be skeptical. Anything else would be religion.
Until CO2 is proved to cause global warming, it is a theory of dubious merit. As a religious belief system it stand-up very well, there are so many arguments, within this theory, that are similar to the angels on a pinhead variety.
I have voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 1968. Not always wisely. My “denialism” is based on my lifetime hobby of objectively reviewing weather records, obviously not ideology. The alarmists have come to their “conclusions” by adjusting (falsifying) data. They obviously have an agenda and are desperately trying to “prove” their case. It is as plain as the nose on your face.
The alarmists have come to their “conclusions” by believing in a computer model of little worth in the real world.
QED a religion.
That’s where people like you are very wrong. There are a host of experimental results, from many different angles, that point to the conclusions that more greenhouse gases lead to a warmer atmosphere and more acidic ocean. Climate models are hardly the linchpin in the argument.
Plenty of other people, who do it for more than just a “hobby,” have done even more reviewing of the records than you and concluded AGW is real. Dismissing all of them as simply having an “agenda,” and claiming a vast conspiracy theory, is dopey, desperate, and not convincing in the least.
David Appell , you have lost your common sense if you think co2 controls the climate . What was it that allowed the vikings to establish villages in now ice covered regions of Greenland . CO2 was much lower then and the ice was obviously less . Even the 1920s were warmer than now if you believe the raw unadjusted data . Any thinking person can foresee the likely scenareo of the climate swinging back to cool again . Man has influence on earth that is true but our influence is limited and more likely to be seen from our land management practices that change the overall foliation and distribution of water . Even then that influence is miniscule as nature can and does recover. Our short time as a nation here in the US is just a drop in the bucket in the scheme of things.
I’m curious: where did you read that a single factor, CO2, controls all climate for all time?
A good point David , as hansen , mann , and a whole host of others have been claiming that co2 drives the climate I too have been wondering where they got their lame idea . So , it is established fact that the warmists hung their hat on the claim that we must reduce co2 in order to save the world from massive climate change . Have you forgotten that ? I think you would like to forget it now that is being demonstrated that co2 does not control the climate . With you warmists it is like you have hung your manhood onto this ideologly and therefor can’t let yourselves be persuaded by the truth. Actually many of you have staked yourselves financially to a false agenda and hate to see the gravy train stop .
>> I think you would like to forget it now that is being demonstrated that co2 does not control the climate. <<
Sure — I definitely get the impression you're well-qualified to conclude that to the exclusion of all other scientific work. Are there any other fundamental scientific results you're able to overturn for us?
David , you said other fundamental scientific results as though the the scam theory of co2 controlled climate change is a fundamental scientific fact . And your appeal to authority in attempting to insinuate that I am incapable of making any scientific determination is the usual warmist comeback when faced with someone who proves able to think for themselves . I barely finished high school , d- average all the way through . That doe not mean I wasn’t smart , it means I didn’t care . I am obviously capable of stringing coherent sentences together in a manner that leaves no doubt as to my statement , therefor one who isn’t out to insult me would come to the conclusion that I possess a brain that functions well and has the capacity to understand. I have used that understanding to research agw to the extent that I am certain it is based on a false premise. You can not change the subject , co2 has always been the big claim for driving the climate . You warmists hung your hats on that and will not be allowed to lie your way out of it. So keep spinning now that the scam is falling apart and remember , a guy that barely graduated from high school likely has a brain that functions better than yours.
Sure — the guy who barely graduated high school, and who has offered puffery instead of any actual scientific data or arguments, knows much better than all the people who took learning seriously, excelled at their educations, and who research climate science all day long.
I don’t even know what to say in the face of such massive self-delusion, except I hope that somewhere someone is studying you.
What a comeback David, you could be describing yourself . A serious case of projection on your part I’d say . I really got a good laugh out of your comment. Do you have to win these arguements in order to maintain your self esteem? Say , how is that co2 workin out fer ya ?
