Margaret Thatcher

Russian Civil War? More Like World War 1, Part 2.

I find it a bit nonsensical when I read "Russian Civil War". Yes, there has been the "Whites", but without the war from the west (which was essentially continued World War 1), it would have been ended much earlier.

Just look at those who were fighting against Soviet Russia:

• British Empire (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India)
• Japan
• Czechoslovakia
• Poland
• United States
• France
• Estonia
• Romania
• Serbia
• Italy
• Greece
• China

The Soviet ended their participation in that stupid WW1 after 1917, and the whole allied "intervention" (or rather aggression) in 1918 was meant to "re-establish the Eastern front", to continue WW1, in order to fight communism. So when anybody asks when WW1 ended, tell them in 1920.

Conspiracy Theory

Nice:

On certain blog sites, links to this review page were posted together with the advice that people should read the book before reviewing it, knowing full well that some would simply swarm onto here and post unpleasant reviews (many of which have now been removed). If you want an example of how this machine works, there you have it!

Or how about this:

Once the news got out that Anthony Watts was telling his minions to come here and post reviews (and we know what that means) others were compelled to come and post ACTUAL reviews based on their actually reading the book.

Machine? Minions? Telling people to "read the book before reviewing it", while "knowing full well that some would simply swarm onto here and post unpleasant reviews"? Oh my, this conspiracy is worse than we thought!

Intellectually Bankrupt

Steve McIntyre takes apart the "FAQ" about the "extended hockeystick".

Real Climate Science™ is intellectually bankrupt.

[Update] Ross McKitrick weighs in:

This isn’t just a filibuster, they are defending themselves on the grounds that their paper made an incredibly subtle misrepresentation and it’s the reader’s fault for not noticing. Without the closing uptick, the main implication of their reconstruction is that, in the 20th century, we experienced the coldest conditions of the Holocene. With the uptick, we experienced nearly the warmest. The sharp uptick in the instrumental record can only be compared against their reconstruction if they can show their low-frequency proxies are capable of registering such events. If the 20th century portion of their reconstruction does not have the same uptick as the instrumental record, we would conclude that it could have missed similar swings in earlier centuries as well, so the absence of such swings in the earlier part of their graph tells us nothing about the presence or absence of decadal and century-scale warming events. Likewise, an annual or decadal observation from the modern instrumental record cannot be compared against values from their reconstruction, if their reconstruction is not capable of resolving events at that time scale.

But that is precisely what they do in Figure 3 of their paper, and it is the basis of their claim that “Global temperature, therefore, has risen from near the coldest to the warmest levels of the Holocene within the past century, reversing the long-term cooling trend that began ~5000 yr B.P.” Without the uptick in their proxy reconstruction this kind of statement could never have been made. The presence of the uptick in the proxy graph validates their comparison of the instrumental record against the proxy record. By admitting that the uptick is not robust and cannot be a basis for any conclusions they have undermined their own findings, root and branch.

Moreover, they can’t conceal the fact that they defended the robustness of the uptick in their paper. Marcott et al. stated that a RegEM variant reconstruction eliminated 0.6 of the 0.7 C closing uptick, but that due to data limitations the difference between reconstructions was “probably not robust” (p. 1198). In the context this implies that they consider the size of the closing uptick to be insensitive to choice of methodology, in other words that the uptick is robust.

But now they say the 20th century uptick is not robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and is not the basis of any of our conclusions. Did they know this prior to drawing Figure 3 and inserting it in their paper, and if so, how could they not have been aware that it would convey a false impression to the reader? Contrary to Revkin, the issue isn’t just the definitive statements they made in the media but the claims they made in the paper itself.

[Update] But let's hear what Mike "the man" Mann has to say: (via)

This is an important paper. The key take-home conclusion is that the rate and magnitude of recent global warmth appears unprecedented for at least the past 4,000 years and the rate at least the past 11,000. …

But, again, the take-home conclusion: the rate of warming appears to be unprecedented as far back as the authors are able to go (to the boundary with the last ice age). And the rate of warming appears to have no analog in the past, as far back as the authors are able to go.