By the way David, I have seen that those who come to love of knowledge late in life often revere it and therefor are less likey to approach it with bias or flippancy either one . I don’t need pieces of paper to reaffirm my understanding or my selfesteem and therefor am an open and honest person when listing my deficiencies or my strengths. I have been the top score in almost every iq test I’ve ever taken often with 100s of other participants. The lowest score I’ve ever recieved was 128 and it was lower thsn my usual due to the fact I became disgusted with the process as I was taking it. So unlike you I can’t even be stupid when I don’t care.
Hey Steven , thanks for the enjoyable post . I appreciate what you do . And David Appell , see ya another time as I have to go put a motor in a 4wheeler. Yes , Steven I’m one of those wild atvers you hear about. Hey , think of it as a bicycle on steroids. And David , thanks for the discussion it was good for my blood preassure.
“There are a host of experimental results, from many different angles…” That is why the computer projections are not accurate?
“Plenty of other people” – popularity doesn’t equal correctness. It just means it is popular.
I claim no vast conspiracy, only one of us sounds desperate, and not convincing in the least.
There are many models, and degrees of accuracy — blanket statements say nothing.
As they say, all models are wrong, but some are useful. Calculating future climate is very difficult — the most difficult calculation ever attempted by scientists, because of the wide range of spatio-temporal scales involved. And there are good reasons why eliminating uncertainty is so difficult. See, for example
Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable? G. Roe et al, Science 318, 629 (2007)
Climate Models at their Limits? M. Maslin and P. Austin, Nature 486 183 (2012)
and many other papers.
Do you have a better method to gauge future climate and the consequences of our atmospheric modifications?
David, there is a better method of doing science than what we are seeing from the warmists . It is called honest skeptism and searching for truth. As to models, it is garbage in and garbage out . The models do not and cannot predict anything , they can only project whatever is programmed into them . Based on that thought it means that the predictions projected are those of the programmers and those programmers can’t seem to get anything right as they have failed in all their predictions to date. Computers are just useful tools , and are limited by the intelligence of the user. So , what are your predictions for the weather for the next couple of winters ? That is if you know enough to make any . Joe Bastardi has come to the conclusion through his and others study that we are heading into a cool phase . I , with my more limited knowledge, tend to agree with him but I will see what I will see. I think the scammers that have been promoting this cagw scam should be behind bars.
Appeal to authority?
This get us back to the essence of a debate. “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
If the science is to be truly of worthy for the future of mankind it must be debated openly. After all if an obscure Bern patent office clerk with less than top talents for mathematics could arrive at the world changing ‘Theory of Relativity’, just think what could be achieved by opening up the climate debate.
For a little insight to the many debates that ensued (and their profound remaking of our knowledge) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
I believe that would be a better method to gauge future climate and the consequences of our atmospheric modifications and not the current method.
First of all, climate models don’t predict anything — they project, based on a set of assumptions about socio-economic behavior.
And *all* of them have failed? Every one of them? Even one of the earliest, simplest ones? (Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming? Wallace S. Broecker, Science, Vol. 189, No. 4201 (Aug. 8, 1975), pp. 460-463.)
And you have a better method, I’m sure. Right?
No, not appeal to authority — I gave the citations as a shorthand way of directing you to content I have found significant, but without having to retype the entirety of the arguments in this little comment box. That’s exactly the kind of labor-saving device for which print was invented, but I’m sure you will feel free to knee-jerk reactions if it saves you from having to actually read it.
Einstein’s theories — both special and general relativity — were attacked in his time by a host of people: anti-semites, poseurs, wannabes, and pseudoscientists. (A few are still at it today.) And a lot of scientists did a lot of work to test, validate, clarify and extend his ideas. It’s no different today.
Oh get a load of this, now David has launched into his patient teacher mode . He is speaking down to his unlearned inferiors from his massive fount of wisdom. Oh, how blessed we are to have him deem to stoop to associateing with us . He comes with his statements of most difficult calculations ever attempted and his complexity of the wide range of spatio-temporal scales and blah blah blah . You specialize in alchemy David as is evidenced by the way you morph around these threads spreading you deception. It’s fitting that you are posting under the thread blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth. How’s that co2 workin out fer ya ?
It’s not a vast conspiracy theory, it is human nature. When your career is hitched to an agenda and you start messing with data to warm bias it, that is a red flag, clear and simple.
So all scientists — whose profession’s method makes a point of trying to eliminate bias by analytical analysis, experimental testing, peer review, and publication, with a great deal of historical success — are biased, except you, the hobbyist, isn’t. You’re the sole objective player in all this. Is that what you’re telling us?
No, he’s saying all scientists are biased. The rest of the bullshit is your typical idiot’s spewings. Where did you happen to cut&paste it from, by the way, David?
Everyone is biased to some degree. But the scientific method has shown itself, for four centuries now, capable of bringing forth new ideas and validating or rejecting them based on the evidence, thus overcoming individual biases. I don’t see any difference here, except that some people dislike the result.
David , you talk like you understand the scientific method , why don’t you try to get the warmists to actualy use it ? You have used your usual theme here on this thread . You have morphed along with a change in subject everytime some one points out a discretion to you and come down to talking in generalities . I ask you again , how’s that co2 workin out for ya ? You warmists hung your hat on the co2 mantra and now you can eat it.
All Government grants go to true believers. I’ve seen it in person, the disgusting way university professors grovel for grants, by bending over backwards to show how on board they are. You can’t have true peer review or a fair test of your hypothesis if scientists with opposing viewpoints are excluded from the process.
> All Government grants go to true believers.
And yet science advances decade-by-decade, with all kind of new ideas introduced and evaluated. How does that actually happen, in your theory of the world?
David, you should explore that premise against the “advancing science” behind CAGW alarmism. It is essentially unchanged over the last 25 years or so.
The fact that the biggest alarmists are almost all liberals tells me all I need to know about ‘global warming’.
I suspect that’s probably all you ever will know, too.
I rest my case. Actually, I should amend my comment to read ‘almost all of the most rabid alarmists are elitist, condescending liberals’.
Oh Rob, you have felt the dull edge of Appells rather predictable wit. Be honored that he has deemed it appropriate to stoop to reply. Hahahahahahahaha
If davidappell is pushing a particular idea, then I know it is wrong. It is my davidappell null hypothesis. This saves a lot of time.
By the way, thanks for visiting here. Now I don’t need to waste any time at your blog site.
+1. David Appell is a journalist: a professional liar: and the bigger the lies he tells, the more successful his career will be. He also must have one hell of an ego, to think he’s in any position to lecture scientists on science.
Is the alarmist message anything less than science?
IMO it is instructive to compare and contrast the difference between the scientific method and pseudoscience. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
In particular the headings –
Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims.
…Failure to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony, i.e. failing to seek an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible (Occam’s razor).
Use of obscurantist language, and use of apparently technical jargon in an effort to give claims the superficial trappings of science
Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation.
…Reversed burden of proof: In science, the burden of proof rests on those making a claim, not on the critic. “Pseudoscientific” arguments may neglect this principle and demand that skeptics demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a claim (e.g. an assertion regarding the efficacy of a novel therapeutic technique) is false. It is essentially impossible to prove a universal negative, so this tactic incorrectly places the burden of proof on the skeptic rather than the claimant.
Lack of openness to testing by other experts.
…Some agencies, institutions, and publications that fund scientific research require authors to share data so others can evaluate a paper independently. Failure to provide adequate information for other researchers to reproduce the claims contributes to a lack of openness.
Appealing to the need for secrecy or proprietary knowledge when an independent review of data or methodology is requested
Absence of progress.
…Lack of self-correction: scientific research programmes make mistakes, but they tend to eliminate these errors over time. By contrast, ideas may be accused of being pseudoscientific because they have remained unaltered despite contradictory evidence.
Personalization of issues
..Tight social groups and authoritarian personality, suppression of dissent, and groupthink can enhance the adoption of beliefs that have no rational basis. In attempting to confirm their beliefs, the group tends to identify their critics as enemies.