But, again, the take-home conclusion: Real Climate Scientists™ like Mike Mann are intellectually bankrupt, while so called "citizen scientists" like Steve McIntyre (he hates the term, BTW, because he *IS* scientifically trained and not a "mere" citizen from the street) or Ross McKitrick do their very best with their analysis and their nagging questions to keep the field scientific. Or let me paraphrase Bill Hicks:

Misrepresent your study like that, you’re off the scientific roll call forever. End of story. Everything you say is suspect. Every word that comes out of your mouth is like a t*rd falling into my drink.

Clearly Deluded

Bishop Hill:

There has been great hilarity overnight, with Stefan Lewandowsky and Skeptical Science's John Cook making complete fools of themselves again.

It started when Barry Woods was examining the supplementary data to Lewandowsky's latest paper, the one that analysed sceptic reactions to his previous carcrash paper on various blogs and tried to present these as evidence of "conspiracy ideation". Among the comments categorised as "Espousing Conspiracy Theory" was this one:

The thing I don't understand is, why didn't they just make a post on sceptic blogs themselves, rather than approaching blog owners. They could have posted as a Discussion topic here at Bishop Hill without even asking the host, and I very much doubt that the Bish would have removed it. Climate Audit also has very light-touch moderation and I doubt whether Steve McIntyre would have removed such an unsolicited post. Same probably goes for many of the sceptic blogs, in my experience. So it does appear to that they didn't try very hard to solicit views from the climate sceptic community.

Unfortunately, this was written by Richard Betts, the very mainstream head of climate impacts at the Met Office. Oh dear.

Richard seems somewhat taken aback, quizzing Skeptical Science's John Cook, a coauthor on the paper:

Hi @skepticscience, why was my comment here http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/8/31/lewandowskys-data.html … "espousing conspiracy theory"?! That's just crazy. http://www.frontiersin.org/personality_science_and_individual_differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/abstract …

Cook, a winner of the Eureka award for advancing climate change knowledge, offered this hilarious response, pretending that a comment that had been categorised by him and his coauthors was "raw data":

@richardabetts supplementary data for Recursive Fury are any comments *related* to particular theory. It's raw data, not final paper.

The Universities of Western Australia and Queensland must be very proud.

The final word should go to Richard:

@wattsupwiththat @lucialiljegren @aDissentient Here http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/8/31/lewandowskys-data.html … at Aug 31, 2012 at 9:00 PM. Lewandowsky et al clearly deluded!

Bonus points to Cook for for misunderstanding what "raw data" is. No, no, no: "raw data" is not some early form of a paper before it becomes a "final paper".

Futile Science-Communication

Barry Woods:

… I would personally be infuriated if I was dismissed on account of the behaviour of a group of people I talk with. Every single person I talk with has a different viewpoint, and I learn a lot about how better to communicate climate science by listening to them. If we dismiss swathes of people by association then our attempts at communication become futile: we end up only ‘preaching to the converted from an ‘ivory tower’, as it were.

Of course, if communication of climate science is not your aim, then it is your choice if you prefer to communicate with nobody! …

Peer-Reviewed Hit-Piece

Be clear what is going on here.

1) A professor of cognitive psychology pre-publishes a trashy paper based on a phony survey whose sole purpose is clearly to denigrate the opinions of a group of people who disagree with him, and sends it to a prominent environmental journalist, who gives it world-wide publicity.

2) A number of people publicly criticise the paper, which, eight months after its first “pre-publication” is still not published.

3) The professor and a number of colleagues write a second paper, prepublished on-line, which ridicules the individuals who have criticised the first paper, mentioning them by name. .

4) The authors of the second paper plot together with three of their colleagues (two professors and a university official) arranging for them to be the first to comment on the paper on the journal’s website. The comments ridicule anyone who might comment on the paper, pre-empting their criticisms by accusing them of conspiratorial thinking.

5) Several people comment, criticising the second paper and pointing out a number of inaccuracies. (One, which was the subject of representations to the publisher, was removed. The rest remain). But those who point out the errors in the second paper had already been ridiculed and dismissed as conspiracy theorists, by two professors and a university official before their criticisms appeared, thanks to a silly conspiracy dreamed up with the paper’s authors.