Assertion of claims of a conspiracy on the part of the scientific community to suppress the results.
Attacking the motives or character of anyone who questions the claims (Ad hominem fallacy)
The choice is yours.
“All kinds of new ideas new ideas introduced and evaluated”. Yes, by like minded true believers promoting an agenda for Government handouts. That kind of incestuous self pollination by people of the same mind set does not exactly fit the definition of the scientific method.
“Like-minded” contradicts my premise of “new ideas.”
There are new ideas being introduced into science all the time — the last several decades are replete with them. New ideas are how scientists make their bones, how they get noticed, hired, and promoted. And other people make their names by trying to tear down those ideas and show how they are wrong. Those battles are exactly how science advances, and how it has advanced to this point.
If all scientists wanted was funding, they would all be saying uncertain they are about the situation, how they just don’t know, how they need more funding to figure it out. Yet over the decades climate scientists have gotten more sure of their conclusions about the basics of AGW, not less. And privately funded serious scientists find the same conclusions (e.g. BEST), and scientists who disagree with some things get funding too (e.g. UAH).
Your premise doesn’t hold.
David your premise doesn’t hold either, you are ignorant and incompetent of how climate actually works, you suffer severely from the Dunning-Kreuger effect.
Prior to 1988 when the CO2 level was “safe”, the weather was near perfect. Very few extreme events. It wasn’t too cold or too hot, it was just right, according to one of the Bears.
1988 had a few very big weather events. There was a tornado outbreak in Raleigh and Hurricane Gilbert. Gilbert bottomed out at 888mb.
Summer of 1988 – Drought/Heat Wave
“The summer of 1988 was an especially hot dry summer in the Northeast as part of a 3 year long dry spell that developed across most of the northern half of the country. One of the most intense droughts in U.S. history, this event was responsible for 5,000-10,000 deaths countrywide and over 40 billion dollars in agricultural losses. In the Northeast the summer of 1988 featured a high number of 90 degree days and a pronounced dry spell that caused low water levels in many lakes and rivers.
Wunderground.com
All of this is blamed on a negligible amount of CO2, an amount that is well within the normal historical natural variation. Who can honestly say that 1988 events could, or could not have happened without this trivial amount of CO2 increase?
The problem with the “science” behind CAGW alarmism is that real world data falsifies the hypothesis……. Here’s my climate update…. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/climate-update/
I would say that quoting einstein on anything but physics is an enemy of the truth.
But of course that just your opinion: it has no authority.
13 August 2012, Darwin, Northern Territory in Australia has just shivered through its coldest August night on record, with data going back 71 years. This is the tropical end of Australia. Warmists are fleeing the City wearing sweaters.
David burnishes his scientific credentials once again…
“That’s where people like you are very wrong. There are a host of experimental results, from many different angles, that point to the conclusions that more greenhouse gases lead to a warmer atmosphere and more acidic ocean.”
Oceans are basic, not acidic. Geesh!
To be MORE of something, an object must first BE that something. You guys never were big on logic.
I was checking Einstein’s quote and saw the comments below. I am a (female) college instructor and I noticed (all) of the comments were by men. In this quote, I am fairly sure Einstein was speaking of generationally embedded Catholic information, especially in males. The catholic heirarchy is well aware of the fact that if you get a child’s mind by a certain age, it will have it forever, especially in males. Hitler knew that too, and that is why you see the boys with their arms stretched upwards while repeating “heil Hitler” – sheer utter destructive stupidity and mind control. I believe all of you should “get a life” and do something productive with yourselves because I have lived long enough, and around you long enough , to know you don’t know what the hell you are doing most of the time. I have two sons and a grandson and I have written Einstein’s quote inside most of their major text books all thru their education process.They are now college graduates and I am fairly sure they do not have any embedded dogma in them and that they won’t reproduce any.
My experience is that man hating women on this blog have daddy issues. We all have opinions sweety.
Happy Thanksgiving!